Jacket Weather, page 3
“Why San Francisco?”
“Because of Hot Tuna. That’s all I had. I was very angry at my parents for moving to Long Island. My whole life was in Canarsie. All my friends, my music. That’s who I was. I was always out of the house: we played stickball in the alley, I played handball by John Wilson 211. I was there every day. Nobody made a plan or a date, they just gathered there. They couldn’t get me to come in the house: Mrs. Muttner used to call my mother because she drove by and saw me there smoking pot, smoking cigarettes, and hanging out with a wrong element. And when I was fifteen, they moved to Long Island: completely different universe. People had cars, I didn’t. People grew up together and hung out in each other’s houses—I didn’t know anybody. And I didn’t fit in! Everyone was into disco, and I was into—not disco. I was of the camp that ‘Disco must die!’ Y’know? Those T-shirts everyone was wearing. So after three years that I endured going to high school— It was miserable for me. Then my family: ‘Go to college, go to college’—begging me to go to college. ‘I’m not going to college. But I’ll tell ya what I am doing, I’m moving out, and I’m going to California.’”
“[Laughter]”
“So I went to the Greyhound bus terminal and I paid seventy-five dollars, and I got my one-way ticket—”
“[Laughter]”
“Cross-country! On the bus. And they were both aghast: ‘What are you gonna do?!’ I said, y’know, ‘Aah I’ll figure it out!’”
•
“What did you think was gonna happen?”
“Adventure. I wanted a whole new thing. All I knew was I wanted to get away from my parents and leave New York and not go to college. I was gonna live in California. There was no— I didn’t think it through. There was no plan. It wasn’t a plan, it was an escape! I didn’t do any research, I didn’t think you needed a car, I thought it’s like New York. It’s Los Angeles, it’s a big city, I’ll walk around. You know, you don’t know until you get there. What did I know? I was so young—I was too young to live!”
“They must have been terrified. Your daughter’s getting on a bus with— I mean, how much money could you have had?”
“I don’t know. But I had all the money I ever got. This was like birthday money, Hanukkah money— This was money I saved up. It was money from babysitting or from working as a cashier, when I worked at a market for five minutes . . . I forgot what else I did.”
“My first job was dishwasher at a Chinese restaurant.”
“That sounds like hard work for a kid.”
“Nah.”
“I don’t know. When I was fifteen, I was a hostess at an IHOP. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. It was my first time walking and talking.”
“And you would never think to take a plane, in those days. You were probably never on a plane before.”
“The plane never occurred to me. But the bus was very appealing, I went and got a knapsack, I thought Oh, I bought heavy blue socks: they were very heavy and thick ’cause I thought I might be sleeping outdoors . . . I dunno what I thought, I just was ready for anything.”
“Fearless.”
“Yes. Brought a notebook, to write everything down . . . and I had an adventure. I got on the bus, I met wonderful people—I met a writer, a poet, gave me one of his books . . . we had a nice long talk . . . uh, I met two boys—younger than me—we got high together . . . I think we did acid? Wound up in Santa Cruz . . . stayed there for a day or so, got back on the bus . . .”
•
“Right away in LA I met this guy at a Fleetwood Mac concert, and I moved in with him.”
“Fleetwood Mac?”
“Y’know, I’d go to anything, every show. I met this girl had tickets to Fleetwood Mac. Of all things. And . . . Yeah, I met this guy. I went back with him that night, to Huntington Beach, where he lived.”
•
The guy took her out to Colorado and stuck her in a camper. June paid off his debts with the last of her money. Got a waitress job at a truck stop.
“I felt very uncomfortable there. We lived with his friends who had a trailer, and I was helping out with their kids, and all of a sudden I was in this whole other life that I never imagined for myself. A woman I worked with was being abused, and they never saw a Jew before . . . Y’know, I had this curly hair, they all have accents, believed in Jesus, and I didn’t understand anything about these people or the way they lived. It was a weird scene. For me to be in—coming from—y’know, I’m a Jew from Brooklyn! What do I know about Colorado?”
One of the people she was staying with asked—not unkindly—to see her horns. Just curious. The next day June was on a bus to New York.
•
We stepped outside. The rain was done and Second Avenue was shining—sidewalk, street.
She said “It’s all happening too fast!”
