Green in Judgement Cold in Blood book signing

The book signing was a huge success, not only did we sell every single author signed edition of the novel, but we also have several on back order now. I'd like to thank everyone who was able to attend, and especially those who purchased a novel.

The Brothers Fox

Every now and then one meets a person or persons who are so rare, the mere mention of their names, or sighting of that person, evokes a unique emotion inside of them. For example, when one meets a glamorous movie star, they generally wind up acting like a fool, gushing inanities in their direction, hoping to be acknowledged by the celebrity. Same thing happens with well-known politicians and athletes. Contrarily, if one meets a particularly odious criminal, they are immediately struck with a paralyzing fear and speak only in somber, hushed tones.

            So it was with the Fox Brothers. Martin Behrman and J. T. Fox lived in my section of town during my formative years. I have no idea what the initials J. T. stood for, but Martin Behrman was named for a short pudgy man, who was mayor of New Orleans in the early 20^th century. Presumably, Behrman Fox’s parents knew or liked the mayor and named one of their newborn twins after him. Yes, they were twins; and no twins I have ever known acted as they did. For instance, if any mother caught her child committing an adolescent misdemeanor, her immediate admonition would be, “Don’t ever do that again. Do you want to grow up like the Fox Brothers?” That should tell you they were not held in the highest esteem by the mothers of my neighborhood. The fathers didn’t particularly like them either, for that matter.

            They were both ugly creatures; physically and morally. When, later in life, I was reading Charles Dickins’ Oliver Twist, I laughed to myself realizing Fagin was replicated not once, but twice, in the form of the Brothers Fox. They spoke in the heaviest of New Orleans accents, generally shaded their mouths with their hands and flicked their eyes from side to side in a conspiratorial manner. It may have been to disguise their teeth, which began rotting at an early age, lending an even more sinister look to those boys. With their dark teeth, their pocked faces, and nasty red hair piled on top of their heads like well-used mops, the Fox Brothers could immerge as the arch-villains of any nineteenth century novel.

            Instead, they chose to live near me, and I was terrified of them. They were older than my friends and me, and a lot stronger, as evidenced by their tall frames and wiry torsos. I will not regale the reader with stories of their criminal behavior, suffice it to say, they spent a great deal of their adult life, either dodging incarceration, or participating in it.

            The one story I will relate, which I think best exemplifies the personalities of the twins, is as follows. About five or six miles up river from my community, was a home for boys who were abused by their guardians or parents, or were neglected and had no place to live, or were simply delinquent youths, abandoned by everyone. The Catholic Church named this place Hope Haven; as if anyone there had any hope at all, or viewed it as their personal haven.             

            The building was a Spanish Colonial Revival mansion which, from the outside looked impressive. Once inside, the austere walls and open rooms left much to be desired. The only décor was a faded picture of Jesus hanging on the cross and prominently displayed at the entrance. One of the delinquent kids residing there told me, “The cross hanging was going to happen to him if he didn’t behave.” They slept in dormitory rooms. One of those rooms, the institutional room, slept forty or fifty boys, robbing them of any privacy.

            We played a game of baseball against the inmates of Hope Haven and the game ended with us in a huge brawl over whether or not one of my teammates was out or safe at second base. We all came home with bloody noses that day, as we lost both the game and the post game fistfight.

            But the Fox Brothers were undeterred by the violent reputation of the boys at Hope Haven. One night, they crept across the wide expanse from the street to the basement of the main building, where the good brothers of the Salesians of Saint John Bosco had stored all the musical instruments used at the school. The Fox Brothers had located their henhouse, and in they plunged. They were there to steal the musical instruments and steal them they did. Martin Behrman was seen creeping across the front lawn with a clarinet tucked under one arm and a trumpet under the other. J. T. was trying to run with his arm hooked through a tuba and drum sticks protruding from his back pocket.

