Horses, honkys, mules and asses

Out on the carriage line I often overhear heated discussions concerning the taxonomy of our animals.

"Lookit that horse!" says one fellow.

"That ain't no horse," retorts his companion. "That's a donkey!"

Sometimes I'm called upon to referee the debate. Or more often, I jump in uninvited. In either case I explain that both parties are half-right. "This is a mule. A mule is a cross between a male donkey and a female horse."*

My colleagues and I generally explain to our passengers as a matter of course what a mule is and why we use only mules. We tell people that mules take the heat better than horses and that we are required by city law to use mules. The part about it being city law is only partly true. The law actually specifies the use of mules only during the summer months and then only during daylight. But given that we have to use mules for three months of the year, there's no good reason not to use them year round. Maintaining and moving two different types of animals would mean extra expense and logistical headaches for the carriage companies. Besides, a lot of my co-workers who have experience with both horses and mules insist that mules are stronger, smarter and superior in pretty much every way.

Not everyone who takes the tour needs to be educated about mules. There are plenty of people who have experience with equines and who consider it an insult to their intelligence if you try to explain to them what a mule is. With a carriage full of strangers, it's hard to know whether to aim high or low. If there's a child on board, then it makes it easier to educate the ignorant without offending the expert.

"You see Rock there?" I say addressing myself to the child while everyone else listens in. "See his ears? He's got his daddy's ears. His daddy was a donkey, and  his mama was a horse. Do you know what that makes him?"

There was one little girl who quickly did the mental calculation and came back at me with a brilliant answer, though not the one I was expecting: "A honky!"

As you can well imagine, we carriage drivers hear (and tell) all kinds of ass jokes, over and over, day in and day out. Here's a sampling:

• One carriage driver colleague, in the course of educating her passengers, likes to tell them that a mule is a "half-assed horse." While this may not be the most hilarious of the ass jokes, it's the only one that is wholly accurate. (An ass is another name for a donkey. Actually, if you want to get really technical, donkeys are one of several subspecies that fall into the category of  "ass".) 

• A pedicab colleague is fond of pointing me out to his riders and telling them: "That's Mark. He has the best ass in town!" This one is wrong on so many levels, that I hardly know where to start. Apart from the aforementioned fact that Rock is only half ass on his sire's side, he's far from the best mule in town. They say that back in his heyday he really was one of the best mules in the Royal Carriages stable. Nowadays, I love him to death, and he really loves to get out there and work. But he's almost 30 years old, and truth be told he's a plug. (See number 9.) As to the flip side of the double entendre... Well, let's just say that Rock's pushing 30, and I'm sneaking up on 50.

• A carriage driver colleague, trying to load up his buggy, shouts at passers-by: "Come on, people. Put my ass to work!"

• One African-American carriage driver points to another and says: "Look there folks. That's something you don't see every day: A black man with a white ass!" I love this one, but as an honest-to-goodness honky, I don't think I could get away with using it. 

• And finally, my very own ass joke. When discussing my two jobs I like to tell people, "When I'm working the carriage, and someone wants to feed my ass a carrot, I don't have a problem with that. But when I'm on the pedicab, it's another matter." Call it a double standard if you will, but that's just the way I am.

* Just in case you're wondering, the offspring of a male horse and a female donkey is called a hinny. Hinnies are harder to produce and are generally considered less desirable than mules.

No special treatment

All day Saturday I had worked the mule carriage (my day job if you haven't heard by now) showing off my city to Super Bowl guests. Then Rock (the mule I'm driving these days) and I headed back toward the stable, threading through the throngs of football fans who were choking the narrow French Quarter streets, moving as quickly as we could without trampling anyone. Back at the barn I unharnessed Rock and put him in his stall; dropped the day's earning in the safe; hopped on my bike and pedaled furiously back through the crowded streets to the Bike Taxi Unlimited shop where I quickly changed into my uniform and set out on the big yellow tricycle just in time for the beginning of the 6 PM shift.

The money was flowing, which was nice because the last couple of months have been brutal. I worked through the night allowing myself just enough time to bike home for a quick shower and a 30-minute nap before biking back to the stable to work the carriage again on Sunday morning. That was the plan. As it turned out, I was about 15 minutes into what was supposed to have been that 30-minute nap when I got a phone call from an old friend in Kosovo. How was he to know? And what difference does 15 minutes make anyway?

All that to say that I was sleep deprived. It's important to mention that before I start to tell my story. I don't know exactly how things might have turned out if I had had a good night's sleep and all my wits about me, but I'm pretty sure that it would have been different.

Anyway, it was late in the afternoon on Super Sunday. I had done a few tours, but by this time the crowds were streaming up Decatur toward the Superdome, a counter current to the Mighty Mississippi just across the levee.  Under different circumstances I might have been looking forward to watching the big game that evening, but on this occasion the thought didn't even enter my mind. All I wanted was sleep.

I was standing there by my buggy waiting for the word from my supervisor to head back to the barn, when a man walked up and asked, "How much to take my friends and me down to Canal? We just don't feel like walking."

I looked up at him. He was a couple inches taller than me, attractive, fit, about my age or maybe a few years older. I knew this guy from somewhere, I was pretty certain of that. But in my sleep-deprived state, I couldn't quite place who he was. We must have met before, but he wasn't showing any sign of recognizing me. Maybe it was an old friend testing me to see if I would remember him.

I hesitated, almost ready to say: "I'm really sorry. I know that we've met somewhere, but I can't quite place you. I'm Mark..."

But at the last second I aborted that plan and decided to simply address his question. Which raised another issue. I wasn't at all sure know how to address his question.

"Uh, we don't usually do drop-offs," I said. "I mean, I could take you if you want, but I would probably have to charge you for a full tour." This is company policy under normal circumstances, but we had been given a little bit  more discretion over the last few days. I could have consulted with my supervisor, and he probably would have allowed me to offer this guy some kind of deal. The truth was that I wasn't sure I really wanted to.

He stood there waiting for my answer, and I began giving mumbled voice to the debate inside my head. "Traffic's really bad now. I don't even know how long it might take me to get down to Canal and back. And with everything so crowded it might be a little bit dangerous..." I trailed off, still unsure of myself. All the while in the back of my mind I was still thinking: Where do I know this guy from?

"How many of you are there?" I asked. If I was going to quote a price, I needed to know.

"Nine," he answered.

"Oh, well that settles it then," I said, relieved that the decision was made. "I can take a maximum of eight passengers. It's the law. It's for the protection of the mules."

"OK, thank you anyway," the man said as he turned to walk away.

I looked back and realized that the buggy driver behind me was grinning and pointing excitedly at his carriage. "Oh!" I said quickly. "It looks like my colleague would be willing to give you a ride if you'd like to go with him."

"Thanks, but that's OK," the man said. "We'll just walk."

Just as he and his friends passed out of earshot, I heard a stranger in the crowd comment, "Damn! If Joe Montana had asked me for a ride, I would have figured out a way to make it happen!"

Joe Montana? 

JOE MONTANA!

I considered running after him, chasing him down, pleading with him to get on my carriage. But that impulse vanished as quickly as it had flared up. It was better to let him go, to preserve what was left of my dignity, to face the fact that I had blown my big chance.

Looking back on the incident, I've been consoling myself with the thought that even though I missed the chance to be the guy that gave Joe Montana a buggy ride, I ended up placing myself in another elite category: I'm the guy who told Joe Montana no. I'll bet it had been a long time since anybody did that.