Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans (14 page)

“Is it OK if I go with you?”

He smiled at her through the bars of dust-moted sun and nodded.

“Sure. If you don’t mind stepping through a lot of high weeds. This is deep country, you know.”

The Neon rambled down a rutted path so thick with brush, branches scraped the sides of the car. When they came to a clearing where a brilliant patch of wildflowers trembled in the breeze, he stopped and stared at them.

Reading his intention, Velmyra nodded and smiled. “Great idea.”

They trekked through the bramble and brush to get to the clearing, and a meadow full of sunflowers, brown-eyed susans, evening primrose, and passion-flowers stood out in blinding bold yellows and purples while golden monarch butterflies flitted between them. Gnarled live oaks stood over them like sentinels, Spanish moss dripping from them like the long locks of gray-haired women. Even in the deepening sun of late summer, the dew-moistened velvet of the flowers and the blaze of color dazzled Julian enough to suspend his dispirited mood. When they had gathered a clump of thirty or more blooms into a bouquet, Julian stripped enough Spanish moss from one of the oaks to wind it around the stems and tie into a bow.

“Beautiful,” Velmyra’s smile widened. “In the city, this would have cost a fortune.”

He looked across the field and pointed toward the tallest tree. “I think it might be over that way. We can get there quicker if we walk across, instead of driving around.”

They trampled across the field in their sneakers, high-stepping over cattails and dandelions and clover and every type of weed until they found the small ruin of a stone church and its yard, where several headstones of white rock, dating back to the 1800s and most with the name FORTIER emblazoned across the front, tilted like tall, drunken chessmen in the deep grass.

Only one of the old headstones stood perfectly erect: the one with MOSES FORTIER, his great-grandfather, chiseled in. The gritty, chipped headstone for Julian’s grandparents Jacob and Liza leaned so far toward the ground that Julian couldn’t straighten it, and the stone for Auntie Maree leaned as far in the other direction. They came to a stop at a newer, double headstone glinting in a shaft of sidelong light; beneath the FORTIER chiseled across the top was his mother’s name, and next to it SIMON, b. 1929, d --. Julian wondered what year would have to be etched into the slick granite. Was this the year? And if it was, would he be able to fulfill his father’s last wish?
Put me down beside your mama.

Julian glanced at Velmyra, who was strolling among the headstones, dusting off the soil on the engravings with her fingers and squatting to read the names and dates of his ancestors. To his surprise, he didn’t mind her coming along after all. But he wondered if it would have been better for him if she hadn’t; then, he could have let his anger rise and consume him, and boil over into whatever it would be.

If she were not here, he would have been free to do what he’d often done as a child when the world had gone all wrong. He would have found the biggest stick he could and flailed away with all his might against the biggest tree he could find, until he’d chiseled a gash into the bark and chips flew and disappeared into the wind. And then he would have gone down to the creek where as a boy he tried hard not to learn to fish, and sat down on the nearest rock, and cried.

But he was not alone, and when Velmyra gently wiped a clump of dirt from the surface of his grandfather’s headstone with a tissue, he felt a quieting in his chest. So he squatted down to prop the flowers up against the base of his mother’s headstone. As he did, a yellow butterfly lighted on the top of the stone near the family’s name. He wondered for a moment where this butterfly had been, where it was going and how it was possible for something so delicate to survive more than a minute in a world where life seemed so fragile.

“I wish I’d met your mother.” Velmyra walked toward him and stood, both hands fisted on her hips, looking down at the headstone. “I remember the pictures you showed me. She was beautiful.”

Julian smiled. He never thought of her that way when he was a child, but yes, she was. A stately woman, two inches taller than his father, with high patrician cheekbones like her Seminole ancestors and skin the color of a ripe banana. When he was a boy, she’d always been his ally, taking his side in small father-son wars of spirit and will; when Julian wanted to spend his summers in New Orleans and play brass band gigs with his friends instead of coming to Silver Creek, his mother’s words—
Simon, let him stay in town and play his music
—tipped the scale in his favor.

