Tumbleweed Seeds

By J.L. Wickman

A mischievous breeze drifts into the wild streets of New Orleans, where we find the enigmatic Marcus living in the shadows around Jackson Square. Though born into an old money, aristocratic family, his visits to their Garden District mansion are rare, opting instead for a life amongst the street people.

Marcus is an uncommon homeless man, a tumbleweed, eschewing a normal way of living in pursuit of something else. He travels, he searches, he observes people and nature. He's looking for a better way of expressing himself, and a life that is more true to his ideals. His innumerable interactions with others, provides an inspirational message of dogged perseverance and belief in one's self.

Marcus' search for peace of mind takes him through four different cities; New Orleans; Chicago; South Haven, Michigan; and Charleston, South Carolina. A story filled with wit, humor, philosophy, and a dash of hope, it is a tale that celebrates the human spirit, while it wrestles the issue of homelessness, with Marcus planting the seeds of possibilities into the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543931877

Book preview

SHIPS

I

O N E

It is the wind that brought us all here, and it is the wind that will away with us one day ….

New Orleans, Louisiana —A place so sweet it has its own sugar factory. The saccharine flows naturally within the veins of the warm and welcoming people of Louisiana. The actual brown cane is brought up the Mississippi on barges, that lean against the docks below a soot black eighteen-story silhouette just outside the city limits. The edifice is covered in a depressing grey grime, and it looms along the riverbank like a giant shadow. One small corner near the top is the exception, freshly painted with blue lettering in large cursive print, there to remind every passenger on every passing ship along this part of the big river that only Domino sugar crosses these docks.

In the late afternoon, the jaws of a massive crane yawn open, swooping down to move another load of fine brown dust from the moored containers below, up, and over, and into the refinery. A crisp breeze rushes across the Mississippi, creating a miniature zephyr as it glides above the muddy water at the English Turn. Tumbling along, it veers fatefully toward the tower of confection, where it blends with sugar granules falling away from the lips of the crane mouth, rolling together in semicircles, twisting upward to take a view of the city. There is an essence which trails along behind this small microburst. Perplexing and impalpable, it is a place where mischief thrives.

The invisible pixie pounces onto the sugar dust and hitches a ride. Together they drift through the overgrown yards and vacant lots that dot this portion of the riverbank. The blue-eyed grass is not yet blooming, but it grows all around the abandoned, burned out cars, silently stationed in the middle of the empty fields. The sweet pocket of air then moves inland, its path mirroring the shape of the winding river as it meanders toward New Orleans, crawling up and over the levee, past the homes of the poor and the not so poor, through Cypress trees and Azalea bushes. On this late January day, the native plants are innocently unaware of the possibilities wafting about.

The breeze then leans inshore, through backyard gardens, and across Esplanade Avenue, where it caroms off the Old US Mint building, and begins writhing indiscreetly along the Rue Chartres. It passes the steps of a shotgun house, bearing a sign on the door that says, No Cat Selling, and sails onward through the courtyard of the Ursuline nunnery. It calms, settles, and drifts upward, higher than the buildings. The voyage is nearly complete for the playful gust, blowing into the town from the mighty waterway, and impishly slithering into the French Quarter.

A call emanates from the top branch of a large sycamore tree, located in a corner of Jackson Square. An elegant song, repeated, over and over, slowly and perfectly, pouring forth from the intricate black beak of a Mockingbird. The bird spins its head around and scans the area. Its deep yellow iris shines sharp and clear in the mid-day sun. Silent for a moment, he begins singing again with a voice that is as pure as his intent. With a flip of black and white feathers, the bird hops over dangling Mardi Gras beads, up to a higher branch where the acoustics improve. From this perch, he continues whistling the beginning of a Jack Johnson song that it has recently mastered.

