Butterflies in Heat

by Darwin Porter

  A five-piece combo had replaced the jukebox sound. The men were blasting out hot rhythms to keep the palace rocking.

  The drone of chatter ceased in the smoke-filled room. The crowd was reaching a moment of high intensity.

  To the rhythmic thumping of a congo drum, Lola under her blonde wig was love goddess of the island, beautiful, radiant, alive—all woman. Moving her body rapidly, she could feel the devouring eyes upon her. For her, the room was filled with desire.

  As the drums reverberated, her pants whirled around the floor, seemingly having a life of their own. Her dance built as the drums grew louder and louder. Faster and faster she moved. Her gyrations were incredible. She just knew every man in the room was erotically breathless.

  For one moment of panic, she realized she had no finish to her number. She'd long ago pushed Dinah to the wing. The bitch was drunk anyway.

  Then it came to her.

  She'd have to do it.

  A spectacular finish.

  Reaching for the hook that held her blouse, she unfastened it in one lightning move. Her breasts popped out in the red glare.

  Silence.

  The music stopped.

  Lola retreated from the spotlight. Everything had gone wrong. But, no. The shock was over. Her act was met with thunderous applause. The shock, she now knew, had been that she had breasts at all.

  Spinning from the floor, she was back into her blouse, heading for the women's toilet in the rear. Covered by fabric, her boobs jiggled as she pranced down the urine-smelling corridor.

  Men reached out, pretending to grab her breasts.

  "Are those jugs for real?" one man called.

  She ignored him.

  "Show us what else you got," another man yelled.

  Closing a red door behind her, she enjoyed this moment alone in the women's toilet. A sigh of relief came over her.

  Fortunately, she'd remembered to cover her breasts with diamond-shaped pas ties before leaving the apartment tonight. It would have been vulgar to show nipples.

  In the booth with Ned, Numie was eying the cut-out glittery stars of cardboard dangling from the ceiling, turning fast or slowly, as big electric fans swirled the hot, humid air around.

  Ned was drunk and getting drunker. "I sell my chick," he said.

  This confession came out of the blue. At first, Numie didn't think he heard right, and certainly didn't know what prompted Ned's telling it. "Lay that on me again," he said. "Dinah told me you were the most jealous stud south of Birmingham. Something doesn't fit."

  Ned eyed him skeptically. "I'm jealous only if she ever gets it on with another black man. I'm not jealous of those jellybelly white pigs she can't even stand." He downed another healthy swig. "They're nothing to her. She hates their weak guts."

  Numie was trying to control himself. He wanted to keep Ned friendly and talking, but knew Dinah was a supremely dangerous subject. Still, he blurted out, "Why sell her at all?"

  Ned pulled hard at his tree-trunk sideburns. "Survival, man—the same reason you're shacking up with that crazy drag queen." He lowered his voice almost to a whisper. When he spoke again, it sounded more like a hiss. "I hate every white man who's ever fucked Dinah. I sit in the living room at night listening to them get it on with my chick in the bedroom. My bed! Sometimes I want to cut off their pea-sized balls."

  Numie squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. This talk about castration brought back the chilling nightmare of Yellowwood's jail. "But you still sell her?"

  "Hell, yes," Ned said, sitting back and talking louder. He put his booted foot up on the chair. "I'm a man of leisure. Never worked a day in my life, and don't intend to." He signaled the waitress for another round. "Not when I can find some pussy to do it for me. I've spent most of my time in bed, and that's where I plan to stay."

  "You got it made, sounds like to me" Numie didn't mean this. It was just something to say. Even though he was getting drunk, he didn't like this camaraderie between Ned and him. Ned was relating to him like a fellow "player," a pimp and prostitute himself. Numie was resenting the company he kept, even though he knew he deserved the label.

  A new drink in front of him, Ned was talking again. "Made like hell! The people in this town look down on me. Even my own people" He slipped his feet off the chair and planted them on the stained floor again. "But the mayor calls when he wants a piece of black ass—which is pretty often. If he sees me on the street, he won't look my way. After dark, so to speak, it's another story. He brings me liquor, and we get drunk together"

  Numie was trying to play it cool, let Ned do the talking. He held back with any more questions, figuring he'd asked enough.

