picture truths: March 2010

Nickabob in the Jungle

This is his world:
the Jungle.
Lights flashing
noise and confusion
people are shooting at you.

Nickabob rules in this world.

He can drive the streets of Kyoto,
tearing into temples
and lampposts
and people.

He can dance
and stomp
and throw things.
Would that all of life could be this way...
but no.

The Arcade

The Furniture Store

Down on St. Claude and Franklin, in the upper 9th ward of New Orleans, there is a bespoke furniture store that sells handmade room sets in the Louis XV and XVI styles. This is an old, old store. It is by appointment only that one can browse furniture that invites ghosts of a different era who knock about the show room. No live person is ever seen inside. Who buys these curiosities is a looming question in the neighborhood. These pristine sofas and double-wide mirrors need big, big rooms...not the narrow ones in the shotguns and doubles that make up the majority of the houses in the Marigny/Bywater. Perhaps kings come from Europe. Perhaps Yankees from New York or Connecticut or Maine.

Across the street is where the locals shop. There you can layaway a mattress or a toaster oven or any number of useful items. The customer is always king, and there is activity and conversation and gossip. After shopping, you can satiate your hunger with a McFish or an ice cream or sip a coffee off the dollar menu. Most people go for the 52" plasma screen that is always broadcasting CNN. It is a good place for political debate and to see the nice looking boys in their low swung trousers...their backsides swathed in colorful under garments.

Destiny and Pepper

Destiny imagines herself in a Mad Max film...
or that one about the boy and his dog.
Only, she and Pepper are both girls.

"Walking on the slabs," she says...
"where the hospital used to be...
"I can feel the end of the world."
"Not the brutality," she says,
"but the loneliness."

Pepper catches the scent
of a dog that was left behind.
She can smell them everywhere...
The ghosts of her kind.

In the back of her throat,
she tastes the end of the world.
Not the brutality.
But the loneliness.

Mrs. Carmella Prays a lot

TV

MS. CARMELLA

I pray for Daniel, Derek, Michelle, Gerard, Nickolas. I pray for all my friends, and my neighbors. Health, wealth, happiness and peace...perpetual light shine on them...world wide.

Destiny pours two glasses of iced tea.
DESTINY
What does that mean?

MS. CARMELLA
That way nobody gets left out. Everybody gets included because if I meet one of my friends, I say "Now, I did pray for you this morning." I don't wanna leave anyone out.

DESTINY
That's a good way to do it.

MS. CARMELLA
I know.

DESTINY
Who else?

MRS. CARMELLA
I pray for all those at the corner: Kurt and Laura. Joshua and Matthew... That's the children. Even the colored ones that moved right next door to her. I pray for them. I don't know they names now, but I pray for them too. I tell you, they been behaivin' themselves since they moved in this neighborhood. Because if they don't they know we'll get the police on them. But they been good. I'm proud of them. I really am.