The Levee: A Novel of Baton Rouge

by Malcolm Shuman

  “Why?”

  “Just do what I say.”

  “Is it what you said happened when he was young? What was it?”

  “I’m not sure and maybe it doesn’t matter now. But you give the man a wide berth, understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ten minutes after we got home he came to my door.

  “I have to go out for a little while. I should be back in plenty of time for supper.”

  With a surge of excitement I realized I was about to be alone. As soon as the car started I returned to my room and lay on the bed.

  I’d gone to the levee to look for Stan but instead I’d found Michelle and we’d almost …

  An image of her naked body hovered before me in the twilight of the room and in my imagination she was asking me to undress while she moved toward me.

  My God, she’d let me touch her there.

  My hand moved down again only instead of touching her body I felt myself touching my own.

  I’d had erections before and seen guys in the locker room with them, as they traded dirty stories, but I knew the Church, in which I no longer professed any belief, condemned touching oneself in this way.

  But surely there was no harm in a touch, in a few gentle squeezes, so long as I stopped short. After all, I’d had wet dreams, felt the intense sensation of pleasure that came from orgasm while I slept, and I knew I could control myself.

  Except that I couldn’t and before I could stop myself I felt the sudden rush of sensation as my seed shot out onto my belly and chest. I closed my eyes, letting the sensations die away.

  I’d done it now. Mortal sin. There was no going back.

  I was cleaned up by the time my father returned, his face screwed up in worry. I’d seldom seen him like this, but I didn’t know how to ask him what was the matter.

  I tried to force myself to think of Stan and where he might be, but my mind kept returning to Michelle. There had to be a way to get back there, maybe take her out in the car, do it in the back seat like I’d heard other guys saying they did it with their dates.

  Damn, what kind of person was I? I hadn’t gone to see Stan when he needed me and now, instead of worrying about him, I was fantasizing about a girl who’d let me feel her up.

  It was after supper and I was watching TV when the phone rang. I got to it before my father and heard Toby’s voice.

  “So what’s happening, cat?”

  I looked around to make sure my father wasn’t within hearing distance.

  “Screw you,” I said. “You told the cops about the earring. They came here and questioned me, you bastard.”

  “Hey, don’t get pissed. My old man caught me coming in. What was I supposed to do?”

  “You didn’t have to say anything about the fucking earring.”

  “Shit on you, jack. I’m not concealing evidence.”

  “You’re a damn hypocrite and you’re a liar, besides. I talked to Michelle and she said you weren’t with her that night. So maybe you’ve got something to hide, and maybe I ought to rat on you.”

  “You’re a lying fuck. You didn’t talk to Michelle. She wouldn’t say ‘Kiss my ass’ to you.”

  “You don’t think?”

  “Man, you’re full of it.”

  “Ask her then.”

  “I don’t have to.”

  “Okay. Just proves my point. You’re the one she wouldn’t talk to.”

  He was silent and I heard a Dell Shannon record in the background.

  “You didn’t really talk to her,” he said.

  “Okay, I didn’t really talk to her.”

  “When the fuck would you have had time?”

  “When I drove out today to look for Stan. Michelle was by herself in the store.”

  “Shit, that ain’t no big deal. What were you doing looking for Stan there?”

  “I thought he might have gone to hide out on the levee.”

  “And did he?”

  “I didn’t see him.”

  Then, for some reason, I thought about the recent campfire. Michelle had attributed it to tramps, but it could just as well have been Stan. If I hadn’t been thinking about getting laid …

  “I saw Darwin Drood, though,” I told him.

  “What was he doing?”

  “Riding his horse. Except that he got off and came down to the borrow pit, like he was looking for something—or somebody.”

  “So maybe he was looking for a place to fuck his horse.”

  “You’re a pain in the ass. All this shit about how you find out shit from your old man and you don’t know crap.”

  “I wouldn’t start talking about anybody’s old man, dick-wit. Not after what I saw just now.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “Nothing. I’d just like to know what your old man was doing with Stan’s mom before supper today.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. I drove by to see if maybe Stan came back. I was gonna walk back to his hut if no cars were there. But there wasn’t just one car there, there was two. Stan’s mom’s and your old man’s. So I thought maybe he really did come back and you were over there, which is why I called. But since you weren’t there, that just leaves one other possibility. Your old man is dicking Stan’s old lady while Stan’s old man’s in jail.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  When I got rid of Toby I sat staring at the phone.

  It wasn’t true. It was just another of Toby’s lies. My father couldn’t … I snatched up the phone again and called Blaize.

  “I need to talk to you,” I said.

  His voice was low, as if his mother was nearby.

  “Can you come by later?

  “How much later?”

  “After eleven. She’ll be asleep then. Knock on my window.”

  “All right.” I hung up, glimpsing my father in his shirt-sleeves, reading a book while the radio played classical music. He hadn’t even removed his tie, as if he were still on duty. I tried to imagine him sweating in the arms of Mrs. Chandler, but the image wouldn’t jell.

  I wandered into the living room.

  “You didn’t hear anything about Stan, did you?” I asked.

