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

More Is Coming Soon...

There's a lot more coming from the characters you've already met and more.  Unfortunately, I have had less than stellar luck with my computers over the last few months, a problem I hope to have rectified today. 
Thank you for your patience from Tunie Dufour, Jerry & Patrick, Auguste Manoir, Jerrelle Watson, Ivan & Bitsie DuPlessis, Schramm, Harold Amos, Rony Parmentiere, Amanda Napolitano, Rene Lafreniere, Erica L., Kelley Edmiston, Bruce Halloran, & the rest of the TIMNO residents.

Ladies & Gentlemen (but, mostly ladies,) Auguste Manoir.

When people think of a proper Creole gentleman in modern parlance, they usually conjure the indelible image of Auguste Manoir.  A true Orleanian gentleman, Auguste's first memory was being fussed & preened over by an ongoing litany of women who instantly fell in love with his honey brown curls, his eternally clear cafe au lait skin with eyes to match, and his unmistakably masculine build.  Even as a toddler, it was obvious to everyone who saw him that this child was destined to be a most attractive prospect.  Preternaturally free of the oft-seen chubby phase of infanthood, young Augie quickly shed any vestiges of weight by his first birthday, revealing a slim yet powerful musculature that both worried & fascinated any female that encountered his presence.  He inherited his coloring & impossibly long eyelashes from his mother Angelle Hypolyte, a gorgeous Creole lady whose family had been great movers & shakers in the Original Illinois Club.  His physicality was a gift from his father Agneto Manoir, a Swedish national born of an absent French father & a silly high society girl from a cloistered family from Göteborg.  Agneto would eventully become a French citizen, mainly because it would assure him a place in the French diplomatic corps.  By his 25th birthday, he would become a willing citizen of Nouvelle Orleans.

Born in Ochsner Hospital on July 4th, 1976, Auguste was the first baby in the US born on the Bicentennial.  Unfortunately, his birth also took the life of his mother, whose congenitally weak constitution barely brought him to term.  Left alone with his only son, Agneto took advantage of his excellent standing in the French diplomatic corps & arranged for his permanent assignment in Orleans Parish.  His wife Angelle's dying wish was for her child to be raised in her hometown, even though her family had disowned her for marrying a white foreigner.  She also decreed that if the child were to be male, she wanted him named after her paternal grandfather Auguste Hipolyte.  To her, he was the only man besides her husband who had ever treated her with any respect.

Over the next 18 years, Agneto & Auguste would occupy houses in every area of the parish: Uptown, Mid-City, Carrollton, the Faubourgs St. John, Ste. Marie, & Marigny, the Bywater, Central City, Treme, & the French Quarter.  Though to many around them the endless transistions represented the father & sons' descent into poverty, in was actually Agneto's consistent wish that his young son be fully & completely immersed in every aspect of his mother's city, good & bad.  So deep was his love for Angelle & this remarkable city that gave him both of the loves of his life, he often turned a blind eye to the realities of his situations.  So skilled was he at the art of diplomacy & negotiation that he more often than not turned potential enemies into lifelong friends within a matter of minutes.  These impressive skills were not lost on Auguste, who was usually present at virtually every event in his father's life.  By the time he was 16, Auguste had learned how to use his considerable gifts to diffuse any situation, and often did so without the knowledge of Agneto.  In his dotage, the old man had grown less flexible & more prone to opinionated outbursts that defeated all the work he had done over the decades.  Still, Auguste loved & respected his father and wanted only to maintain his power over any situation.  Just as he had learned from an early age of his power over women, so too had he learned that his father was a great man & demanded not only his respect but his support.

Auguste was a very, very rare young man.

Unfortunately, the one time Auguste was not around was the final event in his father's life.

Graduating from Jesuit in 1994, Auguste had begged his father for a night on his own; a night in which he could prove his own worth with a beautiful young lady named Jessica who was a senior at Dominican.  The old man aquiesced & allowed his son to go out on his own, confident in Auguste's ability to be responsible for his actions.  As they left for their date in a strech limosine, Agneto felt that indescribable feeling of pride, sorrow, & hope that most parents know so well.  Pulling away down rue Dauphine towards God knows where, a single tear traced its way down the man's furrowed face; partly due to the feelings of pride, partly due to the absence of Angelle.

Giving in to the sorrows of the past & the present, Agneto chose that warm May night to venture out of rue Dauphine & over to Matassa's to secure a bottle of gewurztraminer, or liebframilsch, or whatever white wine was available behind the counter.  No sooner had he purchased a relatively cheap bottle of chardonnay & stepped outside than the jarring sound of gunfire half a block down rang out.  Without warning, a stray bullet pierced Agneto's head.

