I found six-year-old Hunter and his mother shivering on a street corner in the Central Business District at 9:10 a.m. yesterday. The previous day had been as hot and muggy as... well,... as New Orleans; but a cold front had blown through during the night and a blustery wind was whipping down the city streets. When I'm riding, I pretty much generate my own heat, but even I was feeling it a bit. Apparently, Hunter's mom hadn't anticipated this kind of weather, and neither she nor her son had the proper apparel.
Hunter was in town because he had a part in a movie called Dog Fight. In order to be on time for shooting he was going to have to be back at that same corner by 9:30. That gave us just 20 minutes. None of the nearby clothing stores opened till 10.
"Hop aboard!" I told them. "We'll find something." I was carrying my sweatshirt, which I had just washed the night before, in the storage compartment under the passenger seat, so I pulled it out, wrapped Hunter up in it, and set out into the cold headwind pumping the pedals at double speed.
I headed toward the French Quarter figuring that our best chance was to find a sweatshirt in a souvenir shop. Along the way I learned that my six-year-old passenger was no stranger to the silver screen. He had already had parts in a couple of movies -- not to mention TV commercials and whatnot. "Wow, this is really cool," I told him. "I've never hauled a movie star before!"
I pulled up to the first souvenir shop we came to and waited while Hunter and his mom rushed in. They came back after just a couple of minutes, empty-handed. The clock was ticking. Desperate, I asked a female taxi driver nearby if she had any suggestions. "I'd try over on Bourbon," she said. "You're bound to find something over there."
Of course! Bourbon St. is better known for it's strip clubs, but I'd venture to bet that there are at least ten t-shirt shops for every strip club. Among those dozens of t-shirt shops lining the street, surely one of them would be open early. (You, dear reader, may already be recognizing the problem with this plan. Of course I should have seen it as well. All I can say in my own defense is that I was in a big hurry to help out a cold kid.)
We zipped over to Bourbon St., and right away, we found an Asian guy just opening up his shop for the day. (Kudos to all the hardworking Asians who get to work 45 minutes before everybody else. This early bird was definitely going to be rewarded with the worm!)
"We're looking for a child's sweater or sweatshirt, something nice and warm for this little guy. Y'all have anything like that?" I asked.
"Yes, we have, we have!" he said.
Once again Hunter and his mother disappeared into the store. As I sat outside watching the shopkeeper set up his wares for display, I suddenly realized that thing that probably made you, the reader, groan out loud a couple of paragraphs ago -- that is, assuming you have any kind of notion of the kind of merchandise that dominates the market on Bourbon St. If you don't know and can't guess, let me just say that if I were to reproduce here the messages printed on some of those shirts, my blog would immediately be placed in the "adult content" category. There were even shirts with stick figures engaged in various kinds of sex acts. "Oh my!" I thought to myself. "What have I done now?"
My riders came back out after a few minutes both wearing brand new sweatshirts with "New Orleans" emblazoned across the front -- likely the only garments in the entire shop that weren't obscene, sacrilegious, or both.
"I'm really glad you found something," I said. "I... uh... hope Hunter doesn't read too well." Which under normal circumstances would have been a terrible thing to say to the parent of a six-year-old.
"Oh, Hunter reads very well!" his mother assured me.
"I'm really sorry," I said.
"It's OK," she said. "At least we're warm now. And we're going to be on time."
By the way, the film industry is really taking off in New Orleans lately. They tell me that there are 7 movies currently being filmed in the city. Hollywood at the mouth of the Mississippi!
No comments:
Post a Comment