Sleeping With the Crawfish

by D. J. Donaldson

  “How long will it take?”

  “Hour maybe.”

  “How much will it cost?”

  “Depends on the battery.”

  “The cheapest one you can find.”

  “I can get you runnin’ again for between fifty and sixty dollars.”

  “Okay, do it.”

  Kit spent the next hour and a half drinking coffee and watching it grow progressively darker and darker through the restaurant’s front window, until night had Courville firmly in its grasp. About the time she’d begun to think something had happened to Henry, the tow truck turned into the garage’s drive. Another ten minutes and he had the new battery installed.

  She was so happy to hear the engine start on the first try, the fifty-eight bucks it cost her seemed survivable. The prospect that she’d now arrive home much later than planned was far less objectionable than spending the night in Courville, so as the road stretched away before her headlights, she felt centered and comfortable.

  A few minutes later, while listening to Michael Bolton singing “When a Man Loves a Woman,” a pair of headlights suddenly appeared in her rearview mirror. And the idiot had his brights on.

  She flicked the mirror to its night setting and tried to keep her eyes on the road. But the lights grew brighter. Checking to see why, she saw that the car was now tailgating her. Then she heard a crash and her car gave a sickening sideways lurch.

  She hit the brakes, but her momentum carried the car off the road. It greased across the shoulder and jolted over cobbled terrain. The steering wheel was ripped from her hand and her head was thrown from side to side, rattling her teeth and casting the combs from her hair. Suddenly, the ground dropped away and the car was airborne. A moment later, it returned to earth with a shattering impact. At practically the same instant, it rolled, causing her head to strike the side window, so as the car landed upside down in the waiting bayou and slowly began to sink into its dark waters, she sat limply strapped in her seat, unconscious.

  3

  The driver’s floor mat lay on the back of Kit’s legs. Her thighs were pressed against the steering wheel. Both arms dangled, the car’s scant headroom folding them at the elbows. From around the doors, water seeped into the car and pooled on the inside of the roof. As the level rose, it lifted her hair and covered her hands. Still unconscious, she knew nothing about any of this.

  Gradually, the water deepened, creeping over Kit’s wrists, the spilled contents of the glove compartment quietly spinning in tiny eddies. Her watch went under and stalled. The drooping floor mat on the passenger side let go and splashed into the water, creating ripples that pushed a floating Paper Mate pen in her direction, where it became moored in the auburn sargassum of her hair. A minute later, the rising water caressed the crown of her head. Outside, in the weeds along the bank, a hundred pairs of amphibian eyes watched the car sink lower in the water, their owners as oblivious to Kit’s plight as she was.

  Fifty yards up the road, Ozaire Chevalons was listening to “Ma Petite Fille” on a Blackie Forestier tape, an open beer bottle nestled between his legs. A few yards before his headlights picked up the skid marks that would have led him to Kit’s car in the bayou, he threw his head back and sang a few bars himself. By the time he looked back at the road, he’d missed her.

  When the water reached Kit’s eyebrows, she woke.

  For an instant, she was disoriented, her head throbbing from the blow she’d received and the blood pooling in her brain from being upside down.

  Then she knew.

  There in the dark, the water rising, she was seized by dread as black as the watery grave claiming her an inch at a time.

  But as frightful as her situation was, she wasn’t dead yet.

  Her mind went wild. What to do? . . . Think. . . . Damn it. . . . The seat belt . . . Have to get loose.

  She reached up and fumbled for the release button, her hands clumsy and slow. Where was it? . . . There.

  No longer held in her seat, she dropped six inches. Surprised at the fall, she took a breath, sucking water into her nose and mouth as her face was submerged up to her chin. Gagging and coughing, she lifted her head out of the water.

  Dimly, she realized her lower body was draped over the steering wheel. Kicking and pushing, she fought free and toppled sideways, her legs buckling the open glove compartment door before her feet struck the passenger door, wrenching her ankles and knees. With the car rocking sickeningly, she pulled in her legs and dropped into the water.

