“It’s two blocks, you could walk faster than…”
“I could. But I don’t hafta. I have cash, see? Cash? So, I don’t hafta walk. I don’t want to walk two blocks. I don’t want to walk one block. I’m paying you, so just drive….” I settle back into the seat making myself comfortable, two blocks or twenty, it’s all the same to me. “Sonofabitch,” I mumble under my breath. I’m a loud mumbler.
Piper and I have some version of this conversation every time we cab it from the Lollipop to Paul’s Mardi Gras. It’s a quick two blocks, well, two if we walk, which we don’t. We won’t. It’s six blocks when you drive.
I can walk. I’m not a cripple. But goddammit, why would I walk when I can be driven? I’m making all this fucking money, isn’t this exactly why? So I can do whatever I want, whenever I want and don’t have to take shit from anyone about it?
And Piper is simply not the kind of girl who walks, but rather she is escorted places. And, to be honest, the conversations with the cabbies are much nicer for everyone involved when I let her do the talking. That goes for almost all conversations involving men, and except for talking to Pipes and my mother, all my conversations are with men. And, if I’m going to continue being honest, I have to tell you I cannot remember the last time I spoke to my mother, certainly not since that night.
Piper is better at charming than I will ever be, especially these days. She is more about the batting of the eyes, where I come across more like a bat upside the head. I’ve tried it her way, but it’s like putting a party dress on a monkey. The monkey looks pretty, sure, but you’re not actually going to take the monkey home to meet the family.
The new Mardi Gras, Paul’s Mardi Gras, is to the Lollipop what Vegas is to Tuesday night Bingo at the VFW hall. It’s like drinking inside a Christmas decoration the size of a football field wih live djs sending music pounding out of speakers as tall as goalposts. Everywhere you look, cash registers, balloons, streamers, mirrors, men in suits, women in nothing or almost nothing. Photos of dancers and celebrities line the mirrored walls. New Year’s Eve streamers give a festive illusion of privacy to the tables and alcoves along the walls. An endless river of dancers, waitresses, floor girls and barmaids sardine-can themselves in and out of the two stall bathroom and call it a dressing room. It’s a really BIG Christmas decoration, with vodka. Endless bottles of vodka.
We’ve been coming here to relax and drink here for a couple of weeks, whenever we need a change of scenery from the little Lollipop with its eight barstools, rinky-tink flashing jukebox and ten foot ’stage’.
I slide on to the first empty barstool and hustle drinks I’ll get no commission on. I could pay for them myself, but why, when I can get a customer to pay $20 for my $2 vodka and help one of the barmaids make her bonus at the same time? The vodka’s the same no matter who pays or how much. I don’t care about making money or spending money tonight. I’m here to drink, the music is good, and it’s not work. These are my people.
The Lollipop has Myron’s crew of wiseguys, some middle management office drones and a few frat boys, but everyone comes to the Mardi Gras: cops, on duty and off, New York and New Jersey; wiseguys also on duty and off, also New York and New Jersey; street hustlers, doctors, pimps, loan sharks, bookies, lawyers, psychiatrists, couples, off duty dancers, nude models, live sex show performers from ShowWorld relaxing in-between their live sex shows, celebrities, newscasters relaxing in-between casting the news, and a dancing dwarf who claims to be the real money behind the bar and demands blowjobs from each of the new girls.
A month or a week from now when I find myself dancing on this very stage and he sidles up to me, his face level with and pressed up against my barely g-stringed crotch, I will threaten to drop kick him across the bar. Dwarves freak me out. Sue me, sorry, but they do.
And while there may or may not have been a Robbie at Robbie’s Mardi Gras, which has since disappeared, there is most definitely a Paul at Paul’s Mardi Gras.
There’s guinea money behind the bar; there’s guinea money behind all of the bars, but Paul’s name is on the liquor license. He sits with me while I drink. He escaped Auschwitz with his parents when he was a boy, but he doesn’t talk about it much. Instead, he tells me I’m a good Jewish girl. He complains about his kids to me, worries about them, they make him crazy. He says Teddy is hard-headed and angry, always getting into fights; Fern is unmanagable, she’s dating a schwartze for God’s sake, a schwartze!; Elliot, the baby, Elliot is a good boy who helps him run the bar at night. Paul strokes my face, watching me with rheumy eyes, he tells me how I look just like his wife, Paula, when she was my age. At first, I think she must be dead. She’s not. She manages the day shift and hates me on sight. So although I find myself in need of a new job and it would be ever so nice to work days and sleep nights like a semi-normal person, I’ll get no help at all from the wife.
Wives are rarely, if ever, helpful to me.
Paul, however welcomes me. The Mardi Gras is a family business, he says. And I’ve always wanted a family.
This entry was written by , posted on March 16, 2010 at 4:47 pm, filed under the diary and tagged 1982, drinking, Paul's Mardi Gras, Robbies Mardi Gras, Times Square. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
“Jesus, JJ. What the hell…?” Piper flips her hair away from her face and drags me into the light for a better look at my face.
“I’m fine, Pipes. Forget it.” I just want to get behind the bar, to get a drink, to work, to forget this happened.
“What? Are you crazy? J, you should really have someone look at that. What happened, baby? Does it hurt bad? Sit. I’ma make you a drink…Maxie said you had an accident?”
“Maxie says, this ain’t a freakin’ tea party. That’s what Maxie says.” How a big man like Max slips in and out of a room unnoticed is beyond me. But he does. You never notice him come in, and you never see him leave. “Behind the bar, both of youse.”
“Max,” Piper cracks a fresh bottle of Smirnoff for me and flashes her best St. Louis smile for him, “just let her sit for a minute. I can handle everything for a while. Don’t I always get you every last dollar and send ‘em to the bank for more?” She giggles at him, pushes a rocks glass full of vodka in front of me and heads towards the back room. She touches my hair as she passes, just a brief touch, a second, and for that one single second, I think, I’m safe now, and then it’s gone.
