It Wasn't in the Cards

Henry going on a road-trip, cashing his welfare check, packing his gym bag, walking to the Greyhound Bus Station in Queens. 

He buys an open ended ticket— good for as many miles as you could log in a month between New York State and California.

Henry didn’t know where he was going and didn’t care. He could stay high, holding a little of everything. 

Snorting heroin on the Newborn Turnpike reaching Pennsylvania, passing out as the bus sped through three states, waking up in the Chicago station. 

A Native Indian women, a true beauty with long raven colored hair—  parted in the middle leading to braids tied with strips of buckskin— sits down in the empty isle seat next to him. Introducing herself to Henry saying, “Howdy white man, I’m Winona the first daughter of Leonard Crow Dog the Lakota medicine man. I’m going to visit my daddy at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.” Henry saying, “Wow that’s a mouth full, I’m Henry, I thought most Indian folks weren’t much for talking but you break the mouth baby.” 

Winona pulls a flask from her beaded dear-skin jacket pocket, sipping some and passing it to Henry.

This is going to be a killer trip, a beautiful Indian women built like a brick shit-house, pure spirited like a young spotted pony. 

Henry taking a long pull from the flask saying, “Jack Daniels, I can tell we are going to get along doll.” He lays a few lines of cocaine on a small mirror placed on his knee, Winona goes down on the lines like a pro, snorting em up saying, “ Henry I love you, I’m so high.” 

At Midnight the bus pulls off the Iowa Turnpike for snacks and a pee stop.  

Henry and Winona go into a truck stop diner called Big Rig Paradise for a meal.They order steak and eggs, pancakes and plenty of coffee, enjoying the meal, not wanting to miss the bus. 

On the Greyhound bus heading west they snort heroin to come down, falling asleep in each others arms.

They wake up at the main bus station in Sioux Falls arriving in the mourning, getting off the bus and going to a Motel 6. 

Sleeping through the day until evening, then going out to eat and have a few drinks.

Downtown on Main Street the pair ducks into a dive called Mama’s Crowbar, sitting in a corner booth— ordering tacos, beans, rice and shots of mescal. 

Arm in arm, unable to resist each others charms, doing shots and getting drunk. 

A group of Native Indian bucks swagger into Mama’s Crowbar, Henry and Winona hidden in a booth in a dark corner. She says,“ Henry those bucks who walked in are from Pine Ridge, they aren’t going to like it if they see me with a white man.” 

One buck walks to their booth and says,”Winona what are you doing here with a white man?”She says, "I love him Otaktay," he then says, “You’re the first daughter of the great Leonard Crow Dog—either we bring the white man with you to Pine Ridge tonight or we take him into the alley, cut him up into pieces and stuff them into a garbage can like rotten buffalo meat.” 

Henry wanting to disappear, crouched under the table. 

Winona saying, “Ok take us to Motel 6 so we can get our things.” 

The bucks in a caravan of old pick-up trucks reach Motel 6 in minutes, getting the couples's bags and speeding off into the night.

Driving the back roads, secret routes that only the Lakota knew through plains and streams, reaching Pine Ridge Indian reservation that morning. The lovers delivered to Leonard Crow Dog’s compound, a group of mobile homes circled like Conestoga covered wagons.

Winona’s mother Enola hugging her and asking,” Who is the white man? He is in danger here, get him inside.” 

Winona saying, "He is Henry mother and I love him." 

Enola takes them to a trailer and they go inside, Henry face to face with the great Leonard Crow Dog, laying with his shirt off on a sofa watching F Troop re-runs on TV saying, “Winona my first daughter I see you brought the white man, Eats Own Words to meet your father.” Looking at Henry saying “Eats Own Words, the blue belly soldiers on TV make me laugh, I think your great great grandfather was a blue belly soldier whose name was Sends Mixed Signals“

Enola says to Henry, “Eats Own Words and Winona will do a sweat lodge to get cleansed before their wedding when the sun breaks.”

Henry wondering what time "When the sun breaks was?"

Enola taking Henry and Winona to a tee-pee that will be their home after the wedding, Henry thinking a hundred miles an hour planning his escape.  

The couple alone in their tee-pee, Henry and Winona snorting heroin, passing out. Henry waking at 3AM, digging a hole in the dirt under the back flap of the tee-pee, crawling through the hole to get out, going to a pick up parked near by, opening the door seeing that the keys were in the ignition. Henry looking up and thanking the Great Spirit.

Off in a flash, driving into the night, driving in the opposite direction of the moon, reaching the highway and following the road signs to Sioux City. 

Leaving the pick up truck at the bus station and using his open ended ticket to get to New York City. 

