The Watch

by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya

  Yes, Sir, I was planning to.

  Your grandma had it serviced last week—or, at least, that’s what she says she did, in anticipation of your comin’—so you should be fine. Drive carefully all the same, you hear me? It’s an old car, and those great big loons in their SUVs are enough to put the fear of the devil into a law-abidin’ man.

  Before I can answer, Grandma calls out from the kitchen: James, are you swearing again?

  What you talking about, woman? I’m havin’ a conversation with my grandson, that’s all. Can’t a man get any privacy around here?

  He shakes his head in disgust. Women, you know what I mean?

  I repress a smile. Yes, Sir.

  Aunt Thelma walks me to the door. Bring Camille home, she says. It’s been a while, Boo. It’ll do me good to see your sweet gaienne again. She has such a beautiful head of hair, and her eyes!—as blue as the morning sky.

  Aunt Thelma’s originally from New Orleans, and she still falls into the local patois sometimes, using Boo for child, gaienne for girlfriend, and so on. It used to bother me no end when I was a teenager, but now I find it endearing and give her a hug instead.

  She asks me to stand still while she measures the sweater she’s knitting for me against my back. How cold is it there, anyway? she asks.

  Afghanistan? It’s cold. I mean, there’s entire parts of the country that close down for six to seven months of the year because there’s so much snow on the ground.

  Good thing you’re here, then. No point in getting frostbite. Still and all, I’ll make sure I get this done before you go back. Maybe you can wear it next year.

  Aunt Thelma, it’s still going to be winter when I get back, trust me. Where we’re posted, the cold lasts until the end of May.

  Holy Mary, Mother of God, I’m glad you told me! I had no idea. I’m turning into a regular vielle fille! I’ll have to buy you warm underwear, child. She looks at me over her glasses. I’ve been using six-ply yarn. Maybe it’s not thick enough. What do you think?

  It seems fine to me.

  I should probably use single-ply worsted weight yarn and start over.

  There’s really no need to do that! It’ll be fine.

  I don’t know, p’tit boug. Let me think about it. You run along now.

  I slide the tarp off the car in the garage. The Chevelle looks like it was born yesterday: Gauguin Red paintwork, glittering chrome grille, spotless tan interior. I open the door, slide into the front seat, and rest my hands on the leather-covered steering wheel made shiny by my father’s loving use. I turn on the ignition and sit there for a moment, puzzled that nothing’s happening. Then I laugh. I’m so used to the roar of Hummers and Strykers that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be in a real American car.

  It slides as smooth as silk out of the garage and down the short driveway onto the street. The sun’s already hot. I’m glad I wore an open-necked cotton shirt and loose slacks. I merge with the traffic headed for Government Street. My first stop is Phil Brady’s, one of the best blues establishments in Baton Rouge, where Camille tends bar four nights a week.

  I use the back entrance, pausing before the employees’ bulletin board to check Camille’s schedule for the week. She’s taken off till next weekend, which is when I’m flying out. I feel a rush of anticipation as I rest my eyes on her name: Camille Thibodeaux. Just as I’m turning away, Donnie, the day manager, sees me and hurries over.

  Welcome back! he says, pressing my hand. Where you at, podna? Good to see you again! How long you staying this time around?

  Seven days. Camille told me to come pick up some things …

  We got ’em ready and waiting for you, Big Boy, the whole nine yards, exactly as ordered. That gal of yours don’t stint none, I’ll tell you that much. Come along now.

  Donnie, please don’t call me Big Boy.

  He turns to look at me and laughs.

  That’s big of you, Chief. You’re a hero, naw what I’m talkin’ about? A genuine, twenty-four-carat American hero. Everybody looks up to you round here. I can’t tell you how good it feels to have you back.

  Thank you, but I’m no hero. I’m simply doing my job, like you’re doing yours.

  He slows down and glances at me uncertainly. Then he winks. C’mon now. I know courage when I see it, you know what I’m saying? He leans close to me and drops his voice. I would’ve joined up too, but I got a family; it makes things difficult. But God, I’d love to be doin’ what ya’ll do, I imagine, goin’ after those terrorists! I saw a report on PBS, and it was sweet, Marcus, sweet. All that action!

  He pulls out a couple of giant hampers from the freezer and a carton of booze and motions to one of the busboys.

