The Gods were in Town

It was one of those nights, a summer night, a Saturday night, a sexually charged night when those who could shut themselves away in red-lit rooms and balled like there was no tomorrow— they had to do it you see, the Gods were in town spraying sex musk all over New York City. 

Henry horny, he called Ruby and May his massage girl on the phone, feeling left out of the city-wide love fest. 

Ruby answers her phone, she’s at Chaim’s Deli and she says impatiently,

Jesus, Henry you ass-hat, there is no way I can come over and fuck you now, we are really busy and I’m bustin my ass.

May at Siam Massage had bookings the rest of the night. 

Henry showers and grooms himself with extra care, dousing himself in a designer cologne that would send-off a hunky sex scent.

He would go to Manhattan and find a woman. 

Walking through the Bowery he passes a group of bums, one of them a guy they call, Shit-can, who says, 

holy fuck Henry, that perfume you got on is makin me thirsty, you got any with ya? Give your ol buddy Shit-can a hit will ya? 

He waves off Shit-can and keeps on walking, insatiable, on a mission, his balls driving the car. 

Up ahead he sees the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan beyond— a blue haze rising up into the sky from Manhattan. The sex-Gods cooking up a witches-brew no doubt, Henry would dive into the fucking soup head first.  

He goes directly to the Rudy's Bar, a dive by Manhattan standards with an unpainted, termite-eaten exterior and a neon sign, red lights and rusted, from the 40s. He sits at the bar, the place filled with folks—dumb kids, Walmart shoppers and over the hill bikers. Henry leaves without ordering a drink. 

He goes to Lucy’s a few blocks away, walks in and sits at the bar, in need of a drink. Lucy’s looks like a place Charles Bukowski would drink in, the grey ceiling tiles moldy and warped. A few barflies were there, their heads in their hands and their elbows on the bar. Henry orders a triple Jack and soda and goes to the toilet, locking the door, spritzing himself with musk and snorting a few lines. 

He goes to the jukebox and puts a quarter in, playing Walk Right In, sung by the Roof Top singers, Honky Tonk Women by the Rolling Stones and In the Pines, sung by Dave Von Ronk. Praying for mojo he sits at the bar for an hour or so, taping out rhythms to the music on the bar counter.

Then an absolutely stunning women walks in and sits at the end of the bar. Henry gives her the eye and says,

could I buy you a drink doll? She says,

you smell like a Tijuana pimp, whatever it is you bathed in today, the cologne or horse piss, whatever— it’s bloody awful, the answer is no, not interested and don't call me doll, asshole.

Henry thinking— I guess that means no,

he finishes his drink and leaves Lucy’s, going out the back door, not wanting to walk pass the she-monster at the front of the bar, fearful that the scent of his cologne might send her into a violent rage. 

It was 2 AM and everybody in the city was balling their brains out in hot red-lit rooms everywhere except for Henry.

He takes a taxi to Chinatown feeling defeated, deciding to give his passions over to the opium-Gods. He pays the cabby and walks a few blocks to Woo’s Laundry. He knows the drill, he knocks on the front door and a 50 something Chinese women dressed traditionally lets him in and says,

hi Henry, come in!

The basement dimly lit, full of addicts, some puffing and some in dreams, a few Chinamen and a few black dudes. Helen, who let him in takes his hand and leads him to a dirty mat on the concrete floor. She tells him to lay down and relax and fills a pipe with tar, Helen lights it and he puffs, soon he is off into a dream. 

He is sitting in lotus position in a red circus tent, Tibetan prayer flags, every color of the rainbow waving wildly from mountain air coming in through an open canvas flap. He sees a group of Berber's spinning in place as they play JouJouka, Sufi trance music, he is getting higher and higher and he hears a voice saying,

slow down Henry, slow down, you can’t come in.

Then the Hindu spirit-God Vishnu appears walking out of a cloud. Vishnu a man and a woman, with long black hair, made-up, wearing earrings, dressed in a flowing red blue silk Gagra Choli, Henry could smell Jasmine flowers, Vishnu says to him,

Henry, you can't come into Bkuha Luva, the good kingdom, you are chained to earth, you live in the Black House of carnal lust and material pleasure.

Vishnu disappears into the same cloud, he, she or it, gay for sure, came in on. Henry feeling sheepish, happy he kept his mouth shut. Vishnu— pure as pure and true as true, white as rice too. 

Then he feels a cold wet cloth on his forehead and Helen says,

Henry you ok? You were sweating and your eyes went back into your head, I was worried about you.

