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The Cap And Gown
A small fish looking like a baby shark or a porpoise arced above and then immediately into the water inside a concentric ringing geometry of ripples, circles soon bisected by the graceful movement of four swimming ducks on the bayou this morning at sunrise. I was waiting for the seven a.m. church bells but got scared off by my own noisy insecurity.
In the yellow beast I followed the bayou along Moss to Esplanade, then sightseeing right on Decatur, and right on Canal back home. On Decatur all the way down to Canal the number of people moving at seven a.m. seemed unusual. And the minority looked to be early risers like myself. Look at that group of youngsters; why, that young girl is hardly dressed at all. And right before that at the intersection of Gov. Nichols I watched a well dressed but seriously drunk fellow trying to operate his cell phone and walk at the same time just crumple into himself all the way down to the sidewalk as he apparently did not account for the wheelchair ramp. Once he started stumbling it was obvious he didn't have the dexterity or energy enough to remain standing. Seven a.m. is a long night. The man became like water seeking its own level in a city that is below sea level. He disappeared. I wondered about him for a moment and then still moving slowly up Decatur began thinking about the next one and the one after that. Who are you? I idly wondered.
Passing Jackson Square I thought, again, briefly of murder, as a few days previous a street man had killed a street woman, with a handgun, in front of the Cabildo. And tonight two ten-year old boys and two seventeen-year old girls will be shot outside the Superdome at this year's last night of Superfair.
What I've really been thinking about though is the view from Dumaine. I essentially trespass over there once a week or so to get my mail but mostly truth be told I'm looking for that view through the looking glass which isn't always, or ever, so nice. I guess it was Friday I was over there looking out the front window glass while waiting for the computer to finish its woeful permutations. I think I had come over in a pretty cheerful mood, such as I am capable of it anyway, and two cousins, one just out of jail and one whose often lamentable behaviour would seem to put him perpetually just on the brink of it, were acting out directly in front of me, a desperate, decidedly uncheerful tableau, which if entitled would be--The Cowardly Wolf and the Lamb.
The Wolf is shirtless, lean, with cut black muscles, eyebrows that connect maliciously, glimmering gold teeth, and an attitude as humorless, and dark, as asphalt.
The Lamb is not harmless but wants to be. He was maybe 18 and pretty well rumored as the evil bad seed in an area already over planted in such seven years ago and then five ago when I saw him sitting on those steps out there, recovering from a gunshot to his hip, I began to see in him a longing so far from his reach that to watch him, to think about him, was a gut wrenching ache. But the bullet changed him and his countenance began losing its edge and loosening into something like peaceful resignation. Back in jail shortly after that and two years later he comes out looking mature, and handsome, almost cheerful. I was really sorry to see him go that time. He had only enjoyed a few months of freedom before being sent back and now this day I'm seeing him is his third time out, just in the years I have known him.
I don't see his daughter anymore. She's seven now I guess. Neither her nor her cousins come around this street any more. Which is not unusual. People move away; they don't come back and linger around their old block for years and years and years. Except for the boys. Good and bad they come with varying frequency to this corner they call home. Sometimes the bad boys set up shop, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they play cards or dominoes, not on the porch anymore, but maybe a little off to the left, either on the stoop of Esnard Villa, or between this and that, with a scrap of plywood laid over a trash can for playing surface.
The hardened youngsters, either acting or legitimately pulling off the gangster role, can at times be almost obsequious in their efforts to get along with us (after all, not a one of them are area homeowners and really have no rights to be so omnipresent), and other times they will ignore you, just trying to make it through another day invisible to whichever powers that be. But at times they seem almost too resilient, too ever present, and too loud. And just when you really can't stand it another minute, they leave, and don't come back, and after weeks pass, you begin to miss them. The world you have become so used to becomes too boring without them. And they come back to fill that void.
Today though, looking out the front door glass on Dumaine and Wolf is up in Lamb's face, a face which is more hardened but still somehow peaceful after two more years in jail, and, I guess this is a love dance or something but why can't Wolf express his love with a hug, or hell, even a kiss on the cheek, instead of...
Com'ere bitch. What, you don't like that? Wuhchu gonna do? (Evil smile).
Lamb is wearing a clean ivory knit shirt, a cross around his neck like Evangelists might give out in the jails, pressed blue jeans, and black cross trainers, brand unknown.
