Half of Paradise

by James Lee Burke

  “That’s a dream. There’s not anyplace for me and you.

  “I feel flat. Everything is lazy and flat.”

  “Close your eyes and let it slip over you. It makes you have nice dreams.”

  “Why is everything flat? You and the room are flat,” he said.

  “You’re sleepy and far away, and nobody bothers you. It’s like laying out in the snow, except it’s warm and nice.”

  “A hospital in Lexington. I was up by the Kentucky line. It started to snow.”

  “You’re far away.”

  “Yes,” he said. “It was snowing.”

  The Live-Again show began its three-week tour the next day. People from all over the parish came to hear J.P. and Big Jim Lathrop. Big Jim was the common man’s friend. He promised to fight federal intervention and the integrationists. The other outfit would have the niggers with the white children. Jim was going to fight it. He didn’t know much about politics, but he knew when he was right about something. He was a country boy himself, and a man should be from the country if he was going to represent country people. City people didn’t have any business in the state government. The common man should vote for his own kind. J.P. was from the country. He sang country music. He knew that Lathrop was the only man for the job. It was time that the people of Louisiana stood up for their way of life and not let any city politician destroy it. Everybody knew that J.P. was a good man and they agreed with what he had to say. They had heard him on the radio. He used to chop cotton and tenant farm like everybody else. He was supporting Jim Lathrop, and so would every man who didn’t want to see the government in the hands of people not his own. J.P. and the common man were behind Lathrop. They were not going to be run over by city politicians and Northern integrationists. The common man had been kept down, and now his time had come as surely as there was a day of reckoning for all created things.

  TOUSSAINT BOUDREAUX

  The Barracks in the work camp were oblong wooden buildings set in a clearing among the pines. The buildings were originally constructed by the W.P.A. for the army, but had later been sold to the state for use as a penal camp. There were seven barracks, each painted white, with barred windows and barred doors. A tall wire fence enclosed the clearing. At the top were three additional strands of barbed wire. No grass grew within the boundary of the fence. The clearing was dirt smooth from the ceaseless tread of feet. Pine needles often blew across the fence from the trees, but they too were soon pressed down and covered in the dust. The sweet smell of the pines came through the fence on the wind, and the cones dropped on the bare earth, but the pine seeds, like the grass, would not grow inside the clearing.

  It was early morning. The night guards walked out in the sun to warm themselves while they waited for their relief. A whistle blew and there was the sound of keys twisting in iron locks and of men stirring from sleep. The sun rose above the dark green of the trees and burned down into the clearing. The moon was a thin pale shape in the western sky. The men filed out of six of the barracks and formed a line before the dining hall. The day guards came on duty and stood by the line while it moved slowly inside. All the men were dressed in the same blue denim uniforms with LA. PENAL SYSTEM stenciled across the backs of their shirts. Some were bareheaded, others wore straw hats. The inmates were deeply tanned, and their hands were callused and roughened. They shuffled through the dust, some talking, some half asleep, into the dining hall to file past the serving counter and sit at the board tables and eat breakfast before the whistle blew again for roll call.

  Outside they broke up into squads of seven and waited for the work captain to come by and call their names from his list. There were seven men to a gang, and one guard to every seven men. No one had ever escaped from the work camp because it was too well organized and the guards could account for each inmate every minute of the day. The gangs formed and waited. The work captain came down the line with his clipboard in his hand. He wore the same brown khaki as the other guards, except he had on a campaign hat like that of the state police instead of the conventional cork sun helmet, and his trousers were tucked inside his high leather boots.

  “Adams!”

  “Yo!”

  “Ardoin!”

  “Yo!”

  “Benoit!”

  “Yo!”

  “Boudreaux!”

  “Yo!”

  The captain looked up from his board. He had been prepared to put a mark by Toussaint’s name.

  “I thought you were supposed to go back into detention today,” he said.

  “Nobody come for me this morning.”

