View current page
...more recent posts
Open This
I have to tell you the truth, I'm not really all that nice to ill-behaved children.
My boss brought his pride and joy eight-year-old-son to work today, which is ok, the kid has some work ethic and sticks close to his dad for the most part and I did not mind, in fact enjoyed, playing stickball with him during break, and his dad did not interrupt or even disapprove, as far as I could tell, of my light badgering--"you hear this ball whizzing by your head? It's saying you can't hit me, you sissy, you can't hit me on your best day."
Later, after lunch, which is very close to quitting time, and is a period in which I will sometimes get lost in reflection, similar to but slightly less hopeful than the place I go in the morning period before break, and the kid snuck up on me while I was crouched low to the floor straightlining a piece of baseboard and said "boo," scaring me out of my dreamworld where human frailty is the shortest distance between two points, and I barked at him, "boy, this ain't no game, get away from me."
And I meant it is the funny thing, and still do, even in retrospect I mean it. Evidently, I take my work seriously.
At lunch his dad kept saying ok that's enough but kept pitching the tape ball to him inside the house and I kept at the ready as catcher, saying things like "come on batter," and "hey batter batter," and, "sissy boy can't hit." He averaged out at about .600 though.
Before lunch the boy's dad had him moving all the paint cans from the master closet into the garage so carpet can be laid next week and I was painting the access panels along side the whirlpool bath and when the kid tried to muscle a full five gallon paint bucket I told him to leave it. He was determined though so I put it this way--"doing what you can't do is not worth the effort. Trying to move that bucket is not heroic, does not make you strong, does not mean you are a man. You will only hurt yourself." He countered that he wasn't hurting himself and I countered that lifting something heavy the way he was lifting it--with his legs wide open and the whole of his upper body hovering over the heavy object--was the most sure way to hurt yourself. "When you get to be twenty and thirty and you won't be able to do heavy work and you'll look back on this day and say 'if only I hadn't been such a knucklehead when I was eight.' Just leave it, I'll get it later." He lost interest and went off to find his dad.
Shortly before quitting time and I was painting the windowsills in the garage and the kid was misinterpreting some request his father had made and was trying to remove the lid from an empty plastic five gallon bucket and I was glancing over seeing him having trouble but was pretty much done with the child care aspect of my job for the day so I let him have his trouble. It was late in the day and the lustre was waning from the shiny chrome of his work ethic and so he gave up, and said, or rather, demanded, of me, of all people--OPEN THIS FOR ME.
Well, I am a busy man, and paid, not overly but adequately, to perform a job which I have previously, long ago, made clear does not include responding favorably to pissy attitudes.
I glanced over at the boy and said, "I'm sorry? What did you say?"
"Open This For Me!!!" He was looking at me like he thought I actually would.
I stopped performing my task and turned to face him fully, and looked at him with what I hoped would pass for disdainful incredulity. "Boy, I don't know who it is in your world that let's you get away talking like that but it ain't me, so you best run along now and let me work." He didn't like that and went to tell his dad, who yelled at him, so he came back and played noisely with an electrician's ladder, right beside me, and I took his punishment as my due.
The Sycamore
I glance over occasionally to see what would cause a kid to laugh so gleefully and see a couple of gangsters playing gin rummy in the front room, gangsters who apparently have been given special permission to hang with the younger kids, although some of the younger kids are as old as seventeen, because nothing will stay still long enough for you to bag it and go.
I don't know what he was laughing at.
There is a keyboard here that was never of much use to M, who feels 88 is the only way to go, and a couple of the youngers are fairly talented at playing around with it which is the background music tonight.
After arguing briefly over a scoring issue the gangsters, who had been given temporary special indoor priviledges on account of rain, exit to the porch.
On their own initiative the kids, seven or eight of them, made a schedule and posted it on the refrigerator to determine who would do dishes on what day.
Not solely because of M but truly with a great deal of help from her, three young ladies from this hood are on their way to college, two to the local Delgado Jr. College (one with paid childcare), and one to Southern University in Baton Rouge.
I got caught up in an emotional wave tonight is why I got drawn to the recording machine, I can never capture what it is, but cast away in hopes of snagging something I can eat.
There's a young mockingbird visiting the sycamore in front of Rocheblave, but he's mute. I been whistling at him but he ain't impressed and he won't sing for me.
I slept with my head pointed to a new direction last night and dreamt like a sonofabitch, nothing interesting, the usual averting of near catastrophe.
