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Work In The N.O.
There are four jobs going on concurrently that the bossman and I are working on. He's starting to trim a house in Lakeview while I prep a house for paint in Metairie and then we have the four-plex off of Clearview to punch out and the converted garage of our building contractor in River Ridge to finish up. In the evenings and on weekends I have the 1897 Victorian Dumaine house to exterior paint, the Rocheblave house to replace a moldy section of sheetrock in the return air vent and at least three rooms to repaint in the next six days and I did promise the Sculptor across the street that I would tape and float her small section of ceiling in the studio portion of her home. It's only about a two inch description of work though so it can't be all that hard. Sitting here right now doing nothing is sort of a guilty pleasure except that I don't feel guilty or for that matter all that pleased.
Yesterday like Cinderella on her knees scrubbing while the ugly step sisters are away having fun (except the shoe will never fit and my boss is not an ugly step sister) I scraped with a six foot section of trim molding the sawdust and bits of wood left by another carpenter crew so I could freely navigate the rolling scaffold, which is quite an expediting device when caulking, puttying and painting crown molding.
The builder (not the one we usually work for) came in while I did this and spying that pitiful picture of me on my knees, perhaps felt guilty and asked did I want him to clean up the place and I said if he could that would be nice, at least sweep everything to the middle of the rooms. He said he would because if I was starting to paint tomorrow all the dust would get in the paint and that would not be good. I did not say, Really? This guy has never seen my work so doesn't know that I can make his woodwork glass smooth even in a windstorm, but I like a clean work environment, so let's hope he cleaned up the place last night and moved all that unused trim molding out of the hallway.
Ok, that's it, off to the I-10.
Another Brother
I found a warm Guinness wrapped in a plastic grocery sack in the Dumaine foyer so I sat on the porch and drank it after priming a few dozen window sashes yesterday evening after work.
A dude I recognize but not by name comes up and starts talking to me like an old friend, which was touching on one level, and then, not really all that touching, as he rambled on with the utmost elusiveness regarding anything specific about who we knew, mutually, and I, offered up everything just shy of my bank account numbers.
He was really surprised to see me sitting there, on those steps where I used to sit, and now sit again.
He excused himself three times and walked over to the short southern fence, and saying the red sauce (spaghetti sauce) was burning in his stomach, expelled it with projectile force into the dead brown banana trees. And then between each vomiting would come back and explain the problem with red sauce in general and also specifically the red sauce he had just eaten.
He was an intelligent speaker with an occasional stutter as he pondered how to phrase his next sentence and at one point looking at the sharp Anglo edges of his bronze-black face I thought, me and this guy could be related. And when I said I had to go, and clean up, he gave me the soul shake and shoulder bump and I realized we were, related.
He walked up the sidewalk toward Dorgenois and that's when he called back and said, I was really surprised to see you sitting there. I called back, yeah, its been awhile.
500 Angry Nikes
There is a 110 year old wrought iron fence in front of the Dumaine house. The porch railing, also most likely originally wrought iron, is now white wood spindle, minus a few due to urban teenager attrition.
Before the recently added wood railing the porch was rail-less and was for many years, between 1995 and 2002 or 3, the Dumaine domain of many a child and grownup, working class and white collar, gangster and innocent.
The young thugs, who we were convinced would show some respect if we offered some (and would not kill us no matter how we treated them, if we tutored--mostly M--and mentor-ed, their little brothers and sisters), would invariably use the aged wrought iron spear tips as a push off point for their Reboks and Nikes when leveraging themselves up onto the porch. And they would plop their butts down on the tongue and groove porch and then rest their feet on the same wrought iron spear tips. "Please don't rest your feet on the railing" was always obeyed until the next time.
Two or three tips have been broken off over the years in acts of Herculean urban teenager angst.
I was ruminating on that railing this afternoon while it rained on my last ditch efforts at long put off exterior paint prep, sitting on a five gallon bucket listening to battery-powered radioed live "Jazz Tent" Jazzfest, as the prevailing winds blew sound onto the porch from the 7 block distant fai-do-do stage.
Take The Curtain
Not getting it done sitting here. You are going to need a very long extension pole to paint that Dumaine house if you persist on sitting on your air mattress watching the sun rise, on Rocheblave.
I made the walk to the Canal/Broad paper box this morning, Friday, my day off from work so I can work day. Epictetus was leaning on the box talking to himself, 16 oz. beer in brown wrapper resting on the top of the box. In all my years over here admiring the survival skills of the stoic Epictetus, I was never sure he could talk, or even had vocal chords, but today he's talking fine, if only to himself.
I said good morning to him and he responded similarly and moved away from the box so I could get a paper. I wanted to give him something, a paper or a fiver, but he didn't ask for anything so I chose not to presume his needs. I did ask him if he was doing all right and he said--still standing.
Went to Betsy's, got the special, left a 30% tip.
Chevron is moving out of New Orleans to the North Shore, taking 500 workers with them. See ya, bye, don't let the screen door hit ya on the way out.
Same goes for me though. I'm leaving in a few weeks to resume my duties in the Virginia countryside. Not because it's too hard here or because I think there is no hope for this region but because Virginia/Delaware are part of my world now, and have been for two years.
Even without electricity and gas to my house for the first four months of my stay, this has been perhaps the easiest and most relaxing seven months of my 12 years here. I know it has not been easy for many and I don't mean to make light of the great hardships suffered by many but I honestly see nothing but good here. That the city has come this far 8 months after being underwater is nothing shy of miraculous. That there is still a long way to go is obvious but the New Orleans I have lived in for these years (on Magazine, on Dumaine, on Rocheblave) was in a very real way much more disadvantaged and dysfunctional than the New Orleans I see rising from the muck.
I am eager to reacquaint with my east coast family but equally so, jealous of you getting to stay here.
