tales of nola

This summer, I went with Terra and one of her friends to the New Orleans Public Library. Its right on St. Charles. It never seems to be open, but we went this once to see the inside. Of course when we got there, it was closed. It was raining. Walking around the building, we circled all the way back around to the front veranda.

And out of the rain was a homeless-looking man laying down on the tile. Terra's friend asked him first if he was okay. Terra's friend was the saddest sort who was always extremely shy-- the sort of guy who always thought he was being an idiot.

The homeless-looking man asked for us to call an ambulance, so we did. But we didn't know what else to do, but stay there until it arrived. And the man started crying about missing his wife, who had died. And Terra's friend told the man that one of his best friends died a couple years ago. Which made me and Terra feel additionally sad and uncomfortable. And again not knowing what to do, Terra read a poem out loud from her book of poems. And the homeless-looking guy yelled out what was surely the truth, "What the fuck are you doing I am dying over here!"

The weird thing is, I was relieved at the time that I, for once, wasn't the one doing the completely wrong thing.