Lost in the Misting Steam

Henry awake at 10 AM, wearing his jockey shorts he takes a b-line to the kitchen to make a pitcher of Margaritas and to brew a pot of percolated coffee. 

He brings the pitcher and a cup of coffee to his 14th-floor balcony, setting the drinks on an upturned wooden peach box, then sitting down in a wicker chair with one cracked leg. As Henry is drinking he looks out into the heavens, wondering what jiggery-pokery the gods were up to?  

It was a mid-summer day in New York City, sometime between 1980 and 1990, hot as a pistol, most New Yorkers were on their way to Coney Island or Brighten Beach. Some would go to the air-conditioned Staten Island Mall or Chelsea Market to keep cool while they ate Hebrew National hot dogs on buttered buns with sour kraut and dill pickles, or a hand tossed New York style pizzas, light on the sauce, soft in the middle so you could fold the slices in half.

Around 11 AM Dave Spleen, the editor of the underground rag HEADBANGER calls Henry and says, 

Hey Babe, what it is, can you do a bit on Tennessee Williams, fax it to me later daddy-o! 

Doing a bit on Tennessee Williams would be like getting money for jam, Henry gaga over Williams, nuts about The Night of the Iguana, he had read the play or seen it off-Broadway hundreds of times, each encounter manifested new viewpoints.

Thomas Lanier Williams was born in Columbus, Mississippi in 1911 and was the son of a traveling shoe salesman and a southern belle. He was raised in the Mississippi countryside by his mother, his sister Rose and grandmother, who pampered him.  

Much of his childhood life was spent in bed, because of the lingering effects of Rheumatic Fever. The contrast between the kind-hearted women in his life and a hard-drinking and gambling father who looked upon Tom as a sissy, as well as the event of moving from rural Mississippi to urban St. Louis, created conflict in Williams that would later play out in his work.  

In his second play, A Street Car Named Desire the character Stanley Kowalski, a hard-drinking, two-fisted gambler meets Blanch Dubois, an attractive, soft-spoken, fearful and codependent woman. 

Blanch is attracted to Stanley like a moth to a flame—Blanch and Stanley are from Tennesse's memories of his mother and father.

Williams began writing in St.Louis, a city he hated. After graduating from Missouri University he moved to New Orleans, he felt comfortable in the South and would spend the rest of his life there between stints in New York City and Key West, Florida.   

Williams changes his name to Tennessee in New Orleans, leaving shy Tom behind in favor of a more robust Tennessee, a heavy drinker who carouses gay bars in the French Quarters. 

He would write in the day and party at night, writing some of the greatest plays of the 20th Century— The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Rose Tattoo, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Sweet Bird of Youth and The Night of the Iquana.

Williams wrote about his life, he saw himself as a sensitive sort, a gifted genius in a double-dealing world where violence overpowered tenderness, a world where lonesomeness carried the day. 

In 1969 his lover and longtime live-in companion, Frank Merlo, died of cancer. Saddened, Williams begins to drink and use prescription drugs to an even greater extent, spiraling downward into a hell of his own making, still writing though because writing was his constant refuse.

By the end of 1969, he was in awful condition and his brother hospitalized him. In the 1970s he was released and he goes on to write about his addictions, his depression and his life as a homosexual, encouraged to go face to face with his demons by hospital shrinks. 

Williams has been dubbed the poet of the lost souls by some. A salient point as said by the character Val, in Tennessee’s play Orpheus Descending says it this way—

We are all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins for life!

This, a boo koo truth of life if there ever was one!

Tennessee Williams work dealt with— women’s dependence on men, the veneer of southern charm and the realities of life, he fearlessly surveyed the most difficult subject matter. 

When it came to his plays he was a taskmaster, he would meticulously detail the elements of the production notes—describing in detail how the stage should be set, including specifics on lighting, prop setting and music.

