Hold It 'Til It Hurts

by T. Geronimo Johnson

  BEING HOME AFTER ACTIVE DUTY HAD BEEN A SUDDEN AND VIOLENT deceleration, like hitting the ground without a chute. He felt that way again now. Achilles had extensively researched suicide, looking for the clues he must have missed. Talking about death, changes in sleep and behavior, heavy drinking, anxiety about losing control, and recent loss are all warning signs. But that was how everyone he knew had lived for the past two years. Loss of freedom, moving, death of a friend are all possible causes. But that described how he’d felt that night in the church tower when he didn’t shoot Pepper, and again in the morgue in the closet of ashes, and holding Jackson’s hand. And he wasn’t suicidal. The symptoms described everyone he knew, it seemed, so it was hard to guess what he should have noticed about Wages on the rare occasions when they had talked.

  He wanted to believe there had to be an answer, be it prayer or the oneness of the universe, as the patchouli-scented museum lecturer said, but that worried him because if his soul was a universe, it was probably full of black holes. He even considered reenlisting, but had to admit he was no longer sure he was built for it. His body was slowing down. Mornings, he woke sore and stiff, like he had fought all night.

  Some evenings he and Ines ate outside, talking constantly to beat back the silence. There were no birds, no cats, and little traffic, so every gap in conversation was deathly still. She told him about the people who came into the phone room to check the bulletin board for pictures of friends and family, the joys and disappointments, the near misses and the occasional happy connection. He nodded. Then he told her about his day. He hadn’t been with Charlie 1 for a few weeks but kept in touch with them, and so knew that they were on house-clearing duty, going from door to door to alert the coroners. It wasn’t hard to make up the details. He took a story from Goddamnistan, changed the complexions and the locations, and it sounded as if it happened blocks away, not in another country, in another time. The days and nights were long and restless, with Achilles facing the real fact that for the first time he had no purpose in his life and saw little to look forward to.

  So he was especially heartened when about a week after Wages’s funeral, Ines requested that he accompany her to Uptown. She obviously needed him to run interference, the presence of a guest ensuring that Mrs. D would be on the best of her worst behavior. Or maybe she wanted company, knowing that it wasn’t safe to travel alone. Or, he thought, maybe Ines needed to show that she was maintaining this relationship, that she was stable.

  Referring to her daughter as a “present-day Earl of Cardigan,” Mrs. Delesseppes had once admitted that her concern for Ines’s quixotic nature had abated only after meeting Achilles. “While a single enthusiast is a zealot, two, if loyal, committed, and pure of heart, could indeed a movement make.” He took that as a compliment, even if Mrs. D remained reserved in his presence.

  Whatever the reason, it was reassuring to be needed. When they arrived, the house was quiet. The shutters hadn’t yet been replaced, but there had been a few feeble attempts to restore the property. Rocks lined the walkway to the house, potted plants either side of the porch. Though ruined by the rain and all the foot traffic to and from the phone bank, the yard was no longer a bog. It had dried out, and someone had raked it, combing the dirt in neat swirls. The sidewalk had been swept of the layer of silt that had coated it immediately after the storm, but it hadn’t yet been pressure-washed and so it still looked dingy, as did the foundation, the whole house skirted in a ring of gray mud that would probably have to be painted over. During his first visit he had been so awed, he’d expected to have to pay to enter the house, or use a separate entrance, or take off his shoes. Before it had felt more like a museum than a home. In the place of the majestic home now stood this relic of a bygone era, broken down, chimney crumbling, shades drawn, falling in on itself, the house appearing to wait for the last occupant to leave so it could collapse on itself or break in two.

  Inside was another world, but a different world from what he remembered. Taking in refugees had given the house life and purpose. Gone were the aprons, housekeeping dresses, and smocks. Gone were the tuxedoes and propeller ties and chef toques. Gone was the livery dressed as if to grieve. The staff wore casual clothes, which ironically only heightened the sense that the house was in mourning.

