House of Blues

despair.
    This nearly made him cry.
    It touched him in a way that his father's death had
not; or had not yet—he knew that would hit him in the end. This was
more accessible, this insult to Reed, this slap in the face.
    But no, he didn't think she had killed her father.
That was the last thing he thought. He told his mother he suspected
some thug had done it—someone who had conned his way into the
house.
    " But why?" said Sugar. "Nothing was
taken."
    Why. He hadn't thought about why; in a way, he was a
numb as Sugar.
    So they could kidnap the others and hold them for
ransom.
    But he didn't say it.
    Wait a minute. Someone drove Reed and Dennis's car
away .
    He said, "They probably meant to strip the
place, but Dad got out of hand. You know how he is. And then they got
scared."
    " I think I can sleep now," Sugar said. "How
he was, you mean."
    They had demolished nearly the whole bottle.
    He left her and went to the House of Blues. He liked
to stand there nursing a beer in a plastic cup, swaying; letting the
music pulse through him. It was a good way to empty his mind, forget
his life and his failure, forget the way he missed Nina; forget his
father's death, his mother's odd quiet.
    Buddy Guy was playing. Grady should have been a
zombie, blitzed on the music and alcohol, but his brain was still
functioning.
    Or maybe you could call it that. He was having
something that might be called a thought, but perhaps it was just a
feeling.
    He never got what he wanted.
    If it was a feeling, it was guilt.
    I was supposed to be Reed.
    That made him angry. Snatches of derision came back,
seduced him from the magic of Buddy's flashing riffs.
    "Be a man."
    " Gracie, oh,
Gracie"—singsongy here—"are you wearing your lacy
underpants? "
    " Stand up and do what you
have to do . . . no, you don't have a choice. You're an Hebert . . . "
    " Reed can do it better.
Are you gonna be outdone by a girl? " At
this point his father would let his wrist flop and affect a falsetto.
"Grady Hebert. Faggot writer. Excuse me— unpublished
faggot writer . La-di-da—di—da. I guess
little Reed'll just have to do your job."
    Grady worked every summer as a prep cook in the
restaurant, and loathed every second of it. He spent his days
chopping vegetables, the heavy chef's knives leaving bruises on the
inside of his forearm. He peeled potatoes, he cleaned, swept, and
mopped, he cored and scored, he made stocks, he peeled shrimp until
his fingers wrinkled, he cracked crabs, he cut and ground meat, and
he learned to make forty gallons of gumbo at a time.
    Why was kitchen drudgery more masculine than writing?
He'd struggled with that, and he hated himself for it. Now, of
course, and even then, deep down, he knew his dad's taunts meant
nothing. They were just bullying. But they had left their mark.
    He was sweating, and it wasn't just from the press of
the crowd.
    Why can't I think of something nice about him? He ordered another beer, and tried.
    Really tried.
    Another memory came back: his dad flopped down in his
chair, watching television, his tie not even loosened, smelling of
the day's sweat, grunting, not answering if the kids spoke to him.
"He's tired," Sugar would say. "He's just too tired
for y'all right now."
    But Grady had found that if he sat on the floor
underneath the arm of Arthur's chair, his dad would eventually touch
him on the head, tousle his hair. Grady had asked Evie to stroke his
hair, and later Nina, and other women.
    He felt his face go red; he hadn't put all that
together.
    But that was nice, wasn't it? When he touched my
head?
    He could remember the warmth and strength of his
dad's hand.
    It gave him a slightly fuzzy feeling; or maybe that
was beer on top of Bailey's.
    I wonder if I'll miss him?
    And then another vignette: Arthur walking around
Hebert's, dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, perfect tie;
immaculate, his thatch of white hair giving him a Walker Percy
distinction—the platonic ideal of the southern gentleman.
    The main dining room was a palace to Grady's eyes
then: the prisms of the chandeliers caught the light and sent it back
to the silver, lined up so perfectly on the white linen.
    The dark wood of the chairs, the tiny tiles of the
floor, the poufs of the window shades, the waiters' tuxedos—it was
stately, yet so reassuring, so warm, like a comforter covered in
satin. When his parents took him there, he was a prince in his dad's
castle. Arthur was king.
    He moved smoothly around the dining room,