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enjoy this writing from Kyle Hemmings in the free 6" x 9" 2014 PDF file chapbook: Edie, Come Back (click on the front cover image or the title text to download the free PDF file)

Order this writing in the book What Must be Done (a Down in the Dirt July - Dec. 2014 collection book)		get the 372 page July - Dec. 2014 Down in the Dirt magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Vaudeville Is Never Stale

Kyle Hemmings

    I was sitting in her apartment trying to get her to eat. I had brought over some triple stack sandwiches from the deli on 52nd between 2nd and 3rd. She said she couldn’t hold anything down. On the coffee table was a crumpled letter. Her sleek legs, covered in purple leotards were crossed, and she was chain smoking. Occasionally, she wiped her eyes. She said that another brother had committed suicide. Her cigarette went out and she re-lit it, but her hand shook so much that I had to steady it.
    I only knew Edie for a few months, from some bashes at The Factory. I met Warhol through a friend of a friend. I was really too old for any of the nonsense, the scenes and the happenings. I was a vaudeville comedian from way back. So I stood up and began cutting up some red wrapping paper that Edie left on a fold-up chair. I made three perfect roses. I said, “Look, pretty girl. Look what I brought you. Some flowers. Only you can’t put these in water because they’re made of paper.” She broke into a girlish giggle that must have hurt. She said she’d keep them by her bed, and perhaps later, she’d frame them with something Andy had given her. She then kissed me on the cheek and said, “Thank you, Uncle Snow.” That was my stage name when it used to rain cheap love. But the girls had beautiful busts and overripe thighs. They didn’t starve themselves for a hoot nanny. My joke files and my sterling silver humidors were always full.

    I left Edie’s and about several blocks from her apartment, I heard a car screech. I turned around. Edie was scooping her hand in the air, as if some waif of a symphony conductor gone mad, her skinny body a wavering ribbon against the onrush of blat and metal and impenetrable window shields. She shouted to the taxi driver, “Can you watch where you’re going! You’re going to kill somebody.” And even though the light had turned green for traffic, I believed with all my heart that Edie was right.

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