unpatterning and repatterning is the cycle of my life at this time

observing those inner snags as they come up
allowing them space
listening
exploring
experiencing
releasing
letting go

moving forward
walking clearly my inner/outer path
strengthening my stance
dancingsoundingspeakingbeing

become
the truer me

the body is a vehicle to transport the head...and more

i went to the ymca with my friend of twenty years, chris, and worked out today.

i have been working in studio at my gradschool facilities, reconnecting with my body after two years of serious weight gain due to pregnancy and limited activity due to a torn anterior cruciate ligament which was replaced this past november.  my orthopedist gave me the go ahead to start pushing my recovery, but not too far.  i haven't been able to afford the $300 an hour physical therapy bills, so i've been working on strengthening on my own.  i've hit the point where i need to work with weight machines in order to catch the one knee up to the other.  so i decided it was time to take out another ten day trial membership at the y.

chris decided to give it a try as well.  he has gained a considerable amount of weight since he got a vehicle several years ago.  he was recounting an incident where someone he worked with was bending over and touching her toes, and he tried.  she told him he should try to touch his toes every day, and he said he probably went months at a time without even thinking about it. 

this reminded me of how we are such a top heavy society.  many people walk around using their bodies as mere transporters for their heads.  it seems that on the fringes, where we freak performance artists work to unify our bodies, minds, and emotions, and maybe athletes as well, is where heads (and the thoughts inside them) may become vehicles for bodies.  more balance can be found incorprating the head as a part of the body, rather than a separate entity that issues orders on where our bodies should take us.  it will be interesting to see what happens as more people begin to listen to their bodies more often.

in my mfa program, a great deal of time is spend relearning developmental movement from in utero, to birth, and onward to our upright civilized selves.  there is much emphasis on the body with six limbs, the head and tail (our "tailbone" being made up of several bones, therefore constituting a tail) being two limbs equal to our arms and legs (i add that i consider the voice the seventh limb). 

as i watch my sixteen month old son develop, armed with this knowledge of developmental patterns, new to my consciousness, i see that he is completely six (seven actually) limbed.  his head and his tail are at least as engaged as his arms and legs (as is his voice).  i see that strapping in him to chairs and car seats and strollers inhibits the engagement of his limbs and it seems that these contraptions, though necessary at times, are the beginnings of the separation of head and body in the development of a civilized human.

last week in studio, i explored the awareness of the embryo/fetus in utero.  the first thing to develop is the head, then the spine or tail.  that's all there is at first.  i wonder how this may be linked to our societal preoccupation with the head and if humanity is in an embryonic state on some level of our evolution. 

though it is evident that more people are practicing yoga these days, and probably there is more body/mind awareness outside the u.s.,  the prevalence of t.v. (and now the internet) makes me feel that we have a ways to go in the evolution of the human body as a whole. 

my friend chris watches a lot of t.v.  his physical accomplishments and explorations are chalked up to the days of his youth.  we are both forty this year.  though i remember cutting quite a cajun rug with him just a few years back, i know our bodies are showing a bit of time and lifestyle since then. 

as i continue this exploration with my self and those around me, i am excited to see the benefits of this mind/body connection in my self and humanity as a whole.  and in continuing to nurture this in my son, i wonder what sort of wonderful creature he will be as a fully grown embodied human.  and i wonder in what ways and directions i can fly this body as it continues to accumulate age and experience. 

fatty and i lived happily ever after for about a month and a half. 

there was much writing, love notes and flowers, dancing 'til dawn, and we became a formidable team in the back patio bar on tuesday nights when rebirth was playing.  tuesdays were by far the busiest night of the week. 

then, in early february, we took a trip to boulder, colorado.  i had finished my application process at naropa university and was awaiting acceptance for their graduate theatre program, the mfa in contemporary performance.  this trip wasn't about school, though.  it was a little vacation.  we rented a cabin with our friend, chris, and his roomate one night.  there was snow all around and we were outdoors in the springfed hot tub when fatty proposed marriage to me.  i admit, i coaxed him into it.  he had mentioned a couple times to coworkers that i probably didn't want to get married and i had seen his rantings on paper laying around the apartment.  so i broached the subject and he proposed.  we discussed it for about half an hour, even attempting to bring chris into the discussion.  chris would have nothing to do with it.  he had known us both for too long.  i was on such a high in the crisp cold snow, soaking in the steamy hot tub, and steeping in love notes and flowers for a month, i accepted the proposal.  i had love this man for too long not to, for better and for worse.

