Wading Home_ A Novel Of New Orleans Part 1

Wading Home_ A Novel of New Orleans.

by Rosalyn Story.

To my families on both sides, the Story/Williams and the Boswells, for love, and for history

Storm Warning Louisiana, 2005.

Years before the night the storm made history, it had already earned its name. Those who'd witnessed the worst of them argued that when The Big One finally appeared, it would signal the end of everything in its path. There would be nothing left except the memory of its perfect inception-how it reared its monstrous head over the tropics, then barreled through warm gulf waters that whipped its winds into frenzy before it roared across the thin barrier islands off the mainland toward the coast.

So when the big storm finally trounced in like an unwelcomed though not unexpected visitor, birds flew to cover and a whole city crouched in fear. It pounded the sandy gulf sh.o.r.es, then arced east as the surging waters battered shoddy levees to rage through the city like no other flood before it. Afterwards, 200-year old trees lay uprooted. Hand-built houses pa.s.sed down through five generations floated away and fell apart. And the lives that survived were forever changed.

Upriver, though, where the winds were calmer, another storm formed under clear skies and bright sun and in the sleep-quiet darkness of night. It shaped in the clouded minds of men, gathered force with ambition, surged with greed and l.u.s.t. But the uprooting of lives would be as heartbreaking as any hurricane.

A perfect spread of earth one hundred or so miles up from New Orleans, Silver Creek Plantation had begun in 1855 on a whim, a gamble, a bluff made with tongue in cheek. A Frenchman-preacher, planter, and dabbler in games of chance-sat down to a card table with a pair of deuces and got up with 200 acres of G.o.d's garden. A place where tall pines and cypresses and sweetgum shaded the fertile earth, egrets and herons swam through thick air sweetened with honeysuckle and jasmine, and in the creek shallows that necklaced the land like a strand of gurgling silver, crawfish grew nearly as plump as the preacher/gambler's fists.

Under the sweating brows of the Frenchman's thirteen new slaves, new life sprang from the freshly tilled soil. Year after year, the rich earth bore crops so magnificent that the Frenchman could scarcely believe his eyes-there was corn as tall as young pines, sugar stalks with the reach of cypress trees, and a cotton crop that stirred the envy of the whole parish.

But if Silver Creek was the preacher's pa.s.sion, his true love was the young Ashanti woman with soft, almond eyes and a face shaped like a heart. Anyone who saw the two of them together might wonder who was master and who was slave. And either way they guessed, they would have been right. For as much as the papers the Frenchman owned bound her to him, he was as much bound to her by the grip she held on his heart.

Like the land itself, the Frenchman and the African woman bore generations of hearty fruit, beginning with a son who grew tall, steel-eyed, and strong, and as much in love with the land as the master who sired him. For generations to come it was pa.s.sed down from father to son, bouncing between legend and fact, that the pear-shaped piece of land was a paradise to which no harm could come. Nothing could stunt its bounty or its beauty, and nothing could pry it from the hands of the Fortiers.

And nothing did, until the season of the big storm.

That year, when the old home folks sat on their porches, they shook their heads and sucked their teeth at the bulldozers that pulled up next to the shotgun cabins, and watched meadows of wildflowers and forests of pine fall to the cold sprawl of golf courses and strip mall parking lots. Some chalked it up to the simple business of men in suits, said the old times were done, and the precious land was too rich anyway for the widowed man who'd chef'd in the kitchens of New Orleans. That the drumbeat and forward march of progress was just the way of things. But others thought there was more to it: that a mysterious death by the roadside was really no accident, but one man's heartless plan.

Storm nights. A deep, eerie light. The air heavy, thick, and hot. The swaying branch-dance of live oaks, the scramble of birds and squirrels and dogs to safe havens clear of harm's way. When he was a boy growing up on the land far upriver before he moved to the Crescent City, the chef's young eyes had opened wide at his father's tales of the storms down near where the river met the gulf. The ones that ripped trees from their beds and slammed houses into each other, or picked up trucks and tossed them like toys. Or stirred the waters to rise and swallow everything in sight.

But on this eve of the hurricane, his aging eyes are calm, his mind crowded with other thoughts: a piece of paradise in peril miles away, a father he loved in death, and a son he loves more than life. A son who can scarcely find the land that is his birthright on a map.

