Thursday August 9, New Orleans
Tuesday we drove from Texas into New Orleans. Highway 10 crosses about an hour of swamp on the way into the city. The air is sweaty and wet and sticks to
everything on the hot damp elevated freeway. Emerging from the thick mud below is an impenetrable
wall of jungle, reaching out towards the concrete with endless longing. The humidity accelerates the growth of the plants. Everything that can grow no longer, promptly
begins to rot. The process of both life and death seem sped up to a frantic rate, perpetuating immature maturity and premature death. The plants climb atop one another,
feverishly fornicating, fucking each other rude and intrusive thrusts. Ivy fills every gap in the foliage, aggressively suffocating all they can reach as the trees dig their roots deep into the warm tepid mud, trying to grab hold of anything constant, anything stable, and finding nothing.
We came into New Orleans in the pouring rain and couldnít see anything through the flooded streets and smeared windshield. We got soaked in the down pour, trying in vain to find shelter beneath the crumbling Victorian balconies. The poor children run into the streets as the clouds break to escape the sweltering heat for a few moments of ecstasy. Three girls of 6 or 7 with long black braids ran by screaming and Mike and I figured we might as well enjoy the rain too. When it let up we found Evanís work and started drinking, our clothes soaked and our shoes squeaking and squirting out water like squashed sea anenamies. Evan works at a bar called Igorís with a charming, burnt out bar maid and strong drinks. Iíd taken the rest of the mushrooms Janelle had given and lost the ability to talk. Hours passed. I found myself yelling in hysterics on a balcony around a pool table with three drunks who didnít say anything I could understand. I screamed back at them with a knowing laugh to try to fake comprehension in similar sounding gibberish, hoping it would somehow translate to whatever strange language they used. We somehow got to the French Quarter where they have bands covering Pearl Jamís ëAliveí in every bar and drunk girls dancing in the streets, trying to convince themselves theyíre living it up.
They keep people more liquered up in this town than anywhere Iíve ever been. The French Quarter is like a nightmarish Disneyland, full of tacky gift shops, cheap strip clubs, and people drinking on the streets. We met this tiny stripper named Rea, but I canít remember much about her. Mike got pissed because he spent 300 dollars in the place at the VIP champagne room. He came out with a bottle of champagne tied in pink ribbon. It was pretty good champagne, but not that good.
Even decided he wanted to sleep and left us at the Bulldog, a bar that frat boys flock to with 100 beers on tap. I sat at the outside tables eating avocado and bread, bananas and rum. People there found that to be a bit of a spectacle and I found great satisfaction in their aggressive and threatening attention. I walked around boisterously for a while with my cowboy hat and a liter of rum sticking out of my pocket, trying to talk to all the girls and saying all the boring things that drunks say when theyíre trying to make conversation. Eventually everyone was leaving and Mike and I walked back in the warm night catching cockroaches on the street, talking about the pretty photographer girl and how I was going to kill the fucking ass-hole bartender at the Bulldog. Heíd been dising me while I was on the John, which I found pretty fucking low.
The langere girl from downstairs was at the apartment when we got back, knocking on the fire escape window and shaking her ass around the stuffy apartment in her nightgown which seemed rather uncomfortably tight for sleeping in. Sheís apparently a friend of Evanís who seems to have resigned to their friendship in complete disinterest, but comes by anyway, for lack of anything better to do. She sat around with us until I was nearly passed out, making dumb conversation and looking rather nervous and bored. We all went up to the roof to shoot off fireworks and she left without a word.
Friday August 10, 6:00 p.m.
Last night was rough. I felt sick no matter how much whisky I drank. We spent most of the night at this tattoo parlor while Mike and Evan got their shoulders done. If thereís one thing Iíve learned from all this, itís that tattoo really take a long fucking time. You wouldnít expect the drunken and spontaneous "Lets get tattoos." idea to turn into a horrible 4 hour ordeal of sitting around and trying to stay drunk and spontaneous, but it invariably dose. Itís a painfully slow and boring process that people are forced into with the inevitability of death. It starts with simple "Iíll get one if you get one" challenge, a bluff that almost no one can resist calling. Then comes picking the tattoo, the drawing, the cleaning, the outlining, the coloring. It seems to just go on endlessly.
