Dispatches From the Edge_ A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival - Anderson Cooper [62]
Here, in New Orleans, the compartmentalization I’ve always maintained has fallen apart, been worn down by the weight of emotion, the power of memory. For so long I tried to separate myself from my past. I tried to move on, forget what I’d lost, but the truth is, none of it’s ever gone away. The past is all around, and in New Orleans I can’t pretend it’s not.
WHEN I WAS BORN, my parents lived in a five-story town house on New York’s Upper East Side. Out front were two stone lions, silent sentinels guarding our home. There was a marble foyer and a sweeping spiral staircase, and though I don’t remember the house well, I recall the smell of Rigo candles, green wax, heavy scent. The candles’ flames shimmered against bottles of Noilly Prat, chilled Aquavit, and white wine in silver goblets with boar-tusk handles. There were fabric-draped walls, smooth silks, and needlepoint pillows, rough against a child’s soft cheeks. The tables were laden with bowls of polished wood with piles of sterling silver fishes jumping out.
When my parents had parties, my brother and I were always encouraged to attend. I remember walking with my father through a smoke-filled room, my small hand safe in his. I craned my neck to see those around me, catching only brief flashes of faces and soft filtered light. There were powdered women with red lips, men in heavy shoes with thick hands and French cuffs. The rooms were filled with actors and artists, boldface names in society columns and kitchen conversations. Truman Capote was a frequent guest; his pudgy lisp made me giggle. Andy Warhol was there as well; his white hair scared me.
At a certain hour, my brother and I went upstairs to our room. We lay in bed in the dark listening to the laughter down below. There were hands clapping and glasses clinking, a muffled murmur that shook the floor. We closed our eyes as a piano played; a woman sang “Good Morning Heartache, my old friend…” Her distant voice lulled us to sleep.
I never imagined it was anything special. I never believed that that life would end. I had a father and a mother, a brother and a nanny, a childhood untouched by loss. When my father died, and the chasm first opened, it seemed easier just to run away.
After his death, we moved every few years—bigger apartments, one more beautiful than the last. My mother would get restless, start to redecorate. Then my brother and I knew it wouldn’t be long before she’d begin searching for another home—a new place to settle, a new canvas to work on.
I didn’t know my mother was famous until I was about twelve. I was in middle school when she designed a line of jeans that became wildly successful. On the street, suddenly people began to stare at us and point. My brother and I thought it was funny. We’d count how many times we saw our mother’s name stitched on the back pocket of somebody’s pants.
My mother once said that she survived the traumas of her childhood because she always felt that inside herself there was a crystal core, a diamond nothing could get at or scratch. I’d felt that same rock form inside me when my father died. In New Orleans, however, it started to crack.
BOURBON STREET IS CLOSED, but a daiquiri bar has just opened. I think it’s the first one. The entrance is boarded up, but through the heavy storm shutters you can hear the thumping bass of a stereo: Kelis sings, “My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard / And they’re like / It’s better than yours…” It’s the first music I’ve heard since the hurricane.
To get in the daiquiri bar you have to go around back, through the lobby of the Royal Sonesta Hotel. The hotel’s only just opened up as well, and we’ve moved in after a week in trailers. The FBI is staying there too; so are a bunch of New Orleans cops who no longer have homes.
Inside the bar is a wall of drinks in refrigerated coolers: Mango Madness, Citrus Storm, blood-red Hurricanes. The place is packed: reporters, police, FBI SWAT teams, a couple