The Sound of Building Coffins Page 13

  “Dunno, Jim. Mighty tired is what I surely am.”

  Dropsy’s half-hearted protest trailed into a growl, but the source of the growl came from twenty feet ahead, towards the alley’s mouth. Both stopped cold, looked up. Two eyes reflected red from the sparkle of moonlight. Two eyes and lots of teeth. Not long ago this same growl was far off enough to be perceived as a hum; that same hum being an integral part of Jim’s already-figured calculations.

  “Well, looky there,” said Jim with twitchy glee. “We got ourselves a foamin’-at-the-mouth doggie-higgity-hog lie-shy, times…” Looking around to see if there might be a “dog” in the plural sense—“…times one!”

  “Dang, Jim, hold still and talk quiet. Dog like that’ll kill a person. Mostly pit by the looks of him.” With only dull moonlight through low hanging fog, Dropsy couldn’t see the dog well enough to determine breed—but he figured to err for caution, and assumed the worst. Pit bulls in Louisiana were mostly bred to kill black folk.

  In apparent empathy of Dropsy’s jangly tone of voice (but really just weighing out the situation), Jim scratched his head quietly for a moment. The dog’s rumble raised in pitch, a spiky whine of pain quivering beneath it.

  Sick dog, mad dog, devil dog, thought Dropsy.

  Jim spoke in hushed tones, bloodlust nipping the edges of his throat like hungry rats: “Dropsy, my good man, I’ll tell ya what I’m gonna do-wocka-hoo-hicka-shang-a-la do.” Dropsy could feel the grin in Jim’s voice, his friend’s unreasonable air of confidence temporarily affording him an equally unreasonable sense of safety. Dropsy let out a sigh, unsure if the sigh was of relief or in acceptance of danger newly compounded. In any case, the dog was close enough now that making a run for it was no longer an option.

  Dropsy, slow and shaking: “What might that be, pardna?”

  “I’ll bet ya a fiver I kin take that dangerous animal down with my bare hands before ya count to twenty is what.”

  “Jim, ya know I ain’t a bettin’ man. My daddy taught me agen’ it.” Dropsy’s eyes narrowed in terror as the dog’s pitch lowered, its back end lowering in kind. Dropsy continued in barely a whisper, voice shaking, blood on the chill; “Plus, it ain’t a bet I’d feel good about winning. If I win it means the dog win, too. Meanin’ Jim Jam Jump either hurt or dead.”

  “Puh-shaw, Dropsy. All that fight store loot in yer pocket and you scared of losing a fiver?”

  A gob of white gleaming foam caught moonlight and plopped audibly from the dog’s trembling snout to the alley floor.

  “It’s the principle, Jim.” Dropsy held his chin in the air, thinking mightily on principle even in this moment of mortal danger. His daddy would be proud of such righteous resolve, Dropsy reckoned. But Jim had counted on Dropsy’s high sense of principle, and so continued right on schedule:

  “Fair enough then, my honorable companion. We’ll make it a bet without monetary consideration. If I manage to take down that mangy and vicious beast, an animal who obviously means us nothing if not ill will and utter destruction, then you accompany me to the nearest fresh-face clip-joint where we can have us a little tat. If I don’t, just leave my bloody body in the alley for that diseased animal to chew on while you head home for a nice nap. Ya can’t lose, Dropsy Morningstar. If I win, we both scare up a little loot on the tat; if I lose, ya get to lay down and dream about it. Either way, this animal ain’t yer problem.”

  “Dunno, Jim.”

  The rabid dog wobbled down low with pointless rage, readying to jump. Dropsy said a quick prayer in his head, struggling to keep still. Jim bounced a dangerously percussive chuckle off the walls of the alley before whispering through clenched teeth, “Considerin’ we’s pressed fer time in this sitchy-ation, I’ll count that as a yes, Mister Dropsy Morningstar, my dearest and very friend.” Jim gathered his concentration, sharpened his focus, and calmly articulated his unique brand of countdown:

  “Shy……lye……HOO!”

