Half of Paradise

by James Lee Burke

  “We could close the flap now.”

  “Those people might come by.”

  He slipped the strap of her black bathing suit off her shoulder and put his hand on her breast.

  “You’re taking advantage,” she said.

  “I’ll do other things when we’re in bed again.”

  “We’ll do them together. But not now.”

  “You have nice breasts.”

  “Oh, Avery.”

  “They are.”

  “You’re terrible.”

  “Do you like me terrible?” he said.

  “Yes. I love it.”

  He unrolled the canvas flap over the door opening, and as they dressed he looked at the smooth curve of her waist and the indentation of her stomach when she bent over to get her sandals, and he felt that same feeling of something dropping inside him. They rolled their bathing suits in a towel and walked up the beach along the white sand by the edge of the surf towards the lighted walkway and the amusement park where her car was. A few hundred yards behind the beach they could hear the music from the carousel and see the brightly lit Ferris wheel revolving against the sky. They stopped at one of the open-air stands in the park and drank a beer with the sea breeze blowing in from the Gulf. Her car was in the darkened gravel parking lot, and he drove them back to town. It was the same low-slung, wide-based, Italian sports convertible that she had gotten for her graduation from high school. It had four forward gears, and when he stepped on the accelerator he could feel the guttural roar of the exhaust through the steering wheel and the power of the take-off pressed him back comfortably in the thick leather of the seat. She sat close to him with both her hands on his arm and her cheek on his shoulder and her wet hair whipping behind her in the wind. They drove along those wide curving cement drives outside New Orleans that wind through groves of oak and cypress trees with the moss hanging in the branches, and the night air smelled of lilacs and jasmine and freshly cut grass.

  They were alone at the apartment and they made love in her bed. She got up to make sandwiches in the kitchen and she brought them back on a silver tray with two iced drinks of cognac and orange juice. They ate the cold chicken sandwiches and drank the brandy and then did it again.

  “Am I making you too tired?” he said.

  “Don’t be silly. It gets better every time.”

  “The cognac makes it better.”

  “Darling?”

  “What is it?” he said.

  “Can those parole board people do anything to you?”

  “Why do you ask that now?”

  “I was worried about it. I know you don’t like to talk about it, but I worry.”

  “I just have to go see them once a month.”

  “You looked angry when you came out today,” she said.

  “I get sick at my stomach every time I go in there.”

  “Don’t do anything that would make them send you back. I couldn’t stand it.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I’m sorry for talking about it. I know you hate it,” she said.

  “It’s all right.”

  “Does it bother you much?”

  “No,” he said, thinking of the nightmares he had been having in which he was back in the work camp, expecting to wake to the morning whistle for breakfast and roll call and then the ride in the trucks out to the line.

  “I know it bothers you. I can tell,” she said.

  “You’re a good lady.”

  “I wish I could take it all away. Do you think about it when you’re with me?”

  “I think about your thighs.”

  “Always think about my thighs.”

  “I like to stay between them.”

  “Tell me something else.”

  “You have good hands,” he said.

  “Do you really forget the work camp when you’re with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m so glad. I want you to be happy. We can stay in a good position and you don’t have to think about anything except me.”

  “Can you do it again?”

  “I’ll do it any time you want me.”

  “I want you all the time,” he said.

  “Tell me bad things. I want you to. I think I’m becoming degenerate.”

  “Is it good?” he said.

  “It’s wonderful. Do it hard. Make me hurt.”

  “You’re worse than I am.”

  “Is there any other way to do it?”

  “Not that I’ve thought about.”

  “We’ll find new ways,” she said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Let’s drink some more cognac and make it nicer. Good Lord, I know I’m becoming degenerate.”

  “Do you want some cognac?” he said.

  “Yes. You can feel the fire go down inside you. Will you mind if I leave you a minute? I’ll be right back.”

  She returned with the square, dark-colored bottle and filled each of their glasses half full. She sat beside him and drank hers down fast. It was strong brandy and it made her eyes water.

  “Can you feel it get hot inside you?” she said. “Isn’t it nice? I’m going to have some more.”

  “You’ll be tight.”

  “Will you like me better?” she said.

  “I like you any way.”

  She drank more of the brandy and set the empty glass on the floor by the bottle.

  “God, that’s strong,” she said.

  He kissed her mouth and neck.

  “I’m sorry. You’ve been waiting,” she said.

  “I love you very much.”

  “I’m so happy with you, Avery.”

  He kissed her again and he felt the coolness of her arms around his neck and then it began to swell inside him and he held her very tight with his face in her hair and he felt it go through his body and his entire existence was concentrated in that one moment and he could feel the muscles in the back of his legs quiver and then he was quiet and relaxed inside, and they went to sleep.

