The Tangled Bridge

by Rhodi Hawk

Patrice listened, hand to her throat. Trigger’s face was smudged with grease. He was leaning over the hood, watching Francois.

  Francois said, “We didn’t know what to do. Of course we don’t want nothin to happen to Terrefleurs, and we sure don’t want no wrong to come to you young’uns. But your mama, she a hard one. I remember what it was like before she came. Your mama sets things right in a lotta ways, but in others…”

  Patrice knew what he meant. After Papa went to wandering with the sickness in the head, it was their Maman who brought Terrefleurs from near-bankruptcy back around to a thriving, sugar-producing plantation. But she was mean and murderous, trying to enlist her children’s skills in the briar as a way to increase her station and wipe out her enemies.

  Francois swallowed and said nothing further. Patrice waited for him to speak again but he just closed his eyes and let his body sag. Fury gone, the sickness had found him again.

  She asked, “Did you write back to her?”

  He opened his eyes. “Naw. Miss Bernadette and me, we just let it go quiet. Ain’t no way I’s going to make a trip to New Orleans, anyway, sick as I am.”

  He looked at Patrice full in the face for a moment, then his gaze traveled to the barn door. “She wrote another letter after that.”

  “What did that one say? Same thing?”

  Francois shook his head. “Said she wanted to find Jesus. Miss Bernadette read that one to me, I just laughed and laughed. I figured your mama was talkin Jesus because she wanted us to go see that judge of hers. But Miss Bernadette, she wasn’t laughing. She went to tears a little. I felt real bad. I oughtta have said something to y’all, I guess.”

  Patrice’s stomach was in knots. All those years, Tatie Bernadette had been the one to sing the children to sleep at night, tend their injuries, paddle them for naughtiness. Though Mother had only returned to Terrefleurs periodically when business called for it, Tatie Bernadette was always there, ever present. That’s why they called her “tatie” though she wasn’t really their aunt.

  But Tatie Bernadette, she did love God. And she would never turn away a soul who sought the Kingdom of Heaven.

  Francois said, “I never did ask Bernadette to reply to the letters for me. Figured if your mama thought she’s gwine to lose the deed to Terrefleurs, she’d come here herself.”

  Trigger’s eyes met Patrice’s.

  The barn door rattled.

  Francois nodded, and Trigger peeped through the crack, then opened it. Gil stood there with tear streaks on his face. It occurred to Patrice that he was the only one weeping over leaving Terrefleurs. Maybe that was because he was the only one who had a friend to say good-bye to.

  “Let’s go,” Francois said. “I’m a-ride with y’all as far as Locoul.”

  The four children looked at him.

  He said, “Get on in before ole Bernadette gets back.”

  And that’s when Patrice finally burst into tears. Because Tatie Bernadette, she was the one they were all leaving behind.

  seventeen

  NEW ORLEANS, NOW

  MADELEINE AND ETHAN LOOKED for Bo Racer in Bridge City at the Rosewood Arms mobile park. The storm had heaved the heat somewhere down the coast and left behind a pleasant breeze. People were out, smoking and chatting with one another along the chain-link or having a sip and a sit or a turn with the weed whacker. Turned out everyone knew the little boy with the click. And everyone seemed to have a little something to say about him.

  A lady in pink clamdiggers named Cheryl told Madeleine how Bo had just recently mashed her cow peas when they were still just sprouting in the garden. Apparently he’d wanted to ‘see if they’d growed yet.’ Cheryl had smiled as she relayed the story. Bo was also known for finding lost dogs or cats, she’d said.

  “He say he can hear them. You know, he’s blind. Ain’t got no eyes a-tall.” She was leaning on the fence with her hand bowed at her forehead for shade, her gaze on the weedy asphalt as she spoke to Madeleine and Ethan. She never looked at their faces.

  She said, “Even clear across the highway. Sandy’s dog got out and run off. Bo found’m. Told Sandy to go looking over there. They found the dog, mm-hmm.”

  “Keen sense of hearing, I guess,” Ethan said.

  “I guess,” Cheryl said with enough irony in her tone that Madeleine laughed.

  “Bo Racer; I’m assuming that’s not his real name?” Madeleine said.