As much as Henry loved Winona he knew life on Pine Ridge Reservation, living in a tee-pee, eating fried bread and beans... 

Wasn’t in the cards...  

A Junkie's Heart

Henry in a funk as he looks at a blank page with nothing in his head—vacantly. 

Maybe the outline he was using to write stories over the last three months was musty—

A}Drinking and writing in his apartment during         the day

B}Leaving his apartment at night time.

C} Going to Chaim’s Deli to nosh

D} Walking through the Bowery

D} Going to a movie in Times Square, a poetry reading or to an opium den in Chinatown. 

E}Going home

9AM off to Chaim’s Deli, Ruby his waitress asking, “Henry did you know Chaim is in the hospital? We are praying for him it’s not good, he has a brain tumor.” Henry saying, “Oh Ruby you think that praying business is going to help? It is rubbish you know.” Ruby saying, “ Henry you’re an awful man, I hate you, you are a real fucker.” He saying, “ Ok Mother Teresa— well who’s cooking tonight? Oh well, can I have a large rice pudding with whip cream on top? The loser cook from Kelly Girl can't fuck up rice pudding.”

The prayer crap intolerable for him, send your prays, we are praying for you and so on. Henry the atheist couldn’t imagine G-d(up there or wherever he is) processing it all. Billions of unique prayers a day streaming through the clouds, singed by flames coming out of jet engines, losing steam sometimes and falling limply back to earth. Billions of angels getting orders from the big chief to fly down to earth and change the path of destiny. G-d mislaying prayers from time to time because He was overworked.

Walking through the Bowery, a group of bums  standing around a fire in a garbage can, shaking off the cold,  Henry asking them to pray for Chaim, the bums saying, “You got it Henry sure thing, how bout a couple of bucks for some wine?” 

Henry walking to a coffee shop in the Village, St. Marks to hear Herbert Huncke read. In his early days Huncke a small time junky hustler and dealer in Times Square. 

Allan Ginsberg and William Burroughs meeting him at Times Square in the forties, asking him to bring junk and syringes to their apartment and teach them to shoot up. 

Huncke later becoming a friend of the Beats, hanging out with them, robbing them blind.

Henry sitting at a small table near the podium, openly smoking a joint. He sees Allan Ginsberg and Huncke walk in. Ginsberg sits at Henry's table and says, "Hi," he passes Ginsberg the joint and orders him a drink. Allen opens up saying, “I have known Herbert for a long time, we were lovers for awhile, he only shoots up from time to time these days, I’m  promoting his writing.” Henry says, “ That’s great Allen, did you know William Burroughs snubbed me?” Ginsberg says,” Oh he snubs everybody, he’s afraid of germs, afraid people might hug him.” 

Huncke makes his way to the podium, his facial skin pulled tight, his skin yellow molting to brown, tea color. He introduces  himself meekly,  bowing slightly then reading—

“lost to the streets — lost completely to a life I once knew — stealing — junk– all night wandering– thru the streets — lost completely to a life I once knew — stealing — junk all night wandering thru the city — no pads– no friends — no way of life– almost convinced prison is a solution — shriveling within at the mere thought — wishing for death — willing death…

Huncke’s stuff straight from the gut, tight and incorruptible, looking you right in the eye. 

“I have been asked many times as is always asked of users of narcotics what a fix does to me — how it feels etc…it helps me to believe in life again at the same time to accept it calmly and with peace.”

“I think I am going insane. I almost hope so. Thoughts rush at one. I am beginning to lose the thread of my story. This happens frequently. Mad thoughts keep occurring to me… All happening to me is unnecessary. It is not important to any cause beyond my own and I am unimportant. Of course it is happening and it is what it is as things are. “

Allen Ginsberg looking at Henry, his eyes full of joy, glimmering, saying,”You see, You see!

Ginsberg inviting Henry to an after reading party in Huncke’s room at the Chelsea Hotel. Henry saying he had to get up early to work at the post office— a lie, he was on welfare.

The reading was enough for Henry, he didn’t need anymore, Herbert Huncke’s from the gut writing a real turn on for him, thinking—

We need allot less bullshit and more from the gut in the world. 

The Last of Vaudeville

Henry weird, seeing things in slow motion—being pulled haltingly forward into the dark.   

Something pulling him into a void— Native American folk tales telling of roving black holes, dark gaseous clouds on the Montana plains pulling old people, young coyotes and rabbits in, taking them away.      

With allot of effort pulling himself out of the gaseous black hole— then off to nosh at Chaim’s Deli.

