Creole Belle Read Online Free Page B
control.”
“Don’t blow your nose too hard, Bix. I think your brains are starting to melt.”
Bix took a folded piece of lined notebook paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to Clete. “Check out the addresses there and see if I got them right.”
Clete unfolded the piece of notebook paper and stared at the letters and numbers penciled on it, his scalp shrinking. “What if I shove this down your throat?” he said.
“Yeah, you can do that, provided you don’t mind Waylon knowing where your sister and your niece live. Smells like you’re cooking gumbo in there. Have a nice evening. I love this neighborhood. I always wanted to live in it. Don’t get your dork stuck in the lamp socket on this.”
A FTER THE SHOOTING behind my house on Bayou Teche in New Iberia, I underwent three surgeries: one that saved my life at Our Lady of Lourdes in Lafayette; one at the Texas Medical Center in Houston; and the third in New Orleans. A solitary .32 bullet had struck me between the shoulder blades. It was fired by a woman neither Clete nor I had believed was armed. The wound was no more painful and seemed no more consequential than the sharp smack of a fist. The shooter’s motivation had been a simple one and had nothing to do with survival, fear, greed, or panic: I had spoken down to her and called her to task for her imperious treatment of others. My show of disrespect enraged her and sent her out my back screen door into the darkness, walking fast across the yellowed oak leaves and the moldy pecan husks, oblivious to the dead men on the ground, a pistol extended in front of her with one arm, her mission as mindless and petty as they come. She paused only long enough to make a brief vituperative statement about the nature of my offense, then I heard a pop like a wet firecracker, and a .32 round pierced my back and exited my chest. Like the dead man walking, I stumbled to the edge of the bayou, where a nineteenth-century paddle wheeler that no one else saw waited for me.
Though my description of that peculiar moment in my career as a police officer is probably not of much significance now, I must add a caveat. If one loses his life at the hands of another, he would like tobelieve his sacrifice is in the service of a greater cause. He would like to believe that he has left the world a better place, that because of his death at least one other person, perhaps a member of his family, will be spared, that his grave will reside in a green arbor where others will visit him. He does not want to believe that his life was made forfeit because he offended someone’s vanity and that his passing, like that of almost all who die in wars, means absolutely nothing.
One day after Clete’s visit, Alafair, my adopted daughter, brought me the mail and fresh flowers for the vase in my window. My wife, Molly, had stopped at the administrative office for reasons I wasn’t aware of. Alafair’s hair was thick and black and cut short on her neck and had a lustrous quality that made people want to touch it. “We’ve got a surprise for you,” she said.
“You going to take me sac-a-lait fishing?”
“Dr. Bonin thinks you can go home next week. He’s cutting down your meds today.”
“Which meds?” I said, trying to hold my smile in place.
“All of them.”
She saw me blink. “You think you still need them?” she said.
“Not really.”
She held her eyes on mine, not letting me see her thoughts. “Clete called,” she said.
“What about?”
“He says you told him Tee Jolie Melton came to see you at two in the morning.”
“He told you right. She left me this iPod.”
“Dave, some people think Tee Jolie is dead.”
“Based on what?”
“Nobody has seen her in months. She had a way of going off with men who told her they knew movie or recording people. She believed anything anyone told her.”
I picked up the iPod off the nightstand and handed it to Alafair. “This doesn’t belong to the nurses or the attendant or
“Don’t blow your nose too hard, Bix. I think your brains are starting to melt.”
Bix took a folded piece of lined notebook paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to Clete. “Check out the addresses there and see if I got them right.”
Clete unfolded the piece of notebook paper and stared at the letters and numbers penciled on it, his scalp shrinking. “What if I shove this down your throat?” he said.
“Yeah, you can do that, provided you don’t mind Waylon knowing where your sister and your niece live. Smells like you’re cooking gumbo in there. Have a nice evening. I love this neighborhood. I always wanted to live in it. Don’t get your dork stuck in the lamp socket on this.”
A FTER THE SHOOTING behind my house on Bayou Teche in New Iberia, I underwent three surgeries: one that saved my life at Our Lady of Lourdes in Lafayette; one at the Texas Medical Center in Houston; and the third in New Orleans. A solitary .32 bullet had struck me between the shoulder blades. It was fired by a woman neither Clete nor I had believed was armed. The wound was no more painful and seemed no more consequential than the sharp smack of a fist. The shooter’s motivation had been a simple one and had nothing to do with survival, fear, greed, or panic: I had spoken down to her and called her to task for her imperious treatment of others. My show of disrespect enraged her and sent her out my back screen door into the darkness, walking fast across the yellowed oak leaves and the moldy pecan husks, oblivious to the dead men on the ground, a pistol extended in front of her with one arm, her mission as mindless and petty as they come. She paused only long enough to make a brief vituperative statement about the nature of my offense, then I heard a pop like a wet firecracker, and a .32 round pierced my back and exited my chest. Like the dead man walking, I stumbled to the edge of the bayou, where a nineteenth-century paddle wheeler that no one else saw waited for me.
Though my description of that peculiar moment in my career as a police officer is probably not of much significance now, I must add a caveat. If one loses his life at the hands of another, he would like tobelieve his sacrifice is in the service of a greater cause. He would like to believe that he has left the world a better place, that because of his death at least one other person, perhaps a member of his family, will be spared, that his grave will reside in a green arbor where others will visit him. He does not want to believe that his life was made forfeit because he offended someone’s vanity and that his passing, like that of almost all who die in wars, means absolutely nothing.
One day after Clete’s visit, Alafair, my adopted daughter, brought me the mail and fresh flowers for the vase in my window. My wife, Molly, had stopped at the administrative office for reasons I wasn’t aware of. Alafair’s hair was thick and black and cut short on her neck and had a lustrous quality that made people want to touch it. “We’ve got a surprise for you,” she said.
“You going to take me sac-a-lait fishing?”
“Dr. Bonin thinks you can go home next week. He’s cutting down your meds today.”
“Which meds?” I said, trying to hold my smile in place.
“All of them.”
She saw me blink. “You think you still need them?” she said.
“Not really.”
She held her eyes on mine, not letting me see her thoughts. “Clete called,” she said.
“What about?”
“He says you told him Tee Jolie Melton came to see you at two in the morning.”
“He told you right. She left me this iPod.”
“Dave, some people think Tee Jolie is dead.”
“Based on what?”
“Nobody has seen her in months. She had a way of going off with men who told her they knew movie or recording people. She believed anything anyone told her.”
I picked up the iPod off the nightstand and handed it to Alafair. “This doesn’t belong to the nurses or the attendant or
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