New Orleans, I Love You.

From rolling hills and honky-tonks of Tennessee, to booze soaked, brass pumping, wallet emptying streets of the Big Easy. We pilgrimaged for a week of insanity. In hope that if we “lost” ourselves, maybe we’d find something. The only thing we found were drugs from strangers, strip clubs, to-go booze and one-way roads tripping us up on our way home once the sun woke up. Home wasn’t a hotel or an “airbnb”. Home was a friend of a friend’s cousin’s girlfriend’s living room floor in sleeping bags in exchange for a case of beer and maybe a pack of smokes. But we couldn’t be any happier to be far from our comfort zones.

Piss and vinegar. Vomit and bile. Hand grenades inhibiting people throwing up as if they were a human grenade. We started strong and fast. The sun hadn’t set yet, why not? Meticulously making a pros/cons list as to if your friend would make a better Mia Wallace or Diana Ross. You decide both, because the bourbon is strong. You head out the front door, knowing it’ll be more than an 12 hour shift before you return. Kiss your loved ones, you’re leaving for the war on your own liver.

A few friends, a handful of drunken strangers and I walked down to the Mississippi River in front of Jackson Square then continued to drag our feet wherever we heard a brass instrument belching a catchy hook. Shared a spliff, took some drags of a bottle to pep ourselves up for the fourth wind we’d eventually get to make the hangover the next time we woke up even worse.

You couldn’t recognize a soul, you probably didn’t know them anyways. Four sets of three blind mice, a zombie snow white and that one guy from Miami vice frolicking with tiny spills from the necks of their bud lite bottles. It was half nightmare, mostly dream. Ask me again in ten years and I’ll probably lean closer to a terror. I’m getting older and none of this sounds fun anymore and truly I am shocked we’re all still alive.

Us and our new gaggle of runaways, who joined somewhere along the cobble stones, wrapped up. Everyone not familiar calling each other by their costume character. I remember tagging along with “Castro” on a cigarette run at some point. A solid rest of 15 minutes that felt like an hour.

They all got bored with swapping spit and the spliff was smoked. Two in the morning now and it was time for our sixth fifth from the liquor store.

A mad hatter, one of many, stumbled in front of us laughing. I’m not even sure if it would be classified as laughter. More like a maniacal scream with the occasional chuckle. He wore a large top hat with almost an entire bouquet around the band. I remember smelling the lavender mixed with the alcohol soaking out of his sweat. Mumbling about the chesire, tea the twins.

From his top hat fell a piece of paper shaped like a playing card.

I didn’t share this sighting with any of my comrades.

They were too busy playing “Beignet powder or cocaine?” on the closed patio of Cafe Du Monde. Who am I to interrupt such an important investigation?

I looked down after everyone was ahead and found a Queen of Hearts playing card stomped with boot prints. It was from him, the truly insane Mad Hatter. Could’ve been a bad trip, could’ve been someone genuinely losing their mind. I’ll never know. The playing card was nearly torn in half, I picked it up. Put it in my inside pocket of my beer soaked vest and caught up with the group. Didn’t think much of it.

The gum wrappers, cellophane and loose change around it always cleared out. Yet, never this one single Queen of Hearts. Mad Hatter, I hope all your curses have been cured. I have forgotten you, but now I remember. For now, I’ll remember not to forget you.