Babe, it's the Hi Hat Club!

It was noon in Queens, 1983, summertime, a temperate, and fresh day that was full of Potential.

Henry was 5 pages into a new story, typing it on his electric typewriter, placing the finished pages on his desk next to the typewriter, not far from a tumbler of whiskey and soda. He exuberantly rips a completed page out of his typewriter, his arm swings to one side, connects with the tumbler, knocking it over and spilling whiskey on the finished pages.

 A thought flashes through his mind,

Tom Wolfe the pedant never spilled whiskey on a manuscript, but Bukowski the wild man surely spilled beer on pages of finished poetry. 

He places a small bedside table at a right angle to his desk and puts a paper filing cabinet on top of the bedside table, the cabinet a safe place for finished pages. 

Lucia, Henry’s Cuban wife of 5 months, walks into the room and stands over him, saying,  

mi amor, I’m going to my girlfriend's salon, Valentina's to get my pussy waxed and pick up an ounce of marijuana, it’s killer, Purple Ripper, back in a few. His mind is on work and he says without looking up, 

OK, sweets, love ya!

Thomas  Pynchon earned a B.A. in English from Cornell University in 1958, then spending a year in Greenwich village living like a Bohemian, and writing short stories. In 1960 he moved to Seattle and was hired as a technical writer for Boeing where he worked for 2 years, then leaving the company to write full time. 

In 1963 his first novel V was published, a cynical tale about a Zelig-like female character who time travels and shows up at crucial times of European history. The novel won the Faulkner Foundation Award which would be the first of many awards for Pynchon. When Pynchon 3rd novel, Gravity’s Rainbow was published in 1973 it won critical acclaim, at this point adored by American literati.  

Pynchon’s heavy use of metaphor is meant to seduce his readers to use imagination rather than reason. Basic themes such as— system vs freedom, reality vs illusion, life vs death, are paired opposites that interact and work as engines that power his work.

Years later in 2014, his book Inherent Vice became a Hollywood film, which won an Oscar for Best Screenplay, another accolade for Pynchon. 

Thomas Pynchon is a world-famous recluse, who makes JD Salinger look like Mohamed Ali or Jack Sparrow. Pynchon hasn’t appeared before the media since 1963 and he reigns supreme among reclusive novelists. When Gravity’s Rainbow won the National Book Award, another trophy, Pynchon, as you would guess sent someone else to accept the award on his behalf. 

After reading 20 pages of Pynchon’s book V, Henry places the book into a metal trash can near his desk, carries the trash can to his apartment terrace, sets it down, pours Zippo lighter fluid into the trash can on the book, lights the book, and watches it burn and diminish into a small grey mound of organic ash matter. 

Burning V was more fun than reading it. 

Most likely, Thomas the-escape-artist Pynchon is hiding away in upstate New York, in Steuben County maybe, sitting on a lone stool in front of his basement bar drinking and staring at his collection of awards, carefully hung on the wall. 

As Henry puts the finishing touches on the Pynchon bit Lucia, who doesn’t own underwear, walks into the living room and lifts her skirt up overhead, her pubic hair is finely trimmed and shaped like a candy cane, laughing she says, 

come lick my candy cane baby. 

he makes up a dumb limerick,

I know a girl who's tough but sweet
She's so fine, she can't be beat
She's got everything that I desire
Sets the summer sun on fire

I want candy
I want candy
I want candy
I want candy

The couple are fun-loving bohemians who live in the moment, sucking up everything the it offers. 

By sundown having knocked down more than 3 pitchers of bloody marys they clean up and dress for a trip to the City. Lucia puts on short shorts and a red tank top with black lettering that reads,

                      I HAVE TALENTS 

                           YOU CAN’T 

                              PUT ON

                            RESUMES        

Henry wears khaki shorts and a Met’s t-shirt.

It was the kind summer night that pulled at folks who were sitting at home in easy chairs, filling them with the feeling that something was going on out there— as though the gods had seeded the clouds with aphrodisiacal sex goo that dripped invisible droplets on the city. 

