Not this time. I couldn’t remember a thing between leaving the Old Original Authentic Genuine Absinthe Bar and waking up. But strangely, I didn’t have The Fear about it.
And then, of course, there was the rose.
The Fear, for those unacquainted with it, is something you may get after very excessive intake of drugs or alcohol. It is, amongst other things, the panicky conviction that you have done something embarrassing or ill-advised that you can’t quite remember. It can also be more generic than that, a simple belief that at some point in the previous evening something happened that was in some way not ideal. It usually passes off when your hangover does, or when an acquaintance reveals that yes, you did lightly stroke one of her breasts in public, without being requested to do so.
Then you can just get down to being hideously embarrassed, which is a much more containable emotion.
I had mild Fear about the period in Jimmy Buffet’s, but probably only born of nervousness about talking to a woman I didn’t really know. I had a slightly greater Fear concerning the Absinthe bar, where I suspected I might have referred to the new CEO of a company who was a client of mine as a “talentless fuckwit”.
I felt fine about the journey back to the hotel, however, despite the fact that I couldn’t remember it. I’d been alone, after all. Everyone, including Rita-May, had disappeared. The only person I could have offended was myself. But how had my shoes got into the suitcase? Why would I have done that? And at what point had I acquired Rita-May’s rose? The last time I could remember seeing it was when I’d told her that I liked her. Then it had still been behind her ear.
The coffee was beginning to turn on me, mingling with the hangover to make it feel as if points of light were slowly popping on and off in my head. A black guy with a trumpet was just settling down to play at one of the other sides of the café, and I knew this guy from previous experience. His key talent, which he demonstrated about every ten minutes, was that of playing a loud, high note for a very long time. Like most tourists, I’d applauded the first time I’d heard this. The second demonstration had been less appealing. By the third time I’d considered offering him my Visa card if he’d go away.
And if he did it now, I was likely to simply shatter and fall in shards upon the floor.
I needed to do something. I needed to move. I left the café and stood outside on Decatur.
After about two minutes I felt hot and under threat, buffeted by the passing throng. No one had yet filled the seat I’d vacated, and I was very tempted to just slink right back to it. I’d be quiet, no trouble to anyone: just sit there and drink a lot more fluids. I’d be a valuable addition, I felt, a show tourist provided by the town’s Management to demonstrate to everyone else how wonderful a time there was to be had.
But then the guy with the trumpet started a rendition of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and I really had to go.
I walked slowly up Decatur towards the market, trying to decide if I was really going to do what I had in mind. Rita-May worked at one of the stores along that stretch. I couldn’t remember the name, but knew it had something to do with cooking. It wouldn’t be that difficult to find. But should I be trying to find it? Perhaps I should just turn around, leave the Quarter and go to the Clarion, where the convention was happening. I could find the people I liked and hang for a while, listen to jokes about Steve Jobs. Forget about Rita-May, take things carefully for the remaining few days, and then go back home to London.
I didn’t want to. The previous evening had left me with emotional tattoos, snapshots of desire that weren’t fading in the morning sun. The creases round her eyes when she smiled; the easy Southern rhythm of her speech, the glissando changes in pitch; her tongue, as it lolled round the rim of her glass, licking off the salt. When I closed my eyes, in addition to a slightly alarming feeling of vertigo, I could feel the skin of her hand as if it was still there against my own. So what if I was an idiot tourist. I was a idiot tourist who was genuinely attracted to her. Maybe that would be enough.
The first couple of stores were easy to dismiss. One sold quilts made by American craftspeople; the next wooden children’s toys for parents who didn’t realize how much their kids wanted video games. The third had a few spice collections in the window, but was mainly full of other souvenirs. It didn’t look like the place Rita-May had described, but I plucked up my courage and asked. No one of that name worked there. The next store was a bakery, and then there was a fifty-yard open stretch that provided table space for the restaurant which followed it.
