Gods of New Orleans

by AJ Sikes

  Emma’s anger flooded out of her in a rush of accusations and demands, until she couldn’t even hear the words she was saying anymore. Her voice became a torrent of fire. Eddie backed away from her, but she kept at him, ignoring the look on his face and the way he held up his hands.

  “Emma! Emma, please!” he said at last, his face twisted with confusion and fear. “Girl, I gotta go play tonight. And you heard what Mr. Bacchus said. Streetcar on its way, and I gotta walk with this knee he just gave me. Ain’t doing us any good you tearing into me like that.”

  Emma felt her face soften, but her chest still heaved with the same heavy feelings of betrayal and torment. Eddie put a hand on her knee and looked her in the eye.

  “Save it for when I get home if you have to. But please. Let me get ready and go, hey?”

  She held up her chin and closed her eyes, letting her breath go, long and slow and deep like she’d been holding it in for a year. “Okay, Eddie,” she said, opening her eyes and nodding. “Okay. But‌—‌”

  Eddie put a finger to her lips. “No buts right now, Lovebird. Just okay. Just I love you. And you know I do.”

  He leaned in and kissed her. Emma took the kiss and gave him a little of her own. But she felt herself keeping back the little part of her heart that she’d always held from him, at least until earlier in the day when they were making smiles with each other on this very bed.

  Whatever happened between that time and this, Emma wasn’t sure. The fear she’d felt was real, and the anger, too. But where the anger came from, she couldn’t say. One thing she knew, though. That little piece of herself would go back to hiding out until she knew for certain she and Eddie really had a chance in New Orleans.

  Chapter 17

  It’s some hour of the morning, Brand doesn’t know which and knows he can’t even try a guess if anyone bothers to ask him. Barnaby and the other fellas are snoring over there under their canvas. Brand pushes his tattered blankets aside and stretches his limbs, trying to ignore the cracking and popping noises.

  What the hell did I do last night, he thinks.

  He made his delivery, that’s what. He got the envelope to the god it was meant for. Some guy in a white suit with a patch over one eye. Dark skin, tall and lean like a beanpole, but tough. Brand could tell. Guy carried himself like he’d whip out a hand and take your eye if you dared use it to look at him wrong. Called himself Ghost even though the letter Brand gave him was addressed to Chance.

  Brand tries to remember something else about the guy, but his head feels ten times the size it should be, and Brand figures that’s why he thinks he’s knocking his skull into everything around him. He shuffles away from the camp and makes his way to the mooring deck, reaching for the pillars supporting the platform like they’ll tether him as soon as he lays his hands on their cold metal skin.

  Behind him, in the campsite, Barnaby snores on. Brand imagines Reggie and Phinias are doing the same. The Three Blind Men have practice, Brand thinks. They’ve done this so many times it’d take a whole barrel of hooch to get them drunk enough to wake up sick.

  Brand moves to return to the camp, maybe find some sleep in there somewhere after all. Rest his throbbing noggin enough it might stop beating him to death every time he tries to use it.

  Then he feels it. A weight dragging on one side of his coat, just enough to let him know he’s got work to do. Another envelope fills the pocket.

  “Guy can’t catch a break no matter how hard he tries. C’mon then,” Brand says to nobody in particular. He wants someone to be there, a pal, one of his newsboys, or just anybody who cares enough to look him in the eye. But Brand knows he’s alone, so he lifts a hand and peels back the air by his head, revealing the world of memories and the torment of regret. “Time to deliver the mail,” he says, and steps through.

  ~•~

  It’s dark, like always, and Brand’s feet stick in the mud. He slogs, not bothering to run, because he knows the mud can’t have him when he’s on a job.

  “You fellas just hold down the fort while I’m gone, hey?” he says to the mob of muddy coats, grimy skin, and tangled whiskers rolling along behind him.

  The mud men moan at him, angry and confused, like they know something isn’t right and are ready to rain hell or high-water on whatever’s getting in their way.

  “I said cool it back there,” Brand shouts at them. “You know what happens if I flub this job, don’t you? It’s the mud for ol’ Mitchell here.”

