Ghost
Tour
A harvest moon hung bright in a
cloudless sky above the decadent revelry known as
This marked the third time Eva
and I had visited this strange and wonderful city since we started seeing each
other five years ago. It has become our
favorite getaway and we have seen many of the usual tourist attractions. But tonight’s weather was perfect for
something we’ve wanted to do for a while - a walking tour of the French
Quarter’s bizarre and haunted past.
Just before 9 o’clock a short,
plump woman dressed in layers of brightly colored fabrics emerged from the back
of the tiny shop. She collected forty
dollars from us in exchange for two stickers to wear “so we wouldn’t get lost
during the bar break”. Anywhere else, it
would’ve been called a bathroom break. I
smiled at my mental joke, and the gypsy woman smiled back at me. She reminded
me of a porcelain doll, with bright red lips against pale white skin framed by
raven black hair. It occurred to me that she probably looked much older by
daylight.
“Will you be our guide
tonight?” I asked.
“No” she replied, with
sparkling blue eyes that confirmed her smile was genuine, “I just take care of
the business. Your guides will be along
shortly.”
After she finished collecting
everyone’s money, we were left to mill around for a little while longer; no
doubt to give us one last chance to buy some touristy trinkets from the Voodoo
Shop. Eva pointed to a candle with a football and the New Orleans Saints emblem
hand-painted on the glass.
“Now I know how they got to the
Super Bowl! There’s a prayer candle for anything!” she laughed.
“I’ll bet we can find a voodoo
doll that looks like Commissioner Roger Goodell if we
looked for it.” I countered. Eva laughed even harder. I love that she likes football. And I really
love that laugh. In a moment of mental candor I thought that I will probably
marry that laugh someday. The thought felt really good.
At 9 o’clock sharp, two other
characters emerged from the back of the voodoo shop. One was an older gentleman, dressed in a
copper-colored suit cut like it belonged in the 1890’s. He wore a matching top hat, and carried a
thick black walking stick. I couldn’t help but stare at his perfectly waxed
handlebar moustache. That was no fake stick-on prop. These people really invested
in their characters!
The other character was a
younger woman, dressed all in white with gauzy wisps floating all around her.
She definitely took her fashion cues from Stevie Nicks circa 1984 – which I
guessed might also be the year she was born. She introduced herself as
Angelica, and the other gentleman was Nigel.
Nigel called out in a big,
booming voice “Since we have a fairly large number of you, we’ll be splitting
you into two groups. Please form a line
and we’ll let you know which of us you’ll be following. Don’t worry, both groups will visit all the
same places, we’ll just do it in a different order so everybody will get a
chance to see and hear everything“.
Eva and I dutifully fell into
line just as easily as we did in grammar school. I suppose old lessons are
never lost. I was hoping that we would
get Nigel, since his voice was clear and carried well over the muffled roar of
Nigel counted down the line,
tapping me and Eva lightly with the tip of his walking stick, and said “Those
of you I just touched, come with me! The rest of you will go with Angelica.”
And with that, he started to walk briskly to the corner of the street as our
group stepped out to follow.
The couple behind
us were perhaps in their sixties. The wife sat in a wheelchair that seemed two
sizes too big for her tiny frame. Eva and I both looked at them
sympathetically, and I spoke what we both were wondering, “Are you two going to
be able to keep up with this pace?” Eva
and I knew how treacherous the broken sidewalks and cobblestoned streets of
these dark French Quarter neighborhoods could be.
“Don’t worry about us, son.
We’ve taken this tour before. You see, we’re actually locals. We enjoy getting
out and meeting people and listening to these wonderful guides tell their
amazing tales. You’re in for a real treat!”
We rounded the next corner to
find Nigel had come to a stop. “Look at
this gate very carefully. Can you tell me something unusual about it?” We all
looked at the gate for a moment, and then each other. Nigel looked a little
disappointed no one seemed to notice what he wanted us to see. The woman in the
wheelchair slowly raised her hand. “The lock is upside down.”
