A Yankee from New Hampshire I found myself on the road from California going east to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Hitch-hiking. I never carried a pack but had a big heavy military WW2 pea-coat, (a long navy coat), with all the necessaries inside. There were about 20 of us on some entrance to Interstate 10 in New Mexico I think. We were standing around and once in while a car would give somebody a ride. Most of us were traveling in pairs or more and some alone, as was I. Several hours, pretty hot in the desert, and this black kid came over and some of us were saying it would be nice to have a doober and he reached behind his ear and pulled a joint out from under his red bandana and lit it up. We asked his name chitchatting as we smoked and he said call me Bones. Oh yeah the guy with the bones. First time I heard a joint called a bone.
Anyway, after a while a car pulled up, a turquoise 1959 ford (I think). An old cowboy hat was driving. He said “I can take two of ya. I’m going to Ammerrillo (We didn’t know it was a poor route to New Orleans but it was progress East). Jeeezus!, what a drawl he had. So we kinda huddled and I wound up taking the ride with a red-headed fellow named Kenny. (Oh fk!) I jumped in the shotgun seat and Kenny in the back and the old fellow took off. In about three minutes he was doing 100MPH. Yikes! “Where you going?” he said casually. 110 I think.
“New Orleans.”
“Leeziana, never been there.”
Suddenly he reaches between his legs and pulls up a half-full bottle of Jack Daniels takes a couple of healthy swigs and hands it to me. Steady 110MPH. I took a pull and Hoss (I don’t know what his name was) pointed his thumb to Kenny in the backseat and I handed the whiskey to him. Hoss took a couple more big pulls and stuffed it back down between his legs. Within an hour he was instructing me to fetch another bottle under my seat. Whoa! 110 steady as you go. We stopped for a bite to eat and when Hoss got of the car he looked frigging 6’9”! “Jeeezus Hoss how tall are you?” “Six foot nine”… I’m howling… He strode across the parking lot to the restaurant in a jaunty step, an oak tree sort of guy. “How old are you Hoss?” “I’m 84.”
“What? You’re fking kidding me. 6’9” people don’t live to be 84.” He laughed. He ate a big breakfast and paid for ours. Hoss was a retired rancher with a wife passed and four sons none of them his size he told me. He drove us 300 miles at 110MPH, straight as an arrow, emptied two bottles of whiskey and sat stock straight up, pedal to the metal, relaxed as melted cheese grinning the whole way….and dropped me and Kenny off in Ammeerilla or however he pronounced it.
So we got out and started South toward Dallas.
There were laws about hitchhiking and being a vagabond in those days. I was pretty road savvy. So Kenny and I are hitching and I see the parking lights of a Plymouth Fury headed our way and I knew it was a trooper. I turned and told Kenny put his thumb down and sure enough a policeman cruised right on by us. And so were the next 5 cars! So we shunned them all and they drove right on by. Finally here comes a normal car and we thumbed; it pulled over; and it was two cops. Oh great! I had nothing to hide or fear really except maybe a 25$ fine I couldn’t pay. It was just annoying to get rousted all the time. I didn’t know Kenny. The cop walked over to his backpack which is lying on the ground and kicks it lightly with his foot. “Is that yours?” he says to Kenny. “Yeah”. “Mind if I search it? If you say no I’ll search it anyway.” “Well I gues…” Cop searches his backpack and pulls out all these vials of pills. I’m watching this. I’m with this guy. Holy shit! “You better have prescriptions for this stuff” the cop says. “I do” Kenny says and produces the papers. Cop checks everything, they say be careful, don’t be hitching, and they’re gone. That’s probably the first life-in-prison sentence I dodged. “Well what the fk is that you got in them vials Kenny?” “Oh I have some problems and they help me.” I’m traveling with a red-head and he’s a psychotic of some kind who needs 2 lbs of pills to keep himself under control. Yikes!
I think I had 25 cents and Kenny I don’t know. I said I’m gonna buy a big chocolate bar and split it are you ok with sugar? So we go into a convenience store and I buy the candy bar and we come out and Kenny’s got ten bucks worth of stolen stuff in his pockets. Wtf! He had a can of Campbell’s pork and beans and no way to open it. I showed him how to sand the cover down on a rock and we had a hardy dinner. Our next meal was “interesting”.
This kind of a greasy guy in a Lincoln picked us up, coulda been a serial killer for all we knew. We’re riding along and he’s chatting the usual chat and realizing we’re hungry road travelers he says “why don’t you fellas come over to my place and the wife will make you up some breakfast. I’ll bring ya back out to the road.” Sure why not.
