And God Gave Us Cherry Soup

This story is dedicated to the ladies on Twitter and other social media that have the pluck and good will to show their hoochie coochieness to the rest of world, glorifying the human body and giving people pleasure. Particularly, @stunningmatures who unlike the elitist and cliquish rags on the net, have the courage and intelligence to recognize electrifying, well crafted writing when they see it, whether the content is mainstream or not. Figaro Lucowski

Cherry Soup was born in the thirties, her father was a milkman and her mother a housewife who worked odd jobs as a seamstress, both drab and colorless. She was an only child who even as baby looked girly, a soft and silky baby with ivory skin. There was little doubt that she would grow up to be a lusty dish.

In high-school she was an unremarkable student, a savory piece of eye candy for the boys, who she  toyed with for passes to the cinema or to get free meals.  Cherry was a tease, making out and heavy petting, never going -- all the way--. She had no intention to further her education, no map for the future, knowing very well that her sexy body and good looks were all she needed in life.  

Cherry was a gift from God to the men of the world and she knew it as soon she reached adolescence. A modern Aphrodite with breast and curves like a bronzed Rodin sculpture with a perfect oval face and heart shaped lips, long thick red hair, polished skin,a fine oval wisp of scarlet public hair accentuating the pink lips of her vagina and a large purple anterior end leading to her vulva, billowing --begging to be stroked--.

Cherry lived in a gray flat on Flushing Avenue in Brooklyn in an orderly house with her sedate and character-less parents. She ran away from home at seventeen to escape the lethargy, with an itch and inner yearning for freedom, bright lights and kicks.

Her first job was in a diner as a waitress at Zippys Dinner, open all night. Without wherewithal or focus, she would drop plates, forget orders and miscalculate checks. It took her a week to get fired. Although a lousy waitress, she made good tips from guys that couldn't keep their eyes off her.

Cherry had no skills to speak of and was no Einstein, but she had a good heart. One night walking the streets of New York, looking for a job, she passed The Strands Art Theater, which had little to do with art and allot more to do with --tits and ass--. The Strand, as it was called, was a burlesque house that screened black and white X rated girly films of the day as well as serving drinks lubricating libidos as lusty ladies esoterically--took it off-- layer after layer of outrageous sequined dresses and mess stockings slowly removed and propelled off stage. 

Gus, the doorman and barker who would coax guys to come inside and --take a peek-- motioned to Cherry with his hands and asked her to stop for a moment. Gus took a long look at Blossom asking her to turn around. Taking in with his eyes her sweet face and majestic body that never stopped turning you on. Gus had had a vision of dollar bills falling from the heavens. He asked Cherry to come inside. She had never seen a strip joint, the sleazy music, ta ta ta bang ta ta drum rolls, red velvet curtains and low tempo ambiance made her feel at home.

Gus took Cherry to meet Gracie, a former stripper who inherited The Strand from her X husband who died a few years back. Blossom entered Gracie's office, she was blown away by Gracie's look: Orange Cleopatra hairdo,  Hawaiian mo mo, smoking rainbow colered Sherman's in a long cigarette holder, wearing  fuck me pump heels with long toe and finger nails painted black,  looking like leopard claws.

( The author can't help but realize how and why Lenny Bruce was attracted to the burlesque scene, a bastion for the hippest people on earth smelling of junk, pot and moldy curtains. The house band, passed over black jazz musicians from Harlem, who couldn't get a job with Ellington or the Cotton Club band, playing unenthusiastically for pennies, polka rythmns in jazz scales, and strippers with their off the charts sense of fashion, a potent witches brew of avant garde in the late fifties.)

Gracie, gesticulating, began to lecture Cherry, a tutorial on the art of striptease. 

