Ugh. Sorry about that.
My world has been rocked, and I wanted to demonstrate it thus.
But let’s build up to that.
Early this afternoon, I had an appointment to go with Dr. K__ to the Gulf Coast in Pass Christian, Mississippi (pronounced, “Pass chris-chee-`ANNE”) for a birthday party of an acquaintance.
We decided to take the “Scenic Route,” down route 90 instead of the I-10. Thank god, eh?
All through the bayou along the gulf coast of Louisiana and Mississippi — it’s like nowhere else in the world. Houses on stilts, each house with a name, and each name warranting a streetsign off the main highway: “Little Easy,” or “Fantasy Island,” or “Big Betty’s,” or “It’s About Time.”
So many trailor parks. So, so beautiful.
Hélas, my digital camera has decided to die as of this morning, so I have no pictures to offer you. (I am as grieved as you on this point.)
Stopped at a scary, “Deliverance” type bar somewhere on the LA/MS border where a few rednecks and a grandma with permed blue hair and a multi-coloured muumuu played the video poker machines with a grim determination (conveniently located next to the cash machine, please note).
The bar had the most amazing hot tamales I’ve ever tasted, and Dr. K__ bought two dozen to bring to the party to boil for appetizers.
The bartender told us that a local woman made them, then noticed a jacket discarded on a barstool and made a hasty phone call: “Hey. It’s me. Tell Big Bird that he left his coat here.” Fucking brilliant.
Eventually we arrived at our party destination, where your Marquis was quickly asked by a posh Brit (in Mississippi?) to help him move some palates from a truck to the beach for a bonfire later.
That done, Dr. K__ and I decided to explore a pier that went out about 400 feet into the Gulf. Little-Man Security Man met us at the entrace to the pier:
“There’s no glass allowed on the beach,” quod he, “and the pier is closed and if you want to have a drink on the beach you’ll have to take that glass somehwere else and pour it somewhere not made of glass nor any melted-down sand compound because glass is not allowed on the beach,” and on and on about the manufacturing of glass and how any bi-product rended thereof is quite frankly not alllowed on the beach in Pass Chris-Chee-Anne, Mississippi.
“Do you think me deaf or simple?” I asked of the little security man.
“Huh?” he replied with aplomb.
I went to find a plastic go-cup to pour my drinky-pooh in then went to help Lawrence from New Castle-Upon-Tine build a fire. Lawrence needed some kindling. I went in search of some at the guard booth, thinking that the guards would have little to do during the day but read newspapers, and thus possibly have a stack. I ran into our angry, Nazi little security man who asked, “What trouble you gettin’ up to nah?”
“Oh, hi, um, I’m just looking for some newspaper or something to build a fire with.”
“Hang on,” quod he as he led me to his truck, rummaged in the back for a while, extracted a letter, opened it, saved the letter and proferred to me the envelope — or, half of it at any rate, with a, “Here ya go,” thinking he was being a big help with his tiny scrap of kindling.
“Thank you,” I said, stifling laughter, “you really are too kind.”
Somehow we got a bonfire going with the help of some random newspaper we found lying about and of course Little Man’s most flammable envelope.
The fire was hot; it is, one supposes, the nature of fire. The Marquis took off most of his clothes and stood in the line of fire (as it were), dodging sparks and relishing the heat as the Gulf of Mexico lapped its gentle tongue on the white sanded shores under a new moon.
“It’s December in a minute,” I kept thinking, “and I’m standing naked on a beach.” Gotta love the South.
Soon, our hostess, the birthday girl, for whom we bought a porn magazine at the border, got her ass cole’ busted for lighting a fire on the beach. She argued that Little Mr. Man Security Guard not only sanctioned our bonfire, but lent to our cause a most flammable envelope.
The little beach copper (whom Badjuju would have most certainly wished to seduce) was under a lot of Baptist pressure from the other Pass Chris-Chee-Anne condo-owners to bust our punk asses on this point, and managed to write up a citation to our hostess, with profuse apologies that amounted to: “I am cornered. I must either cite you or lose my job.”
This battle shall be fought properly in a few weeks when it comes to fruition.
In the meantime, we had asked our original Little Man Security Guard with the charming Mississippi accent if we could use the pool after hours. As loaded as he was, he agreed, under the stipulation that we “keep it really, really quite, y’all. If I have to come in there and tell you to leave, then you just better leave.” Sounding more like a wheedling request than an order. Ten-hut, little man.
Eventually we all mosied our way to the rec-room for table tennis and a heated pool, for which we did not get busted for swimming naked because we were obviously “in” with Little Man Security Guard.
It’s good to have friends at the top.
But by far the most bizarre moment of the evening was a conversation I had with Heather.
I noticed a familiar accent coming from this girl, and when I asked her origins, she did indeed admit to being from Edinburgh, Scotland, a place I have come to know somewhat well thanks to Badjuju.
“But how extraordinary to run into you here,” quod I, “and what do you do in Mississippi and so on?”
Heather confessed she actually lived in New Orleans, right around the corner from me, in a house that I have admired from the first day I arrived here in 1996, by all the luck. It was in front of her house that I first parked my truck when I moved here the first time with Kallistí and Micha years ago and we all looked at the crumbling gorgoeous mansion and said, “THAT’S what we want!” Four years later I live two blocks away, and need to travel 70 miles to meet its inhabitants.
Heather went on to explain how she and her English boyfriend were the geniuses behind a certain gallery of accessories made out of recycled American detergent bottles and stuff — a line of products I know well from their shop, which inhabits the upstairs portion of a vintage clothing shop run by another woman who happens to be in attendance at this party in Mississippi — the serendipity tonight is blowing my mind.
All right, I’m being called a geek for prattling away on my powerbook tonight when everyone else is grooving out to the rolling stones. Off I go to party. Suffice to say it’s been a very strange and wonderful day.
Poste Scripte: Around 5:00am we were once again leaving the pool, accompanied by a completely plastered and pissed out of his mind Little Man Security Guard, whose name may or mayn’t have been ‘Joe’ but that’s what we were calling him regardless.
“Last rounds,” he sighed happily, wearily, chummily as we all walked dripping wet through the parking lot after having lied to him about being clothed in the water. (Guess he couldn’t see too straight.)
“Yah,” I answered absently, “gonna be dawn in a moment.” Filler conversation.
To which ‘Joe’ replied, “Yup. It happens every day around this time. That big old sun just come right up over the watah. Yup. Every day around now, or, actually, in a few minutes. That’s the dawn. When the sun come up over the watah. Every day about this time.”
He was so earnest about it — sounding like he bethought himself helpful for explaining to me the erratic habits of the bloody sun for piss sakes.
As a bunch of us stood on the balcony and gazed into the periwinkle east, we wearily mocked our little man with much fondness for him: “Here it come. Some say that’s the sun. It come up every day around this time. Strangest damn thing y’ever did done gone seen. Dunno how dat firey ball come outta da watah lahk dat all wet n’ shit, but it don’t never go out, nuh-uh. Not dat ole sun ovah dere. We tried to pass an ordinance against it, but da damn ting just keep on a comin’ up. Every day ‘round this time. Every godamned day…”
NEW FEATURE: Check out the Marquis’ Crush o’ the week! Pretty dreamy, huh?
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