Today is the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. In May Dane101 contributor Kendra Frank visited New Orleans to see with her own eyes the state of a city she has long held a love affair with and has visited multiple times. We are reposting this entry today in honor of the victims. We asked her to share some words with our readers of her impressions and emotions...more than 4,000 words later, this is her story. - editor

Arlene asked me to tell you about her. First, she asked that I tell my mother, which I explained to her as being totally impossible, so we settled on “someone else, then.” Well, it was more like a promise because we shook on it. As Robert W. Service said, a promise made is a debt unpaid and the trail has its own stern code. I’m here to make a payment.

I spent some time last Sunday, Mother’s Day, at The Chart Room with a friend enjoying the weather. This is where we met Arlene. She presented as a well-dressed, good-humored, middle-aged black woman who offered to buy the lot of us a round. I nursed a Gin Gimlet and within two minutes the conversation turned to her story and how she lost everything but she’s doing alright. I smiled and listened, nodding or giggling as I saw it appropriate. There were moments when I wasn’t sure whether to nod or to giggle, because I wasn’t sure which response Arlene expected or wanted. After the past few days, this point of confusion wasn’t unfamiliar to me. Over the weekend, these conflicts continued to rear their identical heads in different situations.

Indeed, I had come to recognize and foresee this contention. In fact, even though I could be fairly sure we were on a first-name-basis, I had not become desensitized to it. It always evoked the same immediate reaction. My eyes became hot, my throat tightened, my heart raced. Not wanting to break down, I would repeat a mantra of sorts in my head, telling myself that I had to listen. I had to look. I had to for myself in order to remember it, and I had to for the others in order to revere it. It was important. Every second held enough gravitas to last all my lifetimes.

My head was a world away from Mother’s Day as I drove down the entire length of I-55 last Friday afternoon. I told my mother that I was not taking this trip, because when I originally spoke of my travels, she vehemently opposed the last leg of things, the part that would take me there. Consequently, to keep everyone happy, a week before I left, I informed her that I was not going at all and then proceeded to cement plans that only would take me there.

I noticed for the first time as I entered Louisiana on the grassy median between the divided four-lane were organized piles of brown vegetation debris. Tall, lush trees raced with me down the tattered pavement on either shoulder. The debris couldn’t have come from my roadside companions; they looked full-grown and healthy and those piles lay brown and old. On second thought, where else would they have come from—had they been cleared out of the way of the interstate from the original cleanup? And they’re still hanging out in the median eight months later?

That was the tune all the way to the I-10 bridge that extends thirteen miles over sporadically-inhabited swampland. I chased a few houses as they were towed into the city; I took them as a sign, that they somehow indicated a state of repair and hope and progression. At this point, I still had no idea what to expect. I didn’t even have an inclination to mentally prepare myself. After all, it’d been eight months: we don’t hear about it anymore on the local news daily or even weekly, the number of articles in our newspapers and magazines has waned dramatically, and we don’t even talk about it much. In fact, we may have at various moments even avoided talking about it. It’s being taken care of, it’s no longer of our concern, we’ve donated what we could and supported various benefits put on by our favorite local bands and artists and what else can we do or say that hasn’t been done or said already. Freud had his theories about rationalization, and this song and dance was one with which we’re all familiar.

Exit 231A off of I-10E sloped down into the depths of the city, and my first real problem surfaced at the intersection at the end of that ramp. Looking for City Park Avenue, I sat with my left-turn signal blinking as I searched for a sign telling me what road I would be turning onto. You know, like a road sign? Oh, the things I took for granted in Wisconsin. There was no road sign; it had not been replaced; this was the case all over. All things posted separated into three categories: crooked and barely standing, painted homemades on pieces of cardboard or wood that local residents displayed for their own convenience, or the gazillion and a half 12” by 18” white plastics put up by the numerous self-employed. In fact, those white plastics outnumbered the other road signs two-to-one and each asked different questions. “Not satisfied with your claim?” “Need gutting and sheet-rock for under $1200?” “Want to sell your home quickly?” Followed by 504 area-coded numbers, those inquiries were stapled or attached to every cooperating surface.

