1 Dead in Attic by Chris Rose Page A

lots need are some balloons on a Saturday afternoon and some guy in a bad suit saying “Let’s make a deal!”
    Welcome to the Outer Limits. Your hometown. Need a new car?
    Speaking of car dealers, no one epitomizes the temporary insanity around here more than Saints owner Tom Benson, who said he feared for his life in a confrontation with a drunk fan and WWL sportscaster Lee Zurik at Tiger Stadium last Sunday.
    Admittedly, the shape of Lee Zurik’s eyebrows have an oddly discomfiting menace about them, but fearing for your life?
    Just get a good set of tweezers and defend yourself, Tom. Get ahold of yourself, man.
    Maybe I shouldn’t make light of this phenomenon. Maybe I’m exhibiting a form of madness in thinking this is all slightly amusing. Maybe I’m not well, either.
    But former city health director Brobson Lutz told me it’s all part of healing. “It’s a part of the human coping mechanism,” he said. “Part of the recovery process. I have said from the beginning that the mental health concerns here are far greater than those we can expect from infectious diseases or household injuries.”
    The U.S. Army took Lutz onto the USS Iwo Jima a few weeks ago to talk to the troops about how to deal with people suffering from posttraumatic stress.
    They were concerned, primarily, with the dazed-looking folks who wander around the French Quarter all day.
    â€œI told them to leave those guys alone,” Lutz said. “They may be crazy, but they survived this thing. They coped. If they were taken out of that environment, then they could really develop problems. Remember that in the immediate aftermath of all this, the primary psychiatric care in this city was being provided by the bartenders at Johnny White’s and Molly’s.”
    Interesting point. I mean, who needs a psychology degree? All anyone around here wants is someone to listen to their stories.
    I thanked Lutz for his time and mentioned that our call sounded strange. It was around noon this past Thursday.
    â€œAre you in the bathtub?” I asked him.
    â€œYes,” he said. “And I’m having trouble coming up with sound bites.”
    Like I said, we’re all a little touched by Katrina Fever.
    My friend Glenn Collins is living in exile in Alabama, and one Sunday afternoon he went to a shopping mall in Birmingham. He went to the Gap and was greeted by a salesclerk with a name tag that said “Katrina.”
    He left immediately. He went next door to the Coach boutique, where he was greeted by a salesclerk with a name tag that said “Katrina.”
    He kinda freaked out. He asked the woman something along the lines of: What’s with all the Katrinas? And she blurted out, “Oh, you know Katrina at the Gap? She’s my friend!”
    â€œI wish I was making this up,” he told me. “I mean, what are the odds of this?”
    He needed a drink, he said. So he went to a nearby Outback Steakhouse and ordered a beer, but the bartender told him they don’t sell alcohol on Sundays.
    â€œBut I’m from New Orleans!” he pleaded. “Don’t you have a special exemption for people from New Orleans? Please?”
    They did not. So he drove across three counties to get a drink. He said to me, “The Twilight Zone, it just keeps going on and on and on.”

1 Dead in Attic
11/15/05
    I live on The Island, where much has the appearance of Life Goes On. Gas stations, bars, pizza joints, joggers, strollers, dogs, churches, shoppers, neighbors, even garage sales.
    Sometimes trash and mail service, sometimes not.
    It sets into mind a modicum of complacency that maybe everything is all right.
    But I have this terrible habit of getting into my car every two or three days and driving into the Valley Down Below, that vast wasteland below sea level that was my city, and it’s mind-blowing (A) how vast it is and (B) how wasted it is.
    My wife questions the wisdom of