Writing & Critiquing Since 1979

From a proposed essay collection—stream of consciousness: n. (1850-55) adj. stream-of-consciousness 1. Thought regarded as a succession of ideas and images constantly moving forward in time. 2. A style of writing in which a character's random thoughts are represented by disregarding logical sequence, normal syntax, or distinctions in the levels of reality. 

The Sound of Her Voice          

As we walk the worn path, the Mississippi slaps at its levees.  Wiping the stains of fresh-picked blackberries from my hands and lips, my grandmother laughs, but I have lost the sound of her voice. She brushes an errant curl from my forehead, planting a soft kiss in its place, and straightens the gathers of my full skirt. Her fragrance is an aura . . .  her aura. I washed it away in tears that wound to my chin, tickling, when she died.

 My mother called to tell me of caskets rising from the rich delta earth in the family cemetery near Barataria Bay. “Uncle Andrew,” she says, laughing nervously, “and another uncle, Gustave perhaps? The cousins have lashed them to the big live oak on the south side of the old fence to keep them from floating away, to keep them from visiting friends buried next town over. I said that was fine, to just put the uncles back into their graves when the water recedes.”

“If they know which goes where . . .” I mouth the words, not giving them voice. My husband, impatient, guns the motor. “Let me call you back, Mom? We’re heading into town.” 

She apologizes but continues, demanding maternal rights. “It’s happened before, you know, back in the Eighties when that storm—I don't remember what they called that one—hit the city. The levees held then. They should have held this time. The stupid sons of bitches didn’t put that government money into repairs. I think it had something to do with saving some stupid snail that was on that stupid endangered list.” Stupid is her word of the day. 

“Mom, I have to go. He’s ready.  I’ll call you—”

“Yes,” she says. "Call me.  Tell Ben hello, that my city will make it through this, too.” Perhaps as an afterthought, she adds, “I love you. You don’t have to put up with his temper.”

A foghorn sounds from upriver, lonely and haunting, and she squeezes my small hand in her own, perhaps stealing comfort as well as offering it.  I jump, flat-footed, to the boarding ramp. It shrieks and groans, fighting the current at the Gretna Landing.  The ferry shudders, grinds against its moorings.  I urge my grandmother to the top, to the texas, not because the view is better but because I fear the water.  It seems, in my child’s mind, to be atop the ferry means we’ll be safe above the oily, smelly Mississippi.

         “It was Mother,” I say matter-of-factly, slipping into the old Ranger, pushing the dog aside. “She sends her love, says New Orleans will rebuild.”

“Of course. Why would anyone think otherwise?” The tightness across his lips softens, the fire in his eyes recedes. “I’ll talk to her this evening,” he says. “If she needs you, you’ll go.” 

As simple as that. Two thousand miles, and more, through a storm-battered South. Airports shut down, gasoline at a premium. I’ll go. My husband and my mother are strangely connected, a rapport most in-laws don’t share. I think it's because they are tempered much alike. 

Her soft lips brush my cheeks just before she boards the Greyhound, her old brown grip in hand. She returns to the city after too brief a visit. She and my mother have quarreled, but she’ll come again, when the money’s there or when the loneliness becomes unbearable. Three hundred miles—she is an eternity away. 

The phone is ringing when I return. The machine picks up, the message runs its course.      “Sister,” my brother's voice is firm. “If you’re there, pick up.”

“Mien frere!” The greeting has something to do with the combined German and French in our ancestry.  Neither of us could complete a good sentence in either language.

“You talked to Mama?” He puts the emphasis on the second syllable . . . maMA. It’s a French thing, he’s told me. Like he would know.

“Yep. She’s calmed down somewhat.”

“And you?”

“I’m fine. She was frightened and I knew I couldn’t get to her . . .”

My brother, Ric, is her baby. Calm. Sensible. But the kind of brother a sister can talk with about things. “You still thinking about going down?” he asks.

“Depends. Sounds like she’s got it under control.” It always sounds that way, but we both know it’s a blatant lie. “I’m tired,” I admit. “Katrina was upsetting enough, then Rita came barreling into the Gulf raising her own brand of hell. What’s next? New Orleans is a mess. The politicos, local and otherwise, are worthless fools. The city is a partisan, racial quagmire. You know, in all the damned news on all the damned television channels not a single reporter said a single word about the zoo or the animals in it. Not one stinking word. Do you think . . .”

“They’re fine, Sis."

 Horses, lathered creatures that fight their bits and snort in objection to their load, wait to pull our trolley on from the Jackson Avenue landing to Audubon Park and the City Zoo.  My grandmother lifts me onto the step ahead of her and “ka-ching,” she tosses the coins into the still.  She has saved enough dimes for us to ride the carousel, too.  I squirm with building excitement, grasp her beautiful, graceful, scarred hands, and smile up at her.  Her smile spreads and her lips move . . . but I can’t hear what she’s saying.  I have lost the sound of her voice.