  Again disoriented, she groped into the darkness. Her fingers found the steering wheel. The other side . . . easier to get out the passenger side.

  She pushed herself up and became tangled in the seat belt. A scream of frustration bulled into her throat as she clawed at the strap, trapping her. Then, she was free of it.

  She moved to the passenger door on her knees, the water now up to her waist. Hands fluttering like a wounded bird, her fingers scrambled over the door, looking for the lock pin.

  A fingernail caught on something and bent back.

  Where was the pin. . . . Damn pin . . .

  The scream in her throat slid forward, pushed at her lips.

  She found the pin and yanked it. Then she lifted her hands, sliding them in wide circles that put the door handle in her grasp.

  Now things were about to get worse, but it had to be done. She took three deep breaths to saturate her blood with oxygen, hoping to stretch the length of time she could go without breathing. She pulled the handle and leaned on the door.

  The weight of water pressing from the other side made the door open slowly, so the bayou rushed in madly before there was any hope of her squeezing through the opening. It came with such force, it filled the car instantly, knocking her off her knees. She was now totally submerged, the way out lost.

  Dread . . . Trapped . . .

  The car’s wheels slipped below the water’s surface. With its intrusive shape out of sight, a young frog croaked its approval. A female six yards away answered.

  As the car sank to the bottom of the bayou, which was well over twelve feet deep, Kit was sharply aware that she needed to move more quickly than she ever had, yet the water held her back, subverting every action into slow motion.

  Soft . . . The seat . . . The other way . . .

  Steering wheel . . . Oh God.

  Dread . . .

  Turning what seemed like 180 degrees, she pushed forward. Her hands hit something that gave way. . . . The door . . .

  With the pressure equalized, the door opened more easily than before, but still too slowly. A balloon in her chest compressed her heart. Another filled her skull.

  She pushed harder, crowding the opening. The inflated orb in her chest dissected up through her neck and filled her mouth.

  Open . . . She pushed through.

  She was going to make it.

  Her foot—something had hold of her.

  She kicked madly to free herself but couldn’t. Turning, she followed her leg to the trouble. Whatever reserve she’d created by the three breaths was long gone and her body screamed for air. Behind her eyes, beacons from a hundred arc lights crossed each other, cone shapes cutting the darkness, filling the night with ozone in an incandescent extravaganza announcing her death.

  She exhaled, releasing some of the pressure that seemed about to blow her eardrums. Her fingers found her ankle and the seat belt strap that had twisted improbably around her shoe. Tearing at the shoe’s lace, she loosened it and slipped free. A clot of slimy vegetation floated into her face. Fighting madness, she clawed it away.

  Which way to the surface? Her sense of direction was gone. Which way?

  Cupping her hands to her mouth, she forced the tiny residuum of air from her lungs, hoping to learn which way the bubbles went, but they were too few or too small to feel.

  No time left . . .

  Blindly, she began to swim, her head throbbing. Dig . . . dig.

  There was only water . . . How much farther? . . .
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  Dig . . . dig.

  How much farther?

  Then her head punched through into the night air. Her gasp silenced every frog for a hundred yards up and down the bayou. And it was a terrible sound, so full of need and terror that even two armadillos in the bushes thirty yards away stopped mating to listen.

  The air was so sweet, she couldn’t get enough of it. She sucked it in and let it out . . . so sharp and fine.

  She dog-paddled and concentrated on breathing until her arms began to tire. Then she struck out for the bank, keeping her face well above the duckweed floating on the bayou’s surface. In just a few seconds, her knees hit bottom. When she stood, she felt her shoeless foot sink in muck.

  Up on the pavement, from the direction of the restaurant, she saw headlights. Still thigh-deep in water, she began waving her arms. Afraid she was too far off road to be seen, she scrambled for the bank, her feet slipping on the slime coating the floor of the bayou.

  The car was nearly upon her. Using some weeds for a handhold, she hauled herself out of the water, aware now that she had a major-league headache. She scrambled up the bank, ignoring the sharp stubble poking her shoeless foot and the piston slamming against the inside of her head. Gaining the shoulder, she threw her arms up and began wiping the air.

