What’s a po’ boy to do?

It occurs to me, halfway through my visit, that I am one trip away from never leaving this mad, crippled, wonderful city, from sending for the wife and kids back in California and resettling here, where we once lived . . . really lived. Man, I love this place.

“Honey, pack up the children and catch the next steamer. I’ll be waiting by the docks.”

I’ve been knocking about this city for two days now. There is crab boil in my right eye, making everything a tad blurry. Crab boil is the elixir they pour into a pot of seafood to give it that wild peppery taste, and if you happen to wipe away the tears of joy you get from cracking open a pound of crawfish, the pepper gets into your eyes and sinuses. It’s a wonderful sensation, akin to having a musket fired next to your cheek. That’s New Orleans. Even when it’s raining, everything’s afire.

“In Buffalo, you have two lakes. . . .” the guy on the bar stool next to me is explaining.

Bill has his own home healthcare business back in Buffalo. He’s in town for a convention, he says. I fear that Bill spits when he talks, but I come to think the roof of this jazz joint might just be leaking a little.

And that’s when it comes to me: Compared with New Orleans, the rest of the world is Buffalo.

Nothing against Buffalo. Never been, though I always suspected I’d like the place. I seem drawn to towns that are shaped by the weather, and Buffalo certainly is that.

But no place in America fights Mother Nature the way New Orleans does. It has been perched on the edge of oblivion for almost 300 years.

“Honey, start packing. I want to move to a city where people live every day and the chefs are the biggest stars.”

We once had a house in New Orleans. Filled it with children and old furniture. I don’t know what you like about a big city -- charm, beauty, happenstance, a sense of place -- but it’s all here. What was supposed to be a career pit stop turned into a decade-long stay and the most chilling home renovation since the French torched the Bastille.

My fingers are still scarred from sanding eight coats of varnish off a staircase. There’s a gouge in my knee where some baseboard I was removing snapped and nearly shattered my femur. There was more timber in that one board than in the entire L.A. house we now own.

“I’ve got a book signed by Marv Levy,” Buffalo Bill is saying, as he lays out the good life back in New York. Meanwhile, I notice that the bass player in the band we’re listening to appears to be about 17. He also might be the best bass player I’ve ever heard.

Compared with New Orleans, the rest of the world is Branson, Mo.

Sometimes you think this city doesn’t need more aid, it needs more shrinks. Thirty percent of the police force suffered post-traumatic stress after Katrina, and the only remarkable thing about that is that it wasn’t 100%. I was here a week after the 2005 storm, and the things I saw -- the destruction still evident today -- can change the way you think about the capriciousness of life and the kindness of your fellow man.

You’d like to think that America will rise to the occasion, but it hasn’t here. Truckloads of well-meaning college kids arrive each week to help rebuild, and still you think it may take 25 years.

Talk about free love. The college kids swing hammers all day and drink beer and rum all night. You wonder how New Orleans, where even the tiniest homes have the craftsmanship of palaces, can ever get its mojo back.

“Honey, I found a nice Neoclassical Revival house across the river from the Quarter. Termites in the sills and catfish in the attic. But you should see the crown molding and the plaster rosettes. Don’t forget to pack the liquor.”

She’ll never come back here, my Stella Kowalski. She has been seduced by L.A.’s perfect sea breezes and our relatively functional school district. She doesn’t want to swing any more hammers. I understand. Life’s hard enough without having to swing hammers.

But there are a thousand rich aromas in this city by the river, a million little textures. The weekend I’m here, 100 clubs are offering live music. Sunday morning, there are wads of cash -- like little bribes -- in all my jeans pockets, from where I stashed my drink change.

And then there are the people. Like no other people. Like no one you could ever write.

“Roast beef po’ boy,” I tell the waitress at a little cafe.

“I’ve had a tragedy today,” she says, not looking up from her ticket.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“My cockatiel . . . he escaped,” she says, eyes brimming.

“Oh?”

“His name was Rick James,” she says.

Compared with New Orleans, the rest of the world is half asleep.

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Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com. For more columns, see latimes.com/erskine.