Queen Sugar: A Novel

by Baszile, Natalie

  “No, sir. Not really,” the girl said. She thought for a moment. “I guess you can buy a Big Gulp, but I’ll have to charge you for the cup. Ninety-nine cents.”

  With Charley’s singles, Ralph Angel bought the bottled water and the giant cup. He bought gas with ’Da’s money, pocketed the change, fished a fistful of peppermint balls from the tub by the register, and tossed four dimes on the counter, then on the way out, when the girl wasn’t looking, boosted a pack of Juicy Fruit.

  “You can’t do that,” Charley said as Ralph Angel set the Big Gulp filled with gas in the cup holder.

  “They wanted seven dollars for a stupid plastic gas can,” Ralph Angel said. “The cup was practically free.”

  “I don’t care. Not in my car.”

  “Here.” Ralph Angel tossed the peppermint balls on the dash, where they scattered like marbles.

  “It’s completely illegal,” Charley said. “What if we have an accident?”

  “Then we’ll be dead anyway. Chill out, sis. We’re fine.”

  Out on the road, Ralph Angel crushed peppermint balls between his teeth while Charley, driving ten miles under the speed limit, glanced nervously in her rearview mirror. The country looked different at night and it took Ralph Angel a while to find the road where he’d left his car. Charley flipped on her high beams so he could see, but he still spilled most of the gas down the side of the Impala.

  “I should get back,” Charley called. So much for being happy for him.

  Ralph Angel waved the empty cup. “Thanks. I got it from here.”

  When Charley was gone, he tossed the cup into the cane and stood in the dark. The night smelled of tea olive, swamp lily, and magnolia—the smells of his childhood—and for a moment, Ralph Angel understood why people loved it here, why no one ever left.

  • • •

  Seven hundred nickels, which was thirty-five dollars after he paid for the cup and the gas, and cashed in the rest, weighed far more than Ralph Angel expected. He set his plastic bucket on the stool next to him, balled his jacket on the floor. He fed the nickels one at a time into the slot machine, yanked the handle, and watched the numbers spin. When the waitress came back with his free drink, he asked for Amber.

  “Who?” the waitress said, distracted. She stepped back, looked past Ralph Angel’s shoulder to where high rollers were cheering at the craps table.

  “Young girl,” Ralph Angel said. “Wavy red hair.” He could barely taste the alcohol in his Manhattan.

  “Don’t know her,” the waitress said. She glanced at his bucket. “You’re on the slow boat with those nickels, you know. Dollar slots or even the quarters, you’ll have better luck.”

  “Thanks, but I got a plan.”

  “A guy won ten grand last night playing dollar slots five bucks at a time.”

  Ralph Angel rolled his drink around his mouth. “You’re really working for that tip, huh?”

  “I’m just trying to be nice.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Ralph Angel set his glass on her tray. “But right now, I’ll just take another drink. With some bourbon in it this time.” He pushed another nickel into the machine.

  • • •

  Three coins left in his bucket. Ralph Angel’s eyes stung from all the cigarette smoke, so thick the air looked milky. Hours of handling the filthy nickels had left his fingertips stained the metallic gray of trout scales. He could still hear the German’s mocking voice. What he needed was something harder, a little horse to slay the beast. Ralph Angel pushed the last three nickels through the slot, yanked the handle one last time, and was turning away when the machine rang wildly and a spat a stream of coins into the tray. Three sevens bobbed on the centerline.

  “I’ll be damned.”

  • • •

  Fifty dollars, crisp.

  If he hurried, he could swing through Tee Coteau for a little nightcap and still be back at the ponds to catch an hour’s sleep, maybe two. The German would be impressed. He’d recognize his potential, maybe apologize for the bad start. End of the week, he’d be talking to Ralph Angel about a raise, maybe benefits. Ralph Angel pushed through the glass doors. The guy from his old life, the professional, would be back in the game.

  At the ponds, Ralph Angel turned on the radio and stretched out in the backseat, where he caught a whiff of Blue’s urine each time he changed position and had to grip the edge of the seat to keep from rolling onto the floor. When he was comfortable, he lit his cigarette, then held the lighter under the square of aluminum foil until white smoke snaked into the air. In a few seconds, he was chasing the dragon, Delta blues providing an eerie sound track to his dreams.

