The short legs of the mulatto boy pedaled the rickety bicycle southeasterly down the bumpy, ballast-stoned streets of the French Quarter. A burlap bag, full of fresh fetuses, sat loosely at the center of a chicken-wire basket tied between handlebars. As the cobbled surface of Customhouse Street gave way to the rocky dirt of the levee, the bicycle slowed and sudden turbulence bounced the contents of Typhus’ burlap sack. Easy does it, thought Typhus. Should have tied those babies in, he knew, but Doctor Jack had run out of twine. Simple problem, simple solution: Easy does it. That’s all. See that? Easy. The bouncing diminished accordingly and the bag did not jump, fall, or spill. Typhus’ children stayed with him.
Typhus Morningstar was only nine years old, but older of eye.
Old enough to have suffered some, but young enough to know there are easy solutions to most types of suffering; solutions not too difficult to grasp and quick enough to be done with if a person had half a mind to. Typhus often considered the possibility that when a boy or a girl reached a certain age of maturity (or reached a certain physical height) that simplicity itself became a thing not to be trusted. Pain for grownups is easy enough to feel-their problem lies in the whys, hows and what-nows that always accompany such pain. Simple questions are bound to yield simple answers, but also; a thing too easy often feels like a trick. Typhus hoped never to reach the age (or height) of a person who could only trust the harder, more complex ways of handling life’s trials.
Typhus maneuvered up the side of the levee, then down the slope towards the river, where the water’s recurring kiss had hardened and smoothed the sand into a firm, grainy mud. It was tougher to pedal here, but a smoother ride. He felt safer on this side of the sloping embankment anyway, beyond eye and earshot of the busybodies and shady nighttime characters who roamed the Quarter when the sun was down and gone. It wasn’t unheard of (or even uncommon) for a tan-colored boy with a package to be stopped by harbor police for no good reason at all.
Plus, it was so much prettier this near the river.
He followed the slow curve of the riverside until it ambled him up and onto the boardwalk that ran alongside the docks. The only light here was of the moon, bouncing off the water like a million lemon slices, shimmering and shining but yielding no useful illumination. Smudge pots bobbed atop buoys fashioned from beer barrels fifty yards offshore, warning ships of sandbanks too high for safe docking. Thick, black smoke from burning pitch-its powerful smell equally loathsome to man and mosquito-etched creases in the coal sky, quietly proclaiming that there’s always something blacker. Only the fatigued crews of smaller vessels dared navigate between the hidden sandbanks, but even these few vessels seemed void of living beings tonight. Every porthole of every ship: black, black, black.
It was all so peaceful and still here.
Typhus loved his midnight bicycle rides. The sound of the water, the feel of night air against his skin, and the acrid smell of burning tar; it all conspired into a comforting sense of oneness with his father’s God. And that’s all his child’s heart had ever really pined for. Not muchelse, anyway.
A block or so ahead, the shadow of a man cast long from the end of a narrow pier. The dark shape jerked grotesquely as Typhus rode past, sending a sweeping wave of warm gray across the river’s yellow-sparkly surface. Typhus smiled and waved back to the elderly gentleman known to most as Marcus Nobody Special. He wished he could stop and talk to Mr. Marcus, but he had business to tend. Maybe after-but most likely, he’d be too tired to socialize after the errand. The business of the errand always took a lot out of him.
Mr. Marcus, who’d been caretaker of the Girod Street potter’s field since before the War of the States, had either buried or overseen the burying of just about every man, woman and child of color who’d died in the last fifty years around here. Mr. Marcus was seventy if he was a day, but never complained of aches or pains and always spent the nighttime fishing off the longest pier at this particular stretch of levee. It seemed the old man never rested or slept at all.
Most of the locals thought Marcus crazy. Some even thought him a ghost, people saying he’d died, buried his own bones and come back; that he was on some kind of mysterious mission to find a particular fish that would let him go back to the grave in peace. That fish, they said, had stolen Marcus’ soul.
But Marcus seemed alive enough to Typhus. The old fellow ate, drank, pissed, and laughed just like every other living person Typhus knew. So the one part was a lie, but he knew the other was true enough: Mr. Marcus did have a certain odd obsession with fish. Typhus had had occasion to sit alongside the old man on a few of these queer fishing expeditions, had even seen Marcus catch himself a perfectly good catfish now and then-only to throw it back in the water after a cursory examination. He’d simply shake his head and apologize to the wiggly, fat thing, saying; “Sorry, old man, didn’t mean to interrupt yer nightswimmin’.” Then he’d shake his head some more and say to himself, or to whoever was standing nearby:
“Not my dern fish. Not my fish at all. But I’ll get ’im. Yessir.”
Typhus liked Mr. Marcus very much. His behavior might not have made the plainest sort of sense, but Typhus understood as much as he needed to. No use being greedy about understanding people other than yourself. He figured people have a right to some privacy concerning the strange workings of their own minds.
Up ahead a hundred yards or so, Typhus spotted his destination. A morass of banana plants interwoven with tall, swaying saw grass signaled the presence of a large sandbank-turned-island just beyond the pier. People sometimes used the little island for fishing during daytime hours, but at night it was Typhus’ spot.
Typhus slowed the bicycle.
Put one foot down, stopped the bike at a hard angle from the ground. Looked around slow. No lights. No movement but wind and low waves. No one around but Mr. Marcus looking for his elusive fish. Not another soul.
Typhus got off the bike and eased the burlap sack down to the moist wood of the boardwalk. Rolled the bike into hiding behind some shaggy codgrass near the pier. Slung the bag over his shoulder and lowered himself to the mud of the island. Walked the forty yards or so it took to get to the other side, the side that faced away from the pier and across the water. Out of sight, even from Mr. Marcus.
On the other side of the river was a place called Algiers. Typhus had never been there, had never had good reason to go across. By day it looked just like the pictures of Africa his Daddy liked to show him, but at night it was inky and wonderful, a huge and glorious dead spot where glimmering lemon slices stopped dancing. He took his shoes off and sat at the edge of the island’s shore with his feet in the water and the bag at his side. Chewed a hunk of tobacco his father had given him that afternoon after chores. Looked at Algiers and wondered, resting his hand on the bag, spitting juice into the water.
After the tobacco in his cheek was reduced to the vile, juiceless lump it was bound to become, he pulled it out of his mouth and winged it as far as he could into the river, causing lemon slices to laugh and jump for joy. Typhus slung the bag over his shoulder and waded into the water, clothes and all. When the river came about knee deep he knelt down in it and brought the little burlap bag before him. Lowered it into the water, not letting go, just allowing the water to rush in through the thousand tiny holes that make burlap what it is. Unknotted the top. Peeked in. Babies. Three tiny, unborn children. Getting their first taste of nighttime air and warm, muddy river.
Steadying the bag on his lap, Typhus reached a hand in and stroked the tiny arms and neck of one of the children. Scooped his other hand inside the bag and tenderly-so tenderly-separated the little creature from its brother and sister. Let its tiny head bob at the water’s surface. Its sweet face looked up at the moon, bathed in lemon light. There was no pain in this face. No tragedy or loss. But there was something missing.
Life.
Typhus’ small hands looked huge holding the little creature. He held the baby steady at the surface and gently cleansed him, let the water wash over its pink and blue skin. Washing away the sticky blood and gelatin of birth.
Typhus Morningstar closed his eyes. Smiled.
“Come on, little fella. Time to be on yer way.” Opened his eyes again. Looked down.
He held the baby’s arms to its sides with the slightest pressure, his left hand moving up and down along the child’s right arm in a sweeping caress. Its smooth skin yielded to his touch like clay, gradually melting to its side. Seamlessly. He repeated this process with the left arm until both sides were a perfect match. Then Typhus focused on the legs, stroking and smoothing the soft flesh into a single fat leg, his gentle hands molding the unborn child’s figure into a swooning teardrop. Next were the shoulders. So smooth. So trusting. Blending into the neck so perfectly. Exactly like wet clay.
Last was the head.
Nose and mouth extending into one. Lips disappearing. Eyelids vanishing over wide, round, flat, staring eyes. Cheeks flattening. Smooth. Perfect. Warm.
Typhus held the newly shaped fetus underwater. As the head went under, there appeared a moment’s struggle-but there’s always a slight struggle in waking moments, Typhus acknowledged. The legs, now a tail, thrashed about. Mouth bubbling, horizontal slits opening where ears used to be, head bucking. Typhus held fast, stroking the creature ever gently till it calmed. Cooing. Said the thing that he always said at this point:
“They gave it to me, but I gave it back the best I could.”
He sang as the baby finished its changing time, its water birth. The song he sang was of a religious nature, but he placed no significance on the words. He just thought it was a pretty tune, something sweet to sing as he delivered his children. It put them at ease, or so it seemed.
Jesus, I’m troubled about my soul
Ride on, Jesus, come this way…
The tiny catfish was pure pink and rapidly calming now, its tail experimentally flicking at the currents of the top waves with hungry curiosity. With a kind of yearning.
It was time.
Typhus let go. A tear rolled down his cheek. It was always hard to let the babies go.
Swimming now. Towards Algiers. Disappearing from sight. Beneath sparkly slivers of yellow light.
Troubled about my soul…
Again, and with great love, Typhus Morningstar reached into the burlap bag.
A light drizzle began to fall.
The song began like all melodies, with a single note.
On this day, at this hour and this particular moment, the note was E flat. Unaccompanied, the note betrayed key neither minor nor major, betrayed no key at all. Beginning soft as breath and held, gaining strength and definition with only the slightest quiver. Not vibrato in any premeditated way, just the lightest jangle of the player’s nerves, his humanity, his heartbeat.
Then a fade.
As if the note were giving way to something greater than itself, greater than its own simple purity and strength; weakening ever gently. Giving up quietly, submitting to its own misinformed sense of futility, going back to earth, to the simple clay of dumb beginnings and answerless endings.
The player considers the note. He cannot sustain. There is no reason. But the weakening tone is somehow unfinished. Like a spirited pup born too soon, too small and too weak to live, knowing nothing of life but clinging to it anyway; stupidly, stupidly-fighting for its chance but not knowing why, not understanding what sort of thing the chance is. Not knowing anything.
But knowing everything it will ever need to know. Its heartbeat struggles, weakens, slows-but does not stop. And then:
The fade is cut short, interrupted by a flurry of sound; a quick burst heading skyward, headstrong and unexpected, defying the futility of the E flat, exposing a minor key in the subtlest way, transforming the uncertainty of E flat into a belligerent D. Holding. Dipping. Leaping and crashing-but not crashing.
Saved.
Gliding back down to…E flat again? No. A. Holding again-but not holding. Bending, wavering, wanting to climb too high but resisting-spinning somehow without moving up or down, pulling something from deep within the player, bringing this thing out of the cornet, out throughthe cornet. All this in a single note. A single, simple, ordinary note.
A.
