The Cocaine Orgy
I realized as I was going through the sparse writings of 2015 that I never wrote in detail about my 40th birthday trip to New Orleans (that I've come across yet). It makes me sad because my commentary on the trip would have been so much more interesting had I recapped it at the time. I remember most of the events, but truly something in the details will be lost as I recount it now over eight years later.
So, it was decided that year that Rockwell and the Doctor were going to be taking me on a trip for my birthday. It was to a place of my choosing (partially because my 30th bday trip turned out to be a dud when Rockwell decided to fly us to Atlanta. I shouldn't be too ungrateful though considering he paid the travel and hotel expenses). Of course, upon being given the choice, I chose New Orleans.
I don't remember too many details about the first days of our trip other than the fact that I was an early bird at that time especially, where as Rockwell and the Doctor were intent on going out in the evenings to do drugs. I recall that this was something that they'd tried to keep hidden from me initially, as Rockwell saw himself to be the all-knowing, free-love-and-drugs type and I was considered a "prude" because I had little interest in participating. Partially because at that time I felt like the two of them were too old to be doing that stuff, and the glimpses of them I'd caught over the years doing it was just not a good look overall.
It was all fine though because I always adored private walks through the French Quarter in the mornings. I could deal with the status quo of things in that way.
My actual birthday was on a Thursday that year, which I remember for some reason. We were hanging out at Good Friends day drinking. The bartender found out I was celebrating my bday and we got a free bottle of champagne. It was just a very chill afternoon of low-key celebration.
Unfortunately, at the same time this couple I knew was visiting NOLA as well. They were nice enough guys, but not really the party types and they had no interest in mixing with any of my other friends. And the feeling was mutual from Rockwell at the very least. The Doctor had met them before. The one kid I actually knew for a few years and he had a thing for me, but he was with this other guy now and they eventually got married and moved to NOLA, but I stopped talking to them because of 2016 and the election.
This couple wanted to meet me at the Old Absinthe House to have a shot of absinthe. I was hesitant to do so because I knew, as nice as these guys were, they were kinda dull and it felt obligatory that I had to do this. Rockwell and the Doctor stayed behind at Bourbon Pub and were talking to a few guys that we'd met at some point that day. I did my shot, hung out for a bit and then went back to find those guys at the Pub.
They were nowhere to be found. I sent off some texts and kinda lingered about. I remember my self-esteem had taken some weird hit from the fact I got stuck around this couple that killed the vibe of the day. I think part of the reason these guys went down there at the same time I did was specifically to "bump" into me while we were there. It was also our last day in town, I was super stressed because of work, my crazy landlords at the time and I had that dread building over having to return to Chicago... which at this point I was really learning to loath.
There I am, on my birthday, alone on a balcony. Unable to find my friends, with no one around to talk to. Whereas I love solitude in general, it was just not the right moment for it. I was also at the time feeling this enormous disconnect with my current life, with the "gay community" and with pretty much every friendship I had. That was something I wrote about in detail in other entries around the time. I know that in this moment, I just felt like a loser.
I even contemplated at the time if I should just go ahead and do cocaine with the Doctor and Rockwell. That maybe *I* was the loser who needed to lighten up. Things were as contentious as ever with Rockwell during these days and even though most of the time, I did not think *I* was the issue, he had a way of just breaking me down and making me think otherwise. He still does the same things to this day to the Doctor as I've heard many a tale about it.
I could probably look back into my texts and see the very messages I sent out asking where these guys were. But after an hour or so I was so down about the whole thing I went back to the hotel room. It was late afternoon or early evening and since we were leaving the next day anyway, I started packing my bags. It's pathetic, but recalling it right now I feel very sad for myself because I remember feeling like such a loser in that moment. My birthdays had always historically been disasters anytime anyone tried to plan something for me. It was like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The longer I sat in that room, the more angry I got about it all. Eventually, several hours later, the Doctor and Rockwell returned to the room. What happened next is somewhat of a blur. I just remember unloading the most vicious, enraged rant against the two of them I've ever let forth at that point in time on any human being. It was almost as if my words were just running on auto-pilot and the vitriol spewed forth from the deepest, most suppressed part of myself. All the things I'd never said when I was mad before. I ripped on them for being "drug addict losers" and screamed about how they could not, even for ONE simple trip, just control themselves for my sake and "my" supposed birthday trip.
