Bars culture of Louisiana
SHELTER FROM THE STORM
Neighborhood taverns have become anchors for New Orleanians still reeling from Katrina
Sunday, April 30, 2006
By Trymaine LeeStaff writer
Mike Dauphine sat in the back of a little bar in Gentilly, listening to the old-timers chatter and the jukebox sing away their flood-soaked sorrows.
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The men who had gathered there, in Bullet's Sports Bar on A.P. Tureaud Avenue, laughed and joked, argued over the upcoming election and mocked the "fools" aspiring to run the city.
Nothing new about that. Neighborhood bars in New Orleans have always been a second home, a place where sorrows are drowned and joys and grousing shared. But in a city that was itself drowned in floodwaters, and where home may be a travel trailer or a borrowed couch, bars have taken on a special importance. And if, like Bullet's, it's a bar that stayed open right through the catastrophic first weeks after Katrina, the bonds among regulars and their barkeep give these watering holes an even more vital place in community life.
For many, the bar and those who flock there are "all we have," said Dauphine, a barrel-chested man of 63.
"It's important to us, meeting here. It's not about the drinking. We're all just trying to get a handle on ourselves. All this devastation. None of us are the same." Like so many other barrooms in this fractured city -- the Duck Off, the Kajun Pub, Johnny White's and the Kingpin, to name a few -- Bullet's also serves as a psychiatrist's office, a home builders' workshop and a marriage-counseling office. In the dimly lit belly of its history-laden saloon, Bullet's has held wakes for neighbors and those who loved them.
Bleak landscape
"I can take you two blocks in any direction and show you the home of someone who died," said Rollin "Big Bullet" Garcia. Garcia has operated several local barrooms in New Orleans over the decades, and now his son, Rollin "Little Bullet" Garcia Jr., owns Bullet's.
"We've been through a lot," Garcia Sr. said. "I've seen men cry. I cried. During those days after the storm, when people were trapped on their roofs and when nobody came with food or water, people got to the point where they thought they were the forgotten children. They wondered why they were being punished.
"But here, they're family. We're family," he said.
Garcia Sr. remained at the bar through the storm, with a shotgun in one hand and a .44-caliber pistol in the other, patrolling his neighborhood, warding off potential looters, getting a quick fix on strangers.
He rounded up nearly a dozen of the bar's elderly neighbors, providing refuge for them in an apartment above the bar.
But more now than ever, neighborhood bars like Bullet's are places for people with injured souls to dull the realities of life in New Orleans and plot the city's comeback. "It helps us cope," said Oscar Fernandez, 56, sitting at a table crammed with Bullet's regulars. "With the way things are right now, this helps. Gives me peace of mind to deal with the rest of this situation."
Little Bullet put it this way: "Everybody is a shoulder to lean on, and once we get enough shoulders together, we form a wall. And no floodwater can breach that wall."
Bricklayers and carpenters with work-worn hands and dusty clothes sat around tables in Bullet's recently, swigging beers and sipping stiff highballs.
Elbow to elbow with Fernandez sat Mike Romaine, 56, a brick worker, who "like the rest of them, builds houses and does it all."
"I've had a hell of a day," he said, tipping back a bottle of Budweiser. "So much craziness out there. Insurance. Family. A lot to worry about."
"It ain't the same as it was before," Gary Ganier, 34, chimed in. "But we still have fun. Just trying to make a living. Trying to make the best out of it."
The slow return
About seven miles and what seemed to be a world away from Bullet's, Steve Watson, co-owner of Uptown's Kingpin bar, pulled a stool up to its gold-flecked crimson bar and spoke of the redoubled importance of such places in a town that has always been famously hospitable to drinkers.
"The neighborhood bar is like the new New Orleans church, like church after hours," Watson said. He caught himself. "OK, I really shouldn't say that. But every week it's like someone new is coming back in. It's a real neighborhood thing. Here, as opposed to a dive bar, its not really touristy and not run down."
Everybody knows your name, he said.
With one eye fixed on Ike, his 8-year-old, and the other on a Chicago Cubs game, Watson, 36, said his regulars are slowly but surely returning.
The Kingpin was out of commission for a while after Katrina, while Watson evacuated with his family to Austin. But reports from loyal patrons still holed up in the city established that the Lyons Street pub had survived the flooding.
By October 7, five weeks after the hurricane, Watson was back in business. In Watson's view, the entire roller coaster ride from wind to flood to looters to the military presence and now back to a semblance of normalcy has endeared his patrons to his establishment and vice versa.
