I have seen many heroes since I first secured my place in history by telling Achilles’ and Hector’s tale. For a warrior knight to even qualify as a knight, they must have a horse. For every great champion there was a great steed. Before there was Arthur and Lancelot, before there was Remus and Romulus, there was an upstart young hero named Alexander. Alexander’s father, Phillip of Macedonia, had just purchased a pure-bred stallion of unparalleled beauty. At that time a person could live a full year on one piece of silver. This horse had cost ten thousand. The steed’s name was Bucephalus. The legend goes that for days on end, trained had attempted to tame the beautiful horse, but Bucephalus would not be tamed. Finally, when it seemed no man would conquer the stallion, Alexander his father, “If I can ride him, can he be mine?” His father, not believing that the young man could do what others had failed, agreed. To make an ancient story short, Alexander rode Bucephalus and conquered the world from his stallion’s back.

Four young knights stood, mouths agape, in front of the most extraordinary bicycle they had ever seen. Just like Bucephalus, this bike was one of a kind. The boys were awestruck by the craftsmanship and detail as they stood outside the French Quarter Bikeworks at the intersection of Dauphine and Iberville.“She’s one of a kind. Built by Paulie from Orange County Choppers. It’s the only bicycle they have ever built,” said the manager of the shop. The bike had a pair of twisted gold ape-hanger handlebars and a luxurious suede 70’s banana seat positioned over a wide back tire. The rims were cast aluminum spiderwebs and every place that two pieces of frame met was an ornate spider web.

“How much does this thing cost?”

“It’s not for sale.”

“Do what?”

“Yeah, they are going to raffle it off for the National Breast Care Foundation. The paperwork says it is worth 25 grand.”

Spider was utterly hypnotized by the bike. Tex, trying to take the sting out of Spider’s finding out that his soulmate of a bike was beyond his grasp, said, “Yeah, but just think about how much it would weigh.”

“No more than a G+ Dyno Freestyle bike. It looks heavy, but it’s a graphite composite frame. Even the metal looking parts are only anodized chrome over graphite. Come on inside and check it out. It’s an amazing bike.”

Spider got the bike down off the window display and the guy invited him to sit on it. Spider fit on the bike like he was made for it. “You sure I won’t hurt it?”

“If you do, it ain’t worth 20 grand.”

Spider bunny hopped the bike in the air and landed on the front tire, balanced, spun a 180, and hit the ground. “It’s amazing!”

Spider continued to admire the bike while the other three huddled in a corner. “Ya’ll selling the tickets here?” Tex piped up.

“Yeah. They are selling them at all the brother’s convenience stores in the city. I heard they already sold forty-thousand tickets.”

“Well, give us 200,” George commanded.

Spider was floored. “But..but..”

The manager interrupted, “Look boys, I don’t want you to be disappointed..”

“Just give us the tickets. I feel lucky.” Buddha smiled.

The raffle was set to take place on Halloween night which gave the boys three and a half weeks to gather more tickets. Three days before the raffle, George got the boys together while Spider was on his way to the corner store to tell them the plan.

“Look, we only got 325 tickets. Tex says we probably won’t win. Plus, the maid at the hotel, Mrs. Verci, says that she heard old Fahad downstairs say his cousins were running the raffle and it was rigged.”

“So what do we do?” Buddha asked.

“We even the odds.”

“How?”

“We go see the Prince.”

Buddha threw up his hands. “No way, forget it! We almost died! Dead nuns tried to kill you, and we ended up in the hospital!”

“And you got a cat.”

“IT AIN’T MY CAT!”

“I’ll go talk to him.”

“No! Last time it cost us our lives.”

“I don’t know how, but I feel like it’s destiny for Spider to have that bike. Come on, Buddha, live a little.”

“I’m tryin’ to live!”

“Fine, Buddha, you stay here. When Spider comes back, we’ll go out the side door to see the Prince.”

“I’m not lying to him. I’m saying ya’ll went to the coffeehouse, so go to the coffeehouse.”

