Pacific Avenue (8 page)

“Well, I guess I
would
rather live in New Orleans anyway. Maybe next year.”

That was all he would say about it. Maybe someday,
maybe some—other—day. But I was worried about Green Coat, and about Richard—and
I was starting to worry about next year. I’d been using birth control foam from
the drugstore, a brand that claimed to be “98% effective.” Who expects to be
part of a minority of 2 percent?

One day in January, after the start of the new
semester, we went to lunch at a pizza place downtown. The restaurant was dark
and salty smelling, cheese and pepperoni. While we waited for our pizza, we ate
peanuts and drank Cokes. I did a quick mood check on Richard—he looked relaxed
enough for me to bring up something serious, so I took a deep breath, my heart
pounding.
I have no idea how to say this, but I’d better tell him something.

But I missed my moment—he spoke first. “I think I’m
going to change my major.”

“I guess I started in engineering because that’s what my
father always wanted. But I don’t fit in over there. It’s not grades. I’m just
not the type.”

“I thought you liked it.”

“I do, but I’m not crazy about engineers. They’re
mostly people who’d rather deal with things than people.”

“So, what do you want to major in?”

“I don’t know. Maybe government or law, somewhere I
might make a difference. . . . I don’t
know. . . . I’m probably talking crazy.”

“Maybe psych?”

“If I went into psych, maybe I could do something to
help other veterans. God knows, I have enough problems—moods, nightmares—but
I’m pretty mild, considering. Or even in law, maybe I could do something. Lots
of those guys get into all kinds of trouble.”

“I didn’t know you had nightmares.”

“Kathy, I don’t want to dump all that stuff on you. I
don’t want to be some invalid you feel sorry for.”

“Damn it, Richard, that’s the last thing on my mind.”

The waiter came with the pizza. Talk got lost for the
moment in hot olives and stringy cheese.

As we ate, I watched Richard in the dim light of the restaurant.
He’s happy now—his face is sweet and open. I want to trail my fingers over
his soft hair and smooth face. Why is it so sexy, the way he’s turned his shirt
cuffs back? His wrists and hands. . . . I can tell him at his
place, after we make love—that’s better.

He caught my eye and smiled. “Want to go to my place
after lunch?”

I nodded. We paid quickly and left. Chimes Street was
half dug up and full of yellow construction trucks, so I parked around the
corner. As we walked to the apartment, I could only think of holding Richard,
loving him. But when he stopped short a few feet from his door, I came out of
my dream.

Against the gray of the building were two bright spots.
One, on the wall by the door, was a bright red swastika. The other, an orange
lump right in front of the door, was Mew. His head was cut off, lying on the
porch beside him.

I turned and ran. When I reached the corner of the building,
I realized Richard wasn’t behind me. I looked back—he was standing frozen at
the door.

“Richard!”

He looked at me for a second as if he had no idea who I
was. Then he walked slowly toward me. I wanted to scream with fear and
impatience.

I grabbed his hand and jerked him along University Avenue
and around the corner to my parking place. I didn’t know what else to do, so I
drove us to my parents’ house. Richard looked out the side window all the way
there, as if he were interested in the scenery. He laid his hands on his knees,
but they wouldn’t stay still—once I saw him clasp them together, but when he
laid them back on his lap, they started shaking again. I couldn’t think of
anything to say to comfort him—I wanted
him
to take care of
me.

When we got home, I sobbed out the story. Mom got up
and left the room without a word. Dad called the police. They told him there
was nothing they could do.

“Nothing they
will
do is more like it,” he added as he told us what they’d said. “I’m sorry,
Richard.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Richard . . . .” Dad ran his hand over
his face like he had a headache. “I don’t want to be rude, but I wish you
wouldn’t call me ‘sir.’”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Woodbridge. I didn’t mean it that way.
It’s just a habit from the army.”

“Not your fault. Richard, why don’t you stay in the
guest room here tonight? You can’t go back there. We’ll think of something in
the morning.” Dad didn’t look like he expected a solution then or anytime. He
tried to smile, to be a good host. He looked kind of like a gargoyle.

After dinner, Richard and I sat in the living room
while Dad moved quietly around in the kitchen. I was too keyed up to go to bed.

Richard found the morning paper in a basket by the
couch and scanned the front-page section. As if the news was important.

“What if he does? Now that I’m on my guard, I don’t
think a teenage redneck can do much to me.”

“There’s fifty more like him, especially if you get
into a fight. Don’t get all macho on me. I’m sure you’ve heard the white
supremacist types ranting every chance they get.”

“Who hasn’t? I’ve seen other students shout them down,
too. I doubt many people would go along with them. Fifty is a wild
exaggeration.”

“It doesn’t take fifty. Two or three is enough to get
us killed.”

