The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc (40 page)

ally begin. But this year, since Gentry was the parish seat and their

own D.A. was running for U.S. Congress, the Committee to Elect

Tibor Thompson had turned the annual picnic into a virtual orgy of

politicking, praying, and carnival rides.

Belle Cantrell sat in a folding chair in the shade high up on the

riverbank, where the septuagenarian could oversee all the festivities.

In the 1930s during one of her many spurts of self-improvement,

she’d taken a WPA course in art history. The scene spread out

before her reminded her of something. All these half-naked people,

jumping around, pleasuring themselves, awakened a wavering rec-

ollection of a famous painting, but for the life of her, she couldn’t

remember which one.

On one side of the fairgrounds a traveling carnival was raking it

2 7 2

L o r a i n e D e s p r e s

in. Peewee sat Marilee on a giant bird and mounted a fish as chil-

dren and parents scrambled onto gay ponies and camels before the

calliope screamed and the merry-go-round began to turn.

Next to the carousel, teenagers clutched each other in libidi-

nous delirium as they whirled around and around in fruit-colored

spheres.

Belle searched her brain as she watched young men and women

float up into the sky and back down in the colorful hanging baskets

of the Ferris wheel. The painter was . . . God, she hated old age.

She never used to forget anything.

An Irish marching band, wearing green suits and leprechaun

hats, danced along the riverbank blowing their horns. Labor Day

was almost as good an excuse as St. Pat’s to get drunk and noisy.

One of the marchers spotted Belle and stopped to share his flask

with her.

Going the other way, dressed in maroon robes verging on red and

singing “Onward Christian Soldiers,” was Brother Junior Bodine’s

choir led by Sister Betty Ruth in virginal white. They were drum-

ming up business for his tent show and revival meeting downriver.

Sister Betty Ruth’s singing faltered when she saw Belle take a swig

from the flask. She licked her parched lips and for an instant wished

she were an old lady sharing a drink with a friend instead of the

Holy Willie she’d become. The instant passed. She renewed her

hymn with added fervor, hoping God didn’t read her heart continu-

ously, but just tuned in from time to time.

In the river itself, half-naked people were swimming, splashing,

and fondling one another. Miss Lucy, looking like an enormous

peach in her salmon-colored bathing suit with its modest pleated

skirt, waved merrily from the inner tube of a truck tire as she

floated downstream. A towheaded boy tried to ride a swimming

dog, who was growling and snapping to get him off his back. The

painter had naked people carousing in giant fruit, floating in bub-

bles. His name was . . . on the tip of her tongue.

Then she saw Bourrée LeBlanc with a crew of Cajuns carrying

T h e S c a n d a l o u s S u m m e r o f S i s s y L e B l a n c 2 7 3

bundles of dried sticks and reeds and banners proclaiming A FREE

AMERICA DEPENDS ON TIBOR THOMPSON. America’s in deep shit,

thought the old lady as Bourrée stopped to pay his respects. “Bour-

rée, what in the world are you and those Cajuns up to?”

“Just helping out a friend, chère.”

“You building bonfires in September?”

“Tibor’s getting TV coverage all the way from Baton Rouge.

Gotta give them something to cover.”

“That a fact?” she asked. He nodded. “You two never did have

the sense the good Lord gave oysters.”

“If I was you, Belle, I’d climb on his bandwagon before it’s too

late.” In back of him a bevy of Thompsonettes, in white shorts and

skimpy T-shirts adorned with giant Ts, were tacking up signs, KEEP

THE AMERICAN FAMILY PURE, VOTE FOR TIBOR.

“I’m not all that partial to his music,” said the aging suffragist.

Bourrée laughed, and for a moment he remembered how fine

she’d been all those years ago when he’d first hit Gentry, young and

horny, and she was “the fascinating older woman.”

Belle remembered, too. Eleven years hadn’t seemed like much

then. But time, that infernal sorcerer, had changed her from the

beautiful lady into the old hag with a cane. Suddenly she remem-

bered the painter and the painting: Hieronymus Bosch,
The Garden

of Earthly Delights
. We’re in the hell part, she thought as Sissy

came up to them.