I said “But everything that happens happens fast. Right? However long it takes to happen, when it happens it’s an instant.”
“But it’s only a week! Not even a week. How can we know what this is?”
“When you first hear ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash,’ how long do you need to know what that is? You know what that is. You know it at the first chord.”
•
We wander into St. Mark’s Books. Now we’re just trying not to say good night. We take things off the shelf, we put them back. It’s like you’re a teenager and there’s nowhere to be, nowhere to land. How do we do this, whatever it is? We walk out of there with a plan to read Proust! Over the phone, if necessary. She wants me take her to the racetrack sometime. You always need some kind of plan, something to go on. I walk her home on dripping side streets.
And then I’m back at my table. Everything different, everything the same.
•
Before dawn, the whine and yawn of garbage trucks below.
•
Philly comes in wearing a beanie, opens his locker, says “Harold, what’s gonna be?”
Harold must be 85 years old, he’s collapsed on his stool after his workout, barely breathing. Philly’s untying his shoes, telling him about his date last night.
He says “I took her to Café Riazor. I get the chicken—you ever had the chicken there?”
With a sad shrug, Harold says “I had the steak, it was wonderful.”
“I go for the chicken Riazor. If I was going to the electric chair, you know what I’d have for my last meal? Chicken Riazor. What about you?”
“I don’t think I’d have much of an appetite,” Harold says, unhappily.
•
Friday morning I’m outside the Y on 14th Street, looking east. She walks right out of the sun. Materializes by the newsstand.
•
Saturday her husband’s out of the house from early afternoon till four in the morning, after work. She invited some people over to play cards that night. So I could see Jane and meet a few of her and Jane’s friends. Maybe also to keep us from having too much time alone. But by mid-afternoon we’ve been for a walk and looked at some old pictures and we’re exhausted already from lying around on two different pieces of furniture trying to avoid seeing this for what it is, with our words falling out of our mouths because there’s nothing more to say and no other way to move forward as she comes over and stretches herself out on their big couch and lays her animal weight on me.
I can say that when June kisses you, you know you’ve been kissed. You feel like you’ve been chosen.
In a minute we backed off and got ourselves together. Then we remembered the game. We were jealous of our time alone, which was running out of our veins by the second and pooling on the floor. The prospect of having to pretend in front of other people that there was nothing going on—now that we could no longer pretend it to ourselves—drained me of the will to live. Now we hated that fucking card game. But there it was.
She said “How attached are you to that earring?”
I tossed it out the window.
•
She had a cigar box covered in shiny fabric backstage passes with a stretched-out yellow sparkly hairband around it. And inside, the pale-blue Ticketron stubs from when she first started going to shows at the Garden and the arenas and colleges on Long Island, graduating to the multicolored sunburst design, mostly from the Palladium, MATEUS AT THE PALLADIUM 14TH ST AND 3RD AVE—NO BOTTLES/CANS—NO REFUNDS/EXCH, some with the venue or date or the name of the act torn off. HOT TUNA WED NOV 24 1976; JORMA KAUKONEN MDNITE SAT NOV 25; ZAPPA DEC 29 1976; November 12, 1976, “Lou Reed” written on the front; “Heart + Jan Hammer + Jeff Beck”; VON LMO 9:00 MON NOV; “Robin Trower + Shooting Star” . . . MOTORHEAD/KROKUS FRI MAY 14 with “David Fricke” written on the back in what appears to be his hand—
David Fricke?
—ELVIS COSTELLO & THE ATTRACTIONS/SQUEEZE JAN 31 1981 . . . plus one with “MOTORHEAD + Ozzy Osborn” in her hand on the front and, on the back, apparently in his hand, “Neil Z 212 769 1148, in Brooklyn.” Back when Brooklyn was still 212.
Neil Z?
TUBES MIDNIT SAT APR 28 1979; “Allman Bros.”; “English Beat/Pretenders”; GEILS APR 25 1980 . . . CHEAP TRICK MAY 24 1979 . . . MC GUINN/CLARK/HILLMAN FRI APR 13 1979; “Ian Hunter + Mick Ronson” . . . one with “Student Teachers + Cramps + Iggy Pop” in her hand on the front and, in his on the back: “Bennet Manzella / 2323 Mott Ave / Far Rock. 11691 / 471-3518.”
