A Junkie's Heart

Henry in a funk as he looks at a blank page with nothing in his head—vacantly. 

Maybe the outline he was using to write stories over the last three months was musty—

A}Drinking and writing in his apartment during         the day

B}Leaving his apartment at night time.

C} Going to Chaim’s Deli to nosh

D} Walking through the Bowery

D} Going to a movie in Times Square, a poetry reading or to an opium den in Chinatown. 

E}Going home

9AM off to Chaim’s Deli, Ruby his waitress asking, “Henry did you know Chaim is in the hospital? We are praying for him it’s not good, he has a brain tumor.” Henry saying, “Oh Ruby you think that praying business is going to help? It is rubbish you know.” Ruby saying, “ Henry you’re an awful man, I hate you, you are a real fucker.” He saying, “ Ok Mother Teresa— well who’s cooking tonight? Oh well, can I have a large rice pudding with whip cream on top? The loser cook from Kelly Girl can't fuck up rice pudding.”

The prayer crap intolerable for him, send your prays, we are praying for you and so on. Henry the atheist couldn’t imagine G-d(up there or wherever he is) processing it all. Billions of unique prayers a day streaming through the clouds, singed by flames coming out of jet engines, losing steam sometimes and falling limply back to earth. Billions of angels getting orders from the big chief to fly down to earth and change the path of destiny. G-d mislaying prayers from time to time because He was overworked.

Walking through the Bowery, a group of bums  standing around a fire in a garbage can, shaking off the cold,  Henry asking them to pray for Chaim, the bums saying, “You got it Henry sure thing, how bout a couple of bucks for some wine?” 

Henry walking to a coffee shop in the Village, St. Marks to hear Herbert Huncke read. In his early days Huncke a small time junky hustler and dealer in Times Square. 

Allan Ginsberg and William Burroughs meeting him at Times Square in the forties, asking him to bring junk and syringes to their apartment and teach them to shoot up. 

Huncke later becoming a friend of the Beats, hanging out with them, robbing them blind.

Henry sitting at a small table near the podium, openly smoking a joint. He sees Allan Ginsberg and Huncke walk in. Ginsberg sits at Henry's table and says, "Hi," he passes Ginsberg the joint and orders him a drink. Allen opens up saying, “I have known Herbert for a long time, we were lovers for awhile, he only shoots up from time to time these days, I’m  promoting his writing.” Henry says, “ That’s great Allen, did you know William Burroughs snubbed me?” Ginsberg says,” Oh he snubs everybody, he’s afraid of germs, afraid people might hug him.” 

Huncke makes his way to the podium, his facial skin pulled tight, his skin yellow molting to brown, tea color. He introduces  himself meekly,  bowing slightly then reading—

“lost to the streets — lost completely to a life I once knew — stealing — junk– all night wandering– thru the streets — lost completely to a life I once knew — stealing — junk all night wandering thru the city — no pads– no friends — no way of life– almost convinced prison is a solution — shriveling within at the mere thought — wishing for death — willing death…

Huncke’s stuff straight from the gut, tight and incorruptible, looking you right in the eye. 

“I have been asked many times as is always asked of users of narcotics what a fix does to me — how it feels etc…it helps me to believe in life again at the same time to accept it calmly and with peace.”

“I think I am going insane. I almost hope so. Thoughts rush at one. I am beginning to lose the thread of my story. This happens frequently. Mad thoughts keep occurring to me… All happening to me is unnecessary. It is not important to any cause beyond my own and I am unimportant. Of course it is happening and it is what it is as things are. “

Allen Ginsberg looking at Henry, his eyes full of joy, glimmering, saying,”You see, You see!

Ginsberg inviting Henry to an after reading party in Huncke’s room at the Chelsea Hotel. Henry saying he had to get up early to work at the post office— a lie, he was on welfare.

The reading was enough for Henry, he didn’t need anymore, Herbert Huncke’s from the gut writing a real turn on for him, thinking—

We need allot less bullshit and more from the gut in the world. 

The Last of Vaudeville

Henry weird, seeing things in slow motion—being pulled haltingly forward into the dark.   

Something pulling him into a void— Native American folk tales telling of roving black holes, dark gaseous clouds on the Montana plains pulling old people, young coyotes and rabbits in, taking them away.      

With allot of effort pulling himself out of the gaseous black hole— then off to nosh at Chaim’s Deli.

