Tadeusz Mikloski grew up in the cultural cocoon of the Polish Immigrant community in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. He always unquestionably resisted assimilation into the majority American mainstream. That was paramount to his existence. Then suddenly questions started to pop. But how long could self control last?
******
A thirty something year old in the mid 1970’s, Tadeusz was about five foot nine, thin and sported a closely shaved crew cut. The hairstyle, along with angular facial features of pure polish ancestry accentuated his bulging grey eyes. But that, in itself, has little or no culpability for his current situation. Tadeusz projected “a totality of odd”, and his physicality just enhanced his self directed negative trajectory in life. But how to overcome these thirty years? It would be difficult, but not impossible.
However............
The following uniquely sustainable and verifiable Tadeuszian characteristics that support this “totality of odd” barrier thesis are hereby presented for your consideration:
Tadeusz appeared to others as if he stepped out of a black and white late 1940’s-early 1950’s film. For his part, he unknowingly was cast in this film noir with directors notes to Tadeusz that portrayed New York City with danger at every turn. Untrusting, evil and heartless; an environment about to pounce without notice on Tadeusz.
His entire out of sync essence portrayed a character whose scenes were finalized with a few film frames per second edited out. All this describes the projecting of Tadeusz to others with a jerky, but subtle out of kilter movement within the universe.
In addition, Tadeusz’s speech pattern, though not an accent, had a halting hesitancy characteristic of the immigrant experience and its struggle with English as a second language. Thus making him appear out of sync with every breath. His speech pattern was congruent with his film noir jerky cinema image.
Tadeusz, the method actor in a role of his lifetime. Assimilating the directors notes and his natural heavy baggage, his late start along with his determination added to the mix.
******
Tadeusz felt aggrieved and total resentment every day he commuted on the subway to his low level dead end clerical job. The stately Art Deco building on Park Avenue South at East 25th Street in Manhattan is where Tadeusz worked on the fiftieth floor. He believed that it was a giant American monster which unmercifully swallowed him for eight hours every day.
One cold and dark winter evening, Tadeusz was ordered to stay late and help with an important all hands company project. As he was the last to leave work, close to midnight, he encountered a circumstance beyond his control.
Back in the 1970’s, when the office workforce left via subway and the daytime merchant businesses closed, the streets quickly belonged to the night crawlers who slept in the daytime. This metamorphic wave of pedestrian change spread downtown as well as uptown. A menace waiting to envelop someone like Tadeusz.
Park Avenue South in the area of the 24x7x365 Bellmore Cafeteria was the late night/early morning roytish epicenter for zombie taxi drivers, all types of prostitutes and heroin sheik punk rockers. This amalgam magnetically drawn from all over the world also claimed diverse groups including talented young new wave artists, the mentally ill, alcoholics, the homeless, the drug addicted and the sexually perverted. And last but not least, were the lonely, socially unacceptable, desperate and sexually starved dregs of manhood.
Imagine the sailor in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now; tripping on LSD while navigating the Nung River towards Marlon Brando’s Colonel Kurtz. That’s how Tadeusz felt his first time after dark in the colorfully pastel, yet harshly neon washed flashing environs of feculent Park Avenue South night time decadence. That, along with his agape awe resembling a childish Disneyland wonderment, led to Tadeusz’s first adventure outside his own tightly self defined world. Everything appeared to be aligned for this eventful happening.
But it wasn’t too late, Tadeusz could have made a direct line for the subway while employing his usual self imposed mental blinders, but, tonight, he chose not to. Determination.
This seminal trek was now definitely voluntary. Self defiant, an emotion that he had fought but never experienced, took control. All this thanks to a confluence of circumstance, timing and random event.
******
As Tadeusz stood on a curb waiting for the traffic light to change, he was approached by a skanktrous ghostly white female prostitute just barely out of her teens. “You see that man over there, he wants me to blow you, and he’s gonna pay, you OK with that”? she said while pointing out a shadowy figure in the service alley of an office building.
With her overpowering cheap perfume, shiny wet pink neon lipstick, hot pants and ample cleavage making his pulse race, his mouth dry and his undies tight, Tadeusz decided to take the next step. He was distracted and not concerned about how the financials of this situation worked.
“Only thing is, he wants the used condom when we’re done, that’s the deal, OK?” She then finished with, “He’s gonna let us use his car”.
