Washed Up and Wrung out: A New Orleans Diary: Part 1

Oh Lord, why hast Thou forsaken me?

Lower the head, kneel, put your forehead to the filthy concrete on Chartres. . .Now, in this storm wrecked place the bordello is still standing and it’s at the foot of the throne of the Lord and you have sinned very badly. It’s the Wednesday after already, the gutters are stuffed with beads, the sky is clean and warm, the camera records your every movement, ask the Lord, while there’s time, for the blood of the Lamb to wash your sins away. . . The blood of the Lamb? The blood of the bar is sweating out through every pore, the body is shaken, raw and broken from a week in this putrid, luscious city. . .

Three days later, at home again, survived but broken, the head is stuffed, the lungs working over time, beating, wheezing, it’s all running out my nose can’t seem to catch it. Abandon school for a week of trial and debauch and suffer the consequences—three essays due by weekends end, a test, and my head is full of snot drenched cotton.

Eight days since morning mass at St. Luis Cathedral--and six days since I’ve had a drink or a cigarette. Watching the old men walk the aisles in their purple vestments, a grinning hangover clouding everything but the cold water bottle in my hand--I had no idea this would happen—it took longer than it should have, perhaps—this sobriety—two more full days of drinking and debauch before my body kicked my un-repentant yet quietly converted ass into saint mode—but this makes sense, I think. For us hard core sinners, life is more complicated and painful than our Christian brethren can know. Things take more time, even simple things, like waking up.

But perhaps I get ahead of myself.

Last summer I fell in love with that disease ridden whore of a city New Orleans. Her long hair full of lice and sperm wound its way into my heart and tangled there. Her tongue drips a hangman’s cocktail of opium and potassium chloride—she sweats—

She’s a city that makes you have thoughts like that. She’s beautiful, horrible, and dying. She’s always like that—the substance of her charm. . .

The tragedy of Katrina wasn’t that it ruined New Orleans—the maggots of poverty and neglect had been hiding in that attic a long time already—the real tragedy—or effect—was that it ripped away all the dross, the sham Disney lighting and special effects shattered to reveal the hurting, national cancer that has been New Orleans secret shame for a long time already.

I fell in love with her. She fvcks like a tigress on acid, what can I say?

And when Lee told me that he would be finishing his documentary over Mardis Gras, I knew that I had to be there.

And I was nervous. Like when you’ve broken up with somebody and you hear from friends that they’ve gotten into some spooky/heavy shit and you’re not sure what they are going to look like—it was kind of like that.

And of course, not knowing exactly what it would be like, after the very serious destruction that Katrina had wrought. . .

Thursday night was spent packing and feverishly trying to get as much homework done as possible. My flight was lifting at 6AM so sleep was out of the question. Pounding energy drinks and popping “smart” pills, steadily moving through everything—than queasiness strikes—first presentiments of horrible juju. While retching I decide to change my travel plans. I’ve bought a tent and sleeping bag and planned on pitching it behind a flop house in the Marigny, but I had had an offer to sleep on a mattress in the front of an art studio for sixty dollars a night. If the nausea is an omen of danger, I might want to push off using the tent for at least a night or two. Weather.com says to expect storms and my stomach agreed--wait--have a cigarette--the exhaled smoke froze and cracked in the cold--feeling for the karmic indicators--the nausea, it lifted. And I’ve made my decision. You can’t ever be too careful with the juju.

First thing outside I step in a puddle. It’s sinking all around me, up to the ankles, God is screaming at me to stay away—St. Christopher, patron saint of travelers, has he abandoned me already? I wave, gesture, it occurs to me I might be crazy, finally the cab moves forward, my stuff is tossed into the trunk and I’m in the back of the cab feeling it rumble off. I notice now that it’s a young, hot girl driving. An auspicious omen if there ever was one and the trip to the airport passes nicely not withstanding the sharp panic caused by her constantly nodding off. . . so, it’s going to be one of those kinds of trips after all. . .

She says it’s sad going to New Orleans for Mardis Gras.
“It’s like watching a cripple try to walk.”
Silence. It’s still dark like night outside.
I lean forward, “You’re a cynic, you know that?” I’m saying it like it’s a bad thing, because she doesn’t know me.
She laughs.
“Well it is! It’s sad.”
“No, it’s not.” And I realize that I mean this, or at least want it to be true very badly, “It’s like watching somebody who was crippled take their first steps again. It’s inspiring and hopeful, not sad.”
“Well, okay.”


Her eyelids fluttered like butterfly wings and the taxi strayed onto the rumble belt. . .

“Hey! You alright up there?”
She jerks the cab back into place. “Yeah? Oh! I’m fine really.” She’s blushing because she almost killed us. The omens are piling up.
“How much longer do you have till you go home?”
“I’m going home after this, I swear.”

At the airport I pull my stuff from the trunk and as I’m walking away we wave goodbye. Who waves goodbye to the cab driver? If she doesn’t spin off into the river maybe I’ll run into her sometime, who knows? Everything is confirming the strangeness of the mission. The juju itself is whack and confused, the divine guide is drunk and passed out in the toilet, the wheel is off. . . strange presentiments while lurching off to a French party town that was recently drowned and left to die. . . I check my tent and suitcase. . .strip for the man with the metal detector . .Boarding flight 947 gate A13. . .