The old chef looks out the kitchen window at the still-quiet sky over the city and thinks of the places he calls home, the one up where the creek winds through and the one here at the river's mouth, wondering how long either will survive. He tends his stove-a pot of red beans and rice will surely get him through whatever the days ahead might bring-and waits for the storm.

1.

New Orleans, August 2005.

Across the whole city stillness lurks like a shadowy intruder: no noise of cars, trucks, buses or streetcars, and instead an unseemly quiet, except for the rustle of the cypress leaves. On the river near its crescent, a moored barge floats, a silent steamboat hugs the dock. And nearby, the Vieux Carre Vieux Carre stands oddly muted, its rowdiest bars quiet as an empty church. stands oddly muted, its rowdiest bars quiet as an empty church.

Up and down the blocks of old Treme, amid the rows of century-old wood-framed houses where neighbors' music usually seeps from open doors and windows (the oldest Carmier boy's sousaphone hoots, or Cordelia Lautrec's little daughter's piano scales) an eerie music holds, all the random noises of the neighborhood yielding to the stealthy overtures of a storm.

In Simon's kitchen, a streak of late summer sun angles through backdoor blinds and sends a blade of gold across his stove. The old man stirs a huge iron pot of beans (only Camellia brand will do) for his domino-night supper of red beans and rice. Leaning a bristly chin over the pot, tasting a spoonful of the liquor, he sprinkles a dash of salt with artful, experienced hands as the steam fogs his gla.s.ses and his cataract-weakened eyes squint into the pungent whiff of garlic and thyme. He dips the spoon in for another taste, then glances out the thin pane of the backdoor window at the stilllight sky, and sucks his tongue. The sun, usually in slow retreat on August evenings, will surely fade quickly tonight.

With no neighbors' music to entertain his dinner preparation-most have left town for higher ground, and only the cash-strapped or fearless have hunkered down to brave out the night-Simon hums an old Pops Armstrong standard in a warbled, gritty baritone: Give meee... a-kiss, to-build, a-dream-onnn.... Give meee... a-kiss, to-build, a-dream-onnn.... He keeps stirring the beans as the starch breaks down and thickens the soup, wielding the splintered oak spoon Auntie Maree gave him some sixty years ago. With a clean white hanky from his back pocket, he blots the sweat beading on his forehead and turns down the flame. He keeps stirring the beans as the starch breaks down and thickens the soup, wielding the splintered oak spoon Auntie Maree gave him some sixty years ago. With a clean white hanky from his back pocket, he blots the sweat beading on his forehead and turns down the flame.

A loud thwack thwack from the backyard breaks the quiet. from the backyard breaks the quiet.

"Aw. No," Simon groans, knowing what's happened.

It's surely what he's feared for years. Simon wipes greasy fingers on a dish towel, slaps it down onto the counter, and opens the back door to a.s.sess the damage.

Sure enough. The giant live oak-planted by his daddy on the day Simon was born seventy-six years ago-now stands an unbalanced amputee, its long bottom limb lying on the ground.

"Ummph, ummph, ummph." Simon shakes his head, rests a hand on his hip. That branch was rotten for sure; too many storm seasons, too many nights like tonight. That branch was rotten for sure; too many storm seasons, too many nights like tonight. But he pushes back a thought: But he pushes back a thought: Could be an omen-something about to break apart tonight, something about to change. Could be an omen-something about to break apart tonight, something about to change.

Stooping down to the ground slowly and favoring the weak place in his back, he drags the branch to the side of the house, opens the storage shed door, and hauls it inside, lungs winded and legs stiff. He dusts his dry hands on the legs of his khaki trousers. With a wild storm on its way, that big branch could easily take flight and slam somebody's window, like what happened with the one they called Betsy. Maybe even his his window. That wouldn't do. window. That wouldn't do.