Bayou Dreamer
There are certain frayed thoughts on the edge of my consciousness feeling like pieces of truth that have been triggered by the fish in Bayou St. John where I sat this morning with my back to Moss and finished reading the encapsulation of Slyvia Plath's life, The Bell Jar (with biographic afterforward).
Will you be putting up a fence around the place?
Will you be getting a TV for the new place?
A domesticated dog came up as I sat there and licked my ear while her owner looking like Bridget Jones suggested--Duchess don't do that.
The Bayou is a real gem of a place and Marie Laveau her ownself would tell you same if you could get to her.
The phone's ringing and ringing and finally is picked up by a sleeper who calls for another boy who has to examine various figures sleeping on the floor before finding the right one who then begins talking loudly to his mother.
All of us various organisms making up Nature are being very still and quiet this morning and the black glass surface of the Bayou reflects, as a background to the trees and houses, pink and orange sky, so that it is above and below and in front and you can get closer to the idea of altered dimension. Which is where the fish comes in...
...breaking the surface of the water and gliding through the air while turning sideways to slap the bayou and coming up and flying a total of three separate times to break the glass into a dimension where pretty pictures disappear and geometry or something from the mathmatic art world comes in so that three separate but entwined circles radiated rippled waves outward to cross each other and form yet another dimension which clearly exists in front of me with no more added to my personal chemistry than coffee and the poignancy of a great long dead writer. And other than the occasional bellowing of a drunk man way far off down by the church there is no auditory distraction whatsoever; there is a place so quiet yet charged with pure vivaciousness. There is an essence of something desirable.
Roaming Boys
A couple of the Dumaine boys knocked on my door at Rocheblave yesterday and when I opened it up there they were at the bottom of the temporary steps, smiling, and, being in the neighborhood thought they would stop by. I let them tour the house such at it is while I sat on the steps watching the boy in the wheelchair and his girlfriend making themselves perfectly at home underneath the overhang of the sculptors residence across the street.
When they came out I tried to figure if they wanted something from the tired in a non-giving mood me or if in fact they just came by to say "hi." If the latter then they would be the first of their type. After a few minutes of all us sitting, swatting and killing the weaker and slower of the mosquitoes, and fidgeting because two of us three are not overly gifted with the gab, we all came to realize not a one of us was going to take charge so all of us would have to make some effort towards a comfortable co-existence.
The one boy said, "it sure is (pause) quiet over here." That's relative to the Dumaine neighborhood which is near the corner of a major thoroughfare and is a block with a history which includes all the best excitement that history has to offer. That is if you find gunfire, drug dealing, police action, and constant motion exciting. A more to the point child would have said, "boring" instead of "quiet."
"I kind of like it like this," I said. In the heart of New Orleans my house is the only residence in my block on my side of the street.
The two boys then talked about the iguanas they had seen at the pet store which is what put them in my neighborhood, and that made me think about the fact that both of them have been known to torture, I mean, play with the prolific indigenous chameleon, so I said "have you seen Dr. Dolittle?" which is a thing (movies) that I used to take them to but don't anymore. "There's a talking chameleon in the movie but it's not like these here it's...," and then the both of them, speaking alternately, told me exactly what the mexican chameleon looked like and most of its pertinent speaking parts for although they have not seen the movie they have however seen over and over the trailers on TV. They have retained more about the movie than I have and tell me things I have forgotten, even though it was just a few days ago I saw the full length of it myself.
The one boy, the talkative one, exclaimed how well we seemed to be doing. "Aren't we having a good conversation? This is a really good conversation." Then we all shifted our attention to how the lady sculptor, who had now arrived in her truck, would handle the loiterers. It was the type of voyeurism that was/is so popular on Dumaine, and is a thing that is useful when trying to forget about yourself. Best to say the confrontation lacked any first rate drama as the boy in the wheelchair, and his girlfriend, did not retreat, and there was no yelling, or police, or threatening behavior of any kind. The Dumaine boys have been raised on better, for example, last month there was this, as told to me by M, to whom I was giving a ride home from work today as my job this week is close to hers and her car is in the shop:
"I saw Y the other day," M said.
"Yeah, where?" I said.
"On Dumaine," she said.
Y is the very beginning of all this.
"She was living with her aunt over on the other side of Broad but got thrown out for drugs."
Y's persisent weakness.
"N's still in," M said.
"Oh yeah, I didn't know." I thought she had been out for a good while this time. "When did that happen."
"About a month ago. She got arrested on The Porch."
"Really," I said. This was news to me. I'm out of the loop. "Warrant?"
"More or less, " M said. "She just quit going to her probation officer."
