I Never Thought I'd See You Again: A Novelists Inc. Anthology (29 page)

There was a crowd of people, like always, grouped around the corner of Canal and Carondelet.

Barry Monteith sighed and crossed Canal to the neutral ground. It was a miserably hot August afternoon, and his socks were already soaked through with sweat. He mopped the wetness off his forehead, and tried not to go to the bad place. It was hard — without the crutch of a cigarette or a Xanax or a drink to ease the stress balling up between his shoulder blades or the pinpoint of pain forming behind his right eye. He pulled his iPhone out of the pocket of his slacks and found a playlist of calming, soothing mellow music and hit
shuffle.
But even the silky voice of Gladys Knight didn’t seem to help much as he crossed from the neutral ground to the far side of Canal and joined the crowd of sweaty people gazing down the street hoping to catch sight of a streetcar coming.

He leaned against the brick wall of the Foot Locker and closed his eyes, wishing death on the incompetent mechanic who still hadn’t found out what was wrong with his car.
If a streetcar doesn’t come along in five minutes I’ll try flagging down a cab,
he decided, wondering if there was enough time to run across to the Walgreen’s and buy some aspirin.
Breathe in and out, nice and slow and deep, listen to Gladys sing, and think happy thoughts. The car will be fixed tonight and I’ll be able to pick it up on my way to work in the morning and everything’s going to be just fine.

He opened his eyes and smiled. There was a streetcar stopped at the light at Common Street just a block away.
See? When you think positive thoughts, good things happen.

Wordlessly the crowd started forming a line. He joined the queue, and in a few minutes paid his dollar twenty-five and made his way to the back of the streetcar. He always sat in the back, because it was easier to get out the back door at his stop. He closed his eyes, enjoying the cool breeze coming in through the window as the streetcar clanged and went around the corner onto Canal. He leaned his head against the window and looked around at his fellow passengers. The car was crowded, but no one had sat on the small wooden bench next to him — and there were several other empty spots. His eyes met those of a young black man with dreadlocks wearing the filthy white smock and black-and-white checked pants native to kitchen workers. The young man shrugged slightly and closed his own eyes, slumping further down on his own bench.

Barry felt better. Gladys Knight switched over to an old Olivia Newton-John song that had been a hit when he was in junior high school a million years ago. He smiled to himself. Junior high school had been hell when he’d been living through it, but all these years later the memories didn’t sting anymore, didn’t have any power over him.

Everything, he reflected, becomes less painful over time.

The streetcar lurched to a stop, and he looked out onto the sidewalk. There were maybe three or four people l>The Greek, the Dog, Shangri-La and Me by Janet Woodsedvoining up to board — so he wouldn’t have the seat to himself for much longer. He looked up to the front of the car as the first person climbed up the steps and paid. He turned to walk down the aisle, and Barry’s blood froze.

It can’t be,
he thought as he stared with his mouth open and his right hand coming up to his throat.
I must be seeing things, it can’t be him.

But it
was
him.

It had to be.

He looked older — with a shock Barry remembered it had been over eight years — and he was leaner, more muscular than he had been when he was just seventeen. But the face — there was no mistaking that face. The square jaw, the wide-set green eyes, the thick pouty lips, the prominent cheekbones — it was him. It couldn’t be anyone else. Barry could remember thinking, somehow, through the burning bitter hatred, what a shame it was that such beauty was going to be wasted.

The green eyes looked around the interior of the car, lighting on Barry for just a moment before moving on without any sign of recognition. He was wearing a black T-shirt with WHO DAT written across the front in gold print and glitter, over drooping jeans rolled up into cuffs at the ankles. There was a strange tattoo on his left inner forearm, and he slid into an aisle seat several rows in front of Barry.

Deep breaths, Barry,
he reminded himself as his heart pounded in his ears and his stomach churned up burning acid,
stay calm. It might not be him,
he thought over and over again as he worked his iPhone out of his pants pocket. Olivia Newton-John had given way to Roberta Flack, but he hit the button on the bottom of the phone and pressed the SAFARI icon. The little wheel spun around and around as the streetcar started moving again. A heavy-set black woman slipped down into the seat with him and grunted a hello. He didn’t acknowledge her presence, just kept staring at the screen on his phone, willing it to finish loading before he lost his patience and his temper and threw the fucking thing out the open window.

