part of SLAUGHTER ON 14TH STREET
--A Novel Poem--
Alice Olds Ellingson
Well, to the persecutions. As I write this, though, they don’t seem to be as suffocating in the Life as I thought they were. Good. Good&bad. Maybe I’m not the reluctant Christ Redeemer, after all. (How could I be? I don’t even have enough power to get my OWN life together, let alone help YOU out.)
I started the sexual revolution. I had been devirginizing all the boys on my college campus in Minnesota&here I was this Eve in the Big Apple. Lucifer was everywhere, but still I felt like I wanted to FIT IN. I used to go for years without meeting one fellow human being in that city. I remember one time when I literally could not decide what sidewalk to walk on, what semaphore to acknowledge. I had to TELL my feet to walk in a certain direction. There WAS no certain direction; this was challenging enough to be depressing. When I quit working for Boating Industry, I had no future in the “real” world. I was half committed to continuing the sexual revolution on the sly&half committed to insane asylums. By the time of my BIG ACID TRIP in August of 1968, I was ready for a million booby hatches. My Guru tried to teach me CHESS without having my ego state!! How that chess board did interesting designs&folded up all by itself! &how I couldn’t learn the moves of the knights, though their L-shaped maneuvers made good patterns on the folding chessboard. My guru thought I was a brilliant master of chess because I moved both my knights out in symmetrical fashion. He didn’t know I just thought they looked PRETTY. I remember taking an hour to make any of my moves. Even the Guru (who was making fun of me&the drug) got bored with the “movable feast.” He taught me things I am still trying to learn or unlearn. How all writing was going to be politically one of 4 types: simple (direct), complicated, double-talking, or gibberish. Ain’t it the truth? Who was this Guru? He got lost from me when I freaked out on my way to swim in the ocean that bright, blue-eyed day. So, began my unheralded journey through loony-bins. I’ve never been HAPPY.
Before the fateful Acid Trip in ‘68, I had been fucking around with nude photography (men taking pictures of my open vagina). At a FunCity studio, I met a lot of repressed but sexy men, and one of these men was none other than Rudy Kurtz aka Ralph Barley. He couldn’t get a hard on but he could come. He paid me a hundred dollars just to impress me with his unattainable wealth. We went to a hotel. He had his camera. I had the lipstick. He wanted to rub the lipstick IN to the nipples and make them “fashionable”&hard so he could get good pictures of them. My breasts were small. Not so, my passion. He got me so excited I’m getting excited right now about it. Eventually, he caved in and grabbed me to sit on his lap where I could be a Lady Chatterly’s husband’s nurse or something. Anyway, I soon moved into “sugar daddy” thoughts&sugar daddy’s kept apartment. Which was not a typical sugar daddy set-up. He only gave me enough money for my sugar habit. (About $25 a week!) I was addicted to 2 cakes a day. I would go to any of the five boroughs in a taxi to its best bakery&when I got my “fix” I’d ride the subway home eating cheesecake up to my armpits. It was disgusting. The Sanitation Workers whistled at me. They had no taste in women, so I gave them the finger. I was always giving people the finger. Like to New York Cabbies who wouldn’t let me cross the street against the light in front of them. Everyone knows NYC cabbies are thugs, but it was quite surprising to THEM this gorgeous blonde girl with the obscenefinger gesture. They gave me due respect.
When I was about to shack up permanently with Rudy, there was the New York blackout. I was caught in an elevator in the Lincoln Towers Apartments between the 22nd&23rd floors. There were three men in there with me. Strangers. I passed out and THEN what happened? I came to when I saw the number 14 on the stairs. I came to on the street at 42nd (Times Square). I had entered the building at 72nd&8th AVE. So who’s on 2nd?
Rudy&I lived together for a couple of years. Dave was in the army&hated it. I hated this old man (48) Rudy,&wanted to go back to Dave. For some demented reason. So, I got my psychiatrist to write a Hardship Discharge Letter&Dave got out. He had to fuck the Sergeant to get out, but even Dave was better than crazy Rudy, nice man that he was&so in love with me. He wouldn’t let me take diet pills&I wanted to lose all the fat from the cakes, so I went on diet pills anyway. He took me to a doctor to see if I was living. After only one week (the only week of my life of dieting) of fasting. The doctor said I was very healthy but Rudy needed to get his suppressive head examined. Rudy was paranoid about any drug I took. Still, he started me on anti-depressants which made me feel like I had the Grand Canyon in my head, but he thought this was the true medication. I wanted to take speed, but Rudy wouldn’t put up with that so I ran at him with my healthy body&landed on him, my legs around his repressive neck. He didn’t even TRY to catch me, so I fell to the floor on my coxxyx or however you spell the small of the back, the tail bone. It could’ve killed me. So, I got my husband out of the army&he was at least refreshingly YOUNG¬ suppressive or jerky-off like Rudy. Rudy worked for the CIA,&when my PARENTS found out about this, they went into paroxysms of fear of being jailed. (They were commie sympathizers, remember?) Why did I not fear this man? Because I knew he simply joined the CIA so he’d have adventures like James Bond. Only all they let him do was engineering&spring on ME. I was considered (I hope) to be a subversive. In that time, “Sergeant Pepper” came out&I was a goner for this acid rock&I would not be satisfied until I tried the drug. Still living with Rudy when I heard the album, I tried a whole can of nutmeg. Rudy&I went to see the damndest version of “Khartoum” or something. All I could focus on was the twisting desert sands&the overwhelming patterns of Moroccan carpets. I was insane like that for the next couple of days, went to see my shrink, who promptly tried to find out too much about me. I’m a paranoid who has no judgment in anything.
