Leather

In the early 70s, I bought a 65 Dodge Polara Station wagon with a V8 engine from Randy Smeltzer for 200 dollars. His family owned Smeltzer Leather, a factory on the Milwaukee River. 

They made leather clothes and purses, and, Randy gave me a pair of leather pants. You could wear them for months, occasionally dry cleaning them.

Bikers like the Outlaws, Bandidos, and Hells Angels had a unique approach to caring for leather. Pissing and puking on a new leather vest.

The Smeltzer factory belched the smoke of brewing chemicals, venting it through open windows with fans, and letting the goo bleed into Milwaukee River.  

Out for a drink at Ernst Bar, I tell Randy, 

your leather factory pollutes the river and the rest of the city, he says, 

it’s commerce Henry, the world needs quality leather products, 

Whataya gonna say? I tell him, 

I see Randy.

We ordered a pitcher of German beer.

Randy was a numerologist, I tell him, 

I slept with Cindy Waxman a week ago. 

So Randy does the numbers on Cindy Waxman with a pen on the back of a paper place mate, using calculus to do a numerical horoscope telling me,

she has the clap, 

I buy penicillin tablets from Walgreens, feeling like slut. 

At my East Side apartment, I pack a few things, leaving behind, furniture, pots, a TV, oriental carpets, owing 2 months' rent, 

minus the deposits.

I schlep a mattress, a woven straw mat, and pillows downstairs, fashioning an area to sleep in the wagon bed. 

Upstairs— I toss some clothes in a duffle bag.

I don't care for guns, knives, or brass knuckles, I had a Bowie knife which I threw in the Kinnickinnic River, watching it float south.

At a 7 11 in Waukegan, Illinois, I buy a styrofoam cooler, filling it with ice, beer, 2 pints of Jack Daniels, and some ham and cheese sandwiches.  

I read a short story by Ernst Lang, 

I drive through a tunnel on the bed of the Hudson River, take Highway 57 to 70, then 80 West listening to country music on the station wagon radio. 

George Jones, Merle Haggard, and Willy Nelson are my favorites, I like to braid my hair like Willy.

In rural Pennsylvania, I turn off the highway and parallel park at a cornfield, getting out of the car and picking a green ear of corn, pulling the pubic-like hair out, and husking the ear, the corn is rubbering and good for nothing.

Feeling car sick and bored with driving, I park my car at Toledo Municipal Airport, grab my duffle bag, abandoning the wagon and all the shit inside. 

At the airport, I buy a one-way ticket to Los Angeles on US Air. 

My seat's in the middle of the fuselage, next to a Catholic priest. I'm not interested in religion so we have little to say to one another. 

4 hours later the jet lands at LAX, I grab my bag at the baggage carousel, then catch a shuttle bus to the Sunset Strip, where I check in the Flamingo Motel, it's 2 stories with a swimming pool, the desk clerk asks, 

short or long time? I ask,

do you have a monthly rate? 

He gives me a monthly rate of 350 dollars.

After showering, I walk the Strip, where there's every kind of action your heart desires, it's an odd mix of people.

I step into Lal-LAh massage, asking the mamasan, 

how bout a middle-aged Filipina with a big ass? 

I get a straight massage because I can’t get it up. 

Needing a drink, I duck into the Uptown bar, sitting in a booth and ordering a pitcher of Miller Lite.

The batender says, 

my names Johnny, who are you?

Henry Lucowski, 

Johnny has hair like Elvis, dyed blue-black and slicked back. He says,

fella you look like Elvis’ can you tend bar, 

I sure can, 

Okay, you can work days starting tomorrow. 

So, the dye is cast, at 10 every morning after coffee, I smear sunblock all over my face and walk the blazing hot sidewalks of the strip to the Uptown Bar.

I was a sunblock fanatic because my Uncle Hank lost his nose to sinus cancer, instead of paying surgeons to rebuild it, he had an artist weld a metal nose, sanding, and shining it.

Uncle Hank would place the polished metal nose in his empty probosci socket, keeping it in place using a buckskin tie wrapped around his head. 

Losing your nose to cancer isn't easy for anyone.