Lousiana Hotshot

didn’t even believe it.
    She had meddled, whether she had the sense to realize she was doing it or not. Without meaning to, she had wounded this great male beast, had hurt him so bad he might never forgive her.
    And in turn that hurt her, made her realize how fond of him she was. Sure, he’d been abusive. Sure, he’d cursed her out, called her an idiot— a
chair,
for Christ’s sake. But he was out of control in a way she couldn’t have predicted. She’d gone someplace forbidden, opened some sort of secret door, and it had unhinged him. Actually unhinged him.
    For a while there, on the short walk to her car, she’d considered calling Audrey or Angie. But she recognized instantly how wrong that would be. Even if Eddie committed suicide, he had to be left to do it in dignity. Not that that was going to happen. She didn’t know what the future held, hadn’t a clue whether she still had a job, but there was no doubt in her mind Eddie would weather this. At least if there was anything to the ancient maxim that you shouldn’t hold things in. The sounds that came out of him after she and Eileen left were a lot like an explosion. If they didn’t rip him apart, nothing was going to.
    She looked at her watch. Not quite lunchtime, but getting there. She might as well work as not. The film she’d dropped off would be ready by the time she got there; if it turned out, she’d have an excuse to go shopping on Eddie’s nickel. But first, she needed comfort food.
    For Talba, that meant a shrimp po’ boy, something in which she indulged about once a year. Today, she decided, was going to be the day, and she was going to drink a Barq’s with it.
    She had to go to the French Quarter anyway— she’d get one there. In her opinion, this was nature’s most nearly perfect food. Talba liked hers dressed— native speak for “decked out, baby-child,” as she’d written in a poem once. Slathered with mayonnaise, topped with crisp tomato slices, then blanketed with lettuce, cut in strips and tucked in like confetti. The shrimp, of course, would be fresh and flash-fried; the bread sweet, French, and so fresh it would still be fragrant. The Barq’s would be cold and sweet as running creek water, but a good deal more caloric. Maybe she’d write another poem about this particular lunch— “ain’ nobody po’ that’s got a shrimp po’ boy”— well, no, but she’d work on it.
    Actually, she kind of liked it. The sentiment, not the line— that was far too cornball. Ah, she had it— she could put it in Miz Clara’s mouth. That would work just fine. In fact, she wasn’t altogether sure her mother hadn’t said it at some point. She’d been forever making points about what did and didn’t make you poor in some kind of spiritual sense that wasn’t Christian (though Miz Clara was). Some kind of thing that went beyond Christian.
    Talba stopped to eat at a place on Conti Street, a place where they charged about three times what she’d have had to pay in her own neighborhood, at least a few years ago. There had been a little store around the corner where she and her brother Corey went when her mama gave them money.
    He was a butt now, but Corey had been a great brother to have at the time. He had warded off the bullies and taken care of her when Miz Clara couldn’t. Hey! She could write
him
a poem. That would do a lot to heal the chasm that had opened between them when she drifted into a life that wasn’t about money, and he married Miss La-di-da with skin more like cream than coffee.
    That’s some silly shit,
Talba thought. She shook her head at her own absurdity, able, with a bite of nectar and honey in her mouth, to be generous toward her sister-in-law. This was far from the best shrimp po’ boy she’d ever had— couldn’t even touch the ones she and Corey used to go get— but it was still nectar and honey. It was greasy and the bread was old— the shrimp fried too slow, the tomato limp and lame, the lettuce going brown— carelessly, lovelessly made. But it was still a shrimp po’ boy and a shrimp po’ boy was still finer than nightingales’ tongues.
    The poem was coming. She took out a pen and started scribbling.
    My brother used to say, “Little Bird…”
    (he call me Little Bird)
    He say, “…Little Bird, I’m gon’ get you a wriggle o’ worms
    You ain’ goin’ hungry with Big Bird around
…
    You ain’ goin’ hungry with worms in your tummy,
    You ain’ goin’ hungry this fine day in