epub or
mobi, with thanks to the original sharer
The crowd at Big Joe’s confirmed that bit
about madness: Clauberg had courted a perfect outcast harem. A Greek dishwasher
and janitor named Popeye helped keep the place clean, rubbing oil into the
floorboards as necessary. According to the former employee Henry Rinard, Popeye
was a short, well-muscled man with no teeth, hair, or eyebrows, prone to
mumbling to himself for hours “in gibberish not even another Greek could
understand.” Clauberg let Popeye crash on the floor at night, and in exchange,
Popeye performed additional odd jobs, like bringing Clauberg food from the
joint where he washed dishes, cutting his hair, and helping him yank a rotten tooth
from his gums using a pair of pliers. Another regular, Abbie the Agent, wore
“thick-lensed eyeglasses, smoked continuously, and was seldom sober.” An
outcast from a wealthy Connecticut family, Abbie fetched cigarettes and wine
for Clauberg, and periodically became so inebriated himself that he passed out
on the Popeye-oiled floor. (His other nickname was Horizontal Abe.) Rinard also
wrote about a guy known mostly as the Sea Captain, who wore a wool hat,
raincoat, and heavy, too-big, laceless boots, even in June. The Captain was
something of an enigma, even to Rinard: “He was either Swedish or Norwegian; he
understood English, but never spoke,” he wrote. The clientele was no less
unique. “Saturday afternoons they met at Indian Joe’s, where they thumbed
through the bins in between swigs from the bottles of muscatel that Pete
Kaufman brought along from his store, suspending their searches briefly at
three, when a man called Bob turned up with a suitcase of pornographic books.”
