Desire #31 Winter 2010

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observat ions and opinions about new or leans winter 2010

who?

by John biguenet

Words to Forget

So I’m supposed to write four hundred words on forgetting you-know- who?

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destroyed New Orleans anyway but

because it’s been five years now since she made landfall in Buras, then sideswiped New Orleans while leveling

the Gulf Coast, and really, shouldn’t I be over the whole thing

especially since when you get right down to it

it wasn’t she-who-must-be-forgotten that

who

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Photograph of John Biguenet © 2010 Jackson Hill

the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and their incompetence and

indifference to their duty that left over a thousand American

citizens drowned in their bedrooms or dead of dehydration in

their attic while waiting for help that took till the end of the

week to arrive, but if I start talking about the Corps and its

insistence that the levees were overtopped by a storm surge—at

least until independent forensic engineering studies began to

publish reports that detailed the multiple defects in the federal

flood-control system—I’ll probably wind up mentioning the

thing I’m supposed to forget and how the levees failed because

the Corps didn’t even use enough steel to reach the bottoms of

the canals and so had designed and built structures that were

destined to fail and kill American citizens and destroy a major

city, as the Corps’ own Vicksburg office had warned years ago,

and considering the likelihood that I would then start quoting

the Speaker of the House of Representatives who opined that

it looked to him as if a lot of the city could just be bulldozed

or the President’s mother explaining to evacuees in a shelter

that since they were poor people anyway, things had actually

worked out pretty well for them what with the free blankets and

toothbrushes the Red Cross was handing out, and if I got into

all that, I probably couldn’t avoid naming, well, you know, the

thing I’m working so hard to forget and probably would forget if

I had streetlights on my block yet or half the houses in this part

of town weren’t missing or the waterlines weren’t visible on the

gutted homes still standing or I didn’t remember which houses in

the neighborhood had a number other than zero at the bottom of

the red X’s soldiers spray painted on front doors to indicate how

many bodies they’d found there—but look, 400 words and not

once did I name it, the thing I’m trying to forget.but

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105

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279

348

392

I guess I’m getting over it, after all.400

ALM o S t theReOurs was a typical New Orleans childhood. My brothers,

sisters, and I walked to school and church. Rode our

bikes along the lakefront. Caught parades at the

corner. Watched Saints games on Sunday. Ate red

beans every Monday.

Very few people outside of Louisiana have ever heard

of Metairie, so when someone asks me where I'm from,

I tell them New Orleans. That usually seals it. But once

in a blue Oregon moon I'll get the dreaded follow-up:

"Oh yeah, what part?" What part. Oh, god. Between

Veterans and West Esplanade, you know, by Johnny

Bright, Lakeside, Fat City. . .

by John CA RR

I'm from almost there. I'm from that census-designated

place named Metairie, which means. . . uh. . . what

does "Metairie" mean? Damn, I used to know this.

Hold on, I'm gonna ask some former Metryites what

they remember. Okay, here's what they said: "Farm,

I think." "Some dude's name." "It's French, right?"

"Middle of something." "Not really anything."

First time I got on the roof of our house as a kid

was when the Ramada Inn on Causeway had caught

fire, and my brothers and I needed a better view.

We worked out a route from the air conditioning

compressor to the gate to the eaves, and when we

finally made it up top we were rewarded with a clear

view of the rising column of smoke.

it was typical in many ways, except that we didn't grow up in new orleans.

Forget that I was born in New Orleans

proper, went to high school there,

lived, worked, and started my family

there. When pushed on it, I can't say

I'm from there.

John Carr moved with his family to Portland, Oregon after August 29, 2005

but then i caught sight of something even more awesome. the skyline of new orleans. Right there.

i just sat and looked at it.

Illustration © 2010 Mark Andresen

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They knew she didn’t belong in the water.

She was a young, skinny German Shepherd, floundering

through a flock of agitated ducks. They knew she didn’t

belong in the water. This dog was going down fast. She

couldn’t pull herself out because the concrete bulkhead

around the bayou was too high. She was flailing, helpless

and terrified. I called and whistled to her. “C’mon!” I yelled

in the chirpy singsong that all dogs recognize. At first she

couldn’t figure out where my voice was coming from. She

churned the water with her frantic paws, while her tall

ears twitched. She circled and looked for the source of

this potentially helpful sound. I kept whistling. Finally she

caught on and swam toward me.

As she came closer, I could see her wide Shepherd

mouth stretched open in the effort to keep her head above

water. She had healthy strong white teeth. Oh, shit. Don’t

bite me, I thought, as I kneeled on the concrete edge. My

dog Lance sat on the grass and watched the procedure

with disdain. A brutal pragmatist, he was not in favor of

rescuing dogs. I reached down to grab the back of the

Shepherd’s neck. She tossed her big head backward to

evade my hand.

“Do you want to get out of there or don’t you?” I asked.

“Cooperate!” She considered her options and decided she

was more afraid of drowning than me. She permitted me

to grasp her fur and haul her dripping from the bayou. She

was a good 70 pounds or so. I managed to drag her front

legs onto dry land and then reached down to pull up the

rest by her haunches. The poor girl was so exhausted from

fighting the water that she couldn’t fight me. She lay on

the ground, utterly limp and nearly drained of life. She had

a flicker left in her but not much. Lance dodged in and

poked her with his snout. Either he was trying to rouse

some reaction from her or push her back into the bayou.

She lay without moving for several minutes, only rested her

head on the grass and breathed.

That makes three dogs to date. Three who have made

it out alive. One I found too late. His bloated corpse drifted

against the Magnolia Bridge for days before someone fished

it out, either the Levee Board or Wildlife and Fisheries.

We’re not sure who is in charge of body collection these

days, so far as that pertains to dogs that drown in Bayou

Saint John. At the moment, it seems I am in charge of

pulling the live dogs out of the water because that’s what

keeps happening.

I don’t know how to explain this trend except to say

that dogs must be awfully clumsy. And I must have some

kind of magnetic instinct for being in the right place at

the right time when they accidentally fall in the bayou.

In any case, I’d like to send a message to the dogs of

New Orleans: STop iT. Don’T go near The waTer.

It’s dangerous, and you can’t be trusted not to fall in and

drown. I don’t have time to look after you. Frankly, I am

tired of thinking about dead bodies floating in the water.

We have all had enough. Just stop it.

BY CONSTANCE ADLER

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Desire is the registered trade name of Desire, L.L.C.© 2010 Desire, L.L.C. 608 Baronne StreetNew Orleans, LA 70113 e-mail: [email protected]

Publisher: Tom VariscoArt Direction, Design: Tom Varisco DesignsDesign, Production: Uyen Vu, Gregory GoodPrinting: Garrity PrintingPaper Stock: Accent OpaqueType Face: Trade Gothic

Photograph © 2010 Morgan Katz

Cover Image © 2010 Uyen Vu & Tom Varisco

coming 3.08.11

Desire #31 Winter 2010

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