"UNCONVENTIONAL LIVES"

The Hudson River, the dock strip and the World Trade Center in the dead of night, years before today's transformation.  It was a windswept wild dream scape.  All the displaced and misplaced dreamers and seekers ended up here in this once living breathing film noir set.  All acting out their unconventional  lives.

Unconventional lives, that would be the only way to describe my clandestine life in New York City, and all the characters around me, back in the early 90's. There was a definite method to the madness back then, I just never saw it until now.  We were all forced into those unconventional lives that we led.  Estranged or abandoned by family, and or from any semblance of a normal nurturing family life, we all became searchers and seekers out of sheer necessity.  When one is really on their own, in this wild, wild world, you are forced to make your own foundation and family.  In doing so, you can be thrown into many strange, odd and even dangerous scenarios, with other souls, living in your unconventional world.  This is how, and only how it was possible, to meet all of these characters that I have written about.  If I had stayed in a safe cocooning home (which I did not have at the time, none of us did), I would have never gone out into this world on my own, and led the anonymous life that I did.  I now truly believe, that I would have regretted that immensely.  I have to believe, and I do believe that it was all meant to be.  Now as I sit here, many miles away, I find all the ghost story's like films playing in my mind, and at times even I can not believe, what I have passed through.  I can still see all of their faces and hear all of their voices today, vividly.  Almost all of them left this Earth before their time and tragically, which is one of the many reasons why I am paying tribute to all of these lost spirits, good and bad, so in some small way they will not be forgotten.  

"ALICE IN WUNDERLAND"

            I inherited this from Alice, while helping her consolidate her seven storage spaces.  It was her 45 vinyl record carrying case when she was a pre-teen.  Inside I found several gems, including the beautiful picture sleeve singles for  "Lonesome Town" by Ricky Nelson,  "What am I Supposed to Do" by Ann-Margret and "Johnny-Angel" by Shelly Fabares.

    ...... ( From a text that I received October 10, 2009 ) ......

 "Stand back while I spin the roulette wheel and see where it stops !",   "I will be incommunicado for several weeks my darling, as I just got my last lump sum of cash for the sale of the house."  "I'll be in touch"...

    That is the last time that I ever heard from my mysterious friend Alice.  Alice and I became acquainted in my early days while I was working at a diner, right off the Hudson river.  Alice was a big girl and not easily missed in a crowd.  She was about 5'10" with wispy brown hair the color of nutmeg and a roundish, cherubic face with kind, expressive brown eyes.
   We became fast friends and even talked and met outside of work, although I never actually really knew anything about her.  Alice would never tell me where she lived, worked, or where she really came from.  There were so many contradictions about her even in the beginning but I just ignored them, after all it was New York City.  Very youthful for her undisclosed age she was a big girl, reminiscent of little Edie from the film Grey Gardens, intellectual, but very warm and kind hearted. I could never quite peg her years and Alice would grimace if I tried to guess it, so it was taboo and strictly verboten to ask Alice her real age.  In fact, Alice told me that she was once brought in to a police station and questioned as to why she scratched her birth date off both her license and passport !

  ......"Go Ask Alice" ......

    Alice could talk about any subject with great knowledge and was an incredible authority on classic celebrities and the Zodiac.  She could tell you the sun, rising and moon sign of any movie star. This was however, one of many very odd details about her as Alice seemed to have many "missing" time periods in her life.  It became apparent to me that Alice seemed to have no memory of the popular music, events or celebrities during the 1980's and some of the late 1990's.  She seemed to know way too much about the early 1950's to be as young as she put out to be.  Despite these numerous peculiarities Alice and I just clicked immediately and in many ways we were kindred spirits.  We would often sing together and quite well.  I would start crooning " Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte " and Alice would join in right away in perfect harmony.  Yet, despite all of these connections Alice remained an even more enigmatic and elusive story than Merlin himself to me.  I almost felt that she was leading a double life and was merely "slumming" it on the streets whenever she wanted some adventure.
   After many months of conversations it turned out that Alice had not worked in many years and that she lived off a large amount of inherited stocks and bonds that she would cash-in whenever she ran low on funds, but then by 2008 that mountain of funds was running out.  Alice would live from motel to motel all around the city, in Manhattan, Queens and even Jersey.  Unfortunately, Alice was extravagant and lived in motels on room service and outside of them in fine restaurants and was often running out of money in between  those stock and bond cash-ins.  Alice told me of many times that she would have to stay up all night at the airport or in a bus station until her money came through.  I was perplexed and shocked by this behavior and I was even more shocked at her response to my... "Why don't you get a job?, I'll help you get one".  Alice's answer was,  "You don't understand I was not meant to have to work !"  What could I say to that?
  Alice and I were both information seekers and scattered scanners.  I remember that she was a member of the "Cloud Society" online and Alice would often print out their beautiful photographs for me.  We both loved anything retro especially from the 1950's, such as rotary telephones, record players, vinyl and even typewriter machines. There was still something missing to our friendship that I could not quite put my finger on.
  Time went by and yet Alice remained a puzzling mystery.  She wouldn't even tell me what borough she was staying in for the night when she would call.   It was a bit of a turn off for me as I felt she was hiding some dark secrets...  or did not trust me and so I felt that we could not be real friends.  I never met anyone who knew her in any capacity, not even acquaintances on the street.  Her family were all gone (or so she said), like mine.  Alice came and went and returned throughout those years, until she ran out of stocks. That is when I saw Alice get more and more desperate and yet she would do nothing to change her situation.   Alice also had a storage unit in every borough which was expensive and draining her, yet she kept them and continued to live in motels and dine out, as if the cash flow would never end.  Alice would not listen to reason and  I watched her gambling with luck and taking insane chances with her precarious existence, helplessly.