I found a few moments of serenity lying on the hood of Mikeís car with the bottle, staring at the light shimmering through the leaves above, but most of the night was just vile self-conscious self-destruction with nowhere else to go and nothing else to do. I found myself growing melancholy and sentimental missing my friends and all that, missing the things that bring comfort to my life: the sound of a friendís voice, a particular record with a particular song, the feel of a long forgotten blanket, or laughter very close to my cheek. I couldnít help but miss the comfort and security of being someone in a town, of knowing the people and places around me and having a repor with them so we all know where we stand. I hate having to impress people, show off, be charming and attract attention. I know that last night I wasnít funny or charming or cute; just sick and pathetic. And the melancholy makes it all worse. I find myself compelled to alienate people. I try to think of something rude or crass to say, just so everybody knows I havenít gone soft or anything.
We sat on the street with all the Igorís employees after the tattoos were done, drinking another liter of cheep whisky . ëTwelve Pipersí it was called I think. I mostly just sat there watching my mood sour with the desire to never move again. Marcus, a short guy with a huge swollen belly and an even bigger Napoleon complex appeared and there was a murmur among the Igorís employs. Heís a regular there whoís kicked out more often than not. Everyone ignored him, looking at each other with strange understanding eyes as though Marcus were the most endearing thing theyíd ever seen. He apparently spends most nights trying to beat up and/or make out with everyone around. He stood shirtless, dropping his pants and staring people down with an almost comical masculine bull scowl. He looked just like Harpo Marx during that bit where Chicoís repeatedly telling him "Get mad. OK get madder." At one point he pulled this skinny effeminate punk rock name Frank to the ground and started kissing him all over until a couple guys pulled him off. Frank was pretty offended by the incident, but everyone else took it rather lightly and Marcus was eventually escorted home to his wife by Mike and a number of other guys. It amazes me the way people learn to laugh off naked aggression, depression, and all the other things nobody wants to acknowledge by taking them seriously. Itís really very sad.
On our way in that night, about 4:30am, we ran into Dale from #2 on the ground floor. Dale is a young red-headed kid, maybe 17, skinny and gawky, with a heavy stammer and a tendency to say "uhmmm" between most words. We met him the other night while we were shooting fireworks off the roof. He affronted us in the hallway in a very congenial mood saying he wanted to introduce us to his "baby." We walked down the beautifully ornate and deteriorating hall into their terribly cramped apartment and said hello to Daleís baby, Dave, a big man of about 48 wearing televangelistís glasses and a tight black T-shirt covering an impressive gut. He sat in a lazy-boy picking at a plastic tub of Bar-Be-Que chicken wings, his fingers and lips smeared with a thick film of orange-red grease. His hair was cropped short and lay flat and lifeless on his head like a dead rodent, thinly veiling a receding hairline, and he spoke with a thick southern drawl as we began making awkward friendly conversation. Dave ordered Dale to "go fetch some chairs so we can do some proper visiting with our guests." We quickly sat on the bed, as there wasnít room for the chairs anyway. They offered us soda as a means of showing their hospitality, sprite or Pepsi. None of us cared so Dale returned with one sprite, one Pepsi, and one half and half. They told lawyer jokes and all that kind of shit. Mike talked them into doing a picture with champion elegance and finesse. He explained that it would be a great family portrait for them to cherish to old age as I sat on the unmade bed nodding along and holding my untouched plastic cup of sprite Pepsi mixture. Throughout the ëvisiting,í I found my self staring at this card they had sitting on the small bedside table. It was one of those inspirational cards with a picture of a glowing beach sunset and gold script saying "God, grant me the power to change the things and can, and the wisdom to know the things I canít." It say there, prominently on display behind a tube of Woolworthís brand lubricating jelly.
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Iíve grown to love the smell of air conditioning
Saturday August 11, 5:35 p.m.
I woke up this morning (about an hour ago really) sick, with the taste of vomit in my mouth, disgusted with myself and everything around me. We took pictures of Erin yesterday; thatís the girl how does the loungere jobs or something and lives in #6. I managed to get to the store and buy some plastic utensils and food; no more eating nothing but corn-flakes out of pint glasses with forks for me.
