3:12AM, BOURBON STREET

Short story from Creative Writing Class.

There’s something about the night, how it welcomes what slinks away with the warming sun. The ending of the day only starts the evening and with it, many possibilities. Maybe it is the moon, how she beckons the strange and the sad with her pale light. Or it is the history of this place, how the the soil has soaked up the tears and turmoil of our ancestors. Perhaps, it has nothing to do with anything at all. 

It is conceivable that there were no factors that brought Billie down to the French Quarter that night. While the moon lit her cheekbones, highlighting the tips of her hair and the fly-aways, she walked down the streets she loved to call home. She stared at the cracks in the pavement, too familiar to care about directions, letting her feet guide her to wherever she saw fit. She was teetering on the line of drunk or just happy, unsure if the giddy and satiated feeling that swelled in her chest was her own doing or not. It could have been the echoing of the jazz that still lingered in the district, how it reminded her of being out in the French Quarter with her grandparents many years ago. Sunday mornings were always her favorite, seeing all the bright dresses paired with ostentatious hats.  The memory made Billie smile. 

An occasional car passes by, usually a taxi, but other than that, the street stays quiet. Billie’s uncle once told her about the superstitions about driving out late, but she barely remembers the origin. All she knows is that the old-timers didn’t sit behind the wheel after two in the morning. Her uncle swears that the one time he tried to call bull on it all, his battery died as soon as he pulled out of the lot--and it was new. From there on, Uncle Jimmy has always warned Billie about the dangers of the early morning. 

Of course, as the skeptic of the family, Bille never listened. 

Tonight, Billie finds herself out among the drunkards and the restless, walking out alone at the early hour of half past two. Mr. Clovers sweeps the front of his bar, setting the chairs up on top of their outside tables. He waves at Billie, partly out of hospitality, but also because her father and her uncles frequent his bar quite often. She barely knows the man, but she reckons he knows a lot, given how much his family loves to talk and praise. The smallest stranger will become a good friend when in the company of the Sable family. 

The sentiment is what Billie blamed for her actions, tricking her into thinking about approaching a drunken and lost stranger. The girl was hunched over, sitting on the edge of the curb and staring off at an unknown place. She looked more than lost, more like abandoned than anything. She had that lost-puppy-dog face, one to clench and twist your heartstrings until you were their puppet. 

No woman should be left alone, not that Billie would ever follow her own advice. She knew better than to be venturing around solo, but these streets were her home; she knew the streets blind. If any woman were to be the best to be out at this hour, she was the best bet. Yet, there was another person intruding on her solitude. There was some kind of self-righteous motivation building inside her, a protectiveness that was oddly large for a complete stranger. Nonetheless, Billie knew her parents did not raise her to be a bad woman, so she approached the lone girl. 

The girl seemed cold, a slight blue to her skin. Not that Billie can blame her. The days are so hot here and the night’s chill comes quicker than a greedy drunkard to Bourbon Street. It made Billie pull her jacket closer around her shoulders. It wasn’t cold enough to see her breath, but cold enough to warrant a shiver and some gooseflesh. 

“Hey,” Billie tried. The girl didn’t turn, didn’t notice at all. She was probably too gone to realize what was occurring around her. So, Billie tried again.

“Hey, are you alright?”

The girl turned this time, her eyes wide in shock. There was a startling vacancy in them, a deep and gutting loneliness that swirled inside. It reminded Billie of her younger days when she got too drunk at Clover’s and got abandoned by her friends. Too young to be legal and too old for it to slide, she stayed out all night, walking the familiar paths again and again until the sun peeked out from behind the buildings. She’d rather risk being alone than facing her mother. 

The girl did seem to look around that age, probably a year or two older than Billie was at that age. She seemed too adrift in this city to be a local. With a sigh, Billie slumped down, settling onto the hard and unrelenting cement under her buttocks. She stuck her hand out to the girl and tried her friendliest smile.

“Name’s Billie.”

Again, the girl did not reply. She was the staring type, the kind of people that are great only in art museums because they love to look but won’t touch. It was fine though; Billie wasn’t going to provoke the friendless girl. Billie watched as she wrapped her arms around her knees, holding them to her chest. It was a move that Billie’s little sister made when she was gloomy. Melancholic charity bubbled inside of Billie and she grabbed the jacket from her shoulders, dropping it onto the frame of the stranger. She looked up at this, looking at Billie with a new kind of surprise on her face. This one was more hopeful as if someone had done a good deed for her for the first time in a century. Billie smiled back, a small small reserved for such intimate moments. 

