Swampland Beckons where Voodoo and Magic charm a Spell

Whenever people ask me where I live, I say “Las Vegas,” and pause a beat, and add “Not near the strip”. As if defending myself that I am not a gambler, nor a drinker or a smoker. It elicits opposing reactions; a blank stare, a sneer or downright hostility. Pity maybe, but never, ever envy.

Las Vegas once the wild west was intended for cowboys, and if you have ever been to a city social event, the chaos and lack of organization still musters a dog and pony show. Then came the Mob and the casinos and nightclub scene gave rise to a little city with dirt roads. Those who lived here at the time reminisce about those good old days- how the Mobsters generously provided locals with free food and drinks and there was one schoolhouse where everyone rubbed elbows. I call it Provincial. Decades later, with the arrival of Howard Hughes came the corporations and federal money outlaying master-planned communities otherwise known as suburban bland.

Personally, I don't go to the shows, all the has-been that come to town listed in the newspaper make me turn the pages faster than a flash of animation. But the worse thing about being in the desert is not the heat, I can live with temperatures rising but I can't live in a intellectual and cultural void where the days have such a sameness to them, a hypnotic placidity, like a pool where nothing ever falls, not a leaf, not a particle of dust. I float on this pool. The quiet rhythms of existence would have driven me to desperation a few years ago but my restlessness hides under the surface and the only way to combat the missing and necessary stimulation for my survival is to break away to places where culture, beauty and nature thrives.

Having been asked to go to New Orleans over a decade ago, I declined but two years ago when Steven and I planned a business trip to Biloxi, my mental fantasies conjured images about steamboats going down the Mississippi carrying Mark Twain and Scarlet and Rhett on their honeymoon. After Katrina the French Quarter was still in tact and despite all the rhetoric about danger, which has never stopped me from going anywhere I vocalized my idea to my husband and a week later-presto!

New Orleans, is nothing but festive. Just as I had been told, it is like Paris in the 19th century, because the French Quarter or, the “Vieux Carre," is in both the geographical and the chronological sense a different place within the larger entity of New Orleans, which is not really part of America. The architecture isn't French either, it's Spanish, on the model of Cadiz, like a mini-Havana.

But like everything about New Orleans, is a layering of clashing histories like a Napoleon (still served fresh at the "Croissant d'Or" cafe on Ursulines Street). And I find two new cliches rush to complicate its jelling reputation: vampires and writers. Anne Rice bought mansions in New Orleans from the riches the Vampire Lestat brought her, and her presence drew the Vampire wing of the Goth-tide to her Halloween Balls and to a revived Mardi Gras season. Mardi Gras itself, a proven revel that outranks Venice and draws level with Rio de Janeiro, colored deep red with vampire blood.

Every time I walk out my door I am blocked by mobs of tourists on vampire-tours led by awful unlicensed tour guides who sometimes come to blows with each other when their rival crowds intersect.

Writers drawn to the mystique of other writers who had lived on the ill-lit streets of the Vieux Carre, flock to New Orleans; the annual William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams festivals swell phenomenally year after year. And poetry venues like the Gold Mine Saloon are premier stages for young dreamers. Now I am in my element.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is being filmed on the streets during our visit.

The two steady charms of New Orleans are music and food. From the jazz to the latest indie combination bands of R&B and nouvelle retro explode with energy; Jazz Fest packs more great music than any other city in the world. We stroll into an intimate club, Snug Harbor where we listen to a blues band then head over to the Spotted Cat, a rustic club, the place is packed with memorabilia and upbeat people. So we make our way in and finagle some ringside seats, a rattan settee near the front front window while I people watch. Musicians jam while my husband, also a musician is intent on watching, eyes are fixed. At the end of a number the bass player, a robust guy with gray slicked back hair, dressed in black pants and a black turtleneck, moves between the parting crowd with supreme confidence walks up to Steven shakes his hand and says, “I love you man”.

The bartender slung a towel over his shoulder, and calls out.
"Hey Joey, where ya been?"
"Oh hey good ta see ya Max. Me and Sheri jess got back from Arizona. We wuz at dis place northa Phoenix. Some place called Zedona. It's got dem rocks an shit. And got lottsa dem new age types runnin around all in dem vortexes."
"No kiddin'. So ya hadda good time?"
"Yeah, was allright. Played some golf, drove around some and bought some stuff. So listen, gimme a Johnny Walker Black onna rocks, ana Chardonnays fur my frenz, will ya"? He pulled out a fold of bills and dealt Max a twenty.
"Sure ting, boss."

We thank Max and later when we leave walking down the street a woman standing along the curbside gently pulls me into a club placing a washboard over my head handing me a pair of thimbles. A Zydeco band behind me plays Cajun music but to my ears its a mixture of two steps, reggae and rock n roll while I jam with them. Laissez les bon temps rouler. Let the good times roll!

