Meeting Melvin and Hearing the Rainsong

I am republishing this post in honor of New Orleans.

MEETING MELVIN and HEARING THE RAINSONG
Several years ago I read the Celestine Prophesy. The one great thing I garnered from that book is that each person you meet has something to teach you if only you’ll shut up and listen. I am a firm believer in this.
However, when you go to New Orleans, if you sit and listen to each person who comes up to you and begs you’ll never make it anywhere. Now, I am a nice Southern Girl from a small Southern town where we don’t lock our cars, much less our homes unless we’re going out of town or something, but my Daddy didn’t raise a dummy. When I am in the Big Easy, which used to be the murder capital of the US and now I think its just the murder capital of the South, I wear sunglasses and walk purposefully like I know what I’m doing. Ok, the second one isn’t too hard for me as I’m kind of known for walking like I have somewhere to be- even if I don’t, but I do try to be especially sure to look like well, if not a local, an experienced tourist. I guess it works pretty well, because hardly anyone bothered us where we spent the weekend there recently.
Of course, I did notice when I walked my friend’s cute little Westies someone tried to ask me for money, but when I walked my 100 pound White German Shepherd who eyes you menacingly if you approach me—no one did. So part of my success may have to do with my accessories… and I do strongly recommend to any traveling alone in the Big Easy that a 100 pound White German Shepherd makes an excellent accessory.
But at any rate, the second night we were there, my friends who were newly weds, decided to go out for a romantic dinner while my beau and I stayed in our room and tried to convince ourselves we were in our 20’s and not our 30’s and that 6 hours of sleep was fine and we really could get up and go drinking again. Well, I finally managed to pull him up, mostly on the threat that if he would not come with me then I would just go by myself, thank you very much, and he could sleep. Like any good southern gentleman, he couldn’t let that happen especially as I couldn’t take my guard beast with me since we planned to go to bars and all. And he didn’t want me doing anything crazy like lifting my shirt for those people on the balconies for those cute little beads, unless he was there to see.
So, he creaked to his feet, knees cracking pulls on a white button down and his favorite madras plaid pants with bellbottoms handed down by my dad that he can only wear places where kitch or ironic clothing is appreciated like New Orleans and says, "ok, ok, lets go." 6 blocks later we reached Jackson Square where we were meeting our friends and he collapses into the bench beside them. "She walks too fast" he moaned. "I need beer." So, I reach into my bag with a big grin and produce a lovely cold beer and he looks at me with love in his bloodshot eyes and says, "damn you’re good, baby darlin’."
Of course, the sight of beer being handed round in Jackson Square results in each of the various cons loitering about trying to decide which method would work on us. Some people like the down on your luck story, some like the appeal to a favorite sports team or college, some like to pay for display of a talent, like juggling while riding a unicycle, a few go for the intimidation/guilt thing, and some, a rare few of us, are completely taken in by the truth. If someone walks up to me and says, "look I’m down on my luck and I just want to get drunk and pass out and think about my life tomorrow." I am going to go to the store and buy that person a fifth of whatever they want because, and only because, they told the truth. If someone tells me a story about why they are down on their luck, and how their baby needs medicine I am going to keep walking and tell’em to save it because the lawyer in me is going to begin poking holes in their story right and left and I’m just going to be really irritated that if they had just put all that effort into getting a job they could have had the money by now.
Thus, when a hulking Black man sitting one bench over asks if we would like him to take a picture of us, we politely decline. And then studiously ignore him-- but he would not be ignored. He stands up and says, "Hey I was just trying to be nice. I’m just here sitting shooting the breeze with my friends. You act like I’m gonna try and steal it." We throw back the usual noises of Ehh no worries and then he said, "May I ask you an unfair question?"
Now, I like this right away, you know, since it fits in with my whole "lets tell the truth" thing. "May I ask you an unfair question?" that’s great. So when he extends his hand to me I think "you can learn something from anyone." And walk over and shake it and he says "Hi, I’m Melvin Jacques and I was born about 5 blocks from here but I live across the river now. Where are you folks from?" After we tell him and he asks our signs he gets back to his unfair question which is first if he can have a smoke and then if he can have a beer. "My wife, he explains, "don’t want me drinking, so she only gives me bus fare." I forget about the beers I have and am reaching in the bag to give him some moolah to go and get himself one, when my friend has one of those lightbulb moments and reaches in and pulls out a Coors light.
"Well knock me over with a feather!" he says, his eyes lighting up as his pops the top as fast as he can and just as quickly takes a swig- almost like he’s afraid that if he doesn’t mark it as his beer we will change our minds and take it back. We chat for a while longer about a palm reader he knows who told a woman she was going to meet the man of her dreams in New Orleans and she did—so when she gets married she came back to New Orleans and gave the psychic $10,000 dollars and sent all her friends to visit her. It was a great happy story. He tells us about some of the other local people in Jackson square and what restaurants are really truly good and which are tourist crap and then we leave and make our way off to the bars and sing raunchy songs at Howl at the Moon until it is time to go back to the hotel.
As we’re walking back by the A and P to get some juice for our sure-to-come morning hangovers, Willow and I are drawn in by an old sailor sitting in a shop alcove strumming on a guitar for no one in particular. The boys plop exhausted on the steps of the church across the street as we speak with him. He is old with kind blue eyes hidden by a full white beard. He is wearing one of those little hats like Irish people or golfers wear. We ask him what he likes to play and he plays one he wrote about how much he wants to stay and love a girl but that he is not worthy. It was beautiful. He plays Bob Dylan—Tangled up in Blue- which is one of my favorites.
After we leave our sailor man we are so distracted we walk the wrong way and have to double back. I hear him playing again and talking to himself, "Yeah, I’m gonna make it rain if I keep playing the rain song. But it’s a good night for rain." "Hey," I tell him, "hold off on the rain song for 10 minutes so we can get back to the room." He laughs and says sure, and we finally head off to the A and P. What do you know but that conversation saved our lives. No, I mean, talking to that man saved our lives. See, sometimes its good to get off course, because just when we should have been arriving at the A and P someone was robbing it and shooting the clerk so that when we did arrive, the door was shut by a broom handle and there was blood everywhere and cops running around. We would have been in there, but we stopped and listened to the sailor man.
The boys are doing the trainwreck thing and trying to find out what happened, but like I said in the beginning, my Daddy didn’t raise no dummy—so I remind them sharply that there is blood everywhere and we should leave now so we do and hurry back to the room and just as we walk through the door the sky opens and the deluge begins all at once as it does in the south at night. I just wish I knew that rain song.