Nice shoes, sir, very nice. I bet you I can tell you were you got em.
I –
Now, c’mon, sir, I am a connoisseur of fine footwear, and I’ll be glad to be out $10 if I can’t tell you where you got them shoes.
All right.
You got them on the street.
Um.
Look down, sir, you’ll see them right there. There on your feet – which are where? On the street. Now if that ain’t enough to get your dime, if you’ll spare a little time, I’ll give them kicks a killer shine – to make that ten rightfully mine!
I like to consider myself a traveler, not a tourist. But walking down Decatur St just shy of Jackson Square, it’s hard to argue that point, harder still my first afternoon in New Orleans. I looked at my friend Mike, who had made the trip with me and who was as short on money as I was.
That trip, five years before Katrina, we ate Chicken Tchoupitoulas at Coop’s, made a pilgrimage for jazz to Funky Butt’s (still open then), discovered New Orleans funk in Dragon’s Den (in a building once home to Aleister Crowley), and took the ferry in the afternoon to quiet Algiers, where we drank Guiness at The Crown and Anchor to wait out the spring heat. Our last night, we met Cousin Art, who said if we pretended he was our relation we could get into any club on bourbon street. And so it went. Cousin Art drank jack and cokes, matching us two drinks to one, with us drinking beer. He had cerebral palsy, and as the night wore on, he was more and more bent over. At one point, crossing some railroad tracks to get to the river for a late night toke, he was literally crawling. He looked like a man on an ether binge. We ended the night in some piano bar at the edge of the quarter, singing Sinatra with everyone in the bar – My Way – never so proud to flub the lyrics.
The point being, it evened out in the end. We actually dug change from beneath the seats of my car on the ride home, got the address of this old timer in Alabama, so we could pay him back his five dollars (he wouldn’t give us his address – insisted the money was a gift), but it evened out in the end.
I paid the guy his 10 bucks – I didn’t even care about the shine.
***
Nice shoes, sir, very nice. I bet you 10 dollars I can tell you were you got em.
All right, then.
You got them on your feet.
Um.
Look down, sir, you’ll see them right there. There on the street – your shoes, which are where? On your feet.
C’mon, man.
You c’mon man. You bet 10 dollars!
But I thought –
Don’t matter what you thought. You bet me 10 dollars I couldn’t tell you where you got your shoes, and I told you. You owe me 10!
And so you pay. Like a good tourist, you pay. A little more for everything. I paid my first three times in New Orleans. I am that dumb, or my memory’s that bad. Each time, I was glad to get caught, and always on Decatur, in front of the stores that sell beads, I Heart NOLA coffee mugs, and 20 dollar zydeco compilation CDs.
The themes have all been used up, turned into theme parks. There’s something about New Orleans – I don’t even care.
I’ve always felt this particular scam was some kind of litmus test for personality, a performance-art Rorschach. I get why people don’t like it. I have to fight the reaction that I’m getting taken as much as the next guy. My first time was the only time I was even offered the shine, which made it more palatable, if less in the spirit of the trip.
It’s not ever been the same guy, though I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some kind of guild. There are usually two, to add to the social pressure. I’m implying nothing: it’s not robbery. It is probably a licensed business, or at the very least, you can be sure that in that town it’s likely the cops are paid off. I have seen a fat guy in a Hawaiian shirt, smoking a cigar in 100 degree heat, stand there and make an argument, trying to establish legality, precedent, and what not – however, any judge in the city would hold with the performance or scam (take your pick) artist’s claim. I have seen an old man get violently mad to a point where I was concerned for his safety, and then take it further, to a point where I was no longer concerned with his safety, and even ready to see violence done to him. My father in-law thought it was great, something new every time he came here! My boss refused to pay up, then talked about it angrily through dinner, before preceding to lose $1200 in the casinos that very night.
Me, I don’t know why I ever came to New Orleans, nor why I love it. I have no love for jazz, voodoo, or Cajun food – at least I didn’t before.
Maybe it’s moments like gas station attendants refusing to let you buy coffee that’s not fresh, brewing a new pot, even though you’re late for a meeting (They from here? They’ll understand – they did!). Or eating at Tujague’s, my father-in-law reminiscing with the tuxedo-clad waiter (by all appearances an ex-boxer and/or mob enforcer) about how great it is that nothing changes in New Orleans – and the waiter actually invited him to go through a door to the other side of the restaurant, where he paid locals’ prices. To this day, I can’t get a waiter to admit there is another side.
Maybe it’s moments like not being able to find any music on a Tuesday night, the band packing it in early in every joint, and finally finding a band – or the ghost of a band – on the street down off Frenchmen. A ten piece group singing arcane folk tunes and standards, passing the hat at 2 am.
So much serendipity, so little meeting of expectation.
The summer before Katrina, I had to come – and did – at the time, seemingly on a whim. No one was available to go with me, and it was the only vacation I have ever taken alone. During the day, I wrote in my travel diary in Jackson Square and wandered through ancient bookshops; at night, I bought drinks for bartenders to make friends and ate well with only a bottle of wine for company. My last night, I capped it off with a cigar and a bourbon on the river walk. I even had my fortune told.
It was one of the best nights of my life.
That same evening, on the way to dinner at Tujague’s on Decatur St (and the best crawfish etoufee in existence), I was stopped by a man who liked my shoes. They were, in fact, nice shoes. With whiskey and foot wear, I’ve always found that a man gets what he pays for.
Nice shoes, sir, nice shoes!
Thank you, I said without breaking stride.
I bet I can tell you where you got em, he said, as I came even with him.
On my feet! I said, walked on by.
I heard not long ago that the price has gone up to 20 dollars since the hurricane. Bartenders in the quarter will tell you the right answer is to say: On my feet, or I’m a local. I don’t know about that. I’m not a local, and I’ve seen a French Quarter bartender roll her eyes at a 10 dollar tip. Besides, I’ve always been one to pay my dues.
And so I stopped, turned, pulled a ten from my wallet – handed it to the man.