Orleans Parish Prison
Professional Interview Rooms
Tuesday Morning
“As fixers go you hit the jackpot, landing Brock-Barrett Beauregarde,” Brock-Barrett Beauregarde informed Gage in a fruity drawl. He extended a bejeweled, manicured hand, palm down, fingers limp. “My friends call me BeBe. What the remainder calls me ain’t fit for Christian society.”
Gage gripped the flamboyant man’s fingers briefly, then withdrew. “Sorry if I stink,” Gage apologized. “I haven’t showered since Friday.”
“You’re hours from Freeside, smelly boy.” BeBe gestured toward Gage’s grimy orange jumpsuit. “First order of business is to extricate thyself from that salmon-hued atrocity.” Chuckling, he withdrew a tiny spray bottle from the pocket of his waistcoat, sterilized his fingers and wiped them with a hanky.
After a weekend marinating in the presence of his fellow detainees, Gage felt downright sordid beside the sweet-smelling, dandified Brock-Barrett Beauregarde: a proud ebony peacock in a double-breasted fuschia velvet suit accented by a teal pocket square; a human exclamation point defying the sour grimness of the prison’s mise-en-scene.
Ten minutes prior, Gage was startled to hear his name crackle over the tier PA, summoning him to the interview offices reserved for legal professionals, medical staff and members of the clergy; in his starving and sleepless state, when he entered the room to find BeBe waiting, Gage thought for a moment that he might be hallucinating.
“You’ll get sprung today unless the captains mislay your papers, as occurs with dismaying frequency. And as your newly-appointed legal counsel I advise you to remain within Orleans Parish limits until your next appearance; it’s a condition of release. So stay put. Now that you got BeBe Beauregarde on the stick, y’all’s whole mess is gonna poof! Evaporate before long.” The lawyer grinned beneath the mirrored swirls of his handlebar mustache.
“Who sent you?”
“Your Daddy engaged my services through a mutual friend. He finna collect you once he rolls in.” BeBe cocked a manicured eyebrow. “You got some highfalutin connections.”
Gage’s heart sank to consider the looming surrender to his high-profile Evangelical parents.
Bebe’s eyes darted suddenly to the ceiling. “Whazza?”
“Pardon?”
BeBe indicated the earpiece nestled within his pompadour and continued, eyes scanning the air over Gage’s head. “Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm. – Mantie May, Be don’t play. I got a hard copy in my mobile office – yes, the one with seat belts. Lemme finish fixing up my rescue here, then I’ll hustle up a notary by close a business.”
BeBe tapped a key on his laptop, ending the call. “Gotta skip, kitty,” he sang to Gage. “I am jumping today what with rebalancing the Scales of Justice on behalf of the gratuitously accused. So hold tight, don’t fuss, do what the captains tell you, get yourself out and I’ll be in touch. Your Daddy’ll be waiting to collect you.”
“Do I, like, text him when I’m out?”
“Text him with what?”
“My phone. It’s with my stuff. Locked in a bag somewhere.”
BeBe rolled his eyes. “We’ll see about that. They got a lotta skeleton keys stuck in lotsa sticky fingers ‘mongst the upstanding personnel round here.” He snapped his laptop closed. “Meet your Dad at the birthplace of Louis Armstrong. Outside the P.D.”
“Where’s that?”
BeBe gestured in a southerly direction, rising to his feet. “A woebegone little plaza ‘cross the street with a plaque, behind the eternal flame for our fallen Men In Blue. Cheeriest spot in adjacence and that’s sorry to say.” With a dramatic pirouette transitioning into a tour de promenade, BeBe called over his shoulder “I’ll fetch you on the other side!” and bounced into the wings.
#
BeBe’s flamboyance left Gage unperturbed. His parents’ God-fearing social circle knew no shortage of flaming queens, most married to women, many with offspring, evidence allowing them dispensation to let the lady out.
Again dressed in his garb from Friday, Gage blinked in the midday light on Gravier Street. He balled the “Jesus U” hoodie in his hands, feeling unmoored without his phone, which (as prophesied) was nowhere to be found in his bag of sequestered belongings.
Glancing down the block, he noticed rose bushes peeping over a short cement wall that spanned the block’s eastern half, and beyond them a canopy of evergreen oaks.
Gage braced himself for his exeunt from the Underworld. Turbulence was inevitable once his parents began asking the obvious questions. He couldn’t wave away the destruction wrought by Clark at the Harlequin Hotel, which left Gage twice-outed: as gay (which he was), and as a party-and-play meth-head (which he wasn’t). Hopelessness descended as he marched up the stairs into the plaza.
He approached a gas flame burning on a sconce before an Expressionist monument to NOLA police officers felled in the line of duty. The list of names had clearly grown over the years, leaving no room for additions. He crossed behind it to the park’s southwestern end, where a grubby plaque in the ground noted the birthplace of Louis Armstrong.
Gage looked around. He was alone. He traveled east past a grubby, broken oval fountain to a staircase descending into a line of oaks along South Broad Street.
As a crisp autumnal breeze sailed through, Gage put an arm inside the “Jesus U” hoodie balled in his hands. He paused, considering, then withdrew his arm, balled up the hoodie and dropped it into a wastebin.
He hugged his arms for warmth as he loped down the stairs and spun a slow 360, searching. At first his eyes skipped right past Ariel, leaning out from behind an evergreen oak, beckoning him like a conspirator.
Dale & Don’s Bail Bonds
Tulane Avenue, New Orleans
“They put me on hold. Seems they lost track of your boy for a minute,” the grey, unkempt bail bondsman informed Larry. He transferred the call to his speakerphone, which emitted a Muzak-styled take on “Sweetest Hangover.”
An awkward moment passed. “So,” Larry asked from across the desk, “which one are you? Dale or Don?” He gestured toward the lettering on the front window.
