by catt dahman
“He don’t want her or me in his house no more, Daddy. We’se gonna be tossed right out.”
Amadee handed the baby back and glared, “What dis about?”
Frank held his arms out, “Landry won’t accept the baby. The storm was here; hell, Amadee, we need to be rescued and have some time to sort this. No sense in getting angry.”
Amadee yelled at Landry, “You don’t like dis here baby? Why? Why he don’t want dis here baby girl?”
“It’s not mine. It’s mixed,” Landry said, on his feet and angry.
“You say she steppin’ out and all? ‘Cause the baby is mixed?”
“Yes, I’m saying she cheated on me or was already pregnant with a niggrah baby.”
Amadee hooted, “You de fool, you is. I don’t know how the stuff works, but you mix in, and der is a time when de other looks come to light. Skips generations, and den ooohhh-ehhhh, you getta two white people with a mixed baby ‘cause it go way back in the line. It is genetics,” he said it as gee-net-ticks.
“Huh?” Landry asked stupidly.
“He means you have a Spanish or black or whatever way back in the family, and one day the traits showed. She didn’t cheat on you. Shame on you. Candy Lynn is faithful,” Leonie said as she stroked Candy Lynn’s brow, “You can have two blond-haired people who find themselves with a brown-eyed dark baby ‘cause of someone in your heritage.” She had read whatever she could find since she met David that night, and she knew some big, fancy words, too, and could fling them right back.
Amadee glowed with pride over Leonie. She sounded smart.
“You’re making excuses for your daughter having a black baby,” Emeline chimed in, making Frank rub his head in frustration.
Amadee began laughing hard, holding the wall for support until he finally caught his breath and wiped his eyes, “ She didn’t step out. You a thinking dis baby done come from her and her side? It ain’t even her line, it ain’t.”
“What?” Emeline was furious and stood right up to Amadee.
Amadee pointed a finger with a dirty nail at Emeline, “You done mixed this line, and you don’t know it, do you? Oh, my….” He wiped his eyes again and tilted his head, laughing once more.
“What’s he yammering about?” Landry wobbled on his feet.
“You married up with Frank Theriot there back a ways, and he done taken the children as his own and give ‘em his name, but you had dem children with Edward Terrebonne.” Amadee pointed again, this time at Landry, “Him is a Terrabonne.”
“My first husband,” Emeline said, a little quieter now, eyes wide, and curious as to what Amadee Audette would say. Fear crossed her brow, and she glanced at Frank, but Frank and his children only looked inquisitively at Amadee and Emeline.
“Did you not know, or is you hiding secrets?”
“What secrets?” Emeline demanded.
“Edward’s Daddy was adopted by the Terrebonnes, but he was the child of a Terrebonne cousin and a high yeller gal name of Odette Beal. Dis cousin was sneakin’ and playing in de wrong part of the Quarter (said as k-water). I think he was Michael Terrebonne, iffin I remember right. Den he comes up wit the gal pregnant, and her mammy demanded dat gal be married ‘cause she was a high bred gal.”
Emeline glared.
“To solve it all, dey waited til dey baby born, and he were white and pale as a grub worm. What dey did, ‘cause det child were of Terrebonne blood, see, dey handed him off to the other family branch as one of the gals had done lost a baby.”
“Lies,” Emeline whispered.
“The Terrebonnes slid dat information away and sent dat gal a packin’ wit some mighty cash to her and her mammy, and den dey others raised dat baby up, and den he had Edward by a white woman, properly married and part of the society, who you married,” he said it as sew-sy-tee.
“No….” Emeline said.
“I don’t do the math too good, but Edward’s daddy was about half or a pinch more black blooded, and Edward be a fourth, see. Dat makes his son one of eight parts black folk,” Amadee pointed to Landry.
Amadee caught Emeline’s slap so she didn’t make contact, and he held her arm so she couldn’t do it again. Frank didn’t move.
Landry and Trish began demanding answers and swearing it wasn’t true, but Emeline stood and pondered this once Amadee let go of her arm.
