URBAN URCHINS Photographs of Lindsey, Johnny & Nick by Walt Cessna NYC 11-09

POCONOS PRINCESS by Walt Cessna

Poconos Princess

By Walter Cessna



“Un-fucking believable,” Misty whispered to herself as the Greyhound bus pulled into the station.


She looked out the window and saw nothing but the fact that she was officially stuck in the middle of nowhere. As the lights went on inside the bus, her view turned into her own reflection and she was faced with her own stony expression of discontent. She took a few seconds to study herself, but wasn’t quite sure if she even liked what she saw.


Her mousy blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail and held together with a plastic tortoise shell clip that she had swiped from her mom and it looked like it. Her gray eyes were flat, dull, almost dead, but her lips were full of joy, constantly giving the impression that she was ecstatic, even if her heart was breaking. She was model thin, yet had a broad, busty chest that almost embarrassed her. She had been planning on a breast reduction since her thirteenth birthday. She sucked in her chest and blew herself a terse kiss.


Now she was eighteen and getting off a Greyhound in the Poconos. How tragic is that, she thought? She tried to spot her cousin in the crowd and not freak the fuck out. But that was impossible. She was almost in shock, not yet prepared for the reality of where her summer was to be spent. This former denizen of Manhattan’s snobby Upper East Side, had been transplanted to the Poconos in the god forsaken state of Pennsylvania. Home of the ultimate tourist trap and once referred to as the poor man’s Catskills. Only Misty wasn’t here on vacation. More like a work furlough.


While all her other friends would be spending their summer before college relishing the new found pleasures of just turning eighteen by partying their asses off, Misty would be working with her sixteen year-old cousin Kristeen at a tacky family resort in the Pocono Mountains as a waitress. This seems odd at first, especially since Misty’s parents were both wealthy and neither was afraid to show it. They displayed their riches in a vulgar, excessive way and it didn’t seem to bother them one bit.


Her dad, Herb, was a lawyer and incapable of any emotion other than the occasional stifled yawn. Her mother, Plum, worked as a fashion editor at Harper’s Bazaar, which meant she was never home and Misty was therefore free to run amok from a rather early age. She had gotten away with more shit than the typical teen-ager for years and a rude awakening was definitely coming. Which kind of explains why she was now about to spend the next three months working her ass off.


Misty had gotten fucked up on Ecstasy at her junior prom and stole her moms brand new Benz for a quick joyride with her best friend, Tar-Jay. Things were going great until they got signaled to pullover while driving down the wrong side of the street on the Lower East Side. Instead of stepping on the brake to stop, Misty put the pedal to the metal and drove right up the curb and into a group of people waiting to get into some super trendy bar.


Misty was peaking on E and could only assemble things in bits and pieces. Tar-Jay got her out of the badly damaged car and sat her down on the sidewalk along side some of her crash victims, one of whom was badly hurt. The police immediately cuffed her and the last thing she recalled was looking over her shoulder as a cop placed his jacket over one of the victim’s heads. That was when Misty fainted.


Thanks to her father’s devious lawyer skills and lack of concern for anything but his about to be ruined family name, Misty got off with a year in a juvenile home for girls and two years probation. She was released on her eighteenth birthday, a few days shy of Memorial Day, but was hardly free. The court stated she had to attend an alcohol and drug rehabilitation program for the first three months of her probation. The bad news was the rehab her parents had found for her was located about two hours outside of New York City in the Poconos. The good news was if she successfully completed the ninety days, the rest of her probation would be dropped.


She had only visited the area once before. Misty’s cousin Kristeen was born there after her parents Dhalia (Plums sister) and Ice had moved to the country from New York City. When their parents died, Dhalia and Plum were each set to inherit a rather large sum, but Plum and Herb pulled something shady and Dhalia was left with next to nothing. Unable to prove her sister and brother in law had wronged her, she left New York City to attend school at Stroudsburg University in the Poconos.


There she met her future husband Ice and they settled down in a log cabin house by Saw Creek and Dhalia completely lost track of her former city life. Kristeen was born a year later, but it wasn’t until she was ten that she met her twelve year old cousin from the city. Plum had reached out to Dhalia and was trying to rekindle the burnt out family’s embers by appearing unannounced at her doorstep with Misty in tow. Dhalia tolerated the visit long enough to “borrow” a few hundred dollars from Plum, whom realizing she would never see it back, chalked it up to her past deviousness and called it karmic payback.


Misty and Kristeen clicked immediately and forged a bond that would come in quite useful one day. That day came on Misty’s release from juvenile hall. She thought she would simply spend the next two years of her probation attending the occasional Alcoholic’s Anonymous meeting. Her parents informed her that the court had ordered her to spend her probation at a drug and alcohol rehab. They also told her, rather bluntly, that they would no longer be supporting her.


After the initial shock Misty realized that her parents didn’t really matter in her life anymore. In reality, they never had, only now she didn’t have to pretend or act like she didn’t notice. Her father bored her and her mother simply was a bore. So much had happened to her while she was in juvenile hall and they never even asked her what it was like. The only person she had been able to confide in was Tar-Jay, to whom she faithfully mailed a letter each week. She simply resigned herself to the fact that she had to make her own way in the world, but first she had to figure a way out of this rehab situation.


