by G A Chase
Myles shrugged. “I’m just explaining why that class was bullshit.”
“Then tell me what isn’t bullshit. Because that’s what excites me.”
For the first time, he looked at her with interest. “Me too. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
The sexy-nerd look wasn’t one he responded to, but it worked well on her. “If you can’t explain what you did, could you show me?”
No one had ever asked for a demonstration. He felt a little like she’d just asked to watch him masturbate. “I’m not sure how that would work.”
“We could take it on as a scientific experiment. First, we’d have to find an object for you to read.”
In their short conversation, she’d shown more interest in his process than anyone he could remember. “Where do you propose we find such a thing?”
2
Of all the streets in the French Quarter, Royal was Myles’s least favorite. It was lined with high-end antique stores displaying price tags so high it’d take him a year’s salary to buy an end table. Locals who worked in the service industry didn’t frequent the area. “There’s a lot of old stuff in these shops, but I doubt they’re going to let us touch anything.”
“I didn’t bring you down here for these rip-off artists. Anyone rich enough to set foot in one of these places deserves to lose their money, or they’d better be damn good at negotiations.” She pointed toward a storefront that probably hadn’t been cleaned in a decade. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but I’ve found some cool old military hats and jackets in there.”
The store specializing in vintage firearms wasn’t Myles’s idea of an enjoyable place to shop. Guns might have a certain mechanical charm, but he knew he had to be one of the only people in the South who didn’t care for the deadly weapons.
As he entered the dusty shop, his skin bristled as though every hair had just stood on end. The high-pitched buzzing in his ears made him wish for the loud earworm ’80s songs that were blasted at him every night from the stage as he tended bar. “Can we please get out of here? This place is going to give me a headache.”
The excitement on Kendell’s face didn’t help his disposition. “Are you feeling energy from these weapons? I thought you might. Something in here must have been used for its intended purpose.”
She might have had a point, but his discomfort could have just as easily been caused by the fluorescent tube lights that lined the ceiling. “I’m giving this shop five minutes. Then I’m out the door. I don’t like guns.”
She nodded toward a corner at the back of the shop filled with military uniforms. “Go check over there. They keep the guns and swords up here. If I find something interesting, I’ll bring it to you. I suspect you’re getting overloaded with past energy. It must be like all these voices are screaming at you all at once.”
For someone who was just learning about how energy affected him, she was remarkably perceptive. Most of the heavy field jackets that filled the racks looked to be either reproductions or military overstock. The more expensive uniforms were displayed in nice glass cabinets. He tried on a large navy-blue British peacoat. He doubted the heavy-weather jacket would see more than a day or two’s service during a typical New Orleans winter. Even so, being surrounded by so much wool gave him a feeling of protection from the irritating energy that filled the shop.
“What about this one?” Kendell hauled over an old flintlock from a rack beside the door. Based on the metal’s patina, the weapon looked like it hadn’t been fired since before their grandparents were born. The barrel had to be nearly as long as she was tall.
“You’re kidding, right?” He still didn’t know what he was doing with the mousy girl in the vintage overcoat. Her large eyes, which peered at him from under her bangs, reminded him of a friend’s kid sister.
She shrugged and took it back to the rack. “From your discovery, I thought something older might be easier for you to read. Like the energy had a chance to settle into the molecules or something.”
He looked over at the clerk, who shook his head as if he’d heard it all before. Some topics of conversation should really be held in private or at least in whispered tones. How did she not know that?
Losing the peacoat made him feel ten pounds lighter. Between the weight and the heat, in another couple of minutes his body would have been in full sweaty workout mode. The familiar raised hairs on his arm, however, left him to wonder how the heavy garment had managed to suppress the swirling energy of the shop.
He picked up an army knife from the counter. The blade was pitted and dull. It carried no emotion he could detect. If it had killed someone, the soldier wielding the blade must have had some mad stealthy skills for the victim to not have noticed. He thought it more likely that the blade had aged from lack of use.
