By Nico Lustgarten

The bathroom of Pirate’s Alley stinks of shit, and disinfectant. The stench sneaks past the coke that I’m stuffing into my nose and C.C. Rider smiles and laughs

as if there isn’t a pound of shit clogging the toilet just a couple of feet from her. With my black-handled pocket knife, she etches a message into the wall where it will remain amongst a universe of carved names and dates that go back to the 1920’s.

Her inscription reads: C.C. was sold to New Orleans. 8/07.

This is my friend, C.C. Rider – the lesbian queen, the beautiful brown-haired girl with shiny beads of green, purple, and gold dangling from her neck. I pass her a bag of sweet powder; she tilts her head, and takes a deep snort – my sweet Hoover vacuum cleaner in three-inch heels; the woman who has swatted away many attempts to adjoin my lips with hers.

“This is really peaceful stuff, man,” C.C. says, handing me the bag. I dig a key into the little plastic baggy and deep into my brain the cocaine goes. I’m really happy about this. You have to see my face – no, you should see C.C. dancing. C.C.’s hips shaking to the sound of a snort-snort here and a snort-snort there, here a snort, there a snort, then she vomits into the garbage can.

“No more margaritas for you, baby doll.”

“Give me a sip of your drink,” she says, wiping her mouth.

“You’ve lost your blinkin’ mind. Gimme me a kiss.”

“Ew!” she says and slurps from my glass of whiskey slamming it into the porcelain of the sink, fracturing the glass.

“Now that drink is no good to anyone, you clumsy klutz!” She kisses me on the cheek, licks my chin. “This place is a shithole.”

“The bathroom or the bar?”

“Both.”

If you don’t know New Orleans or even the French Quarter then the location of Pirate’s Alley means nothing to you. Even if you know the alley off Conti Street that it’s packed into, it still wouldn’t make a hell of a difference, but that’s where we are, warm, wiry and confidently seeking the good times, hiding from the commercial hub of Bourbon Street where all of the touring maniacs toss trinkets into the air and revelers feed on beads like goldfish in a large fishbowl.

Laissez les bon temps rouler.

“Nico, baby, let’s ride the wild horses tonight, go to that strip club and bite some labia,” C.C. says.

“Well,” I say, stirring the drink to look for splinters of glass. “How about we get along tonight in this bathroom? Get along real close, you know? Then we can move on and on.”

She lifts an eyebrow, turns her head and walks back into the stall.

“You mean, you want this?” She says, propping one stocking covered leg on top of the toilet with the evacuating shit inside. “You will never have this.”

“Well, your resolve is steady but keep laying tracks up your nose and maybe your perspective will change.”

“Doubtful, Nico, but keep trying.” Then of course she laughs at me.

“How serious are you about this strip club?”

“How serious does this look?” She reaches into the pocket of her tight jeans and out comes a thick wad of money.

“Where did you get that from?”

“Shhhh…” she smiles, grabs my hand, pushes the door open and leads me into the visual ruin of the bar’s neon lights.

Here are some rules for your New Orleanian exploit:

1.  Bring a good supply of narcotics.

2. Always have a dollar ready to spend.

3.  Forget wherever you left. It no longer matters.

4. Beware of strip club bouncers. They can be more brutal than a South Korean combat unit.

5. Fights are common in the French Quarter. Bring a knife but never use it. It should only be for show and tell.

6.  If a drug dealer asks you to follow him into the bathroom then ensure a sentry is on the lookout from the outside. Dire consequences will result without a full strategy implemented for such a scenario. Pack your wits and you’ll have Marie Laveau’s graces.

7. If you don’t know who Marie Laveau is then ask the minute you check into your hotel. You need to know who Marie Laveau is. When you find out, pay her a visit.

8.  If you think you’ve had enough just do a little more.

9. What happens in New Orleans never happened.

The extra special super bonus:

Turn yourself into a fist and punch holes into the infinite memory bank of New Orleans. You are a metallurgist building a new sculpture in Louis Armstrong’s Park for the insane. If you adhere to these rules then your mother will feel shame for birthing you. This is OK. It’s part of the action.

So then we’re in a different bathroom, the men’s bathroom of a strip club. How the place works is like this: you walk inside, the man pays the cashier but the woman, C.C. in this scenario, doesn’t have to pay because her participation – they expect – will cultivate more money for the dancers. The bathroom we’re in is in the back of the courtyard behind the strip club.

