It's 11 AM, summertime 1986 in Key West, Florida, and Oneonta, Alabama.
Henry, Lucia, and Summer Wynd are in bed at their Key West bungalow, savoring Ralph Vaughn Williams— Lark Ascending, and The Oboe Concerto in A.
The celestial music guides their collective spirits to the graceful windblown fields and forest surrounding Down Ampney in Britain where Ralph Vaughn Williams grew up, studied in a one-room schoolhouse, and, garnered the inspiration for his transcendental symphonies. Lucia comments,
I adore this music it’s heavenly, who is it? Henry says goading her,
La Orquesta Sinfónica Comunista de La Habana playing a Nueva Trova period piece, Lucia looks at him quizically saying,
fuck you, Henry, there isn’t a Comunista symphony in Cuba. Let’s cook breakfast and eat on the porch pendejo.
He goes to his study, because, when it came to cooking, the only thing he could fix was scrambled eggs. Once, Summer Wynd walked into the kitchen for a glass of milk and she was shocked to see Henry trying to cook a frozen pepperoni pizza in a frying pan. The rounded edge of the pizza hung over the side of the skillet like an oversized pancake.
Voltaire said a long time ago,
common sense is not common.
The girls go to the kitchen and whip up cheddar cheese scrambled eggs with fresh cut chives and rosemary, boiled grits, black-eyed peas, Pillsbury buttermilk biscuits, then making Colombian coffee using a new Chemex pour-over coffee making.
Henry particularly loved the smell and taste of fresh rosemary, which, Summer Wynd grew in her herb garden behind the house. Rosemary transported him, he reckoned if ganja was the king of herbs, then rosemary was the queen.
They sit around a small table on the front porch of the bungalow eating. The Chis, Che y Mia eat from bowls on the entryway floor, enjoying chicken mixed with rice. Pedro the woodpecker has a bowl of fresh fruit and sunflower seeds next to the Chis bowls, which he pecks at.
Lucia's immigration hearing is scheduled for 1 PM at the Key West County Courthouse, and, she plans to meet Eli Dickman her attorney there.
She'll stand before the judge who will decide her fate— hopefully, receiving a reprieve for living in the US without a visa on heart ship grounds.
While living in Cuba, Fidel Castro, who she regularly serviced for a fee, threatened to kill her if she didn't leave Henry, who she had met and fell in love with in Havana.
And, even while living in America, she felt her life was threatened by the long arm of Fidel’s covert agents in South Florida.
After eating she leaves the dishes to Henry and Summer Wynd, showers and puts on a dark blue business dress, high heels, and braids her waist-length curly hair. Then telling Henry without an explanation,
darling, I want to go alone.
Lucia smokes some pot and takes a Xanax, then driving the tribe's Vespa scooter to the courthouse, looking like Sophia Loren riding a Piaggio moped in the film Matrimonio all’Italiana.
She parks on the sidewalk outside of the courthouse and walks inside, Eli Dickman is waiting for her in the lobby, he greets her and says,
You nervous Lucia? Don't be, trust me, it'll be a piece of cake.
They walk into the courtroom which looks like the set of the TV series Perry Mason, sitting in the back row. The gallery is full of Cubans and only a few attorneys are present.
The judge walks into court wearing an oxford shirt, striped tie, and, a freshly dry cleaned black court coat. The bailiff announces,
please stand for the honorable Judge William Mays!
Lucia watches the Cuban asylum and visa seekers intently as they stand before and petition Judge Mays, a Black man with grey hair and bushy eyebrows who repeatedly takes his bifocals on and off.
One after one, the non-English speaking Cuban defendants without attorneys are denied asylum or are deferred, told to come back to court with an immigration lawyer.
Finally, the bailiff calls Lucia Varga Lucowski, she and Dickman get up and walk through the gallery to Judge May’s bench, standing in front of him. She puts her hand on a bible held by the court attendant and swears to tell the truth.
Judge Mays puts his bifocals on, looking over paperwork, refreshing his memory on the case.
