A strange thing just happened.
There’s a man who rides up and down the streets of the Bywater neighborhood in a beat-up F-150 bulging with produce. On the roof of the truck cab, he’s bolted a low-rent PA system, which he uses to broadcast his wares. From blocks away you can hear him coming, his call thin and nasal and droning: “I got banaaaaanaaaaas, I got lettuuuuuce, I got okraaaaa….” Like the hum of window unit air-conditioners and the aerosol whoosh of mosquito trucks, the call of the Vegetable Man says “summer.”
But a minute ago, while I was walking the dogs, I got confused. Maybe it’s because the Vegetable Man was really far away–a good five blocks or so, scraps of his tinny voice carried on a rare breeze. Or maybe I was thinking about the news, or Midnight Express, or how much I’ve always wanted to visit the Hagia Sophia. Whatever the reason, from where I stood, the Vegetable Man’s voice sounded like the Muslim call to prayer. You know the sound–you’ve heard it in countless movies and documentaries, echoing down arid streets, above the heads of vendors in souks, filling the corners of locations fantastic and mundane. And I thought to myself: “Wow. I know New Orleans is, like, exotic and all, but I had no idea….”
Half a second later, the realization hit, and I was back in New Orleans, watching my dogs chase one another on an empty lot that one of the neighbors is kind enough to keep mowed. And I said out loud, “Well, that was a nice vacation.”
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