Kendell snuck up behind him to look around his shoulder into the display case with the cracked glass top. “What’s that metal thing with the sculpture of a man’s head?”
Myles began forming his arguments for why this outing had been a mistake. Kendell’s passion for psychometry—she’d remembered the term from class—was unmistakable. But lumping him in with the fortune-tellers around Jackson Square didn’t seem like taking him seriously. He closed his eyes to the childhood memories of being told to stop making stuff up.
He was working on an excuse to leave the shop when the clerk pulled out the ornately carved metal tube. The salesman unscrewed the head and released a small knife blade and reamer. “This is a tobacco-pipe tool. Most of them are pretty plain, but as you can see, this one must have belonged to someone important. Not many people bothered to have one custom made like this. Whoever owned it was probably pretty well off. It came in yesterday with a collection of stuff from the War Between the States. I only put it out because of the knife blade. If you want it, I can let you have it at a good price. There’s some Napoleonic daggers coming in next week, so we’ll need the display space.”
As Myles inspected the head with the attached thin knife blade, Kendell played with the gold cylinder. “It’s heavy.”
The clerk pointed at the stubby end. “That side is used to tamp the tobacco down into the pipe bowl.”
Myles was grateful she’d found someone else to talk to so he could inspect the object in peace. The delicate tool in his hand began to make him feel dizzy. The last thing he wanted to do was explain every passing moment of nausea. The blade slipped out of his hand. He barely had time to slide his foot out of the way of the sharp point, which ended up stuck firmly into the old wood floor.
The clerk raced around the counter. “It didn’t get you, did it? That damn thing is bad luck. When we were unloading the packing box, it fell out and cracked the glass display case.”
“I’m fine.” Myles felt an instant relief to not be handling the object anymore. The clerk had to give the knife a good tug to get it out of the floor.
“Did you feel something?” Kendell’s hand was on his waist, helping him maintain his balance.
To his surprise, he did. He knew the delicate knife had tasted blood before. Though with the activity of the French Quarter outside, he couldn’t tell very much about the small, seemingly harmless item. “I don’t think it likes me very much.”
“Who does?” She turned to the clerk. “I’ll take it.”
* * *
They sat on the steps of Saint Louis Cathedral, watching a busker entertain the audience with his idea of an erotic puppet show. “You were pretty fast on buying that knife. I’m not even sure I sensed anything worth pursuing.”
The fact that she was watching the man in the tight bodysuit made Myles uncomfortable. The performer’s outfit wasn’t leaving anything to the imagination, and the way he interacted with his dolls crossed the line from entertaining into creepy. She didn’t seem to mind, though. “I could tell you felt something. You’d already said you didn’t want to be in that shop any longer than necessary. Plus, I need a gift for my father’s birthday. If nothing comes from our little
experiment, I’ll give it to him.”
“Your dad smokes a pipe?”
She pulled out a five-dollar bill and handed it to the marionette dangling in front of the performer’s crotch. “No, but he digs weird old shit. It’ll look good on his desk.”
The doll’s head turned expectantly toward Myles. He didn’t engage. Fortunately, the busker moved on to more generous members of the audience. “Still seems like an impulsive purchase. Where do we go from here?”
“I think for scientific reasons it’d be better if we limit how much interaction you have with this tool. I also want to be around when you do your thing. You made it sound like you were nearly asleep when you saw the airplane, though there were other people present. I don’t know how I could help, but we’re in this together.”
He could see her logic. They’d need a controlled environment for him to test his ability to read the energy. “I’m not working tonight. I could come by if you’re not busy.”
He hoped inviting himself over would be seen as less forward then inviting her to his place. Plus, his room in the run-down building that had been built as slaves’ quarters didn’t impress many women.
“I can’t do it tonight. I’ve got a gig.”
