The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival (6 page)

“It’ll be a nightmare,” she says. “Either no one will show up and you’ll beat yourself up over it or too many people will show up, have too good a time, and the people of this sleepy little village will be upset about torn-up lawns and trash all over the place. Or worse, Steve, what if busloads of black folk turn out?”

“Black folk, Vicky?” I know she’s joking. I hope she’s joking. “Black folk?”

“Well, if you don’t like that, you’re gonna like some of your parishioners’ names for them a lot less if five thousand show up at once.”

“Give them some credit, Vicky. People will like it. It’ll be a good time.”

“Steve.”

“Vicky.”

“Steve.”

I play my trump card. “It’s an excuse to drink.”

She shrugs. “Well, I can’t argue with that.”

We sit silent in lawn chairs. November is having another one of its Louisiana warm fits and it feels like spring. Vicky lights cigarettes for each of us. The patch of field directly in front of us rustles to life and a scrawny rabbit hops onto the back lawn.

“Well, there you go,” she says.

“There I go what?”

“The name of your festival.”

“Really?” I don’t know. Rabbit Festival just doesn’t strike me as all that inspiring.

“Everything else is taken,” she says. “Jazz. Zydeco. Cotton. Crawfish. Cracklin’. Smoked meat. Sausage. Strawberry. Watermelon. Rice. I mean, the fucking Wagon Wheel Festival, even.”

“Guess you’re right,” I say.

“Damn right I’m right. There you go. Rabbit Festival. Better yet. Le Festival du Lapin or some French crap like that.”

It’s not poetry but it sounds a little more legit than just Rabbit Festival. Then again, Rabbit Festival has a certain simple charm about it. And I can spell it without a problem.

“Well, Vick, we can’t turn back now.”

“We?”

“We got five and a half months to make this baby.”

“We?”

“Yeah. You named it. You can’t abandon it now.”

“Do you have any idea what’s involved in this sort of thing, Steve?”

“Not at all,” I say. “Not a single, little clue.”

She wings her bottle cap at the rabbit, sending it off in a brown blur. “You’re going to owe me big for this, boyo.”

And already I owe her. Plans for the First Annual Festival du Lapin are getting off to a rocky start. The Web site drew no attention. A note in the weekend bulletin raised fewer eyebrows than a fart during Saturday Mass. Finally, I had to use the old Catholic standby, the guilt trip, by making an announcement during Mass—on a coffee-and-donuts day no less (one weekend a month, makes the kids happy).

I need to work on my guilting skills. All of four volunteers have shown up to this, our first meeting. Miss Emilia Boudreaux, Miss Celestine Thibodeaux, Miss Pamela Pitre, and my favorite altar girl, Denise. Vicky’s here as well, but I consider her a conscript, not a volunteer. I even called Miss Velma Richard. She said, “Oh, I don’t know, Father. I’ll sure think about it.” Apparently, she didn’t think much of it.

Even the shut-ins are too busy.

We’re in my living room. I’m on the couch, Vicky to my right, Denise to my left inviting so much obvious symbolism that the little voice in my head simply says,
Well, that’s just about perfect
. The three older ladies are perched on chairs in a semicircle facing the couch. With the exception of Vicky, the four volunteers all seemed a little stunned at first by being in the priest’s living room.

But they put that behind them quickly enough so that they can get down to fighting, fighting about the very name of the festival. I suspect this is the first bump on what promises to be a long, substandard roadway.

And to think, just four minutes ago we were all congratulating ourselves on the Rabbit Festival, a great name for a south Louisiana festival. After all, the rabbit is not only a fine animal to eat, it’s a fine animal to draw and will therefore lend itself well to T-shirts and balloons and posters and such. Also, rabbits can be petted and raced and adored. Rabbits are more fun than a wagon wheel, more hands-on than a sausage, more interesting than a strawberry. Even the French name for the festival—and every south Louisiana festival worth its salt has to have a French name—is relatively easy to pronounce.

But the rabbit’s not the issue. “First Annual” is the issue.

“There’s no such thing,” Miss Pamela has announced to the room.

She’s a scold, plain and simple, the type of woman who might chase little boys off her lawn—not so much because they’ll ruin her flowers but because they might break an arm and sue her.

Her lips pinch up after she makes her announcement, and Miss Emilia and Miss Celestine go bug-eyed; they’re not quite sure what’s just been said. I imagine that a hundred years ago Miss Emilia and Miss Celestine would have been the sharecroppers’ wives to Miss Pamela’s lady of the big house. About the only thing these three have in common is a preference for sensible shoes and a fierce competitive streak when it comes to proving themselves in the eyes of the Lord. But even there, Miss Pamela’s faith seems more rational—German, maybe verging on Lutheranism—whereas the other two are squarely of the superstitious French Catholic variety, a hairbreadth away from voodoo and Santeria. Miss Pamela is a tall, angular woman who favors pantsuits and carries herself like an angry librarian, always on the verge of shushing you. She’s the type to invite me to lunch and serve sensible portions on matching plates accompanied by silverware. She speaks in whole sentences consisting of properly used and properly pronounced words, tinged with the slightest hint of a traditional southern accent. And while Miss Emilia and Miss Celestine have been housewives their entire adult lives, Miss Pamela, until last year, had been an English teacher at the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Grand Coteau.

