Some Road through the Desert

By Frederick Greenhalgh

A young man, delirious in the desert, goes on a fantastic journey.

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Dog tired. Dehydrated. An eternity in furnace heat, mostly without water.

Still trudging along an unending highway in the painted desert. A blanket of colors engulfs my vision. Black dances with blue and violet and murmurs through a hue of magenta. I try to keep my mind off the color of death.

I've nearly forgotten my name when a late-90s indigo Caravan slows down to the shoulder maybe fifty feet down the road. I don't know if I should believe it.

I've heard of mirages. The California plate reads "CHARON."

I haul myself up and stumble to the car. Looking through tinted glass, I only see a thick silhouette of a middle-aged man.

"Where are you headed?" he says.

"Out of here, man," I say, "I'm trying to get to L.A."

"I'm not going that far."

"Down the road then."

"Very well," he says, "Get in."

I open the rear door to toss in my beaten-up L.L. Bean rucksack and hop into the passenger's side. The driver peels off before he asks me my name. I stumble with my tongue, as if giving him this information is vital.

"I'm David," I say.

"Greetings," he says, eyes on the road, not even taking my hand.

"You saved me, man, I thought I was dogfood. I've been without water for hours."

"In this heat?" he says, almost rhetorically.

I nod, savoring the way the A/C cools my chapped skin.

"You wouldn't happen to have any water, would you?"

"A little," he says, "In the back."

I whisper thanks and turn around. It strikes me how precise this car is, like it belongs either to someone totally anal about tidiness or to someone who never drives it. The seats are bare except for my rucksack, the back deck is empty, and it still smells new. There are two glass jugs of water behind the driver's seat.

"One of these for your radiator?" I ask.

"No, both."

"Oh. Well at least it's water."

"It is."

I pull one of the jugs to the front with me, trying to act like he's not being curt. It actually doesn't faze me. A lot of rides are from folks who're scared stiff. I'm grateful they pick me up, though I don't really know why. Hitching for three months leaves me with the same questions I had when I left. A tall lanky white boy with scraggly long hair, an ambiguous accent, and a sweat-stained, battered backpack. What's there to be scared of?

Whatever. I screw off the lid of the huge water vessel and take a swig.

"Augh!" I cry as I spit the water back out, "It burns!"

The driver shrugs.

"You should've told me!" I say.

"The water is what it is."

"But come on! This doesn't even taste like water."

He doesn't respond. I look back at the jug. God, I'm thirsty. I reluctantly take another sip, and it is just as harsh. I manage to gulp down enough to hold my thirst back a little.

"Well, I guess it's water."

Silence.

"I'm coming from up North. Never seen heat like this."

This elicits maybe a grunt.

"Yeah. Boston, actually. Well, not Boston Boston. A suburb. Actually nearer the Cape. It's nice though, I guess; this time of year they say it's the best weather in the country. Winters suck, though. Real cold."

"I see."

"Yeah. Never saw much other than New York, D.C. a couple of times, the rest of New England. I wanted something different, so I left home."

"Ah, you're a traveler."

"Absolutely. I'm never turning back."

"Have you found what you're looking for?"

The sudden question gives me pause.

"What do you mean?"

"Every traveler has a prize and a destination."

"Well I'm going to L.A., I guess."

"So you have half of it down."

My eyes drift to the sea of toneless dunes.

"I guess so," I say, my tongue sticking to the sandpaper of my still-dry mouth, "I guess, well, I guess I never really thought about it that way."

"Without a goal, the quest has no purpose and the journey is meaningless. Remember that."

"Sure," I say, still perplexed by his audacity, "I'll keep that in mind."

The conversation closes like a lid. I lapse into silence regretfully. The problem with silence is that it's really hard to break afterwards. I stare through the desert's rifts and crevices, trying to collect my thoughts as they whirl like dustdevils through my mind. I'm too drained to concentrate. I resign contemplation for the moment and suddenly long to hear some music. Anything but the quiet drone of the engine and A/C fanblades.

"Can I put on the radio?"

"Why?"

The question gives me pause.

"Well, you know, let's hear some tunes. It makes the time pass faster."

"Ah, that's it."

I scratch my stubbly chin.

"Well can I?"

"Be my guest."

I press the black ridged button in the middle of the bare console. A sizzling fuzz comes from the speakers. I grimace and start tooling with the knob. At one moment I think I catch a distant whisper of talk radio, the word "redemption" and then it's just dull fuzz again. I deliberately sigh and turn it off.

"Nothing out here."

"There's plenty."

"What? Cacti and buzzards?"

He only shrugs now and returns to silence. His crytic statements are starting to rub me the wrong way.

"Seriously, what's out there?"

I start to think he's never going to respond. I'm about to turn to the windshield to stare dazed at vast emptiness when he speaks.

"The desert speaks quietly. It is a mirror to look at."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I ask.

"I've told you enough," he says.

"Fine," I spit and lean against the window. There is a silence between the drone of the engine and the frenzy of my own thoughts. This gibberish is driving me nuts. I close my eyes and red afterimage soaks into the black behind my eyes. Who knows where I'll end up, but fuck it. Maybe I can get some shut-eye.

***

I wake up to the driver nudging me, his palm open.

"Fifty-cent toll."

This abrupt stop doesn't wake me exactly. The next few moments are a brilliant stupor. A dream resonates on my memory, though the images begin to evaporate. I remember walking through the desert, surrounded by pillars of gold, something like El Dorado. I hold a shell in one hand and a coin in the other, and my feet are being tugged as if in the ocean. I hear a wolf cry out, and, in that weird dream way, I guess, the wolf cry turns into wind...

"Well?"

"Yeah, yeah I got quarters," I say.

I rifle around in my pockets, yanking out a pile of crumpled receipts, some crushed dollars, a couple of dimes and nickels, and a scrap of paper with a girl's number on it who told me to call her when I got to California. I finally find the quarters.

"Thanks," he says as I hand them over.

This is one of the strangest tolls I've ever seen. Then again, I'm really in the west now, so a lot of things are strange to me. But there's no teller in the booth; in fact, the whole setup looks like it's been abandoned for a very long time. The bridge is a concrete slab connecting land across this thin but dramatic ravine. I could just imagine this ravine being a moat for a great kingdom, an island of land protected by a drop that'd keep out anyone without wings. Now, it's just this weird old bridge, with a drop slot for the coins and a plastic gate that lifts up as the coins rolled down into a metal bucket. He drives across wordlessly.

Me, I'm entranced by the ravine. I try to see the bottom, but I can't, and I try to wrap my head around the idea. Is there really water here in the desert? How far down is it, then? How deep? Where does it go, and why?

"We're almost there," he says.

This is a huge relief. Though it's not too late for him to pull over and garrote me and throw me in the trunk with the other three bodies, I get some sense I'll make it through this one. I don't like carrying a knife but you need to if you're traveling this country alone. There is madness and violence everywhere. And weirdos, too, from my experience with this guy.

Five, ten, whatever minutes later, he slows down in front of a series of large barn-sized buildings. If we hadn't slowed down, I don't think I'd ever notice them. They blend right into the desert.

"End of the line."

I look around skeptically.

"This is town?"

He just nods, not giving any sign that he'll be going any further.

"Jesus Christ. I can't get out here."

He's silent.

"Right, screw it then. Thank you sir."

I extend my hand for him to shake, but he ignores it. I just get out of the car and reach for the rear door handle as he peels away.

"Hey!" I yell, "HEY!"

Goddamn. He's off in the distance and I'm screaming and waving. I guess I look like a lunatic, but then again I'm losing my mind. I scream my fucking lungs out and kick and curse the earth. But actually, I'm not alone.

"Ayauk!" comes a piercing cry from behind me. I spin, suddenly on the defensive.

An elderly native American, dressed in a Navajo patterned throw, stands twenty feet from me with dust dancing in his path. Something about his presence suggests he could vanish into the desert at will. He carries himself with the presence of an cypress tree and has white locks that could be Spanish Moss. Ageless. I guess I'd say he looks ageless.

"Young man, be calm now, you will disturb the spirits," he says, still moving.

He appraises my awkward ensemble.

"What troubles you?" he asks.

I'm too frustrated to make sense. I manage to spit out "my backpack" "this guy" "drove away" enough times for him to get it.

"Come in," he says, "Have a drink; it'll ease your spirits."

"I don't have a dollar to my name," I say, "That's what I'm talking about."

"Taps flow free to weary travelers. Enter, son."

He leads me to the largest of the series of buildings that look like an abandoned Hollywood Western. Something between Desperado and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Despite the heat, there is an eerie cool to this avenue of empty buildings. We approach the head of this line of buildings, and sure enough, "SALOON" is readable in all but vanished script. My guide reaches towards the saloon doors and is met by a series of barks. A huge dog bounds out of the gates to bark viciously at me. I recoil in fear but my guide silences the dog with a snap of his fingers.

"Cecil, mind our guest."

I hesitate to call this dog a dog, I mean, he's the size of three pretty big dogs. We're talking Cujo here. Even with the native's blessings, the dog's lips peel back a little to bear a row of ivory teeth. The dog's velvet black coat shimmers in the twilight sun. Its monotone growl sounds like an engine. I tiptoe around it and follow the native into the saloon.

Sure enough, it follows the movie set motif. There's a scuffed and stained bar, old fashioned kegs, and a desert mural painted on the ceiling. Card tables populate the area around the raised dance floor. A player piano sits in the corner. I could imagine Butch and Sundance swaggering in at any moment. I take a seat at the empty bar as the Indian man walks around. I eye the bar. Lots of empty musty bottles everywhere, and a beer tap with a faded label. I suddenly remember how thirsty I am. I pry my tongue off my cotton mouth.

"Can I get a glass of water?"

The man smiles.

"Certainly."

He pours a drink from the tarnished brass tap.

I look at the murky liquid inside a clouded glass.

"I'm not sure about that."

"I insist, friend. One never forgets the taste of River Water. It'll take all your cares away."

I guess it doesn't take that much convincing. I take a sip, and everything he says is true. It is the sweetest drink I've ever tasted. While my belly warms, the rest of my body settles into a tranquil chill. It's unlike anything I've ever had before-it's not sweetness like I remember it. Drinking it is like drinking the colors of sunset; first it is amber that deepens into orange, gold and then a fiery red. The next drink burns and then cools, like a blade removed from a furnace. Then it settles into violent lavender, murky blues, and then finally, the last sip is as cool as night in the desert and my mind is just that clear.

"Wow," I say.

The Indian smiles.

"All we have is time, my friend, and time is for telling stories. So tell me yours."

In this state of mind I'd tell him everything, and actually, I start doing just that.

"I grew up disgustingly rich, I had everything. But everything isn't very interesting. I was rich and bored. I drifted through college, not even seeing what college is all about. I had honors and an 'in' on Harvard Law. On my 22^nd birthday I got trashed and puked and when I came out of the bathroom, it just wasn't the same. I saw all my friends, my girlfriend, even, this hottie who was homecoming queen. I told them I was going to be sick again but I ran outside. "I started walking--it was spring then, rain was pouring. I felt like my body was oil and the rain and I didn't mix. I wanted to be absorbed. My whole life, it seemed, was all these dreams I thought I'd never do. Fuck, I'd never even seen the West Coast. I was just about ready then to either hurl myself off Boston Harbor or go back and resign myself to that empty existence. But something different happened. I walked to South Station. I bought a ticket to Memphis and have been on the road ever since."

He took this all in solemnly.

"This place welcomes many a lost traveler."

"I'm not lost."

"True, you're finally somewhere."

Suddenly I remembered what that meant. Not a coin in my pocket.

"Yeah. Fuck. I guess I am."

"Your possessions, my friend. You truly worry about them?"

"Of course I do! I need my sleeping bag, my tent, a change of clothes, food, everything I own-"

"Did you not just say you left that behind you?"

"Yes, yes, but, you see that's different. This is just what I need to survive."

"A lot of something and a little of something are the same thing. I am surprised you do not understand this."

I pondered this a moment.

"I don't get all that Zen bullshit. Now having a Hummer versus a motorcycle, I see the difference there. I see the difference between eating till you puke and living off rice and pasta. But you can't totally live without bread."

"But of course you can. The problem is that you are seeing bread the wrong way. You see possessions as different from you, something you can have dominion over. You do not see that your essence and the world's essence are identical. Do not worry about feeding your body. You must have faith. Faith will feed you."

"I'm not following you."

"That drink you had."

"Yes?"

"How did the drink arrive?"

"You poured it for me."

"Did you search for the drink?"

"No?"

"Yet it arrived nonetheless. That is what I mean."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Of course it does," he says, wearing a smug grin, "Why aren't you thirsty right now?"

I almost say the same thing I did a moment ago. But then I don't. A curiosity crosses my mind.

"I asked for it."

"There you go," he says, and now he is smiling.

"Well?" I ask.

"Well?" he responds.

"Can I have another drink?"

"Absolutely," he says, and turns to pour it from a rusty tap.

He places the glass in front of me with more of the murky liquid.

"To health," he says.

I eagerly guzzle down the second drink, hopeful for the same rush of clarity, but none arrives. The Navajo man looks at me and sighs. He shakes his head.

Then the crowd bursts through the door.

I sit with a wide-jaw as the largest group of characters I've ever seen rushes in like a flash-flood. We have stick-tall queens and rotund Italians and debonair men in black suits and war chiefs and parasol-wielding English royalty. A handful of the most interesting characters in history turn the quiet, barn-smelling bar into a romping speakeasy. Agape, I turn to the Indian bartender who is aflight, serving patrons with fervor and flair. The player-piano is rocketing through the Maple Leaf Rag at one-and-a-half speed. Coupled with the roar of chitchat, it feels as if some outrageous squall has swelled underneath my feet, up and into the room and conquered it, taking me for a ride into some strange and unknown land. My drink is gone and two burly men in red tights are shouldering me, trying to make it to the bar. I squeeze out and run to the door.

