It isn’t true sin imprisons same way as a jail cell. Sin imprisons, but not the same as a jail cell.
After being released from The Old Parish Prison, Slade and Alex decamped to different bordellos, to decompress.
The reason they went to different bordellos was they needed a break from each other. That much time cooped up together was a big part of the stir crazy.
Out of jail! Or in the process of going back?
Slade in his brothel, Alex in his, both free as a free bird, flying free. Flying free in the free heavens, where free birds fly, and flying is freedom, in the sky. Free from fear in flying, not fearing the freedom, and birds don’t need parachutes, and to HELL WITH BIRD CAGES, and birds in bordellos,
The brothels were ornate, orientally ornate, oriented in the direction of devil may care.
Flying free in the arabesque sky of the harem, unfettered and feeling expansive, Alex and Slade mingled with the “birds”.
Indeed were there many birds in the bordello: parrots, parakeets, myna birds, and one or two strutting peacocks.
There were other cocks, of course, all flying.
There was the big red rooster.
One of the colored girls had the special assignment of taping its beak closed each morning before the cock had a chance to crow. Crowus interruptus.
Most of the birds were inside, the birds who were possessions. Some of the birds in the enclosed courtyard, were also possessions. The big red rooster was a possession.
The enclosed courtyard was open to the sky, and this being New Orleans, many an exotic bird did visit the big red rooster, gigging.
But the inside was opulent.
Spam of Human Affection 
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