we returned home to new orleans just in time for mardi gras.  i came down with a fever of 105 degrees farenheit on the night of the oak street parade.  fatty took off and left me at home, whining that he was not going to miss another parade.  things were changing quickly.  i survived the night at home and forced myself to go out the next night.  i had scored coveted tickets to mom's ball and had to show.  we had never been before and i knew it would be my last mardi gras in new orleans for a while. 

fatty wore a shiny white suit, white platform boots with plastic goldfish and plants inside the heel, and a platinum wig.  he looked beautifully fabulous.  i was none too shabby in my red and black wench dress, fishnets, flaming platform laceup boots and red jewel-tipped eyelashes.  everyone went all out and over the top for this ball.  it was beautifully garish with breaths of fresh sincerity every once in a while. 

this was the ball that the radiators held.  it took place at blane kern's mardi gras world across the river from the quarter in old algiers point.  johnny, one of the roadies for the radiators, had hooked me up with the ticket for two.  all around oak street for weeks, people were clawing to unearth mom's ball tickets.  finally i was seeing what it was all about.  everyone loved the radiators.  there were displays of mardi gras floats all around behind fencing.  the warehouse space was huge and packed with people in all forms of glitter and glitz.  one woman stated that there were more men in dresses and wigs than she had ever seen before.  she attributed this fact to post-katrina syndrome.  she said that there were usually a few, but this year it seemed that one out of three men were in dresses, wigs, or both.  

there was an intense sexual vibe that i didn't quite feel a part of.  a friend's sister saw fatty and slapped him hard on the arm.  she was choking like she couldn't get the words out, but she definitely had something to say.  he acted oblivious.  another woman dropped her tube top on the dance floor and grabbed him, rubbing her breasts all over his belly.  again, he acted oblivious.  outside she grabbed and hugged me and professed her love for me.  i told her i didn't believe her because of what i had just witnessed.  she was shocked and embarassed and claimed she didn't have any control over herself.  i was beginning to feel really crazy and knew i was still burning a fever, wondering if i was hallucinating.  

at the end, they had to kick everyone out, just like in the quarter at the end of mardi gras.  as we were leaving, we stepped out of the hanger door, and as fatty stepped away to take a picture of a sign painted on the side of a building, i looked up and saw a tall dark beautiful stranger glowing at me.  he said, "you're beautiful."  i said, "you are too."  we exchanged names in bewilderment and wondered out loud if we'd see each other out later.  then fatty returned and the two of us boarded a school bus full of maple leaf loyals.  the couple next to us was having sex and carrying on conversations with everyone around them.  once again, i could feel my fever burning and was questioning reality.  we went to a couple bars, ending up at the maple leaf, but when i got home, i was done.  it was a couple days 'til fat tuesday, i had to work a couple days, but mardi gras was over for me. 

with mardi gras out of the way, i concentrated my energies on my second and final facilitation in new orleans of a v-day production of the vagina monologues by eve ensler.  with a twelve-woman cast, we were raising money to help erect a rape crisis program that would serve five parishes, since they had all been closed due to katrina.  we booked a show at the parish room at the house of blues and two nights at the neighborhood gallery.  one woman, my dear friend, robyn loda, returned to new orleans to do the show and to begin a radio show at wwoz, the new orleans jazz and heritage station.  

the show was a success and eve ensler came into town with her entourage the following week to see what was going on in new orleans and how she could help.  it was decided that the katrina monologues would take place in some form within the next month.  they brought me on to assist and stage manage along with my assistant producer, kristina.  eve decided to hold the ten year v-day anniversary at the superdome and reclaim it as "superlove".  

i also did my final confederacy of dances  with anne burr, my friend and choreographer, who i had worked with from time to time during my years in new orleans.  i danced for her and she alotted me time in her spacious oak street studio.  i could feel the energy of parting taking place.

at last, my final acceptance came from naropa.  it was settled.  i was moving to boulder.  fatty and i set our wedding date for june 5th at the tree of life.  riding home from dinner one night on our bikes, we came across an old cinnamon broom.  it became the broom we would jump.  we began to prepare for the wedding in less than a month.  one big snag was that my father didn't know about it.  he was deaf and couldn't talk on the phone and my mother refused to tell him.  my family wasn't at all thrilled that we had reunited, much less that we were getting married.  i had never even met fatty's family, so we decided to take a last minute trip to florida so i could meet fatty's parents and he could ask my father's blessing.
 

