“Then what?” I stab. Maybe the answers will continue.
“Then I rally the troops.”
“We,” I correct her.
“We,” she says in a bitter-edged tone, “destroy Gram and every last fucking rat who works for him.”
Chapter 2 Morning Wreckage
Joshua
Early morning is waning. The city is quietest right before the dawn, even this close to dreaded Bourbon, as if the whole place can feel the weight of our arrival. Soon the sun will rise.
We haven't slept. Freddy and Isaiah are on Magazine Street, waiting in an apartment above a restaurant. Maria and I are on St. Ann's at our friends' hotel. Even in the hushed darkness the humidity clings to everything. Fog from the river rolls over uneven streets, the Quarter's ghost, voodoo secrets stealing soundlessly by to bewitch all the souls it touches, so that they may never truly leave.
In this tiny hotel, they only had one room open with one bed, but I couldn't bring myself to leave her. Reality and trauma have started to run together, to blur my waking hours. I'll sleep on the floor.
The girls are very welcoming and protective, even though housing us could be dangerous. They insist on feeding us from their continental breakfast stash: apples, bananas, muffins, whatever they can convince us to swallow. They valiantly attempt to fill us beyond our emotional capacity to handle eating. Then they steep some hot chai while they get the essential information, mostly from me because Maria has gradually slipped back into silence since we arrived.
The girls, our gracious establishment owners, remain challengingly defiant toward anyone who would mess with their extended family or their hotel in a way that only middle-aged lesbians can manage. I'm glad they're on our side.
After our meager meals, they all cry together for a while, and Maria escapes to our room. I manage to hang back and to keep the ice that has hardened my emotions from melting. I have taken post in one of their high-backed, lavender upholstered chairs in the lobby, almost dissolving into its surface. I wish I could.
The girls flip on the local news at six on the little television behind the front desk. This just in: reports of suspected arson or meth lab gone wrong in Biloxi. A house exploded in a quiet, residential part of town. There are no suspects at this time. Several people were believed to be inside. It could be as long as twenty-four hours until police can investigate. The fire is still burning. The Mississippi staties are on this one due to the suspicious nature of the blaze.
“That goddamned girl is crazy,” Kris, who never wastes a chance to blaspheme, mutters under her breath.
She is smoking a cigarette and fanning herself with a little paper fan. It has a cherry blossom tree on it, blazing pink next to her short, bottle-black hair. The same three clips of the burning house are playing on every channel of the TV.
“They killed her brother,” Lilian answers, sipping on the blackest coffee I've ever seen, with lips that are nearly as pink as Kris's fan. For most redheads, the combination wouldn't work, but for her it is strangely erotic.
“Joshua,” she adds, turning her eyes on me, startling me from my introspective rambling. “You need to take good care of her.”
She's giving me a hard, scrutinizing look that she reserves for men, especially ones in their mid-twenties. Her long bangs parted on the side make her look younger, aside from the way her forehead is hitched upward and her pink mouth set so straight. If I didn't know better, I'd be scared right now.
“I'm doing my best.”
I'm so tired, I'm quickly riding past exhaustion to delirium. My eyes are dry and red and heavy. My muscles ache but I can't seem to relax them. My foot is twitching. Yeah, I'm tired, but I don't think I can sleep.
Lilian doesn't answer. She doesn't say anything. Her expression turns to something like scrutinizing concern.
“Go on to bed, boy. You look like shit,” Kris chimes in, turning her wide-set, brown eyes on me before she turns her head the other way to blow smoke at a nearby aloe plant.
I think I thank them again as I take my exit as gracefully as possible. I think I said it as I stumble down the hall, but I may have just thought the words. Two tries with the big metal key and I'm tentatively pushing open the door.
I find Maria on the tiny, private balcony, leaning into the sunrise. She has showered, guilt gone into the gutters of a city that loves sin. Still, her skin is damp in the thick air, the color of cities much farther south than this, against a white terrycloth robe that holds her. Her black hair makes large, loose curls coming alive to taste the air.
Red bougainvillea blooms on the wrought iron railing. Her chin tilts slightly, letting morning kiss her closed and swollen eyelids. The glow of her skin stops me, throws me at the feet of beauty itself to declare that I am but her knight. The most perfect light comes early in the morning and late in the afternoon. She makes it holy, puts so many models to shame. They could never wear the scars she does. They could never understand such appeal. I am not worthy.
She turns as if she can feel me. There's no mercy in those eyes, certainly no remorse. Only timeless, seamless, and amber witchcraft. Slowly she breathes in, out, in, like an acid trip perfected. Sleep deprivation and sensory overload render me silent. The robe hugs her, urges long breaths. Fresh, heavy rays bounce off of her hair, anointing her goddess of the grimy street.
“I can go,” I choke, barely able to speak under the gravity of her golden gaze.
The first smells of the restaurant world are wafting around us, warm and rising, morning food. A hangover is