Mike and I had decided to take it easy for the night, but we couldnít follow through with it. I got a 5th of Bacardi, just in case, and we headed to the Quarter to bring a photo-card to Rea, the little stripper, and try to set up a shoot. She was working that night at Big Daddyís Topless/Bottomless. Big Daddyís is a dive with incredibly weak drinks and a pair of mannequin legs in stiletto heels and fishnet stalking that swing back and fourth in front of the marquee. We got there and talked with Rea for a second, but she was working and seemed a little apprehensive about the whole thing, so we decided to go to another club and give out cards. Weíd decided to offer 100 dollars to the strippers for doing the shoot, thinking weíd maybe do one one of them before leaving town. As we went to more and more clubs, getting drunker and drunker, we got more and more flagrant with the offer and cocky about our status as high powered San Francisco photographers. After getting to every strip club on Bourbon Street, drinking the two drink minimum and giving out a couple cards, we ended back at Big Daddyís, where word had gotten around that we were famous big time photographers from California. These two Goth strippers talked my ear off about art bullshit, how they were doing modern Shakespeare that involved hanging in the air by their piercing, how theyíre DJs, and how much they like Gustav Klimpt, and German techno, and Bill Nelson, and bla bla bla. One of them even put a Bill Nelson song into her dance because she wanted me to hear it, but I really wasnít paying attention. I think at that point Mike and I were doing coke off a key with these two strung-out jocks, one belligerent and from New Zealand, one bland and from nowhere interesting. Throughout the night girls kept coming up to me and asking about doing pictures. I remember one had told me her name was Julie, but later confessed that it was really Martha. Meanwhile, Mike was telling the beautiful Russian stripper with glasses that he was going to "take her away from all this," fly her back to his beach front mansion in San Francisco or something.
We left the place talking fast about nothing, fearless and wasted, almost believing our delusions of grandeur. I took quick hard steps on the urine stained sidewalk, arrogantly rubbing my nose and showing off with huge slugs of rum although nobody was watching. From then on I was a wreck. It was still early.
We went looking for Even at Igorís and some other bars. I got myself kicked out of the Balcony Bar for knocking over their stacked stools a couple times. It really seemed justifiable at the time, righteous in fact. There were some rude people over there.
Eventually we made our way back to Evanís. Evan was there and was a little pissed because weíd been late and had never found him. He and Erin went off to some bar and I spent a little time on the roof, tempting fate I suppose. It was another world up there, a world of peaceful and still dim light to which even the eternal din of New Orleans hadnít penetrated. When I came down, I found Mike sprawled out naked on the couch, trying to drink from a glass candle holder in his sleep.
Throughout the morning I tries to sleep through the occasional piercing electronic ringing of Mikeís cell phone. By the time we woke up in the afternoon weíd accumulated a bunch of messages from strippers who we canít afford to pay. Mikeís been answering the calls saying, "No, sorry. Weíre just totally booked up all day... Yeah, maybe tomorrow... Sure... Yeah... Bye."
Sunday morning. 4:15 am
Iím starting to hate this town, this life of nothing but time to kill, and no time for anything but killing it. Life so quickly becomes a joke, a game that you donít really want to play anymore but you go along with it anyway just to show them all; just to show them that thereís no limit to my excess, no fear in my bones, no shame for my ugliness. Just to show them that they mean nothing to me, that I can stumble through the night without any regard for them, that I can drink away the hours with no remorse, with no memory of life or beauty, that the world holds nothing but a shallow tragic humor and a headache. Itís a stale outlook, a cheep cynical front that I know it false and empty. Yet somehow itís such and easy role to fill. So easy that the boundary between the disgusting and spiteful role Iíve been acting out and my previous identity have been blurred out of existence. Iím no longer somebody else, playing a game or making some kind of joke. This is the person Iíve become. This is me.