Henry and Lucia leave the apartment, walking to Forrest Avenue Station in Queens, boarding a subway train, riding it to 42nd Street, Times Square. They walk up the steps to street level, it was Lucias first trip to Times Square, bowled over she says, 

bebe, santa meirda, colored lights everywhere, even the police station has a neon sign. 

They walk a few blocks to a Cubano sandwich shop called Marcon and stand outside looking in, she says, 

I have eaten comida Cubana all my life, let’s eat American! And, he says, 

American food? America has been blitzed with ethnic food from every corner of the globe, KFC and Mc Donalds are the new American food, honestly doll, I have never eaten it. She says excitedly, 

We don’t have Mc Donalds in Cuba, take me to Mc Donalds bebe!

He hated Mc Donalds, but he wanted her to experience it. Walking a short distance they find a Mc Donalds, gliding on air through the golden arches and going inside the fast-food paradise. After queuing at the counter a few minutes he tells Lucia, 

baby, let the lady know what you want, with a child-like look on her face she orders, 

a Big Mac, french fries, a Coca-Cola and an Apple Pie! 

Henry vibing on her enthusiasm orders, 

OK, a vanilla shake, cheery pie and a cup of coffee. 

Stepping back from the counter, waiting a few minutes until their order comes, Lucia

grabs the tray and says, 

My God bebe, how did they make the little pie so fast? 

Lucia holds the tray in both hands, walking proudly, feeling American as if she was anointed by George Washington himself. 

Sitting in their booth, which was constructed with a mysterious material, a corporate secret, like, what kind of fried-deep-water-cold-blooded-vertebrae animal is on a Mc Fish Sandwich or how the french fries are made? Lucia asks,

how much was it? He answers, 

4 dollars 95 cents, she says 

Dios mio, for all this? I can’t believe it!

As she unwraps her Big Mac, holding it in both hands, looking at it, silence prevails as though the gods were watching from the clouds, she takes a bite and chews it slowly, saying, 

I love it darling, it’s marvellosa! 

Then, he sips his shake and takes a bite out of the fried rectangular cherry pie and thinks, hmm, not bad.

For most, it would merely be another meal at Mc Donalds, but for Lucia, it was a welcome to America fete. 

The couple walks a few blocks to the New Amsterdam Theater, running into Henry’s pal the Times Square Cowboy, who is standing near the ticket counter— shucking, jiving and scratching like Ray Charles. The cowboy’s a gay pimp and junky who hustles dope in front of the theater and reviews films for people who score, warning his buyers if the film is bad. Films like Sex in the City or Baby Boom are sure bets to get the Cowboy’s thumbs down, over the years he has become known as the street, Roger Ebert. 

Anyway, the cowboy says,

Henry baby where ya been? Howz tricks? Who's da hot piece of ass? I have ah, Peruvian cocaine, chocolate mescaline and a dime bag of joints, killer stuff. Da film is Scarface, it’s tits baby, wild, wild stuff, thumbs up! 

Henry buys a dime bag of pre-rolled joints from the cowboy and tickets at the counter, walking inside, sitting in the back row. Lucia raises her eyebrows and holds her nose saying, 

bebe, it smells like mildew here, and he says, 

yeah, after the midnight show the theater runs an all night porn marathon. 

They sit in the back row and light a joint, after the previews, the feature film Scarface comes on the screen—the opening scene is a panned shot of ragged banana boats full of Mariellotos intercepted by the Coast Guard outside the docks of Miami, Lucia who is angry says,  

Fidel the puta put the scumbags on boats to Miami to poison America, the Mariellitos gang bangers are germs, I can’t watch this shit, vamonos!

Leaving the New Amsterdam Theater and Times Square they walk through the high-rise canyons of the city reaching the dark and eerie Meatpacking District. On 10th Avenue they walk north reaching Ground Zero Museum and then east towards the Hudson River on a deserted street, Henry sees a neon sign up the block that reads,   

                            Hi Hat Club 

It’s a burlesque joint, he pays 20 bucks at the door, they go inside, sitting at a small table and order shots of tequila. The Hi Hat Club is the last of the old time burlesque venues in the Big Apple, Lenny Bruce got his start doing schtick between acts and his wife Honey stripped there. 