He wakes up, shaking it off, stung some but back to life. He pays Helen, walks upstairs and goes out the front door of Woo's Laundry, getting a taxi home to Queens.

Henry thinking in the taxi on the way home that he was happy on earth and loved sex, dope, booze and food, all the earthly pleasures.

Surely, he was doomed to spend an eternity in the Black House—with everybody else in New York City.  

You Aint no Errol Flynn

Henry was a contrarian similar to Bukowski—who reveled and laughed all the way to the horse track at Santa Anita as he sipped beer wrapped in a paper bag and watched the working stiffs driving the opposite way on the turnpike to work in the City of Angels.

Henry lived off of crazy pay and a small inheritance from an uncle who owned a coat hanger factory in Pencil Dick, Pennsylvania. He would write all day and go out at night. The opposite of Bukowski who would write, drink and listen to Brahms late into the night.

Fritz, a regular reader of Henry’s work @ Busted on Empty, had been encouraging him to send his work to some publishing houses. Henry dumb-fucked and lazy, seeing it as busywork. 

Writing for him was more about the process than the end result. 

Creative people, the unknown ones, all think their work will be unearthed from their graves and discovered as the posthumous work of a genius— as if it made any difference in the scheme of things.  

As far as Henry was concerned people could piss on or burn his work if they liked, any reaction was better than no reaction at all. 

It was 8PM and he was hungry, so he washed his face and went out for some fresh air and a meal at Chaim’s Deli. 

The year was sometime between 1970 and 1980, it was fall.

The night air was chilled, there was a thin crescent moon in the blue sky, radiating a flat feeling.    

Henry at Chaim's Deli sitting in a booth. Ruby his regular waitress comes over and greets him with a  smile on her face, saying,

Hi sexy,

Henry smiles and orders a Rueben Sandwich, coleslaw, cream soda and a double shot of Southern Comfort. 

After finishing his food he walks out the back door of the Deli through the kitchen into the alley. 

Ruby joins him and they smoke a joint and snort a few lines of cocaine. 

Henry kisses her goodnight and walks outside, going any direction, ending up in Harlem. 

He can hear a belly full of blues coming out of a juke joint up the street and he sees a blue neon sign— Pineu’s Place.  

Henry pays a few bucks at the door, not surprisingly he isn’t the only white in the place. 

The headliners are two Chicago players, Mike Bloomfield and Junior Wells. Bloomfield a junk and a genius, Wells played with Buddy Guy allot, playing from time to time at the Chess Club on the Southside of Chicago. 

Henry sitting at the bar drinking Jack and Coke, getting way down into the music, the guys playing staples like Killing Floor, East-West, Stormy Monday and Sweet Home Chicago.  Bloomfield was a genius, a guitar god who had played with Dylan and Paul Butterfield. Henry had never heard anybody play quite like he did, he had a style of his own, all kinds of blues.  

At intermission, Henry walks backstage to the break room like he owns the place, the security guard, a 500-pound black dude thinking Henry was a musician lets him by. He goes into the break room and Bloomfield is laying on a sofa, his face is flush, he has a hangdog look on his face—he is strung out and needs a fix. He says to Henry, 

can you help me brotha? 

Henry says, 

Hey man, I know where you’re coming from, give me 20 minutes, no big deal. 

Of course, scoring  junk in Harlem was nothin, Henry walks 50 steps out of Pineu’s Place and sees a black dude standing in an alleyway, the brother says to him,

you got a itch man? Henry says, 

you bet I do!

He scores some brown Mexican junk and goes back to the break room of Pineu’s Place, handing the packet to Mike Bloomfield, who takes it in his hand, looking thoroughly relieved. He cooks the shit and shoots it as Henry watches. After he settles into the fix he stands up and cooly walks back to the stage, getting down to business and playing one amazing set.

Henry never fixed, it scared him, he snorted dope.  

Sitting at the bar again, banging down Jack and Coke, enjoying the head on set, a tall black girl in a red dress, built from the floor up with long legs comes up to him and grabs his cock, saying, 

you got some stick for me white boy and, I’ll have a Seven and Seven. Henry says, 

what’s your name baby?  She say’s 

my name is Queenie doll, but you can call me Flo, he knew Flo was a pro and he says, 

I’m Henry.

Flo says,

Let’s go out back and I’ll suck the juice out of your cock baby, 50 bucks. 

Henry goes out back with Flo, they snort a few lines of coke, she loves it. Then he powders his cock with cocaine from top to bottom like Errol Flynn did in the 50s. Flo sucks him for 20 minutes and nothing happens. The cocaine had a numbing effect, the Errol Flynn story was bogus he thought. Well, no difference, he gives Flo her money and she walks down the alley and onto the street, shaking her ass and holding her head up high.

