All told, Ralph Angel stayed gone five days. Blue refused to speak to him when he reappeared; pouted and turned his back every time Ralph Angel called him. That had been the worst part; he’d never left Blue behind like that before, but sometimes a man had to step away for a while. Blue only came around when Ralph Angel offered to read him another Bible story, and even that didn’t ease Blue’s fears entirely. He followed Ralph Angel around like a duckling, cried when Ralph Angel said he still had to go to school.
As for the rest of the family, coming home was easier than he expected. Charley ignored him, and ’Da was so happy to see him she smothered him with all her hovering and coddling until he told her to give him some space. She apologized and left him alone after that, which was good, because he’d come up with a plan.
While everyone was at church, he took the newspaper to his room, spread the want ads on his bed, and circled jobs he thought he was cut out for. After Blue went to sleep, he found Miss Honey’s old Underwood and pecked out a cover letter, filling in the missing keystrokes with a leaky black ballpoint.
To Whom It May Concern,
I am writing to inquire about the position listed in Sunday’s paper. I attended Southern University where I studied Civil Engineering. I have extensive sales experience resulting from my years with Rancher’s Pride Meat Direct and the Phoenix Water Services Department . . . I am flexible about the salary and benefits. I would welcome a chance to discuss my qualifications further and explain the gaps in my employment.
Yours truly,
Each afternoon, he walked down to the post office, imagining that he would see, there among the bills and circulars in ’Da’s box, a letter inviting him for an interview. One day, a thin envelope arrived.
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your interest in our sales position. At this time, we have decided your work experience does not coincide with the job requirements. Good luck in your continued search.
Sincerely,
Ralph Angel jammed the letter in his sweat suit pocket and walked across the street to the gas station, where he bought three Snickers and a king-size Baby Ruth before boosting a Schlitz forty-ouncer from the display near the door.
In the next round, he answered ads for home health care aids, security guards, dishwashers at the Waffle House where he worked the summer before he went to college. But no luck. Finally, he signed up with the job-training center in Lafayette, where the clerk looked at him as though he were a recent parolee and told him to take a seat until she called his name. Two hours later, he had the name of a crawfish farmer and a number to call. Which was how he wound up sitting on the German’s tailgate next to a crate of rotting fish.
• • •
“You there,” the German said, pointing. He was a large man with arms sunburned terra-cotta and fingers thick as sausages. “You ever pull traps?”
“I’m an engineer,” Ralph Angel said. “Went to Southern.” He wondered if the German had even graduated from high school and guessed he probably inherited this place from his father, who inherited it from his father, since that was the way luck worked down here.
The German squinted. “Well, then you’re smart enough to know I can’t pay you unless you put in a day’s work. This ain’t no beauty contest. Get off your ass and start hauling bait.”
“I don’t know what the agency told you,” Ralph Angel said, sliding off the tailgate. “But I’ve got management experience.”
The German held Ralph Angel in his gaze. “I don’t care if you won the fucking Nobel Prize. I need a man to pull those traps. Can you do the job or not?”
• • •
The first two crawfish ponds bordered a strip of raised ground where the pickup was parked. Fringed with willows overhanging the soggy banks, each pond measured forty acres and looked bottomless beneath the willows’ reflection. Twenty more man-made ponds just like this one were scattered through the woods.
A burlap tarp concealed the bait crates. Ralph Angel peeled it away and forced himself to look at the hollowed eyes, the gaping mouths, the maggots inching their way through the bloody gills. His stomach rolled as he hoisted two crates into his arms.
Down at the dock, two young men—one black, one white—stood by an aluminum bateau beached in the cattails along the bank. Ralph Angel eyed the bateau warily, and couldn’t help but wonder how quickly he’d drown if it capsized. The black boy—chinstrap beard, wave cap over his cornrows—jammed his fists in his pocket and spat into the water while the white boy, in a guts-smeared T-shirt, baseball cap set sideways like a music video gangster, scratched his belly and exchanged a knowing glance with the black kid as Ralph Angel set the crates on the dock.
“’Sup?” said the white kid.
Ralph Angel had been around long enough to know how he had to play this. You couldn’t come off as too aggressive with guys like this, since you were on their turf; but you couldn’t come off as a pussy either. “Nothing, man.”
“The boss is a hard-ass,” said the white kid, “but he’s a’ight. Don’t ride us too hard long as we be filling sacks. Yo, it ain’t personal, know what I’m sayin’?”
Ralph Angel nodded. Why did white kids think it was cool to talk like black kids from the ’hood? “Yeah, okay,” he said.
The black kid carried the crates to the bateau, where he stacked them neatly, as if it mattered.
“I’m Jason,” the white kid said. “That’s Antoine.” Antoine ignored them; someone, apparently, had to load the bateau. Jason kicked at the marshy ground; his rubber boots made a sucking sound in the mud. “This your first time?”
“Yeah,” Ralph Angel said. “You know how it is, man. Got to make a little paper.”
Jason laughed. “True, dat.”
“What about you?” Ralph Angel ignored the swipe of a glance from Antoine, who was now retrieving crates from the pickup. “Been doing this long?”
