Bob Hamm

THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION AND FIREWORKS DISPLAY

AT GABOON ARCENEAUX'S RENT HOUSE

I was sitting in Gaboon Arcenaux's Bar, Boat Landing and Bait Shop, Incorporated when three car-loads of sheriff's deputies rolled down off the levee and pulled around behind the building, parking on the swamp side where you put your boat into Henderson Lake. They couldn't be seen from the levee road back there, so I knew they were laying for somebody.

"Who they after?" I asked Gaboon.

"You know that dago, Kahlil?"

"The little fellow living in your rent house across the levee?" I asked.

"Him."

I said I knew him. I also knew he was Lebanese, but to Gaboon, anyone not cajun, redneck or black was a dago.

"Why they after him?" I asked.

"You know what he do for a living, him?"

I nodded. "I hear you can contract with him for a building to burn down accidentally."

"That," Gaboon said, "is what he do."

"They gonna arrest him for burning something down?"

Gaboon nodded affirmatively. "Soon as he do it."

Kahlil had a reputation for doing well in his chosen profession, but being fairly new to the English language and constantly befuddled by the unique usage of it among South Louisiana's Cajuns, he sometimes got his signals crossed. Like the time Neg Barras wanted his restaurant to catch fire at two o'clock in the morning when it was closed and empty, but it somehow burst into flames at two o'clock in the afternoon when remnants of the lunch crowd were sipping their coffee.

Nobody got hurt and nobody got arrested, and those who had seen the slight, dark-skinned fellow happily splashing the building with a liquid from a red metal can never mentioned it to law enforcement officials.

Neg paid for the job anyway, because he knew that Kahlil knew that he lived in a frame house...and that Kahlil knew where it was.

Anyhow, the deputies climbed out of the cars and went sort of tippy- toe over to a little storage building at the corner of the lot that they could hide behind and peek around the corner at Gaboon's little rent house.

Here's the way it was laid out, so you can get a better picture of what was going on: the Atchafalaya Guide Levee runs down through the Atchafalaya Basin, this country's largest riverbottom swamp. On each side of the levee, sloping down to the water, is a strip of land they call the "berm." That belongs to the government, but you can put a camp or a home on it without paying any money. Only thing is, if the Corps of Engineers decides to rework that portion of the levee, they notify you to get the hell out, and you get the hell out, even if you've lived there twenty years and made a lot of improvements and planted a garden, or even opened a little bar or grocery store or boat landing.

Gaboon Arceneaux's Bar & Boat Landing & Bait Shop, Incorporated was on one side of the levee and his little rent house sat on the opposite berm. A gravel road runs down the middle of the levee, and you can drive it from Interstate Ten near Lafayette all the way to the Gulf of Mexico if you want to.

So the deputies were ganged up behind the storage shed, and one of them was peeking around the corner, watching Gaboon's little house.

"He gonna burn your rent house?" I asked Gaboon.

"Yeah. He's pissed off at me because I won't give him no more creddick. I told him he don't buy nothing else on creddick until he pay what he owe me, him."

"And he told you he was gonna burn your house down?"

"He ain't told me nothing. But that's what he do. I went over there maybe a hour ago and it smell gasoline everywhere. He got it soaked. Pretty soon he gonna come throw the match, and them deputies gonna bust his ass."

Pretty soon was right. Before I finished my beer, Kahlil's old Chrysler New Yorker came barreling out of the dust on the levee road. But instead of turning left to the little rent house, he wheeled the big car into Gaboon's parking lot and pulled around behind the building. Damned if he didn't park right next to one of the sheriff's cars.

It was obvious the deputies didn't realize who was driving the big sedan. They were still bunched up behind the storage building, and the lookout was peering steadily at the rent house.

We watched Kahlil climb out the car--Gaboon's place is screened all the way around so we could see in all directions--and walk directly over to the crowd behind the tool shed. He approached with his usual happy stride and innocent grin, and moved right up to stand behind the lookout...assuming an identical pose and gazing intently at the house they were waiting for him to torch.

We were able to detect the first signs of recognition. All the deputies were engaged in quietly animated conversation when one of them stopped in mid-sentence and mid-gesture and stared with a look of disbelief at the newcomer. He stared for about thirty seconds before he elbowed the deputy next to him and whispered something out of the corner of this mouth. They all stopped talking and looked with obvious fascination at Kahlil, who was looking with obvious fascination at the rent house.

The deputies looked at him for a long time. Then they looked at each other for a long time.

"Son of a bitch," Gaboon said. "He ain't gonna throw the match now. Them deputies might as well get in their cars and go the hell on because he...what the hell was that?

Hell had broken loose in the little house across the levee. Bam! Bam! Bam! Sounds like shotgun blasts came first...rapid fire...like a lot of hunters shooting at the same time. Then the damndest noise, like giant firecrackers, bottle rockets, roman candles...exploding, whistling, screeching. Then the fire came. You could see it through the windows, starting everywhere at once. It raced up the walls and tore right out through the flimsy shingled roof. And as the fire poked holes in the roof, fireworks came shooting out, creating a glorious spectacle, even in the light of day. It was a truly wonderful display of sight and sound.

