One Must Wait

by Penny Mickelbury

  She struggled to fathom unpaved streets in a major city in America in the last half of the last decade of the twentieth century. She'd never before witnessed such a phenomenon and would not have believed it possible. Perhaps in some tiny, backwoods hamlet in Maine or West Virginia or Oregon. Or in the Louisiana of swamps and bayous. But not in a city with an international reputation. Didn't Lil just tell her that the UPTO had been established to correct this kind of injustice? If the city's power brokers didn't care about the well-being of their own citizens, wouldn't they at least care how the rest of world viewed their city? And people from all over the world toured New Orleans. She looked around and answered her own question. The world citizens were living the life in the French Quarter or on the Mississippi River Queen, where they belonged. And the locals didn't appear to be the voting kind. She forced herself to concentrate on driving, on not getting lost, on not being followed.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Carole Ann dressed for her assignation with Warren Forchette as he'd been dressed at their initial meeting yesterday: She wore a white tee shirt, her favorite and most well-worn jeans, and her running shoes. Around her waist she wore a nylon pouch which contained her driver’s license, some cash, a credit card, and her tiny telephone. She wore a white Atlanta Braves cap with a long bill to help her sunglasses shade her eyes, and when she drove up to the Legal Center promptly at two o'clock and spied her escort waiting on the steps for her, she alternated between feelings of chagrin and amusement. His Braves cap was blue and the only difference in their wardrobes. He lifted a hand in greeting when he saw her drive up. She acknowledged the gesture with a similar one and backed into a space while he walked to a dusty red, vintage Chevy pick-up parked at the curb.

  "You like baseball?" he asked in greeting when she reached the truck, as he opened the pick-up's passenger door.

  "I'm learning to," she replied, grabbing the inside door frame to help boost herself up into the huge truck.

  "You surprised at how difficult it is?" he asked as he seated himself, slammed his door, and started the ignition.

  "Overwhelmed," she said with a dry chuckle, noting that the powerful purr of the truck's engine belied its ancient appearance, and wondering if everything about the man had separate exterior and interior realities.

  "Which were you—a basketball or a football junkie before you discovered the subtle joys of baseball?"

  "Both," she answered grinning, "though it's infinitely easier in D.C. to be a Redskins fan than a Wizards fan. But if you forced a truly honest response from me, I'd have to claim a preference for basketball because the season lasts longer, and because there are more games. That way, if I get heavily involved in a case—which I often do—and miss three or four games, I didn't feel like I've missed the season."

  He gave her a sideways grin in return but didn't speak, concentrating on maneuvering and manipulating the big truck through the heaviest traffic Carole Ann so far had seen in New Orleans. She knew they were headed west—they were on I-10 and west was the only possible direction unless he intended to go to Mississippi—and she expected him to head south once out of town, to connect with the state highway that would take them the one hundred and sixty miles or so to New Iberia, where Eldon Warmsley lived. But once out of town, Warren kept driving west on I-10. He spoke only once, to ask if she wanted him to turn on the air conditioning, and he grunted what she interpreted to be approval at her negative reply; and she spoke not at all, not wishing to give him the satisfaction of questioning their destination. She wanted to know where they were going if not to Eldon Warmsley's; but Warren Forchette clearly was a man unaccustomed to having to explain himself and she was equally unaccustomed to having to ask. So she observed in relaxed silence.

  He was a good driver, and handled the truck easily and expertly. But he didn't like driving; didn't enjoy it the way she did. She could tell by the tension that hunched his shoulders up toward his ears, and the tightness of his grip on the steering wheel. The external scenery was less interesting. The area around New Orleans was not attractive by the wildest stretch of even the most fertile of imaginations, and traffic bunched and tangled itself in the approaches to I-310 and I-55. Hot, bored, and more than a little annoyed at Warren, Carole Ann settled herself in the wide seat and closed her eyes. She had slept very little the night before, plagued by the guilt she felt over her ignorance of Al's interests and concerns, and excited by the growing belief that she actually could learn what had happened to him and why. The combination of heat, fatigue, and a taciturn companion, conspired to lull her to sleep.

  She awakened, according to the dashboard clock and the radio disc jockey, at four-fourteen, surrounded by the ugliest terrain she'd ever seen, in Louisiana or anywhere else. They no longer were on the interstate, but on a narrow, raggedy strip that once had been a two-lane blacktop on one side of which lay swampy, marshy, muddy land, and on the other hard, cracked, dirt from which sprouted, in ugly patches here and there, wilted knee-high weeds and the occasional stunted, barren tree. In the distance, near and far, she could discern the outlines of weathered shacks. The horizon was flat and endless.

  Carole Ann was about to apologize for having fallen asleep and demand to know where they were when Warren downshifted and almost brought the truck to a halt. He inched along in low gear then braked and turned into a rutted road that Carole Ann never would have noticed existed. The big truck was a pinball in a game machine, bouncing up and down, back and forth. She was thrown right and left, up and down. She looked at Warren but he was looking for something in the distance and seemed oblivious to the motion of the truck. Suddenly he grunted and pointed and Carole Ann looked and was rendered speechless. There, literally in the middle of nowhere, was a ghost town, comprised five or six long, one story, rectangular structures that once had been brick and mortar but which now were broken and crumbled. Beyond the buildings and laid out in grids, were rows and rows of what once had been one story houses.