This is like anatomy of an inner city murder. Lamb does not want to inflict harm but he cannot indefinitely let Wolf handle him this way. Wolf is stronger, meaner, more full of himself. Lamb would have to get a gun to handle Wolf. It is conceivable yet highly speculative that he has done such a thing before but I'm telling you what I know to be true--he does not want to do it.
Wolf pokes Lamb in the chest with his right index finger. Lamb gets angry, Wolf gets meaner, and Lamb acquiesces. Wolf blinds Lamb with his golden smile, says, your daddy is glad to see you out, you know who is your daddy. Lamb says, man fuck you. Wolf pokes Lamb in the chest, harder this time, and bringing his head, twisted sideways, right up beside Lamb's, says, you don't talk to your daddy that way, bitch. Lamb shrugs away, regaining his space. I'm fed up and am about to go outside and suggest that Lamb just cap the motherfucker and be done with it. Don't have a gun, we'll get you one. Erase him. Go ahead. No motives, no suspects, baby.
I was really too deep into this and so was almost relieved when God tapped me on the shoulder and with the authority of a senior salesperson asked me could He help me with anything and I red-faced, feeling as if caught mumbling suggestively to myself while fingering the lingerie at Neimann-Marcus said no thank you I'm just looking.
Feeding Fluffy
The cats don't read Proust, but Gide they really dig, and they recite favorite passages to each other when the sun drops behind the dance hall. Lolling on broken slabs of concrete with the Pentecostal weeds growing all around them, you can hear them.
Spinks says--"But I think there comes a point in love, a unique moment which later on the soul seeks in vain to surpass, and that the effort to revive such happiness depletes it; that nothing thwarts happiness so much as the memory of happiness."
BigHead responds, that's a good one baby, but check this out--"You're never satisfied until you've made them reveal some vice. Don't you realize that our own eyes magnify and exaggerate whatever they happen to see--that we make anyone become what we claim he is?"
Sure Poppy, that's cool, Notyetded says, but listen here--"One thing admirable about the Arabs: they live their art, they sing and scatter it from day to day; they don't cling to it, they don't embalm it in works. Which is the cause and effect of the absence of great artists. I have always believed the great artists are the ones who dare entitle to beauty things so natural that when they're seen afterward people say: Why did I never realize before that this too was beautiful?..."
The cats all check in: Kitten, K2, BigHead, Spinks, Notyetded (and his new stepbrother), and several unnamed. The Heinz 57 Calico (who resembles cats of that prodigious Dumaine Point Blank clan) is pregnant, which is weird because I just saw her nursing a little yellow tabby a few weeks ago. Yellow Tabby Senior is the new swinging dick who challenges BigHead for harem privileges. I tried to scare him away with near miss BB gun shooting several months ago while he was trying to poke Spinks, but I felt wrong for it so let nature take its course. Spinks had her usual two kittens by him but like last time, with BigHead's babies, chose only one to nurse. I'm not going to suggest she ate the other one but, well, you know. Its been known to happen.
In the neighboring suburb of Kenner, the feral cat problem is being dealt with thusly: new laws have been passed making it illegal to feed stray cats. "What you in for, buddy?"
"Awww sheeit mane, I was feeding Fluffy and this member of the local law enforcement came along and threw me down like Ima Dillinger. What about you, whaju do?"
"Nothing, I just turned myself in."
"Awww mane, whyja?"
"For the sex."
"Awww sheeit mane."
Yesterday I read in the paper about this Uptown woman who was organizing a meeting at a local coffee shop with area residents to discuss the feral dog problem after one of her cats got ripped apart by a large pack. The article had a picture with it and the woman looked pretty all right, in her forties like myself, or close to it. I thought, you know, it's not necessarily a bad thing to have ulterior motives and I think I have a lot to share on the subject of cats being ripped apart by dogs. If I didn't get too weepy I think I could even be eloquent on the subject. I mean I still have some unresolved issues concerning the attack on my Neon and the subsequent gaping whole in her neck writhing with maggots. I think I may be more culpable for the extension of her suffering than I would ideally like to be, but hell, you know, pain and suffering, suffering and pain. I could share it as well as anybody on Oprah and disregarding no more than one or two major character flaws I'm an OK guy so why shouldn't I inflict myself on this gathering of chicks. The use of the word "chicks" might suggest that one of my flaws is an emotional immaturity concerning the fairer sex and this may be a point of fact, or may be me blowing smoke. It doesn't matter which because I'm not going to PJ's coffeehouse, on Magazine, or anywhere else. I mean sure, eventually, down the road I may see the point of spending what I spend monthly at Rocheblave for coffee, on a single cup or two from a coffeehouse.
