Some things I don’t remember at all. My first kiss. My first date. I don’t remember a lot of my life. Not the way you remember yours.
I remember photographs of events, but not the actual event.
Sometimes I think that I made the whole thing up.
All of it.
Then, tentwentythirty years later I run into someone who was there, in that snapshot moment and they say, Yes, that’s what happened. Yes, it was exactly like that. Or they don’t say anything because maybe they blinked too sometimes. Or they look at me like I’m crazy because they remember it a whole ‘nother way completely.
There are things I know, the way I know about Columbus or the Kennedy assassination, but I don’t technically remember, because, like I said, I wasn’t actually there.
That’s how my life is. I’d blink and days would disappear. Even when I knew where I was, I wasn’t really there. I left my baggage in the lobby, but I was gone, baby, gone. Checked out. I know the stories, but they happened to that other Jodi while I watched from the back side of the looking glass. I shouldn’t be held responsible, because I wasn’t actually there.
I don’t remember not one single thing from my own eyes. I remember from the eyes of the other me, the one who stepped out, stood in the shadows, sat next to me in the cabs, lounged on the couch in the corner and watched with no reaction at all. To anything. No matter what was going down. From the safety of the shadows I watched my life just happen– the good, the bad and the ugly. Even in a room by myself, I stood in a corner, watching to see what I would do next….
Word is you remember the things that are important to you. I think I remember the things that changed me, even if they didn’t seem important at the time.
I remember taking my first hit of cocaine (Hotel Earle, 1976),
snorting my first bag of dope (Mardi Gras bathroom, 1981)
and turning my first trick (Floyd Simpson, February 1978).
This entry was written by , posted on October 29, 2009 at 9:00 am, filed under the diary and tagged blink, drugs, the abyss. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
There was no one else I’d even thought to call. Boyfriends & girlfriends came and went, but we always had each other. Michael was the original BFF, my go-to guy since that first hit of acid we dropped together.
I was safe with him around. No matter how much I drank, he’d never leave without me. He was the one who took me to the Raven’s Nest, 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. Michael shot pool while I dropped shot glasses full of bourbon into mugs of beer, downing them in one gulp. I hate bourbon, but the long-haul truckers who packed the Nest every night thought it was cute. By fifteen, as long as you were buying, I was drinking.
He was with me at the Bon Soir too, charming underage Puerto Rican girls while I was getting ready to turn my first trick. He knew everything there was to know about me. If anyone could understand how I wound up broken, bloody and covered in flea bites on the floor of a garage in the Lower East side, it was Michael.
I wrap my arms around him and cramps shoot painfully through my lower body. It’s the beginning of a miscarriage, but I don’t know that, not yet. For now, I hold on to Michael’s waist as the spasms roll through me and he kicks the Harley to life. “Drive slow,” I whisper, “please, just take it slow.”
I spend a few days with my parents, recuperating from the last seven.
Communications are on a need to know basis and I don’t think they need to know much. They know I’m away from Red Wolf – I let him take the blame for all my bruises. They don’t know about the topless bars, the pimps or Havasha. No ones day would be made better by sharing that information.
They take the cat back to live with them. Apparently, I’m not responsible enough to care for another living thing. Truth is, I’m barely able to care for myself. My body agrees and a bloody worm is flushed down the toilet—the last traces of my storybook marriage, Red Wolf’s almost baby.
I’m tired. So fucking tired.
My father used to say “If you don’t know where your next meal is coming from, get a job in a restaurant,” which is pretty practical and it worked for a while. Lola gets me a gig with her at Mimi’s, an Italian restaurant with a piano bar, which keeps my belly full of lasagna. Lola keeps my tea cup full of Harvey’s Bristol Crème. I keep a used tea bag on the saucer & pretend no one can smell the sweet sherry on me. I sip at it non-stop and she refills it over & over.
But my bruises and flea bites heal. I forget that week and now what I remember is “If you don’t know where your next drink is coming from, get a job in a bar.”
Blink.
And just like that, I’m back to where nobody expects me to behave any better than I can. Where I don’t have hide my drinking in a tea-cup. I go back to where I belong. Home. Times Square.
And I still haven’t told you about my first trick, even though I meant to, that’s where this all was going. It’s just such a long story. And he was so very fat. So very, very fat.
This entry was written by , posted on October 22, 2009 at 7:01 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1979, blink, Bon Soir, drinking, drugs, family, Levittown, partners in crime. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The morning sun blinded me as we rode into it –
and then I blinked.
