Po Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Social Aid and Pleasure
Or
Of Yats and Who Dats and Dem
When I’m asked if I’m from New Orleans I sometimes reply “no, but I got here as quick as I could”. If I’m asked if I’ve lived here all my life, I generally answer “not yet”.
That’s the way it is with people who ‘get’ New Orleans; we are here, we know that we’re here and we wouldn’t be anywhere else; believe me, we know that we’re supposed to be here. So here we are. And we don’t listen to anyone else’s take on the subject; I mean, if we were supposed to be somewhere else, why would we be here? Why would we be back?
We’re here from the Esplanade Ridge to Saint Roch; from Faubourg Marigny to Central City; from the Garden District to the French Quarter; from the Ninth Ward to Lakeview; from Holy Cross to Broadmoor, Fountainbleau, Gert Town, Buck Town, Back of Town, Bywater, Black Pearl, Saint Bernard and Bayou Saint John. We wander in and out of the fabric of the city; Oak Street, Carrollton, Tchoupitoulas, Desire and Ponchartrain Park.
We gather at coffee shops, second lines, barber shops, bars, festivals, churches and the steps leading to our front doors; we love our sports teams, Mamas, food, music, pets and children (in that order). We either are or know musicians, tipplers, chefs, artists, writers, hustlers and people in various bizarre states of economic flux. We say hello to eachother on sidewalks. We are a tribe. We’re here for better or for worse.
We don’t participate in anything that we are confused about or not good at; hence our low voter turnouts and high Saints game followings. We are the murder (per capita) capitol of the country; lead in teen unwed pregnancies; incarcerations and graduate a mere 53.7% of our children. We are described as a third world country not an American city; rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, doctor, lawyer, Indian chief; we’re a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction, taking every wrong direction on our lonely way back home. We’re sassy, flirtatious, opinionated and, most of the time, witty (the rest of the time we’re half witty).
We litter where we stand, we park where we want to, dress as we like, stay out as late as we like, say whatever we like to whomever we like. We cannot for the life of ourselves manage to drive down a street with any degree of safety, simultaneously making a phone call, turning the music up, checking out a hottie by the side of the road AND work a turn signal, but that doesn’t stop us from going for a best three out of five. We live our lives on auto pilot like some confederacy of petulant adolescents; or, as one pundit described our particular way of doing things: “it’s not the heat, it’s the stupidity”.
Would I call us stupid? No. Would I call us a lot of other things (contradictory, illogical, unmotivated, inconsiderate, and insensitive)? Ignorant? Hmmmmm. Defensive? Me?
Would I say that we are the greatest city in the world? I dunno, I haven’t been to all the great cities…yet; but, you have to admit, we’re up there. However, we’re like spoiled children with a rare book that we neglect, mistreat, disregard the value of (and at times wipe our asses with the pages) that cannot be reasoned with.
Who knows why? It’s easy to say “This is the twenty-first century, can’t we act a little more advanced than we have been?” Can we really expect more of ourselves? Can we not? Can we not expect the parents of yesterday to have raised the children of today to be somewhat more evolved? Of course the answer is here, and the answer is no. We, by and large (imprecisely generally speaking), cannot.
Of course, as evidence shows, we are not so much worse than other places; but consider this: we are not better than other places, and we could be. We have a rich fertile environment here that could be the poster child of the progress that the twenty-first century can hold; and what do we show the rest of the world? A bucket of sludge.
And sure, there are bright, advanced and enlightened elements here; but they’re just drops in the bucket. The forces for good are trumped by the forces of inertia, ennui and complacency. The ways that we fall short and the ways that we can improve as a city are easy, easy to see; only, evidently, no one is looking. It’s more like we’re wedged in Forest Gump stupid gear where we think that New Orleans is a box of candy and we never know what we’ll get at any one pick; Politics, police, health, education, ethics, crime, economy, jobs, etc. None are as appetizing as they appear; and any discussions about the value of life, economic opportunities, liberty, personal safety and the pursuit of happiness are rife with definitive qualifiers. We’re stuck in Gumpville when we should be in Will Shortz land or even the realm of Alfred Mosher Butts.
You see, Alfred Mosher Butts invented a board game where the participants are given letters and make words out of them (Scrabble), Will Shortz takes those words and makes crossword puzzles out of them for the New York Times newspaper. How much easier to solve and excel in city infrastructure challenges than to have clues to those challenge’s solutions and to just plug the answer in to where they fit with all the other answers, figure everything out, complete the puzzle, and BAM! Triple Word Score!
The trouble is that to anyone who plays those word games and puzzles, it is that easy! And it drives us nucking futz that them candy pickers cannot see it for the glitter of the wrappers and the coating of the sugar; on the pieces of candy that they juggle and then work with sound and fury to keep all their balls in the air and accomplish nothing at all. It is that easy to find that all of the answers that we need to all of our challenges can be worked on together so that they fit with other answers to correct this dysfunctional dilemma that we are in. Does that make any sense to you? It does to me.
To have a superior city everyone needs to participate in making it happen and if you cannot participate then possibly you’re not part of the solution…
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Restaurant Droppings from New Orleans
Po Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Carpe Diem
Or
Fish Of The Day
Eddie begins his workday at quarter ‘til seven every day; well, he considers it the beginning because every day he’s outside the restaurant at that time, every day; sipping on his coffee and waiting for the day manager to show up and let him in. The manager doesn’t get there until seven and it gives Eddie time to catch one last smoke before he hits the ground running. Eddie is the backbone of the restaurant and he knows it; he works seven days a week and hasn’t had a day off in six years. He only works until noon thirty because they discourage overtime and that’s fine with him; he’s got better things to do, like, a life. Whatever. The manager is on time today (for once) and Eddie’s day can begin. The manager is fresh out of hotel management school; he thinks Eddie is trash. Eddie has worked in restaurants since he was twelve; he thinks the manager is a pussy.
Hose out the trash cans, bring them in. Take out the kitchen mats and hose them off. Next, hose down the kitchen floors, squeegee them dry, take in the mats and hose off the sidewalk; check the windows to see if they need cleaning and hose off the walls outside the restaurant just in case someone has peed on ‘em and on to the bathrooms to clean ‘em up before sweeping and mopping the dining room. Eddie is a water sign. A soap and water sign.
The kitchen manager and prep cook get there at seven thirty (they ride in together), start a pot of coffee and check in the food deliveries and linen. Only the kitchen manager is allowed to check in the seafood and meats. The prep cook checks in the veggies for weight, freshness and quality, and stores the new stock in with the old keeping in mind proper rotation and the avoidance of cross contamination. The kitchen manager checks the schedules and reads any notes left from the night before. After putting up the deliveries and rotating stock, the prep cook gets started on the prep list left from the night cooks and lets the first dishwasher in just before eight o’clock who, sets up his station, fills his machine and pot sinks, sweeps out the walk-in refrigerator and then starts peeling onions and potatoes.
Eight O’clock, and the lunch cooks show up (hung over) turn on the overhead fans, ovens, fryers and start setting up the line, prepping their mis en place and changing the radio station, which has been on NPR, to the classic rock station that will keep pace with the rhythm of their slinging of pots and pans, slicing, dicing, lies and tall tales about the wenches that got away last night at Pal’s Bar.
The waitresses (and the second dishwasher) come in for nine and start setting up the dining room; slicing lemons, topping off the condiments, salt and peppers, rolling silverware, positioning and wiping down tables, chairs and making the first of many batches of ice tea. By ten o’clock the hostess, busboy and bartender show up just in time for a staff meal of leftovers and kitchen rejects; followed by a staff lineup and meeting to discuss the specials of the day and service points to be worked on. Fifteen minutes to grab a smoke, straighten aprons, fill up ice bins, finish some gossip or a page in the book that they’re reading and crank up the espresso machine. Places everyone; the first customers are at the door. Show time.
To the uninitiated, restaurants are staffed by invisible servants. We rarely are aware of back of the house goings on, we follow a swinging butt to our table or belly up to a bartender who could be working naked from the waist down for all we know; we face our servers and bussers at crotch level. It has been called the last vestige of pseudo-nobility; we arrive, we eat, someone else cooks, serves and cleans up and we have the right, if not the duty, to complain if things are not precisely to our satisfaction. If we’re feeling flush, we can pump up the gratuity and feel like Bill Gates. If we’re having a bad day, we become Vlad the Impaler; we can take it out on the waiter, busboy, hostess, manager or all of the above. The rules are simple: If we’re happy, we tip. If not, we withhold our love in the form of money, even to the point of leaving nothing at all. I mean, screw ‘em; tips are only the employers way of justifying low wages, right?
Conversely, anyone who has worked in the industry knows that customers might just as well be butt-ass-naked the moment that they walk in. To restaurant workers, the antics of customers are the theater that helps to pass the shift time in an ever changing fluid diorama that ranges from dark tragedy to absurd comedy and all points in between. From the front door entrance to the tooth picking exit, the diners and drinkers of the world are the meat and bones of discourse and edification to service staff; as if their inner selves cannot help but be bared for all to witness and wonder upon.
I’ve been in the service industry for over a half of a century and not a shift goes by without a ‘guest’ exhibiting behavior so amazingly unique and contrary to any rules of basic sanity and civility that in the least, I am given pause and at most I’m taken aback and primordially aghast; no shit, you guys can be weirder than dirt! I’ve seen ‘em drunk, blind, crippled, crazy, underage and old enough to know better doing stupid stuff that your mama would snatch you bald headed for.
Philosophically speaking, when you put people in an environment where they only need to consider the price of a meal and you turn them loose in a public forum, it seems that they cannot help but make fools of themselves. Maybe it’s the lack of outside stimulation that encourages them to come up with outlandish somethings to say or do; and since they are at a loss, fabrications, flirtations, inebriations, faux pas, pretentions, passions and prevarications become the rules of play. Of course the staff plays along, just as they play along with each other.
But, come hell or high water, with delayed deliveries, lunch and dinner rushes, equipment malfunctions, menstruation cycles, crying babies, grouchy oldsters, petulant teenagers, uptight queens, slips, spills, miscommunications, the ringing of cell phones, personal tragedies and nicotine starved cooks with sharp knives, the show perpetuates until closing; and until, with a big sigh, the restaurant is put to bed by the closing managers. Another day. History.
Everything will be fine; Eddie will be here in the morning.
