Joel A. Pierson and Dana Dyer Pierson
THE NOVELIZATION OF THE AWARD-WINNING AUDIO DRAMA SERIES HEARD BY 50 MILLION PEOPLE WORLDWIDE!
In 1998, we took our first trip to New Orleans as a couple, and the people we met there made an amazing impression. They were so open, so honest, so real. And the French Quarter is like no other neighborhood in America. What other district is known more by the behavior of its visitors than its inhabitants? The people who live and work in the Quarter have a story to tell, and it was our goal to tell that story without descending into stock New Orleans clichés.
On the drive home from New Orleans, as two playwrights with sixteen hours to kill, we soon realized that we had to create an audio play about this unique and boisterous city and her people. As audio theatre producers, we envisioned thirteen half-hour episodes. The characters were inspired by people we met on the trip; new friends. The situations came from our imagination, driven by stories these friends told us about their lives.
In 1999, a cast of fifty talented actors helped us bring French Quarter to life in thirteen episodes. In moments of humor and great drama, they made our characters into people, as they told our tale. Within a year, it was picked up by National Public Radio for the nationally popular NPR Playhouse series, where it aired twice.
This novel contains every scene in the seven-CD set, plus bonus scenes that had to be cut from the audio series for time. It also incorporates narration that audio theatre typically omits. If you are already a fan of the audio series, we welcome you to this book. If you’ve never heard it, visit us on the Web at www.minds-ear.org, and consider picking up the CDs as well.
Joel and Dana Pierson are the founders and executive team behind Mind's Ear Audio Productions, an award-winning audio studio that has created such series as The Dante Experience, The Children's Zoo, The Valhalla Triangle, and French Quarter. In addition, Mind's Ear has designed and created the official audio guided tour of Arlington National Cemetery.
The Piersons spend their out-of-studio time editing books, writing, and loving their three borzoi hounds. While they currently call Bloomington, Indiana their home, their hearts will always have boundless love for the majestic city of New Orleans. Her people are survivors, and this book is dedicated to them.
“New Orleans is neither Sodom nor Gomorrah,” Professor Justin Stonewall Brady III told his class, “except maybe for a certain week each February, but we’ll leave that aside.”
Several of the students smiled. A few laughed. The rest sat with the same attentive admiration that made American Studies 204 one of Tulane University’s most popular classes. Though he would never admit it, Stony Brady was the reason. His folklore class brought the Deep South to life in vibrant color, and students clamored to be a part of the privileged thirty, semester after semester.
“I won’t deny that this city has a reputation,” he continued in his lecture. “I won’t even say it’s undeserved. We were founded by sailors and pirates. You attract a certain class of people. What I want you to keep in mind when you come to this class each day is that there’s more to New Orleans than the booze of Bourbon Street and the prostitutes of Storyville. Sure, you’ve heard stories, we all have—voodoo, debauchery, bacchanalian frenzy up and down the streets of the French Quarter. But there’s more, my friends, much more. There are so many people here, creating tomorrow’s folk tales day after day.”
One such person was Jorge Fonquez, though his mind was on the September heat and the job at hand, rather than contemplating folklore. He stood in front of a weather-abused townhouse on Burgundy Street, trying not to sweat all over the envelope he was entrusted to deliver. His stomach clenched in the identical way it did with every stop. The person inside was always a complete stranger, and never welcomed the official documents Jorge handed over. Some people were armed. A few had brandished their weapons at him as a warning. Fewer still (though not few enough for Jorge’s taste) actually tried to use the weapons against him.
Such is the life of the process server.
Just shy of thirty-eight years old, Jorge had no real regrets about his chosen profession. Nervous tension aside, it still beat the hell out of an office job or worse, no job at all. Jorge had known both situations intimately. So today it was an Order to Appear and a couple Orders of Protection, then back to base to log the paperwork, and maybe home by three. Maybe.
He knocked on the door. A flake of forest green paint floated to the pavement. “Mr. Souchet?” No answer. “Open the door, Mr. Souchet.” This time, there was the faintest rustling from inside. That was enough for Jorge. “I know you’re home, Mr. Souchet. I need to speak to you.”
Souchet replied from within, in a heavy Creole accent, “Go away!”
“I’m an officer of the court, Mr. Souchet.” Jorge knocked again. “All I need is a minute of your time, and then I’ll be gone.”
“Go away!” Souchet replied, more insistently.
Jorge kept his patience. “It’s just a matter of time, sir. Wheels of justice, and all that. Very simple process: you open the door, I hand you an envelope, you call me an ass, and I go away.”
* * *
“I know where he goes.”
McGaffey turned to face the speaker, now roused from his daydream. It was the quiet little man who had been seated a few bar stools away from him. Had he been listening in? And what was he talking about? “Who?”
“Moncrief,” the man said. “I know where he goes. I’ve watched him.”
“Why?”
“Because I can.”
As much as he wanted to walk away, McGaffey stood there, transfixed by this plain-looking man who stood before him. His voice melted into McGaffey’s ears like butter on a toasted muffin. The voice was far too deep for a man of little stature, and it had a quality to it— haunted? McGaffey knew that sounded trite, but it was the only word that fit. He had to say something. “Who are you?”
“Someone who wants to help,” he answered, his face annoyingly inscrutable.
Great, another Samaritan. “You want to help? Let the police do their job, and you stay out of the way.”
“I can see to it that he will never bother you again.”
The little bastard was cocky, McGaffey had to admit. There was a confidence in his voice that no one else possessed when discussing Moncrief. “Is that right? You a hit man?”
“No.” A tiny smile graced the stranger’s lips. “I am a vampire.”
McGaffey instantly lost all respect for the man. He tried not to let his face show too much disgust and annoyance. “Nice to meet you. I’m Frankenstein.”
“Don’t mock what you don’t understand, Detective.”
“Look, Dracula—”
“My name is George,” the man said with that same emotionless inscrutability.
McGaffey took this information in for a moment, trying not to laugh. “George.”
“Yes.”
“The vampire... George.”
“Yes. It lacks flair, but it is my name.”
It was getting stranger and stranger, and McGaffey’s head was beginning to have an audible buzz from the rapidity with which he drank his beer. And yet, asinine as this encounter was, he just couldn’t leave. There was something in George’s demeanor that suggested that this little pissant could actually get rid of Moncrief. “So... George. You want to help catch Moncrief, and...what? Eat him?”
“I want him removed from society as much as you do, but without the sanctioning of the police, I can do nothing to help. Let me assist you, and I assure you he will disappear discreetly.”
He was considering it, actually considering turning this case over to this delusional lunatic. He pictured himself reporting to work tomorrow, and informing Captain Chandler that the Moncrief case was finally taken care of. In a moment of clarity, he suddenly remembered that he was too tired to be talking with a vampire. “Look, pal, it’s been a very bad day. Thanks for the offer, but the New Orleans Police Department doesn’t have a budget for vampire deputies.”
“The capture will be its own reward.”
