Butterflies in Heat

by Darwin Porter

  "You are my only brother," Amelia said, "and it seems fitting and proper that I take a sisterly interest in you. I know that all of life is predicated on us old folks moving on to make room for the new additions."

  The commodore gave out with a deprecatory chuckle. "The way I see it," he said, "you figure I'm gonna be giving up my ground space before you, except what is allotted me in the cemetery." There was a long silence at the other end of the wire. He used the time to look at the badly chipped paint on the mustard-colored walls. He probably should have had this bar painted years ago, but now didn't plan to do anything about it. It was too late! He moved slightly out of the way. A ceiling fan was turned right on him. He couldn't run the risk of catching pneumonia.

  "Now, that is an accusation that is simply not supported by the facts," Amelia finally said.

  "Then what is the purpose of this telephone call?" the commodore asked. "If I recollect correctly, until I hit it big in real estate I never received one letter from that big old house in Vieux Carre."

  "You know as well as I do that I was laboring day and day and night with sister Blanche Mae. A tubercular in the household is hard on the living. There was no money coming in, no money at all. And that awful Cajun gal—knocking on the door day and night—daiming falsely you were her legitimate husband."

  "I was!" the commodore said defiantly.

  "Philip, there are things in this world better left unmentioned. "

  "Then why did you bring her up?" he asked.

  "I know that sometimes a dying .. J mean a man not altogether well."

  The huge expanse of his chest caved in. The air just went out of him, and he seemed too weak to breathe any back in. Slowly his lungs started to fill up again. He clasped his hand over the receiver so that Amelia couldn't hear his heavy breathing. A gold chain with little trinkets hanging from it crisscrossed his chest. When the trinkets started moving, he knew he was all right. "You might as well come out with it, Sister Amelia. To you, I'm already six feet under."

  "Well, we can pray to the good Lord you'll live to be a hundred, but then we must face the realities of life."

  "I think my family could smell a gold coin if it was forty miles ahead on the dirt road."

  "Now that's a ghastly lie. Greed is a sin, and I've never sinned the way you have, Philip."

  "Are you referring to what was commonly known as my kinky nocturnal habits?"

  "Please, all these years I've turned a deaf ear to the vicious rumors spread about you. I've always tried to hold my head high in this town."

  "I will ask you again. What is the purpose of this telephone conversation which is costing me my hard-earned money?"

  "I want you to invite me to Tortuga to look after you."

  The mountain that was the commodore suddenly blew up in volcanic flame. "That would be like putting the most hungry, red-eyed, fang-toothed, saliva-dripping wolf to guard the most succulent of spring lambs."

  "I resent that!"

  His heart was accelerating, and his forehead was beaded with perspiration. He whipped the white handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe the sweat. But when its blood smear appeared, he quickly concealed it from himself.

  Amelia seemed to be mustering her courage. "I know that when a man is in ill health—and I have it on the best of authority you're not altogether yourself right now—he's liable to do something downright crazy. Some hussy's liable to come along and make a grab for everything you have. Things that properly belong to the Le Blanc family, not some foreign invader wanting to fill her head with gold teeth."

  "Sister Amelia," the commodore said with strained courtesy, "if you had been to the dentist within the last forty years, you'd know that nobody orders gold teeth no more."

  "It was just a matter of expression. I know how susceptible you are to designing females."

  "You mean the Cajun gal, my former wife?"

  "That matrimonial status I've never accepted. I never saw any marriage license, and I think it was all a terrible joke to humiliate me and our poor dead tubercular sister and the pure memory of our departed parents, God bless their eternal souls."

  He looked at his gold watch and stuffed it back in his waistcoat pocket. "This conversation has gone far enough. I do not own stock in Southern Bell. Something tells me you've heard more than just my medical report."

  "As a matter of fact, I have. The word is, you're in Tortuga ,keeping company with a cabaret entertainer of ill repute."

  Puffing, his face reddening by the minute, the commodore said, "You've been correctly informed, my dear, correctly informed." The room was going slightly black. "I might be planning to take the next express to the pearly gates, but I'm gonna do you one last favor, Sister Amelia."

