KATRINA AND THE FRENCHMAN:
A JOURNAL FROM THE STREET

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The ending.

 

March 15, 2011 - Walking tour

We knew our big stops. They would take us all around the Quarter. But first, we needed lunch and there was no way we were going to miss the chance to have a Muffaletta. We walked to the Central Grocery shop on Decatur. There’s always a line-up, a good sign that you’re going to get something really good. While we waited I took pictures of the funky hot sauces.

G snuck out of line to see what kind of beer they had in the fridge and came back. I just wanted water. When we got to the counter, a very angry looking, large guy asked G, "Haven't you already been to the counter!?!" No! Just checking the fridge! They are the “sandwich nazi’s” like the “soup nazi” in Seinfeld. Know what you want, have your money ready... and we had both forgotten how BIG the Muffaletta is.

As big as a pizza!

But oh, soooo gooood.

I know I’ve already mentioned that I am gluten and dairy free. When I have bread or cheese I wake up all phlegmy and stuffed up. But, my friends, THIS is worth it. I had almost a whole quarter to myself. It makes you roll your eyes back and melt. When we were done, we went up to walk along the Mississippi. (We also noticed that Coop's Place had a lineup out the door, good for you, buddy. Page 74)

The sun was hot, there was a little bit of a breeze, and I could feel myself getting a sunburn. Canadians don’t always think about bringing sun lotion with them in March. As we approached the Riverwalk Mall, I could feel myself getting a little tense. Once inside, we realized it was pretty much the same as what we saw in 2003 during our first trip. G went to an internet café and I went to pee. BECAUSE I COULD. (See pages 174-175) When I came back, G told me that the Holiday Inn by Canal had very close rates to the Frenchman, and asked if I wanted to switch. I did. I was done at the Frenchman. I didn’t like being in the lobby again, there was no staff that we knew, and what used to make it quaint was no longer suited for us. We sat and made some calls back and forth, but the late checkout fee was not worth paying, and we had more important things to take care of before hauling luggage across the Quarter. We decided to spend one more night at the Frenchman and then switch.

We walked out towards the Aquarium and we both had to catch our breath as we exited and saw that walkway, that mural...

How we hated that mural. (Page 175) But there were no helicopters.

The parking lot, the walkway.

This is where we had stopped. Where I slept on my suitcase, where G got poked in the chest, where we lost hope.

A quiet parking lot. That FUCKING mural. We decided we never want to see it again.

There were no tanks driving out from behind the pathway.

We sat on a bench on Convention Center Boulevard. I said to G, "Look! Cars!" There were tourists, people walking quickly to their next destination, and CARS on the street. I wept, took a minute to find the camera in my purse and wept some more as I started snapping pictures. I wanted to remember this new scene so much more than the old one...

But the memories... they were so strong...

The memories were more than mental images. They were phantoms that walked before me.
I deperately tried not to see that woman with her baby, but I could see and hear her screaming again. And then she disappeared.

Clean streets, empty corners.

That bridge, I tried not to look for busses through the crowds of phantom people. I saw cars. (Page 149)

I tried to not see the people stationed on this curb six years ago. (Page 148)
Green grass, clear sidewalks.

This is where we sat when we first arrived that awful morning. (Page 136) That sidewalk by the hedges. I cried again. "FUCK YOU, DEAD BIRD. FUCK YOU!" I didn't care if anyone heard me. Just as I said it, a few birds took flight and were chirping. It was a moment right out of a movie. There were probably birds chirping all week, but those ones I needed to hear. The sound of life.

There was no man walking up the street with a cooler full of ice (page 145) and there was no camera with Harry Connick Jr. walking by.

One by one I pulled those talons of pain out of my heart and soul. Every vision I had, every memory that I’ve kept with me for years, I let them all stay where they came from on the pathway, on the street, on the sidewalk. I cried again as we got up from the bench. I left them all behind as we walked away. I will never forget, but I didn’t want to live with them anymore.

***

We started walking up some side streets with the intention of bumping into Canal St. and finding the Superdome. We didn’t remember the route we took before, and it’s just as well, because we would not have met the Doorman.

We took a wrong turn and looked confused. I told G to ask the Doorman at one of the out-of-the-way hotels. This very pleasant man pointed us in the right direction. He asked if there was some event going on that he didn’t know about. We said there was not.

He said, “Soooo, you’re just going to look at it?”

We said, “Yes.”

When he looked at us like we were completely insane, we briefly told him our story.

He smiled and said, “I ain’t never met anyone who was STUCK here during the storm!”

