It is October 1986 in Oneonta Alabama, the temperature has held steady at 69 all day. 69, look at it, it's a fat n happy number.
Stephen King, a big cheese in the world of literature and film wrote the following advice to aspiring writers in blood.
If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.
Henry read voraciously from the ages of 9 to 23, at a time when everything in the world appeared fresh and giant size. In Charles Bukowski's words,
Yes, Hemingway read better to me when I was young. I lacked life experience and he seemed packed with it. After I got to be 40 or 50 I had my own little knapsack filled with my own crap and his stuff didn't read so tough then. Also, he was a crank. No humor at all. Hell is really a laugh sometimes, you know.
By the age of 24, Henry was a library mutineer, writing all day and walking the streets of New York City at night, seeking the real, the raw, and the sultry, things he wasn't getting from books anymore.
Stephen King is on the list of the greatest writers of the last 2 centuries. Henry isn't on any lists and he never will be. He has a paltry fan base of less than 1000 regular readers of HEADBANGER Magazine.
Compared to the literary god, Stephen King, Henry's an insect.
When Stephan King was 7 he found half a dozen cardboard boxes filled with horror novels left behind by his dead father in the family attic.
Instead of playing stickball with pals on the street, building a go-cart or treehouse, he locked himself in his room and read every one of the books, a 100 books maybe, bloody and scary stuff. A month after the reading marathon session, he begins writing horror stories.
Ernest Hemingway went big game hunting in Africa, Charles Bukowski sought the down and out in sleazy bars, Hunter S. Thompson placed himself in the epicenter of hip phenomenon, professional sporting events, and political gatherings. All of these authors wrote about their real-life experiences.
Where does Stephen King go to research his macabre and spine chilling novels?
Nowhere, because the ogres in his novels don't exist, and the demon clown in his book It, sure ain’t from Mr. King's life experience— after graduating from the University of Maine he taught English in high school and was already selling stories in magazines, living a very conventional life, never being arrested or spending time in an asylum.
The stuff of his novels comes from collective notions he entertains while reading and his native genius. Not from an action-packed life— of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, driving in the Indianapolis 500, or wrestling a steer to the ground in a rodeo.
After being hammered by writer pals on the staff of HEADBANBER Magazine, who agree with King, that if you want to be a writer you have to read. Henry picks up a book of short stories by Raymond Carver, Will You Please Keep Quiet Please, reading a story called Fat.
Carver or somebody he knows, it’s not clear, is working as a waiter in a restaurant as a curious circus freak sized fat man walks in and sits down to eat.
The point of the story seems to be that the diner is fat. Carver goes over the subject of the fat man’s chubby and creamy fingers. Honestly, where does the image of creamy fingers take you? Were the fat man's fingers sweaty or did he accidentally brush them over his squash soup?
While reading Fat, Henry flashes back to a Monty Python film, The Meaning of Life, that has a segment called Mr. Creosote, also a bit about a fat man eating in a restaurant.
Carver’s fat man is mild-mannered, eating course after course, which subtly begs the question— how could this character be circus freak fat? He eats in such a delicate manner.
On the other hand, Mr. Creosote is much too much, beyond hyperbole— displaying drastic facial expressions, over the top hand gestures, and speaking in a gruff manner.
John Cleese, Creosote’s waiter and foil toys with the fat man ever so politely, recommending and serving dish after dish as Creosote's stomach visibly expands like a balloon being pumped full of air.
When the fat man’s stomach is full to the brim, the waiter as a foil offers him a complimentary mint, Creosote doesn’t think he has room for it, But the waiter eggs him on saying,
just one wafer-thin mint!
Mr. Creosote finally gives in, picking up the thin mint which is graciously served on a silver platter, chewing it ever so slowly. Then, like a lit match in a gun powder barrel, his stomach and its contents burst into itty bitty pieces, and viewers are treated to the sight of a TV or cinema screen covered with colorful muck.
Back to Carver’s story Fat— it’s blurry, the sentences move along so fast that the pages appear hazy. And Carver, because he's allowed to, breaks every grammatical rule in the book.
Henry settles on a plan after reading Fat, thinking what the fuck anyway? Lighten up, break the freaking rules you’re trying so hard to follow. And, may the grammar Nazis' be damned!
