People are still drowning in New Orleans. It’s a year later and the waters have receded but those of us who waded through it carry the flood in our eyes. Driving through New Orleans, I see dry streets, clean cars, and people walking and catch myself blinking back memory that seems more real than sight. Few can forget but some, like me, can’t, and we remember too much to even breathe.
I came back to review
Spike Lee’s documentary
When the Levees Broke. Over 12,000 people gathered in the New Orleans Arena where a red-carpet led inside. Survivors and celebrities shook hands and hugged. The camera flash made visible the victims who in the borrowed light of fame become part of history.
In between the hellos and trading of business cards there was nervousness. As Lee introduced the film, we wondered, what would we see? The screen lit up and it was like a door opened in the dark and Hurricane Katrina swept us with wet winds into the past. We saw ourselves sloshing through chest-high water, screaming for help on roofs, fainting in the hallways. In the theater people wept and laughed and prayed.
After the movie,
Reverend Willie who guided me through the flood was guiding me again. He introduced me to actors, politicians and survivors then brought me to
Mayor Nagin. Reporters held microphones to his face. In the crush of questions, I asked if we could have an interview about the 9th Ward and the thousands of homeless left in the trailers. He never answered.
The next day, I went to the
FEMA Diamond site to find the answer. Rows of white trailers shined in the sun. A few weeks ago I could not have come here. FEMA blocked reporters from talking to evacuees. If a family had a complaint it was kept inside the fences. After public pressure, FEMA reversed its policy and allowed reporters in the camps but by then the media had moved on to Iraq and Lebanon.
right I parked and saw there were no public phones. Evacuees walked around aimlessly in the heat. Few people have cars and those that do drive them in slow circles. There is nothing to do and no where to go except the bottom of a can of beer. “A lot of them hang out and get drunk,” said
David Capone, the park manager. “That’s how they lived before the hurricane.” He seemed sad to say it.
While walking I saw men sitting on cars drinking desperately as if to numb down the passing of time.
Mark St. Anne, a coppery man with fuzzy corn-rows told me of his tour in Iraq. “I got shot at, lost friends and my heart tells me it was just for oil” he said. I asked him how his spirit was holding up. “Not a 100% there but I’m able to…you know,” he shrugged.
People said they wanted to leave but without a car or phone it is hard to search for jobs. When work is found it is taken on any terms. “I got a job on an oil platform. Had to stay on it for 21 days,” said
Mike Jones. “It was luck, now I’m trying to find more.” His girlfriend leans on the rail and yells, “Don’t come over with that shit. I’ll knock your fucking teeth out.” I turned to who was making the threat and saw a small girl hurrying away, head down. “Don’t worry. I know her,” Jones responded.
My photographer came back and told me of a kid with swollen lips and bruised eye. The pressure building in the camp was being let loose on the ones who could not speak. How many children were dodging words and fists? I wondered if the parents would try to stop me from talking to their kids the way FEMA once stopped reporters from talking to them? The silence dividing them from the world was dividing them from each other.
Almost everyone had cell phones turned off because they couldn’t pay the bill. They are stranded in poverty and out of sight of the nation. Night came and kids played basketball in the shadows. Someone parked a motorcycle by them and left the headlight on. There was nothing else to do but play games in the dark.
While they live in FEMA camps, Mayor Nagin allows their neighborhoods to be readied for demolition. With his tacit approval, New Orleans City Council passed ordinance 22203 that declared homes not gutted by August 29th could be bull-dozed. A race between land developers and home owners has begun. If the real estate moguls win one of the oldest black neighborhoods will disappear. The first slaves to give birth to free babies lived here and passed from generation to generation memory and music to remind the world how sweet freedom is.
I went to the 9th Ward where volunteers slung tools over shoulders and entered houses, scraping them clean so people could claim them before the city. The largest group was
Common Ground, whose members live in
St. Mary’s Church of Angels. They hauled rotten furniture and moldy dry wall out of the homes. Each day they came back sore and exhausted from trying to resurrect life from the ruins.
While driving, I saw a plastic skeleton on the fence. It was the kind doctors have in their offices. I pulled it down and put in the trunk. The whole trip we had been collecting dead and dying things. My note-book was filled with memories of lost lives and dreams carried away by the flood.
I parked close to where the levee broke. A construction team was clearing debris. A black woman in a green vest and construction hat directed the men. ”They call me the Queen” she said. “Not a lot of women could handle this.” We walked for a bit and I heard about her home being flooded and washed away. “It took a toll on me,” she said. “When I rebuild the city I feel like I’m rebuilding myself.”
Later that night, I visited
Curtis Muhammed, an old-school activist from the Civil Rights Movement. He created the
People’s Organizing Committee and with a staff of twenty volunteers was gutting homes for free. They had a second mission: to amplify the voice of the masses. “Instead of forcing some ideology on them,” Muhammed said, “we let them tell us what they want.”
On Saturday they held a "Survival Council" meeting. A circle of chairs was set and thirty residents fanned hot air around their faces. Muhammed, sensing their exhaustion and doubt, got up. “We take our orders from you,” he said, “If you want us to clean your home, get you a trailer, tell us and it’s done.” The people listened cautiously. “I know they mean well but it’s hard to believe any promises,” an older woman turned and said. “It’s been a year and I still ain’t got electricity.”
The 9th Ward is dark. It was our last night and we drove to the brightly lit
French Quarter. I strolled along Bourbon Street with my friend. Cheap drinks, loud music and strip joints line both sides blasting the tourists with music and sex.
In the street, I met activists of
People’s Organizing Committee who looked bored and anxious. “It’s awkward” a member said, “we’re to help the people and I know this is what they want but the misogyny of this place is…” She shook her shoulders, “yeah its time to go.” They left in a huddle, protecting their purity from the loud violent pleasures of Bourbon Street. We stayed, bought beers and watched college kids stumble around.
In the window of the strip joint
Bewitched, a young woman spun and slid on a pole. It seemed like a good photo op and I asked her if we could take her picture. “You a reporter?” she asked. A few minutes she told me her life - the fight with her mom, dropping out of high-school, the dream of being the next
Keyshia Cole.
“I’m a singer,” she said. “I strip to make money but I sing to survive.” She sang
Sam Cooke’s anthem "A Change is Gonna Come." I stood there surrounded by drunken leering men and listened to her, wondering if they could hear this, if it broke the spell they were in. They waited for her to slide on the pole but she sang instead and through her came the memory and music of the slaves who knew how sweet freedom would be.
Maybe it was anger. Maybe I wanted to remind the tourists of the culture New Orleans was losing one family, one demolished house at a time. I asked my friend to get the skeleton we found earlier. He came back with it and I grabbed it by the ankles and dragged it up and down Bourbon Street. People assumed it was a joke and asked, “Hey is that your wife.” “No” I said, “It’s the 9th Ward.”
Some scowled and walked off but I kept dragging it through the streets, laughing at myself. For the first time since my arrival, the memory of the flood didn’t overwhelm my sight. I don’t know how but while dragging the skeleton through Bourbon Street, laughing from my belly, I finally, after a year of drowning felt the waters recede.
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