Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy

stared at Craig’s shirt pocket, trying to see if the cigarette pack was full enough to risk asking for one.

Craig watched him as he approached. “I almost went home,” he said curtly.

“You wouldn’t leave old ’Trane!”

“The hell I wouldn’t. See if I’m here next time.”

Beltrane sidled up next to him, putting his hands in the pockets of his thin coat, which he always wore in defiance of the Louisiana heat. “I got held up,” he said.

“You what? You got held up? What do you got to do that you got held up?”

Beltrane shrugged. He could smell the contents of the bag Craig held, and his stomach started to move around inside him a little.

“What, you got a date? Some little lady gonna take you out tonight?”

“Come on, man. Don’t make fun of me.”

“Then don’t be late!” Craig pressed the bag against his chest. Beltrane took it, keeping his gaze on the ground. “I do this as a favor. You make me wait outside my own goddamn shop, I just won’t do it no more. You gonna get my ass shot.”

Beltrane stood there and tried to look ashamed. But the truth was he wasn’t much later than usual. Craig came down on him like this every couple of months or so, and if he was going to keep getting food from him he was just going to have to take it. A couple years ago Beltrane had worked for him, pushing the broom around the store and shucking oysters when they were in season, and for some reason Craig had taken a liking to him. Maybe it was the veteran thing; maybe it was something more personal. When Beltrane started having his troubles again, Craig finally had to fire him but made some efforts to see that he didn’t starve. Beltrane didn’t know why the man cared, but he figured Craig had his reasons and they were his own. Sometimes those reasons caused him to speak harshly. That was all right.

He opened the bag and dug out some fried shrimp. They’d gone cold and soggy but the smell of them just about buckled his knees, and he closed his eyes as he chewed his first mouthful.

“Where you been sleepin’ at night, ’Trane? My boy Ray tells me he ain’t seen you down by Decatur in a while.”

Beltrane gestured uptown, in the opposite direction of Decatur Street and the French Quarter. “They gave me a broke-down cab.”

“Who? Them boys at United? That’s better than the Quarter?”

Beltrane nodded. “They’s just a bunch a damn fucked-up white kids in the Quarter. Got all kinds a metal shit in their face. They smell bad, man.”

Craig shook his head, leaning against the store window and lighting himself another cigarette. “Oh, they smell bad, huh. I guess I heard it all now.”

Beltrane gestured at the cigarette. “Can I have one?”

“Hell, no. So you sleeping in some junk heap now. You gone down a long way since you worked for me here, you know that? You got to pull your shit together, man.”

“I know, I know.”

“Listen to me, ’Trane. Are you listening to me?”

“I know what you gonna say.”

“Well, listen to me anyway. I know you’re fucked in the head. I got that. I know you don’t remember shit half the time, and you got your imaginary friends you like to talk to. But you got to get a handle on things, man.”

Beltrane nodded, half smiling. This speech again. “Yeah, I know.”

“No, you don’t know. ’Cause if you did you would go down to the VA hospital and get yourself some damn pills for whatever’s wrong with you and get off the goddamn street. You will fucking die out here, ’Trane, you keep fucking around like this.”

Beltrane nodded again and turned to leave. “You better get on home, Craig. Might get shot out here.”

“Now who’s making fun,” Craig said. He tried to push himself off his window, but the glass had grown into his head. His shoulders were stuck, too. “It’s too late,” he said. “I can’t go home. I’m stuck here forever now. God damn it!”

“I’m goin’ up to the white neighborhood,” Beltrane said. He avoided looking at Craig, turned his back to him, and started to walk uptown.

“Yeah, you go on and get drunk! See what that’ll fix!”

“I’m goin’ to find that little Ivy, man. She always hang out up there. This time I’m gonna get that girl.”

“I can’t understand you anymore. My ears are gone.” And it was true: Craig had been almost wholly absorbed by his window now, or maybe he had merged with it. In any case, his body was mostly gone. Only the contours of his face and his small rounded shoulders stood out from the glass; his lower legs and feet still stuck out near the ground. But he was mostly just an image in the glass now.

Beltrane hurried down the street, feeling the beginnings of a cool wind start to kick up. He glanced behind him once, looking for Craig’s shape, but he didn’t see anything.

Just the empty storefront staring back at him.

* * *

Beltrane stands in front of the mirror and watches his face for movement. He exerts great concentration to hold himself still: The slopes and angles of his face, the wiry gray coils of beard growing up over his cheeks, the wide round nostrils—even his eyelids—are as unmoving as hard earth. The skin beneath his eyes is heavy and layered, and the fissures in his face are deep, but nothing seems out of place. Nothing is doing anything it isn’t supposed to be doing.

He’s standing over one of the sinks in the shelter’s bathroom. It has five partitioned stalls, most of which have lost their doors, and a bank of dingy gray urinals on the opposite wall. After a moment the door opens and one of the volunteers pokes his head in. When he sees Beltrane in there alone, he comes in all the way and lets the door swing closed behind him. He’s a heavy man with high yellow skin, a few dark skin tags standing out on his neck like tiny beetles. Beltrane has seen him around a little bit, over the couple of days he’s been here, kneeling down sometimes to pray with folks that were willing.

“You all right?” the volunteer asks.

Beltrane just looks at him. He can’t think of anything to say, so after a moment he just turns his gaze back to the mirror.

“The way you charged in here, I thought you might be in trouble.” The volunteer stays in his place by the door.

Beltrane looks back at him. “You see anything wrong with my face?”

The man squints but comes no closer. “No. Looks okay to me.” When Beltrane doesn’t add anything else, he says, “You know, we have strict policies on drug use in here.”

“I ain’t on drugs. I got this thing here … I don’t know, I don’t know.” He lifts his shirt and turns to the volunteer, who displays no reaction. “Can you see this?” he asks.

“That street there? Yes, I can see it.”

Beltrane says, “I think I’m haunted.”

The man says nothing for a moment. Then, “Is that New Orleans?”

Beltrane nods.

“I guess you’re here from Katrina?”

“Yeah, that’s right. It fucked my world up, man. Everybody gone.”

The man nods. “Most people from New Orleans are going up to Baton Rouge or to Houston. What brings you all the way to Florida?”

“My girl. My girl lives here. I’m gonna move in with her.”

“Your girlfriend?”

“No, my girl! My daughter!”

“You’ve been here two days already, haven’t you? Where is she?”

“She don’t know I’m coming. I got to find her.”

Beltrane stares at himself. His face is dry. His hair is dry. He lifts his shirt to stare at the hole there one more time, but it’s gone now; he runs his hand over the old brown flesh, the curly gray hairs.

The volunteer says nothing for a moment. Then, “How long has it been since you’ve seen her?”

Beltrane looks down into the sink. The porcelain around the drain is chipped and rusty. A distant gurgling