The Sad, Sordid Tale of Bruce Halloran-4

: Beating the pavement in the early morning mugginess in the Central Business District, Bruce Halloran is already sopping wet inside the block and a half he’s walked from the World War II Museum parking lot. Another four blocks away, he attempts to keep himself in the thinning lines of shadows close to the buildings. Crossing Tchoupitoulas he’s nearly hit by a bicyclist blazing through the red light, cursing him as she passes. The faint smell of rancid patchouli and soup hovers in her wake like a skidmark in the air. He pushes on, finally arriving at the address on Fulton and N. Diamond. The only good thing about the morning so far was the smell of roasting meats coming from Cochon a few blocks away. Wiping himself down with his saturated handkerchief, he enters the door tastefully etched “DiNotto, Tschantz, & Asino: Testamentary Law and Legal Services.”

It was like stepping into a deep freeze. Within seconds his sweat-soaked button-down and khaki shorts become a frozen tundra. Turning to look behind him, he wonders exactly why it isn’t raining inside the doorway. The interior is a small vestibule painted a Wedgewood blue and white everything else, including the carved woodwork along the baseboards. On either side hang two white filigree framed marbled mirrors, very 70s chic. Directly across from him is an elevator door covered in white latticework. The doors open to reveal a mahogany paneled lift with Persian carpeting. Bruce steps inside, and pushes the old fashioned button that says simply “Up.”

The doors close, and for a few moments the temperature rises, warming him up. At first he doesn’t think he’s even moving until a subtle jump in the car alerts him to his arrival. The doors open and Bruce steps into a repurposed Creole cottage interior. It’s decorated in much the same way as downstairs, except for the very authentic looking hardwood floors. The elevator closes behind him and Halloran steps into the office, and looks around. There are several very young, very thin interns beavering away in the various rooms. Few of them are boys, and the few they have are nothing to write home about. To his left, he hears a tinkly little voice ask,

“Mr. Halloran?”

He turns to see a blonde pencil in a blouse and matching skirt rising from behind an enormous antique desk. In his head he utters the phrase “Ichabod Crane’s little sister.” She comes at him like that stick family on the back of the van you barely miss hitting in rush hour traffic, and tinkles cheerfully,

“Hi Mr. Halloran. My name is Alsace. I’ll let Mr. Tschantz know you’re here. While you’re waiting, can I get you anything? Vodka stinger? Margarita? Jim Beam and Coke?”

Bruce looks up at her with shock. “It’s 9:15 in the morning.”

Alsace blinks. “Margarita then?”

“Please!” he exclaims, pulling his wet shirt away from his chest. “I need energy.”

Alsace dangles off like a marionette in search of his cocktail when the unmistakable smell of seersucker and Grey Flannel pierces his nose. He turns to find said seersucker adorning the slight frame of a young man somewhere just north of his middle twenties. His straight brown hair is neatly combed to the side at an angle that accentuates the cherub-like features of his artless face. And of course, a bow tie. A navy blue bow tie embroidered with crimson crawfish.

Very daring. And exactly what Bruce Halloran had no intention of seeing. The recruitment poster for the Young Log Cabin Republicans. The boy sticks out his hand and chirps,

“Mr. Halloran, it’s a pleasure to meet you sir.”

Bruce looks down at the hand, and shakes it begrudgingly, mumbling,

“Obviously you haven’t met me.”

The barb goes unnoticed, and the boy turns and walks into his office down the hall. Bruce follows, simply because there is nothing else to do. Once inside, he’s surprised to find an ultra modern office setup that was obviously geared to the building. It looks a bit like the Habsburgs' Ikea. Taking their seats, Mr. Tschantz opens a drawer and pulls out a weighty folder, placing it on his desk. Alsace totters in and delivers the neon green margarita, rimmed with...wait for it...yes. Bacon salt. Bruce takes a long sip as he and the young man take their seats. Alsace closes the door behind her.

“Now, Mr. Halloran you obviously know why you’re here. I have here a list of the five people that your late benefactor Mr. Pitts left for you to handle, as well as Mr. Pitts’ copious notes on each...incident.” The boy’s smile doesn’t waver as he speaks but he can’t hide the catch in his throat at talking about it. A single strand of his perfect hair swoons at the thought and falls gracelessly across his unlined brow, the sole dissenter. Sara Joy must have done some really awful things. Mr. Tschantz pushes the folder across the desk to Bruce, his eyes looking just a little too intense. Bruce takes up the folder more out of defense than security and opens it up. Inside are five smaller folders, each one containing a person Gary Pitts ruined during his wasted, hateful life. The top folder is for a guy named Philip Tupperman. He flips it open to reveal an old Polaroid picture of Tupperman, along with some stuff in a plastic bag and several sheets of Pitt’s recounting of what had happened. Closing it, he turns the entire thing on its side and reads the names: Philip Tupperman, Lois Uzermaan, Gerald Kramer, Nicky Oesterheimer, and--

Bruce’s eyes widen to the point of dehydration. There before him is the one name he didn’t want to see. The one person left on the planet who crawls under his skin more than Gary Pitts ever did.

Avalena Beasley.

That bellowing termagant that has been the bane of his existence since he went to work for Cox. The sulphurous harpy that infests his office and his eyesight every single, stinking day. The customer service equivalent of Typhoid Mary. Avalena Beasley! Beelzebub in a Lane Bryant suit.

Damn you Gary Pitts! This is too far! He begins to reach into the folder to see what he did when Mr. Tschantz says with remarkable authority,

“Mr. Halloran, please! Set the folder down, there are some things we need to discuss.”