She desperately tried to think of a solution and asked Herb if it was mandatory that she resides at the rehab, or could she attend as an outpatient? Herb told her the court’s rules stated she must stay with a family member if not living at the rehab. That was when Misty thought of Aunt Dhalia and phoned her immediately. Dhalia answered the phone and lit one in a long line of Camel cigarettes as she listened patiently to her nieces pleas. After a bit of hesitation, Dhalia said yes on the condition that Misty got a job and earn her keep. She could probably get one with her cousin Kristeen who was already working at a resort when she wasn’t skipping school.


It didn’t take much to convince her parents. She was after-all, eighteen now and they had no control over her life. All she had to do was get through the next three months and she was home free. She had made it this far and nothing was going to stop her now. Within two weeks she had packed or sold off most of her things and kissed Plum goodbye. Herb was in court but had left a check for a hundred bucks on the refrigerator door to help Misty “get started on your new life”.


Whatever. She left the check on the fridge and instead paid for her bus ticket with money she had gotten from selling Herb’s CD collection. Misty figured it would be a nice surprise and thank you for him when he got home. Yeah, like SURPRISE ASSHOLE, FUCKING THANKS FOR NOTHING. Her second surprise was the cell phone she had gotten by pretending to be her mother. By the time Plum would notice the extra charges on her bill, Misty would have made enough money to pay her back. Hopefully. If not, she’d just deal with it when it finally came up.


The bus trip had been thankfully quiet. She had scared off any unwanted seatmates by rudely tossing her handbag onto the empty seat next to her and spent the entire trip curled up asleep. As she walked off the bus, Misty pulled out her cell and made a call that she had been waiting over a year to. It rang almost five times before the familiar voice of her best friend reverberated through the phone.


“Hell-low?”


“Tar-Jay, its Misty.”


“Shit girl, I been waiting on your call! Damn it’s good to hear your voice.”


“Tar-Jay, I am so fucked. In fact, fucked is an understatement.”


“Whas goin’ on girl? Tell Tar-Jay your troubles.”


“Gee...where should I start. How about, I’m stuck in the goddamn fucking Poconos? How about I’ve gotta spend the summer in rehab and let’s not forget my fat freak cousin Kristeen, whom I shall be attached at the hip for the entire time?”


“Chill out Misty, you are hella uptight. I thought you liked Kristeen, that she was your favorite relative?”


“Yeah, when I was twelve. I haven’t seen her since then except in the pictures she keeps e-mailing my mother who doesn’t even open them, but forwards them to me instead. “


“Stop it...”


“You stop it! Anyway, I wrote her back once and she’s bombarded me with messages ever since. I’ve never returned one of her e-mails, not one. Yet she acts as if I’m her idol. It’s weird and she kinda creeps me out.”


“Sounds to me as if she’s just got a case of cooler older cousin envy.”


“What the fuck are you talking about?” Misty said as she guided herself towards a bench outside the bus station and tried to determine if any of the rolly poly pod people surrounding her might actually be her relatives.


“Face it, you grew up in the city. Thee City. Where the fuck is she from? The Poconuts? What the fuck is the name of that town you’re cousin lives in, Bushwhack? Bushhunt?”


“Bushkill. Mother fucking Bushkill.”


“I rest my case,” Tar-Jay smickered as he put Misty temporarily on hold. When he got back on he was coughing, hacking really.


“Tar-Jay were you just smoking out?” Misty demanded as Tar-Jay continued to hack and laugh fiercely.


“Whatever, Miss Thing. You’re just jealous cause you can’t smoke anymore due to your friggin weekly piss test.”


“You are so cold Tar-Jay. Yes, I’m jonesing and it sucks not being able to get stoned, but I’ve only got three more months of good behavior to go, so don’t fuck me up.”


“Fuck you up?”


“Mentally. I’m finally getting my head into a good place and I need your support, not your spite.” There was a long, uncomfortable silence and then Tar-Jay did the right thing.


“I’m sorry, you know I’m just fucking with you. You’re my girl, you know? It’s been crazy without you. Things just ain’t the same.”

“I miss you Tar-Jay. Are you gonna come visit me?”

“Girl, you check out the scene first and let me know if the coast is clear for visitation and shit. If it’s all good, I will most certainly drag my faggot ass out to the country. Are there any cute boys there?”

“I just got off the fucking bus and all I can see are Wal-Mart wearing pod people and their ilk. Oh my God, one of them is waving at me.”


“I think your number has finally been called. Misty?”


“What,” Misty asked nervously, caving in to a sudden sadness that gripped her entire body.


“Don’t let it get to you girl. I love you, but what’s more important, love yourself. Even if it kills you. At least you’re finally away from your parents. They’re such snobs you won’t have to worry about them visiting you.”


Misty laughed at Tar-Jay’s more than true joke and looked for the right way to say goodbye as a group of four quickly approached her.


“Tar-Jay, if you don’t hear from me in one week you’ll know that I’ve been turned into a fat, K-mart clothed fat deer hunting redneck that picks up fresh road kill for dinner.”


Tar-Jay was not having it.


“Excuse me, Ms. Dramatic in Effect! You need to take a deep breath and give it a...”


Misty clicked off the phone just as her cousin Kristeen threw her arms around her in a huge bear hug. Her Aunt Dahlia and Uncle Ice joined in the love-fest and it was all Misty could do to keep from passing out. A small, skinny girl with huge, Japanimae eyes skirted the background, offering a slight smile, but no hug. Misty was finally released and realized this was the beginning of the end. Hers.


