Prologue : living la vida hoochie
I started in 1957 and I was supposed to end in 1980. Twenty three years & four days, that was the plan. There was no point in keeping track, in insisting on order, chronological or otherwise, when I knew it was all going to end, badly. I had an expiration date, like a quart of milk. I made no plan for living past July 27, 1980.
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1974
the chalice, part 1
It’s a fag bar, so no one is buying me drinks, no one asks for ID or cares that I’m underage. No one cares if I get all drunk. I panhandle in Penn Station after work so I have enough to hang out and drink all night.
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sweet clams
Terry lets old men grope him, worship him, lick his ass, suck him off for money, more if he cums in their mouth. It’s a blessing to be young he tells me, stuffing himself back into his jeans.
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1975
the chalice, part 2
I wake up stuffed into a small alcove full of cleaning supplies. The string mop next to me reeks of disinfectant and vomit, probably mine. Old queens like Hollywood Al don’t appreciate me fucking their hustlers. I’m a distraction. The best they can do is get me drunk enough to get me out of the game for the night.
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dead frankie
Frankie swallowed a bottle of Darvon, one of Triavil and one of Quaaludes, washed it down with two quarts of Budweiser, called me, then lay down to sleep in Brooklyn.
He immediately became known as Dead Franke.
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the funeral
Everyone turned up & tricked out for the funeral. It was the first time I’d seen any of them in the daylight. There’s something to be said for the kindness of moonlight and mirrored balls. I’m sure they were thinking the same about me.
As they lowered the coffin, an aging blonde drag queen named Sunshine in a tasteful black lace dress & veil handed me a plain white envelope and offered me a ride home.
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no experience necessary
Ralphie bends down to look me in the face, like I’m the town idiot, or a small child. He had a face made from the soft sweat stained leather of an old catcher’s mitt. I’d seen that face in a hundred gangster movies. When he talks, only one side of his face moves, one side of his mouth, so’s if I was standing on the other side I wouldn’t know it was him talking at all.
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in the beginning
I am unemployed and extraordinarily single having gone from a boyfriend and a fiancee to nothing. The ad in the back of the Village Voice said “BARMAID – NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY”. I have that, no experience, and plenty of it.
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i feel pretty
I was a chubby, wierd kid with no idea how to fit in, what it meant to be a girl, how to make other people like me. To top it off, I looked like a middle aged school teacher most of my life.
The first time I was pretty, it was behind the bar at Robbies and there was a line of middle aged men at my bar that wanted my attention. They saw me and they wanted me to see them.
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fitting in
Raven tells me to start thinking what name I’m gonna use, that I can’t use my own. You use your own, she says, and any freak can find you.
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a class act
I order Stolichnaya because I like the way the word feels in my mouth, but really, I’m happy to drink Georgi and when no one is looking I swallow the crap champagne at work instead of spitting it out.
I’ve discovered charming, but can’t master demure. JJ says there’s a fine line between sleazy and sexy and teaching me to walk that line is an uphill battle.
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whirling curvish
I borrow a g-string. A cheesy scratchy blue number. A small triangle of coarse material that shimmers, barely, held together, barely, with three strips of black elastic. Someone else’s cooch stain taunts me as I change in the bathroom.
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1976
spit or swallow
Drunk girls are accidents waiting to happen. They wake up next to men they never meant to fuck. For free. Drunk girls get sent home, they’re not earners. And cheap champagne is the worst hangover ever. Trust me, I’m a drunk girl.
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smart mouth
I don’t pay you to talk to niggers.” He runs a thick hand through his hair, greying, slicked back and greasy, then across his mustache, also going grey. And now it’s greasy too.
“Well, who’re you paying to talk to ‘em, cause really, I’m perfect for it…
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train wreck
I considered joining the army and learning a trade, like demolition. I could be a gun moll or a mob hit man. I considered joining the circus. I thought about being a madam, but figured I’d need some hooker experience first. Truthfully, I didn’t really want to get a job, what was the point? I’d be dead by the time I was 23.
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gutter ball
My first time on the small college stage was somewhat less glamourous than my Mardi Gras debut. I make my entrance, step on my own hem, my dress slides down to my waist and once again I’m on stage, topless, sans lights, sans mirrored ball, but still, topless. With an audience. No metaphor. Just destiny. And you cannot fight destiny.
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speedy
I know one or two words in Spanish, like maricon. And really, I did know better than to call him a faggot in any language, no matter what he does with his dick when I’m not around. But, stuff comes into my head and it just sort of falls out of my mouth. So, really, that second smack, I had that one coming.
