I tasted it and didn’t like it. In fact, it almost took my breath away. I coughed and my eyes started tearing. They all roared with laughter. I didn’t want to appear ungrateful, so I just drank it down. This made everyone laugh even harder.
After we had been walking around awhile, Dave said he wanted to see a new show at one of the clubs. I was grateful to be able to sit down. I wasn’t used to wearing high heels. We went into a dark club where there was a stage. There was a very tall woman on stage, wearing underwear, a pushup bra, high heels, garter belt, and stockings, telling jokes. I didn’t get most of them, and the ones I did get, I found to be embarrassing.
I caught Dave staring at me, and I turned to him and said, “She sure is tall.”
That set them all off to laughing again, and I couldn’t figure out what was so funny. They kept saying, “She’s so tall!”
I was beginning to get angry because I thought they were making fun of me. Finally Dave leaned over close to me and said, “She’s not a she, but a he.”
I couldn’t believe it. She—I mean he, was so pretty, and even sounded like a woman. We stayed in the club, and Dave kept buying me bourbon and Coke. By the time we left, I was beginning to like it.
While we were there, there were many men that looked like women to entertain us. Some told jokes, some danced, some sang, and there was one that did everything. Toward the end he was joined by all the others. It was quite a show. I loved it and felt very sophisticated having seen it.
We got home around four a.m., and we were all pretty drunk, and by that time, I was laughing as hard as everyone else.
When we were inside, Dave put his arm around me and whispered in my ear, “Did I tell you how delicious you look tonight, dahlin?”
I thought this was the funniest thing I had ever heard, and I screamed with laughter.
“Well, she be feeling no pain,” Jesse said.
Dave put his other arm around Jesse and started leading us up the stairs. The other two girls were stumbling after us. When we got to the top, Dave took his arm from around Jesse and gave her a push toward her room.
He then started pulling me in the opposite direction from my room. I broke away from him and started down the hall. He caught me by the arm and whirled me around.
“Is that any way to treat old Dave Boudreau?” he said.
Marty, very gently, uncurled Dave’s fingers from around my arm.
“Let her go, Dave. You’ve had too much to drink, and you don’t want to mess everything up, do you?” she said.
To my surprise, he turned and, without a word, walked to his own room.
That was my first day and night in New Orleans. I had my first drink, went to my first nightclub and almost got raped again. Boy, was I ever that young? Of course, this was before I built up my street-smart muscles.
CHAPTER 3
The first few months in New Orleans were easy for me. Dave didn’t make any more passes at me, the girls continued to be kind to me, and my “job” was very easy. For this job, Dave wanted me to dress like I was dressed when he first met me, including the pigtails.
He would give me a paper bag that I had to take to Audubon Park, sit and watch the birds and after awhile someone would come and sit down beside me and switch bags with me. This was usually someone around my age but a couple of times it was an old man. Dave told me to never look in either bag and I didn’t. I did that two or three days a week and every time I did Dave gave me a hundred dollar bill. I couldn’t believe how much money I was making.
The other girls slept most of the day and had dates most every night. I mentioned to Dave that the other girls sure were popular. Dave sort of chuckled and said before long, I would be popular too.
It was during this time that I started having the repeating dream that I had been having since I could remember. I had thought that I had outgrown it, but I started having it more and more, after I moved to New Orleans:
I am in a large bedroom. Everything is yellow and white. There are twin beds but they are not ordinary beds. They are round and look like daises. The petals are curved to the floor, and the center is a round mattress and is covered in yellow material. There are matching white wicker dressers and night stands with crystal lamps on them. There is a white wicker rocking chair. A Spanish-looking woman of middle age is sitting and reading a book. There are two little girls sitting on the yellow carpet playing with Barbie dolls. They look to be about two and three. There is a young woman standing near the window wearing a long black strapless evening gown. She is holding up her hair and a young man is fastening a silver necklace around her neck. I realize that the woman is me, but older. Like maybe me when I’m older.