            I was sitting at a local hangout for teenagers, called Da Wabbit, probably regaling them about my romantic failure with the town’s punchboard, when an off-duty police officer entered the front door. “Ya aughta see what them Fox Brother done now,” he said to the man behind the counter. “Them crazy bastards stole instruments from the Hope Haven and are playin’ um on toppa-da bridge.”

            That was enough for my friends and me. We jumped in someone’s car, and sped off to see the Fox Brothers playing musical instruments they had stolen from a delinquent boys’ home, on top of a bridge, in the middle of nowhere. In those days there was only one bridge the cop could have been talking about, and it was a vertical lift span drawbridge across the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway located in Belle Chasse, Louisiana. One had to climb several hundred feet to get to the top.

            About twenty minutes later we arrived at the bridge and a crowd had begun to gather; mostly other teenagers who were there for the show. On a dare, I once climbed to the top of the drawbridge, and believe me, I was one tired puppy when I got there. How those Foxes got to the bridge top, packing all those instruments, is a testament to their leg strength and endurance. Behrman was blowing his trumpet and J. T. was oomphing his tuba so you could hear it for miles away.

            We watched as an overweight and out of shape policeman attempted to climb up the stairs to the top. He quit about half way up, saying, “Screw this. They have to come down sometime.”

            We all left about two hours later with the unrepentant Foxes still blasting away on their instruments. I heard later, as they climbed down into the waiting arms of the law, they were hit with an initial question. “Why did you steal those instruments?”

            “What instruments?” said the incredulous Foxes. They had left the instruments on top the bridge and assumed the police had no evidence against them and certainly were not willing to climb up to get some.

            Years later, while practicing law in the City of New Orleans, my secretary buzzed through on the intercom. “There’s a man here to see you.”

            “Who is it?” I asked.

            “He won’t give me his name. He said he knows you and wants to talk with you.”

            “Send him in.” My curiosity got the better of me.

            In sauntered this little, bent, wizened old guy with dirty gray hair, pale face, and a malevolent look that crept out from behind his sneer. “Whereyat, Peter?” he said, with his accent pegging his upbringing.

            “Who are you?”

            “I’m Boiman, man. Morton Boiman Fox,” he repeated, acting as though he couldn’t believe I didn’t remember him.

            I can’t recall what his legal problem was, but the fear that man struck my heart as a kid had evaporated. Father Time had extracted a grave revenge on the Brothers Fox. 

Summer Jobs

Summer Jobs

            Golden spoon? What’s that? In my circle, the only golden spoon was a shovel, and you dug with it. And you dug, and dug, and dug until either the shovel broke or your lower back broke. Few in my neighborhood had the luxury of wiling away our summers at the beach or lounging about at a parents second home in the country.

            My first paying job was a paper-route delivery boy at age fourteen. You got up at five o’clock in the morning, rode your bicycle to the distribution center, picked up your papers, and shoved them into the basket located on your handlebars. Then you delivered them to the customer, got home at seven, bathed, and prepared to go to school.

            I always had some form of job. At a very early age, my sister and I were assigned various cleaning assignments around the house we had to complete each day, both before and after school. However, several jobs I had will forever stick out in my mind.

            One summer, I got a job with Ebasco Engineering Consultants. I thought with the lofty company name, I would be assisting some high priced engineer with his intricate calculations. Instead, on my first day, I was assigned as a ditch digger at a power plant construction site in Norco, Louisiana, a small community next to the Mississippi River. It was me and twelve African-Americans digging ditches all over this construction site from ‘caint see to caint see.’ That is, from dawn to dusk.

            One day I heard a particularly perplexed superintendent ask his subordinate, “Where are they?” He was peering into a space I assume we were supposed to dig, and hadn’t.

            “Where’s who?” asked the redoubtable subordinate.

            “Jesus and the Twelve Apostles; that’s who.” the superintendent shouted back at him. He was deadly serious. I guess it’s what the upper level employees called our ditch-digging team.

