Louisiana Lament

disgusting jail commode. The hell of it was, she was so nervous she was going to have to use it soon.
    Nervous. Well, that was one way to put it.
    They kept her there three hours before they let her use the phone, three hours during which no one spoke a word to her. Finally, a black deputy, a man she’d never seen before, flung open the door, blank-faced, and asked her if she wanted to make a phone call.
    It was seven o’clock. Eddie’d be home already, and she didn’t know his home number. It was written in her address book, but they’d confiscated that. Calling either Miz Clara or Corey was out. That left Darryl.
    Please be home. Please,
she prayed as she dumped her money in the phone.
    “Hello?” Darryl’s voice.
    “Thank God. Darryl, I’m in jail.”
    “What? Why?”
    “I don’t know. Nobody’ll say a word to me. I’m in the St. Sebastian Parish jail—I was in Clayton on the case. Call Eddie to come get me, will you?” And then she remembered something. “Oh, hell. His home number’s unlisted. You’ll have to go see him.”
    From Darryl’s house, that would take almost an hour.
    “Hang on, Your Grace. We’ll get there as fast as our fat little legs will carry us.”
    But when Eddie arrived, he was alone, and Talba figured that was probably a good thing. It was almost midnight.
    The bags under his eyes seemed to have tripled since the day before. They were the size of steamer trunks, the color of bricks crumbling from centuries of exposure.
    ***
    Eddie had finished dinner (eggplant parmigiana), and, full of rich food and a cocktail or two, had repaired to his den and stretched out in his recliner for a little nap before bed. Angie was over for dinner; she was helping Audrey load the dishwasher and then she’d probably go home. Eddie couldn’t understand why she’d never stay, watch a little television with the folks; but she always had “work to do.” Or something.
    Something shook him awake; an earthquake maybe.
    “Oh, Gawd, you jumped like you got a guilty conscience. Come on; Darryl Boucree’s here. About Talba.”
    “That’s a reason to wake me up? Somethin’ wrong? She get thrown in jail or somethin’?” He was joking.
    Audrey’s face was straight as a poker. “Yeah. She did.”
    He sat up too fast, causing the chair to fold with a thump and his head to swim a little. “Ms. Wallis?” He was getting accustomed to the idea; also to his sudden change of altitude. “Ms. Wallis got herself arrested? What’d she do?”
    Angie was just walking into the room, waving a wet dish towel. She looked like she was going to a funeral. Even at her parents’ house for a little home cooking, she was wearing her usual black—black jeans, black T-shirt, black sneakers. She’d look good in any color on God’s earth and this was the way she dressed. Eddie didn’t get it.
    “DWB,” she said.
    “Huh?” Eddie was only vaguely aware of having heard the term.
    “Driving while black. Look, I’ll drive up and get her out. You stay here and rest.” It pissed him off the way Angie always knew best. She was a lawyer, which he was proud of, but why the hell couldn’t she have been a doctor? He’d never met a lawyer that didn’t have more opinions than God, and Angie’d been like that before her first day of kindergarten.
    “Angie, for God’s sake.” He struggled up out of the chair. “Where the hell is she? Excuse my French.”
    “Clayton. St. Sebastian Parish.”
    “Oh, Jesus.” He stumbled to the living room, where Talba’s boyfriend stood, looking worried, like an expectant dad or something. He was a tall black man with glasses, far too handsome for Eddie’s tastes. (He’d once said that to Angie, whereupon she sniffed back, “You mean he looks too white.”) Eddie said, “Darryl, what’s goin’ on?”
    “Talba doesn’t seem to know. Says they picked her up, threw her in jail, and won’t tell her why.”
    “Well, what the hell did she do?” Instantly, he regretted his mistake. “If you say DWB, I swear to God I won’t even bail her out.”
    “DW—what? Oh, yeah. Well, she didn’t mention that. And I don’t know about bail. I could do that by myself. She wanted me to see if I could get you to come with me.”
    Now
that
Eddie understood. Deep in his heart he knew this was bound to be a black-white thing.
    “I see what you’re saying, Darryl. I’m gon’ go get her, all right. But I think it’d be better if you didn’t come along.” Darryl looked down at