Struggle

Fall-Winter 2005 Vol. 21, Nos. 3 & 4

Editorial:

New Orleans: Survival of the Richest

This issue features a variety of writings about the hurricane Katrina tragedy. The authors vividly and passionately illustrate and condemn the race and class contempt shown by the Bush administration toward the poor of New Orleans and especially towards African Americans.

Here I would only add that the Democratic New Orleans mayor and governor of Louisiana were equally to blame, especially for failing to organize an evacuation of the poor and for demonizing the suffering people as "looters," subject to orders to "shoot to kill." The failure to evacuate is obvious; as for the demonization, recent investigation has proven all the scare stories about rapes, murders, shots at helicopters, etc., to have been untrue

In fact, if anyone followed the crisis closely, and wanted to see, they would have witnessed a many-chaptered tale of heroism by the ordinary working people of the area and the country. Evacuees in the Superdome and Convention Center, in the worst of conditions, maintained order and organized themselves to get supplies. People "looted" for survival. Groups tried to walk out of the city: some were blocked by FEMA, or by sheriff deputies, who even fired over their heads. Workers used their skills to help people survive. Boat owners swarmed to rescue people. The highway from Houston was flooded with cars, trucks and vans, largely driven by working people, helping where the government did not. Aid trucks were sent from as far away as Wisconsin and Maine. And a wave of revulsion towards the do-nothing government and of concern for the Black and other poor masses swept the country.

The depth of the crisis was not the result of natural causes, but of the long-standing neglect of the infrastructure and of deepening environmental problems by both Democratic and Republican administrations and local officials. Both Clinton and G.W. Bush repeatedly cut the funding for the Army Corps of Engineers to maintain and strengthen the levees, which burst even without being overtopped. Developers have been unleashed to ravage the marshlands, weakening natural defenses against hurricanes. The authorities do not recognize the warnings by the broad scientific community that global warming and rising sea levels pose a deadly threat to low coastal areas. There is no Big Quick Fix for New Orleans. Only a socialist society run by the workers will allow planning and construction that will benefit the poor and protect against environmental problems.

Work has begun towards clean-up and reconstruction. But the money is going to big capitalist firms like Halliburton, not to local people. They are trying to pay immigrant workers as little as possible, often nothing. Thousands of evacuees are vegetating across the country, lacking the resources to start a new life, and no effort is being made to bring them back to help re-build. Many of the remaining poor, largely Black, in the city are facing evictions from apart-ments and housing projects by landlords who see the chance to charge astro-nomical rents and by government officials as well. New Orleans is being ethnically cleansed of its historic Black population and of the poor generally. The masses are struggling against this gentrification, but they face an uphill fight. With this issue of Struggle, we hope to contribute to that fight and to continue the exposure of the brutal, racist capitalist system in the U.S.

By Tim Hall

The First Republican Visits New Orleans
(on the Republican Convention, 1988)

The Republicans are in New Orleans.
They are well-dressed as always,
venturing into Al Hirt's nightclub,
sipping polite whisky, listening to white jazz.
"Turn up the air," says a voice, and across the bar
a black hand adjusts the conditioner dial.
(Later, forensics reveal in the prints
smudged grip the traces of slavery in century-old DNA.)
The Republicans look nice.
They are cheerfully insular
as funeral bands play outdoors,
as ghosts hunt the river shanties.
Dank vapor rises over the docks like voodoo
and George Bush sets his fogged glasses
on the mahogany hotel stand.
"I can't wait till they drop the balloons," he says.
The Republicans sleep in creaseless sheets
at the hotel, money on their minds,
while outside, very late,
The black janitor walks jig-sawed streets
home into the delta night.
A witch's perfume rides the riverwind.
A tall bearded man seems to wait for him,
and nods, as if to affirm his steps,
as if to bless his toil.
But then disappears. Janitors know
their own way home. And though it
is late, a sweet music trains across the
quiet, forsaken streets, of its own
volition, as if there were
No such thing as darkness.

By Peter C. Robinson

A Requiem for New Orleans

While the city and the abandoned people in New Orleans drowned and begged for help
Oooh, yeah not the lucky ones who were the winners in the present-day winners-take-all
United States of America
Those who had enough money to consider the fleeing a real adventure for a change
Or even those who had families and friends wining to shelter them for a few nights
As the federal, state and the city government called on everyone to evacuate the Blues City
Seemingly overlooking the fact that many would not be able to do so simply for the lack of funds and transport and a place to stay
But then again, these folks are the inheritors from the Great Communicator of the holy notion that
Big government is the real and the pressing problem facing this country
While the city and the abandoned people of New Orleans drowned and begged for help waving white blankets and shirts from rooftops in this country at war
The President was in San Diego comparing the War in Iraq to the Second World War
Katrlna, which at least for a few days bad been on a collision course with the city
But where was the FEMA and all of the great emergency plans they are always talking about?
Where was the preparation for a hurricane of this magnitude???
What had come of the plans that long had been in place to protect the city exactly against such an eventuality for a mere 14 billion dollars???
Suppose that money was now tied up in an irrelevant and wasteful war in Iraq and much of it had drained away in tax breaks for his wealthy friends
Causing the levees to break and the city of New Orleans and many of its desperate people to pointlessly die in the process
But, nooh, you can hear the hypocritical elite voices of protest crazily screaming and shouting that nobody could have foreseen this catastrophic event
Sometimes things just happen
Katrina, which at least for a few days had been on a collision course with the city of Louis Armstrong
That now was not the time to apportion blame but to rescue people and start the process of rebuilding
And what about the tens, the hundreds and maybe the even the thousands..... who died uselessly
What about these dead people then???
Who will ever speak for them???
Yeah, sometimes or nearly always in this country things really just happen to the poor, the sick, the forgotten and the rejected now floating in the stinking sewer and highly polluted waters where New Orleans once proudly stood
While the city and the abandoned people of New Orleans drowned and begged for help in a collapsed and collapsing state from which most of its social care infrastructure has been violently ripped away
With only the well and endlessly funded military infrastructure left with its gung ho Generals about to go or just back from Iraq leading the charge to help in this so-called democracy with all of the trappings, the empty forms and hypocritical ceremonies of democracy, but little of the content
While the city and the abandoned poor, sick, elderly, young of New Orleans drowned and begged
The President and his administration were drafting regulations to ease pollution controls on older, dirtier power plants all across this land
Only leading to maybe more and certainly fiercer and more destructive Katrinas down the road
But then again the President and his good pals in the energy sector do not really believe that Global Warming is occurring
These people who claim to stand in direct and constant contact with the Almighty
While the city and the abandoned people of New Orleans drowned and begged for help
The corporate-owned and dominated media and its well-paid reporters focused on what they called looting with only a few exceptions who pointed out that the people were cut off and isolated and desperate for food and water in a capitalistic state of nature
Suppose this is what happens when Big Government is really the most pressing problem for the unaccountable plundering wealthy classes in a dictatorially operated neo-liberal economy
While the city and the abandoned people of New Orleans drowned and begged for help
No, I am not kidding, many of the journalists focused on "looting" while the city and its desperate and overwhelmingly black people sank ever deeper beneath the stinking and rising tide of toxic water pouring in
Never questioning who were the real looters and criminals directly leading to this tragic situation
While the disappearing city and the abandoned people of New Orleans drowned and begged
Which everyone always feared could occur and that is why the plans to regenerate the continually sinking New Orleans area and the protective marshlands
But then again, I suppose, such vexing and investigative questioning and reporting do not get you hired and certainly not promoted by the corporate dominated and controlled NBC, CBS and ABC or even 24-hour-a-day CNN
New Orleans, a once vibrant and distinct city, with its resistant mestizo traditions and ways of doing and soulfully solving things
New Orleans, the latest and ugliest symbol and loudly-ringing warning sign of the nightmarish class and racial cul-de-sac of an explosively disintegrating and rotting myth-infected society.

 

By Gilbert Gregory Gumbs

 

 

Summer of My Discontent

This has been the summer of my discontent. Nothing more has reminded me of my second-class citizenship in this country than this war and the catastrophe in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. I am brown. I am not wealthy. My life is fragile. I've been watching this disaster on the Gulf Coast and especially horror happening in the parish of Orleans for the past few days like everybody else. I've been watching television like we all watched the television that day on Sept. 11th.

I'm starting to get disgusted. The powers that be knew that this was the possibility for at least 40 years. They have known a category three storm or higher could practically wipe the city away. For 40 years at least. This was a category five hurricane until it reached the coastline. They didn't do shit to be prepared for this. So I warn all of southern California residents, when the big one hits out there, be prepared to not get jack from your government. There won't be any warning, and you'll be on your own like all these people wading through the filthy waters like an old Negro spiritual to escape the disaster.

I say it is a class of people in this country that chooses to overlook the people that don't resemble them. Whether the differences are economics, ethnic heritage or sexual prerogative. Yeah I am brown. Middle class up bringing has everything to do with perspectives of hope for the future. Being middle class is an illusion, I'm poor and brown. Right now all I see on the news is poor and brown people trying to climb out the "big bath tub" formally known as New Orleans.

Why do poor people suffer so much in this often-called great country? It goes back to that CLASS of people in this country that determine how the rest of the country runs. While most of us will stand in line on Election Day believing we live in a democracy. Your leaders will sit on camera and tell you that they could never imagine this crisis.
Just as Mark Twain pondered, I suppose our leaders are stupid people and they mean it.

