Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler

     Louisiana is full a’ watah, cher. And every bit o’ Louisiana bayou has a bit o’ life in it. Alotta life on the dry part too on account of people being people, and Bon Temps, and what the Bible has to say about murderin’ babies to folk ’round here. 

     I don’t know nonna ‘bout dat, now. I just know about crawfishin’. 

     You gotta give dem crawfish something sweet and meaty. Me? I like brown sugar bacon. Put a hunk in the cage and lower it in. Den you gotta muddy it up with your pole. Make dem bugs think somethin’ going on! Whooo boy! Dey coming now! Dey trapped!

     I know where to find’m too. Look for the swallowtail kites hunting snakes where the marsh reaches dem reedy arms into the swamp. Dat’s where the crawfish are. 

     The Choctaw believed the Great Creator sent these birds. My MawMaw was half-Choctaw. She said dey was messengers flying between the world above and dis one down here. Telling us what needs knowin’.

     Now, I don’t know nonna ‘bout dat, cher. Just dat dem birds know where the bugs are.  I found this fishin’ hole last winter. Two miles from the road, I spied the kites hunting near the swamp’s edge, dey telling me where to look. I walked in, sunk my traps and the crawfish? Whoo dey kept coming. I poked my pole down dere to stir it up, and struck thuddin’ metal. Stirred the mud some more and let the bayou carry the silt away. When the cloudiness cleared, I saw the car.

     No one’s driving no car all the way out here without meaning to. Dey prolly wanted to dump it in the swamp on account of it being broken and no one wantin’ to fix it.

     But the kites were wheelin’ over my head and wailin’ like crying women. Dey musta been delivering God’s messages to me cause I felt the trouble and I could feel MawMaw with me. She was a traiteur with the ear of God and a gift for removing trouble from people. People who needed her healing hands and her doctor’s bag a’ tools. Alotta girls around here with misère needing removing, she said.

     Dat dere nonna my business. Just crawfishin’. And dis heap needed removing out my best crawfishin’ hole. So I called it in.

     I heard dey found two skeletons when dey hoisted dat Corolla out the swamp. One strapped in at the wheel like she know where she going. But maybe she got no place to go. D’other? Just a bébé still inside dat gal’s tummy. I reckon the kites knew where she wanted to go. I reckon dey were telling me but I don’t know nonna ’bout dat.

     I heard she was from Lafourche Parish. Been up dattaway a few times crawfishin’.  Dey got two churches for every quatah mile of highway. And a honkey-tonk for every church. Alotta gals up there getting caught in la guerre between one and d’other.  

     Squeezed a few myself.  

     But I don’t know nonna ‘bout dat. I only know ‘bout the crawfish. 

     Trap ‘em. Boil ‘em. Break ‘em.

     Suck all dat goodness outta dem. 

     Den hunt for more. 

     Delicieux, mon cher.