The real blow to my pride came on my acid fuck with my “Guru” who was about 14 years old or so&brilliant at picking up women. I was 26 but you’d never know it. I was a baby in his hands. When he fucked me with me on top, he laughed at me -- in front of the other hippie couple in this termite&cockroach room. (This is the PERFECT ROOM in which my acid trip unfolded,&I went out of the body to the beginning of the Universe. I saw the creation.) The room was garbage. I thought the water was poisoned&I thought I could fly out the window&get away like a good Bird of Happiness. I was transparent. Every beginner on acid has those thoughts. So, the hippie boys saved me. But they couldn’t save me from my horrible parents. I was supposed to call them back in Oregon on the last Sunday of the month&I couldn’t get it together to even dial their number. I was incommunicado, mum, dumb. Tom, the Guru, could do nothing for me, so he packed my Ellingson suitcase&off I “flew” to another world -- the street -- landing face down in what I thought was showing my sign: the Alpha to the Omega, the shape of the universe like a circle of snake biting its own tail. Never beginning thus&never ending thus. I was rescued by an angel who caroled my name over&over, but I couldn’t answer; I was too busy trying to erase every step of my trip from now to back then. Time was a total fraud, but a curse to follow nonetheless. It took me two mental hospitals -- Bellevue (yes the famous 2PQ West) &Central Islip. They medicated me with Thorazine, but I;d sneak out of the hospital&get my diet doctor to give me REAL mood elevators&sneak back to the ward as if I were a good little patient. (By this time, I was talking again&teaching Yoga&community singing to the more well patients&was really ready to go back to the “real” world. I found out later, that if my husband hadn’t convinced the head shrink we were going back together again, they would NEVER have let me out.)
But, Dave did not want to start the marriage over again, though I promised to be “good.” He would go on eventually, 1969, to annul the marriage -- based on my fraud as a mother. A marriage where the woman conspired not to have children was considered by the pinched lips of New York State law to be invalid. Isn’t this the pits? &when David got the annulment, he visited me in my loony bin apartment&I dared ask him for 3 months back rent -- the place was rent controlled and only cost 90 bucks a month -- he stormed out of the apartment&out of my life -- saying he’d go to jail rather than give me any money. So, it was I who went to the dogs. Kicked out of the building onto the streets of New York in February&it was cold outside. It was snowy. I was hearing voices. All over town. I didn’t know that EVERYbody out there was hearing voices&that acid had been dropped into the water supply. I still don’t know that!
I made a television commercial in about 1967. Actress. The product was Arrid Deodorant. It was a dry commercial&funny. So, it also stank. I only made 350 bucks on it because the advertising agency said they only played it twice in Washington, D.C. (But, I’ve met people who remember the commercial with the girl in red leotards getting sweaty&the Nervous Bride getting sweaty&they’d seen it copiously in Pittsburgh or somewhere.) As I had been incarcerated in mental hospitals to get “well” from my acid trip, the account executive never had an address for me. Maybe that’s why I never got paid the million I was owed. I’ve become the Alice Underground&if you don’t know who I am you ain’t hip. If you DO know who I am, then it’s ME who ain’t hip!) I should be very RICH but I’m on Welfare&Daddy’s Welfare which won’t even make me enough to pay for a very much-needed face lift. By the way, he says a face lift is ridiculous. No one chooses a woman on the basis of looks or age! Would you believe that? The real reason he won’t sponsor a face lift is the money. He’s MARRIED to money&the SAVING of it. It does no good to tell him I’d pay back the money in small increments. He wants me to be ugly forever without any guys to fuck.
Well, I’m not really ugly these days but I’m plain as Joanne Woodward. With a facelift I could be Grace Kelly again. Which is exactly what Dad doesn’t want. Remember? He wants only the worst for his children. What really upsets me is when he is nice to me in this house of living hell. What favors is he looking for? You have to ask questions like this of him because most of the time he either taunts me (“Well, you don’t look 25 anymore!”) or taunts me (“Why do you always use the BIGGEST coffee cup?”)
