Hilary and Theresa's Road to Nowhere: Elysian Fields

No matter where we went in New Orleans, we seemed to end up on Elysian Fields Avenue. In Roman mythology, the Elysian Fields were the final resting place of the souls of the heroic and virtuous. It was also the name given to Dantes’s Limbo in The Divine Comedy, a place of light enclosed in darkness, where souls sensed their greatness and their insufficiency at the same time. These themes of lightness and darkness and heaven and hell pulsed through the very arteries of this city called the Big Easy.

At first, the darkness overshadowed everything else. We felt the impact of Hurricane Katrina immediately. Our motel was in the Gentilly neighborhood, a five minute drive from the infamous Lower Ninth Ward. “Impressive” said the owner of a shop in the French Quarter, “Y’all are right in the thick of it.” We could see that - the buildings next door to our Motel 6 were still badly damaged and boarded up. So were structures on almost every block in the area. According to the clerk who checked us in, things hadn’t changed much in five years. She would know. She lived with relatives in the country, but in August of 2005, she lived around the corner from our motel, and her home was one of Katrina’s 204,000 casualties. Without flood insurance, the money from FEMA wasn’t enough to make the repairs. She took the money and left the area, one of 800,000 residents displaced by the costliest disaster in the history of the United States. Her story wasn’t unusual. We hadn’t even finished checking in, and I was totally depressed. Then she asked, “Do y’all like Cajun food?”

Just like that, she turned spirited and enthusiastic as she told us about where we should eat dinner. “Sure my house was destroyed, but you have to try the barbequed shrimp at Mulate’s.” We would see this over and over again. The food and the music of the Crescent City were like magic potions that eased the pain and made everything tolerable. We continued to feel the hellish impact of Katrina every time we left the motel, but we would find heaven in the food and the music of New Orleans.

Mulate’s is the original Cajun restaurant in “Nawlins”, famous for preserving the food and music and culture of the bayou. The barbequed shrimp were to die for. So was the music, but we didn’t have the nerve to two-step with the pros. But I immediately googled “Cajun dance lessons” and decided that we were going to learn zydaco dancing once and for all. We even bought a tape of the house band - Lee Benoit and the Bayou Stompers - so we could practice at the Motel 6.

We decided to check out Bourbon Street in the French Quarter after dinner. There was a 20 piece brass band jamming on the corner of Canal Street and a tap dancer on the corner of Royal Street. Blues, Jazz and Jimmy Buffet blared from the dozens of bars. It was only 9 pm and everyone was already pretty wasted. I didn’t mind the drunks until one of them pulled out his unimpressive penis and started following me down the street. We returned to the French Quarter many times during our stay, but I tried to steer clear of Bourbon Street.

On our way to The Ruby Slipper Cafe, we checked out Mid-City, a diverse neighborhood comprised of “shotgun shacks” (also called “singles” or “doubles”) and close to City Park, which houses the NOMA and 1300 acres of magnificent oaks dripping with that delicious Spanish Moss. We were told that, like our neighborhood, Mid-City sat under 6 feet of water for three weeks after Katrina. I sensed resentment about all of the attention given to the Lower Ninth Ward. “It wasn’t the only neighborhood devastated by the floods, you know” said one woman we stopped to chat with. But some neighborhoods had more resources than others. Mid-City is one of the fastest-recovering neighborhoods in the city due to the efforts of community action groups like the Mid-City Neighborhood Organization (MCNO) and since the storm, more than 50% of residents and businesses have returned to the area.

The shrimp and grits at Ruby Slipper were great. But the tips from Brett the waiter were even better. Brett’s advise: 1) Avoid the Cajun music scene – it’s not authentic to New Orleans. Oops. 2) Avoid Bourbon St. – it’s full of tourists and the music isn’t what it used to be (Thank God.) 3) Head straight for Frenchman St.– that’s where the real music scene is happening. And on Thursday night, go see Kermit Ruffins, the trumpet player with a role on HBO’s Treme. 4) Avoid K-Pauls, Emerils and all of the other places in the guidebooks and eat at Elizabeth’s, Dante’s Kitchen and Green Goddess. There wasn’t one bad tip in the batch. We probably should have sent him a gift basket.

After breakfast, we were running late, as usual, and we missed the Ghosts of the Garden District walking tour that had promised both “architectural splendor” and “eerie tales of ghostly manifestations”. We were supposed to show up 15 minutes early for a 2:30 pm tour and it was almost 3:00 pm. But we could see the group standing in front of the cemetery, so we caught up and tried hovering around the fringe and eavesdropping. But the Guide gave us the skank-eye, so we slunk off and looked at the damn houses on our own. We think we saw Anne Rice’s house, but without the fucking guide, we couldn’t be sure.

