6 Days Without A Post

The Thanksgiving holiday meant the closing of this library; and this blog has suffered neglect...

• Thanksgiving
• The Bayou Classic

I was the only white person in sight for much of the time, as I pushed my way through the throngs on Bourbon Street Saturday night.
I had played outside the stadium at my "staircase" spot and made about 25 bucks; before moving to the Lilly spot, where I made about 25 more, helped by a 20 dollar bill handed to me while I was playing "Hotel California," by The Eagles on the guitar, with a harmonica solo.
The Bayou Classic, an annual game between Grambling and Southern Univeristy (Baton Rouge) had taken place inside the Superdome. Those are "black" colleges.
I had woken up with about 5 bucks on me that morning; as I left Leslies apartment.
I had managed to break away from him, because someone whom he knows and who gets a check every month on the 1st, had called him; and was promising to get him drunk and, off he went to meet him somewhere.

The Stairwell Spot
Left is the spot where I sit and play, nearby one of the exits to the Superdome.
The yellow bucket, I leave there; and there it remains due to a clever foil which I came up with, whereby I make it look like it serves a purpose; and I guess everybody thinks that "someone else" put it there for a reason; and there it has remained since the start of the season, back in early August.

The pipe actually does drain a little bit of water off of somewhere when it rains; but the building lies otherwise dormant.

 The underside of the staircase makes for a good acoustical sound baffle; sending my signal in the direction of the approaching people from the stadium...
Highlights Of The Week (in no particular order)
The Karrie sightings are starting to come closer together, such as the contractions of a woman in labor.
I saw her Saturday, after getting food and clothing from The Bridge House.
I saw her Tuesday, sitting outside the Rebuild Center, where was served a turkey dinner, and I started to tell her about my sleeping spot under the dock.
"I arranged the rocks to form a flat area; and then put down a bunch of cardboard to smooth it out more. I have two blankets under there, now..."
"Keep talking," she said.
I went on to give her more details about the sound of the waves lapping the riverbank; the relative darkness under there and the ability to sleep as late in the morning as desired; and the "no trespassing" stenciled on a girder which only seems to keep other people out (by coming and going on the opposite end of the dock; I could potentially argue that I never saw the warning) and she seemed to listen interestedly.
She is fresh in town and has the misconception that the French Quarter is a dangerous place; "...Why don't you come out on Bourbon Street at night?"
"Are you kidding me? I don't want to get killed!.." and she has been taking refuge in the woman's shelters and avoiding it at night.
The shelters are full of loud, mentally ill and dangerous women...
The Cold Nights
Wednesday night/ Thanksgiving morning were forecast to be very cold, with a "hard freeze" warning in effect.

Not Just For Skeezers...

I chose this time to assert my independence from Leslie and to prove to him, along with his friends, and myself that I could pass the "coldest night of the fall, so far" in comfort with no problem.
I went under the dock, where I discovered that the one blanket, which had been there, was gone.
I still had the 2 which were in my backpack; which proved sufficient.
None of the other paltry items there (a wad of tee shirts used as a pillow; the remainder of my E.A.S protein powder) were disturbed, and I reasoned that, since I had spent a couple nights at Leslie's place; someone might have figured that nobody was using the blanket; and took it for mere survival purposes.
Thanksgiving morning, the House of Blues was serving a meal to all comers.
The place was a melting pot of skeezers and yuppies.
Leslie was there, along with Steven and Selena.
Steven and Selena had been fighting the previous night, while I was under the dock, and Leslie had already made up his mind to never again allow them to sleep over; he just hadn't broken the news to them at that point.
They were on their way to buy whiskey as soon as they they were done eating, because they had "made" 25 dollars the previous night, and Leslie was going to wait until the right moment (after the booze was gone) to appraise them of their new living arrangement.
15 Dollar Thanksgiving Night
That night, I rang the buzzer at Leslie's carrying food and beer with me, after having made about 15 "Thanksgiving" dollars outside Lilly's.
I noticed Hector lying on the floor once inside.
In retrospect, he was probably there for added security...
Leslie related the story of the fight between Steven and Selena; and his decision to throw them out. 
He was already bagging up their possessions and placing them in one area...."You don't punch a woman in my apartment; what the hell is wrong with you!...that makes me an accessory to assault and battery!!!"
Steven had punched Selena while Leslie had been in the bathroom; and when Leslie confronted him about it; he was told that what had happened had been "between her and me," to which he answered that it was between "her and me" in his house, which meant that he was involved.
"I'm not letting them in," he told Hector and I.
The three of us got some sleep until about 1:30 a.m. when Steven rang the buzzer.
And then rang the buzzer again.
And then began to lean upon the buzzer for extended periods of time; holding it down (it is an obnoxious "manual buzzer" sounding thing) at one point for almost a minute straight, and doing all kinds of staccato volleys which sounded like Morse code.
"That is so rude," said Hector.
"He's like a little boy throwing a tantrum," I added.
"This is my friend?!?" exclaimed Leslie.
None of us made a move towards the gate to let him in.
Less than an hour later, he was back and ringing spasmodically again.
"When is he going to get the message?" asked Leslie. "I don't have to answer my door!"
He got the message after he basically jumped up on a neighbors porch and got over his fence and then jumped from his that guys yard into Leslie's.