Maybe he should board up his windows like the DuBois's up the street. Or maybe he should should have, before. Too late now. Simon pulls his cotton s.h.i.+rt collar around his neck against the wind whipping through the tall pecans that separate his yard from the Moutons'. The air is heavy, thick and warmish, with clouds curling in quick ch.o.r.eography, the breeze carrying the faintest scent of salt water drifting in from the gulf, the sky changing fast. Looking up in awe, Simon smiles; despite their frightening intent, the shape-s.h.i.+fting clouds are beautiful, plump tufts of gun-metal gray, silver-rimmed, reluctant light still glazing through. have, before. Too late now. Simon pulls his cotton s.h.i.+rt collar around his neck against the wind whipping through the tall pecans that separate his yard from the Moutons'. The air is heavy, thick and warmish, with clouds curling in quick ch.o.r.eography, the breeze carrying the faintest scent of salt water drifting in from the gulf, the sky changing fast. Looking up in awe, Simon smiles; despite their frightening intent, the shape-s.h.i.+fting clouds are beautiful, plump tufts of gun-metal gray, silver-rimmed, reluctant light still glazing through.

On the west side of the house, next to a pile of chopped wood along the chain link fence, Simon's herb garden s.h.i.+vers, looking a little wind-whipped. Maybe he should cover it in burlap? He grows everything himself for his cooking, always has, like Auntie Maree taught him. More than thirty years as head chef at a top drawer French Quarter restaurant hadn't dulled his taste for the freshest basil and thyme he could get, and even now, six years after his last s.h.i.+ft at Parmenter's, he still demanded the best ingredients for his own table, even though he mostly dined alone.

He stoops and snaps off a leaf of the lavender, crushes it in his fingertips, inhales the sweet scent as a slender face blossoms in his mind. Lavender in the garden had been Ladeena's idea, and on her final birthday he had surprised her with a sachet of homemade potpourri for her sickbed pillow-dried lavender leaves, orange and lemon rind, store-bought cloves. If he'd known the smile his wife surrendered up at that moment would be her last, he'd have framed it in his memory. The other herbs-the oregano, the mint, the basil (now tall as the fence)-bow under the hand he runs across their heads. He will have a lot to repair tomorrow.

Simon glances at his watch; the beans have been on almost an hour now. Sylvia, mad as she was at him, had already said she wasn't coming, not even to say goodbye. And if none of the men are going to stop by for a bowl or two of the best red beans and rice in town, just as they had done for the last seven years, well then, tough luck for them. This andouille sausage was the best he'd ever made.

He and his buddies in The Elegant Gents were among the oldest members of the neighborhood's Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs, and didn't limit their gatherings to the occasional parades through the neighborhood, when they'd strut like black kings in their handst.i.tched s.h.i.+rts of blue paisley and matching hats, white suspenders, and Johnston and Murphy shoes, the hot bra.s.s band riffs licking the wind. No, unlike some of the other S&P's, the Gents were like brothers-friends, old and true. And true friends, at least his his, made a point of laughing and lying and signifying over cooking pots and dominoes once a week, come h.e.l.l or high water.

But not hurricane.

A couple of the men, Eddie Lee Daumier and Pierre "Champagne" Simpson, had called, but most hadn't bothered, just a.s.suming that this time even Simon had the good sense to run for higher ground. Never mind those others, they said, this storm was The One. Hadn't the mayor and the governor been on the TV all weekend? True, he hadn't seen that in a while. He'd heard the men in the white s.h.i.+rts and loosened ties talking from the hurricane center, their up-all-night eyes reddened, their voices scratchy with fatigue, and felt for a moment a slight chill. This time there was something fearful in their tone. If he wasn't mistaken, the governor sure did look a little pale. And the mayor too, bald head s.h.i.+ning, his slick, pressed look betraying the scary news, was sounding his own alarm. Get out. Get out of the city now Get out. Get out of the city now.

Simon had flicked away that chill, gave it no more thought. News folk and politicians had a way of exaggerating these things. But the fact that so many around him were leaving this time did make him swallow hard, scratch the back of his head. He'd never seen such a rush of cars lined up to the corner, crowded to the rooflines with boxes and bags. But like he told Raymond LeDoux down at the Field's Grocery, he hadn't left for Betsy and he wasn't leaving now. The vandals and looters would have to move on to another house for their business. Besides, he was a Fortier, and a Fortier did not leave his home to the whims of storms and thieves.

A car horn toots, the rattling complaint of a well-used Toyota Camry announcing Sylvia's arrival. She must have changed her mind. Simon's face breaks into a wide grin. Maybe there'd be company for this storm night after all.

