Video of the History of the Creole Wild West

The History of the Creole Wild West (as told by themselves)

Come check it out on Saturday.

Indian Sunday 2008

Most of this is from outside of Marcus Garvey Park at S. Derbigny and Washington Avenue. I wasn't quite as delirious as last year, but we showed some friends from outta town how the heart of the city beats.

The Loss of Willie Tee

"You suck!"

"Overtime, baby!"

A cluster of frat-types curls around my back, shouts at the flat screen, says there's no way they're leaving here for the $40 entrees next door until this one is over. Georgia's heavy-browed kicker just missed the game-winner wide left, and fuck yeah.

Me, I'm trying to keep patient, keep perspective, keep from thinking too much about things that don't matter, benign change and all that.

Then "Like A Rolling Stone" comes on the Maple Leaf's jukebox and the boys start singing in unison, and I'm like, really, how does it feel?

**********************

Willie Tee's was a classic New Orleans musical career, complete with teenage success, work in the jazz avant garde, production and songwriting of the highest quality, and family bonds. Whatever you want to call that genius of breadth that marks the city's great artists, Willie Tee had it.

The pain of his recent passing was doubled by the timing: his brother, saxophonist Earl Tubington, died just last month. Willie was diagnosed with cancer shortly after his brother's death, and went on home in a matter of weeks. We've lost way too many giants in the last year, and we can only hope that their replacements are growing up among us still.

********************

On a long Saturday morning bike ride with Kim, I passed the church on St. Roch where Willie was laid out. A few dudes with horns stood around, and some older cats in suits smoked reefer on one corner. We didn't feel like waiting for the second line, and decided to ride around the neighborhood awhile.

The area is in bad shape. Some people are back, some aren't, but we said good morning to someone on just about every block. Living where we do (for only a little longer), you don't realize what a depressed situation many people are in, with hardly any neighbors, isolated, with few corner stores or signs of city life. It's in areas like the St. Roch neighborhood where you wonder how long people can stand this mess, and how the hell anyone can move back and remain strong in living conditions like these. Downtown, people are holding on.

********************

Uptown at the Maple Leaf Saturday night, I sit at the bar and laugh as the 'Bama boys take a loss and slink off to their duck and okra. I'm early to the Willie Tee benefit, feeling a little pensive in the old haunt, thinking about ol' John Ringo and what Kim must've looked like working behind that bar, and how I'm not going to be Mr. Nostalgia here.

What's changed? Probably nothing. Probably just me. I'm by myself, Kim's chilling at home, I'm not meeting up with anyone, I'm not drunk, I'm 30. Things feel cleaner, but then, too, I'm cleaner. I get the sense that we have some first-time shoppers, but, again, whadda I know?

For the Hot 8 opening set, I stand on the side bench to get a bird's eye view. I'm not so young anymore, but I guess I'm wiser, learned a trick or something here a decade ago. People do that honky dance and the Hot 8 is a really good brass band, with a more evolved vocal thing than others, and the right mix of horns.

So what is different? I ask myself. Well, in the previous lifetime, the Rebirth Brass Band would be selling dope to my friends, claiming it came from exotic locations. In the current lifetime, the Hot 8 Brass Band's original leader was shot dead in his car at the beginning of the year. Point being, I don't know the difference, but there is a bittersweetness in the ritual, at least there is to me. Is this all borrowed time, or is it my one foot in a time warp that shadows the listening? Either way, I'm able to loosen up enough to really dig the Hot 8 by the time they're done. Me and the middle-aged tourist and the college girls.

When they end, I move to the rear bar and get into a conversation about R&B with a very know-ity chick who wants to tell me this and that, but does give me a new James Andrews CD for the show. It's an OK talk, but the whole "Oh-I'm-from-here-gonna-let-you-know-not-really-listening" schtick is the wrong one to wow me with tonight. You want to be a territorialist in a wasteland, best of luck to you.

