Note.

This book is set in a time and era of ethnical and political confrontation. Care has been taken that NO offensive language is used. The laws and history have been carefully researched and used in their original context.

ALIEN ENCOUNTER

Part 1

Lord Nelson

 

9:32 PM, 15 December 1965, Pan Am Flight from Houston to Miami.

Don lights a cigarette and looks out the aircraft's window. The sun is just setting, and it has been a long day. He has been following the launch of the Gemini 6 and 7 from the NASA Space Center. When the spacecrafts had managed to dock successfully, there had been a lot of cheering in the room. Then a quick sandwich, a cab to the airport, and now he’s sitting here, smoking, thinking about all the information that he is taking back to Cape Kennedy. But then something catches his eye. “What the hell is that?”

At the same time, in the pilot’s cabin, Captain Anderson, with twenty years of experience as a Pan Am pilot, sees the same thing: “Hey! Look at that!” He points at a large, greenish metal disc that is flying next to the airplane.
“Holy shit!” Co-pilot Martinez looks to the left and watches the large disc approaching.
“It’s not on the radar!” Navigator Green looks up from his instruments.
“Give me our exact position!” Anderson pulls out a pen and is ready to take a note.
Navigator Green looks at his instruments, “We’re just off the coast of Louisiana.”

Engineer Donald “Don” Stewart has put out his cigarette and reaches into his bag to get out his camera. His hands fumble, and the camera lands on the airplane floor. He reaches down as fast as he can, picks it up, and without looking into the viewfinder, he snaps several photos of the large object.
The large metal disc all of a sudden changes direction, stops completely, and hovers in mid-air.
Don starts to tremble and snaps two more pictures, “It’s bloody impossible!” You can’t stop a thing like that, like it was a car!”
All passengers are looking to the left and are trying to catch a glimpse of the strange disc.

Anderson turns his head and swears just as Don, “Dammed! It can’t be!”
Martinez’s voice has a nervous ring to it, “Air traffic control! Air traffic control! We have something to report!”

“It’s a UFO, a dammed, real UFO,” Don looks at his wristwatch, writes down the exact time, and decides to call Houston as soon as he gets off the flight.
Then the metal disc just disappears, as if it had never been there.

10:31 AM, Thursday, March 17, 1966, Road ’56 on the coast of Louisiana.

I stop the car next to the road and pull out the Colt 1911, look at it, and put it to my head. My voice is trembling, “I never had a friend, a family, they used me, they lied to me.” I pull the trigger. Click! I pull it again. Click! I slowly lower the gun, “Welcome to your new life.” I put in the magazine and pull the slide back, a bullet enters the chamber. Then I put the gun on safe and put it back into the glove compartment.
The radio is playing “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes. The same song as that night back in 1963, when Frank waited for me at the motel in Slidell. “You were a swine, Frank!”
I have a quick look at myself in the mirror and adjust my Ray-Bans. My lips tremble when I try to smile. The gear goes into first, and the large, yellow metallic Oldsmobile slowly rolls onto Road 56 again. Chauvin disappears behind me in a dust cloud.

A salty breeze tells me that I’m close to the sea. An old wooden sign comes into sight, I brake and look at it. The name of the town has almost been erased by the sun and the salt, but it must be Alligator, the last town on this road.
Two black girls stop playing with their skipping rope when I drive by. They must live in the blue, well-kept, wooden house behind them. After a quick look at me, they lose interest and go back to jumping. One singing and counting, and the other jumping.
At the Gulf gas station, a young man with short-cut blond hair waves at me. The Oldsmobile rolls past a store where some cars and trucks are parked, and then the Sheriff’s Office. A tall Deputy, who leans against the wooden wall with crossed arms, observes me. Then he writes something down in a notebook.
Farther down the road, another sign, just as worn down as the first one, comes into sight. The tires grab the gravel, and the car stops when I brake. I put the gear into neutral. The sign indicates that Alligator Dock is to the right and that Point Beignet is to the left. I look to the left. It seems like that road hasn’t been used for years. It disappears into the swamp. Large Water Cedars with Spanish Moss hanging from them block out the sun. Slowly, I take off my sunglasses, take a deep breath, and put the car into first gear. There is a strong smell of stagnant water and decaying branches that have fallen into the water. I ease the pressure on the gas pedal and bite my upper lip.

I have my eyes fixed on an old, rusty, steel bridge with an overgrown parking lot next to it. There’s a rattling sound when the tires hit the bridge’s steel deck. The Oldsmobile slips onto the road that is so narrow that there is only room for one car. My hands tremble, and I squeeze the steering wheel. I start to breathe heavily when the image of my mother's face in the water appears in my mind. Her face quickly fades away when I brake. There are three glowing orbs, the size of tennis balls, dancing around in the air, just over the road. I pull the hand brake and take the 1911 out of the glove compartment. The orbs form a triangle and stop. There’s a soft click when I open the car door and slowly step out. My right hand squeezes the Colt’s wooden grip while I try to make out what they are. Then they just disappear, like they never had been there. My eyes blink, I focus on the place where I saw them, and then I slowly move forward. I stop and look around, but they are gone. I look around and listen to the sounds from the swamp for a minute. Everything is normal. Holding the gun to my side, I slowly walk back to the car.
The door closes without a sound, and I put the 1911 next to me on the large seat. A quick look in the rear mirror assures me that there is nothing behind the car.
When the automatic gear switches into first, and I gently press the gas pedal, the sand crackles as the car moves forward.
I think that maybe the orbs were fireflies, but fireflies normally turn out at night. I continue to think while I drive under the dark canopy.

A clear white light blinds me. I quickly put on my green Ray-Bans and look to the left. There’s the sea. The right side is still a menacing dark wall of Water Cedars and stagnant water filled with Duck grass. For a moment, I stop and observe some tiny, white dots, way out on the sea. They must be trawling for shrimp. My lips break up into a smile, and I unconsciously blink. It’s just a whisper, “Welcome to your new life.” This time, I mean it. I’m still smiling when the car slowly moves forward on the road that is covered with white sand.

I never noticed how the three small white orbs had followed me from the bridge, just some inches over the car roof.

11:43 AM, road to Point Beignet.

The narrow road turns into a small peninsula. My Oldsmobile rolls into a turn back. To the right is a large, wooden building with flaking white paint on steel pillars. It's the normal way to prevent flooding here. I stop, turn off the engine, and pull the hand brake. There’s a broken bottle on the stairs that leads up to the large, wooden porch, an overgrown path, and a window shutter to the left that hangs on one hinge. I take a deep breath, “This isn’t what they showed me in the pictures.” My fist lands on the car horn. The loud “Boop” makes me jump back in the seat.
“Can I help you?”
I quickly put my hand into my handbag, and my eyes move from left to right.
A small, black woman, with her curly, white hair tied up in a knot, has come out from a small, wooden house hidden in the shadows of some large trees to the right of my car.
I leave the flap on my handbag unsnapped, the Colt 1911 goes into the glove compartment before I slowly step out. I leave the car door half open, just in case.
She walks towards me, cleaning her hands on the towel.
“Good morning, Miss! Can I help you?”
“No. I don’t think so. Why do you say, Miss?”
“No ring on your finger,” she smiles and giggles.
“That’s hardly any of your business.”
She takes a step back and rubs her hand on the towel while her eyes move from right to left, “I, I, well, just trying to be nice, Miss, nothing else.” She looks around again. “You’re not from here, right?”
“How can you tell?”
“Why, yes, everyone here knows that this ruin doesn’t, kind of, I wanna say, well it’s been closed since 59’.” She continues to clean her hands on the towel. “It’s probably going to float out into the sea when the next hurricane hits us,” she giggles, and then she smiles. “You came here to buy some boil?”
“Boil?”
“Yes, Miss! I make the finest seafood boil on the whole coast. That’s why people come here, to buy my boil!”
I quickly glance over my shoulder at the restaurant and whisper, “They sold me a worthless restaurant.”
“Don’t even look at it! Some people came here and looked at it, to buy it, I mean, but as soon as they saw it, they left,” she laughs.
My eyes become snakelike, I take a step forward, take off my Ray Ban’s and point them at the restaurant, “You know what? That’s my restaurant, I bought it, it’s mine!”
She takes a step back, “I, I was just trying to be helpful.” She’s twisting the towel.
“Helpful? You want to be helpful by calling my restaurant a ruin. Is that being helpful?”
“Miss, I didn’t know, I just…”
Then I make the mistake, “My restaurant is at least three times as big as that little cottage of yours. You know there’s a name for those around here.”
She looks over her shoulder at her small house and then back at me. Now there’s fire in her eyes, “That house was built by my Henry! And I’m not going to let any white trash come here and insult his legacy.”
“White trash! First, you want to be helpful, calling my restaurant a ruin, and now you want to be even more helpful, calling me white trash! Lady, you got some big mouth.”
“Big mouth? Look at you, you come here in a fancy, yellow car, with all those skinny bones stuck into a yellow dress, I can tell where you come from!”
“Where do I come from?” I put my hands on my hips and lean forward.
“I can tell you don’t know anything about cooking.”
“Where do I come from?”
She looks around, waits for a second, and leans forward, “You look like one of them bar girls. Strip club, I’d say.”
An image of the ashtrays, drunk men, and the girl dancing on the stage comes before me. I blink and put on my sunglasses.
“I was right, wasn’t I? That’s what you are, and maybe you do something else too. I’m pretty sure of that.”
My Ray-Bans fly off, and I point them at her, “What the hell did you just say?”
She freezes. Then she looks around and back at me, “I, Lord Jesus, I’m sorry…” She licks her lips and steps back, “I, it just…”
I step forward and wave my Ray Ban’s under her nose, “I’ll turn that restaurant, my restaurant, into the best on the whole coast!”
“You’re going to open a strip club, or what?”
My breathing becomes heavier, and my right hand starts to tremble. I fumble when I put on my sunglasses.
“You got the drinking shakes, that’s what we call them here. You’ve been sitting on men’s laps drinking, isn’t that so, girl? An easy girl, that’s what you are.”
“I’m just going to mind my own business,” I turn around and walk towards the car, slam the door shut, and continue towards the restaurant. She’s following me. I reach the overgrown path that leads to the stairs. I stop for a moment when I remember I have my high-heeled shoes on. I try to make my way through the brush, swaying from one side to the other. My right shoe gets stuck in the sand and slips off my foot.
She is laughing loudly, “Look at you! You’re ridiculous!”
Pure, unrefined hate bubbles up in my mind. I stare at her, push off my left shoe, pick up my shoes, and walk past her barefoot. I take out the car keys, unlock the trunk, throw in the shoes, and take out a pair of army boots, which I put on. I slam the trunk shut, lock it, and then I lock the car door. I walk past her with an angry expression stamped on my face. Now she doesn’t say anything.
I rush up the stairs as fast as my dress allows me, turn around, and take off my sunglasses. “You see how easy it was! I don’t need your helpfulness. You insult me, calling me an easy girl. What the hell do you know about me? Nothing! Nothing!” I point at her house, “You can just sit there and see how I’ll run you out of business! Look at you, living here alone, living on selling boil! Get off my property!”
She looks down: now there’s no more twisting or stretching of the towel. A futile attempt to look up, but she turns around and slowly walks back to her house. Now the towel is used to wipe away her tears. The door closes behind her.
I lean on the railing, and then I slam my fist on it, “You stupid idiot! You just couldn’t stay quiet.” I slam the railing again, take off the sunglasses, and wipe away the tears with my left hand, blink, and try to breathe calmly. My right hand starts to tremble again, “Easy now, easy.” Frank's face comes before me. “He’s not here. No one’s here now. It all belongs to the past.”

