Wednesday, August 31, 2005. Late Afternoon.

I asked the desk clerk if I could put my bags behind the counter while I went outside to take a last look around. She said that would be no problem, and reminded me to start lining up at five for the buses. Not to worry, I assured her. There was no way in hell that I was going to miss that bus. It was now 4:30 p.m.

I walked out the main hotel entrance onto Royal and walked over to look at the now looted Walgreen's. When I got to the intersection, a man with two large brown paper bags printed "Walgreen's" and an additional plastic bag, was crossing Royal. I was surprised that after three days of looting there was anything at all valuable still inside.

A few seconds later another man emerged from Walgreen's pushing a shopping cart piled high with stuff, topped off by a grey garbage can. I took a photograph of him from a distance of about thirty feet and wondered if he would "mind" having his picture taken while looting. I quickly put the camera back into its bag, and then looked away. He slowly pushed his cart towards Bourbon. I don't think he cared one way or the other about having his picture made.

The whole scene was a mess. There was trash-filled water in the gutters, and the sidewalk in front of the Walgreen's was littered with now soggy paper, discarded boxes, plastic wrappers, and other sour trash.

I entered Walgreen's, which resembled nothing of the clean, well-lit store that I had been in on the prior Saturday. The floor was littered with even more trash than was outside, as if a giant had grabbed the building and shook everything off the shelves. There were empty soda cans, candy wrappers, plastic bags, and a variety of small items that apparently weren't worth picking up.

Just inside the door was a Krispy Kreme donut cabinet, and at the end of the next aisle was a Red Bull energy drink refrigerator, both of which had been cleaned out. The shelves behind the front counter, which previously held cigarettes and electronics, were completely empty. The cameras, electronics and film were gone from the shelves behind the photo counter. It was surprising that some shelves still held a good number of items, like hair spray, shampoo, and shaving cream.

I walked over towards the photo counter and found an empty box of “Alligator Bob's Gourmet Alligator Snacks” lying on the floor. A couple of guys were scoping the aisles as another man rode his bike through the store. A man and a woman passed by and he yelled out, "Could I get some help around here? Damn this Walgreen's has bad service." His lady friend laughed.

I spied something that intrigued me. I had bought Kathy a couple of boxes of Cafe du Mond Beignet mix and I was surprised to see the shelf that held boxes of it hadn't been touched. I thought the locals would go for one of the native New Orleans treats, but, surprisingly, beignet mix wasn't worth looting. I took a couple more pictures and hit the street again.

It was an altogether depressing scene and the fact that the couple thought it was a joke only made it more so. Where am I? What's going on? What's wrong with these people? Those and other questions were running through my head as I walked back to the hotel.

I was determined to get on one of those buses and sit near the front, as the back would be too claustrophobic, especially for eight hours. As I retrieved my bags from the desk clerk, I asked her just exactly where the buses would be, so that I could position myself in what I like to call the "pole position." She wasn't exactly sure, but thought they would be in front on Royal. People were already starting to gather around the front door, so I picked a place in line four people from the front. I put my bags down, sat on the green one, and leaned back against the stone hotel wall.

I was sitting right next to a young thirty-something Canadian woman and her mother. We struck up a conversation as the young woman chain-smoked the time away. They told me that "Dad" hadn’t come on this trip and that they couldn't wait to get home out of this mess.

Just about that time, two couples came walking up the street from the other hotel and got in line behind me. They parked their large suitcases almost on top of me and then stood in a semi-circle, blocking any possibility of air circulation, creating a private little "claustrophobic zone" with me now pinned between the stonewall and their legs. I asked one of the ladies if she would mind moving her bag back a bit and she said she that would be fine.

I had escaped the air-pocket trap the four tourists had unwittingly set for me, and I was in no mood for any further invasion of my space when a middle-aged man decided to station himself right next to me instead of going to the end of the line. Once he was in position, he started flirting like mad with the young Canadian woman.

I couldn't believe it. I mean, what was this guy thinking? Was he going to invite her up to his room, or was he just a compulsive flirt. Whatever, it was really getting under my skin. Here we were, stinky as all hell, sweating like pigs, anxious as cats, waiting for our best and only shot at breaking out of our Katrina imposed internal exile and this guy decides it's a good time to try to pick up the Canadian. “Well, more power to you fella,” I thought, “but if I weren't such a damned nice guy, I would slug you.”

The closer it got to six o'clock the more people came out and lined up along the front of the hotel. We were all, to a person, hopeful that this was our last hour in New Orleans.