But not A. Something about the A is different. It is a different world from the world of the E flat entirely. Something about the way the player arrived at the A. Not that it was discovered, but how it was discovered. Something about the player’s reaction to the note, the lightness of mind and intensity of spirit it brought him for just a moment. Something about the way the instrument reacted to the touch of his lips, the way it trembled in his grip. The note was A.
A .
But not A.
This is where things change; completely, irrevocably.
But with change comes clarity. And with clarity comes understanding. And with understanding comes questions. And with questions of this kind comes a sort of madness.
E flat. Transition. A.
Questions.
The player stops.
He is drunk. He does not know what has happened. His mind is not ready for the questions, he doesn’t want to hear them. He reaches for his bottle of train yard-grade gin but only knocks it to the floor; the bottle doesn’t break and he doesn’t pick it up. He lays his horn on the pillow, he lays his head next to the horn; it is inches from his eyes. His eyes are red, he feels tears building there but doesn’t let them through. They close. He strokes the horn. He falls asleep. Gin drips to the floor, the bottle on its side.
He will not remember the A. He does not know that he has seen the face of God.
Clarity. Questions. E flat. A.
Something is created but stillborn; promised but denied.
Awaiting rebirth, it has all the time in the world. What did not exist does now. An abortion dumped in the river, letting go of life for now but knowing that new life will come. In time.
Differently. Irrevocably.
Buddy Bolden snores.
Noonday Morningstar named his children for diseases. From oldest to youngest they were Malaria, Cholera, Diphtheria, Dropsy, and Typhus.
There’d been those in the Parish who’d publicly chided Father Morningstar for the naming, declaring it cruel to name innocent children for that which reminded a body only of suffering and death-but to Morningstar the names were a tribute to God’s glory, plain and simple. It didn’t matter if nosy folk didn’t understand or approve. God understood everything just fine.
Morningstar saw life as a trial and death as a reward, a bridge to paradise-and he saw God’s mysterious afflictions of the body as holy paths to that salvation. Disease may be a source of pain and hardship on earth, but what can be kinder and more blessed than a shortcut to heaven through no fault of your own? What could be a more magnificent display of God’s powers than the merciful, invisible insects that float through the air to infect the body, guiding you to your last breath and on to reward?
Plus, the diseases had such pretty names.
Strange name-giving aside, Noonday loved his children deeply and they returned his love in kind. He was a gentle and loving father to them and they, in turn, proved the wonders of God to him everyday. God had been generous, in His way, with every one of them. All were healthy and happy children-save for Cholera, who died after only two months on this earth, ironically, from cholera.
Although he believed it wrong to admit a favorite, Father Morningstar secretly saw his youngest as the gem of the lot. Although Gloria had died on the occasion of Typhus’ birth, Morningstar knew his wife would have gladly consented to that sacrifice to bring a creature so magical into the world. It was only a shame she hadn’t lived to know her little Typhus, her reason for dying.
About a mile and a half northwest of Congo Square, the Morningstar family’s tiny two-room house sat on a too-big piece of marshy ground too near where the Bayou St. John met the Old Basin Canal-a manmade waterway dredged from the bayou to the city’s heart nearly a century ago. It was a poor choice of real estate, prone to flooding-but the Morningstars had few possessions to lose and, in a pinch, could always relocate to the little church near the Girod Street potter’s field for the few days it took the waters to subside. Building a home on flood ground was something few were foolish enough to do, but the recklessness of the choice rewarded the family with unprecedented privacy in the fast growing city. Right out the front door was pure, wild beauty; dark, soft ground alive with salt meadow codgrass, water hyssops, and towering cypress trees-the latter entwined with boskoyo vines that proudly sprouted their sweet smelling violet and white flowers. At night there was only blackness, but if you ventured out with an oil lamp the ghostly trumpet-shaped blossoms of moonflowers would make themselves known.
The two rooms of the Morningstar house had their work cut out for them with five occupants to accommodate, so functionality was the rule. The larger was for sleeping and storing-the littler one for cooking, eating, and praying. The living water of the bayou could be strained then boiled; then used for washing or drinking. There was no real need for anything more-it was a fine place to live.
Tonight the timid hum of the children’s sleeping sounds offered guilty comfort to Noonday’s weary heart, and the stove fire failed to relieve his chill. He meditated on the glowing embers as they struggled to maintain orange-but meditation and prayer did not soothe on this night. He stabbed gently at the burning wood with a pointed iron, absently noting the fluttering patterns of white as ash broke apart and drifted to the stove’s base.
Earlier today, Noonday had done a thing that had brought shame to his heart, having put his own well-being above that of an innocent. Called to the home of Sicilian immigrants, he had believed he was to perform the last rites for a fatally ill child, a common enough sort of call. But when he entered the house a smell like burning compost hung in the air and a heavy sense of dread settled into his bones. The child appeared asleep in its crib as Noonday read aloud from Matthew 18:
“Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
“And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.
“But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”
At that, the child’s eyes sprang open to lock with his own.
It was in this moment of eye contact that Noonday heard the voice of Jesus telling him to leave, telling him that to stay would mean to sacrifice himself in vain, to make his own children orphans-and The Savior’s tone had not been gentle in the telling. Noonday had often heard the nagging voice of God in his head, had never before questioned it. But the kind of blatant abandonment suggested by his God today felt wrong to him. The words of the reporter who’d stopped him outside the house had echoed his own thoughts; this was God’s business-and Noonday Morningstar had dedicated his life to such business. It was not his place to turn tail and run, even at the insistence of Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior Himself.
What is a man of God to do when the clear instructions of The Savior conflict with the plain feelings of right and wrong that God himself has placed in his chest? If there was an answer to this question, he dare not seek it in the eyes of his children. This was a burden he must carry alone.
“Father?” Typhus was standing in the doorway. Noonday couldn’t guess for how long; Typhus was such a quiet thing.
“Yes, son?”
“You’re crying.”
Noonday had been unaware of his own tears until that moment. “I suppose I am,” he offered his son with an embarrassed smile.
“Can I help?”
These three words carried unintended poignancy, and, as always, Typhus’ simple kindness offered simple answers. The boy truly amazed him.
“You already have, Typhus. I love you so much.” He picked up his son in a hug. “I have to go out for a little while. House call. Unfinished business.”
Typhus looked alarmed. It was unusual for his father to leave on “house calls” after dark.
“Bring me with you.” Typhus’ tone implied instruction rather than request.
“Not tonight, little man. I won’t be long. I promise.”
“Daddy?” Typhus rarely called his father “Daddy”. It was his way of pleading.
“Son, I said no.”
“But Jesus doesn’t want you to go.”
The words brought a chill to Morningstar’s heart, but he was not surprised by them. Typhus had the gift of understanding.
“I know, Typhus. But He’ll thank me later.”
“I think I should go with you.”
“Listen to me, son. I need you to stay here and take care of your brother and sisters. Will you do that for me?”
A pause. “Yes, father.”
“That’s my little man. I’ll be home before sun up. Now, get back to bed.”
Noonday Morningstar kissed his son on the forehead, then went into the larger room where Malaria and Dropsy still slept. He noted with a frown that Diphtheria had snuck out again. He kissed the two before grabbing the family bible and lighting up a small lamp that was rusted red but perfectly functional. Walked out the door and into night.
Typhus threw some sticks on the fire, watched them turn white beneath the weight of orange flame.
He crawled onto the large, straw-stuffed mattress between his brother and sister. Found his homemade pillow; his own multi-purpose invention. The little burlap sack was originally constructed to hold coffee beans, but could also be stuffed with straw for sleeping-or filled with unborn babies for transporting and water-birthing. He held it tight to his face and smelled the river in it. He reached over and stroked the hair of Dropsy. It helped a little.
Typhus Morningstar did not sleep, but he did dream.
Although he knew disobeying his father would yield consequences, he emptied the contents of the pillow at the foot of the bed and stood up. Went outside without benefit of light, carrying the empty all-purpose sack with him. He sensed he might need it.
Found his bike in the dark.
Caught in the dank grip of an unusually warm October, the City of New Orleans had already been on edge and looking for a fight when the murder of Police Chief David Hennessey brought things from a simmer to a boil in the fall of 1890.
Eighteen Sicilian immigrants were arrested that October, but not until March of 1891 did eleven of them stand trial. The trial itself had been a fiasco; peppered with threats and assaults on witnesses, jury tampering and more, leading to two dismissals for lack of evidence, six found not guilty, and three released through benefit of a hung jury. The acquitted men were scheduled for release on the following afternoon, but such reasonable resolution was pre-empted by an open letter that appeared in the morning edition of The Daily Picayune. Penned by the Mayor of New Orleans himself, the letter was, in essence, a thinly veiled call to arms against the soon-to-be-freed defendants.
Within hours of the paper’s arrival at newsstands, an initial crowd of five thousand assembled at Clay Statue, where a host of dignified speakers eloquently whipped mild hearts into murderous lather. By noon the mob had made its way to the prison at Congo Square, its eventual number surpassing twenty thousand.
At Congo Square, a group of seven professional bounty hunters (employed, it was rumored, by the cronies of Mayor Shakespeare himself) enlisted an unfortunate prison guard by the name of Beauregard Church to act as their guide, at gunpoint, through the lightless jail. The vigilantes soon selected eleven victims; eight shot down on prison grounds and three dragged into the square to be hanged for the amusement of the mob. One of the hanged men, Antonio Carolla, appeared already dead-perhaps from fright-when the men placed the noose around his neck.
In effect, eleven men-whose guilt or innocence was never established-were tried, convicted, and executed by the local press and the Mayor of New Orleans.
Marshall Trumbo, a good man in his heart and by his nature, found himself deeply burdened by his own role in the slaughter of the Sicilians. A reporter for the New Orleans Item, Trumbo knew that to stir racial tensions in the sweltering city would be a reckless act-still, he had forged ahead with the rest and now lived with his guilty heart. But on the day after the massacre, Trumbo believed he’d found potential hope for redemption in the form of a sick child.
The one-year-old son of the twice-murdered Antonio Carolla had contracted a mysterious illness on the afternoon of his father’s death. Hoping to lighten his conscience by somehow aiding the Carolla family in their darkest hour (and perhaps simultaneously satisfying his employer’s thirst for saleable melodrama), Trumbo took to the home of the boy and his mother with pen and paper in hand.
Trumbo’s gallant mood sank sharply upon his arrival. The boy was tiny and thin and the color gone from him, his eyes closed tight, an unnerving grin stretching his lips nigh ear to ear. It was explained to Trumbo by the doctor in attendance-who applied leeches to the child’s torso with appalling calm-that the grin was merely a contortion brought on by recent fits of convulsion.
Due to the child’s apparently dire condition, several men of the cloth had been called to the home since the day before-all staying briefly and leaving abruptly. The man of God currently in residence was one Trumbo knew from a prior assignment, a Baptist minister called Noonday Morningstar.
As Father Morningstar droned out a verse from his open Bible, the boy’s eyes shot open with fear or rage or a mixture of the two. Trumbo thought he heard the child whisper something angrily at Morningstar. In apparent response, the preacher shut his Bible, crossed himself, then exited quickly, mumbling something about a forgotten prior commitment. While the doctor fiddled diligently on with his collection of leeches, Trumbo followed after Morningstar-supposing the preacher had made some private spiritual diagnosis.