Maxie slides onto the stool next to me and looks at my empty glass. I’d swallowed it in one gulp.
“Here, kid. Ya look worse’n usual. You could use another.” He pushes the bottle towards me. I can always use another, I think. “Now, spill it,” he says.
I pour my own drink, skip the ice, and look up slowly into those watery Bassett hound eyes. I wish he could just make me his, look after me, protect me, make it all go away.
“What’re you my boyfriend now, Max? My father? What? Leave me alone, OK?” Finishing my cocktail in one swallow again, I get up to go behind the bar, still holding that bottle of vodka in my other hand. My bottle of vodka. The only thing that’s making me feel safe at the moment, my vodka.
Max grabs my free arm and pulls me towards him. “You want me to be your daddy? You’d like that wouldn’t you? Not that I give a shit,” I can feel his belly press against me, his stubble tearing at my cheek, his voice rumbles about my face and ears. “But tell me, who hit ya?” He pops bar nuts into his mouth and waits for my answer.
“Nobody, Max. I told you, I fell is all. It was an accident. Lemme go, you’re hurting me. You’re gonna leave a bruise. I gotta set up the bar.”
“I’m gonna leave a bruise? Take a look at yourself.” He flicks his head in the direction of the mirror behind the bar, but he doesn’t let go. “Do ya know the guy?”
“It was an accident.”
“Do I know the guy?”
“An accident Max, it’s nothin’.”
“Fine,” pushing me away, “You wanna protect some piece’a shit, then maybe you asked for it. Maybe you got what you deserved.” He spits on the floor and walks into the back room, still popping nuts into his mouth.
What could I say? How could I explain any of it? I invited him in. I’d offered to let him sleep on the couch. I didn’t think anything of it. I thought I was untouchable. Safe. I thought I had Nigger JJ on my side. I thought I had the Ice Man. I thought we were friends. I thought…
Glad to be alone and busy, I start setting up the bar.
Idiot work for an idiot girl.
I fill the tiny champagne bottles with ginger ale, screw the tops back on and tuck a new bottle of Smirnoff away under my cash register. I was sure Myron watered down the booze. Piper thought so, too. We set aside a fresh bottle every night. Tonight I wanted one all to myself.
“Take a look at yourself,” he’d said.
I don’t do that, look at myself. Not my whole self. Just the bits and pieces I absolutely have to. One eye at a time, or just my mouth. But I don’t ever look at my whole face in a mirror.
“Take a look at yourself,” he’d said.
I look up into the mirrored wall opposite the bar, behind the tiny platform the girls danced on. I see my reflection standing behind the bar, my body from the waist up, but I can’t see my head at all. I am the headless barmaid.
The clinking of quarters in the jukebox brings me out of my reverie. Customers. It’s Showtime.
This entry was written by , posted on February 8, 2010 at 6:47 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1981, drinking, Lollipop Lounge, partners in crime, Times Square. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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.
What the hell, I thought, looking at Junior laying there on the floor rubbing himself, and remembering how he’d needed a firm tongue up his ass that one night, pussy can’t taste any worse than all the other things I’ve put in my mouth. I got off the couch and walked into the bedroom.
“Hey. Hello? Bored out here…” I sat at the end of the bed playing with Joey’s toes, working my hands up his leg, I took a deep hit off the joint in my hands and passed it over to him.
Joey looked at Piper for permission. She smiled and nodded. I kicked my shoes off.
“Do her first.” He locked eyes with me, like he was watching for my reaction, like we were the only two people in the room, and this was the only room in the world. Like there wasn’t a room full of men a few feet away, watching and listening. He locked eyes with me while he held the joint to Piper’s lips with one hand and started pulling on her nipples with the other. Getting them hard again. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you Piper-cub?” he said to her, all the while, looking at me.
“You don’t have to if …,” I was half way up her leg before she finished the sentence, “you don’t want to, JJ.”
We do everything together. Sex’ll be just one more thing. Like the princess she always wanted to be, Piper lays back and lets me do all the work. I run my hands up her short muscular legs. She’s so tiny, I can reach her whole body from wherever I am. My fingers reach into her pubic hair, naturally blond and softer than mine. My thumb finds her button and rolls it around gently. I slide my body up one side of her. Joey watches from the other side.
Her breasts are larger than mine, soft and pink and the nipples look sore. I put one hand on each and feel their weight, their silkiness, brushing my thumb across one nipple, gently. She lets out a little gasp and I lower my head to take it into my mouth. Turning it over with my tongue, flicking it around, nibbling only a teeny bit. Joey takes my hand and slides it back down between her legs. Piper inhales the smoke from the joint, moving her hips up to meet my hand. I feel around, tentatively at first, now bolder, parting her warm lips with my fingers. She starts to rock with me. I move my mouth to hers and take her tongue inside me. She tastes of pot and Joey’s Two Shoes’ semen.
“Fuck her, fuck her hard.” His mouth is right at my ear, his breath damp and a little sour. My finger is deep inside her, probing. I open my eyes and see Joey stroking himself as he watches us.
I slip a second finger inside her and pump. She rides my hand and we kiss. Sucking each others tongues and ears and necks. Her hands find my tits and pulls at my nipples.
“Eat her pussy,” he murmured, pushing my head down, shoving me off of her face.
Men are crude, but I wasn’t in a position to be offended by anyone’s choice of language.
I glided down between her legs and like that, the magic was gone. It’d been kinda fun. The coke and the vodka, the porn and Piper, not having to be at work. It was all fine. Fun even, until I found myself face to face with another woman’s chocha. Wet and red and smelly from being in a leotard all day and fucked all night.
And I remembered the audience in the living room. There was no way out of this; I’d never live down the humiliation if I chickened out now. I dove in and licked and sucked and prodded and nibbled like I thought I’d like it done to me, if I actually liked having it done to me, which I didn’t. I heard the glass crack of an amyl nitrate ampule and felt, more than heard, Piper suck the pungent odor in. Her body tensed, all of her contracting, then releasing.