By
Phil LaMancusa
Carpe Diem
Or
Fish Of The Day
Eddie begins his workday at quarter ‘til seven every day; well, he considers it the beginning because every day he’s outside the restaurant at that time, every day; sipping on his coffee and waiting for the day manager to show up and let him in. The manager doesn’t get there until seven and it gives Eddie time to catch one last smoke before he hits the ground running. Eddie is the backbone of the restaurant and he knows it; he works seven days a week and hasn’t had a day off in six years. He only works until noon thirty because they discourage overtime and that’s fine with him; he’s got better things to do, like, a life. Whatever. The manager is on time today (for once) and Eddie’s day can begin. The manager is fresh out of hotel management school; he thinks Eddie is trash. Eddie has worked in restaurants since he was twelve; he thinks the manager is a pussy.
Hose out the trash cans, bring them in. Take out the kitchen mats and hose them off. Next, hose down the kitchen floors, squeegee them dry, take in the mats and hose off the sidewalk; check the windows to see if they need cleaning and hose off the walls outside the restaurant just in case someone has peed on ‘em and on to the bathrooms to clean ‘em up before sweeping and mopping the dining room. Eddie is a water sign. A soap and water sign.
The kitchen manager and prep cook get there at seven thirty (they ride in together), start a pot of coffee and check in the food deliveries and linen. Only the kitchen manager is allowed to check in the seafood and meats. The prep cook checks in the veggies for weight, freshness and quality, and stores the new stock in with the old keeping in mind proper rotation and the avoidance of cross contamination. The kitchen manager checks the schedules and reads any notes left from the night before. After putting up the deliveries and rotating stock, the prep cook gets started on the prep list left from the night cooks and lets the first dishwasher in just before eight o’clock who, sets up his station, fills his machine and pot sinks, sweeps out the walk-in refrigerator and then starts peeling onions and potatoes.
Eight O’clock, and the lunch cooks show up (hung over) turn on the overhead fans, ovens, fryers and start setting up the line, prepping their mis en place and changing the radio station, which has been on NPR, to the classic rock station that will keep pace with the rhythm of their slinging of pots and pans, slicing, dicing, lies and tall tales about the wenches that got away last night at Pal’s Bar.
The waitresses (and the second dishwasher) come in for nine and start setting up the dining room; slicing lemons, topping off the condiments, salt and peppers, rolling silverware, positioning and wiping down tables, chairs and making the first of many batches of ice tea. By ten o’clock the hostess, busboy and bartender show up just in time for a staff meal of leftovers and kitchen rejects; followed by a staff lineup and meeting to discuss the specials of the day and service points to be worked on. Fifteen minutes to grab a smoke, straighten aprons, fill up ice bins, finish some gossip or a page in the book that they’re reading and crank up the espresso machine. Places everyone; the first customers are at the door. Show time.
To the uninitiated, restaurants are staffed by invisible servants. We rarely are aware of back of the house goings on, we follow a swinging butt to our table or belly up to a bartender who could be working naked from the waist down for all we know; we face our servers and bussers at crotch level. It has been called the last vestige of pseudo-nobility; we arrive, we eat, someone else cooks, serves and cleans up and we have the right, if not the duty, to complain if things are not precisely to our satisfaction. If we’re feeling flush, we can pump up the gratuity and feel like Bill Gates. If we’re having a bad day, we become Vlad the Impaler; we can take it out on the waiter, busboy, hostess, manager or all of the above. The rules are simple: If we’re happy, we tip. If not, we withhold our love in the form of money, even to the point of leaving nothing at all. I mean, screw ‘em; tips are only the employers way of justifying low wages, right?
Conversely, anyone who has worked in the industry knows that customers might just as well be butt-ass-naked the moment that they walk in. To restaurant workers, the antics of customers are the theater that helps to pass the shift time in an ever changing fluid diorama that ranges from dark tragedy to absurd comedy and all points in between. From the front door entrance to the tooth picking exit, the diners and drinkers of the world are the meat and bones of discourse and edification to service staff; as if their inner selves cannot help but be bared for all to witness and wonder upon.
I’ve been in the service industry for over a half of a century and not a shift goes by without a ‘guest’ exhibiting behavior so amazingly unique and contrary to any rules of basic sanity and civility that in the least, I am given pause and at most I’m taken aback and primordially aghast; no shit, you guys can be weirder than dirt! I’ve seen ‘em drunk, blind, crippled, crazy, underage and old enough to know better doing stupid stuff that your mama would snatch you bald headed for.
Philosophically speaking, when you put people in an environment where they only need to consider the price of a meal and you turn them loose in a public forum, it seems that they cannot help but make fools of themselves. Maybe it’s the lack of outside stimulation that encourages them to come up with outlandish somethings to say or do; and since they are at a loss, fabrications, flirtations, inebriations, faux pas, pretentions, passions and prevarications become the rules of play. Of course the staff plays along, just as they play along with each other.
But, come hell or high water, with delayed deliveries, lunch and dinner rushes, equipment malfunctions, menstruation cycles, crying babies, grouchy oldsters, petulant teenagers, uptight queens, slips, spills, miscommunications, the ringing of cell phones, personal tragedies and nicotine starved cooks with sharp knives, the show perpetuates until closing; and until, with a big sigh, the restaurant is put to bed by the closing managers. Another day. History.
Everything will be fine; Eddie will be here in the morning.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Bike riding in New Orleans
Po Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Friend or Foe
Or
Who Goes There?
Recently on an idyllic retreat to Fairhope, Alabama a local news story caught my attention. A young man riding his bicycle to work at 6:40 in the morning had his customary commute interrupted by a three hundred pound bear that came out from the woods that the man was pedaling past and slapped him for no apparent reason. Slapped him for no apparent reason, tore off his back tire and lumbered back into the woods (note: bears ‘lumber’; it means to move clumsily). The cyclist’s injury was reported as minor and his quote was “well, I’ve been hit a couple of times by cars but this was the first time that I’ve ever been hit by a bear!”
I wondered aloud that if something happened to me of that magnitude; (excuse me, but getting slapped by three hundred pounds of bad breath brings the word magnitude to mind) that wouldn’t it be prudent of me to rethink my transportation choices. Especially if I had already been hit more than once by automobiles. Girlfriend’s quip in response was: “ya think?”
Since then I have looked up the different run-ins that bicyclists have with wildlife. Bears, deer, dingoes, coyotes, skunks, snakes, moose, squirrel, owls and bats to name a few. Survey shows that once you hoist that leg over that cross bar… you open yourself to a world of weirdness. The Bicycle Zone.
Here in the city we are not without bike nemeses: car doors opening on us, taxis without turn signals doing NASCARs, trucks stopping short in front of us, random idiot pedestrians thinking that they’re indestructible and the lady with the bomb in the baby carriage. We have drunks on bikes, petty thieves and riders that are either discourteous or ignorant of the rules of the road as well. We also have a culture of bicycle stealing here that is unexcelled in other places; I do believe that since their inception bicycles have been nothing short of harbingers of heartbreak, hurt and havoc.
Be that as it may, consider the possibility that animals might be jealous of riders. After all, when Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus gave the animals their attributes and talents they had nothing left to give the poor naked humans but fire… and bicycles. Put fire and bicycles together and what do you get? Civilization. And pizza delivery.
Another consideration is that historians would like us to believe that mayhem mischief and marauding were accomplished by conveyances other than bikes. Nothing could be further from truth; Attila, Alexander, Napoleon, Caesar, Tamerlane and Charlemagne all conquered on two wheels. Bicycle wars are as common as ticks on a hound; how do you think the Crusades were fought? That’s right, it’s a fact; ask anyone.
Bicycles begin their life cycles as paper clips, cute little things, aren’t they? Then in adolescence become wire coat hangers, all gangly and stuff, hanging out before they mature into full fledged bikes. Retarded bikes invariably get training wheels; everyone knows that normal bikes wouldn’t hurt a child who is just learning to ride. Manhattan Island was purchased from the Indians for $24.00 worth of paper clips which led to the great western migration that was only stopped by Bicycle Bill and his Wild West Riders who decimated whole herds for their tires which were made into chewing gum traded to the Indians for cigarettes, popcorn and tickets to the local drive in movie.
Indecently, the settlers at Plymouth Rock traded coat hangers to the Indians for turkey sandwiches and pepper jelly (what do heathens know from coat hangers?); and even as far back as the early 1800’s merchants in California were trading bicycles to the Chinese for sweet tea and fortune cookies. The Mescalero Apache, from their safe havens in Mexico, raided Arizona and New Mexico for bikes that they traded for tequila and tacos. Especially prized was the ‘bicycle built for two’ which anyone can see is a genetic mutation much akin to Siamese twins. You didn’t know that stuff, did you? See the knowledge that you can get from the written word? Here’s some more:
Recently in France cave paintings were found depicting cave people killing wild animals from the backs of (you guessed it) bicycles and then off to the side of the rendering (in axle grease, of course) the first evidence of a bicycle rack with crude locks to keep away thieves. This was confirmed by my archeologist friend Amanda who told me that similar drawings were found in caves in the Black Hills of Dakota.
Now, I’m no creationist but did you happen to read that in some Dead Sea Scrolls the mention of God creating bicycles on that first Friday night was discovered and suppressed? I guess those scientist would have us believe that bicycles evolved from prehistoric wheelbarrows; they must think that I’m stupid or something.
Bikes came to Louisiana as currency 400 years ago by Ponce de Leon who was on his way to Florida to discover the Redneck Riviera. He was actually laughed out of the state because at the time we were using bottle caps and go cups for money. We had not yet set up a foreign exchange, especially for the big money that was in Styrofoam that was being strip mined from what is now Audubon Park. By the way, old Ponce was killed by surfers at Destin when he tried to cash a counterfeit Schwinn.
Nowadays in New Orleans there are rumors of bicycle vampires and werewolves; it came to my attention when I spotted a bike locked up on Dauphine Street with the back tire gone and in its place was some Spanish moss. The poor thing didn’t have a chance, locked up with one of those Kryptonite locks. The vampires will just suck the air from the tires; the bicycle werewolves will tear bikes apart.
Bike thieving here goes back generations also, with folks at family reunions, cook-outs or stoop-sits bragging to the younger generation on how cool it is to steal bikes and then sell them to other suckers and then steal them again. It’s even sanctioned by the church, no one speaks out against it or even questions where little Johnny got his new ride or why you see two guys riding (fast) with three bikes. It’s like “Thou Shall Not Steal (except bicycles)”.
In the meantime, once a month bicycles take over our roadways in an attempt to “Take Back The Streets!!” to which I say: “you can have ’em; just watch out for Fiats, ferrets and felons.
By
Phil LaMancusa
Friend or Foe
Or
Who Goes There?
