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FROM CHICAGO TO NEW ORLEANS

By

Philippe Besson

Translated by

Sandra Smith

Idon’t exactly know which of us had the idea. But I think that it was S. who first said: “We could travel across America by car.” I believe he was thinking of taking Route 66, which runs from Chicago to Santa Monica. Romantic pipe dreams seem to last forever. I objected at once (I am undoubtedly not romantic enough, or quite simply I’ve gotten too old): “You have no idea how exhausting that would be; let’s find a shorter route.” But I do remember that I liked the idea of starting in Illinois.

Chicago: my first encounter with the United States. That was twenty-five years ago. I’d gone to visit a French friend who had settled down there, doing odd jobs to earn a living and hoping one day to work in the movies (he should have chosen LA, and even in LA, his chances would have been minuscule). He lived in a tiny apartment in the Loop, next to an elevated subway line. His windows shook when the train went by. The screeching of the wheels was shrill to my ears. Those first few days, it took me hours to fall asleep, despite the jet lag. And what’s more, the city was having a horrible heat wave. The temperature was over one hundred degrees every day. On television, they even went so far as asking people not to use their ovens. That shocked me.

In short, I thought it would be good to go back there for the first time in a quarter of a century. Even if it’s always a little strange to confront your memories with reality. Dangerous too.

Suddenly I remember: S. came back with: “In that case, let’s drive from north to south, starting from the Midwest and finishing in the Deep South.” “Agreed,” I said. Without hesitating. Without thinking about it. Here we go.

But first, we had to get into the country. That meant an eight-hour flight and getting through border security at the airport. S. and I went up together to the official, a poker-faced young man who immediately looked at us suspiciously for a long time. I want to believe that neither our sexual orientation (presumed) nor the age difference between us (obvious) was the cause of that look; that it was, in fact, simply an occupational hazard. But then, the verdict was delivered: I was allowed into the United States with no more red tape. But S. was instructed to report to the Immigration Office for questioning. It was pointless to ask why this difference in our treatment: S. has a last name that sounds Arabic, I don’t. I muse on the fact that the terrorists have won. They have transformed some people into suspects and made others suspicious. At Immigration and Customs, all you need to do is look at the people waiting to go through in-depth interrogation to confirm this: they all look more or less alike.

One hour and a dose of humiliation later, we climb into a taxi. During the ride, images from my first stay come back to me. The first one is a memory from the banks of Lake Michigan: a lake so vast that I thought I was at the edge of the sea as I basked on the beach. And when I turned around to look behind me, I saw a row of tall, elegant buildings. I also remember, but less clearly, Grant Park: its green grass, so very green that it looked almost artificial, especially under the burning, harsh sunlight.

But reality puts an end to my daydreams: on the radio, they are talking about Donald Trump, who is celebrating his first six months in the White House. Celebrating is, in fact, quite a grand word, since almost everyone watching him agrees that his track record is extraordinarily limited. Not a single law voted on. Decrees rejected. International agreements condemned. Backtracking, disappointments, defeats. A low popularity rate. He alone bellows out improbable victories through tweets that become more and more surreal—nearly a thousand of them since he took office! The driver, who is surreptitiously looking at us in his rearview mirror, calls out: “He cracks me up; what do you think?” We smile without replying, not sure we can tell which side he’s leaning toward and too tired to get into a political debate.

We also know that the outrageous White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, has just resigned. He must no longer have gotten away with saying everything and then the opposite, giving opinions while being sure of nothing, being refuted after having been encouraged, defending the indefensible, relentlessly attacking journalists, the very same people who sat opposite him in the press briefing room. We’re almost relieved for him.

We drop our bags off at an apartment we’ve rented in the River North neighborhood, at the intersection of Orleans Street and Oak Street, before heading out almost immediately to take in the city. One look and I can see that it has changed since I was young: more skyscrapers have sprung up; architectural innovations have produced a few spectacular examples, some fantastic, some quirky, with rooftop gardens just about everywhere, former factories now housing lofts. In short, I have (undoubtedly) aged, and Chicago has rejuvenated.

I also notice that the police presence has heightened to bring back a sense of security that had lapsed for a while. In the past, crime movies were filmed here: now, it’s mainly romantic comedies or science fiction movies because, in both cases, the setting is appropriate.

The Sears Tower has been renamed: it’s now called the Willis Tower and can no longer proudly proclaim to be the tallest building in America. As for Grant Park, it now connects with Millennium Park, which houses contemporary works of art, such as the famous Cloud Gate, an enormous, mirror-like sculpture made of stainless steel, designed by Anish Kapoor, that looks more like a giant bean than the door to the clouds that I imagined.