  Before Dropsy’s lips could part to protest, Jim beat the dog to the jump, feigning a leap to the right and throwing the dog off his game—away from himself but in the general direction of Dropsy’s unguarded throat. Dropsy dove right with a yelp as Jim pulled back and away, spun around to the left and, in one quick motion, let gravity throw his body hard towards the dog’s airborne back-end—putting him in a position to grab a hind leg in each hand. Jim yanked the animal to the ground before its snapping jaws could do anything, but spray spit against Dropsy’s neck, ear, cheek and eye. The dog’s body landed with a soft, muffled slap as Jim angled its fur-matted body beneath him, all ninety-six pounds of the boy pressing squarely through his right shoulder into the dog’s wiggly midsection. The animal’s fury dissolved into shock, communicating such through a series of quick, panicked yips before rediscovering its rage in the scent of Jim’s ratblood-specked pant legs. Resuming the attack, the dog snapped furiously at Jim’s legs and feet—but the boy kicked himself away expertly, suffering only a single-toothed scratch along the back of his left calf.

  “Holy crimeny, Jim! Be careful!” Dropsy gasped with a tentative move forward. With blood still fresh on its tongue, the dog was in a frenzy now; snarls and snaps ricocheting like moist bullets off the soft red brick of the alley walls.

  Jim: “Hold yer ground, pardna! I got ’im! I got ’im! Come anywhere near the head and he’ll bite ya but good! Stay back!”

  Dropsy wasn’t sure where the dog’s head might be in the whir of shadows—and so did as he was told, holding ground but ready to intervene if Jim’s presumed advantage suffered obvious setback.

  “Damn, Jim,” Dropsy whispered, slackjawed at the spectacle of this skinny white kid wrestling a rabid pitbull without benefit of weapon or meaningful light. He strained and squinted to tell the combatants apart, coming up with nothing except murky, darting, soft shadows and a tangle of hateful sound.

  Jim kept his legs forward out of the dog’s reach while grouping both of its hind legs together in his left hand—thereby freeing his right arm to reel back and send an elbow to the back of the dog’s neck. A sharp yip shot up through its throat, piercing warm air. The battle turned an important corner as the dog gave in to its pain; choosing retreat, frantically squirming to get away. A second hammering elbow left the dog partially stunned, its struggle reduced to a spasm of shivers and shallow whimpers. Jim tightened his grip on the dog’s hind legs, its surrendering body firmly pinned beneath his weight as he reeled up to deliver another well-aimed elbow.

  The animal lay silent. Jim took two slow breaths before rolling off and away. Uncertain if the dog was dead or just stunned, Jim rose warily to his knees—then, slowly, to his feet.

  Jim Jam Jump and Dropsy Morningstar stood perfectly still—listening to the sound of each other’s breathing and half expecting the dog to snap awake and have another go. After twenty seconds of uneasy quiet, Jim edged forward to give the dog a nudge with his toe. No response. Breathing hard, Jim let out a whoop and kicked the dog hard in the belly, sending it shortways along the alley into the backdoor of an anonymous crib, goosing a muffled, “What the fuck?” from a startled john inside.

  Dropsy wiped dog spit from his eyes in disbelief. “You sure are crazy, Jim.”

  A stream of giggles floated from Jim’s lips into warm, dark fog as he conceded merrily, “’Tis my claim to fame, pardna. My claim to fame.”

  “Did he getcha?”

  “Just a scrape, old pal. Not to worry. Biggest thing I ever kilt, that dog. Guess you could say ol’ Jim Jam Jump’s movin’ up in the world.” Another round of giggles drifted into the night, transforming quickly into chuckles, chuckles into whoops, whoops into hollers. The alley mist wobbled in response.

  “Need to get that washed up, Jim. That dog-disease could get in yer blood. Then you be snappin’ and foamin’ too.” Dropsy silently wondered if mad-dog-disease might actually constitute some improvement on his friend’s unpredictable temperament.

  “Indeed, Dropsy. That I will. Will get it cleaned up at the first cli
p-joint we take a tumble to…fer tattin’, that is.” Wink. “This little episode might even make for a good dramatic introduction to a nice juicy mark.” Always working a new angle was the way of Jim Jam Jump.

  “Y’know, Jim, I never did take that bet. Didn’t even count to twenty.” Dropsy: still playing the game, throwing up a challenge to Jim’s angle-calculator.

  “Only since you didn’t have time to, pal. But I took care o’ that dog just like I said, bare hands and all. Don’t go mooching now. Might make a fella mad is what.”

