Wading Home_ A Novel Of New Orleans Part 25

But at the end of the year, while make-do government trailers for the enormous houseless population dotted the landscape as abundantly as pecan trees, Christmas lights, holly wreaths, mistletoe, reindeer, plastic Santas, and elves with ironic smiles sprang up throughout the city-on porches, rooftops, in trailer windows, in yards, and, oddly, atop rubble piles in trashed neighborhoods-as the city' sense of celebration (and humor) prevailed in desperate times.

Like so many families wanting to make the most of the season, the Fortiers were determined to have a normal, traditional Christmas, crippled city or not. After the Soul Fire band returned from New York, where they drew huge crowds for their Christmas jams and raised thousands for the Treme and Ninth Ward rebuilding efforts, Julian drove to a tree nursery outside Baton Rouge, strapped a fourteen-foot Scotch pine onto the bed of Simon's Ford truck, and drove it back to town, where he erected it in the great room of the St. Charles mansion. Four of Velmyra's art students whose parents had brought them back to the city decorated it with popcorn garlands and hand-painted papier mache ornaments, and Simon paid them for their work in Christmas cookies and as much chocolate raspberry bread pudding as they could eat.

The old Parmenter mansion became a refuge for the extended Fortier clan-their friends, their friends' friends, and anyone else who needed a place to crash for a night, a week, a month, or two-with a revolving door open to all. So on Christmas Eve night, with eight of the eighteen rooms occupied with some of Julian's musician friends and two of Simon's displaced neighbors still waiting for FEMA trailers, Simon concocted a batch of his creamy, bourbon-spiked egg nog, cooked an eight-gallon pot of gumbo, smoked a twenty-two pound turkey, and turned out five sweet potato pies. The house boomed with the noise of fifty or so friends, old neighbors, church members, and musicians. Julian built a blazing fire in the great room fireplace, and the lights from the tree and the scents of woodsmoke, pine, and gumbo set the holiday mood while everyone drank, ate, laughed, and celebrated being alive. The city might have been on its knees, but d.a.m.n it, it was still New Orleans. They could still party with the best of them.

"Is it just me, or is it getting a little chilly in here?" Sylvia put down her wine gla.s.s and hugged her shoulders, talking loudly to be heard above the raucous laughter at a well-timed joke somebody told in the great room, and the silky stereophonic tenor of Nat King Cole. The fire, which roared and crackled an hour ago, had quieted to a flickering glow.

Grady Casey looked toward the living room. "Yeah. That fire's getting a little low. I'll fix that."

He took a sip of his egg nog, then yelled toward the kitchen, "Hey, Fortier, come and fix this fire!"

Julian came out of the kitchen, checked the dying fire, and stoked the golden embers with an iron poker. "There's some more wood on the porch," he said.

He stepped out onto the gallery into the night air and looked up at the clear sky toward the river. The winter stars pulsed, winking against the velvet black. During the holiday season, with the scarred city trying to look its best, it was only at night that the details of devastation could truly hide in the dark. The houses across the street, like the Parmenter place, were festooned with Christmas lights and rooftop reindeer, and the live oak branches reaching over the streetcar tracks dripped strands of brightly colored beads.

Julian spread his shoulders and sucked in the night air. It feels good out here. It feels good out here. The air in the house had gone dry with the fire, and the cool, night breeze on the porch felt refreshing, carrying a hint of dampness from the day's early rain. The air in the house had gone dry with the fire, and the cool, night breeze on the porch felt refreshing, carrying a hint of dampness from the day's early rain.

Things had been going well, or as well as they could. Simon's house was still a few months from livable, but the New York trip had been a huge success, the guys had all had a great time, Julian was playing well, and his father seemed healthy and happy. The insurance company had failed them, insisting that since Simon carried no flood insurance, the years of premiums for wind and storm damage would not cover his house. But the transfer of ownership of Parmenter's Creole Kitchen Red Beans and Rice Mix had come through, and the new flow of checks would finance the renovation.

Julian's stalled career was back up and running; he'd spent most of the past weeks since the storm in New Orleans, but had flown back to New York to complete his second alb.u.m for Blue Note, Wading Home Wading Home, which he dedicated to Simon and which, he believed, demonstrated his best playing yet.