  • • •

  Morning. The rumble of Jason’s truck rattled the Impala. Ralph Angel crawled out of the backseat and urinated in the weeds, then trudged down to the dock, where Jason was already loading bait. He’d stopped chasing the dragon, but the last of its effects, the feeling of being inside a cocoon where nothing—not Charley, not the German, not even his father—could get to him, hung with him still.

  “Holy shit, man. Who dug you up?”

  “Hey, man,” Ralph Angel said. He hung his jacket over a branch, then lifted two crates off the stack and dragged them over to the dock. “I want to drive.”

  Jason glanced back at the crates. “I don’t know, dog. You don’t look so good.”

  “No, no,” Ralph Angel said. “It’s cool. I watched you yesterday. I get it.”

  “It ain’t that easy, man,” Jason said. “You fuck around, run over them traps, the boss is gonna be hella pissed.”

  “I said I can handle it. Don’t worry.”

  • • •

  The sun had just risen over the trees as Ralph Angel stepped into the bateau. He slid into the driver’s seat.

  “I got a bad feeling about this, man,” said Jason.

  “Relax,” Ralph Angel said, and practiced working the pedals.

  Antoine came down to the dock. He shot Jason a look when he saw Ralph Angel in the boat.

  “Yo, man.” Jason tapped Ralph Angel’s shoulder. “Just one time around. Then you gotta get up.”

  • • •

  The bateau was surprisingly easy to maneuver and they slipped smoothly through the water, the pond’s surface, this early in the morning, smooth as freshly blown glass. Everything in the world, Ralph Angel thought, seemed brighter, more intensely defined—the spiked yellow petals of the lily pad’s flower, the silvery blue iridescence of a dragonfly’s wing—it was all a miracle.

  Ralph Angel worked the pedals while Jason stood at the bow and kept an eye out for clumps of grass and reeds that might catch in the paddle wheel, nervously calling out, “Right, yo!” or “Left! Left!” making angular gestures as they crawled along. As he got the feel for the steering, Ralph Angel leaned back. He closed his eyes and let the sun warm his face.

  Then all at once, Jason was yelling, “Shit, man. Fucking A! Go back!”

  Ralph Angel snapped awake in enough time to see Jason race to the back of the bateau.

  “What’d I do?”

  “Ran over a trap.” Jason leaned over the stern, reached for the paddle wheel.

  Ralph Angel heard a bump, then a scrape of metal under the boat.

  “Turn off the fucking motor, man!” Antoine said.

  Ralph Angel lunged. But before he could hit the switch, they ran over another trap. The engine whined crazily as it surged, ground through its gears.

  “Cut the engine, motherfucker!” Antoine said again.

  “I’m trying,” Ralph Angel yelled back, fumbling. “Where’s the switch? I can’t find the switch.”

  Jason staggered forward. He reached for the switch and the engine died, but not before a third trap snagged on the paddle wheel and rose out of the water looking monstrous and strange. The crawfish inside the trap’s bulbous
belly scrambled and clicked like balls in a bingo tumbler, and as the paddle wheel continued to roll forward, it crushed the neck of the trap lodged against the stern. Smoke billowed from the hydraulic engine. It took almost an hour to paddle to the dock.

  The German was waiting. “How the hell?”

  “I can explain,” Ralph Angel began, but the German pushed past him and leaned over the stern. “Who did this?”

  “Give me a minute, Jesus.”

  But the German was having none of it. He plowed into Ralph Angel, knocking him out of the bateau onto the dock. “Get the hell off my pond.”

  “Just hear me out.”

  “Get off my farm before I fucking kill you.” He grabbed Ralph Angel by his shirt and dragged him to the bank. “You piece of shit. I knew you were trouble. You have any idea how much you’ve cost me?” He took a wad of bills from his pocket, peeled off two twenties and a ten, and tossed them on the ground. “I’m making an exception. Consider yourself paid,” the German said, then turned and walked away.

