Notes From an Early Midlife Crisis
A Tourist’s Guide to Dining Alone in the French Quarter
“Why then the world’s mine oyster, which I with sword will open.”
— William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” II. ii, 3–4.
For most of my adult life my friends have dreaded drinking with me — the morning after, anyway. They’ve always seemed to have a pretty good time the night of. Yet, here I am at 8 in the morning, well rested and barely hungover, in New Orleans by myself at the age of 35 with a Bloody Mary in front of me. It is a rich and confounding circumstance that underpins my fight against who I used to be. Maybe who I still am.
This is my 4th trip to New Orleans, and each visit has — to an extent — marked my lot in life and my handle on the bottle. They just make it so damn easy here. Much of the tourist culture is wrapped up in a sleek little package of getting horribly fucked up and leaving the shame behind you in your Uber back to Louis Armstrong International Airport.
My Uber into the city from Louis Armstrong was helmed by a local who greeted me with an accent still distantly French, and with a nice flair.
“Cosmas,” he introduced himself as I got in. “I have on local talk radio if that’s alright,” he added as I settled in.
Local talk radio can mean a lot of things, especially in the south, but I rarely protest a rideshare radio choice. I, after all, am the guest.
“All good,” I stated simply.
“Earlier they were talking about the political influence of Taylor Swift,” Cosmas laughed.
“Ha, she could probably flip Blackburn’s Senate seat in Tennessee with a word,” I smiled, not knowing how it would land.
“She sure could,” Cosmas smiled back, the flair now becoming more prevalent.
“Let’s hope she does,” I added, now more sure we were aligned.
“They talk about all kinds of things on Fridays. During the week they concentrate on this or that, but it’s a free-for-all on Fridays. Now they’re talking about salt water getting into some of the drinking water in the suburbs.”
“What causes that?”
“The Mississippi is low — droughts in the midwest. No rain. The water is still clean more or less, it’s just salt. Could get a lot worse, though. Been real bad in other places. Anyway, what are you doin’ in New Orleans? You here solo?”
“I am,” I answered, “just here to relax, have some cocktails, and find some oysters.”
“Oh, solo is the best way to do it. No one will ever know what you did while you were here, and it’s New Orleans, so you can do anything you want,” he winked back at me.
“Ha. This is true. I’m mostly seein’ music, though,” I smirked, tempted by the possibilities.
“Who you goin’ to see?”
“Seeing Jason Isbell at the Orpheum tonight.”
“Not familiar. What kind of music?”
“…well, it’s country, I guess,” I said reluctantly. When the hell did I start liking country music? “Maybe southern rock.”
“I like some country, but I’m not doing cartwheels over it,” Cosmas shrugged. “You know Dave Chappelle is at the Pelicans’ Arena tonight? That’s a big venue for a comedian.”
“Yeah, I have mixed feelings about him.”
“I know. It’s a shame,” Cosmas said, shaking his head.
“My buddy opened for him once in Milwaukee,” I recalled, “he got the call 45 minutes before he went on.”
“Oh my god, that had to be scary!”
“In one way, sure, in another, better to not have to worry about it for weeks before.”
“That’s true,” Cosmas laughed. “Alright, Jack, here we are.”
I left Cosmas behind and checked into the Loews Hotel just after 3. They gave me an early check-in, I took the elevator to the 13th floor, and I unpacked what little I had brought in my backpack.
I took a quick rinse to get the travel funk off and I headed out to find a bite. On prior visits I would eat whatever was in front of me paired with some massive plastic tube of fruit juices and rum, but now — in my sadly more responsible years — I had a plan. Napoleon House for their specialty Italian Muffuletta. I took a stool at the bar and ordered a Bloody Mary.
“Food, too?” the finely dressed bartender asked.
“Not quite yet.”
He nodded and kept on making gorgeous cocktails for his customers at the 10 seat bar and the half-full restaurant — it being early and all.
It was a great Bloody. Every bit as salty and stiff as the purposely-worn, hundreds of years old reception room I found myself brooding in.
“Well, looks like you’ll be bartending for at least another week or so,” a server said to the bartender, “doesn’t look like Ron’s dad is going to make it.”
“Damn, that’s a shame,” replied the bartender, shaking his head. He thought for a moment while the tickets kept printing behind him. “Sometimes it’s for the best, though,” he said to the server, “with my mom it just went on forever.”
“I know it did,” the server said as she picked up three glasses of ice water with her hands and walked back into the dining room.
“Somethin’ else, bud?” the bartender asked, turning back to me.
My mind was still stuck on the heaviness of what I had just overheard. “Abita Amber,” is what I got out. Here I was in the bar that won the Tales of the Cocktail Foundation’s 2019 Timeless American Award, ordering a beer. Probably for the best, though. No need to get wasted to go see a sober artist.
It seems like all my favorite songwriters are sober these days — at least from alcohol. Billy Strings, Tyler Childers, Jason Isbell, Margo Price. I feel it starting to wear off on me. It makes me want to seek moderation in a way I never have before. Not sobriety — not at this point in my life — but moderation.
“Food, bud?” the bartender asked as he set a bottle of beer down in front of me.
“Muffuletta, please. Is half a good size?”
“Half is plenty,” he said, showing me an approximation with his hands.
“Half it is.” He took my menu and put in my order.
An older couple huddled over the sole barstool to my right. I asked if they wanted me to scoot over one. They thanked me and ordered two Fuzzy Navels.
