stoopbeck

Because it's Mardi Gras still, and I am feeling homesick for something that no longer really exists, and because I have a test tomorrow and I don't feel like studying...

I am seven years old.

I have had chicken pox for the last two weeks, so I've experienced an enforced seclusion from my friends and from school. Being stuck inside our new house in bed isn't too much of a problem, though, because not only has my cat just had kittens, but I've been introduced to what will become one of my favorite books: Alice in Wonderland.

Mom comes into my room to tell me that tonight we're going to a parade.

I am excited because it is the first time I've been allowed outside to do something since getting sick. I'm still pockmarked and itchy, but not contagious anymore. Mom tells me to wrap up warmly, because tonight it's achingly cold outside for New Orleans. Since I have been contagious, sick, and unsightly, I've missed out on my favorite early parades and I am painfully aware that I only have a week or two more until Mardi Gras, and then all the parades will be over.

We bundle up, pack into Emerald, our bright-red car (guess who named her?) and head out into the early evening. I bounce happily in the back seat, imagining that all of the cars I can see are on their way to the same parade, planning what I will do with my loot once I have it, imagining how the floats will look.

Once we are there, I can't contain my excitement. I am impatient for the parade to begin, for the floats, the beads, the bands, the men on horses, the flambeaux. I pester my parents: "Will they be here soon? How long? How much time now? I can't hear them yet. How long?"

My father tells me to count to a thousand, and I'll be able to hear them coming. I count, but due to my complete lack of understanding of the way the numbers past one hundred work, I count to a hundred, and then count 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 200, 201, 202... 209, 300, 301... and so forth, making quick work of the required thousand count. I am corrected in my poor math skills, and as a diversion am given money for Snap'n'Pops, little twists of white paper that explode with a visible flash and an audible snap that keep me occupied for ten minutes. The sandpaper they come in keeps me occupied for another ten.

And then I can hear the bands.

Just faintly, like the beating of some huge, terribly disorganized yet jubilant heart-- the bands.

We begin to line up at the portable fences, my parents securing us a place right at the front. I tell my parents that I am a big girl, so I can stand on my own, and so I do-- peering over the fence, secure in the knowledge that--should my legs get tired-- I can spend the rest of the parade on my father's shoulders, the ideal perch from which to catch armfuls of beads and other swag.

The police cars drive down the street, and I am so excited I bite my tongue-- the police cars! And after them... the floats. Garish, gaudy, with the outlandish quality of something seen in a fever dream, the floats. Masked laughing men throw down handfuls of beads. Sometimes they tease, pretending to throw a strand, and then snatching it back. I scream the time-honored war cry of the experienced bead hunter: "Hey, throw me sumthin', mister!" They do.

And then the first of the bands. Some are professional bands, some are high school bands, some are junior high or lower. This is a junior high school band, unimaginably older than me, wearing fantastic uniforms. They dance as they play. They are so loud my heart beats to their rhythm. On the sides walk the chaperones, mothers or fathers or big brothers. My parents hand them some of our beads we've won. They beam at my family, then speed-walk on, watching their children perform with pride, shouting school slogans.

The police on horses pass by. One of them throws me doubloons. They are red and gold and green, and are stamped with the name of the parade. It is getting darker now, almost nighttime, but I can still see how they glimmer in the streetlight.

And then come the flambeaux carriers. They are my favorite. Smiling soot-covered men, rags around their faces, twirl flames--dancing, making their own beat, picking out their own rhythm from the rhythm-saturated air. I breathe deeply of the smoke. The light gutters from the flambeaux, making shadows race and fall and climb and the people in the crowd throw money to the flambeaux-men, nickels and quarters and dollars. I throw one of my precious doubloons, and the flambeaux-man nearest to me swoops down without breaking step and scoops it up, bows to me, smiling, and his teeth glint in the dark and smoky air.

Another float looms out of the flambeaux-induced fog. Spectral mist-wreathed figures dance in the rigging, throw beads, shout to friends, are unrecognizable as human in their garish colors and skull-like masks, eyes only black hollows, face a painted smile. "Throw me sumthin', mister!" They do.

Another band, a float or two more, and then it's over. My mother and father hold my hands, keeping me safe from the crowd of people already departing, unaware that, leaving now, they miss the other best part aside from the flambeaux-- the street-sweepers-- giant trucks that spray the street with water, then scrape all the trash, the beads, the candy, the cups, the doubloons from the street. There is something so undeniably final about them, about the debris and detritus they sweep up. I imagine that they stockpile it until next year, when the people throw the recycled beads and cups off the floats, where they get swept up again in an endless cycle.

I am tired, my arms hurt, my neck is weighed down by so many beads it's hard to stand straight. I check to make sure doubloons are still in my fist, hand my cups to my mother for safekeeping, ask her about the bear I caught, and am reassured by the sight of it tucked into her pocket. The air is full of smoke and people smells and beer and cotton candy, and I want to spend forever looking at my treasures, and we're on our way back to our car now, manuvering deftly through the swell of humanity surrounding us.

I fall asleep in the back seat, still clutching my doubloons.