Less than a mile went by before I arrived at my destination on Banks Street. Being focused on following my directions and not missing turns, it took me a few moments to notice all of the garbage and debris that scattered, covered, and smothered the sides of the road. The sidewalks seemed unwalkable—concrete that sprawled out was in rough shape and glistened within the cracks from shards of glass. Earlier told to park next to the only watering hole open and available for blocks, Finn McCools, I received warning about driving around that my friends Mapquest, Yahoo!, Google, and Rand McNally failed to mention in their directions, beyond the inconvenience of missing street signs. If I wanted to make it through with my car still intact, I had to stick to main thoroughfares to avoid huge sinkholes and multitudes of nails lying about in the street, both of which posed a serious threat to the nether regions of my vehicle. I saddled the Saturn up to a spot just beyond a debris pile at what appeared to be a safe place. Getting out of my car to head to Finn McCools, my first step met with a large piece of glass, straight through the bottom of my flip-flop. Luckily, the first poke softly pressed against the pad of my foot and I was able to remove the sharp and salvage my shoe. Lesson learned. Always carefully survey the ground before I walk on it. And stop wearing flip-flops, for goodness’ sake. Looking across the boulevard or “neutral ground” to the other side of the street, I noticed a dusty, crashed Kia, facing the wrong direction, but seemingly parked along the roadside. Investigating further, I learned that it had been there for months.

Being that it was four in the afternoon, I felt it appropriate to start things out with a Bloody and a cigarette, something familiar to me in a strange world. I chatted with the bartender, Carolyn, and explained that I had just arrived from Wisconsin. She looked a little baffled.
“Are you here to help?” she asked.
“Not specifically. Just to visit.” I grinned and hoped that was an acceptable answer.
“Well, I hope you enjoy your stay, anyway. Things are a little different around here.” She returned the smile and went to serve another patron.

She was right. Things were a little different around here, as far as I could tell fifteen minutes into the heart of my venture. “A lot different” would have been more accurate, but it became more and more obvious as the hours passed that Carolyn wasn’t being trite and sarcastic. She just didn’t want to scare me. I still commend the gentle eloquence of that dialogue.

After taking a moment to get my sea legs after being in the car for the past sixteen hours, I met with the friend that I had made the trek to visit. He owned a house nearby which he was renovating. He asked how my drive panned out and the like. I wanted to participate in continuing the pleasant exchange, but felt quite stifled about asking questions and couldn’t pinpoint why. It reminded me of a conversation I had with a coworker a few weeks ago, shortly after her father passed away. Was I to ask how they were doing or was I to keep to normal, everyday subjects until they brought up the elephant in the conversation?

My first sight-seeing was done on the way to the paint shop to pick out colors for his newly redone living and dining rooms. Buying paint sounds easy enough, but then again that ease would come from living anywhere else. Being almost 5 o’clock, we rushed to get there before it closed. Fairly accessible store hours proved to be another Wisconsin luxury. Due to a nearly non-existent workforce, places could not be sufficiently staffed to operate with their normal schedule. Restaurants closed at 6pm. In that city, known for its abundant alcohol availability—the drive-through daiquiri stands and the legality of carrying around open plastic containers wherever your whim took you, the few bars that were operational actually closed at the end of the night. Not only had there been a shift from the “do whatever whenever” mentality I had experienced during my last visit in January 2004, it extremely limited the simple, normal accessibility that any person had to food, drink, paint, sundries, anything.

Next door to the paint shop stood a large, worn building, hardly identifiable being that some of the letters in Rock N’Bowl blew off in the storm. Later that evening, we would attend a show enjoyed by the other patrons of the venue, whether they bowled or not. Benny Grunch and the Bunch featured that night, playing fun, novelty music as a colloquialism in itself, similar to the group so popular amongst Wisconsinites, Da Yoopers. A fan stood in front of me who proudly wore a band T-shirt. The front and back displayed in big, bubble letters part of a title from one of Benny Grunch’s hits, “Temporarily Ain’t Dere No More.” Within the words, the t-shirt paid homage to a long list of local businesses that no longer were there anymore, if you will. As my friend purchased one for his own, I watched the line of loving fans around the stage, asking Benny’s bunch for autographs and pictures with them.

