1 Dead in Attic

by Chris Rose

  At one point I looked up and saw my seven-year-old daughter driving an off-road four-wheeler and I don’t even know how to drive a four-wheeler myself and you turn your head for one minute in the country and somebody teaches your kid something.

  It’s like that.

  After the completion of three lawn mower races, one of the riders opined, “You know you’re a redneck when . . .,” and he didn’t finish the phrase because we all knew it and it truly was a moment, families gathered together, dogs barking, fish frying, barefoot kids running all over the place, the sun setting on Saturday-afternoon America.

  But it’s not so country as it used to be in and around Picayune these days, in and around the entire north shore and Louisiana/Mississippi border region, actually, and on that long stretch between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

  As the southern Louisiana and Mississippi coastlines disappear—literally—residents’ fear rises proportionally and only a thrill seeker would want to live near the coast now.

  People, people, everywhere inland now. And you can see them all so easily because it seems that half the trees in Dixie were swept away in the wind and twisters of a year ago.

  I was with my kids and my nephew tooling around the country roads in Picayune and we stopped at a cul-de-sac by a pond where we used to hang out and do nothing and all the boys—three kids and me—got out to whiz at the end of the road, a place we have whizzed many times before in privacy.

  I guess I hadn’t noticed that a house had been built right there by the pond—it happens that fast—and the view out of that home’s living room window at that moment was the backsides of a bunch of boys relieving themselves on the side of the road and I guess you’ve got to be mindful when new people start moving in, when a place starts to get crowded and everything changes and the comforts of privacy—this land is my land—begin to disappear.

  When I started going to Picayune twelve years ago, my in-laws lived in near isolation in the woods. They began selling off pastureland to build houses about two years ago.

  They got in on the pre-Katrina building boom of Hancock and Pearl River counties, favored destinations for folks from St. Bernard and St. Tammany parishes who found their neighborhoods too crowded, too city, for their tastes anymore.

  Since Katrina, the market has soared, and now there are homes going up all over what used to be woods and meadows. Land is being cleared at an astonishing pace as the area becomes home for folks who were pushed out of or gave up on the New Orleans area but who want to stay close to the mother ship nonetheless—it’s only an hour away—on land that won’t flood.

  With the influx of New Orleanians comes change, of course. The top story on page one of this past Sunday’s Picayune Item newspaper (“Serving Pearl River County Since 1904”) began thus: “Petitions have been circulating in Pearl River County to allow the sale of liquor in Pearl River County, and to allow the sale of beer and light wine county wide, but religious organizations are rallying in an effort to defeat the petitions.”

  Troubled times, they have come. To your hometown.

  It’s an economic issue, a county revenue issue, a restaurant issue, and, of course, a lifestyle issue. The newspaper speculates that the possible vote on the November ballot could swing on how many “additional people in the county” register to vote in time.

  “Additional people.” That’s us. The new kids on the block, all across America. It’s a better term than “evacuees,” which sounds so temporary and fraught with emergency.

  And I guess the additional people could accurately be figured to constitute the swing vote because, of all the people I know who have moved away in recent years—and I know many, both before and since Katrina—they have cited many reasons for leaving New Orleans (crime, education, politics, opportunity), but not one of them ever told me it was to get away from all that beer and wine.

  It’s funny, but out there in the Great Elsewhere that is America, New Orleans seems to get most or all of the focus of the national media. As if this whole thing happened only in a place called the Lower 9th Ward. As the memory and images and impact of Katrina fade in the national consciousness, so, too, it seems, does the geographical and emotional scope of its damages, not to mention Rita’s. From the Texas border to Mobile Bay, a huge swath of America took a grenade. And everything changed everywhere.

  And we muddle through the changes, geographical, cultural, political.

  In Mississippi, I suppose it’s only a matter of time before someone squawks about that infamous sign at the entrance to the town on Memorial Boulevard right off the interstate, the one that proclaims, “Jesus is Lord over Picayune.”

  It looks like one of those green, government-issue signs, not a private billboard bought by a church, and that’s going to bug someone, eventually.

  The times, they are a-changin’. Or maybe not. Will there be rush hour in Picayune one day? A Daiquiri’s drive-through?

  Jesus drank wine, we all know that part. Maybe everything comes full circle, becomes part of the whole. Everyone’s in this together, right?

  So saddle up the lawn mowers and grab a bottle of easy peace—purchased in Louisiana, of course, for now—and forget about your cares. Gather near your loved ones and let the party start. Let the good times roll. Let the music play. Let the wild things run.

  It’s Saturday afternoon in America.

  The Purple Upside-Down Car

  Second Line, Same Verse

  3/21/06

  It has always been the greatest allure of this city that you could travel a very short distance and completely disappear into somebody else’s life and culture and, generally, that somebody else would welcome you or—at the very least—tolerate your presence.

  Back in the late ’80s and mid ’90s, I was all over the map. My Saturday nights would be spread from the rough-and-tumble biker joints of Fourth Street in Marrero to the Vietnamese billiards halls in the East to the Latin dance clubs in Kenner to evangelical tent revivals in Bridge City to the Cajun roadhouse scene down in Crown Point.