Simon calls out as Sylvia parks along his front fence, "Just in time. Red beans'll be ready in about twenty minutes."

My, my. Looking good today, but didn't she always? Sylvia McConnell, wearing her sixty-eight years gently, stylishly, steps out in green Capri pants and a yellow cotton top, leans her backside against the doors, slender arms folded across her chest and ankles crossed. A scarf of light blue silk tied under her chin stands between her freshly curled and dyed hair and the capricious winds of Louisiana summer. Even now, Simon notes, even in retreat from a hurricane, she found time to keep her standing appointment at Miss Lou's.

"My sister and them called from Shreveport. The brother-in-law is bringing his mama, but they still got extra room if I need to bring somebody else."

A divorced English teacher from Wheatley High and old acquaintance of Simon's and Ladeena's from Blessed Redeemer Congregational, Sylvia reveled in the freedom of retirement, spending most of her days playing bridge, singing high soprano in the gospel choir, occasionally watching Simon cook, and listening to his animated diatribes on his life's loves-cooking, his talented and smart-as-a-whip son, Julian, and a perfect piece of land called Silver Creek.

A year after Ladeena died, when the s.h.i.+ne of his grief had dulled, Simon's padlocked world had unlatched to invite Sylvia in. Time had tamed the rough edges of mourning and Simon needed a new comfort-the living, breathing kind.

On a Wednesday morning, when his car battery failed and he had no way to prayer meeting, he remembered last Sunday, the high soprano floating above all the others in "Lead Me, Guide Me." Sister McConnell gave him a ride and, in time, a reason to dream again. She was funny, spirited like Ladeena, with a twist of sa.s.s. She could cook up a mean etouffee (though not as good as his) and whenever his spirits darkened, there was that laugh that could soften a man's heart and make his blues disappear like swamp mist beneath a full sun.

In the years since they began keeping company, time, friends.h.i.+p and a mutual understanding had distilled their conversations into shorthand: glances replaced whole paragraphs, sentences rolled out unspoken in a raised hand, a turned head.

He recognizes Sylvia's look now-raised eyebrows, mouth twisted-and shoots up a hand to ward off the argument brewing in those eyes.

"Now don't even start. I already told you what I'm doin'."

Shaking her head, she turns to look up at the sky as a heavy gust sweeps through the trees.

"Don't be a fool, Simon. You need to get out of this place."

And for the next three minutes straight, she rails on about his foolishness. The storm will be the worst ever! Everybody with four wheels and half a brain is leavin! The storm will be the worst ever! Everybody with four wheels and half a brain is leavin! And so on. And so on.

When she sees his eyes shut down, the thick-bunched veins in his temple twitch, and his mouth clamp tight, she recognizes her cue to stop. For a moment, they look at each other in unyielding silence. Sylvia's glance falls to Simon's khaki pants, where the tree branch has left a swath of dirt.

"What happened to you?"

Looking down, Simon sc.r.a.pes his thumbnail at the L-shaped mark. "Aw, d.a.m.n oak. Lost a branch."

Sylvia sighs. "Ummm hmmm, see there. Already." She sucks her teeth. "Somebody trying to tell you something."

Ignoring the fact that he'd had the same thought only a few minutes ago, he turns to walk into the house. "Drive careful. They already talking about traffic backed up. You'd better get on your way if you going."

For all his testiness, it might have been her bossy strain, her spitfire nature that had kept him interested; it was as if Ladeena had left a little bit of herself in this woman to watch after him, remind him when he was being careless. He'd liked that-being looked after, being cared for. Even when he didn't listen, even when he stiffened his shoulders against the headwind of her complaints.

At the steps he turns back to her, his tone kinder. "I'll save you some of my andouille. You not going to believe how good these beans are. Best pot I ever made."

A feathery breeze ruffles her scarf as she pulls it closer. "Does that pot float? You best put those beans in some Tupperware. Eat well, baby, cause you'll need your strength in case you have to swim."

He ignores that, too. "Sure you don't want to stay? I'll make it worth your while." He winks.

Laughing, she shakes her head again. "Simon Fortier. I'll be praying for your sorry b.u.t.t in my sister's dry house." She gets in the car and leans an elbow out the window.

