The car cruised along the elevated freeway with Jim idly gripping the steering wheel, but we had no idea which column of cars to follow. Remembering the last time I'd trusted Jim to navigate while driving, and the hour it took us to find our way again, I searched hard for a sign that indicated "Downtown" or "French Quarter."

'Get over,' I said, my finger pointing ahead to the off-ramp.

The exit ramp dived down steeply, ducking under the freeway to a main road which jogged over confusingly past a neighborhood that seemed to be the middle of nowhere in particular. We looked around uneasily, dimly aware of our lack of a map or a particular destination, but then after a minute or two we saw a green sign that pointed to the French Quarter and we both relaxed involuntarily into a smile.

Now we'd made it. We were not lost in Georgia, nor broken down in Ohio-- at long last we had reached Sin City. Downtown Canal Street was crazy-- the bus- only lanes in the center of the road created a vast river of concrete from one side to the other. The drivers seem'd as insane as any I'd seen-shooting from the narrow alleys on either side at speeds indicating belief in the triumph of luck over physics. Huge posters hung from every lamp post, while below them a sea of pedestrians poured across the ground as though guided through irrigation channels by the gently cycling colors of the traffic lights.

The car ran down Canal to the Aquarium and ended up in one of the large parking lots pressed against the banks of the river. Good enough for now, we said, glancing at more expensive cars parked just a few feet away.

The sidewalks on Canal revealed something very urban; just like downtown Manhattan, one-stop electronics outlets every ten feet screamed "duty free!" and various dopey department stores stretched out in the hot sunlight.

I was cheerful, and contented as hell. Even if a piano had dropped on my head right then, I had left Ann Arbor and I had set foot in New Orleans. I thought, what could they do to take that away from me?

My first hint that other people weren't as happy with their location as we were came from the top of an office building, where a huge billboard spelled out "California - New York - Florida" next to an image of an airplane leaving the earth. I felt the shadow of blade runner's blimps overhead-- how many people want to leave this city, I wondered, to justify the size of that billboard?

I'd seen L.A. and New York, where people choose to stay, and we'd seen Detroit, where no one has the energy to leave. What third kind of beast was this, that would advertise somewhere else right in the middle of downtown?

Waving my hand vaguely, I said, 'I think the Quarter's over that way...'

"Could be." Jim frequently gave the impression that he thought himself the more patient, calm and reasonable of the two of us. He was often therefore content to refrain from useful action, in order to watch me make a fool of myself.

'Well, I'll just ask somebody,' I said, rather than spend twenty minutes out- lasting him. A guy in his early forties with a long black beard drifted down the sidewalk towards us. 'Excuse me, the French Quarter is on that side of Canal?'

The guy laughed, not without traces of amusement and cruelty. "That's right. Everything on that side." And then he strolled on, chuckling to himself.

Our feet took us up Chartres where concrete and glass downtown shopping center facades gave way to iron gas-lamps and impossibly crowded architecture I had seen somewhere I couldn't quite put my finger on.

Inside Record Ron's, Jim talked to the manager while I dug through the vinyl, looking at 60's album covers. I unearthed a copy of 'sticky fingers,' the original with the steel zipper, and looked to see what andy warhol had tucked into those famous jeans. I was not quite surprised to see a photo of a sizable bulge in boyish underwear hidden under the parted teeth.

Walking down Bourbon Street, Jim smirked and steered me towards a booth dispensing drinks to go. Thirty seconds later, walking in the sunshine with our oversized libations, there was no doubt we'd come to the right place. Although I'd have preferred a joint to go, I was quite happy to do as the Romans were doing.

Storefronts offering strippers of whichever gender we preferred, bars filled by suits and dirty t-shirts, tortured karaoke voices, and the clink and clatter of beads and coins all washed past us as the drinks grew lighter in our hands.

The Voodoo Shop exerted a stronger pull than the other diversions- our feet pulled us in to stand below an implacable goat-god looming over the back room while Marie Laveau's incense-dusted altar spoke quietly of things requested and things forgotten.