When the old woman’s window curtains move, I realise that I must have been standing there without moving for at least five minutes or more. “Let’s see what’s inside,” I take out the envelope from my handbag, open it, and take out a key ring. There’s a big key that must be the one for the front door.
There’s some resistance, but then there’s a click. The large door opens inwards. A thick coat of dust covers the whole restaurant, and I can tell by the air that nobody has been here since they closed it. I sigh, “Your ticket to a new life.”
I walk past the two sofas, which are covered with sheets, the five large tables, and a bar to the right. The shelves are filled with glasses. The kitchen swing door creaks. I take out my notebook and a pen and quickly jot down that I need to buy some oil for the hinges. The kitchen is all electric. To the left, there’s an enormous freezer and refrigerator, and just next to it, a door. I push it open and step into a hallway. There are two doors on each side and a bathroom at the end. I open one of the doors, inside there’s a bed, a desk, a chair, a mirror, a large wardrobe, and at the end of the room, there’s a window. All the rooms are the same. The water in the bathroom comes out red, but then it turns clear. I walk back into the kitchen and put my finger on the light switch. Click. The lights go on. “Why didn’t they turn off the electricity?” There’s a humming sound when I turn on the freezer and refrigerator. Then I try the large electric kitchen. Everything works perfectly. “They just abandoned the place, why?” In one of the drawers of the desk, I find a calendar from 1959. On the January page, someone has written in red: Batista flees Cuba. There’s also a notebook with a circular logotype on it depicting an atom. “Atomic Energy Commission?” I flip through the pages, and there are some notes about something called Mark IV, which weighs four tons, and on one page is written in red “Project L” within a red square. “Some client must have forgotten it here.” I smile when I think that maybe the man is still looking for it. At that moment, I didn’t know how right I was going to be. I throw the calendar and notebook back into the drawer and close it. Then I look at the back door, find the right key, and unlock it.

I get blinded by the strong, white light. I put on my Ray-Bans and wait for a second before I open my eyes. There’s a shed halfway down a path that leads to a beach. An old pelican is sitting on a dock to the left.
I walk down onto the path. When I open the shed, I find that there are some jerry cans with gasoline in them, some carbide lamps, tables, and chairs for use on the restaurant's front porch. Some buckets with dry paint. I close the shed’s door, thinking that they must have used the lamps during the hurricanes.
When I reach the beach, I take off my boots and walk into the cold water. A smile appears on my lips. I know that I can turn this into a paradise, my paradise.
“I’ll call you Lord Nelson!” I wave to the old Pelican.
Lord Nelson flaps his wings and quacks; it must be his way of laughing. He probably never saw a blond woman with freckles and a yellow dress standing in the water.

1:16 PM, Point Beignet Seafood Restaurant.

I go over the list again in my notebook, trying to make sure that I’ve written down everything that I need to clean the restaurant. The sound of a truck approaching makes me jump down from the barstool. The notebook and the pen stay on the bar while I walk up to the large front window, hide behind the wall, and carefully peek out.
An old, rusty Ford truck with a Confederate flag in the back window has parked just in front of the old woman’s house. The driver is honking aggressively. My right hand grips the Combat Magnum in my handbag.
The driver, a young man with greasy blond hair dressed in a checkered shirt and dirty jeans, steps out. He sways a little from side to side. He must be drunk. Another young, but dark-haired man, almost falls out of the passenger's side. He waves a bottle in his hand and laughs.
“Hey! How’s the day going!” The blond man has stopped swaying and leans forward. He points at an old wooden sign next to the house promising the best boil and mudbugs in Louisiana. “Didn’t you hear what I said? How’s that bug selling going?” He reaches into the truck and honks a couple of times.
The door opens slowly, and the old woman looks out, “Please, Mister, just go away. I don’t want any problems.”
The blond driver puts his hands on his hips and leans backwards, “You’re afraid of me, or something?” He smiles at his friend, “Well, hell, we just came here to investigate how the mudbug business is going.”
His friend laughs so much that he almost falls to the ground. Then he drinks again and passes the bottle to the blond one.
The old woman looks from one to the other and shakes her head, “Please, leave, just leave.”
“The business must be doing well!” He leans forward, has a drink, and gives the bottle back to his friend. Then he points at my car, his voice becomes that of a hissing snake, “Now, you tell me, how can an old woman, who only sells bugs, own a yellow, metallic 98 Rocket Oldsmobile?” He stretches every word, and then spits on the ground.
“It’s not my car!” She looks at my restaurant but doesn’t say anything.
“Ain’t nobody else around here!”
When the blond drunk glances at the restaurant, I quickly hide behind the wall.
“Who’s dammed car is it?” He reaches down and picks up a large stone.
“It’s not mine!” The old woman closes the door.
The blond man throws the stone at the door, “How’s the bloody mudbug business going?”
His friend falls to the ground laughing, but without letting go of the bottle.
The blond one looks around and finds an even bigger stone. He picks it up and looks at the house, “Hey! Come out and tell me who’s car it is!” He laughs, “Otherwise, yeah, hell, I’m going to ruin your business!”
The dark-haired can’t stop laughing, “Don’t forget to smash the car too!”
For a moment, I just stare at the two men who are harassing the old woman. “That’s what I said too, that I was going to ruin her business.” My voice is very low.
The second stone lands on the woman’s door with a large bang.
The blond one finds another, this time he’s aiming for one of the windows, “Come out, you bug seller!”
That’s it, I open the door and rush up to the railing, “Hey, you! Yes, you dammed, stinking dog shit! Blondy, you throw that stone, and I’m going to make you pay for it!”
The stone falls from Blondy’s hand. He turns around with his mouth wide open. He looks to the sides, at his friend, who has stopped laughing, and then back at me, “Where the hell did you come from?”
The dark-haired points at me with the bottle, “She came out from that, that old restaurant there!”
He tries to focus his drunk eyes on me. “Get the hell back into that restaurant!”
I start walking down the stairs with my hand in my bag, “Didn’t you hear what the Lady said: get out of here!”
“Now, did you hear that?” He glances at his friend, and his voice is back to that of a hissing snake, “That, that bitch, told us to get out of here.”
His friend has another drink, “Why don’t you just smash up her car?”
An ugly grin appears on Blondy’s face, “You are just right about that.” He walks over to the truck, reaches in to it, and pulls out a large wrench.
I take two steps back with my hand in the bag. My heart beats like crazy, and slowly I start retreating back towards the restaurant.
Crouching like a monkey and swaying from side to side, he starts to follow me, “You’re afraid now, aren’t you?”
“Hell! She’s wearing Army boots!” The dark-haired man manages to crawl forward and points at me with the bottle.
Blondy stops, looks down at my boots, and then straight at me. The grin is back on his face, “What do you know, a fancy, skinny bitch, yellow dress, and Army boots.”
The other one is rolling around on the ground laughing, “Like that black girl! Yeah, up in Alexandria, was it?”
Blondy glances back at his friend, “Morganza.”
“She was good looking,” he has another drink. “She did a lot of screaming!”
Blondy turns towards the dark-haired one, “Shut up! We don’t talk about that!”
The dark-haired one leans on the truck and tries to get up, “Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.” He falls back on the ground but doesn’t let go of the bottle.
“Miss, get into that restaurant of yours and bolt the door!” The old woman has opened her door and peeks out, “Get yourself a knife from your kitchen!” When Blondy glances at her, she quickly closes it again.
Blondy shows me his yellow teeth; his voice is very low. “You’re going to have it now bitch.” He slowly walks forward, “Maybe you’ll scream a lot too.”
I look back at the restaurant, now I’m close enough to dash for it. I start running as best as I can in my dress. In just a moment, I reach the door, push it open, and hide behind it. My heart is beating like crazy, and I can hardly breathe. I slowly stick my hand into the handbag.
“Nowhere to hide bitch!” Blondy slowly walks up the stairs, banging the wrench against the railing.
He stops outside the half-open door, breathing heavily.
My hands tremble, and I start to sweat. I bite my lips so as not to make any noise.
There’s a loud bang when the door flies open. It almost hits me in the face. He has kicked it open.
Blondy steps in, he looks at the open kitchen door and licks his lips, “Bitch! Now don’t you do something stupid like coming out on me with a knife.” He licks his lips again and raises the wrench over his head, “You do that, and I swear I’m going to smash you up before having fun with you.” The floor planks creak when he slowly moves towards the kitchen.
The smell of him makes me sick. I slowly pull out the Combat Magnum and silently drop the handbag on the floor. I step out from behind the door and take a steady aim at his head. He stops, he must have noticed something, but now he’s mine. Now I can shoot his head off.
Blondy turns around and stares at me. “What the hell?” Then he grins again, “Now you sure as hell are going to have it. Nobody points a gun at me, nobody!” He takes a step forward and raises the wrench over his head, “You skinny bitch!”
I don’t doubt a second. There’s a flash and a loud bang. The wrench flies from his lifted hand and lands with a loud bang next to the kitchen door.
He looks around till his eyes find the wrench. He looks at me, then at the wrench and back at me. He takes a step towards the kitchen.
“Face the wall and get down on your dammed knees!”
He hesitates.
“I’ll blow your head into pieces!” I step forward. There must be hate in my eyes because he looks down, then he looks up. “I shot the wrench out of your hand, your head is a bigger target!”
He holds up both his hands, “Miss, I, just… easy now.”
“Don’t you come talking no Miss to me! Know what? I’ll put two shots in your stomach and get one of the jerry cans in the back. Gasoline, that’s what’s in those cans, pour it over you and burn you alive. Get down on your knees! Now!”
He licks his lips and bites them while his eyes move from one side to another. Slowly, he turns around and faces the wall.
“Hug that wall and get down on your knees!”
His face is just an inch from the wall, and he kneels while holding his hands up.
Now he can’t jump at me. I move closer until I’m behind him.
“You, you, if you shoot me now, that would be murder, you know?”
“Murder? What do I care about that? You were going to beat me up, rape me, and even kill me!”
“What, what are you going to, I, please,” his voice dies away.
“Baby boy, I’m going to execute you.”
When the bullet whistles past his head and into the wooden wall, he falls to the side, crying and covering his head. “Please!”
Without thinking about it, I kick him and stomp on him. He continues to scream. I change my grip on the revolver and beat him several times on his head with the heavy, wooden grip until he starts to bleed. “You little shit! You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” The grip lands on his head, ripping up the skin. I get up, change the grip on the revolver, and go back to kicking him. I don’t stop until he’s having spasms from the beating.
Then I step back, still aiming at him, “You know, I’m going to shoot you, drag you down to your truck, shoot the other one too, put both of you inside, and drive it into the swamp. You’re going to end up as alligator dinner!” I step forward and kick him in the head.
“Please!”
“That’s how that black girl screamed?” I give him another kick, “You want to get out of here alive?”
He’s still covering his head but nods several times, “I, yes…”
“You got a wallet?”
He nods again.
“You slowly take that out of your back pocket and leave it on the floor.”
He does as I say.
“Now, you drag yourself to the bar. There’s a notebook on it. You’ll write down how you came here with the other scum, broke in here, tried to rape me, and then you were probably going to kill me,” I take a deep breath. “And then you write down what you did to the black girl in Morganza.”
He shakes his head, “I’m not going to do that.”
I rush forward and kick him twice, “I only want to hear a big yes!” I step back when he drops the wallet on the floor and tries to get up on his feet.
Drops of blood from his head fall on the floor. He reaches the bar, looks at the open notebook, and then at the towel I used to clean the stool with. He glances back at me.
I nod.
He ties it around his head to stop the bleeding, waits, flips the page, and picks up the fountain pen. He hesitates, then he starts talking to himself while writing.
When I hear him telling himself about what happened to the black girl in Morganza, I think about shooting him. Blondy turns around with the pen in his hand. He’s trying to focus on me again. “Put the pen on the counter and put your hands on your head.” He does what I told him. I quickly pick up his wallet with my left hand, put it on a table, and search for his driver’s licence. “Alabama?” I stare at the licence, “What the hell are you doing here?”
Blondy doesn’t answer.
“Oh, now I know, you come here to commit your crimes, and no one will think of looking for you in another state.” I look at the back of the licence, “Mobile, right?”
Blondy nods, “Yes.”
“I should kill you for what you did to the girl, what do you think?”
He’s silent again.
“Do you know a place called Angola, here in Louisiana?”
“It’s… a prison, I think.”
“One of the worst in the country. You know what I’ll do? I’ll keep your confession, your driver’s licence, and if you ever come back here, I’ll send it to the FBI, and you and your friend will end up in a chain gang. I heard there are plenty of black people in those gangs. So what if somebody spreads the word about what you have been doing here? You wouldn't last very long, would you?”
He glances at me over his shoulder. His eyes have changed; now they have fear in them. The violent rapist has vanished. “Please, let me go…” he whispers.
Without saying a word, I nod towards the entrance.
He limps by me, pressing one hand against the towel and the other against his side. I must have broken one of his ribs. When he reaches the stairs, he holds on to the railing, still with his right hand on his side, grinning and moaning with each step.
I get out on the porch and aim at his back. There are still four bullets in the cylinder, enough to kill him and his so-called friend.
When Blondy reaches the truck, the dark-haired one has a large drink from the bottle, “Did you have some fun? You made her scream, didn’t you? I heard some noise, must have been…” He doesn’t have time to finish.
Blondy stares at him, “Get in! We’re leaving!”
His friend looks up at him, “Why? We just started here.”
Blondy pulls his friend by his shirt, “Get into the dammed truck! Now!” When the dark-haired one is inside, Blondy slams the passenger seat door closed and drags himself over to the driver’s side. Then he stares at me with pure burning hate in his eyes.
I point at the swamp with my left hand while I maintain my aim at him with my right hand. Then I silently vocalise, “Burn in hell!”
He got the message, he climbs into the driver’s seat, closes the door, and starts the engine. The truck with the Confederate flag in the back window disappears down the narrow road in a dust cloud.
My Combat Magnum follows the car until I can’t see it anymore. I wait for a couple of minutes, lower my gun, and take a deep breath. Then my hands start to shake. My eyes find the entrance. I manage to get in and sit down on a dusty chair at a table. My face is becoming pale, my hands tremble more and more, sweat pours from my forehead, “Where can I get a drink?”

