Babylon Rolling

by Amanda Boyden

  “Go round the block,” he say to Banana Truck. “Come back in ten, I see what you gone get.”

  “Ten minutes? Muzzle never made me drive around the block and come back.”

  The woman gots her head screwed on wrong. How many times he have to tell her he not Muzzle? That and Fearius bet Muzzle never had no day like this one. “Ten,” Fearius repeat and step away. He make the signs for how much at Ali Abubu hangin on the corner.

  “This is bullshit,” Banana Truck say loud enough for Fearius to hear, but he know she gone come back right on time.

  Damn, Alphonse getting rich today. A hurricane be the best thing out there for business, Fearius gotta admit. Maybe not the best for trees and roofs and shit, but a hurricane make the Avon business boom, no lie.

  Ali Abubu hoof it around the corner and Fearius take one deep breath before another car roll up, a motherfuckin Escalade. Fearius done seen it before, and then he realize things aint right again. It be so not good. Aint no reason to have Alphonse escorted over right now on this day. On this day. Whoa na.

  The blacked out driver window go down real steady, hardly making any noise.

  The lieutenant named Brick driving. Fuck. “Wardie,” he say. He run his tongue under his top lip like he got some chicken left in his teeth. Fearius know aint nothing there.

  Fearius raise his chin at the lieutenant and give a side tip to Alphonse in the passenger. “Pickin up?” Fearius try. “You rollin in it today, boss.”

  “Yo, Fear. You know why Ima here?”

  “You visitin?” Fearius try and fake a laugh. He stuff his fists in his trousers to show Alphonse he the Delta dog or whatever his roll be at the minute. Like, Here be my belly.

  “No, I aint,” Alphonse say, not returning a laugh.

  Brick run his tongue across his bottom teeth, and Fearius know it aint no good, whatever it be. And then it hit him.

  “Got word the 5-0 on it, Fear. What you do, lil man?”

  Where do Fearius start? Begin by telling about how he keep Alphonses best interests in mind always, how he dont bother Alphonse with the small shit? “Thinkin where I stand, like you said.”

  Alphonse sit and wait.

  “Couple of whiteified niggas messin wif da house for hurricane prep and what,” Fearius say. “They done kept at it.”

  “You think you gone show them a lesson?!” Alphonse yell.

  Fearius fucked. He got a sharpened toothbrush in his fist, yo. Not. What that could do against whatever Brick got? “I know. Jus tryin to think where I stand.”

  “I called in favors, hear?”

  Fearius nod, his fists in his pockets still. He heard, he done heard.

  “Muzzle gone be paying,” Alphonse say. “And you gone be paying. Your mistake cost you an arm. Maybe a leg.”

  Fearius think he gone get shot then, but the window go smooth back up, and the Escalade roll away. Fearius heart tickin like a bomb under his ribs.

  Shit, his brother gone have to pay for whatever mess Alphonse fix? The day just pulled a big dark fucking cloud across like a curtain, a fat fucking hurricane kind of curtain, straight across Fearius day.

  The whole party of them gets Cerise home by dinnertime in a kind of convoy, Roy, Marie, Thomas, Lil Thomas, and the person. The PSW Keyshawn. His touch and his questions and his fake caring feel thick as corn syrup poured all over Cerise.

  Ivan’s turning towards Mississippi. They can only hope the state of Louisiana will stay lucky. Seeing her house again for the first time, Cerise is happy as a clam, but damn if she’s gonna tell this dog pack how she feels, the way they’re all sniffin’ at her butt to see where she’s at, where she’s been.

  “We thought you’d like to be in the living room, Mom,” Marie says as they bunch through the front door.

  A hospital bed imposes itself suddenly, shoving all her other furniture against the walls. The chrome and height of it hurts her eyes. “I don’t need that,” Cerise tells everyone.

  “Of course you don’t,” Thomas confirms. “But wouldn’t it be easier?”

  Cerise doesn’t answer, and not two seconds pass before Marie says,

  “See, I told you,” to everybody but Cerise. “I knew she wouldn’t want to be out here.”

  And right this instant, Cerise thinks, for once in Marie’s forty-plus years, her daughter is absolutely and completely and one hundred percent right in her understanding of what Cerise might want. Cerise does not want to sleep in the living room, and she’s not going to either. She will sleep in her proper bed with her husband. “Thank you, Marie,” Cerise says. “You knew right.”

