A lot of gay boys don't really have male friends, at least not close male friends. Before Sean disappeared, he had dated Scott Michaels. Scott has often been to the house, and more than a few times he has brought his best friends, Colleen and Jennifer, with him. Or, they have actually brought him, since Colleen has a car. Those girls describe themselves as Scott's fag hags, a term that invariably makes Scott blush, even around us. Colleen is Fag-Hag-in-Chief, and she is one of the most vivacious girls I have ever known. I can see why the boys all really like her. Jenny is a little more reserved, but not much. They're juniors, and Scott is a sophomore. Colleen and Jennifer aren't lesbians, but they seem fascinated by gay boys. "Brian, are Colleen and Jenny in any of your classes?" I asked one day when the girls were scheduled to come over that night. He and I were alone in the den. Brian gave me a smirk. "Don't you smirk me," I said, jokingly. He laughed with delight. "What?" I asked. "Kevin, they're not really into, uhm, academics, shall we say? They're into theater. Drama. In more ways than one," Bri said. "What do you mean?" I asked. "You know that show on TV, Absolutely Fabulous, with those two women?" he asked. "Yeah. It's pretty funny. What about it?" "Colleen and Jen adoooooooooore that show, as they put it, and they want to be those two women. Colleen and Jen want to be absolutely fabulous. Somehow, wanting to be absolutely fabulous and taking, say, AP Physics just don't mix," he said. I chuckled at how cute he was. "Brian, you don't sell for what you're worth," I said. "Neither do you," he said. Brian has a lot of enigmatic qualities to him. He's almost the tallest one in the house, second to Todd. He has a great physique, although he certainly doesn't come across as "muscular," the way Justin does. Despite that, I think of him as little. Probably because Justin calls him "Little Buddy," and because he was our youngest son for a good while. He is stunningly good looking. In fact, he is probably the best looking one in a pack of very good looking boys. He's smart, he's talented as an animal trainer, and he is doggedly determined to do his best at everything. He isn't particularly shy or retiring, but he's quiet. Calm. Easy to be with. He's very masculine, and no one would ever think he "acts gay." But somehow, Brian, and to a lesser extent Tim, sort of melt into the background around Kyle and Justin. "Do I know the real Brian Mathews?" I asked. "I think you know him better than anybody else in this house does, including Justin. Not in every way, obviously, but I think you know my soul. Justin worships me, and I worship him, but for very, very different reasons. With us, it's truly a case of opposites attracting. You and I have much more in common than Rick and I do. I'm Justin's Kevin. Tim is Kyle's Kevin, too." I let that sink in for awhile. That was quite an insight. "Are you and Tim still as close as you were? You seem to be," I said. "Of course we are. Tim and I could never be lovers, though, even though we love each other deeply. I'm not the least bit attracted to Tim physically, and I know he isn't to me, either. We're oil and water, when it comes to that," he said. "That's interesting," I said. The next logical questions would have been if he was attracted to Kyle and Rick, and if he thought Kyle and Justin were attracted to me. But even asking that question would have been beyond the boundary of our relationship with the kids, so I held my tongue. "Brian, I'm going to repeat myself. You don't sell for what you're worth," I said. "I know. And you don't, either." "When was the last time you and I had a private conversation like this?" I asked him. "I don't think we ever have," he said. "I have never really needed 'private talks with Kevin.'" I laughed, remembering when Kyle and Justin needed private talks about their behavior on a pretty regular basis. He laughed, too. "You rascal. You guys have grown up so much in the last two and a half or three years. You're an adult, aren't you?" He grinned. "Yeah, I think I am. I think we all are. I might have always been one, though, you know?" "Come here, my son," I said. "I love you." I hugged him. "Whoa! What the fuck is this all about?" Justin said, bursting into the room. "Get your country ass over here and join us," I said. "Seriously, did I interrupt something important, Little Buddy?" Jus said to Brian. "You interrupted me being a daddy and finding out my little boy has grown up," I said. "He's a pretty cute one, too, ain't he?" Justin said, obviously proud of Brian. "I'd say he is. I hope you appreciate what you've got here," I said. "Hell, Kevin. Do I impress you as the kind who would consider himself married for life at nineteen years old, if I didn't know what I had?" Justin asked. "Well said, Justin. Well said." * * * Colleen, Jenny, and Scott got to our house around 9:30. "Where the hell y'all