The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival (17 page)

“Tell me you have music,” Mark says, exasperated.

“No,” Vicky says, getting defensive. “We don’t have music. We don’t have the budget for music. Besides, we got such a late start, we figured everybody would be booked. We were just going to get a DJ.”

“A DJ? Oh no, no, no. What exactly are you spending all this money on, then, if not music?” Mark asks. “Where’s it going?”

I look at Vicky. I sure as hell don’t know.

“Well, actually, most of it’s still there. I don’t know. Expenses are bound to come up.”

“Yeah,” Mark says. “Like music. You gave the carnies their deposit, right? You’ll get at least half of the lumber and stuff needed to build the booths donated. Even if you don’t, it doesn’t cost that much. You’ll have to spend some money on the bunnies. But all the rest is volunteer work.”

“I guess,” Vicky says.

“Trust me,” Mark says.

Suddenly I’m reminded of the serpent in the garden. “Well, how do we go about getting bands?”

“We’re going to have to do it the old-fashioned way. But that’s the fun part,” he answers with a smile.

In the same way people want to get a good look at a car crash, I want to see what the inside of El Sidos looks like during broad daylight. I’m sure it’s the very picture of sanitary. El Sidos is a juke joint. No other word for it, with the possible exception of honky-tonk. A low-slung building located on the wrong side of the tracks. The actual wrong side of the tracks. We’re the only white people in the house. In the dark, though, El Sidos seems clean enough. That’s all I’ve ever asked of a bar. The floors are swept, air-conditioning humming, no puke in the bathrooms, and my arms aren’t sticking to the table. Neon signs—notably Hennessy and an old Schlitz Malt Liquor Bull—buzz behind the barkeep. But there’s part of me that still wants to see it in broad daylight, with the lights blazing.

El Sidos is part of Mark’s “the old-fashioned way,” in which we hit every juke joint we can find and beg musicians to play. We’ve already lined up most of the bands—a country cover band, a rock cover band comprising high school kids from Opelousas (lousy, but we’re “doing it for the children”), and three Cajun bands, each made up of men so old I’m convinced that at least one of them will die of a heart attack while onstage. Those bands, though, are just fillers. What we’re doing now is lining up the acts that will get people shaking, the zydeco bands.

And what Mark says, I do. In two weeks, he’s taken care of all the remaining details of the festival, has won over the festival board without a problem, has somehow become the point man with Johnny Two Shoes, Black Toes, or whatever his name is. And, most important, has gotten Vicky to stop nagging me about all of this stuff.

He’s also managed to rip out the wood paneling in the rectory, repaint every room in the house, and retile the bathroom floor. I’m starting to wonder if I should search his room for meth. And he’s still found time to sit on the couch with Chase in his arms and watch obscene amounts of bad television. He’s become addicted to Thursday nights on NBC, Sunday nights on FOX, and won’t leave the room if he comes across reruns of
Hunter
or
The A-Team
. “Stephen J. Cannell is a genius,” he keeps telling me.

At least he doesn’t watch reality TV.

And when he’s not too busy with the tube, he’s dragging Vicky and me across the wilds of Cajun country.

Our adventures have taken us through the Louisiana of Louisiana, the things that were right in front of me my entire life: truck stops, bars, honkey-tonks, and diners, some right there in Opelousas where I grew up. I came of age during the great Americanization of America, caught up in a sweep of malls, fast-food joints, Walmart, and pop radio. I embraced it all. Give me my Big Mac, my Filet-O-Fish, my Quarterpounder, and french fries. Let Michael Jackson thrill me. Fling open the doors of Walmart and everyday low prices. All this talk of the death of the small town? Fine by me. Main Street? As if. The few occasions Mama didn’t have time to drive to Lafayette and thought she might possibly find something in one of the stores in downtown Opelousas, they seemed like they hadn’t been restocked since the late ’60s. For the first MTV generation, Main Street was some embarrassing old relative that wouldn’t die fast enough.