Dickman had submitted the necessary documents to the judge’s law clerk prior to the hearing, including— letters from Cubans who lived in Little Havana, Miami, stating they had heard of Lucia’s relations with Castro while living in Cuba. And, a love letter from Fidel, who loved her the same way he loved his other women, all 35,000. Judge Mays comments to Dickman,
Eli, I can’t remember seeing a case like this in all my years as a judge. Mrs. Lucowski was a, well let’s say, confident of Fidel Castro.
The gallery roars with laughter, cutting the tension which was lingering in the courtroom.
By now the Cubans sitting in the gallery recognize Lucia Lucowski is Lucia Varga, a Cuban celebrity.
And, most of them had read gossip about her in the Miami tabloid, Revista Cubana. Judge Mays bangs his gavel down, asking for order in the court. Then, going over the verdict.
After reviewing the evidence in the case it’s clear Mrs. Lucowski fled Cuba because she was being persecuted. I will disallow any future charges of illegal immigration, and, grant her a temporary stay of prosecution contingent on the outcome of her Green Card application.
The Cubans in the gallery let loose with a roaring cheer, Lucia and Dickman walk out of the courtroom, sitting down in the lobby, Eli tells her,
Willy Mays and I have been friends for years, regardless, we presented plenty of evidence to support your case. Call my secretary and schedule an appointment, we’ll get the ball rolling on your Green Card next week.
Lucia thanks Eli Dickman, leaving the courthouse, getting on the Vespa and driving home, happy to leave the fuck pole of legalese and law behind.
Parking the Vespa in the bungalow driveway, she jumps off, running to the front lawn, kicking her high heels off high into the air, then taking her one-piece dress off, twirling it in the air as she yells,
si, si, si, yes!
Everyone in the house is excited, the Chihuahuas and Pedro the woodpecker jump up and down on the living room floor.
Henry brings 3 bottles of champagne— 2 chilled bottles of Moet & Chandon for drinking, and a bottle of Cold Duck. He pops the cork on the Cold Duck, shaking it and spritzing it all over Lucia, which scares the Chis who run and hide under the sofa.
She feels sticky all over and is her sculptured body is dripping Cold Duck.
Henry then pops the cork off a bottle of Moet & Chandon, pouring the sparkling wine into cocktail glasses. The threesome toast one another and Lucia asks,
how did you guys know I was granted asylum? Summer Wynd smiles answering,
we bought the champagne yesterday, thinking win or lose, we’d all get loaded in style anyway. There’s a case of Moet & Chandon in the kitchen for l'amour de notre vie!
By 6 PM the tribe is rat arsed on fine champagne, the girls hop on the Vespa and ride to Bikini Village to buy thong swimwear and Henry goes to his office to work on a story about Lenny Bruce.
Leonard Alfred Schneider was born on October 13, 1925, in Mineola, Long Island, New York City.
His stage name was Lenny Bruce and he would become a one-man revolution, spraying white bread America with dirty words and taboo topics as though they were bullets from a Tommy Gun.
His father, Myron Schneider was a run of the mill guy who sold orthopedic shoes and doted on Lenny, teaching him the importance of reading and being inquisitive.
Lenny’s mother, Sally Kitchenburg, whose stage name was Sally Mar, was a stand-up comic.
Sally was a major influence on Lenny and they were devoted to each other in later life. In his words,
I really loved her, and the reason I dug her is I realized—I got a lot of humor from her. She exposed me to many areas that I never would have been hip to.
Lenny’s parents divorced when he was 5, neither of them wanted to take care of him so he was passed around from relative to relative. Saying in his autobiography— How to Talk Dirty and Influence People,
my childhood seemed like an endless exodus from aunts and uncles and grandmothers. Their dialog still rings in my ears— the plan was I would stay with relatives till my parents could get straightened out.
Lenny dropped out of high school when he was 16, joining the Navy. After a few years in 1946, he was dishonorably discharged for having homosexual obsessions.
There are those who believe the Navy is iffy when at sea. Take the Neptune parties for sea dogs who cross the Tropic of Cancer for the 1st time— swabbies put on coconut bras, fake tits, and wear Fijian grass skirts.
The gay stamp on Bruce’s discharge papers pointed to the Navy’s cluelessness when it came to Lenny Bruce. As though they were saying,
the boy is a freak of nature, he doesn't think or act like the others. We can't pigeon-hole him, he’s unconventional, out there, so we’ll simply stamp his discharge papers, homosexual. Gay is the only category on the Navy’s list that comes close to describing the kid's oddness.