Hearing our leaders condemn the looters. Condemn the looting? These people have lost everything. They probably barely had anything to begin with. Wal-Mart can replace their imported crap. How can a brown mayor, in a city 70 to 80 percent brown, not realize that there would be a huge population unable to evacuate or even make it uptown? There isn't any food or power. These people are carrying away TV's. Who gives a FUCK? How are these many people still in a modern city when all of these stupid leaders knew that this city would flood if hit by a hurricane? The levees will break and everybody will have no place to stay.

I know the eye-wall didn't hit the city. The eye made goal posts out of Biloxi and New Orleans. The only contingency plan the city had, after knowing for almost four days that a killer was coming, was come to the Superdome. They even knew that the bottom floors would flood but our stupid leaders forgot to tell anybody you know sleeping on the arena floor.
Poor people, the fact that they are brown is because well New Orleans was king of the slave trade. Descendants of former slaves carrying everything they own on their back and condemned for going crazy when chaos arrives back at your door expecting to receive a tip.

Desperation. It is clear that the CLASS of people usually have no objection to invading brown countries and giving them "freedom." To be free of Saddam but to become slaves to capitalists? I think I am going to find the American flag somewhere around my workshop and jog around my block.

This proves my point. There really isn't a such thing as a middle class. It is just varying degrees of poor. I do believe there will be 1,000s if not 100,000s of people's middle class existence irrevocably damaged by this disaster. So who do you know who can miss oh six months of not working and survive? That's right, we are all poor depending on these paychecks that never amounted to our worth. When I am watching the news, I see myself splashing through those waters. I empathize not just because I am brown because I am a human being. Over and over again, I am reminded that when the shit goes down in this country poor and working people have little control over their life. At the mercy of the wind and rain.

What could be done right now on the Gulf Coast if the stupid leaders didn't decide war is the only and best course of action? President Bush can't console anybody. He can't put anybody at ease because he has eroded the country's trust. He had help.

Now we are about to see who are the real hard middle class and who are really just poor people in disguise. How many people can keep putting 100 dollars in their SUV to fill up? It cost me 30 but I am driving a beat up Prism.
Even the worst here doesn't compare to what is happening in Iraq. So let me get a hoo hah Fat Tuesday for this country that will have to come terms with its soul real soon. Real soon. I am taking my disposable camera everywhere I go.

By C.B. Chesney

Zero Tolerance

In Baghdad Rumsfeld said looting
Resulted from freedom's flow shooting
When lootin Orleans
Surviving for means
They're damned not aided a hooting

By J.J. Keane

Danny-Boy

-1-
ANDREW

The reason of idleness and crime is the deferring of our hopes. Whilst we are waiting we beguile the time with jokes, with sleep, with eating, and with crimes.
Emerson, Essays, Second Series: Nominalist and Realist.

 

Daniel "Danny-Boy" Boudrieux nodded at his best friend and smiled. It was August 17, 1992 and they were listening to a radio broadcast of a tropical depression that had just turned into a tropical storm that was threatening to reach hurricane strength and was already being predicted that it could turn into as high as a category 5 storm. They were sitting on Danny Boy's porch in the Mid-City area of Orleans Parish, where the two teenagers had grown up together. High school dropouts, both boys were unemployed and constantly looking for a way to make some money. Audley Jason "A.J." McGuire, shook his head resignedly and spat:

"C'mon Danny-Boy, it'll give us a chance tah get outta New Ahl-ee-yuns for awhile.

Danny-Boy smiled.

"Shee-it niggah, I din' say I wood-din go witch'choose. I said we gone wait tah see if it becomes a full-fo'ce hur'cane man."

"Well, dey says inna reports it be ah good chance ah it Danny, y'know, and youse know we shouldn't be takin' no mo' chances innah Qua'tah after youse coppin' dat samish and den dah cops chasin' youse like dey did."

"Shhh and just fo' liftin' dat po'boy too; dat'uz las' week anydamn-way A.J.?"

"Well they ste-ill probably recognize us Danny-Boy, shee-it, I still 'membah youse jumpin' off dat gallery man, shee-it I t'ought youse done broke yah treaddahs man."

"Shee-it tha' gall'ahee was only on'nah second flo' man, I done jumped from higher'n dat man, ain't no beeg thang fo' a niggah anyway A.J., youse know dat."

A.J. nodded and smiled at his best friend. He had known Danny-Boy all his life and well-knew Danny's mother was an Irish Catholic white woman and his father had been a light-skinned black man with French, Indian and Haitian blood flowing through his veins, but, in New Orleans, as in most cities throughout the country, if you had any Negro blood in you at all, which usually translated into "looking black," you were black and subjugated to that class, which, in New Orleans, usually meant you were either a musician or worked in the service industry in some capacity, tourism being a major staple of the Crescent City.

"Yeah well, Ah only wanted to see BooZoo anydamnway man, youse shouldn't ah copped dat samish anyways Danny-Boy."

"Shee-it A.J., I'uz hungry man and so was youse, c'mon youse know it was good man, youse ended up scoffin' half-fah dat po'boy down yah'damn'se'f."

"Shee-it Danny-Boy, Ah hadda get rid ah the evidence."

Danny-Boy smiled and looked out upon New Orleans, framed as it was by the Mississippi River on one side and Lake Pontchartrain on the other, it was a veritable soup bowl and Danny-Boy wondered silently for a second what would happen if this Hurricane Andrew that was headed for Miami was to change course and land in his city, because as everybody knew, if the levee walls, the only thing keeping the water out of the city, ever broke, and a level 4 or 5 Hurricane, as this Hurricane Andrew reportedly now was, hit, it would break them and the city would be virtually underwater. But then Danny-Boy thought of his father, who had died the previous year of poverty. He had had cancer but he couldn't get in the hospital and the doctors wouldn't see him, as he was without health insurance coverage and too proud to beg and, as every poor man knew, the poor died every day in the land of the free and the home of the brave, especially after two terms of Ronald Reagan and one of George H.W. Bush, both men ultra-conservative Republicans who did the bidding of the large corporations and conglomerates whose money had put them in office and who slashed programs that benefited the poor at every chance, even as they made certain that they awarded huge defense contracts and enormous tax dodges to those same conglomerates and corporations. Danny-Boy's father had been a musician, he played "the horn," the trumpet, and, even in a city that was home to some of the best trumpeters in the world, his name had been known; he had been a member of the "Purple Knights," at the tender age of 15, and had played in many of the Jazz and Blues clubs that lined the streets in the Big Easy, it being well-known that he had sat in with everyone from Satchmo to Wynton Marsalis but, unlike them, he hadn't made the trip north, to New York, to try his luck at the big-time and unlike local legends Fats Domino and Al Hirt, had also failed to make enough money to escape his everyday existence of keeping food on the table for his family and clothes on their backs. Although they had never starved, they had never known anything other than a daily hand to mouth existence that included, at times, deep pangs of hunger especially near the end of the month when the food stamps ran out and Danny-Boy was forced to eat more than one peanut butter and air sandwich, which was two slices of bread slapped together with a dab of peanut butter and little more than air in the middle. But, his father had always been true to his New Orleans heritage and had always said to just "let the good times roll," even in a hurricane warning, in point of fact he had said especially in a hurricane warning, and so Danny-Boy mimicked his father now, when he turned towards A.J. and barked:

"Shhh, let's go jump onna streetcar A.J. and let the good times roll."

-2-
GOIN' SOUTH

So shall poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.
Old Testament: Proverbs 6, 11.

The road south was taken a week later, on August 24, 1992, and they traveled as they always did, by their thumbs, as they could neither afford a car nor the gas that it took to run it. Both boys had a little less than five dollars in their pockets but hoped to make a killing in Miami within the next few days; they were both hustlers of the nth degree, having learned those skills on the streets of one of the poorest cities, in one of the poorest states, in the lower 48. They got a ride with a trucker who lived in the Ninth Ward, who A.J. knew, all the way up to Mobile, Alabama, where they were dropped off on Interstate 10 heading south. It had only taken them two hours to go the approximately 150 miles and they were in good spirits when they climbed down from the big rig, the trucker having wowed them with his stories of how he had pulled off some scams himself before he got steady work with the trucking company he now drove for and stories of how he knew Fats Domino, who lived just a few blocks away from him, in the Ninth Ward. They had figured it would take them all of a day or more to make the nearly 1000 mile trip but now they were hopeful of getting there by mid-morning, if only they could catch a break and get another 18-wheeler to stop for them. It was just past noon and as they stuck their thumbs out they smiled at one another, it was an adventure for both boys, they were both pushing 18 and they were heading down south to try their luck and their highly-honed hustler skills in a metropolitan area that they knew resonated with wealth. They knew it from what they read, heard and saw on TV, on shows like "Miami Vice" and interviews with celebrities who lived there. But, as it turned out, they were only partly right about their arrival in Miami, they did get there in the early morning hours but not the next day, August 25, but the day after that, on August 26, 1992, after having slept on the floor of a truck stop for eight hours, just off Interstate 75 in Ocala, where a trucker took pity on them and had them in Miami less than nine hours later. They stood at a truck-stop in downtown Miami and looked at each other and both boys had the same thought running through their minds. Now what?

 

-3-
A POCKETFUL OF CASH

A trick to catch the old one --Thomas Middleton. title of play, 1608.