tonight i turned to the mirror in meditation
it's been over a decade since i last practiced this form
connecting my eyes and my brain
finding my souls again

yes  many lives speak through one
i am a native of this earth
despite a privileged birth
ancestors in need of rest
bid i wrest?

sobbing heart through trails of tears
anger
not of vengeance
deep deep sadness
replaying of  pain
poison
now innoculated from
gets no more backward glance

stepping soft
to feel earth again
to trust
to be trusted
once more
giving forth
receiving
voice

hank was waiting out in the parking lot for us and exclaimed, "the oak street six!" when he saw us.  thus we were dubbed.  he took us to breakfast at my favorite breakfast nook, surrey's.  then they dropped me off at home.

doug was so happy and relieved to see me.  i couldn't lead him on a moment longer.  i told him i wanted to see how things would work out with fatty.  his entire being suddenly darkened and he said he'd be out of there as soon as possible.  "no!" was what came from my depths.  i told him, "please don't go."  he asked why and i did my best to explain that i thought he had come to learn how to really cook and that i cared for him deeply despite my feelings for fatty.  i felt truly that loving one did not make me love the other less.  doug said he had to go for a walk and left.  i showered and slept.  in my bed.  when i got up and went to work, he still hadn't returned.

i got off of worked and walked into the maple leaf greeted by cheers.  the oak street six was big news.  tony, karina's boyfriend, came and gave me a big long hug.  it had been her first time in jail and he was glad i was there with her.  fatty was attentive but kept respectful distance.  he didn't say, but he knew i was struggling to keep things right with doug.  he knew he had screwed up and even if i stayed with doug, he was glad we had communicated and that we still loved each other.  and that we were out of jail.  i made it a point to ride my bike home well before curfew.

doug was home when i got there.  he had been walking and had spent a lot of time at the tree of life.  i was comforted in knowing that he had been drawn to her.  it was confirmation that he belonged.  he said after it got dark, he saw a spirit on one of the branches.  they stared at each other for a long time and then finally the spirit seemed to reach out from the branch and audibly say, "don't go!"  at that point he got creeped out and came home, but had made his decision to stay.  

then he asked if i was going to get back together with fatty.  i told him i had to see where mine and fatty's relationship would go from there.  he said that he guessed we were broken up.  i said i didn't feel like we were breaking up, but our relationship had already been changing and that i loved him dearly.  i would rather just be...with both of them.  he said he couldn't handle that and we agreed to love eachother as roomates.

doug soon got a job at martinique bistro, four blocks from the apartment.  it was a well run kitchen with a well respected creative menu.  it was a great place for him to learn and really cook.  

i started tending bar at the back patio at the maple leaf two nights a week.  monday nights when papa grows funk played (my favorite local band!) and tuesday nights when rebirth brass band played (they were local and beyond!).  fatty would come over when he was done at jacques-imo's and team up with me.  both nights were good, but tuesdays were insanely busy.  there would be people waiting to get to the bar as far as the eye could see.  it was one big thirsty mob.  the money was great and the people were very enthusiastic and intoxicated.  the musicians were amazing.

christmas eve found me barhopping for tequila with doug and fatty
we were having a great time one moment then the tequila set in...
one of them suggested trading homes
i ran away
they followed
doug ran his bike into a light pole
somehow i ended up sitting on barber shop steps with fatty
doug was there again
there was talk of switching homes again
again i ran away
all the way home 
rode my bike into the bushes
christmas day, the next day
all mangled
fatty didn't remember wrecking his bike too
sitting together at the maple leaf


fatty had suddenly started writing.  he wrote in all capitals and spelled creatively.  he wrote poetry and prose.  letters and fragments.  positive and negative.  it was communication i had longed for for years.  he gave me a giant red heart shaped flower vase he had found at an antique store.  along with another red vase.  and an orchid plant.  and a peace lilly. and he always had a flower for me, whether he picked it along the way or got it at the corner store.  he and doug made plans and traded living situations.  and fatty came back home. 

fatty returned to town and moved into his new studio above the ace hardware.  we helped him move and became a familiar threesome sitting at the bar at the maple leaf.  sometimes doug would be at work and fatty and i would be at the bar.  without fail someone would yell across the room, "hey, where's your boyfriend?" 

