flickr photo courtesy of nasrulekram
“J? I know it’s early, but…”
9 AM. I’d only just crawled into the loft bed when the phone rang; I was still playing solitaire, obsessively. I play three games, every night. I have to win, or lose, three in a row before I’m allowed to sleep. I was so wired even if I could get the cards to work right…but Laurie? She was never up this early, or this late, depending on which side of life you’re looking at it from.
“What’s wrong Lo?”
“Your friend. The guy…from last night? His car wouldn’t start, he said. He just wanted to use the phone. I thought, I thought you were still with him, out in the car… but you’re home. And, and he’s here…and… waiting for the tow truck, I guess, and I know it’s…I thought you could come back and…
“Lo? Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
“No.”
“Scared?
“No. Maybe..yes.”
“Sit tight, I’m on my way. Say whatever you think you need to say to make him happy. He’s crazy Lo, you understand? Crazy. But, he’s just fucking with your head. He’ll leave with me, so, really, no worries, okay? He’s watching you talk on the phone with me, isn’t he?”
“Uh huh.”
Every time we go out, me and the Big Man, we stop at the diner on Eighth Ave, across from Piper’s building and around the corner from Possible 20. P20 is supposed to be a jazz joint, but it’s really just one more pimp bar. Piper’s building is crawling with pimps, too. My neighborhood has junkies, hers has got a pimp infestation. A pimpfestation. Anyway, the Big Man gets me broiled lobster with melted butter and a baked potato. To go.
Piper doesn’t want him in her apartment, P20 closes at 4am and he won’t let me eat in the car.
My girls worked hard to pay for this car, he says. You can’t be disrespecting them with that fish stank, spilling butter on my leather. Lots of good ass got sold to pay for that white leather and not a dollar’a that come from you.
So, I wait till we get to 366 or Harry Brooklyn’s or some other afterhours where I sit in a dark corner and eat lobster with my hands while he sits at the poker table.
We never just stay at the diner and eat like regular people.
366 is around the corner from Laurie’s apartment. I thought, just once, it would be nice to not eat in the dark. And she always has wine. We did line after line of the Big Man’s coke, washing it down with wine stolen from the Italian restaurant where she worked.
I meant to be generous, to pay her back for taking care of me. That’s what I meant to do. But once again, I’d brought crazy into Lola’s house. She had no business getting involved with Havasha. Lola was strictly a good girl. She was strictly Long Island Jewish. She didn’t know what to do with a crazy man, what to do when they turned on you. H fractured her cheekbone. You’d think she’d of learned after that, that my boys were out of her league. She should not be allowing them any one of them into her house if they weren’t with me.
Havasha’s crazy couldn’t hold a candle to the Big Man’s.
I was at her door before she could hang up the phone.
The door is unlocked. He’s sitting in a chair across from her; quietly crushing cigarettes into the bare skin of his chest and watching her reaction. One after another. He lights one, takes a few puffs, staring at her, then grinds it into the festering sore in the center of his chest.
His name was Michael and Sammy and JJ. He had other names, I couldn’t know them all, didn’t know if any were real. He was a big man, about six five and somewhere between 280 and 300 lbs. Maybe not. Maybe he’s just grown in my memories.
But he was big and I shoulda seen it coming.
Just another pimp doing just another pimp job. In the antiseptic halls of my intellect I know he didn’t have the right. But deep inside, in the darkness that hides my heart and soul, I know they were right.
I got what I deserved.
This entry was written by , posted on February 2, 2010 at 12:38 pm, filed under the diary and tagged 1981, Chelsea, dirty boys, drinking, drugs, Lollipop Lounge, partners in crime, pimps, whores. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The inside of a cab is a relatively small space for all this screaming, most of which is coming from me.
I drag this dance bag around with me everywhere I go, stuffed with anything I could possibly need in case I can’t go home for a day or two, which considering the week I’m having, is a smart move. Now, in addition to all the crap already in the bag, I’ve brought dozens and dozens of shiny black and brown roaches with me. Roaches waddle over my change purse, ski down my house keys.
I try to explain to Abu Ben Taxi Man, and to ask for help. All he hears are garbled sounds, convulsive breathing and screams of cockroach, cockroach, cockroach from a crazy girl spasmodically flinging a bag around the back of his cab
A couple walks by on their way home, they eyeball us for a moment without even slowing down.
“Lady, calm down, I have no bugs. You pay and then you get out. You give me six dollah and then you go away, go away and no cockroaches.” He talks to me in a soft voice, maybe a little afraid I’ll wreck his cab, stiff him or turn my hysteria on him.
I know that tone of voice. It’s the one you save for the crazy people, the one you use when you want to say “Okay, just put the gun down and back away…” Maybe he’s right and I’m crazy and this is a hallucination. Apparently. I’m the only one who sees the bugs. It happens. I know it happens, like with coke bugs. I haven’t done a that much coke in the last few days, but it could be.
I take a deep breath, in with the good, out with the bad. Okay. I’m good. Fine, just keep moving, like a shark, keep moving.
I reach into the bag to get the money. I have superior hallucinations, I think to myself, tactile as well as visual. Imaginary roaches crawl over my hand, through my fingers, up my sleeve. Calm, breathe, it’s a figment of your imagination, I tell myself. In with the good, breathe, out with the bad.
The cab speeds off down the block before I can finish closing the car door.
Standing on West 27th Street 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, maybe she should come take a look first.
Lola cocks her head and puts on a sad face that says she knew that eventually I would to lose my mind. Reluctantly, she comes out in her pajamas and slippers, with Chester the Dog to inspect my bag. They’re the bag inspectors.
I hold it open in front of me for them to see.
Lola leans over, peeks, yelps like a Pekinese, looks up at me and jumps back, still yelping.
She startled me and I start yelping and jumping along with her, dropping the bag. Roaches flood out of the bag and scatter everywhere. We dance and scream and jump around them, on them, yelp and jump off of them. Screaming, laughing and crying so hard I pee myself, just a little. We hold on to each other to keep from falling. Drowsy faces appear in the windows, watching two crazy girls and a dog screaming, laughing and jumping for no apparent reason. It’s still too dark for anyone else to see the bugs.
Chester the Dog, jumping along with us and licking up mouths full of live roaches acts as if I’ve brought a bag of fun treats just for him.
I’m grateful for Chester’s help, but really, she needs to feed that dog more often.
This entry was written by , posted on October 1, 2009 at 3:43 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1979, Chelsea, roaches, the abyss. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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