  * * *

  They saw each other every evening, and sometimes they stayed in the apartment or checked into a hotel outside the Quarter or went dancing or went to the parties that one of her friends gave, and one time when the pipeline shut down for a couple of days because of rain and Avery was free they spent the night in a small guest house down by the beach and he rented some flounder gaffs and flashlights and they hunted along the edge of the surf for the flat-sided fish lying in the sand, he barefoot and in dungarees and stripped to the waist and she in toreador pants with a white blouse held closed by a knot tied at the stomach; and he cleaned the fish on the beach and built a fire from pieces of driftwood while she opened two bottles of beer from the cooler they had brought with them. He fixed the fish on sticks, and they baked them over the fire and peeled them off in strips to eat. They sat in the sand, still warm from the day’s sun, and drank another beer. There was no one else on the beach, and they put out the fire and undressed and went swimming. Later, they walked along the edge of the water and hunted for seashells with the surf rolling over their bare feet and the moon low on the horizon and the sky clouded from a thunderstorm that was building in the Gulf.

  They went to a party one Saturday night and left early. It was like the other parties they had gone to. The rooms were crowded with people, and there was a progressive combo trying to play above the noise; the bass player passed out in the hallway, and Wally, the redheaded, blue-eyed Cambridge boy with a taste for Scotch, gave an imitation of a Baptist preacher. Someone opened the door of a bedroom at the wrong time and there was a scene and a girl began crying and left by herself since her date had been one of those in the bedroom. The people in the upstairs apartment knocked on the walls and floor, and Wally went out and came back with a bum he had found in Jackson Park and the bum got sick in the flower bed of the courtyard and Wally was told to leave by the hostess. The knocking on the walls and floor continued, and finally Avery and Suzanne left by the side door without saying good nigh
t to anyone and walked down the quiet cobblestone street in the dark and breathed the cool night air. They stopped in a bakery and bought some pastry and went to her apartment to make coffee.

  She fixed café au lait in the kitchen and brought the coffeepot and the hot milk out on a tray and they drank it in the living room and ate the pastry.

  “Did you mind leaving the party?” he said.

  “Not if you wanted to go.”

  “I like it better here.”

  “I like it too,” she said.

  “Who is Thomas Hardy?”

  “He was an English writer.”

  “Somebody asked me if I’d read him.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him I didn’t keep up with professional baseball anymore,” Avery said.

  She put her napkin to her mouth as she laughed.

  “I know who asked you,” she said. “It was the little buglike fellow with the baggy trousers. He’s Wally’s roommate. He pays the rent for both of them. He thinks Wally is a talented writer.”

  “Is he?”

  “He never writes anything,” she said.

  “What does the bug fellow do?”

  “Reads Thomas Hardy, I suppose.”

  She poured more milk and coffee into his cup.

  “Could you ask Denise to go out for a while?” he said.

  Denise was Suzanne’s roommate. She was a pleasant, intellectual girl, and she would have been attractive if she didn’t wear a wash-faded pair of slacks and an unpressed blouse stained with paint all the time.

  “She’s painting in the back room now,” Suzanne said. “Some woman is paying her twenty-five dollars to paint a portrait from a photograph.”

  “Would she mind leaving for an hour?”

  “I couldn’t ask her to. She’s been very good about everything, and it wouldn’t be fair to ask her to stop work because of us. She needs the money badly.”

  “Do you want to go to the horse races tomorrow? The park is open for the season now,” he said.

  “Let’s go to Tony Bacino’s. I’ve always wanted to see what it was like inside.”

  “What is it?”

  “One of those nightclubs where men dress up like women,” she said.

  “I’d rather see the horses.”

  “Don’t you want to go?”

  “No.”

  “Denise went one time. She said she saw two men dancing together. God, what a sight. Can you imagine it?”

  “Do you want to go out to the park?” he said.

  “I’ll go anywhere you ask me to. Are you angry?”

  “Why would you want to see men dressed like women?”

  “I don’t know. I was teasing. Don’t be mad.”

  “I’m not,” he said.

  “We’ll watch the horses and have a lovely time.”

  “Could you pick me up at my room? They run the races in the afternoon and we’ll be late getting out.”

  “We’ll do something first, won’t we?” she said.

  “Yes. That’s always first.”

  She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. They walked together out to the balcony and looked down over the iron railing at the flagstone courtyard with the moonlight on the flower beds. The white paint over the bricking of the walls looked pale in the light, and away in the distance they could hear the jazz bands playing on Bourbon. It was getting late and he kissed her good night and walked down Dauphine towards his rooming house.

  On Sunday afternoon she was parked in front of the rooming house in her sports car when he got back from work. She smiled when she saw him. His denims were stiff with dirt, the skin of his face was stained from the black smoke that comes off a fresh pipe weld, his crushed straw hat was frayed at the edges and the brim was turned down to protect him from the sun. There were two thin white circles around his eyes where he had worn the machinist’s goggles while cleaning the slag out of the welds, and his shirt was split down the back from being washed thin. He talked with her for a moment at the car and went up the front walk and across the veranda into the house. He showered and shaved and changed clothes and came back to the car. She slid over on the seat and he got behind the steering wheel.

