don’t we plan a meeting. Let’s set a time and a time limit, and agree that whatever we are thinking about will get an airing.”
They took each others’ hands, looked in each others’ eyes.
“Can we go have fun now?” Alice said with a crooked, almost apologetic smile.
“Are we okay?” Craig said. “Do we need to talk some more?”
“No,” Alice said. “We’re okay. Thank you.”
Holding her gaze, Craig said, “Thank you.”
The conversations were necessary, and exhausting. They ended them feeling closer, feeling relieved; it did not escape their notice that a fundamental difference had been left unresolved, but at least they could go on with their day.
That Friday afternoon, Craig opened the backyard shed and dragged out the big, high wooden table that they used only for crawfish boils, spread it with layers of overlapping newspaper which he secured tothe legs with duct tape. Then he got out their six tiki lamps on poles and drove them into the ground at strategic points around the yard. He hung strings of small paper lanterns from tree to tree to drainpipe. Alice was in charge of picking up some of the food; guests would be bringing other dishes potluck style. Around two o’clock Craig went to Gumbo for an hour and a half to oversee a few last-minute changes in the issue that was closing. And, at Alice’s urging, he called the Lamplighter Hotel in Oxford, Mississippi, and made reservations for three nights starting the next night, just in case the storm started heading for New Orleans and they decided to evacuate. There was an escalating amount of talk on television and radio during the day about the storm’s possible path.
Around five o’clock Doug Worth brought over his crawfish rig, a fifteen-gallon pot with a cage that fit snugly within it and would contain the crawfish, which were lowered, live and writhing, into water that was heated to boiling by a low portable gas stove. They set it up in the dirt driveway around the side of the house. Doug, raised in Mid-City, was a New Orleans institution. Thin, short, with long blond hair and mutton-chop sideburns, always dressed in a plaid Western shirt, he was the lead guitarist and singer for The Combustibles (he also played in spinoff bands like Desire Street, the Crescents, The Goombahs, Candy and the Canes…), one of the great bar bands in the history of New Orleans. They could play anything, it often seemed, as long as the song had been recorded before 1970. Their specialty was obscure New Orleans rhythm and blues, things that felt new because nobody knew them but specialists, like “Loud Mouth Annie” by Big Boy Myles, or “Every Time I Hear That Mellow Saxophone” by Roy Montrell. The Combustibles had a standing gig at Rock ’N Bowl on Carrollton Avenue every other Friday, a bowling alley where the band set up on the mezzanine level while people bowled away next to them, and danced in front of them, and they played at high school proms, corner bars and restaurant openings, debutante balls and biker parties. They had a dedicated local following and they put out records every two years or so on their own label, Making Groceries, which the drummer’s wife sold at a table during their gigs. Doug was an unofficial music historian, who could tell you anything about Guitar Slim or Lazy Lester or Barbara George or Dave Bartholomew or Smiley Lewis.
Doug lived with his wife, Connie, two blocks from Craig and Alice and was the most popular father of all the kids in their tight group in that neighborhood. Since he didn’t have a regular day job, he had a degree of surplus energy for toting his own two kids and their playmates around the block on his old Union Pacific train service cart—down Plum Street to the corner of Burdette to the snowball stand, then back along tree-shaded Willow Street. Every other Saturday he would get out his guitar and invite all the kids and their parents for an informal sing-along in his backyard, where he would
They took each others’ hands, looked in each others’ eyes.
“Can we go have fun now?” Alice said with a crooked, almost apologetic smile.
“Are we okay?” Craig said. “Do we need to talk some more?”
“No,” Alice said. “We’re okay. Thank you.”
Holding her gaze, Craig said, “Thank you.”
The conversations were necessary, and exhausting. They ended them feeling closer, feeling relieved; it did not escape their notice that a fundamental difference had been left unresolved, but at least they could go on with their day.
That Friday afternoon, Craig opened the backyard shed and dragged out the big, high wooden table that they used only for crawfish boils, spread it with layers of overlapping newspaper which he secured tothe legs with duct tape. Then he got out their six tiki lamps on poles and drove them into the ground at strategic points around the yard. He hung strings of small paper lanterns from tree to tree to drainpipe. Alice was in charge of picking up some of the food; guests would be bringing other dishes potluck style. Around two o’clock Craig went to Gumbo for an hour and a half to oversee a few last-minute changes in the issue that was closing. And, at Alice’s urging, he called the Lamplighter Hotel in Oxford, Mississippi, and made reservations for three nights starting the next night, just in case the storm started heading for New Orleans and they decided to evacuate. There was an escalating amount of talk on television and radio during the day about the storm’s possible path.
Around five o’clock Doug Worth brought over his crawfish rig, a fifteen-gallon pot with a cage that fit snugly within it and would contain the crawfish, which were lowered, live and writhing, into water that was heated to boiling by a low portable gas stove. They set it up in the dirt driveway around the side of the house. Doug, raised in Mid-City, was a New Orleans institution. Thin, short, with long blond hair and mutton-chop sideburns, always dressed in a plaid Western shirt, he was the lead guitarist and singer for The Combustibles (he also played in spinoff bands like Desire Street, the Crescents, The Goombahs, Candy and the Canes…), one of the great bar bands in the history of New Orleans. They could play anything, it often seemed, as long as the song had been recorded before 1970. Their specialty was obscure New Orleans rhythm and blues, things that felt new because nobody knew them but specialists, like “Loud Mouth Annie” by Big Boy Myles, or “Every Time I Hear That Mellow Saxophone” by Roy Montrell. The Combustibles had a standing gig at Rock ’N Bowl on Carrollton Avenue every other Friday, a bowling alley where the band set up on the mezzanine level while people bowled away next to them, and danced in front of them, and they played at high school proms, corner bars and restaurant openings, debutante balls and biker parties. They had a dedicated local following and they put out records every two years or so on their own label, Making Groceries, which the drummer’s wife sold at a table during their gigs. Doug was an unofficial music historian, who could tell you anything about Guitar Slim or Lazy Lester or Barbara George or Dave Bartholomew or Smiley Lewis.
Doug lived with his wife, Connie, two blocks from Craig and Alice and was the most popular father of all the kids in their tight group in that neighborhood. Since he didn’t have a regular day job, he had a degree of surplus energy for toting his own two kids and their playmates around the block on his old Union Pacific train service cart—down Plum Street to the corner of Burdette to the snowball stand, then back along tree-shaded Willow Street. Every other Saturday he would get out his guitar and invite all the kids and their parents for an informal sing-along in his backyard, where he would
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