Gonna be a two-fer tonight. Just give me a chance to get the second chapter formatted.
____________________________
Chapter 52
“Where you think you going Cher?”
It took a lot of energy to come up with a response. “Gotta make sure that everything is locked down.”
“It is. Saw to it myself. C’mon, and let’s get in before these damn bloodsuckers drink us dry. Don’t envy the patrols tonight. Bugs are bad.”
“Crowds of people wearing smelly stuff, putting off lactic acid. It is pulling the gnats and stuff in off the bayou. Then there is all the blood and … and other stuff … that saturated the ground in places.”
“Don’t think about that right now. Time to rest.”
I was more than willing. My brain felt like I was trying to drag it through molasses that had been left outside and gone sticky. I almost couldn’t remember my name when I was forced to stop and sign in. That’s right. Sign in and show my ID just so I could get into the Old House. All five of the soldiers standing around on the porch counting heads knew who I was. I’d slung hash at them enough. But still I had to show my ID and sign in ‘cause I wasn’t one of them. Almost made me find the energy to get offended.
They tried to do the same thing with Em but he seemed to be as full up as I was and he snarled in a loud voice. “Kramer?! You in there?”
The man came out and said, “Not a damn thing I can do about it Em. Orders. And yes, I know it is going to cause problems. Col. Hyland from New Orleans gave the order.”
My mouth fell open with something stupid. Sounding like a bookie I once knew I said, “Morgan vs. Hyland. I’m taking bets it is a TKO in the first round. C’mon boys, let’s see the color of your money.”
Kramer and the others all looked at me like I must be three sheets to the wind. One of the soldiers asked, “She high on something? We don’t need that kind of asshattery.”
Kramer snarled, “Shut your mouth Duggan. You don’t know shit from shinola.” He asked Em, “She been checked out by a medico?”
“Doubt it. They have a clean team coming in tomorrow and I hope they bring some debriefers qualified to work with civilians.”
Kramer snorted, “Female civilians that have mastered the art of being pain in the asses would be real good right about now. That girlfriend of yours has been calling and pestering the hell out of the comm board.”
In a voice full of disgust Em said, “She’s not my girlfriend. Block her number.”
“Oh yeah?” Kramer said like it was tasty bit of news he approved of.
“Yeah. She said I finally pissed her off for the last time a few days back and broke up with me.”
“You look like you’re just crying buckets over it,” Kramer said with a sly chuckle.
“These tears you see are tears of relief.”
It must be a guy thing ‘cause all of them chuckled. I was still trying to compute the fact that Em and Mona had broken up and I hadn’t known about it.
Kramer was wearing what I’ve heard more than once called a crap eating grin, but just as soon as we were out of the entry alcove he got dead serious real fast. I saw him give me a wincing glance then said to Em, “We got what you are going to consider a problem.”
“Aw hell, what now?” Em growled.
“NO command has taken over temporarily.”
“I thought they already had all that cockstrutting knocked out of them.”
“New strutters took the place of the old ones. Morgan and the General are going to have to start all over again feeling out which of the political appointees can be worked with and those that can’t.”
“From where I’m standing looks like a lot of can’ts.”
“Maybe not. You know it is SOP.”
“Yeah but when are the desk jockeys going to get the concept that SOP in a manual don’t mean it is going to be SOP in the field?”
“If I knew that I’d be a rich man and working on my fifth star. And that ain’t the problem. We’re stacking them like cordwood in here for a week or two. Some bean counter they brought in found out you and the girl had your own private rooms.”
“They did not put her out!”
“No. And personnel and civilians can’t room together. But … er … your room is bigger and will hold six personnel … and the dumbass bean counter wasn’t informed soon enough that Ava was female. And get that look off your face Em, I know it sounds like a bad joke but for now it is what it is.”
I had finally gotten my fingers to cooperate and the key inserted and turned into my door. But I couldn’t get the door to open all the way because, as I was to find out after I squeezed in, something fell over and was blocking it. Stacking the garbage bags out of the way I stepped back out and told Em, “I’m too tired to fight this out and win even with the 3rd Amendment on my side.” To Kramer I said, “Better tell your bean counter this is a private residence, not a commercial structure. Aunt Orélie never had to help The Isabelle owners with overflow, she did it to be nice.”
When I heard a couple of the junior enlisted asking what was the 3rd Amendment I’d had all I could take. If even I knew what that was and what it said, your average guy fighting a war on their own soil should certainly know. I knew they had suspended habeas corpus, I hadn’t realized they’d suspended the whole dang Constitution. I just looked at Em and he finally gave a growl and gave in. He turned to Kramer and said, “I’m getting the feeling this is fubar. But anybody start opening their mouths on this I’m gonna put a boot to deir ass. I ain’t playin’ Kramer. This is their first and last snafu where this is concerned.”
The door clicked shut behind us like we were teaming up to keep out the world for a while. I opened my mouth to tell him to take the bed when the lights flickered off. There was some relatively mild cussing all things considered. I told Em, “Hang on and let me close the black out curtains. Can you drop the roll down curtain over the door? Just pull the cord to the right of the light switch. Don’t move after that. There’s stuff all over the floor and neither one of us would enjoy you breaking your neck.”
I had to wade through all of Em’s stuff but I got the curtains in place and then got the gravity light going. He looked around and then kinda gave out. “Ava …”
“Don’t sweat it Em. Do you snore?”
“Some,” he admitted with a strange look on his face.
I told him, “Me too. Or at least sometimes. I get too loud just drop something on me.”