Moving up quietly from behind, Trumbo placed a hand on Morningstar’s shoulder; the unexpected touch causing the taller man to spin around with a gasp. Trumbo apologized for spooking him, then got right to the point.
“Pardon me, Father, but please tell me what you saw in that house that has alarmed you so.” Morningstar at once pulled back, then took a breath and seemed to relax. Before speaking, he looked around to see if anyone else was close enough to hear.
“You a newspaper man, sir?” His voice was low and gentle.
“Yes, Father Morningstar. Trumbo’s my name-I have interviewed you in the past if you will recall, regarding the sharp increase in cholera deaths last year. But you have my word that I will keep whatever it is you tell me today in the strictest confidence if you so wish.”
“I don’t believe that for one minute, sonny,” the preacher said with a thin smile.
“I understand, Father.” Trumbo’s tone softened. “It’s true that I came here for a story, but after what I’ve seen-I just want to help.”
Morningstar’s demeanor softened in kind.
“You seem like a nice boy,” he said. “Do yourself a favor and stay out of that house. Those doctors can’t help that young ’un. Neither can I. There’s something wild in there. Something dangerous to the souls of men. Something absent of God-or too full of God. Stay away from that place, Mister Reporter. There’s no story in there. Only death.” He turned to leave.
“If you are a man of God, sir-”
Morningstar stopped but did not turn to meet the reporter’s eyes.
“If you are a man of God-how can you leave that young child’s soul in danger, as you say?”
Morningstar’s eyes then met Trumbo’s-and there was ice in the connection. “That boy’s soul is lost, sonny. This is God’s business now.”
“But isn’t your business God’s business?”
The preacher stepped close-allowing Trumbo’s full appreciation of his larger stature. His voice remained low and even:
“Sonny, I hear the voice of God every day of my life. Sometimes every minute of every day. Sometimes I wish the Good Lord would shut the hell up and leave me alone. But I answer his call, and I do his bidding. It is my lot.”
An awkward pause balanced in midair between the two. After a few moments he continued:
“Sonny, listen to me. When I was in that place I did indeed hear the voice of Jesus Our Savior. Would you like to know what He said?”
Incredulous, Trumbo answered, “I would indeed.”
“The Good Lord said, ‘Get the fuck out of this house. Now.’ Print that in your damn paper.” He left without another word.
Finding himself unable to follow Father Morningstar’s sensible example, Trumbo walked back to the house on shaking legs-and entered on an appalling scene.
The boy was sitting up in his crib, pulling leeches from himself and throwing them in the direction of the doctor. Shielding his face with one hand while hurriedly packing his medical equipment with the other, the doctor paused only to stomp a stray leech before running out the door. The mother was screaming.
The child then vaulted over the side of his crib and did what appeared to be a dance before stopping suddenly to face Trumbo. Said what sounded like:
“Lakjufa doir estay?”
Trumbo turned to the mother-“Madame, do you speak English?”
“Yes. Some.” Her voice was shaken, but she made an attempt to calm herself for the benefit of her uninvited guest.
Trumbo spoke slowly and precisely: “Is your son speaking in a language that you know?”
“It is not Sicilian if that is what you ask.”
“How long has he been speaking?”
“He only one. Before today, he no speak.”
“Not at all?”
Tears flowed freely down her cheeks as she replied:
“Before today he no walk either. Only crawl. Now he run. Dance.”
The pair looked back at the boy, who’d begun clucking like a rooster. Trumbo instinctively backed away from him-to his horror, he noted the child’s mother had done the same.
The child interrupted his performance to take another step towards the reporter.
“Lakjufa doir estay?” His voice was high in timber, but still far too deep for a child his age.
“I…don’t understand.”
“Lakjufa doir estay? Lakjufa doir estay? Lakjufa doir estay?” the child insisted, stepping closer with each reprise. Trumbo felt a strong urge to make a dash for the door as the doctor and preacher had done, but the pathetically desperate eyes of the mother paralyzed his movement.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally.
The child rolled his eyes and let out a final squawk before quickly extracting a piece of charcoal from the stove’s belly with pink little fingers. Dropping to all fours, he rapidly scratched seemingly random letters and numbers to the floor with the coal:
U UERI NAD PTEL FUYQ LORD
EAF VULCFOL IYLRLCO AFN
EFEHDS SNUB STGSY ORTET
HSONU ETKDS BCSHE EOAOK
EREH ESRE PEYR EVWE
4X5X4/4X4X1
The boy then leapt into the air and back over the rail of the crib, landing in a fetal position with a soft thud, immediately falling into a deep sleep. Mutually dumbfounded, the two could only stare at the child’s still form for several moments, not knowing what to expect next.
Trumbo took pencil and paper from his bag to write down, for the record, the nonsense message the child had so frantically scribbled on the floor.
After several moments of no new horrors, Anabella Carolla dissolved into a fresh wave of tears. Not knowing what else to do, Trumbo cautiously placed his arms around her. She did not resist; in fact, she hardly seemed to notice he was there.
“Ma’am,” Trumbo offered uncertainly, “I will summon another doctor…”
“No, no, no. It no use. This is third doctor. And fourth priest. Catholic priests no longer come. Is why this one a negro. He my baby’s last hope. And he go too.”
“Listen. I will be back. And I will bring help. Trust me, dear, I will be back.”
“You will not be back. Is all right. Understand.”
“No. I will be back. I swear it.” Trumbo turned towards the door and added, “My name is Marshall Trumbo, reporter for The Item.” To his surprise he felt no sting of shame in stating his credentials.
She smiled weakly, “You are good man, Marshall Trumbo, reporter for The Item. You come back.” And then, after a moment, “I am Anabella Carolla. My boy is Dominick. He is good boy.”
“I know who you are, dear. Stay with your son and don’t lose hope.”
He left her, strange thoughts whirring in his head on the long walk home. Trumbo had gone to the Carolla house that morning in search of redemption, but the current workings of his mind seemed only to spell damnation.
He’d heard strange stories from reliable sources about an abortion doctor in the red-light district who went by the name of Doctor Jack. As the stories went, Doctor Jack was a medical doctor of the lowest possible esteem; not only was he a negro who made his living snuffing the hapless unborn from the wombs of whores, he was also a known witch doctor, catering to the superstitious needs of the city’s voodoo-worshipping African population. Trumbo considered himself a good Christian who never took stock in such things, but what he had seen today was not possible. A witch doctor, he conceded to himself, may be this poor family’s last hope.
Convinced it would be wrong not to help-by any means-an innocent mother and child victimized by matters so clearly beyond the reach of scientific or Christian methods, Trumbo resolved to risk damnation. Perhaps, he thought, it is not wrong to fly in the face of a God who would allow such an abomination to occur on this earth. Perhaps, he nearly concluded, God is not at all the benevolent being that his well-meaning parents had taught him to believe in so unquestioningly as a child.
Marshall Trumbo lowered to his knees. He wanted desperately to pray. He found that he could not.
Instead, he wept.
Furnished with crates meant for produce and one square table salvaged from a junked riverboat and bought with a dollar, Charley’s gin joint always managed an empty feeling about it, even on weekends when the crowds pushed in. Wooden crates filled with barber supplies (along with others containing cheap booze) pressed tight and high against the back wall near a pump, basin, and pail; the three purposefully grouped together at the ready. The air was hot and hazy from home-rolled cigars, eight flickering oil lamps giving smoke an appearance of impossible weight.
A fourteen-year-old boy played cornet every night of the week at Charley’s, the sound of it being mostly sour, unrefined, crazy in pitch. The kind of noise people don’t get paid to make.
Real musicians played for real dollar bills in a section of town centering approximately around and gravitating towards the point where Customhouse Street met Basin. Played for real dollar bills while pretty girls danced with little or no clothes on, enticing rich white men from out-of-town to put paper money in a hat, make their choice, bring a girl up the stairs for an hour or a night. This boy was not a real musician-and too young to be a part of that scene, anyway. So he blew for nothing at Charley Hall’s every night, infringing on the ears and sensibilities of card players who were just drunk enough not to care.
A girl about the same age as the boy but three inches shorter sat cross-legged near his feet; the only female in New Orleans in-love-enough to venture into a joint like Charley’s. The whites of her eyes: nearly as yellow as her dress. Her hair: long, straight, black. Her skin: the color of coffee with a generous splash of cow’s milk. Sucking on a cigar butt and looking sick, she appeared utterly lost in the god-awful noise of the boy’s horn.
Being payday, the players were betting real money. Some pulled up ahead and some kept losing, but even on payday there’s never enough money to make anyone significantly richer or poorer in Orleans Parish. This was one of the few blessings of being poor in the Parish; not enough money to get mad about.
Marcus Nobody Special rarely had the cash to pay for his swallows, and so was fussing with Charley again. “This damn rotgut liquor ain’t worth more than a gravedigger’s bad credit anyhow.”
“If ya don’t like it ya can drink and not pay some-other-damn-where,” countered Charley, who poured Marcus a fresh snort just the same.
Bap. Bap-bap. Buh-bap, bap, buh-bap.
A knock on the back door. A secret knock, a passcode for members. Gin joints like this were not strictly legal and faced away from the street for a reason. Charley unbarred the backdoor to reveal the imposing figure of Beauregard Church.
Pre-liquored up for reasons of economy and grinning like a skull, Beauregard carried with him an old leather sack containing a few odd items meant for luck, ready for a few hands with the boys.
“Damn, Buddy-cain’t you play that thing any quieter? Have a little respect for the dyin’, wouldja?” Beauregard pointed to a large bandage covering the left side of his head. The kid, Buddy Bolden, stopped blowing momentarily, and the sudden absence of sound turned the girl’s face tragic.
“I think it’s beautiful,” she said, with eyes wet and dreamy.
“Man, that’s what I call true love!” one of the card players piped up. A round of wheezy snickers filled the room.
“Let the boy practice, Beauregard,” said Charley, still smiling. “If he don’t, he won’t get no better-then we’ll all be hurtin’ for a much longer section of time.”
Snickers blossomed into full out laughter as Buddy stabbed thick air with the loudest, most annoying note his skinny body could push clear of the horn. The girl smiled triumphantly and Beauregard winced mightily.
Like most in his profession, Charley the Barber possessed some basic doctoring skills and so walked over to Beauregard with a look of mild concern. “Let me have a look at that, old man.” Beauregard sat low on a crate near the basin so Charley could remove his bandages and clean the wound, dabbing away dried bits of blood and skin with a dampened cloth. Marcus looked away-he saw dead folk everyday, but the sight of real human suffering always made him uneasy. Charley applied fresh cotton and cloth to Beauregard’s head and Marcus sighed with relief.
Before an hour could pass, Beauregard found himself down to his last four nickels and dozing off with a jack, two tens, a five, and a four held loosely in his right hand.
BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP!