            Another time, as summer rapidly approached, I realized I had not yet located a job and the best ones offered in my neighborhood were already taken by more aggressive youths. I panicked and sought out work wherever I could. Unfortunately, work was scarcer than hen’s teeth and I spent most of my time begging merchants for any type of job. Finally, one of my friends suggested he knew of a job as a swimming instructor at a summer camp populated by the offspring of the well-healed residents of our city. The only glitch was, an applicant had to have passed the Red Cross Swimming Instructors examination, something I had not done, primarily because I could barely swim without consuming great quantities of a pool’s chlorine water, and would sink like a stone shortly thereafter.

            But I really needed a job, so off to the Red Cross office I trotted to try and obtain an instructors license without having to undergo either the written or the in-the-pool swimming examinations. In reality, I didn’t know a swimming stroke from a cerebral stroke. When I got to the office, for once in my life, my luck held. I knew I needed an instructor’s manual and the only way the Red Cross would part with one, was to pass the requisite tests. As I said, I had no time to study the materials and also, no time to learn how to swim.

            The young lady at the desk was very nice to me and I chatted her up, telling her how much I needed this job at the rich-kid’s camp. I spied a small pile of instructor’s manuals sitting atop a credenza behind her desk and knew I had to have one of those in order to compete for the swimming instructor’s job. Finally, she excused herself and left her post. I swiped the top manual. Yep; I stole the damn thing and darted out of the Red Cross building as fast as I could. My father photostatted the manual for me and the next day I returned the original to the kind lady saying, “I had found this copy of the instructor’s manual on the pavement outside your building. Someone must have lost it.”

            She looked at me suspiciously and finally said, “If you had asked, I would have given it to you.” My first stab at thievery was a total failure.

            In the interim I found out not only did I need the manual, but also I needed merit badges to bestow on those erstwhile Michael Phelps types who, in my esteemed judgment, passed the minimal Red Cross requirements for competitive swimming. Back to the Red Cross I go, this time to get the badges, by any means necessary. The kind lady at the desk totally surprised me by giving me a whole bunch of the badges and made me promise to never again come into her office or she would call the police.

            I am quite sure I am the only ‘certified’ Red Cross swimming instructor who conducted all of his classes from the side of the pool, never once getting wet, and who passed out merit badges like ham sandwiches.

                                    The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life,

                                    Many in the sworn twelve have a thief or two

                                    Guiltier than them they try.

                                                Shakespeare – Measure for Measure

            The final summer job I will relate to you is not one for the faint of heart. To this day, when I think of it, I cringe. Apparently, the Sewerage & Water Department of the City of New Orleans wanted to know the rate of flow of water through their subsurface sewerage pipes located throughout the city. They contracted with a company to produce those figures for them, and I was hired by the successful bidder as the lowest level Indian on the totem pole. The job began at eight o’clock at night and ended at five in the morning.

            When I showed up for my first night on the job, I immediately noticed a great sigh of relief on the faces of the other three crew members. I soon discovered why. The lowest man on the totem pole, unfortunately it was me, had to open up the man-hole cover located in the middle of a street, climb inside, go down the iron bars they called steps, and wait at the bottom near the water flow to hear a second colleague yell at me, “Okay.” He was relaying a signal to me because a third man had opened a man-hole at the opposite end of the street and was pouring a red dye into his sewer hole.

            When I heard the “Okay,” I would shine my flashlight into the water, and upon a first sighting of the red dye flowing past me, I would look up and scream a responsive, “Okay.” The fourth, and oldest member of the crew, would record the time between “Okays,” and this procedure determined the rate of flow between those two points. I would think the City of New Orleans Sewerage Department could have asked a Sherpa climbing the side of Mount Everest what he thought the rate of flow was in the sewers of New Orleans, versus the method we used, and my money is on the Sherpa, every time.

