The “Back from the Dead” edition of Coach’s Midnight Diner is now available from Amazon.  Alongside fiction from Kim Paffenroth and Bob Freeman, you’ll find my future take on the 9th Ward of New Orleans.

The story, written weeks after Hurricane Katrina nearly destroyed the city, follows a young man struggling to survive a supernatural collision of past and present in a rebuilt neighborhood very different from the one he knew as a child. Click on the cover to check it out, or scroll down for an excert…

“9th Ward” (excert):

Momma used to always tell me that Jesus was black, but after the
water poured in over those levees, I had to wonder. It seemed to me
that Katrina answered the prayers of an awful lot of rich white people. It
may have washed away my sins, but it took everything I cared about with
it.

These days there’s nothing worse than being a black kid in the 9th
Ward of New Orleans. You feel about as welcome as a gangster rapper at
a Klan rally. Never mind the fact that I finished my freshman year of high
school first in my class, now I’m the reason white people lock their doors
at night.

If you’re wondering what happened to the old 9th Ward, the one you
saw on TV after the hurricane, it’s long since gone. Sure, the redevelopment
plan made room for a few of those poor black folks you saw clinging
to the rooftops, but after years of being scattered across the fifty states
like refugees, most of them took the money and left New Orleans to the
greedy developers.

With the reconstruction almost finished, the streets are beautiful. Every
house is huge. Every car is shiny. It’s like someone swallowed the neighborhood
I once knew and vomited Disneyland in its place. Everything’s a
little too perfect, a little too clean. It’s not even my neighborhood to hate
anymore. I’m just an inconvenient reminder of the past.

“Hey Charlie! Why weren’t you at football tryouts today?”

The sound of Woody’s voice caught me off guard. Even the white kids
at school jumped when they heard him coming. Hanging out the window
of his buddy’s Land Rover, he started in on me again.

“Hey jackass! I’m talking to you!”

“S-s-s-s-stop making f-f-f-fun of me you t-t-tub of shit! You know I’m
t-t-t-t-too small to play!”

Woody’s size might have been an advantage on the football field or in
the cramped hallways at school, but out here in the open, my scrawny legs
gave me the edge. I’m not saying I could make the track team or anything,
but I don’t stutter when I run.

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