Dispatches From The Front

American Visions, April, 1996 by Henry Chase

BLACK MOBILE'S GRAS

"Moon Pie! Moon Pie! Moon Pie!" The dense crowd's imploring cries and their outstretched pleading hands beseech the masked members cavorting atop the "Time Machine Mystery Makers Float" to grace me!-- not him or her/with a plastic beaded necklace, a piece of candy, a plastic rose, or, most traditionally of all, an inexpensive confectionery treat that goes by the name Moon Pie. The crowd is as friendly as it is frenzied, pressing toward the float as if there were no tomorrow--and there isn't, for today is Fat Tuesday, the culmination of Mobile's Mardi Gras. Suddenly, necklaces, pies, candy and assorted other treats rain down, and the madness kicks into a still higher gear as people leap to catch the objects before they hit the ground, knowing that if they don't, they will be (and' believe me, they will be) scrambling on hands and knees, trying to beat their rivals to the precious prizes. Grandmothers gleefully contest with young children, and no mercy is shown.

Some hours earlier, as this parade was assembling at the float house of the Mobile Area Mardi Gras Association, things weren't quite so frantic. Black riders from Mobile's Bay Area Riders Club, from Michigan's Double O Riders Association (who also rode in President Clinton's inaugural parade), and from Mobile's police and sheriffs departments jostled back and forth atop their horses, as kids circled on the edges of their ranks. All were waiting for the starter's whistle. Soon the parade began, riders in front; following promptly behind came the small Excelsior Band, whose drum proudly proclaims "Since 1838" and whose somewhat elderly members had not yet had their tight formation periodically disrupted by the scampering around occasioned by the horses' prior passage along the street. After the Excelsiors came the carriage of the Mardi Gras grand marshal, the black Shriners Palestine Temple No. 18 contingent (some walking, some bicycling, some-on Go Karts and others using even weirder means of locomotion), the first of many high-school marching bands, the float of the Mardi Gras king and his court, and the rest of the floats (each preceded by a boy carrying a sign proclaiming the float's official name) and the rest of the bands.

Although the parade had just begun and the crowd here at the starting grounds was relatively sparse (composed mainly of friends of the float folks), those atop the floats had already begun to assuage the clamor for gifts, and I noticed for the first time what seemed to me (an unprepared parade novice) a somewhat unscrupulous practice. Some members of the crowd came equipped with cardboard boxes, 'which they held in the air, capturing whole swaths of objects at once. It's hard enough simultaneously to take notes, duck the Moon Pies that hurtle toward my head, and try to snag a necklace from competing parade watchers without entire sections of the sky being blotted out by boxes! Next time (and I will be back), it's either no note-taking or my own box.

Jump forward an hour: The parade, &rung halfway across the city, has come to a halt for a while, and momentarily the energy seems to dissipate. Coming to the rescue here at the intersection of Royal and Dauphin streets is the crew atop the Cosby Kids float, who cruelly begin to tease the crowd into a frenzy by holding forth necklaces, dolls and plastic roses and slowly waving them back and forth, promising them first to this person and then to another. Just before the object of desire is released, the float person reconsiders with an evident shake of his or her head ("No, maybe you aren't a deserving person after all"), settles upon another soul to taunt, and again almost bestows his or her gift. Soon we are close to straight-up lust. The Crowd pleads, moans, cries out, holds up hands--me! me! me!--and then suddenly one of the float folks either sails some prize off into the ravenous crowd or reaches down and puts a gift into some individual's hand. One young woman is given an especially "valuable" necklace and comes away with a laughing, loopy, ecstatic grin on her face as if she's just won the lottery.

Now the Cosby float folks begin to dance about, plastic roses clenched between their teeth. Next they begin to rock their float side to side, creating the impression that it is a boat in choppy water and adding to the atmosphere of frenzy--rocking float, pleading people, gifts whizzing by, scrambling crowd leaping to catch stuff before it lands--when all of a sudden, from just behind the float, the Selma Saints Marching Band goes crazy, kicking in with "When the Saints ..." as its skimpily clad young ladies strut and shimmy, and the parade resumes its movement, leaving behind at Royal and Dauphin a drained crowd, giggly and goofy, all its adrenaline subsiding, suddenly gone ... just g-o-n-e.

Jump forward another hour, farther along the parade route: As I'm frantically taking notes, my peripheral vision catches dark objects descending from the sky. We're close to the end of the parade, and the float folks have begun to fling whole boxes of goodies overboard, truly unleashing the crowd's covetousness and competitive spirit, and if I don't step back quickly, I'm in danger of being trampled in the rush to get a whole box of cheap, probably-inedible-in-any-serious-quantity, miniature chocolate cakes. A fine epitaph that would make: The devil's food made them do it. And all that is just Fat Tuesday's parade.