Jus' Tell 'Im Donald Sent Ya

February 9, 2016

We work all morning in the pumping heat and two-ply toilet paper softness of our room. We stay until the last possible moment, until the time the housekeeper comes around and we know that if we're not out of the room in five minutes the hotel manager will charge us for another night. It's noon by the time we step outside for the first time.

When we do it's into the exact same scene as when we walked in through the lobby doors twenty-three hours ago: bright sunshine, clear skies, and a cold-ass wind howling down from the northwest. But to reach the bridge over the Mississippi we first have to go south, so for six or seven miles we fly in silence as the wind cuts the noise of the air rushing past our ears. Fifteen, then twenty, then twenty-five, all with no effort. I shift up into the big chain ring for the first time since we left the Atlantic.

Soon we crank up the gentle incline of the bridge deck and find ourselves perched high above the Mississippi River. It flows below our feet brown and cold and whipped into white caps by the wind. On the other side, back at ground level, the wind thrashes the blades of grass along the road's edge with such power that it sounds like they're singing to us. We're hungry and so we decide we'll pound out five windy miles on the highway and get to the next gas station. But on the way there we hit a junction and see a sign that tells us the town of New Roads is two miles away to our left. Looking at the map on my phone it seems like a good-sized town. Wanting something better than donut sticks or overpriced trail mix we decide to take the left and see what we can find in the way of a restaurant.

Down the road we see a sign for a mini-mart that serves hot food and pull off into its parking lot. But we want something more, so we pull out our phones and go back to the map. Thirty seconds later a small SUV pulls up with the window down and a smiling man behind the wheel. He asks us where we're from. We tell him the West Coast.

"Ah yeah, we were jus' out to Los Angeles a few months ago. Man, I tell ya what, I feel like I can drive anywhere now. Woo! That Santa Monica Freeway? Crazy!"

We laugh and smile and nod. We know the 405 all too well.

"But that's me. I travel a lot. We travel a lot. I can't even get out of the yard in my car or my motorhome or my bike without my wife over here coming with me."

She smiles and waves from the passenger seat.

"Yeah, same for me," I say pointing at Kristen. "We go everywhere together."

"So which way ya headed?"

"That way," I say, pointing toward downtown New Roads. "We're trying to find something good to eat"

"Ya might have a hard time getting through today. Got the big parade goin' on, ya see?" Lots of cars and a few parade floats towed by noisy trucks roll past the parking lot. "But it's okay. There's all kinda stuff down there, food vendors and all that, ya gonna love it. Here's whatcha gotta do. Ya gonna go down that way, then ya gonna reach the spot where the police officah is standin'. He's gonna be sendin' cars to the left, but you just tell him you tryna get to Main Street and he'll let ya keep on goin'. Then ya get down there and ya'll'll hit the T where the rivah comes in, and you jus' take a right. When ya get ta the police officah, jus' tell 'im Donald sent ya."

We thank Donald and wave goodbye and then we're off again. A few minutes later we start to see what Mardi Gras in small-town Louisiana looks like. New Roads is home to 5,000 people but it seems like so much more because every last person who lives here and isn't working is outside. Thousands more have come in by car and truck and school bus. And two more just showed up by bike, only looking for lunch but having found a whole lot more. We're less than a mile from Main Street and I'm not sure we'll ever make it. The streets are so full of people standing and sitting and walking that we have to get off the bikes and push. Kids dart in front of us. Mardi Gras beads hang around every neck. Masses of fallen beads cover the pavement and crunch under our tires. Hip-hop booms and bass thumps. Barbecues rage and fill the air with the smell and haze of smoke. Lots of people have been drinking all afternoon and a few since the morning. They're all over the place, the people: on porches, in lawn chairs, running past me while singing, hanging from parade floats, wherever there's open space.