  Careful with those, he says. There’s ice at the bottom to keep ’em cool for the ride.

  I eye the hampers in astonishment. Lord, Donnie, what’s in them?

  He puts on his reading glasses and scans a piece of paper.

  Let me see now: you got red beans and rice, meatballs in tomato sauce, crawfish fettuccine, ersters, our special hot sausages, wings, and po-boys for lunch; Cajun spiced redfish for grilling in the evenings, fresh-picked mirlitons to have with shrimp butter sauce, crawfish and mynez, alligator pears, strawberries, and boursin cheesecake. For the booze you got champagne, wine, port for you, I imagine, beer, Scotch, bourbon … jeez, the gal’s thought of everything …

  He glances at me with a wicked grin.

  I burst out laughing. We walk out to the car together.

  You coming this weekend or what? he asks. We got hot bands playing.

  Who you got?

  The best, as always. On Thursday, there’s Atlanta Al leading the blues jam, on Friday we got Dexter Lee and the Prophets, and on Saturday there’s Muddy Creek playing all the way through midnight.

  Probably Saturday, then, I think—it’s up to Camille.

  You lucky man! You got the greatest gal and the greatest job in the world. You’re a lucky son of a gun, if you’ll pardon the allusion.

  He thumps me on the back as I slide into the car.

  See ya’ll on the weekend, maybe …?

  Maybe … I wave at him as I pull out.

  I’ve one more errand to run before I cross the river. I drive a few blocks along Government Street past my old high school and then swing around the corner, on Jefferson. I pull up in front of a record store with wide glass windows papered with posters of concerts and bands, and park behind a battered brown van that has “Rawlings, Sons & Daughter” stenciled on one side and “We Buy Used CDs and Records” on the other. The sign above the store reads: “The Old Man and the CD.” I pause before the storefront and look inside. Behind the counter there’s a broad-shouldered bald white man in a Harley-Davidson T-shirt and a bright red bandana. I’m already smiling as I open the door, and I stand there for a moment, letting my eyes adjust to the neon-lit interior. Then I say: Sergeant Rawlings, where y’at?

  He looks up from the magazine he’s reading and hollers so loudly that all the customers turn around.

  First Sergeant Marcus fuckin’ Whalen! he shouts. Well, shoot me down and stand me up against the wall!

  He maneuvers himself adroitly on a pair of crutches down the narrow aisles packed with CDs and records. I meet him halfway. He’s grinning from ear to ear. He says: C’mere, ya great big Tahyo, gimme a hug! Wassup wit’cha? You lookin’ good, bro. You finally lost some o’ that baby fat.

  I aim a playful punch at him before looking around the place and taking in the changes. I see you expanded, you knocked down the back wall and all … And what’s with the fancy new name? What was wrong with “The CD Store”? Plain and simple, just the way I liked it. Since when did you become the Old Man?

  He scrunches up his face in embarrassment. Marketing gimmick, bro, he says wryly. It was my daughter’s idea. I’m introducing my kids to the bizness, see?—and they got new ways of doin’ things.

  I gesture dismissively at the nearest CD rack: Like selling gangsta rap and trash like that? You used
to be a blues purist, Gene.

  You got to run with the pack, bro. Sales were way down, and kids don’t listen to the deep blues anymore. Fact is, you and me are prob’ly the only ones left from our generation …

  Speak for yourself, soldier! You might be getting long in the tooth but I’m only thirty-seven, so don’t you go callin’ me old.

  But seriously, who else d’you know these days that’s our age and into old Bluesmen? I got mouths to feed, Marcus. Trash sells.

  All right, all right, no need to get your back up.

  And I haven’t sold out entirely, he adds defensively. I’m helpin’ out with the Blues Festival this year.

  Oh yes? When’s it gonna be?—April again?

  Sure thing. That’s when you should have taken your leave, bro. You’re gonna be missing out. You remember that trip we took up to Oxford to Proud Larry’s?

  I sure do, bro. There was so much cigarette smoke in that joint, the music tasted of it.

  And the hogs too. Hogs and whiskey, guitars and catfish, and the music growin’ out from deep under that Marshall County mud. That’s the meanest blues there is, bro. Hip-hop’s got nothing on it.

  Now you’re talking, I reply, regarding him affectionately. So how you been in gen’ral? How’s the family?