Nevertheless, Chicago has not changed completely from top to bottom: it remains the vibrant, cosmopolitan city I once knew. The multicultural neighborhoods are still there, the subway lines still produce a formidable racket above our heads along the rusty metal tracks, and the license plates on the cars continue to remind us that this is truly “the Land of Lincoln.” Culture is visible everywhere, including on the backs of buses, where I am surprised to find an ad for the real estate company domu.com, along with a quote from Sarah Bernhardt, who toured here in 1905 and 1912, that reads: “I adore Chicago. It is the pulse of America.”

A little to the north, in Boystown, about one hundred yards from the lake, the atmosphere is always picturesque and the night life wild. This is where the gay community has been gathering for more than thirty years. It’s impossible to miss it: the rainbow-colored columns show the way for any lost sheep. At the Sidetrack Bar, young men sometimes lose their virginity and find their identity in one night. In conservative America, steeped in religion, where family is more important than anything, this brazen oasis is considered something of a miracle, and holding our drinks, we weave our way through it. At Replay, Chris, an athletic thirty-something, confirms this: “The victory of that asshole Trump hasn’t changed a thing: we’re having a good time here, just like before. People haven’t changed the way they see us. And if they started to look at us sideways, we’d tell them to go fuck themselves!” And he raises his middle finger, laughing, while Gloria Gaynor belts out “I Will Survive.” It’s true: who would have believed that Trump would one day win that damn election?

We stayed in the area for a few days, intoxicated by its vitality, soaking in its creativity, yet knowing perfectly well that the next part of our journey would probably be very different. In short, we were gathering the strength we would need to head into battle.

One morning, after picking up a rental car, we headed out to Cincinnati, our next stop, but first we had to cross Indiana. To me, Indiana is first and foremost the state where James Dean was born. I love that wild, inconsolable, and amazing young man so much that I wrote a book about him. To do that, at the time, I surveyed the places he had lived—Santa Monica with its palm trees, Hollywood with its illusions, the sidewalks of New York, and even Cholame, California, where he died while driving to Salinas—but I had never been to Indiana. So I had to imagine the terrible winters and unbearable summers in Marion, the town where he was born, had to imagine him as a child playing in the snow or running until he was out of breath in the fields scorched by the sun. I had imagined that it was a difficult, harsh place. Today, I see it for myself. Corn growing as far as the eye can see, haystacks by the dozens, hills full of greenery, a few wind turbines to break the monotony. Sometimes you don’t see a single house for miles, and when you finally do, it is almost always flying an American flag. You have to like silence, solitude, God, and country to live here. Some faces are craggy, prematurely old. The people from here are nicknamed Hoosiers, which means hillbillies or rednecks. (But they’re the ones who gave America its new vice president. Mike Pence was the governor of this state: “a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order,” is how he describes himself. And the way things are going, he probably won’t stay content with the vice presidency.)

As I was saying, I hadn’t visited Fairmount, where Jimmy grew up, and where he’s buried. This time, the temptation was too great: we would make a detour. The town honors its idol in its own way, with a sign, a statue, and a “historical museum,” a somewhat pompous name for the small building with red walls we visited. Two delightful old ladies with white hair eagerly greet us there—we’re the first visitors of the day. The older one murmurs: “You’ve come because you love Jimmy, correct?” Correct. She immediately gives us a guided tour. A few personal effects of the town’s famous child are displayed in glass cases: baby clothing, hand-written notes, drawings, letters, props from his movies. This somewhat laughable exhibit ends up being sublime and deeply moving.

Next, at the intersection of Adams and Vine, we look for the old school of the little genius, but we find nothing but a pile of rubble. The school no longer exists; it has just been demolished. Fans sometimes come to steal a brick, as a kind of lucky charm. S., who notices my disappointment, tries to make a joke: “It’s like the song by Isabelle Adjani: ‘you’re in a state near Ohio, you’re feelin’ low.’”

We finally head to the cemetery. It is vast, but nothing points to the grave, which is minuscule: a simple stone set on the grass next to a gravel walkway, alongside so many others, unimpressive, with two dates, the year of his birth and of his death. A few small pebbles placed on the top of the stone as an offering to the deceased, a faded bouquet of flowers, some potted plants. That’s all. We leave. My heart is aching.

As we approach Ohio, my thoughts slowly drift back to politics. I think about the fact that this is one of the famous swing states that gave Trump victory. In 2008 and 2012, Obama won it easily. But in 2016, the majority of the state went to the billionaire: the Republican candidate beat Hillary Clinton by nine points. He was dominant throughout the entire state, except in the three main cities: Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. The reasons for this about-face have been explained at length: this is the Rust Belt, the industrial region that was bled dry by the economic crisis and where people are finding it difficult to change jobs. The outcasts from the steel industry and coal mines naturally turned to the person who claimed he could save them. The farmers are also having trouble making ends meet and are repelled by the elites who don’t care about their fate: Hillary was a turn-off to them.

