The Hard Blue Sky

by Shirley Ann Grau

  Annie said: “When are you going into New Orleans?”

  “With the Pixie?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Jesus,” he said, “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t like it here?”

  “Not the most exciting place I’ve ever been.”

  “I know,” Annie said.

  “I bet you don’t get bored.”

  “But I do … awful sometimes.”

  She opened her eyes; he was shaking his head.

  “I do,” she said. “Can I come in to New Orleans with you?”

  “What?”

  “I can get a job,” she said. “I saw the want ads just last week.”

  He scratched his head: the sweat tickled.

  “At the telephone office,” she said.

  “Bet you could at that.”

  “I just don’t want to go in all by myself,” she admitted slowly. “And looks like we going about the same time.”

  “Hell,” he said, “I didn’t know you wanted to leave here.”

  “Only I don’t want to go in by myself … kind of scary,” she said and felt ashamed. “You don’t think I can get a job?”

  “Hell,” he said, “there’s lots of jobs in New Orleans.”

  “You going to take me in?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  She felt herself relax. She stretched, slowly, carefully, all over, like a cat.

  AND THAT NEXT DAY Pete Livaudais came back from the western end of the island where he had been hiding. Story LeBlanc saw him first, walking along the main shell road, which was just a little wider than the other paths. He looked sort of hungry, and there was a growth of spotty kid-beard on his face—but he didn’t look bad, except for his clothes being muddy.

  When he saw him, Story wondered what he should say or if he should take himself back into the brush and disappear. But when they passed, Pete Livaudais just lifted his hand in the half-gesture he had had since he was a child, and said: “Hi.”

  And Story LeBlanc spent the rest of the afternoon telling people what he had seen and how it looked like the kid was over the worst of it.

  “Without losing his wits,” Mamere Terrebonne said when she heard, “yes?”

  “Look all right to me,” Story said.

  “Sometime …” and Mamere touched one yellow wrinkled finger to her forehead.

  When Eddie Livaudais came down to the Rendezvous for a drink later on, he didn’t have to be asked questions. He knew what everybody was wondering and so he told them. “Had to get over the worst,” he said, “and the kid had to do it by himself. Had to go out there where there wasn’t nothing but dogs and animals to watch him.”

  Coming over to hear the news, Annie met Perique just outside the Rendezvous. She hadn’t talked to him for a couple of weeks. “Where you been keeping yourself?” She was glad to see him now.

  “Working,” he said.

  “You going to ask me in for a beer?”

  “If you boyfriend don’t object.”

  There was a little twinge, a little hurt. But she laughed. “I got no boyfriend.”

  “No?”

  “How’s Therese?”

  “Okay.”

  “Haven’t seen her much either, lately.”

  “She been around.”

  His face had gotten more serious in the last couple of weeks, she thought. But maybe it was just the dark. “You look different,” she said.

  “Me? No.”

  They went inside. Over in one corner of the bar, Eddie Livaudais was talking to a little group. Perique went down to the other.

  “You don’t want to hear?”

  He shook his head.

  “Why not?”

  “Don’t like listening to other people’s miseries, me.”

  “I never thought of it that way … but I guess it is so.”

  Perique went around behind the counter and got the two beers himself. “Too busy down there to give us any attention.”

  “They’re interested, all right.”

  “Forgot the glasses.” And he went around the counter again and fished the glasses out from the ice locker. He shook them out, then put them up on the counter.

  “It’s interesting,” she said, “for sure.”

  “You go listen.”

  She shook her head.

  “That what you come over here for.”

  “In a way, but I can hear it later.”

  She poured the beer carefully so that there was no foam. “I’m glad Pete come back, anyway.”

  He nodded.

  “You don’t look happy about it,” she said.

  “There’s all sorts of ways of coming back.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  He leaned sideways against the bar. “You seen Pete yet?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, I see him.”

  She brushed the hair back out of her eyes. “So?”

  “He don’t look good to me.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “You ask me,” Perique said, “and I tell you what I think. Only I can’t tell you why I think it.”

  “What’s he look like?”

  Perique shrugged.

  “Everybody say he look tired to death.”

  “He was plain crazy about that brother of his,” Perique said. “Maybe nobody ever figured out how much until just now.”

  “He took it hard.”

  “Still taking it hard,” Perique said.

  “Everybody say he’s coming out of it.”

  “Maybe,” Perique said.

  Annie turned and squinted into the cracked mirror behind the bar, a mirror trimmied with red and green feathers and some that were just plain gray-brown (that had come straight from ducks). Annie looked at herself and at Perique.

  “You never come by the house,” she said.

  “I thought you was busy.”

  “Not all the time.”

  Down at the other end of the bar, Eddie Livaudais straightened up and pushed his way through the people around him. “I got to get home,” he said over his shoulder. He crossed the room in that loping bowlegged gait of his. “Hi, love birds,” he said to Annie and Perique. And then again over his shoulder to the group that had re-formed in a straight line along the bar, he said: “I got to see how he make out … tired as a puppy dog he come in.”

