Black Cherry Blues (Dave Robicheaux 3)

She stood in front of the stove, her face quiet, her head even with the top of the stove, looking at the skillet full of French toast.

“It makes me feel funny in front of the other kids,” she said.

“I’ll drive you, then. It’ll be like I’m dropping you off on the way to work. That’ll be okay, won’t it?”

“Clarise don’t know how to take care of Tripod. She’s always mad at him.”

I turned off the stove, picked up the skillet with a dish towel, and set it in the sink to cool. The French toast was burned around the edges.

“We’re just going to have to accept some things now. That’s the way it is, Alf,” I said.

She packed her lunch box silently, then ate only half of her French toast, and went outside and waited for me on the front step. The wind was blowing off the river, and the sunlight through the maple tree made shifting patterns of leaves on her face.

Later, Dixie and I went to an early AA meeting. Afterward, one of the members who worked in the job-placement service told Dixie that he had found him a part-time job operating a forklift at the pulp mill out on the river. We walked home, and it was obvious that Dixie was not happy at the news. He sulked around the house, then took his sunburst guitar out on the back steps and began playing with a thumb pick and singing a song that I had heard only once before, many years ago. The words went to the tune of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.”

“Now, bread and gravy is all right,

And a turnip sandwich is a delight,

But my kids always scream

For more of them good ole butter beans.

Well, just a little piece of country ham,

Just pass the butter and the jam,

Just pass the biscuits if you please,

And some more of them good ole butter beans.

Just see that woman over there,

The one with both her hands in the air.

She’s not pregnant as she seems.

She’s just full of good ole butter beans.”

I opened the screen and sat down on the steps beside him. It was warm, and the clover in the grass was alive with bees.

“You’re supposed to report to the plant at noon, aren’t you?” I said.

“That’s what he said.”

“You going out there in slacks and a Hawaiian shirt?”

“Look, that job ain’t exactly what I had in mind.”

“Oh?”

“Ain’t that place a toilet paper factory or something? Besides, I don’t have experience running heavy equipment.”

“A forklift isn’t heavy equipment. And I thought you told me you operated one in Huntsville.”

“For about two days, till I dropped the prongs on a guy’s foot.”

“We had a deal, podna. We don’t renegotiate the terms.”