A Night in the Big Easy - New Orleans
According to local folklore, if you drink the water of the Mississippi whilst staying in New Orleans, you’re destined to return to the city. It’s difficult to avoid; all Louisianian water is sourced from the river. It’s also difficult to imagine not returning.
We arrived late and weary from a long flight but, keen to get stuck into The Big Easy, we grabbed a map from reception and walked straight to the French Quarter. Bourbon Street reminded me of Soho or Montmartre; neon lights, sex shows, cheap shops selling questionable lingerie. I blinked, and the tell-tale differences became apparent. Horses trotted past carrying cargos of tourists, and the smell of oysters fried in hot oil drifted over us. Forgotten Mardi Gras beads, stained black by the traffic, swung from the overhead telephone wires. This was the New Orleans I’d been expecting.
Photo by Andy Clarke
We ate lunch on a balcony looking down over Bourbon Street, and poured over leaflets advertising ghost walks, swamp trips, cemetery tours, voodoo museums and vampire talks. Once we’d eaten, Leo and I nipped to the loo, only to find a massive cockroach sitting gaily in the ladies. It was time for a drink. We went to a cheap-looking bar and drank a local cocktail called a Hand Grenade, a lurid green-yellow slushy laced with a deadly amount of spirits.
Photo by Wally Gobetz
The weather broke and New Orleans was caught in a torrential downpour. We spirited away to the liveliest looking bar. A slim girl had a washboard strapped to her chest and she jived and bounced to the rhythm of her band-mates. I dashed out into the rain for a walk. After a few minutes, I found a Voodoo shop called Marie Laveau’s. It smelt of sweet incense and rainwater. There were two alters, each crammed with dust-covered offerings: foreign coins and notes, postcards, ticket stubs, rings, bracelets, beads, matches, amulets, trinkets, small toys, playing cards, herbs, incense, voodoo dolls, Mardi Gras beads... hundreds of random objects from hundreds of tourists’ pockets. I had nothing on me, apart from my wallet, and I didn’t much fancy leaving a $50 traveller’s check for the hell of it. I unhooked one of the numerous silver rings in my ears and left one behind. A little piece of me, perched forever on an altar in New Orleans.
When I got back to the bar, the group had made amends. Leo suggested we went on one of the pony-and-trap rides. As we trotted merrily along, our driver pointed out everything of interest through the thick sheet of rain, from the oldest restaurant in New Orleans to the famous vampire tavern, the House of the Rising Sun to an alleyway in which Interview with a Vampire was filmed. We passed a restaurant with a candlelit table permanently reserved for their resident ghost, Brad and Angelina’s mansion, a perfumery which concocts an original scent for each customer, the voodoo museum and the Louis Armstrong park.
After the mule tour we headed to a few more bars for a few more drinks. Keat and I hovered outside a live jazz bar. Eventually, I put our drinks down and we danced in the street. You can get away with that sort of merrymaking in New Orleans. Too taken by the music, we went inside. I drank red wine and spilt ink over my fingers.
The next morning, I awoke in my bunk. It took me a few seconds to work out where I was. I felt my left ear lobe - the hard little pip of skin used to accommodating a small silver hoop - and the night flooded back. My friends were already up, packing, ready to begin the drive to Austin. Leaving New Orleans didn’t seem so bad, because I knew I’d be back. And besides, I’d left a sliver of me there anyway.
- Alice Slater
