Carl’s Best Friend
Thirsty Work — Chapter 11: on six legs
Two young women from California travel to New Orleans in search of redemption after the death of their mother. Carolee thinks she will show her little sister the world, but what they find in the barrooms of the French Quarter at Mardi Gras is more than she knows how to handle, or could have imagined back home. This is the eleventh chapter of the novel Thirsty Work.
“I’m back,” I called out cheerfully as I banged through the front door of the flat. “I’m back and I’m ready to introduce you to clean living!” I was glad someone laughed.
The room looked better already. The sofa had been moved from the middle of the room to the wall. Carl and Cathy sat on it together, talking. Howard sat on an upturned box across from them. Two more boxes made a sort of coffee table in front of the sofa and the lid from a pickle jar made an ashtray. Each person held a white aluminum can.
“What’s that you’re drinking?” I asked, as if I didn’t know.
“It’s beer,” Carl said, turning the green logo towards me. “Dixie Beer. A Mardi Gras tradition.”
“Why don’t you get one out of the fridge and join us?” Cathy asked.
“Thanks. Maybe later,” I tried to match her bright tone. I didn’t want to become the party pooper. “I just want to get a few things put away first.”
As I headed through the tall pocket doors towards the kitchen, I realized I wasn’t the only one in the back room. Doug’s body lay limply across his bed. I flushed with elation before I fully processed that he was lying between two women. My mouth dropped open. I had expected one rival — the owner of the silky nightie I’d seen through the window when Cathy and I first arrived. I was prepared to do battle with my new broom and bag of spaghetti. But two women? How was I supposed to compete with that? Where was he finding these people? At least everyone had their clothes on — no blatant nuzzling. They seemed to be sleeping soundly. Well, I would soon fix that.
“Doug! You’re back!” I shouted. He mumbled something unintelligible into the mattress, then rolled over on his back. His eyes slitted open. “Hey Carolee, you made it,” he mumbled. “I’m glad you made it.” He tried to hoist his body off the bed to greet me, rising up on one arm and sliding his leg over the woman next to him. As he began to shift his weight on top of her, she groaned.
“Don’t bother getting up,” I put my hand up in the “halt” sign. “Just go back to sleep. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Doug instantly fell back on the mattress and began snoring. The smell of whiskey wafted across the room.
Alone in the kitchen, I put the milk and the orange juice I’d purchased in the refrigerator alongside the three remaining Dixie beers. “Oh no, don’t bother getting up,” I muttered to myself sarcastically. “I just drove 2,000 fucking miles to see you. But I wouldn’t want to interrupt your nap!”
I heard Cathy and Carl laughing loudly in the front room. One of the women next to Doug gave a voluptuous sigh. I peered out from the kitchen to see that she had rolled over on her side, revealing her face. She had rich black hair and clear white skin and a heart-shaped face as smooth and untroubled as a child’s. Doug’s arm rested possessively on her belly. I was surprised and chagrined when I started to cry.
“Stop that!” I whispered angrily to myself. “Don’t be an idiot! You’re Johnny’s girlfriend, remember? What difference does it make to you who Doug sleeps with?” I began furiously unpacking the groceries. I pulled out spaghetti, bread, a box of cereal, a can of sauce. When I opened the cupboard to put them away, three cockroaches scurried off the shelf and dropped to the floor. I jumped back in alarm, stifling a yell with my hand.
In 20 years of life, I had never seen a cockroach. But I recognized them instinctively — with horror. Their little red-armored bodies looked malignant and poisonous. I swore I could hear the click, clicking of their tiny stick feet on the kitchen floor. I rushed out of the room, past the comatose trio on Doug’s mattress, tripping over my feet to reach the safety of the front room with Cathy and Howard and Carl.
“Omigod!” I reported breathlessly. “The kitchen is crawling with cockroaches!”
Cathy opened her eyes wide and stared. Howard chuckled. Carl flung his head back and laughed loudly.
“Cockroaches! Oh my God!” he said in mock terror. “Run for your lives!” He jumped up and pretended to rush to the door.
I was caught off guard by his reaction. Was there something wrong with being afraid of those hideous bugs? “Very funny,” I snapped. “But I’m telling you, they’re gross! I can’t even put the food away in the cupboards!”
“Look Carolee,” Carl took on an avuncular tone, “of course there are cockroaches. The cockroach is the state mascot of Louisiana. Didn’t you know that?” Carl held his palms toward the ceiling and looked around the room for support. Cathy stared at him blankly. I thanked her silently for that. Howard looked amused. I decided he wasn’t as nice as I had thought.
“All you have to do is ignore them,” Carl continued. “Just ignore them — and they won’t go away!” He laughed heartily at his own joke.
I shook my head in disbelief. “I don’t want to ignore them! They’re disgusting! I want to get rid of them.” I didn’t mind if our yelling roused the cozy group on the bed.
“I know what you mean.” Howard offered some sympathy. “They are ugly little buggers. But it’s going to be pretty hard to get rid of them.”
