French Quarter Sidewalks Speak

Their Stories
By
Debbie Lindsey

Life is never boring -- tragic, poignant, tender and just plain weirder than dirt, but never boring. Stories within stories make up our days. Sometimes you have to pay attention to see them unfold, because sometimes they are just slightly outside our peripheral vision. They may be stories belonging to others but we are privy to them without intruding, without permission. And often the moments are all our own but we don’t give see them for the tales they are. The wonder they offer.
Here for you is a day in a life and the tales, the vignettes of strangers, creatures and myself.

The sidewalks of the Quarter unleash even more darkness after midnight, and its sounds filter through my latched shutters, confusing my dreams. The 2:00 a.m. crack-head’s frantic “The knife, man! Where did ya drop the knife?” A distant siren and footsteps making haste. Love goes bad as 3:00 a.m. approaches with slurred accusations of infidelity. I remind myself to hose the sidewalk later upon hearing the regurgitated Hurricane grace the sidewalk.
For a while I sleep through the scurrying home of late night drinkers; far away sirens and a dog’s wail; a longneck Miller tossed from a passing car; and the sweet lonely cooing of night birds. A cat stirs, a little dog whimpers to her own dreams and soon the garbage trucks arrive with the sun. And now the noise begins to heats up.
“Millie finally got her period. That sonabitch boyfriend of hers needs to go. Christ, I was so afraid she’d married him. Oh, shit, look at the time, gonna be late for work. Call me later.”
Millie’s story was one of several snippets I heard in the space of time it took my coffee to brew. So many voices, lives, dramas seep into our bedroom. Conversations up and down Conti Street. Folks worry aloud: “Did ya hear that Jason got fired?” “Joan found a lump in her left breast.” “My kids are driving me crazy.” “You wait til they’re teenagers – not enough Xanax in the world!”
A walk to work for me is a hurried affair leaving me too often unreceptive, unaware of the bits of misfortune and bliss of those I brush against. The drug dealer who knows a bullet is waiting for him; the bank teller whose cell phone is ringing with news of a benign tumor; a young woman smiling at her ring finger twinkling back last night’s proposal. Everyone with fears, secrets, hopes.
Boyfriend has to remind me to slow down for the sake of our two dogs, Rosie and Sophia, who accompany us to our shop where their job is simple --greeting our customers with unconditional affection. A task we, as people, must work at. But the poor little dears have to pull and fret to be allowed their time to read the stories, news, and goings on of their peers. We have email, they have pmail, and a hundred other manners of communication that we people are not privy to.
That small piddle on the sidewalk might mean that Winnie, the terrier mix, just passed and will drop by the shop later. The next sniff of a torn garbage bag has them agitated and purposeful. A rat has just finished foraging for her litter. Suddenly their ears perk and off they go looking to bully a cat who desperately wants to be found by the people she carelessly darted away from while mousing.
A block away a scent of sex is in the air. Margo, a poodle of great beauty, will meet and mate with an over-bred bore of a poodle. This arranged liaison is not her choice – Margo adores the sweet, yellow dog from the park. Her owner thinks he is nothing but an unworthy mixed breed. But the last laugh will be on Margo. Her pups will look like their dad – yellow and scruffy with kind dispositions.
At work my dogs will sleep, bark, one will pass gas as the other looks up as if to say “Not me”. And, of course, whine for treats. But they both always give themselves over to the tourist who is jonesin’ for a dog fix. Dog lovers seem to find our shop. And they always tell us stories about their four legged charges.
That evening as we walk home, arm in arm, leashed to Sophia and Rosie, they brush us against another tale -- a dishwasher grabbing a smoke and a brief respite from the steam and grease drifting out the side door of a hotel kitchen. He had a dog once. He had a wife and a kid. Both are now gone and with them all his dreams. Just this stinkin’ job. It is said that dogs can sense our regrets. And just like that both dogs sat before him nuzzling his knees. And for a moment he was back in Utah, a content young man with a family.
Later that night as the usual chaos strolled past my bedroom window seeping in and out of my dreams I heard a man singing. Just walking and singing his heart out, not knowing anyone listened, just singing into the night.
After the flood stories began to surface. Otherwise ordinary folks who might never have felt they had a story someone would listen to suddenly had moments of valor, tragedy, shame and beauty to claim. There was a sense of democracy among us for that shared venture into hell and hope -- the dying field was leveled.
But those ordinary folks already had lived through volumes of tales, maybe it just took a Katrina to make someone listen. Our lives and the details of them do not need the glare of camera lights to make them real or a news journalist to give voice to them. And some tales are destined to remain silent, but they are real nonetheless. You just never know the depth of pain or promise behind the thin veneer of those we pass each day.
Comments welcomed: Debbie@whereyat.com