Looking earnestly at the blank page furled in his typewriter Henry panicked, worried his words had run away.
Hemingway on writer's block—
Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would..stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think,
Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.
So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say.
Wait, Hemingway’s pointer on writer's block is sappy and irresolute. He was a man’s man, a boxer and a big game hunter who could stare a Bobcat down. But, some believe, under his macho facade there was a vulnerable mind that was full of contradictions.
Instead of Hemingways’ true sentence, Henry fished for a cooked up, undomesticated, and savage sentence, being truthful was of little importance to him.
He wanted his readers to laugh and be ferried away to a place where they’d forget the problems of the world.
The phone rings in the Timothy Leary Dream Suite of the Chelsea Hotel, he picks up the handset, without saying hello Dave Spleen the editor of HEADBANGER Magazine says,
Henry, let's cut the crap, here's how shit is playing out! Your last 3 stories took off and merely hovered! The last home run you hit was The Tennessee Williams Sugar Bowl. He replies,
I was sure Timothy Leary’s Dream Suite and Dante Snooze, the Hippest Man in the World, would be huge hits. Dave, spurring him on says,
your stories are doing very little for our sales volume. And, you have a rival, Franklyn Farkleberry is wooing your readers, which is why your numbers are down! And, do a bit on TS Eliot, gotta go, gotta deadline to meet.
Dave hangs up, Henry didn't think much of Franklyn Farkleberry, figuring anyone with a name akin to a strain of thistle was a nonstarter and fink to boot.
Thomas Stearns Eliot was born on September 26, 1888, in St. Louis Missouri. His Father was a businessman and his Grandfather was a Unitarian minister. Eliot’s Mother was a teacher and a poet, proof the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Eliot attended a Unitarian School in St. Louis. He was an A1 student who felt ground down by the heavy-handed emphasis on theology.
In 1906 he went to Harvard where he majored in literature earning a BA and MA.
Upon graduation, Eliot was bedeviled with the idea of becoming a poet.
By 1911 at the age of 23, he had written one of his most iconic poems, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. The poem proved young Eliot possessed insight beyond his years. He succeeded in peeking into the soul of a middle-aged man who was full of self-doubt which eventually consumed him, arresting his attempt to sing a love song to win the heart of the woman he loved.
For the next decade while working on a Ph.D. in philosophy at Oxford Eliot’s poetic output waned.
While living in London he worked as a banker, which he couldn’t bear. At the same time, his personal relationships were floundering.
Eliot was full of collywobbles which went unvented because he wasn’t writing poetry. Consequently, he had a nervous breakdown. His resilience in the face of psychological collapse can be summed up in his own words,
Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity.
Eliot's ability to pen astute yet simply put quotes was prodigious, here are a few,
Do I dare to disturb the universe?
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.
You are the music while the music lasts.
In 1919, after a 3-month stay in a Swiss sanatorium, Eliot traveled to London where he'd write of his disillusionment with the world's war-torn state of affairs and his vexations about his own life.
Eliot was full of collywobbles which went unvented because he wasn’t writing poetry. Consequently, he had a nervous breakdown. His resilience in the face of psychological collapse can be summed up in his own words,
Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity.
Eliot's ability to pen astute yet simply put quotes was prodigious, here are a few,
Do I dare to disturb the universe?
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.
You are the music while the music lasts.
In 1919, after a 3-month stay in a Swiss sanatorium, Eliot traveled to London where he'd write of his disillusionment with the world's war-torn state of affairs and his vexations about his own life.
He shows the finished poem to his pal Ezra Pound, a significant poet who had lobbied for Eliot's work. Pound then edits the poem, deleting sections he felt were excessive. The net result was one of if not the most celebrated poems of the 20th Century, The Waste Land.
The Waste Land details an ascent aimed at achieving enlightenment which stalls in a gunmetal grey mire.
Time and place are influx in the poem much like Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse-Five, or William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, shifting between 3rd Century BC Carthage to present-day London.
Time and place are influx in the poem much like Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse-Five, or William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, shifting between 3rd Century BC Carthage to present-day London.
The narration also shifts— at times it’s Eliot and at other times it’s a lineup of fabricated personas from the Classical Period.
Eliot alludes to a boatload of literary references as well, such as— Blake, ancient Sanskrit, Dante, and Shakespeare.
