Recovering Charles

by Jason F. Wright

  “Secondly, Luke, have you looked past the surprise of seeing this beautiful woman on your couch to even wonder why she came?”

  I had, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear it.

  “Jez, could you check on that delicious-smelling dinner you’ve started? I need a moment with Luke.”

  Jez walked past me into the kitchen, all of fifteen feet away. Jordan pulled me into my bathroom and shut the door.

  “Luke. Please listen to her. For me?”

  “She lied, Jordan. They all lied.”

  “I get that. Be mad at her later, but she’s traveled all the way up here for more than a shower.”

  She hugged me again.

  “After dinner.”

  “Fair.” She kissed me on the cheek. “You OK?”

  “I’m starving.”

  We ate dinner and made small talk. Very small.

  Jordan talked about her week, her clients, her boss, and makeup.

  Jez talked about her flight up and the last time she’d been to New York. It had been just a few months ago for a show. I wondered if my dad had come, too.

  I talked about the drive there and back. Jez hadn’t heard any of it and looked sincerely interested. I wanted to ask about Bela, but didn’t.

  After dinner Jordan offered—insisted—on cleaning up. “That was the most fantastic meal I’ve had in a year. I mean it.”

  “Thank you, sweetheart. It’s just simple Cajun cooking.”

  Jordan was still mumbling about it when she took the last of the dishes and placed them by the sink. She began washing them by hand, despite my owning a very nice dishwasher.

  “Why don’t you two go for a walk; it’s gorgeous outside.”

  I looked at Jez. She shrugged.

  I shrugged back.

  Jez snorted again. “You’re too much. Let’s go.” She walked out the door without looking back.

  She was still standing in front of the notoriously slow elevator when I caught up with her.

  “Two elevators,” I said. “One is slow, one is broken all the time.”

  Jez reached down and pushed the button again. “I hear this works,” she said.

  “I’ve heard that, too.” I counted to five and pressed the button again. “Jez, I’m sorry about that. Back there. The credit card thing.”

  “It’s OK. We’re blowing off steam.”

  I had to wonder what steam she was storing. I was the one who’d been shammed. “Right,” I wisely said instead.

  The elevator arrived and we rode down to the first floor. The doorman held the front door for us.

  “That would take some getting used to,” she said.

  “I never quite have,” I fibbed. Actually I’d been in the city long enough to take it for granted.

  We began walking east for no apparent reason, but before we left the block I stopped her. “Mind if we just sit?” I motioned to a nearby bench.

  “Are you kidding me? I’m so exhausted. I couldn’t believe that girl of yours suggested a walk. I’ve been on my feet for almost two weeks.” It wasn’t easy to collapse onto a metal bench, but Jezebel tried.

  “Much better.” I sat next to her.

  We sat quietly for a few moments.

  “You flew in today?”

  “This morning. Jordan’s wonderful, Luke.”

  “Thanks.”

  More silence.

  “I have a story to tell you.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s why I came.”

  “I know.”

  “Your dad was a wonderful man, Luke. And I loved him with all my heart.”

  “I see it.” I looked her in the eyes. “I see it.”

  “If Charlie Millward had asked me to travel to the ends of the earth just to turn around and come home, I’d have done it. So long as he was by my side.” She took a breath and rubbed her face. “I am not going to cry anymore.” She took another breath and continued.

  “The day the storm hit, that night really, we all stayed in the club. We thought there was a decent chance the Quarter would stay dry. We were right. But before the storm had even passed, your dad said he needed to leave. Couldn’t have been 5:00 am yet. Was still raining pretty good. But he said he needed to get home to the Lower Ninth. There was no stopping him. Trust me, we all tried.”

  She clucked at a pigeon walking within a few feet of her and carrying a piece of a soft-baked pretzel.

  “He took a cell phone and promised to call, said he’d be OK, said the worst was past and we’d dodged the bullet. Shoot, that’s what the TV was saying right up until the levees tumbled and flooded us.”

