On Archimedes Street (31 page)

Frenchy, too, took special care choosing his clothes. The $200 ripped and distressed jeans? For sure. Sexy to show a little skin. A tee? A polo? A dress shirt? He couldn’t decide. Finally he settled on a sleeveless, very tight tee to show off his chest and arms. Deck shoes without socks. More skin at the ankle. Of course, he’d go commando. Unlike Manny, Frenchy was no stranger to his mirror. He liked what it said about him today. Confident, he hopped on the ferry. He took his usual spot by the rail and stared at the river. He noticed a guy cruising him. He gave the river a little knowing smile. Yes, he’d chosen well.

He arrived early and stopped by Dutch’s shotgun double. Frenchy wondered whether Dutch had told Flip yet. Flip’s eyebrows registered his reaction to Frenchy’s buffed appearance, and Flip’s greeting eliminated any doubts.

“Hey, stud-muffin. Do I get to chow down on your ginormous kielbasa too?” But it was said in a tone that suggested this was the last thing in the world Flip wanted to do. Frenchy felt a flush of shame.

“
Ginormous kielbasa
? It waxes eloquent. Haw-haw.”

“I’m sorry. I never meant to come betw—”

“Oh, I know better than to blame
you
.” Flip gave Dutch a glare, which Dutch returned with an angelic, butter-wouldn’t-melt smile.

“Don’t worry about it, Juice. It’s all sorted out.”

“Oh,
Juice
, is it?”

Dutch ignored this. “You look like a complete strumpet, you slattern. You’ll give Ancient of Days an aneurysm.”

“You think it’s too much?”

Dutch rolled his eyes. “Does the Pope shit in the woods?”

“Don’t listen to him, Frenchy. You look fine.”

Frenchy clutched the beer Dutch had offered him, taking only a sip or two, and listened to them snipe at each other. He felt terrible. He’d ruined it for them. And all because of a completely selfish, thoughtless impulse. Before he knew it, tears were welling in his eyes. A few started to flow silently down his cheeks. Busy trading sarcastic barbs with Dutch, Flip took a while to notice.

When he did, it was Flip who felt terrible. He kneeled before Frenchy, stroking his shoulder softly. “Oh, Frenchy, don’t. It’s okay. Really, everything is fine between us.”

“Then why are you squabbling like this?”

“Why? Because it’s
Dutch
. The most irritating person ever to see the light of day.” He stroked Frenchy’s cheek this time.

Frenchy smiled through the tears. “Well, that’s true….”

And, as if by silent agreement, they both stood and pointed at Dutch. “Asshole!” they said in unison, and began swiping and swatting at him.

“Owie! Owie!”

Later, as Frenchy prepared to leave to meet Manny, Dutch said, “Wait up. We’ll walk with you. I don’t want to miss Elwood’s pre-K pasquinade at the farmers’ market.”

They stepped out together. “Pasquinade?”

“You could look it up, Flabbott.”

Flip and Frenchy swatted him in unison.

“Owie! Owie!”

“It means ‘spoof,’ Flip.”

“Ah, y-e-s-s! Like I said, Frenchy, a soul mate.”

M
ANNY
SAT
opposite Frenchy at the rickety little table at the Coffee Grinder. “Table wobbles,” Manny mumbled. He fished for a book of matches in his pocket—
He smokes, just like Papa
—and busied himself shimming the table, so Frenchy couldn’t read the dismay on his face.

He’d been crying. Manny had clocked the red-rimmed eyes. There was beer on his breath so early in the day. Already an alcoholic? And, dear God, he was in tatters. In shredded rags! He must have been cast off by his rich socialite sugar daddy, and he was coming to him for help.
He must be desperate. He’s fallen so low that he feels he has to sell himself to me, that he has no other recourse.
This was excruciating. He had to make Frenchy see that he was better than this, that there was an honorable path. But—then again—the muscles. They weren’t Photoshopped. What was going on?

Frenchy was dazed. The cloying stench of cheap cologne made his head swim. Had he poured the whole bottle on? And
why
, when he’d never done it before, when it was his man scent that gave Frenchy such a sexual rush? And his hair. It looked like cotton candy, like a fuzzy hat he could tip in greeting. Where was the balding spot he liked? And, my God! The clothes! He imagined Maman’s reaction to this outfit. It would fail even at a sixties-themed costume party. He’d never be able to bring this man home, introduce him as a friend, much less a lover.
Damn that Dutch! He had been right!
His heart was broken.

