“You ever see Straight Time? Dustin Hoffman, Gary Busey, Harry Dean Stanton. Box-office bomb. Edward Bunker wrote the novel it was based on. I knew him inside. Good writer, good story, commercial bomb. Why? All prison stories are alike. They’re about professional losers, and if there’s any sin in this country, it’s losing. The Green Cage deals with the entirety of the system, neoliberalism and the culture that creates criminality. It deals with the origins of the existential hero. It’s not an account about jails. If it has any antecedent, it’s Shane, not some crap dictated into a recording machine by an Oakland shine who doesn’t know the difference between Karl and Groucho Marx.”
“I think Oliver was saying your book goes way beyond categorical limits, Rob. That’s why it’s such a great accomplishment,” Kermit said.
“Why don’t we ask Alafair?” Weingart said. “I can’t believe at some point you haven’t been influenced by your father and his colleagues. Do they ever discuss their recreational activities? Do you know that most cops will admit, usually when they’re sloshed, that they would have ended up stacking time if they hadn’t gotten badges?”
“No, I didn’t know that,” Alafair said.
Weingart drank from his julep glass, his eyes never leaving hers. “Daddy doesn’t talk about that at the dinner table?” he said.
“Rob, Alafair isn’t responsible for any disagreements Mr. Robicheaux might have had with others,” Kermit said.
“I probably am,” Alafair said. “My father is a fine man and often comes home exhausted from dealing with people who belong in iron boxes that should be sunk in the ocean. Sometimes I lose sight of that fact and only add to his burden. I’ve done this on many occasions.”
“Oh, wilderness enow,” Weingart said. “I suspect the world of chick lit will wet its pants over sentiment like that. I often thought the best title for one of those books was The Cave, a title that suggests an infinitely receding vagina.”
“I’d like to see the rest of your manuscript,” Fremont said.
“That’s very kind of you,” Alafair said.
“Kermit, would you either give me a refill or pass me the bloody shaker so I can do it myself?” Weingart said.
“Sorry, Rob,” Kermit said, tilting the cocktail shaker over Weingart’s glass. “Rob took the speedboat out by himself today and ran through a tree limb. Luckily, he wasn’t hurt more seriously.”
“I don’t think anyone is interested in my boating misadventure. Unless Alafair would like to use it in her novel-in-progress. Otherwise, I’d appreciate the conversation being shifted off of me,” Weingart said.
Kermit folded his hands and gazed at the sunset and at the wind blowing on the sugarcane fields, obviously avoiding eye contact with Weingart. By the time the limo reached the restaurant in Breaux Bridge, Weingart’s resentment seemed to have hardened into silent detachment. After they ordered, he stared out the window at the elevated sidewalks and old brick buildings and wood colonnades on the main street and the rusted iron bridge that spanned Bayou Teche. He broke a breadstick and bit down on it, then winced and touched his lip.
“Hurt yourself?” Oliver Fremont asked.
“I have an impacted tooth.”
“Those are painful,” Fremont said.
“Why are we here?” Weingart said, addressing himself to no one in particular.
“We’re here because they serve fine food. Let’s enjoy ourselves, Robert,” Kermit said.
“Thanks for correcting me, Kermit. Alafair, did you know that Kermit let me read your manuscript?” Weingart said.
“Yes, I became aware of that when I saw the note you wrote on the last page,” Alafair replied.
“What note?” Kermit said.
“Evidently you didn’t see it,” Alafair said. “Why don’t you ask Robert what he had to say?”
A waitress was pouring wine into their glasses. Outside the French doors, the sky was purple, the streets thick with shadow. The lights on the drawbridge had just come on. “Robert, what did you say about Alafair’s manuscript?” Kermit asked.
Weingart lifted his eyes to the stamped ceiling of the restaurant, as though searching for a profound meaning inside the design. “No, it escapes me. Do you remember, Alafair? I hope you found it helpful.”
“I believe you said it might sell a hundred copies if it was packaged with a hygiene promotion.”
“No, I think I said ‘female hygiene.’”
