A Place I Ain’t Never Been Befo’.

The waters of the Louisiana bayou had warmed enough to bring out quite a crowd. Boats were streamin’ in all mornin’. Oh what a sight it was to see the dock full of raucous customers. The fishin’ guides were packin’ in tourist families. The fisherman were bringin’ in their crews. I could hear the hum of the accordion and harmonica all the way from Pete’s Road. I like to walk to work. Breakin’ a sweat, seems to earn me a few mo’ tips ‘round the bar. The boys around here ain’t lookin’ for no Vanna White. They want somethin’ else. The full truth is what they seek. Authenticity really. So I give ‘em high waisted short shorts and most days I forego a bra altogether. The boys like my slightly nippin’ buds. I lace my brown leather moccasins up to my ankles. That way I can pile high the beaded bangles over the leather folds. I know that each step tinkin’ those beads draws they eyes from my face to the floor. I like givin’ ‘em good reason to admire. Startin’ each shift with a shine on my shoulders and a little sweat on my chest ensures my customers all linger longer. Enjoy the view. That’s what I say. I want ‘em to smile every time I come and then love to watch me go. That keeps ‘em hangin’ in the bar. Salivatin’ ever so slightly as they anticipate my return. And service? Well, that’s my bag. Ms. Beulah say that service is my ‘forte.’ When you come to Beulah’s, I’ll treat you right. Of course your pint will never run dry.

The local women, I must confess, hold me in high regard. I never flirt. I’m still untouched; a virgin in disguise. Promiscuity has skipped my soul and with it, the pursuit of lust. But I know how beauty can grip a man and so my clothes suffice. Ms. Beulah like me and my style. I see ‘er sometimes watchin’ from a distance. Her arms is so plump crossed over her giant budded chest. Her triple D size bust blooms like dinner-plate hibiscus flowers. Somethin’ about ‘er always makes me think of flowers. I want to breathe deep the fragrance she emits. Her joy; it seems to be always bubblin’ like a brook hidden in a secret wood. I have no idea where it comes from, but it seems almost magical.

“You’ve got class, Angel. Keep it up,” say Ms. Beulah to me with a little wink.

“You are dark, yet lovely!” chied Curtis Larrue.

“Don’t you stare at me Curtis Larrue because I am dark! I was darkened by the sun! You know that.”

Curtis licked his lips and clapped his hands. “Girl! You are so fine! Why oh why can’t you be mine?”

“She a young gazelle Curt Larrue. And you ain’t no spring chicken. She need a young stag,” say Ms. Beulah. “Don’t arouse that love chile’ until it so desires. He’ll come for ya one day. Just hold out on these fires.” She gave me a second wink.

Curtis laughed a proper laugh and gazed on Beulah’s flowers. I couldn’t help but laugh and smile as I turned back to my service. Ms. Beulah swayed her weighty hips as she sauntered to her office. Curtis boasted, “Mmm! Mmm! Mmm! That woman is on fire!”

*

I finished late my double shift. My favorite time of night. I lit a joint alone there on the empty deck and breathed in deep the smoke. The fireflies all twinkled now. I closed my sun-kissed eyes. I felt the wood of the picnic table shift as Beulah took a seat next to me. I exhaled and waited just a second before openin’ my eyes to offer her a drag. She accepted graciously but she had a different look about her tonight. Somethin’ I have not seen in her before. Her brow sweatin’ and fixed in an expression of deep concern.

“You alright?” I asked, with increased pitch in my tone.

“Hmmm?” she said at first. She was sittin’ right here next to me but her gaze was a million miles away. “Yes chile’. I’m good.”

She brought her hand to her brow and rubbed it as if she were seekin' clarity of mind. She took a long draw from the joint and looked even further into the distance.

“It’s just… well, I went somewhere new yesterday,” she said. “A place I ain’t never been befo’. I still trying to wrap my mind around it really.”

“New?” I said. Beulah’s Market & Bar was tucked along the bayou in Terrebone Parish. I didn’t know of any new place she could have visited within the last two hours.

“Uuuuhhhh…” her voice cracked and her bottom lip quivered as she shot her eyes at me. She took another pull from the joint and then looked at it, unsatisfied, almost as if she had intended for it to shed a little light on her predicament.

I laughed. “Don’t Bogart that joint,” I sang. She smiled and passed it back to me. “You wanna tell me about this new place?” I asked.

She scoffed as if sharing with me would be an act in futility. I narrowed my eyes and said, “I can keep a secret.”

“I can’t tell ya,” she said. “You wouldn’t understan’. ”

I felt my heart drop ever so slightly. I nodded my head as if to say, “Okay. I get it.”

“I could show you though,” she said as she took my hand, pullin' me along behind her. I snubbed the spliff into the ashtray, barely catchin’ my feet as she sashayed right back into the kitchen. My heart jumped with excitement. ‘New’ was a shiny word ‘round these parts. Like a glimmer of hope in a land where time seems to turn a little more slowly. As we neared the kitchen sink she twirled me away from her like we were ballroom dancin’. I caught myself on the old farmhouse sink and peered down at freshly polished ceramic.