Joey cracked another ampule, for me. I inhaled deeply and reached out for his cock. Sucking his cock. He’s kissing her. The audience cheering. The world spinning. My head expanding until it almost explodes. And contracting too fast. The amyl nitrate. My heart racing. Please, please, don’t let my heart explode. Everyone’s watching. I kinda like Eddie, but I don’t know how to talk to the nice guys….
The effect fades as quickly as it came and I worry about how I look to others.
Is my hair is messed up? Is my makeup smeared?
Do I look fat from this angle?
How I looked was like a whore.
Piper would always be the good girl. I was always the whore. It was never going to change.
That night in Little Italy when she walked into Stevie G’s restuarant, drunk? When she pulled a gun out of her pink leather clutch–the one that matched her pumps–and held it the head of the idiot bartender who wouldn’t serve her because she was already insanely drunk?
That was my fault.
Myron called me at home, angry. “Go fix this!” he says
“He’s an idiot Myron. Just tell him to give ‘er a fucking drink,” I say, “and she’ll put the gun away.”
“Fix it. You fucked this up, you need to go down and fix it.” Myron says, and slams the phone down. When I get there, everybody, except Piper, looks a little tense. The bartender is ghost white, standing frozen in a corner of the behind the bar.
“I knew you’d come,” she says, smiling, slowly batting her eyes at me. “They won’t give me a drink, J. I just want a little drink is all.” She hands me the gun–I don’t even have to ask. I order two vodkas from the idiot bartender, one for her, one for me.
When anyone else tells this story, anyone but me or Piper, I’m the one they’re mad at.
When Piper disappeared on a three day drunk, surfacing in some sleazy spade bar on 133rd Street, that was my fault too. When she got so fucked on ‘Ludes she kept sliding off the chair? My fault.
She was everybody’s darling, no matter what. She lived in a fancy doorman building on 55th Street and 8th Avenue. It didn’t matter that the building was chock full of pimps. I lived in a run down tenement in the East Village. It didn’t matter that half the tenants had been born in that building. No matter what, I was trash. It’d been like that since we met at the Butterfly.
Everybody loved Piper.
She had Myron, Joey Two Shoes, the Fat Man and me.
I just had her.
We never talked about
that night.
This entry was written by , posted on January 25, 2010 at 3:18 pm, filed under the diary and tagged 1981, dirty boys, drinking, drugs, partners in crime, wiseguys. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Junior’s is the first face I see when we get to Joey’s. We lived together.
No, that’s not exactly true. Junior lived on my couch. Briefly.
Having Junior there was like waking up to fresh flowers every day - nice to look at the first day or two, but that’s about all and after a week it’s just a vase full of dirty water and dying organic matter. He’s on the rug, watching dog porn and rubbing himself –nothing’s changed, it’s pretty much all he did when we lived together he lived on my couch. In a little while he’ll head to the bathroom, jerk off into a towel and hang the towel back on the rack.
That part drove me crazy. Getting out of the shower, grabbing a towel and… “Junior! You motherfucker! Get me a clean fucking towel!”
We’d been together. Once. Before he moved in.
Thing was, cocaine makes men feel like sexual giants, like they can fuck all night. Okay, maybe they can, but not in any way I’ve ever found satisfying. There always needs to be something “extra” in the mix. Like a single girl and the usual holes are not enough and sex becomes something devised by Rube Goldberg rather than Mother Nature. You need extra hands, extra stimulation and sometimes you need an extra person or two. Junior’d needed me to do all the work, follow instructions, move this here, put that there, left, right, inside out, upside down, tongue here, okay, okay, now, now, wait, now…okay.
Sometimes, once is more than enough. But, he was still pretty, goddamn it, and he was connected. So I’d let him stay. On the couch.
Two Shoes and Trigger the Greek bookie hovered over the pile coke on the table. The more the Greek sniffed, the worse the spasms in his leg got. Hence, the nickname. Tonight, he was threatening to wear a hole in the carpet. There were two actors, A. was famous–but just for the moment, Eddie was not, a few unidentified wiseguys on the couch and a few unidentified guns on the table.
Piper brought the bottles into the kitchen and mixed us a couple of drinks. Vodka. Ice.And a splash of Seven-Up for color.
“Here,” I dropped the bullets between the guns, “we took ‘em off a cop at work.”
Joey looked up from his cocaine. “Five?”
Piper grabbed him by the arm, laughing and pulling him into the bedroom. “Stop it now. Come with me Daddy and let me tell you what a bad, bad girl I’ve been.”
I made drinks for the boys, settled next to Eddie on the couch, and to the background TV sounds of girls giving head to German Shepherds and horses, we watched through the open door as they undressed each other and made love, laughed, smoked, slept, got high, fucked some more. From our spots in the living room we watched them and we laughed, got high, smoked, slept, got high and laughed some more.
I liked Eddie. He was sweet and handsome. He paid attention to me like I was a regular girl. But, he was no one, going no where. Eddie’s only juice was being friends with Joey.
And the only way to Joey, was going to be through Piper.
This entry was written by , posted on January 21, 2010 at 1:23 pm, filed under the diary and tagged 1981, dirty boys, drinking, drugs, partners in crime, porn, wiseguys. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
January 1981
The Butterfly is gone. Myron set up a new place for us called the Lollipop Lounge.
I got into a scene with Piper and Joey Two Shoes. We’re pretty good friends now. Me and Piper, not me and Shoes. He’s a loan shark or something.
Junior moved in, but he’s sleeping on the couch, so I guess we’re not a thing. We did a thing, but we’re not a thing. Piper said he’d been indicted for murder 9 times. He admits to three of them–the indictments, not the murders.
So, that’s who I spend all my time with now. Killers, loan sharks, coke dealers. But mostly well-dressed. The well dressed underbelly.
So, that’s who I am now. High class slime.
February
Mommy came in yesterday - to yell mostly. She thinks this job and this lifestyle are bad for me. I’m sure she’s right, but even when I had a respectable job I was with people she didn’t like in places she worried about. So, nothing’s really changed. Except now I make more money.
