part of SLAUGHTER ON 14TH STREET
--A NOVEL POEM --
Alice Olds-Ellingson
I harbored delusions about my affair with Bob Dylan. It was not enough to hear him sing or ogle him at concerts. I had to imagine I was meeting him all the time -- anybody at all with a penis looked like Dylan to me, and I got a boy friend who looked just like Bob&he was a pretty good wit&a better lay. He gave me the most incredible orgasms -- therefore, my fantasy worked. He WAS Dylan for me. He would reappear years later when I was courting TWO other Dylans.
I met another Jerry in Portland. He had steel legs. I was not too turned on to go to bed with him&I felt sorry for myself that all I could get anymore was crips. I had a lot of crip one-night stands. This was Karma as I’ll tell you later. (Maybe I won’t tell you later, so I’d better tell you right now if I haven’t already. I became a cripple myself in 1990 -- brain injury through overdose of Lithium Carbonate -- a resulting grand mal seizure which left me temporarily paralyzed&then unable to walk well or speak effectively -- what a curse of the devil. I’ll tell you about this: it was the devil who saved my life&since he doesn’t particularly LIKE saving people’s lives, he cursed me in the two ways most damaging to anything I ever liked to do -- dance or read poetry or sing or do all of these things. You see I had died in St. Francis Hospital in San Francisco&the only way to revive was to chant the meanest devil mantra I could think of&it was brutal how I had to curse that bastard Jesus&make sure He would never enter my life or slide into hell for a vacation or something! The devil was on television as a newscaster Mr. Average Joe. Weird. But, as to Karma: I should have known why I was sleeping with crips if I was to become one myself. I have a lot of trouble these days finding anyone who’ll sleep with me. I’ve only had sex three times with my new&unimproved body. No orgasms. Usually my company is dad&mom. BORING&FRUSTRATING. Yes, I now live with them AGAIN. Can’t I ever LEARN? But, the deal is I’m too crippled to live on my own.)
Back to the Time of Jerry. He was a rather brutal man but he didn’t scare me as much with his steel leg as with his taking out his teeth. She would strut those teeth right out of his mouth&it was ghoulish. He was nicer than Tom, my Dylan look-alike. Tom scared me by coming home from work to find me in his house&taking off his clothes to reveal BVD’s with a big hole out of the ass. I thought immediately he must be getting fucked by MEN at work! That was the last time I saw him. I called Jerry to come&get me as fast as he could cuz I was scared. Jerry had some use, after all. Cuz he came RIGHT away.
My drinking continued. I just holed up at the SOLO HOUSE&drank sherry all day&night. I liked to lie in the queen-sized furnished bed&just drink away&listen to my record collection. I liked Supertramp at that time&played the Fool’s Overture over&over again -- never getting the point that I was the fool. It’s a beautiful piece, though. Reminds me of what my Shakespeare teacher taught me -- Nick Bottom, the ass, was beautiful. I have trouble with that still. I really don’t find assholes beautiful. But, I guess after doing heavy duty time with a man who gets fucked in the ass, being with an asshole is a relief. Anyway, I started a career of going to the Detox Center in Portland. Just to dry out for a few days, meet a man, take him home&fuck him. One time I picked up a man&brought him home to fuck when he sure fucked ME. He stole 170 bucks out of my purse&fled the known vicinity. That money I had EARNED on my back or doing my “Exotic Happenings!” I advertised in the Willamette Week until a man called their ad dept.&said I had a sliding scale of what I charged for these “happenings.” The ad was pulled, but I sure had fun doing soirees. I would do a strip&sing my own songs&read poetry to men for whatever they wanted to donate. I threw the sex in just for laughs. &GROANS. Once, I got a customer to give me pot&with a delicate high he told me I was supposed to act like MRS. ROBINSON&he was the sadist graduate. He fucked me&in the middle of it, he screamed I wasn’t being fair to him -- I wasn’t even a real girl! That can hurt, so of course it ruined the whole show for me&I didn’t do it too much anymore. I went down to the Lotus Card Room where hookers met their Johns&picked up straight tricks for a spell of maybe a year or two. I never got rich. Hookers spend that dirty money as fast as they make it.
I had to have foot surgery for bunions in late 1982. After this surgery, I was much more disabled, and had to change my career from hooking or dancing. The doctor told me that at 40 I was too old to dance anyway. What’s a little pain as long as you feel it¬ me!?! This must have been his philosophy. So, I went back to school. I go back to school after every surgery as a matter of fact. You’d think these doctors could reprogram your whole life while you’re under the anesthetic. Anyway, I was going to study poetry and linguistics&become a high school English teacher. Little did I know that poetry would become my LIFE&I would go to San Francisco to get my MFA in Creative Writing&oh, San Francisco! I’ll tell you about that later I guess. It’s a rather lengthy stay of execution, San Francisco!
