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You’re Never Alone
In New Orleans
by
Diana Grove
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Have you ever tried to describe a nightmare?
Here’s one for you. Imagine your hometown - the buildings, the businesses, the people. Now imagine it after a bomb has dropped. After the walls have been blown apart, the roofs caved in and the cars dumped on fences. Imagine the people are gone, with an occasional neighbor lying dead, face down in the street. The stench of rot is so thick it gets caught in your throat, your clothes, even your hair. Piles of debris are coated in a toxic slurry of mildew and mud. Everywhere you look there is total devastation. Houses that you once knew are now just a pile of sticks. You wonder what happened to the family who lived there. Were they able to leave, or are they still inside, bloated and rotting under a pile of furniture? You can’t believe this is America. This place could be Bosnia, Nagasaki, or Dresden after the war. Your town, once known to be so cheerful and carefree, is now a twisted wasteland of suffering and pain. This town is New Orleans after the storm.
We had been away three weeks since Katrina had hit, and once again, Grove was driving.
The whole city was under lock down, only journalists and rescue workers were allowed in. But the mayor made an announcement that business owners could return briefly to New Orleans to check damage, then quickly vacate until further notice. And since our guest bedroom was the unofficial world headquarters of my husband’s two-person corporation, we said goodbye to my family up north and loaded up the car.
The previous weeks had been filled with anxiety and dread, the news reports were grim, “massive devastation, hundreds dead, maybe thousands.” But still, we couldn’t wait to get back. The day before our arrival, Grove mapped out a safe route back into the city and planned several entrance strategies.
We had heard without proper paperwork, residents weren’t allowed beyond the military checkpoints. In desperation, some brought firearms and parked in desolate areas, then snuck in on foot to check on their houses, we were fully prepared to do the same. Since the news was reporting a rash of violence and looting, no one really knew what to expect. But Grove and I felt the same way, this was our city and we didn’t care how difficult it would be, we just needed to be there and see things for ourselves.
After a 15-hour trek from Wisconsin to Louisiana, we finally approached a roadblock just inside the city. I began to sweat. I’d never been through a military checkpoint before, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be good. People like me don’t mix well with men in uniform. I have a hard time trusting people who are trained to kill their own species. Plus, I was in no mood for talking. I just wanted to pass through without having to explain anything, mostly because our car was filled with guns, beer, and a dead baby alligator. I glanced over at Grove to see if he was keeping it together.
“Hey, you’re gonna play it cool right? Remember not to ask them about the weather in Iraq or anything. And whatever you do, don’t let me say anything. I’ll probably panic and tell them we’re Canadians down from Nova Scotia checking out the Redfish.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s all about confidence. If you act like you know what you’re doing, you can go anywhere.”
Grove is a schemer, a planner, he’s also an “idea man.” That means it was his idea to fill the back seat of the car with three cases of warm beer and a bag of ice. He figured along with a Swiss Army knife and some mosquito repellent, that’s all we would need to survive one night in the aftermath of the worst natural disaster in America’s history. (And if he had included a portable generator and some t-bone steaks, he would have been right.)
As we eased the car up, one of the soldiers glanced in the back seat. I had tossed a jacket over the box of oddities my family had given us before we left their house during the evacuation. I really wasn’t sure how I was going to explain the stuffed alligator, the wood duck, the rooster, the carved elephant tusk, the pheasant hunting rifle, and the human mandible. It’s not that my family’s weird, they just really enjoy dead things.
Grove handed the soldier a business card with our address on it. He explained his corporation was just down the street and he was in dire need of checking on his records, files and technical equipment. (Apparently, a Swingline stapler and a box of Sharpies are considered “technical equipment” in section 4A of the Louisiana tax code.)
With the manners of a southern gentleman, the soldier waved us on. You have to figure a 250-pound fighting machine isn’t going to be roused by tech speak and a car full of dead animals. Before we drove off, he wished us good luck and handed us a warning flyer, which was basically a waiver excusing the city of any bodily harm that may occur when entering the disaster area. I scanned it for any helpful tips.
