by Jim Grimsley
He would be aware through the rest of the night, at times, that the drug had altered his perception of the world, but since the world he was coming to know was itself a narcotic, acting on him in that way, he was never quite sure whether the night seemed so strange and long because of the drug or simply because of itself. They stood on the balcony in the warm breeze until the throbbing of music from the Parade, a block down the street, became insistent, and Henry asked Newell if he wanted to go dancing, and Newell nodded and they picked their way through the bar and stepped onto the street. Henry led Newell to the Parade where Henry bought a bottle of Rush and paid for the cover charge for both of them. From upstairs flowed rivers of sound, the same beat Newell had heard everywhere, on every jukebox, and they arrived at the top of the stairs to the dance floor, a sea of undulating heads and shoulders and arms thrown high; and Henry leaned into Newell’s ear and whispered, “This place is my favorite, except for the waterfront,” at the same moment that one song melted into something new, a woman with a trumpet of a voice singing, “It took all the strength I had not to fall apart,” a song Newell had not heard before, but which caused a sensation on the dance floor. A crush of people carried Henry and Newell forward, toward the whirling lights and globes and the shifting mass of bodies.
They never made it as far as the dance floor. They danced under one of the arches beside it, and bodies pressed them from all around. Newell’s head was spinning, and the music hardly helped him orient himself. Soon Henry had opened the bottle of Rush and shoved it under Newell’s nose, saying, “Take a breath up your nostril.” Newell did, and felt the harsh rush of whatever was in the bottle, a wind through his head and the feeling that the music was slamming at his bones, and he began to dance as Henry inhaled the stuff too and threw back his head and smiled.
The music never stopped, one song blending into the next, Newell and Henry danced, with Henry holding the bottle under Newell’s nose and the heady, intoxicating scent flooding Newell, the music suddenly more intense inside him, his heartbeat like hammers, and Henry passing the bottle of Rush to adjacent dancers, faces that appeared in Newell’s sight then vanished again, and parts of bodies undulating against him, the dance floor packed, and the feeling of unity with all the rest of them, their arms and legs rippling in the same wind as it coursed through them all, the music whipped around them like a storm, and everybody blowing. Everywhere he looked, men were dancing with men, everyone with everyone, while the music spun the room into a frenzy. A first glimpse of ecstasy rose in Newell, like a window opening, and he was amazed by the feeling and empty, completely empty of everything except this one moment, the beat of the music, the beat of his body on waves of it, and the feeling of a tribe around him, exalted.
At a certain moment he looked across the room to the center of the dance floor, and, as if the crowd had parted especially for that reason, he saw a blond man he had seen before, and recognized him in some way, an unmistakable perfection, his skin golden, his hair cut close to his scalp, such a look of strength and health, a perfect body in the light. For as long as they were dancing, Newell could hardly look anywhere else. But within a couple of songs, Henry took Newell by the arm and led him outside onto another balcony. Even through the closed doors the muted bass line of the dance music made their bodies vibrate. A breeze brought a scent of storm coming, a cool edge to the night. From far away came the lowing of ships passing on the river. Newell could almost see in his mind the curve of the river and the lights along it, the lights of the ships doubled in reflection in the river. He gripped the black iron rail of the balcony and leaned out over the street. Behind, doors opened and closed, and the music washed over them whenever the doors were open. Newell’s head pounded. Henry asked, “Do you want something to drink?”
“No. I’m fine.”
“It’s going to rain,” Henry said.
“Not for a while.”
“How do you know?”
Newell shrugged.
“You tired of dancing?” Henry asked.
“Do you want to do something else?”
Henry looked at him with the tip of his tongue visible, just behind his teeth, and his eyes big and round. “We could walk to the riverfront. You ever been there?”
“You mean at Jackson Square? I walk there a lot.”
Henry laughed. “No. I’ll show you where I mean.”
On the street again, they drifted toward the river along St. Peter, Newell following Henry’s narrow, stooped shoulders among the other men. Newell realized with a start of surprise that they were headed toward the old brewery, to the deserted warehouses along the riverfront; soon they had crossed beyond the Moonwalk and hurried along narrow streets till they came to a loading dock, which Henry scrambled to climb, beckoning Newell to follow, at the top of which they slid through a door that somebody had propped open.
Into an eerie, shadowed space they walked, Newell staying close to Henry while his eyes adjusted. Newell thought, once or twice, voices were murmuring around him, as Henry led him to an open space where the lights of the opposite bank of the river threw the old warehouse into a dim twilight.