A knock on glass, hard and fast and not in code. Beauregard’s droopy eyes propped open, wide and quick. Buddy stopped playing; everyone instantly quiet without need of being shushed. Though it wasn’t in code, the knock was familiar. A cop knock.
The girl jumped to her feet as a lone mosquito broke the silence; flying too near an oil lamp, crackling into oblivion.
“Goddamn,” whispered Charlie, pressing extra hard on the “damn.”
Marcus scratched thoughtfully at the hole where his nose used to be. “Prob’ly nothin’, cap’n,” he offered quietly to no one in particular, attracting a handful of irritated, nose-wrinkled glares. Damn their noses, thought Marcus.
Spell of quiet.
Then:
BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP!
This time accompanied by unintelligible, muffled shouting.
“Lord, Lord.” Charley shook his head with casual dread before snuffing all but one of the hanging oil lamps. “C’mon, boy,” he said, looking at Buddy. The usual drill was to march Buddy out, explain to the copper that Charley was giving the boy a horn lesson, that the time had slipped away and he hadn’t realized the hour. Charley opened the door leading from the backroom to the barbershop, just enough for himself and Buddy to pass through.
The man outside was no cop. White fella; dressed nice, built thin.
Charley’s mood dropped from nervous to put-out. What’s this dumb cracker want this time of night? “Closed!” yelled Charley towards the assaulted but so-far-unbroken pane of glass positioned decoratively across the door’s upper third-as if this fancy white cat might be looking for a haircut in the dead of night from a black barber who doesn’t even cut white people’s hair.
BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP!
Louder than before this time, near to breaking glass.
“Son of a bitch,” Charley spat, barely under breath. Then, louder; “Don’t be breaking my damn glass, now! I’m comin’, I’m comin’!” He walked to the door quickly, turned the key, cracked it.
Turned on the Uncle Tom way of talking that grumpy white folks seemed to like so much: “Sir, if we’s makin’ too much noise, I’s shore sorry. I’s just giving some music lessons to the boy.” Charley motioned to Buddy who stood by the back door, smiling and waving his horn perfectly on cue, “and I guess we just-”
“Are you the one they call Doctor Jack?”
“Am I the…? Well, no sir. No, I ain’t-”
“I was told he would be here. It’s very important that I-”
“No one here by that name, sir. Just me and the boy-I’s just giving him a lesson and we went a little late is all-”
“I swear to you that I’m not a police officer. It’s very important that I talk to Doctor Jack. Please.” The man’s voice was fake-calm, panic leaking through at the edges.
“Like I said, mister, we was just-”
“I’m not a police officer, damn you, but if you try my patience I can be provoked into providing one.” Getting that all too familiar I’m-white-and-you’re-black-so-do-as-you’re-told kind of huffiness-but there was also a cold desperation in the man’s eyes, and this fact rang a bell of sympathy in Charley’s cautious heart. “Now, please,” the intruder continued, “understand that I mean you no harm. This is very important business.”
Charley the Barber looked the man up and down, then asked, sans Uncle Tom, “What sorta business?”
The man let out a breath of relief, measured his tone, “Medical business. Emergency medical business. The kind that most doctors don’t do. It has to be Doctor Jack. Please.” He placed a hand on the door as if to push it open.
Charley softened his eyes, but held the door firm. Said:
“No coppers?”
“No. Absolutely not. No police. I swear it.” The man offered Charley his hand, but Charley only looked at it-pretty, soft, white, spidery little thing; not telling of a single day’s hard work. Charley couldn’t bring himself to shake it-afraid he might scuff it up. But he did open the door.
“Follow me.”
Marshall Trumbo followed Charley through the darkened barbershop towards the backroom entrance where young Buddy Bolden stood, horn in hand. “I could hear you playing from outside,” said Trumbo.
“Sir?” Buddy’s voice sounded nervous. Wasn’t accustomed to white folks talking directly at him in soft tones.
“I heard you playing. Sounded nice.”
Catching the compliment as he opened the gin joint door, Charlie broke into gentle laughter. “You really do need a doctor. Lord, Lord! Sounded nice? Ha!”
Buddy Bolden grinned.
The door to the adjoining card room opened wide, and the first set of eyes to meet Trumbo’s were the ones closest to the surviving lit lamp; pale brown eyes pounding like cool sun into his own. Trumbo found himself staring at a weathered, coffee-colored face framed with white blotchy hair, a terrible scar where a nose used to be. The urge to shudder came and went quickly, Trumbo fighting it off through force of will and sheer good manners. Charley lit a thin stick from the remaining lamp before making the rounds again, relighting the seven lamps he’d snuffed only moments ago. The flames caught quickly, and the lamps illuminated just fine. The girl refocused on Buddy with loving eyes; still looking sick, still smiling.
Charley made a move towards breaking ice: “This nice gentleman wants to know where he can find a person called Doctor Jack. Any of you fellas know what he may be talkin’ ’bout?”
A beat. Then: Heads turned down, card game resumed. Beauregard pulled some cards from his lousy hand, slapped them down, said, “Hit me three times,” when he should’ve just folded.
“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.
Marcus stared at the nonsense words on Trumbo’s original sheet.
U UERI NAD PTEL FUYQ LORD
EAF VULCFOL IYLRLCO AFN
EFEHDS SNUB STGSY ORTET
HSONU ETKDS BCSHE EOAOK
EREH ESRE PEYR EVWE
4X5X4/4X4X1
“Yes, indeedy,” he began. “See, you gotta put the letters in a square. The key-these numbers down ta here at the bottom-tell you how to make that square. Easy as puddin’ and pie. Like so.”
He drew what looked like a too-tall tic-tac-toe board within a rectangular border:
“See that? Says four by five by four. Means four times five-which comes to twenty-but four times. You kin tell yer on the right track cause the first four lines have twenty letters a piece in ’em if ya count ’em up right. Go ahead and count ’em. Tell me if I’m wrong, sonny.”
Trumbo did the simple math in his head. Sure enough, the old man was onto something.
“And the second line of the key-four by four-but one time. Thass right, too,” Marcus went on. “See? One row of sixteen letters right there at the bottom.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Beauregard. “You crazy, sly old devil…”
Trumbo stared at the nonsense words in wonder, counting letters: “Yes, I can see-but how do you decipher…?”
“I’m getting’ to that, sonny.” Marcus, slightly irritated, shot Beauregard a stern glance. “Watch and learn.” Trumbo shut up. Beauregard tried in vain to conceal his amusement. Doctor Jack’s expression lacked any trace of amusement at all.
Marcus methodically filled the boxes with letters in the same order as they appeared on the original sheet. “Trick is, you write ’em top to bottom, but read ’em left to right. See? And each individual line gets its own four-by-five box. Folla?”
The first line of letters filled its grid like so:
Marcus’s eyes swung up to meet Trumbo’s:
“Sir, I gotta ask again to be sure. A little baby wrote these letters?”
Trumbo said nothing. Only stared at the sheet in wonder. Nodded.
Marcus: “Lord, Lord.”
The old gravedigger wrote the letters out in their new order beneath the rectangle:
UNEQUALLEDFORPURITYD
“Says, ‘Unequalled for purity’. The ‘D’ at the end prob’ly first letter of the first word in the next box.” Marcus drew three more boxes for the remaining lines containing twenty letters apiece, a smaller one-four by four-for the line containing sixteen letters. Then he began filling them with letters from the original sheet; from top to bottom.
By the time he’d finished, there was a dead silence in the room-soon broken by a small voice:
“It’s an advertisement for coffee. Like this.” Typhus Morningstar held up his multipurpose companion, a burlap bag originally made to hold coffee beans, manufactured and printed by the New Orleans Coffee Company.
Doctor Jack smiled at the boy. “How long you been standing there, Typhus?”
“Just a little while-but long enough, I guess. Front door wide open.”
Charley the Barber: “Shee-it!” Fishing through his pocket for keys, Charley scrambled towards the front door of the shop, cursing himself along the way for letting Trumbo’s disruption distract him from relocking.
Typhus turned towards the little gal whose arm was still slung around Buddy Bolden’s shoulder. “Daddy find out you in this place, he be mad,” he told her.
The girl flicked the short remnant of her still lit cigar at Typhus with impressive accuracy, her arm arcing wide for greater impact, yanking hard against Buddy’s neck in the process. “You tell Daddy and I’ll whoop you good, you little runt. You shouldn’t be out neither!”
Buddy winced, pulling away from the girl just enough to rub the afflicted side of his neck.
“I’m out lookin’ fer Daddy. He gone,” said Typhus, dodging the smoking butt with casual expertise and sounding not the least bit intimidated by his older sister.
Diphtheria Morningstar’s anger instantly melted to worry. “Gone where, Typhus?”
“It’s why I’m lookin’. Not sure.”
Marshall Trumbo eyed Typhus’ bag and held out a hand, “May I have a look at that, son?”
Typhus hesitated, but obliged: “I need it back so don’t rip it er nothin’, mister.”
“I’ll be careful.”
Trumbo examined Typhus’ bag. It was cropped at the top and the printing was faded, but the last two lines were clear-and matched the last two lines of Marcus’ deciphering handiwork:
Used by the best cooks
And housekeepers everywhere
The bag smelled of river and fish, and Trumbo’s arms were covered with goosebumps.
Diphtheria spoke, looking at Typhus but pointing at Trumbo. “That man said Daddy went to the place with the sick Sicilian boy today, Typhus.”
Trumbo looked up from the bag and directly into Diphtheria’s pointing finger: “Your father?”
“You said, ‘the priest called Morningstar.’ That’s our Daddy.” Her eyes were tearing with worry. “But you said he left?”
“Yes, he left. I’m sure he’s all right, dear.” Trumbo’s eyes dismissed the girl’s concerns and returned to Typhus’ bag, as if mysterious answers might reside in its thick, rough threads.
Typhus gently pulled the bag from Trumbo’s hands, said: “When he left the house tonight he said he had to take care of something unfinished. Said it was a house call.”
“We best be going,” said Doctor Jack abruptly, no trace of a smile left on his smooth face. “You know the way, Mr. Reporter. You lead. Typhus-you come, too.”
“We’re coming, too!” said Diphtheria in a clearly nonnegotiable female tone, holding tight to Buddy’s arm. The young horn player resolved to his fate.
“All right then,” said Doctor Jack-and then, to no one in particular, “come if yer comin’ and stay if yer not. But let’s git gone.”
Marcus: “Well, I got me a date with a fish…”
“That’s fine, Marcus. Go get that fish. We’ll see you next payday.”
“Sir, if I may ask,” Trumbo began uncertainly. “If someone or something is trying to communicate through this child, why employ such peculiar method?”
“The method is the message,” replied Doctor Jack. “Whoever or whatever wrote those words wanted the attention of certain people, and those people happen to be here tonight. The civil war code was for the benefit of our friend Marcus. The coffee advertisement was for Typhus. Could be someone else in this room connected, too-just ain’t spoke up yet.” He glanced quickly at Beauregard, then away. “No matter about that. Time to go.”