The thing between him and Vel was still up in the air. There was simply no time to deal with that-too much going on in both their lives. But tonight, he'd brushed past her in the crowded dining room; a whiff of her lavender oil took his breath away and he felt momentarily light-headed. With her hair up a little in the back and curls spiraling near her ears, a blouse of bright red silk and diamond studs in each ear, she'd dazzled him to distraction. In the past few months he'd stepped back to give her breathing room while she helped her parents; they had not been as fortunate as Simon. With no flood insurance and no money, they lived with Velmyra in her tiny two-bedroom off Magazine Street while they waited for a FEMA trailer that should have arrived weeks before, and their own house still sat in ruins.

So, he'd left her mostly alone, except in his persistent dreams. Tonight, it was hard to look at her without his mouth going dry, hard not to think of all that had happened between them, their time together at Silver Creek, the child they'd made years ago. There might be a time for them, someday, but this was not it.

Julian looked down at the floorboards of the porch and pursed his lips. d.a.m.ned if all that wood he'd just bought and stacked neatly the day before didn't lay strewn recklessly across the whole porch. A dog, probably, the hound he's seen loping up and down the street since his first day back. Dogs had to eat, too. He'd left the gate latch open with a bowl of water and a plate of pork chop bones out for him, and this is how he repaid him.

He sighed, reached down to gather and restack the wood.

"Hey there!"

In the shadows of the giant magnolia he couldn't see who was yelling to him. He put the wood down and walked toward the edge of the steps. Probably a homeless man. He'd seen so many of them lately, walking the streets looking for a dollar or two or a meal. Sad that someone would be out on Christmas Eve looking for a handout, but not uncommon these days. The man was dressed warmly, a black leather jacket, a red plaid scarf, and a leather fisherman's cap. Didn't look homeless, but you never knew. Nowadays the word had taken on a whole new meaning.

The man walked a little closer to the wrought iron gate. "Saw your chimney smoke! Got some good dry firewood for ya! Forty a cord!"

"Got enough already!" Julian yelled back. "But thanks."

He started stacking the wood again.

"Maybe you want to check this out!"

The man came up to the gate, a beautifully designed large wreath of long-needle pine branches and holly berries, woven and wrapped in red velvet ribbon, in his hands.

"You don't have a wreath on your door! Ain't these pretty? Fifty percent off now, since the season's almost over. Five dollars. Made'em myself. You'll have something nice for New Year's Eve."

The man explained that he'd just come back to town from Cincinnati to learn his job as a waiter in the French Quarter was gone, since the restaurant where he worked was unable to reopen.

"That's OK, though. I'm starting my own business! Firewood for the rest of the winter. And handyman work. I do roof repairs, carpentry, drywalling, insulation, you name it, I do it! I give a you fair price, not like some of these jacka.s.ses around here! You can trust me, sure as my name is Jacob."

Julian smiled. Jacob. Fairly common, but it meant something that this man shared his grandfather's name. His eyes looked kind, hopeful, lit as brightly as tree bulbs, and his cheeks were flush, reddish with the night cold. He'd combed the city for supplies, the man explained, found fallen pine trees and cut enough branches and discarded chicken wire to make wreaths. Then he'd found enough dry wood from uprooted oaks in devastated neighborhoods to chop, split, and sell as firewood door to door when the weather had turned cool. He'd found acorns from the dead pines and sprayed them red and gold and green to make tree ornaments, and sold out of them.

He reached in his wallet, pulled out his business card, gave it to Julian. Julian found a five in his pocket and handed it to him. The man thanked him, then went to his truck and came back with an extra wreath.

"A little lagniappe for ya!" His neon smile lit up the night. "Merry Christmas!"

"You too." Julian waved, watched as the man's truck pulled off down the street.

He finished restacking the wood, setting enough aside for the fireplace, then looked at the man's card. Building the New New Orleans...Jacob W. Boudreaux, Handyman, At Your Service Building the New New Orleans...Jacob W. Boudreaux, Handyman, At Your Service, it read.

In the last month or so Julian had noticed that the talk of a disappeared, dead New Orleans had, itself, died; no one was saying anymore that the city was finished. They'd completed repairing the Convention Center, and now they were talking about renovating the Superdome. He'd been torn about that; he loved his Saints, but those two places had seen so much heartache. The slow upward climb had begun. People might be carrying their heartaches on their backs, but they were still walking.

He turned Jacob's card over to see a small fleur-de-lis, the new symbol of the reviving city, on the back. He wondered what the man's story was; everybody had one. Wondered who or what he had lost. Wondered where he'd been, what he'd gone through, and what he'd seen when he returned. And he wondered if that light shining in his eyes had always been there. Or if maybe it had dimmed to near darkness, then revived itself like a dying fire stoked with the irons of faith and will.