“Hey Grove, the flyer says we need rubber gloves and bleach. Do we have anything like that?”
“No, we have ice and beer.”
“Right. Well, that should be enough to sanitize any major wounds. Oh, it says here we need tetanus shots. Have we had any of those lately?”
“Um, I’m not sure.” he said. “I think I had a flu shot a few years ago, does that count?”
“Probably. Isn’t tetanus something pirates get, like scurvy or peg rash?”
“Yeah, I think you’re only susceptible if you’re on the high seas.”
“Good.” I said. “It’s bad enough our roof may be gone. The last thing we need is to walk funny or start foaming at the mouth.”
Getting through the checkpoint felt like free admission into an amusement park of death. I kept looking for the broken tilt-a-whirl and the emaciated circus dogs. So far, all we had seen were a lot of downed branches and twisted metal. But from the news coverage of past weeks, I anticipated it getting much worse.
And it did. The first thing we noticed when we entered Magazine Street was the smell. The ninety-three degree temperature was causing the refrigerators of New Orleans to ooze bacteria and filth. Strange, trickly fluids ran out of boarded up shops and restaurants. Houses were spray painted with rescue codes, signaling if there were any dead bodies inside, either human or animal. The air was so thick and foul, just attempting a normal breath made my lungs want to retreat to a nice, cozy meat locker.
Even though this notoriously fashionable shopping street in the old part of the city was largely unharmed, there was still enough wreckage and scattered debris to label it a bona fide disaster area. The power was out everywhere, making the desolation all the more eerie. It was clear we were driving though a ghost town There was no need to obey traffic signals, because there simply weren’t any. Aside from an occasional Humvee or a chopper overhead, we were the only human presence in the entire neighborhood.
After the storm, I had been tortured with visions of our house. Eighty percent of the city had been underwater and the rest was subject to wind damage, fires, and looting, so I was sure the place would be in some state of disrepair. Surely the roof would be gone and Grandma’s china smashed. Grove’s bubble-gum wrapper collection saved from childhood was most likely in Gentilly by now. And what about my dizzying array of dresses? My guess - it was probably much less dizzy.
As we pulled up to the familiar address, I let out a gasp. It was hard to believe, but at first glance, everything seemed pretty much intact, with the exception of a Live Oak tree that had casually fallen off the sidewalk and onto the house, ripping out all of the electrical wiring. A two-foot hole in between some branches was all that would allow a body inside.
Grove glanced up and smiled, “Well, welcome to your new tree house. If you grab the ice and the alligator, I’ll get the beer. Just watch out for that three-legged tabby over there, it’s making a beeline for your ankle bones.”
The entire lower Garden District was devoid of activity and we thought we were alone, but as soon as we stepped out of the car, eight cats of every color and stripe appeared out of nowhere, meowing and circling our legs. They hadn’t had any human contact for weeks, and despite our rank smell, they found us quite appealing. You don’t really think of cats being needy, but these beasts were so happy to see us they practically had tears in their eyes. Later, we put out food and water for them, but they weren’t hungry, they just wanted to be touched.
When we walked through the front door, we immediately began an inventory of what was normal and what was not. And even though all of the back doors were mysteriously wide open and there was a cat on the TV, everything looked pretty much as we had left it. Aside from twelve broken widow panes, a busted shutter, thirty feet of missing siding and about three hundred pounds of storm debris delicately tossed in the back yard, not one thing was amiss.
We felt lucky considering what most of New Orleans had been through. In fact, we made out like bandits. Granted, we had no electricity, but considering the house was built in 1870, a good nine years before the light bulb was invented, we saw this as a charming addition to the whole experience. Besides, we had candles…and beer…and a gun. In some states, that’s the makings of a perfect evening.
