Carondelet Street or bust

I always dream of,

with you who can be a failure.

My first love, Azalea. Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, from week ago Sunday, I saw the sunrise over the Mississippi River from my roof on Carondelet Street in New Orleans. I was up there with Wallace, a fellow refugee I had met the day before in Oxford, Miss.

I had vaguely recognized Wallace when I saw him in Oxford the previous day, but I couldn place him. We talked for a minute and he mentioned that he was a teacher and I was able to remember him. He was the hip English teacher at a struggling all black high school in New Orleans where I had taught street law to risk kids. He had John Coltrane posters on his classroom walls and tried to teach his students radical history. He made an impression on me when I taught his class because his students, who didn hear much, listened to him. He, in turn, listened to his students, who weren used to being heard.

Wallace proposed that we attempt to drive the six hours down to New Orleans in his old white Econoline van, in which he used to tour with his band, to assess the damage firsthand, to fix our homes if necessary, and to retrieve precious belongings that we had left behind. We had each just received nearly $700 in Wal mart credit from the Red Cross, so flush with cash, we stormed the Wal mart hardware section nervously buying anything that we thought might be useful on our trip, a trip that we had no precedent for and no way to have foreseen.

Wallace bought a set of battery charged power tools, walkie talkies for times we anticipated being separate, canned pineapples and water. I bought blue tarps, bungee cords, the biggest Maglite on the market and energy bars, and tried in vain to find rubber boots.

There was no traffic at all as we passed through Jackson and approached Hammond, La. We had a steady stream of conversation through the night, talking about our wives, both artists, both far away, progressive politics, and our hopes and concerns for New Orleans. Occasionally one of us would note the possibility that our 12 hour drive to New Orleans and back might be in vain because we could be turned back at the city limits. But we would quickly skip over this point and again rehearse the work related pretexts we intended to pitch if we were stopped. Maybe 10 times on the drive, one of us said, my story and I sticking with it.

We had a quarter tank of gas and two full five gallon gas cans in the back of the van when we stopped for gas in Hammond, about 60 miles outside the city. We figured it would be our last chance for gas before New Orleans and we were not sure we would make the 120 miles back and forth with the gas we had. It was the only gas station open when we pulled off Interstate 55 at 2 in the morning and it was so jammed full of cars that I assumed it was a gas line full of southern bound New Orleanians, like ourselves.

However, it turned out that teenagers, mostly black, hung out at the gas station in their cars until late at night, playing loud, bass heavy music and talking to friends. I figured this out quickly after watching five police cars simultaneously converge on the gas station, lights ablaze, to close down the place and chase off the kids. We pulled into the now empty gas station after circling the block and letting the dust settle. The pumps had been turned off so I walked up to the little gas station store. The glass door was locked and I stood staring in at the clerks until one came up to the glass and told us that they were closed.

In the weeks since evacuating New Orleans with my wife and two dogs and having no place to live, I have gotten used to asking for favors, begging and saying please and thank you. Through the glass, I told the clerk my story. I told him that I was from New Orleans and trying to get back into town, that I had seen a satellite photo of my roof and that it was damaged and getting worse, and then busted out the wild card that works with most men in most situations. I told him that my wife had her heart set on my getting her wedding rings and the diaries of her sister who passed away and that it would break her heart if I didn make it home to try to find these things and bring them back. I wasn lying and he could tell. He asked me if I had cash and when I said yes, told me that he would let me fill up. I thanked him, sincerely, not in the manner that I do in my normal life, when people do little more than is required.

Within minutes of getting back on the Interstate, we saw flares and police cars parked ahead on the highway, blocking the road. Wallace and I checked in on our story once again and slowed to a stop next to a tired looking, middle aged white police officer.

you doing, officer, Wallace said.

He asked us where we were going and we explained that we were going to New Orleans, that I was a lawyer and that I had legal business related to the storm, a half truth. We showed him our identification. He responded simply, too tired to care. You can do what you want. He commented that our car smelled of gas and chemicals: you got drugs in there?

We explained that we had cans of gasoline in the back of the van. He responded kindly, You know that not really safe get out of here.

We drove through the checkpoint and up onto the causeway, the elevated highway that runs through the swamps toward New Orleans. Since the balance of the ride back into the city would be on this two lane road, there would be little opportunity for anyone to send us back now. We were almost home.

On both sides of the causeway, we could see the glow of the massive factories,replica van cleef and arpels clover necklace, cities of industry now back in action, spewing flames.

We were quiet for a while, eager to see our homes, our city, and knowing it had changed. We were also exhausted.

We cut around the city to the south and onto Highway 90, the old highway into the city, on the West Bank. The West Bank is part of Jefferson Parish, the white flight suburb surrounding the city. It is the part of the city that throngs of people tried to flee into, over the bridge from the convention center, only to be turned away by armed sheriffs. Only a few days later, two white men in a van, we were trying to go the opposite direction.

