I thought it only appropriate after the recent holiday that someone should write a Mardi Gras-themed story. So I did.
“Madness!” I exclaimed to one side of the crowded street. Thoth was ending. The last few floats were trickling away down the street just like the viscous, sugary cocktail, thrown by the belligerent mother a few yards up the route. It had been just Jeff, Kyle, and myself nursing twin twenty-four packs since eleven that morning. We were standing at the front of the crowd at the corner of Gen. Taylor and St. Charles.
My neck was already heavy with beads as I waited for Bacchus to approach. I peered up St. Charles for a sign of the eternal pleasure seeker himself but saw only drunks in the foreground and blurry horizon in the background. A group of girls in matching spandex took the opportunity to walk down the middle of the street, whooping and hollering, slurping daiquiris and drawing attention to themselves. I didn’t blame them. Carnival is about having as much fun as one can before an extended period of frugality, is it not? Perhaps to some, but something told me those girls would be drunk on the street next week as well. Although, maybe they’d wait till a little later in the day.
I had spent all day watching the sun move across the sky. It was finally starting to set. There was a large, leafless tree to my left on the very corner of the street. The sun had taken refuge behind it, throwing an ambient glow of orange evening among the parade patrons.
“Beer me, Blazer!” Jeff roared over the ever-present buzz and chatter. The soft cooler was cradled between my feet. I knelt to extract a brew from beneath the ice. The cold stung my fingertips; a good sign. In my opinion, the best beer is as close to freezing as it can get without exploding. I handed the red and white can to Jeff. “We should’ve gotten Pabst,” he said.
I rolled my eyes, “Man, fuck that. Don’t jump on that bandwagon. Budweiser is king for a reason.” Jeff pondered this for a moment longer than seemed necessary, then gave me a drunken flash of his eyes, as if to say, good point.
I was not on his level, which made me think more beer was in order. After all, I had felt the sting of the ice in the cooler, which convinced me that I was not nearly as inebriated as was necessary for an event sponsored by an organization called the Krewe of Bacchus. I reached into the beer cooler and felt around. There were still too many to get an exact count, which was good. I estimated that we were about a quarter of the way through the second case. Only, about, five of those had been given away. We made it a point to gift one to every recognizable person that happened to cross our path.
I cracked a wet can and downed half of it. As I recovered from my brain freeze, Kyle put what appeared to be a brown cigarette right in front of my eyes. It was a curious little object, oddly recognizable, yet completely foreign at the same time. “What the fuck is that?” I inquired.
“A joint,” he looked at me with disappointment. He wanted me to be more excited. “What the hell does it look like?”
“Why is it brown?” I asked. Neither of us cared that there were people around.
A smile crossed his lips and he raised his eyebrows. Then, with the passion of a gospel televangelist, he said, “My good sir, the paper is unbleached! And as you see, it’s been engineered with a criss-cross watermark pattern to ensure even burning!”
He held the object even closer to my eyes and, sure enough, I saw the lines. “Well in that case,” I replied.
Kyle put the joint in his lips. Our heads turned up the route simultaneously. Two of NOPD’s finest were standing about twenty yards away, hands in their pockets, waiting for some combative college guys to provoke a group of thirty-somethings. Or so I thought. What else would a cop need to do at a parade?
Jeff lit a cigarette. His first puff dissipated a few feet above our heads and was carried towards Lee’s Circle. Perfect. The wind was with us, and there would be plenty of time before the surrounding drunks got wise to where the ganja scent was emanating from. Jeff passed his souvenir lighter to Kyle; a red zippo with the Bourbon Street sign engraved into the painted metal. He struck the flame to life and crossed his eyes to see the tip of the joint protruding in front of his face.
Just then, there was a scream. All three of us looked up to see a spectacle in progress. It appeared that the spandex-clad girls had returned with male companions, and had planted themselves right across from us. Everyone was watching them now. Kyle took the opportunity to put the still-burning flame to the joint and drew in a deep pull. Almost immediately, his shoulders started to hang just a little lower. “It’s good shit,” was all he could manage before a cough escaped from deep within his chest.
A girl in pink and purple spandex was now in the middle of the street, stretching dramatically, as if in preparation for a track and field event. Ten feet away stood a young man with his back to her, wearing a black denim jacket and jeans. His sneakers were trashed beyond recognition. They may have been adidas. Their companions on the curb were jeering and pumping their fists, provoking the stretching girl. “I bet she can’t do it!” said a brunette that may or may not have been her twin.
At that point, I felt a tap on the shoulder. Kyle was staring at me. His eyes flickered downwards, trying to pass me the joint low so no one could see. I took the hand-off and wedged the joint between my lips at the corner of my mouth, cheefing on it hands-free to draw as little attention as possible to the burning object.
It didn’t matter. Spandex-Girl had now drawn the attention of the police. They were watching her actions with disapproving looks, perhaps wondering if their presence would be required. Just then, Spandex-Girl sprinted forward and jumped on the back of the boy with the black jacket. He toppled over onto the pavement, face first.
“You were supposed to jump over him not on him!” said another one of the girls on the curb. The police officers rushed over and peeled Spandex-Girl off of the poor lad underneath her. I passed the joint low to Jeff and got goosebumps, partially from the rush of THC and partially in anticipation of what this guy’s face was going to look like.
The police were helping him up. As he turned to face our side of the street, I was amazed to see that he was perfectly intact, sans any blood or abrasions. Kyle began nudging me again already, and this time I was able to take the joint from him without even looking down. “Are you ok, son?” the cop said to the boy. I took the opportunity to puff a little while both officers were turned away.
The boy seemed a little confused and embarrassed, but mostly unharmed. He touched his face. “Yeah, I think I’m perfectly fine, actually,” he said in a distant voice. I passed the waning weed to Jeff in the same fashion as Kyle had handed it to me. He took one final drag, then put it out on his thumb nail and pocketed the roach.
“Do you smell that?” said the taller of the two officers. He turned to look at something that was immediately behind me. I froze.
“Smell what?” retorted the other officer. He looked around as if expecting to see the smell.
The tall one sniffed the air for a moment. Then he cocked his head to one side and seemed to give up searching for the source of the scent. “Nevermind, I guess I’m just antsy for something to do.” He returned his attention to Spandex-Girl and her cronies. “You all need to simmer down. The parade is coming.” He pointed up the route. I followed the gesture with my eyes and saw the beginning of Bacchus a mere fifty yards away.
“Yes, sir,” said the boy with the indestructible face. “Sorry, sir.” The cops retreated to our side of the street and moved along the crowd toward the oncoming parade. Everyone watched them. A few moments later the flambeaux were passing us, their torches illuminating the darkening passage way between the spectators. Bacchus, the eternal pleasure seeker, was with us.