As the couple drinks tequila, the house band, 3 black dudes from Harlem, a sax player, drummer, and bassist play sleazy sax music, eyes shut, nodding, junked up in front of a red velvet curtain that drapes the stage.

Lucia who has a nose like a Bluetick Coon Hound says, 

baby, it smells like cum in here, and Henry says, 

it’s mildew, the old velvet curtains are sweating dry rot.

As the drummer taps out a rim shot— rat-a-tat-tat, and the sax player blows high sleaze, Pussy Wilderness comes on stage. She is wearing a bear suit that comes apart at the seams, slowly stripping it off to the music. Then, in a g-string Pussy Wilderness moves sexy-like to the couple's table, with her back against Henry she gyrates back and forth rubbing her ass on his face, Lucia laughs and he puts his nose into the stripper's ass saying in a slightly muffled tone,   

her hole smells like dime store douche. 

As Pussy Wilderness collects the pieces of her bear suit and exits stage left, an Asian stripper billed as Shanghai Sal comes on stage. Her hair is Betty Page style, she is wearing an embroidered kimono which she slowly lifts, then taking it off showing her slender white skinned body. Shanghai Sal then moves cobra-like through the audience as the band is doing their best to play a weak version of Duke Ellington’s Chinoiserie. Lucia enjoying the show asking, 

darling, does she turn you on? And he says, 

babe, it's the Hi Hat Club, it's on a planet of its own, it’s a circus, the last of Vaudeville,  just being here turns me on. 

   

Key West, it's Paradise!

It’s 10 AM in Queens, 1983, a late autumn day, crisp, dismal, wet and rainy— It’s a lousy day in fact, a good day to stay in bed. 

By 11 AM it's 38 degrees and the janitor of Henry’s apartment building hasn’t fired up the furnace because he has passed out in the basement. Henry and Lucia Varga, his Cuban wife of 5 months are in the bedroom drinking hot coffee and Kahlua,  she whines saying,  

darling, I’m cold, let’s go to Miami!

She is wearing a sweater over flannel pyjamas and is in bed under the covers, Henry has a sweatshirt and a pair of boxer shorts on, and he’s busy ringing up the apartment manager to find out why the furnace isn’t fired up.  

Lucia had lived in Cuba all her life until a few months ago. She had never experienced a New England winter and she was dreading the possibility, begging Henry to fly south so they could escape it.   

A few weeks ago they had gone to the Village to meet Henry’s editor Dave Spleen and his wife Goldy for drinks. Dave was a penny-pincher that spent his money on jewelry for Goldy while he hoodwinked the staff of HEADBANGER Magazine. Lucia didn’t like Dave and by the end of the evening she had heard enough bullshit, so she put him on the spot saying, 

you pay my husband nothing, you stiff the staff of your magazine, and that skank wife of yours is wearing more gold than a Puerto Rican pimp!

Henry still pens his weekly column for HEADBANGER Magazine, but he and Dave Spleen don’t talk much anymore. By noon he gets a call from the apartment manager who insists the furnace is burning, although it’s cold in the apartment. Lucia is still in bed and is begging him to get the tickets, and finally, he gives in and says, 

OK, anything for my baby, pack and we’ll catch a taxi to LaGuardia. 

The couple packs a single suitcase with light summer clothes. They ride the elevator to the lobby, walking outside to Flushing Avenue where they take a cab to the airport. Inside they go to a travel agent who books them a night at the famous Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach and business class tickets on a United Airlines flight to Miami International Airport.  

The United flight leaves on time, Henry and Lucia sit together in business class, when the jet is airborne they are busy drinking Courvoisier clean, drinking in business class is a game for the couple that's won if you're drunk when you land.   

In 3 hours they land at MIA, smashed on cognac, they make tracks to a waiting taxi. Inside the cab, Lucia notices the driver is Cuban and she tells him to drive to the Fontainebleau Hotel and asks, 

Que pasa Little Havana? And he answers, 

Si, señora, no es bueno, it's full of nouveau riche Cubanos that love money too much. 