"The turn on for the guys is as much about the turn on you feel inside sweetie"

" Pick out  a few guys in the audience that turn you on and make eye contact"

" Pulling down your top and showing your shoulders is a hint of what's to come, tease the crowd"

"You need to come up with a theme and gimmick to set you apart from the others"

" Striptease is an art, it is more than just lifting up your dress in the boy's locker room"

"Being a stripper is more about teasing than stripping darling"

And so on, inspiring Cherry to be the best stripper ever on Times Square. Leaving The Strand on her way home Cherry pasted a pet store and bought a docile white boa-constrictor to use in her act. She would call it, It, not knowing whether It was a male or female. Then going to a stripper supply store buying florescent skull and cross bones pasties to cover her nipples, assorted colors of g-stings, mesh hose, dresses with glowing stars and crescent moons stitched in made in parts with detachable pieces, a blond Cleopatra wig and some sexy see through asian fuck me pumps accenting her gorgeous, slight, perfectly shaped feet and sparkling painted toe nails.

She had no formal dance training and spent a few days watching the other strippers move, practicing back stage with It, her boa. She danced more like a belly dancer than a stripper,  a pulsating pelvic grind…. She became fond of It, and the feel of It draping her body, embracing her and holding tight created a bond between them. The more she practiced with It, the more in sync they became. Giving It a swift tug when he moved below her waist, she taught him where to position himself on her body. She would be the first striper in history to use a boa in her act, pure phallic suggestion. She was a performer and artist, not just a gal showing tits and ass.

Gracie asked Cherry to go through her act backstage before she would let her go onstage and was impressed by the originality of Cherry's act, the seductive way she moved, realizing right a way that Cherry Soup would  eventually be a big name in burlesque like Gypsy Rose Lee, Blaze Star or Fanny Foxx. Stripteasers that had the talent, class, looks and freshness could become names and famous even. 

Gracie decided to play up Cherry's debut performance which would be on Halloween night, using superlatives to hype Cherry like; bewitching mermaid, pearl skin, body like a goddess, stunning and so on, generating allot of excitement on Times Square.

Sherry would go on after Busty Morgen, seventh in the line with X rated black and white films of the day and comedy in between. 

She had a case of the nerves back stage sitting on a bench holding tightly onto her pal, It, the boa. The Strand comic Benny Spruce was zany and brilliant, a Jewish comic from Brooklyn, Benny's bit was topical, original, cutting edge and over the heads of the horny Joes in The Strand. Who came to the joint for a few drinks, taking in the exotic tropical ambience, cutting-edge feel, enjoying the feeling of blood rushing through their turgid groins.You could score pot or cocaine there as well. The Strand was an underground hip spot in the fifthties before hip became mainstream in the sixties. A place to forget about the rat face for a few hours and travel to Mars.

Benny Spruce was destined for bigger things than being a slap "schtick" comic in a strip joint. The gig was a place where he -- sharpened his chops--. Spruce's big break came when Herb Caen (columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle) and Hugh Hefner caught his show in the sixties at a comedy club off of Broadway Street in dowtown San Francisco. Hefner bank rolled Benny and Caen's press brought national attention to the Socratic gadfly who would go on to --bust the balls-- of the free speech police, morally affronting wonder bread middle Americans of the time.

Benny was a junk, who would spend time between acts locked in his dressing room, smoking pot and fixing speed balls. He opened the door and walked out to get a Coke seeing Cherry slumped over sitting down and looking scared. 

He leaned over with his head close to Cherry, smelling her soapy clean pure white skin, turned on, saying…

"What's the matter doll?"

"Oh, I'm going on in a half hour and I'm scared to death"

" Scared of what baby? Come into my dressing room for a minute"

" OK" 

Part Red Cross and part Satan Benny says….

" Kid what's your name, take this red and let's smoke some weed, it will calm you down"

Cherry was a virgin dope wise and even though she was a stripper she was still innocent and inexperienced. She followed Benny's lead and after a few minutes she said... 

"Benny darling, WOW this…is… so… groovy…baby, where am I? The colors WOW…. look smashing,  the jazz band…. is oooooh, hip...  the beats of the band are flowing through me"

"Your ready baby go out on stage and break a leg, knock em dead girl, let's go out to an after hours joint in Harlem after the show doll"

"Wow baby cool" Cherry said breathlessly!!!

