Praise for The Sound of Building Coffins by Louis Maistros
"Louis Maistros has written a lyrical, complex, and brave novel that takes enormous risks and pulls them all off. He is a writer to watch and keep reading, a writer to cherish."
—Peter Straub
"The Society of North American Magic Realists welcomes its newest, most dazzling member, Louis Maistros. His debut novel is a thing of wonder, unlike anything in our literature. It startles. It stuns. It stupefies. No novel since A Confederacy of Dunces has done such justice to New Orleans."
—Donald Harington, winner of the Robert Penn Warren Award
"The Sound of Building Coffins is easily one of the finest and truest pieces of New Orleans fiction I've ever read."
—Poppy Z. Brite
"The Sound of Building Coffins is filled with the music of New Orleans -- the richly imagined siren song of Buddy Bolden's horn, cacophony to some, sweet inspiration to others; the lapping waves of the Mississippi; the clamor of Storyville barrooms; the banter of street corner
"This is a novel about love and life and death, New Orleans-style, when a cure can take the form of a healing or an abortion or an exorcism; where a hand on a heart can be a blessing or a burden; where the dead walk among the living and are known and listened to; where spirits live on and on, to torment or to love.
"Maistros creates a city that is part dream, part hallucination. His New Orleans embodies both the grim reality of a particular time and the city's eternal, shimmering beauty. And, with the book's title, he provides us with a new and unforgettable metaphor for the sound of hammers at work, whether boarding up for a storm or rebuilding after one."
—Susan Larson, New Orleans Times-Picayune
"The Sound of Building Coffins a macabre and utterly hypnotic feat of literary imagination, an extended tale of voodoo and jazz in the Crescent City, circa the turn of the 20th century. The novel is so fluently delivered that it sometimes feels as if it were being channeled via the same spirits - evil and good - that inhabit these richly drawn characters.
"Maistros, a New Orleans record-store owner and former forklift operator with no formal training as a writer, has crafted a work spiked with historical characters and events, so striking and original that it probably deserves a place on the shelf of great fiction from his adopted hometown."
—Philip Booth, St. Petersburg Times
"One has to write with considerable authenticity to pull off a story steeped in magic and swamp water that examines race and class, death and rebirth, Haitian voodoo, and the beginnings of jazz in 1891 New Orleans... The plot is complex and magical, grounded in the history of the city, without being overly sentimental. There is a comfort with death as a part of life in this work that reveals deep feeling for the city and its past. Of course, every novel about New Orleans must have a good hurricane. Like the one in Zora Neale Hurston's classic Their Eyes Were Watching God, this hurricane destroys the city while making hope possible. Highly recommended for all fiction collections, especially where there is an interest in jazz."
—Library Journal
"The multiple plot lines smoothly interlock like simultaneous horn solos in an early Louis Armstrong single, and the steady flow of closely observed details and dialogue are a consistent pleasure."
—Joab Jackson, The Baltimore City Paper
"The Sound of Building Coffins is set in turn-of-the-century New Orleans, where, explains Maistros, residents have 'a long and curious relationship with death, a closeness, a delicate truce.' In spite of all of the death and violence and betrayal, Coffins is also filled with love. Love moves characters to commit terrible acts, but it also drives them to right their wrongs. Love offers second chances, sometimes in this life and sometimes in the one beyond."
—Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"This book sings out in true jazz fashion—wildly inventive, oddly formed yet perfectly made, and never a sour note."
—The Anniston Star
"The Sound of Building Coffins manages to be surprising and deeply inventive through to the end... For those of us who were schooled in the refined belle-lettres traditions of American literature, this novel is a raw and unsubtle example of what it means to open a vein and write. To wit: 'Like a hurricane party or a jazz funeral, an embrace of some fast-coming and brilliantly inevitable (if unjust) end, an open invitation ot the last and wildest party on earth, a high stakes gamble with neither certainty nor hope'."
—The Alabama Press-Register
"A writer of lesser ability would have been swallowed up in the swirling complexity of such a plot, plunging it to the level of a silly period piece regional novel. However, The Sound of Building Coffins is different. Maistros keeps his head above water and pulls off an admirable story because of his keen research into the history of New Orleans and his compelling style that is fired by his use of foreboding imagery. Readers can never guess what is coming next as the various threads are revealed and followed. The story, although complex, rings true because of its meticulous backdrop and immediate reader sympathy with the Morningstar family.
"Maistros' story is not a fantasy tale. It is about life and the timeless theme of how people integrate living with the good and the bad around them and how they can emerge with newness as a result. The Sound of Building Coffins is riveting. It is a good read and a remarkable first novel."
—Endtype: A Canadian Literary Magazine
"If Maistros was a traditional storyteller rather than a writer, he would be one of those gifted individuals that you would listen to raptly, late into the night."
—The Roanoke Times
"Maistros succeeds by populating (the novel) with hoodoo queens, jazzbos, tricksters, rounders, and various folks with one foot in reality and the other in the spirit world. Such and approach richly underscores his overreaching themes of life and death, salvation and damnation, birth and rebirth, as his lively cast of characters struggle through troubled times with equally troubled souls… A sprawling, complex, and ultimately absorbing work.
—John Lewis, Baltimore Magazine
"Louis Maistros has an original and dark vision, full of power."
—Douglas Clegg
"The Sound of Building Coffins is a soulful work from a writer of the weird. Maistros does more than make you feel for his characters, he makes you want to feel."
—Paul Tremblay
"One of the best New Orleans novels I've ever read, Louis Maistros' debut seems dictated in a fever dream of automatic writing."
—Patrick Millikin, The Poisoned Pen
More reviews can be found at http://louismaistros.com
The Sound of Building Coffins
By Louis Maistros
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2009 by Louis Maistros
Smashwords Edition, License Notes:
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
A print version of this book is available from The Toby Press through fine booksellers everywhere.