That Julian felt no particular affinity for the land his father cherished was no secret; that his mother took it to heart was testimony to her powers of perception and maternal genius. She allowed her son’s disaffection, but told her husband, “Give him time.” Now, seeing the high grasses and scrub and wildflowers flecking the luxuriant green with dabs of color, and the open sky’s blaze of blue broken with snowy tufts of clouds backlit by an extravagant sun, he found it quite beautiful. His father’s eyes drank in this miracle every day, yet Julian had never really seen it before.

They headed back toward the car. Velmyra stumbled on a rock and Julian caught the tip of her elbow, and she grabbed his arm and almost pulled him down. She let out a little squeal of a laugh, which made him laugh. The sound of their conjoined laughter felt oddly pleasurable, and without thinking, he did something he hadn’t done the whole day; he walked her to her side of the car, and opened the door for her.

An old reflex, reborn. Something his father, a model of southern gentlemanliness, insisted that he learn to do. The New York women taught him differently; they were out of the car and waiting for him before he’d made it to the other side. The memory rushed back in waves. Him opening her door, her sitting and lifting her legs with a graceful swivel into the car, then gathering in her skirt before leaning over to unlock his door—for more than a year, this had been the step-ball-change, one routine in the detailed choreography of their romance.

He opened his own door and sat, not looking at her, but sensing the awkwardness between them, as if he’d seen a fleeting glimpse of a stranger’s nakedness. He started the car and the silence swelled, the past rearing up and hovering in the air between them like water-filled balloons.

“You thirsty? I could use a soda or something.” He caught her eye and she looked grateful for the break in the quiet.

“Yeah. It’s really hot, isn’t it?”

He remembered a place just off the main road before they would get into Local, if it was still there. A general store of sorts, just like in the movies, where they sold tackle and bait and nickel candy and pickles in a jar. They pulled out onto the gravelly road, but before they’d driven more than a few feet, a huge pickup with oversized tires and an extended cab honked its horn. The truck stopped in front of the Neon, blocking their path.

The engine noise stopped and out hopped a young white man with a gangly, Ichabod Crane frame and wispy, shoulder-length, dirty blond hair. His faded jeans ended just below his knees, and his oversized Saints jersey hung loosely on his thin frame. He walked toward them, his shoulders slightly hunched.

“Excuse me. You folks wouldn’t know the Fortiers, would you?”

Julian got out of the car.

“Julian. Julian Fortier.” Julian extended his hand. “My father’s family owns this place.”

The young man brushed a clump of hair from his bright blue eyes, smiled broadly with straight white teeth, and shook Julian’s hand. “Kevin Larouchette. I’m looking for Simon Fortier.”

Julian and Velmyra exchanged looks. “We’re looking for him too,” Julian said. “My father was in New Orleans during the flood. He stayed through it, and….well, we haven’t found him yet.”

“Oh, gosh. I am so sorry. I sure hope you find him.”

“We thought he might be here.” Julian folded both arms across his chest. “But there’s no sign of him.”

“No, maybe if he’d of been here things wouldn’tna happened the way they did. With the land and everything.”

“What do you mean?” Velmyra asked.

“You mean you don’t know?”

Julian hunched his shoulders. “Know what?’

The young man looked down at the brown earth at his feet and shook his head. Then looked back up at Julian.

“Sir, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you. This land, your daddy’s land, has been sold.”

T
hey had been sitting around the table for a few minutes when Velmyra looked at her watch. “Julian, why don’t we go get something to eat and bring it back here? We haven’t really eaten anything all day.”

It was true, they hadn’t eaten, but with the news about his father’s land, food was the last thing on his mind. From his childhood, though, he remembered something his father’s first cousin was famous for—a well-stocked pantry and freezer full of good food and an open kitchen where friends, family, and kind acquaintances were welcome to walk in and help themselves.

“Cousin G’s a great cook, like Daddy—always keeps enough food to feed an army. She won’t mind if we eat whatever we find.”

Velmyra smiled and nodded. “OK. I’ll check out the kitchen.”

