The Southern Cross

by Skip Horack

  “Johnny’s right,” Frank chimed. “No man left behind.”

  “Hoo-ah,” said Johnny.

  “Good God,” said Ellis. “Really?”

  “Really,” they said, answering him in singsong unison.

  Pastor Weis is maybe sixty, has gray hair, a gray beard. Ellis stands to meet him and they shake hands. “You must be Ellis,” he says. “I saw you from the window of the church.” He speaks softly, but Ellis recognizes his stiff English from their phone conversations.

  “Yes” says Ellis. “I appreciate all of your help”

  “I was glad I could be of assistance.” He gives a kind smile. “Will you be arranging to take him back to America?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know for sure.” Ellis points to the flowers covering the grave. “Who keeps this up so nice?”

  “I do”

  “Thank you for that.”

  Pastor Weis bows slightly. “Certainly,” he says. “I promised that to Pastor Licht before he died. It was very important to him.”

  He has told Ellis about Licht already. This man had cared for Claude Conner at the end, prayed with him and insisted that he be buried here. Ellis thinks of Frank Thaxter and the wanderbursche, of the importance of showing kindness to strangers. “So what does this mean?” Ellis says finally, pointing to the tombstone. “These words?”

  “Vermisst im Osten was for the soldiers lost in Russia. It means to be missing in the East.” He shrugs. ”I suppose Pastor Licht felt that it would be fitting for your grandfather as well, so far from his home.”

  Ellis smiles at the found poetry and says that he thinks so too.

  “There is more,” says Weis, “some of your grandfather’s things.”

  Ellis was lunching on leftover chicken wings when Amy stopped by to drop off the charger for his cell phone. She was in tennis whites and on her way to the park. New clothes, tennis—this bothered him a great deal. Who was this ponytailed cheerleader drinking Starbucks in his apartment? She turned to leave and Ellis mentioned his grandfather’s letter, the note in German.

  “That’s incredible,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “Can I see them?”

  Ellis handed her the fragile pages and recited Johnny’s translation as best he could remember. Amy listened and then asked for the other letters, curling on the couch like a teenager while she read through them all. She looked beautiful and when she had finished Ellis saw that she was crying. She wiped her eyes and went to him, took his hand and led him to the bedroom.

  It had been a long time, a real long time. Ellis held her and she frowned, whispered, “This is a big mistake, mister,” even as their lips met. The strange room smelled of carpet freshener and there, there on that rented bed, Ellis wondered whether they were having sex, making love, or doing something else—something that fell in between, something that people did just to wake up empty spaces.

  Later, he lay spent as Amy pulled on her skirt. “Your new friends are right,” she told him. “You should go to Germany.”

  “Maybe one day,” said Ellis. “There’s sort of a lot going on in my life right now.”

  “But you need to find your grandfather.” Amy squeezed his wrist. “I feel that in my bones.”

  Ellis smiled in the half-light of the windowless room. Amy was one of those people who believed in signs. Their friends made hay out of that, how the attorney was more romantic than the poet. “We’ll see,” he said, even though, at least in some small way, he knew that she was right—that their marriage didn’t stand a chance so long as he was living in the Gulf Winds Suites, shooting the breeze with the boys at Patriotic Pressure Washing.

  “You do that, Ellis.” Amy tied her new white shoes and sighed. “You wait and see.” She left the apartment in a hurry and without saying more, rushed out as if she had already said goodbye. He called for her to come back but she was no longer listening.

  Pastor Weis invites him to stay, but Ellis resists and leaves Volkstadt that afternoon. He’s wearing a flight jacket now, and in places the old leather is cracking. Dog tags hang from his neck and are cold against his skin.

  Ellis searches the jacket as he drives. In one pocket he finds a Zippo lighter and an empty pack of Lucky Strikes. In another he finds a folded sheet of yellowed paper. Ellis pulls over onto the shoulder of the same roundabout intersection where he released the wanderbursche. The young man is gone now, off to learn his trade. Ellis flattens the paper out over the steering wheel and kills the engine.