While Grove took pictures of the damage, I began cleaning up, which was no easy task considering the debilitating heat. It was still ninety-three degrees outside and easily ninety-six in. I figured if I started with the refrigerator, we would be that much closer to sleeping in a place that didn’t smell like Quincy’s waiting room. Believe me, cleaning furry beef and liquefied shrimp out of a refrigerator is a character building experience. (To this day, I’m only able to talk to New Orleanians about picking maggots out of the ice machine. Somehow, out-of-towners just don’t appreciate this.) I hadn’t even begun to clean up the rancid condiments before I was filthy, sweaty and smelling to high heaven.
The news told us the water was not yet safe, that it could be contaminated with e-coli, cholera, and microbes that were so dangerous and rare they hadn’t even been discovered yet. (Keep in mind the news also told us alligators were waltzing down Canal Street and thugs were holding brain surgeons hostage with AK-47’s.)
Still, I didn’t drink the water. I also didn’t shower in it. Instead, I stripped down on the back porch and poured a gallon of Aquafina over my head. Apparently Grove had done the same. I found him on the front porch, naked, wet, and holding a beer. Black rescue choppers were hovering overhead while three cats circled his legs. The sun was just beginning to set over the Victorian houses across the street.
“Hey,” I said. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to be naked on a city street with the U.S. military roaming around so much? You know those guns have real bullets. You wouldn’t want to be the subject of a misfire, something like that could really jeopardize a marriage.”
He told me not to worry, he was simply taking in the night air.
“Ok, enjoy it while you can because sooner or later we have to attempt to lie down inside and be unconscious for eight hours.”
Sleeping in a 19th century New Orleans house in mid September may sound romantic to some, but the truth is, before the advent of air-conditioning, people probably weren’t very happy.
As night fell, the stale air grew even more oppressive. And like most houses in this city, for some unexplainable reason, all of the windows were sealed shut. There was nothing we could do but lay on the floor like a couple of starfish with cool washcloths on our heads and try to think about cold things, like ice cream and Canadian Mounties.
It was my brilliant idea that because of the two-degree difference in temperature, we would sleep better down on the living room floor instead of upstairs in bed. Grove actually bought this for a while. We swatted mosquitoes, sipped beer and played “find the ice cube” for a good two hours before we finally drifted off.
As usual, he fell asleep before me and softly began to snore. Although he couldn’t have been out for more than two minutes before he jumped up and began screaming like a girl (a very large, hairy girl, but a girl nonetheless). Apparently a three-inch cockroach had run across his neck, down his belly, into his privates, then up the fireplace, most likely in utter terror.
He snapped his blanket off the floor and huffed up to the bedroom swearing he would never let me make sleeping arrangements again. I tried telling him insects need love too, but he just wouldn’t listen.
With Grove upstairs in bed, I was alone with my thoughts. The heat was so thick and heavy it had taken on a life of its own. I’m not sure if it was a lack of fresh air or heat exhaustion, but I think I actually began to hallucinate. The air pressed down on my flesh and the room was suddenly a coffin.
I imagined what it would be like to be buried alive, to be trapped with only inches of space around me and no way out. I opened my eyes, but with no moon or city lights, everything was pitch black. I jumped up, gasping for air. I felt like I was being suffocated in my own living room.
This momentary sense of panic made me think about all of the people who had died in their houses during the hurricane as the floodwaters rose.
Then, I thought about the history of this house and all the people who had lived and died here. Every house has a story to tell, particularly in New Orleans. And this house has always felt like a living being, unable to be owned by any one person, just lived in and cared for throughout the years.
This house, on lower Magazine Street, began its life in the Greek Revival era as a stately double gallery town home in a fashionable, up and coming neighbor. Ladies wore corsets, men wore hats and Mardi Gras was celebrated with elaborate costumes and glass beaded “throws.” Being over 120 years old, it withstood Yellow Fever epidemics, world wars, and countless political scandals. The Depression replaced frivolous living with bread lines and unemployment. After World War II, it was converted into a boarding house for railway men. (One man, who lived in what is now the kitchen, was killed in a train accident in the 1960’s.)