Further honoring Stephen King’s commandment chiseled in Maine granite—if you want to be a writer you have to read. Henry reads some of what is most likely Hunter S. Thompsons' last book, Hey Rube, a collection of articles published a year before he committed suicide by blowing himself up at the Owl's Nest, rigging a wheelchair with Semtex and several skyrocket mortar tubes, all of it wrapped in duct tape.
Hunter broke every rule in the book like Carver— writing and as (&) not as and, using the word weird over and over, capitalizing at will— Sports section, Rich people, and so on.
HST opens some sentences with the exclamation Ho Ho, which you can see has caps on both Hos.
Ho Ho is a different way to begin a sentence, conjuring visions of a red-cheeked over the hill German fellow on his 3rd Jägermeister spiked egg nog at a Christmas Eve party in Braunschweig— Ya Ya, aah so, Ya Ya, Ya Ya!
Simply put, Thompson and Carver wrote however they pleased because they were fucking John Carver and Hunter mutha fucker Thompson.
Pablo Picasso said about art— 1st you master painting landscapes and figures, then you forget about everything you learned and paint what's inside you.
In Pablos’ case, he painted— grotesquely deformed figures and square geometric landscapes. So, you have to know the rules to break them, otherwise, the lack of learned technique will show through your work.
Henry reckoned Hunter researched Hey Rube while watching TV— NFL games, and CNN's coverage of the 2000 POTUS election. Saying of Sundays spent with pals watching football,
my friends called me toggle-boy because of my expertise with the channel changer. They dropped by every Sunday to drink & mooch & gamble. It was like an impossible dream come true. Fred Exley would have loved it.
If Hunter wrote somewhere that he did an Elvis on his TV set with C-4 he lied because he liked watching the tube.
The initial pages of Hey Rube address the 2000 Gore versus Bush Jr. election mixed with bits on the NFL. Once again, TV is Hunter's muse.
He sees the 2000 election and the NFL as bogus money-making machines. Pointing out that nobody but a few rich people give a flying shit about the outcome of elections, and only rich people can afford to go to an NFL game.
2 guys with good seats can spend a couple of thousand dollars at an NFL game— 200 of it on Polish sausage, hot pretzels, and beer. You could eat at The Polo Bar in Midtown Manhattan for less.
Referencing the election coverage on TV, Hunter called a shot as only he could, writing that he knew the 2000 election was over for Gore when he saw a blurb of the Bush family sitting around watching election night returns on CNN. He pans Bush Sr. saying,
The look on his face was almost frightening. It was like looking into the eyes of a tall hyena with a living sheep in his mouth. The sheep’s fate was sealed and so was Al Gores.
Without a doubt, this is character assassination at its finest.
Hey Rube, isn't Gonzo journalism— but it's a way cool, undisciplined, and far-reaching bit of blabber. Written as though Hunter was standing on the soapbox in Berkeley Speaker's Corner articulating his peculiar memories like he's pitching fastballs and knuckleballs at Fenway Park.
John Cheever is known as the suburban Chekov, he wrote flawlessly, his work was everything writing should be. Cheever didn’t exploit literary license, and the grammar Nazi’s would have been hard-pressed to find boo-boos in his work. Cheever’s work is as unblemished as a Rodin sculpture.
You might say John Cheever, and let's throw Stephen King into the mix for the hell of it, are the teacher’s pets in English class— sound as a bell, well-read, writing readable work that's grammatically spot on.
The bad boys in the class, who cast the stuff of the grammar Nazis to the wind, were Hunter S. Thompson and Raymond Carver. 2 writers a lot of folks would have walked through quicksand to have a beer with.
Back in Oneonta, Alabama, Pop. 6457, the writer known as Bag Head, because he walks around town with a paper bag on his head, is sitting in his room at the flophouse, The Palace Hotel. There’s a knock on his door, it’s Bessie, the hotel's manager.
Miss Bessie has a sweet face, bathes in dime-store perfume, wears plus size Hawaiian flowered mu-mus, and she’s a big, big girl— what you’d call a BBBW, big, big beautiful woman.
Bag Head cracks open the rotting wood door to his room, Bessie smiles sweetly saying,
sweet puddin, can I come in? Wearing only white boxer shorts and without his trademark paper bag on he says,
alright, Miss Bessie, make it quick, I’m busy writing.
