Bad News
Thirsty Work — Chapter 13: when’s closing?
Two young women from California travel to New Orleans in search of redemption after the death of their mother. Carolee thinks she will show her little sister the world, but what they find in the barrooms of the French Quarter at Mardi Gras is more than she knows how to handle, or could have imagined back home. This is the thirteenth chapter of the novel Thirsty Work.
It seemed we had crossed an invisible threshold. Suddenly, we were in the midst of a crowd. A half a block behind us, on Ursuline, one or two people meandered; but Bourbon Street was bustling from sidewalk to sidewalk. Our group huddled together on the corner, deciding where to go first.
Bourbon Street looked just like the postcards I’d seen of New Orleans. There were old-fashioned lampposts, that maybe used to house gaslight, and intricate cast iron balconies on slightly dilapidated two-story buildings. But what the postcard hadn’t shown was this thick crush of people and the frenetic energy they threw off. My heart beat faster as I crowded in closer to Howard, pretending to listen to the discussion he was having with Doug about where we should go first.
I knew right away that the crowd was different, but it took a few seconds to recognize why: there were no fat people in polyester pants pushing strollers like at the mall back home. In fact, there were no children anywhere. The entire street was populated by grown ups. And everywhere I looked, someone was strangely dressed.
Across the street, a group of three young men had their shirts off. Their chests were muscled and stippled with goose bumps in the evening air. Their arms, long and snakelike, were all painted silver. A woman standing in the doorway behind us wore a low-cut black leotard and a cat’s mask made of blue and black feathers. A man in platform shoes and a woman’s white bikini made a loud kissing sound at Doug’s behind when he walked past. I stared at him dumbfounded; but Doug only laughed.
Then across the street, high on a balcony, I saw a woman open up her blouse to reveal her naked breasts. I grabbed Howard’s arm. “Oh my God, look at that!” I whispered, not taking my eyes off her. Her skin was marshmallow white. There was a dark spot (a tattoo?) near the crevice of her underarm. She moved her shoulders back and forth, making her breasts swing. Her giant pink nipples were erect. The silver-armed men on the street below whooped and hollered.
“Show it girl!” Tessa cheered, practically in my ear. Howard whistled then turned and grinned broadly at me. The woman on the balcony blew a kiss to the crowd and disappeared behind french doors.
This is a whole different world, I thought. The rules don’t apply here. The blast of a trombone caught my attention next. The establishment behind us, with the catwoman in the doorway, was a restaurant and club. A Dixieland jazz band had taken the stage. A few people sat at small, round tables and listened. Next door to the restaurant was a bar. Next door to that bar was another bar. And next door to that bar was a walk-up bar — just a window in the wall where people could purchase draft beer or a pink drink in a curvy cup called a “Hurricane.” I watched a couple with long, tangled hair and baggy tourist t-shirts pay for two large plastic cups of beer, spilling some on the sidewalk as they turned from the window, laughing. Then I noticed that most of people on the street were carrying plastic cups. In Stockton, drinking in public was illegal, but it seemed to be a requirement here.
“We ought to take them to Pat O’Brien’s and let them have a Hurricane on the patio,” Sharon was saying, her hand on Doug’s arm.
“Naw, we don’t want to go to that tourist trap,” he said authoritatively. “Funky Butt’s is the place to go. They’ve got a great band. If the music hasn’t started, we can just hang out there until it does.”
“Okay. Funky Butt’s then,” Carl said. Howard shrugged as if this plan was as good as any other. Doug led us all across Bourbon Street. Once we crossed the magic threshold, the population diminished. When we turned right on Royal, there wasn’t another person in sight. Walking down the quiet street, it seemed almost as if the world had returned to normal: there were no men in women’s clothing, no painted arms, no feathered masks, no naked breasts. But the once-luxurious buildings rising on either side of us were visibly rotting — like Miss Havisham’s wedding dress. Beneath the old lace of iron balconies were red walls with huge slabs of plaster missing, revealing the crumbling brick skeletons beneath. Some old wooden doors looked as if they would fall off their hinges if you tried to open them.
We walked several blocks through this strange landscape. When we finally found Funky Butt’s, I was let down. I’d expected our destination to be somehow special, noticeably different than the bars we’d seen back on Bourbon Street. But the place was dark and damp. There was a long, mostly empty, bar. Small, round tables were scattered haphazardly around the floor. A brightly-lit juke box stood against the back wall. A thin woman with yellow teeth and a blue tattoo of a rose on her shoulder was tending bar.
“Hi Doug,” she said with what might have been warmth. “Where y’at?”
“Hi Candy,” he said, swinging up easily onto a stool. Sharon and Tessa took the stools on either side of him. “My friends Carolee and Cathy just rolled in from California,” he gestured towards us. I nodded a greeting to the bartender. Cathy was occupied at the juke box with Carl. Doug stood on the slats of his stool and looked pointedly around the bar. Besides our crew, there was only one other patron. “So,” he continued grandly, “I want to honor the occasion by buying the house a round.” He took a $20 out of his pocket and slapped it on the bartop. “I’ll have the usual.”