A sprinkling of the floating powder dashes the Mockingbird’s outer wing, tickling its feathers and causing it to leap off the branch and dive toward the pavement, darting between three street drummers who are busy pounding away on their plastic bucket drums. He flies up and over an open guitar case, speckled with dollars and coins, and then away, higher, crossing the levee where it alights on a park bench for a moment. After a few seconds, he flies off, skirting the moonwalk, landing in the top of a tree near the ticket booth for the Natchez Riverboat. The talented bird hops between the branches once or twice, before he establishes himself above the milling tourists, and listens for his next musical inspiration.

Why must I be, waiting, waiting, for you, drones a guitar player. He’s been in Jackson Square for two and a half hours. His stage is a park bench in front of the St. Louis Cathedral. Tourists stop and stand nearby, some listen and some don’t. Some throw him dollars, but most don’t because he’s not really very good. He finishes the song and flips his guitar onto his lap to inspect the newly broken D string. D means done for the day, he mutters, looking up. There are hundreds of people all around Jackson Square, but no one is listening to him. He gathers up the twenty-odd dollars, drops the weather-beaten guitar into the case, and pads off along the bricks in his worn-out Birkenstocks. He passes the statue of Andrew Jackson, rearing up on his horse, stopping momentarily to throw Old Hickory a salute with his left hand, and hustles away, his ponytail flipping back and forth like a pendulum along his back as he disappears down Pirates Alley.

The last trailing speck of the enchanted dust tumbles down onto the street, landing beneath the feet of two boys moving quickly. They hustle along, trying not to draw attention to themselves, yet fast enough to get away through the afternoon crowd. They have just perpetrated a favorite ruse upon some unsuspecting tourists. The Nawlins’ shoe shine.

Visitors to the French Quarter will often stop on the way back to their hotels to rest their backs and feet on the park benches. It happens here, between the Mississippi River and Jackson Square, slightly hidden behind the trees and bushes next to the Moonwalk, where the NOPD cannot see. The shoe shine is a game of shifty words, a subtle intimidation tactic used to extract funds from tourists without begging. They might say something like, Those are some nice shoes. I bet I can tell you where you got those shoes. Crouching down, they hold your feet hostage while disingenuously scrubbing the tops of your shoes with cheap laundry detergent. The implication is that you’ve made some sort of wager, and the tension increases when one of the petty thieves finally offers the punch line, Well, you got those shoes on your feet. Soon followed by, And seein’ how I’ve already cleaned your shoes, I believe the bet was let’s say, twenty dollars a shoe.

Someone yells an obscenity from along the waterfront, and the boys quicken their escape through the masses, crossing in front of the Café Du Monde, down Decatur and past the French Market. The noise creates a stir in the streets, gaining the attention of numerous bystanders, including a gallery of random nomads collecting that day on the cool sidewalk outside a muffuletta shop. One weary man with a leathery face rouses himself from a piece of cardboard, pushes aside his smelly dreadlocks, squints his eyes, and peers across the road. He thinks he has seen these delinquent boys before. He leans onto his elbow and starts picking at the cardboard with his fingernails. When creatures like that roam ungoverned, might be time to form a second line for the victims, he says.

Among this particular group of tumbleweeds, there is one who possesses a broader array of options that help to buffer his dependence on the street. He moves freely among his cohorts, his life, like theirs, anarchic and complicated. He is a transient overlord, the lodestar of the tribe, depended upon to chaperone the most vulnerable members of the group, and keep them out of harm’s way. A near impossible task in a city like New Orleans, teeming with desperados ready to shake you down for a nickel. Prophets, pimps, whores and junkies, voodoo priestesses, vagabonds, Catholic nuns, crooked merchants, rowdy sailors, and the never-ending swarms of tourists all conspire to make these streets as unforgiving as any large city in America; especially unforgiving for the trampled upon, indigent, and desperately poor, who are unavoidable and everywhere.