“Er—look—this was a mistake. I’m sorry, I’ve got to go.”
I will not cry, I will not cry.

“Frenchy, wait!” Manny grabbed his arm. “If it’s money you need, you can have it. You can work for me, pay me back.” Then Manny made an impassioned plea. “Do you think I don’t
know
what it is to have nothing, to go hungry? But Frenchy—there’s a better way. An
honorable
way.”

Frenchy looked at him in stupefaction.

“These rich men you’ve been hanging out with? They’re
scum
. Listen to me, Frenchy!”

Behind the beehive hairdo and the cloud of cologne, Frenchy could see the man who’d taught him how to throw a football.

“Behind every great fortune, there’s a great scoundrel.”

The words lanced Frenchy’s heart.

“A scoundrel who
used
people for his selfish purposes, sucked them dry and threw them away, leaving them to die in misery, never giving it a second thought.”

The tears welled anyway, despite his resolve.

“These rich people you’ve been hanging out with? They’re not worthy to lick the sole of your
shoe
!”

“Gotta go, gotta go….”

“No, wait….” Manny increased his hold on Frenchy’s muscled bicep. They looked at each other wordlessly. From the farmers’ market stage, a gaggle of kids parroting Professa Wailin’ Elwood’s pre-K pasquinade filled the silence between them.

“Six beat six wit’ a buncha sticks,

“Six beat six, times-six wit’ dem sticks,

“Ow! say six, dat thoity-six!

“An’ den fell on him like a tonna bricks.

“Sebben kick’ sebben in the behin’,

“Sebben kick’ sebben, times-sebben time,

“Ow! say sebben, dat forty-nine!

“An’ den hung sebben on his maw’s clothesline.

“An’ t’ree twenty-t’rees is….

“Sixty-n-i-i-i-n-e.”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!”

That was Dutch. Dutch is rich, just like me.

“They’re
users
, Frenchy,
users
! They’ve never done an honest day’s work in their lives!”

The tears were noticeable now. He wrested his arm from Manny’s grasp. “Gotta go….”

“Frenchy!” Manny told his departing back. “If you ever need
anything
.
Anything…
!”

But Frenchy was gone.

I made him cry. Twice.

Chapter 43

A
CHILLE
A
BBOTT
was not one to feel sorry for himself and fence-sit indecisively. No, he took action. In his convoluted real estate and political dealings, the correct action to take was not always easy to pinpoint. But he was methodical, gathered the facts, considered the odds, weighed obligations against favors, planned for worst-case scenarios. And he usually got it right.

He tried to frame his current knotty problems in political terms, but it wasn’t helping. He addressed the first, more urgent, part of the problem. Say-Say. Paule. He’d been suspicious of the clothes, the jewelry, the new look. He had clandestinely taken the mysterious lavaliere to Sadler’s on Canal Street for appraisal, and he’d been shocked at its value. Who could be giving his wife such things? In retrospect, the answer had been obvious. It was just that his mind, usually so quick to calculate all the angles, plan for outliers and improbabilities, had been lulled into complacency by what he’d taken for certain knowledge. Say-Say was as transparent as a sheet of glass. She was an old shoe, and, really, he was so fond of her. He knew every thought in her head, every word she was going to say before she even framed it. Or so he’d thought. Until he had seen her with Paule.

Maybe he’d driven her into Paule’s arms through benign neglect. He
was
getting older, and his conjugal duties had been taking a backseat to his dalliances for some time now.

It was a dicey situation. Paule could crush him financially, and he depended on her anonymous support in many ways. So—Occam’s razor: do the simplest, most effective thing. He’d woo Say-Say back; he knew he could. In her heart, she loved him, he was sure. Dianne would have to end, he acknowledged regretfully. Women always knew these things, and he couldn’t prosecute the war to win his wife back in such muddied waters.
Ah, well, it can’t be helped. I’ll give Dianne a nice piece of jewelry when I end it.

