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Erica's Barricade8.24.97
Last night I found myself alone on the porch with three-year-old Erica
Lewis. She cuddled up to me and said,
"Ga-ga-go get me a puzzle Mr. Jim."
"You want a puzzle to play with by yourself while I sit out here next to
you but don't actually have to help you?"
She looks at me like I'm a damn fool and says, "Get me a puzzle."
"Which one do you want?," I say.
"Ma-ma-Mickey Mouse."
So I go in and get the puzzle. Erica is not sure this is the particular
Mickey Mouse puzzle she had in mind but it will have to do her expression
tells me, and then she begins breaking up the 12 or 13 interlocking pieces and
spreading them out on the porch.
Between August 95 and, December, when we actually moved in, I would come
over here after work and spend a few hours a night renovating the front
half of this house. Mandy would join me on the weekends. We had nothing
covering the front bay windows and were able to appreciate about a 140
degree view of the street.
Three boys, probably Glynn, Fermin, and Shelton, and one toddler,
definitely Erica, are playing in the parking lot behind Jack's store.
The game they are playing is smash 'em up derby and they are using the
bottom half of a grocery cart for a vehicle. Erica is sitting
comfortably and confidently in this vehicle and is being given
instructions by one of the boys. Erica would be just shy of her second
birthday. I will not be able to describe this accurately but the
intensity of her eye contact with this older boy as she listened to his
instructions struck me as something from another world. This tiny little
girl has the bearing of a full grown woman with years of worldly
experience. A manner almost flirtatious and calculating.
I was very much glued to the set (as we have come to think of these front windows),
for the few minutes it took to witness this episode. I guess what I'm
trying to say about this child Erica is that even when you witness
something you have never seen before, there is always a tiny thread of
something familiar. But in the case of two-year-old Erica Lewis I can
honestly say I have never seen anything even remotely similar to the
visions I was having of her on this day.
The boy who was giving Erica instructions now gets behind the cart and
begins to push her full speed towards a barricade of boxes, and milk
crates, and scrap lumber stacked precariously high. At the point of
impact the boy pushing the cart ducks his head and turns his body to the
side in a defensive posture. Erica, on the other hand, is looking
straight ahead, chin up, and as the debris cascades down around her, and
the boys are jumping up and down, laughing, and high fiving, Erica cocks
her head a few degrees to the right, smiling at, and challenging with
her bemused eyes, these goofy ten and eleven-year-old uncles who can't
build no better barricade than that.
"I knew you could do that by yourself Erica, on account of, you're so
smart, and pretty too, I don't mind saying."
"Ge-ge-get me another one Mr. Jim."
Slapping The Bayou8.10.97
Harold Armour's restaurant/bar/grocery store over on LaHarpe in the
Seventh Ward burned down last night. The establishment was 90 years old
and was known by its original owners' name--Mule's (Mulay's). Harold and
his brother co-owned it with members of that prodigious Ngyuen clan.
Things are sleepy and quiet on Dumaine. Temperatures are a little down
but the air is too still and wet. Some of the boys are playing football in
the street. Sharon stabbed Greg today. The Saints are playing the
Chiefs tonight in the Superdome. I'll probably listen some on the radio.
I've been staying inside lately, pondering, stagnating, "resting."
Reading a couple decent books--Richard Russo's latest, Straight Man, and
some good detective fiction by a Boston writer named Robert Parker.
Mr. Dave, from around the corner on Dorgenois, died Wednesday, deserves
something of an extended obit but I will have to confer with Jim Wolff,
who sold the house next door to Yolanda.
I'm going outside to see what happens.
Sunday: ( I never did go outside last night. There was no place to sit
what with all those kids and coloring books). Got up around 6:30 this morning, went
to look for paper but it wasn't here yet. Came in, took a bath, made
coffee and toast, loaded up the one hitter, and drove down to the Bayou,
parking on Moss, just down from the corner of 3300 Dumaine. I sit at the
first set of steps, the Dumaine bridge to my left and that church with
the copper dome in the distance to my right. Early Sunday mornings are so fine in New
Orleans: so quiet the sound of repentance. My coffee is good but I burnt
the toast. I light a cigarette and bow my head in prayer. That
fisherman two hundred yards away might be jealous of my trained fish, who
glitter at sunrise, high above the water, before reaching the arc's
pinnacle, where they lay flat and to the right (as per training), and
come down slapping the water in high fashion. God, I love those fish.
Joggers, bikers, and dog walkers are making their appearances. More
cautious than curious, they seem to carry with them an inherent
understanding of the folly of running yourself healthy in a place so
casual about killing. Reiterated too often in the news is that
discouraging reality that no place in New Orleans is completely safe.
I set fire to the little morsel of weed in my pipe and suck it dry. A
little dab will do me. I have to hold the smoke in my lungs longer than
I like out of respect for that pedestrian who sneaked up behind me. By the
time I do exhale, very little smoke leaves my mouth. I guess I got all
of that one.
I am completely alone on the Bayou when the church bells start clanging
what soon becomes a brief melody. Just when I think I might be able to
hum along, the notes begin breaking down, slow and easy, until the
disintegration completes itself with a single wavering note. Silence.
Its 8:30 when I get back to 2600 and there are five boys waiting in front
of the house, ready to clean the street, in exchange for a day trip. Only four of them will fit in the Festiva.
So the four boys and I leave out of here, with Michael crying in the rear
view mirror.
A white family let the boys play with their nerf football. When I went
to return it prior to our departure, the man said--"well you're very
welcome, it looks like they're having a lot of fun." I'm not sure, but I
don't think he is referring to the part where they were holding each
other's heads under water, yelling, "stay down bitch, stay down."