Sometimes the Cold Creeps In

SOMETIMES THE COLD CREEPS IN

By Bob Higginbotham

Chapter 1

I can see the lights of New Orleans in the midnight sky miles beyond the headlights of the old truck. Beneath the glow of the hovering odyssey, the French Quarter is alive with jazz bands, bar hoppers, and business ladies.

Fez and I are on our way from Point Cypress to pick up my mom. She works as a dancer on weekends, so we give her a ride during the wee hours of Sunday morning. I don’t know how my mom and I happened to hook up with Fez Leger. I was too young to remember when it happened, and Mom never talks about it. I wish he would vaporize.

Fez has one hand on the wheel and the other holds a Jax longneck beer. His eyes are almost shut while he is measuring the shoulders of the narrow road. There are bayous on both sides as we travel through the swamp, and there are gators in those bayous.

I break my silence to keep him awake. “It's twelve midnight, Fez! I am ten years old!”

“Shut up, fartface. Ten years old? You need to start mowing yards for extra beer and coffee money! Remind me to get the old push mower running next week.”

I stare at his ugliness and give him the silent treatment, which he hates. Then, just before his ears shoot steam, I mumble, “Yes, sir.”

At this point in my life, I am old enough to know the hand I was dealt wasn’t a full house, but still too young to know where to start looking to find out why.

We finally pull into a familiar alley off Bourbon Street and park near a rear exit door. Something is different. A long black car sits idling in the alley.

Mom appears through the rear exit of the club, followed by the massive frame of a man who fills the doorway behind her. I see a smile form on his face as they approach Fez’s truck.

“So, this is Fez.” His coarse laughter echoes through the alley.

Mom looks nervous. “Fez, this is my boss, Big Jack. He says I must go to Memphis for advanced dance training. He is taking me, and it may be a while he says.”

She glances at me, forcing a smile. In a fury, Fez launches his beer bottle. It shatters in the grill of the black car. He grabs her arm.

“Over my dead body you’ll go to Memphis!”

“That can be arranged, sewer rat!” The big guy body slams Fez into the bed of his truck, and like a rag doll, Fez lies motionless.

Mom reaches for me, “Come along, Jake baby. We must be moving on.”

Big Jack steps between us. “Iris, that ain’t happening and you know it. You can retrieve that boy later.”

“No, Jack!” Mom skirts around him, grabs me, and begins to sob. She slips me a note written on a napkin. Jake, I promise I will come for you soon, but do not lose this information. It’s the name of your late dad’s brother and where he lives, just in case.

“Mom! It’s my birthday!” My words ring hollow and distant as Big Jack drags her to his car.

Fez suddenly comes to life. “Wait a minute! Y’all got to take him, I don’t want him!”

Mom leans out the car window. “Fez, you'd better take care of that boy, or I swear I’ll kill you! Jake, baby, go to the big church with the high steeple. Find a nun and tell her what happened!”

Paralyzed by betrayal and fear, I can only watch as the big car pulls onto the street and Fez’s truck disappears behind me. Then survival instinct causes my motors to kick in, and I run like the wind after the limo carrying my mom out of my life. It’s all I can do.

The city blocks click by. My lungs burn and my pulse hammers in my ears. My voice strains and cracks.

“But Mom! It’s my birthday!”

I keep the car in sight for several blocks, then it turns onto another street and is gone. Feeling exposed and vulnerable, I meander through the back streets and alleys of New Orleans until I find a fire escape that I can climb. From the third floor, I see my steeple. It's three a.m. I am cold, alone, and looking for a nun.

∞

A clap of thunder warns of a squall charging in off the gulf and wakes me from a sound sleep. It also interrupts an old, familiar dream that brings gut-wrenching fear of how I felt that frightening night in New Orleans. It’s a fear of not knowing what comes next. Every time this recurring dream invades my world, I feel overwhelmed. My hands are shaking, but I manage to click my Timex Indiglo watch. Its soft light brightens my cubby hole in the hay loft of the barn. Homer, my Catahoula hound and soul mate, whines and licks my face.

I open my viewing slot in the barn wall. A hot sluice of lightning illuminates the house and the boat landing. The motorized bateau and the pirogue bang together as the tempest builds. It is past midnight, and Fez’s truck is not at the house, so I figure he is commode-hugging drunk somewhere and not coming home any time soon.

I’m here because Fez returned to New Orleans six years ago and found me, but not because he was concerned about anyone other than himself. There is a check that comes once a month made out to one Fez Leger, provider and foster parent of Silas Jake Mixon--parents deceased. Fez has the check, and I have a roof over my head and food most of the time, thanks to the social workers who make sure I attend school at Jean Lafitte. They and the local Catholic Church keep me in clothes that don’t always fit so well. Not as well as those I get from Jennings Richard.