Electronic, audio and dramatic rights are maintained by the author through his literary agent, Barbara Braun. http://www.barbarabraunagency.com
Cover photograph by W.D. McPherson, circa 1864, used with permission of the Louisiana State Universities Library.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
More info at: http://louismaistros.com
For Booker
"The river starts like a spring and the story just came out. The river starts like a spring and he's like a newborn baby, tumbling and spitting, and one day, attracted by a puddle, he starts to run. He scurries and scampers and wants to get to the marsh, and, after being followed by a big bubble, he does, and at the end of the run he goes into the meander. Then he skips and dances and runs until he's exhausted, and he lies down by the lake—all horizontal lines, ripples, reflections, God-made and untouched. Then he goes over the falls and down into the whirlpool, the vortex of violence, and out of the whirlpool into the main track of the river. He widens, becomes broader, loses his adolescence, and down at the delta, passes between two cities. Like all cities on the opposite sides of the deltas, you can find certain things in one and not in the other, and vice versa, so we call the cities Neo-Hip-Hot-Cool Kiddies' Community and the Village of the Virgins. The river passes between them and romps into the mother—Her Majesty The Sea—and, of course, is no longer a river. But this is the climax, the heavenly anticipation of rebirth, for the sea will be drawn up into the sky for rain and down into wells and into springs and become the river again. So we call the river an optimist. We'll be able to play the ballet in any church or temple, because the optimist is a believer."
— Duke Ellington
"Medicine, to produce health, must examine disease, and music, to create harmony, must examine discord."
— Plutarch
Book One
New Orleans
1891
Chapter one
Deliver the Children
The short legs of the mulatto boy pedaled the rickety bicycle southeasterly down the bumpy, ballast-stoned streets of the French Quarter. A burlap bag, full of fresh fetuses, sat loosely at the center of a chicken-wire basket tied between handlebars. As the cobbled surface of Customhouse Street gave way to the rocky dirt of the levee, the bicycle slowed and sudden turbulence bounced the contents of Typhus' burlap sack. Easy does it, thought Typhus. Should have tied those babies in, he knew, but Doctor Jack had run out of twine. Simple problem, simple solution: Easy does it. That's all. See that? Easy. The bouncing diminished accordingly and the bag did not jump, fall, or spill. Typhus' children stayed with him.
Typhus Morningstar was only nine years old, but older of eye.
Old enough to have suffered some, but young enough to know there are easy solutions to most types of suffering; solutions not too difficult to grasp and quick enough to be done with if a person had half a mind to. Typhus often considered the possibility that when a boy or a girl reached a certain age of maturity (or reached a certain physical height) that simplicity itself became a thing not to be trusted. Pain for grownups is easy enough to feel—their problem lies in the whys, hows and what-nows that always accompany such pain. Simple questions are bound to yield simple answers, but also; a thing too easy often feels like a trick. Typhus hoped never to reach the age (or height) of a person who could only trust the harder, more complex ways of handling life's trials.
Typhus maneuvered up the side of the levee, then down the slope towards the river, where the water's recurring kiss had hardened and smoothed the sand into a firm, grainy mud. It was tougher to pedal here, but a smoother ride. He felt safer on this side of the sloping embankment anyway, beyond eye and earshot of the busybodies and shady nighttime characters who roamed the Quarter when the sun was down and gone. It wasn't unheard of (or even uncommon) for a tan-colored boy with a package to be stopped by harbor police for no good reason at all.
Plus, it was so much prettier this near the river.
He followed the slow curve of the riverside until it ambled him up and onto the boardwalk that ran alongside the docks. The only light here was of the moon, bouncing off the water like a million lemon slices, shimmering and shining but yielding no useful illumination. Smudge pots bobbed atop buoys fashioned from beer barrels fifty yards offshore, warning ships of sandbanks too high for safe docking. Thick, black smoke from burning pitch—its powerful smell equally loathsome to man and mosquito—etched creases in the coal sky, quietly proclaiming that there's always something blacker. Only the fatigued crews of smaller vessels dared navigate between the hidden sandbanks, but even these few vessels seemed void of living beings tonight. Every porthole of every ship: black, black, black.
It was all so peaceful and still here.
Typhus loved his midnight bicycle rides. The sound of the water, the feel of night air against his skin, and the acrid smell of burning tar; it all conspired into a comforting sense of oneness with his father's God. And that's all his child's heart had ever really pined for. Not much else, anyway.
A block or so ahead, the shadow of a man cast long from the end of a narrow pier. The dark shape jerked grotesquely as Typhus rode past, sending a sweeping wave of warm gray across the river's yellow-sparkly surface. Typhus smiled and waved back to the elderly gentleman known to most as Marcus Nobody Special. He wished he could stop and talk to Mr. Marcus, but he had business to tend. Maybe after—but most likely, he'd be too tired to socialize after the errand. The business of the errand always took a lot out of him.
Mr. Marcus, who'd been caretaker of the Girod Street potter's field since before the War of the States, had either buried or overseen the burying of just about every man, woman and child of color who'd died in the last fifty years around here. Mr. Marcus was seventy if he was a day, but never complained of aches or pains and always spent the nighttime fishing off the longest pier at this particular stretch of levee. It seemed the old man never rested or slept at all.
Most of the locals thought Marcus crazy. Some even thought him a ghost, people saying he'd died, buried his own bones and come back; that he was on some kind of mysterious mission to find a particular fish that would let him go back to the grave in peace. That fish, they said, had stolen Marcus' soul.
But Marcus seemed alive enough to Typhus. The old fellow ate, drank, pissed, and laughed just like every other living person Typhus knew. So the one part was a lie, but he knew the other was true enough: Mr. Marcus did have a certain odd obsession with fish. Typhus had had occasion to sit alongside the old man on a few of these queer fishing expeditions, had even seen Marcus catch himself a perfectly good catfish now and then—only to throw it back in the water after a cursory examination. He'd simply shake his head and apologize to the wiggly, fat thing, saying; "Sorry, old man, didn't mean to interrupt yer nightswimmin'." Then he'd shake his head some more and say to himself, or to whoever was standing nearby:
"Not my dern fish. Not my fish at all. But I'll get 'im. Yessir."
