Half of Paradise

by James Lee Burke

  “You crazy old man.”

  Avery and Tereau each took a swallow from the bottle. Avery waded back to shore and made his way through the thicket, walked down the gully and across the road and over the side of the levee, and began circling behind the police. He hoped the police would be searching the road so he could get to the big expanse of alligator grass without being seen and cross to the opposite end of the marsh. He could hear voices ahead. He crawled up the side of the embankment and looked down the road. Several flashlights shone through the trees opposite the gully. Two officers with Springfield rifles stood with a third man between them. The man’s hands were handcuffed behind him. He turned his face in the beam of one of the flashlights. His clothes were wet, he had lost his hat, and his black hair fell over his ears. His skin looked white in the flashlight beam. A captain and another state policeman climbed out of the gully onto the road.

  “Why don’t you tell us where they headed for, and we can all go home,” the captain said.

  LeBlanc glared at him in silence.

  “We’re going to get the others whether you help us or not,” the captain said. “Your friend probably drowned trying to swim the river, and the ones in the wagon aren’t going far after the crackup they had. It’ll make it easier if you cooperate.”

  “You go to hell,” LeBlanc said.

  The captain motioned for the other men to continue down the road. Avery crawled back down the levee into the brush and started towards the grass flats. The glow of the flashlights shone above the levee He entered the wide field of alligator grass where there were bogs of silt and quicksand. The quicksand wasn’t deep enough to be dangerous, but usually a man was helpless in it if he didn’t have somebody to pull him out. The bogs looked like solid ground because they were covered with dead leaves and grass. He traveled slowly as he went deeper into the field, his head held down, watching the ground carefully. The sharp-edged grass cut his face. He saw a bog ahead and went around the side of it. The sand was wet and cold and came over his shoes. There was a dead nutria, half submerged, out in the middle of the bog. The buzzards would have gotten it if it had died anyplace else, but they couldn’t stand on the sand to feed. Avery looked up at the hard ivory brightness of the waning moon. It would be morning in a few hours, and old man Landry would get Tereau out of the tree. Avery went on for another mile and came out on the far end of the marsh. He walked through the sand and water and reeds onto the bank. He sat down exhausted. Someone on top of the levee shone a flashlight down at him. Avery whirled and started to his feet. It was a state policeman. He could see the campaign hat and the leather holster and the dust-brown uniform. The policeman had a revolver in his hand, the moonlight blue on the barrel.

  “Stay still. You got nowhere to go,” he said.

  J.P. WINFIELD

  He appeared on the Louisiana Jubilee every Saturday night for the next five months. The show was broadcast throughout four states, and J.P.’s name became well known to those people who sit by their large wooden radios with the peeling finish and tiny yellow dial on Saturday night to listen to their requests and hope that their letters will be read between the advertisements of cure-all drugs and health tonics. J.P. came to be one of their favorite entertainers. They bought his records and wrote him letters, and he replied by sending them an autographed picture of himself and the band. He also received an increase in salary and replaced Seth as the main figure of the show. When the band appeared onstage J.P. acted as the spokesman and did most of the solos. He never used any accompaniment except his own guitar when he sang, his third record sold two hundred thousand copies, and Hunnicut had his name featured on the placards that were nailed to the fronts of the dance halls and roadhouses where they played.

  During the week the show toured the small towns and played one-night performances in any dance hall that was willing to pay three hundred dollars to have a band from the Louisiana Jubilee. Each weekday night J.P. sang his songs in the juke joints and highway clubs, and the days were spent traveling across the country in a state of complete fatigue. The band didn’t quit until early in the morning, and there was little time for sleep except while riding in the bus. When they returned at the end of the week for the Saturday night performance on the Jubilee, J.P. was physically spent. It was at this time that April introduced him to a doctor who pushed narcotics. She had begun to pay attention to J.P. since he had moved to the front of the band, and on Sunday afternoon she called him into her hotel room to meet a man whom he would not forget for a long time.