I don't remember how long the rant lasted. I just know they left the room having said nothing and I went to bed. It turns out the two of them ended up going back to the room of the other guys we had been talking to on the balcony of the Pub where they proceeded to do drugs and have an orgy. I think the Doctor even told me later that this couple was staying in the very same hotel as us. They'd gotten my texts after the fact, but because they were "busy" at the time I was messaging them they didn't care or bother to concern themselves with the fact they'd ditched me.
The next morning, if I even slept at all, I woke up at the crack of dawn, packed the rest of my stuff and went to the airport. I did not at that time care to have to converse with them in the room while we killed an entire day waiting to leave. The one mistake I made was that I had the opportunity to change my ticket to the morning flight. I would have been on board and leaving by 9 A.M. and home by mid-afternoon if traffic was tolerable. This was one of the greatest mistakes I have ever made in my entire life, and I made it because I was afraid if I did so, Rockwell would be "more" mad at me than he already was. What a complete moron I was.
Eventually they came to the airport. I think the Doctor had texted me and inquired about where I was. I don't think our flight even left until 4 or 5 in the afternoon. We just sat there in complete awkwardness. Rockwell was fuming about the way *I* had treated *him*.
We were just about to board, when the morons on the tarmac SPILLED FUEL all over the wing of the plane. Our flight ended up being delayed for hours. I don't think we departed until after 10 or 11 at night. It was totally ridiculous. And honestly, the main reason I refuse to ever fly to NOLA again. So there I was, on one of the worst birthdays of my life, stuck in an airport with a person I could not stand to even look at.
We got back to Chicago and we got our bags from downstairs. At this point, I was just going to get in a cab and go home. I was tired, I was done being mad or fighting. I just wanted it over.
This single decision threw Rockwell into a rage. How DARE I not ride in a cab all the way home with them, and then have HIM drive me home from his place. At the time, I lived far north in Edgewater close to Touhy Avenue and Clark. Rockwell lived all the way down in Lakeview/Lincoln Park, on Sheridan by Diversey. It made ZERO sense for me to travel all the way down there in a cab with them, and then have to be given a ride all the way back up to my place that would have taken another 20 minutes. There was NO logical sense to it.
But, he was a psycho control freak and the fact that I DARED make this decision to just find my way home threw him into a fit of rage. I was so tired, I didn't even care.
I have no memory about how long we didn't speak. I know we used to do lunches every Friday. I feel like by the next week, we were right back to it. I do recall that things were quite tense after that and I do not think the "friendship" ever recovered from this event. In fact, I know it didn't, because after "The Boat Incident" in July of 2016 when I ended my friendship with him and walked away, one of his high school friends reached out to me months later on social media and the subject came up. And he told this guy that *HE* was the one that ended the friendship because of this event in 2015 in New Orleans.
So, somehow Rockwell traveled back in time to before we were on Agent Smith's boat in July of 2016 and ended the friendship in May of 2015. Completely delusional.
I forgot about one other thing that happened on the trip. One of the nights we were there, I went back to the room to sleep while Rockwell and the Doctor were out for one of their drug-fueled barhops. They came back into the room. The Doctor had undressed to get ready for bed. He and Rockwell were sharing the other bed in the room. The Doctor proceeds to get out of bed in the pitch black. He comes to the end of my bed, but because he is drugged out of his mind he has no idea where he is standing and thinks he is in the bathroom.
