Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Patty Friedmann has written five previous novels, including Eleanor Rushing, Secondhand Smoke, and Odds. Except for slight interruptions for education and natural disasters, she has always lived in New Orleans.

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Eleanor Rushing

Counterpoint Press

Chapter One

I think it is impossible to change the world unless you aretruly evil and so mad for control you never sleep. Andit's ridiculous to try to change yourself at all. Scientists havestudied identical twins who feel pain in the gut at the sametime, as if everything were laid out from the moment theywere conceived. Sometimes I figure all you can do is watchyourself, as if you're viewing a simple, dull film; eventuallyyou find out what was going to happen. Unless deathcatches you by surprise.

    So I go to City Council meetings. I haven't missed onein four years, not even for a case of B-type influenza,which I probably picked up from a crowd in the CityCouncil chambers. Sitting in those meetings is the onlyway I can pretend to feel any breezes of serendipity. Somewherebetween the global and the personal, they play outthe grandest battles of silliness, and I like to guess at them.When I was twenty-three I lived in Washington, D.C.,and sat in regularly on the proceedings of the U.S. Houseof Representatives. But they mumbled and shuffled a lot,and you couldn't see their eyes unless they passed close by.It was good to learn about carcinogens in the Iowa cornafter the drought and how the turnips in western Montanaswelled like giant melons for years after Mount SaintHelens blew, and I believed money should be set aside tostudy such matters, but I couldn't see the congressmen'seyes. So I came home to New Orleans.

    Maxim denies it, but we saw each other for the firsttime at a New Orleans City Council meeting. It had beengoing on for four hours, a Thursday, last October, with nobreak, and the chamber was full of angry people, all brimmingwith piss and hunger. It was shaping up to be one ofthe best, with a chance of violence. Whenever you pit selflessgreen people against hard men and harder women,someone is going to break out and charge across the roomwith fists flying. The ones who usually broke were the oneswho saw themselves as selfless, who were thinking about afine earth or a lovely city that would be here after theywere dead; that meant a lot more to them than the merchantworries of the businessmen. The businessmen couldcut their losses, start over, enjoy the process of provingsomething again.

    This time they were fighting over gambling, and I knewwhat point they were all missing. I felt the way I'd felt infourth grade, when I'd answered so many questions correctlythat the teacher had refused to call on me, and so I'dsat shimmering in my place, waiting to hear someone elsefigure out what I already knew.

    The City Council was willing to line up gambling boatsall along the riverfront docks, so each night men in suitscould unload sacks of money the way longshoremen unloadcoffee. The green people wanted clean parks alongsidethe filthy river, and the short, oily Greek and Indianbusinessmen wanted gamblers everywhere in the FrenchQuarter, spilling dollars into their shops. They wereequally selfish, the green people and the men who sold T-shirtsin the front and hookahs in the back of their stores.They all wanted something to show off.

    I was considering running over to the public library todo some fast reading so I could get up with popular quotesand tell them all why they were wrong, when he came forwardto take the microphone. "Dr. Maximilian Walters,pastor of Uptown United Methodist Church," he said.

    He was the whitest man I'd ever seen. I was in the firstrow of the left section, so I could see his eyes. His hair wassilver, his skin as pale as a sunless child's, his eyes white-gray.He could have gone to any dark continent two hundredyears ago and startled the aborigines.

    He smiled in Mrs. Legendre's direction, having takenthe microphone after her, and his teeth were straight andwhite, too. Mrs. Legendre was a tiny Junior League-haircutwoman with the power only tiny women andmen can have to come up fierce and unassailable. Mrs.Legendre wanted no gambling boats along the entirestretch of the river where the public School of Music andDance sat. "Before I begin," he said, "I'd just like to remindMrs. Legendre that everyone in the arts is a gambler." Shegave him a closed-lipped smile, more seductive than appreciative.I sat up taller in my seat. Mrs. Legendre hadrich, streaky hair like mine, but I was striking where shewas merely serious.

    He threw a single phrase at the City Council, and I wasundone, though half of them were swiveled around in theirchairs talking on telephones. They made me furious doingthat, though sometimes they do it when a speaker deservesrudeness. The process of government isn't clean if everyword isn't heard. "You are all mired in details that make nodifference," he said.

    He said nothing then, and the noise level dropped. Hewaited. "You are all mired in details that make no difference."His voice was low and almost sad, and the room becamea more polite place. He repeated himself once more,then stepped back from the microphone as if he weregoing to return to his seat.

    "Go on, sir," the councilwoman from my district said. Ihadn't voted for her in the last election; she was too condescending.

    "John Wesley," he said, as if anyone in the room otherthan me knew who John Wesley was. "John Wesley abhorredgambling, and so people in our church are supposedto abhor gambling, too. But John Wesley didn't passany particular judgments on gambling; he hated gamblingbecause right then, a couple of hundred years ago, all thepoor coal miners blew their pay on it. Now I've sorted outthe difference between gambling as sin and gambling asgood social policy. But you haven't. Don't tell me you have;you haven't. I hear it. Some of you have been downrightshrill up here." I looked toward Mrs. Legendre, but shewas listening as if in a thrall that only let through whatmade her want him. "If it's sin, don't have it at all. If it'sgood social policy, have it on every street corner. A churchon one corner, a bar on another, a sweetshop on a third, acasino on the fourth. Line the river with docks for gamblingboats. All the way to Baton Rouge. Make every risk-takerin the entire United States feel he has to come downhere, right now. With all his money, of course. You wantbright, empty parks? How about thousands of trumpetplayers and tap dancers who can't earn a living? You wantthe streets filled with fools who'll buy whatever you feellike selling them? It's all one and the same.

    "You're mired down in details. And details don't make adifference. Thank you," he said softly and walked slowlyaway.

    I began to applaud, and there was no other sound in thechambers. Perhaps he sat next to me because of the clapping.But I think all along he knew I was there, waiting forthe right answer, knew it was time to come to me. He settledgently into his seat, and I continued to clap, my handsin front of his face, for a few seconds. Then the din andrudeness started up again in the room. "You were magnificent,"I whispered, a thrill running down me.

    He patted my hand, then with one swift movementpushed himself out of his seat from the armrests. "Seeyou later," he said, not looking back. He slipped out theside exit.

    I knew then how much he was going to want me. Howmuch he was going to battle with his holy behavior untilhe gave in. He...