It's raining money, hallelujah

I was inside the cemetery yesterday with a fine group of tourists from Iowa, or Indiana, or Illinois or some such place. I was in fine form, elaborating on our unique custom of disposing of our dead, dozens of corpses together, in above-ground brick-and-mortar boxes.

(There are 84 people interred in Marie Laveau's tomb alone and roughly 100,000 in the single city block that is St. Louis Cemetery Number One. Wanna know how that's possible? You'll just have shell out the $36 for my tour!)

So as I was saying, I was right smack in the middle of my spellbinding lecture when we were all startled by a shower of coins descending from a clear blue sky, striking our heads, and landing at our feet. Rather than wasting time pondering the source of this strange gift, I decided that the best way to show gratitude was to start shoving quarters into my pocket. A couple of my guests gathered more coins and handed them to me, evidently surmising that I needed the money worse than they did.

I still don't know for sure what was going on, but I can venture a pretty good guess. The Archdiocese which owns the cemetery recently implemented new rules in order to cut down on vandalism. Tourists aren't allowed into the cemetery unless they are accompanied by a licensed tour guide. On any given day, hundreds of people are turned away at the gate. A lot of these are pilgrims who have come to leave a gift at the tomb of the Voodoo Queen in the hope that she will make their mother-in-law sick or make them win the Powerball or something. I figure that the coins must have been tossed over the wall by some frustrated devotee of Marie Laveau who had hoped to leave them as an offering at the base of her tomb.

I just hope that I haven't upset Madame Laveau by taking a gift that was intended for her. If a wheel suddenly falls off my carriage mid-tour we'll all know why.

Can't find the trees for the forest

When I'm out on the trike I'm always on the lookout for people standing on street corners looking lost. If I don't manage to pick up a ride, I'll at least try to leave our guests with a  impression that New Orleanians are friendly, helpful folks.

Yesterday I spotted a couple who looked like suitable targets, so I stopped to offer my assistance.

"We're just looking for a bar," they said.

"Which one?" I asked.

"No particular one. Just someplace to get a drink. "

Nice! Since my grade school days I've always had an overwhelming preference for easy questions over hard ones, and I'd be hard pressed to imagine an easier question in any field than, "Where do I go to get a drink in the French Quarter?"

Did I mention that we were just a block off Bourbon? Yep. A single city block. Even if I had managed to sell them a ride, it would have been a very, very short ride!

A couple of hours later, I came across another clueless-looking couple on a corner just a couple of blocks distant from the earlier encounter.

"Can I help you find anything?" I asked.

"Yes! We're so glad you came along! We've between walking for six blocks looking for a bar and we haven't seen anything. Where's the closest place to sit down and relax and get a drink?"

I helpfully pointed out a couple of bars within spitting distance, including one that they had passed just half a block back.

Today I've decided to do an experiment. As I'm riding around looking for riders, I'd like to see if it's even theoretically possible to go six contiguous blocks in the French Quarter without passing a single bar. I'll let you know how it turns out.

In which the Crescent City Pedicabby is forced to question his life choices

Coop's Place is a cool little dive bar/restaurant on Decatur Street in the lower French Quarter. Their signature dish is a jambalaya with rabbit meat. Back in February comedian Hannibal Buress went on the tonight show and did this delightful little monologue about New Orleans. In the course of his performance Hannibal told a story about Coop's involving an encounter with a rat in the restroom.

Here's the crazy part: For a month or two after Hannibal Burress' tonight show appearance every time I rolled past Coop's there was a line halfway down the block! 

I have to say that this precipitated a bit of a personal crisis for me. I have a bachelor of arts degree in public relations for which my parents and I spent a considerable sum of money. All these years later I discover that public relations is much simpler than my professors tried to make it. Apparently, all you have to do is start a rumor about a rat in the restroom and the public will beat a path to your door!

On a more serious note, I really hope that you will click on the link to Hannibal's Tonight Show performance because it deserves to be heard in full. If you take the time to watch the clip you will hear Coop's defense -- which is essentially that given the age of the buildings and the proximity to the Mississippi River there isn't a five star restaurant in the Quarter that doesn't have rats. Fair enough. Personally, I eat at Coop's and don't hesitate to recommend it to others.

My policy

If I'm going to rent a place that comes with roommates, they better be helping pay the rent!

Wrong!

No, no, no! Most of the signs along the length of Frenchmen Street get it right, but this one at the intersection of Elysian Fields is all wrong. It's Frenchmen Street not Frenchman. There were SIX of them.

Here's how it all went down: In 1762 France gave Louisiana to Spain in a secret treaty -- so secret that the people who actually lived here didn't even find out about it till a couple of years after the fact. So when the Spanish governor finally showed up to take charge, apparently nobody was glad to see him. Turns out everybody pretty much wanted to be French even though France didn't want them. So they had this little rebellion, and the governor got scared and got right back on the boat. Then the next governor came and rounded up six ringleaders of the rebellion and had them shot right about the spot where Frenchmen Street now starts at Esplanade (in front of the old Mint). So Frenchmen Street was named in honor of those six -- count them, SIX! -- Frenchmen who died there because they wanted to be French men and not Spanish men.

If the guy who did this street sign had taken my carriage tour, he would have known better. He's probably one of those guys who walk by me every day, and I say, "Would you like to do a carriage tour?", and they say, "No, I'm a local."

Fun history-repeats-itself footnote: Ninety-three years after the death of the Frenchmen... Um, can we just round off to a hundred? Because it sounds better, and I'm a tour guide after all, not a history professor. So anyway, a hundred years later (more or less), the Union troops took New Orleans in the Civil War and raised the American flag from the Mint. And this local guy by the name of William Mumford climbed up on the Mint, tore down the flag, tore it into pieces, and passed them out to his friends. So there on the same spot (more or less) where the six Frenchmen had been executed one hundred years earlier (more or less), William Mumford was hanged for the same crime (more or less) -- refusing to recognize the new political reality!

Color clash in NOLA

A while back I was on this kick, riding my bike around town and photographing the street signs at some of the fascinating intersections here in NOLA: Magic & Johnson; Short & Zimple; Pleasure & Desire; and of course, this one: Jeff  Davis & Martin Luther King.

The day I took the picture I had a chiropractor's appointment, and I was telling my chiropractor about my new photography project. "In fact, as soon as I'm done here, I'm going to shoot Jeff Davis and Martin Luther King," I told him. "I'll bet they have a lot of wrecks at that one!" We both chuckled.

A couple of weeks later I heard that a carriage driver colleague had been in an accident. When I saw him back out at Jackson Square I asked him about it. He was fine, he said, but his truck was totaled. A lady had run through a stop sign and t-boned him.

"You know how everything here in New Orleans ends up being about race," my friend lamented. "Well the lady who hit me was black. She was polite and apologetic. But I think her family thinks I'm some rich, white guy who's just trying to take advantage of her."

"That's too bad!" I said. "Where did the wreck happen?"

"At Jeff Davis and Martin Luther King," my friend answered.

WHAT? YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING!

As soon as I got time I rode my bike back to the infamous intersection. I had burning questions that needed answering. I had to conduct my own investigation. Turns out that Martin Luther King is the street with the stop sign. So that's where the African-American lady would have been. Whereas my white colleague was driving down Jeff Davis. You really can't make this stuff up! And yes, Martin Luther King still has to yield to Jeff Davis in New Orleans. Not saying that's how it should be, but apparently, that's how it is.

Horses, honkys, mules and asses

Out on the carriage line I often overhear heated discussions concerning the taxonomy of our animals.

"Lookit that horse!" says one fellow.

"That ain't no horse," retorts his companion. "That's a donkey!"

Sometimes I'm called upon to referee the debate. Or more often, I jump in uninvited. In either case I explain that both parties are half-right. "This is a mule. A mule is a cross between a male donkey and a female horse."*

My colleagues and I generally explain to our passengers as a matter of course what a mule is and why we use only mules. We tell people that mules take the heat better than horses and that we are required by city law to use mules. The part about it being city law is only partly true. The law actually specifies the use of mules only during the summer months and then only during daylight. But given that we have to use mules for three months of the year, there's no good reason not to use them year round. Maintaining and moving two different types of animals would mean extra expense and logistical headaches for the carriage companies. Besides, a lot of my co-workers who have experience with both horses and mules insist that mules are stronger, smarter and superior in pretty much every way.

Not everyone who takes the tour needs to be educated about mules. There are plenty of people who have experience with equines and who consider it an insult to their intelligence if you try to explain to them what a mule is. With a carriage full of strangers, it's hard to know whether to aim high or low. If there's a child on board, then it makes it easier to educate the ignorant without offending the expert.

