Untitled Cities
Part Three of Southern Trilogy.
Most of these images were taken during the last and longest of the three travels in the South when I passed through some of the larger cities that seem all to consist of the same borrowed fragments: corporate fortresses, the same eclectic architecture, empty spaces, parking lots and, once the work day is done, an eerie absence of human beings as if they were all funneled out of the inner city center to the suburban outskirts.
Wednesday, December 13, 1995, The Mississippi Delta
I am amazed by the newest entertainment attraction in the Delta : riverboat casino gambling on the Mississippi River. The Tunica Chamber of Commerce calls it one of the most traditional American forms of entertaining. Tunica County is one of the poorest counties in this nation, I wonder if this will change now.
It was four years since my last travels in the Delta. Then, I visited the juke joints in Clarksdale and Indianola, there was always music playing somewhere.
A few nights ago, I stumbled in the Rivermound Lounge in Clarksdale finding the place empty and no music. The folks there told me business was down since the casinos opened a few years ago. Money was now spent at Sam’s Town or at the Lady Luck casino near Lula. Once again, the people of the Delta were slaves.
Mary Sheppard at the Ebony Club in Indianola told me pretty much the same story. It was good to see her back after four years and her catfish platter was still as delicious.In Clarksdale, most of the buildings on Issaquena Avenue were torn down or in the process of it. Claude Montgomery’s drugstore on Fourth street was leveled, from a fire I learned that happened shortly after my first visit four years ago. And Robert Harris (The Preacher) wasn’t living on Yazoo anymore. I had difficulty finding his old house because the porch was gone. Robert now lived on the edge of town in a low income housing project.
Natchez and Vicksburg were both gambling meccas too, but it didn’t seem that these towns were harvesting any benefits from it.
Monday, February 19, 1996, New Orleans (Metairie), Louisiana
Mardi Gras in South Louisiana. Between Beaumont, Texas and Mobile, Alabama, the South was a string of parades in which I always seem to get stuck in its traffic. Port Arthur, Lake Charles, Jennings, Lafayette…
The radio station played “Born on the Bayou” when I drove over the Atchafalaya Swamp on I-10 until I reached Grosse Tête.
On Sunday, The Times-Picayune reported on a story about the leakage of hazardous chemicals into the Mississippi River by the Dupont chemical plant in La Place. That same afternoon, the citizens of La Place, mostly Dupont employees, looked more like they were celebrating their appearance in the newspaper. Mardi Gras fever had struck here too.
This morning, I overheard two telephone conversations in the lobby of the Holiday Inn in Metairie. One young woman, apparently enjoying Mardi Gras in New Orleans, told her parents she was in Mississippi, and that her flight was delayed and that she would be unable to show up for work tomorrow. A man, in desperate need for cash, tried to sell the family car over the phone while his wife and children stood listening. He had lost money gambling.Tomorrow is Fat Tuesday. I’ll leave the city.
______________________
