(Author's Note: The "Incident in New Orleans," articles,
which ran in SLAMM magazine in May and June of 2002,
were published as three separate columns.
They are combined here, into one story, with minimal editing.)

Incident in new Orleans

"Im your mama Im your daddy
Im that nigga in the alley."
-Curtis Mayfield

It was my first road trip ever. I took a month-long hiatus and drove across the country, ending in the mystical and debauched city of New Orleans. I spent the first four nights in glorious, chaotic, drunken revelry -- jazzbarhopping the French Quarter, making new friends, buying rounds, tipping the snot out of everyone, toasting and boasting, and singing show tunes until the sun came up and my lights went out.

I awoke in the hotel room at 2pm every morning -- with throbbing head and clammy flesh -- laying in bed in fetal retreat; hugging pillows and watching HBO, until it was time to hit the bars again and my spirits were magically restored.

It was on the fifth night -- while casually strolling on Bourbon Street that I met MC Wolfman.

He was a short black man with black hair, dungarees and a silver Sony Walkman. When he saw me, his eyes lit as if he knew who I was. He pulled off his headphones, stuck out his hand and blurted, "Hey homey, how ya been?"

"Great," I answered, pretending to remember him, "Whats going on?"

Actually, I did vaguely remember boozing in this sort-of blacks-only joint; trying to drink the white right off me by buying rounds of Hennessy, tipping the snot out of everybody, toasting important, famous brothers like Frederick Douglass, Curtis Mayfield, Steve Urkel, and singing songs from Porgy and Bess until the sun came up and my lights went out.

I just couldnt remember this guy.

I asked what he was listening to. He said it was his hip-hop group and that his name was MC Wolfman. Then he let me listen.

"Sounds like Bushwick Bill," I said.

"You know the Geto Boys?!" he asked incredulously.

"Oh hell yeah," I said, and just like that, we were homies; doing what homies do: riffin' about The Streets, cursing The Man, high-fiving, and spouting homey-type phrases like "bootylicious!" and "drop science."

Then, quite out of nowhere, he asked if I wanted to do some blow.

Sure, its hard to believe that I would even consider embarking on an illicit drug expedition with a guy named MC Wolfman in the second most dangerous city in the country. But I was young. I had not yet learned that the world is just bulging with people who want to steal your tip jars or put a bullet in your head.

So like a heifer being led to slaughter, I mooed ok.

I figured that he would just offer an inconspicuous bump from his vial or something, and that I could bid farewell and get back to the bars, booze and bimbos with that special happy cocaine smile sweeping across my face.

I realize now this is not quite how it works.

Anyway, we walked and we smoked and we talked and we joked and suddenly -- I balked.

Without realizing it, he had led me off the Yellow Brick Road and onto a bleak, tattered, lamp-less, street.

To our left was a war-torn brick building with angry graffiti scrawled on flaking bricks. To our right was a net-less basketball court with weeds growing through the asphalt.

"Give me some money and Ill score the cane," he said, his otherwise soft voice having morphed into the gravelly, desperate bark of a street lycanthrope.

"I think Ive changed my mind," I stammered, and turned around to leave.

In a flash he lurched in front of me a gun was beneath his shirt.

"Give me your money," he demanded.

I quickly realized that the gun under his shirt was actually his hand mimicking the shape of a gun. It was not at all convincing.

"Let me see the pistol first," I coughed.

"Are you crazy motherfucker?!" he screamed. "Dont make me murder you right here on the street."

Hmmm.

There is just something about the word "murder" that thunders on your eardrum like the booming bass of the Geto Boys:
"Off muthafuckas to a six foot ditch
I hope ya insurance paid up bitch
'Cause tonight is the night motherfucker
Be a good killer or a damn good bullet-ducker."

I gave him all the money in my pocket.

"By the way," he blurted as he snatched the cash from my hand, That was the Geto Boys on my rig, nigga! You just plain dumb. Then he bolted off into an alley.

I stood in the dark, shaking, panting, and completely in awe of my own magnificent stupidity. How could I not have seen the signs? What kind of moron was I? Mortality flashes: it really doesn't take much to get yourself kilt. I vowed never again to be so ignorant. And then I made the biggest mistake of the night.

