Drop Out & Go Underground

Henry lived in a small efficiency apartment in Queens that was mostly empty. He didn’t have much and he would tell people he lived in Zen-centered simplicity, which was— an embellishment that hid the naked truth, Henry couldn’t afford furniture.          

Everything he owned was on the floor, a futon, on the floor, a swing fan, on the floor, an IBM Electric Typewriter, on the floor, some large pillows for lounging when high, on the floor, and an old coffee table, technically not on the floor because it had legs.  

When Dave Spleen, the editor of the irrelevant underground rag, Headbanger, visited Henry he would sit on the radiator. If it was winter and the radiator was hot he would put a pillow or wooden fruit box on it, Spleen was lucky he didn't catch fire.  

Now the money part, not a pretty picture, Henry was on crazy-pay, 1,123 US dollars a month and 130 dollars for each article he penned for Headbanger, 3 articles a month, 5 sometimes. His income was below the poverty level, hardly enough to support his habits. 

Luckily, he had a small inheritance from his uncle, Franky Lucowski who owned a coat hanger factory in Pennsylvania and had died of the clap. Franky would bang the latina women who worked in the factory, eventually getting the clap.     

Well, as they say, give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. 

Henry buys a few kilos of cocaine with the money from Uncle Franky. It was enough to get him started pushing the shit around Queens. 

His regular clients were the staff at Chaim’s Deli, where he ate most nights. It's common knowledge that people in the restaurant business partied after hours and everyone at Chaim’s including Chaim, an Orthodox Jew, did blow, usually partying in the deli after hours or going to a bar in the neighborhood called The London Irish Pub, a  joint beloved by the Jews of Queens.  

Henry up at 10 AM, going into the kitchen to make a pitcher of Margaritas, liver protein as he called it. 

Dave Spleen calls him at 1030 AM, in his usual hip, and to the point manner asking, 

Sherman Alexie, Indian, hot stuff do a bit on him, I want it in 24 hours, OK babe.

Henry had never heard of the guy. He finishes breakfast, a pitcher of Margaritas, and a pot of percolated coffee. 

He heads out the door quickly, wearing his Mets pajama top and a pair of cut-offs, walking to East Flushing Library in Queens to research Sherman Alexie.  He is carrying a cheap leather briefcase he had found in a dumpster, it is filled with pencils and legal pads. 

As he walks he is overtaken by a school of piranhas on their way to the financial district. They are carrying magnificent briefcases, walking at the speed of light. He does his best to kept pace with them, he feels big and important like them. Looking closer at their faces he sees they’re jumpy about money, shit scared the stuff might evaporate.  

   

Sherman Alexie is a Spokane Indian who was born on a reservation in Wellpinit, Washington. He writes about his early life in the short story Superman and Me. 

His mother had a minimum wage job which was middle-class by Indian standards. But, like most Indians on the reservation, they were poor. His father was an avid reader and the family house was cluttered with piles of books that would often cave in and collapse. It was a task walking around the place without tripping on a book. 

In Superman and Me Sherman talks about learning to read when he was 3, reading a comic book, and associating the panels with the written narrative.  

One day he picks up a book, examining it hard, the words were clear as mud, and as if the gods were blowing in his ear, he sees that the words on the pages are corralled into paragraphs. Sherman says it like this,

I didn't have the vocabulary to say "paragraph," but I realized that a paragraph was a fence that held words. The words inside a paragraph worked together for a common purpose. They had some specific reason for being inside the same fence.  

Still 3, the tiny native prodigy dropped from mars, begins to see the world in paragraphs, in his own words,

This knowledge delighted me. I began to think of everything in terms of paragraphs. Our reservation was a small paragraph within the United States. My family's house was a paragraph, distinct from the other paragraphs of the LeBrets to the north, the Fords to our south, and the Tribal School to the west. Inside our house, each family member existed as a separate paragraph but still had genetics and common experiences to link us. Now, using this logic, I can see my changed family as an essay of seven paragraphs: mother, father, older brother, the deceased sister, my younger twin sisters, and our adopted little brother.

By the age of 5 he is in kindergarten reading The Grapes of Wrath while the other kids are busting their balls reading, Dick, Spot, and Jane. 

Sherman the wunderkind was seen as an oddball on the reservation, Indian kids weren't supposed to be geniuses. 

In 1985 Sherman Alexie applies and is accepted to Jesuit Gonzaga University in Spokane, one of a few Indian kids to make it to college from his reservation.   

Initially, his work focused on the troubles of Indian life on the reservation, alcoholism, poverty, and despair. Later as he matures as a writer his work is less focussed on Indianness. Sherman begins weighing what it is to be human, as demonstrated in the following poem,

Grief calls us to the Things to the Things of This World 

The eyes open to a blue telephone

In the bathroom of this five-star hotel.

I wonder whom I should call? A plumber,

Proctologist, urologist, or priest?

Who is blessed among us and most deserves

The first call? I choose my father because

He’s astounded by bathroom telephones.

I dial home. My mother answers. “Hey, Ma,”

I say, “Can I talk to Poppa?” She gasps,

And then I remember that my father

Has been dead for nearly a year. “Shit, Mom,”

I say. “I forgot he’s dead. I’m sorry—

How did I forget?” “It’s okay,” she says.

“I made him a cup of instant coffee

This morning and left it on the table—

Like I have for, what, twenty-seven years—

And I didn’t realize my mistake

Until this afternoon.” My mother laughs

At the angels who wait for us to pause

During the most ordinary of days

And sing our praise to forgetfulness

Before they slap our souls with their cold wings.