T W O

ORIGINS

Vaccinium ashei —The rabbiteye blueberry plant is featured in many of the well-manicured backyards of houses in the Garden District of New Orleans. None of their blue-green leaves are visible now, but soon the famous berries that give these bushes their name will arrive, changing from green, to pink, and to blue as they ripen. The cornucopia of birds currently migrating to this area will locate them soon enough for a favorite morning meal.

Near the corner of First Street and Prytania, there is a home with such a garden. It holds the rich history of a family with sugar cane plantation ties. A brick three-story structure with pillars along the front steps, walled off from the road by a formidable twelve by four shrubbery fence that wraps entirely around the estate. This is the home of Winifred Cole-Ramsay. Now in her early seventies, Mrs. Cole-Ramsay lives under the watchful eyes of an in-house medical team. She struggles with a variety of maladies, including bouts of dementia, but lives here in her family home, as comfortable as it is possible for her to be. She is cared for by a visiting doctor, a live-in nurse, and a part-time nurse’s aide. She also has a full-time maid. And she has Jim, who has done many jobs, including handy man, chauffer, and part-time gardener. Jim has worked for the family for almost forty years.

This iconic mansion still possesses early twentieth century electric, heating, and plumbing systems. The furnace that lies in the middle of Mrs. Cole-Ramsay’s home resides in a location below the level of the sea, at the end of a long, snake-like path of silvery-grey ductwork deep within the basement. It is loud and sturdy, but ancient. And when it is awakened in the early part of the day it rumbles and shakes, attempting to liberate the house from the dampness of the morning.

Nine-thirty a.m., and a threadbare man with a long, dirty beard is asleep in the corner of the basement. He is snoring loudly. The furnace is blaring as well, churning away with an industrial snore, harmonizing along with the man’s nasal dissonance. The decibel level of the snoring rises until it is almost deafening and the noise shakes the sleeping man awake. Turning over, he scratches his side with his left hand and rolls sideways from the cot, pausing to inspect the sunlight streaming in through the basement window. His eyes are barely open, his long and thick moustache is tangled into his beard. His lips are thin, dry, and cracked. Wide-eyed and wild, his grey-green eyes momentarily fixate on the dust floating around in the sunbeam.

He is not old, though he looks older than he is. He is haggard and beleaguered. He looks down at his dirty bare feet, and wiggles his toes one at a time, feeling the cold concrete floor. He mumbles, Ss-socks and shoes and no more s-snooze, to himself, rubs his eyebrow with his fingertip and tucks his half-buttoned shirt into his jeans. He rolls up his sleeves, grabs a sock and uses it to pull open the jagged latch that unlocks the basement window, slips on the rest of his fetid clothes, steps up onto the tall metal dustbin, and quietly crawls out.

As he traipses down a back alley toward Magazine Street, he fumbles through his jacket pocket, where he finds some slices of bread and a cold plastic bottle of water. The sun begins to lift itself above the tops of the trees. It’s warm already this morning, especially for January. The bread is good, and he stops for a moment to look across at the backyards of some of the finest homes in the South, takes a long drink of water and trudges on. He knows he has to keep moving to make it to the Garden House Restaurant before it opens. At ten-thirty a.m., the manager will show up, he intends to be there at ten.

He spots Corey, his benefactor, getting out of his car as he nears the restaurant. Corey nods, motioning with his right hand for the man to stay put. A few minutes later Corey returns with three large paper sacks full of leftover sandwiches and some plastic bottles of water, and places them on the ground outside the door. These are items Corey can’t sell on today’s menu, but they are still fresh. The regular manager doesn’t like Corey to do this, so they have to complete the transaction quickly.

Hey, Marcus. Man, when you gonna clean yourself up? You look like shit, Corey teases. Marcus leans down and picks up the bags, giving Corey a quick, appreciative look, and shuffles away. He hustles across Magazine Street to Philip, and over to Coliseum, wending his way toward the French Quarter, stopping here and there to rest.