After the paint shop, a catnap, and a shower, but before the Benny Grunch show, we stopped in a local restaurant for seafood po-boys and High Life luckily just before 7pm, when the kitchen closed. Apparently, across the way from where we parked, a crashed-out helicopter had remained there for weeks a few months earlier. At dinner, we discussed our options for the evening. Easily agreeing upon the Rock N’Bowl and seeing as there were hours to kill before that, my friend asked me what I wanted to do. I told him that I was open; he asked if I wanted to go for a drive. It seemed an innocent enough question, and, actually, nothing sounded more pleasant. I left Madison, forty degrees and raining, and I now relaxed with a Crystal-sauce-covered, half-eaten and mangled catfish sandwich, the weather a little over eighty degrees, breezy and sunny. A late-day drive promised perfection.

Cruising out of the Mid-City area with both of the front windows completely rolled down, through the Bayou St. John neighborhood, the sweet, musky smell in the air reminded me of visits’ past. The odor seemed intensified by the wind rushing through the car; I swallowed mouthfuls trying to place that scent and watched as one of the more affluent and unaffected parts of town shimmied away from my view. The mayor lived over there, and the houses were large, well-built and maintained. Hand-painted street signs marked each block as we drove further away from that scene. The sloppy green rectangles, with their carefully marked white letters, mocked the originals as a poor and obvious substitution, but a substitute nonetheless.

Transitioning over to District 5, we first stopped in the Lakeview area near a marina on Lake Pontchartrain. Initially, it seemed important to me to not miss the sun as it set over the boats and the water, with wind peacefully chopping it into waves. This water was pretty, it was “one of the good ones,” as a favorite Madison comedian says. Pontchartrain sparkled in a way that Monona never could. We walked closer to the Lake; he lead and I followed, as it was for the rest of my stay. Beyond him, from left to right, displayed three things: what looked like the massive skeleton of a building with only portions of the top story still intact, the upper half of a small two-story structure lounging on a wrecked boat, and a yellowfire sunset closing in on its horizon. What were these buildings? Each piece of this view seemed unrecognizable, with the exception of the sun. Its glow highlighted a backdrop of the marina, which served as an exposed graveyard for hundreds of smashed vessels, all piled up and smushed together. As explained to me, the large structure on the left previously occupied a popular chain restaurant, Joe’s Crab Shack. The lazy and crooked object next to it on the boat was part of the marina’s lighthouse.

Fumbling with a borrowed digital camera, it felt rude or tactless to take pictures of this wreckage, but it seemed a bigger mistake to not physically document what I saw. A few moments after I came to terms with this fear of a possible faux pas, the camera’s batteries died. We decided to move along to the next sights. The nearby neighborhood of West End, which is a specific subset of Lakeview Proper, was one of the most affected parts of the city, second only to the devastation of the Lower 9th Ward. The first puzzle pieces of this grand disaster started to fit together here as we passed what seemed to be a huge rubble pile. Tourists picked up chunks of what looked like rock and took the souvenirs back to their cars. These portions formerly constructed part of a levee and were coveted because that was one of the first to fail, to crumble, to flood certain parts of this large community with fourteen feet of water. I followed from the stones as the crow flies across the street to a house. Eight months ago, it surely stood as a sturdy, two-story brick home. Now, the front which faced the levee looked as if dynamite had been ignited there, the face blown completely off.

I’ll admit--I felt wooed. This destruction romanced me. It came upon me slowly, gently, eloquently, just as Carolyn’s response earlier at Finn McCools. Debris in the median, nails in the street, piles of garbage and moldy furniture along the side of it, the shattered boats in the marina, all of them courted as a crescendo, an entrance into my understanding of the aftermath’s reality. Lakeview’s ghosttown couldn’t be adequately captured with pictures; my Canon was not missed. I didn’t want to capture it, either. To capture it would be to have it and to own it, and those abandoned and destroyed houses did not belong to me. Most of them really didn’t belong to anyone, as out of the blocks and blocks that I saw, perhaps ten homes were somewhat occupied, mostly just on the second level. Spray-painted with a grid and covered in letters and numbers either on the front window or front door, the houses that weren’t haunted the area, reminders of what was lost and symbols of what “losing everything” really meant.