He also uses musical references including Wagner, ragtime, nursery rhymes, and urban sounds such as— car horns, tavern jabbering, and the sounds of shaking dice.
He also uses musical references including Wagner, ragtime, nursery rhymes, and urban sounds such as— car horns, tavern jabbering, and the sounds of shaking dice.
In the 3rd Stanza, The Fire Sermon, Eliot throws the readers a bone— suggesting there are ways out of the wasteland, but the narrator never finds them. Consequently, The Fire Sermon is an eloquent razz.
The sooty, barren landscape of The Waste Land unnerved many readers and literati at the time it was published in 1922.
In 1923, FL Lucas, not a big fan of modern poetry, wrote a blistering review of The Wasteland in The New Statesman, speaking of Eliot he says,
In all periods creative artists have been apt to think they could think, though in all periods they have been frequently harebrained and sometimes mad; just as great rulers and warriors have cared only to be flattered for the way they fiddled or their flatulent tragedies.
Penning The Waste Land vented Eliot's demons causing his mental health to improve.
By 1925 his career was on the up and up. He became literary editor of Faber and Faber, a big-time publishing company.
And, in 1927 he found the peace he was looking for when he joined The Church of England. In the same year, his poem The Journey of the Magi was published. It's an upbeat yarn on the visitation of the 3 Wise Men with the baby Jesus. Magi is a celebrated poem, although it's deprived of the bang-on feeling of modern despair in The Waste Land.
In 1943, Eliot, was religious while bolstering a sense of philosophic wonderment, wrote a puzzling series of poems, The Four Quartets.
In the poems, he aspires to deliver his readers to a fugitive consciousness outside of time, history and language. Unfortunately, the rocket ship fails to launch because he has chosen the wrong vehicle, words instead of meditation or LSD, which have the power to alter awareness and induce mind travel to the outer zones.
Although Eliot failed to deliver his readers to Samadhi in The Four Quartets, the penning of the masterpiece raised his spiritual awareness.
In 1948 he won the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature, which he truly deserved.
Eliot was semi-retired by 1957, spending his time writing cultural and literary criticism. He also married his secretary Valerie Fletcher, who was 40 years his junior. Which, many saw as an achievement of sorts although it was no Nobel Prize.
TS Eliot died of emphysema in 1965, caused by years of smoking. He was 76 years old.
Henry’s easy to the eye Cubano wife Lucia wakes at noon, pacing about the dream suite naked as the day she was born, dialing Chelsea Hotel room service, ordering bagels, sliced raw onions, cream cheese, locks, a large pot of white coffee and a 1/5 of Kailua.
She then gets face to face with Henry who’s at his desk typing, rips his Jockeys off, goes down on him and deep throats his average-sized but well-shaped pinkish cock. Spontaneous orgasmic moments oiled the couples libidos.
In the wake of the gusher, room service arrives. After eating a light Jewish brunch, they screw around in bed as they suck down White Russians. Henry turns the radio to 90.7, Big Apple’s Blues, John Hammond is singing Big 45.
The couple’s lover Summer Wynd is working out at Lincoln Center for the upcoming performance of the ballet Fancy Free. Later, she will go out with the cast of dancers, including the legends, Margot Fonteyn and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Henry asks Lucia,
whataya say we go slummin round the village? She agrees saying,
babe, I’m all yours
They shower together, then grooming one another. She spreads musk oil throughout his waist-length salt and pepper hair, braiding it’s Native Indian style. He primps her long curly black hair using rainbow sparkle gel, then he tries to backcomb in Aquanet bangs, which fall flat.
Lucia walks into the closet and picks up an armful of assorted tops and bottoms, tossing the bundle of clothes in the middle of the suite floor. The couple will play Dress Up Roulette, the rules are simple, close your eyes and pick up a pair of pants and a shirt from the pile, which you must wear.
Lucia walks into the closet and picks up an armful of assorted tops and bottoms, tossing the bundle of clothes in the middle of the suite floor. The couple will play Dress Up Roulette, the rules are simple, close your eyes and pick up a pair of pants and a shirt from the pile, which you must wear.
Lucia plucks a camouflaged t-shirt and knee-length pink sequin dress out of the pile.
Henry snatches a black t-shirt with purple lettering that reads,
DON’T LET MY BIG TITS
SCARE YOU I’M REALLY
A NICE GIRL
as well as a fluorescent green pair of Oxford shorts.