I mean eventually Maureen Dowd will get back to me. It may take awhile, I realize, and I wouldn't think of trying to speed the process by making direct inquiry. Hell, she's probably inundated with kook mail since the syndicated posting of her sultry new picture. No Maureen, I'm not one those wacko's, just a working class guy in New Orleans thinking about coffee with Maureen Dowd. It would probably be just as suspect to chum these html waters with salacious references for the googlebot. It probably wouldn't work anyway--fishing for hits to increase the likelihood that one of them might be Maureen Dowd her ownself. You know what I'm saying? Like Nude Pictures of Maureen Dowd (I don't have any, and think it would be improper to show them). I'm sure any number of her co-workers has typed that inquiry. Maybe one of them could pass this address on to her.
Hold on, I can hear those cats. Who that is? BigHead again, hold on, let me go out and hear this properly.
Okay, this is what I think I heard.
"Our happiness, during this last part of the trip, was so untroubled, so calm, that I have nothing to tell about it. The loveliest creations of men are persistently painful. What would be the description of happiness? Nothing, except what prepares and then what destroys it, can be told."
Open Sewage, A Kiss, And A Hound Dog 1.8.98
Flotsam and his pal jetsam were bubbling up from the manhole covers at English Turn today. All is not calm, all is not safe at the Turn, as people are not only burning stolen cars on the back roads, but crashing them into the front brick signage and then setting them on fire. Not to mention the long missing school teacher who was found in the not yet developed woods of English Turn this week, burnt dead in her car.
The red Mercedes sports car sits in Diane Ditka's circular driveway all day long.
A former speechwriter watches girlie movies in the middle of the day.
A Power Broker's wife feeds me gumbo.
A pretty sophisticate from Belgium reads to her children.
JT's brother, Paul, who runs one of the framing crews, shoots me the finger as I drive by and I return the gesture. Paul pretends to be a Mississippi redneck with a specific interest in farm animals and tall, thin painters. At least I think he's pretending.
And as Ozzie pulls up to the house on Dumaine, Harriet tutors the children on the front porch. Erica runs to the car yelling--"Mr. Jim, Mr. Jim," and gives Ozzie a big hug, and a kiss on the cheek. G sells a rock across the street but nobody cares G, cuz you ain't nothin' but a hound dog.
Wasting 1.4.98
(This first paragraph originally showed me upgrading from a 386 IBM clone (yeah I'm a very slow upgrader) to a Pentium class computer and I could just barely afford it and it was my first luxury in several years and it was a lemon. It was a Compaq. The original paragraph shows me being happy about their service, which was unquestionably good throughout, except for that at the end of it all I still had a lemon. I eventually just wrote it off as bad luck and let the Dumaine kids have it. For them, having the system crash every few hours, or several times in one hour, was normal. But in the end I felt about Compaq's discount items like I had once felt about Sony's discount items--junk, pure junk.)
It's Sunday and the boys are knocking on the door because they want me to take them to a jungle alongside the river where we play like we be pirates. Often I play like a tired pirate and lay in the tall grass by the river's edge waiting for super tankers to come by and make waves lap against the muddy bank.
Yesterday Shelton's sister, wearing long pants and a bra, tried to kill Moose out in the street with a butcher knife. I'll try to organize that in my head and get back to you.
Falling Bullets Fall 1.4.98
Holiday traditions live on despite the counter-efforts of concerned citizens and survivors of victims to falling bullets. Last night and early this morning the response to the slogan--Falling Bullets Kill, was a gangsta-like rap a tat-tat of semi-automatic and fully automatic gunfire. The Morse code of this staccato beat seemed to be saying--Falling Bullets Kill, what's that to me, this AK in my hand is gonna set me free. Bullets rained on New Orleans. I can report this with some certainty--the 6th and 7th wards of New Orleans are well armed. Unofficial and conservative count--many hundreds of bullets fired within a six, five, four, block radius of 2600 block of Dumaine.
Meanwhile, in the French Quarter, teenagers from Ohio State and Florida State drank themselves silly on Bourbon Street.
Twelve-year old Heather knocked on the door about one o'clock this morning. When I opened the door, the amplification of fireworks and gunfire was rather alarming so in response to her question, "may I speak with Miss Amanda," I said, "come in Heather." I lay in bed listening to the occasional bursts of machine guns as Heather talked to Mandy in the other room.
I fell asleep with visions of the Tek-9 dancing in my head.