Typhus liked Mr. Marcus very much. His behavior might not have made the plainest sort of sense, but Typhus understood as much as he needed to. No use being greedy about understanding people other than yourself. He figured people have a right to some privacy concerning the strange workings of their own minds.
Up ahead a hundred yards or so, Typhus spotted his destination. A morass of banana plants interwoven with tall, swaying saw grass signaled the presence of a large sandbank-urned-sland just beyond the pier. People sometimes used the little island for fishing during daytime hours, but at night it was Typhus' spot.
Typhus slowed the bicycle.
Put one foot down, stopped the bike at a hard angle from the ground. Looked around slow. No lights. No movement but wind and low waves. No one around but Mr. Marcus looking for his elusive fish. Not another soul.
Typhus got off the bike and eased the burlap sack down to the moist wood of the boardwalk. Rolled the bike into hiding behind some shaggy codgrass near the pier. Slung the bag over his shoulder and lowered himself to the mud of the island. Walked the forty yards or so it took to get to the other side, the side that faced away from the pier and across the water. Out of sight, even from Mr. Marcus.
On the other side of the river was a place called Algiers. Typhus had never been there, had never had good reason to go across. By day it looked just like the pictures of Africa his Daddy liked to show him, but at night it was inky and wonderful, a huge and glorious dead spot where glimmering lemon slices stopped dancing. He took his shoes off and sat at the edge of the island's shore with his feet in the water and the bag at his side. Chewed a hunk of tobacco his father had given him that afternoon after chores. Looked at Algiers and wondered, resting his hand on the bag, spitting juice into the water.
After the tobacco in his cheek was reduced to the vile, juiceless lump it was bound to become, he pulled it out of his mouth and winged it as far as he could into the river, causing lemon slices to laugh and jump for joy. Typhus slung the bag over his shoulder and waded into the water, clothes and all. When the river came about knee deep he knelt down in it and brought the little burlap bag before him. Lowered it into the water, not letting go, just allowing the water to rush in through the thousand tiny holes that make burlap what it is. Unknotted the top. Peeked in. Babies. Three tiny, unborn children. Getting their first taste of nighttime air and warm, muddy river.
Steadying the bag on his lap, Typhus reached a hand in and stroked the tiny arms and neck of one of the children. Scooped his other hand inside the bag and tenderly—so tenderly—separated the little creature from its brother and sister. Let its tiny head bob at the water's surface. Its sweet face looked up at the moon, bathed in lemon light. There was no pain in this face. No tragedy or loss. But there was something missing.
Life.
Typhus' small hands looked huge holding the little creature. He held the baby steady at the surface and gently cleansed him, let the water wash over its pink and blue skin. Washing away the sticky blood and gelatin of birth.
Typhus Morningstar closed his eyes. Smiled.
"Come on, little fella. Time to be on yer way." Opened his eyes again. Looked down.
He held the baby's arms to its sides with the slightest pressure, his left hand moving up and down along the child's right arm in a sweeping caress. Its smooth skin yielded to his touch like clay, gradually melting to its side. Seamlessly. He repeated this process with the left arm until both sides were a perfect match. Then Typhus focused on the legs, stroking and smoothing the soft flesh into a single fat leg, his gentle hands molding the unborn child's figure into a swooning teardrop. Next were the shoulders. So smooth. So trusting. Blending into the neck so perfectly. Exactly like wet clay.
Last was the head.
Nose and mouth extending into one. Lips disappearing. Eyelids vanishing over wide, round, flat, staring eyes. Cheeks flattening. Smooth. Perfect. Warm.
Typhus held the newly shaped fetus underwater. As the head went under, there appeared a moment's struggle—but there's always a slight struggle in waking moments, Typhus acknowledged. The legs, now a tail, thrashed about. Mouth bubbling, horizontal slits opening where ears used to be, head bucking. Typhus held fast, stroking the creature ever gently till it calmed. Cooing. Said the thing that he always said at this point:
"They gave it to me, but I gave it back the best I could."
He sang as the baby finished its changing time, its water birth. The song he sang was of a religious nature, but he placed no significance on the words. He just thought it was a pretty tune, something sweet to sing as he delivered his children. It put them at ease, or so it seemed.
Jesus, I'm troubled about my soul
Ride on, Jesus, come this way...
The tiny catfish was pure pink and rapidly calming now, its tail experimentally flicking at the currents of the top waves with hungry curiosity. With a kind of yearning.
It was time.
Typhus let go. A tear rolled down his cheek. It was always hard to let the babies go.
Swimming now. Towards Algiers. Disappearing from sight. Beneath sparkly slivers of yellow light.
Troubled about my soul...
Again, and with great love, Typhus Morningstar reached into the burlap bag.
A light drizzle began to fall.
Chapter two
The Note
The song began like all melodies, with a single note.
On this day, at this hour and this particular moment, the note was E flat. Unaccompanied, the note betrayed key neither minor nor major, betrayed no key at all. Beginning soft as breath and held, gaining strength and definition with only the slightest quiver. Not vibrato in any premeditated way, just the lightest jangle of the player's nerves, his humanity, his heartbeat.
Then a fade.
As if the note were giving way to something greater than itself, greater than its own simple purity and strength; weakening ever gently. Giving up quietly, submitting to its own misinformed sense of futility, going back to earth, to the simple clay of dumb beginnings and answerless endings.
*
The player considers the note. He cannot sustain. There is no reason. But the weakening tone is somehow unfinished. Like a spirited pup born too soon, too small and too weak to live, knowing nothing of life but clinging to it anyway; stupidly, stupidly—fighting for its chance but not knowing why, not understanding what sort of thing the chance is. Not knowing anything.
But knowing everything it will ever need to know. Its heartbeat struggles, weakens, slows—but does not stop. And then:
The fade is cut short, interrupted by a flurry of sound; a quick burst heading skyward, headstrong and unexpected, defying the futility of the E flat, exposing a minor key in the subtlest way, transforming the uncertainty of E flat into a belligerent D. Holding. Dipping. Leaping and crashing—but not crashing.
Saved.
