Author's note Draft 2
If the story does not say draft 2, it's not the final draft
Call out to thewhiteangel213 and Valen Gonzalez for being my first reviewers this year.
And sorry for not updating when I said I would. Something came up, so I didn't. If I don't update when I say it will be on that next Sunday night, Monday Morning, Thursday Night, or Friday morning.
Edited on 10/24/21
Edited on 2/8/22
Life Worth 0
IX-X
IX (Sunday the 14th of July 1957. Ninth Ward, New Orleans, United States of America)
When people come to New Orleans, they always talk about the allure they feel.
It is full of life energy. Its distinctive French architecture and French culture still stand equal after the Englishmen came and tried to replace it with their ideas and culture.
They talk about New Orleans's charm and of its unusual characteristics. Of its food, music, multicultural events, and the Mardi Gras festival held in the city.
But I sometimes wonder if they see or equally realize most of those multicultural events are funerals being held. And not just the New Orleans Second Line Parade, but people mourning in the most traditional way we can.
Trucking through the muddy water and pushing flowing objects out my way made me thankful that the flooding in the city has been going down a lot and that I could walk through the streets.
When we got back into the city, the water was tall enough to reach my chin. Now it only comes up to my kneecaps.
Walking down Canal Street, seeing the ruins of the city that is usually called the Birthplace of Jazz, and will one day be called Hollywood of the South. Make me understand why it was already being called The Northernmost Caribbean City.
Seeing a dead body hangs from those distinctive French architecture, tangled up in the Mardi Gras beads of the last Mardi Gras. Make me wonder if that the allure they talk about.
The radio keeps going on about President Eisenhower sending people to help with the damages. And not allowing people to come back to New Orleans. Also, having a place for the citizens go.
But my family and I have been back in New Orleans for a week, and we have seen nobody from the government here helping. The only citizens they have helped are people of Caucasian descent. Having taken them to the housing, the government has set up for the places the hurricane hit.
The only people that have been doing anything about the city are the citizens.
People of African, Japanese, Chinese, Native American, Creole, French, and Portuguese descent are the people doing something about the city.
They are the ones moving lamp poles. The ones moving flipped over cars, sunken cars, and pieces of buildings out of the way of the streets. From people, they come in and out of the city. For people to move around the city safely.
The church that usually pulls food banks every other Saturday is the people giving out food and clothing to the citizens. Not the Red Cross.
It the citizens clean outbuildings and make sure they are suitable for people to live while the city is trying to give back on its feet.
Looking around again and seeing all the things the citizens have been doing to help each other out and the city makes me happy that I was born in New Orleans again.
Finally, making it to the area in the Seventh Ward, where the Roma settlement is located. Make me want to shout in enjoyment for finally being here, smile in happiness at seeing the people, and cry in sadness for them.
Enjoy because the only way Ista had to allow me to come and see Andrei was for me to see how the city was doing. And that meant going to all the wards and checking on Louis's house.
Happiness because it seems like a lot of Roma people have been about surviving.
Sad because I know it's going to be harder for them... For their community with all the damages the hurricane has brought upon them.
The Roma community, neighborhood always looks like a run-down version of the French Quarter the few times I visit Andrei's house. But now the house that always looked like it were going to collapse on each other, actually collapsed. Make me think that that destruction was not as funny as I once thought.
There were only ten houses that were still standing. Those were the houses at the beginning that always looked better than the other houses. The farther you go down the neighborhood, you will see more and more collapsed houses. The more run down your house was before the hurricane, the worse off your house was. I remember Andrei House was the most run-down house in the neighborhood, which, made me realize he probably does not have a home anymore.
With that realization, I started running down the street, not paying mind to anybody else's problems. I mess up piles of things; I bump into people running past, them, making them drop things, and just giving in the way.
But that did not stop me from trying to give to Andrei faster.
Giving closer to Andrei's house, I could see him outside moving pieces of his home into a barrel.
He must have seen me coming because he put the pieces down and walked over to a woman who must be his mother. Because I own seen five people in the neighborhood with wild orchid color hair, and none was the woman he was talking to.
Slowly, before I crashed into one of them, I was about to introduce myself to the gorgeous lady in front of me, but before I could, Andrei grabs my hand and start pulling me away from her.
Andrei Pov
Lying on the floor in the corner that was given to my family in the living room of the house-made to house all the elderly of the community. Made me uncomfortable because of the bag Louise giving earlier that day.
*Flashback*
(Play Turning out by AJR)
"Why are you pulling me away?" She said, yanking her hand out of my grip. Her doing that pulls me out of my thoughts.
"Louise, please," I said while turning around to look at her, but she must have seen something on my face because she put up her hand.
"Hey, hey... Andrei, I'm... I'm here to give you this" She said while reaching for the backpack on her back then holding it into my chess.
Grabbing onto the bag, I then opened it. I could not believe what was in the bag. It took her saying something for me to take my eyes off the bag.
"Yeah… hey, I will come back tomorrow to talk... Alright, so make time for me," She said then give me a tight hug.
"Meet at the park after five," I said in the hug.
"Oh, okay, see you tomorrow," She said, letting go of me and turning, waving goodbye.
*Flashback end*
Turning over and looking at the bag makes me feel guilty of not tell everybody in the neighborhood that Louise had gotten me more food. While the neighborhood is having problems, giving much food for the neighborhood.
