New Orleans II

“This doesn’t even seem like a police car.” I said as I stepped out of the red 72 Pontiac GTO. 

We had driven a short while, getting out of the French Quarter. He was nice enough to let me leave Chewy in my car, windows cracked before we handle our business. Which as it continued on I grew more and more suspicious that he didn’t actually wanna arrest me. 

I nodded to the car. “I mean for one thing it only has two doors and the back seat is so small I could lean forward and bite your ear off. Like aren’t you supposed to have a barrier? Like a plexi-glass wall or something? At this rate, why wouldn’t you let me sit up with you?”

“It’s my car you sack of shit. I'll tell you where to sit. No druggies up front. That’s rule number one.” He poked a fat finger up in front of my face. “You're still my bitch remember that. But if you behave maybe…” He poked me in the chest after removing my handcuffs. “Maybe” He reiterated. Another poke. 

“Ow”

“I’ll let that concealed carry slide. But if you fuck with me. Well I'll run your name too and see how many warrants you got. Then you’re even more fucked.”

I didn’t think I had any. But for me, being in front of a person with a modicum of power is intimidating. Especially one short triggered like him. I had been up to some antics. Maybe I was wanted for dodging funeral fees or an unpaid speeding ticket. I didn’t know. But that illegal firearm charge would definitely stick. For him it’s just some paperwork to do, a flippant flick of his pen that he’d rather not do. But to me it's life altering. Life ruining. Then again… why should I give a fuck? My life was supposedly over. But not before I found Tim. 

“I would greatly appreciate it.” I rubbed my wrists where the cuffs had bit in. Mostly because that’s what they do in the movies. “I’ll help you out anyway that I can. Sir... What was your name again?” 

“I didn’t give it.” 

“Oh is that on purpose?”

“You goddamn right.” He leaned in. His forehead lines were as sharp as the smell coming off of him. Then his features softened somewhat, even behind the ‘80 shades. “We are gonna be acting unofficial here. I’m undercover. Alright? And I'm considering you my informant. How the informant gets his info. That's off the books. And me helping you is off the books too. It’s only after you get me what I want is when we’ll go all lights and sirens. But we are acting on our own. That's the way I like it. And that’s the way you are gonna want to keep it.” He slapped my shoulder hard and stared at me until I looked down at my ratty sneakers. 

“Alright let’s go have this meeting.” He nodded his head to follow him. 

I assumed we were just parking here just because. But his stride said otherwise.

“We are having this meeting at a Waffle House?” I asked while catching up to him.

“Hell, Everyone loves Waffle House.” He replied. 

~

This was the second time he came back from using the bathroom in just a thirty minute period. 

“Fuel up let’s get going.”

I finished up yolk soaked hash browns. “Am I in any danger going up into this camp?”

“Maybe, why should I give a fuck?” He said flatly, sunglasses still on. 

“Well you know that fact, like, might affect my performance”

“You’ll be okay. You might get mugged or they might push that hooch on you but you won’t die. Now when you find out where Pablo is. That’s when things get hairy.”

“I don’t have to go with you for that though right?”

“You do if you want some of that good crank” he ran a finger under his nose and snorted a laugh. 

“That’s not what I was asking about, again.” I looked at him for the upteenth time. He was too pleased with himself to listen to me. “I wanted some cash.” 

“Some crack yeah.” He nodded, looking at the waitress’ ass. 

I dropped the silverware on the plate and slid it away from me. Letting it all clatter together. He raised an eyebrow at me, itched his nostrils, and flicked whatever he found there towards me. I ignored him. “Cash.” I said again and for the last time.

“Alright, cash. Whatever. Sure. Well this Pablo he loves gaming. He’s been known to back people as well, from what I hear.” He shrugged. “At least a couple of times. For craps tourneys or poker or people that say they can count cards. Of course they can’t as well as they think then he’s seen riding around town in their whip. Or sporting their gold glocks”

“So he might run with some loan sharks?”

“Sure does,” he said, crossing his arms and leaning back.

“You mean it? This lil Pablo ain’t just pushing drugs. He makes deals with gamblers? He might know the man I told you about.”

He leaned in again. “If anyone does, it will be him. Kay? Now let’s go find his ass and ask him. He’s been pushing this shit for too long. I know he laces his shit with fentanyl. Or sells it outright, which is even worse. Motherfucker is responsible for most of the bodies found in the morning.” His fist curled up a napkin. And that look alone made me think he was a noble man once.