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Bewildered and terrified, I ran through a maze of unlit side streets, garbage-strewn alleys, and urine-soaked corridors until I found myself on the steps of the New Orleans Police Station. I opened the huge, wooden, double doors of the entrance, and walked inside.

"Ive just been mugged," I told the sergeant at the main desk.

The sergeant asked me for a description which he immediately broadcast to his officers in the field. then he summoned a detective who led me into a room where we sat at a fold-up table opposite of each other.

"Tell me what happened," he asked.

"Well, I was walking down Bourbon Street," I said, as he began scribbling out the official police report, "when this guy came up to me and introduced himself, and then . . ."

"Go on," said the detective.

"And then . . . and then . . ."

And then -- like a brickbat to the dickcap it hit me: What the holly holy hellhole am I going to tell this guy? The reason I was even in this mess was for going on the Great Cocaine Expedition with Ponce De Le Eazy-E.

Every cop on the planet knows there are only two reasons why a white man goes strolling down Crack Avenue with a black man he just met on the street. He's there to either: A.) purchase narcotics. B.) purchase homo love.

"So, um, I continued, we started walking together and then we came to a dark, secluded side street and he . . . uh, pulled out his gun."

"Uh-huh, said the detective," lifting his brow. "And why exactly would you walk off to a dark, secluded street with someone you didnt know?"

"Oh, um, see, he wanted me to listen to his rap band on the Walkman, and I [needed coke badly] said they sounded like the Geto Boys and, well, that impressed him, because small town white boys don't usually know about hardcore Texas rap bands, which, uh, made me glad because there is a part of me who wants to be black, anyway, we talked about Bushwick Bill and . . ."

"But why, "he interrupted, "did you follow him?"

"Oh, well, see we were like, homies now, and he wanted to, um, [hold hands and make out] talk more about hip-hop, and Spike Lee, and other, you know, black people type stuff."

"But why couldn't you talk about black-people stuff on Bourbon Street?"

"Um, because, er . . ."

There it was: Painted into a corner by my own sordid brush.

The detective quietly stood up and left the room. He returned moments later with another officer.

"Tell Detective Michaels what you just told me."

After the laughter subsided, Detective Michaels cracked-wise. "So," he asked, "is black dick as big as they say it is?"

After the laughter subsided (again) they sent me to a bench, where sat also a heroin-addled, parricidal maniac handcuffed to the armrest.

They let me fester on the bench for three hours -- while the psychopath drooled and stewed in a noxious cloud of his own odors. Three hours -- while the detectives passed my suspicious story around the station like a dirty email joke forward. Three excruciating hours -- while officers shot gruesome, icy glares in my direction, as though I was the one who stuffed my parents into the wood chipper.

Then a call came on the scanner. They found my mugger. Shortly after, two beat cops sauntered into the station with a suspect: a tall, thin, black man wearing dungarees.

Only, my assailant was a short, fat black man in a yellow jump suit.

"Not him," I said.

The cops un-cuffed the suspect and apologized.

"No problem," he said, shaking their hands. "But he seethed at me as he exited through the giant wooden double doors, he knew I was the victim and he clearly loathed my existence.

As if I was the one who profiled him.

As if it was I who slapped on the handcuffs.

As if I was the CIA operate funneling crack into his neighborhood.

As if I had written Ice Ice Baby.

There we stood in a semi-circle: two detectives, two beat cops, the desk sergeant, and me -- the homosexual, crack-addict profiler.

"Can I go now?" I begged.

"Go," said the desk sergeant. "And get the hell out of our city."

I lurched through the tall, wooden doors and out onto the street.

It was approximately 4 a.m. Eight hours had passed since I first exposed my throat to the wolf with the red roses. Never have I needed a drink so badly.

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It is 4 a.m. and I am standing outside the New Orleans Police Department. I have just been through a terrible, eight-hour ordeal. Grateful to survive the mugging, I made a pact with The Lord. I promised The Lord that from here on in I was going to be more careful; that I would make wiser, more adult decisions; that I would learn how to say "no" more often.

Now, exhausted and disheveled, I wonder where one might find a beer.

Suddenly, the doors of the New Orleans Police Department swing open and out step eight sultry stripperhookers.

