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Money For Nothing
Since I have not done a change of address back to New Orleans, from my Virginia address (to which I will be returning in 3 months), I set up online billing from Entergy so I can be all good and ready when they turn my electricity back on. Gas service would be on the bill too, and as I mentioned in a previous post, gas service was restored recently. I have run the gas for a total of two or three hours to boil big pots of water.
I had called Entergy back in November and let them know I was back and that billing should be in my name, not the renter's, so they had me in their database, and when I called to get my account number to set things up online, the automated phone system informed me that I had a current bill of 22 dollars, which seemed fine to me.
Last week I got my first online bill and it was for 225 dollars. I can't call during the week due to long hold times getting through to a human at Entergy, so I have done all my previous talking to them on Saturdays, because I have unlimited weekend minutes on my cell phone plan, but very few anytime minutes.
I called this morning to politely ask what is up with my bill, seems kind of high, seeing as how I don't have electricity running to my house. Things have changed at Entergy and they can't help me on weekends. A human told me this, not like they don't have humans down there anymore on Saturdays, but they can't help me or the many like me, getting ridiculous bills, and only cell phones to communicate with, many of us budgeteers, with small minute plans.
Well ok, thank you, I said. Cussing is immature so I'm trying not to do it as much.
The Sculptor came over to Rocheblave (she is staying at a friend's house in the Marigny) last week and appeared very upset. Do you have electricity? she asked.
No.
Entergy called her--which in itself is weird--and told her that if she didn't pay her 350 dollar electric bill by 5 p.m. that day, they would shut off her electricity. She said to Entergy, I don't have electricity.
Yes you do, said Entergy.
No, I don't, said The Sculptor (but she had been out of town attending her mother's funeral) and so maybe it had been turned on while she was gone and she told the woman she would go over and check and if she had electricity she would gladly rush down and give them money for the exaggerated bill.
Sculptor and I have both had our electrical work done by a licensed electrician, month's ago, and hers was a little more involved and they had to disconnect her wires from the house, whereas mine are all hooked up (and I'm just waiting for the flick of that little fuse up on the transformer in front of my property).
Sculptor still wasn't sure, so I said, Sculptor, no, you don't have electricity, period, running to your house, period. Those people are lying to you.
She got madder, and before I knew it she had convinced me to go down to the TV station and she vented to a person who took notes, and our phone numbers. My nephew later asked me if I had to be on TV to get my service restored, would it be worth it to me. That sort of stumped me. Frankly, I would rather just bribe somebody. Or if that extortion Entergy is trying to pull on the many of us without electricity is the price to pay for somewhat immediate restoring of service, I'm good with that too, but me and many others are getting these weird bills, after going months without any service of any kind, and, like I said, I'm trying to cuss less, which then just leaves me pretty speechless.
Some of the billing can be back billing, which is understandable, but when I called today, before speaking to the human, the automated part of the system recognized me from my phone number and then the punched in last four digits of my SS#. It told me that there was past due billing in the amount of 22 dollars. So what's with the 200 extra dollars? I guess I'll just have to borrow a land line telephone during the week and find out, or spend a frustrating hour or two getting through the hold period, and not really find out. And I'm cutting back on the cussing. And I'm going to try and quit smoking again, for Lent, even though I'm not Catholic, but my nails are getting a little long so I guess I can start chewing on those.
Oh yeah, it's Mardi Gras here. Don't believe what you see on TV. None of the really cool stuff happens on Bourbon street.
Rat Thievery
You know what chaffs my hide? Some man coming onto My hunting grounds and disturbing My traps.
I get this email from M this morning telling me that the general contractor had come over to look at what needs doing on her Dumaine house, and finding one of MY trophy rats in the Gempler's rat trap, discards it.
And then to sprinkle salt onto the slug-like consistency of my male pride, he informs M--it was the biggest f-ing rat I have ever seen.
