Terence rolled over on the threadbare mattress. His “no smoking” room reeked of traveling-salesman frustration. And old smoke. No sleep. Sweat sliming his taut body. He didn’t ask Brian what was in the box because he didn’t want to know. He was supposed to deliver it to Auntie M&M, someone from Peter’s Fire Island Pandora’s box past.
Just one more day with Peter, Terence thought, as he heard Julia get out of bed. He pretended to sleep, watching her slit-eyed as she cat-crept across the carpet, grabbed the box, and slipped into the mildew-smelling bathroom. Terence froze, pretended this wasn’t happening. Julia’s gasp leaked through the bathroom door. He snapped his eyes shut, his heart beating hard, until he felt Julia quietly return to bed. He glanced at the nightstand and the box was back. Julia tenderly spooned up against him, like she used to do every night, before his nightmares, before this trip. He breathed in unison with her and fell into a bottomless sleep.
The next day Terence peered at the cardboard box on the back seat as they floated in the Beast past an endless shag carpet of corn. He turned up the radio to drown out the silence. The Fine Young Cannibals sang “She Drives Me Crazy” as he peered over at Julia, who was biting her cuticle. He quickly changed the station and then it was someone reading from Mark Twain’s short story “Cannibalism in the Cars”: “On my way West, after changing cars at Terre Haute, Indiana…” He switched off the stereo.
“Why don’t you call the auntie lady and make sure she’s in Terre Haute?” Julia asked, finally.
Terence dialed her number; a machine picked up and he squinted when he heard a husky woman’s voice. “Come see your Auntie M&M this week at Wizard’s—800 Bourbon Street, in the Big Easy. It’s Southern Decadence, my pets.”
“Well, well, well,” Terence said. “Off we go to Oz.”
“Australia?”
“No,” he said, feeding New Orleans into the Lexus navigation system[1] as Julia watched his deft screen touching. “Oh,” she said gamely. “I’ve always wanted to go to the French Quarter.”
Terence headed dead south on I-57. He felt like the Cowardly Lion, afraid of the new life he was haphazardly heading toward. He felt like he needed a brain, like the Scarecrow, too stupid to finish his book, unable to bring himself to reveal “Why They Didn’t Eat Me.” Most of all he felt like the Tin Man, heartless. He wasn’t sure he was in love with the woman he’d proposed to.
It was dark and they had been driving for 12 hours when they finally exited the highway and entered the Vieux Carré. They parked next to a flickering gas lamp, beneath lacy wrought-iron balconies pregnant with ivy and fat ferns. Terence grabbed the cardboard box and stuck it in his backpack as they left the protective, air-conditioned cockpit of the car. The French Quarter’s humid heat smelled of swamp mixed with burnt sugar and jasmine, dank and sweet, primal and sexy.
“Somehow we have driven out of America,” Terence said, peering into a courtyard taken over by bougainvillea climbing up old brick.
“It’s so romantic and seamy. I love it,” Julia said as they walked past Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, whose walls seemed to be collapsing in on each other. They ordered Hurricanes in go-cups and sipped and stumbled around the Quarter, past Johnny White’s Sports Bar, the bar that never closed during Katrina, past St. Louis Cathedral, and then up St. Ann toward the sounds of the disco anthem “It’s Raining Men.” Terence grabbed Julia and they started to dance just as Mardi Gras beads began raining down around them. They looked up, saw the wizard sign over the door; above that, on the balcony, was a huge figure in prairie gingham, surrounded by multiple Dorothys and Tin Men and Cowardly Lions and Scarecrows. They were pelting beads at the revelers below.
“Terence! Terence!” cried Auntie M&M theatrically. “Stay there,” she yelled. “I’m coming down.” Julia was staring at Terence. He shrugged.
This large, odd person popped out of the club and onto the street. “Terence, give your Auntie M&M a hug,” she said, engulfing him in her ample arms. “I know your face! You look exactly like your brother,” she whispered. “Do you have the package?”
“Yes,” he answered obediently.
“We have to go,” she said. “We have to be there at midnight!” They followed her through the quarter, past Rampart and into St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. A two-tiered white stone covered in red crosses marked the tomb of voodoo queen Marie Laveau. Auntie put out her hand. “Give me the box.” Terence did as he was told. “Never fear,” Auntie said, in confidential tones. “Voodoo is to New Orleans what bagels and lox are to Brooklyn. We’re casting out the evil spirits.” After saying a Hail Mary and something incomprehensible (“West African,” she said, winking, “or at least my version of West African”), she took the lid off the box and dumped the gris-gris on the grave. It all rained down: old coins, bits of herb, roots, beans, chicken bones, dried flowers, and ashes.
“Your brother thanks you,” Auntie said, wiping away a tear. “And the voodoo queen thanks you. You do have a heart.”