A Million Dollars Worth of Wisdom

It was one of those days, a summer day, you know the days, the peak days when everything feels like love, love is everywhere. 

The smell of Jasmine Flowers blooming in Central Park flowing through the city mixes with the scent of diesel fumes and smoke from barbecue pits in Harlem. The whiff engulfs you, it is the unshakable smell of summer magnificence sometime between 1970 and 1980.      

Henry up early, 9 AM nursing a gallon can of German beer, unable to get the hang of it, trying to suck it down but missing allot— unfiltered beer (whatever the fuck that means) agonizingly drip, drip dripping on his bare chest, leaving him feeling sticky and awkward. He then eats leftover ginger fried rice from a to go container with chopsticks from Ho’s, in Chinatown. 

Lost on booze and ganja, thinking about LSD, Orange Sunshine to be more specific, Orange Sunshine an other-worldly story. Henry a Puck-like half naked Beat, AWOL from the Air Force enters the sacred acreage of Yasgur’s Farm at the Woodstock Festival without a ticket walking leisurely, not thinking much. Then out of no where, and I mean no where man— a lovely wood nymph hugs him and gives him a hit of Orange Sunshine —Orange Sunshine a kind of eternally happy happy to the end of the Universe and back again dope, synthesized by the happiest man in the universe, Tim Scully, a Canadian chemist with an eternal smile who has happy hap-pied his way into the hearts of some of the best pussy in Canada. 

Aside— Figaro Lucowski

Dear reader— you are reading work that is all the way bonafide, take it any way you want, take it the way you feel when you read it, it doesn’t belong anywhere or to anybody.  

Henry losing this story, it was lost from the beginning. Lately, every story an attempt go further out. 

Losing his mind was on-going for Henry—the shrinks at Queens Welfare Office wanted to lock him up at Riker’s Island. He was intuitive and knew the shrink’s game, he frustrated the shrink’s at every turn, vague and making a joke of it all. They couldn’t figure out what made him tick, he was enigmatic. 

It was known by most on crazy pay in Queens that the shrinks hated anybody who was smarter than them and many a smart ass found their way to Riker’s Island.

What was happening at Queens Welfare Office and on Riker’s Island—the crazy pay folks versus the shrinks stuff, was the stuff Ken Kesey wrote about in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The shrinks humiliating the crazies in muted ways, Kesey says it like this.

It wasn't the practices, I don't think, it was the feeling that the great, deadly, pointing forefinger of society was pointing at me--and the great voice of millions chanting, 'Shame. Shame. Shame.' It's society's way of dealing with someone different. 

The difference between Henry and the character Randle McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was—Henry could slip under the cracks, he was invisible and would do everything in his power to stay out of the joint or nut-house. McMurphy seemed to be powerless over his fate whereas Henry felt very much in control of his. He was no hero and didn’t want to be a hero, he saw American Heroism as a myth that needed to be repeated over and over for whatever reason. He was an antihero as was Randle McMurphy. 

It was 8 PM and Henry needed a break, he had been writing all day. 

He was thoroughly wasted on beer, so he snorted some cocaine in the bathroom as he washed up. 

He leaves his Queen’s apartment and gets a cab at street level. The cabbie a black dude says,

You like poetry brotha? James Baldwin is reading at the Harlem Academy tonight, it's a fundraiser! 

Henry says, 

take me there! 

Baldwin was known in the black and white world for writing the truth. He wasn’t afraid to expose the skeletons of racism and oppression in America. He wrote about the physic damage suffered by blacks and how they dealt with it.  

When he moved to Paris in the 50s it brought him out of the trapped feeling of being black in America. It also freed his mind to look at the world as a whole, writing about the higher values that all of humanity, people of all colors share became a theme of his.  

Henry paid the cabbie and thanked him, the cabbie says,

I’m parkin my taxi and going to hear Baldwin read myself. 

Harlem Academy was a brown brick school building and the reading would be in the auditorium, Henry paid 10 dollars at the door which was donated to a scholarship fund.  

Henry is early so he sits up front, he takes a few swigs off a pint of Jack Daniels he has in his breast pocket. The auditorium fills up quickly, a mix of black and white people, mostly intellectuals. 

A black women wearing a green Boubou, an African dress, with weaved hair, says, 

The Harlem Academy thanks everyone for coming here tonight in support of scholarship. James Baldwin is a man of America letters who needs no introduction in Harlem—ladies, and gentleman James Baldwin. 