"Gonna be a great show," we do agree, though.

********************

I take my position on the bench again as the house band for the night (I think this is 101 something? I forget) begins. The painter Frenchy stands directly in front of me on his platform, a miner's light around his bald skull, a photo of Willie Tee pinned onto the left side of his canvas.

It's good to see Frenchy, but that photo is as much Willie Tee as either of us will get tonight. The band is on the Wild Magnolias tip, seems to include some alumni, and that makes sense, as Willie famously produced and arranged their seminal first and second albums. Big Chief Monk Boudreaux takes the stage, and I love that dude, always get into that sound of Indian funk, like a balloon tightening, with magic beads rattling inside it, ready to pour out when the whole thing bursts.

But this represents a small (if vital) part of Willie Tee's career, the rest of which contributed serious cuts of funk and soul to the city's lexicon. This is a cat who had a long playing relationship with Joe Zwainul (who chillingly died in the same hour as his old friend), who was a dope pianist, a prolific songwriter who powered the Gaturs. When we get just the one side of him, well, I'm disappointed...again.

Because my basic problem is running up against this one, simplified side of the culture--easy funk that people like to boogie and booze to--under the guise of another tribute to the past. My problem is I still hope for reverance, for appreciation of ALL the parts of New Orleans music that were important ACROSS THE WORLD for decades, not just the last 10 years of jamming. My problem is I think there's a full honest answer out there, a clear retelling of N.O. contributions to music, all the while living in a present and a market that is muddied and narrowed down and starving. My problem is I continue to believe the label, only to find the ingredients within bland and pricey; I refuse to believe that getting the story sideways, for the sake of a party, is going to help us remember (much less rebuild) a damn thing.

And maybe my problem is I'm looking for something that's not there, and am slow to admit that. Maybe this is how it was the last time around, but I was new to the set-up, able to stumble along on the gloss-over. Maybe I missed these problems as Ringo and Flavius and I and the rest rolled through our hijinx. Maybe I was mad at a whole other set of wrongs then.

I'm not mad at anyone, I don't deserve to hear what I like just because I know what that is. I'm just sad and ornery and probably oughta get in the van and listen to some Booker. Instead I stare at the cut-out painting of Booker that hangs behind the stage, and wonder what he looks out on, and what he'd say, and what it means that he's up there in the first place.

What does Booker mean now? What does Willie Tee mean now? Are they to be defined through the dim, dull lens of nights like this, crushed into a New Orleans sound packaged for the casual, numbed-up listener?

I don't know if I can stand around and watch that.

*******************

Afterwards I sit in the side alley and watch cliques pass glass pipes. I'm not in a conversation mood, and not really in the eavesdropping on stoned bluttos mood, either. I'm kinda awkward, really.

Just then I see some people I know, a woman I worked with in New York and her husband, a radio documentarian, both of them Louisiana born and raised. They're in town for a wedding, didn't hear the first set. It's great to talk to them, and they're glad I've moved back.

As am I. But at some point, I guess I need to lighten up and accept the disappearances, the shifts in old territory that have nothing to do with me, and understand the ones that do. My city is out there, but no lazy search will re-erect its flagposts.

I separate from my friends, sit down at the bar. Two college girls are wasted, and another dances with an old brother in a nice suit. Once in awhile I catch myself in the mirror, when I'm not peeking at the door or the stage. John Ringo and I circa 1997 aren't walking in anytime soon, and for me, tonight, that's a hard swallow.

So I walk on out.

Freret Street, Bill Jefferson, Hamid Drake & Kidd Jordan, and Sandy Alomar Jr.

From 1998-1999, I lived at the corner of Napoleon Avenue and Freret Street, in a small studio apartment upstairs from a gay couple who owned the large house. Apparently, they panicked after the storm and attempted to raise the building 8 feet, setting off a chain of events that led to the house’s current state of vacant decay. Whenever I drive by that corner and see the empty trailer wedged in the backyard where once a dainty garden bloomed, the foundation of the house splitting, and the doors pried open to the elements, I lament the fate of those poor guys and my former home.