Julian thought about a conversation he'd had with his father when he was little. He'd come home from school crying when a cla.s.smate told him that the city where they lived would eventually be swept away by a hurricane that would wipe it off the face of the earth.

It had been a winter night like this one. His father poured him a gla.s.s of hot milk, and told him about an old city where the streets were filled with water, and that for years experts claimed it was sinking, and someday would be gone.

They might be right, Simon told his son.

"But they tell me Venice is still there."

[image]

Early May, and all arrive at the hour Julian has set, 9:30, and the day's heat is just beginning. A small gathering of friends and family, they didn't come to celebrate death (even though it was on all their minds), but life itself, since each death affirms the eternality of all things living, each life as eternal as the trees whose roots run deep into seasons past, the sky above, the creek, or the land itself.

Kevin Larouchette and his new bride, Raynelle, a pixie-like brunette with an effusive smile, along with their two-year old, Suzy, and their two Labradors, Jack and Ruby, rambled up the road to Silver Creek in the slightly used Caravan he'd bought his first year at Piaget and Foster, a small law firm in Local. Genevieve and Pastor Jackson, now living together at the Silver Creek cabin (since a fire at Pastor Jackson's near Elam C.M.E. nearly destroyed the house) ate a quiet breakfast, then dressed in their finest for the occasion, the Pastor in his gray Lord & Taylor Sunday suit and Genevieve in a new summer frock of bright blue silk.

Julian and Velmyra, who'd driven from New Orleans, had been living out what Genevieve called "one of those newfangled relationships," traipsing back and forth between New York and New Orleans and anywhere else they cared to go, "jumping around the country like a couple of rabbits," as she put it. (Who did they think they were-Oprah and Stedman?) Unable to define their place in each other's lives, but unwilling to accept that no such place existed, they carried on like many a modern couple: him flying from New York to New Orleans to visit her, her flying from New Orleans to New York when he wasn't on tour with his band. Spending summer months together at the European jazz festivals while Vel's school was out, spending winter months in New Orleans when the New York cold was too much for either of them.

They had just returned from Europe when Velmyra, sitting across from Julian at one of their favorite coffee shops in SoHo, gave him her news. Julian listened, not believing her words at first, then, dumbstruck, closed his misting eyes and let a wave of joy wash over him. "I hear that twins," she said, reaching for his hand, "are usually easier to raise than people think." Julian felt like he'd been given a second chance. "Thank you," were the only words he could manage. This time, he would be there. The whole world, finally, seemed right again.

Their wedding, a no-fuss New York courthouse affair with Velmyra dressed in white and lavender linen and Julian attired in the same deep blue suit he'd performed in the last night of the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam (to great reviews), lasted all of nine minutes, with Julian's young drummer, in a blue blazer and slightly baggy jeans, serving as a witness. And after that, they were only somewhat more settled; they set up housekeeping in the St. Charles place after Simon's house was completed, sold half the antiques and other furnishings, and occupied the cavernous, empty rooms for half the year, meanwhile keeping Julian's apartment in New York as an East Coast base. In New Orleans, they gradually converted many of the unused, light-filled rooms of the mansion into a nursery, a music studio, a recording studio, a painting studio, and an activity room for a nonprofit they formed called Living Dreams, a program for teaching art and music cla.s.ses to the returning but still at-risk children of the struggling city.

Julian stood in the dust-covered yard at the foot of the cabin steps looking at his watch, wondering what is keeping the others, and had begun to regret asking everyone to dress up a little, even though they were only going to the cemetery a few yards away. Their spirits high on this auspicious day, no one would have suspected the somber nature of the occasion, and it had been decided this would not be a typical funeral, no New Orleans style fanfare, no bra.s.s band or second line, simply a graveside ceremony with family and friends at Silver Creek.

It had been Julian's idea, this kind of ceremony, and Velmyra and all the others agreed.

That morning, he'd awakened early in their s.p.a.cious, almost empty bedroom on the second floor of the St. Charles house and watched Velmyra snoring softly, wondering if he should fix her coffee or herbal tea before the drive (she loved both), and wondering what he'd been thinking all those years, choosing a life without her. He'd stroked the side of her face with the backs of his fingers, and decided it would be coffee, if there was any CC's left. She'd slept anxiously the night before, and he wondered if she had been thinking what he was thinking-about the day ahead and what might be in store. Funerals were a tricky business; you never knew how the occasion would affect you until you were there. But this one had a certain rightness to it; they were laying one of their own to rest in a place where he belonged.

