Amerigo and Charles Go To New Orleans, Part 2

The days of the flood sprung back the bayou flora, but now that the water was gone, everything was rotting. Weeds and marsh plants rose up through collapsed porches and split cement. Yards were repossessed by slackwater seedlings. Waterlilly's littered crumbled rooftops and dead crawfish and frogs lay still in the gutters.

Amerigo stopped hammering and dangled his spit into the dirt. He stared off, gripped by wavy tremors from glasses and glasses of vodka. He and Charles drank straight booze all afternoon and night alongside the afterwork louts, the happy hour poolsharks, the raucous dinner crowds, the lovely jukejoint bartenders, the sloppy strippers, the surging brass musicians, the afterhours philosophers, and the ugly breakfast waitresses. His focus slipped to a candelit bar where the frail piano man took requests and ignored them. He couldn't remember any of the songs, only that they were beautiful and he was singing along. At a lonely diner, he ordered a cajun omelet and began sweating. Before the first bite, he made an excuse and left to puke in the toilet. He returned and finished his meal before walking and vomiting through the wrecked houses of the Ninth Ward to the construction site.

Charles said, "Pass that fish," again and Amerigo shook himself and slid over the catspaw. Charles bent a nail trying to hammer it in with one wind-up smack and had to undo and retry. He arched the nail loose and, next to him, Amerigo became startled, motioning to the neighboring yard.

Amongst Amerigo and Charles were diligent sunscreened people, busy and chatting. The house was coming along. Churchgroup girls were laying sod. Retired high school teachers were measuring planks for the front stairs. But, the reamed-out nextdoor house, as were the rest of the homes on the block, was leaning crookedly on its sinking foundation. Its yard was a waist-deep ramble, given back to nature. "Look at that shit," Amerigo motioned again.

Charles looked across at an overweight man, deeply black, ripping the cord of an old lawnmower. The sound, when it revved to a full chug, overwhelmed the hammering around them. A mother from Bethesda, on vacation with her husband and two children, saw Charles peering over and said "I heard they even looted the copper from his wires. This is the first time he's been back in two years." The man pushed the mower forward and the blade cracked. The chummy volunteers kept working, oblivious. "Why doesn't everyone ditch this and go help him, man?" Amerigo pleaded. Beneath the shade of his ruined house, the man tried again to push the mower, but it made a jagged buzz and stalled. Amerigo and Charles stood watching, hungover, and felt the pervading silence.