Reading Pat O'Brien's is closed and it's late even in the Big Easy - the one we all knew once, or imagined. We're down by Jackson Square, finally away from the beads and beer stands - the kids with coffee can lids nailed to their sneakers shuffling a few tap-ti-taps, shucking each other, then at it again, too young to have talent. We all want to be the Fool stepping out lightly from the cards, she says, leaving behind the Devil and the Hierophant. And the Eight of Wands too, she adds, after a while. The other tarot readers folded their decks and chairs hours ago. The guy with the mythically golden boa wrapped around his neck and his girlfriend with the pointy pink hair - are nowhere to be seen. She smokes a clove cigarette and resting one loose arm on the wrought iron fence. I sit on the curb, spent. Neither one of us is sure why we're still here as the street sweeper whirs and clatters by, yellow lights flashing "caution". - Marc Bonica