Crescent City Connection

gallery—because that was the deal he’d made with himself—but painting the angel made him so happy, that was nothing.
    She makes me happy
, he thought.
It’s her—having her around.
    “Hey, Monk,” said Revelas, “I ain’ never heard you hum before. ’Zat break your vow or not?”
    The Monk smiled and shrugged his shoulders. In his opinion, it didn’t, but he thought the idea was kind of funny. He felt lightheaded, even a little giddy, as if he were in Paris or something. He felt like humming and he didn’t care who heard him.
    Revelas came over to look at the painting. “Hey, man. Tha’s real nice. These angels different, ain’t they? Happier. They got roses in they cheeks.”
    They really were Lovelace, in a way that the other ones hadn’t been. The old ones. Those weren’t even meant to look like her— he hadn’t known what she’d look like grown-up. He was as surprised when he saw her as she was when she saw the angels.
    Now that she was here, he was painting her, and it was only natural the angels were happier. He was happier.
    On the way home, he thought of what he’d like to cook for her that evening—a vegetarian lasagna he knew how to do. He stopped and got the ingredients.
    When he arrived, he smelled something good. She’d made it for him—the very same recipe, which she’d found in his files.
    In a way he was disappointed that he couldn’t cook for her, but the coincidence of this utterly delighted him. If he’d needed proof they were kindred souls, this was it.
    “Hi, Uncle Isaac.”
    He smiled at her, unloading the bag he’d brought. She got itright away. “You were going to make this? Cool. You can tell me if I did it right.”
    He wrote, “Maybe I could just write it.”
    She laughed. It had been a long time since he’d made anyone laugh.
    He went into the bathroom to wash his hands the twenty times it would take to be able to eat and then he caught the doorknob carefully with toilet paper, thinking that this was something he hadn’t had to worry about when he was alone.
    Still, she was worth it. He thought:
It’s truly a joy to have her. What is a person without family?
    She was tossing a salad when he joined her. She said, “What were you doing in there?”
    He felt a hot flush begin at his scalp and travel toward his toes. He frowned to tell her she’d crossed a forbidden boundary, but she was intent on the salad and missed it completely.
    Too bad, because it was one of his most eloquent stares. Since his vow of silence, he’d learned to show disapproval in a thousand silent ways, but he was most proud of his stare, though Revelas laughed at it. “Hey, man, you look like a lizard,” he said when The Monk turned it on him. But other people got it loud and clear, and even Revelas had taken to saying, “Watch out—he got the lizard look again.”
    Having taken his best shot and gotten nowhere, he simply walked into the living room, sat on his mat and folded himself into the lotus position. He couldn’t begin to focus, the way his mind seethed with outrage, but that wouldn’t show.
    As it happened, whether it showed or not was irrelevant. Lovelace apparently had not noticed he’d left the room. In a bit, she came and brought him his version of a cocktail—orange juice on the rocks. She simply held out the glass, expecting him to abandon his mudra and take it.
    He did.
    She sat in the white-painted rocking chair and moved her arm in a semicircle, taking in the room, taking in his whole universe.
    “All this … white. The hand-washing, the sweeping, all that— it’s got to be wearing. I mean, there’s got to be—you know—fear behind all that. Surely it can’t be easy.”
    Fear? He hadn’t thought of it that way. He was just doing what he had to do. Actually, he lived in a very safe universe, a lot safer than most people’s.
    He got up and found his writing pad. “Okay,” he wrote. “Paint it any color you like.”
    “Oh, Isaac, come on. They’ve probably got books about this—they can do something about it.”
    Once again he wrote. “Hey, I see angels, I don’t talk.”
I have no woman
, he thought.
    She laughed. “Oh, let’s eat.”
    The lasagna was so perfect he didn’t bother to write, just pointed to it and patted his heart, a man in love.
    “You like it? You know what I’d like to do? You know what I’d really like? I want to cook.”
    Not getting it, he stared at her.
    “I mean, instead of shuffle papers.”
    He made the