"You see Rock there?" I say addressing myself to the child while everyone else listens in. "See his ears? He's got his daddy's ears. His daddy was a donkey, and  his mama was a horse. Do you know what that makes him?"

There was one little girl who quickly did the mental calculation and came back at me with a brilliant answer, though not the one I was expecting: "A honky!"

As you can well imagine, we carriage drivers hear (and tell) all kinds of ass jokes, over and over, day in and day out. Here's a sampling:

• One carriage driver colleague, in the course of educating her passengers, likes to tell them that a mule is a "half-assed horse." While this may not be the most hilarious of the ass jokes, it's the only one that is wholly accurate. (An ass is another name for a donkey. Actually, if you want to get really technical, donkeys are one of several subspecies that fall into the category of  "ass".) 

• A pedicab colleague is fond of pointing me out to his riders and telling them: "That's Mark. He has the best ass in town!" This one is wrong on so many levels, that I hardly know where to start. Apart from the aforementioned fact that Rock is only half ass on his sire's side, he's far from the best mule in town. They say that back in his heyday he really was one of the best mules in the Royal Carriages stable. Nowadays, I love him to death, and he really loves to get out there and work. But he's almost 30 years old, and truth be told he's a plug. (See number 9.) As to the flip side of the double entendre... Well, let's just say that Rock's pushing 30, and I'm sneaking up on 50.

• A carriage driver colleague, trying to load up his buggy, shouts at passers-by: "Come on, people. Put my ass to work!"

• One African-American carriage driver points to another and says: "Look there folks. That's something you don't see every day: A black man with a white ass!" I love this one, but as an honest-to-goodness honky, I don't think I could get away with using it. 

• And finally, my very own ass joke. When discussing my two jobs I like to tell people, "When I'm working the carriage, and someone wants to feed my ass a carrot, I don't have a problem with that. But when I'm on the pedicab, it's another matter." Call it a double standard if you will, but that's just the way I am.

* Just in case you're wondering, the offspring of a male horse and a female donkey is called a hinny. Hinnies are harder to produce and are generally considered less desirable than mules.

A real American hero?

A hero's serenade

So I'm hanging out in front of Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop last night waiting for a fare, and there are three college kids hanging out there as well. One male and two female. Good-looking kids, from Alabama if I remember right. Not wasted, but drunk enough to be pretty happy.

We start chatting, and they mention the name of a pedicab colleague and ask if I know him, and I say, "Yeah, I know who he is but don't really know him very well."

And they say, "Well, he's a real American hero! And so are you. So are all you pedicab guys."

And I say, "Really? What makes us heroes?"

And they say, "Because you save lives!... That and your calves."

And I ask, "How do we save lives?"

And they say, "Because you take drunk people home so they don't have to drive."

They ask me if I know the real American heroes song from the Bud Light commercial, and I say, "No, not really. I was out of the country for a long time, so I probably missed it.

One of the girls says, "Well Nate here can sing it for you. Can't you, Nate?" (I'm calling him "Nate" here, but I don't really remember the dude's name.)

And Nate says, "Sure!" And he serenades me with the advertising jingle -- cheerfully and badly.

And I say, "Well sometimes I don't feel so heroic because a lot of times I get drunk people on the pedicab who want me to take them to their car, and I really don't know what to do. Because the right thing to do is probably to take their car keys from them and throw them as far as I can, but I don't really have the balls to do that. So I always end up taking them to their car, and I worry about it. What do you think I should do in those situations?"

And they say, "Wow, we hadn't thought about that! That's a tough one. We don't know what you should do in a situation like that."

And I say, "Well, I write a blog about this job, so maybe I'll write a post about this and see if my readers have any wisdom to offer me." So here it is, dear readers. Jump in.

Playing the hero

Later that night I'm back in front of Lafitte's, and this drunk guy walks up. He can barely keep his feet.

"Where's Ursa...Ursa..." he stumbles, trying to pronounce "Ursulines."

"Ursulines Street?" I prompt. "It's just one block over."

"What about Bourbon Street?" he asks.

"You're on Bourbon Street," I answer. "This is Bourbon Street right here!"

"Oh," he says. "Life's a bitch", and he wanders off while I stand there wondering what the connection might be between Bourbon Street and "Life's a bitch." Who knows? Anyway, I'm not sorry to see him go.

Then he apparently changes his mind and wanders back in my direction. "How much to take me to Ursa...Ursa...?" He still can't get his tongue around the word.

"Which block of Ursulines do you need to get to?" I ask.

"The Empress Hotel," he replies, his speech so slurred that I can barely understand him. The Empress is a notoriously nasty place in a sketchy neighborhood. Actually, it's so bad that the reviews make really entertaining reading!

I'm counting up the blocks in my head to quote him a price, when he plops down in the seat of the pedicab and says, "OK, how much just to ride around?"

It makes me nervous whenever drunk people sit down on the pedicab before we've worked out where we're going and how much they're going to pay. But I answer him respectfully. "Well that would be a dollar a minute. Twenty dollars for a twenty minute ride, for example."

"OK, I'll give you twenty dollars just to ride me around." He takes his wallet out and fumbles with it for a couple of minutes. Finally he turns it upside down and shakes the entire contents out on the seat of the pedicab: a couple of business cards and a single dollar bill.

"OK, take me to an ATM," He says.

Against my better judgment I agree to do the ride. Along the way he blurts out, apropos of nothing, "You gotta pay the piper!"

"Um, yeah," I say to be agreeable. "You've definitely got to pay the piper."

He mumbles something else, the only part of which I catch is "I just want to be left alone."

I'm sure that this is not directed at me, so once again I decide just to go along. "Yeah, we all want to be left alone, don't we?" I say.

I take him to a little daiquiri shop on Decatur Street with an ATM just inside the front door. I sit outside and watch as he stumbles up to the machine, pulls his wallet out, and fumbles with it again, this time dropping the contents onto the floor. He shuffles through them, unable to find the ATM card. Finally he chooses one of the  business cards and stands there stabbing at the ATM slot, so drunk that he lacks the dexterity to actually insert the card.

By this time, it's clear to me that there's no way I'm not going to get paid for this ride. I consider riding away. I don't owe this guy anything, do I? To the contrary, he owes me! I'm supposed to pay $155 to lease the bike tonight, and I can't afford to be wasting time like this. On the other hand, this guy is now several blocks farther from his hotel than when we started our little ride. And if I don't take him, how's he ever going to get back?

I watch as he finally gives up on the ATM and walks up to the counter to talk to the bartender. I sit there stewing while they converse for a couple of minutes. It's obvious that this isn't going anywhere. What was he expecting the bartender to do for him?

Still tempted to cut my losses and run, I'm remembering those college kids earlier who said that I was a hero because I take drunk people home. So I decide to live up to their estimation of me and be a hero. I'm going to get this guy back to his hotel. As I walk up I hear the bartender telling him, "You need to leave. You're so drunk that you don't know what you're doing. I'm sorry, I can't help you."

"Get on the bike," I order the drunk guy. "I'm taking you back to your hotel for free." Looking defeated, he stumbles along behind me and collapses into the passenger seat.

Along the way he suddenly blurts out with some new-found (and completely unfounded) resolve, "I'm going to pay you! I'm not going to let you take me for free."

"Well I would love to get paid," I admit. "But I don't see how you're going to do that. Anyway, don't worry about it. I'm going to get you there one way or the other."

When we arrive at the Empress, he instructs me to wait. "I'm going to pay you! You can't leave. Wait right here."

I really don't want to waste any more time. I hand him my business card and say, "If you think about it later and want to get in touch with me and pay me, that would be great. But it's no big deal. Anyway, have a great night. I need to get moving."

"No, no" he says shouting. "Please, I can't let you leave without paying you. I'm going to pay you. Just wait two seconds! Just two seconds!"

"OK, I say. Two seconds." I watch as he walks up to the counter and begins talking to the clerk, apparently a replay of the conversation with the guy at the daiquiri shop. It's been two seconds. I start pedaling away. He runs out after me yelling, "No, no I've got to pay you!"

And just then he reaches in his back pocket and pulls out his wallet again, and this time he pulls out an ATM card, which apparently had been in the pocket but not in the wallet. "Look!" he exclaims waving the card in my face.

"Glad you found it!" I say, riding away as fast as I can pump the pedals. There's no way in the world I'm letting that guy back on my bike to go searching for an ATM. If it were possible to peel out on a pedicab I would have done it.

Aiding and abetting 

Later that night the hypothetical dilemma that I had discussed with the college kids presents itself. Two forlorn-looking young ladies are sitting on a dark sidewalk. I ask them if they need a ride, and they say, "We need to know where St. Louis Street is. We're parked on St. Louis, and we can't find it. Everybody keeps telling us different stuff, and we're totally lost!"

