The Crawfish Boil

Parish

Chapter 18: The Crawfish Boil

The VFW hall sits on the west side of Vidalia, on a lot between the highway and the drainage ditch, the hall being a metal building with a concrete floor and a kitchen and a bar and a parking lot that holds eighty cars and that tonight holds a hundred and twelve, the extra thirty-two parked on the grass shoulder along the highway, the grass being the overflow, the overflow being the evidence that the parish has come, the parish arriving in the trucks and the cars and the SUVs that line the highway like a paragraph of vehicles, each vehicle a sentence, each sentence a family, each family a piece of the parish that has come to eat crawfish and to be together, the being-together being the reason, the crawfish being the occasion.

The boil is annual. The first Saturday in June. The date is the tradition, the tradition being the thing that the parish does because the parish has always done it, the always being at least forty years, the forty years being the memory of the oldest members of VFW Post 3814, the members who remember the first boil, which was a pot on a burner in the parking lot and thirty people and fifty pounds of crawfish, and the remembering of the first boil is the measuring of the distance between the first and the now, the now being six hundred pounds of crawfish and three hundred people and six burners and twelve coolers of beer and the band setting up on the flatbed trailer at the far end of the parking lot, the band being three men from Ferriday who play zydeco and country and the thing that happens when zydeco and country meet in the same instruments, the thing being the sound that the parish makes when the parish makes music, the sound that is not one genre but the intersection, the intersection being the parish's particular contribution to the American songbook, which is: the mixing, the blending, the refusal to choose between the accordion and the steel guitar, the refusal being the parish's nature, the parish being the place where the things that should not mix do mix, the mixing being the character.

Clem arrives at 5:30. The boil begins at 5:00 but Clem arrives at 5:30 because Clem is always thirty minutes late to the things that are not emergencies, the thirty minutes being the buffer that the practice requires, the buffer between the last call of the day and the first act of the evening, the buffer that says: I was working. I am always working. The thirty minutes is the transition from the work to the not-work, from the truck to the party, from the vet to the man.

Renee is already there. Renee arrived at 5:00 because Renee arrives when things begin, the arriving-at-the-beginning being the librarian's nature, the nature that says: The event has a start time and the start time is the start. Renee is at a table near the kitchen, sitting with Cecile Broussard from the horse rescue and with Denise LeBlanc who teaches third grade at Vidalia Elementary and who brings her dog to Clem's clinic every February for the annual exam, the annual exam being the connection, the connection being the thread, the thread between the clinic and the classroom and the crawfish boil, the thread being the parish, the parish being the fabric, the fabric being the threads.

The crawfish are in the pots. Six pots on six burners, the pots being the thirty-gallon aluminum pots that the VFW owns and that are stored in the hall's back room for the eleven months of the year when the pots are not in use, the eleven months of rest before the one day of use, the one day being tonight, the pots now full of the water that is boiling with the seasoning — the crab boil, the cayenne, the lemons, the garlic, the onions, the salt, the potatoes, the corn, the sausage, the mushrooms if you are the kind of person who puts mushrooms in a crawfish boil, and some people are and some people are not, and the disagreement about the mushrooms is one of the parish's gentle arguments, the gentle arguments being the things that the parish argues about when the parish is not arguing about the real things, the real things being the river and the levee and the taxes and the roads, the mushrooms being the safe argument, the argument that produces no damage and much pleasure, the pleasure of the disagreement being one of the parish's social fuels.

The crawfish go into the pots. Six hundred pounds of live crawfish, delivered this morning from a farm in Breaux Bridge, the crawfish having traveled from the Atchafalaya Basin to Concordia Parish in a refrigerated truck, the truck carrying the crawfish the way Clem's truck carries the veterinary box, the cargo being the purpose, the purpose being the delivery, the delivery of the thing to the place where the thing is needed, and the crawfish are needed, the crawfish being the sacrament, the sacrament that the parish performs on the first Saturday of June.