“I haven’t made one of those in 20 years,” the bartender chuckled. It is by no means a classic cocktail — more an unfortunate relic of the tropical fruit juice movement of the 80s and 90s. Peach Schnapps and orange juice? Just stab me in the palate already.
“We were actually here 20 years ago, at this bar,” the older man said. “The bartender recommended it.”
The bartender nodded. “That makes sense. Welcome back.”
A server dropped off my sandwich. Half was indeed enough. I lifted the warm seeded Italian loaf to reveal an olive relish that made my mouth water on sight. I set the bread back down, squeezed the meats, provolone, olives, and bread together and took a bite. Worth the trip in and of itself. I breathed in deeply and chewed, washing it down with my Abita Amber.
By the time I got down to the last bites the bar had gotten busier and there was a warm buzz about the place. I still had some time to kill before the show, though, so I closed out and walked up St. Louis to go visit my old fickle friend — Bourbon Street.
In many ways I am breaking a fundamental rule of New Orleans tourism by writing this all down. As Cosmas rightly pointed out, this is New Orleans — you can do whatever you want, and no one will ever know. In that spirit I will not divulge the full weight of my prior visits to Bourbon Street. Suffice it to say that certain substances and naked women are available on demand. This time, however, I had come simply to brood and eat oysters — and I hadn’t had any oysters yet. I walked on down Bourbon looking for my salty and horseradish-covered reward.
It was 90 degrees and humid. My shirt was already gathering sweat as I looked out onto the loud and crowded street — the thirsty licking of lips all around me. I stood and watched an impressive drum line for a few minutes, tossed a couple bucks in their bucket, and walked on through the bright neon lights and ancient buildings as I was pummeled in every direction by competing bands and hand motions to come inside.
Eventually I found a long, quiet looking oyster bar — Pier 242 Seafood Market — sat down at the bar, ordered a beer, and asked about the oysters. I got half a dozen raw.
After quietly eavesdropping on the bartender and the barback lightly bickering about who was logged into what POS station, a runner dropped my oysters. They were plump and juicy. The bartender walked over with little ramekins of horsey and cocktail sauce.
“Man, those look good,” he marveled, “They don’t always look like that.” Not a ringing endorsement of the place, but they did look damn good.
I slid one into my mouth. It was briney and meaty. With a little horsey on top, there aren’t many things better in the world. I coaxed all six onto my tongue within a matter of minutes.
“Hey, you got a bathroom?” I asked the bartender once I was finished.
He looked at me strangely. “Of course we have a bathroom.” He nodded toward the back of the restaurant. “Only way you can go.” I went to the bathroom, washed up, got a beer to go, and walked on. It was almost time for the show.
Jason Isbell is a recent discovery in my world — a world usually filled with music written by and for people smoking a good amount of weed. Isbell, though, seems to have found a clarity and self-awareness that can only possibly come from seeing your rock bottom from 30,000 feet. Earlier this month Isbell gave a very thoughtful interview with MSNBC’s Ari Melber. Early in the interview Melber played a clip of Isbell from many years ago talking about the beauty of acoustic shows — how it makes you rely on the lyrics. Isbell told Melber he agrees with that sentiment still, but looked at the footage of himself back then, and with a smile on his face, said: “that poor drunk kid.”
In some ways I still feel like that “poor drunk kid.” In more ways, though, I know I have left much of him behind. Either way, I sipped my walking beer, bought a joint off a guy outside a CBD store, got a little high, and walked on to the Orpheum.
From the first note Isbell played with intentionality, thoroughly convincing every single person in that ornate theater that he meant each melancholic word. Perfect diction, nimble fingers on the strings, and words no mere mortal could possibly write, Isbell is a master craftsman.
In the middle of a three song encore, the band dropped into “If We Were Vampires,” a song I had been hoping to hear.
If we were vampires and death was a joke/ we’d go out on the sidewalk and smoke/ and laugh at all the lovers and their plans/ I wouldn’t feel the need to hold your hand/ maybe time running out is a gift/ I’ll work hard ’til the end of my shift/ and give you every second I can afford/ and hope it isn’t me who’s left behind
Horribly, devastatingly beautiful. In a way, too, this was a city of vampires.
The band closed down and I walked back to my hotel room. I poured a glass of wine and looked out at the city. I settled in and nodded off.
I woke up around 7, well rested. I walked over to the Ruby Slipper around 8, ordered a Bloody Mary and biscuits and gravy. I swear, they make biscuits a whole different way down there. Maybe it’s in the air. Have a bagel in New York, but have a biscuit in the south. I was on to the New Orleans Museum of Art that day, and I got a ride over just after mid-day.
I am no critic of fine art. Most of the time I barely get it. I am a patron of the low-brow arts. Bluegrass. Well-stilled bourbon. A great taco. Fucking in a bathroom stall. That’s art to me. On the second floor of the Museum, however, I was stopped dead in my tracks.
Andy Warhol/ Mick Jagger, 1975/ Acrylic on Canvas
With blue eyeshadowing and a lumpy purple framing of his hair, there was Mick staring mournfully back at me with those eternally pursed lips. For some reason, a line from his song “Memo From Turner” called itself to me: you’re the great, grey man who’s daughter licks policemens’ buttons clean.
I made my way to the third floor. Walking into the first door on my left I came upon a series of Japanese Monochromes. These Zen brush-and-paper works told a deep and complex story. At times they spoke to me in riddles I could not entirely unfurl.
