Cities of the Dead: Double Vision

Cities of the Dead, Jason Phillip Reeser

For newer readers of Room With No View, I'd like to let them know about my most popular book, which is perfect for this time of year.  Cities of the Dead is a ghost story collection set in the cemeteries of New Orleans, Louisiana.  Tales of ghosts, pirates, thieves, and dead rock-and-rollers can be found in this eclectic congregation of mystical chronicles.

Back in 2006, my wife and I took a guided tour of Lafayette Cemetery Number One in the historic Garden District of New Orleans.  It was the first time I'd been to one of the many above ground cemeteries that are nestled into the various neighborhoods of the Crescent City.  Due to the fact that the city sits below sea level, burying the dead is not possible, since the dead seemingly refuse to stay buried.  Citizens of the early city discovered that the saturated ground always shoved the dead back to the surface.  The simple response was to bury the dead above ground in crypts.  As a result, the cemeteries look like...well, let's let Mark Twain describe it.  His view on it sums it up the best:

Lafayette Cemetery Number One

There is no architecture in New Orleans, except in the cemeteries. They bury their dead in vaults above ground. These vaults have a resemblance to houses--sometimes to temples; are built of marble, generally; are architecturally graceful and shapely; they face the walks and driveways of the cemetery; and when one moves through the midst of a thousand or so of them, and sees their white roofs and gables stretching into the distance on every hand, the phrase 'city of the dead' has all at once a meaning to him. Many of the cemeteries are beautiful and kept in perfect order...if those people down there would live as neatly while they were alive as they do after they are dead, they would find many advantages to it.

Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, 1880

During our 2006 tour, which was just one year after Hurricane Katrina devastated that venerable city, amid the rasping wail of power-saws and chattering hammer blows (evidence of New Orleans' second reconstruction phase), we followed our guide past sun-bleached sepulchers and vibrant green alleys of thick, recently mown grass.  As a writer, I was struck by the crowded nature of this necropolis.  I began to wonder just what it would be like for ghosts to live here.  We generally think of ghosts in lonely, empty places like an abandoned house or a distant moor.  But here, if a ghost were to haunt the earth, it would not be lonely.  It would, in fact, be heavily beset by other ghosts.  Many of the crypts are family crypts, and family members are stacked in on top of one another like chord-wood.  Imagine, I thought, what sort of complications would arise between them all?

At the 2012 Louisiana Book Festival--look for us again on Nov. 2, 2013

Before long, I had begun to write a few stories along this theme.  Over the next four or five years, I added more stories, until I'd completed thirteen of them.  It seemed an appropriate number on which to stop.  Since the book's publication, it has been well-received.  It is a mainstay on the tables of a handful of stores down in the French Quarter, and was a popular item during its release at the 2012 Louisiana Book Festival.

Several of the stories are available here at Room With No View.  Just click on the links below to read them.

The Wanting Dead  (originally printed in The Louisiana Review, Spring 2008)

The Soldiers' Home

And now for the Double Vision!  Beginning this month, Saint James Infirmary Books has made it possible for costumers who purchase the print version of COTD to receive a free eBook version along with it.  Even better, if you purchased a copy of this book through Amazon in the past, you can log in and receive your free eBook copy also.  We are offering the same free eBook copy from the Saint James Infirmary Books website.  If you purchased a print copy from us (and all of our copies can be signed if you request it) or you choose to purchase one from us now, we will send you a free eBook copy of the book.  So be sure to get a copy today if you don't already have one.

For more information on the book, check out our website here.

To order a signed copy, just click this link.

Or you can use one of the Amazon links below.  The Kindle edition is on the left, the print edition is on the right.

A Veteran's Day View of Cities of the Dead

Free Ebook Downloads Nov 12th through the 14th

Due to my work schedule, I was unable to get this posted on Veteran's Day, but I am going to go ahead with it a day late.  In conjunction with our second promotional giveaway for Cities of the Dead, I will post a story from the book that has not yet been published in print or on the web outside of the book itself.
This story involves the spirits from a Confederate Artillery Regiment, whose bodies were buried together in a Society Tomb.  The memorial in question is real.  The story is fictional.  War is hell, as General Sherman said, but it doesn't always end when we think it does.

The Soldiers’ Home

by Jason Phillip Reeser 

            Early mornings in the Firemen’s Cemetery are notoriously shrouded in mist.  Educated men might explain this by pointing out the land’s elevation in relation to the nearest waterways as well as the role played by local weather.  Those of a particular engineering bent would add the importance of Interstate 10 running along its western border.  Spiritually minded men might suggest that regardless of such natural influences, these sacred grounds are a nexus wherein heaven and earth join, allowing the passing of so many souls that a certain residue is inevitably to be seen with the aid of the day’s first sunlight.

            The Fireman’s Charitable and Benevolent Association had consecrated these grounds in the year 1852 and tourists might believe the more mischievous tour guides who spin tales of ghostly smoke and water-sprays from spectral hoses.  The awkwardly dressed men with cameras enjoy the idea that firemen of old still battle it out with ancient fires for all eternity.  Their wives tend to shudder at this image; some of them familiar with the dread of waiting for a husband to return from a hazardous job, and some simply burdened with an ingrained human alarm towards house fires.

            Educated men scoff at notions of this kind and even spiritual men hesitate to give it credence.  And in the end the tourists will tuck their photos away in a box along with the tour guide’s fanciful tale and forget all about it.  Neither the scholars, nor the religious, nor the tourists will ever understand just how close to the truth such tales do come.