Which is where the problem stems from.

“There’s no such thing as what?” Miss Emilia finally thinks to ask.

“There’s no such thing as first annual,” Miss Pamela tells her. “It’s a grammatical impossibility,” she adds, looking at the rest of us, daring someone to contradict her.

Miss Celestine looks at me, confusion wrinkling her entire face, like she’s just burped up something she doesn’t remember eating.

She and Miss Emilia are not the sort to argue in public, much less in front of the priest. They’re simple women, short and round and given to wearing the flower-print dresses of your standard-issue Cajun mawmaw. They serve huge portions, fuss over me, insist I eat more, and then send me home with all of the leftovers. Miss Emilia and Miss Celestine speak excitedly in flat Cajun dialect, butchering the English language as needed and falling into French when it suits them.

“Now, Miss Pamela,” I start. For some reason, I’m afraid she’s going to send me to the board and make me diagram sentences for the rest of the day. But I’m the boss. I think. “I’m sure we can be reasonable.”

“Father, I’m sorry. But those are the rules. It can be the First Rabbit Festival, but it can’t be the first annual. It can’t be annual until it’s actually been held in a subsequent year on the same date.”

Before I can ask Miss Pamela what the hell she’s going on about, Denise jumps in.

“But First Annual sounds better. Sounds more important,” she says.

Oh, dear Lord, child, you have no idea what you’re playing with here. Look hard enough at Miss Pamela and you can see she was a looker in her day. And if there’s one thing an aging beauty queen hates, it’s a budding beauty.

“It sure does sound better,” Miss Celestine says.

“Yeah,” Miss Emilia chimes in.

The two don’t look at each other but I can tell they’re surprised to be in agreement.

Miss Pamela, though, ignores them. “Whether or not it sounds good to you, young lady,” she says, offering Denise a gaze honed over thirty years of teaching uppity young girls, “is irrelevant. It still does not make the construction correct.”

“Listen, ladies,” I offer. “I think we can reach an agreement.”

“Rules are rules,” Miss Pamela says, matter-of-factly. End of debate. The Germans will neither compromise nor surrender.

“It’s a stupid rule if you ask me,” Denise snaps.

“Young lady!” Miss Pamela says, her eyelids snapping up like window shades.

The other two, emboldened by Denise, jump in now and they’re all clucking away like hens fighting over a worm. I’d rather try to stop a knife fight than sort this out. I stick an elbow into Vicky’s ribs. She shrugs and offers me a smirk.

“C’monnn,” I whisper.

She lets me twist a little longer.

“Vicky,” I hiss.

“Ladies!” she shouts. Silence comes quickly.

“Yall can argue all day if you want, but apparently yall can’t come to a decision.” She pauses. “And as chairperson of the festival.”

She looks at me to see if I have an objection to this bit of improvisation. Of course I don’t. I may be a fool, but I’m not stupid.

“As chairman, I’m saying we go with First Annual.”

“Told you so,” Denise says. I half expect her to stick out her tongue and say, “Nyaahh.”

Miss Pamela’s mouth drops, the better to catch her breath before launching into a grammatical sermon. But Vicky raises her hand in a stopping motion.

“Miss Pamela, I understand your point and of course you’re right. But the fact is, we do intend to have another festival at the same time next year.”

Whoa, whoa, whoa! I hadn’t thought of that. What has Miss Rita gotten me into here? The word
eternity
flashes through my mind, suddenly more concrete than it’s ever been when I toss it around during Mass.

“And the year after that and the year after that and the year after that. Right, Father?”

“Um, yeah, absolutely,” I manage.

“Which,” Vicky continues, “technically speaking, means this will be an annual festival. So the way I see it, it’s the Annual Rabbit Festival. This just happens to be the first of the Annual Rabbit Festivals, therefore the First Annual Rabbit Festival.”

Say what?

Vicky takes out a pen and piece of paper and writes across it
First Annual Rabbit Festival.

“See? No hyphen between the first and the annual.”

Miss Pamela considers the paper.

I have no idea if Vicky’s making any grammatical sense at all. She might as well be scribbling trigonometry formulas for all I’m concerned. But I think Miss Pamela understands she’s lost the argument and is being offered the only dignified way out. As it is, no one else in the room knows what’s going on at this point.

“I guess I can live with that,” Miss Pamela finally says. “Yes. That makes sense.”

“Great,” Vicky says, but goes on. “Now, Miss Pamela, do you still have that cousin who runs the silk-screening and poster place in Lafayette?”

“Yes. I do. Why?”

“We’re going to need someone to do the posters for the festival.”

Denise starts to protest. “But I wanted to draw the poster.”

