Maura was looking around the bustling lobby for a quiet corner in which to talk, but the place was teeming with activity. The Philippe de Champaigne was one of the first hotels to reopen after the second year in a row of disaster relief and cleanup, and today its bellhops scurried to and fro while guests marshaled their luggage past the ornate brass fixtures and marble colonnades and jungles of fichus and fern plants.
“Why don't we take a walk?” she said at last, indicating the glass doors.
Grove stashed his luggage behind the concierge desk, and they took their leave into the sultry afternoon.
It was already edging toward ninety degrees as they started toward Canal Street, sidestepping street musicians and panhandlers. New Orleans had risen from its watery grave once again, and was almost back to business as usual.
The heat seemed to lie on top of the city like a veil, and Grove instantly perspired through his shirt. He shrugged off his coat and carried it on his arm as they talked about minor things for a few minutes, travel plans, the results of the hearings. Finally Grove said, “You gonna tell me what's going on or what?”
“First let me ask you a question.”
“Fire away.”
“Do you love me?”
“What? Yes.”
“It's not a trick question, Ulysses.”
“Yes, Christ. Yes. I do. I love the hell outta you, Maura.” He put his arm around her. “I really do. You're it, kiddo. For the duration.”
She nodded, satisfied. Like it was a test, and Grove had just passed.
They were walking south on Canal toward the Mississippi. The streetcars clanged past them, the pale sky low and heavy with humidity. The air smelled of wood smoke and rotting fish and diesel fumes. Signs of the flood were everywhere. Most storefronts were still boarded, and river scum still clung to the sides of buildings twenty feet above ground level. Construction equipment and roadblocks choked the streets. But things were getting better every day.
“Hold on a second, stop, stop!” Grove stepped in front of her as they approached Riverfront Park. The shipyard behind him boomed and wheezed with activity, the ravages of the second killer hurricane still visible in the piles of wreckage. He took Maura by the arms. “What's the matter?”
“Nothing's the matter, Ulysses. There's some news, is all.”
He looked at her, his heart beginning to thump. The look in her eye made him nervous all of a sudden. “Wait a minute,” he uttered.
She was grinning, her eyes going liquid all of a sudden. “I wanted to tell you in person. As soon as I found out. I'm eating for two, Uly.”
He looked into her shimmering green eyes, and he felt the world tilt slightly. He couldn't move. A pelican shrilled in the distance. He felt his face flush hot with blood, then break out into the stupidest smile in recorded history. “You are not,” he murmured.
“Yep, sure am.” Maura's smile lit up her face, and she put her arms around him. “You're gonna be a daddy, Ulysses.”
He hugged her tightly, and he tried to say something intelligent, but the lump in his throat would not let him. His eyes were stinging now, watering, and he wiped them with the back of his hand. At last he looked at her and said, “If you start smoking again I will shoot you.”
She laughed. “C'mon. I'm starved. Did that place that serves alligator reopen yet?”
They turned and walked back up Canal Street, hand in hand, until they vanished into the heat rays of people and machinery and a city rebuilding once again.
Afterword
The parade of souls is marching across the sky
Their heat and their light bathed in blue as they
march by
The All Stars play “When the Saints Go Marching
In”
A second line forms and they wave white hankies
in the wind.
âMary Gauthier, “Wheel Inside the Wheel”
Â
In these final pages, which are usually reserved for the requisite thank-yous and smoke blowing, I would like to dispense with customary protocol and extend my love, best wishes, and deep gratitude to an entire city.
I confess I am merely a tourist, a distant admirer of the great New Orleans, but this book not only owes its existence to this amazing town, it also merely skims the surface of New Orleans's greatness. Notwithstanding the strange confluence of events that occurred during the writing of this bookâan example of life imitating ...
something
... maybe art, maybe simple fateâI would like to pay tribute to the town that existed before Hurricane Katrina and will exist long after we all go to that parade of souls in the sky. Thanks to all the parishes that welcomed me during my visits and opened their funky-big hearts to meâespecially Orleans, Jefferson, St. Tammany, St. Bernard, and St. Charles.
Thanks to the people of the French Quarter, with their patina of grace and soulfulness, the street musicians like Glen Andrews and the Lazy 6, and the guys down at the Louisiana Music Factory, 210 Decatur Street, for keeping the local music scene alive (
www.louisianamusicfactory.com
). Thanks to Joe Crown, and Papa John Gros, and Grayson Capps (you always get back up), and the great eateries of the Quarter like Dickie Brennan's and K-Paul's. And especially Antoine's, 713 St. Louis Street, for keeping the incredible cuisine alive (I had oysters Rockefeller number 4,010,763). Thanks to the caretakers and stewards of the great cities of the dead, such as Lafayette Number 1, where Professor De Lourde was put to rest, and the St. Louises, established in 1789, a true community of spirits. Thanks to the fascinating Historic Voodoo Museum on Dumaine, and the beautiful Tulane campus, and the magnificent Audubon Park. And these are just an apéritif of all that the city has to offer.
Enormous gratitude and affection goes out to all the generations of artists, thinkers, and eccentrics who have populated this spectacular gumbo of culture and history called New Orleans (and who have inspired me). To Marie Laveau, the Mardis Gras Indians, Buddy Bolden, Tennessee Williams, Louis Armstrong, Anne Rice, Jelly Roll Morton, William Faulkner, Professor Longhair, Clarence Gatemouth Brown (R.I.P.), Dr. John, and many many many more. And last but not least, thank you to those who risked life and limb in August of '05 to save the town and the people from the lethal floodwater: the first responders, the firefighters, the NOPD, and the American Red Cross.
The Red Cross, in fact, is still, at press time, taking donations to help the ongoing relief efforts across the gulf and around the world. You can reach them at
www.RedCross.org
. Please give until it hurts. New Orleans is a living museum, a treasure, a national heirloom. It is where popular American music was born. It is the true literary Mecca of the country. We must preserve it, celebrate it, move to it, visit it, and always, always, always remember it.
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2006 Jay Bonansinga
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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