Dragons Wild

Eleven

The French Quarter was an unending sideshow of tastelessness. It was steamy by day and seamy at night.

Griffen fell in love with it immediately.

The place was incredible enough to pull him somewhat out of his brooding and self-doubts. Failure to change into a dragon, not to mention his troubles coming to grips with the whole situation, faded to the back of his mind as he reveled in his new surroundings. Six blocks wide by roughly thirteen blocks long, it was a world unto itself.

To some, particularly the tourists, it was a Disneyland for adults. Narrow streets lined with old buildings, overhung with flower-bedecked balconies; half-hidden courtyards with picture-book gardens and fountains; antique shops and boutiques mixed with T-shirt shops and adult specialty stores; every corner turned brought new sights and contradictions.

Some tourist towns advertised their scenic nature. When one actually visited them, however, it would be readily apparent that unless one found the exact spot the publicity photo was taken from and hunkered down at precisely the right angle, the scenic wonders would only be visible from between the hotels and office buildings.

Such was not the case in the Quarter. As one walked the streets, the eye and mind were captured again and again by small wonders; the “gaslight” street lamps, the hidden courtyards with flower beds and fountains, the old buildings with their cracked plaster and ferns growing out of the walls, and, of course, the Mississippi River.

While he experienced it, he couldn’t prevent a vague feeling of regret. If Griffen had managed to visit New Orleans while he was still in college, he might have been able to enjoy it more. Now, with worries pressed down upon him, he felt more overwhelmed than anything. There was so much in the Quarter to be overwhelmed by.

Then there was the music. It was next to impossible to escape the music in the Quarter even if one wanted to. In addition to the expected blues and Dixieland, there were Cajun and zydeco fiddles and accordions, Chicago blues, piano bars, Irish folk music, rock clubs, and even country/western hangouts. The jukeboxes in the various clubs featured anything from Glenn Miller to Billy Holiday to Janis Joplin to Frank Sinatra to Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show to The Stones, etc., etc. The list was seemingly endless. Even the street musicians were good, supplying hammer dulcimers, Appalachian groups complete with cloggers, jazz flute or violin, and one guy who would play classical music on an array of water filled brandy glasses.

Food was something Griffen had never really concentrated on. Growing up, his diet had consisted mostly of institutional food and restaurant fare, the latter being mostly Chinese or German. It seemed that in New Orleans, food was almost a religion. At the very least, it was a major pastime right along with drinking and partying. There were almost as many restaurants in the Quarter as there were bars…which was to say a lot. Along with the upscale Creole and Cajun local food, there were an assortment of other ethnic dining opportunities present, including Chinese, Japanese, Siamese, Tai, Italian, Mexican, and Greek.

Nor were the low-end diners neglected, as there were delis, gyros shops, and the traditional KFC/Pizza Hut fast food assortments. What was more, to Griffen’s delight, many places delivered directly to your door and would also provide groceries, cigarettes, a newspaper, and a pint of liquor if you added it to your order. All in all, it was a marvelous place to sleep late, order a brunch delivered while letting the world come slowly into focus, and not have to face the world until you were good and ready. When you threw in the twenty-four hour bars, it was small wonder that the Quarter was such a favorite vacation spot for tourists.

Of course, there were other aspects of the Quarter Griffen had a bit more difficulty adjusting to.

For one thing, there was the custom of “hoo-rawing” people on the street. This consisted of hailing to someone a half block away or on a balcony, then continuing the conversation at the top of your lungs until at least pleasantries were concluded, and often until the latest gossip had been exchanged. As someone who was accustomed to conversing in normal speaking tones, Griffen found this practice vaguely unnerving.

A bit more ominous was the vague feeling of danger that settled over the streets after the sun went down.

Since his normal activities while in school had included countless late-night poker games, Griffen was used to watching his back when he walked alone on the off chance that one of the other players decided to try to recover his losses in ways that did not involve skill with cards.

In the Quarter, however, with its round-the-clock bars and steady flow of drunken tourists, it was apparent to the most casual eye that there was a thriving cottage industry of muggers, shakedown artists, and hustlers, ever ready to separate the unwary from the contents of their wallets, purses, and/or pockets. While the main drag of Bourbon Street was well lit and closely policed, a mere block off that thoroughfare and one was on their own. People tended to watch the other pedestrians as they walked, and were quick to change sides of the street or to duck into an open bar if they didn’t like what they saw coming toward them.

Griffen was particularly distressed by the terrain in this claustrophobic community. The campus and small college town that had been his old stomping grounds were honeycombed with alleys, doorways, and shortcuts that one could duck into or through at the least sign of trouble. In the Quarter, by contrast, all the side streets were narrow and one-way with parking allowed only on one side. What was worse, all the buildings were built flush with the street offering no cover at all. Openings into courtyards or passages between apartment buildings all had locked gates topped by daunting coils of barbed or razor wire to discourage casual entry. Overall, during his late-night prowls, it gave Griffen the same feeling of security as a rabbit would feel on a cut-over field with hawks circling. He made a mental note that, if the feeling persisted, he would have to talk to Jerome about the wisdom of carrying a firearm.

He kept thinking, what if something serious came at him. There was nowhere to hide from someone truly pursuing him. Even the bars that one could duck into had open fronts and many windows. The constant patrol by local police gave some solace, but not enough. If something went wrong, someone really out for a dragon, all a policemen might do was fill out the paperwork afterward.

Still, all this was not enough to detract from Griffen’s enjoyment of the Quarter. By the end of a week he had a good feel for the layout of the streets, and he had even found a bar to frequent that was more local service industry than tourist. It was a little Irish pub (that rarely if ever played Irish music) two blocks off Bourbon. It had two coin-operated pool tables that were surprisingly well maintained and had a good selection of Irish whiskey including Griffen’s personal favorite, Tullamore Dew. More important, it seemed to be a regular hangout from an interesting assortment of attractive young ladies in their twenties and thirties who did not seem at all adverse to striking up a conversation with a newcomer that went beyond “May I take your order?”

He was sitting at the bar there one night, idly watching a closely contested pool match, when his cell phone went off. He glanced at the caller ID, more for show than anything else as there were only two people who currently had his number, then flipped it open.

“Hey, Jerome. What’s up?”

“You got anything planned for tomorrow? During the day?”

“Nothing special. Why?”

“I’ll swing by in the morning around noon and pick you up.”

“Okay. What’s the deal?”

“Figure it’s time to take you shopping.”