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Goodbye My Sweet 302
It had a high idle. Without pressing the gas pedal, left to reach its top speed on a straight away it would top out at just over 40 mph. I drove it to high school my senior year in Dallas. We didn't have an open campus but during my 35 minute lunch period I would sneak off campus in the Maverick and hit the buffet at Pizza Inn. I had a soft schedule my senior year, arrived late, after the parking restrictions expired on the street and therefore was able to park out front instead of in the guarded lot. The vice-principal, who's office faced the street and who I visited infrequently for minor infractions, asked me one day, Louis, are you leaving campus for lunch? Yessir I am. That is against school policy, he told me. I did not know that, I said, while looking through his drawer of confiscated weapons, before the days of guns in schools. We got along pretty well me and the vice-principal. He didn't see me as a serious threat and I didn't see him as one.
Several years later my father sold me the Maverick. He said, make me an offer. I said 600. He said 400. He was hoping, I think, that if I had a car I would stop hitchhiking. The car did slow down my hitchhiking some.
In 87 a friend in Austin wanted me to take him and his suitcase to California. We drove the Maverick from Austin to San Jose and there I left him. I scooted over to the coast freeway and took it up to the middle of Oregon and then back west to the Interstate and up north to Seattle and somewhere west of Seattle is where I decided I probably wouldn't spend the rest of my days in Texas. I called my employer at some point and told him this. During this leg of the trip I stopped in San Francisco but my friend was not home so I continued on and in Eureka I considered staying because there seemed to be a groove going on but I couldn't stop. I picked up some cool rocks on the beach at a place called Humboldt Lagoon.
I forgot, in Portland I had an adventure with a street person and sometime during this adventure the brakes went out. I couldn't stop then either (no pun) so I continued on with just the handbrake and would use that for braking all the way across country to New York and then down to DC.
I picked up a few pebbles at Custer's Battlefield to go with my beach rocks and then over to Minneapolis to visit the grandmother of my ex-girlfriend and then I had a brainstorm to go visit my friend in St. Louis. Had a good time there and then in Indiana I saw two girls hitchhiking, a French Canadian and a Parisian, so I picked them up and took them to Chicago. They didn't really want to have anything to do with me though so I spent my one night in Chicago at Kingston Mines, a blues club. And then to NY where I picked up Edgar and Helen and Bill and down to Great Falls, VA where Mr. BC was being a bachelor. We had a 4th of July party. My friend from St. Louis flew out, he almost had a romance with Mr. BC's ex-girlfriend.
And some other stuff, some adventures, some of them illicit but I'm not bragging.
Anyway, these are the things I thought about, seeing it dragged from the shed and then winched onto the trailer of the guy my neighbor hooked up.
It was a four door, not the sporty 2-door Grabber, but it had lines (and people think I'm kidding), that seen from just the right angle, were almost elegant.
Chili Dogs For Breakfast
My knees are open wide to about 75 degrees and are pressed up against the wood paneled counter-front at the diner in Roxboro.
I took the storm windows off the other day so I have no screens but the windows are open and flies are landing on me. You MUST close the windows by 5p.m. or you will have mosquitoes to pay for it. No, it doesn't matter if you just painted three rooms with oil-based Kilz, close the windows.
At the diner I am an early customer at 7 a.m. because I woke up at 4 a.m. because I went to bed at 9 a.m. because I was doped on Kilz. I'm done with that now unless I'm mistaken about being done with it.
I watch an order come out and I crane my neck to see into the other room because I am curious who is ordering three chili dogs with onions at 7 a.m.
I head on over to the home improvement super store. I've been gone 14 years and Roxboro (which is ten miles away from the house) finally got a national chain home improvement store. It's been open six months. The locals are resisting it. I don't mind being one of five customers in a great big store.
The flies are wily and fresh, just born I guess and quick and full of life and hard to kill. I have a fly-swatter near me and I make an occasional effort but who am I kidding, not these flies. Wait, just got one, right on my shin. That kind of hurt. Got another one. I'm killing them now, boy.