Sissy hadn’t seen Bourrée since she stood him up in the French

Quarter. She saw his lips turn into a sneer. Gotcha, she thought, but

was surprised that she didn’t feel much of anything. The thrill of

revenge was gone.

“You all seen Uncle Tibor?”

“He’ll be along tonight in time for his speech,” Bourrée said. He

appraised her freckled legs stretching out under her shorts and

adjusted himself in his khakis.

Belle’s eyes darted from one to the other. That dirty old man!

“Not till tonight?” Sissy was clearly disappointed.

2 7 4

L o r a i n e D e s p r e s

“Why? You want to volunteer for something, chère?”

“I just might,” Sissy said.

“Don’t you dare,” Belle said to both of them.

Chip dropped silently from a tree onto the roof of the girl’s

bathhouse. He saw Sally Reinhold and Mary Beth O’Brien walk

right in through the swinging doors, whispering to each other. He

licked his lips. This is gonna be so neat! They were the prettiest girls

in his class, especially Sally, with her mass of black curls. But where

the hell was his brother? If he didn’t get his ass in gear, it was gonna

be too late.

Chip lifted his army-surplus field pack out of the tree and method-

ically laid out his equipment on the roof: rubber gloves so he

wouldn’t leave any fingerprints, a piece of garden hose, his chem-

istry funnel, a pickle jar half filled with ferrous sulfide, and two

clothespins. He heard the girls giggling below him. He slipped on

his rubber gloves. But where was Billy Joe? He had to get there

before the girls left the bathhouse. He just had to!

Chip leaned over the back of the roof and pried open the louvers

of the ventilation window. He couldn’t see the girls. Good. They

couldn’t see him, either. Quietly, carefully, with a scientist’s concen-

tration, he stuck one end of the hose through the louvers into a

dark corner of the window. And missed seeing his mother and Mar-

ilee enter the bathhouse.

He spotted Billy Joe running across the fairgrounds, a paper bag

banging against his bare leg. He willed him to be careful! If the lid

wasn’t screwed on tight, the jar would fall right through the bag.

Inside the bathhouse, Sissy and Marilee stepped into a changing

booth. Sissy leaned over to unbutton Marilee’s jumper when she

heard a loud thump on the roof. She looked up at the ceiling.

“Shhh!” Chip ordered Billy Joe, who had dropped from the tree

limb. The boys froze and waited.

T h e S c a n d a l o u s S u m m e r o f S i s s y L e B l a n c 2 7 5

Inside, Sissy listened for a moment. Hearing nothing more, she

slipped out of her blouse and shorts.

In the next booth, Sally and Mary Beth were trying on each

other’s bathing suits.

“Did you get it?” Chip whispered.

Billy Joe nodded and pulled a mayonnaise jar out of the paper

bag. It contained a blue liquid. “It was in the toolshed in back of

the pool, just like you said.”

Chip grabbed it, unscrewed the lid, and sniffed. “This is gonna

be so neat!”

“Nobody saw me.” But Billy Joe looked worried.

Chip recognized the look. “They’ll never miss this little bit. It’s

not like stealing.”

Billy Joe nodded. “What’s it like?”

“You’re such a drag,” said Chip. He poured the swimming pool

acid into the pickle jar and shook it up.

Billy Joe hesitated. He didn’t want to be a drag, but he just had to

ask. “We can’t hurt them, can we? I mean this stuff isn’t dangerous,

is it?”

“Billy Joe!” the big brother said in a threatening voice so the

younger boy shut up. Chip couldn’t be bothered with reading all

that warning crap. “They’ll be fine, as long as they get out fast

enough.”

Inside the bathhouse, Sissy was trying to shimmy into her

tight green bathing suit, yanking up one side and then the other, as

Marilee stepped into hers backward.

Chip poured the contents of the pickle jar into the funnel

attached to the hose. And waited. He didn’t have to wait long. The

wooden bathhouse seemed to tremble and then naked and half-

naked ladies poured out.

