Chapter Seven #2
April returned her attention to Jodi. “How have things been progressing here?”
“Just look around.” Jodi stretched her arms out.
April could hear the pride in the other woman’s voice.
She was right to feel proud. What was once a wasteland of overgrown weeds and trash left over by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina was now a beacon of hope for the people of the Ninth Ward.
Beanstalks, cabbages, tomatoes, peppers and a colorful array of other summer vegetables thrived in the rich onyx dirt.
This garden represented the neighborhood as a whole. Out of the devastation there stood hope. It just needed more people to help cultivate it.
Even though April had not been around lately, she did play a part in the upkeep of this project. She couldn’t help but feel proud of how it prospered.
Jodi gave them a short tour through the gardens, including the area where they were hoping to install a new hydroponic reservoir. Once they ended their tour and exited the gardens, April turned to Damien.
“Now do you see what I mean? This is the type of meaningful progress happening all over this neighborhood. Doesn’t it make you want to grab a shovel and get to work?”
Damien took her by the hand and entwined his fingers with hers, letting their arms swing lightly between them.
April couldn’t fight the excitement that flittered across her skin.
Her blood warmed with an intoxicating charge of pleasure, its effect coursing through her.
That the touch of his hand could make her so heady with desire was a testament to just how much she still wanted him, even after all these years.
But today wasn’t about her long-held attraction to Damien. Today was about finding a way to make him see that his plans for this building were wrong.
She stopped walking and turned to face him.
“I want to know what you think about what you’ve seen so far,” April said. “I want to know if you now understand why it’s so important to support the efforts of the people in this community.”
He looked down at her, an amused gleam lighting up his eyes.
“You always had so much passion,” Damien said. He lifted his fingers and trailed them along her jaw. “Always wanting to save the world.”
April’s skin tingled where he stroked her. She fought the urge to lean into his touch.
“I can’t save the world,” she said. “But I can save this neighborhood. It deserves to be saved.”
His expression hardened.
April took a couple of steps back. “You don’t agree.” It was a statement, not a question.
He remained quiet, but his body language spoke volumes.
“Tell me what this is really about, Damien. What’s really behind you wanting to build this building?”
“I told you—”
“No.” April shook her head. “I know what you told me, but I want the whole truth.” She paused. Took a breath. “And unless you speak Kurt’s name, then you’re not telling me the whole truth.”
The face that just moments ago held a smile now held an expression devoid of any trace of humor. Once again, a nerve ticked in his jaw.
“What do you want me to say?” he asked. “That I still hold a grudge over my brother getting shot? That I blame these streets? This neighborhood?”
“Yes,” April said. “I want you to admit it.”
“Fine.” He held his arms up. “I admit it. Kurt will never walk again because a person can’t walk down the damn street in this neighborhood without a stray bullet hitting their spine.”
“Kurt could have been hit by a stray bullet in a suburban shopping mall,” she pointed out.
“But he wasn’t. It happened here, in this neighborhood. The same way it happened with my dad. But I guess Kurt was lucky. At least he made it out alive.”
April knew what she was getting into when she’d deliberately opened this can of worms, but knowing didn’t make it any easier to deal with.
“I understand where you’re coming from, Damien—”
He cut her off. “No, you don’t. You may be from the Ninth Ward, but we both know our situations were different.”
She couldn’t deny the truth in his words. Even though they both grew up here, she’d had an easier time of it. For one thing, she was from the other side of the tracks—literally. The Ninth Ward was divided by a cluster of railroad tracks, and one side of it was vastly more desirable than the other.
“You always had more going for you,” Damien continued. “You were smart. People knew without a doubt that you would make something of yourself and move on to bigger and better things.”
“So did you.”
“I had football. The only thing people thought about me was that I was screwed if I didn’t make it to the pros.”
“But you proved them wrong. I, on the other hand, was ridiculed and called a fool when I decided to go into music instead of medicine or law.”
“You never would have made it as a doctor,” he said.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Just telling it like it is,” Damien said.
“My point,” April continued, “is that we’re both products of the Ninth Ward who made something of ourselves.
