Chapter 3

THE WAKE

By 1750 hours, Aunt Ethel had managed to get Uncle Louis and me presentable and herded toward the LTD, where Earlene and Placide waited. The evening’s proceedings wouldn’t be easy for any of us, especially for Aunt Ethel and Earlene, the women in Father’s life. At least the ones I knew about. It wouldn’t be a picnic for Placide, either. I knew Aunt Ethel hadn’t had much rest since the morning the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Department came knocking on her door. It didn’t look like either she or Earlene would get much rest for some time, what with out-of-town relatives to entertain and sundry business and legal affairs to tend to. As for Placide, I had plans to keep him busy. While the women in front talked about what lay ahead, I spent my time staring out the side window and planning my strategy for after these obligations were behind us.

I knew a few people of interest would attend the wake in Lafayette: Business associates, suppliers, executives from the oil, drilling, and salt companies, all wanting to pay their last respects, some with lawsuits pending. This would be a good chance to meet some of Father’s business acquaintances, friends and foes alike, maybe excavate a few buried resentments or deals gone awry. I had no idea how to get to the bottom of the alleged suicide, but I remembered Father’s adage: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” That philosophy had brought him untold millions, often against litigious foes. That’s not a man who would take his own life, ever! Suicide is a mortal sin in the Catholic faith, and I vowed to follow Father’s philosophy to save his name and reveal the truth, one bitter bite at a time.

A large crowd of friends, relatives, neighbors, company people, and a host of people I had never seen, began filing in to view the body shortly after those of us in the family had paid our last respects. Ethel stayed beside the coffin longer than the rest of us, saying her Rosary, red-eyed and head bowed, while Placide waited at the chapel door and kept people out until she had her time alone with her baby brother.

Cynic that I am, I guess I wasn’t as pious as I should have been. But I was onto the ulterior motives that lure some people to such somber occasions, with their subtle nods of sympathy, their voices hushed in feigned respect for the departed. I’ve always believed that the purpose of a wake is for family and close friends to share fellowship, show respect for the departed, and reach some kind of closure. Instead, I feared the passing of one of the wealthiest men in Louisiana had morphed into a self-serving social gathering of unfamiliar faces quietly discussing business deals while awaiting their turn to console. To complete the tableau, Father’s passing corresponded with a state election runoff. I think every politician in south Louisiana showed up to shake hands, along with various strata of humanity, including those ne’er-do-wells who came just to associate with members of the upper crust so they could drop names later, back in their home parishes.

The sleazy politicians were the most irritating, of course, pressing palms, kissing squirming little ones, and telling each other and anyone else in earshot how they were dedicated to improving things so that this sort of travesty would never happen under their watch. Hell, Father had undoubtedly voted for most of them, and they hadn’t managed to keep him above ground.

Next were the contractors, auto salesmen, and insurance representatives, all attempting to tap the vast wealth present today. And of course, the bottom-feeding lawyers, the sleazy kind, who chased ambulances and obituaries for a living. My eyes searched individual small gatherings for someone who might shed light on the incident. I pasted on a smile so as not to reveal my cynicism, while I shook hands with the sleaziest, pocketing their cards.

“H. Doucet,” I said, joining one likely-looking group. “Did you folks work with my father?”

“Mais, non. We never knew your daddy, son. But we’re sorry for your loss,” a gravelly-voiced bull of a man said. “We was in the salt mine. Name’s Jack Brouillette,” he told me, leaving his heavy-set middle-aged female companion looking on as he walked over to a real looker in her twenties and put his arm around her waist. “Lost my best friend down there. This here’s his widow, Marlisa Daigrepont.”

This was the Sapphire group with the class-action against Calco Oil and Doucet Drilling, I realized, probably here just to scare up evidence of negligence. Still, it could be beneficial to hear their side of the story.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Ma’am,” I said as I took her hand in both my own. “Looks like we both lost loved ones.”

Before she could respond, Brouilette butted in. “Y’all ought to meet and compare notes.” I couldn’t figure out his motivation for that suggestion, but I knew I wouldn’t be averse to it.