Our next and final stop, is the rustic and candle-lite Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, an atmospheric piano bar, it's crumbling plaster makes it appealing and kitsch, and it's the oldest bar in the U.S.

The powers that be in New Orleans are full time and are in business- a city known for jazz and voodoo, and the fading glory of Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and of bohemian pleasure done Southern style.

The next morning after a visit to Cafe du Monde to savor the world famous beignets, a fried doughnut sprinkled with powered sugar we pack a few things for a day-trip in our rented car that we did not need in the French Quarter. We take sight of the huge engineering failure known as Katrina that let in the waters of Lake Pontchartrain and drowned a myth, bringing to the surface instead the rank poverty and misery of a huge city that tourists never knew, a city ten times the size of the mythical burg carefully crafted out of travel guides. The sobering glimpse of the formidable challenges the city faces with debris, destruction, boarded up houses, potholes, malfunctioning street signals, is a visit to a third world country, right smack in the United States.

Another twenty miles and a drive through the suburbs where all is quiet with private schools and SUV's and zoning patterns clearly laid out by the signs of stillness. Spanish moss stands on either side of the Destrehan plantation done in a simple West Indies style built in 1787 by a free man of color. This discovery coincides with the book I'm reading, The Known World by Edward P. Jones that takes an unflinching look at slavery with all its moral complexities. A costumed guide leads us through the tour where we discover tea was kept under lock and key.

By evening, we find young chefs make hip new restaurants by re- and de-constructing Creole cooking, and ever-roving gourmands in search of new tastes descend rapaciously on New Orleans. A gastronomical lover of seafood, I sample etouffee, a spicy Cajun stew of vegetables and seafood, it's served room temperature. The tastes of most foods would read like a scroll, the ethnic diversity makes me glad I came hungry. It could make a food lover adopt the city as a new home.

As we leave the city we pass old cemeteries, and I reflect that I'd like to be buried here. I love the fancy dress and my eyes like a four year-old light-up to the sparkle. Sensory expression is everywhere. The city is alluring, funky and artsy. Not a typical southern city, it honors its European heritage. Then I'm reminded of a song that plays in my head used in funeral marches. The joie de vivre is so contagious where a spirit lives on.

Fortresses and Castles that time forgot

The minute I step off the train, I hear a saxophone coming from a street musician. Lisbon breezes reminds me of San Francisco, but it is prettier, all the narrow streets where worn flights of steps carry one from one level to another beside the clear blue ocean.

Checking-in at the 18th century hostel with old lamps hanging on each side of the portico, I walk in onto slick marble floors the large reception area looks sterile, the smell of pine cleaner pricks my nose. A crowd gathers at the reception desk discussing the sites. A German woman looks at my embroidered blouse and assumes I am Portuguese asking me where one can get traditional craftwork. “It’s store bought, and I have no idea where you can buy anything embroidered in Lisbon, but I can share a fact or two about the city, if you’d like.

“Naturally”.

“The city is built on seven hills overlooking the River Tagus so it has many faces. It has leafy avenues, and narrow streets.

The Portuguese claim to have as many fish off their coast as there are days on the calendar. And there is Fado music- which lies at the heart of the Portuguese soul”.

It is as if my last statement wins over the entire group, the young woman extends her hand, and says, “I’m Renate”. After handshakes someone says, “Let’s go eat” and I am invited, the sextuplet of this merry group.

We have a seafood lunch in a turquoise painted inexpensive restaurant situated at the top steep streets in the Barrio Alto, people stand both at the bar and at the door waiting for a table. The interior contains rustic artifacts and lots of original art and photographs. The menu offers several preparations of codfish, including one that becomes a favorite, bacalhau, a fried codfish with port wine and cognac.

After lunch we discover the city’s rich architecture; Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque, Modern and Post Modern. By evening, we head back to the Bairro Alto.

The Barrio Alto is a place where children play, and many shop the boutiques by day, but at night, it becomes a trendy place to people watch and meet friends. As we sit down in what appears to be a club, actually is a Fado house, a 17th vaulted cellar of a house that survived the earthquake, I take a load off my feet. I order soup for dinner and ask the waiter, “What time does the floor show come on”. “Midnight” he responds. “Our curfew is 12:30 says Renate. “So we’ll listen a bit then go”. I begin a conversation with the Swedish man sitting next to me.

A female vocalist comes on with two accompanists, one plays Portuguese guitar the other classical guitar. She sings a song about nostalgia;

“Tem este meu coração” … my heart has this …

Dressed all in black with a shawl draped over her shoulders, her voice is melodic but earthy. By 12:10, emotionally tangled into the music, when everyone gets up to leave the Swede and I stay behind.