Bruce overgently places the folder back where he found it, patronizingly uttering "OK Princess. Don't break a sweat." The young man continues, reading from another set of pages at his hand.

“It is Mr. Pitts’ wish that you make amends with the five individuals as they are ordered in the folder--”

“Are you kidding me?” Bruce blurts out, his temperature rising again.

“Mr. Halloran, please let me finish!” The young man remains decidedly seated. Bruce calms down and listens. Mr. Tschantz continues.

“As I was saying, Mr. Pitts wishes for you to make things right in the order he made them wrong. He was very specific on this point. Your first mission is Mr. Tupperman. You can take that file today. The rest go back into the safe until reparations are made.”

Bruce stares bullets at the kid before snarling,

“Define ‘reparations.’”

The young man’s face never loses its mask of grace and civility. Bruce has to hand it to the kid. By now he’s got most of these hipsters spitting nails in his wake. All he does is blink a little. Like he’s doing now. It speaks.

“That can mean anything from correcting a misconception to remuneration.”

Halloran snorts and says, “I suppose that money’s coming out of me. That miserly bitch.”

Mr. Tschantz looks back to his papers, and smiles as he points to a line and says,

“Oh yes. He said you’d say that. It’s right here, ‘you miserly bitch.’”

Unseen, Bruce narrows his eyes at this fetus from Rubenstein’s. But he resists the urge to kill. Squaring his shoulders like Susan Hayward in ‘I Want to Live.’ he asks,

“What else did Eva Braun scrawl before the Allies got there? And if you tell me that gag is in your notes I’ll kill myself all over your pretty blue walls!”

And again Mr. Tschantz blinks. Four times this round. “No,” he says kindly, checking his notes. “...there’s is a reference here to Tallulah Bankhead, but I…”

His voice trails off as he looks up to see Bruce’s grimace.

“Anyway,” continues Mr. Tschantz, his babyface rictus unshaken, “the money doesn’t in fact come from you. Mr. Pitts has a reserve fund specifically for the expenses of your tasks.”

“There’s more money?!?” Halloran exclaims. “How much is this fund?”

“I am specifically forbidden from revealing the exact sum to you, Mr. Halloran, as per the provisions in the footnotes on page six of the will which reads ‘if he knows how much there really is, it will kill him.’ If there is any balance remaining in the fund at the completion of your tasks, it will be awarded to you.”

Bruce stops to take it all in, then slowly slides Philip Tupperman’s file toward him. Mr. Tchantz takes up the rest of the files and places them back in the drawer. The smile abides. Flipping it open, he looks at the photograph of Philip Tupperman. He wasn’t a bad looking guy. Not Bruce’s style, but he could see the appeal. Brown mane of 80s hair, cute little moustache, average build. And he’s standing in front of the Smokey Mary on Elysian Fields.

Beneath the picture is the plastic bag. Inside he sees Tupperman’s driver’s license from 1988, what looks like an inside-out used matchbook, and a folded mimeographed flyer. And beneath that were the notes, all in Sara Joy’s hand. He flips aimlessly through the pages, and asks,

“So, how exactly am I to go about this?”

“That is an excellent question,” replies Mr. Tschantz, returned to his unnervingly perfect posed composition. Even the one errant hair has returned to place of it’s own accord. “Your task is to go through the files and learn all you can about the circumstances of each victim’s situation. When you have all the information you will make contact with them and find out what they need or want in order to feel they’ve been repaid. Once they agree to terms you must have them sign the paperwork which indemnifies Mr. Pitts and his estate from any and all further claims. Upon final delivery of whatever they have accepted as payment, your task is complete and you may move on to the next victim’s case.”

Bruce stares at Mr. Tschantz with his practiced “bar-eyes,” guaranteed to rattle anyone’s cage. But this Tschantz kid. He’s good. Not even a twitch. Just the blinking. Finally Halloran sniffs a bit and asks bluntly,

“OK. What’s the catch?”

Blink. Two. Three.

“Catch?”

“The catch. The stumbling block. The twist.” Bruce exhales. “What’s the twist?”

Blink. Two. Three. Four...five…

“...the victims cannot know that you are brokering the legal release of the late Mr. Pitts and his estate from any and all responsibility for whatever his past actions may have caused. You may represent yourself as a longtime friend of Mr. Pitts, but in no way may you identify yourself with this office or indicate your goal until the time of signing. All requests for services, cash, other forms of barter are to come through me…”

Bruce’s eyes narrow in on his with laser-like precision.

“Aaaannnd?”

Mr. Tschantz slowly pushes his chair away from his desk, turning it towards the door. Still smiling, he says,

“In fact Mr. Halloran, it is my exclusive job to work with you on bringing this account to a close--”

“That’s the one!” bellows Halloran, his voice reverberating against the walls. “Anything else? There must be something else?”

Mr. Tschantz rises and backs up slowly toward the window where a large and heavy marble buffalo resides. He keeps himself within ready access as he replies atonally,

“It is my job to assist you and keep up with your records. But I cannot physically assist you in any way. My involvement is strictly limited to advice, requisitions, and accountancy."

“So, what you’re sayin’ is you can get me the car, but you can’t pick me up at the airport.”

“...yes.”

Bruce sighs. Once again he’s being told what to do by some kid that can’t even carry boxes. Perfect. Still, what’s the alternative? Shrugging it off his big, rounded shoulders he asks flatly,

“So, what do I do, just report back here once a week?”

At last, the smile strains. It doesn’t fail entirely but it loses some of its structural integrity. Here, the chirp of young Mr. Tschantz become less of a budgie and more of a hawk.

