Boulevard (23 page)

Louisiana had been purchased from the French, the very ground he was lying on sold from one nation to another. What kind of price for it today? What price to sell land that doesn't really belong to you anyway, the nationality of the land, the sovereignty of it? What price?

Eight hundred dollars in the year 1834 would buy a human soul after all, or at least the body containing the soul and all the labor that could be forced out of the body during one lifetime.

Three dollars to go into the Parade disco for the night, dance as long as you like, and one drink included in the price of the cover.

“You're not even thinking about this, are you?” Newell asked at one point, after they had gone to bed, and the question took Mark out of his head.

“What we're doing? I'm thinking about it some.”

“I feel the same way.”

“Do you?”

“It feels good. To lick you and stuff. But at the same time I could stop.”

“I know,” Mark said. They lay together in the quiet. “I'm thinking about some things right now.”

“What?”

“Strange true tales of Louisiana.”

“I only know the strange true tales of Alabama,” Newell said.

“Alabama, right. But you don't live there anymore.”

“No, I don't.”

Already slowing down in his head, the head space diminished in the time it took to notice and still diminished more. Mark wondered what he would keep of this feeling, looking at this fresh face on the pillow, the white skin, the dark eyes. Newell watched back with the same calm seriousness, when, in a kind of revulsion, Newell disentangled himself, stood and went to the gallery.

In a moment Mark would say, “You need some plants. We should get you some plants today. For the balcony.” He could feel the thought in his head, the words in his mouth. He would let himself say them, if only to cause Newell to turn his way again. If only to cause Newell to wonder. As if this were the beginning of something.

On Sunday, two days before Halloween, Newell was sitting in his room reading the
Times-Picayune
front news section when somebody knocked quick and light on the door and opened it. Millie walked in and closed the door behind her. He had spoken to her only a few times in the junk store and had seen her in the courtyard now and again, lately, talking to Louise.

“I'm sorry to bust in on you, but I had to get away from her, I swear.”

“Hey, Millie.”

“She will not leave me alone, Newell. What am I going to do?”

“Who won't, honey?”

“Louise.”

She had tears in her eyes. Her hair needed washing. She must be sixteen, he thought, if that old. She had a smell to her like socks, but cold.

“Sit down, right there.” Newell brought her a glass of water and a wad of toilet tissue to wipe her eyes. She took the tissue and dabbed at herself.

“I told her I don't want to mess with her anymore, but every weekend when I work she finds one reason and another for me to come back to her rooms. We don't even open the store till one o'clock on Sunday, but she wants me to come here in the morning so she can get me alone.”

“I thought you liked it.”

“I did, but it wasn't right.” She folded her arms across her simple chest, pulling at her pink sweater, taking it off.

“And you told her you don't want her to do it anymore?”

“No. What I told her was it makes my skin crawl just to hear her voice. But she still won't quit trying.”

“You really told her that?”

“Yes.” Holding one elbow in one palm, she swung from side to side as if she were waiting her turn at jump rope.

“When?”

“Last weekend. And first thing yesterday morning she starts asking me to help her with some boxes in her house, and I says all day no, I can't, and lucky we had customers all day and I found plenty to do. But this morning I knew what she wanted and sure enough as
soon as we got in that apartment she was after me again.”

“She was after you?”

“Touching me, and ….” She breathed out in a long sigh. “Things.”

“Did you tell her to stop?”

“She can't stop. She can't control herself.” Millie sipped the water.

A knock on the door again. Millie froze.

Before Newell could move, the door swung open and Louise stood there. She reacted palpably to the sight of Millie. “What are you doing here?”

“We're talking,” Newell said. “She came in my room and we're talking.”

“Come on downstairs with me, Millie, you have work to do.”

“Louise, you can't come in my room like this without my permission.”

“I knocked.”

“But I didn't say, come in.”

They squared off at each other. “So you're telling me you want me to go?”

“I'm telling you that Millie is welcome here just like you are, when I say you can come in.”

She stood there for a moment, head hanging, looking at the floor.

Mark appeared behind her on the gallery.

“I should go.” Louise, embarrassed, fled down the gallery.

Hurried steps, tip-tap tip-tap, Louise descended the stairs in quick tiny hops. Newell closed the door. Millie started to giggle at the table where she was sitting.

“What's going on?” Mark asked.

“Millie came in here to get away from Louise, and Louise followed her.”

“She's gone crazy,” Millie gestured at Mark with her hands. “She worries me all the time like that.”

“Does she try to force herself on you?” Mark asked.

“Does she what?”

“Try to. You know.”

“Try to lick you and touch you and stuff,” Newell explained.

“Oh. Sure. I used to let her, but I don't want her to do that anymore.” She blinked at the two of them. She had taken her sandal off, was cleaning under her toenails with a match.

“So she tries to force you to do it.”

“She tries to get me to want to. But I don't.”

“You need to tell your father,” Mark said.

“What?”

“Your father can make her stop. He can tell her to stop.”

“But then I have to tell him what I was doing.”

“Maybe.”

“Unless I lie. I could lie.”

Newell stepped behind Mark, nearly touched him. The grace of Mark's shoulders in a gray wool sweater.

“You probably shouldn't do that.”

“I could say Louise has been asking me to do stuff but I never have. Done it.”

“But what if Louise tells him something different.”

Millie laughed. She was on her feet now. “What's she going to do, tell him she had sex with me? I don't think so.”

