Copyboy, page 16
“I’ll have to irrigate this,” He-Gene said. “You hold his head, Henri, and you get his arms, General.”
Before I could say that none of that would be necessary, He-Gene poured a liquid into my wound. I opened my mouth to scream, but the pain took away my air like the worst vocal block of all time. The only option was to do once again what I seemed to be getting good at. I closed my eyes.
* * *
The General sat at the end of the bench with his hand on my outstretched legs.
My first thought when I came back to my senses was that someone had been cleaning typewriters with my alcohol and cotton swabs.
I turned my head toward the river. “Where’s Phil?”
“Good. Glad you’re back with us, Son Vic.” The General patted my bare feet. “Phil and her father took the skiff over to the Rooster. You’ll see her again soon.”
The events of the day and the General’s presence weren’t coming together in my head yet.
“Are you supposed to be here?” I asked the General.
“Adrienne and I headed down to Venice when we heard that Betsy had changed course. We thought the Moreaus could use some help.”
The General helped me sit up. I felt as if I had on a football helmet that was too small and then realized that all of my head above my ears was wrapped in tight layers of gauze. I got a bad headache once when a line drive hit me above the left eye while I was on the pitcher’s mound, but that was a tiny baby compared to the one that hammered away at me now.
“He-Gene said Phil’s mudpack probably kept you from bleeding out, probably saved your life,” the General said. “Did you realize how deep the gash was?”
“No.” I still dared not shake my head. The sequence of the day remained fuzzy. I felt a new pain in my left upper arm and began to rub it.
“He-Gene gave you a tetanus shot, a vitamin K shot to help stop the bleeding, and a shot of morphine while you were out,” the General said. “You probably shouldn’t rub it.”
“Where’s my urn?” I put my arm on the back of the bench to stand.
“Relax. I’ve got it right here.” The General moved the urn around to the front of the bench where I could see it. “You need to rest some more and get your feet under you… and I need to go over with you what I know about the plan so far.”
He explained the plan in his newspaper way. Hurricane Betsy was on course to come ashore somewhere on the Louisiana coast in less than 24 hours. Venice was directly in its path if it kept the current track. The storm surge would come ahead of it. All shelters for a hundred miles above New Orleans would be full.
Captain Moreau agreed a good place to ride out the hurricane was on the General’s barge in New Orleans with new and stronger tethers that they would have time to put in place. There was plenty of room for everyone on the barge. Highway 23, the evacuation route, was already crowded. Buster at the marina had called for an ambulance for me, but was told that the state police had stopped all southbound traffic, even emergency vehicles. The best time to head north would be after dark, which would allow time to pack and secure the Moreau house.
The more the General talked, the more my head cleared and the more the events of the day sorted themselves.
“As soon as you feel like it, we’ll head over to the Captain’s house,” the General said.
“I’m ready now.”
“I don’t think so. I need to help He-Gene haul out his boat. When we’re done, I’ll come back and see how you feel.”
“I can walk now,” I protested.
“You have a long night ahead of you… and I don’t think you realize how bad that gash was. I want you to lay back down and don’t move.”
The General’s words came as an order, not a suggestion. I watched the clouds bang into one another and closed my eyes again. I wondered if I might hear my name again — Messenger — but all I heard was the confused river being pushed backward against itself.
Chapter 24
I opened my eyes to discover the shot that He-Gene had given me had made the throbbing in my head almost bearable. I had probably even slept a few minutes. Real sleep. Not passed-out sleep. I turned my head from side to side without wincing. The ramp area was noisy with boaters shouting and making ready to haul their rigs out of the river.
To make certain I was thinking straight, I sat up and imagined another manifest like Mr. Spiro had taught me: My shoes were somewhere at the bottom of the river. My billfold was in my back pocket, all the contents soaked. I felt for my car keys. They were wedged deep in my front pocket and safe. Dirty water sloshed around under the crystal of my wristwatch. The second-hand was not moving. Mr. Spiro’s duffel bag was gone and my roll of twenty-dollar bills with it. My pants were torn and streaked with blood. The cut on my knee had stopped bleeding. My left bicep was red and ached from the shots, but aside from the drumming going on in my head, I found no other injuries.
