Hanging With the Spur Posse: Unplanned Celibacy and the Wisdom of 50 Cent
by Monica Mankin

NOLAFugees correspondent Monica Mankin, on Post-Apocalypse sex and the single girl.

Standing in line at the Spur on Magazine, I think nothing anymore of the sidelong stares and lip-curled leers from the men who wait with me. The straight-faced attendant counts change and prints a lottery ticket; we move forward. I shift my weight. I decide which American Spirits I will suck tonight. I tap my fingers against my leg to the Infiniti’s bass that thumps like an overworked heart at the pump. When the door swings open, letting a tall, salty man still filthy from his workday step through, I hear 50 Cent & Olivia dishing out “Candy Shop.” “You gon’ back that thing up or should I push up on it,” 50 Cent wants to know.

Last October when I returned to New Orleans, I might have been uneasy about being the only woman in the small convenience store. I would have avoided eye contact with the tan-as-a-walnut migrant worker. I would have rolled my eyes at the tall, salty man who tells me I’ve got a nice ass. For months after I returned to the city, the influx of men who left wives and girlfriends in other states to come make a buck rebuilding the Big Easy was palpable. Their barrage of aggressive advances left me feeling dirty in much the same way an August day leaves us all feeling dirty, beads of sticky sweat slithering down our spines. We can shower, but that shit ain’t coming off.

In early February, a few short weeks before Mardi Gras, I was having drinks with girlfriends when a short, possibly toothless, man loudly asked the bartender if she would introduce him to me. Possibly because he was from Texas, or because he said he was a cop, possibly because he had no teeth, she declined to introduce us. And as he crept around my group of friends, looking for an opening, I dodged his attempts to make eye contact. I looked around the bar, at everyone but this man groping for my attention, and I wondered, how was it that with so many men around I wasn’t getting laid? When finally the possibly toothless, Officer Texas returned to his barstool, I overheard him declare to the bartender, “She has a pretty face but not a pretty heart.” Even though Officer Texas wasn’t looking to find my heart and, with Valentine’s Day approaching, I thought “Pretty Face, Ugly Heart” would make an appropriate candy heart greeting, I was still momentarily stung by his remark. I began to wonder about whom in this place, forced and fixed here by the tightened screw of Katrina, the impending screw of Helene or Isaac, Joyce or Kirk, who had a pretty heart?

Maybe the answer is clear. Maybe you already know the answer because you, too, shoved the drunken contractor after asking him politely to keep his hands to himself. Maybe four men in a Ford Fiesta rolled up alongside you one evening while you walked home, the bass bleeding until one of them turned down the volume so another could ask you your name. And you realized how fast your heart was beating, and you wished you had pepper spray or a handgun. Maybe one afternoon when you were driving out of the French Quarter, two thugs crossing the street glared hard at you and your girlfriend while they talked shit, their conversation audible enough for both of you to hear the words “pussy” and “bitch.” Maybe, because you were in your car, you felt hard enough to give them the finger as you drove by. Maybe you were hard enough to give them nothing at all.

Maybe one morning as you drove the Crescent City Connection to the West Bank, the answer crystallized when the man in a red Dodge Ram slowed to match your speed, lifted two fingers to his lips, spread them V-style and wagged his tongue between them. And you realized how hard your head was pounding, and you wished you were driving a Dodge Ram so you could run him off the bridge. Maybe you lost it completely when the wannabe gangster rolled up behind you and rode your ass all the way to the red light, and you rammed the finger at him via the rearview mirror as you shouted, “Back the fuck out my tailpipe, G. That ain’t the spot.”

For me, that was the moment, my face as red as a strawberry daiquiri in the rearview mirror, I realized that with so many men trying to “push up on it,” I wasn’t “gon’ back that thing up” because I could make neither heads nor tails of what I’d be backing up against. Mr. Finger Licker, what did he expect, that I would pull over, climb his flatbed and let him fuck me right there on the Connection? No. Something other than sex drove that aggression. Even my own aggression arrived from some place other than sexual desire. And yet, the elusive G-spot seems to be what we who reside here now in the crotch of our country are striving to find.

So, it is here, waiting in line at Spur, listening to 50 Cent spout, “I’m trying to explain baby the best way I can / I melt in your mouth, not in your hands,” I wonder why tonight I’m not shoving my pepper spray deep into my front pocket to show these men my hard on. I wonder why tonight I’m not trying to convince them that if they bite into me, I’ll chip their teeth like hard candy. I’ve tasted nothing sweet from the Candy Shop that New Orleans has become since Katrina, but tonight I’m softer than caramel. I smile at the migrant worker. And when the tall, salty man says, “Doll, you got a nice ass, you do,” I turn to him with a wink and a “thanks,” and step up to the counter to pay for my gas. The attendant smiles enough to reveal a yellow crescent of teeth between his full lips. I’ve tasted nothing sweet from the Candy Shop, but recognize the pleasure that lies in groping the window while I look at what I want but cannot have.

“You buy a lottery ticket?” I ask the attendant.

“Shame not to,” he says, passing me loose change and a pack of American Spirits, yellow.

Maybe Carnival’s permissive release has us mellowed out for the mean time. Maybe this spring with its cotton candy flowers is a time out, the mandatory pause between beats, the silent stillness after sex, before anyone has energy to go at it again. Or maybe it’s as foolish to think anything has changed as it is to light my cigarette as I walk through the pump station to my car. But I light my cigarette anyway and pull in a long slow drag because whether the gas station explodes or not, the city is still ruined. Men are still rebuilding, angry and horny. People still have no place to live. I’m still not getting laid. No one who buys a lottery ticket tonight wins the jackpot. And another hurricane still may or may not devastate the city again in a few months. But the line inside Spur keeps moving. I smoke my Spirit and get into my car, and with the turn of the ignition 50 Cent’s voice flares up with the song’s last refrain, “I’ll have you spending all you got / Keep goin ‘til you hit the spot…” —Maybe.

Monica Mankin holds it down in the UPT. Look for her upcoming series on Post-K sex, "Gettin' Mine," in future issues of NOLAFugees.com