He just stares at me.
"Don"t get me started on the list of things this city should have done," another cop says, spitting. "You"d think they would preposition some vehicles or some extra ammunition or guns, but they didn"t. There was no go-to point if disaster happens, no word on what to do. Nothing was in place. Nothing."
The French Quarter wasn"t flooded, but it"s a short drive from it to the water"s edge. We climb into a pickup full of police, all of us huddled in the back. Guns stick out from all directions. It"s the first time these police officers have been out on patrol. We drive down St. Claude Avenue, strangers in a strange land. A few residents glance at us as we pa.s.s. They move slowly, still sh.e.l.l-shocked by the storm. Some carry gallon jugs of water. They"re searching for food. I squint, and for a second I"m back in Somalia, riding in a pickup with a half-dozen gunmen. No rules, no future, no past. Only this moment, this feeling. It"s gone as soon as I think of it.
"Watch the windows at the school," one of the cops says, and they all spin around, pointing their guns at a large three-story building we"re pa.s.sing on our right.
"That"s Frederick Dougla.s.s," one of the officers explains. "It"s been taken over." He doesn"t say by whom, but he"s clearly nervous, unsure what kind of reception we might receive in this neighborhood.
Many of the windows in the school are broken, and the front doors are wide open. At the top of the building, carved into the facade it reads, FRANCIS T. NICHOLLS PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL FRANCIS T. NICHOLLS PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL. The name sounds familiar, though I can"t place it at first. Once we"re about a block away, I remember: My father graduated from high school in New Orleans. Francis T. Nicholls was his old school.
MY FATHER"S FAMILY moved to New Orleans in 1943. He was sixteen years old. His mother came because there were jobs in the city and because her two married daughters had already moved here with their husbands. My father lived with his mother and five of his seven siblings in a ground-floor apartment in the Ninth Ward, a few blocks from Francis T. Nicholls High School. moved to New Orleans in 1943. He was sixteen years old. His mother came because there were jobs in the city and because her two married daughters had already moved here with their husbands. My father lived with his mother and five of his seven siblings in a ground-floor apartment in the Ninth Ward, a few blocks from Francis T. Nicholls High School.
My grandmother got a job at Higgens-Hughes, a plant that manufactured boats for the war effort. My grandfather didn"t like New Orleans, and had stayed in Mississippi, trying to keep the farm going. He couldn"t find workers, though, because so many men had left to fight or to labor in factories. When he finally decided he couldn"t keep the farm running, he leased the land and got a job as a fireman for the Mississippi railroad.
My father fell in love with New Orleans from the start. It seemed to him a foreign and mysterious city. He saw his first opera in New Orleans and his first ballet as well. Compared with Quitman, it was like living on another planet.
He graduated from Francis T. Nicholls in 1944. In his sc.r.a.pbook, I found a clipping from a New Orleans paper describing the graduation ceremony.
Next to the article, my father had pasted a picture of his senior cla.s.s. The school was segregated then. In the photo, the boys all wear ties and vests, the girls knee-length dresses. My father stands off to the side, a smile on his face. He drew an arrow above his head, and wrote ME ME on the side of the page. on the side of the page.
It made me smile. When I was five I"d done the same thing. My parents threw a party for Charlie Chaplin when he returned for the first time to the United States after living in Switzerland for some twenty years. I was photographed shaking his hand, and the picture was printed in several New York papers. I cut it out and taped it into my photo alb.u.m. Above my head I"d drawn an arrow and written in big, bold letters, ME ME.
I WAS NINE years old when my father brought me to New Orleans for the first time. I don"t remember where we stayed, but I know it was in the French Quarter. I loved Bourbon Street: the music, the lights, the sidewalk performers. It seemed so taboo, so adult, dangerous but just slightly so, like a dirty Disneyland. years old when my father brought me to New Orleans for the first time. I don"t remember where we stayed, but I know it was in the French Quarter. I loved Bourbon Street: the music, the lights, the sidewalk performers. It seemed so taboo, so adult, dangerous but just slightly so, like a dirty Disneyland.
We went to visit the places of his youth, though many of them had disappeared. The streetcar he used to take to the First Baptist Church was gone; so was the two-story apartment building where he"d lived.
He was surprised to see Francis T. Nicholls"s name still carved into the facade of his old school. Nicholls had been a governor of Louisiana in the late 1800s and was a well-known racist. In New Orleans, however, they never erase history.
