Tales of Times Square: Expanded Edition (16 page)

“What’s the big sex secret?” she drunkenly demands. Two apologetic bouncers dash in after her. Her sexually frustrated face bobs up and down, and her naked breasts flail about as she’s carted out backward, begging to be let in on the fun.

Lev is oblivious to this racket, his only vital signs being the smoke signals that rise from a twisted pile of fern flesh on top of him. The young blonde has even returned, making it a foursome. I detect Lev’s hand emerging to discard a burned-out roach in the ashtray. The three bimbos work their mouths all over his flabby body, but he appears to be limp and stoned. Lev is in big troubs. He’s so pathetic, he can’t even stick it in, as he takes a stab at each twat.

“I shouldn’t have gone to the office for a blowjob,” he gasps.

The girls begin a valiant job of fellatio, managing to get his cock half erect. Butch and his flashlight are ready to shoot over with each groan. Lev is trying to come, his face grimacing as though he can force it out. Shortly after four-thirty, he succeeds for the ninth time.

A hundred or so swingers remain at Plato’s in various stages of orgy at 6
A.M.
DJ makes his last announcement: Lev is up to nine. Then the disco music pouring out of the blurry PA scratches to a halt, some spotlights readjust, and Larry Levenson steps out center stage on the disco floor in his maroon robe and slippers. It’s time to close shop, and the perfect host with the most stands before his throngs, microphone in hand. His black hair is neatly slicked back with fresh grease. He extends a hand to the audience, assuming the classic pose of the crooner. A dramatic orchestral intro segues over the PA and Lev starts singing “Goodnight My Love” at ear-shattering volume. His face is unflinchingly sincere, lost in the rapture of his operatic wail, a cross between Como and Caruso. My own reaction is one of amazement, if not confusion, and I’m slightly reassured to see Mark Lee Smith across the room with his jaw hanging down, and Richard Jaccoma also frozen in his tracks.

Levenson snaps into “The Wonder of You” next as swingers file into locker rooms, discarding their towels in pungent piles. Women douche themselves in the Johns, toilets flush, and the last of the gallon jugs of “Olde Country” diluted mouthwash are gargled up. People actually start emerging in clothing, bidding each other
hasta la vista
.

I assume Lev has been lip-synching to records, but at this point anything’s feasible. The two DJs, whacked out of their skulls, swear Lev has been doubling to his own records, released only in Europe. But they pad-lock their area when I reach for the record labels. Anyway, this is how Larry closes the club.

Only the Plato’s elite remain, mingling tiredly around the liquorless bar sipping Italian ices. Fresh bottles of milk, juice, ice, and mineral water are set out.

Patrice breezes Lev through orgasms number ten and eleven at 7:30 and 8:30 respectively. Lev has, of course, made a believer out of everyone; nobody doubts his greatness or his ability to win before noon. Both 42nd Street champions, Rick and Dave, begrudgingly admit that this man, twenty years their senior, is the king. What especially impresses them are the
amounts
of jism Levenson contains—the last two times, he came cats and dogs.

More people depart at 8:30, leaving only the principal elements of the contest. I’m the only rep from
Screw
, sipping a glass of milk at the bar. Everyone else breaks for a nap. Lev had threatened to take his wonder nap, wake up, and bang off the last four. Instead, he emerges from his office restlessly, and pulls up a barstool.

“I had no doubts,” he says. “I knew I’d win this contest. I don’t gamble. I don’t go to Vegas. But in this case, I’d have bet thirty grand—they’re the ones who lowered it.

“This club runs itself,” he continues. “I’m in the back fuckin’ all night. Anyone with half a brain can run a club. I wish they said I was a genius for thinking up Plato’s Retreat, but it just happened. No great idea, nothing brilliant, I just happened to be the first one to go public with swinging. Swinging shot through the roof. Now I’m riding the crest. I’m a fat, middle-aged guy. These chicks only want me ‘cause I’m the owner of Plato’s, ya think I don’t know that?

“You know what I used to do? I was general manager of a McDonald’s in Brooklyn. After that, I cashed unemployment checks for years. This place could have been started by anybody. I’m thrilled it was me.”

Lev thanks his lucky stars with few regrets. With an eight-year jail sentence for tax evasion on his back, he must be some kind of cunt-crazed animal to do what he’s done tonight. Or maybe he’s storing up memories for his trip upriver, like Butch. He’s convinced of his innocence and amazed at how hard the law came down on him.

