I got into the cab and
looked out at the airport as we left.
“How long is this going to
take? And what part of the city am I going to?” I pondered out loud.
“It’s ‘bout a thirty
minute ride, and you’re going to a real nice part of the city. Bustled right up
next to the Quarter. It’s right next to the Tremé. Ain’t it funny how cities
work. One street like Saint Claude separates a decent neighborhood like the Bywater
from a pit like the Tremé.”
“What do you mean?” I
asked.
“Well, I tell you what, I’ve
been in this city my whole life. And it’s poor over there, but they live better
than a lot of poor people do, believe me. ‘Casue uh, I used to collect for the
loan company years ago and I’ve been in some of those projects, man. The people,
They just didn’t have nothing. Sometimes I wouldn’t try to collect, I’d leave
them a dollar if I had it to buy something for their kids. It was that bad. I
was born back…
“I’ve been doing this 40
years, so it’s been, quite a while back. In fact the projects is all torn down I
think. But we had a bunch of projects here when I was a young man. But most of
them were white back when I was a kid. Cause uh, New Orleans was probably 85 or 90 percent white. You
know?”
As he droned on I found
myself staring out the window at all the flat land with random trees sticking
out. It was all so green and swamp like, but still felt very dry, as if it had
once been a nasty swamp that the waters had receded from and left a lush green
graveyard in its wake. It gave a sense quiet serenity.
“So yeah, it’s changed.
That’s what I said. It changed, I mean, but everything’s changed. We had 150
million people, 130 million when I was born in 1929, now we got 300 and
something million. So, You can see right there, where you got lots of changes.”
“Yeah, the world’s gotten
a whole lot crazier.” I put in.
“It’s getting it, the
populations killin’ us. We killing ourself environmentally really. And we do
pretty good though, considering. I mean really, You know? I still eat good, I
still can take a bath every day. Got a decent house to live in. Good job.”
“You sound like you got a
pretty good mind on you,” I interjected.
“Well I got good common
sense, son, I guess. You know? I think that means… I don’t have a college degree,
I’m a high school graduate. But in my day that was good. You didn’t particular
have the money to send you to college, you were lucky to go to high school. I
was fortunate to do that.”
I found myself staring now
at thousands of tombs, as far as one could see. I was so unaccustomed to seeing
tombs and not grave markers. It was quite overwhelming. I had heard once that
they had to practice this since the water level is so high in here, that if
they buried someone six feet under, the next storm would see them coming back.
-V-
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