been?" Kyle asked, by way of greeting. Colleen is sixteen, going on twenty-five. She has very long legs, clad at that moment in black Lycra, about a twenty-two inch waist, and enough cleavage for anybody to get lost in. Her jet-black hair (bottle?) flowed in waves, and her lips were the color of a fire engine. Girls ordinarily do next to nothing for me, but there is no way in hell I couldn't know she is one of the hottest of her kind. Jenny is pretty sophisticated-looking herself. Where Colleen is dark, olive, Jenny is blondish and fair. Dark purple Lycra pants on her, small waist, lovely hips, larger breasts than Colleen, and gorgeous eyes. They both have ear piercings aplenty. "The basketball game," Colleen said. "Beachside didn't play at home tonight," Kyle said. "We went to the Beach High game. We support all of our local teams," Jenny said. The school is officially Emerald Beach High School, but everybody calls it Beach High. It's the oldest one in the county. "Y'all just go there to pick up boys," Justin said. "Raise up boys is more the point," Colleen said, licking her lips seductively. "A hard point." Rick and I were laughing at those girls. It was pure camp, and they knew it. They were good, and I wondered if the boys even knew what was going on. "Colleen, don't do that to me," Justin said. "Why, Big Boy? Afraid you're going to turn straight?" she said. She had her hand on Justin's bulge, which was definitely looking bigger than it usually looks. "Colleen," I said. "Oh, I know, Kevin. No sex in public. Sacred fucking rule number two," Colleen said. "It's actually rule number one, but that's close enough," I said. "I'm just not good at math," she said. "By the way, Jen and I would like to spend the night, if that's okay. Our parents are all out of town, and we're, like, these little orphan waifs who need to stay at the foster home." I laughed. They had done it several times before, and all of them slept together in the clubhouse. "That's fine, girls. Just don't molest the younger boys, okay?" Rick said. "We won't. They're cute, but they have so far to come. Oh! What'd I say?" That cracked up everybody in the room. "Get your ass out to the clubhouse, girl," Kyle said. He was rubbing her butt in those tight Lycra pants. "Kyle," Rick said. Kyle turned around grinning. "Do you think this does something for me, Rick?" Kyle said. "Yes. Maybe. I don't know, but it's probably doing something for her. Cut it out," Rick said. "Yes, sir," Kyle said, and he stopped. "There's too much blurring of the lines here," Rick said, after they had gone out to the clubhouse. "What do you mean? Do those girls turn you on a little bit? They do me a little bit. Which one caused this thing right here? Colleen, Jen, or me?" He was half hard, and I was rubbing it. "Kevin, stop it!" he said, and I pulled my hand away. "Don't stop rubbing it. Stop talking about the damn girls," he said. I laughed. "Get your ass in that bed right now, Stud, before I have to rip those clothes off you," I said. He laughed. "You haven't called me 'Stud' in a long time," he said. "I know, but you always are one. Now hustle up," I said. "'Hustle up' is a Kyleism," he said. "It's a jockism. So do it. Hustle up. I can't wait," I said. "God, you're on one tonight, and I love it," he said.
February is Mardi Gras month this year. We went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras the last two years, but this year Kevin and Rick are also going to participate in the two parades we have in Emerald Beach. One is in downtown, right down the main street from Emerald Beach High School to the marina, and the other one is in Old Town, a week later. The third weekend in that row is the real Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and we're going to that, too. "Have y'all ordered your beads yet," I asked Kevin and Rick one night. "No, not yet," Rick said. He was reading a damn book, not paying a bit of attention to what was really important. "When you going to do it? The day before the first parade?" I asked. "Why don't you order them?" Rick said, definitely wanting me to leave him alone. "That's what I was waiting to hear. Come on, Tim," I said. "Babe, I'm trying to study, okay? You do it," Tim said. "Okay. I see what the priorities of this room are. I'll get it done," I said. "Use the household credit card, Kyle," Kevin said. "No. I'm going to use the Goodson one. This is public relations," I said. I logged onto the Internet, did me a Google for Mardi Gras Beads, and got me like 850,000 sites. I knew the first two or three were all I was ever going to need. The first one was a site called "Mardi Gras World," and that's where I did my shopping. I ended up buying about $650 worth of shit. If that is too much, they can save the leftovers for next year. I want them to be throwing constantly, though. The stuff came about four days later, UPS. We opened the boxes right after we had our snack the night they