“Ooo-wee. A big spender,” Candy laughed. She turned to the row of liquor bottles behind her and pulled out one with a picture of a turkey on the dark brown label. She poured the whiskey in a shot glass, then drew a pint of beer from the tap. She set both glasses in front of Doug and turned to Tessa. “Whaddaya havin’?”
As the bartender waited on Tessa and Sharon, I took another look around the room. Cathy and Carl were huddled over the juke box. His arm was around her slim waist. She giggled loudly. Carl pushed a few buttons. A moment later, Fats Domino’s voice filled the room. I’m walkin’ to New Ore Lins.
I wondered if the bartender would ask to see my driver’s license. Then I remembered the drinking age in Louisiana was only 18. I was legal here — more than legal. Hell, even Cathy was almost legal! I felt suddenly mature. Next, I wondered what I should order to drink. I still wasn’t in the mood for a beer. What I’d like most would be to leave this dark room and go get a hamburger. But Cathy and Carl were happily flirting at the juke box, and I didn’t want to insult Doug by refusing his treat. Besides, here came Howard, sliding onto the bar stool next to me. When Candy finally got to me, I ordered a draft beer, then hesitated.
“What the hell,” I said, grinning a little wildly. “This is a special occasion. I guess I’ll have the same thing as Doug.”
I don’t remember a lot about my first night in New Orleans. I had planned to have one drink at Funky Butt’s and then corral the crowd to get dinner. But Howard bought me a second round before I finished the first, the short shot glass full of clear brown whiskey and the tall glass of cold, yellow beer appearing on the bar before me unbidden. And before I’d finished those two, another pair was standing behind them. Did I imagine the bartender laughing at me as she put them down?
I didn’t have to drink everything that was put before me, I knew. But my booze-addled brain considered the parade of glasses a challenge. I could drink. I could drink as much as Tessa and Sharon. And besides, by the second round, I really wanted to drink both the beer and the whiskey. The liquor released my clenched muscles, elongated the knotted convolutions of my brain, combined with the repressed memory of my mother’s death night, the strain of our long car trip, and the relief of our arrival to create a new dimension: a louder world with more laughter, less care.
I remember the band arriving. I remember my surprise when two tall black men in light brown suits began walking up and down on top of the bar, playing saxophones. I remember retreating to the small, round tables on the floor, protecting my precious elixir from the musicians’ boots.
I remember the room suddenly becoming crowded with people, the space around me saturated with music, the air clouded with smoke.
At some point that night my vision altered, with only snatches of scenes coming into sharp focus amidst a chaos of color and light. There was Tessa’s hand on Sharon’s neck, my foot in Howard’s lap, Carl’s lips on Cathy’s earlobe and her childlike voice slurring as she apologized for knocking her drink in Doug’s lap. The blue bulge of his wet penis beneath his jeans.
I remember at that moment, the moment of the spilled drink, a sudden sense of responsibility trying to overtake me. It made a strong but brief appearance, sometime after the third round. I gathered my wits, held my shoulders back and leaned over my extended foot, toward Howard, like a dancer. I wrapped my lips carefully around the question, trying not to slur the words. “When are we leaving?” I asked. Then, “I think I’m shitfaced.” A self-deprecating laugh.
He turned his sparkling green and brown eyes towards me and his puffy palms towards the ceiling. He shrugged. I noticed again that his eyebrows met over his nose, creating one wide stripe of fur across his forehead. I leaned in to look closer, fascinated. Then I remembered that I was concerned about something. Was it Cathy? Myself? No, I think it was time.
I sat up straight in my chair and looked officiously at my wristwatch, bringing it forward and back from my face as I tried to focus on the hands. The exercise made me dizzy. I decided to abandon it. “What time do the bars close?” I finally asked.
Howard responded too quickly. Was I the only one who was intoxicated? “They don’t,” he said.
“What do you mean, the bars don’t close? They have to close sometime!” Now I was insulted. Why was he trying to trick me? Did he think I was stupid? That wasn’t nice. I tried to pull my foot out of his lap, but began to lose my balance.
“No they don’t,” he smiled impishly, grabbing my ankle to steady me. “The bars never close in New Orleans. They’re open 24 hours a day.”
I looked at the smooth line of his soft, pink lips, the brown fur of his single eyebrow, the light glinting from his brown and green eyes. I felt his hand on my ankle and knew he was telling the truth.
“Oh, Jesus,” I shook my head sadly. “That’s bad news. I don’t think I can make it.” He patted my foot solicitously and held his hand up to order another round.
Follow the free chapter links above or buy a digital copy of the whole book:
Copyright © 2020 by Patsy Fergusson. All rights reserved.
My writing is always free to readers who follow my links from Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, but if you’d like to browse more, click here to join Medium and help support my work at the same time. Want an email when I publish a new story? Click here. Find more of my fiction, including another novel, on this List. And for more of the good stuff, follow Fourth Wave, where we’re changing the world for the better, one story at a time. Got one of your own? Submit to the Wave!