2:24 PM, Point Beignet Seafood Restaurant.

“Hey! Miss! Come out!”
The voice is that of the old, black woman.
“Miss! I just want to talk to you! Please, come out!”
I hesitate for a moment. I take out the revolver and open the cylinder, just to make sure that I reloaded it. A quick glance at the other two moon clips, and I close the handbag. Then I walk out on the porch. “What do you want?”
The old woman twists her hands, and then she looks up at me, “I’m sorry for this morning. So sorry. You know, nobody helps me but, yes, you helped me.” She tries to smile, “You saved me and my house from those men and, I’m, I’m, just sorry for having offended you, Miss.” She looks down at the ground.
“I didn’t help you.”
She looks up, “What do you mean?”
“They could have thrown that stone at my car.”
“I heard a loud bang. I mean, did that man harm you?”
“One of the pans fell on the floor.”
“A pan? Miss, don’t lie to me!” She shakes her head and continues to twist her hands. “Lord Mighty, I got really scared when that ugly man came after you with the wrench. Did he hurt you? You need a doctor?”
My right hand starts to shake, then my left, and soon my whole body is shaking. “Frank,” I whisper while holding on to the railing. My eyes can’t focus, my heart is beating faster, and I feel that I can’t breathe.
“Hey! Miss! Are you alright?”
I try to say that I am, but I can’t.
“Miss! I’m going to come up!” She takes a step forward but stops, “Can I come up to your restaurant, your property?!
I nod, and the old woman hurries up the stairs. She stops a few feet from me and looks me straight in the eyes, “Take it easy now. Those men are gone; they’re not here anymore. Can I get you something?”
“Could you, please, help me get to my car?” There’s a big ball in my throat that doesn’t let me breathe, “Please?”
The old woman takes my left arm and puts it over her shoulders, and then she grips my hip with the other, “Now, Miss, we’re just slowly going to walk down the stairs and to your car, right?”
I nod and let her lead me down the stairs. All the time I’m thinking that now I’m going to die. When we reach the car, I hand her the car keys. She unlocks the back door while I lean on the car.
“I’m going to put you on the passenger seat, and then you can tell me what you need,” she manages to get me in and tries to hand me the car keys.
I shake my head, lift my shaky right hand, and point at the car’s trunk, “There are two bottles of beer in a brown paper bag. Could you get them for me?”
“Girl, this isn’t the time for drinking,” She shakes her head, “You should see a doctor, but I don’t know how to drive, and you can’t.”
I blink and nod towards the trunk, “Please?”
She unlocks the trunk and opens it. Then she glances at me, “You look really strange, Miss!” After moving around all the things inside the trunk, she appears with the paper bag in her hands. She stretches it towards me, “Here, Miss.”
My hands fumble, but I manage to get one of the bottles out of the paper bag. I open it using a key and have a large drink of warm beer. The bottle is soon empty. I drop it on the car floor and open the second bottle. This time I drink slowly. The alcohol is doing its job; my body calms down.
“Girl, don’t you go dying on me now!” She twists her hands again, “You look really sick, pale, sweating, what happened to you?”
I look down at the gravel, the small stones seem to dance around, I blink, and then hell starts. Tears pour from my eyes, and I shiver and scream.
The woman bounces back with a scared look in her eyes, “Miss, Miss, take it easy, they’re gone, gone, girl.”
I look up at her, my lips are trembling, and my voice is very low, “He, he was going to beat me and rape me, I, I.”
She reaches forward and puts her right hand on my shoulder, “Easy, girl, easy.” She hugs me, rubs her cheek against mine, and strokes my hair. “You just drink that beer and calm down. You calm down.”
The warmth of her hands makes me feel better. I close my eyes and remember the fat doctor who told me that I must take those pills, those that make me sleepy and lose my memory, every day. “But I didn’t take them today,” I mumble.
“What’s that girl, what didn’t you take today?”
I just shake my head.
She doesn’t ask me anything more. She just continues to stroke my hair and hug me.
I don’t know how much time has passed. I wipe off the last tear, “Thank you. Thank you so much for helping me.” I put my left arm around her waist.
She gives my hair a final stroke and then moves back, “Go on and finish that beer now. Then I’m going to prepare us some lunch, as you call it, down here we still call it dinner.”
I stare at her. I must have my mouth open because she giggles a little. “I’ve got a sandwich! A Creole sandwich, to eat, I mean.” I reach down into the paper bag and take out a sandwich wrapped in paper, open it, and show it to her.
She leans forward and looks at the sandwich. “Creole sandwich? I never heard about such a thing. Where did you get that from?”
“Up in Houma, just in case I couldn’t find anything decent around here.”
“Girl! That there sandwich looks like it had been in the swamp for a week! You can invite the seagulls to that fake Creole sandwich,” she puts her hands on her hips. “And by the way, I make the best shrimp étouffée around here, and I can promise you that it’s more than decent!”
The sandwich disappears back into the paper bag, and I blink a couple of times, “I, I don’t know what to say. I offended you, and you want to invite me for lunch?”
“Yes, girl! I want to invite you for lunch." She stresses all of the words. “Because you’re a tough woman, you defended yourself and drew them evil men, away. They were here yesterday.” She points at the road. “They stopped right there. They were looking for a victim, I was that victim until you turned up here today.”
We’re both silent for a moment.
“Ma, around here everybody calls me Ma, nothing more.” She waits.
I finish the last of the beer and step out of the car, “Betty Lee, Betty Lee Thibodaux. I’m from New Orleans. Mrs. Ma, I’m…”
She stops me by waving her hand, “I said, Ma, nothing else, right?”
I nod a couple of times, “Ma.”
“Now, you take all of them bones of yours that you’ve put into that yellow dress, make them boots walk you to your restaurant and lock the door, lock the car, and then you come over for étouffée.” She claps her hands, “What are you waiting for, girl?”
I smile, but I'm unable to say anything.
Ma walks towards her house, stops, and glances at me, “Come on! Shrimps can’t wait!”
I lock the trunk and the passenger door, and have a quick look at the glove compartment. Quickly unlock the driver's door, reach in, and take out the 1911 and the spare magazines. They disappear into my big handbag, which is now much heavier. I put it over my shoulder, lock the car, and start walking towards the restaurant, thinking about whether I should really have lunch with this woman.
For a moment, I stop. I glance back at her house. She is putting the table outside on her porch, two chairs, and two glasses. I look at the restaurant, then a smile appears on my lips, “You know what? This is the only time someone hugged me in years.” I continue to walk while talking to myself, “No one cared about you, and now you're invited for lunch, first time, first time.” I sprint up the stairs and into the restaurant. A quick look, I find the wrench, pick it up using a handkerchief, it’s still evidence, and look around. I hide the wrench behind the freezer.
With quick dance steps, I reach the door, step out in the sun, smile, lock the door, and with my bones stuck into the yellow dress, I hurry towards Ma’s house.

