Dark Notes(26)

I don’t have a plan, only that Ivory can’t know I’m here. I should’ve reported her swollen lip. I damn sure shouldn’t have searched her body for bruises. But this? Showing up at her house? Definitely crossing into what-the-f*ck-am-I-doing territory.

Dusk grays out the horizon, and there aren’t any street lamps. Maybe I can coax her brother outside without her seeing me and punch his lights out before he has a chance to memorize my face. Of course, if she glimpses my car, she’ll know. The 1970 Pontiac GTO is too recognizable. If she didn’t see it in the school parking lot tonight, she will before the year’s over.

I should’ve taken a cab, but I wasn’t exactly thinking when I left the classroom and drove straight here.

Following the GPS, I sneak along a row of sagging houses. No, not sneaking. The American muscle under the hood is a 455 V8, and its thundering dirty rumble has residents leaning forward on their porches. Pedestrians stop walking and gawk. It occurs to me that I won’t be able to leave the car on her street. It would be jacked within minutes.

Just a couple blocks north of the French Quarter, Treme is the place tourists are warned not to go, not in daylight and definitely not at night. I haven’t visited this area since I was a rebellious teen. I forgot about all the graffiti, boarded-up windows, and huddles of men on the street corners looking around like they’re hiding something. How does she live here and not get mugged every day?

She has nothing of value to steal.

Except her innocence. Though I’m certain that was stolen long ago. The niggling question is, how much damage was done? I understand her reactions to me, the looks of both fear and desire to please. They’re her natural reflexes to a dominant man. But layers of obscurity lie beneath her expressions, experiences that strengthened her and tolls that warped her. Not just an abusive brother or a dead father, but something else. Something traumatically sexual.

Anger plunges through my veins, spurring me toward her house and the unknowns that wait there.

I spot her street number on the weathered siding of a narrow shotgun building. The peeling white paint gives way to rotten wood, and the drooping roof over the porch doesn’t look safe enough to stand beneath. The houses are too crammed together to accommodate driveways, and there are no cars parked out front. No lights on inside. No movement in the windows. Unless she’s sitting in the dark, she’s not home.

On my way here, I envisioned the worst. But one could argue the house next to hers is much worse, the exterior veneered in scraps of plywood and the entire structure slanting on its foundation. Someone even spray-painted on the neighbor’s door: Home is a fleeting feeling I’m trying to fix.

As I idle in front of her house, imagining the dilapidated conditions within, a knot of unease forms in my gut. Maybe she doesn’t have electricity? If her mother’s unemployed, who pays the bills? Her brother?

I don’t linger, afraid Ivory will come home and notice my car. A few blocks away, I pull into a crowded parking lot, operating on a hunch and a perverse sense of curiosity.

The bluesy notes of a solo trumpeter vibrate through me as I amble into Willy’s Piano Bar. I’ve never been here, but it’s not unlike the other seedy New Orleans bars I’ve frequented over the years. Grungy and cave-like, the scarce lighting and exposed brick walls give it a basement tavern feel. The kind of tavern men get shot in.

Where did her father die? Near the piano? Or over by high-top tables? Or right here, where I hover between the door and the bar?

This place sees its share of nosy tourists, so I’m not surprised no one spares me a glance. I scan the low-key crowd and zero in on the only other white guy. It’s too dark to make out details, but he appears to be close to my age with blond hair and a pale complexion. Matches the Google image I found of a young Willy Westbrook on my way to Ivory’s house. Can I be this lucky?

Adjusting the curled brim of my favorite fedora lower on my head, I stroll toward the bar and wave down the bartender. “Is that Willy’s son?”

She lifts her eyes to follow the direction of my nod, her white hair forming an ethereal glow around her dark complexion.

“Mm hmm.” She returns her attention to the drink she’s preparing. “That’s him, sugar.”

“Thanks.” Hooking my thumbs in my front pockets, I wander over to the half-circle booth and tower over his table.

A girl on each arm, he drags his gaze up my relaxed posture and locks on my face. “Do I know you?”

The shadowed corner of the booth obscures his expression, but his delayed movements and slurred speech are hard to miss. High or drunk, he’s probably too blitzed to remember me tomorrow.

“Are you Willy’s kid?”

“Yyyyup.” He reaches for his beer, sloshing it on the table. “What of it?”

I want to tell him the reason I’m here, that I am what happens when he hurts his sister. But if I mention Ivory, he might retaliate against her.

Keeping my face angled away from the dim light, I bend over the table and slam my fist into his nose.

The girls fly apart and shoot out of the booth as his head falls back and lolls on his shoulders. The whites of his eyes roll and disappear behind his lids as his body slides down in the seat.

The blood from his nostrils forms twin rivers over his lip and splatters on his shirt. His intoxication probably has more to do with the knock-out than my nonexistent boxing skills. I hoped to see him writhe in agony but take pleasure in knowing he’ll wake to the throbbing pain of a broken nose.