Every morning when I wake up I have to take a second to remember where I
am... a hotel room in Isle Voletta, Louisiana... and then I have to have a
cigarette (the reasons for that are twofold... one simply because of the
habit... the second is because I'm south of the Mason-Dixon... well south at
that...) to gather my wits and try to remember why I'm here...
While he was alive, Tony wrote much about this place. He never named it
(except to me as we lay under the blankets in that first sub-zero winter in
his Manhattan co-op) but the references were extreme... in his short stories,
plays, but most especially in his music... God could he write music... lyrics
so poetic they flowed almost as effortlessly as the music he wrote to
accompany them... any one of those lyrics could stand alone as a completed
work in itself. But they were very often dark, with underlying messages of
pain, alienation, lonliness, despair, and hopelessness. Not all were that
way mind you... Tony's work was becoming much too popular and fashionable to
be completely depressing... Lord knows I was making a good living just
performing the stuff he was turning out... but I digress...
Laying in bed on those cold winter's nights, he would tell me tales of some
of the things he imagined he had seen during the travels he made before he
settled down in Manhattan to write... and the most imaginitive tales of all
he attributed to his stay in Isle Volletta. Strange goings-on... intrigues,
murders, collaborative efforts by unrelated peoples who still considered
themselves united in a "family"... it had a profound if not extraordinary
effect on Tony until something happened... I only wish i knew what... but
what ever it was, it was the reason he left Isle Voletta, the reason he went
to the other end of the country, the reason his writing was so dark, and the
reason he estranged himself from all who knew him previously.
After Tony died in the car crash, all I could think about were the stories he
would tell about this dark, humid, Godforsaken place. Life was hell at home
without him, so I decided to come for myself and find out first hand what
this little island was like...
Imagine my surprise in finding out everything he said was correct.
Imagine my surprise in finding out that it was going to be my new home.
Right out of "Streetcar Named Desire" a kind stranger puts me up in the
finest hotel in town with no designs on me other than friendship. I fall
hard for a man who loves (and supposedly is loved by) another. Job
opportunities begin to appear. As do people I don't hesitate to call
friends. And yet underneath it all, subtle but distinct evil... Tennessee
Williams, John Steinbeck, and Truman Capote could have had a field day in
this town... who knows maybe they did...
Continue on to "Valentines Day, 1997
Return to Chapter I - Table of Contents
Return to Chapter Listings
Send Me Mail!!!