Saints+Sinners

by Saints

  He came to the rescue when birthdays or anniversaries were forgotten. He was discreet and had learned how to keep the secrets of the men who had more than one woman in their lives and the women who went over budget. He made deliveries when necessary. He went above and beyond the call over and over. After a couple of years, Marshall knew the cream of the crop of New Orleans society. He’d developed a massive Rolodex that consisted of New Orleans’ movers and shakers.

  He earned a straight nine percent commission, when many other employees were making seven, and he also earned generous tips from his customers and products from manufacturers and suppliers who were grateful for his recommendations. He liked the money, but it was the satisfaction of helping others that made him tick.

  Part of Marshall’s success was that he was non-threatening, and he could sell to both men and women. He wasn’t overtly effeminate, though he suspected many of his clients assumed he was gay. Marshall was plain. He had a small frame and wispy movements, but he wasn’t frail or dainty. He moved with grace except for the occasional flap of the wrist. Marshall had a soft presence, with short, shiny brown hair and a small nose. He didn’t have an athletic bone in his body.

  His legs betrayed him first. The nerves in his feet and lower extremities had become damaged and started to send incorrect stimuli to his brain. He had begun to feel unexplained pains in his lower extremities, and gentle touches resulted in throbbing and discomfort. He was on his feet all day. He couldn’t go on if they wouldn’t cooperate. Assholes, he cursed at his feet. Just when he needed them most, they were giving up.

  “When you say ‘numbness,’ what are you talking about?” Dr. Lindsey asked. “Tell me where it is.” By now, Marshall was seeing a specialist in infectious disease. Robert Lindsey was a tall man, with an abruptness that made him seem callous. He had a sense of humor; in fact, he constantly employed it when working with his patients. It wasn’t the kind of humor that produced big smiles. His eyes laughed more than his mouth.

  “At first, it was tingling in my feet and I didn’t think anything about it, but it continued,” Marshall said. “Then I began to feel pain and sometimes I can’t feel anything.”

  “What do you mean?” Dr. Lindsey asked.

  “Sometimes I can’t feel anything in my legs.”

  Dr. Lindsey prodded Marshall’s legs while asking him if he felt anything. Sometimes he did and sometimes he didn’t.

  “Have you heard of neuropathy?” Dr. Lindsey asked.

  Marshall said that he thought he had but he couldn’t define it.

  “It means that you have raised levels of blood sugar and that can damage nerves in the extremities of your body, especially your legs. Over time, your nerve endings can be destroyed, and you lose your ability to sense things like pain and temperature.”

  Marshall nodded.

  “We’re going to talk about some things you need to do,” Dr. Lindsey said. “We’ll start with diet and exercise, and see how things go from there. We’ve got to get this under control if we can because it can develop into something very unpleasant. Okay?”

  “At least I know what it is now,” Marshall said, trying to put a pleasant spin on the visit.

  “Keep up that attitude,” Dr. Lindsey said. “Because with this diagnosis, you’re no longer a person who is HIV positive. You are officially a person with AIDS.”

  * * *

  “I heard the news. Thought you might need me.”

  It was Will Parsley, his voice clear as crystal in Marshall’s ear as he lay on his bed. He’d been listening to a relaxation cassette tape in his Walkman and had fallen asleep with the earplugs still in his ears.

  “Where have you been?” Marshall asked. “Wait. Don’t tell me. You’ve been to Paris to see all the sights and shops, haven’t you?”

  “Not even close,” Will said. “Besides, I was waiting for you so we could do those things together. We were going to walk arm-in-arm up and down the Champs Elysees and have romantic dinners. Remember? That’s what we promised each other.”

  “Well, I wish you were here right now.”

  “Me too.”

  Marshall paused to collect his thoughts.

  “I’m not doing so hot. I have neuropathy. I can’t feel my legs half the time. I’m having trouble walking. But the worst part is that my doctor thinks the HIV might have made its way to my brain.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “It’s horrible,” Marshall said. “Confusion. Speech problems. Vision problems. Balance problems. And dementia. That’s what I get to look forward to.”

  “If you get dementia, I hope you’ll be one of those guys who does funny things that make people laugh. Not the kind that becomes violent.”

  “I’m worried about my job. It’s the one thing I love more than anything. Shopping for others.”

  “You might love it, but those people you serve, they take you for granted. They think you’re just another nelly retail queen.”

  “You might be right.”

  “I know I’m right. The moment they find out you have the gay plague, they’ll ditch your sorry ass. Every single one of them.”

  Marshall sighed because he knew it was the truth.

  “Maybe you’re right, but what can I do about it?”

  “I think you should get even.”

  Marshall popped to attention.

  “What do you mean, get even?”

  “You know a lot about the very unique shopping habits of many of the city’s upscale citizens.” Will said it with a sneer. “What if you wrote it all down? An exposé? Something to leave to the world. ‘Confessions of a New Orleans Fashion Consultant.’ A modern cautionary tale.”

  Marshall wanted to say no, but a little part of him liked the idea. “I don’t even know how I would go about it.”

