by Cari Lynn
The bartender filled a tall glass halfway with green liquid. Over the glass he placed a slotted spoon, setting a sugar cube atop it. As he dribbled water over the spoon, the sugar dissolved, and the drink swirled to a murky white.
Lobrano paid no mind to the ritual. His legs were jittering and his teeth chattering, and he grabbed for the glass, draining it in two swallows. He let out a soothed sigh as the liquor coursed through his body. Hot damn, that’s some good tonic.
“Another,” he barked.
As the bartender repeated the process, Lobrano’s eyes landed on a copy of the Picayune, left atop the bar. A front-page picture of debonair Tom Anderson, his mustache perfectly trimmed and coiffed to curl upward at the tips, gazed back. “What’s this say about goddamn Anderson?” Lobrano asked the bartender.
“Says Anderson’s saloon in the new district’s gonna have electric lightbulbs.” He placed the second drink in front of Lobrano. “Supposed to be bright enough to see when civilized folk leave a tip.”
“What’s the new district?” Lobrano grunted.
“Read for yourself,” said the bartender, pushing the paper toward Lobrano. But Lobrano waved it off, then took his drink and headed to the back of the bar, unabashedly grabbing at his still-itchy groin.
A cotch game was in progress, being played by brothers Cooper and Clint, as much Pig Ankle fixtures as Lobrano. Both burly and unwashed, their ruddy looks made it difficult to tell one from the other. Not that it mattered. Lobrano plunked himself down at their table.
“He ain’t dead after all,” Clint said dryly.
Cooper made a face. “Smells like he’s half-dead.”
Lobrano ignored their banter. “What’s this about a new district?” he asked.
Cooper laid down a card. “Leave it to Anderson to soak up the gravy.”
“Seems a lot of talk just for him openin’ a new bar,” Lobrano grumbled.
“Have you been hiding under your mama’s skirt? It’s the tenderloin they’re talkin’ ’bout,” Cooper said.
Lobrano gave him a confused look.
“Ain’t you heard any of this? A legal district? In the back o’ town?”
“Oh, that ain’t never gonna happen,” Lobrano smirked. “Folks’re happy right the way things are.”
“Oh, it’s happenin’,” Clint said. “Sure as eggs is eggs, it’s happening.”
“Gonna make an honest man outta ya, Lobrano,” Cooper added. “You in the game or what?”
Lobrano dug in his pocket. He had a few bills that had been returned to him upon his release, and he threw a dollar on the table. “Business been good lately,” he declared.
“Sop it up, then, ’fore the well dries,” Clint replied.
“They can’t just come in and take what’s mine,” Lobrano said. “I got two gals and a crib—”
“Not for long, you don’t,” Cooper insisted.
Lobrano waved him off, reassuring himself that nothing ever really changed in New Orleans. Venus Alley was as old and essential to life in this city as . . . well, as his glass of absinthe.
“Don’t crawl cryin’ to me when the day comes,” Cooper said. “I been stockpiling. Added two more flocks of geese. Where there’s whores, there’s a place to lay. And these classy gals ain’t gonna want no kips full of moss. They’re gonna want featherbeds.”
“Classy gals?” Lobrano said. “They was nothin’ but filthy whores last I checked. Don’t come cryin’ to me when you’re sitting on a pile o’ goose shit.”
“I got Chinamen scoring poppies as we speak,” Clint said.
Lobrano gave a condescending shake of his head. “Yellow Peril? Listen, somethin’ as harebrained as that district would put out all us hardworking folk. It ain’t gonna happen.”
“That absinthe make you addlepated, or were you just born that way?” Clint asked. “Put some of that hard-earned money on the table or quit wastin’ our time.”
With a bill going to pay for more drink, Lobrano knew he was cleaned out. “I . . . uh,” he fumbled. “I put in a trick with my best girl.”
The brothers exchanged looks. Cocking his head, Cooper pondered the offer.
That night, Venus Alley was alive with a chorus of copulation. A finale of loud grunts came from Mary’s crib. And then her crib door smacked open and out sauntered Cooper, buttoning his pants. Mary quickly trailed after him, clutching her chippie to her naked body. Her lip was bloodied.
