Recovering Charles

by Jason F. Wright

  Then I set off on foot.

  The French Quarter, my father’s last employer, Verses, Jerome, Dad’s fiancŽe—the existence of whom was a fact I’d forgotten until just then—could wait.

  Across the street two women siphoned gas from a powder-blue Grand Prix into a red, five-gallon gas can.

  Just a few yards from them crows pecked at what looked like a squirrel. When I passed by, I realized it was a cat with a collar.

  Almost every home’s windows were boarded up. Some streets had debris pushed to the side, others hadn’t been cleared yet.

  Helicopters flew overhead almost constantly, a welcome noise in the eerie quiet of the near-deserted city.

  I stepped out of the road as two National Guard Hummers chugged by.

  Amazingly, sometimes only a block separated the dry streets from the streets under four feet of water.

  I walked toward the torn roof of the Superdome. It was as dramatic and as unsettling as it had been on my television set in New York. I recognized the I-10 overpass that had been home to so many live reports, and one of the favorite images for news helicopters to send around the globe. I hadn’t expected this double vision: my eyes and mind struggled to process the same scenes and specific geography I’d been seeing on television since the storm.

  I took a few pictures of my own.

  A blue landscaping tarp that I knew must be shielding an innocent body from the blistering sun.

  Children’s shoes. A broken megaphone.

  I weaved my way to the edge of the French Quarter. Very few of the doors to the clubs and restaurants were open.

  Then I heard faint music from the next street up. I picked up my pace and rounded the corner to the right. Three blocks ahead I saw a small group of people moving toward me.

  A funeral procession, I thought. The first since Katrina?

  I noticed immediately that it was not quite the kind of jazz funeral I’d heard or read about. It was a ragtag group, with only a few instruments, no caisson, just a single casket being carried by a couple of men.

  I wonder if it’s empty.

  Along with the casket, there were another half-dozen people moving down the street in their own odd rhythm. I recognized the tune: “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.” A few curious National Guardsmen watched from the sidewalk.

  I walked halfway down the block, stood in the center of the street, and took some pictures at the highest resolution possible. I couldn’t tell exactly how many people there were, or even see their faces very well. Toward the rear of the procession, a woman appeared to be twirling a tattered purple parasol. Even from my distance I could tell they were all dead tired.

  I took a few more photos of the surrounding buildings and moved on.

  Back on Canal, I marveled at the number of satellite trucks decorated with every network logo on the planet. They hummed with the sound of generators and air conditioners. A reporter prepared for a live shot by scribbling notes on a folded piece of paper, standing on one leg and using his thigh as a desk.

  I introduced myself to a man from Pakistan, a resident of St. Bernard’s Parish, who’d been selling hats and T-shirts from a table on the street near Harrah’s Casino. Now he scavenged for half-empty bottles of water along the curb. He told me the only thing he owned were the shorts on his legs, the sandals on his feet, and a white T-shirt emblazoned with an image of a classic, multicolored Mardi Gras mask. He offered to sell it to me. Instead I took his picture and gave him twenty bucks. His name was Muhammad Saleem.

  I walked to the Riverfront Marketplace, a collection of shops at the end of Canal. This was one place where the flooding had been kept in check, but looters gutted many of the stores anyway. Some stole to survive; others stole to stay together. A few stole because they could.

  I read the tourist markers along the river. The history of jazz. The food. The swamps. Creoles. The great flood of 1927 and the intentional, controversial explosion of levees that flooded St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes but saved the rest of the city.

  I wondered how long it would take for there to be a new marker along the boardwalk explaining Katrina.

  A white man and woman sat on the steps near the fountain in the Spanish Plaza overlooking the mighty Mississippi. The woman rested her head on the man’s lap.

  “Hi, folks,” I said as I approached.

  “Hello.” The man’s British accent startled me.

  “You’re from the UK.”

  “We are.” The man made eye contact though his wife’s eyes remained closed.

