Heartbreak Hotel

--from the Village Voice

By Rudolph Lewis

New York is a half a continent

away for Katrina 480

Evacuees we navigate a cutthroat

market with no money

bunk in hotels around the boroughs

FEMA's deadlining to stop footing

the bill. We're in the clutches of propaganda

from Homeless Services. Stray dogs earn

more sympathy than Spartan accommodations

at the Apollo Hotel—no closets, drawers

no telephones. People go hungry with candy

bars & Red Cross addicted to denial

Desperation numbs

Outrage criminalizes—files

pile up in cases on desks how

New Orleans people are different

in their way of life—it’s a trick

question no matter

how you try to explain the pain

The caseworker doesn't come

She's at home with her money

At NYU I talked to a nice lady.

I felt really happy that day

for the first time in a long

long time since the hurricane

And then there're times

when it's been really, really rough

I really miss my home

I miss my friends

I miss the way of life I had.

I don't know what I'd do without it

Then there’re ultimatums

If they don't have funding

get the hell out of Iraq

take care of your own people

If a man has a family

and he's off with somebody

else's family, paying their bills

his own family's suffering

—you gotta take care of your own

people first and your own country

They want us in space

for murders & robberies

let’s talk about responsibility

& faith in government.

I fucking hate them. I was

stuck down there, the police

did not know what to do

too dangerous for FEMA

to come in. How do you think

that made us feel stuck down there

—the mayor shooting at people

making them turn around?

He gave orders to the police

force to do it. We heard

the announcement, twin span

completely out, we were told

there was no way out

of the city. You expected

someone to come in & help

I feel claustrophobic

in my room. You can't keep

anything organized

There isn't a drawer to keep

anything in. You can't eat

anything here, there's no phone

They're treating you like

you're a welfare addict, like

someone who's never worked

a day in her life. You spend

your whole day filling out forms

like what you put poor people

through. I don't even bother

anymore. It's such a comic thing

—food stamps: you want a full-time

job; they got you at a work center

eight hours a day for food stamps

I don't have a legitimate 1040

& they kicking me out

telling me to bounce

I don't enjoy this kind of public

assistance—just getting by to get

on my feet. It's too long, too much

My dad passed away

in the hurricane in Chalmette

in a tidal wave. He got to the attic

with medicines, died

with a full gallon of water

unopened. I hope it was

quick—a heart attack

not a snakebite—how you deal

with that? I've never been

treated in this manner

but they don't care. I have

money to pay but they don't want

to hear that. We been here

almost three months. They wait

for the deadline to help us

Responses

Miriam: That situation makes me wanta holler . . . and kill somebody. What I hope is that people don't forget, don't just move on with their little lives and not think about the hell that the evacuees are still going through. The t. v. cameras are off, the media is focusing on the 12 miners in West Virginia, Linda Lohan (or whatever in the hell her name is) is getting her 15 minutes of drug/bulimia fame, and folks are wondering how they're gonna pay their taxes or get a refund . . . and Katrina is put on the back burner.

I talked to a friend who's making the journey back. Her husband was diagnosed with cancer three days before Katrina. She saw a sign on their last trip back "Enter the city at your own risk," yet Nagin in going around the country telling folk to come back: "We're making plans for Mardi Gras." She said a friend of hers knows the N. O. coroner, who says, "We ordered 10,000 body bags but ran out a long time ago." More lies. But 600 to 800 children still haven't been reunited with their families, and FEMA is putting folks out, come February one. Does anyone care?

Rudy: I don't know, I don't know. People want to return to old routines. But it will never be the same. Maybe it's gonna take time for all of that. We been operating for decades under sterile myths and stereotypes. We're getting a more poignant sense now what it was like in post-Reconstruction for our fathers and mothers, much more poignant than Du Bois' Black Reconstruction. We can now feel that kind of situation on the pulse. It is no longer an intellectual exercise. It's here upon us and all around us, ready to engulf us. I will do as much as I can for as long as I can. There is no rest for the wary, not even in dreams.

Miriam: You have a line of poetry there in "sterile myths and stereotypes" with its rhythm, cadence, and alliterations.

Rudy: Yes, it seems, I'm running on all cylinders. But I ain't afraid of burnt out. Let come what may. I think there are others out there who ain't going for the okey-doke of the Bushites. Who are just as hard at work to turn back the tide.

Kam: Nice, although I have a personal aversion to profanity.

Mona Lisa: Thanks Rudy, It's a great one.

posted 6 January 2005