I may have told her something to that effect at some point. I put my face in my hands. I can’t even look at her. When I do peak through my fingers I can see Miss Pamela’s mouth twist into a satisfied smirk.

“Denise,” Vicky explains. “A festival poster has to be done professionally. I’m sorry, darling, but you’ve seen other festival posters. People frame these things. They’re collectors’ items. I know you can draw, but we need a painter.”

Again, I get the sense that Vicky’s making this up as she goes along.

“You’ll get plenty of opportunity to draw, Denise. There’s the local flyers. Menus. Fund-raising stuff. You name it. Then there’s the T-shirt design for the kids’ T-shirts.” Denise’s eyes light up at this. “Trust me, kid,” Vicky concludes. “By the time we’re done, you’re gonna have your drawings all over the place, from here to Baton Rouge.”

Vicky then turns back to Miss Pamela. “So, we can count on you for running down someone for the poster?”

“Of course,” she says, her grammar defeat already forgotten and an obvious victory over Denise now under her pantsuit belt.

“And, you two,” Vicky says, turning to Miss Emilia and Miss Celestine. “You’re going to have to round up your troops for baking.”

“Oh!” they both say, their eyes dancing at the mere thought of a bake sale.

Bake sales. Plate lunches. The plans go on and on, their voices getting more and more excited as Vicky whips them into a froth. If I slump any more, I’m going to fall off the couch. I can hear a Frankenstein’s bunny in steel-toe boots clomping around in the background. Already, the monster’s grown out of control.

“Would you stop it with the Pentecostals, Steve? They’re not going to come and take us all away.” Vicky’s chastising me again.

“Crazier things have happened,” I protest. I tell her about Timmy.

“Wowwwww,” she says. “Your childhood was really traumatic. How you survived is beyond me.”

“How about a little more respect?” I say.

“How about a little less sensitivity?” she says, laughing. “And let me be clear, Steve. I’m laughing at you right now, not with you.”

“Shut up” is the only response I have.

“Quit pouting,” she answers. “C’mon. Let’s get these cakes out to the tables.”

We’re in my kitchen, boxing up the handful of cakes I stayed up baking and frosting last night. It’s not another bake sale, thankfully. My festival team is outside in the parking lot holding down the front lines in our barbecue plate-lunch sale. Miss Emilia’s husband—known to everyone simply by his last name, Boudreaux—drove up in his pickup at five this morning, pulling behind him a trailer with a fifteen-foot-long smoker welded to it. He’s been out there barbecuing ribs, pork steaks, and half chickens since then. Miss Emilia, Miss Celestine, and Miss Pamela, I imagine, were up at the same time starting side dishes: Miss Emilia on baked beans, Miss Celestine on rice dressing, and Miss Pamela on corn bread. The three of them came to Saturday Mass yesterday so they could slave over their stoves this morning. Denise had drawn up flyers and put them under windshield wipers last weekend and last night. She also stapled them to telephone poles out on the highway—as if expecting foot traffic to miraculously appear at some point. Vicky had remembered to stop at the bank to get small bills for change on Friday and, on top of that, ran to Walmart and bought three folding tables, four large plastic garbage pails, and a stack of plastic chairs so that anyone deciding they wanted to eat in the parking lot could do so.

All of which left me feeling a little guilty about doing absolutely nothing. So last night, I ran into Opelousas, loaded up my cart with boxes of Duncan Hines cake mixes and frosting, and spent the night messing up the kitchen and making myself sick eating large amounts of cake batter. I followed the instructions, so they all came out edible even if they don’t live up to the standards of “homemade.” I just don’t want to look at them anymore and my body is craving meat something fierce. It was all I could do to get through services this morning with the smell of barbecue wafting through the doors.

“Steve, these are steady, older people here in Grand Prairie,” Vicky’s saying as we leave the kitchen. “They’re not exactly candidates for the born-again lifestyle. You’ll probably hardly ever hear from these Pentecostals. I’m sure they’ll stay on their side of town.”

“Their side of town? Grand Prairie isn’t big enough to have sides.”

“If it’ll make you happy, maybe you can install some railroad tracks across the highway to mark a clear border. Then you can have a sit-down with the good reverend and just tell him to stay on his side.”

“Go on. Joke. But you don’t know how these people work.”

She stops next to a dirty pickup, one of the many vehicles still in the lot after Mass. There are more cars pulling in, parking on the shoulder of the highway as people line up for Grand Prairie’s best barbecue. “Quit being retarded,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“Whatever,” I say as I brush by her, but draw to a quick halt. “Look,” I whisper, as if I’ve just spotted danger.

“What?”

“It’s him.”

“Him, who?” she says.

“B.P.”

“Be what?”

“Him. The Pentecostal. Right there in the line.”

“Get out of here,” she says. “Where?” Now she’s whispering. We slide up next to another pickup so we can spy without being seen.

“See the little girl with the dirty red hoodie and the Pentecostal skirt and the Pentecostal hair? The big guy right behind her. What are they doing here?”