Tonight I avoided drinking and hung out with Mike while he drank a pitcher of margaritas. Yelling incoherently and throwing mud all over the car windshield with a ferocious grimace, heíd quickly eased into the evening and we were ready to meet Evan at his work. After many slow boring hours hourís at Igorís, shooting pool and what not, we headed over to Frank and Alexisís house with a bag of cocaine theyíd just acquired. Some rather timid Asian guy in his mid 30ís whom Iíd never seen before ended up coming with us, making constant allusiatory statements that everyone else ignored. We each did one huge line in Frankís stark, typically bohemian room and quickly got out of there. Out on the street, I walked tall and ready to pounce, shooting glances at passersby with a killerís eye, alert and vengeful like a wolf. I couldnít help talking in curt cool phrases with a hard clipped tone straight out of 50ís Noir films. I canít remember the last time I felt so much aggression permeating my brain and spreading to my tingling fingertips. Spiteful and malicious, cool and confident, I was ready to kill and conquer everything and everybody, just so theyíd know I was there. Cocaineís really not my drug. So soon Iíd become inhibited and self-consciously disgusted with myself and my fake world of asserting my ego, of false lines and false glances. Iíve lost all my honesty, all my inspiration, all my sincerity. Iíve somehow got to get it back.
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Sunday morning 7:40 am
The daybreak is beautiful, so new and fresh, so clear and direct. It hangs over the sky, orange, pink, and blue, like a short gasping breath of wisdom, unadorned and magnificent. Sparrows fly in all directions, chaotic and restless, full of energy and life, silhouetted over the glowing horizon. I know that I canít enter this world now, that Iíve no place in the breaking day. My heavy head and clammy skin simply canít allow it. All I can hope for now is a pleasant dream of the world outside Evanís dreary snoring apartment.
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Tuesday August 14, Near Nashville
The sunís finally going down. The airís sharp and crisp in my face as we cut through the thick forests of Tennessee. It feels good to be on the road again, sitting motionless and listless, watching the country side slide by as I play with the fisheye passenger-side mirror or hang my feet out the window. It really just feels great to be out of New Orleans.
We spent Sunday not doing anything, just sitting around sober and aggravated. We slept through most of the day really and I just couldnít stand another New Orleans night. I just laid in my spot on the hard wood floor, reading the short stories of Chechov and eventually tried to go to sleep, thinking over and over again "Iím trapped in this fucking town. Iím trapped here. Iíve got to get out." All the while Evan wouldnít stop farting and making jokes that seemed somehow for the sole purpose of agitating me. I hid my irritation and sick state of withdrawal and depression behind a thin veil of tired looks and aggressive impressions of Joe Peshi in Goodfellas.
Monday we hung around to do the portrait of Dale and Dave. We figured we had to do at least that, no matter how high the temptation to leave town. They enjoyed the whole thing, sitting in the chair together making kissy faces as Mike and I encouraged them endlessly. "You sorta get to feel like a movie star," was Baby Daveís pointed out. After doing the shoot, I ran into Dale in the hall, shirtless as I collected my laundry. He took the opportunity as an invitation to start hitting on me, something I would usually be able to take in stride effortlessly, but I found myself at a loss for words, scrambling for a classy and tactful retort to push off his advances. It wasnít even the least bit flattering being hit on by Dale. It just made me uneasy, like most everything else in New Orleans.
The entire town seems to be built on an endless array of fragile and false alliances that could snap at any moment. At night, when the entire city is bubbling and drunk, anyone might be your new best friend, but when the dark cloud of sickness and despair rolls over the city in the morning, all plans are forgotten and the new day is met with the sole purpose of avoiding everything and everybody until at least nausea goes away. Friendships are as shaky and randomly placed. Enemies are formed randomly over surly moments and drunken arguments. More people are killed in New Orleans than most anywhere else in the country. It seems the entire social structure could come unglued at any moment and explode under the pressure of endless intoxication, or just fade and crumble away in the humidity like the deteriorating architecture. I was so relieved, when we were finally leaving, that I would never have to see all those people again, that I would never have to pretend to be accountable for my charm and dignity that Iíd left on Bourbon street a week ago, never to be retrieved.
We said our last good-byes to Evan and quickly got on the road with an overwhelming feeling of having escaped. We drove late into the night, finally stopping at the Batesville hotel in Mississippi. We kept the door shut there in a vain attempt to keep out the cockroaches that scurried around the patio, and I fell asleep in the stained sheets as Mike flipped through the worst TV shows imaginable.
Epilogue:
Ryan and Mike continued to New York exhausted. Evan, who had planned to stay in New Orleans for the next year or so, packed all his belongings into his broken red truck two days after Mike and Ryan left, and moved back to California, leaving behind his apartment, his job, and all his friends heíd made there.