by Kenneth Womack.
I have magical powers.
I can feel them—even now—quickening inside of me as I stand here, taut and immobile, amongst the moveable throng of Jackson Square.
Some 20 yards away, within the cast-iron fence that surrounds the park, sits the famous statue of General Andrew Jackson, forever on horseback, reviewing his troops before the final, decisive Battle of New Orleans that brought the War of 1812 to its heroic close. Years later, after a very different Battle of New Orleans in 1862, Union General Benjamin “Beast” Butler would order the inscription of the stirring words, the union must and shall be preserved, on the statue’s plinth.
But that’s another story.
It would literally take a team of Union soldiers, and then some, to force me to even glance, much less shift my body, northwesterly as the crow flies, in General Jackson’s direction. My shoulders are frozen in time and space, my face transfixed, my lips unsmiling, my eyes staring straight ahead at the embankment as the tourists mill about Decatur Street, trolling for souvenirs, alighting the horse and buggies that will ferry them to the uptown restaurants, sniffing the beignets just up the street at Café du Monde.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a disheveled, hard-looking blonde lumbering into view, no doubt having wandered over from Bourbon Street, a red sippy cup still cradled in her drunken hands. She may be a bit wobbly on her feet, but there is little doubt about her mission: as she inches ever closer, she is staring boldly at my take.
Will she make a move on the coonskin cap, with its motley collection of loose change and crumpled-up dollar bills, that rests near the hem of my patina-tinted gown? Or is she testing me, like everyone else—hoping to see if I will interrupt my perfect, stonelike posture to shoo her away?
But it’s nothing of the sort really.
As she sidles up to my right, I can see her gingerly removing a dollar from her soiled pants pocket. She is teetering above my coonskin cap now, counting out four quarters.
Ladies and gentlemen, the French Quarter’s only honest drunk has made her first appearance of the new millennium, and she is making change, rather audaciously, from my take. And in broad daylight, no less.
I might as well be an atm machine.
I’ve seen it all before here at the corner of St. Peter and Decatur. Just yesterday, New Orleans’ finest wrestled a pickpocket to the ground behind me. I could feel their billy clubs graze the backs of my legs as they handcuffed him, holding him prone against the pavement and waiting for reinforcements from the Canal Street station.
Throughout the entire fracas, I didn’t so much as move an inch. I never made a sound, never revealed a thing. I was as frozen and still as Old Hickory over there.
Just like I’m frozen stiff right now. Eyes dead ahead, my body rigid, unmoving. I am holding my telltale torch aloft in my right hand, while clutching the famous tablet, boldly inscribed with American history’s most cherished date—july iv mdcclxxvi—against my torso with the other. My ensemble is completed by my crown—lightweight, of course—with its seven rays spiking outwardly from the direction of my head. And let’s not forget my wooden, unflinching face—masked, as it is, by the patina-colored stage makeup that Nadia applied a few hours ago over at Royal Street Rags.
“It’s the Statue of Liberty, mom!” a youngster suddenly cries out to my right, his voice booming from the direction of St. Peter Street. He sounds vaguely Southern—North Carolina perhaps?
It takes everything I have, and then some, to keep a straight face. From allowing myself to break into a smile. Feeling my lips beginning to crinkle ever so slightly around the edges, I revert to my emergency, no-holds barred, trying-to-keep-it-all-together tactic.
Long division.
I set things into motion by taking a mental count of the hatwear in my purview. Naturally, I’m going to need a dividend to make this all work.
There’s the shoeshine boy with the Saints cap in the foreground—and six, make that seven, white-capped frat guys loitering nearby, trying to decide, no doubt, if it’s too early to begin trolling Bourbon Street. It’s never too early, fellas. You’re in the Big Easy now. Then there’s the regulation hat-wearing beat cop standing on the Decatur Street curb, his attention focused on a bikini-clad coed blithely staring into the windows of the House of Voodoo.
And let’s not forget my latest customer, who is standing right in front of me now, mesmerized by the opportunity to be gawking at an honest-to-goodness living statue in the flesh. He looks to be about seven-years-old, and he’s wearing—Bingo—a Carolina Panthers cap, which makes a grand total of ten. Strike that—eleven, counting the backwards baseball cap on the head of my drunk, who seems preoccupied by the presence of the beat cop. She must be really tanked.
And now for my divisor. Let’s see what we have here.
Contestant Number One is a street artist stationed just outside the perimeter of St. Louis Cathedral’s wrought-iron fence. Sitting beneath a multicolored umbrella, he is plying away on a garish, nighttime portrait of one of the balconied-homes on Chartres Street. A crowd of tourists watches him as he works his magic. His wares, various street scenes from around the Quarter, are arrayed on the fence behind him. And his coffee cup announces him to be the world’s number-one dad. But the numeral one won’t do for our purposes here. As factorials go, it divides far too smoothly into everything—including itself. Sorry, Number One.
Scanning back towards the embankment, I spot Contestant Number Two, a white-smocked dough-roller from Café du Monde. His arms—everything, even his neck and forehead—are covered in flour. He’s carrying a Styrofoam coffee cup from Baskin-Robbins. With all of that chicory brewing where he works, he goes up the street for 31 flavors? What a traitor.
But 31 won’t get it done for this particular game. It would take the rest of my shift, and then some, to handle the remainder. Close, but no cigar.
Ah, but what have we here? Contestant Number Three is a hippie handing out restaurant coupons to passersby on the corner. As irony would have it, he’s wearing an ancient Three Dog Night t-shirt. That’s too good a find to pass up. Talk about your joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea. It would be a slap in the face of rock-and-roll history to choose otherwise.
