AND IF YOU FALL, HOLD MY HAND
Date of Birth 🡒 June 7, 1987 [32]
Identity 🡒 Cis Man & he/him
Hometown 🡒 New Orleans, Louisiana
Has Been in St. Clair 🡒 Moved to the Parish when he was five
Currently Living 🡒 Eldritch Island
Occupation 🡒 Jack-of-all-Trades, Handyman, Boat Tours, Smuggler, You name it he’s done it
OOH BABY, IT’S A LONG WAY DOWN
1. GOOD AFTERNOON, FIRST OFF I JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT THIS IS SIMPLY PROCEDURE. YOU AREN’T IN TROUBLE. WE JUST HAVE SOME QUESTIONS TO ASK, IS THAT ALRIGHT? AND BEFORE WE GET STARTED, HAS ANYONE OFFERED YOU SOMETHING TO DRINK YET? A WATER, COFFEE, OR PERHAPS A CUP OF TEA?
The last time Noah had been taken into the station, it’d been for feeding the gators marshmallows. The time before that, he’d had a run in with a tourist that didn’t quite enjoy bungie jumping off a bridge as much as he did. And the time before that, well–he figured they all got the picture. Every single cop in that station had had a run-in with Noah in one way or another, but no one had ever convicted him of anything. They saw the guileless smile, and the all-too-accommodating personality, and rarely took another look. He probably should’ve been jailed hundreds of times by now, but not one of these cops could remember him ever even being slapped in cuffs. His smile just as bright as when he walked in there that morning, he relaxed into his chair, “Y’got any of that whiskey left from last time?”
2. OKAY THEN, COULD YOU PLEASE STATE YOUR NAME FOR THE RECORD? IS THAT YOUR BIRTH NAME? ANY ALIASES WE SHOULD BE AWARE OF?
“Noah Theriot.” He sipped slowly at the alcohol filled Dixie cup that looked far too small in his large and calloused hands, gazing between the two cops sitting in front of him, not an ounce of fear in his body. “I know y’all got a file on me a mile long at this point.”
3. NOW THEN, LET’S TALK ABOUT YOUR CHILDHOOD BRIEFLY. WHAT WAS GROWING UP LIKE FOR YOU?
“Alright, story time, kiddos.” Noah grinned and mimed cracking his knuckles, through the break in his middle left finger made it impossible for that to ever happen again. “Grew up in the Bayou, the swamps. Mama said the first pet I ever did have was a gator that was the size of me. Got the pictures to prove it. Spent more time outside in the water then I did in school. Moved here when I was a little one, don’t really know why, Mama was always tight lipped about it, and Papa didn’t follow us. Or…least I knew he didn’t. There were times though, when I figured Mama might’ve had a hand in him not comin’ with us, but–she didn’t take kindly to those questions. Other’n that, was a pretty good childhood. From what I remember.”
4. AND WHAT ABOUT YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR FAMILY? WERE YOU CLOSE WITH YOUR PARENTS, OR GUARDIANS? ANY SIBLINGS?
“Mama’s everything I’ve ever known. I’m sure I have a Grandpa, and Grandma and maybe some cousins floatin’ out there, but I’ve only ever really known Mama. She’s been there every step of the way, still out there causing a ruckus out in the swamps when the gators get too close to the chickens. She don’t like it when Petey gets hungry.”
5. WHAT WAS YOUR HIGH SCHOOL EXPERIENCE LIKE? DID YOU ENJOY IT? DID YOU HAVE A LOT OF FRIENDS, OR WERE YOU MORE OF A LONER? SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN, MAYBE?
“I didn’t–” This time Noah paused, looking unsettled for a moment before that same amiable smile stole over his face. “School was fine. Gave me an education, I suppose. Had a few friends, learned something. Let’s me work and play when I want to, and never really had any trouble.” Or at least, none that he’d ever admit to the cops that he did. He might’ve been able to fly under their radar so far, for so long, but he figured murder was a pretty arrest worthy offense, and he liked not being locked up.
6. SO, DID YOU GO TO COLLEGE? IF SO, WHAT FOR AND IF NOT, WHY? WHAT WAS YOUR POST-HIGH SCHOOL LIFE LIKE?
“College?” Noah let out a sharp bark of laughter that devolved into a set of giggles, wiping away a few tears that managed to escape. “Can you imagine me, of all people, at college? Nah, no way. Never gonna happen, never wanted it to happen. I was happy with where I was, helping Mama out on the land, and floating from town to town, just gettin’ to experience life, and things. See and meet new people. Goin’ to college, and takin’ all them classes has never been my life. And it’s never gonna be.”
7. DO YOU HAVE A REPUTATION AROUND TOWN? HOW WOULD YOU SAY OTHERS PERCEIVE YOU?
“Huh,” Noah sat back in his chair, staring at the ceiling momentarily as he thought, “Y’know, I never rightly thought about it. Figure people like me, alright. I help fix up what needs fixin’, take people where they want to go. Simple as that. I don’t got beef with them, they don’t got beef with me.” But to those in the know, the ones that have a bit more of a darker connection, they knew that Noah was the person if you wanted things ‘moved’. He had enough connections with enough people all over Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico, if you wanted something moved under the radar, he was your guy.
