Nearly overnight, our population doubled. In the weeks that followed Katrina, some studies estimated that two hundred thousand additional people were still living in East Baton Rouge Parish alone. Schools overflowed, property values skyrocketed, and restaurants opened like flowers. Many saw this as an opportunity, a chance for Baton Rouge to show the world what it was made of. Our mayor, for example, called the situation unprecedented, and so we felt obliged to be hospitable. We hired refugees to work our cash registers. We increased our bus routes. We changed the cycles on our stoplights. When the relocated asked us where to get a good sandwich, a good cup of gumbo, we gave them a list of places. We wanted so desperately to impress them, to please them, and we felt close for a time.
But what eventually happened is this:
Reality set in.
Baton Rouge is not New Orleans. Our po’-boys, they let us know, were not as good as theirs. Our traffic, to these people who were causing it, was intolerable. There was no place to get a decent omelet, we were told, though we’d been breakfasting happily for years. There was nothing fun at all to do in Baton Rouge, they explained, and we agreed, because our best theaters and malls and bars and bowling alleys were now overrun from all the new people in town.
That’s not what I mean, they’d say.
We knew what they meant.
And, truth be told, we took it hard for a while, our wealthy and poor alike.
Our mansions, apparently, lacked character. Our garden district was some cheap knockoff of their garden district. Our finest eateries were no Antoine’s, no Commander’s Palace, nothing like the luxury you could find in the French Quarter. Our casinos, our amusement parks, our zoo, well, they were depressing. And on the dark streets of old Baton Rouge the poor had their differences, too. New graffiti sprang up that our kids hadn’t seen before. Our area code was 225, yet someone had carved 504 into the hood of a local gangster’s Cadillac. This was the beginning of gunplay, turf wars. Three men—just boys, really—were murdered on the stoop outside of their grandmother’s house in broad daylight. Several different gangs claimed responsibility and so nobody was sure of the meaning. As months passed, alarming reports came out of our high schools: increased improprieties in the bathrooms, more confiscated weapons, threats against teachers. We were told that this was a form of post-traumatic stress disorder, what these children were going through. We were told not to be alarmed, not to rush to judgment. We were told that it was impossible to blame people who were so distressed, so displaced, so confused, and we understood this.
We thought they were talking about us.
As these weeks turned into months, even more advice poured in.
If we really wanted this to work, the pundits said, it was time for Baton Rouge to make some big decisions. It was time to grow up. The city would need to be reorganized: all two-lane roads turned into four, entire intersections scrapped and reengineered, trees cut down to widen a boulevard. We were told to lock our car doors, roll up our windows, and that we probably should have been doing this anyway. The world, after all, is not as simple as football games on fall Saturdays, a bunch of friendly people being friendly. Everybody knows that. Life in a real city is difficult and complicated and terrible things happen to wonderful people. Like they say, if you want to mature, if you want to expand, you have to be prepared to invest. And, of course, you have to be prepared to lose that investment.
So, we did.
We put shovels in the ground. We opened old office buildings that had been condemned for years. We built new strip malls that didn’t really suit us, because we felt the demand was high and immediate. We took giant leaps of faith and opened niche grocery stores that sold things we thought would appeal to our new residents. We then threw open the doors of these places and stood there, breathing heavy, still trying, after all this time, to impress them.
And then they left.
Those with the means either went back to New Orleans to rebuild or retired in sleepy towns like Natchez, Mississippi. Young professionals took off to Dallas. Many of the displaced restaurateurs found footing in places like Gulf Shores and Destin.
The street gangs, however, decided to stay put.
And the woman named Jennifer, I should mention, had her child in Baton Rouge as well. The contractions hit her in the middle of the night while she and my friend were sleeping in my bedroom, which I’d let them use so they could have privacy. I was living alone then, and didn’t mind sleeping on the couch or staying at my mother’s house. I was entering my thirties, and my mom, although she had begun to age in obvious ways, remained independent and proud and now lived in the same neighborhood as Rachel and her family (a Christian man and two toddling girls, all of whom I love), and I visited her often.
I was at my mother’s house, in fact, when I got the call. My buddy was a mess and I could hear Jennifer yelping in the background. They didn’t know any doctors in Baton Rouge, he told me. There was some confusion about insurance. He thought maybe the contractions might pass. He admitted that nothing, nothing at all, was going as planned. This was after midnight, and I drove back to my place, where her water had broken by the time that I got there. I rushed them both to the emergency room, my buddy in the backseat of the car with his wife. I did her small favors on the way, like adjusting the AC blowers and running through red lights, and I felt for some reason as if I myself was having this child. Who knows why? The emergency room was packed with Katrina victims when we arrived, although we were already weeks removed from that tragedy, and these people were belligerent with us as we carted Jennifer to the front of the line. After only a few minutes, the two of them were ushered away and I used my buddy’s cell phone to call his and Jennifer’s relatives, who were scattered all over the country.
They were all happy to hear of the contractions, the impending birth, but wondered if it was even possible to travel to Louisiana at that moment. They wondered if we were still underwater, if the National Guard was still there, if people were still looting and murdering one another, and I told them no, we’re okay. I told them that although it is a common misconception, Baton Rouge is actually not New Orleans. By mid-morning, my mother and sister and the woman who would soon become my wife had shown up at the hospital. They wanted to make Jennifer feel special, although they barely knew her, because she was special, the moment was special. They brought her flowers and a soft blanket, and we gathered around her like an oracle after she had birthed the child. It was a girl that they would name Marigny, she told us, after one of the most fabulous areas of New Orleans, which they believed was the most fabulous city in the world.
“It’s a beautiful name,” we told her, and I know that I for one secretly wondered how long I would be expected to help raise this child. I wondered how attached I should get. It sent a panic through me, the reality of it. I was not ready for a baby, I thought, and suddenly worried that I might never be.
And it is not until times like these, when there are years between myself and the events, that I feel even close to understanding my memories and how the people I’ve known have affected me. And I am often impressed and overwhelmed by the beautiful ways the heart and mind work without cease to create this feeling of connection. It is like the way Lindy always reminds me of New Orleans, when I think of her now, although together the two of us never stepped foot there.