Thank you to everyone that has been nice to me this trip. To my neighbors, the Sculptor, the Chauffeur, The Smiths, Mr. Clarence, FreddyB, Raheim, and to those who invited me site unseen into their homes for food and drink and on those coldest days this winter, an occasional hot shower. I tip my glass to Laureen, EditorB, Cade Roux, and Rene. And to my blood, renting Uptown while they prepare to rebuild in Lakeview, I offer you my admiration and love, which you can either accept or trade right now for a six pack of Guinness, or what's behind curtain number 1 (and the crowd yells--take the curtain, take the curtain!)
Jazzfest Birding
This morning I was up before the crack of dawn.
Slapping the still sleeping eminent New York Professor Doctor Wilson on his hip bone with a full bottle of water, I was made to recoil as he came awake immediately, Bowie knife in his teeth, growling. It's just me Professor Doctor, I squeaked.
While Professor Doctor performed his ablutions prior to our departing for the wilds of the Barataria Preserve, I ran off to gas up at the Chevron at Canal and Broad and get cigs at the Canal/Galvez Spur. It was hopping at the Spur this morning at five a.m. and while a confused driver backed out and blocked my ability to gain front door parking, a little dude stole my waited upon space. No biggee, I backed up and exited and parked in the adjacent lot. When I walked up the little loud-mouthed shit spewing dude was just getting ready to come back out for something and we met face to face separated by the double glass doors. I put a granite fist on each handle and opened both doors at once, pretty much piercing his inflated and constantly whining bitch ass persona, with the sharp edges of my bony, shiv-like rib cage. I went straight to the counter, got my cigs, and left, having to kill no one, and not looking back to see if the little dude wanted to kiss my ass.
We were to be on a bird hunt this morning but would end up seeing enough active alligators to distract us from our mission to observe as many as possible of the warm-blooded, egg-laying, feathered vertebrate creatures with forelimbs modified to form wings.
We entered the Jean Lafitte park illegally because it doesn't open until 8 but even a complete ninny knows birds are jumping at dawn.
There was a cacophony of bird noises in the bald cypress, water tupelo and red maple trees above us, as first morning light came on.
Later, resting on the elevated boardwalk of the Bayou Coquille section of the park and a woman and her young daughter, Kristy, approached us and asked if we were seeing anything. She meant alligators. A woman who goes out there everyday had told them she saw gators every time and I said (quite authoritatively I might add), ma'am, there are of course alligators in these waters but as a frequent visitor myself, I can tell you I have NEVER seen one out here.
Professor Doctor Wilson spoke up barely 15 seconds later and said, actually, there's one laying over on that bank.
Oh, those, I might have said, but didn't.
The woman and Kristy walked on and kept spotting alligators while Professor Doctor stuck to birds and I split my time between bird and gator watching, because I was determined to see more than Kristy.
We did enjoy watching one with a dragonfly on it's nose become aggravated and while opening its gaping, jagged, razor toothed jaw did nothing to distract the dragonfly, submerging did, and the dragonfly become gator bait.
We came back around lunch, dined on soul food with the rest of our party at Two Sisters on Derbigny, and then napped while they went off to Jazzfest again. We went out to City Park after the nap and got politely policed by a security force representative from one of the camping villages sprung up post-Katrina all along the waterways of the park. We weren't supposed to be parking near the devastated soccer fields at Boy Scout Island. We could go talk to some other out of towner about getting permission to freely use our own damn park, but I wasn't doing that, we just said we'd be leaving shortly, and we did.
What kind of birds did we see? Can't really say as I am no professor.
Packin' Brushes
I have a trio of New Yorkers and a solitary Californian visiting me here on Rocheblave for the first Jazzfest weekend and last night they took me out for cheeseburgers with all the way baked potato at Port O' Call. I wanted them to go hear without me Southern Culture on the Skids but it was their travel day and they were pretty tired and retired early. They said tomorrow they wanted to do some painting on the Dumaine house so I left them the key and said, paint and ladders are up in there, have at it. I snuck out the back way at 6:30 this morning as they slept on air mattress in the front two rooms.
I've been taking Fridays off recently so I can have three day weekends to work on side projects, like the Dumaine house, and my other favorite side project--laying about doing not a damn thing. Me and the boss always took off early on Fridays anyway. And this week, my boss said he was going to take off Friday too, so today, Thursday, was our Friday and we took off early.
Passing by the Dumaine house on the way over here to Rocheblave I expected to see my Friends just getting back from a late breakfast, and probably overwhelmed by the cumulative cosmic slacker dynamic of the hood, loitering about on turned over five gallon buckets, cat-calling at the now infrequent passing gangbanger.
But glancing over as I passed by on N. Broad and I could see they had completed their assigned task of priming with exterior oil base paint the power sanded bare wood spots on the front of the house, and I thought, holy sheeit, these some kickass, sumabitch, worker guests.
Tomorrow I know they want to hit first day of Jazzfest, see Dylan for sure, but Ima see if I can get them to put on that new roof before they go.
Chicks
Yesterday, or the day before, on N. Broad St. in New Orleans, I saw, near St. Philip St., a hen walking down the sidewalk followed by 14 chicks.
Probation, But Congo Square
Prior to actually having electricity in my neighborhood I received a bill for a couple hundred dollars and I bitched about that for awhile but then I just went ahead and paid it and then five and a half months after arriving back in New Orleans my block got back on the grid, and as my required electrical work had been done I just sort of assisted the energy company and switched on my own electricity and then about a week ago a new tag showed up on my meter, which made me feel all official, but the tag was purple, the same color as my expired break tag on the truck, instead of red, which is the normal color for active meters, as opposed to yellow which is the tag they put on meters to signify inactive accounts.
