Louis Maistros - The Sound of Building Coffins

“You want me to kill this person?”

“I want you to bring her peace. She has ghosts.”

The short legs of the mulatto man peddled the rickety bicycle northwesterly down the cobbled edge of the Storyville District. An empty burlap bag (most recently having held the body of a child; rebirthed, matured, and found again-then, finally, returned to its mother in the form of a meal) did not bounce at the center of the homemade chicken-wire basket tied between the bike’s handlebars.

Two miles upwards of the district, the bicycle slowed of its own accord as the rocky surface of Saint Louis Street gave way to the pliant codgrass and mud that led to the bayou’s tip. It had recently rained hard; the ground so soft and wet that Typhus had to get off and walk it the last half mile.

Typhus imagined that from the heavens this tip of bayou might look like a finger pointing away from Lake Pontchartrain and towards the river. His father once told him the five fingers of the Bayou St. John had long ago stretched all the way to the river, draining the high tides of Lake Pontchartrain straight through what had since become the City of New Orleans. Since then, and through the course of centuries, the bayou’s fingers had grown stumpy and fat; a series of deadened waterways doomed to swell without relief when the rains came, causing the lake to puff at the base of its great hand. But Typhus knew the Bayou St. John still made that connection in its way, still managed to join lake with river. The two bodies of water were cut of the same cloth; limbs severed but still sharing the same blood, still able to draw together in spirit. Still one, always one. The bayou made it so. In its way.

Mosquitoes nipped Typhus’ ankles as he walked the last stretch of muddy ground to the house. Dead tired, he found himself without energy to bend and swat them away from or against his skin. Rebirthing always knocked the wind from his soul, but returning the children to their mothers could be much more draining. There was a certain pain involved in the act of rebirthing; the assignment of lost children into a cold, vast river could be a troubling and thankless task, near tragic at times. He had no way of knowing whether they might survive long enough to fatten and mature at all-and the belief that they would eventually find their own way back to Typhus’ fishing line was an enormous leap of faith. But if they did make it back, then they could be returned; and there is nothing happier than the reunion of a mother and child-even if the mother doesn’t fully understand the nature of the reunion. What she fails to recognize by sight, she knows in her heart.

So when Typhus served Miss Hattie her lost child this night, there was joy in the act. He had seen the transformation of her eyes as she swallowed, the pain melting away, acceptance taking hold. The idea of eating children may seem an ugly thing, but not this. This was a beautiful thing, a proof of God’s tender mercies. Miss Hattie would no longer have thoughts of pinkening bathwater. She would go on living, have more children, and do it right next time. Typhus had learned from Doctor Jack that sometimes nourishment is the only thing a child has left to offer-to itself, its mother, or anyone else. Things consumed are not wasted things, they’re merely things sacrificed so that life might go on in another form. This cycle of life was good, and whether or not Doctor Jack himself believed in things holy, Typhus believed he was doing God’s work.

The house was dark and quiet. Tiptoeing into the sleeping room, Typhus dropped to his knees quietly and began filling his coffee bag with soft straw. Laying the pillow against a cold spot between Malaria and Dropsy, Typhus Morningstar was half asleep before he was fully horizontal.

Not ten minutes into sleep, Typhus was visited by a dream he’d not encountered since a child. Not since the night his father was killed.

A dream almost forgotten.

“Gotcher buttons.”

Give ’em back.

“OK, but first I gotta show ya sumpin.”

I’ll tell Dropsy ya took my buttons. He’ll whoop ya good.

“Tell him in person ’cause that’s where we’re going. Ta see Dropsy. He’s your uncle, but he’s my best friend. Ya think I’d do anything to harm my best friend’s best and only nephew? He loves you more than life, West. It’s why I’m bringin’ ya.”

Show me what?

“Sumpin by the river.”

Mama be mad if I’m gone ’fore she get up.

“I done told Miss Bernice who’s s’posed ta be watchin’ ya I’m takin’ you to see Dropsy. I bet yer mama’d be glad to sleep in a little late. I know she’d be.”

Where’s Miss Bernice at?

“Home to get some rest. She been up all night watchin’ you and them other kids. I told her I was takin’ you home, she thanked me and went on.”

Them other kids left already.

“I know. Their mamas up early. But yer mama worked extra hard and slept extra late. Onna counta she love you so much. More than those other mamas love them other kids.”

I reckon.

“’Course ya reckon. Ready to go?”

I dunno.

“I think yer mama be mad atcha more if you stayed here with no one to look after ya proper.”

I should wake her.

“Madder still if you woke her, I reckon. She worked hard all night pleasurin’ them fraternity men. Needs her beauty rest is what.”

Well, I reckon.

“’Course ya reckon. Let’s go. You kin ride on my shoulders. It’ll be fun.”

I reckon.

“’Course ya reckon.”

Kin I git my buttons back?

“Soon as we get there. Yer old buttons plus some new ones on top. But I better watch what I say though, cuz I don’t wanna spoil ol’ Dropsy’s surprise.”

New buttons?

“I reckon.”

Shiny ones?

“S’posed ta be a surprise. But o’ course they shiny. New, too.”

The buttons are a surprise?

“I reckon. Ready ta go?”

I reckon.

“’Course ya reckon. Now hop on.”

All right, Jim.

Algiers lay across the water, green and golden below a perfect sun kissing cornflower sky. Marcus Nobody Special stood alone on his special pier, not early to rise but late to bed. Out all night looking for his fish, and decided to stay for sunrise. From where the boys stood he appeared about six inches tall.

Carrying West the five blocks from Storyville had been no strain on the shoulders of Jim Jam Jump, who was thin but wiry and not easy to wear down. When the two reached the boardwalk Jim stooped down to pull West’s small body up and over his head, placing the boy gently on his feet.

“Well, here we are, little fella. Helluva a beautiful morning, wouldn’t you say?”

“Don’t see no Uncle Dropsy, Jim. Thought you said he here.” West could be very serious for a kid.

Jim just grinned. “Oh, he’s here, my good man. We got ourselves a secret place. Part of the surprise. C’mon.”

Jim ran ahead of West, southwards in the direction of Marcus’ pier. Marcus looked up at the two running children, shielding his eyes from the sun. West gave him a nervous wave.

“C’mon, slowpoke!” Jim goaded with a whoop.

West picked up speed as Marcus returned the wave. The cautious hesitation in Marcus’ wave was barely perceptible, but West acknowledged it with mild relief. West watched as Jim jumped from the boardwalk and into the river. Miraculously, there was no splash. Carefully walking to the edge where Jim had jumped, West looked down.

“C’mon, kiddo! It ain’t much of a jump. I’ll catch ya!” Jim hadn’t jumped into the water after all. He’d jumped onto a large sandbank about four and a half feet down. It wasn’t so much a sandbank as a tiny island, overgrown with saw grass, banana plants and other plant life lanky and wild. Like a little piece of bayou that had lost its way.