Same Place, Same Things Page 6

  The welder threw in yet another ante, riffling the dollar bills in the pot as though figuring how much it weighed. “Well, he was hurt enough to get the company to pay him a lump sum after he got a four-by-four lawyer to sue their two-by-four insurance company. That’s for true. My frien’, he always said he wanted a fancy car. The first thing he did was to drive to Lafayette and buy a sixty-five-thousand-dollar Mercedes, yeah. He put new mud-grip tires on that and drove it down to the Church Key Lounge in Morgan City, where all his mud-pumpin’ buddies hung out, an’ it didn’t take long to set off about half a dozen of them hard hats, no.” Simoneaux shook his narrow head. “He was braggin’ bad, yeah.”

  The engineer opened his cards on his belly and rolled his eyes. “A new Mercedes in Morgan City? Sheee-it.”

  “Mais, you can say that again. About two, tree o’clock in the mornin’ my frien’, he come out, and what he saw woulda made a muskrat cry. Somebody took a number-two ball-peen hammer and dented every place on that car that would take a dent. That t’ing looked like it got caught in a cue-ball tornado storm. Next day he brought it by the insurance people and they told him the policy didn’t cover vandalism. Told him he would have to pay to get it fixed or drive it like that.

  “But my frien’, he had blew all his money on the car to begin with. When he drove it, everybody looked at him like he was some kind of freak. You know, he wanted people to look at him—that’s why he bought the car—but they was lookin’ at him the wrong way, like ‘You mus’ be some prime jerk to have someone mess with you car like that.’ So after a week of havin’ people run off the road turnin’ their necks to look at that new Mercedes, he got drunk, went to the store, and bought about twenty cans of Bondo, tape, and cans of spray paint.”

  “Don’t say it,” the deckhand cried.

  “No, no,” the engineer said to his cards.

  “What?” Raynelle asked.

  “Yeah, the poor bastard couldn’t make a snake out of Play-Doh but he’s gonna try and restore a fine European se-dan. He filed and sanded on that poor car for a week, then hit it with that dollar-a-can paint. When he finished up, that Mercedes looked like it was battered for fryin’. He drove it around Grand Crapaud and people just pointed and doubled over. He kept it outside his trailer at night, and people would drive up and park, just to look at it. Phone calls started comin’, the hang-up kind that said things like ‘You look like your car,’ click, or ‘What kind of icing did you use?’ click. My frien’ finally took out his insurance policy and saw what it did cover. It was theft.

  “So he started leaving the keys in it parked down by the abandoned lumberyard, but nobody in Grand Crapaud would steal it. He drove to Lafayette, rented a motel room, yeah, and parked it outside that bad housing project, with keys in it.” The welder threw in another hand and watched the cards fly. “Next night he left the windows down with the keys in it.” He pulled off his polka-dotted cap and ran his fingers through his dark hair. “Third night he left the motor runnin’ and the lights on with the car blockin’ the driveway of a crack house. Next mornin’ he found it twenty feet away, idled out of diesel, with a dead battery. It was that ugly.”

  “What happened next?” The pilot trumped an ace like he was killing a bug.

  “My frien’, he called me up, you know. Said he wished he had a used standard-shift Ford pickup and the money in the bank. His wife left him, his momma made him take a cab to come see her, and all he could stand to do was drink and stay in his trailer. I didn’t know what to tell him. He said he was gonna read his policy some more.”

  “Split pot again,” the deckhand shouted. “I can’t get out this game. I feel like my nuts is hung up in a fan belt.”

  “Shut your trap and deal,” Raynelle said, sailing a loose wad of cards in the deckhand’s direction. “What happened to the Mercedes guy?”

  The welder put his cap back on and pulled up the crown. “Well, his policy said it covered all kinds of accidents, you know, so he parked it in back next to a big longleaf pine and cut that sucker down, only it was a windy day and soon as he got through that tree with the saw, a gust come up and pushed it the other way from where he wanted it to fall.”

  “What’d it hit?”

  “It mashed his trailer like a cockroach, yeah. The propane stove blew up and by the time the Grand Crapaud fire truck come around, all they could do was break out coat hangers and mushmellas. His wife what lef’ ain’t paid the insurance on the double-wide, no, so now he got to get him a camp stove and a picnic table so he can shack up in the Mercedes.”

  “No shit? He lived in the car?”

