“Ruth meant it about you coming back to the arena when your hand is well,” he said.
“The doctor told me I got to wait six months before I fight again.”
“What about your job on the docks?”
“They ain’t hiring one-arm men to handle freight.”
Toussaint lived in a tenement building a few blocks from the warehouse district. He went up the narrow stairway through the darkened corridor to his room. The room was poorly furnished, and dingy like the rest of the building, with a tattered yellow shade on the window, a single bed with a brass bedstead, a wall mirror and a scarred chest of drawers by an old sofa that was faded colorless; the wallpaper was streaked brown by the water that seeped through the cracks every time it rained. He turned on the single bulb light that hung by a cord from the ceiling. He took off his sling to undress, and rinsed his face in the washbasin. He looked in the mirror at the row of black stiches across his eye; one side of his face was swollen into a hard knot. He showered, turned out the light, and went to bed.
Outside in the alley he heard drunken voices and the rattling of garbage cans. He looked up through the darkness and thought of his home in Barataria, south of New Orleans. He wondered if he would ever go back. A woman yelled for the drunks to be quiet. Toussaint rolled over in his bed and closed his eyes. He thought of himself on the deck of a trawler with the nets piled on the stern and the steady roll of the Gulf beneath his feet, the horizon before him where the dying sun went down in the water in a last blaze of red, the smell of the salt and the seaweed and the sound of the anchor chain sliding off the bow. He turned in his bed and couldn’t sleep. He remembered the tavern where they used to go after coming into port. It was a good place with a long polished bar and small round tables covered with checkerboard cloths. They served boiled crabs and crawfish, and you could get a plate of barbecue and a pitcher of draught beer for a dollar. It was always filled with fishermen, and Toussaint would stand at the bar and talk and drink neat whiskey from the shot glasses with water as a chaser.
The next morning he looked for a job. He tried the state employment agency first. The only jobs to be had were those of bellboy, bus hop, and janitor. He went to warehouses, trucking firms, auto garages, and was told that there was either no job to be had, or to come back when his hand had healed. The third day he went to a clothing store on Canal that had advertised for help in the stockroom. Toussaint applied and got the job. When he reported for work he was shown where the brooms, mops, dustpans, and cleaning rags were kept, and was told to mop the floor of the men’s and women’s restrooms. He left the store and looked for another job. A week passed and he found nothing. The landlord of his building asked for the rent, which took Toussaint’s last twenty dollars. He rode the streetcars and buses and walked over most of the city to find work. He went to a private employment agency. They said he might try cutting lawns; there wasn’t much else for a man in his condition.
Two weeks later he was sitting in the pool hall, reading the want ads in the newspaper. All the tables were being used. A man with a cigarette between his teeth sat down on the bench beside him. It was one of the hustlers who had tried to get him into a game the afternoon of his last fight.
“Out of work?” he said.
“That’s right.”
“See anything in the paper?” Toussaint looked towards the pool tables.
“I see you got a bad hand. Work must be hard to get.”
Toussaint folded his paper and put it on the bench.
“If you’re looking for a job maybe I can fix it up,” the hustler said.
“You run an employment agency?”
“I got a friend that needs a guy to drive a truck.”
“You drive it for him.”
“I make my bread in other ways.”
“Who’s your friend?”
“That’s him by the horse board.”
“I don’t know him,” Toussaint said.
“He don’t know you either.”
“Say what you got on your mind or go back to your friend.”
“He needs a driver and he figured you might want the job.”
“That ain’t telling me nothing. What’s he want to hire me for?”
“This is a special kind of trucking service. He don’t take on union drivers.”
“What’s he hauling?”
“That’s what the union asks,” the hustler said.
“And his drivers don’t ask nothing.”
“You got it.”
“I want to ask him some questions.”
“He ain’t used to it.”
“Get off it, boy. He wouldn’t have sent you over here to hire a one-arm man unless he needed a driver pretty bad.”
“You’re cool, daddy.”
They went over to the man by the horse board. He was a well-dressed, light tan Negro with thick, rimless glasses. He looked like a Negro preacher, except for the glass ring on his little finger.
“This guy might want to be a truck driver,” the hustler said.
“Did Erwin explain it to you?”
“What are you hauling?” Toussaint said.
“You make an out-of-state delivery. I take care of the rest.”
“What’s the pay?”
“A hundred dollars.”
“I want two hundred if I’m carrying a blind load.”
“I don’t pay a driver more than a hundred.”
“Get somebody else, then.”
“A hundred now, and a hundred when you get there.”
“Where am I going?”
“You’ll learn that tonight. Erwin will give you the address of the warehouse.”
“Is this a one-man job?”
“Another truck will go with you.”
“What is it? Whiskey?”
“Give him the address, Erwin.”
The hustler tore open an empty cigarette pack and flattened it against the wall and wrote something on it in pencil. He gave it to Toussaint.
“Here’s your bread ticket, daddy,” he said.
“Bonham Shipping Company,” Toussaint read. “Are you Bonham?”
“Yes. I am. Pick up the truck at nine.”
“You ain’t give me the money yet.”
“He’s real sharp, ain’t he, Mr. Bonham?” the hustler said.
Avery Broussard
It was night and the moon was high, and Avery sat on a log in the clearing while Tereau took the coffeepot off the fire. Tereau was three parts Negro, one part Chitimacha Indian, and he made the best moonshine in southern Louisiana. No one knew how old he was, not even Tereau, but a Negro must live very long before his hair turns white. He had fought sheriffs and federal tax agents to keep his still, and some people said that he carried a double-edged knife made from a file in his boot.
Tereau poured coffee in their cups and added a shot of whiskey from the pint bottle he carried in his coat pocket. They were waiting for the bootleggers who were to slip through the marsh in an outboard and meet them. The mules and the wagon were off to the side of the clearing by the trees, with the heavy kegs of whiskey loaded on the bed. Avery took another shot in his cup.
Tonight ain’t a good time to be drinking too much corn,” Tereau said.
“What happened to the bootleggers?”
They’ll be along. There’s a lot of moonlight. They got to be careful.”
“Do the state police ever catch any of them?”
“Sometimes, but they usually get rid of the whiskey before they’re caught. It don’t take long to dump them barrels overboard.”