THE BIG EASY

The next day we went on the peasant wagon into New Orleans. We found the French Quarter and it was much nicer than the hood. Stone state buildings and yellow coffee houses, shrimp specialist restaurants all built (if this suzerain is a teenager) in this nations toddler years. It was so refreshing to see buildings with some history instead of the corrugated steel-topped shacks and giant Walmart’s of the Midwest.

We stopped at a touristy bar called Voila, with a man dressed as a football umpire touting for business with promise of $2 drinks. We had Corona’s and vodka and cranberry juice to wash down our buffalo wings and fries with two cheese, guacamole and lashings of sour cream. (Will’s guacamole is still the best though, hey Paul?)

We ambled through the narrow Creole influenced streets, at the pace The Big Easy dictates. Street performers did their thing and tourists and office-workers drank beers and margaritas on the streets as the state law encourages you to. You could even smoke in bars. We saw the cathedral and a steamboat and a statue to “the immigrants”. Natalie was T-I-P-S-Y on the M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I

Now I wanted to have a few more $2 beers, as I’ve become used to over recent weeks, you know a few relaxed, chilled beers, then treat us both to some real Cajun food; craw-fish or gumbo or jambalaya (not that it would have been as good as my ex’s jambalaya) Natalie got the face on becoming a reet mardy-bum saying I just wanted to get wasted. Not strictly true as I wanted some food too. Long story short we argued like we do every time we get drunk. I don’t understand it, it’s more than a lover’s tiff but it’s like we both have some deep seated resentment of each other that, when drunk, seethes out of us like puss or venom.

We went to another bar where seeing Natalie on her own when I was smoking outside, did a doubletake and double-backed to make a bee-line for her. I walked back in to find him sitting next to her and I was more than civil, cracking jokes and even buying him a rum. Natalie toyed with her hair and tried to look endearing. This guy Matthew was actually alright but it’s quite disconcerting that he was walking the streets, sober in a purple bandana, cowboy hat and T-shirt donated by a homeless man scouting for an unaccompanied girl to chat up. Luckily he would have carried on down the street and found someone slightly drunker, someone who didn’t have me to look out for her.