Eggshell tuxedo.

In the bath.

The bath filled with martinis.

Martinis made of tears and vermouth.

Arrivederci, Monte Carlo.

Morty was a snitch.

Paw Paw gonna kick your ass, steal your dope

Exclamation point!

Jan Sterling

The old lady

Bernie gives Johnnie the wake up shake. The cab is stopped in front of Jersey party central. A nice street with lights out except this house glowing red behind curtains. Johnnie steps to the curb and doesn’t like the gravity. Bernie winks and the cabbie lends the extra shoulder.

Nothing to see here folks up to the door.

Here’s Sally and friends enjoying a red light living room bathing suit party past three in the morning. Dark music on the down low. The cabbie tries hard to be a crutch with no eyes. He is relieved of duty by Sally and there he goes out the door slapping his pockets for reassurance from hard cash.

Sally wants Johnnie in there but Johnnie wants to go up there.

He untangles himself and begins crawling up stairs. He switches halfway and crawls back down. He crawls in there through naked beatnik party knee forest and rifles a stack of records by the turntable. He settles on one and holds it up. He bathes it in red light. He leans it in the corner against the baseboard. He smashes it with a lamp.

Goodnight. No Sinatra.

Upstairs: three bedrooms.

Door number one: people in the dark. I am a blind person.

Room two is empty. No windows. No windows = no good.

Room three: empty with window. Inside he props a chair under the knob. He drags the blankets and pillow off the bed and throws them out the window. He throws himself out the window. He collects himself and the bedding and walks down the driveway to the back and climbs a fence into the neighboring yard. He spies a boy scout house up a tree and in there he sleeps.

He dreams he is being tossed in the air on a scout blanket. Each toss sends him higher until he goes up up up through the branches of trees into the blue sky. A feeling comes over him and he commands there to be no more gravity and he doesn’t come down.

—-

Johnnie cracks an eye and cycles through the who what where moment. Experience says noonish. He pops his head out of the tree house. He spies a boy in the yard and freezes. I am a squirrel. The boy spies him and freezes. My magic tree house barfs Johnnie Ray.

Johnnie climbs down. He looks at the boy and then the two of them together stand looking at the tree house. Johnnie scratches his chin. Johnnie says, “Keep your eyes peeled, kid. Half an hour Marilyn Monroe is coming out of that thing.”

Johnnie throws himself back over the fence into swing pad land.

So long Normals. Nothing to see.

In the blind pages: What old mainstay with a va-va-voom missus has been spotted trashing Johnnie Ray posters outside the Copa? What same mainstay has been sans hit record or movie for a showbiz lifetime and has a serious case of the ___ for Rocket Ray? 

Johnnie tosses the Post.

Fifteen minutes until Showtime. Johnnie Houdini the running jazz dancing escape artist holes up in his dressing room. Admit only: Sally the Pimp and Bernie the Agent. Sally the Pimp gets him the pills. Bernie the Agent gets him the gigs that make him the money he gives to Sally the Pimp who gets him the pills.

Sally gives him the pills.

“Frank Sinatra is trying to kill me”, says Johnnie. “But he’s not using mob guys. Why’s he not using mob guys?”

Rumpus Bernie is hotel lobby phone look-out extraordinaire. He says, “Maybe because the Post just printed his MO. If you take a spill off a roof and land smelling like garlic Frankie’s phone starts ringing. Forget about it. Stage now. Die later.”

Johnnie is twitchy. He can’t swallow from nerves. Bernie says, “Wash em down. Go fill this theater with bobbysoxer jizz. You got the rest of your life to run for your life. Showbiz Jesus.”

Every dressing room Johnnie is given comes stocked with whiskey and gin. Har Har. Johnnie chases pills with comp alcohol. Bernie gives him sigh time.

“Body of Christ”, says Sally.

—-

On stage: Johnnie pulling hair out and sobbing real tears and rolling around the stage and climbing the curtains clear to the ceiling like a Hindu macaque. He climbs up into the rafters and chews on the ceiling tiles and curls up in a ball next to the warm lights. From there he digs a funny little man on a stage down below who doesn’t yet know he’s a dead man and so he keeps singing.

—-

Afterward: What a show. Everybody in the cab. Sorry no pictures. Admit Johnnie and Bernie. Sally leaves early to get things ready.

People like atoms swirl around the cab. Bernie up front with the driver. Johnnie slides down the backseat leather. Off we go.

Johnnie says, “I lost my hearing aid, Bernie.”

He eyes the back of Bernie’s head in the dark.

All three jump at a sudden squealing inside the cab. Johnnie and Bernie slap at their pockets as if chasing errant flames only they can see. “Got it”, says Johnnie, and there is calm once more.