February
Mommy wants to know how I see myself in the future. I don’t know. I’m past my expiration date, like a quart of soured milk. Maybe I could marry Louie the Ice Man or someone…
??
May
It’s been months. Past events are starting to fuzz. Details lost. A little unstable. Lots of lonely. Worked 20 days in a row. Some jerk driving me home from one of the Jersey gigs tried to pull into a motel. Hadda jump out. $25 cab ride back to town.
The Big Man stayed at my house. Raped me. Said I stole his ring, but I didn’t. Tied me up and gagged me with pantyhose and neckties anyway. Maxie 86′d him from the Lollipop for two weeks. Two weeks?
Construction on Myron’s after-hours club halted. Sleeping with BooHoos guy, Roman. I think he’s a bookmaker or something.
Phone number changed to unlisted. Contact lenses. Money in the bank. Roaches in the house.
Still drinking.
I want to be left alone with someone else.
To be naturally beautiful when I wake up.
To have 2 days off a week.
There’s a car sitting across from me with a guy watching me and jerking off. I wish they’d all go away.
Rich man
Poor man
Beggar man
Thief
Knights of Decadence
Daze of Grief
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…who knows? I hate everyone from the Deuce I meet.
Fancy dressers
Smooth talkers
snakes in the grass
sweet kisses
endless praises
just for a simple piece of ass.
The streets seem less and less friendly - or maybe it’s just me.
Same places
different faces
different places
with the same faces
round and round she goes
down and down she goes
nothing changes
and it’s never the same
This entry was written by , posted on January 11, 2010 at 7:35 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1981, dirty boys, drinking, Lollipop Lounge, lonliness, New Jersey, rape. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
So, you say you want to be alone with your party doll? You say you want to get away from it all? Away from the booths, the poles, the barmaids, the mirrors, the bouncers and managers, away from the unwashed masses who come here to try and staunch the flow of lonely, away from the religious zealots willing to pay for keys to non-existent hotel rooms? You say you want to get away from the freakshow and be alone with the girl of your wet-dreams?
Well, my friend, you’ve come to the right place. We accept all major credit cards.
“Ronnie?” I’ve got him by the tie, to keep him from flopping off the barstool. “Look at me, Ronnie.” I smack him lightly on the cheek a few times.
Everyone else has come and gone, but this suit’s been here for hours. His mouth is hanging open and his eyes are at half mast as he tries to focus on me. I’ve sent him upstairs with three different girls already, each time with the same unopened jeroboam of crap champagne and one of my killer speed-rack Georgi vodka martinis in a highball glass. Each time I run his card for a thousand dollars. Eight hundred dollars for the bottle, two hundred dollar tip for me. Whatever cash deal he cuts with the girls is their business. The credit card charges show up as a steak restaurant, the irony of which is not lost on us. A piece of meat by any other name…would never taste as sweet.
“Ronnie!” I’m loud and all up in his face, trying to make myself heard through the vodka haze and over the music.
“You’re losing him, JJ. Better give’m a blast.” Piper’s cleaning up the bar, my section as well as hers, getting ready to close up for the night. She smiles as she watches me struggle. She’s right about the blast too, of course she is. I take the vial of coke from her, come around the bar and slide onto the seat next to him.
“Ronnie,” softer now, my mouth right up against his ear, he reaches out and cups my breast in his hand and begins kneading it. “Here sweetie, inhale for me.”
I do not like sharing cocaine. I do not even like sharing your cocaine, but this is a necessary investment.
I pinch one nostril closed while I hold the tiny coke spoon up to the other, cradling his head with my other hand. He inhales, gently. I slide the spoon almost inside his nostril. “Quick now, baby, inhale again,” he does, “That’s it, there you go. C’mon baby, let the good times roll.”
The suit leans back in the chair and you can see the cocaine start to work, sobering him up just enough so he’s intelligible, but not so much that he’s no longer pliable. Not so much that he realizes how little he’s gotten for how much he’s spent. There’s a delicate balance that has to be respected, like mixing nitro-glycerin. Or making a chocolate souffle.
“Ronnie.” He looks at me, smiling slowly. “I’m gonna need my tit back now, baby.” He looks down, apparently confused as to how my boob wound up in his hand. He squooshes it like a wad of play-doh, and leans in for a sloppy kiss—he stinks of vermouth and cigarettes and sweat–and misses my mouth, resting his head on my shoulder.
“Gimme a blow-job. None-a these bishes will gimme a blow-job.” His head lolls to the side. “Willyousuckmydick?”
Piper laughs, grinding her cigarette out as she turns to make herself a fresh vodka. Myron shakes his head in disbelief, but never takes his eyes of the suit. I’ve run up over three grand for the house from this fish alone. I’ve wrenched eight hundred dollars in tips, plus my ten percent bottle commission, that’s another three hundred plus—means I’ve cracked a grand in tips and commission for the night. I’m finally making Winks money goddammit. I’m so fucking tired of hearing about how great it was and what an jerk I was for walking out.
It’s twenty minutes to closing; I need a new girl—the fish is drunk enough that I can recycle the bottle of champagne, but not girls. Three girls, three thousand dollars, and this poor john hasn’t even gotten far enough to get his own hand into his pants to pull on his limp dick.
Truth is, if he really wanted his dick sucked, if any of them really wanted what they say they want, they’d go two doors down to the Luxor Baths for a $10 “happy ending”, or pick up one of the street girls. But, after you’ve spent a couple of hundred dollars and no one’s even looked at your pud, no less pulled it, and you stay? You may as well admit that what you’re really looking for is the company and the fantasy.
I’ve got twenty 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.
“Yes,” I say, slipping his gold American Express card out of his wallet– I like to think of myself as a modern day gold miner. Myron rings it up, Piper packs the same unopened bottle of champagne and another vodka martini into the ice bucket. “Yes we are, Ronnie. We’re sisters….”
