Fall was crazy. I quit volleyball, my team and childhood dreams born in the backyard. I quit a year-long relationship and stability. I fucked around. I took a rec class. I danced every Saturday night and drank a lot of beer. I skipped class to lie in bed all day. I ate like shit. I listened to folk music and lit candles that smelled of lilacs and home. I started a student organization and spent way more time organizing than being a student. I did it for my own good. I think. I thought.
I don’t know much, when I knew less / And I was heartbroke for the first time / I was drowning in my tears / I went looking for a lifeline / Trying to find some comfort / A simple tender touch / Searching for some little cure / That would not cost too much…
Amtrak.com: one ticket southbound on the City of New Orleans. I had never been to New Orleans.
I love the train. I have always loved the train from my days of riding out with my mother to visit my grandparents in Arizona. I would sit in the lounge car, snacking on sesame sticks and apples, watching the dry desert roll by. A stop in Santa Fe: on the platform, indigenous women laid out their beautiful crafts of Iroquois, sky blues, yellows, oranges and browns across folding tables. Mom bought stone earrings and I got a beaded change purse colored like the earth. I have always loved the train.
Over the summer I met a new friend who lived in New Orleans. I called her up a few days before I departed, asked if I could stay on her couch. She said yes and I was happy that this trip was only going to cost me about $200. I needed to be around people but not my people – my people were driving me crazy. I think I needed new people. New Orleans is full of people, I thought. And, I could be alone.
I drove my white station wagon down to the familiar Kalamazoo depot and was dropped off by one of my people. I really needed new people. The ride to Chicago was spent leaning against the tall windows, numbly watching the cities roll on. I was on my way to somewhere and away from somewhere. I thought – but more so, I wanted.
I had an eight-hour layover in Chicago so I visited former teammates. Another train ride through suburbia landed me in manufactured small-town U.S.A. A quick tour of the town, a home-cooked meal and one more tear-filled testimony of how much the team missed me. Had I made the right decision about volleyball?
We gotta get out of this place / If it’s the last thing we ever do / We gotta get out of this place / Girl, there’s a better life…
I took a train to take a train and I was on my way to New Orleans. I stirred in Kentucky and dozed through most of Tennessee. We chugged through Graceland and into the land of the Delta Blues. Mississippi had poverty like something fierce: rickety houses lined the tracks, held together by nothing more than some particleboard and promises of something better. At Yazoo City, I walked down to the lounge car to eat lunch and find someone to talk with me.
A white woman, late-twenties to early thirties with two kids, a baby and a lifetime of miserable boyfriends sat down at my table. She asked to use my power outlet – I said of course and we fixed to talking. She was on her way to visit her ‘new’ boyfriend in New Orleans. He was an Army vet of Iraq, a man who refused to abandon his hometown during Katrina, helping pass out food, water and medical supplies at the Superdome in the weeks following. But he was black and her parents were unflinching in their racist hatred. So she packed up her life and kids and took the City of New Orleans.
As she was rambling, we were rumbling through the lakes of Pontchartain on track ties that had not been dry since they were standing upright. We carried speed to keep from sinking into the big muddy. My eyes watched for alligators but saw only birds, soggy trees and houses sitting up on long stick legs. Out of the bayous rose the interstate: twisted concrete also fighting against a waterlogged demise.
The train hit the now-dry ground of the city and we rolled past the Superdome, twinkling with advertisements about upcoming events – never able to shake the ghosts of Katrina and not allowed to by New Orleneans. How could they? Nagin said, “We’re not even dealing with dead bodies. They’re just pushing them on the side.” How could they.
It was so damn hot / the air so thick / even Sister Magnolia / was wearing nothing but her slip / Sittin’ on the corner, waiting for his whites to dry / Spittin’ on his shoes, trying to get a little shine / He says / I love this city, I love it all my life / I was born here and this is where I wanna die / If a hurricane comes, if the levees break / With my one true love I will wash away…
I grabbed my pack, sweating from the oppressive heat in stark contrast with the January winds of Chicago and heavy snows of Marquette, and walked out into the city. A tiny car zipped up and I was taken into the world of someone I had known only in an entirely different context. We discussed the summer and those things we had in common. She told me about her life but I did not say much. Not much to say.
We bypassed the French Quarter and drove past Louis Armstrong Park. “You shouldn’t go in there alone.” District 7, the Bywater, was our destination, just across the canal from District 8 – Holy Cross and the Lower Ninth Ward. A walk to shake the cobwebs from my legs: down on the levee, the oil-slicked water rolled by the chain-linked fence of the military base. Her dog ran on ahead while the image of a catfish with no eyes and an extra fin dangling from the pup’s mouth consumed me.
