Ralph had invited Amy to meet his mother.
No, that wasn’t exactly what he had
said. He actually had invited her
to celebrate St. Joseph’s Day at his mother’s home.
Well, “home” wasn’t exactly correct either,
since she was living in the FEMA trailer parked in the driveway of her
still-soaked home.
In any event, she
was going to Ralph’s mother’s home, and the day of that meeting was St. Joseph’s
Day.
Amy had never been to a St. Joseph’s altar,
having been raised in the French and Spanish traditions that included
banana-leaf-wrapped tamales on Christmas Eve. The St. Joseph’s altar was brought to New Orleans in the 1880’s by the Sicilians who
came over in boatloads to the Crescent City. No longer celebrated in Italy, New Orleanians still hung on
to this feast, yet another excuse to party and eat with the Pope’s permission. Every March 19, Italian families and
catholic churches all over the greater New Orleans area set up altars to St.
Joseph. Legend has it that a sever draught in Sicily had threatened that year’s
crop, so the Italians promised St. Joseph that if he intervened and brought
rain, they would honor him each year in perpetuity. I’m guessing that St. Joseph was tired of being upstaged by
Mary and this he saw this as his chance to do something that might overshadow
even a virgin birth. So he sent the rain. And now New Orleans has its St. Joseph’s
Altars.
Somehow St. Lucy got mixed into the
equation. She was the Patron Saint
of Eyes, or the blind. So on St.
Joseph’s Day Italians remember St. Joseph for rain and St. Lucy for eyes.
Not that anyone was wishing to see more rain
in New Orleans.
Seven months after Katrina and New Orleans
still smelled like a dirty, wet, mildewed rag.
Amy was looking forward to participating in
her first St. Joseph’s altar. She
tried not to think about meeting the Mother. Or what it might mean for Ralph that she was meeting his
mother. She remembered watching
the movie Three Coins in a Fountain
with her grandmother. An odd movie.
Three women who could thought of marriage as the only path to true
happiness and true self-worth.
There didn’t appear to be any other viable options. Amy marveled that here they were, secretaries in Italy, living
in what looked like a villa with servants. And that was not enough. One of these three women pursued one of the bachelors she had
met, pretending to like what he liked, when she actually didn’t like any of
those things, like opera or osso bucco.
She was intent on trapping him.
It worked because he invited her to meet his mother, something, she was
told by one of the other secretaries, was the first step toward marriage in
Italy.
Amy was praying that Ralph hadn’t seen this
movie or held the same cultural assumptions of the Italian’s of the late 1950’s.
She really and truly was not ready. She had an identity that needed some
attention first, an identity shattered since Katrina and, like New Orleans, it
needed shoring up and a comprehensive renewal and development plan.
They headed towards Mid City where Ralph’s
mother lived. Amy was still not
used to the sight of the battered city. Usually by mid March, the azaleas are
in full bloom everywhere, the wild
irises are popping up along the ponds and stream in City Park and Bayou St.
John. But this March, all Amy saw was mud with some tufts of odd looking weeds
pushing up through the cracks in the sidewalk. The storm had even wiped out the
ubiquitous and resilient St. Augustine grass. The azaleas and St. Augustine
grass had all died, no longer shaded by the trees because the trees were no
longer there. Dead as well, killed by the water.
By the time they drove up to Ralph’s family
home, the front yard was filled with about 100 people spilling into the streets
and neighboring yards. From what she could tell, Mrs. Adamo and one other
person had a FEMA trailer on this block.
The rest of the homes appeared to still be uninhabited.
Amy looked over at Ralph whose eyes were
glued to the street (he was probably saying a silent prayer to St. Lucy), a street
that looked more like a bombed road in Iraq. If the potholes didn’t blow out a tire, the jagged edges of
uprooted concrete would. Ralph was 100% Italian. Dark, think wavy
hair, a perennial stubble of beard, green eyes and a classic Roman nose. He had dark circles under his eyes no
matter how much sleep he had. He
always wore a pen clipped to the collar of his shirt, the every-ready author
and journalist.
She could tell as soon as they got out the
car that the guests at the St. Joseph’s Day altar were beginning to have
breakdowns.
Before Katrina, New Orleanians were inclined
to have breakdowns usually at parties.
Not subtle, hide-in-the-power-room type breakdowns, but large,
theatrical, operatic, streetcar-named-desire breakdowns. Since Katrina, these became even more
histrionic, if that were even possible.
Since Katrina breakdowns could take place anywhere, like a drive-by
shootings.
One the porch of the boarded up home was an
elegant but older woman who was having a breakdown. Amy assessed she was having
a Blanche-style breakdown. The
elegant but older lady was dressed in a soft beige linen dress, standing on the
porch in the shade, shielding her eyes with her pale, fragile freckled hand
that was holding up a chunk of diamond which, if the afternoon sun hit it just
right, might have blinded one of the many boisterous children, all having their
own pre-adult breakdowns, blinded them in spite of St. Lucy and her lucky beans
on the altar. It was as if Blanche
were having a breakdown because the sun did not have a the proper shade placed over it to soften its
unforgiving brightness on her fragile white hand.