“No Mr. Halloran. You won’t. This will be your last visit to the offices. The partners wish to make it clear that it is in their immediate interest to close Mr. Pitts’ account and distance themselves from any knowledge of it. From now on I will be coming to you. If you need me, you will always be able to reach me at the number you called earlier. Once you leave today, you are never to return. Refusal or violation of any of these conditions will constitute a breach of contract and will instantly trigger the repossession of all of Mr. Halloran’s assets. Is that clear?”

Bruce leans in, picks up his margarita and drains it down. Setting it back on the desk, he turns to Tschantz and says,

“That’s fine, the drywall man’s coming at noon. Can I get another margarita before I go?”

The disturbingly pleasant smile returns in full force, puffed into place by six blinks before he says,

“Of course Mr. Halloran.” Reaching over to a slick black box he touches a lit square and calls out “Alsace, another margarita for Mr. Halloran. And take out some petty cash for his parking. Thank you Alsace.”

Returning to his chair, Mr. Tschantz settles back in and stares at Bruce Halloran. The morning sun pouring in through the cantilevered windows settles on the left side of him, catching the lightness of his suit and skin in blinding detail. Suddenly the fresh-faced Mr. Tschantz seems more aged and imposing than Bruce had originally seen. Innocent freckles now appear as wizened liver spots, Feeling the heat, he moves his chair away from the windows, returning to his creepy little perfect self. Leaning in to Bruce, Tschantz says cheerfully,

“Now would be a good time to start learning about Mr. Tupperman.”

Outside the closed office door, the “thinterns” continue about their daily tasks. In the kitchenette Alsace finishes rimming another glass with bacon salt and limes, a couple of hundreds laying nearby. It won’t be the last time she does this today...This Is My New Orleans.

The Sad, Sordid Tale of Bruce Halloran-3

: Recovering from the preponderance of drywall smoke floating aimlessly throughout his condo, Bruce Halloran starts pulling costumes, hangers, and debris out of the way to see exactly what he’s done. The hole in the closet wall is sizeable and shaped a bit like Africa. Pushing aside the broken closet rod, he finds the source of the problem. A small metal box set into the drywall with its handle coming out of the other side. The hanger on the costume is chained to the handle.

“Sara Joy, you crazy bitch!”

Bruce pulls the contraption towards him through the mess, a large, jagged piece of drywall flaking as it rubs across an ocean of sequins and paillettes. The dust is settling, along with the hot, dry, musty breath of the original building exhaling from the hole. Picking up an old espadrille covered in oxidizing gold spray paint, Bruce knocks the drywall away to reveal the top of the box. Popping open the catch, he lifts the lid to reveal a single envelope. Flipping it over, he finds the handwritten word

“Halloran.”

Inside the envelope he finds several pages of a handwritten letter and a business card for a law firm in the CBD. The extravagant confusing swoops and unfinished points marks it instantly as Gary Pitts handwriting. Leaning back against the huge foam rubber penis, Bruce reads.

“March 15th, 2011

Hello Agnes!

If you’re reading this, then I’m either dead or trying to prove a point.

Either way, now you know. Let’s assume it’s the former.

I also expect by now you’ve moved into my condo and have turned it into the rotten pigsty you enjoy so much. Good thing I’m dead. Because now I can’t do anything about it.

Or, can I?

As it turns out, yes I can.

The business card is for my lawyers. You should recognize the address, you had to go down there to sign the papers to get all my shit.”

Bruce snatches up the card and reads it again. Yeah, that’s them. DiNotta, Tschantz, and Asino.

“Well Brucie Boy, they’re waiting to hear from you. And, knowing you only clean up every ice age, I’ve got a bet with Tschantz that you won’t find this before 2014. If $500 suddenly disappeared from my--”your” bank account in January of 2015, that’s where it went.”

It had disappeared, and Bruce had caused quite a scene. Now he has to bank in Gentilly. Sara Joy would have adored it.

“Here’s why they’re waiting to hear from you. You still have something you have to do. In fact, you have five things you have to do before it all belongs to you in full. I know you didn’t read the fine print in the paperwork you had to sign. You never do. That’s why I told my shysters to make certain it was in there. If you’ll look at the footnotes in Section IV of page six, you’ll see.”

Bruce didn’t even bother to go look. He knew it would be there. That calculating bitch.

“Now, I’m only going to say this once. And since I’ll most likely be dead by the time you read it, it doesn’t count, you gossiping potato. Though I have become a legend in the bars for my cutting wit, acid tongue, and countless acts of Christian charity…”

According to Sara Joy, Christian charity was the name of the company that supplied Caligula with lion chow.

“...I do admit that I have some regrets. Five, to be exact. I had six. But you’re living here now, so I can scratch that bloated mark off my list.”

Bruce’s eyes and nostrils flare as a contagion of grandma beads breaks out all over his body. His temper rising with him, he points towards the letter in his trembling hand like Javert in the worst production of Les Mis ever conceived. His voice begins as a low growl and grows to a piercing shriek as he hisses,

“I knew it! I knew it, I knew it, I kneeeeeeeewwwwwww it! You felt guilty! You heartless piece of flint, you felt remorse! REMORSE! For every nasty trick you played on me, you felt BAD! I can’t believe it! I can’t--I can’t believe I’m screaming at a dead man’s penmanship!”

Bruce drops the letter and staggers out of the closet, his arms clenched tight into his chest. With grasping hands he struggles over to the bedroom bar for a quick visit with Mr. Beam and his good friends at Coca-Cola. But before a drop of liquor can hit the glass he practically drops it on the bar and rushes back to the letter.

