A Social and Emotional Ecotone on Carnival Sunday

I woke up at around 4 a.m. this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep so I figured I’d head over to the Square and reserve myself a good spot.

I have often described this time as an ecotone, a layering between two different social and emotional environments. One is the still awake, still spirited visitors slowly cascading away. The other is the emerging, groggy working people who are beginning their day. These two layers converge in the French Quarter between the hours of 4 a.m. and 6 a.m.

The cascaders can often be classified into three categories: the zombies, the vampires and the werewolves. The zombies are overindulged, drooling, passed out, lifeless, brainless sacks staggering around the Square. The werewolves are the loud, obnoxious, angry men and women who fight each other a lot of times. The vampires are the quiet, barely noticed spirits in the shadows.

The emerging people are of course the humans. The zombies want to eat their brains. The werewolves want to tear them apart and the vampires want to suck their blood. We stick together pretty much.

This morning’s ecotone was particularly interesting because yesterday was of course Carnival Saturday. That and the bad wind and rain made everything an x-factor. The cascaders far outnumbered the emergers.

I was on the bridge when I saw the first instance worthy of remark. There on the GNO was a bridge cop questioning a man in his late 20s in a Santa Claus suit. There was no car (sleigh?) around. Just the cop with his lights on and a guy dressed as St. Nick leaning against the rail. Potential jumper? A guy trapped on the West Bank who tried to walk home? What of the suit? Don’t know.

I arrived at the Square and was chatting with friends and observed a couple taking turns fighting and hugging, fighting and hugging. Werewolves.

A few minutes later, four girls came up on us. Three were human, one was a tall zombie. Two of the girls were holding the zombie up with her arms around their shoulders and were basically dragging it along. It had a hood pulled up over its face and long braids coming out. I couldn’t see its face.

“Do you know where North Rampart is?” they asked.

“Well Rampart is like five blocks that way…” I said.

“Five blocks? Damn!” they said, distressed that they would have to tote the zombie that far.

“…but yall said North Rampart and that is five blocks up and perhaps seven or so down from that. Where on North Rampart are you guys going?”

They didn’t know the cross street. It could have been North Rampart and Congress for all they knew. This entire conversation took place with the zombie hunched on their shoulders like luggage. I thought for a moment perhaps I could help by giving them a ride over to North Rampart in my truck. Then I quickly thought against it.

They rounded the corner at St. Ann and Decatur and then a few minutes later, two of them came back around.

“Hey, what happened?” I asked.

“We left her with her friend. We don’t know her. We just saved her at the bar because she was tumbling around and some guys were pulling on her to come with them,” one of them said.

I looked down St. Ann and saw the zombie on one of the benches with her friend. I started setting back up and looked down their again and it was just the zombie. No friend. Then I checked Decatur and saw the friend several blocks down walking away. The zombie got ditched?

Robert and I walked down there and found the zombie hunched over on the bench and not answering any questions. With no friends, no ride and no conciousness, what was the zombie going to do? What if the guys who pulled her in the bar were still around? What if someone like them was? Vampires were everywhere. So, as I have done a few times now, I called EMS. I wasn’t entirely sure if it was the right call but the only other option would be to have just walked away. This girl was not answering any of our questions and was passed out on a bench in Jackson Square during Mardi Gras.

They asked me if she was breathing and I said, “I think so” and they asked me to be sure so I did. They asked me all sorts of questions about her and told me to stay with her until the ambulance got there.

It didn’t take long for them to get thereand when they got their gloves on and started asking her questions with some sort of authority (not like I was doing) she suddenly found her energy. I walked away for a second and when I walked back over, they had her in the ambulance.

There was also a group of men gathered in a prayer circle taking place a few yards away. Were they praying for the zombie? Actually no. Just praying in general.

Then, fuck, the zombie’s friend showed back up with the car. Turns out she wasn’t ditching her, she just didn’t want to drag her ass around anymore. The friend talked the EMS folks into lettinh her take the zombie and they walked off together. I apologized and said I didn’t know she was coming back.

So they have a great story to tell now. “Remember when you were so fucked up I left you on the bench and you got the ambulance called on you?”

I was done setting up so I headed home. I didn’t get far before I happened on an accident. Two young girls, bleary eyed and beaded were outside a smashed little sports car with it’s bumper in the middle of the road were involved with a middle-aged woman in a van who looked like she was heading in to work. I stopped and asked if everyone was okay and they were all on their phones and said they were alright so I kept going.

Getting off the bridge on my way back to Algiers, I saw a man in a pressed suit holding a leather-covered bible with his wife and her Sunday best standing on the corner looking immaculate among all the NOMTOC trash.