by Lunch Lydia
Gina pounds on the door, begging to be let back in. Pleading for her clothes, her purse, the ring she left in the bathroom. Sal ignores her, staring out the window picking his ass. Warren, used to years of their bullshit, announces he’s taking a bath … would anyone care to join him? The pounding continues, Sal grabs the coke bottle off the floor, smashing it into the door. Glass splatters everywhere. Her footsteps trail down the hall. Sal says he’s taking a nap. See ya later. I collect my shit to leave. A timid knock on the door. Hotel management, asking for the lady’s clothes back. Sal demands, “What lady?”
Another timid knock. “Sir, please …”
Sal grabs her clothes and purse, wings them out into the hall, slamming the door. Gina whines about the ring she left in the bathroom. Sal yells for her to fuck off. He’ll see her this weekend. She can pick it up then. She kicks the door and storms down the hallway.
Her footsteps fade. The three of us have a drink, Warren pink from soaking, Sal greasier than ever. I decide to split, swearing I’ll never see Sal again. Warren walks me to the door, whispering, “I’m gonna fuck you. A good fuck. Next time I see you. Just the two of us. Soon, okay?” He kisses the top of my head. Opens the door, steps aside for me to pass. Bows at the waist. “Bye, beautiful …” He blows me a kiss, slipping behind the door as he eases it shut.
I met up with him a few nights later at Club 82. A stinking basement dive. I dragged him into the ladies’ bathroom, last stall. We blew a joint and finished our beers. He stood me up on the toilet seat, had me face the wall. Began a glorious finger-fuck, penetrating my asshole with long lean fingers, moistened with spittle. Whispered he wanted to smear my shit all over the bathroom walls. Would take my ass until it was so juicy and loose that my bowels would explode, perfuming the room. Wasted, high, horny, he eased another finger in. Then another. Urging me to come, to shit, to erupt. I came screaming, a small trickle of liquid gold expelled from my asshole. He wiped his hands on the stall door, drawing a Star of David in chocolate. Licked the last of it from his middle finger. Just as the club’s manager walked in, alarmed by our muffled screams. Kicked us out, banning us from returning. Haven’t seen him since.
Wore out my welcome with the good doctor. Concocted a new scam. Even less taxing. Took to Sixth Avenue and 8th Street, equipped with yellow notepad. Claiming to be soliciting funds for cancer research. I’d approach women with small children. Singing a sad song about babies born with incurable diseases, how much a small donation would mean. Our headquarters on 57th Street encouraged by recent breakthroughs, a cure just around the corner. What was needed was more money. The government as usual stingy. It worked every time. A dollar or two added up quickly. I’d retire for the day after milking ten or twenty greenbacks off of guilty liberals. Prey on their heartstrings. Another victimless crime.
It was still easy to skip out on the bill at any number of restaurants. Two people walk in, order, eat. One hits the john, the other disappears. Last man out had the more difficult job of a casual navigation to the exit. An air of indifference is the key to a smooth getaway. Pulled that trick off many times. Until the character I was with got caught. I left first. Propped myself against the designated corner, three blocks away. Fifteen minutes later my cohort shows up. Two greasy toes sticking out through old holes in tattered socks. Management had confiscated his shoes. Would return them once the bill was paid in full. Cheaper to buy new shoes. Never went back.
Started pilfering from supermarkets. Walk in, wolf down a few quick snacks, stroll to the counter, buy a pack of gum, cigarettes, a banana. Negligible goods. The cheaper the better. Pretend you had a reason to be there. The shitty bodega on 5th Street and First Avenue was an easy mark. Thought they were safe, half a block from the precinct. They weren’t.
Clothes were always easy to come by. Street vendors selling stolen goods on Astor Place a few bucks a pop. Or a quick jaunt to one of the smaller department stores, dressed in layers to exchange for better shit. Worked fine until they installed surveillance cameras in every dressing room, and even the toilet stalls. Employed undercover grannies to pose as shoppers to eagle-eye the bathrooms. Attached those hideous metal tags to every top, trouser, panty.
I had a favorite spot I’d always hit for clothes. A shitty mall in downtown Brooklyn. Must’ve lifted two grand worth of shit from it. Even when hustling chump change, I needed to look good. Never know who you might run into. Might wanna sweep you away. Might wanna suck you off.