“Don’s dead,” replied the bail bondsman. “Got knifed in the brachiocephalic artery performing a bounty extraction back in oh-twelve.”
“Oh my. He’s with the Lord now,” Larry consoled the bail bondsman, who’d never properly introduced himself. A half-minute passed without a word, infused by instrumental disco from the speakerphone. “As John wrote in 16:22,” Larry ventured, “‘So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.’” Another silence descended. “So I guess that makes you Dale.”
“Nawp. Dale’s pullin’ ten to fifteen at LaSalle. Always chasin’ underage pussy. I told him his proclivities’d bite him in the plums one day, but did he listen? No sir. Anyways, purchasing new - whaddayacallit, new signage is a needless expense. Plus, the name kinda rhymes. ‘Dale, bail.’ ‘Don’s, bonds’. ‘Dale and Don’s Bail Bonds.’ See? Catchy. Gives us a leg up from the others.”
Larry nodded.
With a squelch, a female voice interrupted the hold music. “Hey Lee? Keller’s out.”
“Since when?”
“Last hour.”
“Who bonded him?”
“Hon, you know I’m not allowed to share that. Take a guess and I reckon you’ll be right.”
“Thank you, Lisa. ‘Preciate it.” The bondsman poked his phone and leaned back in his chair, arms spread. “Another concerned citizen sprung him first. A happy day for all.”
“But where is he, then?”
“You know what I ain’t? A private detective. At the risk of bein’ impolite, every minute I run my mouth to you, more money drains out my wallet. Do you mind?” He gestured Larry toward the door.
South Broad Street
Gage walked cautiously toward Ariel, then slowed and stopped an arm’s length away. The men surveyed one another.
“I forgot to ask you,” Ariel said.
“Ask me what?”
“How did you do?”
“Got charged with two felonies,” Gage replied, shoulders closing over his chest.
Ariel shook his head. “I meant the robotics thing. What was it again?”
“The National Robotics Competition.” Gage smiled shyly. “My team took second.”
Ariel’s eyes widened. “In the whole nation? You did?” Gage nodded. “I knew you did. Hey! Bring it in.” Ariel wrapped Gage in a proud embrace, wondering if he’d ever used the words ‘bring it in’ in such a straight-bro manner before. “I’m proudda you. Don’t know where you got it. I’m a brilliant idea man, but the ADHD makes execution rough sometimes.”
“Oh! I’m on the spectrum. Like, a bit. I’m ALL about execution.”
Ariel and Gage bobbed their heads at one another.
“Neat!” said Ariel.
A long moment passed.
“How ya feelin’ otherwise?”
Gage’s face fell and he began to cry.
“Hey. C’mere.”
Gage buried his face in Ariel’s chest. “I was just getting to like college. I don’t got any money.”
“You got me. I can help you get back on your feet. We’ll set you up at another school, a real one this time. I’m nothing if not resourceful. Did BeBe take good care of you?”
“Yeah. Where’d you find him?”
“Be’s been my boss’s fixer for years. She hooked us up when you called Brian. He’ll get the charges dropped snicker-snack. We got security footage from the Corner Pocket. He can get your GPS locations if we need ‘em. He’s a tenacious bitch.”
“But what do I do now? Like, right now.”
Ariel hesitated. “You can stay with me.”
“I can?”
“For the time being. But you gotta contribute,” Ariel added hurriedly. “The Cozy Rooms ain’t anybody’s Orphanarium For Wayward Twinks.”
“I promise.”
“Promises mean shit-all to me. Just be responsible. Don’t make me chase you down to do what’s right. Nagging’s never been my jam. I’ll do it, but I’ll fucking hate it.”
“I promise,” Gage started.
Ariel raised a finger.
“I will,” Gage corrected. “I don’t mean, ‘I promise that I will” but, ‘I will.’ And thank you.”
“By the way, you met your grandmother this morning.”
“Figured. She seemed nice.”
“Nice?”
“Like, perky. Kooky.”
“Uh huh,” Ariel glowered. “Well listen. she’s staying at the Cozy Rooms for a spell. Don’t breathe a word to the woman that you’re her, y’know, grandson.”
“Why not?”
“Trust. And for God’s sakes, don’t mention you’re a virgin. Not to Betty. She’ll try to auction off your hymen or something.”
Gage laughed.
“I’m not kidding,” Ariel emphasized. “She’d do it in a heartbeat.”
“Not if she knew I was her grandson.”
“Kid, you got so much to learn.” Ariel clapped a paternal hand on Gage’s shoulder, leading him down the sidewalk toward the Quarter. “You know that saying, ‘As the twig is bent, so grows the tree?’ Know what it means?”
“I think so.”
“It means, your upbringing affects who you become.”
“I feel like I’m pretty bent,” Gage sighed.
“It isn’t that you’re bent that matters, but where you’re pointed.”
The men’s eyes followed a bedraggled foil balloon as it drifted past, circling briefly in an invisible gust and launching upwards, sailing beyond view over the cement police headquarters.
“You really believe in God?” Ariel asked.
Gage took a deep breath. “I’m not so sure any more.”
“You sure you ain’t hedging ‘cause I’m a heathen?” Ariel smiled.
“I don’t wanna sound closed-minded. But yeah. I believe. I do.”
“Wanna know a secret? I believe in God too.”
Gage swore in later years he never saw such blackness as the pupils in his father’s eyes right then.
“I also realize that our little meat-based brains can’t fathom God. So I don’t worry about God too much. I follow Christ, I just don’t buy the publicity. I’m not so vain as to claim that I know God’s designs, but the evidence is damning that She sent me unto you, my son, to pluck you from the darkness and turn you toward the light.”
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Thank You For Reading!
☮️ & ❤️,