The taxi stops on the large circular driveway at the entrance of Fontainebleau Hotel and they get out and walk to the front desk. Henry laughs as he eyeballs the larger than life lobby saying, 

ritzy, the joint looks like Scarface Tony Montana’s mansion, Greco Miami kitsch! 

The Fontainebleau Hotel was the place to be in the 60s, the guest list included mega-luminaries such as— JFK, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, the Rat-Pack, Ava Gardener, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Sam the cigar Giancana. Later, in the 80s, a scene from Scarface was filmed at the hotel pool.

Anyway, the couple gets comfortable in their room that has a view of the ocean and a terrace. After cleaning up Lucia puts on a light-blue evening dress with spaghetti straps, and Henry wears jeans and a white shirt. 

In front of the hotel, they catch a taxi and he tells the driver to travel windward on A1A to North Miami—the cab cruises past the rows of 3 story pastel-colored buildings that line the beach and at 82 Street Henry abruptly yells at the driver saying,

stop, stop, we’ll get out here.

He pulls Lucia towards a blushing tri-level art deco building where a flock of geriatrics are relaxing on the patio sipping protein shakes and eyeballing the action on the beach, asking one of the senior citizens,

excuse me, ma'am, wasn’t the chainsaw scene in the movie Scarface filmed here? The old gal looking angry says, 

young man, I’m going to call security!

As Henry and Lucia walk away from the nursing home he recounts the chainsaw saw scene, 

the sleazy narco-gangsters handcuff the poor bastard in the commode, slicing him up with a chainsaw, bits of body matter and blood gush everywhere... Lucia interrupting him says as she points,

over there darling, Little Havana restaurant, I’m so hungry! 

They walk a few meters and go into the Little Havana restaurant which is a Cubano deli of sorts, and sit down at the counter, ordering a pitcher of Bucanero beer with limes, 2 hefty plates of Ropa Vieja complete with fried plantains, barbecued pork, rice, and black beans. 

The food is scrumptious and they order one more pitcher of beer. Then, 2 drunk Cuban men walk into the restaurant and one of them approaches Lucia, looking at her and saying in Spanish,

mira agui! Castros puta, chica, chica, come on baby!

Lucia had been a working girl in Havana and she was Fidel’s favorite party girl until she flew the coop, absconding to America with Henry’s help.

As the waitress serves the pitcher of Bucanero beer Lucia lifts it off the counter and pours it on the foul-mouthed drunk, and he jerks his arm back to hit her, but before he can get the punch off the dishwasher runs out of the kitchen, coming up from behind the guy, applying a full nelson, then pushing the loud-mouth drunk out of the the deli.  

The smash-mouth encounter was over before it began and Henry says to Lucia,

you know him? And she says,

one of many in Havana who wanted me but couldn't have me.

They walk to the cash station to pay and get out, and the owner of Little Havana hands them a bottle of Hennessy cognac saying, 

the dinner's gratis amigos enjoy the cognac! 

On A1A they catch a taxi and Henry tells the driver to travel starboard to the Fontainebleau Hotel. In the back of the cab, they sit close to one another, opening both windows to let the sea air in which they inhale as they sip cognac, passing the bottle back and forth, and offering the driver some. Then Henry says, 

how bout we take a slow boat to Key West tomorrow and spend a few nights? I want to write a story on Hemingway. 

In their suite they lay in bed drinking cognac neat, watching the Hollywood film, The Old Man and the Sea based on the mini-novel by Earnest Hemingway— Santiago, a poor, ageing Cuban fisherman rows his small wooden skiff far out into the Gulf Stream hoping to break 84 days of bad luck, eventually hooking a giant marlin with his feeble fishing-line, fighting the big fish for 5 days, harpooning it, and strapping it to the side of his boat. As Santiago rows home bone-tired, he chews over the hefty price the fish will bring him and how many people it will feed. Then, as he’s rowing to his village sharks savage and eat the marlin off his boat— the beasts indifferent to his valiant attempt to save the great fish as he bashes them with his harpoon. 

