Friday.\u00a0 The day I have off of work and to myself, the day countless New Orleanians leave for lunch and don\u2019t come back.\u00a0 It\u2019s oyster day, fish day, shrimp day.\u00a0 It\u2019s the day Happy Hour starts at 10 a.m. and the streets are clogged with impatient citizens hell-bent on appreciation of life\u2019s routine escapes.\u00a0 I had various destinations in mind while walking down Magazine Street, a small cluster of errands to do in no particular order.\u00a0 I was about to spend my last twenty dollars on small necessities a week before payday, so my pace was slow.\u00a0 It was round about four, and across the street at the check cashing joint the tanned, sweaty line was just beginning to form.\u00a0 A block down I passed the doorway of Brothers Three Lounge, a dark rectangle carved into bright gold brick.\u00a0 Country music echoed from deep inside overtop the small chinks of change being counted.\u00a0 Before I\u2019d gotten out of earshot I heard a familiar yell, a yell still strong for all its exercise either giving orders or shouting out stories.\u00a0 Brave Captain Harvey\u2019s yell.\u00a0
\n<\/p>\n
I hesitated, as I always do when someone calls my name, never having developed that cool cat method of ignoring everyone at your back and forcing them to catch up.\u00a0 I knew it was already too late, but I tried to take another step forward and tip my head down.\u00a0 I heard my name again, this time closer to the threshold, his voice chasing me.\u00a0 I turned my head and looked over my shoulder.\u00a0 Harvey\u2019s hands gripped the jambs and he pushed his head out into daylight reluctantly.\u00a0 His red bandana was drawn tight across his scalp and held tight with a soggy knot.\u00a0 A cigarette squatted in the corner of his mouth.<\/p>\n
\u201cDidn\u2019t you hear me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you saying I don\u2019t enunciate?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m saying they got Patsy Cline turned up so high in there cats three blocks away are in heat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harvey looked me up and down.\u00a0 \u201cYou ain\u2019t started drinking yet?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m fucking broke.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCome in here.\u00a0 I\u2019ll vouch for you.\u00a0 Joe will run you up a tab.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do I need for collateral?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re a clean cut kid with his whole life ahead of him.\u00a0 It\u2019ll be an extreme change of pace for Joe.\u201d<\/p>\n
I took a step towards Harvey, reached out and shook his hand belatedly.\u00a0 I looked over his shoulder into the lounge.\u00a0 The bar reached back long and supported the elbows of about a half-dozen old-timers.\u00a0 An old tube television held their attention and cast the only light source aside from Christmas lights strung along the bar\u2019s back mirror that glowed murky pink and green through bottles of Tullamore Dew and Wilkes Booth Whiskey.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t regulars.\u00a0 They were residents.\u00a0 Upstairs Joe had six or seven rooms that he rented out by the week.\u00a0 Hardwood floors and no windows.\u00a0 No furniture, no cabinets, not even a kitchenette.\u00a0 Just a john and a sink hidden in the wall, separated from the room by doors as light as cardboard.\u00a0 Old-timers rotated in and out constantly, depending on their income.\u00a0 They spent all day and most of the night downstairs drinking then crawled upwards into their boxy nests to sleep it off.\u00a0 Joe and his brothers held both ends of the leash.\u00a0 The register drawer was stuffed with signed over government checks.\u00a0 A rigid man with a limited vocabulary of motion got up not just to piss but to beat back a creeping early rigor mortis.\u00a0 His blood, aged with liquors, fearing an increased solubility, sought to settle between his bones and the barstool and let his skin turn a shade of blue the neon beer icons can\u2019t replicate.\u00a0 He coughed and wiped his fingers on the side of his Levi\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Brave Captain Harvey smelled like he had moved in as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you doin\u2019 okay, Cap?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRoger that.\u00a0 I got a job painting houses.\u00a0 Come on, let\u2019s have a drink.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right, but I\u2019m not sitting in there.\u201d\u00a0 I handed him a fiver.\u00a0 \u201cGo get us something.\u201d<\/p>\n
I sat down at one of the webbed iron tables right outside the lounge and tried to decide whether I would do without shampoo or bus fare for the week.\u00a0 Harvey returned with two PBR\u2019s and two styrofoam bowls of bright orange jambalaya he\u2019d scooped from the crock pot inside.\u00a0 Patsy gave way to Waylon.\u00a0 Harvey started to tell me about escape from certain death in Libya.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t get too far in his description of the camels and French-speaking whores before a huge white pickup passed us by, hard-braked to a stop, then backed up into the empty spot a yard from our feet, tires angled up on the curb.\u00a0 A tan bald man, in his fifties but fit with a goatee woven with black and silver threads slammed the door and came around the backside.\u00a0 He threw his wraparound sunglasses over his shoulder into the bed and came at Harvey like an unleashed pit bull.\u00a0 The man slapped Harvey\u2019s bowl off of the table, spraying rice everywhere then jutted his wide hand up underneath the Captain\u2019s adam\u2019s apple.