The fictional waif did not straighten up and fly right after landing job and home. He wanted the wild life, he wanted women and intoxication and fell into a herd of similar self-destructive creatures that haunted the French Quarter at night. He ended up in a slave quarter apartment on Decatur and made friends with the drunks in the building: a forty something printer who started on whiskey and milk once he was home, a thirty something ex-cop from Ohio who was going through a bad divorce. They all pretty much hated themselves, but had a warped sense of fun while they were busy killing themselves. The ex-cop brought a guy back to the building that he had met in a bar on Bourbon Street. The guy was a gambler and was following the horses from track to track to around the south. He had grocery bags of money in the back of his station wagon. They all went out to the track with him and bet on what he bet on and they all came back with a couple of hundred in their pockets. They ended up spending most of it the same weekend. There was a lot of coming and going out of that building and strange people coming and going. Our waif took in a girl for a couple of nights that he was sure was a junkie. The ex-cop brought home someone that our waif was sure was really a guy. Something snapped. Perhaps it was the ex-cop coming to the waif one night and asking for his help to run away and join a religious cult. We don't know quite what. But our waif decided he had a yearning for grass and trees. So he found an apartment way far away in the river bend area on Dante Street. He began to write every night at the kitchen table in that little place and kind of gave up his friends in the French Quarter.
But of course, he wasn't done being self destructive.
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