Sitting in his booth his waitress (Ruby) getting in his face saying, “For the love of God Henry you look as though you have been to hell and back, what happened? He says, “I spent the afternoon fighting off a gaseous black hole that invaded my living room, the black hole of Indian folklore.” Ruby then says,”Henry you are sicker than I ever imagined, go talk to your shrink at welfare tomorrow, please baby.” 

Ruby a one dimensional thinker, a right-brain thinker,  believing in God while denying the existence of roving black holes in Queens.

Henry munching on some well done fries, dipping them in mayo, drinking a Jack and Coca Cola, dazed, leaving Chaim’s Deli at 10PM. 

Things still weird, walking the dark streets of Queens, it was a strange night, even the bums in the Bowery were laying low.  Henry headed to Times Square looking for signs of life.   

Times Square in front of the New Amsterdam Theater, he sees “Mary Poppins” with Julie Andrews is playing. 

The cowboy junk a fixture under the New Amsterdam Theater marquee ropes Henry in saying, “Henry all the dope in China wouldn’t make this film right, don’t even think of buying a ticket, check out the strippers at the Hi Hat Club.”

Henry paying five bucks at the door of Hi Hat Club, a strip joint that served booze showcasing the creme de la creme of Times Square strippers. He sits down at a small table and orders shots of tequila, feeling at home. 

There was a three piece jazz band in front of the shallow stage, three black dudes from Harlem wearing t-shirts and dress pants— bass, drums and sax, junked up some and nodding, eyes shut allot.    

The strip joint moldy, the red velvet curtains dripping as though they were sweating, the place smelled like cum. 

The first act a classy older gal with dyed red hair, Pussy Wilderness—wearing a bear suit that came apart at the seams, slowly stripping off to the sleaziest jazz riffs ever. Very naked at Henry’s table, close to him with her back against him, gyrating back and forth rubbing her ass on his face, he puts his nose into it spot on, her hole smelling like dime store douche.    

Henry does a few lines of cocaine off a plate and orders more shots. Enter stage left an asian gal calling herself Shanghai Sal, with a Betty page style florescent purple wig on her head. The band doing its best to play Duke Ellington’s “Chinoiserie.” 

Sal had the moves, twisting cobra like, beguiling. Her lose fitting kamikaze embroidered kimono off in a flash revealing a thin white skinned body, wearing black bra and panties. Going from table to table, at Henry’s table sitting on his lap, he lays a few lines of cocaine on a plate and Shanghai Sal snorts em up, her eyeballs rolling up into her head as it falls back. 

It was over before it began at the Hi Hat Club, time flying, it was 3AM. The strip show bonafide kosher, the mildew and cum smell, the junked up three piece band, the strippers interpreting and reinventing strip as they went along, each gal with her own motif, everybody turned on in their way.  

The Hi Hat Club light years away from the film “Mary Poppins,”on a planet of it's own, it was a circus, the last of Vaudeville.   

All the World Hyped on Something

Henry sitting on a broken wicker chair needing re-threading—on the tenth floor patio of his Queens apartment, wanting to write and wondering where it would go.

The cool autumn air whispering wind sounds, tugging and pulling Henry out into the night.  

The usual, evening nosh at Chaim’s Deli, at the same booth giving his order to the same waitress for the last ten years. Ruby as usual with something to say, “You happy to see me doll? There’s an empty dry goods storage space near the kitchen with our name on it.” Henry says, “ Sounds great babe, you got anything to eat with my name on it? How about some bagels and chopped chicken liver, borsht and a Jack and Coke to wash it down?” 

Another over the top nosh at Chaim’s Deli, Henry heading downtown, pounding the bricks with serious intent, in a hurry to make the 9PM show at the New Amsterdam theater in Times Square. 

As usual, the cowboy junk was under the marquee jiving— saying to Henry,“ I got some real feel good stuff, cocaine and Thai stick for you tonight — it's a film about love, lost love, lost virginity, love conquered and plastic times in tinsel town.” Cowboy junk, the guy with the best dope in Times Square and the spot-on movie reviews. 

“The Graduate” a film directed by Mike Nichols was playing with Dustin Hoffman and Katherine Ross. Henry sitting in the back row, putting his feet up as he lights some Thai stick, then doing a few lines of cocaine. 

Opening scene Benjamin Brock (Dustin Hoffman) twenty-one years old, driving his red Aston Martin home from Williams College to the sounds of “Scarborough Fair,” Simon and Garfunkel, all of the music in the film by them, utterly great, Henry wasted —grooving on the music.   