  The welder nodded glumly. “Po’ bastard wouldn’t do nothin’ but drink up the few bucks he had lef’ and lie in the backseat. One night last fall we had that cold snap, you remember? It got so cold around Grand Crapaud you could hear the sugarcane stalks popping out in the fields like firecrackers. They found my frien’ froze to death sittin’ up behind the steering wheel. T-nook, the paramedic, said his eyes was open, starin’ over the hood like he was goin’ for a drive.” The welder pushed his down-turned hand out slowly like a big sedan driving toward the horizon. Everybody’s eyes followed it for a long moment.

  “New deck,” the engineer cried, throwing in his last trump and watching it get swallowed by a jack. “Nick, you little dago, give me that blue deck.” The oiler, a quiet olive-skinned boy from New Orleans’s west bank, pushed the new box over. “New deck, new luck,” the engineer told him. “You know, I used to date this ol’ fat gal lived in a double-wide north of Biloxi. God, that woman liked to eat. When I called it off, she asked me why, and I told her I was afraid she was going to get thirteen inches around the ankles. That must have got her attention, because she went on some kind of fat-killer diet and exercise program that about wore out the floor beams in that trailer. But she got real slim, I heard. She had a pretty face, I’ll admit that. She started hitting the bars and soon had her a cow farmer ask her to marry him, which she did.”

  “Is a cow farmer like a rancher?” Raynelle asked, her tongue in her cheek like a jawbreaker.

  “It’s what I said it was. Who the hell ever heard of a ranch in Biloxi? Anyway, this old gal developed a fancy for steaks, since her man got meat reasonable, being a cow farmer and all. She started putting away the T-bones and swelling like a sow on steroids. After a year, she blowed up to her fighting weight and then some. I heard she’d about eat up half the cows on the farm before he told her he wanted a divorce. She told him she’d sue to get half the farm, and he said go for it. It’d be worth it if someone would just roll her off his half. She hooked up with this greasy little lawyer from Waveland and sure enough he got half the husband’s place. After the court dealings, he took this old gal out to supper to celebrate and one thing led to another and they wound up at her apartment for a little slap-and-tickle. I’ll be damned if they didn’t fall out of bed together with her on top, and he broke three ribs and ruined a knee on a night table. After a year of treatments, he sued her good and got her half of the farm.”

  The deckhand threw his head back and laughed—ha-ha. “That’s a double screwin’ if ever there was one.”

  “Hey, it don’t stop there. The little lawyer called up the farmer and said, ‘Since we gonna be neighbors, why don’t you tell me a good spot to build a house?’ They got together and hit it off real good, like old drinkin’ buddies. After a couple months, the lawyer went into business with the farmer and together they doubled the cattle production, specially since they got rid of the critters’ worst predator.”

  Raynelle’s eyebrows came together like a small thunderhead. “Well?”

  “Well what?” The engineer scratched an armpit.

  “What happened to that poor girl?”

  All the men looked around uneasily. Raynelle had permanently disabled a boilermaker on the St. Genevieve with a corn-bread skillet.

  “She got back on her diet, I heard. Down to one hundred twenty pounds again.”

  “That’s the scary th
ing about women,” the day fireman volunteered, putting up three fingers to ask for his draw. “Marryin’ ’em is just like cuttin’ the steel bands on a bale of cotton. First thing you know, you’ve got a roomful of woman.”

  Raynelle glowered. “Careful I don’t pour salt on you and watch you melt.”

  The engineer released a sigh. “Okay, Nick, you the only one ain’t told a lie yet. Let’s have some good bullshit.”

  The young oiler ducked his head. “Don’t know none.”

  “Haw,” Raynelle said. “A man without bullshit. Check his drawers, Simoneaux, see he ain’t Nancy instead of Nicky.”

  Reddening, the oiler frowned at his hand. “Well, the cows remind me of something I heard while I was playing the poker machines over in Port Allen the other day,” he said, a long strand of black hair falling in his eyes. “There was this Mexican guy named Gonzales who worked with cows in Matamoros.”

  “Another cow farmer,” the deckhand groaned.

  “Shut up,” Raynelle said. “Was that his first name or second name?”

  “Well, both.”

  “What?” She pitched a card at him.

  “Aw, Miss Raynelle, you know how those Mexicans are with their names. This guy’s name was Gonzales Gonzales, with a bunch of names in between.” Raynelle cocked her ear whenever she heard the oiler speak. She had a hard time with his New Orleans accent, which she found to be Bronx like. “He was a pretty smart fella and got into Texas legal, worked a few years and became a naturalized citizen, him and his wife both.”