There had been rumors, but Edward said they were malicious gossip and not to be taken as real. Edward’s skin was a little dusky, and his curls, well, they might be curls, but they did have an unusual texture that he called “difficult hair”.
Could the whispered rumors be true? Was her first husband part black? Emeline wasn’t sure she could stand to see her children if this were true. They would be tainted and less than…less than human, maybe. She looked at Trish. Her nose a tiny bit too broad, her lips very full, called “exotic”, but maybe….
Amadee saw Emeline relax her shoulders as she glanced at her daughter. A swift look of revulsion was covered by anger. Having Emeline Terrebonne Theriot in this position, vulnerable and without control was priceless.
“Now, you know why Candy Lynn has dat mixed baby. It’s your son, Landry Terrebonne Theriot who sullied your linage.” His accent waned as he shoved his point home with dark hatred.
“Tell him he’s crazy, Momma,” Landry demanded.
Emeline, for the first time, had nothing to say. She walked over to her corner and sat down where she polished her crystal again, lost in her own thoughts. She could not and would not consider her husband had been a fourth black and that her children were an eighth. Oh no, it was unthinkable.
“Candy Lynn, we’ll take you on the boat where you can rest,” Leonie said, “Boys, you pick her up like she’s delicate glass, ya hear? And carry her on board to the bed. My bed.” She was sick at the goings-on here in this house.
Amadee nodded, liking Leonie to take a little control and help his oldest girl. Candy Lynn cringed and wrinkled her nose as Buford reached for her. The boy had over stepped his bounds and tried touching her way too many times, and she didn’t care for him.
Amadee watched and decided it would be okay. He was just her step brother and not blood kin, so maybe they could marry up and raise the baby.
“What’s the plan?” Frank asked, “you going to float around and wait for help?”
“I reckon so. Help will come, but dey be slow…the whole area…the bayou done claimed it back now; dis all hers now, and I tell ya dis…dey may try to clean it up and restore the city, but dis part…best leave it to de bayou, caimon, frogs, the cypress, and de barbue.” He held fingers out to mimic a catfish.
“I think the house is done for, but lache pas la patat,” Frank said. The phrase meant not to let go of the potato, but in Cajun it meant never let go, and keep the spirit.
It was the first and only time Frank had connected with Amadee.
“May be a few days before help comes, and the water, she rises still. You are canting to the side, dis house be. It may roll over,” Amadee said.
Frank nodded. He was aware the house had shifted on the foundation and might fall into the water.
Virgil cleared his throat, “Candy Lynn is calling for Marie and Nita.” He dreaded if his step daddy got angry, but he was just the messenger.
Amadee looked around, trying to recall names and faces. He knew he shouldn’t have taken the trip that Emeline gave them. It was a fine jaunt and enjoyable, but it meant he had missed meeting and knowing all of Candy Lynn’s family.
“That’s Marie, my daughter, and that’s Nita, the kids’ cousin,” Frank said. It somehow seemed important to say Marie and Nita were of his bloodline; he wasn’t sure why this was so.
“We’d welcome dem aboard,” Amadee said, “we can’t leave ya to drown, much as some deserve it, I think.”
“There’s fifteen of us,” Frank warned, “counting the baby.”
They faced off for a full minute, “You know dis, Frank Theriot, dis is my boat and my rules. You come aboard,
and dey is my way and my way fully.”
“Okay. We have supplies to add,” Frank said.
Beau and Remy both looked disparaged but began to gather supplies and load the boat. Frank sent Abagail, Toby, and Theo on aboard, then the girls, and he motioned Landry to go.
“What you want to get on a tacky, trash boat with the Audettes?” Landry
shouted, “I am not about to go on that boat with that cheating whore and nigger baby.”
Frank glared and held a hand up to calm Amadee Audette, “It’s just his words. They don’t have truth.”
Amadee nodded finally and motioned Buford to calm himself.
“We can’t make you.” Frank turned. “Emeline?”
“No. I will not leave my house.”
Trish shook her head violently.
“Then stay,” Frank said, “but this house won’t hold. You are risking your lives.”
“I am not going anywhere with them.”
