The John of John Street

This trip to New York City – the 4^th this year – nears its end.
What a curious life I lead; I get little of the things I want,
but I suspect I get a lot of things that other people would
consider “taxidermy” fit for those empty spaces
on their trophy wall.
There’s no-one on earth I can explain my life to – really.
I experience none of the things that sane folk consider vital, and everything that qualifies as wholly superfluous. No wonder it looks great, from a distance.
In a day or two, I’ll be buying a second Travel Bag and packing my junk once again; for where, I do not know.
I went out to Jersey for Sidney Lumet’s wrap. The poor guy had a black eye. He apparently fell a few days ago, flat on his face. The crew had a Party in a Midtown Bar.
I had another intense “mixed race” conversations with his daughter Amy – her grandmother was Lena Horne – imagine that…
The subject of second class citizenship and mixed biology is a tough one, because it is boring when addressed by people who do not live it, day to day; however, once every few years, I bump into someone who sees straight into the mouth of the monster, without romance.
For her, the borderlines of race do not supercede a class issue. “Bill Cosby can live up the hill from anybody, anytime”, she said. She also felt confident enough to venture out on a limb: “Someone like you probably feels ambivalence about ever having a child with a woman darker than yourself, by fear you might force that child into an even lower status”…
Most people are too nice or too stupid to figure this out – or too easy on themselves.
I replied I felt ambivalence about children altogether by fear that the genetic patrimony I offered was too much of a burden.
“The solution”, she offered, “is for you to become filthy rich, and circumvent the class issue”.
We laughed, but I rarely feel so well understood.
It’s good to know why things are, but it doesn’t do much to change them…What did I think this place was again?

After the party, a sly fox and naughty cat dragged your humble narrator to Scores – a trendy West End strip club.
Boy!
Last time I went to a strip club was a Birthday Party – Gina’s – at Fantasy Island on Pico.
The mood was Electric, people were relaxed, everyone knew one another; good clean fun.
Gina, unbeknownst to us, had only a couple more Birthdays to celebrate.
Last time before that, was when all you needed was a wad of singles – a buck a dance, I think it was.
“Thanks honey”, a buck would get you.
Last night, I imagine a buck might have gotten you beaten up by the bouncer and thrown out into the street.
The second I checked my coat, I knew this was a mistake.
The blood-Sucking Lamia were upon us – Vlad Dracul’s Castle. Some elemental part of my brain shut down to the Bliss of it all, and I decided to be immune to the Mermaids of Lethe.
They were buzzing like flies…Beautiful beyond belief – a very bad sign – slithering, while massaging your neck: “Can I dance for you”? “Why not”? “You have to be open minded, sometimes”…“I can make you happy”.

I can make you happy.

She’d lost me right there.
“Really”?, I asked her, “I wish you a better life than my own”. She was adorable, but the acting dropped out for a beat, as I said that, and she stared sadly…Worried.
She didn’t care about my life but something tells me she knew what I meant about hers.

“I’m sorry”.

I felt like Ulysses, without a Penelope unraveling her day’s work, of course, because if I ever had a Penelope, I believe she bought an electric sewing machine the day I set sail, and finished off that shroud in haste, and out of respect for her suiters – Bless her – but I felt like Ulysses enough, and enough to recognize that my shipmates were bleeding hopelessly and were as good as dead.

In truth, there was no moral high ground involved, the girls were gorgeous and I'd love to earn 7 figures.
I was being cheap…I just didn’t want to bleed money all night…and for what?
Cat and fox earn 7 figures.
They can stay all night and bleed all kinds of fluids.
I abandoned them and took a cab home to John Street.
Not home.
But as home as I get.