PI On A Hot Tin Roof

barely met before the reading. “Whatcha think, shrink? Am I crazy or what?”
    “What do
you
think—are you?”
    “Right. Just like all of them—always asking questions.”
    “Well, you asked me a
dumb
question. You know the answer. You really want to know what I think?”
    “Not especially.”
    “Well. I’m going to tell you anyhow. I think we should go South—that is, if you want to work with me.”
    “South?”
    “That’s where the energy is—all that lovely anger. Besides, you’re a redhead. Lots of fire there. Slouch on over at six Tuesday. You’ve gotta get out of that widening gyre.”
    “Daddy,” Raisa asked, “what’s ‘santana’ mean?”
    “I don’t know. Something like nirvana, Luce?”
    “It’s a warm breeze,” the girl said.
    “Or a hot wind,” Talba added, “depending on how you look at it.”
    THE END

Author’s Note and LAGNIAPPE: Talba Wallis (aka the Baroness de Pontalba), had actually composed an ambitious new poem she planned to read, but she wanted it to be Lucy’s night. The Baroness, like so many artists, writes to understand her life. Here’s what she made of the events that kicked off her career as a fake maid:
    The Day They Busted
Big Chief Alabama Bandana
    by the Baroness de Pontalba
    It was just eleven days
    Before the meanest Mardi Gras in fifty years
—
    The time we had that shootin’ up near Josephine Street
    At the Muses Parade
    And then a reveler died at the Endymion Ball
    Reachin’ for a pair o’ beads
—
    The
long
pearls, I
like
to hope.
    (The Superdome folks said wasn’t
nothin’
wrong with that platform
—
    She should
never
been standin on that chair.)
    Could
be right.
    And that was just the, start of things.
    Next thing, they had to close the river
—
    (Little boat hit a big one.)
    And all the cruise ships takin
’
all the locals out
    Who was fleein’ the city for Mardi Gras
    Couldn’t leave
    And everybody got sent home with they money back
    And all the people comin’ in for Carnival
    Ended up in Gulfport, Mississippi
    ’Stead of takin’ off they shirts for beads
    (The
long
pearls, I
like
to hope)
    Down on Bourbon Street.
    And then a whole
front
of thunderstorms
    Closed down Lundi Gras
    At the river,
    And the Zulu King and Queen
    Arrived at the Spanish Plaza by automobile
    ’Stead of their traditional pleasure barge
    (Though
Rex
braved the river)
    And all day Fat Tuesday the rain come down
    In little squalls
    That kept some of the toughest Indian gangs drinkin’
    Inside Ernie K-Doe’s Mother-In-Law Lounge,
    Lest they get they feathers ruffled
    Or worse yet, they spankin’ new museum-quality suits
    Waterlogged
    And worse for wear.
    But none o’ that ain’t happened yet
    On that perfect February Sat’day
    When the Poison Oleanders
    Played they songs and calls out behind the Old Mint.
    And inside, they had a bead workshop for little kids,
    Which Big Chief Alabama Bandana single-handedly
    Presided over
    Before he played his gig,
    His first in three years, due to a little slip that
    Cost him precious time up in Angola prison.
    (It could happen to anyone.)
    And Big Chief Alabama had on his new suit,
    The one he’d made for that Mardi Gras he missed so long ago.
    When they took him away,
    Which normally he’d’a saved for The Big Day itself,
    But he just couldn’t wait.
    Well, the chief played a
beautiful
gig.
    Played his fool heart out,
    Inspired like he was ’cause he was home at last and
    It was Carnival time
    And his mouthpiece was there in the crowd,
    An angel to him ’cause she
    Got him out on a technicality
    (And that was also her name),
    Though she was known to some
    As the toughest white bitch
    In Orleans Parish,
    And proud
of
it.
    After that, the other brothers in the gang
    Gotta go somewhere
    And Big Chief Alabama’s got all the paraphernalia
    From the bead workshop,
    So his lawyer say,
    “Look, I’ll run ya home.”
    And she goes and gets her car from that parkin
’
lot
    Over on Elysian Fields
    And they be loadin’ up the car with all the bead stuff
    And Alabama’s gorgeous purple headdress,
    Which he’d removed to do the heavy liftin
’
    And some drunk fool come through and
    Run into both of ’em and knock ’em down.
    They drop what they loadin
’
    And when they look down,
    They’s a crack pipe on the ground
    Along with all the beads and feathers
    And his lawyer’s big black tote bag.
    And two white po-lice be hangin’ on the corner.
    Two cops from the same Po-lice department that
    Not so long