"A little bar like this does wonders at bringing people together," he said.
Making the best of it
Bullet's was integral not just to sociability but to survival, its regulars say. A wad of snapshots record the days right after Katrina struck. As soon as the water receded, the Garcias fired up a grill and cooked food from a freezer inside the bar and fed those who remained in the Gentilly neighborhood. They emptied the bar's taps and passed out warm beer to anyone who wanted one.
The S.S. Katrina, the old fishing boat that was used to rescue neighbors from flooded homes, haunts most of the pictures, a grim backdrop offsetting the smiles of survivors.
"This here is therapeutic," Little Bullet said of his bar late last week, as he poured a beer for a customer. "The history's here. Ray Charles played here once. So did Roy Brown and other local artists. They (regulars) step through these doors and besides a little paint, nothing much has changed."
Some days are harder than others, he said. One customer broke down crying recently. He said he wanted to die, the memories of Katrina were too tough to deal with. The hole it carved into his life was too deep for him to climb out of.
"I just cooked up a bowl of gumbo and shot the (breeze) with him, and it's like nothing ever changed," the bar owner said. "If I can give them that, then he knows he ain't in this alone. That none of us are in this alone."
"We do this so everybody can have something," said Cecilia Garcia, Little Bullet's wife. "These men have lost their homes. Some of them lost their wives. Coming here gives them something to hold onto."
As Mike Dauphine walked into Bullet's, he was greeted with a round of handshakes and hugs. He was quickly handed a drink and a Styrofoam bowl overflowing with crawfish.
He cracked one in half and squeezed the spicy white meat from its scalded, brick-red tail. He looked relaxed, if only for a moment.
Dauphine said the waters that flooded his Gentilly Woods home stole the Purple Heart awarded to him in Vietnam. That was the least of it, because the floods also took the lives of two of his buddies: A 77-year-old everyone knew as Radio was found dead in the street after the water receded. Prosper Flynn, who was 80-something, was found dead inside his home.
"Most of us are living in a trailer now," Dauphine said. "We have no other place to go. But you better believe, when it's time to meet up and somebody asks where we're going, I say, 'Over by Bullet's.' "
. . . . . . .
Trymaine Lee can be reached at tlee@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3301.
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Neighborhood taverns have become anchors for New Orleanians still reeling from Katrina
Sunday, April 30, 2006
By Trymaine LeeStaff writer
Mike Dauphine sat in the back of a little bar in Gentilly, listening to the old-timers chatter and the jukebox sing away their flood-soaked sorrows.
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}
-->
The men who had gathered there, in Bullet's Sports Bar on A.P. Tureaud Avenue, laughed and joked, argued over the upcoming election and mocked the "fools" aspiring to run the city.
Nothing new about that. Neighborhood bars in New Orleans have always been a second home, a place where sorrows are drowned and joys and grousing shared. But in a city that was itself drowned in floodwaters, and where home may be a travel trailer or a borrowed couch, bars have taken on a special importance. And if, like Bullet's, it's a bar that stayed open right through the catastrophic first weeks after Katrina, the bonds among regulars and their barkeep give these watering holes an even more vital place in community life.
For many, the bar and those who flock there are "all we have," said Dauphine, a barrel-chested man of 63.
"It's important to us, meeting here. It's not about the drinking. We're all just trying to get a handle on ourselves. All this devastation. None of us are the same." Like so many other barrooms in this fractured city -- the Duck Off, the Kajun Pub, Johnny White's and the Kingpin, to name a few -- Bullet's also serves as a psychiatrist's office, a home builders' workshop and a marriage-counseling office. In the dimly lit belly of its history-laden saloon, Bullet's has held wakes for neighbors and those who loved them.
Bleak landscape
"I can take you two blocks in any direction and show you the home of someone who died," said Rollin "Big Bullet" Garcia. Garcia has operated several local barrooms in New Orleans over the decades, and now his son, Rollin "Little Bullet" Garcia Jr., owns Bullet's.
"We've been through a lot," Garcia Sr. said. "I've seen men cry. I cried. During those days after the storm, when people were trapped on their roofs and when nobody came with food or water, people got to the point where they thought they were the forgotten children. They wondered why they were being punished.
"But here, they're family. We're family," he said.
Garcia Sr. remained at the bar through the storm, with a shotgun in one hand and a .44-caliber pistol in the other, patrolling his neighborhood, warding off potential looters, getting a quick fix on strangers.