Kermit Abelard looked straight ahead, his gaze focused on the other diners, the white-aproned waiters and waitresses working their way between the tables. “I think Robert probably meant that as an indictment of the industry, not your book,” he said. “Isn’t that true, Rob?”
“I’m afraid I’m clueless. I can’t even remember the story line at this point,” he said. “Can you give me a nudge, Alafair? Something about first love, teenage girls being kissed on the mouth under the trees, Daddy hovering in the background. Sound familiar? It was tingly stuff through and through.”
“That’s not the story at all,” Kermit said.
Weingart leaned forward on the tablecloth, his cheeks sunken, as though he had drawn all the spittle out of his mouth. “Did you tell Alafair what you and I were doing before you gave me the manuscript? In the boathouse? Because you couldn’t wait to go inside?”
“I think you carry a great injury in your soul, Robert. And no matter what you do or say, I forgive you for it,” Kermit said.
“Oh, good try. I think I now know where Alafair gets the unctuous goo she uses in her dialogue,” Weingart said. “You forgive me? Oh, that’s wonderful.”
“You shouldn’t have written that remark on her manuscript,” Kermit said.
“I didn’t just write the remark, I said it to you, Kermit. To your face, two feet from your ear. Tell me I didn’t or that you didn’t hear me. The kitty cat got your tongue?”
“Why are you acting like this?”
“Because you’re just so you, Kermit.” Weingart drank from his wineglass and smiled at the waitress as she placed his food in front of him. “My, red snapper and a stuffed potato. Do you mind if I start now? It’s not very good if it’s cold. Alafair looks a little conflicted. What does your father call you? It’s Alf, isn’t it? Talk with Alf, Kermit.” Weingart inserted a forkful of potato and sour cream and parsley and bacon bits in his mouth.
Alafair’s gaze was fixed on the French doors and the sunset on the bayou. She waited for Kermit to speak again, to say something in his own defense if not hers, to be more than the thing she feared he was. But he remained silent. When she glanced sideways at him, his hands were limp on the table, his eyes lowered, his expression a study in gray wax. The most incongruous aspect of his demeanor was the muscular configuration of his torso, his square, blunt-tipped workingman’s hands, the cut of his jaw, the dimple in his chin, all of the physical elements she associated with his youthful masculine vigor, all of it now insignificant in contrast to the mantle of cowardice that Robert Weingart seemed to have draped on his shoulders.
“Mr. Fremont—” she began.
“It’s Oliver,” he said.
“I wouldn’t have met you without an introduction from Kermit,” she said. “Unlike many people who come to your agency, I made only a partial submission. I’m flattered by your comments about my work, but I think I’m getting special treatment. I think I’ll feel more comfortable about my submission if you can look at the finished manuscript and then tell me if you think it’s publishable.”
Fremont leaned back in his chair, a bead of light in one eye. He massaged his temple with two fingers. “Not too many writers tell me that,” he said.
“It seems like a reasonable point of view,” she said.
“Not in my world.”
Weingart had been snapping his fingers at the waitress for more tartar sauce. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that. Telling the in-house secrets, are we?”
“You’re a special kind of fellow, Robert,” Oliver Fremont said.
“Care to
elaborate on that?”
“Not really. Some writers become the stuff of legends for different reasons. Harold Robbins’s agent used to lock him in a cottage at the Beverly Hills Hotel and not feed him until he shoved four pages of finished manuscript under the door. Supposedly Louis Mayer had Hemingway kicked off the MGM lot. Hart Crane threw his typewriter through a glass window into Dorothy Parker’s yard. But I think you might become one of those guys for whom the rest of us are only a footnote.”
“One of which guys?”
“Special guys. Legends. Guys people talk about at cocktail parties for many years. Their legends take on a life of their own and grow over the years. Eventually the legends become far more interesting than their work. Finally nobody remembers anything except the legend. The writer becomes something like a scarecrow in an empty field.”