            Before the first ray of each new dawn, just as it seems as if the grip of night’s darkness will never be broken, those who sleep lightly in the Fireman’s Cemetery are disturbed by a muffled racket coming from a great, square society tomb.  Standing along one open lane, deep within the field of the dead, it is rather plain in appearance, and by starlight is dreary looking—a heavy, squat figure resembling a rundown tenement or forgotten bureaucratic cellblock.  Across the top edge of this monument, if the darkness were pulled away, one would see these words: Soldiers’ Home.

            A man’s tired voice murmurs a few words, the only reply a sharp clank of metal on stone.  Shuffling steps echo against the neighboring tombs, and then someone coughs.  There is the sound of running followed by jeering laughter.  A lower voice, wide and powerful, demands an answer.  For the first time, distinct words are heard.  “Yessir!”

            Now, a great many footsteps can be heard.  Rattling and clattering mix with coughing and veiled curses.  It is evident that as many as ten or twenty men are moving about in the dark.  If they are all of one purpose, it does not sound so.  A short quarrel, muffled by the shroud of pre-dawn but no less violent than if it were conducted in sunlight, is cut short by a harsh command.  The runner returns at the same time.  Most of the clamor is now out on the open lane, in front of the Soldiers’ Home.  There is less noise, though a few more words are clearer now.

            “Watch that,” a husky voice warns.

            “All right, all right.”  The lower voice concedes.

            “Battery,” a quick whisper.  The last of the muted clanks and shuffles comes to an end.

            All is silent now save for one figure who cannot stop coughing.

            “Battery.”  This time, the voice carries more authority.  The coughing stops for a breath, but begins anew.

            The low voice issues an order.  The coughing figure moves away from the others, back towards the dark block.

            “Battery.”  There is no more noise.  The black morning air holds for a collective pause.

            The forms of men can now be seen as the first bit of grey is mixed into the atmosphere.  There are four rows of men, five abreast, facing the Soldiers’ Home.  Before them stand two men, off to one side stands a thinner man.  By their silhouettes, it is obvious that the men are standing at attention, arms held at their sides.  Each man’s head is covered by a misshapen cap.  A few exceptions are bareheaded.  All are uniformed, though most of the blouses ill fitting.

            The thin man steps forward, facing the Battery.  He bows his head and speaks.

            “Our Father, which art in heaven…” his voice is as thin as his shadow.

            The Battery joins in.  The words of the prayer echo down the grassy lane, swallowed by the lingering night.  When they finish, they are silent for a full minute.

            From out of the Soldiers’ Home comes the sound of a stifled cough.

            “Detail.”  The word cuts the silence like an alarm, and the black forms break formation.  Each line of men makes its way to one of the corners of the Soldiers’ Home.  Most of the black night has been replaced by a heavy gray that allows the men to be able to see shapes but nothing more.  It is all that they need.  Each corner of the blocked structure is composed of a cannon barrel standing on end.  In the middle of the east and west walls stand two other cannon, though there are not enough men to work these.  The men toil swiftly, their carefully plotted routine insuring that each cannon is lowered without injury to the men or damage to the stone artillery pieces.

        As this is being done, two men from each detail pull open the nearest bottom vault and withdraw a stone cradle which will hold each great barrel.  As their comrades set the cannons into the cradles, they already begin to withdraw bags of gunpowder, as well as the rammers, cleaning worms, sponges, lanyards, and friction primers.  As one man seals each vent hole with his thumb, they first worm and swab out the barrels, removing any bits of masonry chips and dust that fell in during the process of removing the cannons from the monument.  The vent holes are then cleaned out in the same manner. By the time the cannons are secured to the cradle, each team is ready to load their gun.

            A bag of powder is rammed into place, and the brass friction primer is loaded into the vent hole.  A stone cannon ball, from a stack on the monument’s corners, is rammed into place.  The five men now come to attention as one of them chuffs “Ready to fire!”  One of the details is slow, and finishes ten seconds behind the others.  An officer fidgets with his pocket watch.

            “They’ll make it, Colonel.”  The husky voice tries to reassure him.

            “All right, all right.”  The Colonel’s low voice betrays his aggravation.

            “It’s Vincent’s men.  There’s only four of them.  Theirs was the man with the cough.”

            “Yes, I know that, Major.”

            Enough light has crept into the field to allow the two officers to see facial expressions.  The Colonel tries to smile.  The strain is unmistakable even in the dim light.

            “I don’t like the men to be slack, Major.  I was easy on them.  Too easy.  It’s why we’re all here.”

            “Begging your pardon, sir, but that’s foolish.  You’re not to blame.”

            “Battery!”  The Colonel’s command cracks out sharply, ricocheting off the nearest crypts.  The men stiffen, each gunner’s hand grasping tightly to his lanyard.

            “You know I’m right, sir.  This melancholy of yours comes and goes.  You’ll think better of it.  Just give it time.”  The Major gently touches his commanding officer’s arm.  “We’ve been over this hundreds of times.”

            The Colonel ignores the touch and the comforting words, staring instead at his pocket watch.  He draws in a deep breath and then, without pause, barks:

            “Fire!”

            The four cannons belch smoke and thunder as well as stone chips and plaster dust.  Quickly, as if their former lives depend on it, the men reload.  Vincent’s detail keeps up with the others and a second volley is fired.  They fire a third and fourth volley as the smoke obliterates what little light the morning has to offer.  Their world is no longer black.  It is grey and white, the air thicker than the silk lining of the finest coffins.

            “Shall they reload?” the Major asks.  His men wait for his order.  He steps closer to the Colonel in an attempt to see him clearly through the haze.

            “Why do you always insist it is not my fault?”  The Colonel snaps his pocket watch shut and rams it into his jacket.  “I told Division they were ready.  I volunteered them.  Insisted they be sent forward.  You call me a fool?  Only a fool would deny me this judgment.”

