Arrival

The stewardess tapped me on the shoulder bringing me to a state of wakefulness. Bleary eyed I looked up to her. She was an older woman, late forties if I had to wager a guess. The years had not been too kind to her and one could see her time in customer service had permanently removed what may have been a wonderful smile. Her nearly gray blue eyes offset her muted brown hair, which looked like it had been dyed more than once recently. It was cut into a bob that did nothing to frame her face. I shifted my focus to her hands. They had a sense of aged life I could never understand. These hands looked like they had cut boulders. Plainly they had seen more life and misery than I ever would with my entire body. Scars ran up and down the tough skin pulled tight across her bulging veins and bird like bones. “Sir, we are about to land. I need you to bring your seatback up.”

I narrowed my eyes and found myself fixedly locked into her eyes; an unspoken battle of wills was raging. I’ve never understood the point of moving the back of the chair three inches forward for the safety of landing. I personally believe it is a sociological experiment some jackass devised to see if people would never question how a slight change in comfort would allow the plane to land better. A pilot once told me it was designed to allow people to get out of the plane quicker in case the plane had an emergency. The only emergency I can think of on final approach is a crash landing, and well, in that case. Who cares? We are probably all dead anyways. But since I didn’t really want to delay the landing of the plane on my account, I complied with her request and set the seat back. I gave her a little smile and was met with an icy cold stare. Perhaps it’s impossible to reach some people.

The smell of the recycled air on the plane was beginning to bother me. I shifted uneasily in the chair. Flight itself has never really bothered me nearly as much as the takeoffs and landings, with the latter being much more tortuous to me. I believe most people feel a sense of relief on final approach as their current leg of their journey is coming to a safe conclusion. For me, it is fraught with all the possible ways the pilot, a simple human like me, could smash the plane into the ground. The plane buffeted. I gripped the armrests with lightning reflexes. A sheaf of papers nearly fell out of my lap.

I have no idea why these thoughts always came to my head. Thousands of airplanes have landed so many times safely. But I guess it was a trend that has been part of my entire existence, to question and try and find fault in anything and everything around me. I’ve been trying to amputate this part of my personality for ages, but it always seems to stick to me.

The stewardess finally broke off her gaze. I was the victor of the staring, but little else was won. It seems my encounters with other people were more often than not becoming attritional. So much of my life had been spent being there for others, I was done trying to please people. I needed a way out and I found it, in an invitation from an old acquaintance.

Howard sent me a letter, who sends letters anymore?

In this letter it was related to me that he was in need of a sublet in New Orleans and every person he knew and tried had been a fruitless endeavor. The letter looked photocopied, so I assumed it had been sent to many people that were far cries from his close friends, it could even have been a scam. But at this point I was willing to follow any path open to me.

I had met Howard on a business trip to New Hampshire seven or eight years ago. Back when I had a steady job that forced me to maintain a regular schedule. Back when life seemed so much simpler. I would wake up, take my morning shower, get clothed, and drive to work. Stare at a computer screen for nine hours. Have a boss periodically come in and tell me to stop working on whatever I was working on and focus on a different project. This would happen two to three times a day. I gave up on even trying to finish anything.

My only reprieve would be the random trips to weird small towns across the country and my lunch hour. I coveted my lunch hour. I never actually ate lunch, or breakfast for that matter, I would only eat a massive dinner each night. My lunch hour was reserved for my one escape from this world.

It started about two months ago; I would receive a package in the mail every few weeks with a random short story. Each elegantly hand written, with a letter attached, the first one I ever received read as follows:

Dear V,

I hope all is well. I know we left it on bad terms, but I decided I would send you stories until the day we can meet again and resolve all the baggage between us. I miss you so much. Please be safe. You know how to find me; I wait for you every day.

-A.

On my lunch breaks I would go down by the river with the most current manuscript and get lost in the artistry painted by A. Whomever they were, they knew how to masterfully build a universe inside your head that was beautiful, sad, wonderful, crazy, clean, dirty, anything, nothing, and everything. You could feel the hope and sadness of A in each and every phrase, each and every story. I found myself only living to get the next manuscript. If one didn’t come before I had finished the newest one, I would go back and select one at random to reread.

The day my boss called me into his office to let me know I had been let go was such a blur. I was only partly there. The rest, well most, of me was walking through a forest in A’s most recent story. I had already decided that I didn’t have anything more left for me in this place, and figured it would be good to go try life in a completely different setting. And where better than America’s own largest port of sin, the crescent city, New Orleans.

