Dirty South

3

After Teddy dropped the news, we decided there wasn’t a hell of a lot of time for soul food at Dunbar’s. So when we watched Malcolm head back out to the studio, I pulled on my walking boots and a clean T-shirt, closed down the garage, and we rolled down Freret and headed up to Claiborne in Teddy’s electric-blue Bentley. I cracked the window, lit a Marlboro, and sank into the rabbit fur while he leaned back into the driver’s seat and steered with two fingers. A sad smile crossed his face as we moved from the million-dollar mansions off St. Charles to candy-colored shotguns and onto a street populated with pawnshops, check-cashing businesses, and EZ credit signs. Neon and billboards. Broken bottles lay in gullies and yellowed newspapers twirled across vacant lots.

The air felt warm against my face, heavy bass vibrating my back and legs, when we rolled low under the giant oaks that shrouded the corners around the Magnolia projects. The trees’ roots were exposed, rotted, and dry near portions of the housing projects that had been plowed under. Their tenants now living in Section 8 housing in New Orleans East.

I felt the rabbit fur on the armrest and looked into the backseat, where Teddy had a small flat-screen television and DVD player. A copy of Goodfellas had been tossed on the backseat along with a sack of ranch-flavored Doritos.

“Why don’t you sell your car?”

“It’s a hell of a ride but ain’t no way close to 700 grand, brother,” he said.

“Your house?” I asked. “That mansion down by the lake with your dollar-sign-shaped pool? What about a loan on that?”

“Ain’t time,” he said. And very low, he said, “And I got three of them mortgage things already.”

“Oh, man.”

“What about J.J.?” I asked, dropping the name of our teammate who had just won two Super Bowls. “He’s got more money than God or George Lucas. You try and call him? He’d float you a favor.”

“J.J. and I ain’t that tight no more.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“I owe him $80,000.”

“Jesus.”

“Don’t you go blasphemin’ in this car.”

“Why?” I asked. “You pay to have it baptized?”

We stopped at the corner of Claiborne, where on a mammoth billboard two hands were held together in prayer. Someone had spray-painted the words WHY ME? over the address of the church. Across the wide commercial street, I saw another billboard of Britney Spears. She was selling Pepsi. Britney hadn’t been touched.

“You’re deep in debt and can’t get a loan from anyone else,” I said. “Who is this Cash guy? Just kiss and make up.”

He didn’t even look over at me as he accelerated toward the Calliope housing projects. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Crack a joke. See, Cash is a real humane individual.” Teddy licked his lips and wiped his face for the thousandth time. “Heard he once stuck a set of jumper cables in a man’s ass for spillin’ wine on his Italian leather coat. Up his ass, man. That’s fucked up.”

“Did the man turn over?”

Teddy shook his head. “Listen, I came to Cash ’bout two months back so we could get the money for ALIAS’s CD. Had to get some promotional dollars.”

“For what?”

“Advertisin’. This video we shootin’ tonight.”

“Call it off.”

“Too late,” he said. “Everyone’s been paid. See, we were all in some trouble and then Cash and me was tryin’ to put together this movie? I had this idea about New Orleans bein’ underwater and only the folks in the ghetto survived. You know like we were livin’ in this underwater world with boats made out of Bentleys and shit…”

“So he loaned you $700,000?”

“Half a mil,” he said. “He added another two for interest and his hard-earned time.”

Teddy shook his head as he drove, hot wind blowing through the car. The asphalt more cracked on this side of Uptown. We passed a Popeye’s fried chicken, a McDonald’s, some bulletproof gas stations. Barbershops. Bail bonds.

“Tell me about Cash,” I said. “Maybe I can reason with him.”

“You got a better chance of gettin’ a gorilla to sing you ‘Happy Birthday,’” Teddy said. “This ape raised in Calliope like my man ALIAS. But he don’t have no heart like the kid. He’s an animal. Bald head. Got all his teeth capped in platinum and diamonds. Stole everythin’ he have. Even his beats. Got his sound from this badass DJ ’bout five years back. Now Cash eatin’ steaks and lobster, screwin’ Penthouse pets and that boy coachin’ damn high-school football.”

“How’d he steal his sound?”

“The bounce, man,” Teddy said. He turned up the music. That constant driving rhythm I’d heard played all over New Orleans shook the car. The drums keeping the rap elevated as if the music was made of rubber-reflecting words.

“Why don’t you just run?” I asked. “Get out of town till you can raise the money?”

“I got family here,” Teddy said. “Besides, a Paris don’t ever run. You know that.”

“That’s bullshit,” I said. “Quit your posturing before you do get killed.”

“Ain’t no bullshit,” he said. “I leave and then he fuck with a member of my family? Man, I couldn’t live with myself.”

“Can’t you just sign over something to him? Just give him your house. You can stay with me.”

“I appreciate it, brother,” he said. “I really do. But there is only one thing this mad nigga want and he ain’t getting it.”

I looked at Teddy – out of breath, sweating like hell – as he turned into the housing projects. Two men on the corner with hard eyes and wearing heavy army coats watched us turn. Teddy lowered the stereo. The heat whooshed through the car, just making the silence between us more intense.

Teddy gritted his teeth as he passed the men. “ALIAS my boy and I ain’t neva losin’ that boy. Not again.”

I watched him. “I want y’all to meet,” he said.