“Aren’t you being a little dramatic?” He opened the paper,
dismissing my concern with the flick of its pages.

“I think having Mew’s head cut off was a little
dramatic too.”
Jesus. . . . What would these guys do to me
when I started looking pregnant? What would they do to a baby?
I started crying again. “I’d be afraid to visit you,
wondering who was hiding in the bushes.”

He put his arms around me, but I just cried more. “I
want to get out of here,” I said, when I finally got my breath. “Let’s go to
New Orleans now. I can’t stand this.”

“We’d have to drop out of school.”

“We can start up again in the fall at NO. Richard,
please.
Maybe this guy doesn’t scare you. But what
makes you think it’s you he’s after? He and his buddies could just as easily attack
me. I’m afraid all the time—even when I don’t see him, I’m sure he’s hiding
somewhere. Please let’s go to New Orleans.”

Dad came into the room. From the kitchen, he’d heard
every word.

“Kathy, the two of you have to face facts,” he said.
“Your relationship has some risks. Anywhere. Much as I like you personally,
Richard.”

Richard folded the newspaper neatly and stood up.
“Thanks, Dr. Woodbridge. I think I’ll say good night now. I should let you and
Kathy talk this over in private.” He went back toward the guest room, and I
heard the door shut softly.

Dad turned to me. That was when he tried to persuade me
that the time hadn’t come yet when Richard and I could live together without
being afraid. Maybe I should have listened, but he said his piece and I said
mine, and in the end, I went to my room and slammed the door behind me.

In the morning, Sharon and Sam came over. Dad went to
the garden shed and got a shovel.
They’re going to bury Mew. Under the fig
tree, where he liked to lie in the shade.

I pulled Richard aside just inside the back door.

“I’m going to New Orleans,” I whispered. “Richard, I’m
pregnant. I can’t stay here. Please come with me.”

His eyes went as blank as Little Orphan Annie’s.

“Ready, Richard?” Dad called from the carport. Without
a word, Richard turned and left.

When they came back, they had Richard’s clothes and
books. I gathered my own things, and we packed my Volkswagen solid. Sharon
offered to give us some of her household stuff, but there wasn’t any more room
in the car.

Dad shook his head, but he pushed some money into my
hand. I tried to give it back, but he wouldn’t take it. Sam, Sharon, and Dad
watched us drive away, waving as if everything were all right. Mom didn’t even
come out to say good-bye.

It hadn’t seemed like a good time to announce the baby.

Part 3

Once we got settled in New Orleans, we started to relax.
Maybe we would have been out of place in the suburbs, but the French Quarter
was full of all kinds of people: artists, dropouts, sailors on shore leave,
even a few leftover hippies. Besides the transients, there were old-time
residents of New Orleans, small tradesmen mostly, whose families had kept the
same shops and stands for years.

I went to work for one of them, Eddie Graziano. He had
a produce stand in the French Market. He sold the best of everything. Some of
the vegetables were real homegrown, from his cousins’ truck farm in
Mississippi. Even when he bought at the wholesale market, he was fussy about
quality. He wouldn’t let me buy, just weigh and bag and make change.

For his regulars, he still observed the custom of
lagniappe,
“a little something extra.” It was a sort of
bonus—if you bought your beans from Eddie, he’d throw in the herbs to cook them
with.

The stand was on the sidewalk, right in the arcade of
the market. I perched on a wooden stool when there wasn’t any business, but I
didn’t get to do it much. Eddie had a constant stream of customers and friends,
and a lot of people who were both.

“No to
mah
toes,
Eddie?” complained a blue-rinsed lady with a shivering black toy poodle.

“Lucille, it’s February. The tomatoes all taste like
papier-mâché. I can’t be giving you that kind of junk. I’d just as soon shut up
the stand and go home.”

She sighed in agreement. “What about alligator pears?’

Eddie glanced at me, but I knew that was the local word
for avocados. We had some good Hass ones from California, and I helped her
choose the closest to ripe. Eddie tucked a bunch of thyme into the bag and
glanced at the dog. “Better put Midnight’s coat on him or take him home,” he
advised her. “I think it’s coming on to rain.”

“You’re a fussbudget, Eddie. You’ve been a fussbudget
for more years than I care to count.” She laughed, but she swooped the dog up
into the mink crook of her arm.

As I watched her tapping along down the street in her
spike heels, I hoped she could manage to hold onto Midnight and her sack of
vegetables both.

Eddie smiled at me, and I tried to smile back. I didn’t
feel well—I’d come to work almost as tired as I’d been when I left the day before.
I felt queasy, too—the fumes of Eddie’s kerosene heater cut through the coffee
scent from the Morning Call and the clay smell of the river. Gusts of wind
added a sharp whiff of the fish market along the way. I breathed shallowly and
tried not to think about it.