“In order to keep this condo, you have to go to the five people on a list that the lawyers have waiting for you. For obvious reasons I can never approach them to make things right. But things have to be set right. And you're the one who has to do it.

Maybe it’s because I’m nearly as old as you’ll be when you find this, but I do have some scrap of decency. Some of them will likely surprise you, at least I’m hoping they will. Your job Executive Secretary Anthony--”

“Good God, again with the obscure TV references,” Bruce groans, a hesitant grin on his face.

“--is to find these people, and make amends on my behalf. I’ve left some notes. They should help. The only rules are that you have to get with everyone on the list and fix things no later than midnight on March 15th, 2016. If anybody is dead before you get to them, let the lawyers know. They’ll tell you what to do.

If you don’t get it all done by the 15th Halloran, you lose everything. The condo, the clothes, the car, the money, everything. When that happens, my entire estate goes to my pet charity, the”

Bruce turns over the page, and shuffles through the letter. He tears through the envelope looking for the last page. Not there. Typical Sara Joy trick. Frustration from beyond the grave. Bruce looks around the pile of rubble and finds the card for DiNotta, Tschantz, & Asino. On the back is a note:

“On weekends, call here,” and the number. There’s also another number and a smaller note that reads “Drywall repair. Prepaid.” Well, she always said she paid for her fun.

Bruce takes a big breath and exhales deeply. Walking back out of the bedroom he picks up his phone and begins dialing the number. For what seems like an eternity there is silence, then the call connects. On the fifth ring it picks up and a young man’s voice dripping of seersucker chirps,

“Hello Mr. Halloran. We’ve been waiting to hear from you. My name is Mr. Tschantz and I’m here to help you.”

The words chill Bruce Halloran down to his pettiest bone...This Is My New Orleans.

The Sad, Sordid Tale of Bruce Halloran-2

: Working his way back into the pile of disused, horrid drag costumes still extant in the inherited walk-in closet of his condo, Bruce Halloran stops for a few moments and swills back another double bourbon before he tackles the slowly desiccating rack of improvisational “dresses.” It’s at times like these that Bruce is both grateful and hateful of his almost eidetic memory. He recalls with vivid clarity the events which correlate with each hastily improvised mess occupying a rack of wooden hangers more expensive than the creations they occupy. There’s not a single stitch of sewing involved in these messes. Sara Joy could only operate a hot glue gun, due in no small part to the callouses he developed in his early career as a careless cable installer before he became management. The same job Bruce took over when Sara Joy suddenly decided to become a recluse. It always angered Bruce that Gary Pitts took the easy way out, cutting off all ties before he died. Yet still, Halloran had ultimately been the recipient of Sara Joy’s largesse. So in his mind it all worked out.

Reaching the last dress in the closet, Bruce looked at the fashion abomination he’d encountered. A fuschia and chartreuse microdot sequin nightmare in which Sara Joy had caused her most notable scene. The scene which effectively established The Phoenix as a total gay male bar. Completely eradicating any memory of the location as being the Smokey Mary Restaurant and Bar.

It was 1989. Smokey Mary’s was still a fairly popular restaurant before the new investors took over and turned it into what could only be described as the roughest, newest leather bar in the city, right across Esplanade Avenue from Charlene’s, the first lesbian bar in the city. Charlene’s established itself as a rough dive from the start, and it was clear from the get-go that male gays would be served but not welcome. Naturally an all-gay male bar would open across the way, and have a similar policy concerning sex. Despite what the media would have the public believe the gays and the lesbians were not always friends in New Orleans. In fact, there was an unspoken power play between the two groups. The dykes knew they had the advantage. Women in that male-centric world were turned on by lesbians. The popular mythos was the possibility that straight men would eventually be invited into the lesbian coupling because the man owned the penis. And even though any straight man who entered the joint would be instantly rebuked, the mythos Catholic transubstantiation was enough to satiate most frustrated NOLA men into buying an exorbitant number of cocktails for women who had no intention of having a male involved.

For nearly twenty years, this business model worked beautifully. Even old fruits like Bruce Halloran had to accept the logic.

But this was a world of inequities and infighting. A situation which Pitts not only took advantage of, but turned into a small cottage industry for his own aggrandisement. Division was the medium in which Sara Joy worked. The equivalent of Caravaggio in the realms of of social change--

“You stupid fruit!!!” Bruce exclaims aloud to the last hangared mess before him. This is exactly what Sara Joy would have wanted  you to do, finding ways to defend her deceased ass. With the smug demeanor of a poor winner, Bruce pulls the hangar from the rack, only to find it caught on something. Doubtless another one of Pitts’ derisional props. Deep down, he hoped that it would be the four-foot foam rubber erection she’d excavated with an electric carving knife the night before the 1991 Golden Lantern Pride Party. She’d lost to a heavily carved, painted, and padded Jennifer Holliday clone. But no one that was there in The Latrine ever forgot her act. The prop had become a thing of local legend by the early Nineties, even inspiring a puppet in an underground show that popped up in the tiny boutique theatre on Frenchman Street.

That was where Bruce Halloran reached his saturation point with everything, and pulled the final hangar from its accustomed perch with a violent jerk. Just as he did this, he heard the unfamiliar sound of something substantial ripping it’s way through the pre-Katrina drywall. A small but visible cloud of dust erupted from the wall, causing Halloran to think he’s pulled out a retaining wall. Or at the very least, load-bearing drag. What he discovered in the small but aeronautically prolific debris would change his life forever...This Is My New Orleans.

The Sad, Sordid Tale of Bruce Halloran-Part 1

: Bruce Halloran is in a snit.

