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We went back to New Orleans three weeks ago. We both have family roots there, and Jake played rugby for Tulane. We viewed the devastation. We both already know, though, that the years of poverty and generations "on the dole" there had set in place a sort of desperate disaster there for many, many years before the storm that flooded the city did. Many people there believe the storm was the best thing that could've happened, in retrospect, to give the city back some pride and to get some new buildings and houses built...and so, they wait.

Jake, feeling melancholy and wanting a remembrance of the things of New Orleans that were familiar, took me back round Marengo Street, near where he'd lived in college. In fact, we found the old house. But it was a shell of its former rugby hooligan days, where crazy parties and proud, young, drunk ruggers stood their ground.

It was empty and near ruin; water damage all over, roof missing. A neighbor of questionable authority told us, "That's Daphna's house now. She don't like guests."

Intrigued, we entered. Straight away we saw her in the parlor, half mad, half beautiful, mumbling and possibly not yet aware we stood, watching, transfixed.

I called to her, "Daphne?" "No," she replied, "Daphna, not Daphne," a phrase she would utter somewhat incoherently for many moments throughout our stay. "Daphna."

Jake said, "Do you live here now? What happened to Mr. Billeaudeaux?" She said, "He gone. I am waitin for Ben. Waitin for Ben."

Ben soon arrived, delivering a meal. But that was not his name. He said he was Henry. He did not wish to be photographed. He told us Daphna is lost, mentally and physically, and that her son Ben died in the storm, or in a war, or who knows, he said. So she waits. He said, she waits at the window, afraid. He said she is schizophrenic, but has no insurance and had to be released from State Hospital for room for those more badly in need after the storm. And he left, other meals to deliver to other shut-ins and crazees. Hey, his words, not mine.

I had but one roll of damaged 120 Tri-X film left for the Hasselblad, as I had accidentally dropped it in murky, oily water in Harahan, the other side of the river.

Thinking, what would Paul Lavalle do (a JPGer who uses old and damaged film beautifully), I went for it. The film was moist, and splattery in spots, but I did get these two or three good images. Some of the film’s emulsion was gone in spots, and the silver seemed to gather in the developer in processing. But hey, not bad for a day’s work.

Here is Daphna, not Daphne, huddled, rocking, waiting for Ben, her few and scant small possessions, sitting beside her on her mattress.

In life, we do animal rescue. But as never before in these broken moments, I wished I had had the way and means to do people rescue. For in this troubled person, I know there lies a heart that beats as mine does; a soul that longs, as mine does, to be free.