Gliding back down to...E flat again? No. A. Holding again—but not holding. Bending, wavering, wanting to climb too high but resisting—spinning somehow without moving up or down, pulling something from deep within the player, bringing this thing out of the cornet, out through the cornet. All this in a single note. A single, simple, ordinary note.
A.
But not A. Something about the A is different. It is a different world from the world of the E flat entirely. Something about the way the player arrived at the A. Not that it was discovered, but how it was discovered. Something about the player's reaction to the note, the lightness of mind and intensity of spirit it brought him for just a moment. Something about the way the instrument reacted to the touch of his lips, the way it trembled in his grip. The note was A.
A.
But not A.
This is where things change; completely, irrevocably.
But with change comes clarity. And with clarity comes understanding. And with understanding comes questions. And with questions of this kind comes a sort of madness.
E flat. Transition. A.
Questions.
The player stops.
He is drunk. He does not know what has happened. His mind is not ready for the questions, he doesn't want to hear them. He reaches for his bottle of train yard-grade gin but only knocks it to the floor; the bottle doesn't break and he doesn't pick it up. He lays his horn on the pillow, he lays his head next to the horn; it is inches from his eyes. His eyes are red, he feels tears building there but doesn't let them through. They close. He strokes the horn. He falls asleep. Gin drips to the floor, the bottle on its side.
He will not remember the A. He does not know that he has seen the face of God.
Clarity. Questions. E flat. A.
Something is created but stillborn; promised but denied.
Awaiting rebirth, it has all the time in the world. What did not exist does now. An abortion dumped in the river, letting go of life for now but knowing that new life will come. In time.
Differently. Irrevocably.
Buddy Bolden snores.
Chapter three
Man of God
Noonday Morningstar named his children for diseases. From oldest to youngest they were Malaria, Cholera, Diphtheria, Dropsy, and Typhus.
There'd been those in the Parish who'd publicly chided Father Morningstar for the naming, declaring it cruel to name innocent children for that which reminded a body only of suffering and death—but to Morningstar the names were a tribute to God's glory, plain and simple. It didn't matter if nosy folk didn't understand or approve. God understood everything just fine.
Morningstar saw life as a trial and death as a reward, a bridge to paradise—and he saw God's mysterious afflictions of the body as holy paths to that salvation. Disease may be a source of pain and hardship on earth, but what can be kinder and more blessed than a shortcut to heaven through no fault of your own? What could be a more magnificent display of God's powers than the merciful, invisible insects that float through the air to infect the body, guiding you to your last breath and on to reward?
Plus, the diseases had such pretty names.
Strange name-giving aside, Noonday loved his children deeply and they returned his love in kind. He was a gentle and loving father to them and they, in turn, proved the wonders of God to him everyday. God had been generous, in His way, with every one of them. All were healthy and happy children—save for Cholera, who died after only two months on this earth, ironically, from cholera.
Although he believed it wrong to admit a favorite, Father Morningstar secretly saw his youngest as the gem of the lot. Although Gloria had died on the occasion of Typhus' birth, Morningstar knew his wife would have gladly consented to that sacrifice to bring a creature so magical into the world. It was only a shame she hadn't lived to know her little Typhus, her reason for dying.
About a mile and a half northwest of Congo Square, the Morningstar family's tiny two-room house sat on a too-big piece of marshy ground too near where the Bayou St. John met the Old Basin Canal—a manmade waterway dredged from the bayou to the city's heart nearly a century ago. It was a poor choice of real estate, prone to flooding—but the Morningstars had few possessions to lose and, in a pinch, could always relocate to the little church near the Girod Street potter's field for the few days it took the waters to subside. Building a home on flood ground was something few were foolish enough to do, but the recklessness of the choice rewarded the family with unprecedented privacy in the fast growing city. Right out the front door was pure, wild beauty; dark, soft ground alive with salt meadow codgrass, water hyssops, and towering cypress trees—the latter entwined with boskoyo vines that proudly sprouted their sweet smelling violet and white flowers. At night there was only blackness, but if you ventured out with an oil lamp the ghostly trumpet-shaped blossoms of moonflowers would make themselves known.
The two rooms of the Morningstar house had their work cut out for them with five occupants to accommodate, so functionality was the rule. The larger was for sleeping and storing—the littler one for cooking, eating, and praying. The living water of the bayou could be strained then boiled; then used for washing or drinking. There was no real need for anything more—it was a fine place to live.
Tonight the timid hum of the children's sleeping sounds offered guilty comfort to Noonday's weary heart, and the stove fire failed to relieve his chill. He meditated on the glowing embers as they struggled to maintain orange—but meditation and prayer did not soothe on this night. He stabbed gently at the burning wood with a pointed iron, absently noting the fluttering patterns of white as ash broke apart and drifted to the stove's base.
Earlier today, Noonday had done a thing that had brought shame to his heart, having put his own well-being above that of an innocent. Called to the home of Sicilian immigrants, he had believed he was to perform the last rites for a fatally ill child, a common enough sort of call. But when he entered the house a smell like burning compost hung in the air and a heavy sense of dread settled into his bones. The child appeared asleep in its crib as Noonday read aloud from Matthew 18:
"Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
"And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.
"But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."
At that, the child's eyes sprang open to lock with his own.
It was in this moment of eye contact that Noonday heard the voice of Jesus telling him to leave, telling him that to stay would mean to sacrifice himself in vain, to make his own children orphans—and The Savior's tone had not been gentle in the telling. Noonday had often heard the nagging voice of God in his head, had never before questioned it. But the kind of blatant abandonment suggested by his God today felt wrong to him. The words of the reporter who'd stopped him outside the house had echoed his own thoughts; this was God's business—and Noonday Morningstar had dedicated his life to such business. It was not his place to turn tail and run, even at the insistence of Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior Himself.
What is a man of God to do when the clear instructions of The Savior conflict with the plain feelings of right and wrong that God himself has placed in his chest? If there was an answer to this question, he dare not seek it in the eyes of his children. This was a burden he must carry alone.
"Father?" Typhus was standing in the doorway. Noonday couldn't guess for how long; Typhus was such a quiet thing.
