“Yes, he was a derrick man.”

As with many Creoles and Cajuns, there was a peculiarity at work in Tee Jolie’s speech. She was ungrammatical and her vocabulary was limited, but because of the cadence in her language and her regional accent, she was always pleasant to listen to, a voice from a gentler and more reserved time, even when what she spoke of was not pleasant to think about, in this case the death of my father, Big Aldous.

“I’m wit’ a man. He’s separated but not divorced. A lot of people know his name. Famous people come to the place where we live. I heard them talking about centralizers. You know what they are?”

“They’re used inside the casing on drilling wells.”

“A bunch of men was killed ’cause maybe not enough of those centralizers was there or somet’ing.”

“I’ve read about that, Tee Jolie. It’s public knowledge. You shouldn’t worry because you know about this.”

“The man I’m wit’ does bidness sometimes with dangerous people.”

“Maybe you should get away from him.”

“We’re gonna be married. I’m gonna have his baby.”

I fixed my gaze on the glass of Dr Pepper and ice that sat on the nightstand.

“You want some more?” she asked.

“Yes, but I can hold it by myself.”

“Except I see the pain in your face when you move,” she said. She lifted the glass and straw to my mouth. “They hurt you real bad, huh, Mr. Dave?”

“They shot me up proper,” I replied.

“They shot your friend Mr. Clete, too?”

“They smacked both of us around. But we left every one of them on the ground. They’re going to be dead for a long time.”

“I’m glad,” she said.

Outside the window, I could hear the rain and wind sweeping through the trees, scattering leaves from the oaks and needles from the slash pines across the roof.