by Chris Rose
What did I used to do?
Some folks say it’s insane to bring children into this environment, this beaten-down town, and certainly there is merit to that argument.
Is it depressing here? Yes. Is it dangerous? Maybe. The water, the air, the soil . . . I don’t know.
And there’s little doubt that the kids have picked up the vibe. My six-year-old daughter started writing a book this week—a writer in the family!—and she has a page about the hurricane in it and it says, “A lot of people died. Some of them were kids.”
Mercy. God in Heaven, what lives are we handing to these children of the storm?
Then again, there is much about the aftermath that amuses them greatly. For example, where adults see rows and rows of spoiling refrigerators fouling the side of the road, children see mountains of empty appliance boxes to replace them.
It used to be that when a neighbor on the block bought a major appliance—a once-a-year event—we would commandeer the box and make four or five days of fun out of it. A fort. A playhouse. A cave.
With all these empty boxes around, I thought it would be nearly criminal not to make some lemonade out of all these lemons bestowed upon us, so I borrowed a friend’s truck and brought six refrigerator boxes home and built a Christmas village for the kids.
They disappear for hours. In all the muck, you gotta dig for the magic.
When we drove to City Park the other night to look at the holiday lights, we plowed through blighted streets, total darkness, total loss and devastation on the sides of the road.
“Ooh, scary!” was all my son could muster. They thought it was pretty cool, actually, and I’m not going to call them out on that and tell them that in fact it’s not. In due time, they will find out.
They will learn what went down in this town.
They see the ubiquitous brown stain that marks where the floodwaters settled for three weeks, and they see not the criminal failure of the Army Corps of Engineers but . . . a bathtub ring around the city.
What other place has that?
They love this town, my kids. They had a blast in Maryland, but they all said they wanted to come home and they’ve not said otherwise since they got here.
They know that Al Copeland’s house is all lit up for the holidays like some crazy Disney castle and they know we’ll go check it out this week, and that alone, for them, is a reason to live here.
They’ll go back to their schools in January, and we will move on.
It’s a big deal, what’s happened here and what lies ahead. Rebuilding this city is history in the making, and my family—as we’re fond of singing around here—is going to be in that number.
This is not just Anywhere USA we’re talking about. This is New Orleans. This is our home. Our future.
It’s a hard-luck city right now, and you can look at it as a half-empty, half-full conundrum, although, in New Orleans, the truth is that the glass is shattered.
But we’re going to help pick up the pieces. Starting today.
Life in the Refrigerator City
Civil Unrest
10/18/05
Refrigerators are poignant symbols of our city’s destruction and our government’s inertia; many are now painted with political slogans.
The refrigerators of New Orleans are also the weapons of choice in the rapid deterioration of civility Uptown. Weapons of our Mass Destruction—literally.
It’s all a part of NIMBY syndrome—Not In My Backyard—the bane of political processes nationwide (think Wal-Mart, landfills, and halfway houses), but these are particularly wicked and stinky cases.
A small instance would be the case of the jerk who loaded his dead and smelly fridge into his pickup truck one night and drove around Uptown looking for a place to get rid of it, rather than putting it on his curbside like the rest of us and taking his chances on the latest gambling craze sweeping our town: FEMA Garbage Pickup Lotto.
And did he dump it in the river or on some abandoned lot on Tchoupitoulas? No, this pillar of society chose Audubon Park—at the corner of Laurel Street and West Drive—to dump his offensive icebox. Smooth move. What a prince.
There’s one oasis for miles in this community that has been cleaned and groomed for repopulation (Thank you, Oklahoma National Guard)—a place to bring kids and pets and grandmothers and see what little remains of nature in this godforsaken wasteland—and somebody dumps a fridge on the corner and drives off into the night.
This kind of crap makes me hubcap-stealing angry. But this was just a skirmish in what has become the Uptown Refrigerator Wars.
Refrigerator clusters have started appearing all over the area, as one guy dumps his fridge on a corner away from his house and then—like iron shavings drawn to a magnet—suddenly there are five appliances on the corner, then ten, then fifteen.
But it gets worse. It gets personal. The above crimes are random and anonymous. The two I shall now describe involve direct confrontations followed by covert actions and now, no doubt, smoldering resentments among neighbors.
Full disclosure: I was involved in one of these episodes. I’m sure this comes as a great shock to, say, my wife and close friends, to hear that I interjected myself into a petty and juvenile refrigerator dispute but, hey: like everyone else, I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore.
To wit: On Friday night, the garbage crews rolled onto my street—huge dump trucks and backhoes and cranes and Bobcats. It was the closest to a parade that we’ve seen in a while, and we all poured out of our houses to cheer them on. Finally, our six-foot wall of debris, stretching from one end of the block to the other, was going to be hauled off, and we could begin to try to forget what has happened here.
But while the hard-hatted cleanup crews were doing their massive sweep-up, a guy from around the corner drove up in his pickup truck and dumped a fridge on the corner.
