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Dreiser And The Chipmunks
I really have to wonder sometimes if the practical joke on me is so obvious as having a sign around my neck or pasted to my forehead which says "Feel Free to Take Advantage." When I look in the mirror I don't see any such sign but with brow furrowed in disappointment at the lack of obvious explanations I did once see what looked like a big letter G and I knew it could only stand for Gullible.
At 41 I don't think I should be said to suffer from angst--which I think is a twenties and thirties disease--but for a couple of days now it sure feels like that which I used to experience and then later learned to call angst. Pardon? Oh no, no, not ennui. Not that I feel above the emotion but I wouldn't go on and on about it like I appear to be ready to do in this case. I need to be careful though because I think New Jersey Bill hinted at the subject of overt online whining possibly being seen as a cry for help and I do wish to avoid being accused of that. But if the subject should ever come up, the answer is no, he's not. At worst, he, that is I, suffer(s) from occasional delusions of utmost safety while wrapped in the cocoon of my (his) wordplay and story telling. He, or is it I, sometimes feel(s) so capacitated with the imagined power of (imagined?) honesty that he/I will go on about things which are really not appropriate for the polite dinner table discussion. And I should add here: I don't get invited out to dinner very often.
When I did finally get back to work at Rocheblave it was behind the momentum of a surging magnanimity that had me not cowering at the possibilities that can present themselves on Rocheblave (and to the point, Dumaine, for that matter), that is--the hustling of the man who looks like he can afford to be hustled. This phenomenon is not limited by race and yet race is a single factor among many which I would be remiss not to address on ocassion. I am a less than wealthy white man in a predominately less than wealthy black neighborhood. As to what race has to do with it I offer that for my years spent here I have been given the privilege of having wee bits of untainted colloquialism spoken in my presence. The same black man who believes, or wishes to believe, or wishes me to believe he believes, that there is no essential difference between the two most dichotomous races will quite honestly refer to any member of the governing or policing power structure as "the white man," and this despite the fact that here in New Orleans the mayor and chief of police are black men, as well as the majority of beat cops in this here the First District. It seems unfair (to the whining bitch anyway) that a world where race won't matter can be imagined and yet never achieved.
And I said I'm not wealthy and that most of my neighbors--on the most obvious scale of relative monetary wealth--are not wealthy, but let me be so bold as to say that the youngest possible reader of this will not see the day when the not addressed but inherent mood of man is that of white is better than black. Many a northerner would shake their heads on account of that imagined separation they might feel due to the geneology which puts them on the winning side of that Civil War, one aspect of which was anti-slavery. But if one will look there is far more history suggesting that "the white man" both North and South has at least a benign sense of superiority over the man whose skin is tinted black. So I am imbued and invested--like it or not--with the currency of that dubious privilege of lightness, and therefore who do I blame for the easy rationalization of white man as "wealthy."
Back at Rocheblave, and perhaps overcompensating because of shame felt for the attempted murder of midsummer's drunken shoe solictor, I am friendly to all who pass and confront me. I told the one man that his offered steel toe workboots were two sizes too small and his thirty pounds of grocery plastic wrapped fine china were simply not what I needed. I was drinking an ice cold budweiser at the time and so I told him with the tone of good buddy "that if you come back in the future when I have the porch built out here, I'll drink a beer with you." His smile and nod was to say that's all fine and good but promises are a comfort to fools so, "could I have a dollar now to get me one at the store." No doubt. I give it up.
I'm running this Roto-zip tool with the masonry cutting blade along the paint filled grooves of my beaded porch ceiling and LuLu shows up below me and I raise my goggles but do not lower my dust mask. Ralston in his blue SUV is by the curb and LuLu wants to know can he have ten dollars until some such day in the future. He always pays me back so I don't worry too much about the specifics of when. Other than a couple of large bills all I have is nine dollars. "Do you think nine is OK?," I ask LuLu. She seems to think that's OK so I step down from the ladder and carry the cash to the car.
A few minutes after Ralston pulls away this couple I call D&D--because their names are Dennis and Diane--show up and want to know do I have any work for them, and if not that, then a few dollars, and if not that, a quarter. I give Diane a quarter.
Later I have to go to the Home Depot to get some two by fours and as I'm cruising the lot for a parking space this Beaudreax lookin dude (that would be the local cajun red neck hell raiser), asks me will I take his merchandise and return it for him because he doesn't have the receipt or a drivers license. I don't even pause, just tell him I will give it a try. He pats me hard on the back and I dislike him immediately. Inside the store they almost try to arrest me but I'm not having any of that so I grab the bag and go outside. Beaudreax can't hide his disappointment while asking "what happened?" I tell him the guy acted like he was gonna bust me and Beaudreax says, "I knew I should have gone in with you." I tell him he'll have to run his game without me. I can't even go back in the store now I'm so embarrassed and besmirched. I drive the several miles back to New Orleans, the last part over that mine field which is Earhart Blvd. and I can't work so I go to Dumaine.
I'm in a such a shitty mood that when Erica Lewis stops by for a visit I have barely a bit of affection for her. At one point she tries to bring me out by reciting the title of the book I have been reading for some time now. "An," she says. And then, "Ameglia." I correct and say, "American." "Talahomey," she says. "Tragedy, An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser."
"Theodore is one of the chipmunks."
"Yeah that's right, and Alvin is another, and the last one is..."
"Simon. They bright" (as in light skinned black person).
"But that man in charge of them, he's..."
"No, he your color," she says pulling on the hairs of my wrist.
