Natalie Baszile - Queen Sugar

“I’ll be damned.”

• • •

Fifty dollars, crisp.

If he hurried, he could swing through Tee Coteau for a little nightcap and still be back at the ponds to catch an hour’s sleep, maybe two. The German would be impressed. He’d recognize his potential, maybe apologize for the bad start. End of the week, he’d be talking to Ralph Angel about a raise, maybe benefits. Ralph Angel pushed through the glass doors. The guy from his old life, the professional, would be back in the game.

At the ponds, Ralph Angel turned on the radio and stretched out in the backseat, where he caught a whiff of Blue’s urine each time he changed position and had to grip the edge of the seat to keep from rolling onto the floor. When he was comfortable, he lit his cigarette, then held the lighter under the square of aluminum foil until white smoke snaked into the air. In a few seconds, he was chasing the dragon, Delta blues providing an eerie sound track to his dreams.

• • •

Morning. The rumble of Jason’s truck rattled the Impala. Ralph Angel crawled out of the backseat and urinated in the weeds, then trudged down to the dock, where Jason was already loading bait. He’d stopped chasing the dragon, but the last of its effects, the feeling of being inside a cocoon where nothing — not Charley, not the German, not even his father — could get to him, hung with him still.

“Holy shit, man. Who dug you up?”

“Hey, man,” Ralph Angel said. He hung his jacket over a branch, then lifted two crates off the stack and dragged them over to the dock. “I want to drive.”

Jason glanced back at the crates. “I don’t know, dog. You don’t look so good.”

“No, no,” Ralph Angel said. “It’s cool. I watched you yesterday. I get it.”

“It ain’t that easy, man,” Jason said. “You fuck around, run over them traps, the boss is gonna be hella pissed.”

“I said I can handle it. Don’t worry.”

• • •

The sun had just risen over the trees as Ralph Angel stepped into the bateau. He slid into the driver’s seat.

“I got a bad feeling about this, man,” said Jason.

“Relax,” Ralph Angel said, and practiced working the pedals.

Antoine came down to the dock. He shot Jason a look when he saw Ralph Angel in the boat.

“Yo, man.” Jason tapped Ralph Angel’s shoulder. “Just one time around. Then you gotta get up.”

• • •

The bateau was surprisingly easy to maneuver and they slipped smoothly through the water, the pond’s surface, this early in the morning, smooth as freshly blown glass. Everything in the world, Ralph Angel thought, seemed brighter, more intensely defined — the spiked yellow petals of the lily pad’s flower, the silvery blue iridescence of a dragonfly’s wing — it was all a miracle.

Ralph Angel worked the pedals while Jason stood at the bow and kept an eye out for clumps of grass and reeds that might catch in the paddle wheel, nervously calling out, “Right, yo!” or “Left! Left!” making angular gestures as they crawled along. As he got the feel for the steering, Ralph Angel leaned back. He closed his eyes and let the sun warm his face.

Then all at once, Jason was yelling, “Shit, man. Fucking A! Go back!”

Ralph Angel snapped awake in enough time to see Jason race to the back of the bateau.

“What’d I do?”

“Ran over a trap.” Jason leaned over the stern, reached for the paddle wheel.

Ralph Angel heard a bump, then a scrape of metal under the boat.

“Turn off the fucking motor, man!” Antoine said.

Ralph Angel lunged. But before he could hit the switch, they ran over another trap. The engine whined crazily as it surged, ground through its gears.

“Cut the engine, motherfucker!” Antoine said again.

“I’m trying,” Ralph Angel yelled back, fumbling. “Where’s the switch? I can’t find the switch.”

Jason staggered forward. He reached for the switch and the engine died, but not before a third trap snagged on the paddle wheel and rose out of the water looking monstrous and strange. The crawfish inside the trap’s bulbous belly scrambled and clicked like balls in a bingo tumbler, and as the paddle wheel continued to roll forward, it crushed the neck of the trap lodged against the stern. Smoke billowed from the hydraulic engine. It took almost an hour to paddle to the dock.

The German was waiting. “How the hell?”

“I can explain,” Ralph Angel began, but the German pushed past him and leaned over the stern. “Who did this?”

“Give me a minute, Jesus.”

But the German was having none of it. He plowed into Ralph Angel, knocking him out of the bateau onto the dock. “Get the hell off my pond.”

“Just hear me out.”

“Get off my farm before I fucking kill you.” He grabbed Ralph Angel by his shirt and dragged him to the bank. “You piece of shit. I knew you were trouble. You have any idea how much you’ve cost me?” He took a wad of bills from his pocket, peeled off two twenties and a ten, and tossed them on the ground. “I’m making an exception. Consider yourself paid,” the German said, then turned and walked away.

Ralph Angel knelt in the muddy grass, which was still wet with morning dew. He gathered the bills. Across the pond, morning fog had burned away, revealing storm-ravaged woods. Leafless branches, splintered tree trunks, underbrush littered with trash from the surge. At last, Ralph Angel stood up and walked to his car. He laid his head on the wheel. He felt himself falling through the blanket of damp leaves and steamy humus; through the horizons of loam, through clay and bedrock, and finally, through the fire.

Still warm the first week of October. But it was the light, Charley thought, that had changed more than anything. Every edge was crisper, as if she were seeing the world through a freshly washed window. She loved how the sunlight cartwheeled through the leafy canopy along the Old Spanish Trail, how it made the cane fields glisten, so green now they looked to Charley like money in the bank. The seasons were changing, the light confirmed; grinding was about to begin. Which only made Charley more anxious to be finished, more desperate to get the tractor fixed and the men paid so she could be done with planting. She was almost there; just one hundred acres to go. Almost across the finish line. But they couldn’t move forward in a real way, Charley knew, until The Cane Cutter sold at auction. Even if it sold for half what she knew her father had paid, she’d have most of the money she needed.

Late Thursday afternoon now, and as Charley turned into the Quarters she saw Micah and Blue waiting on the corner. They ran alongside her car, shrieking and laughing and waving pieces of paper, all the way down the block to Miss Honey’s. She’d barely pulled the keys from the ignition before Micah pushed a flyer through the car window.

“It’s for the Sugarcane Festival,” Micah said, gasping. “It’s only here until Sunday. Please, Mom. Please, please, please say we can go.”

Downtown, on the nicer end of Main Street, Charley had noticed, in a back-of-the-brain sort of way, every marquee and billboard boldly announced, “Hey, Sugar!” or “Thank You, Sugar!” Now she knew why.

“There’s a boat parade on the bayou,” Micah added, trying to close the sale. “We can meet Queen Sugar.”

“Yeah,” Blue chimed in, barely able to stand still. His little body vibrated like a small pot on the brink of bubbling over.

“Queen Sugar,” Charley said, trying to imagine. She handed the flyer back to Micah. “I wish I could, sweetheart, but—”

“I know, I know. Don’t tell me,” Micah said. “You have to work on the farm.”