            If this were the end, it makes a nice little story. But it ain’t. When I climbed down into the sewer for the first time, I had my light pointed straight down at the water running at the bottom of the steps. The immediate thing that got my attention was the smell. I almost threw up the first time down, but I held my breath for as long as I could, and survived. Thereafter, the smell became tolerable as my breath-holding capacity improved.

            Also on that first time down, I noticed my hands and head began to itch like crazy while waiting for the appearance of the red dye. After calling out the obligatory “Okay,” I began my ascent and looked at my hands and arms. They were covered with dirty, grimy, disgusting, ROACHES. I couldn’t take my hands off of the iron ladder, lest I would fall into the muck below. So I climbed out of the sewer pipe as quickly as possible, and began swatting at those filthy beasts scurrying all over my body. That scene replicated itself every fifteen minutes during the night.

            I now know why the sigh of relief was on the other three faces when I showed up the first night. One of us, unfortunately me, had to climb down into a three-foot wide sewer pipe every fifteen minutes, while roaches defiled my body in every conceivable place. I’m not talking about a little brown roach that scurries across your path and gives your heart a tiny flutter. I’m talking about the mother of all roaches that thrive in low, swampy, humid environments. The New Orleans variety is about two inches long, fat and black, and when you least expect it, can fly across a room like a hummingbird. It lurks along every street in the city and will drop on an unsuspecting passerby from the overhanging oak trees lining the city’s avenues.

            Why in the world would Jean Baptiste La Moyne, Sieur de Bienville in 1718, establish New Orleans at this God-forsaken location? He did it so France could control the entire North American interior, and this was the ideal site he chose. What he didn’t take into account was the intolerable weather, the low swampy land, the annual flooding of the Mississippi River, hurricanes that decimate all structures, and for damn sure, he didn’t take into account those bloody roaches.

            At the end of my job with the Sewerage Department, I looked like an astronaut ready for flight, with all of the clothes I had on. I could barely squeeze my body down the three-foot sewer pipe. Of course, it was ninety-something degree temperature with the humidity approaching one hundred percent. Many times I would yell out “Okay,” long before the red dye had reached me.

            I attribute the fact New Orleans tends to flood every time a bird urinates, or possibly when it has a hard rain, to the total inaccuracy of the study done during the summer of my youth. One day the entire city will probably float away into the Gulf of Mexico, but I’ll bet a dollar to a donut the three hundred million year old cockroach will survive.

BERLIN 1987

            In June of 1987 I traveled to Berlin with novelist, Laurence Snelling. We stayed at the home of the Commander of the Allied Forces in that divided city; a fellow Larry knew. I was struck by the beauty of this thirteenth century city’s parks, wide boulevards, and new modern buildings. One day we crossed into East Berlin or the Russian Sector where the contrast between an oligarchy and a democracy was never so stark.   

            As soon as we passed through Checkpoint Charlie, it appeared that a pall was draped over the Eastern Sector and hung there like a smoke filled room. Eating at the best East German restaurant, I was appalled at the paucity of selection on the small menu and the inflated prices charged for this terrible meal. It reminded me of how spoiled we Americans are and how we take for granted our lifestyles without a second’s hesitation.

            But the highlight of the trip was a visit to the Brandenburg Gate where we sat in VIP seats and listened to the President of the United States deliver what has become one of the greatest speeches in modern history. Yes, I was there when The Gipper delivered his twenty-seven minute tirade against the Soviet Union.  Actually shook his hand as he descended from the dais. He received a more boisterous reaction from the crowd when he said “Open this gate, Mister Gorbachev,” than Kennedy did when he implored the Soviets to tear down the wall they had erected in 1961.  I also remember him saying that because the United States would remain militarily strong, the Soviets would return to the negotiating table on nuclear arms. They did, shortly thereafter. But in our era of proliferating nuclear arms, it is an ominous specter who roams our globe as more and more countries develop nuclear capabilities with impotent powers helpless to stop them. It’s only a matter of time before one of them becomes our Armageddon.

