Asylum Heights

by Austin R. Moody

  He continued, “I feel that I am in your debt and that reparation for your inconvenience and expense should be made as a show of my good faith and intentions. Additionally, I will be happy to help you to take your young lady companion home. I did not know that you would have waited so patiently upon our arrival, and I am very moved by your high regard for Sybil and me. It will never happen again.” He paused a moment then continued, “Please take the wallet out of my left hip pocket and remove the amount of your bill here at the club for this evening then let me have the wallet back. I do not want this to destroy what is to me a very satisfying and mutually beneficial arrangement between us.”

  Sal marveled at the quickness and deftness of Glen’s assessment of the situation and his steadiness in being willing to part with almost half the money that he had received for this shipment of wine. Somehow, he had fathomed one of the oldest and most acceptable Sicilian procedures for ending a serious confrontation, giving the affronted party a means to accept an apology and to concurrently sustain the respect of all that had witnessed the differences as they developed.

  Sal looked at one of his men and said with increased composure, “Antonio, take the wallet out of his pants and hand me three hundred and fifty from it, then give the wallet back to him.”

  Glen lifted his arms, elevating the tail of the coat exposing the wallet that rested within his left rear pants pocket. Antonio dutifully reached in and extracted the wallet, counted out the money, then replaced it into Glen’s pants. Antonio looked at his superior for further orders. Sal then directed, “Now help him get her out of here.”

  Before Antonio could move, Glen intervened, “With respect, Sal, I would prefer for you to help me to put her in your car. That way, I’ll know where you are and not have to worry about your friends during the transfer.”

  Sal thought a moment, then turned and looked at Glen again and displayed a feeling of humor and said, “You take the right arm, and I’ll take the left. Help me to get her into the back seat of my car then Antonio and the boys can take her home.”

  They gently picked the girl up from the table and walked her through the diminishing crowd to the exit and into the back seat of the waiting limousine.

  Sal’s ire was beginning to ameliorate, but he challenged Glen once more. “I accept your apology and appreciate your willingness to show good faith by paying for my lost evening. We must maintain closer communications, conveying what each needs and expects. This must never happen again.”

  Glen answered, “Sal, you know I have never failed to deliver any promise that I have ever made to you. Believe me that it won’t happen again. My word is my bond, and we don’t need any written contracts or agreements.”

  Sal mustered a smile and said in closing, “Somewhere, somehow, an Italian was one of your forefathers or mothers. Contact me in a week about the next shipment, and be careful.”

  Glen and Sybil turned back toward his truck as the tail lights of the limousine faded. He got in, opened the passenger door and reached his arm around her waist then pulled her close to him. He whispered, “That was very close. I hope I didn’t scare you to death.”

  She whispered back, “You both did. You know that you are moving in very heavy traffic.”

  He kissed her gently. She leaned toward him and rested her head on his right shoulder.

  He asked, “Where is your car?”

  She responded, “The caterer picked me up at home and brought me to his shop. After I filled my cart with our picnic he took me over to the hotel. I guess you’ll just have to take me home or get me a cab. ”

  Glen said, “We could go back to the hotel.”

  Sybil sighed, “I’m far too spent to try that again in one night. Let’s save it for your next trip.”

  With that he started the truck and asked, “Now, where to?” Before Glen could pull the truck from the club Sybil said, “Thanks for not telling Sal that I was responsible for our tardiness tonight. I am sure he would have fired me. It was very manly of you.”

  At Sybil’s direction they pulled out of the parking lot of the club and moved out of the French Quarter to Canal Street. They turned right and proceeded west into the Garden District. The huge, fashionable homes along the manicured street loomed in the darkness with only a few places lighted from within.

  Sybil finally told him to slow down then to turn into a driveway at the entrance to one of the largest mansions near the end of the row of homes. There were two matching wrought iron gate sides barring their access. She jumped from the truck and quickly opened each side, allowing the vehicle to pass through along a winding driveway toward the house. She climbed back into her seat in the truck. Glen accelerated the engine as little as possible in order not to disturb Sybil’s family.