And we were worse when it came to music. Cajun and zydeco? Perish the thought. Country dance halls? As if. Zydeco was too black. Country was too white trash.

Luckily, though, what we thought didn’t matter. Our culture managed to survive, partly because of the older generation, partly because there will always be kids who aren’t embarrassed of where they come from and who don’t spend their nights lying in bed mouthing words in an attempt to sound like Peter Jennings.

Mark, apparently, had been one of those country kids, so he was our tour guide. “If I’m going to repair this damage you’ve so obviously inflicted upon yourself, I might as well get it all in one shot.”

Since Mark arrived a week before Mardi Gras, that seemed at first as logical a place as any to start. So off we three went to Mamou for the Courir de Mardi Gras, which involved us waking up at the crack of dawn and driving around the countryside following costumed men on horseback as they went from house to house getting chickens for the communal gumbo. If there’s anything sillier than a full-grown, half-drunk man wearing a purple hood and robe and chasing a chicken before most people wake up for breakfast, it’s a full-grown, half-drunk priest doing much the same thing. Which is exactly what happened when one of the riders spied me—stupidly wearing my collar—sitting in Mark’s car. I did manage to catch a chicken, which garnered me a spot on the back of someone’s horse for the remainder of the run. So it was that while Vicky and Mark drove around Mamou looking for a place to park, I got to ride into town like a hero—if a hero meant someone who held on for dear life as his stupendously drunk host struggled to stay on the horse as he waved and threw beads to the folks lining the parade route. We learned nothing of practical value for the Rabbit Festival, but learning nothing had never been so fun.

And then it was on to the nightclub tour. We went to Slim’s Y-Ki-Ki, the most famous zydeco club in Opelousas, to watch Chris Ardoin and Double Clutchin’. When I was a child, Daddy muttered to himself as we drove past on Saturday nights, slowed to a crawl because of the traffic and the people darting across the highway. I remember peeking my head out of the window, wondering what all those black people could possibly be doing in that little windowless building. I remember how, in high school, we were all somewhat amazed that Charlie Muntz, a white boy, hadn’t been beaten to death after he hit one of Slim’s patrons while driving home drunk.

We went to the Brass Rail on Landry Street for Pabst Blue Ribbon specials and a few games of pool. Frank’s Liquor Store, which turned into a bar in the evening. We Cajun-waltzed at Richard’s on Highway 190 somewhere just outside Eunice. In Eunice, we did the white-man shuffle at the Purple Peacock, rife with twenty-something kids obviously under the thrall of Ecstasy and God knew what else. Drank too many beers at Bada’s, a bait stand by day, nightclub by night.

And now we sit in a dark corner of El Sido’s while Lil Pookie sets up. It’s oddly silent in here. The other patrons talk loudly, laugh, but something about the place makes it obvious that it’s accustomed to a good seventy percent more noise. The waitress brings over a bucket of ice, a pint of Crown Royal, three cans of Coke, and three plastic cups.

“Yall from Texas?” she asks.

“Nope,” Mark says.

“Yall students over at the college?” she guesses.

“Nope. We’re from Opelousas.”

“Well, ain’t that something,” she says, surprised that native white people would cross the tracks and pay five bucks to get into a place like this when we could just as well wait two weeks and see the same band at Grant Street Dance Hall or some other venue more in line with the taste of nice white folk.

I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve always imagined these places seething with resentful black men nursing drinks and grudges against the man. Reality, of course, is slightly different. Whatever their problems, like anyone else, anywhere else on a Friday night in America, they’re here to put all that behind them—a matter of business too serious to be interrupted by a few white people. The looks wandering over in our direction so far have mostly come from men who are checking out Vicky. A few women have shot cursory glances as well, but these were only to check out their competition. Mark and I don’t even rate.

