Read Online My Juliet by John Ed Bradley - Free Book Online Page A

beer?”
    â€œLast thing I remember is me and Sonny having a night at the F&M Patio Bar. This was right after you skipped town, and we went out to drown the sorrows, know what I mean? Sonny insisted on paying the tab, and while he did I ran out into Tchoupitoulas Street for some reason. People always ask me why I’d go and do such a dumb-ass thing and I never answer them. But now I can say it, since you’re the one who needs to hear it. I ran out in the road because I was happy. I was happy that you were finally gone from his life. I was happy because I believed Sonny was free of you forever.”
    â€œI order a beer and get a lecture. Jesus.”
    â€œI blame you, Juliet. You took my leg. You and you alone are responsible.”
    â€œFine. Now use that other leg and hop over there and get me my drink.”
    Behind the bar Louis pops the top on a Dixie and places the bottle on a tray. At her table he pours the beer cold and icy in a glass and the head swells up more than she usually likes. She doesn’t complain. Some people have to blame everybody else for their troubles. Even the beer foam would be something she did years ago. If he has earwax you can bet that’s her fault, too.
    â€œI was told they got my picture hanging in this place.”
    â€œWe put it over the toilet in the men’s room.”
    â€œDid Sonny remember to put a couple of horns growing from the top of my head?”
    He gives another noisy laugh and levels his face with hers. “Juliet, let me tell you something you might not want to hear. Sonny LaMott was never right in the head when it came to you. And he still isn’t.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œSonny’s got this big old sappy heart pounding away down deep in his chest. Still goes to church, still gets on his knees to say his prayers at night. The boy is pure, now. And it’s this pure thing in him that I want to make sure to protect.” Louis lowers a hand to his fake leg and gives it a tap. “I lost a lot on account of you and it’s in your power to have Sonny lose even more. I’m asking you, Juliet, and I’m asking nice—stay away from that boy.”
    She sits picking at the corner of the menu where the plastic is peeling. “I hate to disappoint you, Louis, especially after that deeply moving testimonial, but I didn’t come here today to catch up on the news about Sonny LaMott. Somebody told me last night that one of his paintings, presumably of me, is hanging here in the restaurant and I wanted to see it.”
    He glares at her for half a minute longer, then takes a step back as if to let her through. “The door with the frosty glass, then to your right.”
    â€œAnybody in there?”
    â€œNot at the moment, if that matters.”
    She walks to the bathroom and turns the light on and locks the door behind her. She wishes she had a missing leg to blame her life on. It sure would simplify everything in a hurry.
    â€œWhat got you to liking cocaine so much, Juliet?”
    â€œMy leg.”
    â€œWhat made you turn to adult cinema, Juliet?”
    â€œLeg.”
    The picture is where he said it would be, and she is unprepared for how beautiful it is. Or how beautiful Sonny made her. “Why, look at you,” she mutters to the face in the image.
    He did give her a lot of pubic hair, though, and this is her only complaint. But then she remembers that those were the days before you could find a decent wax job. Maybe she really did look like that—a regular ligustrum hedge.
    She brings her face closer to the canvas and finds Sonny’s autograph in the corner. “Sonny” is all it says, a name as plain as he was.
    Under that he’s scribbled something else, but the writing is so small she has a hard time making it out. The room’s poor lighting doesn’t help either. At first she thinks it’s a date, signifying when Sonny finished the thing, but her eyes adjust and she