"I don't know where exactly on St. Louis you're parked, but St. Louis Street is just two blocks that way," I say, pointing.

"Are you sure?" they ask. "Because every time someone tells us somewhere to go we just end up more lost."

"Get on the bike," I tell them. "I'll take you there."

They protest that they don't have any money, but I'm in hero mode now. And anyway, St. Louis really is very close. "It's free," I say. "Hop on!" They obey.

Along the way, they offer me booze, Adderall, and cigarettes in lieu of cash. I turn all of these down. It soon becomes apparent that, while they're not nearly as drunk as that other guy, they're clearly not in any condition to be behind the wheel. Nevertheless, I deliver them safely to their car, hoping fervently that they won't hurt themselves or anyone else on their way home.

What really happens

Thinking back on the sweet college kids and their flattering assessment of my colleagues and me, it occurs to me just how wrong they are. The scenario they described -- driving drunks home so that they don't have to drive -- rarely if ever happens with a pedicab. When it comes to taking intoxicated people places, here are the actual scenarios that we regularly encounter in our work:

1. Transporting drunks tourist back to their hotel rooms, e.g., the guy at the Empress. In this case, I'm preventing drunk walking, not drunk driving. I heard a guy on the radio one time arguing that, statistically, drunk walking is more dangerous than drunk driving. So maybe in this scenario we really are saving lives. But  saving the life of an irresponsible person (the drunk pedestrian) seems much less heroic than saving the life of an innocent person (the drunk driver's victim).

2. Transporting drunken locals home. This would almost always apply to those locals who live within the relatively small radius in which pedicabs commonly operate: the French Quarter, the Marigny, the Central Business District, and the Warehouse District. In other words, these are people who haven't driven anywhere in the first place. Once again, we may be preventing drunk walking, but not drunk driving. New Orleanians who live in more far-flung parts of the city would invariably take a taxi home rather than a pedicab. As much as it pains me to admit it, taxi drivers are the ones who are doing the heroic work of keeping drunk drivers off the streets.

3. Transporting drunks (locals or tourists) between bars, strip clubs, the casino, restaurants, etc. This is a big part of what we do, but not much heroic here.

4. Transporting drunken locals to their parked cars, e.g, the two young ladies. This is the troubling scenario in which we may actually be enabling drunk driving. Whatever hero status we might legitimately claim for numbers 1 and 2 is canceled out by this. But how can we avoid it? Once again, I'd love to hear from my readers.

Back to those three college kids at the beginning. I think that they were right about at least one thing. We pedicabbies do have some heroic calves!

A hard luck story: How the Super Bowl turned out to be a super bust

Content warning: The blog post that you are about to view contains whining. Don't say you weren't warned.

Delight and dread...
With New Orleans set to host Super Bowl XLVII right smack dab in the middle of Carnival season, the world was waiting for party-geddon. From the time that I first started pedicabbing in November 2011 I had been anticipating this with a mixture of dread and delight: dread at the disruption that would be brought on by all the congestion and chaos; delight at the dollars I would be making from the crowds. It was going to be a big mess, no question; but at least it was going to be a very profitable mess.

...followed by desperation
Making a living off tourism in New Orleans is a little like farming. In the first place, there are seasonal rhythms. The autumn and spring are good times; winter is meager; and summer is worse. We also face other fluctuations, which unlike the annual rhythms are next to impossible to predict: droughts and bumper crops, if you will.

In line with the typical seasonal patterns, this past summer was slow. You can't blame the tourists for staying away really. Spending your summer vacation in 97 degree heat and 98 percent humidity is bearable only at the beach -- and then only barely. Unfortunately, New Orleans is separated from the sea, not by a narrow strip of sugar-white sand, but by 60 miles of mosquito- and alligator-infested marsh. In addition to this all-around lack of carriage-ride candidates, there were plenty of days when we weren't able to work more than a couple of hours before the temperature hit 95 degrees, at which point municipal law requires us to take the mules back to the barn.

This was my first summer in the tourism industry, so I had no frame of reference, but my carriage driver colleagues all said that they had seen worse. As summers go, this one was not bad at all, they said. Most of them had set aside money during the easy months of March and April, so they had plenty of reserves to carry them through. Unfortunately, I had started driving the carriage in May, just about the time that things were starting to slow down. Then, right in the middle of the summer, my ex-wife and I had to move out of the house we had been sharing in Slidell and set up separate houses here on the South Shore. Naturally, this move entailed a lot of extra expenses.

When I first started driving the carriage, my intention had been to continue working an occasional shift on the pedicab just for the pleasure of it. As it turned out, I found myself forced by circumstances to work five day-shifts on the carriage and three night-shifts on the pedicab every week -- the equivalent of eight days work a week!  I wouldn't have imagined myself capable of maintaining this kind of pace till I actually had to do it. In a way, it turned out to be kind of fun.

Even when it wasn't all that fun, I faced the exhaustion with the confidence that this was only for a little while. October was coming. October was always a great month, my carriage-driver colleagues assured me. Then after that... THE SUPER BOWL AND MARDI GRAS ALL AT THE SAME TIME! That promise of easy money ahead made it possible for me to keep pushing my limits.

...then disappointment
We had a couple of good days early in October, then things fizzled. The old-timers complained that they hadn't seen such a slow October since the year Katrina hit. The crowds of visitors were much thinner than usual; and even when you did manage to load up the carriage, it was getting harder and harder to conduct a tour. The big event was months away, but the chaos and congestion had already commenced. Streets were being repaved, hotels renovated, sidewalks resurfaced. Every tour demanded an elaborate detour. Navigating the mules past cement mixers, jackhammers, and blow torches often transformed what would otherwise have been a sleepy stroll through the old streets into extreme adventure tourism.

And that was on the days that we were actually able to get out and work. There were many days when Decatur Street was shut down, and we couldn't even access our hack stand (the area in front of Jackson Square where we park our carriages and load up for tours). Conditions became so difficult and dangerous that the company excused even experienced drivers from showing up for work.

One day, in the middle of this mess when we had already missed a lot of work, we got word that Decatur Street was going to be open, and we all showed up eager to make some money. Once we got out to Jackson Square it turned out that they were setting up a stage in our spot, so once again we couldn't access our hack stand. Improvising, I headed up Saint Louis Street looking for a place to park. I found myself threading the carriage through a tight spot between a parked taxi on my left and a dumpster on my right, which had been placed there to collect construction waste from the renovation of a hotel. Just as I was navigating this narrow corridor, a construction worker slung a strip of plastic strapping into the dumpster right at the eye level of my mule. The startled mule leaped a foot to the left, causing the carriage to clip the taxi. It didn't look like a lot of damage, but it ended up costing the company $1,900.

On the pedicab, the construction projects were nothing more than a minor annoyance. But there was still the other problem that there just too few tourists in town -- and even fewer who were in a mood to ride. One miserable night in early December I set a record low for money made in a shift on the pedicab. Then I broke that record on the very next shift. Then I broke it again. And again. There were nights in December and January when I was going home with less than $30. (I have to admit that I don't really know whether this had anything to do with the impending Super Bowl. Maybe it would have been an exceptionally slow winter anyway.)

The closer we got to game day, the worse things got. Just when things were at their slowest, the mule carriages were displaced yet again from the hack stand while CBS spent several days hauling in and setting up the stages and equipment to turn Jackson Square into a big TV studio. I remember one day during this time when I managed to do three tours. Under normal circumstances this would have been a D+ performance, but on that particular occasion my colleagues teased me about being the big booker. There were only five tours in total done by all the carriage drivers who showed up to work that day in the city of New Orleans!

Through all the hot, hungry days of my rookie summer there had never been a day that I had gone home after a full shift without having done a single tour. There had been some "two-and-through" days and even a few "one-and-done" days, but I had never "blanked". Then, in the last two weeks before the Super Bowl, I blanked -- not once, but twice. There was a grim joke making its way up and down the buggy line those days: "We can't wait for August to come around so we can finally make money!" It was too close to the truth to be very funny.

Carriage drivers and pedicabbies weren't the only ones suffering. The experience of one of the artists who sells his work at Jackson Square closely mirrored mine. In the days leading up to the Super Bowl, there were two occasions when he spent the entire day out at the Square and failed to sell a single painting. Like me, this had never happened to him before in his career. The difference was that I had been been a buggy driver for only eight months; he had been selling artwork at Jackson Square for eight years!

