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 Norman Spinrad Novel Treatment69 West 9th Street, Apt.4B New York, NY 10011212-777-7537normanspinrad@hotmail.comPOLICE STATE  by Norman SpinradWhoever said it, maybe at one of the old time Mardi Gras, must’ve been doin’some good stuff, when he did: “Things are more like they are now than they’ve ever been before.”Some say the Eternal Mardi Gras is the Disney version, what with the traditionalKrews’ parading limited to the traditional lead-up to Fat Tuesday and the traditionalroutes while the big time floats from Hollywood, X-rated, corporate, and otherwise, runthe Eternal Mardi Gras all year all long all over New Orleans except through the X-ratedtheme parks, and I suppose you can say that much is sort of true, given that it was DisneyI brought in first.But whining that the Mouse has gone and done to the French Quarter what it didto Times Square, not to mention the way it’s oozed out into the rest of New Orleans likethe annual dose of Mississippi mud during the Hurricane Season, is going a tad too far,seeing as how the Quarter had fallen far off its fabled glory days even before Katrina.And as for calling yours truly Jean-Baptiste Lafitte a swamp rat traitor to the Free
 
State of Louisiana or the true soul of the city for dealing them in and starting the EternalMardi Gras, you expect me to apologize for saving the city from literally drowning todeath?Oh yes, I did!Everyone knows New Orleans had been on its economic ass for decades just likethe state it was leading down the willy hole, barely able to pay the cops to keep the behavioral sink at bay, and the garbage men to pick the corpses off the streets before theyrotted an’ toss ‘em in the bayous where they belong.The Hurricane Season wasn’t exactly going away, now was it it, and what theDutch were demanding to build the necessary dikes and seawalls to save what was left of the Big Easy from finally going under would’ve been about the total budget of the citygovernment for the next decade or two. No Hans Brinker Seawall back then, need Iremind you?I guess I do.Amazing what short memories ingrates have. New Orleans featured itself as the “Big Easy” since before Mickey Mouse waseven a gleam in Uncle Walt’s evil eye, but just because the truth wouldn’t look so goodin the tourist guides doesn’t mean we don’t all know that it’s always really been the BigSleazy, now does it?This city was built as a haven for pirates and slavers by disreputable governmentsfor their own disreputable purposes and the riverboat gamblers, saloon keepers andwhorehouse impresarios like yours truly, rollers high, low and medium, who servicedtheir trade.
 
It was born as the Big Sleazy. What pays here, stays here. Always been like that.Always was, still is, always will be, the Loas and the Free State of Louisiana bless thistown and vise versa cause nothing else ever has.Easy?Yeah, sure.Born between a bend in the mighty and mighty ornery Mississip and a permanently flooded saltwater marsh presumes to call itself Lake Pontchartrain servingas an overflowing catch-basin for tidal surges when the major hurricanes hit and giantmud puddle in-between.Easy?Expanding on land below sea level. Tossed around like a beachball between theFrench and the Spanish. Finally sold to the Americans by Napoleon like a cut-rate whore just before he knows he’s gonna lose it anyway.Those who adapt survive, like the Cajuns from icy Quebec said when they foundthemselves in the steamin’ bayous of the Delta, those who don’t ain’t been heard fromlately.So making legal what the Big Easy always was and promoting it as the world’sfirst forthrightly X-rated tourist destination to pull our terminal condition from theMississippi mud is not “selling out the soul of the city” or “whoring ourselves to themavens of show business.”Because the Big Easy has always been a whore, a charming, sleazy, free-wheeling, good-natured hooker with a heart of gold and an eye for the main chance,which of course is what makes her easy, and bein’ easy is the name of the game in this
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