Vieux Carré Voodoo (3 page)

I’m not going to talk about Katrina and the aftermath. I
lived it, and I don’t want to relive it, thank you very much. If you didn’t see
me on CNN being interviewed by Anderson Cooper, I’m sure it’s on the Internet
somewhere.

Okay, maybe I’m still a
little
bitter about the
Katrina thing. You would be, too.

But when Katrina was out in the gulf, and the entire city
was engulfed in panic, I decided to try to talk to the Goddess for the first
time since Mardi Gras. I got out my cards and gave it a try. But apparently She
wasn’t happy that I’d turned my back on Her, because no matter what I did, the
gift was gone.

In a way, it was also kind of a relief. Being able to see
the possibilities the future holds might seem like a really cool thing, but it
actually isn’t. It’s a lot of responsibility, and people look at you funny when
you try to convince them you’ve spoken to the Goddess.

It’s funny how fast time goes by when you get older.
Granted, it wasn’t like I had a foot in the grave or anything, but time just
seemed to start slipping through my hands. After the floodwaters receded, we
just took life one day at a time and did what needed to be done. We didn’t sit
around and mope. We didn’t mourn for what was lost. Instead, we girded our loins
and did what was needed to bring the city back to life. Rome wasn’t built in a
day, and New Orleans wouldn’t be rebuilt in one, either. My parents, Frank, and
I did a lot of volunteer work after they finally managed to pump all the water
out of the city—gutting and rebuilding houses, driving around the devastated
parts of the city handing out supplies to people working on houses in areas
without water and power. And slowly but surely the grand old lady known as New
Orleans began coming back to life again.

She’s not what she once was, but she’s still one hell of a
great city.

It’s going to take a hell of a lot more than a flood and
federal incompetence to wipe us off the map.

And by the way, all you haters who thought the city should
be abandoned? Fuck you, and don’t think you are ever welcome to come here and
enjoy our special magic.

And remember that Mardi Gras you didn’t think we should have
that next year? It was the best one
ever
. Ninety percent of our city
might have been in ruins, but New Orleans could still throw a better party than
any other city in North America.

No flood could ever kill our spirit.

Like I said, I guess I’m still a little bitter. You would
be, too.

But even as I was gutting houses and pulling up linoleum in
wrecked houses, my mind would sometimes go back to Colin. It seemed like he was
alway
s in the back of my mind. Despite everything I knew to be true about
him, I still had feelings for him. You don’t just stop loving someone, no matter
how much they’ve hurt you. There were just so
many
unanswered questions. We hadn’t gotten
closure
, and I didn’t think we
ever would. Whenever I was out dancing, or in a crowd, I’d find myself looking
through the crowd, scanning their faces, and then would realize what I was doing
was looking for him. I just couldn’t believe we were never going to see him
again.

I missed him.

I couldn’t help feeling, even though my gift was gone, that
there was unfinished business there, and that he’d turn up again one day when we
least expected it.

“Earth to Scotty, come in, Scotty,” David said, bringing me
back out of my mental time travel. “Are you there?”

I just laughed and helped him put the weights away.

“Easter’s this weekend,” David said as we moved over to the
preacher curl machine. “Come on out for Tea Dance. It’ll be fun—you’ll see.
It’ll get you out of this funk you’ve been in ever since Frank left.”

“Yeah,” I replied as he started his set. He was right, I
knew. Frank wouldn’t want me to sit around the house and mope. Besides, Mom and
Dad were making me ride in their float in the Gay Easter Parade. Mom and Dad own
a tobacco shop at the corner of Royal and Dumaine called the Devil’s Weed. Mom
and Dad were far left liberals, and probably the best, most accepting parents a
gay man could wish for. “Maybe. I have to ride in the Easter Parade, so maybe…”

“You’re turning into a hermit,” David said when he finished
his set. “You
need
to get out of the house.”

“But what if Frank calls? I’d hate to miss him,” I replied
stubbornly.

“You are
whipped,
Scotty,” he teased me. “Meet me out this weekend. What’s it going to hurt?
Have a few beers, smoke a joint, dance a little—you owe it to everyone in New
Orleans to show off that body again.” He winked. “It’s been a long time since
your adoring public has seen you shirtless.”

