Excerpt: I don't know if I love you (but I might)

CHAPTER 1
Jay Boudreaux was on I-95 heading out of Richmond, waiting for the line of cars in front of him to start moving. An accident was being moved off of the right side of the highway ahead; from every appearance a very bad accident. Jay could see three ambulances gathered at the roadside in the distance, and another was coming along the road siding behind him. Several news helicopters circled overhead, making lazy circles in the bright summer sky. It occurred to Jay that today was a truly beautiful day—probably a little too hot for most peoples’ taste, but Jay had grown up near hear and always had loved the heat. Someone from up north probably would find this to be suffocating. Jay wouldn’t have blamed them. He knew he was probably just crazy to love ninety degree weather with ninety percent humidity.

Jay glanced over at the sleeping northerner in the passenger seat. Even sleeping, Jay could see that David was uncomfortable with all of this. Uncomfortable with the seat in which he was unsuccessfully trying to curl up his six foot three inch, somewhat pudgy form. Uncomfortable with the passenger seat that would not recline and the clogged air vents that made driving with the windows rolled fully down an absolute necessity in this heat. And as an overarching theme of discomfort in this entirely uncomfortable scene, Jay could see that David was uncomfortable with this heat. If David were awake, Jay would give him a hard time about his northern level of discomfort. But David being asleep, Jay could chuckle and feel a little sorry for him. Jay fumbled uselessly with the rusty ventilation controls on the ‘74 Volkswagen beetle, knowing that even if they were attached to a mechanism that worked, that mechanism would not have done much in the stagnant Louisiana summer air, especially with Jay’s car and every car he could see at a complete standstill.

Jay looked back to the roadway ahead. The line of cars seemed to move a bit and Jay moved along with them. Then another dead standstill. He wondered what had happened to the cars in the accident. At that point David had let out a snorting snore. Jay looked back over at David and suppressed a laugh. David was a good friend, he thought—an especially good friend to come along with Jay for this. Jay had been alone for much of his life—surrounded by people, family who loved him, coworkers who admired him, girlfriends who had… well, put up with him. But somewhere inside, Jay had never seemed to find the knack for connecting with those people. David was a good friend.

Just then, David let out one last snort and then his eyes blinked open. “What you looking at, cocksucker?”

“Who you calling cocksucker, pole smoker?”

David straightened up, ridiculously tall in the ‘74 Volkswagen seat. “Accident?”

Jay gripped the steering wheel and then signaled with his left hand. “Looks like a bad one. Look at all the ambulances.”

“Man, it’s hot. I thought all you hillbillies drove around in nuclear powered Hummers spraying Freon directly into the ozone hole. What the hell kind of southern good old boy has a ‘74 Volkswagen with no air conditioner?”

“The kind that lives in DC. Besides, you’re going to be pretty happy about the windows being rolled down when you smell this one.” Jay inclined his body toward the driver side door and let out a long, rumbling fart.

“Oh man, that is nasty! That’s the last time we’re eating at Taco Bell while I’m in this car. Jay and David waved their arms, each trying to send the fart towards the other. The fart just hung there in the stagnant, moisture-laden Virginia afternoon.

The car behind Jay’s ‘74 Volkswagen laid into its horn, and Jay looked up to see the line of cars ahead had started to inch forward and had left a good sized gap in front. “Keep your pants on, yokel.” The Volkswagen crept forward, and finally, the line of cars started to move.

David looked at his watch and then back towards the accident. “Hey, Jay man, you think this is going to give you enough time to get there?”

“Yeah, man, it’s not going to be like this the whole way. I mean, it’s going to be tight. But we can get back to New Orleans in a couple of days. When I was at the Academy I could drive it in 24 hours straight.”

“Okay man. Just checking. But no way I’m letting you miss this.”

“Don’t worry, man, we’ll get there on time. Don’t know if they’re going to want me there when we pull up.”

Jay said this with a smile on his face, but David could tell that what Jay said was true: he was unsure his presence would be welcome at his father’s funeral. David felt his throat tighten up a little at Jay’s statement. The fact was that Jay very well may have been right—Jay’s mom, Sally Boudreaux, may very well not want to see Jay after all that had happened. It was almost a certainty, given what Jay had explained to David, that the family might truly wish that Jay had stayed in DC.

