I was accepted into a Urology residency at Generic Medical Center that is where my father worked as an attending Urologist since I had gone though med school and unfortunately the only thing that I really cared about was my ability to cruise the French Quarter every night, get high, and go to the Gretna adult bookstore, on the other side of the Mississippi River.
These glory holes and bath houses were filthy, disgusting, roach-infested gathering spots for horny gay men and some stright men in denial. In my years as a college and medical student in New Orleans, i must have had annonymous male sex with well over a thousand partners, maybe Actually, i did catch hepatits B early in my second year of med school. Everything about my life back then was so contrary to being a mature, responsible adult let alone being a doctor. I look back on those years and just cant tell myself that I would succeed if I could do it all again.
It was a period in my life where I just pursued only those endeavors which gave me immediate gratification β like an orgasm, getting high, gambling - spending money that I was given and never earned. There are so many factors that went into the equation that it would be it is hard for me to paint a picture of what it was like. A typical day would be getting up and going to med school, taking extensive notes in class using four different colors of ink β I had one of those BIC pens that let you click on blue, red, green, or black ink , getting home by 3 or 4, going for a run I ran miles a week back then , changing into jeans and having dinner at the Pontchartrain Hotel, and then getting in my car and going down to the French Quarter.
I would smoke a joint on my way down, and then everything happened as the night played out. I would sometimes go slowly cruising down Bourbon Street to Esplanade Avenue and then come back up either Royal street or Chartres Street. It was noticeable how the Quarter changed once you crossed St. Ann Street β that was the dividing line between the well-lit bars on Bourbon Street, all blasting the Dixieland Jazz, and the dark, quiet streets in the back of the French Quarter where the hookers walked.
They walked the streets and usually when they saw me circle around the block a few times, slowing down as I passed them, they would either stop and wait for me to circle again, or they would quickly approach my car as I slowed down and hop in. Sometimes I would drive a block ahead of them and pull over to the side of the street and just sit in the car.