  I’ve always had a fascination with hanging out in places with large crowds of people who are nothing like me. A culture vulture? Yeah, I suppose.

  I remember an amazing and nearly mystical dance hall in the shape of a green pagoda off Canal Street in what amounted to the city’s teacup version of Chinatown—now long gone—where Asian Madonna wannabes imported from L.A. used to seduce massive, sweaty crowds.

  I remember Dorothy’s Medallion on Orleans Avenue, watching Walter “Wolfman” Washington back up Johnny Adams while he warbled love songs that could change the world.

  This, I used to think. I like this.

  When I first stumbled onto the second-line scene down in the Treme and Central City, my life was energized. I was hooked from the moment I fell into my first snaking street parade of horn players and revelers bumping and grinding through neighborhoods I had never seen before—or at least had seen only through my car windows.

  This was about twelve years ago, right after I met the woman who would become my wife. In fact, much of our early courtship took place on the parade grounds of this city. Kelly and I would bounce along the streets to the blockbuster vibes of the city’s brass lions on Sunday afternoons and duck into dark corner bars to check out the score of the Saints game and we’d nod and shuffle in the way that white people who are dressed all wrong do when they’re hanging out with a bunch of black folks who are truly tripping the light fantastic.

  We danced, we got drunk, and we were long, long gone into the unbearable lightness of being in New Orleans. We became part of the scene, made friends, shed our self-consciousness, and just blended in.

  Occasionally, there would be a menacing character or two—or more, quite frankly—lurking around the edges of these celebrations, particularly at the end of the parades, when massive street parties would form, streets would clog, and evening would come.

  But we never felt personally threatened. Ever. We’d introduce friends to the scene,
telling them: You gotta check this out. But mostly, we realized that big chunks of our social circle had no particular interest in joining this ritual of ours.

  Then one afternoon, about ten years ago, Kelly and I broke a run of many, many consecutive weeks of second-lining to do something else on a Sunday afternoon; I don’t know what, but it must have been important for us to skip out on our favorite pastime.

  That afternoon, in August 1995, the second line we missed ended in gunfire, lots of gunfire, two dead and six wounded on St. Bernard Avenue. We didn’t go the next Sunday, either. Nor the next. Somewhere in there, there was another shooting at a parade.

  At this point, we felt personally threatened. As weeks and months passed—or am I embellishing this out of frustration?—it seems the Monday-morning paper would too often carry a story about a shooting or a stabbing on or very near a second-line route the day before.

  These clippings litter the files of The Times-Picayune, leaving a bad smell.

  We had kids now, Kelly and I. A part of this city’s culture that I desperately wanted them to know and understand and embrace was out of our reach. It was not an option. I wasn’t going to lead my kids into danger simply because Daddy thinks they need to be dialed into the fundamental currents of my city.

  With the exception of a few high-profile events—Ernie K-Doe’s funeral, the Mardi Gras Indians on Fat Tuesday, or Super Sunday—the second-line scene was dead to me.

  Then, earlier this year, word got out about the big homecoming second line in the city and it was said that thousands of folks were coming from exile in Texas and Mississippi and that the Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs were going to replant their flag in this city and take back their streets and bring back what is among the most vital and enduring traditions of New Orleans.

  I told my wife that Sunday afternoon: Things are different now. The city is different.

  Let’s take the kids.

  And we did. We didn’t catch as much of the parade as I would have liked; we caught up with it on the very busy and inhospitable Rampart Street, where car traffic was all backed up, instead of a cozy side street where the walkers rule.

  But we saw it. My kids saw it. I have no idea if it registered with them, but I didn’t care because now I knew: We can do this again. We can go back to the second lines and our kids can understand this city in ways others don’t and—let’s cut to the chase here—I can dance in the streets again and not give a damn how stupid I look.

  There is a tangible freedom in dancing in the street. I ask you: What better public expression of joy exists? Where else in the world do horn players and drummers just wake up in the morning, strap on their instruments, and start wandering around making an unholy racket and then hundreds, thousands of dancing lemmings fall in and follow them to the sea?

  Well, you know how that second line ended. Gunfire. Blood. Sirens. A thousand people there and no witnesses to the crime, police would later report.

  It was a day of profound disgrace for this city and one that probably would have had greater impact and provoked very heated and very uncomfortable public discourse had not our mayor given a famous speech the next day that completely distracted the citizenry from the violence at hand.

  We focused on the Chocolate City instead of the Killing Fields.

  No matter. My wife and I decided not to go back to the second-line parades again. It’s not for us, I thought. There is such a disconnect between my value system and the culture of guns that permeates our streets that I don’t even have the words to make sense of it.

  My kids don’t know what happened at the end of that parade, and I’m not going to tell them. We do other things on Sunday afternoons because the odds of their getting capped at the zoo are pretty slim.

  And then there was this weekend. Hundreds of folks in from Texas and Mississippi, trying to regain their footing and traction here, trying to get back into the New Orleans life cycle, and here comes a gang-banger bent on revenge and willing to put his entire community at risk to prove he is a man worthy of respect.