She looked questioningly at Brouillette before she replied, “No, I don’t believe Charles would want…”

Brouillette pulled her aside. “Hell, girl. Give you a chance to get on the inside,” he whispered to her, but loud enough for all to hear.

I deduced that the middle-aged woman glaring arrows his way must be Jack’s wife, so I looked at her and asked, “Ma’am, did you know the man they lost down there?”

“Yes. I knowed him awright. Almost my age,” she said, raising her eyebrows and her chin toward Marlisa as if to point out the age of the young widow in comparison to her deceased husband.

I could still hear Brouilette’s gruff whisper. “Go ahead on, girl. Give the man your number,” he urged as Marlisa still seemed to hold back. “He’s big bucks, you hear me?”

Marlisa finally nodded reluctantly and wrote her number on the back of a business card Jack shoved in her hand. That gave me his contact and hers for future reference. Couldn’t hurt, I thought. I thanked them, repeated my sympathy to her, and pocketed the card. Then, nodding my “Good evening,” I made my escape and continued milling through the feeding-frenzied crowd.

I saw Earlene in a serious conversation with a sleazebag I vaguely recognized. He was one of Father’s business contacts I remembered meeting once years ago. Even in my twenties, I had figured him for a shyster, and the memory stuck. Deslatte, I think his name was. He was giving her some song and dance, but I trusted her to recognize a bullshitter when she saw one. She’d had a good teacher. Father could smell BS a mile away. Rubberneckers who thought they could circumvent her were in for a harsh awakening. As I kept my distance and watched Earlene in action, the old Jim Croce lyrics came to mind: “You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger/And you sure don’t mess around with Earlene.” I’ll ask her about that meeting later, I thought, as I moved on.

I walked over to an older couple looking ill-at-ease against the wall. I wondered what could have brought them. The heavily bearded old Cajun, done up in a suit that had probably not seen the light in the last decade, introduced himself and his wife as Auguste and Angelle Savois. He told me the story of how he and his young grandson had been fishing in the lake that morning. His wife told me the story of how Auguste and Jamie had narrowly escaped being dragged into the enormous pit, weeping now as she said, “Auguste pushed that ole bateau as far as he could through the mud…” Auguste took over and said, “I didn’t do it for me. I done lived my life. But I couldn’t let nothin’ happen to my little grandson, no.” I patted him on the back, and we shared condolences, while Angelle took his hand and looked up at him adoringly through teary eyes. I scribbled down the old man’s number for future reference, thanked them for coming, and excused myself.

By that time, Deslatte had walked away from Earlene, and another man I didn’t recognize had approached, so I walked over to find out who he was. “H,” Earlene said, “This is Marc LeBlanc, our Executive Officer of domestic drilling. Marc, this is Major H. Doucet, Harvey’s son. Marc is one of our most valuable employees, and he’s agreed to take over in Harvey’s place for now.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful news! I’ve wondered if there were any contingency plans for the company. If you have Earlene’s vote of confidence, that’s good enough for me, Marc. I plan to be in close contact with Earlene, so we can stay in touch through her.”

“Nice to meet you, H. I’m so sorry for your loss. Harvey’s death is a great blow to Doucet Drilling. His shoes will be hard to fill, but rest assured, I’ll do my best. I should be in the Lafayette office a good bit, so I’m sure I’ll see you there. And I welcome any advice on taking the reins.”

“I can vouch for Marc in the highest possible terms,” Earlene interjected. “And your father had already set up this contingency, in case anything happened to him, precisely because of his faith in Marc. I’ve been filling him in on recent events, so he’s already up to speed.”

“That’s a great load off my mind, especially since I have a few more years to give to Uncle Sam. Thanks for agreeing to take over, Marc. And thanks for coming today.” We shook hands and I moved on, feeling better about the future of the company.

I approached two men I didn’t recognize in dark business suits and slick comb-overs standing near Auguste and Angelle against the wall, talking seriously between themselves and looking official. Either Feds or New Orleans mob, I figured. Hard to tell. They stopped talking abruptly when I approached them, offering me superficial condolences. Whatever their discussion was about, they weren’t sharing, so I thanked them for coming, excused myself, and moved on to a particularly talkative bunch of various races and hues, clearly blue-collar workers, speaking in Creole. They began filling in some of the missing pieces about the tragedy. Along with the salt miner, eleven of their fellow drilling workers had also met their tragic end in the disaster at Oka Chito Island.