  "You got a lot of bread stashed away?" Ned asked him.

  "Just enough to keep me in some eats," Numie answered.

  "Something to drink, a tin roof—that's about all I got, too," Ned volunteered. "The white guys, my customers, would tum against me if I got too successful."

  "I know a lot of people believe whities can't stand for blacks to get ahead," Numie said. "It's supposed to freak them out. But I found people, regardless of their color, often can't stand for their own friends to get ahead, much less anybody else."

  Ned looked at him as if that were about the dumbest observation he'd ever heard. "Shit, man, if I had a fancy house and car, like those New York pimps, these redneck cats down here wouldn't give me no more business. They'd figure out some way to take it from me. So I don't come on too fancy, like that fucking Lola. Long as I can get by without work, like I told you, it's okay with me" He rubbed his broad nose.

  Numie glanced apprehensively to the rear of the palace. Lola still had not come out of the women's toilet after that disgusting spectacle. Numie was just sitting there dreading the moment when she'd come and join them. In this crowd, the less attention he called to himself, the better.

  "What do you want out of life?" Ned asked abruptly.

  Numie had absolutely no answer for that one. "Just to get by," he said, copping out.

  "I tell you what I want," Ned said, "not that you asked, but I'll tell you anyway. Fill my gut and get all the pussy I can handle, which is one hell of a lot. Man, I succeed at that. The living's easy." He rubbed his stomach. "I know how to control women, and other men are jealous as shit of me. Lock up their wives when they see me coming."

  "Lucky man."

  "Everybody—man, woman, cat, or chicken—wants old Ned to sail up their lazy river, " he said. Why, when I go to the vegetable market, even the honeydews start vibrating."

  "Come, let's dance," Lola said, appearing suddenly. She tickled Numie's nose with her boa. Eagerly she was waiting to hear his reaction to her performance.

  Numie glanced first at Ned to see if he were finished, then at Lola. He felt trapped between two clashing egos.

  The combo was getting tired by the time Numie reached the floor. His head was spinning, and he wanted to lie down in some soft bed somewhere. It'd been a long day.

  "What you and Ned rapping about?" Lola asked sharply, growing angry that Numie didn't comment on her show.

  "He's been filling me in on the facts of life," Numie said, dreading the eyes looking at him.

  "Ned Papy talks big and looks big, but he's no match for Lola La Mour." She reasoned that Ned had probably been telling unflattering lies about her. Leaning close, she whispered into Numie's ear. "Did he let you in on the big secret? He's madly in love with this here lady looking at you right now." She stepped back, seeking a light, any light, so she could shine. "Yeah, me. Always trying to get in my perfumed drawers."

  Numie was startled.

  "Promises he'll leave Dinah any minute, day or night, for a chance at my honeypot." She looked into Numie's eyes. Was he doubting her word? "The stud's crazy for me," she said more emphatically. "I'm driving him up the wall." Waving her boa madly, she danced across the wooden floor, the sound of her high heels echoing across the old opera house.

  The night wore on. Most of it spent by Numie alone at the booth. The liquo
r numbed him. He hoped the more he drank, the more anesthetized he'd become. He wanted to blot out everything. He didn't belong here. Trouble was, he didn't know where he belonged. If any place. Just hang in, pass the time.

  A t the peak of her energy, Lola never missed a dance. A tone point, Ned pulled off his shirt, and he and Lola danced a dry hump in the center of the stage. The crowd wildly cheered, clapping their hands in rhythm.

  Ned was coming on strong with Lola. Could Lola be telling the truth? Did Ned really dig her? But, no, it was just an act.

  Besides, that chick was mad. Christ, now Numie was calling Lola a chick. Lola was no chick. She was a man. He must remember that. It seemed easier to think of her as a chick than a man. What could he call her? It? Nothing seemed to fit. Where did the real world leave off and the fake one begin? Quit thinking, for God's sake, he told himself. Stop racking your brain. Let it rest in peace.