Also at this time, I fell in love. With Mick Jagger. I bought all his records&fantasized I met him or Keith Richards or Charlie Watts every time I ran into men with lean&hungry looks. Oh, those lean&hungry looks! I stopped tricking&just went into reveries about the Stones. In 1983, I met a man who was to change my life radically. He played the Jews harp&looked like a young Charlie Watts. He was in love with my poetry&wanted me to start a band with him -- me as center of attention. I worked with Sam the Jews harp man all over Portland. We did music, we did comedy, we did jazz, we did rock n roll. I was ABOUT the raunchiest girl the world had to see or had to observe. My lyrics were like “radio fuckin radio fuckin radio fuck bitch where do I get my tits licked where do I get my clit sipped” -- after a Jagger bootleg blues song. He sings “Where do I get my cock sucked, where do I get my ass fucked.” So subtle, his bi-sexuality. About this time, I met a woman, too,&we had a bit of fun. I liked the way she sucked my breasts. But, she quit on me got chicken or something.
Time went by with Sam, who lived with me for 6 months. He was very bright&very funny. He wanted to go to the dogs. The dog races. He wanted to computerize his betting theories. He was definitely crackpot. He got tired of music with me after a few months&we hadn’t struck it rich. So, he left me to work in Boston at Wang Labs (the computer company)&go to the tracks all the time. They had TWO dog tracks. Yummy for the Tummy! By the way, the name of our group was Sam n Ella --&I guess we had a decidedly poisonous effect on the red neck population of Oregon. Men would “moo” at us.
I was studying poetry the summer I met SAm. I had a gifted teacher: Sandra McPherson. Sam liked her&wanted to use her. She should read my new manuscript&write a glowing review of it. She would have charged 500 bucks for this&Sam was not about to go to WORK in an office to pay her for this. It was Sam who made it clear all over Portland that POETS were always out of work&NEVER made money at poetry. Before that, not even the POETS knew that poets made no money at their writing -- no matter how good or famous. You always have to have another job -- anything.
After Sam moved away, I was drained. The only thing left to do for a living was to soak up bottles&bottles of cheap champagne. I wrote a little, but the music was over without my Jews Harp Man. I would go to bars some&rail about my loveless life. (Come to think of it, that’s a mainstay of my numerous complaints. I’ve always been too weird -- albeit pretty -- to capture the enigma of desire: men OR women. But, particularly the men. They wanted me to pay attention to their boring lives. Obviously, I was just too damn fascinating&self-fascinated to lure these accomplished egotists into my lair.) I was hearing voices. I got an ulcer. The doctor put me on an anti-psychotic drug called Mellaril which helped the voices&did not help the drinking. Pretty soon I was up all night writing&drinking until the Seven Eleven opened at 7:00 A.M. where I could refill on the cheap champagne. (Writers are always alcoholics. I knew I fit.) I would then drink until I could go to sleep. The ulcer got worse. I had to take Tagamet&quit drinking. I found out a way I could take the pills&still drink. You know how that’s done: you experiment on yourself. You just don’t stop drinking because of a little medicine for an ulcer. So, I ended up for the 9th time at Detox&this time I got off all medicine&opted to go into a living hell for the treatment of every horrible (cunning, baffling&powerful) aspect of alcohol. I was not able to stay with THAT kind of program. &they wouldn’t allow me to play my Mick Jagger albums or even talk to the men at the Program. Addiction was the norm with which the staff, brainwashed, wanted to brainwash all of us clients. No medicine for 30 days&I was manic. I went home to my slum apartment (always a slum apartment)&had the wildest music episode of my then 43 years. I talked to the building’s Mafia. I instructed Ronald Reagan from home. I told the police I was seeing dope addicts walking up roofs. I went out to the all-nite diner&wanted the manager to “fix me the best god damn hamburger in the world.” He called the police to have me removed. I fantasized I slept with Mick Jagger&went to bed with yet another “Bob Dylan.” It was so entertaining to me, I did not want it to end. When Officer Nelson arrived to check on this “wild woman” in apartment 102, he saw that I was the Goddess Hera&Pavlova&Markova&Fonteyn&went down to his knees. He contacted my other rock star lovers (by this time I was sure that 14 of these had been amassed just outside the building) over his walkie-talkie. He was proposing