F*ck Conformity—Part II: How NOT to Do It
The Fragile Compliance of Alene Lee
Nonconformity is the choice to live true to your own values, beliefs, and nature, even when (and especially when) it goes against the grain of prevailing norms or expectations. It is the courage to follow an internal compass rather than an external map that, in return, can produce profound personal fulfillment and liberation as well as innovation and societal progress. Think Elizabeth Freeman, Oprah, Misty Copeland, Josephine Baker, Serena Williams, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Mae Jemison, and many others. (I wrote about Michelle Obama in F*ck Conformity—Part I: How to Do It.)
It is not counterculture—a subculture that actively opposes and challenges the dominant culture's values and norms. It's a collective rejection of mainstream society that can often become a deep, dark, cold body of water that normalizes self-destructive behaviors and hides unknown predators ready to feed on the vulnerable members seeking to belong.
This story is about that. About Alene Lee.
Little is known about Alene Lee, born Arlene Garris in 1931 in Washington, D.C. She died of lung cancer in 1991 at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
What we do know about the life of this 5’2” woman of African American and Native American descent comes mostly from the writings of her daughter, Christina Mitchell Diamante, an interview Christina gave to The Last Bohemians, and Alene’s biographical essay made available by Christina entitled, “Sisters”.
Alene is described as dark, beautiful, enchantingly exotic, fiercely independent, intelligent, unsure, and volatile. And a mysterious intellectual and influencer within the Beat generation, a group of writers popularized in the 1950s that rejected literary formalism and sought to break free from cultural norms—valuing their own freedoms above all else. Perhaps, Alene was a moth drawn to the bright “club for tortured souls” flame.
Alene wrote about her troubled upbringing in Staten Island, New York, laden by a very contentious relationship with her mother, domestic violence, sexual abuse, poverty, and racism. She was, in her words, a “little, skinny, lonely, defiant, unheard child” destined for a future of domestic servitude or life on the streets.
At 16, Alene ran away from home, landing first at the Manhattan YMCA that provided safe and affordable housing and various programs for young women. She and her friends from the Y enjoyed music concerts, art museums, coffee shops, and spirited jazz clubs around the city. She settled in Greenwich Village, home to an influx of writers and painters after World War II, cheap apartments, violence against interracial couples, and discrimination against Black residents and visitors.
Among a few jobs, Alene took on manuscript typing for Victoria Admiral, the mother of actor Robert DeNiro, and people Victoria recommended to her. They included Allen Ginsberg, one of the three most famous Beat writers. He and Alene became intimate friends and he often quipped about his idea that Alene broke his male genitalia.
One night, as Christina was told, an amphetamine was slipped into Alene’s drink. She ended up walking around naked in Greenwich Village and then going to the psychiatric ward at Bellevue. Christina never saw her mother take drugs.
Allen introduced Alene to Jack Kerouac, another of the three most famous Beat writers. They had a love affair over several months in the summer of 1953 when Alene was 22.
On a three-day amphetamine binge after they broke up, Jack wrote The Subterraneans. The novel follows a group of young hippy-like writers in 1953 San Francisco, eerily like the self-involved Jack and his Beat circle in Greenwich Village. Critics say that the female character of Mardou Fox with frizzy hair, dark feet, naïve speech, and bouts of mental breakdowns was his loosely veiled portrait of Alene. He wrote of her “Negro”. Of “disgust seeing you lying in bed because of your hair.” That “everybody concerned [my mother, sister, sister’s husband, . . . ], would be mortified to hell and have nothing to do with us —”. Of her “going through men as other women go through money.” And the “times I ran out on her.”
Alene was horrified and infuriated at reading the manuscript a week later. She felt insulted, hurt, and betrayed at the unfair portrayal. Alene said in a 1980s interview, “I went into shock. A lot of it was still raw. These were not the times as I remember them. It was like a little boy bringing a decapitated rat to me and saying, ‘Look, here’s a present for you.’”