“They’ll want to see you, Jay man. Of course they’ll want to see you.”

The line of cars had collapsed three lanes of traffic into one, and Jay’s ‘74 Volkswagen was just about to pass the accident area. The police and rescue workers had pretty much cleaned up the accident scene; the two cars involved had been taken away on flatbeds and the ambulances had driven away with one survivor and one corpse. The 38 year-old woman who had nodded off and run into the guard railing, Beth Hanson, had been killed instantly by the Sports Utility Vehicle behind her. Beth had moved to Richmond from DC after she had had a particularly bad breakup. She had arrived just six months earlier, had found a terrific job working in a pharmaceutical company, and had started to overcome the depression that had incapacitated her and had finally convinced her to make a new start. Beth’s doctor had just started to reduce her dosage of Zoloft, and Beth was having a harder time staying asleep at night. Last night had been a bad one—Beth had spent four hours tossing and turning in the bed, looking at the ceiling, saying his name and wondering what she could have done to make things go so completely wrong. When the morning had come, she still had not slept. It had been a relief to finally get up. Today was going to be a new day, and she was finally going to tell the new guy from accounting that indeed, she could go to dinner with him. All of this had gone through her mind as Beth Hanson dozed off on I-95 on the way to work and had been thrown twenty yards through the windshield.

David looked away from the accident scene back towards Jay. “Fucking drunk drivers.” The road opened up and Jay pushed down on the accelerator, leaving behind the scene of the accident and finally allowing a little cool air to flow in to the ‘74 Volkswagen’s vent windows.

Jay adjusted his sunglasses and they drove along awhile in silence. Finally he put his oldest, dearest CD into the player—a live recording of Sam Small’s “Gasoline”. David suppressed a laugh as Jay sang along with Sam Small at the top of his lungs. “Hey, Jay man, you feeling hungry?”

“Yeah, I could eat. What you got in mind?”

“I dunno. Let’s go to Taco Bell.”

CHAPTER 2
She makes everything all right
She blows all the candles out
Finds the lighter in no light
Got five minutes, get creative
Leave the cans of lighter fluid
On the couch, let’s get this started
Whisper “go” in to my ear
Taste the smell of gasoline…
-- Gasoline, Sam Small, Copyright Small is Beautiful records

Sally Boudreaux held the funeral announcement in her hands and shook her head in disbelief. Boudreaux was possibly one of the most common names in New Orleans; hell, it might just be the most common name. Boudreauxs had been some of the first settlers of this god forsaken place, had probably worked some of the first ships to land at the port of New Orleans four hundred years ago, had most likely populated just about every square mile from the French Quarter to the Lake Pontchartrain. Boudreaux was a pretty damn popular name in New Orleans.

And those dumb sons-of-a-bitches had misspelled Boudreaux on her husband’s funeral announcements. Boudreax.

What the hell was she going to do?

She’d have to deal with it. She’d have to deal with every damned thing. Larry and Michelle would mean well, but they had five kids to take care of—five! And her other son, Jay… well, Jay.

Sally put down the funeral announcement and looked down into her coffee cup. Jay.

She had finished the cup and stood to get a refill. It occurred to her that she could walk down to The Last Drop and have someone make breakfast for her. But Sally just was not ready for all of her neighbors who frequented The Last Drop to sympathize with her, to crowd around her to see if she was doing all right.

She was doing all right. Of course she was doing all right. Bubba Boudreaux—not Boudreax—had been a miserable son-of-a-bitch who had two-timed Sally miserably. He had been drunk and disorderly in just about ever bar on Bourbon Street, had gotten his sorry ass thrown out of places it was damn near impossible to get thrown out of, and had gotten her woken up to bail him out of the parish drunk tank more times than she like to imagine. Things had taken a turn for the better the day that Bubba Boudreaux—not Boudreax—had finally kicked the bucket with an esophageal hemorrhage. She hoped it hurt. She hoped it hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.

Sally held the funeral announcement to her face and sobbed into it, the ink staining her cheeks.