Sincerely,
Avery Bartholomew Pendleton
• • •
Meanwhile, deep in the heart of the French Quarter, Ziggy ambled through the crowds of tourists and late-night revealers. He’d been looking to find a smoke shop where he might procure some local paraphernalia. It wasn’t going well. He was lost. Since he was lost, Ziggy decided to drop some low-grade acid. Then it wouldn’t matter where he was going; he’d already be there. It was a technique Ziggy used when he couldn’t find what he was looking for. It also was a technique with decidedly mixed results, but Ziggy believed strongly in karma. Sooner or later it had to work. Or maybe it wouldn’t — it didn’t really matter, since he’d be high as a kite. Besides, it helped to pass the time and the chaos of the French Quarter, which was really starting to freak the little guy out. This was no place for the sober. Within a few minutes, Ziggy began to feel the drug kick in, and it kicked in with a vengeance. That was the number-one problem with pharmaceuticals manufactured in bathtubs; their potency and efficacy was suspect at best. Ziggy struggled to maintain his balance as he wove his way down the middle of the bustling street. Coming to a corner, he noticed the street signs at the intersection of Bourbon and Toulouse.
“Two louse?” a confused Ziggy mumbled as he immediately swatted away some imaginary lice crawling up the back of his neck. While he danced and spun in the middle of the street, a passing tourist threw some spare change at his feet. Positive reinforcement always motivated the drugged-out hippy. Ziggy kept up his twirling and contorting as a small crowd began to gather. He spun and twisted to the sounds of loud music pouring out of a nearby club. The LSD was really rolling now. Ziggy began to blurt out nonsense. He couldn’t control himself.
“Vegan pancakes!” he cried out as he threw his arms over his head and ran in place, his skinny legs pumping up and down as fast as they could go. “Weasels, man! No, don’t tell them!” he cried as he clamped his hands over his mouth. People in the crowd began to throw more money at his feet. Soon, Ziggy was pirouetting around a small pile of bills and coins like some kind of skinny, tie-dyed shaman with a neck like a loose stack of dimes and buggy whips for arms. “Moon fever, man. Get it, get it, get it.” Ziggy suddenly froze in place. “Hovercraft!” he screamed as he extended his arms above his head before returning to bouncing around the money again. The crowd was clapping and cheering him on. Women threw strands of colored beads at him. He batted them out of the air like they were rainbow-colored flying serpents. After what seemed like hours of ranting and spinning to Ziggy, he realized he was exhausted. Suddenly, he collapsed to the street, panting and drooling. Sensing the show was over, the crowd began to disperse. Ziggy lay in the middle of the street for few minutes before he got his wind back. On his hands and knees, Ziggy scraped up his earnings and put on the beads.
“Jewels!” Ziggy said as he admired his new possessions. Lights from the neon signs and nearby street lamps glittered off the purple, green, and gold strands. “My jewels!” Ziggy clutched them tightly to his chest. He noticed some abandoned beads in the gutter. He crawled over to examine them closer. Peering from side to side to make sure no one was watching, he quickly snatched them up from the muck and cradled them in his arms. Looking around again to make sure the coast was clear, he slipped them around his neck. “Mine!” he said as his teeth began to involuntarily chatter. “Leave now!” he yelled as he began to crawl down the street, dodging the numerous partiers. Left, right, and left again, he wove through the crowd of people, who were yelling and laughing as he shuffled on all fours. Trying to avoid the fray, Ziggy splayed himself on the ground and attempted to breaststroke Bourbon Street. From past experience, he knew that in treacherous times like these it was best to stay low, very low. Low enough that one had to look up to see a worm shit. “Mother of, like, God!” Ziggy screamed as he looked over his shoulder and saw a giant purple, gold, and green flying worm preparing to crap on him.
“Drowned rat,” a passerby yelled as he poured the bright red backwash of his hurricane cocktail on the slithering hippy. Ziggy rolled onto his back and flashed his fangs at the man.
“Squeak!” he screamed in an ear-splitting screech as the bully walked away with his girl in his arms. Quickly rolling back on his stomach, Ziggy spied another abandoned string of beads in the muck of the street. Glorious beads! Gleaming beads. Beads of beauty, of wonder, beads that no one possessed. “Mine, me, mine!” He grabbed them and put them on, licking them furiously to be certain they were clean. Ziggy crawled for a block and a half, ignoring the catcalls and jeers of revelers making fun of the tie-dyed, rodent-like man sniffing his way along the gutters of the French Quarter. By now, Ziggy was really starting to freak out. Like, seriously in the weeds, man. The frenetic flashing lights of the clubs and bars refracted like maniacal kaleidoscopes to the poor man. Loud, pounding music thumped in his head like a kettledrum from hell, making his eyeballs spasm. Screaming people passed him, roaring at the top of their lungs like bloodthirsty tigers as their faces melted away to reveal horrific laughing skulls. This was no place for amateurs, especially on hallucinogenics. Luckily, Ziggy wasn’t a greenhorn when it came to these sorts of matters. Somewhere, down deep, really deep, he knew what he needed to do. He needed to cool off. Lie low. Let the heat blow over. The only problem was, at the moment he really couldn’t speak. But he could crawl. So he did.
There were numerous highly regarded and extremely reputable companies that provided tours of historic New Orleans and the French Quarter. Some by bus, some by car, others on bicycle. Very few offered tours via crawling. More should. It really highlights the foundation of the city, or at least, that’s what Ziggy thought as he crawled along the dirty black pavement of Bourbon Street. You can really tell a lot about the soul of a city by what it keeps in its gutters. Ziggy examined all of it and kept most of it. Coins, stray beads, red-stained drinking straws, and old soggy Band-Aids — Ziggy sifted through them all. He hoarded away the best, but only after licking them clean, just to be safe. Ahead, spinning colors grabbed his attention. They whirled like multihued ballerinas viewed from overhead. It was a wall of spinning rainbows. Ziggy needed them. Ziggy must possess them.