In the morning, Paul expected to find Liza gone and little sustenance in her refrigerator.\u00a0 After a long piss, he found he was annoyed and correct.\u00a0 The fridge held at least a dozen styrofoam and plastic take-home cartons from as many restaurants dated and possibly categorized.\u00a0 Not much else resembling food, not even butter.\u00a0 He took the last egg out of a carton, sprinkled the dust from the bottom of a package of shredded cheddar on it as it firmed yellow in the pan, then folded a slice of wheat bread around it.\u00a0 He stood and ate over the sink, staring out the window and itching to read the box scores.\u00a0 He left all the dishes out, kicked at the cat, locked up, and stepped down the stairs.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The heat was already entire.\u00a0 Mouthfuls of the air could only be pushed around the tongue; he couldn\u2019t take it all down at once.\u00a0 Friday, the first of August coming on like a threat, like a promise of further humid judgment.\u00a0 Up and down the street the sprinklers hissed and shot off their patterned sprays.\u00a0 Out of habit, his eyes looked to his front steps to see where his copy of the Times-Picayune<\/em> had crash landed, but his miniscule lawn and the front steps were bare.\u00a0 Halfway across the street he realized that it wasn\u2019t missing, but was floating and flapping in someone\u2019s hands in the full glare on his east-facing porch.\u00a0 Paul ascended the steps with a look of concern.\u00a0 The paper lowered like a dancer\u2019s fan.<\/p>\n Remo MacQuincy, with barely a bead of sweat populating the vast expanse of his forehead, sat with his spine squarely against the back of one of Paul\u2019s white wicker chairs.\u00a0 He was dressed in a seersucker suit, a thin white dress shirt buttoned straight to his bullfrog throat with a purple, pink, and orange bowtie flowering from the collar.\u00a0 Out of his chest pocket a white linen handkerchief with yellow rolled edges puckered upward as if too proud to droop.\u00a0 All the bright colors lent levity to his rotund body so that he seemed capable of floating up and bouncing against the ceiling like a wayward balloon if he hadn\u2019t been anchored firmly to the ground by the extra-wide saddle oxford shoes around his bare feet and the ten ounces of pomade slicking back his hair.\u00a0 Remo\u2019s nose wrinkled once before he shot up out of the chair and threw the news over his shoulder.<\/p>\n \u201cGood God, Paul Hinckley.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul held out his hand.\u00a0 Remo yanked at it like he was throwing an opposing wrestler into the ropes.<\/p>\n \u201cRemo-o-o!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor God\u2019s sake, get me inside and tell me you have something cool to drink.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2014I wasn\u2019t quite expecting you this early.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCome on, get me inside.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, okay.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul unlocked the door and let Remo inside.\u00a0 Remo pointed towards the kitchen.\u00a0 Paul started to laugh, already bubbling up inside with old stories and memories.\u00a0 He felt lightheaded.\u00a0 Remo locked the deadbolt and followed Paul with a hand at his back.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, look, I know it\u2019s early, but I\u2019ve been up awake all night and the seams are coming loose.\u00a0 Let\u2019s have us a real eye-opener.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think I\u2019ve got some bloody mary mix, but listen\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cProcrastination and prevarication.\u00a0 Two nouns I despise in a man.\u00a0 Go, go, go.\u00a0 And never mind the flora.\u00a0 All I need is ground pepper.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul mixed up two bloody marys and poured them into pint glasses crammed with ice cubes.\u00a0 Remo drank half of his at a clip, grabbed the fifth of vodka, and walked out of the room.\u00a0 Paul called after him, \u201cLook, you mind if I change clothes?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPlease do.\u00a0 You smell like routine sexual intercourse.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul started a laugh out of embarrassment then tried to flex his throat so that it would broadcast as a sort of devil-may-care har-har.\u00a0 He washed his face in his back bathroom, cleared the stinging soap from his eyelids, laughed again in the mirror, then switched out his polo shirt and shorts for fresh garments.\u00a0 He burped egg and tomato juice.<\/p>\n In the living room Remo stood with his face right up against a framed 8×10 black and white picture of Paul\u2019s parents sitting together in the backseat of a car leaving the church they\u2019d just been married in.\u00a0 They held hands across the seat but each looked out their own window.\u00a0 James Douglas already had a finger working the knot in his tie and his new bride was about to roll down the window.\u00a0 The date was written directly into the corner of the photograph with a fountain pen.\u00a0 Remo\u2019s glass was now more pink than red, the mix diluted with a full measure of vodka.<\/p>\n \u201cSame day as your birthday,\u201d Paul said.