A tall man in a trench coat jaywalked toward us across
Chartres, waving to Eddie. He came into the arcade, and Eddie shook his hand.
The man glanced at me.

“Got a new girlfriend, Eddie?” he asked.

“Naw, this is Kathy,” said Eddie. “Kathy’s got too much
class to be my girlfriend.”

“Not surprising,” said the man. “Most any girl does.”

Eddie mock-punched him on the shoulder. “Kathy, this is
Buddy. You’ve got too much class to be
his
girlfriend, too, so don’t give him a chance.”

Buddy picked out some satsumas, and I weighed them for
him. Eddie threw in a spray of kumquats.

Richard appeared in the arcade. “
There’s
my boyfriend,” I said. I introduced them.

“How ya doin’?” said Eddie. “You want to take a break,
Kathy?”

“Just a few minutes to get a cup of coffee.”

“You go ahead. I’ll mind the stand. Good to meet you,”
he added in Richard’s direction.

We walked past a praline store, where the plywood mammy
sign made me cringe. In the Café Du Monde, we sat outside on iron chairs,
leaning out of the waiter’s way as he plunked down our coffee and beignets.

“How’s the job going?” Richard asked, pocketing his
change.

“Fine, I like Eddie.” I pulled my jacket a little
tighter around me and quickly sipped the coffee to warm me up.

“I got one today,” Richard smiled, but his face still
looked strained and unhappy.

“A job? Where?”

“Store fixture place. I do the hardware.”

It didn’t sound interesting to me. I couldn’t think of
anything to say about the job. We were both quiet for a while, sipping coffee.

“Listen, Kathy,” Richard said. “I did the best I could,
but I’m not making much money. There just aren’t any good jobs for high school
graduates. And we can’t bring up a baby in a rooming house. How in hell are we
going to afford to live?”

I checked the people at the next table. They didn’t
seem to be paying attention.

“I’m not going to talk about it.” I cut him off, sick
and empty.
He’s hinting at an abortion. He doesn’t want our child. Maybe he
doesn’t want me either, anymore.

The waiter brushed past us to take an order from
another table. Richard ran his hand over his face, leaving a smear of powdered
sugar on his chin. He leaned toward me, keeping his voice low.

“Kathy, you don’t have the slightest idea about being a
mother. Much less the mother of a black baby,” Richard said. “Think it over.
You know you don’t have to keep it.”

“I can’t believe you want me to get an abortion because
our baby is black.” I turned away from him.

“It’s not because the baby is black. It’s because you
don’t know what you’re getting into.” He raised his voice as a bus roared by,
and a group on the sidewalk peered our way.

I looked at them, then sharply at him to warn him to
keep his voice down. “That’s what my mother said about you and me. I never
thought you’d be singing the same tune.”

“That’s another thing—you aren’t going to get any
grandmotherly help from her, that’s for sure.”

“What about
your
mom?” I asked.

Taboo subject. He drew back and said nothing. One of
the Quarter’s tourist carriages stopped at the curb. Richard looked at the mule
pulling it, and the mule looked at him.
Their expressions aren’t all that
different.

“I’ll bet my parents get over it one second after they
see their grandchild,” I said. “Any problem will be in the past, unless you
hang onto it.”

“Maybe so. But what about everyone else? What about the
guy who ran us out of Baton Rouge?”

“Guess we can’t ask him to babysit. So what?”

“Kathy, this baby is
black.
I don’t think you understand what that means.”

“What do you think I’m going to do? Have an abortion,
walk away from you, and get on with my life as a white girl? That would be the
stupidest, most awful thing I’ve ever done.
No.
”

Richard shrugged. I didn’t know if I’d convinced him or
if he was just giving up for the time being. We finished our coffee and walked to
Eddie’s stand more or less reconciled. He gave me a quick hug and left me to
get back to work.

“That’s your boyfriend, huh?” asked Eddie.

“Uh-huh.”

He dragged out an open wood crate of lettuce and undid
the wires. I started putting them into our display baskets while Eddie fetched
a cardboard box.

Rummaging in the box, Eddie pulled out a bunch of carrots
and frowned at it. “He good to you?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. Always.”

Eddie looked after Richard. He shook his head. “I
missed a lot. My mother wouldn’t have liked me to date a girl who wasn’t
Catholic, let alone black or anything like that. I never liked any of the girls
my mother liked.”

“So, you never married?” I took the box of carrots and
arranged bunches of them around the lettuces.

“No, I lived with Mama till she passed away.
Eighty-six, she was.” He sounded proud for a minute, then sad again. “I’m alone
now. I wish I’d looked around more. I think your generation has it right. Stuff
like that shouldn’t matter.”