I called the number listed at the bottom of the letter. Howard sounded very relieved to have anyone call. It seemed that he needed to be across the country with his estranged wife for reasons he would not disclose. He wouldn’t be able to afford keeping his apartment for the next three months to the end of the lease. He also wouldn’t be able to handle the large legal fees. Strangely, for all the things he was not, he was a man of his word. If he said he would pay someone, good deal or not, he would pay. It’s rare to find people like this nowadays. It seems most people just make promises and let them go.

I looked out the window at the quickly approaching tarmac. My muscles were tensing up as hard as they could. I closed my eyes and tried desperately to push all thoughts out of my head. I felt and heard the skidding sound of tires meeting runway. I was finally able to release the armrests and open my eyes. It seems so silly to get all worked up over something I have completely no control over. The plane will land or crash irrelevant of my actions, I’m pretty sure.

We had finally landed at Louis Armstrong Airport. The plane taxied into the terminal and I found my way to the cabstand. Most people would have found their way to the baggage claim, but I had no use for this futility. I sold everything I owned. I was on a one-way trip. The full extent of my possessions were the clothes on my back, and a small courier bag with all my money I had and the four manuscripts I had received at this point.

A very old man leaned up on his cab and stared at me intently. He wore a faded plaid short sleeve shirt of green and blue, had denim jeans that looked like they were recently pressed. When he realized that I was looking at him, he mouth crooked into a half smile. I walked up to him. “Need a ride?” he asked with a raspy voice.

“Certainly do.” I responded.

“Where to?”

“Say’s here I’m headed to the 2400 block of Royal Street in the… Marigny?”

“It’s pronounced Mary-knee, and I can get you there for a good price.”

“Sounds good.”

“Don’t look like you got any bags, what you in town for?”

“Searching for something.”

“Well I hope you find it.”

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.

“When I used to skip school we would walk the river front, cause it’s shorter. It don’t seem it, but you walk that river front all the way to Canal street it’s shorter than going up St Claude or something. You know? And we played ball and everything. Almost every Monday in football season we’d skip and go downtown. Just a bunch of stupid asses, I guess that’s what we were, really. You know? But uh, that’s how it was, you know? Did I tell you when I was a kid, son, trust me. We grew up poor. I mean dirt poor. Seven cents streetcar fare and you got four transfers with it for the seven cents. And that’s a fact. It was sevens cents for many many many years. Man, I could tell you stories. You know? And you say, ‘old man, he’s lying,’ and I’m not lying. I don’t have no reason to lie. You know? It’s the truth. Sometimes I can’t believe it. I tell my kids, they laugh at me.

“Ah, here we are. 2400 block of Royal. That’ll be 50 dollars.”

The trip had been so entertaining; I decided to give this old man a 100 dollar note. He started to get some change out. “Keep it, you seem to be a good man.”

“You sure? I mean, I’ll take it, but you know?”

“Absolutely, It was worth a bit of good company.”

“Alright, well you enjoy the city. If you need any more rides you go ahead and call me up.” He said handing me a business card; I took it, got out and closed the door. He drove off slowly.

As I exited the car, the air hit me like a wall of dank misery. It was unseasonably hot, well for what I would consider the season. I was a born and raised northerner, where seasons were always mild, except for the few freak occurrences. Winters that were extra cold and snow filled, summers that were so hot you could cook an egg on the sidewalk. But here, it felt like it was hot all the time, hot and humid.

I looked around me for the first time. Really looked. This city was amazing. It was all falling apart and decaying, but every house had a decently new coat of amazing vibrant paint. Not the traditional house colors you’d see in any other suburb or city, with their drab browns, grays, whites, and the occasional powder blue, or light yellow. No, here every house was a mixture of colors that would excite you. Purple with bright yellow shudders, greens, pinks, reds, and every other color under the sun. It had a certain whimsical feeling about it.

I walked up to the address that Howard had given me and knocked on the door. I had no idea what to expect. I wasn’t sure or not if Howard had already left, and what arrangements he had made for my arrival. An aged black woman opened the door. She stood much shorter than me, but perhaps that was just her age, years of gravity and life pulling her down. Her face was a mass of lines that went in every direction.

You could see that perhaps she had been a very beautiful youth, but the years had not been kind to her at all. She was at least reasonably thin. Not overweight, but not winning any skinny contests either. She wore a simple pink dress with green paisleys, with a white knit shawl over it. She looked up from her hand on the door to me. I was immediately sucked into her eyes. They were a vibrant hazel, with patched of milky white here and there. It was like looking pictures of galaxies I had seen in science books many years ago.