I have pictures of us strolling the streets of the French Quarter, sitting on a stoop spooning gobs of cherry-colored ice into our mouths. We went to a cemetery to visit a famous witch"s grave. The old headstone was freshly marked with white-chalk crosses left by those who still believed in her spells.
Somewhere on Bourbon Street we posed for a picture dressed in period costumes-a sepia snapshot I still have to this day. (During the Civil War, my father"s ancestors fought on the Confederate side, and my mother had relatives who"d been Union soldiers, so to me the Civil War had always been a battle between "mommy"s side" and "daddy"s side.") In the photo, I"m clutching a shotgun; he"s in a Confederate uniform, his hand resting on a sword. I didn"t see it then, but looking at the photo now, I see the fear in his eyes. He"d already had one heart attack, the year before. He must have known that his heart was weakened; perhaps he felt it with each beat. A year later he was dead.
NOT LONG AFTER we launch the boat in the Lower Ninth Ward, we pa.s.s by the body of a woman floating facedown behind a house. A few feet away, on a garage rooftop, sits a box of unopened MREs (Meals Ready to Eat), emergency food dropped from a chopper trying to help. A few blocks from the dead woman, we find the body of a man sprawled on top of a car. His corpse is swollen and discolored. we launch the boat in the Lower Ninth Ward, we pa.s.s by the body of a woman floating facedown behind a house. A few feet away, on a garage rooftop, sits a box of unopened MREs (Meals Ready to Eat), emergency food dropped from a chopper trying to help. A few blocks from the dead woman, we find the body of a man sprawled on top of a car. His corpse is swollen and discolored.
Nearby I see a large white dog sitting in a partially submerged tree. There are dogs everywhere-stranded on steps, barking at the boat, floating on suitcases in slicks of oil. I see a dog lying on something; it appears to be dead. I ask Chris, my cameraman, to get a tight shot of its face. Both of us get startled when the dog suddenly opens its eyes. Excited, I decide to wade over to it, to give it some clean water, but as soon as I step out of the boat, I sink to my chest. I"m wearing waders, but they go up only so far, and water pours into them, destroying the microphone transmitter attached to my waist. The dog is scared by the sudden movement, and swims off.
THE NEXT DAY we are back in the boat, watching a Coast Guard helicopter prepare to pluck two people from their front porch. We shout at one another to steady the boat. The chopper"s heavy rotors blow dirty water in our mouths, our eyes. The water is black, filled with gasoline and oil, human waste and human remains, the carca.s.ses of countless animals. we are back in the boat, watching a Coast Guard helicopter prepare to pluck two people from their front porch. We shout at one another to steady the boat. The chopper"s heavy rotors blow dirty water in our mouths, our eyes. The water is black, filled with gasoline and oil, human waste and human remains, the carca.s.ses of countless animals.
A boat filled with rescuers from a nearby parish tries to signal the chopper that they can pick up the two people on the porch. The rescuers have no radio communication, however, and are invisible to the helicopter pilot above. They watch the Coast Guard diver being lowered into the water, shake their heads and motor on. There"s no coordination, and they"re angry.
We wait until the chopper flies off, then check the house to make sure no one else is there. Drenched with the filthy water, we motor back to dry land to rinse out our eyes and disinfect our skin.
None of us talks about what we"ve seen. We focus on how to put the story together, which pictures will work, which sound bites to use. I suppose it"s easier that way. Each of us deals with the dead differently. Some don"t look, pretending they"re not there. Others get angry, sickened by what they see.
ONE DAY, I run into a paramedic who launches into a lecture about why corpses in water float (gases build up inside the body"s cavities and get trapped) and why they sometimes develop post-mortem head injuries (they get knocked about by the water and debris). I must appear interested, because he describes in great detail how shoulder muscles can rupture when a drowning person begins to convulse, and how coroners often find injuries to a victim"s hands and fingertips, because when they drown, they try to grab hold of something as they die. run into a paramedic who launches into a lecture about why corpses in water float (gases build up inside the body"s cavities and get trapped) and why they sometimes develop post-mortem head injuries (they get knocked about by the water and debris). I must appear interested, because he describes in great detail how shoulder muscles can rupture when a drowning person begins to convulse, and how coroners often find injuries to a victim"s hands and fingertips, because when they drown, they try to grab hold of something as they die.
