America. Группа авторов
has long white hair, wears a cowboy hat, and has gotten so thin that people don’t recognize him; only a few insiders take their hats off as he walks by, promising to keep his secret. S. says: “This guy is crazy.” I reply: “No. He needs to believe it, that’s all.” And what difference is there, in the end, between people who believe in God and those who are convinced that Elvis isn’t dead?
If you’re not interested in either rock ’n’ roll or keeping life preserved with mothballs, all that is left, here as elsewhere, is baseball and football, two other religions. Every large city we’ve passed through up till now has had its two stadiums (generally enormous outdoor ones, financed by a sponsor), its favorite teams, its mascots, and the games themselves. The number of season-ticket holders equals the number of seats. Tickets are bought for the entire season as soon as they go on sale. In bars, the TVs are automatically tuned to sports channels, and the calendar of games is posted. One way, like any other, to ward off boredom. Or to organize your existence.
The car takes off again toward Alabama. I confess a certain sense of apprehension. First of all, the state remains a symbol of slavery, and also of segregation. I want to believe that the past is dead and buried. The state is also located at the heart of what is known as the Bible Belt, and I am wary of people who are convinced that God rules over everyone. On the road, there is an enormous sign advertising a Christian community with a terrifying message: “Where will you spend eternity: in HEAVEN or HELL? The choice is yours.” But the countryside is absolutely beautiful, with stony mountains, tree-lined plains, and navigable rivers.
Birmingham, where we stop while muggy rain falls on the streets, does not, sadly, have the same charm. It is cradled in a valley where the Appalachian Mountains end and can certainly pride itself on beautiful gardens and old theaters, but it still carries the stigma of the white flight of the 1990s and 2000s due to the decline in industry.
And yet, what seems to concern the population is not that memory, and even less the memory of Martin Luther King Jr., who was imprisoned here in 1963 during the civil rights movement, but the gentrification of the city center. So much so that the candidates in local elections to be held at the end of the month are required to respond to a detailed questionnaire specifically about urban gentrification and to suggest solutions. You have to understand that in Avondale and Lakeview, hundreds of luxury apartments have been built in the past few years—and the rents are now so high that low-income residents are kicked out. The best schools are located in those areas, businesses that sell expensive, high-end products are flourishing there, and trendy places are opening up. Some people are happy about what they are calling a “renaissance”—that will bring the white people back—while others are worried about this new form of segregation. The mayoral candidates themselves go back and forth between contentment and anxiety. The truth is that this kind of impetus can be difficult to contain. It moves forward as part of history. But a city known for its history of poverty and struggle against the separation of populations that finds itself caught up again in this issue cannot fail to ask questions. It seems the issue of money has replaced the issue of race, and sometimes, the two overlap.
Jill, who is renting us her apartment, talks about it ingenuously in other terms: “You absolutely must go to El Barrio on Second Avenue! It’s a bar and restaurant that has a fabulous brunch menu. It’s full every night and perfect for hipsters.” Even if I definitely do not fall into that category, I assume that she automatically put S. in it, given his strange hat and short pants. We take her advice. We meet very few black people and very few poor people at El Barrio.
The journey continues. It takes us to Mississippi. I’ve dreamed about Mississippi for a long time. I think a lot of people dream about Mississippi. It undoubtedly has to do with the name. A name that has immense power to evoke memories. Or perhaps because of the books by Mark Twain (we all know them), in which the Mississippi River played such a memorable role. Now, we must test the fantasy against reality. There are things that live up to expectations: the immense forests of live oak, cedar, and pine trees, deep waters, somber and majestic, steel bridges, a few plantation-style residences with white porticos (even if they do evoke a tragic history). And then there are things that disappoint: shopping centers as you enter the cities, the Confederate flags, conservatism, and poverty.
We stop at Laurel, by chance, because we’re getting tired. Laurel is almost nothing—just a few calm streets, well-kept lawns, a sports field, a café with no one sitting outside—normal life far from the busy din, life as you sometimes want it to be when, caught up in the whirlwind, you yearn for calm, a slower pace. No, Laurel is nothing, and yet we still find something there: the “light in August”—as Faulkner would put it—on the houses with multicolored facades. And that is priceless.
The journey continues, and we find yet another America. The one, for example, where you get change in the service station shops. The one where you wolf down po’boys at KY’s Olde Towne Bicycle Shop in Slidell, on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain, where few tourists have probably ever set foot. There, a father, aged fifty-five, and his son, thirty-five, both wearing green fatigues, meet each other at noon every Saturday, and take off their baseball caps when their order comes so they can say a prayer. (Afterward, what could they talk about? A war that one of them has fought in? One of those wars you wage in the name of a certain idea of Good and Evil?) This America moves around in busted up pickup trucks, on side roads, with a dog in the back whose tongue is hanging out as the hot wind lashes his face. An America concerned about the passing weather or the passing time.
And then we get to New Orleans. I’m happy to be back here, where I’ve been four or five times. I saw the city before Hurricane Katrina. I saw it after the devastation, still gutted. I saw a city lose its population, a city with “a black majority” turn into a “white majority.” I saw houses demolished and houses for sale. Today, the scars of the destruction have disappeared. But what about the memory of the terror? How do you manage to live with the memory of such terror, how? And how do you manage to live with the memory of those who died—nearly two thousand in just a few hours—in this place where people believe in voodoo, in this city that has a Museum of Death?
The city has somehow kept its taste for celebrations, a way to forget, or to bear it. The French Quarter is the best example—or the worst caricature—of this. Here, from early afternoon until late into the night, you see stumbling drunks who look dangerous; and young women in very short mini-skirts that are a little vulgar, who talk loudly while waving around mardi gras necklaces; mediums who cast spells; people who sway to the music and tequila in the stifling heat. At the Corner Pocket, lustful young men dance on the counter, wearing very little clothing, for gentlemen of a certain age who slip money into their white underpants or offer to buy them a drink. In the evening, the streets are full of the smell of pot, and in the early morning, a mixture of vomit and detergent.
A candidate in the upcoming mayoral primary election, bar owner Patrick Van Hoorebeek, even went so far as to adopt the following campaign slogan: “More Wine, Less Crime” (I swear I’m not making this up). Many people use another expression to sum up this state of mind: “Southern decadence.”
To make the folklore complete, jazz musicians play on the sidewalks—but in reality, they are playing only for the tourists, for the few dollars thrown into the hats they have in front of them, set down on the shiny cobblestones. And while the streets have the names of French cities—Toulouse, Orleans, Chartres—it’s been ages since anyone spoke French here. Maybe just a few older people, in the hope of keeping the myth alive.
And yet, the splendor of the place remains: wrought iron balconies with wisteria tumbling down, the beautiful white church in Jackson Square, the riverboats on the Mississippi, and even a tropical storm, whose rare ferocity makes the headlines of the local newspapers—all these things ensure that the legend will survive.
But we grow tired of everything, including the splendor, and finally, one morning, we bolt, with the goal of getting closer to the Gulf of Mexico. Leaving behind the intertwining ramps of the highway, the outlines of the buildings growing fainter and fainter, we head deeper into the country, where the roads are slower, sometimes in a bad state of repair, often surrounded by water. Cyprus trees emerge from the swamps like creatures that are half alive, half dead. Very few people can be seen. We drive alongside a bayou infested with mosquitos