"Yeah," I said. "Did the boy see it."
"G? No. He wasn't around. The cops put a gun to EG's head though."
"What?" EG is a good boy, a college boy, he can get out if he wants to.
"EG and some of the other boys were in front of the house playing basketball and the cops show up, whether specifically for N on a tip or just a random sweep I don't know, but EG turned around to a gun in his face, and then they let him be, and hassled some of the others. J was there. (and some of his boys). And they found a crack pipe on the porch. I don't know if they can do anything for just that..."
"Yes, they can," I interrupted. "I mean your reputation in the neighborhood will buy you some leeway but, you know, drug paraphanalia, and gangsters, on YOUR property is uh..."
"Yeah, I know, and when I found out I gave J a good shouting, and EG, he wouldn't have said anything about it if P from across the street hadn't told me. When I confronted EG (who lives in the house), he was like, 'oh yeah, I just forgot,' and proceeded to tell me in great detail about having a gun in his face but not like it bothered him, just like it was the weather we were talking about..."
And then the boys arose from my steps and the one boy said, "and now we will be leaving,"
"Well, good seeing you, and, thanks for coming by," I said, and as I was closing the door I heard the one boy say, "that's a sharp bathroom you have," and, "that was a good conversation, wasn't that a good conversation?"
By The Way
BigHead has taken to laying around under my vehicles and under my house. He's not pretending to be my cat and I don't pretend I like him, but on the other hand I don't show him flagrant disrespect.
This week lest anyone should accuse me of lacking regard for chick writers I have purposefully set a path to change that perception and have gleefully read the work of Anne Tyler, Harper Lee, and Slyvia Plath. And there's an Alice Munro waiting in this week's New Yorker but I have not always, or ever, been crazy for her so there's that.
I love Anne Tyler, and whosoever shall not love Harper Lee will burn eternally, and I wish Sylvia had not killed herself because her Bell Jar is an elucidation, and one might wish there was more of her (prose) to read.
At least two of the tires on the truck have nails in them and the spare is a flat shredded retread which is why I'm over here at Dumaine working (ha) at this instead of driving over the Mississippi River Bridge--which is being repainted and has narrowed lanes and no shoulder to pull off onto when all your tires blow out--to shop at various (two competing) Home Improvement outlets. But you know, the thing is, if you don't pull the nails out you can drive a pretty fair length of time on a tire with a nail in it and that's a fact on the other side of an equation which is me losing my nerve. Ima go in a minute though.
I don't mean anything bad, at least in my humble opinion, by using that phrase "chick writer," and in any case I am so far removed from a world inhabited by women who would give a fck, or who would deem me worthy of their wrath, that it seems ok to me in the sense that playing around with a rattlesnake that may only be sleeping is ok. And also I am in a perpetual state of ambiguity as to whether this lack of educated opinionated woman in my life is a bad thing. I know I don't yearn for a serious discussion on the meaning of Ms. Plath's misanthropy and eventual disengagement. I would have nothing to add, and how seriously would you take me when I said, "I dig her; cool chick; I am really effected by her."?
There's a bunch of kids, maybe five or six, sleeping on the floor over to my left in the front room. There's central air and ceiling fans running over here now so the inside summer climate is uniformly comfortable for the first time in 105 years. Southern University redshirt freshman footballer Eddie Green is missing in action this morning so Irving, who pops a mean wheelie, is curled fetally on his bed, which used to be mine. I am not lamenting the loss off that bed and could in no way justify lament because there has never been a shortage of places for me to sleep in quiet peace--under bridges and steps, in dog houses, on floors, on construction sites, in cars and trains, on the white sands of a missile testing range, in caves, in condos, in gullies, by a pig sty, in a shack, in the woods, on the wet sand, by the bay, in the desert, in the jungle, on couches, in chairs, on benches, and once in a while under fresh clean sheets in places that I am not used to and are not used to me, I sleep so peacefully.
There are those who have noted and commented, and complained, with jealousy and without, about my remarkable (yet not narcoleptic) ability to sleep--so to speak and literally--through tornadoes, and rainstorms, and waking up encircled by wild (sleeping) dogs in Mexico being a able to fall back asleep, and waking up to the searching hands of a hobo in Yuma who was going for the buck knife I foolishly wore on my side, stirring with enough fright and movement to interrupt his attempt, yet still being able to fall right back to sleep. I think I'm too passive is it. I better go do something. Kids are waking up. I might get in a nap later on.