When I open my eyes again I’m staring at greasy tin ceilings and the smell of oil and gasoline weigh me down. I lay on a thin foam mattress surrounded by cogs & gears. Greasy metal things litter the cement floor around me. It’s the itching that wakes me. My arms, my legs, my thighs, my crotch. I scratch till I bleed. I scratch some more.
Through grimy windows and thick exhaust I make out the corner of Second Avenue & Houston Street in the failing sunlight. The back end of the motorcycle blocks the open front door.
That would make this Havasha’s motorcycle shop.
My body howls as I turn to look for him. Shoved in a corner atop a pile of dirty yellow cushions, he scratches in his sleep. Curled into a dark leather ball of grease, sweat, and hair, so close I can touch him if I reach out. I don’t.
Pulling myself up, despite my body’s loud objections, I take a step towards the open front door. My muscles scream as I fall. Or maybe it’s me that screamed this time. Havasha continues to sleep, one foot trembling like a dog when he dreams.
The heel on my right boot is completely gone. My foot is caked with dried blood, which I assume is mine. Even if I couldn’t feel my toes wiggling, which I can, I can see my toes wiggling through the holes of what’s left of my cowboy boot. The rust corduroys Doug’d bought didn’t even last the week. The right leg is torn and stained. Dirt, grease, pebbles, torn skin, urine, dark clotted blood. Same for my right arm, only not so badly. Scrapes and bruises that cover my back. I’d see them too, if I could turn my head. My left side seems intact, just dirty and itchy. I poke and prod, checking for serious damage, breaks or fractures.
Nothing.
Bites, bruises, blood, yes, but nothing broken. My lucky day.
I ache. All over.
Havasha rolls, scratching, a small pool of spittle glistens in the coarse dark hairs of his beard. He mumbles in his sleep. Outside, cars speed by, honking & yelling. Suits rushing home. Everyone everywhere has somewhere to hurry from and someone to hurry to. I pull myself up again, bracing on the wall and the desk 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.
Slowly, I remember. Red Wolf. The police. The roaches. Shit, the roaches. I have nowhere to hurry to. I don’t really even have somewhere to casually saunter to.
Names & numbers of no one I know are written on the wall above a desk piled with more dark and oily mechanical things. An old black rotary phone hides under dirty napkins and empty Chinese food containers. I hold the receiver to my ear and dial slowly, afraid I’ll wake the sleeping troll.
“Michael,” my voice hoarse, “I want to come home. I didn’t know who else to call.”
I watch Havasha struggle and scratch while I whisper directions to my oldest friend over the phone. Michael got me my first hit of acid in high school, but what will he think when he sees me like this?
“Bring roach spray. Lots of it.” I place the receiver gently back in its cradle and slip out the door, leaving Havasha to fight his own demons there on the yellow cushions.
I leave a gouge in the wall where my name and number were.
Sitting on the curb not even a bum stops to ask me for change or a cigarette.
I’m still there, smoking my last few cigarettes
when Michael pulls up on his Harley.
I can tell how much of a mess I am
by the look on his face.
I point to Havasha’s bike.
It’s all I can manage and it’s enough for now.
Mangled gears.
Bright metal torn
and twisted.
Leather seats sprinkled with dried blood
and dirt.
Handlebars contorted
and compressed.
Just a big shiny scrap metal sculpture now.
I wrap my arms around Michael’s waist as he kicks the Harley to life. “Drive slow,” I whisper into the curls around his ear, “please, just drive slow.”
This entry was written by , posted on October 15, 2009 at 11:14 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1979, blink, dirty boys, East Village, roaches. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
artwork courtesty of A. Andrew Gonzalez
Movement at my left distracts me.
Havasha.
I’d forgotten about him. He removes his wet clothes, hangs the heavy leather jacket from a nail in the wall. His worn leather boots, caked with mud, stand alone in a corner. A torn thermal shirt hangs from another nail. He looks up, watching me watch him and I hear “To dry”, in my head, but no one’s spoken. We’ve gone beyond the need for speech.
I peel layer after wet layer of my own clothes, hanging them on nails, off shelves; laying them out in open areas on the dusty cement floor, until finally, we’re both naked.
Where is everyone else, I wonder at him. We’ve been waiting for hours.
Or minutes, he thinks back, I don’t know.
Minute or hours? I can’t tell.
Trapped in each others’ eyes, we ease down onto the blanket, floating now on the sky, now on the sea. Cross legged. Face to face, touching only knees & fingertips, heart & soul, past & future. The last two hits of mescaline melt on our tongues, sliding purple rivers down our throats, filling lungs with purple breath. The candles glitter like chandeliers through a violet haze that engulfs the three of us.