It was getting dark, and we hadn't yet figured out where we were sleeping that night. On our way back to the car, Jim asked, "How bout a hurricane-- to go?"

'Fair enough.'

Walking by a cop, we both instinctively let the drinks fall to our sides and hang hidden by our fingers, then we laughed at each other.

Our four hours of parking time we discovered, would cost us nine dollars. "'Fuck!'" we said, in unison.

I drove us along the freeway, and we got off at the first blue 'tent' sign. About a mile down the road appeared the advertised campground-a twinge of déjà vu revealed rows of natural gas hook-ups feeding rows of recreational vehicles parked across the asphalt.

With mock outrage, Jim said, "That's a fucking parking lot."

'Jesus, this is a sick country we've got here, Jimmy.'

The prospect of further driving diminished my sense of humor about such things a smidgen. We got gas across the road-- a place where we didn't necessarily want to linger. As I pulled out and headed back to the freeway, Jim asked, "What did that guy outside want?"

'He asked me if I was all right-- I think he just wanted to know I if wanted any weed.'

"Crack, more likely." Jim was often a sharp bastard.

'Hmm-- Gas'n'Rocks. Maybe we've hit on something there.'

Jim laughed appreciatively, adding, "Yeah, just put Nancy Reagan behind the cash register and we'll be all set." I laughed, too, but it was dark and I still didn't know where I was sleeping.

We crossed the long bridge over the lake and I turned up the radio. It was strangely annoying yet comforting to hear all the songs we'd heard on the self-described "alternative stations" everywhere else. At least it wasn't all bad classic rock and country stations yet. We had run through Jim's tapes a few times already-- Echo & the Bunnymen, Bauhaus, XTC-- so sometimes the radio seemed like a happy compromise.

'How far is this place you remember?' I asked.

"There's lots of places along here," Jim insisted.

'Yeah, but how far away are they?' Only the dark shapes of trees floating by answered me.

We finally found the campground. At least it had trees instead of poles, and grass instead of asphalt. It was another camper place, though. I bumped the car down the rutted road leading through the aluminum monstrosities.

'I hate this place,' I said, 'but maybe I could put up with it.'

"I know there are other places further up."

'At this point, it would be worth it to keep looking. This is almost as bad as sleeping in the car. We could probably scam a shower before we go, though.'

I stood with my towel outside the locked bath-house, waiting for whoever was making noise to come out. I grabbed the door as it swung open, explaining, 'We haven't gotten the key yet,' as I ducked inside.

"You get the key at the front office." Through the metal door he kept right on going. "Don't forget to close the door tight on your way out." What would it cost him if I didn't?

The air was cold as fuck in there, and the little hotel soap combined with the limestone water into a slimy substance that refused to fully leave the skin no matter how long I rinsed. Someone came in to use the other shower stall. I got out and dried off pretty fast, blocking the corner of the metal door with a twig.

'I have the door propped, but it locks,' I told Jim. 'Hurry up before the guy in the other shower leaves.'

Jim hopped back in the car a minute or two later. "In and out and nobody gets hurt," he grinned, amused with himself.

The pleasant absence of dried sweat, and the relaxed feeling of a recently successful scam, fueled the hour-long drive towards a place where we could actually put up a tent, which was a minute or two over the border into Mississippi.

We pulled in past the office cabin, and the dirt road through the place turned seemingly at random through the areas you could camp. It was bizarre navigating that place in the dark. Tree-covered areas opened out to sand flats and then back into the woods, where we found an open spot.

Some tributary of the Mississippi wound through the woods, and the water was right at the end of our campsite. It seemed like a pleasant and quiet enough place, and I was glad we'd kept going.

At that point, we were used to getting the tent up in the dark, and we hauled the boom-box and our sleeping bags into the tent. I hung my large flashlight from the loop at the top of the ceiling and we maybe even got a good tape playing before we zonked out.