Myron coughs, loudly, reminding me that last call is only ten minutes away…
This entry was written by , posted on December 10, 2009 at 11:04 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1980, Butterfly, drinking, drugs, johns, partners in crime, strippers, Times Square. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I’m leaning on the bar sipping Harvey’s Bristol Cream Sherry, watching Sherry Cigarette blow smoke rings out her cooch. My cash register slows down when she’s on stage. No one is leaning over to chat me up once she lights that first cigarette. I don’t blame them. You really do want to give her your full attention. Even I forget about sipping my drink for a while when she’s working. 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 perfect. One after another, gently poofing out her snatch, perfectly symmetrical little white rings. Okay, not exactly perfect, or really all that symmetrical, but it’s smoke and it’s coming out of her god-damned vagina fer chrissakes. Piper’s watching too, from her spot behind the bar. Every time Sherry pops one out of her cooch, Piper pops a matching one of her own the old fashioned way, from her mouth. She catches my eye and winks. It’s like they’re singing in harmony. I take a drag off my own Marlboro and try to join in the smoke ring chorus. Nada. Nope. Nothing. Not without tapping my cheek with my finger, so I give her credit. Apparently I can’t even make my mouth do some of the things Sherry’s cooch can do.
I love being ringside at the Times Square freakshow. My father worked the burlesque houses and the carnival side shows. I was raised for this, I think to myself. I love being part of something untouchable, part of the crew, something citizens only get to gawk at from the outside, while I get to be inside. Okay, so I can’t do tricks. I can’t blow smoke rings out of my snatch, but still, I can’t imagine ever wanting to be anywhere else. Like that old joke about the man who’s job is sweeping up behind the elephants in the circus? He stinks so bad because of all the elephant shit he has no friends, gets no action. “Why not quit?” someone asks. “What,” says the man, “and leave show business?” I love it here like that. Just like that, elephant shit stink and all.
Last week, Myron brought in Bambi Woods, the infamous Debbie of “Debbie does Dallas” fame, to start working the bar. Customers think they like her because they’ve seen the movie. Even if they haven’t, they say they did. Either way she’s a porn star, they say. And? So? So she can fuck with a camera running, so what? we say. Get your ass on stage and do your thing like Sherry Cigarette or Patrice, but we don’t need another barmaid because that’s what I’m doing here, we say. She won’t last here much longer. Not because I don’t like her, which I don’t, but Myron could care less what I think. It’s pretty evident he keeps me around because he likes to make me cry. But, Piper doesn’t care for her either. Piper operates with a smile and a soft touch so except for telling me, she keeps that pretty much to herself while I scream and swing my metaphorical bat wildly. You will not be surprised when I tell you she get’s more flies with honey than I do with my baseball bat.
We’re friends now. We have things in common, like Vodka, girls we dislike–like Bambi, and girls we feel sorry for–like Patrice. Not sorry in that way that you want to pick up a stray kitten and take it home and feed it warm milk, or sorry in any way that makes you want to do nice things for someone. Sorry in that way when you look at someone and see how they’re wearing their broken and crazy on the outside, and you’re sorry for them because you know, you know the world is going to run them over–and you want to give them wide enough berth so that truck doesn’t hit you at the same time. That kind of sorry.
You can watch from the bar or get a ringside seat for the Vegas glitz and dazzle of Patrice. Each outfit more elaborate than the last, each headdress towering higher, with longer feathers, more sparkle and shine, she glides down our little stage, raised only one foot off the ground, her head held high, beauty queen smile plastered on her face, arms out, diaphanous glistening chiffon wings lofting behind her. What the Butterfly lacks in runway, Patrice creates in her mind as she struts the perimeter of the tiny stage on her way to Vegas celebrity. She is our very own Peggy Sawyer, waiting in the wings to be plucked from obscurity and Ruby Keelered to fortune and fame.
But, this is not Damon Runyon’s Broadway with its flamboyant criminals and wide-eyed chorines. This is my Times Square–dark and gritty the way God meant it to be. Every city needs a place tourists are afraid to go, a place they’re drawn to by that very fear. This is our Times Square. This is home.
Every night they come. Incredible shrinking men, the suicidally sad come to drown their misery, Hasidim slip in unnoticed to snag some shiksa tit, a battalion of lonely marrieds, brash cugines in gold chains and tight pants. They pack the bar each night, here for comfort or conquest, but not for costumes. No Virginia, this is not Busby Berkley’s 42nd Street anymore where small town girls find love, happiness and Dick Powell. Patrice makes some dollars here and there, tips from new meat who think there may be something more to her show. Her husband, picks her up at 4am–the end of each night; he helps pay for costumes that cost more than she will ever make in a night here. He brings their eight-year-old son, long past his bed-time, and carefully, methodically, the little boy packs each costume and headdress so as not to loosen even one of mommy’s precious sequins.
If I had a husband…wait a minute. I did. Nevermind.
This entry was written by , posted on December 7, 2009 at 1:03 pm, filed under the diary and tagged 1980, Butterfly, drinking, partners in crime, Times Square. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
courtesy jasper goodall
Inside, I’m standing there with my skirt lifted up to my waist. Outside, an iconic stained glass butterfly on the wall stands two stories high, gossamer, delicate and encased in a thick cocoon of grime and graffiti.
Inside the Butterfly a chubby twenty-something wise-guy wanna-be draped in brown polyester and gold chains is propped up on bar stool by the cash register, his feet dangling. 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. Nothing about experience or previous employment. Just, “Ya, got good legs?”
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 didn’t care about my legs. Or his. I needed a job. One where I could drink and no one would bother me about it. And these were my job skills: a big ass, thick thighs, muscular calves, delicate ankles and a total lack of shame, or pride - whatever. Either way, it wasn’t exactly a skill set I put on a resume. This was no worse than some and better than answering phones at the whorehouse. The Butterfly gave me access to a fully stocked bar. The whorehouse, did not.
Sometimes, it is just that simple.
