Samedi

My father passed away at sunrise. I loved him very very much.
One of the last cogent talks I had with Pop was from a pay phone in the French Market, during the Flood'05, I think the day or so after the Produce Company had exploded atop a 200 year old toxic waste dump a few blocks from my studio, and sometime after I had fought another man in the dark dark with a two foot long sword. It is hard to say what day it was, but it was so hot.
Dog Flora and I were aimlessly wandering into the Quarters to get away from the acrid smell of poison which still blanketed the hood like a rat bag. Nearly everyone we knew had gone by then.
It is hard to describe the bleakness. It was just hard.
No cell phone towers within a hundred miles yet these old pay phones that Huey P Long installed still worked. So I called home. After getting the rest of the screaming family off the phones,
I began to broach the issue with my father of my last wishes etc.
It took a second, since Pop was still under the impression that "this can't be happening in America".. that people wearing a uniform meant something and I just needed to go find them and get out of there.. that our country, his country.. well whateva...
About that moment a NOPD car drove by full of BlackWater Mercenaries, all the windows gone with their little rifles sticking out, ball caps on jar heads... I really remember the tiny sunglasses when they looked Directly At Me.
"No, Pop. America doesn't DO uniforms any longer," I said.
So, I needed to get my affairs in order. No more 2nd chances.
"No, Pop, I'm not leaving dog Flora. She is all I have left."
Pop of course disagreed with that sentiment, all of it --and wasn't having any of it. "OK THEN, You get your Goddamn Dog on the Goddamn Levee and go North and we'll find you!" said R.L. Biles.
I broke down.. "Yes sir," said his son, and got my ass in gear.
Alas, his youngest, the straggler, the errant troubadour, I could not face my father until he found me, still armed, in Memphis,
4 months later. He had a big stroke the following April.
A Ramblin'wreck from Georgia Tech and a Hell of an Engineer,
both Civil and Electrical, 17th in his class, Lt. Col. USAF Ret,
Formidable Nemesis of the Corps of Engineers,
"Son there is Nothing more dangerous than a lying engineer,
because then all you have left is the word of a liar."
Planter, Maker, Science Fiction fan, Dog Lover,
Master of Sarcasm and Ruthless Wit,
Protector of the Sunflower River,
Son of the Mississippi Delta,
Richard Leonidas Biles Jr.
...he will be missed.