I ended up going in and registering us for the campsite. To reward myself for the effort I rode my bike through the maze of dirt roads, but there wasn't much to see except other people's campsites and the turns of the river. Which, incidentally, was a bit too scummy and filmed over by rainbows of petroleum for me to stick my little inflatable raft into. Not to mention which, the source of all that leaking gasoline, huge redneck-propelled speedboats, tore down the waterway at regular intervals, producing waves which slopped more than halfway up against the four-foot bank. Not fun in a lil' raft, I thinked to myself.

My paranoia about leaving things at the campsite extended to the boom- box (I stuck it in the car) but not to my tent (I certainly didn't want to put it up again). It didn't even occur to me that my bike was still on the trunk rack until we got into the Quarter and parked. With the campsite a two-hour loop away, I just locked everything together (U-lock, rack, bike) tightly and hoped nobody shady came by in a van. I actually thought it was more likely some drunken fool would park badly, crunching the bike into the back of the car, but I tried to shake all such thoughts from my shoulders.

We parked one block off Bourbon, which we thought would be safe enough, as spending as much on parking as on drinks was simply not in the cards. For the first time we ended up on Decatur Street, and immediately there seemed a more pleasant side to the gaslit reek of the French Quarter. Heading past Sidney's we appreciated their array of postcards: the president and his wife in bondage gear, anonymous women of size literally drooping rolls of fat the size of truck tires from their sides ("if you were them, would you pose for that?"), pope postcards featuring a cut-out for a light switch at the chaste white papal crotch and other fine tasteful items.

Further down, a random few punks with dirty clothes clung to the pavement like hitchhiking flora or fauna, which memory would be of such good use later. But in general, all we saw featured amusing merchandise, begging, on tender bruised knees, to be taken home to Illinois, Alabama, Nebraska, or wherever suburbia swelled and overflowed when spring set the kettle to boil. Shirts that proudly assured the reader, 'I'd rather be fucking' or that 'Hukt on Fonix wurkt Fur mee.' Closer to the northern boundary of Esplanade, funky boarded-up storefronts fluttered in the river wind as a faded rainbow of music fliers tugged at their staples. Blues, jazz, zydeco, gritty bar rock-- a timeline of shows, split evenly between past and future. On the other hand, the experience of walking past neon signs for another 'Planet Rock Cafe' and a leering 'Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville' on that dirty old street had something like the effect of stumbling over an oddly turned brick and dashing one's teeth against the curb. We quickened our pace, and pretended all we could see was dimly lit elegance.

Jim led us into Checkpoint Charlie's. He was fortunately right about the favorably low tourist ratio ("we may be travelers, but never tourists"), but I felt weighed down by the good-old-boy touches on the walls-- animal heads on plaques and such-- and the fact that no one was dancing, or even swaying a little on their feet. I kind of liked Charlie's anyway, though. It was a funky little place, with a little room in back boasting a twenty-four-hour laundromat and an electronic flight simulator, which didn't really deserve to be called a video game, most likely low-end detritus from some convention early in the max headroom years. In the front, on a long elevated section of the room stood a couple of pool tables with long shaded lamps stretched over the green felt, but as people were lined up to play, we just watched Irene and the Mikes play. The musicians knew their way around their instruments, I could tell, but they struck me as further into rockabilly than even the Cowboy Junkies, which was as far as my music beanie-copter would spin. I could tell Jim was in love, though, so I sat through about ten songs to give him a chance to pound down a few beers before I dragged him back down Decatur- - or back up Decatur, if you are a bass-ackwards nawlins mo'fo who thinks south is up.

Further along Decatur we went into a bar that looked equally seedy, that is to say, good, and had decent music spilling from the juke box. While we drank a beer, I noticed an old-style VW bus parked out front full of traveling rainbow kids with dreads down to their overalls. I suggested to Jim, 'We could go see if those kids want to smoke with us, match bowls or whatever.'

"We don't know them," he said, clearly annoyed, as though this were obvious. Which of course it was, but I couldn't imagine anyone dressed up so elaborately just to bust a couple kids with a bowl or two on them. I was surprised he didn't even want to see if they were friendly, but I didn't want to leave him alone at the bar just to find out.

'I thought we were on this trip to find interesting things and talk to random people,' I said, flatly, more to have my say than because I thought he would budge.

I followed Jim out of the bar, with a last glance at the bus which had a pleasant, familiar smell seeping from the back door, down towards the giant red sign spelling out JAX.

We were on Bourbon Street finishing up a hand grenade when the energy seemed to seep out of us, so we headed out to Bienville, relieved to see the car, rack and bike as we left them. Uncrunched.

It was Jimmy's turn to drive, and as I was considerably more sloshed than I'd been the night before, there was no way I was going to let him get out of it. I barely stayed awake getting out of the Quarter to the freeway.

Though I hadn't had to do it much since I had been a freshman, I was familiar with the methods used to piece together a reasonable explanation for the bizarre situations it's possible to wake up in, but this one took a lot longer than most.

I became aware, fuzzily, that my body was cramped as hell, and that there was a gray-blue light. First I was pissed at Jim, who once again had indulged his capacity to cheerfully sleep in a bucket seat, leaving me feeling knotted-up and half-asleep all day. It occurred to me that we weren't traveling anymore-that we had reached a place we were visiting for a few days. I opened my eyes. Oh yes-- New Orleans. Why were we at a rest stop instead of our camp? Had he gotten us lost?

I bitched at him for a second or two-- he woke up right away-- before he gave me an odd look. He said, "Well, look-- I thought it was a good idea. I woke up with us bumping along on grass and I realized that we were driving on the median. At around thirty miles an hour. So I figured I should stop. At the first rest stop."

What do you say to that? Was that me in the driver's seat, asking for forgiveness? Why did I get to be the one who always knew when my eyes were about to close, that my hands were moving too slow? The unfairness of my rage stunned me, and neither of us could say a thing as we looked each other in the eye. I looked out the windshield, then back at him, then down into my shoes, where my feet hovered over spotless carpet.

'Fuck!'

"Fuck."

'Fuck.'

We were glad to be alive, getting to hear a response. Jim drove to the campsite and for fifteen minutes, until the tent rolled in front of the bumper, neither of us could think of another thing to say.