Weingart had stopped eating. “Let me explain what ‘special’ is and why I’m not ‘special.’ Special people need special handling. I’m not an aberration or a curiosity. I’ve read more books than most university Ph.D.’ s. I’m more intelligent than they are, more knowledgeable of the real world, more erudite in front of their students than they are. In short, I’m a civilized man and not ‘special,’ my friend. See, ‘special’ is for the guys who stay in twenty-three-hour lockdown and get two showers a week if they’re lucky. ‘Special’ is for the guys who have to brush their teeth with their finger because they melt the handles of their toothbrushes over a Bic lighter and mold them into shanks. I’m on a first-name basis with a few cell-house acquaintances that are in the ‘special’ category. If you like, I can introduce you to them. Then you’ll be in possession of some hands-on knowledge about ‘special’ guys, and you can impress your friends with it. Want me to arrange a meeting or two before you leave for New York? These guys will love your accent.”
Alafair got up from the table and used the telephone at the bar to call a cab. Then she went outside and waited by the curb without returning to the table. It was dark now, and the lights on the iron drawbridge over the Teche were iridescent with humidity. She looked back over her shoulder. She had thought Kermit Abelard might follow her out of the restaurant. Instead, he was arguing with Weingart at the table. No, “arguing” was the wrong term, she thought. When people argued, they spoke in heat, leaning forward with wrinkled brows, their throats corded, the flesh around their mouths bloodless. But Kermit kept pausing to allow Weingart to speak, lowering his long eyelashes, his face colored by embarrassment rather than passion. Oliver Fremont rose from his chair, his gaze fixed on Alafair, and walked between the tables and out the French doors, speaking to neither Kermit nor Weingart.
“Just a thought or two for you to keep in mind, Ms. Robicheaux,” he said. “When I said I loved your work in progress, I meant it. I think your talent is enormous. Do whatever you wish about submission. Finish the manuscript or send it along in chunks. But send it to me, understand? No one else. I want to be your agent, and it’s not because you’re friends with Kermit. I think you’re going to be hugely successful.”
“Thank you.”
“What I’ve told you is not a compliment, it’s a fact. Second, that guy Weingart is a world-class jerk nobody in the industry takes seriously. He’s an embarrassment to his publisher and a self-important moron who will probably crash and burn on a live TV show when he’s drunk or insulting a woman or making racist remarks. But it’s going to happen, and when it does, his phone calls won’t be answered and his publishing contracts will disappear. Because he’s a megalomaniac, he’ll never figure out what brought about his downfall, and he’ll spend the rest of his life blaming everyone else. You got all that?”
“I think so,” she replied.
“You want me to escort you home?”
“No, I’m fine. You’re a nice man.”
“That looks like your cab,” he said. After the cab pulled to the curb, he opened the back door for her and closed it after she was inside. The window was open. He leaned down toward it. “You’re going to have a great career. Weingart couldn’t shine your shoes, and frankly, neither could Kermit.”
But it wasn’t over. Kermit Abelard virtually plunged out onto the sidewalk, both hands held up to stop the cabdriver. He grabbed the back door, leaning inside. “Don’t leave like this,” he said.
“Like what?” she asked.
“Mad, hurt, upset, whatever you want to call it.”
“I’m none of those things, Kermit. I made a mistake. It’s on me, not you. It’s not even on Robert in there. So now I’m going home.”
“What mistake?”
“About who you are. You’re somebody else. Or maybe you have two or three people living inside you.”
“If I’m not the person you thought I was, then I’d appreciate your telling me who I am.”
“I’m not sure. But I won’t be there to find out, either. You were the only one, and I want you to remember that as long as you live.”
“Only one what? I don’t know what you mean. You mean sexually? What are you talking about?”
“You’ll figure it out. But when you do, remember I just spoke of you in the past tense. That will never change. Good-bye, Kermit,” she said.
As she sat back in the seat and the cab pulled away, she could see the wind riffling the leaves on the trees along the bayou. The reflection of the lights from the drawbridge on the leaves and the electric glitter they created made her think of thousands of green butterflies fluttering inside a dark bowl.