As the film ends Lucia is crying as she says, 

the old man, Santiago, only loses if he tells himself he lost, Henry then says, 

you're a wise soul babe.

Up at 8 AM they have coffee, check out of the Fontainebleau Hotel, and take a taxi to the Miami Beach Marina where they board the Key West Ferry, a high-speed-turbo catamaran that can make it to Key West in 3 hours. 

Once safely aboard the couple makes a b-line to the bar, where they order drinks and sit at a table. There is a basketball game on TV, the Heat playing the Bulls. A young couple who have been standing at the bar drinking walk over to Henry and Lucia’s table and a  midwestern kid asks, 

could we join you? 

Henry nods yes, they sit down and the young man says, 

I’m George and this is Martha, we’re newlyweds from Dayton, Ohio!  Henry goes on to say, 

I’m Henry, this is Lucia, we're from Queens by way of Cuba,  opening a pack of cards he says,

George my man, whataya say we order a bar tray full of shots and play some Shit Head? Oh, Bartender, would you mind turning the TV down? We can't hear ourselves talk!

Shit Head is a drinking game— the deck is dealt to the players, each player throws a card down, and the high card wins. The first player to lose their cards has too down a shot.

So, Lucia deals the deck, after 5 minutes Martha loses her cards and does a shot and after an hour everyone is getting loaded. Suddenly, the high-speed-turbo catamaran hits a stretch of rough sea and what the whiskey set in motion, the stormy sea finishes off— Martha throws up in a trash can, and Henry makes it to the head, vomiting alone, lucky to save face. 

The 2 couples spend the last hour of the woebegone cruise holding-on-tight to deck chairs, having earned their sea-legs in spades. The high-speed-turbo catamaran docks at Sunset Harbor in Key West and the passengers are falling all over each other to get off. Henry and Lucia are happy to be ashore as well, and they walk to Sloppy Joe’s bar which is a hop-skip and a jump away from Sunset Harbor. 

After a few drinks and a couple of Philly Steak Sandwiches, they leave Sloppy Joe’s as the sun sets, walking the quaint streets of the Key West looking for a hotel— finding a motel. 

The Blue Marlin Motel hasn't changed since the 50s, the exterior is on the cusp of art deco, and the interior is straight forward and simply designed, not unlike Ernest Hemingway’s writing. 

Lucia feels shaky from the high-speed-turbo catamaran trip from Miami so she goes to bed. Henry works on a story about Hemingway, typing it out on his portable typewriter.    

Ernest Hemingway was relaxing in a Key West bar in 1928 with his wife Pauline Pfeiffer, waiting for a Ford V8 Roadster to be delivered. The car took 3 weeks to be delivered, so, the Ford Motor Company put Hemingway and his wife up in an apartment. The couple soon discovered that life in isolated Key West was like living in a foreign country, even though it was in America. Ernest loved it and wrote,

It's the best place I've ever been anytime, anywhere, flowers, tamarind trees, guava trees, coconut palms...Got tight last night on absinthe and did knife tricks.

Many believe if you want to know what made Hemingway tick, look at his fiction. 

Hemingway blazed onto the international literary scene like a supernova when The Sun Also Rises was published in 1931. His thread-bare, too the point, journalistic writing style was a radical decampment from high-brow British literary style— flowery adjectives piled on top one another, superfluous use of abstract nouns and complicated syntax, which only steadfast readers read.

Hemingway at times would talk about something he called The Iceberg Theory, that makes perfect sense to writers— the theory maintains that the tip of the iceberg is the 10% of the story which is told through prose, and the underwater part of the iceberg, the other 90%, is unwritten and inherently known by both the author and the reader. 

Simply put — don’t lowball your readers' intelligence.

By the summer of 1959 Hemingway was suffering from a liver condition, depression and exhaustion. He and his last wife, Mary Hemingway left Cuba to escape Castro’s socialist revolution, moving to what was supposed to be their dream house in the wilds of Ketchum, Idaho. 

After going through a series of shock treatments at the behest of Mary, they travel back to their house in Ketchum. The following morning he wakes up, goes to the basement, loads a double-barrelled Ross shotgun with shells, puts the butt of the gun on the floor and the barrels in his mouth and squeezes the trigger. 

