The other day on the Plaza Saint-Hubert, I walked past a man in a wheelchair. He must have been in his late fifties or sixties. He clearly had some kind of syndrome—not very mentally debilitating, perhaps, but some malady that, probably from birth, had contorted his body and speech, thereby also further limiting his mental abilities. This man looked at once very dignified, adult, and childlike, world-weary and ingenuous, intrepid and severely disabled. He had a bald pate with brown hair on the sides, a brown goatee (that someone no doubt groomed for him), and a stately physiognomy. He actually looked somewhat like a close friend’s father, a man whose bearing and moral qualities I’d always admired—a parallel, handicapped version of my friend’s father.
He was near a street corner, holding a metal cup out for money. I walked past him a bit, the impression registered, I stopped, backtracked, and gave him a dollar. He tried to say thank you, but I was surprised to hear that what came out was a guttural, twisted, almost unintelligible attempt at a thank you. This man looked so earnest, compassionate, jocund—in some ways his expression was almost like that of a faithful dog, or of a young boy—but also infinitely world-weary and put-upon, with some kind of access to the nature of suffering beyond that of the countless masses. I felt the urge to hug him and keep him regular companionship.
Today, I was walking back to my apartment and this man passed along, rolling down the street slowly in his electric wheelchair. A few moments after I passed him, I began to cry, and then weep uncontrollably, but silently. I felt as if I were weeping not just for him but for the infinite sorrows of the material world. I felt as if I wanted to embrace all beings in compassion… This feeling, of course, passed after some moments.
∆ Appeared in Hirschworth Magazine
& The Real Us (under the title A Moment Of Transcendent Compassion)
My god, Bourbon Street sounds crazy as we approach from the curb! It hits me as I round the corner. All of it. Shoes scuffling pavement, laughter and cries high pitched and shrill or deep and throaty resonant abrupt, all manner of chit-chat accents and dialects, angry words, drunken screams, howls, accusations, trash plastics and paper crunching underfoot like cinder, “Show your tits, show your tits,” chanted over and over by an enraptured crowd— all of it, here, coming closer, blending into enveloping raucous, a typhoon of discord. And as we draw even closer… smells, carried on sun-warmed air, smells of body odor and sweat, all types of perfumes colognes deodorants cosmetics, alcohol and beer, mixed drink sickly sweetness, grilling meat, and more, more, something more, a stench rising from the ground, and all of it— mixing together, frenetic, dissonant, an overwhelming cloud, a living organism, an amusement park of sounds and smells. And we’re not even close! “Show your tits! Show your tits!”
Long stretch of narrow street, but I can barely see anything, not the street, not the buildings. Just the crowd. The crowd teeming and swaying like blades of grass. A mix of every race creed religion sexual orientation, pushing heaving maneuvering jumping and shoving, but— the individuals, they meld together, disappear. The Crowd. From here, from a block away, there’s only the Crowd.
And the buildings, the buildings, like cardboard cut-outs— I see them now— a potpourri of shops stands saloons bars nightclubs jazz clubs strip joints. Like a two-dimensional Hollywood set. Glitz, kitsch, and sparkle. Greens purples yellows, squash and pumpkin-colored brick, reds auburns, deteriorating whites, stuccos, all glowing in the sun, and trimmed with gold, bright yellow, silver, and track lighting, lanterns, sconces (lit even in day), fluorescent and neon signs, railings banisters doors covered in splotches of paint, posters flags and banners, falling confetti, streamers, and beads…
A shower of beads. Prismatic spray. Thrown by people atop the balconies. Ornate metal balconies, green and calcified, relics of Old Orleans— draped in metallic streamers (gold silver violet emerald and purple), intertwining, and dangling in clumps— and decorated with banners, white and yellow banners bearing logos… B & A Bolt Supply, Inc. Lafayette. Freeport, TX. Baytown, Texas… 104.1 FM. Your Jazz Source… Dustin Francis Unlimited… Hanging masks, faces of jesters, and harlequins. (The people on the balconies, my friend James tells me, are mostly from corporations; their companies rent the second and third floors of clubs and cafes.) “…show your tits… show your tits…” Interplay between the balconies and the crowd. Beads drop in a haze of sparkles. Some dangle in long strings, just high enough, out of reach. Expose your breasts, gets beads, it’s that easy, I guess. But what do men do? White torsos appear with rhythmic regularity. People reaching upward, straining, following the beads’ paths to the ground, ducking, submerging themselves, the risk of being stepped on, or worse, trampled…
And above it all, above the crowd, this seething teeming mass— above it all are street lamps, wooden posts, street signs sticking out like colored swords or umbrellas in a cocktail. Orleans… Bourbon… St. Peter written in white lettering on black background… Oriental Isle, TO GO, Hand Grenades, Exotic Drinks, Newspapers, Cigarettes… Watson Bourbon, Dedicated to the Preservation of Jazz… Fire Lane, No Parking… One Way, Do Not Enter… Krazy Korner…
Almost there.