Danny-Boy smiled at A.J. and folded the wad of dollar bills and fives, tens and twenties over and stuffed them into his front pocket, which then bulged so profusely that he retrieved it, split it in half and put half the wad of bills into his other pocket. He nodded at his partner A.J., who was nodding back at him and smiling broadly. It was August 29 and they had been in the Greater Miami area for nearly three days and had been cleaning up for the entire time. They had hit the homes in the hardest-hit areas and were in Kendall, in an exceptionally hard-hit area of houses and manufactured homes, where it had been easy pickings, so easy that they were in danger of overstaying their welcome and they knew it, but what was life without a little danger and what was a scam without a little risk-taking? A.J. rubbed the business card in his hand, one of 250 that a friend in New Orleans had made up for them and that identified him as an insurance adjuster and Danny-Boy with a bundle of cards that identified him as a sales rep for a general contractor who specialized in roofs and storm damage repair. Danny-Boy also had 93 blank contracts left, out of over 200 that he had stolen from a local contractor he had worked for in the past, in New Orleans. The job had barely lasted a week but Danny-Boy, always on the lookout for any information that may lead him to a source of income, had left the job a little cagier than he had arrived. He had over a thousand dollars in small bills, all gotten in the same manner; their M.O. being to approach the home owner with their sad, practiced condolences and set the trap, explaining that A.J. could expedite the insurance payoff, directly to the contractor who employed hundreds of sub-contractors and that they could get the job done within the next few days at the very latest. Once the hook was in it was a simple enough job to get them to sign the contract and give up the necessary deposit; which, they explained, had to be made for the contract to be legal. The deposit, of course, was anything that they could entice the sucker to give them. They started with a hundred dollars but usually ended up with but a ten or twenty; thus far the smallest "deposit" had been a dollar bill and the largest had been a hundred. The boys were exhausted, it was nearly dark, and A.J. spied trouble, a police car parked at a manufactured home they had gotten a twenty dollar bill from just a few hours earlier. Danny-Boy gritted his jaws when he saw the old woman pointing in their direction. He shook his head and grinned lopsidedly at A.J., then hissed:

"Din we jus' get a double-sawbuck from her a lil' while ago?"

"Yeah, we did. I tol' jew we shouldn't woik one place more den a couple hours."

"Well, what we gone do man?"

A.J. looked up to see the cop walking their way and then looked across the street, to a neighborhood of crumbling wood-frame and stucco houses and apartments where they had worked many of the houses the previous day. A.J. leaned in to his partner.

"Wait'll he gets up to us and then we splits across the street niggah, say?"

Danny-Boy nodded, he and A.J. had both run the hundred yard dash in under eleven seconds, being on the track and football teams together until they had gotten expelled from their high school for cutting too many classes. As the policeman came almost abreast of them Danny-Boy smiled and glanced over his shoulder; his patrol car was at least sixty or seventy yards away and Danny-Boy stretched out his hand and the cop did likewise just as A.J. hissed "less boogie," and took off and Danny-Boy quickly turned on his heel and joined him. At first the cop scowled and reached for his service revolver, then turned and headed for his patrol car.

 

-4-
THE CAR

The rich grow poor, the poor become purse proud.
Cowper, Hope, 1. 18.

It was a 1981 Pontiac Grand Prix and it was red with black trim and got around twenty-five miles a gallon. It was a six-cylinder and it was the first car Danny-Boy had ever owned. He got it for five hundred bucks but had to put a rebuilt transmission in it and A.J. helped him with that and also got him some shiny new hubcaps. They were sitting on the hood of the car and riding on the passenger ferry towards New Orleans. The Mississippi was in a high-river stage and both boys looked over into the soup-bowl known as the Big Easy and could see into the upper windows of many of the houses. Danny-Boy glanced over at the levees and then at his best friend.

"Youse know what A.J., if dat freakin' hur'cane woulda hit us we be underwatah right 'bout now?"

A.J. glanced at the levee walls that held back so much water from so many canals and waterways that originated in the mighty Mississippi or Lake Pontchartrain and smiled.

"Man Danny-Boy, diz be New Ahl-ee-yuns baby, we get a hur'cane we do what we always do baby; we let the good times roll."

Danny-Boy nodded and stared at a floodwall, then laughed.

"Yeah, yeah you right A.J., you right. Let the good times roll and we rollin' in our new wheels baby, yeah-uh."

 

-5-
ALL IN THE FAMILY

It is a melancholy truth, that even great men have their poor relations.
Dickens, Bleak House. Ch. 28.

Angelina "Angel" O'Brian Boudrieux patted her son Danny-Boy on the head and gave him a hug, to which he grimaced reflexively. His mother was an uncomplicated woman and a very spiritual person but believed in none of the voodoo legends or allowed any of their rituals or voodoo charms inside her house. When Danny-Boy had come home with a small gris-gris bag one day at age 12, she had thrown it into a trash can and had warned him of ever hanging out with any of the local gangs that thrived on the heathen rituals and animal sacrifices that the voodoo clans practiced. She knew her late husband had relatives who still practiced voodoo, sacrificing animals through their Yoruban and Fon ancestors in order to call down the oristas and loa's, their ancient ancestors or spirit gods but she allowed none of it in her home, being a strict Catholic who had baptized Danny-Boy, her only child, when he was barely out of the womb and demanded he attend church every Sunday. She had been born and raised in Mid-City and had graduated from Cabrini High School, a Catholic girl's school and had been one of the first to attend when it was converted from the Orphan Asylum it had been for five decades, to a girl's high school, in 1959. She was hugging him tightly when he pulled away from her, embarrassed, and said:

"Ma'ahhh, Gee'zuz Kee-rice, Ma, I ain't a goil y'know?"

Angel O'Brian's lips parted in a sneer. It was common family knowledge that she had wanted a daughter, a daughter that would become the metropolitan opera star that she could have been if she hadn't gotten married right out of high school and given up pursuing what her mother had pushed her towards ever since childhood. Her mother, Kathleen O'Connor, had been a high soprano back in Belfast, Northern Ireland and had followed her husband to New York, after he had gotten into trouble with the IRA. They had fled the Bronx after a dozen years when her husband had almost been killed by a small-time loan-shark after reneging on a thousand-dollar loan. They settled in Mid-City with her sister and brother-in-law, who was a New Orleans policeman and they took over their in-laws' house when her sister and brother-in-law moved to Algiers Point, a community separated from the main part of the city by the Mississippi River. She regularly visited her sister, usually on Sunday when they would attend the Holy Name of Mary Church. Her brother-in-law, Shawn O'Banion, graduated from law school, quitting the police force and opening a law practice just off Patterson Rd., just down from the Algiers Courthouse and with a splendid view of the mighty Mississippi River. He would go on to open two other law offices, one in the Central Business District, or CBD, and one in the Uptown district and just down from O'Banion's alma mater, Loyola University. Angel O'Brian's face turned slightly pale, even as she jumped up when her front door opened and A.J. McGuire strolled in.

"A-yay-Jay, Bay-jaysus, why'nt youse knock once in ah while."

A.J. smiled, he had known Danny-Boy since they were both 4 years old, and he knew that Danny-Boy's mother showered her son with almost obscene affection and wasn't the least bit shy or ashamed of doing it publicly, but she let her arms slide back to her bosom, as she stood up, even as Danny-Boy jumped up off the sofa and smiled at his best friend.

"Where y'at niggah?"

A.J.'s smile widened, as he glanced at Danny-Boy's mother, who he knew hated the N-word and always berated her son for using it. But she said nothing, and A.J. hissed:

"Aw'ight Danny, let's roll on man?"

As Danny-Boy stood up and walked towards the front door, his mother barked:

"Now youse boys stay outta trouble and youse t'ink 'bout youse great-uncle's offer to git you onna poo'leece Danny-Boy, youse know he could probably get A.J. on'nair too?"

A.J. smiled as they walked out Danny Boy's front door; he knew they both needed to pass a G.E.D. test to apply to the police force and also knew that Danny-Boy wasn't adverse to the idea of becoming a cop, everybody knew that the cops and politicians in the Big Easy made good money; of course they also knew that many were as crooked as a dog's hind leg, especially the politicians; the astute governor for four terms, Edwin Edwards' name being in the paper almost daily for one alleged crime or bribe or another and, as everyone knew, shit rolls downhill, especially in the Big Easy.

 

-6-
ANGOLA

Whilst we have prisons it matters little which of us occupies the cells.
Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists.

Danny-Boy tickled his little 4 year old son, Danny Jr., and smiled then put him down and watched him run out of his bedroom. The toddler stopped at the door and glanced back at his father. It was a game they played almost every Monday, his father's regular day off.

"Dah'ee, youse ah gonna catch me ain'cha?"

Danny-Boy smiled and stood up to chase after his son. He had finally given in to his mother's cajoling about getting his G.E.D. and then had, with his great-uncle's help, gotten a job on the New Orleans Police Department. At first, it had just been a job but Danny-Boy, as street-smart as any 20 year-old, had taken to police work like a duck to water. He had been a patrolman for six years before finally, thanks to his great-uncle and a 4 year degree from Loyola University in Criminal Justice, making it onto the detective division. He had been promoted to Detective Lieutenant in 2004, after a decade on the force and he loved his life; he was married to the former Maria Marcello who had uncles on the police force on one side of her family and uncles said to be in the mob on the other side. They had met at a police fund-raiser and Danny-Boy had chased her relentlessly for almost a year before they married in the Holy Name of Mary Church in Algiers Point and he still remembered it because it was the last time he had seen his childhood best friend and life-long pal A.J. McGuire, who hadn't fared as well as Danny-Boy.

A.J. had been his best man and it had been a happy day all around for sure but then A.J. had seen the looks and he knew those looks. Danny-Boy could still remember the conversation, even after all these years:

"Man Danny-Boy, you see 'at shee-it?"

Danny-Boy knew what A.J. meant but played dumb.

"Man A.J., what ah youse talkin' about?"

"Lotta dese people don't like a niggah Danny-Boy and youse know it."

"Man A.J., youse ah nuts'soid."

"Yeah, dey din' know youse ol' man Danny-Boy and I know yah moms ain't said shee-it 'bout it even though I know it ain't her fault."

