The Feet of God

63 - THE ROAD TO PERDITION

Well, the girl in the doorway wasn’t completely naked, but that delicate little see-through-thingy she had on was all clear through except for the fur at the edges.  Her long blonde wig was draped over voluptuous brown shoulders.

“Fuck zee ducks!  Zee John, heez credit card does not go through!”  The girl desperately held up the small plastic culprit.

“Oh, mamaaan,” Yeller Tom rolled his eyes at this pretentious display.

“Shut up, Thomas.  I want my girls to sound like they are femmes from New Orleans.  She cannot help it if she is from De-twa in Michigan.  I thought, De-twa, it is French too, non?  But her accent is not so good.  She is not working out, I think.”

Yeller Tom chuckled.  “Maman, Detroit is a French name, oui, but it has not been that way for a long time.”

The girl addressed Madame again with her fake accent, “So what do I do weeth theez?”  She impatiently waved the credit card overhead, while bouncing up and down in a way that was not without its charms.

Madame yelled, “Donnez-moi le card, then go back and keep him busy.”

The little blonde spun around and gave me a great glimpse at no charge.

Madame picked up a plate and offered me half a toasted bagel dripping in the special cheesiness.  “Here, you must eat something,” she eyed me.

I lifted the smooth white dairy product to my lips, and the aroma wafted beneath my nostrils.  Wham!  My head was filled with the rush of creamy goodness.  It was clear what all the sighing and moaning had been about, as my tongue enjoyed flavors I’d never really experienced before.  It was better the second time around.

“Whattaya call this stuff?” I asked.

Madame smiled, “I call mon fromage frais à tartiner simply le bon fromage, but him,” she swatted Yeller Tom playfully at the back of his head, “he likes to call it The Holy Cow.”  She gave her son another slap to the back of his head.  Then she pinched his cheeks.

“This is delicious,” I talked with my mouth full.  “How did you ever come up with it?”

Madame leaned forward on the table, an onion bagel balanced in her long, carefully manicured fingertips.  “As you might suspect,” she explained, “I am from New Orleans.  My family, the Taroons, are a very old and respected people.  From my great-great gran’maman all the way down, we operated Les Salons des Jeune Filles.  The best young men from our city came to our establishment to sing and dance and spend an hour, maybe more, depending on how close to payday.  One night, in walked my son’s father, Big Tom of Sinks Grove, West Virginia.  He was so tall and handsome, my Tom, just like my Thomas, only paler.  His family had lived there since after the war.”

“Vietnam?” I asked.

“Non, the Civil War.  He told me such wonderful stories of his life, and about his profitable distillery, that when he asked my hand to marry him I of course said oui, non?  You might imagine my dismay to find that Sinks Grove is not a cultural hub in this West Virginia.  And the distillery was a collection of copper tubing in a shed behind our shack at the end of an unpaved road.  With an upbringing like mine, you can imagine how I did not fit in the social register.  Once I gave birth to my only son,” she stroked Yeller Tom’s hair, “I did not have enough to keep my mind occupied.  Without refrigeration I also did not have any way to keep my milk fresh, so from boredom I began to experiment with the making of le fromage frais.  Ten years later, et voilà!  I had mastered the recipe for the powdered cream cheese.”

Behind us the hulking bear from the airplane hangar showed up in the doorway and addressed Yeller Tom, rubbing his hands with a filthy, tattered rag.  “Well…” he drawled, “you’re all gassed-up and ready to go….”

“Not now, Chuck,” Yeller Tom cut him off with a flick of his hand.  “Maman is telling a story.  You know how I love to hear her stories.”  The greasy mechanic shambled away and quietly disappeared.

About this time I was beginning to feel a little light in the head, like I’d just blowed up five thousand party balloons.  For some reason I jumped up outta my seat, but immediately sat right back down again, hard.

Madame and her son begun to laugh when I picked up the remainder of a creamy bagel and crammed it into my mouth with both hands.  I reached for more.  It was so pure, so smooth, and so rich with dairy goodness.  But before I touched the plate I stopped to look at my hands, as though I had never noticed these strange appendages before.  I had to concentrate in order to lift them up before my eyes.  Little globs of cream cheese stuck to my fingers and begun to shimmer as I waved them back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth again.  I was dazzled by the movement.

Madame’s laughter resonated in my ears, “You like le bon fromage, eh?”

Yeller Tom’s voice reached me from far, far away.  “Maman, I think my passenger has discovered the secret of The Holy Cow.”

My head tossed back and it felt like Madame’s hot, cheesy breath was blister’n the skin off my face.  “It is even better with the royal jelly,” she whispered to me.

“Maman,” Yeller Tom interrupted.  “It is time we must talk.”

“Oui,” she agreed.

“It is The Colonel.”

Madame threw up both her hands.  “Fuck zee ducks!”