The why of Ernest Hemingway's suicide is easy— Writers' block hand nothing to do with it, he had a plethoric list of medical problems as long as a Physicians Desk Manual, and he was clinically depressed with no clear way out.   

After a restful nights sleep, Henry and Lucia go outside to the pool, sitting in lounge chairs drinking coffee, and Lucia says,

I love Key West, it’s paradise, it’s like Cuba without Fidel, I feel beautiful and free here! Let’s stay forever! And Henry replies, 

You caught the Hemingway mojo babe! 

                                                                                                                                          

And, We Went to Coney Island

It was early morning, summertime in the city, you could hear the whining peal of Briggs & Stratton engines and smell fresh-cut grass, a tip-off that today would be a lazy day. 

Henry wakes to the sound of pinging  chainsaws coming from Flushing Meadows Park, the sound removed some, but unsettling, even on the 14th floor. As he lays in bed listening to the racket his wife of 2 months, the toothsome Cubana Lucia Varga lip-locks his cock and sucks the bone out of it, and says, 

buenos dias, darling!   

She walks to the kitchen of the couples Queen’s apartment to brew coffee and mix a pitcher of bloody maries, as ever the diligent wife. Henry is on the balcony sitting cross-legged in front of his IBM Electric Typewriter drinking a bloody mary and pounding out the pith of a new story. As he works, the opening pages roll out easy peasy and are fun to write. Later though, things slow as sentences and paragraphs stutter and spurt like they want to take the day off.  

It has been a century since Jack Kerouac died, he was a groundbreaking hero to many. In 1943 Kerouac enlisted in the Marines and was discharged after 10 days for what his medical report labeled— strong schizoid trends. 

A schizoid person, behaves mad and crazy-like or is emotionally aloof and likes to be alone. 

The schizoid goes on to write one of, if not, the premier novels of the 20th Century, On the Road. Kerouac said he wrote the book in 2 weeks, cranked on Bennies, typing non-stop without inserting periods or commas on a roll of printing paper he fed into his typewriter. Later, the myth is debunked by his X girlfriend, Joyce Johnson, who says in her tell-all book that Jack spent years rewriting and crafting the book as though each paragraph was a poem. 

In 1957 On the Road was published by Viking Press and the book burst onto the American scene like a supernova. Woefully, the fame that accompanied the success of the book was toxic for Kerouac, so he chooses to stay loaded on cheap booze and hide away from the world. 

Working through the haze of alcoholism he continues to find enough stuff inside to write and publish books, some, really good like Dharma Bums, but, none as good as On the Road. 

Jack Kerouac died on an operating table at St. Anthonys Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida, from cirrhosis of the liver in 1969, he was only 47 years old. 

He wrote musically, every sentence and paragraph was a scat declaration of sound riding a hot rocket to the Moon.  

As Henry finishes the story on Kerouac Lucia, who has just showered, and, is wrapped in a towel, comes to the balcony and says, 

the day’s really fresh babe, let’s go to the beach! He says, 

OK, get dressed, bring your swimsuit, we're going to Coney Island!

By 10 AM they are out of the apartment sitting in Utopia Street Station waiting for the A Train to Coney Island, it’s a short ride, just an hour. As the couple de-train at Coney Island Lucia eyeballs the panorama of the amusement park and the ocean, she is stunned and says, 

darling, it’s magic, I love it! 

They walk a short distance to the beach making their way to the bathhouse and Lucia notices the entry price is 4 dollars. she can’t believe it and says, 

the gringos want 4 dollars to go into the bathhouse, they are robbers, we can change on the beach! Henry knew she was an exhibitionist and says,

cover-up if you change on the beach, Coney Island cops will arrest you for indecent exposure in a New York minute, and Lucia laughs saying,

indecent exposure, my body isn't indecent, people love it!   

He shrugs and pays 4 dollars for her to use the bathhouse to change, figuring it was the easy way out. 