On Saturday morning, the need for lumber and other house-repair accessories put us on a venture to the Lowe’s Hardware on Elysian Fields in a way that left the morning as an oyster ready to be plucked. The first thing I noticed pulling up was the massive amount of “independent vendors” who had set up shop along the outskirts of the parking lot. Trailers with painted signs advertising their goods lined up next to the store’s sign itself, which read, “Lowe’s- Now Hiring-Estamos Empleando.” This job availability showed up all around town at most operating businesses, but that was the first I’d seen which directly encouraged Spanish-speaking workers to apply. Inside, this small detail grew more prevalent. All of the signs within Lowe’s were bilingual. Large blue squares hanging over each department said it all. “Lawn and Garden/ Césped y Jardín” swung over my head as I looked around at the shoppers, many with darker complexions than I, with sunburned faces and brown skin.

Putting these notions together, I came to understand that a city, which did not carry a remarkable Mexican population in the past, now reacted to a dramatic increase of Spanish-speaking residents. Lowe’s went for the positive angle, knowing many of their customers could only communicate in their native language, and not only provided a way for these people to shop and therefore build and repair, but also offered an opportunity for employment to them, as well. This opportunity presented an option for the Mexican workers. During this rebuilding process, the most prevalent group to respond to the city’s need for help has been this population, but at times they’ve met hostility. Laborers come, rent apartments, some living ten people to a room, and subcontract themselves out in order to make good money. Others of the city are more than willing to hire these subcontractors because the waiting list and cost of hiring help through professional contractors would take months and months and much money. The work they do is tedious and strenuous— gutting houses, hanging sheet rock, priming and painting, rebuilding cabinetry and floors in hot and humid weather. It’s a job that many people would not do otherwise, even if presented the choice between that and taking on minimum-wage, entry-level employment.

Returning us to his Mid-City house, my friend went about completing the plumbing of his kitchen sink in order to eliminate the five-gallon bucket from beneath the drain. It’s the little things I saw appreciation for, like not having to empty out a heavy bucket of dirty water every day. The lumber purchased provided a means to construct trim for the back door. I left the measuring, cutting, that whole business in the backyard up to more capable hands, but did make a promise to help paint. In the interim, it gave me an opportunity to have my camera spend a little one-on-one time with the neighborhood. Here within the 3rd Ward, all of the houses are raised many feet above ground and are generally without basements. Still, flood levels here had reached seven feet and higher. Cars in the street were completely submerged. What’s worse was that the water stuck around for two weeks. Mold begins to grow after two days, so as I surveyed the area, I realized that all of the debris from gutting along the sidewalk wasn’t just harmless old furniture. Most of the garbage was fungi-infested toxic waste. No longer did the city have a regimented curb pick-up, either, meaning bags of household trash lay next to rotting houseguts for weeks.

Around a few blocks and back, I arrived in the backyard just in time to paint the newly-cut trim. Multi-tasking, I let sweat drip over my face, painted white onto wood, and all the while, my first kiss of sun, in the form of a burn, of the year came along quite nicely. I thought about my activity—I helped, specifically, though I didn’t think that slapping enamel on a few boards truly qualified as helping. Considering all the work that needed to be done on this house, and then that added to the repairs that are needed throughout the city, my efforts felt trivial, ineffectual. Hearing baritone chatter a few yards away, I looked up to find my friend and his friend, Andy, who had been assisting with this rebuilding process. Allow me to take this moment to commend Andy for not only his pleasant, generous demeanor but also his excellent moustache.

That afternoon, after my short time spent outdoors at peak sunshine hours created the sensation of both melting and burning simultaneously, I cleaned up a bit and sat down with my friend. Once again, he asked what I wanted to do; I said I was open; he suggested lunch and a drive. This time I had a better grasp as to what that would entail, but did not consider that any sight could be more dramatic than the ones seen the night before. We headed east first for food; in the past, this area existed as somewhat of a disappointment to the rest of the city. As the 1970’s flux of oil money in this neighborhood pledged prosperity and suburban growth, the unfortunate departure of the oil headquarters for Texas left this portion of the 9th ward with no real future, just plans for a future no longer possible.

