Creative Distilling in New Orleans

So you broke the chain on your bicycle and got a flat too? Look at you there, in the ditch next to the railroad track. All scratched up and bleeding on the gravel; and not a medic to be found.

Are you going to sit there and pout all day? Or are you going to get to work, finally? The lonesome oil pastels are tucked away in a safe place. The Superliner passed you by, Henri. You’re sitting there, sideways, in a daze, counting the railroad cars as they whiz past all clickety-clack and high speed.

What’s your next move? You’d try and reach up high and grab onto me if you could, but you’ve slipped up. You thought you were a superstar, but you were really below the mid-grade bar. A hardball game, played too far; you cut off your ear like your friend Vincent and now you’re deaf to reason. So be it, gone from the thinking realms of this mortal coil.

Those were the carefree hippy days. Before the chase began. Before the scooter trips through the French Quarter at all hours of the day and night. The absinthe bottles. Henri tied to the tracks as the Amtrak Superliner approached. (It stopped before reaching him and reversed course, a giant blue and white killer whale, rejecting the prey for being too small.)

Those were the days when Toulouse Red looked wistfully into the distance, imagining what might be, what had been, and what was to come in days ahead. Of course she couldn’t know in advance about the furious Red Tape Assault on Henri, the twisted turns of bureaucracy, the likes of which make Kafka humdrum. During such trials, time advances like Louisiana molasses flowing uphill. (As if there were a hill in New Orleans, but I digress.)

Those were the days of infinite patience, carefully laid plans, and bigger things to come.