The roots of the Ramsay family tree are as old as the knees on the Cypress trees out in the bayou. Charles Erasmus Ramsay Sr. began his immigrant life in the US as a slave owner with a small sugar plantation that had grown prosperous over time. He and his family didn’t want to live with the Creoles in the French Quarter, so they moved into the open plots and fields where houses were beginning to sprout up just outside of town, in the rich agricultural soil that would later become known as the Garden District.

The Ramsay home on First Street was renowned for its numerous gatherings of New Orleans society. Their crowd was exclusively wealthy. A neighboring estate was once used as a refuse for a sickly traveler, Jefferson Davis former President of the Confederacy. The ex-President unfortunately never left the fancy New Orleans home. Soon after he arrived, he took to bed and died.

Charles Ramsay Sr. had one son, Charles Erasmus Ramsay Jr., who grew up to be a successful cotton trader and commodities speculator.

Charles Erasmus Ramsay Jr. also had only one son, Montgomery C. Ramsay. C for Charles.

Montgomery Charles Ramsay’s wife died giving birth to the only child he ever had, a son. Montgomery named the child Milton Ramsay. Montgomery chose not to give Milton a middle name. His reason for doing so was never explained.

Milton Ramsay and his wife had only one child, a son, Martin Erasmus Ramsay. Milton was so discouraged by growing up without a middle name that he reached back for the grandest family name he could find. Erasmus.

Martin Erasmus Ramsay was born at home in 1946, with aid from the family doctor and a midwife. During his adolescence it became clear to his busy parents that he was a gifted scholar and debater, winning numerous awards at the elite Dubois prep academy. When he graduated from LSU law school with honors, everyone thought he’d eventually become a Senator, but a naughty little accident with a girl at Dubois couldn’t be hushed, dashing his hopes for running anything more than the family business, and practicing law.

Like previous generations, Martin grew up in the same house. He met and married the lovely Winifred Cole inside that same house. Both he and Winifred were very spirited, and very spoiled, each an only child of traditional southern parentage. Martin’s celebrated lineage assisted him a great deal in wooing the beautiful Winifred, who had no shortage of boyfriends. Martin had what she craved. The attention that came with a name like Ramsay, and the cache it carried in Louisiana society. He was handsome enough for her, she told her friends. And Martin was crazy about his Win. She could learn to love him, she told herself.

Winifred Cole was the epitome of a southern debutante, graduating from LSU with a degree in art, culture and design. On graduation night, Winifred and Martin snuck away from her party and drove out highway 39 as far south of New Orleans as they could drive. Finding a tucked away turnaround in a little grove, they opened a couple of bottles of warm beer and danced under the clear bayou sky with the car radio playing Louis Armstrong’s What a wonderful world. After the song was over, he knelt down right there and proposed. They made love in the back seat of his car that night, and she never felt a single worry in her life from that day forward. Security, attention, and wealth were what made her happy, and with Martin she was very secure and free to be herself because he adored her.

Theirs was a grand wedding ceremony, held in the picturesque Ramsay mansion. Martin danced with Winifred on the garden terrace, her cheek against his. It was the social event of the season. Martin Ramsay never once doubted that they would be together forever. The next day, the New Orleans paper reported extensively on the event, stating the luminosity of the bride’s face was said by some to shame the moonlight.

T H R E E

A TWIST OF SIMPLE FATE

Ornate buggies line up early in front of Jackson Square. The horses rest, blinkered eyes turned away from the sun, and headdresses tilted downward. Scattered amongst these carriages are a few bicycle taxis.

A pair of tourists cross Decatur Street and ask, How much for a lift to the Aquarium? The young man scratches his chin, slouching comfortably on the seat of his pedicab. Gonna be about twenty dollars. The couple board the bike, the woman stopping for a moment to close her eyes and slow her ascent into the cushy passenger seat. Eric, do you smell that?

What?