“Huh?”
“You take the bed. I’m going to throw my bedroll on the floor.”
“Ava …”
“Stop trying so dang hard,” I told him, trying not to show how nervous I actually was. “This ain’t gonna break me and I’m not going to let it break you or our friendship, teamship, crewship, whatever the heck you wanna call it. And I ain’t out to … to … I don’t even know what to call this. I trust you. And get that look off your face, it ain’t the kiss of friggin’ death.”
He sat on the bed and said, “It should be.” But he was grinning when he said it. The grin lost wattage though when he added, “This is messed up.”
“Yeah it is. But I’ve been able to say that about most of my life in some way or the other. And why didn’t you tell me about you and Mona?”
He opened his mouth and then closed it. He was quiet for a few moments then started unlacing his boots. “Don’t know. Kinda have a reason but you might not like it.”
“Did she … er … break your heart?”
He snorted. “No.”
“Oh. Then it must be one of those she was tired of waiting on a commitment things.”
He stopped what he was doing and just stared at me. “How in the sam hill did you figure that out?”
“’Cause I’m a girl. And while I might not be your average girl that doesn’t mean I don’t know how the average girl thinks. Mona … she … er … wasn’t just in it for fun and games.”
“You got that right. She damn near smothered me there for a while. Got to be hard to ignore the hints and hooks she kept throwing out. Made me feel like being the bastard she started accusing me of being.”
“Tell me you wore a condom.”
He gave me another one of those weird looks he saves up for special occasions and said, “Not that it is a conversation I want to have with you … but yes, since I wasn’t born last week, I know better than to have unprotected sex.”
“Well that’s a relief. ‘Cause if she was really all that hot and bothered on the subject she could have gotten pregnant on purpose to try and force you.”
“She couldn’t have … forced me to make a committment that is. This isn’t the damn dark ages and it was consensual and we’re both adults.”
“Did she know that?”
He gave me another look that told me he was just about finished with this tangent and said, “Yes. I made it plain up front before we had sex the first time. You done?”
I said, “Yeah because you just proved again that you’re smarter than 99% of the guys I’ve known. You would have hit 100% if you would have gotten it in writing.”
I was shifting stuff around from where they’d just thrown Em’s stuff in my room and then digging out my camp bedding that I’d used when I’d been living on the road. Some of the cells on the sleeping pad didn’t inflate all the way but it didn’t stop me from using it.
“You sure you’re going to be okay down there?” Em asked. “I could …”
“Stop. You know I can sleep nearly anywhere.”
“You sure as hell can,” he finally said with a grin. “How you’ve wedged yourself in some places to take a catnap and not get stuck is beyond me.”
“See? So leave off already. Long day tomorrow. At least for me. Momma L basically said she’ll take breakfast duty, but I’ve still got a crapton of cleaning to do at the Big House and then over here.” I was starting to doze off when I was hit with what is probably pretty close to a real live anxiety attack. I sat straight up and could barely breathe. “I gotta find a doctor for Auntie. Heart attack. Oh my gawd. How could I have forgotten. I gotta go check …”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa there. You ain’t gotta nothing,” Em said as he grabbed me to keep me from tripping over everything in the dark since the gravity light had reached bottom and gone off. “Ava … stop. Now sit here. Just put your head down and breathe.”
The shaking was back. Nearly as bad as it had been in the work shed.
I’m trying to take control of my body back from my brain that wasn’t working too well as Em explained, “Local doc … guy that Julius knows … has already seen her. Doc doesn’t think it was a heart attack. He had one of those portable soni-whateverthehellyoucallits with the wand that gives those picture things. Sorta like the ones they use in battlefield hospitals, only the civilian version. He works at the free clinic that St. Bernard’s helps sponsor. What Doc Carlson does think is Auntie is due an attack or something similar if she doesn’t get some rest. She’s got some kind of infection running around in her that he doesn’t know from what right now because he doesn’t have the ability to run those tests. She’ll have to go to Lafayette if he can’t get it under control with antibiotics. So … that’s what we’re going to do … help her get better and get some rest. Only it ain’t going to be at the risk of your health either. Mamma LeBlanc has decided she’s gonna play duenna and move in for a while. That’ll take a load off Hubert and Tib who will be living at her place and running herd on Franc and Fontaine.”
I was still playing catch up. “Play what?”
“Duenna. Er … it’s a Spanish creole word for chaperone.”
It took a moment but it clicked. “Oh gawd, don’t you start. It was bad enough to hear Momma L all but say that Auntie and Mr. Julius had the hots for each other and shoulda done something about it when they were younger and could enjoy it.”
I don’t know why but Em had to stuff a pillow on his face to keep from people hearing him laugh. Finally he catches his breath and says, “It’s an old story. Auntie’s sister … well she was what used to be called high in the in step, meaning she was a little bit of a snob and wanted to have a reason to feel that way.”
“Then what was she married to Mr. Julius for? Momma L is always telling me how poor they were growing up.”
“’Cause the same reason you warned me off of.”
“Oh. You … er … mean Mr. Hubert …”
“Yeah. They were told they had to get married by the parish priest and both families involved. You notice there ain’t no more kids.”
“No. I haven’t stuck my nose in it. People tell me stuff then fine, but it’s mostly none of my business.”
“Yeah, it gives me acid indigestion too.” He sighed. “Look, I gotta question. Can’t help but think it can be anything else but I gotta ask.”
“Uh … okay?”
“You ever … er … had … uh … feelings for Daniel Edgar?”