⚓Making Groceries at Rouses / July 2022
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Making Groceries
at Rouses Market,
Après nous, le déluge
(After us the flood)
~ Fiction ~
Roman à clef, cher!
by
Leonard Earl Johnson
© 2022, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved
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Silvia and Dillard detrained in Lafayette at the Rosa Parks Transportation Centré after returning from New Orleans and a failed effort to revive the War in Vietnam.
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| Photo credit: Eric Douglas |
The two Red Warriors walked up Jefferson Street to Carpe Diem Gelato and Wine Bar.
There they rendezvoused with L. A. Norma, who has promised to help them make groceries.
Making groceries is New Orleans speak for stocking the kitchen.
The two Red Women are stocking a new kitchen in Lafayette across Rue Saint John from the Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist. Their rooms are airy, clean, and with a fine view of the ancient Live Oak Tree known throughout Louisiana as The Cathedral Oak.
Natures mystic carrousel.
The Cathedral Oak is thought to be over five hundred years old with a trunk that looks to be screwing up from the bowels of The Earth, and limbs flinging love, order, and discipline in a deadhead course straight up
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| The Cathedral Oak |
L. A. Norma calls it "The three Fs of Faith, Force, and Finance." A socioeconomic system nourishing as Cajun gumbo.
Cajun gumbo is a fresh seafood banquet. Lapped up with cornbread often as French bread. And cemented to the Cajun heart with a big scoop of cold potato salad plopped at tableside into the bubbling broth (a curious practice seen as nearly Satanic in New Orleans dining halls).
"But we are not in New Orleans," Norma says, "and we love the creamy cooling mix."
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| Cajun Dome, University of Louisiana at Lafayette |
L. A. Norma adds, "And making money at any cost!"
On the table beside their food trays they fan out black, white, and red stickers alongside a hand lettered sign reading: "Free." Each sticker is a three inch black square holding a white circle inside of which is printed in blood red: Turn Back Voter Turn Out!
Two dark skinned women toting black shopping baskets look at the stickers, then at the Red Women, and then walk away.
A redheaded pizza baker picks up a sticker and slips it into his white cook's jacket then returns to his ovens.
Outside, in the parking lot, a young man with jewels glued to his fisherman's white boots is seen waving his arms. A square white van marked US POSTAL SERVICE stops and gives him a lift to the front door. The postman knows doing so is a violation of postal rules but he reckons since they deliver page-after-pages of Rouses weekly sales ads to every postal address in Louisiana for next to no charge, that this little lagniappe is just a little bit more.
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Sylvia spots his boots and recognizes him as the young fisherman-poet from their bus ride to New Orleans. His name is Baltazar Boudreaux. He thanks the Postman for the lift and walks into Rouses and over to the Red Women's table. "I see you got back here good," he says, picking up a sticker.
They tell him of their new apartment near The Cathedral Oak, and their plans to join the Cathedral congregation.
L. A. Norma explains she has brought them grocery shopping and will give them all a ride back, if he needs a lift.
In fact, he says, he does. He is on his way to see the Cathedral's Rector. To show him an artifact commemorating the murder of John F. Kennedy fifty-nine years ago this November, in Dallas. He shows them a little porcelain rocking chair with the monogram, JFK, in gold glitter. It sits empty. A what-not-shelf keepsake from 1963. Baltazar wants to sell it. The Rector is interested, he is in need of a gift for the Bishop's birthday. www.LEJ.WORLD✍~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~
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| Photograph © Leonard Earl Johnson |
 If you wish to read any month's column go to www.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. © 2022, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved |
posted by LEJ's Louisiana | 4:52 AM
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