‘Don’t try.’

This author of this warning soon became known, by some, as ‘the toughest man in New Orleans.’ This scrawling on the front of a boarded-up rug store, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, was intimidating enough: the store went untouched by looters. Updates soon followed:

‘Still here. Woman left Friday. Cooking a pot of dog jumbo.’

This man was Bob Rue, age 59, and owner the Sarouk Oriental rug shop. He, in fact, weathered the chaos after Katrina from his girlfriend’s uptown apartment, and spent his daylight hours painting ‘Looters will be shot’ onto his friends’ properties, and feeding local dogs. His warnings, in fact, were mostly bluster - although he did have a claw hammer.

But on September 4th, the storefront was adorned with one final message:

“You know what it means to miss New Orleans. Y’all come back for carnival. I have my parade spot. Come back Rex, Iris, Zulu, Bacchus, Toth, Proteus, Hermes, Muses, L’etat, Elk, Babylon. Hey, throw me something, mister.”