"Man A.J., it's nineteen-ninety five man!"

"Yeah and youse ah ah cop too?"

"A.J. youse couldah got on?"

"Youse know I flunked that G.E.D. shee-it?"

"Yeah youse can still take it again."

"Danny-Boy, I don't care about dat. We bruddahs dough, me'yun youse."

Danny-Boy opened his mouth to answer and that was when his brother-in-law, who well-knew Danny-Boy's blood-lines but hadn't passed the information on to any of his family members, came over and cajoled him away from A.J. and onto the dance floor with his new bride and that was the last time Danny-Boy had seen his life-long friend again, until that day, less than a year later, in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, in Angola.

It seemed that A.J. was driving the getaway car, even though he hadn't known it even was a getaway car, when two acquaintances of his from the lower Ninth Ward held up a liquor store in Baton Rouge; the trouble was an attendant had been shot and A.J. and his confederates, as the prosecutor referred to them, putting them all in the same boat, had gotten five to ten at Angola, as luckily, for them all, the attendant had lived; had he died the shooter and his accomplice, along with A.J., might have gotten life or even the death penalty. As it was, his mother had been the only family member who had known about it, A.J. had never known his father and his only sister was married and living in New York. His mother had tried to contact Danny-Boy but had suffered a heart attack and been hospitalized and by the time she had recovered it was already too late, as A.J. was tried and sentenced in a trial that gave new meaning to speedy justice, the public defender assigned his case barely making an attempt to interview him or his alleged accomplices.

When he found out about it, Danny-Boy had visited A.J. almost every week but his job made it harder and harder to drive the 300-mile round-trip to the State Pen and his visits dribbled to barely twice a year, on Easter and Christmas. A.J. had been turned down twice for release on parole, even though Danny-Boy and his mother and several childhood friends had appeared to testify on his behalf and even though there was no proof that he had even known his two acquaintances were going to stick up the liquor store. Danny-Boy had just visited him on Easter Sunday, March 27, of that very year of 2005. A.J. wasn't due for release until the following year and Danny-Boy was already lining up possible jobs for his best friend. And then the hurricane season, which was no big thing for Danny-Boy until that fateful day at the end of August when they predicted a hurricane they had named Katrina was headed for New Orleans and she was gaining a strength that would compare her to Hurricane Andrew, the same Andrew that had devastated Miami and had sent a young Danny-Boy and A.J. McGuire thumbing down south to see if they could make a score. As he read about the coming storm in his morning paper, Danny-Boy's mind slipped back in time to that day, 13 years ago and he could hardly remember anything, it seemed now, as it was so long ago, so long, long ago and so many things had happened since then.

 

-7-
KATRINA

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples!
Shakespeare, King Lear, Act iii, sc. 2, 1. 1.

A storm in a cream bowl.
Duke of Ormond, Letter to the Earl of Arlington, 28 Dec., 1678.

As he walked out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary A.J. McGuire smiled benignly; they were letting him out six months early and he couldn't figure out why but he wasn't about to question the decision, as his smile widened when he saw his friend Billy "Mad Billy" Baldwin, and then saw his prized 1981 Pontiac Grand Prix; the same car that Danny-Boy had given him just after his wedding when his new in-laws had given Danny-Boy a new 1995 Lincoln Town-Car. Mad Billy had jacked up the body and had oversized wheels on the car that made it look like a race car. He had changed the gearing to a five speed and put the shifter on the floor and then had dropped a brand-new 2005, 200 hp, 3.8 liter V-6 engine under the hood, an engine he had paid less for than the five hundred smackers Danny-Boy had paid for it a little over a decade in the past and it was a hot engine, in more ways than one. Mad Billy hugged his friend and they quickly got inside the car, where Baldwin handed A.J. a cup of ice and a Pepsi-cola, causing A.J. to smile widely. Mad Billy had just gotten out the previous year, he had served five years for passing bad checks and was out on a year's parole, of which he only had two months left. He turned the ignition and the engine roared to life.

"Hey t'anks fah dah cold drink Mad, youse really did drop dat new engine in, huh?"

"Sure did A.J., sheee-it man, youse know I do what I says. Crazy Leroy done got the day-yum t'ing right off'fah ah Uptown dealership's lot too, just like I tol' jew he would."

"Crazy LeRoy? Man, he a two time losah man. Shee-it, he jus' got outta dah joint hisdamnse'f! He gone go back fo' good he get caught! Man, 'at one crazy niggah Mad, how much youse give 'im fo' it anyways?"

"Shhh, I gave 'im t'ree bucks fo' it A.J."

"T'ree hundred smackers? Good deal bro'ah."

"Hey, t'ink dey let youse out cause ah diz hur'cane headed fo' New Ahl-ee-yuns?"

"Yeah, mus' be sumpin' to do wid it Mad, dey done let a half dozen ah us out early."

"Yeah, we gone duck diz one too A.J., youse know dem hurricanes never gets us."

A.J. frowned and shook his head. He knew Mad Billy lived in possibly the lowest section of the Lower Ninth Ward and that that's where he'd be staying too, as his mother was in a nursing home in the St. Bernard Parish, a nursing home that Danny-Boy, still his best friend after all these years, paid for.

"Yeah, youse better hope so Billy, if dem levees evah breaks we be goners fo' sure."

"Dey ain't gone break A.J., shee-it niggah, when dey evah broke before?"

A.J. just shook his head and scowled and Mad Billy smiled.

"Hey, we go see yo' moms A.J., cheer youse up, huh?"

"Yeah, yeah, youse know Madman I ain't seen ah in 'most ten years."

"Yeah, I know baby, we go visit her man, we go visit her. Where's she at?"

"In St. Bernard Parish man, in a nursing home by the name ah Saint Rita's."

*********

As the reports came in that a hurricane-force storm, now named Katrina, was surely going to strengthen and make land-fall in New Orleans, off-duty police officer Michael "Big Mike" McKeon sipped a beer in a bar-eatery in the French Quarter, Molly's at the Market, that never closed. He had sat through 3 hurricanes in the past 7 years, usually in this very same bar and the last one, Ivan, was a category 4 that had veered off to the east and wreaked its havoc on the Florida panhandle, bypassing the Big Easy almost entirely, and the majority of the inhabitants, then as now, especially those too poor to leave, had breathed another sigh of relief and let the good times roll, just like they were doing this very Saturday evening of August 27, even though Governor Kathleen Blanco had declared a State of Emergency, the previous night, and Katrina had just been upgraded to a category 3 hurricane.

*********

McKeon, a bachelor who lived in the French Quarter, glared at the television set and blinked unsteadily. He glanced at his watch and saw it was half past nine in the morning and realized he had been in the bar-eatery for over 12 hours. He had sat through the upgrading of Hurricane Katrina from a category 3 to a 4, at 2:00 a.m. and then to a category 5, five hours later, and now he was staring at the television screen and into the face of Mayor Ray Nagin, who was declaring a first ever mandatory evacuation. His cell-phone rang and he realized through the fog in his brain that he would be desperately needed, as he let the phone ring and ring. He went to the back of the bar, to the bathroom, and noticed that he had several unanswered messages on his phone. When he checked, he again realized he was being called in to work but simply smiled and got another refill.

Big Mike watched as Max Mayfield, the Director of the National Hurricane Center, in Miami, talked to President George W. Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, during a video conference call and told him that he had called the governors of Louisiana and Mississippi and the mayor of New Orleans and told them how bad Katrina was going to be, even as he was now telling the president the same thing. The president smiled politely and made his usual inane comments about a lot of hard work ahead.

Big Mike didn't want to go to work but they were actually closing Molly's and he began to realize how bad this hurricane was likely to be, as the bar had never closed before. He decided to go in and already began formulating a story of why he was so late to report in.

*********

Big Mike pulled his squad car up to an overpass next to the New Orleans Superdome and scowled. It was almost midnight and as Wednesday August 31 turned into Thursday, September 1, Big Mike, who had barely slept for the past three days thought he was going crazy. The house he rented in the French Quarter was partially flooded and the city of New Orleans looked like a war-zone, there was water and sewage everywhere and it smelled like death warmed over. There was no hope of any relief and Big Mike, who had taken all his worldly possessions from the house, just in case, thought he might evacuate himself, as he had been shot at several times, over on Canal Street and again just before nine p.m. that evening as he was pulling away from the Superdome. He walked towards the Superdome and was immediately accosted by several people, who demanded food and water. Big Mike, who at 6'6", 285 lbs., towered over the small group of people, scowled and then ducked down when shots reverberated into the harshness of the night and Big Mike turned just in time to see his squad car pulling away from the curb. He drew his service revolver and ran towards the car but it was no use, it was long gone. That was when he saw the red Pontiac Grand Prix. It was jacked up in the air and could ride easier through the water than most automobiles, as many of the police cruisers were stalling out when water hit their alternators or starters. He glanced inside and saw the keys and then saw that it had a half a tank of gas, which was a half a tank more than his squad car had had, as gas was gold now, and he jumped in and quickly made his decision; he knew many of his brother officers had bailed out and why not, your life was in your hands in this burned-out war zone and he quickly made his decision when he pulled away from the curb and headed east across the Mississippi River; he knew if he could make it to U.S. 90 he could get through Jefferson Parish and onto I-310 which would then connect him to I-10 West, which would roll him straight into Baton Rouge. He had a girlfriend in Baton Rouge and he visualized her warm bed at that very moment and stepped onto the gas pedal and the Grand Prix shot away from the curb. He would just have to make one stop, at City Hall, where he had some personal belongings, some personal belongings that included a black leather briefcase.

