WatchingWatching begins as a matter-of-fact descriptive account of the sleaze palaces around Times Square, and gathers force page by page, building to a torrent of redemptive poetry - from bleak materials! Meet the retired pickle-jar lid makers, the "remnant folders, " the pensioners, wage-slaves and sex-slaves who live in the efficiency apartments of Hell's Kitchen. Billy "the Gimp, " a stoic pensioner who lives for the peep shows in Times Square, "those sticky-footed temples of enlightenment, " describes life in the raw, as it surrounds him, in all its comic horror. Like the graffiti of ruined Pompeii, Billy's tale is the record of a civilization - ours! Watching is one of those rare inventions of which we can say without hesitation, "Every word is true." |
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Alvin Andy apartment building arcade asked Bernie Bernie's Billy black leather blanket blow job Bon Joy bondage bondage magazines booth Brecht called Carl clothes cold crazies dark Den'Carno Donny door dressed drugs eyes face floor Forty-second Street Frankie front Fuck girl Glinzretti Brothers hair hands head Henny Youngman Herman hips Hoyt hundred dollars Ilka inside Jack Sidney Jimmy JOHNNY EAGER last night Lepanto live looked M'Liss magazines Magda Maharajah Manhattan Mike Jacobs Minnie morning naked woman never Nicholas Arena Ninth Avenue nipples Number once pension Peter Lawford pulled realized restaurant ring Rodgers and Hammerstein Salvation Army Sammy schlong shoes sidewalk sitting sleeping smiled snow sometimes started subway Sultan talk tell tit clamps tokens told took Van Heflin walked wall wallet watch wearing whipping women young