fatty took it in his usual silent stride.  we made contact gingerly.  we still hadn't quite hashed out what happened after katrina, but we all knew it was bubbling below the surface of congeniality.  

doug hit a wall at work.  they loved him at the delachaise, like they had loved my sister when she was there, but they just couldn't get their shit together.  on the way to work one night, he got off his bike and had an emotional breakdown on the curb of st. charles.  he couldn't force himself to go in anymore.  

i was still at the mango house.  once in a while i would cover a bartending shift at the maple leaf on sunday afternoons.  ian, at the mango house, was interested in hiring doug, but that situation never matierialized.  doug was feeling lost and i was feeling powerless to help.

instead, i was closer and closer to broaching the subject of the katrina split with fatty.  one night, after working at the mango house, i decided i was going to have it out with him.  before checking at the maple leaf or jacques-imo's, i went straight to his door and rang the bell.  he was home and surprised to see me.  i got straight to the point and asked why he left me in austin.  he sat down and hung his head and confessed that he had been jealous of everyone, especially my artist friends.  he said he thought i should be with someone more creative, like mark lamaire, a musician, or doug who seemed more mature.  i asked if he ever thought i could make that decision for myself.

at that point he admitted that he didn't feel like he was good enough for me and did i want to get some beer.  i conceded, and we walked to the maple leaf and ordered a six pack of red stripe to go.  karina, the bartender, served us two draughts while she packed up our six-pack.  in the meantime we were crying at the bar and spilling guts.  just as we were getting to the bone of the matter and gushing by that point, someone announced that it was curfew time and that there were cops outside.   i was explaining to him that my choice all those years was to love him and that if his insecurity was going to cause him to leave me then i wasn't waiting around for him, but always i loved him.  and he was explaining that always he loved me when suddenly brett, the doorguy, was having an altercation at the door with a cop. 

at that time the few people left in there were hometown regulars and employees.  we all decided we would have to wait out the curfew until six a.m.  it wouldn't be the first time.  but then brett was shuffling all of us to the darkened stage and saying that we had to sit there and remain quiet.  still in the throes of raw emotion, i sat on a stage monitor in disbelief of the unravelling that was going on between fatty and i.  before i knew what was happening, a police officer was shuffling us outside and handcuffing us.  all six of us, the bartender included. 

they placed us two by two in the cop cars.  tracey freeman was in the cop car with me.  tracey was a humble yet big time music producer, with harry connick jr. as his most famous client.  he was a nice quiet guy i was used to seeing at the bar.  until then, we hadn't connected since my return.  my cellphone started buzzing and it was doug, texting me.  i texted back that i was in the back of a cop car and it looked like they were taking us to jail.  the cops were filling out reports and began scolding us for being out past curfew.  we asked where they were from.  michigan and ohio, they answered.  we began to explain to them that not only were we  not used to having a curfew, but that all our lives had been wrecked and that we were making contact with our friends and family, some for the first time since katrina.  at that, tracey and i began to catch up.  he was staying at his parents' house since his was flooded.  the cops, brought in to cover the curfew violations, since local cops were still dispersed throughout other parts of the country, scolded us again for being out past curfew.  we explained that we weren't out, that the bar had been closed and locked up and we weren't on the streets.  they then said that the rule was we were supposed to be home.

with that they hauled us off to jail.  at the jail we were taken to little cells in the basement of the courthouse that reeked of piss.  karina and i, the two females were put in a cell with another woman.  it became clear that the woman was disturbed.  she began asking me what my race was and saying that it was too bad that i wasn't white and that monkeys were okay, but they weren't as upright as human beings.  she kept babbling on and on about how maybe my family and i would make it, but she wasn't so sure and that genetically we were too weak to survive.  finally she was taken out of our cell.  karina confessed that she had felt badly for me.  i said that i had felt badly for that woman. 

we began to get shuffled around the makeshift holding cells.  the guys were sometimes visible and once they were right outside our door when it was ajar.  fatty was right outside, waiting to be checked in with the other guys.  i could feel his desire to make contact through the open door.  mine too.  but we refrained, knowing it would just cause more problems.  fatty, tracey, brett, and john burwick were the four guys in our crew of convicts.  between tracey and his connections with the connick family (harry connick sr. was an old time judge in orleans parrish), hank at the maple leaf, and karina's boyfriend, tony, we knew we had enough connections to get us all out of there.  it was just a matter of time to see who would be awakened first. 