The first part of the dream was always very pleasant but then, all of a sudden, the whole tone of it changed, and it seemed to speed up:
Everyone is screaming, and things are out of focus. It’s like I’m behind a video camera and I’m swinging the camera back and forth trying to capture it all but there’s too much going on. I can’t get it all. There are loud popping noises and suddenly, everything is red. There’s a silver slipper on the floor. It has blood in it. Lying next to the slipper is the silver necklace I saw earlier. I focus in on the necklace and notice that it’s a chain with a unicorn. The unicorn is very unusual. The horn on the unicorn is curved instead of straight.
This is where I always woke up with my heart going a hundred miles an hour and drenched in sweat. Since coming to New Orleans, I’d been having this dream at least once a week and I wondered if something here was triggering it.
CHAPTER 4
Amazingly, for a girl like me from Georgia, Jesse and I became good friends. I loved her personality. She was funny even when she wasn’t trying to be. She believed in the supernatural and voodoo and things like that. She taught me a lot about makeup and hairstyles, etc.
She told me one day, “I do hope you get out of those pigtails soon, girl. Your hair is so mighty fine and soft. You’ve seen how I can style it. I was going to be a hair stylist at one point in my life. But I’m glad I didn’t, ’cause look where I ended up. You happy with old Dave, you?”
“He’s been good to me. And I’m making good money, and thanks to you helping me pick out clothes, I have a lot of nice outfits. Of course, I could never look as good as you in any of my clothes.”
“You’ll get there, believe me, girl. Come on, how old are you really? I won’t tell Dave, I promise.”
I hesitated and she gave me what she called her evil eye. She would lower her chin and look upwards at me and never blink.
“Ok,” I said, “I will be sixteen on February the third.”
“Next week? Your birthday next week and you tell no one? Girl, I aught a whump yo ass. How I’m going to plan anything at this short notice?”
I laughed at her. She was so cute and funny.
“I don’t need you to plan anything.”
“I’m going to go tell Dave right now and see what he wants do. And don’t worry. I won’t tell him your age, and you going to get a party whether you need it or not.”
I had the best birthday I had ever had. Delilah, our cook and maid, had prepared an enormous meal with all Cajun food. I was beginning to like all this food. We had crawfish bisque, jambalaya, and some of the dishes that I still didn’t know the name of. For dessert, we had her special bread pudding with whiskey sauce. We had a really good wine with our meal and chicory coffee with the pudding.
After dinner, Dave said he’d be right back and left the table. When he came back, he was burdened down with a stack of presents, for the birthday girl. I felt almost overwhelmed. I had never had so much attention.
Rhonda gave me a beautiful silk scarf. Marty gave me a bright green sweater, and Dave gave me a mask. It was the fanciest thing I had ever seen. It had feathers, rhinestones, and sequins. It was in all shades of green and black. No one had ever given me a mask before, and I looked over at him, wanting to ask why he had given me a mask.
As if reading my mind
, he said, “It’s for Mardi Gras, Vicky. The parades start next week.”
I must have still looked confused, so he went on to explain. “Mardi Gras is a religious celebration. You have parades for weeks, then you have the big final day, which is called Fat Tuesday. This is the final huge bash and takes place the day before Ash Wednesday.
“Ash Wednesday is when everyone gets the priest to put ashes on their foreheads to remind them where they came from and is also when Lent starts, when you are supposed to give something up you enjoy. Like this here wine.”
I just sat there looking from one of them to the other trying to figure out if they were pulling my leg. Growing up in the Bible belt, I knew nothing about any other religion except the Fundamentalist. This was all very foreign to me.
Rhonda laughed and said, “You’ll love it, Vicky. It’s just weeks of partying, and we don’t give up anything for Lent.”
“Unless it’s something we don’t want anyway,” Dave laughed.
“Aren’t you going to open my present?” Jesse said as she nudged me with her elbow.