He was also specific in the matter of character description, to the extent that he left little room for director interpretation. At the beginning of scenes, Williams would write down and describe the mood and setting in italics on the top of the scripts, helping the actors and director to visualize and to create what he had envisioned the play to be. 

He was chameleon when it came to writing dialogue that was realistic and suited for each character because a great play gives the audience the feeling they are viewing an event and not merely watching actors act.

On February 25, 1983, Tennessee Williams was found dead in the iconic hotel Elyse in Midtown Manhattan. Oddly, having choked to death after swallowing the cap off of a Vic’s inhaler he was prying off with his teeth while in a drunken stupor. 

Those who knew him said he had died from Seconal intolerance.

Tennessee Williams chronicled the worst American had to offer with eyes wide open, he was writing about himself, his insanity, his struggles with homosexuality, addiction and the phony facade of society— 

He definitely had something to say and he knew how to say it.

Henry wrapped the Williams bit and faxed it to Dave Spleen at HEADBANGER around 7 PM.

He had been drinking shots of Jack Daniels and smoking hashish while writing through the day and was more than half in the bag. He cleans up and dresses quickly, throwing on shorts, a short-sleeved wrinkled oxford shirt, Nike gym-shoes, and a straw hat. 

He would eat at Chaim’s Deli to sober up. 

It was a 10-minute walk to Chaim's Deli from his apartment in Queens. The deli was built in the early 60s, it was a single story brick building on the corner of a downtown street. The entire corner of the building was windowed, he would sit in a booth at the window and watch people walk by, wondering if they were coming home from or going to work, wondering what they were thinking? Eyeballing them, sizing them up— gay, straight, sexy, boring, bovine, egghead? This type of thing, surface things.

Ruby his regular waitress and occasional fuck buddy comes to his table to take his order, she was happy to see him and says the usual thing—

Henry where have you been? We’ve missed you here doll, Henry says,

Oh, why do you ask? You know god damn well where I’ve been, writing at home. You should play a new tape sometimes Ruby! She then says, 

All right Henry, jeez Marie, lighten up, did a bug crawl up your ass or somethin? I’m just being cordial, it’s my job you know! Henry with a sad look on his face says,

Sorry doll, I’m loaded and uncouth, I need some get-sober food, how about a grilled pastrami sandwich, some well-done hash browns, a large bowl of coleslaw, a butterscotch egg-cream, a large black coffee and cheesecake with whip cream on it for dessert. 

Ruby smiles at Henry, forgiving him for being an asshat and then walks real sexy-like to the kitchen with his order. 

After an hour she brings him his bill and he says,

Can you come to my apartment tomorrow, in the morning around 10 AM? She agrees and as Henry gets up to go, Chaim comes over saying,

can you get me an ounce of coke and some weed? This weekend is my son, Joe Joe's Bar Mitzvah and I need some party material if you know what I mean? Henry says, 

OK, no problem Chaim, I will give the shit to Ruby tomorrow, she will bring it to work with her.

Henry was on crazy pay and it wasn't enough to get by. His Queen’s apartment didn't cost much, it was a public housing unit and he got rental assistance. Using and eating out daily was expensive so he sold cocaine to make ends meet. 

He pays and leaves Chaim’s feeling sober, outside he lights a pre-rolled joint and smokes it, going nowhere in serendipity, leaving the shit of the world behind for the gods to deal with.  

He reaches the Bowery and it's shit as usual, a vast expanse of realism. 

Over here, bums gone, passed out on the sidewalk or in a doorway, over there fist-fighting bums, so out of it that they can't feel the punches.

The refrain from the 18th Century song,  The Bowery—

The Bow'ry, the Bow'ry!

They say such things,

And they do strange things

On the Bow'ry! The Bow'ry!

I'll never go there anymore!

Henry would often walk through the Bowery on his way to Manhattan or Time’s Square. He survived because he wasn't afraid, like the bums he was booze-numb. 