The neighborhood declined substantially in the disco era, and the building eventually became a flophouse. Two hundred dollars and a 38-Special were found under the very floorboards where I was lying. Although, like many grand housed in New Orleans, right at the brink of death, it was revived in the 1990’s and brought back to its original glory - sturdy, elegant and timeless.
But, just because we were sleeping in renovated Victorian splendor doesn’t mean Grove and I weren’t tossing and turning and sweating our balls off. How anyone could spend a whole New Orleans summer in a sweltering, mosquito-infested coffin like this was beyond me. When the sun finally rose, we took another Aquafina shower and got the hell out.
Because of a lack of basic services, it would be another two weeks before residents were allowed back in full time. Grove went off to work in another city, but I came home to finish cleaning up, I couldn’t stand to be away. New Orleans does that to you. It takes hold of your emotions like a crazy, extravagant lover. Beyond all reason, you are smitten – no matter how much hardship you endure, you will always come back for more.
People from other places don’t understand this. Obviously, they don’t know what it’s like to be in love. Don’t they know this is where Jelly Roll Morton invented jazz? Don’t they know they can get a hot beignet at 4 am on a Tuesday? Don’t they know that, with enough cash, they can buy a house that Andrew Jackson slept in?
New Orleans was so tragically broken after the storm the only thing a mere mortal could do was put on a pair of rubber gloves and start cleaning.
So, that’s what I did for the following days and weeks and months. The rancid, oozing refrigerators that lined the streets kept on oozing. The piles of moldy drywall and twisted aluminum continued to grow. Breeding in cesspools and garbage piles, flies, mosquitoes, and palmetto bugs had completely overrun the joint. It was almost more than the average person could take. The city was on the verge of bankruptcy. There was no money and no workers to clean it. Putting the pieces back together had become the citizen’s job.
The few residents that had come back were hungry for fresh food, companionship and commiseration. Everyone had a story, some more harrowing than others. It was astonishing how many regular citizens had saved lives after the storm. It wasn’t unusual to go into a bar months later and hear jaw-dropping tales of heroism. One man I met at The Chart Room Tavern said he saved 15 of his neighbors in a rubber raft. He had lost everything, his house, his job, even his wife. But still, there he sat in the heart of the French Quarter listening to The Subdudes and The Neville Brothers on the jukebox.
My neighborhood - that little strip of civilization along the river, was one of the first to come back to life. It seemed most of the women were gone and all that remained were rescue workers and soldiers. The place was overflowing with testosterone, the few restaurants open were overrun with stressed-out, oversexed men. A wonton woman could have had a field day in post Katrina New Orleans, that is, if she wasn’t too depressed about not having insurance money, a job, or any clean place to express her wantonness.
After fixing up our own home, Grove and I drove out to the flooded areas of Lakeview, Gentilly, St. Bernard’s Parish, New Orleans East and the Lower 9th Ward. This is where the nightmare begins. The destruction was so horrendous it was hard to imagine it ever being right again. But all you had to do was look beyond the sea of mud and debris to see a house that was still structurally intact. I was sure after a wrecking bar, some bleach and a new roof, many houses could be saved.
“You know,” I thought. “Those shot guns and camel backs were built to last. They were made out of cypress wood. Even a termite can’t get through that stuff. All of those houses have such rich stories. I’s gonna take a long time, but this place will come back. I'm just sure of it.” And to a degree, it already had.
It was only a short time after the storm that WWOZ was up and running and airing their traditional New Orleans music show. Slowly the live acts returned too - The Jazz Vipers were back playing at The Spotted Cat, The Treme Brass Band was at Donna’s, and Kermit Ruffins was at Vaughn’s on Thursday nights. And no matter how grim you felt, there was always someone out on the street who would say, “How you doin’ sugar? Cheer up, it’s gonna get better.” And somehow, it always did.
This place is known as The City That Care Forgot. It’s had its share of nightmares, but the citizens love it too much not to stay and fight and build and repair.
You can’t desert a lover in times like this, not if it’s New Orleans. It’ll be back. You’ll see.
(Photo by Robyn Beck)