He felt nothing but a quick sting on his forehead.  The chardonnay shattered as his lifeless body dropped to the banquette, the straw-colored alcohol miraculously missing every inch of his corpse as it made its way into the gutter accompanied by a twin stream of A positive which did not touch until they reached the grate.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Instilled with the gifted absence of regret by both his parents, young Auguste found himself the recipient of a considerable fortune (wisely meted out over a period of 25 years by both his mother's & father's estates), and the priceless gifts of physical beauty, masculine attractiveness, monetary security, financial accumen, & the talent for talking anyone into anything he wished AND making certain that all involved in whatever deal he engineered would benefit.  Truly a uniquely Orleanian man with everyone's best interests at heart.  When things would get bad (as so often happens in New Orleans,) he would recall his mother's familiar saying, which became his father's & his mantra over the years:  "Treat everyone as you wish to be treated.  You may have to work harder to achieve that goal, but its always worth it to make it happen."  Over the next 11 years, Auguste would have a blessed life by the standards of most people.  Getting in on the ground floor of the telecommunications industry because a trusted friend from his Jesuit days needed a helping hand, young Manoir soon found himself a multi-millionaire thanks to American Telephone & Telegraph.  When that friend left the industry in July of 2001, he too left the industry by selling off his considerable shares out of loyalty.  When the tragedy of Sept. 11th of that year occured, he innocently discovered that not only had he gotten out at the exact right time, but that his other investments in security equipment had suddenly quadrupled in value.  Such happy accidents of loyalty & fealty would serve him in incredibly good stead over the years.  But it was his devotion to his friends & colleagues that truly structured his security.

Auguste had a way about him that attracted the best of every caste of society.  But deep inside him he was desperate to find the kind of woman his mother had been.  A litany of what everyone called 'black' women had been his attraction, his devotion.  The one thing he could never understand was this imperturbable predillection for calling these dark-skinned beauties he longed for by the erroneous moniker of 'black.'  In artistic terms, the color white is considered the total absence of color.  By the same token, the color black is considered the total presence of all colors.  By that logical reasoning it should be right that the darker the skin the greater the value.  But in the realities of human life, the color black had no such grand representations.  In the upside-down world in which he lived, the whites had all the power & respect, the blacks had virtually nothing.  It wasn't until his 24th birthday and a weeks-long dissertation by a college friend that he realized that his own sainted mother Angelle was what was dismissively called 'passing' that he realised that his own unique physicality & coloring was the result of an interracial marriage.

It was a revelation that would mystify both himself for not realizing it & everyone around him for their own limited views of the world as either priveged whites, empowered blacks, or clueless foreigners of every caste.

Now, at the age of 36, Auguste is at a most unsusal place.  With a chorus line of plainly lovely young ladies decorating his unfulfilled past, and his forward momentum seemingly stalled by the lack of a substantial soulmate, he has turned to the only friend that has never asked for a single favor, never needed his connections, or held him in contempt for his ridiculous wealth.  Jerry Laufrey.

Jerry is one of those men who somehow never recognize their own worth all the while putting the best parts of themselves out there for the common good.  He was what Agnesto would call a 'pure spirit:'  giving to the point of self-depreciation, then reprimanding themselves for not being enough to get past being used & thrown away.  Fortunately for Jerry, both Agnesto & Angelle had it in their makeup to recognize people like him & pass onto their only son the power to protect such folks as much as was possible.  They had met when Jerry was a lowly waiter at Krystal Seafood Restaurant on the third floor of the repurposed Jax Brewery building & Auguste was an investor in the business.  He earned his respect when Auguste inadvertently sent a party of 24 Sicilians to the place on a Monday night where Jerry was the only waiter on-staff.  After two hours of diligently serving his friends despite the language barrier, by himself, Auguste decided that this was someone he needed to know.  What he found was one of the most generous, diplomatic yet honest, & loving people he had ever known.  After nearly 20 years of being friends & Jerry constantly & consistently giving to him all the while refusing any help or recompense, Auguste had finally figured out what the true meaning of friendship really meant: someone who wanted more for you than for themselves.

And he also figured out that not only was his dear friend capable of giving him his life's desire. he was capable of making his dearest friend's dreams come true without him knowing anything about it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A most convivial group assembles at The Bombay Club, underscored by the felicitous fingers of Matt Lemler on piano. At a table in the way back, Auguste Manoir enjoys the company of his dear friend Jerry Laufrey, left to his own devices for the night as his husband Patrick attends a meeting. Secretly happy to show off for Jerry, Auguste plies an endless supply of sazaracs from his unlimited account at the bar, each one its own recipe. After the 3rd or 4th, Jerry asks bluntly through a knowing smile 'to what do I owe this largesse, Augie?' Manoir's agile Creole eyes sparkle as he replies, 'I want you to help me find a woman to marry me, Jerry. A real, proper Creole beauty'...This Is My New Orleans.

