In two weeks, I’m going to New Orleans. I have never been to New Orleans before, and, truthfully, I’ve never really had much desire. The place seems downright scary to me. I think it’s the apparent lawlessness that gets to me. People are drinking liquor on the street, cops are blissfully ignorant of anything going on, everyone’s showing their breasts for no apparent reason. These are scary, bad things. Really. They are.

A friend tells a story of a visit to New Orleans when she was in college. She’s pretty and fun but somewhat mousy and hardly your typical Girl Gone Wild. Two girlfriends and she made a trip down there for Mardi Gras. They started drinking as soon as they arrived. By the end of the trip, she’d done three new drugs she’d never tried, stayed up for 36 straight hours and engaged in three-way sex. My eyebrows may have raised a little. “Oh, Will, I’d never think of doing anything like that, and it’s totally unlike me,” she said. “But I dunno … just something about New Orleans.”

This is the Old West crossed with Caligula. This is a city full of Penthouse Forums. In New Orleans, Satan is mayor, and the city council president is the Marquis de Sade. Charlie Sheen would be antsy in New Orleans; Tommy Lee wouldn’t leave the suburbs. It is little wonder they are putting an NBA team there; I find it surprising it actually took them so long.

And this is where I’m going in two weeks. The occasion: a bachelor party. I am clearly not making it back to New York alive.

I mean, I’ve been to bachelor parties before, and all in all, they’ve been relatively sedate affairs. One was spent sipping beers while floating around on a raft on Lake Mattoon. Another particularly reticent groom-to-be ended up sipping Natural Lights in the basement of a fraternity while we all watched Happy Gilmore. Hell, just last week I went to one where we saw a Cardinals baseball game in the afternoon and went to a concert that night. Treachery might have happened afterwards, had everyone not been so drunk and tired and old. Everyone hopped in a van at 2:30 a.m. to head to “the clubs,” whatever that meant, but as soon as one guy piped up, “Hey, my apartment’s right on the way. You think you guys could drop me off?” everyone else folded quickly thereafter. That’s about right. That’s what a bachelor party should be like.

My ideal bachelor party involves a bar here in New York City called Arlene’s Grocery. Every Monday night, they have a live band and an emcee. You put your name in to sign up, and, essentially, it’s punk rock karaoke. You can go up there and scream out Ramones songs with a live band behind you. (The guitarist is actually quite good, and he’ll even mouth the words to you if you don’t know them.) If I can ever persuade an unwitting damsel to marry me, that’s what I want for my bachelor party. To me, it seems like you should do something you’ll never be able to do once you’re married or have children. We’ll rent out the place, just me and my boys, and we’ll just get drunk and rock out. I can think of no more memorable evening, at least until I black out, when I’m likely to try to take my pants off over my head and gyrate to "Sweet Child O’ Mine."

I don’t know where the notion of strippers was introduced into the occasion. I have been to strip clubs before, and with one notable exception that I’ll annoyingly not get into here, I’ve found them intensely depressing. The women don’t seem happy, the men don’t seem happy, and the waitresses who aren’t strippers definitely don’t seem happy. They’re desolate affairs: dark, smoky, nasty. Inevitably, someone will be getting a lap dance right next to a chair of spilled beer. One time, a well-dressed woman stormed into the club and started screaming at (presumably) her husband right as a large-chested woman grinded into his crotch. She grabbed his hair and dragged him out. That couldn’t have been a fun car ride home.

I don’t know for sure if we’ll be hitting any strip clubs at this upcoming bachelor party. I’ve yet to receive official confirmation. But we’re going to New Orleans. What do you think?

And what kind of strippers does New Orleans have? (Short answer: Men dressed like women.) It is a mortifying concept. Strippers, lawlessness … and voodoo. Something about the voodoo history of New Orleans creeps me out too. I keep worrying I’m gonna be stumbling through the street, take a right when I should have taken a left, and end up passing out on some high priestess’ grave. I’ll wake up and discover my left ear and my testicles have switched places. I don’t believe in voodoo … but I’m in no particularly hurry to take any chances. Don’t want to mess with that.

And what if there are voodoo strippers? The scenarios race through my brain. They come into our hotel room or something, and they immediately see us as the middle-class, bloated, pathetic white boys we are. They start to take their clothes off, and then BLAM! Their hair has turned into a nest of snakes, and their breasts have suddenly caught fire. A second head pops out of their stomach. They speak, and they sound like Harvey Fierstein with testosterone implants. I notice the groom-to-be has turned into an armadillo. Then they close in on me. They swell my head to 15 times its normal size, and turn it green. I’ve become a giant brussel sprout. I hate brussel sprouts.

Perhaps I’m overreacting. Perhaps it will just be six guys celebrating the impending marriage by sucking down Hurricanes and watching sports. Maybe we’ll play some golf or something. Perhaps we’ll even make a speech in his honor. Of course, if that’s what the plan is … why in the world are we going to New Orleans? Aren’t we just asking for trouble? In ordinary life, we’re well-behaved, law-abiding, God-fearing upstanding citizens. Why are we tempting fate like this? Whose idea was this anyway? We’re toast. We’re mince meat. That place is going to eat us alive.

Besides, it’s going to be quite difficult to fit into my tux at his wedding when my head’s the shape of an enormous brussel sprout. I mean, I’ve already sent in my measurements.

Pray for me.

*BT*

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