How Rick Found the House in New Orleans They Call the Rising Sun

He’d come from Lansing because his mother, over cereal one day, told him the name of his real father.  A google pulled up a listing in the French Quarter, and, without thinking about it, he got on a bus headed south.

On the way he befriended a one-eyed man, lost his money to a little girl, won a secret in a card game, smoked pot for the first time, and saved a cat.  The cat followed him.  Its name is Dog.

His first night, he gets drunk, lurches through a door with red curtains, looking for a bathroom.

That’s how.

The Madame

There is a house in New Orleans they call the Rising Sun, but no one remembers exactly where it is or why it’s called that, or what they’d do if they found it.

Inside, Madame Le Soleil Levant hums about, her soft bulk belying the grace and precision of her movements.  She checks on the girls, takes inventory at the bar, makes small talk with the wait staff.  She is very patient.  She’s been waiting a long, long time.

Then one stormy night Rick stumbles through the door, and she grins and flings her arms out wide to welcome him.