I have to fight the crowd to squeeze through the double-doors, at last hurling my body weight into it and careening into the street.

Immediate disorientation.

The vacant street and wide-open desert is now a bustling old west town, with broad black strokes indicating the town's service buildings: BANK, PHARMACY, MARKET. The word "SALOON" now shines like a lantern across the bustling avenue.

Smaller tents with Indian patterns clutter the mall between the row of buildings. In each of the tents are vendors with a myriad of wares for sale, from jewelry to flatbread to bone-carved weapons. A swell of people, of the same exotic mix as the saloon, pass from vendor to vendor and up and down the street.

It is late dusk. Each second that passes seems to verify this reality stronger in my mind. I'm not sure how long I stand here stunned, but I am thrown back into my senses as a carriage rolls through town. Three black horses snort and lumber by, directed by a man in a black tophat and a long black coat.

The guy with the license plate "CHARON."

"Hey!" I yell, "Hey!"

My words don't seem to do much so I run up to the carriage, which isn't moving all that fast. I grab onto the side footstep and spring up, hauling myself to my feet by grabbing the door handle. I shimmy over to the front seat.

"Where the hell is my rucksack, man?"

He ignores me for so long that I ask him the same question twice. He reluctantly turns to look at me.

"You're on a one-way trip. What else do you wish you'd taken with you?"

His question is cryptic and sensible all at the same time. I begin to ask another question, but suddenly can't remember what or why I was going to ask. I don't even know who I am anymore. I slump to a sitting position beside him as he leads the formidable horses.

He decides to give me a tour.

"This is a rather nice place," he says, "You'll be glad you made it. There are artists and writers of all sorts, such as the Watsons and the Bakers."

He indicates a group of white bohemians in a flurry of exotic colors. He goes on to point out more strange groups of people.

"The musicians are mostly locals, and play things like the sitar and smoke the peace pipe. They also employ a large group of dancers, who will take you to bed if you tell them the secrets of the stars. What else? The playwrights, and even lately the movie stars, though there really isn't much place for movies, we don't even have a theater. In fact, we don't have much of anything. There's no day around here, really. So don't bother the bank and the market. They're just there for the tourists' benefits. You've been to the saloon, right? That's the only place to go during this long night."

Strange thing is, I start to accept these things. I make a rather obvious observation.

"It's still dusk."

"For you it is, son. Don't fret it. You won't be up before midnight again."

"But all these people?"

"Mostly newcomers. And the welcoming committee." He smiles. "The night hasn't even begun yet."

A cold feeling overcomes me.

"I think I need to get off."

"Of course!" he laughs, "Of course! How far do you think I was going to take you? I run the same route all night. In I come with new visitors, but never out."

I roll off and hit the ground hard. But not hard enough to keep me from scrambling to my feet and running back towards town. Though the town is a circus, a strange land I doubt I can make sense of, it's better than the desert. The desert's just mirages and long stretches of painted sand. The last purple ray of sun has hit the edge of the dunes. It's gone from twilight to gloaming.

As I barrel into town, an assortment of bizarre faces evaluate me. I nearly rush into a cockeyed Spanish swordfighter. I spin, then leap over a little tent with a young Indian woman selling shells, scattering her goods as I fly past. My momentum throws me against the wall of the bank. I stop a moment to catch my breath, hoping to become invisible, but I'm apparently quite an attraction. A whole swell of people in the tide of the market comes to a halt to stare at me.

What am I going to say?

My chance is stolen by the barking of a dog.

I swing around to see Cecil snarling behind me. He's crouched so he's nearly standing upright. I swing around, turning my back on the crowd.

"Easy now, pup, just chillll."

I guess this means gibberish in dogspeak because he suddenly lunges for me and I roll to my left and start running again, ever to the amusement of the crowd. I tear ass through town, hopping lines of the market tents and slamming against the door of the saloon. As I fly in, I realize the door swings both ways.

Inside, the party's really picked up.

Belly-dancers are on some of the tables and others are lap-dancing the hi-rolling winners. The player piano is at an even more frenzied pace, now playing some out of control jazz tune. The Navajo bartender is moving so fast that he almost seems a blur, a shadow, a ghost. I push through the crowd and force my way to the bar, upsetting a bearded man trying to get with a ballerina. I start shouting for the Navajo man.

He hesitates a moment and I try to get some sort of answer from him.

"What's going on?" I scream to him.

"You still have not learned, have you?" he yells back, "You are still trying to make sense and are not simply being."

That's all he has to offer? In a blur he dashes to my left again, bringing drinks up and down the time-stained bar. The only straight thing I get from him is another drink, and I take it eagerly and start slowly, unsure when I'll be able to get another one.

I'm enjoying the first fluid colors of the River Water even without the initial mind-altering rush. With music joining the exotic taste, reality still seems to twist and turn. I start to lose myself in the reckless jazz, start mumbling "bee-wees" and "doo-wops" to myself. I am somewhere else.

"You're finally feeling it, honey, good."

I glance over, disoriented and self conscious. It's the ballerina. Apparently I disrupted the attempts of the dwarf-man earlier. She edges closer to me.

"What's that?" I say.

She smiles, a broad, toothy smile. She has ruby lipstick and a matching leotard. Glitter brings out her round smile and broad bust. She has her hair up in a bun behind two cat ears.

"You're feeling it baby, all through you. You've got the music. You've got the groove. I was worrying about you, seeing you run right out that door like a scared mouse earlier. Tisk tisk. But ohhh yeah you got it now, and momma loves to see it."

Now I really don't know what to make of this, save to indulge. I nod to her, slowly, because I'm inarticulate. I start to dance a little to the jazz. She slinks over and matches my ill-matched steps. I kill my drink and then we take off together.

Going not by notions or rules so much as intuition, guided by the music, I start to jiggle and twist across to the dance floor of the speakeasy. She's right behind me the whole time, getting more into it the crazier I get.

I let out a catcall and she lets out a purr. We spin around and stare into one another's eyes. There is no place for words anymore. The only way we can speak is this confused, intoxicated motion. I start to connect with the universe, imploding in upon itself and then blowing out, only to connect again, swirl around, and continue its path of rebirth in chaos.

"Ohhh yeah," she whispers in my ear, licking gently as her lips part away.

This is too much to take. I burrow into her, grab her, pull her tight to me, start to spin around with her grinding against me. She recoils suddenly, grabs at my back and digs in with savage claws. I lose my footing, sprawl sideways, roll onto a table of card sharks and then slide, spilling drinks and the cards fly like a scattered group of pigeons. I slam against the floor and do my best recovery, which is slow and graceless.

"Mannie! Maneeeee!" the ballerina cries, and another huge form appears in front of me. This guy is almost an ape, all hair and muscle, black slacks and tight white shirt.

"What seems to be the problem?" he asks.

"Ohhh Mannie it was tragic," she cries, "He, I almost thought he had it but then he? oh, he got, he got so rancid!"

"Poor form," he snarls, then appraises me. "You lookin' for a beating?"

"Me?" I yelp. "No no no, course not."

"Well that stinks," he says, "Because you're sure as hell gettin' one."

I scramble back but whoever is behind me shoves me forward and Mannie snatches me around the throat and hoists me up and I'm left staring into his way-less-than-pleased eyes. I grit my teeth, ready for impact.

Thank God, it never comes. The Navajo man sticks an arm between us and Mannie promptly drops me to the ground.

"Back off, M, he's new. I have great hopes for him, he just hasn't let go yet. He's still attached to what he thinks he knows."

Mannie steps down.

"I guess that's why you're still here, pal, huh?" he laughs. "Get him another drink! Let the night roll on!"

"I think I've had enough" I spurt out and head for the door.

With night firmly set in, the personality of the street has changed yet again. A line for the saloon runs along the mall. Most of the vendors have wrapped up their goods to head home or to stand in line with the hundreds in front of the saloon. As I stagger out, I notice that the bouncer is actually the dwarf who was with the ballerina earlier. We exchange awkward looks before he calls out

"NEXT!"

I wander towards the remaining vendors and glance at what goods they have with an aloof eye. The jewelry and pottery is well-crafted and attractive, but it's nothing I want to burden myself with. Actually, I begin to notice that physical goods in general can hardly hold my interest. I only stop when I see a young woman with braided black hair and a sea-blue dress. She's the one selling shells, the one I nearly trampled earlier. I figure this is as good a conversation starter as any.

"Sorry about that," I say.

She continues to look down.

"Running past you," I continue, "I must have upset your whole booth."

"Oh," she whispers, at last, "I guess I didn't notice."

She's still not looking up, so I crouch down.

"These are very beautiful," I say, picking up a shell, "Where did you get them?"

"I found them," she says.

"In the desert?"

She giggles, and finally looks up.

"Silly."

"What do you mean, 'silly'?"

"The desert or the sea, what does it matter? I wanted shells, so I found shells."

If I didn't adore her gentle and innocent face so much, I would march right off in a huff.

"What do you mean, you 'found' shells? They had to come from somewhere."

"I went for a walk one day, thinking of shells. It was dead night, and the wind arose and a storm was brewing. When it finally unleashed, I sat down and prayed. When it was all gone, I had shells. Does that make sense to you?"

No, not really.

"You're selling them, these things you found on this... walk of yours?"

She giggles again.

"Sell? Of course not. They're for the taking."

"Taking? You mean I can just have one?"

She covers her face with a delicate hand.

"You're just flirting with me."

I look at the miniature conk shell and let it rest in my palm; I adore its pure white, its cotton softness.

"I would like this one," I say.

She smiles.

"By all means."

I pocket it, then glance to the distant desert as a crisp breeze scatters sand from the distant dunes. My heart seems tugged in that direction.

"You just found these," I muse, "Walking in the desert?"

She nods, as if to say "you're still not getting it, huh?"

"I think I might just go myself," I say.

She leaps up on her haunches.

"Oh no, you're too new, you can't do that."

"Why not?"

"The desert is not a place for the lost to wander. All the things you carry with you are burdens once you enter the desert."

"I get the feeling that's the case already."

"Please," she says, reaching forward, almost touching me, then pulling her hand back abashed.

"I can't explain it," I say, "I feel as if the desert is calling me, pulling me towards it."

At last she understands. She lifts her eyes to me, deep, serene, sapphire eyes.

"Then follow its call. Those are the things you believe, whispers of nature, not screams of men."

I stand, and the wind continues to pull, singing louder and louder.

"Thank you for the--advice," I say, "And the shell. Especially the shell."

Without another word I part with a smile along the course the wind tugs me across the cool desert night.

***

It takes at least two hours after the fact for me to admit it to myself. I am lost. Not disoriented, not off course, but wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am (don't-know-how-I-got -here) lost. I tried to keep attention, to keep my mind alert, but the desert has a way of singing you lullabies. A sudden chill wind bites into my bones and I fall to my knees on a sand dune, desperation clawing at my throat, burning out my eyes. The wind dies again and the landscape is silent.

I fall to my knees in the absolute darkness. There is a place here where the soul knows no comfort. It is an ember against this curtain of darkness. Still, I breathe deeply, as if it rouse the quiet coal. The darkness soaks through my skin and with patient breathing, I wait out this darkest hour of night. Time stands still for a long, long moment. I open my eyes again.

Now I can see everything. The moon sits atop the dunes, snaking ever upward by the moment.

The sands, fully soaked in white, suddenly enchant, rather than intimidate.

I find beauty in the painted dunes. The hills and valleys and plains are roads, not walls. And somehow, the desert smells like jasmine.

A forlorn cry echoes across the landscape.

I can hardly believe my eyes. Cecil, the lurching, red-eyed dog, bounds up the dune and snarls before me, spraying ugly white drool on the painted sand. Did he follow me? Have I been leading him, or he leading me?

"Ssh? pup," I whisper, "Calm now, there is no reason for you to cry?"

Again, the dog has no sense of my words. He claws the ground and paces, sizes me up.

"Ssh? don't cry?"

Cecil lunges then, and I attempt to sidestep him, but his deft jaws close around my calf and hurl me to the ground. I twist on my way down, and try to right myself as Cecil's firm jaws hold me in a vice. I kick in vain, only rooting his teeth deeper into my muscle.

This is it, I think. The dog has me now.

At least, until I grope in my pockets and snake my fingers around the shell. Without thinking, I place the shell against my ear and hear the ocean. All those miles away, I can still hear it smashing, rolling, smashing again. I know it's an illusion, a trick of the way wind moves, but suddenly the anomaly seems perfect, whole, complete. The ocean in the desert. I pull the shell, this wild, precious, miraculously unbroken thing, and place it to my lips.

I fight with the dog to keep it steady. My first timid blows barely honk. The dog lurches back, starting to drag me, and I repress this fountain of pain to blow with all my heart. The cry of the conkshell resonates like an earthquake in the moonlit desert.

I continue to blow, and the wind appears as rapidly as did the spirits in the saloon. I continue to blow and the dog's grip loosens, and I stare Cecil dead in the eyes.

In the dog's eyes I see the eyes of those who lent me advice during this strange journey. It all pours into me: the arrows of insight from five faces: the ferryman, the native, the ballerina, the girl, and now the dog... All reflections of the same face, the same lesson, the same river of meaning that now courses through my body. An oasis in the desert.

This is my gold, my El Dorado.

I continue to blow the conkshell's glorious cry across the moonlit dunes until the wind furiously throws it from my mouth. I stretch my arms out and let the gust take me.

