True Story©… A Street of Bourbon
When I was a kid I
only travelled outside of my home state a VERY few times, and never outside of
the time zone I was born in until I was an actual adult. Never set foot on a plane until I was
20. Everywhere we went was driveable distances. It became such a “thing” that even in adulthood,
I will sooner drive out trips that many people will fly.
Kid me, having only been to Williamsburg and the beach in VA, then Atlanta after
that – outside of visits to grandma’s family down in the sticks in SC – used to
think that the lines one saw on a map would be visible out in the world as you
travel. Like there would be a white line
marking the exit of one state and into the next.
Adult me, as soon
as the constraints of being a broke child were off, got the fuck out and around
the country even if to be inconvenienced by the habit of driving instead of
even CONSIDERING flying.
One such trip
transpired and the young age of 21…
I rented a car because I was driving an absolute shithole at the time, threw a
few days’ worth of clothes into a duffel bag and hit the road with some printed
mapquest directions to New Orleans.
[Phlip note:
fuuuuuck, I’m old]
Did I, at the time, know anyone in New Orleans? Not a fucking soul! All I knew about the place was what I had
learned from music and movies. Bear in
mind, though, that a more-than-half-a-lifetime-ago me at 21 was still basically
a kid.
Missing from this
early-2001 trip as well was the ability to just sit down at the computer and
spend an hour brushing up on history and/or making a whole-ass itinerary.
This means, as well, that my ignant ass thought at the time that Bourbon Street
was so named because of Bourbon liquor and not because New Orleans was a French
colony and the streets were named after Catholic saints and French royal houses
and this particular one is named after the house of Bourbon. In my mind this meant I was apparently supposed to spend the time getting loaded on Bourbon while I was there.
… I was also FAR less
well-versed at handling my liquor. More on that in a few.
So here I am,
freshly of age and in the first of many a city/state I had never yet endeavored. Tired as SHIT from an 800-mile drive on which
I did not stop for anything other than gas and to pee. I checked into a hotel just outside – but within
sight distance of – the French Quarter and planned few good ol days of walking,
eating and drinking.
I was a total
tourist, snapping pictures with a box camera to have developed when I got back
home. Eating and drinking whatever the
locals had, having to ask “what’s that?” at every little thing on the
menus. Again, beholden fully to the
inflated cost of everything right there in the quarter and exposed only to that
curated section of the city.
The odd thing
about travelling alone is that no one is there to consume your time or
attention, or perhaps temper your worst impulses. Needless to say, I was drunker than a fuck in
nearly no time flat.
“When on Bourbon Street, drink the
Bourbon” is how I viewed it, and my cup was rarely empty as I slogged
through among the locals and transplants, alternatively staring at and flirting
with cleavage at every single little last turn.
Not to let y’all
in on more than you need to know about me, but alcohol tends to short circuit
my filters and I am prone to say whatever comes into my head when it gets
there. This problem was much worse when
I was younger. I don’t really drink
these days, but when I most recently did – last summer – the worst thing I
would do is go to sleep.
Well 21 year-old
me is FAR from 43 year-old me and I got the scars to prove it!
So there I am, bellied up to the bar so as to not waste one of the restaurant’s
tables with my sitting-alone ass. Poring
over the menu in my hand and obviously bothering the bartender with questions,
making her work for these tips. While
nursing my fourth Bourbon of the afternoon, a waitress walks past me with an
interesting looking plate of food and immediately thought to myself “I want
that.”
(Probably more
than) Slightly buzzed, I followed the waitress and the plate to the table of
the individual who ordered it. Instead
of asking the waitress what it was, I skipped right to asking the woman sitting
alone at the table with her food and another plate on the other side of the table. She was quite apparently a local and was
smilingly explaining exactly what it was to me in detail. As I spun to head back to the bar to order
JUST that dish and another bourbon, her dude had returned from the bathroom.
Him: “Can I help you?”
Me: “Oh, she already did.”
Him: “Sh-she WHAT?!!?”
Me: “She gave me what I asked for.”
Him: “I suggest you watch your mouth, you’re
talking about my wife!”
Me: “I ain’t come over here to fight you!”
Him: “Then I strongly suggest you get the fu--…”
Her: “HONEY!!!
He only was asking what I had because it looked interesting.”
Him: “…”
I didn’t even wait
for any further conversation. I
completed my turn and as I headed back to my spot at the bar to make my order,
muttered under my breath “but gah-damn, them titties tho...” Blame it on the bourbon.
Him: “WHAT THE FUCK YOU SAY?!!?”
They finished eating and left the restaurant, ostensibly to carry out the
remainder of their argument in the streets of The French Quarter where it
wouldn’t be as disturbing among the drunkards and hoboes.
After eating and
drinking two more Bourbons, I hobbled MY drunk ass back to my hotel room and
crashed out for the night.
The
next morning, I was back up, shook off the hangover with a refreshing,
thirst-quenching Gatorade (cut the check,
Pepsi!) and a beignet from Cafe Du Mond before renewing my drunken trek
throughout the Quarter.
In and out of little shops, talking to locals about whatever
they would smalltalk me about and generally maintaining just enough of my
sobriety to remain lucid. Mid afternoon, big man from the restaurant is
mean-mugging me with his wife and her ttties in tow. He knew I knew he saw me, and continued to
look at me as if to try to start something as I continued to look where I was
walking. I can’t afford out-of-state
bail or a lawyer, so I shut my drunk ass up and kept going.
The next day was to be my last in New
Orleans before hitting the road back to the home base. “Sheeeeit, I might as well really do it to it,”
I thought as I ordered my first drink of the day at only 10am.
I would love to tell you I remember the rest of what happened that day after the
third one and before I woke up in my hotel room at only 10pm, but I packed my
bag and put all my shit in the car before pregaming at the hotel bar and
trekking BACK down to the quarter for one last taste of the city.
Except…
Apparently this man had been waiting for a
chance to see me again since the restaurant without his wife to stop him. Now would be his chance, as he was in front of me and she was not.
Him: “Hey, bro, what you say about my wife?”
Me: “I don’t think I know you homie.”
Him: “Nah nah…
You said--…”
Me: “… I
DON’T LIVE HERE, and I don’t know you.”
Him: “From the restaurant?”
Me: “Hmm... Nope.”
Him: “I think what you said was ‘them titties
tho,’ that was you, right?”
Me: “Oh, the one with the titties!”
Him: “Oh, so you remember now?”
Me: “No, no I don’t… Look around you. See her over there? Titties!
Look at her coming toward us now, TITTIES!”
Him: “You think this is a joke, don’t you!”
Me: “You, ma’am!
Don’t take this personally or inappropriately, but ‘titties!’. See what I mean? This city is damn near literally crawling with titties right now!”
Luckily enough for
me, she apparently read the situation and knew that nothing serious or
malicious was transpiring and laughed as she walked away.
Him: “This shit is not funny, I should fuck you
up.”
Me: “Probably, but there’s a cop right there. I am going on with my last night in town. Good evening, sir.”
I left him
standing there looking back and forth between me and the cop as I wandered off
to enjoy the remainder of my night and cop a couple of trinkets for people back
home.
Since I have curbed my drinking over the past year, I have
told people that “alcohol has been the backdrop to damn near everything in my
adult life, good and bad.”
Having spent time enjoying myself out of town alone and somehow letting liquor
bait me into a chance to throw my life away GREATLY substantiates this
statement.
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