Recently on an idyllic retreat to Fairhope, Alabama a local news story caught my attention. A young man riding his bicycle to work at 6:40 in the morning had his customary commute interrupted by a three hundred pound bear that came out from the woods that the man was pedaling past and slapped him for no apparent reason. Slapped him for no apparent reason, tore off his back tire and lumbered back into the woods (note: bears ‘lumber’; it means to move clumsily). The cyclist’s injury was reported as minor and his quote was “well, I’ve been hit a couple of times by cars but this was the first time that I’ve ever been hit by a bear!”
I wondered aloud that if something happened to me of that magnitude; (excuse me, but getting slapped by three hundred pounds of bad breath brings the word magnitude to mind) that wouldn’t it be prudent of me to rethink my transportation choices. Especially if I had already been hit more than once by automobiles. Girlfriend’s quip in response was: “ya think?”
Since then I have looked up the different run-ins that bicyclists have with wildlife. Bears, deer, dingoes, coyotes, skunks, snakes, moose, squirrel, owls and bats to name a few. Survey shows that once you hoist that leg over that cross bar… you open yourself to a world of weirdness. The Bicycle Zone.
Here in the city we are not without bike nemeses: car doors opening on us, taxis without turn signals doing NASCARs, trucks stopping short in front of us, random idiot pedestrians thinking that they’re indestructible and the lady with the bomb in the baby carriage. We have drunks on bikes, petty thieves and riders that are either discourteous or ignorant of the rules of the road as well. We also have a culture of bicycle stealing here that is unexcelled in other places; I do believe that since their inception bicycles have been nothing short of harbingers of heartbreak, hurt and havoc.
Be that as it may, consider the possibility that animals might be jealous of riders. After all, when Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus gave the animals their attributes and talents they had nothing left to give the poor naked humans but fire… and bicycles. Put fire and bicycles together and what do you get? Civilization. And pizza delivery.
Another consideration is that historians would like us to believe that mayhem mischief and marauding were accomplished by conveyances other than bikes. Nothing could be further from truth; Attila, Alexander, Napoleon, Caesar, Tamerlane and Charlemagne all conquered on two wheels. Bicycle wars are as common as ticks on a hound; how do you think the Crusades were fought? That’s right, it’s a fact; ask anyone.
Bicycles begin their life cycles as paper clips, cute little things, aren’t they? Then in adolescence become wire coat hangers, all gangly and stuff, hanging out before they mature into full fledged bikes. Retarded bikes invariably get training wheels; everyone knows that normal bikes wouldn’t hurt a child who is just learning to ride. Manhattan Island was purchased from the Indians for $24.00 worth of paper clips which led to the great western migration that was only stopped by Bicycle Bill and his Wild West Riders who decimated whole herds for their tires which were made into chewing gum traded to the Indians for cigarettes, popcorn and tickets to the local drive in movie.
Indecently, the settlers at Plymouth Rock traded coat hangers to the Indians for turkey sandwiches and pepper jelly (what do heathens know from coat hangers?); and even as far back as the early 1800’s merchants in California were trading bicycles to the Chinese for sweet tea and fortune cookies. The Mescalero Apache, from their safe havens in Mexico, raided Arizona and New Mexico for bikes that they traded for tequila and tacos. Especially prized was the ‘bicycle built for two’ which anyone can see is a genetic mutation much akin to Siamese twins. You didn’t know that stuff, did you? See the knowledge that you can get from the written word? Here’s some more:
Recently in France cave paintings were found depicting cave people killing wild animals from the backs of (you guessed it) bicycles and then off to the side of the rendering (in axle grease, of course) the first evidence of a bicycle rack with crude locks to keep away thieves. This was confirmed by my archeologist friend Amanda who told me that similar drawings were found in caves in the Black Hills of Dakota.
Now, I’m no creationist but did you happen to read that in some Dead Sea Scrolls the mention of God creating bicycles on that first Friday night was discovered and suppressed? I guess those scientist would have us believe that bicycles evolved from prehistoric wheelbarrows; they must think that I’m stupid or something.
Bikes came to Louisiana as currency 400 years ago by Ponce de Leon who was on his way to Florida to discover the Redneck Riviera. He was actually laughed out of the state because at the time we were using bottle caps and go cups for money. We had not yet set up a foreign exchange, especially for the big money that was in Styrofoam that was being strip mined from what is now Audubon Park. By the way, old Ponce was killed by surfers at Destin when he tried to cash a counterfeit Schwinn.
Nowadays in New Orleans there are rumors of bicycle vampires and werewolves; it came to my attention when I spotted a bike locked up on Dauphine Street with the back tire gone and in its place was some Spanish moss. The poor thing didn’t have a chance, locked up with one of those Kryptonite locks. The vampires will just suck the air from the tires; the bicycle werewolves will tear bikes apart.
Bike thieving here goes back generations also, with folks at family reunions, cook-outs or stoop-sits bragging to the younger generation on how cool it is to steal bikes and then sell them to other suckers and then steal them again. It’s even sanctioned by the church, no one speaks out against it or even questions where little Johnny got his new ride or why you see two guys riding (fast) with three bikes. It’s like “Thou Shall Not Steal (except bicycles)”.
In the meantime, once a month bicycles take over our roadways in an attempt to “Take Back The Streets!!” to which I say: “you can have ’em; just watch out for Fiats, ferrets and felons.
Monday, May 9, 2011
July in New Orleans
Po Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Summer Fresh
Or
Some Are Not
One way that you know that it’s summer in New Orleans is when your eyeballs sweat, or when you look at your watch and it resembles a terrarium, complete with moss growing on the northern side. Another is when you take your dog out to the lake and she just stands in the water and doesn’t want to move. Still another is when any outing that you plan must involve a place with arctic type air conditioning; e.g. Prytania Theater. In the summer here the smart investments are in talcum powder, sunscreen and Boudreaux’s Butt Paste. Oh, and that awful stuff that you spray on your body to prevent you from becoming a mosquito buffet selection.
Wardrobes change drastically as well, as evidenced by the use of ‘no’ as a fashion descriptor. No socks; no long sleeves or pants; no drawers; no bras (how do I know that?). Personally, I don’t want much clothing on at all anyway and surely my only prerequisite signature fashion accessory is a traditional cool beverage, adult in nature. At home my diet involves cool salads (especially fruits in season) and pyrotechnics on my outdoor grill. Woe unto those without FWPs (Friends With Pools).
Another sign of summer here is the seemingly inordinate amount of time that I spend watching the weather; in the newspaper, on the television and over my shoulder. What am I interested in? I’ll bet that you can guess. I’m looking for any advanced warning that will keep me from the ass whupping that I took from that last big hurricane. Taking-into-account the weather beating that the rest of everywhere has been taking this past year-- floods; tsunamis; cyclones; earthquakes; tornados; fires; blizzards; sh-t storms and the like-- I figure we’re in for our own share of misery whether we’ve been pure of heart and said our prayers at night or not. It seems as if ‘disaster immunity’ has become an oxymoron due to the ubiquitous nature of our planets ire toward humans as a race. In other words: with the planet’s tendency to want to shake us off like a dog with blood sucking ticks, what less can I expect this storm season than to have a gale force tragedy flaunting her ‘hundreds of miles per hour windy titty burlesque’ ( with impunity) heading straight for my assets (and everything I love and hold dear)?
Chances are that no serious calamity will occur and we should look forward to a nice safe sweltering miserably hot and brutally humid summer and storm season. Chances are that there will be some storms in the gulf battering third world countries and those smug people on the east coast and we’ll blithely go about our crawfish boils, trips to the coast and plans for naked drunk monkey love. But an ounce of precaution is worth a pound of ‘shoulda/coulda/woulda/ain’titafrigginshame regret.
So, when I pick up this issue in the beginning of July, assuming that nothing too catastrophic has occurred beforehand, I will want to make sure that I took the following precautions for our very own storm season. Whether my preparedness is warranted or not, for me it’s a ‘once burnt- twice learnt’ scenario: I call it the
Katrina Inspired OCD Mambo.
Numero uno: when push comes to shove, the main item of importance is to have a way out of the area. What I learned on that last memorable summer evacation was that my blasé attitude toward owning a vehicle in New Orleans could have cost us our lives. Period.
Right now, I’m the proud guardian of a 1994 Lincoln Towncar, Cartier model; bigger than some apartments that I’ve lived in and more powerful than a locomotive. So, a trip to the mechanics; engine tuned up; tires examined; fluids topped off and backed up; spare checked; insurance and AAA paid up; battery updated; full tank of gas; basic tools packed and anything else that the law of unavoidable havoc can challenge will have attention paid to. Remember: before you have a destination you have to have a reliable way to get to it, reliably.
Which brings up the next point: where are you going to go besides ‘the hell out of town’? Suggestion: plan a place about a four to six hour (normal) drive away. Far enough to be out of harm’s way and close enough to make getting back semi-painless. This also helps when it comes to provisioning yourselves.
Speaking of which. Provisioning yourselves: two considerations: are you planning on leaving or are you planning on staying? Both alternatives call for having the stuff in your refrigerator at a minimum; basically only having what you can consume or carry: pate; wine; cheese; olives; cornichons and perhaps a cream puff or two. Same goes for freezer; clean it out, save the cubes for the cooler and eat the ice cream on your way out the door. Dry goods are also a consideration; remember, some people were in contraflow evacuation for twenty hours or more and not even a hundred miles away. So, snacks, water, ice chest with sandwich stuff, flashlight, paper products, battery operated fan and radio, food for the critter(s), entertainment for the rug rat and music for your mind. Also bring any important papers (including your pet’s), an amount of cash, medicines, can and wine openers, cell phone charger and photos that you might want safeguarded. I recall that some folks thought that they’d be home in a day or two and were gone a month and a half. Don’t forget yer toiletries; for god sake bring some deo for your B.O. and also consider your need for eating and drinking utensils and paraphernalia.
And lastly, there’s no putting lipstick on the pig when it comes to the matter of safety and protection for you and your loved ones.
In the wake of Katrina, the phrase was coined ‘civil disobedience’. Which is to say that, unlike the Japanese disaster where everyone is orderly and honest; in New Orleans (before the storm winds had died down) there were citizens in our streets taking things that were not being freely given to them (looting, robbing, breaking and entering). There were citizens in New Orleans that had weapons and used them to inflict bodily harm on other citizens. Whether you leave or stay, you need to have a contingency plan for safeguarding everything that you love and hold dear; from your main snugglebunny to your mama’s sapphire and your mutt Sophia.
Good luck and Goddess’ blessings.