I just figured this new color was part of the new world order we exist in down here, welcome back to New Orleans and all that, but every time I mentioned it to someone they would say the exact same thing--what does that mean, this purple tag of yours?
Well, Phillis knows someone down there at the energy company and she said she would ask that person and yesterday she called out to me while I, after my nap after the day job, stretched beyond what is optimal on the too short ladder I am using to scrape the high parts of the Dumaine house. I climbed down and she told me that basically what this means is I am not a special person and I am not being welcomed back to the new New Orleans but rather that I am on a probation which at some point will end with me receiving either the proper red tag, or, having my purple tag replaced with a yellow tag and my electricity being shut off.
This is all to say that, hey you Jazzfests guests visiting me next week--Welcome to Louisville, welcome to New Orleans. Good thing one of you is an electrical engineer.
Mr. BC, you still got time to jump on that jet and get down here this weekend for the French Quarter Fest. If only for Sunday at noon in Congo Square where Wynton Marsalis with his Lincoln Center jazz orchestra will perform the 80 minute world premier of his new composition--"Congo Square." Congo Square is by the way, where, arguably, American music began. Not to be missed. See you there.
Letter To Clifford, 12
Dear Mom, Aug. 2, 2005
It is 5:30 in the morning and I am up listening to the birds chattering and wondering when the neighbor's dogs are going to start barking. I have a fan running in the room to drown out the noise a little but I can still hear them barking most nights. And then they start up in the morning. The dogs live down the hill a ways, about as far as Marsh Middle School is from you, but there are no buildings between this bedroom and the dogs, so the sound travels unobstructed. People say I should go talk to my neighbors but I am not aware of anything a person can do to make a dog stop barking, short of buying the dog a one way ticket to a land far, far away. I was talking to this nature-boy recently and this nature-boy doesn't kill snakes and gets out of his truck to remove slow moving turtles off the roads and generally is a friend to animals everywhere and he offered me this bit of insight--"It's not the dog's fault." What a wonderful insight, huh? I asked the nature-boy would it be, in his opinion, my fault, if I went down the hill and shot the barking dogs? Nature-boy did not even give me the benefit of a response.
I don't reckon I am going to shoot any dogs though. When I lived in New Orleans I slept through gunfire in the night on a regular basis and so I guess I can forgive the dogs their barking. You know mom, it's not the dog's fault.
I'm waiting for a slightly more respectable hour and then I will go over to T's house and wake her up so we can go on a hike in the woods.
I am still in Virginia. Haven't seen JF in a few weeks. Have talked to him once or twice recently and he said he may come out this week and talk to some of the townsfolk who are trying to convince him not to develop this property. He doesn't really want to develop it but the townsfolk are nervous about his potential to develop it and so have initiated movements to take away his rights, which means the property would be worth less money. So it's sort of like stealing, but in the townspeople's mind, for a good reason. The only legal way for Jeff to fight off the stealing of his rights is to actually initiate the movements to develop the land so it is a pretty pickle sure enough. I'll let you know what happens, if in fact anything happens. love, Jim
Letter to Clifford, 11
The beerless Spur convenience store on N. Broad St. has gone 24 hours, so once again a Louisville establishment puts it's neck out to make New Orleans all it can be. I came home from work yesterday and took a nap and woke up about six to a tapping on the front door and I got up and it was Raheim with his head nearly shaved, in flip flops. He looked forlorn and desperate in that way 10- year-old boys look when they are bored. I don't try not to be an old fart around kids, except when they make me, and I asked him the predictable questions--how was school? (he didn't go, duh, look at my flip flops, you can't go to school in flip flops, left my shoes by my mama's house over Easter and evidently his stepmom and dad around the corner don't have an extra pair for him), are you bored? (his eyes expressed a yes in the most definitive fashion, he looked as if he might perish forthwith). I wanted to play with him a little, humiliate him on the basketball court, perhaps that would make him feel better, but I was still so nap groggy I couldn't find my way to it. He finally said, like a full grown proper Englishman, well I won't disturb you any longer, I will let you get back to your nap. He rode off on his second hand razor, performing a neat little hop trick at the grabble (tm) apron of my driveway, amazing his ownself, and looked back to see if I was impressed and so I tried to look like I was. He sped off down the middle of Rocheblave to the Iberville corner and I heard his flip flops slid-breaking to a stop on the beaten asphalt as a car sped through the intersection. I went over to Dumaine for an hour and worked on re-glazing a window in the shade while the Muslim across the street worked his ass off, by himself, on a project that would seem undoable, but won't prove to be. Joe was laying almost flat across the steps of the former hitman's house, listening on the radio, or sleeping through, the mayoral debate. Following is the fifth-to-the-last letter I wrote to my mom last year, who suffered from Alzheimers and the good intentions of her children.
Dear Mom,
As a continuation on the theme of socializing well beyond what I would think is possible for me, I went to a dinner party last night. I met some more new people and even though meeting new people is the last thing I would intentionally put on my list of things to do, it was fine and fun and if nothing else gives me an opening for this letter to you.
At the party besides me and my girlfriend T, were: a female chef, the owners of the restaurant where the chef works, two gay men who told funny stories, a gray-headed long-haired computer expert, an environmentalist/tennis pro, the girlfriend of the environmentalist (who was also the hostess), and the mother of the hostess (who came up, to Virginia, from Ft. Worth, and made enchiladas). Ceviche was also served. Ceviche is raw fish (red snapper in this case, cooked by the acidic power of citrus juices instead of heat, mixed with a wide range of vegetable matter, depending on your tastes.)
The mother from Ft. Worth asked me if I two step (which is Texas cowboy dancing) and I said no. Later, holding up a big metal cooking spoon she said--you must know what this is? and I said, no. It turned out to be a spoon for making roux, which is the base for all New Orleans-type dishes like gumbo. I had told her I lived in New Orleans for ten years previous to coming to Virginia. I never seem to do things that are most associated with the places I live. There was also plenty of tequila served and I drank enough to be polite but not enough to crash my truck into one of the trees lining the steep driveway.