The moment that was rushed through her as if her destiny was staring her in the face. She strutted on stage with libido running full speed with It, her boa holding on tight, looking majestic, gyrating, pirouetting with a ballerinas grace embracing the sound of the schmaltzy jazz rhythms in drunk polka time. Electrified and erotically stimulated as she began to --take it off--. The guys in the audience began howling with desire, Bennie and Gracie were watching from back stage and had never seen a more turned and untamable crowd at The Stand. The crowd stared open mouthed in awe at the stunning women with the most amazing body they had ever seen. It, the boa performed flawlessly as well, Cherry's bit ended in an uproar with It wrapped around her waist, his small head reaching up towards her lips like he wanted to kiss her. Cherry more than lived up to the hype Gracie had spun like a glowing spider web. 

After the show Benny and Cherry were in a celebratory mood and headed to Harlem to catch a show at the Cotton Club, both would become famous in their own ways. They would marry a few years later and would travel the burlesque circuit in the United States. Cherry keep striping all her life and eventually became a junk like Benny, it was her undoing. She is still alive today and has kicked junk becoming a writer who chronicles the life of Benny Spruce and the history of burlesque in America. Benny died in the seventies, broke and -- busted on empty--,  fighting for freedom of speech all the way to the Supreme Court.  

We are all born and destined to be good or great at something, whether it is being a stripteaser, ganster, chess player, pretzel salesman, cop, priest, ballerina or garbageman. To go through life and not make the most of ones talent is like missing the lottery, jumping off your banana boat on the way to the stars. Cherry soup found her destiny and made the most of it.

The Enlightenment of Dicky Lifshitz

Dicky Lifshitz lived in the Brooklyn in the late fifties. He had worked at Dombrowskys Deli on 48th Street since he was fifteen doing the same thing day by day; slicing pastrami, corn beef, rye and serving up bagels with coffee. Thirty eight years old, a Jew who wore a skull cap to cover a bald spot on the back of his head, that never attended temple. He was a only child whose parents where killed by Nazi's. Lifshitz escaped the death camps, saved by the grace of G-d and angels, lucky to get on a ship of young Jewish kids sent to a orphanage in the British country side, then migrating to America after the war.

The death of Dicky's parents in Bergen-Belson, Flora and Chaim, played on his soul like a dark cloud following him, a ghostlike and decaying fume. Lifshitz lived in a gray, unsung flat, as colorless as his life in walking distance from Dombrowskys Deli. The flat was spartan and bare with only a red silk easy chair, a TV and a queen size bed and a transistor radio he would occasionally listen to Dodger games on. The walls were under-lit and dingy, with one picture of  the great Rabi Kook, tagged with the quote from the rabbi, 'The world's inner reality is identical everywhere.' Certainly Dicky's inner and outer reality was something that years of psychotherapy might or might not cure.

The highpoint of Lifshitz's week was Friday, on payday. He would buy a bottle of Mogen David wine and head to Times Square, drinking the gut churning wine in a brown paper bag, slumped in his chair while watching a movie. He liked the splashy MGM color extravaganzas of the Day. His favorite movie was "The Wizard of OZ" just the thought of owning a pair of ruby sleepers, clicking the heals together three times escaping the rat race was a boon to Dicky.

When the film was over Dicky would cruise Times Square eyeing the cowboy hustlers, constanly repositioning their hat's, taking deep drags off Marlboros with red blooded macho zeal. Lifshitz would always ask the hookers "Are you circumcised?". It wasn't merely bravado or shtick for Lifshitz asking the studs if they were cut or not, he saw those uncut to be unholy, impure and second-fiddle.

On a particular night Dicky brought a midnight cowboy named Brad back to his flat. Brad asked Lifshitz if he could fix before they had sex and then handed Lifshitz a joint of marijuana telling him told him to smoke it. Dicky had never seen anybody fix on TV and thought only Schwartzs in Harlem did dope. Brad took out a old bent spoon and mixed the brown powder with water and cooked it, sucking it into a plunger. He then took his rodeo belt and tied it around his right arm, fixing then nodding off.