doug texted me again.  karina looked at me questioningly.  i told her it was my boyfriend and she looked confused.  i told her that i thought i had two.  as we were moving again to another cell and being served breakfast, i filled her in on my katrina story and fatty's abandonment of me in austin.  they guys began making a ruckus the next cell over.  we were both hoping that they wouldn't cause our stay to be lengthened. 

we got moved back to our original cell (there were only four) with two women from the lower ninth ward.  they had both been in jail since the day before katrina, one for domestic violence, the other for public intoxication.  we all knew how unsubstantial these charges usually were in orleans parrish.  so many time the really dangerous criminals went free.  they had been moved to angola, one of the highest security prisons in the country) when the jail in town got evacuated.  they should have been out the next day.  neither of them had seen the outside world for over three months.  they had no idea what state their homes were in or where they're families were.  we all sat in shock and outrage, filling them in on what little we knew of the outside world.  we contained our anger in quiet confirmation that we would all be out soon.  a guard came and led the four of us to a window to obtain our personal belongings which were given to us in brown envelopes with our inmate numbers scrawled in thick black permanent marker.

the guys were already out and waiting in the alley.  chris utley, an ex-bartender at the maple leaf who left to pursue his career as an attorney full-time, hugged us and then opened the door into the alley where fatty was waiting.  he gathered me in a warm embrace and kissed me long.  brett and john began yelling, "hey, you have a boyfriend!."  and i whispered with a wrinkle in my brow, "yeah, two."

doug laffin.  aka "big daddy".  big daddy was six foot six inches tall, weighed about a hundred and fifty pounds, and wore a pompadour, myriad tattoos, and glasses.  his eyes were as blind as mine and his glasses concealed the largess of his kind clear eyes.  during his "big daddy" days in the mid to late nineties, he was the frontman for a coffee house in orlando, florida called "java jabbers". 

despite the fact that it was located across the street from the university of central florida, java jabbers rocked.  its thursday night open mics which filled a list of poets, musicians, and performance artists, drew an impressive crowd.  throngs of people would hang outside along the sidewalk and parking lot, leaning in to listen to the mixed bag of talent.  java's was ripe with creative energy.  the variety of voices and walks of life inspired each other and built into a frenzy until right around the turn of the millenium, when someone decided to kick out all the artists.  it was a sudden and clear concise "get out!" vibe.  it wasn't only occuring at java jabber's.  it was heard elsewhere.  downtown and on the outskirts of orlando, all the bohemian safehaven's were closing down or turning off their open mics.  corporatization had gotten its claws into orlando, even underground, and ripped our community to shreds.  many of us left.

mark bennet, the mad poet, and i moved to gainesville.  he had been one of the two main open mic hosts at java's.  java's was his home.  almost literally.  because he was homeless.  and big daddy was one of his caretakers, until mark and i hooked up and went on the road.  big daddy was a performance artist too.  he had branded his chest with his girlfriend's initials one night on stage, and then years later, during a show of select artists entitled "working class poets", he had her initials "unbranded".  another time he had his head shaved while his face was covered with a u.s. flag.  big daddy, doug, swore it was never his idea to kick out the artists.  during that time, he, as legal owner and frontman, was getting kicked out too. 

by the time katrina rolled around, doug (no longer going by big daddy) was chefing downtown on orange avenue at a new upscale bar and restaurant called "room three nine."  a far cry from java's, but the ownership had big plans.  forty story skyscrapers, ballfields, more, more, more.  doug was on his way up, up, up, when katrina hit and i blew into town.  he decided to leave the corporate skyscraper elevator behind and move to new orleans to learn how to really cook.  and he would be with me, which was an added bonus.  or so we thought.

i remember the first time he asked to kiss me.  i said that i was scared.  why was i scared?  my life had just been blown to bits, i had just been ditched, my previous partner had just passed away, an old friend had just committed suicide, and i was a refugee.  i was splayed wide open and as vulnerable as i had ever been in my entire life.  i said i was unafraid to face  fear, and we both jumped headfirst into a giant beautiful rebound.  our relationship was happy, passionate, light, and based on years of mutual though distant respect.  when he asked how i felt about fatty, i said i loved him.  he said he was scared.

he arrived in new orleans like a kid in disneyland.  he was so excited and couldn't wait to go to all the places i had told him about, especially snake and jake's, the dive bar.  one of the top ten in north america.  it didn't take him long to acclimate to the maple leaf.  and he got a chef job at the delachaise on st. charles avenue,  a place my sister used to chef at. 

