Jimmy pulled the cork from a green half-empty bottle of wine. “Here’s to neocolonialism everywhere.” I wasn’t up to his cynicism. I looked at the oaks, the moss lifting in the wind, purple dust rising from a cane field, Bayou Teche glinting in the sun like a Byzantine shield. La Louisiane, the love of my life, the home of Jolie Blon and Evangeline and the Great Whore of Babylon, the place for which I would die, the place for which there was no answer or cure. I said nothing more and walked to my vehicle, rude or not.
