In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Thanksgiving in New Orleans, 2005 Along the neutral grounds, nothing but dry palms and stunted shrubs, all of them rooted in misery, toxic powder on the leaves, kicked up when the cars go past, and the trucks—the gut-sprung Buick of looters, the Hummers crammed with men in camouflage, rattle of guns and canteens. Gray dust rising from this ghost of a city, and outposts of the saved afraid to walk out after dark, beyond the failed frailty of light. Rush of wind through the avenues like the sound of water sucking at the walls. No scritter of squirrels on the roof. And here and there, no roof. Freezers by the curb, tight straps around them, to keep in the maggots and the rotted meat. Stuck on the dead lawn, on the hydrants, on the bark of live oak, photos from the family album, wherever they floated free. It’s too late for another visit from the president, floodlit in Jackson Square. The air’s clear now of helicopters and sailors dangling in the backwash. At the yacht club, an orgy of boat upon boat, masts in the portholes, anchor up the Evinrude. Pelicans squat on the cracked hulls. In the Quarter, the girls grind out an extra buck from the rescue team, and the cooks at Galatoire’s spike a dozen 69 • • • oysters en brochette. Hurricanes slosh down the streets, go-cups sticky and cool, cheap beads noosed around the balconies. Through the windows of the Garden District, you can see the occasional table laid for a feast, turkey and dirty rice and yams in a casserole, decanters of wine beside the silver candlesticks. And within, you can hear the grace before gravy, dubious prayers that drift on the bone china like spores. O my city of drowned dreams, even the overflowing lake can’t break you. At a club where the levee held, near the bend of the river, someone’s stirring a sleepy piano, and not just the black keys, until the night gets up on its tired feet, as it did back in the high times, and does its old, slow, sultry dance. • • • 70 ...

Share