\u00a0 He came over and looked into the glass-protected past alongside the older man.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, sir.\u00a0 I think the old man regarded that fact as a little sliver of serendipity.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBoy, did he like you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWithin reason.\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 But I never saw this photo.\u00a0 That\u2019s something else.\u00a0 That\u2019s like a still from a picture.\u00a0 Warner Brothers proudly presents.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNow and again I wonder where that old coupe is now.\u201d<\/p>\n Remo turned to look at Paul\u2019s profile.\u00a0 \u201cThe coupe?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, Pop always spoke fondly of that car.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe goddamned coupe?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, why?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat coupe is in the bottom of Bayou St. John!\u00a0 Your father sold it for a song to Clayton LeBeau in 1954.\u00a0 New Year\u2019s Eve 1955, Clay\u2019s absconded from some party with a black prostitute he\u2019s somehow convinced is the same maid he holds unspoken passions for who works in Howard Shapiro, Sr.\u2019s house.\u00a0 He\u2019s racing through Esplanade Ridge, blotto<\/em>, the prostitute is giggling and cooing in his ear, and he sideswipes a row of cars.\u00a0 Which, of course, draws the attention of a patrol car.\u00a0 LeBeau, I imagine, goes pure white with fear, and decides it is in the best interest of his dignity to avoid being caught with Mr. Shapiro\u2019s maid, and tries to negotiate her ejection, romance be damned.\u00a0 The colored girl won\u2019t have any of it and starts a limited scuffle, eventually knocking him about the ribs with an empty pint bottle of Dewar\u2019s.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if you knew Clayton LeBeau well or not\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA little.\u00a0 My father\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShut up, Paul, I\u2019m telling a story.\u00a0 Clay was the type of man who would panic quite easily.\u00a0 So he clocks the prostitute, hits the gas, and crosses Broad Street.\u00a0 The coupe, by the way, is responding beautifully.\u00a0 That was a hell of a car.\u00a0 All the way down Esplanade it was roaring.\u00a0 The police chase at a respectful distance.\u00a0 He brings it up on two wheels turning down Wisner\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo-o!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCity Park on his left hand side.\u00a0 His entire reputation at stake.\u00a0 The cops are pulling closer, annoyed at the interminable chase.\u00a0 The girl has never been in a vehicle going sixty miles an hour before.\u00a0 She\u2019s screaming hell down on him.\u00a0 Clay realizes he can either start to cry or take drastic actions.\u00a0 He cuts the steering wheel hard to the right, and there goes your daddy\u2019s coupe, twisting on its nose, skipping down the embankment, and splashing right in the water.\u00a0 From the cops\u2019 point of view, he disappears right into the low-lying fog hugging the surface.\u00a0 By the time they\u2019d gotten down to the edge with their lamps, Clay had swam to the other side, promised the prostitute he\u2019d see her at Mr. Shapiro\u2019s Twelfth Night party, and wandered off into the night.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJeesum Crickets.\u00a0 Who told you all that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYour father.\u00a0 Clayton confessed all this years later.\u00a0 His guilt over the car was the only thing that troubled him about that night.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul fell apart laughing.\u00a0 Remo\u2019s eyes glimmered over the top of his glass.<\/p>\n \u201cYou never heard that story?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnyway.\u00a0 I\u2019m sufficiently cooled.\u00a0 You have a tape measure?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSure.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGive it here.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul retrieved a tape measure out of his catch-all drawer and handed it to Remo.\u00a0 The lawyer took it and headed back outside.\u00a0 He plodded down the steps and set his drink on the stoop.\u00a0 He led out a couple feet of the yellow tape and started measuring the height from the ground to the raised floor all the way down the side of Paul\u2019s house.<\/p>\n \u201cRemo, what are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMeasuring for consistency.\u00a0 Not bad.\u00a0 I eyeballed it at four feet, but you got four and a half.\u00a0 And it\u2019s level.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul leaned over the railing.\u00a0 \u201cWhat\u2019s the score?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJust like my letter said.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou mean that slip the kid had?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLet me show you something.\u201d<\/p>\n Remo bounced back up the steps and the two of them went back inside.