64
Mr Beige (frustrated): I don’t think you
understand. We did you a favour, now
you do us one. We want to have some
fun with you. In bed.
Me: Oh! I see! Um, really no thanks.
Sorry. Bye.
Did I flee? No. I stayed put. Well
- it was free accommodation. But over
the weeks that followed (four all in all)
I never really relaxed. I was unsettled,
sleepless, on my guard. I kept a wary
distance from all nice young couples
and from the tourists on Bourbon
street and scuffling along the streets
of the French Quarter, bonded with the
natives, with priestesses, warlocks,
clairvoyants, crack heads, tarot heads,
piss heads; teenage vampires with
screw-in ceramic fangs; the rejected, the
reincarnated and reinvented lost souls
of New Orleans.
My first discovery was that it’s
very bad form in the Quarter to go by
You’re no-one in the French Quarter without
your given name. Dorothy the barmaid
was Chandrika, Ben from Dakota was
a super-power. My next friend, John T,
Wolf. I spent most evenings with a
lost-looking Goth called Sartori, (real
had a normal name but he wasn’t normal
name Roger) and we drank until our
heads flopped to one side. “I’m a re-
at all. He was a warlock, and his special
incarnation of Aleister Crowley” Sartori
said, repeatedly. “But my powers are far
stronger than his.”
ability was appearing in people’s dreams.
You’re no one in the French Quarter
without a super-power. My next friend,
John T, had a normal name but he
wasn’t normal at all. He was a warlock,
and his special ability was appearing
in people’s dreams. “Would you like to
meet my best friend?” said John over
hot chocolate and beignets in the Cafe
du Monde. Ok, I said. So I followed him
past the pink and yellow houses with
their French shutters and wrought iron
balconies, to the Voodoo museum on
Decatur street - all taxidermy, tinsel
and tributes to the great high priestess,
Marie Laveau.
“Eugene?” John called out.
“Eugene?” He stuck is head around
a half-open door. “Eugene?” A large
white bath glowed out of the gloom.
Was Eugene asleep in the bath?
avantoure
|
school of trickery