  Glen thought to himself, “I wonder what half of Louisiana her Daddy owns?”

  He didn’t ask.

  They finally reached the porte cochere. Sybil abruptly threw her arms around Glen’s neck and kissed him on the mouth. She opened the door of the truck and sprang out onto the cobble stoned paving of the entrance to her home.

  She looked back at Glen, laughed and said, “I want you to meet my family. I don’t believe you are real, and I surely know that they won’t either.”

  Glen smiled and said, “You must go shopping tomorrow with me and help me to look for some presentable clothes. They may think I’m a monkey, but I don’t have to look like one.”

  Sybil laughed, “First, we’ll find a car, something absolutely beautiful that will command all of the attention and respect that you deserve. I know where to get everything you need and all the good people that you should know. You will meet the ones that you can trust and all the bad ones you can’t trust that can hurt you the most. I’m going to help you to become what you were even before I ever met you.”

  Glen, perplexed, demanded, “And what am I to become which I already am?”

  “A gentleman, you serf! Call me in the morning!” Sybil replied.

  Then she turned quickly, inserted her key into the front door and disappeared into the house. Glen put the old truck into gear and turned out of the drive onto the streets back to the Monteleon Hotel.

  The following morning the telephone that rested on the nightstand in close proximity to Glen’s head erupted into a commanding, trenchant unsympathetic summons. Still asleep Glen lifted the receiver and mumbled, “Yes?”

  Sybil spoke with mock sharpness, “Get up you cracker and meet me downstairs in thirty minutes. Be bathed and shaved, put on nice cologne, and be waiting for me in the taxi queue. We are going to go on a magic carpet ride everywhere in the city. I know every vendor, every jeweler, tailor and haberdasher, and the best and most accommodating sales manager of every fine new car company. You will look every bit the part of a prince, but I know already that you are a king!”

  Breathlessly she continued, “Then this evening you will take me to Antoine’s. We’ll have an appetizer of Oysters Bienville, and enjoy crawfish bisque. We’ll sip champagne and have a lemon glace to refresh our tastes then proceed to the next course.

  We’ll be served a chilled salad Nicoise with a variety of tossed salad greens, bacon and anchovy filets, black olives, and a vinaigrette dressing, topped with blue cheese upon tiny baguettes of French bread.

  After that will be a presentation of Chateau Briand, quite rare with Sauce Béarnaise accompanied by a bouquetiere of vegetables and puffed pastry rolls slathered with butter. We will finish it all off with New Orleans bread pudding al’ Françoise and Jack Daniel’s bourbon whiskey sauce!”

  Glen smothered a laugh then asked, “What in hell are you talking about?”

  Sybil giggled, “Only the best food in New Orleans, and that means the best food in all of America, and quite probably the best food in the whole world! You’d better be able to afford it!”

  Glen speculated a bit then assured, “If it will be less than three hundred, I can take you there right now.” Sybil answered quickly, “We’ll have to wait for dinn
er but get dressed. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  THE BIG EASY

  Glen was curbside at the hotel when Sybil pulled into the hotel entrance, smiled and waved at Glen. He grinned back and quickly opened the passenger door of the sports car and slipped into the seat beside her. “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “Don’t ask,” she chided, “just sit quietly and enjoy!”

  His grand tour began at the Cadillac motorcar showroom. An ever lurking new car salesman emerged moments after their arrival and passage through the entrance doors to the glass enclosed showroom. He quickly recognized Sybil’s station, her status, and obvious breeding and class. “It is so pleasant to see you,” he gushed.

  Sybil waited until his exuberance abated then said, “I am not the customer today. My friend wants to buy anything that might really impress me. Sell him something!”