The crawfish boil. The smell of the boil is the smell of the gathering, the smell that reaches the highway and the parking lot and the grass shoulder where the overflow cars are parked, the smell that is the cayenne and the crab boil and the garlic and the steam, the steam rising from the six pots and carrying the smell into the evening air, the evening air that is June air, warm and heavy with the humidity that the parish wears like a second skin, the humidity carrying the smell the way the river carries the sediment, the carrying being the distribution, the distribution of the smell across the parking lot and across the highway and across the flat land, the flat land receiving the smell the way it receives the rain and the sun and the heat, openly, without resistance.

Clem walks through the parking lot. He walks the way he walks through the parish, which is slowly, because every third step produces a stop, the stop being the encounter, the encounter being the person who sees Clem and who speaks to Clem and who has a thing to say, the thing being the greeting or the question or the story or the confession, the confession that comes not at the chute or the barn but at the crawfish boil, the crawfish boil being another of the parish's confessional spaces, the spaces where the people are relaxed enough and together enough and fed enough and beered enough to say the things that the daily life does not provide the occasion for saying.

He passes through the crowd like a needle through cloth, threading the fabric, touching each thread. Mrs. Thibodaux from the church, who tells him that her cat, the oldest of the three, is not eating. He nods, files it. Dustin Hebert, the young farmer from the night call, the farmer whose heifer calved in the barn at 2 AM, who tells him the calf is growing well, the growing-well being the outcome, the outcome that the 2 AM drive produced, the outcome that Clem carries in the inventory of outcomes that the practice accumulates, the accumulation being the practice's ledger, the ledger of the alive and the well and the growing.

He passes Raymond Prejean, who runs the feed store on Main Street, the feed store being one of the parish's essential businesses, the business that supplies the feed that the animals eat that the vet keeps healthy, the chain being: feed store to animal to vet, the chain being the economy, the economy being the parish's circulatory system, the system that keeps the blood moving, the blood being the money and the feed and the animals and the care.

Raymond shakes Clem's hand. The handshake is the greeting that the men of the parish use, the handshake that is the contact, the contact that the men permit, the men who do not hug and do not embrace but who shake hands, the shaking being the acceptable touch, the touch that says: I know you. I respect you. The knowing and the respecting conveyed through the grip and the release, the grip being firm and the release being quick, the firmness and the quickness being the handshake's character, the character being: Direct. Practical. Sufficient.

"Clem, when you coming by for that Ivermectin order," Raymond said.

"Tuesday," Clem said.

"I'll have it ready," Raymond said.

The exchange. The transaction disguised as a greeting. The business conducted at the crawfish boil because the business is the relationship and the relationship is the parish and the parish does not separate the business from the social, the social and the business being the same fabric, the same cloth, the same threads running through the same weave.

The crawfish are served. The method is the tradition. The crawfish are dumped from the pots onto the tables — not onto plates, not into bowls, but onto the tables themselves, the tables covered with newspaper, the newspaper being the tablecloth, the tablecloth being the Natchez Democrat from yesterday's edition, the news being the surface on which the food is served, the news and the food being the parish's two consumptions, the consuming of the information and the consuming of the crawfish happening on the same surface, the surface being the table, the table being the gathering point, the gathering being the purpose.

The crawfish steam on the newspaper. The pile is the pile — the red crawfish and the red potatoes and the yellow corn and the sausage sliced on the diagonal and the lemons halved and soft from the boiling, the pile being the abundance, the abundance that the boil produces, the abundance that says: There is enough. There is more than enough. The more-than-enough is the point, the point being the opposite of the scarcity that the parish knows in its daily life, the scarcity of the money and the jobs and the young people who leave, the scarcity that is the parish's weekday condition, the condition reversed on the first Saturday in June, the Saturday when the abundance is the condition, the crawfish being the abundance made edible, the abundance consumed.

