Tuesday, January 22, 2008

By Richard A. Webster

Another Friday night rolled around and the good-time kiddies of New Orleans were out doing what they do best, shooting and drinking and snorting and dropping drawers in half-closed bathroom stalls, making love with strangers who may or may not have been the same faces they faced in that same stall the previous weekend or the kin they traded presents with 15 years ago, under the soft glow of common relatives' Christmas trees.
You just never know.
That's the point.
And that's why I decided to slip into my white rabbit costume.
If that terrible recognition kicked in mid-coitus, my bent hare-ears would throw her off.
"No darlin', I ain't your cousin or ex-boyfriend. I'm just a lonely bunny lookin' for a few moments of comfort. It's terrifying. Out there. On the streets. Among THEM."
And she'll giggle and pinch my tail and all will be forgiven.
After all, what self-respecting drunken woman can deny the charms of a lost rabbit reeling with lust deep in the heart of New Orleans?
"Oh, you cute little bunny," she'll say, tweeking my nose as she tries to get into the heart of my furry white hide. "I had a feeling about you from the moment you hopped onto the stool next to mine," she'll coo.
That's right. Concentrate on that feeling baby. And don't look back. It's all natural. And I'm all real. A six-foot three-inch rabbit of love.

The pack of teenage, wannabe gangbangers sitting on the stoop across from my apartment eyed me when I threw open the gate in full cotton-tail glory.
I prepared myself for this when I made the fateful decision to hit the town in my pink and white Easter regalia.
They're not going to understand, I told myself.
But that was the point. They didn't understand. They were too stunned by the sight of a 34-year old journalist walking down the street in a head-to-toe rabbit-suit. It wasn't even Halloween or Mardi Gras. It was just a Friday.
"What's up," I said, waving a paw in their direction. "How y'all doing?"
They didn't respond.

Here comes Richie Cotton Tail,
hoppin' down the Quarter trail,
slippity, sloppity,
booze is on the way.

As I pranced down Esplanade Avenue towards the Marigny an old man on a bicycle snuck up behind me. I heard the crunch of his rubber wheels on the sidewalk but when I turned around he was in front of me.
And then he was to my left. And then around my back to my right.
I was being circled, hunted.
"What's the story old man?"
He dug his heels into the sidewalk, bringing his 1976 10-speed to a stop.
"I saw you in my garden the other day eating up all of my goddamn lettuce!"
I told him to fuck off.
I told him that I hated lettuce and hadn't been out in weeks.
I told him that this Friday night was a celebration, a special occasion, and that I only wore my rabbit costume on special occasions.
"You think I'd take the trouble to get all fancy just to sneak into your shitty garden to eat your wilted, brown lettuce? You got the wrong rabbit. I'm an alcoholic, not a vegetarian. I have thumbs and an ATM card. Why would I want to steal your lettuce?"
He stopped for a moment to think.
"Ok," he said. "I believe you. Why don't you let me buy you a drink? I feel bad for accusing you."

We took a seat at Cosimo's. I ordered a Tanq and Tonic and he ordered three shots of tequila, two for him and one for me.
"I gotta go to the bathroom," he said.
I bent the wires in my ears to properly express my failing sobriety.
When the old man emerged from the bathroom he was wearing a cow costume complete with an udder-sack attached to his stomach.
He slammed his hooves on the bar and screamed, "I need more tequila!"
The bartender fixed him up with two more shots.
"Here's to our death!" he shouted by way of a salute.
He struggled to cradle the first shot between his devil hands, but after 10 minutes he successfully lifted it to his lips and consumed the briny golden liquid.
He was making a scene.
"Here. Drink it out of these," I said, tossing a stack of straws into his two remaining shots. "Stop acting like a fool. You're embarrassing me. And why the hell are you dressed like that?"
He wrapped his prehensile lips around the straws, sucked the shot glass clean, gagged several times then righted himself and looked me in the eyes.
"Moooo," he said.
And that was how our conversation went for the next 20 or so minutes before someone asked, "What's your name?"
I turned to my left and a gorgeous blonde, no older than 24, was staring at me.
"My name is Falstaff," I said. "What's your name?"
She said something but I wasn't listening.
"What a great name. This is my friend Wooly," I said, motioning towards my bovine pal. "Don't let the nipples fool you, he's all eunich."
She laughed.
"Where's your costume?" I asked.
"Costume? Why would I have a costume?"
She ordered a shot of whiskey.
She smelled like whiskey and jasmine.
And tobacco.
I fell in love.
Fifteen minutes later I found myself in the bathroom stall with my Ms. Jasmine Whiskey. We were doing all the things a full-grown rabbit and the nubile daughter of a tobacco farmer would do when given some darkness and private time.
And then I heard the terrible moaning of a cow, the slaughterhouse chorus, the national anthem of Texas.
Wooly was lying in a pool of blood on the floor. A skinny crackhead was towering over him, waving a butcher's knife in the air.
I looked around the bar at the stunned and frozen faces of the drunks and barflies and bartenders.
"I'm hungry," the crackhead sputtered. "I haven't eaten in months."
He pointed the knife at me.
"This cow is mine," he said.
I looked down at Wooly. His eyes had rolled backwards into his skull. He was done for.
"Call the cops," I told the bartender.
She fixed me with an irritated look. "Why? It's just a fucking cow. Are you some sort of meat-hater? Just let the fucking crackhead have the cow. That's all he's after."
I felt a tug on my arm.
It was Ms. Jasmine Whiskey.
"Let's go back to the stall," she whispered.
I looked into her gorgeous blue eyes, heavy-lidded invitations to all of man's desires.
And then I looked to Wooly.
Just a cow.
Let the fucking crackhead have him.
"Ok darlin'," I said. "No sense fighting who we are."
She tasted like desire.
"You taste like dusk," I said.
She threw me a modest, half-smile.
"I'm just a doe," she said.