A B-line to Queens

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You're a Whore, Lucowski!

Henry waking at noon hears the sounds of Afro-Cuban Jazz on WXBQ, Hot 97. Walking to the kitchen for coffee in his underwear he sees Lucia his Cuban wife of a year dancing naked in the living room, saying as she moves about wildly, 

Oh, darling, the musica Cubana makes me hot, when I hear it I just have to get up and move! Rubbing his eyes he says,  

How bout a drink babe? 

In the kitchen he brews Columbia Coffee and mixes a pitcher of bloody marys, pouring a tumbler for Lucia who’s exhausted, laying on the living room sofa with a towel on her head. Then, the phone rings, it’s Dave Spleen, editor of the Big Apple free rag, HEADBANGER Magazine. Henry picks up the phone and Dave, speaking faster than a speeding bullet says, 

Henry, baby, your bit on Thomas Pynchon in the last issue was tits, New Yorkers love your stuff, you the man baby, how’s your sexpot wife? Christ almighty she’s hot, she bustin you nut or what? Anyway, I want you to do a review on Edward Albee’s play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe, it’s playing at the SoHo Playhouse tonight at 9, take Lucia, there’ll be a couple tickets waiting for you, OK babe, ciao!

That was it, he had answered the phone and before he had a chance to say hi Dave megamouth Spleen is spewing non-stop blah, blah, blah!  

Edward Albee was a born misfit and highly revered Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright. His play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe trashes the myth of the perfect American family and shreds 60’s conjecture on life, love and domestic codification to bits. 

Albee’s writing style has been labeled absurd realism— the settings, dialogue, locations, and conflicts are everyday stuff, but the mainstream certitude of the opening scenes eventually nosedives into mayhem and the illusion of certitude crumbles, leaving the characters of his plays in an empty, uncaring universe. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe is a paragon of absurd realism.  

At 6 PM Henry and Lucia dress to go out, she puts on a strapless black dress and wraps up in a light shawl, he wears faded, ripped blue jeans and a white oxford shirt. They walk the short distance to 104th Street station, walking down the steps into the subway tunnel, inside there's a bum passed out in a pool of vomit on the cement floor, Lucia who has a nose like a Bluetick Coonhound says, 

dios mios, the smell of vomito is awful! Henry trying to reassure her because he loves riding the subway says,  

the city’s new mayor, Giuliani, is cleaning the transit authority up! She rolls her eyes and says, 

tell the pendejo mayor to bring a mop and clean up the vomito! 

The train stops at Amsterdam Street Station and a knockout ebony gal in an evening gown boards, gently picking up her viola from its case, playing a freaky, melodic version of Duke Ellington’s Never no Lament. Henry nudges Lucia and says, 

you won't find entertainment like this riding in a taxi, you get a Rastafarian driver blaring Reggae on his radio. She’s heard enough and says, 

you love the subway, I got it bebe! 

They exit at Canal Street Station in Soho and walk 7 blocks to Chinatown for dinner at Chow’s Noodle House, John Chow, Henry’s pal, sells cocaine as a side-line and is a good fellow of the White Lantern, a branch of the Chinatown mafia. 

Chow greets the couple warmly as they walk into the noodle house, which is packed with Chinese people. The couple follow him to a small shuttered room with a circular table inside. Chow shakes Lucia's hand and says, 

your wife is exquisite Henry, I’m attracted to Latin women, Chinese girls don't have curves, they don't have much meat on them. I’m going to cook for you tonight, and have a drink on me! 

A Chinese waiter who has a red apron wrapped around his waist brings a bottle of Yamazaki 12, bottles of soda water, and a bucket of ice, setting the drink tray near the large table, Lucia says

bebe, the play starts at 9, don’t drink too much, and Henry answers, 

don’t worry the curtain won’t open till 10, let’s have a couple of drinks, Japanese booze is highly refined, you can’t get drunk on it.

The waiter brings a tray, placing plates of tea roasted duck, potstickers, won ton soup, Buddha’s delight, crab fried rice and a pot of black tea in the middle of the round table, John Chow sits with the couple to eat, as they fill their plates Chow asks Henry, 

my friend, I have a few kilos of cocaine are you interested? 

Before traveling to Cuba he was the exclusive dealer to the Hassidic community in Brooklyn Heights. Younger Hassidic men enjoyed coking up before prayer, saying the coke made them feel closer to g-d! He answers saying,

if you remember, a group of Chinatown gangbangers threatened to kill me, they wanted me out of Brooklyn Heights which they thought was theirs. The risk just isn’t worth it anymore John. 

