Water Lessons (21 page)

"Mornin', Jimmy. And hello to you, my dear," said the bartender in his thick Irish brogue. "What will you two be having?"

"Hey there, Mr. Finnerty," Jim said. "Maureen?"

"A glass of Chardonnay."

"Very well. You, lad?"

"A pint of Guinness. What else?" Jim said. "By the way, Mr. Finnerty, this is Maureen."

"Nice to make your acquaintance," Finnerty said, nodding. He turned to fetch the wine, and poured out a glass for her. He then filled a pint of Guinness, working the glass in a circular motion in one hand as he pulled down on the draught with the other.

Jim knew full well what the old man was doing and smiled at his skill. He set the glass down in front of Jim, who held it before Maureen's bored eyes. In the cream-colored foamy head rested the raised outline of a shamrock. Jim had only seen this feat performed before in the Littlest Bar and in a few pubs around town.

Maureen sat half-turned around on her barstool. She surveyed the vintage Guinness and Jameson signs and framed black-and-white prints of Irish city and countryside scenes. Three of the five lanterns hanging from the ceiling were lit. One of the walls featured an old rotary telephone, perhaps once part of a phone booth.

"Haven't seen you in here before, young lady," the bartender said, his arms spread out on the bartop as he leaned comfortably toward them. "Now you,
New Orleans
, I've poured you a few in my time."

"But I never get ill, you must give me that much," Jim pointed an index finger in the air.

"That would be true," the old Irishman said. "And you never brawl. Leave that to them punks in the Southie bars."

"I agree," Maureen said. "And you won't find me in those establishments."

Maybe she is finally starting to unwind. Maureen was chatting with a bartender, after all.

"Maybe we could've if you were nineteen and home on college break!" Jim said.

Maureen shot him a mock-cold stare.

"Jimmy, my boy!" Finnerty tapped the counter twice with the palm of his hand. "There's a gentleman here I'd like you to meet."

Jim glanced behind him. Against the wall sat one couple, a tweed-jacketed man with the look of a professor and his much younger girlfriend, embroiled in debate, both full of wild hand gesticulations.

To his right, two men sat looking over at him. The man closer to him was conservatively dressed in oatmeal corduroy pants, a blue button-down oxford shirt, and a hunter green English-style barn jacket with a dark brown corduroy collar. He had gray eyes, graying chestnut hair, and a slightly pinkish complexion. He exuded the impression of a fifty-something English earl fresh from a pheasant hunt.

Beside this man was a more intriguing figure, a tall man, of an athletic build, and perhaps in his early forties. He sat on his barstool, cradling a glass of amber liquid. He was dressed in a pair of blue jeans, frayed near the bottom, with chocolate-colored alligator boots and a small round belt buckle showing the profile of an Indian brave. His shirt was of faintly wrinkled white linen, its long sleeves rolled up to the elbows. The top button was undone, revealing the man's tanned skin. A brown cord encircled his neck, attached to a small wooden cross and some other symbol Jim could not identify for all the dim light.
 

When the man turned for a moment, Jim spotted his dark brown hair gathered into a ponytail between his shoulder blades. Gray was barely visible in the beard and the long hair. Something shone in his left earlobe, a golden earring. The slightly arched brows, the high cheekbones, the narrow but nearly aquiline nose, the light brown irises and the brown hair, the look of the face overall was something incredibly familiar to him, a face vaguely French or Italian. The left cheekbone revealed a scar: thin and perhaps an inch long. The eyes were shifty, distrustful, evincing intelligence and humor, and perhaps a hint of violence.

The man spun completely around on his barstool. He looked dead at Jim with half amusement, half expectation.

It was as if the pirate Jean Lafitte was alive and well, fresh from warring with the British, and now sat imbibing in some French Quarter saloon.

"My boy, you're gonna fancy this!" The old Irishman walked over to the men. Finnerty raised a remote control and clicked a few buttons. The wild, thunderous Dropkick Murphys song evaporated. A new tune emerged in the air all about them. Jim knew not the artist nor the song, but the festive accordions and fiddles were completely familiar.

"Jim, come meet these gentlemen," Finnerty said.

Jim descended his barstool and stepped over to the men.