  Head swimming something fierce now, Numie made his way outside the club for some fresh air. It was nearly dawn.

  In the distance, a church carillon sounded its morning chimes.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Facel-Vega careened into the driveway of Sacre-Coeur. With nervous anticipation, Numie slid out from behind the seat.

  Leonora was in her rose garden. A white fedora and large, oval-shaped sunglasses concealed most of her face. Her silk jersey dress, soft and voluminous, was like a Greek costume, except she'd tightened it around her thin waist with a belt. In white strap sandals, she walked to her favorite rose bush, fingering its soft mauve flower, in perfect harmony with her dress color.

  "You're late'" she accused, perking her head like a caged bird. She knew he wasn't, but wanted to put him on the defensive.

  Her charge was like a bolt to him. He stood in the garden with uncertainty, mustering the courage to reply. "No, I'm not," he protested. "I just got the call ten minutes ago you were ready to go out."

  "Never mind," she said, brushing the hot air with her hand. "I don't have time for excuses." Her lips curled slightly as she regarded the sun. She hated it. Why couldn't the world always be dark? It was so much more mysterious and romantic. "I want you to drive me out by the beach."

  Still stung by this forbidding autocrat, Numie just stood there for a moment. Then, recovering, he opened the door to the rear compartment of her black Lincoln, helping her inside.

  She slid onto the leopard-skin upholstery, seemingly sinking into it. She was a hopeless sentimentalist, she knew. Riding in this car, remembering all the people who'd ridden in it with her, got her through many a difficul t day.

  In the driver's seat, he was examining the dashboard. He could feel her piercing eyes, boring into the back of his neck.

  "Hurry up," she called on the earphone. Her anxiety was mounting, as it always did when she paid these four calls out by the beach, although they were part of her weekly routine. "I don't have all morning"

  "I was just checking something," he yelled back, barely disguising the anger in his voice. He was not interested in presenting valentines to the old monster in the rear compartment.

  She didn't respond. The engine's groan blotted out her thoughts for the moment, as Numie carefully inched the wide car through the narrow gate.

  Numie would be just one in a long line of chauffeurs who drove in and out of her life. He would be no worse, no better, than the rest. With all of them, she'd tried to establish a human relationship, but every time she reached out she sounded more like a tyrant. For some reason, she seemed to say and do all the wrong things. Every time she extended her feelers, she feared she did so badly, even menacingly. They were cut off. Surreptitiously she watched people, eavesdropped on their conversations, observed their body movements, their mannerisms—all this in an attempt to relate to them.

  From afar she studied Numie. His skin was good, his chin showed some character. But yet he had the look of the unapproachable about him. He was like a lithe, white statue—all orderly and immaculate.

  Inspecting the carved emerald glittering on her perfectly shaped hand, she smiled to herself. It was a smile of self-contempt. Here she was this morning riding in the little claptrap honky-tonk of Tortuga, wondering in her desperate loneliness how to relate to a chauffeur who was a former prostitute.

  She, Leonora de la Mer, who had been adored by kings, even a president of the United States.

  Along the northern shore road, a mile out of town, the houses ended abruptly. He stepped on the accelerator, sending the Lincoln zooming up the road. In spots, the pavement was cracked or broken by rubber tree roots shooting out in all directions in search of nourishment. In back, Leonora was sitting quietly.

  The scents of August were in the air.

  Numie stared intently at the road he was taking to the barren, northern comer of the island. Rows of bent-over, blight-plagued coconut trees grew along the way. Here, a deserted hamburger house, its faded letters, Sweet Daddy's Bar, still visible. There, a gigantic blanket of philodendron vines covering an abandoned Civil War fort.

  He was still sleepy. Anne's call had wakened him less than twenty minutes ago.

  What was Leonora up to, asking to be driven to this remote section of the island so early in the morning? She was not saying a word. In the rear-view mirror, she loomed from her serene position—eyes steadfast.

  "Slow down," came her commanding voice over the earphone.

  In the clearing, almost completely obscured by dumps of banana trees, was a wooden shack, with a patched tin roof and unpainted walls.