“Right!” said Nigel, clearly
delighted. “Back in the mid-1800’s, people believed that sometimes ghosts or
spirits would follow their families and friends home after the funeral. After
all, parting had to be just as hard for the dead as it was for the living! So
they developed certain rituals to confound these spirits and keep them from
haunting the family. It was customary to take a different route back from the
cemetery than used to get there. They would march up one street and down
another to avoid coming directly back. This procession is what eventually
evolved into the second line you’ve heard so much about. Back at the house,
they would invert the lock in an iron gate.
People believed spirits could not pass through an iron fence, and by
turning the lock upside down or covering the keyhole, the ghost would not be
able to get through the gate either. I suppose they believed their relatives
were not very bright.” The crowd chuckled, and then we were off and walking
behind Nigel to the next curiosity.
Nigel proved to be a gifted
storyteller – this was one of the best tours I’ve ever taken! Eva was enjoying
it too, and our new friends Sam and Ruth (the couple with the wheelchair) hung
on his every word, even though they were obviously familiar with many of the
stories. “Each guide tells their story a little differently. It’s like watching
a play with different actors. Just because you already know the story of ‘Tom
Sawyer’ doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy seeing it acted out for you, does it?” Eva
agreed, “I’ve got to admit, I had a pretty good idea how ‘Titanic’ was going to
end.”
In no time at all, it was time
for the bar break. We saw Angelica and the rest of our group leaving as we were
coming up the block. I was impressed. As off-the-cuff as this tour seemed, the
company had the timing down like clockwork.
“You will be drinking in one of
the oldest building left in the French Quarter, a place that has more than a
few ghosts of its own. This used to be
Jean Lafitte’s Blacksmith shop. Built in 1722, it was a front for pirates and privateers
to fence the goods they had stolen and smuggled. It survived BOTH of the great
fires that gutted the rest of the city. This was in part because of its slate
roof, made necessary by the constant shower of sparks escaping the chimneys
when the forges were running. Late at night, the employees still hear the clash
of swords as some arguments remain to be settled. Other times, they will arrive in the morning
to find all the tables and chairs rearranged.
Apparently our ghost pirates still like to throw a wild party! Grab a drink, use the bathroom,
and we’ll meet back outside in five minutes to continue the tour.”
I tried the grape Cool-Aid
flavored “Zombie Killer” that came out of what looked like a Slushie machine for adults, poured straight into a “Go-Cup”. As suspected, this was not a drink to be
hurried. It went down deceptively easy,
but I could smell the alcohol on my own breath as I exhaled. Meanwhile, the goth female bartender was
preparing an absinthe for Eva. Enthralled, we watched her intricately tattooed
arm slowly and precisely pour iced water over a sugar cube suspended on a
slotted silver spoon and into the brilliant green liquid. The concoction
reacted to the shock of the cold water by clouding snow white, releasing an
intoxicating aroma of licorice. Despite the engaging smell (Eva loves licorice), the actual taste left something to be desired. Still, it
was the perfect drink for a theatrical night in a city that is always on stage.
I tipped the bartender well for that complicated drink before we stepped back
out into the refreshing night air. I still had half of my Zombie Killer left. I
felt a little naughty as I continued to sip from my plastic cup while we
started back down the street. Eva melted seductively into my arms as a chill
breeze blew off the
Sam winked at me knowingly,
“Enjoying your night?” Ruth chimed in,
“You make a very cute couple!”
Both Eva and I blushed. I
hadn’t blushed in ages! But I remembered my thought when she was laughing
earlier tonight, and I figured my heart was written all over my face. Eva’s too.
Romance was thick in the air. It
seemed to affect Sam and Ruth as well. Every time we stopped, she took his hand
and held it to her cheek while we listened to the next story. It was very
sweet, and very comfortable. I imagined it was a habit that had developed over
a lot of shared years…
“As we’ve explored the streets
of the Vieux Carré, I’ve told you tales of the
bizarre. I‘ve told you tales of the
frightening. And I’ve told you tales of
the horrifically gruesome. And as we
near the end of our time together, I now have a tale of love! In March of 1788, the good Catholics of New
Orleans were observing Good Friday when a great fire broke out. A candle on the
altar of a privately owned home accidentally came into contact with lace
curtains, and before long the house on
“Here, at
this little two story house on
I turned around, but of course
the old couple was no longer there. I only hope one day Eva and I will have
what Sam and Ruth still have…
The
End
