The Wake

Last week, in comments reported by the Associated Press, former first lady Barbara Bush suggested that low-income refugees housed in temporary shelters had it better there than they did before devastation visited New Orleans in the form of a hurricane.

I was in New Orleans about a week before the storm hit, and at that time it seemed to me that little had changed since I lived there about four years ago. At one point, I rented a house in the ninth ward, one of the cityís poorest neighborhoods, the neighborhood where both Master P and Juvenile grew up. It wasnít the friendliest of íhoods, to say the least.

The cops knocked on my door one night and asked me about a car that was ditched in my front yard. It had been reported stolen. Later that evening, before the tow truck had time to pick up the car, I heard a loud shattering of glass out in front of the house. I peered out the window: a man had broken into the car and was apparently trying to steal it for a second time that day. It sounded like the engine refused to turn over for him. The car remained in my front yard for about a week.

Still, while I lived in that neighborhood I was never truly afraid for my personal safety, my plumbing worked, I had enough to eat. A dead car left in front of oneís house is a nuisance. A dead body is something entirely different.