The Southeast Asian community carries a strong presence here. For lunch, we stopped off of I-10 at a recommended Vietnamese restaurant, certainly something that I appreciated. As I attempted to be brave and adventurous in my ordering, I recalled the last things that I ate and really enjoyed in Madison. Actually, I couldn’t recall, which made the grilled shrimp and salty lemonade even better. Attached to the restaurant, a bakery offered various doughy items, all looking and smelling delicious. After browsing and not buying anything, I left, as I had mistakenly asked the woman behind the counter what she would recommend. She told me that she didn’t speak English, but called for another woman to speak with me, which caused a small scene but a great embarrassment for me. One of these days, I will learn to talk to people less.

An Equals CD had been in the player during the drive yesterday, and joined us again for our journey today. Its music, discordant with the scenery, became a soundtrack to these memories. Heading further east, we sped past things that I still have not been able to process. It all came back to the Sunday comics for me, that small part buried somewhere in the middle section, the part you probably didn’t like, either. Usually entitled something like, “What’s Wrong With This Picture?,” it showed a cartoony yet normal scene where the looker needed to find ten things messed up with the picture. That dog’s wearing a sombrero? The door has no handle? Little Janey’s eating her soup with a fork? Driving past boats capsized over ten feet from the shore and ships seemingly pulled over on the side of the road evoked a similar reaction. I imagined what it would take in order to move a barge into the middle of a field. On the way home, we passed men fishing off rocks in the swamp, with their truck parked near the shore.

Arriving back near Banks Street, I took a moment on the porch and made my first phone call back home. It was to a good friend, Kitt. She’d never been here, and I had trouble explaining the things I saw. I still do. If a perfect, digital picture can’t do any justice, what good were my words to the situation? The most I managed to get out, with the exception of the simple chronology of what I’d done so far, was a clumsy, “there’s still stuff everywhere.” The word “still” echoed in my head for the rest of our conversation. Its definition and reality confused me, and I thought about the difference between still and forever. What really separates their implications? While hanging up with Kitt, a good-looking pick-up truck pulled into a parking spot across Telemachus, and then a good-looking man got out of it and walked up to the porch. Another of my friend’s friends, Jason shook hands with me and took a moment to talk. Some might call Jason one of the more fortunate survivors; he rented a third-story apartment Uptown, which didn’t receive the flooding that most of the rest of the city did. However, he also stayed through the storm, watching as the skylights were suctioned out through his roof from the wind, but saving his entire building from being destroyed. He was able to evacuate a few days after, and then return to the city again when it was safe.

Everyone had their own story to share; usually not less than a minute after I mentioned that I was visiting from Wisconsin did I hear about what happened from his or her perspective. This continued to be the way conversations with locals rolled out. After Andy finished for the day, the four of us went to Finn McCools for a drink. It was suggested that we visit Gary and Daisy, as they only lived a few blocks away. My Guinness came with me as we made the walk. Many of the houses laid out shotgun style, meaning that each room cascaded back, one right after the other, all connected by a long hallway running the length of the house. Gary and Daisy were quite far along with their renovations. Many times, the shotgun houses were split, with identical layouts on either side, creating two apartments. They had purchased one of the duo-apartments, but tore down walls to create one large house. Their gutting days were long over, the moldy belongings discarded, the floors ripped out and replaced, the sheet rock hung, most of the walls primed and painted vibrant colors that probably don’t exist on walls here in Madison—deep burgundies, rich and dark lilacs, pure turquoises. Surprisingly, some of the wooden furniture made it through weeks in water. The prized surviving piece in the master bedroom, a beautiful and intricate antique bed frame with a detailed headboard, stood triumphantly, with hardly but a watermark line four feet up on the footboard.

Daisy spoke with what was probably the strangest accent I’d ever heard. Later on, I’d asked the boys if that was the local, pure accent. They’d informed me, no, it was just Daisy’s accent. She told me about her home, that she’d decided to purchase both sides of the apartment after her son passed away years ago, and that she’s spent much time and money over the past years making it into her home. We walked to a large room off of the master bedroom that was still being worked on. Turns out, it wasn’t a room at all; it was her walk-in closet. Past the bedroom was the office, with high ceilings like the rest of the house. However, here in this room about seven feet up was a lofted area. The boys teased Daisy, telling her that the lofted area could be where the cats could go if this were to happen again. Obviously, that thought reminded Gary of what he had to go through last time, evacuating with pets. Putting six cats into a vehicle and leaving town with them could not have been easy, whether they were crated or not. I remembered some of the houses I walked by earlier that day, with dates, animals found or not found, and the word “SPCA” beneath it. Some weren’t able to bring their animals with them; in fact, many weren’t. I thought about my cat which been staying with my friend Jenny. Though at times, Phil was a nuisance, I couldn’t imagine being permanently parted from him, or much less, what it would be like to have to leave him behind in a storm.