The coffeehouse had an open-air feel to it because most of the tables were outside littering the sidewalk with professionals at their laptops, eagerly chatting on cell phones, or lovers trying to steal intimate moments on historic Magazine Street. At the far end of the sidewalk under the awning of the old Spanish tile roof sat the Prince and his grizzled old shadow, Mr. Curtis. Behind the two men playing chess was what looked like a large picture frame covered with a white sheet leaning against the off-white stucco trimmed in red brick. Before the two men was a huge hulk of a man squatting where George had once squatted, seeking an audience. The man’s muscles flexed tensely to betray the anger he was obviously experiencing from the Prince’s advice. A waitress, who had just handed a steaming cup of tea in a fine china tea cup (while all the others drank from styrofoam cups), intercepted the boys on their way to the Prince. She balanced a huge round tray with dozens of assorted coffees and cakes on a delicate hand with long red fingernails. He poise was so graceful, George could imagine the dainty girl doing somersaults and not dropping the tray. “Monsieurs, ze Prince is wis an audience. If shew haz a moments, I know he will be happy to to yoo.”

The boys took a seat a few feet before the Prince. They were close enough to feel the tension in the conversation, but not to hear the words. After a few tense minutes, the powerful figure squatting before the Prince clenched his teeth, balled his fist causing a rippling effect in his enormous arms. The Prince shook his head, dismissing the man with a flick of his wrist. The gesture was one used to discourage a fly from landing. The intended insult was not lost on the overly-muscled ogre, who rose to a towering height and knocked over the Prince’s table, barely missing the covered painting and sending chess pieces flying. With blinding speed and surgical accuracy, Mr. Curtis caught the teacup in midair before it could collide with the wall. At the exact same time, the old gangster brandished a straight razor from inside his tweed jacket and struck towards the big man’s throat.

“ENOUGH,” yelled the Prince.

Mr. Curtis flipped the straight razor closed and sheathed back inside his coat so fast the boys wondered if they had even seen it. The livid linebacker stood trembling in fear at his narrow escape from death, A small v-shaped piece of fabric fell away from his collar as a grim reminder of how close he had come.

“Please forgive dat Mister Curtis. He not be accustomed to rudeness from dose seeking dem favors. But I tell you dis, maybe I done reconsider dat request since you what done risk de life to make it so.”

“P…p..pardon me sir?”

The dainty waitress had reappeared and danced around the men restoring order by gathering chess pieces and returning the scene to its original state. The Prince stood and turned for the first time to George and Tex. “If it don’t be a burden, Your Majesty and him Duke, could you be picking up dat frame dere and hold it in front of Mistah Smith?”

The boys scooted between the table and the wall and lifted the heavy picture frame, then walked behind Mr. Curtis to stand next to the big man. The football player looked back and forth between the Prince and the covered frame nervously.

“Do you know de story of Snow White, Mistah Smith?”

“The fairy tale?”

“Airie, dat de one. I have acquired dis mirror for a school teacher who done hired me she wanted to be beautiful. Dis woman, she is a rose. Dis ding gonna show her only what she is inside. Maybe dat Snow White mirror be dis vedy one here. Maybe it just a mirror.” He paused dramatically. “De bargain is dis; I give you what deserve, you stare into de mirror, you tell me dat you deserve dat favor you ask, I give it.”

The man, who was slowly gaining his composure, said incredulously, “All I have to do is look in that mirror and tell you I deserve to win the Super Bowl and it will happen?”

“Dats de deal. If you want, I could move de sun from de sky or give you true love.”
“That’s alright. With the Super Bowl, I could buy sunglasses and afford all the true love money can buy.”

“Your highnesses, de honors.” Prince bowed his head in permission to proceed.

Before George pulled the sheet off the mirror, he asked the man, “Sir, are you sure you want to do this?”

“You people are crazy,” the man said, reaching up and snatching the sheet off the large mirror. “I don’t see anything. It’s just a mirror.”

Quicker than George would have thought the Prince could move, he pricked the big man’s arm with one of his long fingernails and flicked a single drop of blood at the mirror.

“Ouch, that hurt!”

“De same wi de truth to dose dat lie. De mirror, Mistah Smith.”

When the big man turned back to the mirror, he didn’t see his reflection. Instead, he saw a tiny ancient version of himself. The man in the mirror lay on a bed with I.V. tubes and oxygen being fed to his nose. As the football player leaned closer, the old man came alive.
“You did this to me!” screeched the old invalid. With demonic fervor, the old man scrambled out of the bed and leaped through the mirror, grabbing the horrified linebacker by the throat. The old man’s liver-spotted, skeletal fingers enclosed the young man’s neck as his hospital gown exposed his naked back to the autumn air.

