Walking to Frenchmen

The IHOP manager on Canal accosts Kyle and Amy, one of his visiting friends from Kentucky after they use the bathroom. They aren’t paying customers. I watch the altercation through the window, and after buying a water, I return outside and the two other Kentucky girls have found conversation with two obese middle-aged guys from out of town. I stand a few feet down, embarrassed by the whole group. The two walk out of IHOP with giant plastic to-go cups of Coke. Amy is wearing a red, short-sleeved sweater with a pocket. Kyle shoves his Coke in this pocket and Amy is already holding her own as well as a liter of soda from the dorm that someone forgot to mix with whisky. The travelers brought Old Crow and Southern Comfort and everyone learned in the common room that the later is from New Orleans. I call the group together and lead us down Bourbon. Who invited all of these people and why are they wearing Mardi Gras beads? Bright lights do attract the inebriated. I weave between people, get bumped, and turn back to see the revelers who echo the choruses of classic rock songs blaring from some daiquiri shop. After St. Ann where some consider the gay clubs, I charge on and the party fades behind us. We encounter a street band, and we pet their dogs. They don’t look too unhealthy and I wonder if the kids have a Daddy’s credit  card in case the charade gets old. But their song is sweet. He sits on a stoop, leans back on a blue shutter and plucks his banjo. We all join in, stomp the concrete, clap, riff on the vocals as background singers. The musician offers his hot and I drop a wrinkled dollar. Kyle gives him a few pinches of tobacco. They tell us their name and where they will soon play, but no one remembers. We are almost to Frenchmen Street, and the wind of the sudden cold front pushes us down the sidewalk.