She was finding her shoes, sliding them on her feet, pulling on the sweater, beige skin, a nice enough face, a soft round chin, heavy lashes over dark brown eyes. Her breasts were bigger than had appeared when she was sitting, full under the tight dress.

“Listen, thanks,” she was pulling at the back of one sandal, plump feet bulging over the leather. “Thanks for letting me come in here and stuff.”

“Sure,” Newell said.

She showed no more reluctance to face Louise, leaving as soon as she had pulled her cardigan down over her dress. She closed the door with a quiet, emphatic click.

Newell locked the door and turned to Mark, who was sitting on the bed. “Oh, Jesus.”

“She should tell her father.”

“Her father works for Louise.”

Mark had to think about that. Newell went to the bathroom and pissed and brushed his teeth and watched Mark on the thin chenille bedspread.

“Are you angry?” Mark asked.

“No,” Newell answered, though the question irritated him. He went to the door, opened it, walked onto the back gallery and stood looking over the courtyard. Forlorn in
the damp chill, on the southern wall climbing roses were still blooming, pink blossoms tattered. Louise and Millie had disappeared, but he could hear their voices. Newell went inside again and closed the door.

“Are they in the courtyard?”

“No. They're in the apartment. I can hear them fighting.”

“That's sad,” Mark said.

“What are you doing here?”

Mark flushed and lay back on the bed.

“Answer me. What are you doing here? I thought you weren't coming back.”

“You never give me a break, Newell.”

“You're the one who broke up with me, Mark. You're the one who told me we weren't compatible socially.”

“You never let me explain what I meant.”

“I know what you meant. I didn't go to college. And you're all educated.”

“Look,” Mark said, sighing, “Leigh wanted me to come invite you to her Halloween party, that's all. Okay? We can go together if you want to.”

Downstairs in the courtyard the two women had come to stand at the plantain tree, and Louise was listening as Millie began to sing, not in melody but in complaint. Louise stood listening with her shoulders sloped, feeling, as she had been feeling for weeks now, slightly sick to her stomach, which was at the same time knotted with anguish that she could no longer face. Millie's face flushed that horrible scarlet-blue color, her voice a shriek, “You
sick old hag, what did you want to ruin my life for, why are you treating me like I belong to you? I don't belong to anybody!” More at the same volume and pitch, so that after a few sentences Louise could stop listening, though still repulsed by the corded stretched ligaments at the base of Millie's throat, the pretty skin all creased and flushed with blood, those shapely shoulders tensed with her passion and her hands clenched to fists. Nothing more to hear, only Millie screaming again, and Louise turned and walked into the house, surprised herself at this movement, since she rarely walked away from Millie, or even turned away from her. It had become, for a while, her greatest joy, to have Millie in her sight.

The rags of a Halloween costume littered the kitchen. Millie had torn the witch's dress into so many separate pieces, Louise wondered if she would ever be able to put the dress together again. She began to gather them together in case Millie should come back inside to start the fight anew.

“You're a goddamn sick old cow,” Millie shrieked in the courtyard. “You've ruined my life.” She broke into tears that appeared theatrical and false. The moment slowed to a crawl for Louise. In turning to leave Millie alone in the courtyard, in realizing she no longer trusted Millie's behavior to be real, Louise understood Millie no longer mattered. She could no longer care for Millie. Quietly stacking the pieces of the dress, the torn sleeves, the rags that had been a skirt, Louise felt herself becoming herself again, regaining the piece of herself that she had
given over to this girl.

This was what Louise saw: Millie standing in the courtyard as rain began to fall, the water streaking through Millie's hair, causing it to collapse against her face, to cling to her cheeks, on which was the most delicious fine, white fuzz that Louise had loved to lick, and the rain coming out of nowhere as it was apt to do even in October, sticking Millie's dress to her plump lower belly, her small breasts, her thighs so round and big at the top. But now as Millie stood in the courtyard sobbing, the rain streaking her body, causing that lovely ripening shape to emerge, now watching, Louise felt miniscule. Such a feeling of ash and waste inside, as if Millie had run through her like a bonfire.

Millie kept screaming the same thing in the rain, “You sad sick cow, you sad sick cow, you wait till I tell my dad,” and turning and running and stopping to slip off her sandals, loose at the back, so she could run in the rain, nearly falling in the mud of the courtyard then splashing away as Louise watched from the door, while upstairs, on the balcony, coming out of Newell's room was that boyfriend of his, the blond with the biceps, stepping onto the back gallery with the rain pouring over the gutters now, coming down so hard his image wavered behind the rain, but for a moment Louise and the blond looked at each other.

Millie was soaked through, running in the street, the feeling in her belly a bursting sensation, a knot of solid substance. She would tell this time, she would. She had
torn up the dress for good this time, she had ruined the costume and Halloween, and now she would ruin Louise. Millie ran in the rain seeing the black dress come to pieces in her hands, feeling the force of the argument that had passed through her. She had pushed Louise so far now. She had torn up the pictures Louise had taken of their secret weekend in Gulfport, ripped them up shrieking the words she had wanted to say all along, that she had hated spending those two days with Louise, hated walking on the beach with an old wrinkled woman, belly sagging, thighs shaking as she walked. Lately, Millie had hated every moment she spent with Louise. But that would all change today when she found her dad, when she finally opened her mouth. Yes, she would tell, and Louise would pay, for whatever crime this was. Louise should have known better. Look what she had done to poor Millie, who had never meant to. Who was not one of those. Louise would have to pay for this, whatever it was, that had made Millie hate her.