The next day is Saturday and I go to a different Home Depot and buy fifteen recessed cans for my electrician, who is coming to do rough in on Monday. I drop the stuff at Rocheblave and decide catching an early movie would be better than working. I see the Cameron Crowe flick, Almost Famous, it seemed to be about purity, and that actor who played the part of Lester Bangs was great. Movies intoxicate me. And oh yeah, for some reason, one of the opening songs is that chipmunk Christmas ditty. I remember the night before telling Erica how I grew up with those chipmunks. "You grew up with them?" she said. "Yeah, " I lied, "We went to the same school."
Wednesday
Shortly after posting to Mr. Wilson there was a hard boot; electricity out; out to the porch to confirm with neighbors, a word here, a signal there, it's unanimous, the block is down. The sky to the south, over the mile distant French Quarter, is black.
The weather gods bringing fifties and sixties to the northeast has us down here praising hallelujah the windy upper eighties, so I sit on the steps with the budweiser, which has gone warm in deference to the single malt, and converse with Van, saying comfortably little.
We are approaching the day that is Mama D's birthday and this will be the first year she won't be here with us to celebrate, which is to say there won't be any celebrating on Dumaine.
A young man from Maurice's Impressive Designs Haircutters turns the corner of opportunity, lights out, and stares hard at the house I sit leaning against. Shelton comes out and I adjust my position on the steps to allow him passage. Instead, he jumps off the porch and crosses the street, shaking his hand like a maraca, apparently to gain the attention of the young haircutter. They proceed to play craps against the still vacant former home of Mama D, Shelton holding and showing to the world his small wad of green which to him and many equates to a successful manhood. To a crackhead with a gun he would equate to an easy mark.
Former neighbor, and Mama D companion, Ralston, driving his low end SUV, pulls up to the curb and says hello to Van and I. Erica Lewis is in the backseat so I get up and tap drag fingertips on her window like to a prisoner. She smiles briefly, and my heart responds in kind. Ralston is a good man and to Erica is mostly her "daddy," but her blood mama, Tesa, has recently married a man who can now also lay claim to Erica, but is not to be confused with Erica's actual father who is either dead, or in jail. Erica's seventh birthday is day after tomorrow.
Ralston gets a legititimate social security check, and, a disablility check, the combination of which is a recent thing, and for which he has shown me the paperwork and letters from said agencies. "Wow Mr. Ralston," I said to him after reading, "you're gonna be fat after these start coming." He nodded in appreciation of my literacy. So when he asks for twenty until Friday, "to get her some food," I don't hesitate, even though the twenty is kept company in my wallet by only a single one, and even though Van might see it as an opportunity to "touch" me while I'm acting generous.
Ralston starts telling me the all too familiar tale (Erica listening: it's her life afterall), of how Tesa doesn't really want to take responsiblility for Erica but has made an issue to the police of a certain party who has shown Erica kindness, and generosity, which are two traits many are suspicious of deep down in the hood. Van steps up to say that "Tesa don't really want the girl but she make it hard for people who try to help." I have met Tesa enough to like her. She is young, Erica's senior by only fifteen or sixteen years. She is Shelton's sister. I do not report any of this in hopes of leading you to simple judgements, but more, I guess, to show there is a rich humanity behind the stereotypes. There is a little girl with eyes that listen, seeing every word spoken.
Wheels Of Transport
After driving north across a big hunk of eastern America in a high performance BMW, landing in NY, training to DC, and flying back to NO on AirTran, I am let off by the cab driver in front of my boarded up blighted property on Rocheblave (Row-shuh-blave) street. My beat to shit school bus yellow 85 Dodge pickup truck is a welcome if not slightly pitiful sight. The same can be said of my dwelling. But it is good to be home such as it all is even if yesterday (Saturday) set a new temp record for September (101 F), and the sky is hazy with polluted heat, and I'm pretty well tired of this hottest summer in the history of mankind. You know it will end, this heat, but it's still so oppressive so late in the season you have to convince yourself and act out a future of cheery optimism you don't really feel.
The Rocheblave house was not broken into while I was away so I decide to prolong my vacation away from this awful summer climate by camping out with a Stephen King novel on my old bed by the AC window unit on Dumaine, even spend the night.
Shelton comes in with one of his friends, a polite, well-dressed kid, and welcomes me back. He comes in and out a couple of times, pausing once to tell me my mother called while I was away and said my niece's new husband had his heart transplant. I had received the news by email from a sister-in-law and had talked once to my mother while on the road, but I thanked Shelton for his effort to remember an important message. He seemed relieved to be done with it as he had been holding the information for over a week. Later he said, "Mr. Jim, you remember I told about those friends of mine got shot? The one died and the other was in a coma."
Shelton knew more than two of the young people murdered in New Orleans this summer so I paused before answering, trying to figure which ones he might be talking about. He went on to tell me the one who was in a coma came out of it recently and was in the neighborhood this week. "Brandon (that's the kid who threw the eggs at the house for which I blamed someone else) cut his hair, " Shelton said, "and he remembered me, so that's good, huh?" Shelton seemed unsure. "Do you think he'll be all right, Mr. Jim?" I was thrown off a bit by the question so I stalled by asking one myself. "Is he in a wheelchair?" I asked that because I have seen many a warrior put to wheels around here and I can picture him at the corner by the barbershop, telling, and being told tales. Shelton answered, "No he's got one of them," and he pantomimed a walker.
"A walker?"
"Yeah, do you think he'll be all right?"
"Yeah, he'll be all right, he'll be fine," I opined with certainty, wiping a bead of sweat from my brow.
Tompkins Square
Sitting in Tompkins Square recently emulating the heroin addict, nodding very close towards what some would consider ultimate self satisfaction but not so limber as that am I and memories past blur present vision into one. Nothing will change yet our obvious evolution into sameness will keep us mightily confused for centuries--which will seem like daze--to come.