Nicholas Cage, of “National Treasure” and “Face/Off” fame, was filming a movie in New Orleans when he fell in love with the Crescent City. A fan, if you will, of the occult, he was smitten with the infamously haunted and perhaps vexed LeLaurie Mansion. He bought it, along with Our Lady of Perpetual Help Chapel.

A pyramid-shaped tomb sits right in the middle of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 that also belongs to Cage. He bought it with intentions of occupying it eternally to ward off any bad juju he acquired after buying the two cursed properties. It is rumored that he was tormented by nightmares and sought the advice of a psychic who suggested he do so by procuring a resting place within the walls of St. Louis No. 1 near voodoo priestess, Marie Laveau.

Come to find out, both the LeLaurie Mansion and the Chapel were foreclosed on as part of a $90,000 tax debacle in 2009. The tomb remained property of Cage, since burial property can not be seized to satisfy tax debts.

Brady and I stood there looking at the 9-foot tall, ivory pyramid under grey skies that rumbled with the thunder and threatened rain. It looked a bit out of place among the weathered 17th- and 18th-century tombs surrounding it, but the atmosphere was oddly fitting.

I expected a creepy occult vibe accompanied by supernatural energy that would require a whole sage bonfire to erase. What we got was a group tour led by a geriatric man with bushy eyebrows and a smart mouth.

“Don’t lean on the tomb, Sir.”

“Hands off the fence, Sir.”

“I already answered that question, but 2.2 acres, Sir.”

…all while propping his umbrella and himself against tomb walls and putting his coffee down on tomb footings. Most of us grave gawkers did as he said and not as he did without incident. After being corrected more than twice, one older man in a veterans cap grabbed his wife and went back to the RV. We giggled.

We were led clockwise through the maze of tombs, walking a little too fast and not stopping to linger as long as I would have liked. Nonetheless, we learned about the burial process in New Orleans and how it all works in such cemeteries such as St. Louis No. 1. The short version…

Great Granny is placed in a pine box and sealed, which the sextant then slides into the tomb on the top shelf (the bottom shelf awaiting whomever is next) and closes up the tomb. Granny sits for two years during which time the New Orleans heat and humidity go to work. At the two year mark, the sextant returns and opens up the box, collects the decomposed remains, puts them in a bag, and throws away the pine box. He puts the bag of remaining Granny on the shelf, then pushes it back, back, back with a long pole until it falls into the “caveau” (cave) where Granny will rest eternally. The tomb is then ready for its next family occupant.

So many questions right? I’ll answer a few.

Yes, a whole bunch of family members are buried in the same tomb. Yes, two can be cooking in there for 2-year terms at the same time. Yes, they have a back-up plan if a third family member dies within the same two years and the tomb already has two folks in it. Yes, all their names are etched on the tomb. Yes, it is expensive to get a tomb, and since St. Louis No. 1 is owned by the Archdiocese of New Orleans, you must be Catholic to be interred there. Yes, it costs about $750 for the sextant to do his thing. Yes, there are “society” or group tombs where countless Italians, musicians, war heroes, or medical personnel are collectively buried, respectively. Yes, there were little, bitty tombs that held children.

Fascinating, right?

Within the walls of St. Louis No. 1 right there on Basin Street, we saw the tomb of Homer Plessy of the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson (Separate But Equal) decision and Paul Morphy, the first great American chess player. There was William Claiborne’s. He was involved in the Tennessee Supreme Court and President of the Mississippi Territory before becoming the first governor of Louisiana after it was granted statehood in 1812.

There was an untamed and unwieldy red rose bush nearly overtaking the tomb of Bernard de Marigny, once a child born into the wealthiest New Orleans family in 1785 who later inherited his family’s fortune at age 15 and got shipped off to a British boarding school to (hopefully) learn how to behave. Turns out, he found his way back to Louisiana, became quite the influential man, and ultimately (allegedly) squandered the money on gambling and bad business deals. He is most notable from bringing the game of Hazards back to the United States, a game where you’d squat down and roll a couple of dice wagering the outcome. His friends teased him and the players for squatting like “crapauds” (the French word for “frog”) and in time, the game came to be known as “craps”.

And, of course, there was the tomb of Marie Laveau. Clearly out of the eye of tour guides like ours, visitors had scrawled “XXX” (3 crosses) here and there on the tomb in hopes of being granted some wish, clarity, or occult blessing by the spirit of Marie Laveau as legend dictates. The tour guide told us that people leave chicken bones, hair clips (she was a hairdresser), and other trinkets at the foot of the tomb that the staff must routinely remove and discard. Of all the tombs we visited or passed, hers was the least captivating or energy-generating, at least for me. (I encourage you to go Google her if you’d like to fiddle with it. She was an interesting character.)

As we said our goodbyes to Marie, the bottom dropped completely out, and we were caught in an all-out downpour under a 6×6 tent that graced the entrance of St. Louis No. 1. We squeezed together to allow the next tour group to enter, all of which looked like drowned French Quarter rats in their highly insufficient, pink plastic ponchos. Their hunched-over elderly tour guide barked “MOVE, PLEASE!” as she led them through the gate, under our tent, and into the cemetery among the some-30,000 buried there.

Our Lyft made it in record time, and we hopped in fast, soaked to the bone. Pun intended.

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