The really good news is that the mother gave up the recipe for the enchiladas, and her daughter, the hostess, looked on perhaps a little perturbed while T copied it down for me. Before I met T the hostess might have implied some little attraction to me. At that time however, the hostess had both a boyfriend (the environmentalist) and a husband (from whom she was separated, and is now divorced). So I never really encouraged her attraction, but did and do innocently enjoy her company. T has an ex-boyfriend in the area, and plenty of friends who are men, so we take turns being jealous of each other. The hostess has two young boys and she brings them over occasionally to swim in the pool on this property I take care of for JF. So, if I don't ever write the story about New Orleans, maybe I could write some sort of Virginia-based Peyton Place. love, Jim.
The Amiable Thief
This guy called out, Jim, from across the street on Dumaine and I turned around and he said you don't remember me, do you? Look, all you people who I have known casually who go off to jail for five or six years I can honestly say I do remember you, but how am I going to remember your names? He lived straight across from the Dumaine house and was a nice guy. Installed security systems. Worked at the corner store for awhile until late one night he compromised the security system, robbed the store, and then two days later met the gunpoint of the owner who put the two's together and then the guy went off to jail. He asked about M , but I think he called her Lisa, or Nancy, or Maria, and I corrected him in that subtle way by saying her actual name, told him a little about her deal, and he said God would bless her and take care of her, which is not necessarily a crock of shit, so M, you got that going for you, the blessings of God via the amiable thief.
He said he was trying to get some of that FEMA money and I told him about Joe, who as far as I can tell, just by appearing slightly retarded, got 22k. That news seemed to encourage him. He had just seen Joe himself, who had come by the store where the amiable thief was helping the Muslim gut the store. You know the adage, keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer? Joe had pointed to the security camera and asked if he could have it. In my opinion, this was Joe's little joke, referencing the amiable thief's crime. Joe is a funny guy. Years ago, at a Super Bowl party at his sister's house across the street he had made some attempt at humor regarding the dysfunction of M and I's relationship and I stood up in front of where he sat and unzipped my pants and suggested he fellate me.
The amiable thief pointed to the former Mama D's house and said did I know that old man that lived there, mowed grass around the neighborhood, and I said I seem to remember people talking about him but I was on Rocheblave by then so I didn't really know him. He said the old guy and his wife and a little girl drowned in there during the flood. I said, but the water was only ankle deep in those houses and he suggested various scenarios which could account for drowning in ankle deep water.
I washed the front of the house in the late afternoon and then poured a little more than a little Jameson's in a glass and sat on the porch and got my buzz on. I was deep in reverie when a banger drove by playing at alarming volume the most patently ridiculous rap song I have ever heard and I just busted out laughing, but then stopped because it really wasn't that funny.
Snow had been walking back and forth from his perch on the steps of the nearly and impressively renovated Esnard Villa to up past the Dorgenois corner (where he got shot a month ago) and on one of his circuits I got up the courage (my friend Jameson egged me on) to ask him where he got shot.
Snow.
Raised eyebrows (He never actually spoke very much but now I think he doesn't speak at all).
Where did you get shot?
Raised eyebrows saying--say again.
I spoke louder and tried to rephrase in a way that would rule out the regional misunderstanding of unfamiliar dialect. I said, where-did-you-get-shot?
He slowly raised his shirt and showed a small, well healed pucker, close to his hipbone but still in the soft flesh of his outer belly.
Just that one? I asked.
By no movement of eyebrow nor verbal utterance did he dignify that question with response. He started moving on.
I read about you in the paper.
He stopped, eyebrow saying--say again.
I read about you in the paper.
I think he almost smiled.
Painting Dumaine
Ok, so I only lasted that one day without complaint. It's almost 90 degrees here in New Orleans today and that is too damn hot for April. I took the day off from work so I could work in the hood and I keep coming over here to Rocheblave because it is a little cooler over here than on Dumaine but most of the work is on Dumaine.
I'm going back over there in a little while and wash the front of the house. That will involve spraying water and scrubbing with a truck brush dipped in soapy bleach, on an extension pole, and then more spraying with water, so I could get wet, and cooler.
I have an airport? card in my laptop so I got Internet in the house now.
I better call those guys about replacing my flooded AC compressor. That's the last major thing I have to do over here on Rocheblave. If I had the AC working I would be running it now.
I might have bitten off a little more than I can chew with the Dumaine exterior paint job but that's not a complaint just a statement of fact. I've gotten a good bit of the shit work out of the way, the power sanding, the scraping, a lot of the priming except the front, but I still have some more scraping on a couple of high sections, and a fair amount of window re-glazing, and replacing a few pieces of window glass. The painting itself will be a large job but child's play compared to the prep work.
This paint job was something I was supposed to do a long time ago so me doing it now is not me being a helluva guy but rather a day-late flunky. And it is a pretty good environment to work in, without all the high drama that could sometimes overwhelm Dumaine. And this will not be my A+ work but more like my B-minus work, just in case you look too closely. There are a few window sills that need replacing but I simply won't have time for that. I'll be lucky if I get all the windows re-glazed. And some of the weather boards could use some nails, and I just don't think there's any way in hell I'm going to cut out that bad caulking job from the last painters, who instead of nailing the weather boards tighter, just caulked the underside gap and now it's harder to nail and harder to make right, so I'm just going to paint it up and hope for the best. Most of the siding is original, so it's 110 years old, and the paint may be the only thing holding it up. Anyway, I think it will look better than it did (it's going to look stupendous), and hopefully, if M gets her insurance figured out and gets that money then maybe her contractors can tighten it up a little bit.
