I’m Just Saying
by Tom Andes
Seventy-eight degrees, Remy thought. It was 78 degrees at the Fall Fête, and Donald had shown up for the gig in head to toe black, Levi’s and a thrift store suitcoat, with white Doc Martens, like a total psycho.
“Carpetbagging freak,” Remy said, and Donald turned his head.
“What did you say?” Donald said.
He had a Ziploc with what looked like cinnamon rolls, cream cheese frosting smeared around the inside of the baggie.
“Are those cinnamon rolls?” Remy said.
They were playing a fundraiser for the Audubon charter PTO, and Remy was regretting calling Donald for the gig. But Donald had two virtues as a bass player, enthusiasm and availability. And sometimes those trumped the fact he thought he knew better than anyone else and played 65 percent of the right notes.
“Because I could’ve sworn that I heard you call me a carpetbagger,” Donald said, “and I think you should consider the fact that word might have upsetting historical valence to people, especially around here.”
“What do you care about the Civil War?” Remy said. “You’re from California.”
Donald moved closer, brushing into Remy’s personal space, skull rings on his fingers, sweat trailing from his slicked black hair in a way that made Remy think of Rudy Giuliani’s infamous hair dye gaffe, like the dude might melt, pasty white as he was, like that cream cheese frosting smeared all over his Ziploc. “Racism affects all of us, man.”
“I want to know,” Remy said, “why you’re bringing cinnamon rolls to a gig. You need to take it down a notch. You’re going to scare the children.”
“If you must know,” Donald said, “my old lady made these, and they’re entirely, one hundred percent vegan.” He leaned closer, like he was letting Remy in on a secret, maybe a dirty one. “Even the cream cheese, buddy, is vegan.”
The way he said it, cream cheese might’ve been a what did you call it, euphemism, but for what? God forbid, for something Donald and his old lady did in bed together, for something sexual. Something Remy never needed to know about.
“My old lady,” Donald said, “makes the best cinnamon rolls, and she has the best cream cheese frosting.”
And he blew Remy a chef’s kiss.
“You’re still a carpetbagger,” Remy said, “for wearing all black, for wearing jeans to an outdoor gig in the middle of the day when it’s 80 degrees out.”
“I’m sorry.” Donald was shaking his head. “I didn’t realize there was a dress code. And you really shouldn’t use that word.”
“You’re not even from here,” Remy said. “You don’t get to tell me not to use that word. What do you know about how things are around here?”
“You didn’t grow up here,” Donald said, “either.”
“My family’s from Thibodaux,” Remy said. “I went to Brother Martin.”
And Donald shrugged.
“Well,” he said, “you’re still white, so you’re still a colonist, which means you’re not really from here, not any more than I am.”
“And wait a minute.” Remy was laughing. “Is Alissa a vegan now?”
“Maybe you’re upset,” Donald said, and he was pointing at Remy, poking his chest with the grubby tip of an index finger, “that my old lady used to be your old lady, which means she’s not your old lady anymore because she’s mine now.”
“Old lady?” Remy said. If anything, it served Alissa right that she’d ended up with a guy who called her his old lady. “Do you call her that to her face?”
“We never keep secrets between us,” Donald said. “Anything I say to you now, I’d say if she was standing right here. On my word.”
“On your word?” Remy said.
“On my word,” Donald said.
“We’ll see about that,” Remy said.
###
When he found Alissa, she was standing by the concession stand in a white sunhat, cashing in her drinks tickets for an extra-large cold brew with oat milk.
“I was just talking,” Remy said, “to your old man.”
“Old man?” Alissa made a face. She was flushed, splotches of red, a film of sweat on her forehead in the sun. She looked like a fainting violet, like she should’ve been sipping a mint julep on the porch of one of the plantation houses on St. Charles while domestic servants fanned her with palm leaves, so who would’ve thought she was the pampered eldest child of a federal judge and a tax attorney from Glendale, California?
“Old man,” Remy said. “Isn’t that what you call him?”