  “What was his wife’s name?” the pilot asked. “Maria Maria?”

  “Come on, now, do you want to hear this or don’tcha?” The oiler pushed the hair out of his eyes. “The cattle industry shrunk up where he was at, and he looked around for another place to try and settle. He started to go to Gonzales, Texas, but there ain’t no work there, so he gets out a map and spots Gonzales, Louisiana.”

  “That that rough place with all the jitterbug joints?”

  “Yep. Lots of coon-asses and roughnecks, but they ain’t no Mexicans. Must have been settled a million years ago by a family of Gonzaleses, who probably speak French and eat gumbo nowadays. So Gonzales Gonzales gets him a job working for two brothers who are lawyers and who run a horse farm on the side. He gets an apartment on Gonzales Street, down by the train station.” The oiler looked at a new hand, fanning the cards out slowly. “You know how badass the Airline Highway cops are through there? Well, this Gonzales was dark and his car was a beat-up smoker, so they pulled him one day on his way to Baton Rouge. The cop stands outside his window and says, ‘Lemme see your license,’ to which Gonzales says he forgot it at home on the dresser. The cop pulls out a ticket book and says, ‘What’s your last name?’ to which he says, ‘Gonzales.’ The cop says, ‘What’s your first name?’ And he tells him. That officer leans in the window and sniffs his breath. ‘Okay, Gonzales Gonzales,’ he says real nasty, ‘where you live?’ ‘Gonzales,’ he says. ‘Okay, boy. Get out the car,’ the cop says. He throws him against the door hard. ‘And who do you work for?’ Gonzales looks him in the eye and says, ‘Gonzales and Gonzales.’ The cop turns him around and slams his head against the roof and says, ‘Yeah, and you probably live on Gonzales Street, huh, you slimy son of a bitch.’ ‘At Twelve twenty-six, apartment E,’ Gonzales says.”

  The deckhand put his cards over his eyes. “The poor bastard.”

  “Yeah.” The oiler sighed. “He got beat up and jailed that time until the Gonzales brothers went up and sprung him. About once a month some cop would pull him over and give him hell. When he applied for a little loan at the bank, they threw his ass in the street. When he tried to get a credit card, the company called the feds, who investigated him for fraud. Nobody would cash his checks, and the first year he filed state and federal taxes, three government cars stayed in his driveway for a week. Nobody believed who he was.”

  “That musta drove him nuts,” the welder said, drawing four cards.

  “I don’t think so, man. He knew who he was. Gonzales Gonzales knew he was in America and you could control what you was, unlike in Mexico. So when the traffic cops beat him up, he sold his car and got a bike. When the banks wouldn’t give him no checks, he used cash. When the tax people refused to admit he existed, he stopped paying taxes. Man, he worked hard and saved every penny. One day it was real hot and he was walking into Gonzales because his bike had a flat. He stopped in the Rat’s Nest Lounge to get a root beer, and they was this drunk fool from West Texas in there making life hard for the barmaid. He come over to Gonzales and asked him would he have a drink. He said sure, and the bartender set up a whiskey and a root beer. The cowboy was full of Early Times and pills, and you coulda lit a blowtorch off his eyeballs. He put his arm around Gonzales and asked him what his name was, you know. When he heard it, he got all serious, like he was bein’ made fun of or something. He asked a couple more questions and started strut-tin’ and cussin’. He pulled out from under a cheesy denim jacket an engraved Colt and stuck it in Gonzales’s mouth. ‘You jerkin’ me around, man,’ that cowboy told him. ‘You tellin’ me you’re Gonzales Gonzales from Gonzales who lives on Gonzales Street and works for Gonzales and Gonzales?’ That Mexican looked at the gun and I don’t know what was going through his head, but he nodded, and the cowboy pulled back the hammer.”

  “Damn,” the welder said.

  “I don’t want to hear this.” Raynelle clapped the cards to her ears.

