L'homme qui fume n'a que faire de la femme; son amour,c'est cette fumée où le meilleur de lui s'en va.
Jules MICHELET

Day 59

am

pm

Rides = Bus
Arrival = New Orleans
KM travelled = nil on hitchhiking
$ spent = $10.00
Time passed on the road = nil
km walked = 6


Patrizia and I woke up at 6. After a disgusting hamburgerbreakfast we left the station to see the famous site of the John F. Kennedy assassination. After walking everywhere,we went inside a little museum. It was kind of tacky. We saw a black and white movie, then looked for quite a longtime at a big papier maché scale model of the plaza where Kennedy was killed. We listened to our guide and followed the little red LED lights of the Presidential Convoy, a yellow blinking light stood in for Oswald in the Book Depository and other colours demonstrated police actions. The location of Abraham Zapruder, the amateur filmmaker who made the black and white film was also indicated. We saw a photograph of his Bell & Howell camera and other framed newspaper articles. After that we waundered in the streets. Patrizia was going to New Orleans but on an earlier bus than mine. After we parted, I went to the Consulate to cancel my passport.

I went back to the station and waited for my bus. Before I knew it, I was on my way to New Orleans. It was the milk run and not an express bus. We stopped often to pick and to drop people. A 'situation' developed around Natchitoches in Louisiana when the bus stopped to swallow a passenger. He came in smoking like a tall Marlboro man and somehow had a power to influence people. Every smoker in the bus lit up at the same time, turning it into a smokehouse on wheels. I was in the back seat and it was hard to see the front window. At some point some body screamed, "Stop the bus, Stop the bus!" The bus stopped and a very pregnant woman was carried outside to the fresh air. After a while she came back to life and we resumed our voyage. The driver asked everybody not to smoke because of the condition of the woman. That lasted about 30 minutes then somebody lit a cigarette, then another one,then the whole bus was like a smokehouse again. There was a scream to stop and the pregnant woman was once more carried outside. We were all surrounding the unconscious lady waiting for her to regain her senses. Another woman brought a wet face cloth and put it on her forehead. Soon after we were back on the bus. The driver stood in the aisle and said that we had to stop smoking for the sake of the Lord. Forty-five minutes later the same thing happened. That time the fainting one was puking. People were arguing and the general sense of the situation was 'tense'. Anyway we arrived in New Orleans smelling like ashtrays. I was pretty sure that baby was going to be born a smoker!

It was night and humid, I thought that I should stay in the station and sleep there. I was soon joined by the HULK. His real name was Darrel but he kept insisting that he was the Hulk. He did not look like a super hero or maybe he was like Superman after a Kryptonite binging weekend. He talked my ears off until the wee hours of the morning.



Darrel's signature


- Daniel



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