Rod Amis - Unbound

NEW ORLEANS - 2 September, 2003: If you can say one thing about New Orleans that one thing would be that it's a town that generates, indeed thrives on, drama. I got off work at the construction site today to learn that the cops who arrested me back in May went to Molly's at the Market at 2:00 a.m. to complain about the story that appeared in the Gambit regarding my case. I'm still trying to get all the details straight. The one thing I know right now is that they brought the story from the paper with them and complained that they were being victimized by the paper and me. (!) So now all hell has broken loose among the small circle of my neighbors. They accuse me of turning the case into a media event and bringing on the wrath of the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD). No one recalls that I didn't seek out the Gambit reporter who wrote the story, Katy Reckdahl; she sought me out. I'm the bad guy because of the high drama that surrounds my effort to clear my name and be exonerated for a crime I did not commit.

Stress 'r' us, once again. I'm not sure how to react to this latest development of my New Orleans saga. I've been encouraged to change addresses so that I'm not as easily accessible to police retribution. I've been encouraged to lay low and not visit my usual haunts for fear that I'll be harassed. Right now, I'm nonplussed and uncertain what is my best course between now and when the judge makes her ruling on my case's motions.

Drama.

7 September, 2003:: It's a frenetic time for me. I go to work every morning at seven a.m. and come home exhausted. Construction work is not easy and I'm getting older. It takes it out of me. All I want to do when I get home is drink a beer, take a shower, drink another beer and eat dinner while catching up on back issues of The New Yorker I've been meaning to read for months. I go to bed early and hope that I don't gouge some flesh out of a finger (Tuesday), give me self a second degree burn with a hot halogen lamp (Wednesday) or step on a rusty errant nail as I work my way through the piles of debris or try to flatten out the dumpster. (Not yet.)

The crew I'm working with now, during this demolition phase, is a trio of native New Orleanians. This is the first time I've actually worked exclusively with natives and it has been quite instructive. At least two of them live near or in the projects. (I haven't been interested enough to determine which.) The "foreman" of sorts, Bernard a.k.a. "Dirty Harry" - or "straw boss" as the more irreverent of his two charges calls him - hardly does any work and is despised by both of his inferiors. They talk about him mercilessly behind his back. The latter of these two is his son by a previous marriage. I have to agree with them both that he's an awful supervisor. He's hardly ever at the job site and when he is he is generally verbally abusive, impatient and a hindrance to our progress. Much of that progress is further impeded by the fact that the former, irreverent worker, and the boss are always getting into verbal fisticuffs along the lines of the dozens, that Black game of baiting someone until they are nearly ready to cry or fight, and that this same individual ceases to work (for the most part) as soon as Harry/Bernard leaves the site. From my view, we have four people being paid to accomplish the work of 2.3 people. I keep my opinion to myself.

These guys talk all day, so I get to the gossip from the projects (who's getting out of jail, who just went in, who's sleeping with whom, who is always "runnin' in the street", et cetera.) A common staple of their conversations is:

"Did you hear about Luther?"

"Which Luther?"

:Ms. Be-AT-trice's boy Luther! You know!"

"Oh, that Luther. What about him?"

Or:

"Peanut, they was all over some muthuhfuckers last night."

"Five Oh?"

"Yeah, 'Nut. They was busting in doors and shit in the projects last night. I saw that shit and knew it was time to get inside, y'erm."

("Y'erm" is New Orleanian patois for "You hear me?")

Or else they talk about what stretches (in jail or prison) they did and how if "a niggah can survive in jail, he can survive anywhere."

"Yeah, my first stretch was six year in Angola, Brah, y'erm."

"I used to have a lottah family worked at Angola. So I had it good up in there. I could get weed, food, anythang I wanted. All my cousins was C.O.s up in there, the males, and all they wives was school teachers."

We worked this past Saturday - something I'm glad of since I lose money on Thursday when I have to make my next court appearance. The straw boss's son, who's called Peanut, could not work that day because it was his week to mow lawns for a coterie of customers he's collected. So a cousin came to take his place. During one of their long breaks, I overheard the cousin and the irreverent one, Lermer, talking about their system of working. It seems that between being paid of their lunch hour and slacking off on a regular basis, their formula is to "work for five hours and get paid for eight." The New Orleans Way.