*********

A.J. scowled at the sight and Mad Billy Baldwin shrieked:

"BeJaysuz niggah, somebody copped ah-wah ride."

"We'uz dumb enough to leave the keys in it and we had gas in'at suckah too niggah!"

"I know brothah but how was we to know dese niggahs ovah here be goin' crazy? Shee-it, youse know we gone have to get a boat to g'wan get yo moms outta Saint Rita's anyway, too much water!"

"Yeah, but where we gone get ah boat?"

"Well somebody done took our ride so jus' maybe we take somebody's boat now!"

Mad Billy Baldwin was mad, he had too much money and sweat in that ride and now it was gone and he, like thousands of others, watched helplessly as helicopters, empty buses and National Guardsmen passed them by. Where were they going? Mad Billy Baldwin scowled now and waved his fist into the air just as a helicopter flew overhead and growled:

"Dey goin' to the French Quatah man, Uptown, dey done broke the leh-vee on'nuz so's they could save dem rich suckahs A.J., youse know it's true."

A.J. stared into the distance and watched the helicopter head towards the French Quarter and Uptown and suddenly the one man he knew who lived there, the benefactor of his mother's nursing home bills and still the best friend he had ever thought he had, Danny-Boy Boudrieux, popped into his mind and he wondered silently where he was; where was his best friend, where was Danny Boy?'

*********

"Did youse hear Fee-dell offered a t'ousan' doctahs and medical supplies and Bush toined 'im down?"

Danny-Boy inhaled deeply and stared at the broken levees and then at his cousin, Shawn Jeremy "S.J." O'Banion, a police captain and barked:

"Hell wid the doctahs, S.J., why in dah hell din' dah damn leh-vees hold?"

S.J. O'Banion, an engineering major at Loyola, shook his head and hissed:

"Danny-Boy dah leh-vees been messed up fah evah. Had ovah five t'ousan' pounds ah lead and hundreds ah pounds ah arsenic poured in the Mississippi from dat petrochemical complex in Baton Rouge for decades. And youse know all dese leh-vees and canals been here for ovah 50 years an'nay speed dah Mississippi's flow intah dah gulf."

"Yeah, so what S.J.?"

"Danny-Boy, ain't no sediment left to make wetlands anymore. Shee-it, we been losin' probably forty square miles of coastal wetlands every year. Danny-Boy it's the fastes' disappearin' land mass on dah face ah dah earth. Hell dey had oil-wells since the beginning ah the twentieth-century, ovah a hundred years. So much drillin' done caused dese underground faults tah slip and the land above jus' slumps right on ovah, sucked down, just sucked right on down; like somebody suckin' onnah straw innah col' drink."

Danny-Boy took all this information in and scowled. Like so many people he hadn't ever thought too much of the consequences or impact of what the environmental policies of the political parties, who owed their jobs to corporations and conglomerates, had on the earth, and therefore, also on the human race.

"What's gone happen S.J.?"

"It's probably already happenin' Danny-Boy; the Army Corps ah engineers, of which I was once a membah, as you well know, is more'n likely gonna breach some leh-vees to save some dry land."

Danny-Boy stared into space and suddenly remembered that A.J.'s mother, his best friend's mother, who he paid the freight on at the nursing home in St. Bernard Parish, was in an area that was likely to be one of those intentionally flooded. His own mother was safe at high ground, with relatives, at Algiers.

*********

Danny-Boy frowned and stared at the floor. Something was gnawing at him; it didn't make sense, the mayor had just ordered 1500 police officers to stop rescue efforts and concentrate all their efforts on stopping the looting. All the looting that Danny-Boy had seen had been done by people who were obviously starving and/or suffering from dehydration from lack of water, or any other liquid. And all around them, these same people were forced to stand in knee-deep water that was so putrid and infected with disease that even a mouthful could potentially end their life. Danny-Boy wondered if he had been living Uptown too long; he recognized these people, they were his people, mostly black, poor, most of them from the lower-lying areas of New Orleans, Mid-City, the Lower Ninth Ward, Orleans and St. Bernard parishes, and they were stuffing them in the Superdome and the Convention Center and there were reports of people shooting each other, raping women and children and committing suicide and the mayor and governor were blaming the federal government. The Bush government, led by George W. Bush, the son of George H.W. Bush, who had taken the White House, in the same exact manner as his father had, by exploiting a well-oiled network of oil and gas money and political power that was long-ago bought and paid for by these same conglomerates, did what was only to be expected of him, as it would have been of his father; he did nothing, a not unusual maneuver for a man whose entire life had been lived as that of a spoiled, sheltered rich kid, who knew how to work a crowd of well-heeled gas and oil magnates but wouldn't know a working man if he bumped into one on his way to his seat at a fundraiser. But, if there was one thing the ex-governor of Texas did know, or at least thought he did, it was that it wasn't the working poor who got you elected, no, it was the non-working rich, the elite and super-elite, the haves and have-mores, and he considered himself one of them, as could well be said that he was. And so, he went to Arizona for a photo-op with Senator John McCain, who was celebrating his 69th birthday and then visited with some Arizona seniors to push his social security reform and tell them how his Medicare Drug Benefit was going, then flew off to California to repeat more of this same nonsense about what a great president he was and how there was so much more hard work ahead. He then told the FEMA Director, on television: "Brownie, you're doin' a heck of a job!" His Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, not to be outdone by her boss, went to New York, where she went directly to Fifth Avenue and went shopping, she needed a new pair of shoes and where else was a dignified Secretary of State supposed to find a decent pair of shoes these days, if not on New York's Fifth Avenue?

Danny-Boy had so many thoughts rumbling through his head that he had totally forgotten about the evacuation of St. Rita's nursing home in the parish of St. Bernard but quickly remembered it when he saw Eric "Easy E" Slidell, a deputy with the Sheriff's Department of St. Bernard parish. He smiled when Slidell walked over and handed him a Pepsi and a cup of ice.

"Hey t'anks fah the cold drink Easy; jew evah find out about Saint Rita's?"

"Saint Rita's?"

"Yeah you know dah noisin' home I ast youse about?"

"Oh, oh yeah. Yeah Jack says they got a contract wid Acadian Ambulances Danny-Boy, they should be evacuated by now."

"Hey, hey good, glad to hear it man; t'anks."

"Anytime ol' buddy, youse hear about Compass'siz publicity guy? Dude shot 'isse'f inna head bro'."

"Shhh-it. I heard Woody Clemens domed hisse'f too man."

"Yeah, Buddy Rebs tol' me 'bout dat. He rode wid 'im fo' t'ree years man. Said he t'ought his wife and kid was dead but dey was'sin, dey showed up at dah Superdome."

"Yeah? It's sad man; youse know Easy, diz place is becoming a freakin' war-zone!"

"Don't I know it bruddah, I got shot at over at dah convention cen'ah."

"Yeah man, I hoid 'bout dat place. Why'ny dey get some buses ovah dere?"

"Don't know bruddah. Youse know dat writer dude in dah Times-Picayune been telling us diz could happen for years? I remembah him writing it at least a couple ah years ago. Man dey been knowin' it could happen and dah mayah and governah both din' do shee-it. Politicians ain't got nothing but ice watah in dey veins, youse know Danny-Boy?"

"Yeah youse ask me it's Bush and his big money what's to blame. Dude don't give a shee-it 'bout nuffin' but money and his rich friends."

Easy Eric Slidell smiled crookedly; he knew Danny-Boy's family had a wealthy side too. He rubbed his tired, reddened eyes and Danny-Boy barked:

"Youse get any shuteye Easy E?"

"Ahehh, I'm gonna try right now man. Been on twenty-fo' straight."

"Yeah, aw'ight den man. Catch yah latah."

"Latah Danny-Boy, latah."

*********

A.J. McGuire cradled his mother's head behind his elbow, as the tears streamed down his cheeks and he kissed her cheek and whispered:

"Moms, Moms, I love you Moms, cah'mon Moms, youse can't die, please."

Mad Billy stepped over and clasped his friend on the shoulder and leaned down.

"C'mon A.J., she's gone and we gone drown too we don't get outta here?"

A.J. looked up to see dozens of bodies floating around in the waist-deep water inside the nursing home and grabbed his mother's body, as they headed up the stairway they were sitting on. They had been dropped off by a man in a rowboat over an hour ago.

"We get to the rooftop and den what? Dat dude said he might not be back diz way!"

As they crawled out onto the roof, five minutes later, Mad Billy Baldwin shook his head and hissed:
"Don't mattah what he said, we ain't got but one choice, we wait brother, we wait."

Five hours went by and just when they thought they'd never live through it, as the daylight was now turning into night, they spied a rowboat heading towards them and waved and screamed at it. When it pulled up to the roof, Mad Billy couldn't stop himself from laughing, when he saw who it was: Crazy Leroy.

"Hey Craze, where youse get dah boat?"

"Shee-it, if I din get it I'd be drowned like a dead rat, like all dese people I been seein' floatin' onnah watah. Hey don't put dat dead body inna boat man, c'mon man, dat gone be extra weight? Man, we ain't got dah room anyway, you'll nevah get it on?"

A.J. stared at Crazy Leroy but Mad Billy quickly grabbed his elbow and hissed:

"Craze, youse remembah A.J. McGuire man, from nah joint?"

Crazy Leroy, a two-time loser who would do life the next time he was sent up, smiled, showing a mouthful of cavities and gold-capped teeth and barked:

"Oh yeah-uh, I remember youse but whose dat stiff?"

"It's his moms Craze!"

Crazy Leroy, whose mother had died while he was inside, bowed his head.

"Oh yeah, saw'ree den A.J., bring her on in."