"Jim, this is Bobby Dunleavy in the green jacket. He lives in Newton. He thinks he's some hotshot environmental attorney up here. And last but not least—no offense, Bobby—"

Both Finnerty and the attorney laughed. Jim shook Bobby's hand.

"Last but not least, Jean Decareaux, Bobby's good friend. If you've never heard this very talented man's music, you've been deprived, cheated! I'm playing one of his creations right this minute."

"My suspicions were correct," Jim said. "
Laissez les bon temps rouler…in La Luzianne
."

The man stood, all six-foot-two or so of him, and stretched out his hand. Jim shook it.

Decareaux said in a Cajun-accented English, "The boys of the
Fleur-de-Lis
sniff each other out pretty fast!"

"I know it," Jim said. "That's my girlfriend over there, Maureen."
 

She stood just behind him. A woman of breeding, she never failed to summon her manners in public when she needed them. Maureen offered her hand. Decareaux bowed slightly and shook it.

"Pleased to meetchawll," Decareaux said. "I had a feelin' you were a Luzianna man."

"How's that?" Maureen said.

"Well," Decareaux parted his hands and looked around in an "I can't believe you don't know" pose. "How that boy went after that cold beer!"

"You couldn't be more correct, my friend," Jim said.

"You're kinda soundin' Nawlins, kinda not. You from the Northshore?" Decareaux said, squinting slyly at him.

"You guessed it. Folsom, just maybe forty-five, fifty miles north of Nawlins."

"Know that place," Decareaux said.

"And you're from… let's see… Lafayette area?" Jim said.

"Yeah, boy, close 'nough." The man gritted his teeth through his smile and, leaning forward, clapped Jim on the shoulder. "Li'l town called Erath."

"One of my best friends, his mama's family's from there," Jim said. "Her grandfather was Senator Dudley LeBlanc."

"Coozan Dudley!" Decareaux cried. "Ol' Mistah Hadacol! He was larger than life, boy! I'll be! Well, what brings you up here?"

"I came up… you know… after the hurricane."

"
The
hurricane?" Decareaux said. "Katrina or Rita? I guess with you it was Katrina!"

Jim nodded, biting his lip.

"Well, strange as it seems, I had a house out in the country, southwest a ways from Lafayette. Rita came just two months after your storm, just flooded the hell outta my ol' house. I sold that place for what I could get. My band and I been tourin' ever since."

"We're both hurricane exiles," Jim said. "I met another in Boston, four weeks after the storm. This one playing right now is yours, isn't it?"

"Sure! It's called 'Mamou', 'bout that town's famous Mardi Gras."

"Always wanted to go. Only went to Mardi Gras down in New Orleans and on the Northshore. And in Baton Rouge."

"You're missin' out," Decareaux said. "Whoo-hoo, are you missin' out, baby."

"Yep," Jim looked at his feet, his hands in his pockets.

"So Bobby Dunleavy here's a good buddy o' mine. He's one of the main lawyers in a charity in Luzianna I been involved with, called Save The Wetlands."

Dunleavy stood, his hands on his hips. "Yesterday Jean did a show here in Cambridge. I'm showing him around the town today. When he comes to New England, we hit certain old haunts of ours, and one is The Littlest Bar In The World. There's no place like it anywhere."

"I'm with you there," Jim said.

"Yeah, Neil Finnerty's a buddy o' mine and a big fan of my stuff," Decareaux said. "Hey, why don'tchall pull ya stools up to ours. Hang out a little."

Jim and Maureen fetched their stools and returned to the two men, who repositioned their own stools so everyone sat in a circle.

"Ever think of makin' it back down to La Luzianne, Jimbo?" Decareaux said.

"I visit on holidays. I was just there for Christmas."

"No, man, I mean
for good
."

"I've thought of it. Maybe one day, who knows?" For a few seconds, Jim stared past them at the wall. He sensed something unsettling. Some force goaded him into turning toward Maureen. Her eyes were fixed onto him with a piercingly frigid stare.

He started a bit, his head bobbing. "But then," Jim looked back toward his two new acquaintances, "Maureen and I both like it here in many ways. And I landed a new job helping run her father's boat brokerage out on the Cape." Both statements were the truth, after all.

"Wait," Dunleavy said. "You have been here for seven months and you're dating a beautiful young woman and you're helping run the family biz for her dad? On the Cape? A boat brokerage… yachts? You might not be leaving, my friend."

