Butterflies in Heat

by Darwin Porter

  Her stare continued.

  Not knowing what to say then, Numie looked up at the ceiling. A pumpkin-sized mirrored ball revolved back and forth, casting a psychedelic illusion, as it picked up the reflection from the candlelight below.

  Propping herself up on the cushions, the woman raised her head. "Whose errand is it you running?"

  "Miss De la Mer's." He felt he was really looking at a freak now. "She's right outside waiting in the car."

  "Let the white bitch wait!" She shot him a look that could burn skin.

  At first, he thought he didn't understand. "What did you say?"

  "You heard me the first time. Let her wait." Her face twisted as she raised herself higher on the carpet. "That white bitch, coming around every week with her no-good two dollars. Giving me money—like I'm a common nigger. She don't know who she's talking to"

  The wind from the ocean blew a broken shutter, sending it banging against the shack. Numie jumped as if hit. "Just who are you?"

  The woman's face was filled with contempt. "That's none of your business." Then her face softened. "Except I'm proud of who I am. I'm Erzulie."

  "That's a strange name."

  "Not strange at all," she practically hissed. "If you wasn't so dumb, you'd know that's the name of the Haitian Venus. But I don't have time to start educating the messenger boy of that white bitch."

  Numie was growing increasingly irritated. If Leonora had a feud going with this queen of the freaks, let Leonora handle it. He almost turned away in disgust. But curiosity drew him into one more attempt to learn something about Erzulie. "She claims you told her fortune when she was young."

  At this, Erzulie spat. "The bitch is older than lam." She wiped something off her chin. "She's got me mixed up with a woman who died thirty years ago." Erzulie spat again. "Besides, I'm no goddamn fortune teller."

  "Why don't you straighten her out?"

  She broke into a spasm of desperate giggles. "I've told her fifty times, but she don't believe me" Erzulie's teeth were yellow fangs. It was as if she'd sharpened them. "Said I'm senile and don't remember." That giggle again. 'Thinks I'm crazy, she does. She don't know she's the crazy one." Her voice echoed through the house.

  The feeling was eerie. The rancid smell of the room was now penetrating to him. "I've got to go."

  "Give her one message from me, seeing you're running a telegram service around here. Tell her one day I'm going to make a doll and get her!" Staring him right in the eye, Erzulie laughed loudly.

  Even the hot sun outdoors, the blinding glare, couldn't blot out that crazed look.

  Back in the Lincoln, Leonora said, "You took long enough. Was she grateful?"

  Numie sighed. He'd run from one mad woman to another. "Sure was," he replied. "Couldn't live without your weekly gift."

  "So many people, so many depend on me," she said, sinking back once more into her soft leopard skin.

  In the distance was a playground, its meager grass slowly consumed in a dust bowl. Steel lids of garbage cans, smashed whiskey bottles, and old beer cans littered the grounds, along with popsicle wrappers.

  In the back, a tangle of bushes propped up a sagging fence, on which a rusty Nehi beverage sign rested. Someone had tried to build a shanty, but had abandoned it. Tarpaulin layover the unused materials.

  Leonora surveyed the scene. She feared she looked tired today. It had been more than a week since she'd last slept well. At the playground she always liked to appear looking her best. "Our next stop," she called to Numie.

  "Here?" he questioned, thinking he hadn't heard correctly.

  "Here!" she said more firmly.

  Helping her out, he led her over to a broken-down picnic table. In the distance, four boys were playing ball.

  "The first night I met you, you said you liked to keep in touch with the young generation," he said. "Is this how you do it?"

  Her tension was visibly surfacing, and his question infuriated her. "Don't be impertinent."

  "Didn't mean to be," he said, fearing her anger. "I just didn't know you liked kids, that's all. In fact, I would have guessed the opposite."

  A disturbing memory nudged her brain, but she was fighting its coming into focus. "I loathe children." The statement didn't seem quite complete. She added, "Especially one called Ruthie Elvina."

  Numie surveyed the boys playing. "Then why did we stop?"

