Jewels Bar New Orleans

I'm getting ready to go on a road trip for business and am planning to spend a weekend in New Orleans.  Actually, it's the pre-mardi gras weekend:  Jan 28 - 31.  Then I'll go up to Baton Rouge, Monroe and then on to Tupelo, Mississippi. 

I'm all excited about the trip to New Orleans.  I'ts been over 10 years since I was there.  I used to go regularly . . . I mean very regularly.  I had a deal with my boss at the time:  if I'd stay over Saturday night on my business trips -- thus saving on airfare -- I could stay anywhere I wanted.  So I stayed over in New Orleans, over and over again for a couple of years. 

Then Bob and I got together (we're still not talking) and I took him with me once.  He got way over the top drunk and passed out walking down Bourbon Street, smashing the Heiniken bottle he held in his hand and cutting himself very badly.  I couldn't get him back to the hotel:  he was just too fucked up.  I got him as far as the park-like median on Elyssian Flields, where he passed out for good.  I spent the night sitting by him in that median, waiting for him to come around. 

It was such an awful experience that I've never wanted to go back. 

But now that we're not talking, I'm really looking forward to it, and have been remembering my old days there fondly.  Especially my old days at Jewels Bar on Decatur Street.

I think Jewels was the best bar I've ever been to.  It was majorly funky, hardly marked;  just a hole in the wall.  But inside it was . . . heavenly.  Dark, very dark.  A few low watt red bulbs around the bar, black lights creating a dim pale around the rest of the place . . . dark. 

I assume Jewels closed once in awhile . . . but I was never there at closing.  It seemed to always be open.  And whenever it was, the most addictive thumping music was being played.  I was surfing around today, looking for a picture of the place and came across a DJ who seems very active and probably popular who got his start there:  Tony Estrada.  Perhaps it was his driving tunes I was hearing. 

Half-way back . . . I guess the place was about 1,200 square feet . . . there was a wall with, I think, big arches separating the front room from the back.  The front held the bar and provided ample space for standing around . . . with a few wooden barrels for sitting near the wall where. . .

The wall facing the bar was barely lit . . . just a glow, really, but was lit.  On it was a faded mural, barely visible in the gloom of the place.  It featured a sailing ship in a storm and a woman in white.  It was understood and accepted that at times the woman came to life, walked over to the bar, ordered a drink and disappeared.   She stood there, just slightly less dark than the rest of the wall, before her dead ship, wind wipping her dress, her shawl and her hair.  You had the feeling that at any moment she would reach out of that wall and grab you with a skeletal claw.  She was beautiful and frightening. 

I never saw her come to life, but I will tell you that she gave me the creeps.  The woman in white stood there on that wall watching everything that went on in the place, judging and knowing, judging and knowing.  . .

Jewels had been there on Decatur street for many years and had started it's bar life as a sailor tavern where women could be had.  It's most recent incarnation, as a dark gay place had brought the thump of techno to the walls, but the original haunting mural remained.

The back room held a couple of pool tables and a staircase going to an upstairs that remained off limits to patrons.  I learned that it was the private quarters of the owners of the bar, and it was rumored that the wildest parties took place there, up 50 steps and behind a black door.

I remember going to Jewels in the late afternoon, when the sun had started to shift its rays to the side and the blinding heat began to radiate off the street.  I remember leaving in the wee hours, often with a new friend in tow . . . it was that kind of place. 

I met Michael Hoard at Jewels.  Michael looked like a crusty sailor; really.  If you remember the cover to Procol Harum's 'A Salty Dog' album, the one with the replica of the Player cigarette sailor on it, that's what Michael looked like.  Thin as a rail and angular -- his skin pulled tight over his boney interior -- he completed his Smokey Lonesome, down on his luck look with a stringy beard and too long hair.  He was jawing away at the bar one evening about the decadence of Southern writers in the thickest of accents . . . I was instantly fascinated. 