The store after the restaurant was called The N’awlins Pantry, and tag-lined “The One-Stop Shop for all your Cajun Cooking Needs”. It looked, I had to admit, like it was the place.
I wanted to see Rita-May, but I was scared shitless at the thought of just walking in. I retreated to the other side of the street, hoping to see her through the window first. I’m not sure how that would have helped, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I smoked a cigarette and watched for a while, but the constant procession of cars and pedestrians made it impossible to see anything. Then I spent a few minutes wondering why I wasn’t just attending the convention, listening to dull, safe panels like everybody else. It didn’t work. When I was down to the butt I stubbed my cigarette out and crossed back over the road. I couldn’t see much through the window even from there, because of the size and extravagance of the window display. So I grabbed the handle, opened the door and walked in.
It was fantastically noisy inside, and crowded with sweating people. The blues band seemed to have turned a second bank of amplifiers on, and virtually everyone sitting at the tables in front of them was clapping their hands and hooting. The air was smeared with red faces and meaty arms, and for a moment I considered just turning around and going back into the toilet. It had been quiet in there, and cool. I’d spent ten minutes splashing my face with cold water, trying to mitigate the effect of the joint we’d smoked. While I stood trying to remember where the table was, the idea of another few moments of water-splashing began to take on a nearly obsessive appeal.
But then I saw Rita-May, and realized I had to go on. Partly because she was marooned with the conventioneers, which wouldn’t have been fair on anyone, but mainly because going back to her was even more appealing than the idea of water.
I carefully navigated my way through the crowd, pausing halfway to flag down a waitress and get some more drinks on the way. Because obviously we needed them. Obviously. No way were we drunk enough. Rita-May looked up gratefully when she saw me. I plonked myself down next to her, glared accidentally at Dave Trindle, and lit another cigarette. Then, in a clumsy but necessary attempt to rekindle the atmosphere that had been developing, I repeated the last thing I had said before setting off on my marathon journey to the gents. “It just goes to show,” I said.
Rita-May smiled again, probably in recognition at the feat of memory I had pulled off. “Show what?” she asked, leaning towards me and shutting out the rest of the group. I winked, and then pulled off the most ambitious monologue of my life.
I said that it went to show that life took odd turns, and that you could suddenly meet someone you felt very at home with, who seemed to change all the rules. Someone who made stale, damaged parts of you fade away in an instant, who let you feel strange magic once again: the magic of being in the presence of a person you didn’t know, and realizing that you wanted them more than anything else you could think of.
I spoke for about five minutes, and then stopped. It went down very well, not least because I was patently telling the truth. I meant it. For once my tongue got the words right, didn’t trip up, and I said what I meant to say. In spite of the drink, the drugs, the hour, I said it.
At the same time I was realizing that something was terribly wrong.
This wasn’t, for example, a cookery store.
A quick glance towards the door showed it also wasn’t early afternoon. The sky was dark and Bourbon Street was packed with night-time strollers. We were
sitting with the conventioneers in the Absinthe Bar, I was wearing last night’s clothes, and Rita-May’s rose was still behind her ear.
It was last night, in other words.
As I continued to tell Rita-May that I was really very keen on her, she slipped her hand into mine. This time they weren’t covered by the table, but I found I didn’t care about that. I did, however, care about the fact that I could clearly remember standing outside the Café du Monde and wanting her to touch my hand again.
In the daylight of tomorrow.
The waitress appeared with our drinks. Trindle and his cohorts decided that they might as well be hung for a lamb as for an embryo, and ordered another round themselves. While this transaction was being laboriously conducted I stole a glance at the bar. In a gap between carousing fun-lovers I saw what I was looking for. The barman who’d woken me up.
He was making four Margaritas at once, his smooth face a picture of concentration. He would have made a good photograph, and I recognized him instantly. But he hadn’t served me yet. I’d been to the bar once, and been served by a woman. The other drinks I’d bought from passing waitresses. Yet when I’d woken up, I’d recognized the barman because he’d served me. That meant I must have bought another drink before passing out and waking up in the bar by myself.