8. CAN YOU HELP ME UNDERSTAND YOUR PERSONALITY? WHAT ARE YOU LIKE, BOTH ON THE SURFACE AND DEEP DOWN? WHAT ABOUT IN PUBLIC VERSUS IN PRIVATE?
“Oh boy, well, guess this is a psych ward now?” Noah let out a delighted laugh at his terrible joke, and waved away the amusement only he felt. “I figure I’m just like y’all. Good ol’ boy, just living my very best life. There ain’t anything that I particularly want, which means there ain’t really a reason to be anything but what I am. Me.” Noah was purposely vague, so that even if they did want to try and peg a label on him, they wouldn’t. He wasn’t someone who fit into a regular peg, he was a smiling idiot to one person, and competent smuggler to others, and he preferred never really having to be one person. That’s who he was.
9. LEADING OFF OF THAT, WHAT WOULD YOU CONSIDER TO BE YOUR GREATEST STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES?
“Well, I got this softness for the gators, y’know. Grew up with them, they’re like my pets, my puppies. You ever seen one flip on its back and curl up for a scratch? Just about the sweetest thing you’ll ever see, I swear. But, oh–you’re talkin’ about mental weakness, yeah? Hmm.” He tilted his head in thought, never really having thought about himself in that depth, “I guess–boredom? I don’t like it, don’t like not being busy. I’m always my best when I’ve got a job to keep me occupied, helps keep me from gettin’ into trouble.”
10. A BIT HEAVIER, I KNOW, BUT I HAVE TO ASK IF ANYTHING HAS HAPPENED TO YOU PERSONALLY IN YOUR LIFE THAT DRASTICALLY CHANGED YOU AS A PERSON?
“Oh, well–I don’t really–” Noah had had plenty of things happen to him in his life, but he didn’t necessarily categorize them as traumatic. He was always a ‘let things lie’ sort of guy, and even things that would have people curling up in a corner in tears, he just shrugged it off and moved on. “Lost my first gator about a year ago, but it was from old age. Cut me real deep, an’ I haven’t been able to name another gater Fredo, since.”
11. AND OF COURSE, I HAVE TO ASK, WERE YOU IN TOWN BETWEEN ‘96 AND ‘99 WHEN THE ORIGINAL DROWNINGS OCCURRED? DID YOU HAPPEN TO KNOW ANY OF THE ORIGINAL SEVEN VICTIMS? WHAT WAS YOUR LIFE LIKE DURING THOSE TRAGIC YEARS? WHAT WAS THE AFTERMATH?
“Well, the first one I think I was…nine? Had moved here a few years prior, an’ I’m pretty sure my mom was keeping me home a lot more after that. Then the deaths kept happenin’ and she never let me out of my sight. Took her a lot longer to let me wander after that, but other then that my life wasn’t changed that much. They died, we all moved on, isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?”
12. THAT SAID, DID YOU KNOW EITHER DARYLL BORDELON OR GEORGIANA MEARS PERSONALLY? IF SO, WHAT WAS YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO THEM? HOW MUCH HAVE THEIR DEATHS AFFECTED YOU?
“I mean, I suppose. Went to school with one of ‘em, and saw the other out and about, but they weren’t really ever my friends.” No one was really Noah’s ‘friend’, as much as they might claim to be. He had tons of people who liked him, and came to him for things, but the number of real friends he had, he could count on one hand. “Y’might think I’m an asshole if I say it hasn’t really affected me much, but this is Louisian. Death happens every day, an’ just because some weirdo with a complex has chosen to take it out on people, doesn’t really mean much to me. Sorry.”
13. LASTLY, WHERE WERE YOU ON THE NIGHTS OF MARCH 9TH AND JULY 23RD AND IS THERE ANYONE THAT CAN CORROBORATE YOUR WHEREABOUTS?
“On March 9th I was doin’ a midnight boat tour. It’s one of my specialties, an’ I’ve got the photos and the permits to prove it. As for July 23rd, I think I was with my Mama that night. She’d been gettin’ twitchy and wanted me to come visit a lot more than usual. Sure she’s got something saying it, or pictures. Love her to death, but her an’ that Snapchat–I will never understand.”
TO THE BOTTOM OF THE RIVER
Noah is known in many of the underground circles as the quintessential ‘I Know A Guy’. If you need a body moved, he’s your guy. You need some drugs smuggled, that’s him. You want some weapons off the radar, he’s got it. He’s never really understood how he ended up in this line of business, but he enjoys it, and it keeps himself and his Mama pleasantly flushed with cash. She never asks where he gets it, and he keeps enough legitimate jobs going on throughout the days and nights that no one ever questions it. He may, or may not, have fed a body or two to his gators, but there isn’t anyone who’ll ever be able to prove it, and Noah will always stand by that ‘they deserved it’.