Those angels burden and unbalance us.

Those fucking angels ride us piggyback.

Those angels, forever falling, snare us

And haul us, prey and praying, into dust.

Not about Indianness, just a family dealing with the loss of a loved one voicing tender humor.  

Calling home to talk with your father, forgetting that he died a year ago is either pitiful or funny, take your choice. For Sherman and his mom, that they both forgot the father died is cozy funny.    

“It’s okay,” she says.

“I made him a cup of instant coffee

This morning and left it on the table—

Like I have for, what, twenty-seven years—

And I didn’t realize my mistake

Until this afternoon.” 

The bit about angels is off the charts superb. Angels doing their best to fuck with us here on earth, maybe they think they are doing us a favor. 

they slap our souls with their cold wings.

Those angels burden and unbalance us.

Those fucking angels ride us piggyback.

Henry leaves the East Flushing Library and heads home with plenty of notes and plenty in mind. 

Back at his apartment he opens a bottle of Jack Daniels and boils some brats in a burnt black gallon can which he places on the stove.  

It is 130 PM and Henry remembers he has an appointment at the Queens Welfare Office for his annual physical. 

The administrators— shrinks, doctors, nurses, and caseworkers, all social welfare workers who didn't give a flying shit about welfare. All of them at the bottom of the health care food chain, dead meat in their perspective space at the welfare office, waiting to punch out at 530 PM.   

There were thousands of hard-up folks passing in and out of the doors of the welfare office every day, mere shadows to the social welfare workers.  

The highlight of the welfare worker's day was gossiping as to who was fucking who in which broom closet or X ing off their calendars, anxiously awaiting the weekend.  

Henry shows up at the Welfare Office at 230 PM, one hour late. He then makes his way through the bleak gray halls to the infirmary, takes a number and sits down. 

He is given a medical history form to fill out and told to sit down and wait. Henry an hour late for his appointment.   

The form the usual stuff, asking about blood pressure, chronic illness, your families medical history, medications you take, alcohol, drug use and so on. 

Henry borrows a pen from the desk clerk and fills out the form, jotting down anything that came to mind.   

He felt awkward around doctors, doctors, gods who did everything right, everyone respected them, they were rich and their hands were always clean.

Henry had body odor and he bit his nails. He was on the outs, jobless, he was godless and bad mannered. He was a loser and the doctors were winners.  

He tried to talk smart to doctors because he felt small and buglike next to them.    

Mr. Lucowski, go to Room 7, Dr. Sphincter’s office.   

He goes to Room 7 and sits down, the doctor says, 

Hello, Henry, I’m Dr. Sphincter, you’re here today for a general physical that will establish your eligibility for welfare. I’m going to ask you a few questions which will be followed by an anal exam and some X-rays.

Anal exam? The guy's name is Sphincter? 

Henry felt queer! Sphincter says,

OK let’s get started,

Are you on any medication?  Henry says, 

if u mean pharma dope, yes the stuff I get here,

this a lie, Henry thought pharma dope was a CIA conspiracy, cooked up at the Pentagon with stuff in it that would subdue radical thought. 

Do you use alcohol or drugs and if so which ones and how often? Henry says, 

All of them all the time,

How about your bowels? Henry says,

what about em? 

Are you regular? Henry says, 

Occasionally on good days, yes, but I get constipated after I smoke opium in Chinatown. I have read that Hitler’s feces was gunmetal gray, mine is too, but I can assure you I’m not a Nazi, Sphincter says, 

take it up with Dr. Hiccup the Psychiatrist, now lay on the examination table, turn on your side and drop your pants below your knees.

Sphincter puts on his rubber gloves and lubes up, which seemed perversely sexual to Henry. 

He inserts 2 fingers into Henry’s rectum and it feels like 10, probing about, pushing on glands that were most likely hemorrhoids with the tips of his fingers. Henry says,

Fuuucck that hurts! Are you enjoying yourself Sphincter, you bleeding sadist? The Doctor finishes and says,

OK, that’s it, the nurse will direct you to the X-Ray department, I will pass the results of your physical on to your Psychiatrist, DR. Hiccup.

He runs out of Queen's Welfare full speed ahead, Henry hated the fucking place and thought  Queen's Welfare Office was a step away from Riker’s Island and that Riker’s Island was a step away from Auschwitz, all of them with certain things in common.  

Queen’s Welfare, Riker’s Island, Auschwitz, mental hospitals, orphanages and prisons all over the world— places a sadist can go and have the time of his life and get paid for it. 

It took Henry a half hour to walk from the Queen's Welfare Office to his apartment. In his apartment he gets a phone call from a Miss Pibow from the welfare office, it went like this, 

Hello, Mr. Lucowski my name is Miss Pibow, I’m a social worker at Queens Welfare Office. I’m calling to inform you that Dr. Hiccup and Dr. Sphincter have filed a Disqualification Consent Agreement against you, you are banned from the grounds of the Queens Welfare Office indefinitely and your Social Security Disability payments will be canceled as of next month. Henry then says, 

What? Miss Pibow answers, 

As a result of a lengthy dialogue, your doctors have diagnosed you with a particular psychosis, homicidal ideation, and they think you are a borderline Nazi. Henry says,

Wait a minute, OK, my feces is the same color as Hitlers but I'm no Nazi, I eat at a kosher deli every day. Just between you and me Miss Pibow it's common knowledge that most shrinks are outta their cords and I can assure you Dr. Sphincter has a permanent installation up his ass. Miss Pibow says,

Watch your language Lucowski, if you think the Disqualification Consent Agreement was filed unjustly you can go to the Legal Aid Society and sue the welfare office, good luck with that! And then Miss Pibow laughs. Henry says as Miss Pibow hangs up,

HEIL HITLER! 