  “Ahh,” Will said. “You do know how. You saw the notice about the writer’s group forming at Skylark, the one for guys who are HIV-positive. The purpose of the group is for them to write down their experiences. It’s a social thing too. You might meet someone and become friends. Plus it’s your favorite restaurant.”

  “Oh Will,” Marshall sighed. “I don’t even know if I can walk to Skylark.”

  “It’s a wonder any of us can walk at all, we carry so many dead on our backs,” Will said. “You’ll find a way. Don’t let the world make this our shameful secret. We are not the ones who should be ashamed.”

  * * *

  Marshall Higgins was one of the last persons to arrive at Skylark for the meeting of the writer’s group. Even though it was the middle of October, the temperature was scorching, the last remnants of summer. He had wanted to go sit inside a cool theater and watch The Last Emperor but he couldn’t find the money. His savings had dwindled to nothing. He could stay at home and watch TV. The first episode of “thirtysomething” had aired the previous month and he liked it.

  Marshall didn’t want to be early to the meeting. He wanted to see how many other people were there, though it was unlikely he would know a soul. He never went out any more.

  He regretted being there the moment he sat down at a table. What in the world was he going to write? What possessed him to come here?

  But he stayed. If the class petered out, he would stay and have dinner. No harm done.

  He could charge it if he could find his credit card. The leader of the class was a young man who was full of enthusiasm but he’d have to work at controlling this crowd, small as it was. When he was asked to introduce himself, Marshall surprised himself by not only stating his name, but that he worked at Godchaux’s as a personal fashion consultant. He said he wasn’t sure what he would write. Deep down, he wasn’t sure he would ever come back.

  When the session ended, he prepared to leave, but a man who sat at the table behind him introduced himself.

  “You should write something about being a fashion consultant,” he said. “You could tell tales of the things the wealthy folks buy and what they do with their money.”

  Hmm, Ma
rshall thought, where have I heard that before? Marshall’s mind went immediately to one of his most loyal customers, Molly Collins. She had a fondness for expensive lingerie and exotic perfume. “If the walls of your home could talk,” Marshall had once said in jest, wondering if he’d crossed a line.

  “Honey, if the walls of my home could, they’d defer to the bed.” She was salty and did not hold her tongue on any subject. He missed her. He hadn’t seen or spoken to her in months, and he wondered how she was doing. He had called her, toward the end of his tenure at the store, but she hadn’t returned his calls.

  He thought of Rachel Narcisse, who threw spectacular dinner parties for her husband’s oil and gas cronies, and for whom he had ordered numerous dresses in which she entertained. He recalled the women who lived near Coliseum Park, three sisters who always visited the store in a small pack before going into the Quarter for lunch. He wondered about the man who ordered lady’s undergarments—for himself, and all the wealthy Uptown women who still purchased clothes for their sons who were well into their twenties and thirties.

  “I don’t know,” Marshall said. “A personal fashion consultant must be discreet. I don’t know if I could betray any confidences.”

  To his surprise, a circle formed around him. He shook hands, made small talk, and joined some of the men at the bar for cocktails.

  As he was departing, the other men shouted out, “See you next week.”

  Was it just a toss-off comment, one of those things said when someone leaves. Did they really mean it?

  * * *

  Marshall could have predicted what would occur. In a city where things are known even before they happen, his diagnosis had become news to his coworkers and his clientele. He tried to keep it secret, and had taken pains not to inform anyone at work. Even though it was expensive, he filled his prescription for a new drug, AZT, on his own, bypassing the insurance company which would have alerted the human resources department. He went with one of the pharmacy chains instead of the smaller family-owned businesses where many of the moneyed people did their business. This bought some time, but eventually his health status was part of the Godchaux’s grapevine.

  He didn’t bother too much with trying to figure out how it happened. Perhaps he was careless and left a receipt from the pharmacy somewhere. Perhaps a coworker heard him asking for AZT in the pharmacy and made a logical assumption. Perhaps a receptionist at the doctor’s office knew someone at the department store and blabbed what she knew.

  For the first time, Marshall began to use his sick days. He had experienced several infections in his legs and feet, and it made walking more difficult. He developed an unnatural stride that many of his coworkers noticed. About six months after his diagnosis, Marshall developed Bell’s palsy, which caused the left side of his face to droop into a frozen mask, making communication difficult, but he regained most of the control over his facial muscles within two months. The most embarrassing event occurred on the day before Christmas, always a day of huge crowds and manufactured stress, when he lost control of his bladder near the end of his shift. It happened in the storage section of the Better Half Store where he was trying to track down a wool suit for a client. He couldn’t believe what was happening to him, but knew he was in trouble.

  He met with Human Resources the Monday after New Year’s Day. He didn’t want to go. The two people who ran the department were there. They were kind and understanding, he thought later, but they didn’t give him much choice. He was given a generous severance package, and he’d have insurance for a while, but when it ran out, he’d have to pay for it. If they could find anything at the store for him to do, he’d be the first to be contacted.

  No one ever called.

  * * *

  Marshall was resting on his couch when Will checked in.

