They went out that night. “On the town,” he said, as if the town itself was a woman to be conquered. They went to popular clubs, the likes of which Tessie had only heard about. Everyone knew him. Everyone liked him. He talked and talked, like a mayor at a fund raiser. When he was finished – when he had sufficiently impressed her with his popularity and his power, he took her to a corner booth, held her hand across the table, and talked only to her.

Tessie listened. Listening made her happy. She did not enjoy speaking. There was so much effort in talking. She always seemed to find a way to say something awkward; had a way of bringing an entire dinner party to a calamitous pause.

Like last Easter, when her mother and two sets of Aunts, Uncles, and cousins were discussing the current craze in music. "I can't stand that rock and roll thing the kids are doing these days," said her mother. "And the jungle music," spat Uncle Garth, "and all those hippies – with their drugs, and beads, and dyed hair – they're all going to Hell in a Honda."

Tessie just blurted out, “Maybe it’s the hippies that are going to Heaven and everyone else is going to Hell.”

The chatter halted.

The forks stopped clinking and every eye in the room was slapping her. They weren’t angry-eyes really. They were the eyes of astonishment. They were, “girl-have-you-gone-mad?” eyes. She despised those eyes most of all.

Vito, on the other hand, always made grandiose sweeping statements. Statements that begin with words like, “All Jews,” and “All niggers," yet nobody ever batted an eye. Because Vito sold them on presentation. And people follow a man’s presentation before they follow his message. So Vito talked all the time.

After two weeks of him talking and her listening, Vito bought the ring. He thought he loved her. What he really loved was the power over her. For eight months, he trampled on the marriage. Then he grew bored with Tessie and began to stray.

When Vito does something, he does it large. He took many mistresses and bombarded them with gifts and affection. He wasn’t careful. There was more than one late night at the office; more than once he came home in the morning, ragged and rank; more than one late night phone call in the den – having quiet arguments with girlfriends while Tessie lay in bed upstairs listening. Still, she refused to believe the obvious.

Then he met Alma. How they met is insignificant and though it might be relevant to say that she fucked him the night they met. Alma liked being on top. He reclined on the bed – feet spread, his hands reaching up to fondle her breast. But she swiped his hands away as she undulated over him.

“Yes,” he thought, “she loves it.” But there was something about her . . . her motion, that told him that she would have enjoyed being on top of anyone.

For her part, Alma was not impressed with his money, or his slick tongue, or his fine, groomed good looks. Vito, however, felt Love tighten its nasty little fingers around his neck.

Alma was a fiery gypsy. Her hair was thick, black, and every bit as wild as her orgasms. She had beautiful white teeth that glistened in contrast to her deep brown complexion. Her clothes were sheer and flowing, snug around the waist and exposing her rippled belly. She wore beads and crystals and practiced Yoga.

One afternoon, Alma invited him to a party, which was attended by gypsies, hippies, bikers, artists and anyone else who wore hoop earrings and took drugs. Vito was straight. Drugs, to his thinking, were for losers only.

Vito was surprised to see mushrooms and peyote circumnavigating the room like hor d’ oeuvres. A joint was passed to Alma and she inhaled long and hard, filling her lungs, and savoring its heady taste.

"She is so beautiful," thought Vito. "Some women were born to smoke."

Alma looked mysterious in a cloud of fine ash. She passed it to Vito.

“I can’t,” he said.

Alma laughed. “It’s just a joint. Are you afraid?”

“No,” he protested.

“Big man with all your money and gold and boats," she jabbed. "Big man with the women. Just a little man after all – afraid of a little joint. Afraid of what it might do, Afraid of what he might find.” She laughed again.

He was nothing to her – or to these people – who didn’t care about what or who he owned. He reached for the joint and placed it to his lips. She would respect him now. She would see that he was strong and she would love him. He gave in to her, again, and sucked the joint.

The hit expanded in his lungs, and it frightened him, but he was Vito so he held it in. He looked her in the eyes and saw the beast in her. She looked at him and saw nothing. He took another hit.

He saw faces. At first they were smiling with him, then laughing. . . laughing at him, he was sure of it. He saw Alma talking to a man. He was more handsome then Vito. The two were talking and smiling and touching. They liked each other; he was sure of that too. They were laughing. Talking about him and laughing.

