After Easter Sunday mass, I soared, lifted by the wings of whiskey. Lifted to the second story balconies of The Bourbon Parade and Club Oz, two huge dance halls frequented by the admirably young and their admirers.

There, drinking medicinal red at a little table overlooking Bourbon Street, I saw Jesus. He was walking the infamous slough rue wearing a crown of thorns over His long black hair. He wore sandals, too, and was naked save for a loincloth cut like the one in the paintings. He was thin and looked like He might have been Filipino, but mostly He looked like Jesus. Everyone on the balcony saw Him.

Tourists on the street below slummed with the local rabble and reveled in their Easter-on-Bourbon experience. They simply glowed with the clear-eyed wonder of it all. A few blocks up the street, Chris Owens' Parade pressed through the throng consisting of as finely miss-feathered a flock as David Duke, a band of midgets, elder ladies of the young snatched bodies, and a bunny or two. No one below gave any notice whatsoever to the walking Jesus.

A tourist family stood against the downstream wall of Pete Fountain's former club, now Club Oz. The girl, of about seventeen, waved up to us. The pubescent son giggled and hugged his mother. Then, along came Jesus walking straight towards them down one of sin's busiest thoroughfares. The tourist mother was offended. She hurriedly gathered her brood and paddled off down the rue. 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 of this drama, 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 below. He looked across The River Bourbon and blessed us, too. We moved to the Pope's table 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 came trotting along from a late mass. As they passed the corner of Bourbon and Saint Ann, heading Lakeside, towards the Cathedral School, the sea of sinners parted.

"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 back. Would he like to? "Yes, of course, yes!"

The Pope looked at me and said, "Watch that young woman, and 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 laden with fresh drinks that he distributed among the faithful. "He can not be found in this wicked din."

When we looked up from our drinks we saw Him across the street 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 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.