I picked up the urn. It was dented in several places but the top was secure. Underneath the urn was Phil’s fleur-de-lis bandana. I stuffed it in my back pocket.
The activity at the marina had grown more hectic. Buster, standing at the water’s edge, shouted directions to boaters through his handheld loudspeaker.
The concrete ramp was wide enough to handle only two trailers at a time. Boat owners had to back their trailers into the river, leave the truck running, and go to their boat tied at the dock and drive it up on the trailer. Someone on the ramp would help the boater by getting into the truck and easing the trailer out of the water. Tie-downs were attached and made secure later in the marina parking lot. Everyone on the ramp and the docks moved with deadline urgency.
He-Gene and his packed-to-the-gills boat were next in line to haul out on the near side of the ramp. I picked up the urn and the General’s shirt that had been my pillow, made sure of my footing, and headed toward the ramp, holding on to the dock railings for balance. The General backed He-Gene’s truck down the ramp. My eyes focused enough to read the insignia on the door — Crescent River Port Pilots’ Association, Established 1908. The trailer eased into the water until He-Gene, standing at the center console of the boat, raised his hand for the General to stop. The ramp was not as steep as the one near our cabin at Moon Lake, but the roiling river made the haul-out much more tricky.
On the far side of the ramp, another pickup — fire-engine red with enough lights for a Christmas tree — was in line for the haul-out. Jimmy LaBue stepped out of the driver’s side. He left the truck idling. I watched closely. When it was his turn to begin the haul-out, he backed his tandem-wheel trailer into the water until only the top of its tires showed. He jumped out of the truck and hurried toward the end of the long dock. If Phil was with her father at the deep-water dock on the other side of the large marina, she would not have seen Jimmy LaBue and his boat. He-Gene and the General were busy with their own haul-out.
I waited for the bitter taste of bile to rise in my throat, but instead my anger turned itself into an unusual calmness, no doubt because of the shot that He-Gene had given me. The ribbed surface of the concrete ramp pricked my tender feet, helping me to sharpen my focus and find my balance. I handed the urn through the truck window to the General.
“Seems to me you’re walking pretty good now,” he said.
“Feeling fine. And here’s your shirt. I’ll be right back.”
The deep rumble of the twin engines was unmistakable. Jimmy LaBue sat high on the back of the white upholstered seat for all to see, steering the Crazy Eights around the end of the dock toward his idling truck and trailer on the ramp. He disengaged the propellers and gunned the V-8 engines. The exhaust stacks were loud and designed to impress. All eyes were on Jimmy as he brought his fancy boat toward the trailer. I squinted to make out the knife sheath dangling from his belt.
A crosscurrent at the ramp required all boaters at take-out to concentrate on lining up with the trailer. Guided by the padded side rails, Jimmy LaBue eased the fiberglass hull of the Crazy Eights into its cradle on the trailer. He cut the engines after one last loud and aggressive rev of the sixteen cylinders.
The truck, standing tall on its oversized tires, hid me well until I walked around to the driver’s door. A script was running in my head, which felt unusually focused, even covered with the tight layers of gauze. I shouted so everyone on the boat ramp could hear:
“Need some help, Jimmy LaBue?”
I slid into the idling truck. The floor shift was three times as tall as the one in my little car. The gearshift knob was made from a regulation billiard ball — the black eight. I pushed in the heavy clutch of Jimmy LaBue’s truck, shifted into first gear, and pulled the trailer slowly ahead until the Crazy Eights was barely clear of the water. The side mirrors reflected the image of Jimmy LaBue standing in his boat, wildly jumping up and down, waving and shouting words I could not make out due to how loudly I gunned the truck’s powerful engine.