He rounded up nearly a dozen of the bar's elderly neighbors, providing refuge for them in an apartment above the bar.
But more now than ever, neighborhood bars like Bullet's are places for people with injured souls to dull the realities of life in New Orleans and plot the city's comeback. "It helps us cope," said Oscar Fernandez, 56, sitting at a table crammed with Bullet's regulars. "With the way things are right now, this helps. Gives me peace of mind to deal with the rest of this situation."
Little Bullet put it this way: "Everybody is a shoulder to lean on, and once we get enough shoulders together, we form a wall. And no floodwater can breach that wall."
Bricklayers and carpenters with work-worn hands and dusty clothes sat around tables in Bullet's recently, swigging beers and sipping stiff highballs.
Elbow to elbow with Fernandez sat Mike Romaine, 56, a brick worker, who "like the rest of them, builds houses and does it all."
"I've had a hell of a day," he said, tipping back a bottle of Budweiser. "So much craziness out there. Insurance. Family. A lot to worry about."
"It ain't the same as it was before," Gary Ganier, 34, chimed in. "But we still have fun. Just trying to make a living. Trying to make the best out of it."
The slow return
About seven miles and what seemed to be a world away from Bullet's, Steve Watson, co-owner of Uptown's Kingpin bar, pulled a stool up to its gold-flecked crimson bar and spoke of the redoubled importance of such places in a town that has always been famously hospitable to drinkers.
"The neighborhood bar is like the new New Orleans church, like church after hours," Watson said. He caught himself. "OK, I really shouldn't say that. But every week it's like someone new is coming back in. It's a real neighborhood thing. Here, as opposed to a dive bar, its not really touristy and not run down."
Everybody knows your name, he said.
With one eye fixed on Ike, his 8-year-old, and the other on a Chicago Cubs game, Watson, 36, said his regulars are slowly but surely returning.
The Kingpin was out of commission for a while after Katrina, while Watson evacuated with his family to Austin. But reports from loyal patrons still holed up in the city established that the Lyons Street pub had survived the flooding.
By October 7, five weeks after the hurricane, Watson was back in business. In Watson's view, the entire roller coaster ride from wind to flood to looters to the military presence and now back to a semblance of normalcy has endeared his patrons to his establishment and vice versa.
"A little bar like this does wonders at bringing people together," he said.
Making the best of it
Bullet's was integral not just to sociability but to survival, its regulars say. A wad of snapshots record the days right after Katrina struck. As soon as the water receded, the Garcias fired up a grill and cooked food from a freezer inside the bar and fed those who remained in the Gentilly neighborhood. They emptied the bar's taps and passed out warm beer to anyone who wanted one.
The S.S. Katrina, the old fishing boat that was used to rescue neighbors from flooded homes, haunts most of the pictures, a grim backdrop offsetting the smiles of survivors.
"This here is therapeutic," Little Bullet said of his bar late last week, as he poured a beer for a customer. "The history's here. Ray Charles played here once. So did Roy Brown and other local artists. They (regulars) step through these doors and besides a little paint, nothing much has changed."
Some days are harder than others, he said. One customer broke down crying recently. He said he wanted to die, the memories of Katrina were too tough to deal with. The hole it carved into his life was too deep for him to climb out of.
"I just cooked up a bowl of gumbo and shot the (breeze) with him, and it's like nothing ever changed," the bar owner said. "If I can give them that, then he knows he ain't in this alone. That none of us are in this alone."
"We do this so everybody can have something," said Cecilia Garcia, Little Bullet's wife. "These men have lost their homes. Some of them lost their wives. Coming here gives them something to hold onto."
As Mike Dauphine walked into Bullet's, he was greeted with a round of handshakes and hugs. He was quickly handed a drink and a Styrofoam bowl overflowing with crawfish.
He cracked one in half and squeezed the spicy white meat from its scalded, brick-red tail. He looked relaxed, if only for a moment.
Dauphine said the waters that flooded his Gentilly Woods home stole the Purple Heart awarded to him in Vietnam. That was the least of it, because the floods also took the lives of two of his buddies: A 77-year-old everyone knew as Radio was found dead in the street after the water receded. Prosper Flynn, who was 80-something, was found dead inside his home.
"Most of us are living in a trailer now," Dauphine said. "We have no other place to go. But you better believe, when it's time to meet up and somebody asks where we're going, I say, 'Over by Bullet's.' "
. . . . . . .
Trymaine Lee can be reached at tlee@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3301.
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