archive

email from NOLA


View current page
...more recent posts

Don't Pull Out Your Penises In The Park 6.2.97
I proposed a few months ago to some of the neighborhood boy children (ages 6-12) that if they would clean the street on Sundays I would take them on road trips: to Audubon Park (where I say--come on guys, don't pull out your dicks and pee off the jungle gym, go behind a tree or something. Or they call each other "motherfuckin' nigger" in front of the rich white children), or to the New Orleans lakefront where I supervise their illegal swimming until the park police come and bust them, or to that suspect strip of beach in Waveland, Mississippi where a carload of good ole boys drives by yelling out--"hey you niggers," or to an Uptown music festival where Shelton, 12, punches out Eric, 10, or this weekend to a festival in the French Quarter where Mandy and I went with three boys and came back with only one. Even knowing that all these boys roam the Quarters on their own and that they can walk or bike the distance faster than you can drive it didn't relieve me of guilt for leaving the two boys (after waiting several hours in one prearranged spot, which only one of the boys bothered coming back to) behind. And they know I don't mind, would even expect them to stray to Bourbon Street, to ogle outside the titty bars, as long as they check in once in awhile. So while Fermin hung close, got an outlandish balloon hat from a clown (who wouldn't accept my money but took everyone elses), got his face painted (also for free), and shared a po-boy with us, also a special treat because I normally require Mama D provide their baloney on white bread sustenance, Shelton and Eric disappeared to do god only knows what. When Fermin tells us he needs to be home to take medicine, we drive home, I drop him and Mandy, pick up two more boys, Glynn and Michael, and head back to the Quarters to at least make the pretense of a search. I centrally locate myself, next to that damn clown again, and send boys off into the Quarters. They go to the River, the French Market, Bourbon Street and back, get free balloon hats each (the most extravagant that clown made all day), and I say so you guys looked for Shelton and Eric to which they respond, oh yes, and we head back home. Shelton and Eric are there, leaning against the iron railing at Dumaine, and knowing I'll be mad try to sucker punch me with "why did you leave us down there," at which point I yell some grown up stuff at them (although not once did I call them motherfuckin' bitches as their guardians sometimes do), and banished them from the next Sunday's activities. To which they responded--what about the Sunday after that? I guess I showed them.

- jimlouis 4-01-2002 8:10 pm [link] [3 comments]