By 915 they have polished off the bottle of Japanese whiskey and are more than wasted, Henry has a review to write, so they thank John Chow and catch a taxi outside of the noodle house to Soho Playhouse, it’s 10 blocks or so, the driver is Palestinian and the Bedouin music of Ya Abayad is blaring from his radio. 

They make it to Soho Playhouse by 945, pick up their tickets and are seated in the 2nd-row, middle. In a few minutes the curtain rises for act 1— George and Martha a middle-aged couple come home from a faculty mixer at New Carthage College in New England. He is a washed-up associate history professor and she is the daughter of the college president. The booze-hounds and hot-blooded maladapts had lost their capacity to feel over the years and had found they could drum up a little passion by arguing violently. The arguments eventually evolve into fine-tuned verbal-sparing and weird gamesmanship. 

George pours a couple night-caps of rye whiskey and says, 

I'm tired, dear. It's late.

I don't know what you're tired about.

You didn't do anything today.

You didn't have any classes.

Well, if your father didn't set up

these god damn Saturday-night orgies—

That's just too bad about you, George.

Well, that's how it is anyway.

You didn't do anything.

You never do anything. You never mix.

You just sit around and talk crap.

Martha invites Nick and Honey over for a late-night drink. He’s an aspiring new biology professor and she is his withdrawn, humdrum wife. Martha hears a knock at the door, let’s the couple in and says,

Hi there.

Nick and Honey don’t know they are entering shark-infested waters and Nick says,   

We made it.

You must be our little guest. Just ignore old sourpuss here. Come on in kids. Just hand your coats and stuff to old sourpuss here. 

Well, perhaps we shouldn’t have come.

Yes, yes it is late.

Late? Are you kidding? Just throw your stuff anywhere and come on in. Anywhere, furniture, floor, doesn’t make any difference this place.

Nick, I told you we shouldn’t have come.

I said come on in, now for Christ sake come on in.

Oh dear, oh dear. 

George begins pushing drinks, double shots of rye whiskey on Nick and Honey. 

George and Martha rake Nick and Honey through the coals for the next 2 scenes, surgically interrogating the young couple, knifing through their moral certitude, discovering weaknesses and using the findings to sadistically roast the couple. George and Martha were dangerous to themselves and others. 

In the final scene, George announces they are going to play one more game— bringing up baby, riling Martha by saying their baby, who has supposedly died in a car accident hated her. 

Finally, after George and Martha have dragged the young couple through the wrath of hell-fire, Nick catches on and they go home, jumping out of the frying pan.

In the last scene George and Martha stair unblinkingly at their decaying life. The ending is an exorcism—George finally wins the war, as he kills off their imaginary son, exposing him as an illusion. At this point Martha is in pieces, whipped into submission. 

As the curtain drops, the audience applauds unenthusiastic, Henry looks at Lucia, who is taken back and somewhat shocked by what she has seen. Then as the playgoers walk towards the exits, a stagehand walks up to Henry and says politely, 

Mr. Lucowski Samatha Goldface, would like to speak with you in her dressing room, and Henry says, 

call me Henry!

The couple follow the stagehand to Goldface’s dressing room and walk-in without knocking. Samatha Goldface played Martha, as she shakes Henry’s hand she drops a 500 dollar bill in his shirt pocket and says, 

darling, I really, really, need a rave in HEADBANGER Magazine tomorrow! He smiles and says, 

I got ya Samantha!

The following morning Henry is up by noon, writing the review on Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe.

Thumbs up and kudos to the cast of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe at the Soho Playhouse—Samantha Goldface as Martha is disturbing and terrific, Randal Wilcum’s George is gut-wrenching and brilliant, Danny Relish’s Nick, catches fire eventually, Cindy Spasm’s Honey, is a church mouse who whimpers and can't seem to roar. 

This take-your-breath-away play will put stars in your eyes as it disturbs you, it will be performed nightly at 9 PM, for the next year, maybe. Get out of your easy chair and go see it!

Lucia looks over Henry’s shoulder, reading as he types and says, 

You're a whore, Lucowski!

Babe, it's the Hi Hat Club!

It was noon in Queens, 1983, summertime, a temperate, and fresh day that was full of Potential.

Henry was 5 pages into a new story, typing it on his electric typewriter, placing the finished pages on his desk next to the typewriter, not far from a tumbler of whiskey and soda. He exuberantly rips a completed page out of his typewriter, his arm swings to one side, connects with the tumbler, knocking it over and spilling whiskey on the finished pages.

 A thought flashes through his mind,

Tom Wolfe the pedant never spilled whiskey on a manuscript, but Bukowski the wild man surely spilled beer on pages of finished poetry. 