  “All right then, Jim. I reckon you win. Any idea where to go?”

  Jim just smiled. “’Deed I do, Dropsy. ’Deed I do.”

  Dropsy marveled at the able mind of his young friend. Always a plan in mind, always an angle smoothed to fine. Dropsy figured Jim was destined for great things, as predicted. A mind so sharp and focused could hardly go wrong.

  Chapter twenty-five

  Hattie’s Cure

  Hattie Covington lay on her side in the shape of a Z, her head in the lap of Diphtheria Morningstar—just as it had every night since the bitter evening of her cure.

  Diphtheria and Hattie had risen from the Marais Street cribs to Arlington Hall together, and so had become like sisters. As Diphtheria stroked Hattie’s hair and looked into her half-closed eyes, she found herself mildly alarmed by what she saw there.

  “I know, I know,” Diphtheria said in a whisper.

  “You know more than me then, I guess,” said Hattie, with hardly a movement of her lips, idly watching Diphtheria’s boy play with a handful of buttons near the door. West had been methodically stacking irregular round and oval shapes for the last two hours. Stacking until they fell of their own accord, then starting over—and over and over—never quite able to stack them all in one freestanding button tower. “Might be I coulda made it like you. Raised me a nice little boy like West. Or a girl maybe. Might be. Could be. Won’t know now.”

  “Shh. Things was diff’nt for me. I was just out of the crib—with nothin’ at all to lose. Had me a man to fall back on, too—least thought I did.” Diphtheria’s nose crinkled slightly at the memory of Buddy’s callous desertion so soon after West’s birth. Buddy had gotten his first whiff of notoriety in the district back then—a wife and baby just didn’t figure into the life of a rising star. When it became clear to her that Buddy would not be coming back, Diphtheria let go the notion of putting the whore’s life behind her, focusing instead on becoming a better paid whore. With a child to raise on her own she would need money; better money than she’d been accustomed to in the cribs.

  With Doctor Jack’s help, Diphtheria had managed to lighten her skin a shade closer to high yella. Doing so had required daily, painfully stinging skin treatments (a mix of hot yellow wax, cocoa butter and a type of bleach Doctor Jack called “petrolatum”), and in two months time she’d paled up nicely. In the interim she’d worked the rice fields of Assumption Parish to make ends meet; the hard work making her body toned, muscular and ready for selling. Ten dollars saved from the rice fields bought her a fancy dress, the kind she believed was required in the fancy brothels of Basin Street.

  Her first big break had come in the form of Lulu White’s Mahogany Hall, where she discovered no such fancy dress was required—at least not at first. At Lulu’s she was hired on as the house “goat”; and to be a goat meant to prance around the first floor parlor naked as a jaybird save for high-heeled shoes. Lulu’s goat was lagniappe for her high-class clientele. It was the job of the goat to award “five minutes of undivided attention” to any man who requested such—usually on her knees and free of charge. A nasty and thankless job it was, but a solid first step towards the good-paying career Diphtheria had dreamed of since Buddy’s departure. If nothing else, Mahogany Hall offered a safer working environment than could be found in any crib.

  Diphtheria had been a trusty and popular goat for Lulu, and so it wasn’t too many months before her promotion to an upstairs room of her own. Eventually she moved down the street to the Arlington House, where she was given her own listing in the Blue Book under the name “Dorothia Morningstar.” It was Josie Arlington herself who had insisted on the name change, pointing out that even an exceptionally pretty girl named for a disease might tend to inspire costly hesitation in the heart of a wealthy upper-class patron. Whatever the name, a listing in the Blue Book was the big time. Diphtheria had made it, and so had Hattie.

  The process of coming up in the district had been all about hard times, but Diphtheria and Hattie had gone through the worst of it together. Now Diphtheria doubted if Hattie (or herself, for that matter) could summon the strength required to start again from scratch. Hattie’s skin was naturally light, her lips thin and her nose narrow—fine Creole looks that made her own transition from the crib a smooth one. But that could all change fast if a baby ruined her shape.

  “Your situation is diff’nt,” Diphtheria continued. “Gettin’ full-blown pregnant woulda lost you yer job in a high-class joint like Arlington Hall—and you know it. Woulda got kicked back down to the cribs in ten seconds flat. How you woulda raised a child in a crib with no man to look after ya? And no money? Cain’t raise a baby up proper on no crib-nickels.”

