It's Nothing, Like Nothing, Nothing at All

Henry with more than a few things on his mind, allot of it being written now.

A poem by the black poet Ismael Reed comes to mind, Henry remembered reading it in high school in the early sixties. The line that is edged in his consciousness was —I am a cowboy in the boat of Ra,

I am a cowboy in the boat of Ra. Boning-up in

the ol’ West i bide my time. You should see

me pick off these tin cans whippersnappers. 

I write the motown long plays for the comeback of Osiris. Make them up when stars stare at sleeping

steer out here near the campfire. Women arrive

on the backs of goats and throw themselves on

my Bowie.

Ismael Reed later calling the OJ trial a telecommunicational lynching and so on—

Ismael was at his best, feral and juiced up on the boat of Ra, sitting at a campfire with ladies who come and go stage left and right on the backs of multicolored goats. 

Somewhere in the vast African nowhere land.

Henry itching some, he had been snorting smack in his Queen’s digs— 

thinking of Ray Charles, 

Wondering some, but knowing that the genius of Ray Charles was his music which was written in junk.  

Henry a lifetime user of every dope out there and booze too, laughing out loud when he thought of Keith Richards and Ray getting busted by flat foot cops, both saying to the cops,

I don’t bother anybody, I use that’s all, what business is it of yours? 

Henry had been holed up in his Queen’s digs for a month or so, going out occasionally to score dope or to buy staples, beans, rice, tortillas, and booze.

The time was late evening, somewhere between 1970 and 1980. It was time to revel, time to honor what was left of life, time to dance on the sacred sidewalks of New York City. 

The air was cool that evening, Henry dresses warm—black leather pants and a flannel shirt, then walking a few blocks to Chaim’s Deli.

Sitting in his favorite booth, Ruby his regular waitress walks over to him and gets in his face right away, saying,

Henry where have you been, don’t you answer your phone anymore? I have been trying to call you for the last month, Chaim figured you had overdosed for sure.

Henry a black and decomposing maggot-ridden corpse, that's the stuff.  

Henry then says to Ruby,

Ruby baby, you know me, I just got strung out you know, the usual same old. I'm famished doll, how about a Reuben sandwich, a plate of fries, some borsht and a bottle of cream soda to wash it down. 

Henry finishes his meal and then walks around the deli, thanking anybody he sees for being there, they were his family, everybody, all of them the family of man. 

Invigorated by the cool night air, in the Bowery, walking up to a group of bums hovering around a fire in a garbage can to keep warm and saying,

Jesus, I’ve missed you guys, good to see the bums of the Bowery alive and kicking!

It’s the bum’s resilience, what else could it be? 

Henry walking to Times Square to see a movie called Chappaqua, showing at the New Amsterdam Theater. He buys a ticket and looks around for the cowboy junk, who was usually under the marquee critiquing the films and selling dope. 

Inside the theater, he asked the usher what had happened to the cowboy junk? The usher says smiling, his teeth dripping green cheese,

oh, they locked him up in Ryker’s Isle for a while, my manager didn't like his action and had him committed.

Chappaqua was a mad-house of a film, made in the 60s. An autobiographic journey put together over 3 years by Conrad Rooks, a Joseph Conrad style spiral into darkness with a shit load of tripped out cameos and other contributions by Beat nobility and varied artist.     

Henry sits in the back row. He had a hit of acid he had found a few days ago in the pocket of the buckskin vest he wore to the Woodstock festival, he drops the small tab, washing it down with Jack Daniels out of the bottle, you could fuck in the aisles of the New Amsterdam if you wanted, it was that kind of place.  

The film shot in the style of a Robert Frank home movie, unclear, dark, in black and white. The images are Cocteau like and are taken from Frank stills. The music is very turned on, way out stuff by Ornette Coleman and Ravi Shankar. 

The opening scene, a camera pans a street in New York, unclear, black and white glowing images, then cutting to a bit of The Fugs playing in a club. 

After the number is finished the lead singer steps on and smashes sugar cubes of LSD into dust on stage as if to say— 

Let the trip begin. 

Henry coming on to the Woodstock Festival leftover acid as the film enters trip mode, it was magical timing, serendipity to boot.   

Everything peachy—I’m glad, I’m glad, I’m glad, the warm warm feeling of dope percolating inside your being as the glorious hallucinations raise up into Heaven. 

Allen Ginsburg playing finger cymbals as he chanted mantras of Hare Krishna.  

Now and forever spiraling upwards into a yellow circle of light, merging with something which ended the same way it started, oddly going nowhere.

