The Fabulous Table Lady of Atlantic City Complete Parts 1 - 4

The Fabulous Table Lady of Atlantic City Part 1

Where else but in Atlantic City?

As my mother got older we used to stroll the Atlantic City Boardwalk searching for oddities. We searched for different oddities, or I should say those that piqued our individual tastes and missions. For Kate B, my mother, every one of these creatures was a charity case, someone to chat up and donate some amount of money, usually small but often ranging into the $10 amount which was a lot for her (although in truth the money was taken from money I had won at the slot machines). You see, Kate B and I would go into a casino and I would give her $20 to spend which she would promptly pocket. Then, when I won, she would scoop up every last quarter into her bucket. So my winnings would end up in the pocket of one of the oddities.

“From pocket to pocket,” Kate B would exclaim.

For me none of these people could be strange enough. I grew up in this strangest of beach cities at a time when it was way beyond its healthy expiration date, that heyday being the 1940s and 50s. I had lived the decline and had never known a time when it wasn't strange. According to Kate B, there were always weird things on the Boardwalk but she called them “funny" in the way she had when she had seen the flamboyant superstar pianist Liberace fly into the wings at the end of his Atlantic City show. “Funny,” she said, when the word more appropriate would have been “gay.” “Don't say that “ Kate B would say if I even mentioned that word. “His audience is all women!” Yes, I mused, older women with blue rinsed hair.

So we strolled, my mother giving money to those who fulfilled her charity mission and me, searching for that one stand out, the one beyond all earthly belief.

That particular Thursday we rounded the corner near Caesars Palace and happened upon a lineup of about 10 such stand outs. They were all lined up in a row and wiggling in sync to an electronic keyboard beat.

Kate B sauntered over to the line in that movie star way of waking she had sported as of late and started doling out the cash. A dollar to the tiny man, a quarter to the disheveled veteran (”he has an income after all,” Kate B said) and so on until in the middle, blocked by a woman of enormous girth, lay the source of the music and one of the weirdest creatures I had ever seen.

Positioned in the center of the whole line up was a medical grade operating table atop which lay a small woman on her stomach, no limbs. This torso of no more than 4 feet in length was writhing back and forth as she played this small out of date electronic Casio organ with her tongue. She was the source of all delight to her fellow travelers.

“Who is that?” I asked.

“The table lady of Atlantic City” Kate B replied. “She's famous.”

I was speechless. This lineup was quite impressive even by Atlantic City standards. Standing next to the table lady was a guy I could only describe as a human canvas. He looked to be about 6 feet 5 inches, every inch of skin covered in tattoos. It was a little disorienting to look at him at and Kate B. seemed truly disgusted. She fancied herself a bit of a Christian these days although she was able to smoothly fold bottles of gin (which she called “Jesus Juice)” into her faith. She told me that if wine was good enough for Jesus and caused him to greatness, her path lay in the harder stuff. Maybe that’s why she did that movie star saunter.

Next in the lineup was that enormous woman, the one who first blocked my view. She was a singer and while I couldn’t say her voice was bad, to say it was pleasing was definitely a bit of a stretch. To my ear it had the timbre of a cat being dragged along for a casual stroll around the block. The whole group was rounded out by those who looked as though they worked in some sort of sideshow, the kind of shows that had long ago left Atlantic City and left the performers behind. They just ended up here, “stuck at the end of the bus line” a friend of mine used to say. “Nowhere else to go but the big drink.” He was right. Atlantic City had an end of the road feel and at that minute I was in the proud company of the last group that got off that bus.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t even notice the sirens as the boardwalk police trolly raced up the boardwalk behind me. There were some shouts and then shitloads of pandemonium.

End Part 1

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The Melee

“Is that a motorized operating table?”

As the police car rushed up the boardwalk, Kate B, my mother, pulled me out of the way. We had just moments before been treated to an array of entertainment featuring a lineup of the strangest performers I had ever seen, the centerpiece of the whole enterprise being the Fabulous Table Lady of Atlantic City, she who was leading a group disco dance as she lay stomach down and limbless on a medical table while simultaneously playing a Casio organ with her tongue.