Oh really, then where is it? The nerve of this interloper to enter my hunting lease, claim one of my monsters, and then suggest that it is the biggest rat ever, or to the point, bigger than mine. AND THEN he takes the evidence AND the trap. You don't throw those traps away man. Where did he put it? In one of those trash bags in the foyer? If in fact there is a rat. I can still produce my rat, mister. Where's yours? I can take a picture of MY rat and post it on the Internet. Can you?
I can show you my rat, mister. It still over there in Brianna's yard where I threw it. My rat is very big. I bet its bigger than yours, ok?, so maybe you think those little rubber rats in gag shops are actual size but those little things are mice compared to my rat. I'm taking my rat to the nearest taxidermy and immortalizing my rat capturing prowess for all time. Can you do that with your so-called biggest f-ing rat ever?
You better not have put that rat with trap attached in one of those garbage bags.
Don't make me put on my blue rubber gloves, mister.
Dogs
In the last post I said wild dogs were not so much in evidence in New Orleans, like they used to be, but on the way Uptown after posting that spittle, I passed on Cleveland St., near Broad, a discard pile which included three mattresses and on top of those mattresses were three dogs, handsome and carefree and relaxed, and they smiled at me, I swear to God. And then the next day I saw that white dog which has been hanging around the PIB (Public Integrity Bureau, for the NOPD) building on Rocheblave, at Canal. That dog is very skittish and appears lonely and lost and I don't think he digging it here very much.
Yesterday, checking the rat traps on Dumaine, and I see pretty much the classic New Orleans mutt, and he is comfortably in the middle of the street eye balling that chicken/rooster pair down the block. A skinny black cat is right next to the yard birds and seems friendly to them, or perhaps scared of them. The mutt clearly ain't from around here because he getting all into the crouch, ready for the sprint. That dog will not catch those birds. After a pitiful attempt at a stealthy and rapid attack, he gives up and heads off towards Dorgenois. Those birds are really beautiful, especially the rooster, I wish you could see them.
I've been feeling a little dejected lately because I can't figure out this electricity thing, why I don't have it six months after the latest American Tragedy, that happened here, in New Orleans. I don't have enough cell phone minutes to deal with one hour holds to Entergy and my electrician just can't believe it, somebody else just called him to say that his permit filing was not showing up. Mostly I don't care, I'm not really suffering. But every so often all the weirdness of this new world balls itself up and throws itself at me. Eh, boo hoo.
Thelonious Monk Jr. is 30 minutes away from being in the WWOZ studio and I just listened to this chill number on the radio, from his dad, and jazz is pretty well representing my best moods so I listen to it when I can.
My boss was telling me that in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie some of the many people who easily got trailers for temporary housing are already done with them, their houses are renovated and they are trying to get FEMA to come and get the trailers, and are having as hard a time getting them off their property as people in New Orleans are having getting them on their property. I'm looking over at the Chauffeur's trailer, across the street from me on Rocheblave. It's still locked up, two weeks after delivery, waiting for electric hookup. Things are pretty funny here. I watched at a friend's house the Jon Stewart Daily Show repeat last night, riffing on VP Cheney shooting his friend in the face. I laughed a good bit. Laughing is where it's at.
Great White Girly-Man
I am the Great White Hunter, armed only with a pair of blue rubber gloves, a steely reserve, and a single focus. I have traversed through the thinly populated 4th and 5th Wards to get here, to the 6th (as called by it's residents, despite Ward maps suggesting otherwise), at Broad and Dumaine, the northern tip of Treme, yet as much a no-man's land as the neutral ground of N. Broad. A neighborhood claimed wholeheartedly by no one, although rumors, and crude etchings in the sidewalks, suggest there was once at this location a lively black market, ruled by an infrequently ruthless cadre of loosely organized gang members, whose omnipresence, while rarely dangerous, was said to border on the obnoxious. But no groups or powerful neighborhood leaders really claim, with any effect, this interesting and lovely, if at times slightly scary place. Not the Zulus, not that eccentric, emaciated czar of Louisville, not really any Treme association, nor Faubourg St. John, nor Esplanade Ridge, or godforbid, not even the bloated mid-city association. A wind-wobbling and aged neighborhood watch sign screwed to a telephone pole implies an involved citizenry at some point in the past. But there is little evidence of that citizenry, or that other rumored gangbangery, now, as I stand high above it, on Mount 2*46, seeing Dumaine as it has rarely been seen in the 150-plus years of its existence--without human influence.