Sisters Of Sartre
Looking out my window stubbing my toe on the soft edges of second hand literature I see a thing that makes me lonely for a past dynamic that included more girl children, who could comfort me with their seemingly serene assurance that the world around us, shambled, in tatters, teetering, was only as it should be.
They all scattered to the wind now though: daddy's in jail, daddy's dead, daddy got a new groove going on. In a sense it all goes for me too.
Looking out another window I can see my urban philosophy project is attended and accepted by only the finest feline critics in the city, their sprayed scent a testimony to the value of real estate. I have been the keeper of my brother's dance hall, boarding it up against the onslaught of crack heads, a group I can only attend to on my own terms, and those terms are lacking in but the most meager amounts of sympathy. I am becoming hardened. I cannot see the solution to a problem that is evidenced by a human being brought into this world and left to fester and wallow on the street for thirty or fifty years, a person whose only real contact with God is not to be seen in the person's use of faith based shelters, but in the ringing stark raving clarity of mind obtained via the crack pipe. I would like to feel more sympathy but it is my feeling that sympathy without action is wasted emotion, a valium for your soul, which will not soar to intended heights with the weight of your indifference. So you feel sorry and then convince yourself you feel better, while actually doing nothing, taking not even the smallest step. I myself am the coward who can only feel for the children brought into--and in some cases, heading towards--this blighted world. This is me talking to myself, and you, and YOU, my Pentecostal brother, whose dance hall I board up and sign with the subtle humor of existential despair--"NO EXIT."
The trinity of seven-year-old girls I am missing are attended to by loving and caring guardians. One guardian is banned from this house forever by it's current owner who deemed the guardian's theft of my full to the brim change cup a third strike. The daughter of this young woman was often treated as somewhat of an outcast by the other two girls. She is so beautiful and poised this seven-year-old in the hood, with manners and bearing belying certain aspects of her upbringing that in my opinion would seem to hinder such grace. To make this child smile was such a lopsided exchange considering the weight of the gift which was mine--seeing her do it.
The second girl, small, frail, a mere wisp, with eyes bigger than belong on her tiny face, a dull sheen of skin, and adorned in clean but always second hand clothing, carries the weight of everything I have ever seen or felt or will ever describe, on the bent sloping coat hanger of her shoulders. To make her laugh makes me cry.
The third girl is the embodiment of what makes it all keep happening in this hood and your hood and all over the world. She is the sensuous one. The one of her group who will most likely first experience the sensual pleasures. Her grandma, shortly before dying confided to me that this grand daughter was already getting "musty" under her arms and this meant she would become a woman early. It was the girl's sixth birthday party.
She is now being cared for by a conservative aunt in a neighborhood not much safer than this one. I tried to figure the proximity of bloodstained sidewalk when recently I read of another gunned down teenager in her neighborhood. I have watched with amazement her progress from the age of two. At three I first made direct eye contact and knew I had met that rare child who already intuited more about the world than I ever would.
She is not allowed to come to this neighborhood anymore and last year had an incident in school that as far as I can tell was her first foray into the world of "playing doctor." Her aunt was reasonably upset by this and consulted with the owner of this house in an attempt at trying to understand what the girl may have been exposed to in this neighborhood during her first six years and my response to the owner of this house--who was telling me this and who knew as well as me that that would be a hard list to make--was a vacant stare and a bewildered shake of my head and the word "Jesus."
The last time I saw the girl in person was at a time I now realize was shortly after the incident at the school, for which she was made to feel ashamed, and confused. I was answering the front door over here and there she was looking up at me with none of her usual confidence or beguilement and an expression of guilt that assumed I had heard about her harassing of her second grade peer. I couldn't tell from her mood what she wanted, and she wouldn't tell me so I let her in the house to roam at will. At one point she came over here where I am now and I leaned sideways and gave her a big bear hug and afterwards she stepped back and with a very uncharacteristic mistrust said--"what did that mean?" I guess this is a lesson in context because at the time I did not know of her "incident" at school and therefore I did not think of the many ramifications of my words, words so over used and misused, and misunderstood, and therefore lacking meaning when meaning is needed most. But when you know so little its probably better to stick with that which feels certain. I told her "it means I love you."
And, well, speaking of love and Christ and neediness, and charity, all those things one would hope to find in a church, I think I should tell you again, as like punctuation, that the Iberville dance hall which I keep boarded and reboarded-up and is being choked to death by the ubiquitous Virginia Creepr Vine (which is like kudzu with smaller leaves) and sits in perpendicular proximity to the large weed and tree choked lot which fronts Rocheblave, and is apparently waiting the fate of similar New Orleans properties--which is to burn down during a cold winter when a careless visitor not welcome at the shelters uses poor judgement with a bic, is also, like the vacant lot, owned by the Pentecostal Church, a group upon which I have chosen to lay my wrath. So in a sense I'm like an honorary member of the church, tithing my ill will.