I retrieve a folded napkin wedged between two boards and read Silas Andrew Mixon, Boonville, Kentucky. I stare at the faded words written in my mom’s handwriting. There is so much I don’t know. One of the two people in this world I thought I could trust has betrayed me. The one who hasn’t betrayed me is Jennings Richard. I never saw my dad. I wish Jennings were my dad, but he isn’t. He is the only person who ever gave me a Bible. He made me memorize a Bible poem that doesn’t rhyme. He said to recite it if I were ever in danger. I begin reciting the twenty-third Psalm, and my fears turn to resolve. I will soon set out to find this uncle, find my mom, find my dad’s name on the Vietnam wall, and then I will find out why I was born. I must know why.

Jennings Richard told me that God has His hand on me, but neither he nor I nor anyone else can see it. Jennings said that if I had a relationship with God, I would understand and be able to feel His hand on me. Well, I don’t know much about all that, but I ponder on it when I am alone, and things are quiet, which is most of the time now that Homer and I have taken residence in the hay loft. The storm rages, but we are dry and hidden from Fez. He has no clue we sleep fifty yards from the house in a barn shrouded in wisteria vines. We soon drift off to sleep.

Chapter 2

Fez’s truck is parked at the house when I awake after daylight, so Homer and I disappear for the rest of the day. It had not been moved when I caught the school bus on Monday morning. It is now Monday afternoon, and I look to see if he is still there as the school bus approaches my stop.

“I’m staying on, Mister Prejean. I’ll get off at the corner stop.”

The bus driver looks over at Fez’s truck and shakes his head.

“You bet, Jake.” He knows Fez, and he knows I am avoiding a hangover, cussing, or worse by staying on the bus.

I get off at the corner and walk down the street toward Jennings’s Auto Repair shop. Jennings Richard repairs cars Monday through Friday, and on Sunday, he serves as minister of music at a little country church. I have no one I can call daddy. I want to call Jennings daddy, but for some reason, I can’t, and my chest gets tight and kind of aches when I think about it. It’s hard to explain, but I think everybody has felt it one time or another. I realize now, and more each day, that Jennings has taken me under his wing, and he probably wouldn’t mind me calling him daddy, but I can’t do it.

Jennings lost his son and his wife years ago when a drunk driver crossed the center line and hit them head-on. I could never be a replacement for his family, so I don’t try to be. Jennings removed me from Fez’s truck once when I was very young. Fez came into the shop, driving drunk. I was standing in the seat. Jennings picked me up with one hand and took Fez’s keys with the other. He kept them until Fez sobered up. Fez was furious and humiliated. Jennings became Fez’s sworn enemy the day he became my best friend.

I ease into his shop and slip around the front-end machine where he is aligning the front end on a Plymouth. He sees me, and his eyes light up. Then he smiles and locks me in a bear hug.

“Hey, my man!” I see the excitement in his eyes as he looks me over at arm’s length.

“Jake, your shoulders are an inch wider than last time I saw you! You are going to be taller than me, and I am six-two. What brings you to the metropolis of Point Cypress, Mr. Mixon?”

“Just avoiding a hangover-cussing, Jennings. Fez staggered in Sunday morning and as far as I know, hasn’t been out of the shack.”

“Have you checked on him, Jake? What if he’s hurt? He could be dead for all we know.”

I silently ponder the mystery of how some other folks I know who go to church and claim to be Christians seem to have the same attitude Jennings has. It’s one of compassion, even for slugs like Fez Leger. I always figured God intended for Fez to be a Cottonmouth Moccasin, but the devil threw a pitchfork into the works and out came Fez.

Jennings says I have it. Compassion, I mean. I don’t know how he can tell, because I seldom feel sorry for anyone. There has to be something in that, and I plan to give the subject more thinking time after I get some other things thought out.

“I guess you could check on him, Jennings. Let me know what you find because I may move back in if he’s done bought the farm and it ain't too ripe in there.”

“Jake, you need to look up what the Bible says about compassion, my man. You still have that Bible I gave you?”

“It’s somewhere. Maybe you could show Fez where compassion is in the Bible if he can read. He ever hit you?”

“No, Jake. He knows better and couldn’t if he tried, but I know he has hit you, and I can understand your feelings about that. I wish he would allow me to just show him some Scriptures, Jake. You know, I don’t believe he was as blessed as you to have a friend give him a Bible when he was young. He was young, once, you know. I don’t believe he has a clue.”

