Nathan, que hondas cerote, como estas vos?
posted by jeremy on October 22, 2006
hows you? and soon bok? hows the kids? they sure grow up fast dont they?
im going to call you soon. my interest in the outside world has begin to come into play again. ive actually started reading the news. speaking of which, hurricane ernesto is slowly beginning to catch th attention of all us below-sea-level dwellers. of course, even if it does head for us, im staying. my bar just got a generator installed and i think my boss would actually pay us to sit on things. it does just suck when the water goes tho... i think i might go buy some hosing and garbage cans, big big ones and rig a water system in the blocked off alley behind the rbar. set up some kind of gravity shower.
the crime is creeping back into new orleans, all the violence and bullshit tragedy... its almost worse than it was before. honestly, once the sun goes down, we walk the streets scared...
the worst first: my friend JC... 4 brain tumors. an older man but funny and lively as hell. i knew something was wrong with him but i didnt know what exactly. its funny how there are subtle cues to some severe illness in someone. almost an aura. even if nothing is obviously apparent. then my friend robin started crying on my shoulder one day and broke the truth to me. hes now going thru chemo. his hair is going. he looks so tired. but he sneaks cigarettes off of me when noone is looking and the tough fucker laughs more than most of us. we rbar bartenders and regulars tho, we are his only family. he has no wife, noone else. he comes in everyday and we dont charge him for shit. i hope john makes it. i really goddam do. he deserves another score of years. two score even. three would pushing it.
my friend sierra, bartender at mimis, just up the street from the r-bar, found herself on the floor of said bar, a shotgun stuck against her face as 3 gunmen robbed everyone in the joint just 3 days ago.
4 days ago, 10 ft outside of the rbar, a patron was getting out of his vehicle when another car rolled up & a guy with a machine gun demanded his money or his guts. he forked over money. enough said.
i was bouncing when a drunk hispanic slammed into kats car right outside the front door, 5 feet away from me. he got his suv lodged into another car... i stood outside the drivers side window & told him not to run, 3 people were calling in his lisc plate even then. but he ran & he ran when the cops tried to pull him over.
they aint caught him yet. i had to deal with cops half the night. he apparently ran over a lot of shit before he bailed from that forest green explorer.
later on that same night i priced a compact 9mm HG that someone brought in. two magazines. 11 to the clip, one in the barrel, i think. i cant believe i have to think about these things. nifty little pistol though. an articulated and comfortable heft to that dull black device. funny thing about guns, when you hold them and feel the weight of the only thing they are for, their singular potentiality... they exist, were created, designed for one sole purpose: to tear flesh. to maim. kill. making living things stop living. i do not like them but i respect them. i respect them greatly. they are strange and unique machines when they are built well. beautiful even. like raptors or lions.
that said, any asshole can pull a fucking trigger.
two days ago a regular ran into the bar and yelled for me to call 911 and to come help, help! he didnt want to go too close to the scene cause, well, hes a coke dealer as well as black. the making for him getting utterly fucked by the nopd. so another guy and i ran down the street to where an older woman was on the ground, middle of the street, right where bourbon st become pauger... she was sitting up but with symptoms of shock, utterly dazed... i say obviously cause her leg was shattered, purple, wrong shape. apparently some guys had gotten out of a car and jumped her. then somehow ran over her when they fled. the fucks.
i kneeled beside her and looked at her and she looked at me and all i could do was to say to her 'im so fucking sorry' ... the 5-0 came screeching in at this point, some guys i recognized, good guys, good enough.
and then i simply went back to my job, where i dispense survival juice, anathesia, mediate a communal living space where people touch base, communicate, participate in complex mating rituals, make asses of themselves, vomit or laugh or both. we even have dog bones and food, water bowls for all the canine ruffians. theres a certain great dane that always comes in, knows the deal. she puts her front paws on the counter, suddenly taller than most homo sapiens. orders water with her eyes but sometimes her owner? gets the bitch a beer. we tolerate her even tho she always makes a mess and never tips. she wont even kiss you or let you touch her, but still she is majestic with those long long legs and that gorgeous fur.
what else? oh, new orleans aint really that magical, epic or dangerously charming. its mostly hot, grimy and drunken. riddled with deceit & evil, a distinctly southern banality. (that last might be a contradictory description, but still apt) somedays i feel trapped in this antique, this tight humid architectural anachronism strung with obsolete mores, self-destructive folkways, third world clusterfuck of hedonism and corruption. i actually ponder that question that has never failed to irritate me, that girlfriends mothers question, that lodestone, that albatross that drives ma & doctorate students like a prairie fire pushing buffalo towards an unseen cliff, meat for the tribe, skins for the teepees, that fucking question that has never made a whit of godfucking sense to me....
what am i, hell, we, doing with our lives?
what are we doing besides struggling thru whatever this is? putting one day next to the other, each punctuated by whiskey, beer, blow, illicit pharms, the occasional set of illicit if soft and siren lips... what else? what will be the culmination, the shape of the whole?anything worth anything?anything that will echo, resonate, transcend this confused rapturous ruptured if ultimately transformative era we call the new millenia? anything, you fuckwits, besides the glucking of our lungs and the slow destruction of our livers, the silencing of our synapses?
have we assholes no purpose besides this constant chase of false joy, this nightly flight from the ugly sadness of whats left, the shattered contour of these fucking ruins? is that it? is that all?
i grow morose very quickly watching this parade of doubt fire-siren thru my skull. on this particular eve, i firmly shut down the computer. i pick up my book. i stroll down to the bar where i run into eric. hes still in his swat fatigues. the sweat imprint from his bulletproof vest resides. his hands shake a little as we slam a shot of whiskey and gulp. the bullet hit right between his feet, he says, & he had to decide then, exactly then... that particular millisecond was pretty much the demarcation line between his ass getting shot... or not. the perps pistol had gone off as the fuck-head was raising it to shoot him, him, this jokester, this boyfriend of my coworker & my friend, swat-boy extraordinaire, eric. the sudden recoil startled the man, eric took that millisecond and used it. he ran foward two yards and took the guy down. he punched the guy, wrenched the gun away. handcuffed him, even remembered the miranda rights.
ultimately, he continued to fucking breathe.
& thats the point, i suddenly thought. we continue to fucking breathe, at least for now. thats enough. our story is sketched in that. our celebration, even if tinged with a certain desperate insanity, is real enough. necessary even. we need these nights of communal abandon, cause in the light of day, theres an alligator somewhere, with a clock ticking in its belly & it ticks for each of us, yeah fuckers, yea verily, it ticks for thee.
& thats the news here in new orleans. enough for now anyway.
i miss you often, you talented son of a bitch. i would love for you guys to come see me. just as soon as hurricane season is over you should make the endeavour. sorry if this email is a bit dramatic, i name thee sounding board for mine own thoughts, go in peace. ill call you soon. tell you lighter tales, i wanna know how things are?
ok, kick oin for me,
love
-dwight
