Saint Francisville,LA-- BEFORE A WALK IN THE STORM

I am not miles into Louisiana before the police car is hitting me with it's lights. It is daylight. Still I feel it. I give my identification card. That is enough until the corporal sees the tribal tatoos on my arms and legs. "You better give me that lisence too," says the officer in a voice that is not as southern as the moss dangling from the trees. He is polite, and professional. "Welcome to the world of cell phones," he smiles with half his mouth. I am still suspect. "Now we get calls for everything under the sun. Suspicious man with a load on his back walking down route 61 into LA. Could someone check him out? It can be a real pain." Even the mindless can dial three numbers while swapping at their kid in the backseat, and knee steering so they can tear a bigger hole in the top of their hot moca-java on their way to Tai Chi classes. I stand on the shoulder where rock mingles with grass as I ask if I can set my pack down before the sun eats a hole in my head.
As we talk, the officer becomes a man that is doing a hard job under a livid sun. I become part of a book to the police officer. What is ink on my skin, long hair in a knot tight to my head, and a burdened back bent like a kokopelli becomes pages blowing old words down a burning street that just might hold something worth hearing. No memory came to him of any stranger ever walking with leather ties fluttering from a bundle as big as a army trunk sewn to his back, or of old silver coins drilled through making sounds like words coming up from far away, and feathers combed into his side pocket just like a map.
As we stood in front of the cruiser I asked about New Orleans. I was asking about truth. I was asking in respect. I was climbing over my gear to stand shoulder to shoulder with the officer to know if he would warrant advice to a brother or friend on weather or not to go to where the water has taken more than life, left more than death. "It is like the old wild west down there. You be really careful. While your in this area I'll post your card so your not bothered and we'll all keep a look out for you."
I don't remember if we shook hands as we parted because I was already in an imagined shoot out on the road in front of the French Quarter while some pretty woman in a big foofy dress clutched an old column desperate with all her concern for my saftey. If we did not shake hands, we thought it happened. Different lives, same respect.

At the Birdman Coffee & Books where I rest, and try to understand maps that seem to lie, I meet a sweaty group of bike riders from New Orleans. They are still love with their soiled city with all it's broken plates. We talk through our coffee. I am a paratrooper again at a table of other jumpers. I may be nervous, yet I know that I have door position soon. Soon I will be alone. I will hear the knawing wind of the open door on the C-130 prop engine plane. The houses will all be so little below me running fast as my eyes try to out focus fear. The round light by the door will blink to green as the jumpmaster yells GO GO GO! For a hundred and twenty miles I will be falling alone toward homes that have already fallen. I cannot not jump. All around me my eyes will be troopers falling everywhere afraid to land. At my side there will be no M-16 loaded and exposed. Falling, falling, falling until I am a child safe on the ground again looking up at all the umbrella's in the sky.