3:16 PM, Ma’s house.

There’s a small, metallic cling when I put down the knife and the fork on the plate. I lean back in the chair, put my hands on my lap, close my eyes, and smile.
“You look like a happy cat.”
I open my eyes and look at Ma, she has also finished her big plate of shrimps and pours herself some more iced tea. “That was the best étouffée I’ve ever eaten.” I say.
“That’s what I like, when people have a big smile on their faces after eating my food,” she sips on the tea. “You always feel better with a full stomach.”
I reach for my iced tea and have a sip, “I’m really sorry for this morning. I said a lot of stupid things and I…”
“Hush!” Ma holds up a finger in the air, “You listen to me now, girl. If those violent men hadn’t turned up here, we would both be sitting in our houses, behind the curtains, hating each other.” She has another sip of tea, “Sometimes the Lord has strange ways of arranging things here on Earth. I approached you with suspicion this morning and…”
“Suspicion?”
“Yes, suspicion,” she puts down the glass and clasps her hands. “I’m not used to seeing a single, well-dressed, white woman in a fancy car turning up here.
I drink some more ice-tea, “I got afraid of you, I didn’t know who you were. When I bought the restaurant, they, the agency, didn’t tell me that someone was living here.”
“We both made the same mistake. But this is how it is. We’re not supposed to mix, you know,” she drinks some more tea. “First white woman on my porch.”
“First time sitting on a black woman’s porch,” I, too, drink some iced tea.
“I never talked so much to a white woman.”
“I did, well, I was mostly listening, at school,” I lean forward and put my chin in my palm. “There was this black woman, a cleaner, when we had breaks she would tell me about all the mysteries in Louisiana, the ghosts, voodoo, the strange things in New Orleans.”
“You didn’t play with the other kids.”
I straighten up, “How do you know?”
“Because a white girl never sits and listens to a black woman if she isn’t lonely.”
I reach for the glass and drink some tea.
“You must have been through some pretty ugly experiences because you would never have had the reaction you had, sweating, confused. I thought you had the drinking shakes, but what you have is something different, something that sits deep down in your soul.”
I open my handbag and take out a small pillbox. “The doctor told me to take one every day, but they make me sleepy and forget things.” I look down at the table, “So that’s why I drink, sometimes, it calms me down, you know.”
“Since when do you have the pills?”
“1963”
There’s a moment of silence between both of us. I bite my lips and don’t look up.
“I’ll get us some coffee,” Ma stands up and starts to put the plates on a tray.
Now I look up, “Do you want me to help?”
She smiles at me, “Just take it easy. Enjoy the sun, I’ll be back in a moment.” She lifts up the tray and walks towards the door.
I hesitate for a moment. I want to ask her about the restaurant, but I don’t dare.
Just as she pushes the door open, she looks at me, “Girl, I’ll tell you about the restaurant when we have that coffee.
For a second, I believe that she's able to read my mind, but I forget about it when I listen to how she's singing inside the house.
Ma steps out on the porch with the tray in her hands. There are two coffee cups, a coffee pot, two pieces of cake on plates, and a sugarbowl on the tray. She puts it down, pours me a cup, and puts a piece of cake in front of me, “Here’s your spoon, girl.”
“Thank you so much,” I put some sugar into the coffee, have a sip, and try the cake. It’s wonderful.
“This Louisiana Russin Cake painted that smile on your face. That’s good.” She drinks some coffee and has a bit of cake. “It’s called Russin cake because of the French origin, not raisin cake.” She puts some more sugar into her coffee, stirs and tastes it, “The restaurant, your restaurant, was built in 1930, during the Prohibition years. People would come here and get a drink, dance, and relax. They had a band playing here on the weekends.” She points at the road, “It’s so narrow that it could easily be blocked by a car, giving the owners time to hide the alcohol in the swamp. They used to bring it here from Cuba or Mexico, beer, wine, whiskey, gin, you name it, it was all here, and people from as far as New Orleans would come here.” She has a bit of cake and looks at the restaurant, “I made some money cleaning there.”
“So you’ve been here all your life?”
“Yes, I have.” She tastes the coffee, “The Prohibition ended in 33’ and they closed the restaurant. People just didn’t have any reason to come down here any longer.” She clasps her hands around her cup, “I wanted to buy the restaurant.” She looks at me, “Turn it into something for black people. We wouldn’t bother no whites here.”
“Why didn’t you?”
She takes a deep breath, looks down into her coffee, and thinks for a second. Her face is motionless when she looks back up, “They didn’t lend any money to black women then.” She takes another deep breath, “They still don’t do.”
I bite my lips and feel stupid. I quickly put my hand on hers, “I’m terribly sorry for, well, coming here bragging about, you know, turning it into the best restaurant on the coast.”
She gives me a little smile, “You don’t have to, be sorry, I mean. You didn’t invent the system.”
I lean forward and smile at her, “Maybe we can work together someday, what do you say?”
Ma puts her hand over her mouth and giggles, “Little Lady, things have to change a lot here for us to be working together.” She quickly glances up at the sky and then back at me, “Reverend King says he has a dream.”
“Dreams come true.”
She stares at me with big eyes, “Now I know that you will have the best restaurant on the coast, you’re a working girl.”
I nod, “Always had to.”
“So what do you have to do now?”
“Well, I’ll have to drive up to Houma and buy things for cleaning the restaurant and something to eat.”
“You can have dinner here when you come back.”
“You already invited me for lunch.”
“When you have your restaurant working, you can invite me.” She gets up from the table and puts the empty plates on the tray. “Why don’t you have a little nap in my rocking chair before you drive into town?”
I look at the rocking chair, “Are you sure?”
“Go on, girl, have some rest.” She strokes her white, curly hair back to the knot, “Then in early 57’, some men in black suits came here. They opened the restaurant again. Completely reformed it. The kitchen is all electric, I know, because they paid me for doing some cleaning too. They didn’t seem to have any idea about restaurants either. One night, there was a lot of noise.” She points at the swamp, “A large truck arrived, followed by a large crane that lifted an enormous steel container from the truck. Then slowly it disappeared into the swamp. I never found out what it was. I was afraid, you know, there was a large man with them, he was always hiding his face, either with a hat or a scarf, giving all the orders. They never had any clients. In the summer of 59’, they closed, and I never heard anything more of them.” She strokes her chin, “That’s why I got suspicious when you turned up, I thought you had something to do with those people.”
“That’s a strange story.” I scratch my nose, “What do you think was in the container?”
“I don’t know. Maybe some industrial waste. Much cheaper to throw it into some unknown swamp in Louisiana, where only a black woman lives, than to pay some company to take care of it.”
“Probably.” I nod at the rocking chair.
“Go on, make yourself comfortable.”

4:25, Ma’s house.

