Have you ever heard that song Roxanne by the Police? She could create heat in her wake where she had walked. Wherever she had went — my eyes had followed remorsefully, ashamed even. The way that the sun's erroneously hot flares had kissed her skin with such heat had me in a sweat as if I had just dragged myself across the desert just to find her. The waves of heat rippled upward and out, radiantly from her physical essence and ever so looming presence. A heat that drew you in, even if you were wearing a sweater in the deep south with a temperature that most would scoff at with a dry mouth. Thick mucus formed in the back of your throat in a sticky pool that you couldn't quite spit out. It was at this point he wasn't sure if he had been talking about New Orleans or the very woman that stood before him. She had a darkness to her. There were lights deep in the eye of her very own storm. Where she went, it rained. And where it had rained, it had poured.
Her face was rosy red, her cheeks with a softly visible blush, freckles shown only when she had gotten sun from her left cheek, across her nose, and to her right cheek. When she spoke softly, I prayed for success in hiding my quiver. In my mind, I had even fallen to my knees at times. But unfortunately, I knew the cycle would persist. Forrest had this problem of blaming everyone else for his problems. This is just something that was inherent to his nature. I had been worried that I would just push her away, just as I had done with everyone else around me. It wasn't until now though I decided to start fresh and travel to New Orleans.
My brother had lived in New Orleans for quite some time — but we hadn't talked in years. This was the time for me to make things right with him if I could just find him safely. But just who was this mysterious man? He had been a stranger after all those passing years. The years of when they were just two boys. With two parents that liked to really forget that they had another sixty or so years of life left to live. Did he even have a brother anymore? None of that would matter of course because I felt that somehow I had been lied to about why I am here. But he did have to find his brother. The woman in the black laced dress had told me so.
She tossed her backpack into the bed of the truck while the door slammed shut behind her. A red Chevrolet Colorado. It was mostly beat up but in comparison to most of the other trucks around here, it glimmered amongst the rest. And that was saying something. Because it looked like a piece of shit. And when she stepped out of it — woah mama.
She had a deep southern accent, long dark brown hair that was extremely curly in nature, and beautiful brown eyes that could devastate a man if he had to be the one of the first ones to see them closed in permanence.
"Name?" she asked.
I had lost where I was in the gaze of the future that I was hoping we would have had together. The future with that white picket fence, children that ran around the yard as they played endlessly, the long wooden patio that wraps around the home with little white rockers that set upon its planks, the chairs creaked as a distant wind that skimmed across the hairs on your skin.
"Hello?"
Everything was perfect, the wedding, the marriage, the sweet love that we had frequently made.
"Are you okay?" her hand gripped my shoulder with a nudge that sucked me back in from my day dream and into my very own body where she had stood just before me and no longer in that entire future that we had just lived together. Something weird had come fluttering up from inside me with a feeling of I've gotta know this woman.
"You alright?" she asked me again.
I extended my hand for a firm shake, albeit I felt a bit stupid for this gesture since we were not just some mad man's fine wine on a Thursday night. "Uh, it's Forrest." I brushed my hands off against my pant legs that hugged my thighs nervously. Then with an abrupt seriousness to my clumsy nature, I wanted to impress.
"I'm Forrest." I said again, this time with much more confidence than the lanky kid with a backwards ball cap at the quiet table who soon people will become quite uncomfortable with as time goes on.
We danced around what we wanted to say, no more differently than a newlywed's first dance. She smiled, her teeth perfect, pure-white, and then, the kiss of death. She must have thought I was so stupid, she asked me if I was okay and I said my name, twice. Genius — or so I thought anyways.
"I'm Lily." She said.
"Lily," I said. The Lily who had just swept me off of my feet with a devastating blow of gotta have it and with a pinch of take me to your mom. Yes indeed, Lily — take me to your mother right this moment. And little did he know that was exactly what she was going to do.
Suddenly, it had hit him. He just gotta have it and she wasn't taking no for an answer.