  It’s a letter from his Grandma Conner. She’s telling her husband that she does not love him. That the baby she’s carrying belongs to some stateside officer she’s gone and fallen for. Her lover will be leaving his wife; they will be getting married; the ‘Bama Belle wants a divorce.

  After a while Ellis starts the Fiat and drives. He returns to Cuxhaven, parks near the beach, and sheds his shoes. The tide is withdrawing and he walks out onto the mud flat. The mud is like clay, firm and cool beneath his feet. He stops to investigate a shallow pool where sea birds have gathered to worry the remains of some small shark or dogfish. A filthy gull plucks at the rotting carcass with its yellow beak. Ellis looks away and then continues on, leaving the birds to their stabbings.

  A man and boy are hiking out to the barrier island, and Ellis falls in behind them. A strong, chill wind blows in from the north. He jams his fists deeper into the pockets of his jeans. The floor of the bay is not as flat as it seems from the beach. There are grooves in the mud that run like shallow rivers. The father and son march on but Ellis soon tires of all the wandering. He sits down amid the tangled delta of channels and thinks about the letter that he found in Captain Conner’s cracked leather jacket, a letter that maybe sent the man’s P-51 spinning.

  Hours pass and Ellis watches fascinated as the North Sea begins its sudden return. The tideways bubble to life, and sea-water sloshes at his feet. Frigid creeks form and the flotsam and jetsam of the world begin to pass him on by: feathers and wood, sea grass and shells. He opens his hands and watches the ocean carry off the letter.

  And then he’ll be damned if he doesn’t see a butterfly caught in the rising tide, its tiny legs fighting for purchase. Ellis shivers as he studies his metaphor incarnate. He realizes then that butterflies-on-the-water are nothing at all like peaceful summer sailboats. Adrift, fighting wet wings, a butterfly-on-the-water is a creature in peril, a soft soul dying in earnest. There’s no real beauty in that; he was a fool to have ever believed such a lie. He is finally seeing things as they really are. So he’s no Conner after all.

  Ellis looks to the distant shore. A crowd has gathered; Germans are pointing at him. He places the wet butterfly on his shoulder and stands. The tourists cheer for him as he begins splashing his way back toward them. He crawls exhausted and dripping and cold onto the beach. A brave little boy figures Ellis for the American that he is and approaches, says, “You a very, very lucky, mein Herr. Very lucky to be alive.”

  The Redfish

  The bossman called late Saturday and offered time-and-a-half cash wages in exchange for Luther’s help clearing the dock, a hand moving equipment into the warehouse while the rest of the city evacuated.

  Luther agreed to come in, both as a favor to Quinn and because he needed extra money for food and gas, a motel room once they got far enough north. As he expected, Shonda threw a fit—her mama was waiting on them to pick her up in Mississippi—still, in the end, he was able to convince her to hold off on leaving until the next morning. It’s like they say, money talks.

  He put on his blue work Dickies and waited for Quinn at the edge of the projects, under the streetlight at the corner of Gibson and Senate. He’d been standing there just a few minutes when a couple of teenagers stepped out of the darkness and shuffled over. The smaller of the two boys strutted with the confidence of the armed and dangerous. He presented himself to Luther. “You Redfish?” he asked. “Redfish Jackson?”

  Luther nodded slightly as he stared down the empty stree
t, searching for Quinn’s truck.

  “Oh, fuck! The Redfish!” The boy brought a hand to his mouth like he might sneeze, then spun around to his friend. “I told you it was him!” He turned back to Luther. ”How long you been out?”

  Luther looked away from the road and locked eyes with the boy. “Nine months,” he said.

  “No shit?” The boy shook his head. “Man, I ain’t seen you once.”

  Luther shrugged. “I think maybe you and me work different hours.”

  The boy clapped his small hands and laughed. “Yeah, you right,” he said.

  Quinn’s pickup turned the corner onto Gibson and its headlights flashed three times. Luther stepped out onto the curb but the boy grabbed his wrist, stopping him. “You need money, come see me,” he said. “I might be able to use you.”