And, contrary to what we might think, enthusiasm for Trump has not waned. In Bridgetown, on the I-74, where we stopped for coffee, Michael, a forty-five-year-old longstanding Democrat, attracted by our French accents to the point of starting up a conversation, confirmed this: Trump is still appealing here. He tells us that in Youngstown, in the north of the state, a city that symbolizes the blue-collar working-class community almost to the point of caricature, twenty thousand people have just given a triumphant welcome to the president. Ordinary people, who call themselves patriots, who do not understand the stubbornness that rules their hero, who continue to find him different, “refreshing,” who still believe in the myth of “the true America that is suffering from the arrogance of Washington.” “These people exist, and they haven’t changed their minds,” Michael laments. “And yet, they will be the principal victims of Trumpism. Look at what is happening to Obamacare. If the Republicans manage to do away with it, these people will be very vulnerable.” I point out to him that that latest attempt to repeal it failed again a few days before. “They’ll try again. Trump is the kind of person who never gives in. And he isn’t interested in reality.”

It’s a return to reality, in fact, as we enter Cincinnati. We immediately realize we are in a close-knit community, where the black population is very large—nearly one resident out of two, according to official statistics. If it was pioneer country in the past, with time it has become more unassuming while remaining a home for immigrants and a center of industry. It prides itself on its impressive suspension bridge (not advisable for people who get vertigo, like me), and Fountain Square lies at the heart of the city.

Not very far away, on the corner of Fifth and Walnut Street, there are a handful of people waving signs that say “Black Lives Matter.” A young woman who notices my curiosity comes over and asks me whether I “support them.” I ask her to explain. So Melissa tells me about Samuel DuBose, a forty-three-year-old black man, killed two years ago by Ray Tensing, a twenty-five-year-old white police officer, when he stopped DuBose’s car. Tensing pulled out his gun and fired at close range because DuBose looked like he was about to drive off. DuBose was unarmed, and the cop normally wore a T-shirt with the Confederate flag on it under his uniform. The officer immediately pleaded self-defense, except that the video footage taken from the bodycam he was wearing radically contradicted his version of events. The first trial that took place resulted in a hung jury. A second trial ended in May 2017 with the same result, so the prosecutor has just decided to drop the case against the officer. “And so,” Melissa tells me, “you can kill black people with impunity in this city, in this country, risking nothing! We’re here to say that this is unacceptable.” Fewer than a dozen people are demonstrating. Melissa is preaching in a desert. Racism still has many happy days ahead. It remains the tragic failure of the Obama era.

Otherwise, life seems rather peaceful in this place. Happy, too, sometimes. The Below Zero Lounge sells blue and green cocktails, and when evening comes, drag shows feature performers with names like Mystique Summers or Divine Cher. S. and I sing karaoke, trying to perform “Finally” by CeCe Peniston, which turns out to be impossible. We are applauded for our “charming accents,” an elegant way of making us understand that our nationality is obvious and that karaoke is not for us.

Two days later, we’re back on the road heading to Kentucky, to the west of the Appalachians, the state that marks the boundary between the North and South. It is especially famous for being the birthplace of American whiskey.

On the radio, they are reporting the firing of the White House Director of Communications, the blaringly noisy Anthony Scaramucci, who had only been appointed ten days before. Ten days during which he had gotten the president’s chief of staff to resign and spoken with such dirty language that certain newspapers didn’t think they should quote him. (I have no such inhibitions: he said, “fucking paranoid” and “suck my dick.”) The general consensus is that chaos reigns in the White House. There is a blazing sun.

We stop in Carroll County. No one here is interested in the madness in Washington. Here, the subject of conversation is Jesus Chavez, fifty-six, a small business owner who runs a maintenance company. Chavez refused to pay a plumber he had just hired for a small contract, threatening to report him to the Department of Immigration on the grounds that he might be an illegal immigrant. The plumber went to the police and reported the blackmail. Chavez was arrested and put in prison for human trafficking. In brief, the worst of capitalism and the best of racism joined together in a single act, although some people seem to think that Chavez wasn’t wrong.

We don’t hang around. Even more so because a sign at the side of the road proudly proclaims that Kentucky has the greatest number of guns per capita. Frankly not very reassuring.

