Storms clouds may have moved out of New Orleans,
meandering toward Mississippi and Alabama, but Pete Franklin, having just left his apartment on Louisiana Parkway, headed Uptown. He had an appointment at the U.S. Public Health Hospital. Franklin understood very well what Marcello meant when he said, “the good doctor will see you.” Experiments, secret labs, animosity toward Fidel Castro and the involvement of the CIA seemed to be joining hands and forming one big virus family. At least that was what Pete Franklin was thinking when he pulled behind the hospital and parked his car.
For over a year, the funny-looking man had been building a secret lab in his apartment, collecting mice, performing experiments on the tiny rodents and quietly submitting data to a very well-known physician who operated a cancer laboratory in the bowels of the facility where he had just parked his car. Not that his lab was illegal or that the good doctor’s work was unethical, as far as anyone knew, but if anyone followed the rat droppings, eyebrows would be raised at the illicit group of characters assembled, seemingly with the same goal: eliminate Fidel Castro, possibly another world leader.
Ironically, the only person who couldn’t raise his eyebrows was the man without eyebrows, Pete Franklin. Yet he was heavily involved in clandestine activities that would certainly cause many Americans to wonder what the heck was going on in the Crescent City.
Franklin wove his way through ivory-white painted hallways, stepping around discarded hospital beds, IV poles and other forgotten medical equipment, eventually making his way to the metal door that hid secrets and sensational gossip that only a handful of people knew about. Pete hoped this party’s guest list stayed invitation only.
A young medical resident was sitting behind a desk, reading notes written in a small journal and typing furiously on an olive-green Olympia typewriter. Wearing faded hospital scrubs, black horned glasses that had slipped down his nose, the harried student had not noticed that the door had opened and a visitor now stood before him. Pausing to turn the page in the journal, the resident stopped typing and only then realized he was not alone.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I’m was told to meet the doctor here at 3:00. Last name is Franklin.”
It was then that the young man took a good look at Franklin and tried to hide his discomfort as he stared at the man with spotty clumps of hair on his head, and what appeared to be irregular-cut pieces of carpet glued to his forehead pretending to be eyebrows. “Yes, of course, Mr. Franklin,” he said while reaching into the right desk drawer pulling out a Manilla envelope, extending the envelope to Franklin but being careful to not make physical contact with the strange man.
“I don’t understand, I thought I was meeting face to face with Dr.,” but before he could complete his sentence, the intern interrupted saying, “I was told to give you the envelope and to tell you that your instructions would be inside.”
The student returned to his notes, the clicking and clacking of the Olympia’s keys against paper and roller echoing off the cinderblock walls of the room. Pete Franklin took the hint and exited the door he had entered only 2 minutes prior.
Later, sitting at the kitchen table in his Louisiana Parkway apartment, Franklin opened the envelope and watched the contents unceremoniously fall onto the scratched Formica. Taking in the items before him, Pete found several folded pieces of paper, a hotel room key and a bundle of cash secured with a rubber band.
“Oh my, what have I gotten myself into now,” Franklin muttered to himself and to the hundreds of mice, locked away in cages that were scattered around the room.
Thankfully, as carnival season rolled in New Orleans, life slowed down for the disgraced former Eastern Airlines pilot, errand boy for Carlos Marcello and mentor to young men in the Civilian Air Patrol. For a few days, Franklin could return to his favorite seedy bars and gay clubs in the French Quarter, drinking and smoking, carousing with others with questionable morals, but mostly, Franklin found himself waiting. Waiting for instructions.
Most days, the work-life balance in New Orleans is fairly even. However, during the raucous carnival season, life, or better yet, the high life, is closer to 100 percent. Those businesses not catering to the Mardi Gras balls, parades and the tens of thousands of out-of-town tourists generally have a difficult time opening and operating due to road closures and the throngs of people that filled the streets. Staying sober long enough to actually put in a day’s work also tends to be a hindrance.
Fat Tuesday arrived in New Orleans on February 26, 1963, with Nash Roberts, the weatherman at WDSU-TV predicting sunny skies and a high of 55 degrees. New Orleanians and friends from across the country were in a festive mood, lining the traditional parade route, waiting for the Krewe of Rex to take over the city. Lent and a time of repentance was quickly approaching and most revelers were anxious to get their chosen sins out of their system before the clock struck midnight.
Even criminals, for the most part, took the day off and participated in the revelry known world-wide, where decadence reigned and beads and doubloons rained from Napoleon Ave, down St. Charles Ave., around Lee Circle all the way to Canal Street. If the Krewe of Rex had had been a predictor of things to come, they may have chosen a different theme other than “World of the Brothers Grimm.” Because not all fairytales, make believe kings and queens, even during Carnival, have happy endings. Soon, one man’s fairytale life would take a turn for the worse.
Pinball & Preachers 