Chapter 7--A Story to Set It Off
"Now, I don't mean to say that I wasn't a God-damn preacher or anything," said LaMarque. "Nope I went on the wrong side of the tracks at one point, but I was no meurtrier." (1)
LaMarque and Arcenau had left their barracks, and were now walking about the camp aimlessly. Arcenau was willing himself to be a good listener as LaMarque confessed his past. Arcenau was curious and insistent on finding out how they were connected in all of this.
"You see," started LaMarque. "Ma famille was just in some tough spots in those days. It was during the depression. We were farmers, except no one could buy our sugar cane. The way it had worked was that we grew the cane, sent it off to New Orleans, and then the merchants who bought it shipped it out. But when the depression hit, it ruined everyone. We didn't rightly starve. Because, when you're on a farm, you know how to grow your food. It was just that things became different. We'd been somebody, and then we were no one."
Arcenau nodded. "Je sais." (2)
"We still had our community, though, which was really in the same boat as us," LaMarque went on. "Our whole community was built around agriculture and farming from the beginning. So, it hit everyone I the clan when the depression came. No one could help each other financially because everyone was I the same boat. Some of us younger fellows, myself included, went to New Orleans for work. We went to our old buyers, because sometimes they could get us with work on the ships. They didn't do a thing."
LaMarque spat on the ground, as if some of his despising had come back to him as he spoke.
"We stayed in the city," said LaMarque. "Cause there was work there. More work than there was to be found in our small towns. Besides, we all had big families, so it wasn't like we were short on hands for the farm work. Any money we got, we kept some, enough for us to live on, and sent the rest back home. We didn't trust anyone with it, so we took turns taking it there and back. We would cover for the one person gone when we were working sometimes, so that we still got the same amount of money. It was hard, but it was worth it."
LaMarque sort of smirked. "Well, not anymore. But hanging around the city, with other people in the lower class, it was different. You have lower class out in the country, and then you have the lower class in the city. It was quite a shock to us good little Catholic boys when we got privy to all of this. We grew to resist most of it, but that temptation for the money we so lacked, that we couldn't put aside. Well, just a few of us. The others, they turned a blind eye."
It was smuggling that he had taken LaMarque had taken to. Ships came in with some less advertised cargo. LaMarque and his buddy's jobs were to get the smuggled goods to the right proprietors. They were paid for that. It was a part time job that they were promptly rewarded for. It seemed so trivial. Harmless. Arcenau told him that he knew what it felt like.
"And then," said LaMarque. "One of my buddies got into an argument with this guy we brought the goods too. Said we weren't getting paid enough, cause he'd heard of people giving off better prices. Threatened to have him find someone else, or we'd leave. I didn't really care much. Case with our regular job's wages plus those, it was working out ok. Sure, more would've been nice, but I didn't see any reason to go compromise our position for it. But our employer, he saw it as more. He had a reputation he didn't want ruined. I don't know how we would've ruined it just by leaving, but anyway, he wanted to get rid of my buddy."
"So he did," stated Arcenau. "And framed you for it."
"Right," replied LaMarque. "It was easy enough too. Had one of his hit men come in to our apartment one night. My buddy got shot through the head. I was in the bathroom. The hit man dropped the gun and left via window before I could ever catch a glimpse of him. There was nothing to say I didn't do it except for my word. Which wasn't enough. The streets were getting clogged up with smugglers and trash like us, and the judge and police didn't mind putting me up in prison for thirty years. I was sixteen at the time."
"How did you get out," asked Arcenau.
"The war," answered LaMarque. "They offered me a place in the Army without opportunity of getting a promotion. I would just be a lowly private. Well, it was either that or jail for the rest of my life. I volunteered for the Army Air Corps, got made a gunner. For that I got a bonus: if I live through serving, I'll be out of jail for that sentence. But I'll be on parole the rest of life; even kicked out of Louisiana, too. Well, if I do live through this, I'll be sitting on just the east side of the Pearl River, cause there is no way I can be kept out of Louisiana the rest of my life. It's my home. Everyone thinks Louisiana is backwards, and maybe it is, but it's home. It's special in a way foreigners don't understand. And when I mean foreigners, that includes Texans, Mississippi hicks, the Yankees especially, and anyone who just ain't from there. You French seem to think the same way. Hell, everyone does about their country. Sometimes, Louisiana feels like a whole n'other country. Leastways to me."