As the police approached the “man with the income” (as my mother had called one of them, apparently a Vietnam veteran) struggled to his feet, yanked off his right leg and started to wave it in the the air in a most alarming manner. His neighbor, the tiny man, curled himself into a ball and thrust himself in front of the police vehicle which brought it to a screeching halt. The man with the income hobbled up onto his good leg and started to move the tiny guy around with his prosthetic leg, inching him closer towards the front wheels of the car in an attempt to block any further movement. It was like watching a game of curling with human puck.

My mother, somewhat horrified, moved us back further into a pavilion towards the beach side of the boardwalk. By this time, all pedestrian traffic had ground to a halt as another police car raced up from the South and blocked the boardwalk. A crowd gathered.

A tall officer jumped out of the car and a struggle ensued. The veteran, still swinging his leg, tried to hit the officer in the chest while the tiny man went for his feet. “Top and bottom” the tiny man yelled. The officer called for backups as he was pulled down onto the boardwalk. The woman of large girth (who had been leading a chorus of Amazing Grace for the support of “her people” as she called them) wobbled over and sat on the policeman’s legs. A second officer jumped out and tried to arrest them all which was a nearly impossible task as by now the whole lineup was now in on the melee. It was one large moving mass, a disco line gone awry, all bodies in wild motion.

More police cars arrived and more officers jumped out. Two of them grabbed the tattooed man who, from the looks of it, was trying to appropriate the first car as a getaway vehicle. They handcuffed him just as he was grabbing the steering wheel. Another two officers cuffed the tiny man, the veteran and the woman of large girth. “Public disturbance, disorderly conduct and illegal solicitation,” the commanding officer shouted.

I asked my mother what was going on. She recounted in no short detail that it was illegal to solicit money on the boardwalk, that the Table Lady was in major arrears to the city of Atlantic City for many unpaid violations accumulated over many years and that she, my mother, was contributing to the general delinquency of all with her tipping which is why we were hiding in the pavilion. “No need for all of us to go to jail,” she said.

The crowd suddenly gasped and children began to cry. Marching forward and deliberately with possessed gazes were two older women, identical in every detail down to the white house dress and stringy hair. They had gone virtually unnoticed before and advanced robotically, step by step, closer to the police. All fighting stopped, everyone froze and there was fear in all eyes. One of the officers turned and whispered to the other “My God, the curious twins of Atlantic City.” As the women moved closer, the crowd did one rightward swing to let them pass. They came within inches of the police, glared at the commanding officer and hissed in unison, “Leave Her Alone!” They then turned, again in unison, and walked down towards the beach towards the ocean. All eyes followed.

“What was that?” I asked my mother

“My twin nieces,” she blurted out.

“Your WHAT?” I exclaimed, but before I could continue there was a loud rumble across the Boardwalk

“She’s moving fast,” someone shouted and all eyes whipped back from the beach to the boardwalk.

Out of the ashes of this chaos The Table Lady raced in front of all the police cars, her mouth wiggling a joystick as the table clattered past us all. I was reminded of Wonder Woman flying through the air, cape waving wildly, as the table picked up speed and zoomed down the boardwalk at a good 15MPH.

“RUN, DON’T CRAWL, Celeste” the woman of enormous girth bellowed as she was being held by two officers.

“Is that thing motorized?” I asked my mother.

“Yes, isn’t it magical?” was her reply.

All eyes darted towards the moving table as it flew northwards up the boardwalk, took a sharp left almost toppling the whole thing, and made its way towards Pacific Avenue.

End Part 2

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Rocco and The Little Wonder Cruise Pacific Avenue

“Not too fast,” The Little Wonder protested as Rocco yanked him feet first from under the hood of my 1976 Chevy Impala. He was the smallest of all three of us and was able to reach down into the engine and adjust the fan belt so we used him as our human fix-it tool for minor auto repairs. We didn’t want to attract any more attention from the police as they were always on the lookout for our car, “the rattle trap,” as they called it.

Rocco lived in the basement of his family house just south of Albany Avenue in the Chelsea section of Atlantic City where we would meet every Saturday night, jump into the car, cruise Pacific Avenue and “look for kicks” as The Little Wonder put it.