at home though, our relationship was different than in orlando.  there was a distinct discomfort the first night sleeping in my bed.  it was cold and the only heater being in the living room, we moved to his futon out there.  it was much more comforting, though cordial.  we still shared a deep affection for each other, but we never made love again.

love oh love.  crying every night on a mattress in front of the space heater.  there was no comfort.  was he ever going to leave?

on the third day fatty found an apartment.  a studio with a balcony (narrow and precarious though it was) overlooking  oak street.  it was located above the ace hardware that was on the other side of jacques-imo's.  perfect.  i was beginning to wonder if he, doug, and i were to be roomates.  having found a place to live, he signed off on our lease and returned to orlando to finish up his job there before he came back to new orleans and stepped into bar management at jacques-imo's.

the next day i peeked into snake and jake's, a bar touted as one of the top ten dives in north america.  it was the seediest bar ever.  in new orleans that's saying a lot.  but it was on the way to and from work, and on the way to and from oak street and it was open 'til at least eight in the morning.  it was actually on oak street, but the next neighborhood down.  sure enough there were some old familiars there. 

when fatty first moved up to nola, we rented half of a double shotgun.  a shotgun is a building in which the rooms are all arranged in a row, front to back, so that one could walk in through the front door, through every room of the house (except the bathroom, that was usually offset), and out the back door.  a double is what we called a duplex back in florida.  a double shotgun was a duplex of two shotguns.  our double shotgun was on  burdette street, not far from snake and jake's.  i remember the first time i looked at the place before fatty had arrived.  there was a fence separating the two halves of the back yard.  on the other side of the fence was a garden of many delights.  there were beans, peppers, tomatoes, corn, and other plants.    i remember thinking that the neighbors must be really cool.  and it tuns out they were, in that twisted new orleans kind of way. 

carl and keiler were married.  keiler had two kids from her first marriage who lived with them six months of the year.  the other six months they spent in alaska with their father.  meridian was four years old, and she talked to critters.  insects, birds, snails, all of them.  one day she had a snail in her hand and she was telling it to come out.  she was in the back yard and i was on my way to the front porch, which was shared.  by the time i reached the porch, she was screaming for the snail to come out.  carl and fatty were smoking on the porch and carl asked if i had heard someone screaming.  i said yes and that it was meridian talking to a snail.  he said, "oh, she's like that."  at that moment she came walking around the side of the house with a giant watermelon grin on her face and a snail on her hand, full slug exposed.  she was a mystic at age four.

calloway was another story.  he was six.  he loved to play games.  all of them.  he loved to cheat most of all.  he was relentless in his chess bouts with fatty.  fatty really believed he was getting his chess on by playing such a little conniver.  calloway was all about the boundaries.  finding them so he could attempt to cross them.  both kids would appease me and play music and dance in the second room with me on occasion.  the second room was the room between the front living room and the bedroom.  the rooms were tiny, but there were three of them and a kitchen.  this is also the room we would draw and paint in.

keiler was a dedicated mother and a stripper.  it was years before i knew her real job.  she always talked to me about selling test tube shots at the karaoke bar on bourbon street.  it wasn't until i was drinking one night with carl while he was waiting for her to get off of work, that he looked at me in disbelief because i didn't know, then i figured out the truth.  she had always said that making money was never a problem for her. 

carl was a musician and worked at a metal crafter's studio.  he made multi-colored jewelry,  jewelry holders, ornaments, trinkets.  He was not enthralled, but it was a job close to home and low key.  keiler would take scraps of the metal and sculpt complex geometrical figures.  there was a gorgeous knotty tree in their living room crafted from her hand.

carl and keiler were at snake and jake's.  they did not evacuate.  they stayed, stuck in their house for a day or two.  they had moved into a second story unit two blocks away from the house where we had shared a wall with them.  two blocks into flood zone.  their street had four feet of water.  when they realized they couldn't stay in their apartment any longer, they took what they could on their backs, kids and all, and waded the many blocks to dry land.  to the metal woking studio. 

on that day, someone had driven a forklift into the rite-aid.  people were going in and coming out with cases of stuff.  all kinds of stuff.  mostly food, water, cigarettes, and liquor.  what else were they going to do with no water, no electricity, and rotting water all around?  (someday there ought to be a memorial statue of a person on a forklift in the middle of carrollton avenue)  then they learned that whole foods was open.  the double doors were just open.  produce and dairy were rotting, but the wine and bottled water were good.  they went there every day and got all the wine they could want. 

