LaRose(9)

I was saying to Bap, life don’t quit.

It don’t quit until it does, said Ottie. I managed a shit on my own the other day. Nearly fell off the f*cken stool.

Jeez, Ottie, said Bap.

Let’s get it done, said Landreaux, wheeling Ottie down the short hall.

The tribe had sprung for a disability bathroom and Ottie had a shower chair. After Landreaux helped Ottie into the chair, he scrubbed Ottie’s back and hosed him off. The door opened a crack. Bap’s arm came through with a set of clean clothes. When they came out to the kitchen, there were blueberry pancakes with fake maple syrup, cooked up with powdered commodity eggs. Landreaux could taste the familiar flat chemically dry eggish quality and the aspartame over the maple. It was good.

So how’s everybody dealing? Bap sat back from the table. She was a small, husky woman who still kept up the fiction that she was jealous as hell of other women, had to keep them from pursuing Ottie. She wore makeup all the time for Ottie. Eye shadow a different color for each day of the week. It was Purple Tuesday. She pulled her hair back in a scrunchie and sprayed her bangs in a massive pout over her plucked-skinny eyebrows. Her nails were lacquered an innocent pink. One finger tapped her lips.

Maybe I shouldn’t say nothing. Keep my trap shut?

Nah, said Landreaux.

Emmaline was her cousin.

You’re family, he said.

Emmaline’s real strong, said Bap.

Real strong, said Landreaux. His head began to buzz. I wanna establish a fund, you know? When they get better, when our families get more healed.

Bap and Ottie nodded warily, as if they might be asked to contribute.

Everybody makes a fund up now, said Bap.

Me, said Ottie, I know this is a sad time. But when I go, I want my fund to be a high-heels fund for reservation ladies. I sure like it when Bappy dresses up for me and does her thing. I’d like to see a few more ladies make that click sound when they walk. Drives me f*cken wild.

Bap took Ottie’s hand in hers.

You don’t need no fund, babydoll. You ain’t gonna die.

Except piece by piece, said Ottie.

Hate diabetes, said Landreaux.

We gotta get him ready for his appointment, said Bap. You gotta test his sugar.

Already done, said Ottie.

Landreaux didn’t say he’d tested Ottie’s sugar when he smelled the pancakes, knowing the carbs would spike Ottie’s blood up no matter how much fake sweetener Bap threw at the problem. They were liable to hallucinate on that aspartame shit, he sometimes thought. He and Ottie were in the car, wheelchair folded in the trunk, before Landreaux realized he’d escaped without really answering Bap’s question about how they were dealing. Ottie had deflected that line of inquiry with his high-heels death fund.

Thanks, he said to Ottie.

For what?

I didn’t know what to say to Bap. How we’re doing. We’re still in that phase where we wake up, remember, wanna go back to sleep.

I spose you won’t never hunt no more.

Burnt my gun. Well, what much of it that would burn.

That don’t do nobody no good, said Ottie. Now who is gonna get your children the protein they need to grow big and strong?

We’ll set snares, said Landreaux. Fry some waboose.

That would be on my diet, said Ottie. I’ll trade you some a them pills you like.

Landreaux didn’t answer.

But I’ll miss your deer meat, Ottie went on. I guess it ain’t something you get over, though. You keep on going through it.

Over and over, said Landreaux. Maybe trade you later. I don’t need that stuff.

But he did, ever so bad.



THE HOT BAR at Whitey’s gas station sold deep-fried wings, gizzards, drummies, pizza, and Hot Pockets. Romeo Puyat saw Landreaux drive by the gas station and park out back in the weeds. Romeo was a skinny man with close-set, piercing eyes and a wounded, hunching walk. His right arm was always held close to his body because it had been broken in so many places that it was pinned together. His right leg too. Still, he could move quickly. Thinking that Landreaux would stay inside and eat his lunch, Romeo grabbed the siphon hose and his bright-red fire-code-approved plastic container. He lurched, crooked but efficient, over to Landreaux’s car and set up his equipment. Romeo was adept from frequent practice and soon had the gasoline flowing from Landreaux’s gas tank, through the rubber tubing, into his container.

Landreaux walked out of the store carrying a small grease-proof cardboard box. His eyes flicked when he saw Romeo, but he did not acknowledge his old classmate. The reasons for hating each other went back to their childhood’s brutal end. The two had stopped talking back in boarding school. And then there was the time Romeo had tried to murder Landreaux in his sleep. That was in their early twenties, and it just happened that Landreaux had been in possession of a lot of money that one night. As the money was the main corrupting influence, Romeo was hurt that Landreaux still mistrusted him over the botched knifing. These days, at least, Romeo wasn’t after his old schoolmate’s life.

Romeo had accepted, at least in theory, how Landreaux had stolen his first love, Emmaline, who maybe hadn’t liked Romeo anyway. Romeo was grudgingly okay with how Landreaux and Emmaline had unquestioningly taken in, and admirably looked after, his surprise son, Hollis. Romeo told himself that they got a good deal in that boy, because Hollis was A-number-one. Still, he had to admit there was a lot of upkeep involved there. These days, anyway, the main thing was that Romeo just wanted Landreaux to share and share alike. As a personal caregiver well-known at the hospital, surely Landreaux had lots of access to prescription painkillers. Why not make his old friend a little happier? Take away his agonies? Yes, Romeo had his own prescription, but it just was not OxyContin and sometimes he had to sell his lesser stuff to pay for the really good stuff. Like Fentanyl. He had been trying to buy a patch somewhere.