“I told you she was gonna be skinny ma.”


“I know ya did honey, I know it. Misty girl, you sure are skinny!”


Misty just looked at them in horror as she collected her bags and struggled to keep up with the conversation. Her uncle was next on the comment roster.


“Well she sure ain’t no skinny minnie up where it counts!”


“Ice!” growled Aunt Dahlia.


“Dad, you are so gross! Misty, don’t pay him any mind. My father is a confirmed pervert, but lord knows he’s never done anything improper.”


“That’s nice,” Misty replied as she noticed that the other girl was staring rather intensely at her.


“Who are you?” Misty nearly demanded, knocking the girl out of her trance and causing her to stumble backwards.


“That’s Jenna. She works with me at the resort,” answered Kristeen as she grabbed the bags from Mistys startled hands and shoved her towards Jenna.


“Hi, I’m Misty,” she said as she extended her hand towards this curious girl. But instead of taking it, Jenna grabbed Misty and brought her lips close to her ear.


“I am so fucked up on Ritalin right now.”


“Really...”


“Yes,” Jenna continued in a whisper, “I’m totally gakked. If I do anything weird will you cover me? They don’t know I’m high.”


Welcome to the Poconos, Misty thought to herself, but looked Jenna knowingly in the eye since she had been there a million times before.


“Don’t worry kid, I got your back.”


“You rock, thanks.”


And with that seemingly easy deposit of trust, Misty and Jenna got into the backseat of Ice’s bright red Jeep Wrangler. Kristeen wedged her way between them and spread into the middle of the seat like a large mass of unleavened dough. Misty looked over at Jenna who was giggling and blinking at her. Misty returned the wink and chuckled herself.


“This is going to be the best summer ever Misty,” Kristeen suddenly announced, almost as if to her-self. “I’ve got it all planned out, you’ll me amazed!”


Misty’s chuckle turned to an uncomfortable cough and she looked out the window as they drove in silence through the thick green mountains that looked like they had popped out of a fairy tale. The stars twinkling in the sky made it seem as if anything could still come true, if you believed hard enough, that is. Misty closed her eyes as Kristeen continued to babble on, drowning her out with nothing but thoughts of her own future. For the moment that was enough.


An hour later they arrived at the house. It was an old school log cabin, gorgeous and big and really rustic looking. It was for lack of a better word, idyllic. This might not be so bad, Misty thought, until she walked through the front door and was greeted with reality on a mass destruction scale. Her relatives lived like pigs. The inside of the house gave new meaning to the term shabby chic and none of the definition was positive.


Misty was instructed to room with Kristeen and they would have to share a double-bed. Misty was not thrilled with this, but Kristeen was ecstatic.


“I’ve never had anyone but Jenna stay over before and she hogs the bed!” Kristeen blurted as they entered her room. Jenna was following close behind. There was a sleeping bag unrolled on the floor with a large stuffed Tweety Bird doll tucked under it. Jenna immediately headed for it and plucked the doll up into her arms.


“Kristeen, lock your door,” Jenna said as she sat down on the floor cross-legged and began to fumble with her Tweety. Kristeen shot her a knowing look and did as asked. Kristeen took Misty by the hand and lead her over to Jenna where they joined her on the floor. Jenna had opened a slit in the back of Tweety Bird’s head and pulled out a glass pipe and a small clear plastic baggie of some sort of white substance. Misty started to grow visibly uncomfortable, but tried not to give herself away.


“What’s that?” Misty asked.


“Crank. You know, crystal,” answered Jenna.


“Like meth, crystal?”


“Yeah. Everybody up here is gakked on the shit,” cut in Kristeen. “We started smoking it a few months ago and things have been hella wild.”


“Hella whata?” Misty asked as she watched Jenna expertly fill the pipe and proceed to take a deep long toke of the foul smelling speed. She offered it to Kristeen who took a deep drag of her own, then exhaled directly in Misty’s unamused face. Misty stood up and tried to breathe away from the acrid air engulfing the other two girls. Kristeen tried to offer her the pipe, but Misty swatted it away, sending it crashing on the floor underneath the bed.


“That is so fucked up!” Jenna seethed.


“Whatever. I can’t be smoking no fucking tweek,” said Misty. “I get drug tested every week and I am not about to go to jail for breaking my probation.”


“Oh shit, I forgot. I’m sorry Misty, we just thought you’d be down and shit,” said Kristeen, sounding kind of lame. Jenna didn’t even attempt sincerity.


“That’s cool, more for me,” chuckled Jenna as she opened the baggie and sprinkled a mound of crystal on her fist then snorted it in one fitful sweep.


Misty couldn’t believe her luck. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to get high. She was desperate to. Only now she was stuck with these two crazy girls who were getting gakked right in fucking front of her. How long would she be able to resist the temptation, if at all.


Jenna finally put the pipe away, but she was acting sketchy and shit and it was bugging Misty out. Kristeen didn’t seem to be high at all. Maybe it was because of her extremely large size or she had an unbelievably high tolerance for drugs, but the girl did not seem as fucked up to Misty as Jenna did. Suddenly Aunt Dhalia breezed into the room, surprising all three girls at once.


“Misty, you have to be at the rehab by eight tomorrow morning,” Aunt Dhalia perkily announced. What kinda happy pills is this one taking, Misty thought to herself and where can I get some.