The shit at the welfare office, accused of being a killer Nazi just wasn't true He was an artist, a talented writer, a fragile being. Henry laid in bed the next few days, drinking, smoking pot and swallowing downers. It was his way to deal with anger.  

Institutions— welfare offices, prisons, governments, rehab centers, schools, colleges, the great alienators that often fail to cultivate and inversely through the actions of the stoney-hearted drive people underground.     

That was Henry’s excuse for dropping out if anyone asked.      

Monkey on a Leash

Henry waking slowly, itching from dope snorted the night before. It was 10 AM, he turns his radio on and dials in WBAI, 99.5 blues, then, walking naked to his small balcony he lights a joint and sits on a wooden fruit-box. He could smell leaves burning, he loved the smell, looking into the sky he sees an orange glow radiating through the roundish fat clouds, the gods busy carving pumpkins for Halloween. 

It was Indian summer in Queens, sometime between 1970 and 1080.

Henry hadn’t been working for weeks, he didn’t have writer’s block, the thought of writing just didn’t move him, he knew he could write if wanted. 

When he wanted to write he would sit in front of his IBM Electric Typewriter and start typing any fucking thing in the world to get the ball rolling. The thrill of knowing he could go anywhere with it jump-started the process, turning a light on that put him in a poetic region that only artists know.    

He had been reading poems by Dylan Thomas on his balcony, his butt smarting from sitting on the wooden fruit-box. 

His favorite Dylan Thomas poem was—

Clown in the Moon

My tears are like the quiet drift

Of petals from some magic rose;

And all my grief flows from the rift

Of unremembered skies and snows.

I think, that if I touched the earth,

It would crumble;

It is so sad and beautiful,

So tremulously like a dream. 

Henry loved the ease of the poem and the bitter-sweetness of it—

I think, that if I touched the earth,

It would crumble;

It is so sad and beautiful,

It was the moon holding forth, a melancholy clown pouring his heart out, the moon volatile and fluid, his voice quivering.

So tremulously like a dream. 

Henry reading the verse over and over on his 14th-floor balcony, screaming, chanting it as mantra, knowing the gods and the moon were listening. 

Anyway, Dave Spleen the editor of the irrelevant rag, Headbanger calls and says,

Henry baby, can you do a bit on Neal Cassidy? I need it in 24 hours, fax it to me. 

And that was it, Spleen not much for bullshit. 

Some say Neal Cassidy was the spark that lit the Beat movement, Cassidy was the inspiration for the books—Go, by John Clellon Homes, On the Road by Jack Kerouac and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Ken Kesey. His flow of consciousness letters to Jack Kerouac written on Benzedrine influenced Kerouac’s writing style. 

Blame it on the bennies, but Neal had a hell of a time sitting and writing. Regardless, he managed to write a book, The First Third and a collection of his letters, both were published after his death.  

Cassidy was known publicly as a crazed, balls to the walls, speed, booze and LSD freak who could drive at break-neck speed from New York to California in a day and a half none stop. 

His wife Carolyn Cassidy told it differently though, they maintained a traditional home and had kids. For a good portion of his life, Neal held down a job on the railroad as a brakeman and most likely the way he drove a car, the bosses knew better than to to let him operate a train. 

Of all the Cassidy stuff out there, Henry liked the story of him meeting Charles Bukowski. At the time Buk was penning his column, Notes of a Dirty Old Man for the LA rag Open City, busy putting down the other staffers who he considered to be hippies. Allen Ginsberg contacts Buk, asking him if he and Neal could visit him at the office of Open City, Buk says fine.

The threesome, kings of 20th century literati, sit down at Buk’s desk and have a beer. They talk awhile and only the gods know what they said? Then Cassidy who couldn’t sit in one place for long suggests they go out for a drive. At the car, a supped up Pontiac, Buk, who was nervous about driving with Cassidy sits in the back seat with 2 sixes of beer in tow.

Neal drives like a madman, Allen Ginsberg who is sitting shotgun is unfazed and laughing, Buk is frozen with fear and dumb-founded. Actually, Neal Cassidy was a skillful driving who could park a car on a dime. 

It was a round trip and when they got back to the Open City office it was clear Buk had pissed his pants. He never wrote about the crazy ride or pissing his pants, but he often told the story of the experience to friends.  

          

Henry, not a big fan of Neal Cassidy who was a Scorpio, Scorpios, bewildered souls adrift at sea. From what he read about Cassidy, he reckoned Neal was a kind of a sideshow freak performing for the beatniks and hippies that surrounded him. His wife Carol Cassidy made reference to this saying, 

They treated him like a trained bear. Neal took any drug, any pill, anyone handed him. He didn't care. He was doing his damnedest to get killed. 

Henry finishes the story in a few hours and faxes it to Dave Spleen at Headbanger. After a little editing, it was ready for print. 

Spleen liked things expedient and hygienic. The two worked well together, Headbanger, not pretentious like Rolling Stone, it was freak-show journalism at its finest.

It was 9 PM and Henry was hungry. He showers and washes his hair which was uncut and turning grey. Then dressing for the fall night—faded jeans, a knee-length black leather coat, and a pair of scuffed-up engineer boots.

