My soul is dying for the people of New Orleans

It’s so fresh in my mind, being in New Orleans in October. I lived there for a month.

I can picture my neighbor across the street from 906 Mazant St., an old black woman, probably in her upper 70s. Her dog was chained up in the driveway next to her camel-back house, and the damn thing would bark at me every time I walked by, but she was as sweet as pie to me. She just enjoyed having someone to talk with between visits from Meals on Wheels and her relatives who lived in the upstairs part of the home.

I can picture driving at 1 or 2 in the morning past the all-night frozen daquiri store with its flicking white light on Elysian Fields near St. Claude.

I remember going to Roberts’ grocery store nearby, the dark-green paint and the white, cursive logo of the store a unique trademark. There would be an armed guard inside by the entrance, or out in the parking lot to protect, shoppers from robbery. I’d walk past a counter, maybe a deli annex or a sandwich area, and head down the first aisle, salivating over the catfish and salmon fillets, shrimp, wondering whether to buy some and cook up a seafood bonanza or just spend my money on one of the po’ boy shops down the street. I’d look at Zapp’s potato chips stacked from floor to over my head, wondering why visitors such as myself loved them, but most residents seemed to prefer anything with a national brand -- Lays or Ruffles or whatnot.
I’d get a box of instant chesse grits by Quaker Oats (I wasn’t immune to the reassurance of name brands), or maybe a variety pack. I’d get beer, of course, cheap tallboys by Miller or Bud, also the favorites of the locals rather than Dixie or Abita, the native brews.

I remember driving to a newly opened copy shop to print out my resume and clips to send to local publications – OffBeat, Gambit Weekly, New Orleans magazine, Nola.com and so on – and wondering if the young, white clerks were artists or dancers or writers just working a day job while they strove to be creative people in the bohemian enclave of Marigny and Bywater neighborhoods, just southeast of the Quarter.

I can picture driving to the pier in Bywater, a few blocks from where I stayed, and just looking out across the Mississippi River at Algiers, La., and toward the Crescent City Connection bridge and the downtown. I remember creole food, brass band jazz, elabrorate wrought iron and the smell of jasmine.

It’s all gone now, the people have deserted these places, life no longer "goes on" the way it did, the way it should, normally, everyday, work-sleep-pleasure-poignancy. There’s just despair now, suffering. I couldn’t sleep last night watching report after report that the relief effort still was just a drop in the bucket for people who’d had no food and water for FOUR DAYS! The reporters were in shock, the anchors lashed out at the FEMA director and police officials about, why aren’t they sending in more supplies, why aren’t they protecting the refugees from armed gangs roaming the streets with impunity and hair-trigger fingers?

I've been listening a lot to Dr. Dre's "The Chronic" the past few days -- the anger of the music seems so appropriate to the situation there. "Who's the man with the master plan, a nigga with a mothafuckin' gun." Desperation, every man for himself, by any means necessary. L.A. riots, Crips and Bloods, total social disintegration. Just last week I was listening to Soul Rebels. ReBirth Brass Band, New Birth Brass Band, my favorite music in the world, fusing hip hop and trad jazz to create a beautiful, passionate, rhythmic, melodic, youful noise, urgent music, riveting and poignant. It seems a lifetime away now, like looking back at old black-and-white photos of a city in the '20s, a bygone culture.

Last night, I heard an interview with Dr. Sanjay Gupta. He traveled to Charity Hospital, where the question was, "How did you get here?" The people trapped there said they were told the National Guard couldn’t get through, yet here was a civilian from out of the blue, who reported that people were resigned to death, they’d gone beyond anxiety and fear.

I sweared at the politicians on TV -- Bill Frist told Congress, "I feel that pain," but you motherfucker, you cunt, it’s not about feeling their pain -- it’s about alleviating their pain, RIGHT NOW, not after you get ready, not after you arrange deals with Carnival Cruise ships, RIGHT NOW you commandeer everything you need, you stay up all night and you get it done -- you can’t let these people JUST DIE, and they’re dying every day, hundreds and maybe even thousands.

They’re just out there, exposed, homeless, no food or water, in broiling, humid summer New Orleans. Fires are breaking out, women are raped, shots are fired all over the city, especially at night, tourists are assaulted. This is America, this is a major city of half a million people, you can’t wait, you’ve got to do something. It is inhumane to just let them suffer. It is inhuman.

Everytime I look at the pictures, through the Associated Press Web site or on TV, I choke up. I still can't quite comprehend what's happening. It truly is surreal to imagine my spiritual home destroyed overnight.

I thought about getting on a plane immediately and flying to Baton Rouge, renting a van, filling it with water and driving to downtown New Orleans. Is that what it’s going to have to take? Every helicopter, every ship, every refrigerated truck should be going there immediately, right now, not after things have been worked out and people are refreshed -- the victims of the flooding don’t have that luxury, they have nothing, they’ve been helpless for days. We CANNOT let this go on, we have to help them.

Even officials are outraged the inaction. Mayor Ray Nagin by radio said in Banda Aceh, after the tsunami, a massive air drop of food and water was done in two days, and it already had been four days, going on five, and where was the relief, where was the help? He said he heard about a plan to send school bus drivers to pick people up and said, "Are you kidding, man? I need 500 buses." We need every Greyhound bus in the country coming here now, these officials are thinking small, he said, this is a major, major deal. He had to have his curses bleeped, chastising Gov. Kathleen Blanco and President Bush, saying "somebody needs to get they ass on a plane" and figure this out NOW. He said they did send one John Wayne dude from Washington, Gen. Honore, who started yelling at people and got people moving, but it’s not nearly enough. They need to figure this the "fuck" out (I'm paraphrasing him; you can read his verbatim words at http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/nagin.transcript/).

He’s fed up. I’m fed up. I’m in emotional shock. Those people in New Orleans are in physical shock, emotional hell, spiritual emptiness.

What are people waiting for? This is a major city, this is tens of thousands of people. For god’s sake, for humanity’s sake, something needs to be done!

It’s beyond frustration at this point. Here’s what my friend Andrea Garland of New Orleans said by e-mail (andrea@getyouracton.com), she lived in the neighborhood I have stayed in for years when visiting:

"I am a resident of the Bywater in New Orleans (9th Ward). I am one ofthe lucky ones that was able to evacuate before the storm.

"I have recently managed to speak to some friends stranded in New Orleans. They are starving and dehydrating and there is no news of when they will be receiving food and water. I have spoken to relief efforts and understand that there are plenty of supplies waiting for these people, BUT THEY ARE NOT BEING ALLOWED INTO THE CITY.

"The National Guard has the city surrounded and is not letting anyone in or out, except the buses being evacuated. The excuse that they can not bring supplies into New Orleans because of the looting and gun fire is not a valid excuse - if they are too afraid to enter the streets of New Orleans, they need to be air dropping supplies into the city. If the United States is capable of sending planes that can withstand enemy fire to drop bombs in Iraq, certainly they are capable of air dropping supplies into a city where the worst of the gunfire they could encouter would be from semi-automatics.

"Our government is killing the people of New Orleans. By witholding supplies, they are ensuring more deaths, and I hold them complicit."

What can any of us do but watch and cry and mourn?