Kim, her sister Kyle, and I walked from their apartment on Bleecker Street in a heavy evening rain. The gutters swiftly swelled with the run-off. At Broadway Kim announced that she is having her first period after her abortion. The cramps are killing her, but she said, “I’ll feel better after a drink.”
We carried a pint bottle of vodka to avoid paying for drinks at CBGBs.
I saw a young man on the sidewalk. He was soaked to the bone and I recognized Kim’s admirer. Barry Miller, an actor from SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. His character jumped off the Verrazano Bridge. He was hopelessly in love with Kim, who ignored him, until he said, “You should kidnap me, the MGM will pay the ransom.”
“Only if I get to beat you up. It has to look real.” I was annoyed at his joining us and Kyle said, “Yeah, maybe we could get $20,000 for you.”
“I’m worth more than that.”
You’re no John Travolta.” Kim loved the star of the disco movie. “Plus kidnappers always get caught.”
“How much money you have on you, Barry?”
“A couple of hundred.”
“Perfect, then you can finance the kidnapping.”
Kim, Kyle, and I discussed leaving cryptic notes telling the studio how we were torturing their ‘star’.
“We can cut off an ear lobe.” Just like the Italian gang did to Jean Paul Getty’s grandson.
“I’m not paying you to cut off my ear.”
“It’s just an left lobe. It’s not like you wear earrings.”
“You’re all crazy.” He flagged down a taxi. He was off to the Plaza. Alone. Maybe someone would recognize him there.
We reached CBGBs and sat against the wall. Kim poured drinks underneath the table. The Ramones came on last. They were great. I got a little drunk and we decided to not kidnap Barry.
“Not a chance,” protested Kim. “I could stand him for more than a few minutes.”
“So it’s off.”
“Maybe.”
All of us like maybes.
Especially at CBGBs.
LATER
Alice told me about a date.
“You went out with someone else?”
“You said you didn’t want to go to the David Bowie Concert and someone invited me.”
“Who?”
“That guy we were walking with the other night.”
I recalled a roundish young man with a hooked nose, who had defended Bowie.
No competition, but she broke off the conversation to be at a function for a goodbye to her senior year away from Ohio.
LATER
Walking etiquette.
I hate people with umbrellas. They’re always trying to poke out your eyes, as they blindly strolled down the sidewalk. I was walking with Bruce down Christopher Street. He had come down from Boston for a weekend of sin on the Hudson docks. I shoved one man out of the way.
“I can’t take this. Someone is going to blind me. In feudal days the right of way was determined by might. Everyone got out of the path of a King. The Aztec monarch Montezuma’s servants cleared the ground of any stones whenever he alit from his litter. Cortez was impressed by this.”
“So impressed that he destroyed the Aztec empire.”
“Back then people respected their betters and did so until the revolution of the last few centuries. Now everyone thinks they’re just as good as anyone else. There are no rules. It’s a democratic free-for-all of the masses.”
“So you’re better than everyone elseThe only time they stand aside is if your big or mean.”
“I step aside for cripples and women, but sometimes for men too and I curse myself for that and the next time a man tries to get into my space I will become an unmovable object.”
“Yes, Mr. Nice Guy.”
LATER
The letters to Libby have returned without any forwarding address. The blonde has vanished into New York or elsewhere. We only fucked twice in Boston. Neither of us knew the other.
LATER
I have a sharp pain in my side. So bad it doubles me over.
LATER
Alice feels nice to sleep with. I will miss her, when she returns to Ohio for graduation, and told her that with tears in my eyes. Alice said, “I feel so helpless when you cry.”
I said nothing about my emotions, but she sometimes feels, as if she’s being tested and unfairly by me. Maybe it’s better to let her go into the theater world to a future she knows is see coming, but why would I want to leave someone I love.
Because I’m fucked up.
FOR FREEDOM
The Rolling Stones are almost 40
Russia is stagnant
America repressed
The Beatles are dead
So is Hitler
But I am alive
Running for shelter is useless
Nuclear bombs destroy everything
And death comes so fast.
A flash.
Before you hear
Before you see
Before you feel
Ending the Atomic Age
And I couldn’t care less,
Because all I want is a white-on-white Cadillac before I go.