No, not just a snit. A full-out snootfull of pissed off. One disquieted queen. One large, overripe, high-dudgeon, disquieted queen.

And the reason for his disquietude? The sheer stupidity of the throngs of people surrounding his luxury condominium next to Kajuns Pub​. Sneering down upon the masses shuffling along the banquette below his rooftop courtyard, he drags his meathooks over his little Pomeranian/terrier/something-else-cute mix dog Ms. Sara Joy, named for the appropriated drag persona of timely-departed benefactor Gary Pitts, who willed Bruce the condo nearly three years ago. Rescued from the street outside the building, Ms. Sara Joy has grown very little since Bruce took him in, the result of his first year being on the street with nearly nothing to eat. With Bruce's unintentional ministrations, he has now pudged out to look like a Disney fox with dwarfism and an eating disorder. It isn't that Bruce doesn't love Ms. Sara Joy. In fact, it is probably the most loving relationship Halloran has ever had in his entire life. He just doesn't think in those terms, mainly because he can't get a laugh in a bar with sentiment.

Trying not to peer over the edge of his owner's reedy arms, Miss Sara Joy pulls against the increasingly intense "petting" his otherwise loving owner gives. Showers of red, auburn, and white dog fur drifts over the brick facade of the building and gently settles onto the unsuspecting youths below.

Because of this, one young man will be accused of infidelity by his brunette girlfriend. This event will set off a chain of events that will forever change his life. But...that's New Orleans...

A quick "Yip!" from Ms. Sara Joy alerts Bruce to the fact that he's petting too hard, and he bends down to release the dog, which fairly jumps for his life to the concrete roof. Catching his stride, he hoists his curled tail up to it's fully-festooned height and trots towards his rooftop food bowls, his anus and lack of testicles on full display for his owner. As always, it goes unnoticed. Ms. Sara Joy is aware of this, but it makes him feel bigger when he does it.

Bruce looks down again upon the crowd below, his late middle-aged upper lip curling into a snarl.

"Look at them," he mutters to himself, now all alone on his rooftop Xanadu. "Wandering around down there just because they think it's 'cool.' Children, all of the--ooh, hello young man! Ever thought of an older gentleman to..."

The words die in his hollow throat.

"Noooooooo..." he croaks. "Of course you haven't. To you, older means somebody under 35...if that." He turns away from the bustle on the street and wanders over to the virtually unused four-person patio set. He sits in the same chair he always occupies with a grunt, his spindly limbs sprawling away from his Idaho potato body.

Pitts always said, "you look like the pit of an avocado on toothpicks!"

Bruce's head fills with another memory. The first time he ever set foot in this place in the mid 90s, when Sara Joy first bought the place. Within an hour of signing the papers, every bar fag in New Orleans knew the story. He got it for 50% below market value from a cookbook writer who needed the cash. Pitts had picked up a few hustlers from the Golden Lantern, as well as a handful of bar trash from the Quarter, several  bottles of K&B liquors, a 'dollar bag' of Maui Wowee, and a new bottle of real poppers. Before the games really began, the group had just finished polishing off the first bottle of vodka and a couple of joints. Bruce had laid claim to a sinewy young country boy called Duke from Auburn. Exactly his type, shorter than himself, thin, hairless, no fat, all definition. And willing. He was receptive! A treat for the oft-rejected Halloran.

Then the alcohol and drugs kicked in for Sara Joy.

“Duke!” he had suddenly called out as Bruce was guiding the Auburn boy to the door. “You don’t want to go off with Brucie. He’s only good for fetching drinks while you’re dealing with a real man.” Whereupon Pitts opened his fly and displayed his other assets. Bruce went home alone.

Gary "Sara Joy" Pitts had many, many faults. He was a sybarite who wielded his wit and his sexuality like a sword, cutting down foes, friends, and innocent bystanders with a common disregard. Addictive behaviors were his downfall. Smoking, drinking, sex, drugs, gossip, all of these were on the menu daily for Gary. Lacking any originality, Pitts even took his drag name from the character Judy Landers played in the sitcom "Madame's Place." The one good thing about him was his ability to give all his good friends free cable TV. He had worked for Cox Cable, and knew his way around the system. He was Bruce’s entryway into the company at the end of the decade, mainly because Bruce knew more about one of Sara Joy’s many dalliances than Sara Joy liked.

But, that was their relationship. Blackmail was a form of affection, as were beratement and manipulation. And when you live the bar life, it’s easy to forget all the times that someone was there for you. Easier still to focus on the times that someone screwed you over for a trick or slandered you at a social gathering where one might get laid. Still, like the elephant Pitts often compared him to when in pursuit of an evening’s entertainment, Bruce remembered. The night Sara Joy came downstairs in The Phoenix and slapped a cocktail out of his hand before laying into the bar trash that has poisoned the drink with Visine. The morning Bruce’s appendix had burst, and Pitts showed up with a Cox Cable truck he swiped to get him to to Charity Hospital. The day after his Bruce’s ex had caused a devastating scene in the Latrine, Pitts showing up at the door with a large bottle of bourbon, a bag of weed, a small bottle of poppers, and two “cable installers” he picked up from the Corner Pocket.

It was a hell of an afternoon.

And Bruce never forgot.

But those days are long gone. Today, as in days gone by an aging pleasure-seeker is just about as attractive (and similarly shaped to,) a mouldy pear. For Bruce, it is the cruelest cut of aging; still craving pliant young flesh while being the profuse, crinkled, overstuffed baggage that drives youth away like responsibility. He’s fighting it, but it is becoming clear to him that the only way he’s ever going to get a young man into his web is to accept the fact that he’s going to have to become a sugar daddy.