As Crazy Leroy put his paddle into the flood-tide and A.J.'s mother's body stuck halfway out of the boat, Mad Billy looked around the bottom of the boat and saw a rifle and three handguns, two knives and what looked like several boxes of ammunition."

"Damn Craze, youse preparing fo' a war or sumpin'?"

Crazy Leroy snapped his head upwards and glared at Mad Billy, then croaked:

"We aw'ready in one Mad, we aw'ready in one."

*********

Danny-Boy smiled at the absurdity of it. He and other police officers were backing up several members of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Response Team, or ICE, as they searched various buildings in downtown New Orleans. They were armed to the hilt with night-vision goggles and M-16's and had been searching various hi-rise buildings that had been identified as potential threats, meaning a sniper could establish a dangerous position from there. They pulled up to the curb of the Hibernia National Bank Building, which was considered a double-threat, that is, it posed threats from the availability of positioning a sniper in it and also the usual bank-robber scenario, not to mention any potential "highly-sensitive papers" falling into the wrong hands, meaning any hands other than the president or a trustee of the bank. It was 9:00 p.m. and this was their fifth building of the day and so far nothing had been found, whatsoever. Danny-Boy smiled sarcastically, he figured it would be another wasted effort, if there had been any snipers in these buildings they were long gone, as it was well-known on the streets of New Orleans that the ICE and SWAT teams were sweeping the streets and any snipers would obviously be disproportionately outnumbered and outgunned.

*********

Crazy Leroy threw the files down on the floor and barked:

"Ain't nuffin' here man; t'ought maybe I could get sumpin' on dese tricky politicians 'round here, youse know wha' I mean?"

A.J. McGuire shook his head and Mad Billy Baldwin repeated the gesture, Crazy LeRoy was indeed that, now, crazy. They had lost A.J.'s mother's body to the floodwaters when their boat had tipped and almost flipped over and they had been searching for food and water steadily since then. It was Crazy Leroy who suggested they hit the bank building, saying there would be food and water as well as information against the fat cats who ran the city. He had an AK-47 and a .45 pistol and A.J. and Mad Billy Baldwin both had .357 Magnums that Crazy Leroy had given them. They had barely eaten anything and had only shared a half-gallon of water in the past week. They had found no electricity working or drinkable water in any of the buildings they had been in thus far and had seen the confusion and insanity at the Superdome where they had watched as a man had leapt to his death, saying that he was starving and there was no longer a reason to live. That had been three days ago and Crazy Leroy had said then that he was ready to rob a store and now A.J. and Mad Billy were thinking they were ready to listen to Crazy Leroy when he kept talking about looting any store that had food and water, as the trio were all severely dehydrated and, with nothing to eat in over a week, they were also becoming malnourished. Crazy Leroy stood at the window and stared down, then called A.J. and Mad Billy over. They all looked down and watched as a half dozen soldiers dressed in full-combat gear entered a building across from the one they were in. Then Crazy Leroy pointed downwards and they all watched as two soldiers and a man dressed in plain clothes exited a Hummer H1, a High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV), a Humvee, and entered the building they were in.

********

Danny-Boy followed the two ICE Special Response team members inside the building, even as Crazy Leroy took up a position behind a desk and motioned for his two partners to do likewise, which they did. They were whispering amongst each other when they heard voices and A.J. thought he recognized one, as Danny-Boy barked:

"Hey put yah weapons down, we been t'rough a half-dozen buildings and haven't so much as encountered a mouse and I'm tired, I dunno 'bout youse guys but I'm all in."

One of the ICE team was about to start another argument with Danny-Boy when his superior shrugged, then took his weapon from his shoulder and hissed:

"Yah know what? Lieutenant McGuire's right, let's shut it down for the night. Tomorrow's another day Rock, let's go. I'm dead anydamnway."

Sergeant James "Sgt. Rock" Rockiguilliuo nodded and turned on his heel, just yards from the door that three desperate men waited behind, but stopped when Crazy Leroy's elbow knocked a staple gun off a metal desk and to the floor. The two ICE team members turned quickly, Danny-Boy fast on their heels now, and headed for the darkened room where Sgt. Brad Morris shouldered his M-16 and, when he saw a movement through his night vision goggles, immediately opened fire, which was returned by Crazy Leroy, Mad Billy and A.J. McGuire.

After the firing died down, A.J. rolled over and saw that he was still alive and uninjured and he falteringly got to his feet and immediately saw that Crazy Leroy and Mad Billy were both dead, their blood-soaked, bullet-ridden bodies lying ignominiously on the floor, pools of blood still forming around them. Crazy Leroy's head was so torn and chopped apart that he was virtually unrecognizable and the left side of Mad Billy's chest was so bullet-ridden and blood-splattered that there was no longer any visible clothing there. A.J. heard some moaning in the other room and staggered out the door. Both the ICE soldiers appeared to be dead, one with an eye socket blown out and the other leaning against the wall, the back of his head blown completely away, the white dry-wall splattered with enough blood, bone-chips and brain matter to look as if a new-age painter had been fast at work at his palette. A.J. walked over to the plainclothes cop who was moaning and bent down until he saw who it was. His face went ashen and he cradled his lifelong friend's head in the crook of his arm.

"Gee'zuz, Gawd Ah'mighty Danny-Boy, Danny-Boy?"

"Ah'ehhhhh, A.'yay'Jay, I jus' hoid yesterday that youse was out. I was…. thwack, ahhhhaccck, ahhhhh………………………….

A.J. watched as Danny-Boy spit up blood and leaned down as close as he could, to hear Danny-Boy say:

"Gee'zuz A.J. I hoid about yah muddah, I'm so sorry, I….haccck, ahahah……….

"Danny-Boy, Danny-Boy please man, please Danny-Boy…..wait…………….

A.J. could see the bad shape Danny-Boy was in and tears appeared in his eyes and began rolling down his cheeks, as he considered the possibility that it had been his bullet that had ended his life-long best friend's life. Then Danny-Boy coughed and rasped:

"I love youse A.J., I love youse brother, I love youse, ahacck….ah……

A.J. felt for a pulse and there was none; and after 30 seconds he knew his best friend was gone; Danny-Boy Boudrieux was dead. His felt a hard weight cave in his chest and that was when he heard the front door, a story below, flung open as a half-dozen ICE riflemen barreled through it and hit the stairs running. He let Danny-Boy's head softly down to the floor and ran up the stairway and out into the hall.

 

-8-
MONEY TALKS

The world's chief idol, nurse of fretting cares,
Dumb trafficker, yet understood o'er all.
William Alexander, Doomsday: Tenth Hour.

Big Mike McKeon smiled at the real estate agent and put the black leather briefcase down on the table. She returned his smile and opened her light brown briefcase and pulled out a blank contract for sale and purchase of real estate.

"And your name sir?"

"Joe Higsbee but forget dat baby, put it in my goilfriend's name, Susan Kristopher."

"Well, Mr.Higsbee, is your credit bad or………………..

Big Mike waved the back of his hand at the agent, as if at a troublesome fly.

"Naw, ah, like I said I'm offerin' cash."

The agent smiled politely.

"We're having a lot of cash offers lately Mr. Higsbee, you understand, and like I said I've already had one full-price cash offer on twenty-twenty-two Curry Drive?"

"I'll offer ten kay over dat."

"What? That's three hundred and twenty thousand dollars Mr. Higsbee?"

"Yeah, t'ink it'll be enough?"

"Well, I will have to inform the other buyers and…………..

"I t'ought youse said they had an agent?"

"Well yes, yes sir, I'll have to inform their agent."

"Katy, youse don't need a biddin' war, youse liable to lose the double commission."

Katy Ryan blushed slightly.

"Mr. Higsbee, I'll have you know that…………..

"I seen on dah sheet where dey'll only payin' a t'ree percent commish."

"Well, with this hurricane Katrina causing all that damage we have a lot of people, like yourself, coming up here to Baton Rouge and offering full-price and it is still a seller's market. Something like this just intensifies that and the seller gets greedy."

"Yeah-yeah, greedier, huh Katy? One and half percent ah t'ree-twenty is forty-eight hundred smackahs, t'ree percent is double dat."

Kathryn "Katy" Ryan inhaled slightly.

"Do you plan to write me a deposit check to go with this offer?"

Big Mike removed a small key from his jacket pocket and turned the clasps on his leather briefcase, then snapped them open and lifted the lid. He turned the briefcase slightly and Katy Ryan sat staring, hypnotized, at what had been 100 stacks of hundred dollar bills inside the briefcase, and now there was 99 of them intact and a half a stack or more scattered over the other tightly bound stacks, just under a million dollars.

Katy Ryan stared lovingly at her God and Big Mike smiled and grabbed a dozen of the bills. He slipped them into Ryan's hand and she closed it tightly when he said:

"And here's somet'in' extra fah youse Katy. Now den, when can me and my lady move into ah'wah new house?"

Katy Ryan moved her lips to within inches of Big Mike's ear and cooed:

"Whenever you say sweetie, whenever you say!"

 

-9-
BIG OIL

Instability in the Middle East severely threatens sources of our petroleum imports from that region of the world.---George H.W. Bush, 1970.

George W. Bush was at a meeting and his eyes were slowing closing; he was almost asleep but he suddenly came alive when oil and gas money was mentioned, as a recent spillage at the Murphy Oil refinery in Meraux, Louisiana, where over 85,000 barrels of crude oil had been spilled into water so low as to become almost immediate sludge in numerous neighborhoods in the St. Bernard Parish.