I walked in wearing a long leather trench coat. Bound tightly around me. It concealed three complete outfits I was planning to replace. Slipped into a short black dress, lace camisole, patent-leather miniskirt, black velvet jacket, and a fifty-two-dollar pair of silk panties. The clothes I walked in with were strung up in their place. Headed over to the kid gloves. Should have known better. But I was greedy. The downfall of every criminal.
I could smell him before he put his hand on my shoulder. Small black man, ringer for Sammy Davis, Jr. Asking me to come back to his office. Claimed to have been trailing me for months. Gave a rundown of everything I had pilfered, a catalog of infractions I was no doubt guilty of. Said he was calling the police, and if need be, he’d send them over to my house to retrieve every last item I’d pocketed. That’s when I cold-cocked him. Dead on the jaw. Massive roundhouse right. Took off running. Watching him splatter into the plate-glass window near the exit. I prayed it would break and crucify him with splinters of tinted glass. He toppled.
I must’ve been high priority. He had radio’d for the cops as soon as he spotted me entering the store. They approached me laughing. They hurried me around the corner and congratulated me for sending Sammy flying. Confided they couldn’t stand his self-righteous bullshit. Claimed a nigger in a suit was still a nigger. Asked for my side of the story. Told them it must’ve been a misunderstanding. Tried some panties on and forgot to pay for them. Asked them if they’d like to look. Hiked my skirt up, a flash of pink twinkling beneath black silk. One of them spotted the fifty-two-dollar price tag. Fingered it. Shook his head. Admitted he wouldn’t pay for it either. Told me to split. They’d tell Sammy that they lost me in the crowd. Couldn’t catch me. Just to spite him. One of the cops slipped me his phone number. Told me to stay out of trouble. Skipped to the subway. Whistling the theme from Rocky.
New York City did not corrupt me. I was drawn to it because I had already been corrupted. By the age of six, my sexual horizon was overstimulated by a father who had no control of his fantasies, natural tendencies, or criminal urges. Like father, like daughter. Before my teenage years I had already experimented with mescaline, THC, pot, acid, Quaaludes, Tuinals, Valium, and angel dust. I was already an experienced pickpocket, shoplifter, short-shift hustler. New York was a giant candy store, meat market, insane asylum, performance stage. Surrounded by five million other junkies, addicts, alcoholics, rip-off artists, dreamers, schemers, and unsuspecting marks, New York afforded me the luxury of anonymity. The devil’s playground.
Shitty stoop outside some crappy club in lower Manhattan. Not stoned enough. Two bucks and a token in my pocket. Lipstick and keys. Still squatting with the hippies in Chelsea. Looking for a way out. No fucking clue how. A taxi pulls up, dimmed headlights. Jumps the curb and stops a foot or two from my left knee. The driver cocks his head, says, “Get in …” Tell him I’m broke. Says he’s not looking for money.
I hop in the front seat. Asks if I want to go to Coney Island. It’s 1:30 in the morning. I ask what for. Says he’s gotta make a pickup. I shrug. He lights a joint, slyly passes it over, turns the radio on, singing along with Gene Pitney to “Town without Pity.” I plant my boots on the dash. Staring into his profile. A cross between Cagney and Chaney. I remember a lousy late night black-and-white, Man of a Thousand Faces …
So I’m with another strange fuck. This one’s got a fetish for evil clowns. Killer clowns. Alcoholic acrobats. One-armed knife throwers. Midgets, trapeze artists, anything to do with the circus. Being a taxi driver is almost like running
away to join the circus every night. So he says. Every kind of freak wants to go here, there, anywhere for a short reprieve from the monotonous chaos of their festered apartments.
I’m no different. I’ll jump headlong into anyone’s car, pry a little into their night, their life, just to forget my own. Just to forge a new identity for a few hours. A short reprieve from my own chaos. My own monotony.
Cagney’s on a roll now. Pissed that The Day the Clown Cried will never be released. A buried film where Jerry Lewis portrays a painted freak who leads the children of Nazi Germany to the ovens. Says he’s started a one-man drive to petition Lewis not to buckle to Hollywood pressure, to stick to his guns and get it out. We both know it’ll never happen. Everyone needs to cling to a dream, no matter how far-fetched, no matter how petty or ridiculous. Cagney claims he’ll make it to Hollywood one day, meet with the last great clown, and convince him. Keep dreaming, Cagney.