\u00a0 He took a folded map from his coat pocket and unfolded it across Paul\u2019s coffee table.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the latest flood model of the area from the Army Corps of Engineers.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhere did you\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNow, while they may be deficient in many areas, those sons of bitches know how to run computer models.\u00a0 This represents a Cat 5 hurricane with our current level of \u2018protection.\u2019\u00a0 As you can see here\u2014\u201d he drew a finger down the map to the corner of Constance and Harmony, \u201cyou\u2019re in the sweet spot.\u00a0 Provided you\u2019re elevated enough.\u00a0 Which you are.\u00a0 Three feet plus minus eight inches they\u2019re estimating.\u00a0 You\u2019re in the clear, at least as far as keeping your hardwood intact.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, that\u2019s good to know, but\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPaul, we\u2019re friends, aren\u2019t we?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSure!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere have been some awful rumors spread about me in the past couple of months.\u00a0 There are citizens I\u2019ve never even met who have been made acquainted with these rumors.\u00a0 That never used to happen.\u00a0 I can feel a certain antagonism towards my person inhabiting our city.\u00a0 Those who used to just bristle at both my work ethic and love of justice have turned into enemies, and my old enemies have taken it upon themselves to become full-on nemeses.\u00a0 All over what?\u00a0 Jealousy, I suspect.\u00a0 I\u2019ve superseded all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul looked at him with an open-mouthed grin, expecting some kind of punch-line.<\/p>\n \u201cKid, what the hell are you staring at?\u00a0 I assumed you were up on current events.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRemo, what are you talking about?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t you read the papers?\u00a0 I\u2019m lead counsel for the first\u2014and only reputable\u2014class action lawsuit against the federal government for their culpability in the flooding of New Orleans.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, that.\u00a0 I thought it was some kind of publicity stunt.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI assure you my intentions are the full-on compensation for the decades-long, institutional dereliction of duty on the part of Uncle Sam to which we are all entitled.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t make my decision in haste.\u00a0 There were six months of research.\u00a0 My case has the full support of history and applicable precedents behind it.\u00a0 The only problem has been a dearth of willpower among my claimants.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll those I signed up for the suit.\u00a0 I only took a small administrative fee along with their signature.\u00a0 After three years those people have grown increasingly frustrated.\u00a0 Granted, there are a lot of factors tied up in their anger.\u00a0 But it\u2019s getting harder and harder to convince them of the efficacy of the cause.\u00a0 I told them at the time that retribution would not and could not be easily acquired.\u00a0 It\u2019s a waiting game, you see.\u00a0 The courts are going to dodge us at every turn, but, in the end, justice is eventual.\u00a0 A measured quantity of certainty.\u00a0 My arguments are solid; the full force of culpability is fettered to them like the proverbial ball and chain.\u00a0 Still, many of the people I represent don\u2019t have the necessary resolve to just fucking wait<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRemo, what\u2019s this all got to do with the height of my house?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThough recruitment to my suit was open to any and all affected by the broken levees, there were many of our class and stature, Paul, who said it was a wasted fight.\u00a0 I only got a handful of signatures from Lakeview and Mid-City.\u00a0 The majority of signatories came from Gentilly and Central City.\u00a0 I sent my underlings door-to-door.\u00a0 I even had a squad canvassing the exiles in Houston.\u00a0 Those people contributed to the up-front cash needed for such an endeavor.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou mean\u2026the blacks.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI knew I was playing with a volatile force.\u00a0 I just didn\u2019t know how much so.\u00a0 In truth, Paul, they\u2019ve turned on me like a wounded wolf.\u00a0 They want their money back.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJeesum.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd their growing pessimism, combined with the accusatory stones I\u2019m forced to dodge from colleagues supposedly closer to my stature and temperament, makes my current situation quite antithetical to productivity.\u00a0 In short, Paul, I need new digs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the morning, Paul expected to find Liza gone and little sustenance in her refrigerator.\u00a0 After a long piss, he found he was annoyed and correct.\u00a0 The fridge held at least a dozen styrofoam and plastic take-home cartons from as …<\/p>\n