The idea is both abhorrent and intriguing. Something Sara Joy would have loved putting in front of Bruce: an inescapable choice. Either become the prey you used to hunt, or rot alone in a dead fruit’s old condo, partially-eaten by your dog before they find your desiccated corpse because the neighbors are complaining about the smell.

Walking back inside to the first of the eight fully-stocked bars Pitts left behind, Bruce pours himself a couple of fingers of bourbon and walks back to the walk-in closet. In the back corner are all of Gary Pitts’ clothes, boxed up when Bruce moved in. None of it will ever fit Bruce, but the wardrobe can be sold so that Bruce can buy new and assume the role of sugar daddy in the bars...This Is My New Orleans.

The Matriculation of Bitsie DuPlessis

She remembers it like it was yesterday.

Vintage damask silk covers the walls of the sitting room in the DuPlessis mansion, illuminated by an custom-made Tiffany lamp hung evocatively over an antique Louis XVI loveseat with the Constance Howard embroidered cushions.  Across the room on the turn of the century Persian rug, the restored Atwater-Kent radio radiates an amber glow to cover the modern machinery playing the digital jazz channel WWNO-3.  And in between them is the carefully arranged visage of Bitsie DuPlessis, cursing her aptitude for art appraisal. For her, a manse like her in-law's was a cursed amusement park, filled with toothsome treasures anxious to monopolize her consciousness.  To the gentle rhythms of Lionel Hampton and Sarah Vaughn, she deftly sews her days away between social obligations, errands for her husband Ivan, & the growing instances of his escapes into the 'vookuray.'  Here she sits from afternoon to late night, embroidering with ever-increasing skill and intensity.

She first noticed it in June, a few months after they had moved into Audubon Place.

For the first several weeks of her new-found role of Uptown society wife, Bitsie fully immersed herself in every event she could attend.  She discovered early that the DuPlessis name was akin to a golden ticket to the convoluted world of New Orleans societal rigors.  So powerful was the mention of the name that she found herself injected into situations destined to end in her failure on many levels.  While well-schooled in the good social graces of proper Southern debutante, the training would fail her.  In her zeal to be accepted, she bullied or coerced the elite into granting entrance to enclaves that, while rare & powerful would ultimately lead to her alienation in a few strata.  Even though a slim majority of New Orleans society found her charming, Bitsie existed in a world where positive reinforcement was ignored.

On the hind end of a 3-day period of inactivity, a sudden burst of afternoon downpour temporarily halted her daily routine.  Preparing to leave for an arranged meeting with the captain of the all-female krewe of Muses, an angry late spring storm erupted over Uptown.  Within moments the torrential rain had overwhelmed the drains & flooded Audubon Place.  Schramm advised against leaving just as the power went out.

With Schramm gone to collect flashlights & candles, Bitsie was left alone for the first time in months.  A thunderclap rattled the house as the lightning in the solarium windows illuminated the stairway.  She thought of Ivan and his office on the third floor.  The office she had never seen.  The rooms she had never entered like his childhood bedroom and the Colonel's suite.  It wasn't until she found herself looking at the corridor of doors that she realized she's climbed the stairs and entered his enclave.

Errant lightning bursts shone through the window at the other end and gave her the impression that she was in a 70's suspense thriller.  The hairs standing up on her neck helped, too.  The first room she checked was a guest room with a four-poster bed whose canopy had seen tighter days, drooping to within two feet of the mattress.  Boxes of paperwork dotted the floor in a skyline of tedious records.  The next room she found was the upstairs water closet, a remnant of a lavish renovation in the 1920's, done entirely in Venetian gold marbled mirror tiles and a golden shell basin on a mirrored pedestal.  Even in near darkness, the gleaming gold seemed to hang in the ether like the doorway to another world.

On her right was a door she couldn't open.  It was the only one with a modern handle & lock.  This was obviously Ivan's office, locked up tight.  She wondered if Schramm had the keys to this door.  He has to let the maid up when she shows up to work.  Another unsuccessful try, and she moves on.  At least now, she knew where it is.  The branches of the live oak scratched against the window with jarring intensity, causing her to jump.  Heart beating hard in her ears, she heads for the next room on the left.

The second she opened the door of the room she knew it was Ivan's old bedroom.  It still smelled like him, like he was when they first met at Tulane.  A tiny smile curls her lips as she navigates in near darkness.  Feeling her way along the foot of the bed, another flash reveals a long chest of drawers strewn with the castoff knick-knacks of his late youth, a handful of framed pictures, and a flashlight.  Amazingly, the flashlight worked.  Now equipped, Bitsie instantly turned to the framed pictures.  They are much as she expected.  Ivan in his Coast Episcopal uniform, a family trip to Pensacola, a Christmas picture of Janette & the Colonel in younger but no more congenial days.  Ivan & the Colonel on a fishing trip, then again at Disney World, and another at a birthday party with both of them blowing out the candles.  Casting the light around the rest of the room she discovers more relics of Ivan's adventures with The Colonel.  A framed collecton of his medals & ribbons from his Army career hanging next to the door, an enormous shell casing holding a collection of carved wooden swords & a quiver of arrows.  And a collection of 7 scrap books, pushed back behind the TV, nearly invisible save for the glint of chrome on the spines.  Pulling them out, she quickly flipped through one of them.  Newspaper clippings, other photographs, written passages, the effluvia of childhood.  And the Colonel was on nearly every page.

