Crescent City Connection

lilies.

Seven
    DANIEL WENT BEFORE his father with the knowledge that he was a grown man, much larger and stronger than the other man, more imposing in every way. He could handle whatever Daddy was dishing out.
    “She got away,” he said.
    “She got away. Daniel, you don’t mean that. You’re a grown man and she’s a little girl. What do you mean, she got away?”
    Daniel began to sweat. How was he going to say she’d just walked out while he was asleep? When he was a kid, his father would rage. “Son, you left the plug in the sink and the water ran over. How could you do that?” It would start out that way.
    Daniel would think his father meant it, that he was really asking him how it happened, and his father would say, “You don’t mean that, Daniel.”
    He’d try to explain that he did, and then the name-calling would start, and the ridicule. And then the blows, always on the head or face. His father would simply let fly, sometimes knocking Daniel’s whole head around, sending it wobbling on his neck, leaving him sore for days; sometimes giving him a bloody nose or a busted lip; he didn’t care if he made marks, indeed, seemed to prefer it that way, and Daniel dared not cry, because the punishment for that was “something to cry about.”
    Things were different now. He’d come back partly to resolve things with his father, to work with him as an equal. But also because he agreed with him on this one. His father was onto something important, something Daniel believed in.
    Whatever problems he’d had with his father as a child, whatever fear he’d had of him, he could put behind him now, because Errol Jacomine was a formidable ally. The papers called him “the disappearing preacher” because of that thing he’d pulled in southwest Louisiana. He was a legend, the D.B. Cooper of charismatic religion.
    Daniel’s relationship with religion was problematical, but his dad had moved on. The thing he was working on now was what America needed, and if anyone could pull it off, Errol Jacomine could—with Daniel’s help.
    There were other reasons Daniel was here—one good one anyway. Things hadn’t worked out that well elsewhere. He knew why, too. He knew exactly why.
    It was Jacqueline’s damn fault.
    Everything was fine until he married the bitch. He was a Christian, his mom and dad were Christians, Jacqueline was a Christian; things were just fine.
    Then Jacqueline went weird on him.
    She started with that feminist shit. Wouldn’t stay home, had to have a job—stupid job, too; receptionist somewhere. Wouldn’t take care of the kid. Wouldn’t, wouldn’t, wouldn’t.
    Wouldn’t do a damn thing, is how it ended up.
    Fucked up Daniel’s life in the process. Got him started on marijuana, which didn’t lead to heroin, but most certainly did to alcohol, which had turned out to be his personal demon.
    Only good thing came out of it was Lovelace. Bright kid. Real bright kid. He might not have Jacqueline—he wouldn’t want her anyway—but he’d fallen in love with his own daughter, and that was good enough to get him through. Even in the years when he was in Idaho, stockpiling food and living off the land, he’d get a job now and then—in “agricultural imports,” he liked to say. It might not be banking, but he had enough socked away to get the kid through college.
    Meanwhile Jacqueline had gone and joined the New Age. If she wasn’t off doing a firewalk or something, she was flying somewhere with one of her twenty-five-year-old dope dealer boyfriends. Which was where she was now, and maybe under the circumstances that was more a good thing than otherwise.
    He’d had a whole lot of second thoughts about bringing Lovelace to his father. He loved her so much he’d let something slip about what The Jury was doing—nothing much, really, just a hint that maybe he knew where her grandfather was, and his father had decided that made her dangerous.
    That was what he said. He knew his dad—actually, he wanted her. He wanted her brain and her spirit. He wanted her for the movement, and so did Daniel. So he’d gone to get her. He’d done it his dad’s way, but he was sorry now. He wouldn’t hurt her for the world, but he’d certainly scared her—that was a way of hurting her.
    He wondered if he had let her get away, if subconsciously he hadn’t wanted to kidnap her, and he’d been careless accidentally on purpose.
    He said to his dad, “You’re right, I don’t mean it, she didn’t get