A ‘gig’ in New Orleans could mean damn near anything. “What kind of gig?”
Her smirk made him feel foolish for asking. “I was a music major. What kind of gig do you think?”
He had trouble imagining her on stage. “What type of music do you play?”
“I’m part of an authentic blues-punk band, Polly Urethane and the Strippers. My stage name is Olympia Stain.”
There were more questions inspired by those two sentences than he could wrap his head around. “You realize I’m going to have to come see you play.”
“Well, we’re playing at the Scratchy Dog on Frenchmen Street tonight if you want to broaden your musical experience.”
Tending bar on Bourbon Street meant he spent most of his nights enduring ’80s’ cover bands. A certain amount of punk often seeped in, though it was seldom what the drunk tourists wanted to hear. “I’m not musically naïve. I do know blues-punk. I grew up listening to the White Stripes and the Oblivions. But what is authentic blues-punk?”
“It’s a genre we made up ourselves. Have you ever heard Devo’s cover of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’? It’s kind of like that except we use old blues ballads. You’ll have to stick around for our version of Billy Holiday’s ‘Summertime.’ It’s my favorite.”
The confusing array of mental images that Kendell had presented forced Myles to stare at her for an uncomfortably long time. “I’ll be there.”
* * *
The musical establishments on Frenchmen Street prided themselves on being truer to the jazz culture of New Orleans than those on Bourbon Street. Myles suspected that was truer before the area was overrun with short-term rentals. The clubs maintained their individuality, but increasingly, the patrons weren’t much different than the drunks he served. People wanted what they wanted, and even the bohemian clubs had to compete for customers.
The Scratchy Dog was one of the last in the line of well-known music venues. Instead of taking itself seriously and vying for the hipster crowd like all the rest, however, the owner opted for a more tongue-in-cheek niche establishment. Myles slipped Tick, the doorman, ten bucks for a seat up front.
The barmaid brought Myles his Abita Turbo Dog beer. He wondered if he’d just made a terrible mistake as five women in dark glasses and trench coats took the stage, looking like some kind of feminist hit squad.
The curly-haired blonde in the middle shed her coat to reveal a short, tight dress and fishnet stockings. “I’m Polly Urethane, and these are my strippers!”
Polly announced each of her bandmates.
“Minerva Wax on drums!” The long-legged brunette next to Polly pulled open her coat, like a burlesque dancer, to reveal ripped jeans and a black tank top.
“Scraper on bass!” The bass player’s shaved head enhanced her look of defiance. She separated the sides of her trench coat like a flasher and glared at the crowd.
“Lynn Seed on keyboards!” The spunky-looking Asian woman licked her lips as she danced out of her overcoat.
“And finally, on lead guitar, Olympia Stain!” Myles had to do a double take to be sure it was really Kendell. She was dressed in a black skirt so short he could see the tops of her ripped nylons. He’d never suspected she had curves that would rival a roller coaster.
All five women raised their right fists as Polly declared, “We’re Polly Urethane and the Strippers. We’ll sand off the paint of your daily lives, reveal your hardwood, and refinish your view of girls’ bands everywhere!”
Each woman hustled to her instrument and began beating out “Baby Please Don’t Go” in a tempo that made Myles’s heart beat a little too fast for comfort. He’d been around enough bands to know the onstage persona was often just another part of the act. The normally reserved Kendell he knew displayed her sexy-vixen character with abandon as she turned loose a storehouse of energy against the strings of her jet-black electric guitar.
Women took to the floor, exhibiting the typical dance moves of sorority girls having a little too much fun. Men weren’t far behind as they found the bravery to venture in front of the gender-aggressive musicians. Myles drank his beer, happy for once to be able to sit back and enjoy the show instead of being the one standing behind the bar, responsible for looking after the drunks.