Sitting in his booth his waitress (Ruby) getting in his face saying, “For the love of God Henry you look as though you have been to hell and back, what happened? He says, “I spent the afternoon fighting off a gaseous black hole that invaded my living room, the black hole of Indian folklore.” Ruby then says,”Henry you are sicker than I ever imagined, go talk to your shrink at welfare tomorrow, please baby.” 

Ruby a one dimensional thinker, a right-brain thinker,  believing in God while denying the existence of roving black holes in Queens.

Henry munching on some well done fries, dipping them in mayo, drinking a Jack and Coca Cola, dazed, leaving Chaim’s Deli at 10PM. 

Things still weird, walking the dark streets of Queens, it was a strange night, even the bums in the Bowery were laying low.  Henry headed to Times Square looking for signs of life.   

Times Square in front of the New Amsterdam Theater, he sees “Mary Poppins” with Julie Andrews is playing. 

The cowboy junk a fixture under the New Amsterdam Theater marquee ropes Henry in saying, “Henry all the dope in China wouldn’t make this film right, don’t even think of buying a ticket, check out the strippers at the Hi Hat Club.”

Henry paying five bucks at the door of Hi Hat Club, a strip joint that served booze showcasing the creme de la creme of Times Square strippers. He sits down at a small table and orders shots of tequila, feeling at home. 

There was a three piece jazz band in front of the shallow stage, three black dudes from Harlem wearing t-shirts and dress pants— bass, drums and sax, junked up some and nodding, eyes shut allot.    

The strip joint moldy, the red velvet curtains dripping as though they were sweating, the place smelled like cum. 

The first act a classy older gal with dyed red hair, Pussy Wilderness—wearing a bear suit that came apart at the seams, slowly stripping off to the sleaziest jazz riffs ever. Very naked at Henry’s table, close to him with her back against him, gyrating back and forth rubbing her ass on his face, he puts his nose into it spot on, her hole smelling like dime store douche.    

Henry does a few lines of cocaine off a plate and orders more shots. Enter stage left an asian gal calling herself Shanghai Sal, with a Betty page style florescent purple wig on her head. The band doing its best to play Duke Ellington’s “Chinoiserie.” 

Sal had the moves, twisting cobra like, beguiling. Her lose fitting kamikaze embroidered kimono off in a flash revealing a thin white skinned body, wearing black bra and panties. Going from table to table, at Henry’s table sitting on his lap, he lays a few lines of cocaine on a plate and Shanghai Sal snorts em up, her eyeballs rolling up into her head as it falls back. 

It was over before it began at the Hi Hat Club, time flying, it was 3AM. The strip show bonafide kosher, the mildew and cum smell, the junked up three piece band, the strippers interpreting and reinventing strip as they went along, each gal with her own motif, everybody turned on in their way.  

The Hi Hat Club light years away from the film “Mary Poppins,”on a planet of it's own, it was a circus, the last of Vaudeville.   

All the World Hyped on Something

Henry sitting on a broken wicker chair needing re-threading—on the tenth floor patio of his Queens apartment, wanting to write and wondering where it would go.

The cool autumn air whispering wind sounds, tugging and pulling Henry out into the night.  

The usual, evening nosh at Chaim’s Deli, at the same booth giving his order to the same waitress for the last ten years. Ruby as usual with something to say, “You happy to see me doll? There’s an empty dry goods storage space near the kitchen with our name on it.” Henry says, “ Sounds great babe, you got anything to eat with my name on it? How about some bagels and chopped chicken liver, borsht and a Jack and Coke to wash it down?” 

Another over the top nosh at Chaim’s Deli, Henry heading downtown, pounding the bricks with serious intent, in a hurry to make the 9PM show at the New Amsterdam theater in Times Square. 

As usual, the cowboy junk was under the marquee jiving— saying to Henry,“ I got some real feel good stuff, cocaine and Thai stick for you tonight — it's a film about love, lost love, lost virginity, love conquered and plastic times in tinsel town.” Cowboy junk, the guy with the best dope in Times Square and the spot-on movie reviews. 

“The Graduate” a film directed by Mike Nichols was playing with Dustin Hoffman and Katherine Ross. Henry sitting in the back row, putting his feet up as he lights some Thai stick, then doing a few lines of cocaine. 

Opening scene Benjamin Brock (Dustin Hoffman) twenty-one years old, driving his red Aston Martin home from Williams College to the sounds of “Scarborough Fair,” Simon and Garfunkel, all of the music in the film by them, utterly great, Henry wasted —grooving on the music.   

Benjamin a victim of his parents summer pool parties and the times, a victim of too many older squares. One corporate guy saying spunky-like,”Ben I just have one word to say —plastic— think about it son!”