He goes back into the bar and sees the show is over— Bloomfield and the rest of the guys had split already, there were only a few drunks left in the house, Thelonius Monk, Straight No Chaser was playing on the Juke Box, he walks out onto the street. 

It is 1AM in Harlem, you can smell barbecue cooking and there are a lot of black folks walking about, the men and women are arm in arm. Harlem was alive at all hours, it never slept. 

Henry still loaded and jacked up, goes into a soul food restaurant called Mary & Lou’s Red Hot Soul Food. He sits at the counter and orders a sweet potato pie to take home and a standard plate—  beans, rice, okra fried chicken, cornbread. It’s 130AM and the place is packed, Lou comes up to Henry and smiles saying,

how you doin brotha? Would you like some rice puddin? On the house! Henry says,

why thank you Lou, May and Lou’s Red Hot Soul Food— best fried chicken in town. 

Then Flo the hooker walks in making a big show of it, shaking her whopping black ass— she has the attention of everyone in the place and she says in a loud voice, looking right at Henry,

why it’s the little white boy with the little bitty stick, Henry you aint no Errol Flynn!

Sick as a Dog

Years of booze and dope abuse was catching up with Henry. He was 43 years old and looked 60, his long hair was prematurely white and his face haggard. He had heroin eyes, slanted with pinpoint eyeballs.

Most people in their early 40s were still vital and active— Henry was drained, during the day he stayed in his apartment and wrote, at night he walked the sacred streets and byways of New York City, pushing himself every step of the way, doping to endure. 

Henry was a layabout, he never cooked at home and didn’t use his small kitchen. He was lazy and didn't know how to clean. He lived in Zen-like simplicity (He wasn't into to Zen, his place was empty because he was poor). He had a futon, a patio chair, a small termite infested wooden table with a plastic stool, a fake leather sofa and a 2nd hand Mac laptop, so there was less to clean and less to collect dust. 

Occasionally Ruby, his waitress friend who worked at Chaim’s Deli— who loved him in an undecided way, motherly love maybe, would come and clean his apartment, it was a mission of mercy. His apartment had a pleasing odor though, he never used the kitchen and burned Japanese green incense constantly.

Once a year he would get a check-up at the welfare office in Queens. It was always the same— the doctor would interpret the results and then lecture him with a queer look on his face, a mixed look of phony upbeat optimism and impending doom. The doc goes on to say,

Mr. Lucowski I have good and bad news for you, which do you want first? Henry says, 

How could it possibly make any difference? Let's flip a coin, am I missing something here? The doctor says,

OK then, you have the body of a 70 year old, your internal organs are functioning at a low level, your kidneys are particularly bad. You need to start taking care of yourself before it's too late.  

Henry nods his head in response—he cared some, but not much. It was surreal to him, he couldn’t focus on it. He had been sweeping bad news under the carpet for years, using a survival technique known as, da-Nile. 

And so it goes, Henry’s health was bad and he was staring down a long dark tunnel at nothingness, he didn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, just more tunnel.   

(ASIDE: Figaro Lucowski)

As I write this, I have been sick as a dog for 10 days and feel like shit, consequently, my thoughts are consumed with illness and impending decay— this surely must be tedious reading, but bear with me it gets better.

Henry laying upright on his sofa, looking at the cracked paint on the ceiling in his Queen’s digs. Visualizing—the battle going on inside his body, an alien virus enters from space and attacks his upper respiratory system, the generals in charge of the immune system yell out, 

Alein attack, Alien attack, all hands a deck! 

And the heroes of the immune system bravely come to order and attack the foreign invaders who live for the Kamikaze attack on Henry’s immune system, the ultimate prize for the invaders is DEATH!

As the battle continues in Henry’s inner galaxy he hears a half-ass flimsy knock at the door and knows it could only be Ruby. She had brought a care package, fresh orange juice and deli food, Jewish stuff for the soul, Hebrew penicillin.  Perhaps too little too late, but she looked sweet in a flower print summer dress, open and revealing ample cleavage, her red hair in pig-tails. Ruby then says,

Henry, you look awful, you need to go to the hospital, I'm going to call 911! He says,

Don’t call 911 Ruby, I don’t trust the EMS people, they will take me to Riker’s Island for sure. Ruby says,

Henry, you can go to the Queens Medical Clinic, it’s free, you're on crazy-pay.    

He was afraid of hospitals and saw the Grim Reaper behind every door, in every room and hallway of the hospital. He then says to Ruby,

The doctors at Queens Medical Clinic will kill me, they get a bonus for everyone on crazy pay they whack! 