The tiny orange cat binds us further, soft apricot trails following her as she figure eights around, behind, between us. She settles in my lap, nuzzles into my pubic hair, cuddling safely into my nest of calves and thighs, my fortress of warm pink flesh. My chi, my soul, my brain, my heart, my fucking essence flows into Havasha, his into me, ours into her, this scrawny red cat. Giving her strength, giving her life, in exchange for the sanctuary she offered from rain and night.
Always I find myself looking for sanctuary and safety.
She closes her eyes and sleeps.
We leave our bodies there to keep her and then travel on to another level.
Physical boundaries dissolve.
Time and place liquefy.
We flow, caught in the eddies and whirlpools,
spinning & dancing into oblivion.
Into darkness.
Into light.
Music fills me, buoys me higher, then escapes through my pours. It carries me away and drops me, tumbling through soft smoky white skies. I breathe and a thousand little bells chime. My heart.drum.beat. keeps the rhythm. I float and tumble, finding another heartdrumbeat–Havasha. Our drums beat together, our bells ring in harmony and we spin into a silky bright whiteness, cascade down a waterfall of lavender, splash into the brilliant emerald, the pulsing lapis of the blanket where we started.
The kitten hasn’t moved, she sleeps in my lap.
Our clothes are dry. My skin is slick with sweat. The air thick with the stink of sweat, candlewax, blood & urine. A few candles sputter, barely alive at their final inch.
My eyes burn, my muscles ache, my mind searches for a soft dark place to sleep.
My hair hurts.
I wonder if Havasha is as tired and sore as I am. I ask, without speaking, but this time I get nothing back. Our moment has passed. We haven’t spoken a word aloud since the accident that we’ve both forgotten by now.
I wonder, again, what happened to everyone else.
The sun is up, again, as we mount the bike. I close my eyes and we ride into the blinding white.
This entry was written by , posted on October 12, 2009 at 9:52 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1979, blink, dirty boys, drugs, East Village. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I really have no idea how I wound up on that motorcycle.
I was hiding under blankets on Lola’s couch, while she petted my head and murmured something that sounded vaguely like “nice kitty”. Things had veered off in a direction I didn’t know what to do with and Lola’s Chelsea couch was a safe distance from the East Village and miles away from Times Square. I sipped chamomile tea, mumbled quiet nonsense to myself and tried to find my way back.
And then, Havasha appeared. He’d been a brief bit of harmless crazy before I even moved into the East Village. He was a little…special. Every morning, he drank his own pee, something to do with his martial arts training and 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.
I took a sip of tea, looked up and he was there. Crouching on muscular haunches in front of me, his short thick body leaned on Chester the Dog for support. Chester & Havasha, tilting their furry heads this way and then that way, the two of them sniffing the air around me, they could have been brothers. Squatting there, jeans streaked with grease and street dirt, his chestnut hair matted into clumps, square yellowed teeth, big, like lemon flavored Chiclets you’d found at the bottom of your purse, giant horse teeth in a smile just this side of madness, he looked a little bit…troll-like, like maybe he knew the secrets of the universe
She needs a drink, he said.
Apparently he did know the secrets of the universe, or at least the secrets of mine.
I hadn’t had a drink since the Porkpie…only two days ago? I’d lost control of the days and nights and had to keep reminding myself what followed what. Too much of the big and scary. I was afraid even a deep breath would cause the walls to collapse, everything would come crashing down, crushing me, breaking windows and bones, cockroaches would fill my mouth
She needs a drink, he said. And a good time.
I was the couch, waiting for the return of my sanity.
And then I wasn’t.
How he found me there I have no idea. One minute I was on the couch in borrowed pajamas –I blinked–and I was on the back of his motorcycle, a behemoth 1100 with crash bars front and back. I traded toast and blackberry jam for mescaline, chamomile tea for vodka. Vodka & Kahlua. Vodka & Kahlua with Milk. Kahlua, Amaretto & Milk. And finally, when the bars ran out of milk, Kahlua, Amaretto and Vodka.
Havasha stuffed handfuls of quarters into jukeboxes in the back of each bar we stopped at, making sure I had everything I needed. Music loud enough to drown out the noise outside. Mescaline to drown out the noise inside. A motorcycle that could get me anywhere but here, and fast. Vodka, because a day without vodka is a day without sunshine. Cigarettes, because you can’t live on Vodka alone.
Life was beginning to feel normal again.
Minutes grew into hours and the white hot mescaline morning slid us into yet another bar. Another drink. Hours turn into seconds. Another hit of mescaline.