By
Phil LaMancusa
Summer Fresh
Or
Some Are Not
One way that you know that it’s summer in New Orleans is when your eyeballs sweat, or when you look at your watch and it resembles a terrarium, complete with moss growing on the northern side. Another is when you take your dog out to the lake and she just stands in the water and doesn’t want to move. Still another is when any outing that you plan must involve a place with arctic type air conditioning; e.g. Prytania Theater. In the summer here the smart investments are in talcum powder, sunscreen and Boudreaux’s Butt Paste. Oh, and that awful stuff that you spray on your body to prevent you from becoming a mosquito buffet selection.
Wardrobes change drastically as well, as evidenced by the use of ‘no’ as a fashion descriptor. No socks; no long sleeves or pants; no drawers; no bras (how do I know that?). Personally, I don’t want much clothing on at all anyway and surely my only prerequisite signature fashion accessory is a traditional cool beverage, adult in nature. At home my diet involves cool salads (especially fruits in season) and pyrotechnics on my outdoor grill. Woe unto those without FWPs (Friends With Pools).
Another sign of summer here is the seemingly inordinate amount of time that I spend watching the weather; in the newspaper, on the television and over my shoulder. What am I interested in? I’ll bet that you can guess. I’m looking for any advanced warning that will keep me from the ass whupping that I took from that last big hurricane. Taking-into-account the weather beating that the rest of everywhere has been taking this past year-- floods; tsunamis; cyclones; earthquakes; tornados; fires; blizzards; sh-t storms and the like-- I figure we’re in for our own share of misery whether we’ve been pure of heart and said our prayers at night or not. It seems as if ‘disaster immunity’ has become an oxymoron due to the ubiquitous nature of our planets ire toward humans as a race. In other words: with the planet’s tendency to want to shake us off like a dog with blood sucking ticks, what less can I expect this storm season than to have a gale force tragedy flaunting her ‘hundreds of miles per hour windy titty burlesque’ ( with impunity) heading straight for my assets (and everything I love and hold dear)?
Chances are that no serious calamity will occur and we should look forward to a nice safe sweltering miserably hot and brutally humid summer and storm season. Chances are that there will be some storms in the gulf battering third world countries and those smug people on the east coast and we’ll blithely go about our crawfish boils, trips to the coast and plans for naked drunk monkey love. But an ounce of precaution is worth a pound of ‘shoulda/coulda/woulda/ain’titafrigginshame regret.
So, when I pick up this issue in the beginning of July, assuming that nothing too catastrophic has occurred beforehand, I will want to make sure that I took the following precautions for our very own storm season. Whether my preparedness is warranted or not, for me it’s a ‘once burnt- twice learnt’ scenario: I call it the
Katrina Inspired OCD Mambo.
Numero uno: when push comes to shove, the main item of importance is to have a way out of the area. What I learned on that last memorable summer evacation was that my blasé attitude toward owning a vehicle in New Orleans could have cost us our lives. Period.
Right now, I’m the proud guardian of a 1994 Lincoln Towncar, Cartier model; bigger than some apartments that I’ve lived in and more powerful than a locomotive. So, a trip to the mechanics; engine tuned up; tires examined; fluids topped off and backed up; spare checked; insurance and AAA paid up; battery updated; full tank of gas; basic tools packed and anything else that the law of unavoidable havoc can challenge will have attention paid to. Remember: before you have a destination you have to have a reliable way to get to it, reliably.
Which brings up the next point: where are you going to go besides ‘the hell out of town’? Suggestion: plan a place about a four to six hour (normal) drive away. Far enough to be out of harm’s way and close enough to make getting back semi-painless. This also helps when it comes to provisioning yourselves.
Speaking of which. Provisioning yourselves: two considerations: are you planning on leaving or are you planning on staying? Both alternatives call for having the stuff in your refrigerator at a minimum; basically only having what you can consume or carry: pate; wine; cheese; olives; cornichons and perhaps a cream puff or two. Same goes for freezer; clean it out, save the cubes for the cooler and eat the ice cream on your way out the door. Dry goods are also a consideration; remember, some people were in contraflow evacuation for twenty hours or more and not even a hundred miles away. So, snacks, water, ice chest with sandwich stuff, flashlight, paper products, battery operated fan and radio, food for the critter(s), entertainment for the rug rat and music for your mind. Also bring any important papers (including your pet’s), an amount of cash, medicines, can and wine openers, cell phone charger and photos that you might want safeguarded. I recall that some folks thought that they’d be home in a day or two and were gone a month and a half. Don’t forget yer toiletries; for god sake bring some deo for your B.O. and also consider your need for eating and drinking utensils and paraphernalia.
And lastly, there’s no putting lipstick on the pig when it comes to the matter of safety and protection for you and your loved ones.
In the wake of Katrina, the phrase was coined ‘civil disobedience’. Which is to say that, unlike the Japanese disaster where everyone is orderly and honest; in New Orleans (before the storm winds had died down) there were citizens in our streets taking things that were not being freely given to them (looting, robbing, breaking and entering). There were citizens in New Orleans that had weapons and used them to inflict bodily harm on other citizens. Whether you leave or stay, you need to have a contingency plan for safeguarding everything that you love and hold dear; from your main snugglebunny to your mama’s sapphire and your mutt Sophia.
Good luck and Goddess’ blessings.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Aging in New Oreleans
. This is not going to be a feel good piece because this is a subject that I do not feel good about. This is "The Pandora Punk OCD Sooner Or Later You’re Gonna Die So Let’s Hear It For Your Future Mambo Rag In Three Quarter Time Piece". This piece is about what a killer life is.
. First off: life is not for wussies; life is not for the faint of heart; life is not for the sensitive. Hope is a four letter word; résistance c’est futile; the meek shall not inherit the earth and all that you can expect from love is a broken heart.(it's important to note here that although it may have felt like it, we've rarely lost anyone human to a broken heart; it just feels like it.) If life doesn’t kill you in your prime (or before) it will whittle you down until sometimes you’ll wonder why it just doesn’t and get it over with. That’s the good news.
. Unlike love and war, in life all is not fair and only in ignorance is there bliss. If you live long enough you’ll get old enough to watch your loved ones and your friends die. If you live long enough, If life doesn’t kill you right off, sooner or sooner (there is no later) it is going to suck being you; whether you like it or not. And believe you me; you’re not going to like it.
Let’s mention here: Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, MS, heart disease, renal failure, asthma, osteoporosis, pneumonia, spontaneous aneurisms, deadly allergies and the seventy different terminal types of cancer. Add to that, things like getting hit by a car, bus or train; slipping on stairs, ice or the sidewalk and falling; physical encounters such as muggings, runaway bicycles, terrorist attacks, a stray bullet, skateboards or some random nut with a ball peen hammer. A natural disaster such as an earthquake,fire, flood, random lightning strikes, tsunami, hurricane or open manhole cover could really ruin your day of not your life. Mental illness is another grim reaper; depression, loneliness, thoughts of suicide, paranoia, schizophrenia, anger, grief and despair can be just as debilitating as anorexia, leukemia, diabetes or bulimia. There's just no way out of this life alive.
. As you live a longer and longer life, what you will get is …older and older; and you know what? Your body does not come with a parts warranty, just as your heart and mind did not come with an instruction booklet. Piece by piece you are going to fall apart like a ’53 Buick Roadmaster; once classic, once king of the highway and now junkyard relic. Your drive train is shot; your fuel pump is clogged. Your points and plugs are beyond replacing, there’s no adjusting your carburetor or flushing your radiator. Rotating your tires, wiping your windshield, tightening your brakes and adding oil or transmission fluid ain’t going to do you one bit of good. Your body will turn against you and mock the legend of your youth. You’ll drive that car as far, and in most cases as fast as you can and then, as they say, that’s a wrap. Lights out—nobody home.
So, why do we do this? Why do we participate in this fiasco, lottery, and crap shoot? Is it the job description? No, I’ll tell you what it is: we’re not willing participators; we didn’t have much of a choice and we didn’t ask to be here, isn’t that right? We’re just now getting a dose of the real meaning of the ‘Life Ain’t Fair’ blues and why didn’t anyone ever tell you what a ball breaker life was going to be? Your parents tried to tell you but you wouldn’t listen, your grandparents didn’t tell you because they didn’t want to spoil it for you, they rathered to have let you find out for yourself, bless their cowardly, well meaning hearts. Them that knew wouldn’t tell and them that told were not listened to.
We were led into this world a blank canvass and we filled it with our dreams. “Dreamers live forever and dreams never die”, is what they told us. Rather they should have said: “You ain’t getting out of this world alive and all of your dreams will be dashed before this is over”; but, we probably wouldn’t have listened to that either.
Okay, so then what’s the point of being here? One guess is that the point is to make life a little easier for other people, the old Buddhist selfless dance, you know, karmic yoga, that old white magic and on to your next life; so what if it bites being you this time around, there’ll be pie in the sky when you die. Wanna buy some beach front property in Nevada?
So let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that you are done with disappointment, over having your hopes hung out to dry and you’ve come to realize that all along you have been nothing but a spoiled child taking advantage wherever you could and pitching fits when you couldn’t have your way; that you’re you done with whining until someone holds you and tells you that everything will be alright. (It’s not going to be alright). What’s the next logical progression of your unenlightened life, you may ask, and how soon can it start? It all starts with patience and recognition of the grand illusion of life. That’s what the Guru said.
Or it started when you woke up in the middle of the night in a sweat realizing that this is as good as it gets -- that when the lights of your life are turned off that final time, it is… final; and you become afraid to die. It’s too nice here; you’re not near done here; you’re not ready for eternal darkness; you’ll never be ready! It starts when you realize that as little of a choice you had in being alive, you have even less of a choice about leaving this life. It’s not a matter of the if; it’s just a matter of the when and you have absolutely no control over the when. Death does not make a reservation or an appointment.
It starts when you find that this is all illusion and that you are caught in the birth, life, death syndrome that has no clear evidence of any other reward than for you, at the end of this grand endeavor, to believe that you have done the best job that you could. What’s your alternative? Die ignorant. Die anyway.
How about we die young and leave a good looking corpse complete with a full set of teeth, twenty-twenty vision and no physical flaws? For most of us it’s too late for that. How about existentialism? I mean, screw it; if it’s all for naught, let’s just party ‘til we puke; bop ‘til we drop; drink a little poison ‘fore we die? That’s nice empty bravado talking.
How about we dwell on it every waking minute of our lives until we make ourselves and everyone around us miserable; we could do that. Or we could find a way to just not think about it and get going doing all of the things that we should, would and could be doing as if we were going to live forever. Not putting life off until tomorrow
because there is no tomorrow.
Okay, I’ll do that. End of piece, beginning of peace (yeah, right).