With catch-ups exhausted, I moved our conversation toward the state of a city that is more than a city – the Big Easy, the birthplace of Jazz, the home of Cajun cooking, Bourbon Street and Mardi Gras. We talked racism as we strolled by shotgun houses with X’s spray-painted in neon orange above the porch – or higher, depending on the flood level. Date goes on the top, name of the search unit on the left, the right reserved for “NE” or ‘no entry” if the National Guard hadn’t checked it and the bottom tells how many dead bodies found inside. We chatted on education as we passed a middle school covered in particle board, the final bell still ringing down the halls. I was aware of my awareness and feigned sensitivity as I tried not to stare with unsettling interest at the car crash on the side of the road in the City that Care Forgot.
They call her Mississippi / But she don’t flow to me / Spends her light on the Bayou / But she don’t come to see / She’s the one that makes my dreams / They call her Mississippi / But she don’t flow to me…
We returned to her two-story house with vaulted ceilings, bookshelves of queer-feminist poets and roommates from upstate New York with small, liberal college degrees who moved down to NOLA after the storm and spoke of their lives in relation to years post-Katrina and pre-Masters. With fixed-gear bikes, colorful neck scarves, JusticeForNewOrleans buttons and an affinity for middle school dance-themed parties and open relationships, they shared a pointed loathing for “hipsters who moved to NOLA because it was the cool thing to do.” Conversation was lost on me as I tried to follow a three-foot flowchart tracking the “Institutionalized Movement of Racial Minorities into and within the Prison Industrial System” hanging on the wall.
Rowan was my friend and her roommates also had hyphenated last names. She was in a long-term relationship with a man who lived elsewhere but had short-term partners in New Orleans. The “Free Love” vibe hung heavy in the air. I was one of two house guests – the other was a guy named Lance. Lance was working on his Master’s thesis: “an oral history of those who had come down to NOLA post-Katrina to lend their talents to fighting in solidarity with New Orleneans for social justice.” He was from upstate New York and loved to dress like David Bowie; he slept in Rowan’s bed.
I wanted fried chicken and gumbo so we went to Sammy’s. “You have to try the cornbread,” Rowan said. I told the woman my order and she fixed to making a three-course all-N’awlins meal. Well-traveled barstools mounted on the floor cushioned my fatigued body as I started a conversation with the road-weary local sitting in the corner. Rowan and Lance – eyes dancing everywhere save the gaze of another – occupied the space of one person while they stood by the counter. We were the only white people in there. We grabbed our plastic grocery bags of food but ran into a back-up of kids at the door. Over my shoulder, I waved goodbye to the other half of my conversation as I tried to keep pace. “Y’all pass ah good time this evenin,’ cher,” he drawled.
Some say this world of trouble / Is the only one we need / But I’m waiting for that morning / When the new world is revealed / When that revelation comes / When that revelation comes / Oh lord I want to be in that number / When the saints go marching in…
I heard my first Big Band in New Orleans play that night at the Rock’n’Bowl-MidCity Lanes – a name that tells of venue and neighborhood. The nightclub-alley has barebones character similar to the Crescent City in that you didn’t have no electronic machine telling you what you bowled but you were welcome to stay and party all night.
Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers made the packed house bump with a brass section that would make your heartbeat change. Rowan pointed out the owner: a cool cat in a black and gold zoot suit standing against the counter where you could rent your shoes. He was surrounded by women in tight-fitting dresses who laughed loudly and twirled his gold chains in their long black fingers.
You will see the Zulu King / Down on St. Claude and Dumaire / You know, you’ll see the Zulu King / Down on St. Claude and Dumair / And if you stay right there / I’m sure you’ll see the Zulu Queen…
Lance, Rowan and I made like a bike gang through damp neighborhoods, weaving down narrow streets lined with cars and cypress trees. I bought a 40-ounce beer at a corner store for the ride just because I could. Faster and faster we chased each other under the Pontchartrain Expressway, crossing bridges that spanned cement waterways and doubling back to do it again. Carrollton to Genois to Esplanade to Saint Claude to Dauphine to Louisa to a living room futon.
We packed Rowan’s car the next morning with paddles and snacks, set for an afternoon’s canoe through the bayous. The noise and congestion of the city life and travel had my head spinning and I was anxious to escape to the outskirts. We drove past the new condo high-rises that had replaced the low-income housing neighborhoods, got lost in the recently-built strip malls and stopped for directions at a Super Wal-Mart. I sat in the back with the dog while Rowan went to get directions.