It had been early still, not quite light, and oak-lined St. Charles Avenue, visible from the sheer-covered French windows of the bedroom, still wore the glaze of the night's rain. He'd peeked into the bedroom down the hall; satisfied, he scuffed his bare feet across the polished hardwood of the hallway and descended the grand mahogany staircase down to the huge kitchen. He'd fixed a full pot of coffee, and after sipping from his cup, carried another upstairs.

She was waking as he sat on the bed, leaned over, and kissed her temple.

Her eyes opened wide.

"I love you," she'd said reaching up to touch his cheek with one hand, rubbing sleep-heavy eyes with the other. She'd smiled, said, "What time is it?"

"Time to get going, babe. Big day."

"Is that for me?"

He'd handed the cup to her. She'd sat up, sipped.

"Are they awake?"

He'd smiled. "Not yet."

"Good. There's time." She'd lifted the spread for him to climb back in.

He'd held her close. It would be a long day, but they would get through it. They'd survive, just as they had survived everything else-this death (the one that would take them to Silver Creek today), a flood that changed all their lives, a city almost lost and a love all but dead, rekindled from glowing ash. In the coming years of their lives together there would be more times like these. Because when it came down to it, living was just that: walking headlong into the wind and coming out on the other side. Surviving the storms, the trials, the comings and goings, and then doing it all over again.

They had decided to walk the short distance from the cabin to the graveyard, rather than take cars, as the weather was perfect, dry and crisp, with the faint odors of honeysuckle and wisteria sweetening the breeze.

At 9:45 they were to a.s.semble in the yard to begin the walk across the dusty road and through the clearing toward the place where all the family had been buried since Silver Creek began. The children-Kevin and Raynelle's daughter Suzy, and Julian and Velmyra's eighteen-month-old twins, Christina Maree and Jacob Lawrence Fortier (both born with perfect hearts), had been left at the cabin with a sitter, Pastor Jackson's niece, Gloria, a wide-eyed, surprisingly responsible marine biology major at LSU.

But at 10:05 they were still straggling onto the porch, each preening and pulling and straightening their clothes as if the dirt road before them were a red carpet teeming with paparazzi. (It had taken Genevieve two hours to find her new dress for the occasion at a Macy's in a Baton Rouge mall, and Pastor Jackson a half hour to find the right polish for his shoes.) Genevieve came out on the porch first, adjusting her V-neck to allow a tasteful bit of cleavage to show, followed by Pastor Jackson, Velmyra, Raynelle, and Kevin.

More than a few minutes later, Sylvia emerged from the porch onto the yard, her hair perfectly coifed in tight red curls, her lemoncolored linen pantsuit shimmering in the late morning sun.

Julian walked back from the car, new camera in hand.

"Forgot this," he said, checking the battery.

"Morning, baby." Sylvia reached a hand to straighten his tie. "You look just like your daddy," she said, a motherly smile playing around her eyes. "You know, I see why you always made him feel so proud."

He kissed her cheek. "You look beautiful."

She hugged him. "I know this isn't easy for you. I'm proud of you too."

Velmyra walked up behind her husband, touched him gently on the back.

Taking a deep breath, she said, "Everything OK?"

He smiled, leaned down to kiss her cheek. "Yeah. You look great."

He turned to the others, all looking at him. "Everybody ready? OK. Let's go."

Taking Velmyra's arm, he began walking toward the road.

"Wait a minute." Genevieve looked behind her.

"Where's Simon?"

Sylvia looked around, sucked her teeth. "Still in there gettin' pretty. That man will be late to his own funeral."

And finally, Simon came out, his new black suit elegantly framing his slender shoulders, his black Florsheims polished to a farethee-well, his hand-carved African cane, rescued from his flooded house, in hand.

"Somebody call my name?"

"We just waiting on you," Genevieve said.

"Well, you coulda started without me. It ain't like I don't know my way over there."

"Now you tell us."

So they walked, Julian and Velmyra in the lead, Velmyra holding tightly to the small brown urn of mottled gla.s.s carrying the remains of the couple's first child, Michael (named Davenport, but, in truth, the first in the new generation of Fortiers), to be buried alongside a century of his forebears.

When Julian had suggested the idea to Velmyra, that the cremated remains of baby Michael-stored in a tiny urn in a cool room at a New Orleans mausoleum all these years-be buried in the Fortier cemetery, she had smiled and hugged him.