. First off: life is not for wussies; life is not for the faint of heart; life is not for the sensitive. Hope is a four letter word; résistance c’est futile; the meek shall not inherit the earth and all that you can expect from love is a broken heart.(it's important to note here that although it may have felt like it, we've rarely lost anyone human to a broken heart; it just feels like it.) If life doesn’t kill you in your prime (or before) it will whittle you down until sometimes you’ll wonder why it just doesn’t and get it over with. That’s the good news.
. Unlike love and war, in life all is not fair and only in ignorance is there bliss. If you live long enough you’ll get old enough to watch your loved ones and your friends die. If you live long enough, If life doesn’t kill you right off, sooner or sooner (there is no later) it is going to suck being you; whether you like it or not. And believe you me; you’re not going to like it.
Let’s mention here: Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, MS, heart disease, renal failure, asthma, osteoporosis, pneumonia, spontaneous aneurisms, deadly allergies and the seventy different terminal types of cancer. Add to that, things like getting hit by a car, bus or train; slipping on stairs, ice or the sidewalk and falling; physical encounters such as muggings, runaway bicycles, terrorist attacks, a stray bullet, skateboards or some random nut with a ball peen hammer. A natural disaster such as an earthquake,fire, flood, random lightning strikes, tsunami, hurricane or open manhole cover could really ruin your day of not your life. Mental illness is another grim reaper; depression, loneliness, thoughts of suicide, paranoia, schizophrenia, anger, grief and despair can be just as debilitating as anorexia, leukemia, diabetes or bulimia. There's just no way out of this life alive.
. As you live a longer and longer life, what you will get is …older and older; and you know what? Your body does not come with a parts warranty, just as your heart and mind did not come with an instruction booklet. Piece by piece you are going to fall apart like a ’53 Buick Roadmaster; once classic, once king of the highway and now junkyard relic. Your drive train is shot; your fuel pump is clogged. Your points and plugs are beyond replacing, there’s no adjusting your carburetor or flushing your radiator. Rotating your tires, wiping your windshield, tightening your brakes and adding oil or transmission fluid ain’t going to do you one bit of good. Your body will turn against you and mock the legend of your youth. You’ll drive that car as far, and in most cases as fast as you can and then, as they say, that’s a wrap. Lights out—nobody home.
So, why do we do this? Why do we participate in this fiasco, lottery, and crap shoot? Is it the job description? No, I’ll tell you what it is: we’re not willing participators; we didn’t have much of a choice and we didn’t ask to be here, isn’t that right? We’re just now getting a dose of the real meaning of the ‘Life Ain’t Fair’ blues and why didn’t anyone ever tell you what a ball breaker life was going to be? Your parents tried to tell you but you wouldn’t listen, your grandparents didn’t tell you because they didn’t want to spoil it for you, they rathered to have let you find out for yourself, bless their cowardly, well meaning hearts. Them that knew wouldn’t tell and them that told were not listened to.
We were led into this world a blank canvass and we filled it with our dreams. “Dreamers live forever and dreams never die”, is what they told us. Rather they should have said: “You ain’t getting out of this world alive and all of your dreams will be dashed before this is over”; but, we probably wouldn’t have listened to that either.
Okay, so then what’s the point of being here? One guess is that the point is to make life a little easier for other people, the old Buddhist selfless dance, you know, karmic yoga, that old white magic and on to your next life; so what if it bites being you this time around, there’ll be pie in the sky when you die. Wanna buy some beach front property in Nevada?
So let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that you are done with disappointment, over having your hopes hung out to dry and you’ve come to realize that all along you have been nothing but a spoiled child taking advantage wherever you could and pitching fits when you couldn’t have your way; that you’re you done with whining until someone holds you and tells you that everything will be alright. (It’s not going to be alright). What’s the next logical progression of your unenlightened life, you may ask, and how soon can it start? It all starts with patience and recognition of the grand illusion of life. That’s what the Guru said.
Or it started when you woke up in the middle of the night in a sweat realizing that this is as good as it gets -- that when the lights of your life are turned off that final time, it is… final; and you become afraid to die. It’s too nice here; you’re not near done here; you’re not ready for eternal darkness; you’ll never be ready! It starts when you realize that as little of a choice you had in being alive, you have even less of a choice about leaving this life. It’s not a matter of the if; it’s just a matter of the when and you have absolutely no control over the when. Death does not make a reservation or an appointment.
It starts when you find that this is all illusion and that you are caught in the birth, life, death syndrome that has no clear evidence of any other reward than for you, at the end of this grand endeavor, to believe that you have done the best job that you could. What’s your alternative? Die ignorant. Die anyway.
How about we die young and leave a good looking corpse complete with a full set of teeth, twenty-twenty vision and no physical flaws? For most of us it’s too late for that. How about existentialism? I mean, screw it; if it’s all for naught, let’s just party ‘til we puke; bop ‘til we drop; drink a little poison ‘fore we die? That’s nice empty bravado talking.
How about we dwell on it every waking minute of our lives until we make ourselves and everyone around us miserable; we could do that. Or we could find a way to just not think about it and get going doing all of the things that we should, would and could be doing as if we were going to live forever. Not putting life off until tomorrow
because there is no tomorrow.
Okay, I’ll do that. End of piece, beginning of peace (yeah, right).
Sunday, April 17, 2011
French Quater Droppings
Po boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Tumblin’ Dice
Or
Down The Rabbit Hole
With my perverse propensity for life’s theater, I take pleasure in reading the streets of New Orleans. I read its life forces, its vitality and its levels of triumphs and tragedies. There is nowhere better to witness this passion play unfolding than in my beloved French Quarter; believe you me, Damon Runyon has nothing on us and that’s no phedinkus. So… let’s commiserate about the Quarter.
Trust visitors to see the French Quarter at best through rose colored blinders and at worst through an alcohol induced haze. However, ask a local, and they would probably tell you that it’s more like a kaleidoscopic mosaic of neighbors and nuisances; street musicians and magicians and face painted balloon merchants; cool shops and rip off emporiums; lap dancers and aggressive street hustlers; local pubs and tourist traps; small groceries and inconvenience stores; an explosion of sensory input where nothing is revealed.
We’re still a Mecca for the great unwashed migration in winter on their way to tarnished dread locked futures, canines and musical instruments in tow. Girly boutiques add luster and tee shirt shops take it away. Why anyone would come to the French Quarter for a foot massage is anyone’s guess. Pre-owned book shops both fancy and fanciful are (thankfully) safely entrenched. Bourbon Street is on its own spiral, rolled over for the Yankee dollar and playing that ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ for the masses. Greed, destruction and neglect have robbed us of basic services: Laundromats, hardware stores, post office, shoe repair and stationary supplies. We endure like abused spouses.
The economy has taken its toll on residential offerings; a lot of previous residents have found digs elsewhere: rents go up, folks move out. Children are imported to fill the schools, service personnel come from the outside; the voting base is left in the dust, Mom and Pop stores are gone as well as ethnic and racial diversity. BUT, art, architecture and aesthetics hang in. Preservation organizations jealously keep the draw of the Quarter alive and attractive but her name is still the Mother of Exiles, taking in the tempest tossed.
Some people come here and rise up from mediocrity; some fall through the cracks into obscurity. Some follow love to get here and others are fleeing heartbreak. People that live in the Quarter, work in the Quarter, spend time in the Quarter find themselves part of a small closely knit family. They celebrate their victories and mourn their losses; for indeed, some come here to live and others to die.
They know their bartenders, shopkeepers, neighbor’s pets, and local homeless by name and they’re outgoing and giving by nature; held together by bonds of cocktails, crab boils and classless distinction.
Anyone finding that they’re too busy to notice will actually miss a lot of what is going on in the street. The hungover clown; the drunk asleep in the doorway; the overweight cop smoking a cigarette; the pickpocket ready to strike; the stripper on her way to work. Plain clothes police; a man selling bananas; another washing windows for spare change; unruly teens making more money tap dancing than the dishwasher that’s grateful for the employment and the night shift waiters heading for the Gumbo Shop pass almost unnoticed. A scruffy guitarist holding down an alcove; the day crew smoking across from the Omni or K-Paul’s; kitchen help hosing the sidewalk in back of Café Maspero or Antoine’s; Johnny’s Poor Boy delivering another of the city’s treasures; a deal going down on Dauphine and St. Louis; Joe, outside his wine shop catching a bit of sun before heading off to afternoon mass at the cathedral. Lucky Dogs and Good Friends welcoming you to my world.
Michael is up on a balcony with blood dripping down his arm as a local gendarme (gun drawn) tries to talk him down; a group gathered by the river to celebrate Jerry the waiter’s life and too bad he got drunk and fell down the stairs and broke his neck; William out walking the dogs at noon and heading down to Flanagan’s for a scotch on the rocks; a small woman is selling her homemade jewelry shop door to shop door; a second line from Fahy’s for Cindy who choked on a piece of meat and then there’s Jennifer the hairdresser with her beautiful baby girl; all going on if you’d just look a bit closer. Frank and Winnie on their stoop, seeing it all; Amzie Adams on the street, knowing it all.
Ryan rides her bike to work at Michaelopolis at five minutes to ten so regularly that you could set your watch; they’re boiling crawfish at Yo Mama’s; the best jambalaya is still at Coop’s; WWOZ is on the radio at Kitchen Witch Cookbook Shop; the server up the street got a sweet settlement from BP and hasn’t taken a sober breath since; there’s a new shop and a sucker born every minute so watch your back or there’ll be a shoeshine goon trying to bully you out of your hard earned. No wonder that Tom Waits feels so comfortable here.
Movie stars have moved into a house on Ursuline Street across from Marinette who is throwing her annual ‘Christmas In June’ cook out, Croissant D’Or still has the best pastries but the best coffee is at Royal Blend where the lox and bagels are, Mr. B. at Rouse’s agrees on the blessing of the day and Samantha the checkout lady catches you with a hearty “Howyoudoin’??”, The Toulouse Grocery has breakfast for less than five bucks, music spills out of the Touché bar, the buggy driver is stopping in for a wine; Gerry and Danny are still running their culinary show at Café Amelie and HERE COMES A PARADE!!
Most folks employed in the French Quarter are overworked and underpaid, have clean bodies and dirty minds, know where the best music is, a parking place or a restroom; wouldn’t have a drink on Bourbon Street on a bet and are here only because they want to be. They know how to get from point (a) to point (b) skirting wide hipped tourists blocking the sidewalk only to get hung up on conversations with the woman selling the Newspaper on Royal Street, listening to Grandpa Elliot or the etheric violin player.