marriage to me himself. When the door finally opened on this scene, it was nothing less than da-da: my gnarled, wizened, purse-lipped 80-year old parents -- come to pack me up to take me -- you guessed it -- to the Wilsonville, Oregon State Hospital. I could have been laughing in the company of rock stars. But, my fucking parents? I hissed like a snake for the whole hour’s trip down there in the car. Why I let them cow me into going THERE, I would have to re-live to understand. I don’t knuckle under to ‘em NOW that I’m living with them on 14th Street though they play many power games with me -- even with Mom having Altzeimer’s, she can be pretty together formidable when I sing at the top of my stoned lungs while they’re trying to sleep. Finally, I DO win against her. I tell her to go back to bed&leave THIS grown-up alone with my stereo. I have SOME human rights. I tell her I will throw her to the floor if she tries to hit me with her cane -- always her favorite terrorizing tool. At the hospital, I was so high I actually had fun with the other “vacationers” -- those of whom were manic depressives as I had been mistakenly diagnosed. They did put me on lithium carbonate -- a lethal drug when misused --&I later had many overdoses with it&some comas&near-death experiences. What I really needed was to quit drinking&get back on Mellaril -- what I needed was sleep&anti-depression. Which Mellaril could do. Of course, even when I later got hepatitis, I only quit drinking for a few months.
In ‘86, I took it in my mind to go live in San Francisco&study poetry at S.F. State University which had a disastrous programmed MFA in Creative Writing. NEVER do it that way again, I say to myself. I was always psychological with the other would-be poets in class&I was always going to mental hospitals. Now, I read&study books&forget about a damn higher degree!
It happened like an accident. I didn’t know where I was, what I checked into. Hotel Bristol. On Mason Street. The fearful Tenderloin in San Francisco. Fools walk right in. I was from Portland. Hotel Bristol. Habitable appearance in those days, big selection of rooms. Mission Street horror dive evicting me for having my boy friend over past the 10:00 curfew. Had to find Something -- and Something fast. You don’t want to do time on the street. It’s not really appetizing out there. You get raped. You get robbed. You could get murdered. Nobody out there DARED to get high or they’d be killed. That’s what neighbors are like in the Tenderloin.
Moving in at the Bristol was too easy. No red tape. Just want cash. They don’t care who you are, what you’ve done, what your parents do for a living. Of course, this could work both ways. If they take ME without second glances, they’d take other criminals. I was borderline in that department. I was a stripper. That they didn’t check references should have given me pause, but I was desperate. If only nobody’d bother me, I had a key, felt I could sleep without a police lock.
See, I had this job. Worked for the S.F. Mafia. The place was called Big Al’s -- after Chicago’s infamous gangster, al capone. He wouldn’t have liked his name lower case, but this is my story. The girls at Big Al’s were scumbags like me -- just off the boat, as it were, and desperate. Always that pleading look of desperation staring at you from the stage. You had to take your clothes off. It’s called dancing. You had to take plenty of international men’s guff -- sometimes they tipped you $.11 -- and the pay was minimum wage. Everybody shared in the girls’ tips -- the bartender, the doorkeeper&the waitress. They were in the Mafia. Sally, the door barker, wore the most humongous falsies&always promised the boys that she was going to dance a special dance for them -- which she rarely did. Twice in the whole time I worked there. She was wonderful, beautiful, brilliant. She would slowly, sensually, pull the kleenex out of her bra, slowly taking off the big-breastedness about her. By the time she was done, there was a terrific wad of kleenex on the stage. And the men? Hurt. Foiled again by a woman. Sally, whose real name was Marcy, enjoyed their discomfiture. She hated men rather a lot&she didn’t dare get her breasts “done.” Mafia girls don’t HAVE surgery, if you know what I mean. They might not be revived.
The “dancers” were faceless nobodies. Pick-ups, trollops, ne’er-do-wells. “You’re lucky to get hired anywhere!” said Sam the Fat Man who was chief of discipline. The Mafia prided themselves on offering a cozy dark nest for the wayward. One big happy family. And, sitting in the back of the theater when I wasn’t having to take anything off, I was truly at home with myself. Some feat for the Mafia as I generally felt depressed to be anywhere.