  Warren drove into the town, down what once had been a paved road, toward the first and largest of the buildings. He turned right, drove along beside it, and then turned left, behind it, and Carole Ann could see she'd been mistaken about the number of the low-slung brick and concrete structures that had once existed here: There were almost a dozen of them, identical in size and shape, except for the larger one in the front. Warren drove, following the road as if it were a game maze, weaving in and out of and up and down the broken streets. Carole Ann could see there once had been signs, on the streets and on the buildings, but none were legible now. No windows or doors remained intact at any of the buildings, and few had roofs remaining. Neither were there contents of any kind. Everything had been removed.

  The same was true of the houses that fanned out from the buildings like fingers on a hand. Five perfectly symmetrical rows of identical one story houses. Warren drove slowly down one of the streets and Carole Ann counted the houses: Thirty-two of them, all broken and falling down. No windows and doors remaining. Hard, broken, gray dirt in front and behind and between the houses with the patches of ugly weeds growing here and there. At the end of the street, Warren turned on to a curved road which served as the end of the all the streets and stopped. Fanning out from this curved road was an open field. Or it should have been a field. It was an acre of dead earth. Carole Ann recognized the remnants of playground equipment—swings and sliding boards and jungle jims, rusted and rotting and collapsed. Warren drove on, turning into another of the streets. When he stopped again, he turned off the motor, opened the door, and got out of the truck. Carole Ann followed.

  "This is where Lil lived," he said, facing one of the same-looking empty houses. "Back there is where her kids played. Where all the kids played," he said, pointing toward but not looking back at the dead field. He was still staring at the little dead house, eyes far away in his memory. Then he turned and looked toward the buildings. "They worked three shifts seven days a week. That's why they provided housing. You see how far this is from the
city. Imagine how removed and isolated this all was thirty years ago. Also imagine how green it was. And how pretty. And how easy it was for people to believe in the gift of a good-paying job and nice place to live." His voice was as flat and lifeless as the landscape.

  "When was it abandoned?"

  "A year after the lawsuit was filed. By that time, so many of the workers were dead or dying that they couldn't operate at capacity. The suit was costing them money and they weren't making their production quotas. And they couldn't convince any new workers to sign on. Not even for free housing. So they emptied all the buildings and walked away, leaving behind permanent proof that they lied when they said they'd done nothing wrong here. Does this look like nothing's wrong?" He turned suddenly and strode toward the truck, leaving her standing there. But she couldn't move. She stood there looking at the little house where Lillian Gailliard had once lived with her husband and young children. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine Lil young and happy and carefree; tried to envision her little children running to the playground, Lil and the other mothers not worried; knowing their babies were safe and protected.

  Carole Ann returned to the truck. Warren was sitting sideways in the driver's seat, his door open, looking at nothing in the distance. She climbed in and slammed her door. He turned and looked at her and changed his mind about whatever it was he opened his mouth to say. Instead, he, too, slammed his door and turned the key in the ignition. Carole Ann leaned back in the seat then shot forward, eliciting a crooked grin from Warren.

  "Your shirt's soaked," he said. "If you sit forward, it'll be dry by the time we meet up with Eldon."

  "Where are we?" she asked. "I'm sorry I fell asleep on you," she added before he could respond.

  "Apology accepted but not necessary," he said. "This heat is a butt-kicker, even for those of us who are accustomed to it. Besides, I'd much rather have a partner who slept through the heat than one who complained about it." And he gave her another of his sideways grins as he hit a rut in the road that bounced the truck like a ball, causing Carole Ann to bump her head on the roof. "Goddamn!" He braked and slowed to a crawl, still cursing and muttering under his breath and Carole Ann would have sworn she heard the same Creole she'd heard Lil use yesterday.

  "I take it nobody comes out here." It was a question but she made it a statement, the answer already obvious. What she really wanted to know was how was it possible that somebody, some company, was permitted to kill the land and then abandon it.

  "Nobody in their right mind," Warren said under his breath. Then added, "Every couple of years or so geologists come out and check the soil and issue a report. The result is always the same. I could give them the same results for free. All you have to do is look around. If it ever happens that green leaves appear on the trees, or the weeds grow taller than six or eight inches, or the birds and squirrels and grasshoppers and snakes return..." He left the sentence hanging up there on that high, hopeful note. "You may have noticed that Lillian Gailliard is an optimistic human being. That land just might revive itself because she wants it to."

  "What's Lil got to do with it now?"

  Warren turned to look at her. "It's hers," he said, unable to keep the surprise from his voice. "She didn't tell you about the law suit?"

