What I Know About Bayous

So it turns out that I'm not the only one who learns things the hard way. Who knew?

When I was attending college in Pittsburgh, an ex-boyfriend announced that he was flying to New Orleans to visit me over the summer.

This was a terrible idea.

I was dating someone else.

I did not want him to visit.

My mother eventually threatened to pick him up at the airport herself if I refused, so I reluctantly agreed.

I brought a friend along for emotional support and, more importantly, to prevent me from saying anything that would make the situation worse.

The visit unfolded exactly as you might expect.

My ex had never really left western Pennsylvania. Traveling from Washington, Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh for college was about as adventurous as his résumé got. He had never spent time in the deep South and had certainly never spent any time around bayous, fishermen, roustabouts, mechanics, or anyone who regularly solved problems with a crescent wrench.

As a child, I used to joke that in my neighborhood you had to visit five houses before you found a man with all ten fingers.

This was not his world.

At one point we took him to a local pool hall. He spent much of the evening making observations about the establishment and its patrons that suggested he had little understanding of where he was and who he was with. He may have had a strong commitment to remaining alive but very little understanding of how to accomplish it.

My friend and I eventually decided it would be in everyone’s best interest to leave.

On the way home, we drove through Jean Lafitte National Park. We crossed a bridge over Bayou des Familles, and I asked if he wanted to see a bayou.

He said yes.

So I pulled over.

It was late. The road was empty. The moon was bright. There wasn’t another soul around for miles.

He walked to the railing and looked down.

After a long pause he announced:

“It looks dried up.”

I explained that he was looking at water.

Bayous are, by definition, water.

Nothing in south Louisiana is dried up.

He disagreed.

“It looks like broken glass in the bottom of a ravine.”

I explained that the moonlight was reflecting off the water where the water lilies didn’t cover the surface.

He remained unconvinced.

Then he asked:

“Do you think I’d sink much if I jumped down there?”

I laughed.

“Not much.”

This was a joke.

Unfortunately, before I could explain that it was a joke, he climbed over the railing and jumped.

Into a bayou.

At night.

In south Louisiana.

The look on his face when he realized what was happening remains one of my favorite memories.

There was a brief moment when he discovered that what he had confidently identified as dry ground was actually several feet of water, mud, and water lilies.

He surfaced up to his armpits looking deeply offended by reality.

I laughed so hard I could barely stand. When I finally could breathe again, I realized we had a new problem.

He couldn’t get out.

The bridge was too high.

The mud was too deep.
And honestly, he was too weak to pull up his own body weight - adding in the water, and the mud and the water lilies.
And every attempt to climb the embankment resulted in him sliding back into the water.

I tied jumper cables to the bumper of my car and threw them down.

No luck.

He suggested he would simply walk to the bank.

This revealed a fundamental misunderstanding of both the word “bank” and the nature of south Louisiana.

A bayou is not a swimming pool.

It does not have convenient exits.

It has vegetation, mud, snakes, alligators, and an ongoing philosophical disagreement with the concept of solid ground.

Then he informed me that he could hear something “blooping” under the bridge.

This was not encouraging.

I began wondering whether I knew his mother’s phone number.

Should I stay and watch him get eaten?

Should I leave him in the middle of Jean Lafitte National Park and go look for help?

The only nearby landmark was a bar called Earl’s.  On Saturday nights Earl's has a chicken drop. I'm not going to explain this - you wouldn't believe me anyway. Go look it up.

Now Earl had a pet alligator named Sadie that he fed steak.

When I once asked why, he explained that he’d rather have one alligator he could see than a bunch of water moccasins he couldn’t.

This made perfect sense to him.

And honestly, more sense than anything my ex had done all evening.

As I was trying to decide what to do, a battered pickup truck appeared.

Three very drunk Cajuns pulled over and asked if I was a lady in need of rescuing.

“Yes,” I replied.

Then I walked them to the railing and pointed down.

To this day, I wonder how they explained that story to their wives.

I suspect none of them were believed.

After they finished laughing and wiped the tears from their eyes, the three men reached over the railing, grabbed various portions of my ex-boyfriend, and hauled him back onto the bridge.

He stood there dripping mud, water lilies, and dignity.

One of the Cajuns looked him over and said:

“Boy, you better not be doing that down here at night. There’s all sorts of critters out here.”

Then they climbed back into their truck, waved, laughed one more time, and disappeared into the darkness.

For years afterward, my ex told the story as though I had somehow convinced him to jump into an alligator-infested bayou in the middle of a national park.

At night.

Until someone finally pointed out that this version of events did not make him look any smarter.

Which, I suppose, was the real problem all along.

One of life’s more painful lessons is that confidence and competence are not the same thing.  Sometimes the difference is academic.  Sometimes it’s expensive. And occasionally, if you’re very lucky, the lesson only costs a pair of shoes and a little dignity.
Though in this case, probably quite a lot of dignity.