            Two other things are lodged in my memory about the Berlin trip. Larry and I ventured to the outside of Spandau Prison where Rudolph Hess was the last remaining Nazi prisoner housed there. Unfortunately, the Russians were on duty that day and we were not permitted to enter the prison. Hess died two months later and the castle-like building was demolished.

            One day, Larry said to me, “Let’s go find the place where the Nazis murdered Claus von Stauffenberg. He was the handsome and badly crippled Colonel who set the charge in the Wolf’s Lair that wounded, but failed to kill, The Fuhrer, and cost von Stauffenberg his life. We found the place where he was shot and it was located in the headquarters of the communist party in Berlin. I guess things never change. Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

                

THE FRENCH MARKET

            The first time I went to Paris, too long ago to cite here, my then wife and I had a rather late evening – actually an early morning – and we wound up at Les Halles located in the first arrondissement. It was a place surrounded by little cafes who served piping hot coffee and onion soup to die for. The location was there from the twelfth century until they demolished it in late 1971.  To see the butchers in their bloody smocks hustling around the large tables, cleaving their dead animals, live chickens, produce, and every kind of seafood imaginable, was something I’ll remember all my life. It was the world’s quintessential marketplace. Every restaurateur in Paris bought their fresh ingredients from the merchant stalls in Les Halles and served it to their customers that very day.

            The first time I want to the French Market in New Orleans – it dates from 1791 – I was much younger than my first time in Paris, but was similarly impressed with the fresh produce, seafood, meats, and other food products on display. Many of the New Orleans restaurant owners could also be found perusing the display exhibits to maintain their high standards on a daily basis much like they did in Les Halles. It was a wonderful experience to walk through the market as the smells from the stalls wafted through the air, and the sounds of laughter emanating from the vendors selling their food resonated throughout the building.

            Today I returned to the French Market and found one of the most disappointing things since returning to live in the city. All of the produce sellers are gone, except for an extremely small exhibit of a few tomatoes and some anemic cucumbers stuck at the end of the market as if they were selling the Black Plague at bargain prices. Replacing all the food vendors were a sea of T-shirt, cheap jewelry, and even cheaper clothing splayed out on tables with hundreds of people milling about, oohing and awing about how magnificent- or in this case, “cool” – all the awful stuff was.

            What happened in Paris with the demise of Les Halles was replicated in New Orleans. At least in Paris the replacement shopping center is nicely kept with fairly nice merchandise, not this crap on display in our French Market. I think the city has of late abandoned calling it the French Market as I understand it is now officially known as the Flea Market. I was worried as I meandered through the center of the buildings that I might be assaulted by the pesky flea if I brushed up against one of those odious displays.

Naomi

Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.

For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.

How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.

Ernest Hemingway

I often think of Ernie's words when beginning or ending a book. Right now, I am midway between finishing my thirteenth book and beginning a new work. My latest attempt is a new genre for me, since I primarily write historical novels and crime theme books. This new work is a mainstream literary story about a young girl, Naomi is her name, and she became my constant companion over the last ten months. Because of something that happened to me about a year ago, my life was drastically altered and the shock-waves are still reverberating in my psyche. Naomi is my attempt at placating the demons by giving them an outlet; allowing them to vacate my innermost thoughts and leave me with only an echo of memory; one that no longer gives pain but accepts reality for what it is.   

The Wedding Crashers

The Wedding Crashers

            No one crashes weddings anymore. I believe that particular art form has gone the way of the typewriter; which incidentally, is the era we’re talking about in this story and long predates the movie Wedding Crashers with Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn. Many years ago, my fellow crashers and I would scan the weekend newspaper for a large wedding with an appropriately large reception we could invade. Such an invasion had to be done as inconspicuously as possible to avoid detection by the hosts. Meticulous plans had to be drawn, much like the invasion of a Japanese held island during World War II. With pad and pencil in hand, we set about perusing the marriage section of the morning newspaper, striking those nuptials who were most likely to discover several uninvited guests were noshing at their table, and have security toss them out on their ears.