Nothing, it’s real faint, just a sweet smell in the wind. Could be a Russian Olive, although I don’t think they’d be this fragrant in January. She swivels her head and sniffs the air again, You really don’t smell it? He shakes his head no as they both sit down. The driver tips his cap, a car honks, the young man begins pedaling, and the bike clambers away from the square. Eric grabs his camera and reaches around her back to snap one more photo of the mighty general’s statue in front of the Cathedral.

Twenty minutes later, the bike taxi drops them at the aquarium, where they spend the afternoon. Afterward, they take a leisurely walk back toward their hotel room, stopping to grab an early dinner along the way, and by eight p.m., they are in their room, slightly worn out from the plane travel. They kick off their shoes, sprawl out onto the double beds, and quickly fall asleep.

Eric wakes early, makes himself coffee, and quietly exits the hotel, venturing out on foot. It’s nearly seven a.m. He knows she will sleep until close to nine. The sensation of walking the empty and mostly quiet streets of the French Quarter is a very visceral experience for him this morning. The streets and sidewalks are damp, some more than others, though not from rain or dew. Many are wet from the water cannon trucks that drive through the Vieux Carré, hosing them down in the predawn. And a few are wet from the automatic sprinklers, watering the lush plants that hang from the second and third story galleries of the homes.

The doors and windows of the homes are all shuttered at this time of the day, and their driveways gated. He stops to peer through the iron bars at the narrow brick alleys with courtyards full of flowers, ivy covered masonry, and Mercedes-Benz automobiles. Nearing his return to the hotel, he passes a tempting little bakery. He and Sara return later that morning. She orders the Prosciutto and Asparagus Omelet and he the Eggs Florentine. They find a table and wait for their food to be prepared. Eric feels relaxed, buoyed by the feeling that they have ten more days before they have to go back to their real jobs, and real lives. He tips back in the round wooden café chair.

Maybe we should decide on our plan for today, he says. She pulls her chair a little closer to the table. I think we should go down to Bourbon Street right after breakfast. We need to see what that’s all about, she responds, lowering her voice to a whisper, early in the day when our judgment is better and we can still run away if we want to. Eric looks at his watch, it’s not quite noon. Their number is called from the counter, they collect their breakfast and return to their table. What were we thinking? he asks after a few bites from the large plate of food. Nobody comes to New Orleans to diet, says Sara.

There’s an open courtyard in the back of the café, where a fountain begins to gurgle quietly. The water trickles out of the spout, sending a green anole lizard scampering around to the other side of the ornamental basin. He cocks his head and casts his gaze along the edge of the fountain through an open window, and in the direction of Eric and Sara. Then the lizard scurries around to the top of the fountain, just beneath the spout. Drips of water fall methodically from the faucet, and the lizard hides behind them, gripping the wet surface with his adhesive toes, scanning the restaurant from a loftier view as the lunch crowd filters in.

Eric takes another bite of his food and glances over at Sara’s plate. She’s three-quarters finished and he never even saw her take a bite. How does she do that? he asks himself as she dots the side of her lips with a napkin. The door jingles open and more customers enter the café. Eric looks at her with a mischievous look on his face. You never know, maybe it’s a good thing for Bourbon Street that we are showing up now, instead of during Mardi Gras, cause when we’re on our game, I don’t think Bourbon Street could handle us, he taunts. Sara nearly laughs the coffee through her nose. You need to take another look at your driver’s license grandpa. It’s been at least ten laps around the sun since we had game.

You might be right. I don’t know. Maybe I still got me some, somewhere. His eyes loop back into his head, and he gathers up his courage. I’ll tell you what. Let’s go from here to the Absinthe House and we’ll see who has game, he challenges. It was the best thing he could think to say, but even then, he knew he was beginning to paint himself backwards up the stairs. Sure, ok. Let’s go, she fires in response, not giving him a chance to walk it back. I’ll do it if you will.

They try their best to finish the late morning feast. Under protest from their taste buds they leave several hundred calories on the table and begin their tilt down the crooked sidewalk