Maybe he had the right reasons when joining the police, then dealt with one too many dead drug users or gang members that preludes a pile of paperwork and he lost it. Or maybe off the bat he wanted to act like a Denzel-knock-off in Training Day. Who knows. But I felt the anger in his voice and it rallied me somewhat, made me think he’d keep his word and let me go. He was after bigger fish than me. 

Then that look of his, that stoicness cracked around his eyes, he looked guilty. “My last informant died using his trash. She did it to herself I guess. But still... What I don’t get is how someone is gonna choose that life? Look at themselves and think that’s right where they wanna be. Sleeping on the street? I mean come on.” He looked away from the bits of food on his plate, disgusted. I didn’t think it would be a good time to ask if I could eat what was left. I mean it was basically a whole pecan waffle and half of his smothered hash browns. 

“Fucking junkies man. Can’t fucking function in this society. What a joke.” He snorted again and threw his napkin on his plate as in the universal sign of ‘i’m done’.

Damn. Well, maybe I could pluck that off or eat around it? 

But he proceeded to hand the plate to the waitress walking by. What a waste. I mourned the loss of food briefly before I spoke. 

“I don’t think most people are happy where they are in life. Are you? Homeless or not. Drugged up or not. There’s always something we’re missing. Something to work for. But going after it is hard. It’s damn hard. You gotta be uncomfortable. Then you get it and it’s not great or you gotta keep working for that NEXT thing. It’s unending. It’s that remodeled house, or paying off the doctor bill, it’s finishing that book.” I shrugged. His eyes were lost behind those black marble sunglasses. “It gets old fast. It’s boring. Going after things and being unsatisfied. It’s sickening even. What if you’re wrong again? Or what if you fall short? What if the failures start stacking up. You’re wrong so much in this life. You get sick of it. You get older, you get sick of it. You get comfortable in your situation however lackluster it is. However bland or bad it is. And sure, maybe you’re not happy but, hell, you’re not anything. Years pass you by. You’re not sure how you got there and you’re ashamed to admit it… Sometimes being nothing is easier.”

He looked at me for a long while before finally muttering under his breath. “Fucking junkies man.” Shook his head, stood up while cinching up his pants. “Hold up here I gotta piss again.” 

~

I got lost in the tight streets and one way roads pressed together by tall buildings. It was the downtown district we were going through. No more flat bayou style houses. But as we passed the football stadium I understood this area was best seen on game day. As it stood now, deserted, the superdome stood like a pyramid in Egypt. A behemoth of metal to ponder at. And in it’s silence around it was old criss-crossed lifted highways circling it like buzzards. Hidden in the shade of it all was shanty towns and tents set up. With the occasional weary faces poking out of tents. You could smell the musk from here with cracked windows. I bet that’s where we are going. 

If I was a king of vagabonds that’s where I'd make my paltry throne. 

The logo on the side of the football stadium stuck with me for a while. I didn’t rightly know why. It looked different, is what I finally decided. Was the Fleur-de-lis wrong? The symbol of the Saints stood proudly on it’s side, next to it above the northern entrance faded white letters read Louisiana Superdome. 

I thought it was the Mercedez-Benz Superdome? Or am I mistaken? 

I never followed football but it's a famous enough stadium, the rights were valued and it was a big hubbub when it was renamed. I didn’t wanna ask Officer Shades on account of his irritability and attitude of ‘I will hit you if you ask stupid questions’. So I kept my mouth shut thinking of more important things.

A little while later we stopped by the bay side and shipping district. Winding and backtracking to get under the highway pass. I saw around this industrial district were boarded up buildings and shops with tall metal fences and razor wire. Near the waterfront were moseying flatships and stacks of shipping containers in yards with high fencing. But under the highway was a campground of lean-tos, and dirty multicolored tents, patched sleeping bags laying around. 

I saw some approaching men. They shuffled to me. One skinny with a wife beater that must have been a kid's size the way it stuck to his narrow chest. The other was wearing a puffy green and purple jacket in the summer swelter. He looked like a dirty, highschool dropout version of Barney the dinosaur. I could see he was sweating through the damned thing with large stains under his pits. I could smell it too. 