Henry coming down off the acid as he leaves the New Amsterdam Theater, his mind blank—the usher asking him what he thought of the film Chappaqua? Henry replying,

it was nothing, like nothing, nothing at all. 

The thick and unhip usher with cheesy teeth didn't seem to get it.

If you think you’re getting a refund you're wrong, you know where the exit is, don't miss it Henry!

Henry walking out through the exit, walking all the way home to Queens, later waking in his bedroom and going to take a pee— 

Wondering why his pajamas where were hanging loosely on his body?    

A Trip to Behold

Henry in his Queens apartment drinking German beer— it was fall, the year was somewhere between 1970 and 1980. He's listening to a Met’s night game on the radio. What the score was didn't matter, he listened to the sound of the game like it was music, it relaxed him. 

He had been reading the stories of John Cheever over the past week, Cheever was a lion.

Cheever was a writer who placed language above plot, he was known as the suburban Chekov.  

He often said that alcohol was creative juice, saying,

The excitement of alcohol and the excitement of fantasy are similar.

And,

I stayed up late, drank a pint of bourbon, and worked like a streak on Thursday. I hope it has nothing to do with the degeneration of the tissues. 

Henry had seen the film, The Swimmer starring Burt Lancaster that was based on the Cheever story of the same name. He remembers Lancaster looking great in a swimsuit, going from pool to pool in a New England suburb, and the occasional make-out sessions with suburban housewives in two-piece swimsuits next to swimming pools. 

At one point the swimmer, Natty was his name, swims 4 miles in 8 different pools in one hour. As Henry watched the film he got the feeling that Natty was—going off the deep edge in the deep end of the swimming pool. Natty succeeded in escaping the mundane facts of his own existence regardless. 

Cheever saw stories in people he saw walking down the street, or in conversations he overheard, scraps that shaped his award-winning work. 

He saw the advent of modern life in the 20th Century as the end of communalism resulting in a rootlessness which lay at the heart of a new evil. 

Cheevers continued to believe in modern life though, his writing was partly an effort to find a—miracle resolve. 

His work a dialogue between good and evil spinning like a wheel in circular motion, the yin, and the yang. 

Henry was hungry by 830PM, so he showered, dressed and snorted a few lines of cocaine, the beer he drank during the day had deadened his mind.

He would leave his apartment building and take the short walk to Chaim’s Deli. When he gets there he sees a hand-printed sign on the door saying, 

Chaim's will be closed today for the Sabbath. 

This was a first, maybe Chaim had gotten religion and converted, Orthodox. 

Henry continues his walk, reaching the Bowery where he is greeted by a bum he had seen before, a bum they called Coffee Can. He says to Henry, 

are you hungry son? There is a free dinner at the Salvation over there, go get you some!

Henry walks to the Salvation Army, it is situated in a 4 story red brick building with a chapel, dining room and sleeping quarters with cots. He walks in and is greeted by a bum in a second-hand suit who is holding a bible, a sober bum Henry thought. The sober bum shakes his hand saying, 

this is God’s house there is no alcohol allowed here, enjoy your meal. 

The free meal is served cafeteria style—Henry grabs a plastic tray, some plastic ware, and a paper napkin.  Another sober bum, a fat lady in a tent-shaped dress fills a plate with navy beans, chunks of ham, cornbread, and okra, she hands the plate to him. There was a big vat of coffee at the end of the line and you could fill a cup if you pleased, no cream or sugar was offered, black coffee only.  

No booze, no cream and sugar, the Salvation Army had a hard-on for joy.  

It was institutional food, everything out of a can except for the cornbread, like a jail meal Henry thought, but the price was right and he was hungry. 

After eating at a long table with a group of sober bums, Henry heads for the door, the sober doorman asked,

Are you staying for the chapel service after the meal? Henry says,

No thanks Mac I’m an atheist, but all the best, see you next time. 

On the street again, Henry lights a joint and takes a slug of whiskey from a flask that was in his vest pocket, feeling relieved— he felt uncomfortable in churches and chapels, the idea of prayers being heard and processed by a spirit entity in the sky was repugnant to him.

He would go to the Village to hear the beat poet Michael McClure read. McClure studied with Robert Duncan and in 1955 got his start at the infamous and revolutionary Six Gallery reading in San Francisco that featured Allen Ginsberg ’s premier reading of Howl. 

McClure would read that night at a bar slash coffee shop called Last Exit. When Henry got there it was already packed with bookish type NYC hipsters, he stood at bar and orders a double Jack Daniels and soda. There was no smoking allowed in the place, Henry knew McClure didn’t smoke or drink and was a vegetarian— surely the reason he survived all of the Beats and is alive to this day. 