THE RAMONES with “STIV BATORS + the Wanders” written underneath; 10:00P FRI JUL 10; PUBLIC IMAGE LTD 8:00P SUN APR 20 with “James Blood Ulmer/Public Image LTD” on the back of a very soiled stub; THE JAM 8:00P SAT APR 14 1979; THE CLASH FRI MAR 07 1980 with “B Girls/Lee Dorsy” written on the back. THE PATTI SMITH GROUP AUG 10 1979 . . . LEAGUE DEC 07 1977 with “Jerry G.” written on the back . . . JOHNNY WINTER 8:00P SUN AUG 07; LITTLE FEAT OCT 5 1978; UTOPIA SUN JUN 20 1976—
Just “Jerry G.,” no number.
—BOB DYLAN WED SEP 27 1978; “Grateful Dead” from ’79; “Tucker + Outlaws” and “CLAPTON” from ’78; NO NUKES CONCERT THUR. SEPT. 20 1979; ZEPPELIN WED. JUNE 8 1977 . . .
Plus the plain little stubs from the Schaefer Music Festival and then the Dr Pepper Music Festival at Wollman Rink, in Central Park: “Joe Jackson” Aug 1 1980; “Peter Tosh” from Sunday, August 19, 1979; JUL 25 “South Side Johnny + the Asbury Jukes” on the front “Larry 471-6437” on the back in his handwriting . . . MONDAY 6:30 P.M. “Stephen Stills”; Central Park Music Festival 14th Year $2.50 “Blondie”; SAT. EVE. 6:30 P.M. JULY 3 “Todd Rundgren/Cheech + Chong.”
Larry? Who the hell is Larry?
Plus, more backstage passes—Jeff Beck, Peter Gabriel, Neon Leon—and tickets from miscellaneous venues: THE STRANGLERS MEN IN BLACK TOUR SATURDAY JUN 20 1981 at Bond; Leon Russell at the Beacon; the Flamin’ Groovies at Bottom Line; Jorma at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic; Richie Havens at the Lone Star; David Bromberg at the South Student Center at Nassau Community College; a drink ticket from Club Malibu with “B-52s + Plastics” written on the back; Brother Theodore at 13th Street Repertory; the Undertones at the Diplomat Hotel; the fateful FLEETWOOD MAC 10/2 show at the LA Forum.
At the bottom, there’s a broken string of beads, two guitar picks, a Max’s pin, some tobacco flakes, and a Marlboro she bummed off of Iggy with a piece of tape around it.
Neil Z? Bennet Manzella from Far fucking Rockaway? Jerry G? Larry, of all people? David fucking Fricke? Iggy fucking Pop?
•
The apartment buzzer goes off, it’s Judy Nylon. She comes in with the news that Willy DeVille’s got pancreatic cancer. She just heard he’s got two months to live. We talk about Willy DeVille, and then Judy wants to talk writing. She knows from June I’m a writer, and she offers to connect me with someone at 3:AM Magazine.
“I gave them a segment of my memoir. They’re what the Paris Review once was. Probably like you, I’m fed up with bullshit dishonest writing no matter how much approval it gets.”
“So you’re working on a memoir?”
“Off and on, yeah, as I feel it. I struggle with memoir because of the rock thing in my life. I’ve alway been a sort of samurai in an industry of hardcore gender prejudice and greed, where what you do is either stolen or disregarded and has no history.”
“More reason to do it.”
“Yeah. Otherwise it’s like waiting for someone to ask you to dance.”
June’s friends BG and Tamar show up, then a guy named Brad. So that’s three more people from whom I have to conceal my separation anxiety at losing contact with June. Four, if you count June. And finally, from across the street, Jane, a little bird in black—her usual black tights and a man’s black suit jacket with rolled sleeves—immediately the center of any room.
“Jane, it’s been a long time. You’re looking good.”
“Good for what? Look at my hair.”
“I gotta hand it to ya.”
“I can’t believe I left the house like this, I look like Mamie Eisenhower.”
She endures a hug and pulls a plastic bag of coins out of her purse.
BG’s telling a detailed story about how his nearly pathological persistence with a customer-service employee allowed him to return a pair of slacks he’d been wearing for six months in exchange for a new pair, money back, free hemming, and double air miles. Jane’s dealing crazy eights. Judy’s talking about reclaiming the rights to her record Pal Judy.