Then, he was knocking at the door.
"Who is it!!" yelled Leslie angrily.
"It's me. Just give me my beddings; I just want my beddings!"
Leslie opened the door to give Steven his beddings, in effect letting him inside.
There he stood, looking like Frankenstein with all the stitches and staples in his face and neck.
"Didn't you hear me ringing!?!" he said as he pushed his way past Leslie.
He said that the police had let him in, expecting us to believe his assertion that the police have a master key to every building in the French Quarter.
I was in the kitchen, but heard him tell Hector: "I don't want any lip!"
Leslie's Achilles Heel
Then, he began to try to worm his way into Leslie's good graces by playing the "sympathy" card which, it has been shown, is like the proverbial kryptonite to that kind soul.
"I thought we were friends!"
"We are friends; I just can't have you beating up your girlfriend in my house, It's not cool!" said Leslie in a rare display of backbone.
"This is like you're telling me to f*** off!" said Steven.
"I'm freezing cold; Selena is out there by the side of the road...I just need a 20 minute nap; is that too much to ask?!?"
That is never too much to ask of Leslie, it's just part of his makeup, and I could see in the change in his posture that he was caving in.
"OK, OK, you win, you win...you can take a nap!" he said, as I cringed in disbelief in the next room; feeling that what was transpiring was none of my business; but sickened by how malleable Leslie's resolve was..
The Neighbor
Luckily (I guess) for all of us, the neighbor over whose porch and fence he had jumped had been a bad choice.
It was the dwelling of Mickey; who has 2 web cameras on 24 hours a day; and who had been alerted to an intruder before Steven had made it very far and who had witnessed the breach.
He is the same guy who stood on that same porch eavesdropping upon Charlie, who was sitting in his wheelchair/prop waiting for Leslie one afternoon.
He waited, that time, until Charlie panhandled a passerby, and then ran him off after threatening to call the cops; over that fake cripples protest that "I'm just talking to people; that's all, dude!"
Mickey called to Leslie through the wall, who went outside to talk to him.
They had an animated discussion during which Mickey threatened all kinds of actions against Steven.
It was during this when Steven decided that he couldn't sleep; and so he grabbed his blankets and went to the gate where he was let out onto Bourbon Street by Leslie. "I'm not going to beg to be let in!!" were his parting words.
That was Thanksgiving night into Friday morning.
Saturday was the Bayou Classic game.
Sunday, I spent watching a lot of football from a lot of sidewalks, after telling Leslie that I just wasn't in a position to do "2 for 1"* that day; whereupon he went off and did his own thing.
*buying one for him and one for me every trip to the store
Now it is Monday; and I am trying to keep my chin up and look forward to the evening.
The temperature is back up into the 70's.
The swelling in my throat had gotten better and then worse; and now is slightly better...