Charley the Barber lifted the heavy wooden bar that secured the back door. “Y’all be careful, now. I don’t like the sound of all this. Not one bit.” The five made their way to the door.
“Wait.” Beauregard Church talking.
Doctor Jack turned, raised an eyebrow.
“I got something belonged to the father. Might be what this is all about. It’s in here.” Bo-Bo reached into his leather pouch containing odd items meant for luck. Pulled out an old tin.
The square tin was graced with the image of a little white girl collecting pink flowers from a field where no flowers grew, just an endless landscape of yellow wheat stalks. Above her head were the words:
Every drop’s a drop of comfort
Is the verdict of all who drink out
And she was surrounded by more words:
Unequalled for purity
Delicacy of flavor
Fullness of strength
Used by the best cooks
And housekeepers everywhere
Beauregard Church, longtime guard in the service of Orleans Parish Prison, was holding up a coffee tin in shaking hands. The tin was manufactured and printed by the New Orleans Coffee Company for the purpose of selling beans, but only Beauregard was aware that, at the moment, it contained the right hand of Antonio Carolla.
One of many odd items intended for luck.
The cells at Orleans Parish Prison are all exactly the same.
Eight feet long, four feet wide, and seven feet high. There is a barred door exactly two feet wide. The cot is also two feet wide. A bucket, for toilet purposes, is the prisoner’s sole companion, offering dubious and strong smelling inspiration for long hours in the dark.
It is always dark in the cells at Parish Prison. The cells are entirely without light, even of the artificial kind. Even when his eyes have adjusted to the complete lack of it, the prisoner cannot see from one end of the cell to the other. Can only smell his friend, the bucket.
Each day, the prisoner is locked in his cell at noon. He will stay there until seven-thirty the next morning. At seven-thirty, upon leaving his cell, he is given breakfast. Breakfast is a substance approximately the same color and consistency of the substance it will become when it is ready to leave his body later in the day. The smell of the food is different from the smell of the stuff that winds up in the bucket, but is equally inspiring.
After breakfast, there is work for about half the prisoners. Hard labor is what the prisoner hopes for at Parish Prison. Only the fittest are allowed work; the rest are placed in a large guarded room where the prisoner does nothing. There, he sits. He plays cards. He argues about things that don’t matter. He talks about women. He talks about murder, rape, and assorted petty crimes. He laughs for no good reason. He boils from the inside out. He tries not to think. And thinking is all that he has.
65 hours a week are spent in the big room doing nothing. 103 hours a week are spent in the total darkness of the cell.
In one year, 5,356 hours are spent in the dark. 3,380 hours are spent on a bench in the big room doing nothing.
This is why morphine is in demand at Parish Prison.
Many of the prisoners have arrived with morphine habits, but many more will leave with them. You would think it would be the other way around.
The prison infirmary buys its various medical supplies, including morphine, from a drug firm owned by the warden’s brother-in-law. There is good money to be made in prison pharmaceuticals. The pills are supposed to vary in strength so that the dosage can be decreased over time, gradually weaning the addict off the drug. This is a basic principle of rehabilitation. But the tablets do not vary in strength-in fact, the addict is given considerably more than he needs. Addicts only want their pain to go away, they don’t want to die-so there are extra tablets floating around Parish Prison. They are like currency here.
5,356 hours in the dark. 3,380 hours doing nothing. One year.
Dark + Nothing =?
In Parish Prison,
? = Little White Pills.
Antonio Carolla developed his morphine addiction at Parish Prison like so many others, but he is lucky. He has only been here for twenty-one weeks. He has not been convicted of any crime and was formally acquitted yesterday. Today he goes home to his wife Anabella and their one-year-old son Dominick. He knows the love of his little family will help him find the strength to beat the morphine in his blood. He knows Anabella’s good Sicilian cooking will put the meat back on his bones. But first he has to get out of this place.
He is sitting in the dark now. Waiting.
There’s a dull throb in Antonio’s head, an echo of this morning’s white tablet. Reaching down, he feels around for the tiny goat skin pouch he keeps tucked at the insole of his left shoe. Pulls it out. Empties the contents into his right hand. By sense of touch he counts how many pills are left. There are two. He closes his hand around them. His most recent dose still dances at the fringes of his mind; he will save these for later.
A dull roar creeps into his cell. He assumes it’s an effect of morphine, but it’s actually the sound of shouting voices-in the thousands-outside the prison. The faint sound of gunfire crackles from beyond the walls of his cell as the barred doors of the prison begin slamming open, slamming shut; prisoners shouting, some in Sicilian, some in English, some in French. Antonio senses he will not be leaving Parish Prison today after all. In his heart, he knows it.
In consideration of this, he changes his mind about the two remaining pills. He swallows them quickly and washes them down with his own spit; they scrape down his dry throat painfully. This, he imagines, will numb the pain of whatever the mob winds up doing to him if it is not done quickly. It may even distract him from closely considering the inevitable.
He lies down on the cot. Thinks of his son, Dominick. Reaches up to the section of stone to his right where, twenty-one weeks ago, he etched his son’s name with a sharpened spoon. Touching the letters brings a weak smile to his lips. Dom is a very bright and handsome boy. The morphine amplifies the wonderful memory of Dom’s face, the way it used to light up when his father came home from the docks each night. Antonio knows he will not see his son’s beautiful face again. His head spins from the morphine-Dominick and Anabella spin along for the ride. He does not cry. He is Sicilian. He will be strong for them. Even if they are only in his head.
Outside his cell door there is the sound of labored breathing. A key jangles in the lock. The door slams open.
“Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!”
The shouting comes from the guard called Beauregard, an African black as coal. Antonio has never heard Beauregard’s voice in this excited tone and so barely recognizes it. It is usually slow, deep and smooth but now it is shrill and fevered. Beauregard only says the one word over and over, but still, Antonio doesn’t understand. Then, finally, variation:
“You in here, Tonio? Answer, dammit!”
“Yeah.” Beauregard negotiates Antonio’s location on the cot by tracing his voice through the dark.
“Dammit, you stupid dago-wop, get offa that damn cot and get movin’! You got some visitors comin’ that you don’t even wanna know about! Get movin’, dammit! Now!” Antonio has never heard Beauregard use words like dago and wop before, has considered Beauregard something like a friend in this place. He ponders the big man’s pointed words and pauses just long enough for the guard to reprise his tuneless, one word overture-this time punctuated with a nervous stutter:
“GO! Guh-GO! Guh-GO! GO! Guh-GO!”
Something about the crazy rhythm of the stutter brings Antonio to his feet, legs rubbery from morphine and fear. He discovers he is exhausted though he hasn’t significantly moved in hours. His own voice echoes off the walls of the cell, the sound of it detached-as if from a mouth other than his own: “Where…go?” Stupid-sounding echo.
“I don’t know, dammit! Hide! Yer on your own. Just get movin’ and find a place to hide till this thing blows over, Ka-Peach? Now, go, damn you!”
Antonio obeys, makes to leave his cell, bumps into Beauregard as he passes, mutters, “pardon.” He is moving fast, but not too fast. The hallway is long and black-he has to brush his hands along the walls to find his way. After about forty steps, he reaches a familiar “T” in the hall-he knows this particular intersection. He knows that going right will lead him to the Big Room Where Prisoners Do Nothing 3,380 hours a year.
He goes left.
The shouting is louder now, but he can’t tell if it is behind or before him. The stone and mortar of the prison hallway carries echoes funny, and the morphine makes it a carnival game. His recent double dose is kicking in hard now, raging and leaping in his brain. Antonio is running wildly through the hall, running without touching the walls for guidance, flailing his arms before him.
Antonio Carolla’s eyes need more than what they are getting. They don’t dare hope for light, but they do hope for variation in blackness, a slight difference in shade, a hint of depth. His pupils struggle to widen, convinced that if they can widen a bit more they may snatch up some elusive optic information. But there is no information for them to snatch. It is so damned dark in here. So goddamned dark.
Shouting is louder now. Voices closer. Without warning: information of the eye does appear.
The black carnival game of the prison hallway has acquired a slight orange glow. Antonio can now make out the texture of the walls. Dust and soot from some long ago fire are caked between the stones, obscuring mortar like creeping death, weakly gleaming with dull moisture. His eyes drink the orange glow greedily-though he knows it is bad news.
Behind him. They are coming close from behind. With torches and oil lamps. Orange light.
A rifle report booms through tepid air. Antonio feels it vibrate through the stone at his fingertips and the echo makes the sound as towering as a cannon blast. A scream. Another boom. The owner of the scream is now pleading. Antonio falls to his knees, crippled by fear, breathing hard. He knows this voice. It is his friend, Salvador Sunzanno. He hears Sallie cry in the wobbly, orange-tinted dark. Hears him whimper and beg. The men with torches only howl in response, a pack of wild dogs; they are out for blood, not for bargaining.
Another blast resonates along the walls, bruising wet air. Sallie cries no more. For a moment even the mob is silent. Then, whispering. Low tones. The voices twitter like feathers down the orangey curve of the wall. Sound carries well in this place, but not well enough for Antonio to make out the words. Even so, it is not difficult to understand their meaning. They are regrouping. They are planning their next move.
Antonio rises to his feet. Stares down the curve of the hall. The twittery whispers of the murderers almost comfort him; it’s an oddly gentle sound. The orange glow is becoming duller now. The men are moving in the opposite direction, away from Antonio. He understands that they will be back this way again-there is not that much hallway to cover-but their error buys him time.
He spins around quickly; trying to get a good look at his surroundings before the bobbing haze of torchlight disappears. His eye catches something just before the glow is consumed by black.
About fifteen feet forward and to the left he thinks he’s seen an anomaly in the wall; a smoothness in the midst of rough, irregular stone-probably a trick of the light or a phantom of morphine. He feels weird regret that the killers have gone in the other direction. He needs their light.
Carefully, he gropes his way towards where he thinks he saw the smooth spot. If it is real, if he didn’t imagine it, it may be some sort of door or passage. This could be a good thing and it could be a bad thing, but at least it is a thing.
He runs his hand firmly against the wall as he moves forward, searching for the slightest change in texture. There is an abrupt transformation beneath his hand from sandstone to glass. He regards the transformation suspiciously and considers the morphine in his blood.
He tests the smooth surface with both hands, running his fingers against it, searching for clues to its purpose. Glass. It is exactly like smooth glass. He pushes against it. He slaps it with open palms. It is solid and thick. The anomaly is about four feet wide. It has no attributes of a door. It is different from the wall, but it is of the wall. Antonio Carolla wants to believe there is more to it than that. Needs to believe it.
Does believe it.
There is nothing in the glassy stone to pull or grip, so Antonio pushes hard. Throws his body against it. Again. Again. His shoulders and spine ache from the impact. It all seems so ridiculous, flirting in the dark with this weird bit of hope, hunted and cornered. This thing is not a door. It is simply a smooth spot in the wall. It may very well be a miracle, but it is not his miracle.
Antonio Carolla is lost. He is letting go. He can no longer entertain the possibility of escape. A useless smile stretches his cracked lips.