Michael McClure enters stage left, walking a few steps to a wooden podium, all the chatting and laughter stops. He then puts his hands together and raises them, Wai’ing the crowd Thai style, then getting right down to the poetry, shuffling through some typewritten papers and saying,

this is a poem  I wrote in honor of Jack Kerouac a brother, blessed be, eternal samadhi.

from The New Book/A Book of Torture

IN DARK HELL IN LIGHT ROOM IN UMBER AND CHROME I feel the swell of 

smoke the drain and flow of motion of exhaustion, the long sounds of cars the brown shadows on the wall. I sit or stand. Caught in the net of glints from corner table to dull plane from knob to floor, angles of flat light, daggers of beams. Staring at love's face. 

The telephone in cataleptic light. Matchflames of blue and red seen in the clear grain. 

Vita Nuova--No! The dead, dead, world. 

He read rhythmically as though he was playing a bongo drum, metrically but in variation.

McClure read 20 poems that night and time went by quickly. 

After the reading Henry walks up to Michael McClure who is still standing near the podium and says,

I’m Henry Lucowski, I’m a writer and a fan of all things literary,

McClure saying,

oh, Henry Lucowski my friend Allen Ginsberg tells me that you're an up and coming short story writer. 

Let me tell you this Henry, you're on a bountiful journey, it's a trip to behold. 

Henry shrugs and vigorously shakes Michael McClure’s hand with both his hands, then turning and walking out the cafe door. 

Instead of taking a taxi home to Queens he decides to walk.

Henry looks up at the sky as he walks. It was a cool fall night, the air crisp and fresh, stars glowing more than one color, blues and reds contrasting the orange crescent moon.

For now, Henry felt braced and sorted out. All of it, every bit of it was enough for him, it was exactly right as it was, no need a for a God to bog it down.   

What is a Dream?

Henry shocked last week after posting a new story, Beware of the Ides of March, only 26 hits, his previous stories averaging 150 hits. 

His readers apparently bored with his stories, all written from the same format—

In his Queens digs

Going to Chaim’s Deli

Having it out with Ruby

Having it out with the bums 

Walking to Manhattan or

To Siam Massage

Going to Chinatown

Doping, screwing, art exhibits

Poetry readings and 

Plenty of everything

So he takes some time off from writing to think about it— maybe he would move to California and become a surfer,  writing exclusively about waves and the color of the ocean on any given day.  

He decided he would stay on course and continue being Henry Lucowski, regardless of what his readers thought, not saying fuck off to his readers, but saying, I have to be who and what I am—preeminently. 

Henry thought of the scene in the first Rocky flick, Rocky running up 72 steps, shadow boxing all the way to the Philly Art Museum, at the top turning around and looking out at the world in divine affirmation of who he was, his warts and saggy parts, all of it in the face of the rest of the world.  

Back at it —

Henry in his Queen’s apartment, he would use the same format. 

Henry Miller, living in Big Sur in the 40s, stoned on ganja and wine, musing through the night, typing like a madman all night and in the morning producing a single outlined page which would be the format for all his future work. 

Henry Lucowski not unlike Henry Miller, the two— geniuses who speculated on the love they didn’t know, both liking sex, dope, and Asian women. Visionaries who rarely ventured far from the safety of their outlines.

It was a fall night, sometime between 1970 and 1980. 

Henry was hungry.  

He cleans up and goes to Chaim’s Deli,  once inside, sitting at his favorite booth, Ruby his waitress comes to his table moving sexy-like and he says to her—

Ruby, I know you have read my short stories at Busted on Empty—well, my readers aren’t hitting the site anymore. Ruby interrupts him saying,

Shut the fuck up Henry who gives a damn what John and Sally Doe think? Be yourself doll, that's your gift from up high!

Henry smiles at Ruby and orders potato pancakes with applesauce and sour cream, and a double Sabra spritzed. 

After eating he thanks the folks at the deli, walking up to everyone, customers and staff, bowing and shaking their hands with both of his hands, feeling gratitude towards all living creatures. Henry lighting up the place and spreading joy. 

Leaving Chaim’s and walking through the Bowery,  hugging a few of the bums as he says—

It's great that you’re you!

Henry smelled awful, covered in grime and dirt after rubbing it up with the bums. 

He walks from the Bowery to Siam Massage for a massage, a cold tub plunge and hot sauna.

Inside the spa, he sees May his regular masseuse. Henry says to her,

sawadhi kop Khun May, how about a cold plunge in a deep tub and a sauna darling? The bums I was man-hugging smelled awful.

