Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans (7 page)

“He could have gotten a ride there.”

“You know I tried to call Cousin Genevieve at Silver Creek. Bunch of times. Nobody there, Sylvia.”

He’d also continued his daily check of the Red Cross list of the missing online at the hotel, and gotten a list of twenty-eight more hospitals in every parish between New Orleans and Silver Creek. Nothing.

Sylvia pondered this, took a small bite out of her sandwich, then another sip of the Bloody Mary. She stirred the drink with the stalk of limp, brown-edged celery the bartender had placed in it.

Finally she reached into her purse, pulled out a thick fold of papers, each one with hand-written names and phone numbers. She waved them in the air. “I don’t know what else to do. Between the two of us, we must have made four hundred calls all over the state. I think we need some help now if we’re ever going to find out what happened to your father.”

In her next breath came the words,
Matthew Parmenter
. The man had wealth, and therefore, power. Like a lot of restaurant owners in the Quarter, he’d been friendly with the police for years.

“Remember, the man’s got connections, and he’s your father’s best friend.” She leveled her gaze at him. “No matter
what
you think about him.”

How did she know? Simon must have told her. Or had he given away his feelings at the mere mention of the man’s name? Julian had often wondered whether if he saw Matthew Parmenter lying on his back in the street, how much time would pass between spotting him there and reaching out a helping hand? Well, he’d been raised right, so not that long. But he probably wouldn’t lift a hand until the scolding fire in his father’s eyes filled up the back of his mind.

It was nearly noon, and the door continued to open and close intermittently, sending flashes of light against the dark interior like a slow-motion strobe. Someone had brought in a CD player, and from the front of the bar upbeat music streamed. The cheap speakers blasted the bassy beat of Koko Taylor’s “Wang Dang Doodle,” lightening the mood. Three of the guardsmen lifted their glasses for a drink, and whoops of laughter went up after one of the men yelled out a loud punchline to a joke, “And he wasn’t even wearing any!”

There was so little laughter in town these days that even those beyond earshot of the joke laughed along—its sound bubbling like a tonic, a much-needed bromide everybody in town seemed to crave. The door opened again. More volunteers, Red Cross employees, government workers—three young college-age women in baseball caps, two young men in faded cutoff jeans, and a man with silver hair and shorts poured into the room, along with another long shaft of hard, white light.

The intruding sun glowed on Sylvia’s face, outlining her sharply angled bones, the deep hard crease between her brows.

“Will you go see him?”

A heavy sigh forced from Julian’s chest. “I’ll do it today.”

“Good.” She took another drink and her face tightened into a serious frown again as she leaned over to pat Julian’s arm.

“You know, your daddy was so proud of you, baby,” she said. “He told me about your accident, your not being able to play and everything.”

Julian blinked, turned up his plastic cup of water, and swallowed long and slow.

“Sometimes when things aren’t going so well, it can make you, you know, a little uptight. Your dad wasn’t mad at you, baby. Just a little…” she shrugged. “He knew you were going through a hard time. He understood.”

Julian looked toward the door, counted people huddled around the bar. There were eleven now.

“Yeah. I know.”

“I know you had some words…”

Julian shifted in his seat, held up a hand. “You know. I really don’t want to talk about this.”

A quick wave of disappointment shadowed Sylvia’s face as she sat back.

“I…I’m sorry.” His shoulders arched up apologetically; he hadn’t thought about the fight with Simon, the accident, or the sad condition of his chops for almost a whole day. But now, something made of iron twisted inside him. Now he was treating Sylvia as rudely as he had his father.

“Look,” he said, his voice fainter. “I didn’t mean...I just can’t think about all that right now, Sylvia.”

Sylvia sighed, placed a firm hand on Julian’s and looked toward him, her eyes softening in the lamplight.

“Julian, I don’t know if your daddy told you, he proposed to me. Six months ago.”

Now it was Julian’s turn to be stunned. “No, I don’t think he…”

Sylvia rolled her eyes up toward the ceiling, exhaled heavily, then looked back into Julian’s eyes. “Well, I said no. I didn’t see any reason to change things. I thought we were doing just fine like we were. But your daddy, he’s the marrying kind. He seemed all right about it after a while. But I felt guilty.”