"Yes, son?"
"You're crying."
Noonday had been unaware of his own tears until that moment. "I suppose I am," he offered his son with an embarrassed smile.
"Can I help?"
These three words carried unintended poignancy, and, as always, Typhus' simple kindness offered simple answers. The boy truly amazed him.
"You already have, Typhus. I love you so much." He picked up his son in a hug. "I have to go out for a little while. House call. Unfinished business."
Typhus looked alarmed. It was unusual for his father to leave on "house calls" after dark.
"Bring me with you." Typhus' tone implied instruction rather than request.
"Not tonight, little man. I won't be long. I promise."
"Daddy?" Typhus rarely called his father "Daddy". It was his way of pleading.
"Son, I said no."
"But Jesus doesn't want you to go."
The words brought a chill to Morningstar's heart, but he was not surprised by them. Typhus had the gift of understanding.
"I know, Typhus. But He'll thank me later."
"I think I should go with you."
"Listen to me, son. I need you to stay here and take care of your brother and sisters. Will you do that for me?"
A pause. "Yes, father."
"That's my little man. I'll be home before sun up. Now, get back to bed."
Noonday Morningstar kissed his son on the forehead, then went into the larger room where Malaria and Dropsy still slept. He noted with a frown that Diphtheria had snuck out again. He kissed the two before grabbing the family bible and lighting up a small lamp that was rusted red but perfectly functional. Walked out the door and into night.
Typhus threw some sticks on the fire, watched them turn white beneath the weight of orange flame.
He crawled onto the large, straw-stuffed mattress between his brother and sister. Found his homemade pillow; his own multi-purpose invention. The little burlap sack was originally constructed to hold coffee beans, but could also be stuffed with straw for sleeping—or filled with unborn babies for transporting and water-birthing. He held it tight to his face and smelled the river in it. He reached over and stroked the hair of Dropsy. It helped a little.
Typhus Morningstar did not sleep, but he did dream.
Although he knew disobeying his father would yield consequences, he emptied the contents of the pillow at the foot of the bed and stood up. Went outside without benefit of light, carrying the empty all-purpose sack with him. He sensed he might need it.
Found his bike in the dark.
Chapter four
Dominick's Affliction
Caught in the dank grip of an unusually warm October, the City of New Orleans had already been on edge and looking for a fight when the murder of Police Chief David Hennessey brought things from a simmer to a boil in the fall of 1890.
Eighteen Sicilian immigrants were arrested that October, but not until March of 1891 did eleven of them stand trial. The trial itself had been a fiasco; peppered with threats and assaults on witnesses, jury tampering and more, leading to two dismissals for lack of evidence, six found not guilty, and three released through benefit of a hung jury. The acquitted men were scheduled for release on the following afternoon, but such reasonable resolution was pre-empted by an open letter that appeared in the morning edition of The Daily Picayune. Penned by the Mayor of New Orleans himself, the letter was, in essence, a thinly veiled call to arms against the soon-to-be-freed defendants.
Within hours of the paper's arrival at newsstands, an initial crowd of five thousand assembled at Clay Statue, where a host of dignified speakers eloquently whipped mild hearts into murderous lather. By noon the mob had made its way to the prison at Congo Square, its eventual number surpassing twenty thousand.
At Congo Square, a group of seven professional bounty hunters (employed, it was rumored, by the cronies of Mayor Shakespeare himself) enlisted an unfortunate prison guard by the name of Beauregard Church to act as their guide, at gunpoint, through the lightless jail. The vigilantes soon selected eleven victims; eight shot down on prison grounds and three dragged into the square to be hanged for the amusement of the mob. One of the hanged men, Antonio Carolla, appeared already dead—perhaps from fright—when the men placed the noose around his neck.
In effect, eleven men—whose guilt or innocence was never established—were tried, convicted, and executed by the local press and the Mayor of New Orleans.
*
Marshall Trumbo, a good man in his heart and by his nature, found himself deeply burdened by his own role in the slaughter of the Sicilians. A reporter for the New Orleans Item, Trumbo knew that to stir racial tensions in the sweltering city would be a reckless act—still, he had forged ahead with the rest and now lived with his guilty heart. But on the day after the massacre, Trumbo believed he'd found potential hope for redemption in the form of a sick child.
The one-year-old son of the twice-murdered Antonio Carolla had contracted a mysterious illness on the afternoon of his father's death. Hoping to lighten his conscience by somehow aiding the Carolla family in their darkest hour (and perhaps simultaneously satisfying his employer's thirst for saleable melodrama), Trumbo took to the home of the boy and his mother with pen and paper in hand.
Trumbo's gallant mood sank sharply upon his arrival. The boy was tiny and thin and the color gone from him, his eyes closed tight, an unnerving grin stretching his lips nigh ear to ear. It was explained to Trumbo by the doctor in attendance—who applied leeches to the child's torso with appalling calm—that the grin was merely a contortion brought on by recent fits of convulsion.
Due to the child's apparently dire condition, several men of the cloth had been called to the home since the day before—all staying briefly and leaving abruptly. The man of God currently in residence was one Trumbo knew from a prior assignment, a Baptist minister called Noonday Morningstar.
As Father Morningstar droned out a verse from his open Bible, the boy's eyes shot open with fear or rage or a mixture of the two. Trumbo thought he heard the child whisper something angrily at Morningstar. In apparent response, the preacher shut his Bible, crossed himself, then exited quickly, mumbling something about a forgotten prior commitment. While the doctor fiddled diligently on with his collection of leeches, Trumbo followed after Morningstar—supposing the preacher had made some private spiritual diagnosis.
Moving up quietly from behind, Trumbo placed a hand on Morningstar's shoulder; the unexpected touch causing the taller man to spin around with a gasp. Trumbo apologized for spooking him, then got right to the point.
"Pardon me, Father, but please tell me what you saw in that house that has alarmed you so." Morningstar at once pulled back, then took a breath and seemed to relax. Before speaking, he looked around to see if anyone else was close enough to hear.
"You a newspaper man, sir?" His voice was low and gentle.
