New Orleans, Days after Mardi Gras
“I just want to travel when I get older.” I can never understand that. I love a good vacation; don’t get me wrong. But I never had the desire to exist in that perpetual state of motion that people refer to when they want to travel. The whole Beatnik thing always seemed pretty cool to me though. I would drop all of my friends to ride around with Jack Kerouac for a few months in a heartbeat. His style is far from modern travel: no Pinterest vision board involved in planning, no beach pictures on Instagram, just wasting your life on the road. It sounds more like drifting than traveling.
When I booked this trip to New Orleans, I knew I had one spring break left before I died, so I could not waste it on formal travel to Europe, Miami, or Puerto Rico. If you’re planning on booking a trip to one of those places, I hope you stop and consider. While I can’t tell you what goes on during spring break in the Old Country or the Spring Breaker Capitals, I can tell you what I thought of traveling to the Big Easy, in the moments just after the Mardi Gras storm became impossible to ride. The only thing that can go wrong is believing you have discovered anything that can come back home with you.
On Saturday at 2:30 AM, I snapped out of bed like the jaw of an alligator snapping on a poorboy fisherman trying to catch gumbo on a daiquiri bayou. Next thing I knew, we were on the road to BWI, which was about an hour away. Spencer drove the car, and sipped on coffee as Tyler, Toby, and I tried to catch some shut eye. We stirred from our little hour of pretend sleep the second we got to the airport parking lot. Despite the reputation of Spirit Airlines, everything went smoothly. The whole roundtrip cost us $75 each, and the only issues were our fault. Well, except the seats that were clearly designed by someone who enjoyed anal sadism. I somehow managed to sleep after moving my ass around a dozen times. Spencer took a Vyvanse to help him stop changing positions, but mixed with all the coffee, it just just sent him into a trance of staring at iPhone Sudoku games and dreaming of the casino.
After hitting the bricks in NoLa, we grabbed a coffee and waited forty-five minutes for the bus to take us downtown. Everything was perfectly dirty, beautifully so, just as we had been dreaming for the past few months. The bus must have been made by the same manufacturer as the DC Metro Bus, with only a few slight differences between this model and the familiar 33. We felt right at home. We sat down in the row in the very back.
When a group of five clear spring breakers sat down in front of us, Toby and I started shooting the shit real loud. We had to set the tone now at the start. We were a group that anyone could tap into. Our vibe was loud and clear. Eventually, they took the bait, and the lone man of the crew asked us where we were from. I might have cared more, but by that time, we were already walking off the bus.
God, I mentioned it was beautiful and filthy already, but this was when we really knew. The tallest building in the city wept in front us. This eye sore had been abandoned since Katrina or a similar time; nobody we talked to knew for sure. A massive net wrapped around the top to stop eroded pieces of roof from hitting pedestrians. I felt proud to be an American learning that, but more importantly, I was foaming at the mouth to really get going in New Orleans.
The walk to the hostel was not on a yellow brick road. Spencer definitely clutched his wallet during a few blocks. He was the only one with any reluctance about this trip. His eyes do not see junk and dirt as beautiful in the way mine usually do. Honestly, I’m pretty shocked we got him to agree to the hostel part. He was only okay with it because it gave him more money to gamble with– unless he got mugged on the way there, which seemed possible at the moment.
As we walked down Martin Luther King Boulevard, I felt terrible even having these thoughts though. I moved to the left to avoid stepping on a man sprawled out on the sidewalk. His limp arm blew back and forth futilely trying to grab a water bottle just out of reach on the other side of a gate. The locked gate belonged to a dilapidated house that might as well have been abandoned if it wasn’t already. We were five minutes away from the hostel now, getting ready to use this ecosystem as a playground for a few days. Best not to let these thoughts linger. The front desk was expecting us to arrive.
The hostel was infinitely nicer than we could have imagined five minutes ago. The exterior was coated with a vibrant blue wonderfully juxtaposed by a deep red door. We marched up to the Southern porch, and found an orange cat curled up on one of the chairs. The Desk Guy stood in the doorway with shorts about a centimeter long, flip flops, and a dangly necklace. At a glance, he seemed like he was a surfer who did shrooms every weekend. He was actually a gay Georgetown alumni. He checked us in at his desk in the office. Chill, ambient music played on all the speakers in the house. It felt too perfect. He showed us through the courtyard to our private Garden Suite with a shower, kitchen, and living room for $35 a night. Desk Guy told us that the pregames happened in the courtyard every night. All we had to do here was hang out with other drunk young people. It was like we were on the set of Survivor, or maybe even one of the hornier variants of the island game show format. At the same time, there was something very Hotel California about this whole thing. What the Hell was the catch? Would our souls be stuck here forever?
