Not too very long ago, before the storm of a lifetime, there was a quaint section of town just beyond the levee, curiously known as Bucktown. It was a unique village within a city, the kind of neighborhood so characteristic of New Orleans.
It was a veritable gumbo of vibrant people and places. Shrimp boats and oyster luggers lined the canal. The docks were strewn with all manner of fishing gear — trawl nets and otter boards, crab traps, wooden crates and hampers, ropes and cables — all the fixtures of a fishing village. Ramshackle shanties built on stilts and clapboard houses with tin roofs fronted the thoroughfare. To one degree or another, these buildings had weathered all previous tropical storms and hurricanes. Like the timeliness of the people living and working there despite adversity, they were still standing, at least until Katrina.
One memorable restaurant and bar perched precariously out over the water was a great place to celebrate the everyday events of life, whether a special anniversary or just the close of a workday, a place to enjoy just being alive. The boiled crabs, raw oysters and fried shrimp were outstanding, the Dixie beer was cold and refreshing, and the people were all “naturally Naw’lins.” It was a place where customers did not seem to mind the occasional smell of not-so-fresh shrimp hulls and crab shells emanating from the nearby dumpsters, or that sometimes a misguided cockroach would scurry along the peeling wallpaper.
There were always characters hanging out there at the bar, characters like Shake-‘n'-Bake. He blended in with the surroundings, slumped over the bar, drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette. His rummy eyes roamed around the place, taking in the sights, looking for something. With his torn and stained striped T-shirt, he looked like he had just gotten off a workboat. His wrinkled skin was the color of beef jerky, but what you remembered about ole Shake-‘n'-Bake was that he had the shakes, I mean serious shakes. If he held his beer in one trembling hand, it was all he could do to bring the ever-present unfiltered Lucky Strike to his lips. His eyes watered and he squinted as the cloud of smoke enveloped his face.
Many times, he would tell of when he had been impaled with the barb of a stingaree. He languished for days in pain and agony, often lapsing into unconsciousness. When he finally recovered, he couldn’t stop shaking. Sometimes in his story, he would substitute the serrated bone of a catfish, but the truth was plain and simple, he simply drank too much. As the old folks would call it, an old-fashioned case of the DTs.
The old brick walkway to the lake made for a romantic stroll on a moonlit night. Despite the unseemly reek of day-old seafood in the dumpsters, the trip was a vision of Steinbeck’s Cannery Row with dilapidated, ramshackle fish camps overgrown with all manner of vines and trees stunted with salt spray. There were sounds of rustling in the shrubs, crickets merrily chirping, and the splashing of fish in the waterway. Along most of the way, there was the memorable fragrance of jasmine, sweet olive and an indescribable mixture of tropical exotics.
The walk to the bridge was a walk from reality to fantasy. Even on the hottest summer night, there would be a cool breeze blowing and the gentle lapping of the incoming waves against the pilings. But that brings us back to the present and a reality of life. What seems eternal can be so very transient. As time goes by, the memories become vaguer and more whimsical. Eventually, the memories become dreams and Shake-‘n'-Bake, the old restaurant, the walk to the lake, they all remain alive only in the late-night slumbers of the old folks who remember.
Rogers lives in Metairie.
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