As for that other problem—well, seeing as it was really a moral dilemma, perhaps it was not so much of a problem at all. Achille seldom wasted his valuable time on ethical niceties. Certainly he had not felt any moral twinges when he’d slipped his hand into his son’s jacket pocket to briefly commandeer his cell. Not password protected, so no hassle there. Not a mistake he’d ever make with his own smartphone, though. Maybe he’d have a word with Dutch about it, in general terms, of course, without tipping his snooper’s hand. He’d swiped to the photo gallery with curiosity, hoping to find evidence of an alliance between Dutch and Frenchy, an attachment he could capitalize on. Instead he’d found photo after photo of Flip, usually midstunt on his bike. He examined the sexted crotch shot with detachment, certain it was of Flip because of the golden fuzz. It was not what he had expected, but, if Achille was anything, he was a pragmatist. Blond boy had a nice pecker, he had to admit. At least this confirmed the suspicion he’d nursed since that day he’d seen Dutch come out of Frenchy’s garçonnière. It was the last thing he ever would have suspected. Dutch had never given the least clue or shown the slightest trace of effeminacy.

Flip had always vaguely troubled Achille. The Abbott men were all uniformly handsome, but in a distinctive, straight-nosed way. The jaw tended toward prominence, and the lobe of the ears attached directly to the head almost at a right angle and without the usual curve at the top, a rare trait. All with feet so big his mother joked they’d never have to worry about falling over. Achille had used his own good looks ruthlessly in his youth, seducing his way through every woman who came his way. He could still turn a feminine eye, he knew. Looking at Flip’s countenance, he acknowledged that the family resemblance was noticeable, even striking. Both boys could break hearts. What a waste.

Columbus, Flip had said. Achille recalled accompanying the then-mayor of New Orleans to a conference of mayors of midsized cities. In Columbus, it had been. How long ago? Twenty years or so?
Lord! Time flies.
But the timing was right.

There’d been a chief of protocol who’d very ably smoothed ruffled mayoral feathers over matters of seating and precedence. Sultry, big blonde. Belinda. The last name had fled his memory, but it certainly hadn’t been Abbott. She’d been a unique lay. He smiled, remembering. Never before or after had Achille felt so much like a dildo just coincidentally attached to a man. Lord, that woman had
used
him. She had stroked his body, telling him what a piece of work he was. Then sucked him until it was like a brick. Rode him like a wild woman, working her clit with her thumb all the while. She’d come, and come, and come again. He’d used protection, but these things can happen. When he’d asked for her number afterward, she’d turned him down flat. “Sorry. Don’t do repeats. So many men. So little time.”
Good times.

Could it be? Achille was a big believer in odds and in plain old horse sense. What were the chances that protection had failed, that as a result he had a son he knew nothing about, that the woman would not have sought child support, that the purported son would choose to transfer to a school in his city of all cities. And
then
that he would unknowingly seek out and shack up with his own half brother. No, it strained credibility.

Then he considered it from another angle. What were the odds that such a striking resemblance had no hereditary basis? The Abbott looks were unique. Exotic, beautiful fish in the gene pool. This time, the calculation yielded a different result. But then there was the matter of the name. Would Belinda have given her son the Abbott surname? Unlikely. More probable there was some unknown branch of the family out there somewhere. Well, in Columbus, obviously.

But, really, what did he care? It was no skin off his nose if his two sons—if they were indeed both his—were fucking each other. “After all, they can’t have half-witted children,” he muttered to himself.
If this is so, thank God Flip is not a girl and Dutch isn’t straight.
Achille did not understand same-sex attraction; he’d never experienced the impulse. But he was fond of Dutch, and he certainly wasn’t a prude. What did it matter as long as it was what Dutch wanted? He vaguely wondered what they got up to in bed, but his sexual imagination, usually so prurient, wasn’t engaged. He’d rather not know. Remembering Dutch’s probable roll in the hay with Frenchy, he muttered, “Too bad that didn’t take.”
Maybe I could encourage that, finagle it somehow?
A thought.

So, should he try to get to the bottom of this? The only part that truly rankled was that, if Flip was indeed his, he should have had all the opportunities he had given Dutch. The best schooling, the best nutrition, the best manners. He should have a car. Clothes. If Flip was his son, it was Flip’s due. It was a matter of pride. Well, he had to admit that whoever reared Flip hadn’t done such a bad job. A little rough around the edges at the table, but certainly passable. Someone should teach that boy how to eat soup properly. Anyway, it was too late. Best to forget about it.