He walks out to the middle of the stage, he has horn-rimmed glasses on, a black suit and white shirt, no tie. He is surprisingly short, but he face reveals a huge intellect. 

He says in Swahili,

naomba kupiga picha?

He takes a few snapshots of the audience with a Polaroid camera. 

He then says, 

I would like to read some poetry tonight, I rarely get a chance to read poetry in public. 

He shuffles through some papers and begins reading a poem called, Staggerlee Wonders.

I always wonder

what they think the niggers are doing

while they, the pink and alabaster pragmatists, 

are containing 

Russia  

and defining and re-defining and re-aligning 

China, 

nobly restraining themselves, meanwhile,

from blowing up that earth

which they have already 

blasphemed into dung: 

the gentle, wide-eyed, cheerful

ladies, and their men,

nostalgic for the noble cause of Vietnam,

nostalgic for noble causes,

aching, nobly, to wade through the blood of savages—

ah—!

Oh, noble Duke Wayne, 

be careful in them happy hunting grounds.

They say the only good Indian 

is a dead Indian,

by what I say is, 

you can't be too careful, you hear?

Oh, towering Ronnie Reagan,

wise and resigned lover of redwoods, 

deeply beloved, winning man-child of the yearning Republic

from diaper to football field to Warner Brothers sound-stages,

be thou our grinning, gently phallic, Big Boy of all the ages! 

Salt peanuts, salt peanuts,

for dear hearts and gentle people, 

and cheerful, shining, simple Uncle Sam!

Nigger, read this and run!

Now, if you can't read, 

run anyhow!

Henry realizes James Baldwin is the hippest man in the world, and his truth-saying is cutting but not without humor. 

The last reading is from his book The Fire Next Time, which is a suggestion that black and white people should transcend what they think they know, fear, understand and believe for a higher idea, and that America is both a country and an idea that is handicapped by a narrowness of thinking. 

Blown away by it all, wondering how James Baldwin got so connected with the truth? 

Henry takes a taxi back to Queens at 1030 PM.

10 bucks at the door of Harlem Academy gets you a million dollars worth of wisdom he thought

The Gods were in Town

It was one of those nights, a summer night, a Saturday night, a sexually charged night when those who could shut themselves away in red-lit rooms and balled like there was no tomorrow— they had to do it you see, the Gods were in town spraying sex musk all over New York City. 

Henry horny, he called Ruby and May his massage girl on the phone, feeling left out of the city-wide love fest. 

Ruby answers her phone, she’s at Chaim’s Deli and she says impatiently,

Jesus, Henry you ass-hat, there is no way I can come over and fuck you now, we are really busy and I’m bustin my ass.

May at Siam Massage had bookings the rest of the night. 

Henry showers and grooms himself with extra care, dousing himself in a designer cologne that would send-off a hunky sex scent.

He would go to Manhattan and find a woman. 

Walking through the Bowery he passes a group of bums, one of them a guy they call, Shit-can, who says, 

holy fuck Henry, that perfume you got on is makin me thirsty, you got any with ya? Give your ol buddy Shit-can a hit will ya? 

He waves off Shit-can and keeps on walking, insatiable, on a mission, his balls driving the car. 

Up ahead he sees the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan beyond— a blue haze rising up into the sky from Manhattan. The sex-Gods cooking up a witches-brew no doubt, Henry would dive into the fucking soup head first.  

He goes directly to the Rudy's Bar, a dive by Manhattan standards with an unpainted, termite-eaten exterior and a neon sign, red lights and rusted, from the 40s. He sits at the bar, the place filled with folks—dumb kids, Walmart shoppers and over the hill bikers. Henry leaves without ordering a drink. 

He goes to Lucy’s a few blocks away, walks in and sits at the bar, in need of a drink. Lucy’s looks like a place Charles Bukowski would drink in, the grey ceiling tiles moldy and warped. A few barflies were there, their heads in their hands and their elbows on the bar. Henry orders a triple Jack and soda and goes to the toilet, locking the door, spritzing himself with musk and snorting a few lines. 

He goes to the jukebox and puts a quarter in, playing Walk Right In, sung by the Roof Top singers, Honky Tonk Women by the Rolling Stones and In the Pines, sung by Dave Von Ronk. Praying for mojo he sits at the bar for an hour or so, taping out rhythms to the music on the bar counter.

Then an absolutely stunning women walks in and sits at the end of the bar. Henry gives her the eye and says,

could I buy you a drink doll? She says,

you smell like a Tijuana pimp, whatever it is you bathed in today, the cologne or horse piss, whatever— it’s bloody awful, the answer is no, not interested and don't call me doll, asshole.