  “It’s a funny thing for sure,” Perique said quietly, “how getting one back after two days makes him forget how he lost the other one for good.”

  Annie went back to staring at the feathers that fringed the mirror. You could see the lacy work of cobwebs linking them all together.

  “I wish I knew what I thought,” she said.

  “You having trouble?”

  There was a little mocking twist in his voice and she was very sorry the words had slipped out.

  “I haven’t been feeling too good, lately.”

  “Sick?”

  “My head hurts all the time.”

  “It’s all the thoughts,” he said, “swirling around inside.”

  “Quit making fun of me.”

  Like colors, all mixed. And how would you straighten them out? And how would you make sense out of them? Or did you just wait?

  Perique did not come by the house to see her. For a couple of days she thought he would. Then she didn’t expect him anymore.

  THE PICTURES HAD DONE it. Inky kept thinking about her now. First he spread them all out carefully on the port bunk, except one which he pinned to the wall with scotch tape. Then the next day he gathered them all up, and got them set in his hands for tearing up—only he stopped just at the last minute. And put them under the cushions. By the next day they were back out again.

  Still, when he spotted her coming, he ducked below and gathered them up and put them in the big locker. When she got there he was back on deck, polishing the brass lamps. They were lined up on the dock with the little heap of rags and the bottle of polish.

  “Hi,” she said.


  The dock was empty. Mid-afternoon—most people would be home taking a nap after dinner if they weren’t actually out on the boats. Even the September sun was too strong around noon. She could feel it now, burning through the straw hat she had perched on the back of her head.

  “Can I come aboard?” she said.

  He waved his arm. She came. The varnished wood burned the soles of her feet. And when she sat down beside him—he had not put out the cushions—the wood stung the backs of her thighs with its heat. She lifted up her legs, hugging them with her hands.

  “It’s too hot to sit.”

  “Want me to get you a cushion from below?”

  “No,” she brought her legs down, sitting half on her hands. “It get cool in a minute.”

  “You think you ought to be coming out here in broad daylight?”

  “Why not?”

  “People’ll figure out something’s been going on.”

  She watched his face with the prickles of light brown beard. He hadn’t shaved that morning. And he was frowning as he looked at her. “I reckon,” she said, “most everybody know I been sleeping with you.”

  His pipe was out. He stopped and relit it.

  “They ain’t going to mind that,” Annie said.

  “Look,” he said, “if your old man’s coming after me with a shotgun, I want to know it.”

  She smiled, very slowly. “He ain’t going to care about it.”

  “Yea,” he said doubtfully.

  A big brown pelican skimmed over the top of the mast and settled on the water.

  “Want me to help you?” She jumped up suddenly and scrambled out of the cockpit to the dock. Let’s us clean up the lamps.”

  “I’ll be damned,” he said softly as he picked up the polishing rag.

  She crouched back on her haunches, holding the lamp against her thigh. By the time they had finished there was a big black smear reaching almost all around her leg.

  She giggled. “Look what I done.”

  “Got some on the front of your shirt too. And on your face.”

  She rubbed her face with the back of her hand. “Off?”

  “Hell, no.” A single fat torn cat swaggered past them and sniffed the polished lamps. “Come on down below and I’ll get a washrag.”

  They tried to carry all six lamps at once. The sponge fell overboard. They stood and watched it float on the surface of the water and giggled.

  “It ain’t no good,” Annie said. “Let the gars have it. … This deck is burning my feet off.” She ran down the ladder hastily. “Owwwww.”

  “Take the damn lanterns.” He handed them down to her, two at a time. Then he swung down himself, not touching the ladder, but lowering himself by the arms. His leg brushed by her shoulder. She stepped aside.

  They hung the lamps in their gimbals. “Now,” Annie said, “that looks nice and neat, no?”

  “Shipshape, all right.”

  “I wonder, me, sometimes, what you can do on a boat like this all day.”

  “Me?” He scratched his head. Little trickles of sweat were running along his scalp. The cabin was hot and close. “Let me see. I fixed up that air scoop, over the forward hatch, so I could breathe down here better. Then I cleaned up the lamps.”

  “Those old lamps was just sitting on the dock when I come along. I cleaned them as much as you.”

  “You win.” He started to pass her; in the narrow way between the bunks, he brushed hard against her, his shoulder against her breast.

  For one minute she wondered if he felt that as much as she.

  He was stooping down opening the little refrigerator door. “Can I get you a beer?”

  “I don’t want anything, me.”

  His face was so close that she could see the little flecks of black in his blue eyes. “Have some brandy … I’m not paying for it.”

  She pulled away and sat down on the bunk, tucking her feet under her, keeping her thighs pressed tight together.

  “Ever taste brandy?”

  She shook her head.

  “Here.” He poured an inch or so in the bottom of a tumbler and handed it to her. “Taste it.”

  She took a mouthful, swallowed and sputtered. Two tears came to the corners of her eyes. She brushed them away and rubbed at her throat.

  He was laughing. “I didn’t tell you to go take a big mouthful.”