George W. had learned at the feet of an expert oil man, George H.W. Bush, his father, and throughout both their lives and careers in the Oval Office, the Republican Party, the oil and gas industry, the national interest and the Bush family interests, became so inseparable that the line between enriching themselves through their political connections had virtually disappeared. The economy depends on cheap energy and in order to continue to have a high standard of living the country must continue to have cheap energy, which translates into gas and oil production and most Texas politicians owe the big producers their loyalty, as they are elected by their benefactors' contributions, as were all three of Texas' past presidents, Lyndon B. Johnson and the Bush father and son team, all three who owed allegiance to Halliburton. Of course, American politicians had always owed their allegiance to the power-brokers and chief among them are the oil and gas companies. In point of fact, it was during Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration, in 1953, that the decision was made, by Eisenhower's approval, to take out Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected leader of Iran, when it became known that Mossadegh planned to nationalize Iran's oilfields. Just after the C.I.A. took out Mossadegh and installed the Shah of Iran, five U.S. oil companies were given major shares of the conglomerate of Western corporations that controlled Iran's oil production.

Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton from 1995-2000, and was paid $45 million dollars and is a politician who is shamelessly proud of the invisible line between enriching himself and his friends and family through his business and political connections, which is why he was the secretary of defense under George H.W. Bush and is the vice-president under George W. Bush.

When the Shah of Iran was overrun by the Ayatollah Khomeni, Kellogg, Brown & Root, the engineering and construction arm of Halliburton, simply began doing business with its next-door-neighbor, Iraq, and Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party, and when George W. decided to get rid of Saddam, of course K.B.R., Halliburton, was "awarded" the no-bid contract to rebuild the country's gas and oil industry. After all, it had been Brown & Root who had built many of Iraq's pipelines and had been paid billions of dollars to do it.

George H.W. Bush had many oil cronies in his cabinet and staff, James A. Baker III, his secretary of state, being chief among them. His son, George W., having Cheney as vice-president, Condoleeza Rice, his former national advisor and a director of Chevron, now his secretary of state, Don Evans, commerce secretary, a former CEO and chairman of Tom Brown, Inc., a Colorado oil company that George W. Bush owns stock in -- it appears that if you are tied to the gas and oil business there is a job for you in the Bush Administration, somewhere. Like Zalmay Khalilzad, a special national security assistant and a special envoy to Afghanistan, whose past ties with Unocal, a California gas & oil consortium, garnered him the job of working with Condi Rice in an attempt to construct a pipeline from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan. But then, it was oil money, 3 million plus from energy companies and almost the same from the auto sector, that helped elect George W. Bush President and G.W., besides owning stock in Tom Brown, Inc., owns stock in General Electric, BP, Duke Energy, ExxonMobil and Pennzoil. And now there was big trouble in New Orleans, the drilling would have to stop, the money would have to flow backwards for a while, into repairing the off-shore rigs and apparatus' in order to start the green paper with dead presidents pictures on them flowing once again and George W. Bush was worried. Another hurricane was threatening the Gulf Coast region and it was reported to be as big, or bigger, in magnitude and scope than Katrina; and it was said to be headed for the president's State of Texas and not that that wasn't bad enough but this was a section of coastline with the nation's largest concentration of oil refineries. It was being reported that it may even hit the greater Houston area and this worried the 43rd president of the United States no end; not because so many New Orleans evacuees were now attempting to take up residence there but because just outside of Houston proper, in the eastern side of Harris County, there resided huge petroleum refineries that had the awesome ability to provide almost half of the petrochemical needs of the entire country, and this was George W. Bush's Houston, a town whose leaders exemplified the good ol' boy Texas gunslinger mentality of no restrictions on zoning or growth, let the market determine the outcome; in other words money rules, and still does, and when its results became an urban infrastructure that provided enormous amounts of wealth to only a small percentage of the population while it wreaked havoc on the numerous ghettos that sprang up in Ward after Ward, or Parish after Parish, this was of no concern to any of the city's politicians because so many of them sprang from the likes of those whose wealthy families had ruled for so many eons; like James A. Baker III, a close confederate of George H.W. Bush, and his secretary of state, whose family ties went back to Baker's great grandfather, who moved to Texas from Alabama and became a judge, a member of the Texas legislature and who would move to Houston and join a law firm that would become known as Baker Botts and would become one of the top law firms in the State of Texas, specializing in representing looters, polluters and anyone who had the money to hire their "six-shooters," and George W. Bush's first summer job was in the law firm's mailroom. Yes, George W. Bush was firmly entrenched in the oil business, primarily because of one stark and startling truth: that despite the fact that even while businesses that he ran went bankrupt, and his first oil company's investors lost upwards of $3 million dollars, G.W. got an exceptionally generous salary and office operations money. He had easily borrowed money for this venture, as oil investments were useful tax shelters for his billionaire friends, and others, like when he became the chairman and third-largest owner, with 16 percent of the stock, of Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation in 1986 and when Spectrum 7 was on the verge of bankruptcy, due to plummeting oil prices, he called upon friends at Harken Energy, and they easily bought Spectrum out by swapping out one of its shares for every five of Spectrum's. G.W. got stock worth over a half a million dollars, a Harken directorship and a 2-year consulting contract that paid him $80,000 the first year and $120,000 the second year and thereafter. And, G.W. had found God, not coincidentally in 1986, a year that the price of oil hit an all-time low of under $9 a barrel. G.W. well knew that his father had been weak with the Religious Right and when he stated that none other than Billy Graham had been the one to help convert him, it would greatly help to elect him Governor of Texas in 1994 and again, as president in 2000, when it was said that Graham called him and urged him to run and to remember to tell the voters that he had always been faithful to his wife. And so, with the help of the Religious Right's voting power and Big Oil's money, George W. Bush was elected in 2000 and again in 2004, and now, on September 23, 2005, he was facing his greatest test. Unlike 9/11/2001, however, this test couldn't be passed by photo opportunities and short one-liners, no this crisis was even bigger than that, this was something that only God could intervene in, for another hurricane was racing towards the Gulf Coast and not just to the already battered States of Louisiana and Mississippi but to his State of Texas and it was threatening another god of his, the gas and oil business.

10
RITA

déjà vu: the feeling that one has seen or heard something before.

Some day the earth will weep, she will beg for her life, she will cry with tears of blood. You will make a choice, if you will help her or let her die, and when she dies, you too will die.---John Hollow Horn, Oglala Lakota, 1932.

George W. Bush was smiling when he said it and he meant it, as everyone knew only G.W. could say what he meant; of course he could change his mind and probably would but when he said something, gosh-darn, by-golly, G.W. Bush meant it. And, he definitely meant it when he said that he would make sure that the Gulf Coast, where over one-quarter of the country's oil refineries were located, would be rebuilt, no matter what the cost, and that HE, George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States, just wanted to let all his constituents know that he would pay for it and the Iraq War and without rolling back any of his nice fat, juicy tax-cuts for all his billionaire friends, corporations and conglomerates; of course what he really meant was that the American taxpayers would pay for it. When his father left office, he left the incoming president, Clinton, with a $290 billion deficit and when Clinton left office, 8 years later, he had turned that around and handed his predecessor's son almost $290 billion back, but in a surplus, and now, in 2005, the deficit was almost $8 trillion dollars, as both Bushes were great at talking out of the side of their mouths. And, of course G.W. would never think, or even consider any environmental bills that might restrict or stand in the way of any wealthy developer wishing to weaken or erode the land by building upon it, or restrict zoning or building at or near flood-plains or anything else that might dampen the spirit of the numerous millionaire and billionaire developers who ran like moths to the flame towards beachfront property or property that overlooked the water.

Of course, the oil derricks and refineries would continue unabated and, in fact, Florida Republicans in the U.S. House are backing a deal that would relinquish numerous protections in exchange for permanent restrictions closer to shore, creating, in effect, a 100-mile buffer around the state, out of sight of any land, where Big Oil could put their derricks, as if by being out of sight of the land, no damage would be done, for being hurricane-prone, erosion-prone and flood-prone were only words to G.W. Bush and most politicians, whose lives were moved and ruled by money and that money sprang from such as the corporations and conglomerates that moved these politicians' mouths much like a martinet moved his dummy-puppet's mouth. And never let it be said that George W. Bush was not as big a dummy-puppet as ever held the office of President of the United States, as he said on September 2, 2005, quote: "Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house, he's lost his entire house, there's gonna be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."

What he forgot to say, of course, was that Trent Lott's house, located on the Pascagoula beachfront, is backed by federally subsidized flood insurance programs and state subsidized beach "renourishment" programs that guarantee that any damage done by flooding will be paid for by, yes you guessed it, the taxpayers. The Gulf Coast, along with the Texas and California coasts, the Florida Keys, the Outer Banks and coasts in states that dot the coastlines throughout America, have recently experienced a sudden building boom and the developers are getting wealthy off the lack of zoning restrictions. Gambling casinos rule along the Mississippi coast and two dozen have been destroyed by Hurricane Rita but never fear, G.W. is here and he will help get them rebuilt; wouldn't want the big money to stop flowing into the state of Mississippi's coffers. An Army engineer lost his job when Senator Trent Lott demanded he resign. What was his crime? He had the temerity to state the truth and suggest that it would be wise if the State of Mississippi stop building casinos along the flood-prone coast.

And so, G.W. smiled, Rita hadn't done enough damage to dampen his spirits and maybe it was God who he could thank but first he would have to ask his speechwriters and maybe Dick Cheney, if he could find the V.P., he was in hiding at an undisclosed location. No reason had yet been given but his spokesperson was working on that.

 

EPILOGUE:
DANNY-BOY

Passed from death unto life.--- New Testament: John, 5:24.

We weep when we are born, Not when we die.!
Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Metempsychosis.