It was a 10-minute walk to Chaim’s Deli from his apartment in Queens. The deli was built in the early 60s, it was a single level brick building occupying the corner of a downtown street, the entire corner was windowed. Henry sat at his usual booth which had a good view of the street, he didn't look out the window much because his regular waitress Ruby kept him busy pulling his chain. She says, happy to see him, 

  

Jesus Henry, we sure have missed you, Chaim was wondering where you’ve been, you know we love you here doll! Henry red-faced and wanting to change the subject says,

Ruby such sweet-talk, thanks babe, does the noodle kugel have a lot of raisins in it? Raisins give me heartburn you know, Ruby says,

raisins in the kugel? Would it give you heartburn if I told you the kugel was made with love? He says,

Made with love by the junk, Fat Frank in the kitchen? He probably spit in the kugel and only the gods know what else he put in it! Ruby says, 

You're disgusting Henry, I’ve heard quite enough, so whataya want anyway? He says,

A corned beef sandwich on pumpernickel, a large bowl of coleslaw, some potato tots well done, a pint of Jack Daniels with a bucket of ice, a couple of bottles of spring water and some noodle kugel for dessert.  

Ruby looking pissed does a brisk about face and walks back to the kitchen, he could see she was talking to Fat Frank, likely telling him to spit in his kugel. 

Henry thought she was immature, Ruby behaved like she was in high school. That said, she was fun to get drunk with and she gave off the chart head.

Anyway, Henry finishes eating and pays the bill, then walking to the Rawson Street Station to catch a subway to Greenwich Village. 

He boards the train and the only available seat was next to a fat man, he asked the fat man if he could move some and let him through to the window seat, the fat man who smelled like Roquefort cheese looks at Henry and says,

why aren’t you a sweet thang now, sit on my lap, why I’ll rock you like you've never been rocked before. 

Henry walks to the next car which was full and stands until the subway gets to the village. Gay sex with a fat man that smelled like cheese on a subway wasn’t in the cards for him, at least not today. 

As he leaves the underground station and reaches street level he is wonderstruck by the red, orange and yellow colors of the fall leaves and the agreeable feeling the brown, orange and pink low rise brick buildings gave off. 

When he reaches 90 Greenwich Ave., he notices a dive called Johnny’s Bar and feels a definite pull. He goes in and sits at the bar, which was painted blue once but didn’t have much color left on it. The walls were covered with what looked like old cheat sheets from Aqueduct Racetrack, odd lists, and moldy stuffed animals. People were there for one reason only, to drink allot and drink cheap. 

Henry goes to the men’s room to take a pee and then snorts a few lines of cocaine. Back at the bar, he orders a boilermaker. 

There wasn't a jukebox or any music in Johnny’s Bar, he sees a handwritten sign that reads,

Rolling Rock $1.25 Pints $3.00

Henry bored out of his cord is making more and more trips to the men’s room. The bar full of barflies with their head down, staring at their drinks or at the walls. 

Then Johnny who was behind the bar asked Henry, 

you got the shits or somethin? You sure are makin allot of trips to the head

Henry looks at Johnny smiling and says, 

sorry about that, I forgot to put my catheter in, if you’re worried about your water bill I can leave a few extra bucks. Then Johnny says,

cut the shit, you're snorting coke in the head, you can snort at da bar if you want.

Henry pours some coke on the bar and lines it off. Johnny goes down on it and snorts the stuff like a madman. Then, looking up at Henry, his nose covered in white powder, he says,

try soma dis, it’s top-shelf, imported from Mehico! 

Johnny puts 8 shot glasses on the bar and fills them with mescal, the two suck em down. 

Things go blank, Henry passes out and falls off his bar stool to the floor. 

When he comes too he is on his back, naked, laying on a tile floor near a large wooden tub filled with cold water. He stands up, goes to the tub, climbs a few steps to a deck and slowly goes in. 

After the freezing plunge, he goes and sits in the steam room. The extended sweat relieves his body of unwanted booze and dope toxins. He raps up in a towel and walks to the front counter asking the attendant, where his clothes were, how he got there and where he was? The guy at the counter says,

You're at da 10th Street Spa buddy, you staggered in a few hours ago, here’s your locker key, where closing in 15 minutes so get the hell outta here so I can go home.   

Henry dresses and catches a taxi home to Queens thinking,

I just don't know sometimes, booze, and dope leads me wherever it wants, I feel like a monkey on a leash. 

   

The Subway to Times Square is a Masterpiece

Henry up at 10 AM, ready for breakfast— a Veggiemite sandwich on rye toast with Belgium mustard and a boilermaker with a raw egg inside. 

After a couple of boilermakers, he could get the Veggiemite down. It was awful stuff, concocted by the British chef, Xavier Marcel Boulestin in the 1930s to get revenge on Australia for leaving the British Commonwealth in 1901. Nobody in the world could handle the fishy caca-like odor and smack of Veggiemite apart from macho ozzy jackeroos with knackers the size of red kangaroos and Henry after a few boilermakers.  

Dave Spleen the editor of the irrelevant underground rag, Headbanger had asked Henry to do a piece on Hunter S. Thompson. Spleen would call him on the phone and say,

Hey babe, can you do a bit on Hunter Thompson in the next 24 hours?

Dave Spleen, the hippest man in the world, asking him if he would do a bit on this or that— without any mandate and big chatter because Henry needed latitude. 

Some folks say Gonzo journalism was dropped from Mars to Earth sometime between 1971 and 1972 when Hunter S. Thompson was hired by Sports Illustrated to cover a motorcycle race in Las Vegas.

Hunter opens the story by documenting the list of stimulates he takes with him, mescaline, tequila, a case of Budweiser, LSD, 2 ounces of weed, uppers, downers, and anything else you can envision. 

