My Juliet by John Ed Bradley

violently at his feet.
    Through his open window Sonny says, “Listen, you lunatic, if you call that man or go by his office again we’ll both end up in jail. I’m not serving time for you, buddy. I’m not.”
    Louis, bent over, rests his hands on his fake leg, a rope of saliva hanging from his mouth.
    â€œSo don’t be gloating about this tomorrow,” Sonny says, “and don’t you ever mention it again. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
    Louis cleans his mouth with his shirttail and gives a nod. “I owe you,” he says.
    â€œNo, you don’t. You don’t owe me anything.”
    â€œI owe you,” Louis says again.

    â€œYou color-coded our lives. Daddy was blue, I was red, you were green. My piggy bank was a glass bottle with a red lid. My dinner plate was red plastic. My glass was red glass. You gave me that sweater that Christmas and guess what color? I told you I wanted yellow but goddamn if you didn’t go and make it red.
    â€œDaddy: I’m tired of my blue plate. Can we use the china?
    â€œYou: No, the china is for special occasions only.
    â€œDaddy: It’s Sunday and I just bought a bucket of chicken. That’s special enough. I’m using the china, Marcelle. Juliet, do you want to use the china?
    â€œMe: Yes!
    â€œYou (pretending to be pleased): Great! Fine! Wonderful! Okay, everybody, let’s use the china!”

    For a prime spot on the fence you have to arrive early and stake your claim or else settle for a location that puts you closer to tarot card readers dressed like genies than to customers with money to spend. The best spots are near trees and restaurants on the upriver and downriver sides of the square. The trees provide shade and keep people from squinting in the sun, and the restaurants have bathrooms. The worst spots are those situated in the middle of a row of painters, away from the shade. There the competition for tourist dollars, intensified by the heat, is so fierce that fistfights have been known to break out. During his first week on the job Sonny watched in amazement as two of his more genial colleagues went to blows on the flagstones. The brawl, Sonny later learned, started when one man’s beach umbrella, aided by a sudden gust of wind, brushed up against the other’s.
    Sonny’s favorite spot is under the magnolia tree across from the French bakery on the corner of Saint Ann and Chartres streets. The spot, however, is everybody’s favorite. And in order to claim it you have two options, neither pleasant: hire a drunk to leave his midnight bottle and reserve the space or get up before dawn and secure it on your own.
    Having no funds to waste and little faith in bums, Sonny sets his alarm clock for 4:00 A . M . and endures the agony.
    He’s at the fence today when a couple of charter buses lurch to a stop on Decatur Street and deposit loads of Japanese tourists in front of Jackson Brewery. After brief experiments with beignets and café au lait, the tourists drift into the park and tour the pedestrian mall.
    â€œMy forehead is too big,” complains the subject of Sonny’s latest portrait.
    Sonny almost forgot she was there. “What’s that?”
    â€œMy nose too small, too pointed. My eyes are not blue, and my hair is yellow? When is my hair yellow?”
    The woman glares at the image Sonny has just finished painting on a perfectly nice sheet of Saint Armand’s Sabretooth. It looks nothing like her, but as far as his interpretations of Juliet Beauvais go, Sonny has never been more on his game.
    â€œLook,” he says, scumbling chestnut into the hair. “I’m fixing it. All gone. Hair brown. Hair black.”
    Suddenly a crowd has gathered around them, and Sonny does his best to look as if everything is under control. It is rare to hear a complaint, and the worst possible luck to get one now. He’s already done three pastel portraits at forty-five dollars