Now the easy part, each one walks into the closet with their eyes closed and picks out footwear by feel.
She chooses a pair of jungle combat boots, which fit her because she and Henry’s feet are close to the same size. And, he grabs Summer Wynd’s pink rubber flip-flops.
On their way out, Lucia locks The Timothy Leary Dream Suite and they walk the hall to the old scissor-gate elevator, waiting till it arrives, then getting inside, Franky, the junk operator says,
the lobby? Where ya headed? To the Sausage Jockey's Ball? Henry quips,
Franky, the 5-minute ride on your elevator is 5-minutes too long!
She chooses a pair of jungle combat boots, which fit her because she and Henry’s feet are close to the same size. And, he grabs Summer Wynd’s pink rubber flip-flops.
On their way out, Lucia locks The Timothy Leary Dream Suite and they walk the hall to the old scissor-gate elevator, waiting till it arrives, then getting inside, Franky, the junk operator says,
the lobby? Where ya headed? To the Sausage Jockey's Ball? Henry quips,
Franky, the 5-minute ride on your elevator is 5-minutes too long!
Laughing as they leave the Chelsea Hotel, the couple walks to the 14th St. Subway Station looking Salvation Army chic, Henry resembles an off duty drag queen.
At 735 PM they're trekking down the steps into the cavern of the NYC subway system, waiting for the coming A-Train.
The A-Train arrives, coming to a screeching stop. As the doors open outwards, passengers exit, then Henry and Lucia go inside, it’s packed full of commuters and the couple stands for the 10 minute trip to Greenwich Village.
They are standouts in a sea of professionals dressed in business suits. The white-collar workers eyeball Henry and Lucia.
The scene’s comparable to the bit in the film Sid and Nancy— the pale punk luminaries are on the subway to Chelsea, sitting on the trains bench seat, pierced to boot wearing torn and painted leather jackets. Sitting across from the junk sick lovers is a young, robust Black couple who stare at Sid and Nancy. The vision disturbs the impressionable Black teens.
Henry muses, saying to Lucia,
the suits are gawking at us, they think we're weird. But here’s the rub, next year they’re going to be sitting in the same seat, wearing the same suit, going to the same place, at the same time. How fucked up can that be? It’s like Sartre’s play No Exit, the suits are encased in cement, sentenced for life. She laughs hardily saying,
Jesucristo, they have responsibilities, familias! Inside every suit there’s a soul begging to be set free.
They exit the train at Spring St. in Greenwich Village, walking up the steps, leaving the burnt rubber smell of the subway cavern behind.
AT 8 PM they walk past Washington Square Park, going inside in the Ear Inn for a drink. The bar has a red neon sign over the entrance that reads BAR or EAR. 1/2 of the B isn't lit so the sign reads Bar in the day and Ear in the night. The sign has been the same for years, so New Yorkers call the bar, the Ear Inn.
The walls of the Ear Inn are cluttered with bric-a brac, which feels like it's reaching out, the sensation is claustrophobic. The couple sits at the bar ordering boilermakers. Henry’s shares bits of his sardonic history with Lucia—
When I was 8 my Old Man would bring me here on Saturday afternoons, he was a drunk. I would sit on a barstool next to him and drink cherry cokes as he banged down shots and told stories about his travels to anyone who listened. He sold lingerie to small-town general stores across the USA.
In no time he’d be loaded, slurring his words, showering the barroom with spittle as he spoke. By 8 he’d be passed out in the same booth. Like clockwork my deaf nanny, who knew the routine, showed at 9, walking me our family apartment in the East Village.
My Old Man would come home the following Monday, clean up and head out west to sell lingerie in his second hand Cadillac. Lek Lucowski, my Old Man, a flop who was as regular as a German train. Lucia turns and hugs Henry at the bar saying,
I love you, darling, you're 100 % genuine, please don’t stop!
He orders a pitcher of Rolling Rock beer and the couple move from the bar to a sit in a booth, the very same booth Henry’s Old Man passed out in 30 years earlier. He sighs and goes on,
Well, I lived in a Railroad apartment near here, in the East Village. My deaf nanny, Ingrid, raised me until I left home at 18. She read lips and spoke with a monotone lisp at varying volumes. My parents were never around, My Old Man was on the road, and my Mom, Lilly, was a waitress at The Russian Tea Room. When she wasn’t working she barhopped in Harlem, hot for Black dudes.
