Stan builds a freak show p 5

In a week or so, Stan, Glennis, Quinn, Leo, the Sailor, Seaman 5th class Hunktree, (who was handy and treated his midget girlfriends with respect as a protector and a lover). Got hired by Stan to help with the show.

The little Mexican gals besides being able to wrastle were cute. They had natural black curly hair and pierced noses with gold rings. Leo was looking for a cat and found a Leopard which were extinct. The Lepord was albino, so this was a impossible catch.( which he named Coke) . The albino Leopard was malnourished because he was too blind to hunt. Coke let Leo carry him back to the camp. Also while up in the hills, Leo found shrooms and yage, which he sold for 800 oz. . Needless to say, The Great Spirit was looking down on Leo He fed Coke allot of rabbit meat, frogs, rats, dogs and apple pie which Coke ala mode, which Coke loved.

Stan found a old bullfighting ring 30 Kilometers outside of Mexico City in a town called Las Bresas. The owner rented it to Stan for only 40 pesos, plus free tickets, free ganja, tequila and and a dozen chickens.

The troupe lived in the bullfighters quarters, bullfighting was off season. The freak troupe had the whole place to themselves. The quarters was made of dried old wood, and had a couple of extra rooms and a small prayer station which was turned into a living room. Glennis and the little ladies hung Indian prints from the dry wood rafters, burnt prayer candles and incense. It would be the fortune teller tent. Leo could use one of many bull stalls and staple chicken wire to house the albino Lepard, Coke, as he became known. Although Coke was gentle as a pussy cat unless he didn't get his apple pie ala mode.

Stan would have to rent the same Mexican bus for the supply trip to Mexico City, 35 minutes away. Sheerly unmintigated with the spirit of the Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon, things would be dicy for sure, the spirit Shannon radiates light like a crucifix-spotlight even today on old school buses in Mexico. Glennis, Leo and Stan would do the shopping, there was plenty of locally grown food in the Las Bresas markeT. To build a great freak show at Las Bresas, Stan needed wood canvas, paint nails, planks, a sound system.

Stans' dad Sam was still running the pawnshop in Brooklyn. Stan offered 25% interest in the show. The old pawnbroker loved his son, had money by the millions in his mattress, and believed in his sons ability to get things done.

They had taken the seats out of the Reverend T. Lawarence Shannon special school bus and had the rack on the roof to carry lumber, planks. It was sunny and dry outside, the freak builders went to work.

One day, comin out of the hills a Navajo Indian showed up. His name was "Turd on the Run". He had fled the U.S.A hoping for a better life in Mexico, getting lost in the hills, almost making it to Mexico City he drifted into Las Bresas. Stan hired him for room and board, and all the ganja he could smoke. If Turd touched whiskey he would be run off the sight at gun point.

They would keep the bullfighters quarters as was, use if for fortune telling. . Stan wanted a one ring, but lofty circus tent. The open part of the bull ring consisting of hard pack red mud mostly would be used of donkey rides and the bean and cup cons. He had a vision of a Geodesic dome that would rest on sawdust and the packed dirt. The sailor Hunkytree and the Navajo Turd on the Run came in real handy. Stan drew up a rough design in the sand. They would build a Geodesic dome with a teepee top. The had bought more canvass in Mexico city, ( in addition to the canvas they brought on the "Outlaw Skiff" from Jamaica) and paint, also some simple strung light bulbs and Christmas lights. A dimly lighted color and eerie night time.

They used sail canvass to cover the geo dome with teepee on top made by Turd on the Run and Hunkytree.

Glennis did all the art work, painting the canvas patchwork fashion, she was talented, and loved Freida Kahlo

The structure ended up looking like a STUPA.

Stan Meets the Midget Mexican Tattooed Ladies P4

Things weren't  paying so well in Kingston. The small circus the four put together was good, Leo trained a Jamaican Wild Cat, and Quinn could  tie himself in a not.  Glennis mad some bread as the tattooed lady, but had to show tit . Stan one night while gambling with  the pod game and almost got killed by a drunk Jamaican. 

When Quinn and Leo's women found they were broke they left them, things were getting low. 

The crew was living in a one room sleazy cheap motel room, sea green color, with a single hanging light bulb, shared watershed facilities, walls molded, paint chipping. 