Which brings me to the point of the blue rubber gloves. For although the humans are gone, the wildlife is not. Oh yes, the wild dogs have so effectively been rounded up by volunteer SPCA groups from around the country, that to see one in New Orleans these days is a rare thing indeed. The feral felines fared a little better (and are certainly happy for the absence of those dogs) and are seen, but in lesser numbers than before The Flood, and are skinnier by absence of the chicken bones, and crab carcasses, and shrimp shells, and crawfish heads (and animal rescue kibble) which used to line the gutters for many, many surrounding blocks.
The beautifully colored wild chickens, apparently, not within the purview of animal rescue teams, nor in need of rescue, can be seen happily hop-walking about; there now are five of them across the street, by the dumpster, which promises nothing, and delivers the same. The rotting meats from the Magnolia, at the corner, which delivered stench for weeks and weeks after the flood, have finally been cleaned up, and the northerly winds and what they brought with them up to this porch, are no longer a thing to be feared, and slack are the gag reflex muscles of passersby.
I unlock the metal grate and enter the Dumaine domicile. The floor is dusty from the gutting of the front room. My boot prints, and no others, are comforting imprints in the dust. The wind ruffles the curtains over the partially boarded up broken front window, broken last week, on a cold night, presumably allowing Goldilocks her entry, while the three bears remain far flung in other American cities.
I already know what is in the kitchen, my bloated prey, resting with broken neck. I walk past it and retrieve the trap by the washer/dryer, the blue rubber gloves superfluous, because the little mouse barely takes up any space on the trap. Death is death, but those poor little mice really suffer an indignity from the spring strength of those rat traps. After walking out to the front porch and flinging that little cut-in-two mouse into the dead banana trees, I have to wash the shiny, flaky red blood off the striker bar. I had to walk past the giant dead rat to do that. It's been dead for two days, but I wanted to be sure it was dead before I picked it up. Call me The Great White Hunter or call me a Sissy Girly-Man, it all the same to me.
From previous experiences I have a decent feel for weights measuring a pound or less, and when I picked up the trap with the gigantic deceased rodent attached, the digital readout on my forehead said, .75 pounds. Some are you are saying--well that doesn't seem that big. To yous people I say, well leave your phone numbers and I'll call your bitch asses when I get another one to discard.
But really, and this is to M, who isn't a stranger to the occasional rat or mouse in the house, the problem, by combination of trapping (although I've only got the one rat and two mice, in total) and cleaning, is noticeably less than it was before my reticent campaign (no, I didn't mean to say recent). At least, I'm less scared walking into the house these days.
Looks like Phillis is back (pulled back to the hood after her house in N.O. East got totally destroyed), got her place all fixed up nice, and almost ready to move in, and there is some action in that place next door, the one formerly owned by the hitman, Paul Hardy, and that brick house that sits high (except for the basement), two down from her, towards Dorgenois, looks like they more or less living there. And cars drive down Dumaine, at early rush hour, sort of like before, but different. It's mostly very quiet though, but my prediction, which will prove as reliable as a weatherman getting rained on, forecasting rain, is this--won't stay that way.
Oh, also, the other day, a, uh, Mister Bg Shw, was in the neighborhood, and asked after you. He said, now tell her it Bg Shw, not Little Shw. I said, I will do that. And so I have.