In 1957, at age 26, Alene began a lengthy affair with John Mitchell, an artist, entrepreneur, and known philanderer who opened many of the original Greenwich Village coffee houses popular for their Beat poetry readings and folk music. Christina was born that year. Virginia and Virginia’s therapist had convinced Alene to keep her pregnancy after having had several abortions.
When Christina was about two, Alene took her to Mitchell’s coffee shop, the Fat Black Pussycat. Christina recalled, “I was in pajamas and barefoot. My mother asked him if we could have some food because it was restaurant. He brought a bowl of ice cream. My mother flipped out and started attacking him, probably throwing dishes. He tied her to a pole in the middle of the restaurant and called the police. I was put outside, standing barefoot on Minetta Lane and my mother was taken away by the police. I was taken away by a friend of my mother’s named Lenny Rubin and spent the night with him until my mother was bailed out of jail.”
Shortly after, John organized a protest of café owners against alleged municipal and mob bribes. His restaurant was firebombed and he was threatened to leave the country or die. He left.
In 1963, Alene, now 32, and five-and-a-half-year-old Christina moved in with Lucien Carr, a son of wealth, a recent divorcee, and an editor at United Press International.
Lucien beat Alene almost daily. Arguing, screaming, and fighting into the early morning. Scars and broken teeth. There were no glasses, knives, or plates in the house because Lucien would routinely shatter them against the wall. If police came because of an assault, Alene would not press charges. Christina’s room was the living room with a pullout couch. Alene paid her share of the rent the entire time she and Christina were there.
Christina was sent on a nightly run around the corner to the liquor store to buy a fifth of vodka and a carton of Kool cigarettes for Lucien and Alene. They both smoked five packs a day.
After six years of the abuse, police calls, back and forth to Bellevue, and wandering the streets, Christina asked her mother about them leaving Lucien. Alene said no. She believed Lucien to be the great love of her life and wanted Christina to have a father figure.
At the 11-year mark, Lucien asked Alene and Christina to vacate because he, then in his late 40s, became involved with a teenage girl, who would become his second wife.
Over the next 17 years, Alene continued to write but shunned the public spotlight. She appeared in others’ writings only fictitiously. Strange men on the street would make sexual overtures towards her as the dramatized Mardou Fox. Allen stayed in touch with Alene, visiting her at the hospital as she lay dying.
In her “Sisters” essay, which chronicles her visit back home to Staten Island when she was 21, Alene expressed her desire to form her own identity, free from societal and others’ constraints. Though she certainly defied traditional conventions of womanhood—Black womanhood at that—in her era, she conformed to the Beat herd mindset of hipster, unrestrained freedom, wild-eyed brilliance, and narcissism. A toxic practice of conforming to nonconformity. The darkness of ideology.
Any happiness she experienced—I didn’t come across many, if any, mentions—came from the outside, suggesting chaos within. She deemed betrayal and domestic violence as love. According to Christina, Alene suffered “serious mental breakdowns” and struggled to figure out how to function in the world. Alene once commented, “My whole life has been one long waiting to gain entrance [to the world].”
I didn’t know Alene and I hope that in her life after this life she is free in her own individual identity, her wholly true self. And I thank her for the example she left with us to choose nonconformity over counterculture. To be “true self”, rather than “true us” even within like-minded community where we hold dear both individual freedom and boundaries, dreams and dream-aligned behavior, inherent worth demonstrated by daily choices.
True Selfers’ practice this week
Spend time in quiet reflection on any associations or wounds (childhood and otherwise), that may be at the root of any self-destructive or unproductive behavior. Write down any that you find, then lather your list with compassion to dissolve their impact. This can be heavy lifting so find a therapist to guide and support you in doing this.
Repeat daily this week’s hymn: “I will live my truth and thrive.”
Grab some good popcorn and watch the movie, Uglies. It’s about a society obsessed with beauty and conformity and it surprised me in the best possible way.
Journey on,
Netta Fei