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Do Not Read This, Sucker
It is very peaceful here and safe-feeling inside this Rocheblave house. That's what I want to say right off the bat. That is first. It's like a neat, tidy, secure suburbia inside here. I have the second hand yellow-gold damask couches to prove it. And my lights are on dimmer switches and I have ceiling fans. There is a little crime here in these neighborhoods, or a little more than a little, I guess, but maybe its just the right amount for the some of us who without the occasional risk of harm start forgetting what the point is or why we are here or tend towards the attitude that everything is a joke and not a very good one at that. New Orleans is my Prozac, and the money I save on mood altering drugs I am able to spend on...well, mood altering drugs. I mean beer of course. Please do not lump me with those heathens like Suzy who buy the seemingly harmless dime bag of weed from the local dealer who surprise suprise is only two or three circles away from the evil drug lord who kills babies in the pursuit of his empire, thus, let me spell it out for you--Suzy is a baby killer. YOU are a baby killer.
I recently exchanged brief emails with my best friend, who lives in Northern VA., and I wanted to know how the sniper was affecting his life and he said it made filling up your gas tank more exciting. That is what it is like here everyday. And even within the snare of day to day drudgery wherein you take all that is precious for granted you are kept alive by the fact that that very life you are taking for granted is not a guaranteed thing. It is an equation inside of which it is hard not to appreciate life. Even the drudgery can be a sweet thing. Of course, during the summer months here, all bets are off, and the mind can be as scary as the city is dangerous. Even then though, when one might find oneself simply not caring what the fuck happens, the city is always there to heed the call of the ailing mind. It can be there for you, to cradle you in its most desperate potential. It will test you. It will ask you to consider how much you really don't care and it will force you to look at more than you may wish to see. This city loves you, but it does not coddle you, and if you ask it to, it will kill you. Always--of course, but it seems somewhat an exaggerated truism here--be careful what you ask for.
And these are the words of a relatively priviledged working class white guy. This city is predominately working and poverty class black, surrounded by suburbs of working and professional whites who are mostly, and often for good reason, scared of everything this city represents. There is a lot of resentment. White people who should know better often demean by lame verbal caricature the local black citizenry. I don't mean to belabor the point but I need to make the setting clear. There is desperation and seperation here that is not so far removed from the images projected in those postcards they used to make of the lynchings of black people, where the most horrifying thing is really not the dead black man (or woman), neck broken, twisting in a tree, but the carnival-like atmoshpere exhibited by the throngs of white people, children even, who are laughing and smiling, not a troubled look among them.
I am perhaps a little bit disquieted by the implications and intonations that occurred today at work between a group of people I would label as the most liberal minded I am commonly around. Words and ideas thrown around that make me sad because I cannot effectively dispute them. I cannot be allowed to be more qualified to distinguish between black and white in my descriptions and yet I am so (quietly) offended if I myself hear it done in a way I deem improper.
Okay man, thanks for the ramble, what a deep thinker you are, get to the meat.
Well yeah, uh, I had been thinking on that particular early evening while looking out the side door, now exposed to more of the outside world since the tearing down of the dance hall, that it's really pretty amazing that no one has stolen the garden hose my friend bought for me and strategically wrapped around two of the piers holding up this house. And later sleeping soundly--like through tornadoes I have slept--I hear at 2:30 a.m. what sounds exactly like the unwrapping of that very hose. Watchdog next door is barking. I have evolved off of the floor to sleeping on the couch, the one that used to be at Dumaine and cradled Shelton for almost a year. And don't ask me about Shelton, I'll tell you when I'm good and goddamn ready. The couch is in the front room, a few feet from the front door. I got up, opened the door, and stepped out onto the front porch. I took a few steps to the left, opposite the side with the hose, toward my only bit of private yard, if you don't count the unprivate fact that it runs along the chain-linked backside of five Bienville-fronting homes. I can sense that underneath the house--which is up on piers almost three feet off the ground--is a man, as opposed to the semi-frequent roaming wild dogs, and I shout to this human to get the fuck from under my house. I wish I did not cuss so much, as I know it suggests coarseness, ill-breeding, and lack of imagination. The man, shirtless, black, barrel chested, with a gut to match, and blue jean dungarees slipped down low enough to show his butt crack, comes as if shot from a cannon from under the house out into the middle of the twelve foot wide, six foot high, chain-link enclosed side yard. All the above rap about setting, history, and desperation, is what I am asking you to hear in this man's voice. He is ranting, hyperventilating, pleading.
"Please man please you gotta help me they after me they after me, oh god, please man help me!!!"
