it was new orleans

and a play a wrote; "war zones and wal-marts," had been selected by ATHE (association of theatre in higher education) for a script-in-hand reading/workshop. loyola and my old man shelled out some dough. few weeks later i boarded a plane. several hours and a few transfers later i walked onto the tarmac and was slapped in the face by obscene heat and humidity.

bad shit. 

Vietnam-like shit, so i've been told. could cut the air with a knife.  

july in the South. 

ATHE had boarded me @ the university of new orleans. so i hitched a ride with a cabbie and we drove. drove past all the devastation wrought by katrina. houses with visible water-lines; nearly bisecting half the structure.

with "X's."

apparently informing clean-up crews dead bodies still resided within.

so we keep driving. everything green. so green. grass high and healthy and i wondered where all the gators were. 

arrived.

got my room. it felt like a barracks. cinder block walls. barren. 

ugly. 

beds built by ex-cons. 

but at least i got my own room. so i laid my sleeping bag atop the bed and prepped my clothes and looked in the mirror; appraising my face - wishing i woulda got a haircut before i had left sunny so-cal. but i had to leave and took the bus downtown.

we hit the strip and i met the ATHE people. found my director and finally my actors. we rehearsed for a few hours, talked shop, and bullshitted. 

don't think the actors were too comfortable with my writing, but oh-fucking-well, they were gonna have to perform it. this went on for the better part of the week. taking place in the bio-dome of the hilton; air cool and food fresh. my post-rehearsal regiment was rather boring. just took a taxi back to my barracks and went to sleep naked. but then i met a girl. she had a tattoo. there is a type of bond, a kinship, we tattooed carry with us. brings us together. one of the pack.

so i approached. we talked and i met her friends and that was it. 

i had an "in." 

that night we hit the streets. to the local joints. ancient black men with saxophones, lost in their riff's, and they played for booze and we "white" kids listened, drank and danced. 

and danced...

a girl across the way kept eyeballing me with the "look."

you know the one. 

she swayed with the music; her dirty blonde hair rolling gently past her little ears. i walked over. or more like danced over. didn't say a word. just like animals in an archaic mating ritual, we instinctively moved in unison. very close. and i tasted her neck. 

sweat on my lips and i breathed deep against her jugular. 

later, we drank some booze, and she asked if i wanted to get some air. 

but of course.

outside, she sat on my lap; arm around my neck, petting me like her long lost maltese. hadn't met but an hour earlier, and we'd already taken on the characteristic of a couple.

she was a student here on a mission - something about helping the survivors of katrina.  

she lived a few blocks away at a youth hostile. her pretty little face looked very young when she told me this. a kind of innocence and insinuation mixed sexuality.

i asked her age.

"18," she said. 

18. and i was 27, i think. 

she put her slender little arm around my shoulder and licked my neck. and then my ear. kissed my cheek, creeping across my grizzled mug until she reached my lips. 

and we kissed. gentle first. 

then i felt the soft. 

"i wanna to take you home," she said. 

take me home? 

i couldn't help but smile. a good smile. not forced or pre-prepared. one of those faces old elliot wrote about. but an animal smile. like a dog with his bone.

we walked back to the hostile, stopping every couple blocks so as to enjoy each other like spider monkeys high on cocca leaves. we stopped at a bar; her favorite. 

it seemed her age was not an issue.

"two absinthe's," she said. the barkeep poured two glasses full of light green liquid.  got a sugar cube and rested it across the glass and set it ablaze. the sugar melted and we drank. 

after a few, we left. my hand down the small of her back, feeling her glutes swell with every step.

in the street, the gas lamps cast a beautiful glow across her face. orange and yellow. i ran my hand through her hair, down her back, to the dimples above her..., and i squeezed. hard. like i wanted to tear a piece off and bring it back with me to sunny so-cal, so i could say, "look, look, look what i found in new orleans! a pretty eighteen year-old..." but i realized that was kinda creepy, and was satisfied with her warmth against my hand.

at the hostile, we snuck in. apparently it was run by nuns. she said they'd look unkindly at their protege bringing home a salty Devil Dog. so we found an empty room, walking silently - kissing en route. 

the room was big, with multiple beds. all empty and i could smell the mold from katrina deep in the walls. i plopped myself unto a rack. took off my shirt and watched how she undressed under the glow of the gas lamps. 

there is something about a young woman's body. it just fits. 

lean and plump and smooth. unblemished skim milk.

nose to nose. our breath, sweet with booze, mixing together like some perfect scene from a movie. 

lancaster and kerr on the beach as the waves rolled in...

the next morning i woke up early. she was curled against me like a child. some kid shielded from the universe by a world weary Marine. 

i could tell she was well-off, money wise that is. she told me the night before. her daddy lived in malibu. her mommy lived on valium. but she was untouched and pure - well, up until she meet me. 

unfortunately i had forgotton to tell her i was only in new orleans for the week, and she looked rather insulted when i said i had to leave. 

but i did. 

and we kissed. i said goodbye and just like a movie, before the awkward silences set in, the taxi arrived. 

straight to the hotel where "war zone..." was being read at. i arrived just in time. the play went up and it was well received. 

people laughed and were engaged. 

they hung on every word.

and it was good.