Lyndsey knew not the Herculean strength she possessed as the rescue basket swung Loomis groundward on the muddy tarmac strip in Destrehan’s improvised landing. But she caught the bumbling, stumbling object of her affections, preventing further damage to his bruised bones. Loomis’ ego fared better. He’d been through so much he could only mumble “I Put A Spell On You,” by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Lyndsey caught her breath with a tiny impish but imperceptible smile.
Just then our Cajun super pilot, Maurice Febre, placed a grease-stained paw over the shoulder of her slicker. “Ever’ting come out sympatique?”, he growled solicitously.
She turned suddenly and managed a faint pleasantry, “Oh, uh yes, except-”
“‘Ceptin’ what, Lyndsey,” Loomis broke in, unprompted. Lyndsey tightened, not wishing to remind either man how close that split shagbark tree stump came to spearing their craft as they were gaining altitude due west northwest of the Goofer-Dust shack!
Cap’n Febre tactfully (for ‘heem’) changed subjects with a jolly croak, “Hey galz et boyz, my stummick set to callin’ me name,” and beckoned broadly to a sway-backed structure covered with rusty Jax beer, Coke, and Double-Cola signs, which had blended into the corroded tin walls nicely.
A screen door flew open, and an immense bearded Gypsy, Frankie Daro, welcomed the trio in, boisterously upbeat, in a flagrant effort to conceal his join’t dearth of business.
“Welcome, welcome, friends to the heh-heh, World Famous, RUTA’S CAFE!”
Lyndsey sat them down, snuggling fairly close to Loomis. As Frankie and his sullen-looking son clattered plates and thwacked bottles of water in front of the guests, Lyndsey tried to keep a grip on this most fluid situation.
“Where would your cousin, did you say, Loomis- where did he or she reside, here? In Destrehan?”
Loomis rubbed his eyes. “I’m not so sure, Sis, maybe we should ride on over to Buras. That’s a town where–”
Lyndsey raised her hand like a sexy traffic cop. “Hold it. What sort of nonesense are you pulling, Mister Reader?”
Loomis drifted out once again. “Y’know, I’m seein’ a little brick an’ grassy yard fenced in iron, and it was a place called Foggy, or F-froggy Bottom..”
Lyndsey blanched, her lips frozen in an “O”, as in “Ohhh-but I know where Foggy Bottom is. That’s impossible– it’s in Washington DC!!”
Frankie Daro stared intently at Loomis and Lyndsey. Febre had stomped off, desperate to find the FEMA trailer those two were supposed to bunk in for now. Loomis started humming, cryptically, and you could barely hear the words,”I ain’t got a mutha, No sister or Brutha; I’m jus’ a lonely Frog, a lookin’ for a home…
Whoo-oo-oowhoo,hoo-hoo-hooWHOOAHHH…”
Frankie leaned over and handed a huge trencher of the crawfish dish to Lyndsey. Gravely, he told her, “Dis is some serious Gadjo, I mean you and the boy. Be extem’ly CAREFUL. Eat dis feast, cos you need BIG PROTECK’SHN!!! More I cannot tell you, but I’ll put the All Seein’ Eye out for whereever you be goin’!
(To be continued)
