one o'clock
at the latest. Then I'd get back uptown, stop hunting snipe.
The next mission on my list lay well beyond the Quarter, on Der-bigny out near Elysian Fields, a formidable hike. I had another
cup of coffee to fortify myself.
They didn't know it, neither did I, but three guys hanging out at a comer store same as every day, wearing oversize jeans
and backwards baseball caps, were waiting for me out there, along with a brushup on my arithmetic.
That's how life happens: angles, sharp turns, snags. Never what we expect. Never the stories we tell ourselves ahead of time.
So we're always having to make up new ones.
8
I COULD HEAR Bat chiding me from just inside as I unlocked the door. Obviously much was amiss. I was a great disappointment
to him.
One morning maybe six years before, he had shown up on Clare Fellman's screen door, claws anchored in the mesh, hanging there.
She shooed him down and away but he kept coming back, till finallyshe let him in. He was little more than a kitten then, mostly
skin and bone, with just these huge ears sticking straight up—which was how he got the name.
I'd kind of showed up on Clare's doorstep, too. And when I wouldn't go away, she let me stay.
We'd had a little over a year together, fourteen months almost to the day. With Clare, I'd been able for the firsttime to
say things that, before, I'd always waited too long, too late, to say.
Then one night I came in and found her lying on the couch.
The night before, we'd attended a performance of the Kumbuka African Drum & Dance Collective at Loyola's Roussel Hall. Women
meet to go about their daily work, scrubbing clothes, preparing food. One stays behind when night begins to fall and the others
depart. Shortly she is set upon by a faceless demon. The others returnand findher body. Their wailing and lamentations weave
together into a hard rhythm that's finally picked up, almost unheard at first, by drums offstage. The women begin to dance
as, slowly, the drummers come into sight—as together, ever more frantic, they drum and dance the woman back to life.
In the time we'd been together, Clare had discovered a flair for writing, and an unsuspected joy in it. The words that came
to her so reluctantly, so haltingly, when she spoke, poured out in a flowwhen she wrote. She had started off writing op-ed
pieces; soon she was doing reviews for local alternative papers.
I knew she was supposed to write up last night's performance and that it was due at The Griot's office by six. Furthermore, this was Wednesday, her early day at school, so she'd been home since noon. But the only thing
on the computer screen was the ensemble's name, below that the date and time of performance. Two spaces down, indented, the
cursor blinked. A stack of students' papers sat untouched on the kitchen table where she usually worked.
I just don't feel very good, she told me when I asked what was wrong.
I . . . feel... really bad . . . Lew... you know... ?
I'd been with her so long that I no longer noticed the pauses, the gropings, the way she drew lines around a word and waited
for it to settle in place.
Come on, we're going to Touro, I told her.
Somehow I even managed to drive her car there. Because it was specially outfitted, with brake, gearshift and accelerator on
the steering column, I'd never tried before.
In ER I raised enough hell to get her seen immediately. Neither the residents nor the attendings I insisted upon their calling
in could find anything wrong. They suggested, nonetheless, that Clare remain overnight for observation.
I'd gone home to pick up a few things for her, pajamas and robe, toothbrush, underwear, makeup, her purse. Back in thirty
minutes, I told her.
I knew something was wrong the minute I stepped inside the ER doors. People were rushing into Clare's room from all over.
Another cerebral aneurysm, I was told minutes later. Like the one that hit her when she was twenty-two, the one she
at the latest. Then I'd get back uptown, stop hunting snipe.
The next mission on my list lay well beyond the Quarter, on Der-bigny out near Elysian Fields, a formidable hike. I had another
cup of coffee to fortify myself.
They didn't know it, neither did I, but three guys hanging out at a comer store same as every day, wearing oversize jeans
and backwards baseball caps, were waiting for me out there, along with a brushup on my arithmetic.
That's how life happens: angles, sharp turns, snags. Never what we expect. Never the stories we tell ourselves ahead of time.
So we're always having to make up new ones.
8
I COULD HEAR Bat chiding me from just inside as I unlocked the door. Obviously much was amiss. I was a great disappointment
to him.
One morning maybe six years before, he had shown up on Clare Fellman's screen door, claws anchored in the mesh, hanging there.
She shooed him down and away but he kept coming back, till finallyshe let him in. He was little more than a kitten then, mostly
skin and bone, with just these huge ears sticking straight up—which was how he got the name.
I'd kind of showed up on Clare's doorstep, too. And when I wouldn't go away, she let me stay.
We'd had a little over a year together, fourteen months almost to the day. With Clare, I'd been able for the firsttime to
say things that, before, I'd always waited too long, too late, to say.
Then one night I came in and found her lying on the couch.
The night before, we'd attended a performance of the Kumbuka African Drum & Dance Collective at Loyola's Roussel Hall. Women
meet to go about their daily work, scrubbing clothes, preparing food. One stays behind when night begins to fall and the others
depart. Shortly she is set upon by a faceless demon. The others returnand findher body. Their wailing and lamentations weave
together into a hard rhythm that's finally picked up, almost unheard at first, by drums offstage. The women begin to dance
as, slowly, the drummers come into sight—as together, ever more frantic, they drum and dance the woman back to life.
In the time we'd been together, Clare had discovered a flair for writing, and an unsuspected joy in it. The words that came
to her so reluctantly, so haltingly, when she spoke, poured out in a flowwhen she wrote. She had started off writing op-ed
pieces; soon she was doing reviews for local alternative papers.
I knew she was supposed to write up last night's performance and that it was due at The Griot's office by six. Furthermore, this was Wednesday, her early day at school, so she'd been home since noon. But the only thing
on the computer screen was the ensemble's name, below that the date and time of performance. Two spaces down, indented, the
cursor blinked. A stack of students' papers sat untouched on the kitchen table where she usually worked.
I just don't feel very good, she told me when I asked what was wrong.
I . . . feel... really bad . . . Lew... you know... ?
I'd been with her so long that I no longer noticed the pauses, the gropings, the way she drew lines around a word and waited
for it to settle in place.
Come on, we're going to Touro, I told her.
Somehow I even managed to drive her car there. Because it was specially outfitted, with brake, gearshift and accelerator on
the steering column, I'd never tried before.
In ER I raised enough hell to get her seen immediately. Neither the residents nor the attendings I insisted upon their calling
in could find anything wrong. They suggested, nonetheless, that Clare remain overnight for observation.
I'd gone home to pick up a few things for her, pajamas and robe, toothbrush, underwear, makeup, her purse. Back in thirty
minutes, I told her.
I knew something was wrong the minute I stepped inside the ER doors. People were rushing into Clare's room from all over.
Another cerebral aneurysm, I was told minutes later. Like the one that hit her when she was twenty-two, the one she
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