Hole in the Wall

“To Hell with them. To Hell with all of them.” That is what she thought as she flew over the bridge in her old, dented Miata. She was, to use her grandfather’s expression, “loaded for bear.” She had gotten her hair cut short and spiky and dyed red for danger. She clothed herself in black leather and dark denim.

Her father always said she was a stupid, lazy, good-for-nothing slut, even after she’d gotten the scholarship to USM. He said she was as much of a whore as her mother, who had left so long ago. Well, she’d gone and proven him right. That was the worst part. She’d slept with the first boy who’d so much as looked at her, now she was pregnant. He’d dumped her and transferred out-of-state as soon as he’d found out.

She turned up the radio. Ah. It was The Violent Femmes. Very good.

She screamed along with Gordon Dano and company, "And I take one, one, one ‘cause you left me…”

“Sonofabitch,” she cursed softly.

The radio blared, “And two, two, two for my family…”

She’d never been to New Orleans, despite living in the next state. Her father wouldn’t even let her go to the mailbox by herself and now she was going to dangerous, post-Katrina New Orleans for Mardi Gras with money she’d stolen from him.

She had no place to stay, only the satisfaction that her tears had finally turned to rebellious anger and the forlorn hope that a couple of nights sleeping in her car and some heavy drinking would dislodge the problem. At least it would allow her to forget it for awhile and make her father angry.

In the small hours of Tuesday morning, she parked on the edge of the French Quarter and crossed the demarcation line of Esplanade. Wandering the narrow, old streets, she saw the creamy blossoms of Japanese Magnolia trees glowing in the dim light of pre-dawn and yellow jasmine twining around iron gates. She dodged the vagrants and drunken tourists who were already crowding the sidewalks and lurking in every doorway to make her way to the Moonwalk and see dawn yawning delicate petal and shell colors over the river. Café du Monde was already crowding up but she managed to get some café au lait and beignets.

Drifting all day, she didn’t even drink. She hadn’t the heart for it and what good would it do, anyway? The noise, the crowds, the smells whirled around her. Indians proclaimed, “Iko, Iko, Unday,” Clarinets wailed, drums boomed, and the crowds screamed. Pirates, aliens, and stranger creatures walked the streets. The smell of spilt drinks, spoiled food, and vomit wafted up from the gutters.

It was as if, were she to touch one of the people thronging around her, her hand would pass right through them and they would evaporate into the fetid air. She felt that disconnected.

Oblivious, she walked from the busy streets of the Vieux Carrè to a neighborhood where many houses were still boarded up and had the arcane symbols of FEMA and the National Guard painted on their doors. She barely registered her surroundings.

The sun sank behind the tall buildings of the CBD in an explosion of violet and coral and the sky went blue. There was music pouring from an open doorway. Wondering if there was a club there, she moved toward the sound, which was slower and deeper than the than the primal beat throbbing through the rest of the city.

She walked up the stairs of the large Creole cottage. The bar was very dimly lit. Here was a hole in the wall she could crawl down. Even the stage was so dark the band members were faceless shadows except for the singer. She stood out like the moon in the night sky.

The chanteuse looked too young to be in a bar and was ethereally thin and pale. She glowed. Her alabaster skin, briefly clad in an ivory sheath, was incandescent. Even her mahogany hair and light brown eyes seemed lit from within.

There was a patina of the antique about the little singer, despite her modern dress and the fact she looked barely out of junior high. Her hair was very long and unadorned. There were no bangs and no layers in it and it fell in a simple river almost to the floor.

It was her voice, though, that sent shivers down the runaway’s spine. That voice should not have come from that slip of a girl-child. It was so dark and deep it should have come from a forty-year-old who was no stranger to whiskey and unfiltered cigarettes.

“My heart belongs to Daddy…” she moaned huskily into the microphone.

The runaway’s eyes began to focus and she could see pale bodies reflecting the dim candlelight at the low tables. She moved slowly toward the bar. She could hide in the dark here and might as well have what her grandmother called, “general anesthesia.”

She nearly screamed when the bartender looked up at her to take her order. He was a light-skinned black man and, like the little singer, there was a hard brilliance about him, but it was his weird, pale eyes that startled her. They were the color of ice.

He asked, “What can I get for you, chile?”

Those arctic eyes seemed to soften and she thought she detected pity in his voice. Well, he had no call to pity her.

She raised her chin, squared her shoulders, and replied, “I’ll have a glass of wine, please.”

“That’s all we got, anyway,” he said and handed her a glass of garnet-colored liquid.

“Thank you,” she said. “I prefer white wine but, if this is all you have left today, I’ll take it.”

“It’s all we ever have, chile,” he said, then, after a long pause, he continued, “Be careful. Don’t fall down no holes you can’t crawl back out of.”

“I can take care of myself,” she retorted.

He just shook his head in a resigned manner.

She took her drink and found a corner of perfect darkness. She sipped and shuddered. It was very strong. The singer had moved on to another song.

On stage, the singer wailed like a soul in torment, “In the pines, in the pines…”

A dark-haired man with opalescent skin and eyes like pools of midnight came up to her and offered her another drink. She could see he was handsome and well-dressed.

The singer still howled, “Where the Sun don’t ever shine…”

She felt dizzy and sleepy. The singer’s voice was bourbon and molasses. She said yes.

The bleak song reached its climax, “I would shiver the whole night through…”

The girl felt quite dizzy now and allowed the man to lead her down the long, unlit hallway and into one of many secluded rooms. The way he took her coat and purse with a little bow was so old-fashioned and gentlemanly, like something her grandfather would do. It put her at ease. He smiled at her.

His teeth…there was something about his teeth. He came closer and kissed her, trailing his lips down her neck.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered and she felt a sharp pain…

It was more than a month before she was found twisted in wisteria under the tall pine trees north of Lake Pontchartrain. A clear stream with a sandy bottom gurgled nearby and the birds made nests of her hair.