  Margaret sat at the expansive dining room table, working on her archive binders, which she referred to sometimes as the Book of the Dead and other times as the Betrayed. Headphones on, bobbing her head, she hunched over the book, printing in long, fancy letters and attaching photographs. The lined journals were indexes, the binders memorials. Blank scrapbooks were stacked up like toast at one end of the table and completed scrapbooks lined up at the other end, their spines heavily creased, the covers bulging. She appeared to be on volume twelve. Each victim was allotted a two-page spread, with a bio, a photo, if available, and a memorial object. The table around her was piled with letters from relatives, obituaries, photographs, and trinkets: scraps of cloth, bandless watches, single earrings, lucky pencils, each one attached to a tiny tag upon which she had written the owner’s name. He decided to bring the starfish. It was a hard job, and Achilles was glad to see her smile when Ines hugged her. They hovered in that room for a minute, and Achilles thought maybe it was just a routine trip.

  “What are you listening to?” asked Ines.

  “Juvenile.”

  Ines put on the headphones, tapping her foot for a few seconds, but not smiling. She gently replaced the headphones, smoothing Margaret’s hair into place.

  “It’s one of those songs makes you glad your booty’s hella big,” said Margaret.

  Ines put her hand on her knees and shook her butt, shimmying side to side, chanting a cheer. Margaret joined in the chanting.

  “You look more like a sixties surfer chick than a stripper,” laughed Margaret. “Doesn’t she, Achilles? Doesn’t she dance like a white girl? Doesn’t she?”

  Caught off guard by the unexpected laughter, Achilles smiled reluctantly, an expression that felt out of place with the gray in Margaret’s hair, the lines around Ines’s eyes, the table piled high with photos. Their sudden joy reminded Achilles that humans could adapt to anything. Morgue workers, the guys who moved the port-o-lets, spotters, soldiers, people could get used to anything, and if you couldn’t adjust to it, you laughed about it, around it, or in it.

  The change in mood was most palpable in the living room—parlor, dear—where Mrs. Delesseppes sat, the shelves bare, the lace doilies removed from the side tables, the genealogies no longer on the wall. Heavy curtains lined the windows and the light from the hallway sconces barely lit the room. As Ines had explained it, her mother suffered from a sudden morbid acuity of the senses, a ghastly sensitivity to sound, touch, and light that made it impossible for her to leave the house, except on nights hushed and solemn. She sat now with the latest edition of The Delesseppes in the New World open on the round antique table, which she had arranged before her chair, in easy reach, like a TV dinner table. It was the same armchair from which she had taken so many gleeful potshots at Ines in the past. Her hair was perfect, and she was dressed impeccably, her black skirt and red crepe jacket set off by wine-colored pumps and a matching scarf knotted around her neck in a big butterfly bow, all topped off with bright red nail polish and lively lipstick, none of which could camouflage her cheeks so gaunt and eyes so hollow. When had she last eaten? For the first time, Mrs. Delesseppes looked like a mother, an old and frail woman left with a house she no longer needed, no male heir to assume the mantle, and none in sight.

  She merely nodded as Ines explained to Achilles why they needed to see him. It was a month after the flood, and Grandfather Paul still hadn’t returned. Ines and Boudreaux had looked around, to no avail.

  “In fact, Boudreaux is at this very minute returning from Shreveport, where he went to view unidentified elderly patients at LSU hospital,” said Ines. “St. Bernard Parish was washed away. In some areas it looks like it never existed.”

  Ines
sat on the love seat next to Achilles. It was the closest they had been in weeks, and he swore he felt static electricity arc between their legs, hers tinged orange and purple by the light filtering through the heavy curtains.

  Ines said, “His house was completely gone. We’ve been to all the shelters and called every Red Cross tent, and now … we need to … we have to … go to the morgues.”

  “Go to the morgues,” said Mrs. Delesseppes, hacking as if to clear her throat.

  “Drink your water, Mama,” Ines said gently before turning back to Achilles. “I know you’re busy with Charlie 1, but could you take a few days off to come with me?”

  “Of course,” said Achilles. He wanted to add that it was no problem, but Ines cut him off, which was probably for the best. It shouldn’t sound easy.

  “And I’m asking you here at the house because it’s a family concern, and we all had to agree before I asked you. Boudreaux isn’t up for any more trips.”

  “That doesn’t say anything about him. He’s busy,” said Mrs. Delesseppes. “I didn’t mean to cut you off, dear.”