            I guess I should explain why we were crashing weddings. We had no money. We were in college or graduate school and all of our limited funds went toward survival. In undergraduate school, we had athletic scholarships or we never could have afforded the tuition, room, or board at our expensive private university. In graduate school, all money was allocated for rent, utilities, cigarettes, and the rare date, so there was nothing left for food and booze. Summers were dedicated to jobs that allowed us to save enough to go to school. Generally, we all held jobs during the school year to supplement the funds we earned during the summer. 

            We had this La Bohème existence, where we got up, went to class, studied, hung out, had discussions, and went to bed. We couldn't help notice the better endowed (money-wise) students, were throwing about their parent’s cash, like it flowed from an endless stream. Possibly their stream was endless, but our little pool of funds had to be defended to the last penny.

            So, when things got particularly tight, and our ration of food and booze slowed to a trickle, we crashed a wedding reception. If we possessed a modicum of intelligence, we would have gone to the marriage service first to establish our bona fides. One can easily gain acceptance if, at the service, one mingles with all of those who had actually possessed a valid invitation. But it was simply too onerous for us. Our eyes were focused solely on the reception’s bar and buffet lines.

            In retrospect, it would have been so easy to attend the service at the church, synagogue, mosque, or temple, shuffle around with the crowds leaving the service, chat them up, and promise to see them again at the reception. But no. Our heroes eschewed the nuptials and dove directly into the champagne fountain. This was followed by copious quantities of canapés, little meatballs with toothpicks stuck through them, and crustless, white-bread finger sandwiches with chicken salad oozing out from all sides that had to be wiped off with a “Congratulations Brittney and Todd” wedding napkin.

            The most important part of the wedding crash is the vetting. Since our little white faces would stick out like sheet-wearing KKK members at an NAACP convention, we were forced to eliminate all black services from consideration. We knew our black brothers threw the best receptions in town, (rated first in music and booze), but we just couldn’t get past our pasty color to gain acceptance.

            The Jews hosted the second best receptions in town (rated first in food and ice sculptures), but since all the Jews in our city knew each other, again we would have stuck out like an inexperienced mohel at a circumcision brit milah.

            So we were left with the white Catholics and Protestants who were tying the knot that particular weekend. In our town, the Catholics were subdivided into the Italians, the Irish, and the others. For sheer quantity, the Italians win the blue ribbon, hands down. Heaping trays of Sicilian delicacies were spread over multiple tables, while the obese patrons wolfed down plate after plate of spaghetti with Italian sausage, anti-pasta, and desserts from heaven. There was one major caveat to crashing an Italian wedding reception. The Mafia ruled over our city like Henry the Eighth, and if we were discovered partaking of their delectables at their beloved child’s reception, our fate would have been similar to most of Henry’s wives. Discretion was always used in the final selection. If we were in doubt or we felt uneasy, we opted out for less violent venues.

            The Protestants were easy. You eliminate all the Baptists and Born-agains (no booze), most Methodists (ugly women) and Presbyterians (limited booze and limited good looking women), and you are left with the Episcopalians. Since one of my fellow crashers belonged to this particular sect and couldn’t go to that sect’s reception, I was left with a red-necked ex-Baptist boy, who had fallen from grace faster than Adam after eating the apple. He sucked down the proffered liquor like it was the last brewed batch on earth. It was a tricky proposition when he was along. Not only did he drink great quantities, but when he became sated, he got mean, generally insulting the bride and groom, both sets of parents, and about half the invited guests. We only stayed a short time at an Episcopal reception when I was with him.

            However, on a fateful morning, when the final choices had dwindled to the one target wedding, I would brush off my only suit, polish my only pair of dress shoes, comb my tangled hair, and head for the door with my fellow crasher in tow. It should be pointed out here, wedding crashers hunt only in pairs. One, or three-or-more, is way too conspicuous; so two becomes the proper crasher amount.