In the early 1700s, Zen painter Daido Bunka put ink to paper, making a series of pictographic symbols with a large black circle to their right. The circle represented everything and nothing — a purposeful contradiction. The symbols spelled out an apparently well-known Zen riddle:
A trout with a huge smile/ sits atop a bamboo pole
A stone tortoise sits next door/ blinking his eyes
I smiled, unable to grasp its full meaning. Whatever you say, Mr. Bunka.
I walked down to the sculpture garden in the heat, picked up a bottle of water and an iced café au lait from a sister Café du Monde location on the grounds, and headed back to my hotel. After all, I had a reservation for 1 at Antoine’s at 5:30.
The reservation for 1 is an exercise in romantic solitude. It is not for the shy or self-conscious. It requires you to not care where your eyes dart, or where you put your hands. It is a gift of dining from you, to you, and for you.
By the time I got back to the French Quarter, however, I had a little time to kill, so I walked back out onto a bustling and still hot Canal, heading north toward Bourbon. A few blocks in, a grimy looking white man with no shirt on and a bag over his shoulder was yelling at most everyone who walked past him.
“Not one of you fuckers can fight me! Who wants to take me? One on one. Let’s go!”
A man in a golf shirt and I waited a little longer than we needed to cross the street to give him time to move on. The man looked over at me. “Too much booze,” he shrugged. I wasn’t so sure that was the issue.
I took a right on Bourbon. At the corner of Bourbon and Iberville a young Black man stood in the back of a U-Haul pickup playing country songs on an acoustic guitar in front of a microphone and a PA. People were gathered around to record and cheer him on.
I walked into Bourbon House Oyster Bar on the corner and found a stool. I ordered a half-dozen oysters and a glass of white wine. On either side of the round north end of the bar two men were shucking oysters at an impressive rate. They would stand the oyster vertically, fat end down, stab into the tapered end on top, and firmly wiggle the knife forward and backward until the oyster popped open. Then they would turn the knife like an ignition key to separate the top shell and slide the knife quickly through the adductor muscle that held the shells together to remove the top shell completely. Lastly, for ease of consumption, they would scrape the lower adductor muscle from the cup shell, flip the oyster, and place the ready-to-consume oyster on a bed of ice.
I ordered mine raw and added a bit of lemon juice and horsey. They were delicious and well-sized, but I couldn’t help but feel like the method of standing the oyster up vertically to shuck lost a bit of the natural juice that is so precious to the oyster experience.
I closed out and walked down by the Mississippi by way of Jackson Square. As in Andrew Jackson. He may have been victorious at the Battle of New Orleans, but that glory is loudly drowned out by his treatment of indigenous peoples and his hundreds of slaves. In 1830, Jackson — while president — signed the Indian Removal Act, which is somehow even worse than it sounds. Between the Jackson and Van Buren administration that followed, more than 60,000 Native Americans were forcibly uprooted and marched west of the Mississippi I was now looking out on. The Cherokee tried to challenge their own removal through the courts, but were ultimately unsuccessful. The resulting forcible removal and death that followed were unequivocally state-sanctions ethnic cleansing. It would come to be known as the Trail of Tears.
Yet, here, in the middle of this gorgeous park, was a massive stone statue of Jackson sitting proudly on a horse. During Donald Trump’s presidency a portrait of Andrew Jackson hung in the Oval Office. That seems fitting.
I looked out onto the Mississippi from the Moon Walk promenade for a while longer before walking back up St. Louis to Antoine’s for my 5:30 reservation for 1. The maître d’ was stern but pretty. She ran a tight ship. She looked down at my shorts and back up at me.
“Sorry, it’s hot,” I apologized. She nodded and looked down at her seating chart.
“Mr. Strawman?” she asked. Not many reservations for 1 today, I guessed. I nodded. She dispatched an assistant to take me to my seat in the back dining room. I was sat at a two-top next to a photograph of the USS Louisiana.
My server came by shortly thereafter and took my drink order. She was a beautiful and earnest young woman named Delaney. I ordered an Old Fashioned.
“So what brings you to New Orleans?” she asked when she came back to drop off my drink, sensing my foreignness.
“Honestly, I just felt like goin’,” I responded with a grin. “You ever just get up and go somewhere alone?”
“Can’t say I have,” she replied, seemingly curious, “but I’ve been meaning to get to California. See the Pacific, maybe some mountains.”
“Santa Barbara is perfect for that,” I mused.
“Alright, Santa Barbara it is!” she smiled, walking away to tend to another table.
I sipped my Old Fashioned and looked out in front of me at the wooden arches adorning the reddish-brown wall, covered in a multitude of old-timey photographs and clippings. On older gentleman stood in the doorway — filling some unknown role in the room — looking a bit like an aging John Prine. I listened to a young white boy server give his schpiel to the table next to me. Surely he had nothing on Delaney. Just then she came back.
“How’s the Old Fashioned?” she asked, smiling with her eyes.
“Good as ever,” I smiled back.
“Where did you say you were from again?”
“Oh, I’m from Philly.”
“Oh, okay, I go to school with a friend from Philly. At Xavier,” Delaney replied, “so you’re just here by yourself, huh?”
“Just me,” I responded, sipping my Old Fashioned.
“I love that. I had a friend that just drove from city to city once. Like a big road trip. Always wondered what that would be like.”
I raised my finger as if I was about to start in on a story. I thought better of it.
“Do you like oysters?” she asked.
“Do I ever,” I smiled.
“Okay, so, Antoine’s is actually the birthplace if Oysters Rockefeller. Have you had it?”
“Actually, no,” I said, now curious. I usually just ate them raw.