All da freaks could put together to get high, was Jamaican beer and roll your own, Drum. 

Stan should have just kept his pawnshop in Miami. He wasn't used to being broke. 

One night the crew was sitting around the campfire, Leo says to Stan " Stan try this!"

The had a bag of raw peeled garlic they bought for cooking in the market. Leo says stan eat 5 cloves of  garlic, then roll a drum cigarette and tell me if that isn't the best tasting smoke ever. Leo says "And the Garlic is good for you raw, good for the heart." Stan did what Leo suggested and damn if that cigarette didn't taste good. 

Finally the gang of 4 freaks decided they couldn't make any money in Jamaica and it was a dumb ideal in the first place. So the group who didn't want to go back to the U.S.A decided to give Mexico a go, put together a  small show in Mexico, Mexico is a freaks show. 

Stan's boat was having the bottom scrapped in Kingston, and the oil changed in the Mercs out boards, to get ready for the ocean trip to Mexico. Stan didn't have a big boat, a skiff. But he was a tough sailer.

The plan was to buy some army tents for living and a old mess tent without sides for the show. They could have a gross of circus  signs painted on canvas in Mexico for fuck all. And they hoped to recruit a few more acts.

When Stans tiki wood skiff was scrapped of plankton and the other ocean shit , he had 5 coats of polyurethane but on the bottom. Most seaman wouldn't attempt to use a skiff for ocean travel through the gulf of Mexico, but the sharp bow was lifted even hire by mercs on the stern. Stan knew what he was doing. His boat by the way was called "Outlaw Sloop".

As usual the freaks got good an wasted at "The Blue Blood" a local Kingston bar and took off for Mexico City about 2am. 

They packed the skiff with coolers of beer and rum, ganja, smoked sail fish, and the used army tents the were going to use for the traveling Mexican freak show. 

Stan with his flat face, cauliflower ears and repaired hair lip was quite a site in his old whit skippers hat, with its  gold skull and cross bones embroidered on. But don't let the looks fool you, Stan could navigate with only a sexton, compass and the constellations. He could navigate looking at the stars on smack and did when he could. 

By the time the gang docked the skiff at Santa Pedro, 44 kilometers from Mexico, they tied down the skiff.  Stan had navigated through the liquid fires of hell, all in the party were junked out or passed out except for the tough old skipper Stan. Who was drunk and unshaven. 

Juiced, Stan would get the freak show to the rim of fiery hell Mexico Mexico City by day light. The had a reservation at 

"Mucho la Playa"  that night and hired a few beach boys to help unload the skiff, who nailed coconut trees together to float the tents and coolers ashore.  They hooked with up old bus to drive them to Hotel Mucho la Playa"  The makings of the Mexico Freakshow had landed. 

Tennessee Williams deja-vous, 4 broken down outsiders souls. Blessed though to be living in the real world, not a mock up world of players.  On  the verge of  nervous breakdowns, financially insolvent Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon last chance on a old bus seeking refuse from the world of the tried and the true,  the mundane, the, boxed in grey, world of same old same old, same old moral majority of the 50s and 60s. 


Stan, Glennis, Leo and Quinn had no choice, born outsiders, but they learned to enjoy every minute of the life of real the avant garde real world they lived in. 

Aside: Somehow living as a  outsider, take a Stan Jijinski, a Bukowski. Anyone born with deformities or brain damage, or a great genius. Take Sylvia Plath who played the part of the insider soccer mom, but later found that being part  the conventional  inside world was a big lie, and not he source of art. 

Once settled in the " Mucho de Playa" a cheap hotel in a rat infested area Stan started asking where the deformed, the lepers, the tattoo parlors, whore house, opium dens were.

For a hundred pesos the midget bellman was happy to direct them to the the " Fresco Jesus Taco-Revolutionary  Square.  All the street lights had been shot out.  You could hear the shamans plying maracas. People burned incense at shrines.

Stan got the the crew high and good to go. They bought some clothes,  suits, dresses and shit. The guys wanted long white leather pimp boots with pointed toes. 

They smoked a joint before going out. The room was the color of tea stains. The curtains were ragged, like gauze. the crew's second hand  clothes were cool.