"There was this one body, we called him Harry the Swimmer," a soldier from the Eighty-second Airborne tells me, shaking his head. "He was just floating around, and every day we"d have to check to find out where he"d floated to. Harry the Swimmer. We finally tied his shoelaces to a stop sign, so he wouldn"t float away."
I write it down, and it sounds callous and cruel, but you can"t judge until you"ve been out there, day after day, in the heat and stench.
"You find yourself making weird jokes to stay sane," the soldier tells me, embarra.s.sed he"s already said too much.
AT DUSK ON Sunday, I meet a young psychiatry resident from Tulane University. His name is Jeffrey Rouse and he"s been treating cops and first-responders at a makeshift clinic set up in the Sheraton Hotel by another doctor named Greg Henderson. Sunday, I meet a young psychiatry resident from Tulane University. His name is Jeffrey Rouse and he"s been treating cops and first-responders at a makeshift clinic set up in the Sheraton Hotel by another doctor named Greg Henderson.
When the storm hit, Rouse got his family out, then came back to the city with bandages and medicine. He also brought his nine-millimeter Glock, which he still wears strapped to his waist.
"I was not coming back to this town without this," he says, putting his hand on the Glock. "I have a sworn oath to help. And the last thing I want to do is hurt somebody. But I had to get here to help."
Rouse is clearly exhausted, shaken by what he"s seen, and what he hasn"t. "Where was the help for the helpers?" he asks. "People have died when they didn"t need to. If a psychiatrist has to come in on his own with a gun and a backpack to help, that"s not a failure of an individual, that"s a failure of the entire system.
"This is the only chance we get for a test run if something even more horrible happens or something as horrible happens with a nuclear device in this country. And we botched this one. We won"t get a chance to botch it again."
THERE"S PLENTY OF blame to go around. What began as a natural disaster has become a man-made one. Nowhere is that clearer than at the New Orleans Convention Center. blame to go around. What began as a natural disaster has become a man-made one. Nowhere is that clearer than at the New Orleans Convention Center.
"This is where h.e.l.l opened its mouth," Dr. Greg Henderson says, standing on a garbage-strewn street outside the Convention Center one week after the storm. "You remember that scene in Gone With the Wind, Gone With the Wind, after the battle of Atlanta, where they just pull back with all the bodies lying in the street? That"s exactly what it looked like outside the Convention Center, the entire front of it was covered with people just lying there." after the battle of Atlanta, where they just pull back with all the bodies lying in the street? That"s exactly what it looked like outside the Convention Center, the entire front of it was covered with people just lying there."
Dr. Henderson is a pathologist. He was in New Orleans for a conference at the Ritz Carlton Hotel when the storm struck. Rather than flee the city, he decided to stay and see if he could help. He approached several New Orleans police officers who told him there was no clinic for first-responders, so he decided to set one up in the Sheraton Hotel on Ca.n.a.l Street.
"We broke in with two officers to the Walgreen"s drugstore," he tells me. "There was one broken into down in the French Quarter, and all of the foodstuffs had just been taken but a lot of the drugs had not been looted, so those police officers held the looters at gunpoint and handed me some Hefty trashbags and said "Okay, you got fifteen minutes, Doc." So I went into the pharmacy with a flashlight and just opened the bags and just went down the shelves and pushed everything into the bag, just up and down for fifteen minutes and started handing them out, and that"s how I started a pharmacy in the Sheraton."
Two days after Katrina hit, Henderson heard that conditions at the Convention Center were bad, so he went there, escorted by a New Orleans police officer, thinking he could join up with a medical team already there. When he got to the Convention Center, however, he discovered that there was no medical team there, just evacuees. Thousands of them.
"The smell was overwhelming," he says, walking with me through an unlocked door into the now-empty Convention Center. The smell is still revolting. The people were bused out on Sat.u.r.day; it"s now Monday, one week since the storm, but the garbage they left behind is still all around. Two small dogs abandoned inside bark nonstop.
"They were packed everywhere," Dr. Henderson says, "all the way out into the street, and pretty much on the other side of the street; it was just one ma.s.s of humanity. No air-conditioning, just people, crying and dying. Crying and dying."
The day of the storm, officials at the Superdome had told those fleeing the floodwaters to head to the Convention Center. They said that buses would soon arrive to take the evacuees out of the city. However, no buses arrived until the end of that week. The Convention Center was not really a shelter at all. There was no medical attention, and no police presence inside. At the Superdome, people were searched before entering; at the Convention Center, no one got searched.