I jerk and open my eyes. My confused eyes wander from one side to the other while my hand fumbles to find the revolver in my handbag. Then I remember where I am, but Ma isn’t here. I pull the blanket off me and get up from the chair with the revolver in my hand. For a moment, I think that those evil men have returned, but why would they have left me alone? I walk up to the door and knock on it. There’s no answer. Slowly, I walk down the porch and find a narrow path that leads to the back of the house. Following the path, I find an old shed under the large trees. As I move closer, the strong smell of vinegar and chilli reaches my nose. The door is half open.
“Mrs. Ma! Are you in there?”
“Forget about that, Mrs. Ma! They only call me Ma around here,”
When I hear her giggling from within the shed, I quickly hide the revolver inside the handbag.
She steps out of the shed. She's cleaning her hands on a towel. “You know when you’re doing hot sauce, you have to clean your hands well, all day long.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up? I slept more than an hour.”
Ma has a smile on her lips when she waggles towards me, “You seemed happy, so I thought it was best to leave you sleeping. I put the blanket over you so you shouldn’t get cold from the sea breeze.” She stops in front of me, “You had a good rest?”
I blink and scratch my nose, “I, yes, I dreamt about things in the past, good things.”
“Glad to hear that. What do you need to buy?”
I take out my notebook, look through the pages, put my finger on one of them, and start to read, “I need Murphy oil soap, Glo-Coat floor wax, Ajax for the sink, Jubilee kitchen wax, and some Bon Ami Powder Cleanser for the bathrooms.” I scratch my nose a couple of times, “And of course, Air-O-Zone, that will make everything smell fresh.”
Ma has stopped cleaning her hands and looks at me with big eyes, “Girl, you sure know your brands.” Then she smiles, “You don’t have to drive the whole way up to Houma, Fontenot’s, that's where you can find all those things, that’s the local store here.”
“You shop there?”
Ma shakes her head, “No, girl, the segregation is still on. They wouldn’t let me in. Theodore, the local barber, comes once a week and asks me what I need, then he drives to a Chinese store. There are so few of them here, so they’re not included in the segregation act; so they can sell to anyone.”
“Is that so? I didn’t know that?”
“But your restaurant is segregated; you can only attend whites.”
I smile at her: “No. Here I can attend to anyone. There’s a loophole in the law.”
“There is?” She has leant forward, and her mouth is a little open, but then she straightens up, “Come on! I’ll let you taste my famous hot sauce, best around here, everyone says.”
I slip the notebook into the handbag and follow her to the small shed.
It has no real floor; it is built directly on the ground, and there are no windows. The only light is the strong sunlight that comes in through the door that is to the south and the sea. There’s an overwhelming smell of vinegar and chilies. Several barrels stand in a corner. One of them is open. Jars with spice mix, a mortar, peeled garlic, and a strainer lay next to a grinder on a worktable. Several dozen small bottles with a liquid that is so intensely red that it seems almost unreal stand on a shelf over the worktable.
“Girl, this is where I make my sauce,” Ma pats the lid of one of the barrels. “I use a mix of several types of fermented chilies, special spice blend, and real sea salt for the brine.” She takes down one of the bottles from the shelf, opens it, and pours some into a spoon, “Here, try this.”
“Is that very strong?”
“You’re going to get surprised.”
I take the spoon and hesitate for a moment, but then I try it. A warm feeling hits my tongue. It seems like all my taste buds are singing. The sensation changes from half sweet to hot and then back to half sweet. I take the spoon out of my mouth, stare at it and then at Ma, “This could be the best hot sauce I've ever tried in my life!”
“I knew that you’d like it,” she has that proud look that only true masters of the trade have when somebody appreciates their craft.
“You should be selling this sauce to everyone!”
“I only sell it when people come here to buy mudbugs, boil or barbecue.”
“You do barbecue, too?” I hand her back the spoon.
“I do!”
I look at my wrist watch.
“Don’t worry. Fontenot’s will be open at five. It’s closed at midday, people are eating, you know. Just remember to change them boots.”
I look down at my boots and remember Blondy. I’m silent for a moment. “Do you think that I should tell what happened to the Sheriff?”
Her smile disappears, and she puts the spoon on the table. Then she shakes her head, “I don’t think so. Those men who came here had a flag in the back window, and you see that flag a lot around here.”
I look down, take a deep breath, and shake my head, “That’s how it is?”
“That’s how it is.”

9:42 AM, Monday, March 21, Point Beignet Seafood Restaurant.

Ma is sweeping the floor, “Girl, now you've got a clean restaurant!”
For a moment, I think about all the hard work. We threw away all unusable things, like the old, decayed, plastic table cloths we had found and some old, unopened cans. Then we had burnt the linen because Ma had said that they might have “bugs” in them. She had lent me new ones. I had plugged and polished the hole left by the bullet. We had cleaned the whole kitchen, washed all the plates, glasses, and cutlery. I look around the restaurant. Everything is shiny and looks new.
I smile at her, “Thank you so much for helping me. I will pay you back.”
“You don’t need to. If I hadn’t helped you, this would have taken you two weeks instead of one.”
I quickly glance at my wristwatch, “I’ll drive into Alligator and buy some things. Do you need something?”
“Just buy me two boxes of those small bottles for sauce, will you? I’ll make some more hot sauce this week.”

10:36 AM. Fontenot’s General Store, Alligator.

I slow down, shift gear, and turn sharply to the left. The Oldsmobile swings on the suspension when I brake. There’s a large dust cloud hanging in the air. After parking next to two other cars, I step out. A boy is looking at me through the large window. When I wave to him, he flees into the darkness of the store.
There’s a bling from the doorbell when I enter the store. The boy is hiding behind his mother, who is being attended by the storeowner. An elderly man leans on the counter, reading a newspaper. They all look at me.
I take off my sunglasses, “Good day to you all.”
Fontenot smiles at me, “I’ll be right with you, Miss, just have to attend this lady here and the gentleman.”
The man looks up from the newspaper, “You can attend her first, I’m just here to get some nails. My wall and the picture are not going anywhere.” He smiles at me, “You’re new here, right?”
I step forward and stretch my hand, “Betty Lee Thibodaux, New Orleans, I just came here and am working on opening the best seafood restaurant on the coast.”
He shakes my hand, “Those are big words, best seafood restaurant on the coast, no less. Name is Hank. I’m retired, used to be driving a truck from coast to coast and from north to south. I was even up in Alaska once. Cold as hell up there.” The woman glances at him. “Sorry for swearing, being a truck driver, you do swear sometimes, problems with the engine, bad weather, far away from home, you know,” He smiles at the woman.
The woman smiles at him now that he has apologised. Then she turns to me, “I’m Alba, and this is my son Jack. He doesn’t go to school today because he needs to recover from the most horrible cold he has had. I just had to take him out; he’s been inside for three days. Kids get so nervous when they don’t go out.” She pats him on his head.
Jack looks at me and then up at his mother, showing all his teeth, “Mum, this lady sure drives well. She did a sharp turn, and the wheels were spinning on the road, like those movies we see on television. She could be in a television series, the way she drives.”
“Jack, don’t comment on people.” His mother looks at me, “I’m sorry, he’s just eleven.”
“I’ll be twelve soon!” He smiles at me, “I want to drive like you, Miss!”
His attention shifts when Fontenot puts a large jar on the counter. It’s like he had seen the largest treasure in the world when he fixes his eyes on the Goodie Girl Breakfast Biscuits, “Those are the best!”
His mother takes out a bill and hands it to Fontenot. She puts the change in the wallet, closes her handbag, and gives the jar to Jack, who still has that dreamy expression in his eyes. “Come on, Jack.”
Jack passes me with a big smile. But when they reach the door, there’s the sound of a police siren. We all look out the window. A truck painted with a Sheriff’s star has pulled over another truck. A large, thin Deputy with a turkey neck steps out; he’s the one that I saw when I arrived here. He walks up to the other truck and bangs on it. An elderly black man with a pipe in his mouth climbs down. The Deputy yells something to him, and the elderly man knocks out the tobacco on the ground and puts his pipe in the chest pocket of his overalls.
“That’s my rice delivery man,” Fontenot says as he walks up to the window.
“Jack, we’re going to wait here until we know what’s going on.” His mother puts her hand on Jack’s shoulder.
Hank leans forward, “He’s harassing the black man, as usual.” He takes out a packet of cigarettes and lights one, then he remembers that he hasn’t asked for permission, so he glances at Fontenot, who blinks at Hank.
I, too, look out the window and wonder if it hadn’t been better to move to North Dakota, but who goes to a seafood restaurant there?