He places a small bedside table at a right angle to his desk and puts a paper filing cabinet on top of the bedside table, the cabinet a safe place for finished pages. 

Lucia, Henry’s Cuban wife of 5 months, walks into the room and stands over him, saying,  

mi amor, I’m going to my girlfriend's salon, Valentina's to get my pussy waxed and pick up an ounce of marijuana, it’s killer, Purple Ripper, back in a few. His mind is on work and he says without looking up, 

OK, sweets, love ya!

Thomas  Pynchon earned a B.A. in English from Cornell University in 1958, then spending a year in Greenwich village living like a Bohemian, and writing short stories. In 1960 he moved to Seattle and was hired as a technical writer for Boeing where he worked for 2 years, then leaving the company to write full time. 

In 1963 his first novel V was published, a cynical tale about a Zelig-like female character who time travels and shows up at crucial times of European history. The novel won the Faulkner Foundation Award which would be the first of many awards for Pynchon. When Pynchon 3rd novel, Gravity’s Rainbow was published in 1973 it won critical acclaim, at this point adored by American literati.  

Pynchon’s heavy use of metaphor is meant to seduce his readers to use imagination rather than reason. Basic themes such as— system vs freedom, reality vs illusion, life vs death, are paired opposites that interact and work as engines that power his work.

Years later in 2014, his book Inherent Vice became a Hollywood film, which won an Oscar for Best Screenplay, another accolade for Pynchon. 

Thomas Pynchon is a world-famous recluse, who makes JD Salinger look like Mohamed Ali or Jack Sparrow. Pynchon hasn’t appeared before the media since 1963 and he reigns supreme among reclusive novelists. When Gravity’s Rainbow won the National Book Award, another trophy, Pynchon, as you would guess sent someone else to accept the award on his behalf. 

After reading 20 pages of Pynchon’s book V, Henry places the book into a metal trash can near his desk, carries the trash can to his apartment terrace, sets it down, pours Zippo lighter fluid into the trash can on the book, lights the book, and watches it burn and diminish into a small grey mound of organic ash matter. 

Burning V was more fun than reading it. 

Most likely, Thomas the-escape-artist Pynchon is hiding away in upstate New York, in Steuben County maybe, sitting on a lone stool in front of his basement bar drinking and staring at his collection of awards, carefully hung on the wall. 

As Henry puts the finishing touches on the Pynchon bit Lucia, who doesn’t own underwear, walks into the living room and lifts her skirt up overhead, her pubic hair is finely trimmed and shaped like a candy cane, laughing she says, 

come lick my candy cane baby. 

he makes up a dumb limerick,

I know a girl who's tough but sweet
She's so fine, she can't be beat
She's got everything that I desire
Sets the summer sun on fire

I want candy
I want candy
I want candy
I want candy

The couple are fun-loving bohemians who live in the moment, sucking up everything the it offers. 

By sundown having knocked down more than 3 pitchers of bloody marys they clean up and dress for a trip to the City. Lucia puts on short shorts and a red tank top with black lettering that reads,

                      I HAVE TALENTS 

                           YOU CAN’T 

                              PUT ON

                            RESUMES        

Henry wears khaki shorts and a Met’s t-shirt.

It was the kind summer night that pulled at folks who were sitting at home in easy chairs, filling them with the feeling that something was going on out there— as though the gods had seeded the clouds with aphrodisiacal sex goo that dripped invisible droplets on the city. 

Henry and Lucia leave the apartment, walking to Forrest Avenue Station in Queens, boarding a subway train, riding it to 42nd Street, Times Square. They walk up the steps to street level, it was Lucias first trip to Times Square, bowled over she says, 

bebe, santa meirda, colored lights everywhere, even the police station has a neon sign. 

They walk a few blocks to a Cubano sandwich shop called Marcon and stand outside looking in, she says, 

I have eaten comida Cubana all my life, let’s eat American! And, he says, 

American food? America has been blitzed with ethnic food from every corner of the globe, KFC and Mc Donalds are the new American food, honestly doll, I have never eaten it. She says excitedly, 

We don’t have Mc Donalds in Cuba, take me to Mc Donalds bebe!

He hated Mc Donalds, but he wanted her to experience it. Walking a short distance they find a Mc Donalds, gliding on air through the golden arches and going inside the fast-food paradise. After queuing at the counter a few minutes he tells Lucia, 

baby, let the lady know what you want, with a child-like look on her face she orders, 

a Big Mac, french fries, a Coca-Cola and an Apple Pie! 