So, maybe I’m worth a fortune&dad knows all about it, since he’s got all the money from my residuals in his secretive bank account. He’s probably been spending from this account for all these years&never intends to let me have ANY of it, even if I were to move to MARS. (Mars is Phoenix where my sister lives. She borrowed five thousand bucks from him&since she’s so far away, he never bothers HER to pay up. I have to pay up for a pack of CIGarettes, for Christ sake.)
Things get a little fuzzy in my mind after 1970. I spent a whole waste of prettiness in the mental hospitals in 1970 and I got out only to earn a bare living by demonstrating TRIM Twists on the ground floor of Lord&Taylor. Ali McGraw had been in my acting class in 1967&she came up to me in my poverty at the store&wondered what has become of poor Alice, the Great Comedienne. I told her I’d taken Acid&was living on death row to snatch a few dimes together. She said she wasn’t doing well either, made this movie “Goodbye Columbus” which was never going to go ANYwhere should she take ACID, too! She said she wasn’t even getting any more modeling jobs. Well, we know how HER story ends up. Steve McQueen’s wife&everything.
LOVE Story&everything. I didn’t do any more performing until 1983 after MY acid trips. I told her not to touch the drug. She didn’t seem convinced.
I met a man in the mental hospital. Name of Ken Hannibal. I usually leave him out of my mind because he seemed so stupid. He was on drugs for acid tainting, too,&he was actually very NICE to me. So, forget him. He was good in bed&gave me my narcissistic orgasms coming on my tits. The tits I’d acquired from a Mafia surgeon in 1969 -- after my acid trip and before my total mental demise. I had been doing topless dancing&my manager said he was tired of topless topless dancers&to keep my job I would have to bet my life against my breasts. I got em&they gave me nothing but problems -- as well as the surgeon who wanted the whole 500 bucks more than I paid him at the outset&so he crucified me in my pussy on the operating table. He did intricate surgery down there to make it look to any lover who was the least bit hip that I had a penis tucked away behind the new vagina. I was weak&crazy after the surgery&could not work but once again. At that time, I picked up a trick who liked me but I didn’t like him. He drove me to a resort where they were playing tournament bridge&he tried to cram an education into me about bridge so I wouldn’t shame him at the dinner table. My new tits looked terrible -- sort of like Mary Tyler Moore’s breast job only worse. The left tit had a lump in it where the surgeon hadn’t even laid the implant all the way down. Eventually, I had to have the job done over -- 1974 --&then they couldn’t even dig OUT the implant on the right side -- so they left this obvious hard tit alone&lied to me that they had done the whole job. I’m stupid but I’m not a mongoloid idiot.
Speaking of stupid. I got Ken Hannibal, the nice guy, to take an IQ test for me, one which I took, too. I got 126 and he got 147. So, I shut up. At least I TRIED to shut up. Loved the way he would “perch up my breasts,” with his hands. How he called me MEES LUBS! Too bad I STILL thought he was limited in the brains. I guess ANYone who is nice to me has ulterior motives!
I took a job at Saks Fifth Avenue after I got out of the SECOND nervous hospital stay. No money. So, I quit&got a job which paid 200 bucks a week&great benefits. The boss wanted to fuck me in the office. What was THIS job? Oh, stuffing envelopes with brochures about dildos&other sex-titillating items. When I looked at these mailers, I was dismayed. I was sending porno through the mails! So, I quit. The boss wanted to set me up in an apartment, but I didn’t think I’d ever be able to fall into lust again. Back to Ken Hannibal. Ken had a boy friend who was sexy. I stole a weekend with HIM&moved out of Ken’s. Al couldn’t make love, though. He just made TALK. So, I took a job teaching 5th grade&went back to graduate school for a Master’s in English Education. At Christmas, I got a present: Mr. Jerry Laufman, who would be my all time lover&good tormenter. I moved in with him, or HE moved in with ME,&I quit working on my THESIS, which was on the Nature of Humor&with Alice, the last joke. Jerry thought my “humor instrument” had too many holes in it. In other words, it was FUNNY,&the kids would probably like to be TEASED with it. I had another nervous breakdown&was hearing voices when Jerry asked me if I would rather go downtown for a steak dinner or to a local mental hospital (this was still NYC). So, of course, I chose dinner.