  “You had to know what a bunch of two-faced backstabbers they were,” Will said. “They like to describe us as one big happy department store family, but it’s all a myth.”

  “Still, after all the years,” Marshall said. “I was expecting more.”

  “Maybe a gold watch?” Will snorted.

  Marshall adjusted his head on the pillow and lowered the volume on the remote control. When Will settled in, it could be a while.

  “I just don’t want to sound too judgmental,” Marshall said. “That would be too much like them.”

  Will stifled a guffaw. “Judgmental? Girlfriend, we worked in the city’s finest department store. We were retail queens of the highest order. We were judgmental to the max. In fact, it was our duty to be judgmental. How else were those people going to learn?”

  Marshall smiled. “We were a little judgmental, weren’t we?”

  “Absolutely. We spent our professional lives promoting the purchase of things. We were shills for consumer products.” Will was practically shouting now. “We were fools for capitalism.”

  “And we were good at it,” Marshall said. Will’s speech had energized him. He sat up in bed, clasping his hand to his throat as if clutching pearls he had once sold to his wealthy clients.

  He was out of breath.

  “How do you feel?” Will asked.

  “I feel fine,” Marshall replied. Then he remembered who he was talking to. “I’m not so fine. You know that. I can’t catch my breath, and I feel like my mind goes off and takes little excursions without me. I was trying to save my energy for the writing class.”

  “How’s that going?” Will asked.

  “I like it,” Marshall said. “The guys are very kind to me. I think they know I’m losing it. They keep telling me to write down all my experiences at the store.”

  “Are you?”

  “I’m trying, but it’s difficult to remember it all. It’s so hard to concentrate.”

  “Are you too fatigued to go on an adventure?” Will asked.

  “What kind of adventure?”

  “Someone in your apartment building is a supporter of David Duke,” Will said. “There’s a package down by the mailboxes that contains some bumper stickers for his campaign.”

  “Who’s David Duke?” Marshall asked.

  “Oh my,” Will sighed theatrically. “It’s worse than I thought. David Duke is the ultra-conservative white supremacist who’s running for president. He’s from Louisiana.”

  “Oh yes, now I remember,” Marshall said.

  “Do you still have a directory of your former colleagues at the store?” Will asked.

  Marshall’s eyes lit up immediately.

  * * *

  How long were these tests going to go on? Marshall had spent most of his morning being examined for signs of dementia, which he knew he didn’t have. Dr. Lindsey said he suspected the presence of hallucinations and paranoid delusions. He’d also discovered hand tremors, decreased balance, abnormal eye movements, and an overall lack of coordination—all subtle signs of dementia. He chided Marshall for withholding information about his condition.

  “I’ve been asking you for months if you’d had any of these symptoms and I wish you’d told me about the confusion earlier,” Dr. Lindsey said.

  Marshall kept his head down like a chastened schoolboy. “I didn’t want to brag,” he said, but then he realized that a flip answer might be recorded as yet another symptom of his alleged dementia.

  Dr. Lindsey doctor sighed. “At least we can keep you out of the pokey with this diagnosis.”

  Marshall giggled and was surprised when the doctor laughed too.

  “Where did you get those bumper stickers?” Dr. Lindsey asked.

  “Someone left them on my doorstep,” Marshall replied, but he knew the doctor wouldn’t believe it, thinking that there must be an elaborate story as to how and why Marshall had managed to get his hands on “I Support David Duke” bumper stickers.

  “At least you have a great sense of humor, unlike some of the people who found them plastered on their cars, thanks to you.”

  Marshall had been caught, but not before he’d planted several dozen bumper stickers
on the autos of his former coworkers. He wouldn’t be charged. Everyone involved decided to throw up their hands and call it a prank pulled off by a disgruntled employee. But they didn’t want it to be repeated.

  “Well, if I’m crazy, how can I promise that it won’t happen again?” he asked the doctor.

  “Let’s try to not have it happen again,” Dr. Lindsey said in a tone of understanding mixed with sarcasm. “You’re beginning to develop dementia but I don’t think you’re a danger to yourself or to anyone else. Not yet. But I am concerned that you’re not eating well. You’re skeletal. Can you assure me that you’ll start eating more?”

  “When I leave here I am going directly to the grocery store,” Marshall said. When the doctor looked skeptical, Marshall assured him. “The Schwegmann’s on Elysian Fields. It’s on the way home.”

  It took Marshall almost ninety minutes to walk from the medical center to the Schwegmann’s Store—fourteen blocks through the Quarter and another five to the store. When the automated doors opened and the cold air rushed around him, he felt a surge of relief. The walk had drained him. He grabbed a grocery cart instead of a basket, mostly because he could lean on the cart and it would keep him upright.

  He began to cruise the aisles slowly, trying to make a decision about food, what he would eat that night. But he wasn’t interested. Nothing looked good.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he spied a familiar face. It was Rachel Narcisse. He wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t a chance meeting because he’d known she shopped at Schwegmann’s on Wednesdays. She was so predictable, a creature of habit. She was the opposite of him, who was now so unpredictable.