"I"d be walking through this crowd with just a stethoscope," Dr. Henderson remembers. "I"m not sure if I was being more of a doctor or a priest, you know? Because there"s not a h.e.l.l of a lot you can do with people this sick with just a stethoscope. The best you can do is for the ones who are not that bad and are going to make it; you can put the stethoscope on their heart and hold their hand and say, "Just hang on, just hang on. I promise something"s coming.""
"When you said that," I ask, "did you believe it?"
"I believed it somewhere in my heart. I just didn"t know when it was going to happen," he says, looking around at the empty hall. "I knew they weren"t going to leave us forever."
Dr. Henderson picks up a child"s shoe, and a few tears run down his cheek.
"You had all these voices," Dr. Henderson recalls, "saying, "Is there any help coming?" "Doctor, I need you. Doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, we"re over here, over here." What arose over the five days of anarchy, if you will, was just sort of a general lawlessness. I heard some pretty harrowing stories, and I think a lot of those stories got a lot of press and maybe contributed to this area not getting help. I think there was a collective att.i.tude of everyone was just murdering everyone down there. "Just stay away from that area or you"re going to die.""
I am silent while wandering through the deserted Convention Center with Dr. Henderson, stunned that this could have been allowed to happen, and that it took so long for relief to arrive.
Local, state, and federal officials had all seen models of what a storm of this magnitude would do to New Orleans. Hurricane Ivan, the year before, had come close. No one seemed to have adequately prepared for Katrina. Despite extensive television coverage, Michael Brown, the head of FEMA, didn"t even know that people were stuck at the Convention Center until he was asked about it by reporters on Thursday.
"We look at each other with maybe too much hubris and say, "This is America, this doesn"t happen here,"" Dr. Henderson says, sitting with me amid a pile of rubbish on the curb outside the Convention Center. "This is disgraceful. This is a national disgrace. Nowhere in this country should that ever have to happen again. But unless we learn from this, it"s going to be very ugly "cause it"s going to happen again."
MY GRANDFATHER DIED in New Orleans. The year was 1944. My father was seventeen and had just graduated high school. He was working at Maison Blanche, a department store on Ca.n.a.l Street, selling young men"s clothing. The store is gone, but the building remains. It"s now the Ritz Carlton Hotel, where Dr. Henderson was staying when Katrina hit. in New Orleans. The year was 1944. My father was seventeen and had just graduated high school. He was working at Maison Blanche, a department store on Ca.n.a.l Street, selling young men"s clothing. The store is gone, but the building remains. It"s now the Ritz Carlton Hotel, where Dr. Henderson was staying when Katrina hit.
My grandfather came to New Orleans for a visit. One Friday evening he lay down on the sofa in the living room and fell asleep. He never woke up. My grandmother and my father"s younger siblings went back immediately to Mississippi, but my father stayed to make funeral arrangements.
He"d never been close to his father. He feared his quick temper, his unpredictable moods. When he wrote about him in his book, he described him as a "creature of charm, magnetism, tyranny, and madness."
My grandfather was not a religious man. He never went to church. "The Almighty knows about the people up at the church," he once told my father. "He doesn"t know anything about me. When I die, I"ll be no different from an old rotten limb falling off a tree and lying on the ground."
My father didn"t know what to do with his father"s body. He called the Lamana-Panno-Fallo Funeral Home. It was the only one he knew; he used to pa.s.s by it every day riding the streetcar.
When he went to collect his father"s body from the funeral home, to take it to Mississippi for burial, he was surprised to discover that the morticians had laid him out beneath the outstretched arms of a large statue of the Virgin Mary.
"I don"t know how they"d done it," my father later wrote, "but they"d turned him into an Italian. He looked exactly like an Italian banker. There was something excessively combed and waxy in his appearance, almost as if they"d stuck on a little black moustache. Clutched in his hands was a silver crucifix, an incongruity so astounding that I might have laughed if I had not had a watchful audience in Messrs. Lamana, Panno and Fallo, who were responsible for the comic outrage."
A silver crucifix would not have been well received in Meridian in those days, so my father asked for it to be removed before he took the body back to Mississippi for burial.