  Keyshawn holds a couple of suitcases. He turns his head around. Cerise has no idea what the bags have in them. Supplies to rewrap her hands? His clothes? It’s a guessing game. Cans of condensed milk? Pieces of a body? What the hell did Cerise do to allow a stranger into her home, much less to help her with regular functions?

  “But the bed is part of the setup,” Marie tells everybody. She glances over at Thomas like he holds all the cards.

  Cerise hates that more than anything. She didn’t raise Marie to have to check on her husband’s opinion every other minute. Last Cerise knew, Marie was out-earning Thomas anyways, even with them both working part-time.

  “Whatever the setup is, it’s going in the bedroom,” Cerise says, making sure they all hear the decision in her voice.

  Lil Thomas fusses in his car seat. Thomas starts to swing the boy real high and swoopy.

  “Do I have to sleep in the hospital bed?” Cerise asks, and everybody turns altogether to Keyshawn.

  “It’s recommended,” he says, and Cerise notices right away that he’s deflecting, turning it around away from him and his opinion. Maybe it’s good talking skills, or maybe it’s the way he’s going to be for days and days on end, interminable.

  Still, Cerise does like his dreadlocks. They’re pulled back into a cluster that makes her think of an alien that starred against Arnold Schwarzenegger in a movie she saw on cable. She has to wonder about the hygiene of the big ropy things, but they look interesting.

  “It’s recommended,” Keyshawn repeats, “but I don’t know that it’s completely necessary if you’re hell-bent against it.”

  “I’m feeling pretty hell-bent against it,” Cerise says. She catches a glance from Marie to Thomas. Well, Marie did get it right. “Why’d I need one anyways?” Cerise asks. “I’m mobile an’ all.”

  “Circulatory recommendations,” Keyshawn says. “To keep your torso and, well, you’ve been dealin’ with it all at the hospital already.”

  “Pillows in a normal bed alright with you, Keyshawn?” Cerise asks.

  “If you can deal with them and not move around too much, I’m cool.”

  Cerise watches Marie give Keyshawn some big bug eyes. Cerise can only guess the eyes are for what the two of them have talked about already. About Cerise. Who cares.

  Cerise steps to Roy and puts her arm around his middle real gentle. They’re both still here, miracle of miracles. Who cares if she can’t work her hand perfectly in the future.

  They still got a future.

  By eight o’clock, after everybody’s decided where they’ll sleep and where to put their things, Cerise blinks at the television version of the hurricane. There’s some wind and rain on its way, to be sure, and they could lose power, and the city won’t be working in a real way for a day or two, but it’s hard to believe that nothing much more is coming. After following a path that finger-pointed right at New Orleans, why did the storm suddenly change its mind and start moving someplace else?

  Cerise and Roy have extra space in their house they’re happy to have, but she’s not sure it’s enough under the circumstances. Marie, Thomas, and Lil Thomas are sleeping in Marie’s old room. Cerise and Roy converted it into a proper guest space since Marie left behind her Earth, Wind, and Fire posters on the wall decades ago. The dining room that they never use for just the two of them will service Keyshawn fine enough, with the rolled-in hospital bed fo
r his very own.

  Keyshawn explained the bathroom process to Cerise beforehand at Charity, and when it came down to it, he did well enough. He used a lot of toilet tissue, which is likely better than the opposite, but Cerise made a mental note to buy more fast.

  Out in the living room, Cerise sits next to Roy on the sofa. He pats her leg incessantly as they watch the television. Cerise is pretty sure he feels happy for the opportunity to do so. Her Tylenol 3s help her hands a little bit.

  Lil Thomas lies on a blanket by the television. Cerise hasn’t said anything about his placement yet even though she wants to. He kicks and punches his arms when the volume goes up, the news cutting to another reporter.

  “Did your people leave?” Roy asks Keyshawn.

  On TV, a woman in a red slicker stands in front of a dark parking lot. Cerise wonders why she doesn’t take the hood off since it’s not raining yet.

  “My mother’s at my sister’s place in Jackson,” Keyshawn says. “There’s just us two kids.” Cerise figures Keyshawn doesn’t care to talk about his father one way or the other.

