When Mat asked me what I thought makes a bar a dive, I was well into the $2 Rolling Rocks at the Balcony Bar. I immediately began rattling off dive bar aesthetics like low ceilings with smoke-browned acoustic tile, dilapidated bathrooms, busted signs, ripped vinyl seats that smell like a wet dog and old bearded drunks who spend eight hours a day there. Places that still serve beer like Stroh’s and Olympia and where the bartender might resemble Marge Schott chain-smoking.

Finally I stopped myself, “You just know when you’re in a dive.”

Mat smiled, nodded and uncapped his pen. The first dive bar he wrote down on the bar napkin doubling as my list of haunts to visit in New Orleans was the Mayfair.

It was his birthday that night at the Balcony Bar, and he had about $6 pinned to the front pocket of his shirt.

“What the hell is this all about?” I asked as I tacked on another buck.

“That’s just what they do here on your birthday.”

Right then it hit me: I had fully escaped my imagined labor camp of Atlanta, and my regimented schedule instantly became meaningless. I was embedded in a place where, even after it had been half-drowned and left to die, the city itself is a state of mind.

I was in it. And I was in for an adventure the next day on our dive bar tour.

Part II: The Mayfair (Uptown)

I knew I was diving in as soon as I walked into the Mayfair. First, we had to be buzzed in, and as soon as we stepped inside, the bartender and five or so regulars instantly got shifty as if we were agents sent to uncover and report on any nefarious goings-on.

We pulled up a seat at the kidney-shaped bar and ordered a half-pitcher of Bud for $3. I grabbed a bar napkin to jot down some notes about the surroundings when Mat, with a mouthful of beer about to spew, backhanded my shoulder and pointed up in amazement.

Hanging above us (on the already low ceilings) were two rusty, full-sized bed springs that looked like the catchall from 50 years of Mardi Gras parades. Beads big and small hung from its wires, along with plastic alligators, purple and gold eye masks, action figures and baubles galore.

“Well that’s odd,” Molly said.

Before I could ask the lady tending bar, who was busy in conversation with another woman working on three fingers of Jameson and a beer, about this unusual decoration, I spotted yet another oddity: a framed photograph of busty beauty in a tiger-striped bikini with an elderly woman’s face photoshopped over the model’s head. Above it, it read: “Miss Gertie welcomes you to the Mayfair.”

This, I had to know about.

“That’s our Miss Gertie,” the bartender said with a shrug.

I topped off our beers and slid the pitcher to her for a refill. She explained that the ancient Miss Gertie has owned the bar for more than 20 years and was quite the legend for taking shots and dancing with her patrons.

Sadly, Miss Gertie wouldn’t be in until around midnight – it was about 2 p.m. – and we had several more bars to dive into. I vowed to the bartender I would be back to dance and take a shot with Miss Gertie, knowing that it would have to mean a return trip to New Orleans and this amazing dive because by midnight, I would certainly be blotto and probably dancing with some other woman three times my age. And I had to leave town the next day.

The Mayfair is a bar where you could easily lose yourself for hours. Besides the cheap beer and pleasant (once they figure out you’re not the cops) staff, er, bartender, there’s a small game room with a wrap-around vinyl couch and two pool tables. The jukebox is a coin-op and has some good selections.

The bar is across the street from a medical center, so the nurses on their lunch breaks pouring money into the video poker machines and chain smoking makes for a little awkwardness.

Before we left, I eavesdropped on the bartender telling a story of the bar’s Secret Santa Christmas party and how she was responsible for Miss Gertie’s gift.

“She wanted a zebra-striped trash can,” she said. “And I found one for her at Stein Mart!”

I will be back to the Mayfair to dance and drink with Miss Gertie.

Click here for Part I: Pal’s Lounge,  here for Part III: the 801 and here for Part IV, Pete’s Place.