Sailor & Lula (64 page)

“How you like that Cosmo?” asked Beany. “It's what the twenty and thirty somethin's prefer these days.”

Lula took a little sip.

“Ain't too bad. Mite sweet, though. How you heard about 'em?”

“Sex and the City, the TV show? The girls on it are always meetin' up in a outdoor place like this, rushin' in breathless, then suckin' down a Cosmo as they commence complainin'.”

“Complainin' about what?”

“Men, 'course. What else?”

“I never seen it.”

“I missed it myself, first time around. Now I just catch the late at night reruns. Don't matter, you still got me to listen to.”

“Thank goodness.”

A waitress came to their table and asked, “You ladies ready for another?”

“Not quite yet,” Beany answered. “You, Lula?”

Lula shook her head no.

“But I got a question,” said Beany.

“Shoot,” the waitress said.

“Why's this place called the Lion's Mouth?”

“Hebrews, 11:33. ‘Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions.' We're mostly God-fearin' folks around here, but you gotta have a place to let your hair down and this is as close as you get in Bay St. Clement.”

The waitress walked away.

“Whew,” said Beany, “she sure answered my question, didn't she?”

Lula nodded. “I only been here twice,” she said.

Beany leaned forward and took Lula's left hand between both of her own.

“Lula, you know what we gotta do?”

“What?”

“Take a trip together.”

“Where? When?”

“Now, tomorrow, or the next day. Don't matter much where. Let's just go to be goin'.”

“Oh, Beany, quit. You mean take a sea cruise?”

“Hell, no. Them're for old folks. Anyway, I'd feel like a prisoner on a boat. We can drive.”

“I don't know about you, Beany, but I gotta admit I'm feelin' shakey goin' on the interstate.”

“Fine, we'll take back roads, go slow.”

Beany still colored her hair. In the fading sunlight, Lula noticed, it had a greenish glow.

“Don't think I'm up to travelin', Beany. I'm happy these days just stickin' close to home.”

“Lula, we're goin'! I won't let you set in a rockin' chair waitin' on the death ship.”

“I'll think on it.”

“We just gotta decide which way we're headed: up, down, or out west.”

“Beany, I believe this Cosmo is makin' me dizzy. It and the heat.”

“Okay, sweetie pie, we'll head back to Dal's, but by tomorrow mornin' we'll have a plan. We need an adventure, baby, bring out our inner girl.”

“Beany, you're crazy.”

Lula's oldest and best friend left in the world cackled and said, “Board certified by the backwardest state in the entire confederacy.”

“I don't know about that, Beany. Louisiana got itself some pretty stiff competition down here in the backwards department.”

I guess its time I went back to NO. Pace tells me its a sorry sight since Katrina but this might be my last chance to see the city where I spent most of my life. I suppose I been reluctant to go since Sailor was killed I got so many memories there and hes in almost all. Beanys got my best interest in mind I know and this way Ill get to see my son. By the time Beany and I got back to the house from the Lions Mouth cafe she had pretty much made up my mind for me so I called Pace on his cell phone which as far as I know is the only number hes got. He didnt answer but I left him a message saying Im coming with Beany see you in a few days. I got his address in Metairie and if he aint got room for us to stay there Im sure we can find some hotel dont charge a arm or a leg. Beany herself aint been in NO for years she says and we can go on up to Plain Dealing after so I can see Hedy Lamarr and meet Delivery Music and their son Melton. Beany thinks Melton who dont have nothing better to do would drive me back to Bay St. Clement and then he can take a train back to Plain Dealing. It all sounds fine but I have to confess Im afraid being in NO again without Sail is gonna be tough. I could hardly stand it after he died thank goodness I had Dal to go to. After Mama passed I recalled what she had written to me from beside the deathbed of her old beau Marcello Santos. Marcello may have been a gangster Mama said but it werent all his fault hed done what he done because as it says in Kings he walked in all the way that his father walked in and served the idols that his father served and worshiped them. Santos may have done that which was evil in the sight of the Lord but he was set out on a path not of his choosing and at his very end he asked Mama to forgive him his ways cause he knew God would not. And Mama said she asked Marcello is thine heart right as my heart is with thy heart and he answered her it is so she said give me thine hand and he did and he was taken up into the chariot. Going to NO now might just be best help me conquer some shadows.

