PI On A Hot Tin Roof

nobody in Louisiana but this woman can understand what Lucy’s been through. If Lucy likes her—and she will—she’s the right person. But it’s going to be up to you to get them together.”
    “So what’s the story, Skip?”
    “It’s not up to me to tell it.”
    Two weeks later, at Reggie and Chaz, Princess Lucy returned for her sophomore performance. Raisa and Darryl were there, and so was Boo Leydecker. Lemon Blancaneaux was the emcee. Serenity Prayer Jones was too drunk to read, but the Baroness did (though her introduction was somewhat longer than her poem). She was dressed uncharacteristically in black, with a red scarf tied round her head.
    “I didn’t title this one,” she said, “because I thought I’d let you decide what it’s about. Could be life itself maybe, or your best friend—it could be any kind of betrayal. Hope it’s not your husband, though. ‘Haiku.’”
    Haiku
    A kiss before it
    Rips a nasty line of blood
    From your fine smooth skin.
    She ended with her usual line, “The Baroness myself thanks you.” And, as always, she curtsied, but this time she didn’t get her usual appreciation. The audience seemed more or less stunned.
    Lemon came back onstage. “Hey, Baroness, what’s up with that shit? That was cold.”
    “Oh, come on, Lemon. It was only a little
trickle
of blood. Haven’t you ever had a cat? Know how they jump out of your lap and scratch your hand in the process?”
    “
That’s
about a cat?”
    “If you like,” said the Baroness. “Go put a Band-Aid on it.”
    “I’m gon’ have to put a Band-Aid on this
show,”
Lemon said. “I’m the one bleedin’ over here. Bet a fourteen-year-old kid could do better than that. Okay, y’all, let’s all welcome, for the second time at Reggie and Chaz, that poetic prodigy, the teenage mistress of metaphor and mystery—the Princess
Lucy!”
    Lucy was dressed in a short, kiltlike skirt with little pleats, a navy zip-front hooded sweater, and black canvas boots, each of which was decorated with a cat’s skull (ears miraculously intact) and a pair of crossbones. She had lost still more weight, which would have been becoming if she hadn’t been so pale, and even that might have been dramatic if not for the sprinkling of zits on her fair skin. She looked like what she was—a kid going through a hell of a time. “That was
so
transparent, Baroness,” she said. “But a Band-Aid’s not gonna do it—I think I need a full body cast. Don’t y’all worry about it, though—it’s just that teenage angst thang. This is a little thing called ‘Santana.’”
    Before she started to read. Raisa’s whisper could be heard in the silence: “What’s that mean. Daddy?”
    “Later.” Darryl whispered, and Lucy said again:
    Santana
    I turn East, hoping for dawn
    And instead hear the rumble
    That signals winds of change,
    That roar and tear,
    Cold and furious
    Through the chaotic quiet.
    Uh-uh. No way.
    I’m going South
—
    Where the sun burns and blinds
    But dries my tears
    As it warms my frozen marrow
    And thaws my fury
    And unleashes it,
    Searing through hide to naked bone.
    Raw and ragged, I flee West
    Into the rain, which pelts, relentless,
    Till I am in above my head.
    The water soothes.
    It calms.
    It rinses Yesterday.
    It rushes and cascades
    Like love itself.
    It drowns hope
    And then recedes
    And I see that it has worn away
    The stone that took
    A billion years to build
    And nothing is left
    Except the solid wall of North.
    I walk into the mountains
    And I see the stones
    The wild cascades have missed,
    Outcroppings of a thousand ranges
    That cannot be blown away
    Or burned
    Or worn down smooth
—
    A plain of desolation that
    Might hold my weight.
    But these new rocks are hard and sharp
    And bruise and beat and tear.
    I want the winds again.
    I want the East!
    I CRAVE SANTANA!
    But I am like that Irish falcon,
    Turning and turning
—
    Nor knowing where to turn.
    Lucy stopped and curtsied, ever so sweetly. “The Princess myself thanks you.”
    She got the applause that usually went to the Baroness. Lemon took the stage again and said, “Hey! What y’all think of that? Young lady been readin’ Yeats! Prayer, you and everybody else better wake up and start writin’—we finally got a
literate
poet up here. Stealin’ all y’all’s thunder. Only fourteen, ladies and gentlemen—the Princess
Lucy!
”
    More applause. Lemon seemed to have taken a shine to her.
    Lucy was radiant. She turned to Boo, whom she had