  In the glare of the sun, she looked up at him, but chose not to answer. How could she explain it to this simple hustler? She used to play on this very ground when she was but a young girl. A school had stood nearby, but it burned down. She hadn't wanted to join in the games, but her teacher had forced her. None of the other children ever wanted to play with her. The boys always made fun of her, always calling her a scarecrow. Slowly she ran her hands down her side, as if to assure herself of its curvaceous line.

  The girls hadn't wanted to have anything to do with her, but they never jeered. The boys always did, though. She grew to hate them, considering them the cruelest and most heartless creatures on earth. Men were hardly better, but boys were the worse.

  She got up and walked back to the car. Reaching the Lincoln before Numie, she opened it for herself.

  At this point, a red-haired boy, fifteen or less, braked his bicycle at her side.

  She raised her hands to her face to shield it from the dust. Who would dare intrude on this private moment of hers?

  Tan and lean, the boy was wearing tennis shoes, a T-shirt, and jeans.

  Catching up with them, Numie contrasted the boy's openness to life with Leonora's elaborate dress and haughty manner.

  "That your car, lady?" he asked.

  Annoyed, she tried to control her temper. "Yes," she said stiffly, hoping the boy would go away.

  "This is a pretty swell car, but I know an old Rolls-Royce that's better. Also this black chick I've seen has got a white Facel-Vega. "

  That did it! Arching her back, Leonora glared at the boy. "My automobile is the finest on the island—a lincoln custom made in 1926. It has everything"

  "Is that a phone?" the boy asked, peeking inside.

  "An earphone so I can speak to my driver up front," she said. She'd decided to let the boy have a look. He couldn't be left with the impression that Lola's Facel-Vega was better than her limousine.

  "I thought I knew a lot about cars," the boy said, "but I ain't never seen a car with a phone in it."

  "It's not a telephone," Leonora said.

  "Is that a real leopard?"

  "Yes," she said coldly. "If there's one thing in this world I can't abide, it's imitation leopard skin"

  The boy stepped inside, putting his knee on the seat, running his dirty hand across the leopard skin. 'Wow!"

  "Do you mind getting out of my car and out of my way?" Leonora asked harshly. When the boy didn't budge, she seized his shirt and yanked.

  The boy quickly got out.

  That memory nudging her brain, she knew what it was. It moved to the forefront. This teenaged boy could be the grandson of the one of long ago who'd led the pack taunting her. The exact image, or so it seemed.

  The boy stepped back. "I was just taking a look," he said, puzzled.

  "Look some place else, " she said, climbing into the compartment. She slammed the door shut, narrowly missing catching the boy's fingers.

  He jumped back. "What's the matter with her?" he asked Numie.

  "She just doesn't want to be bothered, kid," Numie said. "Simple as that."

  Behind the wheel, Numie pulled the Lincoln out of the playground. He called back to Leonora. "Just where did you get that leopard skin?"

  "A famous novelist whose identity I don't care to divulge presented it to me," she said. "He killed the leopard on a safari in Africa. I took the skin, but turned down the proposition." She welcomed this opportunity to present a more glamorous picture of herself to Numie, after her difficulty at the playground.

  Saying no more, Numie kept his eyes on the road straight ahead.

&nbs
p; Few things shocked or surprised him any more. But it seemed that Leonora had deliberately tried to catch that boy's hand in the car door. Maybe Numie was exaggerating, but her cruelty appeared profound. Did she hate that much?

  The same fear he had about Lola's madness was consuming him about Leonora. Would he be safe with her? Or would she tum violently against him the moment he displeased her?

  He'd have to be more careful with her. After all, he didn't want to get his hand caught in any car door. Or, in anything else.

  Sighing, he took a deep breath. For this job, he was getting seventy-five dollars a week. What a joke! Now he knew why he'd never wanted a regular job before.

  On the earphone again, Leonora was urging him to stop. There was nothing in sight this time, except fields of mangrove.

  Helping her out, he wanted to say something about the boy, but thought better of it.

  Shading her sunglassed eyes from the sun, she pointed to the deserted fields. She was filled with pride. "This land is all mine ... and Commodore Philip's."

