I Got a Complex

When I was 10 I couldn't stomach vegetables. When pees were served I’d grab the lot of em; chucking em under the diner table.

My old man, Leonard Lukowski, would jump up red-faced knock me on the floor; kicking me in the ribs until my ma, Dorthy would say,

stop it, Larry, you’re gonna give the kid a complex.

At night my next-door neighbor Gino and I would peep; busting out of our houses through the bedroom windows and roaming the neighborhood looking for partially open shades.

We were fucking shameless; we’d get as turned on watching an old lady strip as a hot teenager.

I was the only gentile in my junior high class. The Jews were top students and I made Cs and Ds, this was expected of goys.

There were some perks having Jewish classmates; going to bar mitzvahs was a gas; dance with teenage yentas, clinging tight, dancing chest to chest, getting loaded on Manischewitz.

I was fuck up my freshman year in high school so my parents sent me to New York Military Academy, where Trump went, he’s older than me, but we heard stories about him; a rich guy with a funny haircut who was on the debate and golf team, laugh. 

I graduated from military school at 18, a Private graduating by a whisker, making tracks for New York City with a few bucks in my pocket.

I lived in Hotel 56; a vagrant shithole, and wino paradise.

During the day I worked at Urban Pour; stocking liquor and doing deliveries, arriving at 9 AM and ducking into the walk-in freezer; jugging 3 cans of Fosters rapid fire.

I’d make deliveries shit-faced, driving a Ford van loaded with booze; there were eye openers behind every door: women with bulbous tits in see-through gowns wanting to get laid, pit bulls ready to attack, old ladies living in houses with carpets reeking of urine, and lonely people pleading with me to stay and have a drink.

In the evenings I’d go out; wearing a blue pin-strip suit, bought off the rack at Goodwill, Fruit of the Loom Ts, long hair in a man bun, and painted eyelashes.

I was a regular at Georgy’s Bar in The Bronx, and my drink was Absinthe; it was the holy fucking trinity, distilled with wormwood, anise, and fennel. The shit sent me to the moon. I'd close Georgy's; hallucinating, blind drunk lost, making it back to Hotel 56 at 4 AM when the garbage men were doing their rounds.    

On days off I'd go to Central Park, loading a mini-back with a bottles of cheap wine, reefer and a straw mat; roaming the plains of the park, camping under American Elms.

In no time I'd be high as a fucking pig on Ripple and reefer.

Out of nowhere, a Black kid walks up to me, he couldn't have been older than 10; I was keen on Black children; young’ns overflowing with esprit and high-octane personalities. He says, 

I'm Pigeon how bout you?

Henry.

Pigeon sits down next to me sayin,

mista, pass dat Ripple over here.

I oblige, passing the bottle which he drains in 1 mighty swig.

In a split second, Pigeon places his little hands on his stomach and spews on my straw mat.

I figured he was a street kid and could handle a drink, but the big gulp did him in.

Holding his hand, we walk at a snail’s pace to 9th Street, hailing a taxi, getting in the back where I ask,

where do you live Pigeon? 

Queens he says, 

what's your address? 

He pulls a piece of well-worn paper out of his pocket and hands it to me, it reads, 

2570 Jamaica Avenue, Room 604.  

It's a 20-minute drive, I pay the hack, Pigeon says,  

Mista Henry come meet my mama, 

He rings 604 and the front door buzzes open, we walk in; there's graffiti on the walls, and the place smells like mildew and garbage.

The elevator is out of commission; we walk up 6 flights of stairs to a 1 bedroom apartment. Pigeon’s mama’s standing with the door open and she asks, 

where u been boy? And, 

who’s the cracka?

I say, 

I’m Henry, and she says, 

I hope you ain’t no perv cause I’ll bust ya up motha fucker,

no ma’am, I’m straight hetero, what’s your name? She warms up some saying, 

Suga darlin, come on in then, Pigeon go to your room you look pasty- faced.

I sit on the sofa and Suga sits next to me, we eyeball one another; she takes off her dress, she’s meaty in all the right places.

We get it on in the usual ways; missionary with a pillow, doggy style, 69. 

2 minutes later I cum, trying to pull out, failing, some goes in,  some spills out. Then Suga says, 

short time be 100 dollas darlin.

The fuck hand nothin to do with love.