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“You’re right. It’s the most no-assed thing I’ve ever done in my life. So am I getting two tickets or one?”
Gonzo rubs his inhaler pump like a talisman. “All right. I’m in. But if we don’t find this Dr. X in New Orleans and see what he’s got for me, I’m on the first bus back.”
“Fair enough.”
I open up my wallet. My credit card, the one my dad gave me to teach me fiscal responsibility, is still there. I’ve got a whopping credit limit of five hundred and fifty dollars.
I run to the window and rap on the bulletproof glass. The clerk barely looks up. “Yup?”
“How much for two tickets on the Fleur-de-Lys?”
With a sigh, the clerk puts his book down. “That’ll be two hundred seventy-eight dollars and fifty-two cents with tax,” he says.
He processes the charge and hands us two tickets, and Gonzo and I race for the last bus of the night.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
In Which We Make a Stop in New Orleans and Gonzo Refuses to Eat Fish, Annoying the Crap out of Me and Our Waitress
I mostly sleep on the trip from Texas to New Orleans. Occasionally I open drowsy eyes and catch dreamlike glimpses of the world. Gas stations hawking plastic cups with every fill-up. Cram-packed strip malls featuring the same stores and restaurants. Skeletal dogs picking through trash. Litter-strewn marshes. Crumbling roads snaking under half-finished highways. Factories belching toxic smoke clouds. I take it all in, and for a second, I wonder whether this planet is worth saving. Close to morning, I wake up long enough to see that we’re crossing over some ginormous bridge that seems to stretch out forever. We’re surrounded by water. It’s sort of cool, like I’m floating.
“Lake Pontchartrain Causeway,” the lady across the aisle says. She’s wearing a WORLD’S BEST GRANDMA T-shirt, and under her flowered skirt she has on panty-hose support socks that only come up to her knobby knees. She offers me some of her peanuts. I decline, and she puts them away, pulling out a long thin cigarette that she tucks over the top of her ear. “You got family in Nu’walins?”
“No.”
“Ever been there?”
I shake my head.
“Well, it’s a mighty special place. Or was. What they let get done to it …” She shakes her head. “But we survive, we survive.” She starts singing a little bit of a song to herself. It sounds old and sad and promises a better day. “Law, I hope we get there soon. I can’t wait to have me a smoke. They say smoking kills you, but I been smoking my whole life and I’m healthy as a horse.”
Coughing hard, she turns a matchbook over and over between her fingers, working it like a worry stone. The image on it is familiar, and I c**k my head to get a better look. It’s the cover of the Junior Webster album Eubie showed me.
“You heard of the Horn and Ivory Club?” the old lady asks, holding up the book of matches.
“No,” I lie. I don’t really want to get drawn into a conversation.
“Good place. Here. You take these, honey.” She puts the matches in my hand.
“That’s okay.” I try to give them back.
“No. Go on and take it. Souvenir of your first trip to the Big Easy. You never know when they might come in handy.”
“Thanks.” These matches look ancient. They probably can’t light anything for shit. On the flip side the cover reads The Horn & Ivory Club, 141 N. Rampart Street, with a telephone number that starts with letters. I put them in my pocket, lay my head against the seat back, and stare out the window at that bridge that just keeps going on. After a minute, the lady starts to sing her song again, lulling me to sleep.
We roll into the city about dinnertime. The skyline glitters under a hazy, late-afternoon sun. New Orleans looks as if it’s just appeared out of the water like a myth, a modern Atlantis that shouldn’t exist. The bus hisses into the depot, which is as desolate and dirty as the one we’ve just left. Gonzo and I pour out onto the streets with the other pilgrims. Even though it’s late February, the air’s warm and sticky and a little aggressive—just another character in what promises to be a town full of them.
Gonzo and I are starving, so we find a diner close to the depot. It’s a total tourist place with lots of fake alligators on the walls and Mardi Gras beads hanging from every hook. It’s noisy and crowded, too, this being Fat Tuesday. After a hellishly long wait, the hostess takes us to a tiny table near the back. The menu is huge and has about forty-eight different kinds of seafood specials on it. I make a quick decision and munch down on the saltines and butter they’ve got on the table. Gonzo’s still hidden behind the accordion door of his menu. His fingers tap nervously against it. A waitress with poufy blond hair puts two waters down in front of us. She has a charm bracelet with about a million charms that jangle when she moves. Around her neck is a cross necklace the size of Rhode Island.
“What can I get you fellas?” she asks, taking out a pad and pencil.
“Boudreax’s Seafood Special with fries,” I say.
“Ketchup with your fries?”
“Yes, please.”
Gonzo finally lowers his menu. The waitress takes note of his Little Person status. It’s like it stalls her out for a minute and she needs to reboot, but the forced smile comes back.