“Is this the new place?” I said laughin’.

She bore a stoic expression. “I’m about to show you somethin’ chile’. I’m not sho if you’s ready to see it. But I cain’t keep it to myself.” She stepped forward and opened the cabinet beneath the sink. “After you,” she said.

I leaned down and peered inside the empty cabinet. “There ain’t nothin’ here,” I said.

“Get in!” She demanded. “I tole you! We 'bout to go somewhere. It ain’t gonna make no sense. That’s why I cain’t tell you. Now get in!”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Okay,” I said. Before I knew what I was even doin’ I had climbed full up in that cabinet beneath the sink. Beulah hoisted her yellow skirt high and squeezed into the cabinet facing me. It was dark. I just sat quietly. Beulah know what she doin’, I thought. I heard her take a real deep breath.

“Here we go,” she say as I watched her press on the bottom of the sink. A vibrant green glow gave way to one very bright green light.

“Now stand!” She say real loud. As we stood, the sink gave way with a puff of smoke like we was in some kine of space ship or somethin’. The walls were bright white and the halls laid out before us were many. A team of doctors and nurses quickly shuttled a gurney down the hallway toward us. My eyes locked with Ms. Beulah. She wore white scrubs and red shoes. She had a stethoscope draped ‘round her neck. I looked down at myself. Purple scrubs, green shoes.

“What?” I said out loud.

I looked back at the medical team with the gurney. My cousin’s wife was there. She smiled at me and winked as she disappeared behind a set of swingin’ ER doors.

“What is happenin’?” I asked Ms. Beulah.

“Chile’!” She gasped as she took my hand. “I think we’s in a new place. I come here yesterday. I sees people I know. But then, I sees ‘em in the market today and they act like they ain’t seen me in a while. I think this place, it’s some kine of a glimpse. I helped a man here, Mr. Buford Malloy.”

“I know the one,” I say.

“I saved his life!” she said. “He come here bleedin’ and I knew just what to do. Then, he come to the market yesterday. I say, ‘Buford Malloy, what you doin’ in my market today?’ And he say he come to sell some fish. I took one look at his catch and I know it ain’t goin’ nowhere. His cooler wasn’t full of nothin’ but catfish. Ain’t nobody out here lookin’ for catfish. So I say, 'I’ll buy your catfish. I’ll buy it all. Fresh catfish; that’ll be our special today Mr. Malloy.' He tell me, 'Thank ya Ms. Beulah. This means mo’ to me than you could ever know.' I say, 'Yes sir, of course. Anytime.' Then he just left. Somethin’ tell me he was needin’ a savin'. He was a-needin’ to sell that catch.”

My cousin’s wife walked back through the swingin’ doors. She looked at me all warm like, which was strange because she ain’t such a nice person. She say, “Angel, I’m so glad to see you here.” She even hugged me. She pressed a tiny gold bar into the palm of my hand. She looked around like she didn’t want no one to hear what she was about to tell me. Then she say, “Tomorrow a chile’ gonna come into your bar. She gonna say she don’t need nothin’ but you give her this. She’ll know what to do.”

Then the walls began to shake and that brilliant green light burst in ever’ direction. When my eyes adjusted I was cramped back under the old farmhouse kitchen sink. Ms. Beulah was facing me, though her yellow dress was up over her head. She laughed until she cried but I sat grippin’ somethin’ in my hand. Was I a-holdin’ a gold bar? I opened my hand just enough to see that there was indeed a shiny gold bar fit right into the palm of my hand.

“Tomorrow,” Ms. Beulah say. “Tomorrow we will see.”

I gripped that gold so tight. I ain’t never held nothin’ of such value.

*

‘Round ten o’clock the next mornin’ as my breakfast shift was endin’ a little girl with a sassy attitude came strollin’ into the bar.

“How you today, little May?” I sang out.

“Oh I don’t need nothin’,” she said. “I’m just waitin’ on my momma. She bringin’ pies to sell to Ms. Beulah.”

I say, “I got somethin’ for you. They’s a woman I know who say I should give this to you and that you will know exactly what to do wit it.” I reached my hand across the bar and she rose up on her tippy-toes. I opened my hand slowly and she gasped.

“Is that… gold?” She asked.

“Yes dear, I believe it is and I believe it belongs to you.” She took a step back. A smile spread across her face. She took it gently from my hand and ran out of the bar onto the boardwalk yellin’, “Momma! Momma! We goin’ to make the rent today!” I watched through the bar window as May reached her mother’s side. Her mother took one look, asked one question and then fell out cold on the deck!

I laughed so hard, then turned to make a cold pack for the bump I knew was surely rising on the back of May's momma's head.