The stranger looked ahead again. This time, her vacant eyes seemed less lonely, or maybe that was just Billie’s wistful thinking. Billie looked ahead too, silently searching out what the girl thought was so fascinating to watch. A companionable silence enveloped the two women. Perhaps it was the time, almost three, that created such a magical connection. Uncle Jimmy used to talk about the odd hours of the night and for once, Billie was starting to think that the old kook might be right. She hadn’t exchanged one word with this girl to her left, but a part inside her tugged at the idea of her. It alarmed her that she felt more comfortable with this stranger than with some of her friends from college whom she still talks to. That idea hung at the forefront of her mind as she lost focus of her staring and went off-track with her thoughts. 

It was finally three when she jolted to the grip of Mr. Clover’s hand on her shoulder. 

“Sorry to startle, I just was going to head home and wanted to make sure you girls were alright.”

“We’re fine, thank you, Mr. Clover,” Billie said. 

The older man waved and moved on. Billie sighed, turning to the girl next to her. She seemed unperturbed by Mr. Clover’s presence as if she didn’t notice him at all. It was a chance that she was in fact gone, but it piqued something inside Billie. 

“I think it is time we go home.”

Hailing down a taxi was difficult at this hour. It was lucky they were in no rush. The stranger didn’t seem to be getting better, but she also was not getting any worse, which was a score in Billie’s favor. The less vomit she has to deal with, the better the night is. She found herself rambling on, telling the stranger all these details and stories to help soothe the rejected girl. She told her about her uncles, especially Uncle Jimmy. The girl snorted a laugh when Billie mentioned her uncle’s superstitions, but when she turned around to catch a glimpse of a smile or something, it looked like the girl hadn’t moved at all. Perhaps Billie thought it up--it was quite early in the morning after all. 

A taxi finally cruised to a stop before them at 3:12 am. Billie stood with a yawn, stretching and popping her limbs. Her back protested from being hunched over the curb for far too long. Her bed sounded like a dream at this point. She held her hand out for the stranger, but the girl stood without any help. Billie grabbed the door for her and the girl slowly got in, sleep probably getting to her too. Billie wasn’t sure how the girl hadn’t already fallen asleep standing. But then again, Billie had always been told she was a “sleepy drunk”.

Billie got in next to her, settling into the worn-in leather upholstery. The taxi driver seemed familiar, but her uncle had introduced her to so many of his coworkers that she couldn’t tell one apart from another. It was probable that it was just a face she had seen before or vaguely resembling someone she knew. 

“You’re Jimmy’s niece, right?”

That answered Billie’s question. The man, Earl Goodeman, was a talker but Billie was too bone-tired to care. The deep rumble of his voice soothed all the aches of her joints, reminding her of her father reading her and her sister bedtime stories when they were younger. A deep sigh wracked her bones. Her eyes felt heavy, but they shot open when she remembered the girl beside her. 

“Where do you want to go?” Billie asked her.

The girl looked at Billie. She stared again, then simply shrugged. 

“Do you have a home?” 

The girl gave no response. Billie’s heart shattered. It occurred to Billie that perhaps the girl was not left by friends, but abandoned entirely. The depth of rejection that the girl must have faced left a hole in Billie’s chest and she clutched it blindly.

“You’re going home with me then. I got a fold-out couch and my Momma never says no to visitors.”

The girl looked back out the window and Billie took it as a yes. Billie settled in and satiated with the resolution. There was no way Billie would leave this girl alone in the cool of the night. Granted, Billie could have dropped the girl off at a motel, paid for her night, or forced the girl to pay herself. Somehow, this option seemed the best. 

“Are you hungry?” Billie went to ask, her mouth shutting fast on the question as she noticed the empty space beside her. Her jacket was on the seat, folded neatly without a single wrinkle of wear. Billie spun around as the taxi stopped at the stop sign, waiting the allotted three seconds before taking a right. Peering out of the back window of the taxi, Billie could just barely make out the girl standing in the middle of the street. The girl smiled slightly, a little tug at her lips. She waved to Billie and she waved back. Billie could have sworn a tear ran down the girl’s cheek, but it could have been a trick of the moon. 

She grabbed her jacket, bringing it to her chest. It had an odd smell to it, like when there’s a lightning storm outside and you can almost taste the ozone. She slipped it on, shrugging into the cooled fabric. She sat silently as Earl drove on, knowing exactly where Billie was staying. She shut the taxi door upon arriving, the metal zapping her with a little jolt of electricity. It made the hairs on her arm stand tall, similarly as the air had done to the stranger’s skin. 

She didn’t know where the stranger came from, or where they went. What she did know is that some things do happen in the early mornings in New Orleans. Whether they are good or bad, she hasn’t come to find out. Perhaps she’ll find her friend again. Perhaps she’ll never see her again. Perhaps she’ll be like the rest and never really know. With a shake of her head, the idea is almost gone, falling through the cracks of her fingers like when you tried to hold sand as a child in the palm of your hands. It was just a memory, or a dream of a dream, a facet of deja vu. Billie climbed into the bed that she had been yearning for the whole night. She was asleep within minutes.