Chapter 4: Blaze and Praise

New Orleans, Louisiana

If you ask me, there are two kinds of travelers. There’s the people who are looking for something, and the ones who think they’ve found it.

-

It was a long slog to New Orleans. After the Kentucky hill country released them to the interstate, they crossed the long spine of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Tennessee. At a stoplight in Birmingham they planted one foot each on the pavement, just to say, yeah, they’d been to Alabama. After ten hours on the road, they passed the night on the edge of a cypress swamp off the highway. Scaly antediluvian monsters snarled and slithered in and out of Ben’s fitful dreams.

Daylight revealed a land that was as flat and wide as Kentucky had been hilly and narrow. That afternoon, the land disappeared as they climbed a stilted causeway and zoomed over a sparkling wetland dotted with islands and tree trunks and wide swaths of reeds. Lake Pontchartrain stretched to infinity.

On the other side, the marshes solidified into rows of houses and a million seafood joints. The houses became smaller and more gaily painted the deeper they penetrated into the city. Finally they rolled to a halt in front of an ancient cedar-shingled house close to downtown. Thumping music from inside threatened to shake the purple paint off the cozy porch.

“Are you sure this is the place?” Ben whispered as they climbed the steps.

“Sure,” Tyler said. “We followed that guy’s directions. Left at the trolley, just off Canal street. This is the hostel.”

“It looks like a bordello.”

“Maybe it’s that, too.”

“Great.”

Tyler rapped on the door, hard. It swung open almost immediately. A mixture of jazz, folk and hip-hop billowed out onto the porch behind a cloud of smoke. Laughter and chatter chased it. A middle-aged woman with loose dreadlocks was perched in the doorway.

“Welcome to Blaze and Praise!” she effused.

“I’m sorry, we must have the wrong house.” Ben made to close the door. Tyler stopped him.

“We’re looking for the Dharma House, ma’am. Is this it?”

“Course it is! You’re in luck. The Dharma House Hostel and Vibe Center is hosting our edibles and spirituality festival for the travelers today. Blaze and Praise. Can I book you a couple of bunks?”

“I think we’ll pass, thanks,” Ben turned to go. Tyler stopped him.

“That’d be great. Thank you, miss…?”

“I’m Miss Daisy. Welcome! I’ll show you to your rooms and then y’all can come on out and join the fun if you like.”

“We just might. Come on, Ben.” Tyler jerked him toward the door.

In the parlor, the walls were papered with curled up posters, abstract paintings and faded photos of grinning youths. A pungent, musty odor hung in the air. Twenty or so visitors, mostly young but not all, were talking and dancing under the low ceilings. Several smiling guests thronged around a table in the living room spread with cookies, lollipops, muffins and other baked goods. The rotund, hairy giant behind the table grinned through the blunt in his teeth as they passed.

“We do this event every month!” Daisy shouted over the thumping music. “The travelers love it. There’s always a couple of visions, and last month, we even had a conversion. Lovely young man from Germany. That’s what it’s all about, if you ask me.”

As they snaked through the crowded parlor, a scrawny guy in a beanie gyrated across the hall and reached for Daisy. She took his hand with obvious delight and he spun her about toward the back door. Wide-mouthed bliss was plastered across the gatekeeper’s sweating face as Tyler, too, accepted the welcoming ritual. Ben dodged the hand, but not before catching an unpleasant whiff of its owner.

“What are they converting to!” he shouted.

“To life! To living! You know, no more hiding in the shadows, waiting for the sun to come out. We are the sun, y’all!”

They spilled into an open courtyard bordered by several brightly painted houses stretching the length of the block. Two short palm trees sprouted from the concrete beside a scummy koi pond. Christmas lights dotted with underwear were slung between the houses, and more resident proselytes were scattered about the courtyard, leaning over picnic tables or sprawled in a hodgepodge of secondhand furniture. Ben wondered if any of them were in imminent danger of conversion.

A noise directed their attention to the low stage set up at the back of the enclosure. A handsome twenty-something sporting chest-length hair was banging a spoon against a beer bottle. Daisy stopped the entourage to hear the message.

“Listen up folks! Thank you all for coming. It’s so great to be here in this beautiful city with you beautiful people on this beautiful morning, amiright?”

The supplicants cheered.

“Now today we got something really and truly special for you. You all know our sister Candice from Puerto Rico and my man, uh.”

Somebody whispered up from a chair below the stage.

“Peter! From Ontario. Peter-Candy, where are you guys? There they are. Show them some love, people.”

The orator pointed to the back of the courtyard, where a hairy, squat man sat in a tattered leather armchair. A tall girl in a low-cut tank top was welded to his lap, an ocean of curly black hair and an equally voluminous bosom spilling onto his chest.

A few scattered cheers went up accompanied by rattling beer cans.

“That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout,” said the man on the stage. “So hey, like, I was in the living room when these two lovebirds met last week and I think the temperature went up about a million degrees, you know what I mean?

“Welcome to the Big Easy!”

“Get on with it, Willard!”

