Before the Rain Part 4: Welcome to the Projects

Image of a graffiti portraying a man smoking a joint.

Duncan C/ Flickr

“I have got nothin’ you need, bruh,” Loomis managed to expel from a somewhat bloodied upper lip. “I’m a, a music bum–” he winced but went on. “Have a heart, bruh…”

“Shoot. Mus’ be Mercy Day for me,” Craig spat out, as he abruptly let the tip of the broken aerial whistle dangerously past Loomis’ cheek. Close by were Oscar and Fish Head, passing a nubby blunt back and forth.

With a quick flick of his peanut-shaped head, topped by squiggly dreads, Craig motioned his buddies back. Passing Loomis, Oscar perversely proffered the spliff to the downed man. Loomis not only ached all over; he also ached to blurt out “I’M IN RECOVERY,” but in a nanosecond squelched that impulse!

Instead, Loomis wiped at his fat upper lip (no broken teeth, thank God!), and gulped, taking one puff of the strong skunkweed. Coughing vigorously, he managed a weak sigh of “Yeah, smoke the peace pipe, bruh,” and sank back to the pavement as the thug trio faded from view. After a beat or two, Loomis, still sprawled horizontally on a stretch of sidewalk, stamped “Pierre Matine, Metarie Louisiana,” from long ago, and tried rotating his sore sprung neck. Ouch! Then he pulled out his green paisley hankie, dabbing gingerly around his bruised mouth.

From his low gaze, Loomis dimly zeroed in on the streetlamp above him. Circling in a crazy halo endlessly was this cloud of huge insects, their rattling, leathery wings keeping them aloft. Dusk settled in lazily over Loomis and the big bugs. For the moment, everything else was still, silent, spooky. “Damn Formosan cockroaches,” Loomis groaned,”and the freighter they rode in on.”

He attempted to rise and glance around, but failed for now. “Guess I’ll hafta slightly change my plans,” he whispered harshly.

Loomis let things flash before his brainpan. He was definitely a loopy coolie from the Channel, a mongrel mix of French, Irish and god-knows-what. So how were three rangy and braided cats from the rough side of Esplanade to know this! Craig, the lead man, was sharply brandishing a radio aerial aloft. “Yo dog. This ain’t this man’s block, huh Oscar?”

Loomis blinked on the time when, as a boy, he filched a snow globe from Maison Blanche. Segue to his more recent adulthood, sitting by the City Park Mermaid with Irene, his lovely Irene, heart girl from Upperline. “Goodnight, Irene,” he sighed, as the short and wiry Oscar grunted, and lunged for the hard tackle. Loomis spun backwards against Fish Head, the third of his aggressors. Fish was a reddish young’un with quizzical furled eyebrows poking up over blue tinted shades.

“Now see here dog, Why’nt ya make it easy on you’self,” snarled Craig.

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