15 min 6:54 PM 1-8-99 Sa New Orleans Airport

After out “wedding meal,” we walked down Carondelet to Bourbon Street, talking about how blessed we were.  We stopped at a bank and a security guard said, “Have a blessed day,” and he might as well have been Jesus Himself. We got some alcohol and strolled the streets down to the waterfront where a desperate guitar-playing bum was panhandling coins in exchange for his serenades. I began to feel mournful as I rued each fine piece of ass I saw and realized I had just promised a Louisiana judge in so many words not to fuck any of it. I leaned on a rail and watched the muddy waters of the Mississippi passing me by and always coming. We walked along Decatur, past the street performers in front of St. Louis Cathedral to Café Du Monde where a sidewalk clarinetist gave us a free jazz solo. We got coffee and beignets and read and wrote, and my head started to clear up a little. We strolled through the French Quarter before we stopped for a fifth of Wild Turkey and hopped on a streetcar full of junkies. We rode our wedding carriage back to the Saint Charles Guesthouse in the Garden District. I won the orgasm-giving contest three to two. We lay around nude and drank our bourbon a while before showering and walking up to the pub on the corner for an Abita. Then we crossed the street to another pub for another Abita. Then we went down the street to Lucky’s for another. Neither Richard nor Iron Man were there. We shot a game of pool and called a cab. Rochelle had found a bar in Fodor’s called Napoleon House that was supposed to be a hangout for writers, intellectuals, and other bullshit artists. It was dark and full of classical music, and we drank Pimm’s and ate muffuletta and jambalaya. Greg, the bartender, sold us his cookbook. A group of women came in, and it came up that we had gotten married that day, and they gushed and hugged us and said they felt touched by magic and said they knew we would last. We hung out a while before Rochelle started to get tuckered out. We went “home” to the St. Charles, and I smoked and lay in the dark nervous about good and evil and how history seems to affect the spirit of a place. My wife slept in the crook of my arm.

1-10-00  7:00 AM M
We woke up late our last day in New Orleans, had a little connubial bliss, showered, then packed up while the maid waited for us to clear out.  We loaded up the car, bade farewell to the St. Charles Guest House, and drove around the corner.  We stopped in at an archetypal Southern diner, long and narrow with a long counter, round padded swiveling stoools bolted into the while tile floor, the patrons gorging themselves on cholesterol and tobacco, the service terrible, the slow-movin' old gal excusin' her apathy with a lot of  "honeys" and "babies."  The locals were cheering Tennessee against Buffalo on a TV up on the wall, and the smoke was murdering us.  We asked the old gal if we could move to a table about ten feet farther away from the primary smokestack--a plaid-shirted, flat-topped, Jim-Crow throwback--but the ole gal said, "That's not my station, my babies."  "They're very strict about not crossing six feet out of their way around here," I said to Rochelle, loud enough for all to hear.  I got a hot turkey sandwich and mashed potatoes smothered in gravy and, possibly, saliva.  Rochelle got bacon and eggs.  We read the Times Picayune under the hard stares of the regulars assessing the outsiders in their midst.  When we finished, we drove around looking for a place to buy boxes to ship home all the stuff we'd brought with us in the rental but couldn't lug through the airport.  We bought some boxes at a Walgreen's, but they weren't big enough, so we decided to go to the Shipping Post we'd seen in the French Quarter a day earlier.  It cost sixty bucks to have everything shipped.  I bought some post cards, and we drove up to St. Louis Cemetery Number One.  We strode warily among the tombs, having heard story after story about danger in there.  You wondered whether it was ordinary muggers or just bad spirits, and there did seem to be an inordinate amount of fleeting movements out the corners of the eyes.  We found voodoo queen, Madame LaVeux's  tomb near the entrance.  A couple trippers in orange and purple robes were performing some weird rite, spitting wine, burning incense, banging a cymbal.  I took pictures of them.  You could hear jazz wafting in even to the cemetery from the projects behind it.  I peeked over the fence, and a brass band funeral procession was parading between the brick tenements.  I took pictures.  A caretaker came to tell us the cemetery was closing;  We got back to the car and headed for the airport. 