“So how long have you been in New Orleans?” Toby asked Desk Guy.
“Like, 2 weeks,” Desk Guy replied.
I assumed that meant he wasn’t trapped here forever.
A storm was coming, so we did not have much time for the necessary follow-up questions. We had to bail and try to make it to the street car headed towards Bourbon Street, but we barely made it within eye distance of the stop when we got caught by the rain. There was no awning or anything for cover. Instantly, we were soaked. Of course, New Orlean is not known for being a dry town. We walked right into the nearest dive: Lucky’s. The sun continued to rise behind the clouds as we walked through the door. Our dreams were coming true.
Three shimmering gambling machines sat in the corner to our right. The walls were covered with symbolic and funny road signs and license plates. Two massive metal mermaids with pleasantly shaped large breasts rested on poles sprouting from behind the bar. They currently rocked plastic cowboy hats. Cobwebs and plastic skulls were scattered around, symbolic of the haunted voodoo lore of the city, or maybe just a sign that everyone has been helplessly drunk in this bar since some past Halloween.
“What can I get you boys started with?” our bartender asked. She was an old woman whose demeanor seemed too gentle for Lucky’s. She wore a hat with both Cuban and Vietnamese flags, so I guess she was pretty much in the right spot when you think about all the other places she could be.
“I’ll have a ginger ale,” Toby said. Tyler followed suit.
“What do you have on draft?” I asked, not wanting her to think that we were unsophisticated.
“Well, we’re actually still out of everything from last night,” she let me know with a sympathetic frown.
“I guess I’ll start with a Miller Lite then.”
Spencer got a drink so I wouldn’t have to drink alone. Lucky’s was still quiet with only a few guys taking whiskey shots and gambling. It was early though, before the usual rush. Still, at 10:30 AM, the scene was pretty much all there.
We hit Bourbon Street right when the rain let up. In the early moments, it reminded me of Atlantic City, New Jersey. There had to be a Rainforest Cafe around here somewhere. I was sorely missing the point with that idea. We had no idea where we were yet. The French Quarter effectively had no pulse at this hour. It was time to get drinking.
It took us a while to get going. We had to find our friend who had flown all the way here from D.C. to hangout with some frat guy. He was cool enough. He worked for Lockheed Martin and the State Department, and kept baiting our liberal asses for a reaction about his job.
“I’m not here to police you, man,” I told him. My words were not going to send this guy on a soul searching quest at this hour on Bourbon Street. I had to respect his style though. Some people travel to “find themselves” by building themselves up. Other people are okay with the world breaking their balls a little. Come to think of it, I don’t think that was actually his mindset at all though. I couldn’t tell you. When we met him, I wasn’t really in a state to accurately assess him, and my ability to assess anything only got worse from there as we stumbled into the evening.
By 9:00 PM, we were in some bar waiting for an Uber to Tulane, and watching Spencer gamble his change away. I had sobered up since the afternoon, but I was scared that finishing my water cup would lead to getting my stomach pumped. When we got up to leave, this guy asked us where we were from. He said he used to live in Glover Park, a few streets from my current house. I exclaimed and tried to relate to him about it. He couldn’t have given less of a fuck. Coincidences happen in New Orleans all the time, and most people leave D.C. for good reasons. I threw out my water cup, and left.
We went to bed early enough to get a half-decent night of sleep. When we left the Garden Suite to grab coffee in the house, we finally met our first hostelmate besides Desk Guy. I walked in to find Sid rummaging through the fridge. She spilled some milk, but cleaned it all up quickly of course.
“So, who are you guys anyway,” she said to us as she tried to do five things at once around the kitchen. On paper, it sounds like she was just trying to fit some manic pixie dream girl thing. Or worse, it sounds like I’m unfairly painting someone that way because of my male gaze. But she wasn’t just some girl in a blue hair phase pretending to smoke cigarettes. Her full time job was working at different hostels for a few weeks at a time, and she went to seven different colleges before graduating with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Sid then told us the hostel pregame would be 8:15 PM. We got there on time.
