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Running Onward
Yesterday about dinner time I stepped out into the watery blast furnace known as the local climate and saw a young man emerging from the weed and tree choked lot next door to me; the one owned by the Pentecostals. He was bisecting the lot on a self made path that was bringing him more and more to my attention. He kept turning around and looking towards the direction he came from (most likely that skinny alleyway which fronts out to Iberville and runs along the dance hall). The other sneak attack access to the weed and tree choked lot is pretty much impassable what with all that garbage the Pentecostals left there last year, and in that way I should be greatful but I may in fact be less than that.
I was on my way to the grocery up at Canal and Carrollton because they sell plate lunches and if you get there early enough in the evening you can call it dinner, or supper if you wish, before they bag it up for the day. Thursday is Crawfish Etoufee with praline carrots and let me tell you those carrots are some good. Got a kid won't eat vegetables?, sic a plate of those candy coated carrots on him. Turn him into a regular vegetarian in no time.
So I turn to the guy because it looks like he is determined to occupy "my" space and he is clearly on the run in some fashion, looking out to the street now, nervous, yet seemingly in good spirits, and so as he crosses my driveway in front of the little Toyota I'm about to escape in I look right at him and raise my eyebrows, which may or may not have arched above my cheap sunglasses, and he expresses in the local colloquial that he means no harm by saying--"I'm straight." To that I said "all right," and began to get into the car. The young man on the run paused, and said, "hey, which way you going?" So it was my turn to pause, briefly, while speed spinning the microfiche of a lifetime of responses, and then I had to smile, and laugh a little before grunting, "uh uh." He took no offense, laughed a little himself, and moved off towards Bienville.
An hour earlier a neighbor with whom I have set bad precedent by loaning (giving) money came over, cigarette in mouth, and said "let me get five dollars, neighbor." Shifting the can of budweiser from one hand to the other I stepped out onto the temporary steps of my nearly finished recycled home and shutting the door to keep in the cool air provided by the temporary window unit, said, "uh, no neighbor, can't do it." She ran by me some of her hardships, a not unfamiliar list, and which did not include any moaning about all the crack heads coming in and out her place all night till sunrise. I have been pretty put out with this woman since the last time she came over, during one of my naps, and banged repeatedly on the side of the house until I woke up groggy and red-eyed, and gave her four dollars. That was when I decided this shit would have to stop. I had a good neighbor on Dumaine who used to hit me that way, expert at waiting a lengthy enough time between hits so that I wouldn't feel he was taking unfair advantage. I like(d) the dude, but it would get so I felt a strong need to avoid him, and I can't see, at this advanced age, making all those same petty mistakes, even if I have to seem petty to accomplish that. So that's the way its gotta be neighbor, and that's at the risk of you unleashing your army of ne'erdowells, and expert petty thieves on me. It's what I was thinking over when the kid on the run ask me where I was going. Onward is what I have decided. The neighbor lady said, "that's ok, Jim, we're still friends." Okeedokey.