“Abuse, steroids, hatred, greed; you killed us!” The old man clung to the back-peddling player like a zombie. The man fell into the center of the street yelling, “Get off me!” he flung the old man from him and ran with NFL speed against the traffic. The Prince flung the sheet over the mirror and the old crone vanished. The people in the coffee shop who had paused to watch the scene, now returned to their normal conversations like nothing had happened.

The French waitress handed another cup of tea to the Prince in another fine porcelain cup, removing the empty one from the table. The Prince acknowledged, “Merci boucoup.”

She asked quietly, “Pardonemoi, but why did ze gentleman run from ze mirror?”

“Dat man must not like what him sees. Would you like to look? Dis not be my mirror, but do not tink de owner will objection.”

“Could I?”

The Prince nodded to George and Tex and they uncovered the mirror. The waitress looked in the mirror and began to smile and primp her wavy brown hair. “Ze humidity does such great tings in New Orleans. In Pari, my hair is like a pancake. Merci Boucoup, Prince.”

With that, the boys covered the mirror and returned it to its previous place on the wall.

“Now, de bizness wit him King.”

George and Tex went around to the side of the table by the road where the crazy football player had stood. “Sir? Was that Steve Smith from the Carolina Panthers?”

The Prince, who had made his first move on the reset chess board, answered, “Yes, dat be de one.Quid pro quo, young King? Do you be knowing why I don’t help him kind?”

“Because he chose glory over true love?”

The Prince chuckled, “Ondly a King choose true love over glory, dat be noble, but no.”

“Loyalty?”

“Yep. Loyalty. I not gonna help de Panthers cause I root for de Saints.” The Prince and Mr. Curtis laughed until Mr. Curtis took a castle with a rook.

“Now dat be sneaky, Mistah Curtis.”

Mister Curtis responded by spitting out a wad of chewing tobacco on the sidewalk.

“Why couldn’t anyone else see what was coming out of the mirror?” George redirected.

“Dey can’t see through dem veils. Dem veils be lifted for you boys. Dat be a curse, dat can’t never be undone. Be careful what him wish for. Which brings us to de new bizness. What you wish for?”

George explained the rigged bike raffle and how the bike just had to be Spider’s destiny. Prince listened carefully, concentrated for some time over the chess board, made his move, then sat back and interlaced his fingers over his belly.

“Once dere be a young King still a Prince. He be wanten him Father’s horse. He tell me jus’ like you boys it be him destiny. Dat boy King say he conquer de world if him ride dat horse. I make him a rue and give him dat horse, but de price be he get him a horse’s life span. He take de deal, Little Alex conquer de whole world. Den at tirty tree him die. Old for a horse, but a horse’s life span still. Him die. Dead. You still want to help de Spider?”

George’s mind went over everything he knew about the little guy: losing his dad, his uncle taking money, his mother in rehab, the noodles, even Spider taking that cookie from him as a gesture of friendship in the summer after fourth grade. “Yes, sir, I’ll make the deal.”

“Wait, I don’t be no monster, boy. De deal not like little Alex’s. First, you might already have dat ticket for de bike, but a champion sword must stay true to be keepin. Who will champion? Who will fight for him friend?”

Tex spoke up, “I’ll champion him, I’ll fight.”

“Good. Dat be good. Now, what if I asked you for a favor? What if de Prince Love be needin help from dem Ice Cream Knights?”

George answered, “Sure, Sir, or Prince, sure anything! Anything, anything we can do.”

The Prince’s hand shot out and grabbed George’s hand for a shake. “Dat be de terms. Deal. You done said it tree times. Dat’s de word.”

“But you didn’t say what you wanted.”

“No, I did not. Now if you excuse me, me and Mistah Curtis be playin’ and I done lost a queen!”

“But, Sir..”

“Sorry, but Princes don’t like to spend all day around no King.”

The boys turned and walked back toward the hotel.

“What just happened?” Tex asked George.

“I think Spider’s getting a bike. That was the wish, right?”

“Yeah, but why do I feel he got one over on us?” Tex pulled open the door to the hotel lobby. “That dude always gives me the heebee-jeebees.”