Plaquemines Parish : Some Words
Joe MF Wilson
(“Bette” is how she introduced herself; she was briefly elegant, though kinda incognito casually dressed; she I believe continues to support important Louisiana initiatives as well as great trees initiatives in New York) ((See what I feel I have to write)). But I’m hiding the kids’ names from this, I haven’t forgotten most of them.
And so many people who got to know me well while I was known as Diamond Joe, would eventually ask me about the roots of our work at Diamond. I wasn’t the first EC volunteer to step foot in there, it was another guy named Joe in fact, I was told. I met this guy, I had interactions with him during my first weeks, some kids asked what happened to him and his promises, I could describe him, he definitely seemed kinda special and in the short time I was around him dramatic stories involving him definitely occurred, but his name’s enough. Joe.
photo by Eduardo Mayén
And there’s the United Way staff, and Luke and Angele, and Barbara, and Mark,. Yes, more names. They were representing United Way, Save the Children, EC, themselves, their agendas politics missions, not in that order—they all had major things to do with good deeds occurring in Diamond, but though I think I understand a lot about how it all went down, I’m not going to try and give credit or blame, here and now. They’re better at doing that for themselves anyway.
And as far as me being brought into Diamond there by Luke, who was basically like, ‘Yo that Joe promised these people a movie night and some after-school activities, so do it’, but that’s me translating from Luke Language: words with cosmic weight. Then Luke the angel disappeared for a week, and I never really got to talk to him or anybody about how it felt when I got back from the first day there and I was playing catch with football and a bunch of kids who I just met and was having a great time with went running towards where they were told a gun was pulled on another kid. How I went up to a cop monitoring children, told him I heard about this gun, and how he just yelled at me, “These damn people.”
“What did you do down there?” some people now in New York ask. “You were rebuilding homes?” is what my ex-girlfriend’s current boyfriend asked. “No, I mostly worked with kids,” is what I told him. As proudly and modestly and assuredly I’d like to think as I could. And I never want to see him again, wish I never did, but maybe some day will have to. Have to. Tremble.
Maybe I should’ve never gone to Louisiana. Maybe everything is always as it should be. I tend to think that “as it should be” is occurring just out of reach of my choices and soul and inhibitions. I can smell it, but never find it.
news
stories by author