The West Bank was in remarkably good shape. We passed a bingo hall with blinking lights. The Burger King was opening up, getting ready to sell egg sandwiches and Tater Tots. All of this minutes away from New Orleans. It seemed impossible.

As we approached the bridge, we reached another roadblock, manned by the Crescent City Connection Bridge Police. The officer standing guard was bleary eyed and looked as if he were about to fall over. He hardly listened as we told him why we were traveling into the city. He had no objections. Wallace asked him how he was doing. His pain poured out. He told us that he had lost his house, that the floodwater had risen to the roof, and that it was destroyed. He said that the insurance adjuster said that his policy didn cover flood. He told us that his wife and kids were in Florida, that he was worried about them and wanted to be with them but only managed to talk to them for a few minutes at a time because he was worried about roaming charges on his phone and because cellphone service was constantly cutting out. He told us about a classic Bronco that he had just finished restoring and about the huge tree that had fallen on it. We asked him when he would be relieved so that he could take care of his home and his family, and he laughed. He explained that there weren many officers on his detail and that they were all working 18 hours a day, unsure if they were even going to get paid. Wallace asked him whether his union was doing anything to help him. He laughed again, saying, You not even allowed to say that word around here.

We thanked him, sincerely, and drove off. As we pulled away, I saw him go back to sit with his fellow officers,replica van cleef and arpels necklace, none of whom could probably bear hearing each other sad stories another time. Each, perhaps, waiting to talk to the next couple of guys trying to pass into town who were willing to listen.

The city was dim as we passed over the bridge. We could see a big military ship docked on the side of the river next to the convention center. Within minutes, we reached my house,replica van cleef arpel necklace, five blocks from the Superdome. It was still dark.

I inspected the house with my flashlight, and it looked the same as I had left it. I unlocked the door and walked into my high ceilinged living room, and could smell the aroma of home, slightly stale, a little sour, but distinct. No water had come in; the flood had not reached us. I drank some water from the cooler I had left stocked with four five gallon jugs, then went upstairs, where I did not know what I would find.

I crept up the stairs, almost blind in the dark with my flashlight off, but knowing the steps, because I was finally home. At the top of the stairs I reflexively switched the light on, to no avail. I flipped on my flashlight and saw that my ceiling had collapsed from above. From the right angle, I could see the night sky through the wound in my roof. There was soggy sheetrock and wet bits of insulation, made of shredded newspaper, everywhere. I wanted to start cleaning up then and there but realized it was absurd, that there was still more to see. I crossed through my wife studio, unblemished, with her paintings on the walls, and then into our bedroom, where the ceiling had also collapsed onto our new pillow top mattress, which we had talked about with joy every night since its purchase as we got into bed.

I climbed the narrow ladder up into my attic, walked carefully along the rafters, then climbed through the hole in the roof I had seen from below. I nervously walked up the back face of my double pitched roof and could see with the flashlight that large portions of the roof were damaged and exposed. Jitters passed through my body. I had been awake for almost 24 hours, I was standing on my roof in the middle of the night in my abandoned city, and I felt nauseated. Even under the best of circumstances, I have no business out on a roof. But anticipating the damage, I had brought up a tarp, some screws, and Wallace new drill. I tried to secure the tarp over some of the damaged areas, but I began to feel my feet slipping on the remaining roofing tiles beneath my feet.

Knowing that I was a danger to myself, I slid back down the hole and made my way downstairs and told Wallace what I had seen and what I tried to do. He told me that he was good on roofs he would come up with me. We made our way back up. He did most of the work. He explained that we weren really accomplishing anything but that it was good to try, that I could tell my wife that I had tried to repair the roof in the middle of the night, and I would be a hero. I felt pathetic and scared but comforted.

Before making our way back downstairs, we watched the city come awake. New Orleans never had the early morning hustle and bustle of other American cities but, instead, a few people heading to work, a few stragglers still trying to find their way home. In New Orleans, sunrise meant to sleep about as much as it meant up, even among many of us who lived there. Now, however, with the city empty of its citizens, sunrise signified only wakeup time to the soldiers who, that morning,replica van cleef arpels clover necklace, occupied the high rise apartment building on St. Charles Avenue, the great Mardi Gras parade route, a block behind my house. They wandered out the building, absent mindedly gazed up at us on the roof, and got down to the business of brushing their teeth and shaving with little cups of water in their hands.

Back downstairs, I cleaned up what I could and packed some things and brought them down to the van. I found the rings and the journals but had lost the list my wife had given me. I panicked, knowing that I was in no state to make decisions. Everything seemed pointless by this time. Miraculously, I got through to my wife on my cellphone.