The Pill
Sometimes I just ride around New Orleans with my bag of fried chicken obtained from the Ideal Discount Mart (formerly a Spur) at the Canal/Galvez corner, just relishing the aroma and thinking what a fine date this bag of chicken is. I wonder if there is a women's perfume as fine as the scent of fried chicken?
I say to my fried chicken, baby, what you wanna do? And my fried chicken says, oh, I don't know cupcake, whatever you wanna do. I say, we could just drive around a little more before we go to my place, cuz you sooo hot, I'm afraid I'll burn my mouth on your delicious flesh. My lovely fried chicken giggles girlishly, and says, oh you. And I say, no seriously baby, you are just on fire hot, and, moist, and, crispy. I mean I never thought I would fall for a crispy lover but you are so--it. My bag of fried chicken purrs and says, I got a honey dipped biscuit in here for you too, kitten.
I don't really know exactly what that pill I took this morning does but if it's anything good I'll let you know......................................
....................................two days later, note to self--don't take that pill again.
God Or Fried Chicken
I am frankly a little hesitant to even pass on this very big news, due to the immaturity of some of my male readers, and each of you, right now, know I'm talking about you, on the east coast--in Brooklyn, Jersey City, and the LES, and to my new readers, New Orleanians and otherwho's, whose immaturity I just assume but lack personal knowledge of, except for that of my Uptown nephew (its pretty much in the bloodline) And you out there in CA pretending to be a Hi-Def corporate giant, keep it shut. And don't think I'm not talking about you, you rock star looking lawyer in Dallas. And you, Mr. BC, in VA, flirting with the Lear and/or a better anti-anxiety biscuit, just shut your immature mouth and don't even think immature thoughts about this big news. Because I got gas, yes I do, I got gas, uh huh, I got gas mthrfkrs, got it down in the N.O. I shouldn't be a sexist pig so I won't be. To my female fart joke lovers, quit being immature, and possibly, you might want to name a band after yourselves, if Dave Barry hasn't already suggested it.
Yeah, so. I got gas running to my house. Nobody told me I had gas, even though to be honest, nobody had to, because due to illness or bad diet, having gas was lately a thing pretty damn evident to me. Lucky for others I stay often to myself. That was an example of the type of immaturity I'm trying to avoid here, on this momentous day. How it happened was that 85 year-old dude back living in his house around the corner, stopped his truck in the street today and we talked about him being back and I ask him if he and his wife had stayed there those few very cold days and nights (it's warm again) recently, and was it cold and he said, no, he had gas, so, after we talked, I went and turned my gas meter on and then my stove, and voila.
I was on a six week waiting list for a hot water heater about 3 months ago. My water heater is in a shed outside and evidently four feet of flood water renders them useless. I should have taken care of that business instead of whatever the hell else I've been doing, (which partly was just assuming I would never have services restored to my neighborhood) because if I had, I'd be taken a hot shower right now instead of typing on this little Sony Vaio (still powered by a hundred foot extension cord running off the converter plugged into my cigarette lighter in the truck) while a big crawfish pot boils just water, slowly on my stove.
I ran some cold water into my tub, but clearly too much, because I just poured the first pot of hot water in there and when I stuck my hand into it, expecting tepid, it was still cold. I got another pot on the stove now, while the sun sets and I get ready to light the candles so I can see what I'm doing.
Over in Metarie today caulking windows to Chicago brick and this guy from India next door starts chatting me up about caulk and I clued him in to the intricacies of pure silicone versus acrylic latex silicone caulk and before I knew it he was confessing his Katrina related emotions towards suicide (the suicide numbers are pretty high in these first 6 post-K months). I told him, man, there is nobody here, I mean nobody, who isn't having some type of extreme emotional reaction to the Great Flood and don't be ashamed or hesitant to seek professional help (some of it free) and he said he was just praying, and I said, cool.
