Henry, Awake and Alseep

Henry the louse, a slab of dead meat eaten from the inside by maggots. A parasitical failure in life who never could hold down a job. Living on a small income in a foreign country, Cambodia, drunk every night with a different whore on his arm at bed time.

When he was young he had some ambition but mostly railed against the establishment, selling dope and turning over slum dwellings for pennies here and there, small-time stuff. 

He had tattoos from a stay in the joint, sent up for a couple of years--- entrapped by a 16 year old Lolita, traveling with her over state lines not knowing she was so young. His tattoos where rough, jail-house.

A full blown alcoholic and drug addict Henry never stayed in one place for long, always... maybe he sucked too, it was easy to blame the world and never take a good look at yourself.

Waking in a modern building, a Chinese opium den, just an empty room with tobacco-stained dirty rags covering the windows, blowing in the breeze. Henry in and out of a haze, soft sunlight orange colored glow, in a dream walking and wrapped in forest leaves, feeling safe, stoping by a still pond, fish splashing water about, Henry wondering what their world was like? 

Adrift, lost, afloat, he enjoyed living in his dreams, waking to face reality from sunrise to sunset. Dreams were junk for him, a source of inspiration and self knowledge and best of all, escape.

He had a book of short stories out there somewhere? “Mescaline Sombrero," With another in the can, awesome stories, deep and surreal, moving slowly… he continued to write even though nobody bought his book, believing that was what writing was, just something a waste land for idiots.

Henry the Messiah--- psychotic some , most poets or writers felt like Jesus or Marx on a mission to save the world. Later, he merely wanted to entertain his readers and to find himself through writing, peeling off of the onion and all, wondering what was inside and later realizing--- nothing was inside.

Using booze and dope as a muse he could pound out stories, ratta tat, ratta tat, all night sessions. The writing process was hard work sober and easier when Henry was drunk.

Henry Lucowski at the end somewhere in Venice. Stumbling late at night out of a shooting gallery like Chet Baker, chasing the dragon and ending up dead--- floating in a canal, his life was worth something, but not a hell of allot.