  The oncoming lights blinded her to the driver’s intent. Just when she was sure the car would speed by, twisting blue lights cut the night.

  Thank God . . . a police car.

  Arms at her side, her body racked with a shivering spasm, she watched the car slide past and ease onto the shoulder, where it sat idling for a moment before the driver got out and walked toward her, the beam from a powerful flashlight showing the way.

  “Someone forced my car off the road,” she said through chattering teeth. Hugging herself, she added lamely, “It sank.”

  The flashlight beam swung along the course her car had taken into the water, then returned and explored her from head to foot.

  “Are you hurt?” a male voice said. “Should I call an ambulance?”

  She lifted a hand to shield her eyes. “Please . . . the light . . . it’s blinding me.”

  “Sorry.” The beam shifted to the ground.

  “I don’t think I’m hurt . . . just cold.”

  “Come on back to the car.”

  In the light from the flashers on the police car’s roof, Kit could see the cop was thin and had a mustache and large ears. Staying on the shoulder side, he led her to the car’s back door and opened it.

  “There’s a blanket you can use on the seat. Watch your head.”

  Kit climbed in, sat down, and wrapped herself in the blanket.

  The cop shut the door and went around to the other side. He got a notebook from the front seat and climbed in beside her.

  “I’m Heath Hubly, ma’am, the sheriff around here. Who are you?”

  “My name is Kit Franklyn. I live in New Orleans.”

  “Where in New Awlins?”

  She gave him her address.

  “Now, what exactly happened?”

  “Do you have an aspirin? My head is killing me.”

  “Sorry, I don’t. You want some coffee?”

  “I’d love some.”

  He got up and reached over the seat for a thermos. Returning to the seat, he unscrewed the lid, thought about pouring some into it, then offered her the whole thing.

  The coffee, strong and heavily laced with chicory, lit a welcome fire in Kit’s stomach. She took another swig and handed the thermos back. “Thanks.”

  “Can you talk now?”

  As proof she could, she related how the car with its brights on had hit her from behind, spinning her out of control.

  “Did he do it on purpose?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you describe the car?”

  “I never got a real look at it. Its lights were so bright, that’s all I could see.”

  Hubly then asked her a series of questions that gradually took her all the way back to the reason for her visit to the area and what her job with Broussard entailed.

  “I don’t see you gettin’ back to New Awlins tonight,” he said when she was through. “You have any friends in the area?”

  She thought about Trip Guillory, then said, “None.”

  “My wife and I have a big house with a couple extra bedrooms just up the road. You can stay with us tonight while we get this worked out.”

  “That’s very kind.”

  “Least we can do after the poor welcome you’ve been given.”

  He left the backseat and got behind the wheel.

  “My car,” Kit said. “My handbag is in it and that metal cylinder I mentioned.”

  “We won’t be able to get your car out until mornin’, when we can see what we’re doin’. Meanwhile, I’ll get my deputy over here to make sure nobody disturbs anything.”

  He reached for his radio. “Car one to car two. Car two, come in.” Only static came back. He repeated the call.

  More static, then a voice. “Car two here. Sorry, Heath, I was takin’ a leak. Whatcha got?”

  Hubly thumbed the mike. “A lady’s car went into Snake Bayou. . . .”

  Hearing what it was called, Kit shuddered.

  “Car’s under with her handbag and some other things of value. I want you to come over here and ensure nobody makes off with anything that might float up durin’ the night.”

  “You mean spend my entire shift over there?”

  “Maybe you’d rather I find somebody else to do your whole job.”

  “Roger. . . . Snake Bayou. Be there in five minutes.”

  Still holding the mike, Hubly looked over his shoulder. “I’d like to wait until he shows.”

  Kit nodded and pulled the blanket tighter.

  “I’m sure we’ve got aspirin at the house.” Hubly lifted the mike to his lips. “Car one to Dispatch. Dispatch, come in.”

  A female voice answered. “Dispatch here.”