The punch line to the dance hall is a short one. A few years back a group, perhaps too sneakily, tried to acquire the dance hall from the owner previous to the Pentecostals, with the intention of turning it into an AIDS Hospice. Unfortunately, its next door proximity to a small private (Pentecostal) school and general proximity to many god-forsaken, god fearing Baptists, caused the deal to fall through before it could get started. The mayor had somehow helped the group and he did not need that kind of publicity.
I guess I've made it clear to my new neighbors--those who have been foolish enough to engage me in conversation--that I think that was a shameful mistake--an opinion I can offer freely by virture of being the nearest actual residence to the property. How could the restoration of a grand old house for the purpose of offering comfort to dying people (oh yeah, I'm sorry, people with AIDS) be something so many churches would come out against. And boy did they come out. I remember being simply shocked by the words of area pastors concerning the issue. An overt disgust, an almost in so many words expressed hatred for those who suffer the ultimate punishment for their "sins"--slow lingering death. So much so that I drove to the neighborhood (this was long before I bought over here, and in fact did not realize it was the same neighborhood when I did buy) just in hopes of spying what I imagined at the time might be an entirely different specie. I am such a naive schmuck. Its just that the Hopsice debacle was such an obvious turning away from such an obvious microcosmic view of an important problem--ignoring the slow lingering death of our city, and a fear of being too close to the death when in fact the death engulfs us, it is the air we breath, almost literally. Anyway, at the time I had considered going back to church as a way to meet chicks, but that incident really set me back.
Looking down I see the yellowing pages of second hand masterpieces--To Kill a Mockingbird underneath Lord of the Flies. I had been alerted by the crying oustide my window and was watching the loneliness of a small girl child whose Daddy had come back after some absence and was making an honest go of things. He had built for her a rope swing with a primitive but purely adequate seat, and the day before both mother and father had surrounded her with attention, first one pushing, then the other.
The border collie mut the man brought with him as much needed guard dog in a neighborhood recently beset by burglary seemed to understand the need for action but clearly was not up to the task itself. It turned in jumping circles by the back door, yelping its need for assistance. The little girl screamed more even while realizing her feet could be used to propel her in her swing. The light of recoginition and pride showed on her face--that she could accomplish things on her own--and then just as quickly the light turned off as she realized she did not want to do it alone.
What's A Manner?
It always surprises me between visits those free roaming chickens that populate the immediate vicinity around Dorgenois and Dumaine, and this morning one of the hens was hovering near and instructing a cluster? of chicks who were foraging the leaf and trash strewn curbside as the sun rising behind me caught the humid air and gave proof to the theory that we live under water. "Do what I say, not what I do" is how I heard mother hen.
I think is was the character "Chef" from New Orleans in the movie Apocalypse Now who after being almost eaten by a Bengal tiger while foraging in the jungle on the boat ride to find Kurtz reminded himself adamantly--"Don't get off the boat, don't get off the boat, don't get off the boat!!!"
That's a feeling I sometimes relate to and is why I'm glad that reading is something I enjoy because it can be done on the boat. Here's a list of recent reads:
Farnham's Freehold by Heinlen--things aren't what they seem, more than once.
The Unvanquished by Faulkner--those who can, do, those who can't and suffer too much because they can't, write about it.
Forfeit by Dick Francis (former jockey)--he writes really well.
Primary Colors by Anonymous (Klein)--nice wording and pace and thought provoking too.
The Great Train Robbery by M. Crichton--great use of turn of century English street dialect, great anti-hero, nice characterization of different social classes, and at least one heartbreaking street scene.
An Invisible Spectator, a biography of a reclusive writer, Paul Bowles, and I haven't read much of it yet because I am currently a bit put off by the whole reclusive writer thing and that goes for you especially Jerome.
The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald--I'm glad I waited on this one. He only had that one dream.
Empire Falls by Richard Russo--Russo is my favorite living author.
Those books, except for the Russo, and the Bowle's biography, which were hardbacks mailed to me by good friend, were all paperbacks bought for fifty cents a piece over at the Thrift store next to the Rockn'bowl on Carrollton and Tulane. So yeah I had to get off the boat to get them but a really good batch it was and worth the risk.
