The cats scattered like marbles. The woman nodded and made a motion with her head for me to follow her inside and up a dark mahogany stairway, whose unkempt wood creaked under each purposeful step. On the third floor was a giant room, dusty, vaulted ceilings, more un-maintained hardwood, connected to other rooms that appeared to go on as far as the house had seemed to. My heart fell. I did not need, nor could I afford, this much space.
“Three hunert dollars fo’ de month,” the woman said, as if reading my mind. “An’ fifty for de bed.”
I became jittery with relief, $75.00 a week, I could afford it. “Fifty for the bed?”
“State law. Sanitize bed between lodgings. Fo’ bedbugs.”
And a clean bed. What more could I ask?
I had hoped to run into That Man somehow. I visualized him at every street corner I rode by, in every bar I went to. But I knew he was gone; I had received his one letter when I was on Maui. He’d moved to Waveland, full-time at the Yacht Club I was certain, and that was too far to ride on my bike.
So I took the city into my veins, looking at its ancient buildings through my Minolta’s viewfinder by day, processing it with chemicals at night in a rented darkroom uptown, living the beat of it with free happy hour food, cheap drinks, and conversations with characters in bars. I sunk into Anne Rice’s Feast of all Saints, walking the French Quarter streets with my nose in the book, imagining the 1840’s New Orleans presented on the pages. I was happy in this temporary reprieve from the rest of my life. I enjoyed my aloneness where I was free to fully feel all my angst, want, and dread. I wondered what I seemed like to others, this girl alone on her trip. Did I seem odd? Or was I just another dysfunctional thread in the great tapestry of the city? Did I fit right in, with all these people who were like me in a way, searching, scarred by something, wanting something, but not able to find it? Some however, the ones sitting on barstools gazing at their drinks defeatedly, had stopped searching. Would that ever be me?
I spent days exploring the tiny crowded French Quarter streets, photographing old black artists selling their wares in Jackson Square, and stopping into Maspero’s for a bowl of gumbo and a beer. I watched people leaving Arnaud’s, Court of Two Sisters, and Antoines, with bellies full and pockets light. I listened to stories from locals who had never been outside Louisiana, or New Orleans for that matter, and I envied them in a way. To have the simple goal of waking up every day loving where they were. Like I felt now, in my short, lovely limbo.
Other days I stayed uptown. I rode through the Garden District photographing well-preserved historic southern mansions, I explored the small antique and junk stores of Magazine Street, or I rode upriver as far as I could until October’s relentless heat forced me back uptown into an air conditioned barroom.
I wandered the old World’s Fair site turned riverfront shopping Mecca. I watched tourists buy colorful purple green and gold Mardi Gras trinkets, porcelain masks, and Saint’s memorabilia. The food court there was a good one, three bucks to fill up on a spicy bowl of gumbo or crawfish étouffée. Even fast food in New Orleans is good.
The blissful rhythm of my days changed one night as I sat in Cooter Brown’s at the river’s bend. (Another place to fill my belly cheaply: two bucks for boudin, a Cajun sausage of pork and rice). I’d just gotten off the phone with Husband, who reminded me to call Albert for our boss, Chuck Sanders. Albert –– whom I had never met –– had been the company accountant during Expo’84, and Chuck had entrusted some stored items with him. He needed them shipped up to Vancouver. Well, this jolly guy sitting next to me at the bar, who seemed very un-accountant-like, and whose conversation was very much like that of a childhood pal, turned out to be Expo ’84 Albert.
“Well,” he announced when he realized who I was, “buy the Expo chef a shot of Jägermeister!”
The bartender dashed up with the chilled shot.
To my still look of shock after our mutual introduction, Albert said, “Don’t worry; I shipped the Expo stuff up last week. So you don’t have to call me. Cheers! Do you like road trips?”
“I love road trips.”
“Y’ever been to the Tabasco Factory on Avery Island?”
I took advantage of the odd synchronicity. The calmness of my quietly drawn-out days morphed into adventurous day trips into Acadiana with loads of alcohol, LSD, and Cajun music blasting from Albert’s car stereo. We were two merry pranksters exploring the terrain, me with cameras, Albert always planning our next swamp romp. He was a relentless party hound, a big lovable squish toy of a man, always laughing, not taking anything seriously, which contrasted with my way-too-serious attitude about everything. I now laughed freely and dove right into a short love affair with this man, his lifestyle of who-the-fuck-cares-about-anything feeding a very hungry part of my soul.
We made love in a swamp, ate artichoke pizza on Magazine Street, and took a day trip to the fishing village Delacroix, where we smoked a joint and blasted Dylan’s Tangled up in Blue and screamed out the lyric, “worked for a while on a fishing boat right outside of Delacroix,” while gazing out at the muddy horizon. We watched the New Orleans Saints, football being one of Albert’s passions. He taught me how to watch his bedraggled team play the game, and I learned all the terms, the plays, the scoring. Even this was fun. Everything was fun. I was a girl who needed fun.