            “The men, sir?”  The Major waits for his Colonel’s decision.

            “Again, Major.  They’re off this morning.  And the sick man is not to blame.”

            “Battery, reload!”  The Major’s shout lacks conviction and carries emotion he had hoped to keep hidden.

            “Do not worry, Major.  I know you disagree.  You think I’m too hard on them.”

            “On yourself, sir.”

            The men are grimy with carbon, grout and sweat.  The chalky residue from the stone guns is smeared across their faces, making them appear all the more ghostly.  They work with determination, dragging out more bags of gunpowder, swabbing out the barrels, and ramming the loads in place.  It is hot work.  The cloying humidity, even in the early morning, attacks them.  They press on, knowing there is no respite unless they improve.  The Colonel has been known to push them until the late morning sun has finally forced them back into their graves.  They fear this as much as they fear real combat.  The sun is painful, and cuts deeply into their souls.

            Yet, in the face of this toil and pain, they persevere.  If they are ever to find peace, they know they must satisfy their Colonel.  They must show him that his will has driven them beyond their limitations.  That he has forced improvement upon them to such an extent that time can be reversed, they can be saved, and he can be redeemed.  By his own sheer resolution he must drag them out of the pit that he himself dug for them.

            He is demanding the impossible but they do not balk in the face of it.  Yes, it is hard work.  It is madness.  But they soldier on.

            “Fire!”

            Smoke rolls in every direction.  It filters down each adjacent lane, spreading its nauseating stench over and into tomb after tomb.  Many of the dead, long used to this barrage, keep quietly in their crypts, content to wait out the Colonel’s self-inflicted fury.  On this day, there are no new arrivals to annoy him, demanding that he stop.  The newest residents in the nearby crypts have already tried this and learned that the old soldier is as unmovable as Stonewall Jackson ever was.  They will hate him for a long time.  Eventually, as with the older dead, they will come to pity him.

            “Cease fire!”  The call is as loud and punishing as his earlier order to fire.  And it does not mean the soldiers will now get their rest.  Now they must move sharply, and attack the cannons in reverse, lifting the great barrels back into place, and stowing the cradles and tools without delay.  If this is not done right, they may be forced to do it all over again.  They work feverishly, both desiring to please their Colonel and fearful of his retribution.

            “You see, Major, responsibility must rest somewhere.  It cannot be passed along indefinitely.  Even if it could, it should not be.  Someone has to step in and take the weight of it.  You must surely see that this is so.”

            The Major watches his men struggle to lift the stone cannons.  In a way, his task is just as difficult.  Just as repetitive.  He has argued this point countless times.  But he has never given in.

            “Someone does take responsibility, Colonel.  Someone of a much higher rank.  You would not presume to make yourself His equal, would you?”

            “Look closely at these vaults,” the Colonel steps closer to the Soldiers’ Home.  The large memorial consists of five stacked rows of burial vaults.  There are four vaults to each row.  “As you are well aware, there are no names here.  Only numbers.  These men were destroyed beyond recognition.  Twenty men on this side, twenty on the south side.  Yet, we are only able to cobble together enough pieces to make twenty-four men.  My God!  I’ll be damned if I’ll stand for it.”

            The Colonel puts out a hand and leans heavily against a marble vault.  His breaths are short and awkward.

            “You insult your Superior by this proud obduracy.”  The Major is not moved by the Colonel’s emotion.  He once was long ago, but he has not been for a long time.  He makes an effort to win the argument nonetheless.  “Step aside, and admit your limitations.  You are not God, and He never expected you to be one.  There are times when other men’s actions—even sins—affect us.  We have no control over them.  We simply do what we must and the end comes out all of its own accord.”

            The men of the Battery, constructed from the detritus of war, reassemble on the grassy lane, now at attention.  Their eyes wide with the terror of expectancy.  Their ears still ring with the cacophony of their exercise, they tremble with an excess of adrenaline.  They only wait now to hear their commander’s judgment.

            The Colonel eyes them with weary assessment.  He has seen them perform better.  He knows it.  They know it.  But he is also aware they have done the best they could for that day.  The larger question he must answer is whether or not it is enough.

            “Step aside, you said?” the Colonel asks softly.  “How that I wish I might.”

            He tugs at his buttoned collar and looks over the heads of his men.  The smoke has spread out over the burial ground now, a white mist in the rays of the morning sun.  The smoke will clear eventually, and the sun will burn them if they do not get under cover soon.

            “Battery, fall out.”  His order is nearly a whisper, but the men hear it plainly enough.  They break ranks and step out of the wide, grassy lane.

            In the miasma of smoke and sunlight, the weary soldiers climb into their stone barracks, making little jokes as they go.  They need rest.  And at least for a day, they will get it.

            “Thank you, Major.  That will be all.  For this day.”

            The Major disappears around one corner of the large tomb.  His quarters are on the south side.  Left alone, the Colonel stands erect as the smoke begins to clear.  He endures the sunlight for a short time.  It burns, and he imagines it is necessary.

            “Not God.”  The Colonel chafes at the Major’s impudence.  “The man’s got gall, I’ll say that for him.”

            And then he is gone.  The Colonel lies in his vault, just another corpse in a tomb that he has built with the power of his pride.

            A cough is heard inside the Soldiers’ Home.  Then nothing more.

            The sun rises.  Early morning tourists remark upon the mist that lingers over the burial field.  Another day begins.

To all of those men and women who have given of themselves for our country, I say thank you, and may God grant you the peace that passes all understanding.

A Free View of Cities of the Dead

click on the cover for the free ebook.

