#DearDiary, Louie 1 (10/21/25) Louie and I spent a lot of time hanging out on the loading dock across the street from the Hellfire in the Meatpacking District. We’d sit there spooking the comings and goings for hours and hours until we’d eventually give in and make our way inside. We had nicknames for the regulars. Names Louie thought up. Nina Hagen. Joan Vass. The Cock-A-Roaches. Poppies. And we knew they were spooking us back. I sometimes wondered if they had nicknamed us too, as we were there so often. “There’s an awareness,” Louie would say. One summer night we brought along Missy Rayder, one of Louie’s girls. For years after, Louie and I marveled how Missy legendarily remained unfazed throughout the entirety of the evening, never losing her supermodel cool in the red lit recesses of the dank underground fetish club. Not even when a wrinkly white bearded Charles Dickens ghoul in a diaper and dungeon shackles was crawling around after her on the filthy cement, wiggling his drooly tongue like a dog begging to lick the bottoms of Missy’s feet. I’m pretty sure we included Missy on one of our Foot Friends excursions to the Lure as well. Louie loved that scene, piggy shrimpers paired head to toe and toe to head on rubber gym mats strewn around the leather bar’s floor. Louie referred to it as a “footy suckle.” The footy suckle parties were on Mondays, and the reason I remember this is because Louie and I rarely missed the Monday turkey plate special one block over at Florent. Louie established a 30 minute “grace period” for tardiness even though Louie could easily be 90 minutes late showing up. It is worth mentioning that Louie had genius nicknames for everyone at Florent too. To be continued. #TrueConfessions by #BillMullen

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#LouieChaban #MissyRayder #Hellfire #TheHellfire #TheLure #Florent #MeatpackingDistrict #Downtown #Legends