As they ate, Sadie and a reluctant Herve explained how the remaining few men of Pointe Afrique had to venture further and further away from their village to catch edible fish, meaning that that were away from home most of the time. That's why the town seemed so empty. Herve himself worked the waters every day, returning home on Fridays and bringing his wife and children, who lived during the week with her sister in Houma. Sadie herself slept most nights in a room above the restaurant. Since few people knew of the existence of their village, and fewer still knew how to find it, it was safe enough. But they all feared that if the poisoning weren't stopped soon, Point Afrique would die, just like the land and water around it.
They all were silent on the boat trip back to the dock and the parking lot of the Terrebonne Museum, where Carole Ann's car was the only one remaining the lot, that now was chained and locked. In a matter of moments, Herve located a surly guard whose disposition improved quickly and dramatically when Carole Ann offered him twenty dollars to unlock the chains and release her car. She shook hands with a still silent Herve, who bowed slightly at her thanks for the truly fine meal, and she accepted and returned the embrace of Sadie Cord, who whispered in her ear before releasing her. And those whispered words reverberated in her brain on the way back to New Orleans and her hotel room: "Just as Eldon Warmsley is uncle to Lillian and Warren Forchette, I am aunt to Eldon Warmsley. Just as Eldon is brother to Ella Mae, Lillian and Warren's Mama, I am sister to Eldon's papa, Lawrence Warmsley."
That night, Carole Ann dreamt of hybrid people—Black on one half of their bodies and white on the other half—and all of them had masks for faces. Dreamt of people who merged and blended together until they all were the same person, all identical to each other. Dreamt of angry swamps that bubbled and boiled and erupted, spewing poison and cleansing themselves of their sickness. Dreamt of fish and alligators and long-legged birds walking on the surface of water that did not ripple and flow. Dreamt of Al, running through dry, parched, more than dead soil, gathering children into his arms and running with them.
The following morning, despite being drugged and sluggish from the dreams, she spent in the library, reading about the history of Louisiana, reading about the differences between Creoles and Cajuns and the many varieties of Colored and non-Colored people, differences that had blurred over time but which still had deeply significant meaning to the Louisiana born and bred. And while she was at it, she looked up the music—Creole and Cajun and Zydeco—noting the differences as defined, and understanding with an odd pang of something like rejection that only someone born to the culture that was Louisiana could truly understand it. She spent the afternoon touring historical sites, ending up at the home of Marie Leveau, and noting that the dry history, the words on a page, didn't come close to establishing the feeling of the New Orleans of Marie I, Marie II, and the Creoles of their day.
Feeling hungry, she wandered in and out of half a dozen restaurants in dissatisfaction until she understood that what she wanted was food prepared by Merle Warmsley and Herve Cort, and that wasn't possible. So she returned to her hotel, changed clothes, retrieved her car from the underground parking lot, and went in search of a track. She remembered having seen a large park on the way to Warren Forchette's Legal Center.
It felt good to run, though she didn't like running on a track or under the sun. Technically, it was sun down but this was Louisiana, and though it was well after eight o'clock at night, it was still fully light and still fully hot. She ran hard and fast and welcomed the perspiration that soaked her shorts and tee shirt before she'd completed the first lap. The crunchcrunchcrunch of the gravel as her feet pounded was a soothing, rhythmic sound, and she gave up counting laps and distance and trusted her body to tell her when she'd run her four miles. Because there were no sights to see, took in the geography of the park. At the north end of the track were the tennis courts, four of them, all filled. They were too far away for Carole Ann to judge the quality of the play, but she could see the towering banks of lights and offer the educated guess that play would go long into the night.
The swimming pool lay east. Already closed for the day, the water shimmered blue in the distance. She imagined she still could hear the screeches and squeals of youngsters carried on the moist air. Adjacent to the main pool, Carole Ann noticed, was the smaller, toddlers’ pool, and as she took the curve, she noticed the standard playground equipment: Swings and sliding boards and those convoluted metal things children loved to climb and swing from and fall from. Both of her nieces had suffered a broken arm from falling from one. Jungle Jim. What, she wondered, was the origin of that? Probably the originator of the thing convinced his own children they were exploring the wilds of Africa.
South and west lay the fields: A baseball diamond where a game was in progress under the lights; a soccer field where it appeared that several games were in progress; and a patch staked out by volleyball aficionados. And, having seen all there was to see, Carole Ann turned inward and ran, feeling her body relax for the first time in days. She slowed her pace and lengthened her stride. The heat was taking its toll. She guessed she'd only run three miles. Christ! It was hotter and more humid here than in D.C., and that was not a complimentary observation.
She noted with gratitude that dusk was descending, without any real expectation that it would be any cooler. Though perhaps it was necessary to hold out hope, she mused, noting the arrival of two men at the far north end of the track. She thought it odd that neither man stretched before stepping on to the track; and even at so great a distance, it was obvious that neither had a runner's body. New to the game, she thought. She also thought it rude that they were running toward her. Track etiquette dictated that newcomers follow the established direction. As they drew closer, Carole Ann noted that neither seemed properly dressed. It was far too hot to be running in long pants. Then she noticed that they were exactly running, that they were, in fact, chugging toward her, flat-footed and slope-shouldered.
