Different parties have different rules. Pool parties require swim wear. Costume parties demand costumes. Mardi Gras requires impressive beads.
Four years earlier, I had road tripped to New Orleans for Mardi Gras 2006, in the eclipse of Katrina. Sadly, New Orleans had been cleared of buildings, lives, families, and businesses. It even closed the Wal-Mart. Yet, in the wake of Katrina, the people came to the party, promising the city’s survival. I did my part, as did my four party boy companions: The Butt, C-Money, J-Man, and Mexico. Mardi Gras 2006, through its spirit, resuscitated the Big Easy, and its magical beads found a way back to Big-J on this evening that would now enlighten his spirit with their power of survival.
These beads had been wasting away their Earth-life in my closet. Beads, like humans, are built to party. Unlike humans, it is their sole purpose on Earth. Created to support New Orleans’ renaissance, their life goal was not being realized by gathering dust in my closet and Now was the time for these beads to re-emerge unto the party world on Big J’s nape.
…and don’t be subject to premature bead ejection…
While chugging craft beer in his Bucks County Rent-A-Mansion, I proselytize, “Bead theory holds that all beads are connected, but the thicker the beads the better. Size matters. One set of large beads is better than many small beads. Large beads centralize one’s attention and draw in focus. I have many, many strands of small, independent beads in different colors. The loss of additional bead-strands, and I myself would risk losing bead gravitas. I grant you these, and leave myself at critical bead-mass.”
I hand him the sweetest set of single beads in my possession: a thick, dynamic strand of multitudinous beads, intermingling red, blue and green in chains and links, shining in distance. They would catapult Big J to a level of attention that he deserved, as an enlightened party boy, but rarely achieved.
“The simple economics of supply and demand demands your success. Demand for quality beads will be insanely high. This party doubles as a game where the goal is to collect as many high quality beads as possible. Supply for superior beads, on the other hand, will be extremely low.”
I provide historical perspective, “As Darwinian chance would have it, the Philadelphia port, once the greatest trade center of the Americas, no longer enjoys such status, and therefore receives not massive shipments of Chinese-made toy beads, as does the Mississippi Delta. I blame Napolean, and his stupid brother Joseph for selling the Mississippi River to Jefferson, thereby screwing our city and leaving us in bead envy, forcing the best beads to arrive via the I-10, I-85, I-95 dirty south route, along with other, more potent, party supplies as well.” “Wait, but didn’t the Louisiana Purchase ensure the existence of Mardi Gras as well?”
“Just shut up and listen. The temptation is going to be to give them away. Whatever you do, even if the hottest girl you’ve ever seen invades your psyche and demands those beads, such that seemingly the Creator itself wants you to give away the beads, and you’d have to cut off your hands to avoid giving them away, then cut your hands despite your ass. These beads are hypnotic. The social pressure of getting the best set in the room will drive these predictable human-beings to throw themselves at you. Don’t do it.”
Thus, Big J, with merely a single set of braided beads, would be better prepared in his party endeavors than the competition.
“Partying, like anything else in life, takes patience and mystique. If you give in to the power of others prematurely you will lose your own power.” I warn him of the dangers, however, of possessing that which others want, when not in a position to give away. “Others may attack, surge, approach aggressively, or resort to trickery to obtain your power, even nudity.” “No!” “Yes. Do not be led astray by their forces or magic. With those beads, go your verve, and you will be rendered useless as a vampire with sunglasses, as Superman with Kryptonite, as a eunuch with a condom.”
“I won’t give these beads away! Not even if the hottest girl I’ve ever seen wants them!”
“Wants them? Big J – only if she takes you right then and there because, mystically, her soul is linked to these beads through you and needs them so badly that she will do anything.”
“YEAH! I WON’T DO IT! UNLESS SHE WANTS TO DO IT!”
“Then you know what she’ll have?”
“What?”
“Shitty beads and crabs!” We’re screaming and jumping like little children. His dog Molly is amid the fray, wrestling and barking at the screaming pair, who are pounding beers above her canine head.
This conversation, sounding in bead theory and male objectification of the female form, coupled with the alcohol induced oncoming haze, served as a distraction from the haunting revelation that Big J had triggered about an hour ago.
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