Time stops.
We watch, crouched in a dark bar at the end of a deep hallucinogenic tunnel, a million miles away, the air damp and cool as silver glitter floats slowly from a pussywillow grey sky, each silver piece shattering into a thousand deafening shards as it hits the quiet cement sidewalk outside.
Time for one more drink before it really starts raining, I think as my mind scrambles out of the tunnel, scratching and clawing, only to slip back down inside. One more drink before we need to get the bike off the streets. There’s always time for one more drink.
Sharp, cold silver needles shower down on me, pierce my skin, cry down my face. The chrome monster between our legs roars to life and I hold tight at Havasha’s thick leather waist, burying myself in the matted fur at the back of his neck. We scream into the storm, racing down Second Avenue, rushing away from the wet, afraid of melting. The asphalt, slick with oil and water, shrinks back, exposing bits of Old New York and its cobblestone streets. I scream at the night, howl along with the roaring engine, sharp needles pierce my tongue and fill my throat.
I scream at the panel truck.
Parked directly in the path of our mescaline blind ride.
The truck appears not to notice me
and the motorcycle
seems to have no intention
of Evil Kneiveling anything at all this evening.
This entry was written by , posted on October 5, 2009 at 2:18 pm, filed under the diary and tagged 1979, blink, dirty boys, drinking, drugs, East Village. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The hungry was making me dizzy. So was the not being able to breathe. Yesterdays comfortable pants had somehow disappeared between the Porkpie and here. I peeled off the tight corduroy jeans and lay down. Just for a second. Just to get my head together.
I woke up drenched in sunlight and alone. Lightfoot hadn’t come back, but Jane Pauley was yakking it up. Good Morning America. I’m not part of that America. This is not part of that America.
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. I dialed “0″ to ask for an outside line. My folks didn’t need to know I’d fucked up, again, the very next day. Red Wolf was gone. I’d call Lightfoot, yell a little. Sorry, the voice says, no outside calls.
Shit. I remembered a payphone downstairs in the parking lot but, the door is locked, from the outside. Shit. Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit.
I stood in front of the big window in a T-shirt and panties watching New Jersey Transit buses pick up suits, on their way to work in New York. Every five minutes or so, another bus. I pull a pair of black spandex pants out of my dance bag. They’re not mine but they’re comfortable. That kind of thing happened all the time. My things disappeared, someone else’s show up in their place. What happened during the blinks, after a while, the not knowing just became part of who I was. I wiggle into them, bang on the wall and pace the room. After a few minutes, a skinny guy shows up at the door, a little bit fidgety, kinda dodgy. I’ve never seen him before, this nervous little Negro sweatball in cheap polyester pants the color of camel shit, high waisted, like that might make him look taller.
“You Lockey?” He nods.
“You’re supposed to stay and wait for Doug.” Lockey says, shifting from side to side.
“I waited.” I pick up the phone. “How come I can’t call out?”
“I’dunno.” He flinches, like he thinks I might throw the phone. I hadn’t thought of it, but I might, I just might.
“The door was locked…”
“Didn’t want no one to bother ya.”
“…from the outside.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay. In case you, like, walk in your sleep or sumpin’.” Lockey’s shuffling like he’s got dog shit on the bottoms of his shoes. He’s the posterchild for “someone get me the fuck out of here”, like I’ve got some contagious disease. He’s scared of me, but he’s probably more scared of Lightfoot.
“I’m hungry,” and I need a drink, I think to myself, and a way outta here. “Can you get me something from the diner across the street?”
Lockey lights up, relieved. This is something he can do, an easy out, no more questions he doesn’t have the answers to. I heard him lock my door from the outside. Motherfucker. He’s got the key, of course he does. I watched him go down the stairs. I’m locked in, I say into the phone, to the stranger on the other end. Yes ma’am, Mr. Doug has the key. You have to wait for him, the phone says back to me.
I put the phone down, stuff my new corduroy jeans into my dance bag and sling it over my shoulder.
I try to be stupid only a little bit of the time.
I watch Lockey crossing the parking lot, the highway, dodging cars, headed towards the diner. I turn to see what’s up the highway. Lockey opens the diner door and goes in.
Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes, turn my head & heave the chair through the big plate glass window over the desk. I’m half way down the stairs before heads start popping up to see who made the big noise. I’m just stepping onto a bus as Lockey comes running out of the diner after me. From my window seat I watch him as we pull away; first throw down the food he had bought for me, eggs, toast, homefries, coffee–damn it, I was hungry–then run back across the highway yelling at the old man who ran out of the office – the disembodied voice on the phone. Both of them flapping their arms, hopping and squawking at each other, two crazed chickens in the parking lot. Spittle flying as they yelled at each other and pointed from the room upstairs to the retreating bus.
