Monday, 21 June 2004 | Thou shall not kill

Nine years ago, during my sophomore year in college, Erin, Jeremy, and I drove my Honda to New Orleans. It was on that trip that I became acquainted with my first SLR camera, PJ Harvey's Dry, the Murder Capital of the World, and different state laws, among other things. I'm pretty sure it was also my first substantial road trip with friends.

Our first night there, we stayed at a place called the Monte Carlo, a dumpy motel near the interstate, one that we found at 3 in the morning after a cop had directed us into an unsafe part of town. All along I'd promised my friends that we could stay with a girl whom I knew at Tulane, but that girl would prove to be evasive for the duration of our trip, and we never even saw her. By the time we left town, Erin and Jeremy were convinced that she didn't exist.

After a single night at the Monte Carlo, we decided to shop around for other sleeping arrangements. Minutes after we pulled away, Jeremy discovered that he'd forgotten his pillow, but when we returned to the motel, the door to our former room was open and his pillow was gone, so he thoughtlessly took one of the crunchy motel pillows as a replacement. The new pillow, which we referred to as Monty, was uncomfortable, musky, and untrustworthy, so we stuffed it in the trunk of my car, where it would live for the next six years.

I remember the names of all the hotels we perused, because they were so notably bad that we talked about them days after having visited. The Hummingbird Inn was by far the worst. It was no doubt condemned (or should've been), as the wooden floor and walls had gaping holes that allowed the outside air to breeze right through. There was no bathroom in the room, and the single king-size bed sunk into the uneven floor. We gave the hotel clerk a polite excuse and bolted.

We ended up at the Downtown Inn instead, a creepy establishment that had absolutely no other guests, yet it had an indoor parking lot full of dusty cars. Our room's single window was barred, and the giant mattress had several nickel-sized holes in it. (The "thou shall not kill" billboards all over the city had our imaginations working.)

The room was more expensive than it should've been, and since the presence of a third person increased the price substantially, we staged a scene in the lobby in which we pretended that Jeremy was a Tulane student and that he was visiting Erin and me, just as we happened to be checking in. Our act was rather pitiful, and went something like, "Hi Jeremy! It's good to see you! How's TULANE?!" The hotel clerks—unconvinced—made us pay the full amount.

We wandered around the French Quarter, mostly, unsure of where else to go. We met a homeless teenager who'd just moved to the city from the North, to be where it was warmer. We gave $12 to a homeless woman named Dorothy, who convinced us that it cost that much for her to sleep at the local shelter for a night (it didn't occur to us until later that shelters are generally free). We wandered among families at the riverside aquarium. We observed people yelling to second-floor windows for green beads, inhaling nitrous balloons, and roaming the streets late into the night. We watched street performers collaborate and produce jazz notes that almost visibly floated from their instruments. Once, after completely forgetting where we'd parked, we rode in a cab through the Quarter's streets in order to find our car. We discovered that even some cabs have roaches.

It was exhilarating, eye-opening, absurd, and fun. On the long drive back, we tried to remember everything we'd just experienced, putting it into a neat list that (inherently) only made sense to us.

I no longer have that list, nor am I still in touch with Erin or Jeremy. (I am, however, still in touch with "the girl at Tulane.")

Photos coming soon.