“Thanks Aunt Dhalia,” Misty politely replied. She noticed Kristeen was poking through her bags so she walked over to her and tried to nicely move them away. It was too late. Kristeen had managed to pull the one thing out of her bag that was sure to cause a storm of conversation. Her dildo. You see, Misty had gone through some interesting changes in juvi, but they were changes that would have happened no matter where she was. Misty had discovered that she liked girls.


No, she loved girls. She loved to lick them on the backs of their necks and the insides of their thighs. She like to stick her tongue down their throats and stick her fingers deep into their wet horny pussies. But Misty’s favorite sexual shtick was to fuck a girl with her big hot pink dildo while she kissed them hard and long on the lips until they both came with a completely crushing climax.


The thing was nobody knew her secret. Not even Tar-Jay. She had started fooling around with this older girl in juvi who had initially tried to screw around with her in the shower once. Misty had resisted but had discovered herself thinking more and more about the pretty butch girl. They finally connected a few weeks later and Misty pretty much became her bitch till she got out.


Now, she was bitchless and horny, but stuck in this strange hell with these two gakked out teenagers. And one of them was waving her dildo around like a god damn baton. Aunt Dhalia was not amused.

PLEASE DON'T SQUEEZE THE CHARMIN by Walt Cessna

Originally published in NY Press, 1995

Photographs by Walt Cessna



Being no stranger to the after hours club scene back in the coked out early eighties, you can imagine how intrigued I was when a friend of mine clued me into the latest wrinkle in illegal late night pleasures; after hours gambling. My friend, a "dancer" who goes by the name of Charmin, agreed to take me out to one such spot since getting in on your own can be extremely difficult. Not only are these clubs a members only affair, all the members guests have to be approved at the door (sometimes in advance).


We met for a few drinks at the Pyramid on a Sunday night where Charmin prances her fucking heart out on the stage for a measly forty bucks and I knock back a few tequila's waiting. Around three A.M. we head over to Art Bar on the west side and hook up with one of Charmin's many ex-boyfriends, Shag, whom I discover during the course of conversation is a blackjack dealer at the club we're going to next. Shag is twenty-eight but looks forty and is given to wearing badly cut, unmatched warm-up suits with a tight v-neck tee perched underneath. He has a badly trimmed, too thin mustache and wrings his hands so much you'd think water was gonna pour out of them.


Art Bar is dead (it is four A.M. on Monday morning after-all), so we smoke a quick joint and have another drink before we walk over to Sixteenth Street, somewhere smack in the middle of the block between Eighth and Ninth Avenue. Charmin pushes a lit, pink neon buzzer that says fourth floor.


"Who is it?" a curt voice croaks.


"It's Charmin. I'm with Shag, and we've got one guest."


"C'mon up sweetie."


We walk into a dimly lit, upscale but tacky lobby and proceed down a curved hall until we get into a spacious, completely mirrored elevator that takes us up to the "club". Upon entering I am consumed by a vision of late seventies/early eighties opulence run amok (a good description of the club's patrons I'll later discover). Remember the episode of Taxi where Latka rents a dee-luxe penthouse pad and all of his co-workers move in with him? This place has all the same trappings; curved, plush white furniture with chrome accents, plastic egg chairs, glass coffee tables with well thumbed copies of Architectural Digest, TV Guide and Blacktress strewn about them and silver potted gold fern trees spilling over a multitude of strangely chosen paintings and posters depicting everything from a very bad Patrick Nagel party scene to a velvet glo-in-the-dark poster of a bare chested soul momma with an afro that practically brushes the ceiling.


Nobody's here yet, and were suddenly greeted with suspicious stares from what must be the joints owners. One is a tall, skinny white dude with greasy black hair that looks like he combs it with Crisco. He has very bad, oily acne that spreads across his forehead like a streak of rotting margarine. He's dressed in a pair of Dockers with an oversized football jersey that says Washington across the front. The other guy is shorter, black, wearing a stiff white shirt, buttoned almost all the way to the neck and slim black trousers that barely conceal the bulge of his massive thigh muscles. While the other guy is almost stoned, this one seems pent up, ready to explode.


They walk over towards us from one of the three pool tables in the middle of the room and both immediately go to squeeze Charmin.


"Hey! Don't fucking squeeze the Charmin!" she wails as the two guys are forced into retreat by her manic caterwauling.


"Listen up Charmin," says the white dude. " That homey boyfriend of yours, that I didn't want to let into the club in the first place, still owes me five hundred bucks. You wouldn't by chance know where he might be?"


"Of course not! He fucked me over to. I got a case of crabs I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy! Not even you."


I'm getting uncomfortable, and have a feeling that neither of these guys is interested in making my acquaintance. They probably think I'm just another one of Charmin's fucked up friends, which is fine with me. Charmin must sense my nervousness because she grabs my hand and leads us over to the bar. As we sit down a beautiful Japanese girl with butt length, badly permed hair appears as if out of nowhere and takes our order.


As our drinks arrive, Shag comes over, climbs on top of the bar and grabs the Japanese girl in a bear hug while his legs dangle precariously by our drinks and at times, faces. Charmin bats his leg away and Shag falls off the bar and at the feet of the bartendress who gives him a good, swift kick in the ass. He climbs back over, gives Charmin a big, wet kiss, and casually strolls over to a table in the far right corner of the room from which he proceeds to set up his blackjack game. I pay attention to my drink for a minute and then sit back and get comfortable as I suck the whole scene in.