Lifshitz looked at Brad laying in bed nodded off, placid as if born again like a sleeping angel in a opium haze. Dicky thought to himself, "G-d above what the fug?" Then he remembered hearing stories about Cabalistic Jews at the Western Wall who smoked hash before praying. He lit the ganja and started to puff on it. At first feeling nothing and then it hit him all at once, he started laughing and turned his radio to WZBT jazz. It was as though the dark shackles of the his past broke and fell from his neck onto the floor. He felt a massive rush of joy that gave him chicken skin. He looked at the picture of the great Rabbi Kook on the wall and the Rabbi was smiling down on him.

When Brad came too, Lifshitz paid him, but didn't want to have sex with him, instead giving the hooker money to go score some weed for him. The next day was Sunday and Dicky would go to the deli as usual, after the morning bagel rush, Lifshitz went to the the alley and filled a bowl of ganja in a old meerschaum pipe, getting high and going back into work. Lifshitz laughing as he sliced corn beef was a odd sight to his fellow workers who felt Dicky always seemed strange and detached and had finally gone totally meshuggeneh or nuts. 

From that day on Dickey smoked dope all the time. Growing a beard and letting his hair grow. He would frequent  Beat poetry readings in the Village and jazz clubs. He hung framed prints of modern artist full of color on the walls and painted his room pastel. He covered all the lights with colored scarfs giving the flat a Bohemian feeling. His life went from gray to truly gay, like a rainbow and the great Rabbi Kook never lost his smile.

Brad the cowboy hooker and shaman did for Dicky Lifshitz what all the mitzvahs and commandments could never have done, turning Dicky on to life.

The drunken Chinese poet and monk Lao Tsui told the story of a  monk who spent his life in a temple seeking enlightenment, ascetically meditating, chanting and doing merit day by day for forty years. One night he felt as though he couldn't go on, leaving his mountain top temple  and going to the city getting drunk on jasmine wine. Then he went to a Chinese brothel and and got laid, as he experienced a orgasm for the first time he achieved nirvana. Maybe there is a little bit of Dicky Lipchitz and Lao Tsui in all of us, needing to break the chains of society and routine from time to time as spiritual boon or windfall.

Jesse and Butterfly

                                                               

In the summer of 1971, it was hot as hell in Chicago, I was new in the city and schlepping my ass off  at Monkey Wards. I worked with a Mexican guy, his name was Jesse. He wore a pompadour and was no taller than 5' 2". I guess you could say Jesse was a greaser and a philosopher who loved sharing corporeal wisdom like, 'If you are talking to a girl and you get a woody, it is a sign from God that u can ball her.'

Jesse and I lived in far gone, nasty rooms that smelled of dead rats decaying in the floor boards. Rooms that only drunk transients & bums merited, a arms reach from the CTA elevated train tracks. We could hear and smell the the electric trains, wheels giving off a high pitched squeaking sound, miasma of old tar coated cross ties, electric red hot rubber and rusted steal track. 

On sacred, magical and stirring Chi Town summer nights, Jesse and I would drink cheap mescal while sitting on the fire escape, watching the the "L" trains pass. At times leaping onto the platforms, evading trains, frying hot dogs or electrocuting Barbie Dolls we pilfered from Monkey Wards on the highly charged and lethal third rail. Knowing that many a poor bastard with no more juice to live life had cashed it all in there, a quick volt and gone.

Jesse and I were the worst stock boys in Monkey Ward's 100 year history. We had no regard for the merchandise, handling it loosely and throwing it about. We would run scams to make extra money for dope or drink, like having a pal buy a cheap bike, bringing the receipt to the docks, instead giving him product worth much more, like a chain saw. We would distract clerks and rip off gold chains, easy to get past the store dicks at closing time. Once we put on dresses and wigs from stock, going into the ladies toilet and discreetly sliding mirrors under the stalls, jacking off in drag, looking at wet pussy. We would sell weed in Oregano bottles to the employees or pints of whiskey in the cafeteria. We where wasted all the time on and off the job.