  Cheryl shook her head no. “His name is Beauregard Ramirez. His mama is Esther Ramirez. But everyone call him Bo Racer because he never stops movin.”

  Then Cheryl lowered her voice to a whisper and said very slowly, “There … he … go.”

  Madeleine and Ethan followed her gaze to a stand of devilwood that bordered the mobile park. Two kids were playing in an abandoned semi-paved drive just beyond the end. One boy was running like mad pushing another boy in a wheelchair, both shouting as they careened around the turn, and it looked like the second boy was about to bounce out onto the pavement. The wheelchair jostled over olivelike berries dropped from the devilwood.

  “Bo?” Madeleine said, looking at the boy in the chair.

  “Mm hmm,” Cheryl said.

  But as they drew closer Madeleine saw that the child in the wheelchair had sight. Then she recognized Bo as the one pushing, the one rocketing along behind. His mouth was gaping wide and his head was thrown back toward the sky.

  The one in the chair was shrieking what sounded like, “Left!”

  Bo’s legs kicked as the two careened around the curve in the drive. Madeleine could hear Bo’s clicking, too.

  “Is he … is that other boy telling Bo when to turn?” Ethan asked.

  “Yeah, that’s my boy, Ray. Can’t walk and he can’t hear. They play like that all the time.”

  “Looks kind of dangerous,” Ethan said.

  Cheryl waved her shade hand with a roll to the eyes. “We quit trying to stop’m. Esther say Bo gonna do what he do. And he the only friend Ray ever had. They play like that til they get tired, and then they don’t give us no trouble. I known that boy Bo since he was a baby. Went from crawling to running and never bothered to walk. Even though he couldn’t see.”

  Madeleine watched, intrigued as the two barreled toward the end of the street. Bo slowed and turned though the other boy, Ray, hadn’t told him they were at the end.

  Bo spun Ray’s wheelchair around and then picked up speed again, clicking like mad, Ray whooping and grinning as they raced by.

  “Look at that rascal go,” Ethan said.

  Cheryl took Madeleine’s hand and patted it. “Watch.”

  Madeleine looked at her.

  Cheryl called out to the boys, “I wish that little boy from next door would come over here and talk to me.”

  But Bo and Ray continued rocketing down the drive, oblivious to Cheryl’s call. They neared the curve and were about to disappear around the bend. Madeleine looked back at Cheryl. Cheryl winked, the first eye contact she’d made since they arrived.

  And then Cheryl cast her gaze down toward her pink clamdiggers and, very softly, as though speaking to the crooked big toe curving over her sandal, whispered: “Bo Racer.”

  Madeleine looked over at the devilwood grove. And though he was zooming along about two hundred feet away and couldn’t possibly have heard Cheryl’s murmur, Bo slowed the wheelchair and stopped.

  Madeleine could hear Ray shouting from the chair, “Why you stop?” and even from this distance she could tell Ray’s speech was not clear; like that of a deaf child.

  Bo had turned his face toward Cheryl and was clicking.

  That night bird sound by the levee. The tick-tocking click from under the bridge. It made Madeleine’s heart skip.

  Cheryl said very quietly, gaze still on the dusty toe, “Bo Racer, come on over here and see your friend the neighbor lady. Gonna introduce you to some folks.”

  Then it looked like Bo said something to Ray. Their hands came together in a private kind of sign language and vocal speech combination;
though the distance prevented Madeleine from hearing their words now that they weren’t shouting. Bo leaned his shoulder in to the wheelchair and turned it around. And then he and Ray were racing again, this time headed for Cheryl.

  * * *

  “MOM!” BO YELLED AS he threw wide the door.

  A high, tense voice from inside called back, “Ya mama’s sleeping! Close ya goddamned mouth!”

  Madeleine and Ethan halted on the steps. Ray was “parked” below by the fence, scowling up at them, and Cheryl had returned to her garden.

  Bo said into the dark room. “These people come here to talk to mom and me. They—” He turned toward Madeleine and Ethan. “What’s y’all’s names?”

  Madeleine said, “This is Dr. Manderleigh. I’m Dr. LeBlanc.”

  “Doc LB!” Bo said.

  “Shut it!” the high voice said.

  “But Mare, she’s Doc LB! The lady at—”

  “Shut that door!”

