9th Ave has changed so much! It is a hot spot to be, not the frightening dark place it used to feel like; and there are more buildings now??? Anyway(sss)...
We stopped in the Salloon to see his friend bar tending. This is one of the spots Ken would go with his friend for their happy hour drinks. While there I realized that was the spot where I met up with the boy that I made out with on my birthday at Monster; who lived with his grandma in Queens and had the super straight pubes. That booth in the back was where we met up to go at it again. What is it with me and public making out? Those were the days.
I've always picked them young. I've been teased about it for years. I think my favorite was when I first started working at Cafe Mozart on 96 and Columbus, it was a very interesting restaurant. It was Mafia run for sure, super sexy owners and managers with thick accents and thighs and eyelashes and lips for days. The most dreamy men. But they needed people on the books, you know, who payed taxes..by the end of my first week I was made a manager and we just had too much fun! We were a crazy group of kids who LOVED to party and that is what we did. I made my best club connections there; we were on many guest lists to the clubs so we didn't have to wait in the long lines.
One day, I was slicing a piece of cheese cake when the general manager, so damn hot, told me I would be training a new barista. Funny story, when I first started working there the way they made espresso drinks was the most frightening and uncivil way to respect the beverage. There was a hose from the machine that was placed in a gallon jug and you turned the knob and it would 'froth ' the milk but it just looked like how my milk would look when I would use my straw and fill it with big bubbles. I could not take it. This is New York City right? We should be serving the best, not the worst espresso. Since I had such great training from the first espresso machine Astoria ever had at the Columbian cafe, I trained everyone how to do it right. All it took was for me to make one for the owner and let him taste my milky goodness in his mouth. He was mine!!
So, my new barista arrived and I had to sit down for a second because he was the most gorgeous creature I had ever seen; he turned me on in ways I had never known. His English was pretty good, he learned it all from Madonna. Seriously, he knew all of her songs by heart and at the end of his first shift after spending hours looking into his huge gorgeous eyes that were hedged with the most luscious lashes and sharing multiple cigarettes, he started singing Madonna to me while we closed and I knew I was his.
He came home with me that night. My rule had always been to hook up on the first night so at least I would get laid before the person realized how big a freak I was and ran the other way. My room situation was interesting because I shared it with another fella and it was divided by a simple curtain of faux red velvet, not the best for sound control. I had a boom box and Madonna, it's all good. This is New York City right? ( it was our catch phrase for like 6 months or a year). So we are on my half of the room, my bed was a piece of 2 inch foam I had gotten on a dumpster diving adventure, it was how we furnished the place, until I got my first credit card and then it was all 1-800-MATTRESS!! But for this dream boat of a young man, it was the foam pad on the floor.
We started with him doing the whole erotica album while we chain smoked and made out and then we got it on. His words made my mind numb, his eyes had me so gagaed out and his body.. And then he finished and rolled off to sleep and left me to fend for myself. I hate that. Help a dude out man. He WAS 18, I could teach him. Our pattern was like this: work, home, sing, sex and sleep. And party party party. After about a month, I finally got him to let me go to his place on the upper west side.
He lived with this old woman, Claudette Beatrice Bernadette Shutthedoor, who rented the place and then rented her rooms out to people for high rent. The place was frightening! And I've seen some scary places in my time, but this was the absolute worst place I had ever been and I found it fascinating.
Her living room was at one time nice, same furniture for like 20 years, never moved. I could tell by the mound of dirt and cigarette ash that surrounded everything, including the TV trays. She had huge ashtrays on each arm of her chair and she only drank rum out of the little individual bottles which were over the entire surface of the what I could only hope was carpet.
The kitchen, I can't even relive that moment. I throw up just thinking of the nasty smell of the fridge. Cockroaches not even hiding, they were hanging out watching us make out over a pile of pizza boxes and take out menus.
His room was worse. He slept on a single camping cot and had mounds of clothes and garbage every where; I now understand why he always wants to stay with me. The only good part was that he introduced me to his favors singer from Israel, Rita. Amazing voice and he translated while she sang and it made me so horney. That bed. I already had weight issues and I felt like the two of us on there were going to break it, the cockroaches would have a good laugh for sure. As I am getting ready to do a perfect 10 dismount, he stops me by grabbing my gut and telling me I need to get rid of this for him.
Well, I never.. Actually, I always... Thank goodness for Coke. That got the weight off fast and I got so much done and just partied partied partied. It kept him around for awhile. At like 4 months I find out that even though he had been living with me because I couldn't stand him being there with that frightening woman; he had 4 other guys he was fucking, excuse me? Yeah, I do t play like that. He loved the convenience of me and all the fun we had, but he wanted to be with other men too. He was just sleeping his way to fame. Bitch get off my pole.
I gave him an ultimatum which he didn't hold to and came back to find all his shit in plastic garbage bags outside the door with the deadbolt latched so he couldn't get in. It took all my strength to resist his pleas and batting eyes, but I was strong and sent him packing and fired his ass too. They always say,'don't shit where you eat' true true.
As frustrating as it was, he really was such a fun moment in my wheel of time.
Why do the negative words and actions linger longer than the positive ones? What is it easier to hold on to 'you should really get rid of that' instead of 'you have the most beautiful hair'? Why do I give my power away to be accepted? Why do I choose not to react? I think I got so used to being beaten down that to find the path to my own being has made me very afraid. And so I do things like make it bigger, not my gut, my personality and I lift my rib cage higher and I assume the gait of confidence and grace but always on guard for the comment to make me shrink. That shell keeping me protected but also separate from my true being and my true feelings.
I like to think I'm smarter now; in many ways I am. But that fear still follows me around no matter how strong and connected I become to myself, it still picks at me just under the surface, I choose to look at it as encouragement to keep going. I work hard each and every day to make my fear my friend and most days we go to bed in each other's arms and other days it's like a parking boot has been attached to my gut and everyone knows what that means...
These memories are always such great tools; reminders to not hold on, but to go free without a care in the world as to what anyone thinks. I like that they all make me laugh, I see no shame in any of it and THAT is a good thing for sure. I recognize that I need to get over myself before I can see the beauty and vastness of the skies beyond my borders and I am so excited to venture on and see where I land..
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