As the couple walks to shore Lucia’s body shakes and vibrates erotically and the other beachgoers eyeball her— she belonged on a beach in Cannes, not Coney Island. Henry then asks, 

come on sexy, let's go for a swim, and she answers, 

are you loco baby? The water will ruin my swimsuit!   

Henry was on the swim team at Queens High School and was a strong swimmer even though he never won a race. He walks into the water and swims straight out to sea without looking back as the lifeguard yells into his bullhorn, 

back to shore, NOW, asshole!

Embarrassed as he reaches the shore, without sitting down or drying he picks up the couple's belongings and says to Lucia, 

let’s get outta here. 

He puts on a Hawaiian shirt and Lucia wraps up in a sarong. They walk the boardwalk, going to Nathans for lunch, Henry goes to the counter and orders pepper and onion hot dogs, cheese fries and 2 large lemonades. He brings lunch on a tray to a table under a canopy and Lucia asks, 

Is this American food darling?  He answers, 

you bet, Coney Island is the epicenter of American food!

After eating they make a b-line to Luna Park and queue for a spin on the mighty Rotor. Inside, they amble with the other brave riders down a rough planked stairway which winds around the hatbox-shaped spinning wheel. Reaching bottom, they walk through the door of  The Rotor and go inside. With the other brave riders, they stand in a circle with their backs the wall. Lucia looks skyward at the stands above The Rotor noticing a crowd of gawking high school boys. 

As The Rotor door is closed the wheel begins to spin, slowly at first and then faster and faster creating a gravity force that pulls the brave riders against the wall, holding them there as the floor drops down 6 feet. A few minutes into the ride the gravity force rips Lucia’s sarong off and it is sucked upwards into the peanut gallery of horny onlookers who let out a joyous roar. 

As the floor moves upward to ground level, The Rotor slows to a stop. Henry hands Lucia, who in her bikini, his Hawaiian shirt and they walk out of The Rotor as the peanut gallery above hoots and whistles. Outside, he buys an XXL red t-shirt for Lucia with Coney Island University printed on it and says, 

That’ll do it for Luna Park, I need a drink! 

Back at the boardwalk they go to Ruby’s Bar and Grill, sitting at the bar with the Luna Park barflies. As they suck up Boilermaker after Boilermaker Henry looks outside and notices it’s dark, saying, 

let’s go, babe! 

They walk the boardwalk to The Coney Island Sideshow and are drawn in by the mile a minute gab of the barker known as The Texas Talker. 

Henry’s Old Man, Benny Lucowski, had taken him to a circus freak show when he was a kid. He remembers walking through a small tent that was adjacent to the big top, dragging his feet through the sawdust floor and then stopping with his Old Man to look at the geek known as The Wildman from Borneo. The wild man wore a leopard-skin cloak and his nose was pierced with a sharp-ended bone. Occasionally, he would take a snort from a pint of Sir Edward’s whiskey and jump up and down as he roared at the small audience.

After another snort of whiskey, The Wildman plucks a live chicken out of a rusted cage, waving the chicken in the air ceremoniously before sacrificing the paltry Phasianidae, biting its head off and spitting the blood-covered bits into a bucket. 

Henry, who’s 10, is sickened by the performance and begins to cry. As they walk out of the sideshow his Old Man says to him, 

it’s OK son, the guy was making his supper, that ole chicken is in a pot cooking with carrots and onions!

As Henry and Lucia walk into the sideshow he notices it’s a far cry from the old-time freak shows, the acts are gentrified— you’ve got Koo Koo the Bird Girl who looks like a bird, does a bird dance, makes crazy faces and funny sounds. Or, Insectavora, a misplaced socialite from Long Island whose face is tattooed tribal style that is a fire-eater. And finally, Fin Flexible a contortionist who walks on glass and swallows chains. 

As they watch Koo Koo the Bird Girl doing the bird dance Lucia says to Henry,

you paid to see this? The chica is loca! And he replies, 

OK, babe, it's getting late, let's go home.

As they ride the A train back to Queens Henry in an aha moment cottons the understanding that life with Lucia would never be a day-to-day typical and she would never be a creature-of-the-commonplace. 

Being with her was an adrenal rush, similar to driving a car blindfolded.