Half of Paradise

by James Lee Burke

  “Police going to be down here.”

  “Hush up, woman. Police don’t bother me.”

  “You’re going to spend the night in the jailhouse, nigger.”

  “Hush yo’ mouth.”

  “How’s everybody feeling?” Lathrop said.

  “Bring out some more of them barrels.”

  “Right here,” Seth said.

  He put the keg on the edge of the truck and broke the spigot off with his foot. The wine ran in a stream into the street. The Negroes crowded around with their cups. The wine splashed over their clothes and bodies.

  “God, what a smell,” April said. “How long do we have to stay here?”

  “Till Lathrop makes his speech and gets tired of playing Abraham Lincoln,” J.P. said.

  “The smell is enough to make you sick,” she said.

  “Drink some wine with your brothers,” Seth said.

  “You’re cute,” she said.

  “April don’t like the smell. Tell them to go home and take a bath,” Seth said.

  “You’re very cute tonight,” she said.

  Lathrop called up to the truck from the street, where he was handing out election leaflets that instructed the reader how to use the voting machine and what lever to push for Lathrop as senator.

  “Let’s have some music up there,” he said.

  J.P. sang an old Jimmie Rodgers song.

  I’m going where the water drinks like cherry wine Lord Lord

  I’m going where the water drinks like cherry wine Because this Louisiana water tastes like turpentine.

  Seth rolled another keg to the edge of the truck bed. Someone grabbed it by the top and pulled it over into the street. A stave broke loose and the wine poured into the gutter. A fight broke out between the man who had tipped over the cask and another man who had been waiting to fill his cup.

  Lathrop got up on the truck and motioned for the band to stop playing.

  “Here it comes,” April whispered. “God, I hope he makes it quick. I’m getting sick.”

  “Now that I met most of you folks I’d like to tell you what I got planned when I get in office,” he began. His tan suit was spotted with wine stains. “You see that dirt road we came up on? When I’m elected we’re not going to have roads like that. No sir, we’re going to have the best streets and highways anywhere. You’re not going to have to sit on your front porch and eat all that dust everytime a car comes down your street. We’re going to get electric lights in the houses and plumbing and running water, and there’s going to be good schools you can send your children to.”

  “Lawd-God,” Seth whispered.

  “They ought to bring a fire hose out here and wash them down,” April said. “None of them must have bathed since the Civil War.”

  “Don’t you like nigger politics?” Seth said.

  “And we’re going to have unemployment insurance and social security and charity hospitals for the poor,” Lathrop said. “We’re going to run that bunch of politicians out of the capitol and put the common man back in his rightful place. We’re going to get rid of the fat boys that are draining the state dry and giving nothing to the people; we’re going to raise the wages and the living standard, and the only way to do it is to get this big city trash out of office and let a man of the people serve and represent the people.”

  “This is the last time I’m going around kissing niggers for Lathrop,” April said.

  “You thinking about quitting?” Seth said. “Doc Elgin ought to give you a job. They say there’s good money in pushing happy powder in the grade schools.”

  April turned to him and formed two words with her lips.

  “And there’s a lot more benefits coming to the state,” Lathrop said. “For years you been paying taxes to the rich, and the only thing you got for it is hard work and poverty. I’ve seen colored people working in the fields twelve hours a day and not getting enough money to buy bread and greens with; I’ve seen them sweating on highway gangs and railroad and construction jobs and getting nothing but sunstroke for their pay. Well, that’s going to change. Every man in this state is going to have an even chance, and there’s not going to be any rich men walking over the poor—”

  His speech went on for another half hour. A police car came down the blacktop and cruised slowly by the crowd. An officer in the front seat waved to Lathrop. Lathrop nodded in return, and the car disappeared down the road. The last cask of wine was emptied, the band put away their instruments, and Lathrop said good night to the crowd. He went among the Negroes and shook a few hands before he got in his sedan and drove back to the other side of town, where he was to make a late speech at a segregationist rally held in a vacant lot under a big tent. The truck followed the sedan past the board shacks and across the railroad crossing.

  At the hotel J.P. stopped off in the bar and had a whiskey and water. He had another. He got some change from the bartender and went to use the telephone in the booth. He phoned Doc Elgin at his home.

  “You didn’t come around today,” J.P. said.

  “I’ve been busy. I asked you not to phone me except at my office,” Elgin said.

  “I need some candy.”

  “Everybody needs candy.”

  “I’m almost out. I’ll need some by tomorrow.”

  “I have a lot of people to see,” Elgin said.

  “Listen, I need it in the morning.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “At the hotel.”

  “You owe me for the last two deliveries.”

  “I’ll make it good tomorrow.”

  “I advise you to,” Elgin said, and hung up.

