Half of Paradise

  Later the porter paged him. He went into the lobby and took the call at the desk.

  “Is that you, J.P.?” Hunnicut said over the wire.

  “I got your telegram.”

  “How’s Nashville treating you?”

  “All right.”

  “A lot of things have been happening since you Left.”

  “Why am I going back?”

  “We got some big things planned. Jim Lathrop is with me now. I want you to get back as soon as you can.”

  “What for?”

  “Jim is going into politics. He’s running for senator, and we’re campaigning for him. We’re going to organize a show and tour the state.”

  “I don’t know nothing about politics.”

  “You’re a star on the Barn Dance. People will listen to you.”

  “Who else is going on the show?”

  “Everybody in the band except Troy.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He’s in a hospital. He was taking heroin. I never knew anything about it until he came out on the stage so jazzed up he couldn’t remember his lines.”

  “I didn’t know he was on it.”

  “When can you come back?”

  “I’ll take the afternoon train.”

  “I can wire you some money.”

  “I don’t need none.”

  “Are you still hot about that run-in we had before you left?”

  “No.”

  “Because we have some big things ahead of us, and we don’t want anybody to mess it up.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” J.P. said.

  “Is something wrong? You don’t sound very interested.”

  “I’m interested. See you in the morning.”

  He put down the receiver and went to his room. He called the railroad depot and made reservations on the three o’clock train. He opened his suitcase on the bed and packed. The porter came up for his bag. J.P. had an hour and a half before train time. He took out his guitar and thumbed the strings to pass the time. Oh the train left Memphis at half past nine. Well it made it back to Little Rock at eight forty-nine. It was a blues song he used to hear the Negroes sing around home. Jesus died to save me and all of my sins. Well glory to God we’re going to see him again.

  He took a private compartment in a Pullman car. He had the porter make up his bed, and he slept through the afternoon. The train moved down from Nashville into southern Tennessee, rolling through the sloping fields of winter grass partly covered with snow. The land became flat as the train neared Memphis and entered the Mississippi basin. The river was high and yellow under the winter sky. The train rushed southward into Arkansas, and the land was sere and coarse. For miles he saw the board shacks of tenant farmers, all identical, with their dirt floors and mud-brick chimneys and weathered outbuildings, which were owned by the farming companies, along with the bleak fallow land and the rice mills and cotton gins and company stores.

  He changed trains at Little Rock and arrived in Louisiana the next morning. He checked into the hotel, shaved, and went to Hunnicut’s room. He met Seth in the hall.

  “The Live-Again man is inside with Virdo now. They’re waiting for you,” Leroy said.

  “I come straight from the depot. I couldn’t get here no faster.”

  “Do you know about the show?”

  “Virdo told me over the phone.”

  “We’re going all over the state, and Lathrop is picking up the bills. He give me a two hundred dollar advance for pussy money.”

  “What’s this about Troy?” J.P. said.

  “He’s in the junkie ward. They had to strap his arms down when they took him in. The doctor said he’s a mainliner. Shooting it in the arm twice a day. The last time he was on the show he come out on the stage and started cussing in the microphone. They had to cut us off the air. I think April got him started on it. Her and that quack that comes in to lay her every Sunday.”

  “What do you know about it?” J.P. looked at the pockmarks on his face and the reddened skin and the coarse brown hair that was like straw.

  “That’s how she pays her bills, spreading her legs for Doc Elgin. He comes up here every Sunday morning to collect.”

  “The hell he does.”

  “I seen him go in her room with a bulge in his fly and his tongue hanging out. He always walks down the hall with his hand in his pocket. Stay away from her, J.P. I found a new place if you want some good girls.”

  “I ain’t got time to talk anymore.”

  He knocked on Virdo Hunnicut’s door and went in. Hunnicut sat in a leather chair with his feet across a footstool. He wore a purple robe and house slippers. Big Jim Lathrop sat at the desk, eating breakfast from a tray that had been brought up from downstairs. He was in his early fifties, dressed in a tailored blue suit with an expensive silk necktie. His fine gray hair was combed straight back. A gold watch chain was strung across his vest. He cut the pork chop on his plate and raised the fork to his mouth with his left hand. His hard gray eyes looked at J.P. as he chewed.

  “Come on in,” Hunnicut said. “Meet Mr. Lathrop.”

  Lathrop turned in his chair, still chewing.

  “How do, boy. Sit down,” he said.

  “Are you ready to go into politicking?” Hunnicut said.

  “I reckon.”

  “Jim and me have been making arrangements for the show. We’re going to Alexandria tomorrow night. We’ll have everybody down at the auditorium. No admission. All you got to have is a Live-Again box label.”

  “Who you running against?” J.P. said.

  “Jacob Arceneaux from New Orleans,” Lathrop said. “He’s French and he’s Catholic, and he’ll take most of the parishes in the southern part of the state unless we swing them over.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “Nigger politics,” Virdo Hunnicut said. “Arceneaux has a reputation as a nigger lover. He hasn’t tried to stop the nigger kids from getting in the white schools, and it’s going to hurt him.”