She was shouting, “Bruno, come here dammit. I
need you” punctuating each syllable with the empty martini glass in her left
hand. Bruno, wherever he was, was
not answering. In fact, no one was. In spite of the din of the boisterous
children and the chatter of the adults, no one was answering.
Just at that moment, in the distance, as if
walking right out of the sun’s center, five Mardi Gras Indians appeared from
behind the funeral home. Amy
squinted behind her sun glasses and blinked a few times. All the debris and
decay dissolved into her peripheral vision.
“Come meet ma mama, “ said Ralph. Amy’s eyes flapped open like a sprung
window shade.
“Bruno come here goddammit.”
Amy could hear Blanche’s voice like a refrain
to the beating drums of the approaching Mardi Gras Indians. Their red and yellow and green
brilliance from their feathered dress was blinding.
Ralph grabbed Amy’s hand. It got lost in his large grip. He guided her towards the FEMA trailer
and up the hastily constructed wooden steps, constructed helter-skelter, the
railings just slightly too long and stairs just slightly too narrow. Standing
on the stairs with her back to Ralph and Amy was a small woman with dark curly
hair. The grey roots were just beginning to show. She had on a loose pair of
neatly pressed jeans and a white linen top. As they approached, the small dark woman leaned forward and
said, “Bruno, go take care of your wife. She’s having one of her spells again.”
If you aren’t having a breakdown in New
Orleans, you are probably having a spell. A spell is the first step before the
breakdown, kind of like meeting your boyfriend’s mother is a first step before
marriage.
The man, Bruno, turned around. He was a graceful man. Tall, 60-ish,
silver white hair and tan, leathery skin.
He wore a pair of khaki pants and a pink golfing shirt.
Men in New Orleans wear pink with
abandon. It’s an endearing quality
that flies in the face of their otherwise machismo attitudes. Machismo probably isn’t the right word.
New Orleans men were a blend of the Old World and New World, but mostly of the
old World. These men still whistle
at women on the streets, even in the 21st century. More than once, Amy had heard a man on
the street almost sing these words to her
as he approached and passed her, “Hey, sugar, looking good today!”. If
she dared to meet the admirer’s eyes, he’d inevitably wink and smile in a way
that made it impossible for her to be indignant.
Bruno
was holding a half full martini glass in his hand. As he turned toward the short dark
woman, he squinted into the sun, put his hand over his eyes, took a sip of his
drink sighed and then handed her the glass in what seemed like a dance he had
done many times before.
I’ve got a Big Chief, Big Chief, Big Chief of
the Nation
Wild, wild creation
He won’t bow down, down on the ground
Oh how I love to hear him call Indian Red
When I throw my net in the river
I will take only what I need
Just enough for me and my lover
.
“Bruno, come here, goddammit!”
Amy’s ears filled with the music of the Mardi
Gras Indians and Blanche’s song from the porch.
Blanche was actually already well beyond the
spell and well into the breakdown.
Bruno would have known this had he walked
around the FEMA trailor and onto the porch where Blanche stood.
She was
holding onto the crumbly porch railing as if she were on a board tossed
about on the open sea. She closed
her eyes. The music of the Indians
began to soak into her sea-sick thoughts and become one with her
heartbeat. She felt the moving
earth under her feat begin to still.
Suddenly she was sitting in a familiar, run down and battered room,
filled with bleachers which were filled with people. They were all watching a group of musicians as beat up and
battered as the room itself. At
the piano Blanche saw Sweet Emma. On the piano sat her ubiquitous red purse and
on her head perched her ubiquitous blue hat. She was singing:
I’m alone because I love you
I love you with all my heart.
She was sitting in her wheelchair, playing
with her one good hand.
The clarinets and trombones began to weave
their notes inside and outside and on top each other.
All the sunshine has toined to rain.
Blanche opened her eyes hoping it wasn’t
raining.
The Mardi Gras Indians were now in front the
house where the St. Joseph’s Altar party was in full swing. While Amy had been watching Blanche
sway back and forth as if in a voodoo trance, Ralph was introducing his mother
to her, the short dark haired woman on the FEMA stairs. At some point, between Blanche’s
reverie and breakdown, and the Amy’s introduction to Mrs. Adamo, a bedraggled
group appeared from one of the houses that seemed to be abandoned, armed with
clarinets, horns and trombones.
They walked behind the Indians.
The drummer beat out three, slow beats.
The horns began to play, “Just a Closer Walk
with Thee.”
Everyone at the St. Joseph’s Altar grew
still. Men with caps removed them. Women made the sign of the cross. Children
found their parents’ hand. Blanche
stopped swaying. Bruno stood next
to Blanche and put his arm around her.
At the moment Amy heard a mockingbird. It was the first bird song she
had heard in seven months.