And we’re just two of the success stories.
This neighborhood is full of them. It’s unfair of you to continue to lay the blame for what happened to Kurt and your dad at this entire neighborhood’s feet when it was the actions of a few bad apples.
” She squeezed his hand. “It could have happened anywhere. If you feel such anger toward this neighborhood, why come back to it at all? Why not just write it off completely?”
“Because you didn’t,” he said.
His words shocked her speechless.
“What?” April asked when she was finally able to find her voice.
“You came back,” he said. “You didn’t have to, but you did.
Honestly, I’m sure it was a surprise to everyone that you did.
You’d built this incredible life, traveling the world, playing at all of these historic venues.
Yet, when it was time for you to settle down, you chose to come back to New Orleans and help out the old neighborhood.
I realized if you could do it, then there must be some good that I could do, too. ”
“There is good that you can do,” April said. “Look around. Pay attention to what’s already being done. This community needs people like you, Damien. Help build it up. Not tear it down.”
* * *
Damien had a hard time focusing on the sights April pointed out as they walked hand in hand through the community now known as Musicians’ Village.
He remembered when news of the project was first announced.
The neighborhood was the brainchild of two of the Crescent City’s most famous musicians.
They both wanted to do some good for the musicians who had been displaced after the storm.
But the beauty of the brightly colored duplexes wasn’t enough to drag Damien’s attention away from the thoughts that had been swirling through his mind for the past hour.
Was he making a mistake?
He truly believed that the complex he wanted to build would bring much-needed jobs to the area and help restore some beauty to what had become nothing but blighted homes and stumped growth. But what if it did price people out of the neighborhood? Was that what he really wanted?
When he’d first run across the listing, he’d sneered, thinking that anyone who bought that land would be wasting their money.
But then the idea for the new residential building had popped into his head.
There had been no malicious intent behind the thought.
No scheme to undermine the residents of the Ninth Ward.
Yet, Damien couldn’t deny that when he thought about Alexander Quarters, he didn’t picture the people who’d greeted April and him with kind smiles as they toured the neighborhood today occupying the units.
But even that hadn’t affected him as much as the other thought that had begun to drum around in his head after April forced him to admit that he still blamed this neighborhood as a whole for what happened to Kurt.
He had no problem admitting to himself that he was still angry about his brother being shot in these streets.
Sometimes, it felt as if he was angrier than Kurt.
But he’d never tied what happened to Kurt to this new venture, at least not in the way his brain had begun to connect them since April had hurled her accusations.
Had he convinced himself that what he was doing was for the good of the community, when in reality it was some sort of twisted payback for Kurt’s shooting? A way to push out the people who he unfairly blamed for contributing to his brother’s incident?
Damien shook his head, as if the physical motion would somehow shake the thoughts out of there.
“I don’t know about you, but that cinnamon roll we shared earlier has long since worn off,” April said. “I could use some lunch.”
Damien forced himself to table these thoughts until he had time to fully explore them. That is, if he wanted to fully explore them. He still wasn’t so sure.
“What are you in the mood for?” he asked April.
She scrunched up her nose, then snapped her finger. “Oh, I know the perfect place. Do you remember that old building on the corner of St. Roch and St. Claude? The St. Roch Market?”
“Sure. It’s been vacant for years, hasn’t it?”
“Not anymore,” she said. “It reopened a few months ago, and it is spectacular. Prepare to be blown away.”
She started walking west, but then stopped at a bus stop.
“What are we doing here?” Damien asked.
“It’s too far to walk,” April answered. She looked over at him with a grin. “What, are you too good for the city bus?”
It was a trap. If he answered the way he honestly felt, he’d never hear the end of it. Yet, before he could come up with another alternative, like calling a cab, one of the city’s RTA buses pulled up to the curb.
Damien had to admit that they’d undergone a huge improvement since the days back when these buses were his only mode of transportation. He actually enjoyed the short ride to the St. Roch neighborhood, which bordered the Upper Ninth Ward.
“Whoa,” Damien said as they alighted from the bus in front of the large structure. “What happened here?”