Excerpt:  Outside Child

Chapter Four

PURE EVIL

Ladonis pulled up in front of 20BB Industry Street.  Tall grass and weeds surrounded Monique’s house, making it look out of place amongst the one-story bungalow style homes with their manicured St. Augustine-grass lawns and blooming flower beds.  Before the sixties, practically no dark-skinned families lived in the homes built and inhabited by the black French carpenters and bricklayers, craftsmen just white enough to get the jobs that paid enough to construct these modest dwellings.  Ladonis lingered inside her car, staring forward.  Why was she here?  Was a false sense of purpose corrupting her integrity the way Monique’s unkempt yard undermined the character of the seventh-ward neighborhood?

She stumbled onto her old friend’s front porch and rang the bell.  She and Monique had been challenging each other for recognition since grade school.  To have to ask her nemesis for help was like blasphemy.    Her eyes peeled on the caramel-colored woman watching her from the yard next door.  The old lady’s eyes were so green, they shone like traffic lights and bore into Ladonis like kryptonite.  Could the old lady see the fight going on inside her head?  But what choice did she have?  Her task had been spelled out to her, along with all the possible consequences if she failed.

“Miss Laura,” Monique said, when she opened the door and saw how hard Ladonis stared at her neighbor.  “Pure evil, that one.  Voodoo, they say.”

Monique turned and walked back into her house, Ladonis in tow.  The Daisy Duke short-shorts Monique wore did little to hide the big brown liver splashes on her thick, shapely vanilla thighs.  And the girl hadn’t changed a thing about the house since her mom had died last year.  Hadn’t gotten rid of any of the stuff she’d complained about.  The scratched French furniture, the worn-out Oriental rugs, the ancient starched-stiff crochet table scarves.

“Evil, huh?” Ladonis said.  “The revered voodoo priestess, Marie Leveau, was Catholic.  Sin and evil sure do get convoluted around here.”

Ladonis sighed.  Would judgments like this ever cease?  Hers as well as Monique’s?  Why couldn’t one’s spiritual beliefs or non-beliefs be placed under a gag order to be discussed only between the believer and the believee?

“There you go,” Monique said.  “Spouting off.  Just because you don’t believe.”

“Believe what?” Ladonis said.  “You’ve got to admit that it’s a strange kinship between God and sin in this town.  Think about Mardi Gras?  Where else does a wild, decadent, month-long party prerequisite a sacrificial religious season like Lent?”

As the words bounced from her lips, Ladonis wondered why she’d allowed herself to initiate a religious debate with a when-it-suits-me devout Catholic.  She had her own dogma to contend with.  If God helped those who helped themselves, like her Grandma Lucille said, then she’d just helped Bret set her up to fail.

“Whatever, Donnie,” Monique sighed.

Stubbornness added to Monique’s personal drama.  A stubbornness Ladonis thought clouded her friend’s rationale.  Made reasoning with her a pain in the ass.

“Well, Donnie.”  Monique plopped down on a worn Louis XIV chair.  A cocksure expression flashed on her face.  “One guess why you’re here.”

Monique knew about Tim.  Ladonis should have known.  Her phone call to cancel their walk, then the call to say she was stopping by must have tipped Monique off.

“How did you find out?” Ladonis asked.

“My uncle faxed me from the boat,” Monique said.

“Your uncle?” Ladonis asked.

“Yeah, you know my uncle,” Monique said.  “You helped him get the job on board.  The assistant purser, remember?”

“Oh, that uncle,” Ladonis said.

She had forgotten about him, the college dropout who’d moved to Washington State and passed for white until he had a nervous breakdown and then come back to his roots.  How could she have forgotten that uncle, especially since his job gave him access to a fax machine?

Whatever else Ladonis thought of Monique, she could count on her going after what she wanted.  And when it came to a story that could steer her toward Atlanta, CNN and all those professional black newscasters, Monique had the sensitivity of a hound dog.

Ladonis had been involved in the New Orleans communication machine long enough to know that information, like everything else, was transported through an unseen but definite aristocracy.  WWL, the city’s leading news station and a CBS affiliate, was to that machine what signal carriers were to telecommunications.  The pitfall to that knowledge, however, was that Monique was her only contact in that milieu, her only shot at stopping a media deluge.  How desperate was that?

