Libby says, chuckling like a wiseass.
Im making him take a barf bag, Annie tells her. Seriously.
I wave them off and head back toward Rosalie, wondering where Tim Jessup is at this moment. Dealing blackjack on the boat docked below the cemetery? Or hiding out in some hotel room with stolen evidence, chain-smoking cigarettes while he waits for midnight to come? There are no hotel rooms available, I answer myself. Implicit in my worry about Tim is a fear of violence, and it strikes me that violence has always been a part of the ground beneath my feet. Fort Rosalie, the original French garrison in Natchez, was built in 1716. In 1729 the enraged Natchez Indians massacred every French soldier in the fort to punish them for ill treatmentfor which French reinforcements slaughtered every native man, woman, and child they could find the following year. Rosalie went on to become General Grants headquarters during one night of the Civil War, but by then it had presided over untold numbers of robberies, rapes, and murders in the Under-the-Hill district that lay in its shadow. Is it possible, I wonder, that in some dark clearing across the river men are gathering to watch starving animals tear each other to pieces while half-naked girls serve them drinks?
As I round the east corner of Rosalies fence, a tungsten video light splits the dark, and several brown heads begin bobbing in its glare. If the gas jets of the balloons look like lanterns, the video light is a white-hot star illuminating a blond woman with a handheld mike standing before Rosalies gate. Shes interviewing some children whoapparently fled here from the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. Two TV trucks are parked nearby, and more than a dozen journalists call questions to the kids from the shadows behind the light.
As I near the spotlights halo, the producer I spoke to earlier waves me over and tells me what she wants: the basic Chamber of Commerce routine. When the kids finish, I take their place before the gate and squint against the glare while my pupils adapt.
On TV I tend to come across more like a district attorney than a mayor, and this has been a double-edged sword. Despite my diminished enthusiasm for the job, after two years in office I can give the citys PR line on autopilot. This years Balloon Festival, however, has more meaning than usual. With the citys hotels and shelters filled to bursting with suffering families, many locals believed we should cancel the races out of respect for the hurricane refugees, and also to keep from straining the citys overtaxed resources. But the Balloon Festival is a twenty-year tradition, and I, along with several community leaders, championed the idea that the work required to bring off the races under extraordinary circumstances would prove a unifying force for the community. As I explain this to the brightly blank eyes of the TV reporter, she acts as though my words amaze her, but I know shes thinking about her next question, or her eye makeup, or where she can get a sugared funnel cake like the one a refugee kid is eating. I try to wrap up my pitch with some enthusiasm for the citizens wholl see the report from home.
Critics argued that with the hotels filled, the balloon pilots would have nowhere to stay, I say, but dozens of families have generously opened their homes so that the festival could go forward. Weve had more volunteers for the support crews than weve ever had before. After feeling the outpouring of energy up on the bluff tonight, I believe events are going to bear out our optimism. The best thing you can do in the aftermath of tragedy is to focus on the present, because that way lies the future. Thank you.
I move to step out of the light, but suddenly a cool, calm female voice with no accent reaches out of the dark and stops me.
Mr. Mayor, some refugees have claimed that theyre not receiving the relief checks
Im making him take a barf bag, Annie tells her. Seriously.
I wave them off and head back toward Rosalie, wondering where Tim Jessup is at this moment. Dealing blackjack on the boat docked below the cemetery? Or hiding out in some hotel room with stolen evidence, chain-smoking cigarettes while he waits for midnight to come? There are no hotel rooms available, I answer myself. Implicit in my worry about Tim is a fear of violence, and it strikes me that violence has always been a part of the ground beneath my feet. Fort Rosalie, the original French garrison in Natchez, was built in 1716. In 1729 the enraged Natchez Indians massacred every French soldier in the fort to punish them for ill treatmentfor which French reinforcements slaughtered every native man, woman, and child they could find the following year. Rosalie went on to become General Grants headquarters during one night of the Civil War, but by then it had presided over untold numbers of robberies, rapes, and murders in the Under-the-Hill district that lay in its shadow. Is it possible, I wonder, that in some dark clearing across the river men are gathering to watch starving animals tear each other to pieces while half-naked girls serve them drinks?
As I round the east corner of Rosalies fence, a tungsten video light splits the dark, and several brown heads begin bobbing in its glare. If the gas jets of the balloons look like lanterns, the video light is a white-hot star illuminating a blond woman with a handheld mike standing before Rosalies gate. Shes interviewing some children whoapparently fled here from the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. Two TV trucks are parked nearby, and more than a dozen journalists call questions to the kids from the shadows behind the light.
As I near the spotlights halo, the producer I spoke to earlier waves me over and tells me what she wants: the basic Chamber of Commerce routine. When the kids finish, I take their place before the gate and squint against the glare while my pupils adapt.
On TV I tend to come across more like a district attorney than a mayor, and this has been a double-edged sword. Despite my diminished enthusiasm for the job, after two years in office I can give the citys PR line on autopilot. This years Balloon Festival, however, has more meaning than usual. With the citys hotels and shelters filled to bursting with suffering families, many locals believed we should cancel the races out of respect for the hurricane refugees, and also to keep from straining the citys overtaxed resources. But the Balloon Festival is a twenty-year tradition, and I, along with several community leaders, championed the idea that the work required to bring off the races under extraordinary circumstances would prove a unifying force for the community. As I explain this to the brightly blank eyes of the TV reporter, she acts as though my words amaze her, but I know shes thinking about her next question, or her eye makeup, or where she can get a sugared funnel cake like the one a refugee kid is eating. I try to wrap up my pitch with some enthusiasm for the citizens wholl see the report from home.
Critics argued that with the hotels filled, the balloon pilots would have nowhere to stay, I say, but dozens of families have generously opened their homes so that the festival could go forward. Weve had more volunteers for the support crews than weve ever had before. After feeling the outpouring of energy up on the bluff tonight, I believe events are going to bear out our optimism. The best thing you can do in the aftermath of tragedy is to focus on the present, because that way lies the future. Thank you.
I move to step out of the light, but suddenly a cool, calm female voice with no accent reaches out of the dark and stops me.
Mr. Mayor, some refugees have claimed that theyre not receiving the relief checks
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