Ingrid was in her late 20s and I was a handful for her. I did what I wanted, often skipping school to go to Coney Island, The Natural History Museum, The Bronx Zoo, or the Village Cinema to watch porn. I was horny 24-7 and I'd watch Ingrid bathe. She'd crack the bathroom door so I could see, masturbating in the tub, knowing I was watching got her off. Doll, the scene was like a Japanese porno flick.
She had a pleasing body, clean-limbed with pale freckled skin and pear-shaped boobs. Her kinked red bush contrasted her cosmic purple clitoris. I could have fucked her, but I was hesitant and missed my chance. The fantasies the 2 of us shared were enough I suppose. Seriously darling, fantasies eclipse the real thing.
One day, Ingrid disappeared, my Old Man hadn't paid her for months. I still think of her at times, she was the personification of sweetness.
But, you're my soulmate darling! Watching Ingrid jack off in the tub was a dry run, a big fat welcome to the world of pussy.
At 18 I lost touch with my parents. I was happy to be free of the gin-soaked weasels. Then, I worked odd jobs and took out a student loan to study creative writing at NYU, I quit after my sophomore year.
When I was 22 my Uncle Victor Lucowski, a Pennsylvania coat hanger magnate, died of TB and he left me in his will. I gotta tell ya, getting a large chunk of dough was a gift from the gods.
Anyway, let’s pick up some take-out from White Castle.
Ingrid was in her late 20s and I was a handful for her. I did what I wanted, often skipping school to go to Coney Island, The Natural History Museum, The Bronx Zoo, or the Village Cinema to watch porn. I was horny 24-7 and I'd watch Ingrid bathe. She'd crack the bathroom door so I could see, masturbating in the tub, knowing I was watching got her off. Doll, the scene was like a Japanese porno flick.
She had a pleasing body, clean-limbed with pale freckled skin and pear-shaped boobs. Her kinked red bush contrasted her cosmic purple clitoris. I could have fucked her, but I was hesitant and missed my chance. The fantasies the 2 of us shared were enough I suppose. Seriously darling, fantasies eclipse the real thing.
One day, Ingrid disappeared, my Old Man hadn't paid her for months. I still think of her at times, she was the personification of sweetness.
But, you're my soulmate darling! Watching Ingrid jack off in the tub was a dry run, a big fat welcome to the world of pussy.
At 18 I lost touch with my parents. I was happy to be free of the gin-soaked weasels. Then, I worked odd jobs and took out a student loan to study creative writing at NYU, I quit after my sophomore year.
When I was 22 my Uncle Victor Lucowski, a Pennsylvania coat hanger magnate, died of TB and he left me in his will. I gotta tell ya, getting a large chunk of dough was a gift from the gods.
Anyway, let’s pick up some take-out from White Castle.
Henry pays the tab at the Ear Inn, they walk outside to the street and hail a yellow cab. Inside Lucia tells the hack to stop at White Castle on the way to the hotel, where they order 2 Crave Cases. Soon, the taxi's at the Chelsea Hotel. Lucia pays the cabby and they walk into the lobby, boarding the scissor-gate elevator. Franky the junk operator, who was always there says,
Ola, kiddy cats, I got some downs, Restoril, Dalma, Klonopin? Henry smiles,
howza bout a couple of dozen knock out pills?
By the time they reach the 14th floor, the dope transaction is complete. They say good night to Franky, get out of the elevator and walk the hall to The Timothy Leary Dream Suite. It’s 3 AM, they open the door, going inside the room, Summer Wynd is passed out on the kingsize bed, fully dressed.
Lucia takes off Summer Wynd’s clothes, then helps her to the bathroom and bathes her.
Sometime later, the 2 girls come out of the bathroom wearing only pajama tops, their cleansed bushes emit a fetching musk scent.
The 3 of them sit on the bed, savoring every bite of the White Castle. After eating they each take 2 Restoril and sleep till 3 PM the following day.
The 3 of them sit on the bed, savoring every bite of the White Castle. After eating they each take 2 Restoril and sleep till 3 PM the following day.
Waking Sunday afternoon, Henry wonders what day it is? Realizing it's April the cruelest month of the year.