  He looked up from the book and nudged his glasses up on his nose.

  “Why, no. I have to say I’m a little worried.”

  I waited for him to tell me that was why he’d gone to see Mrs. Chandler, but he offered nothing. I nodded and went back to my own room, locking the door behind me.

  He was the neatest man I’d ever seen and there was still hardly a crease in his shirt. If he’d been making love to Stan’s mom, wouldn’t it be wrinkled? But then I realized he would have taken it off, hung it on a hanger. That was his way.

  At ten-thirty I heard his bedroom door close and I turned out my own light. Half an hour later I slipped into the hallway. The window unit blocked out any sound from inside his room but there was no light from under the door. I waited another fifteen minutes, then went out my window and walked down the dark street to Blaize’s apartment.

  They lived on the ground floor and his room was in the rear corner. I made my way silently across the grass, alert to any signs of life. A couple of the upstairs units had lit windows but the place next door was dark. I stood on tiptoes under his window and rapped lightly with my knuckles.

  Almost immediately the pane was raised and Blaize stuck his head out.

  “Can you get in?” he asked.

  “It’s kind of high.”

  “Here.” He reached out, leaning over the sill, and I grabbed his wrists. He pulled, grunting with the effort, and I reached out with one hand and grabbed the sill.

  For a few seconds I floundered, half in and half out but his hand came down, seized my belt, and helped pull me the rest of the way in. I tumbled onto the floor atop him, and for a second we lay there, huffing in the Lysol-scented blackness like exhausted lovers. I slowly disengaged and rubbed my forearms, where the sill had scraped them raw.

  “You oka
y?” he asked.

  “Yeah. You want to shut the window?”

  “Actually, no. I like the night air. When my mom goes to sleep I open the window all the time, just to breathe in the fresh air. Once I forgot and it was open in the morning and she gave me hell.”

  “You sure she’s asleep now?”

  “Nothing would wake her up. She always takes a bunch of pills. She says she can’t sleep without them.”

  I could barely make him out in the darkness, but then the headlights of a passing car raked the trees outside, reflected dimly off his face, and I was aware of his eyes on me.

  “You probably wonder why I’m here,” I asked.

  “Yeah. But I figure you’ve got a reason.”

  “There was: there’s nobody else I can talk to.”

  “I know how that feels.”

  “Right.” I hesitated, trying to decide how to say it.

  “Look, Blaize, let me ask you: if you knew somebody real well, I mean like forever, and you figured you knew that person in and out, do you think they could do anything that would surprise you?”

  “You mean could you do anything that would surprise me, and vice versa?”

  “No, I mean if you knew somebody better than that.”

  “I think anybody could surprise anybody else.”

  “Serious?”

  “Sure. I mean, how much do we really know about anybody else, really? How much do we know about ourselves? You may say, ‘I wouldn’t do this or that,’ but how do you know until you’re facing it head on? I think anybody’s capable of anything.”

  “Jesus.”

  “You asked.”

  Then I told him about my father and what Toby had said.

  “I just can’t see it being true,” I said. “Sure, he’s been alone for a long time and I guess he needs it sometimes, but Stan’s mom ..?”

  When he answered, his voice was cold and analytical:

  “Colin, if you’re asking whether I think it’s possible your dad’s screwing Stan’s mom, the answer’s yes. And for the reasons you mentioned. But that doesn’t mean I think it’s true. Those are two different things.”

  I felt the weight lift slightly.

  He went on: “You’re quoting Toby. That sorry sack of shit would say anything. He was pissed because you jumped him for telling his dad about the earring. So he had to get back. There’s all sorts of reasons your dad could have been at Stan’s house.”

  “I know. It’s just …”

  “Just what? Because Toby said it or because you really deep down think it may be true?”

  “I heard him talking to somebody on the telephone in a low voice this morning. I heard him say he had to see them, whoever he was talking to.”

  “So? Maybe it was Stan’s mom, maybe it wasn’t. But so what if it was? He’s worried about Stan, too. Maybe he went over there to see how she was doing. To ask if she’s heard anything. Look, Toby just saw the car, he didn’t see anybody with their pants down.”

  “No.”

  “So I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  I nodded in the darkness. It was what I’d wanted to hear.

  “It’s Stan we ought to be worried about,” Blaize said.

  Then I told him how I’d tried to find Stan and how I’d been diverted by Michelle Bergeron.

  “I swear to God,” I finished.

  “I believe you,” he said simply.

  “You do? I mean, that Michelle actually let me..?”

  “I said so. The problem isn’t what you did with her anyway. The problem’s that you didn’t follow up. You said somebody had been to the camp site.”

  I lowered my eyes, even though I doubted he could see them in the darkness. “I know.”

  “Look, Colin, shit happens, okay? You just can’t let it paralyze you.”

  “You’re right. But I don’t know where to go from here.”

  “I do.”

  I slowly looked up, shaken by the certainty in his voice.

  “It’s simple,” he said. “You go wherever’s left to go.”

  “And where’s that?”