Henry thinking— I guess that means no,

he finishes his drink and leaves Lucy’s, going out the back door, not wanting to walk pass the she-monster at the front of the bar, fearful that the scent of his cologne might send her into a violent rage. 

It was 2 AM and everybody in the city was balling their brains out in hot red-lit rooms everywhere except for Henry.

He takes a taxi to Chinatown feeling defeated, deciding to give his passions over to the opium-Gods. He pays the cabby and walks a few blocks to Woo’s Laundry. He knows the drill, he knocks on the front door and a 50 something Chinese women dressed traditionally lets him in and says,

hi Henry, come in!

The basement dimly lit, full of addicts, some puffing and some in dreams, a few Chinamen and a few black dudes. Helen, who let him in takes his hand and leads him to a dirty mat on the concrete floor. She tells him to lay down and relax and fills a pipe with tar, Helen lights it and he puffs, soon he is off into a dream. 

He is sitting in lotus position in a red circus tent, Tibetan prayer flags, every color of the rainbow waving wildly from mountain air coming in through an open canvas flap. He sees a group of Berber's spinning in place as they play JouJouka, Sufi trance music, he is getting higher and higher and he hears a voice saying,

slow down Henry, slow down, you can’t come in.

Then the Hindu spirit-God Vishnu appears walking out of a cloud. Vishnu a man and a woman, with long black hair, made-up, wearing earrings, dressed in a flowing red blue silk Gagra Choli, Henry could smell Jasmine flowers, Vishnu says to him,

Henry, you can't come into Bkuha Luva, the good kingdom, you are chained to earth, you live in the Black House of carnal lust and material pleasure.

Vishnu disappears into the same cloud, he, she or it, gay for sure, came in on. Henry feeling sheepish, happy he kept his mouth shut. Vishnu— pure as pure and true as true, white as rice too. 

Then he feels a cold wet cloth on his forehead and Helen says,

Henry you ok? You were sweating and your eyes went back into your head, I was worried about you.

He wakes up, shaking it off, stung some but back to life. He pays Helen, walks upstairs and goes out the front door of Woo's Laundry, getting a taxi home to Queens.

Henry thinking in the taxi on the way home that he was happy on earth and loved sex, dope, booze and food, all the earthly pleasures.

Surely, he was doomed to spend an eternity in the Black House—with everybody else in New York City.  

You Aint no Errol Flynn

Henry was a contrarian similar to Bukowski—who reveled and laughed all the way to the horse track at Santa Anita as he sipped beer wrapped in a paper bag and watched the working stiffs driving the opposite way on the turnpike to work in the City of Angels.

Henry lived off of crazy pay and a small inheritance from an uncle who owned a coat hanger factory in Pencil Dick, Pennsylvania. He would write all day and go out at night. The opposite of Bukowski who would write, drink and listen to Brahms late into the night.

Fritz, a regular reader of Henry’s work @ Busted on Empty, had been encouraging him to send his work to some publishing houses. Henry dumb-fucked and lazy, seeing it as busywork. 

Writing for him was more about the process than the end result. 

Creative people, the unknown ones, all think their work will be unearthed from their graves and discovered as the posthumous work of a genius— as if it made any difference in the scheme of things.  

As far as Henry was concerned people could piss on or burn his work if they liked, any reaction was better than no reaction at all. 

It was 8PM and he was hungry, so he washed his face and went out for some fresh air and a meal at Chaim’s Deli. 

The year was sometime between 1970 and 1980, it was fall.

The night air was chilled, there was a thin crescent moon in the blue sky, radiating a flat feeling.    

Henry at Chaim's Deli sitting in a booth. Ruby his regular waitress comes over and greets him with a  smile on her face, saying,

Hi sexy,

Henry smiles and orders a Rueben Sandwich, coleslaw, cream soda and a double shot of Southern Comfort. 

After finishing his food he walks out the back door of the Deli through the kitchen into the alley. 

Ruby joins him and they smoke a joint and snort a few lines of cocaine. 

Henry kisses her goodnight and walks outside, going any direction, ending up in Harlem. 

He can hear a belly full of blues coming out of a juke joint up the street and he sees a blue neon sign— Pineu’s Place.  

Henry pays a few bucks at the door, not surprisingly he isn’t the only white in the place. 