What about nourishment, slim? Sure, good question from the back row there. Well, I just do drive thru mostly. Doesn't that suck, slim? Well, sure, in a way, but it keeps me from passing out, which is a good thing I think. Don't you ever get off the boat for nourishment, slim? Ok, another good question from the back row, I was gonna ask you to speak up earlier but I'm glad I didn't, well, uh, yes, I do. What's it like for you, slim? Ok you cheeky sumabitch, it's like this, and no more questions from the back row.
Over at the Subway sandwich shop at Broad and Cleveland I was waiting to order a Club on wheat while a traveling salesman was hitting on my future Rocheblave postal delivery person (and who can blame him--she has nice bearing, and those eyes, ohmygawdhelpme, not to mention legs that walk a beat.), and these two goofy white frat boys are ordering in front of me and making a really complex thing out of ordering a damn sandwich (would you cut my bread the other way, and I'd like to pay for one of these with cash and the other one with credit), and the cashier is first looking just put out, which is a mirror to how I feel, and then she starts rocking back and forth, loosing her concentration, and saying things into that space where none of us exist, like,"--am I trippin?" And then finally her co-worker tells her to go on ahead and she rushes to the bathroom where we can all hear the highly audible retching. Which if I had to wait on frat boys all day (luckily an uncommon thing in this part of town) I would react the same way. As is sadly predictable the frat boys find humor in a situation that has none whatsoever. The one of them turns to me hoping for ally and I say to him without speaking--" I am closer than you will ever be able to imagine to reaching over the counter for that knife and making a sandwich out of your face." The salesman is quiet, and my future Rocheblave postal delivery person is also quiet. The retching continues as does the giggling of nincompoops. I had the opportunity once outside to back the cast iron bumper of my yellow beast into the shiny chrome of their obnoxious all terrain vehicle, but I passed on that.
Then, this morning I'm thinking I'll treat myself to a sit down breakfast at Besty's, Canal and Dorgenois, and so at six-fifteen I'm walking out my almost unblighted property on Rocheblave and across the weed choked vacant lot owned by those less than fastidious Pentecostal's, also of Canal and Dorgenois (and Iberville and Rocheblave for that matter) and on the sidewalk in front of the Auto Title Tranfer establishment is a dead black and white cat, which I'm hoping is not--although I have recently been wishing bad things upon--BigHead, or worse yet, the kitten, who is an adolescent now, but not that big, and its hard to say whoitis because the fur is well abraded and bloody and the neck is twisted and upside down and turned back looking towards the tail. A scene that has wild dog written all over it. So I'm on my way to breakfast and when I get there I'm surprised at how crowded and noisy it is.
Betsy's is a long standing white owned business in this predominately black neighborhood. Cab drivers for United start their day at Betsy's everyday, at about five-thirty. Then the neighborhood regulars, both black and white, and later, all the way into the afternoon, out of towners and out of towners accompanied by their hosts.
But this weekend was the final days for the Essence Music Festival and that brings in a lot of out of town black people, a good handful of which had found their way to Betsy's this morning, so that an establishment that is on an average day comfortably integrated (you know that for a "white owned" that has to mean more whites in attendance that blacks) was on this morning comfortably integrated with just a few of us whites. The young black men at the counter with me were respectful and respectable but had the styling and bearing of gangsters, probably the college educated variety.
So it was a different groove at Betsy's this morning, a joviality with different flavor and slang, less of the local white New Orleans New York working class sound and more of the national black homogeny of sound which hips and hops and might be just a bit cooler than thou. And a white man has to be so goddamn careful making any generalities about his black brother and I'm not really up to all that caution except to admit the obvious--my opinions are only that. Also Besty was a little manic this morning, decidedly uncool, worrying about people's movement between tables and trips to the bathroom as if a little unrest would rock this world out of orbit. I was only wishing the white regular sitting on the other side of me at the counter would stop smoking, stop hacking, and stop blowing the mucous from out of his nose, while I ate.
Any more questions?
Thanks To The Living
The Dumaine boys did an outstanding job of cleaning the street today which I had noticed in passing earlier while airing up a tire at the Shell--have to make the U-turn at Dumaine. So I'm dropping by now because I miss them some; take some pictures, and Glynn says, "you takin' those over to your house?" and I paused before answering the slightly awkward question, thinking about what he said and then said, "yes." "To remember us by?" he said, and I was a little put out by the finality of that so I smiled condescendingly and said, "I don't have to come far if I want to remember you," and he acquiesced with a nod but essentially (and he and I both know this), yes, that, I guess, is exactly what I was doing. I should know better. The pictures I take when I am most apt to take them--in those two hours before dusk--never come out so good because the lighting is at odds with the blackness of their skin, and the results are lying representations of those warrior souls.