“Why?”

Sylvia considered the chipped glaze of Cherries Jubilee polish on her fingernails. Resignation and regret clouded her eyes. “Well, I guess this city girl just couldn’t see herself ending up one day at Silver Creek. You know how much your daddy loves that place.”

Fleeting sadness turned down the edges of her smile. “The way things turned out, I think it wouldn’t have been such a bad idea.”

A wave of relief, unbidden, swept over Julian. Regret, like misery, loves company. He patted the top of her hand.

She looked up again toward the slow-whirling ceiling fan.

“You know, me and your daddy, we always had so much fun. He has to be the youngest seventy-six year old man I’ve ever seen. Did he ever tell you about when he started the conga line at Jazz Fest? The Preservation Hall band was playing and decided to go salsa on us. Now you know your daddy—that man loves to dance! So he jumps up, grabs my hand, and off we go! Everybody in the tent joined in.” Sylvia shimmied her shoulders, counting out the syncopated beat—one, two, three-
four!
“Child, that tent was
shaking!
After a few minutes my feet were cryin’, ‘cause baby you know I was tryin’ to be cute in my little high-heeled sandals and whatnot. I wanted to sit down so bad, but we kept going for a good twenty minutes! There had to be a hundred people following your daddy and me.”

Julian smiled at the image of Simon leading a conga line. That was his daddy, for sure. He remembered his mother insisting that her husband learn to ballroom dance, and his father insisting later, after demonstrating precocious smoothness on the dance floor, that the whole thing had been his idea.

And as if Sylvia had read his mind, she said, “You know, he used to talk about your mama all the time. Ladeena. His eyes lit all up when he said her name. Lots of women wouldn’t have that, their man always talking about his deceased wife. But I didn’t mind. I liked it that he thought so much of her. It told me what kind of man he was. Sometimes he’d just go on about her, respectful, like he was so proud of her, you know, and I’d just say to myself, Sylvia, this is a
good
man.”

She paused, her eyes wet. “Julian, I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

He leaned forward, patting her arm again. “We’re going to find him. They’re finding people every day. We’ll find him and we’ll bring him home.”

They half-finished their half-sandwiches and stood up to leave. The back door of the dark bar swung open onto a blinding shock of noon sunlight on Esplanade Avenue, where banana trees, bright red hibiscus blooms, and palmettos—once resplendent with tropical beauty—now looked battered and beaten, their heads drooping in the sun. The streets were empty, absent the normal traffic sounds, but now and then a single car or utility vehicle or construction truck motored by.

They were both getting into their cars, parked illegally at the curb, when Sylvia raised her finger to Julian.

“Oh! I almost forgot. There’s something else I got for you.”

She reached inside her car through the window and picked up an object lying on the seat.

“Rashad and I found this. I couldn’t believe it was in such good condition. I thought you’d like to have it.”

It was a cardboard sleeve, the kind that housed 78 rpm recordings. The cover was faded and water-rippled, but when Julian reached inside, a pristine vinyl disc slid out. It was a 1955 pressing of Louis Armstrong’s “West End Blues.” Simon had bought it at a little shop off Pirate’s Alley.

Somebody told me you might like this. The man gave me a good deal…

He had just turned sixteen, and music was the elixir he lived and breathed. Louis Armstrong, his father’s favorite, had become Julian’s idol too. His father was so excited his wide eyes blazed above a smile that erased years from his weathered face. It was as if he was presenting his son with the keys to a castle.

He’d never taken the record to New York with him, choosing to listen to it on visits home. His turntable didn’t work anyway, and he’d believed that the valuable recording would be safer at his father’s house.

The things that survive. If he’d wished for anything from the ruined house, it would have been this.

“Wow,” he said, blinking back tears. His voice cracked, tamped down to a whisper. “Thank you, Sylvia.”

“I don’t know how it made it. None of the other records did. Your daddy’s jazz collection, your mama’s opera records, all messed up.”

There was a wistful look on her face as Sylvia fished in her purse for her keys. “Oh, listen,” she said, “why don’t you come by my house tonight, ’round six? I figure people coming back to town to see all this mess need something decent to eat. Just a few folks from church; I’m celebrating my electricity coming back on.”