bleach was a tougher commodity.  it was one of the first things on the shelves to be emptied.  they ended up searching closets of public restrooms in order to keep sanitized in the middle of the cesspool they were continuing to reside in.  reports of dead bodies floating in the water spread through the neighborhood.  "keep the kids away from there."  there was a swimming pool across the street.  the bleach went straight in.  not only did they get to bathe, and launder, but the kids were happy to be swimming.  it kept them gladly occupied. 

finally, a coast guard officer came with word from the kids' father.  he was in baton rouge trying to get into new orleans, to get the kids and take them to michigan where they had lived before new orleans.  somehow they had found them at the metal studio.

keiller invited me to thanksgiving dinner at  a guy named bruce's house in our old neighborhood.  i brought wine and  mashed potatoes.  it was a somber and grateful gathering of a handful of people, most of whom didn't know each other.  didn't need to.  we were there, that's what counted.  fatty called to say he had visited his parents for the first time in four years.  they hadn't even spoken in that amount of time.  doug called from his mom's house in north florida.  he would be arriving tomorrow.

jim and his wife, lauren, had evacuated to milwaukee.  after they learned that their house was flooded, they decided to stay there.  lauren would finish veterinary school and jim would transfer his geology degree.  he had already found a bar managing job there.  and lauren got a job milking cows.  she was enjoying the cow piss and shit more than her previous job in new orleans.  she had been a stripper on bourbon street.

jim was fastest talking narcissist i ever met.  he loved eighties music and made sure everyone got to hear it all the time at jacques-imo's, where he was bar manager pre-K.  He loved all the eighties pop rock.  van halen, def leppard, eagles, you name it.  it worked, too, because every night the entire bar, standing room only, would be singing at the top of their lungs to jim's "jacque-mix".  jim would stand at the bar watching it all unfold, passing shots to his inner circle, drugs too, and bask in his glory with a glazed over look on his face. 

jim was all about hype.  when he arrived, the first thing he wanted to do was go driving around.  fatty and i went with him.  why not.  we had seen a lot, but there was so much of it, the destruction. 

jim chattered nonstop.  he talked about the past, the present, eighties rock, pornography, geology, his house, his camper he was going to drive back to milwaukee.  never once did he stop talking or ask any questions. 

he drove to the lakefront.  i had been there previously with the oak street crew, but it was a more detailed tour this time.  we rolled slowly past each house and deciphered the markings on the doors.  once we past a house with a zero in the upper quadrant that was crossed through and a number one placed beside it.  jim backed up.  those were the kind of pictures he was looking for.  i had my camera with me, but didn't snap a picture.  seeing it was enough. 

he drove past the university of new orleans where there was a field full of white shiny fema trailers.  jim informed us that there was no water or electricity hooked up to any of them, so they were sitting there empty while many were now homeless.  it was important to listen to jim's chatter because it would be easy to miss information like this amidst so much random trivia.  we drove past the marina where there were boats stacked on top of each other on and through the docks.  we drove through gentilly.  so many people's homes gone.  creeping with mold four, eight, twelve feet up the walls. 

on the way back home we drove along river road to magazine street.  that's when i saw the leveled shack on the corner tagged with "katrina you bitch".  it was ironic because even though the building was condemned, the owners had still tried to rent it at $3000 before katrina.  now it just looked like pick up sticks. 

that evening i went to work at the mango house and fatty looked for a place to live.  when i got home that night, he informed me that jack had deleted my position of expo at jacques-imo's.  and he wouldn't hire me back as barback or bartender.  what was worse was that the woman who worked my position the other five nights a week, miss sandra, was laid off too.  she had been working for him for eight years, since the beginning.  she was highly respected and loved by everyone.  except by him apparently. 

his restaurant fed 300 to 600 people per night.  it was not uncommon for there to be a three hour wait.  and people would wait.  people would be so wasted by the time they left there.  employees included.  i heard a customer one night say as he was leaving, "i don't know what happened in there, but it was good!" 

