Louis Maistros - The Sound of Building Coffins

“Gentlemen,” Trumbo started, a crack in his voice, “I’m not here to cause any trouble. I only-”

“And who might you be, sir?” The question came from the dealer, a middle-aged dark brown man with peculiarly straight hair that just touched his shoulders. The dealer laid down three cards for Beauregard without looking up.

“My name is Marshall Trumbo. I’m a news reporter by trade, but that isn’t why I’m here. It’s about the Carolla child-maybe you’ve heard-”

“Newspaper man, eh?” the dealer said, still not looking up. “You fellas did a helluva job crucifying those Sicilians. Shameful stuff, that.”

Trumbo paused, decided on honesty: “Actually, I agree with you. That whole ugly business made me reconsider what I do for a living.” Trumbo got the impression no one was buying that line of talk, however true it might be. No matter. “But I’m here about the child of one of the Sicilians-the man’s name was Carolla…”

Beauregard, now wide awake and stone sober, laid down his losing hand with a grunt, “I’m done.” Gave the reporter a hard stare.

“I’ve heard about the child,” said the dealer, making a mental note of Beauregard’s reaction. “What interest would newspaper folk have with that sort of trouble-other than for a good ol’ eye-poppin’ story? Sell some papers, a story like that, I guess.”

“I was there today-at the Carolla house-looking for a story, like you said. But the doctors left. The priest called Morningstar-he was there, too-but also left.”

The girl broke her gaze from Buddy momentarily to throw Trumbo a suspicious glance.

“No one wants to help-and I promised the mother I would try. The boy-he’s…well, he’s in a desperate state. You wouldn’t believe me if I told-”

“How does this Doctor Jack person fit in to this goodwill expedition of yours, sir?” the dealer interrupted, still looking down, still laying cards.

A moment’s pause, then: “I had heard, well, I’d heard stories…”

The dealer laughed. “Stories, eh? Well, don’t believe everything you hear, mister. Lots of superstitious folks in Orleans Parish, y’know. Yes indeed.”

“Yes, yes, of course-I know that. But today I saw things-that, well, that gave me pause.” He pulled a folded paper from his inner breast pocket, began to unfold it. “That one-year-old boy, a boy who before today could neither speak nor walk, scribbled letters of the alphabet on the floor of his mother’s house. I wrote them down here.” Trumbo held the page up.

“Lemme see that, mister,” said the dealer.

Trumbo pulled it back. “No. I need to find this Doctor Jack fellow.” Refolding it. “So please, if you would only-”

“What if I were to tell you that I was this Doctor Jack fellow, mister?” Eyes hard, yellow, streaked with red. Green with black in the middle.

Trumbo turned to Charley the Barber who nodded. Trumbo’s hand lowered, holding the paper out to Doctor Jack, the dealer.

Jack unfolded it and looked hard at the words. “A one-year-old baby wrote these letters?” he asked.

“Yes. On the floor. With charcoal.”

“Hmm.” A pause. Beauregard and Marcus were looking over Jack’s shoulder, staring at the sheet with wide eyes.

After about thirty seconds, Doctor Jack refolded the page and attempted to hand it back to Trumbo. Instead of taking it, Trumbo only stared. Jack answered Trumbo’s stare:

“Means nothing to me, Marshall Trumbo. Ain’t no magic or hoodoo I never heard of. Just gibberish. Sure is strange a little baby wrote it-but it means nothing to me. I’m sorry.”

Trumbo barely had time to open his mouth in protest when Marcus Nobody Special spoke up:

“Means something to me.”

Doctor Jack’s eyebrows lifted in amusement.

Trumbo: “Excuse me, sir?”

Jack smiled, shaking his head.

Marcus repeated, but this time louder, “I said: Means something to me .”

“Crazy old fool,” said Charley the Barber. “Have another drink for free and knock yer own dumb ass out.”

Marcus bristled at Charley, wrinkling his nose-scar clear up to double-ugly. “Shut yer dumb ol’ face, you poison-peddlin’, bad-hair-cuttin’ good-fer-nothin’…”

Trumbo was getting uncomfortable. “I think it’s time for me to go, gentleman. Thank you for-”

Doctor Jack: “Hold on, Mr. Trumbo.”

“Yes?”

“Why don’t you ask him? Can’t hurt. Marcus ain’t pretty but he’s harmless enough.”

Marcus instantly shifted his verbal assault from Charley to Jack, “ Ain’t pretty? Who you callin’ ain’t pretty? -you pig-assed, ugly-two-time, stank-nose, witch-doctorin’-”

The room erupted into laughter, even Trumbo managing a smile. Beauregard laughed enough to re-awaken the pain in his head, wincing through a grin.

“Settle down, old soldier, I was only funnin’ you,” said Jack, patting Marcus on the shoulder. Marcus stopped his deluge of insults long enough to consider the favorable reaction of the card players. After a few seconds, he turned to Trumbo, pointed at the sheet:

“Civil War code, that.”

Laughter faded from the room.

A beat. Two beats. Trumbo: “I don’t understand.”

“On yer sheet of paper. It’s Civil War code. I wouldn’t have caught it myself, ’ceptin’ the key is written there at the bottom. The numbers is the key, see. Dass right, mm hmm. Key right there in plain sight. Usually the key is committed ta mem’ry, never writ down. Makes the code tougher to break that way. But someone done give away the code by spellin’ out the key. Means someone don’t want the code to be too good a secret. Civil War stuff. It’s how they delivered messages in the old times. In case the messenger was kilt or captured along the way. Old-timey stuff.”

“You can read…?-I mean, how do you…”

“Don’t be so shocked, mister,” Beauregard said in a perturbed tone. “Lots of us dumb niggras can read just fine. And Marcus may be ugly, but he’s sharp as a whip. Old war hero, too.”

“Why thankee, Beau-” said Marcus before the word “ugly” registered-“You no-good, fat-assed, pecker-lickin’, jail-housin’…”

Another round of laughter.

“What I mean to say is,” Trumbo continued, “I wasn’t aware that men of color were privy to Confederate ciphers during wartime.”

“Don’t feel bad, young fella,” Marcus smiled, displaying the absence of two formerly prominent front teeth, “lots of white folk-and black folk, too-have a hard time believin’ there were plenny of proud black Confederates in the South back in them days. I was as free then as I am now, sonny. And happy with my life the way it was-like lots of free black folk was. Didn’t cotton much to that double talkin’ ’mancipation proclamation. Ol’ Abe hadda mind to ship ever’ last one of us back ta Africa-a place I ain’t never been and never cared ta go. Worst yet, when Abe couldn’t get that idear ta fly, he was talkin’ bout sendin’ us all to Texas . Lawdy mine !”

Trumbo shoved the conversation hard towards its original path:

“Are you saying you can decipher this, sir?”

The gravedigger looked up at him. “Why, shorely I can. Yes indeed. Hand it over ta here.” He snatched the paper from Trumbo’s hand and flattened it out carefully on the table. “Spare a clean sheeta paper and pencil if you please, sir.” Trumbo pulled a blank page from the notebook in his satchel, found a pencil. Beauregard got up from the table, offering Marcus his chair-Marcus huffed at the big man, but accepted the courtesy.

“Well. Now. Let’s have a look at this thing. Hmm. All righty now.” The group of men and the young girl gathered close around the old gravedigger. Wide-eyed and curious, like kids at a circus.