It's clear we're not from here. In the mass of at least a thousand people we see in the first three quarters of a mile there are maybe four other white faces. I've never been any place like this. And there's no other way to say it: I feel uncomfortable. Everything about us is different, from the bright-colored jackets to the bright-colored bags, the helmets, the mirrors attached to the helmets, the shorts, and of course the fact that we're pushing bicycles down the main drag of New Roads, Louisiana just after the Mardi Gras parade has ended. And because everything about us is different, everyone's looking at us, whether it's a glance or a curious stare or a neck-jerking double-take because they can't believe what they just saw walk past. As a white male from Seattle, Washington who has never traveled to a country that doesn't speak English as its first language it's about as far from my normal day-to-day experience as I can get. Back home, the way I look and dress and talk is so average and unremarkable that it's almost like I don't exist. Unless I spill something on myself or rip a noisy fart or walk forehead-first into a light pole no one notices me while I'm out in public. There are no smiles, no hellos, nor wondering looks of any kind directed my way. I am human background noise.

But today, for the first time in my life, where I wasn't prepared for it to happen, the opposite is true. As I walk down the street holding up my loaded bicycle it's one look after the next after the next that says something to the effect of Now what the hell is going on here? The introverted part of me, the part that doesn't want this kind attention focused on it, pulls alarms in my head that cry out "Abort! Abort" The practical part of me, the part that's worried about finding something decent for lunch, wonders how long it's going to take us to find it among all this madness. But the adventurous part of me, the part that appreciates how unique this experience is and understands it may never happen again, tells me to forget about the rest and just dive in. And so that's what we do. A few minutes later we spot a row of food trucks, park the bikes next to some trucks at the edge of the Family Dollar parking lot and get in line.

The line is long and slow-moving. It gives us plenty of time to debate about whether to get a hot dog or a cheeseburger or a turkey wing. It also puts us right in the middle of the waves of people passing by in both directions. What we notice is how alive the town feels. The adults talk loud and laugh louder. The kids run through whatever gaps in the crowd they can find. Multiple sets of speakers compete for earspace. It's a fun atmosphere, like a huge community gathering. The whole day is a party. The only disappointment comes when I'm told that the food truck is out of chicken croissants. I go with the deep fried pork chop and fries instead. Kristen chooses the hot sausage po' boy, which is as long as her forearm and covered in cheese sauce and lettuce and chunks of tomato. It's so extreme in size and color and texture that I'm not sure I would eat it, and on bike trips like this I'll eat damn near anything. Even though our bicycles are parked off to the side, we still end up talking to half a dozen people about where we're from, how long it took us to get here, what we're doing in New Roads anyway, and aren't those bicycle seats, like, really uncomfortable. We can't get over the fact that if we were here on any other day of the year this town would look and feel and sound and smell entirely different.

One of the people we talk to mentions that the next parade is starting in about ten minutes. It turns out Mardi Gras is such a big deal around here that there's a parade at eleven in the morning and then another at three in the afternoon. When we realize how soon that is, we ride a few blocks west and try to discover a way out of town before we get trapped like we did back in Bogalusa. But in that span of a few blocks everything changes. All but a handful of the faces along the parade route are now white. There are white police officers on horses. The king and queen and other official parade royalty are all white. The whole atmosphere is different as well. People sit in ordered rows on either side of the street, some in folding chairs and others standing, but it seems as if spots have been staked out ahead of time. It's not like an all-day party over here, but more like the parades we went to as kids Edmonds, Washington in Burlington, Iowa, where you show up, watch the parade, then go home and celebrate the rest of the holiday on your own.

We're so caught up in the dramatic changes we've just witnessed that we forget about our escape plan. In the meantime the clock strikes three and the parade starts up and our possible escape routes close. And so we find a place to stand near the curb and watch this weird mix of culture pass in front of us at just below walking speed. There's a group of Scottish drummers, a huge high school marching band, a float full of kids dressed up as astronauts, and a float full of kids dressed up as the heroes of 9/11 even though they hadn't been born until years after 9/11 happened. Then there are floats pulled by semi-trucks where speakers blast hip-hop music, floats pulled by semi-trucks where old men crank out live music with guitars and basses and drum kits, and floats pulled by semi-trucks where whatever music they're playing is going to last so long that there's a portable toilet attached to the rear of the platform. Strings of beads fly out from the floats and either land in outstretched hands or fall to the pavement with a subtle swish.