  “How did Dad get there?”

  “He walked.”

  “All the way home?”

  “It’s only three miles or so and he had a flashlight in both pockets. He called when he hit the neighborhood and said he needed to help a neighbor. Must have helped another and another because Jerome got worried when the rain started to lighten up but Charlie hadn’t come back yet.”

  “And Dad’s place was like he left it.”

  “That’s right,” she nodded. “He hadn’t been there yet.”

  “So sometime between Jerome checking his place and the levees breaking he got in there . . . He knew the levees would break.”

  “Mm-hmm. He knew,” she agreed. “We never spoke to him again. A day or so later when we really started to worry, you know, we hoped he’d somehow ended up in Texas or Georgia or somewhere. I would have been angry, and Lord knows I would have told him so, but he’d have been alive, right? Anyway, when he hadn’t called or come back to the Quarter, Jerome called you.”

  “And you didn’t know anything then?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Really?”

  “Nothing, Luke. We were looking and we were praying—Lord did we pray.”

  “So when did you find him?”

  “Two days before you arrived. But Luke, we didn’t think you were coming.”

  “Why? I said I was.”

  “Come on, Luke, this is me. Be real with me. You dragged your feet and you know it.”

  Maybe a little.

  “You weren’t in a rush were you? You were not in any big hurry to come recover your alcoholic father.”

  “OK. I get it.”

  “Luke, I’m telling you the truth, sweetheart. We did not think you were coming. We were stunned. We’d just had Charlie’s funeral and then you come waltzing in.”

  “Why so soon, Jez? No one was holding funerals yet.”

  “Because we didn’t think you were coming, and Castle, the man who sponsored your dad and helped free him from the bottle, was leaving to be with his sister. He wanted to be a part of it so much, Luke. So we put our ragtag funeral march together. I don’t much care if anyone thinks we should have waited, no offense. It was a simple celebration.”

  “So where did you bury him?”

  “We didn’t. We couldn’t. The casket was empty. They do that from time to time down there. FEMA had put him in a freezer and said there was nothing we could do with him right now. Wasn’t a funeral home open for probably five hundred miles.” She slid over and put an arm around me. “I’m sorry to tell you like this, to talk like he was just another victim of this mess.”

  “So when can I retrieve him?”

  “Oh. Well, sweetheart, if you bury him outside the area you can recover Charles right now.”

  “But you want him buried in New Orleans.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I want him buried next to his wife, Luke. That’s who the Lord ordained as his spouse, for better or worse. I’ll live knowing my world was changed by the six months I spent with him.”

  I appreciated the gesture more than I could explain, but my mind was already on the question I needed answered most.

  “How did he die?”

  Jez took my hand. “You know we couldn’t reach him; cell service got bad in a hurry. Spotty. Sometimes you got through, usually you didn’t. Te
xts were better, but even that was so hit-and-miss. Finally after a couple days of not hearing anything, an officer came by the club. Said the day before he’d met a man who claimed he worked here and needed to get a message to us that he was OK. He was trying to help at the Convention Center. Keep peace. Keep people alive, I guess. Then he heard about a lady who was six, eight blocks away, dying without her oxygen. Apparently Charlie went running around like crazy trying to find some. Trying everything to keep her alive.”

  She let go of my hand long enough to wipe her eyes.

  “The officer—”

  “Frank?”

  “That’s right.” She seemed embarrassed by the admission that Frank had known, too.

  “Frank said he saw the man twelve hours later carrying the woman down the street in water up to his chest. He was pushing through the water. Calling for help. And Lord, it was hot. The man, your father, got the woman to Frank’s arms at the curb of the Convention Center and then laid down on the grass around the corner. Frank raced that woman to the airport where they had a little hospital set up. When Frank came back to check on your father, he was still lying flat on the grass. Only now, your father, my Charles, had a handwritten sign on his chest.”