We got lost on our way to Elizabeth’s for dinner. It was a good way to get to know Bywater, the neighborhood along the Mississippi River where the Mardi Gras parade begins every year. Traditionally a lower income artist colony, after Katrina, many survivors flocked to the area as it was less affected by the storm, due to the slightly higher elevation. Bywater became part of what is now known as "the sliver by the river", meaning neighborhoods that saw no flooding, including Marigny, the French Quarter, Irish Channel Area, and the Garden District along St. Charles Avenue.

We ended up eating at Elizabeth’s twice during our visit. I had to go back again for more Praline Bacon, their signature dish made with bacon, dredged in butter, coated in crushed pralines and baked until crisp and orgasmic. Our waitress, a transplant from San Francisco, was optimistic about the city’s recovery. “There’s a lot of life in New Orleans”, she said. Like many people we talked to, she felt that crime was a problem before Katrina, and that some of the statistics showing increases afterwards were overblown. She told us she was more concerned about the police force, described by some as the worst in the nation. During our stay, several police officers were convicted in a high profile case involving the fatal shooting of an unarmed man in the aftermath of Katrina; most seemed to feel that the verdict was overdue. “But the nicest thing about crime in New Orleans”, she continued, “is that there are hardly any rapes or abductions here; we don’t do rapes and abductions in New Orleans.” Silver linings indeed.

After dinner, we wandered around Frenchman St. in Marigny, a hip east-village kind of a neighborhood, and watched the filming of Treme in the Spotted Cat Music Club. We heard that extras were picked from the streets and we thought about sticking around and trying our luck, but it was Thursday night and we had a date with Kermit Ruffins at Vaughns on Dauphine Street. Kermit has been a New Orleans institution for years. Raised in the Lower Ninth Ward and Treme, he is a jazz trumpeter, singer and composer and he co-founded the Rebirth Brass Band. He had become even more famous because of his role on HBO’s Treme.

Dressed in pajamas and a Santa’s hat, he had just started playing when we arrived. No one was dancing yet, which meant there was room for us right in front of the band. The joint was jumping within minutes and later we congrautlated ourselves on jumpstarting the dancing. Kermit plays a fusion of blues, jazz, and funk, as he was very entertaining. There were lots of jazzy call and responses, lots of “who dats” back and forth and the drummer did an amazing Katrina- infused Sly Stone medley. We danced for hours and might have gone all night but for the large, obnoxious, drunk chick who totally interfered with my dance and practically pushed me into the drummer. Who dat bitch, I said to myself. She was finally asked to leave when she tried to dry-hump Kermit, but I’d totally lost my mojo by then and we decided to call it a night. But it was all good; we had burned off dinner at Elizabeth’s and we knew that Kermit would be playing at Tiptina’s on Sunday.

We were told if we ate in the Treme district, arguably the first African American neighborhood in the USA, we should park our car where we could see it. We did see obvious drug dealing on the street corners and I wouldn’t have wandered around Treme alone, but Lil Dizzy’s was supposed to be one of the most authentic “southern soul” food restaurants in the city, and it seemed worth the risk. “It’s only a car”, I said to Hilary. “She’s only a dog” he said to me. The sausages and red beans and rice were amazing and, as luck would have it, there was a parking space right in front of the restaurant. While we ate, we looked out the window and watched Layla assume her position behind the wheel.

The Louis Armstrong Park sits on the border of Treme and the French Quarter and I was disappointed when I found out it was closed for repairs. Treme was yet another neighborhood that sustained serious damage at the hands of Katrina and Armstrong Park was yet another casualty. Fortunately, police corruption worked in our favor that day and we were directed by two different police officers to a gap in the fence where we could break into the park. New Orleans was the birthplace of jazz and it seemed only fitting to pay our respects to Satchmo in the park erected in his honor. He was still standing, but barely, and only because he was anchored by supporting ropes and beams. We took some pictures and then lined danced our way to Congo Square, the sacred space where slaves would meet on Sundays to sing and dance and play music. Their African melodies and call and response patterns are said to be the original influences of jazz. We were able to view a very cool new Congo Square monument that hadn’t even been unveiled to the public yet and then we made our way back to the hole in the fence. We high-fived ourselves for once again being in the right place at the right time.

