New York City, 1950s New Jack City for the jack-worthy, not big enough for million worded jacks (or jills), not in the end, but for a while you could hear that old caged bird sing, sing some Billie Holliday swing low, swing misty, swing along nod sway song, maybe a little boy-juiced, but swaying, some Dizzy dizzy salt peanuts tune, maybe a little tea-time dizzy, some high white note stuff every once in a while just to keep things interesting, some, well just name your cool as a cucumber jazzman Lester blowing that big sexy sax at the end, Gerry, Dave Brubeck, Charlie Gabriel trumpet blowing early, some more experimental guys, Monk, mad monk riff piano riffing monk , on top of the heap, sweaty in a hundred cool as a cucumber midnight cafes, The Swan, The Gaslight, Benny’s, The Hi Hat, and the beloved Red Fez (red to make you sunset dream, sunset tea dream, fez to make you think Africa calling, calling home her children), drawing, drawing can you believe this, the Mayfair swells like in old Duke Cotton Club high Harlem night Scott Fitzgerald bathtub gin jazz age time.
Maybe Time Square, flamed never-ending lights of hell-lit up, neon- lit, gas-lit, 24/7/365-lit, lit to the gills, lit against the jack-rolling crime night back alley big city simplicity itself just some chain, or an off-hand pipe, behind the knees, crumple easy to the ground, grab the dough, up and out to some whore blow, dope blow, whisky blow in the flamed, never ending lights of hell-lit up, lit against the gang night, Central Park mainly and some off streets down in Little Italy and up in high Harlem, 125thStreet anyway, lit against the rough trade Genet night sailor boys fresh from the wharves, Hudson wharves, East River wharves, flush with pay-off cash, looking for chain-whip kicks, some diva delight, some fresh leather boy too, lit against the sad sin sexless sex night, some anonymous Lansing, Muncie, Omaha corn-fed young thing, shapely, good legs, working hips, tired of light-less farms and farm fields headed to the big city, headed up 42nd street instead of Broadway or the Village and wound up with big faded dreams calling out “hey mister, want a good time,” or maybe stoned to the gills just nods, stoop nods, symbolically showing a good time just by her uniform, that split pea dress, those long nylon stockings, and that kewpie doll smile, all yours for the price of a needle, a room, and some pimp’s damn cut or, hell, when the spiral goes down some quickie back alley head and a quick napkin spit wipe, jesus, watch out for the jack-rollers though, thinking to herself if farm boy love Roy could see me now, later turned over to some Jersey whorehouse and work by the bell. Go home sister go home, now. New Jack was just too big for you.
Wall Street, pass, this is not about coupon-clipping, okay. Madison Avenue, pass, this is not about subliminal desires and tricks. Park Avenue, pass, well, maybe half-pass, for those looking for jack night thrills to fill up, fill up like some gas tank, their beat souls, or maybe some Genet boys rough stuff. Columbia, the university, of course, ivy-covered, respectable for a minute (before the 1960s heist of all property when it was merely an Ivy outpost in a brazen, bare knuckles city), a minute when some buzz came in breezing in through the portals. And Jack and Allen and kindred teased the city dry, and created some flash beat to be listened to elsewhere.
The Village of course (those who need to know what village just move on), the clubs and nooks already mentioned, jazz, folk rearing its head, more jazz, some poetry on an off night, the beat poets reading their beat poems to a famished world (or slender slice of it), the streets of dreams not mentioned, Bleecker, McDougall on up to Canal, the safe harbor, hell, sanctuary for those blown away by the cold war red scare night, not just reds, and pinks, and maybe white pinks, but all mother nature’s odd and damaged, the beat poem listen hangers for sure, the morphine kickers looking for sure connections and some walking daddy to be-bop with when the crash came, the rough trade boys, reading Genet in some back room in translation, tired of hell angels beating up on them without style, plainsong fags tired of dating someone’s sister as a favor and ready to face the cops’ bull if only to have a few nights of boy love without being run out of a Podunk town on a rail, same, same for those weary of those boston marriages and tired of wearing men’s clothing in private Beacon Street Boston rooms, art guys by the biz-illion, Jackson this, Larry that, Motherwell this and that, enough art to paint the world, all abstract and symbolic, all death to sweet Madonna slash dabbed in the night.
Movie houses, movie theaters, all sweet black and white stark, all New Jack city eight million stories stark, and, and, uh, art films for the discreet, of men in raincoats stinking of urine or Thunderbird wines, of drifters, grifters, grafters, midnight sifters, hustling, always hustling like some rats on speed, of mad men and monks, and semi-monks disguised as poets, of street poet gangsters all shiny words and a gun at your head to say yes you liked the last verse, of Gregory Corso, of muggers and minstrels, of six dollar whores for a quickie, of twelve dollar whores who will take you around the world, of neon signs, night and day, of neon cars and car -beams night and day, of trash spread every which way, of the flotsam and jetsam of human existence cloistered against 42nd Street hurts.
And Howard Johnson’s frankfurts, mustard, relish, onions, go ahead the works, eaten by the half dozen to curb hungers, not food hungers but hungers that dare not speak their name, not sex but fame, fresh off the Port Authority bus, of Joe and Nemo’s two o’clock fatty griddle hamburgers, the works again, please, of fags (bothering guys in public toilets, jesus), and fairies, all dressed up and rouged ready for some gentleman caller, and, shade distant dreams, of quasi-Trotskyite girl lovers taking a rest from their bourgeois travels who loved truth, truth and dark-haired revolutionary French guys from textile mill lowells, all proletarian Lowell, and can write too, write one million words on order, and perform, on cue, stalinite-worthy betrayals with some new found friend’s wife, or husband, of Siberia exile of the mind, and of second million word writes all while riding the clattering subway to and fro crosstown, not to speak of Soho or the Bronx . And of junkies of every description, morphine, speed, cocaine, and of hustlers pushing their soft wares, call your poison, step right up, of William Burroughs, of deadly terror at the prospects for the next fix, of human mules face down in some dusty Sonora town failing to make that connection to get them well, and of off-hand forgotten murders. Jesus suffering humanity. New Jack City.
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