Willard continued. “Well I’m happy to stand here today and tell you that this beautiful romance has come full circle. They’re getting married, y’all. Yours truly is doin’ the honors. Where’s the band? Come on up here!”

“Oh I love weddings!” Daisy squealed.

Two of the partygoers hopped on the stage, producing a ukulele and a harmonica. A third joined them with a tambourine, and together the band struck up a raucous rendition of Here Comes the Bride. Ben followed the press as the throng in the courtyard formed a crude aisle and began clapping and stomping along. Somebody handed Tyler and Ben cans of cheap beer.

“Courtesy of the bride and groom. Drink up, man.”

Ben stared at the sweating can in bewilderment.

“This place keeps getting better and better,” Tyler said. “Look, here they come!”

Candy had pried herself off Peter and was now resplendent in a nuptial train fashioned from a set of curtains. She held Peter’s arm with an expression of pure bliss.

From the stage, the celebrant wiped a tear from his eye as he watched the couple proceed up the makeshift promenade. He hauled them each onto the stage and produced a copy of The Four Agreements. He shushed the band.

“We here do not wish to delay this beautiful joining of holy love and matrimony a moment longer, so we’ll keep the pontification to a minimum.”

Candy wriggled. Peter beamed.

“So! Without further ado, let us proceed!” Willard smiled broadly at the sky for a moment. Someone coughed. The celebrant turned to Candy.

“Do you take this—” He glanced at Peter. “—man, as your lawfully wedded bedfellow?”

“I do. Daily.”

“Amen. And do you, Peter, take this woman as your lawfully wedded wife, to love and cherish until death or airline reservations do you part, whichever comes first?”

“I do.”

With a sudden burst of speed, Willard snatched a can of beer, dropped it on the stage and stomped. The can exploded. Willard threw up his hands.

“Mazel tov!”

The crowd erupted in dancing and shouts. Candy attacked her new husband. Peter swung her into his arms, struggled off the stage and carried her toward a room at the back of the courtyard, oblivious to all but his newly minted bride. He bumped her feet once on the door frame and the door slammed shut. The revelers danced on.

Tyler raised his beer in salute. “Many blessings to the newlyweds.”

Ben met his toast. “My very first wedding.”

Freshly showered, Ben had just settled into the top bunk of a rickety double-decker in their twelve-bed dorm when the door banged open. Tyler strode in. Warm, humid air mingled with the ripe scent of unwashed twenty-something seeping out of a dozen duffel bags strewn around the room. A paper-wrapped bundle dropped on Ben’s chest.

“What’s this?”

“Po-boy, from down the street. It’s like Subway, except friggin’ great. Gator sausage.”

Ben tore into the package. The steaming, sauce-slathered sandwich had a rich, spicy flavor underwritten by an almost fishy taste he couldn’t quite place. It was foreign, but delicious.

“I love you.”

“I know. I need your driver’s license.”

“Why?”

“Just gimme. I’m gonna get you a better one.”

Ben hesitated with the card halfway out of his wallet. “What’s wrong with this one?”

Tyler snatched the card and waggled it. “It says you’re seventeen.”

“So what?”

“So? So, you and me are gonna grab a couple of girls and go downtown and find us a party.”

“What party?” Ben said glumly. “It’s Thursday. I was going to see the World War II museum.”

“Ben, you are gonna have a good time if it kills you. Put some pants on and meet me in the living room.”

“We’re almost broke, too!” Ben called at Tyler’s receding back.

“Keyword, almost.” The door slammed.

Ben groaned. He struggled back into his dirty jeans and stared glumly at the mud and dust splattered all over his shoes. He wondered if they had enough between them for a couple more hot meals, a trip to the laundromat, and a good time.

He caught up to Tyler back in the parlor, which had cleared considerably of visitors, if not entirely of odors. A thin man draped in an infinity scarf was seated cross-legged on a loveseat where the edibles table had been a couple hours earlier. He balanced a tiny laptop on his knees. A small plastic device perched on the seat next to him.

“Frankly, you barely need this,” he said in an improbably deep voice.

“You said ten minutes ago that the bouncers on Bourbon street were assholes,” Tyler replied, arms crossed.

“They are, to be sure. However, you neglected to ask if they were strict assholes. You look old enough, as it were.” He clacked on the little keyboard. The device whirred. He glanced over his nose at Ben. “Your friend here, maybe not.”

The device on the loveseat burped two plastic cards onto the cushion. The man offered the forged IDs to Tyler between two fingers like a half-smoked cigarette. “Twenty please. Per each.”

“Forty bucks!” Ben blurted. “No way!”

Tyler made the exchange. “Come on, buddy. It’s worth it. Thanks, Lamar.”

“Don’t forget—the beignets taste best before the liquor.”

Ben stuffed the new ID in his wallet, careful to hide the real one behind his library card. He’d aged four years in the span of twenty bucks.

“Mission accomplished. Time to find us some dates.” Tyler cracked his knuckles and strolled through the house. Ben lagged behind. Even in Tyler’s gas-guzzling muscle car, forty dollars was three hundred miles of road.