Ok, I'm going back over there now. I'm going to take my Irish friend, Jameson, with me.
Easter New Orleans
A couple of things. There aren't anymore marauding rats in the Dumaine house and as for the occasional mouse, if I bother to set the traps, I might catch, that is kill dead, one every other week, so I hardly even bother with such inconsequential threats and as for threats of a more serious nature, all it took was locking the side gate at Dumaine and I don't see anyone hanging around for over a week, even my little helper, who it just so happens is not the embodiment of pure innocence. So it was a false alarm thinking the drug 'n thug scene was starting up again around Dumaine. However, the corner store guys are beginning their gutting and rebuilding process, so when the store gets going it could liven things up in a not necessarily good way, I guess.
The person who will rent from me when I go back to VA in June wanted to do a little landscaping so the backyard and side yard have become a veritable garden paradise (at least relative to the post-apocalyptic feel of it prior to two weeks ago) and without the manic barking dogs (Sheba, Killer, and Watchdog, in the backyards backing up to my side yard) and constant threat of roaming knuckleheads, the Rocheblave property has really catapulted to become one of the top two places I live.
It is so quiet here in New Orleans that even though I still get a little choked up when I pass through the many dead neighborhoods, I mostly am feeling very calm, and happy, if just a little tired. If I hadn't worked so hard on renovating this abandoned property over the last six years I would feel guilty about how fortunate I am, having this nice little place surrounded by so much catastrophe. But, perhaps contrary to my nature, I have worked my ass off on this property, granted over a rather longer than necessary time period, but that I didn't take but a few inches of water in the front two rooms, and am now almost fully operational, while so many people are still suffering their losses, is not something about which I am persecuting myself.
Raheim, the 10-year-old kid from around the corner that I can almost beat most of the time at basketball, doesn't come by too regularly but he shows up once in awhile. Because there are so few open schools here in New Orleans he is attending school in Jefferson and it is an all white school and Raheim longs for his old school, his all black school. He is getting scary good at talking like a white kid and he plays it as a gag until I can't stand it, and say, thank you Raheim, but that's enough. At ten, he's still got more of the innocence and less of the street on him, and when I look at him and his fresh little innocent smile I hope he doesn't get his wish of going back to his all black school because but for a few exceptions to prove the rule, the public schools here in New Orleans, predominately black, were killers of children. The accomplices in the murder of New Orleans children are the absent fathers, and...I don't know, I guess the list is long.
In the past, as I was all about the mayhem and murder and degradation here in the hoods of New Orleans, I want to go on a little bit more about how quiet it is here now. On top of being quiet in general it is especially quiet because it is Easter Weekend and all the workers have taken three days off. Other than me, the reprobate, and the Dumaine corner store guy, Muslim, I don't think I've seen any grunt workers in the neighborhood, this Easter Sunday. It is so quiet and de-populated that I go out in my backyard periodically, in my underwear. Biafran babies are obese compared to me with no leggings on and I just rarely go around without my legs covered. Anyone that knows me knows this. So, I'm going out in my backyard in my underwear, how de-populated is that? This is the first worker break since the area has become somewhat more operable, stop lights mostly working and and a corner store or two (still not one of the five or six fast food establishments open in my area though) and a grocery store within a mile, so what if there used to be five within that same mile? And from here you can still hear the barges and the ferries at night blasting each other on the river with their horns and the old St. Charles streetcars running on Canal, a block away, make more noise, in a good way, than the newer (but flooded) Canal streetcars. And the weather lately has been almost perfect, if slightly hinting at the heat to come.
Um, that's pretty much it. I am without complaint.
There Go Your White Man
I have probably more time in construction crappers (port-a-toilets) than most of my readers and I'm bragging about it.
Things have really gotten better here in the Deep South as regards to hateful racial graffiti in the crappers.
I remember this English teacher I had during my abbreviated student tenure at the University of Texas, she was from England no less, and once I remember she was going on about how far the United States had come in the arena of civil rights and I just shook my head condescendingly, an 18-year-old know-it-all, and she cited all the obvious advancements and I said take away the laws and not a damn thing would be different. Sure the laws have changed but not the hearts of men, I argued. And eventually men will break laws.
But I'm big enough to admit being wrong, in fact I revel in wrongness, so Teach, you were right and I am wrong.
In Metairie to where I go for work and the most hateful racial attitudes (or not, really) I read in this particular crapper a fairly common sentiment which I have seen year after year after year--KKK, kill all blacks. It is etched in the plastic with razor knife. It is most often hard working black men who drive the crapper suction trucks that clean out these toilets. And I know they are as relieved as I am that we have come as far as we have. Love in the21st century. I mean, in the past, it was always the N-word used. We are truly blessed, all of us, in these times.
Then I will drive home, stop by Rocheblave, and head over to Dumaine to try to do a little something at the house that 11 years ago began my insight into a culture I will never do proper justice to, by description or understanding.
I guess I have a mean stare sometimes, or an edginess. I'm not bragging about it because it is a weakness, although except for choosing otherwise I could have been a good little hard-ass fucker of a businessman, with my edgy persona. I could have been somebody, I could have been a contender, ha.
It ain't nothing really, not yet, but the little dudes are starting to hang out, just lightly, around the 2600 block of Dumaine. I didn't even glance at Dumaine the week my back was most troublesome but pulling up to the curb day before yesterday and seeing some youngster I may recognize as 8 or 10 years older than the 10-year-old kid with the black heart or just bad luck of circumstance, and I hard stare him because he is leaning against the fence of the Dumaine house, and I'm tired, and I don't have the patience for this stupid shit all over again. It's too hard to work, period, without doing it to an audience of lazy fucks. I could love the kid if he would make the slightest effort of respect, but he won't, and I won't. He'll hang, deal drugs or not, smoke or not smoke the blunt, not lift a finger, leave his trash on the ground instead of three feet away in a bag hanging on the fence, and make no courteous hello, so you give up and hard stare, and they hard stare back. It's all fear and anger, on both sides. Something better could be easy if it weren't so hard.
