Jack Brown, author of “Midtown Merry-Go-Round”, is a Brown is a poet, author and songwriter. He lives and works in New York City. Mystery Tribune has previously published “Evil Days And Evil Ways” from Mr. Brown.
*****
Ken had seen better days. Much better days. Coming out of the service he had been a rock em sock em roller derby cowboy.
Tuffy Mazzum was the star of the women’s crew. He was the crowd pleaser of the men’s side. The Brooklyn Blasters became regulars in the early days of television.
He swam at the World’s Fair in 1964. Saved the life of a female swimmer who became a lifelong friend. Ken modeled. He acted. You could have called him an Off Broadway actor. He lived in Midtown not far off Broadway.
Ken sang. Recorded with “The Four Gents”. He was featured as a production singer at the swank “Steppin Out” nightclub. He had a career. But at some point the business retired him. The bottle got the best of him. One day he would become a “friend of Bill’s” Join AA.
But then he was a friend of the grape. Wine. Glasses of it. Gallon jugs of it. There was a party on the block. Andie, a black woman, did extra work on a television show that shot in Central Park. She invited people from the actor’s bus and neighbors. Mostly in show business. It was a lively crowd. Socializing was mandatory. It was elbow to elbow and glass to glass.
Ken sang. Recorded with “The Four Gents”. He was featured as a production singer at the swank “Steppin Out” nightclub.
Ken and Nick struck up a conversation. Nick was on the actor’s bus with Andie. He and Ken had acting and music in common. They also shared a love for Coney Island. The rides. The freak show. The merry makers of all shapes, sizes and colors. Fun and thrill seekers to the last.
They left the party together. Strolling up Eighth Avenue toward Columbus Circle singing “Luck Be a Lady Tonight” from Guys and Dolls. Nick turned east walking along Central Park South toward the Plaza. Ken later said “Gay and straight-but it works.”
Ken’s neighbor Sybil was a celebrity impersonator. She had an act where she came on like Better Midler roving the Continental Baths. Strutting around making saucy remarks and belting out raunchy songs about gay life. She was considered to be a queen mother figure. A low rent Maria Callas.
As such her apartment was a hub for a variety of people on the underground sex transition spectrum. There was Aggie from Miami. A high end hair cutter.
She came to New York because “ something was always going on with the plumbing.”
Sybil herself kept things lively. As Ken put it One night it was a man and the next night it was a woman.”
Nick became a satellite of the Midtown Merry-Go-Round. Invited to parties.
Contacted when muscle was needed to install an air conditioner. Asked to write a song for the alumna “Steppin Out Show Girls” production.
One evening Nick’s phone rang. It was Ken.
“Nick Di Lemma is visiting Sybil. If you can find your way up here I’ll invite her over. We’ll see what the Good Lord offers in the way of entertainment.”
Nick sensed Coney Island mischief was in the air.
Nick knew of DiLemma from Ken. She was also known for her drag act at The Pyramid Club on Avenue A in the Village. Ken’s opinion was that Di was “pre op.” Still retaining “his” equipment” while acquiring a “hers” set of alabaster mammary glands and facial cosmetic surgery to complement them.
Di was also known to possess an unpredictable streak. It could move with mercurial speed to acts of destruction.
Nick got off the train on 57th Street. He walked west. Made his way passed modern apartment buildings to a series of older tenements that were yet to be assembled by a developer bent on “renewing the neighborhood.”
Ken buzzed Nick in. He called for the elevator. Rode it slowly to the fifth floor. The apartment door was open. It opened into a living room with an antique couch on the left inherited from a neighbor. Across the room was a corner table with a television and music components. A short hall led to a bedroom with two colonial wooden frame beds. Off the hallway was a bathroom and small kitchen.
Ken had been wetting his whistle. He freshened his cup and cracked a beer for Nick. Then he stood up. Took a deep breath to steady himself and set his course. “I’ll go next door and see what Di Lemma is up to.” With that he opened the door and walked across the hallway.
Nick sat sipping on his beer. Shortly two sets of footsteps approached. The door remained open. Ken first followed by DiLemma. A pretty six foot blonde with the shoulders of a high school linebacker. Ken moved to the couch. Said “ Di Lemma this is Nick. He came all the way from near The Pyramid to meet you.”
At first Di seemed uncertain but then quickly flattered and gracious. Ken was on a roll. Well fortified by his wine and validated by his enticing Di to an impromptu meeting with Nick he got down to business politely and forth-rightly. “Di Lemma show Nick your tits.”
Di was briefly thrown off balance. But her exhibitionist spirit readily embraced the opportunity to perform. Ken put on an FM radio station that was playing songs by the Rolling Stones. With Mick Jagger lamenting “I can’t get no satisfaction. I can’t get no girly action” Di Lemma wearing a denim jacket and a button down flannel shirt began to open the buttons from the top.
“I tried and I tried and I tried-I can’t get no-I can’t get no satisfaction.”
As Jagger hit his crescendo of frustration Di Lemma released the lowest button at her waist and unleashed two medically induced beauties that could well have been enshrined on Mt. Rushmore. Then with what may have been modesty Di refastened the two lowest buttons of her plaid shirt. She accepted the chair offered by Nick and sat facing the two men.
“Jumping Jack Flash is a gas, gas, gas.
“ Di imagine you are on the Howard Stern Show and you’re giving Howard a lap dance and having orgasms.”
It was Nick the stranger egging her on to greater abandon. Blonde hair whipping across red lips.
“But it’s all right now in fact it’s a gas. Jumping Jack Flash is a gas gas gas.
The speaker pumped out the raucous rhythm. It was almost like the livid lubricious tongue logo of the Stones was lapping the air.
Suddenly Di came out of the near delirium. “What time is it?”
Ken said “ Eight O’clock.”
“Time for me to go.” Di Lemma stood and buttoned up the three
top buttons. “ I gotta go out to Eighth Avenue and sell some bogus pussy.”
In a flash she was out the door and into the night.
Months later Nick got a phone call from Sybil. “Ken is thinking about going into rehab. Maybe if you come up he’ll decide to go.”
Nick arrived . Ken was almost unrecognizable. Porcine face with slits for eyes. Belly distended like a starvation case. No muscle tone. A roseate alcoholic glow like sausage hung in a butcher’s window. A tragic decrepit figure.
Behind Ken on the wall was a picture of young Ken in full production regalia. A Prince Charming. Heartbreakingly handsome. Nick decided to go with the brutal truth. “Ken you look like shit.”
As soon as Nick got back downtown the phone rang. It was Sybil. “Ken is going into rehab. Thanks for coming.”
*****
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