Summer nights of my youth

The grand and legendary Arnaud's Restaurant is a classic New Orleans institution. Just before Count Arnaud died, he let it be known that his successor was not to be the sheltered Lady Irma, but his anything-but-sheltered daughter Germaine. That choice leads one to believe that he wanted to keep the semi-scandalous stories flowing freely form the restaurant.Only New Orleans could produce a Germaine Cazenave Wells. She was lusty, dramatic, loud and headstrong. Her taste and capacity for alcohol, celebration and men were extreme, even by the standards of today. She worshiped her father; the pair were certainly kindred spirits.

Late in her life, I was a young man exploring the world. I was moving in a fast crowd and I've written about at least one episode with Tennessee Williams in New Orleans. One night I went to dinner with friends at Arnaud's Restaurant. Somehow, I got separated from the group and found myself in the back bar that was open only to her guests. I sat next to her and as we chatted I realized she had slid her hand onto my thigh. I vividly remember how bony her hand was, as it slid inexorably into my crotch. I'm afraid I wasn't smooth enough to gracefully handle it. I just excused myself and left the room.

I walked from there to a now defunct bar called La Casa de los Marinos (spelling ?). It was in a part of the French Quarter that was rough in those days. The bar was a hang out for Spanish seamen, the prostitutes who followed them, and college kids like me who were slumming. I sat next to an old whore with badly dyed red hair and we drank our beers and talked. (I went from Germaine Wells in Arnaud's to an old whore in a ratty bar within an hour.) At one point a bar tender attacked a customer with a broken beer bottle. At another point, my dinner companions wandered in and then we danced until the dawn.

There were so many of those richly textured summer nights. I wish I could remember more of them.