... "Alice doesn't live here ... or there ... anymore" ...

   Alice only had one last resort once all the stocks and bonds were gone and that was to sell her house in Brooklyn.  She had inherited it from her late mother and it had only been a burden as it was falling apart after years sitting empty and neglected.  It was unlivable without working plumbing or water. It also had no heat, no electric and numerous leaks from the roof into almost every room in the large home.  It was all very Grey Gardens which was quite appropriate, as I had said before that Alice was very reminiscent of Little Edie Beale in many ways.  I would have roughed it and stayed there in her situation, found a job and fixed my life, but not Alice.  She said she was meant to wander the city, study the cloud formations overhead and learn different philosophies on transient, nomadic life.
  It was harder and harder to have sympathy for her, watching her throwing away all that money that she never had to work for.  I really liked Alice though, very much so in fact I grew to feel as if she was a long lost family member and she was one of the few ghosts in this novel that I actually became close friends with.
   I never saw or heard from Alice again after that text that I received in 2009.  I did receive several missed calls from her... mostly in the middle of the night, but could never get through to her again after that.  It appeared that she had sold the house and was going to start the motel life again. Alice was ready the roll the dice and spin the roulette wheel once more, but this time it was her last bet.  In between, I had moved to Wheeling, West Virginia, and Manhattan was a million miles from my mind.  One winter day bored at home, I found an old birthday card from Alice and I discovered that it had an address written inside of it.  It was the closest I ever got to knowing anything about dear sweet Alice.  It was a PO Box from Grand Central station NYC.  Both of the letters that I wrote to her were returned, undeliverable, no such person at such address.  I still wonder what really happened to Alice, but I'm sure now that I will never know.

Alice ...... last seen in Manhattan ...... disappeared October of 2009

"LOST DINER" .......

   I was a seventeen year old "runaway" from the other side of Niagara falls when I ended up in New York City, working for one unforgettable summer in the diner pictured below here.  I experienced and learned more in those three months than in any three years of my whole life.  My family thought that I was staying with my Grandmother across the river, when in fact I was living on the top floor of a half abandoned tenement building on the west side that is now a high rise condo.

 The building that I loved and lived in was demolished along with many sweet memories in 2002.  There were only seven apartments in the building and three were already empty the first summer that I lived there. There were only two other tenants besides myself when I returned seven years later.  I was happy that my old neighbor Mrs Novac from Budapest was still living on the top floor across from me. She was growing a beautiful container garden on our roof, but I found it quite strange that "Mrs N" was growing six kinds of catnip...  but that is for another story.  Our other neighbor was a traveling musician by the name of Roy from Tennessee, who was actually only home four months of the year.
  It was a quiet, peaceful life there.  The Hudson river and the surrounding area possessed a wild windswept beauty that is now long gone.  There was an "edge" to the city but strangely enough there was also a mellower side to it as well.  I remember many empty lots and abandoned buildings, that were covered and or filled with vines, flowers and rubble.  The streets around me were quieter then as only the locals were around and the possibilities in that atmosphere were greater and grander than they are today.  It was more humble, intimate and personal as well but there were some disadvantages to deal with.  We often had no electric in the hallways as the bill wasn't paid and I would have to leave a flashlight in my mailbox, so I could find my way to the top floor in the pitch dark at night.  It was however a defining time for me in my life.
   It was during that summer that I first met many of the characters from this "Ghost-Story" "novel".  I met many of them again when I returned to the island, several years later to live.  Only the shell of the diner is still standing, and the area is almost unrecognizable today. Only the shadows and the echoes remain.