This desperate pleading disarms me and in equal measure puts me on guard. This same evening there would be two (probable drug war related) murders and also a 16-year old and a 36-year old man would knock on the door and be let into the home of the 16-year old's uncle, and then the older perpetrator would proceed to chop the 82-year old uncle in the forehead with a meat cleaver in the effort to rob him. He, the victim, has improved recently from critical to guarded condition. This incident, I forget now what my rules are concerning the distinguishing between black and white, involved all white people in a relatively affluent uptown neighborhood. So I guess the two murders were black killing black? You're not allowed to know anymore, which is good, and bad. I have read vintage turn of the century New Orleans newspaper accounts that qualified all non-white people as "colored." Certainly that is not an ideal accounting. But as things pertain to crime the color of a perpetrator's skin, for the purposes of indentification, is as pertinent as whether or not the perpetrator was a man or a woman, and without checking, I think the newspaper does condone free use of the distinguishing gender pronouns. That's another discussion though and is one I'm not sure which side I would stand on. I guess if I were adequately discussing it I would be standing on both sides. Whenever possible the newspaper prints a picture, which effectively cancels this discussion, but when they don't, and the crime is one of gross violence, I think, for the edification of a concerned public, it would be appropriate, in addition to describing what the man or woman was wearing, to tell the color of the person's skin. In a town of nearly 50/50 black/white pigmentation, I think it is appropriate. I think, as far as racism goes, it is more racist not to distinguish the color of a criminal's skin color because it leaves the reader to guess, and make generalizations, based on location, type of crime, name, spelling of names, and other such confusing factors.
Mane, are you gonna tell the story or not?
Which one?
The crazy man under your house, the naked lady, the meat?
I can hardly see that I'll get to the naked lady.
Gahddangit, I knew you wouldn't get to the naked lady. You suckering your readership.
Readership? That's a big word, gahddangit.
Mane, fuck you.
Watch the language please, I thought we were going to work on that.
No, "we," did not agree on nothing like that.
It's so unnecessary. It makes us look bad.
"We" ain't "us." Tell the thing man. You so sorry. That little day in the life you posted and then that thing you said at the end about the naked lady. You knew that was as cheap a trick as posting in bold letters, Don't Read This.
I like that. I saw it in the back of a comic book once.
You such a pussy.
Man, please, the language!
Maaane, Pleeze, the language.
You're a little bit scary.
So are you.
Just tell the damn story, fewest syllables, no editorializing.
Okay Slim, for you, this is for you--the man was pleading. I asked him who was chasing him. I wanted to know, gangbanger or cop. Gangbanger, he on his own, cop, I might let him take his chances hiding under the house. Its not right but its what I thought. And that goes for everything else that happens. He tried to scale the fence, and then suddenly skirted under and around and me and him were sharing the same world. He was very agitated. I was sympathetic but basically utterly frightened, concerned only for my own well-being. He offered up to me a single black patent leather shoe. That had happened before and I could not figure why it was happening now. No, man, I don't want that, I said. He came around from the side to the front and walked up the steps while I told him not to. Don't come up here, I said. Why are you coming up here? The man could have snapped me like a twig. He was still pleading desperately for help but would give no clue as to the nature of his demons. The only thing I cared about at that point in time was living to be 110-years old. The last thing he said to me was, could I just come inside for a little while? Without excusing myself I took two steps, opened the door, stepped inside, slammed the door, and flicked the deadbolt all in one more or less fluid motion. The man moaned and took off down the steps, across my driveway, and into the street. He walked toward Iberville. I went into my hallway and picked up the shotgun that got leaned against a door jamb during one recent murdering crime spree that made me feel vulnerable. This was more real though and I suddenly wasn't sure I wanted to live to be 110 that bad. I put the gun down and went to the front door glass and looked out. The man came back from Iberville, stage right, and walked up Rocheblave to stage left. A few seconds passed and then a man on a bicycle wearing a light blue warmup suit appeared from stage right. He called out to the agitated man, whom I could no longer see. Hey dag, com'ere, the man in the light blue sweats said all business-like. Then he too disappeared stage left. And I had bought the phone three days previous because of the naked lady incident. But I wasn't moving for it even as I waited for what seemed a most real possibility--murder. I was paralyzed by what I don't know, but weakness would be a good guess. This was preternatural silence, waiting for the gunshots. Please don't kill, please don't kill, please don't kill, I most lamely, and silently, admonished the night. The agitated man reappeared and went into the side yard of my neighbor across the street and begged to be let in. He was ignored or told to go away, and go away is what he did, panting, and ranting back towards Iberville.
Later, on the couch, trying to sleep a few more minutes before going to work, I looked across the room and I could almost see him there, on the love seat, curled in the fetal position, one hand between his knees, the other in a fist with thumb extended, in his mouth.