“Fat Tuesday wasn’t that long ago,” I replied.

“A month and a half is an eternity in gay years.”

I laughed. “Well—”

“You need to go out and get in trouble, is what you need.”

I made a face. “No, I’ve had enough of trouble, thank you
very much.” I shook my head. “I’ve had enough trouble to last me a lifetime.”

“True dat.” David rolled his eyes. “I don’t miss having my
car totaled, or my house shot up, or my nose broken, or—”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

After we finished our workout, I went home and looked at the
calendar. Another two more weeks before Frank came home.

He wouldn’t want you to sit around the house and mope.

I lit a joint and decided that I would go out and have some
fun on Easter. David was right—what would it hurt? Frank was having a good time
up in Ohio, doing something he wanted to do.

But I’m quite sure if Frank had known the kind of trouble I
was going to get into while he was gone—he’d have never bought that damned plane
ticket.

EIGHT OF SWORDS

New beginnings are possible.

One of the rules of walking in the French Quarter when the
weather’s warm is always look up when you walk underneath a balcony, or you’ll
be sorry.

You’d think having lived in the Quarter all of my life,
looking up would be second nature for me by now. But I was lost in thought as I
hurried up Governor Nicholls Street. I was really missing Frank and wishing he
were here instead of in Ohio. I was on my way to ride on my parents’ float in
the Gay Easter Parade, and it felt really strange to be doing it without Frank.
I was debating myself as to whether my relationship had descended into an
unhealthy level of codependency. I was paying absolutely no attention to my
surroundings, other than making sure I wasn’t about to walk into a support post
for a balcony. I had just decided there was nothing neurotic in missing your
boyfriend, and that I should just relax and enjoy myself. It was a beautiful
spring day, after all, and riding in a parade was always fun. I took a deep
breath, cleared my head of all negativity, and started walking faster so I
wouldn’t be late.

And that was when I was completely drenched by a cascade of
cold water from above.

My reaction was reflexive and instinctive.
“Fuck!”
I screamed at the top of my lungs, which got me a really nasty look from the
couple pushing a stroller across the street. I sighed, gave them an apologetic
shrug, and their disapproving frowns turned into slight smiles at my expense.

I was soaked. Water was running down my back and chest,
dripping out of my hair, and to my horror, I realized the white bikini my mother
had so thoughtfully provided for me to wear in the parade apparently became
see-through when wet. I immediately dropped my hands to cover my crotch as my
eyes darted back and forth, looking for other pedestrians. The couple with the
stroller shook their heads, gave each other a look, and started pushing the
stroller a lot faster.

Obviously, they were tourists.

I shivered. The cool damp breeze coming from the river was
much colder on wet skin. I
knew
I should’ve worn sweats over the costume.

“Scotty? Is that you? Oh, dear, I’m so sorry!” a familiar
voice said from above me. There was apologetic concern tempered by a slight bit
of amusement in the tone.

I looked up and my initial irritation faded away to
embarrassment. “Oh, it’s okay, Doc,” I called up to the bald older man peering
down at me through gold-rimmed spectacles. “I wasn’t looking, like an idiot.” I
sluiced water off my arms and shook my head from side to side. Droplets of water
flew away from my hair.

“Well, come in and let me give you a towel.” He shook his
head. “I’ll buzz you in.” His head vanished for a moment before reappearing
almost instantly. “And you can explain to me what you’re
doing
in that
ridiculous
get-up.” His face broke into a wide grin, and I couldn’t
help but laugh as I dashed over to the metal gate at the side of the building in
time to open it when the buzzer sounded.

Dr. Benjamin Garrett was a friend of my parents. He’d taught
them both when they’d attended the University of New Orleans. He had been a full
professor in both history and political science, and my mother frequently
credited him for “opening her eyes to all the injustice in the world.” We all
called him Doc—well, when we were young we’d called him “Uncle Doc” until he
asked us to drop the “uncle” because he said it made him sound like a relative
of the former dictators of Haiti. He loved to debate politics with my parents
into the wee hours of the morning over bourbon, his eyes twinkling as he
deliberately took an opposing viewpoint to wind my mother up. I’d always liked
Doc. He was fiercely intelligent, a bit of a curmudgeon, and one of the funniest
people I knew.