The mother of the woman whose house we are working on said to me on her second visit to the job site today, was that pile of dirt here this morning? I just smiled at her and nodded and she blushed and I said don't sweat it, we all got it, that weird memory thing, evidently related to the unique stress of living in a world turned asunder. She said, yeah, and then you could tell she was trying to remember something and she said, I've got CRS, and then you could tell she was trying to remember what that stands for, and finally she said, can't remember shit. She then told me two jokes and here they are--Beaudreaux in St. Bernard Parish heard that all the churches were being shut down (because there ain't no people because there ain't no viable houses for them to live in) but Beaudreaux said he didn't care about that because he preferred Popeye's. The next joke is lame too, pretty much an old standard, but not as regional and has nothing to do with Houses of God or fried chicken. A man is talking to his buddy and confides--you know, I didn't have sex with my wife before I married her. Hoping for a reciprocal confession he says to his buddy, what about you? His buddy says, well, I don't know, what was your wife's maiden name?
Huge News From New Orleans
I'm sorry, what did you say? Viability? Studies? Commissions? I don't need all that. You want proof that my neighborhood is coming back? I'll give you proof. Go to the corner of Canal and Galvez, this is in Louisville mind you, and the corner store (with gas pumps) you will find there, which has been open for three weeks, just added a new sign on the front plate glass--open 24 hours.
In all the devastated zones of New Orleans, this is the first 24 hour establishment. That's right, baby. Beer, wine, and liquor, and you know, food, snacks, toothbrushes and detergent and stuff, 24/7, in Louisville. You want viabliity, I got your viability, right here.
Birds, Rats, And Asswipes
I'm sitting in the truck again, in Metairie, early, before work. The lights are on in that trailer next door to the new house I'm working on. The old man and his wife are starting their day. The man can barely walk but still rides his bike around the neighborhood. Later, I'll watch him step in a mud puddle created by my brush and roller washing on the side of the house. I can see five or six more trailers parked in driveways up the street.
The earthen levee holding back the lake is a block behind me, and the 17th St. Canal, which separates Orleans Parish from Jefferson Parish, is about ten blocks to the east. The Canal runs perpendicular to the lake levee and is defined by concrete flood walls. A portion of this criminally under-engineered east side fell down after Katrina blew through in August, the wind of which took off many a roof shingle, and knocked down a few houses here and there, throughout New Orleans. If the west side of the flood wall fails while I'm sitting here, I'll be pretty quickly under eight or ten feet of water, that is if I don't have sense enough to move to the second floor of the job site. They say they got a little water over here, maybe a foot or so, but I have yet to ascertain from where the water came. The United States Army Corps of Engineers built our flood protection system. The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency.
There are good reasons our god of federal matters, George W. Bush, came here and talked a lot of shit in Jackson Square a few months ago. I can't myself enumerate them but... Oh, crapshit, that's not my thing,, political commentary, so let me just say--it just as well that incompetent fuckhead stays out of our affairs and stays forever more, the fuck away from us. If I say fuck one more time it will be a fucking trifecta. George W. Bush fucks up everything he touches, and there it is ladies and gentlemen, the trifecta.
I think the latest excuse as to why some 200,000 homes in the New Orleans area are rendered un-livable is that some flunky Corps clerk filed incorrect information, and all the subsequent sub-standard construction can now be explained away. When I talk to people out of state they shrug off the woes of New Orleans under blanket statements like--Well, you got all those corrupt politicians down there stealing your money, what do you expect? Why should our tax dollars go to support your fucked up situation, line the pockets of bad people? Let God Bless America, put Christ back in Christmas. Can you get me one of those Chocolate City T-shirts? Not all people who express such views are limp dick Rush Limbaugh Republicans, but what the difference would be I cannot say.
Work day done, weekend begins, although I'm too tired to stand up, much less trip the lights fantastic.