  Ines nodded and waited until certain that her mother was finished. “Harriet is in Atlanta and may never come back. That leaves me, and I don’t want to go alone. Everyone—Mother, Boudreaux, and Harriet—agrees that it’s okay for you to come with me, if you promise to never tell anyone we meet that we are related to Paul. Mother insists that no matter what, Paul be allowed his dignity and privacy.”

  Achilles nodded, adding, “That’s easy enough.”

  “That’s the difficulty. We can’t go in and ask for him by name. We can’t even claim the body.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Mother has to know. She has to. So we have to go and look at everyone individually and …” At that point Ines choked up.

  Achilles hugged her close, assuring her it was okay, that he understood better than she knew, and he would be glad to go as far and as often as she needed to.

  “Achilles,” said Mrs. Delesseppes.

  “Yes ma’am?”

  She had pronounced his name correctly for the first time, and now she stared as if seeing him anew. It was hard to believe he had once fantasized about her. Seeing Mrs. D now, gazing so intently, scrutinizing, he knew even given the opportunity, he could never have realized those visions. It would have been merely lust. He was ashamed that he’d thought of her as a MILF. He was no match for Ines, let alone someone of her mother’s caliber. She’d opened her house to strangers in need after the flood, feeding and clothing them. Now she sought the truth, even if it was unbearable. Was this what his mother was thinking? Again it occurred to him that women were braver than men in ways he’d never considered.

  Ines ran her thumbs under his eyes and hugged him close.

  “Achilles,” Mrs. Delesseppes said again. “I thank you for your time. I trust you will never betray the confidence this family reposes in you.”

  Once they were in the car, Ines took his hand and said, “Thank you. I know how much the time with Charlie 1 means to you.”

  That much she was right about. Charlie 1 had meant a lot to him.

  As Troy put it, “Whiskey is for sissies, unless you drink it straight.” As Merriweather always said, “The liver is a muscle, and you’ve got to exercise it.” As Wexler said, “They have wine in church.” As Dixon put it, “Agave is the nectar of the gods.”

  Charlie 1 was no different. As Vodka put it, “I’m aptly named.” As Bryant put it, “Ain’t nothing wrong a beer can’t put right.” As Wilson said, “If it weren’t for rum, I’d have no fun.” Daddy Mention’s pride: a liver the size of Texas and a heart the size of Delaware, wink wink. With Charlie 1, Achilles’s liver got plenty of exercise, and he was out of practice.

  Mornings felt as if he’d fallen asleep with a kiwi fruit in his mouth. On his last morning with Charlie 1, when he had a terrible headache, pulsing and throbbing like a dick in the ear, they were patrolling Uptown, which meant driving and talking shit and looking for looters, which meant stopping anyone who wasn’t white or accompanied by someone white, like the three black teens wading through the park across from Tulane. They had heavy New Orleans accents and wore mismatched clothing, everything two sizes too big. The kids claimed they were going to the aviary at the zoo to feed the birds, but no one believed them, even though they carried a large trash bag with a few cups of birdseed in the bottom. So they all went to the zoo and scaled the fence. Amazingly, there were three parrots in the aviary, singing as if they recognized the kids. One hundred yards upriver, volunteers hauled bodies out of the water. Gently looping adults to avoid losing limbs, carefully turning an infant like a log before scooping it up in an oversized fishing net.

  Daddy Mention looked in the trash bag again and sniffed. “Crushed crackers, peanuts, breakfast cereal. Birds don’t eat party mix. Where’s the beer? You gonna watch the Saints’ game?”

  Everyone laughed except the kids.

  Jokingly, Daddy Mention accused the kids of fattening up the birds in order to eat them. Their ages ranged from fifteen to eighteen, and they looked like tough kids, but immediately upon being accused of planning to eat the birds, the youngest one started running. Daddy Mention caught him before he’d gone even fifteen yards and marched him back. It’s hard to run with your pants binding your legs like a geisha’s kimono.

  “Why you run?” asked Daddy Mention.

  The youngest one shrugged. The oldest one started crying.

  “Don’t let ’em punk you. Come on now,” said the youngest one, cutting his eyes. His skin was copper, almost reddish, and heavily freckled. His insolent attitude reminded Achilles of Pepper.

