New Orleans I 

The young black busker with a red Nike sweatband around his head was rattling off plastic buckets in a makeshift drum set up. He even had an old timey metal washboard that he’d drag his drumstick across in the most exciting and toe-taping fashion. The other member of the streetside band was a teenager, with a sad chinstrap beard that looked like a patch of pubes. He was the vocalist of the two. He had no microphone, only a plastic megaphone that was covered in stickers. Most were New Orleans related. Either logos of restaurants and various jazz bands or cartoon alligators and fleur-de-lis. He shouted out in a raspy voice that sounded like he had many packs of cigarettes under his belt. But he was too young for that. I hoped.

People who were already drunk as skunks in the late afternoon swung around each other and clapped with the song. They laughed and hollered and stumbled around this narrow street. The gray pavement was more covered in spilled drinks and other questionable fluids than tire markings. It was a rhythmic madness to it. A moment of drunken splendor that only strangers and music can create. I watched in the purple haze of sunset and streetlights snapping on. I saw a bartender’s head poke out and smile from a hole in the wall shop. All the different colored shops lining the street were two stories with pillars going up to skinny little balconies. Above the bartender's head was the bar logo of a shrunken head that glowed wondrously. All up and down this street was more of the same. All bars with similar messy vibes and slightly different themes. 

Up  and down this street were more performers and people all around, they moved en masse or huddled under the dozens of neon store signs that were now starting to pull their weight. Their vibrance began to nudge out the creeping darkness with their ickish tint and seemed to rejoice at the fact their brilliance was no longer ignored in the daylight. It was a special time of day and almost made me forget my troubles, or my breakdown.

That’s when I realized that New Orleans was a very dangerous city.

The performers in front of me were finishing up their song. The young man half growled, half sung his lyrics over the slow and rattling beat his brother drummed out.

“You got to help us. AH!” He pulled back and breathed, mulling around the dancing circle that had formed around the duo. He watched the people move with a smile on his lips.

“You got to find us. AH!” 

“We been so lost, so lost.” 

“Fate just a coin toss!” He did his best Michael Jackson impression at the word toss. Pulling up his groin and laughing to himself. His brother smiled too at his performance. But he shook his head like he was more embarrassed than anything. The singer hung his head while grinning and walked back to take a sip of water, letting the drums do their dance and keep the people swaying. The drum fill crawled under my skin. It sounds pressing into my chest, like it was some swampy thing that laid over the crowd. Like the air here. It felt as if the people were scared if they stopped dancing they might drop dead. It made Chewy circle around me tangling his leash up in my legs. The older boy came back strong. Pivoting around and pulling up his megaphone to his mouth like a quickdraw artist of old. 

“We can’t lose cause we were born blue!” He glided around a couple that were too drunk and too occupied with each other's touch. Their hips were gyrating on each other something fierce. They were panting like virgins after a set of dry humping. 

“Now they're scared because the BOOGIE MAN come” His brother shouted out the word boogie man with him. He had worked up a sweat pounding away at his buckets. But his eyes looked out past the crowd to around where I was standing. The older one was singing it at me it seemed. All these people around and he pointed his words this way. I was minding my own business. Up on the curb eating a powdered beignet. 

Why sing over to me?

“They look to us like the BOOGIE MAN come!” His other hand pointed towards me. He raised it like he himself was some dead and zombified soul, stumbling out of a graveyard. 

It made my hair stand up on end. 

“They hand us guns say the BOOGIEMAN come!” His pointing hand turned into a revolver and he fired it cocking forward his thumb like the hammer. I couldn’t help but feel the weight of my own revolver in my beltline. He turned and sung to the others. Giving my thoughts a break. It made me breathe deep. But that deep breath caught some excess sugar in my mouth and I started coughing. In between fits I heard the last two lines. 

“That don’t hurt a thing that just pains me when I sing.” 

“What do we care, let’s have some fun! THE BOOGIEMAN COME! NOW DANCE!” 