The hooker immediately took Tadeusz’s arm and led him to an old Buick where in the ratty back seat they comfortably settled. Amongst crushed KFC boxes, empty soda cans and half eaten chicken bones, Tadeusz felt her cold hands searching his warm groin. Once she found his throbbing pinga, he was orally sodomized for the first time in his life. He moaned and groaned as his ears became hot with her lips undulating and her tongue swirling.
The hooker also separately stuck at least four of her fingers deeply up his anal cavity during the oral copulation act. Each cold fingered thrust sent a shock wave of pleasure measured with a bit of pain, up his spine. He loved it. Tadeusz copiously ejaculated in only three minutes.
******
She left Tadeusz in a glow of ecstasy and returned the used condom to the shadowy benefactor who nervously and quickly took it from her and proceeded to drink every drop of Tadeusz’s juice of life. He carefully rolled up and placed the used condom in his pocket. The man then began the meticulous process of licking her fecal stained and smelly fingers. Luckily for him, Tadeusz had a package eagerly awaiting anal evacuation which left plenty more in her long fingernails for his consumption.
For her cooperation, he gave her a generous tip. “ I’ll see you next week”, she said as she stuffed the money in a clip under her large wig and walked away looking for her next trick.
The man then started for his car and noticed Tadeusz. His head back and eyes closed, moaning and still in the back seat. Feeling the role of benefactor, the man got into the backseat. Tadeusz turned his head and the man stuck out his hand, “Hi, I’m Hyman Rothman, did Lou Anne do a good job?”
******
Hyman Rothman was about the same age, height and weight as Tadeusz. He was in need of a haircut and a shave wearing jeans, a surplus army jacket, a New York Jets shirt and dirty sneakers.
Hyman hailed from Elmhurst, Queens, New York; still living with his mother in his childhood home. A graduate of Newtown High School, he worked part time at the Carvel Ice Cream store in nearby Jackson Heights.
Knowing he was different, Hyman got his “perv-erbale” start by becoming a Peeping Tom at the age of ten. For Christmas that year, Santa gave him a pair of binoculars. Hyman fondly remembers his childhood and how he secretly developed his Peeping Tom techniques and ways of avoiding capture.
Hyman recently began to frequent Lefrak City (a large apartment complex in Queens). There he and others began watching a group of men put on a very late night/early morning weekend “show”. They did skits in female costumes from their sixth floor large picture window. All the time dancing and loving it, these “actors”, knew people on the street were watching them perform. It soon became Must See TV (TV meaning transvestites) for the assorted miscreants and other curious onlookers they drew to the show by word of mouth.
Anyway.............
Hyman grew into adulthood avoiding human contact and living vicariously while observing others as a successful Peeping Tom. Sex was not an option for him except for his uncontrollable nocturnal emissions. He was kind of creepy looking anyway, but unintentionally blended into the passing parade. No attention given because he was thought of as a person of no import.
As the sexual revolution progressed, his observation people (along with the Lefrak City thespians) evolved and expanded to other areas of sexuality, and so did he. The frequent visits to the Adult Book store in Long Island City were now not enough. He needed more. This explains his weekly Park Avenue South excursions, graduating up to the search for more conduits of exciting hetrosexual/homosexual/transsexual/peeping tom erotica.
Where else to discover new horizons than downtown New York City?
After all, he did subscribe to The Village Voice, as well as The East Village Other. Two publications that catered to the sub-culture of the Mecca of Muck.
******
Within weeks of their first encounter, Tadeusz and Hyman spent plenty of time developing new plans to satisfy their adventurous natures. Tadeusz would physically experience most of the scenarios and an anxious Hyman, would excitedly and joyfully watch at a safe distance and reap the remaining artifacts from the encounters. Most of these excursions involved a third party who unknowingly participated, unaware of his or her full contribution. But that was open to change.
Hyman took on the mentor role, while Tadeusz was the eager and talented student. Tadeusz realized the freedom of his new American Wet Dream. Hyman’s isolated and disdained lifestyle existence was now justified by their meeting of the minds.
Tadeusz and Hyman: two losers that find each other in the dregs of humanity and are destined to become best buds....
Only in New York! or should that be Only in New York?
End
Frankie Rembly observed the transition of his city from its past wild days to the present sterile bubble that is now New York City. Insights from over twenty years as a NYC Police Officer offer a rather unique view. Frankie Rembly is on Facebook.