And once the music starts, none of it matters. We dance. Vicky and Mark are masters. I’ve become something resembling proficient. I have the basics down and move as well as any of the Texans that come through on their dance-tour groups. Still, though, I stumble, and often catch the counting in my head leaking out of my mouth: “One-two-three-four, uh, one-two-three-four” or “One-two-
three
-four, five-six-
seven
-eight.”

Mark and I prefer zydeco dancing to Cajun. The music is faster, wilder, the dance more frenetic with more room for interpretation (and, in my case, mistakes). Vicky, while good at it, still has a special place in her heart for Cajun waltzes and two-steps.

We start out dancing in rotation, Mark and I taking turns with Vicky. But it isn’t long before men are breaking free from the bar to cut in. Mark and I laugh and applaud the moves we’ll more than likely never master—there’s good; then there’s what these guys do.

“What say we go find a couple ladies to dance with?” Mark yells over the music.

“Why not?” I yell back.

Mark picks out the prettiest woman in the room, a dark-skinned, golden-eyed lady with a severe look about her. She has close-cropped hair covered by a cowboy hat and wears impossibly tight jeans that run down into a pair of maroon snake-skin boots. She knows damn well how fine she is and she’s continually faced with the task of deciding which men are good enough to spin her around the dance floor. All of this, of course, is a waste on Mark—and me. I’ve asked him before why he only dances with the best-looking women and, with his usual stereotypical flair, he told me, “If you must accessorize, accessorize with only the highest quality.”

I go for the friendliest-looking woman I can find, someone who looks like the type to take sick puppies in. My dance partner is a short woman with long extensions, long false eyelashes, and long acrylic nails with zigzag designs. She, too, sports tight jeans and snakeskin boots, as well as too-red lipstick on a mile-wide smile.

We don’t talk much, simply exchange names and careers. I lie (forgive me, Lord) and tell her that I’m a counselor. Her name is Rosy and she has her own band just starting at the smaller juke joints. I’d ask her more, but between counting out the dance steps and spying on Mark and Vicky, I really don’t have the time or the mental capacity. I’m sure if I tried to chew gum right now, I’d fall down and break my leg.

Mark has already defrosted his partner. She’s laughing, pressing her forehead to Mark’s shoulder one moment, then throwing it back, the cords in her neck dancing, the fillings in her back teeth glinting in the light from the disco ball. Vicky, too, has her partner laughing. She’s returning the favor, aiming that straight smile of hers right into her partner’s face.

But because I’m getting to be a chubby slug who does little more than stand at a podium and eat the massive amounts of food cooked for me by little old ladies, I’m winded and sweaty by the end of one song. I pass Rosy off to a more able partner and shuffle back to the table, where I throw myself at my chair and pour the last of the Crown into a plastic cup of melting ice.

Still, Mark was right. This is fun.

Knocking on my bedroom door wakes me from a rather explicitly sexual dream about Eleanor Roosevelt. I once thought that after a couple of years of celibacy I’d get used to some of the more disturbing couplings in the sleeping world, but I wake up with a start, thankful for two things: I didn’t break the vow and I didn’t break it with someone of Eleanor’s appearance. It’s 4:00 a.m.

“Time to get up, Steve.”

It’s Mark.

“Looks like the lynch mob is here.”

“Already?”

“Early bird and all. Besides, who knows how long this is going to take?”

He hangs in the doorway, hair combed, fully dressed: black shirt, collar, black priest pants stuffed into steel-toed boots. Big puffy hunter-safety orange coat.

“Why are you dressed already?”

“Kind of figured you’d have a lot more explaining to do if I answered the door wearing nothing but my boxers and bed-head.”

I fall back in the bed. “Shit.”

“It’s okay. I told them I was just a visiting priest here to help you leading up to the festival. They seemed happy to let it go at that.”