Clem sits at the table. He peels crawfish. The peeling is the skill — the twist of the tail from the body, the pinching of the tail's end to release the meat, the sucking of the head for the fat and the seasoning that the head contains, the head-sucking being the act that separates the natives from the visitors, the natives sucking the heads without thought and the visitors watching the natives suck the heads with the expression that says: Are you really doing that? And yes, the natives are really doing that, the doing being the tradition, the tradition being the taste, the taste being the thing, the fat and the cayenne and the garlic concentrated in the head, the head being the reward for the work of the peeling.

Clem peels and eats. His hands, the hands that were inside a cow this morning, the hands that held a syringe this afternoon, the hands that have been the practice's instruments all day, the hands are now the crawfish's instruments, the instruments of the peeling and the eating, the hands doing the social work instead of the veterinary work, the hands in the crawfish instead of in the cow, the hands that are always in something, always working, always holding, the holding being the hands' nature, the nature being: The hands do not rest. The hands work the practice and the hands work the crawfish and the working is the hands, the hands being Clem.

Renee sits beside him. She eats the crawfish with the efficiency that she brings to everything, the peeling quick, the eating methodical, the pile of shells growing beside her plate in the organized arrangement that a librarian's hands produce, the shells sorted by size without conscious effort, the sorting being the reflex, the reflex of a mind that organizes.

People circulate. The circulation is the boil's physics, the people moving around the tables the way the water moves around the pots, the movement being the energy, the energy of the gathering, the gathering producing the circulation, the circulation producing the encounters, the encounters producing the talk, the talk being the thing, the talk being the parish gathered and speaking.

The talk is not the talk of the chute and the barn. The talk at the crawfish boil is the other talk, the social talk, the talk that is not about the animals or the confessions but about the things that the parish talks about when the parish is at ease — the weather and the fishing and the football and the children and the grandchildren and the gossip, the gossip being the parish's information system, the system that is not malicious but that is thorough, the thoroughness being the system's nature, the system transmitting the information about who is doing what and who is with whom and who has left and who has returned, the information being the parish's vital signs, the signs that the parish monitors the way Clem monitors the cow's temperature, the monitoring being the care, the care of the community being the knowing, the knowing being the gossip.

Clem listens. He listens the way he always listens, with the attention, but the attention at the crawfish boil is different from the attention at the barn. The attention at the barn is the professional attention, the attention that receives the confession and holds it. The attention at the crawfish boil is the personal attention, the attention that receives the story and enjoys it, the enjoying being the difference, the difference between the work and the not-work, the not-work being the boil, the boil being the pleasure.

He hears about Beaumont's catfish. Beaumont is at the boil — Beaumont is at every parish event because Beaumont is a man who does not miss the gatherings, the gatherings being the retired teacher's schedule, the schedule that replaces the school year with the parish's social calendar, the social calendar being the retirement's structure. Beaumont tells someone that the catfish are recovering, the Aquaflor working, the bacteria retreating, the fish returning to the bottom where the fish belong. Clem hears this and the hearing is the satisfaction, the satisfaction of the treatment that worked, the satisfaction being the practice's quiet reward, the reward that does not announce itself but that arrives in the overheard conversation, in the passing mention, in the casual report that the fish are better, the better being the evidence.

He hears about Earl's hay. Someone — it might be one of the Fontenot cousins, or it might be a neighbor — mentions that Earl got the hay in before the rain, the getting-in-before-the-rain being one of the parish's annual dramas, the drama of the hay and the weather, the hay needing the dry and the weather not always providing the dry, the providing or the not-providing being the drama, the drama that the parish follows the way other places follow the stock market, with the attention that economic survival requires.

He hears about the deputy. Arceneaux the deputy, not Arceneaux the vet. The deputy's son made the baseball team at the high school. The son being the continuation, the continuation being the parish's investment, the investment in the next generation that the parish makes by staying, by keeping, by raising the children in the place, the place that the children will leave or will not leave, the leaving or the not-leaving being the next generation's choice, the choice that the parish watches the way Clem watches the cow's eye, for the sign, the sign that says: Will this one stay? Will this one carry the parish forward? Will this one be the next vet, the next teacher, the next farmer, the next deputy?