Shadows moved through the dreamy space, slipping out of darkness along the walls, appearing briefly as silhouettes in distant doorways, or slouched along the open bays leading to the quay. Pairs of men, or trios, or single men wandering from one place to another, and one warehouse opening onto the next, space after space, and the shadows moving and receding. Henry and Newell also wandered through the dark, listening to the soft sounds, the quiet voices, the low groans. They wandered through the labyrinth for what seemed like hours, Newell had lost track of time. Finally they came to a vaulted space with its riverside loading doors open and the river murmuring beyond, and Henry led Newell to a brick wall and stood him against it and lay his hands along Newell’s hips. Newell was surprised by the touch and drew back, but Henry held him, knelt and pressed his mouth against Newell’s zipper, and Newell stood there with Henry’s hands gripping his buttocks as though it were simply an abstraction, these motions in this space, and Henry opened Newell’s pants with clumsy tugs and took Newell in his mouth, a shock, and the stirring of Henry’s lips and tongue that sent gradually thrills then shocks then fires through Newell, and he was aroused in spite of himself, and Henry guided him through the motions skillfully. But Newell leaned back into the shadows, against the cool bricks, and when he looked down he saw Henry looking up at him, round-eyed, solemn, and forlorn as a puppy. The distended lips and sad face struck Newell as ridiculous. He giggled and took Henry’s face in his hands, pushed it gently back. “I don’t want to do this with you,” Newell said, and pulled up his pants and belted them and walked away a few steps, toward the river breeze.
After a few moments Henry joined him, and they began to walk again. Henry seemed all right, as though nothing had happened. They cruised the warehouses for a while, and Newell watched everything around him, the shadows of the men passing back and forth, the places where knots of men clustered, men with their arms spread wide grasping the edge of an old work table, a support beam, an old rope tied to a ring in the wall, groans of men echoing in the open space, in the alcoves, the labyrinths of little offices surrounding the loading area, a man wiping cobwebs from his face while another man knelt in front of him, head moving in and out of shadow. Henry and Newell walked for a long time, till Henry found another man for himself and those two went off together. Newell kept wandering alone, studying the faces, wondering if he had seen these men in the bars earlier, or on other nights; watching, at last, a group of men around an old packing crate, one man sprawled across the crate and another doing something Newell could barely see; it looked as if the standing man were slowly working his hand inside the one over the crate, as if to plunge his whole arm inside the first man, and that one groaning and shuddering in a way that shocked Newell, who was suddenly frightened and wanted to leave. So he found his way to Elysian, the sight of familiar streetlights, the fresh breeze across his face.
For an hour or more he walked, too excited by all he had seen to sleep, with his headed swaddled in Rush and smoke and the smells of the warehouses. Snatches of what he had seen came back to him, in particular the last image, the one that had shocked him. Newell walked and tried to clear his head. He went to the Café du Monde for coffee and beignets, and it still felt miraculous to him, that he could sit there so easily, with money in his pocket now, with no worries, and he could order food and coffee and someone would bring it; and further, the whole thought of the night satisfied him, and he felt adult and in control of the world, having gone out for an evening to enjoy himself, having roamed the streets with Henry, having danced and inhaled the strange stuff, Rush, having smoked the joint, having done all those things; but still his thoughts kept veering from those pleasant places to the warehouses along Elysian, to Henry kneeling in front of him so clumsily when it had been such a nice evening up till then, and to the man on the packing crate, his face lost in pleasure, or in some feeling that had control of him that was like pleasure; though Newell could not imagine how it felt lying there like that, and he went a bit queasy in the stomach.
The strong coffee made his heart race, and he walked along the river for a while, along the levee. The briny, dank, rich smell of the Mississippi flooded through him, a hundred scents in one. A ship moved downriver, a tug following behind. The easy lapping of the river against the levee, the wash of water, mingled with the gentle sound of a few cars moving on the street behind him. At this hour the park at Jackson Square was closed and locked, but there were still a few people in the square, sitting on the steps of the St. Louis Cathedral, a name he now remembered, wandering among the benches. He could turn and watch the tall tower of the cathedral, dappled with streetlight and moonlight, or he could face the river and drink its darkness, its breezes, the hypnotic light along the black glassy surface; he could feel, inside himself, the rushing of his blood, the sound of it, the sensations of the drugs that he had taken into himself. He rested with a feeling of peace descending and enfolding him. Don’t leave me this way, a voice was singing in his head, as he picked his way down Bourbon Street, moving among the tourists who were still stumbling along the lighted storefronts and bars and dance clubs that never closed their doors. He was proud again, in a vague way, that he had gone out and had himself some real fun tonight, that he had seen some things, and that it was all right to do so, because he had money in his pocket and a good job, and he was proud again, too, that he lived in the city.
The next morning was Sunday, and he woke to a peaceful light filling his room, the echoes of church bells from outside, near and distant. For a moment the sounds were like the Sunday mornings of Pastel, Alabama, and he thought he was back in his grandmother’s trailer, in that small room where he had slept. But he opened his eyes, and he was in the room in New Orleans. The smell of rain drifting through the window drew him to it, and he studied the gray sky, the light drizzle of rain over the street. He stared at the roofs and chimneys as far as the eye could see, where this rain was falling, the city gone gauzy with fog.
Later, he stood on the back gallery at the top of the stairs, sipping instant coffee as the rain drifted round his head in tiny beads, hardly falling at all but rather floating toward him and lighting on him, a slow film of moisture. He stood there till the rain increased, till he could see actual drops, and the sky such an even slate of gray it looked as if it would rain for hours.