On one hand, Ladonis hoped that the news about Tim’s death would break.  On the other she wanted to be the genius behind the game plan that kept the media from overwhelming the Floating Palace.  So, now, she wasn’t going to back away from the I’m-a-step-ahead-of-you-glint glaring in Monique’s eyes. 

“When?”

“When will it hit the air?” Monique finished Ladonis’ inquiry.

Ladonis nodded.

“Not until that boat gets in,” Monique said.  “I can’t get a helicopter out there without signaling other news stations.”

Ladonis exhaled, thanking God the story hadn’t gone out on CB radio.  Still, Monique had her on a string.  Ladonis had to be patient and find out how much time, if any, she had to alert Bret and prepare a statement.  Without Monique’s cooperation, she didn’t stand a chance in hell to orchestrate the words and images the world should see and hear about Tim and the Floating Palace.

“I want to take this one national,” Monique said.

Ladonis felt her heart sink.  What had she been thinking?  Keeping Tim’s death off the airways was impossible for a colored girl from the Magnolia.  Especially when a pretty passé blanc—what New Orleans blacks called Creole—had her heart set on doing just the opposite.

“Besides,” Monique said.  “I want to make sure that not one single detail gets swept under a rug.”

Monique was looking for bad guys.  Preferably white evildoers.  Sometimes Monique’s determination to show the world that there were bad white people put added pressure on Ladonis.  Made her self-conscious about the thin line she straddled between her black and white worlds.  Was this Creole princess more proud to be black than she was? 

Monique had carried the I’m-black-and-proud chip on her shoulders ever since the two of them worked on a book-report about Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks.  Turned out a lot of young Creoles adopted that attitude after Civil Rights, when black became beautiful.  To the chagrin of their elders, who loved the privilege and social standing of their light-colored skin.  But why did Monique have to prove her blackness by dumping on her whiteness?  And why did her news reporting always have to come down to that?

“I have a proposition to make,” Ladonis said.  “One that will give you first crack at breaking this story as well as give me some time.”

“Time to do what?” Monique said, repositioning herself on the chair.

“Tim Ganen,” Ladonis said, taking the you-get-on-my-last-nerve tone out of her voice.  “The man, who lost his life, was one of the company’s top VPs.  My boss wants the opportunity to conduct an in-house investigation to find out what happened and why, so that the facts relayed publicly are not sensationalized to the point where it promotes bias toward the company.”

“That’s it?”  Monique’s eyes squinted.

Ladonis shrugged.

“Ah, come on, Donnie,” Monique said.  “You cannot bullshit a bullshitter.  What’s really going on here?”

“Cool the drama, Nikka.”  The agitated tone she wanted to avoid came gushing out.  “All I’m asking . . .”

“What you’re asking,” Monique said, “is a crock.”

One, two, three.  Ladonis tried to calm herself.  Think before she spoke.

“I know it’s hush, hush,” Monique said.  “But do you think I don’t know that your company is up to its favor-for-pay ass in the gaming lobby?  Considering how many rich conservatives pay that exorbitant price for a nostalgic ride up and down the rivers on a two-mile-an-hour paddle wheeler, I’m sure that cutie-pie boss of yours does not want to draw attention to that.”

“If you ask me,” Ladonis said, “it’s more about you and your anchor aspirations that you’d sell your own mama out to get.”

So much for thinking before speaking.  And what about Ladonis’ motives?  Didn’t she plan to use Tim’s death to open a career door?  How selfish was that?  Especially since Tim had listened to her, advised her, encouraged her.  To top it off, he’d told Bret about her steamboatin’ centennial celebration idea.  Just thinking about that gave her goose bumps.

“Take the low road,” Monique said.  “See if I care. This is big.  No way am I going to take a pass.”

“Who said anything about taking a pass?” Ladonis said.  “I’m offering you an exclusive.”

“Far as I can tell.”  Monique stood up, circled the room.  “I have an exclusive.” 

