Big Easy Bonanza

kids.”
    “Well, they never told me, okay? I don’t know what she died of—she just… died, all right? God, Marcelle, you’re unbelievable. In case you haven’t noticed, there actually has been a murder in our family. Like this week, cookie.”
    Her saucer eyes blazed at him. “You’ve got a hell of a nerve to bring up Chauncey. You never gave a shit about him. You hated him!”
    “So goddamn what, Marcelle? He was my father. Don’t you think I feel anything? But listen, who am I anyway? Just the worthless faggot-actor brother—forget about me.” He wheeled on her, trying her own tactic. ”But what about Bitty! What about your mother? How do you think she feels right now? And you’ve got to invent your own little imaginary drama in the midst of a real tragedy. That’s right, Marcelle—this is real. Your daddy’s dead and your mother’s suffering, all right? Would it be okay if just this once you didn’t grab all the attention for yourself?”
    “You self-righteous asshole.” Marcelle spoke contemptuously but in a normal tone of voice, not yelling. She let a beat go by, and he saw an unmistakable glint of cunning in her eyes. “I arrived at our suffering mother’s house early this morning and made her breakfast, which I practically had to spoon-feed her. At her request I left so she could take what she called ‘a nap,’ and I returned after taking André to the movies. When I arrived, she began asking me about that summer. She brought it up, I didn’t.” She paused again, maddeningly. “Where were you all day, brother dear?” She said it with a bitch smile.
    Maybe she was the one who should go into acting. He said, “I was working.”
    “And after that?” Still the smile—it was unbelievable what a bitch she could be.
    After that, he had dropped by; Bitty had been stinking drunk and incoherent. Too depressed to stay, he had left and found a trick to spend the day with. And now he hated himself. For leaving his mother, for being unable to help her, for having meaningless sex, for betraying Tolliver—he shook his head in mid-thought, surprised to see that he felt quite that way about Tolliver.
    But what was he to do now that he had given up drugs and alcohol? Sex was all he had.
    He said, “I saw Bitty. While you were at the movies, I guess. She was asleep.”
    “That’s easy enough to say, isn’t it?” Still that goddamn superior smile.
    “Marcelle, get out of here. Just get out. And take your brat with you.”
    “Believe me, I wouldn’t leave André with you for two minutes.”
    He swung at her. She stumbled out of the way and fell backwards, landing on the floor.
    He didn’t help her up. He stood there shaking while she scrambled to her feet, watching warily to see if he would try again, and scuttled off to find André. He was unable to move or speak, his mind and body occupied with the almost impossible task of taking in the fact that he would have hit her if she hadn’t got out of the way.
    His door slammed and he heard her running, obviously carrying André, not willing to risk staying on the premises even as long as it would take to walk a toddler down the stairs. As he realized the implications of her fear, his heart beat faster and faster.
    He understood that something large and uncontrollable, something that took odd, hair-raising twists, had been set in motion by their father’s death. Very glad he wasn’t drunk or stoned, he let himself see that it was something much more terrible than he had first thought, with wider-reaching consequences. He wished to God Marcelle hadn’t started this pyrotechnical remembering of hers.

Partners
    “SO WHAT SHALL we do tonight?”
    Steve had on jeans and a sweatshirt, a signal, Skip imagined, that he didn’t want to do much of anything. She had on jeans herself, and the sweater Jimmy Dee had supplied for their first-almost-date two days ago. Slipping into the recycled outfit, she had felt her head with surprise, realizing it hardly hurt now, and something else had occurred to her, something that never had before. She had got it into her mind to try to please Steve, to be as nice to him as he had been to her for the last few days—to trust him enough to allow herself to do that.
    “Everything,” she answered. “That is, if you wouldn’t mind accompanying me on a little police business.”
    “Not at all.” She thought he was only pretending not to be surprised.
    “But let’s eat first.”
    They went to Liuzza’s,