A few months after Katrina, I notice, in the Times Picayune, Times Picayune, a funeral announcement for a woman whose body has recently been recovered. Her services are being held in the Lamana-Panno-Fallo Funeral Home. It turns out that they moved off St. Claude Avenue years ago, but are still in business near New Orleans. They weathered the storm, and are now helping its victims return home. a funeral announcement for a woman whose body has recently been recovered. Her services are being held in the Lamana-Panno-Fallo Funeral Home. It turns out that they moved off St. Claude Avenue years ago, but are still in business near New Orleans. They weathered the storm, and are now helping its victims return home.
Aftermath
IT"S TUESDAY, JUST over a week since the storm, and the floodwaters are receding, a bit more each day. Last week there were not enough police; now there are too many. Thousands of law enforcement personnel from all around the country have descended on New Orleans. The bodies, however, remain uncollected, and hundreds of residents are still trying to tough it out, refusing to leave their homes and their pets. over a week since the storm, and the floodwaters are receding, a bit more each day. Last week there were not enough police; now there are too many. Thousands of law enforcement personnel from all around the country have descended on New Orleans. The bodies, however, remain uncollected, and hundreds of residents are still trying to tough it out, refusing to leave their homes and their pets.
"This is a dog and pony show," a New Orleans cop says to me, laughing. "Twenty thousand law enforcement officers in the city right now, for what? Three thousand people? There are all these agencies with firepower meant for Iraq. I"ve got guys who I"m responsible to drive around and help patrol, and they"re frustrated with me because they"ve got no action: "We want some action, we want some action!" "Well, you know, I"m sorry we can"t provide any action for you so you can go out and play war games with your toys that you"ve never gotten to use." It"s a joke. It"s way, way, way too much, way, way, way too late. It"s like a big Mardi Gras parade of police, only there"s n.o.body to catch any beads, "cause there"s n.o.body left out there."
FBI, FEMA, ICE, ATF, LAPD, ERT, NYPD-all the acronyms are here, and they all look the same: Oakley shades, narco-tactical vests, sidearms strapped to their legs. They stand around wearing T-shirts with steroid slogans, clutching high-caliber a.s.sault rifles, angled down, their index fingers at the ready.
Everyone wants to help, but there"s just not much for them to do. I get stopped at a checkpoint by some National Guard troops. I show my ID, but one of the soldiers wants more.
"Do you have a letter from the battalion commander?" he asks me.
"I don"t need a letter from the battalion commander," I say. He nods and waves me on.
"Nice going, Obi Wan," Neil Hallsworth, my cameraman, says to me. "We"re not the droids you"re looking for."
I"M NOT SHOCKED anymore by the bodies, the blunders. You can"t stay stunned forever. The anger doesn"t go away, but it settles somewhere behind your heart; it deepens into resolve. I feel connected to what"s around me, no longer just observing. I feel I am living it, breathing it. There is no hotel to go back to, isolated from the destruction, as there was in Sri Lanka. We are surrounded, all day, all night. There"s no escape. I wouldn"t want to get away even if I could. I don"t check my voice mail for messages. I don"t call home. I never want to leave. anymore by the bodies, the blunders. You can"t stay stunned forever. The anger doesn"t go away, but it settles somewhere behind your heart; it deepens into resolve. I feel connected to what"s around me, no longer just observing. I feel I am living it, breathing it. There is no hotel to go back to, isolated from the destruction, as there was in Sri Lanka. We are surrounded, all day, all night. There"s no escape. I wouldn"t want to get away even if I could. I don"t check my voice mail for messages. I don"t call home. I never want to leave.
We"re sleeping in trailers parked on Ca.n.a.l Street, not far from the old Maison Blanche department store where my father worked. At night sometimes, when the broadcast is done, we sit outside the trailers in small groups, staring at the silhouettes of empty buildings. We don"t need to say a thing. There is a bond that"s forming among us. We are in new territory, on the cliff"s edge. This place has no name, and all of us know it. The city is exposed: flesh and blood, muscle and bone. New Orleans is a fresh wound, sliced open by the shrapnel of a storm.
I"M NOT SURE when it happened, when I realized that something had changed. I don"t think there was a precise moment, a particular day. It"s like when you"re mourning and suddenly you become aware that the pain has faded. You don"t remember exactly when it did. One day you laugh, and it shocks you. You forgot that your body could make such a sound. when it happened, when I realized that something had changed. I don"t think there was a precise moment, a particular day. It"s like when you"re mourning and suddenly you become aware that the pain has faded. You don"t remember exactly when it did. One day you laugh, and it shocks you. You forgot that your body could make such a sound.