Benjamin a victim of his parents summer pool parties and the times, a victim of too many older squares. One corporate guy saying spunky-like,”Ben I just have one word to say —plastic— think about it son!”

Benjamin bored shitless goes upstairs to his bedroom—enter Mrs. Robertson, a friend of his parents and a MILF to boot. Benjamin who is a virgin is intimated by her, but in no time at all they are fucking their brains out in a high-end hotel to the sounds of Simon and Garfunkel’s, “Mrs Robertson.” 

The summer affair goes well until Mrs. Robertson beautiful daughter Elaine comes home from Williams College. Benjamin falls for her and the chase is on—The grand ending,  Benjamin racing all over Southern California looking for Elaine, finding her, then kidnapping her in dramatic style, the pair eloping to Tijuana.

It was a grand soap opera and he liked the music, but he preferred hard edged avant-garde films. 

Thoroughly wasted, off to Chinatown. 

Going to Chow’s Noodle House for a bowl of rice soup and a few drinks. He sits at a round table with a wooden spinner in the middle next to his friend John Chow, a chain smoker and gambler. John says, “Dude you look wasted, what is wrong with you?” Henry saying,” You’re bringing me down China-man, how about we do a few lines?” 

The coke winding John up, he goes into a tirade about his gambling debts, telling Henry that his Chinese bookie and the Chinatown Sun On Yee were going to chop him up and throw the pieces into a vat of chicken broth. 

John then saying, “Henry do you have three hundred grand you can lend me? My life is at stake here.”

Henry replies,”Chow that must be the cocaine talking, I’m on welfare.” 

He tries to pay John Chow for the drinks and noodles but John wouldn’t take his money. 

Happy to escape Chow’s Noodle House, John Chow edgy, hyped on cigarettes and gambling.  

Henry hyped on dope and booze, Benjamin Brock hyped on love, Mrs. Robertson hyped on sex.  

All the world hyped on something. 

Mr Woo

Henry in his Queens apartment on a slack afternoon drinking malt liquor, listening to blues music, WBQI 99.5, getting high, warming up for a big night out. 

Taking a shower, heading out the front door of his Queens thirty-seventh floor apartment at 830PM.

A cool night in the city, Henry ready, his Beduin scarf wrapped around his neck at the right angle, feng shui, giving off voodoo x-rays to scare away lost spirits roaming the streets.   

Stopping in Chaim’s Deli for a tune up. Ruby his regular waitress sashaying sexy like to his booth saying, “Henry have you slept with a women you loved? I’m not talking about the funny business over at Siam Massage, I mean real heartfelt love?” Knowing that Ruby used a different strategy every night, wanting to break him down, he says, “Ruby doll I can’t say that I have made love— ever, you got me there. How is the brisket tonight? Is it well done? You know the way I like it.” Ruby walking away shaking her head—appalled— Henry getting up and leaving knowing he wouldn't get served. 

In the Bowery, wanting to be invisible, a bum smelling like kerosene steps out from the shadows and corners him, Henry pulls a Bic lighter out of his pocket and lights it, holding it in front of the bum's face saying, “Get the fuck out of my way or I’ll light you up.” 

Henry happy to be out of the Bowery, walking to Chinatown, going into a noodle house, a dump with cheap chairs, dingy with flaking red paint on the walls, it was Mr. Woo's. 

He sits down at a table and quickly orders a bowl of lemon soup. A Chinamen in a brown suit wearing a Kangol hat and smoking sits next to Henry putting one arm around him, talking in broken english with a heavy Hong Kong accent. Henry says to the Chinamen, “Do we know each other?” And “I’m not looking for intimacy with a heavy smoker wearing a Kangol hat.”  The Chinaman says, “I’m Mr Woo, I like funny, funny Western boy, Woo got plenty of funny, funny, sexy, sexy for you, China girls— straight, lady-boy, young, old, Thai stick, opium from Shanghai, in Red House.” 

Mr. Woo tweaking Henry’s interest, absorbed he follows Woo to the Red House, a three story brick walk-up painted red with glowing Chinese lanterns swaying in the wind on lines up on the roof. 

Henry follows Woo to the Red House, they walk up three flights of stairs, Woo breathing heavy and walking slow, they reach the roof top. It was spread out and large, a exotic and colorful place, painted lanterns, jazz music (Chet Baker) on the juke box, Chinamen smoking and playing cards with boys or women on their laps, an array of Chinese nymphos wearing Cheongsam dresses or men’s suits sitting in a group of twenty or so, smoking Thai stick, drinking and looking bored. 

