Nothing will make you miss New Orleans
faster than finding out you can't buy liquor.
It's 12:30 a.m. on a Sunday night (or
Monday morning, if that's how YOU tell time). I have hard American currency and
27 years of age. I have a driver's license with a baked-looking picture of me
as proof and everything. But no go – at this point, I might as well be in
Oxford, Mississippi. No booze for me.
It's probably just as well … nothing
good can come of buying a fifth at damn near one in the morning, unless you
happen to be the Jackson Pollock of projectile vomit. I chalk it up to another life
lesson learned on the greatest adventure I've ever undertaken: moving from the
Crescent City to the Red Stick.
I left New Orleans with a few dollars
in my pocket, a couple changes of clothes, a stack of porn (just in case!), and
the desire to face the unknown. My initial destination was Ft. Worth, Texas, a
place known primarily for … OK, pretty much known only for being next to Dallas
(a place known for TV's Patrick Duffy).
The rumors are all true: there are
idiots wearing cowboy hats everywhere, and Lone Star® beer and
rockabilly all day and all night. Wonder where all your Mexican neighbors came
from? I was in that particular apartment complex – those people may eat menudo,
but that doesn't mean they're stupid. They knew what was up, and they put all seven
of their kids in their 1989 Ford Tempos and split, Louisiana-bound.
I got freaked out by all the Dallas
Cowboys stickers everywhere … it was like being in Shreveport. Eww. I fled
Texas as quickly as I could, but not before I was jailed, mugged, and almost
raped by a coked-up stripper. None of those things had ever happened to me in
New Orleans in all my years, which puzzled me until I remembered that I wasn't
a tourist.
So, by the grace of God and Greyhound,
I appeared magically in the Florida Street Bus Terminal at roughly 6:15 a.m. on
a Monday, or half-past Saved by the Bellif you use cable television as your timepiece. I immediately felt right at
home, as two shady gentlemen at a bus stop offered to sell me "that good,
son," and I saw a truck full of guys in Sheetrock® dust-covered
shirts buying their fine malt breakfast.
I bought a map and a cup of coffee and
got right to work getting to know my new home. The map told me a bit, but it
took a lot of drunken conversation with the few friends I'd previously made in
our state's capital to realize the real differences between New Orleans and
Baton Rouge.
New Orleans is a city founded in the
early 1700s by some French people who didn't care what they did. Seriously. Why
else would you found a city below sea level, directly next to a murky lake, a
muddy river delta, and miles of nasty swamp? Obviously, New Orleans was founded
there due to its proximity to Rick's Cabaret and the Olde Absinthe House. At
that point, the strippers mostly wore alligator skins and drank their Hand
Grenades out of coconut shells like on Gilligan's
Island, but the area showed promise.
Baton Rouge, meanwhile, was built
around a big red stick shoved in the ground next to the river by people who
wanted to be close enough to New Orleans to visit, but far enough away to not
get stuck in traffic every day at the I-610 split. Say what you will about the
founders of this, your fair city; personally, I think they were on to
something. You may not believe me now, but four or five hurricane seasons from
now, when your mom's house in Sorrento is beachfront property on the Gulf of
Mexico, you'll remember my ramblings and say, "Hey, that dude was on to
something."
In New Orleans, there are any number
of reasons why you can't get from one place to another. If it rains for more
than twenty minutes, the streets fill with rainwater and flood the floorboards
in your car, possibly waterlogging your iPod. No good. If it's sunny, there's a
seventy-five percent chance of a parade of some sort, usually a jazz funeral
march stemming from the constant black-on-black gun battles in the streets.
The participants in the gun battles
are uniformly dressed in oversized white T-shirts, so to make up for that,
participants in the jazz funerals dress in the brightest and most colorful
clothing one can legally wear to a funeral. (New Orleans operates on the
Napoleonic Code, which has a subsection requiring second lines when someone
dies. Google™ it, brother!)
Here, I have heard lawbreakers in the
streets at all hours of the night, but the loud popping noises I have heard
have just been those rebels without a pause shooting off fireworks within the
city limits. Keep up the good work, fellas.
I would be a fool to not mention that,
in the city of New Orleans (and ALL of its outlying areas, even St. Bernard
Parish), you can buy any alcohol your little heart desires at any hour of the
day or night and any day of the week. You can get a fifth of Crown Royal®on Christmas Day at the corner store, which is open because Arabs don't
celebrate Christmas. This fact has made the economy of New Orleans revolve
around tourism, liquor, cheap thrills, and rehab.
The founding fathers of this city knew
they had to be a bit more creative, or else they would find Baton Rouge falling
into this same exact trap. The real reason you can't buy beer, wine, or hard
stuff past midnight on a Sunday or 2 a.m. on a weeknight is obvious to anyone
who considers it long enough: it's an attempt to stimulate your city's economy.
Ever since homemade methamphetamine
became taboo, many people have been out of a way to pay their rent. All Baton
Rouge is saying is, "Hey, we'll give you an excuse to use your bathtub –
why not make your own gin? It was good enough for Gramma and Grampa!" I'm
willing to supply any of you DIY-types with plans for a backyard still, as long
as you're unwilling to give my name to the authorities if they come to visit. I
won't even ask for any of your white lightning (I enjoy eyesight).
Yes, there are numerous differences
between my lifelong home and my adopted playground, but none that would cause
culture shock. You guys like drinking, dirty jokes, and sluts as much as we do
in New Orleans, and I, for one, am glad to be here. When I walk down the
streets, the people wave to me, the birds sing in the trees, the cars honk …
even the uncut grass that I walk through in your no-sidewalk-having town seems
to say to me, "Welcome to Baton Rouge, Brian Bonhagen. Why don't you stay
a while?"