"By any chance," I squeak as they amble by, "are there any bars open this late?"

"Sweetie," says an older matriarchal-type ho, "you look like a rat who just drug hisself out of a glue trap. Just follow us."

Yea, I did follow you down your musky streets. Thus my promise to The Lord was shattered.

As we serpentine the grid of unlit streets, the matriarch explains how they had just bailed out their friend and colleague, who was busted for giving hundred dollar blowjobs in the back room of the strip club where they work. "We get raided from time to time," she said, "But rarely do they take anybody in. It took us all by surprise. We all decided to come down and bail her out."

Eventually, we come upon an unmarked building, open the door, and step inside.

The room has a dilapidated pool table on the left, a faded bar top in the back, and cocktail tables and couches in the center. It is filled entirely with provocative females -- chatting, boozing, smoking, arguing, lezzing, and in various other states of repose.

The Hallelujah Chorus echoes in my head upon realizing that I have just stumbled into the special, secret, stripperhooker social club.

Others might call it Heaven.

The group moves toward a partially occupied picnic-type table, where we all pull a chair. I choose a seat directly across from her.

She is vision of flawless, youthy beauty: hair spilling to her shoulders like tidewater glaciers, bountiful curves like the mossy banks of Mama Mississippi, and brilliant, heaving breasts: each one standing independent and proud -- like Copernicus and Galileo -- gazing toward the stars with wonder and defiance.

She is talking with another stripperhooker when I notice, though scarcely believe, that she is staring at me. She is rolling her eyes -- as if to say, Save me from these people, my sweet, valiant Prince.

"Yes," I answer with my eyes. "I will save you. Because in this life Lord, I say yes to stripperdamsels in distress."

"Wanna play Ms. Pac-Man?" I ask.

"Id love to," she squeals gratefully.

Yea, did our love throb like Ms. Pac-Man

After a few games, we find a corner booth and we hold hands across the table. The warmth of her warmthosity pours into my fingers; climbs up my arms, through my shoulders and neck, and simmers in my brainpan like a marinade of garlic butter and rose petals.

Others call it love.

Janine is only nineteen years old, but her soul is old as Isis. She is not like the other stripperhookers. She is an elite, exclusive, fully-stocked, high-class dominatrix who only dates once a week and charges 1500 dollars per session.

Though sadomasochism is not necessarily my thing, it does not matter. Our love is forged of precious metal.

We talk for hours. I speak of love -- eternal and unblemished. She speaks about her sacred suitcase of vibrating butt plugs.

Time drains from the clock like an open spigot. ...

Fast Forward: It is noon and we are standing at her doorstep. She allows a kiss, but only on the cheek. Dumfounded, I request admittance to her happy room. She declines.

"But my love burns like Satan's crabs," I plead.

She declines again.

There is upheaval inside my body. Sperm cells are rioting -- lighting bonfires in my veins, overturning organs, looting memory banks, marching on City Hall with picket signs saying things like:

"No means yes!"

"Ejaculate or emasculate!"

And,

"Blue Balls: what really killed the elephant man."

"No," she insists, perturbed.

"But these are not the times for saying no," I beg her. "These are the yes days."

"No."

Suddenly, I receive a vision: Mistress Janine is slapping a riding crop into her palm while I writhe beneath her, handcuffed and humiliated -- begging for the Briefcase O Butt Plugs.

It all seems so, so. ....vulgar.

"I can pay, I can pay," I whimper like the revolting dogman that I am. "Then will you flog ass until it bleeds maraschino and my mighty Mississippi spills over your mossy banks?"

"Goodbye," she says and shuts the door. . .

Epilogue

(Three days later):

Im sitting at a cocktail table watching Janine undulate around the stripper pole. She sees me and winks -- as if to say, "Didnt we live and love once, lifetimes ago?

I smile and half-wave back.

"Oh sure, Lord," I think, as Janine rolls her impeccable left nipple between her lightly oiled fingers, "I made a fool of myself. But fuck me if that wasnt most elegant, gorgeous, dominatrix stripperhooker who just winked in my direction.

That alone made it all worthwhile.

Ode to a dominatrix

Strike thou thorny switch
Upon thy pasty rump
O femme le domme
For you say howl
And I say how loud?