No matter the situation, he always managed to have the
absolutely perfect, droll thing to say on his lips. He was the epitome of the
old-style Southern gentleman, and he was always dressed stylishly and
appropriately. In the summer, he wore seersucker suits, bow ties, and Panama
hats. After Labor Day he switched to navy blue suits and dark red ties. He liked
his bourbon and cigars, and he always seemed to have a mischievous twinkle in
his blue eyes. He walked with a cane now that he was older, and had been
completely bald for as long as I could remember.

I paused long enough to take a look at myself in the plate
glass window of the candle shop on the first floor of Doc’s building. I’d been
working hard at the gym since Frank left. Now that I was in my thirties, my body
seemed determined to develop love handles. Frank said he didn’t mind them, but I
did. My goal was to be as lean as I’d been when we first met by the time he came
home, and I was making progress. The wet white bikini was unforgiving, but I
didn’t see any pesky fat hanging over the sides. I winked at myself and dashed
down the dark passageway alongside the building until I reached the back stairs.
Another blast of wind brought up goose bumps on my skin as I climbed the stairs.
Doc was standing in the door to his apartment holding a huge fluffy white towel,
which he handed to me. One of his gray eyebrows went up as he peered at me over
his round gold spectacles.

“It’s for the Gay Easter Parade,” I explained as I toweled
my hair and wrapped the towel around my waist. “I’m riding on the Devil’s Weed
float.”

“And your mother decided you should dress up as a gay Easter
Bunny.” He nodded as he stepped aside to let me in. “And to her, that means a
white bikini with a cottontail and rabbit ears.” His eyes twinkled. “Now slip
off that bikini—I’ll throw it in my dryer for a few minutes.”

Frank had laughed out loud when my mother first broached the
idea to us a few weeks ago. It didn’t bother me—when you’ve danced on bars for
years in a thong you don’t really have many inhibitions left about public
displays of skin—but Frank had resisted. No matter how many times I tell him
resistance is futile with Mom, he never listens. Mom suspected his decision to
train as a pro wrestler was rather conveniently timed to get him out of bunny
duty on the float.

She might not be far wrong, at that.

I slid the bikini off and handed it over. The towel was warm
and felt good against my skin. “Frank was going to do it, too, but then, you
know, the training school thing came up,” I added as I took a seat in the room
just beyond the back door.

“I have to say, I admire your Frank for taking the chance.”
Doc took the bikini and walked through the door on the other side of the room. I
heard the sound of the dryer being started. “That took some courage,” he said as
he came back into the room. “Would you like a drink?” he asked as he walked over
to the bar. Despite the fact that he was home alone, he was impeccably dressed
in a white shirt and a pair of blue slacks that matched the vest straining to
stay buttoned over his stomach. He poured himself two fingers of bourbon. After
I declined his offer, he sat down in a wingback chair and propped his feet up on
a hassock. “One should always reach for the brass rings in life, you know.”

Doc was always encouraging people to grab for brass rings.
He gave me a lascivious look and winked. “And I should think your Frank would
look marvelous in those little tights they wear.”

“He does,” I admitted. A few days earlier, Frank had
e-mailed me a photo of him in his ring attire—white leather boots to the knee
that laced up the front, white knee and elbow pads, and the trunks were electric
blue with a silver lightning bolt across the crotch. He’d been standing in a
corner of the ring, his left foot up on the bottom rope, every muscle in his
body flexed and tightened, glistening in the light.

I’d really missed him at that moment.

Doc gestured at me with his glass. “You miss him, don’t
you?” He gave me a little smile. “I can see that you do…don’t worry, Scotty,
he’ll be home sooner than you realize.”

I opened my mouth to reply but his phone started ringing.
“Tut, tut.” He hoisted himself out of his chair. “I should get that. Though I
can’t imagine who’d been calling me on Easter Sunday.” I knew he had a sister
who lived up in Vicksburg, but they weren’t particularly close. Doc was a
confirmed bachelor, a polite Southern euphemism usually substituted for “gay”
among the older, more genteel generations. I’d never seen any evidence he was
actually gay. Sure, every once in a great while he’d say something that
could
be interpreted that way—his remark about Frank looking good in the tights,
for example—but as far as I knew, he’d never had a lover, male or female.