We’d just touched down in New Orleans a few hours ago, so excited to be out of the cold that Kathy was taking pictures of palm trees in the cab ride from the airport. Now we were at a Pisces Party at the Blue Nile, a club on Frenchmen Street. The party was a zodiac-wide birthday party/concert, with a catered buffet we were too stuffed from our earlier dinner to take advantage of. The musicians -- including our pal Loren, who’d invited us -- were all born in Pisces, calling themselves Los Pescadores. Alvin Youngblood Hart was the headliner. The event was raising money for charity, to help fill in some of the cracks of mental health care than the Jindal administration had cut in its red-state zeal. Later, a pinata would be lowered -- a color printout of the governor’s face taped onto a mermaid’s body. Everyone took some whacks at it, spilling candy across the floor.
I was several beers in, and feeling euphoric. From the travel, from the drink, from the music and getting together with a distant friend. So when I pulled open the door to the men’s room and someone was pushing on the other side of it, I stepped back and said, “Whoa...it’s like magic.” (Like I said, euphoric. Easily amazed is another way to put it.)
He just smiled, in something of the same space. “Glory be to us, brother” he said, holding out a fist.
I bumped it. “Glory be to us.”
Can’t get more welcome than that.
Rob
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