For the first fifteen minutes, the pregame was just my friends, The Conquistador, and one of the Two Halves. The Two Halves were a couple of hotdog salesmen from St. Petersburg, Florida, who sometimes made upwards of $1,000 a night pushing around their cart. This half had seven books out there somewhere. The Conquistador had been traveling for about a month in New Orleans, looking for good food and girls.
“So what made you go on this trip?” Toby asked.
“Conquest.”
This answer deeply worried us at first, but he seemed to use the word liberally to describe all sorts of things.
By 8:45, people had trickled out to the courtyard. It got cold outside, so we all went inside to play drinking games. With the end of college in sight, it felt refreshing to see thirty-year-olds holding red solo cups. This all doesn’t have to end, I thought. I was reminded of what a guy selling Trump and Anti-Comet Ping Pong merchandise told me earlier that day: “New Orleans is a bunch of drunk Peter Pans chasing Tinkerbells.”
Next thing I knew, I was one of those drunk ungrown-ups stumbling around Frenchmen Street. Every bar felt like the promise of D.C.’s Madam's Organ: real blues and jazz; dirty people; cheap drinks; structures made of old wood that creaks; another bar somewhere that looks just like it. The primitive nature of D.C.’s white collar culture has not yet evolved to allow for these great things.
I was ready to dip for the night after Spencer gave a band a tip and asked them to play Mississippi Queen. They didn’t know how to play the song. We called an Uber back to the hostel with some of the gang. Everyone who we’d been spending the night with came back to the Garden Suite with us. Someone gave Spencer cowboy boots, and he danced the Cotton Eye Joe. Poppers got passed around as a little nightcap. Then, the hostel all went their separate ways for the night.
*
I got back to the Garden Suite a little before 10:00 AM, and the rest of the guys were still pretty much asleep.
“Yo Toby, did you guys listen to the Bill Simmons podcast last night?”
“Not out loud,” he said groggily. “I listened with my Airpods in.”
He proceeded to play the opening of the episode, which began with Bill saying, “Alright, we are taping this 12:30 Pacific Time. Russelio, I’m a little groggy today. Daylight savings combined with-”
“Toby, what the fuck man! How the Hell did we miss daylight savings? Did we gain or lose an hour?”
“I don’t know man, I found out when I listened to this last night. We lost an hour a night or two ago.”
“Jesus, man.”
All of the raucous woke up Spencer. I prayed for Spencer to wake up on the right side of the bed. Today was one of the most important days of his life, and it would probably be miserable for all of us. He was going to the casino to play craps for the first time ever. The day before, I asked him if I was excited.
“Well, this is all I’ve been talking about to Toby for the past six months. And all I’ve been talking about to my girlfriend. And all I’ve been thinking about,” he growled back.
I knew he must have been exaggerating a little bit. I had seen him talk to his girlfriend about some other things. The size of his losses would impact the rest of the trip for all of us. I just hoped he and Toby had a good time at Caesars.
After they left for the casino, Tyler and I went to a warehouse filled with disturbing Mardi Gras statue-float things that resembled pop culture figures and animals. We had to pay for the real exhibit, so we just stayed in the lobby studying the creatures from behind the barrier. We bought some lemonades so we could stay longer without buying tickets. It had been well over an hour since Toby and Spencer arrived at the casino, and we still had no word from them. We made our way towards Caesars, and killed time in a bar that sold frozen daiquiris labeled Purple Drank. To our utter disbelief, our first text from Spencer was a $500 chip. When we met back up with them, their winnings had gone down leaving them both with $150, but boy oh boy, Spencer was happy as can be. When you travel with a group, everyone needs to get their fix for a successful time, and Spencer had completed his desired conquest ten-fold in the span of an hour. In terms of vibes, we were playing with profit during the next two nights.
That night, we ran it back with a similar crew. We took on Bourbon Street instead of Frenchhmen this time. Everyone from the hostel had only really been here for Mardi Gras, so they really hyped this place up. It was a bit disappointing that it was essentially the same shit as Frenchmen Street, at least on that drizzly Monday night. Regardless, the music was out of this world. At the first bar, the band covered all the bases: Pink Pony Club by Chappel Roan; I Don’t Fuck With You by Big Sean; Jolene by Dolly Parton. None of the songs felt corny or overplayed because the band was very clearly alive. I guess I felt pretty alive too– and not very corny either. I wasn’t trying to become something new, or moving just to move. I thought that I was just pretty much in the right spot when you think about all the other places I could be at that time, just like the bartender with the Cuban hat from Lucky’s.
