New Orleans

A Prose Poem in the Expressionist Manner

SHERWOOD ANDERSON

CADDY gloves—br SMITH'S -brown SMITH'S ones. got her some new Well, you take a tall one like that and she scratches a lot.

Want a drink?

When you go in the place what you say is —"give me Commercial". Then you'd better watch out. If he pulls the woodside tap it's O K. Look out for the riverside tap. That's slop—pure slop. They hand a lot of that out. It's these tourists. That's what you got to give 'em. You can't take chances. O'Leary took a chance and where is he now?

You take a town like New Orleans and it aint never been boomed none, to speak of.

They used to have bugs down here, so thick you had to cut your way through. Did you ever have the bone fever? They used to have sewers right in the streets. They got 'em moved now. It's a good town all right.

Them millionaires run in herds. You got to get 'em headed your way. We aint ever had no good cowboys down here.

A town like now Los Angeles, or Miami or this Coral Gables is a turning round place. You can't stand th,e gaff. You go in. Then you turn around and come out. What t'ell.

Drifting slow music, quickening now and then—sometimes. On Decatur Street, down by the French market, they been singing a song called, "shake that thing", for months now. A lot of songs start down there, near the river in New Orleans. Then they go North into the big time. Soda clerks and bank clerks got to singing. Then the road houses up North get busy.

Songs get worn out pretty fast.

You take a song now, or anything that starts in New Orleans. .It has to go North doesn't it? There aint anything but water and swamps South. You can't do nothing on water.

If you want it warm you can get it as warm in New Orleans as anyplace in this world. You tell a lot of them boomers that. But wait— maybe it aint very good propaganda. Maybe they want it cold. I don't like it cold myself but some do. Some say blondes is usually cold. I wonder.

Its cold here sometimes all right. You never see so much rain. Everybody h.uddlcd in doorways. A lot of people get the wrong idea of New Orleans. "The city care forgot." They don't like that stuff much up to the Chamber of Commerce. They want you worried.

A lot of young people, male and female, get all fired up about books they want to write, pictures they want to paint. They come down here and get rooms. Such a lot don't do a town no good. They got sore because no one pays any attention to them.

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Why should they? People been doing that to New Orleans a hundred years now.

This New Orleans civilization aint no intellectual civilization.

Its bedrocked in ships, in song, in the Mississippi River.

Its a way down south town, this town is. * * *

The South always did hoe its own row—off'en Canal Street, in New Orleans. Little towns South don't change much, side streets in New Orleans don't change much.

It would make you sick if you're the up-and-comingkind. Youneversaw such paving, politics pretty rotten, I guess. You never smelled such smells, saw more dirt, shiftlessness. Good gravy!

On Burgundy Street i New Orleans, during carnival time, a brown girl sitting back of an old heavy wooden blind. Headline out of a northern newspaper tacked on the blind outside. "Kip's gone back to Alice." It's a pretty wide-open town all right.

Carnival went off good O.K. The Mayor was dead and Ring Lardner came down. Prominent citizen falls off a float. Lots of northern money in town. The antique men on Royal Street did good.

Niggers cut loose better than ever. Gangs of them in all the little side

streets, singing, dancing, joy in the air. They ran into houses and pulled out other niggers—sometimes by the hair.

"Shake that thing. I'm getting tired of telling you to—shake that thing."

A few whites wandering aimlessly in the black streets—wanting to dance.

On Canal Street the big show going on. A pretty good show this year, they tell me.

On side streets, hidden away, something you maybe won't see again in this life.

I'm going to tell you it won't last long. New Orleans is a swell town. It can be put on the map and it will be too. Its in the air now. Better invest some money down here.

Better get to New Orleans some carnival time soon. Beat the boomers here if you can. Bring some money with you. A lot of us down here need money. We'll like you better if you bring it down.

The end of New Orleans—the old town, the sweet town, is already in sight.

As I told you, right at the beginning, Caddy Smith's got her some new brown gloves.

A tall girl like that has to scratch a lot. I told you that.

What I didn't tell you was how nice her eyes are.

You got to find that out for yourself.