“Since eleventh grade,” Jason said. “I be making enough paper to get me a new truck and my girlfriend’s teacup Chihuahua; paid eight hundred dollars for that damn dog. Boss says I keep working like this, one day he’ll give me a percentage.”
“What about school?” Ralph Angel said. “You ought to finish. Go to college. Get your degree.”
“Fuck school, man.” Jason rubbed his fingers together. “This here’s the money.”
“Wanna know the real money shot? A diploma, man. Got mine in engineering. Southern.” Which, for purposes of this discussion, Ralph Angel figured was close enough to the truth.
Jason’s gaze narrowed. “If it’s all about the diploma, how come you ain’t hooked up in an office?”
“This?” Ralph Angel looked out over the ponds. “This here is temporary, while I figure out my next move.”
“I feel you,” Jason said. He signaled to Antoine, who set down a crate, wiped his hands, front and back, on his shirt, and shook Ralph Angel’s.
“Hey, man,” Ralph Angel said. “What kind of fish is this anyway?”
“Shad,” Antoine said, shrugging. “Maybe a little carp. Hard to tell when it’s all rotted and shit. But that’s how the crawfish like it. They go wild for this shit, man.” He climbed into the bateau. “We grading ’em or just running?”
“Just running,” Jason said. “Not catching too many number ones, so the boss says throw ’em all together.” He tossed Ralph Angel a pair of black industrial rubber gloves.
• • •
The necks of the crawfish traps rose just above the surface of the water. The bateau’s hydraulic engine turned the paddle wheel, whose blades churned up mud and grass as it pushed the shallow-bottomed boat deeper into the pond. While Jason steered and worked the pedals, Antoine positioned himself at the small metal table in the center of the bateau. Woven sacks, the electric green of Easter excelsior, hung along one side of the table. As the bateau rumbled through the water, it was Ralph Angel’s job
to lean over the side, snatch each wire trap by its neck, and dump the contents—crawfish, gnarled fish heads and backbones, baby snapping turtles and weeds—onto the table, then replenish the bait and sink the trap back into the pond, all before the bateau reached the next trap, a few yards farther on. At the table, Antoine picked out the crawfish. He tossed the smallest ones over the side and shoved the larger ones through the chutes into the waiting sacks until they bulged like udders. It was simple work, but there was a rhythm to it, and the rhythm was cruel. The first few times, Ralph Angel was too slow emptying a trap, or he forgot to refill the bait, or he sank one trap too close to another and the bateau had to make a wide sputtering circle back.
“People be making some cheap sacks, man,” Antoine shouted over the engine. “Sacks keep popping.” Rogue crawfish scrambled around at his feet.
“Keep it going,” Jason yelled, and motioned for Ralph Angel to speed it up.
• • •
By noon, Ralph Angel’s shirt was soaked with pond water, his pants speckled with mud, blood, and fish guts. His back ached from bending. His shoulders cramped from lifting and dumping. On the sorting table, crawfish, like chunks of carnelian, glinted in the sunlight. The sight of them writhing at the shock of warm air, tails slowly flapping, tiny claws mechanically grabbing for futile salvation, struck Ralph Angel as ecstatic. Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore, Ralph Angel thought, before he could stop himself.
When they broke for lunch, Ralph Angel dragged himself up the bank and sat alone in a half-circle of shade. He choked down his gummy cheese sandwich, struggling against the craving for a hit. Heat rose from the ground as he lay in the grass.
In his dream, he was back at the Piccolo Club with Gwenna and a stranger who had a marble for a glass eye. The marble rolled wildly in its socket as the stranger licked Gwenna’s ear. Ralph Angel couldn’t protest; his lips were stitched shut. He woke to see the German standing over him.
“Time’s up, sleeping beauty.”
Ralph Angel smelled rotten fish on his sleeve. Every muscle in his upper body had stiffened. He made his way down to the bateau.
On the pond, he worked the rest of the afternoon in silence. Jason and Antoine talked about girls, cars, and music, but Ralph Angel was too tired. What little energy he had, he used trying to forget where he was—pulling trap on some cracker’s pond for minimum wage—until Jason steered the bateau toward the bank where the German waited for them to load the forty-pound sacks into his truck.
“Nice work,” the German said, as Ralph Angel walked past him with the last sack.
“Thanks,” Ralph Angel said.
“Tomorrow we’ll hit the last two ponds on this side,” said the German. “The front pond ain’t producing as good as these. Still got some of that seaweed from the storm.” He pulled out his keys.
And maybe it was the fact that the German had acknowledged his work, and maybe it was that he was being included in tomorrow’s plan, but Ralph Angel felt himself buoyed. He followed the German to his truck. “Say, boss, I’d like to ask a small favor.”
“What’s that?”
“I wonder if I could get an advance.”
“I pay on Fridays,” the German said in a flat tone. He climbed into his truck, which dipped under his weight.
“Yeah, I know.” Ralph Angel put his hand on the truck door. “But I’m riding on fumes. I don’t fill my tank tonight, I can’t make it back tomorrow.” He didn’t mean it to sound like a threat, but the German’s face flushed. “Not trying to be a smart-ass. I’m just being straight with you.”
