Natalie Baszile - Queen Sugar

Jason laughed. “True, dat.”

“What about you?” Ralph Angel ignored the swipe of a glance from Antoine, who was now retrieving crates from the pickup. “Been doing this long?”

“Since eleventh grade,” Jason said. “I be making enough paper to get me a new truck and my girlfriend’s teacup Chihuahua; paid eight hundred dollars for that damn dog. Boss says I keep working like this, one day he’ll give me a percentage.”

“What about school?” Ralph Angel said. “You ought to finish. Go to college. Get your degree.”

“Fuck school, man.” Jason rubbed his fingers together. “This here’s the money.”

“Wanna know the real money shot? A diploma, man. Got mine in engineering. Southern.” Which, for purposes of this discussion, Ralph Angel figured was close enough to the truth.

Jason’s gaze narrowed. “If it’s all about the diploma, how come you ain’t hooked up in an office?”

“This?” Ralph Angel looked out over the ponds. “This here is temporary, while I figure out my next move.”

“I feel you,” Jason said. He signaled to Antoine, who set down a crate, wiped his hands, front and back, on his shirt, and shook Ralph Angel’s.

“Hey, man,” Ralph Angel said. “What kind of fish is this anyway?”

“Shad,” Antoine said, shrugging. “Maybe a little carp. Hard to tell when it’s all rotted and shit. But that’s how the crawfish like it. They go wild for this shit, man.” He climbed into the bateau. “We grading ’em or just running?”

“Just running,” Jason said. “Not catching too many number ones, so the boss says throw ’em all together.” He tossed Ralph Angel a pair of black industrial rubber gloves.

• • •

The necks of the crawfish traps rose just above the surface of the water. The bateau’s hydraulic engine turned the paddle wheel, whose blades churned up mud and grass as it pushed the shallow-bottomed boat deeper into the pond. While Jason steered and worked the pedals, Antoine positioned himself at the small metal table in the center of the bateau. Woven sacks, the electric green of Easter excelsior, hung along one side of the table. As the bateau rumbled through the water, it was Ralph Angel’s job to lean over the side, snatch each wire trap by its neck, and dump the contents — crawfish, gnarled fish heads and backbones, baby snapping turtles and weeds — onto the table, then replenish the bait and sink the trap back into the pond, all before the bateau reached the next trap, a few yards farther on. At the table, Antoine picked out the crawfish. He tossed the smallest ones over the side and shoved the larger ones through the chutes into the waiting sacks until they bulged like udders. It was simple work, but there was a rhythm to it, and the rhythm was cruel. The first few times, Ralph Angel was too slow emptying a trap, or he forgot to refill the bait, or he sank one trap too close to another and the bateau had to make a wide sputtering circle back.

“People be making some cheap sacks, man,” Antoine shouted over the engine. “Sacks keep popping.” Rogue crawfish scrambled around at his feet.

“Keep it going,” Jason yelled, and motioned for Ralph Angel to speed it up.

• • •

By noon, Ralph Angel’s shirt was soaked with pond water, his pants speckled with mud, blood, and fish guts. His back ached from bending. His shoulders cramped from lifting and dumping. On the sorting table, crawfish, like chunks of carnelian, glinted in the sunlight. The sight of them writhing at the shock of warm air, tails slowly flapping, tiny claws mechanically grabbing for futile salvation, struck Ralph Angel as ecstatic. Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore , Ralph Angel thought, before he could stop himself.

When they broke for lunch, Ralph Angel dragged himself up the bank and sat alone in a half-circle of shade. He choked down his gummy cheese sandwich, struggling against the craving for a hit. Heat rose from the ground as he lay in the grass.

In his dream, he was back at the Piccolo Club with Gwenna and a stranger who had a marble for a glass eye. The marble rolled wildly in its socket as the stranger licked Gwenna’s ear. Ralph Angel couldn’t protest; his lips were stitched shut. He woke to see the German standing over him.

“Time’s up, sleeping beauty.”

Ralph Angel smelled rotten fish on his sleeve. Every muscle in his upper body had stiffened. He made his way down to the bateau.

On the pond, he worked the rest of the afternoon in silence. Jason and Antoine talked about girls, cars, and music, but Ralph Angel was too tired. What little energy he had, he used trying to forget where he was — pulling trap on some cracker’s pond for minimum wage — until Jason steered the bateau toward the bank where the German waited for them to load the forty-pound sacks into his truck.

“Nice work,” the German said, as Ralph Angel walked past him with the last sack.

“Thanks,” Ralph Angel said.

“Tomorrow we’ll hit the last two ponds on this side,” said the German. “The front pond ain’t producing as good as these. Still got some of that seaweed from the storm.” He pulled out his keys.

And maybe it was the fact that the German had acknowledged his work, and maybe it was that he was being included in tomorrow’s plan, but Ralph Angel felt himself buoyed. He followed the German to his truck. “Say, boss, I’d like to ask a small favor.”

“What’s that?”

“I wonder if I could get an advance.”

“I pay on Fridays,” the German said in a flat tone. He climbed into his truck, which dipped under his weight.

“Yeah, I know.” Ralph Angel put his hand on the truck door. “But I’m riding on fumes. I don’t fill my tank tonight, I can’t make it back tomorrow.” He didn’t mean it to sound like a threat, but the German’s face flushed. “Not trying to be a smart-ass. I’m just being straight with you.”

“And I’m going to be straight with you,” the German said. He dug in his ear with his key. “I don’t give a shit where you went to school, or whether you wipe your ass with a silk handkerchief or the back of your hand. I pay out on Fridays; not Thursday afternoon, not Saturday morning. You want this job, Professor, you’d better figure out a way to gas up and get here by seven o’clock tomorrow. Not here at seven, I got ten other guys to take your spot.” He pulled the door closed.

Ralph Angel stepped away as the German turned the engine over. “I’m not a professor.”

• • •

Half a mile down the dirt road, the Impala sputtered then stopped. Ralph Angel sat behind the wheel, debating whether to sleep in his car, then got out and started walking. It had been years since he’d passed anywhere near a cane field. Now he cut through the rows. By dusk, he’d made it back to the Quarters and paused at the railroad tracks to look down into the dusty streets. The church, the school yard, the narrow road leading into the woods.

The screen door announced him. ’Da was at the stove. Blue, Micah, and Charley were setting the table.

“Where’ve you been?” asked ’Da.

“Got a job.”

Blue ran over, then backed away. “Yuck, Daddy, you stink.”

“A job,” ’Da said, like he’d just told her he’d been elected mayor.

“I’m working with this guy. He’s got a serious crawfish farm out past Bayou Duchein. Must have thirty-five, forty ponds.” Ralph Angel hung his jacket over a chair as though it were a suit coat and looked at Charley. “He says if I keep doing what I’m going, one day he’ll make me a partner, give me a percentage. What do you think about that, sis?”

“Congratulations,” Charley said.