Let's Talk About The DuPlessis...

The phrase 'old money' was coined for families like the DuPlessis'. They have seemingly been around forever in the Gulf South, mostly around Pass Christian, Biloxi, & New Orleans.
-----------------------
Arriving at the family mansion on Audubon Place, Bitsie & Ivan DuPlessis step from the town car into the New Orleans heat. A gasp escapes Bitsie's lips, shocked at the heat & the quality of the air. Ivan takes no notice. Their assistant Schramm quickly opens the front door, sending a corridor of chilled air towards the couple. The DuPlessis' return; and a dark cloud crosses the sun.
Once inside, Bitsy stops inside the foyer to take in her surroundings while Ivan marches directly into the office & closes the door. Quite the place, she thought. Classic Georgian floorplan, terrazzo tiles, penchant for Louis XIV furnishings, berber carpeting--is that a Ming vase? No, but a damned good replica.
Schramm breezes past his mistress with the first load of luggage and a curt "this way Mrs. DuPlessis, to the master bedroom." Automatically she follows him up the steps, cataloguing the entirety of the house & holdings. For the next few days, she and her husband would move as separate entities, sharing only the ministrations of Schramm.

1.) Elizabeth Lenore "Bitsy" Pritchard DuPlessis
There is virtually nothing of Bitsy Pritchard's life to tell until she made it to Loyola University. Born to a middle class Florida family populated entirely with accountants, CPAs, and middle management, Bitsy was raised in the most unremarkable way in central Kentucky. There is not a single unique or truly memorable event in her life before moving to New Orleans, as she will be the first to inform you. The only small part of her existence was her relation to a very popular mayor in her family's hometown of Elizabethtown, KY. These were also her only fond memories of her childhood, spending every Easter with Great Uncle Seuss Pritchard, searching for eggs in his expansive yard with the comparatively interesting children of the city. Early on, she discovered a talent for needlepoint & knitting that would serve her well personally, not socially.

But she did make it through the central Kentucky school system with some ease and was forced to attend the University of Kentucky by her family, who demanded that she stay close to home. She earned a BA in art history, the only subject that held any fascination for her. After her 4 years there, she meandered through her job at The Speed Museum, first as an Junior Assistant Curator, to Senior Assistant Curator, to Vice-Curator. She was able to rattle off the important facts on every single display, each piece in the building with a disinterested ease that most people took for genuine exptertise. Her meteroic rise in prominence at The Speed made her a sought-after student for the Master's program at every university in the country. When Tulane called however, she jumped at the chance to live somewhere that oozed life, and soon took up residence in the Riverbend of New Orleans. It was here that she met her future husband and changed her life forever. Granted, it took several months to make him realize that she alone was the answer to his life's questions, and in 2003 they were engaged to be married. Being goal-oriented, she enjoyed a satisfaction that such personalities relish for decades as she walked down the aisle of St. Louis Cathedral in May, 2006. She would come to remember very, very little of the actual ceremony, her mind cataloguing & classifying every inch of artwork in the minor Bascillica with unconscious precision. She would also come to remember their wedding night as the night she lost her virginity and thinking 'what's the big deal?'

2.) Ivan Sargent DuPlessis
The most influential moment in young Vannie DuPlessis' life happened because of his uncle, The Colonel. It was a memory which he eventually would hold dear...then come to loathe in private. The summer of his eighth year a distant cousin had engaged the family in a land deal in Pensacola. The deal was counterfeit from the start and several members of the family lost a lot of money; but not the cousin. The Colonel was the only one who hadn't invested, being stationed overseas in Berlin. However, upon finding out the details The Colonel literally showed up at the cousin's mansion and 'convinced' him to reimburse his sister and the rest of the family. No one knows exactly what happened but family legend says that the cousin never looked the same after his encounter with The Colonel. When he asked his uncle what had happened, he replied: "Its bad taste to screw your own family, but its a kick to the balls to make them pay for the opportunity. Never take a kick to the balls, boy." Years later, he would take the revelations about The Colonel as a kick in the balls.