Vito began to sweat and he knew he had to put these thoughts out of his mind. His mind scoured the room to find something positive on which to focus. Then he heard it: a sweetly corrupt fuzz guitar that filled the room. Every note was clear and meaningful. And that singer, his voice was so – dare he think it – sexy. So much better than all those Italian crooners he listened to over and over in his living room.

Why had he not noticed the music before? It was so soothing. Who was it? He found the album cover. It was T. Rex. "I have to remember that name," he thought. “T. Rex. Tyrannosaurus Rex. I like that.”

He laughed at his new looking glass and settled into the buzz. He wondered about God and society. He pondered the essence of love. He even, for one short moment of clarity, saw how this thing with Alma was going nowhere – and that he should return to Tessie and rekindle their marriage, and be a good husband and. . . then, for no clear reason, Vito wondered if the marijuana would ever wear off. How would he run his businesses if it didn’t? Will they laugh at him in the business world? Then he saw that the gypsies were staring at him again.

“What drug is this?” he asked himself, "that takes me up and down, up and down?”

Sweat poured from his scalp and matted his slick-backed hair even further than it was already matted. He ran to the bathroom. The door was jammed.

“I can’t let anyone see me like this!” he thought, as though he were running out of time (although it was unclear to Vito what it was that he had no time left to do). Vito pounded on the door, trying to push it in using his left shoulder.

“Why won’t it open?” his mind agonized.

“THE DOOR IS LOCKED BECAUSE I’M TRYING TO TAKE A SHIT!!” yelled a voice from inside.

Vito was sunk. He slumped onto a wicker bench near the door.

“Am I going crazy?”

The door opened and a large, tattooed biker, with a hoop earring much larger than all the other hoop earrings, stepped out. He gave Vito an icy stare – until he noticed the sweat, which by now had drenched Vito’s hair and silk shirt. The biker softened his glare. He looked into Vito’s pale, clammy face.

“You alright, man? You look like hell.”

Vito pushed past him and shut the door. He turned to the mirror and looked. “My God!” he thought. Vito saw that he was pale as an egg. Water dripped from his head and neck in thumbtack-sized bullets of sweat. He sat on the toilet shaking his head thinking, “This is pot, just pot. I just smoked a little pot!”

He had heard of people lacing joints with LSD to get a party going. Could that have happened here?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sitting on the toilet, Vito remembered the short film his father had played for him and his sister when they were kids. Vito’s father called the family into the den where he had a projector set up and aimed at a blank space on the wall. Vito Senior killed the lights and rolled the tape. On the wall the movie unfolded. A teenage boy sat in a large, dirty, beige recliner in his bedroom. He slowly and meticulously rolled a joint.

The teenager’s bedroom was cluttered with dirty clothing, dead plants, and food wrappers. He smoked the joint in the chair and settled back. As he relaxed deeper into his chair, something clattered outside the door. The boy leaped in horror as a hideous demon burst inside and wailed. Its arms were outstretched and dripping as they reached for the young man whose face melted into a distorted expression of terror. The demon rushed at the screaming young man and the wall went blank. . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now, in the bathroom, wondering why he was falling apart at some strange hippy drug party, he thought – “is this what happens to everyone who takes drugs? Is this the monster?”

The sweat still poured from Vito’s face. He put as much of his face that would fit, under the faucet and turned it on. He reached for the soap and just before grabbed it, the soap said, “You look like shit man.”

Vito pulled back sharply. “Huh?” he asked.

“I said,” said the soap, “you look like shit. Doesn’t he?” the soap asked the mirror.

The mirror – who thought herself to be a competent judge of appearance – replied, “He looks horrible! Just horrible. Look,” she said turning to Vito.

Vito looked again. “You’re right,” he said, certain that he was hallucinating, but too tired to argue.

He rinsed his face (avoiding the soap), and wiped with a mildewed, faded, hand towel hanging on a hook on the door.

He was just about to walk out, when the shower suddenly started. Steam drifted over the shower curtain and slowly filled the bathroom as Vito peered through the grimy glass door. He saw the silhouette of a man washing his armpits.

The man began singing a Grateful Dead tune, which Vito did not recognize, as he had never heard of the Grateful Dead. Then the shower stopped running and the door slid open.

“Hand me a towel,” said the stranger.