May looking sexy wearing a red see-through nighty, naked except for a thong underneath goes to Henry and takes his hand, the two walk to the sauna room. 

They strip down and Henry takes the plunge into the cold tub, splashing some and gasping, jumping out quickly. 

Henry then sits on a small wooden bench, May pouring buckets of warm water on him, then soaping him up all over his body. She cleans his anus and spends extra time soaping up his balls and cock. Then rinsing the soap suds off his body with buckets of lukewarm water. 

The 2 go into the sauna which is already hot, May stokes it up even more by pouring water on the hot black rocks. Henry is laying on the bottom bench and May is on the top bench, she begins rubbing her vagina and clitoris in a way only a woman knows. Soon she gets off— sprinkling golden pee down on Henry like rain. Now out of the sauna, the pair take a plunge in the cold water tub.

They leave the sauna room and walk down a dark purple hall to one of the massage rooms. The room smelling of incense, lit by blue light. Henry lays down on a thin mat on the floor and May begins rubbing him down with jasmine oil, feet first, then sensually rubbing his stomach and chest, then his erect nipples. Henry is hard and May places a pillow under his ass, slightly elevating his body and then grabbing his balls, one in each hand and going down on him tea bag style.   

After Henry finishes the two sit up on the floor, May pulls out a blue vile of cocaine crystals, she lays down and spreads a few lines on her silky white belly, Henry snorts them up, taking her cue he goes down on her, smoking her hairless pussy, she finishes, once again spraying a golden spritz of pee and saturating Henry, he loves it.  

After showering Henry thanks May, then generously tipping her and saying good night. 

In the front of Siam Massage he hales a taxi and tells the driver to go to Lees Laundry in Chinatown. 

At Lee's Laundry, he walks into the adjacent alleyway and opens a black metal door, then walking down a single flight of stairs to the basement. The place is filled with strung out Chinamen and a few Black guys, all of them off in opium dreams. 

An older Chinese lady leads Henry to a mat on the floor and tells him to lay down on his side. She leaves and comes back with an antique pipe, the bowl packed with tar opium. She hands him the pipe which he puts in his mouth and draws on as she lights the tar. 

Henry fading and lapsing into a dream— he is walking on a jungle path, then he falls into a deep rock pit and lands in a stream full of waste, seeing rats and smelling the waste he figures he must be in the NYC sewer system. He sees a ladder on the wall and climbs it, then pushing the sewer cover open. On street level and standing, he looks around and sees he is in front of his Queen’s apartment. 

The last waking experience he remembered was going to Lees Laundry, smoking opium and lapsing into a dream. 

He had been going to Lee’s for years and had always paid his bill. He doubted that the Chinamen threw him into the sewer, they were too whacked on opium to bother. 

Could it be that the entire night was a dream?

Or was it something that was purely spiritual? Something that couldn’t be explained logically? 

Henry would go to bed fearfully nervous, not wanting to dwell on the dream occurrence. 

Next week he would run it by his shrink at the welfare office, or ask Ruby his waitress about it?  

Ruby was the wisest person in the world sitting on Delphi high, the shrink at the welfare was buried in a mountain of bureaucracy.

Hannah Wilke in Spades

Henry depressed, his shrink at the welfare office needed to ask him a few questions—

Do you want to have sex with your mother?

Do you want to kill your father?

Do u like to wear pink silk panties?

Can u get an erection? 

Do you feel like you are drowning in an ocean of shit? 

How about homo-erotic fantasies? 

So on and so forth, finally giving him some plastic containers of Lexapro and Zoloft, explaining that it would take a while to find the right dosage and for the psycho-dope to kick in—as well as no drugs, no drinking. 

Walking out of the welfare office wondering if the shrink thought psycho-dope was dope?   

He sees a panhandler on the sidewalk begging for change, Henry gives him the psycho-dope and says,

knock yourself out buddy, 

the panhandler says, 

wow, I’ll bong these little guys up in the park tonight.

As far as psycho-dope went, Henry felt that after  taking the stuff over time your body would begin to resist it and you would have to take more and more for it to work.

Similar to Hunter S. Thompson’s daily LSD use for years, acid stopped working for him and perhaps he didn’t realize it, anyway!

Henry would continue to self medicate with cocaine, booze and heroin as usual. Depression came and went like the seasons, shit was always changing. 

As the sun sets Henry dresses to go out— chinos, a white shirt with no collar, a black vest and a plastic rosary to ward off evil spirits. 