            In order to get enough food, and more importantly, drink, one had to look the part and had to adopt an air of belonging. Laughter was key. Pats on the back were acceptable, particularly after everyone at the reception had gained their sea legs. I once danced with the bride twice and was told by the groom, if I continued to dance with her, he was going to break every bone in my body. You see, I had this hunchy dance move I though was real cute. Needless-to-say, I beat a hasty exit from the room since the groom made Lucca Brazzi look a little like Hannah Montana.

            Most humans embarrass easily; wedding crashers, less so. Lying in bed one Saturday morning, after a night of debauchery, I was shaken awake by a fellow crasher. “I got a good one,” he said, flinging the morning newspaper onto my bed. “Check out the one that’s circled.”

            Through bleary eyes I viewed the circled wedding announcement. “So what?”

            “So what! This is gold. Get up. We’re going.”

            And go we did. On arrival at the reception, which was held at one of our favorite haunts, we noticed the bride’s mother had strategically placed the bridal party so anyone entering the reception had to interface with the entire string of bride, groom, bridesmaids, groomsmen, and parents of both parties. It was the only way to get into the salon with the goodies, so my partner and I either queued up with the others, or returned to our dormitory rooms, hungry and thirsty.

            Many times we were forced to greet one or another of the participants in the play, but this time, we had to greet the entire cast. I figured we had already dressed for the occasion, plus my stomach was growling like a star-struck coyote, so into the queue we stepped. Things went well until I reached for the first hand in line. She was a girl I had dated for a while in high school and I noticed she still harbored a modicum of resentment against me. Probably arising from the time I passed out on her sofa and awoke the next morning with her father shaking me like a rag-doll and accusing me of soiling his daughter’s impeccable reputation. One that had been previously soiled by every other boy in my class. 

            Since I grew up in a small community located on the wrong side of the Mississippi River from New Orleans, most weddings and receptions of people from our area were held within a fifteen block radius from my house.

            This time, the social climbing bride’s mommy wanted to hold her daughter’s affair, “where proper city folks hold their events.” Naturally, I intimately knew everyone, and do mean everyone, in the lineup. As I was passed from one to the other, I kissed all of the girls, most of whom I had kissed previously, until I reached the bride. I had dated the bride a few times, and like most of the girls I dated, she was not overjoyed to see me again.

            I gathered my courage, kissed her cheek and congratulated her in my sincerest voice, which went well until I heard the maid-of-honor mumble, “What’s he doing here?” I was hastily passed along to the groom, who also resented me, and to the other groomsmen, who did not, and all began laughing and slapping me on the back. My fellow crasher, Cameron Gamble, realized before I did, this was not a good thing that I knew all the participants, particularly when the bride’s mother began scowling at us and demanding, much louder than was necessary, we be removed from the event. It did not end well. We were escorted from the premises, post haste, tail between our legs, sans food and drink.

            When I returned to my room, my mother had called to tell me she had disowned me for at least the tenth time, since the bride’s mother had already called her to report our minor indiscretion. My mother was so embarrassed, “She could never leave the house again.”

            Well, she did leave the house again. This time for my first wedding several years later. As fate would have it, my new mother-in-law came up to me at the reception and pointed to several youths she described as “gate crashers.” I immediately saw they were not gate crashers at all, but merely two hungry and thirsty youths who had balls enough to crash the reception and hope to hell they weren't discovered before they were sated.

“I invited them,” I lied to her. A simple wink over at the two youths told them, “Everything was okay. Eat and drink your fill boys.” I often wonder how many times one of the grooms covered for me?

            Occasionally, someone I don’t know will sidle up to me in a bar and say, “Don’t I know you from the ‘so-in-so’ wedding?”

            My stock answer is, “Yes you do. Hell of a service, wasn’t it?”