It’ Saturday, 1985, Henry is in his Key West bungalow writing.
The phone rings, it’s Dave Spleen calling from HEADBANGER Magazine office in New York, juiced up and speaking at breakneck speed as Henry picks up the phone.
Hells bells man, last week's story, And Away We go, was a non-starter! New Yorkers were turned off by it. Why in the hell would you write about cuming buckets after eating raw oysters? You’re no Henry Miller you know! Clean it up this week baby! So, what's cookin? Henry sucking it in answers,
The usual and a bit on Tennessee Williams, a Key West homeboy. Dave Spleen hangs up as he says,
by dude!
Henry never knew if Dave Spleen was angry or not, but he knew Bennies gave Dave a full-time woody.
Henry never knew if Dave Spleen was angry or not, but he knew Bennies gave Dave a full-time woody.
Lucia walks into Henry's office in a thong bikini and says,
come on and eat darling!
He walks to the kitchen and sits at the head of the table. Summer Wynd is sitting at his side, dressed to go to the beach. Lucia sets a platter of hand made corn tortillas, fresh black beans, wild rice, scrambled eggs with peppers and a decanter of hot coffee with milk on the table. Henry feeling upbeat as he teases Lucia says,
what am I suppose to do with this? Raising her eyebrows she says,
eat it or shove it! Summer Wynd then says as the tribe eats,
I love you so much Lucia, the breakfast is yummy! Lucia looks at her and says,
the burro, Henry, never says anything nice!
Lucia reminded Henry of his mother, Florence Lucowski, the 2 women picked, picked, picked, all the time.
Summer Wynd rolls a joint after breakfast and passes it around the table, after a toke Henry makes sweet with Lucia, waving the white flag, signaling a truce,
Summer Wynd rolls a joint after breakfast and passes it around the table, after a toke Henry makes sweet with Lucia, waving the white flag, signaling a truce,
darling, you culinary gifts are only surpassed by your bootylicious body. I want to fuck you on the table right now! She looks at him and says,
sorry, bebe, my coño is closed for you, but, open for Summer Wynd.
As he walks back to his office he realizes he will never be more than Lucia's sidekick. And, he worries Summer Wynd is becoming codependent because she is caught in the middle of his and Lucia's continual bickering. When the couple met her some months back she oozed power, now he got the feeling she was shrinking in place.
The girls go to Dog Beach on the Vespa scooter carrying the Chis in a doggy box and Pedro the woodpecker flies, soaring in higher ground as he eyeballs them.
AS SCENE 1 OPENS,
Tennessee Williams is in his vanilla-colored gingerbread house on Duvall Street in Key West.
The small house is filled with books and art. He wakes at 5 AM every morning, greeted by a pitcher of Bloody Marys which his manservant has dutifully placed next to his typewriter. The booze is there to summons his courage.
He peers out the window at the swimming pool in his backyard which is surrounded by dead weeds and wilting flowers. His mind travels beyond the limits of the backyard to his personal literary world, a world where— lies replaced straight-forward speaking, strong-arm tactics sucked love dry and being alone was the human condition.
The subtotal of these anxieties and his own fear are the seeds that fuel his endeavor to heal a nefarious world with poetic vision.
From 1939 to 1957, Williams wrote a string of masterpieces— The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, becoming America’s most celebrated playwright, winning 2 Pulitzer Prizes, 3 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards, and a Tony.
Some credit Williams with queering Broadway, but Broadway was born queer and didn’t need his help.
He met and fell in love with Frank Merlo in 1947 while living in New Orleans. Merlo, a Sicilian who served in the U.S. Navy during World War 2 was a steadying influence on William's booze and doped filled chaotic life. Merlo’s death from lung cancer in 1961 caused Tennessee to nosedive into a lamentable funk.
During the period after Merlo’s death, Williams used more than ever. One night while staying in the Hotel Elysee in New York City he was deep into stupefaction. While reaching for a bottle of Oxycodone and trying to open it with his mouth he swallowed the bottle cap and choked to death—an inglorious way to die.