He walks a short distance to Chaim’s Deli, going inside and sitting at his favorite booth. Ruby his regular waitress comes to him moving real sexy like and says, 

Henry where the fuck have you been? We have been worried shitless doll. 

He says,

I have been in hiding, trying to chase the blues away. Ruby doll, I’ll have a pastrami sandwich on dark rye, some burnt french fries with mayo on the side, a big bowl of coleslaw and a Jack and Coke.

Henry  felt railroaded by Ruby sometimes, it wasn’t what she said on the surface, she cajoled him in subtle ways.

He would shut her down by ordering food, it was a cue for her to leave, then while eating he would keep his eyes focused on the food, only looking up at Ruby when he wanted another drink—this was risky because she might start in on him again. 

Henry says goodnight to the crowd at the deli, grabbing Ruby’s ass on the way out, she gets pissed off and slaps his face—

nothing like some old-fashioned kinky fun,

he heads into the streets, walking through the Bowery. A bum who is standing close to a fire burning in a garbage can says—

Henry how's tricks buddy? 

Henry says, 

oh, I’ve been fighting off the blues and laying low in my apartment.

The bum says,

I got some-tin here that will take care of da depress-in you got, smoke— Sterno juiced, take a hit pal.

Henry keeps walking and nods his head smiling, wanting to get through the Bowery to higher stuff. 

He stops in Cafe 56 in Manhattan to see what is going on. At the door there are two trannies, one is Hillary Clinton and the other is Oprah Winfrey, Hillary says—

Hannah Wilke, no cover, 4 drink minimum, top self only— nice Henry thought, he sits at a small table that is close to a shallow, elevated round stage painted with planets and stars that glow, he orders 4 shots of tequila.

Hannah Wilke enters the room naked with her hair in rollers, she has a beautiful face and an athletic body with slightly saggy tits, she is sexy. 

She bends over at the waist, she is standing in the middle of the painted stage spreading her legs, her back is to Henry. She pulls a hand full of lint out of her vagina which she mixes with a large wad of gum she is chewing, pulling small pieces of the mixture off and putting the pieces on her face and then all over her body in perfect symmetrical order.

She then pulls the rollers from her hair and throws them into to the audience, tossing her hair with her hands and shaking her head about. 

She lays on her back and opens her legs spraying the audience with water for a long time. She must have had a bladder full of water hidden somewhere near her vagina.  

Hannah bows towards the audience and leaves the room, Henry orders 4 more shots of tequila and lights a joint, one of the trannies, Hillary Clinton rushes to his table saying,

sir you will have to put that out, sorry,

Henry laughs as he takes a large hit, blowing the smoke in Hillary's face and saying,

if I was you I wouldn't run for dog catcher. 

Hannah Wilke comes back into Cafe 56 dressed in tight blue jeans, a plaid shirt and sexy high heel pumps, looking at Henry, sitting down and saying,

what did you think of the show? 

Henry says, 

Can I buy you a shot, oh the show was great, I loved the way you moved and spread the lint and gum mix on your body as though you are trying to transform your female selfhood into something else.  

She says I’m Hannah Wilke nice to meet you,

The two begin to bang down shots of Tequila, Henry is really turned on by Hannah and wants to fuck her in a big, big way. 

She says, 

Let’s get outta here and go to my loft down the street. 

They walk a few blocks  to an old factory building, Hannah unlocks a black metal door, they go inside and ride an open freight elevator up a few stories. 

Her loft is full of drawings and half finished paintings of herself and vaginas, the floors are made of unstained wood, her bedroom has a single king-sized bed in it and is separated from the rest of the loft by hanging gold curtains. 

They sit in an area of the loft that has a ripped up red leather sofa and matching lounge chairs. There is a large round antique wooden table in the center adorned with carved skulls, butterflies and dragons. 

Henry takes some cocaine from his vest pocket and lays out some lines on a small mirror, he says,

Hannah my name is Henry by the way, and I have to be honest with you, I’m really hot for you. 

Hannah goes to her bedroom and changes into a kimono and comes out again, she is still wearing her high heals. Then she goes into a open kitchen and brings a king-size bottle of saki too the table which she pours into small cups, they down a few cups and she says to him, 

are you an artist darling? 

He says,

yes I’m a short story writer, my pen name is Figaro Lucowski, you might have seen my books on Amazon. 

Hannah was laughing and thinking the ideal of selling art on Amazon was a joke says, 

lets fuck baby, 

They go into her bedroom, booth jazzed up plenty, they get naked and hold each other tight, Henry is hard in a split second, Hannah licks him from the balls up, then deep throat and tea-bag style, grabbing his balls with both of her hands. 

