Feet on the Street by Roy Blount Jr. Page A

He went on.
    â€œThe parents just stared. They looked nervous. I said, ‘Is there anything you want to ask me?’ Finally, the mother spoke up. She said, ‘Can we have his frog feet?’ ”
    Not a story
Parade
’s readers would want for Christmas. We had already run up quite an expense account. “What are we going to tell
Parade
?” I wondered aloud.
    Slick stared at the oysters lying in their shells. It was early evening, magic time in terms of light, which was coming in through the big window there, lending a rosy glow. Slick picked up the battered Leica that stuck with him through thick and thin.
    â€œHow about: ‘
Orphans?
We thought you said
oysters.
”
    M ANY YEARS LATER, I’m in New Orleans alone, at Felix’s, having a dozen and working the
New York Times
crossword. And the shucker is condescending to talk to me. He can evidently shuck and jive at the same time. He is telling me that the other night a man ate forty-eight dozen oysters at a sitting. Not here, but at a seafood place out by the lake. “I don’t know if he even leaves the shells,” he says. “Lives in Hammond, Loozanna. I wish I owned a grocery in Hammond.”
    â€œFat?” I inquire.
    â€œYes. But not
extree-ordinarily
fat. About my heighth, with your stomach.”
    And in comes Becca. And her husband. I know who they are because he says, “Aw, Becca,” and she looks at me, jerks her thumb over at him, and says, “My husband Kyle.”
    It’s late fall, crispy for New Orleans, and she’s wearing a sweater. Striped, horizontally, which on a flat surface would be straight across but on her the effect is topographical. And there’s a twinkle in her eye—well, more of a glint, probably, but you can see seeing it as a twinkle in just the right light. “Shuck us a dozen,” she tells the shucker, and with a look over at hubby, “Let’s hope one of ’em works.”
    If I had not seen
Double Indemnity
enough times to be all too familiar with how these things turn out . . . Because she is over close to me now saying, “I work that puzzle every damn day of this world.”
    One look at Becca and I’m into a noir-narration frame of mind, thinking to myself, You know, a man has always got to be promoting getting some; and a woman always got to be promoting getting something out of giving some up; but a woman who is giving you some to get back at her husband can just enjoy it and let you just enjoy it because her ulterior motive is covered. Problem would be when she gets her message through to the husband, gets tired of that, and starts figuring out how you, too, are letting her down. I’d say Becca’s daddy had money till she got halfway through high school and he lost it all: A daddy’s girl whose daddy folded.
    And now this husband, Kyle. A weedy sort. He nods distantly, looking like he hopes it won’t come across as miserably. “And two Ketels on the rocks,” she says, and he says, “Aw, Becca,” again. They’re both fairly sloshed, but he’s fading and she is on the rise.
    â€œ ‘A little hard to find’? How many letters?” she says. She’s up against my shoulder looking at the puzzle. Kyle’s leaning against the counter, putting horseradish on the first oyster the shucker has presented them with. Without moving away from me or looking away from the puzzle, she reaches over, takes the oyster from in front of Kyle, puts it to her lips, gives me a little half-look, and slurps it down.
    I say, “Eight.”
    She says, “A good man.”
    â€œBut where’s the ‘little’ in that?”
    A woman just in it for the giggles would have made a coy face and said “I’m not touching that one.” Becca gives me another half-look and grabs my pen and starts writing “A GOOD MAN” in.
    That doesn’t appeal to me at all, on one level. On