I take a breath… and step into the Crowd…
Tumult. Momentary loss of personality. Everyone hypnotized, doing things beyond their will. Release of instinct, impulse. And the heat! A catalyst. Muggy warmth. Outside it’s cool, a cool day, but here, inside, it’s like the tropics. And that stench! The ground rising up, mingling with cosmetics and sweat, putrid rancid and pungent, like carrion. Charred black, littered with fluids and every piece of trash imaginable. Everyone too drunk or drugged to care. A strange land of strange natives, chanting and writhing, gold raining down from the sky, the boon of some Aztec god. I’m packed tightly, around me people jostling shoving people reaching for beads, throwing beads, spilling beer and spraying sweat. I’m sweating too. It’s kill or be killed. Darwin in effect. A girl trips and falls, clings to my shirt, whispers something unintelligible and pushes off into the crowd. A wave pool without a life preserver— or the Caribbean during a gale. If I didn’t have a strong stomach, I’d be seasick. Beads rain on my head, but I’m too slow. Too slow. Someone almost hits me trying to grab them. I kneel down, look around, but some thirteen-year-old’s swiped them already. Hundreds of legs pounding around me like pistons. Jesus. I spring up quickly. A chain of camera flashes…
A girl throwing her shirt off. And everywhere I look, naked torsos. Men crowding around, like a school of sharks circling, taking snapshot after snapshot. The timing has to be just right— when the hemline rises above the stomach— and then click, flash, a stranger’s breasts captured for eternity. Some men pull their pants down for the right price… I see a woman tan as a leather suitcase. Guys decked out like pimps, and guys in business suits. Hippie girls with flower dresses. Muscle-men. Bulging biceps. A white sign reading Huge Ass Beers in blue letters. Next to it, a guy in Wisconsin Football poncho, stupid grin on his face. A black man in tuxedo. Signs. Posters. Rows and rows of nudie pics (advertisements for strip clubs)— women in red robes, leather fur satin lace, coquettish positions— bordered by blinking lights… Maiden Voyage… Hobgoblin Ale… Perch Balcony, Look Upstairs. Great view of Bourbon Street… Michelob… Everyone is welcome, but this is a straight bar… Budweisers… Bud Light… yellow neon sign shaped like an alligator… Party Like It’s 1999… One attractive woman atop a balcony especially popular with the crowd, showing her breasts over and over, hundreds of beads around her neck. A bald guy in jean jacket bending over the railing for a better look. James behind me somewhere, but I can’t see him… A guy running by, chanting Indian war-whoop, parting the crowd, a camera swinging from his shoulder; a mass of muscle and sinew, and he’s dressed in a Minotaur suit. A Minotaur suit! Fantastic outfit. Terrible mask of real fur, complete with ivory horns, and leather loin cloth, Viking boots— skin even glued with patches of fur. Old man next to me in tweed suit propositioning a young girl to show her breasts. Latino guy— gelled hair, tinted glasses, feather-boa— sucking on an old woman’s nipple. This I’d like to photograph. Flash. Captured in my cheap camera…
Can’t stand much more of this. I push onward, knocking people aside, James following. Eventually we push through to the other end, the mouth of the crowd, breaking away. Smells and sounds of Bourbon trailing behind us like a foreign cloud. Sweaty and warm, met with cool breeze, shivering, and teeth chattering. I smell like the crowd. Beer, cologne, perfume. And no beads to show for it.
We press on through the French Quarter. It’s more posh here, upscale, and the streets are narrower. Not many people around. Shops white and clean. Bulletproof display cases. Expensive watches, mink coats, bottles of perfume. And the street itself smells vaguely of perfume; a pleasant change from Bourbon. A group of three very old ladies walks by. One stops along the way, bends down, taking a good ten seconds of effort, and picks a pair of cheap beads off the ground.
– From the novel Mardi Gras in the Moment
∆ Appeared in Flaneur No. 3 (ed. Lawrence Levi, NYC)
(a fragment)
Sitting at 7:45 in the morning at a white plastic table at the airport, eating an incongruous meal of Chinese vegetables, tofu, and brown rice purchased at the just-opened Asian kiosk for lack of any less artificial and more nutritional options, drinking a chainstore coffee from a styrofoam and plastic cup undoubtedly leaching cancerous chemicals, Harold Ober randomly glanced up at the dining platform above him— there seemed to be a raised dining area, a fact he’d scarcely noticed in his grogginess— and was struck by the image of a young girl sitting adjacently above him. At first he was completely taken aback, for a moment jarred in time and space, taken back in time-space. For this was someone he hadn’t thought about, someone who’d receded out of his mental space for decades. Lauren Sturges! She sat with an expression of cool repose, a pale, marble face, dark features and jet black hair, gazing nonchalantly at her laptop— which had a sticker on it that read “Alpha Pi is Good.” Her posture, the way she crossed her legs one over the other and dangled her ankles, the way she curved her hips as she sat, with both a cool repose and seemingly ceaseless anticipation, was exactly as— but, of course, it wasn’t her. He hadn’t spoken to Lauren Sturges for decades, and she was his contemporary, about 70 years old. Yet— could the fogginess and fondness of age be deceiving him?— this girl looked exactly, almost exactly as Lauren Sturges had during that— that wonderful, terrible, star-crossed and fatal year. Could it be her daughter— no, it would have to be her granddaughter. The same pale rosy blush on the cheeks over a marble façade, the cheeks a little over-rounded, the vaguest hint of a pleasing pudginess
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