  “We’re running on the segregation ticket,” Lathrop said. “We’re going to show the people in south Louisiana what will happen when Arceneaux gets in office. Their children will be mixing with the colored children, and pretty soon they won’t be able to tell one from another. The future generations will be one race of high-yellow trash.”

  “We’re going to get the nigger vote, too,” Hunnicut said. “We’ll put on special shows across the tracks in the shanty towns.”

  “My singing ain’t going to put nobody in office.”

  “People know you and they’ll listen to you,” Virdo Hunnicut said. “They know you’re one of them as soon as you open your mouth. One good country boy talking to the hicks is worth all the nickel and dime politicians in Louisiana. If a man can get the rednecks and the niggers and the white trash behind him he can do anything he’s a mind to.”

  “I think J.P. understands,” Lathrop said. “He knows where the money is, whether in politics or selling Live-Again.”

  “It’s in the hicks with eight bits in their pocket for a bottle of vitamin tonic that don’t do them no good.”

  “All right, J.P.,” Hunnicut said.

  “The boy is being honest,” Lathrop said. “The people want something and we give it to them. This time it’s a pro-segregation administration.” He chewed on the pork chop bone and dropped it into his plate.

  “We already got the north part of the state,” Hunnicut said.

  “Jacob Arceneaux is the man we have to break,” Lathrop said. He wiped his fingers with a napkin. “I want you to write a song about him.”

  “Have something in it about him being partial to niggers,” Hunnicut said.

  “I ain’t a songwriter.’

  “It don’t have to be much,” he said.

  “Get Seth to do it.”

  “I don’t think Seth can read.”

  “I can’t write no song for you.”

  “You gotten high-minded since you went up to the
Barn Dance,” Hunnicut said. “Remember it was Jim sent you there.”

  “I ain’t high-minded about nothing.”

  “Let the boy alone,” Lathrop said. “He’s just gotten off a long train ride and he’s full of piss and vinegar. He’ll be all right when he has some sleep.”

  “I ain’t writing no song, Mr. Lathrop.”

  “We’ll talk about it later.”

  “It don’t matter. I ain’t going to do it.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Hunnicut said.

  “I got rights about what I’m going to do and what I ain’t.”

  “We’ve been through this before. I told you over the phone I didn’t want any more of it.”

  “Let’s drop it, Virdo,” Lathrop said. “He can eat breakfast and come back later. We’ll talk over the money situation then. I think he’ll find he can do real well with me.”

  “I ain’t bitching about my salary.”

  “I’m not a hard man to deal with. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Lathrop said.

  “He can walk out that door anytime he takes a mind to,” Hunnicut said.

  “You ain’t in no rush to get me out. You made a lot of green off me.”

  “I pushed you up to the top. You didn’t know how to button your pants till I taught you.”

  “Let’s stop this,” Lathrop said. “Go eat breakfast, J.P. Have one of those pork chops.”

  Lathrop walked to the door with him and opened it.

  “We can straighten out whatever differences we have,” he said. “We talk the same language. I’m a country boy myself.”

  “You talk pretty smooth to be from the country.”

  “I’ve been with these city folks too long.”

  Lathrop closed the door after J.P. and went back to finish his coffee.

  “When did you start soft-gloving people?” Hunnicut said.

  “I’m an old fellow now.”

  “The best way to handle J.P. is to walk all over him,” he said, his face big and sweating.

  “He’ll do as I tell him, just as you do, Virdo, and I don’t think any more needs to be said about it.”

  Hunnicut’s eyes flicked away from Lathrop’s face. He wanted to say something to regain his pride, but the words wouldn’t come and he sat silent in his chair.

  J.P. had breakfast in the dining room, and then asked at the desk for April’s room number. He had to get her to contact Doc Elgin. He took the elevator to the fourth floor and walked down the hallway to her room. She was in bed. She pulled the sheet up to her chin and told him to kiss her. Her mouth tasted bad.

  “It’s a long time for a girl to be alone,” she said.

  “I heard about Troy.”

  “For God’s sake, don’t bring up Troy. That’s all anybody talks about. Everyone feels so sorry for Troy. I wish you’d seen him the last night he was here. He broke in my room and tried to climb all over me. The hotel dick had to drag him out of the room.”

  “How long was he taking it?”

  “What do you want to talk about him for? You haven’t seen me for seven weeks and all you’ve got on your mind is Troy.”

  “I take a personal interest.”

  “Troy was an ass.”

  “I’m on it, too. I found out in Nashville.”

  “Rot.”

  “I had to hunt all over town to find a pusher.”

  “Benzedrine is baby food.”

  “My nerves was like piano wire. I thought I was going to come apart.”

  April chewed on a hangnail and looked out the window.

  “Listen to me,” he said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “I got a habit.”

  “Fly away with the snowbirds.”

  “I ain’t on cocaine.”