I settle back in the upholstered seats, breathe in the cool conditioned air, close my eyes and feel the adrenaline still pulsing through my muscles. I just want to go home and sleep. And I could really use a drink.
This entry was written by , posted on September 17, 2009 at 10:25 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1979, blink, New Jersey, pimps. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Skin tight. Not exactly eating pants and all I was thinking about was food.
I took a baby sip of the vodka, unzipped and took a grown up sip. I peed, trying for a little bit of extra room. I hate peeing when I’m drinking. I paid for the booze, I want to hang on to it, to keep it inside doing its dirtywork as long as possible. It’s mine, mine, mine, mine–even when someone else is paying. But, sometimes, like it or not, I have to pee.
Doug was on the pay phone when I came out. I pirouetted once or twice through the crowd for audience reaction–pimps are notorious appreciators of a good pirouette–landing in front of him just as he hung up.
“Now? Dinner…?”
“We gonna get Donna Rose first, she’s coming with us, you don’t mind, right little girl?”
I stomped an imaginary foot. “Ack! Stop that.“ Smiling, he threw his arm around my waist, lifted me off the ground and spun me around planting a soft kiss on my cheek. “I don’t give a shit who comes, I’m starved. I’m ready to pass out.”
I did mind, though. Donna Rose was a dancer and from the first day we hadn’t spoken outside of what was absolutely necessary. She 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. Donna Rose rode shotgun next to Lightfoot. I’d been replaced by the pretty girl. I was not liking her just a little bit more than before.
When I was little the pretty one was my mom. I was never pretty enough. I was never going to be. That shit makes me go just a teensy bit blind, like a blackout without the fun of the booze or a long slow motion blink. It feels like a split second, but I close my eyes in one place and when I open them again, everything’s changed and I have no idea what happened between then and now.
I blinked while we were still in the Porkpie. Then again when I found myself in the back seat. When I finished, we were somewhere in Jersey, some highway, some anonymous roadside motel. Lightfoot had the car door open and was helping me out of the backseat. I hadn’t been paying attention. I was busy being hungry, angry, tired. Busy feeling sorry for myself. In other words, I blinked. I’d lost entire days that way.
“Look, it’s getting late. I’ma get you a room, little one. You sleep here, safe and sound. We’ll have all day tomorrow. Then I take you home’n make sure your old man ain’t hanging around. Make sure no one can bother you.”
“So, wait. What? What happened to dinner? I gotta eat.” It was dark for the second time since I ate last. Thirty-six hours since I’d put something other than vodka and Newports in my stomach. I hate menthols. “Take me home, Doug. Take me back to the city, anyplace. I’ll find my own way. I’m so fucking tired.”
Radio Rover 2007
“You’ll go upstairs. Donna lives a few minutes from here.”
She sat in the front seat, still wearing her sunglasses even though it’d gotten dark. Smoking. Not looking at me, like I’d never even existed.
Doug kept talking and moving me along. “I’ll drop her off and be right back for you. We’ll get a big dinner. Steak, lobster, anything at all my girl wants. We can bring it back to the room if you want.”
We were halfway up the stairs before I even noticed. Blink. I was so tired. He unlocked the door. Double bed, color TV, fake oil painting, stiff white towels and a single glass wrapped in wax paper, coarse carpet and that whiff of mildew. Not the Bates Motel, but not the Waldorf either. The picture window overlooked the parking lot, the highway and a diner across the street. All I saw was Donna looking up as she flicked her cigarette out the window of the Caddy.
“If you need anything, Lockey – you remember Lockey? He’s right next door, just knock on the wall.” Lightfoot tossed my dance bag down on the bed–I’d forgotten I had that with me–and flipped the TV on.
Come and knock on our door / We’ve been waiting for you
Where the kisses are hers and hers and his / Three’s company too.
Irony is usually lost on me.
“Twenty minutes. Thirty tops. Relax, freshen up and I’ll be back before you know it.” Doug bent down and kissed me on the lips.
I stood in the middle of room watching as he closed the door behind him. Watched through the window as he got back in the Caddy. Watched as they pulled out of the parking lot.
I had no idea who Lockey was. I had no idea where I was.
This entry was written by , posted on September 14, 2009 at 9:18 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1979, blink, Guys & Dolls, lonliness, New Jersey, pimps. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