  “You’re here with a relief organization?”

  “No. We’re here—we were here—on holiday, actually.”

  “You were here for Katrina then.”

  He nodded and kissed the top of his wife’s head.

  The man introduced himself as William Cline and invited me to sit. He told me how he and his wife, Louise, had come to the States for vacation. They visited Las Vegas, planned for three days in New Orleans, and then three more in New York before flying home.

  “Then came Katrina,” he said. They’d arrived two days before it hit and decided, rather than rush off, they would stay and ride it out. “This is something we’d never see. Why not, we thought. An adventure.”

  William continued. “We were stopping just up there.” He gestured to the Marriott a few blocks up. “We gathered in the lobby the night the storm made landfall.” He looked out at the calm Mississippi. “Hard to believe it could be so serene now.”

  I followed his gaze up and down the river. “I wasn’t here. I’m from New York, just down here taking pictures. I arrived an hour or two ago.”

  The man nodded politely.

  “Would you tell me about it?” I asked. “What was it like?”

  William tried to describe the hell of Katrina’s on-time arrival. There were sounds, he said, that he’d never heard before. Sounds he couldn’t give words to. Children clung to their parents in the lobby. Moms and dads tried to lighten the mood by singing or playing games, but the whips and snaps of the windows and doors made it difficult to do anything but pray to God to deliver them. Men used to wearing thousand-dollar suits blended with humble locals. Hotel managers huddled together and pointed at exits and windows, whispering in tones as frightened as the guests’.

  “Then we watched the news the next morning and it seemed to us we’d been spared the worst. Sure we walked outside in the bright sunlight and saw damage, but we thought we’d been spared.”

  “Then you heard about the levees.”

  “That’s correct. The levees went, and we sat in our room watching it all. Almost numbing, you know?”

  I know.

  “My wife,” he finished, “she’s having a tough go of it. Been horribly depressed. We’ve been volunteering at a shelter in an elementary school about ten blocks north. It’s hard to see, you know?”

  I do.

  “We’re hoping to catch a flight out tomorrow. Get Lou here to a doctor at home. Get her something to help her sleep. She’s not been sleeping a wink, have you, Love?” He stroked her hair with a familiar kind of pure devotion.

  “Keep a close eye on her, please,” I said. I hoped it didn’t sound like I was pleading, but in retrospect it might have.

  “Good luck,” I added. “My best wishes to you both.”

  Louise opened her eyes, smiled slightly, and said “Thank you” in the most innocent, kind English accent.

  There is no guile in these two, I thought. No agenda. No selfish, ulterior motives. They breathe charity in its purest form.

  I said good-bye and walked away.

  Good luck.

  I strolled back up Canal toward Bourbon Street. The city’s street vendors wouldn’t return for weeks, but a few shop owners gathered to gossip on corners. I listened as I casually walked by. The men made bold predictions about who would reopen and when. One man said he was leaving to meet his family in Houston and would have to be dragged back to New Orleans.

  Troops patrolled the
streets.

  A sign on a souvenir shop said, “Gone fishing in the Ninth.”

  A white Red Cross tent had been erected in the middle of the street. Empty pallets surrounded the entrance where I imagined thousands of bottles of water must have once been distributed to survivors who hadn’t had a drink in days.

  I continued down Bourbon to Toulouse and turned right. I tried to picture my father walking up and down these same streets. Had he played on the corners I’d passed, collecting coins and the occasional bill in his velvet-lined saxophone case?

  “You.” A member of the Coast Guard startled me from my left.

  “Yes?”

  “You with a group?”

  “Group?”

  “FEMA, Red Cross, whatever.”

  “No, I’m a journalist. A photographer.”

  “Let’s see some I.D.”

  I pulled my license from my wallet and handed it to him.

  “Credentials?”

  I’ve got a $3,000 camera hanging around my neck. That good enough?

  “Hold on,” I said, and dug through my wallet.

