LEJ's Blog: 07/01/2021

About Me

Location: New Orleans, Louisiana, United States

Leonard Earl Johnson (photo credit Frank Parsley) covered Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (2005), and the 2010 British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico for ConsumerAffairs.com. He is a contributor to Gambit Weekly, New Orleans Magazine, SCAT, Baton Rouge Advocate, Advocate Magazine, The Times-Picayune, Country Roads Magazine, Palm Springs Newswire and the anthologies: FRENCH QUARTER FICTION (Light of New Orleans Publishing), LOUISIANA IN WORDS (Pelican Publishing), LIFE IN THE WAKE (NOLAfuges.com), and more. Johnson is a former Merchant Seaman, and columnist at Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans; and African-American Village. Attended Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, and Harry Lundeberg School of Seamanship at Piney Point, Maryland. Winner of the Press Club of New Orleans Award for Excellence, 1991, and given the Key to The City and a Certificate of Appreciation from the New Orleans City Council for a Gambit Weekly story on murder in the French Quarter.

Thursday, July 01, 2021

⚓ The Ladies Wore Red / July 2021

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"No tribe nor nation

ever slaughtered their innocents

without Gott's "OK,"

ceremonially granted by priests

and heralded by the choir."

~ L. A. Norma

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July 2021

⚓

The Ladies Wore Red

~ Fiction ~

Roman à clef, cher!

BY Leonard Earl Johnson

www.LEJ.world ✍

Your comments and corrections

are welcome

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The Lady walked out of the Rosa Parks Transportation Centre women's room leading a dozen or so similarly attired women. All in red. From red rubber shoes to red ribboned hat.

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"We were on the train four hours from New Orleans," the red leader said to L. A. Norma as she pulled a red can of Coke from a machine that looked itself like a giant red can of Coke. The giant red Coke promised that smaller red Cokes inside were made from, "Natural Sugar," as though that would be good for your health and wellbeing.

We are deep in the heart of Louisiana sugarcane country.

Some ladies carried red, white and blue felt pennants attached to red sticks (made in China). All wore sashes proclaiming:

"💓Love America?

Love The Donald!"

"As if that would be good for your health and wellbeing!" L. A. Norma said.

The ladies ~ called Red Women Warriors for The Donald ~ were traveling coastal Louisiana organizing a statewide Zoom-rally for their cause. Streaming July Fourth from Baton Rouge.

"Because the train rocked so, we couldn't use the restroom till now!" one lady told Norma. Her red, white, and blue pennant bobbed as she talked. It read, 'Turn Back Voter Turn Out.'

Rosa Parks / photo credit © Leonard Earl Johnson

Norma handed each of them a card for her fictitious July 14, Biden on Bastille Day

Concert

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Falsely promised on Lafayette's outdoor International Stage, a block from where we were standing at the Rosa Parks Transportation Centre's Amtrak stop.

A bronze statue of Rosa Parks sitting on a bus seat ~ today wearing a blue COVID mask ~ watched. The seat by her side was empty. Tourists sometimes sit there and have their picture taken. None of the red ladies did this. Their leader walked among them and gathered Norma's handouts. Two refused to turn over theirs. They were asked to remove their sashes and signs reading, 'Committee to Revive the War in Vietnam.' Then they were moved to the rear of the group.

They all departed for a late lunch at Dwyers Café on Jefferson Street. Norma lit a Camel and we walked over to Rêve Coffee Roasters on that Great Artway.

Two days later we returned to the Rosa Parks Centre and watched the Red Ladies boarding the train for Lake Charles, Louisiana. ~ www.LEJ.world✍