This place sure ain't no Vegas. There are no slot machines or roulette tables. No tacky tourists in bad floral prints. No entertainment. No cover charge. Not even a fuckin' attendant in the john. Instead, the place seems scaled down, almost like a clubhouse, full of assorted weird and scary characters


In the center of the room are three pool tables, each with a suspended light that resembles an alien spacecraft hanging overhead. The black guy from before was now playing a game with himself at the middle one, and doing rather well I might add. To the far right was Shag's blackjack table and to the left was what looked to be a round poker table at which the greasy white dude was sitting and placing multi-colored chips into a chip holder. Several, small round mirrored tables with pink fuzzy covered seats were oddly placed all over the room. A curved white wall with a mirror shaped like a tidal wave sits at the end of the bar, hiding a room I would have to check out later.


I slug back the last drop of my Tequila and turn to Charmin who has been steadfastly reapplying her all-ready immaculate make-up for the past ten minutes. The rouge only camouflages the truth however, for Charmin is a great example of how to age yourself in a hurry. I remember meeting her at The World when she was eighteen. She was breathtaking. Almost translucent. Now at twenty-five she still looked pretty. From a distance. Up close she resembles an almost childlike forty-year-old, desperate to conceal her coke wrinkles, alcohol lines and every fucked up blemish on her face that would require a sandblaster to do away with.


Her body was amazingly still amazing, tonight decked out in a brilliant turquoise spandex dress that barely covers her pantyless crotch. Her bright, naturally red hair is a mass of dwindling curls competing with her overdone make-up to see which will get noticed first. She watches me staring at her and smiles, then orders us another round of drinks which she pays for with a twenty pulled from one of her overstuffed bra cups. She leaves a ten-dollar tip and leads me to the first pool table where she proceeds to whip my ass for the next forty-five minutes.


As we shoot the shit and a game of pool, the place gradually fills up and each of the tables starts to become full. As I look a bit closer I notice that almost all of the players pull out large wads of cash at the beginning and end of each hand or game. It's so out in the open, it doesn't appear that this could actually be illegal. Then I notice a few Guido’s from Brooklyn playing pool with the black owner. They obviously just lost big as I notice a grand payout of ten one hundred-dollar bills begrudgingly changing hands. Those who aren't gambling are sprinkled throughout the room at the small, round mirrored tables from which I notice more than a few people bending down and snorting up lines of blow (it could be K. but I doubt it. How can you gamble when you're in a K. hole?).


"Isn't it going to look weird if I'm not gambling?" I ask Charmin.


"I never gamble! I just pick up guys. It would look weirder if I left here alone!"


Charmin breaks out laughing, then notices a short, pale white guy with jet black eyes and fuzzy, shoulder length black hair bounce into the room. He has an entourage of assorted loser types with him, the most noticeable being a once slightly big fashion model who got lost in the super diva mix and blew her career on cocaine. She's holding his hand and practically dragging herself on the floor to stop him from arriving at his destination, right in front of Charmin.


"What the fuck do you want Trent?" Charmin asks impatiently.


"I just wanted to say I'm sorry. I've got a little present for you."


"It better not be her!"


The model casually lets go of Trent as he motions her and the rest of his anxious looking crew towards the bar. Then he looks at me and, trying to be cool, I comment on his obviously brand new Comme des Garcons glitter striped suit.


"It's cool. Yeah. Who are you?" Trent asks as he looks right through me.


Suddenly, another redheaded woman who eerily resembles Marilu Henner catches my glance. I excuse myself as Trent and Charmin go off to the toilet together and go looking for "Marilu", canceled morning talk show goddess and "best friend of Burt". Upon closer inspection I realize that I must need glasses, for this lizard skinned woman is no more than a scary, dehydrated imitation. She walks over to the curved wall at the end of the bar and disappears behind it. I follow her and find myself in a small room with two pinball machines and a crap table at which two black beauties are slinging the dice as another Oriental chick, this one with a shaved head and a pierced chin, scoops them up after each toss.


"Marilu" is wearing a straw fedora with a bright pink band and has on a tight yellow tube top over her raisin like breasts. Her acid wash jeans are belted with a mans tie and stick away from her shrunken gut like a clenched paper bag. Her stick-like figure is punctuated by several, thick gold bangles that snake up each arm past the elbows, and huge gold hoop earrings that a large Parrot could perch on if it were so inclined. She motions me over and pulls a vial of coke out of her Prada bag. She lays out five, neat lines on the edge of the pinball machine next to her and we each suck up two with a rolled fifty that smells like bad perfume and has something sticky at the tip that I keep getting stuck to my nostril like a fly in shit.


I stare at her for an adrenaline charged second, transfixed by her long, cracked fingernails stroking up the last line and darting up to her red painted mouth from which a tongue, that I swear is split at both ends, slithers out and sucks away each tiny morsel it comes across on her finger tips. She grabs my surprised hand and we walk back into the room where we sit down at Shags blackjack table next to a young looking Spanish couple who keep touching each other as if they might never see one another again.


