Holly’s persona was gaining some credibility. One night she partied at the
round table with Fellini, one night with Salvador Dali and Gerard who were doing
some kind of project together.. Holly was getting around. One afternoon she
searched Elda out and dragged her to "Jackie’s" new apartment on Thirteenth
Street and Avenue B. They got all dressed up for what could possibly turn out
to be a few days on the town. As they walked down thirteenth street, Holly
chattered about Heaven Grand, the play Jackie wrote for The Theater of the
Ridiculous and got her a part in.
"I got bumped back into the chorus line,. I’m a Moon Reindeer Girl, and we
sing "Antlers, we’ve got antlers, we’ve got..."
"What happened to Princess Ninga Flinga Dung?"
What do you think? That fucking John Vacarro is a sadist.. He gives me a character
that has no arms and no legs, and he then tortures me by making me do my entrance
over and over again. My knees are raw to the bone.. But I just took it, and
did it over and over again, and I took whatever he threw at me.. Then one day,
I’m ten minutes late for rehearsal and it was "Holly, if you want to be an actor
you must learn discipline. Discipline I say! So he bumped me back into the
chorus and took the role for himself. So good, let him see what its like picking
pieces of his apartment floor out his knees!" No matter what he tries to do
to me, I won’t let him break me. I will be the best moon reindeer girl that
ever existed! "
"Holly, you’re the only moon reindeer girl that ever existed."
"Oh, right, well anyway, he better not try coming into my apartment and taking
a knife to my clothes!
"What? He tried to do that to you?"
"No, No, you didn’t hear? He went into Jackie’s closet and tore up everything
she had."
"Oh, I thought she liked her clothes like that."
"No darling I mean to shreds! That’s why she moved. She’s hiding from him
She’s not even going to rehearsals anymore and he is freaking out over it."
"But what about the play?’
"Oh no problem, the theater is booked and anyway, all shows have there ups and
downs before opening night."
Holly babbled away about how Penny Arcade and Suzy Cream Cheese and ElSine
played the Thalidomide Baby, all three of them in one dress singing out the
lyrics.. That was when they passed four old Puerto Rican men who were playing
dominoes on a fold up card table out in the street. The macho machos started
in with the whistles and the sucking noises. Then one said.
"mama me la pinga. " (suck my dick)
Holly walked over to the table and overturned it and its dominoes right into
their laps. They stood up and one got in Holly’s face.
"Hijo de la gran puta." ( You son of a bitch!) he growled at her.
She flicked her hair with her hand turned on her high heels and shot back.
"Besa me el culo." ( kiss my ass.) She took Elda’s arm and drew her away from
them confidently. They easily continued walking when one shouted out "Crika
Seca!"
"What’s that mean?"
"You dried up cunt." said Holly.
They burst out laughing as they made their way to "Jackie’s " place.
"Jackie’s place" was two rooms and a water closet. The walls were cracked
and Jackie’s stuff was everywhere. Her full sized forties wrinkled dresses
limped off of wire hangers on nails driven into the walls. Big old shoes lay
waste indiscriminately to be tripped on. A ratty blonde hairpiece known as
her "Barbra Wig" crouched angrily over a lit lampshade and the heat from the
bulb was cooking its sickly oils. into the air. Pictures of Tab Hunter and
Helmut Berger were scotch taped over the bed. Oh. And there were about fourteen
people in this cramped space.
Jackie herself was in a long black torn Japanese robe with silk embroidered
flowers, and on her sized 12 plus feet were a pair of scuffed Joan Crawford
open toe pumps that she had spray painted silver.
"Oh Leee!" It’s Holly!" she called out as if they were in a parking garage.
Elda and Holly stepped over the heads of a few stoned hippies who had parked
themselves on the floor. Leee, this is Elda, "
Leee stood out in the crowd of hippies. He was extremely handsome, and dressed
more like a Max’s person. Elda couldn’t figure out what these hippies were
doing sprawled all over the apartment. Leee took Elda’s hand and kissed it
gracefully and dramatically. "How nice to meet’cha." Elda looked in his eyes
and was impressed. He looked smart as a fox and that always intrigued Elda.
Indicating the hippies, he started to explain "We’re going to Woodstock. There’s
a festival."
"Jackie interrupted. "Leee’s a photographer. You should see his work, it’s
fantastic."
"Oh really, " Holly interjected "Do you suppose you could do some shots for
me?"
"Jackie’s expression soured, she loved Holly as long as she was controlling
Holly’s introduction into the scene. It was as if she was thinking that Holly
should have waited for her to introduce the idea. But Leee was sensitive to
the game.
"Oh I’m sure that somewhere sometime, that could happen. Would you like to
see the shots I just did of Jackie?"
Jackie’s face lit up with satisfaction and she warmed right up again to Holly.
Meanwhile, Elda was transfixed by a figure leaning in the one doorway to the
other room. A skinny dirty blonde boy wearing hippie patterned bell bottoms
and a white linen off the shoulder, puffed sleeve blouse drawled. "Hia there.
Glad you’all could come. Jus make yo self at home." He sloshed his Georgian
accent as he sarcastically fluffed his hand toward the already crowded floor.
Then he turned his back and walked into the other room.
"Oh, and that’s Wayne." Jackie threw in as a passing thought. Intrigued, Elda
stepped over more hippies as Leee began introductions around the room, and
she stuck her head in the doorway that Wayne had just been standing in.
She had stuck her head into a mini temple. Isis, Osaris, Nut, a temple of
Egypt had been constructed, an alter to the Gods, and at its foot knelt Wayne,
books of the writings lay before him opened, candles and incense burned, a
brass pyramid, fruits in a bowl of offering. Wayne was worshipping the Gods
of Egypt on thirteenth street and avenue B..
 |
It was a short day. By Max’s Time, Holly fell madly in love and into the only
bed with one of the young crashers. His name was Johnny. Elda floated with
her guide Wayne down the Nile on a virtual historic tour of Egyptian myth, Leee
managed to get rid of some of the extraneous bodies in the house and Jackie
managed to get dressed.
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