“Thanks,” I say. “Now get out of here so I can get dressed.” I pull on thermals, jeans, a flannel shirt, and a ragged seminary sweatshirt. It was supposed to get as low as thirty degrees overnight, and I can feel the cold seeping through the windows. I throw a camouflage coat over the ensemble. Too cold for priest clothes. Besides, I look a little more manly this way. But not nearly as manly as the fifty or so boys and men who are waiting for me out in the parking lot, smoking cigarettes and murmuring to each other at a low pitch. It sounds liked a well-tuned diesel engine, one that shuts down when Mark and I step out into the frigid night air.

Boudreaux, Miss Emilia’s husband and the commander of this ragtag battalion, greets us with a wave. “Morning, Fathers,” he says, removing his
Registered Coon-Ass
cap and rubbing the top of his bald head as if to warm it up.

“Boudreaux,” I say. “Everybody. Yall met Father Johnson?”

They all wave and mumble an affirmative.

“We best get started,” says Boudreaux, placing his cap back on his head. “Fathers, yall want to move yall’s cars? We gonna try to do this as close to the carport and rect’ry as possible. Stay out of the wind.”

Still sheltered in the door, I hadn’t noticed until now the treetops leaning over in the dark. It looks bone-biting cold beyond the glow of the parking-lot lights. I bet it’ll feel ten degrees colder when I actually get out of the house, which I aim to avoid as much as possible without coming off as a sissy.

“We can do that,” I say. “Yall want us to make some coffee?”

Boudreaux smiles. “Oh no, Father. Yall gonna help us this morning. Miss Emilia can make the coffee.” He turns to his truck and bangs on the rear fender before shouting, “Emilia! Wake up! You can get out the truck now. Go on in and make us some coffee.”

Miss Emilia climbs slowly out of the truck, wraps her arms around her body, and shuffles over to the door. “Morning, Father Sibille. Morning, Father Johnson.” Staring up at us from the bottom of the steps, she looks like a teacher’s pet who’s been asked to clean the blackboard.

“Get in here before you freeze to death,” I say as Mark and I give up the warmth of the rectory to join the men at their work. The door closes behind us, leaving Mark and me in a world we both thought we’d long ago left behind.

Boudreaux puts thumb and forefinger to the corners of his mouth and gives a shrill whistle, setting the men jogging to their trucks. A ballet of pickups—each of which has a blue tarp covering its bed—ensues as they all move to the side of the lot closest to the highway. Boudreaux’s leaves the line and backs slowly toward the space assigned for this morning’s task, pushing a trailer on which sits something shrouded in yet another blue tarp. The outlines suggest a sarcophagus built for a giant. The truck stops and out steps Boudreaux, who unknots the strings holding the tarp down. The others watch in silence.

“Thibodeaux,” he says, “grab a corner.”

Thibodeaux does so.

“Ready?” Boudreaux asks.

“Mais, I guess so,” says Thibodeaux, not quite sure what to expect.

They whip the tarp back, revealing a cypress-paneled box about ten feet long and three feet high. Its lid, edges, and bottom shine silver in the parking-lot lights. Someone lets loose an appreciative whistle. Just when I think there’s no possible way they’ll be able to lift the thing, four of them hop in the trailer and make short work of unloading it. The rest gather around as Boudreaux and Thibodeaux remove the lid, revealing an empty hollow lined with more shining stainless steel.

“Mais, goddamn, Boudreaux, you outdid yourself this time, yeah!” says someone.

“That’s what you been locked up in your shop with the last week?” asks another.

“That’s it, right there,” he says.

I reach out and touch the wooden side, a shiver rushing through me. It’s like touching a coffin. “What is it?”

“That’s our microwave,” says Boudreaux with a smile.

Boudreaux’s “microwave” is simply a monster-sized version of what’s known in these parts as a Cajun microwave. It’s a cypress box lined on the inside with stainless steel. On its lid is situated a tray meant to hold hot coals. Meat goes in the box. Lid goes on top of the box. Coals go in the lid. No-muss slow cooking.