First thing this morning Beany and I drove over to Oscaritos Service to have my Mercury Nightcat checked out for the trip. That Oscarito is the nicest boy come up from Mexico about six years back with his brother Jose Pinto whos working now as a plasterer Oscarito tells me in Chicago. Oscarito hired on with old Dip Robinson at Dips Gulf Gas and now hes running the show. Dip is a good man but I aint unhappy he retired as this Oscarito is a ace mechanic. Oscarito says where he come from they couldnt afford to buy new parts so he learned how to make his own from leftovers. Even with all the computer stuff you gotta know now to make a car go he can work miracles with a wrench and a screwdriver. I believe if hed been assisting Doctor Frankenstein the monster would have come out right and never killed that little girl picking flowers. Beany and I left the Mercury with Oscarito walked over to the graveyard and talked about our route. Beany has it figured pretty well already we head for Myrtle Beach then Charleston to Beaufort down to Savannah and cross Georgia through Valdosta to Dothan Alabama and on into Mobile from there through Pascagoula Biloxi Gulfport Pass Christian whats left of it and then NO. Im steadying myself for a fright since Hurricane Katrina kicked ass along the gulf coast too. Beany says shes heard how the planet is getting too hot for humans and anyway pretty soon once all the ice melts up north they already got polar bears eating each other everyone living next to water will be under it. None of this news is easy to swallow maybe itll come down to what Isaiah said about hail sweeping away the refuge of lies and waters overflowing the hiding place because there wont be no place to hide people are either all in this boat together or there aint going to be no boat to be in.

“Lula, you about ready?”

“Comin'. I ain't so mobile as I used to be. Might be time for some replacement parts, I could afford 'em.”

Lula came down the stairs slowly, keeping one hand on the bannister, carrying a small, brown, weatherbeaten valise in the other.

“That all you bringin', baby?” Beany asked.

Lula reached the bottom of the steps and put the valise down on the floor.

“This is Sailor's old getaway bag,” she said. “I thought this's the proper occasion to use it. Holds all I'll need. I believe he'd be happy to know he's goin' back out on the road.”

“What you mean ‘he'?”

“Feel like Sailor's comin' with me, Beany, you know? Sail never went nowhere far from home he didn't take this valise.”

“Elmo always insisted on takin' with him all he could. ‘Never can tell when we'll be back, if ever,' he used to say. Man always was lookin' to move on, and that was a sign.”

Lula held her tongue. She never had cared for Elmo, even when Beany'd been convinced he was the bee's knees, but she saw no earthly reason to add to her good friend's storehouse of ill thoughts concerning the man. After all, Lula thought, they'd soon be visiting with Elmo Pleasant's blood daughter, Hedy Lamarr, and who knew what memories she had of him. Most certainly Beany had long ago poisoned that well.

“Beany, before we get goin' there's one thing I gotta say.”

“What's that, baby?”

“Back in the day Sailor and I were startin' out on a trip, it was his fiftieth birthday, drivin' across Lake Pontchartrain, time we encountered that strange girl, Consuelo Whynot.”

“Teenager was mixed up with a lesbian Chickasaw in Miss'ippi, I recall. Killed a fella.”

Lula nodded. “Wesley Nisbet, but it was Venus Tishomingo shot him, not Consuelo. Then Nisbet's car run Venus over.”

“Sweet Jesus, like in that movie Christine. What about it?”

“Just that when we were on the bridge beginnin' that trip there was a bad sign Sail and I ignored. A big dead pelican fell from the sky and crashed on the roof of our Sedan de Ville. We'd understood it was a omen we would've turned around and gone back to N.O. Never woulda been involved with them crazy folks. Promise me, Beany, we get some kinda sign we stop right there, scoot back to Bay St. Clement.”

