Re-Born on the Bayou

Kate Schafer knows New Orleans natives-that rare breed of Southerners that doesn't mince words and lives by a simple but enduring creed: stay in the present, whatever the past.

The Tulane senior knows what drew her back to a school that now struggles to get up on its feet after storm surges and levee breaks.

She came back because there's something strangely surreal in the potholed streets and cast-iron gates that frame Tulane's Newcomb Hall, in the Mississippi mud that gave birth to the Big Easy's bayou grandeur and gave way under Hurricane Katrina's mighty blow.

She came back because there is something alluring about the ghostly echo that still races down a once traffic-jammed highway-a wave that rushes around New Orleans' submerged college campuses, rolls through battered Ninth Ward streets and spills out into the French Quarter's sex shops and jambalaya joints.

Schafer came back because Katrina made her a New Orleanian, and she knows how to fix the city she now calls her own.

Perhaps the only way to get this city back on its feet is to rely upon the kindness of natives, then. Perhaps it is a matter-of-fact tone and firm grasp of the present that somehow keeps the Canal Street streetcars up and running these days.

"I feel really guilty for leaving. There were so many people that wanted to leave but couldn't," Schafer says. She explores the Ninth Ward's silent streets for the first time since joining the mass exodus of cars that flooded I-10 East four months earlier.

"It's easy to get angry," she says. "But at the end of the day, you just have to rebuild."

She returned to New Orleans because she knows how important students are to the character and economy of the city.

Ninety-two percent of Tulane students returned to campus after finding temporary homes at colleges across the country. Duke housed more than 60 displaced students for the fall semester, most of whom hailed from Tulane.

"You gotta try the alligator sausage po-boy," Schafer says as she enters the dimly lit doorway of a down-and-dirty bar and grille.

There's a feeling of home-sweet-home in the Bayou shack. It sits a short car ride from the "Welcome Back" signs draped over Tulane's car-filled McAlister Drive during "Orientation Déjà Vu" this past January.

When word got out that Katrina was descending upon the school, Schafer-editor of Tulane's weekly newspaper, The Hullabaloo-headed for Houston. There, she watched the calm after the storm burst with the 17th Street Canal levee.

"It breaks your heart to see the water coming," Schafer said as she walked through the Ninth Ward earlier that day. "You're just like, 'Can't somebody just stop it-the cameraman or something?'"

When Tulane shut down for the semester, Schafer relocated to the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Business School, where she managed to get in touch with a few of her former writers and editors.

Despite her circumstances and those of her scattered classmates, Schafer continued to put out a paper every week throughout the fall semester.

Schafer "never even thought" about stopping production of The Hullabaloo-it just wasn't a consideration for the editor who continued to report on Tulane from Philadelphia.

After all, that just wouldn't be the New Orleans way.

Since she has returned to campus, Schafer is working to salvage old computer monitors and piece together the missing parts of her newsroom.

Tonight, however, it is all about reacclimating her taste buds with alligator sausage from the true Bayou-about reclaiming the celebratory sounds of another Saturday night in college, the way they used to be.

"Either you were fine, or everything was destroyed," says Schafer after dinner, her Texas twang evident as she drives through a residential area near campus.

Nearby, "X's" still mark the spots where rescuers searched flooded houses for bodies last fall.

Although Tulane's grassy quads escaped most of Katrina's wind and water, other grim reminders of August were hard to miss as students moved back into their dorm rooms last month.

Across the street from the restaurant, a row of brightly colored creole cottages seemingly untouched by the storm provides an unfortunate contrast to the crumpled remains of a less-fortunate casualty of the storm.

The words "Katrina, You Bitch" are spray-painted on the torn timbers of the latter building-a picturesque statement that suddenly captures the attention of an emotional Schafer.

Many students say they have become a little bit too reliant upon the bubble that seems to have preserved Tulane's campus, two-thirds of which was once covered with floodwater.

Since she got back, Schafer has been struggling to wrap her thoughts around the sights and sounds she so vividly remembers but can no longer revisit.

Really, it's the silence that is the most difficult thing for Schafer to deal with these days.

Students have always been an integral part of New Orleans. Now, Tulane, Loyola, Xavier and Dillard are all working to help their city return to some semblance of normalcy (see sidebar, right).

Schafer came back to Tulane because she, like so many other students, knew she had to uphold her end of the bargain.

"The city and the school are such great places to be in," Schafer says as she sits down in a booth across from the eclectic mix of New Orleans paraphernalia that lines the walls of the classically Cajun eatery.

The shouts of students are a reassuring reminder of the here-and-now.

"The city will get back on [its] feet-you have to believe it will," she says confidently as she bites into her po-boy.

The Bartender

Huey's 24/7 Diner serves up gumbo and cheesy egg burritos under a whirling fan suspended from tin-roofed rafters.

The Magazine Street restaurant now hangs a sign that reads "Open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Limited Menu."