got there. "Whoa! I ain't never seen this much stuff in one place," Justin said. "What are these? Snout beads?" Brian asked, holding up a strand of beads that had, like, a three-inch diameter. Brian put it around Trixie's snout, and she tried to lick it off. She opened her mouth, and it stretched. The beads were on elastic. "Gimme one, Brian," Justin said, and Brian handed him one. "This ain't something for the dogs. This here's a cock ring. Lemme show you what I'm talking about," Justin said. Before anybody could say anything, he stood up, dropped his pants and underwear, and had that thing stretched around his dick and his balls. The beads were a very bright, shiny blue. "That blue looks real good against the color of your pubic hair," I said, 'cause it did. "Yeah, but I don't think it's a cock ring. It's too loose for that," Justin said. "Justin, take that damn thing off and put that shit away. That's not a cock ring, dumbass. It's a bracelet. Y'all never cease to amaze me how y'all can turn everything sexual," Rick said. "It's not a cock ring? For real?" Justin asked. "Do you think the company we bought this stuff from would sell us bags of cock rings to throw as Mardi Gras favors from the float?" Rick asked. Justin gave it some thought. "I guess not. Most people probably wouldn't know what to do with 'em, if that's what they were," he said. "Brian, why did you think we'd be throwing stuff for dogs' snouts?" Rick asked. "I knew it was a bracelet," Brian said. "Good, because if you really thought it was for the dog's snout, I was going to make you give back the scholarship to Tulane," Rick said. Brian howled, he laughed so hard. The others laughed, but they didn't get it like Brian did. "I think y'all need to practice throwing, so you'll get the feel of it. Let's have us a practice parade right here," I said. "All right. Let's go, Kevin," Rick said. They got in sort of an oval, and Rick and Kevin strutted around, throwing beads. It was pretty fun. "Goddamn. You flung that right at my face. It hit my front tooth, and I think you broke it, Rick," Justin said. "Suck it up. Mardi Gras mayhem. And I didn't do it on purpose," Rick said. His tooth wasn't anymore broken than mine was, but I bet it hurt getting that in the face like that. They made three or four rounds of that oval we were in, and then we tackled them, tickling. "Ice Cream!" Justin shouted out. We hadn't had ice cream since Todd had come to live with us, so Kevin explained the family tradition to him. "That's a cool tradition, and this is a lot of ice cream," Todd said. "You don't have to eat it all, if you don't want to," I said. "No, I'll want it all, and I'll want yours, too," Todd said. "I want all of mine, and no seconds," I said. "Shit," Todd said, and he looked at Kevin to see how he would react. "Welcome to your new home, Bubba," I said. Tears leaked out of both eyes, and he caught them in his grin. * * * The Emerald Beach Mardi Gras was a lot of fun. It wasn't anything compared to New Orleans, of course, but we still had a good time. There were only two parades, and they were on the two Saturdays before the official Mardi Gras weekend. The first one was a night parade down the main drag of town. The street is five lanes wide until it gets into the area where all the stores and whatnot are. There are some stores on the first part, too, but they are all freestanding buildings, with parking lots and such. The stores "downtown" are hooked together with no parking lots. Not only that, the street itself is only two lanes wide, with parking on both sides of the street. I almost never go down there, but my mama has told me there are some cool shops and restaurants and galleries, and shit like that. Of course the street is closed to traffic and parking all day when they have a street festival. There was a block party the night before the parade on a side street and in the parking lot of a restaurant. We all went to that. They had a ton of food that you could buy, beer, bar drinks, a couple of live bands, and dancing. Colleen, Jen, and two girls that are good friends of Tim, Jessica and Stephanie, went with us. "I am desperate for alcohol, Kyle," Colleen said. "Have a drink," I said. "No ID, remember?" she said. "How do you buys cigarettes without an ID?" I asked. She and Jen both smoke quite a bit. "I don't. I have a cousin who buys them for me. I think he's family, by the way," she said. "Do you want me to buy you a drink?" I asked. "You don't have ID either," she said. "I got this beer without it," I said. "I must look old for my age, or something. Plus, I've got my brother's ID, only the damn thing's fixing to expire." "Get it renewed. Just go in, present it, and tell them you want to renew it. They won't know, and it'll have your picture on it. Does the picture on it now look like you? I mean, did you all look alike?" she asked. "Yeah. It looks a lot like me. I've used it before to buy booze," I