Because that was my apartment when Kim and I started dating, the spot holds an important place in my heart, as does all of Freret Street. That year we attended what must have been the 3rd Freret Street Festival, with Walter “Wolfman” Washington playing from the back of a Ryder truck and the two of us dancing among a modest crowd of neighborhood people. The stretch of Freret above Napoleon has a very Caribbean vibe to it, with old stucco buildings and some tile roofs, and, though it’s a central street uptown, I guess that part always seems like an island to me; sorta romantic, always sun-baked, self-contained.

This year we returned to find a festival with 3 stages, probably the best line-up of any of the free festivals in the city, and thousands of people filling those blocks. More importantly, Kim is now director of the new neighborhood center, so we’ll be up there a lot from now on. A double-wide shotgun, the center is close to finished, but not fully opened. There is a stage in the backyard, though, and a talent show went on most of the afternoon. Mardi Gras Indians, spoken word, and a loose funk band gave way to some R&B, some crunk, and some straight-up N.O. hip-hop.

Game Tight Records
(that's a grown-over satellite dish behind them)

Grand Jury

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Monday brought the news of Rep. Bill Jefferson’s indictment on racketeering, obstruction of justice and money laundering charges, and with it another sad chapter in the story of old sins coming back to cripple the city’s recovery. Caught just before the storm with 90G’s stuffed in his freezer, Jefferson faces ouster from the House after giving up positions on the Trade, Ways & Means, and most recently the Small Business committees.

Think about what that means: instead of a senior representative in the House on three of the committees (hypothetically) most import to New Orleans, we get an impotent soon-to-be felon whose own family is implicated with him in a scheme to bribe Nigerian officials. Just when we could use maximum efforts in Washington, we get a soiled void.

What hurts is that the people voted him in last fall knowing full well that he faced just such a fate. Victorious by way of a long-established machine and an appeal to suburban conservatives, Jefferson represents the most needy district in the country as a pariah in his own ruling party. All we can hope for is his forced ouster, if hope is what you want to call it.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In New Orleans, music’s ubiquity always threatens to make it too accessible, and thus taken for granted. The epiphanies of great performances come too easy at times, and so their magnitude lessens and we miss gigs we should make, sure that we’ll catch the next one. Great musicians who do their thing end up not being enough because, even in the disarray of the current scene, that’s what New Orleans cats do—survive and blare.

At the same time, with the stakes so high today, a show that might’ve been great 10 years ago shifts into transcendence now when certain musicians, in the grip of those stakes, decide to take things further. And for complex reasons, it matters more. Many times in the 1990’s, I had my mind blown. Nowadays, when the sound is right, my mind focuses and tunes into line with my heart; I am reassured and given direction.



On Monday night, we stood in the Dragon’s Den and listened to Kidd Jordan play with the Rob Wagner trio, which features Hamid Drake, the great Chicago drummer. I’ve heard Kidd and Hamid play with different ensembles, mostly in New York, and so I’ve been telling Kim to get ready for weeks now. But Monday night was different.

The gig was the trio’s 2nd night in support of a new CD, which I hear is dope. Kidd Jordan played the Monday gig only. At times it felt like this was the first and last gig he’d ever play, like he had to get it all out on the canvas Hamid wove, and fuck everything else. Really and truly: Hamid Drake must be the greatest drummer alive and perhaps ever, and Kidd just turned and played right back at him and with him and people stood in a trance, sometimes broken by yelps of disbelief.



When free jazz hits me right, I am prone to laughter, which is not the norm in the often museum-like crowd at a lot of those shows. This time I didn’t need to worry about that, as other people got carried away. Kidd Jordan and Hamid Drake proved that sometimes a moment comes and will definitely pass and you make the art you have to in that space. From the get, you could see that Kidd was so glad to play a night with Hamid and that appreciation, that sudden shock and then work—that’s what I keep reminding myself to keep close.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Is it for the money or the love of the game?