“It’s not going to be hard to get rid of them,” Carl said. “It’s going to be impossible! You can’t kill these cockroaches, Carolee. They’re specially made. They eat insecticide for breakfast. They move right into those roach motels and set up housekeeping. No, with these particular roaches, the best thing to do is make friends with them. I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell you, but my very best friend is a cockroach!”
Cathy started to giggle. I glared at her.
“Yeah, it’s true,” he nodded at her, encouraged. “I put a little leash around his neck and we go for walks together in the Quarter…”
“Don’t laugh at him, Cathy!” I almost shouted. “He’s crazy! I’m not going to stay in a place infested with cockroaches!”
“Now wait a minute Carolee, settle down,” Carl used a placating tone. “There’s no reason to rush out of here in a huff. They’re just little bugs. They can’t hurt you. They’re harmless. The way you’re acting, you’d think you’d never seen a cockroach before.” Carl looked around the room again, trying to raise some sentiment against me, as if never having seen a cockroach was some kind of crime.
“That’s not what I said,” I answered hotly. But it’s true, I thought. I felt my cheeks heating up.
“You’d think you spent your whole life in some little fairy world with nothing but furry bunnies and baby chicks and cute little ladybugs,” Carl pursed his lips in an exaggerated pout. “Do you miss your widow bunny wabbit?” No one joined in his laughter. Cathy and Howard turned from Carl to see my reaction. It seemed we were battling on a stage. “Well you’re in the real world now, Carolee. And the real world has cockroaches. If you can’t handle it, maybe you oughtta run back home to your mama.”
I took a step backwards, as if he had slapped me. “Fuck you, Carl,” was all I could come up with before turning on my heel and heading back into the kitchen. But once there, I didn’t know what to do next. I wanted to sit down, put my head on the table, and cry. But I didn’t want Carl or anyone else to hear me. Instead, I stood staring at the bags of groceries. And as I stood there, I felt my perspective shift. The room receded, as if I was looking at it through a long tube, or on a television. I saw a silly young woman in a small, dingy kitchen. The tears on her cheeks had nothing to do with me. “What a sad little person,” I thought to myself.
My thoughts were interrupted by Cathy’s hand on my shoulder, bringing me back to the dingy kitchen, dimly lit. “Carolee,” she said gently, putting her arms around me, “I’m sorry. Carl didn’t mean anything by it. He didn’t know.”
“I’m sorry I’m acting like an idiot,” I turned to face her. “But I’m tired and I’m hungry and nothing is turning out like I expected. Doug’s not taking care of us! He’s sleeping off a drunk with those two women. I don’t know if I like Carl and Howard. And this place is a slum!”
“It is pretty awful,” Cathy agreed. “But Carolee, I really, really want to stay here. Remember what you told me in Stockton? How we were going to see new things in the big, wide world? Well, that’s what’s happening. We’re seeing new things.”
“This isn’t what I meant.”
“Come on, Carolee. What else are we going to do? Turn around and go home? Spend the next two weeks sitting around Aunt Viv’s house watching TV?”
I gave a small laugh.
“Why don’t we try staying here for maybe….three nights? Then we’ll decide what we want to do next. If you still think it’s awful, we can always go stay with Aunt Viv then.”
“I guess…”
Cathy’s face brightened instantly. “Oh, thank you Carolee! I know you won’t be sorry.” She gave me a vigorous hug.
“No problem,” I rolled my eyes. But I felt pleased that Cathy was showing me affection, that she was asking my permission, and recognizing my authority on the trip. Her respect gave me a new feeling of confidence. “But Cathy, wait a minute. What are we going to do about the cockroaches?”
“Let’s go to the store together and get some bug spray. Then we’ll come back and nuke those nasty little suckers!”
I was startled by her enthusiasm. You’d think she was suggesting a trip to Disneyland. “Okay,” I muttered, shuffling off to the bathroom.
In the fogged mirror above the sink, I saw with disgust that my face was puffed and blotchy. The water from the tap came out rusty and red. I let it run clear; then held a double handful to my hot, swollen face. As I bent over the bowl, face dripping, I realized there wasn’t a towel. “Cathy?” I called hopefully. But she had left the kitchen. The linen shelf in the bathroom was bare. There was nothing on the towel rack. I considered making my way out to the living room and rooting through my bag in the corner. I pictured Howard and Carl watching me drip all over the bed. In the end, it was easier to wipe my face on my shirt.
Follow the free chapter links above or buy a digital copy of the whole book:
Copyright © 2020 by Patsy Fergusson. All rights reserved.
My writing is always free to readers who follow my links from Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, but if you’d like to browse more, click here to join Medium and help support my work at the same time. Want an email when I publish a new story? Click here. Find more of my fiction, including another novel, on this List. And for more of the good stuff, follow Fourth Wave, where we’re changing the world for the better, one story at a time. Got one of your own? Submit to the Wave!