said. "I just might have to try that. The only problem is, I think it's a fake, too. It says he was born two years earlier than he was." "A friend of mine told them she lost her license, and she gave her sister's name. The sister is legal, and she isn't. They pulled up the sister's information, took my friend's picture, and gave her the license with her sister's name and birthday on it, but her picture," Colleen said. "I might do that instead of renewing the one I've got," I said. "Anyway, what do you want to drink?" "Vodka on the rocks, and get one for Jen, too. Stoli, if they have it," she said. "Here, let me give you some money." "No, that's all right. I got it," I said. "Here, hold my beer." I got the drinks for the girls without a hitch. We stayed at the block party until around ten o'clock. That's when it pretty much died down. "Y'all want to come back to the house? Y'all can spend the night. That way you can keep drinking," I said. "I need to get home," Stephanie said. "So do I," Jessica said. Neither one of them had had liquor to drink, so they were both fine to drive. All the boys had come in the Land Cruiser, and Kevin and Rick had come in Kevin's car. Rick could drive that one, Tim could drive mine, and Brian could drive Colleen's. We had it covered. I wasn't too drunk to drive, but there was no sense in taking chances. When we got home, Murray, Denny and Todd went on to bed, or something. Kevin and Rick came out to the clubhouse with us, but they only stayed long enough for Kevin to have one drink. "You all don't drink too much tonight, and don't stay up till all hours, either," Rick said. "We've got a very big day tomorrow." "What time does it start?" I asked. "The permit goes from 7 AM till 11 PM," Kevin said. "The beer distributor will set up the booths, so y'all probably don't need to be there until ten." "What time are y'all going?" I asked. "Rick and I and the other boys will probably be down there around two. That's when your shift ends. We'll meet up with you guys at the beer booths, get something to eat, walk around, listen to some of the concert. We've got to be on the float by 4:30," Kevin said. "Okay. What time does the parade start?" I asked. "Five-thirty, sharp. We're going to be on the east side of the float, so make sure y'all are on the east side of the street," Kevin said. "Okay." "We're going to have a tailgate party for the people on the float, but we can also eat after the parade. All the vendors will be open until eleven o'clock tomorrow night," he said. "Who organizes all of this?" Colleen asked. "The city?" "No, it's all private. We belong to a Krewe, and there are officers, a board of directors, various committees. It's a year-round organization. We have one annual business meeting and five social events throughout the year. We met our best friends through the Krewe. Mont and Terry. Rick and I were talking to them tonight," Kevin said. "They're gay, aren't they?" Colleen asked. "And they're a couple, just like you guys?" "Right on both points," I said. "Why?" "Pay up, Jen," Colleen said, and Jenny gave her five bucks. "What's this all about?" Justin asked. "I bet Jen five dollars that the two guys Kevin and Rick were talking to are gay, and she swore they weren't. They are, so she lost," Colleen said. "Speaking of money, will there be money there for change?" Kyle asked. "At our booths, I mean." "Yeah, the beer chairman will have that. The two beer booths and the ice supply for the vendors are the only booths the Krewe itself runs. The rest of the booths are just vendors. They pay us a fee, and we let them set up. There are supposed to be about three hundred booths this year," Kevin said. "Damn, that's pretty big," I said. "Yeah, it's grown every year," Kevin said. "I had a good time tonight, but I'm tired. Good night." "Look at this one," Justin said, pointing to Rick. He was sound asleep. "Let's go, Babe," Kevin said, waking him up gently. He looked embarrassed because he had fallen asleep. He told us goodnight, and the two of them went into the house. "I'm going to have one more, and then I'm going to be ready to call it a night," Justin said. "Let's use the sofa beds tonight. That sleeping on the floor gets old." "How are we going to divide up?" Brian asked. "I'll sleep with them. I don't mind," Justin said, meaning the girls. "You ain't going to rape me, are you, Colleen?" "No, but don't think it hasn't crossed my mind to want to," Colleen said. "I just realized it. We're missing Scottie tonight," Justin said. "Where is that boy?" "Scottie had a date tonight. First he had to work, and then he had a date," Colleen said. "Oh, yeah? Good for him. I really like that boy," Jus said. "Who'd he have a date with?" Tim asked. "Some kid named Brady. He used to be a debater, but he switched to drama after the first nine weeks. He's a freshman. I don't even know his last name, but I'd probably recognize it. It starts with an 'S,'" she