Mr Woo takes Henry to an antique counter, a fat Chinese women sitting behind it on a stool says, “One hundred and twenty-five dollar.” Mr Woo disappearing into the shadows, Henry asking, “One hundred and twenty-five dollar for what?” The two-ton China-gal saying, “Everything Western boy, go to second floor, room 7.” 

Henry in room 7, dimly lit, black flaking paint falling off the wall, an occasional mad dashing cockroach, a beautiful Chinese women wearing a see through gown walks in and locks the door behind her. Speaking in a strange voice, soprano with a hint of crowing rooster, saying, “ Hi doll I’m Boom Boom.” She mixes tar opium and Thai stick in a pipe, then pouring tequila into a row of shot glasses on a tray, saying, “ I’m transgender post opt,” lighting the pipe, they smoke and do a few tequila shots. 

Boom Boom laying down on on a rusted metal double bead with a stained mattress, Henry laying down with her. 

He didn’t remember any of the night, the two ton cashier waking him in room 7 that morning, Boom Boom long gone, Henry’s wallet gone as well. 

Taking a taxi to Queens, wondering if he boom boomed Boom Boom that night? Getting  a blood test that afternoon, his life like a Dylan Thomas poem—

    “Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day”

Kerouac

Henry didn’t have any friends and he liked it that way—well, he had Ruby his waitress and May at Siam Massage, but the relationships were based on money exchanged for food or sex.

He was out there, a few million miles out, freakish, a rare duck. Every month the shrink at welfare would say, “Henry have you made any friends? Remember good friends don’t let you do crazy things!”

The shrink doesn’t know anything about me, I’m here because I’m crazy, I get paid welfare money every month because I’m crazy, if I wasn’t crazy I would have to get a job which is out of the question, I’m a creative writer, being a working stiff would break my visionary green twig. 

Night creeping up on the city, Henry itching to get out and walk. He would go to Chaim’s Deli and nosh. 

In his usual booth, Ruby his regular waitress who had a crush on him says,” Henry I have given up on you, you are a nut job, you have the emotions of a five year old, you are blank emotionally, you are a drug addict, I don’t want you anymore.” He says, “ Ruby you know me well, can I have a corn beef and pastrami extra lean on pumpernickel, some fries well done and a Jack Daniels and Coca-Cola?” 

After dinner leaving the deli, walking though the Bowery smoking a joint, just wanting to get through without getting hassled by the bums. 

The bums know their place in the food chain, at the bottom but they're highly evolved—They only care about the next drink, they don’t care if people think they are crazy, they don't care about love. It's all about stoking the fires of the high with whatever fuel they can get their hands on, by any means, it's the bum’s creed.  

He had heard the great Jack Kerouac was reading at the “Gaslight Cafe,” a hangout for beats and literati, Kerouac had hung out there for years. It was a non publicized reading, first come first serve, only a few lucky folks knew, Ruby had overheard customers talking about the reading.  

Henry at the “Gaslight Cafe” early, at 830PM, sitting at the bar, no cover charge. Within minutes an ocean of people swarmed the place, they had to bolt the double doors at the entrance to keep people out.  

Henry eyeballing the place, noticing that Kerouac was siting at the bar drinking a few barstools away.  Kerouac in his late forties, looking haggard, drinking gallons of cheap wine in his life, like the bums or hobos he idolized and wrote about in "The Dharma Bums,"  to escape from something, something that only he knew.  

Kerouac makes his way to a small black podium not far from the bar. Squinting in the harsh light, he tells the bartender to dim the lights and bring him a drink, then saying, “ I dig jazz, I can remember hearing jazz for the first time when I was at Columbia, walking the streets at night as sounds start to come from a nightspot, filling me with a yearning for an intangible joy—it was jazz baby.” 

Henry felt empathy with the great Kerouac, the beatnik walking the city streets at night like Henry did, wasted and looking for signs of weird life on the streets to write about. 

Kerouac shuffling through papers, poems typed on yellow paper, typed out jazz riffs, it was his stuff, sacred dogma a million years old. 

“Stare deep into the world before you as if it were the void: innumerable holy ghosts, buddhies, and savior gods there hide, smiling. All the atoms emitting light inside wavehood, there is no personal separation of any of it. A hummingbird can come into a house and a hawk will not: so rest and be assured. While looking for the light, you may suddenly be devoured by the darkness and find the true light.”

Reading from an old tattered copy of his book, “On the road.” He used language like it was a saxophone or a bongo drum, as though he invented onomatopoeia, inventing rhythmic words.

