This is a confusing month. Mardi Gras, Lent, St. Patrick’s Day, more Lent, Easter, Weight Watchers…
Last year, things were more spaced out. My cousin Naomi came in from New Jersey to experience Mardi Gras for the first time. She tells me she thought long and hard about it, and she is very worried about the debauchery. I told her all our food is good, so if she don’t care for debauchery, she can always order the jambalaya.
The Sunday before Mardi Gras, we got plans to go Uptown and stand in front of this restaurant we always go to and wait for my sister-in-law Gloriosa to strut by. She has joined a ladies’ marching krewe, the Carrollton Clompers. They dress in these sexy little outfits and wear tap shoes. They march: two, three, four, five, six, seven CLOMP; two, three, four, five, six, seven CLOMP! You can hear them clomping for blocks.
The rest of the family will meet us there: my daughter Gladiola and her kids, plus my sister-in-law, Larva, and my mother-in-law, Ms. Larda.
Ms. Larda, as usual, will pass out bright yellow paper crowns to us all so we don’t lose track of any Gunches in the crowd. The crowns read “My First Mardi Gras,” which is a lie, but it gets us beads.
The kids are so sure of that, they are going to bring a little red wagon to haul them home in. My gentleman friend Lust would go along, but he says he’s decided to stay in his bar in the French Quarter and hope for some decadence.
But then, two days before this parade, Gloriosa trips and twists her ankle. She won’t be able to strut. But nothing stops Gloriosa. She calls her old friend Larry, who pedals one of the pedicabs (you know, half bicycle, half passenger seat) in the French Quarter, and hires him to pedal her in the parade.
She will ride behind the Carrollton Clompers and throw beads.
So here we all are, at the parade, wearing our lying yellow crowns. Well, when Gloriosa rides up to where we are standing, the parade happens to stop — one of those mysterious long parade pauses, where you start wondering if they just gave up on the whole thing. She beckons me over, and hisses that she desperately needs a bathroom break.
So I quickly help her down and to the bathroom in the restaurant. While she’s gone, Naomi, who has had a few swigs of something she’s not used to, climbs in the back of the pedicab herself, and waves to the crowd.
And then, whatever crisis has been holding up the parade is suddenly over, and it lurches on its way. Larry suddenly starts pedaling fast, and what with the crowd noise, don’t hear Naomi screeching that she’s not Gloriosa. The real Gloriosa is just coming outside, and sees Naomi riding off.
She grabs the kids’ wagon, bends her knee and flops her bandaged leg into it and zooms off like she’s on a scooter. I run after her, because I got to see how this turns out. Thank God, in a few minutes, the parade stops again for some other reason, Naomi is leaning over the back of her seat, waving her arms like a princess needing to be rescued from a castle tower— then, in a blur, Gloriosa has scrambled up into her rightful seat and Naomi has wobbled down.
Naomi and me start back, taking turns pulling the wagon, which seems to be getting heavier. The last float has finally wobbled past when we get back to our spot. I see the kids’ eyes bug out.
The wagon is now overflowing with beads. I guess other people watching the parade felt sorry for the two crazy ladies who didn’t know which way the parade was going.
I give most of it to the kids, but Naomi takes some to impress the people in New Jersey, and I bring a few strands to Lust in the French Quarter. He says he tried to take pictures of the decadence, but it all put its clothes on when it saw him coming.
I guess you can’t count on anything these days.