  Luther flicked his wrist, breaking the boy’s grip, as he climbed into the cab and closed the door. Marvin Gaye crooned from the radio and Quinn grooved along, sang “‘Brother, brother, brother’” as he put the truck in gear. Luther’s boss scratched the side of his graying beard and stopped singing. “Everything straight?” he asked.

  Luther turned and looked back at the boys, the young lions standing alone in the gold glow of the streetlight. “Damn kids,” he said. “Wear me out sometimes.”

  Quinn laughed. “Wait till you get to be my age,” he said. “They’ll be wearing you out all the times.”

  They worked through the night and were finishing up early Sunday morning when an NOPD cruiser crossed the tracks that ran alongside the Press Street Wharf. A tired officer stepped out and told them the evacuation would be declared mandatory soon enough—the both of them should be getting on the road.

  It was the Italian cop Quinn knew from the VFW. Luther hung back as the two men spoke. Quinn waved a hand in the direction of his warehouse. “All due respect,” he said. “I ain’t going nowhere.”

  The cop frowned and glanced over at Luther. He was sizing him up, studying the prison tattoos that ran the lengths of his broad forearms. He spoke to Quinn but his eyes lingered on Luther. “Then I’m supposed to tell you something,” he said. “I’m supposed to tell you to write your Social Security number on your chest with a permanent marker.”

  “That right?” said Quinn.

  “That’s meant to scare you when I say that. Make you go on and leave.”

  Quinn grinned. “Shit, Carl. How many sixty-year-old men they got running around this city with a thirteen-inch johnson?”

  Luther snorted and the cop shook his head, smiled himself.

  “Just the two of us, I suppose.”

  “Well, there you go,” said Quinn. “A black one and a white one. That oughtta be easy enough for them to sort out.”

  The cop chuckled. “Either way, you boys be careful.” He opened the door of his cruiser. “This looks to be the real deal.”

  They watched the cruiser pull away and then finished clearing the dock. When they were done, Quinn locked the warehouse and drove Luther north back to the St. Bernard Projects. The sun was up but they didn’t see many cars until they crossed under the interstate. People were leaving.

  Quinn stopped the truck at the same spot on Gibson where he had picked up Luther earlier, then pulled a roll of cash from his front pocket and counted out six twenties. “That fair?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” said Luther. “Thanks, chief.”

  “All right then,” said Quinn.

  “All right then.”

  “You know, I talked to that lawyer about you again. He still says you might be owed some money for all that time you spent in Angola.”

  “Yeah?”

  “What he says. You wanna talk to him sometime?”

  “Maybe. We’ll see.”

  “You said that last time I asked.”

  “I know.”

  “So how about you just tell me when you’re ready,” said Quinn. “Otherwise I won’t bring it up no more.”

  “Thanks,” said Luther. “I’ll keep thinking on it.”

  “Later on, son.”

  Luther stepped out of the truck. A tree grew between the road and the broken sidewalk, a big oak scarred with bullet holes. As a child, Luther would spoon lead from its trunk and lower branches. He patted the tree and began a slow stroll to where the brick tenements began their sprawl. He was dead tired and prayed Shonda would drive the first stretch. “Please, woman,” he whispered to himself. “Lemme catch some sleep.”

  The Friday-afternoon fights had been arranged by a little hunchback named Doyle for his wannabe Mafia friends, slick-haired twentysomethings in expensive leather coats. Luther was one of their favorites. He earned five hundred for fighting, a thousand for winning. You fought until someone either said give, that or was knocked out.

  A couple dozen had been on hand to watch Luther take on the Mexican, an enormous day laborer that Doyle found God knows where. The illegal was even bigger than Luther, maybe six-six, three hundred pounds. They took off their shirts and Luther heard someone tell his stripper date, “Look at the scars on that wetback, would ya?”

  Luther glanced over at the skinny woman and she smiled at him. “You gonna do good,” she said. “I can feel it, boo.”

  They fought off River Road, on some weed-choked industrial property between the levee and the Mississippi. The spectators made a limp ring around them, and because the Mexican was bigger and stronger but older and slower, Luther spent the first few minutes of the fight dancing—landing a jab here and there, but for the most part staying clear. The Mexican mainly threw heavy rights, pawing like a bear with his left as he tried to close the distance between them.