They were married at the courthouse in New Orleans, and when all the waiting around to have it approved and over with, they stepped out into the winter-chilled Louisiana sunshine. The bride and groom hadn’t eaten all day and were famished.

“We could look for a place in the French Quarter,” said the groom.

The bride said, “I don’t think I can wait that long.”

“What about that place?” He pointed to a humble pink building on the other side of the courthouse parking lot. Atop it, green letters spelled out “MISSISSIPPI FRIED CHICKEN” as if it were the name of the place, and beneath that it advertised BBQ Ribs and Beans and Rice. They walked toward it. Still another of its signs read JAZZ AND DANCING.

A black man in the black coat and pants of a plantation butler welcomed them as he opened the door. Two other patrons sat at modest tables draped in with green and white tablecloths. The place was just about to close for the day. “All we gots left’s fried chicken and red beans and rice,” said a black woman in a black servant’s dress.

“That okay?” the groom asked the bride.

“Uhm-hum,” she nodded smiling.

“We’ll take it,” the groom said to the waiter. “You got any champagne?”

“I’ll have to look. Is it some kind of special occasion?”

He chuckled. “We just got married at the courthouse across the street about fifteen minutes ago.”

“Well, lordy, lordy, who me!” she exclaimed.

“Congratulations,” called the two black ladies dining there.

One little round table with a white tablecloth, stood on a platform raised against the wall, separated by a railing from the rest of the room but for a gap to allow entrance. “Well, you should sit uppie hyer,” said the waiter.

It did seem like exactly the place for very newlyweds to sit.

“Who married y’all?”

“Judge Sophia Spears.” This datum elicited another shriek of delight. “Oh, she come in here sometimes. She’s nice. Her daughter goes to school with my daughter.”

“She was nice,” the groom agreed.

The waiter brought out the champagne, and the woman was close behind him with biscuits and butter. The woman said, “I’m’a put on some music for y’all,” and walked over to the jukebox. Soon, the waiter was coming out with the chicken, beans, and rice, soulful tunes were oozing into the air, and the bride and groom thought they would live happily ever after.

Sa 9:37 PM Dallas time 1-8-99

The day after we were married, my wife and I took a drive down past the stately old homes on St. Charles.  We passed Tulane and Loyola universities and stopped and had breakfast near there.  I had a crawfish omelet.  It was yummy.  We went next door and had bloody Marys and screwdrivers and read the Picayne Tribune.  Saints Coach, Iron Mike Ditka, was fired.  After that, we drove down Magazine past ramshackle shops, searching for pawned wedding bands.  We went down to Gentilly and got two bands for a hundred and ten bucks.  We put them on each other’s fingers.  Then we headed out to plantation country on “The Great River Road.”  We drove through one dilapidated parish of dilapidated homes after another along a maze of numbered highways not covered in this stupid Fodor’s book map.  But we picked our way through to the Destrahan Plantation, and to Laura’s which is said to be the birthplace of Uncle Remus, and to Oak Alley with its gothic-looking Spanish-moss-draped giants all a row.  We drank beer and used the cell phone to make reservations at Commander’s Palace.  Rochelle evened the orgasm score on the way back to the guest house.  We showered and went to the pubs and had a couple beers before summoning a taxi to take us to the Garden District.  The maitre’d made me put on a dinner jacket before they escorted us upstairs to the glass-walled garden room overlooking a lush courtyard.  I ordered a ’96 bottle of some red wine, 1996, and some shrimp remoulade and baked oysters on the half shell for appetizers, and for entrees we got Mississippi roasted quail and veal chop chopitoulas.  The quail came with asparagus and bread pudding and a meat stuffing that tasted a little like fresh ground hot dog meat.  Let’s tell ourselves it was some gourmet andouille.  We had coffee and a smoke and took a cab back to the house where we humped and passed out early.  We got up the next morning and drove out to Barataria to bayou country and took a mostly boring swamp tour on a flat-bottomed boat and saw herons and cormorants and a couple listless alligators too dumb hibernate.  We drove to the French Quarter after that and split an order of red beans and rice and a shrimp po’ boy.  We walked around a bit.