  Bo stepped inside and shut it.

  Madeleine and Ethan looked at one another, awkward, surrounded by half a dozen ferns that had sprouted furry, snaking feet. Bo’s and the woman’s muffled voices came from inside the trailer.

  In the yard were one huge dead tree and one smaller live one. The trunk of the dead tree was wrapped in a mattress; the live one was wrapped in layers of yellow foam seamed with duct tape. Like someone had tried to pad the entire yard.

  From the other side of the chain-link, Ray was giving a look of such menace that the ferns were at risk of withering.

  Ethan cleared his throat and said to Ray, “Guess you and Bo are good pals.”

  Brows still knit, Ray replied with thick words accompanied by hand signs, “He’s my best friend. I won’t let anything bad happen to him.”

  Madeleine nodded. It had taken the boy a while to get the words out. Though he still had some dexterity to him, the speech and hand movements were slow and blunted.

  Ray added, “He’s going to be the first blind person to play for the Saints when he grows up.”

  Ethan said, “He can play football?”

  The door squeaked and Madeleine looked back over her shoulder. A short woman with enormous eyes and elliptical painted brows was glaring at them, a face like Esther’s only rounder and less haggard. She wore a loose gray suit and bare feet.

  “What you want?” She was the high-voiced one Bo had called Mare.

  Madeleine said, “We just need to talk to Bo and his mother.”

  The woman seemed at the end of her patience. “Oh, that right? About what?”

  A pause. Madeleine averted her eyes. How to explain why Bo’s life might be in danger because a hospitalized man in a vegetative state wanted to kill him?

  Ethan said, “It’s about what happened under the bridge last night.”

  Mare put her hand to her hip and gave a long sigh that held a ghost of that high voice in it, but she made no further move. Something stung Madeleine on the ankle.

  Ethan opened his hands. “Look, we just want to help.”

  Mare said, “Y’all are doctors, huh?”

  Ethan nodded. “Academic doctors, but yes.”

  “Academic.” Mare rolled her eyes, then widened the door. “Get in. Mosquitoes’ll carry us all off.”

  Madeleine cast a wave back toward Ray who was watching with the same mistrustful frown, then stepped through the entry after Mare, Ethan’s hand on her back. The scent of cigarette smoke greeted her and beneath that, old bacon and mildewed air-conditioning.

  “Doc LB,” Bo whispered just as loudly as he’d been speaking earlier, and he reached for Madeleine’s hand and shook it. “I heard a you.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Madeleine whispered.

  At the boy’s touch, something jumped inside Madeleine. Not bad, not good; just a feeling of sudden alertness—like she could sense the very blood and breath and the life current in her own body.

  Severin appeared.

  She was but a glimmer at the back of the room. Madeleine narrowed her eyes at her.

  And then Bo moved on and was shaking Ethan’s hand, his grin wide and pointed high. “How you doin?”

  “Just fine,” Ethan whispered.

  Mare shoved Bo’s shoulder. “You. Out.”

  Madeleine said, “But if you don’t mind we’d prefer to—”

  Mare said, “I ain’t his mama, and you ain’t talkin to him unless his mama wants you to. And she’s asleep.”

  She opened the door and steered Bo by the neck. “Get on outta here, Bo.”

  “Bye!” he said with a wave just as the painted aluminum door slammed shut on him.

  Madeleine watched through a crack in the blackout curtains as he ran down the stairs, causing the entire trailer to quake, his clicking audible through the thin walls. Hard to believe the boy had no eyes. He vaulted over the chain-link even though the gate stood five feet away. The wheelchair speedway game recommenced with Bo and Ray exchanging not a single word between them.

  Severin pressed her face to the window. Madeleine watched her, biting back reproach. Then Severin pressed her face through it, through the glass, and crawled up toward the roofline. Her filthy ankle disappeared somewhere above.

  Once again Severin was disregarding their bargain. Annoying. Ominous, even, but Madeleine could do nothing about it at the moment.

  Full voice, as though the rule of whispering had vanished with Bo, Mare said, “I guess y’all wastin your time. You wanna leave your number, Esther’ll call ya when she gets up.”

  Ethan said, “He always run like that? Like a bat outta Hell?”

