The Saint Claude Bridge. Chapter 620.
I am talking to a woman with Beau’s Lines. They are not what you think. She was recently ill. She was treated at Touro Infirmary.
Would you like to learn how Touro Infirmary pats itself on the back?
“Born to Care.
If there’s one thing we were born to do, it’s care for people. Not only for the babies we deliver every day, but for everyone in the city we serve. We were born to keep hearts strong, seniors healthy, keep hope alive, and keep all of New Orleans happy and healthy. Because at Touro, we were Born to Care.”
What a load of twaddle.
The man who built my house was the president of Touro Infirmary. That was hundred-and-something years ago.
In New Orleans, the past is intimately entwined with the present the way the present will be intimately entwined with the future. The future is impossible to predict. This is why Orleanians live in the moment.
Our days in New Orleans revolve around making good memories. We do what we can to subvert death while waiting for the St. Claude Bridge.
I do not mind the bridge so much as I do the train tracks on Port Street the separate the Marigny from the Bywater.
I drive a Vespa so I always just lane-split and cut to the head of the line like the head of snake. Then, I sit and watch the train do whatever the heck it is doing moving at ten feet an hour, then backing up, then creaking forward again. It is so painful. The train moves so slowly.
These are freight trains. They are not the Acela, which is no rail-bound comet, either.
The trains the rumble long the Port Street tracks (from the port), they haul coffee beans, soybeans, cane syrup, and things that require hazard labels on the sides of the cars.
One time, a car filled with hobos passed by. We waved to each other. They looked like. jolly band of bindlestiffs.
I see this story is going to be very interesting. I need to put up the paywall. You should become a paid subscriber. I am in rare form after this.