  “Never mind. Just be careful.” The guardsman handed me back my license and moved on.

  I walked the final block. My stomach spun when I first saw the darkened neon sign for Verses. I should have expected it, but someone had taped a picture of my father on the door.

  He sat with a group of smiling, almost giddy-looking children who were holding instruments of all kinds. Dad held his sax.

  In the photo his upper-body was circled in blue felt pen. Above his head were the words: Charlie Millward—Missing.

  What hadn’t been entirely real before now stared at me in full-color, 8x10, glossy truth.

  I opened the door. I heard chatter from upstairs, but the main floor of the club appeared empty. Fifteen tables and scattered chairs crowded the room in the center.

  I took a single step inside.

  To the right, a thick wooden bar ran from the back of the club almost to the door. Coolers were lined up along half of it. A stack of boxes along one wall read, “Shelled Peanuts.” To the left and against the wall sat a platform stage a foot or two off the ground. It held a set of drums and enough chairs for a jazz band.

  A woman appeared.

  She came from a small room behind the bar. She had light brown skin and her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail. A few strands snuck out on each side and she tucked them behind her ears with her thumb and index finger. Her dark eyes spoke of both fatigue and resilience. Her mouth was the most rare kind, the one that could say, “I’m happy,” even if she wasn’t talking or even smiling. She wore khaki cotton shorts that almost hit her knees and a T-shirt that said

  Visit Verses

  French Quarter, New Orleans

  Center of the Universe

  She wore heavy-looking hiking boots and midankle socks with a Nike Swoosh on the cuff.

  Her earrings were small gold hoops that looked like they had been made specifically for her skin color.

  Her name was Bela.

  Part

  2

  Chapter

  16

  Her voice was as beautiful as her name.

  My palms were actually a little sweaty.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  If Jessica Alba had a better-looking sister, it could be Bela. As I appreciated her striking good looks, I predicted one of her parents was Latino and the other Caucasian.

  “Luke Millward.” I finally extended my hand.

  She took it reluctantly but gave a firm shake.

  “Bela Cruz.”

  “I’m looking for Jerome,” I said. I noticed a delicate gold chain dangling a cross against her neck.

  “Not here. Came back with us a little while ago then disappeared again.”

  “Any idea how long until he’ll be back?”

  “None.”

  “Can I wait here?”

  She stepped aside and gestured into the club.

  “Nice place,” I said, and if there had been a beer bottle within reach I would have broken it over my head as soon as the words left my mouth.

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  “I just meant, nice job keeping things running, being open for people.”

  “We’re not open, not for actual business anyway. We’re just offering support to some people in the Quarter.”

  “The French Quarter.”

  “Mm-hmm,” she answered.

  I’d never heard “mm-hmm” done with such sarcasm.

  “We’re a staging area of sorts. Club’s owner has opened up to others in the Quarter.” She curled her lips just enough to qualify as a smile. “The French Quarter. We’ve got water, some food still in the back we can cook up, packaged snacks, sanitizing wipes, a generator, and some alcohol. But not much else.”

  “And an open door, most importantly.”

  “True,” she said and began slicing open cardboard boxes with a box cutter.

  I zigzagged around supplies, small round tables, and scattered bentwood chairs to a wall filled with photos of famous patrons enjoying themselves at Verses: Nicolas Cage, Adam Sandler, John Goodman, Spike Lee, Wynton Marsalis, Ray Nagin, and New York City’s very own Naked Cowboy in his bright-white jockeys and waxed chest.

  “Naked Cowboy, huh? Didn’t know he traveled outside of New York. I see him in Times Square pretty much year-round.”

  Bela stood abruptly and seemed to finally notice my camera.

  “You’re from New York?”

  “Yes, I am, in fact.” I was both impressed and curious.

  “Wait here.” Bela climbed a spiral staircase to the second floor and the noise from the crowd upstairs quieted to something only slightly louder than sign language.

