Read Online The Bayou Trilogy: Under the Bright Lights, Muscle for the Wing, and The Ones You Do by Daniel Woodrell - Free Book Online
Authors: Daniel Woodrell
Ads: Link
high-legged couch and began to strum an approximate rendition of “Mama Tried.” As he played he could see the sidewalk across the street, a sidewalk clotted with strangers doing business, a street he didn’t like. Creepy fuckin’ Frogs, anyhow.
It’s a piece of cake, if you keep cool.
Jewel jerked upright, then flipped the guitar across the room, snapping the E string on the dresser edge. He put his head in his hands and growled.
And you’ll keep cool, right, cuz?
5
P ETE L EDOUX sat on the hood of his black Pinto in the shadows of the line of trees that surrounded the graveled parking lot of the Catfish Bar, using his keys to chisel at splatters of guano deposited on his car by a rare bird that shit cement and seemed to follow him around. Occasionally he looked across the lot, foul with white dust and heat shimmers, toward Lafitte Street. He was waiting for Steve Roque, and that meant that he could not become impatient and leave. Roque had said wait, and Ledoux had no choice but to do so.
The sidewalk on this stretch of Lafitte, even before noon, was rich with rod-and-reel luggers in rubber boots sneaking toward a favorite slough where a dry stump overlooked a bullhead hole; double-wide women with surplus neck who squeezed grocery bags to their chests; and diddy-bop strutters in Foster Grants who acknowledged one another with terse chin gestures. Ledoux watched as if Frogtown, the version of it that he’d always known, was on the verge of disappearing. The area had not been totally French since Lewis and Clark had partied down here prior to their famous trip, and even when Ledoux had been born the Frogs had been equaled in number by rogue Germans, ambitious Irish, and hillbilly trash. It was this new influx of wetbacks that troubled him. Those people stank the streets up with peppery smells and burned beans, and they didn’t understand who was boss. If native Frogtowners didn’t snap out of their soft slumber they’d wake soon to find they lived on Pancho Villa Boulevard. He was sure of that.
When Roque arrived it was on foot. He stood at the corner of the bar building and raised a hand toward Ledoux. Ledoux crossed the parking lot and joined him beneath the big sign with a blue catfish on it that swung above the door.
A bouncy kid was swaggering down the walk. He was summer brown and wore a coffee-stained dago T-shirt, dress slacks, and slick shoes with the de rigueur horseshoe taps that sparked as he walked, as if his strut were a blade and the street a perpetual whetstone. When he was even with the two men he picked Ledoux to make eye contact with.
Ledoux returned the gaze, superior and cool.
The kid shrugged and looked away, then glared back.
“Hey, punk,” Ledoux said sharply, “I don’t want to be your friend. Keep walkin’.”
“Fuck you,” the kid said, then looked over his shoulder.
Ledoux leaned toward him and the kid flashed a couple of running steps, then slowed to a walk when he saw he wasn’t being seriously chased.
“I don’t think I can put up with it,” Ledoux said.
“Shouldn’t have to,” Roque said. “That’s my opinion.”
Steve Roque was built in the style of the local French: about five-ten, with a thick-boned frame, filled out by two hundred pounds of unpretentious, but useful, bulk. So many Frogtowners were of this body type that it was referred to as “Froggy.” But Roque sidestepped stereotyping by being bald, with a long gray rough of hair on the sides. He wore a black Ban-Lon shirt, white slacks, and white shoes.
Roque jerked his thumb at the door.
“I heard there’s a cool spot in this town; could be it’s in here.”
Froggy Russ Poncelet, the day bartender, a friend to many and enemy to none, was busy behind the bar dropping cans of beer into the floor coolers. He looked up as Roque and Ledoux entered.
“Tip’s in back,” he said.
“Hard worker, that Tip,” Roque replied.
“How do you like this heat?” Poncelet asked.
“Not much.
It’s a piece of cake, if you keep cool.
Jewel jerked upright, then flipped the guitar across the room, snapping the E string on the dresser edge. He put his head in his hands and growled.
And you’ll keep cool, right, cuz?
5
P ETE L EDOUX sat on the hood of his black Pinto in the shadows of the line of trees that surrounded the graveled parking lot of the Catfish Bar, using his keys to chisel at splatters of guano deposited on his car by a rare bird that shit cement and seemed to follow him around. Occasionally he looked across the lot, foul with white dust and heat shimmers, toward Lafitte Street. He was waiting for Steve Roque, and that meant that he could not become impatient and leave. Roque had said wait, and Ledoux had no choice but to do so.
The sidewalk on this stretch of Lafitte, even before noon, was rich with rod-and-reel luggers in rubber boots sneaking toward a favorite slough where a dry stump overlooked a bullhead hole; double-wide women with surplus neck who squeezed grocery bags to their chests; and diddy-bop strutters in Foster Grants who acknowledged one another with terse chin gestures. Ledoux watched as if Frogtown, the version of it that he’d always known, was on the verge of disappearing. The area had not been totally French since Lewis and Clark had partied down here prior to their famous trip, and even when Ledoux had been born the Frogs had been equaled in number by rogue Germans, ambitious Irish, and hillbilly trash. It was this new influx of wetbacks that troubled him. Those people stank the streets up with peppery smells and burned beans, and they didn’t understand who was boss. If native Frogtowners didn’t snap out of their soft slumber they’d wake soon to find they lived on Pancho Villa Boulevard. He was sure of that.
When Roque arrived it was on foot. He stood at the corner of the bar building and raised a hand toward Ledoux. Ledoux crossed the parking lot and joined him beneath the big sign with a blue catfish on it that swung above the door.
A bouncy kid was swaggering down the walk. He was summer brown and wore a coffee-stained dago T-shirt, dress slacks, and slick shoes with the de rigueur horseshoe taps that sparked as he walked, as if his strut were a blade and the street a perpetual whetstone. When he was even with the two men he picked Ledoux to make eye contact with.
Ledoux returned the gaze, superior and cool.
The kid shrugged and looked away, then glared back.
“Hey, punk,” Ledoux said sharply, “I don’t want to be your friend. Keep walkin’.”
“Fuck you,” the kid said, then looked over his shoulder.
Ledoux leaned toward him and the kid flashed a couple of running steps, then slowed to a walk when he saw he wasn’t being seriously chased.
“I don’t think I can put up with it,” Ledoux said.
“Shouldn’t have to,” Roque said. “That’s my opinion.”
Steve Roque was built in the style of the local French: about five-ten, with a thick-boned frame, filled out by two hundred pounds of unpretentious, but useful, bulk. So many Frogtowners were of this body type that it was referred to as “Froggy.” But Roque sidestepped stereotyping by being bald, with a long gray rough of hair on the sides. He wore a black Ban-Lon shirt, white slacks, and white shoes.
Roque jerked his thumb at the door.
“I heard there’s a cool spot in this town; could be it’s in here.”
Froggy Russ Poncelet, the day bartender, a friend to many and enemy to none, was busy behind the bar dropping cans of beer into the floor coolers. He looked up as Roque and Ledoux entered.
“Tip’s in back,” he said.
“Hard worker, that Tip,” Roque replied.
“How do you like this heat?” Poncelet asked.
“Not much.
Similar Books
