Some light must shine behind our lives always, one of my college teachers said. He’d been a poet, apparently a good one, well thought of, promising. The light was draining out from behind his life the year I had him for freshman lit. Halfway through the second semester he didn’t show up for class two days in a row. They found him on the floor of his bathroom. He’d hanged himself from a hook in the ceiling above the tub, and though the hook had torn out of the rotting plaster, his throat was already crushed and he had died after a few moments’ thrashing about in fallen plaster, back broken across the edge of the tub in the fall.
Meeting Vicky, getting to know her, I felt the light start up again behind my own life. It hadn’t been there for a long time.
I started doing collections for a loan outfit over on Poydras. Walsh had vetted me, and I was still big enough and mean-looking enough to be effective pulling in payments for them. They started me out on a token salary, soon added a percentage, then doubled the salary as well.
Vicky and I were seeing one another pretty regularly: concerts, dinner, films at the Prytania, theater, museums, long afternoons over espresso or bottles of wine. I recalled the concept of monads-whole areas of knowledge, of understanding, which opened entire to the developing individual. And felt new worlds opening within me, worlds I’d always known were there but couldn’t find, couldn’t get to.
This whole period, like those early weeks in the hospital, but for quite different reasons, is something of a blur to me. I tracked people down all day, clocked out at six or so and headed for Vicky’s, and we either went out somewhere or stayed in talking and listening to music until she had to leave for work herself. My hours were flexible, and on days she was off I’d sometimes work at night to be with her during the day.
Work, a waiting woman, money in the bank, personal growth: American dreams.
But I stayed on at the halfway house. Carlos grudgingly began telling me buenos dias. Jimmi, the few times we were there simultaneously, didn’t want to talk. Vicky asked me to move in with her. Sansom came by every Friday to be sure everything was all right.
Time passed, as it will.
Both Verne and Walsh called to see how things were going. Ca va bien, I told them.
The president began another covert war.
Memorials were erected to those who’d died in the last covert war.
The CIA overthrew small South American governments and kept thick files on many of its own citizens.
Business as usual in South Africa.
Russia growled at us and we growled back-nothing new there.
Down by the Mississippi River Bridge they were swarming like ants, building for the ’84 World’s Fair.
I moved in with Vicky.
It was a rather fashionable apartment complex, and she’d made her small corner of it forever British by hanging pictures from the cornices, setting two morris chairs beside a low tea table and otherwise filling the flat with heavy, old furniture. There had been the usual compact, synthetic furnishings when she moved in, she said; she’d felt she was living in a motel. There were books everywhere.
One night after we’d been together a few weeks and had decided to stay in for the evening-I had a pot of red beans simmering on the stove and was about to start the rice-there was a knock at the door. It was Jimmi Smith.
“Bill Sansom says you’re good at finding people,” he said without preamble.
“Your sister?”
He nodded.
“Please come in,” I said, and introduced Vicky.
“I’ve got a bad feeling,” he said. “Something’s happened. I can’t go on like this anymore.”
“Will you stay for dinner, Mr. Smith-please,” Vicky said.
He shook his head but a little later let himself be led to the table. He was talking about how they used to sit on the swing in the backyard and spit grape seeds at each other, how they went everywhere together in their matched overalls. I poured wine and Vicky brought in fresh French bread. Over dinner and through a second bottle of wine he told me about his sister, Cherie. Gave me her last address and a small photo, an old school picture, the only one he had, he said, because she never liked having her picture taken.
“I’ll poke around and see what I can come up with,” I told him. “I’ll be in touch. You’re still at the house?”
“Same bunk, same book.”
I showed him out and started stacking dishes. Vicky had picked up the photograph.
“She looks so very young.”
“At our age, everybody starts looking young. Cops look like kids to me these days.”
“She also looks like someone who knows the best part of her life is already over,” Vicky said, and was sad the rest of the night.
In the morning I checked in at the loan company, picked up my slips and, finding two of the leads out in Metairie, where Cherie’s last address also was, headed that way.
The first lead took me to an apartment house reminiscent of rabbit warrens where a dirty-faced adolescent female opened the door along a length of chain and said, “Yeah?”
“Your folks home, young lady?”
“Naw. Ain’t never home ’fore ‘leven or twelve.”
“You get your sweet little butt back over here, LuAnne, and tell whoever that asshole is you’re busy,” a voice said inside the apartment.