  Nobody of reason wants this. Black, white, no one. And in the same news cycle a guy walking in the Frenchmen Street music district takes a bullet in the chest—after surrendering his wallet to a thug.

  So here we are. Back where we were before, when locals and visitors alike cowered in fear of the predatory generation we have loosed unto our community.

  You can’t care about this city and then read about this crap and shrug and say either (A) It’s not my problem or (B) That’s just the way it is.

  That’s not just the way it is. It is perversion and error.

  And it is your problem. Our problem.

  Our city lies in such delicate balance that the return of indiscriminate killing ranks right up there with another hurricane as a compelling reason to pack your bags and get the hell out of town while you’re still alive.

  The psychic toll of Sunday’s police blotter is immeasurable. And it is fodder for the New Orleans haters, the tolerance fighters, and the racial jihadists—of both colors—who think that murder is what this city is about.

  I reject it.

  It’s not us.

  Don’t Mess with Mrs. Rose

  2/21/06

  As I loaded my two sons in the car to head off to the pet store Sunday afternoon, I saw a guy walking on the sidewalk across the street.

  He wore all the trappings of generic urbania: oversized jacket, big baggy pants, all in black. He was traveling alone, with very busy eyes, taking in the details between houses on my street.

  Before Katrina, I was a fairly attuned city dweller; I’ve generally had a good nose for trouble. So I was dialed in on this guy.

  As I pulled away from the curb, I thought about making the block, doubling back just to make sure everything was copacetic. That’s what I would have done in the past; I’ve done it many times.

  But I have developed this profoundly naive notion that if you are in this city right now, living in this mess, you are one of us. I have this delusional optimism that we’re all in this together.

  Of course, this doesn’t make sense, because not one day goes by that I don’t hear from people in Lakeview, Fontainebleau, Gentilly, and the East who tell me that their houses are getting looted. Repeatedly. Still.

  But I didn’t make the block. I told myself this cat just happens to favor thug fashion regardless of how people may react to him and treat him as a result, and that’s his business, not mine.

  I guess I’d sound like a cranky old fart if I suggested he dress like—I don’t know—me?

  So it turns out that, two minutes after I pulled away, my wife saw my bicycle flash by our living room window. She ran to the front door to find this guy mounted and ready to roll.

  The purpose of this theft can only have been a joyride, an easy way home for a lazy thief, because there is absolutely no black market for my bike. It is a rusted, dorky dad bike, one speed—but not retro—with a bulky child seat mounted on the back.

  I’ve always had a particular fascination with people who steal stuff that obviously belongs to kids.

  Anyway, my wife, she’s like me: a little raw. A little roughed up by all of this. With all that can go wrong around here on a minute’s notice, she’s in no mood to let her day be ruined by a punk, a bad guy, part of the problem.

  So she unfurled a bloody tirade against this guy, who may or may not have been armed but was so stunned by her fury that he babbled some lie about “That guy said I could borrow it” and she continued with her furious but rather persuasive diatribe.

  She grabbed the bike. He got off and walked away.

  “Moseyed,” she tells me.

  Since I moved to this city twenty-two years ago, I have been stolen from more times than I can count on both hands. I was burglarized three times in my present home before I got an alarm system and a crazy dog. In my former house in the Marigny, I was burglarized twice.

  I have been cleaned out, literally. One thief was apparently a 40 re
gular, because he stole my clothes in addition to everything else. And never mind the litany of bikes, weed whackers, garden tools, and other small stuff that has walked off my property for the past two decades.

  The same thing has probably happened to you, a lifetime of petty aggravations—some not so petty—that amount to a constant assault against your peace of mind.

  Amazing, how you can adapt to a life surrounded by thievery. How you can accept as part of your lifestyle the fact that a huge number of people you live near would steal anything you’ve got lying around if you turned your back for just one moment.

  The post-Katrina looting is still the most disturbing thing to me about this whole Grand Catastrophe: how some citizens of our community turned on their own, using the devastation as an open call to Christmas in New Orleans.

  Everything for free. The wasted homes of Lakeview, Fontainebleau, Gentilly, and the East? Just take what you can find in the ruins.

  I ask you: What kind of man picks over the bones of a destroyed life?

  I am not naive enough to believe in a theft-free city; a few junkie burglars are inevitable in any society, even the most civil. But a town teeming with opportunistic predators is not in my job description anymore.

  We don’t have to suffer the ills of our past. You know, Dawn of a New Day, and all that. And this ragged sumbitch is lucky I didn’t make the block and come back and find him coming out of my backyard.

  I’m pretty sure I would have run him over.

  Yes, for a stupid bicycle.

  I’m not going to take this crap anymore. I’m not going to let two-bit predators get inside my head—and yard and car and house. I’m not going to secure my psyche with a lock and chain as I have for all these years.

  I shouldn’t have to put up with this while my city tries to put itself back together.

  And if you think I’m all worked up about this, trust me: You do not want to cross my wife when she is walking on the edge.