Today and tomorrow, the 11th and 12th of October, Saint James Infirmary Books is running a free promotion of my book Cities of the Dead.  Our ebook version, available exclusively at Amazon, is completely free.  Not only can it be read on a Kindle, but it can also be read with one of the many free reading apps on a Blackberry, iPhone, iPad, Android (phone and tablet), Windows Phone 7, PC and Mac computers, as well as from your browser.  Just click here to see how to use one of the free reading apps.
  The book continues to gain more great reviews, and will be exhibited at the 2012 Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge, LA on October 27th.  We are hoping to be able to announce some reviews of it in the local papers soon as well.  We've already begun to see sales of the print version, before the release date of the 13th.  All in all, I've been very encouraged by the response to this book.  My thanks go out to everyone who has been kind enough to show such early interest in this book.
  So please be sure to download your free copy today or tomorrow, and let as many of your friends, family, and complete strangers know about it that you possibly can.  Thanks so very much!

A Quick View of Cities of the Dead

As I mentioned some time ago, I am in the process of putting out a book this fall that is a collection of short stories set in the cemeteries of New Orleans.  I know, you're thinking "I was wondering when someone would finally write such a book.  It's about time!"  And you would be thinking correctly.
The book will be released on October 13th, and Saint James Infirmary Books will be showcasing it at the 2012 Louisiana Book Festival on October 27th.  I have received some very encouraging and generous reviews already, and I have shared them on the book's Facebook page here.  The book is in its final stages, and I can offer a preview of the Front cover today.

  The artwork is by Kathryn Reeser, mixed with a photograph I took in Saint Louis Cemetery Number Two.  The book includes 13 stories, the first of which was posted here at Room With No View.  If you missed it, just click on this link.  Other stories from this collection have appeared in Danse Macabre Magazine.
  Keep an eye out for more details as the date gets closer.  I hope everyone buys a copy and it becomes a bestseller.  (Well, I can hope, can't I?)

My View of Saint Patrick's Cemetery Number 2

"They told me to take a streetcar named Desire and then transfer to one called Cemeteries...”--Tennessee Williams.

  At the foot of Canal Street, where it terminates at City Park Avenue, you'll find fourteen cemeteries clustered around this neighborhood. One of them, lying within the acute angle created by these two thoroughfares, is Saint Patrick's Cemetery Number Two.  The Saint Patrick Cemeteries were built by the Irish community.  Number Two was built in 1841.    

  Though this cemetery is not surrounded by wall vaults, this society tomb, dedicated to St. Bridget, resembles one on the boundary separating the cemetery from the smaller Odd Fellows Rest cemetery.

  Iron is a common material found within Saint Patrick's Number Two, though this is uncommon in most New Orleans' cemeteries.  These were usually painted white, but time and the constant humidity will not allow them to remain so.

  Here is a plot whose original iron fence still stands, though the crypt, or coping walls, have been removed, probably due to extreme decay.

  A detail of a crypt.  The depiction of Christ on the cross, with a mourner at his feet, is not uncommon, though the trees that surround it caught my attention.

  There are more coping tombs (where the body is buried in soil that is raised and protected by a cement wall, as seen on the right side of this picture) than the traditional brick and plaster crypts.  Here is a modest crypt with a particularly sweet statue of a mourning woman above the stele.

  A fairly well preserved relief of Jesus or an angel.  There are no markings to indicate which one it might be.

  As I mentioned at the beginning, Canal Street runs beside one end of Saint Patrick's Number Two.  And there is no crypt wall, just a short, iron fence.  Though Streetcar service was discontinued to this point many years ago, it once again reaches to the foot of Canal Street.  If you are ever in New Orleans, take that streetcar named Cemeteries for a trip to the Cities of the Dead.

   

My View of St. Roch's Campo Santo Cemetery

  To continue my series on New Orleans' Cities of the Dead, we'll take a look at a lesser known cemetery in the Big Easy.  St. Roch's Campo Santo is a little off the beaten path for the tourists, and is unique among its companion cemeteries.  The two cemeteries dedicated to St. Roch are directly across the street from each other.  The first was dedicated in 1875.  Its unusual patron is a Saint that very few American Catholics outside of New Orleans are familiar with.  This French wayfarer is linked to a great outpouring of miraculous healings back in the early 1300's.  The stories center mostly around epidemics such as the Black Plague.  Father Thevis arrived in New Orleans during a Yellow Fever outbreak in the 1860s.  He dedicated his life to caring for the sick and led a campaign to build a chapel and its subsequent cemetery to St. Roch.

  Here you can see the much larger chapel built in the second cemetery.  The first chapel is famed for its "Threshold of Healing" room, just off the side of the chapel, where pilgrims bring plaster copies of anatomical parts, called ex-votos, which represent the healing they received while calling upon St. Roch to intervene for them.  This oddities room draws the few tourists who are willing to step off that beaten path.  Again, there are warnings about the neighborhood around these cemeteries and I would only suggest that as with any big city you visit during the middle of the day and be aware of your surroundings.

  Also in the second cemetery, you'll see this larger section of coping tombs.  All of St. Roch's is far more rigidly designed than most of the other cemeteries, and it is well cared for.  It is said that it is one of the busiest cemeteries on All Saints' Day, which is the traditional time for families to visit and perform maintenance on the crypts.

  This picture here is another example of the orderly design of the cemetery .  The avenues are wide, and the monuments are not only clean and free of wear, they are also intact.  You'll see almost no evidence of grave-robbing.  The site it known to have had several long term caretakers who dedicated a great deal of their time to the care of St. Roch's.

  In the original cemetery, the wall vaults are interspersed with these alcoves wherein you'll find life-sized statues imported from Italy, which depict the fourteen stations of the cross.  Here you see the 14th station depicting Jesus being laid in his tomb.  I hope to return to St. Roch's one day and photograph each of the stations.  If I do, I'll be sure to post them for all to see.