  “Donna, call my wife and tell her to get the back bedroom ready for a young woman who’s had a traffic accident and will be spendin’ the night with us.”

  “Roger, will do.”

  Hubly’s deputy showed up a few minutes later. Hubly went back to the deputy’s car and they spoke briefly. Upon Hubly’s return, he apologized for the delay and they were on their way.

  He lived a short distance past the funeral home on the opposite side of the road, in one of the simpler white two-story houses Kit had admired coming in. They were met at the door by a dark-haired woman who wore her short hair in the same style as the Angola warden’s driver. She had a small nose with practically no bridge, so the frames of her oversized horn-rimmed glasses sat directly on her face. Kit thought the glasses a bad choice as they emphasized her thin lips.

  She held her arms out to Kit as though they were old friends. “You poor thing. What on earth happened?”

  Kit had not been thinking about her own appearance. From Mrs. Hubly’s shocked expression, she realized she must look frightful.

  Mrs. Hubly hugged her. Unsure of how to respond, Kit merely allowed it, keeping her own arms under the blanket.

  “Somebody forced her car into Snake Bayou,” Hubly said. “She needs some aspirin.”

  “Of course.” Mrs. Hubly took Kit’s blanketed arm. “Come on back to the kitchen.”

  “Beverly, you take good care of her,” Hubly said. “I’ve got some things to do. Be back in an hour.”

  Hubly’s admonition to his wife had a sharp edge on it, and Kit saw a faint shadow of resentment cross her face. The shadow departed with Hubly.

  Beverly led Kit through a high-ceilinged entry hall papered with yellow-stained murals depicting old plantation scenes, then into a country kitchen with a redbrick floor and pots and pans hanging over an island cooktop. She sat her at a dark wooden breakfast table in front of a large window that looked onto what in the outside gloom seemed to be swampy wilderness.

  Moving efficiently, Beverly soon
placed an open bottle of aspirin and a glass of water in front of Kit and watched approvingly as she downed two of the white tablets.

  “It’s always amazed me that as long as aspirin has been around, they still don’t know how it works,” Beverly observed. “That’s quite a bump on your head.”

  Following Beverly’s eyes, Kit’s hand went to the left side of her forehead, where it found a distinct bulge.

  “Would you like some tea?” Beverly asked. “Or maybe you’d rather get cleaned up.”

  “Could I have both—cleaned up first?”

  “Of course. Your room is upstairs. Can you make it?”

  “I’m actually not hurt. But I guess I look pretty awful.”

  “Let’s just say you wouldn’t want your picture taken.”

  Despite all she’d been through, Kit managed a tepid smile. Hesitantly, Beverly’s lips, too, crept up at the corners.

  They went back to the entry hall and up a simple staircase missing a few spindles, and Beverly showed Kit to a room overlooking the main road through a fan-shaped window. The walls of the room were covered with a small floral-print fabric with a blue ground, a trick commonly used to hide walls too damaged to paper. The tall ceiling was covered with the same fabric, hanging in festoons that radiated outward from a decorative plaster ceiling medallion for the light fixture.

  With her recent escape from a watery death still fresh in her mind, Kit felt as if she was in a coffin with a lot of headroom. Even with her sunken car subtracted from the equation, she wouldn’t have liked the decor. Considering all the Hublys were doing for her, she was ashamed of herself for repaying their kindness with a critical thought.

  “Sorry the room doesn’t have a connecting bath,” Beverly said. “In fact, there’s only one bathroom on the whole floor. It’s directly across the hall. You wait here and I’ll get you something to wear.”

  While Beverly was gone, Kit took the opportunity to look at herself in the dresser mirror.

  It was worse than she’d imagined. Her hair hung in limp ropes and it was decorated with little green rosettes of duckweed and strings of pond scum. Except for a slash of mud cutting across one cheek and the pallid lump on her forehead, her face was red and raw. She let the blanket drop and saw that her blouse and slacks, too, were decked with mud, pond scum, and duckweed. Her slacks had also picked up several hundred dried thistle seeds. Mud caked her remaining blue canvas shoe and oozed between her toes.