“Rescue Man, don’ fuck wit me ’n mine, hear?” The man steps over Ed’s legs and turns his body sideways, lowering his gun against his thigh, surveying the street.
Ed sits like a child. He stares up at shadow. “Who are you?”
“I Fearius.”
“I know you?”
“Fuck you, cracker. You all the same.” The man winds up to deliver a Timberland boot kick straight to Ed’s ribs. Ed knows he needs to protect his head. He curls into a ball, tucking up his knees, covering his skull with his arms. He clenches his teeth for what comes next.
But nothing more comes. He waits for a kick. He waits for a bullet. There’s nothing. Footsteps down a sidewalk. Nothing more.
19
Roy has Cerise set up nice in her lawn chair on the neutral ground side of the parade route, their cooler right beside her. They’re trying to be neighborly again these days, having the Guptas up with them to the Babylon and Chaos parades. The Indian family doesn’t have one slim idea about the how and what all to do during Mardi Gras. “You excited ’bout the parades, William?” Cerise asks the little dark boy standing in front of her.
The child shrugs, moving his fingers weird, like he’s playing a flute that’s invisible. He’s just plain odd for his age. “A real unique boy,” Cerise says to Indira, sitting next to her in one of their extra chairs.
“From birth,” Indira says. “Answer Miss Cerise’s question, William. Are you excited?”
“It’s possible,” the child sings in a cartoon voice. He hitches up his little pants with his fists and swings his hips to one side and then the other.
“You ever seen one?” Cerise asks.
William shakes his head and drops to his haunches, picking up a dirty strand of broken beads. He smiles and starts wrapping it around his skinny wrist like a bracelet.
“No, no, wait for the whole ones,” Cerise tells him. “There’s good ones comin’, trust me.”
William looks at Cerise, then unwinds the beads, flings them to the ground, and starts grinding them into the dirt. He takes a squashed paper cup, sticks his hand in it to open it up, and puts it on top of the dirty beads ground down into the earth. It makes Cerise think of him making a tombstone. A strange creature, that one.
Roy talks with Ganesh behind them, guarding their small Weber grill. He doesn’t have any food on it yet, but they lost so many sausages in years past to drunk white people grabbing and dashing, he got in the habit. Cerise knows Roy’s happy to have something to do and a new person to talk up. The Guptas eat chicken dogs just fine, even brought their own. Cerise knew it.
She scans the crowd for Marie, Thomas, and Lil Thomas. They know where everybody always gathers. Cerise thinks it’s a good idea the three of them meet people from another country. Expand their horizons and their brains. Babylon rolls at 5:45, the paper said, Chaos at 6. Her offspring just need to find a parking space and get over here before the route gets closed off and they can’t cross anymore.
“So Elizabeth at her first slumber party,” Cerise says to Indira about the lady’s daughter. Talking about nothing takes a little practice. Fortunately Cerise has more than half a century of practice.
“Is that what you call them here?”
“Or a sleepover, maybe.”
“Yes. She was so excited she could not sleep last night. I cannot imagine how she’ll fare this evening.”
Cerise smiles. “Remember how much fun those are? You never know how they tax the parents when you’re a kid.” Cerise keeps her right hand down in her lap like she’s learned to do. The fingers move a little with the memory of pillow fighting with her sister a very long time ago.
“And you return home the next morning utterly distraught,” Indira says. “Sleep-deprived, of course, but you don’t know it at that age. You only question why it is you should be forced to leave your new soul mates ever again.”
Cerise knows it. “Ain’t it the truth.” Ain’t it the truth. She thinks she sees her own child and her family workin’ their way up Milan across the boulevard. Cerise doesn’t have a lot of time before they descend. “So I been thinkin’,” she says to Indira, “I have me a little windfall, and I’m a new left-hander and all.” She lifts her claw. “You’re up at the university and Ganesh, he, he’s at the zoo. I need to get outside the house, and I don’t mean babysittin’ my grandson, even considering the ladykiller he gone be someday. He too cute.” Cerise catches herself tapping her left hand on the aluminum armrest. “I’m thinkin’ classes or the like. Right Brain Drawing for Seniors, maybe, or Feed the Big Cats Some Fingers Day.” Cerise has been coming up with class names and outing adventures in her head for the last couple months, looking at catalogs from the local colleges, all of ’em recruiting seniors something fierce.