My new phone keeps ringing but I ignore it. I put my name on the solicitor no call list yesterday but I don't think it takes effect right away so I'm playing it safe.
I think that fly I just swatted was already dead. I'm not taking credit for that one, not twice anyway.
I stop at another great big everything under one roof store and pick up a 2gb flash disc because I took some videos of the travesty out here and they are taking up too much room on my computer. I have one more video I want to take of the hidden cache of junk stashed out in the woods, some years ago I guess because small trees have grown up around it. I was out there day before yesterday with a chainsaw and a hand saw and a pruner, cutting a path big enough for a vehicle. I threw the green stuff on the burn pile.
After getting back from town I climbed up on the roof and smeared some patching cement on a bad spot where a shingle came off and around the chimney flashing, as a stop gap until I can replace the roof. It rained inside the house last week.
Phone's ringing again. I had to get up anyway and kill a bee that was buzzing by the front door so I checked the ID on the phone. Those people at V*k*ngMag*z*ne are relentless.
I got off the roof and snipped the bailing wire from the wood pallets leaned up against the hog wire attached to the two by fours nailed to my trees which were all part of Jethro's dog pen. I drag a few of the pallets, the heavy ones, and carry a couple more, the light ones, one in each hand, over to the burn pile. I am using my last dead cedar tree kindling which makes starting a fire a simple flick of the bic. I will have to construct the piles more carefully now because paint thinner is almost 10 bucks a gallon out here and gasoline's flash point I am not fond of. I have lots more to burn.
I have a pot to piss in, literally. I am afraid of the bathroom, but use it when I have to.
The cat just came inside. She is trying to catch flies. She seems to love it out here.
Take My Metal, Please
Just yesterday I told Danny Claypool in so many words, I have no loyalty to anyone on this issue, whoever comes and gets this stuff first, gets it. And he agreed with me because we were in fact talking about screwing Randy, who formerly rented this property from me and whom Danny did not care for and vice versa. Randy had said a guy was coming on Tuesday but when Friday came and the five cars and parts thereof were still scattered about the grounds, I mentioned to Danny next door that I was looking for someone to pick up all this crap and he said he would handle it and then about an hour later came over and said he had a guy who would take all the cars, all the assorted metal laying about and not to worry about the non-metal crap, his guy would get rid of all of it. I thanked Danny profusely and promised to him my 72 Ford Maverick, the only junker which is mine, and which has been parked under a shed for 14 years, not entirely out of the weather. The transmission was on its way out when I parked it but the engine was ok--the much revered 302 V-8.
Well, about an hour ago I'm just sitting here on this funky mattress (left behind by Randy when he moved out) on the floor of my living room and I'm coming down off the oil-based paint fumes, but not entirely down because the room I painted is just across the hall. I have the high speed hooked up as of Wednesday and so I'm streaming in HD the last half of a season 3 Lost episode. I fell asleep midway through it last night but it was like my third episode of the night so I am not in any way wanting to imply the episode was a sleeper. I am very happy with Season 3 of Lost and it is for me out here a much appreciated night time distraction from swatting mosquitos.
I see a tow truck drive up and I assume it is Danny's guy so I pause the show and go out to meet him. As it turns out it was Randy with a tow truck driver from Roxboro and he's coming through now trying to help me clean up all this shit he left out here. I'm sure he's making a dollar or two on the deal and that is no conflict for me. It is my greatest wish that everyone make their two dollars.
But there is this awkward moment now where I'm confronted with the unpleasant task of telling this tow truck driver, who is spending almost 5 bucks a gallon for diesel fuel to get out here, that I sort of promised the neighbor Danny that his guys could have all this junk. I would like to state now, or reiterate, I'm not sure if I've said this before, that scrap metal in these times is hugely profitable. And I don't want a dime of it. I only want to see the trees and the dirt through the vast amounts of shit that litter this property. Cursed with a lack of profit driven motivation describes me.