Daylight savings, jetlag, and booze were catching up to us, so we slept through our bartender’s morning shift at Lucky’s. We finally made it there at 1:00 PM. It was an off-beat start to the day, which may have been why we lost our step and the drink finally began to take hold. All four of us ordered a drink with the new bartender. She gave us a weird look before bouncing over to the other patrons. She jumped back and spoke with a strange accent.
“Do any of you guys know about video games?”
“He does,” Toby pointed at me.
“Do you know Red Dead Redemption?”
“Yes, I was playing that–” I tried to say.
“GIT, GIT, GIT!” she said, referencing a cowboy on a horse I assumed.
After another few video game facts, she grew sheepish.
“Let me talk to my manager,” she said. She ran down imaginary stairs until she was crouched behind the bar, ‘talking to her manager in the basement.’ “Ermmmmm, welp, your bartender is a nerd!” she jumped up and said with one hand pointing in the air.
The Nerd then briefly walked away before coming right back to chat some more.
“Could you take a picture of us?” Tyler asked.
“Okay, but we have to do something cool.”
She brought us over the stage and handed us props, including an umbrella that we opened indoors. We wrapped up the photoshoot after we took a few with her sprawled out on the ground in front of us. Toby handed her back the umbrella as Tyler bent over the edge of the stage doing some bullshit. Years of this city must have worn down any impulse control The Nerd may have once had. She rammed the umbrella up Tyler’s ass.
“Does that remind you of your dad?” The Nerd shouted out.
Tyler snuck out for a cigarette soon after, and Spencer went outside to think about his girlfriend or gambling or something like that. Toby and I sat at the bar for one more drink. We only heard The Nerd at the end of her next sentence.
“...swallow!” she spat.
Toby just kind of looked at her, and they entered this weird staring contest.
“Okay, you stare at each other!” she said to us. “You are brothers.”
Lots of people say that Toby and I look alike, so this was all normal. The Nerd pulled some of her hair above her lip to look like a mustache.
“I’ll be your stepdad,” she said. She began slamming her waist against the bar, causing the whole counter to shake like a plane experiencing turbulence. It was soon high time to leave. We left behind about ten dollars cash for the five or so beers we bought. The Nerd was not concerned with balancing the books.
After a day of rummaging through the pubs, we came back to the Garden Suite drunker than we’d been before sundown the whole trip. Toby went out to find dinner, and Tyler went to see his brother over at Tulane. Spencer and I sat nursing beers on the wood table outside. Over our few days, the tree stump ash tray had filled up more and more each night before it was cleared the next morning. This was all so perfect for us, and the end still did not feel in sight. But I thought about what Spencer’s brother Cam told me about travel a few weeks before the trip.
Cam’s friend went to live in some European country (I think Spain or Portugal) for a few months. During those months, he thought he had changed his life. This guy found himself totally focused without the distractions of New York. He could barely speak the language, so he focused on himself in a way he felt he couldn’t back home. Then he had to go back home, to a place where things had connotations and people had consequences. Cam said his friend got back and went right back to fucking everything he saw, and drinking more than ever. I guess you can travel all you want if that’s truly where you’re supposed to be in an existential way. I was supposed to be in New Orleans right there, smoking with Spencer. I’m quite far from there as I write this though. If all you want is the road, you find yourself always in flux of rejecting and chasing things that remind you of home and the people you have found home in. Cam told me you have to stay grounded in something creative. Otherwise, you start acting like someone who feels like they were born to suffer, and all they can do about it is run away. Travel is just a one night stand: good or bad, it’s cool to tell your friends about, but good or bad, it’s a reminder of what home could feel like.
I wanted to end this whole piece right here when I had this conclusion, but a good journalism student always looks at life, and asks one last question: “Is there anything else you want to add?”
*
A bit before the nightly pregame, a Brit walked out to the courtyard with an electronic book reader. He wore a cotton polo and tight green pants with pissy round sunglasses. His eyes stayed glued to the screen until Toby got back. We started cracking jokes about The Nerd, and once the spark notes of the story were clear, he got up and left.
“What the fuck is his deal?” Toby said.
“I don’t know, but let me tell you something. Right now, he thinks that story is so weird. He might make a joke to someone about overhearing it. But guess what? We’re gonna tell that story tonight, and everyone is gonna laugh their fucking asses off. And he’s gonna laugh too, just to fit in,” I told him, and was sure of it.
We broke into a new case of beer, and waited for the last dance to begin. Sid, The Conquistador, and a few others slowly made their way out.
