One D.O.A., One On The Way. Mary Robison

my first; I wasn’t his, what of it?

      [7]

      Ease and Comfort

       Holstered guns are worn under your clothing, close to the skin. The holster’s waterproof padding will protect your gun from body moisture and perspiration.

       The side of a holster that faces out is broader so your gun won’t imprint an outline through your clothes.

       A rigid-walled holster will allow you to put your gun away easily, with one hand. Flexible models can collapse after you draw, requiring both hands and more time to reholster.

      [8]

      Here they are now, the twins Rags & Gasoline, lounging on their parents’ veranda in the shade of a blue jacaranda tree.

      They are dressed exactly alike again today, and that is one of the many ways they entertain themselves. I’ve been standing at a little distance, watching, and I wouldn’t bet a dime on my guessing which is which.

      Now a man in white linen appears on the veranda with a tray. It has coffee in mugs, honey and biscuits, a bottle of English whiskey.

      “Whose turn is it to be my husband?” I ask, stepping up. To the man serving the breakfast tray, I say, “Not you. Or, not necessarily. Only if you want.”

      [9]

      I found out a little while ago that my husband has Hep-C. It’s symptomless! And yet, he has an active strain. He could be lying! He isn’t, though.

      “It’s all right,” he says now, with a hand patting my back. “I feel good. Be just fine. It’s really all right.”

      I say, “Well, goddamn you.”

      “Underway,” says he.

      [10]

      It’s not great, the deal Adam has with his parents. It takes care of some bits of business, in that they pay for everything. They provide nurses, and a dietician. They paid to get him onto a transplant list. But he has to live here, with them, all the time.

      I think sometimes: “He’s only forty-two and he’s this sick!”

      Or, I think: “He’s forty-two and he’s had to run home to his parents!”

      While I’m left kind of standing at the corner. And where, above me, it would seem, there’s a very red light.

      [11]

      Saunders is the other twin, utterly identical. That’s a good thing about him. Also to his credit are his wife and his little girl.

      The bad things include an array of incidents, arrests, brawls, screaming, wretched Western Union transactions, also, all the clubs, bars, saloons, hotels, private homes, city parks, businesses, establishments, and streets he’s been asked to leave.

      [12]

      Thirty Months After Katrina

       N.O.P.D.’s crime lab was destroyed and has not been replaced.

       There is 1 fingerprint examiner.

       More than 2,000 evidence tests are backlogged.

       The department still has no headquarters, and officers operate out of F.E.M.A. trailers, even the brass.

       The trailers are not air-conditioned. In hot months, officers do reports and paperwork in their cars.

       There’s no place for storing evidence. It too is kept in trailers, unprotected.

       There’s no place for interviewing witnesses and victims, no place for interrogating suspects.

       N.O.P.D.’s guns were destroyed during the storm. Police officers often have to provide their own guns and ammo.

      [13]

      I just can’t manage the switch. It’s undoable. Two days of correcting myself after every Lucien thought with “You mean Paul. Paul. It’s Paul. Who’s actually Lucien. Think of him as Paul.”

      [14]

      “You look different,” he says now.

      I try this: “No. I don’t.”

      He asks, “Aren’t you ordinarily wearing a hat?”

      “No, I’m never wearing a hat. Not one single time. I don’t even own any.”

      “Well, something’s weird then, because I remember you in different hats. Especially the two I liked best,” says he.

      I say, “I’m about to smash you in the shoulder blades.”

      “Vividly, I remember,” he says. “There were two that I favored over all your other headgear.”

      “Lucien,” I say, without reluctance or regret.

      [15]

      Drowsily, the husband lifts up in bed. He reaches and searches the end table for the T.V. remote.

      “It’s right here,” I say, showing him I have it.

      There are noises through the open windows from a cypress forest behind the house. Spiky shadows knife the walls in here, and there’s a sweet odor from some fruit tree or other. We have only a snapping, inconsistent light from the television screen and its Mr. Moto movie.

      He eases out of the sheets, and sits on the side of the bed. In the dim, his bare chest shines and his boxer shorts blink the whitest white.

      Neither of us used to sleep through ’til morning. We would take naps together, at this time of the evening. We would wake up and play around, put on music, drink, go back to sleep, awaken.

      We’d have whiskey in tea, and sweet potato muffins.

      “Hit channel thirty,” he tells me now.

      Outside the room are powdery-white hallways, arched doors, a carved staircase. It would seem an enormous, lovely house where you could sit in an alcove on a bench and read, but it isn’t.

      I turn down the T.V. volume and switch around in my seat. “O.K., this is thirty. What are we tuning in?”

      “Like you’re staying,” he says.

      There is work waiting for me, true. Work that’ll keep me busy tonight, some of tomorrow. Work, though, that I would rather not go and do.

      Longing and resentment. Some of both in the way my husband is stamping out his cigarette.

      [16]

      I’ve motored out on the Great River Road toward Bayou Lafourche below Napoleonville. Here, I will see what I can see.

      You have to get up on the levee for a view of anything. Down by the river, there’s a pearly dawn over the blazing water, and an egret acting drunk on the banks. Otherwise, not a lot going on.

      Here are a couple guys, however, waltzing along.

      “Do you know anything about the riverboat schedules?” I ask.

      “No,” from these two, who are trying to act nonchalant, and as if they don’t live their lives in various abandoned vehicles.

      [17]

      Some Things, You Finish With and They’re Over

       Yesterday, for the last time in my life, I cleaned a broiler pan.

       I’m never again wearing anything bought at Lowe’s.

       I’m done drinking boilermakers.

       Spinning until dizzy on barstools is a thing of the past.

       No more pawning my luggage.

      [18]

      “Completion bonds,” I’m telling Lucien. We’re somewhere, parked in my location-scouting van. I’m giving a lesson.

      He