“Old man,” Alissa repeated. She looked like she might’ve swooned, like she might’ve gagged, too.
“Are you hungover?” Remy said.
“I don’t call him my old man,” Alissa said, “because it’s not 1974, and this isn’t the Archie Bunker Show.”
“It was All in the Family,” Remy said.
“What?” Alissa said.
“The name of the show,” Remy said. “People think it was the Archie Bunker Show because he was like the main character or whatever, but the name of the show was All in the Family.”
Alissa was looking at him like he’d sprouted antlers.
“You’re deteriorating,” she said. “You don’t know it, but you’re getting worse.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Remy said, “you are hungover.”
“That bitch at the club,” Alissa said, “I asked her for a double, and she poured me like sixteen ounces of tequila.”
“And forced you to drink all of it,” Remy said.
“Yes,” Alissa said. She was stirring oat milk into her drink, stabbing the chunks of ice with her straw, and she sipped. “She forced me to drink all of it. What are you laughing at, anyway?”
“Nothing,” Remy said. “It’s nothing. I mean, I just—but, well, it’s nothing.”
People were sitting at picnic tables eating barbecue, and Remy was beginning to think everyone he knew must’ve had kids in an Audubon school. They’d never wanted kids, and that had been about the only thing he and Alissa agreed about.
“Tell me.” Alissa folded her arms, finger waved to somebody at one of those tables.
“It’s not a big deal,” Remy said. “It’s just that earlier, I could’ve sworn I heard Donald call you his old lady.”
“You could’ve sworn?” Alissa said.
“Could’ve sworn,” Remy said, “yes.”
“I know what you’re trying to do,” Alissa said, stabbing the ice in her cup with a decisive thrust of her straw.
“I’m just saying,” he said.
“Are you talking to anybody,” Alissa said, “like, professionally?” She’d flipped her sunglasses down, and a film of sweat was on her upper lip. She’d been on him to see a therapist, all the wonders therapy had done for her, but that was one more thing he didn’t have to worry about now.
“Any luck on the house?” Remy said.
In lieu of kids, they’d had Alissa’s Pomeranians, Salt and Pepa, and they’d renovated a house together Uptown near what had once been Palmer Park but had been renamed along with a bunch of streets once named for dead Confederates.
“No,” Alissa said. “I haven’t had any luck on the house. The market’s even worse here than it is in the rest of the country. Nobody wants to live in New Orleans, anyway, they don’t want to buy here.”
“Also,” Remy said, “are you vegan now?”
Somehow that felt like a greater betrayal than the divorce, greater even than hooking up with Donald, Remy’s bass player and one-time best friend.
“I don’t know.” Alissa made a face. “Donald’s into it, but I chip. I sneak a slice of bacon every now and then.”
“Good to know,” Remy said.
“You won’t say anything, will you?” She touched his arm.
“Of course not,” Remy said.
###
Onstage, a bunch of fifth graders were singing “Mardi Gras Mambo.” Remy knew the bandleader, had gigged with him around town a couple times, but he was one of those guys who was a giant in the New Orleans music scene but had a chip on his shoulder, who still had a day job teaching fifth graders at a charter school. Like he thought he was Mick Jagger or something.
“Can you still eat bacon,” Remy said, “if you’re vegan?”
“Bacon?” Donald made a face like Remy had farted in a cup and pressed it to his nose. He was chowing down one of those cinnamon rolls, the frosting gooey and white, melting in the heat, and he licked his fingers. “No, you can’t eat bacon. What are you even talking about? That defeats the whole point of being vegan, eating bacon, doesn’t it?”
“I was just asking,” Remy said.
“I guess if it was vegan bacon,” Donald said. “Then sure, you could eat bacon. Why? Are you considering giving up pig intestine or roadkill or whatever it is you people eat?”
“That must’ve been what she was talking about,” Remy said, “vegan bacon.”
“I mean, what part of no animal products don’t you understand?” Donald was wiping his fingers on his jeans.
“Yeah,” Remy said, “I’m sure she was talking about vegan bacon.”