Following the flight of many New Orleanians after the storm, a number of eateries throughout the city were forced to scale down staff size and menu options.

But the limited menu doesn't deter local bar owner Scott Newman from heading down to Huey's.

"No more breakfast!" shouts Big Mike from the kitchen as a skeleton crew scrambles to take orders and bus tables before the midday rush starts up in full.

For years, Newman would grab a quick bite to eat before heading out to work at one of his two bars. Since Katrina, however, his routine has changed.

"I stayed through it all," says the long-haired, slumped-shouldered bar owner, who is all too used to talking about Katrina these days.

"That's a conversation that takes a long time," prefaces the Bayou-born Newman as he sits back down in his chair.

He pushes the check to the end of the table without so much as a glance at the neon-lit clock that hangs above the swinging kitchen door on his left.

When the storm hit, Newman emptied his shelves and closed up Chuck's Sports Bar and the C.D. Saloon-both of which were looted soon after Katrina left the city.

"You're up early in the morning and awake at night because you don't know what's going on in the streets," he says as he pokes at his half-eaten egg burrito.

While CNN looped videos of wrecked houses and valiant rescue attempts, Newman waded through foot-deep water to watch first-hand as vandals broke into Canal Street storefronts and burned another bar to the ground.

"Those people shouldn't be out in public," he says emphatically. "I can understand looting for food, that's okay. But what are you going to be doing with 10 pairs of shoes and a plasma TV when there's no electricity?"

Soon after the levee breaches, the onslaught of looters and vandals prompted Mayor Ray Nagin to send in a force of 1,500 police officers to secure what had been some of New Orleans' most vibrant commercial sectors. Besides taking non-essential items, many looters razed buildings to the ground.

Newman supports the local businesses that survived the difficult post-Katrina days, because he understands how close they are to the heart of New Orleans. He stayed in there because he was from the city, and because he knows how important it is for local businesses to bring this city back to its former economic and cultural glory.

Newman doesn't point fingers at President George W. Bush for what happened. He blames corrupt local government and believes that local businesses must make New Orleans, New Orleans again.

"There will always be reminders of everything that ever happened in a city," Newman says as he puts on his coat and heads for the diner door. "Accept it, know what it's about, and then move on."

A few new breakfast-seeking customers evoke emphatic exclamations from a now miffed Big Mike in the back. Clearly, the cook is ready to get the hamburgers back on the hot grill.

"The only way to live life is in the present," says Newman as he hands the check to the cashier and heads for the only bar of his to survive flooding and looting.

Tonight, he'll pour the drinks he always pours and maybe, amid the memories of past nights, he'll hear a few new voices.

The Deli Guy

Two blocks up from Huey's, Mike Serio shovels out red beans and rice at the deli first opened by his uncle, Mitchell Serio, back in 1958.

"He's the man, right?" comments one regular as Serio barges over to a nearby table to pack one of the many mega-lunch orders local customers still dutifully phone in.

When all was said and done, the well-off Serio family lost more than 25 Lakeview homes to Katrina. In total, an estimated 250,000 homes and 1,077 lives were lost in the hurricane.

Serio is the first to admit his city had its faults, and he views Katrina as an opportunity to make New Orleans the big little city it once was. But first it needs to be "cleaned up."

"You gotta get down to bare bones-you gotta get up and reassess everything," he explains as he performs a slightly off-kilter dance with the new staff that has come to help out at the deli post-Katrina.

"If we go back to the New Orleans pre-Katrina, I'm out of here," says Serio-a calm frenzy whirling around the burly figure who nestles himself behind the Deli's lectern-like cash register.

The midday rush hits Serio's Deli as hard as it hits Huey's, and a crowd of businessmen line up for their ritual po-boys.

"I know one thing, though," Serio says, the crowd of businessmen line up. "New Orleans had a disproportionate share of black people that weren't contributing to the welfare of the city."

Although his words do not reflect the sentiments of most New Orleanians, Serio is not alone in his thinking. Race relations are one of the many issues underlying plans to rebuild the city.

Like others, Serio has taken up temporary residence in Baton Rouge. He makes the over-60-mile commute every day because he, like Newman, understands how important it is for merchants to pick up the Bayou from the bootstraps.

"We're dying to come back," he says. "We're not going to give up on this place."

The next customer scoots up; Serio takes a momentary pause from his speech and reaches over his lectern.

Another dollar made, another credit card swiped. Serio is ready to talk again.

"People here have to wake up and realize that they're going to have to do some serious rebuilding, and that's going to take 10, 20 years," he says with a forthright tone. Serio has that unique type of personality that customers can feel from the moment they step through the deli door.

"I call a spade, a spade," he readily admits.

ESPN blasts from two television screens, bouncing off the college football helmets and baseball jerseys that line Serio's walls. It is clear that "Mr. LSU"-as he's nicknamed-has a certain fondness for New Orleans' college students.

