Ted Jackson - You Ought to Do a Story About Me: Addiction, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Endless Quest for Redemption

Contents

For Nancy

Contents

2014

Jackie Wallace stumbled out of the New Orleans Mission a broken and defeated man. He wore three shirts to protect against the cold, but the wind pierced the thin fabric of each. As he wandered toward downtown, a cold, damp blast reached through his bones and sunk him.

He staggered past St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, and when he came to the entrance for the Pontchartrain Expressway, he turned. Walking up the ramp, hemmed in by commuters and tractor-trailers, he felt momentary relief. He leaned against the quivering railing for balance.

To his left, if he had looked, he would have seen the gleaming towers of commerce, a statue of Robert E. Lee and the riverboat Natchezvestiges of old Dixie. To his right, he would have seen the neighborhood where he enjoyed Carnival as a boy and the wharfs where his father earned a living and his familys respect. But his eyes were fixed on the Mississippi River bridge. As he approached, he could see the plaque of a selfless mother pelican bolted to the structures crossbeam.

In his sixty-three years, he had been the pride of his hometown, the envy of his childhood friends and schoolmates, a true American success story, a Super Bowl hero. But a life full of accolades and praise meant nothing to him now. He had come undone. Living low and getting high had become as common as taking a breath. He had come to the Mississippi River bridge to die.

Jackie instinctively dodged cars as he crossed the last ramp. No one seemed to notice him. Just a little farther and it would all be over. One hundred fifty feet below, the muddy Mississippi would swallow his soul and his wretched life. He bundled tighter and walked on, convinced that neither height nor depth could separate him from the love of God.

But before he reached the span, an especially cold crosswind caught his face. Maybe it was the chill of death or the wing of an angel. Fear and grace gripped him. He stood frozen between earth and eternity.

I WAS ONLY one block away, shooting an assignment for The Times-Picayune. A crowd cheered as I trained my camera lens on a beautiful restored fighter plane while a crane lifted it into a museum showcase. If I had refocused my zoom in another direction, I might have seen my old friend. If I had known, I could have made a difference. I would have moved heaven and earth to help him.

1990

The heavyset, gray-brick building and the iconic clock tower that housed The Times-Picayune newspaper bore a resemblance to a lighthouse set upon a rocka reliable guiding light, a beacon of truth that overlooked the Pontchartrain Expressway, the Louisiana Superdome, and the New Orleans skyline beyond.

Inside, the cavernous newsroom on deadline surged with a boisterous channeling of facts and figures, reporting and opinions, and features and scandal moving in a syncopated rhythm. It was a beehive of activity, noisy with hundreds of staffers: each day, the assembled team built another massive shipment of news, features, sports, classifieds, comics, debutante introductions, and obituariesnot to mention the endless investigations and revelations of the latest crooked Louisiana politician. We were the preeminent watchdog of state politicsthe states paper of record. Of our staff of twenty-four photographers, most still considered me a rookie. Id seen a lot in six years, but I still had a lot to learn about big city journalism.

I would soon get my opportunity. On a particularly hot summer day in New Orleans, one of those soaking, sweaty days when breathing hurts, Id spent the morning chasing down false leads on a celebrity murder case. If the afternoon turned out like I hoped, Id spend the afternoon developing film and making prints in the cool of the darkroom.

But my photo editor, Kurt Mutchler, had other ideas.

Over the weekend, he had noticed a curious homeless camp under the Pontchartrain Expressway, near Carrollton Avenue, just twelve blocks from the office. While frequently short on pleasantries, he had a knack for sniffing out great ideas.

Its a homeless camp, he said, unlike any youve ever seen. Its just where the ramp comes to ground level. Look quickly to the right. There, tucked under that space, youll see it.

What makes it so interesting? I asked, intrigued and fishing for details. I had worked on several homeless stories since the mid-eighties, when the oil bust sent Louisianas unemployment rate over 13 percent.

Its got a couch, end tables, chairsall arranged like a living room. Its right where the bridgework meets the ground, in that little wedge space.

Ive always loved arbitrary ideas like thisa random notion to fill my afternoonnothing much expected, nothing more in mind. I thought of them as simmering adventures. I tried to imagine the pictures Id shootguys huddled around a cooking fire, their weary faces cast in beautiful light.

How many homeless men and women had I wandered by in the past six years? Thousands, maybe? Most of them at the time slept alone, curled into a hidden spot under tattered blankets, trying to attract as little attention as possible. A camp sounded like a community, like a family, like something differentand journalism thrives on different. Let me know what you find, my editor said as I hustled out the door.

I drove the twelve short blocks from the office to the spot he described, where Mid-City met Gert Town, past old warehouses and through the heart of Xavier University. I crossed Carrollton Avenue and parked near the overpass beside a group of closed businesses. My two-hundred-thousand-mile Honda, with its chipped paint, split cowling, and ridiculously noisy suspension, blended into the landscape. It made a great decoy for the expensive gear concealed beneath the hatchback, easily worth five times the car.

The space under the bridge looked ominous. A few shadows moved slowly in the distance, which made me nervous. The roar of traffic overhead drowned out any warning sounds I might have otherwise heard. Cars, trucks, and eighteen-wheelers rumbled over the concrete sections with an irregular ca-thunk, ca-thunk beat. Those were people with someplace to go.

I picked my way through steel supports where weeds suddenly gave way to rock and dirt, and I then spotted a railroad track that suggested an alternative walking path toward downtown. I worked my way past the rusted remains of forgotten cars and debrisunrecognizable as once useful. I practiced how I would approach the men, now only a hundred yards awaywhat I would say and how I would say it. I wanted to be compassionate and understanding. But this hidden realm was so different from my own. How could I adequately relate to people living on the streets, estranged from family, numbed by addictionignored, or worse, forgotten?

My cameras were prepared for whatever might happen. The exposures were preset, the lenses prefocused halfway to infinity. I tugged on the rewind knobs to make sure Id loaded film. Id experienced this rush of uneasiness many times before, remembering that some of my most meaningful photographs had been made while treading similarly unpredictable terrain.

As I turned the last corner, my previsualized concept evaporated. The sofa was overturned. Tables were smashed against a pile of broken concrete as if marauders had ravaged the place. There was garbage everywhere. The people were gone.

I exhaled and surveyed the scene. I meandered a bit, looking for any clues as to what could have possibly wrecked the scene. What had driven the homeless to this desperate space in the first place? Where would I have gone if I had run out of choices? I started back toward my car. Time to move on.

As I rounded the next support column, a small movement caught my eye. When I looked closer, I spotted a half-naked man sleeping on a rusty box spring covered with cardboard. He was wrapped in a sheet of thick, clear plastic that opened around his arms and chest. His head rested on a wadded yellow jacket, also wrapped in plastic. He slept in the fetal position in only his briefs and an undershirt. I took a few photos with my long lens, then came closer and climbed the pier for a few overhead frames. Then I climbed down and tried to wake him.