By 1947 Bruce was out of the Navy and living in New York City. He spends more time with his mother, Sadi Kitchenberg, a comic who’d been performing comedy on the Borscht Belt during the periods Lenny was being watched by his relatives and in the Navy.
Performing in the Catskill Mountain resorts sharpened Sadi’s chops. She became part of Borscht Belt comic royalty, as were many of the big names of American humor who performed in the Jewish Alps as the Catskill resorts were known—Milton Berle, George Burns, Don Rickles, Joan Rivers, Woody Allen, and Rodney Dangerfield, to name a few.
Lenny and Sadie would sit in her Brooklyn apartment kitchen ad-libbing and doing comic routines for hours. She recognized that he was a comic genius with talent.
In 1950 Lenny had his first taste of show business, standing in as MC at the Victory Club on Ocean Parkway, a nightclub where his mother was doing gigs.
Later, he performed in clubs such as Squires Clay Theater, and George's Corner in Greenwich Village, making 2 dollars an hour and cab fare home.
He quickly became weary of the folk scene in the village— weekend beatniks who wore suits during the week. Lenny was hip to the bone and not playing a part.
Bruce leaves the village and seeks out happening places, performing in East Coast night clubs and strip joints. He particularly loved doing burlesque clubs because he was freer to improvise and could use dirty language with less censorship.
In the early 50s, Bruce met his first wife Honey Harlow in a burlesque house.
Their relationship was co-dependent love at 1st bite— 2 outcasts, he a foul-mouthed strip club emcee and she a stripper.
Honey was a shiksa and a stripper which irritated his mother Sadie, who was hip, but, didn’t like the idea of her son marrying a non-Jew.
Lenny and Honey were married in 1951 at a county courthouse in Philidelphia.
In the early 50s many jazz musicians in New York, big names and small, were experimenting with heroin.
One night, Bruce was drinking in his dressing room at the Top Hat Burlesque Club with Bernie Allen, a Black man, and a run of the mill jazz musician who moonlighted with strip club bands.
He knew Allen was boosting and asked him to fix him. The musician cooked up some smack, tying him off and mainlining him. Lenny would use smack for the rest of his life, never kicking and never trying too.
He was like the renowned jazz saxophonist Art Pepper, both of them loved smack and never wanted to kick.
In 1953 Lenny and Honey Bruce, who was fixing by now, left New York for the West Coast where they got work as a double act at the Colony Club which was known as the best burlesque house in LA at the time.
Lenny became unhappy with the high brow crowd at the Colony Club who were offended by his use of blunt 4 letter words, and, in your face schtick. Bruce found it strange the audience came to see pussy, but, was put-off when he said the word pussy while emceeing.
In 1954 he left the Colony Club for the San Fernando Valley, where the lowest of the low strip clubs were, because the nefarious clubs there were censorship-free.
Consequently, he was liberated from the restraints which kept him from connecting with what he was— a brilliant, Socratic, stream of consciousness comic who prodded his audiences unearthing taboos which he exposed as being contradictory and absurd.
By 1956 Bruce began to move away from doing bits at strip joints, playing more upscale clubs and coffee houses.
The following year he divorced Honey Bruce a few months after the couple's only child Kitty was born. Lenny was jealous of the attention his wife gave the newborn baby.
By the 60s he was performing in local clubs in LA and his comedy bits were catching on.
His acts were attended by Hollywood celebrities, as well as, local cops who were there to monitor his language, waiting for him to say fuck so they could arrest him for obscenity.
Bruce got his 1st major break at Ann’s Club, a lesbian hang out in San Francisco performing for 750 dollars a week. He was finally able to stay at a first-rate hotel after years on the burlesque belt living in dumps.
One night Hugh Hefner, publisher of Playboy Magazine came to catch Lenny’s act at Ann’s Club.
During the 60s Playboy had pictures of the best tits and ass in the world and published articles written by the most gifted authors of the time, including— Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Norman Mailer, Vladimir Nabokov, and Ray Bradbury.