Heather was unable to convince Mandy to drive her to her new home near the parish prison and the red light district of Tulane Ave. about a mile away, so Heather spent the night.
The Jan. 3 Times Picayune reports a safe New Years Eve. The police seem to have arrested all five people responsible for the discharging of firearms. Only one wounded this year--a local man on his way to the corner store walks with his hand over his head to deflect possible falling bullets and actually deflects a falling bullet. He walks himself to a neighborhood hospital and receives stitches for his hand and alcohol for the graze on his forehead. How absolutely ridiculous this man must have felt walking along the street with his hand over his head. Doctors say had he not, he would very likely be dead.
Murder rate way down this year--from 350 in 96 to 265 in 97. And considerably down from the 420 posted in our first year in New Orleans in 94. Some say the obviously improved police force is a factor in this, (I agree) and some say the resurgence of heroin is a factor, (I agree) and some say when killers kill killers their will be less killing, (I agree).
Happy New Year.
Tough Love 1.4.98
It is with some trepidation that I report the following exchange between Mama D and Shelton. I would hate for anyone in an official capacity to deem my use of questionable language as gratuitous. Journalism is in the Louis blood, and also it is helpful to the well being of my delicate psyche to expel certain experiences via email to a select group of friends. I am sure my earlier concerns about possible screening of these messages, and the subsequent loss of Juno email privileges, were the result of a mild paranoia, and not, in fact, a still to this day unexplained case of electronic censorship. Now.
Shelton and Eric and Glynn and Fermin went down to the SuperDome on the 20th with 9,000 other children to get their free toys. Shelton, Eric, and Fermin got the same toy--some kind of race track with two cars.
On the 21st Shelton says, "I'm gonna have to bust up on Eric."
"Why is that?" I ask.
"You know we all got the same race track?"
"Yeah?"
"We all be playin' in each other's houses and Eric switched his cars for mine," and Shelton goes on to explain about switched decals and how the glue residue was a dead giveaway and how he's gonna hafta bust Eric up.
I could have said more than I did (which was--"you probably don't want to do that Shelton") but instead I just watched as he went across the street looking for more trouble with Eric. He's probably still on probation from this summer's exposed genitalia episode involving Eric, and D'andre, and M. Harris, and himself.
Later, hearing raised voices, I look out the window just in time to see Mama D punch Shelton smack in the kisser with her open fist.
"You big headed cocksucker," she screams at Shelton.
Shelton starts bawling.
This was a Sunday and all my relatives were on their way out of town, having survived the wedding of my nephew, Ross.
Shelton, Fermin, Glynn, and I were scheduled to attack the mega-bar at Ryan's Steak House later that evening after I picked up Mandy from the airport, who had wisely opted out of the wedding festivities and gone to see her parents in Kerrville, TX.
I convinced Mandy to go with us and as the little inter-racial family sat down to eat off of dirty plates at the Ryan's Steak House in Algiers, I couldn't help wondering, "How the hell did I get here."
Gangs All Where?
I saw Shelton today while gassing up at the Chevron.
I was sliding my brittle Discover Card through the pay at the pump slot and was fantasizing about a meet with someone else--Canal and Broad's most ubiquitous homeless man, who with his shabby clothes and unkempt beard reminds me for no particular reason of the stoic philosopher Epictetus. Or I have convinced myself he is that reincarnation.
It's costing me about 25 bucks a week to drive the yellow beast to work and back.
I was on my way to see Spiderman over at the Elmwood Palace.
I was squeeggeeing my glass, oblivious to everything but my work, and the loud rap music pounding nearby when I glanced over to my left and there was Shelton, passenger in a jeep. We exchanged pleasant greetings; the nice me and the nice him just chance meeting in the neighborhood. He looked like he wanted to say something more and I thought about saying something more, but he didn't, and I didn't either.
I remember equally the times when he was one of a group of kids I gladly spent several hours with every Sunday traveling the streets of New Orleans and surrounding areas in the smallest car Ford ever made, as many as eight of us crammed in there, and also the difficult times while he briefly lived with me and a woman who even at the time was a former lover, and I screamed obscenities into his face like a poor imitation of Mama D before me.
It is more complicated and simple than I am able to figure out at this point in time but partly if you help by action or inaction put a kid in jail you feel a little connected to him in some way and also I feel various degrees of concern for the party who primarily (and correctly) had him punished for a breaking and entering on Dumaine. That he stayed in jail five months waiting for her to drop a charge that he could have pleaded to and been out in two weeks, or thirty days, is his own damn pig-headed business. And besides, a prolonged jail experience is like a badge he can wear on the street better than the high school diploma he opted against by dropping out in his sixteenth year.