Ten minutes later, we make our exit grab a cab arriving at the hostel at 12:35 to closed doors.

My fists hammer at the huge double wooden doors but no answer. The Swede tries a couple of rounds. After 30 minutes it’s useless, they have enforced the curfew and are trying to teach us a lesson. I’m fuming beyond mania, in spite I’m going to break a window and cause the biggest raucous ever! I take off my shoe throw it at the second floor window and it is stuck in a tree! Shaking the massive Oak tree nothing moves, “I’ve lost my shoe”! I yell in a panic.

The Swede frustrated “Fine mess you got us into”!

“What are you Laurel talking to Hardy?”

His face is blank.

“Forget it, a cultural remark,” I add. “This is no time to point fingers,” Help” I yell out wanting someone to come unlock the door.

I take off my other shoe use the heel to bang on the door, and the buckle busts.

An hour goes by. “Hey, lets’ both scream Fire”. I suggest.

We try it- not a peep from the other side.

Hearing footsteps from around the corner, I hobble on my broken shoe to the end of the block recognizing a man I saw earlier inside the hostel. “Hey, you over there, stop!”

He walks in my direction.

“We got locked out; can you get us back in”?

He removes his cigarette from between his lips. “I work in the kitchen. I don’t have a key, but if you need a place to sleep, I know a lady with a house on the next street- but she’ll charge you” he says.

My eyelids are so heavy that I will agree to almost anything. “Let’s go” I call and the Swede comes running.

While ascending the flight of stairs, through the skylight I see stains on the steps that feed my imagination—could this be spilled blood of a body that tumbled to its death. A painted lady answers the door, with a red light glowing behind her, “I’m out of here” and speed away.

The Swede follows me, “We could have slept there”.

“Easy for you to say, you’re a man, besides I’m the one who has to think for the both of us”!

His ego now shot, he leaves.

I recall earlier having visually mapped out the area. The Avenida de Libertad is flanked by major hotels. Inside I tell the clerk my story. “You can’t stay here”, he informs me in a bored voice.

Planted in the lobby, my eyes fly from one side of the room to another, as if I’m watching a tennis match, sweat running down my back. A housekeeper pushes a vacuum at my feet; the manager comes over asking me to leave.

A drizzle begins and I haven’t a coat or sweater, and I’m barefoot. I stumble along in a frenzy. A pay phone is close by, I call the American Embassy, and an answering machine goes on with no way to communicate an emergency! I slam the phone down pick it up and slam it again, as hard as I can, vibrating the glass partition. Through the glass, I see my reflection and laugh at my appearance in disbelief.

A police officer walks by, maybe he has a suggestion.

“I get off at 4; want to go for a drink”?

My face flushes from his indignation, “what’s your name”?

“Viera”.

Rummaging through my tote, I locate a pen and scribble it on the back of a receipt. “Give me your badge number”!

He casually flicks his ID with name and number hidden from sight beneath his right lapel.

“You’ll hear from me again” I warn. Storming off, my ferocity melts into a weep, smelling like a wet cat from dripping hair mousse, running mascara, clutching onto one broken shoe like a pathetic lost creature.

I dare not leave this main boulevard because there are too many dwindling streets that become alleyways. No one can ever claim that getting around Lisbon is easy but it is now 4 a.m., hearing a disco beat- I follow the sound.

The bald bouncer in a cream-colored suit says, “Miss, there’s a dress code here”.

Thinking that nothing is more troublesome than a woman with the temper of a wild cat, “My husband is in there. If you let me in, I’ll find him and we’ll leave. If not, I’m making a scene”.

He unties the cord for my passage.

Seated in a booth in a room of thick smoke, two nights with little sleep, a ten-hour train ride from Madrid to Lisbon and a full day of walking up and down hills, nothing can be more enticing than sleep! I close my eyes and feel I am being watched. Three men surround me, with offers, “Cigarette”, “Drink”, and “Dance”?

I don’t know who to hit first.

The bouncer comes by and asks me to leave.

An idea strikes me- I’ll find a policeman and ask him for directions to the police station.

Ironically, I see the same policeman as before, he rattles an apology, but I am in no mood for decorum, “Take me to the station,” I order.

At the small reception area of the police station, my companions are the city drunk who sleeps on the only seat in the room, a wooden bench and a lady of the night clad in a bright purple mini skirt with red platform high heels, chewing bubble gum she talks to the Captain behind the desk while his wickedly cackles in intervals.

I make myself cozy on the floor.

Twenty minutes later, the Swede sheepishly comes in also to use the station as his haven. He gives me a half smile.

“Come on, sit behind me” back to back we get some shut-eye.

A couple of hours later, the police officer offers to take both of us to breakfast.

“No thank you, but can point me in the direction of a shoe store”?