Games played in New Orleans must suffer from more rain delays than almost anywhere else in the country. At this time of year, the skies behave in true tropical fashion, with a strong shower in the early evening that gives a brief respite from the humidity. So far we’ve had a mild spring, but the heat lurks, ready to slow things to a crawl.

Last night, we drove out to “The Shrine on Airline,” aka Zephyr Field, the minor league baseball stadium on Airline Highway, home to the New Orleans Zephyrs. Kim had coupons for $1 tickets for volunteers, courtesy of the United Way. Instead of the usual get-what-you-get cheap ticket, this put us in the first row just to the first base side of home plate.

I was pretty amped about this positioning, as the Zephyrs feature one Sandy Alomar Jr., the former All-Star catcher who, at 42, is on a quest to return to the Majors, this time with the Mets. From our prime seats, we could watch Sandy call the game, and peek into the dugout to check in on, among others, former Yankee Ricky Ledee and hot prospect Lastings Miledge.

Mostly, though, Sandy Alomar Jr. I mean, after a fairly illustrious career, why try to get back to the show one last time, especially when already the Mets sit in 1st place with an all-star catcher? Sandy’s chances are pretty slim, but there he was, doing the Bull Durham in Metairie.

Equipped with two beers, two dogs, and an order of nachos, we sat down for the beginning of the game vs. tonight’s opponent, the Salt Lake City Bees. After the bottom of the 1st began with two hits from the Z’s, the rain started and grew increasingly fierce, soaking the nachos and watering down the beer. We didn’t give up until the grounds crew, which included members of the crowd, announced a rain delay by dashing onto the field.

At the top of the bleachers, we watched the storm and ate our dogs. For some reason, the scoreboard showed an old clip of Sheriff Harry Lee marrying what appeared to be two mascots on the grass of Zephyr Field.

Harry Lee Loves Nutrias

The delay lasted about 40 minutes. When the game resumed, the Z’s stranded the two runners and the long 1st inning was over. In the 5th, though, they could not be denied. Things got nuts when Sandy took one deep for a 3-run homer, followed by one hit after another until Ledee knocked another 3-run homer.

Then two utterly ridiculous things happened: the Salt Lake pitcher attempted to attack the ump and was thrown out, along with the Bees’ manager. Then Kim reminded me that the homer run meant the first 100 people to the beer stand won a Miller Lite "foamer." I raced up there and took my place in the long line. An old feller came up and started telling the guy in front of me that he didn't "drink the stuff, I'm just getting it for Ledee's wife." And sure enough, each of us got a 10oz cup of beer, thanks to Ricky Ledee.



I’m rooting for the Zephyrs from now on.

April Fools Day 2007 in Videos: Some Sound, Some Fury & the Best Bank Hijinks

Sunday, April 1
The plan today is to attend a panel discussion at the Tennessee Williams Festival, for which I have free passes from work and cross the river to Algiers Point for the 4th annual Riverfest. A solid overcast sky greets us when we wake up, with the chance of rain seemingly the only threat to our day.


Muriel's Restaurant, Jackson Square: Uptown ladies listen to general homage to Faulkner's difficulty.





Algiers: As we walk along the levee's spine back from the Old Point Bar, I think I hear Irvin Mayfield's quartet doin...yep, that is... yes: the well-known bassline of A Love Supreme. Dah da Dah da, Dah da Dah da.





Descent of the Indians, stealing the show.





I excuse myself to visit the port-a-john, and stop at the side of the stage to watch the slow exit stage right.




We stand against the barriers after our friends leave, listen to the great Dr. Michael White.





In the darkest shades of dusk, we board the ferry and lean against the rail on the first level near the cars. A barge crosses in front of us just after we leave port, and when we cut against its wake, a wave runs over the deck and soaks my feet and shins. I have Mississippi in my shoes for the walk across the Quarter.