Hotel and restaurant workers reported similar experiences. An online article in NolaVie contained a poignant passage which bears quoting verbatim: To those voices that were not heard, I dedicate today's column. I dedicate it to the hotel housekeeper who works in a mid-sized French Quarter hotel for $8 an hour. The housekeeper whose shift was cut in half, two days in a row, because scores of guests who had pre-paid the four-night minimum stay simply decided not to show up until Saturday afternoon. Losing $800 or more of your pre-payment isn't that big of a deal, I guess, when you're paying in excess of $1500 for one seat to one game. But losing 8 hours of work is a big deal... when you make $8 an hour. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to go join an occupy protest.

According to USA Today the NFL had an agreement with the city by which they blocked out 90% of the 30,000 hotel rooms in the New Orleans area. Many of the remaining 10 percent were snatched up by corporations, the article reported. This helps to explain why there weren't many tourists in town the last week  before the big game. But it doesn't really do much to explain three terrible months.

...and finally a little relief
On the morning of Friday, the 1st of February -- two days before game day -- my landlord called, and I didn't answer. I didn't have the money to pay the rent, and I couldn't bring myself to face telling him that.

That day turned out OK. Kind of an average Friday. Which is to say much, much better than the preceding days had been, but still nothing that even remotely resembled the kind of Friday I would have expected just two days before the Super Bowl.

The next morning, Saturday, the 2nd, the landlord called again. This time I forced myself to pick it up. "I'm really sorry, but I just don't have it," I told him. I'll give you half now, and try to give the rest as soon as I can. I'm really sorry. I've never been in this situation before, but things have been hard lately."

He was gracious. He told me that I was a good tenant and that we would work something out. How soon could I come up with the other half? he asked. I told him that I really didn't know but that I would do my best.

Twenty-four hours later I had made more than $1,100! I worked the carriage all day and the pedicab all night, setting personal records on both.

The pedicab actually turned out to be more profitable than the carriage. The rides were pretty much non-stop, and people were practically throwing money at me. The shift began at 6 PM. I hadn't eaten since early that morning, but I didn't want to stop accepting rides and go out of my way to get something to eat. I figured that sooner or later I would find myself between rides at a spot where I could grab some food. As it turned out, it was definitely later rather than sooner. 11:10 PM to be precise. Looking back, I know that I was a bit irritable because I was so hungry. Ordinarily, I don't make make much money on the pedicab if I'm not in a good mood; but this was one night where you could get away with being a bit rude.

I went home after the shift and collapsed in bed, calculating that I had just enough time for a 30 minute nap before I had to get up and get ready to ride out on the carriage again. Fifteen minutes later I got a call from an old friend in Kosovo. No matter. Life was good. I didn't know what time my landlord usually woke up, but it took all the will power I could muster to wait till 7 AM to call him with the good news: "You can stop by and get your check. I've got it all!"

That Super Bowl Eve had turned out to be a super day for me -- a day in which I made more money than I had ever made in a 24 hour period in my life. But that one gully washer didn't begin to make up for the three months of severe drought that had preceded it. I was thrilled to be able to pay the rent, but it would be several more weeks before I was caught up on all my bills.

Super Bowl Sunday itself was mediocre. No surprise really. Nobody had carriage tours on their mind that day. At the end of the day, having missed the chance to give Joe Montana a ride, I went home and went to bed. I slept right through the game. I didn't know about the blackout till the next day.

Having survived the Super Bowl, I don't think that I would wish the experience on my worst enemy. Actually... I'm lying. The next time they're looking to pick a host city, I think that I'm going to volunteer to head up the committee to lure the game to Atlanta. Wouldn't that be sweet!

Driving the mule by day, being the mule at night

Swinging both ways

Not long ago I was out on the big yellow trike, and I ran into a guy who had recently started pedicabbing for one of the other companies. He looked at me, did a double-take, and blurted out, "Didn't I see you earlier today on the mule carriage?"

"Yes, it's true," I said, amused at the look of amazement on his face. "I swing both ways!"

It's noteworthy that in New Orleans of all places, where almost nothing is shocking, my career combination strikes people as being so strange. New Orleans is notorious for cops moonlighting as robbers -- or vice versa. But a carriage driver who also drives a pedicab? Now that's just weird!

Bad blood

The mule carriage and taxicab companies fought tooth and nail to prevent the introduction of pedicabs to New Orleans. There was a two-and-a-half year legal battle before the city finally passed a law allowing pedicabs to operate. As a concession to the carriage companies, pedicabbies were forbidden to do tours -- even if they were licensed tour guides. The bitter aftertaste of that legal battle still lingers. (See here for a reference in one of my early blog posts to carriage drivers as "the enemy".) Both sets of colleagues constantly complain to me about the a**holes on the other side.

There are current points of conflict as well. One frequent flash point is the intersection of Saint Ann and Decatur in front of Cafe du Monde. Technically it's illegal to do a U-turn there, but there's a kind of understanding between mule drivers and the police that we have to be able to do a U-turn in order to do our jobs -- with the added understanding that we have to be extra careful not to run over pedestrians in the crosswalk or run into cars. On the other hand, it's technically illegal for pedicabs to park at that intersection (or anywhere else for that matter), but there's a kind of understanding between pedicabbies and the police that we really need to be able to park there sometimes in order to do our jobs -- with the added understanding that we have to be extra careful not to block pedestrians or the handicapped parking spot. Pedicabs and carriages often get in one another's way at this intersection, and whenever this happens both parties protest vociferously that the police aren't enforcing the law on those a**holes on the other side.

There is a general perception on the part of my colleagues on both sides that the police are lenient toward "them" and strict on "us". Neither side has trouble finding ammo.

Exhibit A: There are strict municipal dress codes for both buggy drivers and pedicabbies. Pedicabbies are sometimes levied outrageous fines for offenses as trivial as wearing a baseball cap that is not an official part of the uniform. Buggy drivers, on the other hand flaunt the dress code day in and day out with complete impunity.

Exhibit B: The police routinely harass and fine mule carriage drivers for being illegally parked. They rarely bother pedicabbies for the same offense. (Some carriage drivers claim that pedicabbies never get tickets for illegal parking, but this is definitely not true.)

I don't want to make things sound worse than they are. There are plenty of pleasant exchanges between carriage drivers and pedicabbies. A lot of carriage drivers regularly ride on pedicabs -- and not just mine. I can hear my colleagues on both sides saying, "I really don't have anything against them. It's just that..." But the way I see it, as long as everybody feels obligated to tack on that "It's-just-that..." disclaimer, the situation has plenty of room for improvement.

How it happened

I began pedicabbing in November 2011. One day, not long after starting the job, I was pedaling past a mule-drawn carriage parked at the corner of Bourbon and St. Phillip, and I heard the driver call out my name. I turned around to see an old friend from my church youth group sitting in the driver's seat of the carriage. We hadn't seen one another in more than 25 years.

I'm sure that we must have said some of the normal things that you always say when you run into an old friend with whom you had lost contact many years ago. (Great to see you again! What have you been up to all these years? Looking good!) But to tell the truth, I don't remember any of that. All I remember was his blunt question: "Why are you doing that and not this?"

"Why should I be doing that?" I countered. "I LOVE pedicabbing!"

Over the next couple of months as my friend and I renewed our acquaintance he told me more about his job and why he enjoyed it so much. Meanwhile I was starting to realize that, as much as I loved pedicabbing, I wasn't making enough money at it to support my family, especially given the fact that we were starting a new life in a new place.

I started driving the mule carriage in May. These days I drive the carriage five days a week and the pedicab 2-3 nights a week. I recognize that I can't keep up this kind of pace forever, but right now I really need the income from both jobs. Even if I didn't need the money, I would have a very hard time giving up the pedicab because I enjoy it so much.

Being a bridge

During my years in the Balkans, I always hoped to be a force for understanding and reconciliation. I would like to think that I had some kind of small-scale impact. I'd like to think that... Anyway, having failed to bring a deep and lasting peace between Albanians and Serbs, maybe I'm ready to take on a more manageable project.

Not that I'm claiming to be unbiased. One thing I've learned in life is that nobody is ever unbiased. In practical terms, I probably have much more in common with the carriage drivers; but emotionally I identify much more strongly with the pedicabbies. At any rate, I walk in both worlds, and I have a unique perspective.

Night before last I went to a concert and brought a fellow buggy driver along with me. One of my pedicab colleagues was a member of the group that was performing, and there were a couple of other pedicabbies who turned out to hear her sing as well. After it was over, all of us -- pedicabbies, the other buggy driver, and me -- went out for drinks, and we had a wonderful time. This might have been a first.

If anybody knows anybody on the committee for the Nobel Peace Prize, feel free to drop my name!