It finally did load, and he pulled up Google, typing with trembling fingers the name
Ricky Livaudais,
having to back up to correct typos several times before he finally got it correct and touched the search button.

A list of links came up when the streetcar stopped at Poydras Street, and more people got on board, standing in the aisles since there was no place to sit.

None of them were the Ricky Livaudais he was looking for — the one sitting several rows in front of him on the streetcar.

Roberta Flack was now Carly Simon, and with a sudden jerk the streetcar started moving again.

He’s out,
Barry thought as the streetcar rolled down St. Charles, past Gallier Hall and restaurants, corner groceries with big signs advertising po’boys and Lotto tickets in their windows.
He’s out and he’s alive and he’s back in New Orleans. Why didn’t I know this? Why didn’t anyone tell me?

He swallowed, his eyes burning a hole in the back of the head just a few yards away from him. There was a sunburst tattoo on the back of Ricky’s neck, right where it met his shoulders. The bottom rays of the sun disappeared inside of the collar of the T-shirt.

It’s been over eight years, he>The Greek, the Dog, Shangri-La and Me by Janet Woodsedvo reminded himself. No one probably even gave me a second thought. The world keeps turning, life keeps moving, and no one remembers anything. Maybe they thought it was better I didn’t know. Maybe they figured Ricky Livaudais could come back here and I’d never know. What were the odds against us winding up on the same streetcar?

The streetcar swung around the statue of General Lee on top of its massive marble column and stopped just outside of Lee Circle. Several people got out of their seats and climbed down out of the streetcar before it started moving again, including the black woman who’d sat next to him and the Goth-looking girl who’d been sitting with Ricky.

Barry realized with a start that he was neither angry nor afraid.

In eight years, he’d never once thought about how he’d react if he came face to face with any of them again. They were in jail, convicted and sent away — and when he’d walked out of the courtroom after their sentencing, he’d put them out of his mind like they’d ceased to exist.

But now, staring at the back od, he felt — nothing, really, just an odd sort of curiosity.

I’m probably just numb from the shock.

The streetcar came to a stop at Melpomene. The light was red, and Ricky stood, walking to the front of the car. Before he realized what he was doing, Barry got up and went to the back door. The green light was on above it as he stepped down, but he waited until he saw Ricky step down onto the pavement before he pushed it open and got off the streetcar two stops too soon.

The light turned green and the streetcar lurched across, continuing on its path uptown.

Why did I get off?
Barry wondered as he watched Ricky cross the neutral ground and start across St. Charles.

Because you want to see where he goes, that’s why. If he hadn’t gotten off so close to your own stop, you wouldn’t have.

Carly Simon was now Melissa Manchester as he followed Ricky across the street.

I just need to see where he’s going, that’s all, I should know where he lives, he told himself as he watched Ricky’s slender frame head down Melpomene Street towards the river. If I’d gotten off first that would have been the end of it, but he got off in my neighborhood so I need to see where he’s going. I need to know where he is if he’s living in my neighborhood. I have a right to know where he’s at, don’t I?

Ricky crossed Prytania Street, but the light had changed by the time Barry got to the corner. He had to wait, as rush hour traffic drove by in both directions, his eyes on the retreating form as he got farther and farther away. By the time Barry could cross, Ricky was crossing Melpomene at the corner at Coliseum, and was soon out of sight.

But when Barry got to the corner, he saw Ricky crossing the park, waiting at the curb to cross Camp Street. He hurried across the street as Melissa Manchester became Bette Midler. He watched from under a live oak in the park as Ricky went through a black wrought iron gate on the other side of Camp Street, climbed the front steps, slid a key into the lock and opened the front door.

He lives less than two blocks away from me,
Barry thought, feeling the panic rising from deep inside. He put he kissed me. On the nose. their your a hand up against the tree and closed his eyes, listening to his heart leaping inside his ribcage. He focused, as the long-ago therapist taught him, on the sound and rhythm of his heart, slowly imagining it softer and quieter, until it was the sound of waves lapping against a white sand beach, beautiful clear green water cresting softly with white foam. Once his heart was beating normally again, he crossed Coliseum Street and walked on the other side, never taking his eyes away from the fuschia Victorian and the big green door Ricky Livaudais had disappeared behind.

