That evening three shattered ribs, a shattered femur, and smashed orbital socket placed Johnny on NYU Hospital’s critical list and throughout the night his lungs filled with fluids. Antibiotics were ineffective in treating this crisis and Doctor Bertoni drew Sean away from the rest of the band to say, "We might lose him."
“What do you mean lose him? No one dies from pneumonia."
The doctors at Maine Medical had saved his younger brother from a lung infection in 1960. This was America in 1976. Surely medicine had improved in sixteen years.
"I'm not supposed to talk about this, but over the past year young gay men have been entering the hospital with a wide range of ailments destroying their immune systems. They all died from a similar strain of pneumonia.”
“Died?”
“None of them left the hospital alive.”
“None?”
“None.” Dr. Bertoni pronounced a death sentence with no reprieve.
"Johnny's injuries aren't fatal, but something else is and I can't tell you what."
Sean looked into the room, where Johnny lay underneath a plastic tent pumped with oxygen. Several tubes were stuck in his arms. One of them led to a morphine drip. The other band members of GTH were seated in the hallway. Their faces expected good news. There wasn’t any and Dr. Bertoni asked with the cool professionalism of having informed countless families and friends of the worst.
“You want me to tell them?”
“No, I’ll do it.”
Sean walked over to the bench with the doctor trailing him and he explained the bitter prognosis. He had to tell them twice.
"Why's he dying?" Frankie blinked in disbelief.
"I don't know and neither do the doctors."
"We have to get a ssecond opinion." Charles struggled to his feet. He had been declared dead years ago. "My father built a wing in this hospital. I can afford the best____"
"We have been giving Johnny the best same as every one of these patients."
"Young people don't die for nothing. Car crashes and accidents I understand, but not pneumonia."
"I'm sorry," Dr. Bertoni solemnly announced, “but your friend won’t survive the night.”
“You’re shitting me.” Frankie melted into tears. Johnny was his only friend. No one else had cared for him in years. No one might again. Tammi embraced the sobbing teenager. She had seen Doctor Bertoni's face cloud with consternation. "The doctor is doing the best he can. Isn't that true?"
"Unfortunately the best won’t save your friend's life. We've called his parents. They're on their way from Florida. In the meanwhile you can each visit him. He’s not strong, so keep it short."
Frankie was too upset to bid his friend good-bye and he other band members regarded each other to decide who would be first. Charles volunteered and entered the room, determined to not cry. Doctor Bertoni departed to make his rounds and Tammi tenderly stroked Frankie' hair. Bobby watched the news on hallway TV. They each had their own way of dealing with grief and Tammi turned to Sean.
“This doesn’t make any sense.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Sean answered and said, “I lived the first eight years of my life across from Portland harbor. My best friend and I vowed to not go swimming, unless we were together. My family moved away in 1960 and Chaney vacationed at Sebago Lake with his parents. He had a new diving mask and fins. He went over his head and panicked. He suffocated fifteen feet from shore in six feet of water. He was eight and his dying has never made sense to me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.” Sean had cursed God’s cruel harvest of souls and today begged Him to spare Johnny, for his atheism didn’t ban a belief in miracles.
“You never said you were from Maine.”
“You seemed like you were trying forget your life there.” His friend’s drowning Maine symbolized the end to a happy childhood of swimming at the camp his grandfather had built in the 1920s, bears at the town dump, lobsters traps, sledding on Blackstrap Hill, and his grandmother’s beef stew as well as pleasant summers spend on Watchic Pond and hiking on LSD in Bar Harbor.
“I bet you feel the same way about me too.”
“Sean, now’s not the time for talk of me and you.”
She hadn’t ceased thinking about him after his leap off the loft’s roof to save Johnny, but no one was a saint 100% of the time.
“You’re right. Now's not the time.” Sean stared at night's black cloak resting over the East River. "I thought it would end differently from this."
"What would end?"
"GTH. Johnny dreamed of us making it to the top. He thought of you as his star, but Nick Arcc and that producer have no use for the rest of the band, only you and there’s nothing wrong with pursuing your own way.”