  “Would you like to take a test drive in one of our cars? I can point out all of their excellent features when we are on the road and you are behind the wheel.”

  Glen looked at Sybil and said, “Let’s just keep looking around. We can come back if we want a closer inspection.” Glen thanked the salesman for his time and they moved down the street to the Packard place, then Rolls Royce, even the Duisenberg. Glen was exhilarated by the size and the power, the expression of wealth and arrival manifested by these classical vehicles even at a king’s ransom maximum price of $8,600. They took a break for lunch at a tiny little sidewalk seafood house and bar nearby eating their fill of fried oyster loaves washed down with two beers, brewed at the Jackson Brewing Company nearby.

  Somebody had told Sybil that it was the only beer in the United States with a picture of the brewery on the label. The only picture on the face of the bottle that Glen could see was President Andrew Jackson astride his mount rearing up on its hind legs. It took Glen a bit to understand it’s meaning, but he wasn't sure whether the product had emitted from the horse or the General, or both.

  The remainder of the day was spent at a tailor shop, then a haberdasher, and the shoe department at Maison Blanche on Canal Street. Under Sybil’s fastidious, demanding scrutiny the purveyors presented an assortment of fabrics, neat dress shirts and cravats, along with underwear, socks, and several felt and straw hats.

  Glen and Sybil would leave one establishment then proceed to another seeking other treasures while the tailors worked feverishly with alterations in their wake. Finally, happily exhausted, they completed the tour and collected the modified suits and other clothes then emerged from the stores laden with their carefully selected prizes. They quickly filled the small sports car and returned toward the hotel. As they proceeded along the broad streets crowded with Saturday afternoon shoppers Glen noticed another automobile showroom. Within, he saw a particularly sleek muscular beauty parked behind the glass upon the dealership floor.

  He commanded Sybil to turn around. Responding, she wheeled about into the opposite traffic lane and shortly thereafter parked in front of the building that housed the auto that Glen wanted to see. It was a convertible. It was the car he had wanted all of his life yet never dreamed that he could ever possibly own. He took a test drive and knew that the car must be his and told Sybil so. He also told her that he could not pay cash for it, but from Sybil’s connections he drove from the exit door of the Studebaker showroom and followed Sybil back to the Monteleon Hotel.

  Glen parked and followed Sybil through the revolving doors to the hotel entrance feeling the cool darkness and the flow of air emanating from the revolving overhead fans. Instead of proceeding to the elevators, Sybil took his hand and led him across the smooth polished marble floor into the blinding darkness of the off-lobby bar. It took Glen several moments to accommodate his vision but soon perceived the sparse late afternoon confluence of the business set, lingering for refreshment before proceeding home to families and dinner.

  Still holding tightly to Glen’s hand, Sybil steered him to a tiny corner table quite remote from the action at the bar itself. Glen felt good just being there but knew that he would soon feel even better. Before he could speak, she motioned to a waitress and requested two “fruit punches.”

  Their server smiled knowingly and quickly returned with their mixers. Sybil had already fetched a sizable bottle from the depths of her purse and removed the cap. Glen paid the check with a generous tip while Sybil performed a mixology ceremony pouring generous portions of Cuban rum from the container entirely ad lib without the science of a jigger, and tending to be considerably more than generous with her allocations.

  They had been in the sun throughout the hot afternoon. Both were sweaty and appreciably dehydrated. They didn’t drink the ice water that had been left at the table with their drinks, but rather began taking generous gulps from the rum punches. The volume of discourse at the bar began to crescendo, punctuated frequently with increasingly raucous laughter. They quickly finished their first drinks and ordered a second round. They were exquisitely happy and totally in love. Midway through the second libation Glen was sitting and facing Sybil when without any reason at all he began to find something funny. It had nothing to do with their conversation or anything from the bar crowd nor indeed for any explainable reason that Glen could understand.

  Staying in the moment, Glen asked Sybil to come up to Hale for Christmas Day and to remain through the first of the year to enjoy their first season together.