Trish nodded in agreement with her mother. Landry ignored both sides.
“You can’t leave me like this, Frank Theriot,” Emeline shouted at his back, “Landry, you go and you can stay gone.”
Landry didn’t look back, and he didn’t look at all the people glaring at him. He took his bottles of alcohol and found a corner where he could drink in peace on the houseboat.
Toby walked off the houseboat deck, shaking his head, “I can’t leave them. Mister Frank, I’ll stay with them and see how it goes.”
“Toby, your mama and daddy….”
“They’ll go with you, but I’m a man grown, and it’s the right thing to stay with them since they can’t stay alone. I’ll be all right, Mister Frank. You know you can depend on me like you would…well….”
“Same as a son.” Frank clasped the man’s shoulder with appreciation, but didn’t look back, even as Trisha and Emeline shouted to him.
Amadee chuckled.
Frank was angry and sad. He felt let down and as if he had lost everything, but he didn’t react, only followed the rest inside the ugly boat. Beau and Remy hugged him as he boarded, and Abagail gave him a nod of approval. She didn’t like Emeline, but she was proud her son was being a proper man.
“We has dis boat, and we will bring you food. We stay in dis area,” Amadee said. He shook his head at the foolishness.
Buford untied the line and cast off.
As they drifted, Amadee chuckled again as two fins broke the surface between the houseboat and the Theriot’s home.
How symbolic that was.
Chapter Five: Meat
The night before right at dusk as the storm dissipated and stopped hammering at them, those on the houseboat found soggy, bed-ragged survivors clinging to a floating shed, tired, hopeless, hungry, and thirsty.
“Hey, there,” Buford called out.
Two men and a teen girl waved tiredly. We sure are glad to see you.”
“We is glad to sees you,” Buford leered.
The refugees watched the water fearfully, but they looked very happy to have been found and lit up like lights in the gloom.
“There’s sharks in the water,” one said.
“Yeah, we saw that, too. You’ll wanna step carefully,” Buford said. He and Virgil helped the first man aboard the houseboat. Amadee grinned broadly and helped the man sit down on the deck.
The girl, thin and waifish, struggled over the edge, dangling above the water for a second. Buford enjoyed how her eyes got big and full of worry as she clutched Virgil and he hauled her up and onto the deck.
The third man was fat and breathless as he reached for the houseboat’s rail. Buford looked at him with distaste, glanced at his stepfather, and reached to help the man. They locked eyes. Buford saw him as useless and a drain on their supplies. He was a flat useless slob.
One of the fins swam closer, and Buford could see its shape and scales through the muddy water. The shark didn’t belong. Its presence was very wrong, but the fat man was equally as wrong since he was unusable because of his size and health. He was a true waste in all ways.
“Pull me up,” the man begged.
Buford waited until the shark was right below the man and then let go of him, “Oh no, he slipped,” Buford said.
The man splashed, and before he could come up and slap at the water, the shark turned and shot like a bullet. The creature opened his maw and snapped the man around the waist, slinging his head back and forth as rows of teeth serrated flesh and bone. The man fought it, but the shark continued to press down with his enormous bite force, cracking ribs.
Buford found it interesting.
He watched passively as Virgil complained and the other two survivors wailed.
The water turned from plain brown to frothy red and pink. Throwing his head back, the big man screamed and cried for help, but the shark swam away, his prize caught. In a minute, several sharks gathered, tearing and flinging globs of skin and bone to the side. As the man died, the sharks lost interest and allowed him to sink to the bottom, the feeding unfinished.
When the sharks left to hunt, a large gator slipped into the water for scraps that it would hide under a log until the body was nice and ripe for eating. Alligators preferred more rotten meat. Catfish and gar gulped flesh as they darted in to eat and get away from predators. Little fish, afraid, moved like lightning to get a bite, unsure how or why the feeding order was different. They didn’t understand what the sharks were and why they had come up into the bayou, but they knew the environment had changed.
On the boat, Virgil watched the two survivors. He felt sick, knowing what his stepfamily would do to them but was unable to stop them. It was the Audette way; like it or not, he was with them.
