The Long-Legged Fly

Tucked away anonymously beneath an intersection of elevated expressways, the New Orleans Greyhound station resembles nothing so much as a bowling alley. It even smells like a bowling alley: sweat, sexual frustration, beer, piss, disinfectant, tobacco smoke, french fries, onion rings.

Cabs were stacked up at the exit, their drivers hunched over racing forms, newspapers or a game of craps on the sidewalk nearby. A tall black man in yellow kept watch over incoming buses and incoming youngish women. Inside I found the usual assortment of street people hoping for a warm place to sleep, guys and girls on the make for whatever the market might bear, teenage brides with kids in arm and tow, soldiers with duffel bags, dips and junkies, a few older couples visiting grown children or out to “see America.” As I walked in one door a guy went through the plate glass of another door, pursued by two of the city’s finest. No one paid them much attention.

Cherie was sitting in one of the back pews of plastic chairs, eyes wide. A cheap brown suitcase and a huge shoulderbag were on the floor beside her. No one was in the next chair, so I took it. It was slick with sweat, beer, whatever.

“Hi,” I said.

“Do I know you?” Eyes even wider.

“No, Cherie, you don’t. But I’m a friend of your brother’s, of Jimmi’s, and I need to talk to you.”

“How’d’ja know I was here?”

“Does it matter?”

After a moment she shook her head.

“Last night Jimmi was attacked by some hoods in the Quarter, some kind of youth gang apparently. They beat him up pretty bad and long. He’s dead, Cherie. But before he died he’d asked me to find you for him. He was worried about you, and he loved you. I only wish I could have done it sooner, but I let my own life get in the way. I’m sorry for that. Jimmi was pretty special to me.”

“To me, too,” she said. “He was all I had, and I do thank you. But you’d best leave now, Mr.-?”

“Griffin. No, I don’t think so.”

It took about five minutes. I watched him stand up from his seat across the room, slowly make his way toward us. Six-four and muscles to match, wearing a polo shirt and white jeans with a tan linen sports coat, California hair.

“Pardon me, sir,” he said. “But the lady has asked you to move along, I think.”

“That’s right.”

“It really would be in both our interests if you would do so, sir.”

“Probably so, otherwise you might have occasion to get your hair mussed. But not in the lady’s, n’est-ce-pas?”

I looked up at him, half a mile at least, remembering Bible School stories of David and Goliath.

“I know you’re a big, powerful man, sweetheart, and you’re probably used to people trembling and maybe a few of them wetting their pants when you speak. The name’s Lew Griffin. Maybe you should step out into the street and ask around before you do anything … precipitate?”

If he didn’t buy the tough-guy act, maybe he’d think I was too smart to beat up.

“My employers will be most unhappy,” he said after a moment.

“I certainly hope so.”

“The girl’s going with you, then?”

“Woman. If she wants to, yes.”

We both looked at Cherie. She finally nodded.

“Perhaps we’ll meet again,” California said.

“Could be. I’ll buy you a drink if we do.”

“I don’t drink. Destroys brain cells.”

“Vous avez raison. Quand vous avez si peu….”

“What’s that?”

“Just agreeing with you is all.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, sure. Well, take care, Lew Griffin.”

“Always have.”

He turned and walked through the now glassless door, ducking low. I saw him climb into a cab outside and wait until the driver looked up from the crap game and noticed he had a fare. The cab swerved out into traffic, sending a Cadillac into the next lane and into the path of a battered VW bus. Five minutes later, traffic was backed up half a mile or more.

We walked a couple of blocks over to the car and drove home. If she wondered where I was taking her, she didn’t ask. Maybe she’d got used to letting other people make her decisions for her these past weeks. It was almost five as we turned onto St. Charles, and New Orleans was starting to show the first signs of day, like in horror movies when the corpse’s hand begins to open and close there at the edge of the screen but no one notices.

Vicky was working a day shift. I showed Cherie the bathroom and spare bedroom and settled into the kitchen. Presently I heard the two of them talking. They came in together just as I slid the omelette out of the pan. Fruit was already sliced and arranged on another platter. I stacked toast on a saucer, poured coffee for us all, and brought warm milk to the table with me in its small copper pot.

We ate slowly, Vicky and Cherie talking for the most part, mostly about Vicky’s work.

“I’d really like that, different all the time, meeting new people, really doing something,” Cherie said.

“Well there’s always a need for volunteers and nurses’ aides, if you’d fancy that. You might be able to work your way into a regular job then.”

“I’ll have to just take whatever I can get, for now. I don’t even know where I’m going to stay.”

Vicky and I looked at one another.

“You’re welcome to the spare bedroom here for as long as you need it,” I said.

“Oh, I couldn’t do that, Mr. Griffin.”

“Lew.”

“That’s up to you, then,” Vicky said. “But the room’s here if you want it. It’s never used.”

“I know what it’s like not to have anywhere or anyone to go to, Cherie; I’ve been there. Vicky knows too. She was raised in a French orphanage.”

Cherie picked a grape out of the cluster at the center of the fruit plate.

“When we were growing up, our parents had this tiny little arbor in the backyard, just four whitewashed poles, some chicken wire and stakes, a few wild vines. There was a swing on the tree nearby, really a door Dad had hung with steel cable, and Jimmi and I’d sit at opposite ends of that swing eating grapes and spitting the seeds at each other. I haven’t thought of that in a long time.”

“I really must scoot on out of here,” Vicky said. “Cherie, please feel free to help yourself to anything of mine that you might need. Are you going in to work today, Lew?”

“I’ll catch some sleep first, I think, then see.”

“Then I won’t ring you. Au revoir.”

She leaned down and touched my cheek with her own. I wondered what it would be like without her, what I would be like without her. It was a little like trying to imagine the world without trees or clouds.

“I’ll clean up, Mr. Griffin.”

“Lew. But I’ll do it.”

“I’d really rather have something to do, if you don’t mind. You go on and get yourself some sleep.”

“You’re sure?”

She nodded.

“Then you’ve got it. Listen: for as long as you’re here, this apartment is your own. Use what you need, come