I look away, straining to voice a response, but I can’t get past the frog in my throat. Maybe I do have compassion.

“Come on, Jake, you and I are going to check on Fez.”

Fez’s truck is still parked at a weird angle across the shell-covered driveway, so Jennings parks near the boat landing. I glance through the open window of Fez’s truck as I walk past. His forty-five auto is lying on the seat. I wave at Jennings, give him a shooting sign, and point at the truck. He nods and climbs out of his truck as I enter the cabin and sniff for decaying flesh. I feel a twinge of apprehension. A quick walk-through produces no results. I ease onto the back porch, hear a shuffle of feet, and Fez steps from behind a pile of fishnets with a boat paddle in his hands. Our eyes meet and lock. He appears almost comical with his beady eyes looking down his crooked nose that has been broken several times. I can tell Fez ain’t right. I take two steps back. Fez counters with two steps forward and a homerun swing with the paddle that I manage to duck.

I know another attempt is on the way, so I slip under his swing, dive, roll, and scramble to put a porch post between Fez and me. I reach the post and feel the jolt of someone heavy mounting the porch behind me. I hear a solid thwack. Turning to confront the action, I see that Jennings is face down. He has taken the blow intended for me. His sudden intervention has caused Fez to lose his grip on the paddle. I beat him to it, snatch it up, and end the show with one blow. Fez drops like an anchor.

Jennings’ shirt is covered with blood, and the open wound on his cheek and nose shines with raw flesh.

“Are you ok, Jennings?”

“I’ll live, but you better check on Fez. He’s not moving. Why did you hit him so hard?”

“I am so sorry, Jennings. You’re going to have a scar to remind you of Fez Leger every time you look in the mirror. What a bummer! Your life is ruined.”

I grab one of Fez’s shirts off the clothesline and apply direct pressure to the wound.

“Compassion, Jake, compassion.”

“No, compression, Jennings, compression. Compassion won’t stop this bleeding.”

Fez groans and staggers to his feet. One eye is looking at me, and the other is very dilated and looking at nothing.

“I will feed you to the gators one piece at a time as soon as my eyes clear up enough to see the sights on my forty-five.”

Then he lowers the tone of his voice to just above a whisper and stares at me with one working eye. We are nose to nose.

“I don’t know where you disappear to most of the time and dont really care, but only the swamp creatures will know what became of you when I finish what I am about to start.”

I’m unscathed, but I see a look of concern in Jennings’ eyes as he watches Fez stagger toward his truck.

“Good thing I unloaded that pistol when you signaled me. I threw the rounds into the bayou. There was a full box in the glove compartment. They’re also in the bayou.”

I help Jennings walk around to the driveway and assist him into the passenger side, load Homer into the bed, and climb in behind the wheel of his truck. Fez is gone. I drive the thirty miles to a clinic for stitches. During the dark thirty miles back down the road that winds through the swamp, Jennings is formulating a plan to keep me safe until he can do something about Fez. He knows Fez just needs one opportunity to get the drop on me. Meanwhile, I’ am silently planning for my safety as we ride along. School is almost out. I must figure out how to get some of the money Jennings invested for me years ago. I am also calculating how far I can go by boat before heading across country.

“You must move in with me, Jake, at least for now. You can have your favorite bunk in the spare room above the shop. Meanwhile, I’ll contact your school and demand that they not let Fez check you out of class under any circumstances. We may need a court order, and that’s hard to get on just a threat. You can catch the school bus at my shop. The driver will be glad to stop there for you.”

“I’ll just head back to my hay loft, Jennings. Fez doesn’t know about it. Homer and I will be fine.”

The local anesthetic is beginning to wear off, and Jennings is hurting more with each passing minute. The last thing he wants is an argument with me. He stares at me long enough to peel a pound of boiled crayfish before he speaks.

“You just don’t get it, do you, Jake? Now, I have always admired your courage, but today Fez Leger swore to kill you. I saw a dangerous side of Fez. I also felt an evil presence that seemed to hover around him this afternoon. I have encountered that presence before when I worked with the state board of corrections. I specialized in interrogating suspects of the most hideous crimes ever committed.”

He has my attention. I listen respectfully as he continues. “I felt that same eerie presence that lingers in and around the dark, isolated wards that house the criminally insane. I will not elaborate on what I experienced in those small rooms located in the sub-levels of those gray buildings with no windows. Fez Leger may not be in control of his own thoughts and actions, Jake. We’ll go get your stuff the first chance we have. Case closed.”

I decide not to argue about the lodging.