The headliners are two Chicago players, Mike Bloomfield and Junior Wells. Bloomfield a junk and a genius, Wells played with Buddy Guy allot, playing from time to time at the Chess Club on the Southside of Chicago. 

Henry sitting at the bar drinking Jack and Coke, getting way down into the music, the guys playing staples like Killing Floor, East-West, Stormy Monday and Sweet Home Chicago.  Bloomfield was a genius, a guitar god who had played with Dylan and Paul Butterfield. Henry had never heard anybody play quite like he did, he had a style of his own, all kinds of blues.  

At intermission, Henry walks backstage to the break room like he owns the place, the security guard, a 500-pound black dude thinking Henry was a musician lets him by. He goes into the break room and Bloomfield is laying on a sofa, his face is flush, he has a hangdog look on his face—he is strung out and needs a fix. He says to Henry, 

can you help me brotha? 

Henry says, 

Hey man, I know where you’re coming from, give me 20 minutes, no big deal. 

Of course, scoring  junk in Harlem was nothin, Henry walks 50 steps out of Pineu’s Place and sees a black dude standing in an alleyway, the brother says to him,

you got a itch man? Henry says, 

you bet I do!

He scores some brown Mexican junk and goes back to the break room of Pineu’s Place, handing the packet to Mike Bloomfield, who takes it in his hand, looking thoroughly relieved. He cooks the shit and shoots it as Henry watches. After he settles into the fix he stands up and cooly walks back to the stage, getting down to business and playing one amazing set.

Henry never fixed, it scared him, he snorted dope.  

Sitting at the bar again, banging down Jack and Coke, enjoying the head on set, a tall black girl in a red dress, built from the floor up with long legs comes up to him and grabs his cock, saying, 

you got some stick for me white boy and, I’ll have a Seven and Seven. Henry says, 

what’s your name baby?  She say’s 

my name is Queenie doll, but you can call me Flo, he knew Flo was a pro and he says, 

I’m Henry.

Flo says,

Let’s go out back and I’ll suck the juice out of your cock baby, 50 bucks. 

Henry goes out back with Flo, they snort a few lines of coke, she loves it. Then he powders his cock with cocaine from top to bottom like Errol Flynn did in the 50s. Flo sucks him for 20 minutes and nothing happens. The cocaine had a numbing effect, the Errol Flynn story was bogus he thought. Well, no difference, he gives Flo her money and she walks down the alley and onto the street, shaking her ass and holding her head up high.

He goes back into the bar and sees the show is over— Bloomfield and the rest of the guys had split already, there were only a few drunks left in the house, Thelonius Monk, Straight No Chaser was playing on the Juke Box, he walks out onto the street. 

It is 1AM in Harlem, you can smell barbecue cooking and there are a lot of black folks walking about, the men and women are arm in arm. Harlem was alive at all hours, it never slept. 

Henry still loaded and jacked up, goes into a soul food restaurant called Mary & Lou’s Red Hot Soul Food. He sits at the counter and orders a sweet potato pie to take home and a standard plate—  beans, rice, okra fried chicken, cornbread. It’s 130AM and the place is packed, Lou comes up to Henry and smiles saying,

how you doin brotha? Would you like some rice puddin? On the house! Henry says,

why thank you Lou, May and Lou’s Red Hot Soul Food— best fried chicken in town. 

Then Flo the hooker walks in making a big show of it, shaking her whopping black ass— she has the attention of everyone in the place and she says in a loud voice, looking right at Henry,

why it’s the little white boy with the little bitty stick, Henry you aint no Errol Flynn!

Sick as a Dog

Years of booze and dope abuse was catching up with Henry. He was 43 years old and looked 60, his long hair was prematurely white and his face haggard. He had heroin eyes, slanted with pinpoint eyeballs.

Most people in their early 40s were still vital and active— Henry was drained, during the day he stayed in his apartment and wrote, at night he walked the sacred streets and byways of New York City, pushing himself every step of the way, doping to endure. 

Henry was a layabout, he never cooked at home and didn’t use his small kitchen. He was lazy and didn't know how to clean. He lived in Zen-like simplicity (He wasn't into to Zen, his place was empty because he was poor). He had a futon, a patio chair, a small termite infested wooden table with a plastic stool, a fake leather sofa and a 2nd hand Mac laptop, so there was less to clean and less to collect dust. 

Occasionally Ruby, his waitress friend who worked at Chaim’s Deli— who loved him in an undecided way, motherly love maybe, would come and clean his apartment, it was a mission of mercy. His apartment had a pleasing odor though, he never used the kitchen and burned Japanese green incense constantly.

