Pink Tacos & Heat Seeking Missiles

21 years ago The Summer of Love was happening everywhere without much thought. And, The Rolling Stone's song on the subject of LSD, Jumping Jack Flash, was number 1. 

It's summertime, 1986 in The Big Apple.

Writing coaches and great writers often share their ideas on writing.

Elmore Leonard is a crime novelist who writes humorous felony yarns and screenplays about hip sinners. His advice on writing is, 

if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Haruki Murakami is a Japanese writer who writes using traditional Japanese 1st person narrative, and a magic realist, akin to Franz Kafka and Gabrial Garica Marquez. Haruki says on writing,

When I start to write a story, I don’t know the conclusion at all and I don’t know what’s going to happen next. If I knew there’s no purpose in writing the story. 

Stephen King, an author who doesn't need an introduction, says on writing,

If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write, simple as that.

King says if you don't read, don't write. Advice that leaves little wiggle room. 

As a writer, Henry chose sordid life experience over reading anything that came down the pike.

Ray Bradbury wrote in many styles—fiction, horror, and mystery, to name a few. His writing style was complex and to a great extent descriptive. Here's Ray's advice on writing,

you must stay drunk on writing so reality doesn’t destroy you.

Juxtaposing the sentence with something Charles Bukowski might say, 

stay drunk while writing, unlike women, beer stays by your side.

Sometimes, Henry would wake late at night and fret over what he’d written the day before, or what he was going to write.

Eventually, he got smart and didn’t think about writing unless he was sitting in front of his typewriter, writing. 

Henry’s working on a story in The Dream Suite of the Chelsea Hotel, alternately eyeballing The Empire State Building through 3 Georgian windows which frame the famous skyscraper into 3 parts.  

The phone rings, he places the speaker cup firmly against his ear while keeping the microphone cup a healthy distance from his mouth. Paranoid like Howard Hughes, attempting to avoid unknown viruses. Dave Spleen his editor says, 

don't get your undies in a knot but,

Dave Pauses,  

your last story, April is the Cruelest Month didn’t take off. 

Henry, nobody, I mean no fucking buddy want’s to hear about your johnson. Forget writing sex, you’re no Anis Nin. Feeling sheepish he defends himself,

Dave, the world’s a freak show, folks are fascinated by size, big and small.

Man, I ain't got the time or the inclination to talk about heat seeking missiles. Whatever you do, don't pull me down to your level! They enjoy the bantering, Henry asks,

what level is that?  

Frankly, the penis dialogue level, Henry howls, 

frankly my ass! Dave finishes with,

cut the sex stuff! Gotta go, gotta deadline to meet!

Henry ignores Dave, penning whatever he wants. The short story he was editing at the moment was 90% sex—  a whimsical interpretation, not a play by play description.

Lucia enters The Dream Suite with a large paper bag of sweet rolls and buns from Pilar's Cubano Bakery. She sets the bag on the countertop of the room's small kitchenette. Then, she picks up the handset of the room's Princess phone, ordering hot coffee with milk and a pint of Kailua. 

20 minutes later there's a knock on the door, it's room service. She yells out,

Si, entrar,

A younger version of Franky the elevator operator, who looks like Herbert Huncke, thin with greased back hair, wearing a cheesy double-breasted bellhop's jacket and striped pants says, 

Cos'è, I'm a Franky da elevator operator’s nephew Ricco. I got yous order and if yous need? I got 1/4s of Kush for 45 beans, Henry asks, 

you got one handy? 

Ricco hands him a Ziploc bag with bud in it, he takes a long whiff, the bud is odoriferous, he hands the kid a US Grant and says, 

keep the change Ricco, I gotta tell ya, you and your Uncle Franky are the dukes of Chelsea. 