  "Now for the first time this evening during this seemingly interminable conversation, you are making some sense."

  A wry smile crossed the commodore's lips. "I know that if I have to pack up and ship out tomorrow, you'll be all alone in this world. We're the last of the line in the Le Blanc family. You never knew a man, Sister Amelia, and I knew too many."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "A private reference—forget it. I am indeed planning to take upon myself a wedded wife." He chuckled almost to himself, the idea blossoming. "At least, with me out of the picture, you'll be left with a sister-in-law."

  "Philip!" The shrill pitch of her voice came all the way from New Orleans. It was almost as if she didn't need the telephone wires.

  Gently he placed the receiver back on its hook. A faded photograph of him on the wall stared back. He'd caught a big one that day, topping every man he took out on his yacht. The old commodore was quite a man, he mused to himself.

  Then he said out loud, "Still is, goddamn it!"

  Sunshine was back, placing an array of appetizers on the table.

  Settling in once again, the commodore surveyed the offerings. "Eating's an art with me," he told Numie.

  The whole idea of food didn't set well on Numie's stomach.

  Nervously, Lola was casting glances at the commodore. Telephone calls from Sister Amelia always filled her with anxiety.

  The commodore continued to ignore her, even though he knew she was dying to learn the particulars of his recent conversation. "In the past long years, the pleasures of the table have been denied me by my doctors." Then, chuckling almost to himself, he said, "Also, the pleasures of the bed. Tonight I've decided to change all that."

  A lump rose in Numie's throat. Surely the commodore didn't have him in mind.

  "Hell, I'm gonna die anyway," the commodore said. "As all men will. Why not die getting some enjoyment out of life?"

  Lola pretended great concern. "You're not going to die," she said in baby-talk. "I'd kill myself if something ever happened to you, daddy." She sat back, sipping her drink. That statement was a little far-fetched, she reasoned. Better tone it down a bit next time around.

  He didn't pay her any attention, his eyes riveted to the dishes placed before him. "Just look at these goodies," he said, almost to himself. "Shrimp whets with Trappey's Torrido sauce, hot oysters Diablo with Tabasco, Bayou bouchees with crawfish, and St. Louis souse." He breathed in heavily. "Ain't seen food like this in so many years I forget what it looks like, much less how it feels swimming around in my gut." He rubbed his stomach, then looked over at Numie. "Dig in, boy."

  "I don't know what anything is," Numie said, not wanting any of it. "But it sure looks good." Gingerly he started helping himself.

  "My grandmother's iron skillet produced some of the best vittles I've ever eaten," the commodore said, his voice increasingly boisterous. "Sunshine, he's from her side of the family, can cook almost as good." He downed the rest of his drink. "Sunshine," he yelled again. "You forgot what I told you. Got that Piper-Heidsieck chilled?" We're gonna have Piper-Heidsieck with every course. Ever had champagne, boy?"

  "Yeah, once or twice," Numie said, sensing a troubled look in the commodore's eyes. "I almost got some my first night at this bar. But I w
as asked to leave before the bottle was served."

  This amused the commodore immensely, enough so that it brought on another coughing spasm. "Must have been Leonora—she's the only one who orders champagne in this place other than myself." He handed his much-used handkerchief to Lola. "Fetch me another one," he ordered.

  He made her want to throw up! She quickly left the booth, but was back in just a few minutes with a freshly laundered one.

  Sunshine appeared with the glasses and bottle.

  No one said anything for a long while. When the commodore ate, he was like a hungry man away from food too long. He smiled to himself, knowing he was taking poison into his system. But it was mighty good poison. "Used to put away bigger meals than this," he said to Numie.

  "You will again," Lola cooed.

  He turned and kissed her on the nose. "Yeah, along with the good food; this black hussy here is just what I've always wanted."

  Lola beamed.

  "Of course, the commodore added, "I had to have the poor thing's teeth fixed. They were just plain rotten, shaped like a dog's teeth when I first met up with her."

  Lola was crestfallen. She couldn't stand calling attention to any imperfection. "Now don't you go telling family secrets," she admonished, examining a red fingernail and pretending she wasn't crushed.

