the blond truth: i still love you, ray May 18, 2006
Sugar Ray, Sugar Ray, Sugar Ray. I guess it’s time to talk about our relationship. I know how you hate talking, so I guess you’ll have to do the listening. When I think about how it all began, I almost don’t want it to end. Baby, you had me at “hello.” You looked and sounded different from all the other mayors I’ve had, and I’ve had a few. You still look a damn sight better than any of them. Marc Morial. Sure, he talked a good one, but when it came right down to it, he was more interested in a good meal than a good…reputation. Sidney, with his greasy mane and sleazy ways. I was better off with no mayor at all than I was with Sidney Barthelemy! I’m sorry. I know you don’t like it when I talk about the old days. Hell, baby, I know you don’t like it when I talk about yesterday.
But then I met you, Ray. You walked into my life - tall, those lips, that sexy smile, that bald head blazing in the sun - and I took one look at you and I never looked back. I swear, in all the years you and I were together, I never even looked at another mayor. You had everything I thought I wanted. Honesty, integrity, intelligence, independence. Yeah, I knew there was an age difference, but you seemed not to care that you were a hip young businessman and I was an aging southern belle, afflicted with genteel poverty, deserted by my other mayors and left to depend on the kindness of strangers. And there were plenty of strangers, Ray. Sometimes I felt like those strangers were all that was between me and the Gulf of Mexico. No, No, Ray! Please don’t pout! I know coastal erosion isn’t your fault, I know that, I know it. It’s just…you know…when it rains, it pours.
Anyway, Ray, I think we just kinda fell into a rut, you and I. I wasn’t giving you what you wanted, you were just telling me what I wanted to hear, and I’m not sure you really understood what bad shape I was in. I need more than a little face-lift here and there, I’m not getting any younger. It’s no surprise that I completely fell apart when Katrina showed up. Ray, I know you didn’t ask for her to come, but you knew it might happen. After all, we’ve been through Cindy and Georges. You know how close I came to losing it during the Georges affair. The bottom line is that I just don’t know if you and I can survive what that bitch did to our relationship.
Ray, you made me look like a fool. In front of, well, everybody. Every lousy cab driver in America thinks I got exactly what I deserved for not having enough sense to keep my levees up. Now Douglas Brinkley has told the entire world what hotel you were in while Katrina was in town. I may never live this down, Ray, and you getting drunk and babbling about god and the chocolate city did not help matters. You know, you can leave here. You can get another job and leave all this behind you. But I have to stay here and face people, I don’t have a choice.
Of course, like I always do, after Katrina I gave you another chance. You chose to spend an awful lot of your time playing politics with your friends Boysie, Couhig and all those reverends I can never get straight. Somewhere along the line, I realized that it’s not about me any more. It’s not even about us. It’s all about you, Ray. You don’t want to lose me because you don’t want to look bad. You don’t want it to end ugly. I’m sorry Ray, but right this minute my well-being is just more important than your ego, OK?
In fact, it was during one of your ego trips that I was reacquainted with an old friend. Someone I’ve known for a long time. Someone who has always wanted to be my mayor. It hurts me to have to let you go, Ray. What we once had - well, I don’t know if I’ll ever feel that way about another mayor. You taught me that I deserve more from a mayor than to just be used until I am all used up. You may have taught me too well. I feel like I have been through hell and lived to tell about it, baby. I will always love you, but now I think I deserve more.
- Posted in : main, new orleans
- Author : dangerblond
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