---

Make a Commitment to Justice.
Donate to Rod Amis' Legal Defense

Click here to read about our Publisher's false arrest. Organizations and individuals in New Orleans are organizing to help Rod fight his unjust arrest and charges. You can help, too. For information on how you can help our publisher meet his legal defense costs, send an e-mail with the SUBJECT LINE "FOR JUSTCE" by following this link. THE HONORABLE CONTRIBUTORS: (List Updated Each Publication Date) SCOTT SALIN, New Orleans, LA, USA-$200 MICHELLE and the Drag Queens of MAMA'S BLUES Revue, New Orleans, LA, USA And the many, many un-named guests who contributed to the proceeds.-$395 SEAN CUSHMAN, New Orleans, LA, USA-$25 "DAVE", New Orleans, LA, USA-Living Quarters STEVE VIVIAN New York, NY, USA-$60 PETE SHORTELL, New Orleans, LA, USA-Cocktails MARY MC GINN, New Orleans, LA, USA - $100 DR. IAN CRYSTAL New Orleans, LA, USA - $40 And (far too many) cocktails TERRY LEE TERRIAN Sebastopol, CA, USA - $100 LIONEL ROLFE Los Angeles, CA, USA - $40 MY PLATONIC LOVER (City and State Withheld) - $100 LESZEK MICHAELWICZ POLAND - $40

8 September, 2003: ANOTHER UPSHOT OF MY CASE and the publicity it has generated locally is that I can't go anywhere any longer without being recognized. I went to Buffa's, down the street, to meet with my friend Matt after work on Saturday. As I was approaching the door of the place, a van pulled up to the stop sign occupied by two guys in their early thirties.

"Hey, man!" the guy on the passenger side called out. "You¼re the guy, right? The guy in the Gambit?"

"Yeah," I said, a bit embarrassed.

"See?" he said to his friend. "I told ya'!" Then to me, "I saw you from the side and recognized you from the picture. How are things goin' with your case?"

"Alright," I responded. "I'll know on Thursday when the judge gives her rulings."

"Hang in there, man! We're all behind ya'!"

"Thanks a lot."

I promised my boss that I would drop by his bar on Sunday, my only day off this week until the court appearance, to watch the Saints game. On my way to the men's room, at half-time, a guy in his early forties at the corner of the bar stopped me and asked: "You're that guy in the Gambit, right? The one the N.O.P.D. fucked over?"

"Yes," I said, a bit abashed, "that's me."

"Glad to meet you! I hope you beat this thing. Those bastards!"

"Thanks a lot," I said.

As I proceeded to the lavatory, I overheard him saying: "You know who that was? That's the guy ---"

It's a bit odd and uncomfortable being the story ...

The only good things that's come of all this thus far is that other victimized people feel more comfortable sharing their stories with me. You'll read one very harrowing such story on our VOX POPULI page this week. It's the story of a mother of two who made the mistake of taking the "official" police advice about avoiding carjackings and rapes. I can only sympathize with the trauma the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) put she and her two young children through. Been there.

AND because I am the story, I have inherited an apartment. My roommate and I learned a week ago Tuesday that the cops involved in the case showed up at Molly's at the Market very upset about the coverage. He decided to decamp and I had to decide if I wanted to couchsurf again or hold onto the place. I decided that it was time to try to make a new stand. It's gonnah cost me, of course. What doesn't these days? But I'm tired of having to move every few months and I'm very, very tired of feeling that I'm being pushed around when I know I'm in the right. Those cops aren't gonnah lose me this place. Not after all they've already put me through.

So my expenses, even as I begin my new job, have doubled (rent-wise) and my attorney called today asking me for more money.

---

ONE OF THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF GENERATOR 21 about which I am most proud is that we have featured, since about 1999, more coverage of issues and more indigenous authors, from Eastern Europe, Africa and the Indian subcontinent than most comparable American journals we've surveyed. This is no small feat. I feel that our exclusive interview with Sergei Andreyev, from Russia, the human who has spent the most time in space of any of us was nothing short of an historic event.

The mere volume of queries that come in weekly from African writers - too many of whom I've been made to turn down for reasons of editorial policy - would attest to the verity of the statement that we have created a Web space where Africans feel they will get a fair hearing. As a Black journalist, I'm particularly proud of that.

But I have disappointments, too. I am disappointed that we have not been more successful in attracting writers from Central and South American or the Caribbean. I remain disappointed in the number of women writers that submit to these pages.

I have found China a particularly tough nut to crack. The reasons may well be both linguistic and political but I have no intention of giving up hope.

Despite these disappointments, I shall continue to soldier on, hoping against hope that I can make this a welcoming space from writers from every part of the world. That is my mission.

---

11 September, 2003: AS MENTIONED PREVIOUSLY, SEPTEMBER 11th, UNDER A FULL MOON, would be the time when I would finally get a ruling on the motions put forward by the defense attorneys working on this case. The judge, a woman who has been wholly fair and patient throughout this extended marathon, admitted in her ruling that after hearing my testimony she was prepared the rule on my part of the case. The complication, was with my roommate. She ruled that there was no probable cause for my arrest, no probable cause for the extended search of my roomie, but that the exculpatory statement made by my roomie after the fact was admissible.

The Assistant District Attorney (ADA) assigned to this case has been professional and cordial throughout these proceedings. As he entered the courthouse today, on his way to the courtroom, he greeted me: "Good morning, Mr. Amis! Good article!" He was referring to the Gambit article, by Katy Reckdahl, which made me a lower level local celebrity last week and changed my life in this town in ways I feel I don't fully comprehend.