Guys & Dolls had felt like your Italian Nonna’s house with the overly bright living room where everything’s encased in plastic, red flocking or gold paint and the uncles are hiding downstairs making homemade wine and homemade bombs. The Butterfly was more like that aging aunt the family whispered about. The one whose clothes were a little dingy, outdated and wrong for whatever occasion she managed to show up for, who reeked of after-dinner sherry, even at breakfast, the one who used to be beautiful. The bar curved around in a question mark, punctuating the unspoken query–just what are you doing here? Worn booths made S curves around two or three small raised stages with poles, and another low stage stood just past the bar.
The Butterfly was dark and brooding, all nappy red velour and red lights–a warm menstruating cooch, if your cooch came equipped with brass poles and mirrors.
The hustle was the same. Twenty bucks gets you ten minutes of cheap champagne and company at the bar. If twenty will get you ten at the bar, forty would get you twenty in a booth, eighty got you thirty upstairs… and the beat goes on.
Personally, I don’t even like good champagne, thanks for asking, but you can buy me a $20 glass of Harvey’s Bristol Cream Sherry. In a few months I will have polished off all the Harvey’s, as well as the Frangelica, the Sambuca, Anisette, and any other sweet thing I can find. Nicky Fireplug won’t order any more. He knows it’s only me and pimps that drink that stuff. He knows it’s really all me because they’ve figured out what the other two joints could not–how to discourage pimps, which is easier than you’d think when you fill the place with mobsters. The boss orders thin gold bottles of fugazy Harvey’s and You better be happy with that you little slut, because that’s all you’re getting. You’ll drink that and charge the same as for the good stuff.
I’ve found a home. I begin to assemble a family. At 24 I’m already that aunt the family whispers about. Both families….
This entry was written by , posted on November 30, 2009 at 11:04 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1980, Butterfly, drinking, Times Square. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Nothing was ever worse than that week in 1979, the week I would use to measure and rate all other weeks and incidents in my life, for the rest of my life, even today. Nothing was ever worse than the week my husband stole all my money and tried to kill me by beating me to death with a Bible, I got fired, Lightfoot locked me up in a roadside motel with the intent of ‘turning me out’, my apartment got infested, infested I tell you with cockroaches and I was on the back of a motorcycle as it crashed head on into a parked van.
Even I could see something was slightly askew. Something was always slightly askew. The bottom line was that I was still alive, albeit a little more banged up, a little broker than when I started, but alive.
I took a few days off at my parents house to get over the very worst of the accident, then headed back to the East Village. Lola got me a waitressing job at the Italian restaurant where she worked and I tried, I really did. I tried to make a go of it with a straight job for almost a year.
1979 October
I tried on those boots with the red suede stars. They looked great, but they’re $160 - so it’s back to selling drugs for extra money. I can pick up 100 Black Beauties this week.
October
Granma Helen called. “You’re not a princess anymore,” she said. “Nope, too many frogs,” I thought to myself. I wish she’d stop calling.
November
I’m nothing but a lowly waitress and I’m drinking again. Luckily, it takes less and less to get me drunk. I don’t do anything very well. Except give head. I’m not sure if that’s depressing or not.
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.
December
Wednesday : Crashed a private party at Great Gildersleeves for the Hell’s Angels and got as drunk as I could.
Thursday : Had a tooth pulled out.
Friday : Stayed in.
Saturday : Took Laurie to Bellevue Hospital after Havasha beat her up.
December
Winter is here and I’ve started drinking at home. Not to worry, but it’s a change.
1980 March
I’m sick and not even a cat here to keep me company. All I want is someone to feel sorry for me. The landlord’s been banging on the door all day, yelling for the rent.
March
I hate being grown up. It’s lonely and there’s nothing to look forward to. The older I get, the less I’m able to remember. It used to be just my childhood but more and more of my teenaged years are gone. Maybe if I had a job or something… I’m scared.
March
I get so violent when I’ve been drinking. I’m almost knifed a bitch in Gildersleeves over nothing, a guy.
May
Sometimes it’s more painful to live than to die.
May
I do not recognize the face in the mirror.
June
The apartment is clean, the roaches are gone and I have a large cold glass of Rosé beside me.
I am very calm.
June
Finding that I can ingest a lot of booze in a short a period of time and still be clear. The physical clumsiness of the 3rd drink now takes me 1/2 a bottle of wine and 1/4 bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream to find. Unfortunately, the maudlin crap comes just as quickly as before. Quicker as get older. Maybe it’s not the drinking at all, just the aging.
July
So far this year I’ve seen 16 movies and had sex 17 times with 10 people. That makes a movie every 11 and 6/16 days and sex 2 1/2 times a month. I guess I don’t actually have a lot of sex, I just have it with a lot of different people.
July
BW got out of prison. Neighbors say he’s been looking for me. I decided the best way to deal with this was to get drunk. It worked, I fell asleep, which I don’t seem to be doing a lot of lately.
July
Voices call my name I turn and see no one as the day grows nearer (any day now, this is the year, this is my last year) the voices grow louder and more distinct am I mad or right or both is it madness to wait patiently for one’s own death?
September
I’m 23 and bored with people and life. The thing that kept me most excited about life was death - and then, I didn’t die.
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. I don’t know if I’ll show or not, but apparently sleaze is my fate.
September
Still looking for work. Losing track of days and time. Drinking less because I’m short of cash, but I’d rather eat less. If things get tough I could dance one day a week.
One day wouldn’t kill me.
This entry was written by , posted on November 23, 2009 at 2:02 pm, filed under the diary and tagged 1979, 1980, death, drinking, drugs, East Village, the abyss. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The floor drops beneath my feet. The music spins itself into a thousand hysterical screaming banshees. The world falls away until there’s nothing but the men and their guns coming down the stairs in slow motion. Slowly. Slower. Silent. I notice 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 buttons are brown and look like some kind of polished stone. The lights from the dance floor play on the dark oily metal of the guns and blue and white dots dance over everything, reflecting off the mirrored ball. Off their manicured, buffed nails.