  Numie wasn't paying much attention. He kept noticing the awful lighting in this bar. It made both the commodore and Lola look like dead things.

  Sunshine was back with a pot of soup.

  The commodore smelled it, then accepted it. Once when he was a boy, this soup had been the only thing he could swallow after a bout with diphtheria. "My mama always kept a pot simmering on back of the stove,' he said, ladling out a bowl for each of them. "Always putting her stock and herbs in it, a soupe-en-famille."

  Lola disliked the portion he gave her. "You gonna make me fat, sweet baby."

  Again, he paid no attention to her, lost in his own memories. The only way he'd been able to live with Lola all this time was to blot her out until he needed her services. "When an old man's dying ... "

  Lola started to protest.

  But just one hostile glance from the commodore was enough to silence her. "As I was saying before I was almost interrupted, when an old man's dying, he likes to go back and dig up the best of his past. A pot of soup—that's my past. Now try it, boy." .

  Numie tasted it, but didn't like it. He smiled instead, saying, "It's good. Never had food like this before."

  "It's Creole gumbo," the commodore said, "made with God only knows how much crabmeat and some Red Devil sauce to spice it up." He stopped talking for a while. The only sound in the bar was the commodore's slurping.

  Lola was fidgety. Finally, she couldn't hold back any longer. "Just what was on Sister Amelia's mind?"

  The commodore stopped slurping long enough to look at her, but he didn't really take in her face. "Everybody in the world is after my money—except Lola. My Lola would be with me, even if I was the poorest man in Tortuga." He laughed under his breath at the absurdity of that statement. "Which I'm not, incidentally," he said to Numie wjth a twinkle in his eye.

  Lola relaxed now. This was the kind of compliment she liked to hear. Of course, it was a complete lie, but she was pleased to know how she'd fooled him.

  "How can you be sure you're going to die?" N umie asked.

  "A man knows when he's gonna die—at least if that man's got some horse sense." His voice sounded truly hurt. "Myoid ticker won't even hold up for an operation—that's what my doctors fear."

  "What kind of operation do you need?" Numie asked, only in an attempt to make conversation and not out of any genuine interest.

  The commodore eyed him strangely, almost debating whether he should explain. "Sons of bitches up there on the mainland think I've got cancer in my gut, " he blurted out.

  Numie was shocked at this candid admission.

  Lola remained silent. She was long ago aware of this bit of information. In fact, she'd prayed for the growth of that cancer for so long she thought God had not heard her.

  "Those bastards," the commodore went on, "They're like pig castrators. They like to stick knives in you every damn chance they get." He shuttered at the prospect of the oncoming surgery. Either that or else the Red Devil sauce was talking back too soon. "I grew up in Bayou Country, wrestling alligators. Now look at me, falling apart."

  Lola started to tell him how handsome he was.

  But he glared at her so savagely this time, she shut up immediately. "Pretty soon it'll be time to kick off around here. First thing I know, the town will be erecting monuments to me."

  "I'm really sorry to hear you're in trouble," Numie said, almost wishing he hadn't. That seemed such a weak observation.

  "My precious baby," Lola said, taking the commodore's arm again. Right in the middle of his soup, she asked, "Give your sexy mama a great big kiss. A gooey-sweet one." The very smell of that mess of blubber sitting next to her caused her to wince. The commodore's mouth on hers aroused such an awful squirming feeling she practically misfired right at the table.

  Numie looked away. The commodore kissed like he slurped soup.

  Again, silence, as each of them finished his soup.

  "Now I know the pleasures I've got in mind for myself are causing me to risk a stroke," the commodore said. "After all, I'm not a fool. My blood pressure's so high the doctors have stopped counting" He brushed away some of the soupy crabmeat he'd dropped on his white linen suit.

  Lola used her toddy to cleanse away the aftermath of his kiss. "Course it's sometimes dangerous for my commodore to be around me. I've been known to raise men's blood pressures something awful."

  Numie looked toward the entrance. He kept hoping someone else would come into the bar tonight. These two colossal egos were about to consume him.

