Shake the Devil Off by Ethan Brown

Author:Ethan Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2009-03-07T16:00:00+00:00

Early in the afternoon of October 2, 2006, Zack and Addie went apartment hunting in the French Quarter. After just a few hours of searching, the couple found a “For Rent” sign posted on the wrought-iron gate outside 826 North Rampart Street, a building owned by onetime New Orleans mayoral candidate Leo Watermeier. The first floor of the building—a two-story Creole cottage built in 1829—houses the Cultural Center of Priestess Miriam Chamani’s Voodoo Spiritual Temple, which is crowded with African masks, voodoo dolls, and mojo bags for sale. Behind 826 North Rampart is a lush courtyard and a complex of small studio and one-bedroom apartments, also owned by Leo. But on that October day, the open rental was for a small one-bedroom apartment on the second floor of the Creole cottage with an attractive, direct view of the sprawling, thirty-two-acre Louis Armstrong Park across the street. The apartment had been vacated less than twenty-four hours when Zack and Addie showed up.

Zack and Addie told Leo that their landlord at the Governor Nicholls apartment had doubled their rent in the wake of Katrina—a lie, because they didn’t want Leo to know the real story about the plumbing-costs conflict—and that Leo’s $750 per month one-bedroom was well within their budget, as both were working full-time. Because Zack and Addie had enough cash for the first month’s rent plus a one-month deposit—a rarity in the post-Katrina city—Leo handed over the keys to them without so much as drawing up a lease.

But on the morning of October 4, Addie unexpectedly showed up, alone, at Leo’s office at 812 North Rampart, demanding a six-month lease in her name only. To placate Addie, Leo hastily prepared the document in his own handwriting on a piece of yellow legal paper, which they both signed. “Five minutes later, I get a phone call from Zack,” Leo remembers. “He says, ‘Did you just sign a six-month lease with Addie?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Oh man, I’m screwed; she’s kicking me out and the lease is in her name.’ I said, ‘Well, I had no intention of the lease not being for you; I thought it was for the two of you. Don’t get mad at me.’ Then he hung up.” Leo rushed over to the apartment and to his surprise found Zack and Addie standing in the stairwell. Leo remembers, “She said, ‘I caught him cheating on me! With a man!’ ” Leo was a little taken aback that his new tenants would reveal such intimate details about themselves. “I don’t want to get involved in drama,” Leo said to Zack and Addie. “I’m gonna look after your place,” Addie told Leo. “I’m gonna be a good tenant.”

After Leo left the couple, their fighting continued, well into the afternoon. Zack was furious with Addie for kicking him out of the apartment—he’d just paid two months’ rent, after all—and, more important, he had recently promised Lana that he would take Jaxon and Lily the next weekend. “No matter what else happened,” Lana’s father, Carl Shupack, explains, “those kids gave Zack a reason to live.

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