Meeting Locals in New Orleans
I've never met a stranger, and I'm so glad.
While I had a laughably, distressingly small budget for last week’s New Orleans trip, I wasn’t relegated to my room to do nothing. This wasn’t the trip for dining at Commander’s Palace, Cure, and Sucré, but that was fine since there’s no lack of excellent cheap food and activities in New Orleans. What’s even more plentiful are interesting people who are open, friendly, and ready to talk.
The local NPR operations director: I arrived at Royal Street Inn early Monday evening while it was still light outside. Having driven from Jackson, Mississippi directly to my favorite New Orleans tattoo shop, I spent a few hours with Joel as he made the latest edition to the world’s dumbest tramp stamp (more on that eventually). And since I was dumb and hadn't eaten enough pre-inking, I went straight to Port of Call for a burger and baked potato because I was getting queasy from heat, hunger, and getting stabbed a bunch of times. Finally, I headed around the corner to check in, have a nightcap at R Bar, and call it an early night.
I settled in with the frozen pineapple mojito I’d been thinking about all day and got engrossed in the B-movie playing on the TV when a man took the barstool to my left. He set a paper bag on the bar. Keeping my eyes on the slasher film, I caught a whiff of briny low tide as he unpacked dinner from the sushi bar down the block.
Oh no.
For many reasons unrelated to but activated by the tuna rolls, my pre-dinner queasiness roared back to life under the weight of my dinner and too much coffee. Maybe more of my cocktail would help …? Nope. That just added brain freeze.
The man, younger than me with curls and glasses, apologized as he finished the sushi and pulled out a fragrant bowl of ramen that made my ick disappear.
And that’s how we and I started talking. He had stopped by for the Monday night special: a beer, shot, and a haircut for $20.
We continued talking while he waited his turn in the red leather barber chair, not really getting past the first question: What do you do? I talked about writing and my Woody Guthrie project. He’s the operations director for the New Orleans NPR affiliate and has degrees in American history with a concentration on the 1920s. So much overlap in interests! You know I love any conversation that might turn to the Dust Bowl. (This isn’t sarcasm.)
Here’s where I have to watch myself. I was born talkative, and the older I get, the more self-conscious I’ve become about this. Dominating conversations, talking someone’s ear off, going on at length—I live in fear of doing these things. Being nicknamed “Motor Mouth” as a kid sent a strong message.
When the conversation turned to journalism, he asked me who my favorite interview was (Wanda Jackson, of course).
That’s when he said something that made me question everything about myself:
“I can tell you’re a good interviewer. You let people talk.”
And that made my whole night, this validation from a stranger who, after an hour or so of conversation, dispelled something negative I’ve believed about myself for most of my life.
It was his turn in the barber chair, and I’d finished my cocktail which was going straight to the back of my head to the migraine spot. Someone—I don’t know who—paid for my drink, so I tipped the bartender extra and went to bed with a warm glow.
Amzie: I slept in the next morning and awoke to no trace of a migraine on a gloriously perfect blue sky day in New Orleans. Eighty-five degrees with almost 70 percent humidity is unacceptable anywhere else, but last week in New Orleans, it was heaven. I threw on a spaghetti-strap sundress and headed to Ayu Bakehouse on Frenchmen Street, home to the best cluster of jazz clubs just about anywhere. At lunchtime the street’s packed with beer trucks making their deliveries.
Ayu’s about a block past the clubs, where Frenchmen turns quietly residential. A small park with sprawling live oaks buffers the two worlds.
Two men lunched at a sidewalk table, one wearing a top hat and holding a long walking stick with a well-worn human skull on top. My gut wanted to stop and find out more about this man, but that would be rude.
I took a sidewalk table on the other side of the corner building from the men to eat my sandwich and pastry, slowly sipping my latte as I watched other diners and delivery drivers come and go. My cup was almost empty when the man with the hat and skull rounded the corner in front of me.
It was out of my mouth before I could stop it: “Hey! Can I take a photo of you?”
He looked me up and down twice, eyes landing on my left arm. “Only if I can get a picture of you and those tattoos!”
How about we take one together?
Okay, so I didn’t get much of my tattooed arm in the shot, but he still asked me to text the photo to him. And then we stated talking. He’d just had lunch with his son he hadn’t seen in almost 40 years, and he bubbled with excitement about the grandchildren and great-grandchildren he didn’t know he had an hour earlier.
He had a vested interest in my arm—a retired tattoo artist, many New Orleans tattoo shop owners apprenticed under him. These days he paints wildly colorful canvases of neighborhood scenes, and shares his time with a Cajun swamp witch who met his spirit before she met him in person. That happened years after the spiritual meeting, when he opened his door to find her laid out on his stoop with her band of swamp witch friends gathered behind her.
“You’ve seen my mural on Frenchmen, right?”
I have now.
Within minutes of posting my photos on Instagram, Joel commented, “Ah, you met Amzie.” I sure did!
A curly-haired toddler: I spent an afternoon in City Park, a wonderland of Spanish moss-draped live oaks that have withstood hundreds of years of hurricanes and assorted unrest among the sculptures and ponds. There’s a Café du Monde outpost in the middle, which I prefer over the tourist-crowded flagship in the French Quarter. I was thrilled to spend a day snacking on beignets, sipping a café au lait, and being kept company by Patti Smith’s recent memoir.
Shortly after I settled in, I heard the elephant stampede-style pitter-patter of little feet. I turned to see a curly-headed little girl of two or three years old standing a foot or so behind me. Her mouth hung open and she stared at me, unblinking, eyes sparkling. She didn’t have an adult. At least not one who was immediately obvious.
I started looking around us as an older man rushed out of the building towards us. “She, uh, she loves pink,” was all he said.
Oh yeah, I forgot. I have shockingly pink hair right now.
The girl still hadn’t looked away or made a sound or closed her little mouth.
Grandma quickly followed Grandpa, spotted us and said, “Oh. She loves pink.”
The sweet, silent bebe was still staring as they tugged her away.
Later it occurred to me that this might have been a pink-loving little girl’s first encounter with pink hair, and she was marveling at the new possibilities of who she can be and what she can do.
And there is no better place to learn such lessons than New Orleans. At three or 53. My broke-ass trip was full of real, human encounters that reminded me who the fuck I am, who I am not, and who I can be—my weird little chatty self. The world might be ending, but it’s still wide-open, sweet as cotton candy, and ready for who we are. Not what we can buy.
Want to help my broke ass out? I’d be ever so appreciative if you’d buy me a coffee or subscribe to 6 Days on the Road! Thanks!
Sweet as cotton candy is spot on—this post was a damn delight! 🩷
I've also interviewed Wanda Jackson! In 2017 for a local free weekly paper The Tulsa Voice (RIP) and she is a lovely human being.
Also Patti Smith books are great travel reading. I read Just Kids on a solo trip to Portland and loved it. My takeaway from that book was that everyone always thinks they just missed the best time ever, not realizing that they are having the best time right then.
What a great trip to a great place!