His place was a trailer, a mobile home I think polite people call them. Middle-aged, plain, nice woman she cooked us a whale of a breakfast bacon, eggs, home-fried, potatoes, biscuits (Jam), coffee and everybody was happy. And then the guy said “would you like to do my wife?” Well that was an unexpected invitation! We settled for the breakfast and the ride back to the road. You meet the damndest people.
Somewhere along the way, it funny how food marks the trail when you’re a broke hobo, I woke up with a KFC drumstick under my nose in a U-haul truck with a family moving south I think to Dallas. I get confused a bit and I suppose I could check a map but I think we made it to Dallas/Ft Worth area and we were on a traffic circle where its nigh impossible to get a ride cuz nobody can stop. And this station wagon with half a dozen black guys came around and I think yelled something to Kenny or he at them… I’m not sure which. But he tossed his pack to me and took off running after them right out into the traffic yelling n—- and every expletive in the book absolutely out of his skull with rage and they drove around the traffic circle twice laughing at him. I’m thinking this guy almost got me arrested and now he’s trying to get me killed. A real red-head.
Then some hippies picked us up in a white van. A guy and a girl. I think it was a short ride like 20 miles of something. And they had some wicked weed. Real knockdown stuff. So we burned one down and Kenny takes out his stash of medication and chatting with the guy, who was driving, he trades him “four of these” for a three-finger bag. And we’ve got enough mega-weed to do life in prison in Texas.
And I fondly remember I really wanted a good meal and there was this diner not far from where we were standing. Mind you this whole trip was with no money….zero. I think I had 25 cents when I started out from Bakersfield. I went over to the diner and knocked. A little balding fat guy came to the door and said “we’re don’t open till 12:00 on Sunday.” I said “that’s ok I was wondering if you had any work I could do for something to eat?” He says “sure you can tend these plants and flowers out here.” I said “what about my friend there?” “Yeah no problem.” So Kenny and I straightened out his garden, weeding pruning watering. I think it took an hour or so. And jeeezus what a banquet he made! Two huge fat Porkchops Pizzaiola, pasta, loads of cheese, salad and garlic bread… and he offered me a chocolate frap. Unreal! Hadn’t had a feed like that in the last 4,000 miles. By the time we left his little place was full with a cue. We finally got ride in Beaumont, Texas, from a guy and his girlfriend, in a Saab. We shoehorned ourselves into the back seat which is really suited for small children, dogs or inorganic baggage. I was thinking man this sucks. I hope this guy ain’t going far. “Where you going?” “New Orleans” “You got it man. Got any weed?” That’s 250+ miles. Ouch! Riding thru the bayou country to New Orleans is spooky, not only from the tales you’ve heard but from the headlights on that endless swamp grass 2 feet off the road just give you the willies. With a mixture of macabre fascination and dreary boredom we finally arrived in New Orleans. And I gotta say after Texas and the bayou stepping out of the car onto cobblestones was a pretty dramatic moment. What is this city doing here? The most dangerous, dynamic, deadly, delicious, dark damned city in America. Here I am.
I swear, I stepped around the first corner and who was standing there but a black kid with a red bandana. I said “Hey Bones” He knew me right away and reached behind his ear. I never saw Kenny again. He wasn’t quite on the same planet as everybody else. It’s unsettling to imagine what became of him.
I found out pretty quickly that New Orleans welcomed wanderers like me; but not because they liked us. Every couple days coonass PD would arrest a bunch of street people and they were soon put to work building bleachers and such for the upcoming parades. Free labor.
Knowing the game I went to Manpower, that’s a day labor agency. They were everywhere in those days. You’d go to the office in the early AM and there would be a few business reps looking for laborers, cash at the end of the day, if you lived that long. I had some really interesting jobs with them but the first was a showstopper. I think about 10 guys were hired. This was usually damn good money. We were brought in a van an hour’s drive out of the city into some fairly desolate bayou and out there standing all by itself was a huge military Quonset hut. Inside were huge tanks filled with some orange liquid and our job was simple; fill gallon jugs from a spigot, screw on a cap and pack them 4 to a box. Only ever having one pair of jeans I splashed some of this mystery liquid on them and just had a bad feeling. I quit. They paid me for one hour. One of the bosses brought me back to the city. Nobody really gave a shit.