Glennis was wearing a low cut red dress that was flared. It showed her tattoos on her arms and shoulders as well as the leg tattoos. 

The boys found some old theater ushers uniforms to wear. The white pimp boots looked cool with em.

The midget bellman, Fernando turned on to, like the midget guy in the film "Ray". They got a taxi. 

Well, the first bar they hit was " Dog Puddle" . It was like striking gold. Stan saw three tattooed midget woman, sitting in a booth with a sailor. 

Stan picked a table next to the sailors booth, Quinn, Glennis , Leo and Stan  sat down.  The attractive midget  girls started eye-balling Glennis' tattoos.  They didn't have nearly as many tats as Glennis 

Right away, Stan bought the Sailor and his girls a bottle of Mescal and passed over a few joints. 

Stan made a big hit with this gesture. The two parties joined up.  The sailors name was Hunkytree and the little midget girls were Chica, Bonita and Maria. The girls all talked about tattoos, and the sailor said he could fix anything and was a builder. Then to the utter amazement and joy of Stan, the midget girls said they were wrastlers as well. As it turned out they were between jobs and were happy to work.

Stan Falls for the Tattooed Lady P2

Glennis and Janiski were crapulously blasted one night at Morays. They smoked a joint in the alley at closing and wondered through thru Hyde Park, crouching low in the bushes, like scouts, hunting.  When they got tired of playing army, they laid in the grass and looked up in the midnight sky. 

Janiski asked Glennis why she inked  so many tattoos on her skin. It was weird thing to do in the late 50s. Glennis said it was weird, but it was   the one thing she could do that no one could take away from her. And then Glennis asked Stan why he was so ugly? Stan was way beyond  caring about it. He said cause his Ma dropped him on his face when he was born. But the real mystery here was what would cause Glennis choose  to cover her body in tattoos over seven yrs starting at  15. She enjoyed cutting herself with a razor as well, scarification, the pain would caused her to leave her body.  She felt different from  other people.  It was a kick for her to sit on display in the freak tent. She often would shoot up before the show, or turn on.  In the two piece swimsuit she wore, she made extra money at times taking her top off. He tats were all green ink small but like a mosaic. Not a great ink suit but it was flashy somehow, her tattoos  fit together geometrically on her body. Like the green panther whose red eye was over her mainline, she would shoot up and say stuff like" as seen through the tigers eye"

Then Stan got the idea to take the early ferry to the "Statue of Liberty." 

They bought a bottle of Kalua and mixed it with coffee to warm up.

Glennis liked the French neo post modern design of the statute and thought it would be lovely to have the head and upper torso of "Lady Liberty" tattooed on her heart. 

The couple had to take a elevator to the crown and then walk 75 steps to the flame. on the 36 step Stanley fell back-words on a untied gym shoe lace and tumbled down 23 stairs. He broke his nose in three places, broke his shoulder and leg in three places. Stan would walk with limp the rest of his life. 

The circus was only in Town for another week and Stan had to make a decision to stay at the pawn shop or go with the Glennis to the summer home of the Ringling Bros. Circus Sarasota, Florida. Stan worked the marks with the a bean and cup game for three months. Stan then opened a pawn shop in Sarasota with a loan from Sam. Stan was a great success. 

One night Jiniski, Glennis, Quinn ( a acrobat) and Leo the Lion tamer took Stan's speed boat from Key West to Jamaica. It was no ocean goer, but it had two Mercury outboard 175 horse power engines. She was made  of  Tiki wood,  with 11 coats of polyurethane. 

A kind of  dirty river, tunnel of love, junk skiff. Fast and sleazy.  It had a couple of captain chairs at the stern, with a wooden and glass windshield and pink canopy. Glennis and Stan had sailor caps with gold skull and bones embroidered on them.  The the midsection and the stern were decked out with square fake leopard skin plastic floats or pillows. When you opened up the 175 horse Mercs on the back, the stern was pushed into the air. 

The freaks were flying high, with a case of beer, coca and ganja too boot. At 2am the 4 headed to Jamaica. They moored the skiff off shore, and floated  their stuff in beer coolers ashore. Once ashore they all shot up some junk. They were only 4 meters from and hitchhiked to Kingston.