Across the playground, Alissa had found a patch of shade. She was still wearing those funky, green-rimmed sunglasses, so Remy couldn’t tell whether she was watching them or the band. Onstage, the kids had moved on to “Little Liza Jane.” The bandleader was stealing the show, soloing on the piano with his vocals turned up in the monitor wedges, singing over the kids.
“She?” Donald said.
“You people?” Remy said.
“It’s okay to be racist against Cajuns,” Donald said, “because they’re white, and they all voted for you-know-who.”
“Oh, okay,” Remy said, “I didn’t realize those were the rules. That must be like eating bacon when you’re vegan, one of those things that’s sometimes not against the rules, but sometimes it is.”
“What is it,” Donald said, “with you and the bacon?”
“I don’t know,” Remy said. “I’m not the one who’s chipping, eating bacon and saying I’m vegan.”
“I feel like you’re trying to tell me something,” Donald said.
He was still holding that bag, the inside smeared with gooey white frosting. Remy reached under his ballcap, feeling his bald spot for the scab he’d been picking the other night, what might’ve been a pimple, an ingrown hair, or skin cancer. That’s how it was at his age: once you hit 40, everything was a minor inconvenience or potentially fatal, either a zit or it might kill you.
“I’m just saying,” Remy said, “that sometimes people aren’t who they say they are.”
“I know what you’re trying to do,” Donald said.
“You look like a kid,” Remy said, “whose mom packed his lunch.”
“You’re jealous,” Donald said, “that she never made cinnamon rolls with vegan cream cheese frosting for you.”
###
By the time the kids finished singing, it was 45 minutes past Remy’s scheduled start time.
“Great set,” he said to the bandleader as the guy was getting off stage, the guy squinting, cocking his head, giving Remy a look like he couldn’t place him.
“Thanks,” the guy said, a dead fish handshake, and he walked away.
“Prick,” Remy said, coughing into his fist, in case one of the kids heard.
Remy tuned his guitar, a gold Les Paul Standard with a flame top and a white pickguard that his Cajun uncle had given him. Remy’s uncle had gigged in bands up and down the Gulf Coast, that side of the family deep into the Sicilian jazz scene that had been big here a century ago.
Now it was all what, white kids from out of town who were learning how to Cajun dance, dudes who’d showed up last year pretending they were deep into the culture, passing judgment on everything. Guys whose idea of roots was vegan gumbo and a Social Distortion record.
He’d frontloaded the set with waltzes and two-steps. Donald could keep up, doing his root-fifth thing. But halfway through the second song, Donald got too into it, like an overexcited puppy piddling on the floor, and he stomped on his cord, unplugging himself. He took a gainer, falling backwards over his Rumble bass amp.
It took the guy half a verse to realize no sound was coming out of his amplifier and another half of a verse and a refrain to plug himself back in.
“Let’s hear it for the band,” Remy said, when they’d finished the song. “Especially the guy over here on bass acrobatics.”
From the crowd came scattered whoops and applause. Alissa was standing in the shade of one of the monitor towers, scowling at him, ice melting into the dregs of her coffee.
“This guy used to be in The Clash,” Remy said, “but they broke up, so now he gigs around town with us.”
Down front the sound guy was signaling him, telling him they had two more songs. They’d cut everyone’s set, trying to get the show back on time.
“I’m pretty sure that last guy,” Remy said, “got his 45 minutes.”
“Play the next song,” Donald said.
“Who’s in charge up here,” Remy said, “anyway?”
Donald started counting.
“This song is a waltz,” Remy said into the microphone, ignoring the band, which clattered to a stop like cars piling up in a traffic jam behind him. “That means you can dance to it, even if you can’t dance, because it’s as simple as counting to three.”
“This one is for the kids,” Donald said into his mic.
“Thanks for being here,” Remy said, “for coming out today.”
“Everybody get home safe,” Donald said.
“Just count,” Remy said, “the damn song already.”
But Donald counted four instead of three.
###
“What’s the big idea,” Alissa said, “telling Donald I’ve been chipping, that I’ve been eating bacon?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Remy said. “I never told him you were doing anything.”