In short, if you come here and think that you’d never want to leave…don’t; with that attitude, you’d fit right in.
By
Phil LaMancusa
Tumblin’ Dice
Or
Down The Rabbit Hole
With my perverse propensity for life’s theater, I take pleasure in reading the streets of New Orleans. I read its life forces, its vitality and its levels of triumphs and tragedies. There is nowhere better to witness this passion play unfolding than in my beloved French Quarter; believe you me, Damon Runyon has nothing on us and that’s no phedinkus. So… let’s commiserate about the Quarter.
Trust visitors to see the French Quarter at best through rose colored blinders and at worst through an alcohol induced haze. However, ask a local, and they would probably tell you that it’s more like a kaleidoscopic mosaic of neighbors and nuisances; street musicians and magicians and face painted balloon merchants; cool shops and rip off emporiums; lap dancers and aggressive street hustlers; local pubs and tourist traps; small groceries and inconvenience stores; an explosion of sensory input where nothing is revealed.
We’re still a Mecca for the great unwashed migration in winter on their way to tarnished dread locked futures, canines and musical instruments in tow. Girly boutiques add luster and tee shirt shops take it away. Why anyone would come to the French Quarter for a foot massage is anyone’s guess. Pre-owned book shops both fancy and fanciful are (thankfully) safely entrenched. Bourbon Street is on its own spiral, rolled over for the Yankee dollar and playing that ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ for the masses. Greed, destruction and neglect have robbed us of basic services: Laundromats, hardware stores, post office, shoe repair and stationary supplies. We endure like abused spouses.
The economy has taken its toll on residential offerings; a lot of previous residents have found digs elsewhere: rents go up, folks move out. Children are imported to fill the schools, service personnel come from the outside; the voting base is left in the dust, Mom and Pop stores are gone as well as ethnic and racial diversity. BUT, art, architecture and aesthetics hang in. Preservation organizations jealously keep the draw of the Quarter alive and attractive but her name is still the Mother of Exiles, taking in the tempest tossed.
Some people come here and rise up from mediocrity; some fall through the cracks into obscurity. Some follow love to get here and others are fleeing heartbreak. People that live in the Quarter, work in the Quarter, spend time in the Quarter find themselves part of a small closely knit family. They celebrate their victories and mourn their losses; for indeed, some come here to live and others to die.
They know their bartenders, shopkeepers, neighbor’s pets, and local homeless by name and they’re outgoing and giving by nature; held together by bonds of cocktails, crab boils and classless distinction.
Anyone finding that they’re too busy to notice will actually miss a lot of what is going on in the street. The hungover clown; the drunk asleep in the doorway; the overweight cop smoking a cigarette; the pickpocket ready to strike; the stripper on her way to work. Plain clothes police; a man selling bananas; another washing windows for spare change; unruly teens making more money tap dancing than the dishwasher that’s grateful for the employment and the night shift waiters heading for the Gumbo Shop pass almost unnoticed. A scruffy guitarist holding down an alcove; the day crew smoking across from the Omni or K-Paul’s; kitchen help hosing the sidewalk in back of Café Maspero or Antoine’s; Johnny’s Poor Boy delivering another of the city’s treasures; a deal going down on Dauphine and St. Louis; Joe, outside his wine shop catching a bit of sun before heading off to afternoon mass at the cathedral. Lucky Dogs and Good Friends welcoming you to my world.
Michael is up on a balcony with blood dripping down his arm as a local gendarme (gun drawn) tries to talk him down; a group gathered by the river to celebrate Jerry the waiter’s life and too bad he got drunk and fell down the stairs and broke his neck; William out walking the dogs at noon and heading down to Flanagan’s for a scotch on the rocks; a small woman is selling her homemade jewelry shop door to shop door; a second line from Fahy’s for Cindy who choked on a piece of meat and then there’s Jennifer the hairdresser with her beautiful baby girl; all going on if you’d just look a bit closer. Frank and Winnie on their stoop, seeing it all; Amzie Adams on the street, knowing it all.
Ryan rides her bike to work at Michaelopolis at five minutes to ten so regularly that you could set your watch; they’re boiling crawfish at Yo Mama’s; the best jambalaya is still at Coop’s; WWOZ is on the radio at Kitchen Witch Cookbook Shop; the server up the street got a sweet settlement from BP and hasn’t taken a sober breath since; there’s a new shop and a sucker born every minute so watch your back or there’ll be a shoeshine goon trying to bully you out of your hard earned. No wonder that Tom Waits feels so comfortable here.
Movie stars have moved into a house on Ursuline Street across from Marinette who is throwing her annual ‘Christmas In June’ cook out, Croissant D’Or still has the best pastries but the best coffee is at Royal Blend where the lox and bagels are, Mr. B. at Rouse’s agrees on the blessing of the day and Samantha the checkout lady catches you with a hearty “Howyoudoin’??”, The Toulouse Grocery has breakfast for less than five bucks, music spills out of the Touché bar, the buggy driver is stopping in for a wine; Gerry and Danny are still running their culinary show at Café Amelie and HERE COMES A PARADE!!
Most folks employed in the French Quarter are overworked and underpaid, have clean bodies and dirty minds, know where the best music is, a parking place or a restroom; wouldn’t have a drink on Bourbon Street on a bet and are here only because they want to be. They know how to get from point (a) to point (b) skirting wide hipped tourists blocking the sidewalk only to get hung up on conversations with the woman selling the Newspaper on Royal Street, listening to Grandpa Elliot or the etheric violin player.
In short, if you come here and think that you’d never want to leave…don’t; with that attitude, you’d fit right in.
New Orleans short story interlude
“Pa, we ain’t got nothin to do” was just about the worst thing that I could have said that morning. It allowed me and my brother the unique growth experience of having our ears assaulted by an unanticipated and unusually loud parental barrage of profanities:
“Godammit!!!!!, you spoiled rotten stinkin’ sonofabitch lazyass bastard ingrates… then… do something to earn your goddamn keep! Yer Ma’s outside with the laundry an I been workin’ my ass off all week! The day’s clear as a friggin’ bell, and we ain’t raisin’ no southern god-damned piss-ant aristocrats on this here worthless piece of shit property! This ain’t no sissy dude ranch and it ain’t no time in your pipsqueak, waste of breath lives to go mopin’ round here bein’ ‘bored’; If you ain’t got nothin’ better to do with your sorry assed selves, git them poles and go catch us somethin’ for supper! When I was your age…….”
Well, I was twelve years old, goin’ on thirteen and my kid brother had just turned ten and we doubted if our Pa had ever been our age. However, acting on instinct born of experience, we grabbed our poles and got goin’ quick; little did we know that we were about to have a day of life changing occurrences that was to be a slap dash, set yer hair on fire doozy. One that has stuck with us to this day and if I’d a known then, I would have just ducked under the covers and kept my big mouth shut.
It wasn’t too late a morning on a warm spring day in our home town of Gretna, Louisiana in 1962 when my brother, Nuthin, and I set out on our way to Nunez’s Grocery for a couple of bottles of Regal Beer and some ‘twofers’ to take with us fishing just to help pass the time; we had a silver half a dollar that we’d snitched from our Pa and an extra quarter from our mama for a loaf of French bread and a dime’s worth of baloney for lunch. Now, don’t get taken aback or uppity about children and alcohol and nicotine and playing fast and loose. It was something that kids did in those days; you know, get some supplies, pack up some lunch and go fishing on a Saturday afternoon, smoke a couple of cancer sticks and drink warm beer like the big boys. Curse and scratch and spit and talk about girls. Weather permitting.
Grandma Nunez, at the store, knew us and our family and knew that when a couple of boys went off to fish for their folks dinner, instead of wasting time like little slugs, that they could be treated like the responsible young men that they were, or so she thought, and that was good enough for us. She took one look at us shoeless and already hot and dusty and gave us her biggest Grandma smile. Even with most of her teeth gone she could sure lay on a grandma smile second to none; that smile never did nothing but make us feel real good, and these days I can’t help but miss it. That smile.
“Awwww, ain’t you sunshine sweet boys good little angels to be goin’ out fishin’ when you coulda been watchin’ those communist homosexual cartoons on that mind rotting teevee set, like them other pinko piccaninnies that’s bein’ raised around here. Are y’all sure you wouldn’t rather have red drinks? I guess its okay, y’all will be on the water in case y’all gets a case of the dehydrates. Now go on with y’all, the sun’s startin’ to git high and mighty an it looks like it it’s gonna turn out to be a real scorcher”.
She was a pretty big woman for her size, with her finger on the pulse of the neighborhood, and we knew that if a whiff of any stupid behavior or mischief on our part were to get back to her that, well… we be cut off from any future grown up privileges without so much as a ‘fare thee well’. Period. Until then, with a wink and a nod, our vittles could, would and did get packed in a sack and we could, would and did go on our merry way unimpeded by anything as inconvenient as ‘adult or parental concern’; you see, in the old days, in southern Louisiana, kids had always been more mature than other youngsters in practically every way and we were treated as such. At least until we screwed up.
The day was as picture perfect as a peach pie, although getting a mite on the warm side, with a slight breeze comin’ in off the river. We had an old half sunk pirogue tied up at the batture that would drift us just far enough out to be in uncurrented water shaded by some old willows where the croakers and gaspergous liked to hang around.
My brother’s real name is Nunzio but everybody calls him Nuthin since the days when we was little and the older kids (especially the girls) used to taunt us, calling: “Nunzio, Nunzio Nuthin; you know somethin’? Somethin’ somethin’ somethin’; you know nothin’?” My folks had named me Sumpter, after the neighbor man who drove my mother to Charity Hospital when she was birthin’ me and having a hard time of it. Most folks call me Sump but the mean kids call me Sumthin’ and my brother Nuthin and we don’t get along much with the ones that they call ‘normal kids”. We don’t care much about that, we get along fine with each other; we’re Italian, and that’s why.
So, me and Nuthin were on our way after getting us some beer and butts. Incidentally, Twofers were what they called cigarettes that are sold separately, two at a time for a nickel. They’re also called ‘loosies’ and ‘stoops’. We’re workin’ our way through the old neighborhood heading towards the river when we passed by Pearl Prentiss’ house where she’s sitting in her dirt yard trying to teach her talking cat to play jacks because since her cat’s brother ran off the cat is depressed and needs some distraction. Pearl’s folks plant dirt in their yard the way some people plant okra; they wants their dirt. Rumor has it that dirt reminds them of the ‘old country’ or something.