The most vocal of the group introduced himself as Sid Ardoin, a stocky Cajun wearing a suit with sleeves stretched to capacity over the muscles in his arms. He explained that he had been the derrickman responsible for the drill mud operation. “That night,” he said, “…or early morning, I should say, …a clutch burned plumb up. Then, number two pump got stuck, and the load indicator kept on climbing, over four times capacity.” He rolled his head from side to side and looked at the floor.

One of the others took over. Said his name was Eric Arcenaux. “Yep, she started going down, so we got the hell out. But it was too late. Lost us some good men down there. Lord, Lord.” Then he too shook his head and looked down.

A third guy stepped up, called himself Big Joe. “Our crew boat barely made it back to the island against the pull. The current in the canal reversed! Sucked the water right out from under them shrimp boats in the canal and left ‘em settin’ in the mud. I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it.”

Pretty soon the others all started cutting in at one time to add their versions of events, just as Victor made a late entrance with his entourage. I was glad Father wasn’t able to see the painted women surrounding Vic, some in spandex low-cut blouses, looking more like pole dancers than mourners. The men, with slicked-back hair, sporting kilos of gold chains, looked like the cool mafia type, any one of whom could have passed for a hit man. The bile backed up in my throat at the spectacle. Vic interrupted the discussion with the drilling crew and began introducing me to his entourage. Thankfully, Earlene tapped me on the shoulder just then and beckoned me to the front of the chapel. “It’s time to seat everyone for the Rosary, H,” she said quietly. Father was still in charge, I thought with no little satisfaction. I excused myself and followed her to the chapel door.

Earlene and Ethel had chosen an informal service for the wake, fortunately, just some prayers and the reading of a few scriptures. Earlene had specified the small chapel for this service, so that seating could be limited to family and close friends only. No room was set aside for Victor’s friends or the rubberneckers. They could leave or remain in the fellowship hall. Earlene assigned Placide to stand at the door and direct traffic.

A Chopin nocturne played by a local young prodigy tempered the gloom as I found my seat next to Ethel. Few flower arrangements adorned the front of the chapel since Earlene had asked that contributions be made instead to the homeless shelter in Lafayette, Father’s favorite charity. “There but for the grace of God…” I recalled him saying when he spoke of that shelter, where he had always personally bought and helped serve meals over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. And whenever he could, he hired someone out of that shelter for his crew. Some of the men that I had just talked to had undoubtedly come from there. Much as he had ignored me growing up, at least he wasn’t stingy with his money when it came to people in need. A lot of men in his position would just have bought another yacht, but Father never had any use for anything beyond a sturdy bass boat. And he never forgot his own humble roots.

Although the chapel looked barren with those few arrangements and the lone spray of ivory roses Aunt Ethel had chosen for the coffin, Father would have been pleased. Someone had sent two yellow roses in a bud vase that sat next to a picture of Father, its simplicity causing it to stand out over the one or two elaborate arrangements. I made a mental note to find out who had sent it.

Aunt Ethel’s priest from New Iberia conducted the rosary, after which he added a few personal words about how cherished Harvey Doucet had been by all who knew him. I was relieved for Father’s sake that the priest didn’t mention suicide. Next, to everyone’s genuine amazement, or chagrin, Victor got up and delivered a eulogy, a few tears sliding down his cheek as he concluded, “…the most generous and loving father a person could hope for.” Boy, can he turn it on, I thought. A final hymn, a prayer, and fait accompli.

As abruptly as the wake had begun, it was over. But before we made our escape to the car, Victor confronted me and began to broach the subject of the will again. A touching little afterward to his eulogy, I thought. “Look here, big brother, the wake’s over. We need to talk about…”

“I said we would discuss it later,” I interrupted through clenched teeth, then immediately sensed Placide directly behind me. Maybe he had always been there. Had I adopted father’s shadow? I walked with Placide to Father’s car, and Victor turned abruptly to join his unseemly entourage.