  J.P. had a glass of beer and a ham sandwich at the bar and went up to April’s room. Through the door he could hear the shower water running. He went in without knocking and sat in a chair by the window and waited for her. He lifted the shade and looked down into the street. The lamp on the corner burned in the dark. A Negro fruit vender pushed a wood cart along the worn brick paving in the street. The night was quiet except for the creak of the wooden wheels over the brick and the slow shuffle of the Negro.

  April came out of the bath in her robe. She was drying the back of her neck with a towel. Her hair was damp from the shower. She looked at him without speaking and took a cigarette from a nickel-plated case on the table and lighted it.

  “What did you want to tell me?” he said. She had told him earlier on the truck to come to her room after they came back from the Negro section of town.

  She threw the towel on the bed and sat in the stuffed chair across from him. She smoked the cigarette and looked at him.

  “It can wait. Did you call Elgin?” she said.

  “He said he’d come around tomorrow. He wants some money.”

  “Give it to him.”

  “The bastard is worse than cancer.”

  “He’s better than some,” she said.

  “Why ain’t they taken his license away?”

  “They did a long time ago. How many bags do you have till tomorrow?”

  He took a small folded square of paper from his coat and held it between two fingers.

  “This is it, and I’m fixing to take it right now,” he said. He unfolded one end and lifted it to his mouth and let the white powder slide off under his tongue. He walked to the desk and put the paper in the ashtray. He lighted a match to one corner and watched it burn.

  April went to the dresser and took a shoe box out of the bottom drawer. She went into the bathroom and remained there a few minutes, and then came back out with the shoe box and replaced it in the drawer. The sleeve of her robe was rolled up over her elbow. She pulled it down to her wrist.

  She turned off the light at the wall switch. She took off her robe and lay on the bed. J.P. got up from the chair and walked to the window. He had swallowed some of the cocaine before it dissolved in his mouth, and there was a feeling of nausea in his stomach. She turned her head on the pillow and looked at him. The pupils of her eyes had contracted to smal
l points. The light from the street lamp cast J.P.’s shadow on the ceiling. April laughed.

  “You’re upside down,” she said. “You are. Look at yourself. The white candy horse is galloping and you ride him upside down.”

  He sat on the bed. He was high, but he felt that he might get sick and then the shaking would start and he would sweat and have chills at the same time.

  “When are you going to mainline?” she said. “Little boys can’t eat candy all their life.” She laughed steadily now. “Little boys get sick when they eat too much candy. Does J.P. feel sick? Poor J.P. always feels sick. Poor poor poor poor J.P. Nice little boy with too much sweet in his mouth.”

  She reached around him and touched him.

  “Let April be your nurse. We’ll have some nice medicine.”

  He got up to undress. He stood in his shorts, and then the room shifted under him and something went yellow in his head and crimson and then black, and he felt his mind slip out of time and something rush away inside him to darkness. He fell on the edge of the bed and rolled off on the floor in the woman smell of her robe satin soft against my face the reek of yesterday’s love and she laughing get up J.P. too much sugar in little boy’s mouth come let April make it right she leans over the side of the bed and looks at me smiling her hair wet and sticks to her neck her hand comes down and touches me not even the whores behind the railroad depot come on J.P. not on the floor we can’t have fun on the floor she laughing louder if I could move and slip again in time and her hand touching me warm like the woman smell in her robe like the sweat and sour milk and soap smell of her breasts that time in Lafayette when she put them in my hand and I no I was high I wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t high can’t stop now her hand like warm water and I rushing to meet her in the final burst of white corn cast upon the ground.

  He woke in the morning with a pain in the back of his head. He was stiff from sleeping on the floor. He walked across the room in his shorts and became dizzy and had to sit down. April was still asleep. Her head was turned towards him on the pillow. Her mouth was open, and the wrinkles around her face and neck showed clearly in the morning light. J.P. didn’t remember what had happened the night before, and then it came back to him. He looked down at himself and felt disgusted. He picked up his clothes from the chair and went into the bath to shower. He wrapped the soiled underwear in a towel and put it in the clothes bag hanging on the door. He dressed and went into the room. April was awake.

  “Give me my robe,” she said.

  He picked it up off the floor and threw it to her.

  “That’s a nice way to hand it to me,” she said.

  “You look like hell.”

  “What’s that for?”

  “Goddamn it, what do you think?”

  “You mean that! Oh God, you were funny. You should have seen yourself. I laughed until somebody next door started hitting on the wall. You lying on the rug with that expression on your face. I’d give anything for a picture of it.”

  “Stop laughing.”

  “I can’t help it. You were so funny. Your face looked like a child’s when he’s sucking on his first piece of candy.”

  “You ain’t got no more decency than a whore.”

  “You shouldn’t say things about the girl you’re going to marry,” she said.

  “You’re still hopped.”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  “What?”

  “I waited to make sure before I told you.”

  “Why didn’t you take care of yourself?”

  “I did. It happened anyway.”

  “Can’t you do something to get rid of it?”

  “You want me to drink gasoline or have my stomach cut open?”

  “Why the hell did you let it happen?”