  And I’m not going out like that.

  They moan at him some more, but eventually they hush up. Brand slogs through the muck and grime for a while more until he finds the cobblestone road leading up to the city streets above.

  “Be seeing you, fellas. Maybe next time around the dance floor I’ll let you lead.”

  Brand climbs the stones with heavy legs, feeling the weight of the city bearing on him now, his back curling until he thinks he must look like a walking question mark. And what else should he look like?

  “Not like I have anything left to give the world. Might as well give them a reason to wonder what happened to me.”

  He’s walking on cobblestones still and then he’s on a street in a neighborhood somewhere. The buildings all have a look about them that says they belong to another time and place, but they’ve been put here to remind people of that place.

  Old New Orleans, then. Okay.

  Brand wipes a sleeve across his mouth and whiskers again. He thinks about how people move through the world, going from one place to another, always taking with them something of memory, something that tells them all is not lost and they may yet find where they belong. Immigrants flooded through New York with bags and belongings. Conroy and the others on board the Vigilance brought only themselves to New Orleans.

  “And I followed you all because I thought I belonged with you, too.”

  Around him people have begun their daily routine. Down the street he sees a cluster of tramps unfolding from where they’d holed up in the ruins of a burned-out building. Their sooty clothing and filthy skin make them look like silhouettes. All around the street, signs of life begin to show. Windows go up and shutters open, rugs flutter over stoops and let dust fly into the air.

  “Some people just can’t give up on hope,” Brand mumbles, fingering the envelope in his pocket with one hand while he smooths his whiskers with the other.

  A woman on a nearby stoop says something to him as he passes her by, but Brand ignores her. Whatever she’s got to say can’t be anything as important as finishing off this mail run so he can get back to‌—‌

  “Yeah? To what?” he asks the morning around him. “What’m I gonna get back to? Whole lotta nothin’ is what.”

  Brand can hardly believe his ears, but it’s his voice saying those words, and his head that catches the echo of their portent.

  Brand wanders the streets for a while, following his feet that seem to know where they’re going. He stops finally and looks through the dissipating mists of the New Orleans morning. Across the street he sees a long sedan parked in front of a rich hotel building. The facade is all ornament and filigree, stonework with the weight of authority carved into it.

  A figure steps out of the sedan, a heavy man who holds a cane. Brand sees a glint of light off the tip of the cane, and more pinpoints reflecting off of rings on the man’s fingers. He’s like a chandelier with legs, Brand thinks and chuckles to himself.

  For a while, Brand watches the gold-tipped man across the street. He doesn’t seem like he’s going to move and slowly the street fills with wagons and bicycles, horses, and even a motor car or two.

  “So I have to dodge traffic to do my job?” Brand says, shaking his head and tossing a sneeze at the idea.

  Brand lifts his hand slowly and puts it in his pocket. He feels the envelope there and he removes it, remembering Barnaby’s warning just as he looks at the name on the envelope.

  TO VICE C/O MR. BACCHUS.

  Brand lifts his eyes and he’s fac
e-to-face with the walking chandelier. With a start, Brand stumbles a few steps backward and nearly goes over on his ass, but he keeps his feet at the last second.

  The man standing in front of him now is easily a head shorter than Brand himself. But his girth is twice Brand’s own, if not more. He’s dark-skinned, with heavy, drooping jowls that frame a mouth set in a grim smile that’s a few steps along the way to being a sneer. The man wears a fur-trimmed coat draped around his heavy bulk, and holds his walking stick across his gut with both hands.

  “I believe you have my mail,” says the big man with the rings and stick.

  “Yes, Sir. Here it is,” Brand says, holding out the envelope. The big man nods his head to one side and a servant Brand hadn’t noticed before appears at the god’s shoulder. The servant is a white-skinned man in liveries that match the big man’s own suit. He wears a black tailcoat and blood-red vest over a white shirt. Woven into the vest are threads of silver and gold.

  The servant takes the envelope and produces two coins, which he extends, pinched between his fingertips as though he would drop them rather than hand them directly to Brand.