The parade starts strong, but as happens with all small-town parades, eventually the timing gets thrown off. First big gaps start to form between the floats. Then something farther ahead goes wrong and things get jammed up, which leaves the marching bands standing idle. They keep playing in place for awhile, but then they get bored and start talking to each other, and soon they just stop playing altogether. During the break in the action an aggressive little kid in an astronaut outfit keeps grabbing handfuls of beads and chucking them into the crowd as hard as he can. When he notices me looking at my phone he decides to wing the biggest possible string right at me. I catch him doing it out of the corner of my eye, look up at the last possible moment, shoot my arm toward my face, and grab the beads out of the air two inches before they slam into my nose and eyeballs. I give him this knowing eyebrow raise that causes a half-smile to creep across his face and his head to give a little shake in disbelief.

People are into the parade. They're having a good time. But we still can't help but wonder if it wouldn't be a lot more fun to watch this same set of floats pass by on the other side of town. We also can't help but laugh and smile in amazement about everything we've just seen. If we had kept going straight to the gas station like we'd planned, instead of turning left and going into New Roads, we would have missed all of it.

With necklaces of silver and green beads jingling around my neck we press on, trying to reach the next and only place to camp in the area before it gets dark. The setting sun makes the fields of sugarcane off to our right glow golden while the wind bends them to the east at severe angles, sending each plant thrashing and swishing to its own rhythm. We get honks and waves from the passing cars whose drivers saw us wandering around town back in New Roads.

"It'll be on the right, after Landry's Guns," Kristen says of the RV park we're trying to reach as we're stopped to rest a few miles south of Morganza.

I'm about a mile short of the gun shop and the RV park when I hear a thump and a crunch behind me, like the sound of a full garbage can being run into by a car at speed. But before my mind has a chance to process what the noise was from, the evidence appears. A brown dog slides at high speed into view out of the corner of my left eye and then travels almost the full width of my field of vision, skidding across the pavement in front of me at a forty-five degree angle toward the northeast and missing contact with my front tire by no more than six feet before the force with which it was hit bleeds off and it comes to a dead stop. In this snapshot of time that doesn't last more than about a second and a half I notice that the dog is more tan than brown; that it's some kind of Pit Bull mix, like so many of the brown dogs out here; that all four of its legs are pointed out toward the road as the fur and skin of its right flank gets eaten away by the harshness of the blacktop and then the gravel beyond; that its mouth is open wide and frozen in place; and that its eyes are locked straight ahead.

After that second and a half the dog is gone from my view. I don't look back either with the turn of my head or a glance into my mirror because I know there's no point. No dog can survive a direct hit at fifty miles per hour from a passing truck and survive. The driver of the truck doesn't stop, or pull over, or even slow. He just gets back on the gas and continues on into the failing light of the evening toward points north. I pedal in a stunned daze, like my mind can't yet process what my ears just heard and my eyes just saw. With the noise of the wind and the passing cars on the highway there was never the sound of a dog's barking. I never saw the dog until he had already been hit and was sliding past me. He couldn't have come from the right side of the highway, otherwise he would have been in the shoulder or somewhere beyond. He must have seen me ride past from wherever he was standing on the far side of the road, gotten a late break, and become so focused on whatever it is he thought I was that he didn't notice the maroon pickup barreling straight for him.

And so a life goes away for no good reason – a life that came into being for the benefit of a human and that ended because of human selfishness and carelessness. Some person who lives in a house a quarter of a mile behind me thought it a fine plan to get a dog, but wasn't willing to keep that dog in the house with the people it loved or put up a fence to protect it from the kind of horrific outcome I just watched unfold, despite living a hundred feet or less from busy, snarling, unforgiving Louisiana Highway 1. I'd like to think that they'll find their dead dog some time tonight or early tomorrow morning and that the shock of how the dog's life ended will spark some kind of change. I want to believe that when they get another dog they'll take better care of it by having a fence built or putting a little pile of blankets next to the easy chair in their living room so that the dog can live out its days next to the person whose wants and commands it has been bred to pay attention and respond to. Or better yet, they'll realize that they can't do a good job of meeting a dog's emotional and physical and safety needs and decide that their life can go on without a pet existing around its fringes.

I'd like to think that, but I don't. Nothing will change. Life will go on.

Kristen is far enough ahead that she misses the whole scene. She doesn't know that anything terrible happened until I crank hard to catch up and then tell her. It's better that way; she cares about the well-being of animals more than anyone I know.

The brutal death casts a pall over what should have been a most wonderful day.

Today's ride: 27 miles (43 km)
Total: 939 miles (1,511 km)

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