It was hot and getting hotter inside the building that A.J. McGuire stood inside. He was sipping on a bottle of water that he had been given earlier by a man with a Red Cross patch on his shirt. He hadn't eaten in three days but he wasn't worried; he had gone for longer periods without eating over his life and he knew he probably would again, as he was poor, and was without wheels now or any money, or even any friends, as it seemed like he knew no one in this section of New Orleans, anyway, for he was in Algiers Point, where he saw almost exclusively white faces. It was dry and comparatively comfortable but very humid and A.J. had stayed inside an abandoned building and had slept more in three days than he had in the past month, since he had been released from the penitentiary anyway, and so much had happened that his mind seemed to be in a constant state of "spin-cycle." He walked outside now and glanced at his watch, it was 8:00 a.m. and he walked and walked; he walked past the courthouse and up Verret Avenue, then strolled down Pelican Ave and walked past the library, then walked back onto Verret until he came upon the Holy Name of Mary Church and strolled towards the front entrance. He was on holy ground, he was at the church where Danny-Boy had gotten married and he was alone and waiting but he knew not what for. It was a Sunday, the second day in October, 2005, and he walked in and sat down in a pew in the back of the church. He sat and waited but he knew not what he was waiting for, then he felt an arm on his shoulder and he turned and looked into the smiling face of a priest, who said:

"Good day, my son. Do you wish confession?"

A.J. smiled back at the priest but shook his head.

"Naw faddah, I ah-er-um, that is, I that is……………….

"Yes-yes, what is it my son?"

"Well, that is, I dunno faddah, youse know, I, I jus' felt diz overwhelmin' desire to, to, well to come inside, youse know?"

"Of course, of course, and how long has it been since youse have been in church?"

"Well, dat is, I used to go to choich allah dah time youse know but, well, it's been ah while youse know? I used to go wid my frien' Danny-Boy and his moms youse know, we went down to Saint Paddy's once ovah in dah warehouse districk, youse know?"

"The warehouse district, of course, on Camp, I know it well."

"Yeah, well she used to go ovah here once in awhile too, youse know. Yeah, I was in here a couple ah times, many years ago faddah dough, youse know? Yeah me an Danny-Boy, yeah Danny-Boy, my frien', my bes' frien'." A.J. stared into space and the priest put his hand back on his shoulder and rasped:

"Ah youse here for his funeral then, my son?"

A.J. jerked away from the priest as if slapped and his face turned ashen.

"Wha………what? What ah youse talkin' about faddah?"

"Why, youse ah a friend of Danny-Boy Boo'drow ah youse not?"

"Yeah, yeah of course, how, how'd youse know dat?"

"Why my son, they're having his funeral here today."

"For real? Man, man, dat can't be, it can't be faddah. Danny-Boy wuzza pooleeceman, he, why, dey gone have a parade, dey gone have pooleece everywhere, dey gone have bands and it gone last ah week or mo', man, I know Danny-Boy's muddah? I…………..

The priest rubbed A.J.'s shoulder and sat down next to him. A.J. had tears streaming down his face but was unaware of it. The priest leaned in towards him and rasped:

"Youse know son we've been hit by two hurricanes, Katrina and Rita and although we've been blessed here in Algiers Point, we've not yet gotten the city anywhere near the condition it should be in. No one is prepared for a real New Ahl-ee-yuns funeral my son."

"Bu….but how youse know………I mean Danny-Boy's funeral? I mean………..

"His muddah couldn't wait any longer, we've promised her the church this afternoon and maybe sometime in the future he'll get a real New Ahl-ee-yuns police burial."

"Yeah, yeah, ah-er, what time, ah….is dah funeral, faddah."

"Twelve o'clock, my son." A.J. glanced at his watch. It was 11:30, a half an hour until then, and suddenly he awakened; he must have been in the church longer than he had thought.

"Geez, how long have I been, ah-er…………..…

"Since nine-toytee. You've been here for two hours my son."

A.J. heard noise in the rear of the church and noticed several policemen in uniform and he shivered involuntarily but the priest tightened his grip on his shoulder and said:

"Don't worry my son, the Lord makes everything right."

A.J. looked up and noticed that several cops were setting a casket in the front of the church and it was open.

"Wha……….what? Dey have dah body? Dey have Danny-Boy's………………….

"They do my son. I'm sure youse can stay. There are only a few people going to be here. About a dozen I think his dear muddah said. You understand he'll probably have a real New Ahl-ee-yuns funeral when the city gets back to normal? Ah, I must go now, my son. Stay, stay and pray for your friend's soul. I'm sure youse were close?"

"He was my bes' frien' faddah, I, I loved him faddah, I did. I did."

The priest clasped A.J.'s shoulder tighter and then he was gone, heading for the front of the church.

A.J. sat in the pew and heard the eulogy, then noticed that there was a pianist and several members of a choir and they sang three songs. Then A.J. saw Danny-Boy's mother and he watched as Angelina "Angel" O'Brian Boudrieux walked to the microphone and began singing in her falsetto, New Orleans accentuated voice with now a somewhat pronounced Irish accent clinging to some of the words as she sang the song "Danny-Boy." Her voice was like that of a real angel and A.J. felt he had never heard anything so beautiful in his life. When she got to the end of the song, to the words, "Oh Danny-Boy, I love you so," A.J. had tears streaming down his face, as he walked to the front of the church and stared at his life-long best friend's corpse and continued to cry like a baby when Danny-Boy's mother approached him and hugged him tightly.

A.J. went with Danny-Boy's mother to the post-funeral meal and ate and ate and ate. He noticed the distant stares of most of the cops but he didn't care; he was free now, he was free, the voice he had prayed to had told him it hadn't been his bullet that had killed Danny-Boy and it forgave him everything he had ever done and had put an electricity inside his body that was still there. He would have to talk to the priest about that but for now he just ate and talked to Danny-Boy's mom; about old times, about how much he had loved Danny-Boy and about the first time they had ever played together when he was only four years old and they had been in kindergarten together. Then S.J. O'Banion, captain with the New Orleans police department and Danny-Boy's cousin, and Maria Marcello Boudrieux walked over with her son and A.J. stared into the face of Daniel "Danny-Boy" Boudrieux Jr. He was four years old and the spitting image of his father. A.J. couldn't stop the tears and neither could Maria Marcello Boudrieux and neither could the 4-year-old and neither could Danny-Boy's mother. When finally the tears did stop flowing, A.J. McGuire hugged the boy and the boy said:

"Youse ah A.J., aren't youse? My daddy talked about youse all the toime!"

"Oh yeah, what'd he say about me, heh, not all bad, I hope."

The 4 year old appeared confused but only for an instant.

"No, he said he loved youse."

 

By Keith Laufenberg

Attempts at Black Family Reunions
after Katrina

Strange how
Strange how history constantly repeats itself for some highly marginalized and very poor people in this land of plenty for a few called North America
Strange how
After Katrina
Just like after the end of slavery
Strange how
In this land called North America with its exploding and continually recycled myths of broken black families
Single young African-American mothers
Absent and they make you believe uncaring fathers and men who never ever seem to take the responsibility to look after their kids or their womenfolk Strange how
Strange how history constantly has a tendency to repeat itself for some very poor and highly marginalized and mostly African-American people in this land of plenty for nowadays everyday a fewer called North America
Strange how
So many black families were chaotically evacuated, as the entire ugly process quickly came to be known, paying little or no attention whatsoever where they were dropped off or sent to
Obviously, they were blacks therefore they came from broken families and they could not have any meaningful family lives
No, uuh, uuh
Some were sent to Baton Rouge
Others to Houston eventually by bus
Some were even flown to Utah of all the places in the U.S.
Suppose they needed some black people there
Maybe they could even work a little bit of magical "mission civilatrice" on them
Enfin
Others arrived in an ongoing state of shock in LA and DC
Strange how
Strange how history constantly repeats itself in this blessed land for some very poor and highly marginalized African-American people
With now only the great, great, great grandchildren having to play the roles of the painfully missing and the ones searching for beloved brothers, sisters, small kids and babies
Fathers
Mothers
Aunts and Uncles
Grandmothers and Grandfathers
And Husbands searching for Wives
Grandfathers worn out from backbreaking slave labor with sick grandmothers and the remaining grandchildren on horse drawn carts
Or in utter desperation even on barefoot tirelessly walking the vast distances of this often vast and brutal land eagerly looking for any and all family members, who had been coldly sold to the highest bidders
Strange how
Strange how history has a way of repeating itself for some very poor and highly marginalized people in this land of plenty for a few called North America
Only now in the wake of Hurricane Katrina
Using the Internet
The TV
Tightly holding their only pictures to send messages to lost and misplaced loved ones
On message boards scattered all over the overcrowded and highly disorganized receiving centers
For, at first, these mostly African-American called refugees
Refugeees, just like in Africa, how appropriate
The mostly very poor, fundamentally isolated and highly marginalized Black internal refugees
of a so-called booming early 21st century United States of America
Refugeeees, not really from Hurricane Katrina
Enfin
Strange how
Strange how history constantly repeats itself for some very poor and highly marginalized African-American people in this land of plenty for just a few
Where one of its most popular and still widely read founding essayists during the War of Independence wrote about this being the place with the "power to begin the world over again"*
Enfin, no,
Not refugees from Katrina
But, REFUGEEEES from conscious and historically imposed multidimensional and intergenerational
Economic
Social
Racial and
Political malign neglect and contempt uglily uncovered and daily unpacked time and again
In New Orleans
On the part of the powerful, the privileged and the wealthy bored white
political actors
These plundering classes, according to the above-mentioned and beloved political essayist
In this land of plenty for each and every day
fewer and
fewer
and fewer.