The rudiments of my equation are set. Eleven caps divided by Three Dog Night. Three into eleven produces a factor of three. But that’s only the beginning, really, because now we get to the heart of my little diversion: we need to compute the remainder.
The Carolina Kid is still staring at me, caught up in the wonder of the moment. Other tourists are joining him and his mother now—waiting, just waiting to see if I so much as flinch. Even the beat cop is watching now, probably hoping for me to crack. To give an inch and break the illusion. I am keenly aware that any perceptible movement would kill the mystery—a stray eyelash, the slightest quiver of a lip.
With long division, I only require myself to carry out the remainder for two places. Our factor of three, multiplied by Three Dog Night, gives us nine. Eleven caps less nine leaves two. Dropping a zero from the dividend gives us 20, and three goes into 20 a total of six times. Which gives us a quotient, after dropping another zero, of 3.66. Perhaps one isn’t the loneliest number after all?
So goes the logic and order of mathematics.
Meanwhile, back in Jackson Square, the boy’s stocky, emotionless mother dutifully hands him a dollar from her purse. After staring at it for a moment, he carefully deposits the bill into my coonskin cap. And with that, another satisfied customer goes on his way, trailing his mom, somewhat reluctantly, in the direction of the pedestrian mall up the street.
Crisis averted. For now.
Beneath the folds of my robes, I am wearing next to nothing. You would be, too, given the stifling humidity around here, not to mention the afternoon sun, which is slowly but surely making its way behind the Cathedral. Externally, I am a vision in patina, from the tip of my torch to my slippers. But underneath, I am wearing the flimsiest of white shorts and a tank. Even still, I can already feel the sweat gathering within the fabric of my outfit, dripping down my upraised arm beneath my robe, tickling me, ever so slightly, as it mingles with the downy hairs along my arm. I may need to bring out some more long division—and soon.
There are still a few tourists in my general vicinity, wondering, no doubt, how long I’ll be able to keep this up. Between their watchful eyes and the sweat dripping down my arm, I’ve got to mix things up before disaster strikes. It’s time to throw them off balance with a little parlor trick of the trade.
With all of the finesse that I can reasonably muster, I take one giant step forward. Imagine the smooth, mechanical moves of a ’70s kid doing “The Robot,” and you get the picture. With my eyes still focused on the embankment, I make a ninety-degree turn to my right. With my back to General Jackson, I take one step backward, leaving me parallel with my coonskin cap, which now rests to the left of my slippers.
And I am frozen in time once more.
Mercifully, it all comes off without a hitch, and several of the tourists heave an audible sigh. A few even break out in applause. Now that I’ve pierced the veil, a number of them begin to make their exit, with most of the tourists leaving their appreciation in my cap.
“Let’s hear it for Lady Liberty,” says the beat cop, squinting his eyes against the receding sun. We’ve all got to do our part, I guess. There’s no denying that the tourist trade is finally starting to pick up again—slowly but surely. Since the Big One.
Another smattering of applause ensues and, happily, my coonskin cap grows a little bit heavier.
Down here, in our Cajun Magic Kingdom, I’m the Statue of Liberty. La Liberté éclairant le monde. But uptown, where the mold and the mildew still reign supreme, I go by Tiffany Proulx, which sounds like Peru, only without the pesky e inside.
Most people call me Tiff, as in a fight, albeit a very small one. More like a squabble. A misunderstanding that’s bound to sort itself out. Just give it a little time is all.
If you stand here long enough amidst the traveling swarm of the French Quarter, the noise and the mayhem begin to sort themselves out. It reminds me of the quadraphonic sound system that my Daddy longed for back in the 1970s. Four channels of discrete musical components coming together in a seamless, harmonic whole. They call it Surround Sound now, but you get the picture.
Standing here, perfectly still amongst the shucking and jiving tourists, I can make out the Dixieland Band pumping away in front of the Cathedral. “When the Saints Go Marching In” echoes on in steady, unabated rotation. As always. In nola, we give the people what they want.
To the rear—towards Café du Monde—a street hustler loudly plies his trade. “’Round and ’round,” he calls out. “’Round and ’round.” He is shuffling a trio of seashells on top of a cardboard box to the frustration and delight of the bystanders, who are desperate to sort a tiny pea out of thin air. The house always wins, folks, you hear?
In the right foreground, a pair of teenagers argues with a salesman in a souvenir stand over the authenticity of a pair of Ray-Bans.
“Dude, those aren’t even real,” one of them sneers. “How much?” the other one adds, somewhat sheepishly. Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends.
But then I feel it. The chill. In the left foreground, towards the river. A voice, echoing faintly from the past. Falling timbers and broken wings. Wet, broken wings.
“I’m bee-lining for Poydras. Keep your shirt on,” it says. He says. All cool and confident—an unearned confidence with a touch of urgency around the edges.
It’s the sound, more than anything else. The words are almost beside the point. But they are words just the same.
I can feel my skin growing cold, the blood rushing away from my head as I fight to steady myself against the sway. I’ll be damned if I’m going to give in now.
No one—nobody—can touch me here. In the place where my magical powers achieve their greatest potency. Where I can be superhuman, if only for a little while.
Standing on my invisible pedestal, I can feel my body regaining its natural heat. My center of gravity resettling itself against the routine havoc of the streetscape.
As if it never really happened at all.
But that’s what it’s like, of course, when your entire existence is founded upon subterfuge. Upon being as sly and quiet as a church mouse. And yet, at the same time, being as open and obvious—even more open and obvious, if that’s possible—than anyone else around.
Like I said before, I have magical powers.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t have any illusions. There’s no way that I’m faster than a speeding bullet, and I don’t spin any webs to speak of. But when it comes to stealth and eavesdropping, then I’m your angel. I am second to none.