I tell the driver and Randy about this confusion but I'm thinking on my feet now and remember how Danny was so eager to screw Randy yesterday and how I said I have no loyalties on this issue. I think it may have sounded to Danny like a strange comment, or at the very least, irrelevant. But I said it because I wanted Danny to know this is not about us being friends (I know he's only nice to me because he wants my land so he can make a pond out of the low lying area. His father before him, now deceased, had made his pitch for this land many times.) So I tell the driver and Randy that since they are here they should take what they can but I'm still going to save the Maverick for Danny.
The driver backs up to the edge of the garden and begins winching a 25 year old Ford Ranger (minus transmission) from about 50 feet towards the bed of his tilting truck bed. While he's doing this I'm talking to Randy about old times, we used to be house painters together, and across the way comes Danny. Let me go deal with this I tell Randy and he is clearly grateful to be left out of it.
I apologized to Danny about the confusion, tell him the 302 V-8 is still his, and remind him about my feelings, that I don't give a damn who takes all this metal, first come, first served. The driver is slowing the winch so I look at him and he is looking at us and I nod to him and say, this and the T-Bird for now.
After the Ford was loaded (Danny had helped him out a bit by turning the wheels for him as the truck slid through the freshly tilled and rained on garden), the driver came around to the side of the property, unloaded the Ford, and dragged by the bumper a 30 year old T-Bird without wheels or rims onto the flat bed. Let me tell you, that is some bumper. He then attached to the back of his truck the Ford Ranger, which had three good tires, and him and Randy drove off, after we stood around for awhile and talked about the air show which the driver had attended earlier today in Danville. I told him the tank museum there in Danville was worth an hour or two. The driver showed us some short videos of the air show on his cell phone.
Danny is all cool about this or that is what he said anyway and the driver now understands the situation and is still eager to be back up if needed for the rest of it and he will also bring a dump truck and two guys to get rid of the non metal stuff in exchange for the bounty of metal out here.
I cannot say I anticipated this type of eagerness for my junk but I am happy about it.
Randy and his wife were a little challenged as renters but I still feel kindly towards him and enjoy his company when I see him and don't like that Danny was so eager to screw him yesterday. Before he left I said--so not a bad day, we got people doing our work for us, and you got to screw Danny a little bit.
He chuckled and agreed that it was not a bad day.
Out In The Backwater
Oh all that drama about how bad it was going to be out there in N. Carolina. The memories, the guilt, the shame. I didn't really have much time for that, I gave it a couple of hours, maybe a little more. But no one threw rocks at me for being a slum lord. I actually thanked one of the neighbors, hey thanks for not throwing rocks at me. The neighbor had been parking his bass boat full of beer cans behind my 100X150 foot untilled, weed-filled garden. He said, aw don't worry about it, live and learn. My ex-renter had come out earlier and retrieved his pontoon party barge parked in the front yard. Him and the neighbor who didn't throw rocks at me didn't get along very well over the previous 14 years. My renter tried to make a point about the boat parked back there, said it was full of beer cans, and I said, oh yeah, I saw a boat full of beer can's being hauled out of here today. We didn't talk much about the barge or the swing set in the front yard or the seven vehicles or parts thereof parked about, some without engines, most without wheels, but he assured me someone was coming to get them, and with scrap metal at such a premium, I do not doubt it. That will only leave me hopefully one large construction dumpster to fill up with the stuff that will not burn or classify as valuable metal. Most of this stuff is just scattered about the property, although the 200 paint cans and buckets are somewhat neatly stored under one of the sheds. The burn pile could be humongous though. Even if I don't dismantle the chicken coop and the dog pen tacked up to the hickory trees. The gaudy Fischer-Price toys strewn about and the cheap plastic pool table I hate to take up valuable dumpster space with but its all got to go. The console TV on the front porch I have moved inside temporarily. I didn't really do much in the 2 days but still made what can be considered a semblance of progress. And everyone seems happy about the changing of the guard even if "everyone" doesn't include me. The house needs lots of work but honestly it did even before I left it. There will be none of the drama or glamour of the urban renovation but hopefully in the coming months I will be able to change for the better the way things look and work out in the backwater.
