Louisiana

 The first day of the October 2000 Louisiana Biking Trip began with my swerving to miss a truck that had unceremoniously turned right in front of me and subsequently left me stricken on the side of the gravel road, quite battered from the fall and the heavy bicycle whose spinning wheels now lay on top of me. Our trip sweep (the person at the back of the group) hefted me over to the local ER where I spent the rest of the afternoon listening to people speak and behave in what could only, politely, be called a languid manner. While I waited, I casually looked around the room and noticed that all the instruments were kept in a big red Craftsman box, which did not exactly fill me confidence, then again, neither did the doc who drew the curtain aside. He took one look at my arm and insisted on x-raying my elbow even though I demonstrated that I was able to bend it and move all my fingers. However, he didn’t seem too bothered about the open wound and accompanying blood that was seeping out of my lower arm and dripping all over my now raggedy tee shirt. His distracted manner and irrelevant questioning caused me to consider asking about the correspondence course from which he had received his degree but at that moment Nurse Ratchett entered and began scrubbing the wounded arm with iodine while coldly asking “does this hurt?” In my head, I was punching her lights out and asking “does this hurt?” but she looked like she could take me down with one punch so I kept my aside in my head. The doofus doctor, meantime, stepped away to make a private phone call; problem was that I could hear him on the other side of the curtain saying to whomever: “you gotta come down and see this filly from California”. In the meantime, no one was at all concerned about my scraped legs, which had turned various shades of blue, purple and red and appeared to be more lumpy than they were that morning. I inquired about a possible hematoma, but the good doctor gave it 'no never-mind’. I made a quick and heartfelt bargain with God to get me out of here asap. Miraculously, our trip leader appeared and, thankfully, removed me. By day end, I was back with my tour group, popping ibuprofen like M&Ms and promising God restitution. 

The rest of the trip was equally eventful. We learned, in real time, that there are no leash laws in Louisiana, so dogs can, and do, run wild. We also learned that they especially like chasing after city slickers riding around in fancy bicycles. We gave new meaning to the expression: “ride like the wind”. My favorite traveling companion, Martha, greatly expanded her vocabulary during their pursuit of her legs. Suffice to say that, for an accountant, she could be quite colorful and impressively did not repeat herself for prolonged periods of times. I learned how to kick at cavernous canine maws while pedaling like Dixie, even with my blue-black legs. 

Finally freed from marauding dogs, we stopped to take a breath. Martha insisted on having her picture taken standing beside the Baptist Church of Light sign that was posted below a stop sign, which was liberally shot through with bullets. We concluded that someone wanted that Baptist light to shine through more readily or there was an underlying message from God condoning the right to bear arms. Either way, we noticed that bullet holes were an integral part of the local scenery.

The next day we rested after our previous day’s 25 mile bike ride. Instead, we were treated to an air boat ride through the swamps. The wetlands were redolent with bald cypress and cypress knees; the locals call them Bustillos. As we noisily moved through the waters, the air filled with egrets, pelicans and hawks. The surrounding waters were dotted with snakes and alligators. The guy next to me wasn’t concerned that he was sitting a foot or so away from an alligator. I was nervous but he said he knew the gator wouldn’t touch him. He was an attorney; mumbled something about professional courtesy. Surprisingly, at times the air boat floated on less than six inches of water, not that that gave me comfort since it meant that snakes could slide aboard at will. I was glad to be seated in the middle, between two people, figuring they would be eaten first and, really, I was considered more of a toothpick after a meal.

A couple of days later we left the swamps for Francisville, a delightful Anytown USA, with a wide main street dotted with three arm street lamps, quaint antique shops (new and used antiques) and a couple of excellent restaurants. At the edge of town, a small cemetery sported somewhat dilapidated headstones from the previous century with carved names such as Submit; below her name it read 1834 -1852. Understandable, with a name like that. Another headstone gave a man’s name and under his name the names of four wives; best guess, they had each died in childbirth or he had killed them for putting too much sugar in his morning coffee. Men had more capital leeway in those days. 

We spent a glorious next day ambling through the country side, joking alongside fellow travelers and then racing away to catch up with other members of our troupe. At one point Martha and I rode along a trail that saw a chain gang working in the nearby ditches. Naively, I was hoping for a smiling Paul Newman type but only saw the likes of a dozen growling Ernest Borgnines. Added to that troubling scenario were the two big bellied sheriffs, one on either end of the chain gang (think Burl Ives chewing on a ‘ce-gar’), sitting astride their horses, with a large rifle across their laps. They said nothing when the prisoners leered at us and very graphically expressed their desires regarding our persons. Never mind the ‘failure to communicate’ moment, these guys communicated their intentions loud and clear, inspiring our own Tour de France moment. 

Next stop, Jacksonville; straight out of Deliverance. I couldn’t even find this place on the map and a cursory look around explained why; all the buildings and shops, including the gas station, were shut and boarded up, actual tumbleweed blew across the road. Inexplicably, the antebellum mansion in which we all stayed was absolutely magical. An alternate reality proved to be the maxim here; filled with stately old world antiques, silk covered sofas and damask curtains, thick oriental rugs, deep down sherpa blankets. Wow. Our highly polished mahogany dining table sat below a huge gleaming crystal chandelier that must have weighed more than all of us combined. The table itself was set with Sevres china, Polish crystal and sterling silver (of course Martha and I checked the markings!). Another Wow. What was going on here? I went with Twilight Zone while Martha suggested One Step Beyond. After dinner, it was advised that we forgo an evening stroll and not step outside the mansion after dark. Martha suspected werewolves, I went with vampires, although neither one of us was up to any kind of fact checking. It brought us no comfort that the windows and doors seemed to have no locks, although a little bell tinkled whenever the front door was opened and closed, which continued to leave us wondering: what the heck was this exquisite mansion, its furnishings and accoutrements, all doing here in the middle of nowhere?

