Alice’s show at Club 57 was a success thanks to Tom Scully and his bony evil girlfriend, as the first performers their high school drama shows with the same lack of talent, but accompanied by twisted reworkings of old dramatic ghost. None of the troupe, not even Alice has asked me to perform, even though I have scores of badly-written poems in my journals. Susan considered me a ‘drunken bully’.
The audience applauded the singers and I sat at the bar with Alex, a recent Polish Emigre and co-manager of the club and the bartender. Josef looked at the stage and laughed, “America is the best. Freedom like this you do not get in Poland.”
I downed two bourbons before the second act. They hit me hard on an empty stomach. I had no money and hadn’t eaten anything all day. I leaned into the bar and glimmered into a time warp away from the present, the fags and punks, who proudly see themselves as the true culture of America. I agree with them. I hate the suburbs. I barely noticed the second act. Alice glowered at me. She hates my drinking. At least I don’t pass out everywhere like a hillbilly Girl Scout. Not that it matters to me as long as she gets home safe.
The second act must have good. People were requesting an encore. Despite our rejection of Capitalism and Church and all our hometown beliefs, everyone in Club 57 dreams to be a star and a STAR in big letters performing before thousands.
I needed air. A holocaust was brewing in my head. I staggered through the crowd, remembering the date.
November 10.
Forty years ago the Nazis persecuted the German Jews, as the police watched the carnage by the stormtroopers.
Kristellnacht or Crystal Night.
“Never again.” could happen anywhere in the world against the Jews or any race or tribe. No one at Club 57 cared about the past other than those they were trying to escape and they rejected any history, unless it the study of theater or movies. Lance Loud from the Mumps stood at the door. I love this band. He grabbed me and said, “Isn’t her great?”
He meant my friend Klaus who was signing an aria.
“Yes, he’s more than great.”
Outside I sat on the steps and at the end of the show watched the happy crowd stream from the basement club to other bars around the East Village. I had no one and lit a joint to enter the void alone. Explorers always relish desolation, even sexual adventurers.
LATER
Never again. The Jews reject any forgiveness of the Germans, but drive Mercedes-Benz, while persecute the Palestinians thousand of years after their living in the Levant. The Nazis are old men in their sixties, having failed their mission seek to create a new generation of followers through the skinheads, KKK, and right-wing fanatics.