Ricco whistles O Sole Mio as he pushes the trolly out the door. The couple eats Cubano pastry and sips hot coffee and milk mixed with Kailua, talking about the usual stuff. Out of nowhere, Henry doggedly asks, 

please be truthful darling, do I have a big dick? Before she met Henry, Lucia was one of a select group of ladies on call for Fidel Castro in Havana. She giggles saying, 

Fidel has balls the size of a pomelo, and a pollo like a burro. He'd rub his pene in cocaína and fucks me all night. Henry feeling sheepish asks, 

Am I as good a Fidel? She says, 

bebe, you know I love you, Fidel was a trick, I needed the money. Your polla isn’t the biggest, but size doesn’t matter. Her answer aggravates the situation and he insists, 

I know damn well size matters. She laughs reassuring him, 

women are different from men, romance is 1st, sex is 2nd. Darling, if you feel insecure talk to a shrink.  

He had visited a number of county psychiatrists while on crazy pay in his late teens. He'd tell them what they wanted to hear and walk out of the welfare office carrying little brown bottles of pills, later giving the pills to the 1st bum he’d see on his way home. 

Henry reckoned psychotherapy, whatever variations the men in the white coats were practicing this year, was rubbish. And that, the human body became resistant to psychotropic drugs within a month, consequently, larger and larger doses were needed as time went on. 

His irrefutable choice was self-medicating over shrinks and psychotropic drugs. Enjoying booze, hallucinogenics, and sex was a helluva panacea and a glorious walk down the yellow brick road.  

He decides to ignore Lucia's comments on pecker size which weren’t reassuring. Lucia's tired of nursemaiding his insecurities and she says, 

bebe, just remember I love you! Let’s meet Summer Wynd for dinner and a film, I’ll call and leave a message at Lincoln Center.

Summer Wynd was a dancer with the New York City Ballet.

The couple showers and grooms one another's waist-length hair. Then dressing in matching outfits, faded jean shorts with frayed legs, tank tops, and rubber slippers. Henry comments,

darling, fall is around the corner, let's plan on flying back to Key West in October if not sooner. I miss our babies, Che and Mia, the Chihuahuas and Pedro the woodpecker.

At 745 PM they lock their Chelsea Hotel room, walking the hallway to the creaking scissor-gate elevator, waiting until Franky the junk slides the gated door open, then getting inside and slowly riding the old elevator downward, Franky says

my nephew Ricco told me what went down with yous guys. He’s a chip off the ole block, who do ya think taught da kid wat he knows? His Uncle Franky dat’s who! The couple smiles, Henry says, 

Franky, you have good reason to be proud of Ricco, he pulled off the dope deal like a pro.

Leaving the Chelsea Hotel the couple walks the canyons of New York City feeling jubilant and alive in the clement summer air.

In Manhattan, they go in the Original Pancake House, an A1 flapjack joint with the best pancakes anywhere.

Inside, they sit with Summer Wynd at a booth who complains, 

my feet are calloused and my muscles ache, ballet’s for masochist! When are we going home to Key West? Henry reassures her, 

baby, I'm gonna book tickets for next month.

The tribe eyeballs the one of kind menu of the Original Pancake House. A shapely  middle-aged waitress wearing jeans, a small apron and a t-shirt which reads, 

           There is hardship in everything,              

                  except eating pancakes! 

comes to their table, Henry orders an assortment of cakes which they will share, saying,  

a German pancake, a Swedish pancake with Loganberrys, buckwheat pancakes, and a pot of coffee, no hurry sweety!

They drink percolated coffee and then their order comes. The waitress places the gourmet hotcakes on the table, the portions are large and the cakes are scrumptious. 

After Summer Wynd pays the bill, they leave the pancake house, hitting the pavement, Henry suggests,

let’s walk to Times Square, pancakes lay in your gut and do nothing but spurn fatty acid for hours on end!

It’s a 30-minute walk, Henry gives every bum who’s curled up on the pavement a couple of bucks as the threesome moves along the sidewalk. When they reach Times Square Lucia, thinking he is throwing money away, comments, 

Jesucristo, you think your Juan Rockefeller with nothing but money to burn?   