I don't know.  There's something about the combination:  high culture and intelligence coming through a deep dark Southern drawl.  There's something very sexy about it:  James Dickey sexy, Pat Conroy sexy, William Faulkner sexy.   I waited for my opening and jumped into the conversation. 

'It's not that they're all that decadent,' I said.  'It's just that the heat and the sweat and the utter sensuouness of  . . . well, everything, causes them to write about physical pleasure!' 

'Yeah,' he responded,'An down heah, thas awll we live foh . . . uh glass uh frothy Dixie beah an uh ah-kayshenal bloow job.  Ahm Michael.' His hand was extended and his eyes held me fast. 

'James.'  I took his boney hand and watched as an impish lift spread to his smile. 

'Jay-ums?  Whell, it's nahse ta meetcha, Jay-umes.  This heahs AhsKah and his luvah, Willie-bowee.' His pals at the bar nodded and smiled.  'Whayah yawl frum, Jay-ums?'

'L.A.'  I lied.   I lived in Long Beach which was in the same galaxy but hardly a suburb of Los Angeles.  I usually claimed L.A. when I travelled because it impressed so many easterners. 

'Oh!' he lilted, raising one finger and pointing over his sholder at the river and points beyond, I suppose.  'Lowah Alabama.  Its nahse tuh hava houme boowee visitin uhs heah in nawlins.'  Oscar and Willie-Boy began to chuckle. 'Now mynja, we gotta statute uv eliminashun heah on this side of th rivah:  yawl gotta fuck or be fucked, suck or be sucked, or ya gotta be gone by sunup tahmarrah, else we set th dawgs onya. . . Whatchew drinkin?'

'Oh, a Budweiser,' I said, lifting my bottle in a small salute.

'He-uh, Dickson!' he called to the bartender, smacking his open hand on the bar, 'Bring this mayun a real beah qwick!  He gonna have hisself uh ehpuhlectric fit uh sumpin, suckin on that nasty Budwisah!'  The bar tender turned an looked at Michael, then cocked his head to the side and raised an eyebrow as if to say, huh?  'He needsa Dixie, ah say!' Michael called above the din of music and clutter of conversation. 

And a Dixie appeared before me and another and another.   Soon we were hanging on each other like the sloppy drunks we were, proclaiming Flannery O'Connor to be the greatest American author and swearing undying love for one another forever.  We took a cab to his house in the Garden District.

The cab was necessary not just because we were drunk; Micheal didn't drive.  I had suggested we walk the three blocks to Miss Opal's where I was staying, but he needed to feed his cat, Hairball (or 'hayahbawl' as he said it) and so off we went.  Michael's house was a tumble down two storey Victorian that was barely holding itself together.  He had been camping there for a couple of years, having bought it for a song and had great plans to restore it.  Unfortunately, funds were tight so progress was slow.  He was still borrowing electricity from his neighbors and used candles and kerosene lamps throughout the place at night. 

'Less take uh bayuth!'  He cried as we walked in the door.  I heard the scamper of a mottled brindle cat running down the hall towards us.  'Ayund how is  dadie's sweet preshus?' Michael cooed, picking up his Hairball and waltzing her toward the kitchen.  'The bathrum is jus to yoah right, theyah.  Staht th wahtah runnin in that tub . . .  an put some bubbles in it!  I lovve bubble bafs.'

I found a classic claw foot tub in the tiny bathroom and did as I was told.  I had to light a candle first, and its sudden glow added to the charm of the room. 

One fed kittie and a bubblebath later, Michael and I were shaking hands in that most gay of ways . . . yes, it was sex, but it was mostly silliness.  We had difficulty maintaining the mood because the laughter kept interrupting.  By the time the morning rolled around and we sat on his upstairs balcony sipping tea, we'd decided to leave it alone alltogether and be best friends forever.

The day was spent lounging:  reading the newspaper, washing a few dishes . . . and talking about our writing.  Michael was a writer, too and had an idea for a story.  The afternoon was given to fleshing out the details, taking notes and getting ready to get ready to write. 