  The oldest one continued to cry, sobbing in earnest. When he wiped his eyes, his pants fell down. The squad members looked at each other and stepped back. If he’d pulled a grenade out, Vodka or Daddy Mention might have jumped on him and it, but when he started crying, they backpedaled like he had AIDS. Dark skinned, with large, round eyes like a bird and hunched, heavy boxer’s shoulders, he was too big to cry.

  “Don’t go bitch-eyed on me,” said Daddy Mention.

  His friends patted the older one on the back and hugged him, and told him to ignore it. The older one shook his friends off and said, “We’re not animals.” He picked up a rock and threw it, hitting Daddy Mention squarely on the forehead.

  Wilson, Vodka, Bryant, and Daddy Mention raised their weapons and yelled at everyone to get on the ground. The kids dropped to their knees, hands up, except the crying one, who remained standing and threw another rock. Achilles had to hand it to him: he was brave. Stupid, but brave.

  Daddy Mention said, “Put it down.”

  “We’re not animals.”

  “Put it down, son.” Daddy Mention stepped closer. His finger was outside the trigger guard, but Wilson and Bryant had their fingers on their triggers. Daddy Mention yelled, “Zigga, put it down.”

  Wilson and Bryant glanced anxiously at each other as they stepped back. Vodka echoed Daddy Mention, his voice steady. “Put the rock down, man. It’s going to be okay. What’s your name, son?”

  From where they now stood, Wilson and Bryant would shoot each other. Achilles, who stood between them, backed out of their line of fire.

  Vodka echoed his question. “What’s your name?”

  “Terius,” said the older one, snot dripping from his nose. He identified his younger friend, the one who had tried to run, as Dooley. The third kid was named Jonas. “We’re not animals.”

  “You’re acting like it,” said Daddy Mention. “Look at you.”

  “You need to get that gun out of my face,” said Terius.

  “You don’t make the rules here, kid, this ain’t The Corner,” said Daddy Mention.

  “You need to get that gun out of my face,” said Terius.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Bryant. “You want lipstick on it?”

  Terius threw the rock at Bryant and missed.

  Daddy Mention struck Terius in the temple with the butt of his M16, dropping the k
id like spilled water. When Dooley, the young one who resembled Pepper, tried to run again, Achilles hit him between the shoulder blades with the butt of his rifle, in the temple after he fell down, and once in the face to shut him up.

  Achilles would have struck him again had he not seen movement on the other side of the park near St. Charles. It was a man pushing a stroller. Achilles scanned 360 degrees—the woods, the parking lot, the windows—catching them all in the rifle’s crosshairs, finger at the ready. At the riverside end of Audubon Park, known as the Fly, they were still fishing someone out of the water. Farther away, a woman on a second-floor porch beat a rug. On a side street, two men were stacking ruined furniture on the sidewalk. He scanned again, to be on the safe side, breathing steady. Kids were often a diversion to distract soldiers from the real threat, like a sniper. By the time he’d scanned the rooftops a third time, the kids were handcuffed with plastic ties.

  Watching them struggle to walk and hold their pants up with their hands cuffed, Achilles wondered if they normally wore such oversized clothes or if they were wearing what they could find.

  “I think you broke his jaw,” Wilson whispered to Achilles. “Collateral damage. We have to explain that.”

  Vodka shot Wilson a stare that shut him up.

  “Is it collateral damage when someone attacks you? I don’t think so,” whispered Bryant.

  Daddy Mention griped, suddenly pissed. Speaking under his breath to Achilles, he said, “I’m in this swamp tagging kids when I’m supposed to be on furlough. Instead, here I am busier than a beaver at midnight on payday with this shit.”

  “Where’s Darkwater when you need them?” mused Bryant.

  Because the Humvee couldn’t hold everyone, Achilles offered to catch a ride with someone else. Bryant wanted to stay with Achilles, but Achilles wouldn’t have it. He wanted all of them gone.

  Bryant looked around nervously. “You sure? I don’t know if it’s safe out here on your own, double-solo.”

  Bryant was referring to the fact that if Charlie 1 left, they took their weapons. “I’ll be cool,” said Achilles.