Bittersweet Beignets

I sat staring out of the window at our hotel room in the French Market Inn, on Decatur Street in New Orleans. My feet were resting against the window sill and I laxly held onto the tall marroon curtains and people watched as they walked by on the sidewalk below. In the distance the mighty Mississippi flowed towards the gulf pulling along huge tankers like they were toys in a draining bathtub. The sounds of street bands, peddling their wares a few blocks down, drifted past the glass my forehead was pressed against. Dad kept walking by down below and would occasionally glance up and grab my attention as he had the past few nights since we first got into town.

We didn't actually get into New Orleans until around 11:00 p.m Friday night. I was tired because I had worked all day long and we were short staffed, like most Fridays. Apparently a lot of people get sick on Fridays, but I shouldn't complain I have been "sick" before too. We quickly unpacked and decided we would walk up and down Bourbon Street so I could experience it for the first time. As we walked past of the many bars I looked up at the people in the balcony and saw Dad among them. He tried to get me to show him my man boobs for beads, he thought it was hilarious. I didn't sleep well when we finally did get in that morning.

When I did wake up my mouth tasted like I had been sucking the sheets all night and my eyes looked like hell from where my contacts had been in longer than usual. I turned on the little coffee pot in the hotel room and took a shower while it brewed. When I stepped out of the shower the smell of coffee permeated the air and I already started feeling refreshed. I laid down in the bed and looked out the window while I sipped as much coffee as I spilled on the floor. Everyone else around me started waking up and we decided to all go to Cafe Du monde for beignets and some better coffee.

We stood in line for a while and finally decided to sit down at a table and relax our feet for a bit. I nearly choked to death on the first beignet and quickly learned it was better not to breathe while in close proximity to powdered sugar. Dad was serving a young asaian couple about 6 tables over and he looked over at me and smiled. I just shook my head and buried my face back into my coffee cup. It happened like that quite frequently throughout the whole trip. I would see him around all the things that reminded me of him. I saw him outside the restraunt window blowing on a trumpet in a street band while I ate oysters on the halfshell. I almost tripped over him as he looked like a homeless man laying outside Margaritaville.

I had hoped to escape the specter of my recently deceased father in a place that was unfamiliar to me, but severing the memories of my father is like trying to cutoff my own arm with the heel of my foot. Now I take joy in the subtle glances I see of my father as I sit in my hotel room and look out the window. Soon I will be going back home to the living representation of him in the grandson he never met.