As we pulled over to the side of the road, my eyes followed the levee that housed the bayou to a factory looming portentously from its roost miles and miles away. With pipes opening their mouths into the waters, the factory looked like a bastardized fish tank filter, vomiting a toxic death into the waters and people of the watershed with the same “bubble, gurgle, bubble” consistency. Rowan shared a story of her collaborative fight to stop the vinyl siding manufacturing plant in another part of Louisiana. The cancer rate in that community, children included, is 70%. “There is no direct causation,” says the company attorney. In this moment, I feel the intersection of social and environmental injustice down in my core for the first time.
Yer a human thing / Who ya think that you’re foolin’ / Yer not foolin’, not foolin’ me / Yer a human thing / Yer so busy frontin’ / Confusin’ courage and acting / Move me / Move me / Could it really be so wrong / To let somebody, let somebody see…
“Nature” in Michigan is clean: freshwater lakes, unsullied woods and crisp air. As we dropped our canoe into the algae-covered bayou that smelled of rot and decay, I knew this was going to be a very different experience than the ones I had on the Pine River or Lake Superior. Where we had muskrats, this had alligators. Again, my close companion was the dog: we shared a collapsible seat in the middle of the boat. Well, I was sitting in this seat and the dog was using my lap as his throne.
As we tooled quietly along, I watched circles of green matter swirl in eddies created by paddle strokes. Spanish moss, moved by a breeze I longed to feel, painted ripples on a body of water otherwise undisturbed. The stillness of the surface was underpinned by a conscious recognition of the unseen: below the surface, life and strife and conflict teemed and always threatened to unsettle the calm.
The dog on my lap made me sweat and conversation between Rowan and Lance was not something I could tap into. My goals in New Orleans were as follows: eat good food, listen to good music and talk with good people. I put out, “I hear Frenchmen Street has some good music. Who are the best musicians in town?” Rowan responded that she does not really get out to hear local music much. Frenchmen was a three-minute bike ride from her house; these were not my people. But the bayou was beautiful: we at one point crept through swamp maple on a floating moss island to play voyeur to a flock of resting white egret.
Born on the bayou / Born on the bayou / Born on the bayou / Wish I was back on the bayou rollin’ with some Cajun Queen / Wishin’ I were a freight train, oh, just a-chooglin’ on down to New Orleans…
That night, I went to the Frenchmen music clubs alone. Low, cool neon signs asked me to join the dimly-lit party at the Spotted Cat Music Club, the Blue Nile, the D.B.A. and the Three Muses. I first walked down the length of this famed alley-like street, pausing at those places in the sidewalk where the clarinet from one club would blend and dance with the trombone of another. Even on a Sunday night in January, it was standing-room only. I found a spot near the door and next to a window where I could watch a man in his twenties swirl and seduce nearly every woman in the club; sweat and tradition poured from his body with each swingstep, swim and slingshot.
The next days passed quickly: with Rowan at work, I was left to explore the city solo by bike. Days were spent eating gumbo and sugary beignets from Café Du Monde. I went shopping at flea markets and thrift stores and sat with artists trying to sell their work in Jackson Square. After an hour of loitering, Sylvester Francis himself kicked me off the steps of his Backstreet Cultural Museum – Rowan said it took her four months to get in for a tour. “You sure you’re not letting anyone in today?” I asked as I watched through the window a couple taking in the memorabilia of Mardi Gras celebrations passed.
“You’re not from around here are ya?”
“No, I’m from Michigan. How could you tell?”
“Oh sweetie, ya just can.”
Each night, I circled the French Quarter on bike: I weaved in and out of the crowds and clubs, composing my own transient soundtrack. The only scheduled event was to return to a bar on the corner of Bourbon and somethin’ a little after midnight to listen to a woman I knew only as Big Mama. She would sing my favorite Sam Cooke songs; I would sit at the bar with the guitar player in the hot, hot house band and listen to him tell me stories about Mama. I was the only one in the bar under the age of fifty-five but I had friends there and a place to rest for a half hour.
Darling you send me / I know you send me / Darling you send me / Honestly you do, honestly you do / Honestly you do
Rowan took off from work Tuesday afternoon so we could attend a demonstration downtown. Israel was lobbing missiles into a Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the rally was in solidarity with Palestinians and the quest for a Palestinian state. Rowan’s long-term boyfriend joined us as we marched down the street. He walked hand-in-hand with another woman while Lance and Rowan maneuvered awkwardly through the crowds and with this addition to our group. As the masses swirled around me chanting and shouting, I fixated on these complicated exchanges and positionings. It was beyond any love triangle I had ever seen (or been a part of). Not my people.