***

A burst of icy water pours down on me from above. My arms are outstretched and I let the water run down my face. I manage to mutter a "thanks" to the source of the blessing.

"Oh thank god," says a man's voice, above me, "I thought you were gone."

I peel my eyes open a little. The figure above me is silhoetted against the backdrop of glaring noon in the desert. I close my eyes again, my mind reeling from a paralyzing headache and dehydration. My other senses are keen. I can hear the subtle buzz of desert motion and a car-engine a little ways off. I at first think that even this stranger is an illusion, but he pours more water upon me. No, I'm definitely somewhere real. Still, I don't recall water ever tasting this crisp, the desert smelling this fresh, or the small hum of sound so stirring.

I open and close my eyes until they adjust. The stranger is a middle-aged man with a bright face, dark pants, white shirt with sweat stains at the armpits. Despite the darkness of his form, I can see his eyes clearly. There is a wealth of humanity within. There comes a formidable sense of deja vu.

"Not quite gone," I manage at last.

"You need a ride somewhere?"

"I don't have anywhere to go."

"Well I'm not going to leave you in the desert."

"No?" I say. "Where are you headed?"

"L.A.," he says, and then, as if he needs an excuse, "For business."

"Funny thing," I say, struggling to my feet. I pitch back and he grabs me by the arm.

I finally stand, suddenly as sturdy as a tree trunk.

I take another look around at this stretch of painted desert. Just any stretch of highway down any stretch of desert in the southwest. I suppose it could be any stretch of desert with a highway everywhere. But this place, with the subtle brushes of pink across empty dunes and hums of life that are patient, not lush, strikes me as a wealth of experience that I could spend a lifetime understanding. Still, I've made it to the next stage of the journey. I ponder the stranger's destination.

"I swear, we're headed just the same direction."

He smiles wide.

"Great, you got your gear?"

I feel around in my pockets. All I can find is a gold half-dollar. I laugh.

"Fifty-cents," I say, "Fifty-cents get me much in L.A?"

"It'll get you going," he says, as if we share some secret understanding, before turning and heading towards his idling indigo sedan.

Day of the Dead, the fiction story - continued from part 1

I was somewhere dark, cold, wet. On the ground. The ground was what was cold. It was damp and hard. And a terrible odor came into my nostrils. Vomit. Probably my own. My head hurt, but more than just a hangover, the front of it was throbbing. As if I'd fallen. However I ended up on this corner of concrete, it wasn't kindly.

I felt all my fingertips and toes. My arms and legs were still here. I tried to move, and made several failed attempts at standing up again. When I finally did get up, it was with the aid of the stairs to a nearby house. So I was on the street. Somewhere on a street-where?-New Orleans. Okay.

I stood up and had to sit down immediately. My stomach wretched again and I collapsed on the stairs. There was still something in my system that made my knees knock and my legs move like jelly. What the hell.

I wasn't sure what time it was. Early. The sky was past its peak of darkness, and getting lighter. If that was the case, then I was only out for a couple hours, now, though what had happened in those hours was a painful blur … I left the club, with the couple, stumbling and groping and touching. We went -- somewhere -- somewhere close. Somewhere with a bed, and -- God, her body, so furious in its feminity, as if she was devouring me. I'd closed my eyes, not knowing if it were her or him touching me, caressing me, kissing me, until the moustache and the taste of cigarettes hit my lips.

Stop. Don't think about that. You made out you were going to the bathroom, and you made it down the stairs. And you made it this far. Okay. So you were going home?

I was going home. Not that the hostel was really home, or even that I knew how to get back there, but that was the aim of the drunken expedition. The air was still warm, but shivers came without warning and nearly knocked me to the ground.
I staggered a few blocks, stopping frequently to lean against light-poles or the sides of buildings.

The party was still going on, but had subdued in tempo. Lots of people were stumbling home, betraying their presence by kicking beer bottles that skipped across the concrete sidewalks or by howling unintelligible rants at the echoing corridors of the narrow streets. A discordant pitch of song and cheering a block to my right suggested I was near Bourbon St again. But I didn't have much else of any idea where I was. On a distant corner I saw a white lit sign reading A&P Grocery. I dragged myself in that direction.

The place was still open, and I resolved to step inside and ask for directions. I leaned against the heavy glass door and it creaked open. The clerk, a firm black woman with tall piled curls, merely shook her head at the sight of me.

"Nuh 'un," she said, and pointed to the door.

"I'm looking for, for…" my words were a garbled half-slur, "Fer B'ome."

I realized, vaguely, how idiotic the request seemed. She continued to point towards the door and I saw a black security guard approaching from the rear of the store. I obeyed her orders and slumped against the wall of the building as the door creaked closed behind me.

Part of me cracked. I was insignificant, my venture was fruitless. Even if she were here, I'd never track her down. I'd betrayed her, anyways. What was there left for me?

"You got a quarter, stranger?" came an unexpected voice to my left. I sprang back with a start. I had slumped down not five feet from where a black sat cross-legged, a guitar propped between his legs, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. Even through my bleary eyes I could see the cracked lens of his thick eyeglasses and an expression poised between doubt and laughter.

"Hey Paps," I stammered, astonished at the sound of my own voice, frail as a wet kitten.

"Awww it's the youngblood, ain't it? What's weighin' on ya?" he said.

"I… I…" but I let the words trail of. There were too many things to say.

"You got the blues," he said.

"Yeah."

"Lemme tell you somethin', kid -- there's only one thing to do about the blues. You gotta play 'em out."

He threw the cigarette butt to the street and picked up the guitar.

"Lemme show you some licks."

As he began to play, I watched his fingers dance across the strings and his face lit up as if possessed. I watched intently -- there was nothing complicated in what he played -- but he played it with an absolute perfect simplicity, and his voice moaned the words so that they reverberated down the indigo city street.

Devil got my baby, no she can't be found
Devil got my baby, no she can't be found
Won't you tell me if you see my baby, anywhere in this town

It was the song from my dream. I sat, transfixed, waiting for the ending that wouldn't come to me in the dream. But he stopped at the same place I did.

"An' that's all I know," he said.

"But—what? No, you must, I mean, you can't…"

I really couldn't believe it. I pulled myself to my feet.

"Aw kid, ol' Rob Johnson been in the dirt some time now. This all the song that's left. People who hear it just keep passin' it along."

His words were hardly comforting . It was like another death -- one more disappointment in a long list of troubling sorrows.

"I've had enough for the night," I said.

"Com'n now, stick around and I'll play ya somethin' different, okay?"

Dawn was nearly upon us now; the sky had lifted from sheer black to navy. The blanket of night heat was still heavy, and I never felt grimier or more foul.

"Not tonight," I said.

"Well do what you gotta do, I guess," he said. "Anyhoo, you know where to find ol' Paps. "

"I do ," I said, not sure that I did. But it was taking all of the concentration I had to march down the street. I didn't make it but another two blocks before I collapsed against a newspaper stand, retching a dry heave into the street. I sunk to my knees, shoving my faced into a gouged Plexiglass screen still holding a copy of yesterday's paper: Drive-by Shooting Kills Man, Wounds Child.

I snapped out of my personal hell by the sound of shouting across the street. I lifted my weary head to see a white and black checkered cab pulled up outside of a hotel, an attractive but disheveled couple getting out with gusto. As they staggered inside I rushed towards the cab, nearly cracking into the side of the window. The driver looked at me skeptically, but at last nodded and I struggled my way in.

"Christ," he said, "Least I got plenty of kids like you to keep me in business."

***

I woke with a horrible start some hours later, adrenaline surging through my sweat-soaked body. I had only a fragment of a dream -- me, as Robert Johnson, making a deal with the devil, except instead of at the crossroads, it was hell, and I was surrounded by fire and cackling and brimstone and a bloody cockroach-crawling skull that was the devil's face. As I settled down, my eyes adjusted to the heat and stink that wasn't hell, just a ferociously hot room in a run-down hostel. Sun beamed in through holes in the curtains, illuminating the filthy floor with all its shirts, bras, and wet towels.

My stomach was hollow and my head felt stuffed with broken glass. I clumsily sorted through my pack looking for Advil, and while I found the rattling bottle of medicine quickly, I didn't find the pair of socks with close to three-hundred dollars in it. The horrible nightmare of last night returned to me in force. I glanced down at the floor of the room again and saw the empty bunk when Cassie had lain naked and sweaty the night before.

I pushed the loss out of my mind and swallowed four Advil without water. My throat was raw and parched, and the urge to get a drink got me moving more than the fetid smell of my own vomit mixed with the gutter. I made my way off the bed and headed towards the shower.

I was disgusted with myself. I'd come here to find her, and the first thing I did was cheat on her. There was no water hot enough or soap harsh enough to scrub off the grime. I gave up at some point and sobbed. God, it wasn't supposed to be like this.

I dressed in a pair of jean shorts and a t-shirt and took my guitar and pack downstairs. I wasn't the only late riser today. The man with dreadlocks sat at the kitchen table while a woman in a slip prepared eggs and bacon. The scent caused my stomach to turn over, and I realized I hadn't eaten since early yesterday.

"Good morning!" the man said with irritating enthusiasm. All of the eeriness of the previous night was wiped from his face, replaced with a bubbly cheeriness. "Rough one, eh?"

"Yeah," I said, walking to the kitchen table. I slumped down next to him.

"You want some coffee?"

"Please."

"Jean!" he yelled.

"Oui, crème et sucre?" she asked.

I shook my head.

"Black."

She came a few moments later with a white mug filled to the brim with aromatic coffee. I sipped it slowly, savoring the bitterness, inhaling the wisps of steam as they rose from the cup.

"This is good," I said.

"Life is too short for bad coffee," he said. "Now tell me, how was your first night? You made it to Bourbon St I imagine?"

I shrugged.

"It wasn't really my thing."

"No!" he laughed, "Well I don't hear that very often. But I don't blame you. I'd never be caught there myself."

"No?"

"Of course not. If I go downtown at all, it's for lower Decatur or Frenchmen St. That's where the real scene is."

"Decatur?" I asked.

"It's the first street parallel to the river. Any further and you're in the Mississippi, so it's really hard to miss. Follow it downriver and you'll come to the corner of Esplanade, further onward to Frenchmen, but right there on Esplanade, actually, there's an amazing club -- El Matador it's called -- "

"Oh."

He looked at me expectantly.

"I think I ended up somewhere around there last night."

"Well! Didn't take you long, did it? That's the only neck worth going to downtown. There a few more clubs you might be interested in…"

"I'm not really interested in clubs."

He raised his eyebrow.

"No?"

"I'm looking for someone."

"Oh Jesus," the man said, "Good luck."

"Excuse me?"

"Sorry, I shouldn't have said that. What I mean is, well, lots of people come to New Orleans, and a lot go missing. I must say, you don't often come across someone who's after someone."

"What do you mean missing?"

"Missing," he said, "They get sucked up in the city. This place does things to people. Kids like you come from all over the country, have a good time, and are swept away by the undercurrent. Be careful where you go looking."

"Actually," I said, "One of the places I was looking is around here."

"Oh?" the man asked, rapidly losing interest.

The woman approached with a plate of fried eggs and bacon which he waved aside. But, upon catching my eyes on it, he motioned for her to set down the plate in front of me. I devoured it. After I'd finished I contemplated licking up the grease. The man casually took out a pack of Camels and lit one up. He offered me one, and though I'd smoked only a handful in my life, and always while drunk, I took it, and started smoking through trembling fingers.

"My girlfriend and I had this sort of breakup," I said, ready to get this off my chest even to the weirdest of audiences. "She took off down here to try and find herself, and she stayed right here in this hostel. She still wrote me practically every week, and even sent a postcard with a picture of this place on it. But that was over a month ago. I haven't heard from her since."

The man shrugged. "She moved on. Get over it."

"No!" I yelled with more gusto than I intended. "I mean, we had something special. There was no reason for her to just vanish. Something must have happened to her."

"Yeah? Well, do you expect me to do something about it?"

"I thought maybe you could look at the guest logs, see if you could confirm that she'd been here, and if she'd left…"

"No way," he said, "I'm not getting involved. It's against the law, for one, and in the chance she turns up trying to hide from you after all I'll lose my license. Besides, like I said, she's probably five states away by now. It happens."

"Can't you at least tell me if she sounds familiar?"

"I'll try. But seeing as how I go through thirty or forty people about your age a day…"

"She was thin, not too tall, brown hair--plain. Good looking, but in a plain, true, honest way, not some phony supermodel look-alike; she had blue eyes, and the sweetest smile. She would've been soft-spoken. Alone. When she laughed if was if the sun and the grass and the sky laughed with her, and, and…"

"Kid, I can't help you."

"But--"

"I can't," he said, and his face solidified to the texture of a statue. The woman looked at us with a half-smile of either interest or a hidden secret.

"Well fuck you," I said, "I know you know something!"

I slammed the coffee cup down and stood, grabbing my gear.

"The hell with it. This city can't be that big. Not if I set my goddamn mind to it…"

"Good luck with that," he said.

I stormed out of the room without another word, conscious of the absurdity of my reckless claim, but right then, come hell, fire, and brimstone, I was determined to find her. If it took looking under every crevice, crack, and gutter in the whole wretched city. I would have no rest until I had her in my arms again.

***

I stalked the French Quarter that day, down every narrow street, past every street-band escapade, ignoring the packed streets of tourists and beggars, peeking my head into corner shops, questioning passersby and shopkeepers. I showed the only picture I had of her, the one I took when we drove out to Isle Au Haut, with the scrabbly trees and fog over the cool Atlantic and her, smiling, up close. No one had anything insightful to tell me.