  Uh-oh. I’d either walked into a reality show or Bela had news about my father. Or both. I picked a barstool and sat.

  Moments later a tall, lean African-American woman followed Bela back down the stairs. The woman approached me, but Bela walked straight out the door.

  The woman wore no makeup and had a thin scar on her left cheek that ran almost from the bottom of her nose to her temple. Even still, she had the look of a woman who didn’t need makeup to attract attention. “Are you Luke?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I stood and reached out my hand, but she pulled me into a hug. After a long, uncomfortable embrace, at least for one of us, she kissed my left cheek and let me go.

  “I’m your father’s fiancŽe.”

  “Jez.”

  “That’s right. Short for Jezebel. My brother tell you?”

  Who else? “That’s right,” I said politely.

  “Bela’s gone to find him.”

  I asked the most obvious question next. The one I should have asked Jessica Alba as soon as I walked in the door instead of admiring her legs. “Have you seen or found my father?”

  “Let’s wait for Jerome. He’s just around the corner.”

  Dad’s dead, I thought. I wondered if my mother was waiting for Dad the way he’d dreamed.

  I breathed deeply and looked at the woman who would have been his second wife. She wore faded blue jeans, scuffed tennis shoes, and a green tank top. She was confident. Attractive and fit. Stylish. Everything Dad hadn’t been since the year Mom passed away.

  “How did you and my father meet?”

  Before answering, she took a seat next to me at the bar. “We met here. I do the bookkeeping for the club and your dad walked in seven months ago—almost eight—looking for gigs. Let’s just say we didn’t have any spots immediately, but I was motivated to keep him here.”

  Only then did I notice just how tired and red her eyes looked.

  “You’re a bookkeeper?”

  “Accountant, to be precise. . . . You look incredulous.”

  “No, no, not at all.”

  “It’s OK. Let me guess. You talked to my brother on the phone and could barely understand him.” She cocked her head to get a better view at the dumb look on my face. “Then you ar
rive here and find his educated, well-spoken sister. You’re not the first to wonder if one of us is adopted.”

  “I really didn’t mean—”

  “Hush. Quit all that white-boy worrying over there.”

  I laughed.

  She did too. “We’re from New Awlins. Born and bred. I went to LSU and earned a masters of accounting. Math was my thing growing up. I don’t know what sparked it but I always loved numbers. And Jerome’s thing, his passion, was always music. Is music.”

  “A nice partnership then.”

  “Uh-huh. We don’t own the club, but we might as well. Jerome handles all the music and lives upstairs in an apartment on the back side of the building. I do the books, Bela helps run the bar when she can. And we have the requisite barkeeps, bouncers, a couple cooks . . .”

  I must have drifted off because the next thing I heard was, “You OK?”

  “I’m sorry, yes. Forgive me, it’s just . . . so odd to think of you and my father. A couple. Getting married.”

  “Because I’m black?”

  “No, because Dad was a drunk.”

  She laughed even harder this time and playfully wagged her long finger at me. She had a bright, wide smile. As her pleasant laugh ebbed, Jerome appeared at the front door.

  Bela followed him in.

  “Jerome, this is Luke,” Jez said. “Charlie’s boy.”

  “Charlie?” I said, shaking Jerome’s hand.

  “We started callin’ ’im that after he got a spot in the band. He took to it.”

  “What can you tell me? Has he been recovered or identified?” I hadn’t practiced that line, but now I wished I had.

  “Sit down, son.” Jerome led me back to my barstool and, with a subtle nod, sent his sister and Bela upstairs.

  I noticed that Bela watched me closely until she cleared the top of the stairs.

  “He’s gone, isn’t he?”

  Jerome reached over the bar and pulled two warm beers off a hidden shelf. He put one in front of me.

  “No thanks,” I said.

  “That’s right, I remember. You don’t drink a lick.”

  “Dad told you.”