We wondered how that was possible and chuckled with him. I told him about my book, and the tour we'd had that morning. He told us that THAT was where he grew up, in the Lower Ninth! He didn’t look like he’d even heard of Common Ground Relief. Doorman thanked us for coming back, understood why we wanted to "just look" at the Superdome and wished us luck. I refrained from hugging him and we turned around. A helicopter flew overhead. It gave me shivers. No thank you.

We found the Holiday Inn off of Canal on Royal St. We made arrangements for the next day.

***

We found Canal St. leading to the Superdome. It was dry. I found those steps I'd gone up after wading in the waist-deep water, happy to have some solid footing when I heard that woman yell out from this bench...

"Ain't NO fucking WHITE bitch getting on NO fucking bus befo- me!"
And then she disappeared, and the sound of cars passing by filled my head.

We came around the corner and I looked for the ramp. That awful ramp where we left Sharon and her Auntie. Where I saw thousands of people lined up back to back in killer heat and Stash trying to find out what was going on. I remembered why people say things three times, and I remember Sharon telling me, and making me repeat three times, “We’re going to be all right, baby.” (Page 193)

But the ramp wasn’t there. We saw A ramp, but not THE ramp. I was confused. Were we on the wrong side? No, it was definitely on the left when we stood on the street. I took a picture.

But that's not it.

It was MUCH wider, and on the left, and bent further...

One of the guys working construction on that corner asked if he could help us. (What a nice man!) We very briefly told him our story and he smiled. “That ramp is gone.” They tore it down, rebuilt some of the adjacent building, and the whole area looked different. I nearly hugged him, too. It’s GONE! I was so surprised and elated I took another picture. That's not the ramp you're looking for...

My mind's eye took one last moment to remember what it used to look like,
and could imagine the construction trucks smashing it down.
Part of me wishes I could have been there to watch.

There were no cops with rifles, and there were no reflections in the water.
This was the part of the street I waded in to get to the ramp. (Page 189-191)

We were done with the Superdome. It was time to make our way across the Quarter again to the La Mothe. Somewhere along Bourbon St, G stopped and said his foot really hurt him. We weren’t sure what he’d done to it. I was getting blisters on my feet and we were both hot. He suggested that we stop for a bit and sit, but there was only one more thing to do and if I stopped I didn’t know if I’d want to continue. All we had to do was go a bit further and then the La Mothe was right by the Frenchman and we’d stop and have drinks in our room. He agreed and we continued.

We turned on Esplanade and there were no trees lying on the street. We came up to the hotel and I walked out onto the boulevard to get a better look. Second floor, two shuttered doors on the right behind the flags. The shutters I wasn't supposed to close. (Page 87) That was the balcony where I waited, read, and talked to Kaitlin.

Kaitlin. She would be a teenager now, she wouldn’t be there. I could just feel that she was not there. It seemed as if nobody was there, it felt so empty. It was just a balcony, just a room, and I had no desire to see it again. But then I noticed one more thing...

There was an extended gate on my balcony. A blockade where I stood, between Kaitlin and I, we would not have handed clothes and shoes around that, probably would not have talked as much without seeing each other so clearly. And I won’t see her again. Somehow that gate put up a barrier between me and the time I spent leaning on that railing. Good. That too, was done. I quietly wished Kaitlin well and decided I was done.

***

G and I went back to the Frenchman and sat by the pool with our room door open. I was glad to drop my heavy purse with the notebook, camera, wallet, etc... I sat with my feet in the freezing cold water and sipped on my wine. G had whiskey. We talked, cried, I made notes. We’d been walking for FOUR hours. In the past when my Fibro caused me constant pain, I could not have done that walk. G was proud of me. I was proud of us. We were happy with our walk and how much we were able to leave behind.

And then we realized, we have no kids, the city never closes, we can sleep and eat and drink whenever we wanted. So in our cathartic moment we decided to just sit and have wine and whiskey and get a little giddy – something we don’t get to do anymore. I made note of the time, it was “4:30pm. Getting drunk poolside @ the Frenchman. Damn straight.”

Before long, we took a nap. Because we COULD.

When we woke up we showered and had dinner at Mojito's for a late dinner. It's next door to the hotel; we wanted to eat close by because G's foot was really sore. We listened to a great Blues Band. Our food was slow to come out and there wasn’t much for me to choose from without risking feeling sick. When we were done we looked around the corner and saw a bar called the Dragon’s Den full of punk rock, and punk rockers. If we were younger we would have joined them for a drink but we were feeling old and tired and sore, and just went back to watch TV.

The next day...