“Oh, you really should, they’re baked with this rich sauce. Butter, parsley, a little lemon. They’re amazing. Plus, we have this special where you can get 6 oysters, 2 of each kind, the Bienville, the Charbroiled, and the Rockefeller. Then for an entrée I recommend the Amandine. It’s local fresh fish and you can definitely taste it. Toasted almonds, brown butter, lemon. Definitely my favorite.”
She sold me on the trio with her bright eyes, but my heart was set on the filet. I ordered it medium rare — as one must — and a glass of red for when it came out.
After a few minutes the piping hot oysters came out. The Oysters Rockefeller was melty and deeply — indulgently — rich. They don’t seem to slice the bottom connecting muscle like when you order them raw, but the heat makes the muscle tender so it easily separates with the scoop of a spoon. I chased it down with sips of my Old Fashioned and tried the other oyster varieties, which were delicious, but the Rockefeller won the day easily.
“How are the oysters?” Delaney asked as she walked by.
“They’ve ruined Oysters Rockefeller for the rest of my life,” I almost blurted.
“Oh, well then, we have a happy camper!” she laughed.
A man a few chairs away stifled a laugh, surely at my expense.
Delaney’s assistant — whose name sadly escapes me — dropped off my wine. “Steak should be right out bro,” he assured me, though I was in no need of assurance, having already stuffed my mouth with hot oysters.
It was, in fact, right out. Grilled center cut tenderloin in a red wine reduction over mashed potato and butter-braised mushrooms, this meal was both fundamental and sinful. The meat was tender and the reduction folded effortlessly into the cloud-like potatoes.
“How’s the temperature?” Delaney asked.
“Perfect,” I said, smiling.
“Another glass of red?” she asked with a smile. How could I say no.
“Please. Whenever.”
I was getting close to the end of my meal as I took the last sip of my first glass of wine. Delaney’s assistant set down the second glass at the precise moment I finished the first.
“We’ve got this down like clockwork, huh, bro?” he laughed.
“Impeccable timing,” I laughed back.
I finished my steak and smiled at the walls as I sipped my second glass of wine pensively. This was a date I have given myself, and it was going well. The romance of solitude is a precious thing. It takes time and care, both of which are luxuries I am lucky to have.
“So, what’s for dessert?” Delaney asked.
As the ritual goes, I smiled like I had been naughty and said, “I couldn’t possibly,” with my hand on my stomach as if to indicate: “full.” Delaney brought me the check and ran my card. She brought it back with the merchant’s copy for signature.
“You know, someday I’m going to just go out to California by myself,” she said. “You made me want to. You look like you’re having a great time.” She put out her hand to shake mine.
“Thanks, Delaney, I certainly am.” I shook her hand.
As she walked away I filled in the tip line, signed the slip, and wrote “get to Santa Barbara” below the signature line. Whether she was just good at her job or whether we had made some small human connection didn’t much matter. She had hosted the perfect date I was having with myself. For that I am grateful.
I walked on to Preservation Hall for the 7:30 show. A line to get in had already formed, but I had sprung for reserved front row seating so that was fine. After a few minutes they let us file in and I took a first row seat on the right hand side. Our host walked us through the rules — including an absolute rule against recording of any kind — and the band filed out to excited and expectant applause. As the guitarist — Josh Starkman — took his post directly in front of me and draped the strap over his shoulder, the head of the guitar was about 17 inches from my face.
The drummer and bandleader stood up and introduced each member of the band. It was clear from that moment who the star of the show was, though — 91 year old saxophonist Charlie Gabriel.
When Gabriel was just 13 years old, his father — a musician himself — brought Gabriel to meet Louis Armstrong at the Coliseum in New Orleans. As Gabriel tells it, Armstrong put his hand on Gabriel’s shoulder and joked “I‘m going to take this boy on the road.”
Gabriel’s family eventually moved to Detroit and his career flourished. He played with Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, and other legends in their craft. Three years before that night Gabriel had come out with his first solo record, aptly titled “89,” on which he plays classics with Preservation Hall Jazz Band lifer Ben Jaffe and guitarist Josh Starkman, whose guitar was mere inches from my face, and who has a deeply positive social media presence worth checking out if you’re into smiling.
The band dropped into a number of classics they had surely run through many times before, but pushed forward with an obvious and unmistakably deep passion. They opened hot and went down the line with rounds of masterful improvisation. The audience clapped along, got to their feet, and shook their booties to “Go to Mardi Gras.” Then Charlie waved everybody back down to their seats so he could stand up and croon for us. We all looked on in admiration. Then, after a deft and lively 45 minutes, the band closed out with “My Bucket’s Got a Hole in it,” — a tongue in cheek request for tips. There was not a single person in that old little hall that didn’t come out with a huge smile on their face.
I picked up a copy of “89” on vinyl and a Preservation Hall t-shirt and walked on down to the Mississippi with a big old grin. I walked that grin right back to Poydras Street, up to my hotel room, poured that grin a glass of wine, and wrote until I was tired. When I was tired I slept. When I had slept enough I woke up.
When I woke up it was about 7:30AM on Sunday. I walked over to Majoria’s Commerce Restaurant; a well reviewed little breakfast place on Camp Street. In front of the entrance is a metal plaque with a star on either side of it, and the phrase “on this site in 1897 nothing happened.” That level of hokiness was promising. I have long found the people who make great food are rarely very funny — and I consider myself a good cook, so that should tell you something.
I sat down at the bar and ordered a Bloody Mary. It was served in a plastic cup with olives and pickled okra, which I was beginning to realize was a staple of French Quarter Bloodies. This place was no frills, with a large brick wall and shelves behind the bar on which was a picture of John Majoria, who bought the Commerce Restaurant — named for the former chamber of commerce site on which it stood — about a year after it opened.