“A quarter-million bail? C’mon, now, really. They hate me ‘cause I’m in the sex business,” he says, looking out at his “Jungle Habitat”—a waterless swimming pool filled with shrubbery, just one of his many hassles with the city. “People can fuck here but they can’t swim. Can you believe it?” He talks about how Goldstein offered to put up his house to make the bail. “You never forget that your whole life.... I love Al Goldstein.”

With that said, Lev stands up, sighs sorrowfully, and proceeds to the mat room where he knocks off number twelve shortly after nine o’clock.

On Saturday morning, the King-of-Swing room is littered with casualties of the night before. I lay there, one tired eye cocked on this smelly family, half of them wasted from performing sex all night, the other half wasted from watching. There is Mark Lee Smith, six foot three bluesman/bartender, his duck’s-ass hairdo still holding perfect. Butch and his racehorse, Dave, are sleeping close as kittens. Butch is still decked out in his tent-size Fruit of the Looms in pursuit of a lay. Mark and I have given up swinging for normal dress. Lev is sprawled out on the highest mat, a bemused smile on his come-drunk face, chain lighting cigarettes that he allows to burn out in ashtrays.

A double dose of Quaaludes hits Patrice and she starts moaning for a Valium to “mellow me out.” Spread-eagling herself, she begins to whine hoarsely to her husband. “C’mere and eat me out.” Rick won’t budge, dog-tired against the wall. “Goddamnit, suck me!” she demands, drifting in and out of sleep, and farting rather loudly. She crawls over and snatches Dave’s waist towel to blow her nose. Mark exits before getting in her warpath.

“When’s the last time you saw me eat pussy?” she asks her husband. Her next move is toward the brunette girl, resting near Lev. “Two years, right? Two and a half years. Well, I’m gonna eat some now!”

The brunette is wide awake, fidgeting. “I’ve gotta piss,” she says, in a beeline toward the door. Patrice coaxes her back, wanting to perform for the men at large, who are too zonked out to give a shit. She runs her tongue along the slimy mat and then up into the brunette’s snatch, commanding that everyone watch, like a bullfrog-voiced child on a diving board. The Woolworth’s candelabras on the wall flicker on morning current. Butch looks up through bloodshot eyes—was the lezzie scene worth losing five grand for?—apparently not, and he drops back to sleep.

“We need lubrication,” says Patrice, fingering her prey, “our pussies are sore.”

I spot a container labeled SLIDE super skin lubricant—some sleazy swinger shit.

The gals lube each other up and lock tongues. The eighteen-year-old blond girl grows disgusted by this excess. She’ll lick Levenson’s perineum, but she scruples at lez cunt-sucking. Clearly, there’s been a rivalry between the blonde and Patrice all night over popping Lev’s cookies. The blonde considers Patrice’s style crude and phony, and tells Patrice to fuck off at every opportunity.

Lev rolls himself into the action, and the blonde storms out in a huff, having seen enough. Within seconds, he springs a hard-on.

“This guy’s way outta my league,” says Butch, rubbing his puffy eyes and nudging Dave for the flashlight. “I hope his prostate don’t give out, or his dick don’t fall off.”

Mark is shooting pool when I run out to warn him that Lev is eating pussy. Within seconds after we dash in, Lucky Thirteen occurs at 9:45.

Levenson is a horny son of a bitch now, and keeps the momentum going with Patrice. His cock is on a riff, springing to full erection only moments after his thirteenth official splat. Butch and Dave are asleep, their hands folded neatly under their heads like nursery rhyme images. Mark’s face droops between his knees, and I’m about to go under, until the loud, sweaty slap of Lev’s haunches against Patrice’s thighs calls us to attention. There she is, legs in the air, being pounded into by Levenson, his beet-red face gasping once again.

“Oh, Larry, fuck me so it shoots right up to my throat!”

Mark and I snap our fingers to arouse Butch across the room, who in turn elbows Dave awake just in time to click on the flashlight for number fourteen, at 10:30. This one’s received with no fanfare or congrats. Just standard procedure, observed for the record. Lev seeks no official receipt for his scum,

“I seen enough, I know he can do it,” says Butch, finally putting his pants back on. “I’ll just leave the money with Dave.”

But he assists in the ceremony of removing the huge Goldstein poster from the wall and laying it out on the floor. I feel somewhat like a traitor helping in this, but then again, I’d been rooting for Larry all along, even though I had $50 down against him. Butch repeats what a pleasure it will be to lose five grand to such a feat, anxious to get the hell out. I remind him he still hasn’t lost.