Miss BBBW makes it past Bag Head, going inside the small room and sitting on his 2nd hand Salvation Army sofa.
She reaches into her large straw bag, pulling out her hand fan, a souvenir from Niagara Falls with an image of the famous waterfall stamped on it.
You’d think Miss Bessie is Sally Rand, the 40s fan dancer, the way she moved her fan alluringly to draw the bag man in.
She's a practitioner of the Secret Language of the Palm Fan, signaling messages by—
closing the fan and holding it tight against her lips, meaning— kiss me,
rubbing the fan across her cheek signaling— I want you.
And, if she became angry, she’d toss her fan to the floor which meant— I hate you!
Bag Head didn’t pick up on the palm fan signals, reckoning she waved the fan about in an odd manner because she was chronically inflamed. He confronts her saying,
Miss Bessie, how bout we cut the fan show, so what's poppin? The BBBW gal gets down to business,
sweetie, you know my Papa owns The Palace Hotel, well, we have a plan. We want to get rid of the no count tenets, redecorate, and open a cat house. I want you to help us sugar pea, sex is a big seller you know, you’d make a percentage and salary. The bag man answers taking the mickey out of her,
can I sample the product? Bessie looking sour throws her palm fan on the floor, signaling I hate you and answering,
my word, no, that would be unprofessional, Bag Head chuckles asking,
and selling pussy is professional? Bessie played stupid at times, southern bell style, knowing most fellas were intimidated by smart girls, but she was sharp as a tack answering,
stupid pickle, there’s more to being a scarlet lady than spreading your legs! Why Japanese Keisha girls study for years to be a courtesan. The bag man says,
Miss Bessie whorehouses are illegal. She snaps back,
Papa will pay the sheriff off. Bag Head's drawn into the cat house scheme when he realizes there's money to be made, in that he was broke most the time, he asks Bessie,
where u gonna find the girls? Oneonta’s a 2 stoplight town, and most the gals hereabouts are heifers, nothing personal Miss Bessie, a lot of guys like BBBW gals. The big girl answers,
well now sweet cheeks, that's where you come in, we’ll run an ad in the Blount County Examiner for pretty girls who wanna make good money as specialty massage therapists, and we can recruit gals from Wallace Community College. Why, once we’re up and running, fellas will come from miles around.
Over the next few days, Bessie posts eviction notices on the hotel doors of the drifter's and bum's rooms. All of whom are behind on rent, giving them a week to leave or face the hard arm of southern justice.
A week later Miss Bessie greases the palms of Sheriff Buford and his deputies, and the crew comes down grievously on the remaining no-count tenets, throwing them and their belongings out on the street.
Miss Bessie confers with Bag Head on gentrifying The Palace Hotel, getting the place up to cathouse standard, he tells her the joint needs a good sprucing up,
why the old wood frame has a stink in it that most likely we'll never get out. You're gonna need someone to come in and hose the place down with high powered disinfectant.
Let's paint the halls red, replace the white light bulbs with blue, buy new beds and mattresses, new doors, put mirrors on the ceilings, we can redo the walls of the rooms with Playboy pin-up wallpaper.
We'll put a tiki bar in the lobby and string it with colored lights, sofas for the girls, chairs for the Johns. Let's keep The Palace Hotel sign, but, the neon light flutters on and off and needs to be replaced.
Miss Bessie takes notes, she knows the bag man's an artist, he makes jewelry from small-sized pieces of metal scraps he finds at the junkyard using a soldering iron and arch torch, sculpting the pieces into assorted shapes, stringing the crafted pieces on alloyed chains.
And, he's a published author, having written stories for the Big Apple underground rag, HEADBANGER Magazine.
Dave Spleen, the editor of the magazine, figured Bag Heads’ stories were naive and simple silhouettes, shadowing William Faulkner’s Gothic writing style.
The bag man was talented, good with his hands too. Occasionally making a few extra bucks rubbing Bessie's swollen feet with castor oil.
And, she would have paid him for a good oral sexing as well, but he feared going down on her, reckoning she would leg lock him and he might suffocate.
Folks in Ebonytown knew Bag Head had a hard-on for Emma, the MILFish chocolate peach who owned Miss Emma’s Soul food Kitchen and looked like Tammy Terrell.
He ate most days at Miss Emma’s restaurant, but when it came to asking her out for a drink he was tongue-tied.