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ball change
He cut me. On his way out the bar he sliced my belly with my own knife, stopped, looked at me and smiled. It was deep enough to bleed, but not for scars or stitches.
There was no way I wasn’t taking him for a test drive.
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1979
7th St.
I found a place, a home of my almost own, with the radiator sunk half in the floor, the bars on the windows, the holes in the walls, the cockroaches inside and tiny Ukrainian women outside, sweeping the stoops. There’s no reason to be in the East Village unless you live here. Ukranians. Junkies. And me. It’s a dump, but it’s my dump. It’ll do for now.
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wolf
He wraps himself around my ankles singing nonsense. He lives here, in the park. He’s out of his mind… and I think I love him.
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howlin’ wolf
We fit like puzzle pieces when we make love. Afterwards, when he’s fallen asleep, I sneak out of the loft bed and go sleep on the couch. I can’t sleep in the same bed with my husband.
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guys & dolls
A guy goes upstairs with girl & a hard on, he returns fifteen minutes later with the same erection and tries again with another girl like it’s some kind of lottery or slot machine and he’s hoping for three cherries. Suckers buy lottery tickets and bottles of champagne, they live in an yin yang of hope & denial.
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a wolf in cheap clothing
I can’t remember the last time I had my period. I think I’m pregnant, but I haven’t said a word to anyone. I want to be a good wife, to get him off the floor, put him to bed. He’s holding a Bible, like you see in hotel rooms. I didn’t know he could read.
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deliver me from evil
“I’ll save your soul,” he whispers close to my face. “Satan’s in you, you whore. I can cast him out. I can make you free.” Louder now, he stands erect again, it’s building, “I am your Savior, I am your Redemption.”There’s a crash of cymbals. He swings again.
This time I dodge.
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punch drunk love
He pulls me into the loft bed, laying down behind me. Even now, our bodies fit perfectly. He strokes my hair, finger combing the curls, tucking a stray wisp behind my good ear, comforting me, he whispers, “I can kill you right now, but I love you. I can kill you in your sleep if I want to.”
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cop out
I don’t remember calling my mother, risking their lives by exposing my parents to this crazy man, but honestly, it wasn’t the first time I’d brought real live crazy into their lives.
Come, we’ll pack a few things and…,” my mother steps up next to me, so close I can feel the warmth of her body and get a little whiff of Jean Nate. Her everyday summer scent. I smell her sweat too, a little bitter, tangy even. Nervous sweat.
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white hat
Michael Douglas Lightfoot, wearing his big white Stetson hat and pointy toed alligator boots instead of the usual feathers and rainbow pimp wear. It didn’t make him look anymore like the Indian he claimed to be, or any less like a pimp. He was black to the bone, it just accentuated those Sidney Poitier good looks, and he knew it.
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the porkpie
Baby pimps hung around the thin edges, copies of Iceberg Slim’s book sticking out of their back pockets, soft, from handling. Kids with nothing more than attitude, the dream, an ill-fitting three piece suit, some hair relaxer and a stupid girlfriend, trying to learn by observation and eavesdropping, hanging around hoping to sweep up crumbs, bits of wisdom and experience from the Sweet Daddys and Gorilla pimps. They’d all seen Superfly a dozen times or more. The Porkpie offered a sort of apprenticeship program.
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three’s company
Donna Rose acted like she was better than me, that’s why I didn’t like her. I had no idea why she didn’t like me. When the Caddy pulled away from Guys for the second time that day, I was in the back seat, alone and she was riding shotgun next to Lightfoot. I’d been replaced by the pretty girl. She was still wearing her sunglasses even though it’d gotten dark. Smoking. Not looking at me, like I’d never even existed.
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lockey
Rolling over, I grabbed the phone, with no idea who one calls when one finds oneself stranded in a cheap roadside motel in New Jersey. Answer me that Jane Pauley, answer me that. Who do you call when this happens to you? It doesn’t, does it? This kind of thing doesn’t happen to Jane Pauley.
Good Morning America. I’m not part of that America. This is not part of that America.
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coming home
I smelled the smoke before I noticed the charred walls, the remnants of ash, the damp floor or the wooden planks nailed up where the apartment door used to be. All my life I was looking for a way out and now there was no way in.
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roach motel
Roach feets crawl across my ear and onto my cheek and as I realize that, last night swooshes in and slams into my head in Technicolor. Surround Sound. 3D. Last night slams me into the wall and I realize that this is no hallucination. These fuckers are real & they’re everywhere.
