Thrown-away Child

politics he’s involved in up to his elbows. But I’m a shirttail relation of his, for which I thank my lucky stars.” Louper chuckled. “Boy-o-boy, I remember a case of bigamy Hippo argued years back. This was on behalf of my cousin Darryl.”
    ‘What happened then?”
    ‘Well Darryl, see, he got two wives conspire to haul his ass into court. Charge of bigamy. But don’t you snow Hippo won the day?”
    “How?”
    “Simple. Hippo proved Darryl wasn’t no bigamist.”
    “But there were plaintiffs—the two wives.”
    “That’s right. But Hippo called up a surprise witness for the defense. And them two gals just about had a  couple of calfs.”
    “Who was the witness?”
    “Darryl’s third wife. See—Darryl wasn’t no bigamist. He had him three wives.”
    “Very shrewd.”
    “Shrewd’s got nothing to do with it,” Ruby said the old steam returned. “It’s Louisiana law, written by Louisiana politicians—a gang of men with garrulousness and the mob on their side.”
    “Also,” I said, “let’s not be forgetting the age-old corruption of inventing the forgiveness of sins with Latin phrases.”
    “You can pull up right there, alongside the double oak tree, the one my daddy planted,” Ruby told Louper. We had just turned off Milton to Gibson, a block of dreary brick row houses—the St. Bernard Project. Ruby leaned across the backseat, kissed my cheek, and said, “I love you, Irish. Ready or not, it’s time to meet your new family.”
    Louper brought the taxi to a stop. While Ruby and I gathered our things, he took the cigarette from his ear and put it between his lips. He did not light it, though. He stuck his head out the driver’s-side window and craned his neck to look up at the big moss-draped oak limbs.
    “Okay, Huggy, here’s what I owe you, plus a couple dollars more.” I pushed several bills up over the seat between us, fluttering them for Louper to hear. But the tree held Louper’s fixed attention for several more seconds.
    Finally, he tucked his head back inside the cab. He twisted around, took the money, and thanked me “You don’t mind me mentioning, sir, you got a sort of gift,” he added.
    “What gift?”
    “The knack of pretending to be stupid before you’re wise.”
    “Thanks, I think.”
    “Mind if I put a question to you?”
    “I don’t mind.”
    “What’s better: living with a bad conscience, or knowing the peace of mind that comes from being hanged for what you done?”
    “Nobody’s wise enough to answer that. Or dumb enough.
    “Yuh, I suppose that’s right.”
    Ruby and I stepped out from the taxi with our bags. We stood on a sidewalk cracked by the oak roots sprawled beneath the concrete. Up in the little front window of Number 3810, I spotted an eager face that looked like Ruby’s own, only older, and an almondskinned hand holding back a white lace curtain.
    “Did you nice folks take my calling card?” Huggy Louper asked, tapping the back of his seat. I told him I had. Then before pulling away, Louper said, “Whenever you need a lift, the dispatcher’ll have me to you— Huggy-on-the-spot.”
    I thought Ruby might go running up to the door of her mother’s house, or else maybe her mother might come flying out. One or the other. Instead, Ruby stood where she was, as if she were glued to the sidewalk. I stood beside her, sweat streaming down my back.
    Ruby looked up and down the speckled sun-and-shade of Gibson Street, avoiding a glance up to the window where the eager lady held back lace. Neighborhood noise surrounded us. Ladies chattered as they walked along with paper grocery bags in their arms, bicycles whizzed up and down the street, boys chased after dogs, babies screamed because their teeth hurt, radios played on windowsills.
    “I could stand here all day long, nobody would recognize me.” Ruby seemed as if she had lost something important. “There was a time I used to be a part of this sound and motion.”
    “It’s still a part of you.”
    “Oh, I don’t know anymore. Look at the street, then look at the two of us ”
    "We’re different, obviously. So?“
    “It’s more, Hock. It’s like I’m in a time bend. You and me, we’re like a couple of hour hands in a crowd of second hands.”
    While I thought about this, my attention was drawn to four little girls just across the way. Two of then were at either end of a pair of jumping ropes, twisting them up and down. The two others were in the middle of the flailing ropes,