(Something funny: A little farther along, there is another sign, an ad this time, that catches our attention. An ad for Spotify. Scanning the news and reminding everyone of the Muslim Ban, the musical streaming service found a credo: “When people can’t travel, music will.” These two different Americas were only ten miles apart. Unless they’re actually the same America.)

A priori, Tennessee does not seem much more welcoming than Kentucky, when you remember that the state was one of the principle battlefields of the American Civil War, and that the Ku Klux Klan was born here in 1865, a result of the Confederate defeat. And when you also know that the very conservative Southern Baptist Convention dominates thinking here, and that Trump received 61 percent of the votes in 2016. And when you find out that just a few days before, a judge in White County suggested a deal that was at least unique (and probably unconstitutional) for people in jail in the county: thirty days taken off their jail time if they agree to have a vasectomy (for men) or to go on hormonal contraceptives (for women).

To avoid depression, we’re better off remembering that Tennessee is also the birthplace of country, rock, and the blues. And that Memphis, one of the two great cities in the state, is the home of Graceland, where Elvis Presley found eternal rest. And besides, commemorations are in preparation, for the King left this earth exactly forty years ago. Done in by too much alcohol, too many drugs, too much of everything, he ended life bloated, ridiculous, tragic. But here, you don’t make jokes about Tennessee’s idol. You speak of him with reverence. Warren, in his late sixties, wears worn-out cowboy boots and is having a few pints of beer at the bar. He asserts, with the look of someone who knows for sure but isn’t allowed to say how, that Elvis is, “of course” still alive. Elvis spends his days peacefully in some backwater, on a ranch hidden from view. He has long white hair, wears a cowboy hat, and has gotten so thin that people don’t recognize him; only a few insiders take their hats off as he walks by, promising to keep his secret. S. says: “This guy is crazy.” I reply: “No. He needs to believe it, that’s all.” And what difference is there, in the end, between people who believe in God and those who are convinced that Elvis isn’t dead?

If you’re not interested in either rock ’n’ roll or keeping life preserved with mothballs, all that is left, here as elsewhere, is baseball and football, two other religions. Every large city we’ve passed through up till now has had its two stadiums (generally enormous outdoor ones, financed by a sponsor), its favorite teams, its mascots, and the games themselves. The number of season-ticket holders equals the number of seats. Tickets are bought for the entire season as soon as they go on sale. In bars, the TVs are automatically tuned to sports channels, and the calendar of games is posted. One way, like any other, to ward off boredom. Or to organize your existence.

The car takes off again toward Alabama. I confess a certain sense of apprehension. First of all, the state remains a symbol of slavery, and also of segregation. I want to believe that the past is dead and buried. The state is also located at the heart of what is known as the Bible Belt, and I am wary of people who are convinced that God rules over everyone. On the road, there is an enormous sign advertising a Christian community with a terrifying message: “Where will you spend eternity: in HEAVEN or HELL? The choice is yours.” But the countryside is absolutely beautiful, with stony mountains, tree-lined plains, and navigable rivers.

Birmingham, where we stop while muggy rain falls on the streets, does not, sadly, have the same charm. It is cradled in a valley where the Appalachian Mountains end and can certainly pride itself on beautiful gardens and old theaters, but it still carries the stigma of the white flight of the 1990s and 2000s due to the decline in industry.

And yet, what seems to concern the population is not that memory, and even less the memory of Martin Luther King Jr., who was imprisoned here in 1963 during the civil rights movement, but the gentrification of the city center. So much so that the candidates in local elections to be held at the end of the month are required to respond to a detailed questionnaire specifically about urban gentrification and to suggest solutions. You have to understand that in Avondale and Lakeview, hundreds of luxury apartments have been built in the past few years—and the rents are now so high that low-income residents are kicked out. The best schools are located in those areas, businesses that sell expensive, high-end products are flourishing there, and trendy places are opening up. Some people are happy about what they are calling a “renaissance”—that will bring the white people back—while others are worried about this new form of segregation. The mayoral candidates themselves go back and forth between contentment and anxiety. The truth is that this kind of impetus can be difficult to contain. It moves forward as part of history. But a city known for its history of poverty and struggle against the separation of populations that finds itself caught up again in this issue cannot fail to ask questions. It seems the issue of money has replaced the issue of race, and sometimes, the two overlap.

Jill, who is renting us her apartment, talks about it ingenuously in other terms: “You absolutely must go to El Barrio on Second Avenue! It’s a bar and restaurant that has a fabulous brunch menu. It’s full every night and perfect for hipsters.” Even if I definitely do not fall into that category, I assume that she automatically put S. in it, given his strange hat and short pants. We take her advice. We meet very few black people and very few poor people at El Barrio.