  “This is Doc Elgin,” she said. “He can give you something to make you feel better.”

  Elgin was a thin sallow man who reminded J.P. of a rodent. His body was wasted and bent, and his hands were like bone. He had an ingratiating smile that made you want to look away, and his body structure seemed so fragile that J.P. thought a sudden blow would cause it to break to pieces like brittle candy.

  “April says you need something to lift you up,” he said.

  “I feel wore out all the time,” J.P. said.

  “It happens to all of us, honey,” April said. “Doc will make you right.”

  “I have something that will help you,” he said. His black bag rested on a chair. He opened it and took out a small cardboard box. He handed it to J.P. “Take one of these whenever you need a push.”

  “This ain’t joy stuff, is it?”

  “It’s Benzedrine.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It won’t harm you.”

  “I don’t want no happy stuff, hear.”

  “This is just a stimulant.”

  J.P. slid the box open and looked at the row of pills on the cotton pad.

  “What do I owe you?” he said.

  “There’s no charge. That’s a sample a drug company sent me.”

  “Ain’t you supposed to have a prescription for this?”

  “No. These are mild. They won’t hurt you.” Elgin turned to April. “I’m going now. Give me a call when you need me.”

  “All right, Doc.”

  “It’s enjoyable meeting you, Mr. Winfield.”

  “Yeah. You bet.”

  Elgin went out. J.P. took one of the pills from the box and filled a glass of water from the pitcher on the dresser. He put the pill in the back of his mouth and drank the water.

  “I reckon I’ll go lay down,” he said.

  “You don’t have to leave.”

  J.P. looked at her. She was standing close to him. She held her face up. He could see she wanted to be kissed. He wondered if he could lay her. He didn’t want to lead up to it and get hot for her and then be rejected. He looked at her black hair and the blunt features of her face.

  “Troy figures you’re his girl,” he said.

  “Troy is an ass. Don’t you like girls?”

  “I ain’t interested in trading valentines.”

  “You’re a big boy.”

  He leaned down and kissed her. She moved her body against him and put her arms around his neck and breathed in his ear. He wanted her badly now. She widened her thighs and pressed her stomach tight against him. He worked his hand up her side and felt her breast.

  “Let’s go over to the bed and I’ll teach you a nice game,” she said.

  She pulled away from him and drew the blinds. The room fell in a yellow twilight. She undressed and sat on the bed and pulled off her stockings. He looked at her large breasts and flat stomach and white thighs. There was a weak feeling in his throat. She lay down on the sheets and waited for him.

  “It isn’t nice to keep a girl waiting,” she said.

  He got in beside her.

  “That’s a good boy. Don’t you like this better than giving your money to those girls?”

  “What girls?”

  “I know you and Seth go to one of those places back of town. Tell me how they act when you’re in the room with them.”

  “Ask Seth.”

  “I bet he’s lovely when he finds somebody who will give it to him.”
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  “I couldn’t tell you.”

  “Here, how’s this?” she said. “That’s a good boy. Let April do the work.”

  That evening he returned to his room. He had a headache and felt depleted. He sank down in the armchair before the window and let the perspiration roll down his neck into his shirt collar. He wished he had let April alone and had slept during the afternoon. After they had been together for a while he had wanted to rest, but she wouldn’t let him go. Whenever he tried to stop she got him worked up again and forced him to continue, and now he felt sick. The Benzedrine had built him up, and then it abruptly dropped him. He put his feet on the bed and let his arms hang over the sides of the chair to the floor. He looked out the window at the late red sun slanting across the rooftops and the now russet-colored buildings. The swallows spun in black circles over the chimneys.

  It was seven-thirty. He had to meet Virdo Hunnicut in his room at nine. Why couldn’t he have stayed away from April and rested during the afternoon? He felt like going to sleep and not getting up until the next night, but Hunnicut had said that there was something important for them to discuss. J.P. called the desk clerk and asked to be awakened at eight-thirty. He lay down on the top covers of the bed and went to sleep.

