XTRA PULP

I forgot I had begun telling you about my post divorce affair with Friendly in Y2k. Friendly's one of those women who doesn't have a lot of close women friends. Other women are threatened by her, unjustifiably so. A friend once summed her up as the perfect blend of complete dysfunction and nurturing big hearted soul. It was all wrapped up in a smolderingly sexual package that she pretended not to know existed. No one bought that act. Hence the jealousy and mistrust of other women. The Nazi hotpants didn't help her case.
After the motel painting we started the full on married woman affair. The triangle dance began. I told her to own up to hubby. She said she would. She lied. I bought it. After a while I just accepted that she was dealing with her husband in her own way. Me too. I was still working at the Dakota. I used to snag her Lauren Bacall's thrown out Vogue and Variety. When we could pull it off I'd arrange for a conjugal visit in one of the apartments we were renovating. The other laborers would take an hour while Friendly and I caught up. Bar bathrooms, empty apartments, Taxi cab backseats, and of couse my car were favortite spots. If I didn't throw my back out I was good to go. On great occasions she would take the bus to the Catskills or we'd get a room at the Gramacy.
The limitations of such a relationship are apparent. Add to this she and hubby were wanabe priest and priestess in Santeria, with a real Dominican one living downstairs, both had chippy dope habits and hubby had just inherited a big chunk of change from a lawsuit and you can see the potential for this as literary fodder. OK, maybe literary is pushing it. But Friendly definitely amped up the slease factor in my life. She once called me telling me how she was about to get 666 tattooed on her labia and did I mind? Hell, I'd been married and living in the sticks for 7 years with Mrs. Yummy. I hadn't written a song in all that time. With Friendly at least the poetic juices started flowing again....thick with pulp. And yes I do mind.