The elderly man takes out a driver's licence and shows it to the Deputy. The Deputy keeps yelling at him. He points at the ground, and then he starts walking with long steps towards the store.
There’s not a bling when he slams the door open, but a loud bang! There’s a moment of silence before he violently nods towards the elderly truck driver, “You know that there driver? He says he’s going to deliver rice here, that's right?”
Fontenot takes a deep breath, “That’s right, Deputy, ten sacks.” Fontenot scratches his chin, “I ordered them yesterday.”
The turkey-necked Deputy points over his shoulder, “Where’s he from?”
“Dulac, they raise chickens and farm rice. Good rice that is. They even have black rice.”
The Deputy leans forward with his mouth open, “Black rice? Well, hell, rice has always been white. Who would buy black rice?”
“You know, I get this monthly publication from the store owners' association, and we need to read up on what products can be demanded in the future.”
The Deputy grabs his gun belt and leans forward, “That sounds wise.”
“Some months back, there was a note about the health benefits of eating black rice. The association says that people will be more health-oriented in the future and...”
The Deputy laughs and slaps his legs, “Heck, I’m gonna be long gone before I see any white man eating black rice. Health benefits? There are some crazy people out there. Or what do you say?” His eyes are fixed on Jack.
His mother steps forward and puts herself between the Deputy and Jack.
The Deputy scratches his neck, “Kid! You just look at how we treat black people, you might learn something from this for the future.”
Jack bravely steps forward, “There’s a black girl in my class.” He clears his throat, “Maybe I’ll have some black rice with her, someday, if it’s healthy.”
Jack’s mother immediately puts her hand over his mouth and pushes him back. Then she smiles, “I’m sorry, he has had a fever for the last three days.” She is met by silence from the Deputy. “We’ve just come here to get some biscuits, and then he will have to stay at home for another day before going back to school.”
“Now, that so? Fever is a nasty thing, it makes a man’s brain go crazy, makes him sweat, believe in equality, and hell, he might even start to believe in Flying Saucers!”
Jack pops up from behind his mother, “I saw one! It’s true! Just before Christmas, I was out hanging decorations on our house, and it was this big, polished, metal disc coming out from the swamp and…”
The Deputy stares at him, and his voice turns low, “Why didn’t anyone else see it?”
Jack stretches his back, “It was on 15 December, the same day the Gemini 6 and 7 performed the first controlled meeting, rendezvous, in space, and I was out putting up Christmas stars, just when it got dark.”
Alba pushes her son back, “Fever, Deputy, fever.”
The Deputy sneers, “Son, you just watch now how a member of the Sheriff’s Department commands a black person.” Just before leaving, he turns around and looks at Fontenot, “Black rice, who would eat that?”
We all step out onto the porch, and in silence we watch him walk towards the elderly man, who hasn’t moved an inch.
“It’s true that you were going to deliver rice here. Is that black rice?” Shouts the Deputy.
The driver shakes his head, “It’s white, Deputy, only sort eaten around here.”
“Now, what I want you to do is to carry all those ten sacks from here to that porch, the store's porch, and deposit them one by one on the left corner, without stepping up on that porch. Is that clear?”
“Wouldn’t it be easier if I just drove the truck up to the porch and threw them off onto the porch?”
“Well, that would be the easy way. But sometimes a man has to earn his salt, as the Bible says, isn’t that right?”
“If the Bible says so,” the elderly truck driver reaches up and puts the first hundred and ten-pound rice sack over his shoulder.
The first sack is delivered on the porch without any problem. We’re all looking at him. The first three sacks go well, but then the sun and the heat set in; sometimes he has to stop in the middle of the parking area. He breaths heavy, takes off his hat, and wipes the sweat from his face with an old handkerchief.
The Deputy is watching him, with his hand on his gun, while he leans on the truck; he’s in the shadow, of course.
Hank looks at the scene, “That man is pulling eleven thousand pounds of rice over a distance of three hundred and twenty yards.”
Fontenot looks at him, “How’s that?”
“I’ve been a truck driver all my life, each sack is a hundred ten pounds, and the distance to the truck is fifteen yards, you just multiply.”
I’m silent, remembering Ma’s words. When there are two sacks left on the truck, the elderly man stops in the middle between the store and his truck. He breaths heavily. Alba turns her son around so he can’t see what’s going on.
“Come on, boy!” The Deputy waves his hat in front of his sweaty face.
The Deputy would have done the work perfectly on any plantation a hundred years ago. My hand grips the 66’. But then Ma’s face flashes before me. My hand slips out of the handbag. Then I realise that Jack has been observing me.
“Miss, what did you reach for?”
“Just checking my car keys.” I’m saved when the black truck driver puts the ninth sack on his shoulder.
We all watch him making his way towards the porch. At one moment, it looks as if he’s going to fall to the ground. The Deputy grins. But then he straightens up, breaths deep, and looks better than Jesse Ovens.
The ninth sack lands on the porch. The elderly man smiles and walks back to the truck. This time, he doesn’t have any problems with the last sack. It lands on his shoulder, he walks straight as a pine tree towards the porch, dumps the sack on it, and smiles.
If this had been the Olympics, we would all have applauded. But it isn’t
The Deputy straightens up and spits on the gravel. By his lip movements, I make out that he is saying something like, “Piece of shit!”
The elderly, black driver stuffs his pipe and lights it. He stops and points with his pipe towards the store, “Law says he has to pay me.”
The Deputy crosses his arms, and it seems like he is thinking, “Okay! Fontenot, pay the man!”
I look at Fontenot as he walks towards the cash register. Hank is silent, and Alba has put her hands on Jack’s shoulders. Jack is hugging the biscuit jar. Fontenot comes out with some dollar bills in his right hand, a receipt, and some change in his left hand.
He hands the elderly man the money, “Just count it.”
The elderly man shakes his head, “I’ve been selling rice to you for years, and the price hasn’t gone up.” Then he turns towards the Deputy and points at his truck.
The Deputy nods towards the truck, “Just get the hell out of here!”
We all watch the truck take off in the direction of Chauvin. The Deputy climbs into his Ford, turns on the engine, and disappears. Jack and Alba silently walk towards their car. Fontenot holds up the door, and I pass him, followed by Hank.
I put the grocery list on the counter, and Fontenot starts filling two large paper bags.
When he walks into the store room, Hank turns to me, “Miss, you see, don’t tell people too much about your plans to open what you said will be the best seafood restaurant on the coast. This is a small and quiet place, but there’s also something called envy.”
I nod to him.
He glances at the store room door and leans forward. Then he whispers, “Last week I saw a truck.” He pauses, “A man with a bloody handkerchief around his head was driving. It came from your direction.” Another glance at the door, and then he licks his lips, “Anything strange happened there?”
Immediately, an alarm bell rings in my head.
“It had a large Confederate flag in the back window.”
“Mr. Hank, I never saw such a truck, but if I had, I would surely remember it.”
There’s a creak from the store room door, “Miss, got you the last of what you need.”
Hank straightens up, and I give Fontenot a little smile, “Thank you.”
Fontenot efficiently puts all the things into three big paper bags, walks up to the cash register, puts in all the sums, pushes the button, takes the receipt, and puts it on the counter, “Eleven dollars, thirty-five cents, Miss.”
I quickly count up and put the money on the counter, then I pick up the receipt and put it into my wallet. “I hope that you have a nice day.”
Hank picks up two of the bags, “Let me help you, Miss.”
I know that he is anxious to tell me something by the way he is looking around, “Well, if you insist. Thank you.”
When we reach the car, I open the trunk and put in the first of the bags, then I turn to him. He is still nervous because his eyes move from one side to another, “Do you want to tell me something?”
He quickly puts the two bags in the trunk and strokes his chin, “Umm, you saw what happened, the truck I mean, try to stay away from the Sheriff and his Deputies.
I put on my sunglasses and close the trunk. “Thank you so much for helping me with the bags.” There’s no smile on my face.
He holds up his finger, “You, I, there are some people here, who…” He looks back at the store where Fontenot is watching him from the doorway. “Be careful around here.” He walks back to the store, “Hey, can I get those nails now? That picture wants to go up on the wall!” Then he laughs.
When I get into the car, I start wondering why he changed so quickly. For a second, I think about what has happened, the elderly black man, the Deputy, and what this man might have wanted to tell me. I decide not to tell Ma, there’s no reason to upset her.
The radio plays the Rolling Stones' “Time Is on My Side.” The surprised face of the Deputy when Jack said he was going to eat black rice flashes before me, and I smile. “Would I have stood up in the same way?” My smile disappear.