He went for a walk in the drizzle. One of the hot dog vendors had pulled his cart under the shelter of one of the cast iron balconies, and the steam from the wieners curled as it rose. The smell hit Newell like a weight, he saw it was that big man again, the one in the dingy overcoat who looked as though gravity were worse for him than for anyone else, and farther down the street Newell had to pass a one-legged man with the flap of his pants come loose and dragging in the wet street, the man on crutches, swinging carefully forward then standing, breathing, swinging forward again then standing again, a wet cigarette in his mouth, not burning but sagging a bit with the rain.
Newell walked as far as the cathedral, stopping at the end of Pirate’s Alley and sheltering against the wall, as though he dared not take one step more but must simply stand there and peer out at the square, at the fine old buildings along it, as though if he took that next step he would be transported backward to the world of long ago, but instead a woman was approaching him, her hair matted, strands of it clinging to the black plastic she clutched around herself to keep dry, and when she came close enough she spit something yellow and red and glistening that landed on the stone pavement of the alley and shivered there, and she shuffled down the alley with the plastic poncho rustling. Newell watched her go as the rain thickened and fell more fully over Jackson Square and the cathedral and the buildings the Spanish colonial governors had built that were still standing here. He was getting soaked, but he stood there for a while, happy to know something, to have facts in his head, and to be able to carry them around with him. He was happy to know, for instance, that these buildings were called the Cabildo, these fine ones here, flanking the cathedral. He finally shivered and hurried away, trotting under the balconies and awnings along the mostly deserted Royal Street. He bought a few groceries in the A&P. In the junk store, he bought a lamp and another book, dusty and soursmelling, Strange True Stories of Lousiana, by George W. Cable, and when Louise saw it she wrote down the title carefully. “I never did read that,” she said. “My mama had it.”
“It looks like some good stories.”
“I don’t doubt.” Louise listed the lamp as well. Checking to see if there was a bulb in it. With finial, she noted, in case Newell should complain later.
“Do you have any bulbs?” Newell asked.
“I got one I’ll sell you,” she sighed, “to keep you from having to go back in the rain.” No one else in the store, anyway. She adjusted the necklace at her bodice, found the bulb, gave him a plastic sack to keep the lamp and book dry. “It leaks in that passageway. It’ll wet you good.”
The rain continued all night, soothing him even as he slept, and he dreamed he was still wandering in it, that he was walking in the empty warehouses with water dripping everywhere, other men slipping in and out of the shadows. He was following them, and every time he woke up that night he heard the rain and fell asleep and the dream began again, so that by morning he had lain in the dream all night and the rain still fell over everything.
Rain fell all day Monday, and Newell stayed indoors and read the new book. Strange, the world that unfolded in the words of George W. Cable, when the Spanish built the first houses, when German farmers lived upriver and sailed into frontier countries on flatboats to have balls and fetes with French people who had moved here because of the Revolution, which Newell dimly remembered from world history, the one with the guillotine and Marie Antoinette. A story about a woman in the Civil War who thought slavery was stupid and the war was worse, who lived through the shelling of Vicksburg. A story about a lady who tortured her slaves, kept her eighty-year-old cook in a neck collar chained in the kitchen, who chased a four-year-old slave girl out a fourth-story window, whose house was said to be haunted still by the ghost of all the suffering she had caused. Newell read that one over again, chilled by it, as if he were that old woman with heavy iron chafing her neck to blood, whose despair had become so great that one day she set fire to the kitchen to see if she could free herself by burning.
He put down the book at one point, went to his door, stood on the back gallery, looked at the slave quarters, which Louise had fixed up into such a nice apartment for herself.
The next day, rain was still falling, so he bought an umbrella on the way to work, and the rest of the way to work he smelled the new umbrella, the first he had ever owned. At the bookstore he shook it out and propped it against the wall behind the cash register to let the water drip into the trash can. Mac watched him and slowly drained the cigarette toward his mouth. “Son of a bitch of a morning,�
�� Mac said.
“It’s coming down,” Newell agreed. “Cools everything off some, though.”
“That’s right. And washes the vomit off the street. God bless the rain.”
On Tuesday mornings they changed the movies in the quarter movie booths. There were fifteen booths at the back, in a dark room behind the curtains, and each of the booths had a door, but in fact if you walked behind the booths you could easily go from one to the other, and Mac and Newell changed the movies that way, before the store opened. Some of the films were still doing pretty well, so Mac said those could stay, especially the one with Bruno and the guy on the back of the truck, and the one about the two guys on the couch, entitled, “The Biggest He Ever Had.” So far Newell had not watched any of the movies beginning to end, but that morning he became curious, and he noticed, as they moved from the men section to the other one, that most of the movies were about men being with men, and there were only a few booths showing movies that had women in them. He had never noticed this particularly before. Newell knelt at the side of each of the movie players, removed three bolts and opened the hinged back cover, and Mac held the new movie while Newell unthreaded the old loop from the projector, closed it in its case, then took the new one and threaded it through the rollers with exactly enough slack to please Mac, who supervised, pointing and directing without even bending to look at the machine.