His legs buckle beneath him. He collapses, sobbing, against the smooth surface of the cruel wall, his exhausted body sliding easily to the dirty floor against it. He cries loudly now, not caring if Sallie’s murderers will find him sooner, not caring that Sicilian men don’t cry. Be done with it, he is thinking. “Come and get me, you bastards!” he shouts. He sits on the ground, his back against the smooth spot. Weeping. Lost. Eyes wide open for no good reason in the dark.
And then it moves.
Startled, he lurches forward and away. The glassy wall has moved approximately an inch and a half. He leans back against the wall, braces the worn soles of his shoes to the coarse dirt of the ground; pushes.
It is a door. Like the door of a tomb. It glides easily with a low groan, then stops. Just enough for him to squeeze his body through and in.
The door is about two feet thick. There’s a greasy quality to it. Through the opening he sees the walls are turning orange once more; the mob is returning this way. He pushes the massive door from inside-incredibly, it shuts without a sound. It’s possible they have seen him or the movement of the door. Antonio Carolla waits for long moments.
Long moments pass. He hears nothing. They have not come for him. He is safe for now. He believes he is safe.
“Which cell is it, niggra?” The butt of the Winchester rifle hits hard to Beauregard’s blood-sticky head for the ninth time in less than five minutes. “Where’s that dirty dago at, boy?”
Beauregard has no clue where Antonio might be. The last place he’d guess would be his own cell, but then you never know what a man might do with enough morphine jumping around his skull. Wherever he is, Beauregard has to take these crackers some place-he doesn’t know how many more knocks to the head he can take.
With his head swimming from blows Beauregard pauses to rub his eyes, wipes some blood out. The gang’s apparent leader mistakes Beauregard’s pause for spite or laziness and lays another whack into him for luck or encouragement. The sound that comes out of Beauregard’s mouth is so pained and pitiful that he fails to recognize it as his own:
“There ’tis, dammit! There’s the dago’s cell! Now, have at ’im and stop smacking me with that damn thing already!”
He indicates the open cell with a wave of regret. Though he knows it is far from likely, he fears Antonio might actually be in there waiting for them. Dumb wop if it’s true, he thinks. Tears mix with blood on Beauregard’s cheek as he crosses himself and watches the men swagger to the mouth of the cell, the rank smell of their murderous hearts sickening his own.
The odor is foul in these new surroundings. Antonio’s foot kicks against something that makes a dull clang and suddenly he understands the source of the odor. A bucket. Parish Prison standard issue. Recently used.
Theory: He is in an ordinary Parish Prison cell. Standard issue. He confirms this theory by sense of touch. Eight feet. Four feet. Cot. He stands on the cot. Touches the ceiling. Seven feet.
Standard.
The only difference is that there is no barred door. He steps down from the cot. Sits. His legs are trembling.
The cot is oddly warm, as if someone has recently slept here. He lies down on it-the cot feels good to him, it’s almost like being home. He closes his eyes as if it matters. There is blackness either way.
Somehow, it is darker in this place than it was in the hallway. This is not possible. No light is no light. Blackness is blackness. But still, it feels darker. There is always something darker, he thinks. Idle thoughts. There is no time for philosophizing about varying degrees of total darkness. Antonio Carolla reflects purposefully, thinks of a plan.
He will stay here a day or two. He can go without food and water for that long. Then, after the authorities regain control of the prison, he will yank open the tomb-like door and surrender himself to the warden. The warden will have to turn him loose-he is, after all, innocent and recently acquitted of all charges.
Having a plan feels good and his heartbeat slows. His mind drifts in and out of sleep as adrenaline subsides and morphine transforms his tired muscles into pools of warm water. He curses himself for taking the last two pills so soon-he will suffer mightily in the coming days as the terrors of withdrawal begin. But it will be all right.
Drifting. The air and his skin join the warm water of his muscles. From force of habit, he reaches a hand up to the wall alongside the cot. Brushes his fingers against clammy stone. His fingers trace etched impressions:
D O M
He jerks awake. Adrenaline jumps back to life in his brain. This is wrong. This is very, very wrong. He continues to feel out the letters:
I N I C K
It is not possible that he is back in his old cell. He traces the letters again. He is wide awake. This is not possible. He must think.
He gets up from the cot. His legs wobble beneath him.
He walks to the other end of the cell. In this standard issue Parish Prison cell, he should only be able to take five steps. He takes six. Then seven. Eight. Nine.
Thirty.
Still, he walks forward. The cell has no walls.
This is a dream of morphine, he thinks. It must be so.
He rubs at his eyes.
Upon lifting hands from eyes, Antonio Carolla sees the familiar starburst patterns that every human sees after rubbing his eyes in the dark. The pinpricks of phantom light within the confines of his eyeballs give him minor comfort. They are, at least, not black. He stares at the kaleidoscope designs that dance beneath his eyelids like will o’ the wisps, focuses on them. He adores the light inside his eyes. It is light. Some kind of light. Its circles and patterns feel like silent laughter.
The torchlight of the seven vigilantes fills the cell with deep orange to reveal the body of Antonio Carolla, lying face down on the floor near his cot, not breathing. Beauregard stands back and away, still dizzy from blows, eases himself back into the hall. The men quietly tie Antonio’s hands and feet, as they would any prisoner, and drag his body through the innards of the prison towards the light of day. In the square outside they fashion a noose, throw the long end of the rope over the low hanging branch of an ancient oak. Their blood warms as the crowd roars its approval. Beauregard looks on, head in hands. He cannot believe they mean to execute a corpse. Neither the killers nor Beauregard realize that Antonio is not yet dead.
The noose is placed around Antonio’s neck.
Light flares and spreads within the mind of Antonio Carolla. Bits of empty, dancing light explode and multiply, filling his eyes with a burning white. The light sears the backs of his eyes. Too bright. He rubs his eyes once more, hoping the whiteness will fade, but it only worsens. What was once perfect blackness is now perfect, excruciating light. It is all he can see. Is this what it means to go blind?
His eyes close and he feels the sun on his face. This is not possible.
He hears music.
The body of Antonio Carolla trails the comet of his skull, yanked up hard towards the heavens, noose snapping tight. His neck pops like a firecracker, his eyes fly open. The crowd shouts its endorsement. Antonio shakes and shudders but does not hear them. Does not see them. Only hears music. In his mind; he is not bound, there is no noose, strangers do not wish him dead.
The music in his head is that of a trumpet. Or cornet. A single horn chasing after a single elusive note. Holding. Dipping. Leaping and crashing-but not crashing. Saved. It is a trumpet that he hears. Or cornet. Like in a parade.
He sees nothing, only white light. Then a face. It’s the face of an angel, the face of his baby son.
Dominick smiles at his dying father. Speaks: “Papa.” His first word.
Antonio Carolla reaches up to touch him, finger to cheek. The skin of Dominick’s cheek is soft as clay. The face is changing now.
Antonio Carolla watches as his son’s face melts into the many shapes it will assume within its lifetime. From early childhood to adolescent boyhood to early manhood. The face becomes less sweet as it grows older. Lines form. Its gaze becomes complex and troubled. There is a longing in the eyes. There is a violence in the eyes.
Antonio Carolla is looking into the face of a young man, a face that will someday belong to his now one-year-old son. The face has the pallor of death. It speaks:
“Jesus is mad, Papa. Wait for me. I will look for you in the water. I will find you in the storm. Jeeka bye boo.” The future ghost of Dominick Carolla takes his father’s hand.
The son leads the father to a wide green river. There are lights beneath its surface. The lights are dim but joyful, they are welcoming. Antonio is not afraid. He says to his son, “Goodbye for now.”
The sun is going down on Congo Square.
Antonio Carolla is dead. His body dangles between those of two Sicilian compatriots, his wide eyes empty and blank. Trash and debris, remnants of chaos, give the impression of recent war. The square is empty of any living soul save for Beauregard Church.
Beauregard holds a dull knife in his hand, walks to the base of the tree, cuts the rope that suspends Antonio, gently lowers him to unsympathetic earth. The air is heavy and has no wind in it. Beauregard looks at the knife in his hand, stoops down to Antonio’s body. Takes his hand into his own.
A hoodoo medicine man called Doctor Jack once told Beauregard of witches in Europe who refer to the severed right hand of a hanged man as a hand of glory-and that a hand of glory can work powerful magic. Beauregard figures Antonio might be due a little power in the next world-he’d certainly had none in this.
He slices into the wrist of his friend, finds it bloodless. From the ground beneath the hanging tree, liquid the color of rust bubbles up in a tiny spring.
In his mind he hears a baby crying.
The band of six-Typhus, Diphtheria, Buddy, Beauregard, Trumbo and Doctor Jack-walked the nine blocks from Charley’s barbershop to the Carolla house in silence, walked right down the center of Burgundy Street without passing a soul along the way. Uncomfortable thoughts zigzagged between them, unspoken. The street was slippery with recent rain and horseshit, little green blades of codgrass peeking up from between smooth rocks as if trying to fathom the wisdom in starting new life at this particular corner of the world.
No one had ventured to ask Beauregard about the contents of his tin. No one seemed to want to know. All they knew for sure was that Beauregard had been among the last to see Antonio alive, and that he now claimed to have something belonging to him.
In a coffee tin.
Uncomfortable thoughts zigged, then zagged. In silence.
The Carolla house sat not ten feet from the street, a small square of earth before it bearing only thin, wispy grass and a lonely date-palm. Sandwiched tightly between neighboring homes, the house was striking for the care with which Antonio had tended it during his short life. The interstices separating its joists were smoothed over flawlessly with mortar, the structure’s flat, sturdy walls meticulously white-washed with lime. The roof shingles had been perfectly cut to the appearance of slate, the reflection of the approaching party’s lamplights dressing their edges finely in dull iridescence. Firelight showed through the single window by the front door, its glow framing a figure on the stoop in hazy silhouette. A bible sat by the man’s feet while the low moan of a thousand tree frogs warbled from afar.
Not one of the six could conceive of the turmoil in Noonday Morningstar’s soul as he sat on that stoop, none could know what he had seen and heard in that place that night. Nor could they know that upon his re-arrival he had once again heard the clear and unmistakable voice of Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior, and that those words had been: “I told you not to come back, stupid nigger. Now yer gonna reap it fer sure. You little shit. Himminy-haw-haw-hoo.”
Noonday Morningstar sat with head in hands, his heart trying to reach beyond the cold words of his God, when a small hand laid down against his left shoulder alerted him to the fact that he was no longer alone.
“Jesus was wrong, Father,” Typhus said. “You only come back because what’s good in your heart told you to. Jesus is wrong. Jesus don’t know. Even the Son of God can’t know everything.” Typhus Morningstar had the gift of understanding.
Morningstar did not look up, but his own hand reached up to his son’s, gently covering it, pressing down firmly.
“Forgive me,” he said; not to his God but to his son. On this night, Noonday Morningstar possessed a rare understanding that even Typhus was incapable of. He understood that not all in attendance would survive tonight, and he knew that the “who” and the “how many” of it would depend upon his own actions. He chased the useless thought from his mind, focusing on the matter at hand.
