BOYZ IN DA HOOD

We arrived in Baton Rouge at 7pm and decided to push on to New Orleans that night. Oh how I wish we hadn’t. We inexplicably manage to find da hood in every town we visit. In Baton Rouge a bass playing, saxophonist by the name of Blaze stopped and talked to me, Nat says I always hang with my homeboys. We made the ninety miles in two hours but got lost (again) As can be expected we fall out when we get lost. When we’ve made a wrong turn, the boss behind the wheel just carries on driving as if we’re a titanic-sized cruiser that takes miles to turn around. I don’t get it. If I’m lost, instead of getting further from the last recognizable landmark, I would stop to take stock of the situation and find my bearings.

Anyway, we pulled into a gas station and out I jumped with giant map, notepad and pen in hand to ask for directions. I walked through the door and every black face in there slowly turned to me as if to say “What da fuck do you want” I looked at the floor, at the Starburst sweets on the shelf, all the time urging myself to not make eye contact. Normally smiling signifies acknowledgement or happiness but when the six foot guy behind the counter, face complete with gold-fronts smiled at me he was simply telling me to get out, I was in the wrong part of town.

On the way out, I accidentally brushed past huge guy on my way to the door.
“Sorry” He must have thought Hugh Grant was in the room, and I was his ventriloquist‘s dummy. I don’t know what I’d done to him but he hated me. I had to let two kids through the door before I could exit and these two eighteen year olds were the trouble. Hoods over baseball caps covering their eyes and a swagger I couldn’t pull off if I tried. I have never felt so uncomfortable, so scared by nothing in my life. I grew up thinking I was black; that I would be fine in any situation. I used to go clubbing, getting in all states til all hours, kick-stepping in a ring of my brothers at the Hub in Stockwell and The Fridge in Brixton Hell, I used to live in St Paul’s in Bristol But this was different. I’m not gonna say anything as dramatic as I was about to be shot o but I’m half-certain that those kids were there to rob the place. I’d also wager my house-on-wheels that they were packing a pistol. If I stayed any longer I, or worse, we would have been robbed at gun or knife-point and much as there is a have-a-go hero in all of us those are the situations where I’d gladly give over the content of my wallet to walk out alive. I think.

As I walked across the forecourt, I remembered Nat’s advice to walk like a white man. I used it as a mantra
As I minced back to our armoured house-on-wheels and, without moving my neck to face her or hardly my mouth I uttered “get the keys, we’re leaving… NOW” Natalie started the ignition and we arced round the forecourt. We started off down a road not knowing where we were nor what we were heading into. A hundred yards or so down the street Natalie screamed “Oh my God!” I missed the last half of her banshee-like scream. Cars were coming towards us blaring their horns. After what I’d just witnessed I expected the next thing I’d hear to be a barrage of gunfire. My heart was in my mouth and in all seriousness thought we might die. Forget my nearly drowning in quick-mud adventures and imagined alligators and embellished stories of nuclear attacks. Natty yelled “It’s a one way street; didn’t you see the arrows?”

I replied “I didn’t even see the Indians”

I did the only thing I could think of; get us to a white part of town. Now that sounds like the words of a daft racist, but please believe me, you’d have done the same. I know for a fact that any black friends I have would have done the same. So we drove to the centre of town, aiming for the massive Marriot hotel. Natalie stressed out driving the bus down New Orleans streets and I didn’t do too well keeping my calm. A series of bad navigations and wrong turns had me shouting and Natalie in tears. I had not yet told her what had just gone down in the gas station. So we headed to the State Park on a bayou. Only when we got there it was so scary we drove straight passed. Again the kind of place horror movies are set and young out-of-town couples get raped and murdered.

We spent the night in a brightly-lit Lowes car-park, the American equivalent of Homebase.

Needless to say, neither of us slept well.