  Numie took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. "You and the commodore seem to own everything in town."

  She smiled at him, feeling confident and self-contained. "We do a great deal. We're partners in real estate."

  "Sacre-Coeur, too?"

  "No," she said. "That's the only thing I own in my own name. The bar is totally his. Even my fashion house is jointly owned"

  He surveyed the wide expanse. "What are you going to do with all this land?"

  "Develop it some day," she said, "when the price is right. Tum it into high-rise condominiums" A bird flew over her head, and she ducked almost in fear. Regaining her composure, she advised, "Hold onto land, Numie. It's going to be the most valuable thing there is"

  Was she kidding? "I can hardly buy land on my salary," he said pointedly.

  She looked at him harshly, realizing what she'd said and how ridiculous it sounded. If she didn't change the subject soon, he might be hitting her for another raise. "Let's not talk about money, darling. It's not only a vulgar subject, but bores me this hour of the morning."

  Their next stop was the Sunset Trailer Court. The main sign to the camp was held up by a pair of round pillars made of conch shells cast in cement. Another sign out front promised free showers and laundry, but warned of no pets.

  Helping her once again from the car, Numie was puzzled. "This is where my daddy and mama finally ended their days," she said. "At their paradise in the sun. When their .house burned down, along with my school, I got this for them"

  Inside the picket fence surrounding the camp was a trailer off to the right. It had been here the longest. Since 1947, she remembered exactly. Funny, she thought, lookingatitnow, but it had been considered luxurious at the time. "That's where they lived," she said, waving her hand.

  "What do you want with that thing?" he asked.

  "Sentimental reasons," she said, turning her back to him.

  Hibiscus growing from the trailer's tiny front patio made access to the door difficult, but she refused to have it cut. Behind the foliage, the boxy trailer was made of plywood, and the humid weather had done cruel things to it. Its tires had long gone flat and were rotting. The orchid paint had peeled and cracked, revealing previous colors of slime green and yellow. A sagging flower box nailed to a small window held plastic tulips.

  Leonora inserted the key and went inside, shutting the door in Numie's face.

  The air was stale inside. Very little light came in, as the cracked window glass was fogged. In the center of the room was a fold-up card table and a pair of bridge chairs shaded by a pink silk fringed lamp.

  She sat in her usual chair, after carefully dusting it. Her eyes drifted around the trailer. For a few minutes every week, she came here—just to sit and meditate. For as long as she lived, she wanted to remind herself of her origins. It was worth the price she paid.

  That price was staring at her in a photograph her mama had tacked to the wall decades ago. Norton Huttnar, her miserable excuse for a husband, and the most hideous man she'd ever met.

  She shuddered just thinking about the repulsive bastard. Except for this weekly interlude, she tried to forget how awful he was. But she remembered all too well.

  Very old and very rich, with a fondness for teenage girls—that was Norton Huttnar. He'd first spotted her at a dancing class, right in Tortuga. Her body was starting to fill out some then, and she was on her way toward becoming spectacularly attractive. He owned Sacre-Coeur—which was his winter house, though he spent his summers in Southampton. At first he'd been interested in Ruthie Elvina, but then his interest had shifted to Leonora.

  Why did she marry him? The answer was all too obvious. One look at where her parents ended up was all the reason she needed. In those days, she would have done anything to get out of Tortuga. Every night, the same. Her daddy would come home drunk, smelling of dead fish. He'd beat hell out of her mama, and Leonora had to watch. Once she stepped between them, trying to break it up, but he'd bashed her mouth in, knocking out her two front teeth.

  When Norton had wanted to marry her, her daddy had been only too willing. Besides, her future husband had offered to set her daddy up in business.

  A tear came to Leonora's eye. She was literally purchased like a slave on the auction block. She was only sixteen years old at the time.

  Norton, the son-of-a-bitch, was seventy four!

  She'd been so innocent on their honeymoon until Norton introduced her to the bizarre. She'd been in bed, lying there terrified, and he was spending an eternity in his dressing room. Finally, the door creaked open. When she saw him, she screamed.