  “Always.” Mare sighed and went to a mirror where she dabbed powder over her face, then reached for an eye pencil. “He never stops runnin, which is why this place look like a trash hole with Esther wrappin the trees with padding. Bo run into’m enough times.”

  Ethan said, “Those boys OK playing in the drive?”

  She said, “Ain’t no cars. That boy nothing but trouble. He was always in a sling or a cast since he’s a baby. He’s runnin before he was walkin. No joke. Didn’t matter he had no eyes. They took’m out when he was just a few months old.”

  Ethan said, “Cancer?”

  Mare nodded without taking her gaze off the mirror. She’d moved on to lip pencil.

  Madeleine said, “We came here because we wanted to make sure Bo had a place to sleep tonight.”

  Mare shrugged. “He sleep here.”

  “OK, good. Things have gotten really dangerous on the street, and—”

  “I said, he sleep here,” Mare’s eyes fixed on Madeleine’s reflection in the mirror.

  Mare snatched a receipt and scribbled something on the back, then thrust it into Madeleine’s hand. “That’s Esther’s number. Call her another time. I don’t know what your business is, but I know it doesn’t have to be part of my business in my home.”

  Ethan and Madeleine looked at one another.

  Mare said, “Look. Y’all need to move along cuz I’m fixin to go to work and Esther’s sleepin.”

  Madeleine said, “I’m not trying to get in your business. I do want to caution you to keep your doors locked and keep the gate locked, too, and be careful about answering the door.”

  Mare looked from her to Ethan. “What the hell is going on? Is Bo causing trouble?”

  Madeleine said, “No, it’s nothing like that.”

  “He always gettin into fights at school.”

  Ethan said, “Bo’s a fighter?”

  Mare nodded. “He can’t keep his mouth in check. Esther let him do whatever he wants. She used to be a junkie, cleaned up her act when Bo was born. Found God. But she uses it as an excuse to let Bo run wild and get into fights.”

  From the far end came a voice: “That ain’t true. Bo don’t get in no fights.”

  It was Esther, standing at the end of the hall, twisting a velvet-rayon robe to a knot at her chest. “There’s a difference between getting into fights and getting picked on by bullies.”

  Mare po
inted at Esther. “Bo done found trouble and now these people come here to tell us to check the locks! People getting shot and stabbed out there!”

  Ethan said, “Hey, Bo didn’t do anything—”

  “How’m I supposed to live like this, huh?” Mare shoved her feet into a pair of high heels and stalked for the door.

  Esther remained rigid where she stood. Mare snatched a bag from an easy chair and left with a slam. The sound of Bo and Ray filtered through the walls, high and spirited and then compressing to hollow tones as they continued past.

  Esther let out a stream of breath and sank into a chair at the kitchen table. “God, I hate that woman.”

  Madeleine said, “I think I alarmed her.”

  Esther rubbed her already-ragged eyes. “Y’all are from the shelter, right? St. Joseph’s volunteers?”

  Madeleine nodded. “We came here to make sure you and Bo are going to be safe. I don’t mean to pry, but if your friend’s letting you stay here…”

  “She ain’t no friend. She’s my cousin—who the good Lord sent to keep me humble I guess. And she staying with us, not the other way around.”

  “Oh. Didn’t you and Bo spend a night on the levee?”

  Esther nodded. “Was because Mare had a date, had us clear out. She don’t get her way she ain’t gonna pay me rent. My car actin like it wanna quit on me. We need the money.”

  “I see. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but someone was killed not far from where you were camped on the levee.”

  Esther fell silent.

  Ethan asked, “Did you know about the murder?”

  “No. I heard, but I wasn’t sure. Is that why you’re here?”

  Ethan and Madeleine exchanged glances, and Madeleine said, “Yes and no. There was a quilt left behind at your encampment. And Bo’s cane. It looked like you left in a hurry, which is why we thought you might have been nearby when it happened.”

  And then Esther narrowed her eyes at Madeleine. “We met somewhere before?”

  “I saw you that day under the bridge, but I don’t think we’ve actually met. Unless it was at St. Jo’s?” But Madeleine couldn’t recall having seen Esther there.

  Esther was frowning and shaking her head. “Don’t think so. But I’m sure I know you.”