The journey continues. It takes us to Mississippi. I’ve dreamed about Mississippi for a long time. I think a lot of people dream about Mississippi. It undoubtedly has to do with the name. A name that has immense power to evoke memories. Or perhaps because of the books by Mark Twain (we all know them), in which the Mississippi River played such a memorable role. Now, we must test the fantasy against reality. There are things that live up to expectations: the immense forests of live oak, cedar, and pine trees, deep waters, somber and majestic, steel bridges, a few plantation-style residences with white porticos (even if they do evoke a tragic history). And then there are things that disappoint: shopping centers as you enter the cities, the Confederate flags, conservatism, and poverty.

We stop at Laurel, by chance, because we’re getting tired. Laurel is almost nothing—just a few calm streets, well-kept lawns, a sports field, a café with no one sitting outside—normal life far from the busy din, life as you sometimes want it to be when, caught up in the whirlwind, you yearn for calm, a slower pace. No, Laurel is nothing, and yet we still find something there: the “light in August”—as Faulkner would put it—on the houses with multicolored facades. And that is priceless.

The journey continues, and we find yet another America. The one, for example, where you get change in the service station shops. The one where you wolf down po’boys at KY’s Olde Towne Bicycle Shop in Slidell, on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain, where few tourists have probably ever set foot. There, a father, aged fifty-five, and his son, thirty-five, both wearing green fatigues, meet each other at noon every Saturday, and take off their baseball caps when their order comes so they can say a prayer. (Afterward, what could they talk about? A war that one of them has fought in? One of those wars you wage in the name of a certain idea of Good and Evil?) This America moves around in busted up pickup trucks, on side roads, with a dog in the back whose tongue is hanging out as the hot wind lashes his face. An America concerned about the passing weather or the passing time.

And then we get to New Orleans. I’m happy to be back here, where I’ve been four or five times. I saw the city before Hurricane Katrina. I saw it after the devastation, still gutted. I saw a city lose its population, a city with “a black majority” turn into a “white majority.” I saw houses demolished and houses for sale. Today, the scars of the destruction have disappeared. But what about the memory of the terror? How do you manage to live with the memory of such terror, how? And how do you manage to live with the memory of those who died—nearly two thousand in just a few hours—in this place where people believe in voodoo, in this city that has a Museum of Death?

The city has somehow kept its taste for celebrations, a way to forget, or to bear it. The French Quarter is the best example—or the worst caricature—of this. Here, from early afternoon until late into the night, you see stumbling drunks who look dangerous; and young women in very short mini-skirts that are a little vulgar, who talk loudly while waving around mardi gras necklaces; mediums who cast spells; people who sway to the music and tequila in the stifling heat. At the Corner Pocket, lustful young men dance on the counter, wearing very little clothing, for gentlemen of a certain age who slip money into their white underpants or offer to buy them a drink. In the evening, the streets are full of the smell of pot, and in the early morning, a mixture of vomit and detergent.

A candidate in the upcoming mayoral primary election, bar owner Patrick Van Hoorebeek, even went so far as to adopt the following campaign slogan: “More Wine, Less Crime” (I swear I’m not making this up). Many people use another expression to sum up this state of mind: “Southern decadence.”

To make the folklore complete, jazz musicians play on the sidewalks—but in reality, they are playing only for the tourists, for the few dollars thrown into the hats they have in front of them, set down on the shiny cobblestones. And while the streets have the names of French cities—Toulouse, Orleans, Chartres—it’s been ages since anyone spoke French here. Maybe just a few older people, in the hope of keeping the myth alive.

And yet, the splendor of the place remains: wrought iron balconies with wisteria tumbling down, the beautiful white church in Jackson Square, the riverboats on the Mississippi, and even a tropical storm, whose rare ferocity makes the headlines of the local newspapers—all these things ensure that the legend will survive.

But we grow tired of everything, including the splendor, and finally, one morning, we bolt, with the goal of getting closer to the Gulf of Mexico. Leaving behind the intertwining ramps of the highway, the outlines of the buildings growing fainter and fainter, we head deeper into the country, where the roads are slower, sometimes in a bad state of repair, often surrounded by water. Cyprus trees emerge from the swamps like creatures that are half alive, half dead. Very few people can be seen. We drive alongside a bayou infested with mosquitos and catch a glimpse of an old man steering a makeshift boat, far from the organized guided tours. Then we go over a wobbly bridge. And we come to the end of dry land, Grand Isle, set on a long stretch of sand, which the Cajuns, descendants of the Acadian settlers, call home. Now, we see nothing in front of us but the ocean.

Our journey has finally come to an end. Another one will surely now begin.