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“I should feel guilty about eating your food while giving you bad news,” he said.
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” I reminded him, cutting straight to the chase by asking, “What was the final vote?”
Rozier let out a heavy sigh. “One hundred and thirteen ayes to seventeen nays.”
I sat back, deflated. “Why am I surprised?”
“Because you expected more,” Joseph said. “Hell, wealldid! Some of ‘em literally cried with joy. They even had the nerve to pray after it was all over. I walked out. There’s no blessing in this.”
I remained silent as my old friend recounted all the dramas that had occurred in Baton Rouge including how the delegates had voted to sever all ties with Lincoln’s government. He confirmed what I knew would come to pass but this didn’t keep me from feeling as raw and gray as the weather outside.
“And don’t go to the city if you can help it,” Joseph said, clearly disgusted. “It’s like Mardi Gras out there. People are everywhere, shooting guns and waving them little Pelican flags like they mean something to ‘em. They’ve even called the Washington Artillery. Shops have closed. Businesses. Everything! Can you believe that? Complete insanity! I even saw your old girl Toussaint celebrating,” he added, referring to the woman who ran a prominent, yet discreet brothel, in the French Quarter.
“But we’ll see how long she dances when her customer’s pockets start to run empty,” he said between more mouthfuls. “Every man in town knows she don’t believe in credit.”
I grinned. “A man will always find money to pay for the things he can’t live without,” I replied.
“Yes, that’s true,” he said, shoving a piece of bacon in his mouth while stealing glances at Lizzie’s full figure. “But I’ve never had to worry about paying for anything likethatand I’m not going to start. Why do that when there are so many lovely nigra women around?”
“Careful, Joseph,” I warned, even though Lizzie kept working as though she hadn’t heard him. “Many of these beautiful women you refer to are well-versed in warding off your kind of mischief.”
Joseph’s face turned ghost white, and he wiped his forehead with his napkin as if death himself was at the door. It was all I could do to not laugh in his face.
“How stupid of me for forgetting,” he said gravely. “I’ve seen what they can do all right and it ain’t pretty.”
“Don’t worry, Lizzie here has an antidote for those sorts of things,” I told him, winking at Lizzie who gave a hint of a smile in return.
“That antidote didn’t work too good on you, now did it?” Joseph blurted out, looking dead at Lizzie. “That negro wench of hers cost youeverything! Your father, your wife, and if it hadn’t been for…”
Joseph stopped in mid-sentence. The room went still. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Sometimes my mouth gets ahead of my brain.”
His comment upset me but I maintained my composure. “It’s all about perspective, isn’t it?” I replied. “If anything, I costher.”
Lizzie left the room abruptly, giving Joseph a dirty look on the way out. He cleared his throat again and said, “What I do know is my ears are still ringing with gunfire. Now don’t get me wrong, I ain’t no Yankee abolitionist. But this thing here, this secession vote, it’s the stupidest thing we could’ve done. You wait and see. There’s going to be some regrets on this one for sure.”
“Only time will tell,” I said evenly.
One thing I had learned over the years was that people were loath to admit when they were wrong, even as the boat they stood on was sinking.
“That’s what I like about you, Thomas,” he said as he sipped the last of his coffee. “Forever a diplomat. Never choosing a side but having an opinion just the same.”
“My opinion doesn’t really matter,” I said bitterly. “It never did.”
He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Hell, I said all I could with my vote. In principle, the people of this state have the right to live their lives as they see fit. But is it realistic? I say no. You can’t sustain an economy long-term with slavery as your model. It’s simple economics. After all, they’re still human despite what people say. They got arms and legs and feet like the rest of us. Not to mention, a good many of them are even downright clever. And this is just hypothetical mind you…but what if some of them clever ones got a little bold and stopped working those fields and convinced the others to do the same? Where would we be? Royally fucked, that’s what. And history has shown that slaves around the world always rise up.”
It was always a relief to me to hear someone talk about what should be instead of what was. None of my father’s other friends had talked this way, and I wondered if Rozier had been as forthright with him as he was with me.
“Do you really think Lincoln will make good on his promise and declare war?”
His eyes blazed. “Does a whore lie on her back?”
“Not all of them,” I said, playing the devil’s advocate.
“But enough of ‘em do to matter,” he said dryly. “And that’s all that counts.”
“And that’s what I like aboutyou,Joseph. You always tell it like it is.”
“There’s no other way to tell it,” Rozier said as he rose from the table. “Well, let me get going. These folks are having a good time now but I know better. Things are going to get ugly out there and I need to be in the stirrups when it happens.”