He proceeds to urinate on the floor at the foot of my bed. I sit up half-dazed in my confusion about what is happening. He finishes and proceeds to fall forward, directly on top of me and we clunk heads together like the fucking Three Stooges. I remember going into a minor rage about that, but of course Rockwell would always shame *ME* for not being sensitive to the behaviors and plights of all the drug-addled people that I had opinions about.
What an absolute fucking disaster of a trip. I was so desperate at the time to grow up and change, but I was surrounded by these people who wanted to live the irresponsible lives of twenty-somethings. It really makes sense why a lot of them were trying to constantly tear me down and belittle me over trying to change my life. Because if I did so, they may have to reflect on their own lives (if they were even capable).
Now, I am still friends with the Doctor. I've always adored him and found him to be one of the funniest people I've ever met in my life. Back in the day, in that toxic environment we were all in when we got together, I do think I picked on him a little. But, it was never to the extent that Rockwell tore him down and shit on him. Rockwell ruined a relationship the Doctor had gotten in with another guy from California. Literally. Rockwell was so horrible the guy fled Chicago after the very night we met him and broke-up with the Doctor.
I always say, we all played our part and I am no saint, but Rockwell was on another level of being an asshole.
I have pushed hard on the Doctor the past few years to try motivating him to change his life. I ride his ass about his debts and he is actually trying to work more now to tackle his out of control credit cards. I WANT him to have a better life. I wish he could meet better people that weren't trapped in this old-school gay world of sex and drugs. But, also it is his life and I am no one to tell him the right or wrong way to live it. I just want him to see there are other options.
And I know he is not getting any support from his "friends", namely Rockwell. From what I hear pretty much no one else from the past even still talks to him. In a lot of cases I was the glue that held some of these friendship groups together. Once I was gone, none of the people bothered trying to continue on with their relationships.
I hate to think of him being alone in the city. Though I loved my solitude when I was down there. But, as I've lamented many times before, the things we loved and the places we used to go are either all mostly gone or changed and unrecognizable. I've escaped that world, but he's stuck in it like a dinosaur out of time. The places he'd roam, that we'd roam, are just all gone.
So, it was decided that year that Rockwell and the Doctor were going to be taking me on a trip for my birthday. It was to a place of my choosing (partially because my 30th bday trip turned out to be a dud when Rockwell decided to fly us to Atlanta. I shouldn't be too ungrateful though considering he paid the travel and hotel expenses). Of course, upon being given the choice, I chose New Orleans.
I don't remember too many details about the first days of our trip other than the fact that I was an early bird at that time especially, where as Rockwell and the Doctor were intent on going out in the evenings to do drugs. I recall that this was something that they'd tried to keep hidden from me initially, as Rockwell saw himself to be the all-knowing, free-love-and-drugs type and I was considered a "prude" because I had little interest in participating. Partially because at that time I felt like the two of them were too old to be doing that stuff, and the glimpses of them I'd caught over the years doing it was just not a good look overall.
It was all fine though because I always adored private walks through the French Quarter in the mornings. I could deal with the status quo of things in that way.
My actual birthday was on a Thursday that year, which I remember for some reason. We were hanging out at Good Friends day drinking. The bartender found out I was celebrating my bday and we got a free bottle of champagne. It was just a very chill afternoon of low-key celebration.
Unfortunately, at the same time this couple I knew was visiting NOLA as well. They were nice enough guys, but not really the party types and they had no interest in mixing with any of my other friends. And the feeling was mutual from Rockwell at the very least. The Doctor had met them before. The one kid I actually knew for a few years and he had a thing for me, but he was with this other guy now and they eventually got married and moved to NOLA, but I stopped talking to them because of 2016 and the election.
This couple wanted to meet me at the Old Absinthe House to have a shot of absinthe. I was hesitant to do so because I knew, as nice as these guys were, they were kinda dull and it felt obligatory that I had to do this. Rockwell and the Doctor stayed behind at Bourbon Pub and were talking to a few guys that we'd met at some point that day. I did my shot, hung out for a bit and then went back to find those guys at the Pub.