If laughing but not making a noise counts, Indira seems to think Cerise is funny.
“Lady, don’t you make noise when you laugh?”
Indira snorts then, and Cerise gets her neighbor through and through. “You’re a snorky laugher,” Cerise says, and Indira bounces, giggling and not makin’ a sound. Her weird son, William, begins to imitate his mother, shaking and sort of dancing around their space. The child gonna benefit from stem cell research.
“Excuse us, excuse us.” It’s Marie along with Lil Thomas and his father.
Cerise feels happy to see ’em despite the real luggage they roll up. They’re using suitcases to tote their parade things, sort of like how the white people use wheels on everything, on their ladders and coolers and wagons piled with tents and blankets and what. Only Marie and Thomas ain’t white. Lil Thomas might never know his heritage at this rate.
“We can talk about my possibilities later, right?” Cerise asks Indira.
“Sorry?”
“Classes or something. You know, Cooking the Elderly,” Cerise says, making herself snicker too. But she’s got an even better one all ready to go: “Penguins Versus Septuagenarians: A Study of Ground Speed.”
Indira just shakes, then snorts. How’s that laugh not contagious? Cerise wants more. It makes her feel a whole lot better. She’s got a long list of classes in her head. Cerise stands up to do the introductions. Marie sets Lil Thomas down, and he toddles at Cerise and hugs her legs. The boy’s growing faster than a banana tree. Cerise reaches down and rubs his soft head sandwiched between her knees. He’s a loving child who’s always going to know his grandma as a left-hander. That’s fine, she tells herself. She’s finally in her right brain.
Messin with the dumb ass Rescue Man done teach Fearius everything. It all about surprise. Cant be no slinkin along slow, like how the niggas done in the car at New Years Eve, no announcin yourself. Fearius pace his room, get ready to do this thing.
It be about this, Fearius think: How he might want to go down? Make it quick. Do it right and dont let fear get into the hit first. Whoever get popped gotta go down not afraid of nothing, fast, not knowin. Just do it fuckin right so the Moms and Pops get the news there werent no suffering. That be important, Fearius think. Some people gone be left livin still afterwards. You gots to be a tsunami when the hit have his back turned to the ocean. Lethal.
How many times Fearius walk around they block lookin for practice? He werent gone shoot nobody, but it about learning a new thing. Fearius gotta practice somehow. Poor mo fo Rescue Man, made Fearius feel like shit the last while. The man a good person. It the same as old man Roy. They only in the wrong place at the wrong time. Honest, Fearius dint mean nothing by it. He just hafta practice. He gots a job to do.
He dont do his job, he dont got but numbered days hisself. The Moms need her a good birthday, ya heard. And Taliqwa, she might be needin a treatment if she ever fill Fearius in on what goin on for real. He aint gone be no baby daddy no how.
Alphonse only done need to say the hit name, and Fearius know why Alphonse want him gone. Nigga been encroachin like a roach into Alphonse territory for what, two months. Everybody know the upstart a fool.
And now the fool be Fearius respons
ibility. Fearius wish he could feel the power in hisself, but he only keep feelin Rescue Man breathin so hard. It obvious, Fearius learnt, that it dont take nothing to get drunks down on the ground or to get em dead. They so slow they down before they even know it. Oh, hey, Im down on the ground, damn. How I get here?
Sorry, Rescue Man. He a easy target, but Fearius dint mean to hurt the dude. Fearius hope he okay.
Awright. Fuck the pity game. Fearius got work to do or he gone become work for somebody else. He pace in his room, hold the Jericho and feel the weight for the twenty something time. They aint light, he figuring out. He shoot it up over by the levee, but he still dont have no plan, dont feel so much confidence yet.
Fearius know where the fool at tonight. He advertisin it for weeks, got him a party out on the boulevard, showin off his snake money while the parades roll.
If Fearius do his job right, nobody ever see him. Nobody remember a thing about him. Not a thing. Fearius gone be invisible. He gotta be. He hope the hit drunk as fuck.