The cabbie exhales long and slow.

Johnnie resumes his study of Silhouette Bernie. Johnnie says, “Lucky for me you made those guys back at the hotel.”

Thoughts related to tempo pop into his head. He pops a pill per thought. He is the most thoughtful man in the back seat of this cab. He taps it out. Like: Bernie is in the lobby and the phone is next to Bernie and Frankie’s boys go up up up eight floors and the phone rings in my room. Tap tap tap.

It occurs to him that Bernie’s front might be as shadowy as his back. That Bernie might be all shadow. That Bernie might be turned around in the front seat facing him right now.

Thinks: Can’t trust Bernie. Showbiz Jesus.

The cab heads over the bridge to Jersey.

Make way for two goons on the stairs. Custom hotel hits our specialty. Make a hole or make way or get shoved. Stop in front of the sign with room numbers and arrows. Instructions on a page torn from Billboard. Number 3 on the chart and circled in ballpoint: Ray. In ballpoint written: 306. Here we are. Force the door and: bupkis. Let me see that. That’s a eight. 806. Make way for two goons getting on an elevator.

Room 806. Johnnie Ray in the mirror scrubbing les dents. This makes him a silk panties cry baby crooner with a lousy ear and clean teeth. He starts the year pulling thirty dollars a week in Detroit dark bars. He will end it a millionaire with five hits in the top thirty. On stage at the Copa in two hours and then it’s over the bridge for a Jersey pills and no pants shindig.

The phone rings by the bed. “Yes?”

Wrong ear. Switch it up: “Yes?”

Hears: “Just made two of Frankie’s boys.”

What phone? Legging it.

Out the door. Vibrate on the hallway carpet. Long enough to see the elevator barf out tough guys. Long enough they see him.

Hot damn it the opposite way toward the stairs. Vibrate in the stairwell. Up down up down: Up. Made man heels on carpet. Johnnie’s new vertical land speed record. Steal a glance at made men two flights down. One trips and spills his yarmulke. Not made men: Benny the knuckle popping Jew. Benny looks up. Grinning Benny pops knuckles. Legging it.

 Oh my God this building is a high bastard. Oh my God fuck the Astor. Everybody sweaty drowning no air rubber legs running up stairs.

Pigeons spy Johnnie the toothpaste foaming spastic barrel through the rooftop door and jazz dance the perimeter. They wing it on this modern arm waving crap. Tough guys enter stage right and sing a dry heave aria to men’s shoes.

The toughs draw guns.

Johnnie crab walks to the far ledge. He wobble knees it upright. Benny and friend close the gap. Johnnie’s hand hits his forehead I can’t look style.

Two hands spread toughs wide like swinging doors at the Goon Saloon:

Frankie’s here.

Frankie crosses Death Valley and pal arms Johnnie at the ledge. Frankie says, “Smile. We have an audience.” He spins Johnnie around.

Big time cocktail party ecstasy from penthouse windows across the alley. Martini fueled housewives in a scrum: Oh my god I can’t believe it panty wetting. Husbands firing off long distance flashcubes. For the scrapbook:

Frank Sinatra and Johnnie Ray Rooftop Taking the Evening Air, NYC, April 1952.

Frankie Baby waves. Johnnie spies Benny & Co. out of camera range. Benny pops knuckles. Friend of Benny cuts his throat with a finger knife.

I smashed through the door,

launched myself

into the enemy bunker,

and,

storming the latrine,

washed the day’s

bloody business

from trembling hands.

Pinned down

at the table, 

I destroyed

a relentless barrage

of meatloaf

with my fork,

The way me & Shorty

destroyed that

bloody bridge

at Coblentz.

Red Jell-o

everyhwere…

I swallowed

my screams.

[via]

Taurus hid the ammo. He killed the room lights. He sat down. He pulled his piece. He cocked the hammer. He dozed. He counted sheep. He counted Gemini’s lies.

He got to five when Aquarius kicked the door in.

Baptista!

When I find you

I will shove this butt

down your throat!

I am talking

about a gun’s butt.

[via]

Rassle him, Pa.

[via]

My wife

runs a white slave ring

on my finger

in a necktie party

of nightmare island

suburbia.

Down in the basement

dungeon den

I roll around in the shag

and slip the womanacles.

Anita Ekberg

Swede & lovely

helps me

beat the horses.

[via]

I tell you what, Gunny:

When we get out

of this foxhole,

and rotate off of Iwo,

I’m finally going to build

my dream car.

Yessir.

Get the old gang together

make a real Saturday night of it

in good old Baltimore.

Sure you can come along, Gunny!

Gunny?

You awake?

Okay.

…you just rest up, partner.

I’ll order for both of us.

[via]