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NEW ORLEANS NIGHTS
Accidental family
BY CLIF GARBODEN
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Already they’re assuring us that New Orleans, the city where we shoot survivors, will party again. On the surface, overshadowing the equal reality of poverty, corruption, and violence, that’s what it’s done best. Beautiful, insane, almost-foreign, New Orleans offered Americans a nonjudgmental environment in which to misbehave — or pretend to. That was certainly true on Bourbon Street, which crowds and tourist dollars reduced to little more than Disneyland for drunks. But the undercoat of cultural laissez faire (harking back to the days when the city’s free blacks, Creoles, and whites shared all social strata, if not all water fountains) extended well beyond the yahoo blocks — to Funky Butt in Congo Square and other nightclubs on the Quarter’s fringe that barely had names. While it lived, NOLA lived large, and, at least in the places white visitors went, it was the most racially integrated place I’ve ever been. Last week, this picaresque paradise was laid to watery waste by storm, flood, insult, and neglect. Is it sacrilege or sacrament to reminisce about the good times? We walked for blocks, 15 or so conventioning editors and publishers, single file through the crowds to Maximo’s on Decatur Street and were seated in an upstairs room. In the corner was an interracial couple celebrating their 14th anniversary. Great food; lots of wine. I didn’t drink, but to give you some idea of the group’s condition, it took 45 minutes (and a very patient waiter) to pay the bill. During dinner, we acquired Peter and Julie. Julie, a mid-20s schoolteacher as drunk as any human organism can be, stumbled, literally, into our table looking for the ladies room she’d just staggered past. She got to talking — screaming, really — and decided we were "real interesting." For reasons unclear, one of our party invited Julie and her boyfriend, Peter, waiting patiently downstairs at the bar, to join us. For reasons equally unclear, except that Peter probably finds it difficult to get Julie to let go of an idea, they accepted, and the feast continued at full volume plus. At this point, the anniversary couple suggested we might be happier in a nightclub and gave us directions. More walking. We crowded into another upstairs venue; this one appeared to have no name. Amazingly, the anniversary couple, instead of escaping us, had preceded us there and were seated, listening to an eight-piece brass band (tuba and all) play some sort of fusion of jazz and hip-hop I’ve not heard the like of since. The room was packed. The bar served only whisky. There was manic dancing, and the place must have been 100 degrees. Management was burning incense. Peter and Julie showed up, and because it was New Orleans, that actually made sense. Julie got on stage with the band, but at that point I lost track because I was wedged between the door and the bar holding somebody’s purse. Next thing I knew, Julie, whom I’d never spoken to, gave me a big sweaty hug, screamed something in my ear, and left. As did I, at intermission, abandoning my party to a much longer evening. Six hours on the town with old friends and strangers I’ll never forget; no amount of flood water can wash away the good humor of that night.
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