Another gust of wind knocks the oak into the side of the house again, making a noise like a door slamming and startling Bitsie into flight.  With the books still clutched tightly to her chest as she dashed out of the room, she flew back downstairs and into the solarium in a fit of pique.  Collapsing on the Louis XVI loveseat in heaving breaths, she slowly releases her death grip on the scrap books and places them on the seat next to her.  By now Schramm had found a cache of tapers & candelabras and deposited them strategically around the first floor.  In the candlelight, she looks at the books with a mixture of fear & elation.  She's found that part of his life that he used to talk about before the Colonel died, the years he closed off.  Engrossed, she reaches out to open them when the front door flies open with a great burst of wind, putting out the candelabras.  Ivan's broad shouldered silhouette filled the entranceway for a moment, then the door closed reducing the available light to dusk.  Instinctively, she shoves the books behind the cushions and drapes an afghan over it all, her face rearranging to show mild annoyance as she fusses over the extinguished candles.
A remarkably bright LED flashlight cuts through the gloom and then makes its way up the stairs...
It was the last thing she remembered before he left her last year. Now he's back and she knows the rest...This Is My New Orleans.

Réne Lafrenieré, Part One

The young Jocasta Lafrenieré.

Réne  Lafrenieré  is as Creole as you can get in modern parlance.  Cast somewhere between Bernard de Marigny & "Dutch" Morial, those who know him as well as is possible see in him every romanticized image of the indolent sybarite taking advantage of all that is best in this world.  To those unaccustomed to such men born of fanciful heritage & washed in the muddy waters of the river, he is a living caricature of the lazy Southerner, a stock character found in shoddy films & depreciating television programs.  Drenched at any given moment in seersucker & sazarac rye, Réne feels no need to challenge the public's caprices. He's an Orleanian from a very old line.  What tourists and other carpetbaggers think is of no concern.

Réne was raised by the remaining women in the Lafrenieré family to be a snob.  Not because they felt that they were better than anyone else (other than those damned Yankees,) but because it provided a kind of safety.  The family had developed the protective skill of snobbery quite highly over the course of decades, beginning with their emergence from the shame of indentured servitude in the early 1800s.  They all knew the story by heart.

The family patriarch Lemuel  Lafrenieré and his beautiful Creole wife Jocasta were by nature an open and ebullious couple, the charmers of rue Chartres who lived in the blessed shadows of the Ursulines Convent.  Lemuel was a successful importer from France whose marriage into the Peychaud of the Marigny Peychauds on Christmas Day in 1829 began a miasma of social dinners and theatre parties-their introduction into New Orleans society.

Lemuel was instantly popular with the businessmen of New Orleans, due in no small part to his French ancestry and his decidedly masculine stature.  His only detractor was a rival importer, Charles W. Claiborne.  Frequently Claiborne would engage  Lafrenieré in heated discussions, with Claiborne seemingly taking the opposite tract in order to goad his opponent.  Lemuel saw Claiborne's consternation as a social parlor game and engaged him with good natured firmness.  But Claiborne would have none of it.  He openly decried Lafrenieré as an interloper and wished for his departure.

Jocasta's people had come to New Orleans from Port Royal, Jamaica some thirty years before as free people of color. (The rumor floated around for years until Jocasta's death that the Peychaud's had been instrumental in a slave uprising there, and stole their illegitimate freedom.) Gifted with a great appreciation for the arts she was particularly entranced with the wonders of Mr. Caldwell's American Theatre and the beautiful leading lady, Jane Placide.  She shared this fascination with the fascinating Dr. & Mrs. Lalaurie, with whom they frequently sat at the theatre.  Another great companion was Mrs. Charles Claiborne, Loretta by name.  She frequented the theatre not with her husband but with her sister-in-law, the spinster Maude Claiborne.  It was Maude who disliked Jocasta and her bright personality.  She believed the rumors about The Peychaud's and took exception. Miss Claiborne found Mrs. Lafrenieré to be 'crass.' Mrs. Lafrenieré found 'dear old Maudie' to be 'quaint.' The familiarity of the phrase rankled Miss Claiborne deeply.

By spring the following year, Jocasta was with child as Lemuel's business and their social prominence flourished.  Despite her delicate condition, Jocasta served as the perfect society wife, constantly expanding their circles and opening their home to all.  On the eve of their first anniversary the happy couple attended a sold-out performance at the American Theatre to see the great tragedian James M. Scott in "The Robbers," followed by the comedians Holland, Cowell, & Ludlow in "The Honest Thieves."  So long and so hard did the couple laugh that Jocasta went into labor and was rushed back to rue Chartres in a carriage.  As the sun rose on Christmas Day 1830, Violetta Alicie Peychaud Lafrenieré was delivered by Dr. Lalaurie, whom with his wife Delphine served as godparents.  Their world was perfect.
But their ebullience would prove to be their downfall.  Both husband and wife were possessed of a trustful nature that never saw the faces of deception, greed, or jealousy.  Lemuel's business associates were envious of what they saw as his undeserved success and soon discovered they could use his own words against him.  Lemuel discussed his business and his home life as easily as he would the time of day, always believing himself to be in the company of trusted friends.  Intrigues more than could be imagined by Lemuel were enacted by Charles Claiborne working behind the scenes in the immutable halls of Old New Orleans Society.
The society women of New Orleans were also jealous of Jocasta's beauty and her freedom. Jealousy is the mother of gossip and deceit, and these bitter children wrought their ways through the salons of the city. It was rumored that her great beauty had been gained by selling her soul to the voudouennes of the swamps.  Her remarkable strength during her pregnancy inspired tales of an Zulu bloodline and gave Maude Claiborne the happy opportunity to retell the tales of illicit deeds by her enslaved parents, May God Rest Their Souls. There was even talk that she was a witch who had put a spell upon Lemuel to be her slave in life and marriage.
Soon, they found themselves barred from high social events, some of which they had created.  Their friends The Lalauries retreated from them as well, being the focus of rumors that Delphine was exceedingly cruel to her slaves.  The business began to slip as Lemuel watched his clients take their business to his competitors.  In April of 1834 The Lalauries had fled the city after a fire in their rue Royale mansion had revealed the worst: their slaves had indeed been abused in horrific manners unspeakable in proper company.  With the rumors of their former friends proved true, New Orleans also accepted that the stories about The Lafrenierés must be true as well.  By autumn the family was destitute, forced to take up residence in a mean little cottage on the batture, a property forgotten by the Peychauds who also turned their backs on the indolent family. So distasteful was the smell of scandal that they disowned Jocasta and all her children by post. The Peychauds abandoned their home in rue Burgundy and moved upriver to St. Francisville. No other member of the family would tread Orleanian soil again for another 150 years.

