Hazy shade of winter, I thought, when I looked outside on Tuesday morning. Gloom, grey and more gloom. Even the pastel faces of my neighbors’ homes were muted in the fog. I almost wished I were on Bourbon Street instead of a block away. All the lights there would cut through the fog in London in March. More importantly, they would put a little color back in the atmosphere. It was like being in a noir film without the creative placement of looming shadows.
While Mardi Gras wasn’t until right before Lent, Carnival season started on Twelfth Night, known to the non-Catholics as January 6. This fact is made much of by travel agents. You could get some good prices in early January. It made perfect sense to me. This particular tradition was a melding of the German Fasching, and some Roman festivals going back to the second century that used up the whole set of forty days before Lent. One version I’d read referred to it as a modern-day Saturnalia, another as a time in which participants gave themselves up to voluntary madness and denied themselves no pleasure.
I wasn’t volunteering for the madness, so despite the distinct possibility that my flu cure was worse than the disease, I ventured out into the Quarter during lunch. It had warmed up to all of fifty-eight degrees, so I threw on my leather jacket instead of my long wool coat over the peach sweater I had put on that morning. I wasn’t sure I’d find the same bartender on duty as I did last night, but it was worth a shot.
The walk to Bourbon and Toulouse didn’t take me very long. Still, I was happy to duck into the Inn at Bourbon’s lobby to get out of the cool breeze. The last thing I wanted was a relapse, especially in light of what I learned last night. A couple of business types were at a table eating hot sandwiches and fries. I was in luck; the same bartender was behind the bar, pulling a pint of Guinness for a tired-looking man in a charcoal gray suit who was smoking a cigarette. He saw me out of the corner of his eye.
“Be right with you,” he said in a friendly voice. He wasn’t a tall man, maybe five foot eight. His arms were muscular, probably from lifting kegs of beer, but he had the relaxed paunch of someone who enjoys food more than exercise. He looked around fortyish, much of his hairline escaping over his head. His face was unlined, but his neat black beard was salted with gray. I nodded and made myself comfortable on a dark wooden barstool.
“What can I get you?”
Information. “White wine, whatever you recommend.” Getting people to talk about their specialized knowledge was sometimes a good way to get them to open up.
“Do you like California wines, or do you prefer something imported?” Testing me, to see if I’m worthy of the good stuff, or just being hospitable?
“I had something from Oregon the other night that was nice. I also like some of the whites from Chile that I’ve tried.” Make of that what you will.
“Okay, if you like Chilean, you’re going to love Australian. Just a moment,” A green bottle frosty with cold appeared in his hand. “Snake Creek chardonnay.” He presented it with a flourish. I had to laugh.
“Snake Creek? What kind of a bite does it have?”
“None at all, you’ll find it rather refreshing,” He poured an ounce into a wine glass and handed it over. I took the sip and held it in my mouth for a moment. He was right. It put me in mind of summer, which was only appropriate as it was summer in Australia. I swallowed, nodded and pulled out my credit card. “Pour one for yourself too.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” His nametag read Maurice. “Where you visiting from?”
“Royal Street,” I grinned. I would always talk like I was from Chicago. “I’ve been down here almost eight years.”
“You’re kidding. You sound almost exactly like someone I know that grew up in Avalon Park.”
“Close, Hyde Park.” I enjoyed some more wine. “Are you local?”
“I’m a transplant, like you. I moved here from Detroit in the late eighties. I couldn’t take the snow anymore.” Having dug my battered old Honda Civic out of a snowbank on more than one occasion, I could sympathize.
“Nice little place,” I commented to get him talking. “Mostly tourists, or do you get a lot of locals in here too?”
“Tourist trade, mostly. Lots of times it’s people who want to stay on Bourbon Street, but don’t really know what a party Bourbon is all the time. It’s kind of hard to get to sleep before five in the morning, you know?”
I gave him a knowing smile. “I know, that’s why I live on Royal and not any closer. I was in here last night, actually. The piano player was wonderful.”
“Talea? She’s fabulous. I wish we could get her in here to perform more often, but she’s only around in the wintertime. In the summer she goes on a circuit of different renaissance fairs in the South and Midwest and sings with a small band. Regular wandering minstrel we got.” His smile was proud and I wondered if he had discovered her or was sleeping with her. Call me suspicious. “Refill?”
“Please.” I should have eaten before coming here. I’d had a pear-walnut muffin for breakfast, but that was around eight, and it was now closer to one. “I bought her CD.” That should help endear me. “I saw a guy at the bar I thought I knew. Leather jacket, hair in kind of a Beatles haircut.”
He paused while wiping the counter. Just for a second, but I saw it. “That doesn’t sound familiar. What was he drinking? I’m more likely to remember that.”
Good answer from a bartender. I didn’t buy it, but it was a good answer. Of course, I didn’t want to buy it. “Tattoo on his neck? McCoy’s pretty hard to miss.”
There was a definite tautness to his body now. I continued as if I didn’t notice. “Nope.” He slid a fresh glass in front of me.
“I’ll cash out now, thanks.” He ran the credit card, only charging me for two glasses. I tipped him as if I’d paid for three, and received a strained smile for my generosity.
“Thanks. . .Zofia.” He read my name off my Visa before I put it away.
“Nice to meet you,” I gave him an innocent smile and fished a business card out of my wallet. “I’m just down the street and one block over. Royal & St. Philip if you like coffee and books.” He didn’t take the card. I left it on the polished oak of the bar and sipped the rest of my wine, showing no sign of hurrying. Maurice left me to my own devices and pulled another beer for one of the business types with the sandwiches. I thought I saw him watching me out of the corner of my eye, but I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t be sure of anything, but I was determined to keep my mien casual. Let him think I was here for the wine or the atmosphere. Okay, in the middle of the day on a Tuesday, atmosphere was not going to be a valid reason. I finished the wine. He was right, smooth finish, no bite, unlike its server. I headed home.