He then turns over going on top of her, going deep inside her, she is limber as gymnast, raising her legs over her head and clasping them on the back of her neck.  

They ball for hours, it was the best sex Henry had ever had and his depression was lifted. 

The experience reminded him of a Henry Miller story about a Zen monk who spends 20 years in a monastery, doing everything in spades to reach self-awakening,  giving up one day— going into town and getting drunk on rice wine and going to a cat-house, as he is having sex and reaching orgasm he is instantly enlightened. 

Henry not reaching one-mindedness during sex with Hannah, but his depression was gone—   

Hannah Wilke was the sexiest women in the world, she was magic and a bigger than life artist.  

Justa Sweet Black Angel

Henry at home in his Queens digs, writing all afternoon, thinking mostly about a road trip somewhere, anywhere, he needed to break out of his pattern, onward, outward and beyond.  

He would take a bus to Florida— a sacred paean in honor of Ratso Rizzo's and Joe Buck's great escape from the frigidity of New York City soul in the winter. 

In Henry’s north land, it was somewhere between 1970 and 1980, in the winter.

He packed an old Boy-scout bag. He didn’t need much, a few pairs of chinos, some t-shirts, a pair of Converse All Stars, hiking boots, and a Mexican poncho. 

Henry goes straight to the Queen’s bus station from his apartment in the evening, buying a ticket on the night bus to Miami. 

It would be a 4 day ride through the Mason-Dixon Line to a place where a coconut and pineapple could grow. 

The bus was half full, he sits in the rear by the toilet— just a few steps away if he needed to puke. 

As the bus begins to roll he could hear the sounds of the diesel engine as the driver shifted through the gears. It felt good to escape the city, soon the bus was at the Pennsylvania and New York State line. 

Henry sitting alone pulls a 8 ball of brown junk out of his pocket and snorts a few lines, the lights in the bus are dimmed so people could sleep. He washes the heroin down with some Jack Daniels from a flask. 

The junk knocks him out and he sleeps for half a day, when he wakes the bus is pulling into Hampton, Virginia. Henry gets off to grab a bite and to buy a bottle of whiskey.

When he gets back on the bus there is a alluring black women sitting in the window seat next to his seat. He introduces himself saying, 

Hi babe, my name is Henry what’s your name? 

She says, 

why I'm Willisa Johnson doll and I’m going to visit my family in Magnolia Springs, Alabama, they grow hemp and cotton. 

He looks Willisa over, she is in her 40s and built from the head down, built like crazy, 

Henry could smell that sweet smell a Black girl has when she was wet between her legs. 

It was night-time and the lights in the bus were dim, Henry asked Willisa if she wanted to get high?

She says, 

You know a Niggas gotta get high baby,  Henry I’m juicy, you know what I'm sayin? 

Henry pulls some cocaine out and lays it on a small mirror, Willisa snorts the lines up and he hands her a bottle of Jack Daniels to swig on. 

It goes like that awhile, back and forth and then Willisa covers both of them with Henry's poncho from the waist down, unbuckling his chinos, pulling them down to his knees— she licks his cock from top to bottom, up and down with her pink silken tongue, taking all of him, tea bag style, deep throat, he enjoys every minute and finishes quietly in her mouth,  not wanting to alert the others on the bus.  

The pair fall asleep, black on white, white on black in each others arms after snorting brown junk. 

They sleep for what seems like days and the bus driver wakes them in the evening at Magnolia Springs, Alabama— it was warm out and you could smell Cahaba Lilies in the air.

Willisa walks arm in arm with Henry, when they get off the bus there is a larger than life Black man standing at the station wearing overalls and a baseball cap. Willisa gives him a big hug and he says, 

Who in the name of Jefferson Davis is that with you? He looks pale sista! 

She says laughing, 

Big Walter don’t you mind, he be my little white boy. 

They get into a rusted old Chevy pick-up and head out to the farm— Henry feeling safe, Willisa’s strong arms holding him tight like she would never let go. 

After a short ride on an unlit dirt road the pick-up pulls into the family farm at 8PM. There is a two story wood house in need of a coat of paint and a wooden tobacco barn. Henry can smell ganja in the barn.

Big Walter and Willisa introduce him to their mama— a sweet as sweet can be old black women, her white hair wrapped tight in corn-rows, she says,

Lord help that little old white boy because none of the colored folks here abouts will take to him.

Mama Cane as folks call her proceeds to cook a southern style feast of Buffalo Head fish, black-eyed peas, okra and corn- bread. Henry places a bottle of Jack Daniels on the table and pours his new family drinks. Wallisa rolls a big size joint of ganja. 

