New Orleans: After The Storm
By Whitney Lakin

The city is a house where the gods have quarreled. The eery silence of evaporated fury lingers, tables overturned, walls pummeled by rage-drunk fists.

The first to flee were the crowds, then families with children. The street prophets stayed behind, their Christ is Lord sandwich boards dripping paint and sweat, their captive audience wrapped in steel and air conditioning as it sped toward the highway.

Katrina. Rita. The words are spoken bitterly, like the names of two psychotic ex lovers.

People trade storm stories at the few open bars on Decatur, the overworked staff flipping the lights on at dusk. This has never happened before. In New Orleans, no one has ever heard the term “last call.”

Even before curfew, it is quieter than any city has the right to be. There is no rush hour now, here in New Orleans proper. In schoolyards, there is none of the constant, low-grade din of children’s squeals and giggles. Each evening I hear only the regular whir of vehicles passing by as I leave the house for my walk. Without looking, I know that they are real Humvees, not the fashion accessories so popular amongst certain crowds.

I greet the National Guard as they turn the corner, the men nodding almost shyly at my wave. Despite the hurricanes, it is still the way of the city, accepting all visitors--even those armed to the teeth.

Especially those armed to the teeth, I remind myself as I gaze down my block.

The earthy reek of rotting vegetation and charred flesh compete with the smell of freshly-washed laundry. A thin scrim of dust covers everything, like a theater long unused. There are X’s on the few doors left standing, orange spraypaint marking the number of living or dead discovered inside. From a gutted house an alarm clock launches into a futile chorus, trying to rouse owners who will never return. A page of a calendar flutters in the mercifully cool October breeze. August, several dates circled in red china marker. What they signified to the owner will remain an eternal mystery.

The houses that have escaped the storm are time capsules, each sealed and suspended in eternal summer. There are few people now, but many will return to tear the months from their calendars. They will have to, for New Orleans never leaves you. It brings you back by force of pure inertia, like the slow Mississippi carries its cargo to the delta.

New Orleans is not gone. Her blood flows in places like Uptown, the CBD, the French Quarter. Don’t let her glittering, drunken image fool you. Her people have descended from hardworking and playful stock—an excellent combination for the times.

As I walk down Prytania, I spot an elderly lady graffitting the refrigerators everyone has hauled out to the curb, their contents too foul to be opened. CAJUN TOMB, read the bold red letters. The entire block bears her signature–THE SOUTH SHALL RISE AGAIN here, WELCOME BACK Y’ALL there. She catches my eye, and her grin is infectious.

“Thanks,” I say. “I needed that.”

She nods, her piercing blue eyes threaded through with silver. Then she steps back into her ravaged house, the whine of power tools grinding through wood. I stand on the corner for a moment too long, wondering how many generations of her family have been conceived in that house. I have no doubt she stayed for the storms.

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