The music had a dark, grinding edge that took a song or two for Myles to appreciate. But once indoctrinated into the band’s version of the classic blues numbers, he doubted he’d ever hear the pieces the same. And like the music, Kendell as Olympia was a persona that once seen couldn’t be ignored. The nerdy girl next door hid a powerful sex vixen under the heavy coat she so frequently wore.
At the break, she plopped into the chair next to him. “God, I love playing with those women. In college, all of my professors and fellow students took music so seriously. Here I just get to cut loose and have fun. This is what music should be about, not sheet music and contracts.”
“I can see that. How did you end up joining the group?” Though the studious Kendell and the wild Olympia were clearly two sides of the same person, he couldn’t figure out how the shy girl from the day before had found her outlet.
From the way she squinted, he thought she was laughing at him again. “Just because I’m not a party girl doesn’t mean I’m a recluse. Music fascinates me. That’s why I live so close to the clubs. All this high energy is addictive. Every week, I go out and listen to at least one new band and as many old favorites as I can find. One night, I stumbled in here. Polly’s a great singer, but she can’t play guitar for shit. Really, she needs to just hold a tambourine. That night I auditioned during their break. She had me on stage in ten minutes. That was nearly a year ago.”
Music groups had to do what they could to survive. “I don’t see anyone hawking CDs by the door. Do you go on tour?”
“Mostly, we just play around town. The biggest vehicle any of us owns is Minerva’s old VW bus. It’s not the most reliable vehicle. Polly wants to make the group into something more financially viable, but I just want to play for the fun of it. But then, I’m the only one who doesn't use her stage name outside of our gigs. I love being in the band, but it’s not my whole life. Being on stage with people lusting after me while I pour myself into the music is damn near a fetish. That kind of sexual energy has to be enjoyed in small doses.”
And he’d felt guilty for studying archeology. At least there wasn’t a sexual component to digging in the dirt.
Kendell stood as the women started returning to the stage. “Come by my place tomorrow. I’m usually up by late morning. We can start our research.”
3
Myles had been in his share of women’s apartments. He always experienced a unique feeling of acceptance when a woman invited him over. As he looked around Kendell’s small one-bedroom above
a touristy bead shop on Decatur Street, he had to remind himself he was only there to talk. But some habits were hard to break, such as casually observing a woman’s possessions as a means of getting behind the masks she presented to the outside world.
The large windows that led out to the balcony overlooking the old brick museum were free of curtains. She was neither a prude nor a hermit. Either personality type would have sought to close herself off from the world. But her view wasn’t of a neighboring apartment. So being open for her was less a matter of exhibitionism than curiosity. The windows reminded him of her eyes—large and open.
She’d left the door to her bedroom open. Typically, he’d interpret the gesture as a woman welcoming him into her boudoir. But in Kendell’s case, he assumed it had more to do with letting as much light as possible into the small space. The room was filled with a large bed so billowy she’d look like a small girl in it. She might not be an open book, but she wasn’t shy about letting him get to know her.
As he thought about her, a book seemed the most accurate metaphor. That impression was heightened by the bookcases that lined every available section of wall. There weren’t many open slots left for new reading material. He doubted he’d read that many books in his whole life. But as he looked at the titles, he eased off his assessment of her as a nerdy intellectual. There were as many books devoted to the paranormal as there were romance novels. She had eclectic tastes. Talking to her would never be boring, provided he could keep up.
Her furniture was old and comfortable, much like the clothes she wore, but none of it was ratty. It was as if she wanted visitors to know she had her own aesthetic. No one would be dictating fashion to her. She made her own way through life, and she wanted others to see it.
He took a seat on the rumpled couch made up of as many colorful, handmade pillows as cushions. His first impression of Kendell’s overweight, elderly dog, who watched him from the ottoman, was that she was looking to him for food. She certainly had the intense stare that usually accompanied begging. “I don’t have anything for you. Do you want me to pet you?” He reached out to offer his hand. The dog growled. “I didn’t mean to offend—just thought we could be friends.”