We’re cruising the main drag of Coney. All the lights are dimmed, except those illuminating a sleazy old man’s bar stuck on the ground floor of the massive, tattered subway station. I already know it’s our destination. We pull up to a deserted taxi stand and park. Cagney tells me to go wait inside, he’ll be back in ten minutes. Incredulous, I ask him if he’s joking. He tells me if I get sick of waiting to take the train back to the city. He flips a token into my lap. I call him a fucking asshole and slam the door. He pulls off. I take a chance and enter the bar. Filthy white lights, much too bright for this wasteland of aging dreamers. All so fucking drunk they don’t even notice me. Even the bartender’s soused. The place stinks of spilled beer, vomit, piss, and rot. I pretend to study the jukebox. A horrible selection of Merle Haggard, Patsy Cline, George Jones. “Stand By Your Man” comes on. A toothless grandpa sidles up to me. So sloshed he can barely focus. His sixth sense tells him I’m female. That’s all he needs to know. Asks me politely, shyly, pathetically, if I’d like to dance. Out of sheer perversity I agree. He places a sweaty hirsute hand on my hip. I lightly touch his shoulder. Moist with toxic run-off. He quietly sings along, silent tears drenching his dirty face, slicing through the deep crevices, hollowed pocks which litter his cheeks. I pretend he’s Bukowski. Not a big stretch. For all I know, he too has copious volumes of sad old man musings stuck in a browning folder up at the transient hotel he probably calls home across the street near Nathan’s Famous hot dogs. He smells of years of bad food, booze, and self-satisfied sex. I take a twisted pity upon him. Realize it’s just one bad turn too many that separates him from me. One rent check too short. One layoff too soon. One too many broken hearts. And too much fucking booze. I almost want to walk him home. Invite myself in. Clean his battered old man’s body. Cut his hair, give him a shave. A manicure. Cook him breakfast. Massage his blistered feet, which reek through his holey shoes. The song ends. I excuse myself, shaking off my demented fantasy, walk into the ladies’ room. A sobering experience which disperses the last remnant of my Mother Teresa dreamscape. The single stall is smeared with dried vomit and shit. I decide to piss in the small wastepaper basket overflowing with dirty brown paper towels. Not realizing it’s made of mesh. As I piss, a thick trickle ebbs through the weave, flowing toward the entrance. Not that anyone in this dump would notice. I dry myself with the last paper towel, deciding I need to get the hell out of this tortured purgatory where old men sit it out till Judgment Day. Death is always too long in the making. Death can never be hurried. Cold and cruel, death smugly waits for the body to poison itself beyond repair. Its final spasm will not bring relief, merely erasure.
The hippies finally laid down the law. Wanted me out in three days. Said I was taking up valuable real estate. Yeah, right, the cramped cubicle above John and Yoko’s was prime accommodation for a midget with no sense of smell. Of course, I’d never paid them the thirty dollars a month they attempted to weasel out of me. But that wasn’t the real issue.
Word got out that I was chasing someone around the loft, threatening them with a pair of lawn shears. An insane exaggeration. I had invited Cagney over. The taxi driver who dumped me in Coney. I ran into him outside a nightclub. Invited him over to smoke a joint. He had no idea I carried a grudge. Of course, he probably never rode the F train from the last exit in Brooklyn to 23rd Street at 2 in the fucking morning. Never had to fend off a small army of teenage black boys looking to gang rape some white chick stranded on a subway platform in the middle of the night. I got Cagney good and stoned. Brought him up to my bunk. Slipped a small pair of stainless steel scissors out from under my pillow. Snipped off a lock of his hair. He wigged, falling down the rickety ladder that led up to the loft. I scurried down the steps, chasing after him. Laughing like a madwoman while he shrieked like a little girl. He thought I was trying to slash his throat. I might have, if there were any place to dump the body.
He found the front door, bolting out of it yelping murder. Which fucked up John and Yoko’s heroin-induced high. That was the final straw. Interrupting their dreamstate. The next day they asked me to leave. I said I’d try to be out by Monday.
I lied.
I headed downtown. At the time south of Canal was a no-man’s-land. Now it’s overrun with shitty high-priced restaurants, lofts with a river view and million-dollar price tags. Back then there were a handful of low-rent artists who paid next to nothing to inhabit crumbling buildings in a neighborhood turned ghost town after dark. It seemed a suitable location to start looking. I’d met a few musicians who operated a bare-bones rehearsal studio a few blocks from the Hudson River. I decided to snoop around, see what I could scrounge.