And apparently Boudreaux figured we needed a king-sized version for the next step in the war of mutually assured destruction we’ve been waging with B.P.

No sooner had Mark moved in and told me we didn’t really need any more fund-raisers than I called a halt to the bake sales. Bye-bye to the barbecues. Good-bye to the gumbos. And good riddance. Then one Sunday after Mass, I watched as nearly all of my parishioners made a left out of the parking lot and headed in B.P.’s direction. I stomped over to my car, intending to follow. Wedged under the windshield wiper was a bright green piece of paper.

Food! Faith! Fun!

Worse:
Stop by the future home of the Holy Bible Fellowship Pentecostal Church of Christ for a day of barbecue and community. Games for the kids!

“Son of a bitch,” I whispered. Judging by the name of the church, he’d gone rogue, breaking off from any of the real Pentecostal communities in the area. And now he was going to poach my parishoners.

Sure enough, when I cruised by the place, there was my entire parish, a sea of camo and LSU purple, milling about B.P.’s property. A thin plume of white smoke seeped out of a large barbecue contraption set in the middle of the field. It appeared to be twice the size of Boudreaux’s trailer rig. Between two trees, I spied Little Red Riding Redneck, her brother, some other kid, and my very own Denise, hands tied behind their backs, jumping up and down, participating in some sort of born-again depravity. I made a U-turn, headed back to St. Pete’s, and started working the cell phone. It was time for an emergency meeting of the festival committee. That night. No excuses.

They all showed up on time. Miss Celestine, Miss Emilia, and Miss Pamela looked like they were sick with guilt—or sick with eating some other church’s filthy barbecue. Vicky looked mildly amused. And Denise, simply too young to know any better, immediately started bragging about winning a hot-dog-ona-string contest.

“It was pretty cool,” she gushed. “They tied this string between two trees. Then they hung some wienies from the string. Then they tied our hands behind our backs. Then we had to hop up and down while we—”

“Denise,” Miss Pamela said, trying to cut her off.

“What?” she answered, ready to go toe-to-toe with her arch enemy.

“Denise,” Vicky cut in. “I don’t think Father Steve wants to hear about the barbecue.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s not true. Not true at all. I want to hear all about B.P.’s barbecue. Looks like yall all had yourselves a good time.”

Even a deaf monkey could have interpreted my mood. Denise fell silent and looked to the old women for guidance, but they were all looking at their shoes. All Vicky had to offer was a shrug.

After a few minutes of silence, Vicky spoke. “I’m sure Father Steve called us together for some other reason.”

In truth, I hadn’t even thought that part through. If I didn’t come up with something, I’d just look like an angry and jealous boyfriend. Panicked, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“Bake sale. Next Sunday. Get the word out.”

“Yes, Father,” they replied at once, in unison, as if saying “amen.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay. That’s all I wanted. I have some work to do. Thank yall for coming.”

With that, Denise, Miss Celestine, and Miss Emilia hurried out, tears in their eyes. Miss Pamela took her time, leaving with her back straight and head held high. Still, I knew she’d been chastened. Vicky, of course, stayed behind.

I shut the door behind the guilty and rested my forehead against the windowpane.

“That was a fine performance, Padre. Really, another bake sale?”

I didn’t look up. “You have a better idea? Obviously, I just can’t sit back and wait for the festival.”

“Hey, look at that,” she said, walking over and grabbing me by the shoulders. She gave me a brief massage, releasing perhaps ten pounds of tension. “Looks like you’re realizing this is a year-round job.”

She squeezed again. I groaned.

But that was it. She patted me on the back three times. “But it’s your job, boyo. You handle this one.” She grabbed one of my belt loops and pulled me away from the door so she could make her own exit. “And you make damn sure you call each one of them old ladies tomorrow to apologize. And Denise, too.”

An hour later, before I had a chance to even think about apologizing, there was a knock on the door. I opened it to find Boudreaux standing in the dark. I thought he’d come to kick my ass for humiliating his wife.