Morningstar stood up to scan the dull sparkle of eyes around him. Twelve searching eyes. Scared, confused.
He didn’t chastise Typhus and Diphtheria for not being home in bed with their siblings, but rather, addressed all six: “What the hell took y’all so damn long? We got ourselves a little job to do here.” Then, after a pause: “It ain’t too late. Not yet it ain’t, no sir. Jesus be damned, this evil can still be fixed.” Then to Beauregard: “What you got we’ll be needing. So be ready with it.” The fact that the preacher seemed to know Beauregard’s secret brought a mixed chill of premonition and hope to the prison guard’s heart. He nodded to Morningstar and took a step forward. Morningstar’s gaze turned to the rest. Spoke softly:
“Each of you is here for a reason. This cast of characters ain’t by chance. You all need to look in your hearts and do right by this mother and child tonight. When it’s your turn to act, do so without thought. Act on instinct. And if God Almighty should speak to you directly, make like you don’t hear. Follow your heart instead.”
Buddy fingered his cornet nervously. He had believed his own reason for being here was to comfort a pretty gal worried about her daddy. But Morningstar’s words struck a chord of truth for him-a simple truth that he didn’t fully understand. But wasn’t that the definition of faith? Simple truth beyond conventional understanding? Dumb truth believed for the sake of the belief itself? The question failed to fill his mind with sensible dread, but, instead, with odd purpose. Yes, Morningstar was referring to faith-but he was also asking them to turn their hearts from God. So what exactly was he asking them to place their faith in? Buddy’s arm slipped around Diphtheria’s shoulders and gave her a gentle squeeze. Pressed a bit of yellow fabric between forefinger and thumb, confirming to himself the existence of everyday stuff like yellow dresses.
Morningstar opened the front door and motioned the rest to follow. He left his bible on the stoop outside, the others carefully stepping over it as they made their way to the threshold of the house.
The tiny one room house was strangely cold inside, even with a fire in the potbelly stove that transformed black coal to raging white. Being a thin girl, Diphtheria instinctively wrapped her arms around herself. Buddy’s arms took the hint and wrapped around her as well. Father Morningstar did not protest Buddy’s familiarity with his daughter.
A few lamps hung from decorative chains, adding minimal light to the various grays that colored the walls. Expertly hung wallpaper displayed alien purple flowers, the paper hugging tightly to plaster except where a ravaged and peeling section turned up and away near the ceiling; evidence of ancient water damage. The floor was bare concrete except for an irregularly cut but beautifully stitched European rug that sat straight but off-center near the middle of the room, a defective scrap bought cheap at the French Market from a Sicilian colleague.
A bed for the parents stood two feet from the crib, separated only by a small table altar on which various religious icons were propped up in odd-shaped frames. Attached to the walls were brown-toned daguerreotype photographs depicting stony-faced men with thick black mustaches standing closely behind beautiful women with lost-looking eyes. The women in the pictures sat with hands folded carefully across their laps. Save for the bed and crib, there was precious little furniture in the home.
Anabella Carolla sat silent on the floor by the crib, her arms around her knees, her face down and buried between them. The only sound was a rhythmic tapping. The rhythm was familiar to Beauregard and Buddy-but out of its normal context neither could quite place it.
Doctor Jack recognized it immediately.
Bap. Bap-bap. Buh-bap, bap, buh-bap.
Over and over again. A secret knock. A desire for fun amongst friends. A plea for entry. Gentle but persuasive.
Jack walked to the crib and looked over the edge of its smoothly polished, dark-stained rail. The child was lying on his back, eyes closed. There was rapid movement beneath the lids, flitting back and forth, telling of an urgent dream in progress. Thick red welts had risen behind the baby’s ears. His little fist was rapping gently and absently, continuing the familiar rhythm against hard wooden bars. His breathing was labored, a film of sweat covering the tiny naked body that lay in a watery mixture of “chamber lye and tattlin’”-baby piss and shit. The smell of it was powerful and cut through the cold air like the blade of a dull, dirty knife.
Morningstar stepped alongside Jack. Motioned the root doctor to back away from the crib.
Rapid eye movement stopped abruptly. The child’s lips contorted as his eyes shot open, connecting with those of the preacher. A harsh, adult voice came out of the tiny mouth:
“Stupid fucking nigger. How many times do I have to tell you? This ain’t yer scene, pops. Not for you. Not your place. I shall shit down your neck, Father. And I shall shit down the necks of your children as well. Mip kit wiggity fip fah-”
Morningstar responded full-throated-his sermon-delivering voice-effectively cutting short the demon’s rant:
“Go hence, thou who comest in darkness, whose nose is turned backwards, whose face is upside-down and who knowest not why thou has come.”
“But I do know why, Father!” cackled the demon with a sleepy smile. “Higgle biggle boo! Hot cha cha cha!”
Morningstar continued undeterred, calm:
“Hast thou come to kiss this child? I will not let thee kiss him. Hast thou come to send him to sleep? I will not let thee do him harm. Hast thou come to take him away? I will not let thee carry him away.” The preacher produced a small glass container two inches in diameter from his coat pocket, removed the lid and scooped out the majority of its contents with the middle and forefinger of his right hand. “I have secured his protection against thee with bloodroot, onions and honey, sweet to men but evil to the dead.” He spread the sticky-sweet concoction over the child’s sallow chest. Then, placing his fingers to his own mouth, Morningstar licked himself clean of it.
Doctor Jack, impressed with Morningstar’s apparent knowledge of herbal magic, smiled weakly and looked at Typhus with lightly questioning eyes. Typhus only shrugged, suddenly wondering about the bible his father had left out on the stoop.
Morningstar turned to Beauregard: “The thing that you brought. Give it to me now.”
Dazed by the scene before him, Beauregard snapped alert to remove the tin from his leather pouch and stepped towards the preacher quickly; nerves jangling, heart pounding. Dropped the bag with its remaining items intended for luck to the floor, freeing both hands so he could focus on the tenant of the tin.
Pulled the lid off. Dropped the lid to the floor along with the bag. Clangedy-clang on the floor. Reached into the tin. Looked around at the others. Looked at the two-dimensional, daguerreotype Sicilian faces that stared from the walls. Said:
“Don’t ask me to explain this.” No one did.
Zig.
Beauregard did not remove the severed hand of Antonio Carolla gingerly between thumb and forefinger, but instead grasped it firmly, as one might clasp the hand of a seldom seen friend. Spoke to the hand’s former owner. “Well, old man, I sincerely hope this is what you had in mind.” He gave the hand of Antonio Carolla to Father Morningstar.
Zag.
A wave of doubt washed over Morningstar’s mind-but he shook it off quickly. “The father will save the son…” he intoned with weary eyes. “The father will save the son. The father will save the son. This is not right. This must be made right.”
Morningstar placed the severed hand of Antonio Carolla over the child’s chest, covering the honey-mixed herbs. The demon let out a short, pained shriek, and then changed.
The face of the child focused on Beauregard with soft eyes, speaking directly to him in odd rhythm and gentle tone, nearly a whisper:
“My brother, this, the second day of my birth, was not unlike your first-but of water-restrictive of motion till now, till this cutting of hand, this slicing of wrist, to deliver this now unto me with love in your heart as you have, this father’s hand, this way out and above water in order to cleanse of the earth, in the form of this boy, the son of a friend, of father to son and to brother of brother and now for father once more, though first intent was desecration for luck and for hope of fortune not earned, the intent is now changed, a deed sharing sameness with sin born of love, committed in hate, by she who has birthed, of anguish and rage, respectively we, and now it is he who was born Thomas that must complete the circle today and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…”
The cadence of the demon’s nonsensical rant diminished eventually to a mumble and then to nothing, the child falling once more into rigid catatonia, eyelids fallen shut again; rapid eye movement returning with fresh vigor.
Lips, a straight thin line, betraying neither emotion nor reason.
Beauregard Church stood motionless, silent.
Morningstar offered a hand to the mother. “Stand up, Mother. So that you may watch your child be saved.”
On wobbly knees, Anabella Carolla took the preacher’s hand and pulled herself to her feet. She at once recognized the small heart-shaped birthmark below the middle finger of her husband’s disembodied hand. “My ’Tonio.”She reached out to touch his pale index finger. Morningstar held her trembling hand back, his voice kind but firm:
“Shhhh. No. It will be all right. This is your husband’s gift to your son.” Then, after a brief pause: “He knew. Your husband knew. It will be all right now.”
The child’s breathing had become increasingly labored. Jack ran a finger across the smooth rail of the crib, looked down and in, whispered matter-of-factly and without expression,“Babaku.” A word for nameless African demons.
“No, Jack,” responded Morningstar. “This is no pagan demon. A Christian one. And it has a name.” As little Dominick’s chest struggled to expand for air, the severed hand appeared to tremble of its own accord.
“The Christian demon has a name,” repeated Morningstar. This time for his own benefit, a reaffirmation of things witnessed in dreams.
Dominick’s chest stopped rising for air.
It was now clear that the autonomous movement of the hand was not illusion. A gentle massage of the child’s chest. A caress from a dead father. Anabella Carolla wiped her eyes, allowing them to widen in terror or hope. Marshall Trumbo stepped directly behind her, sensing she may faint, ready for her fall.
Trumbo spoke up. “The name of the demon, Father?”
Morningstar looked at him blank-faced. “Knowing the name would do you no good, son. No good at all.”
The preacher focused his attention back to the child-who had suddenly begun thrashing violently against the barred walls of the crib. Head and feet taking turns whipping up then down, a blind see-saw. Rhythmically. Beating against the loose fabric of the thin mattress:
Bap. Bap-bap. Buh-bap, bap, buh-bap.
The rhythm’s reprise erased whatever lingering doubt Morningstar may have reserved. He spoke to those in the room:
“It is the demon himself who needs to be saved tonight. Without the demon’s redemption, the boy is lost. And so are we all.”
“Lookit the hand,” said Typhus in a whisper. “I don’t like it.”
The movement of the hand had picked up in speed, fingers kneading the taut skin of the boy’s chest frantically-pushing through skin. No, not pushing through-sinking in. The flesh of the dead man’s fingers was melting into and joining the flesh of the child. Fusing.
Anabella Carolla prayed something in Sicilian between lips barely parted, her hands flattening over her face, fingers spread just enough to allow herself fragmented witness, teetering on exhausted legs. Trumbo stood behind with his hands gently brushing her waist. Ready, once more, for her fall.
Morningstar faced the mother, laid a shaking hand on her shoulder. An imploring whisper: “Please, Mother. Leave God out of this. This business ain’t none of His. God has His own troubles to tend. His own house to clean. Let Him be.” Defying Morningstar’s instruction, Anabella Carolla only prayed louder.
In the crib, a change had begun.
“This isn’t right,” said Morningstar. “This isn’t supposed to happen. Ain’t the way I dreamt it.”