Before he knew it he was unlocking his front door and stepping into the air conditioning inside. His orange striped cat howled and wrapped himself around Barry’s legs as he stood there, leaning back against the door. He slid the deadbolt into place and put the chain on. Breathing deeply, he fed the cat and sank down into an easy chair. The phone was blinking, so he pressed the message button.

“BEEP. Hi, this message is for Barry Monteith. This is Lawrence Schindler. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? I hope this is still your number. I have to apologize for not contacting you sooner, but I only just got the notice myself and I thought you should know they’ve released Ricky Livaudais. Yes, he was sentenced to eleven years but he got out early for good behavior. I’m sure this is a shock to you — it was to me too — but he has done his time, Barry, and I hope you can remember that, appreciate it. I know it’s hard but you have to let the past go. He’s free, he’s paid his debt to society and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. He was just the driver, remember — the others won’t be eligible for parole for at least another seven years, if then. If you need to, you can call me at —”

Barry depressed the erase button. There was no need to call Lawrence Schindler.

He walked into the kitchen and, for the first time in four years, poured himself a drink.

The vodka tasted good. Tasted, in fact, like another glass.

That would have been the end of it, really, if it weren’t for the fact that it seemed he ran into Ricky Livaudais everywhere he went. Standing in line to buy toilet paper at Walgreen’s, the front doors would open and there he would be, walking in and picking up a shopping basket, sliding it onto his tattooed arm before disappearing down the aisles. At Zara’s Grocery, when Barry walked in to buy lettuce and vegetables for a salad, there he was at the cash register, buying a loaf of bread and a pack of cigarettes and a really cheap bottle of gin. When he walked to the Burger King when he didn’t feel like making dinner, there Ricky was at the soda fountain, filling up an extra large plastic cup with Coke before picking up his greasy bag and walking out the front door.

Everywhere he turned, Ricky was there in some kind of sleeveless T-shirt and those damned droopy-drawer baggy jeans and a baseball cap turned sideways on top of his head.

And whenever their eyes met, there was no recognition in Ricky’s. He would just turn away and go about whatever it was he was doing.

It was frustrating, infuriating. He wanted to scream at Ricky,
how dare you not know who I am?

And every time he saw Ricky, he’d come back home and pour himself a glass of vodka, watching television but not seeing or comprehending what was on the screen as he slowly drank the vodka down, letting it cool his body and his temper, settle in the twenty-first centuryll and he his mind down and let him relax.

And yet somehow he always found himself on Coliseum Street, walking slowly along while his music played into his earbuds, his eyes glancing every so often to the big fuchsia house, wondering what Ricky was doing, if he was home, sitting on his couch planning on destroying someone else’s life.

He certainly had an aptitude for it.

Three weeks after Barry saw Ricky that first time on the streetcar, he began frequenting the coffee shop at the corner of Race and Magazine. He would get a cup of coffee and walk back up Camp Street to the corner at Melpomene. Some mornings he’d stop in front of the big fuchsia house and stare at the green door, wondering if Ricky was awake yet, if he was drinking coffee inside, wondering what he would say if the green door opened and Ricky came out suddenly and unexpectedly.

One morning he walked up the sloping driveway and looked into the parking lot behind the big wrought iron fence, wondering if any of the cars back there were Ricky’s — but reminding himself that it was unlikely — hadn’t he first seen Ricky on the streetcar?

But maybe his car had been in the shop — mine had been, hadn’t it?

He heard a door opening in the rear of the house and he hurried back down to the sidewalk, glanced down the street and ran across to the park on the other side, sitting down on a cement bench in the shade of an ancient live oak tree. He watched as a young woman with reddish blonde hair climbed into a green Honda about the same age as the live oak, opened the gate with a remote control and drove down the slope and out onto Camp Street. She gave him an odd look when she stopped at the foot of the drive, and he panicked for a moment.