What Was Lost: Neighborhood sounds

Listen here.

When I snuck into New Orleans after Katrina, the city was absent of sound. Not only were the dogs voiceless when I encountered a pack of them in a neighbor’s alley but all the living things of the air that composed the whispering background of my daily life were missing. Hummingbirds didn’t buzz the four o’ clocks. Flies didn’t circle my porch snack. Cicadas didn’t hiss goodnight and lizards didn’t crackle the leaves as they jumped from branch to branch. The silence was eerie. 

I was the daughter of singers and whistlers. They were not performers. They were people who hummed and scatted in the kitchen, and who joined the television entertainers or radio commercials in the last refrains. The women whistled as they gardened—both my second mother and biological mother, who taught me to do the same. We were not alone in our joyful noises. 

The repertoire of my 7th ward neighborhood had the same quasi-public quality. We all sang along with the advertisements in the Circle Theater. We added our harmony to the popular tunes played through someone’s open screen door. 

Elementary school band practices and times tables sung by children wafted from the windows of the school down the street. At sunset during my childhood, Débria M. Brown practiced to become an opera singer. She kept up the schedule when she returned to town successfully from her German opera company residencies as an adult. By then, I was an adult, too.  

I am told unreliably that A. J. Piron lived in the neighborhood. I know that his music played on the jukebox at Smithy’s along with “Iceman” and “Eh La Bas.” 

Outside on the sidewalk, the voices of children rang, “Tag. You’re it!” Their feet smacked the ground playing hopscotch. There were no voices of children for many years after Katrina on these surrounding blocks and no rote singing coming from the windows of the evolving charter schools. Mostly, the windows were shut, and the spirit of gladness seemed locked in young hearts. 

I went to visit Corpus Christi Church sometime during the year after Katrina. For some reason, the priest met me in the school building. He asked me if I wanted a piano. I thought this was a strange question. He led me into the cafeteria where upright pianos seemed to fill the length and breadth of the room. They stood, all makes and models that had lifted the air in so many peoples’ homes but had to be abandoned during the chores of reconstruction. I stood in silence, breathless while imagining the soul-crushing losses. 

Music has returned to the city in festivals and new venues. Musicians must always play. The sets have an organized quality, and are rife with good intentions. Maybe it’s just me. But the songs don’t feel the same as when family and friends gathered and someone brought out a guitar to strum or someone played boogie-woogie on the piano or some child sang in a shrill, wavering voice. 

Now, the sparrows only twitter outside very early in the morning. They seem intimidated by the crows who caw loudly now on the electric lines. And I haven’t heard the screech of a cat being beaned by a mockingbird in a while or the rustling bushes of who-knows-what wild thing gliding along the side fence. 

But I did hear children playing in the street recently and a car passed with its radio blaring a few four-letter words that I recognized. Thankfully the car didn’t stop. Still, even those sounds ignited my memories of the familiar racket that I didn’t hear anymore. Perhaps, as the city evolves there will be new, welcoming sounds to replace those that were lost. 

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