“Hey, ya ain’t paid!”
“Been taken care of.”
“No, it ain’t.”
Cooper let out a laugh. “Your old man pawned you away quicker ’an a lame horse.”
She stopped cold. “From the jailhouse?”
“From the Pig Ankle.”
Mary’s hand fluttered to her mouth, and only then did she realize she was bleeding. So Lobrano was free.
“Pawned you away quicker ’an a lame, blind horse.”
Mary smoldered as she looked at Cooper. Something primal raged up in her, a deep, wild surge that had always been kept at bay.
Cooper laughed loud and long, in a way meant to humiliate her—just as Lobrano would do.
And then Mary’s dam burst. She flew at him, pouncing like a cat with its claws out.
All Cooper could see was a ball of fury with sharp nails launching toward his eyeballs. He instinctively lunged, shoving her with the force he’d use on a man his own size. Thrown back, Mary’s head slammed hard against the wall. She slumped to the ground.
For a second, Cooper flinched with panic—he’d underestimated his own strength against the slight girl. But he was relieved to see Mary groggily look up, and with the knowledge that he hadn’t killed her, he hurried off fast enough to kick up a cloud of dust under his boots.
It was near a half hour later that Beulah trudged toward the crib, kip on her back. As she caught sight of Mary collapsed on the stoop, she dropped her kip and rushed toward her, kneeling down to lift her limp head. “Mary, y’all right?”
Mary mumbled gibberish as her eyes rolled back.
“Come to, Mary!” Beulah shouted, but to no avail.
Unsure where she was, let alone what day it was, Mary tried to focus on a hazy figure hovering over her.
“Hush now, dear child,” a crackly voice said.
As if walking through smoke, Mary came to find herself, of all places, in Eulalie Echo’s room in the back of the cigar shop. Only, Mary was six years old, dressed in a smock with saggy tights, her hair in a long braid.
“You pay by the inch?” a man’s voice said. “She got thirteen inches there.”
Mary was given a shove toward Eulalie, and she sputtered forward, her knees shaky.
“Show the Negra your long hair,” the man’s voice ordered.
Gently, Eulalie fingered Mary’s long, dark braid, oddly entranced by it. “This your child?” Eulalie asked the man.
“She’s my sister’s girl. Her ma’s ailing, and we need money for remedies.”
Mary’s eyes darted questioningly in the direction of the man. “Ain’t that right, Mary?” he said.
Eulalie awaited the little girl’s answer. Mary wished it were real and that she could say yes, her mama was just ailing and not a dreamy memory. It ached the way he lied about her mother, his own sister. But Mary knew what she was supposed to answer, and she could only imagine what might happen if she didn’t. Her little face hardened as she masked her fear. She gave a small, mechanical nod.
Eulalie met Mary’s eyes, and, despite the strangeness of this dark-skinned woman with one eyeball wandering off into the distance, Mary felt a sense of comfort emanate from her.
“All right, then,” Eulalie said gently as she took a pocketknife from her apron. Mary couldn’t help but notice the knife wasn’t a common, tarnished one, but a fancy sort, with a rosewood handle and a glinting blade. As Eulalie brought the knife to the long braid, she whispered in Mary’s ear, “Don’t worry, child, this is so you can learn who you are without pretty to confuse you.” Then she l
eaned in even closer, her breath warm against Mary’s face. “A queen knows who she is.”
She gnawed at the braid while silent tears rolled down Mary’s cheeks. The knife worked its way through, and the braid landed in Eulalie’s grip. Mary was left with jaw-length, jagged hair.
“You’re the ugliest boy I ever seen,” the man taunted.
Mary stifled a sob.
“Oh, little boy’s cryin’ now,” he said, and there was a jab at her shoulder. “C’mon, little boys are tough. Look at ya, sissy.” Another jab. “C’mon, ain’t little boys s’posed to fight back—”
He went at her again, but Eulalie stopped him. She aimed the knife directly at the hazy figure of a man. “One day,” Eulalie warned, “you’ll be on your knees to this girl, asking for forgiveness.”