I am surely gonna get robbed here. I didn't feel like getting stabbed by a dirty hepatitis knife so I turned back to the Magnum PI car. “How do you want me to do this?” I asked.

“Lil Pablo, find him. I’ll be back in an hour.” 

“No. I...”

But his response was turning up his heavy metal station and blowing dirt at us with his tires. I hacked and wheezed and turned to my new friends. Really, they were all I had in the world right now. I hope they were kind.

“Hi!” I said. Smiling. 

~

Once you got past the smell this place wasn’t too bad. They even had a generator in the middle of the camp spewing diesel fumes. Shop lights were wired to it that was sure handy in the night time which was coming quick, but they had some turning fans on right now that cleared out the stale air around camp. They also had a standing fridge. Barney cracked the thing open and pulled out a big glass jug with a little ring handle filled with clear liquid. Here in camp they had a certain underline camaraderie it seemed. What they did in their tents was their own business. But out around here bikes were unlocked. People's carts full of goods seemed unwatched. People meandering around would be sharing greasy dollar burgers or heating up cans slosh on little wood stoves. They all looked at me. Maybe thinking I was a newcomer. 

Maybe I am getting the tour of the place?

I just hoped there wasn’t a hazing for fresh meat. 

I wished Chewy was here too. He might be useless in a pinch but he made me feel like someone was watching my back. At least if I died here those two singer boys would care for him. I hoped. They seemed kind enough people and he was a cute enough dog. They could bust him out my car’s window.  

“How much money you got?” Wife beater asked me while itching a sore on his face. 

Here we go. “Nothing on me.” I said.

“Well,” Barney said. Taking a swig from the bottle he held in the crook of his elbow. “That’s not gonna fly. If you are here you are gonna need to take your turn fueling the generator. So you gotta get your bread up. Sir Beans can help you find a spot to panhandle. If you have other skills maybe Clara can help you…” He trailed off as the man in the wife beater ran a thumbs across his neck. I imagined the swish sound he might add to it if he wasn’t trying to be incognito. Like a cut of a knife.

“He got a wallet in his back pocket. I think he's just nervous.” He winked at me.

We were getting farther away from tents and other people. Crossing a barren dirt lot with junk spewed around. I would have been more comfortable in front of a fan knocking back a cold water with people milling about. Now. Now I was getting taken somewhere. “Is this King around?” I asked. Trying to change the subject. 

“He's gone right now.” Wife beater said while pulling up his sagging shorts that were long enough to be pants really. They stopped around his ankles. 

“So where are we going?” I stopped walking. They both stopped a couple feet in front of me and looked back. 

“I want your money,” he replied. Barney just laughed at that. A deep chuckle in the back of his throat. 

“Fine. If it lets me see this Hobo King. Here. I opened up my wallet and pulled out the cash.” I counted it. Which was very simple for such a miniscule sum. A couple of bills. “17 dollars.”

“Shit bitch, I don’t wanna take your money. I wanna earn it.” He looked offended. “Come on, let's play some dice while we wait for him to come back.” 

A flush ran across my face. I crumpled up the bills and shoved them down my front jean pocket. “You know if you told me that, I wouldn’t have been so nervous. Fucking, taking me off somewhere. I’m not from here! I don’t know what’s going on!” The skinny man was already walking off. Nodding his head to follow. A smile showing his pearly whites spread the width of his face.

Barney extended the jug to me. “Come on. Have a sip. You ain't gonna lose your shoes here. He turned to his friend walking further ahead. “Frank just likes to see people sweat is all. Everyone sweats is what he says. Don’t matter the money you got.”

I took the jug and licked my dry lips. It was frosty to the touch almost like it was in the freezer. I pulled the stopper off and the fumes that came out almost singed off my eyebrows. I coughed. “Is this fucking oven cleaner?” 

He smiled a much more holey smile than his friend. “I make it myself. Moonshine from potato peelings outside Dikkie Brennans. I buy a gallon for pennies on the dollar. It hasn’t made anyone go blind yet.” He laughed again. 

Well I always promised myself I wasn’t gonna die sober. 

I poured it in my mouth from a waterfall. Like you would do in grade school when sharing a carton of apple juice. Germs are icky, okay? 

As soon as it hit my pallet my tongue numbed. I was barely able to fight down a mouthful of it. I gagged and coughed and spit. It burned my raw, lump filled throat even more. If I had a cough or infection or whatever might be ravaging me maybe this would kill it and sterilize everything. 

