Sections of the counter newspaper were being exchanged beteen customers. The guy next to me had the A section, the national news.
“They say yesterday’s Mardi Gras celebration was the biggest since pre-Hurricane Katrina,” he said aloud. “I went there once, when I was nineteen,” he continued. “Wild place. Million people from out-of-town.”
He spoke in short fragments. “College students. Military guys. Bars took out their windows and sold drinks to you standing on the sidewalk. People slept in the parks. Mardi Gras is really 12 days long. Each day named for a Greek god. The last day is Mardi Gras, the Day of Rex. Point is, bars don’t stay open all night like you’d think. They start shutting down around midnight because people are exhausted from partying for going on two weeks.”
He went silent as coffees were sipped, breakfasts were ordered, and customer checks were calculated.
“I always thought I’d go back, but I never did.”
“That’s what I said about Germany,” piped in an old timer a few seats away. “I wanted to see…” and he stopped.
“You visited Germany?” asked Mr. Mardi Gras.
The old guy smiled, “Yeh.”
“What was it you wanted to see?”
“Well, when I was there – Nuremburg – we drove over crumbled buildings in our tanks. I just want to see, well, what it looks like now.”
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