Down there, below sea level there is basically no dirt, sand gravel. People are “buried above ground” (if you don’t already know). Sea shells are a substitute often used for the work you would use gravel for everywhere else. I got a job with Manpower that resulted in maybe the most terrifying moment of my life when I was almost killed and almost killed someone myself. I hate to even think about it. The job was building a road across a bayou ( that’s how I learned about the seashells). Dump trucks would come and dump their load of shells into the water and our job was to spread the shells at the waters edge until by sheer volume they would build up into solid base. I couldn’t imagine this actually worked but I reckon it did. We used really long handled shovels. There was one guy who, when the boss went into his little mobile office, would just stop working and lean on his shovel, and leave the rest of us hauling ass. So I stopped working and said something to him about it. That fellow took offense and he suddenly swung his shovel at me. He coulda killed me but he missed. He was slightly below me on the mountain of shells and when he missed me with the shovel its momentum kinda threw him off balance and shells slipped and slid under his feet like loose sand. He tried to wind up for another swing but couldn’t get firm footing. He was a beefy chap. I was 120 pounds. And I am no fighter. I think in fact it’s the only fight I was ever in in my life, and kind of amazing how it turned out. Being a couple feet above him and seeing I might be in jeopardy I rushed at him. And like the unarmed Union troops at Little Round-top I had the momentum and we both landed head at the waters edge feet toward the top and my arms wrapped right around him pinning his arms to his sides and me on top. And there we were. He struggled enraged but every time he moved he slid further down into the water head first looking up at me. Finally his face slid beneath the water while I was able to keep my head above the water. I remember to this day seeing the terror in his eyes 10 inches from my face but underwater while I was not. It scared the bejesus out of me. If I let him go he could break me in half. If I didn’t he would drown for sure. It was a real-life tiger-by-the-tail situation. I didn’t let go. I almost drowned him but the crew dragged me off and separated us. We both got fired. Lol…. Whew! He musta been more shook than I was.
Back on the streets, (I think I made $15 before the fight to the death). Somebody tipped me that they were hiring dishwashers at the Marriot Hotel. I think that was near the French Quarter. I went down there and a Marriot guy hire about 10 of us for the night. This was an incredible job for a street urchin like me and I worked there many times during my months in the city. #1 you worked all night meaning you didn’t need a place to live cuz you could sleep anywhere in the day. Basically it went like this. About 7 evening you gathered outside a door and if you got hired you went into that door and up to an employees area. There you were given a locker and key. You showered, dressed in dishwashers clothes storing your own stuff in your locker. Then you went into the dining room and had a complete workingman’s dinner meatloaf or spaghetti & meatballs all you wanted. Wow! Next it was to work in the industrial dishwashing laundry facility serving the entire hotel 20 or 50 stories, I forget. It was haul-ass work but easy. The dishwasher was the size of a carwash. Liberal “smoking” breaks and by dawn you were finished showered again and they put an envelop of cash in you hand and it was really good money, 35$ or something. I went and bought a guitar for 15 bucks at a pawn shop first thing and started busking in the French Quarter. I remember the guitar had no name anywhere on it, it was nylon stringed (you never have to change the strings) and it was really quite nice. I believe it made it back to NH with me months later.
On the street busking, in my element, I met a lot of people and two of them were a hippie couple named Donna and Herb. They were quite impressed with me (I’m frikking loud), saw I had a little money and asked me if I’d be interested in sharing an apartment with them. It was very close to Mardi Gras and the city was filling fast including a lot of wanderers on the streets. I said yes. The rent I think was $40 a month. But what an adventure that place was! It was on Terpsichore Street (I still don’t know how to pronounce that name) which is not far from downtown. It was all a black urban neighborhood, the slums, and we were the only white people who lived anywhere near it. Our neighbors must have really wondered about us.
In the 2nd floor apartment there was a nasty queen size mattress and a nasty big old stuffed chair; one bedroom and one living room. They took the BR and mattress. I lived in the chair. The bathtub/shower hadn’t been used in years with no running water. The toilet was…let’s not go there. Half the windows were missing and there was no light on the stairs which made coming home at night a bit of a treat especially with all the alcohol and such around. The best room in the house was the balcony which overlooked the street and was accessed through a window. I loved sitting out there watching the ghetto life below. The only time I saw a coonass around there was firemen. I remember sitting out there talking with “guests” (we sometimes had 10 or more with nowhere to go.) Bring some hash and you can sleep here. It was a great haven. Cops never came there and the black folks were probably scared of us crazy white people. Probably one of the coolest things was while on the balcony I heard singing though not the usual recorded music and soon into view came about 30 little black children, all girls I think, and they marching in formation with sticks as batons imitating the Mardi Gras parade performers, including the soundtrack. Hahaha! Fabulous! What natural talent and no doubt all cooked up by the kids themselves. Up and down the street and back again. At night was the regular mix of hookers, pimps, drug dealers whatever. “That’s their role models” I told one guy. “Any black person who gets out of here never comes back.” Their heroes are the guy with the coolest Cadillac, the best drugs and desirable women. I don’t know how you break that cycle. Anyway we got along great with our neighbors. We lived there with them and they soon respected we were near the bottom of the barrel like themselves. But we stayed separate. I often returned thru the neighborhood I the wee hours and knew a lot of these gangstas by sight and we always greeted each other. I was cool with them. Our only adversary was the slumlord we rented from. He was white guy and a real prick. We never paid rent. He shows up one day and threatens us if we don’t pay. So I went to the city archives and listed down all of the requirements for rental housing. There were like 40 rules, all windows intact, lighted entrance etc. Our home violate 31 of them. So about a week later he comes back and he’s got a tough with him. And I was walking out of the apt with about 10 guys all street people like me, a rough bunch you can bet. And we stopped and met the dick near the street. He was quite outnumbered so he said “You’ve got to pay the rent today. I own all these houses, I’m a lawyer and…..” I said “If you’re a lawyer then you know you can’t do anything. I checked the housing ordinance and this place is a frigging crime wave. Bring it up to snuff you’ll get your money. Everybody laughed at him. But it was firepower that carried the day. I never saw him again.