  "Yep, I've really decided," the commodore said, "it's this lack of poon-tang—ain't no good for a man." He stopped for a moment. Did Numie think he was a babbler? The stud didn't seem to be paying too much attention. "I've been sitting on the sidelines too long, when I should have been out there scoring t~uchdowns." This observation amused him. He almost wanted to chuckle, but suppressed it, fearing another coughing spasm.

  Sunshine was placing more dishes on the table.

  Numie was not just full, but was feeling really sick now. This is cracklin' salad," the commodore said, holding a bowl up in front of Numie's nose.

  It was all Numie could do to restrain himself. "Same thing you make cracklin' bread out of?"

  "Same thing," the commodore said, genuinely pleased. "At least you've heard of something. Beginning to think you wasn't too bright." He stopped again. A vague feeling of self-mockery came over him. For some reason, he was compelled to defend himself in front of Numie. "God in his infinite wisdom gave me more sense than most men. Then in his devilish way he went and surrounded me with morons." He glared at Sunshine when he made this accusation.

  "Christ, Phil," Sunshine said, "I never pretended to have a lot of book learning, but I shore can cook."

  "And suck cock," the commodore interjected. He waited quietly for Numie's reaction.

  Numie was having a hard time swallowing some of the crackling salad. He vaguely looked at his empty Scotch glass when the commodore said that. He was beyond the point where such a statement could shock him. Too many men had come right out and asked him if they could suck his cock. Only thing was, he never talked about it at the dinner table.

  "Phil, " Lola admonished, suddenly pretending to be a grand lady. "Now, mind your manners."

  The commodore for a moment was bubbly happy, like a dirty little boy onto something evil. "I showed Sunshine how to do it when he was twelve years old. And he took to it like a calf with one of its mama's tits." He spit out a crackling onto his plate. "When Sunshine ain't in there stirring up raccoon pie, he's out going down on every shrimper on the waterfront." Picking up another bowl, the commodore handed it to Numie. "This here is okra salad with minced shall
ots."

  Numie lit a cigarette right in the middle of the meal. The idea of discussing sex at the table—especially Sunshine's sex life—was just too much of a turn-off.

  Sunshine was soon back with the main course: fried pickled pig's feet.

  "The vegetable sidedish here is pokeweed," the commodore said. "Its berries are poison, but the green is mighty delicious. Want some?"

  "No thanks," Numie answered, trying to figure out how he was going to get out of here peacefully.

  "Shit, boy," the commodore said, "hope you're a better fuck than you are an eater."

  Numie's face reddened. He'd just about had it!

  "I was born and raised on pokeweed," the commodore continued. "The reason I know its berries are poison is that I fed some to our milk cow one day—and she up and died on me."

  Lola was sitting there contemplating all the white mothers she'd had to entertain in her life. Right at this particular moment, she'd like to stuff some pokeweed berries down the commodore's gut.

  "That cow started foaming at the mouth," the commodore said. "Her legs got all wobbly, just like mine are getting now. She fell down right in the pasture, moaning all the time."

  Numie crushed out his cigarette. The commodore won the prize as a dinner conversationalist.

  "Started to swell up," the commodore said. "That cow got twice her size. Her head just lolled to the ground, and I'll never forget those big wide eyes staring at me like I done something wrong, real wrong, 'cept I didn't know the berries were poison." His throat grew constricted. "First brush I ever had with death," he said softly, almost to himself. "Now that damn old Bessie is getting revenge on me for killing her." He looked at the pickled pig's feet Sunshine had place before him, then pushed the plate away. He didn't want to be reminded of animals dying right now. At this point he was feeling too much affinity with their plight.

  Again, an interminable silence while Numie tried his best to finish the main course.

  "Sunshine," the commodore yelled into the kitchen again, "keep the Piper-Heidsieck coming out here, boy." The champagne might relieve the awful constriction that kept building in his throat. Maybe that's where the cancer was spreading, taking on a new base of operations, preparing for his destruction. He gently fingered his throat, yet at the same time wanted to reach down and pull out whatever was there, preventing him from breathing properly.