An SUV with Washington plates cruises by and I make eye contact with the occupants--only they aren't making it with me--and I am reminded of my recent reconsidering of an episode 13 or so years past in which I was in Texas (after a recent year and a half in Seattle) threatened by mail thusly--"what you did was wrong and I'm a get you for it," this with a Washington state postmark. What I did wrong was not fully evident at the time and now is no more so but getting "got" for something reminds me of this--just getting got, period.
I can't say he is a good friend because he's not but by reasoning that he is a better man than so many casual friends, and only 44 years old, and with that ability like Gatsby to see you as the man you want to be and reflecting that back to you before casually glancing off to attend to other business, it is with great sadness that I reflect on the news of his imminent death by cancer. I am jumping the gun accepting defeat so early but better now than later I say because the greater the early consideration the higher are the chances that what little useful courage I have will be used to convey my feelings to the living. "I'm going to miss you G, you are one of the few," and even your death will in the end uplift the living as we consider the unspoken message of your passing--are we accomplishing anything worthwhile? Is this what we want the final picture to look like? Is there something we should be doing that we are not doing? In your case G--with a beautiful wife and four daughters equally so, a booming business, and an undaunting pursuit of leisurely activities--the answers would be yes, yes, and no. And thank you for living as long as you will.
Birds Gotta Skim
Was down to the Bayou St. John this morning where it is rumored the jumping fish glitter at sunrise.
Those are my steps first after the Dumaine bridge but I have never challenged anyone for this right because there has never been anyone to challenge. It is my bayou alone for small stretches of time at any given sunrise. The water is oily black and still and does not invite the notion of living organisms but my trained fish will defy this Cheneyesque reality for this is true--the show must go on.
To the right is that aged coppery green dome which one suspects might harbor followers of a religion.
To the left is the Dumaine bridge, the purple striped paint job much faded now, and grey primer spots mark where the great anti-grafitti anti-artist has done his deed.
Beyond the bridge--obscured from view somewhat by two large live oaks--is the now almost completed renovated American Can Company, which will be housing for a pricier clientele than yours truly.
A pretty woman with ample bosom defined clearly behind the sheerest garment is across the mason dixon, I mean bayou, from me. She waves and I wave back, sloshing some coffee that has gone cold. Her two Rotweillers are doing their business and she steps carefully in the tall wet grass, plainly aware that her's are not the only one's who do that business there, and as it is not in fashion, or mandated, that owners scoop shit, caution is warranted. My side of the bayou is not conducive to shitting and although not unheard of, mostly is not an issue. And of course I do not stray as walker, runner, or sightseer too far from the parameters that define my spot. I've been coming here, not exactly frequently, but consistently, for seven years, and I haven't seen everything there is to see so why would I stray too far and risk stepping in someone elses shit.
Well, my fish, yeah I've missed you too, are done now, some good jumping today, and their legacy of foamy bubbles like that one might see in his toilet bowel after a night of sex is all that is left to remind me that fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly, and vice versa
The birds I can't hear anymore because humanity is a great distraction/attraction to me, which is to say I'm not alone anymore and sure that's as it should be but what was it they were saying this morning, the birds on my side talking to the birds on that side?
Well, I just left Rocheblave to get that coffee and sure I can greet the morning's glow on the bayou but you are supposed to wean yourself from this junky-like jive you doing here and get on with that work over there, but there's no talking to you, you autonomous son of a bitch. You will find your excuses to do it just your way.
Come on you two, don't fight, you'll wake the others.
Summer Fun
Deep in the southern heart of an inner city with streets meaner than you she has begun--after lengthy sabbatical--to torture the poorly educated children and they for their part keep coming: six, seven, eight, nine, "hey, close that door mthrfker," and the mantra "work or go" echoes until there is stillness. Later there is pity pat on the front porch.
When We Lose The Son
So I'm over early to Dumaine not so much to keep the punk ass street bitches from stealing my Sunday paper (I should get it transferred to Rocheblave I guess) but because I feel drawn to the electronic media which exists over here but not yet for awhile at Rocheblave.
There's something to say about all this New Orleans rain but...must I really? I tend to vere so much. And haven't the local headlines this last week said it all: "Rain, Rain, Go Away," and "Enough Already"?
Its like this the myriad images, to outline: It was cloudy in Austin once for sixteen days straight, or was that days straight over one hundred degrees? I think the former, and I was depressed, which I am not now, but chemically (like I know about chemicals?) there is a sense of remembering, triggered by this sunlight deprivation. How you like the bombast so far?