  Ralph Angel knelt in the muddy grass, which was still wet with morning dew. He gathered the bills. Across the pond, morning fog had burned away, revealing storm-ravaged woods. Leafless branches, splintered tree trunks, underbrush littered with trash from the surge. At last, Ralph Angel stood up and walked to his car. He laid his head on the wheel. He felt himself falling through the blanket of damp leaves and steamy humus; through the horizons of loam, through clay and bedrock, and finally, through the fire.

  OCTOBER

  23

  Still warm the first week of October. But it was the light, Charley thought, that had changed more than anything. Every edge was crisper, as if she were seeing the world through a freshly washed window. She loved how the sunlight cartwheeled through the leafy canopy along the Old Spanish Trail, how it made the cane fields glisten, so green now they looked to Charley like money in the bank. The seasons were changing, the light confirmed; grinding was about to begin. Which only made Charley more anxious to be finished, more desperate to get the tractor fixed and the men paid so she could be done with planting. She was almost there; just one hundred acres to go. Almost across the finish line. But they couldn’t move forward in a real way, Charley knew, until The Cane Cutter sold at auction. Even if it sold for half what she knew her father had paid, she’d have most of the money she needed.

  Late Thursday afternoon now, and as Charley turned into the Quarters she saw Micah and Blue waiting on the corner. They ran alongside her car, shrieking and laughing and waving pieces of paper, all the way down the block to Miss Honey’s. She’d barely pulled the keys from the ignition before Micah pushed a flyer through the car window.

  “It’s for the Sugarcane Festival,” Micah said, gasping. “It’s only here until Sunday. Please, Mom. Please, please, please say we can go.”

  Downtown, on the nicer end of Main Street, Charley had noticed, in a back-of-the-brain sort of way, every marquee and billboard boldly announced, “Hey, Sugar!” or “Thank You, Sugar!” Now she knew why.

  “There’s a boat parade on the bayou,” Micah added, trying to close the sale. “We can meet Queen Sugar.”

  “Yeah,” Blue chimed in, barely able to stand still. His little body vibrated like a small pot on the brink of bubbling over.

  “Queen Sugar,” Charley said, trying to imagine. She handed the flyer back to Micah. “I wish I could, sweetheart, but—”

  “I know, I know. Don’t tell me,” Micah said. “You have to work on the farm.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you promised we’d spend more time together,” Micah said, bright tears pooling. “Why did you say that if you didn’t mean it? I hate when you do that. You’re such a liar.” She tore the flyer to pieces and ran around the side of the house.

  Blue clapped his hand over his mouth and stared at Charley.

  “Yes, I know, sweetheart. She said a bad word.” Charley gathered the pieces of flyer, then put her hand on Blue’s slim shoulder. “Go inside. We’ll be there in a sec.”

  Micah, thankfully, had not gone far. In her garden, using one of Miss Honey’s old hoes, she hacked at the weeds around the lone soccer-ball-size pumpkin that had survived the storm. With every swing, she gave a small, furious grunt.

  “Micah.” Charley stepped closer then paused. She wouldn’t lecture. She wouldn’t press. Instead, she grabbed a rake and gathered the grass and weeds into a pile.

  “I don’t need your help.”

  But Charley kept raking. “A couple more weeks, it’ll be perfect for Halloween,” she said.

  “Leave me alone. I told you. I can do this by myself.”

  “Sweetheart.” Charley knelt beside the pumpkin and brushed dirt off the coarse orange skin, warm after a full day in the sun. She felt the urge to draw the pumpkin to her and let the heat seep into her bones. “I’m sorry. I know this is hard. Just give me—”

  Micah stopped hoeing and glared at her. Then, without another word, she raised her hoe and chopped the pumpkin to bits.

  • • •

  By Los Angeles standards, the carnival was almost shabby with its rickety rides and crummy gaming booths and shady food stalls lining the perimeter. But there was something about it, too—the sound of folks screaming as the roller coaster clattered over the tracks, the bells ringing, the buzzers at the shooting range wheezing, the smell of funnel cakes and fried crawfish tails—that felt like pure magic, and Charley thought again, yes, this was exactly the distraction she needed.