said. "Brady Stanton?" Brian asked. "Yeah, that's it. Do you know him?" Jen said. "Oh, yeah. We know him," Justin said. "He dated our little brother for a while. He's been here a bunch of times." "I take it you don't like him," Colleen said. "Oh, no, we like him fine. He's a nice guy, but Denny's our brother and he ain't. They broke up. That happens all the time. I don't know that it would be such a good idea for Scott to bring Brady around here when Denny's home, but Denny goes on so many trips I'm sure there will be chances," Jus said. "Denny and Brady are still friends, Buddy," Brian said. "At least at school they are. The breakup wasn't over anything like Scott and Sean. Does Scott have a car now? I know Brady doesn't." "He turned sixteen about two weeks ago, and his brother-in-law sold him his old car real cheap. Scott and his sister got trust funds from when their dad died, and his mom let him use some money from that to pay for it," Colleen said. "It must be nice to have a trust fund, huh, Kyle?" Justin said. "Not if you have to lose your daddy to get it," Kyle said. "That's enough, okay?" "Kyle, don't get pissed off, man. I was teasing you. And you know it," Justin said. "I know you were, Justin, but that's one of the things I don't want to be teased about, okay?" I know my voice had an edge to it, but goddamn it, he knew better than that. "Okay. I'm sorry," he said. "No problem. Let's forget it," I said. "Are y'all ready to make these beds out?" "Yeah," Justin said. We got the two sofa beds made out. We keep sheets and blankets out there in the laundry room, and we had it done in five minutes. "Kyle, can I show you something outside for just a second?" Justin asked. "All right," I said. Once outside, he lit up a cigarette. "Gimme one, too," I said and he did. "Kyle, please don't be pissed off at me. If I think you're pissed off, I won't be able to sleep tonight, and I won't have a good time this whole weekend," he said. "I shouldn't have said what I did, and I know it. I'm going to stop drinking, I think. It dulls my mind." He had tears running down his face, and I just couldn't stand that. "It's breaking my heart to see you this upset, Justin. I love you, man. I overreacted, and I didn't think, either. I'm not pissed off at you anymore. And for God sakes, let's don't give up drinking," I said. "Hell, no. I think that was the whiskey talking, too," he said. I laughed. "Had to be. That ain't rational," I said, and that made him laugh. "I feel so much better now, Kyle. Thank you. A little while ago you said you love me. Well, you know what? I love you, too." He leaned over and kissed me. I grabbed him in a big hug and kissed him back. They weren't sex kisses at all, just two brothers making up. "Come on. Let's go to bed," I said. "I thought we agreed there wasn't going to be no sex between us," he said. I laughed loud. "You dumb fuck. Get your ass in that clubhouse." * * * The weather the next day was gorgeous, and I knew I'd have my shirt off by noon or before. The beer booths where Justin and I were going to be working were side by side canopy-type tents. These two really hot-looking guys from the beer distributor were there putting the finishing touches on them when we got there around 9:45. We had to sell draft beer in plastic cups because the city or state or somebody didn't allow us to sell it in glass bottles at something like that. It was two dollars for sixteen ounces and three dollars for thirty-two ounces. Somebody in that outfit didn't know their math, that was for sure. The Port-o-Lets, portable bathrooms, in other words, were all over the park and the streets that the fair was on, but there was a pretty good bank of them right behind the beer booths. I figured those would do a good business that day, especially from the ones drinking the thirty-two ouncers. We sold four kinds of beer and two kinds of wine. Bud and Bud Light at one booth, Miller and Miller Lite at the other. You could get red or white wine at either one. The white wine was chilled, and the red wine wasn't. All of the food and beverage vendors (there were a couple selling cokes, too) were lined up on two sides of a street that made one of the four sides of the park, and the smells coming from the food booths were making me hungry. There were two or three that were making funnel cakes, and I could eat a hundred of those things. "What is it that smells so good?" Justin asked. "Real sweet smelling. Is somebody making doughnuts or something?" "Funnel cakes. You want one?" I asked. "Are you going to have one?" he asked. "Hell, yeah. At least one," I said. "Get me one, too. You want some money?" "Nope. You get the next one," I said. I ate about half of mine walking back from the booth. Those things are always good, but the one I ate was exceptional. Around 10:30 we had our first customers. They were two boys who probably weren't any more legal than me and Justin were, but they had