  Jezebel’s tears streamed all the way down her neck.

  “A sign?”

  “It said, Saved a woman’s life.”

  Chapter

  29

  Jordan was stunned by the photos.

  The three of us sat in my apartment, clicking one at a time through the albums on my laptop. Jordan couldn’t keep her mouth closed. “I’ve never . . . I’ve never seen . . .” She hadn’t finished a sentence in ten minutes.

  I clicked on the group shot Frank had snapped on the street the day we took the johnboat to Dad’s house in the Lower Ninth.

  Jordan stared intently. “Who’s that?”

  I named everyone in the photo.

  “The girl next to you—is that Bela?”

  “Uh, yeah, Bela Cruz, how’d you know?”

  “You must have mentioned her,” Jordan said.

  I hadn’t noticed earlier just how close Bela and I were standing in the photo.

  Jez excused herself to the bathroom.

  Jordan noticed.

  “Tell me about her,” she said.

  “Not much to tell.” I hated lying to my best friend. “She’s a grad student, worked at the club. She helped with recovery.”

  Jordan studied the photo then put her hand on my cheek. “You know what I see in this photo, Luke?”

  “What?”

  “A look I’m unfamiliar with.”

  “I’m lost.”

  “No, you’re not. That look on your face . . .” She gently guided my chin toward the screen on my laptop so I couldn’t look in any other direction. “I’ve never seen that look before.”

  We both knew exactly what she meant. Jordan rarely cried, but her eyes were unmistakably wet.

  She stared back at my face in the photo. “I’ve waited to see that look since our first date.”

  “IHOP.”

  “Belgian waffles.” She took my hand.

  I kissed the back of hers.

  “I’m your best friend, Luke, and heaven and all my girlfriends know I’ve wanted to be more. But Luke, girls know looks.”

  What do I say?

  “You’re stuck, aren’t you?”

  I nodded my head ever so slightly.

  “Oh, Luke. I’ve known our visions of this haven’t been the same.”

  “How?”

  She closed the laptop and took my other hand, too. “Did you fall in love with me the first time we met?”

  I looked past her and out the window.

  “Luke, the first time you saw me—that first meeting—did you know?”

  I didn’t have to answer. Was this my father’s final lesson?

  “Luke.” Her wet eyes couldn’t hold the tears up any longer. “That look on your face says you’ve got to find her.”

  “I’m not sure I can.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I told you—the look.” She stood up and put her arms around my shoulders. “And I guess I just have a feeling.”

  Premonition.

  Jordan pulled a Kleenex from her purse, wiped her nose, then kissed me on the cheek again.

  Jezebel stepped back into the room with her arms crossed in front of her chest and her head bowed slightly.

  “Thank you, Jezebel,” Jordan said the words so sweetly, so sincerely, as if they’d known each other for years.

  “You’re welcome.” She said the words as she stepped in for a tight hug. Then, as she let go of Jordan, Jez placed her hands on her red cheeks.

  “You’re going to be OK.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “Come see me sometime?” Jez asked, and most wouldn’t have meant it.

  “Mm-hmm,” Jordan answered.

  “Be safe.” Jez kissed her forehead and retreated quietly to the kitchen.

  “Please call,” Jordan said to me. “When you’re back. When your father is settled. Please.”

  “I will.”

  “Promise?”

  “Of course. You’re still the best friend I’ve ever had.”

  She hugged me again. “I love you, Luke.”

  “I know. I love you, too. I always will.”

  She put the Kleenex back to her eyes and walked toward the door.

  “Good-bye,” I said.

  “Not good-bye,” she said, looking over her shoulder.

  I think she wanted to say something else, but instead she blew me a kiss, smiled, and shut the door behind her.

  Jez reemerged. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It’s OK. She’ll never be out of my life. I couldn’t afford to lose her.” I’d said that before, but never with much sincerity. It felt good to mean it this time.

  “What’s next?” Jez asked.