It was in a small box, wrapped in red paper with a silver bow. I tore into it and opened the box. I lost my breath. I was trying so hard to breathe, but couldn’t get any air into my lungs. There before my eyes was a silver chain with a unicorn with a curved horn.
“Where….where…”
Dave jumped up and ran to the kitchen and got a paper bag which he put over my head. I fought him at first. I mean, already I couldn’t breathe, and he was trying to take away my air. But he held the paper bag over my head until I was okay.
Dave looked shaken. “What happened, Vicky?”
Now the tears started coming, “I really don’t know, maybe too much excitement.”
“Well, it’s getting late anyway. I’m going to bed, me.” Without another word, he headed up the stairs.
Later I was sitting on my bed brushing out my hair when there was a knock on my door. Without waiting for my reply, Jesse stuck her head in. “Okay to come in?” she asked.
“Sure, come on in.”
I scooted over and she sat down next to me. Grabbing a pillow, she lay down on her stomach and shoved the pillow under her arms so that she was draped over it.
“Okay, girl, give it to me. You can tell ole Jesse.”
I told her about my repeating dream, and her eyes got big as saucers.
“Girl, somebody done put a hex on you. You think this here is just a coincidence? I was pulled to that shop on Royal Street just as I’m sitting here. Yes, I was. I truly was.”
“Jesse, will you show me where you got the necklace? I have to make a run for Dave in the morning. But after that, will you show me?”
“Well, yeah, I’ll show you. I should be just getting up when you get home.”
CHAPTER 5
It was one of the antique shops on Royal Street. The owner told us it was one of the pieces he bought from a lady in a house on Poydras Street. Her daughter was putting her into a nursing home.
At first, he wouldn’t tell us her name or anything about her. But then Jesse convinced him. I don’t understand exactly how she convinced him, but he not only gave us the lady’s name but also told us the nursing home she went into.
The woman’s name was Henrietta Hendrix. She was in a home called Shady Rest in Metairie, which is a suburb of New Orleans and where I would later live. The home itself was an old plantation house converted into a home for the elderly. It set quite a ways back from the highway among many ancient oak trees.
We took a cab there, and after, I paid the driver the fare and a generous tip. Going to the reception desk, we asked to see Mrs. Hendrix.
“Are you a relative?” asked the nurse behind the desk.
Before I could say no, Jesse spoke up and said, “This here’s her granddaughter.”
The nurse sadly shook her head and said, “The poor dear, she may know you, and she may not. She has her good and bad days. Take that elevator over there to the third floor. She is in room 312.”
The door to her room was open. She was sitting in front of a TV, but the sound was muted. I could see her from the side. She looked like she weighed about 90 pounds. Her hair was long and gray, and it was down, like someone had just brushed it for her. She looked familiar to me, but I knew I didn’t know her. When she turned her head and saw me, she started screaming.
“What the hell’s going on in here? How did you get in and what are you up to?” The voice came from one of the biggest black men I have ever seen who had just walked into the room.
“John, please help me,” the woman said. “She’s supposed to be dead. She can’t be here.” Then she turned to me, “Does this mean that I’m dead? I don’t understand!! Please! Please help me, John.”
The man jerked his head toward the door and said to the woman, “It’s all right, Henry. Don’t worry! I’ll get them out of here.”
He looked at us again and this time jerked his head and his thumb toward the door. To me he was downright scary, but he didn’t seem to bother Jesse at all.
When we got into the hallway, John said, “Who are you people, and what the hell are you doing here?”
“Well, this here is her granddaughter…” Jesse began.
“No, she ain’t. She doesn’t have a granddaughter. Her grandson comes here often with his mother, Henrietta’s daughter. But you don’t need to know any of that. So are you going to explain, or am I going to call the cops?”
The thought of the cops being called seemed to scare Jesse. She grabbed my arm and got me out of there. We walked to the end of the drive and caught a bus.
