Robicheaux (Dave Robicheaux #21)

by James Lee Burke

Mortality is not kind, and do not let anyone tell you it is. If there is such a thing as wisdom, and I have serious doubts about its presence in my own life, it lies in the acceptance of the human condition and perhaps the knowledge that those who have passed on are still with us, out there in the mist, showing us the way, sometimes uttering a word of caution from the shadows, sometimes visiting us in our sleep, as bright as a candle burning inside a basement that has no windows.

These thoughts robbed the light from my eyes, the birdsong from the trees, the sound of children playing in a park. Instead of the glory of the sunset, I saw beer cans and Styrofoam cups undulating in the shallows, a rubber tire submerged among the willows, a blanket of debris caught in the cattails, as viscous as dried paint skimmed off the top of a paint bucket.

Any cop who is honest will tell you there are police officers in our midst who never should have been given power over others. Misogamy is a big part of their makeup. Sexual perversity as well. I’ve known both male and female vice cops who have the psychological makeup of degenerates and closet sadists. I’ve also known gunbulls who would have had no problem working in Dachau. That we protect them is beyond my comprehension. The hundreds of cops and firemen who went into the Towers on 9/11 knew they probably would not come out. What are the limits of human courage? The cops and firemen who walked into stairwells that were not stairwells but chimneys filled with flame and smoke, proved that the human spirit is unconquerable, and it is these men and women who define what is best in us.

“Confederates are the new Nazis.

I disliked people who thought war was a glorious endeavor, and I disliked those who enjoyed talking about it. I despised those who had not seen war yet espoused it and lived vicariously through the suffering of others and never gave a thought to the civilians and children who died in burn wards or were buried under collapsed buildings.

I LOVE THE rain, whether it’s a tropical one or one that falls on you in the dead of winter. For me, rain is the natural world’s absolution, like the story of the Flood and new beginnings and loading the animals two by two onto the Ark. I love the mist hanging in the trees, a hint of wraiths that would not let heavy stones weigh them down in their graves, the raindrops clicking on the lily pads, the fish rising as though in celebration.

If anyone tells you he’s from New Orleans and doesn’t drink, he’s probably not from New Orleans. Louisiana is not a state; it’s an outdoor mental asylum in which millions of people stay bombed most of their lives. That’s not an exaggeration. Cirrhosis is a family heirloom.

“Fuck it” is not profanity. “Fuck it” is a sonnet.

His father the milkman had taught Clete to hate himself, and Clete had spent a lifetime trying to unlearn the lesson.

Clete never spoke to others of the private universe in which he lived; nor did he share his belief that the world was mad, that most politicians were liars who served the interests of corporations, that populists were con artists, and that the poor were kept poor and uneducated as long as possible.