"By the way, you might as well know, I stopped by because Julian called me, asked me to check on you. He said you all had some words. Did he call back?"

Simon's skin p.r.i.c.kles. Two weeks since their blowup over Parmenter and still their words stumbled broken and bruised into the growing gulf between them. And yesterday, when his son had called from New York, told him to stop acting like "a crazy old fool" (even offered him a plane ticket), a slow dirge of hurt still played in Simon's head. He'd quietly hung up the phone in the middle of Julian's rant. Sometimes, Simon swore, all that fame business had gotten to that boy's head, made him forget who the daddy was in this deal.

He, Simon, never would have treated his own daddy that way, lest the back of a hand land upside his head. Nor would his father have treated his his father like that. The Fortier men were of the nononsense breed. Simon's daddy had built this house with his two rock-hard hands seventy-eight years ago and would have thought nothing of using one of them to take down a too-grown son with a runaway mouth. father like that. The Fortier men were of the nononsense breed. Simon's daddy had built this house with his two rock-hard hands seventy-eight years ago and would have thought nothing of using one of them to take down a too-grown son with a runaway mouth.

World-famous trumpet player or not. Julian ought to show more respect.

"No. Julian ain't called." Simon puts his hands in his pockets, and looks up at the ruffled sky. "Not since yesterday."

Sylvia starts the engine. "Well, you know the boy had a point."

Simon doesn't know whether she's talking about Julian's anger at him for not leaving before the storm or for that business with Matthew Parmenter, the latest item on a list of painful issues that divided father and son like p.r.i.c.kly thorns, and which was really none of Julian's business anyway.

Either way, he's heard enough.

"I got to check on my pot." Simon says.

"Did you get your blood pressure prescription filled?"

Simon laughs. "Woman, leave me be! If I die, just carry me on up to Silver Creek! Dump me under that magnolia tree next to Ladeena."

"Right." Sylvia rolls her eyes. "You and Silver Creek. Why don't you just go on back there to live? Then you can be her her problem for the rest of eternity." problem for the rest of eternity."

She has often asked him that about Silver Creek. And he blows it off with a laugh, and changes the subject. He's never fallen out of love with his boyhood home. But leave the city where he's spent most of his life? Abandon the house built with his father's own sweat and muscle, the place where he's spent forty years with Ladeena, to return to the piece of land he grew up on? It's complicated.

"Been thinkin' about it." Simon strokes his chin, narrows his eyes into a sly squint. "But then who'd be here to meddle you?"

She laughs a little, furrows her perfectly arched brows. "Stay well, Simon. Be careful."

He walks over to her car, leans in to her window to plant a kiss on her cheek. She places her hand softly on the back of his neck.

"I worry about you, silly man."

He smiles through twinkling eyes. "Don't. I'ma be fine."

She pulls away and waves and he lets out a little chuckle as the front wheel tips slightly over the curb. He watches the Toyota sputter away and reminds himself that when she returns, he needs to get her m.u.f.fler fixed.

"Take care, sweet lady," he says after her, in a voice she couldn't possibly hear.

With the air closing in, the deep silver clouds hardened to a steely dome and the wind began to swirl with the oncoming rain. It's beginning. It's beginning. Simon closed the window blinds in the kitchen and turned his thoughts to supper. He could tell by the aroma that the red beans were done. He filled his plate with rice, ladled the beans on top, and sat down at the gla.s.s table in the dining room. He pushed his chair back a little from the table and spread a napkin in his lap, and took a bite of the sausage. He was right. This was as good as anything Auntie Maree had ever made, rest her soul; the andouille sausages spiced and tender, the rice all flaky perfection, the garlic and fresh herbs blended flawlessly. Nothing took his mind off a storm like a plate of his own good cooking. Simon closed the window blinds in the kitchen and turned his thoughts to supper. He could tell by the aroma that the red beans were done. He filled his plate with rice, ladled the beans on top, and sat down at the gla.s.s table in the dining room. He pushed his chair back a little from the table and spread a napkin in his lap, and took a bite of the sausage. He was right. This was as good as anything Auntie Maree had ever made, rest her soul; the andouille sausages spiced and tender, the rice all flaky perfection, the garlic and fresh herbs blended flawlessly. Nothing took his mind off a storm like a plate of his own good cooking.