“You know where I might reach them at work?”
She shrugged.
“Excuse me, LuAnne,” I said, and kicked the door in.
He was on the couch, thirty-eight or forty maybe, wearing a doubleknit leisure suit with the pants pulled down around his ankles.
“Don’t bother getting up,” I said. “If you do, I’ll kick your balls into Oklahoma. Go put your clothes on, honey,” I told the girl. “You know about statutory rape, mister? Even prison-yard hardasses take a dim view of it.”
“You a cop, man?”
“Are you out of here?”
“You told me not to move. ’Sides, I’m the girl’s uncle.”
He was coming up off the couch and I kicked him in the belly. He grunted and fell back.
“This is a child, asshole.”
After a while, when he was able, he hauled himself afoot, pulled up his pants and left. The girl looked after him, tears forming in her round eyes.
“World’s full of them,” I said.
“I loved him,” she said.
The second lead came up just as empty: a used book and record store not far off Veterans near Causeway. It had that fusty, peculiar smell they all have. A girl of twenty or so sat behind the counter braiding lustrous black hair that, unbraided, must have reached her knees.
“I’m looking for Frances Villon,” I said.
“Frances Villon?” Tentatively.
“I was given this address. I could have the spelling wrong.” I spelled it out. “She’d arranged a loan from us.”
“Frances Villon.” First with an English pronunciation, then the French. Her eyes wandered off and came back. “I get it-Francois Villon.”
“What?”
“You’ve been had. Francois Villon was a fifteenth-century French poet. I don’t think he’d be in need of any loans just now.
‘I am Francois to my great dismay,
Born in Paris, up Pontoise way;
By a fathom of hempen cord I’ll sway
While my neck discovers what my buttocks weigh.’
Someone’s idea of a joke, huh?”
“Any idea who might be inclined to that kind of joke?”
“Not really, but it’s kind of appropriate.”
“What do you mean?”
“Villon himself was a professional thief.”
The address I had for Cherie Smith led me to a converted garage apartment behind a lumberyard. It was empty; through the front window I saw only a sack of trash and some sweepings on the bare floor. I tried the door. It was locked.
Walking around back to look for a rear door or usable window, I discovered another, larger garage apartment. A tall, stooped young man with longish stringy hair was just backing out the door.
“Come to see the place?” he said.
“You the agent?”
“Showing it for them. I’m on my way to class, but I’ve got a few minutes, if you want to look it over. There wouldn’t be any problem with your renting it. You know….”
I knew only too well.
“To tell the truth,” I said, “I was looking for the former tenant.”
“You a cop?”
“Do I look like a cop, son?”
“You sure as hell ain’t her daddy.”
“Friend of her brother’s. He asked me to find her, if I can. Hasn’t heard from her in a long time. He’s been worried.”
“Not much I can tell you. She stayed pretty much to herself. Never had people over, didn’t go out much.”
“She work?”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“When’d she leave?”
“Let’s see…. Close to a month, must be.”
“You know why?”
“Couldn’t make the rent. Owner finally had to ask her to move out.”
“Did she?”
“The very next morning. Cleaned the apartment up and all before she went, too. Not many’ll do that anymore.”
“No forwarding address?”
“Not with me, not with the post office. I know because the owner was going to send back part of the deposit even though she missed the last month’s rent. Felt kind of bad about the whole thing, I guess.”
“Okay. Listen, I don’t want to keep you, but if you happen to think of anything, anything that might help, could you give me a call?”
I handed him a card and a ten dollar bill.
“I can’t take your money, Mr.-” He looked down at the card. “-Griffin?”
“Sure you can.”
“Wouldn’t feel right about it.”
“All right. Then you just keep it a while and if nothing comes up, you send it back to me.”
“Well,” he said.
“Listen, I’ve held you up. Which school you go to?”
“Loyola.”
“Then let me drop you. Wouldn’t be a problem. You know….”
He grinned. “I would appreciate it, if you’re sure it’s not too much trouble.”
“Not at all.”
I dropped him off amidst armies of long legs and round bottoms in tight jeans and perfect breasts under sweaters, thinking I’d never make it to class in all that. Or wouldn’t have-more years ago than I want to think about.
I headed back downtown, brewed a pot of coffee at the apartment-Vicky was on a rare day shift-and had just poured some Irish into it when the phone rang.