A short distance up the sidewalk he notices The Peek a Boo Club, it’s an old-style burlesque house. He insists they go inside for a drink. 

The tribe walks inside the dimly lit club, sitting at a small table covered with a red table cloth that has a small light on it. They sit facing the elevated stage which is masked with a musty red curtain.

There’s a 3 piece band in front of the red curtain— an acoustic bass player, saxophonist, and drummer. 

3 hip black dudes from Harlem versed in jazz who are paid to schlep through schmaltzy versions of— The Honey Dripper, Minnie the Moocher, Teach me Tiger, The Stripper, Hog Wash, Rock Candy and so on. 

A sexy cocktail waitress wearing a flashy squealed bikini, mesh stockings, and high heels walks to their table and clues them in, 

that’ll be a 50 dollar cover which includes 2 drinks each. Henry smiles suggestively and hands her the money, then ordering drinks, 

6 shots of tequila, will that float doll? She answers,

it's your call mister! Lucia kicks his leg under the table saying, 

you think you're a big shot, flirting! The waitress thinks your an asshole! 

The curtain opens as the band plays steamy riffs, heavy on the rim and cymbal shots. Pussy Wilderness enters stage left wearing a fringed leather outfit that comes apart at the seams. 

She gyrates on stage as the band plays a ghastly version of the Bonanza theme, a 60s TV show. 

As Pussy Wilderness Strips she pulls off the arms of her frontier outfit, then the legs, and so on. 

In no time the burlesque queen is naked except for her G string, and the pasties on her nipples. 

She sashays to the tribe's table, ignoring the girls, moving up close to Henry, gyrating up and down in front of him, doing knee squats as she opens her legs, pushing her crotch into his face, holding it there, then moving on to another table. He laughs out loud and says to Lucia and Summer Wynd, 

she musta sprayed a bottle of dime-store douche on her taco! 

The girls giggle as the waitress comes and says, 

enjoying the show? Don’t forget to tip the dancers. Lucia says, 

tip me and I’ll open my cono right here! He considers the offer, Then she tells the cocktail waitress,

6 more shots of tequila and a pitcher of beer, whatever you got at the bar chica!

The brothas from Harlem are working hard to play a 50s Chinese song, My Little Thing, by The Chopstick Brothers.

Shanghai Sal enters stage left. Sal had the moves, she's beguiling as she twists cobra-like.

Sal is wearing a loose-fitting kimono that comes off in a flash revealing— a black bra, panties, fishnet stockings, and red fuck-me pumps. 

The white-skinned Chinese beauty was breathtaking with her purple Betty Page wig on and tattooed Cleopatra eyebrows. 

Still, on stage she sensually takes her stockings off, then her panties and bra, moving sexy from table to table with only her G String and pasties on. Looking like the milk white-skinned Femlin Figures from 60’s Playboy magazines.  

When Shanghai Sal reaches the tribe's table the tiny burlesque queen sits on Henry’s lap, grabbing a shot of tequila and sucking it down. After the shot, her eyes roll upwards, then she French kisses him, thrusting her tongue deep into his throat.

Summer Wynd looks at her watch and says,

my God, it’s 130 AM, I have to get up early for ballet practice!

Lucia pays for the drinks, they walk outside, hailing a yellow cab. The 3 of them are sitting in the back seat of the taxi as Henry comments on the show saying, 

The Peek a Boo Club, what a circus. The girls laugh out loud and Lucia says, 

cut the crap Henry, the show was all about pink tacos for you!

April is the Cruelest Month

It was a steady day in April 1986.

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.

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.

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.

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 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!  

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.

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.

Waking Sunday afternoon, Henry wonders what day it is? Realizing it's April the cruelest month of the year. 

The Tennessee William's Sugar Bowl

It’ Saturday, 1985, Henry is in his Key West bungalow writing.