Anyway, Pearl looks up at us and puts her finger to her lips like she wants us to hush, naturally this get our attention (as boys, we’re naturally inquisitive) and she points to a length of string sitting in the road like a long skinny snake. She calls us over and whispers: “Old Man Fennish just passed with Mrs. Fennish’s Lazy Boy chair on a four wheeled dollie heading up the street and dealing out a line of string behind him like he’s Hansel or Gretel or somebody”. Sure enough, that’s exactly what it is, a damn string in the damn road; and it sure sets us all to pondering, cat included.
Old man Fennish has been working a maintenance job at Antoine’s Restaurant in the French Quarter since before mayonnaise and everybody knows that he has been collecting the string that their laundry delivery company ties the clean towels with… at least for that long. In fact, everybody knows this because the Fennish’s two foster kids has told us AND showed us these behemoth balls of string; but, be that as it may, it still got us to wondering why he would perform so oddly on a warm Saturday in the middle of May, especially considering that if we acted that way we would catch heck and no doubt about it. Our consensus was put to voice by Nuthin when he remarked: “he finally gone off ‘round the bend, idn’t he?”. Sanity wise, I couldn’t have said it any better.
Then we hear a terrific rattling coming down the street like someone throwing ash cans full of old silverware down the steps of the courthouse and we look up to see the Fennish kids pushin’ a shopping cart down the road with Mrs. Fennish sitting inside of it. Yep, here come Immaculata and Timpani Fennish rollin’ their Mama down the road and trying to follow that there string, and the three of them sweatin’ like hogs and all out of breath, each for their own reason; Timpani because he has the asthma, Immaculata because she’s doin’ most of the pushin’ and their mama ‘cause she just can’t breathe too good to begin with. Mrs. Fennish is perched up on some pillows puffing away on one of those Chesterfields that she’s partial to and the kids stop to take a break from their exertion long enough for us to query them; Mrs. Fennish goes into another of her coughing fits. Ever since that cold snap last winter Mrs. Fennish can’t hardly take a clean breath-- without hacking her lungs out-- between her smoking them non-filtered cigarettes and her terminally clogged sinuses.
Immaculata, who is nine and is called that because she never seems to get dirt upon her, tells us in a low voice “none other than Conway Twitty is coming down to a revival at the skating rink and my papa has gone ahead with the Lazy Boy to get a good spot for mama, he’s trailing the string behind him so’s us kids can follow in his footsteps, so to speak”. Obviously Mr. Fennish perceives his kids to be as dumb as a box of rocks; of course, he knows them better than we do, so it is possible.
We had all seen the posters hung about town with a large image of the star, Conway Twitty, posed Elvis like, in a sky blue leisure suit heralding the big to do with a large white banner acrossed his chest announcing in no uncertain terms that the event was to take place for ‘ONE NIGHT ONLY!!”. Mr. Twitty was ditching his singing career for one in the preacher business, having been called by the lord to go forth and heal the sick and such and we all vowed to sneak out after nightfall and be witness to this auspicious nonsense. Especially since none of us believed that anything could cure Mrs. Fennish of her emphysema and constricted air passages.
Of course, we have to explain this all again and again to Timpani who is kind of slow in the head and too busy trying to peer through those coke bottle thick eyeglasses of his. He’s eight years old and is called Timpani because, in his old home, his Pa who plays bass drum in a brass band, used to whup up on him with his drumstick, which led to Timpani’s inability to concentrate, or so word has it. Old Timpani has got his attention glued to that line of twine and hardly hears us with our plans for the evening. We made plans nevertheless, including him and the cat, for seven thirty that night.
The sun had barely set and the moon was on the wane when we gathered behind the Livaudius Middle School. We had agreed, or so I thought, that we would all wear dark clothing to aid our inconspicuousness. Immaculata obviously didn’t understand because there she was in one of her white dresses, shining in the moon like an apparition. Timpani were still in his dirty coveralls and barefoot just like we had last seen him that afternoon, the only difference was that he seemed to have spilled his whole supper down the front of his clothes.
“Immaculata! We’s ‘spossed to be movin’ on the sly! What don’t you know about dressing darkly?” Hissed Pearl (dressed all in black, like a shadow)
“I ain’t got no dark clothes!” Immaculata hissed back.
Immaculata was found roaming on highway 90 late one night by Mr. Fennish one night on his way home from work, dressed in a white night shirt. She was dressed in the white night shirt, not Mr. Fennish.
“Like to scare me sober” Mr. Fennish would always recall.
He took her to the police station who told him to take her home and that they would see who was missing a girl in a clean white nightie. Well, nobody came to claim her and she just kinda stuck around. That was two or three years ago and at first it was like she couldn’t talk at all, but, she gradually came out of that and could talk, sing, yell and curse with the best of us. Except that at times she would get a faraway look in her eyes and we would wonder if she was in hypnosis or a trance or maybe even Egyptian or something.
We made it to the skating rink just about the time that things were heating up and sure as shootin’ there was Mrs. Fennish in the front row in her Lazy Boy with Mr. Fennish standing up at her side. There was a band playing in the background and a choir of women dressed up like angels and they was all hummin’ like angels would do, and all of a sudden a spotlight appears and here comes the now Reverend Mister Twitty in that self same sky blue leisure suit and he gets up to the podium and starts his salvation show.
“Brothers and Sisters!” he begins “I am not here to tell you that you are going to heaven, to get your halo, to sit with the heavenly host in glory and eat fried chicken and lemon meringue pie forever and forever after!” A great groan was heard from the congregation. “NO!” he continued “I am, here to tell you that you will all burn in hell with fire and brimstone and suffer eternal damnation and third degree burns! YES YOU WILL!!!” here he started raising his voice and pacing like a panther, “for you are unclean and unfit to sit with the angels on high basking in the glory of Jesus Christ and his father, the one god of us all. You all are sinners and you all will be damned to drink bitter water and eat hog slop on your knees in dirty clothes!”
His choir of angelic voices began singing a dirge and the band started in at a cacophony of angst and terror. The crowd was swaying and lowing like cattle, when of a sudden a high pitched keening sound started coming out of Mrs. Fennish which just about scared us to death.
‘eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” it was like nails on a chalkboard and the entire tent dropped to silence. “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee’ and here it come again “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” and Mrs. Fennish all glassy eyed starts up from the Lazy Boy. And Immaculata starts drifting dreamlike towards her, and the reverend, like he’s walking in his sleep, is also drawn to the same spot. The cat has jumped out of Pearl’s arm and, hissing like an air hose at the filling station and with all its fur stuck up like a porcupine, starts sidling up to the commotion and we can see that they all are going to collide like planets in a space movie. The choir starts a wailin’ and the band has put down their instruments and they’s all moaning and the congregation is gnashing their teeth and rending their clothing and falling down and crying and a screeching in tongues. We kids are struck as dumb as Lot’s wife and frozen in our places when the apparitions start in to materialize.
There are sounds coming from outside the rink of thunder rumbles and lightning crashes to beat the band and all of a sudden -- and this is just from what us kids can recall because nobody else that was there that night seems to be able to remember anything that happened—
A black cobra about sixteen feet in height raised itself up in back of Mrs. Fennish with eyes as red and luminous as a Highway Patrol car’s lights, forked tongue lashing and slithering like a gargantuan garden hose toward the preacher who had turned into a giant bald eagle with a gnashing beak and beating wings working up a wind and cawing like a freight train whistle. Pearl’s cat had turned the size if a tiger and was snarling like a hurricane wind advancing into a tornado and Immaculata had risen up twelve feet with the biggest damn archangel type sword that I could ever have imagined and Mr. Fennish appeared like a demon possessed with his eyes rolled to the back of his head and drooling enough to wet down the front of his shirt and I could have just puked on the spot yesterday’s, today’s and tomorrow’s breakfast, lunch and supper. Had I not been so scared, frozen in my tracks and trying my best not to wet my pants or throw up; friends or no friends, brother or no brother, I swear I would have run off so fast it would have made all of their fool heads spin.
Just then a lightning bolt split through the roof of the building smack dab into the middle of the impending chaos and my kid brother stepped right into the light and commanded “STOP!” and everyone collapsed like a bunch of rag dolls. I looked at Pearl and Pearl looked at me and she said: “damn, that was something!”
And I said: “no that was Nuthin”.
Shaggy Dog.
“Godammit!!!!!, you spoiled rotten stinkin’ sonofabitch lazyass bastard ingrates… then… do something to earn your goddamn keep! Yer Ma’s outside with the laundry an I been workin’ my ass off all week! The day’s clear as a friggin’ bell, and we ain’t raisin’ no southern god-damned piss-ant aristocrats on this here worthless piece of shit property! This ain’t no sissy dude ranch and it ain’t no time in your pipsqueak, waste of breath lives to go mopin’ round here bein’ ‘bored’; If you ain’t got nothin’ better to do with your sorry assed selves, git them poles and go catch us somethin’ for supper! When I was your age…….”
Well, I was twelve years old, goin’ on thirteen and my kid brother had just turned ten and we doubted if our Pa had ever been our age. However, acting on instinct born of experience, we grabbed our poles and got goin’ quick; little did we know that we were about to have a day of life changing occurrences that was to be a slap dash, set yer hair on fire doozy. One that has stuck with us to this day and if I’d a known then, I would have just ducked under the covers and kept my big mouth shut.
It wasn’t too late a morning on a warm spring day in our home town of Gretna, Louisiana in 1962 when my brother, Nuthin, and I set out on our way to Nunez’s Grocery for a couple of bottles of Regal Beer and some ‘twofers’ to take with us fishing just to help pass the time; we had a silver half a dollar that we’d snitched from our Pa and an extra quarter from our mama for a loaf of French bread and a dime’s worth of baloney for lunch. Now, don’t get taken aback or uppity about children and alcohol and nicotine and playing fast and loose. It was something that kids did in those days; you know, get some supplies, pack up some lunch and go fishing on a Saturday afternoon, smoke a couple of cancer sticks and drink warm beer like the big boys. Curse and scratch and spit and talk about girls. Weather permitting.
Grandma Nunez, at the store, knew us and our family and knew that when a couple of boys went off to fish for their folks dinner, instead of wasting time like little slugs, that they could be treated like the responsible young men that they were, or so she thought, and that was good enough for us. She took one look at us shoeless and already hot and dusty and gave us her biggest Grandma smile. Even with most of her teeth gone she could sure lay on a grandma smile second to none; that smile never did nothing but make us feel real good, and these days I can’t help but miss it. That smile.
