By Marcie Swartz

The banks of New Orleans confine the flow of the Mississippi River. One can pass over the river, and see it ambitiously wind toward its delta to spread out into the Gulf of Mexico. There, the pressure of coursing a path through a nation is relieved, as memories of the river’s message take on a diluted form.

Buildings confine Bourbon Street, New Orleans. Standing on the balconies of these buildings, one can watch the constant flux of people pushing in both directions. This flow has two ways out, and two ways in. Two deltas to relieve crowd pressure. With not enough sewers to drain and filter it, Bourbon also assumes a diluted form.

Bourbon is pedestrians' only, so the taxi drops all 9 of us at the end of this world famous block. It is the height of Mardi gras season at 2 a.m. and things are just picking up. People swamp the street to immerse themselves in the nightlife. Swept up in activity, we must go with the flow. There is no turning back. No one lives here. There is no place like home.

There is little variety in places of business. The bars are filled to capacity, and patron overflow is a deluge into the street. The bars offer drinks that are extremely high in alcoholic content called "Hurricanes". For storm chasers, they are poured into special foot long neon green and orange souvenir plastic cups. Alcohol is also sold at take out windows. There is no law in this quarter of New Orleans to stopper open containers. In defiance of an inevitable drenching, people revel in flaunting their right to be publicly inebriated. Taps burst open, geysering forth their goods to course through veins and suck moisture out of bodies. Intoxicated with desiccation, dams of inhibition collapse. The street is below sea level, but only spilt alcohol douses the pavement with its makeover treatment, and cleanses clogged minds of purpose.

My heart races as I struggle to ground myself in this place. Carnality replaces civility as order is thrown out with the heaps of garbage literally coating the street and sidewalks a foot deep at some points. There are no receptacles, and thus, people rain empty bottles, food containers, as well as contents of their full bladders onto the street. The air reeks of alcohol. It is hellish because it seems everyone but me wants to be there to say they’ve done it though they won’t quite remember it. An initiation that serves as a rite of passage into desecration, with loyalty insured by excessive torrents of justifications that slick dry fragile gills with grease. Commonality is debased to amalgamate togetherness with bonds of distortion. Hostile denial seals the deal that blindly propels all forward toward submersion in a desert of loss.

Bright Casino lights flash asking to dissolve my money. Opaque windows of the strip joints distort silhouettes of those dancing fluidly inside. All nude, all the time. A set of men stumble out of one as we pass. Drinks nourish their laughter to germinate seeds of desire. Wild, glassy eyes stray toward me as they yell "SHOW ME YOUR BOOBS," the accepted trademark babble of Bourbon’s current. If a female flashes her bare breasts to a male, he gives her cheap, plastic, metallic colored beads; a fair exchange of resources in this ecosystem. I feel topless by association. I won’t lift my shirt, but many will.

As I clutch the chain of hands my group has linked together, groups of men swarm me, spewing antagonism as they gauge my impedance.

The colors in drab and bright clothes run together against the black of night. My group is absorbed into a doorway to buy drinks. Left outside, buoyed by Bourbon’s surface tension, I stare at faux feather boas floating in a gift shop window. A man drifts between the shop and me. His expression placid as dark blood drips down the side of his face. My stomach churns. I jump back, almost knocking a large Budweiser out of someone’s hand. I look up and see a group of bikini-topped women leaning over a railing that is rooted to a rooftop. Their arms branch out, and twig like fingers dangle beads provocatively to tantalize the men treading in place below. The sky is in clear view, but this is not the place to stargaze. I must stay alert to what is beyond the peripheral. If I coast at all, I am tossed adrift by waves of those whose pace is driven by a craving for the reputed thrills of this party town. Unpredictable rapids jostle me as I employ strokes of sidestep, leap, and swivel with my arms pinned tight to my body. I am aware of the tips of every hair on my head. Even they protrude too far from my body in this congested place. Soberness has left me parched. I twist and turn to avoid saturation. Slippery when wet, I am sinking into the depths of concentrated rationale; terrified that someone will grab me. I fight to solidify my vulnerable skin from Bourbon’s germ soaked flotsam and jetsam. Disassociation seeps into me to with its deceptive life raft, as I stream into the whirlpool of sensation overload. My lungs fill with run-off.

We reach the end of the street. My feet hurt. Some in my group want to return the other way. It seems the sun won’t ever come up. Hidden by the night, all that there is to do here is happening concurrently with constant repetition. I hail a wave and swim for shore.

It is a slow taxi ride away from Bourbon. Horns are blaring, and no one is moving. Drunken passengers in my car cheer as my driver angles his car into the line of traffic ahead of us to cut someone off. The driver of that car gets out and approaches my driver. He demands my driver apologize. My driver does, and tension diminishes as we pull away.

We cross the river again driving back to our hotel. The river speaks its aspirations without a translator, content to surge along side the small alley that stubbornly exerts its unbending force on the land. In this swampland, flooding threatens, but does not prevent Bourbon Streets’ manufacturing. Contact is avoided until the time is right for the river to subdue it, spreading Bourbon much farther than we could take it on foot. In this intermingling, we’ll understand that one drowns the other.

 © Marcie Swartz 2003