I got married to Rochelle today!

1-5-00 W 11:17 PM

We’re in the Napoleon House on Chartres Street.  When we got into town last night, we were afraid we’d never get a room since the Sugar Bowl was going on, which would determine the College Football National Championship.  But the first place we tried had a perfect room that was perfectly affordable.  We unpacked our stuff and walked around the corner to St. Charles and took a CROWDED streetcar to the French Quarter.  Eighty thousand Virgina Tech and Florida State fans were staggering toward the Super Dome.  We were like a couple of salmon heading upstream.  We got bourbons on Bourbon Street, and a couple beers, and walked among the drunken revelers the length of the French  Quarter.  We decided to eat in some Cajun/Creole place.  The waiter saw how in love we are and couldn’t stop talking about it.  We ate some grub: Cajun seafood, creole chicken, spicy alligator—the gator was tough and chewy, though.  We were stuffed when we left.  We walked to Pat O’Brien’s and watched the first half of the Sugar Bowl with the crowd in there.  At half time, we went to some voodoo/tobacconist and bought some smokes.  Then we wandered up the drunken streets to the Cat’s Meow and watched more of the game from their balcony over Bourbon Street.  After our big meal and days of driving, we felt old and unwieldy among the partying young ‘uns, so we flagged down a cab and got a ride to our house on Prytania near the Garden District.  We went into a place called Lucy’s Pub.  It was quieter than with all the rabble back in the French Quarter.  We got drinks and settled in to watch the rest of the game.  A talkative Kentuckian sat beside us, and I asked him if he knew a chapel or something where we could get married.  Boudreuax , the bartender, said we could do it there in the pub.  Then a drunk the other side of the Kentuckian chimed in in his southern drawl that he couldn’t help but overhear that we all were wanting to get married, and that he had once been a preacher and was a state-certified justice of the peach, and that he would be honored to perform the service.  Then, Richard, the owner, said he would bake a cake.  All we had to do, he said, was go downtown for a license.

1-6-00 1:07 PM TH

So, we took the streetcar (named Desire, for all I know) down to Poydras where a couple of helpful locals escorted us to city hall. There, we were directed to the Louisiana State Building for a marriage license. The clerk in the marriage license office redirected us to the court building to geta judge to waive birth certificates and the seventy-two-hour waiting period. The first office we tried was closed for a funeral, but we found another judge willing to help us. She sent us back to the state office with some new paperwork. We went back and filled out a bunch of forms and waited around about a half hour before they called us in to fill out some more forms and sign some stuff. They gave us a bag of cleaning products for a wedding present and sent us back to the judge’s office in the court building. We filled out some more forms and waited in line and signed some more papers. Then we waited around the courtroom. Wendy, the clerk, asked who would be marrying us. “Some drunk we met in a bar said he was a justice of the peace. He showed us his license and said he could do it there.” She made a face. She said, “Our judge will be happy to do it for you today.” Rochelle and I looked at each other and said, “Okay.” They called us into Judge Sonia Spears’ chamber. She pulled on her robe and greeted us. She said we were gathered there in the eyes of God to be lawfully wedded and she did the whole “richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, ‘til death do you part” schtick, and I said, “I do.” Then, delivered the same line to Rochelle, and she did, too. They gave us some plastic flowers and took our pictures and told us we could kiss. We were in jeans and t-shirts. I wanted to hug the judge, but I was afraid she would smell the joint in my breast pocket. The clerk and the secretaries were our witnesses. They were beamingly happy to be marrying us. I felt like someone was tickling me the whole time. And then we were done. We walked outside and called our moms. Mine said she was floored. Rochelle’s was really excited. I’ll have to write about our wedding dinner later. 