“Boudreaux,” I said, looking around to see if any other old men were hiding behind the trees waiting to pounce.

“Father.”

“How can I help you?”

“Hear you having another bake sale.”

There it was. He was going to beat me like a redheaded stepchild.

“Yeah, looks like it.” I felt the less I said the better. No need to provoke him. Boudreaux may have been thirty years my senior and he didn’t look like much, but I figured he had the deceptive strength of a chimp—he’d break my fingers, tear off my testicles, then pull my shoulders out of their sockets and beat me to death with my own arm.

He took off his hat and looked down at it. Was that a sign of aggression? Was he going to bare his teeth next? Pound his chest?

“You don’t think we’ve had enough cake out here for one year?”

I forced a chuckle. “Well, it sure has been a lot. And I’m sorry if I’m taking up too much of Miss Emilia’s time.”

He crammed his cap back on his hand and put a hand up to stop me. “Look. It’s like this.” That four-word phrase was a Cajun signal that the speaker had decided to stop dancing around an issue. “Emilia got nothing better to do. And her and them ol’ gals will bake you a million cakes if you ask them to. And their friends will buy every single one of ’em. Hell, Father, they’d jump off a cliff for you.”

“Well—” I started.

He put his hand up again. “Look. You gotta realize something. You in a fight now. B.P., he done called you out. And you gonna have to do better than a bake sale. I know that man. He don’t stop unless you make him. He’s what you call a one-upper.”

“A one-upper?”

“Yessir. He always has to know better than you. Always has to catch a bigger fish, drive a bigger car, have a bigger scar, have the worst problem. Tell that man you got ten fingers, he’ll look you in the eye and tell you he had twelve just yesterday but two fell off in his sleep.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, but Boudreaux didn’t.

“I guess it’s funny at first, but that gets aggravating after a while, yeah.” He’d taken his cap off again and was twisting it in frustration. “Kee-yahhhhh!” he exclaimed, and slapped the cap against his thigh to clear his head. “Look,” he started again. “That man means business. He got you in his sights. Not just you, but the whole church, too. Them old ladies love you, but it’s like he’s bringing them roses and you just giving them a handful of clover you found on the side of the road. After a while, they might start doing more than eating his barbecue.”

“Shit,” I said, forgetting I was in front of a parishioner.

“That about sums it up,” he answered.

“What do we do?”

“Well, that festival’s a good idea. I thought you were crazy at first, but now it almost looks like you saw him coming. Problem is, we smack in the middle of winter with nothing to do until then.”

“And bake sales aren’t going to cut it?”

“Nope.”

“Any suggestions?”

“We should try a couple more main courses, something a little more involved than some cupcakes in a box.”

“Like?”

“We could start with fried turkey.”

I thought about it. “That isn’t cheap, Boudreaux. And it sounds like a lot of work.”

“No, it ain’t. It ain’t cheap. But how much you willing to pay to win? As far as the work goes, me and the boys will take care of that.”

He was right. He knew it. I knew it. He knew that I knew. I wasn’t going to let B.P. win, even if it meant bankrupting the church.

“What can I do?” I asked.

“Make up some flyers. Rent one of them fun-jumps for the kids and pay the bill when I send it to you.”

With that, he drove off into the night.

The turkey fry was a rousing success. After a week of dreary Louisiana winter rain, the clouds broke on a Sunday morning to give way to a sixty-five-degree day of kids jumping and grease splattering. The only hiccup was that Mark and Vicky absolutely refused to let me give away the food for free. “You can bankrupt your church, but you’re not bankrupting my festival,” Vicky said. I thought, as the priest, I had some sort of veto power, but she quickly cured me of that delusion. I even tried to rope Boudreaux into the fight, but in yet another sign of the man’s wisdom, he said he’d have none of it. “Besides,” he added, “they don’t mind paying a little for the pleasure. Makes it feel like a sacrifice.”