Somewhere around four o'clock, we decided to drift down to 'TheBar' as Michael called it (Jewels) and enjoy the atmosphere and   ambiance yet another time.  We walked . . . which took an hour, but the talk was good and who was in a hurry, anyway?  A block away we spotted the shiny chrome of motorcycles parked outside.  The sun was playing on the pipes, playing a seductive tune.

'Oh . . . it's Saturday,' said Michael.  'The Cavaliers are here.' 

They'd taken over the bar and were dominating the scene in their leather daddy way.  Bke boys are always so tough.  But I had the chance to go to the annual Christmas party of Oedipus, the L.A. motorcycle club, with my pal, Dale a year earlier, so I knew the tough buy routine was, just another form of Village People drag.   At that party, I saw these same tough leather daddies don dresses and wigs and do skits, one after another, all in drag.  They were wonderful.  Almost too good.

When I came back from a trip to the bathroom, I saw Michael at the bar, squirming like a worm under a salt shaker, shreiking, 'Koo-it it now . . . This is not funnah!  Turn me loose!'     

A very large, shirtless and hairy guy had handcuffed him to the rail that ran around the bottom of the bar.  The crowd had shifted to a semi-circle to watch the proceedings and took up whistling and clapping as Michael struggled with the cuffs.

'Damnit! man!  Mah hans ahr turnin blue!' he bellowed. HIs persecutor paced back and forth between Michael and the crowd, slapping his left palm with a black leather riding crop.   

'Shut up, bitch!' he shouted.  'You talk when you're asked to talk!  You speak only when spoken to!' 

The assembled group whistled louder and started to giggle. 

Leather daddy -- six feet tall, balding, jeans and chaps on his legs towered over the scrawney Michael.  A studded leather harness criss-crossing his hairy chest. I watched as he took a step and then aonther toward him.  The riding crop went up overhead and came down on Michaels ass with a crisp 'Krack.'  Michael shrieked and the crowd roared. 

'Ok, Ok' Michael said. . . 'what do you want me to do?' 

His captor reached down, took Michael's chin in his right hand, and angled his head up so that he was in Michael's line of vision.  His left hand reached down to grab his own Levis 501 button fly crotch.

'I want you to suck . . . THIS!' he blasted in bear crescendo, each word growing in sound and signifigance until the final 'THIS!'

And he reached up to the bar where Dickson, the bartender, had placed a fresh and opened Dixie Beer, grabbed it and thrust it out and into Michael's flailing right hand.    

The bar burst into a cacophany of laughter as a bewildered Michael accepted the brew and looked in complete confusion at his master. 

'DRINK!' barked Leather Daddy, and Michael did, fast and furious, gulping and gulping, his adam's apple rising and falling with each swallow.  The crowd took up the chant: 'Drink, Drink, Drink, Drink!'   And suddenly the  brown bottle was empty and being held out for inspection. 

'There!' screamed Michael . . . 'Are you happy now.?' 

Leather Daddy just grinned . . . and slid closer to Michael, taking his wrist in his own paws and unlocking the cuffs.  Michael was free. 

Some of us are truly traumatized by loss of control, no matter how brief, how   unthreatening or how innocent, and Michael was one.  'Les get outa heah,' he said to me when things began to shift back to normal.  'Ah needta get outside, take a walk.' 

And we did . . . North, I'd say but I'd probably be wrong.  It's the funniest thing about New Orleans:  the directions are all wrong.  I know where I am all the time.  I mean:  I always know what's North, East, South and West . . . my sense of direction is impeccable.   But I've never been able to get it straight in New Orleans.  I believe there must be some kind of voodoo vortex there . . .   a warp in space, time and perception that screws everything up.  After Michael and I stopped by the market and bought a pound and a half of boiled crayfish and a couple of beers, we sat on the bank of the Mississippi looking over at Algiers, which I would have sworn was North and East of us, but was actually South and West.  Go figure. 

'Ahm sorry bout that scene back theah.' said Michael.  'Ah jus hava . . . problem with . . . bein' tied up.'  He was choosing his words carefully, very out of character for him.  'I had a . . . bad experience.' 

