The CheeWee Man.
The CheeWee Man wanders Bourbon Street and Frenchmen Street and Lower Decatur Street and the environs of St. Ann Street late at night. He goes where there is foot traffic. He is an old school New Orleans street peddler. The police leave him alone. He is like Ruthie the Duck Lady.
Everyone needs to make a living, or, at least, a little walking around money. The CheeWee Man walks around with a triangular apron. He holds the apex of the triangle out in front of him, straight-armed. It is a voluminous apron. He had it made bespoke by that tailor in the office building on the corner of Gravier Street and O’Keefe Avenue.
The CheeWee Man and the security guard in the office tower on the downtown, riverside corner of that intersection are good friends. It is a nondescript building erected in the go-go 1980s during the oil boom, all polished brown marble-clad and uninteresting both at street level and looking up, a monolith to architectural mediocrity. That was the style of the times.
More to follow in a moment.