Blood of Cain

53

Courtney drove slowly down Dumaine Street searching for an address on the old buildings. Many were decked with shutters painted lime green or salmon pink, propped up with timeworn red brick, balconies laced in wrought-iron, hanging baskets dripping with color. One balcony was almost covered with ferns growing from clay pots. She had her window down, the breeze warm and tinged with the smell of horse droppings, stale beer, and azaleas.

A white Lincoln eased away from the curb, opening the only parking spot on the street that Courtney could see. She parked and looked for change in her bag, finding four quarters. When she started to drop a quarter in the meter, she saw that it had a full hour of time remaining. Maybe this is a good sign. Maybe Mariah Danford would be here.

Across the narrow one-way street was a bar with doors yawning wide, paddle fans turning in slow-motion, a woman’s rippling laugh coming from the cool recesses inside where two men sat at the bar, their profiles silhouetted in a blue neon wash from an old Jaxs Beer sign.

An elderly black man sat on a swayback bench in the shade of a balcony and to the right of the bar door, his eyes closed, gnarled fingers picking the strings on a guitar, his raspy voice singing a blues song, Rock Me by Muddy Waters.

Courtney looked for addresses, crossed the street and stopped when she walked by the old black man, watching him sing and play the guitar for a few seconds. The four quarters she didn’t have to put into the parking meter, she dropped into a rusted French Market coffee can at the man’s feet.

“Much obliged, darlin’ girl,” he said, pausing from singing. He opened his eyes and looked somewhere above Courtney, his irises clouded with cataracts, his smile wide. A lower front tooth was missing, and the hint of gold flashed near a front incisor.

“How did you know I was a girl? Your eyes were closed when you thanked me.”

“I could feel you standin’ there. Been sightless long as me … o’ter senses commence to gettin’ sharp as a razorblade.”

Courtney studied him a moment, glad he couldn’t see her. White whiskers sprouted from the old man’s gaunt face. A harmonica was perched on his lap, threadbare khaki pants stained from coffee and tobacco. He held a guitar pick made from a broken plastic clothespin. “Where you be headin,’ darlin’ girl?”

“Just passing through.”

“Passin’ through what … life?”

“Sometimes.”

“No times. It’s too short pass through.”

“I have to go.”

“Go where? Maybe I can hep you get there. Been here all my life, me. I used to see with my eyes. I know the Big ol’ Easy. Where you tryin’ to get to?”

“The address is forty-one Dumaine.”

The old man inhaled deeply, lung tissue making a wet sucking sound. “You are close to it. Don’t know if’n it’d be best to get much closer than where you is right here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I means to tell you that ain’t no place for a girl to go.”

“Why?”

“On account that folks who go there are dem peoples who don’t believe in Heaven.”

“What is this place?”

“Used to be what they called a hot pillow joint.”

“You mean a brothel?”

“Yes ma’am. I’d heard the upstairs might still be. The downstairs is a place where they sells Voodoo stuff. I ain’t never seen no need for it, me. No way. No how.” He shook his head and cleared his throat. “They’s lots better spots in Naw’lens to see.”

“Where’s this place? I’ve found forty, forty-two, and other addresses, but no forty-one.”

“It’s ain’t properly marked. Don’t need to be. Evil don’t need directions, just an invite. It’s a block down Dumaine, right past Moe’s Place, a bar. There’s an old arched brick entranceway, ivy growing all over it, kinda like somethin’ you walk through entering a graveyard. They got a wrought iron door on it. Probably ain’t locked no how. Once you go in there … just follow a brick pathway down the alley ‘till you come to the front door.”

“Thank you. I really like your singing.”

“This one’s for you, darlin’ girl.” He cupped his hands around the worn harmonica, brought it to his mouth, and started blowing. Robert Johnson’s song, Cross Road Blues, poured out of the harmonica. Then he picked up his guitar and started singing, eyes closing, his voice carrying the keys of emotion and compassion. Courtney walked away, towards a brick doorway that the old blues man said looked like the entrance to a cemetery. Before his words faded in the breeze, the last thing she heard him sing sounded like a prayer, “I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees … asked the Lord above, have mercy on me if you please …”