⚓ Bottom Road to Baton Rouge / Sept 2021
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Bottom Road to Baton Rouge
~ Fiction ~
Roman à clef, cher!
BY Leonard Earl Johnson
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| Clock Tower, Rosa Parks Transportation Centre' Lafayette Louisiana |
The clock tower is charming. Part Walt Disney dreamy, part French modern. It oversees the parking lot ~ keeping track of time for travelers too hurried to keep it for themselves.
The two finished their Espresso Rosemary and walked over to the Greyhound loading platform.
Their first stop was twenty minutes after departure. Then again in a half hour. They were told to get off at the second stop and board another bus. "For all passengers going to Baton Rouge," the driver said.
Dillard looked at her ticket. Then at Sylvia's. "We are going down along the old Bottom Road?" she asked of no one in particular. A young man carrying a black and white chapbook and wearing white fisherman's boots with plastic colored jewels glued to their tops said, "Yes."
Eyes heavily lidded, the Louisiana fisherman, poet, travel-advisor turned his shoulder enough to let a shaft of light through the bus window and strike a large yellow jewel on his boot.
Dillard's question had been rhetorical but she thanked him anyway. He nodded and returned to the arms of Morpheus. The yellow light splattered around his face, and the empty seat by his side.
Dillard and Sylvia moved down the aisle and down the bus steps. The driver explained they had taken the local, "The one making multiple stops and arriving in Baton Rouge after sunset."
"But that's after the Governor's funeral!" Sylvia said. Dillard glared at her.
For no reason either woman could explain Dillard was the leader of their little expedition, cast off as it was from a trainload of Red Women Warriors for The Donald crisscrossing Louisiana.
She thanked the driver and gave him a sticker that read, Turn Back Voter Turnout. He looked at it before dropping it in the waste can.
The two bought new tickets straight into New Orleans. "We will arrive there in time for Louis Sahuc's living wake second line," Dillard said.
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| Louis Sahuc New Orleans Photographer |
Louis Sahuc, 1942~2021
In his Lower Pontalba apartment above Photo Works, his shop and studio on Jackson Square, Louis Sahuc lay in hospice care. Friends gathered beneath his balcony with traditional Louisiana bravado and musical instruments. He did not rise to wave them a final farewell from his balcony ~ as some had hoped ~ but we learned later that he did expire the next morning just before Sunrise.
💜 💚💛
Sylvia set to hanging a banner between the balcony pillars facing Decatur Street. The second line band, To Be Continued, played The Saints Marching In, while the celebrants waved their white handkerchiefs.
Sylvia's banner read:
Peace is the Reason for Bad Wars.
🠇 🠇 🠗
Two Vietnamese creole youths on skateboards swept down the sidewalk past Saint Louis Cathedral, rounded the corner by the Lower Pontalba, and took out the banner.
They surged across Decatur Street and up the Battery ramp to The River. At the bottom of the Moonwalk Steps they set the banner ablaze. Sparks fluttered over the gray rickrack ~ as the muddy Mississippi passed by.
👒
Sylvia and Dillard left in disgust. Their pamphlets to revive the War in Vietnam blew across Jackson Square, and gathered at the statue of Andrew Jackson. The two walked up Rue Chartres their red rubber shoes squishing on the hot pavement. At The Wrinkle Room they pushed open the door, and got very drunk. ~ www.LEJ.WORLD ✍
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| Leonard Earl Johnson, www.LEJ.org ✍ |
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| Photograph © Leonard Earl Johnson |
Subscribe@LEJ.world  They are posted on the first of each month and polished for the next few years. ~ ~ ~ LEJ's Louisiana, Yours Truly in a Swamp is a monthly e-column @ www.LEJ.world Hosted by GOOGLE BLOGGER, and historically at Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans publication of the It is written by Leonard Earl Johnson of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana © 2021, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved |
posted by LEJ's Louisiana | 4:41 AM
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