  “Hey,” the oiler said. “Like I told you, he knew who he was. He pointed to the phone book by the register, and after a minute, the bartender had it open and held it out to the cowboy. Sure enough, old Ma Bell had come through for the American way and Gonzales was listed, with the street and all. The cowboy took the gun out his mouth and started crying like the crazy snail he was. He told Gonzales that he was sorry and gave him the Colt. Said that his girlfriend left him and his dog died, or maybe it was the other way around. Gonzales went down the street and called the cops. In two months he got a six-thousand-dollar reward for turning in the guy, who, it turns out, had killed his girlfriend and his dog, too, over in Laredo. He got five hundred for the Colt and moved to Baton Rouge, where he started a postage stamp of a used-car lot. Did well, too. Got a dealership now.”

  The day fireman snapped his fingers. “G. Gonzales Buick-Olds?”

  “That’s it, man,” the oiler said.

  “The smilin’ rich dude in the commercials?”

  “Like I said,” the oiler told the table, “he knew who he was.”

  “Mary and Joseph, everybody is in this hand,” the pilot yelled. “Spades is trumps.”

  “Laissez les bons temps rouler,” the welder sang, laying an eight of spades on a pile of diamonds and raking in the trick.

  “That’s your skinny ass,” Raynelle said, playing a ten of spades last, taking the second trick.

  “Do I smell the ten-millionth rollover pot?” the engineer cried. “There must be six hundred fifty dollars in that pile.” He threw down a nine and covered the third trick.

  “Coming gitcha.” Raynelle raised her hand high, plucked a card, and slammed a jack to win the fourth trick. That was two. She led the king of spades and watched the cards follow.

  The pilot put his hands together and prayed. “Please, somebody, have the ace.” He played his card and sat up to watch as each man threw his last card in, no one able to beat the king, and then Raynelle leapt like a hooked marlin, nearly upsetting the table, screaming and waving her meaty arms through the steamy engine room air. “I never won so much money in my life,” she cried, falling from the waist onto the pile of bills and coins and raking it beneath her.

  “Whatcha gonna do with all that money?” the oiler asked, turning his hat around in disbelief.

  She began stuffing the bib pockets on her overalls with half-dollars. “I’m gonna buy me a silver lame dress and one of those cheap tickets to Las Vegas, where I can do some high-class gamblin’. No more of this penny-ante stuff w
ith old men and worms.”

  Five of the men got up to relieve their bladders or get cigarettes or grab something to drink. The pilot stood up and leaned against a column of insulated pipe. “Hell, we all want to go to Las Vegas. Don’t you want to take one of us along to the holy land?”

  “Man, I’m gonna gamble with gentlemen. Ranchers, not cow farmers, either.” She folded a wad of bills into a hip pocket.

  Nick, the young oiler, laced his fingers behind his head, leaned back, and closed his eyes. He wondered what Raynelle would do in such a glitzy place as Las Vegas. He imagined her wearing a Sears gown in a casino full of tourists dressed in shorts and sneakers. She would be drinking too much and eating too much, and the gown would look like it was crammed with rising dough. She would get in a fight with a blackjack dealer after she’d lost all her money, and then she would be thrown out on the street. After selling her plane ticket, she would be back at the slot machines until she was completely broke, and then she would be out on a neon-infested boulevard, her tiny silver purse hanging from her shoulder on a long spaghetti strap, one heel broken off a silver shoe. He saw her at last walking across the desert through the waves of heat, mountains in front and the angry snarl of cross-country traffic in the rear, until she sobered up and began to hitch, picked up by a carload of Jehovah’s Witnesses driving to a convention in Baton Rouge in an unair-conditioned compact stuck in second gear. Every thirty miles the car would overheat and they would all get out, stand among the cactus, and pray. Raynelle would curse them and they would pray harder for the big sunburned woman sweating in the metallic dress. The desert would spread before her as far as the end of the world, a hot and rocky place empty of mirages and dreams. She might not live to get out of it.

  The Courtship of Merlin LeBlanc

  The baby woke up after lunch, and her grandfather changed her on the sofa, spooning baby food into her until she spat it back at him. It was then he realized that his daughter had left no toys for the child. He spread out a blanket on the floor, turned on the television, and went out of the room for a minute. When he came back, the baby had the TV cord in her mouth, and he realized with a pang that he couldn’t keep his eyes off her for a minute. The baby stared at him and he stared at the baby. He went into his bedroom and fumbled through a box in his closet where he kept his shotgun shells, then returned with twenty or so, giving them to the child as playthings. There were shiny red Remingtons, green Federals, yellow Winchesters, and a cheap all-plastic orange variety he had bought at Wal-Mart. They were waterproof and too big to choke on, so he figured they’d be safe.