  “Keyshawn’s sister is in law school,” Marie tells her parents.

  Cerise thinks Marie wants them to believe Keyshawn comes from a good family, but Cerise has always known the truth. Good children can come up in bad houses, under bad parents, and bad kids can come up with parents good as saints. It hardly matters. Look at Marie, Cerise thinks and suddenly feels shameful. Look at Nate and Sharon, then, she thinks to herself. Look what they got themselves, despite them both putting in hard days at work nearly every day of their lives, at least as long as Cerise has been knowing them. Sometimes, Cerise has to think, the city of New Orleans isn’t such a good babysitter.

  “What sort of law she interested in?” Cerise asks.

  “Well, she just switched to urban planning,” Keyshawn says, sticking his finger into his dreadlocks somewhere and scratching. “She said because she wanted to do something more valuable for society.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Marie says, frowning. “When did she switch?”

  “What exactly they do in urban planning?” Roy asks.

  “They plan civic spaces,” Marie says.

  “This semester,” Keyshawn says.

  “Like parks?” Roy asks.

  Lil Thomas wriggles again when the news cuts back to Angela Hill in her anchor seat. Would Angela ever evacuate?

  “Well, urban planning can run the gamut,” Keyshawn says. “Beyond civic issues—”

  “I’m having a beer,” Thomas says, standing. “Roy?”

  “Now you’re talkin’,” Roy answers.

  Cerise would like one too. She could have one with a straw, maybe hold it between her knees. Better still, Keyshawn should have to help her with her beer. It’s what he’s getting paid for.

  Cerise looks at her daughter. When did the shift happen? She raised a daughter to be a strong woman in all ways, not one to let a husband offer only a man in the room a drink. Handsome men are some real problems when they’re younger. Cerise remembers. “I’ll have one,” Cerise says.

  “I don’t think—” Keyshawn starts.

  “A Budweiser’ll kill me?”

  “Mother.”

  “A Budweiser’ll kill me?” Cerise holds up her mittens. “I don’t deserve a beer too? On the night of a hurricane?” Cerise is sick of all this already.

  Lil Thomas gurgles happily at the sound of Cerise’s voice over the noise of the television.

  Again everybody turns and looks at Keyshawn. He shrugs. “I guess it’d be fine. I was goin’ to say, ‘I don’t think it’ll hurt any,’ but honestly, I don’t know. My dietary class is next semester.”

  Just how long does a person have to study to learn how to keep somebody comfortable? “Good,” Cerise declares. “Raise your hand if you want a beer.” She sticks her mitten in the air. Roy and Thomas raise their hands too. Marie and Keyshawn keep theirs down. “Keyshawn, you don’t like beer?” Roy asks.

  “He’s working,” Marie reminds her parents, “and I’m nursing.”

  Just like trained robots, they all turn their heads and look at Lil

  Thomas. He raises two chubby fists in the air like he’s voting, and then they all get to laugh together.

  Cerise thinks the night’s going to get long with them all waiting and staring at the television. No matter what, Marie’ll be making a terrible mess of breakfast in the morning, whether or not a single one of them gets a decent night’s sleep. “Well, then,” Cerise says, trying to get Thomas into the kitchen after the beers.

  “More when we return, New Orleans,” Angela Hill says on the TV.

  Cerise nods at the blond lady’s timing.

  La Belle Nouvelle’s bar staff rocks, Ariel thinks, at least at the moment. Look at Carrie and Harold go. Her Harry-Carrie team could damn well work with Cirque du Soleil. The bar is packed to the tits, to the balls, to the walls, and the two of them move like dancers.

  Ariel watches and swings her crossed leg, dangling her shoe off her toe, sitting next to Greenback’s business partner Phatty, the Phatty of PhatCash Records. Phatty says he’s going home, but he has yet to make any move to leave. Ariel entertains the notion he has a little crush on her, the white girl, for all the attention he’s lavishing.

  She reminds herself that she’s doing almost exactly what is required of her at the moment. She should be mindful of her surroundings, but she should most certainly socialize with the VIPs.

  So that’s what she’s doing.