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t look too sick<\/em> anymore, motherfucker.\u201d<\/p>\n I grabbed both Blue Ribbons and curled into the fetal position.\u00a0 I\u2019d learned the hard way that Harvey\u2019s battles often had a high occurrence of civilian casualties.<\/p>\n \u201cFuck, Casey, fuck!\u201d Harvey dribbled grains of rice, tobacco flakes, and spittle.<\/p>\n \u201cDidn\u2019t I tell you?\u00a0 Didn\u2019t I tell you: you walk away early from one of my jobs again that you\u2019d be sorry?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCouldn\u2019t\u2014couldn\u2019t help it.\u201d\u00a0 Harvey protested.\u00a0 \u201cAbdominal pains!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYet you seem to be digesting this shit pretty handily, Harvey.\u00a0 I gave you a second chance, man.\u00a0 I told you and warned you, but I gave you a second chance because you gave me all that Semper Fi shit, and then you don\u2019t even wait a day\u2014one day!\u2014before stowing it in again.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll finish tomorrow.\u00a0 I promise.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTomorrow, Harvey, is one day too fucking late<\/em>!\u00a0 I\u2019ve gotten my reputation by giving guarantees, not estimates. \u00a0My jobs don\u2019t go fucking over<\/em>!\u00a0 They get done on time<\/em>!\u00a0 I\u2019m lucky I got Jason and Raoul over there now picking up where you left off, which, also, Harvey, let me tell ya: I\u2019ve seen better sanding jobs from motherfucking Cub Scouts<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Harvey had his arms tucked up like chicken wings, hands drooping.\u00a0 He squinted up at the man.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u00a0 I was cramping up so bad\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou weren\u2019t cramping up.\u00a0 You weren\u2019t cramping up.\u00a0 You got hot and tired and you figured you got off once you could get away with it again.\u00a0 I tried, Harvey.\u00a0 I tried to trust you, but you sure don\u2019t have half of what you say you have.\u00a0 How you survived \u2018Nam, I can\u2019t even tell.\u00a0 I gave you a chance as a fellow ex-grunt, and you shit all over that.\u00a0 Now I got this guy who expected his house to be finished yesterday trying to run me in the red.\u00a0 I gotta work tomorrow for him pro bono<\/em> just to keep my reputation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat guy\u2019s a prick, Casey.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re missing the point, Harvey.\u201d\u00a0 Casey kicked Harvey\u2019s chair back against the brick wall but held the old man up by the lapels of his bomber jacket.\u00a0 The Captain hung there in loose air.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t motherfucking work<\/em> pro bono.\u00a0 So you\u2019re gonna pay me my rate for tomorrow\u2019s work by tomorrow at midnight.\u00a0 I think that\u2019s a fair deal.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAw, come on, Casey.\u00a0 Where am I going to get the money?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTake that rucksack full of Dinty Moore\u2019s you got in there and take it back to Winn-Dixie for a refund.\u00a0 Shine shoes.\u00a0 Turn tricks.\u00a0 It\u2019s not my problem.\u00a0 From now on, you don\u2019t get any more respect than what you showed me.\u00a0 Tomorrow.\u00a0 Midnight.\u00a0 The Black Wave.\u00a0 Seven hundred American dollars.\u201d\u00a0 He placed Harvey against the wall and glared at me.<\/p>\n \u201cI know you, huh?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m always around.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s Cass, you know him.\u00a0 Leave him alone,\u201d Harvey said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are you, some kind of Casanova?\u00a0 So bored with chasing easy pussy you gotta break up the day with this guy?\u00a0 Don\u2019t listen to a word this guy says.\u00a0 A goddamn disgrace.\u00a0 Soldier my ass.\u201d\u00a0 Casey stomped back up into his truck and throttled off down the street, turned up the avenue and was gone.\u00a0 Harvey stared at the vacant spot he\u2019d left, the mottled asphalt broken up by heat and time.\u00a0 He looked like he wanted to lie down in it and wait for death.\u00a0 His jaw worked silently.<\/p>\n \u201cCap?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHuh?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCap, what are you going to do?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI need a shower,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cCan you let me take a shower?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAt my place?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI got my own towel.\u00a0 Five minutes in and out.\u00a0 Come on.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI guess.\u00a0 But then you gotta go.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I know.\u00a0 But, do me a favor.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m already doing you a favor.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI mean just do something for me.\u00a0 Call Cristo.\u00a0 Tell him to close up early.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to shoot some pool.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Friday.\u00a0 The day I have off of work and to myself, the day countless New Orleanians leave for lunch and don\u2019t come back.\u00a0 It\u2019s oyster day, fish day, shrimp day.\u00a0 It\u2019s the day Happy Hour starts at 10 a.m. and …<\/p>\n