The phone rings, it’s Dave Spleen calling from  HEADBANGER Magazine office in New York, juiced up and speaking at breakneck speed as Henry picks up the phone.

Hells bells man, last week's story, And Away We go, was a non-starter! New Yorkers were turned off by it. Why in the hell would you write about cuming buckets after eating raw oysters? You’re no Henry Miller you know! Clean it up this week baby! So, what's cookin? Henry sucking it in answers,

The usual and a bit on Tennessee Williams, a Key West homeboy. Dave Spleen hangs up as he says, 

by dude!

Henry never knew if Dave Spleen was angry or not, but he knew Bennies gave Dave a full-time woody.  

Lucia walks into Henry's office in a thong bikini and says, 

come on and eat darling! 

He walks to the kitchen and sits at the head of the table. Summer Wynd is sitting at his side, dressed to go to the beach. Lucia sets a platter of hand made corn tortillas, fresh black beans, wild rice, scrambled eggs with peppers and a decanter of hot coffee with milk on the table. Henry feeling upbeat as he teases Lucia says, 

what am I suppose to do with this? Raising her eyebrows she says, 

eat it or shove it! Summer Wynd then says as the tribe eats, 

I love you so much Lucia, the breakfast is yummy! Lucia looks at her and says, 

the burro, Henry, never says anything nice! 

Lucia reminded Henry of his mother, Florence Lucowski, the 2 women picked, picked, picked, all the time. 

Summer Wynd rolls a joint after breakfast and passes it around the table, after a toke Henry makes sweet with Lucia, waving the white flag, signaling a truce,

darling, you culinary gifts are only surpassed by your bootylicious body. I want to fuck you on the table right now! She looks at him and says,

sorry, bebe, my coño is closed for you, but, open for Summer Wynd. 

As he walks back to his office he realizes he will never be more than Lucia's sidekick. And, he worries Summer Wynd is becoming codependent because she is caught in the middle of his and Lucia's continual bickering. When the couple met her some months back she oozed power, now he got the feeling she was shrinking in place.     

The girls go to Dog Beach on the Vespa scooter carrying the Chis in a doggy box and Pedro the woodpecker flies, soaring in higher ground as he eyeballs them.

AS SCENE 1 OPENS,

Tennessee Williams is in his vanilla-colored gingerbread house on Duvall Street in Key West. 

The small house is filled with books and art. He wakes at 5 AM every morning, greeted by a pitcher of Bloody Marys which his manservant has dutifully placed next to his typewriter. The booze is there to summons his courage.

He peers out the window at the swimming pool in his backyard which is surrounded by dead weeds and wilting flowers. His mind travels beyond the limits of the backyard to his personal literary world, a world where— lies replaced straight-forward speaking, strong-arm tactics sucked love dry and being alone was the human condition. 

The subtotal of these anxieties and his own fear are the seeds that fuel his endeavor to heal a nefarious world with poetic vision.  

From 1939 to 1957, Williams wrote a string of masterpieces— The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, becoming America’s most celebrated playwright, winning 2 Pulitzer Prizes, 3 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards, and a Tony.

Some credit Williams with queering Broadway, but Broadway was born queer and didn’t need his help. 

He met and fell in love with Frank Merlo in 1947 while living in New Orleans. Merlo, a Sicilian who served in the U.S. Navy during World War 2 was a steadying influence on William's booze and doped filled chaotic life. Merlo’s death from lung cancer in 1961 caused Tennessee to nosedive into a lamentable funk. 

During the period after Merlo’s death, Williams used more than ever. One night while staying in the Hotel Elysee in New York City he was deep into stupefaction. While reaching for a bottle of Oxycodone and trying to open it with his mouth he swallowed the bottle cap and choked to death—an inglorious way to die. 

In March 1983 he was buried in St. Louis at the insistence of his brother Dakin. This is ironic because Tennessee hated St. Louis and spent most of his life running away from the city.