My final thought on the ramp was that I should remember to thank my father for taking the time at Moon Lake to teach me about hauling out boats. I gripped the steering wheel, aimed the truck at the top of the ramp and popped the clutch.
The wetness of the ramp kept the tires from smoking until the spinning treads dried away the moisture. The wide tires then grabbed the ribbed concrete with violence. The truck fishtailed as it shot up the ramp. The trailer followed with corresponding movement. I looked in the rearview mirror to see the Crazy Eights hang and twist for a split second in midair and then crash to the ramp, throwing Jimmy LaBue backward on top of the hot exhaust pipes and then into the river. The heavy fiberglass hull cracked on the concrete with the sharp pop of a well-hit baseball. Shards of the fiberglass skin littered the ramp like a thousand broken light bulbs. One propeller drive collapsed under the weight of the boat and then the other. I stomped the brake pedal when the truck reached the top of the haul-out area.
My script was in my head again when I climbed out of the truck. Jimmy LaBue stood knee-deep in the river, splashing water on the exhaust-pipe burns on his arms and legs. His jeans were burned through in several places.
Again, the calmness.
“Sorry, Jimmy,” I shouted. “College boys aren’t very handy with trucks and boats.”
Jimmy LaBue looked up at me. He pushed the wet black strands of his hair up away from his face with both hands. The way he always had his hair combed back, I didn’t realize how long it was. Phil had mentioned his wild eyes on the river, but I doubt she had ever seen the way they looked at that moment. He yelled something I couldn’t make out, but there was no doubt about the context. He came out of the water toward me, high stepping and grabbing for the knife on his belt. His feet made a sucking sound inside his red alligator boots.
The General and He-Gene had come up beside me.
“I see you two know each other,” the General said to me in a calm voice.
“Not really,” I answered.
Jimmy stopped halfway up the ramp, but continued his incoherent rant. Out of breath, he turned and limped back to inspect what was left of the Crazy Eights and to splash more river water on his burns.
I had a good idea that He-Gene’s shot would keep me from passing out again, but I also felt my knees weren’t going to hold me up much longer. When they buckled, the strong arms of the men on both sides caught me before I slumped to the ground.
* * *
Sitting between the two men on the short drive to the Moreaus’ house, I felt something hard poking me in my side and looked down to see that He-Gene wore a black pistol clipped to his belt in a black holster with a gold badge attached.
“While you were passed out, Phil told us a little of what happened out there on the river,” He-Gene said. “It’s a good thing you got to Jimmy LaBue before Henri Moreau did.”
The end was coming soon anyway for the young man from Cutoff, Louisiana, He-Gene told us. The Bureau of Narcotics had suspected LaBue of being a “sweeper” and had been trying to figure out the best way to deal with him. A sweeper, He-Gene explained, was somebody who used radio frequency identification devices to locate in-bound drug caches dropped from oceangoing freighters and smaller ships from the Caribbean and South America. The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs had known about Jimmy for some time but kept thinking the drug merchants would do everyone a favor and handle him on their own. Word was out that Jimmy had been stealing from the drug runners.
“I know he tried to hang around Phil some,” He-Gene said. “I was glad to find out that she had stopped having anything to do with him. He was probably sweeping the river ahead of Betsy when you ran up on him.”
The expensive saltwater reel. The custom-made cowboy boots. The practically new car he tried to give Phil. Dirty money had paid for them all. They didn’t know half the story and I — the bégayer boy — wouldn’t be the one to tell them.
The General chimed in. “One thing for sure. That boy is gonna have to get a broom and do some serious sweeping up one last time on the pieces of his boat you left him.”
The two men chuckled. Not me. My hands and legs trembled.
“I’m impressed with how our young copyboy took over the situation.” The General slapped me on my good knee. “What made you go after him like that?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure of the answer, only that I had the urge and I didn’t fight it. It just happened. The spur and the moment.