ON SUNDAY MORNING I woke before dawn. I’d had a peculiar dream, one that was actually about a dream. Many years ago on a Christmas Eve, in a Southeast Asian country, I had been asleep on top of a poncho liner, under a parked six-by. Somewhere out there beyond the elephant grass and the rice paddies and the hills that had been chemically defoliated or burned by napalm, Bedcheck Charlie was prowling through the darkness in black pajamas and a conical straw hat and sandals fashioned from the rubber strips he had sawed out of a truck tire. In his hands was the blooker he had taken off the body of a dead United States soldier who had been in my platoon. The launch tube was painted with gold and black tiger stripes. Every hour or so during the night, Bedcheck Charlie lobbed a round in our direction. Often it exploded in the paddy, sending up a geyser of water and mud and metal fragments that rained back down harmlessly. Or if it landed in the elephant grass, it blew a mixed smell of burned explosive and torn sod and root systems into the breeze, a combination that wasn’t altogether unpleasant. Once, Bedcheck Charlie got lucky and nailed the shit barrels in a latrine. But Bedcheck Charlie was a tactician, not a strategist. When he was on the job, you crosshatched your molars and slept with a frown, as though a fly were walking across your brow, waiting for the next plunking sound of a grenade leaving the launch tube. At dawn, you started the new day as though you had spent the night humping a sixty-pound pack.
Except on this particular Christmas Eve, for whatever reason, Bedcheck Charlie gave it a rest. I fell into a deep sleep and dreamed it was Christmas in New Iberia. I dreamed I was a child and in my bed, and through the window I could see the pecan and oak trees in the yard and the frost on our grass and, through the branches of the trees, the Star of Bethlehem burning brightly against an ink-black sky. It was a wonderful dream, and I wanted to hold on to it and wake to a Christmas morning that was shining with dew and filled with all the joy of the season.
Except when I awoke under the six-by, I was not looking at the Star of Bethlehem. On the far side of the rice paddy, a pistol or trip flare had popped high in the air and was floating down to the earth, trailing strings of smoke, its phosphorescent glow swinging back and forth, illuminating the landscape with the trembling white-and-black severity of a filmstrip that has gone off track inside the projector. Then three other flares popped in succession right after the first one. On the slope of a low hill that had traded hands a half-dozen times, a piece of worthless defoliated real estate the marines later named Luke the Gook’s Slop Chute, thirteen grunts returning from an a
mbush had been caught in a burned-out area where the tree trunks looked like skeletal fingers protruding from the ash. The column froze, and each man in it tried to transform himself into a stick. But their disguise was to no avail. VC sappers were in the elephant grass, and their automatic-weapons fire turned the column into a bloody mist.
Now, on a Sunday morning in the spring of 2009, I woke from a dream about a dream in a small sugarcane town on Bayou Teche, the slope behind the house white with ground fog, the overhang of the trees dripping on the tin roof. Freud said our dreams are manifestations of our hopes and fears. Did my dream represent a desire to return to the childlike innocence of the Cajun world in which I was born? Or did it indicate a warning from the unconscious, a telegram from the id telling me to beware of someone whose behavior I had been too casual about?
I looked through the window and saw a large man coming around the side of the house, his suit streaked with moisture from our camellia bushes, his eyes as cavernous as inkwells, his jaw crooked with indignation.
Molly was still sound asleep, the sheet molded by her hip. I slipped on my khakis and loafers and unlocked the back door and went outside. The man in the suit stood deep in the shadow of the house, opening and closing his fists, oblivious to the moisture leaking from the rain gutter on his head and shoulders. “You want to tell me what you’re doing in my yard at six on Sunday morning?” I said.
“I need some information, and I need it now. And I don’t want any mouth off you about it, either,” he said.
“How about putting your transmission into neutral, Layton?”
“Where’s Clete Purcel?”
“How would I know?”
“You’re his buddy. You’re the one who recommended him to me.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Don’t lie.”
“You’re not going to talk to me like that.”
“I’m not, huh? You got some damn nerve. I’m an inch from flattening you on your butt.”
I propped my hands on my hips and looked at Tripod’s hutch and at the trees in the fog and at an empty rowboat floating down the bayou, its bow turning slowly in the current. “You’re a more intelligent man than this. Regardless, it’s time for you to go.”