RE Bunch

From the Journal of Leticia Le-Rang-Par-Duex

Loneliness is a biggest and hardest part of living out here. I wonder what going to town with Mama Paris would be like. Mama said I can’t leave the By-Blow. Outsiders can come in, but I have to stick to the pond I was born in.

Mama comes home to us, with boxes of trinkets and packages of goods for Bolin and I. She tells us about the people who visit her tavern. The fancy ladies all wearing bright dresses and large, beautiful hats that sit like crowns. Their necks smelling sweet of exotic flowers, and jewels dripping down their necks to their navels. Men come in big and strong, smelling like hard work and sweet tobacco. Their dirty hands ogrish, clumsily clasping onto the small, polished hands of the ladies. Mama loves to tell me love stories that blossom there. Something I don’t know if I can have.

Feeling small and having a man be sweet on me. I day dream about what he could look like. What a husband to me might be, or how it could be out here. A tall man, ruggedly handsome like the men in town. One that would bring me flowers, and jewels that would make a Queen emerald in envy. The By-Blow is not a place of romance though.

Just creatures, Bolin, me, and Mama.  The others that live in the water aren’t my cup of tea. Too brutish and rough like Bolin, if Bolin never came inside. Bolin is a good brother. Protecting me from Landry, Pflug, Reat, and the other boys in the Blow. Boys, just creatures, that no lady would want to be associated with. Beasts that chase anything careless enough to pass by their hovels. They had no need to love. Mama said I was born softer than others. She says she’s sorry for it.

Mama also tells about the lost ones. The lost people who are just passing through on ugly errands. The misguided tourists looking for some “authentic” local experiences. Authenticity is something that lives in a person, it cannot be found. The lost ones are the ones that find their way out here the easiest. The only person who comes out here because they want to be is Mama. No one comes out here if they know about it. No man that is ever in a good way comes out here. The By-Blow is ugly and it brings in the ugliness from the outside. None of the men, or women, that come out here I would ever want to know.

Strangers are good at getting lost. No one bats an eye about it when they don’t come back to town. The townsfolk seem mean about it when they talk about the lost to Mama. Not that they think we’s to blame for it. The lost ones are to blame for their own trouble, but their trouble end up being a burden for the town to bear. A whole lot of people in trouble come through the By-Blow, and all of them leave behind bits of themselves. Troubles and all. Townsfolk get most bitter over having to explain to nosey people that it’s all a waste. Another sad dead end to that dead end person. We’ve seen people from all over this whole wide earth come in, but I’ve never been beyond the edge of the lake. Never even had one of the hold my hand, but then again none of them have even offered.

One time I did try to follow Mama out of the By-Blow. I wanted to see it all for myself. In a small bag I packed my nicest sun dress and the jade necklace a lost woman left behind. It was a carved green alligator hanging on a gold chain. The dress was white with green leaves and pink rosettes on the hem. I didn’t have a crown suitable, but I figured I would fit in enough. I wanted to see where all these lost people were running away from. Why leave it all to end up here?

I swam silently beneath her boat. I watched by the edge of the lake, as she got onto the shore. She walked so soft on the moss and fog that she floated above it. I waited for her to be mostly gone into the fog before I left the water. It was harder than anything I had ever touched before. The ground cut my feet to ribbons as I slipped on the rough moss. It was electricity that coursed through my toes up to my eyes. Blood oozing into the moss, as I fell to the ground.

I rolled in misery, screaming out in the suffocating fog. Mama Paris still heard me, saw me rolling on the ground. Only a few feet from the water. My skin burned, like it was dissolving off my bones. My blood boiled inside of me. I was certain that this is what dying felt like. It wasn’t flying high. It wasn’t drifting away quietly. There was never no peace to it. I was burning alive and being torn asunder from the inside out. By the time Mama came for me, she said my legs and hands were charred black down to the bone. She rolled back into the banks of the lake, and said her prayer for me.

It was days of dripping tar smeared thick on half-rotten skin. The smell of my own burnt bones never gets out of your nose. My legs scarred from the bursting blisters. Bolin teased to soften my feelings. He called me too sentimental for town anyways. We didn’t belong there. The By-Blow was good enough for us, would always be. Some things were just not meant to be.

I only ever wanted to see it all for myself. Just once to have my hand held like those beauties Mama told me about. To hear some strangers whisper in my ear softely like they do in my waterlogged, forgotten romance novels. I will never understand why this place holds me prisoners. Held on a crime I was born in to. I can only go as far as the water touches Mama says. I love a good storm for that reason, one time I made it all the way to the road outside of town. Just one more street, and maybe I could have seen it for myself. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get that lucky. The only one who can come and go is Mama.

I’m not certain I’ve ever seen a man crawl out of the lake alive. The By-Blow favors women in that way, as long as they are willing to leave a piece of themselves in return. The lake brings us life, and it takes it back.

I wonder if a lost one might just be feeling the same loneliness out there. Even if its pretend, maybe we can both be lonely together, even for a little while. I’m so terrified of ending up like the boys, just another creature out here in the dark water.

Lady Fingers

• 1/2 lb Fresh Okra
• 1/2 tsp hot chili powder
• 1/4 tsp cumin and/or coriander
• Pinch of pepper
• Pinch of salt
• Cayenne to taste
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• Cooking oil to coat

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. Rinse the okra in cold water and pat dry with a kitchen towel or allow to air dry for an hour.
3. Cut off the top and cut each Okra in 4 strips.
4. Transfer in a large mixing bowl and combine with all the spices, oil, and salt.
5. Lay the okra on a baking sheet, spread evenly- no overlapping. Keep a close eye on them. They’ll burn quicker than me. Bake for 8-10 minutes until crisp.