Some more drums slowly tapered off the song, then it was over. The crowd clapped. A bucket was passed along and people threw in some change. Mostly ones and perhaps a loose five. Most people hightailed it out of there before the bucket came their way, avoiding the performer's pleading eyes. 

That figures. 

I was next to destitute and I still found a couple bucks to give. I think that if you enjoy the show you should pay up. It was like shoplifting music or stealing a dance. I finished off my beignet and waited till most people were dispersing before I made my way to the young men. They seemed disappointed with the amount they had collected. Maybe only over twenty bucks. Seemed there were a bunch of cheapskates on vacation here. Seems an oxymoron. 

But who can you blame? this was America after all and in America nothing was free. Maybe that thought was what carried people along. Everywhere, in every facet, you have to pay in this country. Maybe the idea, the spark of getting something without opening up your wallet delighted folks. Sure, that makes sense, people jump at an idea like that, I think. The opportunity to dine and dash in little ways. No matter if it was screwing a fortune 500 company out of a parking fee or dipping on a street musician. 

People's priorities are all skewed... 

Anyways I can’t take the moral highroad when I’m on the road to kill a man. If he was even that. 

~

I was the last one up to the brothers as people pushed up and down this street in waves. 

“You don’t like to sway?” The young drummer asked. Chewy gently tried to grab the drumsticks out of his hand. I yanked him back but the young boy laughed and tapped him on his head with the sticks. Chewy pulled back mouth opening and closing like a catfish, trying to grab it. 

“I have some bad bad dance moves.” I laughed and placed the few bills I had in the bucket.

“Thank you sir.” The older one said. 

“Not a lot for such good songs, I wish I could give more.” I placed my hands in my pockets.

“That’s alright,” The drummer boy said while petting Chewy. “Your dog here is so cool looking. He’s speckled.”

“He knows it too.” I said. Chewy sat down and almost cooed under the boy's touch. “Say, where do you boys perform? All around the city I figured. You probably have seen a thing or two. Yeah?”

Their eyes both grew suspicious. They looked at each other and back at me. The older one stepped up, a slight furrow to his brow. His fingers stroked through his beard one time. “We play mostly in the french quarter. Maybe sometimes downtown during games and during Mardigras. Why?”

“I’m looking for someone.”

“Hmm. aren't we all.” The singer said still not seeming that helpful.

“What, like a musician?” His brother asked, he had stopped petting Chewy long enough for the dog to become ornery. He huffed and nibbled at the paused hand. He gave in.

“No. Not a musician. Well maybe. I don’t know if he plays something or not. Probably not. Definitely not as good as you two.” I stepped closer. “I’m looking for a fellow who runs things. Underground things. Not exactly on the up and up.”

“Up and what?” The boy asked. His brother shushed him by holding out a hand. 

“We don’t know anyone like that. Don’t get tangled in that stuff. If you want drugs or something you can try your luck elsewhere. There’s no scarcity in New Orleans.” But he said it like it was one word. Nawlins. 

“No. No not that stuff.” I waved a hand. “Psshh. No use for things like that. I’m not looking for that. I’m talking about gambling. You know, rolling dice. Like someone to loan me money. He probably has a slick man working for him. A grey feather in his hat. A man named Tim is who I talked too. He was drumming up business out of state. Maybe he is the one in charge I don’t know. He just told me that there was lots of money to be made here. I need a little startup funds.”

The older brother's brow furrowed even more as he looked around, hands on his hips. 

“Try a bank mister.” The young one said. “If you need an investment or something.”

“Look,” his brother got in between his brother and Chewy and I. Cutting us off from him. “We don’t know any seedy folk like you're talkin’ about. We earn our money and they don’t even allow us at the casino.” 

I pulled Chewy back to me a bit. Watched the people wade around us. Some were waiting to see if a show was about to start up. I thought about giving up. I didn’t like harassing people especially not innocent ones like these brothers. But a glint in the older ones eyes. I couldn’t let go. “You gotta know something though. Like who should I talk to? is all I’m asking. Point me in a direction.” I pulled out a five dollar bill crumpled up from my pocket.  He rolled his eyes at that. 