  He dreamed he was sitting on the back porch of his home, looking out over the cotton field and its red earth and long green rows. The sky was dark with clouds, and the heat lightning flashed in the east. He breathed the wet smell of the rain as the first drops fell on the field. He was very alone on the porch of the tenant cabin, and he watched the lightning illuminate the edges of the clouds, and the showers burst from the sky. He leaned back in the wooden chair and put his feet on the railing and thought how he wanted to put it all into one song.

  J.P. sat upright in bed just before the desk clerk rang the telephone to wake him. He sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his face. He was sweating all over, and his headache had increased. He stripped to the waist and went to the bath and turned the shower on his head. He let the cold water run over him until his mind had cleared. He dried himself with a towel and looked in the mirror. His face was dull with sleep and fatigue. He combed his hair and went back into the bedroom and took a clean shirt from the dresser. His head kept throbbing.

  He started to leave the room and stopped. He took the cardboard box of pills from his pocket and slid it open. He hesitated for a moment, then went back into the bath and filled the water glass. He would need something to get him through the evening. A few minutes later he knocked on Virdo Hunnicut’s door.

  “It’s open.”

  J.P. went in. Hunnicut sat in the stuffed chair by the desk with an electric fan blowing on him. He wore a flowered silk sports shirt that was stained with perspiration. There was a bowl of ice cubes in front of the fan. His face was flushed pink from the heat.

  “Have you ever seen it so goddamn hot for September?” he said. “I got one window in the room and it opens on the air shaft. It feels like they got the heaters on.”

  J.P. sat in the straight-backed chair opposite Hunnicut. He watched the big man sweat and wipe his face.

  “What did you want to talk about?” he said.

  “I’ll tell you if you give me the chance.”

  “I ain’t feeling too good. I want to get some sleep tonight.”

  Hunnicut leaned his weight forward, opened the desk drawer, and handed him an envelope.

  “What is it?”

  “Look for yourself.”

  He opened the envelope by tearing off the end and looked inside.

  “Train tickets,” he said.

  “You’re going to Nashville.”

  “The Barn Dance?”

  “Your train leaves at midnight.”

  “When did I get on the Barn Dance?”

  “About three hours ago, after I finished talking with Jimmy Lathrop.”

  “Who in the hell is Jimmy Lathrop?” J.P. said.

  “He’s the man that makes Live-Again, one of the biggest selling vitamin tonics on the market. From now on you make people drink Live-Again.”

  “Why don’t you tell me first before you hire me out to somebody I never heard of?”

  “You wanted to go to Nashville, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah. But I like to be told before I’m hired out.”

  “I got a contract in my office, signed by you, that says I manage your engagements and you got nothing to say about it.”

  “I don’t feel like making no train trip tonight.”

  “There’s something else in the envelope. Maybe it will make you feel better.”

  J.P. took out the check and held it in the light from the desk lamp. It was for four hundred dollars, payable to him.

  “Lathrop told me to advance it to you,” Hunnicut said.

  “I still ain’t up to making a five-hundred-mile train trip tonight.”

  “You’re giving me a burn in the ass, J.P.”

  “You want me to take off in the middle of the night on two hours’ notice without telling me nothing except I’m going to sell vitamin tonic for somebody I ain’t even seen. That money won’t do me no good in a hospital or a cuckoo ward.”

  “I want you to listen to what I got to say, J.P. Lathrop is one of the biggest men in the state. There’s a dozen of these fine politicians in the capital who get their bread buttered by Jim. He could have bought a boxcar load of hillbilly singers to push his product, but he picked you because me and him has done business before. If you think you’ve gotten big and you can tell me what to do, or slough off Lathrop’s offer, tear up that check and there will be someone else riding the train tonight.”

  “I ain’t sloughing off his offer. I said I’m wore out and I want to be told about something once in a while.”