Then there was Oregon, outside of Eugene, across a wooden bridge over a bubbling brook into a treeless land lagoon surrounded by trees where I was heading for cigarettes. It was a mom and pop shop and they were loading their belongings into a moving van. The man said he never realized it could rain so much. They were getting the hell out. Relocating to Gulf Shores, Alabama. I couldn't imagine what the hell he was talking about. I was from Texas, happy, in love locally, and miles away from the acceptance of my eventual failure. I wished the man well.
Then Seattle, well, what are you gonna say? That's were they invented "sunlite deprivation." Of course, other parts of the globe lay greater claim but let's not confuse the issue with too many facts. That's where I started learning about the only kind of failure that matters. Was I depressed, sunlight deprived, chemically unbalanced? Who cares? I strapped all the good and bad tightly to my being, hunkered down on my mobile island, and left out of there, with damaged love, and lover, and some hope.
When we lose the sun the water runs cold. No, goddammit, not poetry, I'm talking about solar heat.
In the woods of Bastrop, outside of Austin, where I was being, for brief periods, a low elevation mountain man, in a literal shack, built by me with some advice, a chainsaw, hammer, nails, and lumber, and where one day (probably while I was failing in Seattle), a friend of mine and lover of another, a former prostitute who had come to the woods to cleanse, died of a heroin overdose. Before that, over the year or so I knew her she did on occasion shine with such lightness that as I think about it now my feelings are not so much of sorrow, but admiration.
Those sparsely populated woods were not comprised of nudists per se but it was understood that public nudity, on your own land, and at the community pond, was ok. "Public" being four or five of us spread over a hundred acres. So it was with an unparalleled sense of freedom that I would in the winter standing naked in those woods with a trigger operated hand sprinkler locked to the "on" position, and attached to the limb of a cedar tree, enjoy a shower. Winter in Texas one must understand is often a sixty degree day, and my water supply was run from a neighbor's pump, overground for several hundred feet, with black plastic pipe. The water in the pipe on a sunny day was understandably quite hot, and lasted more than long enough for my shower. These cleansings rank highly.
Likewise, on Rocheblave, my unfinished renovation project, where I live almost full time now, my bathing is reliant on solar heat until the water heater is installed and the gas is hooked up The gas meter is the last thing that will happen. I have to be pretty much inspectable/respectable for that to occur. I had the plumbers run the copper water pipes through the attic instead of under the well off the ground house because copper is precious metal to the roaming denizens of the night (read--crackheads) and the property is on direct route to the recycling plant a few blocks away at St. Peter and Rocheblave. You don't need much hot water for a summer shower but a little is nice and these last few weeks of sunny weather have aided me in my pursuit of greater comfort. The showers have been nice. Especially after five years of claw foot tub baths at Dumaine, which is not always elegant.
That's all I wanted to say: that my showers this week--what with the incessant rain and clouds and no hints that a sun even exists--have been cold. Which reminds me of the campground at Palenque...
Still Surviving
I had been complaining about the lack of birds in general and specifically those not visiting the Mulberry tree over along the side of the house when a response to my complaint came to me--this was 5-20something, 2001, the weather perfectly cool, crisp, and sunny--in the form of a female cardinal. I was lounging on the side porch with my friend and ubiquitous helpmate, the ice cold budweiser. The Mulberry tree I could almost touch.
The female cardinal drab as they are was soon joined by the vibrant male and I'm being very, very still even at the risk of letting my beer go warm. I was so happy to exist at that moment enjoying what promised but did not turn out to be a love story. I did however get a real nice unmagnified view from about five feet away of the bright red male munching the few remaining berries with his black beak. Two weeks previous I had been begging the gods for more berry-eating birds and now this--a male and female cardinal; St. Louis; Jim Louis. Could it mean something, something good? Should I be embarrassed to reach so far in my mental meanderings?
The mosquito with his frail hypodermic sucking the blood from my left cheekbone made me move and the cardinals did flee. When I reoriented my field of vision to include the world at large I was shocked to see the still surviving feral black and white kitten two feet below me on that little incomplete strip of concrete, doing the scratching backflips--to the left, then to the right, then to the left, a bit awkward and unpracticed. When I went for my budweiser on the step below me and towards the kitten, it became aware of me as if I had previously not existed, and I had to wonder is such a thing possible? To exist and not exist in blinking fashion?
The kitten bolted away from me and all the risk I represent, true to it's surviving nature.