The Clothes Line Laundromat on N Broad is open but not selling their famous snacks, or for that matter, laundry detergent. I left my two trash bags full of dirty clothes on the Clothes Line floor and drove to the Spur which sells no beer on N. Broad. They are out of detergent too but got some on order for Tuesday. Galvez and Canal then, they got it, and, they got it going on. Pretty good chicken and biscuits out of there too. The Laundromat, that's where I'm at now. My washer and dryer, in the kitchen at Rocheblave, need gas and electricity to work and are just ornamental, shiny white objects at this point, six point five months after the flood.
M., I'm just going to assume you're not reading this, in Oregon, and will discuss with my usual selective candor, your rat problem, on Dumaine. Any problem can be solved, let's start with that.
I read a book about rats recently and so I can say that your rats are completely normal, not mutants, or in anyway acting out of character. It is selfish of me but you know I love it when the good news and bad news are the same. It is in a way comforting, and descriptive of the human condition in general.
So I got two rat size traps from the Gemplers catalog because I was so happy with the kill rate or their mouse traps, in my pursuit of the Virginia country mouse, but let me state the obvious, that little Virginia country mouse wouldn't amount to a pimple on the ass of a New Orleans rat.
I set the two traps in the Dumaine kitchen and came back a couple of days later and one trap was sprung, and licked thoroughly clean of its peanut butter bait, and the other trap was, uh....missing. But I later found the second trap, about six feet from where I had placed it. It was behind the dryer. When I picked it up it had not a rat in it but a half eaten mouse, which to add insult to injury and death, was nearly sliced in two by the overkill strength of the metal spring bar.
So I think the the rats are recognizing the new objects and are staying away due to this suspicion and the mice are just digging in cuz they stupid, and springing the traps, maybe getting caught, maybe not, and then the rats come and eat the caught mouses, and finish up with a little peanut butter dessert.
I think I'll go over today and start gutting your front room and check those traps, and see about finding you that general contractor info you asked for so you can have better ammunition to fight Allstate for the money owed to you, but which they are trying to fuck you out of, because, yes, you in good hands with Allstate, only thing is, one of those hands is flipping you the bird, always has been.
The Unlucky Pigeon
I park the truck sideways across my driveway, and close to the front steps so I can plug in the extension cord that runs from the CyberPower converter in my truck and into the house through my bedroom window, where it powers up my devices, and occasionally that single strand of Christmas lights I use for a night light in the bathroom, when I am feeling especially festive.
Today when I got out of the truck after work a Red Tail hawk flying six inches off the ground shot up Rocheblave toward Bienville and in it's talons was an unlucky pigeon.
Chauffeur came over with his grandson, Darius, who I the other day thought was his cousin, and they said howdy and looked at the new trailer they will both be living in once it is inspected and powered up and unlocked. It will sit there as the locked property of FEMA until the same pole that controls my house, and the Sculptor's, is switched on. Chauffeur said he called Entergy but he may have misinterpreted the importance of our pole in the equation and ya'll can hold your breaths but I'm just getting more and more used to the idea of living without electricity. For the Chauffeur and Darius' sake I hope it happens though, eventually.
I went to the Spur (gas station/convenience store) on N. Broad, between here and the Dumaine house, on Sunday, to get some beer to take over to my nephew's, Uptown on Carondelet, for the Superbowl. I walked past the counter by the front door and to the back of the store and stared and stared and stared and then turned around and walked back and the counter girl said, you looking for beer? and I said, you know I am. She said, you look just like everybody else coming in here looking for beer, you look like your feelings are hurt. She was so exactly right about that and I told her so. I went to the Spur at Galvez and Canal and got my twelve-pack of Heinekin and headed Uptown.
The kid from N. Tonti, Raheim, came by before the game on Sunday and we played Around The World some but I was so good, circling his world 'till it made him dizzy, that finally he said you wanna play that spelling game, which is Horse, but which I played with him the other day as Cat. I said, sure, and we played Cat and Stop and he beat me twice. On the third game I was about to crush him with my superior round ball skills and he tried an over the backboard trick shot and swished it home and I said I'll bet you this game you can't do that again, and of course he did. I don't care. I didn't want to win anyhow. Winning is for losers.
