LEJ's Blog: 04/01/2022

Photo credit: Leonard Earl Johnson

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LEJ's Louisiana

a monthly e-column at www.LEJ.world

Yours Truly in a Swamp

by Leonard Earl Johnson
of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana

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Dedicated to Chris Owens,
Bourbon Street impresario and performer.
Her club opened in 1956.
Birthdate not given / Died April 5, 2022,
at home on Bourbon Street.
This year's Easter Parade will proceed as planned.

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Easter on the River

of Bourbon Street

Leonard Earl Johnson

www.LEJ.world ✍

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After Easter Mass, L. A. Norma and I left the piercing witch-hat-towers of Saint Louis Cathedral and headed for the soaring two-story balconies of Bourbon Street.

Jackson Square, NOLa / photo credit: J. R. Tullos

There we were lifted on the chaliced wings of whiskey served from temporal cathedrals named Oz and Bourbon Pub.

There are many the 'Oz' and 'Pub' on streets like this in every port city of the world. But only these two dance-halls flanking this intersection of Bourbon Street and Rue Saint Ann are such noted cultural demarcation lines. Once populated by only gay men. Then gay men and gay women. Now added to the patron mix are folks who read National Geographic and care not a wit with whom the next table dances. This is the point that turns back Reader's Digest tourists. Back to Canal Street's familiar hotels and edited narrative. Beyond this point pass explorers seeking the gentrified bohemia of the lower French Quarter, and the music sirens of Faubourgs Marigny, Tremé, and Bywater.

We took seats on the balcony above the Pub's swinging shingle, and watched the masses with their arms upraised in jubilation of Christ's Resurrection ~ or beads.

Touched by Easter's spirit and the elfin Mr. Booze, we saw Jesus walking down this street of sin. He wore a crown of thorns over His long black hair. He wore sandals, too, and was naked save for a loincloth cut like the one in the paintings. He was thin and looked like He might be Filipino ~ but mostly He looked like Jesus. Everyone on the balcony saw Him.

Bourbon Strassa, NOLa

Norma exhaled a cloud of smoke and this proclamation:

"Skip the crucifixion, forget the fasting, go straight for the Resurrection!"

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True to His Book, Jesus was slumming with the local rabble and reveling in their Easter experience. As were they with His.

"Their experience is a damn sight easier'n His," L. A. Norma said, tapping her fingers along the tiny silver figure hanging on her necklace. A crucifixion on a silver chain. A two-thousand year old Roman gismo for torture elevated to a symbol of good. "It's like Donald Trump edited the Gospels!" she snorted.

Everyone laughed and glowed in the righteous wonder of her thought.

A few years back, a few blocks up the street, Chris Owens ~ an elderly Bourbon Street dancer and club owner with staying power ~ conducted her annual Easter Parade with uninvited, self-anointed grand-marshal David Duke crashing the street party.

"It's Bourbon Street," L. A. Norma said, "you don't need no stinkin' invitation!"

A brass band made of midgets played along, elder ladies of the snatched-bodies cult, and a half dozen or so young bunnies in pastel furs marched down the street and rode atop pedicabs and convertibles. The bunnies threw underpants and beads.

Margareta and Chiquita Bergen

None among this human eddy gave any notice whatsoever to our walking Jesus, except a tourist family standing against the downstream wall of then Pete Fountain's (now Club Oz) directly across the street from where we sat.

The father was wide-eyed. The girl, about seventeen, waved up to us. The pubescent son giggled and hugged his mother. Then along came Jesus headed straight for them. The tourist mother looked offended. She gathered her brood and paddled them off back towards Canal Street. Jesus did not seem bothered by their departure.

"After all," Norma said, "He wrote the book on forgiveness."

The sinners went on with their sinning. Then the Pope appeared on the Oz balcony. He stood directly above where the tourist family had been, and he was dressed head-to-toe in yellow and white satin. He blessed all who passed beneath him. He looked across the River of Bourbon Street and blessed us, too. We waved, and he motioned us over. We crossed the street and took our seats at the Pope's table.

We looked back at the Bourbon Pub balcony. The Pope, ever wise, said, "You cannot see yourself on the balcony you have just left." We had all had a lot to drink.

The Pope handed out Wild Turkey and iced water, "Holy Water from the Holy River," he said.

Three real nuns, in old-fashioned black-and-white habits, came trotting down Rue Saint Ann, returning from a later mass. They passed our intersection headed towards Cathedral School. The Sea of Sinners parted. We all cheered.

"What would they think of seeing Jesus," L. A. Norma asked of no one in particular. She leaned over the balcony rail and yelled to the crowd below for Carnival beads. A photographer looked up and took her picture. I yelled down asking if he had seen Jesus. "No!" he shouted back. Would he like to? "Yes, of course, yes!"

The Pope lay his hands on my shoulders, and said, "Watch that woman, do not let her fall over the communion rail."

Green Carnival beads landed on the Pope's pointy hat. They looked interesting, but he took them off and tossed them to two college boys on the street below. Norma told him the two boys should have opened their pants. He frowned and said sternly, "This is not Carnival!"

I said, "It is not Laughingyette either," but the Pope did not hear me ~ he was gone to find Jesus. Norma looked past my forehead and talked of far-ranging things.

The Pope returned without Jesus. He was balancing fresh drinks and passed them round the table. "He can not be found in this wicked den," said The Pope, handing out Wild Turkey and water.

When we looked up from our drinks we saw Him again. He was at our old balcony table across the street waving. We waved back. His naked arms were lifted heavenward. His loincloth flapped in the whiskey-flavored air. The man with the camera jumped and shouted, "Your cross, your cross, show us your cross!"

Jesus looked down and bellowed: "Don't you know what holiday this is? It is Easter, I have no cross!"

When LEJ wore a younger man's beard
Presbyter copula, Jackson Square
New Orleans, 2006

The Pope, assorted communion-rail leaners, and other followers passing on the street below shouted, "Is it Carnival?"

It wasn't. It was Easter on the River of Bourbon Street.

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Hope you do, I love talking with you,

Leonard Earl Johnson,

Columnist to the elderly and early weary.

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Next Month

Return of the Fictional Series

THE RED WOMEN WARRIORS

Photo credit: Conni Castille