A feeling of clarity, like a cooling breeze, swept his skin. He knew he was home, now. When people here were happy, they cooked, and when they wanted to celebrate something, they cooked.

And when they were frustrated and angry, and their lives were uncertain, and their hearts were torn with worry and grief, they cooked.

“OK.”

“Nothing fancy, you know. Just a big pot of red beans. And don’t be expecting them to be as good as your daddy’s.”

He sighed and blew a slow stream of air through his lips, scratched at the itchy bristle of his unshaved cheek. Sometimes he wondered what in hell was keeping him going. Days went by in a haze of lists: Get up. Shave (or not). Eat. Meet Sylvia. Call hospitals, churches, insurance agents. Listen to the news. Eat. Make more calls. By evening, his mind was a swamp where thoughts trudged along in hip boots, each step heavier than the one before until his brain stopped, bogged down in muck. Misery lolled alongside the notion that the next few days or even weeks could not be anything but hard, or even heartbreaking, if he did (or did not) find Simon.

All this—not to mention his career, his band, the draining of his cash, and figuring out when, if ever, he could play again.

But here was Sylvia, a hand stretched out from the fog. Seeing Sylvia was like coming home. Simon was the spine that joined them, him and Sylvia, front and back covers of the same book, and if he needed to, he could reach around that spine to cling to the other side.

She reached up to give him a hug, and he almost resisted, thinking about the way he must smell. But she pulled his shoulders down into hers, her hand on the back of his head.

“We’re in this together, baby, you and me,” she said. “You’re not alone.”

From outside on the gallery, Julian could hear the shuffle of slippers against hardwood.

The French door opened with a groan, and from the room floated the smell of Ben-Gay ointment and Old Spice. Matthew Parmenter, in powder-blue pajamas and a burgundy robe, stood a little shorter than the last time he’d seen him. He used a cane now, his big frame marked with an arthritic stoop.

Parmenter had always looked to him like a cross between a tall Santa Claus and an avuncular Confederate general. A thick mop of unruly snow-white hair flopped in his faded blue eyes, and his skin, ghostly pale, seemed as if it repelled sun. At eighty-five he stood about six-three, a good two inches taller than Julian, and probably fifty pounds heavier. The pale eyes glistened with a kindness Julian hadn’t remembered.

“Oh, my God! Julian?” Parmenter’s face opened into an exultant smile.

“You’re here! Is your father all right? Have you seen him?” His thick New Orleans accent rolled out in fat, longish vowels. “Sorry, my boy, come in. Come in. Suffering through the apocalypse is no excuse for bad manners.”

Julian stepped inside, and Parmenter reached for him and grabbed him into a hug so tight Julian could feel the heat of his sluggish breath.

Parmenter stepped back and pulled his robe close. “Ah, excuse my appearance. No reason to get dressed these days, what with…. Sit down, son. My God, I haven’t seen you since…how long has it been? Come on this way, it’s cooler in here. And please tell me you have good news.”

M
atthew Parmenter led the way into the high ceilinged foyer of red-striped embossed wallpaper, cherry wood paneling and gilt-framed paintings. In the living room, two wing-backed chairs slipcovered in linen flanked the enormous red-brick fireplace. Matthew sat in one, and gestured to the other. Julian sat and leaned forward in his chair, his hands clasped together, elbows on his knees.

There was no sense in beating around the bush. “Sir,” he said, “my father is missing.” A pall shadowed Matthew’s face. He bowed his head, mired for a moment in thought, then lifted it.

“I was afraid…I tried to get him to come and stay here. But he wouldn’t…”

He shook his head and sighed heavily.

“There was a lot of water in the house, five feet maybe, but I think…there’s a good chance he got out safely,” Julian said, rubbing his hands together. “And he left a note. We just have to find where he went.”

Parmenter massaged the space between his eyes and frowned, then, as if he’d come to some indisputable conclusion, gave a quick, resolute nod.

“You’ll find him. I know you will.” From a nearby window, an arrow of sunlight pierced the room, and Parmenter stared at the dust motes dancing in it. “I’ve been listening to the radio. It’s so sad, what’s happened in this city. So much heartbreak…”

His voice trailed off. He looked up at Julian. “Simon is a strong man, resourceful. We have to believe that he’s all right.”