Big Easy Bonanza

been busted for assaulting a policeman. He had somehow raised his own bail and was now due to be arraigned. Tubby could have instructed him on the telephone how to enter a plea of not guilty all by himself, but Sandy had a volatile personality, to say the least, which seemed to produce an immediate allergic reaction in law enforcement personnel, so Tubby came down.
    Sandy was at his theatrical best. He was wearing a silky bright-yellow blouse with horizontal black stripes, and burgundy slacks with vertical white stripes. Thus he made your eyes cross even if you just glanced at him. He also had a purple scarf wrapped around his neck and thrown back over his shoulder. Tubby knew he was sensitive about his appearance since Dr. Feingold’s treatments. Where it was visible, on his cheeks and hands, you could tell there were pronounced chocolate drops on his otherwise cream-colored skin. His case, Tubby knew, would be worth substantially more if Sandy were a pretty young Sophie Newcomb grad instead of a flamboyant French Quarter cross-dresser. A jury might wonder why a few dozen liver spots would matter to someone like Sandy, but Tubby knew how vain she was. (Depending on the context, Tubby sometimes envisioned Sandy as a he, and sometimes as a she. He had quit fighting it, and now used whatever pronoun came out naturally at the time.)
    “Hey, Sandy, where y’at?” Tubby squeezed in next to him.
    “Tubby, thanks for coming,” Sandy gasped. That fruity touch was one of his mannerisms, which he sometimes turned off. He launched into his story.
    “This was absolutely not my fault. I was smoking a cigarette—I could use one now—outside of Major Cee’s on Bourbon Street, when this asshole cop, I think his name is Matthews, comes up and asks me what kind of pistol I’m packing. That’s right. I thought he meant a gun. I said, ‘What on Earth do you mean?’ and he taps my crotch with that plastic club they all carry and says, ‘Have you made your trip to Sweden yet for your operation?’”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “No! And you know how sensitive I am about that. And I don’t like anybody, especially some cretin cop from Arabi, touching my genitalia without an invitation.”
    “So what did you do?”
    “I called him a stupid honky yat motherfucking pig. Tubby, I know I shouldn’t have done that, but I was really mad. And then as soon as I said it I was scared, and I knew I was in trouble.”
    “What did he do?” Tubby caught sight of Sandy’s ring, a cameo. It was an ivory profile of a woman, her hair braided above her forehead, on a faint pink field. Was it something Sandy’s mother might have given him, or was it one of those pieces of other people’s history that you bought in a flea market or the antique shops that lined Chartres Street? Tubby didn’t know a lot about Sandy’s private affairs, thank God. He had heard, however, that Sandy had a significant other who was HIV positive. Sandy’s life was not all peaches and cream.
    “He said, ‘Get in the car,’ just like that, and arrested me. I said to myself, ‘Sandy, the man’s an asshole. He is not tuned in to reality. Just do as he says.’ I have a little voice that sometimes gets me out of these things.”
    “He didn’t hit you or anything?”
    “No.”
    “That’s good.”
    “I think they’re afraid to start a fight with me. I think they’re worried I might bite them or something and give them AIDS. Even when he put the handcuffs on me, he tried not to actually let his fingers touch me.”
    “All right. Did anybody see this?”
    “Sure, lots of people, but I don’t know who most of them are. Miss Nancy was there and saw it.”
    That didn’t help much. Miss Nancy was a gray-haired street lady in the French Quarter, who cast spells on the people she passed on the sidewalk.
    “Listen, Sandy. This is no big deal. The cop may not even show up for trial, and anyway it’s just going to be a fine. Have you got any money now?”
    “Only about fifty dollars.”
    “Well, you pay that to me, and we’ll just plead you not guilty. Save your pennies. This may not come up again for six months, and then you can decide whether to pay or fight it.”
    “Whatever you say, Tubby. What happens now?”
    “I’ll be right back.” Tubby went up to the clerk in front, and told him that his client, Sandy Shandell, was in court and wished to plead not guilty to a charge of assaulting a police officer. The clerk called out Sandy’s name, just