Super Sunday 2007: We Won't Bow Down

“Yeah, lemme get a Corona, man.”

I straddle my bike in front of a cooler chest. One of two salesmen digs into the ice and water and pulls out a bottle.

“That cold enough for you?”

“I hope so. I’m gonna need it today.”

I give him $3 but he can’t open the bottle with his lighter, so his partner does it, and then scoffs at the other’s ineptitude. I thank them both and pedal slowly into the intersection of Washington and LaSalle. The block is full of people, with a large crowd at one end gathered in front of a line of cops on horses. Feathered headdresses are visible above the fray, the sky is bright, and the air is warm but dry, perfect March weather in New Orleans.

Today is Super Sunday, the traditional parading day for the Mardi Gras Indian tribes held the Sunday before St. Joseph’s Day. Back when the Indians were violent and illegal, this was the day of the year when they could come out and show their colors. Now we’re standing in one of the most violent neighborhoods in the city and the tail of the parade is beginning to move.

I ride down LaSalle to check out the spy boys, braves, and chiefs preparing. The street has a neutral ground in the middle and various pieces of costumes rest in the grass. At a break in the neutral ground, I u-turn and ride back up the street towards Washington Avenue. Lone Indians stand stone-faced in full “mask,” clusters of onlookers surrounding them.

The crowd: young men with the practiced thousand-yard stare; older guys who get in the face of the Indians, alternately trying to crack them up or boost their egos into full whoop as the maskers stay intense and serious; the wives and mothers of the Indians, who help them put on their costumes and straighten their headdresses; children in and out of costume; white hipsters young and old, cameras at the ready.

What I notice immediately (and start to record with my own camera) is the prevalence of cameras. Any immobile Indian has a phalanx of cameras around him, held in white and black hands, snapping away. Some are huge video cameras with long lenses, others just the camera phone. The Indians are such wildly vivid figures, it’s hard to stop snapping, and indeed there are dudes who walk backwards in front of the marchers as they begin to move down LaSalle.

It’s weird to watch people squint and focus so intently on capturing the exotic, like we’re all on a safari rather than in a neighborhood. I don’t know if that’s always been the case on Super Sunday, but it’s safe to say that more people own cameras these days, and have them always on-hand in phones or in handy digital models. What do we get from photographing something? What do we lose by pausing to record, rather than allowing the experience to unfold? Can you have any sort of epiphany with one eye in on a screen?

Aside from these questions, I wonder about the younger white kids like me. Are we simply voyeur witnesses to the last embers of a culture, or will we help lay the groundwork for a more equitable city, one where the Indians and their neighbors survive and prosper, every day of the year? Obviously, we have some interest; some love of this side of New Orleans, but how many of us ever walk these blocks the other 364 days of the year?

That’s what struck me over and over again today—how rare it was for any white person to be in this neighborhood. That’s an old fact, but, again, what do we do in this new landscape? What does it mean that one race simply doesn’t cross into a certain space? How does that affect all of us?

I stand with my bike in front of me as the crowd grows thick and begins to follow the last tribe and brass band. When a space opens up, I join in behind another beer salesman. He tows his cooler on a battered hand-truck, wears a gray-black-white camouflaged suit, and seems nervous, not stopping as people place orders. Instead, he’ll pull out the beers, then the customer takes over and drives the hand-truck while the beer man makes change.

It’s not a fluid operation, but it works, and I keep wondering what’s the rush. Then I hear a snort, and turn to see that the line of police horses is only 5 paces behind us. I pick up the pace, order a Budweiser. Another white dude is doing the same, and he ends up just buying my bottle for me, saying, “Happy Sunday,” so that all of us can keep moving.

LaSalle turns into Simon Bolivar and an Indian runs by whooping, feathered tomahawks slicing the air. Another group of Indians in white skull faces menaces the crowd. Down here people loll in the shade on the neutral ground, drinking and lighting blunts. I stand between some cars to watch the parade pass. A beat-up old lady comes to talk to me, and we walk together for a minute.