'Oh?'

'I took a fellah home one night and he tied me up and robbed me.'

'Oh . . . '

'I spent 12 hours tied up in my home.  Finally I heard the mailman come, around noon, and screamed.'

'Oh!  How awful . . . '

'He went an gotta cop and they broke down my front door and found me hawg tied and stahrk nekkid on the flowah. . . it wasn't a pretty sight.  I'd actually pissed myself a nice puddle. . . '

'Oh, no.'

'Whell, ah hadta go!  Ah'd been drinkin beah all night!'  Michael started to grin.  'I tried   tuh blame it on  the cat, but it was a big puddle.'  His sense of humor was returning. 'So, ever since . . . I don't take to gettin' tied up in any way.' 

'I'm amazed . . . not just at the story, but that you'd ever bring anyone home again . . . like  . . . me!' 

'Oh, well; mah taste has improved:  ah am no longah attracted to coal miners!' Michael was grinning.  'And, of course. . . you didn't see my signal.'

'What signal?'

'I have a cue I give to Dickson when I want to take someone home.  I tug my ear like Carol Burnett used to do and he knows to check you out and give me a thumbs up or down.'

'But I don't remember . . . '  I thought back, the bar, the people, the fun, the conversation, but I barely talked to the bartender . . . ..except . . .

'I know!  I remember!  He asked where I was from and when I said, 'California,' he said he heard they put holograms on our drivers licenses.  When I said 'yeah,' he asked me to show him.' 

'Yeah, and what you didn't see was him gettin your name and license number.' he gave me a raised-eyebrow, grinning-skewer of a look.  We both burst into laughter. 

'You gotta have a few guardian angels lookin out for you in this town . . . they's some bad people heah!'

When the crayfish were gone, we flopped back on the warm bank like two barefoot boys on summer vacation . . . not a care in the world.  We actually spent a nice chunk of time identifying faces and monsters in the clouds that drifted lazily overhead. 

Then, suddenly, Michael said, 'Comeon!  Les go to th' Phoenix.  It's Sunday and they always have a good crowd.' 

I'd never been to the Phoenix, but judging by the name I knew I was in for a tough dark   place . . . hardly anything with white linen table cloths and candlelight.  In case you haven't noticed, the tough guy bars in most towns are named The Phoenix, The Eagle or Bulldogs.  It's some kind of rule. 

When we got there, not too much was going on.  The downstairs, in fact was fairly empty -- and I was already thinking about walking back to Jewels.  But Michael took my arm and led me to the back of the place and up a flight of stairs.  Upstairs, it was very dark but there seemed to be quite a few people there.  We settled in at the bar and ordered a beer. 

As the evening slid on, more and more people arrived.  Finally, Michael said, 'Come with me . . I wanna show you somethin'.'  We took our beers and I followed him to the dark back corner of the place near a barely lit pool table.  As we neared I noticed that there was quite a clump of guys back there.  Then I saw why . . . There was a man on his knees giving another man, leaning against the pool table, a blow job.  I had never seen people having sex openly in a bar.  I'd heard that back in the 70s this was   common:  the back room thing.  And now, in Amsterdam, it was supposedly in vogue.  But this was hardly Amsterdam, and here were these guys putting on . . . quite a show.  We gawked like the tourists we were for a short while, then Michael pulled me over to the corner where the bathroom was located.  I could almost see the opening . . . but beyond the threshold, it was totally black.  No light whatsoever.  And there was a clump of guys pressed in there, waiting for their turn at the urinal, I guessed. 

'That's whear th real pahty is goin' on,' said Michael.  'And I'm gonna go ovah and check it out!' 

Dark places and disembodied pricks has never been my cup of tea . . . after all, you never know where they've been . . . and who they belong to.  So I wished my pal good luck and returned to my place at the bar. 