No special treatment

All day Saturday I had worked the mule carriage (my day job if you haven't heard by now) showing off my city to Super Bowl guests. Then Rock (the mule I'm driving these days) and I headed back toward the stable, threading through the throngs of football fans who were choking the narrow French Quarter streets, moving as quickly as we could without trampling anyone. Back at the barn I unharnessed Rock and put him in his stall; dropped the day's earning in the safe; hopped on my bike and pedaled furiously back through the crowded streets to the Bike Taxi Unlimited shop where I quickly changed into my uniform and set out on the big yellow tricycle just in time for the beginning of the 6 PM shift.

The money was flowing, which was nice because the last couple of months have been brutal. I worked through the night allowing myself just enough time to bike home for a quick shower and a 30-minute nap before biking back to the stable to work the carriage again on Sunday morning. That was the plan. As it turned out, I was about 15 minutes into what was supposed to have been that 30-minute nap when I got a phone call from an old friend in Kosovo. How was he to know? And what difference does 15 minutes make anyway?

All that to say that I was sleep deprived. It's important to mention that before I start to tell my story. I don't know exactly how things might have turned out if I had had a good night's sleep and all my wits about me, but I'm pretty sure that it would have been different.

Anyway, it was late in the afternoon on Super Sunday. I had done a few tours, but by this time the crowds were streaming up Decatur toward the Superdome, a counter current to the Mighty Mississippi just across the levee.  Under different circumstances I might have been looking forward to watching the big game that evening, but on this occasion the thought didn't even enter my mind. All I wanted was sleep.

I was standing there by my buggy waiting for the word from my supervisor to head back to the barn, when a man walked up and asked, "How much to take my friends and me down to Canal? We just don't feel like walking."

I looked up at him. He was a couple inches taller than me, attractive, fit, about my age or maybe a few years older. I knew this guy from somewhere, I was pretty certain of that. But in my sleep-deprived state, I couldn't quite place who he was. We must have met before, but he wasn't showing any sign of recognizing me. Maybe it was an old friend testing me to see if I would remember him.

I hesitated, almost ready to say: "I'm really sorry. I know that we've met somewhere, but I can't quite place you. I'm Mark..."

But at the last second I aborted that plan and decided to simply address his question. Which raised another issue. I wasn't at all sure know how to address his question.

"Uh, we don't usually do drop-offs," I said. "I mean, I could take you if you want, but I would probably have to charge you for a full tour." This is company policy under normal circumstances, but we had been given a little bit  more discretion over the last few days. I could have consulted with my supervisor, and he probably would have allowed me to offer this guy some kind of deal. The truth was that I wasn't sure I really wanted to.

He stood there waiting for my answer, and I began giving mumbled voice to the debate inside my head. "Traffic's really bad now. I don't even know how long it might take me to get down to Canal and back. And with everything so crowded it might be a little bit dangerous..." I trailed off, still unsure of myself. All the while in the back of my mind I was still thinking: Where do I know this guy from?

"How many of you are there?" I asked. If I was going to quote a price, I needed to know.

"Nine," he answered.

"Oh, well that settles it then," I said, relieved that the decision was made. "I can take a maximum of eight passengers. It's the law. It's for the protection of the mules."

"OK, thank you anyway," the man said as he turned to walk away.

I looked back and realized that the buggy driver behind me was grinning and pointing excitedly at his carriage. "Oh!" I said quickly. "It looks like my colleague would be willing to give you a ride if you'd like to go with him."

"Thanks, but that's OK," the man said. "We'll just walk."

Just as he and his friends passed out of earshot, I heard a stranger in the crowd comment, "Damn! If Joe Montana had asked me for a ride, I would have figured out a way to make it happen!"

Joe Montana? 

JOE MONTANA!

I considered running after him, chasing him down, pleading with him to get on my carriage. But that impulse vanished as quickly as it had flared up. It was better to let him go, to preserve what was left of my dignity, to face the fact that I had blown my big chance.

Looking back on the incident, I've been consoling myself with the thought that even though I missed the chance to be the guy that gave Joe Montana a buggy ride, I ended up placing myself in another elite category: I'm the guy who told Joe Montana no. I'll bet it had been a long time since anybody did that.

Weddings

A colleague of mine commented a while back that one of the main reasons our job is so much fun is that we're working with happy people so much of the time. I think he has a point. In the first place, most of our passengers have come to the French Quarter for a good time, so they're already pre-disposed to have a pleasant experience on the pedicab. And let's face it: the pedicab isn't the cheapest way to get from Point A to Point B, so when people get on board the bike, they're generally expecting to have fun. When I'm hauling happy people around all night long, it's easy to be happy along with them. (I guess that pedicabbing is kind of the opposite of working in the complaints department or the emergency room.) All of this is amplified when it comes to weddings, which is why working weddings on the pedicab is such a treat to me.

There are two common kinds of wedding rides that we do. The first involves a distinct New Orleans tradition called the second line, a kind of parade, in which friends and family of the newlyweds strut and prance down the street waving white handkerchiefs and decorated parasols to the accompaniment of a brass band. Usually my role is to transport elderly or handicapped relatives and guests. (See here for the story of my first -- and most memorable by far -- second line experience.)

The use of pedicabs in second lines seems to me a clear case of an innovation that manages to enrich an already priceless tradition. Let's say the groom has a seventy-something-year-old grandmother with bad hips and knees. If her grandson had gotten married a year and a half ago (before the introduction of pedicabs to New Orleans in September 2011), she would have been excluded from the second line experience. Nowadays she rides like royalty right in the middle of the happy, hankie-waving throng.

The second kind of wedding ride involves transporting the new couple from the reception site to their hotel. Typically the newlyweds are giddy with love -- not to mention relief that the whole happy ordeal of the ceremony and reception is finally over. Their joy overflows not just to me but also to the people we pass on the street who shout out their congratulations as we roll by.

(By the way, I'm evidently uniquely qualified for this kind of ride. No less an authority than USA Today recognized riding with the Crescent City Pedicabbie as one of the most romantic things to do in New Orleans!)

Recently I did a wedding ride, which turned out a bit less pleasant. I had waited outside the reception venue for a good half hour till the party wound down enough for the couple to make a graceful exit. There's nothing unusual about this. Most wedding rides require a bit of waiting around on my part. Even 45 minutes or an hour is not uncommon. Naturally, I need to be compensated for my time since every minute that I'm not cruising around looking for fares is money lost. A dollar a minute is the usual rate, and a tip on top of this is customary. In most cases the fare has been negotiated well beforehand so that the newlyweds don't have to bother themselves with such logistical minutiae on their first night of matrimonial bliss.

On this particular occasion, no sooner had the couple waded through the crowd of well-wishers and boarded the bike than the bride began reading aloud the posted, by-the-block fare structure. She quickly did the mental math and blurted out happily, "Oh, this is only going to be $10! That's not bad at all!"

I swallowed hard and kept my mouth shut. This was supposed to be one of the most joyful moments in the lives of these two people. I wasn't about to spoil the first night of their honeymoon by haggling with them over a few bucks. If it ended up costing me $30, I would just have to consider that my wedding gift to a pair of strangers.

When we arrived at the hotel, the groom pulled out his wallet, and the bride ordered him to give me fifteen dollars.

"Oh, I want to give him a tip," he protested. "I'll give him $20."

"But $15 includes a tip! The fare is only ten bucks. Fifteen is plenty," she said

"OK babe," he said looking a little embarrassed as he handed me a ten and a five.

He hung back a minute as if unsure what to do while his new wife walked toward the door of the hotel. Then he pulled out another five and handed it to me. "It's my money!" he said, trying to sound defiant, but keeping the volume low enough that his bride wouldn't hear him. "I can do what I want with it!"

I wish them well. I really do. I'm not a gambling man, and even if I was, I would never want to bet against anyone's marital happiness. But in terms of cold hard cash, I think I would be pretty safe betting that $20 against the long-term prospects of that marriage. I really hope I'm wrong.

Sex on the cycle

Whenever I tell someone that I blog about pedicabbing, the conversation usually goes more or less like this.

Other person: Wow, I'll bet you get lots of great stories!

Me: Oh yeah! If I don't manage to turn it into a book, it won't be for lack of material.

Other person: I can imagine! 

It's usually somewhere around this point in the conversation that the question arises as as to whether any kind of sexual activity has ever transpired on the back seat of my pedicab. Until recently -- Saturday before last to be more precise -- my answer has always been: "No, not as far as I'm aware."

I have to phrase it that way because I'm lacking the evolutionary adaptation that is evidently unique to grade school teachers: eyes in the back of the head. There's really no way to know what all has gone on behind my back over the last few months while I was busy watching the road ahead. (Come to think of it, a grade school teacher who pursued a second career as a pedicabbie would probably be in a position to write a much more exciting blog than this one!)