"Yes, Father Morningstar. Trumbo's my name—I have interviewed you in the past if you will recall, regarding the sharp increase in cholera deaths last year. But you have my word that I will keep whatever it is you tell me today in the strictest confidence if you so wish."
"I don't believe that for one minute, sonny," the preacher said with a thin smile.
"I understand, Father." Trumbo's tone softened. "It's true that I came here for a story, but after what I've seen—I just want to help."
Morningstar's demeanor softened in kind.
"You seem like a nice boy," he said. "Do yourself a favor and stay out of that house. Those doctors can't help that young 'un. Neither can I. There's something wild in there. Something dangerous to the souls of men. Something absent of God—or too full of God. Stay away from that place, Mister Reporter. There's no story in there. Only death." He turned to leave.
"If you are a man of God, sir—"
Morningstar stopped but did not turn to meet the reporter's eyes.
"If you are a man of God—how can you leave that young child's soul in danger, as you say?"
Morningstar's eyes then met Trumbo's—and there was ice in the connection. "That boy's soul is lost, sonny. This is God's business now."
"But isn't your business God's business?"
The preacher stepped close—allowing Trumbo's full appreciation of his larger stature. His voice remained low and even:
"Sonny, I hear the voice of God every day of my life. Sometimes every minute of every day. Sometimes I wish the Good Lord would shut the hell up and leave me alone. But I answer his call, and I do his bidding. It is my lot."
An awkward pause balanced in midair between the two. After a few moments he continued:
"Sonny, listen to me. When I was in that place I did indeed hear the voice of Jesus Our Savior. Would you like to know what He said?"
Incredulous, Trumbo answered, "I would indeed."
"The Good Lord said, 'Get the fuck out of this house. Now.' Print that in your damn paper." He left without another word.
Finding himself unable to follow Father Morningstar's sensible example, Trumbo walked back to the house on shaking legs—and entered on an appalling scene.
The boy was sitting up in his crib, pulling leeches from himself and throwing them in the direction of the doctor. Shielding his face with one hand while hurriedly packing his medical equipment with the other, the doctor paused only to stomp a stray leech before running out the door. The mother was screaming.
The child then vaulted over the side of his crib and did what appeared to be a dance before stopping suddenly to face Trumbo. Said what sounded like:
"Lakjufa doir estay?"
Trumbo turned to the mother—"Madame, do you speak English?"
"Yes. Some." Her voice was shaken, but she made an attempt to calm herself for the benefit of her uninvited guest.
Trumbo spoke slowly and precisely: "Is your son speaking in a language that you know?"
"It is not Sicilian if that is what you ask."
"How long has he been speaking?"
"He only one. Before today, he no speak."
"Not at all?"
Tears flowed freely down her cheeks as she replied:
"Before today he no walk either. Only crawl. Now he run. Dance."
The pair looked back at the boy, who'd begun clucking like a rooster. Trumbo instinctively backed away from him—to his horror, he noted the child's mother had done the same.
The child interrupted his performance to take another step towards the reporter.
"Lakjufa doir estay?" His voice was high in timber, but still far too deep for a child his age.
"I...don't understand."
"Lakjufa doir estay? Lakjufa doir estay? Lakjufa doir estay?" the child insisted, stepping closer with each reprise. Trumbo felt a strong urge to make a dash for the door as the doctor and preacher had done, but the pathetically desperate eyes of the mother paralyzed his movement.
"I'm sorry," he said finally.
The child rolled his eyes and let out a final squawk before quickly extracting a piece of charcoal from the stove's belly with pink little fingers. Dropping to all fours, he rapidly scratched seemingly random letters and numbers to the floor with the coal:
U UERI NAD PTEL FUYQ LORD
EAF VULCFOL IYLRLCO AFN
EFEHDS SNUB STGSY ORTET
HSONU ETKDS BCSHE EOAOK
EREH ESRE PEYR EVWE
4X5X4/4X4X1
The boy then leapt into the air and back over the rail of the crib, landing in a fetal position with a soft thud, immediately falling into a deep sleep. Mutually dumbfounded, the two could only stare at the child's still form for several moments, not knowing what to expect next.
Trumbo took pencil and paper from his bag to write down, for the record, the nonsense message the child had so frantically scribbled on the floor.
After several moments of no new horrors, Anabella Carolla dissolved into a fresh wave of tears. Not knowing what else to do, Trumbo cautiously placed his arms around her. She did not resist; in fact, she hardly seemed to notice he was there.
"Ma'am," Trumbo offered uncertainly, "I will summon another doctor..."
"No, no, no. It no use. This is third doctor. And fourth priest. Catholic priests no longer come. Is why this one a negro. He my baby's last hope. And he go too."
"Listen. I will be back. And I will bring help. Trust me, dear, I will be back."
"You will not be back. Is all right. Understand."
"No. I will be back. I swear it." Trumbo turned towards the door and added, "My name is Marshall Trumbo, reporter for The Item." To his surprise he felt no sting of shame in stating his credentials.
She smiled weakly, "You are good man, Marshall Trumbo, reporter for The Item. You come back." And then, after a moment, "I am Anabella Carolla. My boy is Dominick. He is good boy."
"I know who you are, dear. Stay with your son and don't lose hope."
He left her, strange thoughts whirring in his head on the long walk home. Trumbo had gone to the Carolla house that morning in search of redemption, but the current workings of his mind seemed only to spell damnation.
He'd heard strange stories from reliable sources about an abortion doctor in the red-light district who went by the name of Doctor Jack. As the stories went, Doctor Jack was a medical doctor of the lowest possible esteem; not only was he a negro who made his living snuffing the hapless unborn from the wombs of whores, he was also a known witch doctor, catering to the superstitious needs of the city's voodoo-worshipping African population. Trumbo considered himself a good Christian who never took stock in such things, but what he had seen today was not possible. A witch doctor, he conceded to himself, may be this poor family's last hope.