Sad Update. October 2018.  This is what has become of the former site-block of my beloved Lost Diner.   Selfishly demolished along with the Carwash, Weinstock store and its quaint tenement building (another ghost story to come... a trilogy) and notorious "adult store-theater".  Nothing remains.  

"MERLIN"...... THE WIZARD OF THE BOWERY

  One of the last flop houses that still remains on the Bowery, where Merlin
was rumored to have stayed at between stints doing his magic act and
his disappearing routine. It still looks seedy and run down, but now it’s a
  "hostel" for foreign travelers.




The first one minute and 20 seconds of the classic Leon Russell song "This
Masquerade" has a catatonic effect on me. Echoey, eerie, and macabre, it
also evokes flashbacks to the scenes from the film of my life in Manhattan,
whenever I encountered "Merlin".

Merlin is perhaps the most elusive and strangest character actor that I came
across in all my anonymous years in NYC. He was even more elusive than
that mysterious legend the Will-O-The-Wisp. He was six foot two and looked
like a giant Wishnik troll doll. He wore only black from head to toe—his
frame very slim. He had a huge mane of white hair that went below his
shoulders, only to be offset by his long pointed white beard. This was all
topped off by what looked like a home-made tin crown that Merlin always
wore on the top of his head. He was seemingly attached to his long metal
laundry cart. It was filled with dolls and scarves, bedecked with plastic
necklaces and beads, and a mish-mash of other oddities. Merlin also wore
strange home-made looking jewelry and had a walking cane by his side.


Merlin was frightfully reminiscent of 1940's film actor Rondo Hatton, who played the gruesome. madman character "The Creeper", in several horror movies. It was so strange. He would only appear in the early hours of the morning
between 1am and 5am and only when the streets were empty. His appearances
were unearthly—as if out of thin air. I never saw Merlin in the
daytime—ever—despite the fact that I must have observed him several dozen
times between 1996 and 2005. I would always be taken aback at the very
sight of him on those desolate nights. I would turn the corner off Bowery,
and Merlin would be sitting on his concrete throne there with all of his
laundry cart goods displayed on the pavement around him. He never spoke or
even acknowledged my presence. Merlin only seemed to whisper to himself
and smile and nod to his invisible audience. He would simply continue to
adjust the starry tin crown on his head as he sat waiting for only he knew
what. You see, the other bizarre thing about Merlin was that he wasn't
selling this junk. He was merely displaying it, as if it were a treasure.

My closest encounter with Merlin occurred on a very late night in May of
1999. I was coming home from clubbing when I spotted the Will-O-The-Wisp
moving quickly up Bowery towards the east side. I felt utterly compelled
to follow him, I could not resist. He seemed disturbingly oblivious to my
tailing him, and I did nothing to hide from his vision or awareness. It
fed the realization that Merlin was truly living in—and a part of—a world
that I could not see or enter. Yet enter it I would—and the spectacle that
unfolded as I continued to follow him took on a nature of the surreal.

He began to move faster—suddenly seeming to rush. He turned onto a side
street and stopped below a black door with a tiny orange light shining on
it. I watched him open the door and vanish down the stairs that I could
see from across the street. Naturally, I dashed to the same door and threw
it open. He had just turned the corner down the hallway, which was also
bright orange with black trim. I caught sight of him again as he was
buzzed through another black door by a pudgy little man behind a
bulletproof glass window smoking a cheap-smelling cigar. Curiosity gripped
me. I knew that I had to get into this place to see what was going on in
there. It already smelled of mildew and ammonia when "Pudgy" buzzed that
black door open for me (after I paid the six dollar entrance fee, of
course). I entered the underground maze trying to spot Merlin, but he had
already disappeared amongst the low-watt red and blue light bulbs and the
shadows of the very dark corners. It was an odd-looking place with large
plastic replicas of Monstera plants and parlor Palms. There was a strange
mélange of old retro sofas, chairs and coffee tables and there were also
some broken video game machines and framed movie posters. I stumbled upon
what looked like rows and rows of little "cabins" with beaded curtains
draped here and there.