More and more people had come in to the point that the upstairs bar was now packed.  Dark shadow bodies drifted in an ever changing montage in shades of grey and black.  The only light came from behind the bar and, focused and dim, over the pool tables.  Every once in awhile someone would pass close enough so that I could see some color, but what I remember is the darkness of the place and the people.  Don't get me wrong: I was not uncomfortable here.  Dark places have always been welcoming to me.  And I wasn't bothered at all by the raw sex that was happening behind the darkness, in the corner. 

I sat enjoying the music for awhile . . . ordered another beer . . . and started to wonder how long Michael was going to be.  I decided to take a stroll in that direction . . . maybe he was standing outside the tiny room and I could pull him away.  As I approached the pool table, though, my eyes focused on another scene.  There was a young fellow, tall and lean, standing in the center of a small clump of guys.  He was wearing jeans and a white tee shirt and sported a cap of dark bangs.  On his feet he wore that obligatory piece of youth uniform, black Cons.  As I got closer I saw that his cheeks were fair and flushed with unshaved rosiness: he was barely legal.  The men standing around were in various stages of getting their flys undone and their cocks out.  Then I watched as the boy slowly dropped to his knees, clearly about to take care of them all, one after another. 

I don't remember my thinking process.  Maybe it had something to do with Michael's talk about angels . . . but, suddenly I was pushing my way into the circle, reaching down and taking the boy by his sholder.  'Excuse us!' I called to the group.  'I need to have a word with my son!'  And I took the boy -- who struggled surprisingly little -- away from the back corner. 

'Come with me,' I said as we made our way to the stairs leading down.  The kid was a little shocked.  I think he thought I was some kind of cop or something.  It was clear that he was frightened . . . like a kid who gets caught doing something he's been told not to. 

Downstairs, I got us each a beer and settled in at one of the picnic tables on the patio. 

'You know why I stopped you,' I started. 

'No; but thanks for the beer.'

'You were about to get in way over your head -- no pun intended.'

'Thanks; but i'm old enough to make my own decisions . . . and what was this 'My son' stuff?'

'I felt like I needed to get you out of there and that's the only thing I could think to say that wouldn't create a big problem with those guys. So . . . how old are you, really?'

He looked younger and younger in the relative brightness of the patio. The kid was still a little gangly, an not quite comfortable in his body: awkward. He wore the innocent and clear face of a child, and my suspicion that he was still a minor became a certainty.

'Well . . .' he looked at me and considered his answer. 'I'm going to be 18 in November.'

'I thought so. Do you have any idea what you were getting yourself into up there?'

'Sure,' he answered in mock surprise. 'I was going to get me some dick.'

'That's not all you were going to get . . . for instance, I know for a fact that at least one of those guys is HIV positive,' I lied.

'Oh, come on,' he shrugged his eyes. 'How do you know that?'

'I watched him take an AZT break at the Clover Grill the other day.' My fib was becoming a little more elaborate and my mind was racing behind the scenes to invent the next needed fact. Even angels lie when they have to, I told myself.

My statement had an immediate effect. The boy closed then squinted his eyes and twisted his lips into a quik grimace. When he opened his eyes again they were touched with fear and full of innocence again.

'So, is this how you spend your Saturdays?' I asked as warmly and good-dad like as I could.

'Well . . . no. This is my first time here, really.' I gave him a questioning look. 'I live in Baton Rouge and just came down with a friend for the day.'

His name was Jade Falcon Jones -- is that wonderful or what?  He had recently decided that what he'd been thinking for many years was true:  he was gay.  This was his first big weekend in New Orleans.  It was to be his coming out party.  He'd come to town to be really gay for the first time, to experience the life he'd just given himself permission to explore. 

He'd had playful sex with some of his pals back home as he was growing up, but had never really had gay sex.  I was interrupting what was to be his first big experience.  As I got more of his story, I couldn't help but think, this is what happens when we hide it all behind a curtain, when we pretend that it doesn't exist.  These curious kids, the ones with all the innocence and the raging hormones, do what they imagine we do . . . and it's tragic.'