“Don’t you worry none, sugar, we’ll get Dave to help us. He’ll know what to do,” Jesse said after we got seated.
When we got back home, we found Dave sitting on the front porch smoking a cigarette.
“Where on earth have you girls been? You were gone so long, I was beginning to worry.” Jesse sat next to Dave in the swing, and I sat in one of the rocking chairs.
Jesse started telling Dave all about my dreams and what little we found out.
“You mean to tell me that the necklace was the same one from the dream? Hmm…first we got to find out more about the old lady. Who is she, and how did she come to have this necklace?
“Then there’s this thing about you seeing yourself in the future in your dreams, Vicky. And this old lady was thinking you’re supposed to be dead. We’ll hire a private detective, but you have to help pay for him, Vicky. So I’m going to give you extra work to help you out, which is what I was sitting here thinking about anyway.”
“Sure, Dave, I can make more trips to the park. I don’t mind at all.”
He looked at me for awhile and then said, “How old are you now since your birthday yesterday? because I don’t have in mind more trips to the park. We got Mardi Gras coming up, and we’re going to be busy. Now, I could hire a few more girls, but we have enough girls here as it is. So what do you think, Vicky?”
I had begun to suspect what the other girls had been doing, and I didn’t want any part of it. But, on the other hand, Dave had been so good to me, had asked very little of me, and had paid me so well, I didn’t feel like I could say no. I was afraid to speak, so I just nodded.
My only experience with sex was when my foster father raped me, and every time I thought about it, I wanted to throw up. I was still sitting on the porch thinking when Dave came out.
“Almost suppertime,” he said. “You been sitting out here all this time?”
When I nodded, he said, “You thinking ’bout what I’m asking you to do?” Without waiting for my reply, he continued, “Will this be your first time?”
“My foster father raped me. That’s why I ran away.”
“Aw, shit. I’m sure sorry about that, Vicky. I really am. I’ll tell you what. You just forget about this for now. I’ll still hire the private detective. I’ll pay for the whole thing myself.”
“You are so nice, Dave. You’re a real good person.”
Dave snorted, “Don’t you go making me out to be no saint, now. I’m not a good person. I know exactly what I am. But I try to do right by my girls. The sad thing is that I know that my parents would be ashamed of me if they could see me now. They were respectable people in the community.
“When I came home from Vietnam, both my parents were dead, and I just didn’t give a shit about anything anymore. I was just 19 years old and felt like my whole life was over.”
He was still talking, but I wasn’t hearing much. I felt so bad for him and thought it must have been horrible to have to go through all that. Before I realized it, I was crying so hard that my shoulders were shaking.
He pulled me over against him and kissed my cheek. He dried under my eyes with his thumbs and then kissed my eyelids. I turned to him and put my arms around his neck and started kissing him on the mouth. Then his tongue found mine, and we were locked into a passionate kiss.
In the back of my mind, I was thinking, “I’m not afraid. I love this.”
He started kissing my neck, then he took the tip of his tongue and started tickling my neck. It tickled so much, I giggled. He laughed and then stood up and pulled me by the arms. I went with him willingly.
No one was in the hallway, and he led me up the stairs and down the hall to his room. We were tiptoeing. His room was enormous. There was a king-sized bed with a zebra- patterned comforter set. There were a lot of wild animal fur-covered pillows on the bed, on the floor and on all the chairs. His dresser, chest of drawers, and night stands were black lacquer. He began tossing pillows from the bed onto the floor. Then he turned down the covers. I noticed that the sheets were black satin.
“Come here,” he said. And that’s all it took.
The whole experience was so opposite from the first time. Dave was very patient and loving. He made me feel special. I can’t say that the earth moved, but it wasn’t unpleasant, and I thought that I could tolerate it. I told him that I wanted to do my part just like the other girls. He told me I was a good girl, and he appreciated me. I was glad that I had made the decision to do what Dave wanted.
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