  This is the central courtyard of the original cemetery.  The Gothic design of the chapel is based on the Campo Santo de'Tedeschi, a church and cemetery beside Saint Peter's which was built for Germans living in Rome.  The statue of the child in front of the cross was once rumoured to be the first corpse interred in the cemetery wrapped in plaster, though this was not true.  It is a full body ex-voto that a mother donated in thanks to St. Roch for healing her sick child.

  St. Roch's does not offer the same atmosphere as the older, more worn cemeteries near the French Quarter, but its room of plaster body parts has a touch of the macabre that ensures this cemetery its membership in the mysterious world of New Orleans' Cities of the Dead.  What is clearly evident here is the care and love which has been poured into these grave sites throughout the years.

My View of St Louis Cemetery #2

  New Orleans is famous for its Cities of the Dead.  Because the city is below sea level, one of the difficulties encountered by residents was burying their dead.  You can't dig a hole without it filling up with water.  So above-ground burials were the only option.  Saint Louis Cemetery #2, dedicated in 1823, just a few blocks north of the first Saint Louis Cemetery, once outside of town, is now surrounded by the city.  This picture of the wall vaults in the center section shows how close Interstate 10 is to the site.

To the west, you can see that the University of New

Orleans looks down over the tombs.  Just off to the left of this is a housing project, a low-income project that usually provides fodder for the warnings from tour guides who say you should not visit the cemeteries alone.  However, on the day I visited, there was a neighborhood fair going on in this project, and kids were running everywhere.  Should you be careful while touring the cemeteries?  Of course, as you would in any big city.  I have wandered many of the cemeteries alone and never seen anyone who even looks threatening.

  I did stop and talk with a policeman near Saint Louis #1, and his only advice was that you should not wander around the outside of the cemetery walls.  Tourists walking around the walls, their cameras and personal awareness focused on the sites, are often inviting targets.  Again, this is common sense.  As you can see in the shot on the left, many of the older tombs are in poor repair, even unto collapse.  Family members have the responsibility of tomb upkeep, unless perpetual care is paid for.  But oftentimes, families move away, or die off, and no one is left to patch the cracks and whitewash the stone.

The Caballero crypt is in magnificent shape.  Its grand, Gothic design

is evidence of money and a keen desire to make an impression.  These chapel designs are reminiscent of what one might see in Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Most of the statuary originally placed on the lintel of the tombs are

long gone, broken, fallen, or stolen.  However, in the center section, there is a wonderful family crypt with five statues still standing.  Some heads and hands have been cut off, but the image, as a whole, has survived.  The effect takes your breath away.  Along each side of the crypt are long handled torches, with the flames down.  Two of the angels are holding the torches upside down as well.  This is a symbol that usually denotes the death of a child.

In 1849, the steamboat Louisiana exploded when a boiler over pressured.

Within ten minutes, the boat sank in the Mississippi river, just at the foot of Gravier Street.  Though no one is positive, estimates are that one hundred and fifty to two hundred people died in the tragedy.  One of the Berelli children was on board and lost.  This memorial was erected in the child's honor.

Though it has been reported that the pirate Jean Lafitte is

buried at Saint Louis #2, this is not correct.  Lafitte was buried at sea after dying in battle as he tried to take two Spanish ships.  However, Saint Louis #2 does have Lafitte's Lieutenant, Dominique You.  You is a Louisiana legend, having fought with Lafitte, distinguished himself in the Battle of New Orleans commanding an artillery company, and later as a city councilman.  He was laid to rest in 1830, under these words:

"Intrpide guerrier, sur la terre et sur l'onde,

Il sut, dans cent combats, signaler sa valeur

Et ce nouveau Bayard, sans reproche et sans peur

Aurait pu sans trembler, voir s'crouler le monde."

Translated as:

"Intrepid warrior on land and sea

In a hundred combats showed his valor

This new Bayard without reproach or fear

Could have witnessed the ending of the

World without trembling"

 

A View of New Orleans' other Cities

St. Patrick's Number One

Yes, New Orleans is known for its French Quarter.  This city, within the city, is a favorite of party-goers, sight-seers, and photographers both near and far.  But New Orleans also has a number of other cities tucked within the city that are just as unique as the French Quarter: the Cities of the Dead.

Lafayette Number One

I first began touring them many years ago and immediately became caught up in their history and inspiration.  Many of you might have read one or two of the stories I wrote that are set within these fascinating little cities.  I have written many more of them, and an anthology of them will be available later this year.  I'm not sure why, but the moment I set foot in the first one I visited, Lafayette Number One, I could not stop thinking about them.  They are, at times, beautiful, moving, sad, impressive, and stirring.  They are, in fact, just like the many towns and cities that fill in the map of our world.  Some of them are run down, others are immaculate.  They can be crowded, with crooked streets and confusing paths.  They can have wide avenues.  Some of them have rich neighborhoods, rowhouses, and even slums.  They even have apartment houses.

St. Louis Number One

Tucked inside these little cities are generations of families that all have one thing in common: they are filled with residents who no longer have opportunity.  Who no longer have dreams and grand schemes.  Though they might have had these at one time, they do not now.  Their stories have been written.  Yet here they all lie, in houses as varied in death as in life.  What they all have in common now is their shared knowledge of what comes after.  They know what we have always wondered at.  And not only do they know what comes after, they know more clearly what our lives mean.  They know more clearly how important our lives are, and how hollow our pursuits are, and how precious our lives are, and how sad our lives are.  They know how brave we are, how vain we are, and how afraid we are. 