I spent the next hour or so talking with him like an uncle.  I talked at length about safe sex, condoms, and how to avoid disease.  And I talked to him about gay culture, gay marketing and gay promiscuity and how it can fuck up your life so badly.  I described for him how his first sexual experience could be special . . . if he respected himself and protected his own innocence. 

Amazingly, the kid listened.  He was a sponge.  I could have been his coach in Health class, answering his questions, steering him in the right direction.  The child was utterly in the dark about how to proceed with who he was. 

We had moved on to lighter conversation about his home and his school. Then Michael showed up.

'Oh mah gawd!' he crooned. 'I jus messed aroun wit a guy with three nipples!' 

'No, you didn't,' I replied.  'It's not possible . . . how would you know?' 

'Well I kissed one, and squeezed one . . . and then he took my hand and led it down to . . . another.  That's how I know!'

'Jade, this is Michael,' I said.  And I wondered how much of the good conversation I'd just had with the kid had been undone by Michael's tale of sleezy adventure.  I had been flying high, seeing myself as Jade's salvation, his savior, his good daddy, the man who kept him safe and snatched him from the jaws of disaster.  And here came Michael, plunging us back into the reality of human mud.

What the hell.

The three of us chatted about nothing for awhile, then Michael said, 'Come on, James; les go on to the Golden Lantern.  I wanna see if big John is there.' 

'Ok,' I said, 'Jade, you wanna join us?'

'No.  Maybe later.  I need to catch up with my friend who, I think, is still upstairs.' 

I told him where the Lantern was, Michael told him how to get there . . . .and we left.

Michael had taught me to avoid Bourbon Street at all costs.  If you were going to     Lafittes, you went up Dumaine, not down Bourbon.  If you were going to Rawhide, you went across Dauphine, not up Bourbon.  Bourbon Street is New Orleans' Leaning Tower of Pisa.  You know:  most cities have one:  a highly touted attraction that's really nothing more than a centerpiece for the promotion of tourism.  I mean, have you been to the Leaning Tower of Pisa?  It leans.  It's old.  Ah-hem.  Uh next?  Well, Bourbon Street and the St. Louis arch and the Hollywood Walk of Fame are more of the same:  just a thing to promote as magnificent and unique to tourists so they will come and spend money.  Did you know that Tijuana has an arch?  It's not as big as the one in St. Louis, but it looks the same.  It has a huge Mexican flag suspended in it's middle opening.  I never have figured out what it is about Mexicans and their flag.  They just Love the damn thing!  Anyway, back to Bourbon Street. 

I see these Television Commercials shot around Bourbon Street.  It's usually a car or something:  the elegant man, dressed in a perfect Armani Tux pulls up to the hotel in his sleek black American made luxury sedan and a uniformed doorman opens the door for a perfectly coiffed and wonderfully thin woman in a sleeveless black dress, a fur and lots of jewelry.  They drift effortlessly down Bourbon Street and stop in front of one of New Orleans' fameous eateries.  Another doorman opens her door, they get out and move regally into the place for a perfect night on the town.  Uh-huh.

Have you ever been to Bourbon Street?  It's people having too much to drink, people   puking, people pissing in alleyways and doorways.  It's people in shorts and ripped tees, women hoisting up their tops to show off their tities and men . . . men doing their own equivalent.  Hardly a bastian of elegance. 

I went to Bourbon Street way back in the 80s on a business trip during my life as a failed heterosexual.  I got drunk, pissed on somebody's door and puked in the street.  Then I ripped up my shirt to display my titties.  I've never  been back.

So we were walking back streets over to the Lantern:  Burgundy to Barracks to Royal.  Michael was recounting the details of his dark room encounter. 

'He reallea did have three nipples.  Ah played with awl of them, ah really did.'

'Allright, allright, I'm sure he did . . . and I'm sure the alcohol content of your blood had nothing to do with your perception.'

'An he had a great big ol weinuh, too.  Why Ah do b'leave it wuz one of the grandest pianos I've evah played.' 

'And why mess with the violin when you can have the cello, right?'

'Well, mama always did say somethin like that.' 

