A Lost Weekend in New Orleans
Photo credit: M. Ciavardini
Liquor is to New Orleans as gambling is to Las Vegas. A traveler thinks she is going to resist it and then finds herself within four hours of disembarking from her plane ordering a second mint julep and wondering what a Sazerac is. Even entirely sober, a clear-minded journey through this city is not to be had. That long ago beat of the jungle still echoes through the wet heat. A visitor can sense it in her steps as she walks by hawkers tempting her to come inside, as she feels the ghostly freeze of air-conditioning beckon her into just one more saloon. She feels the throb as she steps over fully suited old men slumped silently on the sidewalk but dressed as if they haven’t touched a shot glass in years. She feels the hum as she walks by Saint Louis Cemetery #1 and then past the Roosevelt Hotel, as she crosses the grime of Bourbon to the masquerade of tranquility that is Royal Street. She senses the rhythm as she glides toward the cathedral, turns right through the square, and then crosses the street toward the levee.
She thinks she’s not drinking, she thinks she’s not too hot, she thinks there are no spirits nearby. She baptizes her feet in the brown water of the Mississippi as white, toothless townies warn her of disease and urge her not to go deeper.
No one ever comes to the French Quarter to sober up, to focus neatly on a writing project, to concentrate once and for all on some serious-minded scholarship or goal setting. This is not the land of clear-headed rationality. This is home to lost weekends, swirling ghosts spinning just beyond a traveler’s reach. This is home to recovered intuition, to jazz-inspired rash decisions, to lives dedicated to senses and sorrows, sweet tea and sherry. Here a visitor sees her way as a seer reads her shells, as a creature of the night guards the door with a lizard-like stare, as desire finally outpaces reason. We’re in the land of sweet dreams and well-written novels and impromptu bursts of sousaphones.
There are turtles in man-made ponds and in soup, there’s champagne at breakfast and brandy in bananas. There are men in old brown suits and hats and no questions asked. To say you’re not going to indulge is like not gambling at the Kentucky Derby. Restraint is not New Orleans’s refrain.
—Lori Tripoli
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