She opens up her bag and pulls out a wad of fifties at least an inch thick, wrapped in a single, threadbare rubberband. She looks over at me and smiles, revealing a mouthful of perfect, sparkling white teeth, most likely capped. "Marilu" counts out four fifty-dollar bills and throws them on the table. This is a modest bet by today's standards, when it isn't uncommon for a big time casino to allow a player to place bets in excess of $10,000 or more.


Shag eyes the lady suspiciously for the briefest second, then gingerly, deals out the cards. I notice that he's playing with four decks, just in case anyone was smart enough to keep track of the face cards that had fallen. Obviously, no one has come up with a hand of twenty-one, so the game proceeds to the next phase.


"Hit me," Marilu demands after inspecting her hand. The Spanish guy next to us asks the same and each are dealt additional cards. They are both looking down at their new hands and the Spanish guy is obviously annoyed because he looks at his girlfriend then throws down his cards in disgust. Shag looks at "Marilu", who just smiles and drops down a king, queen and an ace as she simultaneously declares 21. Shag collects the cards and doubles her money, leaving her with $400. At the same moment I notice Charmin fall out of the john with Trent in tow, and they make their way behind the mirrored tidal wave wall to do only God knows what.


I excuse myself, much to "Marilu's" dismay, and leave the blackjack table to find Charmin. It's almost eight A.M. and to tell you the truth, I've just about had my fill. The taste of cocaine dripping down my nostrils fills me with a mixed dread. One side of me want's to go for broke and get as out of it as humanly possible. The other is surveying the situation around me and not getting thrilled by the evening's onslaught of illicit propositions.


I turn the corner of the curved wall and come face to face with the sight of Charmin propped up on the pinball machine while Trent fingers her vagina with one hand as the other is cutting up a few lines. Charmin opens her eyes just as I walk into the room and motions me with a flick of her well-mascaraed lashes to wait for her outside by the bar.


I get a beer from the bar and go sit down at on one of the fuzzy pink seats where I take a long sip off my bottle. My stare fixates on two blonde girls playing pool with a large Russian looking guy in a very well tailored black suit and the shiniest shoes I've ever seen. The girls flock to him between shots and smile intensely as he lights their cigarettes and palms them hundred dollar bills for one drink. It’s now ten A.M. and the place is still hopping, a feverish mix of people from every walk of life imaginable saying fuck you to the nine to five world happening just downstairs as they drink, snort and gamble the morning away with wild abandon.


Charmin ain't showing her face, so I get up and leave the club, sailing down on the elevator in a drunken haze of incapacitated fascination. The bustle of the people on the sidewalk is annoying, but the glaring sun beating down on me even more so. I avoid eye contact with everyone on the street as I look for signs of a cab. I turn back and look at the entrance to the building I just exited and notice a swarm of blue uniformed policeman buzzing into it. After a few minutes, the occupants of the club upstairs come sauntering out, many of them lighting cigarettes and squinting from the morning suns blaze. Charmin and Trent stumble out, a smear of cocaine dripping from her nose, his fly still open from whatever they had been entangled in upstairs.


Charmin spots me and waves over in my direction. I'm still walking down the block, amazed and alarmed that the cops haven't arrested anyone. It appears that all they did was shut the place down. I ignore her and pick up my pace until I'm on the corner signaling a cab. I turn and watch Charmin and Trent flop into the backseat of a Lincoln town car and smile as they drive past me. From the back window Charmin flips me the bird as a cab finally pulls up and helps me make my exit.


Taking a final glance behind me as the cab begins to pull away from the curb I see a lot of the people are still lining the pavement, smoking, talking, laughing, bullshitting. Shag is sitting on the curb with "Marilu", the lizard lady, who is sticking her long tongue in and out of his ear as he gropes her emaciated body with stained, sweaty fingers. The owners are arguing with a cop who seems to be not pissed enough if you ask me and the two blondes are now talking to the two black beauties while all four ignore the leering advances of the Russian guy in the black suit. I close my eyes and wake up just as the cab pulls up to the Port Authority, jarring me back into the reality of those who go to bed after Late Night and thought sex, drugs and rock-n-roll were for kids.

TRY STATE Magazine #2 @ The GRACE Hotel

Come & celebrate the release of TRY STATE Magazine #2 http://www.trystatemagazine.blogspot.com
@ The GRACE Hotel 125 W 45th St. on Wednesday October 21st from 8pm-2am.
Free & Fierce fun for all.
I will be showing 10 signed prints, each the first in editions of 10, 9X12 matte. Framed, $50 each. Preview below. For more information or to order additional prints pls e-mail me at waltcsna@gmail.com

THIS IS NOT A LOVE STORY text & photos by Walt Cessna

Sally Seaschell squats on a fire hydrant outside the OTB at 54th Street and Second Avenue, clumsily rolling her second fat joint of the day. The first one, smoked immediately upon waking, was two hours ago. As she grows increasingly impatient waiting for her Uncle Morty to show up, Sally decides to kill time by numbing the few brain cells left in her fierce yet fragile looking body.


“Hey Sammy, you gots some papers?” Sally calls out to the pizza delivery boy from Ray’s next door.


“No baby, but you’se got some pussy for me?” Sally licks the glue on her E-Z Wider Ultra Lite and stares the young dude down.


“Why don’t you go suck your own dick, you stupid-ass motherfucka!” Sally bursts out laughing and proceeds to take a deep drag on the joint. As she blows the smoke out into the chilly December air, the shadow of a large man engulfs her petite frame. As if in slow motion, a hand reaches out and grabs the joint out of Sally’s fingers.


