Hope From A Most Unlikely Source

The French Quarter: America's best kept secret.

So, I decided to take a long, slow bike ride, after waking up Friday morning, with a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach, realizing that I was basically out of money and that I couldn't see any forthcoming.

After staring at my wall for I while, I finally brought myself to call my mom.

It wasn't with the intent to beg for money, but primarily out of concern over the fact that my previous 2 calls to her had gone to voice mail.

I would mention the fact that I was out of money, as that was the most pressing matter at hand, but only in the course of normal conversation.

I called her, and immediately my cheap government phone started to glitch so that both of us were hearing each other in fragments.

This, I believe is because Google wants to sell a lot of stuff, and is using its "Android" operating system as the platform for it, but their pitch is geared towards newer phones.

Speech through mine can become garbled when Google is trying to simultaneously transfer the call, and eavesdrop on every word spoken at the same time, so as to ultimately tailor advertisements to myself and whomever I'm talking to, based upon our communication.

The screen of the thing basically becomes a billboard for advertisements that are obviously targeted at small minded individuals, with tawdry displays that are maybe just one evolutionary step above the "you are the millionth person to come along, click here to claim your prize" type of eye-rolling inducing ads.

I have never played a game on a phone in my life, nor do I intend to.

But, my phone was apparently owned, before me, by a black female in Houston Texas.

I think so because the ads that the thing becomes inundated with, not long after the "factory reset"s that I frequently do to it, are targeted at such an individual.

No, I really wouldn't like some device to air brush my face to cover my blemishes, nor would I really like to "fix" my credit score so I can become fodder for predatory money loaners; you must think I'm a black female in Houston; and a vain, superficial, shallow and materialistic one, at that -someone who would fain click on your ads. 

"They're vulnerable," said my friend Howard Westra, with regard to supermarkets having merchandise set aside in conspicuous locations like at the end of aisles.
"The black people see it there, and they just scoop it up; the stuff could even be priced higher than what it is in the regular aisles. It's peculiar..."

I never bothered to personalize the phone, giving it access to my location or anything like that. I use it to text, and as a hot spot, and to call my mom, that's it.

I still get the occasional call, asking for "Dee," and the front panel has been displaying the weather for Houston since I got it.

But, luckily it cleared up enough for me to talk to my mom, who said that she could send some money, but that it wouldn't be too much, and that I would have to find some source of income, rather than rely upon her, and that "the Lord helps those who help themselves.." I had expected so much before even calling her.

As we were talking, there came the chiming noise to signal that I had gotten a text message.

Upon hanging up, I saw "$160 waiting for you at Western Union" having been texted by my friend Ted in Boston, whom I had been talking to, off and on, but whom I hadn't even asked for any money. I guess he just intuited my situation.

The day had started fortuitously as far as getting some money was concerned, but it was just getting started.

After a while, I figured I might as well go and get the $160 dollars, since I didn't even have 10 dollars left to my name, and couldn't even buy any more data to use this Internet.

So, I rode off.

Seeing that there was a Western Union sign at the Banks Meat Store, I stopped there and went to the kiosk.

After I got the stack of 20 dollar bills, I went and got a Coors beer out of the cooler. This was kind of a nod to my friend who had sent the money. In our recent conversations, which have resumed after not having spoken to one another since 2009, when I was in St. Augustine, Florida, he mentioned that he was in the habit of drinking a couple beers before laying down every night, after working his job as a cameraman for channel 7 in Boston.

I could spend some of the money he sent on beer and hear his imaginary voice saying: "Yeah, man, get yourself a beer...or two!" whereas, should my mom send any, I will have to keep it in a separate pocket, because I would feel guilty spending any of it on beer.

I then rode off towards the French Quarter.

I had been curious about it, and I was in the mood to take a long slow bike ride. I planned upon getting another beer at the Unique store, and then riding down Royal Street, eventually going by the spot where I used to play almost every night.

I went into the Unique store and got the second beer. I had decided to get a more expensive one than the ones that the alcoholics, only concerned with alcohol content and not so much flavor, get.

This was probably like a flag for whatever skeezer started to walk towards me as soon as I stepped out of the store, and was getting on my bike.

I don't have to lock my bike at the Unique store because they all know me there, and all the skeezers know that they know me there, and if a skeezer stole my bike then the guy's at Unique would never let them skeeze in front of there again; and that would be devastating to the skeezer; it would ruin his livelihood.

One thing about the New Orleans skeezers is they know enough not to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, and being barred from that particular block which is fabled for drunken rich guys handing out hundred dollar bills just to show off to a girl he might be with, just for a bike that was left unlocked, is something that they know better than to do. The ones that didn't; you just don't see them there anymore.

This is just one of the perks of having known those guys since coming here in 2010 and having gradually gained their respect after they had seen me stopping in there every night, with my guitar on my back, going out to play; being kind of a crusty homeless guy who lived under the wharf the first few years, who would buy alcohol, but then eventually seeing me show up in better and cleaner clothes, and not buy alcohol, but maybe rolling papers, then return hours later, sober and with incrementally larger wads of money coming out of my pockets as time went by, buying only a Bang® energy drink, or a packet of kratom.
Respect is hard to come by, in the Quarter and, well the upshot is that I don't have to lock my bike there.

I rode on down Royal Street and realized something.

The entire French Quarter had become a law unto itself and had shunned all the advice from the governor.

It was business as usual.

Maybe half the people were wearing masks, but  everything seemed to be open, or at least trying to be, and people were enjoying life.

Buskers were on their usual corners...and just then, I figured it out.

Let the governor make his proclamations that everyone in the state (except, wink wink, where most of the revenue from the state comes from) must wear a mask and practice "social distancing" and then watch as New Orleans does whatever the hell it pleases, as it has always done, what goes on here, stays here, type of thing. Now I get it. I just wish I wasn't so slow on the uptake. I even wonder if the images from the webcams showing nobody on the streets were static shots now.

Nobody who is quarantining themselves elsewhere will ever need to know that the party is back on in New Orleans. They will be in their houses getting all their dour news from the "media."

And, will this cause a spike here in COVID19 cases?
Maybe we can be the control for that particular experiment.

The Rouses Market was open, where Xavier yelled: "Daniel!" as I rode past.

I stopped and he asked me how I was doing.

When I said that I had almost run out of money before being rescued by my mom and a friend from Massachusetts, he said: "You're not getting the 600 dollars a week?"

"What 600 dollars a week?" I rejoined.

Xavier was the first person to tell me about the 600 dollars per week.

It figures.

I went on to the Lilly Pad, where I was pleasantly surprised to see Lilly's vehicle parked across from her house.

I had thought that she might have died.

I left a note on her windshield. I hope there is not some reason why she hasn't been calling me.