  "She didn't tell me the outcome of the suit." Carole Ann turned sideways in the seat so she could watch Warren as he told her how Parish Petroleum had thrown in the towel early in the fight once it was revealed that the company's owners had been skimming the considerable profits from the top for years, leaving it unable to withstand the rigors of expensive litigation. By the time the final settlement agreement was worked out—which included a cash award of ten thousand dollars to each plaintiff and the plant itself—all but ten of the original plaintiffs were dead. Eight others succumbed in the intervening years, leaving Lil and the son of one of the workers the sole owners of the ghost town that once was Parish Petroleum. Warren's mouth worked as if he'd been chewing, popcorn, perhaps, and had kernels caught in his teeth. Carole Ann continued her observation of him. She wasn't waiting for him to say more; she knew that he had no more to say. She was looking for a way to see inside him, to see who he really was, because she knew she didn't know. Here she was in the middle of nowhere—literally –with a man she'd met for the first time a little more than twenty-four hours ago, and about whom, if pressed, she could say precious little. She didn't like the feeling.

  He turned to watch her watch him and she did not lower her eyes or alter her position. 'Who are you,' she asked his eyes. 'And can I trust you?' There was no flicker of a response, though he allowed her to hold his gaze until he was required to return his attention to his driving. She saw that he noticed something in the distance, saw him ease his foot off the gas pedal and drop his left hand to the turn signal and raise his left foot to the clutch to prepare to downshift. She looked to see what he saw. A general store-cum-gas station. Old. Ancient. From another millennium, it seemed. Gas pumps short and round-shouldered and reading "Esso." Clapboard building squat, square, and so weathered no sign of paint remained. But the building was in good repair and looked solid, and the front porch was new; and a new, slatted wooded bench held forth on one side of the screen door, while an almost new, almost shiny, red and white Coca-Cola dispenser, the chest variety, not the upright kind, occupied the space on the other side.

  "Would you like something to drink?" Warren asked.

  "The coldest beer they've got," Carole Ann responded, already tasting it.

  He halted his exit motion, one foot on the ground, and looked at her as if she'd dropped into his space like a spider from a web. "You like beer?" he asked.

  "Goddammit!" Carole Ann jerked open the passenger and hopped out of the truck, forgetting the height and almost falling on her face. She strode around the front of the vehicle, meeting Warren there and glaring at him. "You," she said through clenched teeth, "are getting on my nerves. Why do you think I asked for a beer?" She brushed past him, headed for the store, when he grabbed her arm. She swung around to face him, fully furious. "What?!"

  "I just...it's not...most women don't like beer," he managed with an apologetic shrug.

  "I'm not most women," she snapped and felt moisture dripping down the side of her face.

  "No shit," he mumbled under his breath and stamped away from her and into the store, leaving her standing in the heat berating herself for her outburst, using her arm to wipe away the sweat, and wondering what the hell she was doing in whatever part of Louisiana she was in. That she didn't know where she was or where she was going was only part of the source of her irritation. The greatest part was her inability to figure out how to deal with Warren Forchette. He responded to none of her arsenal of tactics: He would not be bullied, cajoled, convinced, or berated. He would not even respond to direct, open inquisition. He gave absolutely no information; and, even more infuriating, he asked for none. They were so evenly matched that she knew full well they could spend days together, riding around Louisiana, with neither of them giving an inch. Perhaps that's why, within moments after their first meeting, he'd sent her off to Lil Gailliard.

  She sprawled on the bench in front of the store, trying to ward off the disappointment she felt when it was no cooler here than out in the full sun of the dusty parking lot. She could hear voices coming from inside the store, but could discern no words; could not distinguish Warren's voice from any other, could only be certain that there were several men within. Then the door opened, squeaking on rusty hinges, a perfectly exquisite sound effect from a 1940's film, and a wiry, reddened man emerged. He looked into the western sun without shading his eyes, then looked down at her.

  "Evenin'," he said and touched the bill of his cap.

  "Hello," Carole Ann replied, looking up at him and then away. He walked to the corner of the porch and stood looking into the distance before he turned back toward her. He studied her without apology or embarrassment, so she studied him: His skin was burnished red and leathery, clearly that
of a man who spent most of his time out in the open. He was tall and lean and probably in his fifties, though the weathering of his face and hands and arms made it difficult to judge. Longish, dark brown hair curled beneath the edges of his cap. He wore thread-bare overalls and a faded tee shirt beneath, and scuffed work shoes. His clothes were old but they were clean.

  "You not from 'round here," he said, and waited for a response though he had not asked a question, and all of Carole Ann's instincts went on full alert.

  "No, I'm not," she said lightly and crossed her legs.

  "Where you from?"

  "Atlanta," she replied, the lie coming as quickly and easily as her understanding of the need for it.

  "You don't sound like you from Atlanta," he said in a voice gone flat. "Don't look like it, neither," and he waited again for her to explain herself and her presence. She looked up at him and was about to ask what people from Atlanta looked and sounded like when Warren appeared with two beer bottles dripping ice chips and water, and a huge bag of popcorn. Her irritation with him diminished, even as it increased with the man who was standing over her, challenging her presence. Warren let the screen door slam behind him and he stepped closer to Carole Ann, placing himself between her and the other man, forcing him to back peddle. Then Warren turned to face him. He nodded a greeting but did not speak. The other man returned the greeting in kind, stepped down off the low porch, and walked around the side of the store. They listened to his feet crunch on the gravel, listened to a car door open and slam shut, listened to tires spinning gravel.