Ten years ago Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, and the city drowned. When Street Sense vendor Gerald Anderson began writing about rescuing Katrina victims, he was homeless. Now he lives in a recovery home and has just published his memoir.
After meeting every week for 18 months to tell me his story, Gerald’s “My Katrina” series from the pages of Street Sense has been transformed into “Still Standing: How an Ex-Con Found Salvation in the Floodwaters of Katrina.”
For Gerald, a brewing storm meant an opportunity to break into cars, stores, and homes. He would then buy drugs and land in jail. From age 15 to 37, a cycle of drugs, crime, prison was all he knew. But when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the levees broke, Gerald’s focus shifted, and he called upon skills he had learned behind bars to tend to those who were trapped.
Using a boat they found at an evacuated house in the Garden District, Gerald and his homeboys battled chin-high floodwaters to rescue victims (or their bodies): a woman in labor, an old man without legs, an addict with a bullet in his chest. He and his friends looked after families and elderly in the projects “just like if we was protecting the President’s house.”
“Still Standing” is more than a tale of struggles when the levees broke. A gifted storyteller, Gerald weaves reflections on life before Katrina into the narrative. “The neighborhood I came up in, you sit on the porch, and it like watchin’ a wrasslin’ match. You see the ladies, the hustlers, the dogfights. If there ain’t men doin’ violence, women be fightin’ about men.”
Gerald also reflects on using his wits in prison, where he grilled cheese sandwiches by ironing them inside brown paper bags. In Louisiana State Penitentiary, he lived with his father for the first time and realized, “My daddy got a little care about me.”
Gerald’s memoir illuminates a man’s life that is tested by floodwaters and given new meaning by his rescue efforts. His voice and cadence lend immediacy to his riveting story.
Recently I asked about his life as a street paper vendor and as a published author:
How did it feel to finally hold a copy of your book?
It feel terrific, great, real great. Why? I know I can do it. It’s a big joyful thing to me, it motivate me, like when somethin’ get me down, I think about the book and about when I was on live TV and it motivate me.
Talk about when you first believed “Still Standing” would actually become a book.
I just kept workin’ hard. One Street Sense customer say to me, “You stayed out in the snow, sleet, and rain to write this book. You were homeless but you did this.” A lot of people say—“it’s rainin’, you gotta go home.” I say, “it can’t be no worse than Katrina. I’m stayin’.”
Describe your writing process.
My story come to be a book, because every week I meet up with my editor and we sit out at different places—Starbucks, Panera, Astro Chicken. She ask me questions and writes on her computer. Then we share the stories in Street Sense.
What has been your proudest moment since publishing?
My proudest moment this week, somethin’ amazing! I never thought this would happen—it’s big like Katrina to me. On Friday me and the judge and my editor sit face to face, the judge chair facin’ me! Sittin’ in the courtroom where they sit the criminals at with the lawyer. The same table I sat at when the judge sentence me to the drug treatment program. The judge shake my hand, and then it’s like we sittin’ in a coffee shop. With the judge! After we tell some stories, I sign “Gerald Anderson” in the back of the book for her, right next to where I thank her for sendin’ me to the program
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Describe a typical weekday.
When I wake up it be about 3:45 in the morning. I smoke me a cigarette, wash up, and make my coffee. My clothes already be laid out. I sit on the side of my bed, say my prayers. I go to sleep sayin’ prayers and I wake up sayin’ prayers. Why so many prayers? That’s how blessed I am to be here.
Then I take the Metro and go to McDonald’s. I get to Gallery Place at around 6:30 a.m. to sell my papers. I set the papers out and play my music. When I see the people comin’, that’s when I get into action. I motivate my customers by sayin’ “Good morning, good morning,” and they say they be happy to see me and hear good mornin’.
It slows down at about 11. If I make enough money, I say to myself, “I’m goin’ to Astro Chicken.” The rest of the afternoon, I stay by the Metro. A few customers come talk to me, ask about my next chapter, what I did for the weekend. It’s a great, great feeling — the network, like family, I built up.
I stay for the evening rush hour until about seven, and then head home. I mingle with people on the Metro goin’ home. I been tellin’ them about my new book.
I bring chicken home, and then I start watchin’ a movie. I like all Madea movies. And I like the Teddy Bear movie.
I say my prayers, lay out my clothes, take a shower, have my coffee, and go to sleep at nine.
What motivates you to work so hard selling papers and then also to write a book?
Because at one time it was like I gave up. But now, selling Street Sense and writing my story—it like a big great activity to me. It rock my body. It like club music, hip hop, go-go, that’s how it make me feel. I know I got somewhere to go, somethin’ to do, people who care.
What have your customers said about your book?
When I show them my book, my customers say they can’t wait to get it. They say they love the big move I’m makin’ and they love the way I didn’t give up. I didn’t let the damage of Katrina take care of me. It took some time, but I took advantage of it and took a new way of livin’.
Is there anything you’d like to say to your customers?
Your friendship and kindness mean so much to me. It is essential in my drug recovery and success publishing this book.
What is your family’s reaction?
Oh! My family call me and they be just as happy as my Street Sense customers!
Visit Gerald’s website, www.katrinastillstanding.com, where you can purchase the book; see upcoming events such as his talk at Martin Luther King Junior Memorial Library at noon on September 10; and more — all in time to mark the Katrina tenth anniversary.
