New Orleans at night is cooler but only just, the breeze coming in is heavy and the moss handing from the trees only seldom moves with it.
For Remy the mutant thief who will one day be known as Gambit, New Orleans at night is a playground.
Drunken tourists pack the French Quarter until Bourbon Street is a sea of bodies and hands holding drinks. Every night is a party and the people easy targets for small hands and the pick pockets attached to them.
They forget in the morning how much money they spent anyway and he knows this already.
Fagin demands money and so he must bring it in and anyway, it's better than the Antiquiary. He's only a few years out of that and even now the memories make him shudder but despite it and despite everything he doesn't know he thinks the world is still exciting and full of mystery.
New Orleans lives with her ghosts, decadence and lights.
He's grown up hearing the stories. He's gone looking for them over and over, ever since he can remember and sometimes he thinks he's seen them. Tourists take walking tours to know all about them and sometimes he follows their little clusters, hanging back and listening to their guides telling the stories.
He knows he should be out getting money. Fagin is cruel when the kids come back empty handed but he's captivated.
The man leading the tour talks like someone on the radio and his eyes dance with every reveal and stop they make.
He follows them to the house of Delphine LaLaurie where he already knows the story but he listens anyway.
She killed her slaves, kept them chained and tortured.
It makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and he wonders what the tourists think. New Orleans keeps her history close. She revels in it, the good can't possibly come without the bad.
There's a girl staring at him from across the street, hard dark and curly, expression curious.
He looks away, not liking too much attention.
The girl looks away too.
He follows them to Jean LaFitte's pub and thinks that he'd very much like to meet a pirate's ghost. The idea of tooling around ona big Spanish galleon appeals to him just as much as swinging in on a rope and taking the city as his own.
Pirates are thieves after all.
He follows on they hear the rumors of Vampires, stories that surged with Anne Rice and her beloved monsters.
He doesn't read much. He knows a few letters but education isn't a big part of Fagin's teaching and since he doesn't even have a last name the man tells him there's no need for him to learn.
Remy doesn't quite understand the world yet and he doesn't really see the need for letters. He recognizes signs and streets and houses. He knows where he is at all times. The French Quarter, the Garden District, Up Town, Treme, the Irish Channel, he knows all of the wards already like the back of his hand.
This is his city. If he's ever been outside it he hasn't gone far.
As he follows the tour he watches them stop at a bar for bathrooms and drinks and hangs outside. The girl is there with him.
He notices her now but he's never seen her before. "You wit dem?" He asks.
She shakes her head. "I just like hearing the stories."
He nods. "Me too."
This is how it is in New Orleans. You can meet anyone and you can talk to anyone. People like to talk here. The locals like to talk about the city and the tourists just like to talk.
When Mardi Gras comes the city will blow up with people, she won't be able to contain all of the revelers and yet she always does.
The bridges will be backed up and the cars sweltering as their AC systems fight to keep up. They come from the north and the west and the east, all curious for something they can't get anywhere else in the country and although he's never been anywhere else he knows there's nowhere like this.
New Orleans is special. He can't imagine living anywhere else and he certainly can't imagine living in New York in a mansion. He can't imagine wearing a suit and believing in anything like a team.
He doesn't know what's coming, the good and the bad and the pain. . .
Remy looks at the girl and they sit on the curb as children do before they grow up and learn to be embarrassed and uncomfortable.
She wraps her brown arms around her knees and looks at him. "You live around here?" She asks.
He nods and gestures vaguely. "Oui, I live around here."
"Me too." She say's, echoing him.
The adults are spilling out the bar as the tour guide tries to wrangle them into order. Two women are already sloshed and stumbling, holding on to each other and the girl laughs, watching them as they laugh into the night.
"I'm Remy." Remy say's, holding out his hand.
She takes it. "Leah, how you wear dem glasses?" She asks, tossing back thick, curled hair. "Don't you know it's night out?"
He shrugs, sometimes concerned about his eyes. He never knew to be until he left the Antiquiary but he's glad he knows now. The Antiquiary doesn't follow the same rules as the rest of the world. Everything is upside down there. "Don't they make me look cool?" He asks.
She smiles, showing missing, white teeth and he thinks about his own. He's lost a few already and grown new ones. the Adult Adventure is coming but it's far off for now. "They make you look confused." She say's, holding out her hand. "Can I try them?"
He hesitates and then leans towards her. "I dunno if you should." He whispers. "I look different without them."
She tilts her head, arms still around her knees. "How different?"
He lowers them and she sees and her normal eyes go wide but she doesn't flinch or scream or run away and that makes him feel better.
"Okay, you can try them." He say's, handing her the glasses.
She takes them and puts them on. "How do I look?" She smiles.
He laughs. "Cool now."
She hands them back and smiles again. She isn't afraid and so many people are. It hurts him when people are afraid. "You got dem Devil eyes." She say's but she doesn't sound accusing, just commentating.
He shrugs, drawing in on himself a little. "I been tol' dat. Ain't never met no devils though. Don't know nothing 'bout him except he bad."
She puts her arms around her knees again. "It's okay. I met worse den de old Devil. He don't scare me none. Devil ain't never hurt me. Don't know if he hurt most people what's afraid of him." She looks unhappy. "People seem meaner anyway."
He nods to that and they follow the tour onwards, talk of the Ax Man and the past. The tour group is getting tired but they've payed for it so they continue on and no one spares a glance at the two kids following.
"You ever seen a ghost?" Remy asks as they take turns playing stepping games on the side walks. They step on cracks because he doesn't have a mother to worry about and they step between the cracks and skip around idly in a half made up game.