Writing like Whitman, great like Whitman.

“I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was - I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.” 

The reading winding down to a whisper as Kerouac evaporated in cloud of smoke, disappearing like a ghost. 

Henry didn’t remember going home that night, the Jack Kerouac reading taking everything out him. 

Kerouac the 20th Century Lao Tzu knowing that—

Music in the soul can be heard by the universe. 

He Couldn't Love

Henry sitting in a chair on his apartment's balcony all afternoon— enjoying the last rays of sun on an Indian Summer day— smoking a hashed laced joint, in a cozy dream, wanting to stay there.

8PM, the night air pulling him, there was a hidden secret at the end of it that was impossible to know. It was a beautiful women stripping slowly, never taking it all off. 

Out the door of his Queen’s apartment by 830PM, stopping by Chaim’s Deli to eat. He sat in the same booth and gave his order to the same waitress every night. 

Ruby his waitress getting real close to him, her face almost on his face. She says, “You know Henry I love you with all I have baby and want you, but you're a empty page when it comes to love.” Henry taken back says, “Jesus Christ Ruby are you going to take my order or slobber all over me?” He orders potato pancakes with apple sauce and a Vernor’s ginger ale which he spikes with cough syrup.  

Henry knew he was a slob when it came to love, that he could neither accept or give love. Love for him was kissing May at Siam Massage while getting a hand-job. 

Leaving Chaim’s and catching a taxi across town to Times Square, he sees “8 1/2” the Federico Fellini film is playing at the New Amsterdam Theater. He was just in time for the last show. 

The cowboy junky who was always under the marquee sees Henry and says, “I have mind blowing liquid heroin I’m selling in small blue vials” and “Henry you don’t know how to love, maybe this Italian film will teach you a lesson in humility and love.” Henry thinking, what the fuck, how would he know? 

Sitting in the back row he pours the vial of liquid heroin into a cup of iced Coca-Cola, before long he's off to elysian fields.

“8 1/2” a highly visual and fast moving film within a film. A view from behind the director and the cameraman and a view of Italian fancy, pasta eating and love mixed with an overload of bouncy, kaleidoscopic, om-pa-pa circus music in the background.  

Henry way deep into the opium, his libido, eros and anima magically linking with that of the “8/12” lead character Guido, Marcello Mastroianni. Guido and Henry on a mountain top standing before God, their souls laid bare for Him to see. (God looking like Sigmund Feud). 

God asking the pair— both staring blankly, dumb-fucked, “Did you have sex with your mothers?” And saying “You clowns don't know how to love, you're guilty of having sex out of wedlock. Say the Hale Mary prayer on every bead of the rosary over and over until your fingers bleed and your minds become numb.” 

“8 1/2” was without a proper ending. Guido, Fellini, the cameraman and the nympho prostitute Saraghina ending up where they began, no-where. 

Henry an atheist without a rosary to bleed on, unable to love, he couldn’t feel love. 

Did he have sex with his mother? Was he repressing the memory of it in his deep subconscious? The shrink he visited once a month at the welfare office was no fucking help—

In all things love, Henry was hopeless. 

The Zen Poet

Henry mucho hombre, awake while the sun was still shining—up early at 11AM, writing the afternoon away, the sacred Sanskrit text flowing through him and onto the empty white pages, it was nothing short of a fucking miracle. 

His last twenty-five stories could be summed up in outline form as follows—

A)  Going for a walk in New York City, seeing a movie.

B) Taking a bus trip out of New York State.

C) Going for a walk in New York City, smoking opium in Chinatown or eating a bowl of noodles.

D) Going to a poetry reading, listening to a poet read. 

***An exception***

Taking a trip to upstate New York.

Henry Miller put together an outline that he based all of stories and books on in one all night pot smoking session while staying in Big Sur in the forties. 

Henry is no Henry Miller, but he felt his last twenty-five stories were solid and his best work to date.  

Out the door of his Queens apartment at 8PM. 

It was fall on the East Coast, Henry had a taste for what they called, “Sugaring off” in Vermont. They would pour freshly harvested maple syrup into shallow two inch by two inch half spheres carved in rows into a block of ice. Then putting a popsicle stick into the cooling syrup and twisting the stick until the syrup hardened, making a soft maple syrup sucker— an out of the world taste. 

Maybe next year he thought. 

As usual Chaim's Deli, first stop. Thinking of “Sugaring off” he orders buckwheat pancakes with plenty of artificial maple syrup on top. He then washes the cakes down with coffee and Sabra liqueur mixed. It was Ruby his regular waitress’s day off. 