John’s son Brett, who looked to be going through some inventory at the other end of the bar, took over operations in 2013. He is amusingly quoted on the restaurant’s website as saying “we have alternate milks now. My father must be rolling over in his grave.”
I ordered a Nola Benedict and sipped my Bloody and coffee in quiet, it only being about 8 — much too early for conversation. My plate came and it looked glorious. An open-faced biscuit topped with grilled shrimp, fried green tomatoes, a generous pool of cajun beurre blanc, and two over easy eggs balanced precariously over the biscuits. It smelled as good as it looked, and it tasted even better.
As early 2000’s hits played overhead I drenched my biscuits in yolk and buerre blanc. I sucked up the last of my Bloody to the familiar and adolescent sounds of “Oops!…I Did it Again.” I scraped my plate clean and closed my tab, venturing back into the now hotter day in sunglasses.
This was entirely new to me — eating breakfast early on a weekend and on vacation. In years past — and certainly on visits here — I wouldn’t have been able to get out of bed due to my unrelenting Jameson consumption the night before, only to come to just in time to do it again.
Not this time. This time I had discovered a whole other world — one which I have never really been a part of as an adult — that eats their breakfast before 9AM on a Sunday. It leaves so much of the day to think. To be. To explore. To produce something. For my part I meandered down the still relatively quiet Canal Street before it got too hot to bear.
After a stint back at the hotel to recharge and write — and to smoke a little of the joint I had leftover — it was on to continue the Great Oyster Conquest of 2023. I would have at least 50 or I would fail myself and my kind. So on to Acme Oyster House just off Bourbon it was.
By the time I got there around 1PM there was a line outside of about 7 or 8 people. I got in line, looking down at my phone pretending to read something about Elon Musk descending further down into global supervillain status as my mouth watered at the thought of those precious glistening morsels of sea salty goodness.
Just then a man tapped me on the shoulder and said “go to Felix’s.” I turned to see a man in a Saints jersey looking at me from the other side of a railing. “I live here, go to Felix’s,” he repeated, pointing across the street to another oyster bar.
Why did he have to pick me, a freshly stoned solo traveller who just wants to eat oysters and be left alone. I shrugged back at the man in the Saints jersey. “I’m tellin’ ya,” he said one more time as he walked away. I looked over at the man at the door, who stood between me and the oysters. He had just let the girls in front of me in. He looked over at me, then behind him to the man in the Saints jersey who had just walked away.
“You want a seat at the oyster bar?” he asked me.
“Please god, yes,” I got out.
When I sat down the man behind the oyster bar took off his gloves and handed me a menu. There was no need, though. Unlike oyster bars on the east coast that go to great lengths to inform you which Canadian province or Maine oyster patch (I assume that’s what they’re called) your little piece of heaven comes from, here you order by the numbers, they are huge, and they come from somewhere over there. A hopeful sign they are plentiful.
“Half a dozen on the half shell, a shooter, and a pinot grigio please,” I requested.
“I got you, man,” the man said going over to the POS to put my order in, then coming back, putting his gloves back on, and shucking me six oysters right in front of me. This shucking method seemed to be more sound than the vertical method employed by the Bourbon House shuckers the day before. He placed each oyster in a waved contraption meant to keep it in place and jammed his oyster knife into the tapered side, prying each one open and scraping off the little connecting muscles. He placed them on a serving tray with some lemon and cocktail sauce. No horsey this time, but that was fine. I squeezed a bit of lemon on the first one, along with two tiny drops of Chipotle Tabasco sauce, and threw it back. Juicy, cold, fresh, oceany. The chipotle gave it a distinct smokey flavor. Well-balanced. The shucker came back with my oyster shooter and a glass of red wine.
“Is this what you wanted?” he asked, seeming to know something was wrong.
“The oysters are awesome,” I replied, attempting to soften the inevitable blow, “but I asked for pinot grigio, not pinot noir.”
“Oh, you wanted what they have,” he said, nodding his head over to the early 20s girls next to me actively TikToking. I had indeed ordered my wine like a white girl in her 20s.
“I’ll fix it,” he said.
“No problem, man,” I replied, taking back my shooter as it started to feel like today might be the exception to my teetotaling policy. He dropped the wine in front of me and shucked a few freebies, laying them on my serving tray with a wink.
“Thanks, boss,” I winked back.
After I slurped my way to happiness and got the start of a buzz going, I walked back out into the bright, sunny day, and decided to take the advice of the man in the Saints jersey, heading across the street to Felix’s to compare the two a la Pat’s and Geno’s. I walked around the corner and used the Bourbon Street entrance lest the man at the door of Acme somehow know what I had done and reported me to the oyster loyalty police.
I sat down at the bar and ordered six raw and a pinot grigio. The presentation was professional. The oysters were served over ice with lemon, cocktail sauce, and horsey. The shuckers were nowhere to be seen but their methods appeared to be quite sound, as the natural juices flowed into my mouth in splashes. The meat had been completely separated and likely flipped, as there was a clear nub where the muscle had been. The sizable oysters were also accompanied by Crystal Hot Sauce — a refreshing addition.
