There were many firsts with my trip to New Orleans, Louisiana for a journalism conference. I have, like many, ventured into bigger cities before, like Nashville, Cincinnati, places of the sorts.
None of those compare to the city of New Orleans. If you asked me to describe the city in one word, I’d say it was alive. I’d talk about the vibrancy and motion, the constant movement of taxis and trams, of hundreds of people dancing mindlessly in the streets to the sound of hundreds of songs mixed together, of plastic colorful beads being flung from balconies to those below, of fluffy beignets and borderline-unbearably sweet pralines.
But that’s the answer everyone would give if someone mindlessly asked, the indisputable highs. I could describe the highlights for pages, but thousands of blogs and reviews have already said the same things, referenced the popular hotspots, the best hotels and restaurants, the “must-visit” locations littered throughout the city.
There is more to the city than those overtly positive remarks, than the highs.
Beyond the endless streets and flashing signs, a haze fills the air, a mixture of marijuana and discarded trash, of sewage and vomit. Abandoned beer cans and plastic drinking cups lay in the divots between storefronts. Homeless people cuddle themselves atop flattened cardboards stained with unknown liquids as uncaring partygoers dodge them, wearing vibrantly colored Halloween costumes as they rush to Bourbon Street, where loud music and alcohol rules all.
Halloween in New Orleans showcased a distinct version of the city, as everyone fills the streets decked out in revealing costumes and flooded into bar after bar, walking in a direction with no destination. Police barricades kept cars from daring the street, as police sat off to the side, playing chess on a makeshift table to pass the time, uninterested in the normal chaos of partying drunk people, as the night was young and the people were only just beginning their night on Bourbon Street.
Merely walking to one of the many Walgreens located on the corner of busy streets could be dangerous as people banging drumsticks outside the store call you an ‘uptight bitch’ for not giving them a dollar. I was only there to see if this specific Walgreens had acne patches in stock, as the first one we had tried did not. Security guards stand posted outside the store, prepared for someone to snatch a random item and run. Clerks behind the counter stare mindless at you as they process your transaction and refrain from bagging purchased items or providing a receipt. Almost every street has a Walgreens or a CVS, most of which have almost every medical product of value locked behind plastic cases requiring an associate to even get the item.
Graffiti covers random walls and boarded up storefronts that have long since closed. A poster of a young woman is plastered on a handful of walls. A dark cathedral looming over a locked park with tarot card readers with lawn chairs awaiting their next customer, guaranteeing their lineage based status as a fortune teller. A man urging another to sheathe an unseen knife, looking around urgently at nearby tourists as your friend urges us on before something happens. A man attempts to stop his female acquaintance from using her phone, wrapping his arms around her thin body. Taxi drivers coming too close in an attempt to get you to pick them out of the many drivers to take you wherever you need to go.
Have you ever seen a homeless person dig through a blue trash can on the side of a street outside an expensive restaurant, where well-dressed diners sit in a dimly lit dining room, where the light is just bright enough to illuminate the crystal jewelry adjourning their hands, neck and ears? I have.
A older woman made her recipe of pralines in a boutique next to an expensive antique shop with chandeliers worth more than my entire college education and one of many art galleries exhibiting the same type of paintings. We had wandered into the shop to kill time, I had made the unfortunate decision to wear the heels I had packed for sessions, and my feet were beginning to quiver in agony as each step sent sharp pain to my soles. It started to lightly rain, and a man had walked into the shop, a plastic cup in his hands, drunk. After dropping his cup and immediately touching their display of sunglasses, the praline maker rushed from behind the counter, forcing the man out of the shop, threatening to call the police with an elegance that indicated that they had done this routine before. A norm for them.