Eventually, Hefner welcomed Lenny aboard the Playboy bandwagon, helping him make a deal with 20th Century Fox to write comedy and record his bits on albums.
Bruce was on his way, performing on TV programs such as— The Steve Allen Show, Playboy After Hours, and The Arthur Godfrey Show.
Imagine Lenny being interviewed by Arthur Godfrey in the early 60s while smacked up, although, he never appeared high on TV, speaking normally and not itching like junks do.
During this period in the 60s, Bruce and Ray Charles were white bread Americas' 1st taste of junkies on TV.
When Time and Life magazines broke the news Ray and Lenny were heroin addicts to the US public, the shock value was the equivalent of announcing the 2 were Martians.
As Bruce began getting busted for obscenity in city after city he changed, becoming obsessed and performing bits that only focused on his court cases.
People who once flocked to his shows weren’t showing anymore because nobody wanted to listen to a guy who’s tweaked on smack, wearing his Jockey shorts under a black raincoat, talk legalese for 2 hours.
As usual, Lenny didn’t give a shit, refusing to cow-tow to his audiences, cops or the judicial system
March1962 was his first obscenity trial, which was in San Francisco. He was charged with violating Section 311.6 of the Penal code of the state of California, which sites— Any person who knowingly sings or speaks obscenely in a public place while performing is guilty of a misdemeanor.
In October 1962 he was busted for possession of heroin in Philadelphia.
Later that month he was banned from entering Australia because the Oz government was concerned he would say fuck during a performance.
Think of it, Oz a country of macho men who were intimated by the word fuck?
As Rudyard Kipling put it— Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
In December Lenny was arrested at the Gate of Horn Club in Chicago for obscenity. The language dicks— the guys in the audience with square heads, no necks, wearing trench coats and size12 Wingtips were there waiting for him to say something obscene.
Lenny with balls of steel knows the dicks are monitoring his act. So, he complies, saying pussy, balls, cock, tits, one or the other.
As he’s arrested on stage, the show ends. The audience, who came to see Bruce get busted, gets their money's worth.
He continues to perform in clubs, dodging hard time by appealing and jumping bail from state to state. His legal fees cause him to file for bankruptcy in October 1962.
Hugh Hefner and Playboy continue to back Lenny during these trying times, publishing his book How to Talk Dirty and Influence People on Playboy Press.
Lenny still refuses to cave in or sell out his basic principles — freedom of speech and freedom to do dope.
He continued to rage on in his personal life and on stage with little regard for his personal health or lifestyle.
His head-on charge towards America’s obscenity laws was beginning to wear him down. He was sick, overweight, and facing jail time.
On July 25, 1966, Lenny headlined a show with Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention at the Fillmore West in San Francisco.
He's sitting backstage on an old sofa smoking menthol cigarettes, the room smells mildewed, and, the scene bores him because he can see through the hippies. Recognizing them as upper-middle-class kids who are nouveau hip. Realizing they didn't have a clue who he was or what he was about.
He feels light-years away from the LSD dosed scene at the Filmore West, wanting to go home to his house in LA, and, listen to jazz and fix.
One week later Lenny's alone in his in LA suburban house and he dies of a heroin overdose.
His death was ruled accidental, but did Lenny finally cave in? Overdosing on purpose because he was, sick, facing jail time, and, because battling for freedom of speech was no longer worth the spasm of busting a gut.
Lenny Bruce died on August 5, 1966, he was only 40 years old.
The New York Times described his career as— biting, sardonic, introspective free-form patter that often was a form of shock therapy for his listeners.
Bag Head’s tidying up a short story, preparing to mail it, 2nd class, to Dave Spleen, c/o HEADBANGER Magazine in New York.
A Pot of Gold
As I walk through the soiled lobby of The Palace Hotel, shirtless, wearing Big Mac overalls and African rubber shoes with a crisp A+P paper bag on my head.
Bessie, the fat girl who works the front desk at the fleabag hotel I stay in, giggles while she waves a hand fan saying,
Sweet tater, come here, I got somethin important to show you.
You couldn’t walk out the front door without Bessie cornering you for this or that. She liked me because I was the only tenet in The Palace Hotel who wasn’t a bum or drifter.
