The nurse pulled onto the outer road parallel to the interstate. The blue friendliness of the St. Luke’s sign radiated faintly in the dawn light as he accelerated before the red admonition of the emergency sign took over his view. He clicked off the malfunctioning turn signal. The morning traffic was light, almost nonexistent. He waited until he had reached forty-five miles an hour to remove his skull-and-bones do-rag, the first phase of his elaborate post-work ritual . . .
Late one afternoon, Hazel and I were strolling around the Garrison Savannah, when a little voice called out my name: “Fernando.” When I saw who it was, I was mortified . . .
I woke up feeling cold this morning and the clouds were fighting their way in between the bedroom blinds that were left open in the middle of the night. I found my body naked and bent and I thought about Nicole duFresne and her star quality blonde hair and blue eyes and perfect teeth and I wondered how her hair and face and body fell onto the concrete ground on Rivington Street after she was shot in the chest by that nineteen-year-old boy . . .
He sold the Ludington townhouse at a loss, bought the cabin east of Manistee for a steal. Bankruptcy. Someone’s loss, his gain. He was a wheeler-dealer. Also a ladies’ man. When women discovered he was single, they pouted their lips, batted their eyes . . .
The doing didn’t take long to get done. It was a hot night at the end of October, just at the time in Brisbane when the jacaranda have almost all fallen to the ground and the frangipani are blossoming on the trees. Frankie and Johnnie were spread around the deck of the small house that she rented in Annerley. 10 pm on Friday night and they hadn’t made it out . . .
Read part six of DARK DAYS IN PORT-AU-PRINCE, our Haiti-set noir short story that was written by Haiti Noir and Haiti Noir 2: The Classics contributors in the style of an exquisite corpse, a collaborative writing process in which each author builds a story based upon what his or her predecessors have provided. Haiti Noir 2: The Classics contributor Roxane Gay returns to finish this haunting short story.