Vito recognized him to be Jesus Christ. He handed Jesus the towel. Vito jumped when Christ's massive cock banged the top of the bathtub with a resonating thud as he stepped out to grab the towel.

Jesus tried to comb the knots out of his tangled, wet hair; annoyed that there was no conditioner, and blaming, “That devil may care attitude of the hippies.” Vito stood motionless with his jaw hanging open. Jesus jabbed some Speed-stik by Mennen into his pits, and put the cap back on.

“Now Vito,” said Jesus, “we need to talk.”

“What about Sir?” said Vito, not certain that “Sir” was what the proper way to address the fruit of the loins of Almighty God.

“Money has become your God, Vito. You use and hurt people. I want you to change your ways. I want you to sell all your material possessions and buy a schooner. I want you to search the city for wayward souls and start a commune to live on the schooner. You will supply them with love, shelter, mushrooms, marijuana, acid, bizarre sex and, oh yeah, guidance. From this moment on, you shall be known as King Vito. . . King of the Sea Hippies.”

“But I don’t know how to sail,” murmured King Vito.

“Never mind,” responded the Son of God (who already knew that Vito could not sail and would never, ever learn), “Just do as I say.”

“He knows what he’s talking about,” yammered the soap. “You can’t question divine intervention.”

“Yup, yup, yup, yup,” agreed the faucet, “He knows what he’s talking about. Can’t question God . . . yup, yup.”

Then Jesus vanished. In his wake, he left a pocket of ice cold air, a peyote button, and a business card:

Vito just sat on the toilet stone-faced. Someone knocked at the door.

“Get the fuck out of here!” he screamed.

Whoever it was scampered off.

Vito regrouped and left the bathroom. He walked through the hallway and into the kitchen. He opened the fridge and found a Tupperware container with overripe tomato slices that were about four hours away from its first spot of mold. Vito grabbed a handful, stuffed them into his mouth and -- still chewing -- meandered back into the living room to rejoin the party. Only, the party had taken on a different tone. Couples and threesomes -- scattered throughout the darkened living room -- were making out and rubbing each other’s crotches. Alma sat across the hazy room. Her shirt was open, while she and the handsome man Vito had noticed earlier were frantically pawing each other. Vito sighed and left the party. He caught a cab to the bay and paced the pier to reflect on his experience.

He walked for hours. Actually, it wsa more like minutes, but to Vito it was hours and that’s what mattered. He came upon a woman sitting on a bench. She sat motionless, just staring at the water. Beneath her feet was a small square of tattered rug.

Vito approached her, “Why do you have that rug?”

“I carry it wherever I go,” she replied. “It keeps the pavement away.”

Vito understood. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Typhoid,” she replied. "Typhoid Mary."

“I met Jesus Christ tonight,” he said as he reached for the business card and peyote button.

“Me too,” said Typhoid. “Three weeks ago.”

“What did he say?” asked Vito.

“He told me to get off the smack. What did he tell you?”

“He told me to get a schooner,” he answered and showed her the business card.

Typhoid was skinny and ragged, having eaten only bean-dip and tapioca for the last two years. The puffs around her eyes had almost rendered her blind. And the tracks on her arm were red and swollen. Judging by the condition of her scabs -- Vito could see that she was on the mend. Typhoid had not touched the smack since the night she met Jesus.

“I guess Jesus is in the neighborhood,” Typhoid stated matter-of-factly. “This could be a chance to start all over.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first thing Vito did was divorce Tessie. She couldn’t believe that he was leaving her for a street hag named Typhoid.

Vito tried to explain, “I’m not leaving you for Typhoid. I am leaving you for God.”

He liquidated what he could as quickly as possible and bought the largest schooner he could find – a fifty-footer which he christened Freedom. Then he and Typhoid hit the cold, cruel streets of New York City – looking for the chosen crew.

“Why do you suppose,” Vito said to Typhoid one day, as they were painting the master cabin of the ship, “that it has to be a schooner?”

“Maybe it’s gonna rain.” answered Typhoid. “Those are storm clouds coming in. . .”

The End (sorta)







EPILOGUE

Vito’s Ark was written about five years before Tom Robbins released Skinny Legs and All. So no, I did not steal the idea of talking inanimate objects from Tom Robbins. I stole the idea from a completely different book by a completely different author.