Marie and Thomas and Lil Thomas scooch in and everybody gets comfortable in their canvas chairs and what, Thomas with the men, Lil Thomas on the ground in front on a yellow fuzzy blanket Marie lay down. Cerise wanted to tell her it’s gonna get filthy with just a couple adult-size footsteps and that it’s way too nice for a parade, but Marie cares about what everybody thinks, so the thing’s just seein’ its last outing is all. These past months Cerise is learnin’ when it’s worth it to speak up and when she shouldn’t bother.
That Keyshawn, for example. He turned out nice enough, but soon as they took off Cerise’s left hand bandages, he had to go. And bye bye babysitter for Lil Thomas. Wasn’t more than two days with that foolish setup before Cerise knew it had to stop. Good thing Keyshawn came at a bargain. Good thing he’s nicer than Marie and didn’t demand more money. Tonight’s the first night Marie’s bringin’ her family around since Cerise quit Keyshawn. Come to find out, Marie told Keyshawn he’d have three months’ work, not three weeks. Nice of her daughter to spend her mother’s money, huh?
Marie had candy dreams of getting rid of Lil Thomas for days on end or some such. Cerise could’ve told her that new mothers don’t get any rest, but Marie wouldn’t have heard it. After all, Cerise don’t know one damn thing at her age, right? Cerise told Keyshawn he wasn’t needed any longer in the morning, and that evening when Marie came over, Cerise just half-listened. The surfers on the muted television stunned the judges and the folks on the beach while Marie yackety-yacked away.
So it’s a peacemaking visit during Carnival. Life is short. Cerise can do this, no problem. The men start readying the grill. They’re talking politics, but nicely, what they think the mayor’s doing wrong and right. Everybody can talk on a mayor, especially a bald black used-to-be businessman mayor, and have an opinion without getting deep into the big party differences and what. Marie sort of twists around in her canvas chair to participate with the men. Her whole life she’s been a daddy’s girl. She prefers men. It’s fine by Cerise. She knew it when the child was a month old.
“Might I see your palms?” Indira asks.
Cerise doesn’t know how to react. Her trees? She just looks at Indira.
“I’m curious about the lines,” Indira keeps on. “To Indians, pardon, to East Indians, palmistry is significant.”
“My hands?” Cerise looks down at the things tucked into her lap. Well, why not?
Indira smiles with so much kindness in her eyes, Cerise feels like she’s being attended by the best doctor in the world. “Please,” Indira says.
As Cerise presents her hands to her neighbor, some young Italian-looking man on the boulevard with a bullhorn says, beeping and announcing into the crowd, “And now Miss Sarah Kay! Twirk it! Binks has a stiffy.” A white woman dances, working her behind. She’s pretty and has long legs but not a lot of backside. The Italian grunts into the bullhorn in time to something. Cerise isn’t sure what the folks are after, but they’re fun enough to watch.
Indira takes Cerise’s hands in her own.
One guy in the bullhorn group across the way is tall as a basketball player and shaved bald. He has crazy eyes and a loud voice. He keeps shouting about cats. He holds the rubbery hose end of a keg tap in his hands and pours it directly into his mouth. Young women by him wear butterfly wings and short skirts.
“Were—or—are you right-handed?” Indira asks.
“Now I’m a left-hander,” Cerise says for what feels like the tenth time in so many weeks. “But I used to be a righty.” Suddenly Cerise feels happy for her lefty status. What did the History Channel say about the statistics when they showed those horrible machine-gunning errors? Lefties make up just over 10 percent of the world. So now Cerise is a black, seventy-plus, left-handed minority with a—say it, girl—disability.
Indira gently kneads Cerise’s stiff right hand. “Depending on the tradition, I would read one or the both, comparing one to the other.” Indira tries to flex Cerise’s claw fingers. Cerise sees the lady nod. “Can you make a fist at all?”
“Watch this,” Cerise tells her and tries to make a fist. Her fingers go in all of about an inch and stay in the same shape.
Indira smiles. She presses on the graft. “May I be honest?”
“Don’t know why not,” Cerise says.
Marie’s entire attention has gone to the men. She’s not listening at all. Only Cerise’ll hear what Indira’s gonna predict. “I have wanted to see your palms since the accident. It does not happen so much that people become children again.”