There was scant reference in the 2500 word story to the motorcycle race, instead, it chronicles Hunter’s trip to Las Vegas, a high octane, dope-fueled rampage into the lizard kingdom.   

Hunter says it like this,

a savage journey into the heart of the American dream.

The all-American magazine for jocks, Sports Illustrated didn’t accept the story and didn’t pay Hunter, but when Jann Wenner, editor of Rolling Stone magazine, read it and his reactions was,

we were flat knocked out!

Wenner hires Hunter as a freelance correspondent, their relationship goes on to become a legendary roller coaster ride. Hunter’s essays for Rolling Stone were second to none. All of the writers at the magazine, then and now are mere shadows to Hunter.    

Hunter, the apologist of freak power goes on to pour hefty doses of Gonzo coulis on American politics, causes de célébrité, conspiracy theories and high profile sporting events for Rolling Stone, as well as writing his own books—Kingdom of Fear, Generation of Swine, The Great Shark Hunt and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Fear and Loathing was later made into a Hollywood film starring his close friend, Johnny Depp.  

In 1971 Hunter lost his job at Rolling Stone Magazine. He and Ralph Steadmen were sent to Zaire at great expense by Jann Wenner to cover the Ali, Foremen fight. Hunter was on the outs with Rolling Stone before he left for Zaire and this assignment was his last chance to redeem himself. 

The day of the fight Hunter and Ralph Steadmen 
got thoroughly ripped at their hotel on a bottle of Jules Robin Vintage Cognac—only the gods know how they got their hands on it in Muslim Zaire, but some say it was a gift from the countries dictator, Mubuto Sese Seko.  

The reprobate duo never made it to Rumble in the Jungle as Ali called the fight. The adolescent in Hunter just didn’t feel like going. In the end, there was no story for Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone magazine on the greatest sporting event of the 20th Century.

Then his second wife, Anita Thompson left him because he brought hookers and groupies to his house outside of Aspen that was called the Owl Farm, parading them around naked in front of her.

There were a number of things that lead to it—constant boozing and doping, the divorce from Anita, but Hunter lapses into chronic depression which is followed by another bout of writer's block, which he had experienced on and off during his writing career. 

When the final count is in he only knows why he was depressed and couldn't write, but on February 20, 2005, Hunter S. Thompson walks outside to a picnic table at the Owl Farm and sits down at a wooden picnic table and blows his brains out.  

He speaks of the why of the suicide in his suicide note.

No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun—  anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax – This won’t hurt.

Henry sends the finished Hunter S. Thompson story to Headbanger at 9 PM by fax, it was so hot that it set a Queen’s telephone pole ablaze! 

Anyway, he had been drinking Bud Light all day and was hungry.

He dresses for the cool fall night in a leather coat with a scarf, thick socks, and red hightop Converse All-Stars. He would go to Jimmy's Dinner in Times Square to eat a massive breakfast  ceremoniously in honor of Hunter S. Thompson, who often said,

breakfast is the only meal worth eating!

Breakfast a sacrament Hunter carried out in a prescribed order, but that’s another story.

To save time Henry would forgo walking and would take the subway from Queens to Times Square. He walks a short way to Rawson Street Station and scrambles down the steps into the subway tunnel. The station was painted drab grey and green, he walks by a bum passed out who is soaked in urine, lying on a bench, some might call this local color. 

He goes to the platform and stands close the tracks staring at and fantasizing about stepping on the 3rd rail, wondering if his rubber souled Converse All-Stars would interrupt the current flow from frying him to a crisp?

Then the number 7 train to Times Square arrives, the brakes give off a repulsive high-pitched sound like chalk squeaking on a blackboard. 

Henry boards the number 7 train, the cars are covered with graffiti, some New Yorkers referred to the spray-painted trains as masterpieces— their wrath was masked in humor.

He sits next to an old lady who is nodding out again and again. She was struggling to stay awake because sleeping in public was faux pas for the silent generation. When number 7 hits 49th Street Station at Times Square, Henry nudges the old girl on the shoulder waking her, she thanks him and gets off the train walking out ahead of him. 

As he exits the station stairwell he is hit in the face with a gust of cool night air and the smell of beer, burnt rubber, and hot tamales, he feels alive. 

Henry gets to Junior’s Dinner at 9 45 PM, he walks inside and sits at the counter on a swivel stool ordering grits, fried eggs, cornbread, black-eyed peas, poached catfish and a vodka and orange juice, with plenty of hot sauce. 

After dinner and more than a few drinks, he walks to Chinatown to puff opium in the basement of Lee’s Laundry. 

At Lees, he goes to the alley-side of the 4 level brick building to an unpainted metal door and knocks hard. The door swings open and he is greeted by an elderly Chinese woman, May, who is always there. May is dressed in a drab dark blue traditional Chinese suit, wearing her grey hair in a single braid. She says to him,

Henwee, not see in rong time!

He follows May down some metal steps to the basement, it is dark but he can see a dozen or so people, black guys, Chinamen and 3 or so ladyboys in dresses, all passed out and with their heads on wooden blocks and laying on rice mates. She leads him to his rice mate that also has a block to lay your head on when your out, he sits down and waits a half hour until May returns with an opium pipe, the bowl is packed tight with black tar opium that is rounded off at top. She lights the pipe and Henry puffs away until he nodes outs.  

Going to the opium den in the basement of Lee’s Laundry was raw and rugged, the place had been open for years and was owned by the Chinatown mafia or Pen Wang who paid off New York Citie's finest to look the other way. 