“Licensing deal for five years, plus an advance. Then I can buy back the publishing, inshallah.”
Then somehow she and Tamar get onto Obama. Brad says “Surely we have more-interesting things than politics to discuss.”
“Freddie Herko!” Jane cries.
Laughter all around. “How long you been keeping that up your sleeve?” Brad says.
“Who’s Freddie Herko?” June wants to know.
“He was a dancer,” Brad says. “A Factory person.”
“Danced himself out the window onto Cornelia Street,” Jane says. She reaches to draw.
“Fifty years ago,” Brad says. “Almost.”
Jane tells June “I talked to Walter.”
“Walter Lure?”
“Yeah.”
“He called you?”
“Yeah. He found a photo album with pictures from the eighties.”
June, very serious: “How did we look? Did we look fat?”
Jane: “Yeah, especially you.”
June: “Really?”
Jane: “He said everybody looks good. It was twenty-five years ago: what do you think?”
Later they decide to get a couple of pizzas. So I can breathe, I volunteer to run out and pick them up.
When I get back, Brad’s complaining about the new pedestrian plaza in Times Square.
Jane: “Fuckin’ Bloomberg. Maybe he can open some more lanes for bicycles to disrupt traffic and run you over.”
BG: “While you’re having your coffee in the middle of Seventh Avenue. You know, I’ve gotta say, I’ve always really wanted to be able to have a coffee there.”
Jane: “How many times have I said ‘If only we could have some umbrellas and tables out here!’”
•
To Tere: “Saturday she reminds me she never meant to get involved and she needs her heart back after this marriage. Then she lies on top of me. Then she says that starting Tuesday, we shouldn’t talk for five days while I’m in Cleveland to see my mother. She wants to slow it down. She wants to take it down a notch. But she wants to know what I’m doing today. And tomorrow. Then she says she can’t do this, and she doesn’t want me to wait. Meanwhile, I can almost see through my hand.”
•
The alarm tears me out of sleep by the roots. Black Tuesday. There goes Manhattan, behind corrugated barriers on the BQE. Town Car to LaGuardia: bad shocks and greasy seats and pink deodorizer. “It’s good you’re going away,” she said. “Let’s agree to not talk while you’re gone.” The radio’s tuned to an R&B station. We shoot the rapids near Broadway/37th Street, Queens. They’ve been working on this stretch of road for thirty years. “No, don’t write. I have to list my house, get divorced, find a new place, plus keep up with my job.” The driver’s geared up for the court in a jersey, long silky shorts, giant shoes. “I feel like I’ve been on vacation and now I have to pay attention to my life. And I can’t do that if I’m talking to you.” Sun flaring in the grass. Purple cornflower, Queen Anne’s lace.
•
In Cleveland, I wasn’t much company for anyone. Five days no contact. The only thing worse than being alone was being with people. When someone was speaking to me I felt like my soul was being dragged through a small hole at the base of my skull. Was she backing out? Hoping the train would slow down so she could jump off? I watched TV with my mother. I took her to the store with my aunt and fixed dinner for them. At night I got in the car and drove around, listening to music and smoking cigarettes.
•
To Tere: “You say if it’s meant to be, it’ll be. Meant by whom? God? Cupid? I know I wasn’t looking for this. I was happy to spend the next thirty or forty years catching up on my reading. For two years I never shut up about how grateful I was to be alone. Then someone leaves the gate open and I’m out of it like a shot. Maybe that’s why I feel so desperate. I’m out of control.”
•
When my mother went to bed I sat on the apartment balcony, smoking, watching the night above the trees, sorting back through every conversation with June until I came across something I could pin my hopes on. Now and then a car went past. Down below, a skunk left the shadows and came into the parking lot.
•
“Obviously she’s got a lot going on. Emotionally, psychologically, logistically. And she’s still living with her husband until they sell their apartment. But experience tells me there’s no such thing as a clean slate, and at some point life kicks your door open. Old people understand this, they don’t have all these notions about when things should and shouldn’t happen. They know life is short, and things happen when they happen. Grab a shirt and go.”
•
I got out of the car at the supermarket. The entrance was a hundred yards away. With each step I sank into the asphalt like it was rubber. So I just stood there.
Slow time down enough and it hurts to be alive.