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yellow cab
I yell up to Lola’s window, explaining that there are two distinct possibilities here. I’ve either lost my mind, which is entirely believable, or I’ve brought with me a bag full of cockroaches and maybe I shouldn’t come into the house just yet… Lola cocks her head and puts on a sad face that says she knew that eventually I would to lose my mind.
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havasha
Havasha had been a brief bit of harmless crazy. Every morning, he drank his own pee, something to do with martial arts training & while I’ll drink just about anything no matter how foul if it gets me fucked up, I draw the line at pee. Even my own.
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bleecker street
The mescaline is in full bloom again. Huge rats sporting their dressiest furs scamper across our feet and each other, rushing to a party of their own, chattering wildly with the excitement of it all. The night thickens imperceptibly, our movements slow in the viscous evening air. And the door looms in front of us, leans over us, eclipses everything.
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ask alice
We’ve gone beyond the need for speech. I peel layer after wet layer of my own clothes… until finally, we’re both naked.The last two hits of mescaline melt on our tongues, sliding purple rivers down our throats, filling lungs with purple breath.
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coming to
Havasha rolls, mumbling, scratching, a small pool of spittle glistens in the coarse dark hairs of his beard. Outside, cars speed by, honking & yelling. Everyone everywhere has somewhere to hurry from and someone to hurry to. I pull myself up again, bracing on the wall for support. What happened? I wonder, How did I come to look and smell this bad, feel this bad, hurt this much?
Shit. This is what happens when I blink.
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michael
There was no one else I’d even thought to call. Michael was the original BFF, my go-to guy since that first hit of acid we dropped together. He took me to my first topless bar. If my mother knew, maybe she’d have cut my father some slack in the “whose fault is it she turned out to be such a fuck up” department.
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Reflections
ho, ho, ho
I never actually thought of myself as a prostitute. They had sex in exchange for a prearranged mutually agreed upon amount of money. I, on the other hand, at various times took spontaneously offered cab fare from men I was having sex with. Granted, the cab fare in question was usually in the neighborhood of $300 to get from 47th Street to 7th Street, but still, we called it cab fare.
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memories
Some things I don’t remember at all. My first kiss. My first date. I remember photographs of events, but not the actual event. Sometimes I think that I made the whole thing up.
All of it
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1976
cocaína
Papo was massive, dark and handsome, full of scars shaped like knife fights and bullet holes. When he looked at me I imagined the braille of them writing stories on my skin. After we’d finished fucking he swore it would be our secret, swore he’d never tell Short. He did. Of course.
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1978
cocaine daze ‘n nights
I woke up at noon – someone else was banging on the door. Brother Joey with a load of coke. We smoked some hash. Big Papo came down. Did more blow. Smoked more hash. Jesse and Joey went to cruise the streets to do some business. I split with Big Papo to the Village Plaza Hotel to do some credit card business. More blow.
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the bon soir
Dark and hot, it usually smelled of brandy, sweat and marijuana. The men, too, who crowded the bar–dark, hot and sweaty, smelling of brandy and marijuana. Drug dealers, burglars, thieves, hustlers. Most of them small time. A little slice of Heaven, that’s what the Bon Soir was. And except for Floyd, I was the only pink in the drink.
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war
The coke wars had started and they weren’t going away. Just what is the proper etiquette when you see your first gunshot wound? Your first drug war casualty? I’m a runner by nature. When things don’t make sense, when you get too close, I keep moving, I run. It’s what I know. I stepped over the bleeding boy and hailed a cab.
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the getaway
I noticed the small bits. Shoes and the quiet way they walk in them. The one who wears no socks, his skin is the color of cinnamon and his shoes just a shade darker. One wears an avocado colored knit suit with hand stitching around the pockets and buttonholes. The lights from the dance floor play on the dark oily metal of their guns and blue and white dots dance over everything, reflecting off the mirrored ball and their manicured nails.
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the trick
Floyd lies naked, an island of flesh lit by garish street lights. He does his best to spread his legs open, to expose himself more. The sheer mass of his stomach eclipses everything in the room. His chubby fingers grab at my dark curly pubic hair and he shoves a thumb inside of me (Audible gasp. Mine. I cannot tell if it’s pleasure, surprise or horror.) His thumb probes deeper, twirling around.
“Suck my cock.” His voice has lost its whininess. He pulls his thumb out of me and shoves me towards the foot of the bed. The thumb, shiny with my juice, he sticks in his mouth and suckles on.
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straight time
You can take the girl off the streets, but it’s harder to take the streets out of the girl.
November: I go to the 50¢ photo booths every week and study the four small black and white impressions of me. I don’t really recognize myself in these photos.
May: I do not recognize the face in the mirror.