Here, in New Orleans, the compartmentalization I"ve always maintained has fallen apart, been worn down by the weight of emotion, the power of memory. For so long I tried to separate myself from my past. I tried to move on, forget what I"d lost, but the truth is, none of it"s ever gone away. The past is all around, and in New Orleans I can"t pretend it"s not.
WHEN I WAS BORN, my parents lived in a five-story town house on New York"s Upper East Side. Out front were two stone lions, silent sentinels guarding our home. There was a marble foyer and a sweeping spiral staircase, and though I don"t remember the house well, I recall the smell of Rigo candles, green wax, heavy scent. The candles" flames shimmered against bottles of Noilly Prat, chilled Aquavit, and white wine in silver goblets with boar-tusk handles. There were fabric-draped walls, smooth silks, and needlepoint pillows, rough against a child"s soft cheeks. The tables were laden with bowls of polished wood with piles of sterling silver fishes jumping out. my parents lived in a five-story town house on New York"s Upper East Side. Out front were two stone lions, silent sentinels guarding our home. There was a marble foyer and a sweeping spiral staircase, and though I don"t remember the house well, I recall the smell of Rigo candles, green wax, heavy scent. The candles" flames shimmered against bottles of Noilly Prat, chilled Aquavit, and white wine in silver goblets with boar-tusk handles. There were fabric-draped walls, smooth silks, and needlepoint pillows, rough against a child"s soft cheeks. The tables were laden with bowls of polished wood with piles of sterling silver fishes jumping out.
When my parents had parties, my brother and I were always encouraged to attend. I remember walking with my father through a smoke-filled room, my small hand safe in his. I craned my neck to see those around me, catching only brief flashes of faces and soft filtered light. There were powdered women with red lips, men in heavy shoes with thick hands and French cuffs. The rooms were filled with actors and artists, boldface names in society columns and kitchen conversations. Truman Capote was a frequent guest; his pudgy lisp made me giggle. Andy Warhol was there as well; his white hair scared me.
At a certain hour, my brother and I went upstairs to our room. We lay in bed in the dark listening to the laughter down below. There were hands clapping and gla.s.ses clinking, a m.u.f.fled murmur that shook the floor. We closed our eyes as a piano played; a woman sang "Good Morning Heartache, my old friend..." Her distant voice lulled us to sleep.
I never imagined it was anything special. I never believed that that life would end. I had a father and a mother, a brother and a nanny, a childhood untouched by loss. When my father died, and the chasm first opened, it seemed easier just to run away.
After his death, we moved every few years-bigger apartments, one more beautiful than the last. My mother would get restless, start to redecorate. Then my brother and I knew it wouldn"t be long before she"d begin searching for another home-a new place to settle, a new canvas to work on.
I didn"t know my mother was famous until I was about twelve. I was in middle school when she designed a line of jeans that became wildly successful. On the street, suddenly people began to stare at us and point. My brother and I thought it was funny. We"d count how many times we saw our mother"s name st.i.tched on the back pocket of somebody"s pants.
My mother once said that she survived the traumas of her childhood because she always felt that inside herself there was a crystal core, a diamond nothing could get at or scratch. I"d felt that same rock form inside me when my father died. In New Orleans, however, it started to crack.
BOURBON STREET IS CLOSED, but a daiquiri bar has just opened. I think it"s the first one. The entrance is boarded up, but through the heavy storm shutters you can hear the thumping ba.s.s of a stereo: Kelis sings, but a daiquiri bar has just opened. I think it"s the first one. The entrance is boarded up, but through the heavy storm shutters you can hear the thumping ba.s.s of a stereo: Kelis sings, "My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard / And they"re like / It"s better than yours..." "My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard / And they"re like / It"s better than yours..." It"s the first music I"ve heard since the hurricane. It"s the first music I"ve heard since the hurricane.
To get in the daiquiri bar you have to go around back, through the lobby of the Royal Sonesta Hotel. The hotel"s only just opened up as well, and we"ve moved in after a week in trailers. The FBI is staying there too; so are a bunch of New Orleans cops who no longer have homes.