I might have remained blissfully unaware still if it hadn't happened that my boss (the owner's brother, who often pedicabs along with us) pulled up beside me at a red light at an opportune moment. He had a couple of young female passengers on his bike, and they started hooting and hollering and pointing my way. Wondering what all the fuss was about, I glanced behind me just long enough to realize that the middle-aged couple (mid 50s I would guess) on the backseat of my pedicab were getting it on*.

So what did I do? We were only a couple of blocks from their destination, so I got them there as fast as I could go. What would you have done?

*I'd prefer that this blog not get an adult rating, but if you must know, we're talking here about what is known in technical terms as digital penetration of the vagina.

The best pedicabbie pickup line ever! (If only it were mine.)

I find myself doing the three second sales pitch (also known as the pedicabbie pickup line) much less frequently now then when I first started the job. In general, folks who flag me down are willing to pay more than the ones that I have to persuade to get on the trike. These days, I generally save the sales pitch for slow nights when I have to be more aggressive in order to pick up fares.

Last night after we got off work a couple of colleagues and I went out for burgers. (Technically, it wasn't last night; it was 3 AM this morning). One of these fellow pedicabbies, who started riding  around the same time as me told me this story about committing an act of desperation on a dull, dreary day:

It had been raining for hours and the colleague had spent the day hunkered down under a tree feeling miserable and not getting a single ride. Finally the rain stopped, and he spotted a couple approaching at a distance. He hopped in the driver's seat and pedaled toward them furiously, screeching to a halt beside them.

"Get on the pedicab now!" he ordered breathlessly. "I'll explain later." Looking at one another in bewilderment, the couple complied. (I should explain that this colleague is in the Marine Reserves. He's not a big guy, but he's probably pretty imposing when he wants to be.)

I asked my friend whether the couple actually ended up paying for their ride and what kind of explanation he offered them. He said that, yes, they did pay and that he merely explained how desperate he was to get a ride.

I have to say that I'm a bit jealous. I don't think that any of the pickup lines I've come up with could touch that one for creativity and humor. And even if I were imaginative enough to think up something that outrageous, I doubt that I would have whatever it takes to actually pull it off.

The city's smellscape

Riding around in a car there's a curtain of glass and steel separating you from the sounds, sights and smells of the streets. Roll the windows down if you want to, but there’s still no way that you’re going to get the kind of intimate experience of the city that you would get on the back of a pedicab. Lest this sound like some clumsy pedicab propaganda piece, let me hasten to say that the street-level intimacy I’m talking about is not necessarily pleasant. Sometimes it's pure bliss, but not always.

I mentioned sounds, sights and smells, so let's begin by considering a couple of examples from the auditory realm. Having nothing between you and the melodies of the musicians on Royal Street may be nice. On the other hand there’s that car with the shock and awe stereo system blasting out something that resembles the sound of a jackhammer, only less melodic and about a hundred decibels louder. That will make you wish fervently for some windows to roll up.

What about the city's sights? You may well appreciate the improved opportunities for admiring the Spanish colonial architecture from the passenger seat of the pedicab; but sit in that same seat for long, and you'll start to feel like you’re on an urban safari in which Rattus norvegicus (the common rat) is not early as rare and elusive as we all might wish.  (Early on in my pedicab career I saw a rat darting between a drain and a dumpster, and without thinking I blurted out: “Wow, look at that rat!” to which one of my riders responded: “Umm… I don’t think that’s the tour we paid for.”)

Then there’s the olfactory experience, to which the remainder of this post will be devoted.

On the plus side there's the warm, sweet fragrance of frying beignets at Cafe du Monde.

In the minus column, there are those piles of manure left behind by the carriage mules and police horses. (Read here about the controversy this has been creating lately.) In the interest of full disclosure, I've been working lately as a buggy driver in addition to the pedicab gig. The company I work for, Royal Carriages, recently had an hour-and-half meeting to discuss creative solutions to the mule poo problem. (Our mules wear "diapers", but they're not entirely effective. Of course, the horses used by the mounted police don't wear diapers.)

Back to French Quarter fragrances: The block of St. Phillip between Chartres and Decatur is especially nice. At the Chartres end, there's the enticing smell of Creole/Italian cooking coming from Irene's; at the Decatur end, there's the French Market Restaurant with its exquisite, spicy and distinctly New Orleans boiled-seafood aroma. I think they're pumping it out to the street on purpose. No doubt New Orleans has much better restaurants, but as far as I'm concerned, 1001 Decatur might just be the sweetest smelling spot in the city.

When it comes to picking the Quarter's stinkiest spot, I don't think that there would be much controversy in the pedicabbie community. The stench of vomit is common up and down Bourbon, but the corner of Bourbon and Iberville is the foulest by far. Not just the corner actually, but that whole right-angle stretch from Canal and Bourbon to Bourbon and Iberville to Iberville and Royal. I'm not sure what it is that makes that bit so bad. It must have something to do with the cluster of oyster houses there. If you think about it, they have to be discarding gillions of oyster shells, and all those juices are dripping out of the dumpsters and draining right into the streets.  

It was a fellow pedicabbie who suggested that I devote a post to the smells of the city, so I decided that it would be a good idea to solicit input from my colleagues for this piece. I put the word out on the our Facebook page, and I got an enthusiastic response, the highlights of which I now pass on to you my readers. (The quotes are in italics. My comments are in plain text.)

• You can't forget about marijuana. There have been a couple of occasions in which I have become aware that someone was smoking pot on the back of my bike. Strangely enough I didn't smell it those times. I'm guessing that the smoke just drifted along behind us like exhaust from a car. But whenever I ride past someone who's toking on the side of the street the acrid odor is unmistakable.
• The jerk chicken man on Frenchmen St. This is a Jamaican dude with a barbecue grill. I bought his chicken once. It was OK, but definitely one of those things that doesn't taste nearly as good as it smells.
• You can smell those crust punks from 50 feet away sometimes. Three different people mentioned the body odor of crust punks.
• You can't leave out the sweet olive trees and confederate jasmine during springtime. 
• Piss-covered, passed-out frat boy with a hint of sugary Hand Grenade vomit. 
• Coffee roasting at the P&G plant in the Marigny that wafts over to us in the Quarter sometimes.
• Standard coffee and Aunt Sally's in the Marigny. Candy and coffee. Are there any better smells?

One colleague was so inspired by this whole discussion that he proposed a scratch-and-sniff map of New Orleans. Sounds like a great idea! I wonder how you would go about capturing the essence of crust punk body odor for a scratch-and-sniff map.

A good cop story (which has nothing to do with the pedicab)

New Orleans has long been infamous for its corrupt cops, but today I heard a story about a New Orleans police officer who, with one simple act of kindness and creativity, helped transform the lives of six troubled teens.

My car's in the shop, and my bicycle has a flat, so I called a cab this morning to come pick me up today. (Yes, I called a car cab. Hey, I'm all for patronizing pedicabs, and I do so whenever the circumstances allow it. And you can be sure that I pay generous tips. But I'm living in Gentilly -- about three miles from downtown -- so running my errands in a pedicab would cost a lot more time and money than I have to spare. We all have our niche, right?) 


After greeting the driver and giving him my destination, I expressed my condolences for the murder of his colleague earlier this week. He told me that although they worked for the same company, he only knew the victim in passing. However, he was close friends with another cab driver who was murdered in May 2011.


I asked my driver whether he had ever been robbed on the job, and he said no, which wasn't all that surprising. He was a big, burly African-American dude with his hair pulled back tight in a little ponytail. If I were in charge of casting someone to play the part of a bouncer, I don't think I could do any better than this guy. If, on the other hand, I was out looking for someone to rob, I'd probably look elsewhere. As it turned out he didn't just look fierce; he was actually an ex cop. He had started working as a cabby only after retiring from a full career with the police force. 


He had gotten into quite a bit of trouble in his younger years he told me. "I was never really bad," he said. "Just mischievous." But that mischievous streak might have eventually pulled him down a darker path had it not been for one particular encounter with the law. Here's the story as he told it to me.


Some friends and I had climbed over the fence at the school to shoot some hoops. After a while we got thirsty, so we pried a door open to go inside and drink some water. Without knowing it we had set off an alarm. We went back outside to play and suddenly found ourselves surrounded by police cars. Some of the cops got out carrying shotguns. We were really scared.


The chief came over to me and pulled me aside. "I know you from somewhere," he said.


I said, "Yeah, I work over there at Winn Dixie by the precinct station, so you've probably seen me around."


"Look," the chief said. "I don't think you're a bad kid. Tell me what was going on here."


"Nothing, man. We just broke in to get some water."