One day Jesse told me to go chat up a fat girl whose name was Butterfly, a cook in the cafeteria. He wanted to titty fuck her, saying, 'Even losers could bang a fat girl man, it's charity'. For Jesse banging fat girls was like working for merit, a venerated duty and a stairway to Heaven. Jesse taught me about the cataclysmic and spiritual nature of fat girls. Butterfly didn't even have a pretty face, but that made little difference, we were going to do God's work.

Butterfly lived in a trailer park, at the edge of the city in no-mans land before you got to Gary. Jesse and I could take a bus there, the holy event was scheduled to happen on Friday after work. Jesse had some spanish fly, I asked him what he needed it for, thinking to myself that Butterfly was a done deal. He said 'It makes a bitches pussy itch man, so much that they become nymphos', and 'Dude we should bring Big Caesar with us because we might not be able to give Butterfly enough, she might kill us',  thinking that Butterfly might lapse into a state of mad sexual fever and hallucination, out of control like a stampeding herd.

Big Caesar had to work Friday night so it looked like Jesse and I would have to do the job of three or four men on Butterfly after Jesse dosed her with Spanish Fly. We  were men of honor who were up for the task. We packed the fly, some mescal, and just in case a dildo and some rubbers or skins. I asked Jesse what we needed the skins for? He said 'Nobody wants to knock up a fat girl man and have to feed her tacos the rest of her life'. I began to realize that when it came to fat girls, Jesse knew his shit. 

Butterfly said her trailer was in a place called Shanty Town Trailer Park, at the end of Coal Rd., and that it was sky blue color with paisley patterns on it. As we approached the love shack both Jesse and I got a case of the nerves and had to down full goblets of mescal before finally knocking on Butterfly's aluminum door. She told us to come in, she looked good at 240 lbs., sitting on a old blue sofa with gold trim, eating Mars Bars and wearing a see through nightie.  Jesse and I sat down at the kitchen table, looking around the place that was painted like a rainbow, realizing that Butterfly's crib was tripped out, a paradise compared to the rat holes we lived in on the 'L' tracks.

Jesse took the bottle of mescal and some plastic cups out of his gym bag putting them onto the table and poured three hefty shots. He waited for the right moment to slip the fly into Butterfly's drink and then as she got up to go to the toilet  he poured the white powder in. She came out and asked for a drink saying, 'Boys would you mind adding this extra potent  asian fly  I got in Chinatown to my drink? It makes me feel like a nympho', laughing with a big smile on her face.


Butterfly started rubbing her  53 plus xyz cup boobs and Jesse poked me with his elbow saying 'She's ready man'. I started to drop my trousers and Jesse said ' Wait a minute man'. Well I thought it was going to be a gang bang, then Jesse said ' Look amigo I want to be alone with Butterfly', as though he had learned secrets at the Donkey Show in Tijuana that he didn't want to share.

I stepped outside the love shack and waited a few minutes, then to my amazement the trailer started to move up and down, faster and faster, so fast that it began to smoke as though on fire. Then green flame and lightning bolts came out of the shack and Shanty Town Trailer Park was materialized in purple light, before my very eyes the trailer levitated and disappeared into space. Bewildered and scared I ran all the way home. 

I went to work as usual but Jesse and Butterfly didn't  showed up for days, but the cops did. They wanted to ask me a few questions and to file  a report on the missing lovers. I knew if I told them the truth they would put me in the nut house, so I said 'All I know was that Jesse had a date with Butterfly last Friday and I haven't seen them since'. This seemed to satisfy the pigs and they let me off the hook. I figured Jesse and Butterfly had transcended the material level to a higher dimension or something. I hoped the best for them in their new form, but  hardly wanted to go myself and would in the future stay away from fat girls who lived in trailer parks.