Snake and Jake's

Back in the days when I was fun . . . and I had a friend in law school at Tulane, I would go visit New Orleans. It is how I know that I love to vacation by myself. S would get up and go to school and I would wander the streets. Amble with no direction in mind, making no compromises for anyone else's agenda. Sometimes I would go to the French Quarter, to the East End, far past where the tourist shops were. Sometimes I would stay on Magazine Street. Sometimes I would walk the Garden District.

I flared my fake vampire teeth at Anne Rice's mansion. I talked to Voodoo and Hoodoo priestesses. I sat and watched the Mississippi. S didn't get home until at least 3 p.m. and we would sit under the hum of the air conditioner, nap by 6 and then go out into the night. And stay out all night. With "to go" cups.

His first year we went to some Irish place near the house. By his third year, we would go to Snake and Jake's, a very hip dive that was in someone's garage. It was painted red, I think, with random Christmas lights strewn about. S insisted that he saw the lead guy from "Thrill Kill Cult" there at the bar one night.

That trip, or the trip before, we went to see The Toasters and S ended up somehow finagling having a drink with Bucket, the lead singer. S was so good at meeting famous people, or maybe just people we thought were famous. S and I got in a fight that night, so angry that he intentionally spit on my boot. I was sure my world was going to end.

S is married now, with a wonderfully cute daughter. He no longer lives in NOLA, a place he told me that he would never leave, once . . . but things change and people grow up and nothing stays the same. I miss him terribly, the panicked late night phone calls and the long drawn out discussions of nothing and everything at the same time. The coffee and the scotch . . . or the smell of it, since I didn't like scotch. The hum of the air conditioner in the background while we talk of the possibility of the translucent lizards in his bathroom . . . are they real?

I never moved to New Orleans, though I could have I'm sure. I would have been welcomed at one time. I just couldn't leave my "career", my family (as much as they put the "fun" in dysfunctional), my life . . . Perhaps New Orleans was so romantic that I didn't want it to become everyday.

And now it is gone . . . covered in water. The neighborhoods I once walked with water up to your knees and helicopters. People dying in the streets, surrounded by filth. People looting and shooting and behaving badly.

S was always leery of the levees. "This place will fill up with water someday" he would say to me. Turns out he was right. And the genteel place where people would say "hello" to you was they passed you on the street has changed. Filled with water.

Not to be too preachy, but please consider donating to the Red Cross . . . or better yet consider becoming a volunteer, for the next time something happens. "Think globally, act locally"

Get Well Soon NOLA . . .