"No, she doesn't look familiar…" "Maybe, hm, but I don't know where I'd know her from…" "Can't help you, guy…" all the same phrases from at least a hundred strangers, locals and tourists alike. As dusk rolled around again, I found a corner liquor store and bought myself a pint of bourbon and headed toward the Mississippi River.

I found a place to sit on the rocks and stared out at the sunset. The river churned the colors of the sky—dark muddied amber, violet, gold, and brown. Riverboats still trudged up and down the steady river, and staring out at the mighty waters, I wept.

Somewhere in my all-encompassing sorrow, maybe half of the pint deep, I heard the twang of a blues guitar downriver. I hadn't taken my guitar out of my case all day, just lugged it around like dead weight, but the sudden rise of music rekindled something inside me. I felt myself drawn to the guitar as to a Siren.

I followed the brick walkway along to a statue of a lady of Liberty blindfolded, a family standing expectantly beside her. Beneath it sat Paps, grinning an alchol-warmed grin, tuning his guitar.

"Hmm them stumblin' steps must be a newcomer," he said, "That you, youngblood?"

"Hi," I said.

"Siddown, siddown," he said. I did. There were concrete steps beneath the statue. This perch afforded a vast view over the dusk-colored river as it moved its steady course.

"I was just thinkin' about that tune I was playing you early this mornin'. I kinda think ol' Rob would want someone to end it someday. You wanna learn how to play it?"

"I already know how. I just don't know how it ends."

"You and me both. You got your strings with you?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Then pull 'em out and we'll see where we can get ourselves."

I laid down my guitar case and popped it open, reverently removing the mahogany and rosewood guitar with the Orpheus inscription.

I tuned up quickly, closing my eyes and letting the music flow through my fingers. The bluesman beside me followed behind, taking my lead, and the music happened. The sorrow, the dread, and the doubt all began to channel out through my fingertips as I played the guitar. I never sang, but his voice crooned out and the tune rolled out across the darkening waters of the eternal Mississippi.

Devil got my baby, no she can't be found
Devil got my baby, no she can't be found
Won't you tell me if you see my baby, anywhere in this town

Lookin' for my baby, lookin' all around
Lookin' for my baby, lookin' all around
I'll kill the devil to get my baby, so we can go back to town

Lost in the trance of his words mingling with the steady guitar rhythm, I played out something. It was an ending. Maybe not the ending, but somehow something seemed right. Night was fully set in when I set the guitar down.

"Not so bad, kid, not so bad," Paps laughed in his bear-sized laugh.

"Thanks."

"Let's see if they threw us any dough."

I wasn't sure what he meant until he padded around in the guitar cases. Though I was three-hundred bucks poorer, money was still the last thing from my mind.

"Well oh lawd!" he cried. "You struck it rich, kid!"

I looked at him skeptically, as he held a bill taut in his fingers.

"Only a hundred dollar bill is clean as this 'un."

"A hundred?" I said, then looking closer, "Wow, you're right."

"A big ol' Ben Franklin. That take away yer blues?"

I thought about it, then said, "It's not money's got me down."

"Never found your woman, huh?"

"No."

"I'm here cuz' a woman, too," he said, "She done run me outta Missippi, an' I been sleepin' round here playin' the guitar, waitin' to catch another train. What'd your ol' lady do to ya?"

"It's not like that. She's lost. I've been looking for her."

"Lost? Aw, shit kid, whereabouts?"

"Somewhere in this city," I shrugged, "I suppose if I had a better idea I'd have found her already."

"Well if I read ya right, you ain't interested in takin' up matters with the law, as if they'd be able to help ya. Ya try any of the left-handed methods?"

"Excuse me?"

"You know, the traditional ways."

"I, ah, don't really know what you mean."

"Alright, son, here's the deal. You wanna turn this lady love of yours up, any which way you can?"

"Of course I do!" I said.

"You follow me then, and pick up that hundred dollar bill. You're gonna need it to please the lwa."

"Who?"

"Jes' have a little faith, you're gonna meet the real thing, the bona fide John, Doctor of Spiritual and Personal Matters. You know what night is tonight? Naw, course you don't." He paused. "Reckon' you can help ol' Paps to a taxi?"

"Yes!" I cried, excitement spraying my mouth as if from a garden hose. I put my guitar away and slung it on my back before helping Paps to his feet.

"Let's head downriver, then," he said, "We goin' to the lower nint'."

***

I grew skeptical of our destination as we crossed Elysian Fields and left all signs of life attached to the French Quarter. The neighborhood we entered was dark, tattered, eerie. The taxi bucked as we drove over the cracked roads, in as poor shape as they might have been in a warzone. Houses sank under the weight of neglect. A mighty oak tree conquered one three way corner. Beyond it was a church, the doors boarded up, with a headless statue of the Virgin Mary.

At length we turned down a street and idled in front of a shuttered house, white like all the others, with peeling paint, and no outward identifying signs but a symbol of an eye carved into the wood above the doorway. I helped Paps out of the taxi and paid the driver with some of the dwindling cash left in my pocket. Paps shuffled to the door, knocked three times, and waited.

"He jes' a lil' slow at times," he said.

At length, the door creaked open. A lean black man in a white robe stood at the door, a purple sash tied about his head. He and the blues man exchanged a strange handshake and a brief embrace.

"What brings you to the house of Elabeau?" the stranger asked.

"This young fella here is in need of some help. His woman has left him and gone missing."

A cloud flickered across the stranger's eyes. "Brother, I am busy with the ceremony."

"I done brought him all the way down here, and you're gonna turn us away?"

The man in white looked past the blues man to me for a brief moment.

"I cannot lend my attention, I did not say you will be turned away. You may stay for the ceremony."

Paps looked to me now.

"Whaddya say? You might get the chance to levy your request to a higher authority."

I suddenly felt very small, with the two powerful black men standing at the entrance to the house like the gateway to another world I had only barely earned the right to pass into. I said what seemed the best thing to say.

"I would be honored to attend."

"Come then," said the stranger, and I helped Paps up the stairs and into the house.

Contrary to the derelict appearance of the outside, the interior was marvelously arranged in a feast of color. An altar right of the doorway was laden with candles, statues, photographs, jewelry and feathers. A painting of a majestic black man wearing a black robe and carrying a gavel hung just past it, passing judgement or giving hope I could not tell. Plants hung from the ceiling and seemed to sprout from bookshelves. Herbs and flowers and sprawling vines, commingled with tall white candles that flickered an unearthly light into the space.

I thought I heard a distant lick of jazz, but the predominant sound was a low drumming from the far end of the house, where the stranger was leading us. The drumming reverberated through the space and into my chest, a heartbeat of a creature far larger than myself.

"My name is Houngan John Elabeau," the stranger said as we past from the entryway to the kitchen, and then to steps leading out the backside of his house, where we stopped. "I am pleased to welcome you to my house, the Court of Three Stars. I assume you have never been to a ceremony?"

I shook my head.

"Then be in reverence. This is a sacred event, and we will not tolerate indifference. Hold respect for the spirits. Dance, if the spirit moves you. The spirits come when invited. If you have an offering for the spirits, they may repay you kindly with their presence."

"Okay."

He was still skeptical, but nodded. "Come, it is time."

Elabeau strode down the steps confidently but I took a moment helping Paps, my attention to the task distracted by the incredible show in front of me. Dozens of people were packed into a tiny courtyard behind the house, bordered on all sides by other derelict houses. But unlike the peeling white of the sides facing the street, the inside walls of each house were painted in fantastic murals, depicting black men on horses, drums, flames and snakes, many, many snakes.

The crowd circled a small open space around a gilded bier, a semi-circle of drummers at its far edge. The crowd parted to allow Elabeau to enter the circle. Paps nearly fell as he hit the final step and I snapped out of my gawking quickly enough to grab him.

"Christ, boy," he said, before shuffling forward on his own, as if now confident of the ground he walked on. I looked around quickly, feeling awkward under the weight of my pack and guitar, and stashed both beneath the back steps of the house. I then hurried over to where Paps bumbled blindly towards the circle.

"Help me get this thing on," he said, pulling a crushed purple bandana from somewhere in his vest. I was no good at knots but managed to it to get it on his head without too much complaint. He stepped forward, feeling his way in space until he touched the crowd. A man took a quick glance back in surprise, then smiled when he saw Paps.

"Good evening, Gede," the man said.

Paps let out a small chuckle. "Not yet, friend, not yet."

I couldn't see much, but the drums continued in a slow, steady beat. I kept rising to my tip-toes, eager to see what was happening at the center.

After some painfully long minutes of waiting, the drums stopped.

"I don't see anything."

"Shush!" Paps warned.

I opened my mouth to reply but was stopped by Elabeau's strong call: "Annoncé," he said.

The crowd repeated, "Annoncé."

He went on to speak a long prayer in a language I didn't understand.

"That's Creole," Paps said, "He's sanctifying the space, and axin' for the spirits to please visit us. Here comes the song."

Legba nan baye-a
Legba nan baye-a
Legba nan baye-a
Se ou ki pote drapo
Se ou k ap pare soley pou Loa yo

After Elabeau sang the song, the crowd repeated it, though I struggled to follow along. The words were just too strange for me.

After this song, the drummers started again, this time with an upbeat and aggressive rhythm. Again, I crept up on my toes to see what was going on, and caught a glance of someone with a machete chasing Elabeau.

"Shit, he's got a sword!" I said in surprise.

"Quiet now!" Paps warned again, "You ain't never been outta the farm, have ya? That's a lil' dance for Legba. Sayin' he will let us through the gate to talk to some spirits tonight."

The drum rhythm stopped, and a brief silence followed.

"Now you gotta turn 'round like this."

Following another proclamation of "Annoncé" the crowd spun counterclockwise a full turn. I missed the mark and hurried after a step late.

"Now help me down. You gotta get ta one knee, kiss the ground," Paps said, leaning into me as I awkwardly helped him to the earth. Sure enough, everyone kissed the ground, and after all of the weird things I'd kissed this week, I figured I might as well do the same.

My knees started to ache as Elabeau murmured another strange prayer while we were all kneeling, then everyone stood abruptly and another dance began with the drums. It was an effort to get Paps to his feet again.

I started to have my doubts about the ceremony as the pattern of prayer, dance, and spinning around in circles continued. This was more like church than magic.

Then the mood of the ceremony changed again, dramatically. A wild, enthusiasic roar rang through the crowd and the drums careened into a feverish pitch. Sparklers lit up from the front of the crowd, and people started springing into motion.

"What's happening now?" I asked, looking back for Paps, but he was gone. Alarm shot through my body as I looked through the predominantly black crowd, though I caught my eye on his purple headband a few bodies ahead. My heart settled down as the drum rhythm became more regular, and the cheers and cackle from the crowd quieted. The crowd seemed to be moving in a direction now, and lest I stay at the edge forever and miss my chance to enter the mystery, I pushed forward with them.

By the time I reached the entrance to the circle, the rhythm of the drums was already tuning into the rhythm of my heart, or maybe it was vice-versa. Standing between me and the last remaining members of the crowd, and a growing circle of dancers around the gilded bier, was Hougan Elabeau, who glowed as if lit afire. He was strong before, certainly, but now he was radiant, charged with a terrifying and tangible power.

Ignoring the fear that sank through my bones, I stepped forward to him.

The fear melted away, somewhat, as he shook a rattle around my body in time with the drums. I had maybe some sort of muscle memory as to the reason of this ritual, that this rattle was purifying me and empowering me, enabling me to enter the sacred space. After what I'd been through, I didn't consider myself sacred. But Elabeau let me in all the same.

"If you have a sacrifice, lay it down on the altar," he whispered as he pressed my temples with cool fingertips, "Then you may welcome the spirits, and dance."

The drums' rhythms seemed amplified a hundredfold within the circle. The dancers circled the altar, scattering a maze of symbols that had been drawn beneath, moving in an unhurried pace counterclockwise around the bier.

I pushed through the circle and knelt at the bier, joining a handful of others who were laying their sacrifices. There were no dead chickens and no gutted snakes, instead a wealth of rum, cigars, chilies, coins, photographs, glasses, and other small trinkets. I momentarily hesitated, unsure what to leave, until I produced the hundred-dollar bill Paps had found in my guitar case. I was not ready to let it go. I needed the money. I didn't know where the next hundred would come from. But something seemed so right about parting with it, and maybe it was the intoxicating rhythm of the drums that got me to lay it down on the altar.

A moment later, I also produced the photo from my pocket, and took a last look at her smiling face and the vast stretch of the Atlantic ocean and laid that on top of the bill, whispering a small prayer.

"May I find you again," I whispered, "May we be together."

My eyes opened, all reality evaporating into the energy that surrounded me, and never had I been more aware of every inch of my body, toes to fingers. I stood and joined the dance circle.

I started with walking, but soon found myself dancing, falling in line as best I could with the practiced congregation. It was dancing unlike any I'd ever done before, and the moves and the rhythms came from somewhere outside and bigger than myself. I was not so much performing a dance, but visualizing the rhythm of the drums through the instrument of my body. It felt like we were belts on a motor of some musical engine, driving into some place other than here with the power of many bodies.

At some point, the circle stopped abruptly and my rhythm hiccupped. I looked around for the cause of the disturbance, and saw that someone had collapsed to the ground. Alarmed, I moved to do something but then saw the person spring up again, livelier than before. He cackled something in what must have been Creole, and the circle began to move again.

This happened to several others, and I looked desperately around me for Paps. Not seeing him, and not wanting to leave my place in the circle, I asked the person behind me, a younger man of maybe 30.

"It's the possession," he said, "Keep dancing! It means the spirits are coming to us!"