Once again, trying to present the more adventurous side of myself, I casually mentioned/lied that I wanted to try boiled crawfish. Driving past a Rally’s on the way to our planned destination, the one that would include pull heads off crabs and then sucking out their brains, I realized that Bufords sounded much more appealing, and I’d never even tried one before. However, I lucked out. By the time we’d reached the restaurant, it was 6:45pm, and, naturally, already closed. Captain Sal’s it was then, and with a pound of boiled shrimp for each of us instead, more High Life was scared up for less than $8 for two sixers of bottles. We arrived at the Audubon Park for sunset on the Mississippi. I took a picture of it. Our dining room was the back of Jason’s pickup. We ate, and I took a picture of that, too.

Hours later, I got the chance to revisit a local favorite, one that I’d been to years before. At The Circle Bar , while enjoying too much whiskey for my own good, I met a few Tulane students. Not only had that weekend been Mother’s Day, but also Tulane’s graduation. This commencement proved to be particularly noteworthy because three of my really good friends happened to be in town, too. Have you heard of George H.W. Bush, William J. Clinton and Ellen DeGeneres? The four of us try to play doubles together whenever the opportunity presents itself. Those three also spoke at the University’s commencement ceremony. I wonder whose speech got the most laughs. Clinton’s a real cut-up.

All of this brings us to Mother’s day, again. After running errands, we cruised through City Park, which is one of the largest parks in the nation, but now lay in disrepair with some portions of the grass balding and others completely overgrown. The sky had been overcast all morning, but it didn’t feel as if it were going to rain, so we headed to the French Quarter for food, looking around, that whole business. The past two days showed me what the state of things really was, so a trip around Bourbon Street would be refreshing. Businesses would be open, cheesy t-shirts for sale, and proud parents and celebrated mothers would be able to enjoy the day as if their children attended school in a city that was actually functioning. The French Quarter posed for the camera with a goofy grin on its face. It allowed the media to have a “Smile Pretty!” moment with the city while the rest of it lay in ruin. On the way to that area, brass instrument noises clanged through the air and past a few police cars that blocked off a route. We quickly parked and joined the party— it was a parade! In the likes of a Super Sunday celebration, there were people dressed in elaborate costumes and a brass band playing music. An entire block’s worth of tagalongs joined them, as did the two of us. There were small children marching and pounding their feet, couples holding hands down the street, young adults enjoying their vice of choice, whether they be drinking or smoking, and groups of people celebrating as the herd shifted down the street together. We joined them for a little while, but then returned to the car to continue our day as planned.

Most of the rest of the day rolled out quite typically, allowing for Jambalaya atCoop’s, drinks at Molly’s, and taking pictures of Jackson Square and the river. The next stop was the Louisiana Music Factory, where my friend found something he’d been hunting forand I was introduced to a genre of music called Swamp Pop. It was love at first sight.

I don’t remember how many floors up the rooftop pool was, but it seemed pretty high looking over the edge. From this outside hotel floor looking down at the city, everything seemed safe and taken care of. I couldn’t see sidewalks or the trash or the boats or the abandoned cars. Spending so much time in the muck of things, I felt like I had finally really gotten to get to know it better. Though this would mark my fourth visit, it was as if it were the first time that I saw the place, but more genuine and intimate. I liked it more than I ever had before. We sat out on the patio furniture with expensive hotel screwdrivers made by a new hire with a foreign accent. She put a lime in mine. The heat melted the ice down quickly, but a breeze only available at this elevation kept things comfortable. Beyond comfortable, really—it was invigorating and relaxing all at once. I couldn’t have been more pleased.

I decided it was time to call my mother. Really, being the daredevil masochist that I am, it was the only appropriate thing to do. To make the situation more nerve-racking, I lit a cigarette, even though my mom hates that I smoke.