I unlock the grate and kill some time inside because I don't want to have a confrontation on account of I am feeling irrational. It's like counting to ten I guess. I hear the kid outside talking to another kid I know, and he sounds all pissy and punk ass bitchy. I can't hear anything but tone and the words "white man.'' White man this and white man that. I just stay inside even though all the work I am trying to complete is outside. I am not going to wait indefinitely. Although my main goals in life are not to be mean to other people (I often fail at this) and to not get killed, I must get to work. I'm still feeling too irrational though so I wait a few more minutes until I can't stand it any longer and then I bring out the ladders and move back and forth from the foyer to the front porch. The kids have moved on and I start doing some scraping but my heart isn't really into it. I'm not sure scraping is something you can really put your heart into.
Later, I'm back in the foyer, with the front door open, and I hear from across the street the kid I know egging on the kid with the black heart, "there go your white man up in there." Something. Something. "There go your white man." I have never in my life referred to a man as nigger or black man, except the first to describe or act out other people speaking it and the latter to describe the popular conception of African American skin color. Give me the same, you little pissants. But really, I do love you guys when I'm not hating you.
Down south in the 21st century.
Letter To Clifford, 8-9-10
Dear Mom, 6/27/05
How are you doing? I am doing fine, waiting on the guests of JF to wake up so I can do a little work up at the bighouse. That's what I call the main house on this property--the bighouse. J and his wife, L, don't come out too often because of busy schedules with their kid's activities, but occasionally let people use the bighouse for a weekend getaway. I have been painting the metal roof of the house but have met one obstacle after another. First, the pollen from the many trees surrounding the house was so coating the roof that I could barely walk on it, much less prep and paint it. So I waited for that stop happening and now it is getting so hot I can't do much on the roof except for early in the morning and maybe a little in the evening. The roof is peeling pretty bad and some of the cleanser I am using makes it peel even more, so I end up having to scrape it twice.
The section of the roof I am working on now has a view through windows into one of the upstairs bathrooms, so I don't want to make their guests nervous, and am just staying down here at my cottage for awhile. This house is not really a cottage but people want to call it that because they can't really call it a guest house on account of I live here all the time, and I ain't much of a guest. And cottages are associated with country property, which this certainly is. I am pretty much considered the caretaker but there seems to be some slightly negative connotation to that word because of the way caretakers have been portrayed in various movies and pieces of literature, over time. Caretakers have been portrayed as tall thin silent loners who are a little grumpy and occasionally unpredictable in their behavior and rude to strangers who happen onto the property. Which I think describes me pretty well.
I am very slowly getting to know more people around here and before you know it I will know everyone, because there aren't that many people out in this part of Virginia. The town I live in, Washington--sometimes called Little Washington so as not to be confused with Washington DC--has a population of only 186 people. There are no stoplights in town. The entire county, Rappahannock County, has only about 7,000 total residents, and likewise, in the entire county, there are no stoplights. Needless to say, if I don't leave this immediate area, I don't get stuck in traffic jams.
I had two extra tickets to a musical concert in Washington DC recently (which is 70 miles away) and I don't know if you know this or not but your oldest son and my oldest brother, D*n, has a son living in DC this summer, the son's name is J*ck, and he is acting as tour guide, before going back to Texas A&M in the fall, to enter his senior year. So I invited Jack and his girlfriend, K*m, who is also in DC this summer (what a coincidence), and they joined my girlfriend, T, and I for the concert and we had pretty good time. J*ck's girlfriend is summer interning with the CIA and will also go back to A&M in the fall to finish her senior year.
Speaking of Washington DC, let me just remind you that your good friend [sarcasm, my mom was to say the least, not a big fan] and president of the United States, George W. Bush, only has three and a half more years on his second term, so clearly, there is a future worth looking forward to. love, Jim.
Dear Mom,
I am having some problems writing you a letter this morning. The computer I am writing on tends to freeze up, which means the keyboard won't respond and then I have to turn the machine off and when I turn it back on the words I have written are gone. So this is attempt number three this morning. You might ask why I don't just use a pencil and paper and if you did ask I would say because I can't find a pencil.
Your oldest son (who lives in Arlington), D*n, is my oldest brother, and his youngest son, J*ck, is in Washington DC for the summer, as is his girlfriend, and they have driven out to visit me this weekend. They are driving around the property in a jeep right now. I asked him to be careful and not tip the jeep because that happened to a guest once and the person tore his knee up pretty bad.
I went hiking yesterday with a friend who knows the trails around here as well as anyone and he knows many private trails that lead through and around rather exclusive private properties with giant homes, and manicured, landscaped ponds, and guest houses. Many of these properties around here are weekend homes for well-to-do Washington DC residents. We are 70 miles from DC.
I've been socializing more than I'm used to, going to parties, throwing parties, and I've met some nice people and some other people I could live without.
My guests, nephew J*ck, and his girlfriend, K*m, have come back from riding around in the jeep and we had a little talk and now they are either going to walk into town to window shop or they are going to stay on this property and play tennis and swim. Later tonight, my girlfriend, T, who plays trumpet in a musical band, is having a concert and we are all going to hear her play.
The owners of this property I take care of are my childhood friend, JF, and his wife, and they have three young boys, 11,8, and 5, and they were out for the July 4th weekend. They had some guests staying with them at their house and I had some guests down here at my house and it was an interesting mix of people and we shot off some fireworks and didn't burn the place down so I guess everything went well.
I am going to lay around and read now. I bought 15 used books for about 4 dollars the other day and I got some nice ones.