At lunchtime, Henry raps up the bit on Tennessee Williams, the golden boy who wrote The Night of the Iguana, a play Henry was gone on. The play was built on the Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon's right of passage, fueled by passion spinning out quilt.

Meanwhile, the girls are at Dog Beach sun tanning in lounge chairs watching the Chis, Che and Mia play tag with breaking waves as Pedro the woodpecker flies with a flock of no account seagulls.

Lucia and Summer Wynd are laying on their stomachs in extended chairs with their bikini tops unstrapped at the back, bare naked except for the thong straps that run along the slits between their butt cracks.

There is a steady flow of beachgoers walking their dogs on the shoreline ogling them, thinking they are movie stars.

The girls are drinking Red Stripe Beer in plastic cups, sold by a vendor on the beach. They talk nonstop to each other, talking about Henry mostly, this, a side effect of Lucia’s ongoing need to blow smoke up his ass. 

As the sun sets the girls put long t-shirts on, placing the Chis in the doggy box and riding the Vespa back to the tribe's bungalow.

Home, they shower and later Summer Wynd gives the Chis a bath on the front lawn with the garden hose. Pedro the woodpecker runs his beak through his feathers cleaning up in a puddle. 

The girls are in the kitchen drinking wine and Lucia asks as Henry walks in, 

what-a bout dinner darling? As usual, he has a plan,

I’ll order take away from Hollywood Pizza, we can eat on the coffee table in the living room and watch TV! 

Using the kitchen phone he dials up Hollywood Pizza, ordering, Greek salad, sautéed conch, Tortellini with Carbonara sauce, a platter of Italian Deli meats and garlic bread. 

The tribe is sitting in the living room and the Chis bark as the doorbell rings, it’s the delivery guy, Lucia opens the door and the guy says, 

sorry, I’m late, Hollywood Pizza ain't McDonalds

you know, we cook from scratch! Henry adds,

by the way, my hard and fast rule on McDonalds is— never order food from a clown!

Everyone laughs including the delivery guy and Pedro the woodpecker jumps up and down in place, having picked up on the vibe.

As Henry pays, Lucia brings in eating utensils on a tray, then opening the containers of food and putting them on the coffee table in front of the sofa. As promised, the food is homemade delicious. 

Summer Wynd turns on the TV, flipping through channels using the remote, landing on Super Bowl XIX live, this enough reason to open up another bottle of wine and party full-tilt.

It’s 6 PM and the National anthem is being sung by the San Francisco Children’s Chorus, a convenient choice to sing America’s song because the choir is from San Francisco, close to Stanford Stadium in the heart of Silicon Valley.

The Miami Dolphins and the San Francisco 49ers send out 2 players each for the coin toss, carried out via satellite from the White House by Ronald Reagan.

Even before the kickoff, it seems the 49ers have the advantage because the game is being played in Stanford Stadium which is just 5 miles from the team's practice field in Redwood City.

President Ronald Reagan, former governor of California, skillfully tosses the coin in favor of his team the 49ers, who choose to receive. 

The game is hawked as a shootout between the 49er’s Joe Montana and the Dolphin’s Dan Morino, but, by the end of the 2nd Quarter, the 49ers take control and never look back, winning the game 38 to 16.

Years later the Oliver Stone film, Any Given Sunday portrays a championship game where San Francisco beats Miami 32 -13. Stone a long time 49ers fan, based his film’s finale on Super Bowl XIX.

The tribe is so waisted by the 3rd period that they can’t remember the halftime show. And Lucia says, 

estoy burracho, why are the big chicos dressed in armor running around and knocking each other down? The show is making me dizzy.

Lucia is bored watching a game she doesn’t understand so she and Summer Wynd retreat to the bedroom, passing out on the bed.

Henry’s drunk as the final seconds of Super Bowl XIX tick down. It's a unSuper Bowl of little acclaim, tipped in favor of the 49ers by Ronald Reagan who put the hoodoo on the staged White House coin toss.