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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.