Dominick’s body had begun a visible transformation:
rebirthing
Arms pressed to sides, legs pressed together. Ears receding, mouth stretching wide, eyes separating, nose flattening. The red welts that had risen behind the ears had turned to slit-shaped holes, sucking in a tortured, thin stream of air. Whistling.
rebirthing
Diphtheria gasped. Buddy held her tight.
Dominick was transforming rapidly, his perfect, soft skin changing.
The sound that flew from his mother’s throat was a scream but not a scream; the note of an opera singer, high in pitch, full in tone, quivering with perfect vibrato, sustained. It was a beautiful sound, it was an ugly sound. During the mother’s note the child momentarily stopped thrashing, transformation interrupted.
Anabella Carolla’s note ran out of air. She fell to the ground, body and mind finally spent. Marshall Trumbo did not catch her.
The child began, once again, to thrash about.
Bap. Bap-bap. Buh-bap, bap, buh-bap.
Flesh resumed melting in on itself, the child’s original form degenerating once more.
rebirthing
It only took Jack a split second to ponder and appreciate the interruptive value of the mother’s note before turning quickly to Buddy:
“Boy. Blow that thing. Play loud and long and don’t stop for a breath. Play like the devil, boy. Blow it.” Buddy hesitated, perplexed. Jack, impatient: “NOW! Blow, blow, blow, blow, BLOW!”
Buddy Bolden raised his horn and sucked in air, lips encircling the mouthpiece.
Blow.
High in pitch, full in tone. Sustained. It was an awful sound, it was a beautiful sound.
The tune that came from Buddy’s horn was a spiritual. Buddy blew from his very core, the root of the sound coming from a place in his soul he was previously unaware of.
The notes came out two octaves higher than he had intended.
The notes held, dipped, leapt and crashed. But didn’t crash.
It took several moments before Buddy realized his fingers were splayed and spread wide, holding up the instrument with only the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, not touching the keys at all with the left. Only with this realization, and with the uncalculated sensitivity of a lover, did he lay his fingers upon the keys; following the path of their course in progress, paying attention to their meaning, feeling their odd warmth, interpreting their need, their apparent longing. Understanding the healing quality of the sound. The joy in it.
joy
Typhus recognized the song right away.
Troubled about my soul…
His rebirthing song. The one he sang to calm his babies at the river. The one that just felt right. And then he knew.
Typhus Morningstar moved to the edge of the crib, his eyes meeting Doctor Jack’s for confirmation. Jack nodded, said:
“Yes, Typhus.” And to Noonday Morningstar: “Let him work. Don’t stop him. This is what he needs to do. What he’s been practicing for, what he was born for. Let him.”
Typhus lifted himself up and over the railing of the crib. Laid his hands on the body of Dominick Carolla.
Noonday Morningstar fell to his knees, face in hands, weeping; and then spoke to his God; “Damn you. Damn you straight to hell.”
Buddy Bolden played on.
Ride on Jesus, come this way
On a pier off the levee less than a mile from the little house where very odd matters of the spirit were currently unfolding, a gravedigger and devout Christian known by most folks as Marcus Nobody Special had caught a fish.
The night was black and starless; the only light offered up to human eyes came from the bobbing smudge pots on the river, warning ships to keep away, to dock further up if at all. Turning the water into a million slices of sparkly lemon, embedded like jewels, loosely in darkness.
He held the catfish in two hands. It was a small one, maybe two pounds. He unhooked its mouth and stroked its rough scales gently, carefully. It squirmed and wiggled at his touch. Its flesh was brown with streaks of pink. It moved with a rhythm that struck Marcus as vaguely familiar.
“Sorry, old man, didn’t mean to interrupt yer nightswimmin’.” Shook his head sadly and added: “Not my dern fish. Not my fish at all. But I’ll get ’im. Yessir.”
He looked up at the lines of smoke that crept from the smudge pots, creasing the blackness of the sky into something blacker still. He was surprised to find tears in his eyes. Marcus hadn’t shed a real tear in nearly forty years. Not since his Coffee Maria had taken sick and died way back in 1853.
“Always something blacker, I reckon.”
He dropped the fish back in the water. Wondering if he had done right in his life.
Buddy Bolden played on.
The devil is mad and I am glad…
The small fingers of Typhus Morningstar caressed and pulled at the scaly pink flesh of Dominick Carolla, rebirthing in reverse. Tugging at ears, tracing at seams with fingertips: careful, sculpting the head and face back into human form. Sliding fingers between fused legs, separating. Pulling arms away from sides, gently but firmly. Massaging gills behind little ears, closing them, smoothing them over. Rubbing the father’s severed hand, pushing down, melting the hand into the flesh of the child’s soft chest, feeling the sticky mixture of honey, onions and broken crumbs of bloodroot. The flesh was warm and soft as clay, but its color was turning from pink to gray. The child had become whole again. The child was not breathing.
Typhus Morningstar had the gift of understanding.
He bent down and sucked his lungs full of cold, dry air: held. Placed his lips to the lips of the child. Blew. Steady, even.
He lost one soul that he thought he had…
As Typhus blew, Buddy Bolden’s cornet flew from his mouth and slipped from his hands; clanking to the ground, denting the horn slightly and permanently at the rim. The instrument made a noisy fuss against the hard floor before settling.
Quiet.
Dominick Carolla’s eyes slammed open. Little eyes filled with rage. Rage not human. Black rage. The demon blew back into the throat of the rebirther.
Typhus’s small body shot back violently against the side of the crib like a rag doll, then bounced to the mattress in a small, tremulous heap. Typhus tried blowing the foul air back out, but could not.
A baby’s cry filled the room. A normal, healthy, frightened cry. The sweetly tragic sound of a one-year-old jerked from deep sleep. Dominick’s skin was pink again, shiny with sweat. Anabella Carolla scooped her son up and out of the crib, into her arms, muttering: “grazie, grazie, grazie, grazie…”
Typhus Morningstar lay unconscious in the corner of the crib, his eyes closed but moving rapidly beneath his lids. His lungs struggled for breath.
Father Morningstar lifted his son from the crib. Laid him down on the carpet that was not quite at the center of the room. Tore open Typhus’ shirt, scraped once more at the small jar with trembling fingers, spreading remnants of honey potion on the boy’s chest, shouting between sobs:
“Hast thou come to kiss this child? I will not let thee kiss him. Hast thou come to send him to sleep? I will not let thee do him harm.”
Noonday Morningstar’s hand began to fuse with his son’s chest through the honey mixture. Typhus stopped breathing altogether, red welts rising rapidly behind his ears.
rebirthing
Buddy stood in shock, rubbed at his lips, stared at the grounded cornet. Motionless, useless.
Jack picked up the bruised horn from the ground and blew into it himself. The sound was low and deep; a soulless moan. Buddy didn’t intervene: only stood, momentarily lost, trembling, rubbing at his mouth, eyes full of tears, exhausted, beat.
Down. Out.
Morningstar blew hard into the cold air of the room, profoundly exhaling, emptying his lungs with a determined wheeze. Kissed his son on the mouth. Then:
Sucking in.
Pulling foul air from the boy’s chest. Typhus’ small fists beat at the skull of the man he knew as Father and sometimes Daddy.
Bap. Bap-bap. Buh-bap, bap, buh-bap.
As bad air transferred from son to father, the hand of the father sank deeper into the chest of the son.
Two brown eyes focused on the scene; drying, crystallizing. A mind became clear.
Buddy Bolden snatched his horn from Doctor Jack. Drew in cold air once more, blew out hot with eyes shut tight. Blew hard. Loud.
Troubled about my soul, Lord…
Typhus crumpled in his father’s arms. Hands lifeless, knuckles brushing against the floor. Father Morningstar’s eyes became wide, enraged, black.
Doctor Jack searched his soul for answers and found none.
Beauregard Church reached into his worn leather bag, removed an old and dull-bladed knife that once belonged to his grandfather. Pearl handle with bits of glass polished to look like jewels. Cheap family heirloom. Good for nothing except maybe for luck. He leapt towards Morningstar and plunged the knife into the preacher’s back up to the handle, the dull blade tearing straight into, then past, his heart.
Diphtheria screamed. Ran to her father as Buddy dropped his horn to intercept her, holding her fast. Whispered soft in her ear, feigning calm: “It’s over.” Held her tight, stroked her hair. “I think it’s over.”
Beauregard stood up, leaving his cheap family heirloom in the preacher’s back. Picked up his leather bag full of lucky stuff and walked out of the house without word or expression, walked into the warm air of night. Walked down the steps. Kept walking. Didn’t come back.
The dark red life of Noonday Morningstar spread across the floor of the Carolla house, bathing the soles of Anabella Carolla’s shoes and evenly soaking the uneven carpet. Anabella Carolla had seen none of it, nothing past the release of her son. Nothing else mattered. She simply held the baby to her breast and repeated over and over: “grazie, grazie, grazie, grazie…”
Dominick Carolla was fast asleep in her arms. Breathing deeply and easily. Except for the grateful chant of his mother and the gentle sobs of Diphtheria Morningstar, the house was now silent, its temperature warming. Noonday Morningstar’s lifeless body lay atop his son’s. Father and son in a puddle of joined blood, swimming motionless.
Jack pulled Beauregard’s heirloom free from Morningstar’s back. Dropped it to the sticky floor. Put a hand on the preacher’s shoulder, rolled him over and off of the nine-year-old. This would not be Typhus’ day to die. His father had sacrificed too much to allow it.
Empty wrist: Noonday Morningstar’s right hand was nowhere to be seen.
Covering Typhus’ naked chest was a large, bright pink welt. A fresh scar in the shape of a hand.
Jack picked the boy up in his arms. Took him out of that place. Buddy and Diphtheria followed close behind. None of them spoke. Leaving as quietly as they had come.
Marshall Trumbo stayed behind.
He looked at the mother and child, so strangely reunited. Quiet and calm as if no demon had ever visited them.
The song resolved like all melodies, with a single note.
A.
But not A.
Things change with resolution; completely, irrevocably.
From resolve to clarity, clarity to understanding, understanding to questions. And with questions of this kind comes a sort of salvation. But not salvation.
E flat. Transition. A.
Questions.
The player stops.
He is more sober now than he’s ever been in his life. His mind isn’t ready for the questions, but he listens to them intently. He doesn’t want to hear them; he needs to hear them. He reaches for his bottle of train yard-grade gin, holds it firmly, reels back and tosses it through an open window. Listens to the tinkle of shattered glass outside. Lays his horn on the pillow, his head next to the horn; it is inches from his eyes. His eyes are red and he feels tears building, but he does not let them through. His eyes look up at the warped, rainwater-stained ceiling as he strokes the horn protectively. He cannot sleep. He wants a drink and recalls the recent sound of shattered glass. Out the window.
This time, he will remember the A.
He knows he has seen the face of God.
Questions. E flat. A. Clarity.
Something is created, stillborn, then reborn; a broken promise on the mend.
A rebirth in progress, it has all the time in the world. What once existed but left too soon has returned. An abortion swimming up from the river. New life. With time.
Differently. Irrevocably.
Buddy Bolden dreams with eyes wide open.