“Couldn’t wait for me, huh?” He raises it to his lips and takes a long toke. He is about 50 years old but looks 70. His hair sticks up in three directions and is colored fright-white. A large beer belly protrudes over a straining red-leather belt buckle hooked into its last hole. Tacky plaid pants race down his legs stopping short at a spanking brand-new pair of white leather Belgian loafers (a stoned purchase after a good day at the track).


“Sorry Uncle Morty, but that’s life. Now could you quit bogarting the joint?” Sally slaps her uncle on the ass and makes her way into the now open OTB. “Get yer ass in here, ya old fart. You owe me 250 bucks from yesterday, and with your luck I could be here all fuckin’ day!”


Sally and her Uncle Morty spend the winters doing the OTB scene until the spring, when he runs a pretzel stand at Aqueduct Raceway. Sally had dropped out of school and started dating a small-time dope dealer. After spending three months doing nothing but getting high and arguing with her mother, Sally decided to take her summer pretzel-selling job and make it her daily grind. Uncle Morty was thrilled to discover that his niece was not only a good worker but a pot-hound as well. Sally thought she had hidden her habit, but one day, as she took a drag behind the stand, Uncle Morty surprised her and demanded she hand over the joint. To her chagrin, he proceeded to smoke the whole thing. From then on, the two of them have steadfastly split their time between selling snacks and sneaking tokes.


Sally is on line at window C waiting to put down $50 on Tenderfoot, a favorite in the first race of the day. Uncle Morty watches yesterday’s returns on the TelePrompTer while sizing up a way-out-of-his league blonde with a visibly snotty disposition. Sally stands out in the crowd. Except for the few true horseracing aficionados, the majority of the crowd is made up of over-40 losers in varying degrees of physical and mental disarray.


Standing 5 feet 7 inches with severely dyed blonde hair usually parted down the middle and worn in pigtails, Sally has the unusual habit of wearing her pretzel-stand uniform even when off-duty. The uniform, day-glow blue piped in chrome yellow, resembles a 60’s airline hostess outfit that seems to be saying, “…coffee, tea or me?” Over it she wears a suede coat with a huge fake fur collar that she bought at Domsey’s Vintage Warehouse. Her mother hated that she wore vintage clothing, saying it made people think the family was too poor to go out and buy a new coat at J.C. Penney. Sally wouldn’t touch anything from J.C. Penney with a twelve ft. pole.


She is constantly reapplying frosted pink lipstick, purchased weekly at Woolworth’s, three tubes at a time for about five bucks. “Give me fifty on Tenderfoot to place in the first,” Sally says, as she pulls out a lipstick and starts smearing it all over her lips, occasionally pausing to catch her reflection in the window in front of her. Grabbing her ticket, Sally winds at the teller and slowly spins toward Uncle Morty. Unfortunately, Morty is standing next to the Bain of her existence; her cousin and ex-true love Skip.


“Wha’s up baby?” Skip says, as he reaches out to envelop Sally in a big bear hug. “Nothing but the usual shit,” Sally answers, struggling to escape his grip.


As a teen, Skip was a complete and utter outsider—fat, nerdy, often beat up before, during and after class. When he couldn’t take it anymore, Skip transformed himself into a lean, mean machine with a little help from the local gym and the willpower to avoid Twinkies. Skip’s nose was broken four times in high school, but instead of disfiguring him, it made him look like an eccentric character from Greek or Roman mythology. He balances his big frame with an effortless grace and gives off an air of sullen sexuality.


Sally was in love with him and considered him visual masturbation. The cousins had a brief affair on her Sweet Sixteenth birthday. Skip had begged her to fuck him, and Sally had been doing a pretty good job resisting, until he inevitably said “…but I love you.” Sally, thinking she might not hear those sacred words again and desperate for love, any love, succumbed to his pressing advances and had the worst deflowering in the history of sex. Skip came too soon and Sally didn’t even come close to a climax at all. Afterward Skip rolled off of her, got dressed and walked out of her life for the next year. This is the first time she’s seen him since then and to make matters worse he’s just gotten married to her ex-best friend Nikki!


“Where is she?” Sally asks Skip as she re-applies her lipstick for the two hundred and second time that day.


“She’s at the bank machine,” Skip answers.


“Typical, I didn’t think you’d be spending your own money!”


“It’s just a loan, bitch! I always pay her back!” Skip’s face is getting redder as his fists quickly grow white. He storms away from Sally who is still screaming at him and his steps turn to leaps.


“How you payin’ her back fucker? Like you paid me back? With a $300 trip all alone to the abortion clinic? You wouldn’t even take my fucking phone calls and I had to borrow the money from my best friend’s mother, who is now your mother-in-law! I fuckin’ hate you Skip!” Sally starts to cry and as the tears roll down her face, all she can do is shake and hope to God that lightning strikes him dead one day, but even that isn’t good enough.


Skip walks outside and finds his bride Nikki waiting for him at Ray’s. She’s eating a slice dripping with grease lubricated mushrooms and devours it as if each bite might be her last.


“Hi, baby!” Nikki eagerly offers as she kisses Skip hard on the mouth, leaving them both with pizza stained smiles.


“Did you get the money?” Skip asks suddenly, the smile on his face turning to a look of concern.