  With one hand still rubbing her aching throat, she threw the rest at him. He caught the glass neatly. But the brown liquid formed a trail across the polished floor, up the blue-and-white-striped cover of the bunks. Some even splattered the portholes and ran down the white-painted wood.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said. “The varnish!”

  “Clean that up, Mister Funny Rabbit. I got other things to do.”

  She had one foot on the ladder when he grabbed her around the waist. “Honey, if I wasn’t crazy about you, you’d end overboard, for sure.” He backed up, holding her, and sat down, still holding her so that she sat in his lap.

  She laughed, a short quick little giggle. “You never got that drink.”

  “Nope.” He was nibbling at the back of her neck, pulling the hair between his teeth.

  “Lemme get it for you.”

  “Hell, no,” he said, “I got enough to clean up now.”

  “Crazy old man, I ain’t going to spill nothing.” She pulled free, and getting the brandy poured it out in the same glass. “Like this?”

  “Plenty.”

  “And I got to fix one for myself,” she said. She mixed a little Bourbon with a glass of water and bounced down on the opposite bunk.

  “That all?” he frowned. “That wouldn’t make a baby high.”

  She giggled again, the same way. All her laughs sounded exactly alike.

  “Come here.” He patted the bunk alongside him.

  She shook her head.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “I was planning to do just exactly that.”

  He swallowed the brandy. “Be a good girl and reach me that bottle.”

  She brought it. He yanked her down beside him. “You’re the damndest girl. A guy’s got to play tricks to get ahold of you.”

  She settled back against the pillows, smiling. “I didn’t want you getting any ideas.”

  “I got them already.” Outside a gull gave its wailing open-throated call. “I just got to look at you wiggling that behind when you walk, and I get ideas.”

  She giggled again and leaned farther back. Since he kept his arm around her waist, she leaned in a semicircle over it.

  “That all you got to say, just giggle?”

  “Sure I got something else to say—lemme go.”

  He closed one eye. “Honey, you don’t mean that—right now you’re leaning back like that so I can see your tits through your shirt.”

  She sat up abruptly.

  “I like you anyway,” he said. With one hand he held her head steady, as he kissed her. “Tastes like sugar to me.”

  She tried to pull and squirm away. Her body only rubbed more closely against his.

  “Honey,” he said, “the tips of your nipples are real sharp.”

  “Lemme go.” She slapped him.

  He only grinned. “Nothing I like more than a woman fighting mad.”

  She slapped him again.

  “Now quit,” he said. “You’re beginning to hurt.”

  She drew back her hand again. He caught it.

  “When you start scratching like a cat, that’s no fun.”

  “Enfant garce,” she said and blew in his face. “Lemme go.”

  “I don’t know what that means. But I can figure it’s no compliment.”

  She got one hand free and jabbed for his eyes.

  “Jesus Christ,” he grabbed her, “I’m likely to end up tying you down.”

  She was quiet. A little shudder she couldn’t stop ran along her back. Her body quivered and twitched.

  He laughed, so hard that he had to lean back, and release his hold. She scra
mbled up.

  “You little bitch … that’s what you like.”

  “No,” she said, panting. She stood across the cabin, one hand holding to the railing on the other bunk.

  “Come here.”

  She shook her head.

  “You’re dying to come.”

  “No.”

  “Okay.” He stretched out on the bunk and, reaching one hand back into the little bookshelf, got a copy of The Saturday Evening Post. “See you.” He flipped a couple of pages, found a story and settled down to read.

  A couple of gulls were fighting. And the water sucked very quietly at the hull.

  “You mad?” she asked finally. She hadn’t moved.

  He did not look up from the magazine. “Hell, no.”

  “You are.”

  “I learned never to bother about a woman.”

  She came and sat beside him. “I don’t want you to be mad with me.”

  “I’m reading.”

  “Stop and listen to me.” He did not move. “Stop, huh?” She pushed down the magazine.

  He looked up, squinting one eye. The radio station was not quite clear and he lifted one hand over his head, adjusting it. “First you throw alcohol all over the varnish, then you try to jab my eyes out—why don’t you just try letting me alone?”

  “I don’t want you to be mad.”

  “Look,” he said, “go home.”

  “No.”

  He pulled the book back up over his face.

  “I can’t go nowhere, with you feeling like this.”

  “How’d you expect me to feel?”

  “I don’t know,” she said miserably.

  He dropped the magazine, grinned up at her. “Baby, you sure don’t know how to take a joke.”

  She was still hesitating, when he pulled her down and kissed her.

  “I thought you was serious.”

  “No.” He nibbled gently on her lower lip, found her tongue and bit it softly. His hand began to move up and down her leg, brushing back and forth.

  She pulled herself upright. “I can’t do nothing like that.”

  He smiled wearily. “Why not?”

  “I couldn’t do anything with anybody watching. Not even a kid.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “With Claudie sitting up there, and making faces at me, I just couldn’t.” She pointed up to the hatch. He twisted his head around and looked, just in time to see a faded pair of pants disappearing.