head.
One week she'd show up having just read Hesse, or The Seven-Storey Mountain, and that's where everything would begin and end, that was the whole world. Maybe life wasn't about possessions, about personal gain or power, she'd tell me, maybe what was important was this struggle, trying to understand yourself and others even when you knew you never could. Or she might talk about communities, what they were, how important it was to become part of one, to turn away from what she called the lure of your own reflection in the mirror.'
'I can't remember being that young anymore, Lew. I know I was, all those grand thoughts running through me, but I can't remember it, can you?'
'Some days, a few good days, I'm still that young.'
Verne nodded. 'Let me get coffee started.'
She came back with the sugar bowl and a quart carton of Schwegmann milk. 'Ready in a minute.'
'Her name was Mary Catherine, but she went by Cathy. Didn't take me long to catch on to how smart she was, and I asked if she'd thought about college. ''You didn't go to college,' she said, 'and you know everything.' What I knew, I told her, I'd managed to learn the hard way, assbackwards and stubborn like I did most things, reading books the way ore companies strip-mine mountains, taking what I could of the best stuff and leaving the rest in ruin, and I wasn't about to recommend that for anyone else.
' 'It can get expensive,' I told her, 'but there are all kinds of scholarships and loans available.'
'I remember her looking up at me and saying, 'Oh, that wouldn't be a problem.'
'Month or so later she tells me she's been accepted up at LSU. She'll come visit on holidays, she says, and she does, the first couple, but then she stops. Not that I was surprised. Never expected anything else.'
Verne went to the kitchen, returning with coffeepot and hotpad. Cups were already set out on the table. She poured.
'You still didn't know who she was?'
'Not a clue. I must have changed living quarters a couple of times in the next few months, I was doing that a lot then-'
'At least you had a place,' Mother said.
LaVerne's eyes met mine. She shook her head gendy.
'Then one day I'm coming home, around the big house and through unruly hedges-I was supposed to cut them, as part of my rent, but never got around to it-to the little one where I live out behind, and someone's waiting by my door, looks like he might juggle tractors to stay in shape.
' 'Do something for you?' I ask.
' 'Nope.'
'I have the keys in my fist, sticking out between fingers.
' 'You Griffin?'
'Yeah.
' 'Jimmie Marconi says he appreciates what you did for his kid.'
'I don't know this Marconi or his kid, I tell the guy.
' 'Sure you do. Mary Catherine.' His eyes remind me of Cathy's back when I first saw her. Flat, blank, affectless.
' 'She's okay, then?'
'He shrugs. 'How okay's someone like that ever get? You askin' me if she's straight, yeah, she's straight. For now.'
' 'Look, it's hot out here. You want a beer?'
' 'Mr. Marconi told me I should find you and tell you this, so I did. Now you got his message. No way I'm goin' in your house, sit down with you.'
' 'Okay,' I said after a moment.
' 'Mr. Marconi says you ever need a favor, anything he can do for you, come see him.'
' 'Thank him for me. But what I did had nothing to do with him.'
' 'In Mr. Marconi's world, everything has to do with him.' And tipping one finger to his hat, he waded away into the hedges, merry mystery to all and to all a good night.'
I was sipping brandy by this time. Mother peered pointedly at my snifter each time I swirled or lifted it.
'Sounds like you sure got to know yourself some fine folk here in the city,' she said. 'I know who I have to know.'
Verne touched her wrist softly. 'Lew's good at what he does, Mildred.' Pressure remained a moment. Then to me: 'What's next?'
'What else? I hit the streets.'
'Carrying as cargo your photo of the mystery lady, hoping some sailor, in some port somewhere, may have seen and remember her.'
'Doesn't sound like much to go on, does it, once you strip it down like that.'
'Maybe you could lay off some of the bet, Lew. You know someone who's all over this city every day, uptown, downtown, sideways and in between. Finding out what the regulars are up to, finding out who's new in town, where they came from, why they're here.'
'Doo-Wop.'
Verne nodded. 'More coffee, Mildred?'
'No thank you, dear. Dinner wasfine as always, but I think I'll be off to bed now. You-all here in the city eat considerable later than I'm accustomed to. And try as I might, I can't make much sense out of this getting to bed at one or two in the morning some days, sleeping your whole way through others.'
'Rest well, Mildred.'
Verne freshened my brandy and poured one for herself. We sat for a while in silence. She got up and kicked offher shoes, put on CosiFan Tutti, reached under her shirt to pull off her bra (which she hung on a doorknob) and stretched out beside me on the couch. We listened to the sounds of traffic, to the call-and-response of people walking by outside. Mozart's music broke over us like water in a brook.
'I can help too, Lew. I'm out there every night. Lot of us are. Your woman's still in town, chances are good that sooner or later one of us, one way or another, could come across her.'
'I ever tell you how wonderful you are?'
'I'm not sure. I'll check my notes tomorrow. Right now I don't want to move.'
'Not working tonight, then?'
'I called a while back. Victoria says she'll cover for me.
'Your regulars won't mind?'
'They all like Vick. Everybody does.'
'Want another brandy? Coffee?'
She shook her head. Moments went by. Body warm and still beside me. Music washing over us.
'I like this, Verne. I like what my life's become with you in it. I like what I've become.'
She raised herself on elbows so that we were face-to-face. 'You should, Mr. Griffin,' she said. 'Tou most definitely should.'
6
My thoughts kept circling back to a couple of things those days. Vietnam was scarcely over, all that ungodly mess in Central and South America just ID beginning to surface. the firstwas a passagefrom (I think) Man's Fate, describing how someone has withdrawn fromthe world; how still, as he reaches for his book, for his pipe and tobacco tin, his arm enters-moves through-that world around him.
Second was something Bob Dylan said about peace, that periodically everybody had to stop to reload and while they were reloading, those few moments, that was peace.
Ten o'clock the next evening as I walked into Soft Machine deep in the Quarter, those notions were stomping through my mind in heavy boots again. Soft Machine was the only bar in town back then devoted to new jazz. A dozen patrons comprised a rush and two or three was the usual run, while up the street, at Preservation Hall,