St. Roch Cemetery

They know because they have been us.  They know because they are us.  Just as our younger selves, caught in the frame of a photograph, are us from the past, when we did not yet know the present us and all that we have done and learned and found and lost, so too can we view the residents of these cities of the dead.  They are what we will become.  We too, will know what comes after, and will know what our lives have meant and if we lived them well, or if we wasted them.

I don't say all of that to make us dread and fear what is to come.  That's not what I feel when I walk the streets of these cities of the dead.  I do not pity myself because I will end up like so many who have died before.  I simply see how important it is to take advantage of what we have been given.  To make sure that if and when I die, I have not left a life of regret and unrealized dreams.  I don't want to discover too late that I've neglected those I loved.  Because it is not how we die or when we die that is important.  It is how we lived, and who we lived for that is.




Greenwood Cemetery

I never miss a chance to wander the beautiful avenues and little streets in these cities.  It is always a time of reflection.  If you are ever in New Orleans, make sure you take the time to see at least one of them.  It will be well worth your time.  (Of which, you might just be reminded, is always shorter than you think.)

One Reason I Do Not Give Up Writing

As a writer who often struggles with the temptation to give it all up, there are not many things that can convince me to continue writing.  Here, however, is one very good reason that keeps me going.  The following story was published in the Spring 2008 issue of The Louisiana Review.  It is always encouraging to pull this out now and again.

1. The Wanting Dead
(The Louisiana Review, vol. 6, Spring 2008)
a story from The Cities of the Dead
by Jason Phillip Reeser

            My first night in the City of the Dead was a real eye opener.  I was not in the least ready for anything that happened.  But then, no one alive can prepare you for your first night as one of the dead.  No one really tries.  And why should they?  I would never have listened.  I never listened to anyone when I was alive.  I had no idea I would learn to listen so well once I was dead.  But death is full of so many surprises.

            I’d like to explain how it all came about.  At least how the night progressed.  It is a curiosity I’d like to be able to logically describe—how I was lying in the coffin, surrounded by darkness, and how later I came to be standing outside my crypt, reading the inscription on the faceplate as if I were looking for errors in the non-erasable marble.  I remember that distinctly.  I remember reading over it hoping I might find some mistake I could point to and say “there, you see?  They placed the comma in the wrong spot, so obviously I’m not dead.  I may only be alive by a technicality, but I’ll take what I can get.”  I had a vague feeling that such an idea made no sense, but it only bothered me more when I realized it made no sense to be standing outside my burial crypt as well. 

            Maybe, I concluded, what made sense in the world of the dead did not always translate into the world of the living.

            But I have very little patience to explain anything.  I want most of all to speak of what I saw.  And when I think of doing so, I immediately think of this dead guy who went by the name of Dodd.  I don’t remember his first name.  But Dodd sticks in my mind like a migraine.

            “Let me ask you something,” he said to me straight off.  They were the first words out of his mouth.  He just walked up to me and started up a conversation that I soon learned he had with everyone.  “Think about putting a gun to your head.  A big one.  You pull the trigger, right?  BAM!  You’re dead, right?  Isn’t that what you’d expect?”

            I tried to think through his question.  I was sure he was driving at something.

            “Well?  Am I right?”

            “Sure.  Bam—you’re dead.”  My delivery of this response was greatly lacking in passion.

            “That’s what I thought!”  He supplied the passion to our conversation.  “Jeeze Louise!  No one ever said it would hurt!  I mean, you pull the trigger, it should all be over.”

            “It hurt?”  I found myself mildly interested in his scenario.

            “Hell yes, it hurt!  You ain’t never felt hurt like that.   I screamed and screamed.  God, I must have screamed for an hour.  And the whole time I was thinking no one said this would hurt!”

            I watched him shake at the memory.  He drew deep breaths in his open mouth and forced the air out through his nose.  He was obviously more enraged at not having known how painful his death would be than at the pain itself.

            “Don’t mind him, that’s only Dodd.”  A thin little man stepped up beside me and waved dismissively as Dodd continued to describe his pain.  “He goes on like this forever.  Only the new guys listen to him.  Everyone else gets tired of hearing it.”

            “I’m Jack,” I said to him, offering my hand.

            “Nice to meet you, Jack.  I’m Joseph.  Sorry, I don’t—“ he held a hand up and waved away my attempted handshake.  To Dodd, he added “Yeah, yeah—hurt like hell.  We know.  You put a bullet in your brain, you idiot.  You thought it would tickle?”

            Without touching me, he reached out and guided me away from Dodd.  Dodd didn’t seem to mind.  He just kept on saying over and over “hurt like Hell!  God!”

            We walked down the rows of crypts, moving aside from time to time to allow others to pass.  I don’t remember when I accepted that there were so many of us walking about in the early darkness of the evening.  I knew what we were.  No one had to say it out loud.  In fact, that was a distinct point to be made.  No one did say it out loud.  No one dared to mention just what we were.  At least that’s what I assumed.  I came to realize later that most of them simply did not care to say it out loud; as if the whole matter were trivial.  There was no spell that might be broken if our true nature was spoken of.  But from my own point of view, I felt certain it would be in bad form to say anything.

            Joseph led me on past crumbling tombs and one or two weary cast iron fences.  I had no idea where we were going, and I repeatedly asked him where we were going.  He would never give an answer.

The blue and purplish twilight mixed with the glow of white plaster and marble, highlighting our shapes with an otherworldly aura.  This radiance was unnerving to me at first, for it gave off no light beyond the outlines of our bodies.  It merely burned within the boundaries of our frames.  The total effect gave us the appearance of being lit from within by shrouded firelight.  This became more and more apparent as the night grew darker.