But my family needs that food too, so I push down that guilt.
X (Monday, the 15th of July 1957. Harding Park, Seventh Ward, New Orleans, United States of America)
Sitting on the sidewalk after five has gotten me a lot of work in the near future from Ista and Louis.
They're allowing me to see Andrei after five because we make a deal for me to clean out Louis's house by myself. Luthor offered to stay at Luthor's house because it will make it easier to clean up because there wasn't a lot of damage to the house.
I know he only offered to stay in the city because he wants to meet up with his friend, but not add one more work for himself.
Hearing a footstep took me out of my thoughts. Look towards wearing I hear the step I can see Andrei walk towards me entirely with his shoulders slump and wear the same clothes as yesterday. His day and situation must have been worse or than I thought.
But then again, how bad did I think a situation was in the first place?
"Hey," he said, raising his hand so the snugly while walking closer to me.
"Hey," I said to him. 'I should bring him and his sister clothes next time' I thought while getting the bag off my back.
"Here," I said, handing him the bag.
"Thanks, but with this and the one from yesterday we will be good for the next week," He said, but equally with his usual nonchalance expression on his face and his eyes, they told me he was grateful.
"Okay, do you want clothes?" I said, trying to act as if he isn't having more clothes than the one seen him wear was not a big deal.
The pause that took him to answer me reminds me of that joke that was going around in my first life about how the three hardest things for a person to say.
In my first life, I, did not truly understand why it was so hard to say those with me being rising and shelter in the higher part of society.
But to see Andrei's war with him see and the knowledge ledge that yes, he and his family need help made me understand just a little.
"Yes," he said, clenching his fists in his pocket.
"All right, how long your community been back?" I said, not commenting on what I saw him do. And trying to change the subject at the same time.
"Since the sixth," He said, my eyes widen at what he says. The hurricane only truly stops on the fifth day of this month. That means his family came back the next day.
"We did not go far" He stayed as if that made it better. His sliding made me come to the unwelcome conclusion that his family could have been some dead body flowing around.
"My family came back in the Ninth," I say, trying not to focus on that conclusion and give my mind off it.
"Mm" Him doing that is what truly took my mind off my thoughts.
"What," I said, focus more on him to see what he means with that response.
"I drop by your house on the eight, "He said.
'When did he know where I live" I thought, but I said "I and my family have been clean up and helping the neighbors" He does that sound in response again. And in my head, I can picture myself grab him by the collar and slapping him back and forth, asking what does that response means.
Giving myself out of that delusion, I ask, "So what about you, what have you been doing?"
"Just cleaning up too," he said, giving me a curt response. It's not until this moment I realized I do most of the talking in our conversation and the first time we talk I was questioning him, and making him talk more to respond to me.
"How is your family doing?" I prompted him to get him to talk more.
"My sister has been watched by the elderly with all the other kids under seven. Mother has been with the female cook and clean inside the house. And Dad has been helping with the car and building." Somehow I think he's got the hint.
"And you," I said, trying to get him to talk more about himself.
"I have been picking up on things around the house and picking up the pieces of the house." Now I just think he's messing with me.
"Hey, what are you and your family going to do about your problems?" say my worries out loud have felt like walking over a landline.
"What you mean," He said with his body tensing.
"Andrei your home is collapsed, you don't have clothes, and the way you talk about food don't have a lot of that too, I reckon... And with a city like this you will not be able to pickpocket to give money and your parents will not be making money so yeah, what are you and your family going to do" While saying this his body gets in the motions as if he's about to do something.
But instead of doing what he was about to do, he slumped down, as if the weight of the world is on his shoulders. "Louise... What do you want me to say, " he said in the most world-weary tone.
Hear that tone come out of his mouth makes me feel like an asshole, but I can't let my friends struggle.
"I don't know... That my friend will not die one of these days soon... That you and your family will have an answer to your problem," I said. Now I'm just telling him my worries and hoping that he got a plan.
"You and me both know there are no answers" Yes, I knew, but I wanted to see if he could think of something.
I took my legs and put them together and put my head on my leg and started to cry silently. Because we both knew that he was going to be in a lot of trouble and depend on if things keep going this way, my family will be in the same type of problem as his family.
Yes, even with all the things the community has right now, those things probably last us for the next two months.
The world feels so unfair right now. But it's time to stop my cry and actually think of something that would help both of us out. Then it hit me.
"Hey... Hey, they are saying that the president will send people right," I said, trying to explain to him my thoughts.
"Yeah," he said, not seeing my point.
"Will they probably have the things we need, right?" I said
"Yeah," He said, said, starting to see what I'm thinking.
"So why not steal some of those things" I finally say.
"You mean to steal from people who work for the government," He said now with a hardened face.
"Yeah, why not" Now think it was a bad idea.
"Ok" With this serious expression on his face, that expression makes me wonder.
"That's it, " Now I'm questioning his sanity because we are thing about stealing from people who work for the government.
"That's it," He said, like what it said was not a big deal.
"Ok, then we're going to do this," I said to feel like this is the end of this conversation.
With that, I got up getting ready to go home, before I left I showed him my fists and him getting what I mean. Fists bump me, "See you later," I said.
"See you later," he said back.
Author's note:
The next update is 2/11/21
Now on to facts