With no where else to turn for help and their purses now empty, Lemuel was forced to turn to petty theft just to feed his wife & child.  For a while his still-impressive wardrobe allowed him to snatch up enough food from the French Market to keep them alive without notice.  Inevitably, he was captured in the act of stealing a baguette and dragged.  He would have been sent to jail if a benefactor had not stepped in and settled the account.
It was Charles Claiborne.
Whether out of charity or childishness, the rival offered a solution to Lafrenieré's dilemma.  For a period of 10 years Lemuel and Jocasta would become his indentured servants.  Jocasta would become Loretta's maid while Lemuel would become Charles' butler.  With no other prospects they were forced to accept.  Since there would be no room for Violetta, she would be cared for by the Ursuline nuns in their orphanage; the pay for her upkeep taken from the couple's wages.
For the next 10 years Claiborne subjected Lemuel to every embarrassment he could afford.  When he could find no other usage for him, Claiborne would rent Lemuel out for menial labor to his former colleagues and clients.  At first his remaining friends took pity upon him and rented his time in order to give him respite from his difficult life.  But the expense of doing so (as well as Claiborne's reluctance to send Lafrenieré to them when he found out they were 'spoiling his slave') brought this convention to an end.   For Jocasta, life was a little easier.  Loretta accepted her friend's servitude as a gift of time with someone whom she enjoyed.  But in time she too began to regard Jocasta as her property.  Stripped of her rights as a free woman of color, she was forbidden to attend the theatre with Loretta, depending only on her mistresses' recountings of the performances when she saw fit. The only kindness they received was at the hand of Mrs. Lorenz, the head of the household. She remembered the couple in their halcyon days and continued to regard them with respect; a respect that strengthened over the next several years as she worked alongside them.
For Violette, she took it the worst of all.  The Ursulines were unkind to her even as they preached the Gospel of forgiveness and loving their neighbors.  If she saw her parents once a month it was a luxury.  While under their care, the Peychauds discovered Violetta's situation and paid the nuns to remove the Peychaud name from her records. She hated the other girls with whom she was made to grow up and learned to loathe the Sisters.  Twice she ran away to find her family and twice she was returned and beaten, punished for weeks on end for her sins. Her childhood robbed from her, she had no other choice but to closely study the ways of the Sisters and the odd Priests to discover how they worked.

In March, 1844 the Lafrenierés were finally free of The Claibornes and with Violetta returned to the little cottage on the batture.  Though he was cruel during the past decade, Claiborne had done what was deemed 'the right thing' and made good on his promises, (due in part, the rumors said to Mrs. Lorenz threatening to set loose a 'flock of little birds with big things to say.')  The cottage and the land were turned over to Lemuel and with their accrued pay the couple were able to fix up the little house and open a grocery in the Faubourg Marigny.  Soon, the family  was once again solvent.  But their years of poverty and solitude had taken their toll on the family Lafrenieré.  They were now distrustful, damaged beyond repair.  Even as they grew closer as a family they learned the value of keeping the outside world at bay.  As their fortunes returned and a new generation of New Orleans society emerged they found the power of haughtiness now on their sides.  A derisive look could elicit a lengthy dissertation of highly useful information and give them the appearance of superiority.  A witheringly clever remark at the right time could take down an opponent faster than a pistol shot and make more of a mess.  The lessons were well-learned.
In another year Jocasta gave birth a final time to a son, named Lorenz Pierre Lafrenieré.
In 1861 the city was on the verge of capture by the Confederate forces, which forced the family to make a concession that had been a long time coming. For years Jocasta had been 'passing' with most people, and she knew it. Her features did not belie her ancestry, nor did the cafe au lait hue of her skin. But even her status as a gens de coleur le libre was not enough to protect her or the children from the Confederates.
By Lemuel's decree Jocasta & the children would get out of New Orleans and up to Cincinnati to stay with a distant cousin of the Peychauds. As they boarded the ship in the dead of night Jocasta kissed her husband and stared deeply into his eyes until the dock grew small in the distance; as if she would never see him again.

The next time the family would be together was at Lemuel's funeral. Christmas Day 1865.

By the time The School of Design rolled out Rex, The Merry Monarch in 1873 the Lafrenieré Family was reestablished as a formidable social force with Jocasta as the aging matriarch and Civil War widow, Lorenz acting as the head of his late father's grocery &  a burgeoning restaurant empire, and his spinster sister Violette's Academy for Young Ladies which taught all the old line family's daughters in the ways of proper New Orleans society and Carnival royalty. What had also been established was Lorenz' disdain for the darker side of his ancestry and his silent commitment to erase the stain.

End Part One