But I couldn’t have woken up at all. The reality of what was going on around me was unquestionable, from the smell of fresh sweat drifting from the middle-aged men at the table next to us to the way Rita-May’s skin looked cool and smooth despite the heat. One of the conventineers had engaged Rita-May in conversation, and it didn’t look as if she was having too bad a time, so I took the chance to try to sort my head out. I wasn’t panicking, exactly, but I was very concerned indeed.
Okay, I was panicking. Either I’d spent my time in the toilet hallucinating about tomorrow, or something really strange was happening. Did the fact that I hadn’t been served by the barman yet prove which was right? I didn’t know. I couldn’t work it out.
“What do you think of Dale Georgio, John? Looks like he’s really gonna turn Write Right around.”
I didn’t really internalize the question Trindle asked me until I’d answered it, and my reply had more to do with my state of mind than any desire to cause offence.
“He’s a talentless fuckwit,” I said.
Back outside on the pavement I hesitated for a moment, not really knowing what to do. The N’awlins Pantry was indeed where Rita-May worked, but she was out at lunch. This I had discovered by talking to a very helpful woman, who I assumed also worked there. Either that, or she was an unusually well-informed tourist.
I could either hang around and accost Rita-May on the street, or go and get some lunch. Talking to her outside the store would be preferable, but I couldn’t stand hopping from foot to foot for what could be as long as an hour.
At that moment my stomach passed up an incomprehensible message of some kind, a strange liquid buzzing that I felt sure most people in the street could hear. It meant one of two things. Either I was hungry, or my mid-section was about to explode, taking the surrounding two blocks along with it. I elected to assume that I was hungry and turned to walk back towards the square, in search of a muffeletta.
At Café du Monde I noticed that the dreadful trumpet player was in residence, actually in the middle of one of his trademark long notes. As I passed him, willing my head not to implode, the penny dropped.
I shouldn’t be noticing that he was there. I knew he was there. I’d just been at Café du Monde. He was one of the reasons I’d left.
I got far enough away that the trumpet wasn’t hurting me any more, and then ground to a halt. For the first time I was actually scared. It should have been reassuring to be back in the right time again. Tomorrow I could understand. I could retrace my steps here. Most of them, anyway. But I couldn’t remember a thing of what had happened in the cookery store. I’d come out believing that I’d had a conversation with someone and established that Rita-May worked there. But as to what the interior of the store had been like, I didn’t have a clue. I couldn’t remember. What I could actually remember was being in the Absinthe Bar.
I looked anxiously around at tourists dappled by bright sunshine, and felt the early-afternoon heat seeping in through my clothes. A hippy face-painter looked hopefully in my direction, judged correctly that I wasn’t the type, and went back to juggling with his paints.
On impulse I lifted my right hand and sniffed my fingers. Cigarette smoke and icing sugar, from the beignets I’d eaten half an hour ago. This had to be real.
Maybe there had been something weird in the joint last night. That could explain the blackout on the trip back to the hotel, and the Technicolor flashback I’d just had. It couldn’t have been acid, but some opium-based thing, possibly. But why would the man have sold us it? Presumably that kind of thing was more expensive. Dealers tended to want to rip you off, not give you little presents. Unless Rita-May had known, and had asked and paid for it – but that didn’t seem very likely either.
More than that, I simply didn’t believe it was a drug hangover. It didn’t feel like one. I felt exactly as if I’d just had far too much to drink the night before, plus one strong joint – except for the fact that I couldn’t work out where in time I actually was.
If you close one of your eyes you lose the ability to judge space. The view flattens out, like a painting. You know, or think you know, which objects are closer to you – but only because you’ve seen them before when both of your eyes have been open. Without that memory, you wouldn’t have a clue. The same appeared to be happening with time. I couldn’t seem to tell what order things should be in. The question almost felt inappropriate.