“Now that is just insulting.” He said. “You fucking skimping us just as bad as the people enjoying our sets.” He looked past me. He waved and bid someone to come forward. One of the folks waiting around I assumed.

 Before I could even look at the tourist striding forward, his weight slammed into me. I almost sprawled out flat on the concrete from the impact. But maybe my reflexes had gotten better on this murder trip becasue I managed to catch myself and instead of eating it, I hobbled, half jumping across the asphalt until regaining balance near the sidewalk. I felt a fat hand grip the back of my neck. It twinged with pain under his fingernails. I was pushed and dragged by this big body frame, it felt like he was ten feet tall, maybe twenty. We went up the curb and against the corner wall. Hardly anyone noticed (which almost offended me, I was getting mugged midday afterall) 

I saw a young girl with her parents point at me as they exited a t-shirt shop. Her parents hurried her along. Chewy had one long growl and snarled before lunging forward. A blue ball of fur was dragged along with us. He had latched onto the burly man’s leg but the man didn’t make a sound of pain. Not a grunt of notice.

I tasted the brick on my lips as he pressed me to the wall. Blood too as my crooked bottom tooth had cut me on impact. 

“What the fuck I do?” I muttered out, straining my neck to look over my shoulder. He held me firm. 

His other hand grabbed my right arm and twisted it behind my back. A hand that felt as big as a dinner plate. I felt the tension in my joints. Like barbed wire around my elbow and shoulder, digging into it, ready to tear. I smelt aftershave or maybe it was bourbon on his lips as he leaned in and spoke.

“What you got here?” His hand holding my arm released. I was thankful for that. But his hand slipped behind my beltline and grabbed a hold of my gun. Oh god. He was going to shoot me with my own weapon. I knew New Orleans was dangerous but didn’t think I would be gunned down in tourist trap numero uno just a couple hours into my visit. 

Instead he slipped the revolver into his own pocket. “You got a license for a concealed carry boy? (pronounce Bo-ah)”

“I uh… Thought this was the south you need a permit? Why would you care?” I was trying to be as polite as possible while also trying to squirm away from his grip. 

“Parish PD idiot” He held a shining badge to my face. I couldn’t make out the details before he slipped it away. Then he said louder. “New Orleans PD everything is ok!” He was talking to the other folks. The drunkard's walking by who didn’t care and the gawkers who thought it might be an art act. Then into my ear he spoke again. “This ain’t the south either. This is Lousianna.” Still in shock from that shining badge resonating in my eyes I lost a bit of a fight. I relented as I was prone to do faced with a person with a sliver of authority. With his diner-plate hands he quickly cuffed my own, which were more akin to tea saucer plates, behind my back. 

The motion of it made him seem more legitimate. He was a cop after all. Which means I was getting arrested for real. Shit.

I couldn’t help but think that the cuffs locking me up sounded just like my front door shutting as the paramedics pulled me from my house. The loud click of it reverberated with a grandiose finality that one can only hear when being so withdrawn in your own mind. 

My revenge trip was done, I realized. 

Right when I was getting close. So fucking close. 

I was trying to be James Bond or Sherlock Holmes or Van Helsing and had turned out well... I turned out not like them at all. A stupid bumbling fuck was what I turned out to be. But that was no different than how I was regularly. I guess people don’t change even when push comes to shove. Even when your soul gets torn asunder. God I was a disappointment.

“Now,” He said, only pressing me with one arm. It was less weight, less forceful. More of a warning then trying to stiff arm me. He pulled out a gun himself. A honking silver one with a black raised grip. He placed the slide against my cheek. Maybe it was the sweat pouring out of me or the sheer panic but the touch of it felt cold at first. Like ice burning me. The barrel was pressed against the painted white bricks. “This is a gun. A real gun.” He turned over the massive weapon letting me have a good look at it. It was like something one would see in a video game. “One I don’t have to hide in my fat-ass waistline. You see it?”

