stopped. There, in the shade of Andrew Jackson mounted on his stallion and beneath the steeples of the St. Louis Cathedral, his story began to unfold.
“What do they...these Shrove look like?” I asked.
Vendors hawking funnel cakes and ice cream, mimes, a jazz band, and crowds of tourists moved around us. At the large concrete base of the statue, we were protected, our conversation ignored.
“I’m not sure. I've never seen them. It was more like I just knew they were there, a presence in my dreams. Many of them there in the darkness.”
For not the first time I wondered if he was making all of this up. But no—there were the questions, after all. And the answers. Who else could answer the questions? Who else had lived a life of specific tragedy? Plus, I honestly had nothing to lose by going along with him. If in the end I realized he was truly demented, then I suppose I would join him.
“Go on.”
“I don’t know how they found me—I was just a high school English teacher, for God’s sake. It took me a week to make my way down here from Evanston. I was told to leave everything and tell no one, to take a vow of poverty and of celibacy.”
“And you believed it all?”
“They knew everything. They knew it all.” So intense was his gaze I could only nod. “They knew why I cried at night and why I kept my shades drawn. No way could they have figured it out.” He leaned in close, his lips an inch from my ear. “In fact, when it gets dark we can meet them. I’m to take you with me. We’re going to save the world.”
***
Night had fallen to the screams of a hundred thousand revelers. The Celebration Carnelevare– Farewell to the Flesh –was in full swing as the nearly manic crowd engorged itself on a pre-Lenten binge as if their souls knew the truth of the mid-February Christian holiday— older than Christianity, rooted in the worship of Pan and the Grecian Orgies it inspired.
As a priest, I wanted to remind the people of the importance of Ash Wednesday as the start of Lent where we recognized the sacrifices of Our Lord Jesus as he survived in the wilderness. Then of course there was Good Friday and Easter. So far away, yet intimately connected to tonight’s celebration. It was tragic how so few remembered that the end of the celebration was the death of Jesus and the ascension of a God. The greater Lenten concept wasn’t something people paid particular attention to as they groped and groaned among strangers.
We’d waited in Jackson Square until dusk, then again entered the throng of revelers. Matthew knew where he was going, but I didn’t, and after getting separated twice, he gripped my hand and pulled me along. Through alleys and side streets, between buildings. Although I had been in New Orleans for three months, I was soon lost. An hour later, sweat dripping from my skin and chest heaving, we descended a set of stairs and stopped before a closed door. He turned to me in the darkened alcove.
“There’s one more thing.”
I had difficulty finding my breath, and managed only to nod my head.
“You’ll need this.”
He pulled a bag from his jacket. Made of leather and rabbit fur, it was something unexpected, almost Pagan.
I raised an eyebrow as he placed it into my hands. My fingers began wrestling the bag open, but he quickly covered my hands with his own and shook his head.
“Not yet. You’ll know when it’s time. Promise me, not until it’s time.”
Beneath his fierce gaze, I could only nod. I shoved the bag into my jacket pocket and we entered the broad basement. The first thing I realized was that what I had mistaken for a basement was actually a warehouse. The ceiling was at least three-stories high and the floor was easily half the width of a football field. In the center sat a large raised rectangle, and atop this were two rows of six tall posts. Each had chains dangling from its top.
Although it looked like an altar, I immediately identified it as a float. Yet, unlike the garish displays of Mardis Gras, this one was completely unadorned. An old slat board platform, wooden wheels and two long lengths of rope to pull it. If the Mardis Gras floats were for celebration, this lonely thing was for redemption.
“Can’t you feel them? They’re here. The Shrove...”