  “Evans might put you in there for the rest of your stretch if you start more trouble.”

  A guard standing by the fence in the shade turned around when he heard his name mentioned. He was John Wesley Evans, the guard for gang five. His face was burned pink by the sun. He was never able to get a tan. His face would burn and peel white and then burn again. He wore a cork sun helmet that was stained brown by sweat, and there was a pair of green sunglasses in his shirt pocket. He was fat about the waist and he wore a holster and sidearm to take notice away from his stomach. He put on his sunglasses and walked out into the sunlight and stood beside the work captain.

  “You want me, sir?” he said.

  “I thought Boudreaux was supposed to go back in detention for another day.”

  “A guy in gang three started a fight. We had to turn Boudreaux out to make room.”

  “Then you’re one day to the good,” the captain said to Toussaint.

  “He can go back and finish it later,” Evans said, looking at the Negro.

  “Broussard!” the captain continued from his roll.

  No reply.

  “Broussard! Answer when your name is called.”

  “Here.”

  “Louder.”

  “Right here!”

  “This is your first day on the gang. Obey the rules and you’ll get along. Don’t talk during roll call and don’t quit work till you hear the whistle blow. When you’re inside the clearing never get closer than five feet to the fence. When you’re working outside don’t get out of the guard’s sight. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You mean yes sir.”

  “I said I got it.”

  The captain turned to Evans. “It looks like you have another one.”

  “He’ll come around,” Evans said.

  The guard faced Avery.

  “Let’s hear it again,” he said.

  “I understood the rules.”

  “I want to hear you say yes sir.”

  “I understood what the man said.”

  “That’s not enough. Let’s hear it.”

  Avery stood still with the sun in his eyes. Evans looked at him from behind his dark sunglasses.

  “You’ll come around,” he said. “This is only your first day. We’ll have lots of days together.”

  The whistle blew and the main gate opened to let the trucks in. The trusties went to the tool shed to check out the picks and shovels. The men climbed into the trucks and the back doors were locked from the outside. The trusties threw the tools into the bed of a pickup. Gang five and gang three rode out to work together. The men sat in the darkness on two wood benches that were placed along the walls. The guards rode up front in the cab with the driver.

  Toussaint took a package of Virginia Extra from his shirt and rolled a cigarette. He licked the paper, rolled it down, and pinched the ends together with his thumbnail.

  “How about a smoke?” the man next to him said. “I left my tobacco in the barracks.”

  Toussaint gave him the package and the cigarette papers. The man was named Jeffry. He was lean and thin-featured, and his eyes were as pale as his hair. His hands were slender and white, almost like a woman’s, and they blistered easily. He suffered from repeated attacks of dysentery, and he would trade his tobacco for an orange from the kitchen so he could suck the juice and not have to drink the camp water.

  Next to him sat
Billy Jo. He had sandy red hair and a fine red scar that came down from one eye to his lip. He said that he had gotten the scar in a prison riot, but two inmates who had known him before said that he had been cut in a fight over a Negro woman. Billy Jo bragged that he had been in six penitentiaries.

  Brother Samuel sat between Billy Jo and Avery. He was a red-bone from around Lake Charles, a mixture of white, Negro, and Indian. His clothes didn’t fit him and his straw hat came down to his ears. He had once been a preacher, but he also practiced black magic and conjuring. A disk of wood with unreadable letters on it hung from a leather cord around his neck. He said that the disk had been given to him by the Black Man, who roamed the marsh at night when the moon was down. He carried bits of string with knots tied in them, a fang of a water moccasin, a shriveled turtle’s foot, and a ball of hair taken from a cow’s stomach. The men liked him. He took care of them when they had dysentery, and he would share his tobacco with others if asked to. He was serving a life sentence for murdering a white man.

