Water is Thicker than Blood (2 page)

“
I made a stew for supper,”
she said as she tried to lure him out of the bedroom. “Even got
some meat in it. Caught a big, fat opossum in a trap yesterday and
used some of the meat in the stew. Rest is in the
smoker.”

“
Ain’t hungry.”

“
Well, hungry or no, you
should still eat something. Sleeping on an empty stomach ain’t good
for you.”

“
Ain’t hungry.”

“
Lawd!”

Rue ate her supper alone.
With Hank not eating, she had a lot of stew left. She hated
throwing out food because it was so hard to come by. And she had
done a particularly fine job with this batch if she did say so
herself. Old Man Blue once said that people used to put leftovers
in their refrigerators, which would keep them cold and prevent them
from going bad too quick. You could cook up food days in advance
and it still be edible when you got around to eating it. They had a
refrigerator in the kitchen, but it didn’t have a door and they
just used it as shelf space. Even if it had a door, they didn’t
have electricity for it to run on. And even if they had
electricity, Hank had removed the cord and the motor for scrap sale
a long time ago.

“
Damnit!” she screamed. Why
did they do it? Why did they destroy the world and leave Rue with
nothing but dry faucets and warm refrigerators and lightless lamps?
They had everything, and they blew it up and left her with
nothing.

“
Rue, honey? You alright?”
It was Lula. Rue walked into the front room to see Lula and Joseph
standing in front of the screen door looking all concerned at
her.

“
Oh, I’m fine,” she lied as
she wiped her hands on her apron. “Hank’s home and he’s being a
pain in my backside, is all.”

“
We were walking by and
heard you yell. Thought something happened to you.”

“
What you doing out at this
hour?”

“
We were over in Tremé,”
said Joseph.

“
Needed a remedy for my
arthritis. It’s acting up again.”

“
I told her I know good
people at the Circle that can cure that, but—”

“
Enough! I’ve been getting
my remedies from Ms. Joleene for a good number of years now and
she’s served me just fine.”

“
Yes, mama.”

“
Did you all eat yet?”
asked Rue.

“
No, I gotta go fix us some
supper.”

“
I got some stew left over
if you want it. Hank ain’t eating and I already ate.”

“
Hank might be hungry
later,” said Lula.

“
Or he might not and it
will get thrown out.”

“
Well, Mr. Hank is a grown
man and can care for himself,” said Joseph. “If you went to the
effort of cooking a meal and he don’t appreciate it, would be a
shame for it to get thrown out.”

“
Well, true that. Man’s
more stubborn than a mule,” said Lula. Rue went into the kitchen
and put the cover on the pot. She brought the pot out to Lula.
“I’ll have Joseph bring the pot back tomorrow.”

“
Mr. Hank fix that water
purifier yet?” Rue shook her head. “Then I’ll return the pot in the
morning when I bring by your water.”

* * *

It was Hank’s cousin Vale
who told Rue what had happened. He had come by to check on Hank,
but Hank refused to take visitors. Vale had a fresh wound that
looked like someone came real close to cutting his face clean off.
Someone had stitched it up in a hurry and put a dressing on it. But
the wound was seeping and the bandage had dull red and black-green
blotches on it. It was painful for him to talk and painful to watch
him suffering while he talked.

They had found the
Consulate Mr. Horton told them about. Even managed to get inside it
and find file cabinets on the second and third floors that were
full of papers that looked like they were real important at once
time. The first floor of the Consulate was completely underwater,
but they had managed to climb inside the second floor by walking
across a few buckled beams from a collapsed building next door.
More importantly, the files were mostly dry and readable. With all
of the flooding after Doomsday, it was a rare thing to find large
amounts of paper or books that were still legible.

They had packed up as much
as they could carry in the plastic, waterproof containers Mr.
Horton had provided them. But on the way out they ran into small
band of cannibals. Brice had his shotgun and enough ammo to take
down a few of them, but the fight got ugly and one of them cut Vale
up bad. Worst, they managed to kill Paul.

Hank had ordered everyone
to run, and so they ran. They left Paul’s corpse there for the
surviving cannibals to do with what they wanted. They did manage to
salvage most of the containers they had filled.

Mr. Horton was good to his
word and paid them when they delivered the containers of papers. A
whole $100 each. When they told him what had happened to Paul, he
gave them Paul’s share to give to his widow.

One hundred
dollars,
Rue thought. The equivalent of
four gallons of clean water. That’s what Paul’s wife got for losing
her husband to a bunch of cannibals. A hundred dollars wasn’t
enough to treat that infection growing in Vale’s wound, either. It
probably didn’t even cover the cost of the ammo Brice spent trying
to save their hides and keep them from getting killed. No wonder
Hank was in a mood.

After Vale left, she went
looking for Hank. He was sitting on the back stoop. “Not now,
woman,” he said as she opened the screen door.

“
Then when? Vale told me
what happened. You could have been killed.”

“
But I wasn’t.”

“
But Paul was! And Vale
ain’t long for this world if he don’t get that infection
cured.”

“
Now you just carrying on
like a woman.”

“
And you just carrying on
like a man.”

“
So what would you have me
do?”

“
You could apply over at
the Recycling Center. You know people there and you sold them
plenty of scrap in the past. They know you’re a good
worker.”

“
I’m my own man. I ain’t
gonna work for slave wages for Samedi.”

“
Lawd! Listen to you. You
were gone almost a week, nearly got yourself killed, lost one of
your friends, and earned a grand total of $100. Only thing you a
slave to is your damn pride!”

“
Pride is all a man has
when the world don’t give him nothing.”

“
I guess I’m nothing to
you, then?”