“Boy, do you have a one-track mind! Yes, I got the money. My last hundred dollars! You better not screw us up, Skip!” Nikki has finished her pizza and is wiping her mouth clean when she notices Skip going through her purse.


“Can’t you even wait for me to give it to you? How greedy are you?”


“Baby, there’s a sure horse in the second and I’ve only got five minutes to place my bet.” Skip holds Nikki’s hands now and stares her straight in the eye. “If I win, I promise we’ll do whatever you want and have the day all to ourselves. No betting, no nothin!”


“No coke?” Nikki starts to tremble slightly, but continues her questioning.

“Are you gonna go get high if you win? I don’t want you goin’ down to Avenue C and coppin’ no fuckin’ crack again! Cause if you do it’s over, I can’t take this shit anymore!”

“Listen baby, I promise you on the holy fucking Bible, nothing will ever come between you and me again. No horses, no coke, no nothin’!” As he finishes his sentence Skip grabs Nikki and holds her in a long embrace. He then pulls the five crisp $20 bills out of her purse along with her bankcard. “I’ll be back honey, just sit here and wait.”


Sally stands in front of the TelePrompTer nervously cheering on the horse she and Uncle Morty just bet on, when Skip walks back into the OTB.


“You chilled out yet, baby?” Skip is stroking Sally under the chin and crumples the five twenties in his sweaty palms.


“I’ll be chilled out when you get the fuck our of my face.” Sally replies, but Skip is already out of earshot and placing his bet. Sally follows him to the ticket window and taps him on the shoulder.


“Why are you here?” Sally is in Skip’s face and squeezes his arm so tight it leaves fingerprints in his skin. “You know, I loved you and you had to go and fuck it all up!”


“Listen, I came here today to say I’m sorry, not to mess with your head. Anyway, you’ll be seeing a lot more of me from now on ‘cause I owe the boys up on Broadway too much money,” Skip says as he pulls his arm free from Sally’s viselike grip. “Listen, if my horse comes in, I’m gonna give it all up for you, baby! I swear! No more betting, no more horses! No more fuckin’ nothin’!”


Sally knows better than to fall for that bullshit line again, but something about Skip’s beautiful blue eyes forces her to temporarily lose her senses. She falls into his arms as he gives her a deep and somewhat meaningful kiss. Sally clutches Skip as if in fear for her life. As the race begins, a crowd circles around the TelePrompTer. After a few minutes of heart-pounding excitement, Skip’s horse comes in first, but Sally and him are kissing so hard they don’t even realize the good news ‘til they come up for air.


“We won baby!” Skip dances around Sally and then lifts her up in the air. A crotchety old man in a beat-up blue corduroy coat mumbles “fuckin’ kids” as he tries to get out of their way, but Skip puts Sally down square on his foot.


“Get offa’ my foot ya fuckin’ kid,” he yells, but Sally and Skip are already rushing out the door and right into Nikki.


“What the fuck are you two doing?” Nikki is pissed and Skip is obviously shagged. Caught with the goods. In the doghouse. Dead on arrival.


“Listen Nikki, I just ran into her, I didn’t know she was gonna be here.”

“My bleedin’ ass you didn’t. You’ve been dying to get back in her pants ever since we got married!” Nikki is much smaller than Sally but her diminutive size doesn’t keep her from getting smack up in the other girl’s face. “He’s mine now, bitch, not yours. So move your tired, tacky ass along before I have to kick it straight across the motha-fuckin’ street!”


“You know what Nikki? You’re paranoid, and he’s not even worth it!” Sally spins around and heads back into the OTB toward Uncle Morty, who is busy with his bookie placing a side bet on the fifth race and motions her away. Tears start welling up in her eyes. All she wants to do is get away from there, but as she sinks her hands into her pockets to pull out her weed stash, she strangely comes up empty-handed. Digging deeper, she also realizes her wallet is gone.


“Shit!” She thinks. Maybe she dropped it by the ticket windows, but when she goes back to look, it’s nowhere to be found. Then she realizes where both the pot and the money have gone. Straight into Skip’s scum-sucking hands when he was bear hugging her, telling her how sorry he was.


She races out of the OTB, but Skip and Nikki are long gone. Sally pulls out the one thing left in her pocket, the pink frosted lipstick. She sits down on the fire hydrant where she started her day and for the next five minutes applies coat after coat of pink frost to her already frosted for the rest of eternity lips. She looks down on the street and spies the roach from her morning joint lying in the filthy gutter. Oblivious to the grotesque grit that lines Second Avenue, Sally lifts it to her mouth and pulls a purple Bic lighter out of her pretzel uniform.


“Fuck it!” she says as she lights the roach and takes a deep toke. A chill race’s down her spine and a heavy sigh seeps from her throat. Getting up she pulls down the hem of her impossibly short dress and stares down the block in search of Skip, Nikki, somebody. Anybody.


“Yo, baby! I’m still waiting for some of that pussy!” It’s the delivery boy from Ray’s again, only this time Sally doesn’t curse him out. Instead she smiles and whispers “thanks” as she heads back into the OTB to get Uncle Morty to drive her home. The thought of another day like today doesn’t hit her until she catches Morty’s eye and he gives her a lascivious stare. For some fucked up reason, it all seemed perfectly normal and for Sally Seaschell, that was enough.

The PASSION of MY dis-CHRIST...photo by walt cessna FL 05

WILL photographed by Walt Cessna NYC 09