A Week in Acadiana

House sliding into Lake Henderson

The day after George Floyd’s funeral, I awoke once again on the couch in my friend A’s apartment in Houston. She had already gotten to working when I rolled off the couch and got myself some water. My friend A and I discussed her work, the school she’s doing, and the trials of dealing with incompetent bosses and uncaring professors. I chowed on some cold pizza, hydrated and cheerfully commiserated with her while music played in the background. In my recollection it was Janelle Monáe vibrating through the air as I gathered my things and prepared to hit the road. We said our goodbyes, and I heard the lock audibly click behind me as I walked down the street to Coquille, my car. Coquille is French for “shell”, and she’s my home as I roam.

In Coquille, where I’ve spent so much of this year, I have time to think about what I’m seeing and everything I’m hearing from people I’m meeting, the radio, the podcasts…now is a time of such shifting of interlocking shapes and systems. Stimulating, but getting exhausting trying to keep up with all developments concerning the pandemic, the economic crisis, the uprising. It was nice to pull into a sandwich spot near downtown Houston, laugh and relax with my old friends K and A. They’re both from Acadiana, some of the people who got away.

After seeing them, I slid onto the I-10 heading east to Lafayette. Driving that stretch from Houston to Lafayette brings you through Beaumont, TX and Lake Charles, LA. These cities aren’t known as centers of global culture. In this long swath of the Gulf Coast given utterly to petrochemicals, the region feels like a resource colony, a sacrifice zone. One travels past more refineries than one can count. Their strange shapes upset the eye, and their stink indicates that all is not well in this corner of the world. Most of the landscape is more pleasing to look at, forest interspersed with rice paddies and fields of sugarcane. The shops advertise boudin and cracklin, Cajun foods. Those signs, more than anything else, remind me that I’m returning to my old stomping grounds.

I pulled into Lafayette and spent some hours chatting with my friends J and N, a married couple based out of Lafayette. J is quite given to Murray Bookchin, social ecology and the revolution in Rojava. In conversation J expressed his desire to go to Rojava and fight in the Revolution. When N became pregnant some years ago, they had to focus homeward rather than abroad. While speaking with me, J and N took turns holding and caressing their firstborn child, now a toddler. The toddler has a developmental disability, and my friends shared their stories of great difficulty in securing quality medical care and affordable childcare. Both parents work, he as a diver, she at the local university. Spending time with yet another struggling family brought me back to Steinbeck’s line from “The Grapes of Wrath”: “...and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.” 

I bid my friends farewell after the sun had set, took the I-49 north to Opelousas. I spent 10 years of my youth in Opelousas, ages six to sixteen, and I couldn’t wait to get out back then. Now it’s my mother P and stepfather J who give me reason to return. Return I did, pulling in late at night and surprising my folks. Nice to see the smiles of people who love you just for being you. Rare in this world.

My folks have both remained employed through the pandemic, she in nursing, he in transportation. While they were out during the days I spent the time launching the website, doing the phone interview with the CHAZ partisan and transcribing said interview for my second post. Took in lots of sun, raided the fridge and rested after so many weeks of ceaseless motion. In the evenings my folks would return, my mom and I would sit out front talking while J stayed inside and prepared dinner. J has always enjoyed cooking more than P, and looking back I feel lucky to have grown up with this reversal of traditional gender roles. After dinner my mom and I played backgammon, a game where the objective is to return all of your pieces to your side of the board. A game about coming home. 

Brim got more than he bargained for

That Saturday my folks took their new motorboat out to Lake Henderson, part of the Atchafalaya Basin between Lafayette and Baton Rouge. They left early in the morning, too early for me to have joined them and stayed awake. After a few more hours of delicious sleep, I left the house to join them at the marina. They were already at the dock waiting for me when I arrived at the marina, a simple affair of two wooden docks extending over the lake towards cypress trees draped in Spanish moss. After hopping in the boat, J steered it to a shaded area and they began casting their rods. Egrets and herons skulked around at the periphery, occasionally taking flight in a great burst of flapping. My folks caught plenty of brim, mostly small, and threw them back after pulling the hooks out. I was happy enough to watch them enjoying themselves, didn’t particularly feel the need to cast myself. 

Sunday, I drove south to Carencro and met with my old friend T, who used to be in the Marines. We got a drink at Pogie’s Pour House, and had a long conversation about privilege, work, traveling and relationships. T asked if I’d follow him back to his place to help him move some exercise equipment. I hopped out my chair, all too eager to lend a hand. After loading some dumbbells and awkwardly maneuvering a pull-up bar into his truck bed, he mentioned that the mother of our friend S lives down the road. T and I dropped by and saw S, his mother and younger sister. Only when coming home can you see people you’ve known for twenty years and laugh so hard it hurts. All while your friend’s mom feeds you full to bursting. The sun set, the mosquitos came out, the frogs were croaking and it felt sublime to be in familiar territory.

Monday, my folks left for work and it was time for me to hit the road once more. I packed everything back into my car and raided the fridge once more, because you can’t do that everywhere you stay. I said my goodbyes to my childhood home and pulled onto the Acadiana Trail, heading east to Baton Rouge.

Pulled from Google Images