Billy Joe, hidden by a tree limb, peeked over the edge of the roof.

2 7 6

L o r a i n e D e s p r e s

“This is so neat! This is really neat!” Then he turned back to his

brother and said in an anxious voice, “They’re coughing and

wheezing!”

“Stop worrying,” Chip said, handing him a clothespin and

attaching another to his own nose as the putrid smell of rotten eggs

drifted toward them.

Then he saw his twelve-year-old brother rock back and forth

with excitement. “Look!” Billy Joe said, and his voice was almost

reverent. Chip leaned over and saw Sally’s beautiful buns sticking

straight up in the air! She had run out with Mary Beth’s bathing suit

around her knees and was furiously pulling it up. Mary Beth ran

out next wearing only the bottom of Sally’s new bikini. Billy Joe

grabbed his brother’s arm. “Oh, my gosh. Mary Beth’s boobs. Look

at ’um! They aren’t like torpedoes at all. They’re squishy!” He lay

on the roof and rolled on his back. “They bounce!”

Chip watched all that naked protoplasm jumping and jiggling

and marveled that mere protein and fat would give him an erection.

He touched his hand to it, purely in the interest of science, of

course.

A scientist’s job is to observe and measure. He made a mental

note to find out the minimum number of naked girls he’d need to

produce the same effect. Hidden in the tree, he touched it again, to

assess its measurement. Big.

Then he saw his mother run out of the bathhouse, holding Mar-

ilee in her arms.

Sissy had her bathing suit on, but Marilee was completely naked,

choking and crying hysterically. Belle arrived with a beach towel.

She covered her weeping great-granddaughter and took her down

to the river to wash her off as Sissy searched the bathhouse roof.

She couldn’t see the faces peering out among the leaves, but she

knew. “Chip!” she growled. “You get down here this minute!”

Two boy figures rolled off the other side of the roof and ran

toward the carnival.

T h e S c a n d a l o u s S u m m e r o f S i s s y L e B l a n c 2 7 7

Oh, God, he’s got Billy Joe. I should have known. “Your next

stop is reform school, you all hear?” she called after them. But the

boys weren’t stopping.

Bourrée stood near the side of the bathhouse, where he had

the privileged view of the naked girls running out the front and the

two boys rolling off the back. That boy of mine is a pistol, he

thought with pride. Then he caught sight of Sissy and sauntered up

to her.

Competition always excited him and Gentry’s greatest, failed

football star was the kind of competition he liked. He decided to

invite Sissy for a drive in the woods, but when he approached, said,

“Ouwee, woman, you smell just like a skunk in heat.”

“Only you would know its mating scent,” she said.

But Bourrée also knew Sissy would never allow herself to smell

like a skunk, mating or otherwise. He watched her make a quick

run to the top of the high bank and dive into the deep, dark waters

of the river.

He picked up one of the inner tubes piled up on the bank and

threw it to her. “Here you go, chère. See if you can swim downwind

of the rest of us.”

She made a quick obscene gesture.

He chuckled as he watched her float downstream, cradling the

inner tube in her arms. Her cheek rested on the black rubber. Her

red hair was spread out around her. He saw the river water lapping

at her round butt in its green bathing suit, and he couldn’t remem-

ber why he’d denied himself her favors all these years, especially

since she’d always been so handy.

Sissy felt Bourrée’s eyes on her and then forgot all about him as

she floated down the warm, rolling waters of the swollen river.

Aunt Ida May’s Chihuahuas, Thunder and Lightning, raced along

the bank, pulling tiny carts announcing the time of Tibor’s speech.

2 7 8

L o r a i n e D e s p r e s

The yipping dogs excited a great deal of attention. But Sissy knew if

anyone was stupid enough to pet them, they’d bite.

Near her, a man had lashed up two inner tubes, one for himself

and one for a case filled with beer, which he drank as quickly as he

could, one after another. Empty beer cans followed him down-

stream like ducklings in the current. They bore silent tribute to his

major accomplishment in this world, the ability to hold prodigious

amounts of alcohol and live.

Sissy climbed into her inner tube and floated on her back. Over-