1-3-00 Soul Sold at the Crossroads

1-3-00 M 3:00 AM

We’re in Fort Stockton, Texas, at a Motel Six. I wrote three pages this morning at Gringo Pass on the Arizona/Mexico border, south of Organ Pipe. From there, we drove and drove in our rented Olds. Rochelle drove while I read The Arizona Republic and did the crosswords. A cold front has been storming through with crazy low clouds and sporadic showers over the Sonoran mesas and Apache shacks. We stopped in Tucson and had a hard time finding a map and a decent place to eat, though we did eventually find both. We ate at the Silver Saddle Steakhouse—had a couple of beers and a burger, Roch: soup and salad. I drove from there to New Mexico talking of past cross-country blunders. We listened to Metallica, the Violent Femmes, and to Nebraska beating Tennessee in the Fiesta Bowl. I put my joints under the seat because the CHP took twenty minutes to write my first ticket of the day, and I was sure when he ran my license and learned of my suspension that I was about to be taken to jail. But, all he did was write the ticket. I’m finally getting sleepy, drinking beer in bed. We should make San Antone by three tomorrow. Get a room. See the River Walk. Houston. New Orleans. Guess we’ll do a hostel a couple of nights. We’ve got to fly out Saturday.

1-3-2000 5:22 PM Mon

San Antonio, Texas.     We left Ft. Stockton, Texas, this morning at about ten o’clock.  It was barren wasteland for a few hours before transforming into a rolling country of chaparral, oak, and creeks.  One butte looked just like a tit with a nipple on it.  We stopped at a picnic area and had a beer.  We got to San Antonio around three.  We parked and found the famed Riverwalk, but the river has been diverted, and a sick ring of muck circles the shops and restaurants instead.  We ate a couple fat-ass plates of Mexican food at Casa Rio and downed a couple of margaritas before moseying on over to the Alamo.  We toured the mission and the museum.  Now, we’re sitting at Crazy Sam’s having a couple beers.  We’re going to walk around the rest of the Mudwalk when I’m done writing this, and then press on for Houston.  The trees are draped in strings of colored lights.  What else?  Rochelle [sloppy profile of what might be an ugly woman in black ink] is so beautiful.  She’s sitting across the table from me meditating on the fountain and waterfall in the hotel adjacent to the patio here where we’re drinking.  I had to borrow this pen from the bartender.

What else?  Rochelle thinks they ought to open a window or two at the Alamo.

I need a shave.  We need to find a couple of rings.  The bartender just traded me this nice silver pen for one that’s chained to a stapler.  I started reading the introduction to Blake.  Still haven’t seen a newspaper today.  I handwrote fifteen minutes in my trip-journal that serves as a surrogate laptop computer for my exercises.  I have to try to do a third-person page in Houston.  What else?  It’s beginning to get dark.  We can walk around the River Walk with our beers if I can think of enough to write to bet to the bottom of this page.  Blake thought of himself as more of a mouthpiece for God than as a writer.

They chewed beignets at Cafe du Monde, and he thought about how he hadn't written since San Antonio, two days earlier. They drove through Houston, couldn't figure out what to do there, and kept on driving to Winnie, Texas, where they stopped at Al T's and had beer and bourbon and chatted with the locals.

They stayed in a forty-dollar motel and slept until ten. They crossed into Louisiana with the radio off. Driving through the lonely swamps and bayous, he had a vague sense of unease, as if the land were haunted by the bloody ghosts of history. Every little town had a road crew whose purpose was not evident. He suspected their lower speed-limit signs gave the local constable a reason to pull over travelers and line his pockets with money from fines for not going twenty miles per hour in the bogus construction zones. More darkly, he pictured the orange cones as a highwayman's trap to rob and rape unwary wanderers. When they stopped for gas, he had to steel himself against an irrational fear as he entered the beat-up old service station.

As they neared New Orleans, he put a Robert Johnson cassette on the car stereo. "They say he's the original bluesman," he told her. "They say he sold his soul at a Mississippi Delta crossroads to be able to play the way he did. He was shot and killed by a man for messin' around with that man's wife."

She turned it off. She said she couldn't negotiate the Sugar Bowl traffic with the music on. Strain crept into her voice as he guided her down Bourbon Street packed with revelers. She was becoming tense and angry. He sensed a meltdown coming.