“And I’m going to be straight with you,” the German said. He dug in his ear with his key. “I don’t give a shit where you went to school, or whether you wipe your ass with a silk handkerchief or the back of your hand. I pay out on Fridays; not Thursday afternoon, not Saturday morning. You want this job, Professor, you’d better figure out a way to gas up and get here by seven o’clock tomorrow. Not here at seven, I got ten other guys to take your spot.” He pulled the door closed.
Ralph Angel stepped away as the German turned the engine over. “I’m not a professor.”
• • •
Half a mile down the dirt road, the Impala sputtered then stopped. Ralph Angel sat behind the wheel, debating whether to sleep in his car, then got out and started walking. It had been years since he’d passed anywhere near a cane field. Now he cut through the rows. By dusk, he’d made it back to the Quarters and paused at the railroad tracks to look down into the dusty streets. The church, the school yard, the narrow road leading into the woods.
The screen door announced him. ’Da was at the stove. Blue, Micah, and Charley were setting the table.
“Where’ve you been?” asked ’Da.
“Got a job.”
Blue ran over, then backed away. “Yuck, Daddy, you stink.”
“A job,” ’Da said, like he’d just told her he’d been elected mayor.
“I’m working with this guy. He’s got a serious crawfish farm out past Bayou Duchein. Must have thirty-five, forty ponds.” Ralph Angel hung his jacket over a chair as though it were a suit coat and looked at Charley. “He says if I keep doing what I’m going, one day he’ll make me a partner, give me a percentage. What do you think about that, sis?”
“Congratulations,” Charley said.
’Da looked at him expectantly. “What’s he have you doing?” It was the same expression she had the first time he won the Junior Baptist Bible Verse Competition. He could still remember her, sitting there in the front row.
“Right now I’m out in the fields, managing the crew. He wants me to see how the whole operation runs, then he’ll bring me inside.”
“That makes two farmers in the family,” ’Da said. “God is good all the time. I’ve been praying for something like this. All that talent you got?”
“I’m not sure the Lord has much to do with this,” Ralph Angel said, “but thanks.”
“What do you mean?” ’Da said. “The Lord’s got everything to do with this. ‘And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God.’ Deuteronomy, chapter twenty-eight, verse two.” She wiped her hands on a dish towel, then slung it over her shoulder. “You’re not sure what the Lord has to do with this? I know I raised you better than that.”
“Denton says some farmers will lose as much as seventy thousand dollars if their cane doesn’t stand up by the end of the week,” Charley said.
Ralph Angel looked at Charley. On another day, her farm talk would have made him want to rip her face off. Could she really not see how much it bothered him? She must be doing it on purpose. But today, listening to her talk was like drinking castor oil: you wanted to vomit for a few seconds, but the feeling passed. “Speaking of money, ’Da,” Ralph Angel said. “I need to borrow some. I ran out of gas; had to walk back.”
“Why didn’t you call? I’d’ve come get you.”
“This place is way out. Walked half a mile just to get to the main road.” Before he said another word, ’Da had reached for her purse. “Just enough to fill the tank. I get paid on Friday.”
’Da pressed forty dollars into his hand. “I’ll go to the bank tomorrow if you need more,” she said. “Now go shower.”
Ralph Angel turned to Charley. “If you can find it in your heart to help your brother, after dinner maybe you can give me a lift to the gas station then drop me at my car.”
• • •
“So, one more week till grinding,” Ralph Angel said as he and Charley pulled out of the Quarters. “Must be a lot of pressure.”
“It’ll be close,” Charley said. She was quiet for a minute, then looked at him. “Congratulations on finding something. I’m happy for you. I mean it.”
Ralph Angel looked at C
harley and felt a small pocket of warmth—the same pocket of warmth that had first opened between them the day she took Blue for sno-cones—open again. For a moment, he considered telling her the truth about his job: that the German treated him like shit, lower than shit, actually, and that he’d never worked so hard in his life, didn’t think his body would ever recover; that a kid young enough to be his son, for Christ’s sake, had more seniority, was more successful than he was beginning to think he’d ever be; that if he thought about it too hard, he’d have to admit his life, other than Blue, was a total failure. He thought about telling Charley all that. It would feel good to confide in her, a load off his chest. But in the end, he just said, “Thanks.”
“You’ve been pretty tight-lipped about the whole thing,” Charley said. “I’d never have guessed.”
Ralph Angel leaned back. “Yeah, well. I didn’t want to say anything till I was sure.”
• • •
Above the gas pumps at the Quick Stop, neon lights burned through the night. Charley cruised along the pumps, parked, then held out two singles. “Can you buy a bottle of water and some gum when you get your gas?”
“Sure thing.”
Inside, Ralph Angel found the shelf of auto supplies, checked the price of a plastic gas can with a detachable funnel, and put it back on the shelf. At the counter, he set down Charley’s bottled water. “You got any empty containers back there?” he asked the girl behind the counter. “Anything plastic? I need something to put some gas in and that gas can you’re selling is a rip-off.”
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