He walked back over to his colleagues and ordered them all to leave. "I'll handle this one," he said. Then he cuffed all six of us and put us all in his car. It was tight, but he made us all squeeze in. Then he asked us where we lived, and one by one he took every one of us home and talked to our parents. I vowed that day that the next time I met up with the law, I was going to be the policeman. 


After I got out of the academy, I saw that same police chief, and he recognized me. He cried!


Of the six of us who got into trouble that day, me and another guy went on to become policemen. One became an attorney. One became an executive of a big financial firm. One owns a construction company. And one is a social worker with a PhD in psychology. 

By the time he was done with his story, I had tears in my eyes. "Look, I hate to bring this up," I said. "But you know how it is here in New Orleans. Whenever you talk about crime and police -- or anything else, for that matter -- race is always part of the picture. So, your friends... They were all African American?"

"Yes," he said.

"And the policeman?"

"No, he was white."

I told the cab driver that I write a blog and that I would love to share his story. He said that was okay. I asked permission to use his name, and he respectfully declined.

Assuming that his story was accurate, he and his companions definitely beat the odds. You've probably heard the grim statistics about African-American men. If anything the situation is worse around here. A couple of years ago a report calculated that a black male in Jefferson Parish (an area which includes most of New Orleans' suburbs) was more likely to be murdered than a U.S. soldier deployed to Iraq was to be killed there.

I want to be careful not to put more weight on this story than it can bear. First of all, I can't say whether that policeman's behavior was anything out of the ordinary. For all I know he may have merely been following the police policy manual. Secondly, there must have been many other people who helped point these young men toward a productive path -- schoolteachers, pastors, social workers, and who knows who else -- to say nothing of their parents. Let's not overlook the fact that involving the boys' parents was a key component of the policeman's plan. 


Still, the cop-turned-cabby who shared his story with me today credits that one policeman and his wise action at a critical time with setting him on the road for a successful life. 

A nice ride rudely interrupted. (Plus bonus interactive survey.)

I was doing a drop off at a French Quarter hotel just before midnight last week. A couple of soccer-mom types, one blonde and the other brunette, were standing in front of the hotel entrance.

"Hey, let's see your calves!" demanded the blonde as my passengers disembarked. I dutifully flexed my calf muscles for her.

"Do you go Uptown?" asked the brunette.

This is a common question and one that is almost never sincere. People seem to get a big kick out of asking me to take them to outlandish places: the airport, the West Bank, California... Technically Uptown doesn't fit in this category since it is located inside Orleans Parish and is therefore, in theory at least, a possible pedicab destination. (See here for a previous post on distance rides including the story of a trip Uptown.) But nine times out of ten, when someone asks to go Uptown the request is intended as a joke.

I gave my stock reply: "It's not a question of how far I can go; it's a question of how far you can afford."

"Hmmm... Well, how much would it be to --?" asked the lady, naming an Uptown address well beyond the Garden District.

So maybe this one was serious. Or more likely, she had been joking initially but on a sudden whim was giving the idea serious consideration.

I hesitated a moment. Did I really want to do this? It would be the furthest I had ever traveled on a single, one-way ride. There was almost zero chance of picking up a fare on the return. It was hard to estimate how long it might take, but I figured that it would be more than an hour round trip -- probably a good bit more.

On the other hand, it had been a slow night with slim tips so far. It was a warm summer evening, and the prospect of a long, leisurely ride Uptown with moonlight filtering through the leafy branches of the live oak trees overhead was very appealing.  In the interest of full disclosure, I should probably also mention that these ladies were very pretty. (It turned out that only one of them needed a ride, but I didn’t know that yet.) Not that I had any untoward intentions, but if you read my last post you may not be surprised to know that I’m a bit hungry for any kind of female companionship lately.

"Thirty dollars," I said.

This was a lot more than it would have cost to make the trip by taxi -- but dirt cheap for that distance on the pedicab. I really wanted to do the ride but not badly enough to do it for nothing.

"Oh, I see," the lady said, sounding a little disappointed. "I'm probably better off just taking a cab."

"Yes, I'm sure you can get a cab a lot cheaper if that's what you're looking for," I admitted.

She hesitated a moment before blurting out. "You know what? I'm going to do it!"

"Are you serious?" her friend said, suddenly realizing that the joke had gone farther than she had expected.

"Sure! Why not? It'll be fun," the brunette replied.

"You've got to be kidding!" the blonde protested. "I'm going to tell your husband."

The brunette ignored the threat and settled into the seat behind me.

"Take good care of her," the blonde ordered me as I began pedaling away. "She's got three kids and a husband at home."

"Yes, please be careful," echoed the brunette. "I've got three kids and a husband."

"Hey, do I look dangerous?" I asked.

"No," she admitted. "But the dangerous ones never look dangerous."

The ride started out well. She was friendly without being flirtatious. I don't think she told me her name; if so, I don't remember it. I did learn that she was a school administrator. I asked about her Katrina experience, which is a pretty reliable way to open up a conversation in New Orleans, and she told me a brief version of her story. Our conversation moved on, and we both talked about our kids a bit.

About five minutes into the ride she got a call on her cell phone. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help overhearing.

Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll be home in a little bit.

…I’m on my way now. It’ll be a few minutes.

…Yes.

…Yes. I’m on my way.

…I uh…took a uh...pedicab.

…Did she really call you? I’m going to get her! She betrayed me!

…No! I could have gotten a taxi if that’s what I wanted.

…I’m going to pay him forty dollars.

…No!

…NO!

…NO! I’m fine. Really.

…NO! I don’t need you to come get me.

…No, really, I’m fine. I’m OK, hear? I’ll be home soon!

“Uh-oh,” I said when she hung up. “Sounds like you’re in trouble.”

“Oh yeah, a little,” she said dismissively. “It’s no big deal.”

We picked up the conversation where we had left off as we continued the ride. Another ten minutes passed pleasantly before a car came zooming up out of nowhere and screeched to a halt beside us. The driver shouted something that I didn’t quite catch through the open window, presumably my passenger’s name.

“Oh no!” she gasped.

“Your husband?”

“Yes, my husband. I can’t believe it! This is so embarrassing! I’m really sorry,” she said as she fumbled through her purse for the money to pay me.

“No need to apologize,” I reassured her. “No damage done to me.”

Of course there wasn’t any damage done to me. To the contrary, she paid me the price we had agreed upon plus a ten dollar tip, so I ended up getting a fairly decent fare for the distance, which would not have been the case had I carried her all the way to her destination. No damage at all. Just a twinge of disappointment.

______________________________

Here’s a chance for you, my readers, to weigh in on this story. I’m interested in knowing what you think about the husband’s behavior.

A. His action was reasonable and responsible. His wife had put herself in a potentially dangerous situation that demanded his intervention.

B. His action was romantic. He went above and beyond the call of duty out of a noble desire to protect his lady. Any girl should be grateful to be so well cared for.

C. He was acting like an overbearing jerk.

D. Other. (Explain.)

Homecoming

Homeless!

Well, I grew up in the area, but I moved away for 27 years, and I finally found my way back here last August.

That's what I've been telling people lately when the question of where I'm from comes up.  I've noticed that this stock reply has undergone a subtle shift recently. I used to say: I grew up in the area, but I moved away for 27 years, and I found myself back here in August.

Did you catch the difference? I suppose that "finding my way back" as opposed to "finding myself back" reflects a growing sense of being at home. This place certainly didn't feel like home when I first got back. In the early days after my return I would say things like: "I thought I had escaped the orbit of South Louisiana, but here I am again."

When my family and I came back to the States last summer, we had been living in the Balkans for 13 of the last 16 years. We had lived in three different countries -- Albania, Kosova, and Macedonia -- but always among ethnic Albanians, and I had dedicated myself to learning the Albanian language, immersing myself in their lifestyle, and loving their food and their folk music. (Speaking of which here, here and here are some really cool songs.) One of the highest compliments anyone ever paid me was author Katherine Paterson's comment in an interview with Publisher's Weekly that when she saw my photos of Kosova, she knew that she had found someone who knew and loved the land and its people. When I imagined my future, I saw myself living among the Albanians for at least the rest of my working days if not the rest of my life.

Still, I never had any illusions of being truly "at home" there. Whenever an Albanian friend flattered me by saying, "You're one of us!" I received the compliment joyfully without ever believing for a moment that it was true. "I'll never really be Albanian," I used to say. "But after all these years living with Albanians, I'll never really quite be American either."

My wife Mary and I were both from Louisiana -- she from the northwest corner of the state and I from the southeast corner; but neither of us had much emotional attachment to the places we had grown up. In fact, both of us had been glad to put some distance between ourselves and our hometowns as soon as we graduated from high school.