“
Don’t start,
woman.”

“
It’s done been started. We
ain’t got nothing because you more concerned about your pride than
surviving. They got good jobs at the Recycling Center and the Salt
Processing plant. Good jobs that have regular pay and don’t require
you fighting off cannibals or ferals or getting yourself
irradiated. But you hate on the Baron too much to do anything you
think will help him look good. So instead you would rather run off
and risk getting yourself killed.

“
You been sulking about for
days when you could have been fixing things around the house,
leaving me to depend on the kindness of neighbors just to have
water to drink. Does your pride got any room for me? Do you even
know what tomorrow is?”

Hank looked up at her and
scowled. “Now all the sudden you want to do something for your
birthday?”

“
Maybe. Maybe just once I’d
like to. Even if it was just a card. Card wouldn’t be going too
much out of your way for your wife.”

“
Where am I supposed to
find a card?”

“
That bookbinder fella down
the way.”

“
The mute? Don’t he work
for the Circle of Magi?”

“
He just makes paper and
binds books for them. He ain’t no wizard ‘cause he can’t talk to
cast spells from what I understand. He makes cards for special
occasions, too. Folks been getting them for loved ones. He makes
all kinds of cards.”

“
Yeah, and how much are
they?”

“
I think Lorraine said she
spent ten dollars for one she got her parents for their
anniversary.”

“
Ten dollars! Ain’t no
piece of paper worth that.”

“
It ain’t just a piece of
paper.”

“
Ain’t no
card
worth that,
either.”

Rue slumped her shoulders
and went back into the house.

* * *

Open sessions at the Old
Courthouse were a sight to behold.

When Baron Samedi arrived
in New Orleans all those years ago, the only people with the zombie
affliction locals had ever seen were ferals that you shot straight
in the head before they attacked you. But the Baron had a way about
him despite looking like a corpse. Where a person would think a
victim of the zombification would be either completely crazy or
always depressed, Baron Samedi wore his affliction like a blessing
from God. He often said that the Lord saw fit to preserve him so
that he could restore New Orleans to her proper glory and create a
community worthy of the people who lived there.

The Baron had been a civil
engineer before Doomsday, so he knew all sorts of things about what
the city would need to make itself whole. He and his Chevaliers
didn’t just bring their knowledge and skill with them. They brought
a sense of self-worth and hope. Sure, there were petty political
squabbles between the Zombi Court and the Queen’s Circle, mostly
because Lady Rae felt it disrespectful for the Baron to call after
himself with the name of one of her revered voodoo loas instead of
using the name his mama had given him. But even the Voodoo Queen
couldn’t deny the effectiveness of the Court.

Once a month, the Baron
opened the Old Courthouse to the general public so that he and his
Chevaliers could give a full accounting of things and hear any
problems folks had. People took these sessions seriously and
dressed accordingly. Those who could afford it would buy new
outfits to wear for the occasions. But everyone made sure their
clothes were cleaned and mended even if they weren’t new. Nobody
wanted to insult the efforts of the Baron by showing up before him
in filthy rags.

Rue felt a bit like a
princess as she walked up the courthouse steps with Lula and
Joseph. Joseph had gone to the expense of buying both Rue and his
mother corsages. Corsages! It was such a luxury. Each was made of
freshly picked crimson-eyed rose-mallow. Joseph said the Circle of
Magi cultivated the flowers for various alchemy purposes. She was
suspicious of that at first, but Joseph said alchemy was just a
more scientific form of the apothecary work folks like Ms. Joleene
did to make her remedies. And if God created all plants, then He
created them with all of the powers they had inside them. Wasn’t no
sin to access that which God put there Himself.

Her opinion of Joseph, and
his friends at the Circle, had changed a bit. He was still the same
good son he had always been. He took good care of his mama and by
all appearances was using his magic for good. He had taken it upon
himself to help Rue in her time of need when nobody would have
expected him to do so or blamed him if he didn’t. If his
power
was
coming
from the Devil, Satan must have been furious that Joseph was doing
God’s work with it.

Several women in the
assembly stopped them to comment on the corsages. It was a nice
change to be the one people looked on with admiration instead of
being the one doing the admiring. She was glad to be here with her
friend and Joseph instead of Hank. Hank would have just made her
feel guilty for enjoying the attention.

Chevalier Armand, the only
member of the Zombi Court who was not afflicted with zombification,
stepped onto the stage and asked everyone to take their seats so
that the open session could begin. A few women hooted at him,
causing a contagious giggle to spread throughout the assembly.
Armand was a handsome man; a type of handsome that belonged to
another time. Like the type of handsome hinted at on the worn movie
posters or in mildewed magazines that occasionally turned up in the
city. Even Rue made a mental note to ask the Lord for forgiveness
later for the sin of wondering what that man looked like
naked.

He went through the ritual
of presenting each Chevalier one at a time. When the entire Zombi
Court was on the stage, only then did he introduce Baron Samedi.
The assembly stood and cheered as he walked toward his chair. He
turned to the audience, removed his purple top hat, and bowed
before taking his seat.

“
My dear brothers and
sisters of this Blessed City, I thank you for extending me the
kindness of your presence this evening,” began Samedi. “My heart is
filled with joy seeing you all here to lend your voices to ours, so
that we may together decide on the future of Nola not only for
ourselves, but for our children and our children’s
children.

“
We have struggled long and
hard together. We have sacrificed. We have done without so our
neighbors would not. We have stood firm against the evils of the
apocalypse and refused to allow the forces of chaos to drive us
from our righteous course. We have pushed ourselves to the limits
of human ability, and then broke those limits through faith in God
and faith in each other.”