Convinced it would be wrong not to help—by any means—an innocent mother and child victimized by matters so clearly beyond the reach of scientific or Christian methods, Trumbo resolved to risk damnation. Perhaps, he thought, it is not wrong to fly in the face of a God who would allow such an abomination to occur on this earth. Perhaps, he nearly concluded, God is not at all the benevolent being that his well-meaning parents had taught him to believe in so unquestioningly as a child.
Marshall Trumbo lowered to his knees. He wanted desperately to pray. He found that he could not.
Instead, he wept.
Chapter five
Gin Joint
Furnished with crates meant for produce and one square table salvaged from a junked riverboat and bought with a dollar, Charley's gin joint always managed an empty feeling about it, even on weekends when the crowds pushed in. Wooden crates filled with barber supplies (along with others containing cheap booze) pressed tight and high against the back wall near a pump, basin, and pail; the three purposefully grouped together at the ready. The air was hot and hazy from home-rolled cigars, eight flickering oil lamps giving smoke an appearance of impossible weight.
A fourteen-year-old boy played cornet every night of the week at Charley's, the sound of it being mostly sour, unrefined, crazy in pitch. The kind of noise people don't get paid to make.
Real musicians played for real dollar bills in a section of town centering approximately around and gravitating towards the point where Customhouse Street met Basin. Played for real dollar bills while pretty girls danced with little or no clothes on, enticing rich white men from out-of-town to put paper money in a hat, make their choice, bring a girl up the stairs for an hour or a night. This boy was not a real musician—and too young to be a part of that scene, anyway. So he blew for nothing at Charley Hall's every night, infringing on the ears and sensibilities of card players who were just drunk enough not to care.
A girl about the same age as the boy but three inches shorter sat cross-legged near his feet; the only female in New Orleans in-love-enough to venture into a joint like Charley's. The whites of her eyes: nearly as yellow as her dress. Her hair: long, straight, black. Her skin: the color of coffee with a generous splash of cow's milk. Sucking on a cigar butt and looking sick, she appeared utterly lost in the god-awful noise of the boy's horn.
Being payday, the players were betting real money. Some pulled up ahead and some kept losing, but even on payday there's never enough money to make anyone significantly richer or poorer in Orleans Parish. This was one of the few blessings of being poor in the Parish; not enough money to get mad about.
Marcus Nobody Special rarely had the cash to pay for his swallows, and so was fussing with Charley again. "This damn rotgut liquor ain't worth more than a gravedigger's bad credit anyhow."
"If ya don't like it ya can drink and not pay some-other-damn-where," countered Charley, who poured Marcus a fresh snort just the same.
Bap. Bap-bap. Buh-bap, bap, buh-bap.
A knock on the back door. A secret knock, a passcode for members. Gin joints like this were not strictly legal and faced away from the street for a reason. Charley unbarred the backdoor to reveal the imposing figure of Beauregard Church.
Pre-liquored up for reasons of economy and grinning like a skull, Beauregard carried with him an old leather sack containing a few odd items meant for luck, ready for a few hands with the boys.
"Damn, Buddy—cain't you play that thing any quieter? Have a little respect for the dyin', wouldja?" Beauregard pointed to a large bandage covering the left side of his head. The kid, Buddy Bolden, stopped blowing momentarily, and the sudden absence of sound turned the girl's face tragic.
"I think it's beautiful," she said, with eyes wet and dreamy.
"Man, that's what I call true love!" one of the card players piped up. A round of wheezy snickers filled the room.
"Let the boy practice, Beauregard," said Charley, still smiling. "If he don't, he won't get no better—then we'll all be hurtin' for a much longer section of time."
Snickers blossomed into full out laughter as Buddy stabbed thick air with the loudest, most annoying note his skinny body could push clear of the horn. The girl smiled triumphantly and Beauregard winced mightily.
Like most in his profession, Charley the Barber possessed some basic doctoring skills and so walked over to Beauregard with a look of mild concern. "Let me have a look at that, old man." Beauregard sat low on a crate near the basin so Charley could remove his bandages and clean the wound, dabbing away dried bits of blood and skin with a dampened cloth. Marcus looked away—he saw dead folk everyday, but the sight of real human suffering always made him uneasy. Charley applied fresh cotton and cloth to Beauregard's head and Marcus sighed with relief.
Before an hour could pass, Beauregard found himself down to his last four nickels and dozing off with a jack, two tens, a five, and a four held loosely in his right hand.
BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP!
A knock on glass, hard and fast and not in code. Beauregard's droopy eyes propped open, wide and quick. Buddy stopped playing; everyone instantly quiet without need of being shushed. Though it wasn't in code, the knock was familiar. A cop knock.
The girl jumped to her feet as a lone mosquito broke the silence; flying too near an oil lamp, crackling into oblivion.
"Goddamn," whispered Charlie, pressing extra hard on the "damn."
Marcus scratched thoughtfully at the hole where his nose used to be. "Prob'ly nothin', cap'n," he offered quietly to no one in particular, attracting a handful of irritated, nose-wrinkled glares. Damn their noses, thought Marcus.
Spell of quiet.
Then:
BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP!
This time accompanied by unintelligible, muffled shouting.
"Lord, Lord." Charley shook his head with casual dread before snuffing all but one of the hanging oil lamps. "C'mon, boy," he said, looking at Buddy. The usual drill was to march Buddy out, explain to the copper that Charley was giving the boy a horn lesson, that the time had slipped away and he hadn't realized the hour. Charley opened the door leading from the backroom to the barbershop, just enough for himself and Buddy to pass through.
The man outside was no cop. White fella; dressed nice, built thin.
Charley's mood dropped from nervous to put-out. What's this dumb cracker want this time of night? "Closed!" yelled Charley towards the assaulted but so-far-unbroken pane of glass positioned decoratively across the door's upper third—as if this fancy white cat might be looking for a haircut in the dead of night from a black barber who doesn't even cut white people's hair.
BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP!
Louder than before this time, near to breaking glass.
"Son of a bitch," Charley spat, barely under breath. Then, louder; "Don't be breaking my damn glass, now! I'm comin', I'm comin'!" He walked to the door quickly, turned the key, cracked it.