The next morning, as usual, we were given our route directions and everyone headed off at their own pace. Martha, though, was curious about the town’s one functioning retail establishment, the local pharmacy across the street from our mansion, that also bragged about its “Bonnie Blue finest local ice cream”. I reminded Martha that we were in the south, with emphasis on ‘the south’ and ought to be off with the rest of the gang and not to go stirrin’ up trouble but when Martha fixed her mind to be doing somethin’, by cracky, she was gonna do it. Nothing for it. I shook my head while we moseyed on over, entered the establishment and I watched while Martha quipped to the young lady about wanting to know more about the local ice cream; where was it made, how long had the brand been around, the usual nonsense, at which the young lady displayed a deep frown and remarked that she had worked there for a number of years but didn’t ‘got no answers’; only that she would have to ask Miss Elly, which silently begged the question: why wasn’t she even curious about the product being sold under her auspices (apparently formal education, or any kind of education, is not a priority in this neck of the woods). So, of course, Martha, who could not let this go, asked to speak to Miss Elly. Miss Elly was as tall as a cypress knee and looked like one; gnarly brown body and hair as white as snow. Her voice and manners, though, were captivating. She gave us each a very generous sample of the ice cream. While we licked and made positive murmuring noises (albeit the ice cream sucked), Martha asked how the pharmacy stayed viable. Miss Elly pointed toward her left and noted that up yonder was the asylum for the criminally insane, then pointed right and told us that the regional old age home was just down the road, then pointed straight ahead and stated that the local state prison was also located “nearby”. Holy freakin’!!!! I gave Martha my best Clint Eastwood evil stink eye. Now was Martha ready to get the hell out of here???? 

We had been traveling, biking and dining for six days and the next morning saw the end of the trip. After our last breakfast together, only Martha and I, and another couple, David and Louise, were heading to New Orleans. The tour company hired a cab to take the four of us in that direction while the other eight members headed to Baton Rouge. Once we were out of town, our driver, Faze, surprised us by lighting up and sharing a fatty with us. After that things got a bit out of hand. Louise, completely wild, was insisting that we do very rude things to passing motorists who, fortunately, were few and far between. Martha was yelling Cajun swear phrases she had recently learned while fighting off feral dogs, while Faze and David led us on several rounds of “Jambalaya Pork Meat Pie” until David fell comatose, but not before he and Faze took a blood oath to get their next tattoos together in New Orleans. I quietly played my Cajun-In-Your-Pocket game until the battery wore out. And then a state sheriff pulled us over. Rolling down the window was a mistake, we realized, when the sheriff waved his hand in front of his face without blinking an eye and slowly shook his head with a ‘we were old enough to know better’ look. Gratefully, we were able to escape what could have been a nasty situation by David regaling the sheriff with a story that we were on our way to a Leaders’ convention. The sheriff laughed; he didn’t believe any of it. He was old enough to have been around the block a few times, but appeared to be open to friendly bantering since we looked like a fairly benign group of bozos. We giggled a lot. He grinned and nodded a lot. Faze beeped his horn impatiently and suggested Louise show him her breasts; we were close enough to New Orleans, but David would have none of that. The sheriff checked his watch. It was nearing his shift end and he looked like he was in no mood for lots of paperwork, which is what our presence at the station would have guaranteed. I recall that tee shirts exchanged hands, maybe another fatty along with them; at least that was how I remembered it. Martha made no loud assertions, for which I was especially grateful because I needed her to share the upcoming expenses in New Orleans and being thrown in jail would not be helpful. The sheriff wished us well, suggesting that we drive to our destination with the windows wide open and expressed a “Laissez les bon temps rouler”.

We arrived in New Orleans only to find that a voodoo convention was going on. The town was packed, not to mention weird, if not batshit crazy, which was in keeping with this entire trip. We shared a large room at the local Omni hotel but soon discovered that one of Martha’s bed legs was broken. She had left a 4:40 am wakeup call to catch her flight the next morning. I, possibly still experiencing the after effects of the ‘vapors’ from our cab ride, knew that she would have no restful sleep so I called the front desk to have someone come by and fix her bed. She demurred, saying she could sleep on it at an angle but I insisted that it needed to be repaired (we also received at 50% discount on the room for our troubles). Of course, everything in the Big Easy moves more slowly than one would expect, so it was after we had fallen asleep that the maintenance crew finally arrived. All four of them took to moving her bed, hammering on the frame and calling on their walkie talkies for new parts, then waiting around while smiling and staring at us in our nighties. Since Martha was getting upset at their slow and gentle ways (sometimes she could be so strict), I donned a robe, went downstairs and procured a double mint julep at the bar which I brought back to our room. We sucked on that for a bit and afterwards, repairs completed, it didn’t matter that Martha would get, at most, two hours’ sleep before leaving town. My flight didn’t leave until mid-afternoon so I was able to help her on her way then went back to my comfy bed for the next eight hours. So ended what was to be our last trip together. 

In the new year, Martha, dear friend and traveling companion, was diagnosed with a debilitating illness, NHL, and passed away a few short years later.