You be good. love, Jim
Dear Mom,
Yesterday I saw a movie set in New Orleans. I recognized much of the scenery and the neighborhoods and I felt the effect the movie makers were trying to create and it made me a little lonely for New Orleans, which is where I used to live before moving here to the Virginia countryside. But mostly what I couldn't get over was how they shot the movie without really showing a lot of black people and I thought how could you film such and such a neighborhood in New Orleans without showing more of the people who actually live there. I wonder sometimes, in general, if there is a story to be told that hasn't been told yet, and when I think about that I always think about New Orleans and how so much of the story I know from there doesn't seem to be tell-able or if it is tell-able how to my knowledge it hasn't been told yet. Sometimes I think about trying to tell it but except for a few hundred pages written about it while I actually lived there, sort of a journal I kept, I haven't really begun to work on the New Orleans story as I know it.
Its Sunday and I went hiking again this morning, this time up in the Shenandoah Park proper. I got up there about 9 a.m. and there was a large group of people having a get together at one of the picnic sites. I walked an easy, not overly-inspiring section of the Appalachian Trail and then I turned around and walked back. When I got near the lot I could hear people singing and it turned out that that large group at the picnic site was some sort of gospel, bluegrass, Christian musical group, and, they were pretty good. When I got to my truck though they had finished the song and some guy was just talking the talk, which turned out to be a whole lot less interesting than the music. So, I drove home and went for a swim.
One of your grandsons, J*ck Louis, who is the youngest son of your oldest son, D*n Louis, has been visiting me for a couple of days here in Virginia. J*ck and his girlfriend both attend Texas A&M University but are working in Washington DC (which is about 70 miles from where I live) for the summer and so I have seen them a couple of times.
I learned a secret handshake this weekend. Next time I see you I will let you in on the secret. love, Jim
Letter To Clifford, 7
If it gets any better on Rocheblave I don't think I could stand it. Across Rocheblave from the NOPD PIB (Internal Affairs) building is the parking lot for the United Way building which fronts Canal. Never before, but today there is a free concert over there (and the Chauffeur just walked over and brought me back a couple of free chili dogs) and the stage is such, facing Iberville, that sitting on the porch of my house I can hear this very credible female soul/blues singer belting out standard covers and she pretty damn good, so again the question remains, why leave the porch, why get off the boat? The Chauffeur is over across the street putting some oil in his van so it doesn't burn up when his replacement uses it to deliver advertising circulars (his bread and butter gig and only gig until he gets another limousine to replace the one that flooded) to a major drug store chain. Chauffeur has to fly to Houston, which is where to his mother and father evacuated when a rather impressive natural Corp of Engineers disaster occurred here in New Orleans seven months ago. His mother is in the hospital and very sick.
I am at that stage where I won't be able to put off finishing Sea Wolf by Jack London much longer and I don't know to where I will go next to find such an enjoyable and improbable tale of turmoil, catastrophe, high adventure, love, brutality, and philosophy. Following is a another letter I wrote to my mom in the months preceding her death.
Dear Mom, 6/12/05
The last time I wrote I was going to a Memorial Day party and I'm here to say I survived that. It was a little dicey at the beginning because the ex-boyfriend of my girlfriend, T, was there, and for awhile just by himself, even though he has a girlfriend of his own, and I thought--holy cow, what fun it is to live in a small town. You can't really go anywhere around here without running into people you would easily avoid in a larger town. After awhile the ex-boyfriend's girlfriend showed up and so I cared less about him being there, because If I wanted to be small-minded, I could always flirt with his girlfriend. I am proud to say I took the high road and we were all respectful of each other.
It finally started getting hot around here and my air-conditioner stopped working right about that same time so I got a fan going and am pretty cool if I do say so myself.
Also, there is a swimming pool on this property so I can go jump in that if I get too hot. Usually it cools off pretty well at night.
I have a birdhouse up out here and it was supposed to be for Purple Martins but I didn't attract any of those and instead got a couple of swallows, which I don't mind at all and enjoy watching. A mockingbird was perched on top of the birdhouse the other day and the swallows, Mr and Mrs I guess, took offense to the mockingbird's presence and flew in cirlces around him, swooping in close enough to pick the fleas off of his neck, and the mockingbird just acted like he didn't even know they were there but eventually did fly off and leave them alone.
I found a small copperhead snake near the back porch of the main house (I live down the hill in a caretaker's cottage) today and I was going to kill it but T objected and we had already had a small fight over something stupid the night before so I decided to play it cool and do whatever the hell she wanted, which was to scoop the snake up and take it somewhere off the property and let it out. And that's what I did, so don't tell me you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I had it in a glass jar with a snap on lid and as me and the snake drove along the country roads together I thought wouldn't it be funny if that lid came off and that snake was to take up residence in my truck. But the lid didn't come off and I stopped along the side of the road (although I thought about taking it to T 's house) and I shook it out, and the last picture in my mind is of one pretty ticked off baby snake. If I run across the ma or pa of that baby snake though, I will chop off their heads. I am, afterall, the caretaker out here.
Just a few blocks from here (this property I am at, 70 miles from Washington DC, is on the edge of a small, quaint town) there is a 5 star restaurant [The Inn at Little Washington} and presidents and heads of state are often to be seen dining there and last night T and I walked into town and plopped ourselves down in some comfortable chairs set up in an outdoor pavillion that nobody ever uses and we just watched the fancy people walking to the restaurant from the many surrounding Bed and Breakfasts. T was able to verify that what she sees in fashion magazines is in fact what the women are wearing when they go out with their husbands or men friends who are willing to spend five or six hundred dollars on a meal (or in some instances that amount of money will only buy a single bottle of wine). So I am here to tell you that for women's fashion the color black was all the rage for awhile but now pink is the new black and a lot of women seem to be splitting the difference and are wearing pink and black. That is all for now. Hope you are well.
love, Jim.
