French Quarter Sue

It was over 21 years ago, in 1998, and my assignment was to make some chemical resin on the Bayou Lafourche in southern Louisiana.

Let me tell you about French Quarter Sue.

I flew into New Orleans right around dinner time on a Sunday afternoon in the off season of December and instead of doing the responsible act of getting the rental car and heading south for a good night's rest I picked up the car and headed to the French Quarter.  Dammit, if I was going to travel for this company then I wasn't going to miss a chance to visit NOLA on their dime.  This was before I had ever lived in that city so I was still a bit of a tourist and a rube but I was hungry and thirsty.  I parked the car on the street in the Central Business District for free, tossed my leather motorcycle jacket in the trunk, and walked the 15-20 blocks to the heart of the Quarter.

Somebody ought to have kicked my ass for this but I sat down at a touristy trap chain restaurant on Bourbon Street named Tony Roma's.

I had the lasagna and a glass of red wine and it wasn't bad.  If I had known then what I know now I would have walked the additional 2 blocks to Emeril Lagasse's restauarnt call "NOLA" or eaten something good at the bar at Mr. B's Bistro.  There are so many good places in retrospect and cost was no issue back in those days of company travel, especially when dining alone.  Either way, the lasagna still wasn't bad and it wasn't coming out of my pocket anyhow.  It was still pretty early after dinner so I headed next door to the heavy metal/goth bar called The Dungeon for a few beers before heading down to the Bayou.

The Dungeon French Quarter

The Dungeon was more of a late night club in those days where you walked down an alley and a biker looking dude always was posted on security after dark.  The upstairs bar was the fun part but only the downstairs bar was open.  At least the jukebox was still pretty strong and not nearly as loud as the late night version.  There were only a handful of people in the joint so I sat down and ordered a bottle of Dixie.  Next to me was a woman with a chainsaw-like voice who was chainsmoking Camel Lights who seemed nice enough and relatively harmless.  I bought her a beer and she told me her name was French Quarter Sue.  She wasn't too tall with sort of a Native American look and a face that reminded me of 40 miles of bad road.  She looked a little down and out but you know what they say?  If you can't make it in New Orleans, don't leave!

We had another beer and a 15 minute chat and it was getting time to go.  By this time she had determined I had a car in my possession and asked for a ride home a few miles from where I parked to beyond the interstate overpass on Tulane Avenue.  I said "sure" even though I knew it was probably a bad idea.  What the hell, though, I also had routinely picked up hitchhikers in my relative youth and I decided she probably would not rob or murder me.

The upstairs bar at The Dungeon

It was almost dark and we walked along Bourbon Street towards the location of the car.  As we got near the 200-300 blocks we passed a bunch of strip clubs as we got near the edge of the Quarter and Canal Street.  Remember, this is not a person that any regular person would like to see naked but French Quarter Sue proceeded to let me know that she would never be caught dead stripping and shaking her ass on a stage!  That's good to know the line of morality, I thought to myself.  Then she followed that up with:  I might turn a trick or two but i would never work as a stripper!  

So, that was the line of demarcation here:  Having sex with a stranger in exchange for money was A-OK but stripping was vile and off limits.  This is valuable information when honing my own morality rules for sure.  Then she hit me with the old coup de grace when we were almost approaching my rental car when she asked me "so, you interested in any sex?"  All I could say was "no thanks" and I fully expected her to turn around and walk back to the Quarter to make some money, but she really did just want a ride home.  When we got to the car I went to get my great Brooks biker jacket and it was stolen and this was the true bummer of the evening.  I gave Ms. Sue her ride to a sketchy house up past the I-10 without further incident and she thanked me and didn't kill me, so that was nice.  I headed down to the Bayou to work for the week without my rock n' roll jacket but with a story of a girl named Sue that would last a lifetime!

What about you Smidlappers?  Do you have a taste for interacting with unusual characters with fuzzy morals?  I always have and the outcomes are almost always interesting.  Would you have given her the ride home?  Here's another New Orleans story if you just couldn't get enough of that one:  Travelling for Work? Here’s How I Rocked It!

p.s.  In today's pseudo-inclusive world, do you think Sue would be invited to the party?

p.p.s.  After I moved to NOLA a year later I waited on an FBI team at my hotel for for a week.  Once the week was up I brought an agent named Brian out to the Dungeon.  We had a rousing good time.

Enjoy this Duane Eddy song "40 Miles of Bad Road" played from tractors.  This music was early cool rock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoZymsInDEA