author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Of course the bar went wild. If my cell phone weren't A) set to vibrate and B) in my hand, I would have missed Steve's text message: "HOLY SHIT!" I tried to write back: "I KNOW, RIGHT? That's it! That's the game!" At which point my phone told me that it had encountered difficulties sending my text message, sorry, it had been saved in my outbox please try again later. So I did.

Sorry 4 delay... Tracey Porter broke my network.

I had sort of lost track of the game at this point. Everytime I looked, some Colts play was going wrong, as though everyone on the team, except the quarterback, had accepted that it was over. But I was getting text messages left and right, so I kept ABCing my way through responses that may or may not have gone through.

Then the 4th-and-goal attempt got stuffed and it began to rain indoors.

I actually looked for some sort of sprinkler system that McGuire's might have triggered to go off in celebration. The reality was much less high tech. All of the high tech in the bar had been channeled into showing the game on four TVs and a home-rigged cardboard projection screen. ("I love it when I win," said Zack, bartender and entertainment system MacGuyver. "That's my favorite game in all the world.") Thus the wi-fi wasn't working and even the electrical outlet under the bar was dead, which is why my computer was safely in my bookbag underneath my seat when people began buying bottles of beer to baptize the crowd. Purchase, shake, pop the top, spray. Friends and strangers hugged, screamed, clasped hands in the alcoholic drizzle. Two women near me were crouched to the ground, though whether in emotional overload or because they'd dropped something I wasn't sure.

Some guy jumped up on the bar and began strutting from one end to the other. I handed him my spare Krewe of Carrollton beads to throw and got myself together to head out into the street.

For a moment, all I could think to say was, "I love everybody in the world right now!" I shouted that, and things like it, a lot last night.

Car horns sounded without cease: jubilation, not irritation. As they passed me, or I passed them, windows rolled down, shouts of "WHO DAT?!" were exchanged in call-and-response, hands extended to slap palms with anyone close enough. After awhile, I stopped wincing and started just holding out my hand at the sound of a car fast approaching behind me.

In the Quarter, gently and sloppily drunk adults tripped over families towing toddlers and apologized loudly and politely. Children in pint-sized number jerseys made the most of their rare chance to yell at the top of their lungs at passing strangers without getting rebuked for rudeness. "Who dat?!" they yelled, and adults yelled right back, "Who dat?!" And the kids were delighted. They were part of something tonight. This wasn't going on over their heads or in the next room. They were part of it.

Bourbon Street was as crowded as any festival night, possibly more so. At the intersections, it teemed like a salmon run but without direction. Any attempt to navigated foundered. You entered the current not to get somewhere, but just to be there, pressed up in full-body contact against three or four other people at any given moment, sharing joy like body heat and not caring that your feet were barely touching the ground.

From the river to South Claiborne, there was no traffic. Well, not what you'd call traffic. What there was, was a non-stop tailgate party, traffic signals having lost their meaning, horns continuing to sound in rhythm with the ubiquitous "WHO DAT?!" chanting, sunroofs and windows sprouting upper bodies, styrofoam pointing fingers, second-line umbrellas, hands, voices. Past South Claiborne, lakeward Canal Street flowed smoothly but riverward Canal Street remained bumper to bumper, and if anyone was annoyed by this, you didn't notice them. You noticed the convertible with the top down where five or six riders stood up on the seats and danced to the music pounding out their car stereos. Some riders were standing on roofs and hoods--not that the cars were going fast enough to make this a danger.

"How ya do?" I called, passing fans walking north along the street car tracks. "Wait," I amended, even as the automatic Fine, I do fine, I'm doing great, came back. "Dumb question, is that even a question? Don't I know the answer already? WHO DAT!"

Music ranged from brand-new hip-hop gonna-be-standards written in honor of the Superbowl opportunity, to reworked classics like the "Superbowl Mambo," to old favorites that Louis Armstrong used to sing. Which could also stand to be reworked.

Oh when the Saints
Came marching in
Oh when the Saints came marching in
I was proud to be in that number
When my Saints came marching in

Traffic at South Broad and Canal was somewhat more normal. People stopped at red lights and weren't backed up more than half a block. Kids in a pickup truck parked at a drugstore called out "Who dat sayin' gonna beat dem Saints?" at passersby, who shouted back the only possible answer. "Who dat? Who dat?"

Across the parish line, things fell silent. The party never lasts as late in Metairie. But before locking up and heading home to bed, business owners had left their acknowledgments. The cycling light board at Old Metairie Bank said,

Superbowl
XLIV
CHAMPS
thank you
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
SAINTS!

But this suburb had gone to bed, and I was about to do the same.