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Brother, Can You Spare Five Dollars?
In my over zealous attempt to pay off the exorbitant fees owed the IRS I have over drafted my checking account for the first in twenty-five years. Coincidentally, the overdraft unbeknownst to me at the time, I made a substantial deposit the same day the bank was sending me the letter informing me of my carelessness, so I hope that substantiates the bank’s good judgement to pay the item instead of returning it.
I’m trying not to fall asleep because an old, um, hmm, uh, buddy, uh, from Dumaine, said he would come back with something that would make me glad I lent him six dollars. I showed him my overdraft notice but it didn’t really impress him. He was spinning all manner of tales to confuse the six dollars out of me and although at no time was I hopelessly confused, he did get his six dollars. There were these change cups with fifty or sixty dollars of coins right in front of the guy from Dumaine so the negative 644 dollars on the overdraft notice didn’t make him feel sorry for me in the least. He’s lost a lot of weight since I’ve seen him last and although I can’t be sure his story of kidney problems is not the reason for it I equally suspect crack cocaine abuse.
The neighbor lady across the street had come over to borrow five dollars just an hour before the guy came over to borrow six dollars. Or something like five dollars. I was working, putting up lattice underpinning around the vulnerable side of the house, and so hastily collected a handful of quarters that could have been five but might have been seven dollars.
I quit my job on Friday. That’s always fun.
I might go to Austin on Tuesday. From there I’ll go visit my mom in Dallas for a couple of days. Then I’ll come back to New Orleans so a few days later I can leave again, drive east, live in Virginia for awhile.
I saw BigHead today for the first time in ages. He looked good, clean, and free of bodily abrasions. He ignored my cooing solicitations and walked on by. It didn’t hurt my feelings. We were never exactly pals. It was good to see him though because I thought he was dead.
I’ve been watching tons of movies lately. The three best from last week, go figure how I went this long without seeing these, were: Bulworth, Pushing Tin, and holy cow what great fun–Trainspotting. I saw a pretty good Tracy/Hepburn flick on PBS this morning after Meet the Press. I can’t remember the title but the screenplay was tight. It was, you know, a love story. I took notes.
I don’t think that guy’s coming back. There are some who like me for just that reason, my gullibility.
Two Lists, An Update
I waited as long as I could today before popping the top on my first Red Stripe. Twelve forty-six for the record. I went out to the front porch to watch the tow truck manage that car with no wheels onto its’ flatbed. It was anti-climatic, as most things are.
Things that haven’t been anti-climatic:
1. The Redwoods of Northern California.
2. Coney Island.
My desk is one of those six foot long cafeteria tables with the imitation wood-grain top. It is full of stuff: a cell phone, some cashews, a box of checks, some hand lotion, some baby powder, a couple of antique bottles, an Y Tu Mama Tambien DVD, three empty Red Stripes from yesterday and today’s one, half full. Okay make that four empty Red Stripes, a checkbook, a computer game called Alone in the Dark, floppy disks, chapstick, stamps, an extra mouse, an MP3 player, two sets of headphones, a letter opener, a PlayBortz, some packets of hot sauce from Taco Bell, a Steve Earle CD, a Lucinda Williams CD, and a pile of uncashed payroll checks which sit glaring at that last bill from the IRS, and a full Red Stripe.
This is my last week of work in New Orleans before I depart, probably via Austin and Dallas, for three months in the Virginia countryside. I’m out at English Turn doing call-back work on homes we’ve painted over the last several years. Most of these days won’t last until noon.
Kids steal cars and bring them out to the road that leads to the English Turn construction entrance and then they set them on fire. There’s still a crispy Volvo out there, been there for months, finally someone pushed it off into the weeds. Last week there was a Firebird up on the Intracoastal Canal Bridge, burnt as well as a car can be burnt.
There was a good bit of press over the beautiful teenage girl who last week got stabbed to death by two other teenage girls who thought maybe she too pretty, and popular. But there’s been six or eight murders here since that happened, one of them in the Iberville projects the guy ended up on his knees, shot to death, that’s how they found him, and onlookers speculated that maybe he was praying before he died.
Another murder yesterday (one of two in the city) on Banks Street, this time at Galvez, the Banks Street toll rises to several in a six block stretch for the year. One man emptied the 30 round clip of his AK-47, piercing the windows and doors of cars parked on the street as he chased down the victim, eventually putting at least one round in the young man’s head. A .45 handgun was found on the victim. The Banks Street area church people who planted crosses in the neutral ground, thereby claiming the turf between Broad and Dorgenois, and Dorgenois and Rocheblave, apparently succeeding in squeegeeing the crime to an area three blocks away. You can do that here, claim turf, and with some success I might add, but always, always, at the expense of some other adjoining, less civic-minded neighborhood. The other murder on Sunday was from a stab wound. The victim was a paraplegic as a result of previous gunshot wounds to his body.
Just Plain Wrong
I don’t always listen to Louise on the radio, 90.7, Wednesdays between two and four p.m. on WWOZ (.org), New Orleans, LA., but I do when I remember its Wednesday, which is a hard day to remember. For example I thought tomorrow was Friday, is what I told my nephew who called to offer free tickets to the Soul Rebels brass band at Dragons Den tonite, and borrow my truck for Friday to haul some stuff to the dump on Elysian Fields. “I’ll call you Friday,” he said. “Okay, that’s tomorrow then,” I said. He should have said, “no it’s not you stupid moron,” but instead he said, “today is Wednesday.” I might have responded, “who you callin’ a stupid moron, bastard?” But instead, over the din of WWOZ, hosted on Wednesdays by Louise, I said, “all right then, see you Friday.”
Some days here in New Orleans, Louisiana are more humid than others and this is one of those days, but I’m inside with conditioned air now, not outside on a construction site, so what do I care how humid it is, quit your whining all you sissies.
My nephew and his wife gave me a bed, which is a thing I haven’t had for several years, so I sleep in a bed now, which is a new thing for me. It’s not that much better than sleeping on a couch, or the floor, but it is some better. I don’t have it in the bedroom yet but I’m working on it.
I don’t know what I’m looking for inside these words, or inside the Red Stripe, but that doesn’t keep me from looking.
I’m not going to go on and on like Lenny Bruce obsessed with obscenity hearings but the IRS wiped me out this year, brutally. I thought it was over and then just a few days ago I got some more correspondence from them and they wanted more money. Bless their heart. I just wrote two more checks. I still owe them some more for this year so later they can get more penalty money if they want, all they have to do is ask. I’m a bitch for the IRS. Anyway, anyone says jimlouis doesn’t support his government is a goddamn liar. I support my governments. Monetarily, I live around the poverty line, but I own a couple of low rent properties too, and pay property taxes in three different states. I paid out over fifty percent of my total earnings in various taxes this year. But I’m not complaining. If you think I’m complaining, you’re just plain wrong. I’m not. I’m just saying.