When Ladeena was alive, they'd had a ritual on these nights of big storms. Filling the kitchen air with aromas-pots or pans of etouffee, gumbo, crawfish bisque-a sure-fire distraction from the hollering winds. Reading parts of the New Testament out loud, and later, as the Gulf churned, the river rose, and watery wind gusted through the eaves, huddling between the freshly ironed sheets holding each other so tight no woman-named storm could pry them apart. Making love as if it were their last night on earth, as well it could have been.

It was during the storm nights that he most missed Ladeena. With her gone and Julian having left town years ago to, as Simon put it, "go off and get famous," Simon's life had changed. It didn't seem so long ago that he'd been a busy family man with a wife, a young son, and a job as head chef at the place his best friend and employer, Matthew Parmenter, had billed the "Finest in French Quarter Dining." Now, his starched, monogrammed uniforms and pleated white toques gathered dust in the closet where he'd stored them ages ago. Each long day resembled the one before, and while he could have been a lonely man, Simon figured he had a choice in the matter. He chose not to be.

Each morning whenever the sun blazed through his kitchen blinds, after a breakfast of chicory coffee, eggs, and toast, he walked the neighborhood, up and down the street with his prized possession, the African cane of hand-carved ebony Julian had brought back from a concert tour in West Africa. Along the five-block circle to Field's Grocery and around the school yard and the Mount Zion Baptist Church, neighbors leaned across porch banisters to wave, or slowed their cars to crawling to shout a greeting-How you feeling, Mr. For-tee-aay! and Simon nodded, gently touching the brim of his straw gardener's hat, and shouted back, and Simon nodded, gently touching the brim of his straw gardener's hat, and shouted back, Woke up this mornin', so I ain't complainin'." Woke up this mornin', so I ain't complainin'."

Friends chided him for daring to walk in a neighborhood that, though once safe, now had been all but taken over by young boys with a loathsome skulk in their walk and hooded, futureless eyes. Boys that had "the devil all up in them," as the church folks said, with their drugs and guns. And that wasn't the only way the neighborhood had changed; the tight-knit black community, so rich in history, had been broken in two by the wrecking ball. It had been almost forty years, but he still longed for the old days when the neighborhood was whole, before they'd built the awful freeway that sliced through his beloved Treme like a surgeon's amputating knife. Before the shade of the majestic live oaks, perfect for parade watching, gave way to the shadows of a concrete overpa.s.s.

Simon walked anyway, head high, defiant, never mind the freeway shadows and the glaze-eyed boys. He used the cane to steady his feet, but if need be, he could swing it like a cutla.s.s. This was his his neighborhood. He reclaimed it with each stubborn tap of his cane, and n.o.body-not street thugs nor the thieving city planners-was going to take it away. neighborhood. He reclaimed it with each stubborn tap of his cane, and n.o.body-not street thugs nor the thieving city planners-was going to take it away.

After his daily walk, Simon sat with a tray of lunch watching The Young and the Restless, The Young and the Restless, then puttered in his garden, fussing over his bougainvillea, hibiscus, and herbs. As early as Tuesday he'd begin plans for the following Monday-red beans and dominoes night. Some Sundays after church, if the sun was s.h.i.+ning and he had the urge for conversation, he would put on his red tie and brown straw hat and take the St. Claude bus along Rampart Street to Ca.n.a.l, and then board the streetcar that would take him to St. Charles Avenue. then puttered in his garden, fussing over his bougainvillea, hibiscus, and herbs. As early as Tuesday he'd begin plans for the following Monday-red beans and dominoes night. Some Sundays after church, if the sun was s.h.i.+ning and he had the urge for conversation, he would put on his red tie and brown straw hat and take the St. Claude bus along Rampart Street to Ca.n.a.l, and then board the streetcar that would take him to St. Charles Avenue.

While the car rattled along past the old mansions and lavish lawns of juniper gra.s.s, he would sit near the window that held the best view of the live oaks and cypress trees, and watch the lean young bodies jog past Audubon Park. If he rode long enough, there would always be a tourist or two with an appet.i.te for local flavor, and Simon would oblige with a must-do list that would rival the Chamber of Commerce's glossiest brochure. What kind of music you like? Jazz? Zydeco? Rhythm and blues? You like barbecued shrimp? OK. Here's where you go... What kind of music you like? Jazz? Zydeco? Rhythm and blues? You like barbecued shrimp? OK. Here's where you go...