11:25 AM, Thursday, March 24, Point Beignet Seafood restaurant.

Just as the Oldsmobile rolls out from the turnaround and onto the narrow road, I glance at the mirror and see Ma waving to me. Next to my handbag on the seat is my new notebook, where I have written down all I need to buy in Houma to paint and make some minor repairs in the restaurant.
Driving on this narrow strip of land between the swamp and the sea always makes me uncomfortable. My hands start to sweat, and I fix my eyes on the road. All windows are open, so the car is filled with a mix of the decaying smell from the swamp and the salty breeze from the sea on the right side.
When I come to the bend, just before the old corroded steel bridge comes into sight, I slam on the brakes and look to the left into the swamp. “What’s in there?” The gear goes into neutral, and my hand knocks open the glove compartment. With the Colt in my hand, I step out and look into the dense green vegetation. Two small shadows, which look like two girls, move around inside the swamp. “How could they have gotten there?” I look around, and close to my right, there is a small, overgrown path that leads into the swamp. When I look up, the shadows are gone. For a moment, I think about what two girls could be doing in the swamp, maybe they were fishing?”
“You can’t catch me!”
That was the voice of a girl! I stare into the swamp but am unable to see them. A glance at the dashboard clock convinces me that it’s better to forget about them and continue up to Houma before the stores close for lunch.
The Colt goes back into the glove compartment, and the gear goes into first. The sand and gravel crackles when the tires dig into the road and hit the steel deck of the bridge with a loud clang.
I have already forgotten about the girls when I pass the old, flaking sign. The gas meter shows that the tank is half full. I decide that it’s better to stop at the Gulf gas station and fill up.
As usual, there are several cars parked next to the store. Several men are standing around that turkey-necked Deputy from the other day. He's waving his hands and pointing to the place where he had stopped the elderly, black truck driver. He must be bragging about it.
I look ahead before turning left into the gas station’s service area. A large, green Ford truck, filled with building material, is coming in the other direction, so I have to wait. It turns into the service area. My Oldsmobile Rocket crosses the road, and I stop behind the truck. A black driver, in worn work clothes, jumps down from it. The Deputy immediately stops waving his hands and puts his hands on his gun belt. Maybe I should put the gear in reverse and leave?
The clean-cut, young man who works at the gas station seems to be arguing with the driver. But then he shrugs his shoulder and walks to the pump and unhooks the nozzle while the driver unlocks and unscrews the tank's tap.
“Hey! Troy!”
We all look at the Deputy who is pointing at my car.
“What’s the problem? "You're stupid or something?”
Troy, the gas station employee, looks around and shakes his head, “No, Deputy, I’m not!”
“Well, you must be!” The men behind him laugh loudly, especially one wearing a red cap. The turkey-neck leans forward, “Don’t you see that there’s a white woman in that car behind the truck?”
Both the driver and Troy look at me. This is when I regret not having put the car in reverse gear and left.
The Deputy straightens up, “You fill up the white woman’s tank first! Do I make myself clear?” The men around him laugh again. He grins even more when he glances at the men surrounding him. He straightens up even more, moves his gun belt with both his hands, and takes one step forward, “What’s taking you so long, Troy? You want me to go help you?” He leans forward, and then he glances back at his public. Some more people have stepped out of the store.
I look at him, and what I see is one stupid man having his one-man show just like the other day. Ma’s words and how Hank tried to tell me something come to my mind, and I grip the steering wheel.
Troy looks at me, then at the black truck driver, and finally, he looks at the Deputy. There’s a second of silence, a bumblebee passes by the car window, and then Troy violently pushes the black man, “Hey, come on! You heard the Deputy! Move that dammed truck of yours! There’s a white woman behind you!”
The truck driver stumbles backwards but regains his posture. He shakes his head and then his right index finger, “Oh no! I’m not going to do that. I came here first!”
Troy glances at the Deputy, who makes an almost unnoticeable gesture with his right thumb. Troy steps forward, “You heard what I told you! Move the dammed truck!” He moves forward and is ready to push the truck driver again, but the truck driver pushes him back. Troy stumbles backwards with his arms stretched out. There’s a dull bump when the gas pump stops him from falling backwards. He hangs on to it with his right hand, and his eyes move from one side to the other without knowing where to look.
“What the hell just happened?” The Deputy has taken a step forward, and his hand is on his 38 Special. The men behind him have stopped laughing, and everybody is watching Troy.
The truck driver looks at them, and then he slowly starts moving to the side, away from Troy.
Troy manages to get straight on his feet, looks down at the gravel and then up at the Deputy, “He, I…” He licks his lips, “He just pushed me!”
The truck driver holds up his hands and slowly moves his head from side to side, while stepping to the side.
The Deputy spits on the porch. Fontenot gives him an angry stare. He starts moving towards the stairs, “Hey, you! I’m coming for you now! We’re going to have a fun time, know what I mean?” The men behind him laugh again. He glances back, grins, and is now back into his role of playing the Almighty. Some dust is turned up by his boots when he slowly walks towards the gas station. The bumblebee passes by my car window again. He stops when he’s a couple of yards away from Troy and the Gulf gas pump. His nose moves up and down a couple of times, and then he spits just in front of the truck driver, “You’re pretty lucky, you know?”
The truck driver, still with his hands in the air, moves his head a little forward and moves his lips. By his lip movement, I make out that he is silently saying, “Lucky?”
The Deputy moves forward and spits on the man’s shoes, “Yes! This is your happy day. The happiest day of your life!” He glances back at the men on the porch, and they're all laughing again. The Deputy moves his right index finger under his nose a couple of times, “Hell, Troy! What’s stinking so much here?”
“Don’t know, Deputy!” Troy has regained his balance and straightens out his shirt with the company emblem.
“There must be some mean son-of-a-bitch around here? That’s the stinking!”
All the men on the porch are laughing again. Some shout dirty words and wave to the Deputy.
At a moment like this, I wish I were a smoker, light a cigarette, and forget about everything. But then it hits me that smoking so close to a gas pump might not be a good idea. There’s a click when I open the car door and step out. Nobody notices it except one woman on the store’s porch. I leave it open, just in case.
The Deputy points at the driver, still with his hand on his revolver, “Now you, you just get back and put your hands against the truck, you’re under arrest, boy!”
Hate, as hot as a barbecue grill, shines in the driver's eyes.
“Come on and turn around! I told you that this was your lucky day, before we would have strung you up in one of those trees and dumped you in the swamp, but now,” he stretches the words. “Now we have to treat you well, according to what they say in Washington, but hell, Washington doesn’t mean too much down here!”
There is loud laughter from the porch, and some men step down from it, ready to help the Deputy.
“Mr. Deputy, I think there must be some mistake here.”
The Deputy and all the rest look at me. His eyes wander from me to my car and back to me, “Mistake?”
My heels click when I approach him, “Well, yes, the law oblige me to wait and look around before doing a turn to the left, which is what I had to do to, so I can positively confirm that this man was here before me, I did have to wait to make that turn because his truck was coming in the other direction and only had to turn right.” I can tell by the movement of his eyes that he is trying to figure out the different directions.
“He pushed the gas station employee!” His face becomes even redder as he shouts at me.
“That could be, how would I say, self-defense?”
“Self-defense?” He now looks like a ripe tomato.
“Self-defense, yes, did anyone ask me if I wanted to be served first?” There’s silence; they're looking at each other. “Mr. Troy, I take it that that’s your name, as I heard it mentioned.” Troy nods, but without saying anything. “What is the Company’s policy, their policy, not your own, but the Company’s policy on serving clients?”
Troy scratches his chin, pulls a dirty handkerchief from the back pocket of his worn jeans, and wipes some sweat from his forehead. The bumblebee flies past me again. He puts the handkerchief in the back pocket and scratches his chin again, “Umm, I think…” He glances at the Deputy, “That, when I started here, they told me, something like, first-come, first served.”
“You see, Mr Deputy, you can’t make an employee break his company’s rules based on his or your own preferences; that would be an infringement of the laws of this state.”
The Deputy stares at me, “You’re some kind of dammed lawyer, or what?”
“I’m just an upright citizen.” Then I turn to the driver, who has lowered his arms, “And where were you taking all that building material that’s on the back of your truck?”
The driver clears his throat, coughs, and points at the truck, “See what it says: Acadiana Construction and Repairs. That’s where I work, up in Houma, Miss.”
“Would that by any chance be a, how would I put it, a black company?”
There’s a quick burst of laughter from the driver, but his face quickly becomes like concrete when the Deputy stares at him. He lowers his voice, “The owner, Mr. Romero, is anything but black; he’s… he even speaks French to himself in his office.”
“Old Cajun?”
“You could say that.”
“And, if I may ask you, where were you taking all this building material?”
“Mr. Romero called me to his office and said that the school here had a roof leak, and I should drive the material here, and a repair team would come and fix it. I should get a receipt signed by a Mr. Thomson, school director.”
Troy shines up, “I know him! I went to school here! Lots of….” He glances at the Deputy.
The Deputy spits on the ground, “That true, boy? You’re taking that building material to our school?”
The driver fumbles but manages to pull out a folded document, with various coloured copies stapled to it, looks at it, and hands it to the Deputy.
The Deputy puts it close to his face and slowly starts to read it, then he looks at the painted company name on the truck, bites his lips, and flips through the copies. He’s silent.
I take off my Ray-Bans, “As I said, Mr. Deputy, there’s been a mistake, this man drives for a white company,” I stress the words. “There’s a leak at your school, mainly white, I suppose, and a need to fix it as soon as possible, so that the poor children won’t get wet when one of our famous Louisiana thunderstorms comes rolling in from the sea. This man saw the need to deliver this here, building material, as speedily as he could, and then report back to the owner, Mr. Romero, that his job had been properly done. That’s why I think this man should have his truck filled up, right now, deliver, and then drive back to Houma, as if he had never been here.” I try to smile, but this is not the moment.
“Let him go! I don’t want my Alice to get wet at school”, it’s the woman who had looked at me when I stepped out of my Oldsmobile. There’s some mumbling among the people on the porch. Some whisper and point at the Deputy.
“Come on, let him go!” This time it’s Fontenot.
The Deputy stares at me, “You’re a dammed lawyer, aren’t you?” Then he spits in the direction of the driver and aggressively hands him the document, “Now you take that, that, dammed building material, deliver and get your ass out of here as fast as you can. Do I make myself clear?”
The driver folds the document and puts it back into his shirt’s pocket. Troy has unhooked the pump’s nozzle and fills up the truck's deposit.
The Deputy slowly turns towards me with his hands on his hips. I put my sunglasses back on. “I’ll talk to the Sheriff about this,” He points his finger at me, so I cross my arms in front of me. “You took over that ruin of a restaurant down at Point Beignet, we know that, and that you’ve become friendly with the old woman, black woman that is. We don’t want any strange things here, you hear?” He moves his nose up and down a couple of times, “I didn’t like you when I saw you for the first time at the store, and now I dislike you even more, so you just be careful with what you do around here.” He turns around, spits again, and starts walking back to the store, while stroking his chin.
“Miss, if you ever need help…”
I turn around and look at the truck driver.
“I, Miss, you just go to New Zion Baptist Church in Houma and ask for Othello, that’s my name.”
“The Black Prince of Cyprus.”
“So you know Shakespeare?”
I nod.
“My mother used to read Shakespeare at school, that’s why she gave me this name.”
“Good name. Mine’s Betty Lee Thibodaux.”
“Who’s that Shake guy?” Troy has hung up the pump’s nozzle and pulls out a receipt book from his chest pocket and a pen. “I filled in five gallons, that’ll be a dollar fifty-five.”
Othello takes out his worn wallet, takes out a dollar bill, counts up exactly fifty-five cents, and hands it to Troy without saying anything.
Troy hands him the receipt, “Don’t come back here, you’ll only find trouble.”
Othello quickly climbs up in the cabin and starts the engine. Then he leans out from the side window, “New Zion Baptist Church, don’t forget that!”
I watch him disappear down the road, and somehow I know that I’ll see him again.
“Miss, move your car forward.”
I snap out of my thoughts, “Oh, yes, sorry.” In just a moment, I have gotten into my car, started the engine, and parked next to the pump. I hand Troy the car keys through the side window. The bumblebee passes by the car window again while I watch him fill up the deposit.
When he’s finished, he hangs up the nozzle, locks the tank, and hands me back the keys, “Nice car you got, Miss!”
“Thank you.” I hand him a five-dollar bill.
He takes the receipt book from his pocket and the pen, makes a cowboy stance, jots down some numbers on the paper, looks into nowhere, and then he smiles while he calculates, “That’ll be a dollar eighty-five, Miss, large deposit on this car.” He counts up the change and hands it to me with the receipt, “So you took over the old restaurant?”
I nod and put the change into my wallet, “I did.”
“Miss I wish you the best of luck with your business but I…” he quickly glances at the store where the Deputy is talking to the men around him and then back at me but now there’s no smile on his face, “You should be careful Miss, I would have filled up that, that man’s truck without any problem, any other day…” he licks his lips.
“But not today?”
“Not today.”
The Deputy has noticed that we’re talking about something other than gasoline, so I warn Troy. “He’s coming behind you, the Deputy,” I pull down my sun-glasses, “Thank you, Troy.” I push them back up and start the engine.
He steps back and smiles, “Thank you for choosing Gulf, Miss!”
When I drive onto the ’56, I look in the rear mirror and see how the Deputy is shouting into Troy’s face. Troy takes several steps back and waves his hands in front of him.

3:27 PM, Road ’56 from Chauvin to Alligator.

