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This writing was accepted for publication
in the 84 page perfect-bound issue...
cc&d magazine (v216)
(the January 2011 Issue)

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Literary
Town Hall

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News Story

Billie Louise Jones

    A summer day, bright and hot and clear blue. Little puffs of clouds were blown toward the River so quickly they frayed; above them, long strips of clouds moved slowly in the opposite direction.
    A pigeon winged down to a balcony. A white cat slept on the balcony in the complete relaxation of a cat in the sun. It flexed itself and, passing in a moment from lassitude to coiled energy, pounced. The bird was quicker and fluttered down to the street. The cat crouched at the very edge of the balcony, watching, its white paw still held out to strike.
    The street was quiet. It was residential and summer and the middle of the week.
    An elderly woman who was pulling a shopping cart stopped to talk to another woman who was sitting on her front steps. Both women wore stocking and black dresses with white collars. They spoke the patois of the bayou country.
    Two teenage girls wearing jeans and message T-shirts – “Peel me pinch me suck me – Louisiana crawfish” and “I may not be perfect but parts of me are excellent!” – sauntered along, ripe and ready but not quite knowing they were looking for it.
    A young man in a dark blue suit strode briskly along. He carried a briefcase, and though not handsome, looked neat and very presentable. The two elderly women looked after him with approval. The two girls did not even glance.
    A young man crossed the street. He was bearded, he wore tight jeans and a T-shirt, but there was still something meticulous about the way he looked. It was that the beard was coifed, there was a glint of gold at the neck and ear, the body was well tended to. Though he was white, he had an afro pick in his hip pocket. Two men ambling together at the other end of the block had the same details of appearance. Beside that, there was something enigmatically the same about the three of them.
    Rock music ripped up the quietness of the street. Their big box was heard before they were seen. A band of black boys came around the corner. In black jeans and white sneakers, their limber legs danced from pure exuberance.
    There was not much traffic on the street. The little green Vieux Carrè bus stopped at the corner and let off a young woman in Indian gear who hooked her finger through a coat hanger and carried a dress for success suit slung down her back, picked up a black cleaning lady who had been lost in the Bible while she waited. A Harley farted down the street. The biker was a wiry old man with cruel lines around his mouth and flat, hard eyes; long grey braids fell below his helmet. So that is what happens to Hell’s Angels when they grow old. A few cars and vans went by.
    A police car turned onto the street and cruised slowly. Suddenly it moved into the curb. The meaning was clear: someone was to be stopped. All the eyes on the street fastened on the car.
    The young man in the suit, still holding his briefcase, started to run. Looking back over his shoulder, he ran toward the corner. His knees pumped high.
    The police car jumped into higher speed and shot ahead, bumped up on the sidewalk, across it from curb to steps. Cut off, the young man raised his hands while the rest of him slumped.
    The two officers, both black, a man and a woman, quickly got out of the car. The male officer slammed the man against the flat wall of a Creole cottage and patted him down while the female officer looked into the briefcase.
    The man was put into the squad car. It backed off the sidewalk and drove away.
    There was nothing about it in the papers the next day.



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