I keep getting my mail over at that former Dumaine address partly because of the before mentioned (probably unnecessary) concern for the owner of that residence and partly because I'm truly literally incapable of accomplishing certain tasks at certain points in time, and partly because I miss the kids and characters from 2600, and getting my mail over there gives me a chance to run into them. He's not supposed to be there hanging out near the residence he burgled but I see Shelton over there in that block sometimes. Although truly that kid exhibits such bi-polar behavior I can't be sure whom I'm seeing from time to time so don't quote me on it. It might be someone else I'm seeing. Or I might be the one with the bi-polarity. And maybe I hallucinate. And anyhow, why would you take the word of an adjudicated felon? That covers that.
So I'm over there today.
Eddie Green lives in the Dumaine house during his summer breaks from Southern University in Baton Rouge, and is positioned as the good example for the many other kids who hang out there after school, and practically live there during the summer. Eddie is 6 feet and an inch tall and weighs 245 pounds. He plays linebacker for the football team. He offered me his Internet connection and I found some emails I had been neglecting. I answered the two that required that and then went out to watch street basketball. While I had been inside reading mail I could hear Fermin outside, who is trying to act out his role in society the best he can, but he's loud and profane about it. "Fuck" this and "fuck" that, "nigger" this, and "nigger" that.
Eddie, former high school states champion at basketball, had just beaten Fermin at street hoops. But from the tone of Fermin's harangue, somehow unfairly.
Eddie, with his shaved head and elaborately tattooed massive arms, smiled and said, "Why 'nigger,' Fermin, why not...'Black Knight?'" Thank you, Eddie.
I was standing next to Glynn who was sitting on the steps of an abandoned house across from where I get my mail. Above him, tacked to the siding was a warning that some bank had posted with a bunch of verbiage that I think meant--No Trespassing. His team was still in the playoffs but mine had been eliminated. My team had two seven foot white guys and neither one of them were true centers, nor could they jump, nor could they physically intimidate opponents. His team, I chided--"don't you think Chris Webber is a crybaby? I mean its behavior like his that sets a bad example for Fermin. Glynn just stared straight ahead. He seemed tired.
Jermaine was to my right with a clear plastic sack of raw hamburger, some charcoal and lighter fluid. He was going to throw a small to-do for Lance, whose birthday was the day before. I don't even worry about Jermaine burning down that house across the street, like he once threatened to do. Truth be told, he's a nice guy, respectful, intelligent, amusing, cheerful, and a lot better than some as a role model. Lance dropped out shortly after Shelton did. If it's true what the lady said, about it taking a village, then this one is better off for Jermaine being in it, and his taking of certain responsibilities seriously.
Bryan had called out to me, "hey splinter," which is why I came over to this side in the first place. He's hiding behind that car now, and won't come over to shake my hand. "Come on Bryan," I say, "I'm not mad, I won't hurt you, come on over here and talk to me." He acts cautious and I act mad, it’s a game, doesn't take much energy.
Jacque is across the street wandering around behind the fence at Stacey and Brianna's house, which nobody really does. He disappears around the side and shortly comes back with a tiny puppy on a leash, which he then walks up the sidewalk a short distance before bringing it back to Stacey and Brianna, who are now sitting on their steps watching it all.
Lance, who is almost a foot shorter and a hundred pounds lighter, is trying to man handle Eddie. "Lance, don't hurt Eddie," I say, and Lance, clearly pleased that such a thing could even be considered possible, smiles and says, "I ain't gonna hurt 'em, Mr. Jim."
"245 Eddie, isn't that a little big for your position?" I'm worried about his speed.
"No, not really, no. But I'm going back for summer school and I'll be working out so I'm going to drop ten pounds or so."
"How fast are you?"
"Four seven."
That seems like a slight exaggeration to me but I didn't call him on it. Instead I said, "you should do it in four three."
"Gawwwd." Eddie said.
Of course if he could hit like I've seen him hit and run the forty in four point three seconds he would be bona-fide pro material. "I just think you could be faster."
"I've got three more years of eligibility (he was redshirted as a freshman), Mr. Jim, I'm gonna be workin' on it," he smiled.
"Well, Okay then."
I haven't yet heard from Maureen Dowd but that doesn't mean I won't.