As I looked up from my platter of crushed ice and little nuggets of grey goodness, I saw new Green Bay Packers starting quarterback Jordan Love appear to be leading the Packers to victory. With nowhere else to be, I decided to hang at Felix’s a bit longer, but if I kept on drinking wine on only oysters, I was sure to be wasted well in advance of the steamboat jazz cruise I had scheduled myself for at 7pm. That being the case, I ordered an Abita Amber and a cup of seafood gumbo. Soup is, of course, not usually tolerable on such a hot day, but the A.C. was cranking, so it was worth a shot.
As I tore into my savory and rich gumbo fire trucks sped by and Jordan Love began to lose his previously commanding lead over the Atlanta Falcons. I heard a male server with a local accent ask a female server “are you already back with him?” I noticed a large bowl with a little water in the bottom and many cut stalks of celery — a smart move to keep the stalks fresh for Bloodies.
Watching the Packers buzzed at a bar on a Sunday afternoon is a deeply familiar feeling, having grown up in Wisconsin. It had usually been Brett Favre at the helm, however, followed by Aaron Rodgers, who only a week prior had torn his Achilles like the slicing of an adductor muscle from the shell. Every person in the half-full bar watched intently as the Packers lost by a single point and I lapped up the last of my gumbo. Once the game was over I closed out and walked back into the heat in search of yet more juicy little sea creatures.
I found myself at Mr. Ed’s Seafood & Oyster Bar, another well-rated establishment. “Welcome, bro, we got a get drunk special today,” said a server as I walked in.
“I’ll take two,” I joked back, unsure of what he actually meant.
No sooner had I taken a seat at the bar than I was transported to the north and the east.
“Yeah, that’s why there’s a strict no packages and no guns policy at the card games,” a man with grey slicked-back hair said to the bartender in an abrasively New York accent. “It’s for your own protection really. You get caught they assume you’re a rat anyway. They take care of you one way or another.”
“Where you from?” I asked him.
“The Bronx, you,” he asked, looking me up and down.
“Philly.”
“Oh, okay. Philly,” he said approvingly. “So you know what I’m talkin’ about.” I didn’t, but felt no need to point that out.
The bartender, who introduced himself as Mike, took my order, poured my beer, and started in on a rant about how the mafia is essentially a self-policing organization that is often necessary to keep order in communities where police are anything but helpful. The man with the slicked back hair and the New York accent — who presumably worked there — wholeheartedly agreed. I gathered from the banter I listened to over another cup of gumbo that Mike had a place in Italy.
As I finished my gumbo — excellent by the way — a short busty brunette sat down to my right, and without saying anything, was given a dozen oysters by Mike.
“Yo, check it, Mikey got his lil poundie at the bar,” one server said to another. I stifled a laugh and ordered six myself. They came out quickly, fresh, cold, and immaculately shucked. These were the biggest, and perhaps the tastiest oysters of my 4th trip to New Orleans. They slid from the cup-side shell and onto my tongue with no coaxing needed other than tipping them back. The natural juices were in tact and they had a delicate balance of salinity and tenderness.
By the time I finished up my half-dozen I was good and buzzed. Starting with the shooter was catching up with me, but I promised myself I wouldn’t drink too much while I was here, so I closed up and headed back to my room to relax for a bit.
As I walked back to my hotel, it started occurring to me that I had been eating an aphrodisiac non-stop for three days. I got my phone out and opened Bumble to see if I could come up with anything. I had matched with a few local girls and a few on vacation. One — a pretty, thin redhead — had asked what I was up to. I responded with a brief description of my oyster tour of the French Quarter and asked if she wanted to join for my steamboat cruise at 7.
She responded simply: “I do not have the mental elasticity for tourists,” and unmatched me.
I guess I was on my own. I went back to my room and relaxed for a bit, downing water to counteract the beer and wine. After a while my restlessness — and the oysters — got the better of me, and I got myself off thinking about [REDACTED]. Works every time.
Then it was time to head back down to the waterfront to board the Riverboat City of New Orleans for a jazz cruise up and down the Mississippi. I put a pack of cigarettes in my pocket, though I don’t really smoke anymore, and got walking to the door.
I took Canal a short jaunt to the riverfront, then up through Riverfront Park toward Jackson Square. I walked the boardwalk — or whatever the regional parlance is — until I saw a statue to my left.
“Monument to the Immigrant”
A towering monument of a family proudly but desperately entering our ports, asking for help. The very kind we so easily turn a blind eye to now, if only because they are brown. Inscribed on the weighty and majestic monument are the words:
Dedicated to the Courageous Men and Women Who Left Their Homeland Seeking Freedom, Opportunity, and a Better Life in a New Country
I walked a bit further and boarded my steamship. I ordered an Abita Amber out of habit and walked up to the third level of this beautiful monstrosity. Most people were sitting in chairs on the rails facing the water, but there were plenty of tables, too. I leaned up against an open spot at the bar and looked out over the blaze orange glaze now commanding the sky.
I took in the pulsating jazz in front of me. There was one band on the bill — the Dukes of Dixieland. They were churning out energetic tunes that made me feel like this massive boat was somehow home for the night.
Then there she was.
I turned my head around from the sky to see a woman with strawberry blonde hair, probably in her early 40s, looking a lot like Diane Keaton in the Godfather walking toward the third level bar. She looked up to me from her heart-shaped sunglasses and nodded hello as she pulled a chair up a few feet in front of me and sat down. After a few seconds she turned back to me and said “you need a chair? Could probably find one.”
The Dukes of Dixieland were laid into the groove and I was just getting into it. “Nah, I like to stand for the music,” I said, hoping she would come over to me.
“Oh, okay,” she replied, rolling her eyes like a Leo. Not that I believe in all that, but you can tell a Leo by the way she rolls her eyes when mildly inconvenienced.