A thousand warning sirens went off in her brain. "Goddammit!" She whispered the curse through clenched teeth, her eyes darting from the two men closing in on her toward the street where her car was parked. She could easily out-run them, she concluded, at the same time the taller of the two men reached into the waistband of his pants. "Goddammit!" she said again, close enough to them to discern with clarity that he held a gun. Anger surged through her like increased electrical voltage. She kept watching the gun and increased her speed. She was close enough now to see their facial expressions, and what she saw was confusion. She continued to run toward them, instead of away, and their confusion slowed them, caused them to falter. Carole Ann let go a shriek that caused them to stop in their tracks. By the time the one with gun raised his arm, Carole Ann was close enough.
She turned her body, spun, and kicked. The gun was still sailing when she kicked again, higher this time, slamming the side of her foot into his face. Blood gushed from his nose and mouth. She dropped into a crouch, rolled around behind him, regained her feet, and angled a kick at the knees of the second man. He howled like a kid pushed from the top of the Jungle Jim as his kneecap shattered, and he dropped to the ground, supporting himself on his good knee. Carole Ann slashed at him, the side of her hand connecting with the side of his neck, and he went all the way down. Still in motion, she changed direction and cut across the track, angling toward the gently sloping, grassy knoll to the street where she'd left her car, aware of her heart thudding against her chest, of her brain pounding against her cranium, of her blood rushing hot and fast through her veins. Until this moment, her years of martial arts training had been nothing but study, nothing but controlled mental and physical routines demonstrated with partners in mirrored rooms with mats on the floor. As is usually the case with real life, it bears little resemblance to the theoretical. True, her masters would be proud: She'd perfectly executed the moves she'd learned but she'd never wanted to kill her instructors or her partners. She'd very much wanted to kill her two attackers. All the w
hile imagining that they were Larry Devereaux.
The muscular man in the tight jeans and tighter tee shirt had started down the hill at a jog that increased in speed to a run when he saw the two men step on the track, but he stopped and back-pedaled when he saw that the woman could take care of herself. "Well I'll be a son of a bitch," he muttered under his breath as she landed the final chop and jogged off up the hill, looking smugly self-satisfied. He sauntered toward the two broken men, wondering how long it would take them to recover their senses. He'd wait, however long it took. Warren Forchette wanted to get the license number of their car, wanted to know who they were, so he could find out who'd sent them. Because whoever it was had a big payroll. In addition to the two sprawled on the track, two watchers were still parked in front of the Embassy Suites hotel, and two others were parked across from the entrance to the underground garage, waiting for the emergence of a white Chrysler LeBaron convertible with red interior. It would be a long wait, for Carole Ann Gibson Crandall now was driving a rented blue Pontiac Firebird.
Carole Ann had a hot shower and ordered from room service. She tried to order the beer she liked, the one Warren had bought from Eldon's general store and which Sadie Cord had served her at Pointe Afrique, but she didn't remember the name of it, and the room service waiter said there were many good beers in Louisiana, so she ordered a bottle of chardonnay instead, and fried catfish and a salad. She'd finished the food and was almost halfway through the chardonnay when the knock sounded. She jumped, sloshing wine all over herself and the table and on to the floor. She was paralyzed with fear and sat holding the glass and looking at the door. There came a second series of knocks, followed by a voice. Carole Ann forced herself to cross to the door, making no sound with her bare feet in the plush carpet. She reached the door just as there came a third set of staccato knocking and the insistent calling of her name. She looked through the peephole. Lillian Gailliard. Carole Ann opened the door.
"I been worried about you, Cher," Lil said, something strongly resembling worry creasing her brow and tightening her voice.
"Thanks but no thanks," Carole Ann said tersely and moved to close the door.
"Cher!" Lil blocked the door with her strong hand and stopped Carole Ann with the power of her voice. "We are not your enemies."
"Perhaps," Carole Ann said with a shrug, "but since I don't know what you are, I'll feel better keeping you at a distance."
"Please let me talk to you," Lil insisted.
"And what will you leave out this time? Maybe you're really the Queen of Sheba and your brother, Warren, is the King of Siam?" Carole Ann was not in a conciliatory frame of mind, and she had not yet picked up enough Southern that a display of good manners overrode anger, fear, and confusion. "I don't want to hear anything you have to say, Lil. I'm tired and I'm going to bed." She tried again to close the door and again Lil blocked the effort.
"You don't know what it's like to be from here," she said into the space between them, the narrow space between the door being open and the door being closed.
"So now you're the victim," Carole Ann snapped.
"No. Yes," Lil replied decisively. "How many people do you think I could tell I have a white grandmother?" There was so much pain in the words that Carole Ann stepped away from the door, allowing it to open and Lil to enter. "We had classmates at Howard who didn't believe we were related, to say nothing of believing that we were brother and sister. You have trouble believing it yourself," Lil said softly, closing the door and stepping closer to Carole Ann.
"That's not true!" Carole Ann rushed to defend herself in the face of the truth, while at the same time seething with the anger that the woman had just revealed another secret: That she'd lived in D.C. and had never mentioned that fact during their previous meeting.