  “I know, I know,” answered Hattie, a delayed echo to Diphtheria’s earlier whisper. “Still, I wanted that child. That was my child. Even if it was only from being selfish, I wanted that child. Maybe I coulda found a way. Might be, could be.”

  Diphtheria stroked Hattie’s hair, ever gently. “Shush now, girl. You ain’t selfish like that. It was your love for that child made you get cured. Knowin’ his life would be so hard. Your own life be hard, too hard to care for him proper. It ain’t like you didn’t think things through. You tortured yourself over it. You gave it every consideration—which is more’n most girls do. You loved that baby in yer body and done what you thought best for him. Ain’t no sin in doing what you think is right. Being selfish woulda been more a sin. You ain’t selfish like that, girl. You know you ain’t.”

  That much was true. Hattie had tortured herself over the thought of bringing a child into the world, and in the end decided the timing couldn’t be worse. So she had seen Doctor Jack about (and later for) a cure, but she’d also committed herself to saving up a year’s worth of wages; enough money to survive her next pregnancy, get her figure back, then get back to work.

  But she knew she would never have another chance at having this baby. This baby was gone and gone for good; except in her heart. Its little pink body taken away by Diphtheria’s brother, Typhus, to be buried or sunk God knows where. The next time it would be a whole other baby. A newer, luckier baby—allowed to live. But not the same baby at all. This baby was dead—and dead is forever.

  “It ain’t fair,” said Hattie. “I ain’t fair.”

  Diphtheria had no words for response, and so stroked Hattie’s hair some more. Wiped away her tears.

  “Shhhh,” Diphtheria cooed again. “You and me best be gettin’ to work now, girl. Try to put on a little smile for the customers.”

  “You go, Diphtheria. Tell Josie I ain’t well.”

  Diphtheria’s soft expression toughened slightly. “You keep that up and you’ll be back to cribbin’ after all. You know that. Josie’s got some tenderness in her heart for you, girl—but you keep it up and she’ll rent yer room out to someone new.” Diphtheria let out a sigh, remorseful of the harshness in her voice. “Get dressed. And put on that smile.” Diphtheria demonstrated a smile as if Hattie might have forgotten what one looked like. Then, after a pause, and with calculated tenderness, “So’s you can put some money away for that next little one.”

  Hattie sat up slowly, her spine aligning gradually with the sofa back.

  “Yeah. Guess you right, Diphtheria.”

  “’Course I’m right. Now, you get yerself gussied to make yerself a little killin’—you and yer natural high-yella skin tone set to breakin’ hearts—Lord, Lord!—and I’ll be back in my room doin’ the same. Lotsa fanc
y men in town fer a fraternity meetin’, they say. Meet you at the parlor room, all right?”

  “I guess,” said Hattie, unable to get excited at the thought of fancy men—she’d suspected (or at least hoped) it had been a fancy man from a fraternity who’d knocked her up in the first place.

  Hattie felt her mood darkening. Thinking about taking a bath. Thinking about the straight razor in her washroom. Thinking about hot water turning pink. “Might take a little bath first,” she said quietly.

  “That’s it, you take a bath.” Diphtheria spoke brightly, but something in Hattie’s eyes rang an alarm, so she added on for safety’s sake, “But make it a short one. Got to get to work. I’ll be back to check on you if you take too long.”

  “Yeah, a short one,” Hattie monotoned. “All right then, Diphtheria.”

  “Got that new piano player ya like downstairs, girl. Mr. J.C. Booker, the one that plays them rags. Get yer mind offa things I bet, them rags.” Hattie smiled some, almost forgetting about hot baths with pink water at the thought of J.C. Booker and his gay piano rags.

  “Damn, that boy sure plays good,” Hattie agreed. “Least he don’t play them stuffy classics like the last boy.” A little laugh escaped her lips; a tiny miracle. “Them Beethoven suh-nattas just put me clean outta the mood.”

  “That’s right, dear.” Diphtheria smiled. “Let that pretty piano boy lift yer spirits some. Skip the bath and come down quick. Playin’ already, I bet.”

  “Yeah, maybe so.”