how we get by

New Orleans murder suspect slain in Mississippi linked to more violence… Cornelious Ferrande — already linked to two murders, the robbery of a cab driver, and a burglary attempt in Mississippi that resulted in his death — also shot a man selling food from a 6th Ward apartment window, according to the New Orleans Police Department. 

This story of murder and mayhem, courtesy of a New Orleans man (who, at 23, wasn’t much more than a child on the day he died), is so common by its theme that I found myself glossing over the gory details just to keep a clear head. Instead, my attention shot over to the vaguely sketched story of one of the victims: “a man selling food from a 6th Ward apartment window.”

 

Folks who lead comfortable lives will no doubt focus on the notion that selling food out of a 6th Ward apartment window is an illegal and dangerous thing to do. Maybe so, but this was really just another creative New Orleanian caught up in difficult circumstance, living by his wits. A lot of us do that around here. Running a take-out joint from your apartment window may be illegal, but this guy was at least working for a living.

I know, they found 52 bags of pot in the guy’s house, and it’s a no-brainer he was selling that, too. But I find it difficult to be overly judgmental. I know too many “respectable” folks who enjoy the occasional joint, and they sure as shit aren’t refilling their stashboxes at the corner store. The irony is that dude had to get shot full of holes before the cops got hip to his own petty crimes – and you know he’ll probably do some time for it. There’s something not right about that if you ask me.

But that’s not what the story is about. The story is about the violent death of a young man who committed many violent acts in his short life, who left a trail of victims, either dead or permanently scarred. This was a young man who shattered lives by the dozen without a second thought, and so it’s easy to shrug and say he got what he deserved or even that he got off too easy, and maybe he did.

I remember reading a story in a national magazine twenty or so years ago about how our nation’s public school system had become so horrendously gutted and ineffective, how the child welfare system was so overwhelmed and under funded, that the money saved by letting those systems go to pot would soon be buying us all a huge surplus of what they were calling “Super Predators” by the year 2000. The article predicted a society punctuated with teens and twenty-somethings raised in such dire and hopeless conditions that a culture of crime – one where basic human compassion would be considered a luxury reserved for the weak or lucky – would become the most desirable option for many. And so here we are, right on schedule, living and loving in the heart of Super Predator Central – pretending “we the lucky” have a right to be surprised by any of it when the truth is that we own it.

My faith makes me a dope, but I have faith just the same. The new charter school system in New Orleans has been a blessing for our children, competing for students rather than warehousing them. Local politicians suddenly seem to understand that what happens to our kids in their formative years really matters, that nothing worth achieving in a society is ever mined through short-term budgetary concerns. That old cynical politician’s trick of keeping an under-educated voter base in order to get elected and re-elected for all the wrong reasons is finally backfiring on the corrupt. Maybe today’s children have a much better shot at a good life than yesterday’s ever did. Maybe not. My faith makes me a dope, like I said.

But here’s a prediction: If we chart out and stay true to a willful course of doing right by our kids, the next twenty years may bring about a low tide to the era of the Super Predator.

All that said, I can’t help wondering about the guy selling food from his window. What was on the menu? Probably basic stuff: grilled cheese sandwiches and Hostess Twinkies. Maybe the house specialty was greasy ribs or mac and cheese. Maybe he was selling the best gumbo in town from old plastic Mardi Gras parade-throw cups, the same kind you have in your kitchen cabinet with cartoons of Pete Fountain and Dr. John printed on them. Maybe you had to bring your own bowl and he would ladle it out the window to you. I don’t know, I’m just spitballing here.

But that second guy makes this story about something unexpected. The second guy makes it about two guys who probably grew up in the same culture of violence and despair, two guys with little reason to hope, making decisions about how to handle hard times on the fly, making it all up as the dog days rolled by, improvising, looking for ways to find the next good day, sometimes making bad decisions, sometimes crossing over lines that you don’t come back from.

Both were criminals. One used violence to take what wasn’t his. One sold food illegally to neighbors through an open window.

About that second guy. I hope the cops aren’t too hard on him about the pot, and I hope he’s out of the hospital soon.

– Louis Maistros

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