I turn around and walk to Miss Bessie who has a serious look on her face, strange because she always giggled. She places an old hand-drawn map held together by yellowing tape on the front desk saying,
a few days ago when Box Car croaked in his room, after the body collectors removed his remains, I opened his lockbox and found this treasure map. It shows the way to a pot of gold buried out passed Ebonytown near the Choctawhatchee River.
Sweetie pie, take a shovel and pick from the hotel shed and go dig it up, we'll make a fortune and live together happily ever after!
Well, I wasn’t much interested in spending my life with Miss Bessie so I say to her,
now lookie here Miss Bessie, I’ll dig up the treasure, if-in, you agree to a 50-50 split with no strings attached, she looks sour saying,
nobody wants a fat girl, OK, naughty boy.
She wishes me luck and I walk outside to the hotel shed that smells like cat pee, finding a shovel and pick and placing them in a potato sack, covering the tools, not wanting anybody to get the idea I was going to dig for buried treasure.
Walking through downtown Oneonta, Alabama, Pop. 6637, the usual group of no count white folks are hooting, howling, whistling, and jumping for joy like they ain't never seen a guy with a paper bag on his head. It sure didn’t take much to wind them crackers up.
I walk Springfield Road to 6th Street, making my way through Ebonytown, walking by shacks built of mud and wood where sweet little chocolate girls jump rope as the big boys run, dribbling and tossing a red ball into an open ended tomato basket nailed on a dead tree.
As usual, I go to Miss Emma’s Soul Food Kitchen, walking inside with my potato sack slung over my shoulder, placing it at my feet as I sit at the counter. Miss Emma chuckles and says to me,
Bag Head, what you got in that potato sack, gold? Thinking there’s no way she knows what Bessie and are up to, I tell her,
ma’am, after lunch, I’m goin to the river and dig for clams. Why, that pretty ole cocoa gal looks me right in the eyes and says,
folks around here been lookin for a Black leprechaun who lives under a big tree stump down by the river. If-in you catch him, he’ll give you a pot of gold. I feed her some hogwash because I don’t want her sniffing my trail,
my goodness, Miss Emma, that’s a Black Irish tale. There ain't no truth to it one way or the other.
Ma'am, I'd like 2 pieces of sweet potato pie, a bowl of peach cobbler with cream, and a cup of coffee. She says to me laughing out loud,
Irish Negros? I ain’t never seen one round these parts, but, Red Fox could be Irish cause he had red hair once.
After eating I say goodby to Miss Emma, paying her $3.50, standing up and slinging the potato sack over my shoulder, walking out of her place to 6th Street.
As 6th Street ends, I walk until I reach a peanut field, picking goober peas and filling my pockets with em. Then I sit up against a big ole cypress tree, going over Box Car’s treasure map.
Following the map, I walk north to Jenkins Hill Farm, then going passed it to Old Union Crossing covered bridge and walking east towards the Choctawhatchee River, looking for a large tree stump in the forest.
Not far from the river, I find the stump of a 200 year old Leyland cypress tree that’s as big as a shed, there’s an X carved on the edge. I stand with my back to the X and walk 10 paces and stop.
I take the shovel and pick from the potato sack, then, picking and digging until I hear a voice, turning around I see a leprechaun, feeling happy I say to him,
where’s my pot of gold, leprechaun? He says laughing at me,
are you crazy boy? I ain't no leprechaun, I’m a little person, they call me Liam, I'm a hand at Jenkins Hill Farm. Why you diggin with a bag on your head? I tell the little man,
I’m diggin for treasure, give me a hand and you can have some.
Liam and I dig for an hour until we hit pay dirt, an old lockbox with a padlock on it. He lifts the box out of the hole jiggling it, we hear the sound of gold coins shaking inside, lots and lots of them.
The little man places the lockbox on the ground, breaking off the padlock with the pick, then opening the box!
It’s full of 50 cent piece size metal washers, and there’s a letter on top in an envelope.
I open the envelope and take out the note, reading it. It's short and to the point, written unevenly with a tar black pencil saying,
maybe that'll teach you a lesson, mind your goddamn business, and don’t go through a dead man’s belongings! Box Car