  Daddy Claxton sat on the other side of Avery. He was the oldest man in the work camp. His skin was dry and loose with age, and there were faded tattoos of nude women on his arms. He had been a professional soldier once, and he claimed to have known John Dillinger while he was stationed in Hawaii. He had been dishonorably discharged from the army for operating in the black market, and after his third conviction in Louisiana he had been sent to prison for life as a habitual criminal.

  “How come they call you ‘Daddy’?” Billy Jo said.

  “I don’t know. That’s what they always called me,” Daddy Claxton said.

  “Did you really know John Dillinger?” Billy Jo asked.

  “Sure I knowed him. John was a mean one, all right.”

  “You ain’t just telling us that?”

  “I knowed him. You can ask anybody. They’ll tell you.”

  “I don’t believe you was ever in the army, Daddy.”

  “I was a soldier. They give me some papers when I got out. I could show them to you if I had them.”

  “What kind of guy was Dillinger?” Billy Jo said. “He was a mean one.”

  “He’d break out of this place,” one of the men from gang three said.

  “No, he wouldn’t. He’s dead,” Billy Jo said.

  “Your ass, Billy Jo.”

  “He was killed in front of a movie somewhere,” he said. “Your bloody ass.”

  “I knowed John when they put him in the stockade,” Daddy Claxton said.

  “Was he really tough like they say?” Billy Jo said.

  “He was plenty mean,” Daddy said.

  The truck bounced over some railroad tracks and drove down a gravel road. Rocks spun up from the tires and banged under the fenders.

  “What’s today?” Jeffry said.

  “Friday,” Toussaint said.

  Jeffry frowned and counted on his fingers.

  “When are you breaking out?” a man across from him said.

  Jeffry counted and moved his thin lips silently.

  “When are you guys going to leave us?” the same man said.

  “Shut up,” Billy Jo said.

  “Everybody in camp knows about it, you dumb bastard.”

  “Keep shut.”

  “You guys talked it all over the place.”

  “There ain’t anybody going to tell,” Billy Jo said.

  “What about him?” The man pointed to Avery.

  “What are we talking about?” Billy Jo said to Avery.

  “I wasn’t listening.”

  “Then you’re deaf.”

  “I don’t care what you do, podner.”

  “The hell you don’t. You was listening,” Billy Jo said.

  “He wasn’t paying you no mind,” Brother Samuel said.

  “Glory to the Lord, Brother,” someone said in the darkness.

  “Glory be,” Brother Samuel said.

  “Amen, Brother.”

  “I don’t like nobody listening to what I’m saying,” Billy Jo said.

  “I bet the hacks already know about it,” the man across from them said. “They’ll bring you all back on a leash.”

  “I’ll be down on Gayoso Street in Memphis greasing in some whore while you’re breaking your back on the line.”

  “Jam it.”

  “Why don’t you guys quit bitching at each other?”

  “We only got twenty-nine days left,” Jeffry said.

  “Twenty-nine days and they’re on their way to glory. Right, Brother Samuel?”

  “How about a sermon, Brother?”

  The truck was almost out to the line, and they wanted to forget the long day that was before them.

  “I ain’t got the power to save no more,” Brother Samuel said.

  “That don’t matter. Save us, anyway.”

  “My powers ain’t the same no more. I tried to heal Jeffry and it didn’t do no good.”

  “Why didn’t you let Brother Samuel heal you, Jeffry?”

  “That ain’t funny. You guys don’t have a belly full of dysentery,” Jeffry said.

  “Kneel down and pray, Jeffry. Let Brother Samuel clamp his hand on your forehead and clean out your belly.”

  “It ain’t funny.”

  “Let’s wade on the banks of the Jordan, but don’t drink none of the water or you’ll get the runs.”

  “You guys don’t have your bellies tied up in knots,” Jeffry said.

  “Repent sinners before you catch the runs for all eternity.”

  “It ain’t right to make fun of the Word,” Brother Samuel said.

  The truck made a sharp turn, stopped, and the back doors were unlocked and opened. The men blinked their eyes in the light. Evans and another guard stood at the tailgate. Evans looked at them from the shade of his sun glasses and cork sun helmet.