Indeed, the people who had fallen and risen again acted as if possessed. They approached each other, babbled phrases in Creole and exchanged handshakes and hugs with the subtle gestures of a secret society. Of all of them, one had the most boisterous personality. He wore a black top hat with a plumed purple feather. He had a cigar in his mouth and a bottle of rum in his hand. He guffawed, laughed, and danced around the circle, taunting the others. As the face turned to me, I saw the signature glasses with one cracked lens and realized that Paps was under the spell.

I continued to dance, but the sight of Paps dressed and behaving extravagantly shattered my attention. He walked with extreme confidence and dexterity, weaving in and out of the crowd, stumbling as if drunk and about to collapse and then recovering with an exaggerated flourish. He clapped people on the backs and yelled at others across the courtyard like only someone with decent eyesight could. I broke from the dance circle to stare at him. He bounded towards me, cackling.

"Comment ça-va?" he asked.

I stared, confused.

"What's going on here?"

He flung an arm around me and dragged me with him as he skipped across the circle. He thrust me towards the other spirits.

"Hm!" he yelled, "You have something to ask us, no?"

I gaped at the other two spirits -- the man and woman from the El Matador, unless my eyes were playing tricks on me. While not dressed as extravagantly as Paps, there was something otherwordly about them each, a certain way they moved and looked which was no longer totally human. My tongue stuck in my mouth, and I felt at the center of some interrogation.

"I want my girl back! Where is she!" I cried.

"Hmf!" Paps said to the couple, "It sounds like we have someone looking for someone taken a little too early!"

The others laughed, a laugh sweet but with the point of a knife.

"She could not mean much to you, if you are only here looking for her," the man said.

The woman agreed. "If this was a true love, then you would honor her by living!"

With this, the couple began to grind against each other suggestively, and Paps rotated his hips as well. My face reddened over, and I shouted back: "Listen! Let me show you how much I care!"

I rushed back to the steps and grabbed my guitar, ripping it out if its case and running, the most violent I'd ever been with the instrument. I threw the strap over my neck and started strumming even as I jogged back to the three spirits, who were making erotic gestures to one of the drummers.

"Listen!" I cried again, but the three would not pay attention. So I began to play.

It was idiotic and bizarre, part of my mind told me, but the other part, the part invoked by this ceremony, the part washed belly-up by this strange city, told me it was right and necessary. So the notes trickled out, joining with the drums and the dancing and the shouts and the laughter. I had rarely sang in public before, hardly even to myself. But pushed as I was to this point, my voice rang out like a clarion call.

Devil got my baby, where can she be found?
Devil got my baby, where can she be found?
I'll kill the devil to get my baby, so we can be as one.

The lyrics and song morphed into something else as soon as it was out of my mouth, and when the last notes trickled into the circle, the spirits paused, stared at me in wild delight, and all broke out into infuriating laughter.

"Fine," said Paps at last, "You can have her, but you must never look back."

"What's that supposed to mean!" I cried, looking left and right for any sign of her.

"Tut tut!" he yelled, "We mean it!"

"But where is she!" I shouted again.

Paps shrugged, and the man and woman sprung off, her grabbing at his crotch as they did, and soon I was standing outside of the circle while the energy moved in a direction different from where I wanted it to go. Suddenly cold, I stormed from the ceremony, out of Elabeau's house, and into the dark and mysterious streets.

***

In this neighborhood it really was dark, with only one or two streetlights visible at a time, scattered every couple hundred feet or more. I also had no idea where I was, though it didn't matter. I wasn't interested in returning to the French Quarter and its thinly-veiled sadness. Instead I roamed.

I lost track of the time and track of the blocks, all the soul-sickness flooded back into me, nearly knocking me to my knees and tightening my throat. I had yet to see her, yet to hear her voice, yet to find something that even made me think she had ever been here.

Lost in thought, I nearly walked straight into a concrete wall, a long perimeter that ran the length of a dead-end block. Like the rest of this strange neighborhood, the wall was painted white, though not recently. At the top of the wall were wrought-iron bars the shape of crosses. A cemetery.

I walked long the wall with a sense of wonder, finding a black iron gate which was ajar. It creaked as I entered, and gave no other protest.

Candles burned next to several graves, joined with fresh flowers, coins, and other offerings similar to those I had just seen at the ceremony. For someone used to earthen plots and white stones, this graveyard was utterly surreal. Rather than stones set into the ground, the cemetery was packed with crypts of varying sizes and shapes, some crumbling to rubble, some immaculately maintained. Some crypts had many names packed onto them, other had a single family's.

I felt out of sync with time, suffering in my own sphere of existence, and the pain nearly dragged me to the ground. Fighting all of this, I continued to walk, nearly stumbling blindly again into a crypt with her family name on it. Feeling a sense of bitter irony, I sat down before it, opened my guitar case, and began to play.

I played the melody of earlier, rushing through the song to play the new ending. Something still struck me as wrong with it -- maybe a note flat, maybe a note high… and I played the song over and over again, playing with the final chord, always starting from the beginning, trying to churn some sort of answer out of the strings.

I played, and played, and played, until eventually my fingers were enchanted or exhausted, and I ripped through the notes in a way that clicked like a skeleton key to the lock. With the furious melody out in the air, I lowered the guitar again, and a strange and powerful quiet overwhelmed the cemetery. There were no sirens, no far-off drunks, no gunshots, no hollering. It was simple quiet.

It was then that I felt her behind me, a warmth amidst the cold concrete mingled with the scent of rosewater perfume. The scent paralyzed me -- I was probably delirious, no, definitely hallucinating, for sure, but I couldn't shake the fact that she was there. I sat up stiffly, wondering what compromise I had reached with the universe, when the air crackled around me.

"What are you chasing after, Orpheus?" she asked me.

"Where are you?" I screamed out, looking left and right, but feeling pressure on my shoulder.

"Don't turn around, you know that. What are you really looking for?"

"You!"

"That's not true, and you know it isn't. I was never real to you."

"Of course you were, what's that supposed to mean?"

"Who were you in love with -- me or your fantasy?"

"What?"

"It wasn't a woman that inspired your songs, it's what you imagined she was, or could be."

"What are you getting at? Why can't I turn around?"

"You're no more Orpheus than I'm Eurydice. But that didn't keep you from coming to the underworld."

"Enough already!" I cried out, leaping from my place on the ground, spinning around to find the source of the mysterious voice.

But I found only dark blue marble, and the silence of this inner sanctum. Cold crept into my body, and I backed up rapidly, dragging my guitar away from the mausoleum. I hastily packed it and hurried back towards the gate. I took one more moment to look at the tomb sharing her family name before I ran from the cemetery as fast as I could.

Her voice echoed in my head and haunted me, overcoming all my sensibilities and shattering my thin grasp on reality. The cryptic message, whatever it meant, wasn't what I wanted to hear. I fled as fast as my feet could take me, but found myself running back to the Court of Three Stars.

***

There was still sound coming from within, though the drums were silent. The door opened and three members of the congregation in their signature white stepped out. I rushed past them into the house, carrying with me a rapid heartbeat and sense of terror that jarred abruptly with the calm within.

The ceremony was over, and the crowd had refocused their efforts on chatting and eating a large feast spread through a cramped kitchen and onto picnic tables set up in the courtyard. There was ample rum, wine, and beer, and the evening seemed to have shifted from the ecstatic to a post-coital hum. I sought ferociously for Elabeau.

I headed out to the courtyard, where the bier was overflowing with riches even as its candles burned low. The drums sat silent, and the patterns in the sand were kicked, obscured, walked over. Elabeau was standing with Paps, who still wore the extravagant hat, his broken sunglasses askant on his face. They were talking in hushed and urgent whispers when I interrupted.

"Please," I gasped, "I need some answers."

"Relax, son!" Elabeau said as I collapsed into his arms. He held me as I dragged towards the ground, my body pushed to its limits, overwhelmed by the weight of the world. "Be at ease. What troubles you?"

I moved my mouth to speak but no answer would come, only a deep, low, penetrating moan. The moan turned to a cry that extinguished in tears that swept down my cheeks. Paps then spoke, still bearing the strange French accent.

"You have lost someone, oh, but you've lost more than just them, no? You worry you never had them to begin with."

I could only reply with brisk, choking sobs.

"You've been chasing a ghost, no? As if you'd ever see a ghost in the flesh? But, there's something else about you, mm, you weren't just looking for a girl, were you?"

I groaned, looking up at him through my streaked-wet eyes.

"You call yourself Orpheus, no? It's not your real name, but it fits, it fits your journey, your cause. Maybe it's time to let it go. Stop believing in the myth, see what life holds for you then."

"But, what then--?" I choked, but a sudden darkness fell upon the Paps' face. He shrunk backwards, and the tophat fell to the ground, the glasses slipped beneath his nose. Elabeau took his other broad arm and swept it around him, and the blues man gurgled as his body convulsed, the aura of mystery around him fading.

I sensed we were again within the limitations of our own senses. The powers of serendipity were gone.

I looked to Elabeau with pleading eyes.

"You have been given an answer by a spirit, child, don't ask me for more."

"But -- "

"The meaning is for you to discern. Maybe it'll take time. Now, the ceremony is over. Get yourself something to eat."

I silently nodded and rose to my feet again, feeling like something had been seared out of me. I had only a vague sense of what had happened, and maybe didn't want to understand it more. Not yet. But at his words, I realized that I was quite hungry.

I piled different dishes onto a paper plate, rich gumbos and beans and rice and grilled chicken and sausage. I poured rum into a cup and coke on top of it, grabbed a fork and found a quiet spot in the courtyard to feast and think.

At some point I looked over to see Paps shuffling up to me, his awkward blind man's steps returned, casting his voice broadly in my direction.

"So you find yourself some kinda answer?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said, "Sure."

"That don't sound too certain."

I looked at him, as if he could see me.

"I did."

He nodded gravely, and reached out into air. I put my empty plate down and grabbed his hand, which squeezed mine.

"I hope it was what you needed."

I didn't respond, but the silence spoke loudly enough.

"What you want and need are sometimes different, youngblood. How 'bout we goes back to town and plays some blues?"

"I'm tired," I said.

"Me too," he answered. "But that never kept me from no music. Let's make the cats howl, the dogs shriek, and the po-lice think the damn devil's got himself loose."

With that, we reached some sort of pact, and I stood up, collected my pack and guitar, and helped him out into the muggy night. It was several blocks before we could find a taxi to the French Quarter, but I enjoyed now the delight of the dark, the fanciful moonlight playing on eerie houses and ancient oaks.

We arrived, at last, at the wild and confusing French Quarter, where the night's festivities were just erupting. We passed through it all on our way back to the Mississippi, where we played our ageless tunes as a ferry traveled across both river banks well toward dawn. At some point, I drifted away, and the beating of the drums and lullaby of the guitar continued into my dreams.

***

I woke with the warmth of light beating on my chest.

It was a new, spectacular morning. The sun had just crested the edge of the West Bank, casting the swirling eddies of the Mississippi in a blaze of gold, pink, and violet. I watched it for a good hour, finishing the pint of bourbon I had stashed in my pack, and then started walking the French Quarter streets.

I wasn't looking, anymore, just walking, and the streets took on a character and splendor I hadn't noticed until now. The early morning tempo was radically different than the wild nights, as garbage trucks roared up streets, hotel attendants hosed off the sidewalk, delivery men brought in stacks of fresh pastries to hotel lobbies.

I stopped in for coffee at a café looking over Jackson Square -- what the Messenger had called the "place of worship." I bought three beignets and started my breakfast by dunking the first in the creamy coffee. I ate lazily and savored the images of the city -- the weathered horses clacking their hoofs as they dragged a jingling carriage by, the hungover artists bringing out their wares to hang on the iron gates of the Square, street musicians setting up on the steps of the cathedral to appease the bedraggled tourists who started to appear in handfuls.

I realized, with odd serenity, that my search was over. Maybe I'd stumble across her yet, but what she was and what I had expected to find were two different things. And New Orleans had shown me a whole universe I had never imagined.

As I left the café, I nearly slammed into a disheveled man in tattered garments, who spun as I stepped into him and leaned back, ready for confrontation. Recovering my balance, I swiveled back myself, and as I turned in a mixture of shock and fear, our eyes met. Then our guards dropped. I laughed. It was the Messenger.

"Well you still standin'," he said, "That's a start."

"Barely," I said.

"You sick of New Orleans yet?"

"No," I said, then considered it, "Maybe. Why?"

"Few friends of mine are headed out west -- to Santa Fe. Looking for someone who can play a lick. You itching to ride?"

I looked at the expanse of Jackson Square, filling with people and music, another day in a strange town attuned to its own rhythm. I felt like that line of that old Bob Dylan song -- when you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose. And no one was going to miss me at home anytime soon.

"Maybe so," I said, then seeing the Messenger's wary stare, "Absolutely."

***

Before night fell, I was crowded in a van with a dozen other drifters, who played dice and read tarot on their long rides across the country. The man nearest me had a Navajo symbol tattooed on his right arm, and told me about the mysteries of the sweat tents and the long journeys they took wandering through the desert.

I played the forgotten blues song to them, and whatever doubts they had about me went away. It wasn't until much later that they asked me what my name was. I glanced down at my guitar, seeing 'Orpheus' carved there, but unwilling to don the identity again.

"They call me Youngblood," I said, before leaning back, relaxing my eyelids, and falling asleep to the lullaby of spinning tires.

Want more? Listen to the radio drama Day of the Dead

Day of the Dead
Frederick Greenhalgh

After thirty hours on a Greyhound bus, I caught my first glimpse of New Orleans: a dim orange glow emerging from the dark bayou. For all the legend I'd heard, there was no gateway or trumpeter at our arrival, just that bayou, a vast swamp spreading in every direction that eventually broke into stretches of automalls and billboards along the cracked highway.