Quinn ( the acrobat) and Leo the Lion tamer got in a fight on the jungle road to  Kinsgston, over money and they were junk sick.  Quinn knocked Leo out with one kick, using Savate. Quinn then preceded to empty Leo's pockets of all his cocoa, money and weed. 

The foursome rented two cheap hotel rooms in Kingston. At a place called the St. Louis. 

Glennis and Stan were deeply in love, having dated for four years, they decided to marry, later,  by Voodoo wedding on the way to Kingston. Two freaks find love, in a the loveless world of outcast. 

Glennis got a green tattoo of the head of "Miss Liberty" over her heart.

Stan got his first tattoo, a heart with a snaked raped around it and a banner  tattooed his chest. Tattoos meant something to Glennis, the tattooed lady of Ringling Bros. Circus. For her there was nothing deeper than getting a tattoo.  Crowds of people would line up and pay to see Glennis, she was a  freak in their minds. People love to look at freaks. 

Aside: Today being tattooed is accepted but it wasn't when Glennis was tattooed in the 50s, especially for women, guys could get a Armed Forces Tattoo, or rites of passage stuff, but not many women would get them. 

Jumpin Jesus  Jehosevus Christ, Funkin Nassau.  Kingston didn't know it but the circus was coming to town. This  was bigger  Castro's Cuba Revolution, five years after the revolution. 

You could  drink cheap State Rum, listen to reggae music on the jukebox,  dance close sexy state sanctioned fucking like Sambas ! Score weed, score Cubano Cigars,  freak show was good to go. 

Glennis got a job in a magic show in Kingston showing tits and tattoos. 

Stan went up in the hills one day and found some shrooms, which led him to a Voodoo Priestess in a pink house that swayed in the wind. She agreed to mary Stan and Glennis. 

So the wedding party was the soon to be couple , Stan and Glennis, Quinn with his new Cuban girl, Chicita, Leo had a girl too, Anna Bellum.

A Voodoo Wedding is held within accordance with moon cycles, and always at night. It was a nontraditional and private wedding. Only six people and the priestess. The Wedding started at 830 pm during a low crescent moon. A bonfire was started using driftwood, palm and dried leaf. The dress for the bride, groom and guest was banana leaf. The Priestess wore a wrinkled white wedding dress and a turban.

Everyone was getting very wasted on rum and ganja. The priestess was beginning to blow rum over the bonfire, propelling balls of flame. Then all of a sudden the flames took the image of the Devil, who began to speak and asked for a drink of rum.  The evil Devil performed the wedding ceremony.  

After the Devil left as the bonfire decoiled, the party was kind of adrift. 

End of Part 2 "Jiniski & the Tattooed Lady

Janiski & the Tattooed Lady P 1

Stanley Janiski was born in Brooklyn during  a hot summer in the 40s.

Stan's dad, Sam was a diamond cutter in the Hassidic diamond district. Stan was a only child and it was  a small miracle that Rose conceived Stan at all.  Rose was 30 at the time  of Stan's birth. His birth  was a surprise that was merely accepted without much fanfare.

Rose was  a housewife with a new born living in a west side Brooklyn apartment, she was full of herself. During the day she would pamper Stan, a ugly baby,flat faced, already looking  at birth like he did a few rounds with Dempsey, bent nose and  what looked like cauliflower ears. Stan was also born with a hair lip. By 16 months he had surgery and the doctors sowed up Stan's lip.

The Jansikis were music lovers. Rose studied Viola in high school and wanted to go to Juilliard but was not accepted.  Rose liked Liberace and Lawrence Welk,  maybe Juilliard realized she was no yiddisher kop, listing Liberace on your application as a one of your favorite performers to get into Juilliard is not cool.

The family had a nice collection of Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Beethoven, Gershwin  Mitch Miller and the Gang singing songs like "Yellow Rose" and " Doggy in the Window". 

Young Stan at two was still recovering from his hair lip operation, but had healed quickly being young. His mind was taking form. He would crawl on the pink shag carpet and drool on the plastic sofa cover. Music would cause Stan to go into deep dreams from past life. Listening to  Gershwin on the 33rpm stereo would send him off. He seemed to remember the sound from somewhere even though he was only 2.