My neighbor Franke jumped off his stoop and ran over to explain that the refrigerators and other hazardous waste had already been cleaned from this block; that these guys on Friday night were just picking up trees, branches, household debris, and regular old garbage.
The guy insisted that the trucks would take his fridge, too, and then he drove off, even as we told him: Don’t leave this here.
Well, it took an hour, but the federal contractors got my block clear. We could see our curbs and sidewalks for the first time since the hurricane. The place was swept spotless. It was a time for celebration.
Except for that damn smelly fridge they left on the corner, just like we said they would.
Man, that really chapped me. So, in the middle of the night, I borrowed a friend’s dolly and I loaded up the fridge and I dragged it back to the offender’s house and unloaded it at his front steps. Since they hadn’t picked it up, I was sure he was going to want to do the neighborly thing and take it back.
Now, I ask you: Was I wrong to do this?
Don’t answer that. First, let me tell you another story, as reported to me by a very reliable source who shall remain nameless for his own protection. (Me, I’m not circumspect enough to perform my urban civic warfare anonymously.)
Over in another part of Uptown, several neighbors were working together to roll their refrigerators out to the curb. Everyone explicitly agreed to tape them shut to lock in the stink and foulness and take the necessary precautions to prevent widespread dysentery.
Often, as you probably know, getting a full refrigerator out to the curb takes a couple of people, but one guy got restless and refused to wait and he wrestled out his appliance to his driveway alone. He had attempted to tape it shut but had done an obviously inferior job and he wouldn’t wait for help.
Then he tied the dang thing to his car to drag it down to the curb. And it fell open. And your mama’s seven-week-old casserole spilled out. And it stank. And he left it there, an open and stinking invitation to all manner of biblical-proportion infestations and plagues.
Naturally, everyone on the block got ticked off. And then one
got even.
When a contractor drove by later that day, a guy on the block offered him $20 to use his Bobcat to grab ahold of the offending refrigerator, move it into the middle of the offender’s driveway, and drop it—thereby blocking ingress and egress to said driveway.
The contractor accepted the offer and moved the fridge into blockade position. Now the neighbors all eye one another suspiciously and goodwill is withdrawn and there you have it. This is what it has come to.
Now, I know what a lot of you are thinking: There are people in this town who lost everything. Their loved ones, their homes, their jobs, their pets, their precious photos and memories.
And their refrigerators.
And all that you rich and idle Uptowners on dry land can find within your hearts to do is bicker over appliances?
You’re thinking: You people didn’t have a right to survive this storm.
Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should go back to fighting one another over Wal-Mart and Whole Foods and college bars. But consider this:
Maybe this signals a return to normalcy. Maybe this is even a healthy sign of the human spirit.
Or maybe we’re all just a bunch of petty ingrates.
Really, it’s not for me to decide. I am merely the chronicler of events and, okay, a minor participant in the civic unrest.
I am willing to share the blame. But I also view this story as a cautionary tale, a call for civility, a cry of help to the community at large before we tear ourselves apart.
And while we’re talking about civility, one more thing:
Keep your stinking fridge to yourself.
Refrigerator Town
10/30/05
In Refrigerator Town there was a Council Full of Clowns
And a tall and savvy king as bald as Cupid.
In Refrigerator Town, while all the poor folks drowned
FEMA and Mike Brown were stuck on stupid.
In Refrigerator Dome, which was temporary home
To the terrified and downtrodden masses,
In Refrigerator Dome, the people waited all alone
While the buses showed up slower than molasses.
In Refrigerator Village, some coppers loot and pillage
And we still don’t know how many won’t come back.
In Refrigerator Village, they’ll have to pass a millage
Just to pay for all those stolen Cadillacs.
In Refrigerator Town, not a child can be found
And the classrooms are as empty as the Dome.
In Refrigerator Town, School Board antics still abound
And you wonder why you’d ever move back home.
In Refrigerator Void, all the houses were destroyed
And you get a sense of widespread fear and panic.
In Refrigerator Void, all the folks are unemployed
And everyone you meet is taking Xanax.
In Refrigerator City, Congress seems to take no pity
On the businesses that cease to operate.
In Refrigerator City, there’s a VIP committee
To which nobody can possibly relate.
In Refrigerator Parish, the bickering is garish
And the politicians seem to have no clue.
In Refrigerator Parish, it really got nightmarish
When the sharks showed up on Cleary Avenue.
In Refrigerator ’burbs, the trash is piled up on the curbs
And the neighborhoods are ugly and they smell.
In Refrigerator ’burbs, folks are getting quite disturbed
That their quality of life has gone to hell.
In Refrigerator Land, we have no leg on which to stand
While the politicos can’t seem to do a thing.
In Refrigerator Land, it seems the only helping hand
Is the signing bonus at the Burger King.
On Refrigerator Planet, if you can’t bag or box or can it,
Just push it out your door onto the street.
On Refrigerator Planet, pick up the garbage, dammit!
’Cause the whole place smells like fetid, rotten meat.
In Refrigerator Wasteland, you have to dress up like a spaceman
Just to rescue your old family photographs.