What Is A Theorem?
It's like going back to a point in time where failure is lurking with its big stick, ready to cold cock you right upside your head, and there seems to be no way to prevent it. You see it happening and are waiting it out. There is a pain coating every occasional pleasure.
That is the downside of my thinking on tomorrow mornings trip to N. Carolina, back to a house rented out but pretty much neglected for the last 14 years. I haven't had much luck contacting the renters. I'll probably have to break in. It is only through the grapevine that I know they have moved out, as per my request. I wasn't happy with the look of the place when I glanced at it last year so I decided on the spot to begin this process. What I felt looking at it was shame.
I'm not packing anything. Only going down for a few days, to get a feel for what needs done. I have a cheap ass air mattress that doesn't leak yet and a moldy sleeping bag, so I'll throw those in the car along with the bag I haven't unpacked from the last trip to NY. I seem to have retained a lot of memories from this backwater low rent house bordered by woods and tobacco fields north of Chapel Hill. They can't all be bad but I'm going to have to work at it to pull up some good ones. I'm ready to go to work though. I'm going to whistle while I work. I am going to be chipper. I mean, I don't actually live in the past, so it would seem to me that nothing from there can really hurt me. That's not like a proven theorem though, is it?
Aim High
The Tumbleweed Umbrella
I got a call at 8 o'clock Saturday morning from a ten-year-old boy wanting to buy the N. Carolina house. Mr. Louis, he said, you probably don't remember me but...and then he explained who he was and ever since then I cannot get the image of this boy out of my head, as I remember him from 14 years ago. I am not imagining what he looks like as a 24-year-old.
I am at this sidewalk cafe in NYC called Le Jeep. It is a brisk, sunny morning in May. Le Jeep is on a corner. Me and this homeless guy nearby are watching a two man crew clean out the storm drain across the street. One man with a shovel doing the detail work and the other man operating the boom on the dump truck. The boom has cables and pulleys and at the end of the cables is a bullet shaped caliper device which lowers into the drain hole from which the grate has been removed. The caliper goes in closed and then opens and closes around muck and sludge which is lifted up dripping and then deposited into the back of the dump truck.
People keep tripping over the same mangled umbrella which has blown like a tumbleweed into the middle of the crosswalk. Shadows at the corner precede the people they are attached to but they fail to alert their owners to the mangled tumbleweed umbrella in the crosswalk.
Le Jeep is a cafe on wheels and will circle the block when the street sweeper arrives.
When the crew finishes cleaning out the drain a man comes out from the corner store and hooks up a garden hose and proceeds to wash the stray muck back into the drain. A police van pulls up and honks at the man with the garden hose. He waves happily. Two cops exit the vehicle and the one cop shakes the man's hand and pats him on the back and the other cop shakes his wrist because he may be suspicious of where the man's hand has been.
There are croissant crumbs littering the floor of Le Jeep. Two empty coffee cups with foam in the bottom sit in cup holders. Bernadette has gone off to Pilates so it's just me at the cafe now, and in the back seat the 10-year-old N. Carolina boy who stares quietly out the window without an idea in his head. He doesn't have any friends, except this grandmother. She will die soon and leave her house to the boy's older brother, who is a marine. The boy will wait 14 years and then call me at 8 o'clock in the morning. I will have the night before accepted an invitation to a concert of a band called The Cure. I will be groggy at 8 o'clock in the morning but carry on with a professional attitude. I will say I remember him and I do. He was a distinctly lonely-seeming boy back then, and now 14 years later he spends part of his day haunting me.