Trouble with this job is that I was living on borrowed time. At 43, I was the world’s oldest living Beginner. True, for 43, I was stacked and only a little saggy in the ass. (One fat customer left in a huff because I had the “gall” to go naked in front of his fastidiousness. “Your ass is hanging down to your knees!” Well, being only “human” is not acceptable to men on the lookout for fantasy. It occurred to me to pay the Mafia to have him exterminated, but I knew I didn’t have ANY clout with my bosses.)
Life in the Big City seemed all taken care of. I had a job, such as it was, I was going to get SSI due to my “manic-depressive” nature and due to the fact some social worker felt sorry for me. Always being kicked around, she said. You’re not permanent anywhere. We’ve got to get you a free shrink. So, she got me a free shrink who looked like Charlie Watts&was a great Robert Youngian Father Figure, since my own father was such a prickly son-of-a-bitch&never even hugged me after I grew into a woman. Anyway, this shrink was no drummer like Charlie Watts. And, judging by his selection of prints on his wall (paint by numbers), he had no taste in the arts. Didn’t matter. He was on my side. I could rail away about the strip joint and the city’s cruelties -- like getting robbed by two different “clippers” who lived in my own building -- like how they pretended friendship when all they were after was the Golden Eggs -- my weekly paychecks. One of these women, Margaret, had an enforcer for a boy friend. He would push&threaten me so I wouldn’t call the police when Margaret stole from me. (Once I caught her red-handed. She asked me to go into the bathroom for a “much-needed” glass of water. She was just fishing around in my purse when I suddenly came right back to the room. Nice, safe place to live, the Bristol.
My relations with the police department of S.F. should be dealt with here. I called the police every time I got robbed -- which was every payday. The cops got quite satirical after awhile. They told me it was all my fault. I should know better than to live in the ghetto. I should move. No, they could do nothing for me unless I took some initiative. “What about my $600?” “Tough shit, Lady. This is not a haven for Innocents.” But, it took a kick in the butt to make me look for other living quarters. I got that kick one afternoon at Mike’s Bar. I was practically their mascot, those old-time sailors. They got tired of hearing me complain about the Tenderloin, so that’s when this one guy pushed me off the stool and pointed my body up the street toward Nob Hill. “Get an apartment on Bush Street!” he growled. “They have vacancies up there&the price is low. Check it out.” Salvation!
I got this tiny postage stamp of an apartment on Bush Street -- just a bit away from busy Powell Street -- where the cable cars would come by with all their shivering summer tourists (who wore shorts just because it was that time of the year. Summer is cold in S.F.). They also did not check my references. They liked the color of my money, 500 bucks. Yeah,&on Bush Street there was very little crime. But five Mexican men who lived in the new building got together&raped me, stealing the keys to my front door!
The time I was nearly murdered in the Tenderloin, I was not a “working girl.” I was just a poet on Welfare. I’d been attending a poetry workshop on Leavenworth St.&was walking home up Leavenworth toward Nob Hill. The night was excessively black. I felt a searing premonition of great danger on the streets that night -- a feeling of stinking within my buttocks and stomach -- a feeling I could do nothing about. There was nothing but to keep on walking up the increasingly shadowy street. I got to Ellis before it happened. It happened. Suddenly there was like a raven with hands gripping me from behind with hands cupping my chin from behind -- I could not see him --&I was smoothly encouraged to slide down to the sidewalk&relinquish my two bags -- purse&briefcase of poetry. I didn’t want to lose grips on them. I didn’t figure out what was happening for awhile&the thing behind&on me kept swiveling my head back and forth, back&forth down on this stoop in the dark. I was used to getting RAPED for Christ’s sake¬hing was happening with my clothes. He didn’t want that. He was killing me! I tentatively started to scream. He kept rocking my head with his hands -- what a professional. It practically didn’t hurt.
Suddenly the earth moved -- or rather, there were so many people around me, rescuers --&the second mugger swept up the two bags which contained everything I owned -- money, keys, poetry. Rescuers, I had thought. But, rescuers were there like breast implants. Something phony about the whole deal. My mugger got a move on&these vice squad cops were on the chase leaving a manager type of guy to help me up. I wasn’t hurt much. Heads can take a lot of punishment. But, I had no cigarettes! I got this manager type to buy me a pack -- he was nice. Later, when the vice cops took me to the Hall of Justice, they were questioning why I was in the Tenderloin. I’m sure they thought I was a working girl -- I looked like one a lot more than I looked like Emily Dickinson. They had caught the attacker. The money was gone. The poetry. They had to dig in at that. “Was there anything in the briefcase valuable to anyone else but you?” They knew poetry’s value&it wouldn’t be the motive for stealing my belongings. There WAS about 80 bucks in the purse. After two hours of questioning me about the mugging, finally the medics came to see how I was. Just bruises, cuts&scratches. I was subpoenaed to the hearing of the case&that’s SUCH a story: Alice in Wonderland at court&how she hated the smell of democracy&dirty leggings of jailbirds&how Alice rendered herself useless as a victim witness by going out at lunch and getting silly-drunk.