There are now more stoplights than temporary stop signs in the neighborhoods of Louisville (Bienville Corridor), Mid-City, Esplanade Ridge, and Bayou St. John, and that is progress. I said no way that Spur at Galvez and Canal be open this morning at 5:55 a.m., on the way to work, but I was wrong about that and I got coffee and carrot cake for breakfast before heading out to Metairie to caulk and putty and paint wood as quick as my boss could nail it up.
I'm getting my cold water bathing techniques down to a fine art and someday I'll tell you about it, except for one particular technique which may come under the heading of--More Information Than You Need.
I think that 85-year-old couple, The Smith's, are back, and camping a good bit of the time at their very fine house around the corner, on Bienville.
Raheim came by, ostensibly to humiliate me again, but he couldn't see me sitting here in the truck so he went back around the corner. The setting sun made the little studs in his ear lobes, sparkle.
The Crusty Sidekick
As I remember portable hoops were in the last couple of years banned from the streets of New Orleans, because of the criminal element's propensity for using them as a way to kill time, and each other, during the down time between drug deals.
A little bit overly sensitive to the perceived disadvantage of being a woman in a male-driven world, my new partner in crime, while helping me to steal one of these hoops from a next door neighbor's yard will be goddamned if she going to take the lead from my maleness as how to carefully relocate this hoop to a chained up position next to the telephone pole in front of my house. She is to me in this sense very much like a man overly imbued with his sense of maleness, and will throw out her back, or rip her flesh on rusty nails in her pursuit of the alpha-station, a station I will gladly relinquish to any woman, or man. She got the can-do attitude though and this is a thing only to my benefit, and hopefully hers.
I really think of this caper as a Rocheblave reclamation project, and the hoop will be gladly returned to the owner, should that owner ever show up, after now five months of absence. In the meantime Ima work on my three-point shot, and the delivery of my explanation as to how that chain they had around it got cut clean in two, leaving out the part about my purchase of a very effective pair of discount ($12.95) bolt cutters.
This is why New Orleans will never get the help it needs, because we all criminals here, and will abuse any assistance you send us. All of us. And one other thing. If you take George Bush's advice and bring your family here because you believe what he said about this being a "heckuva place to bring your family" I give you fair warning--we will eat your children. Crawfish are prohibitively expensive this year.
Before the hoop theft I stole a piece of plywood from the Sculptor's property and jumped the Chauffeur's fence and stole another piece from his property. With a 97 cent can of Walmart spray paint I made two signs that say NEED POWER, and leaned one against the Sculptor's house and one against the telephone pole in front of my house. I wrote the same message on the plywood boarding up one of the Chauffeur's windows.
Later, this guy came by looking for the Chauffeur and so I called him and said somebody looking for you. It turned out to be an old friend who was temporarily working with FEMA trailer delivery and he was front man for the actual delivery process, now happening after 3 months of broken promises. The two of them hugged. The trailer came and then a plumbing crew came and then right at sundown a crew of men came to block it up, tie it down, unlock the cabinets, and pull out the side extension. We toured the inside in between these visits and it pretty nice in there. Chauffeur had to test the bed with imaginary sexual maneuvers and I said well I'll be leaving you alone now.
Between the initial delivery and the plumbing crew, Chauffeur brought out his sorry ass basketball and bounced it once but it didn't bounce back. I went in and got my new ball and we shot around a bit. I said, Chauffeur, when I jumped your fence this afternoon I finally got a look at that hoop you've been saying we could set up and it's got a whole bigger than a basketball in the cheap plexiglass backboard. Chauffeur just shrugged.