Leaving the deli at 830PM, walking face first into a cool pre-winter breeze, wrapping an Arab scarf around his head like he was in a sand storm, Beduin style.  

A poet, Gary Snyder, was reading at MaMO art museum in the Lower Eastside, near Soho. Henry had heard of him, he was Japhy Ryder in Kerouac’s “The Dharma Bums.” Snyder a holier than thou, pure as mountain snow Zen prophet and nature lover, less open, more disciplined and much more anal than the rest of the beats.  

Henry had to take a taxi to MaMO to make the reading on time, paying 25 bucks at the door—allot of money to hear a Zen monk read in that monks aren’t supposed to touch money. 

Sitting in the mid section of the auditorium, the smell of pachouli oil everywhere, Henry looking through a forest of dread locks and braided hair. 

Gary Snyder right on time, 9AM at center stage, standing  proud and tall, the great white buffalo staring the audience down as if he was Crazy Horse himself.    

As Snyder began reading, Henry realized that he hated everything about Gary Snyder’s sanctimonious and winsome poetry—

A small cricket

on the typescript page of

"Kyoto born in spring song"

grooms himself

in time with The Well-Tempered Clavier.

I quit typing and watch him through a glass.

How well articulated! How neat!

Henry getting up quickly at intermission and running for the exit, ending up stage left, at the wing of the stage. Per chance bumping into Gary Snyder, knocking him down. 

The poet gets up and looks at him saying, “ You should be aware of every step you take, walk softly and look yonder as though you where on top of five mountains.” 

Henry looks at the Zen poet and says, “ Get off of your fucking cloud Mr. Zen poet and take a yogic breath of the mind altering diesel fumes all around you when you walk in the city.”

Henry missed the  second half of Gary Snyder’s reading. Taking a taxi straight to the Bowery to party with the bums, getting wasted out of his gourd at “Suicide Hall,”  desperately needing to shake off the Zen poetry of Gary Snyder. 

Space Cowboys

Henry half in the bag, sleeping most the day, getting up at 8PM, showering then ready to rumble.

It was fall in Queens, the air summer dry, the night-time sky glowing red, a warning and an omen to sailors cruising the canyons of New York City, looking for everything in the world. 

Henry out of his apartment by 1030 PM walking to Chaim’s Deli, only a few steps away. 

Sitting in his favorite booth, the red vinyl seats were very worn, torn in places, covered with duct tape to keep the stuffing in. 

Ruby Henry’s regular waitress approaches saying, “Hi baby?” A warm greeting for an old friend, Henry with a big grin on his face. He orders a piece of noodle kugel and large espresso, pouring Southern Comfort in the coffee from a flask.

Walking out of the deli, saying good-bye to Ruby and Chaim, leaving a hefty tip because his welfare money was in. 

Henry looking for cheap thrills in the Bowery, going to a dive called “Suicide Hall.”  The bums were there, they were always there. They lived for the moment drinking cheap wine, Mad Dog 20-20 or Mogen David, drinking it with kerosene or lighter fluid for the extra kick.   

A few of them, those that could still stand were in the corner gambling on cockroach races. Others passed out in their own vomit, dying maybe. Henry standing with his back to the bar watching the show, Suicide Hall a odious and vile place, the bums screaming and pissing themselves like babies.  

Henry happy to get out of Suicide Hall, walking past bodies on the sidewalk. The Bowery an end game and sacred burial place for bums. 

Henry wanted to catch the midnight show at the New Amsterdam Theater in Times Square. A new film, “Easy Rider” was showing. 

In front of the New Amsterdam Theater, under the marquee, was the usual junk, keyed up, shaking, jiving, selling dope as he critiqued films. Saying,   ” “Easy Rider,”  an epic tale, take a few tabs of Chocolate Mescaline man, you won’t regret it.”  

Sitting in the back row, Henry coming on to the mescaline, lighting a joint, nobody seemed to care. 

“Easy Rider” opening scene, the sounds of “The Pusher,” cowboys Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda on motorcycles doing a cocaine deal with the pusher Phil Spector at LAX, heading across country on Harleys to find America.

Henry high on mescaline, the movie screen waxing, moving towards him—the cowboys on Harleys riding through wheat fields, the blades of wheat swaying to the sounds of “So You Want to be a Bird,” growing larger and longer, coming out of the screen towards Henry. 