And that was true. He hadn’t ratted her out, not in so many words. He’d only what was the word, implied it, leaving it to Donald to infer it—or was that the other way around?
“Snitches,” Alissa said, leaning close to him, shaking a finger in his face, with sweat trailing down the divot between her collarbones, “get stitches.”
“Are you threatening me?” Remy said. “Please. You’re the whitest woman I know.”
Alissa was the kind of person who still engaged in debates about whether hip-hop was music. Had the tuner set in her car to B97 and unironically dug Taylor Swift, whose big pop sound she emulated in her band.
“Are you calling me a Karen?” Alissa recoiled, snakebit. It was funny how that had become the worst thing you could say to someone, to a white woman, anyway.
“I’m only telling you,” Remy said, “that you’re too white to be talking about snitches and making threats like you’re going to pop a cap in me.”
“Pop a cap?” Alissa winkled her nose. “Also, what are you trying to say? Are you trying to say white people don’t shoot people, too?”
“I’m not trying to say anything,” Remy said. “Why does everybody always think I’m trying to say something?”
“Maybe,” Alissa said, “it’s because you are always trying to say something.”
She was leaning down to get in his face. She was 5’10”, a couple inches taller than he was, which didn’t bother him, except when it did.
“I think I have cancer,” Remy said. His stomach was upset, but he couldn’t think from what, couldn’t remember what he’d eaten last night. He’d had a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. His doctor was on him about his cholesterol. What else could he do?
Alissa looked stricken. “Cancer?” She was shaking her head. For a moment, she might’ve evinced actual concern for him. “No,” she said, “no. Don’t even start with that. Cancer?” She laughed. “Please.”
“I’m serious,” Remy said, “as a heart attack.”
“Now that,” Alissa said, “I’d believe. A heart attack, maybe. But cancer, just please, no.”
“I’m not shitting you,” Remy said, and he took off his ballcap, feeling the crown of his head for that scab he’d been picking at last night.
“High blood pressure,” Alissa said, ticking off maladies on her fingers, “maybe a stroke, or diabetes or a liver disorder, sure. But cancer? You’re not even 50.”
“This is the age,” Remy said, “when people start dropping. Seriously, ask anyone. If you make it through your late 40s, half your friends will be gone because they start dying like flies.”
“Why,” Alissa said, “do you think you have cancer?”
She was saying it loudly, like the people around them might hear, and they, too, would take Remy to task for his hypochondriac tendencies and his overall bent toward melodrama.
“Here,” Remy said, “look.” He was inclining his head toward her, feeling for that spot he’d picked at last night until it bled, the scab he’d been worrying at only an hour ago.
“What am I supposed to be looking for?” Alissa said. She had on a pair of red Keds. She’d always had good shoe game, and he had to give her that.
“Can’t you see it?” he said.
“See what,” Alissa said, “your bald spot? Just because you’re losing your hair doesn’t mean you have cancer.”
“No,” Remy said, “not my bald spot. Right in the middle of my head, I mean, there’s this thing that feels like a zit, and it was bleeding all last night when I picked it.”
“Maybe it’s a zit,” Alissa said, “and maybe you shouldn’t pick it.”
“I’ve read about this online,” Remy said. “It always comes back in the same place, and anyway, that’s supposed to be the most vulnerable spot on a man’s head.”
“What the actual fuck,” Alissa said, “are you talking about?”
“Just touch it,” Remy said.
And he grabbed her hand, rubbing her fingers against the crown of his head.
“Okay,” Alissa said, “this is weird.”
But she kept moving the tips of her fingers in small circles around his scalp, as if she were tracing the pattern of the hair he’d once had. Her fingertips were cool, waxy, and she smelled fruity, like she’d been chewing Hubba-Bubba or splashed pina colada mix on her neck.
“Can you feel it?” Remy said.
“You have a liver spot,” Alissa said, “but that’s because you’re old.”
“How come you never made cinnamon rolls,” Remy said, “with cream cheese frosting. How come you never baked anything for me?”