Turned on the Uncle Tom way of talking that grumpy white folks seemed to like so much: "Sir, if we's makin' too much noise, I's shore sorry. I's just giving some music lessons to the boy." Charley motioned to Buddy who stood by the back door, smiling and waving his horn perfectly on cue, "and I guess we just—"
"Are you the one they call Doctor Jack?"
"Am I the...? Well, no sir. No, I ain't—"
"I was told he would be here. It's very important that I—"
"No one here by that name, sir. Just me and the boy—I's just giving him a lesson and we went a little late is all—"
"I swear to you that I'm not a police officer. It's very important that I talk to Doctor Jack. Please." The man's voice was fake-calm, panic leaking through at the edges.
"Like I said, mister, we was just—"
"I'm not a police officer, damn you, but if you try my patience I can be provoked into providing one." Getting that all too familiar I'm-white-and-you're-black-so-do-as-you're-told kind of huffiness—but there was also a cold desperation in the man's eyes, and this fact rang a bell of sympathy in Charley's cautious heart. "Now, please," the intruder continued, "understand that I mean you no harm. This is very important business."
Charley the Barber looked the man up and down, then asked, sans Uncle Tom, "What sorta business?"
The man let out a breath of relief, measured his tone, "Medical business. Emergency medical business. The kind that most doctors don't do. It has to be Doctor Jack. Please." He placed a hand on the door as if to push it open.
Charley softened his eyes, but held the door firm. Said:
"No coppers?"
"No. Absolutely not. No police. I swear it." The man offered Charley his hand, but Charley only looked at it—pretty, soft, white, spidery little thing; not telling of a single day's hard work. Charley couldn't bring himself to shake it—afraid he might scuff it up. But he did open the door.
"Follow me."
Marshall Trumbo followed Charley through the darkened barbershop towards the backroom entrance where young Buddy Bolden stood, horn in hand. "I could hear you playing from outside," said Trumbo.
"Sir?" Buddy's voice sounded nervous. Wasn't accustomed to white folks talking directly at him in soft tones.
"I heard you playing. Sounded nice."
Catching the compliment as he opened the gin joint door, Charlie broke into gentle laughter. "You really do need a doctor. Lord, Lord! Sounded nice? Ha!"
Buddy Bolden grinned.
The door to the adjoining card room opened wide, and the first set of eyes to meet Trumbo's were the ones closest to the surviving lit lamp; pale brown eyes pounding like cool sun into his own. Trumbo found himself staring at a weathered, coffee-colored face framed with white blotchy hair, a terrible scar where a nose used to be. The urge to shudder came and went quickly, Trumbo fighting it off through force of will and sheer good manners. Charley lit a thin stick from the remaining lamp before making the rounds again, relighting the seven lamps he'd snuffed only moments ago. The flames caught quickly, and the lamps illuminated just fine. The girl refocused on Buddy with loving eyes; still looking sick, still smiling.
Charley made a move towards breaking ice: "This nice gentleman wants to know where he can find a person called Doctor Jack. Any of you fellas know what he may be talkin' 'bout?"
A beat. Then: Heads turned down, card game resumed. Beauregard pulled some cards from his lousy hand, slapped them down, said, "Hit me three times," when he should've just folded.
"Gentlemen," Trumbo started, a crack in his voice, "I'm not here to cause any trouble. I only—"
"And who might you be, sir?" The question came from the dealer, a middle-aged dark brown man with peculiarly straight hair that just touched his shoulders. The dealer laid down three cards for Beauregard without looking up.
"My name is Marshall Trumbo. I'm a news reporter by trade, but that isn't why I'm here. It's about the Carolla child—maybe you've heard—"
"Newspaper man, eh?" the dealer said, still not looking up. "You fellas did a helluva job crucifying those Sicilians. Shameful stuff, that."
Trumbo paused, decided on honesty: "Actually, I agree with you. That whole ugly business made me reconsider what I do for a living." Trumbo got the impression no one was buying that line of talk, however true it might be. No matter. "But I'm here about the child of one of the Sicilians—the man's name was Carolla..."
Beauregard, now wide awake and stone sober, laid down his losing hand with a grunt, "I'm done." Gave the reporter a hard stare.
"I've heard about the child," said the dealer, making a mental note of Beauregard's reaction. "What interest would newspaper folk have with that sort of trouble—other than for a good ol' eye-poppin' story? Sell some papers, a story like that, I guess."
"I was there today—at the Carolla house—looking for a story, like you said. But the doctors left. The priest called Morningstar—he was there, too—but also left."
The girl broke her gaze from Buddy momentarily to throw Trumbo a suspicious glance.
"No one wants to help—and I promised the mother I would try. The boy—he's...well, he's in a desperate state. You wouldn't believe me if I told—"
"How does this Doctor Jack person fit in to this goodwill expedition of yours, sir?" the dealer interrupted, still looking down, still laying cards.
A moment's pause, then: "I had heard, well, I'd heard stories..."
The dealer laughed. "Stories, eh? Well, don't believe everything you hear, mister. Lots of superstitious folks in Orleans Parish, y'know. Yes indeed."
"Yes, yes, of course—I know that. But today I saw things—that, well, that gave me pause." He pulled a folded paper from his inner breast pocket, began to unfold it. "That one-year-old boy, a boy who before today could neither speak nor walk, scribbled letters of the alphabet on the floor of his mother's house. I wrote them down here." Trumbo held the page up.
"Lemme see that, mister," said the dealer.
Trumbo pulled it back. "No. I need to find this Doctor Jack fellow." Refolding it. "So please, if you would only—"
"What if I were to tell you that I was this Doctor Jack fellow, mister?" Eyes hard, yellow, streaked with red. Green with black in the middle.
Trumbo turned to Charley the Barber who nodded. Trumbo's hand lowered, holding the paper out to Doctor Jack, the dealer.
Jack unfolded it and looked hard at the words. "A one-year-old baby wrote these letters?" he asked.
"Yes. On the floor. With charcoal."
"Hmm." A pause. Beauregard and Marcus were looking over Jack's shoulder, staring at the sheet with wide eyes.