Henry felt like he was inside and a part of the film, with the cowboys sitting around the campfire, talking to them, smoking grass with them,  

Henry in and out of consciousness, waking as the cowboys were at the Mardi Gras, then astral projecting outwards and upwards, levitating somewhere far away from the theater.   

Not remembering much of the film, but remembering being shaken by the usher and being asked to leave. 

The mescaline was very powerful, Henry still tripping as he left the New Amsterdam Theater, needing to crash and burn he goes to Siam Massage to get a rub-down from May, the two smoking dope and laughing. 

May asking him if he liked “Easy Rider?” He says, “ May I don’t remember much of the film, it was a romp I guess, two space cowboys on Harleys riding through the heavens, smoking allot of dope, banging some hippy chicks in a New Orlean's graveyard,” so on and so forth. 

He passes out in May’s lovely tattooed arms, spending the night at Siam Massage—

Henry at peace in an Asian angels arms, smiling inside.  

A Higher Calling

Henry in his Queens apartment at 9AM ready to go out for a walk in the city.

It was fall night at the end of October, Indian Summer before the cool arctic wind descended on the East Coast. 

Henry dressed to go, wearing a black suit with a white t-shirt and Converse low tops. 

And so on and so forth—total horse-shit, Henry writing mindless on automatic-pilot allot, writing dumb shit, thinking of Michael McClure for a second— a guy dressed up in a t-shirt and suit wearing an inverted wooden cross, looking priestly, selling Catholic angst about masturbating alter boys to Hollywood.   

Henry in his Queens apartment, unable to get out of bed, broken-hearted, drunk and junked up plenty— dumped by May(a non therapeutic sex working Asian chic and junky sucking every cock that came down the pike at Lee's Massage in Queens) regardless— still the best cock sucker in the universe. 

Henry wanting to be anywhere but in realty, drinking and snorting eight-balls, fighting it (realty) off, unable to look reality in the eye, he didn’t belong there.   

Henry the junk king in a dream, a million fingers massaging his cock and his soul lomi lomi style all at once, decidedly carnal and out of this world. Stuff that would scare the 9 to 5 stiffs.   

At 2AM May shows up at Henry’s apartment, screaming as she pounds oh his door, he lets her in. May looking shaggy, crying and begging him to take her back. He says, “You know I love you May but I sit at home in the day thinking about you sucking cock at Lee's Massage.”  May then says, “Yes I’m a cock sucker baby, but it’s a kind of higher calling for me, I feel that I make people happy, that I bring joy and happiness into their lives.”  

Henry dumb-fucked, sorry he let May in, getting a sick felling inside, wanting to escape somehow, unable to get a handle on cock sucking as a higher calling. Saying to May,” Baby thats wonderful, I’m happy that you have found G-d in your own way, well, my parakeet collapsed in his cage and I’m heart broken, baby I’m going to lay down, you better get back to work sweety, I’ll call you later.”

Henry feeling over powered, knocked out by May’s heart felt shtick, what could he say? May doing G-d’s work, it was something bigger than him, who was he to call her out? 

Henry a junk on crazy pay,  he was nobody to judge.     

The Opium Den

Henry in his Queens apartment, ready.

Summer nights in the city, tranquil, yet rough around the edges, there was a feeling that some shit could come down in a New York minute, anywhere. 

Chaim’s Deli, 10PM, Henry in his usual booth chating up his usual waitress, Ruby. He was hungry and ordered a large bowl of borsht with sour cream and allot of pepper, as well as some chopped chicken liver to spread on bagels. 

Henry hits the bricks around 11PM, blowing Ruby a kiss as he walks out, headed to the Village for some coffee, running and covering his face with a newspaper through the Bowery, wanting to by-pass the stank and bullshit of the bums.

Going to an all-night coffee shop, simply called “Joe,” ordering espresso with Irish Whiskey, eye-balling the joint. After a few Irish Coffees Henry heads to Chinatown, bored out of his gourd at Joe.   

The Village too conventional for him, the 9 to 5 working stiffs had taken it over, dressing like beatniks and hippies, weekend cool, still stiff in the day. He knew of a wonderful little opium den in Chinatown, above a Chinese Laundry.

By 1PM Henry was in Chinatown in front of Lee’s Chinese Laundry, he knew it well. 

The double doors to the entry were unlocked, marked by two red lanterns.  He makes his way up a dimly lit stairway to a long hallway.  At the end of the hallway there was a glowing yellow door, he could smell burnt tar opium. 