As renovations begin at The Palace Hotel, Miss Bessie receives dozens of calls from gals wanting to work in the hotel cathouse, many from Wallace Community College. There was a recession in 1986, so money was tight.
She tells the girls to come by the hotel Sunday afternoon at 2 PM.
One day Pastor Spittle of the local Pentecostal church calls the hotel, having heard gossip in town about the new cat house. He warns Bessie to beware of damnation telling her,
if-in you don’t stop doing Satan’s work, you’re gonna be cast to the abode of the dead! Bessie who's not religious tells Pastor Spittle,
and if-in you and your flock aren’t careful when you’re making those gurgling sounds during Sunday services you all are gonna swallow your tongues!
Bessie and Bag Head are sitting in the lobby of The Palace Hotel at 1 PM, wondering if any girls will show.
By 2 PM, the lobby is full of applicants. Bessie says to aspiring harlots,
OK, listen here ladies, I want you all to know we’re looking for gals who can pleasure fellas, if you have a problem with that take leave.
A few girls walk out, then Bessie tells them to stand in line horizontally facing the reception desk, she and the bag man look them over.
He notices a few of the girls are ladyboys and asks her,
what about the he-shes? She answers,
some fellas enjoy corn holin. Then he asks,
and the Blacks, Filipinas, and middle-aged gals? Big Bessie tells him,
diversity makes the world go around, we'll give'em all a shot.
30 gals are ready to work— Black girls, Asians, older women, Whites, 2 Choctaw Indian gals, and the he-shes. Bessie is doing her best to be business-like, trying not to giggle, she says to the girls,
OK ladies, queue in a single file line in front of the reception desk. I'll need to see some ID and get your phone numbers. Don’t forget to dress sexy and wear plenty of makeup on the job, the tranny gals can help you with makeup. Our grand opening is in 2 weeks.
A tall Black strumpet with never-ending legs and whoopie cakes you could balance a champagne glass on asks,
Ma'am, what's our cut?
sweetie, thanks for reminding me, we’ll pay each of you 40 percent of the cash you bring in, and your tips are yours. The gals seem happy with the arrangement.
It’s opening night at The Palace Hotel cat house, the soon to be baptized harlots show up looking hot in their slinky outfits with lots of makeup on. The lobby’s packed with Johns from all over the county, including Mayor Elwood Filibuster and Sheriff Buford.
Bessies’ Papa, Earl is there too. He owns The Palace Hotel and he has put up the shekels for the cat house. Earl has a long white beard with shoulder-length hair and is wearing a tux—looking like one of the guys from Duck Dynasty on their wedding day. But, unlike the Duck Dynasty gents, he rarely speaks and doesn't have much of an opinion on anything.
Bessie has hired a blues band from Ebonytown called— Pass the Peas, which has the joint rocking.
Jimmy Pearl, also from Ebonytown, is working the tiki bar. His hair is slicked back with pomade and he's wearing a Hawaiian shirt over white pants. Jimmy's a handsome older man who looks like Billy Dee Williams.
The cougars are lounging next to one another on sofas, wearing skimpy gowns with numbers pinned on their dresses.
The Johns are sitting across from the floozies eyeballing them, drinking, laughing, pleased to be on the town without their wives.
The bag man, who's wearing a tuxedo and paper bag on his head, is the go-between guy, connecting the punters with the strumpets, escorting them to Miss Bessy, who collects the cash and assigns rooms.
When chosen the girls introduce themselves to their trick, using a fake, slutty name, saying something like,
my name is Brandy, let's go upstairs and get to know each other handsome.
Then the short time lovers walk to their assigned room for an hour of cheap thrills and passion.
The future is bright at The Palace Hotel chicken shack, the first night the joint pulls in 10 grand.
Bag Head is already making plans to buy a diamond-studded horseshoe pinky ring, a Cadillac convertible, and some funky clothes from Freddy's Soul Haberdashery in Ebonytown. Soon, he'll be looking like a pimp with a paper bag on his head.
Bessie wisely plans to invest her share in the stock market, buying ETFs and such.
She'll end up rich and the bag man will blow his dough.
Anyway, it’s a fat n happy ending in an elevated way at the chicken shack in Oneonta— for, Papa Earl, Bessie, and Bag Head, but most of all for the men of Blount County, Alabama.