            We crossed from one crowded lane of crypts to a more spacious avenue.  Large crypts with detailed stonework stood like the stately homes in the surrounding Garden District.  Beyond these, we came upon a group of low flat coping tombs.  There were a great number of the dead congregating here, the coping tombs being used as benches.

            I had imagined Joseph was leading me here to introduce me to someone who might explain what was going on, or at the very least he would tell me this was the best place to spend the night for safety’s sake.  I wasn’t really sure what would be said, but I expected something—anything.  I never suspected he would lead me there and then promptly ignore me.  Once there, he spoke to one or two of the others then idly wandered away.

            I stood at the head of one of the makeshift benches and watched a woman who sat on the far end of it.  She sat motionless, staring straight ahead.  I turned my head to my right to see just what had her attention.  Across the wide avenue sat a tall narrow crypt with six squares.  The whole mausoleum was done in marble.  It was expensive work, this was no brick memorial overlaid with plaster.  A fat milky cross sat imposingly on a thin shelf just below the name plates.  An inscription in the gable of the roof read Society for the Relief of Destitute Orphan Boys with the year 1894 in its center.  There was something both noble and heartbreaking at the thought of someone or some group spending so much money and effort on children who had spent their life here on earth wanting and alone.

            “Have you ever spoken to any of them?  The children, I mean.” I asked her.

            She turned and gave me a startled and curious look.  I saw right away how drawn and tired she looked.  Her hair was black, as was her dress.  A shadow lay across her and I could not see her hands.  After staring at me for an uncomfortable silence, she answered me with a shake of her head.  I felt as if I’d asked an obviously stupid question.

            “They don’t come out?”  Even as I asked, I knew the answer.  I wished I knew why the orphans never came out, but I did not wish to ask a second stupid question.

            “I knew one of them,” she said softly.

            “There are no names on the plates.  How do you know?”  I thought I had better stop asking questions.  I sensed my questions were not only stupid, but that they were becoming increasingly insensitive as well.

            “He was my child.  My little boy.”  She said nothing more.  She had no need to say more.  She hadn’t been staring at the crypt.  She had been weeping before it, quite possibly each and every night for God knew how many years, only she had no more tears.  Her tears had run out a very long time ago.  Her sobs had ceased to shake her frame as well.  All she appeared to have left was the pain and despair that clouded her soul.  I wished I had never spoken to her.  And yet I wished to know everything; why had the boy been orphaned?  Why had he died young?  Unable to make such wishes come true, I did the one thing I could do and turned away from her.

            “Something the matter?”  A tall man stood beside me furiously cleaning his eyeglasses on his shirt tail.  He held them up to the blackness of the night as if he were looking for spots on them.  He glanced down to take his measure of me before returning to the task of making his glasses spotless.

            “No.  Nothing’s wrong.  I wouldn’t have thought you’d need glasses… anymore.”  I blurted that last bit out before I remembered how taboo the subject of death seemed to be.  I had not meant to make such an obvious allusion to the man’s condition.  I flushed at my error, but he never seemed to notice it.

            “If it’s the girl that’s bothering you, don’t worry over her too much.  That’s just Marie.  She’s batty.”  He felt for a less soiled corner of his shirt tail and smothered a lens with it.

            “I can understand that,” I said with what I hoped would sound like sage understanding, “I’m sure a mother handles the loss of a child with less pragmatism than do fathers.”

            “You’re not seeing things clearly,” he said after sliding the glasses on and wrapping them around his ears.  “It appears to me you’re being made a fool of.  It is as clear to me as my own hand in front of my face—Marie’s no mother.  Never had a son.”

            “How do you know that?” 

            “Oh, damn it all.”  He pulled his glasses off and stuffed them back into the shirt tail, vigorously rubbing at the lenses.

            I turned away from him as eagerly as I had from the grieving mother.  His fanatic craving for spotless lenses baffled me.  I hurried away.  I must have rudely pushed people out of the way.  With a certain detachment, I could hear people complaining as I jostled my way through them.  Whether I murmured my apologies to them or not I cannot say.  But I continued to push on with a total lack of decorum for maybe two or three minutes.

            I eventually regained my composure and walked alone for maybe half an hour.  Honestly, time for us dead did not move in the same way it did when our hearts pulsed with blood.  I had not been buried with a watch, and so I had no way to prove this.  But I had no illusions about how we moved through time.  I could see already that the night would drag on far longer than it would have when we were alive.  I didn’t like that thought.  I wanted to get on with it.  I felt like a sleepless man who lay feverishly in bed only too aware that he had seven more hours alone with his thoughts.  But what added a great deal of unease to my mind was the realization that I was trapped not just with my own thoughts, but the thoughts of all those dead that surrounded me.

            William and Thomas were prime examples of this.  I found them both standing in the middle of a lane, staring at two crypts that stood close enough that only weeds were able to fit between them.

William was a large and imposing figure.  He stood shaking his head at an ornate cathedral shaped memorial made of red granite.  It was topped with four spires at each of its corners.  A high pitched roof bridged the gap between the spires.  Colonnades on both sides of the intricately carved door were covered in stone ivy and flowering vines.  William gestured at the ornate structure without turning an eye in my own direction.

            “Have you any idea how much that cost?  Red Granite, for God’s sake.  Look at it.  I made no provisions for that.  She must have mortgaged the house to have that erected.  What was she thinking?  That woman will be the death of me.”

            “She must have loved you a great deal.”  I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.  But I caught myself in time to say nothing more.

            “Loved me?  I’ve got nothing to do with it.  This is her way of putting on a show for her friends.  She’ll play it up all the way.  They’ll be shaking their heads in wonder and admiration at her sacrificial gesture.  More’n likely they’ll take up a collection for her.  Oh, just look at the flower vases.  Four of them!  Paid full price on all of them, I’d bet.”