We couldn’t resist a visit to the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum in the French Quarter. We were greeted by “Dr. John” (not the musician), a self proclaimed Druid, Wicken, Priest and something else that I can’t remember. He was pretty strange. He would pause for emphasis every time he said something really weird. He paused frequently. He told us that he used voodoo dolls for protection and that if anyone tried to harm him, they would suffer terrible nightmares and then go insane. He paused for several seconds. He went on to tell us that he fed his voodoo dolls raw meat once a week. He always fed them at night and the meat would be gone in the morning. He paused even longer after that one. Later, I overheard Dr. John mention his three snakes to someone. Excuse me Dr. John, I wanted to ask, don’t snakes eat raw meat? Actually, we learned quite a bit at the Voodoo Museum. We learned that gris-gris are both the act and the object of a magical supernatural power. And we learned all about zombies. Apparently there are several kinds of zombies. One is a type in which a person’s soul is promised in return for favors. New Orleans native son Jelly Roll Morton, said by some to have invented jazz, claimed to have had such a curse placed on him by his own godmother, the Voodoo Queen Eulalie. Let’s all take a long pause…

Dr. John, the musician, was in town while we were visiting and we were lucky enough to catch him at Tipitina’s on Tchoupatoulis. I loved saying “Tipitina’s on Tchoupatoulis” and tried to say it several times a day. Dr. John looked really old and he needed a walking stick (a very cool one, at least, with lots of gris-gris looking things on it.) A true New Orleans legend, his piano playing sounded great and that unique voice sounded the same as it did in 1974.

It seemed necessary to see the Lower Ninth Ward. After all, it was literally just around the corner from where we were staying. We’d seen the pictures and, like everyone else, we’d heard more about this neighborhood than any other. But it was still shocking to actually see it. There was an apocalyptic feel to the Lower Ninth. Of the 5300 homes in the Ninth, every single one of them had been flooded and rendered uninhabitable. Entire blocks of unoccupied houses stood in various states of disrepair. Some lots were razed. But most of the damaged houses were still there. Some were boarded up, with or without roofs and windows. Some were almost hidden by grasses that had grown high in the five years since the Industrial Canal collapsed in two different places. It was so quiet; like a ghost town. A few houses seemed intact and I was embarrassed as we drove by, especially when Hilary smiled and waved. Jesus, I thought, they are going to think we’re looking at them like animals in a zoo. Was that what we were doing, I worried. But most of them acknowledged us and waved back. I hoped they understood that we were there because we had to be there.

There was rebuilding going on. Brad Pitt’s group, “Make it Right”, and other similar organizations were making a dent and 1200 new homes had been built so far. But there was a different kind of renewal happening in neighborhoods like Lakeview, the upscale and predominantly white middle class neighborhood that took just as much of a hit when the 17^th Street Canal collapsed. In Lakeview, the damaged houses had all been razed and the lots appeared tended to. Construction was underway on every single block. Detours were set up around the roads with damaged asphalt. It was noisy and full of life. I didn’t notice any of that in the Lower Ninth. Was it about race? Or was it more complicated?

People had so many opinions. There was controversy about whether new homes should be built on any land 8 feet below sea level. There were attitudes about whether the Lower Ninth should be allowed to exist period. “The Ninth should have been razed before Katrina” said one resident of Lakeview, “most of the houses in the Ninth were either owned by slum-lords or inherited from grandparents; either way, they were not being taken care of”. “Puleeese” said a man from the French Quarter, “A strong breath could have knocked over some of those places.” Many seemed irritated that the Lower Ninth received so much attention from the media. “The Lower Ninth has become a cause célèbre; there was just as much damage in Lake View and no one’s even heard of it” said another resident.

A relief worker that I spoke with explained that it was complicated. The residents of the Lower Ninth weren’t as organized or as savvy and their upscale neighbors. They didn’t have the same education and resources and were less able to organize and advocate for themselves and among themselves. So they accepted inadequate settlements and they took FEMA’s one way tickets to the four corners of the earth. Over 100,000 haven’t returned because the housing simply isn’t there. Additional problems exist for the people who are there because of the lack of basic services - no fire department, no hospital, no grocery stores and only one elementary school. I was pretty sure that food and music weren’t going to solve the problems of the Lower Ninth Ward.

On Sunday morning, however, the Lower Nine and Big Nine Steppers were parading through the streets of New Orleans, many in full Mardi Gras regalia. The King and the Queen were on floats, there were several brass bands and lots of drums and feathers and dancing. The call and response of “we’ve been through the water, we’ve been through the water” was contagious and people on the sidewalks would join the parade for a while and then return to their lives recharged. It was just like a scene on Treme and it seemed like the very “culture” that people come from all over the world to experience in New Orleans. If the Lower Ninth fails to recover, it’s hard to imagine the city not suffering another irreparable blow.

As we got ready to leave the Big Easy, I kept thinking about the Elysian Fields. And also about the lyrics to the Grateful Dead’s Hell in a Bucket: “I may be going to hell in a bucket, but at least I’m enjoying the ride.” That was it, I thought. That was what I loved most about New Orleans. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the ride. Despite the circumstances, they were enjoying the ride. That was greatness in the midst of insufficiency. That was light in the midst of darkness. If the Lower Ninth Steppers could find joy in the Elysian Fields, it was time for me to crank it up a notch. To quote the Dead again, “it seemed like the least I could do”.