This was when I started to stop being heartbroken and started getting nervous. What next? Where would I go? How would I find her? And what if I didn't?

All I had to go on was a black and white postcard, worn tissue-thin by my constant touch. Her message was cryptic, but enough to fill with me with hope, and dread: "Loving New Orleans, miss you. You should see it for Halloween! - E"

I quieted my nerves by strumming my thin-necked guitar, a gift she'd given to me on our first anniversary. This was the first time I'd dared play it, preferring my hardy Gibson, but I brought it for this trip because I felt it was infused with some fragment of her spirit. Even when playing scales, each note rekindled a memory of her.

She loved my music. She made me write songs about her with mythological themes, as if we were both characters in an epic tragedy and not just ordinary people. She even had 'Orpheus' engraved in black on the rosewood body. It seemed silly, now, some nonsense lover's game, but here I was, still believing in those idiotic promises of love.

It wasn't like her not to write. And that's why I was on this bus.

We were coming into the city when a stranger with a cocked hat staggered back towards the bathroom. I had my guitar propped up on my knee in the couch seat in the back; he stopped when he heard my tune.

"Lordddiee -- now that is one hell of a tune!"

I didn't really know what to say, except "Thanks."

"Whatcha playing there, kid? Sounds like some sort of blues."

"I'm not really sure," I said, "It's from a dream."

"A dream, eh?" he yawned as he leaned over my seat, "So you're just another dreamer then, on your way to New Orleans?"

"Yeah."

"Town's full of 'em. Specially here on Halloween. You looking to go on a vampire tour or something?"

"No."

"Maybe just tour around the quarters then? Get your kicks on Bourbon Street and puke in an alley?"

"No."

"Aww, well you got to be doing something kid. Hell, I can show you around!"

"It's not like that. I'm looking for someone."

"Even better! I can help you find her!"

"Her?"

A Cheshire cat grin grew on his face like a sunrise. "What else would get a kid your age down here?"

With that, he dropped into the chair opposite mine with a flourish. I was pretty sure he was half in the bag; he gestured wildly, spoke fast, and I only caught half of the words out of his mouth.

"My Cajun name is Victor Aurelius Marceleau, but you can call me the Messenger."

He stuck his hand out, which may as well have been a threatening snake. I took it trepidly.

"You can call me Orpheus," I said.

He laughed at that. "Orpheus, huh? What kind of name is that?"

"A traveler's name."

"Okay, bien, mister Orfeeus. How can I help you find your lady?"

My heart stopped dead. I had no reason to trust and plenty of reasons to distrust this guy. But we were already driving into some sort of downtown area and my time was short. I had a map, sure, but I knew you didn't want to go bumbling around a city with a tourist map in front of your face. And, what was the risk? I reluctantly pulled out the postcard and offered it to the Messenger.

"She sent this, so I figure she must be staying there."

He grabbed it with an abruptness that made me squirm. He read both sides, sniffed it, then handed it back to me.

"Sure, that's Hotel Bohême, on the low end of Decatur. I can take you there."

"Okay."

"One thing though," he said and grinned again, "I have something you may like."

He rummaged around in -- appropriately enough -- a black canvas messenger bag, which had seen its fair share of travel. Well, by the looks of it, all of him had. He was mismatched from head to toe, with big black military boots, torn jeans, a patched up jacket that might have once been a trenchcoat, and a sloppy leather hat with a feather cocked out of its brim.

He caught my eye on the feather.

"Real eagle, kid. Shot it down in Bayou Laroux."

He paused, caught my glance, then exploded in a hearty laugh, "It's a turkey, shit, but here's some real bayou gris-gris for you."

He shoved a mask into my face, some wild, rootlike mask made of woven branches and adorned with thick, bushy plants.

"That's Cypress Moss and kudzu, Choctaw medicine man made it for me. But I don't need it anymore. In fact, for you, it's only fifty bucks."

I raised an eyebrow.

"You'll need a mask, kid, it's Halloween!"

"I don't know ."

I tried to hand the mask back but he batted it back to me.

"Tell you what. You get me guiding you through the quarters, show you where you need to be, the mask's yours for free."

"And what do you get out of it?"

"Fifty bucks! So the guide's free, or the mask's free, you pick."

I weighed the offer as we careened down a city street. We were close, now. I could see vacant office buildings and parking lots fringed with razorwire out of the window past his quizzical stare. My heart picked up tempo as the bus pulled into the terminal.

"Okay," I said, "You got a deal."

***

The first thing that struck me was the heat. Sure, it'd been getting warmer every mile since we'd left Boston but I'd never stepped out for more than a piss-break on the ride so far. Even though it was a little past dark, it was steamy as the dog days of August. The first thing I did was peel off my stinking hooded sweatshirt as the rest of the bus passengers flicked out cigarrette packs and lit up.

The Messenger was among them, slipping a slim white number from a silver case. I stared at him in slack-jawed surprise.

"Shit, you can't do that!"

"Eh?" he spat as he lit up. A plume of smoke rose in the air. "This ain't Mary Jane here, kid, if that's what you're asking. Though I can get you some if you want."

"What? No."

Sure enough, it was a cigarette, and he puffed it effortlessly as we walked from the bus terminal past its chain-link perimeter fence and onto a wide and vacant boulevard.

Cars zoomed by, muddy bass echoing out of them. The Messenger dashed across the street during a slow moment. I followed him with barely enough time to look both ways, an Escalade honking at me just as I stumbled onto the far pavement.

"This ain't the best place to be after dark, kid, so let's hop-to, okay?"

And that we did, the Messenger puffing down cigarette after joint-like cigarette and on occasion bursting into song in a language I did not understand.

At length, we reached a boulevard where the streets were suddenly crowded and surreal. Music echoed down the street, and not just rap music, but a chaotic blend of screaming trumpets, raging guitars and chest-thumping drums. Every face was behind a mask, and the masks ranged from entities familiar to far-flung: ghosts, goblins, demons, devils, saints and politicians. The few who weren't in costume stared in wide-eyed wonder, like myself, snapping photos or just oggling the street show.

"What, you never seen a few folks dressed up before? Jeeezus you better stick around for Mardi Gras."

At this he was already off, pushing through the crowd and half-a-block on me until I had to run, elbowing people aside to keep up.

"Down here," he said, walking straight into traffic, sticking a hand out to stop an oncoming car and moving into a slight jog to cross the rail-lines that ran along the median.

Now we were moving onto streets where the character changed completely, and only now did the Messenger relax his anxious pace.

"Le Vieux Carre, as they say in the tourist books," he said with a grin, "The French Quarter."

***

Here was where the river of people streamed to their source. Life busted from every seam. There were bars, cafes, late night restaurants, barber shops, peep shows, comic book stores and trinket shops. We stopped three blocks up outside a store where a drum, guitar and washboard trio jammed out front. The door dinged as three glimmering Elvises stepped out with pints of Jim Beam.

"In here, kid, first one's on me."

I hardly had time to spin before the Messenger vanished inside. I hesitated on the doorway. The jam trio wailed some ecstatic, roving melody that's vaguely bluegrass, but with a sharp twist. It takes me better than a minute to realize it's a White Stripes tune, Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground.

The door dinged again and the Messenger burst out, a Colt 45 in each hand.

"Hey, what happened to you?" he said as we sauntered up the street. He popped the top off his and swigged it before swinging the bottle like a dagger to clank against mine, which I held like a dead snake.

"Twist off, kid. Drink of champions."

"I, uh." Christ I feel lame. "I'm not twenty-one."

He peals into laughter. "Ain't never stopped anyone in this town."

"But we're... We're on the street."

"You got in a paper bag, right? Legal as pissing in a post office."

He was walking ahead of me but seemed to sense my quizzical look.

"Joke, kiddo," he said, before yelling out to the world, "Ci c'est les bon temps, laissez les bon temps roulez!"

***

The Messenger dumped his empty Colt 45 ten minutes later after we've zig-zagged right and left several times and cut across some side streets. While the never-ending sprawl of shops continued to amaze me, the streets all looked hauntingly familiar - hooked wrought-iron streetlights bent in as if with aching backs, narrow sidewalks buckling against each other, cobblestone mixed with asphalt, random shattered bottles, neon-green cups, piles of vomit and strange pamphlets tacked to walls. Horse-drawn carriages clogged down the street driven by shouting men dressed in tophats and flowing capes, an odd car here and there where foot traffic was slow. And everywhere people worked for a buck - a guy stood on a ladder dressed like Abe Lincoln, two clarinets wailed up How High the Moon, three black teens tap danced in rapid fire, laughing the whole time.

There were a hundred bars we'd passed already but the Messenger clenched and unclenched his hands outside of one as if waiting for Christmas morning. He whistled as I nearly kept walking by.

"Inside, kid, and let me show you a good time."

I hesitated but a moment and he'd already vanished through a door of vinyl slats. Inside was all darkness and the roar of a crowd and music. I'd never been inside a bar before.

"Here goes," I said.

I'd never seen a place so chaotic in my life. Costumed and uncostumed faces mixed, all gravitating along a long bar as if lined up for sacrament. The sound of chatter and laughter is louder than a passing jet, but roaring over it all is the gun-like guitar of John Lee Hooker pumping out of a jukebox in the corner.

The dispensor of the joint's eau de vie was a haggard man with two days' growth of beard, a moplike mass of brown hair and a white shirt and blue jeans ensemble that would have been well-suited on a construction site.

The Messenger muscled through them all and I reluctantly followed. He whistled and waved his finger in the air and the bartender eyeballed him, nodded and slammed several more drinks down on the bar before slinking down our way. We pushed in between a guy who looked like he could rip my arms off and a woman who could've been pretty ten years ago.

The Messenger thrust a hand through the crowd and made some sort of handsign with the bartender before shouting his order: "Two screwdrivers and a double of Beam!"

The bartender was only gone for a breath before three drinks slammed on the table. The Messenger pushed a screwdriver into my hand and clanked his against it.

"To New Orleans on Halloween, laissez les bon temps roulez baby!"

I hesitantly swigged it down, and it wass all I could do to keep it down as my stomach lurched. It was a gulp of semi-sweet battery acid.

But the Messenger already had his down and was working on the Jim Beam.

"Ten even," he said, "This one's on you."

"What?"

"Call it a tip. You ain't gonna get no tour like this anywhere."

I continued to fight tears and the feeling of boiling tar going down my throat when a bass voice behind us thumped, "Is that the old coon-ass himself?"

The Messenger pirouetted, said: "You know it! The only coon-ass on this block and they don't even know it! How you chillin', Paps?"

"Ahh you know, I be right," burst a massive black man, shuffling to his feet and engulfing the Messenger with his oar-like arms. The Messenger bounced back from the embrace and they exchanged a set of gestures with the hands and arms, a secret greeting encoded in the rhythm of their bones.

Paps continued to chuckle, a rumbling, thunder-like boom that reverberated as he sank down into his chair again. Despite the crowd in the bar, a wide berth surrounded him, and he lumbered into his rickety stool as if to a throne. He flexed his fingers slowly, then snatched a shot glass with surprising speed and swallowed the drink down in a gulp.

"So what brings you out this side of the river?" Paps rumbled.

"I just rolled back into town, had a pal over in Biloxi pass on and had to see him off. Managed to pick up this straggler 'long the way," the Messenger said and motioned to me. I stepped forward from the bar for the first time, staggering as if uncertain where my feet still were.

"What's that?" Paps said, staring in my vague direction uncertainly. As I stepped closer, in the dim orange light I could see he wore glasses the color of onyx, with one cracked lens. So I spoke up.

"Uh, the name's Orpheus," I said, jutting a hand out into space. Realizing he didn't know to grab it, I struggled forward and gently touched his massive palm, rough as alligator hide and coal black. He grabbed my hand and pumped it, with a grip both powerful and tender.

"Orpheus, huh? That reminds me of an old story..." Paps broke off into silence for a moment, then spoke up again, "So what brings you to New Orleans then? Chasing a ghost?"

"I'm, uh, looking for someone."

Paps laughed. "I knew it! You got the hot young blood. "

"No, she's a real person, this girl I knew --"

But Paps kept laughing. Eventually, he settled down. "This city invites in a lot of people who are looking for somethin'. Not sure many people find it. Or maybe they find something else."

"Well, I think I know where she's staying -- and this guy's meant to be taking me there!"

Paps raised an eyebrow. "That true?"

The Messenger chuckled. "Got to show him the sights!"

Paps groaned. "Sometimes you disgust me -- get along now! This kid's obviously got some heartache on his mind, and he needs to face it sooner or later."

"Little bit of liquor help him get over the heartbreak I bet," the Messenger said, slurping at the ice in his screwdriver.

Paps looked me in the eye, as if he could still see through his thick black glasses. "You write a song 'bout her yet?"

In a surreal shift of energy, the throbbing riffs of Hooker faded to a Bob Dylan ballad, the lonesome croon drifting like tufts of mist in and out of the roar of the crowd. Sara, Sara, Wherever we travel we're never apart.

I stared dumb for a moment, enough for him to prompt me again, before I answered.

Sara, oh Sara, Beautiful lady, so dear to my heart.

"Sure, I --"

But the Messenger was quick on his feet now. "He didn't just write no song, Paps, he dreamt one."

Paps released a slow groan that sounded like the stretch of old leather. "Yep, you must have the blues."

"I'm still working on it," I said.

"You swing by the river late sometime you want to wrap it up, you hear?" Paps said.

"Sure."

"Pleasure meeting you, then, youngblood, and see you 'round."

I grabbed his thick hand again and shook it, then looked hesitantly at the Messenger.