Ivan had stayed with his great Grandmother Janette during Katrina. She saw no reason to leave since her house had a full generator and one of the neighbors had arranged for those Blackwater fellows to guard the circle to keep out the common criminals. She also had a full wine cellar, months of Meals Ready to Eat, a satellite telephone, several liters of Jim Beam bourbon, & the constant ministrations of Schramm. Ivan, being the strongest of the great-grandchilcren in many ways elected to stay with old Gran, since he would be restarting at Tulane at the start of January when he would send for his fiancee Bitsie. Late on Thanksiging night of 2005, he was awakend by Schramm and told to go to his Gran's suite. He entered the suite, and found her at her desk neatly assembling papers in a folder. On the blotter beside her was a photocopy of a vaguely familiar form, a--what're they called?--a 'telegram?' Her crepe-lined face was solemn and cold as marble. She told him to sit with such force, he instantly obeyed out of shock. Finishing her work, she closed the portfolio and shoved the scanned telegram towards him. It had been emailed by his father's lawyers from a distant cousin in Amsterdam:

TO: JANETTE DUPLESSIS-URGENT

RECEIVED WORD FROM COPENHAGEN NEPHEW COL. JAMES DUPLESSIS DEAD STOP
DIED IN COMPANY OF R. PARMENTIERE STOP
CIRCUMSTANCES MURKY, FAMILY DISREGARDING STOP
PARMENTIERE ARRIVING IN USA ORLANDO FL 23 SEPTEMBER STOP
BODY MUST BE CLAIMED STOP
SOME LEGAL PROVISIONS FOR PARMENTIERE BY COLONEL STOP
CALL YOUR LAWYERS STOP

Ivan was shocked. The Colonel was dead--how? Who was Mr. Parmentiere & why was The Colonel with him? As the tears mounted in his eyes, Gran stares at him with the unmistakable air of disappointment. Still reeling from his favorite Uncle's death, he could only ask,
"Who is this R. Parmentiere, Gran?"
The old woman peered up at him over her pince-nez with a look of incredulity that he had never experienced. After what seemed like an eternity, she lowered her eyes and turned to Schramm, who had somehow magically produced a very large '73 Valpolicella from nowhere. Creakily standing up to her full, crooked height, she took the glass with an alacrity reserved for the well-practiced alcoholic & conveyed a look to her young manservant that was visible from the back of her head. Without another word, she hobbled her way out of her suite. Alone with the butler, Vannie looked to Schramm with an intense need for answers. In his peculiarly clipped Midwestern accent, Schramm addressed his young charge with brutal yet compassionate tones.

"Master Ivan...your Uncle, The Colonel is what the less-cultured castes of the city would call a-well, a....a "Ginny Woman."

Seeing no recognition of the term, the servant proceeded apace.

"Your Uncle was...'fond' of those like him......He was...how do I say this? It's so difficult to......you really have no idea what I'm trying---" His voice trailed off as the expression on Ivan's face grew more desperate for clarification. With his imposing linebacker frame, piercing eyes & full height of 6' 4" English Creole self, he almost towered over Schramm's 6' Germanic-Irish-Scot being. Yet, being older than his charge Schramm managed to keep an unspoken mastery over his subject as he finally left euphemism behind them & stated,

"Master Ivan, The Colonel was a closeted gay man who found love with this Rony Parmentiere. They have been together for years. And now, your Uncle is dead and Mr. Parmentiere is making certain that his body returns home for a proper burial."

In that moment, the innocence of the favored which had been the life of the adored Vannie died a quick & unmerciful death. Within the confines of that paragraph Vannie DuPlessis was cast down upon a pit of spears, every inch of him impaled on the stalagtites of cold, hard reality. Still breathing, still pumping blood in deafening torrents in his ears, Vannie DuPlessis merely ceased to exist. For a preciously long, almost interminable time there was no one inhabiting the flesh that was owned by that identity. An era passed in silent agony as a sea change happened in the mound of skin, bones, & organs that once played host to the late Vannie. What emerged was a foreign creature that took its comfort in the negative promulgations of countless generations of DuPlessis' & their compatriots. So deeply & quickly were the basic insecurities of his own existence made evident by the scandal of his once beloved Uncle's life, the insecure young man's subconscious mind murdered any & all vestiges of compassionate objectivity in order to preserve his mistaken sense of inherent worth.

In that second of time, warm, giving, loving Vannie DuPlessis succumbed to cold, calculating, vicious Ivan DuPlessis.

And so was the family name & reputation to be carried on, unbroken.

That morning, Janette DuPlessis died of a combination of cirhossis & a severely depressed immune system that allowed a simple virus to stop her withered old heart. Within a week her 85 lbs. body was interred in the last unclaimed space in the Lakelawn Cemetery crypt. Ivan carried her casket with the semblage of brave apolomb across from Schramm; the only other person in the procession who knew that they were also burying young Master DuPlessis' former life.

Five years & 6 states later, the heir apparent would return to the ancestral home in Audubon Place with his trophy wife, his 'faithuful' family servant, and an agenda that will lay the old money of New Orleans bare to his whims in a way not seen for well over a century. For Ivan DuPlessis is on a mission informed by his genetics.

And so is his devoted, yet inherently non-Orleanian wife Bitsie Pritchard DuPlessis. It is her strength that will be the greatest challenge to his unholy birthright.