September: Decided to really go straight, take anything to avoid the midtown sleaze. My first interview – a receptionist job – turned out to be at a whorehouse. I start 10:30 tomorrow morning.
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1980
the butterfly
Nicky Fireplug gives me a quick once over, like I’m a used car, and kicks my metaphorical tires.
“Ya got good legs?” he asks me. I hoisted my skirt up to my waist. Because I do. I got good legs.
That’s what got me the job, the good legs. And the fact that I’m willing to lift my skirt for a total stranger whose feet don’t reach the ground when he sits on a bar stool. I needed a job. And these were my job skills: a big ass, thick thighs, muscular calves, delicate ankles and a total lack of shame, or pride – whatever.
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piper
Piper was a star. Picture Doris Day. Her sweet smile, her All-American good looks. Now, picture Doris drunk, but not a hair out of place, blood on her hands and a twelve-gauge shotgun held causally out of sight behind her poodle skirt, still smiling. It was unlikely that we would ever get along. I was the kind of girl men locked in motel rooms, she was the kind of girl men bought hotels for.
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smoking section
I’m leaning on the bar sipping Harvey’s Bristol Cream Sherry, watching Sherry Cigarette blow smoke rings out her cooch. It’s like cruising by just after a head-on collision on the Interstate. I don’t want to stare, but I can’t help myself. They’re not exactly perfect, or really all that symmetrical, but it’s smoke and it’s coming out of her god-damned vagina fer chrissakes.
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all major credit cards
I’ve got 20 minutes left to try and whack that gold card one last time. Over his shoulder I spot Carrie, smoking a cigarette, picking at her cuticles and leaning against the stage. I catch her eye with a nod and she snake-walks over, slides an arm around his neck, looks him right in the eyes and smiles. Hell, if he wants his dick sucked, she’s the one to do it. She’s the gypsy, the blow-job queen.
The suit looks from her to me, and back again, confused. We’re both tall, with short red hair, long faces and a certain rock and roll edge. “You sisters?” Bingo.
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VIP Lounge
You gotta use what your mama gave you, so I tuck my legs under me and sit up, bringing my breasts up to eye level. For the record, even in my leotard, I have terrific tits. Let me revise that – I have good breasts, but I have terrific nipples. They’re as big as the last joint of your pinkie, and persistently erect. I can hang things from them, necklaces, ribbons, ties, you name it. If it hangs, it can be hung from my nipples. They are my only trick.
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afterparty
I smooth down my skirt and check myself; lavender grey button down rayon blouse, matching knee length wool cigarette skirt, stockings and low-heeled grey pumps. If I’m wearing a straight office chick’s clothes, I can pass for a regular broad out in the world.
“I don’t know J, I’m not saying you are, but you still look like a whore to me. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that mind you, but now you just look like a whore who mugged a straight broad for her clothes.” She hops off the vanity, tosses her cigarette into the toilet and flounces out the door. I look at myself again. She’s right. Fuck.
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cold men, warm mouths
The thing I wanted in a man was some element that would keep everyone else away. Crazy, violent, huge, unpredictable, powerful, rich, respected, feared. It didn’t matter. As long as being tagged by him meant that everyone else would steer clear. Given a choice, I’d pick the biggest bad in the room. The world was unsafe and while I couldn’t get a powerful man to care about me or for me the way Piper could, I could remain in his orbit, his aura, take his strength by proxy and make myself safe that way.
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2009
the ice man returnth
He wasn’t mean. He didn’t make me cry. He never hit me. He called me to tell me he was going to prison, instead of just disappearing. He didn’t have to do that, he could’ve just left. I remembered Louie as sweet. And generous.
Louie the Ice Man came home from prison this year. Home, just a ten minute drive from where I am today. Thirty years from where I was. I became obsessed with the Ice Man all over again.
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1981
jukebox nights
Big Maxie grabbed the wooden baseball bat from behind the bar and walked over slowly, dangling it out of sight just behind his thick leg. He stood with the bat swinging softly behind him like a metronome and talked the kid into putting the jukebox tenderly back down on the floor.
Myron sat at the bar, still shelling pistachio nuts and popping them one at a time into his mouth. He’d sit there and watch just the same if Maxie had to bash the kids head open to get him to put the jukebox back down.
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lollipop journals
January So, that’s who I spend all my time with now. Killers, loan sharks, coke dealers. But mostly well-dressed. So, that’s who I am now. High class slime.
May Woke up on the couch, the door unbolted. There’s a puddle of water in the center of the floor and a chair in the middle of that. I know who I came home with and that we fucked but after that…
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