It is going down hill here. The slumlord cajun sold the apartment to her son to get out of legal trouble. He wants us to sign a new lease with extra pet charges. They are infamous for extra pet charges here in New Orleans. We have only been here four and a half weeks but everyday something god-awful happens.
Someone got shot in the head right outside Sterling's bedroom window. Cops and fellow tenants roaming the grounds of our drag-queen infested villa at one o'clock in the morning. No sleep that night. Now we have discovered that more than half the queens have been evicted because they weren't paying their rents.
We have also discovered there are rats in the walls. The bathroom ceiling is ready to cave in, the toilet bowl is always leaking water all over the bathroom floor. There is no order here. Lawlessness rules!
It gets depressing as well when you are surrounded by illiterates. At the bank, at every teller station, there is a thumb print device for those who can't sign their own names. Obviously this applies to a great many who live here. We are surrounded on all sides by hucksters, slumlords, gangsters, and drunks yet we are still debating about staying.
There is a good chance I might get a job working in the Oliver Guest House on Toulouse Street in the Quarter. The only requirements - they want someone who can stay up overnight four nights a week without wandering out into the Quarter in search of endless alcohol and who possesses simple math skills, addition and subtraction on an old-fashioned adding machine. Getting the job is what scares me!
We might be getting another apartment in the French Quarter in an area known as The Triangle half way between the French Quarter and Fauberg Marigny. The rent is only $465.00 for a one bedroom; it has a bathroom that could easily be used as a bedroom and a small kitchen. It is in a safe, clean yuppie area populated by yuppie-bohemian hybrids.
Of course, that would mean breaking the lease and incurring the fury of the Cajun Slumlord's violent son Bubba who will probably hunt us down and into the Louisiana Court system which would of course run as slow as molasses and bore the hell out of us. Then of course there are the legal fees and the four months of delinquent rent. But no self-respecting person should have to live with murder and rats and ceilings caving in on their heads.