military-style haircuts and were real clean cut and cute. Since we have three military installations in town, I figured them for airmen, sailors, or Coast Guard guys. We didn't even ask for ID. There were two two-man teams in each booth, and Justin and I worked together in the Budweiser booth. We alternated jobs. One of us would be at the counter to take the order. We'd call it back to the other one, who drew the order from the keg. It was actually taps on the wall, not those damn squirt things we got on kegs we had at frat parties. If the guy ordered Bud Light, we'd put it down in front of him on the counter and say, "Bud Light." Several times they said, "No, I wanted a Bud," or vice versa. Either we had gotten the order wrong or they had changed their mind. Pretty soon we had four or five mistakes lined up on the table that separated us. We were too damn stupid to keep 'em separated, so we didn't know which was which to sell 'em to the next customer. "What do we do with these mistakes? We can't tell which is which," I said to the lady in charge. "Drink 'em," she said. "For real?" Justin asked. "You're not going to pour out perfectly good beer, are you? Besides, where would you pour it?" she asked. "Yes, ma'am. You're the boss," I said. I could tell she liked us, and she grinned her ass off. "Drink up, Bubba," I said. "We're drinking our paycheck today." That was the first time I had done anything like that, and it was a lot of fun. The first of the bands cranked up about eleven o'clock, and that was fun. I'm not much of a music buff, and I know Justin isn't either. We both like country, though, and a couple of groups played that. One group played and sang all the New Orleans Mardi Gras music and Dixieland jazz, and some people started marching around waving napkins. A few had umbrellas. I had seen that once before in New Orleans at the Lundi Gras street festival with Seth, and I knew that was the second line. There were a couple of Christian groups, and a few who played the Golden Oldies, the Beachboys and shit like that. There was a steel drum band, too, and they were my favorite. By the time the rest of them got there at two o'clock, Justin and I were pretty mellow. We had each had to drink off two or three of those mistakes. I wouldn't exactly say we were drunk, or anything, but it wouldn't have taken too many more mistakes for us to be that way. We made two new friends that day, the man and the lady who were working the other half of our booth, and I knew they thought we were cute. Kevin and Rick showed up with a mob. It was Tim, Brian, Denny, Murray, and Todd from our house. The four Townhouse Boys. Colleen, Jenny, Jessica, and Stephanie. Mary Ann Pennington and her husband, and Cheryl Meyers, Rick's secretary, her husband and son, who looked like he was about twelve. Monte and Terry, who were going to be in the parade, too. Ken Balch and Dan Rutland, and a guy named Corey Smith, who was Dan's roommate. All four of the Spencer neighbors, and Morgan and Blake Crawford, the neighbors on the other side, and Blake's friend Riley Earnhart. Most of them wanted beers, too. Our replacements got there right about then, so we went off with that mob. The first order of business was food. We had had breakfast before we left the house, plus a couple of funnel cakes each, but we needed food of substance. Justin got a fried catfish dinner, with cheese grits, coleslaw, and hush puppies. I got me a combination plate of red beans and rice, jambalaya, and shrimp creole. It was all so good I ended up going back for a second plate, and Justin, Rick, and Todd did, too. We found an open place in the park and just ate sitting on the ground. There were tables set up, but the ground was good enough for us. We listened to the music while we ate. After lunch, we didn't all stay together. The group was too big for that, so various sub-groups went their own way. We were supposed to meet up at a particular corner at five o'clock. That corner happens to be at the start of "downtown," and it has a parking lot on it. Mary Ann and Cheryl had both parked there, and they were going to be cooking hamburgers and hotdogs on grills in the parking lot for anybody who might be hungry. I didn't think anybody in that group wasn't going to be hungry, and they probably knew that, too. The North Lagoon crowd hung together, along with the girls. It was still a pretty big group, but we managed. Wade and Reid have become good friends with Morgan, Blake, and Riley, so they went off together. Eventually, the Big Four and the four girls separated from Kevin and Rick and the younger boys. It was just too hard to keep that many people together. The food and drink booths were all in one area, and there must have been forty of those. The rest of them were everything from glassblowing to pottery to watercolors to a guy drawing caricatures to people reading fortunes to tee shirts to orchids to you name it. There