“Please,” Alissa said. “Is that what this is about?”
But it was true. He’d done their cooking, gumbos, steaks, salads, and she hadn’t lifted a finger in the kitchen, not even to clean it, never mind to bake something.
“I’m just saying,” Remy said, still addressing her shoes, “it would’ve been nice if you’d taken care of me for once. It’s not easy being the one who takes care of things.”
Above him, Alissa let out a great, indignant whoop.
“You took care of me?” she said, again raising her voice, like she might enlist the support of the people around them, the parents and children of the Audubon charter school system, to testify, to bear witness to the idiocy of her ex-husband. “That’s rich. Tell me another one.”
“What’re you doing,” Donald’s voice said, “checking him for head lice?”
The guy’s white Doc Martens appeared next to Alissa’s Keds. And shit, didn’t he have the best sense of timing? It was the nicest moment Remy had with Alissa since the divorce, hell, since they were married, and Donald had to come swinging his big dick right into the middle of it.
“He thinks he has cancer,” Alissa said, inspecting Remy’s scalp, the tips of her fingers cool against the crown of his head. She was brushing it, like she’d found something, a speck of dirt, dandruff.
“Cancer?” Donald said. “I mean, no wonder, with all the processed foods people around here eat, all the smoked sausage and the animal fat. Probably everybody here has cancer.”
“Skin cancer,” Remy said. “I’m talking about skin cancer, melanoma. Not colorectal cancer. You don’t get melanoma from eating andouille.”
“I don’t know.” Donald sniffed, clearing his sinuses, hacking something up and spitting off to the side. “It probably doesn’t help.”
“Oh, really?” Remy said. “Where did you get your medical degree, anyway?”
“Hold still,” Alissa said, scraping at something on the crown of Remy’s head, so he flinched. “Maybe there is something here.”
“Have you really been eating bacon?” Donald said to Alissa, who sighed.
“I already told you,” she said, “yes, I’ve been chipping. I’m sorry I lied to you about it, but I guess I don’t see what the big deal is. I don’t see why you have to be so intense about everything.”
“Intense?” Donald said.
“Ouch,” Remy said, “be careful.”
“Shoot,” Alissa said. “You’re bleeding.”
“Do you really think I’m too intense?” Donald said.
“You could probably stand to take it down a notch or two,” Remy said, “you know, so you didn’t unplug yourself in the middle of gigs.”
“I wasn’t asking you,” Donald said.
Alissa had licked her finger, and she was rubbing at a spot on Remy’s scalp.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Intense doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Maybe I’m going to eat bacon sometimes, you know?”
“We’re starting a band,” Donald said to Remy. “Me and Alissa. We don’t know what we’re calling it yet, but I think it’s important as a feminist man to support women in music.”
“You and your old lady?” Remy said. The sun was hot on the back of his neck, and it felt like Alissa was squeezing something on his scalp.
“Me and my old lady,” Donald said, but he sounded defensive, like he was daring himself to say it.
“Don’t call me that,” Alissa said. “But yeah, we’re starting a band. Me and my old man.”
The two of them were like a closed system, a circle, and Remy was standing outside it.
“That’s good,” he said. “I’m happy for both of you. I think you both deserve that, being in a band with each other.”
“I already got us a gig,” Donald said. “That guy who was up before us, the famous dude, he said he’d get us on a bill with him, and we could open for his band sometime.”
“Even better,” Remy said. “You both deserve that, too.”
“Stop moving,” Alissa said, pinching a spot on his scalp between her thumbs. “I think this is a zit. But I’m going to squeeze it, and we’re going to see what comes out.”
Shamus Award-winning writer and musician Tom Andes is the author of the detective novel Wait There Till You Hear from Me (Crescent City Books 2025) and Guess This is Kaput: Stories (forthcoming, Cowboy Jamboree Press). His stories have appeared in *Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories 2025 *and The Best Private Eye Stories of the Year 2025. He lives in Albuquerque, where he is a working musician. He can be found at tomandes.com.