James Burke - Crusader's Cross

But he was three places in front of me at the cash register, dressed in a dark suit and a tie and starched white shirt, even though the temperature had been in the nineties all day. His hair was as sleek and black as a seal's pelt, his face that of a stricken man.

In one hand he held a jar of peanut brittle while he stared out the front window. In his tailored suit and shined shoes, he looked like a visitor from an alien world.

"You got to put it on the counter, suh," the cashier said. She was a short, overweight Cajun woman, with a round face and thick glasses and hair pulled back tightly on her head.

"Pardon?" he said.

"You got to put the peanut brittle down so's I can scan it," she said.

"Yes, I see," he replied.

"Wit' the tax, that's fo' dol'ars and t'ree cents," she said.

"It's what?"

She repeated the amount. But he didn't take his wallet from his pocket. She tried to smile. Her eyes seemed unnaturally large behind the magnification of her glasses and it was obvious she knew something was wrong and that she could not correct it. The two people waiting in line immediately behind Raphael Chalons took their purchases to another counter.

"Suh, you want to pay me? It's fo' dol'ars and t'ree cents," the cashier said.

"Oh yes, excuse me. I'm sure I have my wallet here somewhere. How much did you say?"

I pushed a five-dollar bill across the counter to the cashier. She took it without speaking, returned my change, and dropped Raphael Chalons's jar of peanut brittle in a plastic sack. I picked it up and handed it to him. He walked a short distance away, then stopped in the concourse and removed the jar from the sack and read the label on it, oblivious to the shoppers who had to walk around him.

"Can I offer you a ride to your automobile, Mr. Chalons?" I said.

"No, I'm quite all right. But thank you for your courtesy," he replied, looking at me as though my face were not quite in focus.

"May I speak with you outside?" I asked.

He walked ahead of me, the jar of peanut brittle clasped in his hand, the sack with the receipt inside it blowing away in the draft through the sliding doors. The woman who checked purchases at the entrance held up her hand to stop him. I knew her and placed my palm on Mr. Raphael's shoulder and gestured at her in a reassuring way.

He entered the crosswalk and was almost hit by an SUV.

"Let me arrange to have someone drive you home," I said.

He stared at the label on the jar and either did not hear me or chose to ignore the content of my words. "The store didn't have the kind she liked," he said.

"Sir?"

"Honoria loved peanut brittle and pralines. I was going to bring her back some from New Orleans, but I forgot. It was such a small gift. But I forgot to buy it."

"Mr. Chalons, I know your family bears me enmity, but I want to offer my sympathies. I also want you to understand that I never had a romantic liaison with your daughter and that I always respected her. Both my mother and my second wife, Annie, died at the hands of violent men, and for that reason I think I can understand the nature of your loss. I thought your daughter was a good person. It was an honor to have been her friend."

He looked at the parking lot, the heat shimmering on the rows of vehicles, an American flag popping on an iron pole.

"That's very kind of you," he said. "But you're a police officer, and you were in our guesthouse for reasons of a romantic nature or to make use of my daughter in a legal investigation. Whichever it was, sir, it belies your statement now."

I should have walked away. But there are certain moments in our lives that even the saints would probably not abide, and I suspect being impugned as a liar is one of them. "I think your son is at the heart of a great iniquity," I said.

"My son?" he said, one eye narrowing with confusion. "Which son are you talking about? What are you saying to me? My son is -"

He pinched his temples and broke off in midsentence, as though both his words and thoughts had been stolen from him. A gust of hot wind blew a fast-food container tumbling past the cuffs of his trousers, splattering the fabric and the tops of his shoes.

Later, I went to Molly's cottage on the bayou. There was probably every reason not to go there, but I had tired of wearing the scarlet letter and seeing others try to sew it upon Molly's blouse as well. The truth was Molly had no official or theological status as a nun and in the eyes of the Church was a member of the laity. Let Val Chalons and those who served him do as they wished. I'd take my chances with the Man on High, I told myself.

My father. Big Aldous, spoke a form of English that was hardly a language. Once, when explaining to a neighbor the disappearance of the neighbor's troublesome hog, he said, "I ain't meaned to hurt your pig, no, but I guess I probably did when my tractor wheel accidentally run over its head and broke its neck, and I had to eat it, me."

But when he spoke French he could translate his ideas in ways that were quite elevated. On the question of God's nature, he used to say, "There are only two things you have to remember about Him: He has a sense of humor, and because He's a gentleman He always keeps His word."

And that's what I told Molly Boyle on the back porch of her cottage, on a late Saturday afternoon in New Iberia, Louisiana, in the summer of the year 2004.

"Why are you telling me this?" she said.

"Because I say screw Val Chalons and his television stations. I also say screw anyone who cares to condemn us."

"You came over here to tell me that?"

"No."

"Then what?"

The sun went behind a rain cloud, burning a purple hole through its center. The cypress and willow trees along the bayou swelled with wind. "I say why do things halfway?"

"Will you please take the mashed potatoes out of your mouth?" she said.

"How about we get married tonight?"

"Married? Tonight?"

"Unless you're doing something else."

She started to remove a strand of hair from her eye, then forgot what she was doing. She fixed her eyes on mine, her face perfectly still, her mouth slightly parted. "Get married where?" she asked.

"In Baton Rouge. I have a priest friend who's a little unorthodox. I told him we wanted to take our vows."

"Without asking me?"

"That's why I'm doing it now."

She was wearing jeans without a belt, a Ragin' Cajun T-shirt, and moccasins on her feet. She made a clicking sound with her mouth, and I had no idea what it might mean. Then she stepped on top of my shoes and put her arms around my neck and pressed her head against my chest. "Oh, Dave," she said. Then, as though language were inadequate or she were speaking to an obtuse person, she said it again, "Oh, Dave."

And that's the way we did it – in a small church located among pine trees, twelve miles east of the LSU campus, while lights danced in the clouds and the air turned to ozone and pine needles showered down on the church roof.

We slept late the next morning, then had breakfast in the backyard on the old redwood table from my house that had burned. I had forgotten how fine it was to eat breakfast on a lovely morning, under oak trees on a tidal stream, with a woman you loved. And I also had forgotten how good it was to be free of booze again and on the square with my AA program, the world, and my Higher Power.

At first Tripod had been unsure about Molly, until she gave him a bowl of smoked salmon. Then she couldn't get rid of him. While she tried to eat, he climbed in her lap, sticking his head up between her food and mouth, turning in circles, his tail hitting her in the face. I started to put him in his hutch.

"He'll settle down in a minute," Molly said.

"Tripod has a little problem with incontinence."