The streets were slick with rain and beer sludge and oozing of hedonism. The fires of hell threatened to lick it all up. Every last dirty drop.
At least, that is, if you believed the signs -- bold posters carried by the Saved, who came to preach to the masses during Carnival in New Orleans. They perched on parade routes, bar-lined Bourbon Street and sidewalks throughout the raucous French Quarter, some handing out pamphlets, others using a megaphone to deliver their message of deliverance.
But the signs spoke loudest.
On the fifth floor of the Alexa Hotel, in room 5532, a large picture window looked out onto a section of Canal Street where some of the biggest Carnival parades passed by. From here, a guest could see the colorful floats trundle by, watch the crowd vie for trinkets and read a red banner as bright as any bead-thrower's costume:
"Why do you love Satan?"
You would have to be a little closer to discover that this question was directed at Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, feminists and fornicators, among others.
A companion sign avowed, "Drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of God."
Down Royal Street in the French Quarter, a man wearing a "Lifeblood Ministries" jacket touted another declaration:
"Sin is still the disease. Jesus is still the cure."
If sin is the disease, then Ron McRae must have thought Bourbon Street on Mardi Gras was a breeding ground for infection. One cause is the open container law, which only means your drink needs to be in a plastic cup. For women, baring their bodies for a string of beads seemed to be contagious.
As the minutes ticked down to the end of Carnival, McRae, a grey-bearded Anabaptist, manned a post across from Pat O'Brien's bar, home of the Hurricane cocktail. The human tempest of a partiers swirled around him in the foggy night, slurring, stumbling, shouting.
"Just typical wickedness," he said of the scene.
McRae is part of a fellowship that traverses the country to preach, from Miami to Boston and from Columbus, Ohio, to Los Angeles. The group makes an annual pilgrimage to New Orleans at the high tide of Carnival. His fellow brethren from Pennsylvania carried the words of warning.
"Ye must be born again!" one sign demanded.
Around 10 p.m. McRae said the group was getting ready to call it quits. It was hard to get their message across at this time of night.
"During the day you can," he said. "Right now, they're about sloshed out of their minds."
Did he think he had accomplished much during his four-day trip?
"Well, we've done a lot of preaching. I'll put it that way."
Jack Smoke, for one, was tired of the preaching, tired of being told he was "going to hell" for dressing in costume on Mardi Gras. Which is why earlier on Fat Tuesday the 52-year-old New Orleans resident carried his own sign.
Just before the noon kickoff of the Bourbon Street Awards, a costume and drag show, Smoke stood in a beaded, feathered and leathered crowd. He bore his light blue sign above the cluster of heads and shoulders.
On it, the hand of God pointed down from a cloud, saying "lighten up!" to two "thumpers" -- Smoke's nickname for the preachers -- holding a sign that read "Heaven or Hell: The choice is yours." To the side, a drag queen figure asked, "When did they become pro-choice?"
Smoke, wearing overalls and a strand of pink beads, said he drew inspiration for his protest artwork from a real-life encounter with the thumpers.
"I don't know why they think this is so sinful," Smoke said of the Carnival experience.
Perhaps in part because he doesn't "work for beads anymore," Smoke had no qualms about leaving Bourbon that afternoon in search of thumpers in nearby Jackson Square.
"There's no sense in carrying a sign that makes fun of the Bible people without rubbing it in their face," he drawled. "Lord."
On Mardi Gras, sin and salvation cue constant companions, never far from each other's sight. As Lent, the Catholic season of penitence, loomed a day ahead, a man in a Jesus costume swilled a bottle of Southern Comfort. And if you stood on the right street corner, you could see people dressed as pimps and priests pass each other in the street.
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