  “Pack your bag back up. I’ve got to run to the basement and then we’re off.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  “All right,” she said.

  “Let’s get my father to Texas.”

  I didn’t wait for the elevator. Despite sore, achy legs, I ran down fourteen flights of stairs to the basement with the key to my storage closet clutched in my fist.

  I opened the metal door and rummaged for the last package Dad had sent me. It was bigger than I remembered when it first arrived.

  I jabbed and cut through the packing tape with the key and dug through the foam peanuts.

  I slowly pulled out a case, and my heart raced exactly the way I’d expected.

  I set the case on the floor and unlatched the lid.

  A saxophone with a tiny wrinkle in the bell.

  I could barely see it through the tears.

  I lifted it from the red-velvet-lined case.

  I held it in my hands like a newborn and wept.

  In the case I also found a folded, handwritten chord chart to a song Dad had started but not finished. He’d called it “Love Me if You Can.”

  Just to the side of the title, he’d scribbled the words:

  Help me write my second verse, son.

  Chapter

  30

  Four days later, FEMA transferred Dad’s body to Dallas.

  It helped that one of Dad’s old partners at the firm was from Crawford, Texas.

  The funeral was scheduled for a Saturday, a day when many from Dad’s old firm promised they could attend. I was humbled by how many kept their word.

  Lee, Dad’s very first A.A. sponsor from Austin, made the trip. So did a half-dozen others from Step Eight on Dad’s list.

  We bypassed a traditional church service and opted to hold all the services graveside. It had been a week since Jez had shown up at my doorstep, and she hadn’t left my side. I liked being at her side.

  I’d initially asked Jordan to come—and she wanted to—but when she told me one of the big
gest deals of her career was collapsing at home in New York, I uninvited her.

  “You’re sure?” she asked me on the phone. “It’s just work. You’re a bazillion times more important.”

  “Of course I’m sure,” I answered. “You don’t have to be here for me to know you care.”

  “Dinner when you get back?”

  “Of course,” I said. I knew she was curious to know whether I’d found Bela, but I also knew she wasn’t ready to ask. In time, I thought.

  Since first arriving back home, I’d called Jerome dozens of times trying to find her.

  “Still nothin’,” he said each time. “No one has seen her, son.”

  Jez assumed she was home in Arizona. A good guess, but her last name, Cruz, was like looking for a grain of salt in a desert sand dune. We’d come up empty.

  “Appropriate,” I told Jez. “Empty is exactly how I feel without her here to help bury my father.”

  The service was short. I spoke, Jez said a few quick words, and Dad’s confidant and most loyal friend, Kaiser, added some thoughtful words about the man Dad had been, the man he fell into, and the man he’d become at death.

  No more inspired words were ever spoken.

  After Dad’s former secretary offered a brief benediction, the emotional crowd of twenty-eight stood to pay their final respects.

  But the sound of a vehicle pulled our attention to the cemetery’s southern hillside.

  First the white top crested the hill. Then the grill. Then the rest of the only fifteen-passenger van I’d ever ridden in.

  The name Verses was painted on both sides.

  Jez stepped up to me and put both her arms through one of mine. “Oh, my! A funeral march!” I think she’d meant to whisper.

  They parked Jesse a hundred yards away and unloaded. Jerome, Tater, Hamp, Castle, and a woman Castle carried in his arms and placed in a wheelchair—his cancer-surviving sister.

  From behind the van appeared one more mourner. Even from a distance the figure’s legs were bronze and beautiful, the hair gorgeous. It blew behind her in a gentle breeze as if God Himself were tousling it. She wore a white spring dress and twirled a purple parasol. I felt enough sparks to start a bonfire.

  They took their instruments from their cases and played “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” as they marched toward the grave like a classic New Orleans jazz funeral. They were ragtag no more. They played the clarinet, bass drum, tuba, and the same trombone and trumpet I’d seen in New Awlins.