Arcenau smiled at the younger man's pride in his homeland. He sort of guilty, despising him all this time, and without even a reason.
"I think I understand," he said. "Like people down it all the time, it makes you feel more proud of what you have."
"Yeah," exclaimed LaMarque. "I feel like saying: Ya know it ain't really that bad, if you Yankees would just drag your asses down here and have a look."
They both chuckled.
"Ok," said LaMarque. 'Maybe it is pretty bad in Louisiana. What with all the stuff we went through with Govner Long and such, and all our political problems. Guess we just like our rice and politics dirty." (3) They shared a laugh again. "But you understand, don't you? We know we're doing something wrong, but I feel so hopeless sometimes. No one lends a hand, or listens to you. They think they're high and mighty up on their horse and just think their way is plain right. But if you don't get it, if you weren't there, than you can't fix it."
"But do the ends justify the means," said Arcenau. "That's what I keep asking myself."
"I thought it over," said LaMarque. "In Angola, the worst damn prison in all of the U.S., I'm sure. Maybe that's where they keep the Krauts now. But I thought it over. I knew that if I had never got busy in all of that illegal craft, my buddy would've never been killed, and I wouldn't have been blamed for it. I would've been free, maybe back at home for good, helping my family farm, and re-start the business, now that things seem to be okay again." He sighed. "I would be with my younger brothers and sisters, maybe seeing my brothers fight now. One's in the Pacific, a seaman. The other one, he's a pilot! Couldn't believe it the first time I heard. My own kid brother, a pilot but an officer to boot! I haven't seen 'em in years now, though. It was straight from prison to the war. I wonder a lot, what if? And then I wonder too, why me?"
Arcenau nearly jumped. He suddenly hit LaMarque in the shoulder out of excitement.
"Ow," cried LaMarque in surprise. "What was that for?"
"Rapidment," exclaimed Arcenau. "Trouvons Colonèl Hogan!" (4)
"Pourquoi," asked LaMarque. (5)
"He must know," yelled Arcenau. He wasn't quite sure what was driving him. "He must know your story, and mine, and everyone's. London must know! We will tell them. We will do anything to say that we do not deserve the fate they have planned for us. We are changed! Je le sais!" (6)
"Everyone changed," asked LaMarque skeptically.
"Oui," said Arcenau heatedly. "This place has changed us. This war changes everyone. They know that. London is not just a name. It is people. They must know. We can fight this LaMarque!"
LaMarque blinked, but then smiled. "We could you know. If all of us said something."
"Exactement," said Arcenau excitedly. "We must be able to show them something. Venez." He grabbed LaMarque's arm and started for Barracks 2. (7)
"Just one second," said LaMarque, pulling himself away. "Why, all the sudden, were you so interested in me?"
Arcenau smiled sheepishly. "Well, I was thinking. I did used to hate you. I do not know really why. Maybe just because you were an American. But I was thinking. You had to have done something. There must have been something about you that made us similar, aside from living in this dump, else London wouldn't want you. So, I just asked, and now I know we are more similar than I thought."
"Took you long enough," said LaMarque sharply. "I hardly said a cross word to you, and you'd bite my head off.
"So I was a bit snappy," confessed Arcenau. "But you look like the forgiving type."
LaMarque's cool expression did not change. "Guess what I told that fella who sent the hit man: I'm coming back for him."
Arcenau frowned a bit uncertainly. "Um…okay?"
LaMarque couldn't hold it in any longer, and bust out laughing. "Oh, man, you should've seen your face. That was priceless."
Arcenau scowled, un-amused. He grabbed LaMarque's arm again, and yanked him towards Barracks 2. "Now shut up and act respectable. We got to start acting that way if we want to be taken serious by London."
LaMarque stood up a bit straighter but couldn't wipe the smug grin off his face. "I got you good."
(1) A murderer
(2) I know
(3) this saying is a popular inside joke for Louisianians. We have had historically, dirty politics, and then we have one of our favorite dishes, dirty rice, which is just brown rice spiced up a lot. If you've never had any, go get some. And make sure it's the real kind!
(4) Quickly! Let's go find Colonel Hogan!
(5) Why?
(6) I know it!
(7) Exactly. Come on.