Jim studied the floor between them. He could sense a strange feeling build within him.

Decareaux rubbed his hands together, nodding his head in assent. "You seem the type to like this area 'nough to stay. Great part of the country. It's got history like N'awlins. It's even older. You got the whole thing up here with the love of the sea. And people here, man, they appreciate the environment. That's why we got Bobby here bringin' up the cavalry down there in the bayou!" Decareaux punched Dunleavy on the shoulder.

"I know what you're saying, completely," Jim said.

"But you prob'ly gotcha family all down there. An' all the amazin' food and outdoors and jus' the sheer love o' livin'. That slow pace o' life. Workin' to live and play, not livin' to work. And hopefully we got some good music down there."

"We do have that," Jim said. "You'd know a lot about that, I'd say."

"Hear this song here? I wrote this one when I was a student years ago at ULL. That's University of Luzianna at Lafayette, for you N'awlins folks. About a fine Cajun girl I wanted to date, named Maybelle."

"I like the belt buckle," Maureen said. "The Native American there."

Though she seemed intrigued by the buckle, Jim figured she would murder him if he were to appear on a Boston street wearing one.

"Yeah," Jim said, "that's the one the writer James Lee Burke wears. He's not far from you down there, in New Iberia."

"He gave me this one. Good man, ol' buddy o' mine," Decareaux said.

"I enjoy his novels. That famous detective of his… Dave Robicheaux?" Jim said.

"Burke is a fine storyteller," Dunleavy said. "I read him from time to time, when I'm not working twelve hour days."

"You do it for a good cause," Decareaux said. He looked at Jim. "Bobby cares more for the vanishin' Luzianna wetlands than most of us natives do!"

"Good for you," Jim said. "We need more people like you in our ranks."

The attorney, blushing in both cheeks, smiled down at his brown leather dress shoes. Jim downed the dregs of his beer and held the empty glass in his hand, pausing as he felt the warm glow suffuse his forehead and cheeks. Maureen cradled her empty wine glass in her hands. For an instant, she bugged her eyes at him. He rose to his feet as if trying to unhook his body from the stool.

"Hate to say it, gents, but we were on our way to lunch," Jim winced.

"Where are you guys going?" Dunleavy said. The man looked half curious, half skeptical.

"We're headed over to Stephanie's."

"Order the grilled lobster," Dunleavy closed his eyes for emphasis. "Grilled and butterflied right there on the platter. Nice comfort food, too, and right on Newbury. You can sit outside, people-watch."

Decareaux rose to his feet, and his friend followed suit.

"That's just what we planned. I wish we could stay longer," Jim said. Maureen was now at his side. Jim looked at Decareaux. "Reminisce, too."

"One thing, brother." The Cajun pulled out his wallet. He removed a card and handed it to his new friend.
 

Jim held it close to his face. Dog-eared and lightly soiled, it read:

 
Jean-Luc Decareaux

  
Musician and Activist

  
(337) 555-6731

  
[email protected]

"I'll keep in touch." Jim handed each man his Henretty & Henretty business card. "Job's changed, but the number's still working. Sign me up for the wetland group."

Dunleavy pocketed the card. "We will."

"Right on, brother," Decareaux shook Jim's hand. "And nice to meetcha, darlin'." He bowed slightly while he maintained eye contact.

"Nice to meet you, too," Maureen said.

"Take care," Dunleavy said. "Look for our group's emails!"

"I will," Jim said. "Good luck on your tour, Jean."

The Cajun smiled affectionately, with a hint of sadness about the eyes. Jim walked back toward the bar to pay his tab. He reached for his wallet.

"Oh, no you don't!" Finnerty said. "Your fellow bayou-dweller already signaled to me. He's got this one."

Jim began: "No, I can't—"

"I insist," Decareaux said. "Buy me an Abita down the line."

Jim laughed gently. "Thanks, Jean. Thanks."

He waved at Finnerty, Dunleavy, and Decareaux and trudged reluctantly up the short stairwell, with Maureen following. Halfway up, he heard Jean speak.

"Always watch the drink, man. And never stop prayin'."

Jim opened the door. Once again, they stood on the curb. On Maureen's face was a complex amalgam of curiosity and slight indignation.

What was the reason for such an expression? He did not know. He could barely think now, for all the homesickness that burned like embers through him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX