Mama Louise’s One-Eyed Gumbo

By A. C. Williams

Minotaurs are dangerous enough when they ain’t toting semi-automatics. These young bulls are looking to cause trouble, and I just want lunch.

“My gumbo’s getting cold, Quigley.”

“I don’t care about your stupid gumbo, LaFaye.”

My partner has no soul. He’s crouching behind a wooden shed with me, both of us surrounded by the briny scent of shrimp and crayfish. The mouth-watering tang of peppers and onions. The spicy, sizzling, savory scent of the sausages. And the okra—cannot forget the okra.

I poke Quigley in his bony ribs. “Your nose don’t work, does it? Mama Louise’s one-eyed gumbo is—”

“Thrown in a dirty pot by some brain-baked zone-crosser who couldn’t get a job in a real restaurant.” Quigley points his long, thin finger at me, blue eyes wild. “If you don’t shut up about the stupid gumbo, LaFaye, I will stab you in the small intestine with a paper clip.”

I don’t doubt him. We may be in the open-air street market on the River Walk without a paper clip in sight, but if I know anything about Barnabas Quigley, I know he don’t make idle threats.

Our protective shed quakes with a barrage of scattergun fire.

“Bull-faced lowlifes.” Quigley shows his teeth, his salt-and-pepper mustache levering up and down like an oil derrick.

The roof of the shed blows up and pelts us with boards and tin shrapnel. Kids these days. Downright destructive. Gonna put somebody’s eye out if they keep this up. A wave of fiery ash and sulfur washes over the sidewalk, the reek of brimstone and ozone singing the air.

Crouched awkwardly beside me, my silver-haired slip of a partner chambers a round in his Glock. His gray suit flaps in the pungent breeze.

“You ever fight a minotaur before, Quig?”

“Once.”

“Did you win?” I adjust my jacket and reach for my own Glock in the holster at my side.

“Of course.”

I arch an eyebrow at him. Quigley’s not a liar, but his tales are on the tall side at times.

Quigley grimaces under the weight of my staring. “Wasn’t exactly a fight.”

I raise the other eyebrow.

“Fine.” Quigley rolls his eyes. “A minotaur stole my parking space at Buc-ee’s.”

“And you fought him?”

“No.” Quigley chews on the word like it’s tobacco.

I smirk. “You walked away, didn’t you?”

“It was a moral victory. Moral victories count!”

Another volley of gunfire rakes the ground on either side of us.

I peer around the corner and spot five minotaurs stomping toward us, towering masses of muscle and leather and horns and nose rings.

I didn’t ask for this today. I’m just a guy who wanted a bowl of gumbo.

I press my back against what’s left of our shed. “We can’t beat them.”

“You’re getting that now, LaFaye?” Quigley flashes his crazy eyes at me.

Old son’s gonna do something rash.

Unless—

Only one critter I know is big enough to threaten a minotaur.

“I got it,” I say. “Let’s scare them.”

“How’ll we scare five two-ton minotaurs, LaFaye? With your breath?” Quigley winces. “Which is troll-like, by the way.”

I glance to Mama Louise’s red tent on the River Walk. With a steadying breath, I make a break for it with Quigley shouting behind me.

“Where are you—Forget the gumbo, LaFaye!”

The knees of my trousers rip as I slide behind the tent and poke my head inside. Mama Louise lounges on her stool, long skirts swishing around her old swollen ankles, and she’s fanning herself with an old church bulletin.

All normal. Like there ain’t five gangster minotaurs trying to burn down the River Walk.

But it ain’t Mama Louise I’m after. “Howard!”

The bulky shape stirring the gumbo pot jumps at his name and turns to flash me a wide toothy grin.

“Give a brother a hand?”

Quigley wrenches me out of the tent by my suit coat, and we roll together as a shotgun blast roars over our heads and takes out a falafel stand under the street bridge.

We sit up, shoulders together, Glocks aimed at the approaching beasts.

They smell like the neon blue porta-johns on the other side of the street market. Not the nice ones. The other ones. After a church choir ate too much of Sister Lucinda’s jambalaya.

The bull at the front pounds the dirt with his heavy hoof and snorts, throwing monstrous shoulders back as he huffs and puffs through his nose ring.

Quigley snarls. “Aim for the eyeballs.”

The tent flap parts in a glorious rush of smoky cumin and spicy cayenne, and Howard emerges, one humongous foot after another, straightening up to his full nine feet. The five minotaurs gawk at him, staring up, up, up at Howard’s face, towering two feet higher than theirs.

Howard blinks his one eye and waggles fingers at them.

And just like that, any gumption those gang-bangers had is gone. They turn and hop-gallop away with their tails tucked, taking their nasty aroma with them.

I let out the breath I’m holding and wave at my boy Howard, who smiles at me with all his crooked teeth.

Quigley grips my elbow. “Why is there a Cyclops working in that gumbo shop?”

I shrug. “Howard goes to my church. He puts the one eye in Mama Louise’s one-eyed gumbo.”

Quigley shows his teeth again, spitting and sputtering in incoherent rage as he scrambles to his feet, brushes off his suit, and storms back to our car.

Howard offers me a hand up, which I take, and then he lowers a beautiful, steaming tub of fiery red broth toward me. I know from experience that it’ll smell like sausage, chicken, and shrimp blessed with spices and love.

“Extra spicy.” Howard beams.

“Extra?” I gasp in delight. “Bien fait, my brother.”

“LaFaye!” Quigley screams from the car.

I salute Howard with my tub of gumbo and start toward my partner. “Good news, Quig. I got lunch!”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A. C. Williams is a coffee-drinking, sushi-eating, story-telling nerd who loves cats, country living, and all things Japanese. She’d rather be barefoot, and if isn’t, her socks will never match. She likes her road trips with rock music, her superheroes with snark, and her blankets extra fuzzy, but her first love is stories and the authors who are passionate about telling them. Learn more about her book coaching services and follow her adventures on social media or on her website.

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