  She had not seen this many people in one place since she’d arrived in Saint Josephine. Teenagers moved about in clusters, laughing too loudly. Thin young men and their plump, soft-armed wives pushed strollers loaded with the oversize plush toys they won at the ring toss. A hodgepodge of people, black and white, Asian and Latino. Charley loved the rich mix of their voices, the lilting, sensuous phrases and singsong dialects. It was as though she were meandering through a tropical garden, a riot of color and sound, and she was grateful to be able to claim south Louisiana with its strange and extraordinary people.

  • • •

  Charley was Blue and Micah’s age, maybe younger, the last time she went down a giant carnival slide, but she stepped into the burlap sack and scooted forward on her rear end anyway; and when Blue declared he would beat them to the bottom, Charley raised the stakes and said the winner got to choose the next ride; and all of a sudden, she wanted to win more than anything. And maybe it was because so many people had used the burlap sack before her that its coarseness had been worn away, or maybe it was because the slide was freshly waxed, but the speed took Charley by surprise and she screamed at the top of her voice. Micah and Blue screamed too, and Micah swore in French, which Charley heard but didn’t scold her for because it was all in good fun and hilarious besides. At the bottom, they laughed so hard Charley almost wet her pants and they forgot to declare a winner, and then Charley tore three more tickets from the roll and said, “Who wants to go again?” Eventually, though, as the evening wore on, Charley surrendered: no more rides that spun or twisted or flipped. “I’ll get the food,” she said, and agreed to meet the kids at the exit from the Tilt-A-Whirl.

  The crawfish pie line was the longest, which meant, she hoped, their food was the best. Charley listened to the conversations around her as she waited. Behind her, a couple argued about how they’d stretch their Christmas budget and still get their car fixed. One person ahead of her, Charley watched a man carry a small girl on his shoulders while doing his best to hold the hands of two little dark-haired boys. The boys were Blue’s age—five or six—and just like Blue, they couldn’t stand still. Charley noticed how patient and gentle the man was as the line inched forward. He didn’t scold the little boys when they kicked up dust with their cowboy boots; he didn’t raise his voice at the little girl when she whined that she was getting hungry. Charley was tempted to tell him how nice it was t
o see a father take time with his children.

  “Y’all want to get something for your mama?” the man asked. “What would she like?”

  His voice was steady and warm and strangely familiar. How did she know that voice? Charley watched as they stepped up to the window; how, with one easy movement, the man swung the little girl down from his shoulder; how he peeled the boys’ small hands off the ledge as they tried to peer into the booth as he placed his order, which took a while, since the little boys kept changing their minds. Finally, the man stepped aside.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said, apologizing to the man standing behind him, and when he looked back, Charley saw his face. It was Remy.

  For a moment, neither spoke.

  Charley stared at Remy while the children squirmed and the woman at the window shouted for people to pick up their orders. Then Remy seemed to draw himself up, discomfort replacing the surprise in his expression.

  “Hello, Charley.”

  “Remy,” Charley fumbled. “I didn’t see you—I mean, I’m surprised—what are you—”

  The man in front of Charley placed his order.

  “Step up, please,” said the woman at the window. “Who’s next? Please, ma’am, step up to the window or move to the side so the people behind you can order.” Charley heard the woman, but didn’t move until Remy took her gently by the elbow, easing her out of line.

  “How’ve you been?” He held her elbow for a moment longer than he needed to, then released her, but it was enough to remind Charley of the way he’d held her at Paul’s Café.

  Charley blinked. “How’ve I been?” Not so good. Terrible, in fact. Don’t get me started. “I’m okay—I mean, I’m fine—busy.” She looked down at the boys, then back at Remy. “How are you?”

  “Good,” Remy said. The boys started bickering and he ruffled their soft curls. “Y’all stop fooling around and say hello to Miss Charley.” He patted their heads. “This is Trevor and this is Braxton.” The little girl yanked Remy’s pant leg and he lifted her onto his shoulders again. She held on by a tuft of his hair, which was longer than Charley remembered. “And this is Annabel.”