"People have to get off their butts and do it on their own," he says.

Serio tapes up a box filled with 25 po-boys and a few red bean specials. The order is finished, and the next customer moves up in line.

"You can always find something positive in a tragedy. We can use this as a form of rebirth to bring New Orleans back to what it should be."

The Would-Be-Poet

A cruise ship named MV Dream emerges from the abandoned warehouses and burned-out buildings that line Orange Street Wharf.

"It's pretty sketchy," admits Olivia Watkins as she winds her way through the cramped corridors of the boat that now serves as a dorm for a number of returning Tulane seniors.

For all its so-called sketchiness-for all its isolation and inaccessibility-the floating dorm room does have at least one perk.

"The view of river at night is absolutely spectacular," says the would-be-poet whose constant search for the perfect place to smoke has led her to the topmost decks of the ship.

Watkins doesn't hold back her opinions on Tulane's recent restructuring and New Orleans' safety problem.

"The city kind of gets into your blood," Watkins attempts to articulate as she emerges from the depths of the MV Dream.

Over the course of the past few years, Watkins decided to stick around the city she has come to embrace, even with its many imperfections.

The summer before Katrina hit, she worked at Brennan's Restaurant on Royal Street. Two of the friends she made there died in their attack during the storm.

Reality took a while to seep in-especially through the brandy-soaked haze in which Watkins sought refuge.

While in Houston, she was watching CNN when she saw a coworker at Brennan's loot a shop on Canal Street.

"There's so much that happened here that you don't know about unless you stayed," she explains, her guilty demeanor reminiscent of Schafer's.

Watkins walks along the concrete strip that separates the Algiers Mississippi banks and the city of New Orleans.

Somehow it seems appropriate that the poet should find reluctant respite on the MV Dream, which rides the boundary between dirty waters and the building-filled bowl they once flooded.

"If you've lived in New Orleans long enough, you realize that the water is such a scary and powerful being," Watkins says as she takes another long drag on her cigarette. She flicks it to the ground.

An overdue shuttle bus swings by the MV Dream and navigates its way up through Canal Street, out onto I-10 East and the potholed roads that lead up to Tulane's dusk-painted Newcomb Hall.

In the end, there's some inexplicable something that draws these students back to the shifty Mississippi mud once more.

There must be some thread-some highway-that links the youthful ideals of bright-eyed students and the blunt opinions of aging merchants.

The Cab Driver

Drive down I-10 East AND you'll see things you've never seen before," says one worker as he waits for a midday po-boy at Serio's deli.

For a price, Adam Khalil can get you just about anywhere in New Orleans.

He'll even drive you down I-10 East-the once-flooded strip of road that now connects the stories of a thousand New Orleanians.

Since Katrina struck, tourists have asked the cab driver to show them the worst of the worst.

Khalil readily obliges-in the name of a buck or two.

He knows the Military Police that sit outside Joe's Crab Shack and he works the police officers that block off Lakefront Airport and South Shore Harbor Marina.

Khalil will swerve through the strewn skeletons of boats that found their final resting place in the middle of cracked pavement roads.

He'll show you the pathetic walls thrown up by the local levee board when the first levee broke on 17th Street.

"And then you see the Ninth Ward, and refrigerators on rooftops," says Kevin Bailey, assistant vice president for student affairs at Tulane. "That's the disturbing part.

Yes, Khalil might even bring you down to the Lower Ninth Ward-an area once submerged in more than 20 feet of water. And if you get out of the car for a second, you might wander your way through the doors of a home that has been thrown off its foundations and into the street.

You might see a table where a musty chandelier still hangs above the dinner table that was set more than four months ago.

But then you'll be tired, and you'll want to return to the intoxicated indulgence of another night out on Bourbon Street, where the jazz flows as freely as alcohol.

You'll feel guilty, but you'll go anyway.

After all, it's New Orleans.

The Trumpet Player

Jamil Sharif is jazz.

The Dixieland trumpet player-whose lips are slightly discolored from the instrument that rests on them so often-prides himself on his uncanny ability to improvise and adjust.

"Things move fast in New Orleans, but you don't feel the tension," he says as he pops a cashew and assumes center stage. Sharif and his band play the Mason Bourbon Jazz House every Thursday through Sunday evening.

Sharif commands his band with that crazy-cool kind of confidence. The ghosts of old New Orleans seem to emerge slowly from the uniformed ensemble, which shifts and adjusts under Sharif's direction.

Or maybe it's just the alcohol.

Outside, swarms of students push their way through Bourbon Street crowds. They say Mardi Gras is going to be more crazy than ever this year.

But for Sharif, New Orleans is all about the "good morning, good afternoon, how are you?"

It's all about the food and the music-it's all about the people that need to get off their butts and make New Orleans New Orleans again.

When all is said and done-when storm clouds have cleared and levees are rebuilt-one thing remains.

Jamil Sharif is native New Orleans.