The Little Wonder was truly small, about 4 feet from foot to head, and grew up on the north side of Atlantic City. He had a twin brother whom he hadn’t seen in a long time as they had been split up after their parents divorced, each parent taking one brother. “It’s like having half a person,” his mother would say. By her reasoning, to split up the tiny twins was not so much to separate them but, “inch for inch,” to share one full size person between herself and their father. In any case, rumor had it that the other twin worked the side shows and was often sighted on the Atlantic City Boardwalk working for tips.

Rocco, on the other hand, considered himself quite tall at 5 feet and was proud of the fact that he could stand up fully in the passenger seat “to get a better look” as we did our weekly cruising.

We started the car, jumped in, me in the driver’s seat, Rocco standing in the passenger’s and The Little Wonder riding the dashboard as he loved to do. It was about 5:30PM, Friday night, late July.

We were off to a rough start as the fan belt was still wobbling under the hood which created a great vibration throughout and shook us all up and down. We took a left off Raleigh Avenue and were on our way, due north on Pacific.

Rocco was giving his usual play by play of the Avenue, some of which we had heard for years. I could barely understand him due to the shaking of the car and didn’t quite hear him say, “Isn’t that Mis-tique?”

Mis-tique was legendary in the Atlantic City nightlife of a lifetime ago and was rarely seen in public. It appears that the 70’s had taken a bit of a toll on her and she had retired to the West Side of town with her partner Joneee. We all leaned left for a better look and the car leaned with us causing The Little Wonder to skitter across the dashboard perilously close to the steering wheel. I was about to slide him back with my free hand when Rocco shouted, “Holy shit, a lady on a table just passed us on the right,” and sure enough this woman laying face down on a motorized operating table passed us on the right which caused me to swerve in that direction.

The Little Wonder also slid to the right across the dashboard and fell into Rocco’s lap, resulting in his head jutting out of the passenger’s side window in the direction of the flying table. When I swerved even further to the right to avoid oncoming traffic I hit a pothole the size of which is still debated amongst the three of us to this day.

The thing is, the whole car did a fast dive into the ground and bounced back all in one solid motion and on the upward swing The Little Wonder was propelled through the window and into in the direction of the table the air like a small rocket. Either he picked up speed on the ascent or the table slowed down, but the next thing we all knew is that he had landed face down on top of this enormous limbless woman riding a motorized operating table down Pacific Avenue.

Both were shouting as she tried to shake him off. The table was now moving at a good clip and I caught up on the left as The Little Wonder shrieked:

“HELP ME YOU MORONS!”

The Table Lady turned her head to bite him, and, as she was steering the whole contraption with a mouth controlled joystick, she let go of the stick and the table hit our car. That didn't throw him off so she grabbed the joystick with her lips and shook her head back and forth which caused the table to rock wildly on its two left wheels and again hit our car. These motions caused The Little Wonder to slide very close to the back of the table where he was now hanging on by his tiny fingers.

We were neck in neck on the Avenue when Rocco shouted, “Give me your hand” and reached out to grab him. But as the Tiny Wonder gave up one half of his grip to grab Rocco’s hand she lurched leftward into us for a third time and Rocco lost the grip. “Damn tiny hands,” he groaned.

By this time, The Tiny Wonder had lost almost all hope of holding on and when the Table Lady made a sharp left onto North Carolina Avenue he slid cleanly off the back of the table and was again airborne. This time he took more of a horizontal flight pattern and flew straight towards this metal fence. We skidded to a stop and jumped out of the car as he flew headfirst into the fence and disappeared.

As we got closer we realized that he had, in fact, flown through a hole in the middle of the fence that just big enough to accommodate his small frame. We raced over and discovered him in a bit of a distraught state from both the flight and from landing in a pile of dirt, dirt which was just soft enough to catch him and hard enough to bang him up pretty badly.

We all looked westward as the table continued racing down North Carolina Avenue, destination unknown.

The Little Wonder later told us that, in that moment, his childhood faith in God was restored and he went back to Church.

But only for a little while.

End Part 3

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What Happens In Atlantic City Leaves Atlantic City

“1, 2, 3, Blow!!!”

“Happy Birthday Celeste!!”