were several booths selling Mardi Gras beads, and there was even one where you could make homemade ice cream in zip lock bags by tossing them back and forth. We actually did that, and the ice cream was pretty good. I remembered doing that in elementary school for science, but I didn't remember what you were supposed to learn from it. It was fun, though. There was a carnival area, too. It had a bunch of rides for the little kids, which didn't interest us, of course. We were all too big for most of the rides, anyway. They had a few "adult" rides, like a portable bungee jump thing (no, thanks; not after the lunch I ate), and one of those things where you hit a mallet on a pad and tried to send the thing up to the top to ring the bell. We did do that one. Justin, Colleen, and I rang the bell. The rest of 'em couldn't do it, and I could tell Tim and Brian were pissed off. But that was okay, because they both redeemed themselves at the next one. For three dollars, you got to throw three baseballs at dinner plates that were lined up on shelves. If you broke three plates, you got a basketball. It was a real one and a good one, too. Tim went first and broke all three: bam, bam, bam. Brian was next: bam, bam, bam. "I ain't doing this. I ain't never throwed a baseball in my life," Justin said. "I ain't doing it, either. I'm saving my arm for catching shit at the parade," I said. "Besides, those arms are going to hurt tomorrow morning." "Hmmm. How utterly transparent, guys. But it's cute," Colleen said. "See, those two also got to carry the damn basketballs, now. What they gonna do with 'em? Put 'em in your purse?" Justin said. We did a few other games of chance like that. I won a little stuffed heart that said "I (heart) Mardi Gras" at this thing where you had to get ping pong balls in jars or something. The thing I won had a little loop on it, like maybe you could use it on a Christmas tree or something, so I kept it. Stuffed it in my pocket. There was a whole section of art for sale in booths, but we sort of just breezed past that. We swung by the beer booths again, and they recognized us. We asked them for the mistakes, and they gave them to us. "It's time to get over to that corner where we're supposed to meet up," I said. It was quite a few blocks away. There were a ton of people on the street on both sides, so we walked down the middle of the street. It was five o'clock by the time we got there. We fixed ourselves plates, and Jim Meyers showed us where the beer was. There were cokes, too, of course, for those who didn't want beer. The food was delicious. "Mary Ann, this is the best hamburger I ever ate in my life," I said. "Thank you, Kyle. Do you want the secret recipe?" she asked. "Of course I do," I said. "For a pound of ground beef, mix in a half pound of bulk sausage. Stretch it with a half-cup of Italian breadcrumbs, and about a third of a cup of ketchup. One or two raw eggs to seal it together, and that's all it is," she said. "I think I can remember that, but, if I can't, can I call you to get the recipe again?" I asked. "Of course you can," she said. "I'm just glad you like it." "Like I said, it's the best one I've ever ate. Bar none. Except maybe a Big Mac," I said. "Ewww," she said, and she slapped me on the arm, grinning. I grinned, too. The parade was pretty awesome. They had about thirty-five units, which included bands, cars with dignitaries, horse groups, ROTC units. All that shit. There were about fifteen floats. Kevin and Rick were standing next to each other, and they pelted us with more beads than we could catch. Their float actually stopped in front of us because the King and Queen were toasting, or something, up ahead. They pelted us for the longest time. After several minutes of that, Mary Ann and Cheryl handed me and Tim hamburgers and drinks to take out to them, which we did. We had just handed that up when a cop came by on a motor bike to make us get back. There was a little boy standing right next to us. He was six or seven years old, and he was so excited he could barely stand it. He was screaming his lungs out, but he couldn't catch shit. I picked him up and put him on my shoulders. I walked him out to the float, and Rick, Kevin, Monte and Terry each laid a big wad of beads around his neck. Monte gave him a pretty nice cloth football, that had the Krewe's name on it, and Kevin gave him a stuffed bear. He was so happy and excited, the people in the parking lot clapped for me when I brought him back to his parents. "Thank you," the daddy said, when I took him back to them. We shook hands without telling each other our names. "I've got a little nephew who is eight months old. I'm going to be doing the same thing with him in a few years," I said. "He's lucky to have an uncle like you," the guy said. "Good luck to you and to him," I said to the man. "What's his name?" "Robert Kyle Cleveland, but we call him Rob," he said. "Good names," I said. |