After the initial shock of the place wore off, I concentrated on finding
the Will-O-the-Wisp again and started a search for the bathroom. Once I
found it, I found Merlin, too. I could hardly believe my eyes as I watched
him admiring himself standing in front of a giant mirror in the latrine
with all of his toiletries displayed atop the sink area. He was standing
there like he was in front of a private vanity dying his hair and beard
with black liquid shoe polish and a large comb, courtesy of a dollar store
on 14th street. I was dumbfounded by the view. Once again, he carried on
like he was playing to an invisible audience, and he did not see me. He applied the liquid shoe polish to his hair slowly, while smiling to himself
in the mirror. I watched him finish his dye job, and then put his tin
crown back on his head. He then swept by me, like I wasn't there and
proceeded to enter the "cabin" zone, which was occupied by some very
unusual looking chaps. The whole situation truly looked like a dungeon
scene from a fantasy film—albeit a bad one, with a cast of elves, trolls
and ghastly Nosferatos. I watched as he entered one of the small rooms and
started to set up shop, so to speak. He lit a candle on the room’s bench
and then began hanging necklaces and beads on the walls inside his new
squat. I decided not to stick around to see what would happen next. I had
had enough. I rushed out of that pit and was relieved to be back up on
ground level…seemingly returning to earth. The experience was unnerving
and I was glad to leave it behind me. I’ve never told another soul until
now.

Merlin did turn up several other times after this incident, with his usual
white hair (of course) and always in the middle of the night, in a dark
corner. The last time I saw him was late May of 2005. I was coming home
late from work and stumbled upon Merlin on the corner of Charles and the
West side. He was sitting lotus style on the ground, with all his cart
contents around him. For the first time ever he looked right at me and
smiled that peculiar smile that he had. The connection was brief, as Merlin
then started whispering to himself and began surveying the area from his
perch like an old hoot owl on a lumber jacked cut tree stump. I turned and walked away, not knowing that Merlin would do his disappearing act for the last time. I
walked by early the next day on the way to work and was surprised to find
all of his belongings still there on the pavement, but Merlin was gone.
That was nine years ago and I have no clue as to what really happened to
the enigmatic and elusive Will-O-The-Wisp.

"Merlin".... last seen on Bowery Street. Disappeared .... late June, 2005.

Copyright 2014 by Fritzvonludwigslust. All Rights Reserved







  

"ACTING OUT" ... "Ghost Stories of the City"

Nocturne...

   Life in New York City is another world unto it's own. This giant metropolis is a unique entity, separate from the rest of the galaxy. Nowhere else on earth is life as it is here... not in the suburbs, rural areas, or even smaller cities and towns.  Where else can you walk by throngs of people in one day, who you will never see again in your life?  Where else can you live in a building for years and not even know or see your neighbors ?  It is often said that one can feel like an isolated hermit in the midst of hundreds, standing alone on the streets of this town.  New York City is where this all happens and it either takes you in and embraces you with a little place of your own, or it chews you up and spits you out. Everyday in the city is like a Hollywood film set with a cast of thousands and each individual can play several roles in the film of our lives. Even after they are long dead and gone, their ghosts and spirits can haunt us forever.

 "Character Actors"...
  They play the supporting, often non-supporting and sometimes unwanted roles in our lives.
"Acting Out",  they best portray every possible type of film noir character ever played on the big silver screen...
    Hard-boiled anti-heroes and femme fatales,  innocent villains and guilty victims,  kindred spirits and evil spirits,  secret lovers and indiscreet cheaters, con-artists and free lance artists, bar-flies and butterflies, addicts and junkies, back-patters and backstabbers and a thousand other different kinds of "entrepreneurs" as well as various other types of flotsam and jetsam that wash up daily on the shores, piers and in the sewers of this great island.  Even sadder, they can often portray the abandoned, misplaced, lost and forlorn souls of the sidewalks, gutters and alleys. They are the victims and the outcasts that we shun. They are the used and the forgotten that we deny.  Some magic, some tragic but they can always be seen "acting out" on the asphalt and cement stages of this monstrous city.  Their Spirits and Ghosts linger on in the city in the shadows and the echoes and in our nightmares and dreams.
   Then there are those that are still here on this earth but are really not among the living. They wander aimlessly from shadow to shadow in a black and white film of no today, no tomorrow, just forever in yesterday and the nostomanic past that they remain in.
    It is only now several years later after not living in the city anymore, that I see all of these characters in my memories again. I see all of the actors that played a role in the "movie" of my anonymous life in New York again in my flashbacks and dreams.  It only takes a memento, a song or a vision to bring them back.
   Perhaps the one unifying theme to all of these sad, beautiful and often outrageous tales, would be the ultimate unanswered disappearances of each "actor" never to be seen or heard from again, amidst conflicting rumours and outlandish tales.
    These are the true stories of those character actors, acting out ...


All Stories, Photographs and Illustrations by Fritz Von Ludwigslust.

Copyright © 2014  by Fritz Von Ludwigslust   All Rights Reserved