One morning I’m sleeping in my chair. I think were about a dozen guests strewn around the floor in various states of sleep and inebriation. I’m one of those people who’s never really sleeping and something stirred my attention I opened my eyes and a huge rat ran along the wall scurrying to avoid sleeping carcasses. Then I looked down and I see bugs coming thru the cracks in the floorboards. And suddenly there’s a million bugs and realize the house is on fire. I calmly sounded the alarm “Fking house is on fire!! Gte the fk outta here. And within two minutes we were gone, downstairs out in the street. And just then too the fire trucks arrived. White firemen. They smashed thru the front door of the downstairs apartment and this one brave fireman went inside as smoke billowed out the door. He came out carrying the old black woman who lived downstairs who was soon revived. Actually she was woken. There was no fire. She’d fallen asleep on the toilet with spaghetti sauce on the stove causing loads of smoke but no flames. Hilarious. I’ll never forget that white fireman who went in and brought her out of the house in this intensely racist city.
I witnessed many a harrowing event on the streets of New Orleans but none quite like this. There was a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant that had the best fried oysters in all the world. A massive serving for a couple bucks. The also had amazing pancakes with bacon. I went there all the time. One day I go there and there’s no seats. This guy, I’ll call Billy Bob, I’d seen in the streets a few times had a table and he invited me to sit there; so I did. And I had my oysters. Afterward we went kicking around down Magazine Street a pretty sleazy area. I suppose we looked “experienced” cuz this yuppie type guy approached us asking if he could buy drugs. I had no such dealings but Billy Bob did. “How much do you want?” They settled on $200 worth. Two minutes later we’re in a quiet alley and suddenly right out of nowhere Billy Bob clocks this guy right under the chin and he drops like a sack. Whoa! Wtfk! The fellow groaning and Bill Bob sticks his foot under him and flips him over and taking his wallet he opened it up, scooped out the cash and I remember kind of cruelly emptied the rest of the contents on top of the guy and dropped the empty wallet on him. He tried to hand me some money but I said I’m ok. I was horrified and petrified. This is a dangerous individual. What’s next I thought? And as we walked back out into the mainstream I eased myself away from him and hoped I’d never see him again. And I didn’t. I never knew what became of his victim. The streets are a mean unforgiving place where life is cheap and you can’t risk your own in a losing cause.
I had one notable and inexplicable experience in New Orleans that has always mystified me. Some friends have attributed it to supernatural forces, god, witchcraft, spirits or my equilibrium with the universe. I’m an atheist. I don’t buy into any of that stuff. But this was truly almost a miracle.
When I first got to the city I was completely broke. I’m quite resourceful and I knew I’d be ok. I’d gone to the Marriot seeking the dishwashing job mentioned earlier but I didn’t get hired this day. So I decided to go down, sit on the Mississippi and have a think about my next move. Things were looking bleak. As I approached the river I was blocked by a parked freight train. I simply had to climb over the car coupling to proceed but when I did my pants ripped from ass to waist to knee, a huge, fatal, irreparable and revealing wound to my old faithful Levis. My ass was hanging out. Jeeezus! With my prospects dimmer than ever I went and sat on the jagged rocks that populated the steep river bank and try to figure my way out of this one. And as I sat there a $5 dollar bill came floating on the wind right smack dab in front of me. Not having to move an inch I reached out and snatched it right out of the air. Wow! And just as I recovered from the shock there came another just like the first practically hung in midair in front of my face and I snatched it too. 10 bucks! Just like that. Right out of thin air as they say. I would never believe this if someone else told me the story. I had ten bucks! Naturally I looked and waited around for more. But there were none. I went to St Vincent De Paul and bought a beautiful pair of jeans for $1, had a good feed and never looked back.
New Orleans is an unforgettable place if you survive it.