There was a blossoming black ball of smoke billowing from her truck. When I focused on it, it had sounded like whispers. Whispers that lain upon one another in differing tones. Some men, some women, and of course some children. I rubbed my eyes because for a minute it had almost seemed like there were fingertips from the shadows reaching for me through the black smoke. As the hissing widows hid at the edge of darkness before me. All that was missing was a web — but he didn't realize he had already walked right into it.
Just ask her dude — I thought, "Uh… Where.. where are you going?"
"The same place as you. New Orleans." But this would be pronounced in my mind as Nee-you Oh-lins.
As we passed the interstate mile markers, we were haunted by the miles that remained. Sixty. Sixty miles away with no way into the city.
"I know this place where we can get a boat not too far from here." Lily said. Of course she had known where to get a boat. For she had already made the trip dozens of times.
And this is our way in. I snapped the seat belt into its buckle. click.
"I'm in."
Wherever she went, I was there. How couldn't you be? She was beautiful. Your dream girl some would even say, whatever it was that she looked like anyways. And you just. kept. staring. Any reason you could find to look. And you did. But you didn't just stop there. You even got into her truck. But it wouldn't really matter how he had gotten there. All that mattered is that he was going there. And he had no clue that he had already fallen victim. To the malingering hunger that was bestowed upon him.
Bay St. Louis was desolate and empty from the emergency evacuations. No resident had returned home yet as they await to arrive to see if their home was left standing after a bout with one of mother nature's fiercest storms she could have brewed. Katrina. The plan was that we'd make our way out into the gulf, through the bayous, and up the river into Nee-you Ohlins (or NOLA in popular nomenclature — although the locals, I am not quite sure what it was, but perhaps they hated that. Perhaps they did).
Lily caught me in a glimpse while I hid the obvious, it felt like a mutual attraction. A moth drawn into the flame blindly, she seemed the type that could extinguish a flame with her cold touch. And I'd wait for it. And I waited for her to speak. I looked out the window at the blurred and folded landscape. The trees were stripped clean to the bark. The final leaf had fallen, not because of the seasons change, but because of the violent nature of the winds that ripped through the gulf as they shredded what was on shore. Some strange song came on quietly in the background as if we were spectators at some strange madhouse filled quite loudly by a deranged choir performing near the fun house that was primarily made up of those who were unwanted when they came out looking different at birth. She began to speak at me while once again I had been trapped. As if my own tongue had been caught, similarly to a Colombian necktie as if it had snagged on its own cartilage — or was it the carotid artery, either way it didn't matter.
"What's with the camera?" She asked.
I clutched my Nikon F3 in my right hand as it hung around my neck, equipped with a fifty to eighty millimeter telephoto lens. Excellent for zoom photography, extra detail with depth when the film is exposed to light. It was another way for me to see the world and capture only the perfect moments. Because the moments that happened in my mind were only and always perfect. Picture perfect. How neat.
"This thing?" I looked down at it with a slight rotation to glance at the lens, "I'm a sucker for capturing the perfect moment." I had about eighteen exposures left, no wait.. seventeen. All of a sudden now he's a funny guy and she began to fall in love with him. His thick brown hair, it had waves like you wouldn't imagine. His jokes were quite clever. If he really wanted, he could've told jokes for a living. But instead he's here telling this story.
None of that mattered though now that we were at the boat. It was in quite rough shape but it had a motor and two planks to sit on. I was never a boat guy, but I loved to be on them. I owned a Kayak once, what a waste of money — if anyone is out there and has ever pictured themselves buying a kayak. Rent one instead.
(Wow, this was the same kid who cried when he couldn't go to big brother in elementary.)