  The Mexican had come alone but Luther had his uncle Melvin with him, an old cruiserweight who knew how to patch cuts and such. “Keep them hands loose,” he hollered. The Mexican squared his shoulders and let fly with a straight kick. His work boot caught Luther low in the stomach, and Luther doubled over, then tried to turn his head away because he knew the big right would be coming. And the big right did come. It caught him on the side of the head and he felt an electric shiver run down the entire length of his body. His eyes clouded and he dropped to a knee. Uncle Melvin screamed, “Here he come,” and Luther caught a blurred glimpse of the Mexican’s boots shuffling closer. He shot out for a leg and took the man down. Luther was on top but didn’t want to wrestle. He scrambled to his feet before the Mexican could grab solid hold of him. They were up again, circling. “Watch them kicks,” Uncle Melvin yelled.

  The Mexican was a bulldog. Luther danced and danced but still he came, pushing forward with his head down, absorbing punches as he waited for Luther to make another mistake. They drifted with the slope of the land as they fought, and when they reached the riverbank, the cheering crowd parted and let them splash on into the water. They were ankle deep in the dirty Mississippi. Doyle ordered them to come back, but the fighters weren’t listening.

  Luther could tell that the Mexican was beginning to gas from punching air. The tired man continued to scratch with his left hand and at last Luther decided to throw the overhand right he’d been saving. He sank his foot in the soft river bottom and drove hard, swiveling his hips as he launched. The punch landed dead center and Luther felt the Mexican’s nose break. But still he didn’t drop. Blood poured from his shattered nose and collected in the water. The Mexican wiped his face with a wet hand and charged. Luther turned for high ground but the water and the mud robbed him. The Mexican caught him by the waist and they fell in a splashing heap. He had Luther dead to rights, was on top of him in the shallows forcing his head underwater. Uncle Melvin was yelling, “Get off, motherfucker, ‘fore I shoot you” when Luther finally rolled free. He missed with a punch and again the Mexican grabbed him. They wrestled deeper and deeper into the river until the current began to pull at them both. The Mexican lost his footing, couldn’t swim. He panicked and began to flail. Luther made a bid for his outstretched hand but it slipped away. The Mexican spun twice in the current and then disappeared beneath the
surface. Luther went to the shore and a woman started crying. “Oh my God” she was saying. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God”

  But nothing had ever come of it. Nothing. Doyle wrote down the names of everyone there that day, said it’d be a real mistake for them to ever go talking about this. And, far as Luther knew, the body was never even found—or at least not identified. It was like his uncle told him on the first of their three buses back to the projects: no body, no crime. Uncle Mel-vin shook his head. “You should have seen the blood in that water,” he said. “I swear y’all looked like a couple of bleeding fish”

  Luther told him to keep quiet, now and forever.

  There was only a short silence before his uncle laughed. “Start calling you the Redfish!” he said.

  And they did.

  Shonda had the windows down. Luther woke early Sunday afternoon and could smell salt marsh mixed with the pines that grew in a thin stretch along the berm of the highway. Her battered Dodge Diplomat skipped across tidal streams as it crossed a series of small bridges that led to a larger one. Shonda punched his arm and told him that big river down there was the Pearl.

  Luther wiped a seed of sleep from his eye and licked the scum from his teeth. He was still in his stiff work clothes, and his boots felt tight on his feet. “You really from out here?” he asked.

  “You know it.”

  “Damn, girl,” he said. “You country.”

  “Holler, Redfish”

  Luther sighed. Shonda had moved into the St. Bernard Projects just a few weeks back, about the same time his grandmother had finally told him that he needed to go on and find a place of his own. They met at PJ’s, had one drink before they wound up in her bed. In the morning Shonda said she’d feel a whole lot safer in St. B. with a big-ass man like him around. They’d lived like that ever since.

  “Want me to drive?” he asked.

  Shonda shook her head and sent the white beads in her hair clicking. “Naw,” she drawled. “You done missed all the traffic”