Everybody high by now, Mama Cane turns the radio in the kitchen on to a southern station WRZT out of Mobile. The DJ playing the music of Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie Pride and Elvis, it was all color radio, anything that rocked.

By 2AM the family and their newly adopted white boy are way out there. Henry and Willisa say goodnight and go to her bedroom. Her room is draped with purple cloth covering the walls and hung from the ceiling. Her bed was covered with a hand made quilt.  She throws Henry on the bed, talking off his clothes and then hers, standing over him naked she looks at him and says, 

Baby, we are gonna rock n roll like we aint got no bone.

The bed springs playing a symphony of sound interrupted later by the roosters crowing at dawn.

Big Walter knocks on Willisa’s bedroom door at 8AM and says, 

Get up you all we got work to do!

Henry doesn’t shave or shower, Willisa wraps her hair in a red doo rag, they go downstairs to the kitchen where Mama Cane has made breakfast, biscuits with gravy, pancakes with molasses, coffee and fried eggs, Henry says,

wow, you sure know how to eat, I haven't ate this good in awhile, Big Walter says, 

Don’t fret boy you gonna work it off today.

After breakfast Willisa, Henry and Big Walter walk a short way to an open field on a pathway cut through bush to an acre of mature marijuana plants that are hidden by deep forest on all sides.

In the center of the ganja field is a small wooden hut with no windows, inside there is a card table surrounded by chairs with cushions. 

Big Walter says,

Today you all are going to be trimmin,  Willisa you show him what I'm talkin about. 

They cut the buds from stalks of ganja that Big Walter brings in from the field.

Willisa rolls a joint and turns a small radio on to a gospel station. 

Then a seriously loud and deep voice says, 

get your hands up, you all is busted!

A black policeman carrying a shot gun ducks his head into the door, and says,

what you Niggas doin? 

It was Willisa's brother Pinetop, who was a cop in Magnolia Springs, he was out looking for some trustees who had escaped from the city jail.

Pinetop says, 

Willisa roll me a joint for the road baby! 

He pulls some moonshine in a mason jar from a sack and hands it to them saying as he laughs, 

hair off the dog that bit you all! Don’t forget my share now.

Officer Pinetop helped to keep the lid on the ganja farm, keeping the wrong people out. 

Big Walter comes in the wooden shack and says, 

come on you all lets go get some supper. 

Willisa and Henry trimmed till dusk, they had filled a basket with ganja buds.

They all walk home, in the kitchen Mama Cane had prepared supper—Catfish, frog legs, hush puppies, beans, rice and ice tea. 

Things went on like this— the same day by day till the end of the month, the family unit happy and productive together, 

Henry and Willisa in a major groove.  

Henry had to go get back to Queens for an appointment with the welfare shrink. It felt as  though the trip was over before it began. 

He knew Willisa didn’t want him to leave but he told her she could come to Queens when she wanted, in the spring maybe. 

He was going to miss life on the ganja farm, the big meals, great dope and moonshine, the hot sex with Willisa—

but,

New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.        Lao Tzu

The Magic Elixir

It is between 1970 and1980, perpetually late fall. 

Henry sleeping all day, up at 530PM. He wasn't working, he felt weak and uninspired,  chronic drug and alcohol use was taking a toll on him. 

The previous day he had gone for a check-up at the welfare office and the news wasn’t good, the doctor says to him, 

Mr. Lucowski— your ALT test shows that your liver is functioning at a low level, you are in the early stages of Cirrhosis and  you have Hepatitis C. If you want to live you need to seriously consider giving up drinking, AA might help, we would like you to come back next week for further testing.

Henry saying,

Sure Doc, you’re the man baby, whatever you say!

He had no intentions to give up drinking and doping or to go Alcoholics Anonymous. AA meetings— the wankers all fired up, siting on their hands saying, hi I’m Happy Frank, or I’m Stanley suffering alcoholic. Henry would rather become a Bowery bum than go to AA, there was a bargain-basement feeling to it and he felt that AA people were celebrating sobriety when they should be mourning their own weakness and inability to use and enjoy it.

In Chaim’s Deli at 6PM, sitting in his favorite booth, Ruby his regular waitress comes over, He says, 

Ruby a spring broke through the fabric of this booth seat, it punctured my tuchas and I'm bleeding. I already have Cirrhosis and Hep C, so lock-jaw will be no big deal.

Ruby goes to the kitchen and brings back a large piece of cheese cloth that is soaked in alcohol and says,

Henry put this cheese cloth on your wound, in your underpants, on your tuchas and sit on it.