  Never in her young life had she ever been confronted with such a thing. There Norton stood, his mouth painted like bee-stung lips, his cheeks heavily rouged. He was wearing a white wig, the color of eggshell—three tiered at that. He'd painted his eyebrows jetblack with mascara, even though the gray still showed through.

  His flamenco red harem pantaloons were held up by spaghetti straps. You could see right through to his jockstrap studded with pink pearls. He'd painted his breasts a turkey-comb red, and had pasted sequins around them. Iridescent beads dangled from his neck. Red silk stockings covered his legs under those pants. They were held up by garter belts, trimmed in lace. He was teetering on heels dangerously high for a man of his age, his shoes glittering with rhinestones.

  Right in front of her, he'd parted those red lips and removed his false teeth. Remembering, she fell back against her chair.

  That awful kewpie doll face. That sagging chin, those thick jowls. As he got closer to her, his disgusting perfume made her want to vomit. And he was wearing pancake makeup. She held her breasts. She could still feel those horrible gums working over her tender breasts, sliding up and down, slobbering over her. She'd clawed his back. He'd taken it for passion, but it was really punishment for violating her.

  After she'd endured that night, she knew she could endure anything. No experience she'd ever had since equalled the horror of her wedding night. But she'd been determined. While Norton was assaulting her, she had tried to fill her mind with beautiful fantasies to blot out what was happening. But his bestiality had been so overpowering it had destroyed her dreams.

  She'd known that if she failed him, she was doomed. What did she have waiting for her back in Tortuga? At the time it would have been possible to put up with anything. And she did. Night after night until Norton was finally dead. She still was grateful that he'd lived for only four more years. But those were the four longest years of her life.

  She smiled in triumph and rose to her feet, a little wobbly on the trailer floor. She'd inherited everything after Norton died. And she'd earned it!

  With Norton's money and the influential contacts she had made as his wife, she was launched into fashion.

  The rest was history.

  Outside the trailer again, Numie looked up at the Royal Poinciana trees blanketing the camp. Their leaves were fern-like and delicate, and many of
them had scarlet and orange blossoms.

  Noticing where he was looking, Leonora said, "When I was a child, we called this the flame tree. These trees always made me sad."

  "Why?" he asked, wondering what she'd been up to in the trailer.

  "They are so beautiful from June to September, but then long green pods filled with seeds appear on them. In winter, these pods tum black. The tree is bare of both leaves and flowers and looks strangely forlorn."

  "They're mighty pretty now."

  Eyes fixed on the tree, Leonora wandered over, reaching out to touch its bark. She fingered it, her nails digging in.

  "I used to imagine those pods were dead bats sleeping through the winter. I kept praying for spring when they would fly away"

  Chapter Seventeen

  The road was winding along the water's edge. It was of rough coral, without streetlights or fencing. He braked the Lincoln as they neared a neon sign that read, simply, JOAN'S.

  In the back seat, Leonora motioned for him to go ahead.

  He looked up the driveway, then shifted gears. The car bounced along the rock-strewn road until a square, two-story white building emerged from behind a stumpy key lime grove.

  The house was an acid green. The second story had a long balcony, each cut-out spoke painted a different pastel. An overgrown passion vine devoured the railings and posts, climbing to the roof. It provided a screen for two women, sitting in a row of rockers and peeking out. Overhead a string of colored lights continuously blinked.

  Opening the door for Leonora, he helped her out. The piercing cry of birds meant the morning was far advanced.

  Leonora's hand touched her hat. "This house used to belong to a Baptist preacher," she said, amused. "A real redneck." She clutched the fedora again, seemingly protecting it from the birds. "Built in 1875. Wish he could see it now."

  Eyes glued to her every move, Numie wondered what new adventure she was taking him on. "Is this a restaurant?" he asked.

  Leonora shook her head then looked in the direction of the house. She laughed. "Yes, dear heart, the garden of delights!" Then she walked quickly up the steps, ignoring the women on the porch, and passing through cranberry-etched glass doors into the central hall.