Gaboon and I ran outside to watch. People started popping out of camps, shacks and bait shops along the levee. There were a lot of whoops and yells as the fireworks spectacular blazed on. The family at the house next door began applauding enthusiastically, and the next house picked it up and pretty soon you could hear joyful sounds of approval ringing through the swamp. The levee people love a good show. Gaboon even gave it a few claps.

They took Kahlil into the St. Martin Jail, but they couldn't hold him, because he could prove where he was when the fire broke out. And the state police lab people who came in could find no sign of a timing device or anything that might have permitted him to start it by remote control. He was out of jail within 24 hours, but he never came back to the swamp. I heard he move to Baton Rouge where the property values are higher. If he had returned, he would have been sort of a folk hero on the levee. Folks in the swamp don't get to see things like the great conflagration and fireworks display at Gaboon Arceneaux's rent house very often. And they truly admire someone who could pull something like that off while standing a hundred feet away in the middle of a pack of deputy sheriffs.

Very few people ever learned how he did it. I didn't learn the true story until one day when I ran into Tee Joe Bourgeois in a bar in Lafayette. Tee Joe was one of the handful of people born and raised in the swamp who left for greener pastures and found them. He was a prosperous businessman, with a seafood processing plant, a couple of shrimp boats and a whorehouse.

We were drinking Little Millers and talking horse racing when Tee Joe put his can down and laid his huge hand on my shoulder. "You don't know how the dago done that, no?"

I knew what he was referring to. "I truly don't," I said.

"Well, he didn't think it up by hisself, no."

"Anybody I know help him?," I asked.

"That well might be." He lifted his beer can, and I had the terrible feeling that he considered the conversation closed.

"Wait." I almost shouted it. "Was Kahlil a friend of yours?"

"We might have been acquainted. I might have even felt like I owed him a favor. Tu compron?"

"He did something for you?"

"I never hired him for nothing, no."

"But he did something helpful for you."

"He did a service to the community."

"What? Dammit, tell me the story."

"Well, I remember mentioning to him that there was a new whorehouse in town and that the girls were not--how you say--safe to be with. They was girls I had run off from my place because they was doing tricks on the side--taking on bums, and maybe catching some disease."

"A threat to the health and wellbeing of the whole town," I suggested.

"A definite threat."

"When did you mention that to Kahlil?"

"As best I remember, it was Christmas Eve two years ago at Tee-Tan's Bar in Gueydan."

I let that run through my head. "Christmas Eve of 1968," I said. The fire at Eraste Benoit's Place was New Year's Day, 1969."

He raised his beer can and studied the label. "Something like that," he said.

"Wait. Let's suppose Kahlil did something good for the community, and someone felt kindly toward him. Somebody very intelligent and creative. Somebody who could come up with a plan to burn a house down in front of an army of deputy sheriffs...without anybody being able to figure out how it was done...or to prove who did it."

He was still studying the label on the beer can. "You can suppose any thing you want to," he said, and tilted the beer can to his lips.

I was becoming very agitated. "What kind of a plan do you suppose somebody who felt kindly toward Kahlil for saving Southwest Louisiana from a venereal plague would have come up with?" I asked.

"You really want to know that?"

"Come on, Tee Joe. Dammit. How was it done?"

He looked around to be sure no one would be privy to the conversation, then he put his lips close to my ear.

"Crabs," he whispered, with a note of pride and satisfaction in his voice. He threw a bill on the bar and rose to leave. I grabbed his arm with both hands. I considered throwing a leg lock on him.

"What the hell is that? What the hell does 'crabs' mean? Sit down, dammit."

Tee Joe sighed and sat resignedly on the stool. "Well," he said, "because I like the little dago, I gave him a small gift. In fact, I gave it on the day Gaboon's house catch fire. It was a case of shotgun shells, a case of big firecrackers, a case of roman candles and bottle rockets and some other fireworks stuff, a dozen frozen crabs and a dozen long candles."

"Crabs and candles? Crabs and candles? Why? What did crabs and candles have to do with Gaboon's rent house and the fire?"

Tee Joe turned to Johnny Latiolais on the next stool. "Johnny, my man," he said, "run to my plant and get me one of them quick-froze crabs. Tell 'em its for me." He signaled for the bartender. "Hand me one of them long candles you keep for when the lights go out."

A red tapered candle, about 15 inches long, was produced from under the bar.

Johnny was back in a few minutes with the frozen crab. Tee Joe sat it on the bar and ordered another round. He ignored the crab. I watched it with fascination. It began to thaw.

I was about to explode with curiosity when he picked up the candle and lit it. He held it over the crab and let the wax drip onto the shell. When a puddle had formed, he set the candle in place on the crab's back. The candle burned slowly. The crab was thawing rapidly.

"You remember the gift I gave Kahlil?" Tee Joe asked me.

"Yeah," I answered. "Fireworks, shotgun shells. Crabs. Candles."

"Pass a good day," Tee Joe said, and sauntered casually out the door.

I watched the crab. The candle on its back burned and the crab thawed. When the crab began to twitch, I thought at first it was the beer making me see things. But it twitched some more. It began to move. The damn thing was thawing out and it was still alive.

I watched the lighted candle begin to move slowly down the bar. And the light that dawned in my head illuminated a perfect picture of twelve such torches, inching crab-like toward the gasoline-soaked furniture and drapes in Gaboon Arceneaux's little rent house.