“Enjoying yourself today mmm, hmmm, mmm,” she says with a vacant smile. Her voice is low and she seems lost.

“Oh, yeah, it’s a fine day,” I tell her.

“Hmmmm. Since Katrina, my head still ain't right….” She says it like a question, like she’s in disbelief. “Hmmmm…..19 feet of water…..walk on water…..”

I tell her to take her time, then cross to a boarded up seafood store and lock up my bike. It’s getting hard to hold a bottle in one hand and walk the bike with the other. The parade turns onto Jackson Avenue and I let it pass me so I can buy another beer. The guys I ask aren’t selling, but they point me across the street to another pick-up truck.

When I get there, a couple stands in the bed of the truck with a full bar’s worth of liquor sitting on the roof of the cab. They have gin, whiskey, schnapps, vodka, everything. I try to order a 7 and 7, but the woman asks me to explain what that is. As I do, a cop walks up.

“I got no problem with your operation,” he says, “but can you move it to the side a little, you’re blocking the street.”

So the truck backs up as the lady makes my 7 and 7, which turns out to be just gin and some flat seltzer water, no ice, in a small plastic cup. And as I hand up the money, it turns out she’s not a lady, but a man in some very basic drag, with long sideburns and a mustache and trucker’s cap.

“Thanks, baby,” I say.

I’ll admit, the last thing I need is gin, but I dug that operation, too. Anyway, things get a little hazy for the remainder of the day. The Indians and I move at about the same pace, so I see the same few tribes and band again and again, followed by the line of police horses. We walk in the street, the Indians vibrant and pulsating, many of the buildings windowless and weather-beaten. Chants rise up and braves dash about, regroup, strut, squat in wait.

At one point, I’m watching an Indian in all red feathers approach, and can hear only a tambourine. As he passes me, I hear a burst of sound from an un-costumed brass band; they look like one family, mother and 4 children, almost hidden behind the Indian’s headdress. Everywhere along the street, people whoop and call out, take photos and drink and smoke, take it easy in the holiday afternoon. Along with Mardi Gray Day, and maybe New Year’s Eve, this hour of walking feels as close as it can get to the pre-Katrina city I knew.

The funny thing is, it’s only in the extraordinary moments that things feel normal, like nothing happened.

On one stretch of Martin Luther King Drive, I stop to take in a very strange sight on the neutral ground. Someone has tricked out a convertible Mercedes coupe in ridiculous fashion. Not only is the light gray interior done up in what appears to be fake alligator, including the cup holder, but the gearshift is a fake pistol.

Yep, what looks to be a glock is mounted nose-down on the console. The doors of the coupe are vertical, ala the DeLorean, and in a true stroke of genius, three Chucky dolls stand in the back seat. The top is down and kids take turns jumping in the front seat for pictures. I start taking close-range self-portraits in various ill poses, arms crossed or cup of gin held up to my lips. I guess I’m causing a scene, because a few white kids come up and remark to me on how crazy the car is, alright.

“It’s the dumbest car ever,” I tell one.

“I love it!” he says. I move on.

At the corner of South Claiborne and MLK, a very ingenious person opened a large convenience store and gas station, with hip-hop clothing for sale on one side of the building. Most days, this is where day laborers, Latino and black, gather to wait for work. Today, the parking lot is full of speed bikes and their riders. Maybe 60 bikes are out there, taking up one whole corner of the parking lot.

I stand under the shade of the island and take them all in, then give Kim a call and give her my coordinates. I walk into the store to get more beer and water, and she meets me in there a few minutes later. Once again, I’m sure glad to see my woman. She can see I’m a little loopy and hands me the water, takes the beer.