There was a Chinese bouncer who sat at a desk in a small dirty brick room beyond the den who helped May pack the opium into pipe bowls and clean the pipes, he looked like an NFL offensive lineman. Smoking junk was at all like boozing, Lee’s patrons weren’t looking for a fight, they were there to forget, dream and because they were hooked on junk.  

Henry off in a dream, laying on a rice mate with his head on a small wood antique block. He dreams he is flying with angels in Elysium hovering as he waits to descend as a spirit to earth to be placed in a mother's womb.

  

Flying with angels on all sides was a feeling beyond divine, a feeling of being surrounded by love and wholehearted acquiescence on all sides.  

It was the stuff of Dante’s Divine Comedy. 

Then, angelic Henry wakes in his mother’s womb, feeling nurtured and peaceful until he hears screaming as his head is wrenched by a large mitt and he is pulled out of his out of her womb only to be blinded by bright light and slapped on his ass by the same meat hook that pulled him out. 

3 years later his mother, Helen Lucowski takes him on an outing to Coney Island Beach. They are on the Boardwalk and Helen runs into some friends she knows who offer her a beer and she starts sucking them down and partying. 

In the meantime, little Henry has worked his way out of his stroller and is walking around. He jumps into the sea, he begins to go under, not trying to save himself, everything goes into a spiral around him and then he sees a light at the end of a tunnel and he hears happy voices and chatter, he is back again flying with angels in Elysium, it is glorious. 

Then Helen notices he has flown the coop and lets out a big scream, a lifeguard comes and dives off the Boardwalk and pulls little Henry out, resuscitating him, little Henry looks up and blows out seawater mixed with puke into the lifeguard's face and thinks,

RATS, back again!

Girly Bouquet and Tickle

Henry, doin time, gettin down, gettin on n goin roun, cursin n squirmin, excludin n usurp-in— nothin.

Oh, home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play, where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day.

Where the air is so pure, and the zephyrs so free and the breezes so balmy and light, that I would not exchange my home on the range, for all of the cities so bright.

It was noon in Queens, Henry was working on an assignment for the irrelevant underground rag, Headbanger. His editor, Dave Spleen had asked him to write a short piece on Ezra Pound. 

Ezra Pound, up on high with a few other celebrated contributors of 20th Century English language poetry. 

  

The only poetry that should be allowed in a state is hymns to the gods and paeans in praise of good men—so saith the long-headed salt of the Plaka, Socrates!

A poet’s political rants can be on the odd occasion threatening to western political governments. But, Ezra Pound rattled the green twig of the US authorities during the second world war when he delivered a series of Fascist broadcasts on Roman radio hailing Herr Hitler for,

having seen the Jew puke in the German democracy.

In May of 1945 Pound was arrested in Italy and locked up in a 6ft by 6ft cell that he called the guerrilla cage, consequently having a nervous breakdown. The US Army then transferred him to Washington DC, where he would go on trial for treason. 

A plea of insanity was accepted by the court which had no intentions of sending the lionized American poet to jail. He was moved to Saint Elizabeths Hospital outside of DC, where he would stay for the next 12 years. The hospital a place he coldly referred to as the bughouse. When he was released from the bughouse he moved back to Italy where he would stay the rest of his life. 

Unlike many noted poets of the 20th Century, Ezra Pound wasn’t alcoholic, but he was hounded throughout his poetic life by Fascist convictions and mental fragility— fortuitously delivered from it all when in his inner sanctum, writing. 

Pound’s magnum opus, Cantos, is an incomplete work that is over 800 pages, with 116 sections. In the 1920s and later he wrote haiku or hokku asian style poetry, much of which was only one sentence. For example,

In a Station of the Metro

 The apparition of these faces in the crowd:

Petals on a wet, black bough.

By 9 PM Henry had finished his piece for Headbanger. Upon finishing his research on Ezra Pound he was left with the feeling that Pound was a woeful brain box who didn’t have sense enough to get out of the rain. 

Anyway, he hadn’t been to Chaim’s deli for a coon’s age so he gussies up some and hops, skips and jumps a few blocks to the deli in downtown Queens. 

Chaim’s Deli was built in the early 60s, it was a single level brick building occupying the corner of a downtown street, the entire corner was windowed. Henry sat at his usual booth which had a good view of the street. Ruby his sometimes woman and regular waitress comes to his table and says,

Henry, where the flying fuck have you been? I haven’t seen you in a coon’s age! 

Wondering what particular parlance— in a coon’s age was? He says,

a coon’s age?  I was here a month ago, you could be right in that the average raccoon’s lifespan is a year due to disease and human interference, you know when the coons burrow into wooden awnings or get caught eating out of a garbage can, life is tough for raccoons everywhere these days.

Ruby looks at Henry in an odd way and says,

What are you on Henry, have you completely lost it? 

He orders a pastrami sandwich and a double Jack Daniels and soda, his head cast down, feeling like he had stepped in raccoon shit.

Ruby laughs and walks to the kitchen. 

He drinks 9 or so double Jack Daniels and sodas feeling contrite, knowing Ruby was keen on getting his goat.

Henry leaves Chaim’s Deli at 1030 PM, loaded to boot and ignoring Ruby—a childish attempt to get even with her. 

Leaving Queen’s, walking, and eventually reaching the Bowery. A bum they call Shit Can comes up to him and gets in his face, breathing on him. Shit Can’s breath smelled like rocket fuel and puke hybrid, He then screams at Henry as though Henry was deaf,

Hey Bud, howza bout yus and me get us a can of Sterno and make us some smoke to drink? There aint nothin like it, it’ll knock yus out!

