the dance floor erupted into a pornographic American Bandstand

 

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In the dining room, Roylene had pushed a table to one side and lined it with liquor. A girl wearing men's pin-striped trousers and a matching man's vest with no shirt but a push-up bra supporting impressive breasts, sat apart from the rest, eyeing me.

“You dance?” she asked finally.

“Not well,” I responded.

Coco and the others giggled. Coco explained that the girl wanted to know if I was a stripper. A former exotic dancer herself, Roylene had invited some cronies to perform at her house for a percentage of their tips. This led them into whispered obscene chatter - interrupted by howls of laughter - about how white girls called a man's penis his “cock.” To them, Coco said, cock meant “pussy.”

The pretty girl in the man's vest now slithered into a corner, where she began to strip, pelvis gently undulating for the benefit of a frail old man in a baseball cap and a younger man wearing a cowboy hat. The one in the cowboy hat stuck some bills in her waistband. As we left, a woman in a red leather bra and a painted-on black leather skirt poured herself a drink at the table, singing to herself in a bluesy voice about how she was just a victim of the ghetto, headed nowhere.

“Sing it, Beverly!” Roylene cried.

“I am singing it.” The woman lifted her glass. “'Cause I sure as hell ain't goin' fuckin' nowhere.”

The juke box was playing something by Fats Domino. It stank.

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Filene had discovered sex as it should be discovered, and had found it was not as frightening as she had believed. After Cheech had disappeared she took up with Tarzan, and when Tarzan contracted a serious case of breaking and entering, she moved on to a blonde boy named Speed, who had come from Pittsburgh and knew all sorts of new ways to dance, and have fun in the bushes. She was arrested for indecent exposure in Central Park with Speed and her mother and father beat her severely, and she left home. She took thirty-five dollars from her mother's purse and got as far as she could on a bus. When her money ran out, she worked for a time as a waitress in a roadside diner, until she had enough money to get to an Aunt's home in Boise, Idaho. The Aunt tried to send her back, but Filene would not go, and the family said they did not want her back. Six months later Filene met a young man who sold health insurance, and they were married the following June. Her picture in bridal veil was run in The Idaho Statesman. She clipped the picture and sent it to her parents, with the words drop DEAD scrawled across the face in red marking crayon.

“I’d rather be blind than to see some of the things I have seen.”

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Many psychologists and psychiatrists have interviewed, examined and tested Harold. While they disagree on the causative factors in his case, all are in accord on the diagnosis of psychopathic personality. One psychiatrist, questioning him closely on his sex habits, obtained an admission of masturbation and sexual relations with girls in the neighborhood. On his arrival in the institution where the writer made his acquaintance, the psychiatric initial summary revealed: “… a recidivist whose attitude toward officials and fellows is poor … During interview he presents the picture of a sullen, resentful, weak-willed, gullible, fidgety youth … enjoys using the language of the underworld and frequently lapses into gangland lingo when describing his escapades … Prognosis for institutional adjustment and rehabilitation is guarded.”

I never liked to go to church. When I was at St. A—— School they made us go to church in the mornings and in the afternoons. Many times I said I was going to church but didn’t go. One time my father saw me out in the street when I was supposed to be in church and when I got home he gave me a beating. The sisters used to assign lessons and if you didn’t have them done you would get whipped in the hand, and they forced you to kneel before a statue of the Virgin, in the dirt. I remember the priest used to have a crooked cane. One time he got a fellow with the cane around the neck and drew him close and then beat him up bad. My mother and grandmother and sister used to make me go to church even though I hated it. I told my mother that it was all a bunch of lies ...

"I'll be d----- if I ever allow another comic book in the house!"

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A small boy who had made ample use of the reading and entertainment we provide so plentifully for children was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up. His instant reply was enthusiastic: "I want to be a sex maniac!" ... At sessions of the Hookey Club, when there were only adolescent boys present, discussions about comic books were pretty outspoken. One boy discussed Crimes by Women. "There is one that is sexy! Her legs are showing above her knees and her headlights are showing plenty!" ... a fourteen year old girl stated that "she didn't like comic books because her boy friend read them all the time and tried to make love to her as he imagined Superman would do it and she didn't like that at all." ... A typical comic-book drawing shows a blonde young girl lying in bed. She says: "Then I was dreaming, of murder and morphine." ... Comic-book stories teach violence, the advertisements provide the weapons. The stories instill a wish to be a superman, the advertisements promise to supply the means for becoming one. Comic-book heroines have super-figures; the comic-book advertisements promise to develop them. The stories display the wounds; the advertisements supply the knives. The stories feature scantily clad girls; the advertisements outfit peeping Toms.

snapping his fingers in time to the wild beat of the jazz band

 

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He went on and on, talking about the half-woman half-baby inside, Lola the monkey-faced girl, and all the rest of them. “Okay now, here’s the prices. For adults, it’s just fifty cents, that’s half a dollar, the splittin’ of a buck! You can go in now, stay as long as you want, come out when you’re ready. For kids, it’s twenty-five cents and…

“Gus, Gus hold up sellin’ any more of those fifty cent tickets, hold it up Gus! Okay now! It’s bargain day at Coney Island. For the next two minutes, whoever gets over to Gus and gives him a quarter, that’s just twenty-five cents, gets in for kiddies’ prices. No matter how old you are it’s just a quarter.” There was a dash and a clogging, and Gus was swamped. Dozens of people fell for the carny dodge and put down their quarter … which was the regular admission price.

On the stage, a dingy podium-affair at the rear of the canvas tent, a group of unhappy looking people sat in straight-back chairs. The monkey-faced girl, Lola, was dressed in a pair of Arabian pantaloons, of some substance intended to imitate muslin. She wore a halter, and she was knitting. Her face was that of an orangutan. Round, prognathous jaw, beady inset eyes, and hair completely covering her skin. She was a creature who had happened to be born resembling an ape, and rather than marriage and a home, this was her life.

She rubbed up against him, and began to moan low and throaty. “Ohh, Honey,” she whispered, close to him, pressing her body against his, “c’mon back here for a minute, before we go up. I think my roommate’s still awake.”

She kept rubbing, and he hesitated only a moment as he followed her insistent dragging. They moved back toward the underside of the stairway. “Your roommate?” he said in confusion, following her mostly because she was a girl in heat and she was dragging him, “You didn’t mention any roo—”

Hugo came out from the under-stair, the tire chain wrapped around his hand. The chain caught the man just across the right cheekbone, laying it wetly bare, to the bone. He was only able to drop a half-moan from his mouth before it filled with blood, and he dropped heavily to the tile of the hallway. His splintered face gleamed up faintly in the reflected light from the block party outside.

“Drag him!” Theresa snapped, kicking against the man’s legs.