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New Orleans

Where The Fire is Seen

By John StrongPublished 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 3 min read
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New Orleans had been destroyed by a dozen different occurrences. But it was more throbbing and vibrant than every other muscle in America. Perhaps that's because it had been killed so much that it was so sturdy. I'd arrived on the edge of Mardi Gras a couple months after abandoning California. I was as vulnerable as a robin nest on the lip of a great pond. Although there was a scorch in me that was too hot for most quiet and civilized areas. But it ignited with this place like a July fire show. I banged on Frenchmen Street with my typewriter. It afforded me decorated bed and breakfast houses and well bourbon from Checkpoint Charlie's. A hole-in-the-wall bar where large rats scurried by your ankles. But more valuably, they hugged me and at best cried when I read to them. I may not have been good for much at regular employment, but my work here would burn forever like Orion. And I wasn't afraid of where I'd end up afterward.

I didn't think I was capable of ever being loved. Not with my heat and wilderness. But the people here welcomed me like a hero. And they looked at me in a way I wasn't seen by all the others. I used to worry that I was never going to make it out there in the circles of fast cities or on the homesteads where they split wood. But here, I was a rock and roll star. And every night they roared my name while I punched the keys. The blues generated a sound scape river on the avenue and the horses and tourists and parades floated on it softly as cotton. This is where America really was. The storms loved it here, too. And when they raged the people got bigger.

We were freaks. We were artists. We were magicians. We conjured flames. We screamed heavy songs. We drank when the country was safe and responsible. We were the heat lightning they gazed at from their wooden decks. We were the renaissance. We were the innovators. We were the poets. We were what they dreamed about being when they got fat in front of their digital programs on sofas that couldn't sustain their asses. We were the beatniks. We were on the edge. We ate with busked bills. We had no rules. We were shoved away by the machines and gathered here like little gold and purple and green saints.

New Orleans was like a ship. Something had docked here centuries ago and died madly and with mystery. And they mounted an invincible and sacred torch that outlived all the wars. And all the starry artists that fell into the gulf like meteors found it and discovered their hot purpose after they'd been stamped obsolete by the Capital bosses. And they became masters after facing the gray and thundery edge of uncertainty. But, perhaps that's where our magic lived. In the midst of travel and weirdness. And the jazz inspired the anxious and tired and hungry and beaten to dance out of the costumes of whoever the bullies told them they were. And we became our strange identity and finally sported it comfortably and without sensitivity.

I knew that in New Orleans I wasn't full of shit. I knew that in New Orleans I was an architect. I knew that in New Orleans my crazy head was worth something big.

I knew when I left New Orleans I'd get rid of those terrible hangups that conditioned me to pretend to live below what that magic I carried was made out of. I knew that in New Orleans I could die and not feel worthless. I knew that in New Orleans I didn't have to beg for their validation. I knew that in New Orleans I was a man. And I knew when I left New Orleans I'd finally be who I was supposed to without guilt or paranoia. And I knew that when I left New Orleans I wouldn't hate or loathe myself ever again. I knew when I left New Orleans that I was that kid again. The one who knew it all and taught them how to live and love.

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