Inside the bar is a wall of drinks in refrigerated coolers: Mango Madness, Citrus Storm, blood-red Hurricanes. The place is packed: reporters, police, FBI SWAT teams, a couple of drunk nurses. Everyone"s doing shots or drinking daiquiris and beer. There are more men than women, and the young cops are eyeing the nurses-h.o.r.n.y, hungry, hoping to score.
Earlier in the day I ran into Dr. Phil McGraw. Some volunteers had set up a feeding kitchen for first-responders, and the Dr. Phil Show Dr. Phil Show was there with a couple of cameras. The producer approached and asked if I wanted to speak with Dr. Phil. was there with a couple of cameras. The producer approached and asked if I wanted to speak with Dr. Phil.
"You mean as a therapist or as an interview subject for my show?" I asked.
"Either way." She shrugged.
The Scientologists are here too. Kirstie Alley arrived with a bunch of them, and John Travolta is around as well. No one beats Steven Seagal, though. He"s not here with any group. I saw him late one night dressed in a cop uniform, out on patrol with some deputies from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff"s Department. He"s been going out with their SWAT team. We talk a bit, and when he leaves he puts his palms together in front of his face and bows briefly. Then he hops in a cop car and speeds off.
"Seagal"s tight with the sheriff in Jefferson," a New Orleans cop tells me later. "There"s a bar where a lot of cops hang out, and I remember a couple years ago Seagal comes in with those guys and takes out a framed eight-by-ten photo of himself and f.u.c.king hangs it on the wall."
"Get out of here," I say, "no way."
"I s.h.i.t you not," he says. "As soon as he left, a couple of us took out our pistols and shot it. Blew the f.u.c.king thing off the wall. One bullet actually went right through and hit a car-rental place next door."
I don"t really drink, but I like the bar because there"s no bulls.h.i.t here. For days the chief of police, Eddie Compa.s.s, has been blaming some of the problems the police faced after the storm on the fact that the armory got flooded and a lot of their ammunition and supplies were ruined. When I mention this to some of the cops at the bar, they burst out laughing.
"I"ll take you to the f.u.c.king armory," one police officer tells me. "It"s f.u.c.king empty. The police force is broke, and it was broke long before the storm."
A lot of the cops feel betrayed, screwed from above, below, and behind. They"re p.i.s.sed off that the media has been focusing so much on the police officers who didn"t show up for work during the storm. I don"t blame them. Out of a force of about 1,700 police, only some 120 were unaccounted for. The vast majority of cops came to work, and stayed on duty around the clock. They were barricaded inside their stations, working multiple shifts. Over at the Sixth District, the precinct headquarters was flooded, so the police set up a perimeter in the Wal-Mart parking lot. They chased the looters out, saved hundreds of guns from getting out on the street, and ended up sleeping in their cars for weeks.
I spend a couple hours at the Wal-Mart one night. The police have renamed it Fort Wal-Mart. I tell the cops there about the French Quarter police I met my first day here, who"ve renamed their precinct Fort Apache.
"Let me tell you something," the Sixth District commander, Captain Anthony Cannatella, tells me. "We are the original Fort Apache. Those guys over in the First District may be using the name, but this is Fort Apache." are the original Fort Apache. Those guys over in the First District may be using the name, but this is Fort Apache."
We"re sitting on benches with a half-dozen or so young cops, eating barbeque in the parking lot. Some police from Texas have come to help out, and every night they fire up the grill and barbecue whatever meat they can find. As he talks, Captain Cannatella"s face is backlit; the electricity"s still out, but a generator keeps a single light illuminating the area. Smoke swirls in the air.
"I don"t know," I say, teasing. "They have a sign and everything-it says FORT APACHE FORT APACHE-hanging right over the entrance to the precinct down there."
"We"ll see about that," one of the police officers says, and a couple of guys get up and leave.
Captain Cannatella"s been on the police force for more than twenty years. He is a big man with thick arms.
"You don"t want to get slapped with one of those," a junior officer says, laughing, pointing to the captain"s hands. Captain Cannatella clearly loves the men and women he commands, and I can tell they"d do anything for him.
"A lot of us older guys underestimated the young generation of police officers," he says, "but let me tell you, what these guys did here these last two weeks was extraordinary, and I would stand by any of them, any day."
About an hour later, as I"m getting ready to leave, a squad car pulls into the parking lot. Two young officers step out, one clutching the hand-drawn Fort Apache sign that up until a few minutes ago hung over the entrance to the First District"s headquarters.