The lettuces were loose-headed, ruby leaf. The label on
the box said “California.” Most of our produce was local, but I guessed it was
too cold to grow lettuce around here now.
Would California be a good place
for us and our baby?
Eddie was looking at
me, waiting for me to say something.

“Not everyone has it yet,” I told him. “We got chased
out of Baton Rouge by someone who didn’t like to see a black guy and a white
girl together.”

“Don’t let it get you, doll,” Eddie said. “Think about
the good people, let the others go. Just stay out of their way—some of those
rednecks are dangerous. I’m not putting Baton Rouge down, but New Orleans is
probably better for a couple like you and Richard.”

“We kind of thought we might not be the oddest people
in the Quarter,” I said.

Eddie laughed. “That’s for sure!”

“My father says it’s too soon for couples like us.”

“No one wants to see their kids on the front lines, I
guess.”

That made me feel a little hopeful. If Dad was just
being protective, he wouldn’t want to be the one to hurt me. Or my baby. I set
the last of the vegetables out in the display and picked up some broken leaves
that had fallen on the pavement. Keeping my voice casual, I asked, “You think
that’s all it is?”

“Well, I don’t know your dad. But he raised you
right—he can’t be that much of a racist. People get cautious when it comes to
their kids. Most likely he only wants the best for you.” He closed the boxes
and shoved them under the counter.

“Richard
is
the
best.”

Eddie shrugged and wiped his hands on a paper towel.
“If that’s true, your father’ll see it before long. . . . Look
out, here comes Estelle.”

Estelle was one of our wackier customers. I thought she
had a crush on Eddie. She came every day—she swore she could tell the
difference when she got her vegetables “fresh that day.” Eddie didn’t tell her
that he didn’t buy most of the produce the same day himself. And her flirting
was lost on him. In my opinion, all his talk about missing a wife and kids was
just fantasy. He liked being an old bachelor.

That night at home, I felt wary, cut off from Richard.
Don’t
hint anymore about an abortion. I want you to marry me. To want to marry me,
not just a shotgun wedding. I want children.

But he didn’t start up again, only asked if Eddie had
anything to say after he’d seen us together.

“He said Dad probably wants to make sure I’m okay, that
he’s not really against us.”

I pushed aside the window curtain and looked at the row
of cottages across the street. Their windows were lit. Every house, every
apartment, was complete in itself, cut off from the others. Like spaceships,
headed for different stars. I dropped the curtain and turned back to Richard.

He’d picked up the book he’d left on the bed that morning.
Looking up, he marked his place with one finger. “I never thought your dad was
against us,” he said. “You’re not twenty-one—he could have stopped you from
coming down here.”

“How? I’m over eighteen. I can live where I want.”

“Well, I knew one guy whose girlfriend was going to
move in with him. Her parents committed her to the state mental hospital in
Mandeville. They can do that until you’re twenty-one.”

“Good God. Because they didn’t like him?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t race. They just didn’t like him. Your
dad didn’t try to stop you, only said he thought you were making a mistake. He
even gave you money.”

“The baby would change his mind. He wouldn’t think his
grandchild was a mistake.”

“Maybe not, but your mom’s another story—sometimes she
looks at me like I’m a roach she’s found in her soup.”

“She’s found
two
roaches. I’m the other one, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Oh, I noticed. What the hell’s her problem, anyway?”

“But you’re not close anymore, huh? Well, at least you
have your dad. But I don’t think anyone in your family, including him, would
have a problem if you decided on an abortion.”

* * *

Early, cold, St. Valentine’s Day morning. I pulled myself
out of bed sighing. Wednesday: Eddie’s day to go to the Wholesale Market. Which
meant I had to get over to the stand and take care of things. Getting ready, I
tiptoed. Richard was sleeping, finally—he’d been thrashing and crying out for
most of the night. I eased the door shut as I left the room. I had to feel my
way along the stairs—the light was out in the hall again. Outside, a chilling
fog turned everything to shades of gray. The row of cottages across Bourbon was
like a huddle of shivering stray cats.

I zipped my jacket to the top and burrowed my hands
into its pockets. Just time for a cup of coffee at the French Market. The front
yard of the Ursuline Convent was a dark hole on the Chartres Street sidewalk. I
heard teasing music, damped and tinny.

On the corner, a newsboy stood in a patch of swirling
mist, light as angel hair. A tiny transistor radio at his feet tinkled
downriver banjo, joined by Dixieland—“Washington Square.” An oldie that made my
mind go back to the sixties. And beyond:
All the banjos and trumpets that
must have been played in the Quarter, going back a century or more. It hasn’t
changed much, not in this block, not this morning. Maybe I should buy a paper,
just to see what date would be on it.