Every Man a King, Part II - On Getting Shot in the Face During Breakfast

The taxi driver was an elderly black man with a closely-cropped head of gray hair and whose deeply-lined face betrayed very little expression aside from boredom. I gave him the name of my hotel, the Chateau Dupre, and he nodded his head slowly: “Mmmmhmmm. Da Dupre. Mmmmhmmm.” He signalled and slowly pulled into traffic. “I had planned on walking”, I said for no reason in particular, and after just enough time to think I was being ignored he said back, “Hmmmmmmm.....why you wanna do a thing like that. Too hot to be walkin’ ‘round. Mmmhmmmm.” Thrilled to have my laziness validated, I settled back into a seat that smelled of Old Spice and older cigarettes and watched the Crescent City roll by.