“Look,” Cerise says, smiling, a little embarrassed despite not wanting to be, “you can see I don’t match, and you can pretty much guess where the skin on this one came from. How that makes me a child, I can’t truly say, but—”
“You have only your beginning lines, or how they begin again, more accurately. You have the ability to understand distinctly where you have come from and where you are going.”
The bullhorn group across the way sends two of its women into the boulevard turning cartwheels. One wears an afro wig and a hat she holds on her head with one hand as she turns. Other white people on either side of the group stare, standing around their ladders, frowning and folding their arms. The bullhorn group doesn’t have any ladders.
Lighten up, Cerise thinks about the frowners. Why most white people from the suburbs don’t know how to have any fun is beyond her. Maybe they think they get to live for two hundred years and have time for everything. Fools. Best take it while you can. All those fat folks ought to be considering turning some cartwheels too. For that matter, Marie should go dance for Lil Thomas and show him how to have fun. Buy him something that blinks and put him up on her shoulders.
Indira still cups Cerise’s hand like it’s a piece of dinosaur eggshell. She runs her finger in there, a place where Cerise can hardly feel at all. Watching Indira rub and press, it’s more like she can imagine feeling the woman’s touch. “Babies are born into this world with just these lines on each palm,” she says. “Essentially it is the balance of these few along with what the rest of your hand does in relation to these lines that reflects your life.”
“Tell me when I’m going to die,” Cerise says all of a sudden, and she doesn’t even know the place it came from. She didn’t think she wanted to know such a thing.
“That is a common but mistaken perception,” Indira says. “You cannot exactly read the future from a palm. You can only see what an individual might have currently and how that could affect a future.”
“So you can’t see the hardwiring.”
“Actually, you can, to some degree. The hand that is not your dominant hand better predicts what you have inherited genetically.”
Cerise laughs. “Then what do we do with me and my backwards hands?”
“My dear,” Indira says and lays her warm hand inside the permanent cup of Cerise’s right claw, “you are blessed.”
The bullhorn honks. Cerise thinks she has not heard right. “I am what?”<
br />
“A wise person. Maybe a seer. Do you know the word?”
“Age earns rights, I guess,” Cerise says, clucking.
“See here?” Indira runs her finger along two lines in Cerise’s hand. “You use both your heart and your head equally and greatly. It is what you were given at birth.”
Cerise glances over at Marie, who’s now gotten up and out of her seat to stand with the men. Cerise isn’t so sure about her own great gifts, considering her daughter and such. “Hmm,” Cerise says and takes her hand away from Indira. “Thank you, darlin’.”
“You would be surprised by the thousands of years of documents behind the study,” Indira tries.
Cerise lifts her eyes towards her daughter and her husband. “I don’t think either one of ’em would call me wise.”
“Others’ perceptions do not make a bit of difference if they do not make an appearance in the lines. As they say, Miss Cerise, stand tall.”
Cerise realizes all of a sudden she’s been given a pep talk. The lady’s nice. “What you plannin’ on puttin’ on that grill, Roy?” Cerise asks, although she knows full well what’s coming. Dogs. She wonders if they accidentally mixed up all the different kinds of hot dogs whether the Guptas would get sick from eating the sacred cow.
Beliefs are some of the strangest things on the planet. Maybe Cerise’ll decide down the road to read up on palmistry. Go to a library.
The bullhorn group gets bullied by their ladder neighbors into being quiet. Shame. They had something goin’.
It fucked up over this way. Fearius never completely comfortable on this side, most always during Mardi Gras. Theys too many people. It hard to move around everybody, hard to go by so many white folk parkin while he tryin to be invisible even when they all pretend he completely invisible. Fearius have a license plate on his ass, and you know every last cracker memorize his letters and numbers, thinkin, The Negro who keyed my car! I saw him!
Fearius walk Danneel Street most the way from his ward. He almost there now. The air good tonight, cool, and Danneel run parallel to St. Charles but off, what they say, the beating track. It off the beating track by three, four streets at the least. Fearius gotta keep hisself safe for the time. Ha! Shit. Safe for the next five minutes? Least the niggas chargin fifteen a pop for they Section 8 subsidized parkin spots not pay him no mind when he pass.
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