In March 1983 he was buried in St. Louis at the insistence of his brother Dakin. This is ironic because Tennessee hated St. Louis and spent most of his life running away from the city.
At lunchtime, Henry raps up the bit on Tennessee Williams, the golden boy who wrote The Night of the Iguana, a play Henry was gone on. The play was built on the Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon's right of passage, fueled by passion spinning out quilt.
Meanwhile, the girls are at Dog Beach sun tanning in lounge chairs watching the Chis, Che and Mia play tag with breaking waves as Pedro the woodpecker flies with a flock of no account seagulls.
Lucia and Summer Wynd are laying on their stomachs in extended chairs with their bikini tops unstrapped at the back, bare naked except for the thong straps that run along the slits between their butt cracks.
There is a steady flow of beachgoers walking their dogs on the shoreline ogling them, thinking they are movie stars.
The girls are drinking Red Stripe Beer in plastic cups, sold by a vendor on the beach. They talk nonstop to each other, talking about Henry mostly, this, a side effect of Lucia’s ongoing need to blow smoke up his ass.
As the sun sets the girls put long t-shirts on, placing the Chis in the doggy box and riding the Vespa back to the tribe's bungalow.
Home, they shower and later Summer Wynd gives the Chis a bath on the front lawn with the garden hose. Pedro the woodpecker runs his beak through his feathers cleaning up in a puddle.
The girls are in the kitchen drinking wine and Lucia asks as Henry walks in,
what-a bout dinner darling? As usual, he has a plan,
I’ll order take away from Hollywood Pizza, we can eat on the coffee table in the living room and watch TV!
Using the kitchen phone he dials up Hollywood Pizza, ordering, Greek salad, sautéed conch, Tortellini with Carbonara sauce, a platter of Italian Deli meats and garlic bread.
The tribe is sitting in the living room and the Chis bark as the doorbell rings, it’s the delivery guy, Lucia opens the door and the guy says,
sorry, I’m late, Hollywood Pizza ain't McDonalds
you know, we cook from scratch! Henry adds,
by the way, my hard and fast rule on McDonalds is— never order food from a clown!
Everyone laughs including the delivery guy and Pedro the woodpecker jumps up and down in place, having picked up on the vibe.
As Henry pays, Lucia brings in eating utensils on a tray, then opening the containers of food and putting them on the coffee table in front of the sofa. As promised, the food is homemade delicious.
Summer Wynd turns on the TV, flipping through channels using the remote, landing on Super Bowl XIX live, this enough reason to open up another bottle of wine and party full-tilt.
It’s 6 PM and the National anthem is being sung by the San Francisco Children’s Chorus, a convenient choice to sing America’s song because the choir is from San Francisco, close to Stanford Stadium in the heart of Silicon Valley.
The Miami Dolphins and the San Francisco 49ers send out 2 players each for the coin toss, carried out via satellite from the White House by Ronald Reagan.
Even before the kickoff, it seems the 49ers have the advantage because the game is being played in Stanford Stadium which is just 5 miles from the team's practice field in Redwood City.
President Ronald Reagan, former governor of California, skillfully tosses the coin in favor of his team the 49ers, who choose to receive.
The game is hawked as a shootout between the 49er’s Joe Montana and the Dolphin’s Dan Morino, but, by the end of the 2nd Quarter, the 49ers take control and never look back, winning the game 38 to 16.
Years later the Oliver Stone film, Any Given Sunday portrays a championship game where San Francisco beats Miami 32 -13. Stone a long time 49ers fan, based his film’s finale on Super Bowl XIX.
The tribe is so waisted by the 3rd period that they can’t remember the halftime show. And Lucia says,
estoy burracho, why are the big chicos dressed in armor running around and knocking each other down? The show is making me dizzy.
Lucia is bored watching a game she doesn’t understand so she and Summer Wynd retreat to the bedroom, passing out on the bed.
Henry’s drunk as the final seconds of Super Bowl XIX tick down. It's a unSuper Bowl of little acclaim, tipped in favor of the 49ers by Ronald Reagan who put the hoodoo on the staged White House coin toss.