Benjamin bored shitless goes upstairs to his bedroom—enter Mrs. Robertson, a friend of his parents and a MILF to boot. Benjamin who is a virgin is intimated by her, but in no time at all they are fucking their brains out in a high-end hotel to the sounds of Simon and Garfunkel’s, “Mrs Robertson.” 

The summer affair goes well until Mrs. Robertson beautiful daughter Elaine comes home from Williams College. Benjamin falls for her and the chase is on—The grand ending,  Benjamin racing all over Southern California looking for Elaine, finding her, then kidnapping her in dramatic style, the pair eloping to Tijuana.

It was a grand soap opera and he liked the music, but he preferred hard edged avant-garde films. 

Thoroughly wasted, off to Chinatown. 

Going to Chow’s Noodle House for a bowl of rice soup and a few drinks. He sits at a round table with a wooden spinner in the middle next to his friend John Chow, a chain smoker and gambler. John says, “Dude you look wasted, what is wrong with you?” Henry saying,” You’re bringing me down China-man, how about we do a few lines?” 

The coke winding John up, he goes into a tirade about his gambling debts, telling Henry that his Chinese bookie and the Chinatown Sun On Yee were going to chop him up and throw the pieces into a vat of chicken broth. 

John then saying, “Henry do you have three hundred grand you can lend me? My life is at stake here.”

Henry replies,”Chow that must be the cocaine talking, I’m on welfare.” 

He tries to pay John Chow for the drinks and noodles but John wouldn’t take his money. 

Happy to escape Chow’s Noodle House, John Chow edgy, hyped on cigarettes and gambling.  

Henry hyped on dope and booze, Benjamin Brock hyped on love, Mrs. Robertson hyped on sex.  

All the world hyped on something. 

Mr Woo

Henry in his Queens apartment on a slack afternoon drinking malt liquor, listening to blues music, WBQI 99.5, getting high, warming up for a big night out. 

Taking a shower, heading out the front door of his Queens thirty-seventh floor apartment at 830PM.

A cool night in the city, Henry ready, his Beduin scarf wrapped around his neck at the right angle, feng shui, giving off voodoo x-rays to scare away lost spirits roaming the streets.   

Stopping in Chaim’s Deli for a tune up. Ruby his regular waitress sashaying sexy like to his booth saying, “Henry have you slept with a women you loved? I’m not talking about the funny business over at Siam Massage, I mean real heartfelt love?” Knowing that Ruby used a different strategy every night, wanting to break him down, he says, “Ruby doll I can’t say that I have made love— ever, you got me there. How is the brisket tonight? Is it well done? You know the way I like it.” Ruby walking away shaking her head—appalled— Henry getting up and leaving knowing he wouldn't get served. 

In the Bowery, wanting to be invisible, a bum smelling like kerosene steps out from the shadows and corners him, Henry pulls a Bic lighter out of his pocket and lights it, holding it in front of the bum's face saying, “Get the fuck out of my way or I’ll light you up.” 

Henry happy to be out of the Bowery, walking to Chinatown, going into a noodle house, a dump with cheap chairs, dingy with flaking red paint on the walls, it was Mr. Woo's. 

He sits down at a table and quickly orders a bowl of lemon soup. A Chinamen in a brown suit wearing a Kangol hat and smoking sits next to Henry putting one arm around him, talking in broken english with a heavy Hong Kong accent. Henry says to the Chinamen, “Do we know each other?” And “I’m not looking for intimacy with a heavy smoker wearing a Kangol hat.”  The Chinaman says, “I’m Mr Woo, I like funny, funny Western boy, Woo got plenty of funny, funny, sexy, sexy for you, China girls— straight, lady-boy, young, old, Thai stick, opium from Shanghai, in Red House.” 

Mr. Woo tweaking Henry’s interest, absorbed he follows Woo to the Red House, a three story brick walk-up painted red with glowing Chinese lanterns swaying in the wind on lines up on the roof. 

Henry follows Woo to the Red House, they walk up three flights of stairs, Woo breathing heavy and walking slow, they reach the roof top. It was spread out and large, a exotic and colorful place, painted lanterns, jazz music (Chet Baker) on the juke box, Chinamen smoking and playing cards with boys or women on their laps, an array of Chinese nymphos wearing Cheongsam dresses or men’s suits sitting in a group of twenty or so, smoking Thai stick, drinking and looking bored. 

Mr Woo takes Henry to an antique counter, a fat Chinese women sitting behind it on a stool says, “One hundred and twenty-five dollar.” Mr Woo disappearing into the shadows, Henry asking, “One hundred and twenty-five dollar for what?” The two-ton China-gal saying, “Everything Western boy, go to second floor, room 7.” 