She nods.
The tour group is getting ahead of them.
"A few times." She says. "But dey never stay and talk to me."
He's impressed and jealous. "I wanna see Lafitte's ghost. I go down sometimes where dey say his boat was but I ain't never seen it."
She laughs. "Dat old pirate?"
He nods. "You don' t'ink dat would be cool?"
She swings around a lamp post, hair shaking around her head in a frenzy. "I suppose. I ain't got nothing for dem to steal."
He laughs. "There's always somethin' to steal." He say's.
She looks at him curiously and they race then to catch up to the tour group. It's nice to have a friend for the evening and even if he's forgotten his task of collecting money he's having a good time. Leah is fun and curious and doesn't mind his eyes and she likes the stories too. . . she even say's she's seen a ghost and that's really cool.
They sneak in after the adults and steal what's left of their beer, bad children without an ounce of supervision but Remy think's it's fun. The older kids do it so why shouldn't he? He's already tried smoking.
Leah looks unsurprised and does it too and they laugh at their own cleverness and amazement that the world hasn't noticed them yet.
They dance a little around the gallery posts and swing from them while talking about ghosts and vampires and legends.
Remy remembers to swipe a wallet or two even and soon his pockets are jingling and the tour is wrapping up back where they started.
Leah looks sad.
"You gotta go home now?" He asks.
She sighs. "Don' wanna go home." She say's. "Don' like it there."
He thinks he understands and so he takes her hand and squeezes it. "You gonna get in trouble if you stay out all night?" He asks.
She shrugs. "I already been in de most trouble a girl can get into." She say's and he doesn't understand that. "You take me to the cemetery? I wanna ask someone somethin'."
He nods and they walk along, the night is getting later or earlier by some people's reckoning and the breeze has stilled.
Moss hands down like grey tinsel in the darkness and he wonders where the tourists will retreat to when they run out of cash and time. He wonders if they've ever seen the world like this.
Up too late, no one to call you home and a whole menagerie of nightlife to look at.
They reach the gate to Lafayette Cemetery No. 1.
New Orleans has a lot of these little cemeteries with their mausoleums and generations past. This one is the one the tourists go looking for, the curious and the mourning.
He picks the lock to the gate and get's them in, Leah looks amazed and he takes her hand. He isn't scared of ghosts but he isn't stupid and if any place is haunted it's this one. That's what the gates are for, not to keep grave robbers out but to keep the dead in.
"Who you gonna ask your question to? Miss Laveau?" He asks, looking around the dark city. . . the marble necropolis with it's dead residences and the denizens there in.
She looks at him. "Yeah, only. . ." She stops then and her small hand slips from his. "Only I already know de answer." She say's softly, looking at him. "And I heard all de stories already."
He doesn't understand. "Leah?"
She puts her arms around herself and shakes her head. "Remy I don't wanna go home." She say's in a small voice. "Bad things happen there."
"Den don't go home." He say's. "Y-you could come wit' me."
She shakes her head. "Non, I can't do dat." She say's and he doesn't really know if she can either. Fagin doesn't like taking in girls as much. "Remy you got dem eyes and they're your secret. . . I tell you now I don't know no devil 'sept the one's living and breathing. I combed de old Devil's hair and it kill me for it. Dat's my secret."
He nods and yet feels for the first time a tremor of fear going through him. "What you mean?" He asks, feeling smaller and colder than he should have.
"She kill me for it." The girl say's, eyes on the ground. "But every night I get up an' listen to de stories. I ain't never had no one walk wit' me though. It's been nice."
The wind blows then, sudden and sharp, making the trees creak and groan and the dust of the past lift up around them.
"I'll look for your pirate. Mr. Laffitte. I find him, I let you know."
He thinks he might understand but then the wind grows stronger and rages around them, her dark hair whipping in the wind and twisting. His own obstructing his vision as realization hits him fully.
When the wind stops she's gone and it's just him and the dead, like it had been all along.
The cemetary is silent and the breeze gentle and normal.
The end of summer heat still clinging to the earth and her creation.
He stares at the spot where Leah had stood and blinks.
Had she ever really been there?
He wonders then why no one had noticed two unatended children dancing along behind them, spinning cirlces round lamp posts and skipping over cracks, stealing beer and wallets. . . not a single one had noticed and it's getting vary late.
He fishes a watch out of his pocket, seeing now it's just a cheap Timex and see's it's nearly three in the morning.
He feels dizzy and the beer hurts his stomach.
He puts the watch away and leaves the cemetery, shutting the gate and looking back, wondering if Leah was asking her question or if some miserable fate had forced her to go home.
He wanders back through the drunken, sodden tourists and the locals heading home. He walks past people who don't look his way and who pay him no mind, their trinkets and purses in his pockets, master cards and American Express. Wadded up change and twenties. . . watches and the odd bit of jewelry. All of it his for the moment and he wonders if Leah will be out the next night and if she'll find his pirate for him.
No, he doesn't really understand what's happened. It's all terribly confusing and strange but he's oddly calm about it. He made a friend and the night was good.
Whoever Leah was. . . if he ever see's her again. . . he hopes she'll really look for his pirate. Maybe she'll even find him.
There are odd things that can happen at night and New Orleans lives with her pasts and ghosts. Memories are never far off and sometimes they come out and mingle with the tourists the same as anyone local has ever done and for Remy, who has a future larger than anything he can imagine ahead of him- it's been an exciting night. A good night and when he finally returns to Fagin's squat he forks over his haul and goes to sleep with the dawn, head full of stories and ghosts and skipping, little girls.