Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans by Rosalyn Story Read Free Book Online Page A

car?”
    Relieved to turn the conversation to mundane car troubles, Casey smiled and tapped the hood with his fist. “This piece of crap? This ain’t mine, man, it’s my brother’s. Mine’s six feet under water.”
    Casey told Julian about his adventure in the storm. His wife had fled to Dallas while he’d stayed in their apartment in the Seventh Ward, got trapped on the second floor, and after a day and a half on a balcony, was airlifted to safety by a National Guard helicopter.
    “Got my horns out, though, man!” Casey smiled. “I left everything else there, just grabbed my two B-flats and my cornet and my flugelhorn.”
    Julian smiled. “I heard that.”
    The two men talked a while longer until the station attendant came out to Casey’s car, a filterless cigarette clenched between his teeth.
    “Let’s have a look.” Casey raised the hood and the attendant leaned under it. After a moment, he left to find a battery tester. Just then, another car drove up. An elderly couple, their steps slow and their backs slumped in fatigue, walked toward the store. The woman’s arms flailed as she ranted about her ruined refrigerator, while the man mumbled something about the government as he opened the door for her.
    Casey turned to Julian. “You know what, man?”
    “What?”
    “You were smart to leave.”
    His head hanging and eyes downcast, Julian felt less like a smart man and more like a traitor. When he’d left for New York, Casey had all but called him that, since Julian was so willing to ditch the brass band they had recently formed together in favor of a possible solo recording date and a slim shot at a big-time career.
    “Record? We can do that here , man,” Casey had pleaded. But even before he’d packed, said goodbye to his father, and boarded the last night flight out of Louis Armstrong, Julian was already gone.
    A lifetime ago, or so it seemed. Now, the reminder of his betrayal piled on top of everything else he was feeling: anger, regret, confusion, helplessness. He was mad at the city, mad at his father, mad at himself, mad at the world. And now Casey’s eyes, aged beyond their years, threw Julian’s frustrations back at him like twin mirrors. It was the same look he’d seen in the eyes of everyone as they returned to the battered neighborhoods, the drowned streets of the failing city, a look of utter disorientation, as if the world you once knew had suddenly and sharply tilted, and you were holding on to whatever you could to walk upright.
    They found a shady pecan tree at the edge of the lot to stand under while they talked, Julian throwing back another iced drink, Grady taking long drags on a cigarette, and in minutes they were laughing. Casey brought up the time Julian had stepped in a steaming horse pile when they paraded down Canal with the brass band one Mardi Gras Day and never lost a beat, scraping the soiled shoe against the pavement in a footdragging, pimp-limp rhythm. I was cool, though, wasn’t I? And there was the time they had dropped beer-filled balloons from a French Quarter balcony onto a group of white college boys during Sugar Bowl weekend, then ran like hell when the students spotted them later. They’d hid in an alley off Dumaine, and when the coast was clear, doubled over in laughter. Good times in a city made for little rusty-butt boys with an itch to be free. They talked and laughed on and on, as the misadventures of two cocky kids growing up together poured out in a cathartic litany.
    They exchanged cell phone numbers, promising to keep in touch.
    “You tell your lady I said ‘hey,’” Julian said.
    “Will do.” Casey nodded. “You married yet?”
    “Naw, man.”
    Casey grinned. “Aw, that’s right. You had that one close call, but you got away.”
    Julian blinked twice, embarrassed as a surge of blood warmed his face. He imagined round eyes set in nut-brown skin, soft, curly spirals of natural hair, and that unmistakable low-pitched, blues-song voice. Vel was