  “Gang five follow me,” he said.

  The men dropped out of the back one by one and walked in single file behind him. The truck was parked by an irrigation canal that was being dug into a flood basin. The canal ended abruptly where yesterday’s work had stopped. Two long banks of dusty red clay were piled on each side of the ditch. The pine trees were green and sweet smelling in the morning air. The trees stretched away over the loam down to the river. The breeze from the river blew through the woods and scattered the pine needles over the ground.

  The men in gang five followed Evans to the line shack where the tools were handed out. Two trusties stood at the door of the shack to check out the tools. Each man could ask for either a shovel or a pick. Those who got there first took all the shovels. It was harder work with a pick.

  Billy Jo stepped forward in the line.

  “Shovel.”

  “Ain’t no more. Claxton got the last,” the trusty said.

  “My goddamn luck.”

  “Move along,” Evans said.

  It was Jeffry’s turn.

  “Hey Evans, can’t I get a shovel? I was sick again last night.”

  “You should have got at the head of the line.”

  “I’ll pull my guts loose with a pick.”

  “You’re slowing up the line.”

  Jeffry lifted the pick on his shoulder with both hands and walked over to the irrigation canal.

  “What’s your name?” the trusty said to Avery.

  “Broussard.”

  “There’s supposed to be another guy here—LeBlanc.”

  “Scratch him off. He’s in the hospital at Angola,” Evans said.

  “I ain’t supposed to scratch nobody off till I get an order.”

  “I’m giving you the order. He won’t be here for three weeks.”

  “Why don’t somebody at the office get things straight and stop screwing up my list?” the trusty said. “What are you doing here, Boudreaux? I got you marked down in detention.”

  “I’m out.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Give me a pick and I won’t take up any more of your valuable time.”

  “How am I supposed to kee
p my list straight when half the guys in your gang is someplace they shouldn’t be?” the trusty said to Evans.

  “You can bitch to the warden and maybe he’ll give you another job. We need more people on the line,” Evans said.

  The trusty wrote in his book. “Boudreaux—one pick,” he said.

  Evans turned to Toussaint.

  “What are you staring at?”

  “Nothing.” He shouldered his pick with one hand, the point sharp and shiny in the sun. His hand was tight on the smooth wood handle. Evans looked at him, his face pink and peeling from sunburn. Toussaint stared back.

  “Don’t ever think you could get away with it,” Evans said. “You wouldn’t no more get the pick over your head and I would have my pistol out.”

  “A man that’s been on the gang can swing pretty fast. Even with one hand and from the shoulder.”

  Evans started to step back and checked himself.

  “Talk like that can send you to detention,” he said.

  “I been there before.”

  “One of these days you ain’t coming back. You’ll go crazy in there and start mumbling and pissing on yourself like the loonies.”

  Toussaint let the pick drop to his side and swing loosely by one arm. Evans’ hand jerked to his holster involuntarily and then relaxed. The Negro walked past him to the ditch.

  “What was Evans on your ass about this time?” Jeffry said.

  “He said I might make trusty this year.”

  The men were working at the end of the canal with the picks. They thudded them into the wall of dirt and pulled the broken tree roots loose with their fingers. The sweat rolled down their bare backs, and their faces were already filmed with dust. Jeffry rested his pick and looked over at Evans.

  “Somebody should kill that sonofabitch,” he said.

  “He’s a mean one,” Daddy Claxton said.

  “I’d like to pop his head open like you break a matchbox,” Billy Jo said.

  “He’s going to make me pull my guts out,” Jeffry said.

  “You ain’t the only guy in camp with the runs,” Billy Jo said.

  “I got to go thirsty all the time,” Jeffry said. “I can’t never drink a sip of water without puking it right up again. When I get out I’m going down home and stick my head in a well we got and drink till there ain’t any fever left in my insides.”