jacques-imo's was next door to the maple leaf and across from frenchy's gallery.  frenchy was a performance painter who i had known for ten years.  another orlando transplant.  i met him when he was waiting tables at the hard rock cafe.  he was about to quit and go to atlanta to paint the olympics.  he did it, painted the side of his van, painted the side of a shack, painted in the parking lots, met a flight attendant who gave him a plane ticket to go paint in austrailia, and things took off from there.  he never quit.  he was hard core intense at everything, for good or bad.  he travelled the world painting music mainly, and sports.  he was named the official artist of the new orleans saints, the first official nfl artist.  and frenchy was the king of oak street the year katrina hit.  one night during jazzfest, he did a highly imbalanced concoction of chemicals (not uncommon), and ran up and down the block, over the top of his nineteen foot lincoln, buck naked with a lion costume draped over his shoulder (he's a leo), screaming at everyone in particular about how he was the king and no one could stop him.  the police were called when he began to throw himself against the windshield of a visiting band's van.  when they put him in the police car, his girlfriend,eileen, who he was fighting with at the time, opened the car door and asked him if he was satisfied.  they took her to jail too. 

life was extreme and senseless on oak street, or rather, overly sensational.  legendary music occurred in the maple leaf every night.  frenchy had a grand piano in his gallery and musicians would randomly come by and give his keys a flutter.  frenchy himself was self-taught and could pound the rage out of his instrument.  we had some great improvisational duets once in a while.  a few months after jazzfest, shortly before katrina, i took a dare from him, along with john burwick and fatty, to strip and run up and back across the top of his nineteen foot lincoln in the rain.  the police drove by and asked what we were doing.  we said we were changing clothes after getting off work, and  they drove away.

ditched.

fatty, aka ryan douglas worley.  two years of acquaintanceship, then seven years of unrequited infatuation followed by two years of passionate drama, and two days after katrina, he ditched me in austin, texas.  two and a half months went by before spoke a word to me.  now he was returning to new orleans to sign off on our lease and find a new place to live.   he seemed to have gotten over his rage from learning that i had found a new partner.  it all seemed rather amicable now.

when he arrived, the first thing he wanted to do was go driving through the ruin.  he invited me along.  instead of the lakefront, we drove to the ninth ward.  unlike the suburban lakefront, the ninth ward was low income housing that didn't stand a chance.  the mud and sludge were everywhere.  everything was covered.  like the lakefront, vehicles were in the oddest places, carried by the flood.  trees were uprooted, lying on their sides.  there was a  house in the middle of a street.  it too had been carried by the waters. 

on every house there was the usual circle spray painted on the front with a big "x" going through it.  each quadrant of the circle was used for a different search criteria.  i was just now beginning to make sense of the code after seeing so many of them.  every building had them.  even mine. 

the right quadrant was for pets and animals.  the date of the finding was spray painted there, with the number of each type of animal, and where they were found, like under the porch, or in the attic, and if they were dead or alive.  the upper quadrant was used for the number of dead bodies, also dated.  it was a while before dead bodies were retrieved, animal or human.  they had to get the live ones out first.  i remembered a story told to me by the photographer, matthew anderson, during my regular days at the neutral ground coffee house.  it was of  a couple in their home in 1965 when hurricane betsy hit.  the floodwaters came rushing in and the woman floated up to the attic while the man got washed away.  in the attic with just inches of air, the woman found an ax and chopped through the roof to safety.  i don't know that she ever found her partner again.  the sadness while thinking of those found without axes in their attic as the water rose quickly was overwhelming.  we remained silent as we drove through what had been underwater just a few months before.  

there were only a couple white shiny fema trailers.  none of these houses were being gutted yet and several had been blown through by the sludge along with the floodwaters.  we came to a roadblock where police were checking i.d.'s.  they asked for our addresses.  we turned and headed through the marigny, through the french quarter, through the lower garden district, witnessing more missing walls, piles of abandoned, flooded out cars, broken everything in oddest everywhere, on our way uptown to what used to be our apartment. 

once inside, i dragged a spare mattress into the living room in front of the gas space heater, the only one in the house.  it had gotten very cold suddenly, a wet cold that i felt in my bones.  i slumped onto the mattress in a heap of sobs.  the desolation i saw mirrored what i had been feeling inside for months. 

fatty took the cushions from the couch and made a bed for himself in front of the space heater next to me.  "i'm sorry," he said.  i sobbed myself to eventual sleep.  he went out to drink.

the next day brought yet another brief returnee.  jim, the ex-bar manager at jacques-imo's, came into town to retrieve his camper from his flooded out house in river ridge.  he and his wife were relocating to wisconsin.