Ruby proceeds to clean his apartment and then feed and bathe Henry, it was as if God himself had sent her that day— Henry the atheist would interpret it differently though, 

God, are you kidding me? Give me a break will ya? God doesn’t exist, there is nothing, Ruby came here because she needs to mother me and was horny, that’s it. 

After bathing and eating Henry and Ruby lay a straw mat on the dark tile floor of his balcony, they sit cross-legged on the mat with their arms on the safety railing and look outwards towards the city. It was one of those sweet summer days that set your mind adrift. Henry lights a joint that he had left over from The Woodstock Festival— they start talking about stuff, not rarified stuff, just anything and Henry says, 

You know baby on days like this there are certain smells and sounds that set me off into a dream — the smell of fresh cut grass at Central Park, the sound of the Met’s game on the radio at night, the smell of vinegar fries at Nathans, you know what I mean don't you doll? Ruby laughs and says,

Sure I do Henry you cornball fuck, does the smell of my pee do it for you baby?  

Then Ruby stands up, standing over Henry and spreading her legs slightly so his head was directly under her crotch, then she drops her britches, he looks up at her pussy and she pees on him. 

Henry loved it, he loved everything about it, he pulls Ruby down to the mat and licks her pussy clean, his cock super hard, then he ramrods her rough style nonstop for twenty minutes or so, Ruby screaming so loud that people 10 floors down on street level could hear. 

Ruby and Henry had known each other for years and had never balled, Henry the smart-ass then says, 

Ruby if I had known you were such ball buster I would have jumped your bones in the kitchen at Chaim’s Deli years ago, she says, 

God, that's just awesome darling!

Ruby looks at her watch and says, 

Henry, I’m late for work, gotta go, stop by the deli later, love ya. 

Henry then falls asleep on the straw mat enjoying the night air on the balcony. He sleeps deeply until the next day, then waking at noon, feeling like he slept in a cornfield in Nebraska. 

In life, there are plenty of ups and downs, sure enough, even when you are—sick as a dog.

How About Your Bowels, Henry?

Henry out of his apartment early for once, he was up all night snorting cocaine and drinking Jack Daniels, the booze and dope fueled him, writing at the speed of sound, some of it good, some of it bad.  

It is 9AM, it is fall and spring, a killer sunny day, the year is somewhere between 1970 and 1980. Henry leaving his Queen digs for Central Park, for a walk and to drink coffee at a cafe called Last Exit in the park. 

When he gets to the park he makes a B-line for Last Exit. He orders a double espresso and takes a seat outside on the patio. The park full of joggers, people walking their dogs, kids playing, old men sitting on benches. 

Henry inhaling the java and laying a few lines of cocaine out on the coffee table, then snorting em up and sipping Southern Comfort from a flask with a skull and bones on it.

Sitting at a small patio table, eyeballing the park goers moving about, Henry lapses into a dream— all the hubbub stops and people are motionless, standing in place. It is as though all molecular motion as far as he could see is transfixed, he savors the magic in the moment. Then after a few seconds which felt like an eternity, motion sets in again. 

It was noon, Henry had an appointment at the welfare office with a shrink, it was a quarterly thing, the bureau-crazy cats up on high needed to reevaluate and confirm that Henry was still crazy. 

He enters the welfare office, there is a line of misfortunates waiting to be frisked by security. Henry wonders if any of them could afford a gun, or even a bullet? The lot had to comply with whatever obstacles, and there were a million of them, that the welfare office set before them.

Henry getting padded down by security, the rent a cop finds a flask in his vest pocket. The guy says, 

no booze allowed, we will hold this and you can get it back on the way out. 

In the grey-walled waiting room, there are 50 or so people waiting to see shrinks, all on crazy pay like Henry. Henry sits for a half hour and his name is called by a nurse who is holding his paperwork,

Henry Lucowski, Room 103. 

In Room 103 he sits down on a wooden chair in front of the shrinks desk. The chair hard with no padding. Henry figured it was a ploy to keep people on edge, rattling their brains to get more information out of them. A new lady shrink introduces herself to him saying, 

my name is Doctor Hiccup, I will be conducting your quarterly interview.

The line of interrogation went like this—

Mr. Lucowski are your bowels moving regularly? Henry says,

oh yes doctor, I can assure you that I shit up a storm daily!

May I call you Henry? Henry, have you been sober and going to daily AA meetings? He answers,

Yes I just love AA, I wouldn’t miss a meeting, I'm sober as a saint!