Henry pulls himself away from Shit Can, saying,

That shit will kill you, you know! Do you like Jack Daniels Shit Can? 

Shit Can’s face had scar tissue on top of scar tissue from being punched by the other bums. He looks up at Henry, grimacing weakly and says,

I don’t reckon I ever had any of it. 

Henry walks to the closest bar, a place called 

King Eddy’s Saloon and buys 2 pints of Jack Daniels wrapped tightly in a paper bag and gives the bum a pint.  

Shit Can lights up and looks at Henry like he's Jesus feeding the multitude. 

As he is leaving the Bowery he looks up into the sky, seeing a shooting star, feeling good inside, as though the Gods were looking down on the city and something big was going to happen. 

By midnight he was in Times Square longing for a taste of girly bouquet and tickle. As he is walking Times Square he sees a red neon sign that reads,

ROSELAND BALLROOM 

Taxi Dance Hall  

He goes to the ticket booth in the front of the hall and the lady vendor says,

one dance 3.50, ten dances for 30 bucks,

Henry buys a whopping 30 bucks worth of tickets, he couldn’t dance and cared little for it, but he wanted to get close and grind with a gal in a dress, wearing makeup who smelled like a rose. 

Roseland Ballroom was a large open hall that doubled as a roller rink. The dance floor was made of wood, scuffed up plenty, Henry reckoned the ballroom was built in the 20s. 

There was a mess of card-tables and chairs surrounding the dance floor, which was divided in half by a tall hanging red velvet curtain that had a pronounced musty smell. Burning some incense would have been a nice touch, but you could hardly call the joint, hip. 

Henry shocked, it was boys on one side and girls on the other. The girls attractive in their rented silk dresses and made up real nice, but the guys? Well, you could say they were an odd lot—old guys, younger guys with pot-marked faces, guys that limped and butt-ugly guys. 

It was obvious the common denominator was— buying a ticket for a dance at a taxi dance hall was the only way they were going to get close to a woman.  

The music came from a couple mobile speakers that were in front of the moldy red velvet curtain. It was slow tempo, old dance riffs, Guy Lombardo and Lawrence Welk stuff, no up-tempo cha-chas or boogie— the misfits who came to Roseland Ballroom were there for one reason, to get up close with a woman and grind it out, and if they were lucky, a dry hump.  

Henry like the others, a misfit, wanting to get close to a woman without jumping through a lot of hoops. Well, he walks over to the girl's side, the gals sitting with blank looks on their faces. He notices the only black girl in the group and hands her all his tickets, she smiles as she places the tickets in her dress pocket, saying, 

Hi sweety, I’m Butterfly, what’s your name? Do you like slow dancin? 

Henry smiles and says,

Why, I’m Henry doll, but I gotta tell ya, I’m not much of a dancer, then Butterfly says,

You just follow me Henry and hold on tight baby!

He was hot for Butterfly already, she was cocoa-skinned with dyed blond hair in double braids, a body build from the dance floor up and a huge chest and bum to boot. 

She was discreet but she was a pro and she wanted to give Henry a go for his money. He had picked her knowing that black women were golden. 

As they get to the dance floor, Penny Serenade by the Guy Lombardo Orchestra was playing. They start dancing in classic ballroom position, minutes later Henry pulls her close to him, rubbing against her, Butterfly didn’t resist.  

By the 10th dance, he wanted more tickets, it was 130 AM. Butterfly says she could sell him tickets so he buys 10 more. He was turgid from grinding on her, he wanted to fuck Butterfly and he says,

What time does this place close? I don’t know if I can grind much longer, I’m getting horny, then she says,

2 AM, we can go get a cheap room in Harlem, but it’s gonna cost you! Henry says,

How much? And Butterfly says, 

150 per hour, 

he agrees, at the same time the ballroom closes Henry runs out of tickets. 

The two get a taxi to Harlem and go to a cheap hotel called the Fifth Avenue Deluxe, Butterfly gets a short time rate. 

The room was simple, just a bed, a toilet and a desk with a chair and a mirror. They strip off their clothes quickly, once in bed Butterfly lights a joint, Henry has the pint of Jack Daniels he bought in the Bowery. She goes down oh him, he shoots a load in her mouth in a few minutes and then turns her over doggy style and they ball like crazy for another 20 minutes or so. 

After awhile, Henry dresses and heads for the door, saying,

That was great babe, I suppose we could have talked some, but I got so turned on dancing with you at the ballroom, you know what I mean!

Butterfly a cool lady laughs, Henry hits the bricks, walking back to Queens. 

As he walks, he looks into the night sky which is lit up by the light bouncing off the skyscrapers. It was New York City, a fall night sometime between 1970, there was just nothing like it anywhere!

Ordinance 547981

It was one of those days, it was the dog days of summer, sometime between 1970 and 1980. 

11 AM, Henry sitting in front of his IBM Electric typewriter in his apartment, aired-out and contented, lost in the creative process as a small table fan on the floor blew a steady stream of cool air on him. The sound of the swaying table fan was hypnotic. He had made some lemonade which he mixed with Jack Daniels. 

Earlier, that morning over coffee he had read The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, a short read, 277 pages.  

Anyone who went to high school has read The Catcher in the Rye, usually assigned as a text in the sophomore year. 

The Catcher in the Rye, recounting adolescence angst, underage drinking, depression and lost love. Henry reckoned assigning Catcher to fifteen-year-olds was like pouring grain alcohol on a blazing campfire. 