“What’s your name?” Buford flopped himself down on the deck beside the girl. She rocked herself and trembled.
“Audra.”
Buford ran a dirty hand down her leg, “Cleaned up, you’d be nice looking, Audra.”
She slapped his hand away and crab-walked back to the man on the deck. Audra cried helplessly, “Help me…you get away from me.”
“He ain’t gonna help ye none,” Amadee told Audra. “You ain’t very friendly.”
Tammany and Lougenia came out, big carving knives in hand. Tammany asked, “Is it time yet? We’re ready, Daddy.”
“Let’s do this,” Buford said, leaving Audra and leaping at the man. Buford grabbed the man’s head and slammed it down on the deck several times, disorienting his prey. Buford felt powerful and in control. He loved this.
“Ohhhh-ehhhh.” Amadee lunged forward like a cobra striking, bringing out a big knife, and grinning wildly. Blood whipped across the deck as Amadee slipped his razor-like knife across the man’s throat so fast that the man felt only a light pressure across his neck. In confusion, he raised his hands to his throat, wondering why he had such an odd sensation, but because the knife was so sharp, the man felt nothing until the flesh parted and blood ran down his chest and he was left gasping for air.
As the man flopped and Amadee comically held him down or moved him back to the center of the deck, Buford laughed and cheered. This was the Audette way, and it was funny to see someone flop like a fish, gasping and moaning.
The girl scratched and hit Buford, but one hard punch to her jaw and the fight left her so he was able to pull down her jeans, toss them aside, and rip away her panties. When he finished raping her, he asked who wanted to go next.
As usual, Virgil turned away.
Amadee pressed one finger to his lips to tell Lougenia and Tammany to keep a secret; he took his turn with the girl. It wasn’t anything against his wife or because he enjoyed raping women particularly, but the feel and smell of blood, the killing, and everything else made it impossible for him to resist. Amadee took his turn for relief only.
Audra lay on the deck, amid the dirty water, blood, and dirt she was soaked in. Buford took another turn, all excited now and ripped away her shirt. The twigs and grit on the deck scratched her back as Buford used her.
&nb
sp; He bit her breasts and not playfully. She rose up, screaming as he smiled through a mouthful of her skin; he left a hole. A large, bite-sized piece was gone.
She rolled to her side, but he rolled her back, swallowing the raw meat of her breast. Audra felt bile rise in her stomach and vomited all over her chin and neck. She managed to turn her head so she didn’t smother. She spat. Buford’s chewing and smacking of the flesh was nauseating, and oh, how her breast ached.
It was bad enough they had both raped her right in front of the girls who watched, unconcerned, and it was bad that this brute had taken a bite out of her breast and eaten it, but Buford didn’t stop his torment when she vomited, as anyone normal would. He got more excited and continued his assault, kissing Audra even if she kept her mouth closed. He kissed her even though there was vomit on her lips and chin.
“Aw, dey be nice ones, not like dey girls wanna get dat der plastic siphoned in dey’s boobs so dey look like dey have rubber balls up in dey shirt. Jalousie. That is what dat is. Wanting what dey ain’t got.”
“Tasty, too, Buford said.
“Now, Boy, we don’t eat the meat uncooked. You bien-̕eleve̒. Don’t eat dey raw meat.”
Audra screamed harder. Buford raised his hand, holding the knife he always carried. With expert precision, Buford sliced away Audra’s lips and handed them to Tammany who carried a bowl. Audra responded with huge whoops of screaming that echoed and carried through the swamp like music.
“Ohhh-ehhhhh…dat is enough to make dey caimons take notice,” Amadee said.
Buford was tired of the scratching and fighting; it was easier when they were tied and gagged, but this one was like fighting with a racoon, all claws and teeth. Buford took the hilt of the knife and slammed it into Audra’s mouth, breaking teeth and knocking them out, “Gonna declaw ya next.”
Amadee laughed, and the girls giggled. Amadee didn’t let the anxious girls get to work yet on the man because the girl, Audra, was still fighting Buford. The boy needed to release some stress.