  "Pull in here," came her second order.

  "Are you getting out?" he asked, after he'd opened the rear door for her.

  "No, darling," she said, "not this morning." Reaching into her pearl-studded purse, she carefully handed Numie two one-dollar bills, fingering each to see that none had stuck together.

  "What's this for?" he asked. The mystery was growing by the moment.

  Leonora looked over to him. Should she tell? Bring Numie into her confidence? "For the voodoo queen inside," she finally said. "You can go right in—no need to knock."

  "Voodoo?" He hesitated. Was Leonora crazy? "Just give her two dollars and split? Why, if you don't mind my asking?"

  "Her reward, " Leonora said softly.

  "For what?" Numie was determined to know. After all, he could be walking into some sort of trap.

  Leonora touched her breast softly. A sharp pain was shooting through her chest. "When I was very young and all the other children were making fun of me—the ugly duckling, remember?—that sweet old soul in there told my fortune." The pain subsided. "Bless the dear heart, she's still alive."

  "What'd she tell you?"

  "It's a long story. Do you really want to know?"

  "Yes, if I'm going in there. This place gives me the creeps."

  She gave him an extended look. "It was at a county bazaar to raise money for our boys in World War I. She had a little booth. Everybody was in costume. I, a gypsy girl." She paused a moment, trying to recall if she were beautiful then. "I still remember what the voodoo queen said to me" "You will suffer great hardship. But in the end you will triumph over your enemies. You will go far in the world, dazzling friend and foe alike with your charm and talent. One day your name will be known in every corner of the earth."

  "She told you all that?" Those lines sounded more like something Leonora would say, not some voodoo queen.

  "Of course, she told it to me," Leonora said, her patience tested. She had been told something like that. Not the exact words, maybe, but close enough. "Do you think I just make up things?"

  "No, but why the two dollars?"

  "I give her that every week," Leonora said nonchalantly. 'Two dollars a week?"

  "Naturally. You may think that extravagant for a fortune told so long ago. Back then, I paid a quarter. I've always been generous, as I've told you. It's a fault, I know."

  Numie had just the opposite reaction. Leonora was about the tightest woman he'd ever encountered.

  "Ever
since I returned to Tortuga and found out she was still alive, living in this horrible poverty, I've paid her this gratuity."

  "Why doesn't she go on welfare?" Numie asked.

  "I've tried to get her to avail herself of public assistance, but she's too proud—and I, of all people, understand that." Leonora sank back into the leopard skin. "The only thing she has to live on is the money I give her."

  Taking the money, Numie was heading for the shack, feeling he was part of some ritual between Leonora and the voodoo queen he didn't understand.

  A tall shrub beside the front door shimmered and glistened, with bits of glass, mirror, and tinfoil tied to its branches. It reminded Numie of a Christmas tree. But what was its real purpose? To scare away evil spirits?

  Inside the main room was dark and rancid smelling. Unpainted walls held a bizarre collection of voodoo artifacts. Pinned up was a double-page spread of a nude white girl, surrounded by pictures of animals. Underneath it was a childlike drawing of Satan, mounted on velvet. On a shelf rested dried chicken heads in Dixie cups. Held by a purple and gold ribbon were a group of chicken feathers, a collection of snake skins, and oddly shaped cutouts of bright tin.

  On a carpet in the corner lay a huge beast of a mulatto woman. Her eyes were closed. No longer brown, her skin was almost elephant gray. Huge rings of colored glass covered every finger; and bracelets of brass and wood dangled from her neck and both arms. Purple lipstick, put on badly, coated her thick mouth. In one limp hand she held a voodoo doll. Her hair was a bleached-out yellow gray. Suddenly, she opened her eyes. They were like those of a caged animal, their vision cruel. With her long red-painted nails, she started to claw at the voodoo doll.

  "Hi," Numie said. In the dazzling heat, he stood fascinated. "Miss De la Mer's here. Parked right outside" His nervousness was growing. 'Told me to give you this" He placed the two dollars on a low brass table holding a group of lit candles.