20
... Kermit Gets Things Done ...
In New Orleans, the key to winning an election of any kind is and has always been to secure the DEAD vote. Not the Gay vote or the Black vote or the Union vote or the fucking Hockey Team's vote. No, the trick is to get as many votes from dead people as possible. As a general Rule of Thumb, if you get 6% of it, you've won yourself an Election. Goddamn ESPECIALLY in New Orleans, where more people are dead than NOT. But nobody knows they're dead 'cause nobody cares. Sometimes, the only person in Town that knows that So and So is Roasting in the Flames of Hell is ME. See where I'm going?
Once you start getting Dead People to vote for your ass, YOU are a POLITICIAN, son.
And thus it fell to me to Lobby the Dead People against Algiers, 'cause much as it excited the Red Beans & Rice out of me to see them blowing things up and shit, it was getting a little tired, really. Plus, I don't really like the Freedom Fighters anymore than I like Frankie Minot or Preston Foley. I don't like Anybody, actually. Except dead people.
But since at least a couple of folks in New Orleans had observed that a whole lot of them were Up and Walking Around in the French Quarter and shit, this made my job just that much easier. The folks in Algiers had no idea who they were fucking with when it came to New Orleans Dead People. But I guess you gotta cut 'em some slack on that one. For MOST people, Dead People are an Unknown Quality.
Especially in a town where at any time anyone is apt to do anything. Or to NOT do it. It's beautiful here, you'd love it.
So my plan was, loosely, this. To get that Pirate Jean Lafitte to sail his dead ass over here with a shipload of dead Hoors, who would proceed to suck the dicks of everybody in Algiers Point while he went back and picked up the long-dead members of the Tremé Gris-Gris Mafia, and based on what you heard about from Raphael Fleetwhite you KNOW those dudes were pissed at Algiers. ESPECIALLY the dead ones, who'd been Sold into Slavery from over here. Goddamn ESPECIALLY them, man, and they'd sail over playing 19th Century Dixieland (it DOES exist, but since you don't hear recordings of it, you don't believe it, just like when you think of the 1800s its all in Black and White, lol). And while the Freedom Fighters were Busting a Nut in the mouths of dead French Quarter Hoors, saying "Swallow it, Bitch" and things equally disagreeable, their asses would either be dead themSELVES and be fucked up the ass for Eternity in a Hell full of dead Tremé Residents, or they'd be Sold into Slavery by and to people who didn't really exist. Perfect!
Then, so as not to further pollute the waters of the Mississippi, their dead Algiers asses would be Ferried across and dumped in the goddamn Garden District, and that washed-up old broad would REALLY have something to write about, THEN! And for those who LIVED, well, they'd be beating Preston Foley & Co. with a Riding Crop while he did their laundry on a goddamn Washboard.
There's a lot of Beauty out there in the world. You just have to know Where to Find it.
Great for the Economy. Terrific for my Business. Exemplary for the Status Quo. Then, perhaps Fleetwhite could get back to marrying people and Minot could get back to raping males under 40 and Rochilieu could get back to Teaching Art, writing about Dancers, and fucking Melanie Hassler.
Life's never that easy or that cut-and-dry, but when you can get it close, you buy a Drink for the Mortician and start back cruising whores on Bourbon Street. Look, you always wanted your life to be Sleazy. You just wanted to know that the person you're fucking was Alive, that's all.
Most of them aren't anyway, but, then again, New Orleans doesn't really EXIST, either. It's just a State of Mind, and right about now I'm going over to the Port Bar to alter the state of MINE. So Nighty-night. Goddamn Tourists.
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