The muted boom-boom-boom coming from inside the strip club speaks to my heart, which is banging away with all sorts of anxiety. The wrinkly old black man sitting on a chair looks us over with severe suspicion. I appease him by offering ten bucks in exchange for unlimited access to the bathroom stalls – no questions asked. He wants to know if he can watch and I tell him that I’d even let him touch her but she only digs girls. He folds his arms and says, “Mmmm, hmmm…” and leaves it at that.

We get comfy in the bathroom stall, which is real tight and away from the ramble of strip club dandies. Our shoes splash on the wet floor rendering the soles untouchable. She gives me a different bag so we don’t have to share anymore. We walk out rubbing our noses and sniffling.

“Bad colds,” I tell Mr. Bojangles.

“Uh huh,” he says.

I give him a ten, pick a mint from the tray of treats he is guarding and walk out of the bathroom. I hear him say, “Thank you. Come back soon.” Oh we intend to, Mr. Bojangles. We surely intend.

The sound of the strip club gets louder as we walk closer through the back entrance. The doors burst open and it’s a cacophony of screams, dance music, and men hollering at waitresses. Dollar bills rain from the second floor as the dancer on stage shakes her bare breasts at the ceiling. The closer we get to the stage, the more menacing the patrons become. A fifty-ish man with a clump of dark matted hair and a thick gut watches us through one eye. The other eye is covered with an eye patch. He looks at C.C., lifts his eye patch, and where the left eye is supposed to be is just a dark hole covered with concaved scar tissue. He says “This is me winking at you, baby” and guffaws while C.C. scrunches her face.

We sit down next to this other guy, he’s younger than us and his green snake skin boots are crossed one over the other on top of the stage.

“My name’s Ray. What are y’all called?”

He digs into his pocket and pulls out a thick wad of green bills. He unfolds them, and counts 20s like they were pages of a novel. Page three has the dancer’s name all over it. It says, “In God We Trust.” Andrew Jackson’s face is one long dignified scowl. Ray places the twenty inside the stripper’s stocking and there’s Old Hickory now, his face sweaty and pressed against one of the most beautiful strippers I’ve ever seen. The man who saved New Orleans from the Brits is now wearing glitter at a raunchy strip joint.

“You know, I didn’t even want to be here,” Ray says, flashing the fan of twenties. “My buddy dragged me and now he’s in the back getting a lap dance that I paid for but like my granddaddy said, ‘don’t ever let money get in between friendships.’”

“Can I be your friend?” I ask Ray.

“That your girl there?”

“Sure that’s my girl.”

“Give her fifty bucks to get on that stage and take ‘er top off.”

“Christ, that’s a tough request,” I tell him.

“You or your lady know where I can find me some blow?”

C.C. peers between us, throws an arm around my shoulder and says, “No, we don’t have anything.” She puts her mouth close to my ear and slyly whispers, “No sharing.”

I mouth I have to Ray.

He winks and says, “I’ll pay.”

The dancer leaves the stage and the DJ announces from the intercom, “That was Mary Chain, boys. Give her a hand and maybe she’ll give you hers tonight. Alright, now I hope you’re ready for Candy Cane. She’s Ms. Dancing Louisiana 2006 so you boys better give ‘er some respect.” Everyone cheers. Everyone howls. The good ol’ boys from the bar swarm around us, knocking our chairs together.

It’s a nasty crowd and you can smell the Bayou sweat and even the carpet bagger money swishing in the pockets of Northern men. I have just enough space to squeeze my drink into my mouth. C.C.’s annoyed but then Candy steps on stage, wearing red and white striped top and red stockings. She walks to the pole, gyrates around it, flirting with every one in the crowd. Men point to themselves, yelling, “Me! Me! Me!” I point at C.C. and yell, “Her! Her! Her!”

C.C. looks at me and laughs; she bounces her head to the music, watching Candy amble from center stage. C.C.’s eyes have that sparkle that you get when you revive from a knockout punch. Candy stops her strut in front of C.C., grabs her hand and pulls her onto the stage.

My chair is pushed so close to Ray that we don’t have to whisper our transaction. On the stage, C.C. slowly lowers onto her back. Candy steps above C.C.’s face, crouches on all fours and plants her head between C.C.’s thighs in a sixty-nine position.

“Oh man. That’s a good woman you got there. How much do you want for that blow of yours?”

“Brand new bag, friend. Never been open. I’ll take forty for it.”

I drop the bag between our seats. He picks it up and replaces the bag with a pair of twenties.

Candy’s buried head moves in circular, determined motion like a seductive ostrich. She arches her back, glides back up from C.C.’s stomach, lifts my friend’s shirt, and licks her right nipple. Money rains from the second floor again eliciting a roaring cheer from every patron in the room. C.C. points to the money and looks at me. I grab the cash, floating like green snow flakes. My little C.C., my dear lesbian queen. I can see where her wad of money had come from.