They must have used strong tactics on this Richard Johnson pal to get him to change his plea from I ain’t done NUTHIN’ to guilty. I wonder what they did to him. When he came to the bench&I actually saw him for the first time I saw a very handsome, brawny black athlete type with that racial pride we all by now recognize. He was proud to have been attempting “grave bodily harm” to me. I was just one more white bitch. Or, some other criminal -- criminal to him. He had been rather GENTLE to me -- as if he WANTED to get caught for doing a “love” tap. Who knows what had really gone on that night. It was all so queer. It was like the scene had been set up ahead of time. All actors were in position. I was the only dumb bunny. Was this some sort of pretended mugging? Was I really being murdered because I was who I was whoever that was? I wrote lots of speculative poems about this ordeal, got them published in a Tenderloin journal. But, though I made the crime famous, I was still just an innocent patsy in another confusion of the ghetto night.After I moved into a “respectable” building on Bush St. (no relation to the President), I stopped getting robbed. My neighbors were friendly but didn’t like music played after 10:00 PM. I’ve been a stereo buff since 9th grade so it was a fist fight, practically, to get me off my rock n roll habit. Guess I was still a hippie, whatever that was.
In my new living quarters, I couldn’t stag smug for long. I lost my job at the strip club. A blessing because I had really stooped to such acts as shoving a dildo up my pussy, Tiajuana-style, for the tips. And, the tourists love it by rewarding me with showers of quarters. When I insisted on keeping my own tips (I hid them in my cigarette pack), that was the limit. “You’re fired!” So, I packed it up. I would miss conning the men out of their $65 for ersatz champagne. I would miss the body heat -- the Life gave me nipple erections -- when I sat with the customers (who were referred to as Johns, though we didn’t sleep with them). I was at my glittering, flirtatious best. Though I felt sorry for them having to pay for the “wine” just to talk to me. But it Was flattering when they liked my company well enough to pay for it. We dancers all had such fragile egos. The Boss knew that. If he wanted to punish me, the fat slob, if he wanted to take me down a peg he would plump himself on a hard chair in front of me and call me names. I didn’t like what he called me. That word always made me feel diseased. I’d keep my cook with him, though, and he didn’t break my bones. I’d dance and flirt like a lamb for awhile until I needed another dose of insults to curb my ATTITUDE problem. Problem was I DID think I was SORT of hot shit. I’d go home and make myself a fried tuna sandwich with plenty of mayo (I didn’t have to diet -- got plenty of exercise dancing) and knock out a couple poems before crashing into my double bed. I was alone in that bed most of the time. But one day I met an Indian man -- Brahmin caste -- who changed my life forever. He didn’t marry me, he paid me for my time. He was cheap but when he wasn’t mad at me, we had a ball. Once, when I was petting myself in a conceited way he told me he was going to shove me out of his car onto the highway. Unless I shut up for 300 miles. Yeah. He dumped on me all the time. I hated him for leaving me in the Tenderloin or my Bust Street apartment and just flying off to Ohio or Germany or Moscow without a care for me in the world. When I got paralyzed (that’s another story), he was in Moscow. He never called me again. Just about that time Moscow fell. I always wondered if Ashok had anything to do with that demise; I thought he was that powerful. It turned out that Ashok was the last lover I would ever have. (Not true anymore!) He called me Puppy all three puppies on my tits. Moles. He encouraged my moles. I loved his smile. He had 2 million-dollar teeth -- he told me so after I got him a dentist to pull his wisdom tooth. The dentist had the gall to throw the tooth in the garbage. It was Ashok’s first experience with a dentist -- he’d never even had a cleaning before. And he was 36, or so he said. He looked 45, what with his gray head of receding hair. He wanted to put his tooth under his pillow, I guess, or send it back to his family in India for bronzing and pickling. Maybe he thought they’d send him a huge check for this tooth. He was sometimes a bit strange. But, he liked to laugh. I could usually make him laugh. I thought he was incredibly sexy when he laughed. I cooked for him, made him a fried tunafish sandwich on rye toast, which I could make in my electric skillet. He liked milk. He liked booze. He liked me, sometimes.