The evening darkens. The sun sets behind the drainage ditch, the setting being gradual, the gold becoming the orange becoming the red becoming the purple, the colors being June's palette, the palette that the parish wears at the end of the day, the wearing being the beauty, the beauty that the crawfish boil does not notice because the crawfish boil is not looking at the sky, the crawfish boil is looking at the table, at the crawfish, at the beer, at the people, the people being the point, the people being the parish, the parish being the gathering.

The band starts. The three men from Ferriday. The accordion and the guitar and the drums. The sound is the sound, the sound that the parish produces when the parish makes music at a crawfish boil on a June evening, the sound that is not polished and not professional but that is the parish's sound, the sound of the place, the sound of the accordion in the humid air and the guitar through the amplifier that buzzes slightly on the low notes and the drums keeping the time that the dancers will dance to, the time being the two-step, the two-step being the dance, the dance being the movement that the music produces in the bodies that the crawfish and the beer have loosened, the loosening being the evening's work, the evening working on the bodies the way the heat works on the land, by relaxing, by releasing, by letting the thing that was tight become the thing that is loose.

People dance. On the concrete, in the parking lot, under the string lights that someone hung from the light poles, the string lights being the decoration, the decoration that transforms the parking lot from a place where cars park into a place where people dance, the transformation being the magic that the gathering performs, the magic of turning the ordinary into the festive, the festive being the parking lot with the lights and the music and the dancing and the crawfish shells on the tables and the beer in the coolers and the night coming on and the parish together.

Clem does not dance. Clem watches. Renee dances — Renee dances with Cecile Broussard, the two women dancing the two-step on the concrete, the dancing being the pleasure that Renee takes from the evening, the pleasure that the librarian takes from the movement, the movement being the body's release from the desk and the shelves and the standing, the release into the music that says: Move. The body moves. The librarian moves. The body that shelves the books moves to the accordion and the guitar and the drums.

Clem watches Renee dance. He watches her the way he watches everything, with the attention, the attention that notices the way she moves — the small steps, the precise movements, the body that is not a dancer's body but that is a body that is dancing, the dancing being the joy, the joy visible in the face that Clem knows better than any face, the face that he has loved for thirty years, the face that is laughing now, laughing at something Cecile said, the laughing being the sound that Clem carries the way he carries the confessions, except that the laughing is light and the confessions are heavy and the light and the heavy are the practice's two weights, the two weights that the parish gives him, the weight of the things that the parish suffers and the weight of the things that the parish enjoys, and both weights are the parish, and both weights are carried, and the carrying is the life.

The evening deepens. The dancing continues. The crawfish are gone — the tables bare except for the newspaper and the shells, the shells being the evidence, the evidence of the consumption, the consumption of the six hundred pounds, the six hundred pounds consumed by the three hundred people, the consuming being the communion, the communion completed.

People drift to the parking lot. The parking lot is where the evening ends, the end being not an ending but a continuation, the continuation being the standing-around that happens after the crawfish are eaten and the dancing is done, the standing-around being the parish's final social act, the act that says: We are not ready to leave. We are not ready to go back to the houses and the farms and the alone. We want to stand here a little longer, in the parking lot, under the string lights that someone hung from the light poles, and tell the stories.

The stories. The parking lot stories. The stories that come after the crawfish and the beer, the stories that the evening's pleasure loosens from the people who carry them, the stories that are not the barn confessions but the other stories, the lighter stories, the funny stories, the stories about the parish's past and the parish's characters and the parish's incidents, the incidents that the parish has accumulated over the generations the way the river accumulates sediment.

Clem stands in the parking lot. He leans against the truck. The truck that is the practice and that is tonight the vehicle that brought him to the boil and that will take him home, the truck being both things, the practice's truck and the man's truck, the truck that carries the box and the truck that carried the man and the wife to the crawfish boil on the first Saturday in June.