The car bumps a little when I drive over a stone just after leaving Chauvin behind. I reach forward and turn up the radio a little; it's playing “Turn, turn, turn.” I stretch my left hand out of the side window and relax. The man at Davidson’s Hardware up in Houma had been very helpful; he had even carried all of the paint, the brushes, and the tools to my car. I continue down the road thinking about doing the repairs as fast as possible, and then be able to open. An image of a full restaurant where people are enjoying their meal, laughter, music, and happiness comes to my mind. I smile and glance at the Bayou. There are some clouds on the horizon, and the idea of having fresh shrimp delivered directly to the restaurants hits me. “That would be a great idea,” I mumble to myself.
Wooooo!
The big, dark Chevrolet Impala comes out of nowhere with a howling siren. It has a Sheriff’s star painted on the sides. My smile disappears. I reach over to the glove compartment, take out the Colt, and put it in my handbag. Then I pull over to the side, put the gear in neutral, take out my driver’s licence from the handbag, and put it on the dashboard. Hoping that they won’t take notice of my handbag, which I put on the car floor.
The Impala has stopped just behind my car, but nobody comes out. I glance at the clock on the dashboard. The seconds drag by until two minutes have passed, but nothing happens. I know that they want to make me nervous and that they have probably been waiting for me all day.
The clock moves slowly, another minute passes, and the driver’s door on the Impala opens, and a corpulent man with a flat-top haircut steps out. He puts on what must once have been a white hat, but now it’s more the colour of Swiss cheese. From the passenger’s side, the turkey-necked Deputy from the Gulf gas station appears. They both walk slowly towards my car. The Swiss cheese is wearing a Sheriff’s badge. He stops next to my side window and knocks on it, “Hey! Lower the dammed window!”
I press the button on the car door, and the window comes down without a sound.
The Deputy has moved over to the passenger side of my car and looks in, “It’s clear, Sheriff, just her handbag on the floor!” He grins at me, but I ignore him.
“Show me your driver’s licence!” The Sheriff stretches out his left hand while positioning his right hand on his revolver.
I lean forward, take my driver’s licence, and hand it to him without saying anything.
He looks at it, then he looks at the back of it, “Thibodaux, that’s your name, like the town? You’re from there?”
“Just a coincidence, I’m from New Orleans.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Have you finished looking at my driver’s licence?”
He slams his right palm on the car roof, “I asked you what the hell are you doing here?” The Deputy laughs a little and starts moving to the back of the car.
“I took over a restaurant.”
“I know that, the run-down place that’s been abandoned for years,” he leans forward and puts his right hand on the car roof. “Why the hell did you buy it? It’s worthless.”
I keep my hands on the steering wheel and look forward, “I’m going to turn it into the best seafood restaurant on the whole coast.”
He sneers, “Mighty big words.” He moves forward and kicks the left front tire a couple of times. “Seems you got some low pressure here, that might make this vehicle unsafe to drive. "I’ll probably have to give you a ticket for that.”
The Deputy laughs, and I wish I had a Wrigley’s.
The Sheriff kicks the tire one more time. He goes back to leaning on the car roof, “So you’re only here for the restaurant? Not to stir up problems?”
“Why would I stir up problems?”
“Well, first of all, you live next to a black woman, who has been helping you and then…” he spits on the ground, just like the men at the Bonfire Club. “Well, we had this, uhum, ugly incident at the gas station this morning, you remember that?”
“What kind of an incident? I filled up the deposit, that’s all.”
“Wasn’t there a truck, maybe a black man?” He twists his head to the left, focusing his right eye on me.
This time, I look up at him, from behind my Ray-Bans, “Someone got to the pump before me, so what?”
He stretches up, sneers at me, and waves my driver’s licence in front of me, “And didn’t my Deputy order the black man to move his truck so you could have your deposit filled first?”
The Deputy leans forward and puts both his palms on the trunk, “I sure did, wouldn’t let one of them folks have his truck filled up before that of a white woman!”
“Are you sure she’s a real white woman?”
“Hell, Sheriff, after what I saw at the Gulf, you might put that into doubt,” the ugly grin appears on the Deputy’s face again.
The Sheriff looks at my driver’s licence again, “Betty Lee, that sounds very much like it's from here.” He takes a deep breath, “Do you sympathise with communists and blacks?”
I take off my sunglasses and look him straight in his eyes, he quickly looks away, “That sounds just like the McCarthy hearings in the 50s.” I put my sunglasses back on, “I don’t know anything about politics or communism, but the thing I know is that the man this morning was in a rush and I wasn’t.” I take a deep breath and hold out my left hand, “Can I have my licence back?”
Just as he is going to give it to me, he changes his mind and pulls back his hand, “What do you have in the trunk?”
The Deputy slams his right palm on the trunk, “I think there might be some contraband in here.”
I look up at the Sheriff again, my Ray-Bans are still on, “What kind of contraband would that be?”
The Deputy walks over to the right side of the car and knocks on the window, “I heard that people in California are taking illegal drugs and smoking things they call pot to get high, you know anything about that?”
“Paintbrushes, paint, and tools, that’s what’s in the trunk!” My fist hits the steering wheel.
“Lower your voice!” The Sheriff hands me my driver’s licence, which I’m quick to put into my handbag, then he takes a grip on his revolver, “Now step out of the car, leave the handbag on the seat and show us what’s in the trunk.”
I turn off the engine and step out with the car keys in my right hand. He’s fingering his big revolver with a sick smile on his lips. He likes the taste of the power he has over people. I point at him with the car keys in my hand, “What’s hanging there on your hip is a 4’ Colt Python, you’re only authorized to use it if your or any citizen's life is in danger. I’m only armed with the car keys, so stop stroking that like it was something else.”
He bounces back as he had just burnt his fingers, “Why, you, I…”
“You want to see what’s inside the trunk? Come on, paintbrushes, that’s all there is in there,” I push the key in and turn it, the trunk swings open.
Both of them reach in and start moving around the paint buckets and the rest of the things that I bought up in Houma. The Sheriff takes off his hat and waves it in front of his face a couple of times.
“Well, is this what you call contraband?” I cross my arms and wait for the answer.
“Are you going to do all that repair work alone?” The Sheriff puts his Swiss cheese back on.
“Yes, I will, I know how to take care of myself,”
The grin comes back on the face of the turkey-necked Deputy, “You should get yourself a man to do that job. A woman should stay home instead of driving around alone in fancy clothes.” He takes hold of his gun belt and shows me his yellow teeth, “Hell, you might get someone excited.”
I slam the trunk shut, “I can sure as hell do without any man that has sweat stains under his armpits.”
The grin disappears when he looks at his shirt, “You dirty, little…”
“I heard that word many times before !”
“Now you listen!” The Sheriff’s face has become red, “If you want to have a quiet life here, you do as you’re told and that means no helping black people and no insulting one of my Deputies.” He spits on the ground, “If you don’t, then something bad could happen.”
“What bad would that be?”
The grin reappears on the Deputy’s face, “You could get a traffic ticket.”
I look at him, “Traffic ticket?”
“Three men went missing in Mississippi, a Sheriff gave them a traffic ticket.”
All my muscles tense, and I wish I had taken my handbag with me. My eyes move from the Deputy to the Sheriff and then back again.
The Sheriff spits on the ground again, “You listen to him!”
“You were never here,” the Deputy’s voice is like that of a hissing snake. “There are no witnesses here, we never stopped you, nobody knows you, nobody cares about you.”
That’s what Frank always told me: that nobody cared about me. My right hand starts to tremble, so I put my left one over it.
The Deputy leans forward, “What if you have an accident, drunk driving, you drive into the swamp, and some days later, when we’re on patrol, we find your car with you inside, do you think anyone here cares?”
My breathing is getting faster, and I feel a pain in my stomach. “Are you finished?”
The Sheriff grips his revolver, “No one cared about those men in Mississippi either.”
“One was a black and then two whites, why hell, one of them was a Jew boy,” the Deputy laughs.
The Sheriff laughs too, nods to the Deputy, and both of them start walking back to the Impala. The Sheriff gets in and starts the engine. The Deputy stops and looks at me, “Get yourself a man! Someone who can teach you how to behave! He’s laughing when he climbs into the car, and I can hear the Sheriff laugh too. The Impala accelerates violently, leaving a dust cloud behind.
I watch them drive away, “I hope you drown in that dammed swamp!” I sit down in the car and wait for my heart to calm down and the pain in my stomach to go away. Then I put away the driver’s licence in my handbag, look at the Combat Magnum and promise myself to never leave the car or the restaurant without it. For a second, the image of the drunk men at the Bonfire appears in my mind.
The gear clicks in, and I press the gas pedal. “What did they mean by the three men in Mississippi?”

7:28 AM, March 25, 1966, Friday, Point Beignet Seafood Restaurant

The sun is shining brightly on the water. I look down at the plate. All the bacon, toast, and scrambled eggs are gone, and the coffee cup in my hand is half full. I smile, lean back in the chair, and stretch my legs. Then I wiggle my feet and take a deep breath. I’ve put on my green jumpsuit, old boots, and put a old, blue scarf around my hair. Today is going to be a long day. I’ll start scraping the facade first. That is what the guests are going to see first. The backside can wait. Another deep breath and sip of coffee. If I work a lot, I can open next week on 1 April, that’s Friday. I finish the coffee and put the cup down on the table, close my eyes, and let the sun shine on my face. Then I remember my freckles, smile, and open my eyes. Careful with the sun, girl. I stretch my hands up in the air, and then I get up from the chair and pick up the plate and cup.
I push the scraper from the right to the left. Flakes of old paint fall on the porch. I stop and have a look at the wall. I’ve finished almost half of it. I wipe off some sweat from my face and start scraping again.
“You got a broom and a dust pan?” Ma walks up the stairs
“They’re inside,” I climb down the ladder and put the scraper in the back pocket, then I pat my big right side pocket to check if it’s there, my insurance. Ma follows me inside to the kitchen. “Do you want some coffee?” I ask her.
She takes the dust pan and the broom, “No, thank you, girl. We’ll make the best of the morning, you scrape, and I clean.”
I take the dust bin with both my hands and follow her out on the porch.
The sun is rising high in the sky, and I can feel the sweat flowing down my back. Ma cleans up all the flakes. I climb down, get the bottle of dissolver, a rag, and then I start to apply it to all the difficult spots. When I finish, I blink at Ma, “We’ll let this do its job, and we’ll have a coffee.”
“Have a beer, girl, you deserve it.” She leans the broom against the railing and puts the dust pan right next to it. “If you have some iced tea, I’ll have that.”
“Have a seat,” I point at the table in the corner where I had breakfast, and then I quickly walk to the kitchen. The bottle is cold, I open it, and then I pour a large glass of iced tea for Ma. I find her sitting at the table and hand her the glass, “Thank you so much for helping me.”
“Never mind. Don’t you want to sit down?”
I put the bottle on the table and pull out the chair. “You know, I really came here like an idiot, screaming at you and waving my sunglasses in front of your nose.” I sip from the bottle.
“You know that you really scared me,” she laughs a little. “This white trash is crazy, that was what I was thinking.”
I look at the condensation running down the bottle and onto my hand, blink, and look at Ma, “Did I look very crazy?”
“Girl, anytime you want to talk, you just come and see me.”
I bite both my lips, look down at the bottle again, look up at her, nod, and close my eyes.
“How’s the beer?”
I quickly smile at her, “It’s good to have one of these on a warm spring day like this.” I have another sip from the bottle, “I want to open next Saturday.”
“You’ll have it all ready?”
“I think so. Hard work, but...” I twitch my shoulders.
“You’re used to hard work. I can tell,” Ma smiles at me when she has a drink.
“Have you ever heard about three men disappearing in Mississippi?”
The smile has completely disappeared, and she puts down the glass on the table. “Where did you hear that?”
I look at her stone face, “So it’s true?”
“Yes, that was in 1964, in June. Three activists disappeared. The bodies were found two months later. They say it was the Ku Klux Klan.” She looks sternly at me, “Who told you that?”
I draw a deep breath, have a sip of the beer, and start telling her what happened. Ma’s eyes are becoming bigger and bigger, and she leans forward over the table. I have another sip and continue. I finish, and then I have another sip.
Ma is staring at me. “Lord Jesus, Betty Lee, you should have told me immediately yesterday,” she puts her hand over her mouth.
“Do you have the Klan here?”
She bites her lips, clasps her hands, and quickly looks around to make sure there is nobody else here. Then she looks straight at me, “There are rumours that they are here.”
“You think that the Sheriff could be one of them?”
“I don’t know, girl.”
“And that turkey-necked Deputy, how about him?”
Ma looks up at the blue sky, breaths, and looks back at me, “Yes, he could very well be one of them. Black people around here are afraid of him. Polydore, that’s his name.”
“Do you think there are more of them here?”
“I don’t know, I always stay to myself, never getting into any trouble.”
I get up from the table, finish the beer, and firmly slam it into the table top, “Ma, you know what? I’m not going to let anyone, I mean anyone, drive me away from my restaurant!”