Goin' To New Orleans
Jan. 1970
I still had some money in the bank, but not enough for school, so I
decided to go back to the city and look for a job. This time,
however, I would go alone--and to a different city, one preferably
where the weather was warmer. I spent the next month contemplating
my next move. My father was born in Baton Rouge; a city just north
of New Orleans, so I figured maybe going to New Orleans would bring
me luck. I always felt a fascination for New Orleans anyway.
I was up early. Like other times, I told my parents I had a ride to
somewhere or other, and then had a friend drop me off at the
expressway. (That way my parents didn't have to suffer through
dropping me off on a cold and lonely highway). It was January 3 and
I was carrying a suitcase full of clothes. As suspected, the
suitcase was clumsy, but I was really optimistic about getting a job
and when that happened the clothes would come in handy. When I left
Houghton Lake the temperature was zero and the wind was blowing, so
hitchhiking was not pleasant. Eight hours later, just outside
Chicago, the temperature had dropped three degrees. By the time I
got a ride out of the Chicago area, it was dark and my frozen face
was covered in ice. The guy who picked me up was heading to Houston,
Texas. I thought Houston was way out west, so I told the cat I would
get out in St. Louis, Missouri. That was probably the stupidest
thing I have ever done. Neither one of us had a map. It wasn't until
it was to late that I found out that Houston was a lot closer to New
Orleans than the seven hundred miles New Orleans was from St. Louis.
To make matters worse, when I arrived in St. Louis, it was 11p.m.
and I was not excited about getting back out in the cold, so I had
the driver drop me off at the bus station.
Inside the bus station, I tried to explain my situation to the guy
selling tickets. I wanted an eight-hour bus ride to get me through
the night and closer to New Orleans. He either couldn't, or wouldn't
sell me a ticket without a destination. It didn't take an
explanation however, for him to decide that I was a hippie. He as
much as told me that my money wasn't good, and I should get the hell
out of his bus station. Under any other circumstances I would have
told the guy off, except I wanted out of that crummy bus station and
city more than I wanted to tell that asshole to go fuck himself. He
finally did sell me a ticket.
I had an hour to wait before my bus left. I went to the bathroom and
this black dude followed me in. Besides the asshole ticket guy and
me, everybody inside and outside the bus station was black, so I
didn't think anything unusual was going down until another black man
walked through the door and the guy standing next to me asked me for
some spare change. I said, "Sorry man, I barely had enough money to
buy a bus ticket." That was not the answer the guy wanted to hear.
He backed me into the corner while the other dude watched at the
door. The black man said, "Not only do I want your spare change, but
show me your wallet too." I gave him a couple quarters as I emptied
my pockets and when I opened my billfold, he took my seven dollars.
Luckily, in order to keep from spending money, I tried not to carry
much money in my billfold. The guy seemed satisfied and left with
his buddy. God, I hated that place. Boarding the bus, I discovered I
had paid for a ride all the way to New Orleans. I didn't argue, I
just wanted out of there. The thought of not having to put up with
more assholes was worth the money.
The weather was unseasonably cold; snow covered the ground even in
Mississippi. The farther south I went though, the harder it became
to tell the snow from the litter. Also, the farther south I went,
the more rickety the houses became. House was probably not the right
word, "old shacks," I suppose more accurately described the living
conditions of the poor blacks. I expected to run into this kind of
poverty in Mexico, but I never thought it possible in healthy,
wealthy America. These shacks were so dilapidated you couldn't even
build a fire inside them. It was a common sight to see black
families congregating around open bonfires trying to keep from
freezing outside their shacks. I saw barefooted kids running through
the snow while the rest of the family huddled around their front
porch fires.
Just before arriving in New Orleans, the bus crossed a twenty-six
mile long bridge. From the middle of the causeway, you felt like you
were driving across the ocean. Due to many delays, the bus ride
ended around 6 p.m., lasting more than eighteen hours. I was not in
the best of moods when I arrived in New Orleans. I planned on
getting an apartment, but I wanted to get to know New Orleans before
I made a major decision like that. Back on the street, I immediately
started looking for New Orleans' hip culture. When I asked the
street people where the local hippies hung out, they looked at me
like I was from a foreign country. Their responses were cold, but
not as cold as the nippy breeze that chilled every bone in my body.
I finally asked a hotdog vendor where I could get a cheap place to
stay. He told me about a few cheapies and then told me I might be
able to get a place in his boarding house. He said, "It's clean and
you can cook there too." I didn't want to turn away any luck that
came my way; these days luck for me was a precious commodity. I
thanked the man and left to try and find his place. At least the
hotdog vendor was friendly, a friendliness that in my opinion, was
in short supply in New Orleans.
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