"You heard the man, grab your drink and let's roll!"

The Messenger was already bound for the door as I heard the first notes of a live tune by CCR, Run Through the Jungle . The first iron-fisted chord balled up before we stepped into the street and the music washed into the ocean of noise that spread in every direction. The Messenger was already half a block past, whistling a tune of his own, silhouetted by a bleary purple streetlight.

I hurried up.

***

We next took a sharp left, down a cobblestoned alley, and came out in a courtyard surrounding a gated-in garden. There were benches scattered around, with numerous shapes hunched, slumped or gesticulating from them, and a trombone and guitar combo playing before a handful of frat-boy types with phospherescent beads and boas hanging from their necks. A girl in a halter top with straps that were close to sliding off her arms slumped against the tallest of them, occasionally interrupting the performance with an unconnected fragment of her own song.

"Ha ha," the Messenger said, "Now this is our place of worship."

"Not much to look at," I said, gawking from one side of the cobblestoned plaza to the other. Drunks, a raving madman or two, and musicians. I turned to look at the Messenger but again he was trotting off, his brisk canter turning into a saunter and then to a dance as he approached the trombone-guitar combo.

The guitarist was disheveled, with two pasty knees sticking out of his jeans and a mass of hair that may have once been blonde. Underneath a harmonica rack that looked like an old-fashioned dental apparatus, his face was flush red, wrinkled, and packed with a good week's worth of beard. He had bleary eyes that stared past me, into space, into somewhere else, as he crooned each verse of a bluegrass song he'd turned into a bastard blues-funk:

If I was on some Foggy Mountain Top, I'd sail away to the west, I'd sail around the whole wide world to the girl I loved the best

At the end of the verse he put his mouth to the harmonica and blew and picked as the trombone bleated the bass line. The Messenger danced past them and whistled at me.

"Hey, give the men some dough!"

I stared at him dumbly for a moment, then fumbled in my pockets for some loose change. I threw a couple of dollars into an open guitar case. The man's eyes came out of space for a moment and locked on mine, and he gave a gentle nod. I nodded back, then hurried after the Messenger, who was a good ten yards away already.

***

He hurried along the edge of the gated park, then headed into a busy street, waving a hand at the cars to stop them as he came by. A horse-drawn carraige with tour guide and tourists lumbered past, and he whistled at the far end of the road.

"You comin?"

I waited for a red light, then rushed across the road, and found him climbing up stone steps two-by-two. The steps went up an embankment, and as we crested it, a tug boat's honk rang out across the expansive landscape. We stood staring out across the dark, churning Mississippi River.

"And ain't she a sight?" the Messenger said after a few moments had passed. It was a tad quieter, here, than in the Quarter, though there were spurts of distant revelers, trombone, and the wail of a lonely saxophone off to our right.

"So over there, eh? That's Algiers, that's where I'm from. Mm... You see them boat's over there? Mine's three in from the right. You want yourself a good time, you come over my way some time."

Now that we'd stopped moving, all of the momentum and chaos of the last hour or so caught up with me, and I suddenly felt very drunk and tired. And frustrated.

"Where are we going?"

He cocked an eyebrow. "To see your woman, right? Hotel Bohême."

"Then what are we doing here?"

"You still need to learn a thing or two, kid, before you go wandering around on your own. I'm trying to help you."

"I don't need to learn anything, I need to find her."

"What's the hurry? Was this woman your first lay?"

My face reddened. "I -- I'm not going to answer that."

His eyes twinkled. "I bet you wasn't her last."

"Take that back!" I said, and lunged at him, more an awkward gesture of frustration than an attack. He easily dodged aside and landed me a solid punch in the chest that knocked me stumbling and heaving.

"Shit, kid, you need to get yourself some guts. Now we're just a few blocks away, but I want you to learn one good lesson. Nothing's what it seems like in this city, so don't trust nobody." He paused a moment. "Least of all, me."

I looked up at him, hurt. He smirked.

"Ahh, com'n now," he said, turning about in a flourish and hurrying down the boardwalk, then bellowing out across the river, "Ci-cez les bon temps! Laissez les bon temps roulez!"

***

We spoke less as the journey continued, along the river for awhile and then down onto the tight, cobblestone streets again, in a neighborhood quieter than the last. What it lacked in roaring nightlife, it exhibited in funk -- even by streetlight, the houses shone blue, yellow, pink. Huge oaks split the sidewalk with their roots, and music and marijuana smoke oozed from the bottom of closed doors. We at last stopped at the junction of three roads, resulting in a pie-wedge corner where a white, multi-storied building with balconies was squeezed in.

"We're here," he said, though I knew we were before he opened his mouth. Bohême read white on a purple tapestry blowing gently from a flagpole. Light blared out from within and there were plenty of distant voices.

I dug through my pockets for some fifty dollars, spilling out some of the loose bills I'd accumulated along the journey. He snatched the money from my hand with little fanfare and pushed the strange mask into my hands.

"Alright, now, Mister Orfus. You take care of yourself. Don't go down any alleyways and keep an eye on your drinks."

"Sure," I said.

His grave voice was gone and he grinned again. "Alright! You want another tour, you ask for the Messenger! Someone will know where to find me!"

I nodded, burbled a thanks, and stared at the Bohême for another minute. I turned to ask him another question -- how to get back, since I realized I hadn't even been conscious of our route -- but he was already long gone, absorbed by the shadow.

I ascended the stairs, floorboards groaning with each step, and stood looking at a solid oak door with a bat etching. My fingers trembled as I reached for the doorknob, and I hesitated as a distant police siren rang in the night. Then I took a deep breath, turned the knob, and opened the door.

***

It felt like entering a B-grade haunted house set. In the Halloween spirit, cotton spiderwebs draped across the eaves of beautiful woodwork and architecture. Orange Christmas-lights ran along the arches of a majestic entranceway to the living-room, where an empty fireplace with two rocking chairs sat underneath a chandelier. There was a stairway that ended beside a desk in front of me, where a figure sat huddled behind a computer screen. Above the desk was a large portrait of Louis Armstrong blowing on the trumpet. Next to it, a painted sign reading "Be Nice or Leave." Tinny speakers played Cab Calloway, St James Infirmary Blues.

I approached the desk, stood there for a moment, as the man, practically facing me, continued to work on the computer. I waved at him briefly to no affect, then cleared my throat.

"Oh! Hi! Sorry!" said the man. His face emerged from behind the computer and I shirked back involuntarily; he wore a rubber ghoul mask, painted dark green and blue with a sinister smile and dimples. The face behind it was white, and had frayed, greasy dreads. The man wore no other costume, just a loose white shirt, the top two buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up, revealing a wildly hairy chest. He grinned, amplifying the mask's forced cheer.

"I'd like a bed," I said.

"Did you call ahead?"

"No."

"Ahh," he said, his voice sounding like air let out of a car tire. "Well, it's a Friday, a holiday and everything, I'm not sure we have a bed left. I take it you don't mind mixed company?"

"No," I said, "I guess not."

"Of course," he said, "Let me look."

He turned to the computer and I did, too, catching a glimpse of a white girl on her knees with two black men fucking her as he clicked closed a web browser. He opened up another program, clicked through some screens, looked very curiously at it, spoke to himself briefly, looked harder, groaned, typed in some things, scratched something on a notepad, made another comment to himself before looking at me again, apparently happy with the results.

"Yeah, I could make something work."

"Great. How much?"

"Seventy bucks."

My stomach turned.

"Seventy? For a bed?"

He looked at me with an unbudging expression. Calloway still crooned in the background Let her go let her go, God bless her, wherever she may be...

"Fine, I'll take it," I said at last.

"We do take credit cards," he said, but I forked over cash. This pleased him even more. The money vanished quickly and he returned with a set of linens.

"Through here is the living room, past that the shared kitchen, courtyard, and a set of stairs to the third floor. You should be able to find a bed up there, but be careful not to squat in someone else's bunk, it's hard to tell, really, everyone out in costume, you might end up with a werewolf in your bunk!" He grinned a toothy smile, ivory teeth showing behind the ghoul mask. "You're welcome to use the kitchen to prepare yourself anything - label it if you do. I wouldn't leave booze around if I were you. That being said, there really aren't any rules. There's no curfew, but make sure you close the door behind you whenever you get in. There have been some rather -- odd -- incidents."

"Thanks," I said.

"Tell me if you need anything," he said, and when I didn't respond immediately he sat back down at the computer and started clicking away. I picked up the linens and walked off.

A drab olive curtain separated the living room from the shared kitchen. Here it was bustling; several people speaking different languages sat at a long wooden dining table to my immediate right. The room extended to an exit in front of me and a compact kitchen to the left. A woman with dark curly hair worked two skillet-pans while two blonde-haired men speaking English with thick accents poured vodka and cranberry juice cocktails for the large party at the table.

I scooted through quickly but someone grabbed my arm; I spun around, anxious at talking in the midst of all this bustle, but a man at the edge of the table, already drunk, talked to me in either slurred or broken English: "Heymanhavveyseenyahere…" and started laughing, turning to his companions at the table. I looked at them briskly. No one meet my gaze, so I headed out the door into the courtyard.

Here the edge of the 1800s façade hit the modern ghetto, maintaining the tacky ghost and goblin flair. A long barbed wire fence ran around the edges of neighboring houses, lit all the while by the orange tree lights. Heavy, sprawling bushes interwove with the fence and yawned into the courtyard. A stone fountain sat in the middle, surrounded by a stone plaza that appeared to have been built by many hands over many years, with varying degrees of skill. A shallow pool ran along the right edge of the fence, and two figures with dark hair sat waist deep in it, smoking cigarettes.

The set of stairs the desk clerk spoke of was off to my left and emerged only slightly from overpowering weeds. I stepped onto the first iron stair and the whole set creaked. I continued slowly, but my confidence didn't improve. I just took it one stair at a time until I reached the third story.

From here I could see across the dim neighborhood and clear to the fiery lights of what must have been the French Quarter. I could see the river beyond it, twinkling lights on the water and a dark mass swirling underneath. While I'd seen many maps, only now could I see the arc of the river -- the crescent of the Crescent City.

The "doorway" to the third story was actually a converted French window, done with similarly questionable workmanship. I climbed through onto a wooden floor that groaned with my weight and almost cracked my head on the shallow ceiling. Keeping myself slightly crouched, I eyed the narrow hallway, which ran into an open door and a stairwell about fifteen feet ahead of me. There were two more doors: one on the left with a slight blue glow coming from it and one on the right with a red glow. The door to the blue room was just cracked, and I could see a mirror. Feeling that one was the bathroom, I pushed open the door to the red room.

"Bugger off!" cried a British voice from within. I stepped back immediately and stared at the door uncomfortably. My heart raced, and it took me a second to realize I hadn't done anything wrong. I look around the hallway. There really weren't any other doors. I creaked open the red door again.

I caught a whiff of weed and sweat, heavy and humid. I felt like it would penetrate my clothing if I were in here more than a second. By the sporadic candle lighting, I could see two figures crowded on a small bunk on the far side of the room. I caught an eyeful of ass and breast before averting my eyes. The floor, the present focus of my attention, was a confused jumble of clothing, magazines, and contents of backpacks. I reluctantly raised my eyes to try and find a bunk.

"Fuck, man, didn't you see the sock?" said the British voice.

"I guess not," I said. "I'm new."

"Well for fuck's sake," he said, and the girl beneath him giggled. They started making out again.

I stalked across the floor looking for a bunk, and finally found one empty on the far edge of the wall. It was the top one, and there wasn't a ladder. A bar blocked my ability to hoist myself up into it. I threw my guitar case and pack onto the bed and looked for a way up. The best way was by using the radiator as foothold. I positioned myself with care, hoping not to break the rusty thing off the cracked wall while I did this, and sprung up.

I got up, but not without unleashing an ear-piercing screech.

"Fuckin' quit it!" cried the Brit. I ignored him and unfolded my linens.

It took a good ten minutes to get the sheets on. Then, looking through my pack for a change of clothes, her letters spilled out. My heart wrenched up again, and I did the same ritual I had been doing for months now -- I touched every letter, ran my finger along all the addresses, held the letters in my hands with my eyes closed as tears welled up.

Doubt shot through me as loud as pain, a feeling that rocked me back and forth and chilled my blood. The woman below made a slight moan, the man started to grunt, and here I was, a pathetic mess, holding these little pieces of matter that once passed through her hands as if they were a life raft.

I put the letters away and put the postcard with them. Now I was in New Orleans. And I was going to find her.

***

I headed to the shower, which gave the couple an excuse to really work their vocal chords. I was right, the blue door led to the bathroom, and I stripped quickly and took a long hot shower in the dark. While this place might be a dump, the water pressure worked, and I rubbed my fatigued skin until it was raw to get the grime off.

I watched the dirt, sweat, and oil mix with water as it swilled down the drain, taking with it some of the stomach wrenching knots of terror. I looked at my weak, white body, my limp penis, the rings of purple welling up from the one quick punch the Messenger gave me. I turned the water off and got dressed.

When I got back to the room, the Brit was gone, but the girl was still in the bed, a good part of her ass visible underneath a soaked and twisted sheet. She rolled over and I felt her eyes burn into me as I walked to my bunk, slipping most of my cash into a clean pair of socks before stuffing it and my old clothes into my duffel bag. I walked back towards the door when the heat of her gaze was too much.

I stopped.

"Hi," I said, my throat clenching in anxiety as soon as I said it.

"Hi," she said. She had an accent, but I couldn't quite place it. Her voice penetrated me, reverberated through my chest, caused my loins to suddenly wake up.

"I, uh, was just leaving," I said, grabbing the door.

