In My Room
New Orleans '70
The room had a double
bed and was fairly clean with adequate ventilation. A stove and sink
were in the corner of the room and the bathroom was off to the side
of the facilities. I liked my room on the second floor of the house,
but living with all the uninvited insects was not my idea of ideal
living conditions. I found out later that in the South, even among
the more respectable rent districts, living with insects was quite
common. The cockroach came in all sizes, with the largest one being
the most disturbing. I guess I never did get use to living with my
roomies, although I did manage to put up with them.
I never did get a real job, but it wasn't because I didn't try. Just
thinking about the mileage I put on my shoes makes my feet hurt. I
was finally humbled into taking a job selling encyclopedias. I
didn't really want the job, but they promised good money and I was
getting desperate. When it came to giving a sale's pitch, I wasn't
sure if I could pull it off. (In College, I was so afraid of
speaking in front of people that I never gave one speech to my
speech class. I passed the class with a D since I did well on the
written tests.) Actually, I was lucky to get the job. Many of the
people didn't get past the first day. After the interview, I was
given a three page long dictation to memorize. On the following day,
many of the other people didn't have their lines memorized; they
were dismissed on the spot. If it weren't for the fact that I was
bored at night, I wouldn't have taken the time to memorize the
shitty speech anyway.
With my books to keep me company, my nights were mostly spent
reading in my room. Having only a few dollars in my pocket and even
fewer friends, painting the town was not an option. One night was
worth remembering, barely. After a disappointing day job-hunting, I
stopped by a local tavern. At the bar, I sat next to a pretty girl.
I listened as she poured her life story out to the bartender. She
was new in town and unattached. When she said she was from
Huntington Beach, California, I thought to myself, "Now there's a
connection, I've been there and I can use that to begin a
conversation with her." Drinking my beer, waiting for the right
moment to begin talking to her, a Dylan song popped into my head. In
the song, the protagonist strikes up a conversation with a girl at a
bar and discovers that both he and she share a common hometown and
acquaintances. Letting the song play over and over in my head, made
it easy to wait for the right opportunity to talk to the girl. Just
as her conversation with the bartender was tailing off, in walked
this guy who sat down on the other side of girl, and when he heard
that she was from California, he asked, "Where in California?" As it
turned out, both he and the chick happened to be from Huntington
Beach, and they shared many friends in common. That could only
happen to me!
Back in my room, I was not in a very good mood. I didn't feel like
reading, but I needed to do something, so I sat down and started to
write. I guess I wrote a poem. Well, maybe it wasn't a poem. The
only thing that really mattered is that it helped me get through the
night.
I had arrived in New Orleans four weeks before Mardi Gras. The whole
time I was there I could feel the excitement building. Every day the
city was becoming more alive with its new decorations, fresh paint,
and newly installed bleacher seats. Although I was looking forward
to Mardi Gras, I didn't figure on any surprises. The people in the
French Quarter were already celebrating. The excitement of watching
people throw beer cans, scream obscenities, and, in general, act
like jerks, loses its appeal after awhile. I suppose I could be
speaking out of envy, since I was not one of the good-time people,
but I hope not. The week before Mardi Gras there was the pre-Mardi
Gras party. Bourbon St. and Royal St. were awash in drunken
celebrations. The highlight of the party came when this muscle bound
peacock stopped traffic and tried to pick up a Volkswagen full of
terrified tourists. Even with his drunken buddies cheering him on,
he could not pick up the car.
The thing that turned me off more than anything else was the
indisputable prejudice that was all around me. Although the black
population got the brunt of the prejudice, there was more than
enough to go around. It seemed some of the people down here were
still fighting the Civil War. Being from the north and a hippie, I
was not immune from being the object of prejudice. Not one to back
down, though, I would often walk through the black section of town
and stop to swing on one of the swings in the playground reserved
for black kids. Everybody, blacks and whites alike, gave me dirty
looks. The anti-social stigma of being the wrong color in the right
swing, or being the right color in the wrong swing, did not win me
points among the locals. Fortunately, I wasn't trying to win a
popularity contest. I just learned to swing with my eyes closed.
I stayed with my encyclopedia job for better than a week, and
learned all the sales pitches and promotion exercises. I was one day
away from getting my first paycheck when I told the whole fucking
establishment to kiss my ass. I couldn't picture myself as a
salesman anyhow, but the real reason I got pissed had to do with the
way they treated one of the girls who I became friends with. She was
from Silver City, New Mexico and she was counting on her promised
paycheck so she could buy a bus ticket home. The guy in charge found
out that she wasn't going to stick around and sell encyclopedias, so
he fired her. She spent what little money she had on clothes and now
she was out of money and a job. She was devastated. I felt sorry for
her since I knew how she felt. I guess quitting my job wasn't the best
way to show my support for her, but the thought of working along side
garbage, like the guy who fired her, made my skin crawl.
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