I sipped my beer, listened to the jazz, looked back out at the sun setting over the Mississippi, and regretted turning her down. Then a portly man in a tie dyed t-shirt and Birkenstocks walked over to my Diane Keaton and said “you’re welcome over at my table. Just a few friends.”
“Oh, sure!” she replied, wanting social interaction and a place to sit, understandably.
“Well shit,” I thought. She was kinda cute. Oh well.
I watched the band play a while longer. As I did I couldn’t help but notice the drummer looked exactly like Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner. Right down to the glasses. Wait, was that Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner?! Nah, couldn’t be.
As the band took a set break I ordered another beer. Well, now what? No band to stare at from my spot at the stool-less bar. Where’d that strawberry blonde get off to? Oh, over there.
“Hey, guys, mind if I find a chair and bring it over?” I asked a table consisting of the strawberry blonde, the tie dye clad man, and a couple from Denver — I would come to learn.
“Oh, he wants a seat now,” the strawberry blonde shot sideways at me.
“Yeah, I just like to stand for the music. Old habit,” I tried to reason.
“Well, there’s chairs over there,” she said, pointing out at the starboard side without looking away from the table.
Okay, now I liked her more.
I pulled a chair over and introduced myself to the couple from Denver.
“I’m John. This is Sarah,” the man said. I shook their hands.
“I’m Jack. Where y’all from?” I asked.
“Denver,” he said. Told you I didn’t know that yet. “This is Mark. He’s from Florida. This is Elizabeth,” he nodded at the strawberry blonde.
I waved to Mark, who was on the other side of a sizable table. I looked Elizabeth straight in the eyes and put out my hand. “A pleasure,” I grinned. It was a grin that made my intentions pretty clear.
She shot me a look of curious caution. She looked down from my eyes to my grin. A little grin grew from one side of her mouth, too. She shook my hand firmly.
“Where you from, Jack?” she asked, turning her body to face me.
“Philly, how about you?” I asked, still grinnin’.
“Palm Springs,” she smiled. “Are you solo?”
“Yep, just came down to chill for a long weekend,” I said, sounding very 35 years old.
“To chill, huh?” she snickered. “Well I was just telling Mark here about my kids. My ex-husband has them for the weekend,” she said almost forcefully, maybe trying to throw me off the scent.
I kept grinnin’. “How old are they?”
She nodded and smiled a little. “14, 16, and 18. Do you have any?” she asked with an effervescence I found very attractive.
“Nah,” I said, “got a couple houseplants, though.” A bad line, really.
“So Jack, what do you do?” asked the man from Denver.
“I’m a lawyer, but don’t hold it against me,” I said in a jokey — why am I talking like this — kind of way.
“Oh, Mark here’s a lawyer, too.”
“What kind of law do you practice, Jack,” Mark asked.
“Labor. I mostly sue school boards,” I shrugged.
Elizabeth gave me a glare I wasn’t sure I liked. Before we could get too far into that the band came back on. A tall grey-bearded man in a Hawaiian shirt that matched the rest of his crew came over and extended a hand to Elizabeth, asking her to dance.
It was a good move. Classic. Classy. The worst part is that he was a fantastic dancer. He spun her. He dipped her. They got a goddamn round of applause.
In one way I’m surprised she came back to the table. In another, I’m not. By the time she came back she had forgotten all about what I do for a living. She put her hand on my knee as she sat down and took a drink of water.
“Oh my god, that was amazing!” she said, panting and smiling widely.
“You looked amazing out there,” I grinned.
“Thanks, he was a great leader.”
“I didn’t just mean the dancin’,” I put out there.
“Oh, god,” she rolled her eyes a bit, “layin’ it on pretty thick, aren’t you?”
“Why not, we’ll never see each other again.”
She thought on that for a minute. “No, we probably won’t,” she replied, now grinning a little back at me. “Let’s dance,” she added, grasping my hand and pulling me onto the dance floor.
Oh, shit, I thought. I gotta follow the grey-bearded guy? This is not going to go well. But as the horns blared out at us other couples were thankfully starting to hit the floor. Plus I can spin a girl pretty good when I need to.
She really had no footwork, but she probably never needed to. She was a great dance partner just to look at. “Bourbon Street Parade” is a fast damn tune, though, and I was struggling to keep up at first, but we fell into a nice slower groove and we danced the rest of the song with my hand on her hip and a few spins and whispers here and there. When it was over we headed back to the table and sipped our drinks.
Soon they broke into “When the Saints Go Marching In” and it felt a lot like a set closer to me, so I asked “what are you doin’ after this?”
“Oh, I think I’ll go eat at Brennan’s.”
“Need a date?” I smiled, as one smiles trying to sell a used car.
“Okay,” she smiled and said simply, shaking her head a little.
“Perfect,” I smirked.
The Dukes of Dixieland closed out the show and the ship hit the dock. We said our goodbyes to Mark and the couple from Denver and I followed Elizabeth off the ship like a loyal puppy.
As we walked I managed to convince her we should go somewhere else. Antoine’s had hit my bank account and I planned to pick up the check — though I gave her some other reason, obviously.
We sat down at the bar of a place serving jambalaya and ordered beers. “You never told me what you do,” I said, sipping an Abita Amber.
“Oh, I’m a nurse. Really I could travel doing it — I would love to — but I have to stay in Palm Springs for the kids.”
“Right, tell me a bit about them.”
“Well, I had them almost right in a row, but you know, life begins at conception, so….”