“Yeah, but I knew the guy,” Ladonis said.  “I know people who knew him.”  Her voice intonation went up.  “I can make sure that you get first-hand details on the personal stuff.  You know, like what was his childhood like.  Who was his first fuck.  The kind of 411 you reporters call news.”  She threw up her hands.  “You can milk headlines that will impress CNN for months with that kind of information.”  She stopped to breathe.  “Either that or I can call a press conference and open this up to every reporter in the world.”

“Tell me something, Donnie,” Monique said.  “Why is this so important to you?  What are you holding back?”

“Holding back?” Ladonis got to her feet.

“Don’t do that, Donnie.  Don’t put on that dumb-blond act of yours.  I hate it when you do that.  Tell me what’s involved here.  Sex?  Embezzling?  Drugs?  What?”

“Dumb?”  Was this insult-Ladonis day?  “What’s dumb?  Using discretion?  There’s nothing dumb about being discreet.  There’s nothing dumb about dying with dignity.”  She straightened up.  “Besides, you’re the one who swore that you wouldn’t be another . . . how did you put it?  Another media gasbag feeding into America’s voyeur fixation.”

Ladonis kneaded her hands.  What was more important?  Winning this argument or finding a way to get through to her old friend?  Then it occurred to her. 

The city’s aristocracy with the slightest connection to the Floating Palace could be impacted by this so-called situation.  Outside forces could very well neutralize the city’s what-happens-in-our-house-stays-here philosophy.  God forbid the New Orleans way of doing things should be exposed to a national audience.  If she could keep that from happening, no telling how far up she could go.

“Can you please just not publicize this until I give you the go ahead?” Ladonis said.

“There you go,” Monique said.  “Giving me orders.”

“No, I’m not,” Ladonis said with a little less malice.  “All I’m asking is for some time, a day, that’s all.  Twenty-four hours to make sure that the right story gets out there before you start spinning facts around.”

New Orleans operated and communicated on its own terms.  Despite having visitors from all over the globe and a high crime rate, the Big Easy continued to conceal its likeness to a poverty-stricken, poorly-educated third-world country.  Yet Ladonis had dared to wish for the two days Bret requested.  But keeping the media from a story like this for an hour was next to impossible even in New Orleans.  Tough odds for an ambitious project girl.  For any girl.

“Spinning facts around?” Monique said.

“Well . . .”  Ladonis threw up her hands.  “Whatever it is you call what you media actors do.”

“Give me one good reason why I should do what you want?” Monique asked.  “Why shouldn’t I be the one to expose the bastards for the crooks they are?”

“Because my job depends on it,” Ladonis said.

That was way more than she wanted to admit to.  Though it hadn’t escaped her that between the time it took the city’s aristocrats to clarify their position and the time it took Monique to guarantee herself first crack at the copyright, it could very well save her career.  Especially with an assurance from Monique that she’d follow her lead.  An empowering thought.  Though not as empowering as the task was daunting.

“Please, Nikka,” Ladonis said.  “Don’t screw this up for me.  Help me keep this close for one day.  You’ll get your exclusive.  I promise.”

“Sorry, Donnie,” Monique said.  “But I can’t make any promises.”

Ladonis’ spirit sunk.  Life could be a bitch.  So could Monique.

“Remember when we were kids,” Ladonis said, “what your mama told us that time she overheard us arguing about whatever it was we were arguing about?”

An unfamiliar emotion covered Monique’s face.  Monique had had a hard time getting over her mother’s death.  A hard time dealing with having spent much of her adult life at odds with the woman.  Ladonis hoped that her rash appeal to Monique’s sense of loss would turn out to be a smart move. 

“She told us,” Ladonis said.  “That loyalty builds friendship  And that friendship is the foundation of a good, happy life.  Remember that?”

Monique looked away, her silence as telling as a death-bed confession.  She walked to the entrance hall, opened the door, and stood there like an English guard.  Ladonis’ brow contracted.  Her eyes grew wide.  She had overstepped the boundaries of their relationship.  She wanted to kick herself.

“I guess you don’t,” Ladonis said as she stepped outside the door.

She clutched her keys so tight, the skin on her hand broke.  Not only had she exposed her desperation and vulnerability, she’d antagonized the reporter from hell.  And, Lord help her, Ladonis had put her onto the scent of a Watergate.  What would that do to her chance of getting an office on Presidents Row?

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© 2007 Alice Wilson-Fried, All Rights Reserved