"So soon?"

"Bye," I said, stepping out into the hallway and hurrying down the creaking stairway, ignoring the pressure in my pants. Christ, did that really happen? Was she just lying there, hot, waiting for me?

The thought of this, the wonder and filth of it made me blush and I stopped at the bottom of the staircase and caught my breath. I took a momentary glance back up to the third-story window and a shiver of emotion ran through my body. Then I pulled out the strange mask that the Messenger had given me and put it on.

It was uncomfortable, at first, but suddenly I felt much stronger. There was power in hiding my face.

I made it as far as the kitchen before being caught in the fray of the large international party. A brown-haired man with broad cheekbones grabbed me by the shoulder and said, "Hey mate, you the new roomie?"

I stopped dead and looked at him; he laughed.

"Don't ya worry, Cassie's a fan of every man who walks through the door. You wouldn't imagine the things the walls of that room have seen!"

I stared at him skeptically. He chuckled, then stuck his hand towards me in a way that made me jump.

"Victor Chaplain," he said, "Call me Vic."

He shook my hand violently, holding it for longer than I was comfortable.

"And you might be?" he said.

I carefully considered my answer.

"Call me Orpheus," I said.

"Orfus," he laughed, "What sort of name is that!"

"A traveler's name," I said, blushing, glad no one could see it underneath the mask. Now the whole crowd laughed.

"Ah, cheeky too, well, welcome to Bohême, the place ya can't check out of, here we have…" he counted around the room and everyone smiled at me and nodded or shook my hand, but I quickly lost track of names, just characters: a vampire and a priest from Brazil, two red succubae from Spain, a nurse from England, and two Canadian guys, who just wore street clothes. I couldn't tell what the Englishman was meant to be, I guess some sort of buccaneer. He had a shirt with ruffles and ballooned pants on.

"So we're all going out for drinks in a minute now. You interested?"

"Sure," I said, regretting it the moment it came out of my mouth. I did want to go out, and going out with a group was safer. But maybe not this one. I made up my mind to ditch them early in the evening.

***

Rather than walk the distance back to the Quarter, we walked a block down to a two-lane street and waited for a green and white bus to pick us up. We all piled onto it and took up most of the back, facing each other on the long bench seats, babbling in at least three languages, passing around a bottle of vodka while the two Spanish girls drank from cups of vodka and cranberry.

The sound of English over the Portugese and Spanish was comforting, even though I wasn't interested in the Canadians's conversation…

"So there we were," one was continuing, "We'd never done the Rockies before, and it was our first jump from a helicopter, and I said to him, 'Well hell!' and off we went."

The Englishman broke in next, starting with, "The reminds me of the time I was in the Alps. I was still bleary-eyed from the night before when a damn blizzard came down on us in the middle of a double-black diamond…"

The conversation in Portuguese suddenly ended and the dark-haired Brazilian priest joined the English conversation, dazzling me in how quickly the tempo changed, saying "Well you all come to Rio sometime; we don't need snow to have a good time."

Everyone broke into laughter, and the bus screeched to a halt outside of a Foot Locker.

"Last stop, y'all in the Quarters now," said a black passenger as he stepped off the bus. The Englishman leapt up, took a shot, and sprang out the door, the rest of the party laughing and shuffling off in a slow and stumbling tempo. I was the last one off, and the bus took off as soon as my feet hit the sidewalk.

I started after them across the street, only realizing too late I was springing into moving traffic. A slick black Mercedes screeched to a halt feet from me, wailing on its horn as another car swerved around it. I jumped back on the sidewalk and the Mercedes pulled off, the passengers of the car jeering at me as the driver screamed a litany of curses. I stood in frozen shock beneath the Bourbon St. sign waiting for the light to change. A man nudged me, and I swirled around in shock, ready to punch.

"You got any change?" said a man with a fraying gray beard.

I shook my head, turned around again, and started walking. I crossed the trolley tracks and the other side of the main boulevard before catching up with the group again. They were standing by a group of high-school age black kids in school uniforms who played trombone, tuba, and makeshift drum-bucket.

The Englishman saw me again, laughed, said, "Pretty good, eh?" as I approached.

He waved the group onward down Bourbon St, which was three times as packed as when I'd been here just a few hours before: a sea of intoxicated, transfixed faces of humans and monsters flowing down a street that eddied like a river of madness.

Sheer terror gripped me as I walked through this orgy of sound and light. Blues oozed out of every corner bar, mingled with bass from nightclubs, joined with the screams of women bearing their breasts for men in sweatshirts or suits throwing plastic beads from high balconies. Silhouettes of curvy women shown by pink light in a place called Fantasy Playland, while a well-dressed black man on the doorstep cried "Female impersonators here! Chicks with dicks -- no cover charge!"

We walked shoulder-to-shoulder in the thick crowds, and sudden claustrophobia swept over me as I looked through the nameless masses wondering if I might see her. My heart fluttered at the realization that she must have passed through here before, seen these same sights, been as astonished and mortified as I was.

The Englishman pulled the group aside under the balcony of a busy club and screamed at the Spanish girls, trying to communicate something over the din. At length, it seemed decided: they were going into this club. I turned my head, looking down the long river of people and then back up again. It was about time to set off on my own.

They were still checking IDs when I headed down the street and further into the clamor of the busy boulevard. Behind my crude mask I felt I could fully gawk at the scene before me. On one corner there was a vampire, still as a statue, a wide grin cut in his alabaster makeup. Here were three girls wearing jeans and pulling t-shirts from LSU up to their necks as they cheered in drunken delight. There was a fierce warlord with his face hidden within a tiger's mouth, its pelt turned into a cloak that wrapped around him, a gigantic strap-on phallus yawning like an elephant's trunk from his loins. Would someone fucking pinch me.

My walk came to a halt in front of a wiry black man wearing a straw banded cap and a tweed jacket who shoved a rose in my face. I shook my head but he insisted on keeping it in my face.

"For your lover!" he yelled.

"I don't want it!" I yelled back.

"Give it to your lover! She'll show you a good time!"

"No!" I said, still trying to continue moving, but he hounded me, creeping in close so I could smell the onion and whisky smell of his breath.

"Or maybe you swing the other way?"

"Fuck off!" I yelled now, giving him a solid shove that threw him sprawling back into the crowd. I was as surprised as he was by the act of violence, and he responded by yelling "Help! Help!"

A bouncer of a nearby club had helped back up on his feet quickly, and the man was squawking his story to the bouncer as I rushed off into the crowd, forcing my way through a posse of werewolves.

"You goddamn tourist!" the man yelled at my fleeing back, "Go home!"

Instead of going home, I took the first corner I could find away from Bourbon St. and started heading at random down the other streets of the Quarter. With no destination or purpose I kept walking, following the outposts of purplish-blue lights flanking the tight concrete sidewalks, stumbling on unexpected cracks and listening to beer bottles clatter, sirens, and a distant croon of jazz.

I reached an exit at some point. That is, I left the cramped and similar looking streets and stood on a two-way road with a median in the middle with a line of oak trees. I looked around vainly for a street sign, but only found tiles embedded in the pavement reading "…LANADE." The road stretched to the left for as far as I could see, but to my right it appeared to return to civilization. I headed that way.

At the foot of the road, I saw the real name: Esplanade, and it met another road: Decatur. On the corner was a bar with the doors wide open and a wild sound coming from inside. A black sign hung above the door with the image of a bull: Le Matador.

There was no bouncer, just a yawning doorway into a den of hazy red and purple light. So I headed in.

It wasn't hard to find the bar: the whole place radiated out from it. Its smooth black surface reflected the weird light, a planetary ring around the stack of bottles mounted on rising steps to the ceiling like an altar, the highest bottles being far out of reach by the short barmaid.

"What do you want?" yelled the barmaid, dressed in a skin-tight, reflective silver jumpsuit ripped straight from a 60s sci-fi show. She had black eye-liner and shiny turquoise lipstick; her hair spiked out in all directions.

I yelled the first drink that came to mind, "Rum and coke! " and she made it for me.

The place was packed with an even more raucous group of costumed freaks, and looking over the dance floor I wondered if this was the closest a sober mind could get to an acid trip. The floor was checkerboard, and a rapidly spiraling disco ball lit the barroom and dance floor in a dizzying spin of light. At the far end of the room was a stage, barely a footstep above the dance floor and decked out like a classical theater, red curtains and all. On it now was a band that played with synthesizers, washboard, banjo and drums:

We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight land where the hot springs blow

I was a little shocked to hear Zeppelin in a place like this, but here it was in front of me. The insane rendition was intoxicating, fast, frenzied electronics mixed with the gritty sound of the washboard. I finished one drink quickly and ordered another before heading for a dark corner in the back of the place. I sat in a stoop that afforded a good view of the dance floor and doorway, and worked on my drink. It felt good to rest my feet.

The drinks went down easy, and chewed through the twenties left in my wallet like a rodent trapped in a crawlspace. It didn't take long for the feast of light and sound to feel -- not normal -- but not out of place, either. Fitting within its own world.

Eventually the lights raised a little and house music came on. I leaned over to a couple that was near me, rather toned-down examples of the crowd, the man dressed in a black coat too heavy for this weather, a top-hat, watch-chain, and powdered white face; the girl wore a vinyl black dress with zig-zag straps that hardly concealed her generous breasts.

"Is it closing time?" I asked them. It took twice for them to notice me.

"Excuse me?" the man said.

"Is it closing time?" I repeated.

He sat a moment, contemplating, then broke out in laughter. His girlfriend whispered something in his ear, which he returned in kind. She started laughing too.

"You're new, huh ?" he asked.

I nodded.

"Bars don't close."

I rocked my head back.

"Ohh…"

The man cackled.

"Say, you look cute kid, you want a drink?"

"Excuse me?"

"Do you drink?"

"Yes."

"Let me get you something," he said, then sprang out of the seat and towards the bar. I looked at him as he zipped across the crowded bar, then let my eyes drift to the woman. She leaned into me like a viper ready to shed its skin.

She smiled and patted the vinyl seat next to her.

I gestured to her boyfriend; she shook her head.

"Come on, cutie," she said.

I reluctantly sat down next to her. Her scent struck me next, and it took me a few minutes to figure out what it was about her that made my throat dry out and my tongue stick in my mouth. She smelled like sex. Rawdy, sweaty and screaming. It wafted off her like a thick perfume.

"So what brings you to New Orleans?" she asked.

My heart choked up. This was a moment of truth or betrayal. I tried to avoid the question.

"It's a long story," I said, stumbling over my words, "You wouldn't be interested."

"Wouldn't I now?" she said, setting her hand on my thigh. I flinched on reflex and she took it away, cooling off dramatically.

I paused, trying to think of a way to recover, when the man came back with the drinks. He sat next to me, uncomfortably close, and passed me a drink in a short rocks glass. He raised his glass as did his girlfriend.

"A la Nouvelle Orleans," he said, and we all drank well. The taste of the beverage was unlike any other liquor I'd ever tried. I couldn't tell what the flavor was, it was strong alcohol, definitely, with a taste of licorice to it. I'd had so many rum cokes I just couldn't identify the liquor. So I asked.

"Absinthe," the man said.

I guessed my look was stunned.

"You can get it in the right places," he said.

I was more uncomfortable than ever before. But something, probably stupidity, kept me glued in the seat.

"So," the man said, "You have not told us your name."

"It's, uh, Orpheus," I said.

"Orpheus?" they both hummed. The man smiled. "Well, then I think I know why you came here."

"Pardon me?"

"Don't be coy," he said. "You're looking for someone, aren't you?"

I nodded, more on edge than ever.

"Well how does the search go? This city swallows people and rarely spits them up again."

I stared at him vacantly. I felt the woman's eyes on me and turned to meet her dark, hungry eyes. A predator ready to strike.

"I, I don't know," I said.

"I admire your efforts, really," he said, "It must have taken a lot just to get the nerve to come here, and already you're out in this strange dark city, prowling around, unaware of the danger you're getting yourself into, but getting yourself into it all the same."

She had snaked an arm around my torso and was massaging my thigh with the other. If I would have fought back before, something in the alcohol made me completely sedate now, allowed me to watch events happen to me as if they unfolded on a television screen.

"But all the same," the man continued, "You shouldn't believe what those stories have to say. No one just comes here and walks away with someone who went missing. Are you even as good as they say you are?"

"Hm?" I mumbled.

"Tell me, can you make the beasts sleep and the hearts of men soften? Will the trees bough at the sounds of your fingers on the strings, will the rocks refuse to strike you?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but my tongue wouldn't move. A rhyme of sitars rose from the stage as the house lights subdued to a moody blue, a gasp of smoke tendrils pouring from the stage. The smoke spread, snaked, and danced, coalescing into the form of a serpent, its long tongue flickering towards me as the tail wrapped around the other edge of my vision, a terrible tightness sucking at my chest.

Seconds late, I noticed a strong heat against my lips, and I came out of my trance to feel a joint pressed against lips. I sucked at it hungrily, but the smoke that entered my lungs was coal black and strong, not the familiar odor of Mary Jane.

"Opium," the man whispered, practically licking my ear.

"Yes…" I responded, at length, hardly more than a whisper. I sank against the back of the chair as soon as the answer left my mouth, and the trail of heat across my body continued, picked up in intensity. Her fingertips seared my skin, arousing me even as I sank into a stupor.

Then I realized that both sets of hands were on me. I'd never been touched by a man before. But I couldn't open my mouth in protest. My eyes were transfixed by the dancing of the flames at the edge of vision, snaking in, twisting out, unraveling, and I stared at them, sinking deeper somewhere, as if by that looking I could dissolve some kind of secret.

The story continues... Read on