The trip started as most do; with a pre-dawn car ride across the Mississippi River into Memphis. Under that pale moonlight, we pulled a truck older than me into the farthest parking spot from the train station possible to make our eventual exit as pain-free as could be. 

We braved our righteous indignation at our $250 parking fee and proceeded into our first line of many still to come. 

As the sun rose over the horizon, that silver steam engine rolled into view and came to a slow, screeching halt. 

We patiently waited for the tall man with silver mutton chops to check our tickets and were ushered onto the train car alongside two Brits, Jill and Yula, already half-drunk and on their own way south to a cruise ship set for the Caribbean. 

My parents took places in seats 34 and 35, my grandparents in 31 and 32, leaving me with seat 41, a whole row to myself for around 90 seconds before a man clad in camo from head to toe slipped up the stairs and into the seat beside me. 

Jill and Yula were already in the bar cart by the time the train set off once more and the man to my right introduced himself with an extended calloused hand and gruff muttering of his name that I later confirmed to be Dave. 

I lived out the “You’ve got soft hands, boy,” moment in real time with Dave, a former marine on his way home to pick up his kid for a hunting trip in Kansas, where their targets could be anything from white tail deer to blue-haired liberals. 

“That’s why I pray with my whole heart that Mamdabi wins in New York, just so they can all see that that commie shit don’t work,” Dave said to me. 

I hadn’t asked his opinion on New York’s mayoral race. I hadn’t spoken to him since I returned to my seat with a delectable sausage, egg and cheese biscuit in plastic wrap from the microwave that I acquired for a cool $9 and no small amount of shame. 

But Dave offered his perspective and I shared mine in return. 

What followed was seven hours of good conversation and a fair share of laughs. 

“You kids just might be alright after all,” he said to me upon his departure. We traded phone numbers and plan to send Christmas cards sometime. 

Maybe the key to making friends from across the aisle lies in crossing over and sitting next to each other once in a while. 

We pulled into the Amtrak station in New Orleans, Jill and Yula now at the level of intoxication that makes one lose their volume control when they speak. 

They cackled and ‘slagged off’ their Prime Minister as they descended the steps and we wished them well on their journey to the middle of the sea, where the drinks flow freely and the dance floor is always open. 

God loves our neighbors across the pond. 

We twiddled thumbs and shuffled feet as our Uber driver took the scenic route to retrieve us from the sidewalk. 

Once aboard our chariot, we weaved through the crowded south Louisiana streets and were ejected at our destination with a shrug and a thumbs up before he sped back off into the setting sun. 

Two electronic keypads later and we entered our humble abode on the seventh floor of the California building, quite sure that somewhere in the west, a group of five was checking into the Louisiana building at the same time. 

“Wow! Look at that view!” my grandfather remarked as we gazed out those tall windows upon a parking garage and a homeless man lying in the street. 

“Life in the big city,” I said. And what a life it is. 

We took to the streets after nightfall with reckless abandon, eager to immerse ourselves in the City of Saints. 

Around one corner, a scantily clad woman, around the next, a half-drunk retiree. Turn to the streets and you catch a glimpse of a pack of non-binary twenty-somethings on BMX bikes on the way to or from the nearest tattoo shop that doubles as a dispensary. 

Everywhere you turned was a person that previously only existed in your mind as a work of fiction or in a $uicideboy$ song. 

We watched a street magician turned conservationist with a flightless raven on his shoulder. 

We rode with a man who provided evidence that JFK is still alive and that Trump is actually married to Princess Diana, who is also still alive and the biological mother to Baron Trump. 

“I ain’t bullshitting you neither,” he said. “I’ve got a picture on my phone, I can show ya.” 

He stopped the car at an intersection, not quite behind the stop sign but not quite in the path of oncoming traffic as he fumbled in his pockets for a smartphone that he then turned to the backseat.

The photo in question was a screenshot of a Twitter post from the ‘verified’ John. F Kennedy account with a picture of JFK next to his ‘clone.’ 

“Pretty cut and dry to me,” I said. 

“I know you right,” he said. 

Before we could descend further down his rabbit hole, our destination was upon us, a small cafe with a back stairwell covered in what I can only hope was dark red paint. 

But by God if it wasn’t the first and best beignet I’d ever had. 

By midday, we were out deep in the Bayou, on a speed boat that I can only estimate reached speeds of 200 miles an hour if my soaked-through clothes were anything to go by. 

Our guide warned that if we fell in, he would not hesitate to “leave y’all ass out here.” 

We laughed. He did not. 

New Orleans is truly a place like no other. With food that’ll bring you to tears. I no longer have a bad word to say about Zion Williamson’s weight problems. 

If I had 100,000,000 in the bank and lived in that town, they’d bury me in New Orleans alright, about 20 years before my time. 

I don’t know if I’d like to die there, but I sure wouldn’t mind living. 

Categories: Life