Henry’s up at 10 AM, making toast and coffee. National elections in the US are going on, he doesn’t know or care who won. He listens to blues, Lucia Spann, and Little Walter on WXXY, all blues out of New York radio.
He takes a hot shower and dresses, it’s a cold, fall, October day— he wears kakis, a black leather jacket, and a Mets stocking cap with his waist-length hair wrapped inside.
His first stop is Jimmy’s Bar in Harlem, it’s noon, ordering a beer with lunch, fried grits, beans, a ham steak, and mashed sweet potatoes.
Henry minds his own business as he eats, an odd character, an art student type, wearing a toupee, polyester pants, and shirt asks if he can sit down, the kid brings his drink, sitting and saying to Henry,
dude this country sucks, as soon as I graduate from Pratt I’m moving to Morocco, Henry asks,
why don’t you rent an old flat and paint, or get a job designing logos, there's no work in Morocco. The kid says,
I want to hang out in Tangiers like Burroughs, Henry asks,
are you gay?
yes.
Henrys tells him,
You'll find plenty of action in Tangiers, Morrocan boys dancing on cafe tables, but the Beat thing is done, finished buddy, trekking Morrocos' Mount Toubkal is dangerous— it’s infested with the ISIS army, they will cut your head off, you’re safer in Harlem. It’s your call buddy. Look, I wanna finish eating, good luck whatever you do.
The art student moves to the bar.
Henry is in his 40s, he’s been a ganja dealer for a long time, as well as writing late into the night, short stories, blogging them online, he's no Steven King.
It's a sunny and semi-cool Indian Summer day. A sweet time of the year with plenty of delicious apple cider and rare apples available. Henry places Indian corn on a shrine in his apartment to ward off evil spirits, which show regardless.
From Jimmy’s Bar, the next stop is the infamous Whitehorse Tavern. It's the oldest bar in New York, the one where Dylan Thomas drank himself to death.
The one-time hang-out for Beats, Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Burroughs, who would pack a pistol, a few abstract impressionists, Motherwell, Jackson Pollack, and the writer James Baldwin. Hunter S. Thompson wrote part of The Rum Diary there while working as a copyboy at The New York Post.
Henry finds an empty table outside because it's cool overlooking the Hudson River.
He manages to sell 6 ozs, clients sit and talk a bit, and the trade-off is done on the sly.
His x Cuban wife Lucia shows, dropped from the heavens perhaps.
They embrace, overjoyed to run into each other, ordering Irish coffee, enjoying being outside on the grey Hudson River which gives off a fishy smell. Apparently, there are fish in the city portion, and people fish there.
Henry invites Lucia to his apartment for a drink. She recently broke up with her black girlfriend, a ballet dancer.
They take a taxi to his flat, he lives on the 11th floor. It’s an old building with large rooms. Thankfully the elevator is well-maintained, he imagines a cable breaking causing it to drop, but the elevator has multiple safety mechanisms.
Henry's 2-room apartment is furnished creatively with odd furnishings from second-hand outlets, the walls are covered with Cy Twombly ripoffs scribbled by Henry with pencil and felt tip pens, the homemade art emboldens the flat with a modern feeling.
He makes Cuba Libres in large mugs with chipped ice. Lucia gets to the point,
Querido, my lover, Sarafina the dancer kicked me out, she found someone else.
I’m looking for work and need a place to stay. It
was a Godsend that I ran into you.
Henry still loves Lucia saying,
Wonderful, I make good money selling weed but you might want to do your own thing, work at Macy's or Bloomingdales as a clerk, or dress the mannequins, they make good friends, they're obedient, and don't talk back. Your good looking and have a good figure, so you'll get hired.
I’m a good girl Querido
Yes, you are, blessed to have absconded Cuba, life is tough there. Lucia says,
I still love you, Henry, we are still married you know, Henry chuckles saying,
you mean we forgot to get divorced, I love you too.
You never know what’s in the cards, within hours of meeting the lovers are living together, married. Henry says excitedly,
The Night of the Iguana is on cable TV this evening.
They order takeaway, food, from a Thai place called Mi Cow Chi, dim sum, green curry soup, rice, and egg rolls, eating in the living room in front of the TV,
The Night of the Iguana is a play by Tennessee Williams who did the screenplay for the film as well, living in Puerta Villarta, Mexico, boozing and giving guidance to director John Houston on the set.
The black and white film opens as the Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon, played by Richard Burton has a nervous breakdown while delivering a sermon in a Virginia Episcopal church, instead of preaching the gospel to the conservative flock he rants about their phony piety, and the churchgoers walk out before the service is over, hence Shannon is defrocked by the bishop.
Shannon travels to Puerto Vallarta, working as a guide for a run-down tour company, escorting a busload of spinsters, and a teenage nymphet named Charlotte Goodall, who is being chaperoned by the group's leader, the resolute, hyperactive Judith Fellowes.
Miss Fellowes, a spinster, is jealous because Charlotte is falling for Shannon. She discovers the nymphet in his hotel where the two are talking and calls the tour company to get him fired.
To thwart the plot Shannon takes control of the bus from the handsome gringo driver, Hank, taking the tour group on a wild ride through the Mexican jungle to the crumbling, secluded hotel of his old friend Maxine Faulk, played by Ava Gardner.
Maxine is recently widowed, and runs the hotel by herself, with the help of a Chinese cook who likes to smoke weed and two sexy Mexican marimba boys who she swims in the sea with at night.
Maxine and Shannon have known each other for years, they have eyes for each other until he becomes enamored with a new guest. Hannah Wilkes shows broke with her grandfather, a 90-year-old white-haired poet on his last legs, Nanno, she does sketches and Nanno recites his poems to get by as they travel.
Hannah Wilks is a good woman, she helps Shannon get back his sanity, after he has another nervous breakdown on the hotel balcony she restrains him in a hammock with the help of the marimba boys and Maxine.
While Shannon is in his hammock straight jacket, she brews opium tea, as he sips the tea, she talks him down, fortifying him, bringing him back to his senses,
Later the same night Nanno dies in his and Hannah's room after completing his swan song. The following day Hannah travels somewhere in the world and Shannon shacks up with Maxine, the couple will run the hotel.
The last scene is symbolic, an Iguana that has been tied in a noose of twine on the balcony throughout the film is freed by one of the marimba boys, denoting the exodus of Shannon's demons.
Henry and Lucia like the film, neither of their lives resemble any of the characters in The Night of the Iguana.
Lucia gets a job selling makeup at Macy’s, Henry continues selling weed, and undertakings for the couple are right as rain during the coming years.
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