My thoughts ran out of me like diarrhea and I only managed a small nod.

“I’m gonna take this gun and I'mma shoot your pooch in the skull unless you tell him to stop biting my boot.”

Looking down to my left I saw Chewy clamped on to the man's golden cowboy boot. He was locked on like a gila monster. Giving off a low growl that could barely be heard over the encroaching jazz band. It was growing louder. It must be coming this way. How fun.  

“Chewy! Stop! NO! NO!” I said. Trying to stretch out and tap him away with my left foot. He glared at me. Like he couldn’t believe I was taking this man's side. In his mind he was obviously helping and he seemed sure we were gonna win this fight. 

“CHEWY! BAD DOG! LET GO!” He relented. Skulking away. The young drummer boy watching this, walked over and picked up his leash. Chewy barely realized that. The frenzied dog just paced back and forth watching me get arrested. The officer who I saw clearly now was a big man himself. (He made fun of my waistline when his was practically the same size.) But his chest, forearms, shoulders, belly all had muscle underneath, I could tell. Like an ex-football player might look or a bloated weight lifter. His red hawaiian shirt with hula girls and palm trees was open and white chest hair sprouted out around a gold chain with a gaudy cross dangling from it. He wore aviator sunglasses, blue jeans, and those ridiculous boots. None of which said COP to me but what do I know? 

He looked over to the boy and my dog. “Careful Jeremiah, Dog is vicious.” He shook out his left foot, where Chewy had clamped down. The young kid shrugged and patted Chewy on the rump as he paced in front of him. 

“D. Come here.”

The teenager did so. He crossed his arms and looked at me. I could tell he was embarrassed the way he huffed. Like this was no big deal that now had turned into one. How one is prone to look when they introduce their prom date to their parents. 

Yeah I agree D you really fucked up both our days by releasing this brute on me.

It takes one overzealous cop to ruin your day, even when you call them. Hell it can ruin the whole nations day. 

“Why was he bothering you Dallas?” The cop asked.

“He was asking about drugs and stuff.” D that stood for Dallas said out of the corner of his mouth. He said it low enough so his brother couldn’t hear.

“No I wasn’t!” I said. “I don’t give a fuck about that! I wanted to know about gambling! I wanted to know about who loans people money in town!”

“Try a bank you scumbag.” He said as he thrashed me against the wall again. My ears rang on impact.

“That’s what I said!” Jeremiah shouted, raising up a thumb. 

Chewy barked and lunged forward growling. The leash caught him and almost tipped the young boy over but he held firm.

“Alright boys.” The man said. “I’ll take this piece of shit from here. Get out of here. Tie that dog up and leave”

They did what he asked.

~

Once we were alone. He stopped pressing on me. I turned around to him. Looking up at his square jaw. His teeth ground against each other under his thin lips. “You’re fucked.” He said.

I leaned back. “Yeah. I figured.”

“You want some drugs huh?” I couldn’t see his eyes under the dark frames.

“No, I want some money. I’m looking for a loan shark. A man named Tim works for him. I wanted to find that guy…” He didn’t let me finish.

“Yeah I know a hot head junky when I see one.” He spat at my feet. “You probably suck dick for H son? Don’t you?” He asked, with an eerie smile to him. Like a shark around blood. 

I was taken aback, my head ringing, my jaw open and sore from where he slammed me

 “Uh… Did you not hear what I said?” he didn’t acknowledge me if he did.

He stepped forward and pressed up against my chest. He was nodding to himself. “We’re looking for the same person. So why don't we take a ride. You can get your smack, you limp dick, snortin’ fiend. And I'll get my man. You’re my CI now.” He gripped me at the handcuffs. It pressed into the skin and made my elbows twist and tense in a most uncomfortable manner as he pushed me forward.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“We gonna see the Vagabond King,”