  “I’m fed up talking with you. Either do what I tell you, or you can start back for the tenant farm and chop cotton like a nigger for three dollars a day.”

  “You can’t break my contract.”

  “I can do any goddamn thing I please.”

  “Why does it have to be tonight?”

  “Because I say so,” Virdo Hunnicut said, and slammed the flat of his hand on the desk. He wiped his sweating face. “Pack your things and get down to the station. When you get into Nashville go to the Grand Hotel. A man from the radio station will meet you there.”

  J.P. sat for a minute and looked at Hunnicut. The room was quiet except for the creak of the straight-back chair and Hunnicut’s wheezing. He folded the check and put it in his shirt pocket with the tickets and walked from the room.

  He packed the clothes he would need into a single suitcase, picked up his guitar, and took a cab to the depot. He rested his head on the back of the seat and looked blankly out the window while the cab rode downtown. The neon signs were a long blur of colored light without shape or form. The smell of the street, the tar and asphalt, and the dryness of the September night came to him through the open window. It was the end of day in the city; there was the burnt, electric odor of the streetcars and the dry scratch and flash of red as they crossed the electric connections; the pages of newspaper scudding along the sidewalks; the faint smell of rubber and gasoline from the automobiles; the Salvation Army band on the corner, with their high-collar blue uniforms and homely faces and loud brass instruments and tambourines and shrill voices, singing “On Jordan’s Stormy Banks We Stand”; and the missions where the bums could get a meal and a cot if they would sit through a sermon on salvation and Jesus Christ.

  J.P. closed his eyes and let his head sag to one side. He didn’t know the cab had stopped at the station until the driver woke him. The redcap carried his bag into the waiting room; he sat down on one of the pewlike benches, put his guitar case beside him, and read the train schedule on the opposite wall. There were a few people in the waiting room. A porter slept in a chair by the platform door. J.P. took out his tickets and looked at them. Hunnicut had put him in a chaircar. He went to the ticket window and talked with the stationmaster and tried to get rese
rvations on a Pullman. The stationmaster told him that there were no more reservations to be had, and he would have to ride in the chaircar.

  His train was announced over the loudspeaker, and he carried his bag and guitar case out on the platform. The ice and baggage wagons rumbled over the wood planks. The trainmen opened the vestibule doors of the coaches and put down the stepstool for the passengers. Men in overalls moved along the cinder bed by the side of the train with copper oil cans. J.P. walked down the platform and found his car. The conductor looked at his ticket and helped him up into the vestibule.

  The car was crowded and the air was thick with smoke. He made his way down the aisle, bumping people with his guitar case, and took a seat at the end of the car. A soldier snored loudly next to him. J.P. pushed back the seat and tried to relax. His legs were cramped and he couldn’t stretch out. A child close by began to cry. The train hissed and jolted and moved slowly out of the station. The lights in the car went down, and J.P. felt the darkness go over him.

  The telegraph wires are weaving through the air outside the window and I’m going to Nashville Tennessee for Big Jim Lathrop Big Jim sends bread and butter checks to the state capitol the train is rocking back and forth rocking and I lean back and sleep in the dusty smell of old cushions and the train rocks me down past the dust of the cushions to where it is cool like sheets against my back and then the hot wetness of her on top of me I felt the bone in Doc Elgin’s hand and I had to look away when he stared at me and he give April something in a package because I seen it in her drawer and she covered it over with a slip when she seen me looking at it she has small blue marks on her arms

  Hunnicutt said You can start back to the tenant farm and chop cotton like a nigger for three dollars a day but he don’t know nothing about chopping cotton the hoe goes up in the air and thuds down in the dirt and I see the shadow of my straw hat on the ground I never been in Tennessee Troy is from Memphis he ain’t picked cotton for two cents a pound none of them knows how to drag the half-full burlap sack through the rows with one hand and pick the white puff with the other and put it in the sack