“Okay, Lula, a dead pelican crashes on us, we'll turn back.”

“Not just a pelican. I mean any weird incident could be a warnin'.”

Beany stared into Lula's still bright gray eyes and held up her own right hand with the index and second fingers pressed together and the other two held down by her thumb.

“What's that?” asked Lula.

“Indian sign, means I promise. We good to go now?”

“Uh huh. Just I believe we're way too old for that sorta foolishness, Beany, don't you?”

We made pretty good progress today for two old women. We got kind of a late start but arrived in Myrtle Beach just after sunset. As we drove I couldnt help but think about Sailor and how when we were kids going to Myrtle Beach was about the end in the holiday department. Beany insisted on driving most of the way she goes faster than me of course. I called Pace again from a gas station by Calabash but got his message voice and left him one so at least he knows or will know when he listens to it that we really are on the road and headed his way. Beany is half decided to get herself a cell phone finally I guess its a good idea if your stuck on a highway at night with a flat tire or something but I keep resisting getting one as just one more modern piece of business to deal with. I hope I dont regret not having one I know it could be a lifesaver someday. So here we are in Myrtle Beach thank the Lord in off season so it was no trouble finding a place to stay. The Sunrise in Egypt Motel used to be was run by Betty Jane and Delmer Holden he was a distant cousin of the actor William Holden kept a poster of The Wild Bunch movie on the lobby wall. Thats gone now theres new owners but the rooms are clean. Sailor told me once he and a buddy Dodge Johnson whose daddy named him after his favorite car got stuck here for two days in a rainstorm and Dodge Johnson read the New Testament through about ten times out loud because he couldnt read silent and drove Sail almost crazy. Dodge claimed Revelations foretold the New Heaven and the New Earth was on another planet and that to get right with the Lord it was necessary to follow the Pure River and leave behind the dogs sorcerers whoremongers murderers idolators and liars who would all be condemned to dwell in New York City where Satan had reappeared following his thousand years of banishment from Gods Kingdom. Sailor never could stand to listen to anyone preach the New Testament after that but neither did he ever go to New York City.

“Beany, I'm afraid to go to N.O.”

Beany was at the wheel and Lula was in the front passenger seat of the Nightcat at ten in the morning of a gray day as they motored slowly south on state highway 17 near Murrells Inlet.

“What're you sayin', baby?” asked Beany. “Afraid of what?”

“What we're gonna see. How wrecked the city is from the hurricane. I lived there forty years and I don't know if I could bear to see the place so torn up.”

“You seen it on TV.”

“Seein' somethin' on TV ain't the same as in person, Beany, you know that. I'm worried it'll break my heart.”

Beany honked the horn at a black Cadillac Escalade in front of them that was moving too slowly and weaving out of its lane and back.

“Take it easy, there'll be a passin' lane in a minute.”

“Natural disasters is part of life, Lula, it's why they're called natural. Hell, I'm a natural disaster myself, bein' in and out of mental institutions, mostly destroyin' my children's lives. It ain't difficult to see how the planet woulda been better off without the Good Lord planted me on it.”

Tears rolled down Beany's cheeks. She wiped them away as she drove.

“Oh, Beany, darlin', that ain't true. You're one of God's rarest creatures and my dearest friend. Just you had a wild hair, is all, and couldn't always keep it in place.”

“Yeah, like the most uncontrollable cowlick in the history of Crowley, Louisiana.”

The road widened and Beany stabbed the accelerator pedal and zoomed the Mercury around the lumbering SUV.

“I was right, Lula. Look!”

As they sped by, Lula glimpsed the driver of the Escalade, a big-haired thirty-something holding a cell phone to her left ear.

“Is she smokin', too?” Beany asked.

“Can't tell. Oh, wait. Yep, she surely is. Got a long, thin ciggie between two fingers of her steerin' hand.”

“You never smoke no more, Lula?”

“Ever' once in a while I puff on a Viceroy. ‘Bout twice a month, maybe.”

“Strange,” said Beany, “smokin's about the only bad habit I didn't have, you know?”