MAKE IT SO

Yesterday was tough. I haven’t been away from New Orleans for Mardi Gras day one time since 2004. That’s 22 years. The past couple months have been a blur. I’ve mainly concerned myself with staying sane, healing my body, and working on DEAD END BOYS. Like BALLAD, it’s a New Orleans novel, and I hope that being away from the city for a while will give me greater insight into the place, its people, its culture. Still, it’s not easy to be so far away during Carnival.

A few weeks ago, an old friend and colleague from UNO and Delgado Community College randomly texted me to ask how I was. Years ago, they’d left New Orleans for Colorado, and then Chicago, and since then we’d lost touch. When I found out I was moving to Chicagoland, I wondered whether our paths would cross and how they were doing these days. Hearing from them brightened what had been a dreary and painful day until Kechi and I decided to head out to Winnetka for a look at the McCallister house from Home Alone. On the way back, my friend texted me at what has been my number for many many years, and a couple days later, they came over to hang out and gab at our (very) sparsely appointed apartment.

I’m not sure how long they were in New Orleans, but I know it was more than five years. Certainly enough time to miss the city dearly during Mardi Gras. They invited us, and another old New Orleans friend over for a Mardi Gras get together so we could eat some Popeyes and some red beans and reminisce about the city as Carnival was coming to an end. Kechi and I hit up Popeyes and headed over for a low-key evening of companionship, drinks, and good food. Kechi and I both dressed up—although my outfit was a bit less costume-y than I usually am on Mardi Gras. I just wore a dusting of sparkly snowflakes like freckles across the bridge of my nose and borrowed Kechi’s rainbow sweater while she was fully glammed-up after reshooting an insert as Helenoir Cosmopolitan, one of her characters from her show (Su)Pervirgin.

People don’t costume here the way they do in New Orleans. Not for Halloween—not to the same level—and not at all for Mardi Gras. We heard no live brass bands yesterday, saw no Mardi Gras Indians beneath the Claiborne overpass, and we didn’t get to post up out back of the Mother-in-Law Lounge and just vibe with whoever happened to wander in until leaving to stop by maybe one more party before grabbing some Popeyes and heading home.

There was a time when leaving New Orleans was unthinkable, let alone spending all of Carnival in some far-flung place without parades, marching bands, costumes, and themed krewes. Growing up the way I did, I never had a chance to put down real roots until I’d been in New Orleans for several years. For me, home hadn’t been a place, it had been collections of people I loved and trusted, shared memories. Now I know what it’s like for there to be a place I lived longer than anywhere else, where I’d transitioned between distinct phases of life, of development as an artist, as a performer, as a man. I often say that most of the best things in my life were added to me in New Orleans, and it’s true. The city has shaped my identity, my outlook on life, my values, and my priorities in life.

Kechi and I stayed away for all the right reasons this year. Next week we’re traveling to New York to put on the latest version of Kechi’s show at the Black Women in Comedy Laff Fest, and I couldn’t be more excited. I’ll meet up with my agent and my editor, I’ll see at least some of my New York people, and a lot of family. We’ll be taking a lot of photos, eating a lot of bagels, and I’m beginning to feel confident enough in my recovery that I’ll be able to walk at a decent pace without getting dirty looks from other pedestrians. Life is improving—and it was damn good before we left Louisiana.

As darkness seeks to overwhelm me and flood me with despair, I am learning to filter my rage through love, a sense of justice and community, through hope, and the unshakable belief that a better world is not just possible but necessary, a better world than this.

I never felt very American, never felt particularly patriotic, growing up Black in America or representing the country overseas, but if there’s one thing the rise of fascism has brought home to me, it’s that this is my country. My people watered its crops with their blood and tears, they carried its economy on their backs, and they fought, not just to survive, but to make this country a better version of itself. As this regime seeks to erase us and our contributions, their efforts will be futile because Black history is American history. Our contribution to American culture—fashion, letters, dance, theater, all the arts and humanities—can’t be blotted out. It can only be covered over, to be revealed again in time.

We find ourselves at a historical moment where many of our leaders lie not to convince anyone that they speak the truth, but to establish a false premise on which to act. Pundits and thinkers have described this as the post-truth era, but certain facts remain undeniable. Saying a thing doesn’t make it so, but at the same time language can shape reality, and that’s why speech can be so dangerous. That’s why I’m saying that justice will prevail. Truth lives. Hope, love, compassion, and empathy are important. We can be better than we are. We will.

And one other thing: Happy Mardi Gras.