I’m trapped in a series of close-ups. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I can’t see their faces even though they’re right in front of me, only a dozen stair steps away, searching the floor with their dark eyes. I do not see a single face and I don’t think they notice me.
And then I feel Floyd’s chubby fingers bite sharply into the soft flesh of my upper arm. I drop my drink as he drags me away, wasting vodka as it soaks silently into the carpet. He pushes me ahead of him. The music is back and suddenly I panic. Everyone else is still dancing. And drinking. No one else seems to have noticed them yet.
And then we’re in the back. We’re up the stairs. Out on the sidewalk. Seconds only. Floyd throws me into a yellow cab and stuffs himself in beside me. I hear the first shots exploding like Chinese fire crackers in February as the car door slams closed.
“Drive. The Consulate Hotel. West 49th Street”, he says to the cabbie.
“Relax, J. It’s over,” he says to me as he drops a bloated pink hairless hand onto my leg and looks at me, the question in his eyes.
I owe him big time now, I think to myself. I don’t say anything. How bad can it be? He’s not mean. And I really do owe him now. I should be grateful. I should at least say thank you. I probably owe him my life I think.
“I need three hundred and twenty five dollars,” is what I say.
“OK, Jodi, three hundred and twenty five dollars it is then.” He smiles at me, rubbing that pink hand up and down my thigh. Abu Ben Taxi Driver is looking at us, at me, in the rear view mirror. Listening in. Deciding what I am. What Floyd is. The vodka from my last drink rises back up my throat and tastes awful and I wish I had more.
JJ’ll be proud when I drive into the city in the car I bought with the money from my first trick. How bad can it be, really? Okay, so he’s big. Fat. Instead of thinking about fucking one hugely fat middle aged man I imagine it will be like making it with two big beefy boys and that’s not a bad thought.
In the hotel room, the lights are out, but the blinds are open. The room’s lit romantically by a full moon above and the street lights below. Floyd lies naked across the bed, a great white beached sperm whale. His skin iridescent in the moonlight, broken only by an archipelago of eczema that dots his massive body, the likely source of the medicinal aura that floats around him.
I stand at the bathroom door, my clothes at my feet, trying to imagine the feel of his skin and the texture of that rash.
I leave my body. My heart and soul float across the room and settle sadly into a wing chair in the corner to watch. A sick voyeuristic pleasure makes it impossible to tear myself away, the same way you slow down on the highway to eyeball that car crash and take a moment to be grateful it wasn’t you. But it is me, and I watch myself, struck speechless by what I’m capable of.
There is barely any room for me on the bed.
This is not at all like getting wild with two beefy boys.
This entry was written by , posted on November 16, 2009 at 9:00 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1978, Bon Soir, dirty boys, dirty money, drinking, drugs, Greenwich Village, whores. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I stepped out of the Bon Soir, into a night damp and gamy with exhaust, sweat and blood, tripping over the body sprawled in front of the door. I didn’t know his name, but I’d seen him around the club. This didn’t exactly seem like the best time for introductions. He wasn’t paying much attention to me anyway, he was pretty intent on trying to keep his insides inside. Someone had blown away a lot of his outsides. He was slumped against the doorway, just staring down to where his navel was when he had one, trying to figure out what had happened, how to make it go away and how all those intestines had ever managed to fit inside him to begin with.
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, when you love me too much, when everything gets too too, I keep moving, I run. It’s what I know. So, I stepped over the bleeding boy and hailed a cab.
There was a lot of coke going through the Bon Soir - a lot of coke meant a lot of coke dealers. The quickest way to increase the profit margin of any concern is to eliminate competition. The boy who lost his stomach was the first casualty I saw.
Two days later two small Latinas glided down the stairs, scanning the joint. Small girls with dark hair and lean muscular arms. Eyes shining in the darkness. Each with a pistol in her hand. Each with a purpose.
I don’t know much,
if I did, I wouldn’tve come back after the night of the bleeding boy.
But I know enough
not to get between
predator and prey.
I nodded at Floyd, holder of the key to the service entrance. He pushed me ahead of him, his fat hand wedged between my shoulder blades, pushing me into the back room, past cases of beer and cartons of cigarettes. We were already on the street when we heard the first gun shot. Pop. Small and distant, like the crack of whip. Muffled by the cement walls, the loud music and the night.
“Okay Superman,” I linked my arm through his as we walked away from the madness into the dark,”Where to now?”
“The Plaza. I’ll take you to the Plaza. I’ll pay you, we’ll order room service. I’ll….”
He was sweating from climbing the stairs, from the fear, from the excitement. Fuck that, he was always sweating because he was a Sweaty. Fat. Man. The standing offer was three hundred dollars. I wanted to be a whore. I wanted money for sex. If Sharon could do it, so could I. But, good God. Floyd? I owed him for getting me out the back, but I didn’t think I owed him that big.
“...take care of you. I’ll….” A police car rushed passed us, cutting him off. Sirens and lights flashing and screaming, the wrong way on a one way street. It jumped the curb in front of the club. Pop. Pop. Two more shots downstairs. Barely audible now, we turned the corner. He wiped his face with a handkerchief and stood waiting for me to answer.
“Let’s just get some breakfast for now, OK, Floyd?” I took the handkerchief and gently dabbed the sweat off his forehead, around his upper lip and steered him in the direction of the Waverly Diner.
I took a few days off to think things over. The idea of turning a trick turned me on, like being on stage for the first time. Men wanting me enough to pay me. Begging to be able to give me money for something as simple as pussy. It’s not like all the sex I was having was always fun. I didn’t like fucking Short anymore, but I did. I would make JJ so proud of me, prove to him I had the right stuff. But Floyd …?
I’d been looking at a little blue Ford Pinto a kid on my block was selling for $325. I’d only need to come up with another $25. I could manage that.
Nah. Forget it. Bad idea.
There was no way I could fuck the Fat Man.
