Chapter 10

The ecumenical conference was winding down by the time I reached Michael’s center in the Garden District on Monday afternoon. The housekeeper escorted me to a large sun-lit room filled to capacity. Delegates, including Michael and Indira Chowdury, sat around a large table in the center of the room. Observers, including Ben, Maria, and Jennifer Craig, occupied chairs lining the walls. The delegates were attempting to agree on a definition of God.
    Ahmed Abu Said, a Muslim delegate, said, “Allah is one.”
    Indira, voicing a traditional Hindu view, said, “God is many, especially, Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma.”
    The coadjutor, or assistant bishop of New Orleans, attempted a compromise, “God is many—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—in one.”
    I said, “None of this would make any sense to my friend Preacher John. He does not believe that God and the world are separate.”
    The coadjutor said, “Who is this Preacher John?”
    Michael said, “A Gnostic street preacher.”
    “He sounds like a pantheist to me.”
    I said, “Preacher John says the world can be one or many depending on how you look at it. He says that God sees the world as one, and that seeing the world as many is an affront to God.”
    Michael signaled me to button my lip.
    “Preacher John says God privileges his point of view through Jesus when Jesus calls each person to enter God’s world through him. John says the Last Judgment is when we find out who did, and who did not, answer that invitation.”
    The coadjutor looked at Michael and drew his finger across his throat.
    Michael said, “Let’s take a ten minute recess.”
    The coadjutor pulled Michael to the side to confer with him. Meanwhile, Maria, Ben, Indira, Jennifer, and I walked into the patio. A few minutes later, Michael joined us. “I need to speak to you privately, Paul.”
    “We’re all friends here, Michael.”
    “The coadjutor says you can’t stay.”
    “You’re throwing me out? I thought you brought me down here to stir the pot.”
    “Stir it, yes. Kick it over, no. You never pull your punches.”
    I shrugged. “Where do you have me staying tonight, Michael?”
    He handed me an address and a key. “You’re staying with me. I have a friend who lives in the French Quarter. He hates Mardi Gras. Every year he leaves town and lends me his apartment.”
    Jennifer said, “Paul, are you going to sit with us in the grandstand during the Rex parade tomorrow?”
    Michael said, “Paul, Maria, Ben and I were going to get lost in the crowd, care to join us?”
    “Absolutely!”

Fat Tuesday. For Christians, the last day before the forty days of fasting and penance that precede Easter. Mardi Gras in New Orleans, “the city that care forgot,” is an outrageous street party billed locally as the “greatest free show on earth.”
    When Maria, Ben, Jennifer, Michael and I rendezvoused before the Rex parade, I had no idea how the spirit of carnival would open Michael emotionally. The first thing he did was stop in a liquor store to buy a fifth of rye whiskey. Here was Michael, whom I had never seen take a drink in his life, drinking from the bottle in the middle Bourbon Street as we moved with the crowd toward the Rex parade.
    We joined the streams of people flooding into Canal Street, one of the widest thoroughfares in the world. By the time we got there, it was sea of people.
    “We have to get next to the floats or we won’t catch anything,” Michael said. We squeezed our way single file through the crowd until we reached the police barricades that form a corridor for the floats.
    Every arm was outstretched to catch the throws—necklaces and doubloons—flung randomly by the hooded members of the Rex krewe. Every voice screamed, “Throw me something, mister.” Most valued are the doubloons, aluminum coins about the size of a silver dollar with the krewe’s emblem.
    Michael shouted, “Heeeeeeey! There’s a doubloon, Paul. Stamp your foot on it.”
    I put my foot down and had two people step down on top of my foot as they attempted to beat me to it.
    Michael said, “The trick now, Paul, is to reach down and retrieve it before you’re pushed away from it by the crowd.”
    “Show me.”
    Michael snatched the coin in sweeping move when I moved my foot, and Jennifer snatched it from him.
    When King Rex’s float stopped across from us, patiently waiting to move forward another few feet, Michael jumped the barricade, and climbed on the tractor hitch. Waving the bottle, he tried to persuade Rex, the King of Carnival, to let him come up on the float. Rex was shaking his head, no, between smiles and waves to his noisy subjects.
    Ben said, “We’d better get him down before he gets into real trouble.”
    Ben and I crossed the barricade. “That’s enough, Michael,” I said.
    Michael took a drink, “You ruined my life, Paul.”
    “Let me have that bottle.”
    “You ruined my life.”
    “Come down and we’ll discuss it.”
    “You’re going to ruin everybody’s lives.”
    Ben said, “Come on, Michael. Let me give you a hand.”
    “Paul can’t keep his mouth shut no matter who he hurts.”
    A police officer approached, “Get your friend down or I’ll arrest him.”
    “You’re busted, Michael, let’s go.” I tugged on his jacket and he slipped and fell backward. Ben and I caught him and helped him across the barricade.
    “I’m taking Michael back to the Lafitte Apartments.”
    Jennifer said, “Let me help, Paul.”
    Ben said, “Maybe we should all help.”
    “No, Michael and I need to talk. Let’s meet at the costume contest on Bourbon Street after the parade. If we miss each other in all this madness, let’s meet at the French Market tomorrow morning for breakfast.”

Chapter 10 continued