  I’m awrite, everyone’s awrite. Millie’s good, Crissie and Travis are helping me out with the store, Gene got a job …

  Gene Junior? I thought he was still in school …

  He’s finished up, bro. Time passes. Yessir, he’s almost as tall as you now. He passed his GED, and now he’s working as an oil rigger out in the gulf. I told him, don’t you go getting into trouble now: that there’s risky work. But he got all cocky on me—you know how kids are these days—and he says, they got foolproof systems, Pops, foolproof. World class tek-no-logy is what they’re about. That’s the way he said it: tek-no-logy. So he’s earning good money now.

  He clasps my arm. I miss ya’ll! What are the boys up to? Cleaning up the Tally-ban? Connolly still got a chip on his shoulder about Frobenius? And what about Brandon Espinosa? Where’s he at?

  The questions come a mile a minute, and I have to ask him to slow down. Connolly’s fine, I tell him. And the rest of the boys are doing good.

  Does the lieutenant still do Tai Chi in the mornings?

  I smile, remembering. He sure does, I reply.

  We got the A-team, bro! he says with genuine pride in his voice. I love ya’ll. I follow the news every day, and not a day passes when I don’t say: damn, I shoulda been there! So I tell all the kids that come in here: you want meaning in life, you want a fucking sense of purpose, you better sign up.

  I don’t know if it’s that simple, Gene. I glance meaningfully at his amputated leg, but he’s not paying attention. So I ask: But tell me—how’s Joe holdin’ up?

  His face falls. I guess ya ain’t heard. He gone, bro.

  Joe Woods? What you talkin’ about?

  You know how he wanted to buy a shrimp boat after his discharge an’ all? He kept goin’ on and on about it and makin’ all these plans, and all the while he was hitting the jiggalate big-time, naw mean? Anyways, we had conversations. I had him by for dinner a couple of times. Millie was complainin’ about it—you know how he got no table manners at all—but I stood my ground and said: He’s coming by my house and that’s that, ’cuz I don’t care ’bout his fuckin’ manners, he’s my brother! Then I heard he was flippin’ tacos at some fast food joint for five-fifty an hour, and I made up my mind to go talk to him again. The next thing I know, I’m reading in the papers: Specialist Joseph Woods, a veteran of Operation Desert Storm, shot himself in the head following a struggle with depression.

  It takes me a while to absorb this news. “Happy” Woods was the last person I’d have thought a likely candidate for suicide.

  Mechanically, I say: He was a good man.

  Damn right, bro. You recall how he got us all laughin’ when we was pinned down behind them berms near Bag-dad? Or the time he smuggled that chicken into Folsom’s tent? Always cool in a crisis, always got a smile on his face and a new joke coming up. But he changed when he got back; he changed big-time. And that was what I had in mind to tell him. I was gonna tell him to reenlist. I was gonna say: Happy, for guys like you, the army’s the best damn life a man can have. You get to see the world, you get respect, you get a reg’lar paycheck. You can even afford a swimming pool in the yard like First Sarn’t Whalen’s folks. But before I could get to him, he bailed out. The Armed Forces was his home, with the brothers standing shoulder to shoulder; but out here he went back to being homeless, naw mean? He had no one standing by him when the crunch came. And I guess, in the end, he just gave up. Steep slope down—with no traction to check the fall.

  He bangs the top of the counter in frustration. It kills me, Marcus! We serve for love of the country, we serve so our brothers don’t have to go, we serve so them rich kids don’t have to go, but when we get back home …

  He looks straight ahead, the lines of his mouth pulling down.

  Anyways, don’t get me started. Millie says I’m becoming a boring old man. All I can say is, Happy musta been really down and out to find suicide an attractive proposition. VA failed him big-time, man. Anyone who volunteers to put his life on the line deserves to be treated better. It’s a question of respect, naw mean? Once you’ve fought and bled with your fellow soldiers, it’s something you can’t explain to someone who ain’t been there. They simply don’t understand.

  He rolls up his sleeve, balancing precariously on his crutches as he does. On his right arm, he’s got a new tattoo that reads: ONCE A SOLDIER, ALWAYS A SOLDIER.

  Just then, a customer, a young white rasta with dreadlocks, who’s probably decided he’s heard more than enough of our conversation, storms out of the store, but not before giving us a dirty look.

