Post-Katrina New Orleans had a mixed feeling of the flooded disaster
of 2005 and the history of a world that existed unto itself from the way that
much of America lived. The mix of French heritage, debauchery, pre-Civil War
Southern influence, modern urban life, and voodoo all came together in an
eerie, but unique way that made the city a distinctive expression unto itself. This
combination either made the town one of the premier American travel
destinations or a Sodom and Gomorrah to avoid.
In addition to the high-class shopping areas and jazz clubs,
there was the impoverished devastation of the Ninth Ward as it waited behind
levees to be flooded again. Down the streets from this, mansions stood proud
and tall in the Garden District. Just outside the city, plantations drew crowds
to marvel at a historical way of life that the guides now told with a small
apology at the end for slavery. Of course, there was an opportunity for mint juleps
along the way. However, no matter where the crowds went, there was a feeling of
being haunted by the restless spirits of a past that still flourished amidst
the street performers and paddle boats.
From the mix of Spanish and French architecture to the above
ground cemeteries, the town was alive with a flavor all its own. What’s more
than the average tourism appeal that they city offered, this “flavor” had very
little to do with absinthe, gumbo, Hand Grenades, jambalaya, or blackened
catfish. Perhaps, it had something to do with the counter-cultural call of the voodoo
business of Marie Laveau. Then again, maybe it was the witching and vampire world
built up by Anne Rice, memories of the Carter Brothers murders, or the
mysterious coffin-shaped boxes in the Old Ursuline Convent. If that was case
for these hordes descending on the city, then it was only a superficial and
pretend understanding of what the truth in those stories truly represented.
Maybe New Orleans was more than that as the jazz of Congo Square
and Louis Armstrong, which the white world segregated itself from, despite
their habit of naming bars and music halls after it, still floated into the
humid air of this swampland. Then again, there were the bored housewives and
other privileged classes who snuck into the clubs to hear the lustful musical
notes of the sexual world of jazz and the sweet release of the blues as told
through gravelly voices and out of tune acoustic guitars. The big brass band blew
hard into trumpets and trombones to express the primal feeling of joy from deep
inside their souls. Everyone knew how these everyday people would get curious
about the darkened nature of these mysterious Caribbean types or the jazz world
and its personalities. While the women would buy medical dolls labeled voodoo
dolls, the men would attend quadroon balls to enter into placage contracts. Naïve
and prejudice-reared people and their fortunes are quickly parted, especially
when they’re told what they want to hear.
To add humor and warning to these historical tales and
present news articles, the men and women who ran the city and ghost tours would
speak of how the Crescent City was founded by pirates, pickpockets, and prostitutes,
as well as how the city’s open container laws only recently changed. When the
history was explained, it made perfect sense, and the groups continued
wandering along Conti Street, Bourbon Street, and Burgundy Street to find their
way to Canal Street and the walled off tombs in the heart of the French
Quarter.
Everyone who braved the spirits and hurricanes to come here
knew how special the city was. Sure, Mardis Gras and the Saints brought the
tourists in so that they could find their way to Preservation Hall and the bars
of the city that served mixed drinks in plastic goldfish bowls. This
combination brought the horny men who threw beads to the balconies in hopes of
receiving a glimpse of boobs. And as they did, tourist couples and families
would find their way into shops for cheap T-shirts and souvenirs of women
fornicating with alligators.
Nevertheless, the real feeling came from somewhere else, as along
the way, young African American children would beat on gigantic plastic paint
cans that were almost as big as they were with a feverish determination to
achieve musical ecstasy. Slapping their makeshift sticks in the same way that
their musical elders would play their own beats on “real” instruments, the
crowds stood in awe to watch them, too. Still, at every other corner, bigger
bands with brass accompaniment wailed out the harmonies of the town to speak of
the truth of NOLA in front of the shadow of Jesus on St. Louis Cathedral, as
painters offered up their art for pennies on the dollar.
Tightly confined streets featured colorful buildings and decorative
palm trees that punctuated the passageways. Along the uneven pavements, giant
bubbles would float through the drunken crowds, who were no longer consciously
able to avoid the septic puddles in the potholes of the streets. Standing in
the shadow between cars or mixed with crowds, local business people and waiters
warned of thieves, who lurked at every turn. Additionally, beggars seemed magnetically
drawn to everyone who appeared to have a fat wallet.
The mixed bag of New Orleans was alive and well throughout
the restaurants, drag shows, bars, curio shops, art studios, and strip clubs
that made up a world that tourists demanded from this mecca to the hedonistic
world of the lewd and lascivious.
In the midst of it all, traffic jams and jaywalkers hustled
from side to side as construction crews hurried to repair the city for the next
endless Fat Tuesday celebration and six weeks of parades that led up to it. Through
the honking of horns and drifting street music sounds, endless lines of people
stood waiting for beignets. Still other tourists hustled by the shops, too busy
to notice the hanging flower baskets and the police Smart Cars, statues to
leaders of the past, horse drawn carts, and the smell of garbage slowly
decaying. Instead, it was all bars and lingerie mannequins in the windows as
the bars beckoned them for huge ass beers or enormous mixers.
Sometimes, it was the call of the voodoo and witchcraft
shops, but for the curiosity that they offered, the evil-eye owners and
enormous bouncer-esque guards that stood watch inside made sure that nobody did
anything stupid like belittling the merchandise. Heaven and Hell forbid that
someone try to take a picture or video inside! Satan and Baphomet would rise up
from their netherworld kingdoms to destroy the offending iPhone on the spot!
For that reason, it was no surprise that here was where the
intersection of all of those antagonists who S1 fought on The Whale were getting ready to convene to establish the next phase
of their mission.