  Brand cups his hands and catches the coins as they fall. He looks at them as they sit in his palms. The two discs of glimmering yellow metal give off a warmth that spreads through Brand’s hands and arms. He looks up to thank the big man and finds the street empty.

  Doesn’t stick around, does he?

  Brand figures the big man for a gangster. That’s easy enough for him to put together without help. Brand’s been face-to-face with gangsters before, he remembers. And this one owns most of New Orleans, same as Capone used to own most of Chicago City. Only Mr. Heavy Black Lightshow here has something Capone didn’t.

  “There’s a god in him, though. Bet it’s a big one. Wonder how many more they’ve got down here,” Brand says. He pockets the coins and feels their weight for just a moment before they vanish like sand through a sieve. A man in a sharp suit strolls through the early morning and dodges around Brand at the last minute. Brand waves a hand after the guy like he’d brush him away. But the guy’s already gone, his back to Brand and his eyes on the road ahead.

  “Gods’re all the same. Same as always,” Brand says. “Get you to do their work and give you nothin’ back for it.”

  On cue, Brand feels the weight of the coins in his pocket again, and then realizes it’s an envelope. He pulls it out. When he sees what’s written on the front, he puts a hand to his mouth and holds in the scream that’s forming in his throat.

  TO INNOCENCE C/O AIDEN CONROY.

  Brand chokes back his scream and reads the address again.

  “Conroy? They’re after you, too,” Brand says and turns his face to the sky. “Well let ‘em try. You hear that?” He’s shouting now, ignoring all the looks and stares and glares he draws from the people on the street.

  “You just try it!” Brand the Tramp hollers at the city around him, waving the envelope like a bailiff holding a court summons.

  Chapter 18

  Aiden’s pa was none too happy about it, that was clear enough. He sat across from Aiden, with his back to the kitchen where Aiden’s ma paced around like a gearbox gone haywire. She kept stepping close to his pa and then spinning off to go some other direction. The way Aiden’s pa clutched the bottle against his belly said it all.

  That day on Magazine Street, his pa had stopped them off at the same saloon he’d been in when they first hit town. His pa had gone inside and told Aiden to wait, then he’d come out and told Aiden to come in. The guy at the bar had aimed a thumb at a door in the back of the room, and Aiden went. He wound up in a little kitchen with a sink and a whole lot of dirty dishes.

  Aiden scrubbed and soaped up the plates and glasses while he pa held down a stool. The barkeep said he’d done a real good job, more than enough to earn his pa a glass a hooch. The guy had said he was sorry he couldn’t pay Aiden for the work. Then Aiden’s pa had said “How about a bottle to take home?”

  The last drops of the liquor made a little pool in the bottom of the bottle now. Aiden tore his eyes off it and looked at his ma again, but not straight on. Meeting her eyes wasn’t any better than staring down the bottle in his pa’s lap.

  Behind his pa, the kitchen was still a dingy little corner, but now the cupboards had tins and jars of food put up for keeping. The family’s dishes sat stacked on a shelf above the tin wash basin. On the other side of that, their new green icebox stood by, keeping cool a roast his ma had gotten that morning. When she’d come home with the roast, Aiden’s eyes had lit up. Then he told her about the work he’d finally found and they’d all three of them ended up like this.

  The way his ma kept pacing around the kitchen made it look like the set of a Punch and Judy show.

  Aiden wanted to tell his pa to put the bottle down; he could feel the words on his tongue. But the old man’s hangdog mug let just enough of the Conroy fire through. Aiden knew better than to say anything of the kind. Besides, the work he’d got meant pay. Real pay, and a lot better than the shoe shine gig.

  Maybe his pa would put the bottle down on his own once they got things sorted out and Aiden showed up with money for the family.

  That’s gotta be worth something.

  He’d thought for sure it would. He went to the address on the card he got from the man on Magazine Street. But when he’d told his folks about the gig, his pa sat there looking glum as can be. And his ma didn’t like it no matter how he sliced it. She almost bounced around the kitchen now, with her arms crossed, and still not getting too close to his pa.

