It was a Great,Great, Night

The other day I received a comment from one Jeffery M. Barnes, he says, @BustedonEmpty.

I have stopped reading your stories because Henry is doing the same thing in every story, eating at a deli, going to a movie or poetry reading, and continually getting wasted. 

Not entirely true and partially true. 

Nervous and scared I spent last weekend going over new scenarios and possible life events for Henry— going broke, moving to a free love commune in Upper State New York, moving to Cuba and becoming an expat, moving to San Francisco, becoming a paraplegic and so on. 

David Lerner the outlaw poet, and one of the great poets of the 21st Century died too young. His work is one of a kind, some critics claim his work doesn't vary, but does it matter?    

  

In the 1920s Henry Miller developed a rough outline for all his books in an all-night session, Nexus and Sexus could be the same book. 

William Burrough’s Junky and Queer could be the same book. 

And so what?    

Then Mr. Barnes comments—  why doesn’t Henry get married and go to rehab? Instead of pissing his life away?

Barnes one of 5 comments @BustedonEmpty in the last 7 years.     

It was winter, dirty snow all over the city, garbage mixed with snow. For many,  winter a kick in the chops. 

Henry was no exception, he didn’t ice skate, curl or ski, he liked to bowl though, bowling a sport for all seasons and every man. Men like Ralph Kramden, Ed Norton, Fred Sanford, Amos and Andy, Walter Sobchak and the Dude. Why isn’t bowling in the Olympics? Bowling more of a sport than say, race walking, synchronized swimming and ski ballet, bowling a centuries-old sport, the people’s sport.   

    

Henry walks a few blocks to his pals apartment. Cueballs apartment was in Queens.
Cueball big size, not handsome, toothless and bald.   

His apartment like a scene outta hell. Half empty bottles of Chinese beer and Chinese takeout containers, dirty underwear, used lighters, glass pipes for smoking crack and other dope, cans of half eaten food.  

His neighbors were afraid of him and wouldn’t rat him out.  

He had what they call Hoarding Disorder. 

He had a menagerie of small animals that ran free in his place--- the ferrets chased the cats, the cats chased the birds, the birds chased the flies and so on, it was a madhouse, shit, and garbage everywhere.     

Cueball had what they call a Judas Hole in his front door, dope went out and money came in. 

Henry knocks on the metal door and Cueball says,    

OK, common in, it's fuckin mess in here! 

Henry had to stand because there was no place to sit, the apartment was filled with stuff, junk of every variety, you couldn't walk around, you had to stand in place with Cueball practically on top of you, he says,  

Cueball can you front me an ounce? I got a buyer for it and can pay you back in an hour or less. Cueball busting up his sofa with a metal bat says,  

I ain't-a social worker, and I ain’t-a in the loan business.  

Henry just gets out,  happy to get out, the stench was awful and Cueball was nuts and dangerous.   

He takes the A train, Queens to Chinatown, sitting alone in an empty car.  The subway stops at Bliss on the Flushing Line, the most sensual station in New York City.    

At Bliss, a smashing MIlf of a Chinese lady sits near Henry, they know each other and are alone in the car. They're both going to Chinatown.  Her skirt lifts up as she sits exposing a lovely bush with whispy black hair, like floss.     

Henry has dinner with John Chow and May at their noodle house in Chinatown, John and May owned the opium den in the basement of Lee’s Laundry.  Henry, John, and May over a bowl of noodles, Henry straight out tells John Chow that he is broke. 

They eat noodles and drink Japanese whiskey, John Chow gives Henry a chance, on one condition, no using. He would clean the wooden opium pipes in the basement of Lee’s Laundry. May ran the place.    

It was a good setup Henry could work in the basement of Lees Laundry at night and sleep in the day. 

It was a great, great night.