"Yes," she said. "That's a perfect idea."

And when they had told Simon what they had in mind, a tear sat suspended on the ridge of his eyelid before it fell, unabashed, down his cheek. "My first grandchild," he said. "He was a Fortier, too."

And so they planned it for May, when the pecans and cypresses begin to bud, the egrets and spoonbills begin to nest, when the dying time of winter has finally ended and the cycles of life begin anew.

They took high steps across the weedy gra.s.ses and the unpaved road, the women deftly lifting their pump-clad feet over the ruts and divots in the road and between the cattails and dandelions and wildflowers of the clearing, as the creek breeze ruffled their hemlines. When they reached the cemetery near the ruins of the old stone church, they held each other's hands and formed a circle around the small opening already dug into the earth, next to the headstone of Jacob, and just above where Ladeena lay.

The sun, slipping from behind a cloud, splashed golden light across all the headstones, including the newest one, reading: Michael, Beloved Son, April 1, 1999-June 12, 1999 Michael, Beloved Son, April 1, 1999-June 12, 1999. Pastor Jackson stepped forward to read from the book of Ecclesiastes about time and purpose and the seasons, and then, eyes closed, prayed a traditional prayer, beseeching G.o.d to watch over the couple's first born child, and imploring the ancestors to "hold this infant's spirit gently with both hands."

He knelt to the ground, gathered red dust into his hands, and sprinkled it over the urn, as Julian placed the remains of Michael Davenport Fortier into the ground, and everyone sang the first verse of "Amazing Grace."

Stepping forward to the center of the circle, her hands clasped together beneath her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, Sylvia began a soulful "Nearer My G.o.d to Thee." Her silvery soprano, unrestrained, effortless, accompanied by the soft strains of the nearby creek, slipped along the air above their heads, and brought mist to every open eye.

When she'd finished there was a resounding 'Aay-men!' from everyone, including Kevin and Raynelle, who, though white and Catholic, had spent enough time in black churches to understand the customary response to a thing well done. from everyone, including Kevin and Raynelle, who, though white and Catholic, had spent enough time in black churches to understand the customary response to a thing well done.

When the ceremony ended, Julian took his wife's hand as they began the walk back to the cabin.

"You did well," Julian said, leaning over to her and whispering. "You didn't cry."

"Are you kidding? I cried all last night while you were sleeping," she said with a self-mocking smile. "I didn't have any water left."

The walk back along the creek, through the clearing again, and onto the dust-packed road, was not as somber as the walk over had been, for what could have been a sad occasion had become a joyous one. They had taken one of their own from a cold city vault to the shade of the lives oaks, cooled by the breezes of the nearby stream. There was laughter and light-hearted banter as the notion of the picnic lunch of red beans and rice with homemade andouille sausage, crawfish pie, collard greens, peach cobbler, bread pudding, and sweet mint tea awaiting them filled everyone's minds. And Sylvia, unable to contain the music stirring inside her any longer, broke into the chorus of "I'll Fly Away," and everyone joined in as they walked. And while it wasn't exactly a second line, it was as close as they could get to it, dressed in their finest, stepping along the rutted earth near the piney woods.

In the evening, when fading light deepened the colors of the creek, the earth near the cabin, and the shady s.p.a.ces between the trees, they all sat on the porch, rockers aligned and creaking in odd meters, digesting Simon's incomparable meal.

"Well, Simon," Pastor Jackson said, "You did it again, brother."

Simon nodded, wiping a crumb of crawfish pie crust from his mouth with a napkin. "Yes, I 'spect I did."

Kevin and Raynelle sat rocking in opposing rhythms in the two larger rockers, while their daughter played in the dirt. The two dogs, Jack and Ruby, frolicked back and forth while Kevin tossed a beat-up tennis ball out on the dirt a hundred times as they took turns catching it and bringing it back for him to throw it again.

Julian sat in the blue rocker, Christina Maree on one knee, Jacob on the other. Christina chatted noisily, her hands in constant motion grabbing her father's nose and ears, while Jacob, the younger of the twins by eighteen minutes, suddenly teared up and began to cry.

"He's sleepy, as usual," Velmyra said, getting up from her rocker on the other side of the porch next to Genevieve and Pastor Jackson.

She leaned over, kissed Julian, and took the crying child from him. "Come on, sweetie," she said. "I'll take him in and put him on the sofa."

Julian started to get up to follow her with their daughter, but she said, "No. Stay. Enjoy."