  Ariel sips at her Cristal. Phatty, who’s anything but fat, bends and touches the arch of her foot. “I like your curves.”

  Ariel wants to call him on his brazenness, but then again, he’s Phatty. He can do pretty much what he wants. Best Ariel guesses, he’s maybe a year or two younger than she is. She’s been trying for a childhood cultural reference here and there, but she already knows that what she brings with her from the North doesn’t always work here in New Orleans. He acts like he’s her age, in any case.

  Every last one of the rooms is checked in. Housekeeping is staying on top of the roll-away beds and extra pillows, and the kitchen is closed. Closed, closed, closed as of ten minutes ago. She told the kitchen, minus the dishwashers, they could hang out with the patrons if they changed into decent street clothes. There’s a hurricane, after all. She’s guessing most will come out for their two-drink allowance and sit a bit rather than taking drinks to go. They always order double-size styrofoam cups of the strongest mixed drinks they can get for their allowance, generic white Russians and rum punches and, huh, hurricanes.

  Ariel looks at Phatty and wonders for the tenth or hundredth time tonight what he might be like. What would it feel like to abandon her married-and-mother life for a single night and watch a thug roll a condom on his hard cock in anticipation of fucking her?

  He has nice ears, tight to his head but not too small, not too big. Phatty also has great shoulders, evident beneath what she guesses is a Ralph Lauren dress shirt.

  Javier, well, where the hell he be, yo? Best he get his fine ass out here soon, or, or he’s going to have competition. Ariel can hang with the gangstas, ya heard. Or she can try. She doesn’t say too much, which seems to serve her pretty well. She couldn’t try to talk the same language, but she can be a foreigner who understands and knows when to nod.

  Phatty raises his jaw to the bartenders. “They good.”

  “I know how to hire,” Ariel tells him. She keeps swinging her shoe off her toe. She can’t tell if he has the kind of brain in his head that she likes or if he’s just good at what he does.

  Ariel thinks for a second about when she watched Snoop Dogg in some interview. Behind the façade of a dopey rap artist resided an acutely smart human being. Ariel was blown away at how he’d both memorized all sorts of factual information and thought on his feet at the same time. Go figure. She sure didn’t expect it from a stoner rapper. She considers whether or not Phatty is anything like Snoop Dogg, whether either of them has
killed another human being. Why she’s become obsessed with murder since she’s moved here, she thinks as she sips her champagne, is anybody’s guess.

  Harold makes a lot of noise with a martini shaker behind the bar, shaking and tossing and making people applaud.

  “You like tricks, Miss Ariel?” Phatty asks.

  Ariel looks around for Greenback, her real client and the Somebody she trusts. She takes another drink of champagne. They’ve missed a hurricane. Or a hurricane has missed them. She has reason to celebrate, right? Does she like tricks, Phatty has asked her. Ariel really doesn’t know how to answer. “What’d Greenback tell you?” she asks.

  “Why you bring him into this? I’m askin’ you.”

  “I guess not so much,” she tells him. “Or, more, I don’t like being tricked. I prefer directness.”

  “So iffin’ I told you some of my direct thoughts, you’d appreciate that?”

  A woman sprouting out of her halter top leans over Phatty from behind and tips his head back for a long kiss. When the woman is done, she stares directly at Ariel, then walks away.

  “Who was that?” Ariel asks.

  “Ol’ flame,” he says directly.

  “And she wants you back?”

  “Naw. She be hitched.”

  “You kiss married women?”

  “Now, Miss Ariel, you saw she kissed me first, didn’t you?”

  Yes, Ariel saw that.

  Javier sits at the bar with Warren, a terrible combo for Ariel. And, well, Ariel’s decided at the very moment to remain with the Greenback contingency, meaning, only, really, Phatty. Two more slender flutes of champagne into her stomach, and she’s fully in his court. Ariel feels the “ladies’ ” eyes on her, or, more realistically, burning through her for the fierceness behind the stares. Phatty’s not married, she’s discovered, but he is a Playah through and through. He told her as much. And Ariel likes as much at this juncture. She is, after all, free from all familial obligations tonight.

  She’s beginning to feel a tug of worry at not hearing from Ed or the Guptas, but she has faith that all is fine. They’d have called already if there was an emergency. Indira seems like a very responsible person.