I wished her a Happy Mother’s Day.
“Oh, thank you, sweetie. Where are you?”
“I’m just hanging out. You know, outside.”
“Kendra! It’s freezing out! And raining! Why are you outside?”

I laughed and agreed that it was freezing. Not to say that it went downhill after that, but that exchange was really the best part of the conversation. I managed to convince her that I was on my porch near Willy Street, with a winter jacket on. We talked about her lunch with my siblings and niece and my father’s birthday a few days before. Everything seemed completely normal. I’m hoping.

Our last venture in the Quarter brought us to the Chart Room, where we met Arlene. After returning from the restroom, I took a seat with my friend and she started up our conversation. Her good nature was infectious; we continued to chat with her for a half-hour, even though she obviously had a screw loose. She had a lot to say, about what happened to her life, about the things she lost, about the upcoming mayoral election, about race issues. The conversation seemed to be the best way to bring together many of the arenas of debate that I had witnessed during my trip. Arlene left the bar shortly before we did, and upon arriving back at the car, we discovered a parking ticketfor illegally parking at an unmarked taxi stand. It was the first police interaction I’d seen anywhere around these parts since Friday.

It had been a pretty genius day, indeed. After a quick stop at the Sav-A-Center for red meat and potato chips, we returned to his home. While he grilled the steaks, I performed my normal routine of e-mail, myspacedotcom, and favorite blog checking. We ate dinner on the front porch with the mosquitoes and termites buzzing around. I looked at his view of the neighborhood for one of the last times. I still had a lot of questions, and I asked as many as I thought of, no longer stifled by any elephants. When something like this is an everyday reality, a constant, when you wouldn’t know what to do within a completely operational city, then I find it acceptable to ask, to talk about. Further, those realities and constants become all the more reason to discuss it. I learned that I could ask because people could answer; they wanted to answer and share their stories. This city was not finished talking and coping just because others may think they’re sick of hearing about it.

The evening ended with a screening of the instant classic, The Katrina Story, which acted as a grand finale in this great fireworks show of a vacation. And, yes, I considered this a vacation even while considering the circumstances. The DVD had everything you could hope for with a title like that: a special DVD menu song by the star, rapper 10th Ward Buck, actual footage of he and his fellow artists and friends in the NOLA hip-hop scene weathering the flood from New Orleans East, live footage from shows while displaced in Texas, and so much ass-shaking. It was truly amazing, and I mean that without any snooty tone, whatsoever.

My initial reaction was to laugh, to giggle, to enjoy the entertainment on the level it was presented on by 10th Ward Buck, but there’s always a tinge of sadness, of irony in any laughter. Theorist Walter Benjamin spoke of his ideas about it in the book The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Now, I’m no theorist or intellectualist myself, but the few interpretations about his thoughts that I was able to make are the ones that I found a way to directly relate to my life. As a stand-up comedienne, hearing laughter is one of my favorite things, but the duality of its nature is the part that excites me most, whether it arrives by the roomful or just one muffled chuckle. Laughter exists only as a replication of emotion, and it’s no specific emotion or pleasant emotion. While I watched 10th Ward Buck cooking on a makeshift grill on his balcony porch during the storm, floating on a raft as he “relaxed” in the flood waters, and as the fly girls did their booty-shaking business, I laughed. It was all I thought to do.

Out of all those I’d met and visited with, the only two actually from the city, much less the state, were Arlene and Daisy. Everyone else originally came from somewhere else—Florida, Virginia, New Jersey, California, New York, Wisconsin. This wasn’t their hometown, but they came back anyway to understand the enigma that most of the country has turned a blind eye. Upon my visit, the August 2005 travesty unlocked its mystery for me, too, and I was just a pedestrian. NOLA was the place of dirty luxury and secret, fuelled gratification. In honor of these attributes, I shall make one request of you. Each time over the next week that either you watch the season finale of that favorite TV show that you don’t tell anyone you follow or any of your hidden stash of pornography, think of New Orleans. Leave the talking about it or visiting for when you’re ready. I’ll be doing enough telling for the both of us; since my departure early Monday morning, I find myself speaking of my visit and of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina at any given opportunity. I have to, though. Arlene asked me to.

Just don’t tell my mom.

Seriously.