Yours Truly in a Swamp

by

Leonard Earl Johnson

**

Reprinted from Les Amis de Marigny,
New Orleans
****

Easter on the River of Bourbon Street

Easter, many years ago, we attended an amazing service a few miles upriver from my Father's Cairo, Illinois restaurant. Father drove us in his classy gray and cream colored 1953 Chrysler New Yorker, with suede center pull-down armrests and cigarette lighters in all four doors.

We stood by his proud machine in the warm open sun along Paducah, Kentucky's green levee. Behind us, the Irving Cobb Hotel (named for Paducah's famous poet) stretched eight or nine brick stories into the air to peer over the levee at the beautiful blue Ohio River.

"The USS Irving Cobb," Father told the smiling blond we followed to our roof top table, "brought the first load of American corn to Bremerhaven, Germany, after the war.

"Next day," he went on, "Armed Forces Stars and Strips newspaper ran a headline reading, CORN ON THE COBB."

I'm not sure the woman understood. I know I did not, but she laughed, and I did, too.

Looking over the levee, those many years ago, we watched as whining powerboats pulled water skiers faster, and faster till the skiers flew high in the air above the blue Ohio. They were air-born on the wings of huge yellow and white kites.

This Easter I am again on The River, but way downstream in New Orleans (the land of dreamy dreams) where the river has an unmapped-tributary, Bourbon Street. And this time, I soared, lifted by the wings of whiskey; lifted to the second story balconies of The Bourbon Parade and OZ.

Sitting at a little table on The Bourbon Parade's balcony I saw Jesus. He was walking down the infamous slue rue wearing a crown of thorns over long black hair. He was naked save for a loincloth cut like the one in the paintings. He looked like he might have been Filipino, but mostly he looked like Jesus. Everyone on the balcony saw Him.

Below us, tourists were slumming with the local rabble, reveling in their Easter on Bourbon Street. They simply glowed with the clear-aired wonder of it all, and gave no notice to the walking Jesus.

A tourist family stood against the downstream wall of Pete Fountain's former club, now the home of OZ. A girl of about seventeen waved up to us. A pubescent son giggled and hugged his mother. Then, along came Jesus walking straight towards them, along one of sin's busier thoroughfares.

The tourist mother was offended. She gathered her brood and paddled on down the street. Toward what? A friend's house, a bed-and-breakfast, another tourist murder? Jesus did not seem offended by their departure (after all, He wrote the book on forgiveness). The street's sinners, noting nothing, went on about their sinning.

The Pope appeared. He stood on the OZ balcony dressed head to toe in yellow and white satin. He blessed all who passed. He looked across the River Bourbon and blessed us, too.

We moved to the Pope's spot on the OZ balcony, and looked back at the Bourbon Parade's balcony. The Pope, ever wise, said, "You can not see yourself on the balcony you have just left." We had all had a lot to drink. The Pope handed me a large bourbon and water. "Holy Water, from the Holy River," he said.

Three real nuns in old-fashioned black and white habits trotted past the corner of Bourbon and Saint Ann. They were headed to Saint Louis Cathedral School. The sea of sinners parted for them.

"What would they think of seeing Jesus?" a young woman asked of no one in particular. She leaned ominously over the balcony rail and yelled to the crowd below for Carnival beads. A photographer looked up and took her picture. I yelled down asking if he had seen Jesus. "No," he shouted. Would he like to? "Yes, of course, yes!"

The Pope looked at me and said, "Watch that young woman, do not let her fall over the communion rail." Green Carnival beads landed on the Pope's pointy hat. They looked interesting but he took them off and tossed them to two college boys on the street below.

I told him the two boys should have opened their pants. He frowned and said sternly, "This is not Carnival."

I said, "It is not Paducah either," but The Pope did not hear me, he was gone to find Jesus. The communion rail leaner looked first at me, then past my forehead and talked of far-ranging things.

The Pope returned without Jesus, but with fresh drinks which he distributed among the faithful. "He can not be found in this wicked din," he mused.

We looked up from our drinks, and across the street where we saw Him waving from the Bourbon Parade's balcony. We waved back. His naked arms were lifted heavenward, his loincloth flapped in the whiskey flavored air. The man with the camera jumped and shouted, "Your cross, your cross, show your cross!"

Jesus looked down with great disdain and bellowed, "Don't you know what holiday this is? I have no cross!"

The Pope, assorted communion rail learners, and followers passing on the street below shouted, "It isn't Carnival!"

It wasn't, it was Easter on the River of Bourbon Street.