I came up to attend the funeral of Bernadette's mom.
Behind the cafe Le Jeep is another cafe run by three loud guys named Steve, Angelo and Tony. Tony jabs the air between him and Steve with his index finger and makes an argument that apparently Steve has heard before. Steve is following with his eyes a woman walking along the sidewalk behind Tony. The woman's dress blows up, Steve whistles, and Tony turns around. Tony shrugs like he's seen better and puffs on his cigarette. I look behind me to see if the boy has followed any of this but he is just staring off in the opposite direction at an empty playground surrounded by an 18 foot tall chain-link fence.
It Turns Black
The bloodstain by the debris pile on the Dumaine sidewalk was by noon the next day turning black. The stain was large. More blood turning black than I think I was prepared to see. The 17 year old boy it belonged to was in the morgue. He was cooling off now about 14 hours. He wasn't alone. His friend was with him, also refrigerated. I had not seen the second boy's bloodstain. I think he bled out in the grass of a lawn two houses down. I was worried it was some boys I might know but it was not. These two boys were Lafitte project exiles, and had survived last week's drive-by attempt, but not this one.
I was on the block two days previous delivering some furniture I had taken possession of 2 years ago, after the last big hurricane.
The furniture I was returning was coming from my house six blocks away and the person to whom I rent my place had very graciously allowed me and my party to stay there during our four day visit for Jazzfest, while she escaped to a Florida beach.
The person to whom I was delivering the furniture has been mentoring kids on that block of Dumaine for the last 13 years. I participated briefly for a couple of years back in the mid to late nineties. Some of the boys I knew are still around, in their early twenties now, and I got to see three of them, just long enough to say hi and shake hands or in the case of G, who is on at least a temporary probation from entering the property, just a wave.
F looked good, has cut off his long hair, I think in an attempt to distance himself somewhat from the street culture. He was imprisoned last year for a couple of months on a false murder charge.
L got out of jail a few months ago and also looked very good, and was carrying one of his babies.
S is doing two to five so I did not see him in person but did finally get to see the documentary my Dumaine friend helped produce and S is in it briefly, projecting a thug-like personality, but admitting he does not want to die on the street. And not wanting to may be enough but some of us fear it may not be. He could survive though because not all these kids die on the street and the fact that two were murdered on Sunday and a few blocks away two more on Saturday (with a third in critical condition) and the previous week 8 more were killed around town, in a city of barely 300,000, does not change the fact that people are surviving, while all around them blood stains slowly fade.
On Monday I returned the DVD of the documentary to Dumaine. It was there that this mentor person, who after losing count at five the number of murders on this block in the last 18 months, had said, yeah, the blood is still out there from last night. So that's why I looked for it when I left. It wasn't hard to see. There was so much of it.
Of the five boys sitting on the stoop behind the debris pile in front of which is the blood stain, two of them have guns in their pockets. How do I know this? I am a good guesser.
I'm afraid the New Orleans police force may be suffering from the few bad apple syndrome and that the pressure of keeping law in a lawless and broken town is taking its toll on that small percentage of the NOPD, and they are cracking up. Unfortunately, the community relations damage some of these officers are creating by beating up suspects and planting drugs and projecting a kiss my ass aggressive attitude, is moving the city farther away from real solutions, and losing the police that tenuous thread of support they may have once come almost close to attaining.
Jazzfest was fine, I went one day with Bernadette and our friends from NY, Jesse and Sparkle (and their new baby, whom I haven't made up a name for yet), and my friend from college days, Malcolm Gates. We took off Saturday and I did some work on my house while they drove around exploring the city 2.5 years after the flood. That night we all went to Tipitina's with my nephew (who is not a chef but plays one in the Superdome), and his wife, and we saw the gospel group Blind Boys of Alabama and it was pretty fine. They sang near the end a version of Amazing Grace to the tune of House of the Rising Sun. I felt lifted by the Spirit.