  Sybil responded, “Oh, Glen, I’d love to come up for the entire time, but I have my family, and it would hurt them immeasurably if I didn’t have Christmas at home. I will come for the festivities of New Year’s because I really want to be with you at that time.”

  Glen replied, “Well, I suppose half a loaf is better than not any of the loaf at all. If you could come up on the thirty-first, then I will tell Mama and Papa that they can expect to have company near the last of this year or the first of the next.”

  Sybil agreed to her arrival on that date and that she would come up on the train to Meridian. Glen decided to take a room at the Meridian Hotel and that she would come out to meet his parents the first of the year and spend the night at his house after they had gone out for New Year’s at the hotel ballroom. He knew they would be asleep so it didn’t matter if they would be a little inebriated when they got home.

  With New Year’s plans made, Glen began to laugh. Sybil looked at him and upon the same rationale began to laugh hysterically herself. Their exhalations expended the air from their lungs and then they inhaled quickly before erupting into another convulsion of laughter. They both had become elated and high and Glen advised, “Let’s get out of here before we get into trouble.”

  They found the elevator and were soon back into the quiet late afternoon shadows of Glen’s hotel room, dissipating their laughter and burning off the heat of the rum with the balance of their efforts and remaining energy.

  The next morning the sunshine had not yet appeared at the window of the hotel room when Glen began to stir, and his bodily movements roused Sybil. She looked at her watch on the nightstand and found that it was already 5:30, and she had to be in class at 8:00. She quickly emerged from her side of the bed and made a bee-line for the shower. She erupted into song and soon her suitor came into the bathroom and entered the shower as well, but did not join in the lyrics. He could not resist a few little grapples but was promptly squelched in his dalliances. He good-naturedly quit the shower and continued his ablutions at the lavatory. He finished these as Sybil was completing her bath, and he went into the living room and ordered coffee and sweet rolls from room service.

  Twenty minutes later the valet had retrieved her car from the parking garage and she pulled out into the sparse morning’s traffic to her home.

  The days continued to wear along until Glen could no longer stand it. He called Sal and told him that it was so dreaded slow that he was going to go to Hale to be with his parents for Christmas.

  He arrived there in the afternoon of the twenty-firs
t. Mama was busy making cookies when he entered the house, the smell of the baking dough filled him with nostalgia for the years gone by and the many wonderful times that they had had in that little house with the family. Glen dreamed of the immediate future and that his own children would soon be able to partake of those and many other goodies that this tiny place could produce. He crept up behind his mother and grasped her around the waist. He turned her around so that she faced him.

  He had a strange expression on his face and said, “It is like all of the Christmases that we’ve had in the past, and I just realized that I was home.” He told her then, “This one will be just a little different, however, because we are going to have a guest on the evening of the thirty-first from New Orleans.” He said he would tell her and Papa Hailes all about Sybil when he came in later.

  Papa Hailes arrived from Quitman shortly before supper with their supplies and Glen helped unpack it all. Papa presented his wife with a new product that he had found at the market. They were little biscuits that came in a cylindrical can in the chilled dairy section. Papa had never seen nor heard of such a thing, nor had Mama, nor Glen.

  There was a lady in the store that prepared them on a little electric stove and served them up piping hot and they had a delicious flaky buttery taste that challenged his mother’s icebox rolls. The lady showed him how to bang the can against the side of the kitchen sink and they fairly exploded when they opened. He passed the trick on to Miss Ellie.

  Shortly thereafter Mama called them to come to the table before it got cold. Both Glen and his mother could not get over the taste and texture of the biscuits and, yes, they blended very well with preserves and ribbon cane syrup. They spent the rest of the evening talking about their imminent house guest, how Glen had met her, what she did and where she lived, her parents, siblings etc., etc. and etc. His father finally asked the consummate question, “Is this very serious and if so, what did he plan to do about it?”