Lance had to drive me to the train station on the morning of my departure. The coal-colored asphalt steamed and the climate in the car was exceedingly uncomfortable. I had been playing third fiddle to the romance of Lance and Rowan and was pretty certain that Lance did not care for my impromptu visit to New Orleans. He dropped me off with my pack three hours before my train was to leave. I found a locker and walked under the expressway to get a Po’ Boy for the trip home. “Hey there pretty lady, I’m sure you got some money in that bag of yours.” Yes, I was ready to go home.
Finding a seat of my own, I tossed my pack up against the window of the train, pulled out my pillow and sank in, feeling like the dregs of the Mississippi. The rocking motion from the tracks sated my sleep deprivation – I crashed hard. Somewhere down the tracks, the brakes of the train echoed in my head and I opened my eyes to a very dark town. There was something wrong with the engine and we had been delayed. “Departure time TBD, so don’t go far. If you’re not on the train when we start to take off, we’re not stoppin’ for ya,” said the voice.
I stepped out onto the platform, scanning for a gas station or restaurant; the dining car was long-closed and I had slept through its dinner hours. A man smoking down the way said there was a Texaco three blocks up and two blocks over. I waffled for a moment but decided: I had to make a run for it. No other businesses were open as I sprinted between pools of light left by dim lampposts. A low-riding Oldsmobile rolled up, falling in step with me for a few paces before squealing rubber; that was the only local presence I saw.
Halfway home and we’ll be there by morning / Through the Mississippi darkness / Rolling down to the sea / and all the towns and people seem / To fade into a bad dream…
I burst through the door of the Texaco, not at all comforted by the bullet-proof glass separating the cashier and me. Grabbing a couple boxes of off-brand crackers and a block of suspect cheese, I dropped my cash through the slit in the counter and said, “I don’t need change.” The woman smiled sweetly as I bid her goodnight and clambered out the door.
A whistle from the direction of the station set me on a rampage. With my plastic bag of shitty food, I no longer cared about trying to stay in the light. Luckily, the run back was downhill but this created an added dilemma as it had started to rain. Three blocks over, two blocks up? Or was it three blocks up and two blocks over? The whistle sounded again. “SHIT.” I zig-zagged down the blocks, figuring it would be my best bet at recognizing where the station was in this shadowed, forsaken town.
Yup, I had gone too far: I popped out from the city blocks near the end of the train. I saw silhouettes boarding a hundred yards away and made a push for the homestretch. Hopping over a retaining wall that turned out to be much, much higher than it looked, I somersaulted onto the concrete of the platform with equal parts grace and athleticism – actually, about as far from both as anyone possibly could. I was a sweaty mess with shot nerves as I made those final steps toward the opened side door.
A man walked out just before me, holding a cigarette and lighter. “Aren’t we leaving now?” I panted. He informed me that those whistles were from another train and that we had “at least another three hours before we were moving anywhere.” I doubled over – and laughed and laughed, a tear-filled, side-cramping, head-wagging, soul-cleansing laugh. The guy walked away, making a wide circle to give the crazy, laughing woman some room.
I climbed the steps to my seat and sat in my sweaty, rain-soaked clothes for a while, breathing. As I broke open a box of crackers, I pulled out a journal I had been writing in throughout the fall. Frantic scribbles of melodramatic thoughts, sappy poems, inspirational quotes and song lyrics were dashed over the pages. My thumbs stopped and my eyes rested on a song I had transcribed from a “New Orleans playlist” I put together in Michigan for my trip.
I could not love to save myself / From lonesome desperation. / Everything I thought was love / Was worthless imitation. / My concept of commitment / Was to take all you could give, / I thought the cheapest thrills I loved / Were teachin’ me to live, / But nothin’ seemed to last or see me through / Nothin’ but that little song / That I still sing for you…
I reclined in my seat, replaying the song in my head. In my fractured state, I had spent months trying to “figure myself out.” I tried a lot of different methods, some self-destructive, but largely ones that led to some really wonderful experiences and new friends. Never could I figure out why I decided to go to New Orleans – I just had that feeling, ya know? – nor could I pinpoint why I was so certain that “good food, good music and good people” would solve all of my life’s problems. They didn’t but they made me feel better in the interim. I wish I could say that there was some sort of revelation or epiphany in this moment on the train or during that period when we were stuck there for four hours. But I don’t think I can. There was, however, forgiveness in that laugh, a certain softness I had been missing for the better half of a year. My body didn’t give me time to change clothes before I fell into sleep again. This time, I didn’t stir when the train started moving down the tracks.
For your own good I will tell you / What’s right before your eyes, / Intelligence is no defense / Against what this implies, / In the end no one will sell you what you need, / You can’t buy it off the shelf, / You got to grow it from the seed…
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