They were nowhere to be found. I sent off some texts and kinda lingered about. I remember my self-esteem had taken some weird hit from the fact I got stuck around this couple that killed the vibe of the day. I think part of the reason these guys went down there at the same time I did was specifically to "bump" into me while we were there. It was also our last day in town, I was super stressed because of work, my crazy landlords at the time and I had that dread building over having to return to Chicago... which at this point I was really learning to loath.
There I am, on my birthday, alone on a balcony. Unable to find my friends, with no one around to talk to. Whereas I love solitude in general, it was just not the right moment for it. I was also at the time feeling this enormous disconnect with my current life, with the "gay community" and with pretty much every friendship I had. That was something I wrote about in detail in other entries around the time. I know that in this moment, I just felt like a loser.
I even contemplated at the time if I should just go ahead and do cocaine with the Doctor and Rockwell. That maybe *I* was the loser who needed to lighten up. Things were as contentious as ever with Rockwell during these days and even though most of the time, I did not think *I* was the issue, he had a way of just breaking me down and making me think otherwise. He still does the same things to this day to the Doctor as I've heard many a tale about it.
I could probably look back into my texts and see the very messages I sent out asking where these guys were. But after an hour or so I was so down about the whole thing I went back to the hotel room. It was late afternoon or early evening and since we were leaving the next day anyway, I started packing my bags. It's pathetic, but recalling it right now I feel very sad for myself because I remember feeling like such a loser in that moment. My birthdays had always historically been disasters anytime anyone tried to plan something for me. It was like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The longer I sat in that room, the more angry I got about it all. Eventually, several hours later, the Doctor and Rockwell returned to the room. What happened next is somewhat of a blur. I just remember unloading the most vicious, enraged rant against the two of them I've ever let forth at that point in time on any human being. It was almost as if my words were just running on auto-pilot and the vitriol spewed forth from the deepest, most suppressed part of myself. All the things I'd never said when I was mad before. I ripped on them for being "drug addict losers" and screamed about how they could not, even for ONE simple trip, just control themselves for my sake and "my" supposed birthday trip.
I don't remember how long the rant lasted. I just know they left the room having said nothing and I went to bed. It turns out the two of them ended up going back to the room of the other guys we had been talking to on the balcony of the Pub where they proceeded to do drugs and have an orgy. I think the Doctor even told me later that this couple was staying in the very same hotel as us. They'd gotten my texts after the fact, but because they were "busy" at the time I was messaging them they didn't care or bother to concern themselves with the fact they'd ditched me.
The next morning, if I even slept at all, I woke up at the crack of dawn, packed the rest of my stuff and went to the airport. I did not at that time care to have to converse with them in the room while we killed an entire day waiting to leave. The one mistake I made was that I had the opportunity to change my ticket to the morning flight. I would have been on board and leaving by 9 A.M. and home by mid-afternoon if traffic was tolerable. This was one of the greatest mistakes I have ever made in my entire life, and I made it because I was afraid if I did so, Rockwell would be "more" mad at me than he already was. What a complete moron I was.
Eventually they came to the airport. I think the Doctor had texted me and inquired about where I was. I don't think our flight even left until 4 or 5 in the afternoon. We just sat there in complete awkwardness. Rockwell was fuming about the way *I* had treated *him*.
We were just about to board, when the morons on the tarmac SPILLED FUEL all over the wing of the plane. Our flight ended up being delayed for hours. I don't think we departed until after 10 or 11 at night. It was totally ridiculous. And honestly, the main reason I refuse to ever fly to NOLA again. So there I was, on one of the worst birthdays of my life, stuck in an airport with a person I could not stand to even look at.