A kid is down at the corner banging a fireplace poker against a metal pole at Iberville and Rocheblave. I already know how this turns out so I just sit tight, shoot poorly, and wait for it to happen. My game is coming on and I turn around after setting the net on fire with a high arced three-pointer and the kid is coming up. I toss him the ball and the the three of us begin shooting. The kid is better than Chauffeur and almost as good as me, which frankly, is not that good. But the kid is only ten or so and the hoop is at regulation height. He's got a white wave cap on his short cropped head and imitation diamond earrings in each ear lobe. He wears a clean un-tucked dress shirt over baggy jeans and an easy smile shows big white teeth.
When the plumbing crew came they gave our game a wide berth and Chauffeur went and talked to them while the kid and I played. I did not ask the kid too many questions because that is no way to get information from a kid. I did slip in a few casual questions though and know that his mama works, not too far away, he lives on N. Tonti, has electricity but no gas, that old woman with the dog is not his mama but just a friend, and he goes to school in Jefferson because there are not that many area schools open for ten year olds, in New Orleans.
He showed me a couple of his favorite shots--The Crusty Sidekick, and, The Twister, both of which he missed. He at one point posited that perhaps his wave cap was too tight and might be adversely affecting his game. I concurred. He went away around the corner for awhile and I glanced over there once and saw him talking to the old woman in the housecoat and she was wiping something off of his face. He came back without the wave cap and we played Around the World a few times, until I got so smoking good I was shooting and swishing them home, with my eyes closed. The kid expected no bones from me, which is good, because I wasn't giving any. I beat him, but just barely, and his spirit, when he walked away, seemed pretty well intact.
The Closure
By many reports he was a good kid but last night somebody shot him dead anyway, in front of his old school, Life of Christ Christian Academy, on Dorgenois, in the 7th Ward. He was back in town helping with the rebuilding process at the school.
Also on Thursday, 3 tornadoes ripped through Jefferson and Orleans Parishes. The one in New Orleans started at Veterans and West End Blvd and traveled diagonally towards Canal Blvd before heading out into the lake. Homes in the Lakeview area that were decimated five months previous by Katrina were decimated in new ways, by 125 mph unnamed winds.
Three of my former young neighbors on Dumaine, are reportedly in jail, or still in jail for Pre-K crimes. One for his murdering, in Louisiana, and one, who once popped mean wheelies, for something in Houston, where he evacuated after spending the flood week with M and thirty others in M's Dumaine house. S, who one of you drove around in your BMW, was released on bail in Houston, jumped it and headed west and was then picked up in South Central Los Angeles, where he also had warrants for crimes committed during his many trips there over the years trying to evade warrants (attachments) in New Orleans.
We buried my mom on Wednesday, in Dallas, as part of that ceremonious process meant to bring closure to the bereaved. My cousin, the monsignor, spoke, as did a new guy pastor of the Methodist Church, who didn't know mom, but took good notes and delivered kind thoughts, and at the grave side people testified as to their connection to Clifford (there is no conclusive story as to why my mom was named Clifford, and no one wants to embrace the last thoughts relayed from her to me on the mattter--that she was named after a horse on the farm) and it was good, all of it.
If I gained a needed closure though, it was only in part by the many kind thoughts and heartfelt hugs. In equal part my closure on the life of Clifford Louis was gained from the passing of the backhoe operator parked at a comically discreet distance from the grave site.
The street light is on in front of the Dumaine house and somebody tarped the roof while I was gone and cut down the tree from the Esnard Villa property which had blown down and landed softly on M's roof. I was over this morning setting rat traps while unsuccessfully avoiding their dominant scurrying about.
The chauffeur got his temporary electric pole set up across the street from me over here on Rocheblave and waits patiently for his promised trailer, where he hopes to live with his seven-year-old cousin, who is causing problems at the home of his family. Chauffeur is being asked to leave his current temporary residence over by the Bayou St. John.
It's going to get a little chilly during the nights this week, in New Orleans.