WITHIN THE HOUR Papa and I were out there, sitting in a back corner at a table with four legs of unequal length and warped floorboards beneath-it's like a lock or puzzle, you keep turning the table, hoping to hit the right combination, feel things fall into place-with mugs of barely chilled, wateiy beer. The mugs made quiet sucking sounds when we lifted them off the table. Forearms clung to tabletops sticky for twenty years despite daily scouring. The dominant smells were Lysol and old grease. The dominant fashions were muscle shirts, T-shirts and tattoos.
My coat and tie, and my black face, stood out like a cardinal in a flock of penguins.
No one in there could keep his eyes away from our table. They huddled together in groups, talking among themselves, glancing again and again in our direction. Till one of them, finally, couldn't keep nose, balls, ego and White Pride in check any longer.
Stepping so close that his legs touched the table, he looked straight on at Papa. I'm not sitting there. The sleeves of his black T are rolled.
"Welcome to Tommy T's," he told Papa. "Don't remember seeing you in here before."
Papa sighed. "You haven't seen me in here before."
"Well then, don't be a stranger from now on. I'm Wayne."
He glanced around at the others to see how he was doing. Just so there'd be no distractions, someone pulled the plug on the jukebox. Three notes up the four-note climb into dominant and chorus, Hank Williams Jr. stopped singing. What was coming up was sure to be better entertainment.
"But you gotta know to leave your boy there outside, right? His kind ain't never been welcome here. Won't ever be."
Papa looked up at him. Papa was stamped from the same pattern as a lot of them in there, brush-cut hair, leathery face. But he'd been fighting undisclosed wars, leading other men into those wars and losing a lot of them, good men and bad wars, bad wars and good men, when Wayne was grunting hisfirst diapers full of disposable goods.
"Boy," Papa said after a moment. The word hung in the air between them. It's just been slapped up on a fence, paint's still dripping from it. I saw Papa's muscles relax, his breathing slow-though he was thinking about none of this.
He put his hands flaton the table.
"Now boy, I know you can't much help being the stupid asshole son of a bitch you are. It's what your folks were before you, God bless 'em. How you gonna be anything else? I understand that. We all do."
He looked around the room.
"So I'm not gonna take offense at anything you just said. Considering the source and all. Instead, I'm gonna offer to buy everyone in here a round. What the hell, a couple of rounds."
There was a pause as all the mathematicians worked on this new equation in a formula they thought sure they already knew.
Seems to me they're drawing closer to our table. As up closer to the blackboard, scowling at figures there? This is probably paranoia, I think. No it's not, I think.
Muscles bunched and tattoos on biceps puckered as Wayne reached across the table for Papa's neck.
Sometimes I almost forget how naked and ugly their hatred can be. But I saw it then in his eyes. Old man and a nigger. Teach this white man a lesson, fuck that nigger up bad, then get back to his drinks and friends. Simple plan. Way things were meant to be.
Wayne's arm was halfway across the table when his face moved suddenly away from us, back and down-like the detective's on those stairs in Psycho. His head hit the floor. Papa's hooked a foot behind his ankle and pulled him over.
Then Papa was clown there too, with his knee planted in Wayne's genitals and a thumb on his carotid.
Suddenly light flooded the bar. A voice from the open doorway said: "You through playing with him, Captain, you let that young idiot up off the floor. Assuming he's able to get up. He can't, we'll just dump him out back. Not like anyone gives half a shit, is it"
The door swung shut behind him, closing us back into darkness.
"Gene, plug that jukebox in. Rest of you either get the fuck about your business or out of here."
The clientele swarmed back to drinks, TV shows, pool tables, conversations. Hank Williams Jr. abrupted into the IV chord. Free at last.
The man dragged a chair over from the next table and sat down with us. He and Papa grinned at one another. I wondered where he left the wheelbarrows he usually carried around on his shoulders.
"Jack," Papa said. "So you own bars now instead of tearing them up."
"Mostly."
"Heard you were still in Cambodia."
"I was."
"Sue Ling doing okay, I hope."
"Believe it."
Papa nodded. "Always thought that girl had fine taste. Then she up and mamed you."
"Hear you moved up in the world too, Captain. But they call you Papa now, don't they? Make your money off what other people do."
Papa sh nigged.
"Hey," the man said. "Maybe you already did enough, all those years, who's to say. Buy you a beer?"
"Sure."
These came from under the bar, in bottles. Beads of cold sweat on them.
The man sat looking down at Wayne. "You think that boy's gonna get up?"
"He'll come around. He's strong."
"Good thing, too, dumb as he is."
They grinned at one another again for a while.
"Don't guess you showed up here just for old times' sake," the man said.
Papa shook his head, then looked at me.
"Lew Griffin," I said, putting my hand across the table. He didn't take it.
I told him about Armantine Rauch, and why I was looking for him. Described his appearance and background. Slid the photo across the table, which tried to keep it. Told him we'd greatly appreciate any help he could give us.
When I was done, he looked at Papa. "What's this all about, Bill?" I'd never heard anyone call Papa by name before.
"Talk to him, not me," Papa said. He sipped at his beer. "I just run the ferry."
"Right." Throwing back half his Dos Equis. "Okay, I guess I owe you that, at least." The second half of his beer went looking for the first.
"Griffin. That right? Man you're looking for, this Rauch, yeah, he comes in here some."
"How often?"
"Some, I said."
"Once a week? Paydays? Every night?"
"Look. Till ATF says I have to, I don't keep track."
"You know where he lives?"
"Around, is what I heard."
"You consider having your people give me a call next time he shows up:
He glanced over at Papa, who nodded.
"Okay."
"Thanks. We-"
"But you want to look him up before then, he teaches a self-defense class over at the high school every Sunday."
I asked for directions and got them.
"That it?"
I nodded.
"Appreciate it, Jack," Papa replied. "You be sure to give Sue Ling my love."
When he was gone, we sat looking down at Wayne.
"Good work, by the way," I told Papa. "Guess Doo-Wop figured I might need you out here. Usually have to do my own heavy lifting."
Papa drained off the last of his beer.
"Yeah. Well, good thing once in a while to just kick back, let somebody else do the cooking."
When I got home that afternoon three police cars were parked a couple of blocks up my street. Cops stood talking to people and writing on clipboards as radios sputtered. The kids on bikes had grabbed another purse and a wallet from an old couple out for a walk. One of my neighbors had chased them halfway to Freret.