Henry vibing on her enthusiasm orders, 

OK, a vanilla shake, cheery pie and a cup of coffee. 

Stepping back from the counter, waiting a few minutes until their order comes, Lucia

grabs the tray and says, 

My God bebe, how did they make the little pie so fast? 

Lucia holds the tray in both hands, walking proudly, feeling American as if she was anointed by George Washington himself. 

Sitting in their booth, which was constructed with a mysterious material, a corporate secret, like, what kind of fried-deep-water-cold-blooded-vertebrae animal is on a Mc Fish Sandwich or how the french fries are made? Lucia asks,

how much was it? He answers, 

4 dollars 95 cents, she says 

Dios mio, for all this? I can’t believe it!

As she unwraps her Big Mac, holding it in both hands, looking at it, silence prevails as though the gods were watching from the clouds, she takes a bite and chews it slowly, saying, 

I love it darling, it’s marvellosa! 

Then, he sips his shake and takes a bite out of the fried rectangular cherry pie and thinks, hmm, not bad.

For most, it would merely be another meal at Mc Donalds, but for Lucia, it was a welcome to America fete. 

The couple walks a few blocks to the New Amsterdam Theater, running into Henry’s pal the Times Square Cowboy, who is standing near the ticket counter— shucking, jiving and scratching like Ray Charles. The cowboy’s a gay pimp and junky who hustles dope in front of the theater and reviews films for people who score, warning his buyers if the film is bad. Films like Sex in the City or Baby Boom are sure bets to get the Cowboy’s thumbs down, over the years he has become known as the street, Roger Ebert. 

Anyway, the cowboy says,

Henry baby where ya been? Howz tricks? Who's da hot piece of ass? I have ah, Peruvian cocaine, chocolate mescaline and a dime bag of joints, killer stuff. Da film is Scarface, it’s tits baby, wild, wild stuff, thumbs up! 

Henry buys a dime bag of pre-rolled joints from the cowboy and tickets at the counter, walking inside, sitting in the back row. Lucia raises her eyebrows and holds her nose saying, 

bebe, it smells like mildew here, and he says, 

yeah, after the midnight show the theater runs an all night porn marathon. 

They sit in the back row and light a joint, after the previews, the feature film Scarface comes on the screen—the opening scene is a panned shot of ragged banana boats full of Mariellotos intercepted by the Coast Guard outside the docks of Miami, Lucia who is angry says,  

Fidel the puta put the scumbags on boats to Miami to poison America, the Mariellitos gang bangers are germs, I can’t watch this shit, vamonos!

Leaving the New Amsterdam Theater and Times Square they walk through the high-rise canyons of the city reaching the dark and eerie Meatpacking District. On 10th Avenue they walk north reaching Ground Zero Museum and then east towards the Hudson River on a deserted street, Henry sees a neon sign up the block that reads,   

                            Hi Hat Club 

It’s a burlesque joint, he pays 20 bucks at the door, they go inside, sitting at a small table and order shots of tequila. The Hi Hat Club is the last of the old time burlesque venues in the Big Apple, Lenny Bruce got his start doing schtick between acts and his wife Honey stripped there. 

As the couple drinks tequila, the house band, 3 black dudes from Harlem, a sax player, drummer, and bassist play sleazy sax music, eyes shut, nodding, junked up in front of a red velvet curtain that drapes the stage.

Lucia who has a nose like a Bluetick Coon Hound says, 

baby, it smells like cum in here, and Henry says, 

it’s mildew, the old velvet curtains are sweating dry rot.

As the drummer taps out a rim shot— rat-a-tat-tat, and the sax player blows high sleaze, Pussy Wilderness comes on stage. She is wearing a bear suit that comes apart at the seams, slowly stripping it off to the music. Then, in a g-string Pussy Wilderness moves sexy-like to the couple's table, with her back against Henry she gyrates back and forth rubbing her ass on his face, Lucia laughs and he puts his nose into the stripper's ass saying in a slightly muffled tone,   

her hole smells like dime store douche. 

As Pussy Wilderness collects the pieces of her bear suit and exits stage left, an Asian stripper billed as Shanghai Sal comes on stage. Her hair is Betty Page style, she is wearing an embroidered kimono which she slowly lifts, then taking it off showing her slender white skinned body. Shanghai Sal then moves cobra-like through the audience as the band is doing their best to play a weak version of Duke Ellington’s Chinoiserie. Lucia enjoying the show asking, 

darling, does she turn you on? And he says, 

babe, it's the Hi Hat Club, it's on a planet of its own, it’s a circus, the last of Vaudeville,  just being here turns me on.