“Where the fuck is the reader,” I asked.
Right then, he walked out, certainly catching some of what I had just said. He got hit with the classic hostel vibe check when he sat down. For once, I zipped my lips as they all pried.
He started giving his travel story. “Yeah, I was in New York for a while.”
Weren’t we all?
“I went to this lil’ pub where Kerouac and the beat poets used to all get together.”
Well, I’m sure the beats would love your electronic reader and your willingness to listen to obscene stories.
“Oh yes, I’m just here for the food.”
Okay man, you could’ve just stayed in a hotel, jackass.
Unfortunately, his apparent lack of any reason to want to be at a hostel in New Orleans was overcome with one stupid part of his life story. He was a professional traveler.
“No, no, I’ve never done drugs in my life. I’ve been drug tested since I was sixteen. I went to a military uni, and to military school for the end of secondary school.”
Cheers, mate. Drink up then.
“After college, I started doing submarine maintenance. Most of the time I’m just doing project management. Last time I was on the submarine, I was there for five months. It’s quite nice. We have three nuclear submarines in the U.K. that are always out just in case they have to be used. During our whole trip, we had no idea where we were. We just had to make sure everything ran smoothly, fix stuff when it breaks, you know. Someone always had to be watching the nuclear reactor,” said The Submariner.
“You know, there’s like some submarines now that have a swimming pool, like on the submarine. So you can be like swimming underwater,” said the Conquistador, who grew up a few miles from Woodstock.
Well, the beatnik Submariner made it to the bar with us. We didn’t hit up the main strip that night. Instead, we went to a dingy karaoke bar with graffiti covering every surface including the cigarette vending machine. I was already tired, so I signed up to do Broccoli by DRAM because I knew the DJ wouldn’t have a karaoke version of that. The DJ was an older drag queen who never stood up the whole night, but was encouraging about every song selection. It started to dawn on me that I had to prepare for the possibility of Broccoli. I started kicking back PBR’s, and remembering the pure bliss of singing that song on the bus as a kid. When my time came, I started singing the song with great joy, happy that someone had penned these words. I lost my rhythm during a few pauses for the n-word, and then started to realize I barely remembered any of the lyrics. I bent over laughing hysterically. It took me about half a minute to recoup. I just kept laughing at the song, and then laughing because I didn’t know the words, and then laughing that I was laughing so much.
The Submariner was clearly fed up with me. His eyes beamed at me through his ringlet spectacles, wishing to be back traveling in an unknown place inside a silly piece of metal. This, on the other hand, was all too untidy and provocative. Yet little does he know, I saw DRAM open for the great poet Kendrick Lamar. That must fit his pretentious standard for high art unless he’s a twisted racist. Speaking of ‘poets,’ does he think that Kerouac and Ginsberg would not have been on the school bus listening to Broccoli if they were born in our day? More importantly, I am certain they would cheer on anyone willing to sing that anthem at karaoke. This was all seeming too angry for the last night. The booze was finally taking over.
Tyler pulled me out to the patio to smoke a cigarette with two girls from GW. The roof must not have covered the whole thing because it was technically a patio that allowed smoking. It covered the majority of the sky, so that there was no moonlight illuminating this strange back room. It was a sea of the overly pierced-and-tattooed who came here with no intention to sing. I kept rubbing my damn eyes when we sat down. They were starting to glow red. The one GW girl grew up about ten minutes from Tyler in the Boston suburbs. The other grew up in Delaware County, PA, just over the river from my childhood home. We were far from those places though. I now understood that guy who used to live a few streets over from me in Glover Park. He left after his favorite dive bar on U Street closed. I sat there yammering about nonsense, thinking the whole point of a good travel is to reject the things you call home. Then, Tyler spilled the ashtray all over himself.
“You would do that, man. You’re, you’re always just spilling the ashtray.”
“Shut up, dude! Oooookaaayyyyy,” Tyler said with a nervous laugh.
“Yeah man, you guys believe me?”
The two girls kinda didn’t care.
“You ever heard of The Great Gatsby? You know, the Valley of Ashes?”
“No, I just kinda know the cliff notes,” the one girl said.
“Okay, well, there’s Valley of Ashes, and uh, well. There’s this Valley of Ashes. And that’s you know, that’s what Tyler’s hand is like. That’s what we call him back home. The Valley of Ashes.”
I felt just like The Nerd. After just a few days in this town, constant gambling, liquor, and horribly portioned meals had worn down my brain leaving me with no signs of impulse control. If you don’t use it, well, you lose it. Irregardless.
