There's No Going Back To Louisiana

by Jonathan Cant

When I was a young man, Louisiana and I had a thing—a kind of one-night fling. She was a pretty sorority girl from old oil money. We were worlds apart; but we learned the art of letter-writing. I remember waiting with painful anticipation for her multi-paged missives written on tissue-thin, blue airmail paper sprinkled with perfume.

Eighteen months it went on—like back-to-back pregnancies that never produced fruit. Then the letters thinned out. Something had changed. She’d slimmed down, too, was now wearing a little more Baton Rouge, and had a newfound interest in college football and its afterparties.

Then came the day I was back in America, unannounced. I phoned her from Memphis and, for old times’ sake, we made a date to meet up down in New Orleans.

She had a boyfriend. A quarterback by the name of Biff or Bam—more like the sound effect to a Batman punch than an actual name. He teased her about wanting to catch up with a random old flame from some place called “O-stralia”. Biff’s grasp of world geography (and humanity) may have been questionable. He went on to ask her “so y’all like some of that dark meat?” The fact that she was amused by—and wasn’t ashamed to share—this, spoke volumes.

Our final date was disastrous. We were like complete strangers. Over a dinner of Catfish Courtbuillon with Dirty Rice on the side, the conversation was strained and awkward. We’d arrived at a Cajun restaurant in the Garden District in her brand new, bright-blue-metallic Chevy Camaro IROC-Z. When I asked if I could drive it home, she flatly refused.

And yet, three good things came out of that failed, youthful infatuation. One: in those love letters, I had at least begun to write bad poetry. Two: the doomed dinner in New Orleans inspired my first published story. And three: I’m so glad I dodged a bullet called Ignorance.