I mean, no microbe on earth could live through contact with this stuff, there was no way. 

“Holy shit. I think it evaporated out of my throat.” I finally managed to say.

He laughed again and pounded on my back. “It hits like a freight train huh?” He took the bottle back and poured a little on the ground.

“Why did you do that?” I asked. I wasn’t even sure the liquid made it the few feet to the dirt before vanishing. Like a magician's act. Or a chemist's act. There was no wet spot on the dirt. It burned off into the atmosphere. I scanned all around, turning in circles. 

Nothing.

“That was for my friend. Drank so much of this stuff they fell asleep on the tracks. Actually got hit by a train.” 

“Oh” I said as I followed. Wondering what this was doing to my insides? And then shortly thereafter. Feeling the effects of it on my insdes, and no longer caring. 

~

If officer Shades made his way back right then. If he passed the shanty town under the underpass, and went across the empty dirt lot, and peered into an alleyway next to an abandoned complex he would find his ‘informant’ playing a raucous game of dice with his new companions. Around him he would find his escorts, the man in the wife beater, Frank, who went by the nickname of Bones, and Thomas the man in the purple jacket. But, after the informant informs Thomas that he looks like a black dollar-store version of Barney they would call him that for the rest of the night. The moonshine was most likely the reason they found it so hilarious.

Now those three individuals were the most boring of the group by far.  

The real characters start here, with a kindly older man who had a gray beard and a waxed white mustache. He wore a green sweatsuit, and his hands were brown with dirt, especially under his fingernails. But when he ran his hands through his sheet white stache no dirt contaminated it. Solomon was his name (not that officer Shades would know anyone's names nor would he care if he did.)

The only woman of the group was called ‘Shiny Jenny’ on account of the smattering of bottle caps she wore over her clothes. Over? Maybe they were her clothes. She had tied thousands of bottle caps into her shirt and pants, now you could no longer even see the material beneath. She looked like a tarnished disco ball left outside an abandoned dance hall. In this part of town, maybe she was. She also jingled every movement and smiled when asked about her bottle caps. Smiled across a well-sunned face under dirty blonde bangs. 

Lastly was a hunched over sour looking man who was named “Pickles”. He had a cane and wore a Pelicans jersey that went so low it was like a dress. But surprisingly his jeans and tshirt under the jersey were well cared for. Like he got lost going to the game and ended up in this camp. His family still looking for him. Maybe they put up posters? Maybe they were relieved and hurried home? But he kept muttering to himself and twitching. Pulling his lips into his face further than they already were. In a way that only people without teeth can do. 

But if Officer Shades was here and we watched the story unfold from his perspective he would undoubtedly have some insight in his black and white head space. Being both clueless and clued-in in such a way that only he can be. He might reflect on the nature of the homeless epidemic in this city while scratching his nuts, being so close to understanding his fellow man's struggles whilst still not quite reaching the end of the equation. Not because he couldn’t solve it and not because he didn't want to. But, just that at the event horizon of comprehension and sensitivity, he would be distracted by a really sick drum solo in a song from Rush. 

Neil Peart. Absolute legend.

But this is all a distraction because he was not there to pass through the shanty town, and the empty lot, and spy on his informant playing dice with the eclectic cast of folks. He was not there to wonder about their names and who they were nor think about what their lives are like. It would have been interesting to glimpse that side of him. But he wasn’t there. So I don’t know what to tell you? Don’t give me a hard time.

In fact. 

Of all the point of view’s surrounding that little game of street craps, the most interesting take was not even from anything made of flesh and blood. The most interesting perspective is from one of the dice involved in the game. A simple white die with black dots for the numbering. Relatively new to existence in terms of manufacturing but not on an atomic scale. I know what you are thinking. 

How can an inanimate object be more interesting than one of the figures rolling it? You might say “These humans have complex brains and more-so the ones surrounding this die are an odd cast of characters, their lives, their tales, their perspectives must be so intriguing? Right?”

To that, I say. That’s very human of you to think that. I applaud you for being so banal. Just because humans exist does not mean they automatically become the most interesting thing in the room. That’s pretentious. Many things exist in this world and many things have very interesting takes on all sorts of things. You just need to ask them. Even if you don’t end up understanding their answers you might find the silence endearing. Or at least refreshing.