It would have saved me a bit of money. Although, I did find it just a little funny that we'd ride into New Orleans on one of these. Through the Mississippi River nonetheless. A day or so after Hurricane Katrina passed through. We didn't even know how many were killed. We didn't really know how bad the storm had hit. We just knew that it was bad. Really bad. In fact, people were killed. Violently. Trapped in their attics, drowned in the homes they had grown up in. The home that little Susie from down the road, little Susie would pass Barbara's, who lived on the corner, every Thursday to pick up milk for her baby brother at the market. The flood waters rose as high as two stories in her home. Her mother screamed as the overflow from Lake Pontchartrain flooded into their home as it pinned them against the ceiling. Little Susie's mother had watched little Susie take her last breath. Little Susie's baby brother wouldn't get his milk that followed the last. Because little Susie had drowned in her attic. And her brother wouldn't need the milk anyways — because he had drowned in the attic too of course. But we couldn't be sure just how bad the storm was.
We got into the boat, started the motor but not without a slight struggle. There was some back and forth with the pull chord, we let it set for a moment. I pulled the pull chord once more, then another time. Nothing yet. One more pull. The boat wouldn't start. If the boat wouldn't start, then that meant we were stuck. If we were stuck, then how was I suppose to get into the city. And if I couldn't get into the city, how could I find my brother? And if I couldn't find my brother, how would I know he is alive and okay?
I gave it another pull. The engine sputtered and started up. And we road off into the bay, and out into the gulf, and then up the river. And into New Orleans. Or Nee-you Oh-lins.
It was in the early hours of the day, shortly before the sun had risen. The time of day when the stars in the night sky are still visible as it changes color to a baby blue with a little bit of haze that cast over it. The moon only slightly full dipped to the opposite side of the horizon. Almost as if it watched us move into the river. It crept further — the moon of course and not me staring at Lily — towards the edge of our planet. Our planet that sat in the middle of space, surrounded by who knows how many other: stars, galaxies, planets, and moons. And we watched it back, we used it for navigation through the gulf in the darkness. I never had any luck with photos in the darkness. But it wasn't the shutter speed that was the problem — it was me. I couldn't stand still long enough to capture one properly. But this time I would.
"Are you thirsty?" Lily asked.
But I would have to have someone else develop the film for me because I didn't know how to do it. I just paid someone else to do it and I'd pick it up from them after a couple days time. Something about the suspense and excitement waiting for your photos to turn out. Every printed photo of film comes to me the exact moment I had snapped the photo.
"Thirsty?" She asked again.
But that is what I loved about film. Photography in general. It was my escape in the world through the view finder. Oddly enough — I thought I had been more present in that moment, but I wasn't. I raised the viewfinder anyways because that's what I loved to do. I adjusted the zoom lens with a slow clockwise rotation that gently twisted with my left hand.
I took the shot.
She had waved her hand in front of the lens, as she blocked the view of the moon. She handed me the water bottle from her pack, I took a drink. Sixteen exposures left now I suppose but someone with her looks gets a pass — it's just the way it is. Those who know — KNOW.
"Yes, I will take some water." I said.
After a few hours, we had finally made it to the river. The early morning sun with a heavy dose of humidity applied directly to our skin, our shirts stuck to our bodies drenched in sweat. The mosquitoes of the swamp hummed in the dozens. No wait, hundreds. They'd fly right by each ear in an annoying chaos that couldn't be stopped. And they were relentless. Thankfully, I had a can of bug spray in my pack, I shook it just as I was about to spray but then I thought — has bug spray ever worked for anyone, ever? It was just another reason to spend money, and unfortunately. I was bad with money, really bad. But maybe not that bad.
The biotic beings of the bayou sang their songs, but first the crickets to play the rhythm in a sequence of ticks. Almost as if Forrest had been composing his very own entrance to the swamp. Entirely orchestrated in his own mind. Many thought he was mad — well, don't worry — he thought so too. Secondly, the bullfrogs croaked with a guttural, yet distinct, creep. They talked to one another from the mud and to the base of the trees. The bayou was alive. Fish splashed periodically at the surface level of the murky water, or maybe that was the alligators. Captain Lou on his pontoon had boated these banks before the blistering sun had bullied him from what I remembered my last time down here.
