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A Big Easy family's comeback story

Ellis Henican

March 15, 2006

NEW ORLEANS

Mardi Gras must have made a difference. Or else people just got tired of replacing Sheetrock and scrubbing mold.

Whatever the cause, do I detect a tiny mood shift in the city of Katrina? For the first time in the six months since the storm, people in New Orleans are actually shaking off the heavy gloom.

For a night at least.

OK, it was just one evening. The devastation is unimaginably huge. Rebuilding in the seriously flooded areas - a phrase that takes in more than half of the city - has barely begun. And Washington is still talk, talk, talk and little action.

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But Michael, the youngest Henican brother and the freest spirit of us all, was finally getting married. We all believe he's marrying up. He and Sarah figured they'd waited long enough to make things legal. So did 300 of their closest relatives and friends.

And I gotta tell you, the whole raucous lot of them helped to lift the town. That's no lie.

We don't do sit-down wedding receptions in my hometown. Seating by assignment would never work around here. People would just ignore the place cards. We drink. We dance. We balance heaping plates of shrimp and oysters and steamy bowls of turtle soup. We stand around in little knots, talking and laughing and telling stories, lots of stories, some of which are at least partially true.

And so it was for five full hours on the sprawling second floor of Muriel's, a famously haunted restaurant with giant ceilings and a wraparound balcony overlooking Jackson Square.

Could any of these stories really be true?

Michael shooting pellet guns on Napoleon Avenue with the 11 Petagna kids. Michael as a young Don King, organizing third-grader prizefights around the corner from Holy Name School. Michael buying the burned-out Venus Gardens grocery store on Dryades Street, then convincing the bank to turn the wreck into apartments for old people. That one actually happened, I know. Michael and his friend Kaare selling a house on the Gulf Coast just before Katrina. It's flatter than a flounder now.

You hear enough of these stories in a single evening, you stop caring whether any of them are true.

Lots of the cousins turned out for the night. Some are still scattered across Texas and Louisiana. Quite a few are back in town, figuring out what the New Normal is.

Answer: Not as different from the old one as you'd think.

Uncle Charlie was calling all the women "dah-lin,'" just like he used to. Uncle Doc and Aunt Alice were saying they'll rebuild the house they lost in Pass Christian. Aunt Peg, who was on the city council, was talking up her mayor's race, although why she'd want the job no one could understand.

Peg was remembering that long-ago summer when Michael and her son Peter were both 9, playing together in the country fields of Kiln, Mississippi. "Michael said he wanted to show Peter a new game," Peg said. "It was called 'Tease the Bull.'"

The two boys stood outside a neighbor's fence where a giant bull was grazing. Without delay, Michael hopped right over and began waving wildly at the bull.

At first the animal ignored him. Michael yelled and gestured even more maniacally.

Eventually, the bull did what bulls do. Snorting and angry, he came charging for the 9-year-old boy, who held his ground 'til the very last instant, then scampered on skinny legs back over the fence to safety, laughing all the way.

Peg said there was a message in there for Sarah, Michael's new bride. It was a message she felt duty-bound to deliver in person at such a momentous time.

"Get ready for a lifetime of 'Tease the Bull,'" she said.

Was the story exaggerated? Was it true? I can't prove that either way. I wouldn't even try to.

But I can tell you this much, as a city and a people grind ever so slowly back to life.

The danger is real, and it isn't over. But you have to love the image of the kid - and his city - breaking free just in time.