Once a year he would get a check-up at the welfare office in Queens. It was always the same— the doctor would interpret the results and then lecture him with a queer look on his face, a mixed look of phony upbeat optimism and impending doom. The doc goes on to say,

Mr. Lucowski I have good and bad news for you, which do you want first? Henry says, 

How could it possibly make any difference? Let's flip a coin, am I missing something here? The doctor says,

OK then, you have the body of a 70 year old, your internal organs are functioning at a low level, your kidneys are particularly bad. You need to start taking care of yourself before it's too late.  

Henry nods his head in response—he cared some, but not much. It was surreal to him, he couldn’t focus on it. He had been sweeping bad news under the carpet for years, using a survival technique known as, da-Nile. 

And so it goes, Henry’s health was bad and he was staring down a long dark tunnel at nothingness, he didn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, just more tunnel.   

(ASIDE: Figaro Lucowski)

As I write this, I have been sick as a dog for 10 days and feel like shit, consequently, my thoughts are consumed with illness and impending decay— this surely must be tedious reading, but bear with me it gets better.

Henry laying upright on his sofa, looking at the cracked paint on the ceiling in his Queen’s digs. Visualizing—the battle going on inside his body, an alien virus enters from space and attacks his upper respiratory system, the generals in charge of the immune system yell out, 

Alein attack, Alien attack, all hands a deck! 

And the heroes of the immune system bravely come to order and attack the foreign invaders who live for the Kamikaze attack on Henry’s immune system, the ultimate prize for the invaders is DEATH!

As the battle continues in Henry’s inner galaxy he hears a half-ass flimsy knock at the door and knows it could only be Ruby. She had brought a care package, fresh orange juice and deli food, Jewish stuff for the soul, Hebrew penicillin.  Perhaps too little too late, but she looked sweet in a flower print summer dress, open and revealing ample cleavage, her red hair in pig-tails. Ruby then says,

Henry, you look awful, you need to go to the hospital, I'm going to call 911! He says,

Don’t call 911 Ruby, I don’t trust the EMS people, they will take me to Riker’s Island for sure. Ruby says,

Henry, you can go to the Queens Medical Clinic, it’s free, you're on crazy-pay.    

He was afraid of hospitals and saw the Grim Reaper behind every door, in every room and hallway of the hospital. He then says to Ruby,

The doctors at Queens Medical Clinic will kill me, they get a bonus for everyone on crazy pay they whack! 

Ruby proceeds to clean his apartment and then feed and bathe Henry, it was as if God himself had sent her that day— Henry the atheist would interpret it differently though, 

God, are you kidding me? Give me a break will ya? God doesn’t exist, there is nothing, Ruby came here because she needs to mother me and was horny, that’s it. 

After bathing and eating Henry and Ruby lay a straw mat on the dark tile floor of his balcony, they sit cross-legged on the mat with their arms on the safety railing and look outwards towards the city. It was one of those sweet summer days that set your mind adrift. Henry lights a joint that he had left over from The Woodstock Festival— they start talking about stuff, not rarified stuff, just anything and Henry says, 

You know baby on days like this there are certain smells and sounds that set me off into a dream — the smell of fresh cut grass at Central Park, the sound of the Met’s game on the radio at night, the smell of vinegar fries at Nathans, you know what I mean don't you doll? Ruby laughs and says,

Sure I do Henry you cornball fuck, does the smell of my pee do it for you baby?  

Then Ruby stands up, standing over Henry and spreading her legs slightly so his head was directly under her crotch, then she drops her britches, he looks up at her pussy and she pees on him. 

Henry loved it, he loved everything about it, he pulls Ruby down to the mat and licks her pussy clean, his cock super hard, then he ramrods her rough style nonstop for twenty minutes or so, Ruby screaming so loud that people 10 floors down on street level could hear. 

Ruby and Henry had known each other for years and had never balled, Henry the smart-ass then says, 

Ruby if I had known you were such ball buster I would have jumped your bones in the kitchen at Chaim’s Deli years ago, she says, 

God, that's just awesome darling!

Ruby looks at her watch and says, 

Henry, I’m late for work, gotta go, stop by the deli later, love ya. 

Henry then falls asleep on the straw mat enjoying the night air on the balcony. He sleeps deeply until the next day, then waking at noon, feeling like he slept in a cornfield in Nebraska. 

In life, there are plenty of ups and downs, sure enough, even when you are—sick as a dog.