He goes to a dump called The Vomit Inn and orders a Boilermaker. While standing and drinking at the bar he notices a lovely blond in a white satin dress, the gal looking like a fallen angel has passed out in a booth, she is with an NYU student wearing horn-rimmed glasses who is in a deep conversation with a dwarf who is standing at their table. 

The noise-level at The Vomit Inn was as loud as Giant’s Stadium on football Sundays, louder maybe! After drinking four or five pints of cheap wine, the bums would yell at each other thinking they were conversing normally, each bum speaking louder than the other in snowball effect. Henry would stuff napkins in his ears.

Out of nowhere, a brawl breaks out, three bums, a man and two women swinging wildly at center stage, a swash of blood and some dentures take flight across the room, landing on the passed out girl in the satin dress, splattering blood on her. 

Her pal the dwarf darts across the room, knocking down one of the scufflers and body slamming her. For a small guy he could sure take care of himself. Henry reckoned he was one of the midget wrestlers at Mulchany’s Pub. 

The Vomit Inn worth the price of admission, a buck twenty-five for a boilermaker. The bums an undeniably chucklesome lot, the show changed nightly and anything could happen. 

One night five bums standing center stage, yelling to high heaven, passed out and fell like dominoes on top of each other, all pissing their pants, the smell unbearable. Shit Can, an immense black man who bounced for free drinks, lock-gripped five of their arms with one hand and dragged them out the door leaving them in the lurch, a bundled cluster of gone human flesh on the sidewalk.

At midnight, after more than a few boilermakers Henry leaves The Vomit Inn to go to Chinatown for noodles at Chow's.  

He takes a taxi to Chinatown and gets out near Chow’s, out of nowhere three Chinamen wearing black hoodies pull him into the alley, they are either local punks rolling drunks for a few bucks or Sun Yee, Chinese mafia. One of them says to Henry in a heavy Chinese accent,

you Labotsy, work at opium den basement of Lee’s, boss Chow not pay us tea money! Henry says, 

It's up to Boss Chow and it's not my business, I’m a small man without much face, I just clean pipes!

Then two of the punks, one on each arm push and hold him up against a brick wall, the mouthpiece pulls a pair of nunchucks out of the waist of his pants, waving them about with the utmost dexterity within inches of Henry’s face for what seemed to be a month of Sundays. 

The hard edge of one of the sticks makes contact with Henry’s nose, breaking it. The mouthpiece says to him, 

You go Boss Chow and tell him we will get him!

Then the gang of three disappear into the dark edge of the alley. 

Henry's shirt is soaked in blood, his head feels like it's split down the middle. He walks the short distance to Chow’s Noodle House going in the back kitchen door so he doesn’t make a scene out front.  

The kitchen is steaming, a wok cook runs out front and John Chow comes rushing in. He pushes a few bags of noodles and crate of green onions off a metal table and says to Henry,  

lay down and keep head back, 

Chow wraps ice in a kitchen towel and places it on Henry’s nose.  

When the bleeding stops Chow sprays Henry’s nose with alcohol and then he stuffs pulled cotton into Henry's nostrils with a chopstick. John brings a chair in from the dining room and says,

Henry, what happen you? Henry says, 

three punks, Chinese in black hoodies, Sun Yee mafia cornered me in the alley, they said you need to pay them tea money! Chow then says,

They are punks, Sun Yee wannabes, they come Chow's and asked for tea money and I show gun, they leave noodle shop, chop chop, hahaha!

John Chow gives Henry a red t-shirt with yellow lettering that reads,  

BOO KOO NOODLES @ 

CHOW’S NOODLE HOUSE  

Then he bandages Henry’s nose, feeding him four Percodans and pouring a hefty water-glass of Japanese whiskey to wash the pills down, telling him to get up off the metal table and sit down on the chair.    

In Chow’s kitchen drinking Japanese whiskey, coming on to Percodans unable to feel his nose or much else, Henry gone, lost in the misting steam coming out of a  black pot of boiling noodles.