Henry how is you social life, are you still isolating? Grinning like someone who is concealing a lie he says,

Doctor Hiccup I assure you that I’m the toast of the town!

Henry how about the visual and audio hallucinations? Henry snaps backs quickly saying,

I wouldn’t give em up for the world, they are a source of inspiration, they are magic, I’m a writer you know. Dr Hiccup then says,

Ok Henry that’s it for today, I’m going to double down on the Lexapro, you can pick up the meds at the pharmacy on the way out. 

Henry heads for the exit bypassing the pharmacy, he didn't want to take psychotropic dope, feeling that it deadened one’s senses— the shrinks on a mission to save the world with pharma-dope, in reality, pharma-dope erasing nut-job character and selfhood.  

Henry takes a taxi to Manhattan, it was noon already and he would go to MoMA to see what was happening.  He walks the halls of MoMA, blown over by all the great work hanging on the walls, work by the 20th Century masters of modern art—Picasso, Pollack, Warhol, Frida Kahlo, Larry Rivers and Francis Bacon to name a few.

Standing in front of and eyeballing the painting— The Sleeping Gypsy by Henri Rousseau, Henry is transfixed, drawn into the mood of the painting, the feeling one would get in the Mojave desert on a full moon night, a moody and quite otherworldly feeling, somewhere between heaven and earth on a desert island in the sky, above the clouds and on the way to the moon. 

As he turns and walks away from the Rousseau painting he notices a bohemian looking woman, with roughly cut black hair, she is wearing a loose fitting moss green dress and wooden clogs with droplets of paint on them. She is sitting on a MoMA bench looking hang-dog with her head down in her hands, crying. Not knowing why, Henry walks over to the women and says,

Isn’t the Rousseau painting a trip?  She then says, 

Oh, I love it, I came here to mourn, a few months ago I had a miscarriage while I was taking a bath in my Village loft. It was awful, my dead baby floating in bath water. All I could do was wrap its tiny body in a towel. I didn't want to know what sex it was. Henry says,

I’m so sorry darling, bad shit happens in life, we just have to move on.   

Henry sits down next to her on the bench and says, 

I’m Henry Lucowski, I’m a writer, what’s your name? She says, 

My name is Elizebeth Peyton, you can call me Liz, I’m a portrait painter, nice to meet you. Henry says,

Liz, I have seen your work exhibited here at MoMA, you’re more than a portrait painter, she says,

Yes, I guess so Henry, let’s get out of here and go to my loft in the village,

The two take a taxi to the Village, Liz’s loft is in an old brick warehouse, they walk up 3 flights of stairs, Liz’s door is unlocked—her loft is empty except for a paint-smeared brown leather sofa and a large round bed behind the sofa. The rest of the large room is filled with finished and half-finished portraits of famous people, Anne Leibowitz, Larry Rivers, Odell, Herbert Hunke, Paul Newman, Sting, Robert Maplethorp and Ed Koch to name a few.

Henry asked her,

Liz, did you fuck all the people you have painted? She says,

Yes, I fucked most of them, would you like a drink doll? 

She then goes behind a curtain and returns wearing a fluffy pink bathrobe, naked underneath. She is carrying a tray with 2 shot glasses and a bottle of Jack Daniels on it. 

She sits on the bed and asked Henry to come over and sit close to her, he sits on the edge of the bed and they bang down more than a shot. He lays 5 or 6 large size lines of cocaine on the tray which they snort up quickly. Liz’s robe opens as if by accident revealing a her vagina covered with blace whispy hair, and she says,

Henry, It's great to meet you, baby I’m feeling a whole lot better. 

She then moves closer to Henry and unzips his trousers, pulling his pants down below his knees, grabbing his cock and then going down on him saying, 

Henry baby you're hung like a horse. 

The two ball and booze it up for an hour or so, then at 4AM Liz walks behind the magic curtain and brings back a bottle of Xanax, both of them take a few and pass out. 

They wake up the following morning at noon and go to a Greek restaurant in the Village called Mykonos, ordering everything in the world to eat and Bloody Marys to boot. Liz says to Henry, 

You’re a real doll you know and I love you but you're not my type, nobody is my type, I’m a woman who needs privacy to work and a occasional freelance fuck. Henry then says,

no problem babe, I’m not looking to shack up or nothin, artist need lotsa space to do what we do, to create. 

After a big meal, the two go through the formality of exchanging phone numbers and email addresses of all fucking things, as though it would put some glue on the chance meeting of two misfits. 

Honestly, anybody would know the thing was doomed from the start, just a freelance fuck. 

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.