We got back to Chicago and we got our bags from downstairs. At this point, I was just going to get in a cab and go home. I was tired, I was done being mad or fighting. I just wanted it over.
This single decision threw Rockwell into a rage. How DARE I not ride in a cab all the way home with them, and then have HIM drive me home from his place. At the time, I lived far north in Edgewater close to Touhy Avenue and Clark. Rockwell lived all the way down in Lakeview/Lincoln Park, on Sheridan by Diversey. It made ZERO sense for me to travel all the way down there in a cab with them, and then have to be given a ride all the way back up to my place that would have taken another 20 minutes. There was NO logical sense to it.
But, he was a psycho control freak and the fact that I DARED make this decision to just find my way home threw him into a fit of rage. I was so tired, I didn't even care.
I have no memory about how long we didn't speak. I know we used to do lunches every Friday. I feel like by the next week, we were right back to it. I do recall that things were quite tense after that and I do not think the "friendship" ever recovered from this event. In fact, I know it didn't, because after "The Boat Incident" in July of 2016 when I ended my friendship with him and walked away, one of his high school friends reached out to me months later on social media and the subject came up. And he told this guy that *HE* was the one that ended the friendship because of this event in 2015 in New Orleans.
So, somehow Rockwell traveled back in time to before we were on Agent Smith's boat in July of 2016 and ended the friendship in May of 2015. Completely delusional.
I forgot about one other thing that happened on the trip. One of the nights we were there, I went back to the room to sleep while Rockwell and the Doctor were out for one of their drug-fueled barhops. They came back into the room. The Doctor had undressed to get ready for bed. He and Rockwell were sharing the other bed in the room. The Doctor proceeds to get out of bed in the pitch black. He comes to the end of my bed, but because he is drugged out of his mind he has no idea where he is standing and thinks he is in the bathroom.
He proceeds to urinate on the floor at the foot of my bed. I sit up half-dazed in my confusion about what is happening. He finishes and proceeds to fall forward, directly on top of me and we clunk heads together like the fucking Three Stooges. I remember going into a minor rage about that, but of course Rockwell would always shame *ME* for not being sensitive to the behaviors and plights of all the drug-addled people that I had opinions about.
What an absolute fucking disaster of a trip. I was so desperate at the time to grow up and change, but I was surrounded by these people who wanted to live the irresponsible lives of twenty-somethings. It really makes sense why a lot of them were trying to constantly tear me down and belittle me over trying to change my life. Because if I did so, they may have to reflect on their own lives (if they were even capable).
Now, I am still friends with the Doctor. I've always adored him and found him to be one of the funniest people I've ever met in my life. Back in the day, in that toxic environment we were all in when we got together, I do think I picked on him a little. But, it was never to the extent that Rockwell tore him down and shit on him. Rockwell ruined a relationship the Doctor had gotten in with another guy from California. Literally. Rockwell was so horrible the guy fled Chicago after the very night we met him and broke-up with the Doctor.
I always say, we all played our part and I am no saint, but Rockwell was on another level of being an asshole.
I have pushed hard on the Doctor the past few years to try motivating him to change his life. I ride his ass about his debts and he is actually trying to work more now to tackle his out of control credit cards. I WANT him to have a better life. I wish he could meet better people that weren't trapped in this old-school gay world of sex and drugs. But, also it is his life and I am no one to tell him the right or wrong way to live it. I just want him to see there are other options.
And I know he is not getting any support from his "friends", namely Rockwell. From what I hear pretty much no one else from the past even still talks to him. In a lot of cases I was the glue that held some of these friendship groups together. Once I was gone, none of the people bothered trying to continue on with their relationships.
I hate to think of him being alone in the city. Though I loved my solitude when I was down there. But, as I've lamented many times before, the things we loved and the places we used to go are either all mostly gone or changed and unrecognizable. I've escaped that world, but he's stuck in it like a dinosaur out of time. The places he'd roam, that we'd roam, are just all gone.