What a sorry mess I was, hair dirty&turning brown at the edges. &very depressed to the point of not having a SELF left at ALL, So, my meager mind saw the jazz musicians at the Lorelai Club where we went for dinner, I saw these musicians carrying in their cases&thought they were Mafia&had Tommyguns in their cases to start a way with me or something. I ate the steak&had a glass of water. In just exactly 20 minutes, I was in ecstasy&wanted to dance with everybody in the room -- especially Jerry -- who would never dance with me in public -- and he was a good dancer, too. (Probably was a MALE go-go dancer for MEN.) I strolled out of the restaurant as horny as a pig&Jerry&I had four hours of sex in which I sucked his cock like worship&in which we communicated telepathically&S&M prevailed&I liked it. He was trotting with the reins of my nipples&telling me he wasn’t going to sleep with me like this ever again (bad news) but the whole Mafia would play with me when they wanted someone DEFORMED to play with. Remember the bad breast job? When Jerry first saw said tits he thought I was a BOY -- the breasts were so obvious. Jerry RAN out of my life in TERROR. But, came back after Christmas Vacation. &lived with me for about five years. His problem was that he preferred Buckminster Fuller over me. &Bucky Fuller was as boring as his NINE CHAINS to the MOON. (He probably used chains during his WHIPPING of the moon.)
Jerry was a good lover. He smelled good&the funny thing was he THOUGHT he had the breath of fire. I read somewhere that’s a common schizophrenic delusion. Jerry was NOTHING if not schizzy. After all, he was an ART director. Major in Graphic Design, though he excelled in pop art paintings&could have made a bundle as big as Andy Warhol if he’d kept up with his painting.
Stan Pritchard, the writer, had introduced me to Jerry. This man was a good but reluctant lay&thought I was taking his power away from him when he came into my mouth. Too bad. He DID have a most delectable, if vulnerable, white dick. Did me a favor. When he left NYC for Provincetown to write his novel, he also left me with his rent-controlled apartment. This apartment was only 89 bucks a month&Jerry&I had it for many years. Stan introduced me to Jerry not in person but said Jerry would be calling to take back the buzz saw he had borrowed from Stan. Maybe I was the buzz saw. I never saw a buzz saw. But, Jerry’s sparkling brown eyes did a dazzle when he first met me. He was a Lady Killer. THIS was BEFORE he saw my plastic tits. He thought my FACE was perfect. Which, of course, being I was only 29, it WAS.
Because everything was sex, I couldn’t last too long as a fifth grade teacher. I quit, died&was reborn as a brunette masseuse. By that time, massage was another trip to the whorehouse. I whored in a fancy club -- Spartacus II. There were the three top girls: me, Tanya,&Vanessa. We averaged 3 tricks a day a piece&never made less than 300 bucks a shift. I was naive&didn’t steal all the customers away, but I did steal ONE customer or TWO who were almost the living death of me. One of them was borderline Mafia&was in love with me&when I dumped him, he walked into the ocean. He was rescued&called me&said the Mafia was going to take me out&I should not go anywhere with ANYone. The OTHER creep was a true sadist. He kidnaped me at the point of a gun, said he was going to pay me a million dollars for doing the “worst” thing I could think of. As I said, I was naive. The worst thing I could think of was Greeking, taking it in the ASS. I had never DONE that, but THAT was not the worst thing the SADIST could think of. He took some pills&in this motel where he brought me incommunicado, I was supposed to eat his diarrhea&grin or he would kick me in the groin&pull off my tits until I DID grin. This was supposed to be the “Shit-Eating Grin,” I suppose. He wouldn’t even let me wash my hair when we were done. &we were going non-stop for 36 hours. This is hard for a mental patient.
Well, I had been cured of pastry eating. Now, I was interested in alcohol. It was less caloric&pass-out time would always come -- unlike with cakes. (Yes, I used to think I could pass out after I ate cakes, cookies, concoctions. See how dumb I was?) The serious drinking began after flunking out of Scientology, Yoga, Primal Scream Therapy, basic psychiatry. I had no drugs for the first time in NYC. I had to buy beer or I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Valiums. Oh, Valiums. My kingdom for Valiums. But, beer worked. I could arrive at some office or another for a tense workday if I had the beer. Yes, this was between massage parlor jobs. I was working for a crazy neurologist&his girl friend at Mt. Sinai Hospital. I was the world’s first word processor off the books. I made a whopping 4 bucks an hour. The brain surgeon’s girl friend would have tantrums&throw ashtrays&typewriters at any of us or all of us. The others had habits. They got thru the day by drinking&smoking. The irony of the job was that we were supporting a symposium on Cancer&EVERYbody but one gay guy smoked! I didn’t last long there. Had to get back to a sex job. More fun. Bigger bucks. So, I started working in the real thing: a whorehouse. Boy, are whorehouses ever boring! Just skin on skin and no frills. Massage Parlors are much better. More room for fantasy&more fun. I remember doing one session with a masochist&it was quite funny to me. I had him crawl on all fours while pretending that his rider (me, on his back) was Cleopatra. &the man was a slave&would be destroyed if Mark Antony ever came in and caught us so I made the asshole crawl around quickly&made him watch me masturbate&come. In those days I was always in heat&could climax to a little scene like this.