In Refrigerator Wasteland, stretched from Chalmette clear to Raceland
We’re in misery while Halliburton laughs.
From the Refrigerator Pulpits, the preachers said the culprits
For the storm were all the lesbians and queers.
But Refrigerator Church was left in quite a lurch
When it turned out to be the Corps of Engineers.
In Refrigerator Dome, the Saints no longer call it home
No more runs or kicks or punts or touchdown passes.
In Refrigerator Dome, no more famous cups of foam
And Tom Benson’s heart’s as cold as Minneapolis.
In Refrigerator Land, the levees all are made of sand
And there’s no gas, no food, no water, and no sewage.
But in Refrigerator Land, we will make our final stand
Because anything beats rush hour in Baton Rouge.
Lurching Toward Babylon
11/11/05
People ask me: What do you cover now that the entertainment industry has fizzled away? After all, for the past ten years, that was my beat.
My answer: Basically, I spend my days like everyone else, lurching from one “episode” to the next, just trying to live, just trying to survive, just trying not to crack up and publicly embarrass myself, my family, and my newspaper.
It’s hard, man. It’s hard, just to live. I don’t mean to be overly confessional here, but sometimes I feel I am no longer fit for public consumption, no longer fit for publication, and definitely no longer fit to operate heavy machinery.
I was at my local Circle K the other day, sitting in my car in a borderline catatonic state, when I witnessed a guy in a truck in the parking lot wadding up a ball of trash and throwing it out his window.
I have silently witnessed this sight a million times over the past twenty years. On Broad Street, on Magazine Street, in the French Quarter, everywhere. We all have. It’s almost as if litter is a part of our heritage.
Well, I snapped. I got out of my car and approached the offending vehicle and I tapped on the guy’s window.
During my walk to said vehicle, a very loud voice inside my head said to me: Don’t do this. You are not well. It’s none of your business.
But there are lots of voices in my head these days. You can probably relate. So I wrote this cautionary device off as just so much cacophony and decided: It is your business. The guy rolled down his window, and I asked, “Are you from here?”
I expected him to say no, and I had this thing in my mind that I was going to tell him, this thing about the sanctity of my city, about the care he needs to take, about how delicate our balance is right now.
But he said yes. And I lost it. Completely. Stark raving mad, if you must know the truth. “You can’t do this anymore,” I said to him in a voice that wasn’t particularly loud but in a tone I hardly recognized from myself and that was probably laced with just enough tonic to catch his attention.
We looked at each other. And then I said—or maybe I screamed—“You can’t do this anymore!”
I’m not sure who was more frightened, he or I, but I kept going. I said, “You can’t just throw stuff out of your car window anymore. I realize that there is garbage everywhere—all over our streets—but, still, you can’t just throw stuff out your window like it doesn’t matter. It matters!”
The guy was frozen in his seat. He was no doubt wishing he had gone to Winn-Dixie or the Stop-N-Go or anyplace else but this Circle K. But here we were. I laid it out on this poor sap. I said, “We’ve got to change. We can’t go back to the way we were, and the way we were was people just throwing crap in the streets like it doesn’t matter. We need to do better. We need to change.
“It matters!” I said again—as if he hadn�
�t heard me the first time—and then I just stood there in a forwardly lurched position, and I can tell you: I’m tired of lurching. I want to stop lurching. But I can’t stop lurching.
Needless to say, I freaked the guy out. His eyes got wide, and I think he wanted to answer me but no words came. He mumbled something like “All right,” and then his arm got busy rolling his window up and he nodded to me in a fashion that said something between “Don’t kill me” and “Seek professional help” and he backed out of the parking lot.
Slowly.
And he was gone. And I was standing there.
Lurched.
He probably got on his cell phone to his wife and said: “We’re moving to Houston.”
I don’t know. I don’t mean to push my existential dread on complete strangers, but there I stood, now in an empty Circle K parking lot, thinking: What the hell are you doing? I lurched back to my car. I lurched home. And I’m sitting here at my desk—lurched, I might add—wondering where all this comes from.
There is no lesson here. No moral. Other than that we have to erase all the bad things we used to do around here—big and small—if we want to survive. We need to be civil. We need to be clean. We need to change. We need to respect ourselves and our city.
Otherwise, some disengaged crazy guy is going to accost you in a parking lot someday and make you wish you’d never gotten out of bed that morning. It will leave you in one serious lurch, my friend.
The Cat Lady
9/29/05
Ellen Montgomery’s house near Audubon Park was already almost invisible from the street before Hurricane Katrina shattered the massive cedar tree in her front yard and left a tangled, camouflaged mess that now obliterates the view of just about everything.
If anything, that helped her hide from the National Guard during the tense days—now ancient weeks ago—when word came that they were forcing those who had remained in New Orleans to leave.
“If I was out walking in the neighborhood and I heard the Hummers coming, I would duck down behind a porch or some broken shutters,” she said. “I felt like a Confederate spy in enemy territory.”