Nothing but Blue Skies Read Free Page B

neon script across the top of the building, where it flashed at an emergencylevel. Beneath the sign was an enormous portrait of Gracie’s father wearing a shining crown to indicate that he was the king. There were low pines in the distance and the smell of a refinery in the air.
    Inside, families and individuals wandered aisles of furniture, chattering in French and trying out merchandise. One olive-skinned paterfamilias was testing the mechanism of a TV lounger in front of his large and admiring family. He sat in the chair and pushed the footrest; the chair swept back so that Papa was gazing at the ceiling. The children sighed. Then Papa got up abruptly with a superior little smile on his face indicating that things were not so easily put over on him.
    A little farther on, another family was seated at a dinette set pretending to have dinner. And beyond, an old man sat at a desk and imagined himself to be doing business while his wife pretended to be his secretary, scratching away at an imaginary writing tablet while he chattered at her in French.
    Gracie led him to the back of the store and into an office, which was simply partitioned off from the vast warehouse-display area. Inside this office, Frank was introduced to Antoine “Fatso” Bouget, Gracie’s father. He was not quite round enough, Frank thought, to be called Fatso; but with his oval, smooth, olive face and unmoving arched black eyebrows, he was very distinctly one of the locals. He deftly questioned Frank about his work and background, then turned to Gracie and said, “Him we have out to the house.”
    The house, on Bayou Teche, was a modern ranch house except that it had a big front porch on it filled with comfortable furniture for lounging and looking out on the bayou. Mr. Bouget gave Frank a tour of his property, which included numerous pens for pigs and ducks and a great variety of noisy fowl in general but especially the cautious-looking guinea hens that Mr. Bouget liked to toss into his gumbo. Gracie stayed in the house to talk to her mother, who was small and dark like she was and seemed to be continuously thinking of a very private joke. He showed Frank a loudly painted and powerful water-ski boat under a corrugatedmetal shed. A warm wind sighed in the trees and made an even ripple on the water.
    “Dat’s my pirogue, Frank. I use dat to find the crawfish in his home. I find his little chimney and dere I place my trap!”
    With his left hand he gestured toward his big Oldsmobile until Frank acknowledged it and, as though they shared the same tissue of good fortune, he smoothly swept his hand to the boat. Frank nodded in vigorous complicity and said, “Uh-
huh
,” and now they were damn sure buddies. Mr. Bouget leaned toward Frank from the waist. His little smile was a V.
    “By the way, Frank, my name ain’t really Fatso. Dat ain’t even my nickname. My name Antoine but my real nickname is Fais Dodo. Buncha ignorant Américains called it Fatso.”
    “Faye Dodo?”
    “Yessuh.”
    “Why do they call you Faye Dodo?”
    “Did. Don’t no more, call me Fatso.”
    “But why did they call you Faye Dodo?”
    “Why! ’Cause I always liked to party!”
    This time, when Frank was unable to keep the complete confusion from his face, Antoine Fais Dodo Fatso Bouget pounded him on the back and shouted, “You better get some food into yo’ ass. You peakit!”
    “What do you call this body of water, Mr. Bouget?”
    “This here’s Bayou Teche.”
    “You always live here?”
    “Aw hell, no. Maman and me come from Bayou Terrebonne. But you must go where your life take you.”
    As they walked back toward the house, Mr. Bouget jostled along in a comradely way, bumping into Frank and making amusing remarks, ending with, “You ain’t by any chance Catholic, are you, Frank?”
    “Yes, I am.”
    “Uh-
huh
. Frank, if you excuse me half a sec, I must have a word with Maman.”
    Gracie leaned out the door as her father went in. She was lightlydusted with