Henry in room 7, dimly lit, black flaking paint falling off the wall, an occasional mad dashing cockroach, a beautiful Chinese women wearing a see through gown walks in and locks the door behind her. Speaking in a strange voice, soprano with a hint of crowing rooster, saying, “ Hi doll I’m Boom Boom.” She mixes tar opium and Thai stick in a pipe, then pouring tequila into a row of shot glasses on a tray, saying, “ I’m transgender post opt,” lighting the pipe, they smoke and do a few tequila shots. 

Boom Boom laying down on on a rusted metal double bead with a stained mattress, Henry laying down with her. 

He didn’t remember any of the night, the two ton cashier waking him in room 7 that morning, Boom Boom long gone, Henry’s wallet gone as well. 

Taking a taxi to Queens, wondering if he boom boomed Boom Boom that night? Getting  a blood test that afternoon, his life like a Dylan Thomas poem—

    “Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day”

Kerouac

Henry didn’t have any friends and he liked it that way—well, he had Ruby his waitress and May at Siam Massage, but the relationships were based on money exchanged for food or sex.

He was out there, a few million miles out, freakish, a rare duck. Every month the shrink at welfare would say, “Henry have you made any friends? Remember good friends don’t let you do crazy things!”

The shrink doesn’t know anything about me, I’m here because I’m crazy, I get paid welfare money every month because I’m crazy, if I wasn’t crazy I would have to get a job which is out of the question, I’m a creative writer, being a working stiff would break my visionary green twig. 

Night creeping up on the city, Henry itching to get out and walk. He would go to Chaim’s Deli and nosh. 

In his usual booth, Ruby his regular waitress who had a crush on him says,” Henry I have given up on you, you are a nut job, you have the emotions of a five year old, you are blank emotionally, you are a drug addict, I don’t want you anymore.” He says, “ Ruby you know me well, can I have a corn beef and pastrami extra lean on pumpernickel, some fries well done and a Jack Daniels and Coca-Cola?” 

After dinner leaving the deli, walking though the Bowery smoking a joint, just wanting to get through without getting hassled by the bums. 

The bums know their place in the food chain, at the bottom but they're highly evolved—They only care about the next drink, they don’t care if people think they are crazy, they don't care about love. It's all about stoking the fires of the high with whatever fuel they can get their hands on, by any means, it's the bum’s creed.  

He had heard the great Jack Kerouac was reading at the “Gaslight Cafe,” a hangout for beats and literati, Kerouac had hung out there for years. It was a non publicized reading, first come first serve, only a few lucky folks knew, Ruby had overheard customers talking about the reading.  

Henry at the “Gaslight Cafe” early, at 830PM, sitting at the bar, no cover charge. Within minutes an ocean of people swarmed the place, they had to bolt the double doors at the entrance to keep people out.  

Henry eyeballing the place, noticing that Kerouac was siting at the bar drinking a few barstools away.  Kerouac in his late forties, looking haggard, drinking gallons of cheap wine in his life, like the bums or hobos he idolized and wrote about in "The Dharma Bums,"  to escape from something, something that only he knew.  

Kerouac makes his way to a small black podium not far from the bar. Squinting in the harsh light, he tells the bartender to dim the lights and bring him a drink, then saying, “ I dig jazz, I can remember hearing jazz for the first time when I was at Columbia, walking the streets at night as sounds start to come from a nightspot, filling me with a yearning for an intangible joy—it was jazz baby.” 

Henry felt empathy with the great Kerouac, the beatnik walking the city streets at night like Henry did, wasted and looking for signs of weird life on the streets to write about. 

Kerouac shuffling through papers, poems typed on yellow paper, typed out jazz riffs, it was his stuff, sacred dogma a million years old. 

“Stare deep into the world before you as if it were the void: innumerable holy ghosts, buddhies, and savior gods there hide, smiling. All the atoms emitting light inside wavehood, there is no personal separation of any of it. A hummingbird can come into a house and a hawk will not: so rest and be assured. While looking for the light, you may suddenly be devoured by the darkness and find the true light.”

Reading from an old tattered copy of his book, “On the road.” He used language like it was a saxophone or a bongo drum, as though he invented onomatopoeia, inventing rhythmic words.

Writing like Whitman, great like Whitman.

“I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was - I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.” 

The reading winding down to a whisper as Kerouac evaporated in cloud of smoke, disappearing like a ghost. 

Henry didn’t remember going home that night, the Jack Kerouac reading taking everything out him. 

Kerouac the 20th Century Lao Tzu knowing that—

Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.