Mary suddenly jolted awake. She was in her crib, alone, drenched in sweat. Catching her breath, she gingerly touched her hand to her sore head, then winced from the pain. She slowly looked around, as if to get her bearings. Everything was in place. She tried to do the same with her thoughts, paging through her mind and recalling what she could—she remembered coming to work, and then, she shuddered at the sudden recollection of Cooper, but after that her memory trailed off.
Sunlight streamed in from the tiny window, catching the glare of something shiny on the bedside table. Slowly, Mary turned to see a pocketknife. She took it in her hand, running her finger along its smooth rosewood inlay.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mary stood at the entrance of the Pig Ankle, silhouetted by the sunlight filtering into the dark saloon from the open door.
“Can I help ya?” the barkeep asked.
Mary scanned the bar, which was empty but for an old, doddering sailor in breeches and a threadbare seaman’s frock, mumbling to himself.
“Ya seen Lobrano?” Mary asked the barkeep.
He gave her a withered look. “He went out to take a piss . . . ’bout an hour ago.”
Mary nodded—typical Lobrano—and turned to go.
“Ain’t paid his tab neither,” the barkeep added.
“’Course not,” she muttered, the door slamming behind her. She angled round to the side of the Pig Ankle, figuring it was the closest piss spot, and peered down the alley. There, slumped up against the side of the building, was Lobrano, passed out cold next to some beer barrels, his pants undone.
For a long moment, Mary stared at him. The knot on her head throbbed, and each pulsation made her detest him more. Her fingers traced the outline of the knife in her little burlap purse. Without so much as a conscious decision, she found herself hovering the open knife over his limp arm. It occurred to her how easily she could slit his wrists. She then moved the blade to his throat, drawing an invisible line straight across. One motion like this and she could be done with him, done with him forever. It excited her and terrified her to even think that way. What if she did it—who would miss him? She and Peter were his only kin, and she doubted any other person in this world would care, let alone notice, if Philip Lobrano disappeared here in this alley—found crushed under one of the barrels, maybe, or some other supposed accident a notorious drunk had seemingly brought upon himself. Any officer of the law would just as soon dismiss this sorry case.
The knife quivered she was clutching it so hard, leaning in so close she could see the pulse in his neck, could see exactly how easy it could be to snuff him out. With each rhythmic beat of the vein it was as if Lobrano’s own body was tempting her. Do it. Do it. Do it. Pleading with her even—take him from his miserable lot.
Quickly, Mary stepped back, as if forcing herself from transfixion. She folded the knife and hurried off despite herself.
Shaken, Mary weaved her way through the crowded marketplace in the French Quarter, gazing emptily as the vendors tried to sell her their wares. Their callouts, normally catchy and singsongy, seemed to accost her from every direction:
Bring out your pitcher,
Bring out your can.
Get nice fresh oysters from the Oyster Man! Oyster, Sally?
My horse is white, My face is black,
I sell my coal two bits a sack.
“I am Signor Cornmeali!” cried the cornmeal man. “Buongiorno, cornmeal?”
The bottle man pushed a handcart by. “Any bottles, any bones, any rags today?”
“Mop-n-broom!” called the blind broom man, stomping his cane with each syllable. “Mop-n-broom!”
“Pole-y. Pretty, pretty pole-y,” sang the pole seller.
Mary had never been bothered by the chicken seller before, but today she shivered as he swung his chickens, limp but still live, banded together like a bunch of turnips. “Get your big fat spring cheek-in!”
Even the silent Choctaw squaw who knelt at the curb selling powdered sassafras seemed to question Mary with her unblinking black eyes.
Mary continued onward, in her own hazy world, until something up ahead caught her eye: a crew of fancily dressed ladies, decked out in plumes and jewels. They confidently approached male passersby, looking them straight in the eye and handing them calling cards.
“The inaugural party is at Countess Lulu White’s mansion,” one of the girls recited to a dapper dan who’d veered over.