Ray hands me a fifty dollar bill, points to C.C. and says, “That’s for her.” While Candy gropes on C.C.’s leg I get up and stroll to the bar for a glass of whiskey. I give the bartender the fifty and put the change in my pocket.

There’s C.C., getting her body molested by this stripper and I’m thinking, pop your hip in her face. Pop your hip in her face. And Candy goes with her bony little waist into C.C.’s face:

Pop.

Pop.

Pop.

C.C. sticks out her tongue and whip-lashes the lovely stripper’s ax wound. The stripper, Candy Cane, smacks her pelvis real hard into C.C.’s mouth.

C.C. grabs her mouth, her bottom lip all ready swelling. “You dirty slut!” She yells to the stripper.

Candy stops her dance, turns and waves her hand to the bouncer. The big man, he’s stocked with muscles, packed with so much meat that his neck disappears into his shoulders, he comes trudging through the dark drunken mass of men still waving dollar bills at the stage. His big bald head, with two thick flapping lips, says to C.C., “You causing trouble here again?”

“Whatever Candy says isn’t true,” I say to the bouncer.

C.C. sits back into her chair, supports one leg on the stage, looks down to light a cigarette and when it lights, she turns her eyes to the menacing bouncer. “No, Tommy. The only problem here is Candy’s taste.”

Candy looks flaming mad, caramelizing on the stage as her skin turns from white to red. She points to her crotch and says, “Tommy, she licked me…like right here!”

“OK, you two,” Tommy says. “Get your asses out of here. C.C., I’ve told you before to stop harassing the dancers. Take your money and get out. ”

I tell him, “We’ll leave after this drink and then after the next one too.”

Ray shakes his head and says, “No, no, no. Don’t do it, man.”

“I’m not doing anything,” I say to Tommy the Bouncer. “I’m enjoying a drink.”

Ray’s jaw slackens, his eyes widen, and his fan of twenties wilts away. My cocaine courage is flaring from my brain to my arms. My fists clench and then my right smacks into Tommy’s face. The whole room goes cold. The music stops. No whisper, no squeaking of ass to pole, no clinking drinks – nothing. The bouncer falls to the ground in one big whoompf.

The other bouncers pour into the room like a bunch of angry bulls with shaved heads. I thrust out my open hand, exposing a raging palm. The black-shirted bulls stop and look at me like I’m crazy and maybe I am but I want to win this moment. I go into my pocket and pull out my knife. The light bounces from the disco ball and shines onto the serrated blade of the knife, making it look more dangerous and lethal as if the gods placed the weapon into my hand for an occasion such as this one.

“Now we have a knife party, “I tell the bouncers switching the knife from my left hand to my right.

C.C. beams at me and softly claps.

Except this isn’t what happens at all. Tommy has me by the shoulders while another bouncer drags a very loud and screaming C.C. Rider out of the door. I try to push him with all of the adrenalin rumbling around in my veins but the man – he’s a marauding brick wall and he doesn’t move except closer to the door.

“What’s the big idea?!” I yell.

Tommy looks at the cashier and says, “You don’t let these two back in here, right?” He looks at C.C. and says, “Never.”

The cashier nods her head and gives in. These people release us into Bourbon Street. Poor C.C. has scrapes on her hips from those maniacs and a busted bottom lip from the stripper’s pelvic jab. I grab her small hand and tow her through Rue Bourbon, her eyes slowly closing as she screams, “I’ll be back!”

C.C. lets go of my hand and yells, “Fuck you! Fuck you, Nico! I don’t want to go home.” We exchange a knowing look, one shared between two people silently thinking the same thing. She relents, grabs my hand to let me walk her home

Her apartment on Esplande Avenue is inside a large Victorian looking home along the border of the French Quarter, cradling in the shadows of round, grandfatherly oak trees. We walk together up a small set of steps and stop at the door.

“Here,” I say and open my hand to give her twenty-five bucks. “Ray wanted you to have this.”

It was a rotten thing for me to do, keeping the other twenty-five but at least I didn’t keep the entire bounty. Her eyes twinkle like stars but not like the way stars look in the emptiness of the sky. Like the way stars look when you see them reflect in a dark pool of rippling water. She slips her cold tongue into my mouth, relieving the desire I’ve waited so long for her to address. It’s better than I imagined it could be. The metal taste of her mouth and the sour mix of spent vomit…the expression of our night together placate my pallet.

C.C. pushes me back, recoils in disgust and screeches, “You’re an ass, Nico!”