He had read Catcher when he was fifteen but the affect on him wasn’t fiery, it was much the opposite, moreover, he felt solace knowing Holden Caulfield was out there busted flat and boozing, going through a rite of passage— a grand and marvelous initiation to adulthood. 

J.D. Salinger wrote The Catcher in the Rye in 1951, thereafter withdrawing from the world.

He was  hypersensitive sort who thought too much, a guy obsessed with himself, quack religions and health food who built walls around his life to keep the world out. 

Salinger was an oddball and a gifted writer—  but Henry wasn’t a fan. The two were unalike, Henry open to it all, knocking down the walls and letting the freaks in.      

Henry happy that his Catcher and J.D. Salinger foray was over. He had read Catcher twice in his life and wouldn't read it again— let’s leave it at that. 

At sundown, he dresses and cleans up, it was 8 PM and he was hungry so he walked the short distance to Chaim's Deli.

When he got to Chaim’s Deli, he saw a sign in the window that read, 

CLOSED FOR PASSOVER

Henry didn’t know Chaim was religious, but, others had warned him to beware of religiosity because it could strike you down at any time without warning, he was a recovering Catholic and serene atheist.

He catches a taxi to Manhattan and goes to a Thai restaurant called Pad Thai, going inside and sitting at the bar, ordering a pint of Sangsom whiskey and some soda. The piped in Essan music was gentle and it was relaxing—he looks around the joint seeing that the Thai waitresses were in all respects, from head to toe, stunning. His Uncle Fredrick, a Viet Nam Veteran who had done R & R time in Bangkok always said that Thai women were the most beautiful women in the world.

He orders egg rolls and only eats one. He then finishes the pint off and leaves Pad Thai, waiing each waitress as he passes, the girls smiling sweet smiles that could thaw ice.

It was 10 PM and most folks where home in bed watching Johnny Carson on TV. Henry didn’t have a TV, but he listened to Met’s games on WFAN, day games only because it was a neurotic necessity for him to be in the city at night— New York City at night was his muse.

As he walks through the city-canyons of Manhattan he feels both humbled and awe-struck. It was a city where good existed side by side with bad, bums sleeping in doorways, the rich, the famous and the hardworking middle-class, all of them hungry for and wanting one thing or the other. 

He ends up at Jimmy’s Corner in Times Square, the bar was rectangular shaped like a hallway in an apartment building, the walls were lined with Christmas lights, dollar bills and oddball pictures in cheap frames of sports and celebrity memorabilia.  

The bartender, a black guy with a silver mustache and shortly cropped grey hair greets Henry as he sits at the bar saying,

Howzit broh? Check out our menu.

Henry orders fried clams, potato tots, and a boilermaker, the place feels good to him. Soul and blues music could be heard from the speakers on the walls, the music was so loud that you couldn’t have a conversation, as a result, folks were shaking their heads and talking with hands a lot.  

After eating and a few drinks, Henry heads to the men’s room to snort some cocaine. There is a handsome woman with a shapely body standing there looking in the mirror, she was wearing a business suit and black heels. Henry says, 

Sorry sweetie, I thought this was the men’s room, then she says laughing,

Sorry, I honestly thought this was a gender-neutral loo handsome.

Henry locks the door behind him and  lays some hefty lines down on a small pocket mirror that he places on the sink saying,

I’m Henry Lucowski, maybe you've seen my short stories in the irrelevant rag Headbanger, she then says after snorting a line,

no, I haven’t read Headbanger, it sounds like a liberal rag, I’m a card-carrying Republican, let's not talk politics Henry, oh, my name is Audrey Cummings, he then says,

let’s get outta here Audrey, the music is too loud and I want to talk to you.

The two walk down 8th Avenue to Central Park, going into the park and then sitting on a bench near Azalea Pond, Audrey talks some about her life saying,

I’ve never married, I guess you could say I’m married to my work, I’m an assistant to Alderman Steven Matteo, one of two Republicans on the City Council, then Henry says, 

Nice, are you a virgin? Audrey says,

oh no Henry, not hardly, I love sex, it’s beautiful, he then says bluntly as he pulls her closer to him,

Do you like nature babe? Getting nude in the bush? Audrey says,

Oh my God yes, Henry!

They walk a few steps to grassy patch that is between some bushes and the water, then laying down. Henry lifts her skirt up over her head and rips her pantyhose open, then going down on her, his cock is uber hard, he goes inside her and she screams, as they begin to get it on they are blinded by a flashlight. It is a Park Ranger who says,

Fornication is strictly prohibited in Central Park under Ordinance 547981, I’m going to have to take you in, Henry says,

I just wanna know, did Sheriff Taylor give you your bullet this morning Barney? The Park Ranger says,

OK, smart ass that’s enough lip outta you!

Audrey and Henry walk with the Park Ranger to the Central Park Jail, a small holding cell, and office, Audrey says, 

The ticket is no problem Henry when I go to work tomorrow at City Hall I will take care of it. 

They were in Central Park Jail for an hour or so and then released, Audrey tells Henry,

I’m tired dear, gotta work tomorrow, call you soon, bye sweets!

She gives him a hug and walks away as she stuffs the ticket into her purse. 

He never saw Audrey again, he looked for her at Jimmy’s Corner a few nights the following week without luck. It was clear that getting busted with her knickers down in the bush during coitus was humiliating for the Audrey.

He didn’t think about that night the rest of the summer or ever again. It was just another memory for him that he would file in the trash.

It wasn't that Henry didn't feel anything, but a cold heart was a safe heart.