I let go of the idea and just hung with the boys. Night came, and with night, the Bon Soir and barely listening to Floyd drone on about who cares what as long as he keeps buying; watching Shortrun run his game on some other chick, some little PR chick with her hair dyed blonde.
I keep an eyeball on the staircase over my cocktail, in case someone cute shows up to rescue me from this boredom. Even one of the drag queens would be better than being trapped by this human wall of flesh because truthfully, I’m not sure there’s enough vodka in the bar to make the Fat Man even vaguely interesting for much longer.
The double doors at the top of the stairs open out into the night. A crowd of guys I don’t know slowly fill the doorway. Latinos. Too well dressed for the Bon Soir. Italian suits, soft leather shoes, well groomed. Close shaven.
They start down the stairs one at a time.
Surveying the dance floor,
they walk
soundlessly,
slowly,
carefully
down the red carpeted stairs.
Uzi’s hanging loosely at their sides.
This entry was written by , posted on November 12, 2009 at 5:27 pm, filed under the diary and tagged 1978, Bon Soir, dirty boys, drinking, drugs, Greenwich Village. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The Bon Soir was just a small bar around the corner and down a flight of stairs from the park. 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. Everyone had an angle. Drug dealers, burglars, thieves, hustlers. Most of them small time. Penny ante chain snatchers, mid level coke dealers and street corner pot sellers. I ran into old lovers, drag queens I’d known and loved and hustlers from the Chalice. A little slice of Heaven, that’s what the Bon Soir was. And except for Floyd, I was the only pink in the drink.
I bounced there, first with the boys that brung me.
And then, after a while, with whoever was buying.
The only white girl floating on an endless river of brown boys. Warm dusky bodies surrounding me, feeding me vodka, touching me, dancing me. Strong arms and firm thighs. Red and gold lights glinted off Jheri curl juice activated curls. Moisture trickled down valleys made by rippling abdominals. I rode waves of dark lips and pink tongues, my nostrils waiting to be filled with cocaine, music pounding in my ears, the pulse of the night throbbing deep inside me, deep inside me, deep, deep inside.
Shortrun was always more interested in selling coke than in fucking me. I was interested in staying stoned and fucking anybody. Except Floyd.
Floyd owned the bar and bribed me with drink tickets. He counted on eventually getting me drunk enough that I’d let him fuck me, which was really not such an unreasonable expectation, all things considered. I flirted and drank his booze until I got bored, at which point I tottered off to find someone lean and hard and brown. Which Floyd was not.
Floyd was white. Very.
And fat. Very very.
He’d bought the bar with money from his days as a professional wrestler.
Those were the old days.
Now, he weighed in at 457 lbs.
No shit.
457.
Everything about him was repulsive. His neediness. The faint medicinal odor that lay under all the other odors he dragged around with him: flop sweat, polyester, cheap cologne. The pinkness of his skin. Powdery and dry like an old man’s. Soft skin, pale, puffy and stretched to its limit. Especially his hands. His hands were bloated like a balloon in the Thanksgiving day parade.
I hated everything about him.
Except the booze. I stayed for the booze, ignoring the method to his madness, turning down his offers of money.
I didn’t have what it took to be a good whore. I gave it away to anyone I was attracted to for free. I didn’t want to sleep with guys I wasn’t attracted to for money. And I would put up with endless drivel just to get a drink.
This entry was written by , posted on November 9, 2009 at 7:00 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1978, Bon Soir, dirty boys, drinking, drugs, Greenwich Village. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
January 1978 Sunday
Hung at the Earle with Jesse then split for the Bon Soir. The fat manager, Floyd, about 40, laid his rap on me all night. Bought me one drink. Ace’s brother Timmy just got outta the joint. Bought me one drink.
Shortrun and Brother Joey showed up at 3:30AM. Short bought me one drink around 5 AM. Short and the Joeys dropped me off at the hotel on 86th Street. I woke up alone at 8 AM. The dude at the desk volunteered to take Short’s place. Fuck you desk dude. Called the Earle - Charlie Frontdesk said Short was there. I went back downtown, banged on some doors. Went for breakfast. Came back. Banged some more. Found Jesse around 9 AM so I went there, watched TV and nodded.
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 and 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. We did some more blow. People came and went. I moved over to the bed. People stopped coming. Soon we were making love.
I used to be scared of Big Papo. Not anymore.
When I got downstairs, Jesse was in the lobby - I walked him to the Limelight at Sheridan Square and went to La Crepe to use the bathroom there to wash up and change clothes.
Friday
I got to the Bon Soir around 11 PM. Floyd gave me two extra drink tickets. Black Joey got me very stoned. I forget what else happened.
Tuesday
Me, Shortrun and Black Joey go over to the Village Plaza for a room. The clerk wants $12 and Short only wants to pay $10. We get to a room - no bath, no sink - fucking delightful. Joey passes out on the floor from all the Seconals. I make the bed with sheets the clerk gave me. They don’t look clean.
Short and me start to fool around but I’m not into it. I start to give him head and his fucking cock is leaving bits of dirt in my mouth - I want to throw up. I push him away. He crawls on top of me. I don’t even want to kiss him. He bangs me anyway for a while, then tries to ram it up my ass. He bangs me a few more times and decides he needs to rest.
As soon as he fell asleep I got dressed and split. I’m done with him. I left him a note. I wonder if he can read?
I’d like to say I was there because they were my friends. Truth was, I stayed for the drugs and the excitement. Bullet wounds and scars were medals and ribbons of honor. Disappearing for days became acceptable. Lies were a way of life.
I’d tried to be faithful to Shortrun. Even while I was fucking Big Papo, even while coordinated our stories about where we’d been during the last few hours, I thought I was faithful to him. I really did.
When I wasn’t in the Earle fucking or watching the boys bag up, I was in the park with them while they sold pot and coke. Nights, we were all in the Bon Soir.
This entry was written by , posted on November 5, 2009 at 8:00 am, filed under the diary and tagged Bon Soir, dirty boys, drinking, drugs, Greenwich Village. 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.
onlythejodi