A little siren began to go off in my head as I took another sip of my Abita Amber.
“So you’re…”
“Pro-life, yes.”
That’s not what I usually call it. I paused. This conversation could go many ways.
“Just out of curiosity, do you believe other women should have the freedom to choose for themselves?”
“I do.”
Interesting. I couldn’t help myself, though. “Did you vote for…”
“Trump? Yes, I did.”
I set my beer down and closed my eyes briefly as our jambalaya hit the bar. I put my napkin in my lap and picked up the fork. I took a bite of the still-very-hot jambalaya. It was pretty good. Again, though, I couldn’t help myself:
“Twice?” I asked, incredulously.
“Twice,” she confirmed.
“And next year…?”
“I’ll vote for him again, yeah,” she shrugged back at me.
Oof. I just didn’t think I could do it anymore. I tried to hide my wince.
We talked about lighter things as we ate. She told me about her kids and laughed. She put her hands on mine once we were finished.
“My hotel is this way,” she said once we got outside. It was the opposite direction from mine. She held my hand and led me toward her hotel.
“Sure, I’ll walk you back,” I said.
After a few blocks she stopped and turned around to me, cutely and nervously leaning in for a kiss. There are few things that feel better than kissing a beautiful, well-dressed, put together older woman. It was a gentle and soothing kiss. She smiled excitedly. I smiled back.
As we got to the next block she said “well, we’re here,” seeing what I would do about it.
“How about one last kiss goodnight?” I asked. A little surprised but understanding and wanting another kiss, the strawberry blonde named Elizabeth — at least I’m pretty sure that was her name — leaned in and gave me a kiss she meant. It was purposeful and lingering.
“Your lips are so soft,” she said, smiling brightly as we pulled away.
“So are yours,” I replied, “and you’re absolutely gorgeous, and tonight was wonderful,” I added, stealing one last kiss.
Maybe making out anonymously in the French Quarter can — in some small way — heal our divisions. But I doubt it.
“Goodnight,” she said.
“Goodnight,” I said, turning back to walk down Royal toward my hotel. We would very likely never speak again. Forever steamboats passing in the night.
She would surely go back to her existence as my antithesis. As the type of person — politically anyway — I am disappointed exists. For at least the time it takes to kiss a few times, though, that had fallen away.
I took a right and floated down a now loud and raucous Bourbon Street. On a cloud of what was and what might have been, I barely heard a sound on my last walk down Bourbon. I wrote a bit once I got back to the hotel and I laid down overlooking the city. I dozed off to flashes of a night well spent.
In some ways I had done what I had set out to do. I had spent a long weekend surrounded by anything I could have wanted — excess-wise — and I had only gotten a comfortable buzz, some good oysters, a few kisses, and this story.
Now, I’m not here to preach moderation. It can be a slippery slope. I’m only here to say I had one good weekend in the French Quarter, and grew a bit because of it.
I nodded off.
I woke up around 8 and started walking over to Daisy Duke’s on Chartres for breakfast and a Bloody. As I crossed Canal an older man with white, receding hair asked me “is Bourbon Street this way?”
“It sure is,” I replied simply.
The Bloody had a good kick and it came with a crawfish garnish. As it was early on a Monday, few were at the bar. Two men in their mid-twenties or so sat a few seats down. I came to learn by way of overhearing that they were in town for a probation officers’ conference.
Ain’t that ironic? Here, of all places.
Jeff Landry for Governor ads plastered the TV in front of me as I waited for my cajun omelette. “Louisiana deserves a government as good as its people.” I’m certain that’s true, but this guy wasn’t that. I did a little research on my phone. Anti-gay, though his brother Nick is openly gay. He held back the funding of a power station over New Orleans decriminalizing abortion in 2022. A real slimeball. According to a 1992 search warrant he signed himself — a sheriff’s deputy at the time — more than 100 grams of cocaine was found in his own home. He, of course, denies any involvement. The blow had apparently been smuggled out of an evidence locker, though, so you tell me.
As my omelette came the bartender brought two little crawfish over to the probation officers to my left.
“You guys want to really be cajun, try these,” she laughed. They didn’t warm up to the idea quickly. The younger one caught me looking over and he looked back at the bartender.
“I don’t know, why’s everybody watchin’? What does it taste like?”
I laughed and grabbed the little guy out of my Bloody. “Here,” I said, twisting off the head and sucking the spice out of it, then eating the meat.
“Is it good?”
“Yeah, tastes like shrimp.”
“Oh, okay,” he said, twisting his off and trying the meat. “Yeah, kinda like shrimp,” he shrugged.
“Now the head,” the bartender insisted. He did it. He liked it.
I closed out and headed back to my room to gather my things and get movin’ on. I had a noon flight. As I packed I realized the error of buying a vinyl record — the one from Preservation Hall — to bring home in a backpack. Once I managed to get the zippers zipped, I laid down for a few minutes reflecting on my long weekend in the French Quarter.
I thought of the oysters. I thought of Antoine’s. I thought of jazz. I thought of Elizabeth. Then, all at once, it was time to leave. I ordered an Uber to Louis Armstrong International Airport. On the way my driver was quiet. He had on local talk radio and they were discussing the UAW strike. “Go get ’em, UAW,” I thought.
I looked out onto the water and the Louisiana highways as we got closer to the airport. I had come here — in many ways — to prove something to myself about my relationship with alcohol, about my relationship with myself, and maybe even my relationship with oysters.
I’m rooting for the oysters.
We pulled up, I got out, and I left a little of my old self behind in my Uber back to Louis Armstrong.