  They drove to the apartment and parked the car in the brick-paved alley behind the building, and later they went to the park. The best racing in New Orleans was at the Fair Grounds, but it was open only in the winter season, and the races at the park were generally good. They sat close down in the stands near the track. The sun was in the west above the trees on the other side of the park, and the track was a quarter-mile smooth brown dirt straightaway. At one end was the automatic starting gate, and the three-year-olds were being lined up for the second race. The silk blouses of the jockeys flashed in the sun and the horses were nervous in the gate just before the start. Then the bell rang and they burst out on the track and charged over the dirt, still damp from the rain, and the mud flew up at their hoofs; they stayed close together at first and then began to spread out, the jockeys bent low over their necks whipping their rumps with the quirts, and as they neared the finish a roan had the lead by a length and Avery could see the bit working in its mouth and saliva frothing into the short hair around its muzzle while the jockey whipped its rump furiously, his knees held high and the numbered sheet of paper pinned to his blouse partly torn loose and flapping in the wind. They thundered over the finish line under the judges’ stand, the clods of dirt flicking in the air, with the roan out ahead by a length and a half, and the jockeys stood up in the stirrups and tightened the reins.

  “Isn’t it exciting?” Suzanne said. “I’ve never been before. It takes your breath away.”

  “Do you like it?” he said.

  “Very much. Why didn’t we come before? Can we bet?”

  “If you want to.”

  “How much do you bet?”

  “Anything.”

  “Bet two dollars for me in the next one,” she said.

  “On which horse?”

  “Any one. You decide.”

  Her eyes were happy, and she wore a white dress with a transparent lavender material around her shoulders, and she had on one of those big white summer hats with the wide brim that Southern ladies used to wear to church on Sunday.

  “Let’s bet on that one,” she said. The black one. Look how his coat shines. Isn’t he handsome?”

  Avery left the stands and bet her money and two dollars of his own at the window.

  “I bet it across the board,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “You collect if he wins, places, or shows, but your odds go down.”

  “I know he’s going to win. Look at him. He’s beautiful. Watch how the muscles move in his flanks when he walks.”

  They were taking the horses down to the starting gate.

  “I wish I could paint him,” she said. “Have you ever seen anything so handsome? Does a horse like that cost much?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wonder if Daddy would buy one for my birthday.”

  “What would you do with him?”

  “I don’t know. But God he’s gorgeous. I’d love to own him.”

  The horses were in the gate now. The black one tried to rear in the stall and the jockey had trouble keeping him calm until the start.

  “What’s the matter with that man? Doesn’t he know how to handle horses?” Suzanne said. “Why are you laughing?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “There they go. Oh, they’re pushing him into the rail.”

  “It just looks that way from here.”

  “It’s unfair. He’s getting behind,” she said.

  “He’s no good on a wet track. Watch how his legs work.”

  “What’s wrong with his legs?”

  “He doesn’t have his stride.”

  “That’s silly,” she said. “What does a wet track have to do with anything?”

  “Some horses can’t run in the mud.”

  “He’s dropped
back to fourth.”

  The horses crossed the finish line in front of them. Suzanne looked disappointed.

  “He’d do all right on a good track,” Avery said.

  “I’d still love to own him. How much would he cost?”

  “Around a thousand dollars. Maybe more.”

  “Will he run in another race?”

  “Not today.”

  “Let’s come out next Sunday and see him again. Will he be here?”

  “Probably,” he said.

  “Oh, good. The track will be dry and he’ll win next time.” She looked happy again.

  “Are you glad you came?” he said.

  “Of course, darling. I always like the places you take me.”

  “In the winter we can go to the Fair Grounds. They have some of the best horses from over the country there.”

  “What happened to the mare you used to own?”

  “She died in foal,” he said.

  After the races they drove to the beach and went swimming. The sun had set and the afterglow reflected off the water in bands of scarlet, and then it was dark with no moon and the white caps came in with the tide and roared over the sand. The water was too cold for them to stay in long, and they lay on the beach and looked out towards the black horizon and the black sky.

  Later, the moon came out and the sand looked silver against the black of the water. The wind was getting cool and everyone else had left the beach. She was shivering a little from the cold. Avery put his shirt over her shoulders.

  “Do you want to go?” he said.

  “Only if you want to.”

  “You’re cold.”

  “I feel fine,” she said.

  “Let’s go back to town.”

  “Hasn’t it been fun today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe Denise will be gone when we get back,” she said.

  He had to check in with his parole board the next afternoon. The board was located in an old office building built of weathered gray brick, and the plaster in the hallways was cracked and the air smelled close and dusty. He sat on a bench in the outer office with three other men and waited his turn to see the parole officer. The man next to him had a fat coarse face with large red bumps on his nose. He wore a windbreaker that had a ring of sweat around the collar, and his slacks were worn thin at the knees and his brogans had been scuffed colorless. He held his hat in his hand between his legs. There was a dark area around the crown where the band had once been. He cleared his throat and looked around for a place to spit. He emptied his mouth into his handkerchief.