Earlier, the three of them had stood outside in the yard talking when, from the East, a clap of thunder halted the conversation. And in less than a minute, low clouds like tufted gray wool had gathered and sharpened the air to autumn-crisp, and the wind had picked up and spun the dirt in small circles. Paintbrush strokes of rain raked down from the distant clouds, promising a good soaking on its way. So when the sky released the first few heavy drops, they headed inside the cabin.

Kevin Larouchette was a local boy who’d recently graduated from LSU law school. He had an earnestness that reminded Julian of the young white boys he’d met down by Silver Creek when he’d been a kid, whose faces were marked with an innocence Julian associated with growing up miles away from a city. His sea-blue eyes were large and bright, and on his left forearm just below his elbow he wore a tattoo of a bright yellow bird in flight. Taller than Julian and leggy, the young stranger couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. He was all blond hair and right angles, and Julian believed he’d never seen a skinnier man in his life.

His low-pitched southern drawl reverberated in the small room, and he spoke softly, almost apologetically, as if bad news couched in a sympathetic tone could ease the pain. But to Julian no calm delivery could soften the blow that felt like a cold-cock to his face. The Fortier land—gone. Two hundred and some acres of the most beautiful and fertile land in Louisiana, in his father’s family since before the Civil War, handed off to strangers. A small knot tightened in Julian’s stomach when he imagined how Simon would feel if he knew.

The land could not have been sold fairly, Julian figured. Simon would never have allowed it.

Velmyra came back to the table with a tray holding three Mason jars of what looked like cola. “You’re right about the food. There’s plenty of it in the freezer. If you’re sure your cousin won’t mind, I could heat something up. In the meantime, I thought we could all use a drink.”

Kevin took a long swig from the jar Velmyra sat down in front of him.

“That’s good. That hits the spot.”

Then he rocked back in the chair, balancing it on two legs. “Y’all aren’t the first this has happened to, by the way. It’s been happening all over these parts.”

“What’s been happening?” Velmyra sat and took a sip from her own glass.

It had become a common occurrence, Kevin explained. Rich, overweight men in summer-weight suits with slit eyes and crooked mouths, cruising the land, just waiting for people to let their guard down so they could descend on their properties like vultures, picking it clean of all the proud black owners, as well as their family legacies.

Land speculators. They were all over, especially in places like this where black folks, land rich and cash poor, had owned parcels of valuable land for generations, and most of the owners no longer lived on the property.

“I been studying on this awhile,” Kevin said. “It happened to the Navarettes down the way, the Beauchamps, Smiths, too. Then there was Mr. Parette. That was the worst one. You folks were the last ones, so I knew it was coming.”

He described, in detail, how such a thing could happen. Land in Pointe Louree Parish, especially those acres owned by black families, was most often “heirship” property, sifting down through generations from kin to kin without formality, and more often than not, without wills. Legally, when the owner of a piece of land died without a will, all the heirs—children and other family—automatically owned all the land in common, with no one owning any specific part; each simply having an equal share of the total estate. Then, any one of the partners could sell his or her portion to anyone wishing to buy.

And once the new shareholder became part of the group, he was entitled to the full rights of co-ownership, including the right to go to a judge any time and request that the entire estate be auctioned to the highest bidder.

It was designed, Kevin explained, to settle land disputes among families, but it often worked against them, making it easier for developers to pry the property from the unsuspecting family’s hands. Just buy your way in for a song, then force a sale. Before anybody knows anything, the family who had a beautiful spread of land for generations has lost all of it.

“That’s what happened to you folks,” Kevin said. “Somebody bought a share of your land—weaseled their way in—then requested an auction. Then whoever they were working with bid on the land, and got it.”

The money from the sale of the land, he said, got divided up between all the owners, after the legal fees were paid.

“Your daddy should have known about the auction, he should have gotten a notice.” Kevin tapped his knuckles against the table. “Your property—I looked it up—went for $118,000. About a third of what its worth. And by the time it’s divvied up and the legal fees are taken out, we’re not talking about a lot of money. Your daddy and all his kin might have got their checks in the mail by now.”