It was a brief search. Tyler smiled down at two young women playing cards beside a fireplace stuffed with autographed shoes.

“Evening. Mind if we join you?”

“I don’t know,” said the rounder of the two. “Do we, Cat?”

“We could share the rug, if we must,” said Cat. Hazel eyes flitted up from a small hand of cards. But only barely.

“That’s the spirit. I’m Billi, with an ‘I’,” Billi bubbled. She plucked a cigarette from the corner of her mouth and slapped down a couple of jacks. “Don’t think Cat’s rude. She gets very into cards.”

Cat smiled lightly. “Call me Catalina.”

At first glance, the two girls were an unlikely pair. Catalina’s features were as quiet and lithe as Billi’s were loud and indelicate. But the talkative half of the pair had an earnest air to her that spoke of a genuine like of people. Ben was immediately charmed.

“A name like Catalina, in this rough day and age, can you believe that? But for an aristocrat and a world traveler, she’s remarkably unused to strangers. She just takes a spot to warm up. What are your names, then?”

“I’m Tyler Fox, and this is Ben. So you’re a world traveler, huh Cat? Where are you from?”

“Catalina,” she corrected. “Argentina.” The word flowed like honey from lips that were at once dark and pale. Ben imagined a voice so sweet and low could sing the devil’s praises from the pulpit without challenge from the faithful. He was immediately enraptured.

“Arrr-jen-tee-naahh,” Billi mocked. “The land flowing with voluptuous women and darkly handsome men and big, juicy steaks. I’d love to go there. Mostly for the steaks. Cat’s really quite a dork. Isn’t that right, love?”

Catalina winked at Billi, who blew her a kiss.

“I’m from Auckland,” Billi explained, without being prompted.

“Auckland, New Zealand?” Tyler asked. “I’ve heard New Zealand is incredible. Unspoiled. They’ve still got hobbits.”

“Oh, it’s a hole. It’s just a couple of little islands on the very edge of the known universe, really. Closer to Antarctica than most anything else.” She took a drag. “I worked for a big media company for a year after college, but I quit when my boss asked for a favor, if you catch my meaning, in exchange for a promotion I deserved. Men are such dickheads! And they’re all over the workplace. Can’t escape them. Anyway, I’ve always wanted to see the real world, so off I went. Cat and I met in Mexico and became best friends absolutely immediately. We’re going to cross all of America together, and then Canada, and then skip across the Bering Sea to Russia and beyond.”

“That’s quite a trip. We’re on a bit of an adventure ourselves.”

“Where are you from?” Catalina asked. She’d dropped the exaggerated accent, but the lilting music of a native latin-speaker was still detectable in her lovely voice.

“We’re from New York.”

“Oh I love New York!” Billy cried. “It’s on the bucket list! I haven’t met anyone from the city yet, in all my travels. Tell me absolutely everything.”

“We’re not from the ci—” Ben began.

Tyler cut him off. “It’s not where I come from, it’s where I’m going that I’m concerned with at the moment.”

Billi laughed. “Aren’t we all, mate! I’ll let you off for now. Just where is it you’re off to then, hm?”

“One never knows. The road is a treacherous lover, you see, and once she gets a hold of a man, there’s no telling where she’ll pull him next.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “He’s from upstate New York, not the city. We’re headed out West.” Tyler glared at him.

“He speaks!” Billi cried. “I heard upstate New York is all country bumpkins and cows and farms. Is it true?”

“Yep,” Ben said flatly. “Every last one of us.”

“Charming guy, this friend of yours, Fox. And where are you from, um. What was it again?”

“Ben. I’m from—”

“I found him sleeping in a factory in Kentucky. Poor bastard hadn’t gotten a lift in days, so I picked him up. Right Ben?”

“N-”

“He’s great company once you get a couple of drinks in him, but he doesn’t talk too much, do you Ben?” Tyler elbowed him.

“No more than necessary, it seems.”

“Huh, you look a little young to be a drifter,” Billi puzzled. “But then, drifters come in all shapes and sizes, don’t we?”

“What about your Danish boy who floated in yesterday,” Cat purred. “I’d like to see more drifters shaped like him. ¡Ay, que hermoso!”

“Oh, him. You know darling, I can’t decide if I miss him or hate him. It’s just that, sometimes, I like to be held while I sleep, you know? He just left. That’s no way to treat a girl after, you know.”

Tyler offered a sympathetic frown.

“That’s just poor manners. But I’ll tell you what. Forget that guy for tonight. Ben and I are going down to Bourbon street later, and then maybe a couple of jazz clubs on Frenchman. Would you ladies like to come?”

“Ladies? We?” Billi pressed a hand daintily across her generous bosom. “I thought you New Yorkers only dated broads!”

“Well, we’re not in New York anymore, are we?” He winked. “It’s also not 1942. What do you say?”

Catalina smirked. “Depends. Are you any good at dancing, Ben?”

“Who, me? Oh, the best.”