Lev voices concern for his guests, wanting to send us home early. But first, he must call his doctor, as though asking permission to do one more. When he strolls back into the King-of-Swing room, he appears absolutely fresh as a daisy. Wide awake, horny as a dog, and looking like he just stepped out of a barber shop, he even dares to be a little philosophical, lighting up a smoke.

“I never fuck girls for more than twenty minutes. There are so many women, it’s not worth it to spend that much time with
one
. But I’ll tell ya, I idolize women. I know professional studs who hate women, they’re in it just for money. But I genuinely love them.”

He turns my way, instructing me as if I plan to follow in his footsteps.

“You need
good
women for a thing like this, you can’t do it without the best. These girls were the most important thing in the world. They stuck it out. And they really kept me horny the whole time.... Of course, I’m paying them $50 per orgasm.”

“Who the fuck would believe it, huh, Larry?” says Butch. “Only thing that can stop you now is if they pinch this joint and don’t let us out till ten tonight.”

Designated to go last, the blonde takes her natural place beside the Jizz Maestro. A tough broad for eighteen, she loudly insists that a certain party leave the room, and Patrice obliges without a word.

“I like to take my time, baby!” shouts the blonde slut to the departing whore.

At 11:55
A.M.
—fourteen hours and twenty-five minutes after the start—Levenson pulls out, rolls over like a fat dog, and dumps the mother-load on Goldstein’s pretty poster face. He aims for Al’s mouth, but misses. A few droplets hit the chin, while the bulk of the discharge ends up on Al’s shoulder.

Lev sits behind his desk in his robe, five rubber-banded rolls of money laid out before him. Each bundle contains a thou in peep show bills—grubby fives and tens, fresh from the hands of 42nd Street masturbators, Butch’s receipts from a night at one of his peeps. Butch has shaken his hand and called him a god. A real gentleman gambler, that Butch.

Lev is a happy man now, a great, satisfied victor, as he takes care of Mark and tips others $50 apiece. I call Goldstein, whose voice jumps to falsetto in disbelief. (“What is he, some kind of cockroach who farts on cue?”)

I think back several years, when Larry Levenson was found in a deserted Queens parking lot, both legs and arms broken, left for dead. Within a week, he had finessed his way out of the hospital, backed an electric wheelchair into his private chamber, and fucked all night. Coming from lawside, Larry was convicted in July 1981 for “tax fraud.” Goldstein, who had peered into the eyes of a hundred judges, received the dirtiest look he’d ever gotten from Lev’s judge. This judge was out for blood, handing down an eight-year sentence over an easily correctable mix-up of tax forms. But even this shattering act hadn’t put a dent in his dick.

Tonight, Larry proved he is an honest man.

He continues thumbing out payments for his girls, at $50 per org. “Let’s see... Victoria went first, Rose second, Barbie was third. Patrice fourth—I couldn’t have done it without her. I think she did seven. Then Mary.... They were all so beautiful....”

THE
SAVIORS

Father Rappleyea’s Parish

The only house of God to survive 42nd Street—where churches once flourished across the same strip that would fester with peeps and kung-fu attractions—is Holy Cross. Its parish, founded in 1852, erected the red church in 1870 as a stabilizing influence in the Hell’s Kitchen shantytown. Holy Cross witnessed from a block away the birth of Broadway and theatrical opulence after 1900; it cast a reproachful eye on the honky-tonk debauchery that crept in after the Depression. Holy Cross became surrounded again by a ghetto of massage parlors and hookers in the “Hell’s Bedroom” years of the 1970s. It is the oldest building on 42nd Street, with an interior of marble, stained glass, soaring ceilings with clerestory windows, mosaics designed by Tiffany, and a rare Skinner organ.

The priests of Holy Cross are fighters of legend. Father Francis P. Duffy, chaplain of the “Fighting Irish” 69th Division in the trenches of France during World War I, became pastor in 1921. Beloved by the theater community, he was a force in busting up the Hell’s Kitchen gangs. Braced behind a Celtic cross, his statue stands opposite George M. Cohan’s, the only two fellows bronzed in Times Square. He was succeeded upon his death in 1932 by Monsignor Joseph A. McCaffrey, a Fordam football star, World War I hero, and NYPD chaplain, who wrote the following: