Dark End of the Street

Loretta walked ahead of Abby and me into the far corner of the bar where JoJo kept his office, a dull yellow light showing from a cracked door. She was tired as hell and pretty quiet on the way home on Interstate 55. Earlier that morning, she’d had Clyde committed to the Memphis Mental Health Institute on Poplar. I’d gone out with some of their wranglers, although they called them something much more official, and I was tired, too. The fight with Clyde had been pretty nasty and the way Loretta’s face dropped again at the center was hard to watch.

I sat at the bar. Smiled at Felix. Felix smiled back and absently popped the top off a Dixie and hammered it next to my elbow.

“You thirsty?” I asked Abby.

She nodded. Felix popped another.

“You’re in luck,” he said. “I ain’t askin’ for IDs today.”

I introduced them as I finished half of the cold beer. I was dead, travel tired. I wanted to go back to the warehouse and sleep for a couple days. Maybe even hibernate. I stretched my legs off the barstool.

The pale yellow afternoon light shot in broken, loose fingers between handbills that had been Scotch-taped in the window. Some so brittle and old that they’d somehow fused to the glass. I heard the clip-clop of the driver and horse rambling away into a French Quarter dusk.

“How long has this place been here?” Abby asked. She tugged on the beer, too hard, and the foam spilled over onto her hand.

“Long as I’ve been alive.”

She seemed okay with the answer as she felt along the edges of the old mahogany bar, feeling the cuts, cigarette burns, and dents as if they were braille markings.

We watched SportsCenter with Felix for a while as the afternoon regulars of T-shirt salesmen and Bourbon Street day players rolled in for a cold one before heading home or to begin their night. I hoped I’d see Oz or Hippie Tom. But it was early and I believed Oz may have started his fall ghost tours since it was close to Halloween.

I felt an arm reach across my throat and heard a gruff, weathered voice say: “Gettin’ soft when an old man can sneak up behind you.”

Without looking up I said, “Shouldn’t have to watch your back in your own home.”

“Yeah,” JoJo said, laughing. “Just like a crazy man to call a bar his home.”

I turned and gave JoJo a quick shake so he wouldn’t try to crush my knuckles as he always did with his thick bricklayer hands.

“Abby, I’d like you to meet the top male stripper in New Orleans, Mister Joseph Jose Jackson.”

He reached out and kissed her hand. “With his legs, he’d be lucky to make a nickel on Rampart Street.”

Abby laughed and JoJo motioned us back to the far corner table where he conducted business and occasionally drank with dead men. I wondered how much Loretta had told him as we sat down.

The chairs were mismatched, rickety, and old. I felt a bit uncomfortable stretching my legs again as the chair strained with my weight. I watched JoJo’s face grow serious under a big red neon sign for Jax beer.

“Miss,” JoJo said. “I am real sorry to hear about your folks. If you get tired of this ole so and so, you can always come stay with us. Always need some help ’round here.” He winked at her, his face weathered and very black. “Jes let us know.”

Abby thanked him. Felix brought out another round on JoJo’s orders and Loretta soon appeared with four steaming portions of her famous soul jambalaya. Reheated but just as good. She didn’t tell anybody how she made it, but I knew she always began everything with a thick, smoked ham hock. Even reheated, this stuff was the essence of life: andouille sausage, onions, green peppers, and chicken soaked in Crystal sauce. A big crusty baguette from the market.

You knew food was good when no one talked. No one spoke until every bit of jam was gone and the bowl had been wiped clean with the bread. After that, Loretta began to talk about meeting with Cleve and Bobby Lee Cook and even about our encounter with Clyde at the bridge. As she told the story, she watched my face, letting me know to leave out other parts. She hadn’t told JoJo about the men coming to the bar before I left, or that someone had tried to kill me and Abby.

“So the Ghost finally up and died on you?” JoJo asked.

I watched Loretta looking at her hands and said, “Yeah. She finally just fell apart.”

“Well,” JoJo began, his eyes narrowed. He leaned back and folded his arms, a man just watching what would come out our mouths next. “Glad y’all is back.”

Felix dipped by as an awkward silence fell onto the table and lit a candle in a red glass. It was night now and the evening’s band, some guys out of Atlanta called The Shadows, were setting up.

The doors had been propped open and a biting breeze shot off Conti and bent the candle’s flame.

“Lo, you mind closin’ up tonight?” JoJo asked. “Robert Junior down at Tips and asked me to sit in.”

“I can help,” I said. I guess I spoke too loud and too soon because JoJo raised his eyebrows. “We’ll come back for the last set. Just let me get Abby settled in to the warehouse and get some clean clothes.”