Renovating At Midnight
My boss and I, both in our forties, six years apart, moan and groan at work, him mostly doing the trim carpentry and me mostly doing the painting. Our backs are for shit and speaking of shit, today at work I made a little funny to myself in the bathroom of a Metairie flood job on which we're doing the final touch-ups. It was so dark in the bathroom, even with the light on, I remarked to myself, I can't see shit in here. Get it? I talk to myself a lot, sometimes out loud and sometimes not. I told bossman on Tuesday that I would only be working to noon until I could put my shoes and socks on in the morning without crying. It happened the next day that I didn't cry like a little baby girl so it wasn't much of a break for me. You're not taking off at noon? he asked me the day after I first took off at noon and I said, no bossman, I didn't cry this morning. Yesterday there were five of us in the house at one time and we all have the same back problem, lower left and into our buttock, and the one woman has it running down her leg a little so she's going for an MRI soon.
Crying out in my sleep doesn't count, I do that even when I'm straight. If they made a movie of my dreams it would evidently be a woeful tale of woefulness (I don't remember my dreams so well for the last twenty years or so, like I ever wanted to be Casteneda's, Don Juan).
Once, when I was twenty-something, I made a mistake in California and spent two weeks in San Jose County jail and one morning this bad seed kid hit me on the bottom of my feet while I laid in bed reading Michener and he said, hey man, you were moaning in your sleep last night, which was very embarrassing indeed, but nobody liked this kid who was sort of making fun of me and the two guys who liked him least beat the shit out of him one day and he cried like a little baby for the guards to rescue him, and they did eventually, but they didn't really like him either, his jailhouse etiquette was wanting, and so they put him in the group cell with the psychopaths, I think that was C-block, and we were all much happier then. There were about forty of us in our block, in a group cell with bunk beds along two opposing walls, an open shower area with three sinks and four non-private showers and three or four stainless steel toilets, and there was a TV room, with no door, connected to the bunk room. There was never anything good on TV but as I remember it, after early breakfast, to which we marched single file to a cafeteria and back, there were exercise shows with women in leotards and those shows were very popular.
I don't cry for no reason any more here in New Orleans, like I did when I first arrived, but if I long for that feeling of unbridled weepiness I just get in the truck and drive north for several miles and then veer east for five, six, ten, twenty, or forty miles, witnessing not even the entirety of flood wrecked homes, and then come home again, and during these trips If I want to cry (sometimes its a good thing to do) I can easily do it.
I'm not sure what is wrong with the St. Charles streetcar line, because that part of town did not flood but their unflooded green streetcars are now running on the two or three year old Canal St. line, which had pretty, new red cars (however they flooded badly in the streetcar barn about six blocks from here) and so I can look out from my front porch, like right now, to this gap, or view corridor if you prefer, across the Pentecostal-owned half acre lot next to me, and across Iberville St. and the NOPD Public Integrity Bureau parking lot and beyond that to Canal St. and can see the cars go by every once in awhile. It's free to ride them until June. And I think the city buses are still free to ride.
I believe the Chauffeur has trailer fever. I'm ready to get back into my house, he says. Not a lick of work has yet been done on his house unless you count talking about work. It is hard to find reliable contractors and none of them want to come and give you estimates because they are overwhelmed by the so many people who are required to get estimates to free up insurance money, but the contractors just want to focus on the people already with the money, who have work they want done right away. Trailer living is not for me, says the Chauffeur. I say, it's very nice in there but it is sort of jail-like. He walks away, depressed, saying, yes, it's a very nice jail.
Debris from gutted homes is still being picked up and regular trash removal, while not exactly reliable, and certainly not twice a week like before, or even once a week like promised, still, eventually, the black trash bags you put in front of your home get picked up. Some people, in some of the nicer areas, are getting pretty wrecked about this trash thing, but it doesn't weigh too heavily with me. I think, honestly, under the circumstances, things are going swimmingly here, unless it is your druthers to bask in woe, and then, let me tell you, you can bask at full throttle twenty-four seven.
I had one last thing the electrician didn't finish but I finally figured out how to fix that myself, so I can now write that jackleg limp boner, Charlie Labourd, off my "dickheads who bother me" list. Problem is, I, even with the qualifier that I don't really know him, recommended him to the Sculptor and he screwing her bad, so I'm not overly happy about that.
The one crackhouse on this block will never be a crackhouse again, I think. The Sculptor wants to buy it and tear it down and thus improve her property. Still, once in awhile, people who desire what used to be available there, mosey by and call out to people who aren't there. The moldy couches and end tables and beds and book cases offer no condolences. The madam of the house I don't think will come back and even if she does, there ain't no place for her to live on this block, unless she moves into that little shed next door, which is possible I guess. I saw her son a few months ago and he was down from Houston rummaging through the crap to retrieve some things his mom desired and I should have sent a book or two back with him, because she was an avid reader, but I didn't. I used to fix her reading glasses with duct tape and she used to hit me up for three or four dollars somewhat regularly. It was not exactly a symbiotic relationship but on two separate occasions where I was gone from here for months at a time, and with no one in my house, it was not broken into, so maybe she kept her dogs at bay, and was returning my frequent but sometimes begrudging kindnesses.
It would also be good to see Charles, who lived there and worked for me occasionally, so that we could reminisce, even though it would probably cost me twenty dollars to do that. I can be an easy touch if I like someone. He would want to do some work for the money but I don't think I would work him too hard because I would probably just want to talk with him for a while, until he became bored of me. He is an interesting fellow and skates convincingly on that plain where poverty meets richness and intellect meets ignorance. He always wanted to travel out of New Orleans so one can hope that he is happy wherever it is he ended up, if in fact he survived.
It is midnight now and I can still hear the buzz of a circular saw, someone in the neighborhood renovating through the night.