(The same kid who felt the world had owed him something.)
Captain Lou had the head of a twelve foot gator at the wheel of his boat. But what was it about alligators that fascinated Forrest so much. Was it simply for the fact that they are practically modern day dinosaurs because of their ability to adapt over time?
"You can feed them," he said, and then adding just as he adjusted to miss the marsh to avoid making matters much worse. After all, many men had been married to the muck at the bottom of this swamp for many years. That was — of course whatever was left of him by the time his ligaments had hit the bottom. A passing finger that was chopped off slowly wavered through the water, towards the bottom. Then the gator got it. In fact, after I had looked around, hundreds of nocturnal eyes stared as they watched us pass through.
Spooky.
The air filled with ghostly howls in the distance and a mist that saturated the surface with a thick residue that could damn near lick our sweat. I couldn't remember the last time that I was as deeply uncomfortable. Memories flurried around in my mind just one after another. I scanned every single moment in my life from which I could recall.
Every single one, then one had come to mind.
A time when I was much younger, simply just a young innocent boy, my father would chase me around the home, we'd wrestle as we played. We laughed, we joked, it was a blast.
From the story that I had been told by others in my own family, my real father had left my mother when she had found out she was pregnant with me. But then she met the man who had raised me. He took me outside to play ball, we played video games together, it was oodles of fun. Just after we'd wrestle, he'd hold me down as he claimed victory. We'd laugh and he'd tickle me, and then lastly, he'd spit on me.
His wet saliva slowly dripped from his mouth as he puckered his lips. A thick ooze descended slowly until it reached my nose. I turned my head since my hands were pinned by his hands — he was much stronger than me, after all — I was only a little boy.
(There was never a time when he had been more serious about anything ever in his life.)
And then one day I got a little older, and dad started to fall asleep when you talked to him. At first it was maybe every other week, then once a week, then a couple of times a week, and then every day.
Mid-conversation with him and then he'd already mumble himself to sleep, he had always worked so hard and work had just worn him down.
"I….. uhnnn.. I uhnnn…," he'd say with a slight lean and droop to his left with his left arm perked up like a retarded branch on a tree.
(He thought about what others would think when he said this — then he thought — it was for the sake of literature.)
And then his teeth started to fall out of his head, his gums turned black, and a terrible stench-filled breath pumped out of his lungs and into the atmosphere. It wilted away the plants nearby, their leaves had fallen rather quickly to the tabletops. And then things around the home started to vanish.
My vacation funds that I had saved over the months, the very funds — the funds that I had slaved for as I had pulled weeds from grandmother's garden.
Then my video games vanished into thin air. Then my toys started to disappear in the midst of the night. And then, eventually our friends and their parent's belongings had grown two little tiny legs and walked off on their own.
(Oh shit, he's playing with his food again.)
"We should rest soon." Lily said.
"Where?" I said — quite possibly where were we to rest in the middle of a bayou?
She sighed, flustered. She scanned the surface slowly with her flashlight. Most of the ground cover was submerged beneath the brackish water. She scanned from left to in front of her, and then slowly to her right. She had turned to face the east and repeated her motions. She leaned forward as she squinted her eyes, her arm raised slowly almost as if she were carefully threading a needle through the last stitch on a quilted blanket. "There's something over there."
Her ease and release of her own voice had drawn me in even more. I had been lost this whole time inside my own head it was possible that I had ignored her.
"You want to rest there?" I was puzzled. My face flinched and closed my eyes in disbelief. "There? Are you sure?"
I looked to the east and into her spotlight, a busted shanty that somehow survived the storm.
Barely. It was dilapidated, derelict even, dare I say — but I had a change of thought here.
"There." She said. And there we will go. For she was lonely once again — this strange woman who is dressed in a black laced gown would repeatedly tell me over and over again — and she was going to remain nearby for the remainder of the time, in case you had forgotten.