Our kids, Lydia and Luke, had both grown up in Southeastern Europe. A year or two ago Luke asked me: "Dad, when people ask where I'm from, is it OK to just tell them 'New Orleans'?" He had never lived in New Orleans. (In fact, I had never actually lived in New Orleans -- more about that in a minute.) But Luke had become a big Saints fan, and he had decided that if he had to identify with some city, New Orleans would be his choice. I doubt that the thought of actually living in New Orleans had even occurred to him as a possibility. He was just looking for a convenient way to respond to a very common question, which for him and his sister had no simple answer.

We all loved our life in Macedonia, and none of us wanted to leave. However, the relationship between Mary and me had been crumbling over the last several years. We had traveled far and wide for counseling -- Akron, Ohio; Springfield, Missouri; Budapest, Hungary; and finally Seattle, Washington, where we took a six month leave in order to devote ourselves full-time to marriage therapy. After each of these trips we returned hopeful that our marriage was on the mend. By last summer it was clear to everyone around us that we were still struggling, and the leaders of the organization we worked for finally concluded that for our own sake and the sake of the work we were a part of, we needed to leave Macedonia where we were living at the time. When the word finally came down that we had to go home, we came face to face with the fact that we had no idea where home was.

Mary and I responded at first by looking for job opportunities that would allow us to continue to live in the Balkans, but we couldn't come up with anything in time. When it became apparent that we really had to return to the U.S., we sent emails to our parents and siblings saying: "We're coming back to the States, but we haven't picked a place. If you would like for us to live near you, feel free to make your pitch." One step removed from putting on a blindfold and throwing darts at a map.

My youngest sister replied to say that she and her husband had a house in Slidell, Louisiana that they were trying to sell. She would rent it to us at far less than the market value until it sold, which was likely to be several months. So based on this offer of a cheap and convenient place to live, we settled on Slidell, the town where I had grown up.

Suburb vs. City

These days when I'm riding the pedicab in the French Quarter, and I tell people "I grew up here in this area," I'm using language that is just vague enough to avoid an outright deception. In terms of sheer distance it's true that Slidell is not so far from New Orleans; but Lake Pontchartrain, the barrier between suburb and city, is no mere imaginary municipal line. The 30-some-odd mile commute requires traversing a featureless bridge across five miles of open water -- not to mention several miles of uninhabited marshland with the carcasses of road-killed alligators strewn alongside the freeway.

Slidell has virtually no industry of its own. It's often referred to as a "bedroom community" for people who work in the city but don't want to live there. The relationship between Slidell and New Orleans is best illustrated by a recent conversation with an acquaintance in which I was complaining about the lack of public transportation between the north and south shores of the lake. Given the large number of people making this commute every day, it was shocking to me that there was no way to get back and forth other than in a private car. The guy I was chatting with, who's a few years older than me and has lived in this area his whole life, said, "Well, you understand why, don't you? There have been attempts in the past, but Slidell and the other cities on the North Shore have always been against it. Not that they would mind being able to take a bus or train to New Orleans. But they don't want to provide an easy way for the undesirables from New Orleans to cross to the North Shore. You know, the crime and all that?..." I can't say for sure whether this explanation is accurate, but it rings true to me. For many of the inhabitants of the North Shore the lake serves as a security fence. Car ownership is a key that lets you cross the fence whenever you need to. (If you're picking up racial overtones here, you're probably on target.)

In my growing up years New Orleans was just foreign enough to be a little bit frightening, mysterious and thrilling. When I was in college, I got into the habit of bringing international students home with me for weekends and holidays, and I enjoyed taking them into the city and showing them around. The truth is I didn't know my way around all that much, but I could find the aquarium and the zoo and Cafe du Monde and the Superdome. Every time we made the trip, and we didn't get mugged and my car didn't get stolen or towed, I felt as though I had successfully completed some epic quest.

Returning to Slidell last August, things looked different. Having lived almost eight years in Kosova, what could be so scary about New Orleans? Mary and I disagreed about many things, but we agreed from the get-go that we weren't really the kind of people who wanted to live out our lives in the suburbs. My sister's house was a big blessing in a time of need, but from the beginning we decided that if we were going to live in southeast Louisiana, we wanted to get to the other side of the lake as soon as we could.

Something better than Sam's Club

Before we could think about moving, we had to find work. When people asked me how I ended up on the pedicab there are two distinct ways to answer. On the one hand, I found myself in a situation where I really didn't have a lot of other options. A couple of years earlier I had told our counselor in Budapest that as much as I loved my life and work in the Balkans, I was ready at any time to return to the States permanently for the sake of my marriage. "That's bullshit!" he told me. "You'd end up as a greeter at Sam's Club." (I figured that I might enjoy being a greeter at Sam's and that I'd probably be very good at it; but I had to admit that it would be hard to make enough money to take good care of my family.) As it turned out the counselor had a point. I ended up returning to the U.S. armed with a 23-year-old degree in journalism at a time when newspapers were going broke left and right and a highly specialized set of skills for which there was no market. (Know of an job openings for an albanologist anyone?) I sent out quite a few resumes but never heard back from anybody.

None of this is to suggest that becoming a pedicabbie was an act of desperation. When I saw the help-wanted ad, it looked to me like a dream job -- which turned out to be true more or less. (By the way, the timing of the whole thing was pretty close to perfect. We arrived back in the States in August.The very next month pedicabs were finally cleared to operate in New Orleans -- the conclusion of a two-and-a-half year legal battle. I didn't actually start the job till November, but I still manage to catch the industry in its infancy. I was among the first full-time pedicabbies in the city.)

When I first began pedicabbing, I knew next to nothing about the layout of the city. I didn't know how to find Frenchmen St. or Pat O'Brien's. Despite investing in a smart phone with GPS and a bluetooth headset, I managed to get myself into some pretty embarrassing situations in those early days. But it wasn't long before I was finding my way around like a native. After all, there's probably no better way to get intimately acquainted with an urban location than to spend days and nights riding the streets on a big trike for eight hours at a stretch.

Rediscovering my roots

Speaking of getting intimately acquainted, the more time I spent on the pedicab, the more I found myself captivated by the Crescent City. Despite the fact that I had never lived in New Orleans, it started to make sense to me that these streets would feel familiar. After all, my father had grown up here as had his father before him. My great grandfather had immigrated to New Orleans from Spain by way of Cuba. I hadn't really given it much thought before, but my roots were generations deep in the city's swampy soil.

Riding by the exquisite Le Pavillon Hotel on Poydras St., I remembered my dad having pointed it out to me when I was a kid. "That's where your grandfather used to work," he had said. I called him up to make sure that I remembered right. Turns out that my memory had served me well. It was called the Hotel Desoto back then, but it was the same location, same building, same Romanesque facade featuring fifteen-foot tall limestone statues. My grandfather, who died before I was born, used to sell tours there for a company called Gray Line. (Bike Taxi Unlimited, the pedicab company I work for, has a contract to provide transport for Gray Line guests.) I couldn't resist telling my passengers every time I dropped off or picked up at Le Pavillon:  "My grandpa used to work here!"

On another occasion I was riding in the Garden District, and I suddenly recalled hearing my dad say that he grown up in that part of town. I called him to ask for the address. It turned out that he and his family had lived in two different Garden District houses. Later, when I had the time, I found the houses and photographed them. Both were shotgun houses tucked in among the antebellum mansions for which the Garden District is famous. In one of the houses, my father, his brother and their parents had lived together with two other families. Imagining three families living in such cramped conditions gave me a picture of the poverty in which my father was raised.

Immediately downriver from the French Quarter I discovered another utterly delightful neighborhood, the Marigny. In a conversation with my youngest sister (the one who provided us with the house and the only of my three siblings still living in the New Orleans area) I was telling her how enchanted I was with the Marigny, and she said, "You know that our great grandfather lived over there on Spain St. when he immigrated to New Orleans, right?" I hadn't known. It's possible that I had heard this fact before and hadn't found it worth remembering, but now I was intrigued. Just as with Le Pavillon, I began pointing the site out to my passengers as though they had actually signed up for a tour of the Crescent City Pedicabbie's ancestral homeland.

Postscript. Finding my way home as my home breaks apart

On Wednesday (day after tomorrow as I write this) my wife and I will finally be leaving my sister's house in Slidell and moving to New Orleans. After having shared our lives for 22 years, we will be sharing the moving truck on that day, but unfortunately, we will be unloading our belongings at two separate houses. It has finally become clear that our marriage is beyond repair. We have chosen to live just four blocks apart so that our children will continue to have the benefit of two parents. 

Looking back over the last few months, I realize that I have relied on the pleasure of pedicabbing to help deaden the pain of seeing my marriage come to an end. And now, as I enter the next phase of my life minus Mary's companionship, I am seeking comfort in the Crescent City's warm embrace.