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... Halloween Night: On Which Kermit Goes to a Costume Party ...
Me and Melanie Hassler ate some Ecstasy and went out to this Party on Tchoupitoulas Street, or maybe it was Magazine Street, but anyway, it was at this Warehouse in the Arts District. We went to this Particular one so as to avoid the Quarter and the Marigny, in which Halloween is basically a free-for-all Dress Rehearsal for Mardi Gras, or the Treme, in which Storyville had been silently converted back into the Iberville Housing Project, or the Garden District where a bunch of fat Lawyers and Judges dress up like Dracula and dance to Van Morrison tunes while fucked up on Bushmill's, and ESPECIALLY to avoid the Central Business District, in which they were having the "Dress like a Whore" Costume Competition. You tell a bunch of Hoors from New Orleans to dress up like PROSTITUTES, well, whores here aren't all glitzy like the ones in LA. or Vegas, and they just come off looking more or less like Sarah Bernhardt, dead.
I was dressed as David Bowie dressed as a Mortician, and Melanie was dressed as Delphine Lalaurie dressed like a Witch. We made a smashing pair.
Hazlitt LeFleur was dressed as a Free Person of Color whilst Preston Foley, dressed as a Castrated Chimney Sweep, did dishes in the Kitchen. And a bunch of people from Dauphine Street were there dressed in Frankie Minot's Clothes, as were a bunch of Art students in Fenton Rochilieu's, and a bunch of Nefarious Business Associates in Raphael Fleetwhite's. All the REAL hoors were dressed as Casket Girls, these chicks that came over from France to the Ursuline Convent in 1741 or 31 or Something, will all their possessions stored in the eponymous objects. VERY New Orleans.
We were talking about what Actors would play us in the Film Version of my book. I'd like to think that guy who was in American Beauty would play ME, and Minot would be some ragged-out version of that Hannibal dude. Fleetwhite, maybe a younger, taller Raul Julia (we started to agree these Actors didn't have to be ALIVE), and Fenton Rochilieu, well, I don't know, some effeminate Peter Coyote motherfucker, who cares.
And that was when Frankie Minot came Back from the Dead.
Well, not really. But some fucker dressed up like Fenton came up to me and said, "A spike thru hees heart, hey?" and I noticed the man was quite a bit shorter and fatter than Fenton. I told the fellow yeah, and he had a tiny Cock, too, when Minot (a taller version) said "How'd you like my Postcard?" The Fleetwhites were just looking at me as if they hadn't appreciated my messing with their Craniums that morning.
I was feeling a little ill and Melanie was getting a little too friendly with one of the Casket Girls, a 19-year-old Brunette who introduced herself as "Threesome," and I felt like we were all on some goddamn Boat in the middle of a very Large Body of Water, and that Boat was Sinking.
The Town that Care Forgot forgot it ever did. I wondered what Kermit Broadmeyer was doing for Halloween.
We were just hours away from the Day of the Dead. Which is Every Day in New Orleans. And Everyone comes to New Or-Leans, eventually.
I had that odd sensation that I knew or had known Everyone in the Room. Embalmed them, perhaps, or fucked them. And if not THEM, somebody who shared their Exact Same Spirit. Somebody had a manuscript of my book out. They were reading the first chapter of Town Full of Hoors by Kermit Broadmeyer and in it the Narrator was saying he was Frankie Minot, although the Voice sounded nothing like him.
So how could I finish what had already started up again? I was sweating, and went to the bathroom and changed out of my costume. I wanted a nice, clean ending for Chaos, and I, of all people, should have known just how Foolish that notion was.
Have I been obscene, indiscreet? Was I gratuitous, unclear? Did you believe a Goddamn Word? Do you think these people are Real?
The best way to leave a party is with a question. See.
Everyone in the Room was buzzing around in and out of my Vision like Flies. A Parade was coming down the Street. Firing Cannons.
And as I prepare to once again expose myself to the bowels of the City, to Embalm the Bodies and Drink and get Laid, as I go forth into the Darkness's most furtive enigma, as if THAT could ever be solved or completed,
And as the Giant Green Claw comes up for you from the Swamp, well, Ha! I'll come clean. Laissez les Bon Temps Rouler, and all YOU have to do is keep doing what you're doing and die, because I didn't write Town Full of Hoors. You did!
Because this is the Town where your Own Mask takes you over.
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