21 Dollar Saturday

Saturday, I was joined at the Lilly Pad by Jacob, who had arrived at Sacred Heart along with a group of 5 other individuals, all of whom had been delivered by 2 vehicles. These "friends" of Jacob, I had to take at face value, as having been vetted by him, and I loosely followed the axiom of "any friend of Jacob is a friend of mine." The group were very polite and orderly, and shook my hand as I was introduced to them each in turn. I recognized one of them as being Hunter, from having met him before, and the same for Doug, whom I met once about 4 years ago, and remembered because of his having hallucinated on the acid that we had all dropped, that he was laying at the bottom of a large aquarium that the room he was in, had turned into. He had explained this to Jacob and I, after we had gone to check upon him, where he lay on his back, holding his breath and making swimming motions. The group of them, comprised of Hunter, Doug, a guy called "Rizzo," and a couple others, whose names I forget, were coming along with the intention of surfing Bourbon Street, ostensibly to hook up with women of some kind. These were very possibly young men (in their early 20's) who spent most of their lives staring at the screens of their phones. Their attention spans were put on display, after we had gotten to the street car stop and Hunter lamented that he was in danger of dying of boredom if the street car were to take more than a few minutes to arrive. Everything that I said to any of them, after the auspicious introductions, which went according to basic tradition, and made me think they may have been socialized through the channels of perhaps a church group or a bible study, was met with a deer in headlights stare, as if whatever I said had no counterpart in cyberspace and they were at a loss for an appropriate emoji or catch phrase to respond with. The typical "reply" to any light banter that I might have offered was to turn away from me without a word, or any facial expression which might have indicated that they at least had understood what I was trying to say.. One of the last interactions I had with any of them, before a group policy of ignoring me was put into action, was when I had looked down the trolley tracks and seen the headlight of a car that had made the turn onto Canal Street at Carrollton Street, a half mile away, and would be arriving in about 5 minutes. "I can see the light," I remarked, as a way of imparting the good news that our wait would not be much longer. "That's not good," said Hunter, which seemed to be a spiritually based comment. So, I added, for good measure: "The light only thrives in darkness.." and then was reminded of the "Satanic" bible that I once had, written by Anton Levey (sp?) and how that particular text was in large part just the inverse of the "holy" bible, with it's author in many cases having just taken the tradition Christian teachings and flipped them upside-down so that his viewpoint would be something like "Darkness is much more enjoyable against a backdrop of light," or something; I said... Hunter looked at me as if searching for a button that he could click on, in order to close a window and make me dissapear. After a couple seconds of this, he merely turned his back on me and walked a few feet away; a distance that he maintained for the rest of the time that I found myself in his company. 

A souvenir from "The Hunt."

This went on until such a time that Jacob and I had reached the Lilly Pad, where it was agreed that we would all smoke off of a THC vaporizor (similar to the device that landed Brittany Griner, the basketball player in a Russian prison for "9 years") and then the 4 or 5 of them would go off to seek adventure along the length of Bourbon Street, while Jacob and I stayed there and busked. 

Which we did, it was just one of those 21 dollar nights*; a far cry from the $169 bucks that Jacob and I split just a couple months ago.

"The Drunk Guy Who Sings Along, Out of Tune, For a Few Songs And Then Walks Off, Without Leaving A Tip" -that character- showed up and blocked the tip jar for about 20 minutes at one point and, while it was overall a fun night for at least myself; it wasn't very much for profit.

*I owe Jacob a couple bucks after discovering a few loose ones in the jar that I hadn't remembered going in there