LET THE GOOD TIMES, AND THE HEARTACHES, ROLL!

"We have no model for this. Will the city ever be back to normal? We don't know. All I can tell you is we're going to enjoy this Mardi Gras."

- Arthur Hardy, publisher of Mardi Gras Guide magazine (2006)

{Journal of Samuel McCord}

An odd feeling came over me as I looked at the partying crowd in front of Meilori's. 

For a fleeting moment, I saw the overgrown square of trees and brush it once had been. 

For a bitter heartbeat, I was young again, when every moment was crisp and fresh, where happiness and heartache quickly changed positions, and life was full of hope and promise. 

 

Then, I was back in the present once more where things were crowded, ugly, and the only hope was for a good death.

The voices were joyous ... and taunt.  Tight faces strained to smile as if to deny memories of loss.   Haunted eyes which had seen nightmare burned out of colorful Mardi Gras masks.

Young souls, still frost-bit from Death breathing upon them, looked up at the cold night. 

They reminded me of wolves, not understanding why they were forced to live as they did, still singing to the forlorn moon, one lost spirit crying out to another.

Life was no longer secure.  Death had become all too real.

 

Mardi Gras had started last Saturday and forced its gaiety until this Fat Tuesday.  Precious little was fat these days.

 

Unlike the multiple parade routes of past years, only one parade was winding down picturesque St. Charles Avenue and away from Katrina pus-filled eyesores. 

It would end at the infamous Convention Center where murder, rape, and beatings had swallowed up the neglected survivors of the hurricane.

 

There was talk of not even having it this year.  I had secretly donated the necessary money to fund the festivities.

  Hell, to New Orleanians not to have Mardi Gras would be like not having Christmas. 

 

Since Meilori left me, I was dead inside, but I could make life brighter for those struggling in their own darkness. 

 

What did Elu once tell me? 

"When you were born, you cried and those around you rejoiced.  Live your life, Dyami, so that when you die, those around you will cry, and you will rejoice."

 

A young woman, all in sparkles, swished up to me, laughing gaily so that her hollowed-eyed face was changed for an instant to what she must have looked like as a little girl Christmas morning. 

 

She humming-birded a kiss on my cheek and swept back into the crowd.

I touched my face and sadly smiled, "Reckon so."

DayStar, who thought himself Lucifer, suddenly appeared beside me. 

"Tomorrow, despair will send them weeping to me."

I met his flint eyes.  "But not tonight."

He mocked a laugh.  "What does that matter?"

"It matters to them."

{Excerpt from NEW ORLEANS ARABESQUE}