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I’m writing from Cocodrie, Louisiana.
Cocodrie, or “Coco” as it’s known to the locals, is the speckled trout capital of the world. I’ve been coming down here with my wife’s family for going on ten years now, and let me tell you, it’s a trip.
South Louisiana is like a different country. A different world. Once you get past Houma, the highway is flanked on both sides by water, the Gulf to the east, the canal to the west. The graves are above ground down here, giant concrete boxes with Virgin Marys mounted on top. The houses are raised up higher than the tombstones. Trailers and camps teeter over the marsh atop ten-foot stilts. Some are missing roofs. Others are worth millions, probably more.
It cost a lot of money to catch speckled trout. I don’t know how much, exactly. I fish with my father-in-law. He foots the bill (for which I’m forever thankful) as long as I keep bait in the water and trout in the cooler.
Nevertheless, I’m still amazed by the hundred-thousand-dollar boats, the “Deluxe Edition” trucks with the chromed-out trailers attached to their hitches. Coco Marina has undergone a facelift since we first started coming here. There’s a splash pad and a pool for the kids. There’s a brand-new sheet metal gazebo. The bolts on this thing look like they could’ve come from an aircraft carrier, or a space shuttle.
The same is true of the outdoor bathrooms. These aren’t your run-of-the-mill porta potties. Far from it. These are full-metal structures with waterproof electronics.
Why such extremes?
Because life is tough in Coco.
Just last year, Hurricane Ida blew through and tore out half the houses. There are naked stilts along Highway 56 I forgot to mention, lonely posts left behind like roadside memorials. There are bugs too. Horseflies and mosquitoes as big as turkeys. Not to mention the constant battering of sun, wind, and saltwater.
What sort of person could survive such conditions?
Cajuns.
By my estimations, Cajuns reflect the boggy bottom half of their bottom state. They’re flashy like the big boats, trucks, and trailers. But homey too, thick in the knuckles and waists. Well buoyed, you might say. They drink a lot of beer, that’s for sure.
This year, while we were waiting to load our boat, I saw a man with a Miller Lite in one hand and a sausage biscuit in the other. The sun hadn’t even come up yet. That’s how early it was.
I told my wife about it later, and she brought up the dizzying possibility that maybe that rotund little man had never gone to bed. Maybe he’d just kept on partying all through the night and had simply switched from bourbon to beer before he’d boarded his boat.
The more I think about it, the more I think she was probably right.
As strange as the marsh is—the stilts, steel and chrome, the sharks and dolphins and frigatebirds (which can fly for up to two months without touching land or water)—its people are even stranger.
It’s taken me a decade to realize it, but now I see that Cajuns are uniquely adapted to their wild slice of our country. They’re tougher than the hide of any gator, funnier than any sheepshead, and more buoyant than a pufferfish.
There’s a world of difference between Arkansas and South Louisiana, but one fact remains the same, both have their own brand of good people.
Don't Know Tough
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In Denton, Arkansas, the fate of the high school football team rests on the shoulders of Billy Lowe, a volatile but talented running back. Billy comes from an extremely troubled home: a trailer park where he is terrorized by his mother’s abusive boyfriend. Billy takes out his anger on the field, but when his savagery crosses a line, he faces suspension.
Without Billy Lowe, the Denton Pirates can kiss their playoff bid goodbye. But the head coach, Trent Powers, who just moved from California with his wife and two children for this job, has more than just his paycheck riding on Billy’s bad behavior. As a born-again Christian, Trent feels a divine calling to save Billy—save him from his circumstances, and save his soul.
Then Billy’s abuser is found murdered in the Lowe family trailer, and all evidence points toward Billy. Now nothing can stop an explosive chain of violence that could tear the whole town apart on the eve of the playoffs. |
Ozark Dogs
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In this Southern thriller, two families grapple with the aftermath of a murder in their small Arkansas town.
After his son is convicted of capital murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory. He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but there is not enough training in the world to protect her when the dreaded Ledfords, notorious meth dealers and fanatical white supremacists, come to collect on Joanna as payment for a long-overdue blood debt.
Headed by rancorous patriarch Bunn and smooth-talking, erudite Evail, the Ledfords have never forgotten what the Fitzjurls family did to them, and they will not be satisfied until they have taken an eye for an eye. As they seek revenge, and as Jeremiah desperately searches for his granddaughter, their narratives collide in this immersive story about family and how far some will go to honor, defend—or in some cases, destroy it. |
| Previous columns: |
• Writing from the Beach
• Writing From: Crooked Creek
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• Writing from a Firework Tent
• Writing from a Boat
• Writing from the Stars
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• My second novel’s publication
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• Writing on the day of the college football National Championship
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• Writing from the depths of a post-book-festival hangover
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