He knocks on the yellow door and an old Chinese lady, dressed traditionally, asks him to take off his street shoes and to put on a pair of cloth slippers. 

The room was dark, there were a dozen Chinamen laying parallel on straw mates in the opium den, either smoking opium or passed out in a dream. 

Henry loved the place, the old Chinese gal sets him up with a loaded pipe and a mat to lay on, sitting on a small wood stool next to him, lighting his pipe and saying, “ Oh we don’t see many foreign man here, only no good lazy Chinaman.”

Henry sucks in the smoke of burning opium, going into a dream. He sees himself hovering on the ceiling looking down at the others in the room, dreaming beautiful multicolored dreams, feeling warm inside, his body free from pain, outside of waking consciousness. 

At 9AM still in a dream, he feels a small hand tugging on and pushing his shoulder—  the opium maid says, “Pay and get out, go home.” 

On the street in Chinatown, he covers his eyes to avoid the glare of the red morning sun, just wanting to make it home, close his curtains and escape the daylight. 

He remembered little of the night in the opium den or the dreams he had, but he felt it was a pleasant, he felt wonderful inside. 

At home in bed feeling he could sleep a hundred years.  

The Rat's Wheel

Henry sitting uncomfortably bent on his futon, the frame staked up sofa-like, writing on a lap-top. 

It was a spring afternoon, mild, warm and lazy. A sweet scented air-tide flowing all the way from Central Park through the window of his Queen’s apartment— sent by the gods of spring, special delivery.   

Adjusting the futon frame in a more comfortable position, rolling a joint— wanting to stay in this moment forever. It was a beaming, rapturous moment, a light-bulb moment, Henry smiling inside, peeking. 

His cell phone ringing the sound of Honky Tonk Women, it was Mai from Siam Massage wanting to know if he was coming tonight? 

At the end of the month Henry’s crazy pay was below empty. He would have to be creative, only cheap thrills tonight.

Luckily Chaim let Henry run a tab at the deli.  Ruby his regular waitress happy to see him says, ”Jesus Christ Henry you’re radiating health, you were on deaths door just a few days ago.” He says, “ I spent four hours a day in the sauna at the YMCA for a week, black tar-like poison oozing out of my body and I did some inner work, tantric yoga stuff.”

He ordered a double pastrami and chicken liver sandwich on pumpernickel, as well as a glass of Fritz’s Cream soda, mixing it with Mescal. 

Henry dancing out of Chaim’s Deli, broke and on fire, walking to and into the Bowery. The Bums who fucked with him night after night couldn’t touch him tonight, they could see he was protected by armor blocking the Bum’s wino X-ray beams.

Stopping in Cheap Shots Tavern, a dive outside of the Bowery, a shit-hole for barflies. Barflies a cut above Bums, on their way to the Bowery, it was just a matter of time. For Henry Cheap Shots Tavern, just a place he went to drink at the end of the month, cheap thrills. 

He orders a shot of Mescal and a beer chaser. Sitting on a bar stool eyeing his image in a mirror line from age, behind the bar. He was thin, with a Mediterranean nose (broken more than once) a wrinkled half moon face protruding from a roundish hallo of unkept curly white hair. 

In a bar trance, feeling invisible, not wanting to be visible in the shit hole, Cheap Shots Tavern. 

Around midnight a hooker sits next to Henry, he had seen her before on 42 Street. She was black women, slender, wearing a jump suit with a large orange and blue afro wig on her head, something you would wear to a Denver Broncos game. 

She says to Henry, “ I haven't always been a hooker, I have a degree in Dental Hygienics, but when the sub-prime mortgage crisis hit,” and so on and so forth, he had heard the same story so many times.  He says, “Save it, I have heard it before, how about we slip out back to the alley and smoke a joint.” Henry lights a joint and passes it to Miss no name, knowing she had a alias, street name, like Cherry, Ripple, or Sweety. She puts her arms around him pulling him closer, dry humping him, pressing into him. He says, “Spare me baby, you might do some serious damage, let’s go back inside and have a drink.” After a few more drinks Miss no name says, “ I gotta go to work, thanks doll.”

2 AM Henry leaving Cheap Shot Lounge, waking up the following mourning on his futon fully dressed, wondering how he got home? His life a rollercoaster ride, stuck on a rat’s wheel.

A writer needs to look eyes wide open at the freak show, running a hundred miles a hour into it. He needs all of it— the good, the bad, the sublime, the vile, the just and the unjust. The wheel keeps on spinning, it doesn't stop for anybody.