Nonetheless, I did not hear those precious words "Case dismissed." The ADA, pro forma, requested the filing of writs (another form of appeal of a judge's ruling when a trial and final ruling haven't been made) and an objection. The writs and trial were set for the same date, 22 September. So I have to make one more court appearance and pay my attorney for that court appearance, as well. My legal fees continue to mount.

Let me say it one last time: If you mean to contribute to my on-going legal fees, please send an e-mail. It would be appreciated. Tomorrow, I give my lawyer almost all of the money I made working construction this week for this last session. I made a huge pot of chili on Wednesday so that I'll eat next week. Get the picture?

My attorney assures me that this is simply more of "going through the motions." She intimated that on the 22nd, I'll finally hear that the District Attorney's office will not pursue prosecution and then those wonderful, precious, long-awaited words: "Case dismissed."

I mean to ask her, after I get off work from my construction job, to give me a Final Billing so that I know how much I owe her and, thus, what my total nut for this case -- between borrowing money from friends and soliciting money from the readership here -- will be. I need to make an end.

---

WHAT ABOUT THE LIFE OF MY SOUL? My fitful dreams this morning made me wonder if my soul and I are even in contact any longer. I always have trouble sleeping immediately before I have to appear in the law courts at Tulane and South Broad Streets in this city.

I worry.

Somewhere out there is the job, the project, that will reinvigorate me again. Somewhere, I have to believe, is a moment of comfort, a moment lacking in drama, a place where I will feel "at home." I've sought it in countries and surrogate families but, finally, I must admit, it has to be in a place where I am doing what I was meant to do. Writing. Writing is all I've ever cared about since childhood. But I have yet to find the right niche for this strange and eccentric voice of mine...

I have seen more beauty this week than I have in a very long time. On Monday, I saw six separate and distinctly lovely butterflies pass overhead while working at my construction job. One Zebra Swallowtail - mammoth! - alighted on a tree in a yard where I was demolishing a deck and just hung there. I pointed her out to my co-workers. After her, I saw the other five, the last two as yellow as a morning sun.

Later, there was a wonderful nimbus cloud that moved across the sun with an effect that you can only see in the West. Halo and all. I was transfixed. It was a day of beauty like I've not experienced in too long and I took moments away from my drudgery to appreciate these glimpses of the sublime.

I should be more full of hope than I am. You're right. Give me time.

Things I Can Do This Week

1. Pay my lawyer.

2. Get the magazine out.

3. Plan for paying my rent.

---

Thanks for coming back this week.

"Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching..."
Rod

Search www.g21.net [ ] Our Link Partners the Web for

ROD AMIS has published this magazine since 1990. It first appeared as a hardcopy 'Zine. In March, 1996, he launched it here on the Web. Rod was a Contributing Editor at Suite101.com, where he wrote the " 'Net Publishing" feature. His work has been featured in the San Francisco Bay Guardian Online, NRV8, and at WebLab's Reality Check site. Rod was also a contributing writer on technology for Faulkner Information Services. He wrote on Web issues for MethodFive.com's Hyper newsletter.

Rod was a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he wrote over two hundred articles on web design and development issues. He was also principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviewed technology issues weekly, producing 383 editorials. He became the Managing Editor for Electronic Mail/Newsletter Publications at Andover.net at the end of February, 2000, and left in September of the same year. He was a contributing writer for ACCESS magazine, which appeared both on- and offline for 10 million readers in 100 newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, Boston Herald, Austin American-Statesman, Denver Post and Orlando Sentinel, among others. Rod was the US reporter for Silicon.com, a division of Network Multimedia Television in London, UK, reaching 3.5 million European readers, until May, 2001.

Last year he worked as Assistant to the General Manager of a Big Easy company that does restaurants and nightclubs. (Think: The Boy.) Oh yeah, Rod's had Day Jobs working construction. Mostly renovations of old New Orleans structures, houses and a bar. Sometimes he designs Web sites for other people so that he can get his creative juices flowing the way he can't at a staid publication like this one. And he's been the instructor in Editing for Internet Publications at the Novi Sad School of Journalism in Yugoslavia. Our Resident Philosopher is back to working construction again for a boss he likes. It's tough on an old man, but bills need to get paid. In his spare time, he chases women in the manner that a fly pursues a spider.

Rod lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. This town is eroding his normal sense of driven purpose. He wants to live somewhere civilized when he grows up. Wish him Luck.

He continues to be committed to integrity, chastity and a dose of humility.

---

| HOME | THE PREVIOUS GLASS HOUSE | THE NEXT GLASS HOUSE |

CREDITS || AWARDS || SEARCH ENGINES || LINKS ||
VOX POPULI is YOUR PAGE to talk back to us. I'm glad you're not bashful. Keep those cards and e-mails comin', Kids!

Search our Site:

sitemap

RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE

---

Our Editor does listen!

© 2003, GENERATOR 21.

E-mail your comments. We always like to hear from you. Send your kudos, brickbats and suggestions to rod@g21.net.