The building next to theirs sat vacant. Four-story prewar commercial space. Large storefront windows propped up on the sidewalk. Ten feet tall. I scratched a small patch in the muddy glass. The insides a cobwebbed wonderland. Probably empty for years. In the second story a faded sign with phone number and address. Decided to scrimp on the quarter. The landlord was only a few blocks away.
He was a wheezing overweight nonpracticing Jew on his way home to the Island for the weekend. Caught him as he was locking up. I pitched a plea. Told him I’d seen the sign, cooed that I might be able to clean the place up, play building manager. Help him to get the building back on its feet. Maybe even have applications on hand.
A potential client might be made to feel more comfortable if a floor or two were already occupied. Business attracts business. My presence would definitely stir up interest. I could take it over on a trial basis, no lease needed. Obviously, for years the space had accumulated dust, not rent. Maybe I could help him turn it around. It would benefit us both. He bought it.
I convinced him to waive the rent. He told me to come back Monday and pick up the keys. And bring a flashlight—the electricity had been turned off since the Kennedy assassination.
The four massive floors were gloriously stripped of everything except the columns that supported them. The third floor was edged in an iron balcony lending it the air of a vaudevillian strip joint. Huge holes were rusted in the spiral staircases leading up to the gangplanks.
Lowlying puffs of dust sparkled with the soft light that leaked in through pinpricks dotting the roof. The second floor was devoid of any character, a huge blank space once used as storeroom. The ground floor, which I took as my own, consisted of two massive rooms, fronted by immense store windows. I would construct bizarre set designs in them from junk scavenged from the trash, discarded mannequins, dead flowers, old shoes. The odd passerby would occasionally wander in, wondering if it was a club, a shop, or a brothel.
The basement was the real gem. It held an ancient printing press last used during the Depression. Parts were scattered everywhere, letters spelling out strange haikus on the floor. Old newspapers piled high in every corner, hibernating under inches of dust, dirt, plaster. You could lose yourself for hours, faking headlines on the floor, or in a solitary game of Scrabble. Toward the back of the basement, a small arched door was rotting off its hinges. My flashlight illuminated catacombs extending under the sidewalk f
ifteen or so feet. Dark dingy tombs only five feet high, lined with damp brick dripping dirty water from rusted pipes. I flashbacked to the Inquisition. Women dressed in tattered burlap, bruised and bleeding, imprisoned on charges of heresy, kept chained and starved, beaten and tortured. Turned into saints for what they didn’t believe in. Their legirons long since rusted away. Mournful screams muffled by the hands of time whose bony fingers had scratched secrets into the dirt floor. It was magical.
At least I was out of 24th Street. The hippies had started to grate. Uptight for dopeheads. They turned green when informed I had my own building. All to myself. Buttered up the musos next door, who were generous enough to let me shower there occasionally. Hadn’t been running water in my building for at least a decade. I worked out a deal, ten bucks a month to run a line of electricity down the stairs and into my space. Two sixty-watt bulbs hung naked in the center of the room. I knew I’d only be able to hold out there till winter. But I wasn’t thinking that far ahead.
I was thinking about picking up young boys, bringing them back to spend the night, kicking them out in the morning. Becoming a den mother to a herd of fourteenand fifteen-year-old near virgins whose chastity would be forever soiled, spoiled as I sucked up little pieces of their soul in exchange for their first real fuck. Supped on their energy like an insatiable bloodsucker whose belly would never fill. Forever assuring me a bookmark in their history as they became a footnote in mine.
Remember one hot Sunday morning throwing a farewell fuck to a lucky fourteen-year-old on the sidewalk outside the storefront, while from the other side his two sidekicks jerked off. My knees were scraped for weeks.
I was pulling the day shift at the Wild West Saloon, a cheesy go-go bar in midtown Manhattan. Cocktail waitressing to make ends meet. Still wasn’t paying any rent, but I had to eat. The dancers were an exotic crew of college students, single mothers, substitute teachers, junkies, ex-junkies, and just about every other type of female who couldn’t stand the typical 9–5. Some dabbled in various forms of adult entertainment, others were lifers. I was just passing through, working every scam I could think of.