“Awwww, ain’t you sunshine sweet boys good little angels to be goin’ out fishin’ when you coulda been watchin’ those communist homosexual cartoons on that mind rotting teevee set, like them other pinko piccaninnies that’s bein’ raised around here. Are y’all sure you wouldn’t rather have red drinks? I guess its okay, y’all will be on the water in case y’all gets a case of the dehydrates. Now go on with y’all, the sun’s startin’ to git high and mighty an it looks like it it’s gonna turn out to be a real scorcher”.
She was a pretty big woman for her size, with her finger on the pulse of the neighborhood, and we knew that if a whiff of any stupid behavior or mischief on our part were to get back to her that, well… we be cut off from any future grown up privileges without so much as a ‘fare thee well’. Period. Until then, with a wink and a nod, our vittles could, would and did get packed in a sack and we could, would and did go on our merry way unimpeded by anything as inconvenient as ‘adult or parental concern’; you see, in the old days, in southern Louisiana, kids had always been more mature than other youngsters in practically every way and we were treated as such. At least until we screwed up.
The day was as picture perfect as a peach pie, although getting a mite on the warm side, with a slight breeze comin’ in off the river. We had an old half sunk pirogue tied up at the batture that would drift us just far enough out to be in uncurrented water shaded by some old willows where the croakers and gaspergous liked to hang around.
My brother’s real name is Nunzio but everybody calls him Nuthin since the days when we was little and the older kids (especially the girls) used to taunt us, calling: “Nunzio, Nunzio Nuthin; you know somethin’? Somethin’ somethin’ somethin’; you know nothin’?” My folks had named me Sumpter, after the neighbor man who drove my mother to Charity Hospital when she was birthin’ me and having a hard time of it. Most folks call me Sump but the mean kids call me Sumthin’ and my brother Nuthin and we don’t get along much with the ones that they call ‘normal kids”. We don’t care much about that, we get along fine with each other; we’re Italian, and that’s why.
So, me and Nuthin were on our way after getting us some beer and butts. Incidentally, Twofers were what they called cigarettes that are sold separately, two at a time for a nickel. They’re also called ‘loosies’ and ‘stoops’. We’re workin’ our way through the old neighborhood heading towards the river when we passed by Pearl Prentiss’ house where she’s sitting in her dirt yard trying to teach her talking cat to play jacks because since her cat’s brother ran off the cat is depressed and needs some distraction. Pearl’s folks plant dirt in their yard the way some people plant okra; they wants their dirt. Rumor has it that dirt reminds them of the ‘old country’ or something.
Anyway, Pearl looks up at us and puts her finger to her lips like she wants us to hush, naturally this get our attention (as boys, we’re naturally inquisitive) and she points to a length of string sitting in the road like a long skinny snake. She calls us over and whispers: “Old Man Fennish just passed with Mrs. Fennish’s Lazy Boy chair on a four wheeled dollie heading up the street and dealing out a line of string behind him like he’s Hansel or Gretel or somebody”. Sure enough, that’s exactly what it is, a damn string in the damn road; and it sure sets us all to pondering, cat included.
Old man Fennish has been working a maintenance job at Antoine’s Restaurant in the French Quarter since before mayonnaise and everybody knows that he has been collecting the string that their laundry delivery company ties the clean towels with… at least for that long. In fact, everybody knows this because the Fennish’s two foster kids has told us AND showed us these behemoth balls of string; but, be that as it may, it still got us to wondering why he would perform so oddly on a warm Saturday in the middle of May, especially considering that if we acted that way we would catch heck and no doubt about it. Our consensus was put to voice by Nuthin when he remarked: “he finally gone off ‘round the bend, idn’t he?”. Sanity wise, I couldn’t have said it any better.
Then we hear a terrific rattling coming down the street like someone throwing ash cans full of old silverware down the steps of the courthouse and we look up to see the Fennish kids pushin’ a shopping cart down the road with Mrs. Fennish sitting inside of it. Yep, here come Immaculata and Timpani Fennish rollin’ their Mama down the road and trying to follow that there string, and the three of them sweatin’ like hogs and all out of breath, each for their own reason; Timpani because he has the asthma, Immaculata because she’s doin’ most of the pushin’ and their mama ‘cause she just can’t breathe too good to begin with. Mrs. Fennish is perched up on some pillows puffing away on one of those Chesterfields that she’s partial to and the kids stop to take a break from their exertion long enough for us to query them; Mrs. Fennish goes into another of her coughing fits. Ever since that cold snap last winter Mrs. Fennish can’t hardly take a clean breath-- without hacking her lungs out-- between her smoking them non-filtered cigarettes and her terminally clogged sinuses.
Immaculata, who is nine and is called that because she never seems to get dirt upon her, tells us in a low voice “none other than Conway Twitty is coming down to a revival at the skating rink and my papa has gone ahead with the Lazy Boy to get a good spot for mama, he’s trailing the string behind him so’s us kids can follow in his footsteps, so to speak”. Obviously Mr. Fennish perceives his kids to be as dumb as a box of rocks; of course, he knows them better than we do, so it is possible.
We had all seen the posters hung about town with a large image of the star, Conway Twitty, posed Elvis like, in a sky blue leisure suit heralding the big to do with a large white banner acrossed his chest announcing in no uncertain terms that the event was to take place for ‘ONE NIGHT ONLY!!”. Mr. Twitty was ditching his singing career for one in the preacher business, having been called by the lord to go forth and heal the sick and such and we all vowed to sneak out after nightfall and be witness to this auspicious nonsense. Especially since none of us believed that anything could cure Mrs. Fennish of her emphysema and constricted air passages.
Of course, we have to explain this all again and again to Timpani who is kind of slow in the head and too busy trying to peer through those coke bottle thick eyeglasses of his. He’s eight years old and is called Timpani because, in his old home, his Pa who plays bass drum in a brass band, used to whup up on him with his drumstick, which led to Timpani’s inability to concentrate, or so word has it. Old Timpani has got his attention glued to that line of twine and hardly hears us with our plans for the evening. We made plans nevertheless, including him and the cat, for seven thirty that night.
The sun had barely set and the moon was on the wane when we gathered behind the Livaudius Middle School. We had agreed, or so I thought, that we would all wear dark clothing to aid our inconspicuousness. Immaculata obviously didn’t understand because there she was in one of her white dresses, shining in the moon like an apparition. Timpani were still in his dirty coveralls and barefoot just like we had last seen him that afternoon, the only difference was that he seemed to have spilled his whole supper down the front of his clothes.
“Immaculata! We’s ‘spossed to be movin’ on the sly! What don’t you know about dressing darkly?” Hissed Pearl (dressed all in black, like a shadow)
“I ain’t got no dark clothes!” Immaculata hissed back.
Immaculata was found roaming on highway 90 late one night by Mr. Fennish one night on his way home from work, dressed in a white night shirt. She was dressed in the white night shirt, not Mr. Fennish.
“Like to scare me sober” Mr. Fennish would always recall.
He took her to the police station who told him to take her home and that they would see who was missing a girl in a clean white nightie. Well, nobody came to claim her and she just kinda stuck around. That was two or three years ago and at first it was like she couldn’t talk at all, but, she gradually came out of that and could talk, sing, yell and curse with the best of us. Except that at times she would get a faraway look in her eyes and we would wonder if she was in hypnosis or a trance or maybe even Egyptian or something.
We made it to the skating rink just about the time that things were heating up and sure as shootin’ there was Mrs. Fennish in the front row in her Lazy Boy with Mr. Fennish standing up at her side. There was a band playing in the background and a choir of women dressed up like angels and they was all hummin’ like angels would do, and all of a sudden a spotlight appears and here comes the now Reverend Mister Twitty in that self same sky blue leisure suit and he gets up to the podium and starts his salvation show.
“Brothers and Sisters!” he begins “I am not here to tell you that you are going to heaven, to get your halo, to sit with the heavenly host in glory and eat fried chicken and lemon meringue pie forever and forever after!” A great groan was heard from the congregation. “NO!” he continued “I am, here to tell you that you will all burn in hell with fire and brimstone and suffer eternal damnation and third degree burns! YES YOU WILL!!!” here he started raising his voice and pacing like a panther, “for you are unclean and unfit to sit with the angels on high basking in the glory of Jesus Christ and his father, the one god of us all. You all are sinners and you all will be damned to drink bitter water and eat hog slop on your knees in dirty clothes!”
His choir of angelic voices began singing a dirge and the band started in at a cacophony of angst and terror. The crowd was swaying and lowing like cattle, when of a sudden a high pitched keening sound started coming out of Mrs. Fennish which just about scared us to death.
‘eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” it was like nails on a chalkboard and the entire tent dropped to silence. “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee’ and here it come again “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” and Mrs. Fennish all glassy eyed starts up from the Lazy Boy. And Immaculata starts drifting dreamlike towards her, and the reverend, like he’s walking in his sleep, is also drawn to the same spot. The cat has jumped out of Pearl’s arm and, hissing like an air hose at the filling station and with all its fur stuck up like a porcupine, starts sidling up to the commotion and we can see that they all are going to collide like planets in a space movie. The choir starts a wailin’ and the band has put down their instruments and they’s all moaning and the congregation is gnashing their teeth and rending their clothing and falling down and crying and a screeching in tongues. We kids are struck as dumb as Lot’s wife and frozen in our places when the apparitions start in to materialize.
There are sounds coming from outside the rink of thunder rumbles and lightning crashes to beat the band and all of a sudden -- and this is just from what us kids can recall because nobody else that was there that night seems to be able to remember anything that happened—
A black cobra about sixteen feet in height raised itself up in back of Mrs. Fennish with eyes as red and luminous as a Highway Patrol car’s lights, forked tongue lashing and slithering like a gargantuan garden hose toward the preacher who had turned into a giant bald eagle with a gnashing beak and beating wings working up a wind and cawing like a freight train whistle. Pearl’s cat had turned the size if a tiger and was snarling like a hurricane wind advancing into a tornado and Immaculata had risen up twelve feet with the biggest damn archangel type sword that I could ever have imagined and Mr. Fennish appeared like a demon possessed with his eyes rolled to the back of his head and drooling enough to wet down the front of his shirt and I could have just puked on the spot yesterday’s, today’s and tomorrow’s breakfast, lunch and supper. Had I not been so scared, frozen in my tracks and trying my best not to wet my pants or throw up; friends or no friends, brother or no brother, I swear I would have run off so fast it would have made all of their fool heads spin.
Just then a lightning bolt split through the roof of the building smack dab into the middle of the impending chaos and my kid brother stepped right into the light and commanded “STOP!” and everyone collapsed like a bunch of rag dolls. I looked at Pearl and Pearl looked at me and she said: “damn, that was something!”
And I said: “no that was Nuthin”.
Shaggy Dog.
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