  “The snowbirds stay high in the sky. They don’t worry about the habit.” She bit off the hangnail and took it off her tongue with her fingers.

  “Call Elgin. I need some pills.”

  “He comes around on Sunday.”

  “I need him now. I took my last pills on the train.”

  “You can have some of my stuff.”

  “I don’t want no cocaine.”

  “You don’t have to take it in the arm. Put a little powder under your tongue.”

  “Call Elgin.”

  She picked up the telephone from the bedtable and dialed a number. She chewed on another fingernail while she talked to Doc Elgin.

  “He’ll be over in a little while,” she said. “He has some other people to see.”

  “He wouldn’t hurry if I was going to jump through a window.”

  “Doc is better than a regular pusher. He don’t cut his stuff.”

  “Seth told me something about you and him.”

  “I know what you’re thinking, and you can shut up right now. I pay him cash like everybody else,” she said. “He don’t come near me.”

  She sat up in bed and fixed the pillow behind her. She held the sheet up to her shoulders with one hand.

  “How much does your habit cost a week?” J.P. said.

  “I pay for it.”

  “That ain’t what I asked.”

  “He gives me a special rate. I bring him customers sometime.”

  “Like me and Troy?”

  “I didn’t twist your arm.”

  “How did Troy start on it?”

  “He was burning maryjane before I met him.”

  “I almost feel sorry for the poor bastard.”

  “Feel sorry for yourself. You’ve got a one-way ticket to the same place he’s in.”

  “There’s cures. I’ve heard about them. There’s a place in Kentucky.”

  “Don’t believe it. There isn’t any cure.”

  “I heard about this place. They say you can go there for a while and come out clean.”

  “I took a cure once. I got out of the hospital and two weeks later I was popping it again.”

  “Some people have kicked it.”

  “Learn it now, J.P. You bought a one-way ticket. First you break down all the veins in one arm and you start on the other one. Then the veins in both arms are flat, and you take it in the legs. When your legs are gone you take it in the stomach, and by that time you’re finished.”

  He ran his hand through his hair. “I ain’t on snow. I ain’t past them pills yet.”

  “The habit grows. Soon you’ll have to use something stronger. You can’t kick it.”

  She smoothed the sheet against her.

  “Put your mind on something else. It’s no good to think about it,” she said. “Come sit here.”

  He sat on the side of the bed.

  “That’s better,” she said.

  “Nothing is better.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to do nice things?”

  “I don’t feel like it this morning.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I don’t give a damn for doing anything right now,” he said.

  “Did you do any running around in Nashville?”

  “No.”

  “You like girls too much for that”

  “All right. I whored the whole time.”

  “Don’t be like that.”

  “I got too much on my mind.”

  “It don’t help to think about it.”

  “I feel like hell.”

  “Pull down the shade and get in bed.” She dropped the sheet from her shoulders and uncovered herself.

  “People can see you through the window.”

  “Pull down the shade if you don’t want them to.”

  He went to the window and dropped the shade.

  “Do you always sleep like that?” he said.

  “Doc Elgin says bedclothes cuts off your circulation.”

  “Put the sheet over you.”

  “Don’t you like me?”

  “You ain’t got to act like a two-dollar whore.”

  “You need a benny bad,” she said. “Do nice things to April. It will keep your mind off
it till Doc comes.”

  J.P. wiped his face with his hand. He was beginning to perspire. He wished Elgin would get here. They made love in the half-light of the room. He could feel his heart click inside him from the strain. He was sweating heavily now, and his muscles began to stiffen.

  “When is Elgin going to get here?” he said.

  “He’ll be along.”

  “Phone him again.”

  She called Elgin; there was no answer.

  “Is there any place else you can call him?” he said.

  “He makes deliveries all over town.”

  “Phone him one more time.”

  “He’s not there.”

  “Why don’t the sonofabitch hurry?”

  “Let’s do it again,” she said.

  “I ain’t up to it.”

  “Come on.”

  “Goddamn it, no.”

  “Here.”

  “Don’t do that.”

  “You’re a little boy.”

  “Where is Elgin?”

  “I don’t know. Stop asking me,” she said.

  “I feel raw inside.”

  “I can’t do anything for you unless you want snow.”

  “Give it to me.”

  “You said you didn’t want it.”

  “Let me have it.”

  She walked naked to the dresser. She took a white packet from the bottom of a drawer and came back to the bed. She untwisted the paper at one end.

  “Hold out your hand,” she said.

  She shook a small amount of white powder into his palm.

  “Put it under your tongue and let it soak into your mouth. Try not to swallow any of it. It won’t do as much good and it might make you sick.”

  “I don’t have to stay on it. I can go back to Benze drine.”

  “You have to take stronger stuff.”

  “You don’t get hooked by just using it once.”

  “The habit grows. Big boys use big stuff.”

  “There’s cures.”

  “Not for us.”

  “They have treatments to let you down easy.”

  “It’s getting to you already. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “There’s a place in Kentucky.”