Chapter 2 –
A mystery message
The last day of August I got a message from my old friend David Starr. Of course he is not old and certainly not a friend, but based on his message, you would think we had gone to college together. The message was, “If you get to New Orleans any time soon, we should talk. I’ll buy you a beer.” Why would I go to New Orleans? The last time I was there I was beaten to a pulp and threatened with death. Mardi Gras was off my celebration list permanently. And why would I want to talk with Starr? He created real trouble for me with his weird pile of hundred dollar bills and “secret” messages that made me appear to be a security risk. The guy was nothing but trouble. So I had every reason to ignore his message.
But I couldn’t. I deleted the message, only to pull it up from my waste basket fifteen minutes later. Then I deleted it again, only to retrieve it after lunch. The message was so damn weird, I just couldn’t get it off my mind. There was something about the message, and frankly, something about New Orleans. A revolution was happening there. People were taking actions that would determine the future of the country. While Green Bay could re-act, New Orleans could and would act. It would be an interesting place to be.
Finally I found myself responding. “I have been thinking about visiting before school starts. If I wanted a free beer, where would we meet?” The answer came almost instantly. “I am still going to the place we used to meet. I am there pretty much every night around 7.”
Now what? Should I go down to New Orleans for a few days?
I went home late in the afternoon, prepared to eat dinner alone again, but while I puttered around the kitchen, Elise came home. This was not usual, but it did happen once or twice a week. I was not sure if her boss, Etienne, had wised up, or if he had been told by the ministry to stop working his people half to death. In any case, Elise was probably down to sixty to seventy hours a week, from the bad old days of ninety or more. I suppose I should have been grateful to Etienne, but I wasn’t. I wanted my fiancée back to something approximating the old, lazy, Canadian work week. But where was I?
Elise and I had the usual greeting – a hug, a kiss, small talk. She was going through the usual meetings with the usual people, monitoring the usual events, making the usual plans. I described my day at the office, and then mentioned the email from Starr.
“Are you thinking of going?” Interesting question. I had half expected her to respond with – what, are you nuts? But there was nothing in her voice to indicate disbelief or disapproval. Yes, I thought I sensed concern, but there was no immediate attempt to veto the idea. Interesting.
“It’s pretty quiet around here, especially with the start of school delayed. And I have to admit I am curious about how this is all unfolding down there. So, yes, I am thinking about going down for a few days. Would that be okay?”
“I wish you wouldn’t. I think it would be dangerous for you. Didn’t the Heritage Party thugs threaten to kill you if you ever came back?” I could hear concern in her voice, but not panic. She was worried, but not at a level that indicated real fear.
“I’m thinking Starr is an idiot, but not so dumb he would ask me about visiting if he thought it would get me killed.”
“I think you should talk with our people too. Gustav still patrols the house at night, why not ask him?”
“Fair enough. I will.” And we left the matter there. Having her home in the evening was rare enough, I didn’t want to spend the whole evening talking about going away. We worked around in the kitchen, got out various pots, bumped into each other, bumped into each other some more, and then we lost interest in the pots. An hour or so later we were back in the kitchen giggling and still bumping into each other, but at least now the pots made it to the stove and some food made it from the refrigerator to the pots. There was also some wine involved. Did I mention that Elise wasn’t home many evenings? I really did enjoy the evenings when she was around.
After dinner we took our wine out to our patio in the back. It was sunset, and while we could not see the sun set through the trees, we looked west, held hands, and sipped our wine. I don’t think we said five words. The police tape was long removed from where it had been in June, and other families were also out in their backyards. Yards are big in Canada, so we could see the other people, and wave to them if we wished, but basically people kept to themselves.
This included Elise’s family directly behind us, although it didn’t always apply to her younger sisters. They felt comfortable walking over when they saw us, sometimes to bring over a dessert they had made (they were both working on their cooking and baking skills, and given the skills of their mother, Marie, they were learning from a master). That night they had been working on crepes, one filled with ice cream and one filled with jelly, and they had to know our opinion of their quality. Neither crepe would go particularly well with the wine we were drinking, but how do you turn down fresh crepes and enthusiastic bakers?
They joined us at our table, non-stop energy and non-stop talk, each telling us how they had made their crepe, and why they had chosen the filling they had used, and then everything else that had gone on all day, each girl interrupting the other, the air seeming to have only so much room for words and each of them wanted to fill their half of the space, and maybe just a little more.
Somewhere in the midst of the chatter, Gustav walked through the yard. The girls were smitten with him. He was thirty, single, pretty good looking, and single, and really too old for them, but he was a nice man, and around fairly often, and single, and suddenly he was the focus of both girls. Would he like to join us? Would he like a crepe, they were fresh baked and they could get him one, and they had his choice of filling, would he like ice cream or jelly? He was pretty good about their attentions. He sat down at the table and said he would be happy to have a crepe, at which point both girls ran back to their house to get their latest creations.
“Shawn is thinking about going down to New Orleans for a few days,” Elise stated, pretty matter of factly, once the girls were gone.
“There would be some risks,” Gustav replied, but there was nothing in his tone to indicate he thought the idea was stupid, or impossible.
“How risky would it be?” Elise asked. I was still hearing concern in her voice, but not outright fear.
“Heritage is on its best behavior. They may be thugs, but they can’t look like thugs if they want to govern the “country” they are trying to create. They also need to appear responsible to those other states they hope will join them. So they will keep their main crazies under control, but that doesn’t guarantee nobody will do anything stupid. And as I understand it, Shawn, they really don’t like you.”
“Could you go along with him?” Elise asked.
“I am assigned to you, mam. But we do have people down there. They would stay out of sight, but we would tell them Dr. Murphy is coming down, and they could protect as available. But you understand they have lots of things going on right now, so we could not guarantee twenty four hour coverage.”
“I wouldn’t want to distract any of your people from other jobs they have been assigned.” I said. I actually meant it, although the idea of having a guy watching my back had a certain appeal.
“I think the best thing you could do for your own protection would be to stay as publically visible as possible. That means eating in public and such, but it could also include making public statements regularly. You did a blog when you were down that last year, right? That sort of thing might make you visible enough that Heritage would put extra effort into controlling their people.”
“I could do that.” And at that moment the idea of going to New Orleans went from being a possibility to being a very likely event. Hmm. Did I really want to go? It felt like I was talking myself into something. I hoped I wasn’t talking myself into something really stupid.
At this point the girls came back with crepes. They didn
’t quite race each other back to the table, they were far too mature for that (at least in their own minds), but they did walk pretty fast and managed to put the plates in front of Gustav simultaneously. He said all the right things, and made sure he ate from one and then from the other, alternating, but consistently praising every bite. He really is a pretty good guy.
Elise and I left him with the girls and went back inside.
“If I asked you not to go?”
“Then I would not go.” We were standing in the kitchen, hugging.
“But you want to go.”
“Yes, and I am not even sure why. Curiosity? Maybe. I would like to think maybe I could do some good, but I am not foolish enough to think I could make much of a difference. I am just one more guy. But I feel drawn to the place.”
“Let’s go to bed.” And that is what we did.