The Big Easy

The Big Easy, N’awlins, you sumpthin’ familiar. Got that “grateful for what we got” feel, that hard Atlantic work like. Not that soft Pacific coast-through-life chill, but a grits with biscuits, tasso gravy o’er fried shrimp, life. I know this place, that cautious to get-to-know but deep lovin’, that fists-in-the-air type, don’t push us ‘round, we-in-the-good-fight sort of thinkin’. There’s something in the Afro-Cajun spice that punches my sweet-spot-in-the-ribs, like.

Bourbon Street, lacquered sticky with sweet jello-shots and August sweat, the undead depraved stumble bumbling down the walk of shame, a routine of passing maimed sons and daughters, the Crescent City’s moonwalk stalkers, lean crops of chiselled onyx glistening under the synth-glo of neon lights, their shadows flickering behind Bevolo lanterns.

Echoes from the Antebellum, children of Black minstrels tappin’ trap triplets and snare beats on plastic containers to tunes blasting from clubs adjacent, their faces hard-worked and childless. A mother nearby, watchin’ her babies. A drag of her smoke, her face fades to ennui.

Despair in the air but who the hell cares in the city that care forgot?

Half of Black children in NOLA live in poverty while only 5% of White kids are poor? That’s some shit to think about as you shop this that, score some knickknacks, vampire blood sacks, rusted stakes, and your fifth paper bag of snow-capped beignets.

While poverty hits and the homeless persist, that Voodoo distracts us touchin’ the ground. Adherents lack sense, ‘cept incense and scents from the herbs, prayer candles, an elaborate display of retail card-dealin’, doll-makin’, and Sir Barnum at play. Chicken feet, gator teeth, figa fists, plastic beads, and dolls on display, all for a price to keep darkness at bay.

Don’t let me deplete you, there’s real magic here. It’s a Family Affair when the brass hits the air. Swingin’ their saxes, trumpets, trombones, on Royal where foreign folks wander and roam. It stirs, from a slumber my soul, that sound so profound. It shakes me, awakes me, alive, checks me thriving to the sound of the brass, the drums, Brrrrap bap kabam! Tap the tamb, strippet snare, petew pap pap, now let those horns blare!

But along the French Quarter, between shouts of “Massage!” the novelty vendors set traps between bars, and like dumb little bunnies we step in it, SNAP! I’m tired of these stores. Take money for memories, turn culture to cash. Mass production of trash. Duplication, replication, shop-after-shop. Take a thing, not a thought, memory-billions of stuff! Voodoo dolls, gator heads, dumb keychain claws, Mardi Gras beads, cheap masks, a shameless façade.

You say that the city needs profits from tourists, but consider this.

One quarter of the world’s prisoners are in Amerika, and year-to-year for the last decade the State of Louisiana contends for the highest incarceration rate in the country. It’s certainly among the highest in the world. Did you know that for every 1 prisoner in Louisiana, 4 are Black? And what do prisons cost taxpayers in this lovely southern state? Upwards of $700Million. The costs of incarceration don’t stop at the cell. They affect communities and generations. There’s your lost profits, in bodies and systems of state sanctioned oppression.

There’s time to have fun though, in a deep bowl of gumbo, boiled corn and potato, andouille sausage, jambalaya for take out. A virgin bloody Mary skewered with pickled okra, olives and a side of grilled oysters. What’s good is the grits made cheesy and buttered, or how ‘bout deep fried okra, red beans and rice, or fried green tomatoes for a reasonable price? How ‘bout the U-Haul pickup parked at Decatur and Frenchmen, with two barbecues tucked snug on the bed fully smokin’, and the Signicade menu reads: shrimp burger, smoke sausage, grilled porkchop and more, crawfish sauce on fish, rib-rack, chicken wings, and yes! I’m Ken for a Bar-B man sweatin’ o’er his meat. I’ll take one of damn everything and a drink for the heat.

Water bubbles from streets in this land below sea, pooling in curbs warped by the roots of old trees, giving life to green sludge like swamps on the sidewalks. Graves rest in chess pieces or goth mausoleums, ‘cept for the poor who get file-drawered away, or dumped into Holt o’er some else’s grave. A homeless woman hangs over her shopping cart yelling at a pool of white vomit. At Louis Armstrong Park, which has seen better days, a gentleman with opaque eyes and gray skin leans on his cane, “If it’s this hot in N’awlins, I don’t wanna go to hell.”

Street signs stand no chance here ‘cause stickers prevail, and e’ryone leavin’ their tags on the trail. Struggles and tempers are canvassed in print, while Banksy-rat knockoffs bomb Basquiat shit.

But the music. That beautiful music from every direction. The syncopation of low rhythm blues from the Apple Barrel on my right and an upbeat jazz rendition of Happy Birthday by a thick soulful sista on my left, at Cafe Négril. I’m caught in the middle of a battle, a war of discordant songs thumpin’ against the drum of each ear, but coalescing in my heart, a sweet intercourse brought to climax — In me the gametes of music blend, reborn into one, the renewed Symphonic Child.

Friday night on Frenchmen, just teeming with people. Young to old, Black to White, the great continuum of sinners under His omnipresent gaze. Clubs in full swing seduce streets for patrons. Parades of pimped trucks and gangs of men on small tricked-out dirt bikes crawl through the crowds, blaring their own music. At the center of all a circle amasses, at the corner of Chartres a Baptist trance gathers, as Willie’s sign glows, like a sunset on brasses and drums played by men in shorts and Croc sandals. Martial meets hip-hop, Congo slaves freed to fanfare. The great equalizers: Katrina, COVID, and snare.

I’m leaving this city with a lump in my throat, an ache in my gut, I’m all gettin’ choked. The plant of this place has put roots in my heart, but like crazed drunken soulmates some Fat Tuesday on Bourbon, we crossed paths in a stupor, and SNAP! Now it’s done.

Until we meet again, Leroy and the Coyotes.