  “It’s five dollars, Aiden. Five. And that’s just to buy the cart and, what did that colored man say? A book? It sounds like gambling to me, and you know how I feel about gambling.”

  “Alice . . .,” his pa started. For a second, Aiden thought his pa would take over where his ma left off, just tell Aiden to forget it. Then the old man surprised him.

  “It’s like any job the kid’s gonna find now. He’s got nothing … no credence. He doesn’t belong here and neither do we, but we’re here. So he’s got to find work where he can. People down here. They don’t care his old man used to run the cleaning crew at the Field Museum. Might as well tell ‘em I was King of Siam all the good it’ll do him. Al Conroy’s name is mud in New Orleans. The kid got work that pays. We should be thankful.”

  “Thankful?” his ma said. “Al Conroy, did you just suggest‌—‌”

  Aiden’s pa went to take a slug from the bottle and Aiden didn’t miss his ma sending a bent eye in the old man’s direction. If his pa noticed, he didn’t let on, but he stopped with the bottle in front of his lips. Then he let it sink back down to his lap where he held like a newborn baby.

  The distance between Aiden’s parents didn’t feel anything like normal, but he couldn’t pretend it felt wrong, either.

  He had some more words in his mouth and thought he should say his piece, maybe try to bring the family back together around him finding good-paying work. Get his pa to stop slugging hooch. The words pushed at his lips, but a tightness in his throat kept him quiet.

  Aiden’s pa lifted the bottle again, and this time he didn’t stop. Aiden closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to watch.

  His ma’s shoes clapped on the wood floor, echoing against the hum of sewing machines in the room below. Aiden opened his eyes, thinking she’d come close enough to snatch the bottle out his pa’s hands. But his parents just kept up their dance like they’d been doing the whole time.

  His mother’s mood still went in every direction, like she was being forced to follow steps she didn’t know. She seemed to stagger from place to place in the small kitchen: over by the sink, then the counter, back to the sink and away again. Her feet landed firm and steady each time, but her face said it clear enough.

  She doesn’t know what to do.

  Aiden’s pa didn’t seem to mind, or notice if he did. Aiden hated watching it, but he knew that opening his mouth would just get him hollered at.
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  Getting hollered out only counted in his book when he’d earned it. His folks were on a roll, and he had no choice but to leave them to it. His pa made sure he wouldn’t get a chance to speak anyway.

  “It’s just five dollars, Alice. That’s what? About a day’s pay for you? Okay, it’s a lot, but‌—‌”

  “Al, I barely bring in enough for us to keep food on the table, and what little I have left seems as likely to end up in a bottle as anywhere else.”

  That was what Aiden had been waiting for, but he didn’t know it until the words left his ma’s lips. Aiden’s pa clammed up tight, set the bottle on the ground beside his chair, folded his arms, and stared at the wall behind Aiden.

  “Ma,” Aiden said, testing the waters. She didn’t reply, but she didn’t holler at him neither, so he kept on. “I think it’s straight, this cleaning job I got. The fella I talked to showed me the other guys’ books and it’s just keeping records. It don’t look like gambling.”

  “Doesn’t, Aiden,” she said, her eyes finding his now. “Doesn’t look like. Oh for‌—‌ Do you remember what I said about keeping the Conroy name in good standing?”

  Aiden nodded, and he didn’t miss the look his ma aimed at the back of his pa’s head.

  “Yes’m,” Aiden said, doing his best to just keep his eyes on his ma and pretend not to see the way his pa’s face squeezed up like his head would pop any minute. His ma was staring at the old man’s head now, and Aiden knew she was talking to his pa as much as to him.

  “People in this city value proper etiquette, Aiden. The people that matter anyway. That means speaking clean as much as it means acting clean. Don’t forget that, or the people we care about and want to like us will start thinking we belong with the‌—‌” She stopped, but Aiden knew what she had in mind to say. He didn’t want to give her a chance to get the word out, so he piped up and did his best to make like he cared about ‘speaking clean,’ like she’d said.