  “Back to Michelle.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “She likes you, right? She lives there, right? You think Stan could hide on the levee without her knowing?”

  I shrugged.

  “We need to ask her again. Make her tell what she knows.”

  “We?”

  “Stan’s my friend, too. He can’t help whatever his father did or didn’t do. But we have to find him before something bad happens.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. But there was something about Drood that scared her, right? She didn’t say she was scared of Sikes, just Drood. So what is it about the two of them? What’s the connection? Is Sikes protecting Drood or is Drood taking care of Sikes? I bet there’s something she knows about them, something she may have gotten from her father. And if Stan’s out there some place, we ought to know, too.”

  I exhaled. “You’re right. I should have made her tell me when we were together.”

  “Should have, could have. Don’t worry about that. It’s what we’ve got to do now.” He paused for a second, thinking.

  “Reckon your father will let you have the car again tomorrow after your class?”

  “If I say I’m looking for Stan.”

  “Then pick me up and we’ll drive to the store and see if Michelle’s by herself.”

  “You can get loose?”

  “My mom has a book club meeting. I’ll leave a note and tell her I’m with you.” His tone took a wry note: “She approves of you.”

  It didn’t take much to get the car the next afternoon. My punishment had seemingly withered away and when I told my father I had some more ideas about where to look for Stan, he nodded and wished me good luck.

  Blaize was right: What Toby had told me was crap and I should have known it to begin with.

  I picked Blaize up and we drove back out through the university to the River Road.

  “What if she isn’t alone?” I asked. “What if she isn’t even there?”

  “Then we buy a Coke and leave and come back later.”

  “And then?”

  “Let’s get there first.”

  I needn’t have worried. She was there, and as alone as the day before. I left Blaize in the car and went in. She looked up from her comic book.

  “Hey,” she said with a knowing smile.

  “Hey,” I said, embarrassed by the bulge in my pants.

  “I can’t leave right now,” she said without my asking. “And my mama asked me all kinds of questions about how I got so muddy. They’ve been watching me ever since.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I …”

  “No, it’s not. It’s shitty,” she said. “I’ll be so glad to get away from this place.”

  “Look …”

  “Come back tonight,” she said quickly, cutting me off. “Come back at eleven-thirty. I’ll be waiting in the backyard. When I see you I’ll run out and get into the car.”

  I nodded. “Right.”

  I was turning away to go, legs jelly, when the front door opened and Blaize walked in.

  “I thought you were alone,” Michelle accused.

  “This is Blaize. He was waiting in the car.”

  “Blaize? You mean like in St. Blaize, the guy who cures throat problems? The one where the priest comes around with the two candles and puts them against your neck?”

  “Yeah, that one,” Blaize said.

  Michelle glared at me. “Why did you bring him? What did you tell him? If you think …”

  “He didn’t tell me anything,” Blaize said. “Except that he thinks our friend Stan may be down here camping on the levee.”

  “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “You see everything that goes on here. Colin thought you might have seen him and I think so, too.”

  “I don’t care what you think, skinny boy.”

  “You can call me
whatever you want. But at least I’ve got two friends, and if one of them is in danger, I want to help him, and if you had any friends, you’d feel the same way.”

  “I have plenty of friends.”

  “Then would you want them hurt?”

  Michelle screwed up her face and I didn’t know if she was going to yell at us or cry.

  “Colin said there was a fresh campfire on the levee. Was it Stan?”

  Michelle threw back her hair. “I don’t know what his name is. I don’t know any of your names.”

  “But you saw him,” Blaize persisted.

  “I saw him. But it was a couple of days ago. I haven’t seen him since.”

  “Is he in danger?” I asked.

  “How should I know?”

  “Because something about Drood scared you.”

  “You did tell him,” she accused.

  “I told him Drood came along and you spooked.”

  “That’s cause he’s spooky,” she shot back.

  “It isn’t because of something that happened a long time ago?” Blaize asked.

  “You’ve got to get out of here. If my old man comes, he’ll think I’ve been …”

  “Just tell us about Drood,” Blaize said. “We’ll leave.”

  “I don’t know about Drood,” she cried, lip trembling. “I only know what my parents say.”

  “And what’s that?” Blaize asked.

  “That they’re a screwed-up bunch of people, okay? That they’re all crazy.”

  “Something happened when Darwin Drood was younger,” I said. “He got sent up north afterwards. What was it?”

  “I don’t goddamn know! I don’t mess with the Droods or Sikeses or any of those folks. My daddy told me to keep away and I do. He said they was all screwed up and it didn’t do nobody no good to get mixed up with them.”

  “He must have said other things,” I said.

  “I told you he didn’t say shit. Now get out of here before we all get in trouble. Please.”

  “There’s nothing else you know about Drood?” I asked, desperate.

  “Nothing.” She gave a little shrug. “Unless you count what Sikes said when he was drinking.”

  “What?” Blaize and I said it together.

  “It was a long time ago, back when my folks were still talking to Sikes. He used to get drunk and come around and my daddy had to keep throwing him out and finally it got so bad they had a showdown and Sikes didn’t come no more.”