“Yeah, me and Tyler sit on the porch and hold hands, then he spill it all over me and his hands. He draws a little M, for Matt on my hand. That little sweet boy. Mmm.”
Somehow, the GW girls laughed and stayed after this rant. I started kissing a French girl and an American came over to talk about the story of Led Zeppelin. Nobody even seems to notice when someone is out of their mind in New Orleans. Jesus, I was feeling like Patrick Bateman.
We returned to the courtyard for a nightcap joint. By the time I got my bearings, it was once again me, Tyler, and the GW girls from home. There was also poor old Angel sitting out there. He was baked out of his mind, and not prepared for our state. His eyes simmered with an innocent red hue, far different from red-hot boiling loss of consciousness sweltering in my corneas. I thought we could be friends.
“You ever see the friggin’ packet video?” I asked poor Angel.
“Nah,” he responded.
“What video?” the Boston girl asked.
I started riffing about how my roommate’s mom was the teacher in a semi-viral video form almost a decade ago. It was too obscure to really reference it with a crowd like this, unless you attached it to a good piece of bullshit.
“Oh my god, I do know this video! Holy shit, man!” said poor old Angel ecstatic with laughter.
“Think about it, why would I lie about that?” I told the crowd, and kept repeating it for the next few minutes.
“You’d have to be fucking crazy to lie about that man!” said Angel.
“Nobody said you were lying dude,” the Boston girl informed me.
I tried to reveal the truth to them, but they would not believe me. They thought I was lying about lying. Finally, Tyler convinced them that it was all total bullshit. Fucking Angel laughed like a madman. His mind was not ready for us to pull the rug out from under him like that. I must have been one of the biggest tweaks in his life. And then, I caught a glimpse of myself in his eyes. I felt like Dorian Gray looking at that picture of himself which decayed as he committed more sins. My reflection in Angel’s eyes looked like a belligerent ghoul trying to dance like a whimsical imp. All the while, some words meaning not much were falling out of my mouth.
“I feel like if we all left, you’d just stay out here doing this, talking to yourself,” the Boston girl told me.
“Hey man, I just keep getting egged on,” I told her, thinking of poor Angel laughing at me.
“Who’s egging you on? The voices in your head.”
She must think I’m more sober than I am because that’s the worst thing you can say to a man in this state at this hour. We had burnt this place out. It was a blessing though. You can’t go to a city to write about the spectacle of its freaks without spending some of the time as one yourself. But now we’re stuck out in the courtyard a little too late. Now, she’s talking about voices in my head. Tyler, it’s time for bed. Am I saying this out loud?
*
I was passed out at the airport bar in my leather jacket as American University clinched the March Madness tournament for the first time in over a decade on the TV. As I usually do in moments like this, I feel sick with remorse. There were so many kids all around the country trying to make a living doing journalism. Here I am, taking a path littered with immorality and cheap thrills. I still have not thought of applying to a job after college. I guess I wouldn't need a job if I wanted to travel, but I want to start seriously writing once I get out of here. I should be kissing ass to one of the professors who never seem to take any special interest in the things I want to write about. If I was just more like them, I would not feel the need to romanticize all the dirty things in New Orleans that I love so much. I’d be happy with a decent apartment, and the power of changing the world with my words.
Just then, I received a text from my friend Cleo, one of those real legit student journalists on the right path with about a dozen internships and myriad accolades. My capstone professor, whose ass I assumed I should have been kissing more, had just quit after allegations dropped of him using his almighty journalistic power to make inappropriate advances at students and colleagues.
As I boarded the plane back to D.C., I found myself about to graduate and still without a role model in anyone truly considered a journalist. Journalists tend not to enjoy writing, they tend to enjoy feeling important. I sat down in my seat on the plane headed back to D.C., understanding what kind of city D.C. really was more than ever. I looked up at a girl making a free Palestine graphic on Canva in the row in front of me. I was finally headed home.
I thought of the song Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream where he talks about stumbling upon America and then leaving the country in a confused hurry. The lyrics don’t quite make much sense, or offer any grand conclusion about the themes of chaos, conquest, and travel:
Well, the last I heard of Arab he was stuck on a whale
That was married to the deputy sheriff of the jail
But the funniest thing was when was leavin' the bay
I spot three ships sailing, and they were all coming my way
I asked the captain what his name was an' how come he didn't drive a truck
He said his name was Columbus, and I just said good luck