If the tourists were a young romantic couple, he'd suggest a place where the lights were dim enough to hide an affectionate fondle-didn't matter so much about the food. But if they were older, more particular, he'd recite his A-list, varying it according to the tourists' station and style. A well-heeled couple-a woman with facelift skin and a Louis Vuitton bag, her hand draped on the arm of a silver fox shod in Italian loafers-could handle Commander's Palace or Galatoire's and not blink at the bill. A pair of twentysomethings in faded jeans and backpacks...well, he'd send them over to Willie Mae's or Dunbar's for "some juicy fried chicken that would make you wanna slap your mama."

He would warn them, of course, that none of the places were as good as ol' Parmenter's, where he'd been head chef for more than forty years. I was famous for my red beans and rice, don't cha know. Couldn't n.o.body touch me. I tell you something, when that place closed, New Orleans cooking lost a step! I was famous for my red beans and rice, don't cha know. Couldn't n.o.body touch me. I tell you something, when that place closed, New Orleans cooking lost a step! And as Simon waxed on-about a neighborhood so old it had seen African slaves in Congo Square, dancing And as Simon waxed on-about a neighborhood so old it had seen African slaves in Congo Square, dancing bamboula bamboula rhythms and stomping out the blueprint for jazz; about the Mardi Gras Indians with their wildly feathered and beaded "suits;" about the music, and of course, the famous food-the wide-eyed young or aging couple hung on the master chef's every word. When they stepped off the streetcar into the sunlight and looked back at him with their phone cameras poised, he knew he'd given them what they wanted: a souvenir, an elbow-brush with authenticity. Long ago, he'd not only accepted his role as tourist memento, he'd come to relish it. He, Simon Fortier, was better than any postcard they could mail home to their friends. He offered up the soul of the city itself. rhythms and stomping out the blueprint for jazz; about the Mardi Gras Indians with their wildly feathered and beaded "suits;" about the music, and of course, the famous food-the wide-eyed young or aging couple hung on the master chef's every word. When they stepped off the streetcar into the sunlight and looked back at him with their phone cameras poised, he knew he'd given them what they wanted: a souvenir, an elbow-brush with authenticity. Long ago, he'd not only accepted his role as tourist memento, he'd come to relish it. He, Simon Fortier, was better than any postcard they could mail home to their friends. He offered up the soul of the city itself.

When Simon got up from his table with his dishes, a cracking noise shook the house. Distant thunder, then a boom and crash like big steel spoons pounding metal sheets. "All right, now, just hold your horses," he said, looking out the kitchen window at falling dark and rain, wonder sketched on his lean face.

The main event was on. In minutes, the wind bellowed, rising now and then into a thin, shrill song like a distressed cat's. Simon's father had built the house well, but it would still be a long night. Simon stacked his dishes in the sink, opened the pantry door, and fumbled through a pile of old clothes, boots, checker sets, and domino boxes until he found the box as big as a hamper. He pulled it out and dragged it to the middle of the floor.

The "hurricane box." Ladeena had always been one to prepare for the worst. After her pa.s.sing he'd still dragged it out year after year, out of loyalty, or reflex, and now he pulled the items out one by one: an oil lamp, a flashlight, a first-aid kit, a box of wooden matches and an unopened box of tapers, a hand-crank radio, and three bags of dried soups he'd picked up in an Army surplus store in Baton Rouge. He put the dried soups back in, but set the oil lamp and the radio (still bearing its price tag) on the floor next to the box. And from a deep corner, he pulled the Bible Jacob Fortier had given him on his sixteenth birthday, a week before he died.

Simon ran his fingers along the brittle edges of the dry leather. He pulled out a chair from the dining table, sat, and opened the Bible. He turned to the first page, the name page, and at the end of the list of Fortier births, he traced his hand over his father's wiggly script: Simon Fortier, born July 8, 1929.

And then, his fingers traced the words written in his own hand: Julian Fortier, born Aug 13, 1969.