The only certainty I could hang on to in my cloudy memory of what had happened was the notion that if Jimmy LaBue was going to come after somebody, I wanted it to be me and not Philomene Moreau.
Chapter 25
Hurricane preparations had transformed the Moreau house from a comfortable family home into a wooden fort under siege.
Footlockers, ice chests, and old suitcases lined the second-floor porch. The Moreaus’ newer truck and the General’s pickup were backed in near the front stairs. Under the house, the heavy wooden tables had been turned on their sides to serve as a fence, corralling all manner of large and small outdoor items. Propane tanks had been gathered up and lashed to foundation posts.
Captain Moreau met us as we drove up. He looked at my bandaged head but didn’t say anything to me.
“I told everyone we’d gather as soon as we all got here,” the Captain said to He-Gene. “Before we go up, help me run this cable around the outside of the tables.”
The General met Phil and Adrienne, each carrying a suitcase, coming down the stairs. I had to stand still once I got out of the truck to get my balance. Phil kept her eyes on me as the three talked. She put down the case she was carrying and came over.
“How’s that head feeling?” She tucked in the bandage above my ears.
“It’s b----etter. Still a little wobbly on my feet.”
She smiled. “Not too wobbly, I hear, to take care of Jimmy LaBue and his fancy boat.”
“Everything happened sort of fast.”
Phil had changed into a tank top. For the first time I saw the bruises and scrapes on her neck and shoulder.
“Is that where I fell back into you? Are you okay?”
“A little bruised, but I’m not so sore that I couldn’t catch me a swampy if I needed to.” She took me by the arm and guided me to the stairs. “Take your hands out of your pockets and I’ll steady you from behind. You need to go sit down.”
I grabbed the stair rails quickly so Phil wouldn’t see my hands shaking.
* * *
No one interrupted Captain Moreau as he laid out the evacuation plan like it was something he did every morning at the breakfast table over sausage sandwiches. His veteran-river-pilot voice was calm and direct.
He and the General would take the Rooster upriver to the barge. He-Gene needed to leave for the Federal Building in New Orleans as soon as they could get a waterproof tarp over his boat and its contents. She-Gene and Adrienne would drive the two pickups. The two brothers would ride with Adrienne in her truck and the two sisters with their mother. Since Phil knew Highway 23, she would drive my car and I would ride with her.
The idea of riding with Phil all the way to New Orleans appealed to me.
The Captain and the General would leave on the Rooster as soon as it could be loaded and the house secured. They would need the extra time in New Orleans to add heavier mooring lines to the barge and put the Rooster in a spiderweb rig to ride out the storm surge.
All gasoline stations this side of New Orleans would be out of fuel. Everyone should top off their tanks from the gasoline cans under the house. The traffic on Highway 23 might thin out a little an hour or so after dark. Leaving then should get everyone to the barge by sun-up and at least eight hours ahead of the brunt of the hurricane.
“Long night ahead for everybody, but we can sleep tomorrow,” the Captain said. “Any questions?”
Phil had been silent.
“Does this Betsy have the makings of a bad one, Daddy?”
“Coming back in this morning on the Rooster, I saw deer and wild pigs moving to higher ground and gators passing up good meals right in front of them. That speaks to me more than the weather forecasters.”
Captain Moreau stood. He had a final word for the group. “When I was piloting years ago I talked to a freighter captain who lost half his crew to the first Hurricane Betsy that hit the Caribbean in ’56. We won’t trifle with another hurricane with that name.”
He-Gene turned to She-Gene. “If you haven’t packed the coffee pot yet, Sister, I’ve got a Thermos I could fill. And can I talk to you outside, Henri?” The two men went out the front door.
Sounding much like her husband, She-Gene took over and began her own set of instructions to the family.
“You little ones get a trash can each for your clothes and belongings. Daddy has them cleaned out and drying under the house. Miss Adrienne will help you pack them. Phil, the best of the kitchen can go in our two big washtubs.”