Celeste, aka The Fabulous Table Lady of Atlantic City, blew out the candles on her 40th birthday cake and looked over her many friends and fans. All of her fellow performers were present, the man in the wheelchair, the tiny man, the woman of enormous girth, and, of course, lurking the in the shadows, those curious twins of Ventnor City. She was also pleased to see Rocco and the Tiny Wonder. She could scarcely believe it when she had rolled onto the boardwalk on her motorized table for her daily shift as “entertainer extraordinaire” and saw the assembled throng. This, her family, had come out to celebrate her life, the life of a woman who had spent the better part of her working life laying face down on a motorized table hustling for spare change while playing a Casio organ with her tongue.

“What are your hopes for the future Miss Celeste?” asked the Tiny Wonder.

She had to think about it. After all, she had given birth to two children, was married and lived a more or less stable life, not that any of them knew about that. She remained mysterious to them, a phantom of the Atlantic City Boardwalk, someone who was a stranger amongst these virtual strangers. To them, she was just another one of the side show oddities who rolled up onto the Boardwalk daily to join the never ending show.

“I want to be crowned Miss America!”

All laughed and Rocco chimed in, “You mean Miss Table Lady America.”

An hour or so passed and The Tiny Wonder exclaimed, “gift time” and tore the cover off an enormous box that stood by the edge of the boardwalk, ocean side. Down fell the sides and all cheered as before them appeared a brand new motorized table. Celeste beamed as she realized that her "family" had bought her a new mode of transportation on which she could travel and from atop which she could work.

The table gleamed in that new stainless steel sort of way and looked like any table one would see in a restaurant kitchen, except for the fact that Rocco had reconfigured it with a motorized wheel mechanism which connected to a joystick control to steer the contraption. Next to the joystick were two separate paddles, one for increasing and the other for decreasing the speed. Celeste realized that this is something that she would have to get used to as the prior model had only one speed control that was attached to the joystick. In any case it was just beautiful.

“Try it on,” they shouted in unison, and hoisted Celeste from her old table to the new one which was no easy feat given that she had put on a few pounds. They gave one last heave and were able to get her face down on the new table. All the while Rocco was talking and talking, explaining to her the workings of the contraption, the location of the battery, and, most importantly, that the right paddle is to increase the speed and the left to lower it. “Apply gentle pressure,” he told her as he had carefully calibrated the paddles to be very sensitive.

She rolled back and forth, slowly increasing the speed, and immediately noticed the sensitivity of the new table. The slightest movement of the left paddle caused the table to lurch forward alarmingly. “I’ll just have to get used to it;” she thought.

“Balloons” they shouted. Rocco opened a trash bag full of over-sized helium balloons and started to tie them to the new table. “Now, this is a REAL gift’” he exclaimed. When he was done they wondered aloud what they should do next when the woman of enormous girth shouted “table races.” None of them thought this was a bad of an idea as they had a spare table on hand. Of course Celeste would have to be in every race as she was basically stationary on her table.

The first race was Celeste vs. Rocco. As Rocco was unaccustomed to steering a restaurant table he got off to a shaky start and just about veered off the Boardwalk on the acceleration. Celeste won that one. Other races ensued, most of which she won due to the superior speed of her table, the one over which she still had minimal control.

“Final Race.”

The Tiny man jumped onto the table and looked over at Celeste as Rocco blew the whistle. Off they went. He took off at a furious speed and seemed to have great control of the table owing to his small stature and weight. They were zooming down the Boardwalk, both travelling further than any of the others had been able to do when Celeste stated to lose control of her table. She couldn't control the paddles and the table began to pick up speed, faster and faster as it caught the ocean breeze underneath. At the same time, the balloons started to lift the table off the Boardwalk and Celeste was airborne, floating on the current, due north. Just before the table lifted off, the tiny Wonder grabbed onto one leg of the table and was pulled up with it. All on the ground gasped as he, the table and Celeste drifted higher and higher. He was shaken loose when the table jerked to the left over the beach and dropped him some 30 feet into a sand dune.

All of the guests raced over to see if he was o.k. as Celeste shouted from her lofty perch:

“THANKS FOR THE WONDERFUL GIFT, I LOVE YOU ALL AND WILL SEE YOU SOON!!”

She drifted northward on her table guided by the current and held aloft by 20 balloons. All below started to cry.

END