  “It’s here and you’re stuck with it, so think about getting a marriage license,” she said.

  “How do I know it’s mine?”

  “It would take you to say something like that.”

  “Seth says you and Doc Elgin got something going on.”

  “You and me are going to stand up before a justice of the peace. You don’t have any way out of it.”

  “There ain’t no shotgun laws in this state. You can’t force me into it. All I got to do is support the child.”

  “But wait till your Baptist-Methodist audience finds out about it.”

  “Are you going to put signboards on the highway?”

  “I’ll have a blood test made and take it into court. Then all the hicks can read about it in the paper. Lathrop and Hunnicut will give you bus fare back to your tenant farm.”

  “I got half a mind to take that bus ride.”

  “How are you going to pay for your habit?”

  “I can still kick it. It ain’t too late,” he said.

  “You’re a fool.”

  “I ain’t stuck it in my arm.”

  “You will.”

  “Everyone don’t have to end in the junkie ward.”

  “I don’t feel like hearing about your cures this morning.”

  “You and that bastard Elgin got me on it,” he said.

  “Go cry to somebody else about it.”

  “Don’t it bother you none fixing up Elgin with customers?”

  “A girl looks out for herself.”

  “You let yourself get knocked up on purpose.”

  “I don’t want a child. I never liked children,” she said.

  “Why in the hell weren’t you careful?”

  “The courthouse closes at five o’clock. We’ll apply for the license this afternoon and three days from now we’ll be married. Isn’t that nice?”

  “I got to think it over.”

  “I’ll meet you in the lobby at one.”

  “I can’t do it today. Elgin is coming by with a delivery.”

  “There’s some in the drawer. Get it and take it with you.”

  “I got to pay Elgin anyway.”

  “He’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “Look, we can put it off a while. It don’t hurt to wait.”

  “Stop being an ass.”

  “We wouldn’t be no good married together.”

  “I’m not getting caught with your brat and no husband.”

  Two hours later he was downstairs in the lobby waiting for her. He had coffee in the café and went outside to the cigar stand for a shoeshine. The stand was under the brick colonnade of the hotel. A large oak tree grew through an opening in the sidewalk. The day was not hot yet, and there was a slight breeze that carried the watermelon smell of summer from the country and the odor of old brick. J.P. gave the porter a half dollar and went inside to the bar for a drink. He left word at the desk for April.

  He sat on one of the tall bar stools and drank a draught beer. April came in and sat next to him. She wore a dark blue skirt and a white blouse and black high heels.

  “You want a beer?” he said.

  “No. Let’s go to the courthouse.”

  “Bring me another draught,” he said to the bartender.

  “We have to go,” she said.

  “I feel like drinking some beer.”

  “You can drink later.”

  The bartender drew the beer from the tap and put the filled mug on the bar. J.P. paid him and drank half of it without putting the mug down. He wiped the foam off the corners of his mouth.

  “You ought to have a drink,” he said.

  “I don’t feel like it.”

  “Are you still shaky from last night?”

  “Finish your beer and let’s go,” she said.

  “I ain’t in no hurry.”

  He swallowed down the rest of the beer and motioned to the bartender for another.

  “Can’t you do anything without getting high first?” she said.

  “I feel like getting blind.”

  “After we come back you can pass out in the lobby if you want to.”

  “You’ll be a sweet wife.”

  The beer came. He watched her over the top of
the mug as he drank.

  “Pay for it and let’s go,” she said.

  “Did you ever have a boilermaker? This seems like a good day to have one.” He called the bartender over and had him put a double shot of whiskey in the glass. He drank it down in two long swallows and put a dollar on the bar.

  They took a taxi to the courthouse. They went into the clerk of court’s office to fill out the applications. He paid the license fee to the clerk and left April in the office. He walked down the marble corridor towards the front entrance. He heard her high heels clacking on the floor behind him.

  “Where are you going?” she said.

  “There ain’t nothing else, is there?”

  “Why did you walk off and leave me alone in there?”

  “I’m going somewhere, and I don’t reckon you want to come along,” he said.

  He walked out the front door and down the wide concrete walk to the street. The sun was very hot now, and the glare from the cement hurt his eyes. He heard the high heels clacking behind him again. He didn’t look back. He signaled a taxi and got in and slammed the door before she reached the street. He saw her face go by the window as the taxi pulled away from the curb.

  “What are you laughing at, mister?” the driver said, looking at him in the rear-view mirror.

  “It’s so goddamn funny you wouldn’t believe it.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’d tell you about it, but you wouldn’t believe it.”

  “Where did you say you wanted to go?”

  “Jerry’s Bar, back of the depot.”

  The driver looked at him once more in the mirror and drove down a side street through the old part of town and across the railroad tracks. They slowed down behind the station and stopped in front of a bar across from the freight yards. The bar was a two-story board building with dirty front windows and a shorted-out neon sign that buzzed loudly and lighted up only half of its letters.