“Mr. Griffin?”
“Yes.”
“Kirk Woodland.”
I waited.
“At the apartment a little while ago.”
“Oh. Right.”
“I just thought of something, might help you. There’s this kid down the street from where I live. He’s, I don’t know, eighteen or so, but really retarded, you know? Cherie used to go see him a lot, tell him stories and all, try to teach him things. You think she might show up there sometime?”
“She might indeed. Thank you, Kirk. You know the address?”
“No, but it’s the only two-story wood house on the next block south. Can’t miss it. White with yellow trim.”
“There’ll be twenty more coming to match what you have. I’ll shove it under the door.”
“No, Mr. Griffin. This is more than enough.”
“I insist. You may have saved me a lot of time and work. And I never knew a student who couldn’t use an extra dollar or two.”
“Well,” he said.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“You have trouble concentrating with all those fine young ladies around all the time?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“God, I hope so. I hope it’s not just old men like me.”
“Not hardly.”
“Good. And thanks again.”
I finished the Irish coffee, and another couple of cups without the Irish, and headed back to Metairie. LuAnne was still alone and without parents, Frances Villon remained a thief, and at the two-story wood house I met only suspicion.
I finally convinced the father (Mom had split a long time ago) that I wasn’t a welfare officer or child molester (they probably came down to the same thing in his mind) and was introduced to Denny.
“She was real good with him, Cherie was. Only body ever spent any time with him save me.”
Denny was not only eighteen, he was a giant, almost as tall as myself and built like a linebacker. He had full, slack lips and brown eyes that never blinked. He didn’t talk, but made soft cooing sounds.
“When did you last see Cherie, Mr. Baker?”
“She came by, just for a few minutes, last week. Said she couldn’t stay ’cause of a job interview but she had missed Denny so much.”
“Say anything about when she might make it by again?”
“Said a couple of days. That was Tuesday. Guess she must of got tied up with the new job or something, huh?”
“If she does come back, Mr. Baker, could you give me a call?”
“You’re a friend of her brother, you say?”
“Yes, sir. I can give you his number, if you’d like.”
He looked at me for several moments. “I don’t need his number,” he said. “When you live with someone like Denny, who can’t ever tell you what’s inside him, you learn things most people don’t know. I see the pain and confusion in your face. It’s been there a long time. But I also see you’re a good man, and I know you’re telling me the truth.”
I nodded, and he told me he’d let me know when Cherie showed up again. “She will,” he said. “It’s just a matter of when.”
Isn’t everything, I thought, and headed back to town.
Vicky was home, sitting on the couch with a gin and tonic. She’d taken off her uniform pants but still wore the top, underpants, white stockings. Something about those white uniforms is sexy enough anyway, and it was accented by her pale skin and red hair.
“Posing for Penthouse?”
“For you,” she said, raising her glass. “Want a drink?”
“I’ll get it. You look tired.”
“I’ve had a terrible day. A man we were ambulating died, just dropped dead right there in the hall with family and all the rest of the patients looking on. Then all afternoon it’s the head nurse I have to put up with, going on and on about quotas and priorities as I’m trying to catch up on my work.”
I got my drink, we both sipped, then she went on, her words as ever falling into natural cadences, so musical and lilting you could sink into the sensual pleasures of the language itself and lose meaning altogether.
“She refers to patients as ‘units.’ An acutely ill patient is twenty-five units, a bed bath is two units, an IV is one unit, and on and on. And on.” She sipped again. “It’s rather like a factory, isn’t it?”
“And shouldn’t be?”
“Can’t be. Because things are changing all the time, patients’ conditions, their needs. You can’t very well plot that out on paper now, can you?”
“But the managers, that new, huge and ever-increasing class, must have something to do.” I slipped into a dissembling voice, a mixture of Amos and Andy and sixties cant. “When duh rev’lushun cums, dose wif briefcases gone be de furst shot.”
Vicky didn’t feel like cooking, we both felt like eating, and the only thing in the fridge was very leftover lasagna. The choice came down to ordering from Yum Yum’s, the Chinese restaurant a few blocks away that delivered, or going out somewhere. We had another drink and thought it over. Images of Yum Yum’s greasy paper food cartons (like the kind used to carry goldfish home from the dime store) helped the decision immeasurably.