Mary spotted a wayward calling card on the ground, and she scurried to pick it up. She wiped a footprint from the card, which depicted a line drawing of a young woman’s profile, along with fancy script:
Miss Poodle
“She’ll pant and lick you all over!”
Countess Lulu White’s Mahogany Hall,
235 Basin Street
From among the girls, Mary picked out the pouffy-haired one who resembled the drawing.
“Well, aren’t you the tomcat’s kitten,” Poodle cooed to a suited man. “Will I see you this Saturday? It’s going to be a bigger celebration than Mardi Gras even. You will not be disappointed, I promise.”
“And I’m sure to see you there?” the man asked.
“Of course! I am privileged to live at the Countess’s house, you silly goose!”
Momentarily forgetting about her throbbing head, Mary watched in awe. The Countess’s girls looked fresh and gleeful, with round, pink cheeks—they all must eat three squares a day, Mary thought. She twisted a strand of her own brittle, dirty hair and felt herself shrink in comparison to these girls with their curled updos, their tufted bustles, their pale, unfreckled faces shielded from the sun by fancy, stylish hats.
Poodle playfully tugged at the dan’s coat. “Tell them at the door that Poodle sent you.” She then leaned in closer to him. “You’re my number one, but why don’t you bring some gentlemen friends too? This is a momentous event, after all.” She pointedly handed him a calling card, and in return he suavely kissed her hand.
“Until Saturday eve,” he said.
They were interrupted by a brown-haired girl, who butted herself in. “And it’s all legal!” she shouted. At that, all the girls rallied to the battle cry, whooping and cheering.
A blond pixie lifted her skirt to flash two very prim and proper ladies who happened to be walking by. “Legal!” she shouted, baring her bloomers. The ladies darted out of the way as if she were a rodent. “Heavens!” one trilled, her nose upturned. “I pray President McKinley will bring an injunction against this awful district of vice!”
Mary couldn’t help but giggle at the prim women, batting themselves as if they’d walked into a swarm of gnats. Just then, one of Lulu’s girls looked her way, and Mary instinctively cowered. She knew the reality: they were stunning, and she ought to be embarrassed by her dirty face and soiled clothes. She melted back into the crowd of the bustling market, where she’d be lost among the low class, the invisibles.
As she made her way through the marketplace, she was surprised that each snippet of conversation she caught was about the new district. A little boy asked, “Mama, what’s the tenderloin?”
“A cut of meat,” the mother snapped, “and don’t ask such things again.”
A suited
man strolling aside a minister inquired how Saint James Methodist Church could coexist with such unholy practices occurring right next door? The minister sighed. “It’s a sad, sad day that our beloved church is caught in the boundaries of Satan’s new district.”
Mary even went by Café Du Monde to sit and rest a moment among the folks eating beignets and drinking chicory and coffee au laits from china teacups. “They’re calling it Storyville,” a suited man told another. “Bet that just tickles the Alderman.” They both laughed.
Mary’s head pounded, and talk of the new district only made it hurt more. She hastened her way toward Peter’s potato stand, feeling relief wash over her as she heard his call from down the aisle.
“One potato, two potato, three potato, four! Nice Irish potatoes!”
Catching sight of Mary, he gave a big smile, only his face went flat as he got a look at her swollen, blood-caked lip. “That a gift from Lobrano?”
She ignored the question. “Can I just set here a bit?” she asked as she slowly sank onto a crate.
Peter began to mindlessly fidget with his watch, clicking and snapping the cover. “Did Lobrano do that?” he persisted, but Mary just looked away, vacant. “Answer me, Mary!”
“Don’t duty me,” Mary snapped. “I put food on the table and a roof over your head. You ain’t got no right to ask for one thing more, Peter.”
She recoiled, instantly hating herself for lashing out. Her heart was racing, and although she’d thought it was a good idea to come here, that it might help to just sit with her brother, she decided she better leave before she blurted out something else she’d regret.
“I’ll see you back at home,” she said. “And I’m fine, don’t worry after me.”