We continue down MLK. The parade is thinning out as we go, the space between groups of Indians growing. Occasionally, we sit down and watch it pass, then get up and catch the tail. At one point we’re right next to the horses when we notice two white chicks wearing identical fluorescent green hats and armbands. The armbands read “ACLU,” and the girls carry clipboards.

“Say, what are y’all up to?” I ask.

“We’re here to monitor the police,” one tells me.

Apparently they accompany the cops at many parades, noting when they get out of line.

“What kind of stuff do you write down?”

“Well, like this right here.” She points to another line of horse cops who cross in front of a group of parade goers, almost running them over. I wish them luck and move on.

When we get to Jackson Avenue, I see a group of cops handcuffing a guy. It’s the beer man in the camouflage from before. A burned nub of blunt sits on his cooler. He isn’t resisting. That man probably made 700 bucks today, all right in front of that line of horse cops. If he hit that blunt, it must’ve been more than once. But now that we’re near the end of the parade, he’s under arrest. Seems like a convenient time for someone to pick up an easy $700, right?

“Fuck,” I say. I walk up fast and slip my card in his pocket, which is a stupid, futile thing to do. Kim gets the attention of the ACLU. We stand on the corner and swear. What a bunch of bullshit.

Across the street, a group of Indians in pink and brown feathers attempts to join the parade. A meeting of sorts ensues between what looks to be several chiefs of different tribes. There’s some posturing, the ritual plays out, and the new tribe joins the march.

If this was the beginning of the 20th century, this is the kind of run-in that could result in violence. Today, the argument is probably about the proper show of respect and order. Indians are serious about this and the disputes they have concern precedence and honoring past “maskers” and their teachings. The fierce defense of heritage might just save this whole place, and that’s why I follow the Indians. Of course, this stops the parade and causes the police cruisers to honk.

*CHECK OUT THE VIDEO*

We reach Marcus Garvey Park at Washington and S. Claiborne and push our way through one small gate in the fence. Inside, the whole parade—Indians and followers—fills in the lawn, drinking, inspecting costumes, lounging in the sun. On a stage at one edge of the park, a speaker informs us of a march on City Hall. I think about Ed Blakely, how he might have the right idea but how he should be here today if he’s really going to solve things.

After awhile, Kim and I agree we’re hungry and ought to be getting out of there. It takes long waits at two different, over-matched food trucks, but I get us an order of some pretty damn good fries. We walk down Claiborne to Jackson and head towards the river. In the middle of Jackson, a single Indian in royal blue and orange feathers marches in the early dusk.

“He’s like the King of Jackson Avenue,” I say.

A car with its flashers on follows him slowly and soon a line of cars trails lazily down the avenue behind them. Kim and I are talking, not paying attention, then we see the line of traffic has stopped. Some dude with short dreads and a bright orange shirt has stopped his Saturn behind the Indian, gotten out of the car, and challenged the driver of the car guarding the Indian. The driver keeps telling the dude to chill as the Indian looks on.

“Are you ready? Are you ready, bitch?” the dude in orange asks, fists now held up. The two of them are 10 feet from us. On the corner behind us, a group of men and children watches as the fight starts. Some punches are thrown, they lock up in a bear hug, the Indian’s driver down lower around the dude’s torso. Eventually they work their way to a telephone pole where the Indian comes up behind the dude and tries to pry him off.

“We oughta steal his car,” I joke, nodding at the idling Saturn.

The people on the corner continue to tell the dude to step away, as it’s now a stalemate. Kim and I start to walk away, but I turn once more to look back and see the dude’s head banging over and over against a parked car. The Indian’s driver really whips the dude’s ass, leaving him lying on the curb, struggling to get up. The Indian sits down on the hood of his friend’s car and they pull away, charioteer and chariot, disappearing down Jackson Avenue.

On the next block, a group of old ladies sits on a porch. They ask us what happened and we tell them. We all shake our heads.

“He should’ve known not to mess with that Indian,” I say to general assent.

“He does now,” Kim says.