"Sure it is," Lil said. "Just like you have trouble believing that Eldon is our uncle. That Miss Sadie is his aunt. You look at us and think about your own family and the families of your friends and you think how everybody is the same color: White peoples' relatives are white and the Black peoples' relatives are brown and nobody is confused. Well, here in Louisiana, we've lived with the confusion for so long we don't think about it or worry about. We also don't talk about it."
"And what does color have to do with the fact that until this moment you failed to mention that you attended Howard? You know I'm from D.C. and it doesn't occur to you to say, 'How's life on Georgia Avenue?' Cut the crap, Lil, and say whatever it is you came to say and then leave me alone." Carole Ann slouched over to the table and poured herself another glass of wine, pointedly not offering the bottle to Lil who had dropped on to the sofa and removed her shoes. She settled her back into the corner and raised her legs, sighing with relief. And Carole Ann again was impressed with the notion that the woman lived with constant pain. "Warren is the third born, though he acts like the big brother because he's the one who took care of me when I was so sad and sick that time."
That time. Carole Ann needed several long seconds to interpret "that time," and when she understood that Lil was referring to the time when the strange cancers claimed her husband and children, when the poisonous tumors almost claimed her life, she instantly regretted her open display of hostility. She sloughed off her anger and listened as Lil told how her baby brother, Warren, had left his junior year at Grambling University, where he was the star quarterback on that school's renowned football team, and assumed responsibility for his big sister's life and of her affairs and of her effort to make somebody accountable for her undeserved misery. That was when and how and why nineteen-year old Warren Forchette had decided to become a lawyer instead of a professional football player. With her Parish Petroleum settlement money, Lil had taken them both to D.C. and to Howard University, a respite from the pain of Louisiana and loss.
"We believed we'd stay. I never wanted to see Louisiana again, and Warren was afraid to leave me alone for longer than five minutes at a time." Lil closed her eyes and faded back into her memory. Carole Ann poured her some wine in a water glass and took it to her. The relief on her face spoke her gratitude. "We were there for six years. Warren finished his undergrad degree and went to law school, and I got a bachelor's and a master's in political science. And neither of us made a single friend. Not even among the kids from Louisiana, because they didn't want to be reminded of the peculiar color thing. But they wouldn't let us forget. So we came back home."
She took a sip of her wine and shifted position on the sofa, placing a pillow in the middle of her back. She wasn't looking at Carole Ann and seemed not even to be talking to her. "The OPTO welcomed me back with open arms, and Warren hung up his shingle in the shittiest part of town and immediately built a solid practice. He won a wrongful death suit against the police department and his fee from the settlement with the city allowed him to open that legal center and hire a second lawyer. Then he won a major medical malpractice suit, collected another big fee from the county hospital, and expanded the legal center."
Carole Ann swallowed the remainder of her wine in a big gulp, jumped to her feet, and began pacing. Lil stopped talking and sipped her wine and watched and waited. As a woman once consumed by grief and anger, Lil knew what she was watching when she watched Carole Ann pace and prowl; as a woman controlled more by mind than emotion, Lil knew also that Carole Ann employed movement as a means to return her emotions to the control of her mind.
The effort was more of a struggle than Carole Ann would have admitted to anyone. Grief and anger she could control. Fear was a new challenge. So was confusion. A couple of hours ago, two guys had tried to kill her and the fear was still with her. Twenty-four hours ago, a white man became a Black man and she remained confused. She decided it was easier to be angry with Lil and everybody in New Orleans than to control the fear or sort through the confusion.
"That's all very interesting," she said dryly, standing near Lil but not looking at her. "Moving, even. But none of it explains why Warren couldn't have said to me the day I met him, 'My sister,
Lil, knows more about environmental racism that anybody in town.' None of it explains why, when I said I needed to find Eldon Warmsley, you couldn't have said to me, 'He's my uncle. I know exactly where he is.' None of it explains why, when I mentioned Larry Devereaux, Warren didn't say, 'Holy Shit! We now have a motive for your husband's murder!' God only knows how long it would have taken for me to learn all this if I hadn't stumbled into Sadie Cord and if she hadn't, for whatever reason, taken me into her confidence." Carole Ann was pacing again, covering the length of the room in long strides, hand slashing the air with her hands, as if reliving the earlier attack. "I think all this color shit is really fascinating, but I quite frankly don't care if your grandmother is white or sky blue pink with purple polka dots! I want to find out who murdered my husband, and why!"
"And we want to help you," Lil said sitting up and swinging her feet around to the floor.
"Oh, yeah, right," Carole Ann snorted rudely. "When the most likely suspect is your Black uncle Larry Warmsley, also known as white Larry Devereaux?" And she took momentary satisfaction in the fact that Lil blanched slightly at that. "By the way," Carole Ann said quickly, taking full advantage of her upper hand, "whatever happened to Earlene?"
Lil looked hard at Carole Ann for a long moment before she shrugged and shook her head in a gesture that was both sorrow and something like disbelief. "She came to a bad end. Took herself over there to LSU and came to a bad end."
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