“Who’re you?” She asked producing a gnarled cane from her side in a offensive pose.

“I’m Green, Sheldon Green. Howard set up the sublet for this place for me. I believe you are Mrs. Flemming?”

“Oh! Well come on in deary. Yes, yes, I’m Mrs. Johanna Flemming.” The cane disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. “Can’t be too careful nowadays. Neighborhood ain’t what it used to be. Then again nothing is these days. Not even me. I wake up every morn with the aches in my bones so bad, I don’t much mind getting out of bed. But that’s age for you. And it’s been so hard since Jim passed these five years ago.” To this she clutched a locket around her neck and gave it a little kiss. “He left me alone and with all these properties to take car of. I ‘spose he left me something to keep busy with. Mr. Green you say?”

“Well most people just call me Green. No salutatories necessary for me.” To this she stopped and turned to me. Her eyes narrowed, and she examined me from head to toe. It felt like she was looking into my soul. Weighing each and every part of me. It was an uncomfortable few moments. Finally she smiled and continued into the house.

“Don’t know much about no salute-a-stories here. Nothing but good ole fashioned hospitality. If it’s Green you say, then Green it is. I think you’ll like it here. Most people do. It’s mostly quiet, and everyone generally keeps to themselves.”

I was barely listening to her. I was astounded by the architecture of the home. Vaulted ceilings, they had to be around sixteen feet high. Beautifully sculpted crown molding adorned the painted tin ceiling. There was a slight musty smell in the house, as if it had been lived in for a long time and barely ever got aired out. Hardwood floors beneath my feet creaked with each step. Light slowly filtered through the shuttered windows and dust slowly played in the beams of sunlight. In the corner was a cozy old armchair, threadbare. You could see that many a great story had been read in that chair. Next to it was a simple coffee table, the current newspaper sitting atop it, pristinely folded. I followed her back into the next room. This seemed to be the bedroom, there was a single bed with a nightstand next to it. Not much else to speak of, no wall hangings or anything.

“Beyond here, you’ll find the kitchen and the bathroom. Rent will be due on the first of every month and includes all the utilities… Green?” She poked me rather hard in the stomach with her cane.

“Yes?” I questioned, being brought back into the conversation rather abruptly. “Oh, I’ll just pay you cash now for the whole remainder of the lease, if you don’t mind?”

“Mind?” She said surprised. “I don’t mind getting a whole lot of cash all at once. Who would? I suspect I’ll be minding in a few months once I’ve spent it all, but now? It’d be just fine by me.”

I handed her an envelope with what Howard had told me would be the remainder of the lease. She snatched it, ripped it open, and started thumbing through the bills. This sort of behavior has never bothered me. It’s important to be sure you are not being swindled or short changed. Once satisfied that I had indeed given her the correct amount, She grinned ruefully.

“Well seems eveythin’s in order here. The keys to the place are on the nightstand in the bedroom. I left a note with my phone number on it. Call anytime day or night if you need anything. I suspect it’s hard showing up in a new city not knowing anyone. But you look a cunning type. I bet you’ll find your feet faster than you know it. I imagine you’ll want to get settled in and find some grub. I’d suggest the Verdé Mart just up the street in the Quarter. They make a wonderful Po-boy. Something to put some meat on your skinny bones.” She gave a wry smile at this last statement.

“Thank you so much Mrs. Flemming…”

“Johanna, dear.” She interjected.

“Sorry, Johanna. It’s been a pleasure.” I smiled.

“Oh, the pleasures all mine.” She said as she clutched the envelope. “Just make sure you don’t go round getting the police all up in here. I don’t like having to deal with them much.”

“I’ll be sure to keep my nose clean. Good day Johanna.”

“Good day Green.” She ambled out of the door and shut it gently behind herself.

I walked over to the door and bolted the lock. It was finally time to decompress. I deposited my bag on the table by the reading chair and slumped into it. This chair was brilliant. Whoever had crafted it was pure genius. Or perhaps it was the decades that people’s bodies had carved out the perfect feeling for sitting on a hot summer day to read or nap. I looked out the window by the chair, there was a blue house next door, but above that I could see the sky with a few lazy clouds hanging around. For one brief moment everything felt just right.

My bag slipped off the table and spewed onto the floor the four stories I had received at this point. I was sure before I left to set up a mail forward for the new ones, since whoever V was, they obviously weren’t getting them, or possibly would appreciate them the way that I was.

-V-