            “I’d take red granite,” Thomas said, managing to sound forlorn without serving it up too thick.  “Red granite lasts such a long time.  Can you believe I’ve only got brick with plaster smeared all over it?  They didn’t even bother to add the fake lines that make it look like stone.  And why should they have?  The plaster’s already cracking and flaking off in places.  See there?  Just under the south eave.”

            I couldn’t see it from where I stood, but I said nothing in reply.  I was getting better at that.

            “I won’t even mention the name plate.  Unbelievable.”  He shook his head.  I could hear both anger and shame in his words.  I thought he did have a valid point about the name plate.  It was sitting on the ground in two pieces.  The largest piece leaned against the crypt opening.  Behind this, I could see the unevenly placed bricks which had been thrown together in a really shoddy fashion.  Two bricks were missing at the top.  The smaller piece of the name plate lay flat in the grass.

            “Worked nearly every day for forty-three years.”  William was still talking about money.  “Saved everything I could.  The wife spends it on this.  Do you see what I mean?”

            “No,” I answered.

            “I refused the doctor’s last suggested treatment because I told him I’d be damned before I spent that kind of money.  I hadn’t spent a lifetime saving money in order to waste it all in order to keep myself alive.  And look.  I can tell you, I’ve researched this.  I knew what kind of costs were involved in something this grand.  And I know to the penny just how much I had put away.  She spent it all.  It’s all right here.”

            “Don’t let him get to ya,” Thomas warned me with a hand on my shoulder.  “His loved ones obviously cared enough to put thought and effort into this.  It’s magnificent.  How they must have loved him.  My people, on the other hand…” he held his hands out in the direction of his dilapidated vault and nearly growled at what he saw.

            I opened my mouth to ask if his people had the money to spend on his grave but closed it before the words came out.  I didn’t really want to hear his answer.  I could only imagine that no matter their financial situation, he would find some way to demean the choices they had made.

            I left them arguing over their troubles and found my way back onto the wide avenue where I’d started earlier that evening.  I saw Joseph again.  He was leading a short fat man towards the coping tombs.

            “You look like you could use a friend.”

            I turned towards a very young man who smiled with excitement brimming in his eyes.  Despite his near manic enthusiasm, he had a pleasant face.

            “Don’t get me wrong, but maybe a few answers might satisfy me more than just finding a friend.”  I was sure I had just said something offensive.

            “Don’t I know it?  Your first night, am I right?”  If I’d offended him, he never showed it.

            “Yes.”

            “My first night was worse.  I wandered around all night.  Had no idea what was going on.  I just wanted it to end as soon as possible.”

            “That’s about the sum of my first night,” I empathized.

            “Oh, I know what you mean.  But mine went beyond that.  People came up to me out of nowhere and just whined and complained as if my only purpose was to listen to them cry.  I wanted to be their friend, but not their counselor.”

            I saw Joseph heading towards me and I raised my head in recognition.  He waved a hand towards my excited companion and shook his head.

            “Don’t mind him, that’s only Carter.  He goes on like this forever.  No matter what you say, he’ll not only know what you mean, but he’ll have been through something even bigger than you.”  To Carter he added, “Nobody cares, man.  Nobody cares what you know; nobody cares what you’ve done.  No one wants a friend like that.”

            Before I knew it, Joseph was gently guiding me back towards the now crowded set of benches.  It occurred to me he probably had no idea why he was leading me there.  But I didn’t resist him.  I wanted to find Marie.  I had decided the eyeglass cleaning specter had not known what he was talking about.

            “I’m sorry about your son,” I said softly as I sat down beside her.  She didn’t say anything in response, and I gladly remained silent as well.  I stared at the blank name plates of the destitute orphan boys and waited with her.

            Behind us, a man complained to no one in particular that he was there by mistake.  Some trivial technical error had been made in some vague far off place and here he was stuck amongst the dead.  I tried to block out his voice and just concentrate on Marie and her son.  I couldn’t have said why.  Maybe because she was the only one not saying anything.  Everyone else had something to say.  Even Joseph seemed hell bent on pointing out who should be ignored.  I too had felt the urge to be always speaking, even if it had always been to ask a question.

            But not Marie.  The few words she had spoken had only been in reply to my own questions.  Maybe she had run out of words when she had run out of tears.  I didn’t know for certain.  And I didn’t have to. 

            My thoughts turned towards her son and the other orphaned boys.  Why did they never come out?  Surely they had something to say?  They, more than any of us, had reason to complain; alone, a life of want.  Had they ever learned to accept it?  Maybe in fact they had.  Surrounded by so many who wanted so much, I began to suspect just what set these orphans apart.  They did not demand fairness; they had learned long ago how fickle life could be.  They did not crave the finer things in life; the basics were hard enough to hold onto.  All I had heard and seen that night had been the empty shells of men seeking and desiring what they could not have; before or after death.  One desired to control money he no longer held.  Another had wanted to make and impress a friend.  A mother wanted her son.  And even I had wanted something strong enough to pull me from my grave.  I wanted to understand.  I wanted to know why.

            But there before us lay a tiny group of boys who wanted nothing in death, as they had learned to do in life.

            I only became aware of the tear that rolled down my cheek when Marie reached up and wiped it gently onto her hand.  She rubbed at it with her thumb, rolling it around until it was gone.

            She still had no words to say.  But for that moment, she had taken the tear and it had been enough.  It was something I knew for certain, though I would never understand.  And I hoped that I too could find it to be enough.



End

     A short story of mine, Timeless in Winter, will be appearing online at bewilderingstories.com near the end of November.  Keep an eye out for it!