Someone tells the story about the time a bull got loose on Main Street. Clem remembers this. The bull was one of the Fontenot bulls, an Angus, 1,800 pounds, the bull having broken through a fence on the south side of town and having walked — not run, walked, the walking being the bull's pace, the bull's tempo, the bull moving through the town with the calm of an animal that does not know it is in the wrong place, the wrong place being Main Street, the right place being the pasture — having walked down Main Street past the feed store and the dollar store and the post office, the bull walking as though the town were a pasture and the storefronts were trees and the parking meters were fence posts, the bull's perception of the world being the bull's perception, the perception that does not recognize the difference between the town and the field because the bull does not recognize the difference, the difference being a human distinction, the distinction between the human space and the animal space, the distinction that the bull did not observe.

The story produces laughter. The laughter is the parking lot's music, the music that replaces the band's music, the laughter of the three hundred people or the fifty who remain, the fifty who are in the parking lot standing in the groups that the evening has produced, the groups being the families and the friends and the neighbors and the acquaintances who have gathered around the trucks and the tailgates and the coolers, the gathering being the boil's last act, the act of the standing-around, the standing-around being the thing.

Clem listens to the stories. He adds his own when the adding is right, when the story calls for the veterinarian's perspective, the perspective being the angle from which Clem saw the thing, the angle being the angle of the man who was there, who is always there, the vet who was called to help catch the bull on Main Street (the catching involved Clem and Arceneaux the deputy and Raymond from the feed store and a rope and a bucket of feed and the patience that the bull required, the patience being the thing that the three men had and that the bull rewarded by following the bucket of feed into the trailer, the following being the resolution, the resolution being the feed, the feed being the thing that the bull understood, the understanding being: Where the food is, I will go).

The night is full. The night is the June night, warm, the warmth being the air's permanent state, the state that does not change when the sun goes down, the sun going down and the temperature dropping from 94 to 82 and the 82 being warm, the warm being the Louisiana night, the night that is not cool but that is less hot, the less-hot being the evening's gift.

The stars are out. The stars above the parking lot, above the VFW hall, above the string lights, the stars being the sky's version of the string lights, the sky decorated the way the parking lot is decorated, with the points of light that say: The night is here. The gathering is ending. The going-home is next.

Clem and Renee drive home. The truck on the highway, the highway quiet at 10 PM, the quiet being the after-boil quiet, the parish having gathered and eaten and danced and talked and stood in the parking lot and told the stories and now going home, the going-home being the dispersal, the dispersal being the scattering of the parish back into the houses and the farms and the alone, the scattering being the opposite of the gathering, the gathering and the scattering being the parish's two movements, the two movements that the calendar produces, the gathering on the first Saturday and the scattering on the Sunday morning.

Renee sleeps in the passenger seat. Her head against the window. Her face in the dashboard light, the face that was laughing an hour ago, the face that was dancing an hour before that, the face now at rest, the rest that the evening earned, the evening of the crawfish and the music and the standing-in-the-parking-lot, the evening that was the parish gathered for pleasure instead of crisis.

Clem drives. The truck carries them home. The truck that carries the practice carries the pleasure. The truck that carries the weight carries the laughter. The truck carries both because the truck is the parish's vehicle and the parish is both, the weight and the laughter, the crisis and the pleasure, the barn at 2 AM and the parking lot at 10 PM, both, always both, the both being the parish, the parish being the thing that Clem serves, the serving being the practice, the practice being the driving, the driving being the carrying, the carrying being the life.

The truck pulls into the driveway on Carter Street. The engine stops. The refrigerated unit hums. Renee wakes. They go inside. The house receives them the way the house always receives them, with the dark and the quiet and the familiar shapes of the rooms and the furniture, the shapes that are the home, the home being the place where the parish's vet and the parish's librarian sleep, the sleeping being the rest, the rest that will end at 4:30 when the clock glows red and the morning begins and the practice resumes.

But that is tomorrow. Tonight is the crawfish boil. Tonight is the parking lot. Tonight is the stories and the laughter and the dancing and the crawfish and the gathering and the parish together under the string lights on the first Saturday in June.

Tonight the parish ate. Tonight the parish laughed. Tonight the parish danced.

Tonight was enough.