Stan was not a beautiful baby that people  stopped and ogled over. One day Rose took young Stan out in the stroller to Coney Island.  Rose was pleasing to the eye, but people looked at baby Stan like he was a freak. And just threw fake smiles his way. Rose decided she wanted to get close to the big waves that were breaking further out in the Atlantic, so she pushed the stroller with Stan to the end of one of the cement break waters, that had a harbor light. 

Stan was going on 3 and could walk some now. Baby steps. Rose held both of Stan's arms as he hopeled to the harbor light at the end of the breakwater. Somehow, Stan who was strong for a baby, bust loose from Rose and jumped into the Atlantic. Rose started screaming for help. It was as though Stan said to himself " I was born with a hair lip, punch drunk already, I am not off to a good start." So, maybe I can jump back to where I came from through the great black hole expanse of the Atlantic, maybe it will lead to the heavens. 

Rose was trying to bend over and grab Stan because she couldn't swim, still no life guard on the scene. Stan was having a much more esoteric experience than Rose. He was near death and saw a light at the apex of a cone shaped tunnel. He made it up and through the cone and was flying with his old pals the angels Gagaliel and Mankel. Stan felt like he was home again. He felt triumphant and beauteous, sexual. He felt he wouldn't miss the ground hot dogs and carrot paste Rose feed him. Then the sound of awhistle and a pair of strong arms snatched Stan from the skies through the ocean. The life guard saved him. Rose was ebullient, but Stan was bummed. 

Back in the world of suffering, Stan began pre school. He stood out for all the wrong reasons, a poor unmotivated student, not inspired by life, with a face that look like he done a round with Dempsey, he hated school from the start. 

Stan was big for his age, with huge hands, he got in a fight by third grade and busted a yuppie kids glasses and nose. From then on, anonymous with the personality of a salted Herring, the other kids left him alone. 

Stan was a below average student and quit high school by 16 to go to work with his dad. Sam had quite his job as a diamond cutter and opened a pawn shop on 17th St. in Brooklyn. It was now call Sam and Son's Pawn Shop.

A pawn shop is a great metaphor for the world of suffering. They are frequented by bottom feeders and junks. Clientele so busted, that they will trade a treasure for a pittance to get whatever it is they desperately need at the time.

A pawn broker needs to be thick-skinned and heartless to the drama of the marks . Neither Stan nor Sam found this hard to do. Sam would sip Mogan David through the day and Stan found that  smoking ganja could to numb him. 

In the early 60s the freak show was still going down on Coney Island but was in it's last days. When not at the pawn shop Stan had a group of bar fly friends and outsiders he would hang out at a place called Moray's . People that were too weird by look or action to fit into the upper Manhattan world, would hang at Moray's bar at the end of alley in Brooklyn. Interior design had past over Moray's for the last 40 years.  There was still a picture of Jack Dempsey behind the bar and the place smelled like a rotting rat and stale beer.  Most of Moray's people were Diane Arbus fodder.  Coney Island workers, freaks and junk dealers. 3 % centers.

One day the tattooed women from the Coney freak show, Glennis, game into the pawnshop to pawn a Vebene skull ring that had been passed down through her family. She was stunning, with natural dark curly hair, she looked like a gypsy. When not on the job she could hide her tats by wearing colored leggings and long sleeve shirts or leather jackets, with jeans or long dresses. 

Stan's hair lip scar, flat nose and cauliflower ears made him a freak in his own right.  But he did have beautiful deep blues eyes that met Glennis's dark gypsy eyes, they were immediately attracted to one another and started dating. 

When they got naked and fucked, Stan found Glennis's long mid-body length curly black hair a real turn on. He dug her tattooed body too. It looked 3D to him when they shot up junk together. Glennis liked to shoot through a panther eye tattoo she had on her mainline. 

On days off they like to go get high and go look at modern art, the new abstract Impressionist stuff was a turn on for them as well as the German Impressionist. They loved color which came to life for them when high. 

Other nights off they would go to listen to Kerouac or Gregory Corso read in the village. They also would go to Harlem and hear Basie, Monk, Bird play, They were  friends with Art Pepper,  they all like to  shoot up at times in his Apartment. 

End of Stanley Janiski part 1.