He says, 

Ruby in that I’m not long for the world, I want to order a Last Supper type meal, it will be a dry run. I’ll have some Manischewitz wine, matzoh ball soup, gefilte fish and some noodle kugel with plenty of whip cream and canned Bing Cherries on top.

After eating he was full— ready to come down to street level from the Upper Room and take a night-time walk in the city. 

Reaching the Bowery, he sees a gang of bums hugging a fire in a garbage can and walks over.  

A bum called Stinky Fingers says to him,

Henry you know you always got a place here, livin in da Bowery is rent free, no bosses tell-in you what to do, ya just gotta panhandle enough for a few cheap bottles, thats it guy.

Then a bum called Free Bird says, 

Henry stay away from the Salvation Army and AA, nothin good excepting for free meals ever comes from dem places. 

Henry not much for bum’s wisdom, bows out quickly without saying good-bye, he didn’t know what they were burning in the garbage can, but it was toxic. 

Henry ducks into a doorway and does a few lines of cocaine, it gives him a lift, hanging with the bums was a downer, they smelled awful, everything about them stank from head to toe, their breath was highly flammable. 

In Manhattan he goes to 57 Cafe— there were two drag queens at the door selling tickets, one is  Bette Midler and the other is Cher, Cher says, 

Tonight is a special night Marina Abramovic is performing, 50 dollars cover and the ticket is good for a free drink. 

Henry flashes his welfare ID card quickly and says, 

New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene official business, we don’t drink on the job Cher. 

Henry standing with his arms crossed in the back of the room, looking sanctioned— a lovely European women in her 30s walks onto a small slightly elevated stage, she is naked. It is Marina Abramovic, the pooh-bah preeminent of the world performance art scene. 

Henry notices that her armpits were unshaven, very European. Abarmovic then begins to lecture the crowd saying,

You have to be ready for your death. There are three ways I want to do it: not to die angry, not to die in fear, and to die consciously. That's something I learned from grandmother who regularly laid out different outfits for her own burial, changing them over the years as styles changed. She lived to age 103.

And so on and so forth, Jesus what the fuck Henry thought?

She begins to comb her hair, pressing the metal comb acutely into her scalp, after 10 minutes you can see blood on the comb and in her hair. 

Henry could feel tension in the audience and felt tense himself. 

A stage hand brings out a meter by meter red Communist Star, pouring lighter fluid on it and setting it on fire. 

Marina  kneels in front of the burning red star and puts her head into the flames until they burn down, burning her face and hair.  

The crowd gasping aloud looked shocked.  

I don’t get it and what is the point? He leaves 57 Cafe.

He goes to Billy West’s Place for a drink, it was close. At the bar he orders a shot of tequila and a Bud Draft and says to Billy,

Jesus Billy I was at 57 Cafe watching a beautiful women hurting herself, it just doesn’t seem like art to me. 

Billy says, 

Yeah Henry, dem liberal art freaks are fucking up everything dat’s decent about da city, we need to keep dem shit-hole wackos outta-here! 

Henry finishes his drink and hits the bricks.

On the way home he stops in Siam Massage, he sees May, a young Thai women with long black hair. She is sitting on a cheap red sofa wearing a see-through nighty, she waves to Henry.

He goes to May and says,

Hi doll I’m really tense how about an oil massage? 

The two walk through a dimly lit hall that is painted black to room number 9 and go inside, it is draped with Indian prints and lit by a blue light. 

There is a massage table there, Henry strips and lays belly down on the table. May opens a lap top which is set to play Indian music from YouTube. She lights some musk incense and walks to him, laying down 4 lines of cocaine on his back, which she snorts.

She massages him lomi-lomi style, he can feel May's skin, it is silky and warm. She gets on the massage table and sits on him with her legs open, gyrating her crotch on his ass as she rubs his back. 

She tells Henry to turn on his back, rubbing his legs and lightly brushing over his cock with the sides of her hands occasionally. He gets a hard-on and May wets it down with drip-lets of warm saliva, then going down on him tea-bag style as she fingers his rose-bud. 

After the massage May and Henry talk for awhile, May says,  

I  send money to my family in Thailand every month, my X husband the no good Thai man ran away. My kids live with my parents in Isaan. 

They snorted cocaine, smoked hash and drank Japanese whiskey for a while, Henry kisses May deeply and then puts 2 hundred dollar bills on the massage table, going out through door into the dark hall.  

Henry leaving Siam Massage and walking back to Queens, he looks up at a crescent moon and thinks, 

Getting off is the magic elixir, the stairway to Heaven.