Plagiarist Shugee.

I went to Shugee’s poetry reading. What a hoot. The lady who organizes this weekly event was a no-show, as sometimes happens in typical New Orleans fashion. Maybe she was taking the streetcar to get there.

The Rampart streetcar line stops at Elysian Fields Avenue in front of where Gene’s Po’ Boys used to be. It is missed. The building now houses Baldwin & Co., a proudly black-owned bookstore. They also have a recording booth in the back room. The booth is soundproof. The booth is encased in glass so everyone can watch the act of people talking into microphones. It’s mesmerizing.

None of this has anything to do with the subject at hand. Flora Café is a short walk from Elysian Fields. It is on the corner of Royal and Franklin.

A body without a head is just a corpse, but Shugee took control. Like your humble narrator, Shugee likes to act like he owns the place. “C’mon, everybody! We’ve got poems to read!”

This was something to see. Shugee was standing on a chair, waving a sheet of paper. He rallied the troops. It was going to be a night full of verse after all. Huzzah!

Maya was there with her wall eye. She is charming. I sat next to her, between her and a stack of old New Yorker magazines. There was a tabby cat that sat on Maya’s lap.

Shugee did not read first. He is shy about exposing his innermost thoughts and feelings. He sat fidgeting in anticipation on the other side of Maya. She didn’t have to turn her head to see him. When it was his turn, he stood on his chair, cleared his throat, and began. His voice quivered with emotion. Frickin’ Shugee, there he was standing higher than anyone else, everyone staring at him, anxiously waiting to hear this epic he had penned.

He poured out his heart:

I do not like jambalaya.
That doesn't mean I hate it.
When my mother served it, 
I generally ate it.

It's not the worst food in the world
That one could choose to eat.
I prefer to avoid it, though,
When I see it on the street.

I want to marry the girl of my dreams.
She will never cook me jambalaya.
We will live on eggplant and papaya.
I dream about her all the time.
This girl's name is Maya.

I had heard this poem before. Heck, I wrote the best parts of it. While Shugee was reading, I flipped through the September 12, 2022 issue of the New Yorker.

Shugee finished to polite applause. Maya and I turned toward each other. It’s her right eye that has the strabismus. She has extropia. She was crying out of both of her eyes. “That frickin’ Shugee, he’s a sweetie,” she said.

He’s something. The chair he was standing on was right next to Maya. She looked up his nose during the whole performance. How romantic. I read this old issue of the New Yorker.

You will never guess what I found. Not in a million years. It turns out Shugee is a plagiarist.