'Michael, you're impossible,' I was saying when it happened:  the most frightening moment of my life.  As we made the turn from Burgundy to Barracks, we were suddenly stopped by a weedy man in a fleece hooded sweat shirt pointing a gun in our direction.  Our understanding of the situation was immediate and we stopped in unison on a dime. I could fee the adreneline burn of fear across my kidneys.

The man was thin, dirty and desperate looking. My immediate thought was that he was a junkie of some kind. There was a darkness about his pitted face that came at me like a phantom.

When faced with frightening or catastrophic experiences I shift to a very calm and measured mode. I become sharp and efficient and show no emotion. It must be deeply ingrained because I never notice it until the danger has passed. Then I shake and tremble. Michael on the other hand is a touch more hysterical.

'Oh! Sweet Jesus!' he shrieked. 'Don't KILL us!'

'Shut up! I want your money.'  The man said.  I glanced behind him.  It was quite late and the street was empty.  A couple of blocks away a few people were moving across the intersection on Bourbon, but to them we just looked like 3 guys in the street talking.  'Just take out your wallets and toss them over here.' 

'I knew that extra nipple had to mean something bad,' Michael shivered.

'I said SHUT UP!' came the man.

'Yes Sir! Not another word - I promise!'

We dug in our pockets to comply and I caught a flash of movement behind our captor.  There, coming up Barracks from Dauphine was a tall kid in jenes and a white tee shirt:  Jade.  He'd obviously seen us from a distance as he made his way over to the Golden Lantern.  I recognized him just about the time he recognized that we were being held up.  He stopped in his tracks as I tossed my wallet to the feet of the man with the gun and Michael did the same.  Then Jade began to move again. slowly, quietly, but ever closer.  The theif was just starting to bend down to for the wallets, eyes riveted to us and the gun keeping us in place, when Jade took two big steps and leaped on him like a cat on a mouse.  I saw his arms come down from behind and around the man's sholders closing in a bear hug embrace.  The hand that held the gun dropped from its bead on us toward the street below.  At the same moment I heard the shot.  The son of a bitch had pulled the trigger.

The longest nano second of my life happened then.  Had he shot me?  Michael?  I didn't think so: I'd seen the gun go down.  Had he shot Jade?  Jade on his first night as an officially gay guy gets shot in the French Quarter.  It was maddening.  Then I heard the screaming . . . and saw the gun flying across the street and landing with a metallic thud near the gutter. 

The man had shot himself in the ankle.  He held his leg in both hands and hopped up and down.  'Oh, Shit!' he screamed, 'Oh Fuck!  I've been shot!'  I could see the blood spilling from between his fingers.  A couple of people passing down on Bourbon Street turned and started to come our way. 

Our hopping theif realized the perilousnes of his situation when he saw more people coming his way.  'GodDamnit!'  he sputtered, and started to hop away.  Jade moved to give chase, but I caught his arm.  'Don't' I said. 'He's not going far.  The police will get him.'  I heard the sirens in the distance coming closer. 

Michael and I walked over and picked up our untouched wallets.  I could see many more people coming up the street from Bourbon.  It was a crowd.  People arrived to gawk at the blood and a group formed around the gun.  Several asked if we were ok. 

I could feel the terror of the situation taking over my cool facade. And I just wanted to go away. I knew the situation would resolve itself without us . . . and I didn't want Jade to have to explain this to his parents.I reached over and took his left arm and Michael's right.

'Gentlemen,' I said, looking first left then right,'It's time we moved on.'

And we walked slowly through the advancing crowd.  The police cruiser, lights ablaze inched up the street and through the crowd toward us and then by on the way to the sceen of the crime.  I could hear shouts from behind us . . . 'He's over here!  Come Quick, he's over here!' 

We just kept moving, blending in with the mass of people who crawl New Orleans any night of the week.  We crossed Bourbon and walked on, now pretty much on our own, in the direction of the river, to Royal Street and the Lantern.  We looked inside as we went by but kept walking, down the center of the street, to Decatur . . . and back to Jewels.