Swamp Foetus by Poppy Z. Brite

Author:Poppy Z. Brite
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Missing

It was high summer and the breeze coming over the levee from the river carried a hint of cleanly rotting fish, a phantom of oyster shell still slick with silver glue. There was another smell on the breeze, something browner, from a deeper part of the river, a smell that might make night strollers quicken their step and look away from the middle of the darkly shining water.

“Someone drowned a week ago,” said Andrew, and Lucian answered, “Bullshit—it’s sewage.”

But it was the smell, along with the heat like a dirty, oily blanket, that drove them out of the nightclub. Notes descending on a saxophone followed them into the street like a string of colored beads. In the street the smell was still noticeable, but it mingled with the grease-dripping odor of frying oysters, the sharp scent of oil paints and turpentine left behind by the street artists who had all gone home hours ago. Jackson Square brooded behind dark curlicues of iron. Within, pigeons might roost, a needle might roll from one unhappy hand to another.

Lucian pressed his face briefly against the railing. It was cool against his smooth pale cheek, but when he turned back to Andrew, a dirty stripe bisected his nose and forehead.

Andrew spit on a handkerchief and dabbed at Lucian’s face. “For God’s sake don’t lick your lips now. A thousand diseases on that railing.” Lucian twisted halfheartedly away from the sticky handkerchief, smiling.

Although they had left their nightclub, the club at which they listened to whatever might be new and sometimes played their own music, their night’s drinking was far from over. On their way to Lucian’s room they passed a lone, shabby man bent over backwards pointing a wailing saxophone at the sky. A crack somewhere deep inside the instrument made the notes rattle like bones, but Andrew dug out a quarter and aimed it at the shoe box by the man’s feet. The quarter bounced out and rolled across the sidewalk, but the man didn’t stop playing.

They passed a pizza parlor that reeked of tomatoes stewed in oregano and a foreign grocery which, though closed, wafted out a thousand mysterious, delicious smells, the smells of a kitchen in the Great Pyramid. Under it all they could still sense the wet brown river scent. Lucian’s narrow nostrils widened imperceptibly.

They passed along the streets in silence, two white non-jazz musicians stirring up air in the French Quarter. The buildings they passed grew darker, more broken. Feet padded along behind them for two blocks, then, deterred by Andrew’s wide-shouldered bulk, disappeared down a side street that led toward the river.

A few minutes later Lucian passed a broken street light, turned down an alley, and nudged a heavy door open with his shoulder. They ducked under a flapping black curtain, sending down a rain of dust, and emerged in a dark little shop lit by two kerosene lamps. Orange shadows licked at the walls of the shop, which were lined with shelves of tiny bottles and boxes.

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