F ourth Street starts in Gretna and runs into Marrero, miming the curves of the Mississippi. In one six-mile stretch there were once more than a hundred bars. By 1985 half of them had closed, but the abandoned buildings served as a reminder of the boom years of the oil industry, when men slept above them during the day and drank at night, spending what was earned in three weeks each month on the oil rigs in the Gulf.
But by 1985 the money was gone, the area was depressed and showed no signs of picking up again for a long time. The people who still lived there hung on in one way or another. If their incomes weren’t dependent on oil, they had a head start, but in any case there was simply less money to go around. Both Robert and Edsel had worked on the rigs, spending most of what they made, but managing to acquire a few things, like their instruments and places to live. Since the end of the oil boom they’d relied on music and odd jobs to keep themselves and their families going.