Anyway -- for those of you that thought Vito’s Ark was a ridiculous, unbelievable story, take note... It is not-so-loosely based on the real story of my Uncle Vito LaGreca.

Uncle Vito is my mother’s only sibling. They grew up in East Harlem New York. Their parents, Vito Senior and Mary LaGreca were terribly dysfunctional. Vito Senior ran numbers in Harlem. He was a cold, violent, old-world Italian prick who beat his son, Vito (Junior) and his wife (Mary) routinely. My mother, Suela Lagreca, was spared the beatings however. She was the apple of daddy’s eye. Vito Senior was brutal to Junior, often delivering the typical asshole father line, “Why can’t you be more like your sister?”

The more Vito was beaten, the more he rebelled, and the more he was beaten. Furthermore, the rare times Suela (my mother) did something wrong, Vito got the blame. Thus, Vito Senior (my Grampa) turned his entire, immediate family into victims: He made Gramma LaGreca a victim, because she was beaten. He made Junior a victim, because he was beaten too. And he made my mother, a victim because of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her brother, who hated, and abused her for being the favorite.

All this dysfunction carried long past Grampa Vito’s death to Cancer. To this day, Vito treats my mother like she’s still ten years old. And Gramma Lagreca, when she was alive, became an emotional manipulator.

She was known to threaten both children by saying, “If you don’t do this for me, I’ll take you out of the Will,” or “if you do that for me, I’ll put you back in,” etc. And there was money in that will. Grandpa LaGreca made a small fortune running those numbers in Harlem, and Vito wanted it -- badly. His life was a roller coaster ride of being routinely removed and added from that ever elusive Last Will and Testament.

See, Junior was the black sheep. He did not live up to “first born son” status. At first, he did what all old world Italians are supposed to do. He became wealthy, got married, cheated often. But then it unraveled. He got divorced (a major catholic no-no) and remarried Ollie, the wife of a missing gangster. Then he divorced Ollie and had a marijuana epiphany. That’s right, that whole, “smoking-a-joint-finding-God-and-becoming-a-Sea-Hippie” business was true. At least, that’s what Vito says.

I remember once, when I was about eleven, Junior threw a birthday for Gramma LaGreca. It must have freaked her out having all those "hippies" and "druggies" running in and out of her house. She was such a strict, and judgmental catholic bitch. But I think she and Vito were on a good streak, and maybe she was trying a little harder to accept him.

King had about twenty-five followers (with names like Frog, Flasher, Scarface, The Jew, and of course, our old friend Typhoid Mary) and they cooked and they cleaned and they waited on him with a sense of fervent allegiance.

Sometimes he treated them with great kindness. Other times he barked inane orders. For instance, he would yell “Hand me that fork," to someone who was all the way across the room. But the fork would actually be in his reach. It was a blatant display of power. The follower would then bound across the room to where Vito was standing, hand him the fork, and say, “For you my King” or some such nonsense.I didn’t know it at the time, because I had never heard the term, but this was a cult and Vito was their leader.

Anyway, just like that, the young, handsome, conservative Clark Gable look-a-like metamorphasized into Jerry Garcia. Admittedly, Vito's Ark is fictionalized. I didn’t know all the details so I invented them. It was true that the Sea Hippies never learned to sail. They lived on Freedom, sold drugs, put out a record, and got into trouble with city councilmen. There is a true story about Vito and a City Councilman, and a fistfight -- though I don’t know the specifics. Maybe later I'll make them up.

Before Vito founded his Christian folk-rock band "King Vito and the Sea Hippies," he was making records as Guy Trails. (seen below).

My scene with talking soap and mirror and a John Holmes Jesus character was completely fabricated, though I’d wager, Vito’s alleged religous experience was no less absurd.

Six things Vito claims that God told him to do:

1) Liquidate his assets and buy a schooner.

2) Name the schooner Freedom.

3) Find followers to live on the commune with them and call them Sea Hippies.

4) Take drugs and have straight and gay orgies with his followers.

5) Sell Freedom T-shirts with a silk screen picture of the schooner.

6) Own and operate a restaurant/ice cream store, call it "The Hippie's Place," and (allegedly) use it as a front to traffic drugs.

7) Start a bluegrassy, gospel, rock band with his disciples called King Vito and the Sea Hippies.

EJD
11/24/95