Suddenly thirsty, and hearing rather than feeling another anguished appeal from my stomach, I crossed the road to a place that sold po-boys and orange juice from a hatch in the wall. It was too far to the French Bar. I needed food immediately. I’d been okay all the time I was at Café du Monde – maybe food helped tether me in some way.
The ordering process went off okay, and I stood and munched my way through French bread and sauce piquante on the street, watching the door to the N’awlins Pantry. As much as anything else, the tang of lemon juice on the fried oysters convinced me that what I was experiencing was real. When I’d finished I took a sip of my drink, and winced. It was much sweeter than I’d been expecting. Then I realized that was because it was orange juice, rather than a Margarita. The taste left me unfulfilled, like those times when you know you’ve only eaten half a biscuit but can’t find the other piece. I knew I’d bought orange juice, but also that less than a minute ago I had taken a mouthful of Margarita.
Trembling, I slugged the rest of the juice back. Maybe this was something to do with blood-sugar levels.
Or maybe I was slowly going off my head.
As I drank I stared fixedly at the other side of the street, watching out for Rita-May. I was beginning to feel that until I saw her again, until something happened that conclusively locked me into today, I wasn’t going to be able to stabilize. Once I’d seen her the day after the night before, it had to be that next day. It really had to, or how could it be tomorrow?
Unless, of course, I was back in the toilet of the Absinthe Bar, projecting in eerie detail what might happen the next day. About the only thing I was sure of was that I wanted to see Rita-May. I realized that she probably wouldn’t be wearing what I’d seen her in last night, but I knew I’d recognize her in an instant. Even with my eyes open, I could almost see her face. Eyes slightly hooded with drink, mouth parted, wisps of clean hair curling over her ears. And on her lips, as always, that beautiful half-smile.
“We’re going,” Trindle shouted, and I turned from Rita-May to look blearily at him. They hadn’t abandoned me after all: they were leaving, and I was still conscious. My habitual irritation towards Trindle and his colleagues faded somewhat on seeing their faces. They’d clearly all had a lovely time. In a rare moment of maturity, I realized
that they were rather sweet, really. I didn’t want to piss on their fireworks.
I nodded and smiled and shook hands, and they trooped drunkenly off into the milling crowd. It had to be well after two o’clock by now, but the evening was still romping on. I turned back to Rita-May and realized that it hadn’t been such a bad stroke of luck, running into the Trindle contingent. We’d been kept apart for a couple of hours, and passions had quietly simmered to a rolling boil. Rita-May was looking at me in a way I can only describe as frank, and I leant forward and kissed her liquidly on the mouth. My tongue felt like some glorious sea creature, lightly oiled, rolling for the first time with another of its species.
After a while we stopped, and disengaged far enough to look in each other’s eyes. “It just goes to show,” she whispered, and we rested our foreheads together and giggled. I remembered thinking much earlier in the evening that I needed to ask myself what I thought I was doing. I asked myself. The answer was “Having an exceptionally nice evening”, which was good enough for me.
“Another drink?” It didn’t feel time to leave yet. We needed some more of being there, and feeling the way we did.
“Yeah,” she said, grinning with her head on one side, looking up at me as I stood. “And then come back and do that some more.”
I couldn’t see a waitress so I went to the bar. I’d realized by now that the time switch had happened again, and I wasn’t surprised to find myself being served by the smooth-faced barman. He didn’t look too surprised to see me either.
“Still going?” he asked, as he fixed the drinks I’d asked for. I knew I hadn’t talked to him before, so I guessed he was just being friendly.
“Yeah,” I said. “Do I look like I’m going to make it?”
“You look fine.” He grinned. “Got another hour or so in you yet.”
Only when I was walking unsteadily back towards our table did this strike me as a strange thing to have said. Almost as if he knew that in a little while I was going to pass out. I stopped, turned, and looked back at the bar. The barman was still looking at me. He winked, and then turned away.
The Mammoth Book of Vampires: New edition (Mammoth Books) Page 13