  I glance at Gene apologetically. I think I just lost you a customer.

  He shrugs. Who, him? He’s soft, bro. He’s nothing like you and me.

  He gives me a wry smile. You gotta be hard to love the blues.

  Speaking of the blues, what you got for me this time?

  Good stuff, bro, he says, good stuff. He moves swiftly on his crutches to a low shelf behind the counter. I bin savin’ up for you. Take a look at these babies. Rarities, all of ’em. Cost me a fortune, but what the hell: I’m in it for the chase as much as for the bucks.

  He reaches down and brings out a stack of CDs and a couple of fragile old shellacs. Look at what I got. This right here is the beating heart of the U.S. o’ A.

  With the air of a conjurer, he hands me the CDs one at a time:

  Here’s Lightnin’ Hopkins, and Furry Lewis, and Blind Lemon Jefferson, and your favorite, old Mississippi John Hurt, then Johnnie Lee Hooker playin’ Henry’s Swing Club, Sleepy John Estes, Big Joe Williams, Honeyboy Edwards, Son House, Charley Patton.

  I sift through his catch reverently.

  These are the real deal, bro, he says. Legally intoxicatin’. He taps the Sleepy John CD. Now there’s a rarity. He’s a physician, naw mean? He use the blues fer healing …

  They’re all rarities, Gene, I point out. I mean, you got me John Lee Hooker at Henry’s Swing Club! How many people got that? You done good, bro. You’re the ultimate. Now what about those shellacs?

  He chuckles. I tell you, Marcus, the first time I laid my eyes on them, I got a lowdown shakin’ chill runnin’ up and down my back.

  I examine the records and whistle softly. One’s a 1930s Paramount pressing of Blind Lemon Jefferson singing “Black Horse Blues.” The other’s even older: first and second takes of King Solomon Hill’s “Down on My Bended Knee.”

  I place them on the counter with care.

  Hot damn, I say quietly. I don’t know what to say.

  Then my watch catches my eye, and I point to it regretfully. I gotta go, Gene. What do I owe you for these?

  Lemme check your account from the last time.

  He wets his thumb and pages through
a fat ledger.

  Then: Seems like I owe you ninety-three cents.

  I shake my head and say: That can’t be right …

  He’s already counting out the change. That’s what it says here, bro.

  Fine, if that’s the way you want it, but what about these babies here?

  They’re yours for free. Courtesy of the house. Excuse me?

  Take ’em or leave ’em, Marcus; it’s up to you.

  He puts the CDs and shellacs in a cardboard box.

  I’m short of time right now, I tell him, but I’m gonna be back to pay for what I owe you, and you’d better be reasonable. ’Cuz I’m not acceptin’ any freebies.

  Where you scurrying off in such a rush?

  Where d’you think?

  He smiles. Going by the Atchafalaya, huh? How’s the houseboat holdin’ up?

  I say: I guess I’ll find out soon enough. I haven’t seen it since Camille repainted it, so I’m looking forward.

  He grunts in approval. These Acadian gals! They work hard and they play hard. You got lucky, bro. She’s a charmer. Don’t mess this one up.

  He comes with me to the car. You still driving Gracie?

  I sure am. She’s a part of me.

  He insists on closing the door after I get in. Tell Camille I said hello, he says. Millie keeps askin’ after her. I’ll tell her you stopped by. She prays for ya’ll every Sunday in church.

  As I put on my Ray-Bans, he says, a trifle wistfully: If I don’t get to see you again, say hello to the boys for me.

  I sure will, I say with a smile as I swing away from the curb.

  On the way to the bridge, I pass under a giant guitar-shaped billboard that reads: “Buddy Guy, Son of Baton Rouge, Home of Delta Blues.” I pull up at a traffic light behind a blue Honda Civic hatchback with stickers plastered all over the back. As I wait for the light to change, my eyes run over their slogans: WICCAN WITH ATTITUDE; War Is NOT the Answer; The Saints Kick Ass; KEEP THE PLANET GREEN; WHY IS OUR OIL UNDER THEIR SAND? Proud Mother of an Autistic Child; BE VEGAN, SPARE ANIMALS; Back Off, I’m a Goddess; SAVE THE BAYOU; NO BLOOD FOR OIL; Tree Hugging Dirt Worshipper; and finally, Support Our Troops: Bring Them Home!