"Me? First, GTH was fun with you screwing up the bass. We are a band. Frankie, Charles, Johnny, me, and you.” She knew that Max Levy was offering her the moon, but the view of those stars wasn't blinding her.
"Us. We're nothing and I know, because my mother threw away a career to have her kids. You owe us nothing.”
"Why’d you quit your garage band?” She was eager to hear if this newfound nobility was the result of fighting for anything you loved.
“We sucked.” Sean sighed, for Tammi wasn’t relenting until she had heard about the Hung’s final show. “Okay, we had a few gigs in 1968. Pool parties, a birthday party or two. We were popular with the kids and the girls even more. Anyway these rich brothers hired us for a Labor Day party. The Monahans were twins, handsome and mean. I was against the gig, but the house had a pool and was on a golf course.”
“You were jealous.”
“I thought I was a revolutionary.”
“At sixteen?”
“Hey, it was the Sixties. Anyway the rest of the band said it would be fun. And it was, until one of the brothers dosed the punch with LSD. No one had tripped before and people were freaking. I was dating this girl. She had disappeared after the first set. I searched the entire house and found her in the basement. The brothers had chained her to the wall and I went a little nuts, setting the house on fire. The police weren’t able to prove anything, but a judge advised my quitting the Hung. My mother concurred with his verdict.”
“You were crazy.”
“A little more than crazy.”
“For the right cause.”
Tammi had smiled at the image of him rescuing the girl from the dungeon, mostly because Sean had omitted the part of his girlfriend later marrying one of the brothers. “Being right depends on your perspective, but I didn’t play bass again, until Johnny put one in my hands.”
“I would have never sung, if it wasn’t for him.”
“And now it’s all over.”
"Stop saying that.”
“Okay, Johnny is going to get better.” The odds were not in his favor.
“He’ll love dressing for our tour.” She visualized the guitarist in the slickest leather jacket and the straight boys in the audience air-guitaring to his licks.
“It’s a nice thought.”
“It could still happen.” Tammi hated young people dying.
“You heard the doctor.” Sean had had friends die before. More than once. Tammi’s witnessing her father’s death had to have been traumatic. “Johnny isn’t going on any tour. You’ll have to fend for yourself.”
"Me?" Tammi wished he had used 'us' instead 'yourself'.
“You’re the star. Always have been in my eyes.”
Tammi wanted to reply, but Charles emerged from the room, head down and tears streaming from his eyes. She had not imagined the millionaire capable of such emotions, but she had been wrong too many times about too many people.
"He asked to see you," Charles croaked to Tammi. "He hasn’t much left in him."
The organist sat two chairs away from Sean and Tammi rose from the bench to enter the hospital room. “I’ll be right out.”
Tammy walked into the room.
Johnny lay under a plastic tent with an oxygen mask over his mouth.
Upon seeing tammi he took off the plastic respirator and smiled, “You can’t believe how loaded I am.
“They must have strong stuff.” Her father had copped drugs by dating nurses.
“And they give a better count than the Sunshine Bodega.” Johnny breathed in with a gasp. His painful grimace was heart-rending and Tammi broke down, holding a towel to her face. Outside the hospital people were purchasing last-minute Christmas gifts or traveling in trains, planes, and cars to visit families and friends. GTH’s holiday plans were on hold and the guitarist patted her with a ghost-light hand.
"Don’t feel so bad for me. I have been to great places, met fun people, and had a laugh at the expense of a lot of squares. You're just starting your life."
"Johnny___""It's a little too late for me." He coughed and Tammi held the towel to his mouth. The convulsion subsided and she withdrew the towel. It was speckled with blood. Reading the anxiety on her face, Johnny murmured, "There's this movie CAMILLE about a beautiful courtesan. All Paris loves her. She’s dying from TB and no one can help her.”
Johnny paused for several seconds and shut his eyes, screening a scene from the movie against his eyelids. "Promise me you'll see it some time."
"I will." Tammi fought back her tears, praying to freeze this moment and stop his dying.
"Normally I don’t interfere in people’s lives.”
“Really?” He had been a busybody from day one.
“Okay, perhaps a little, so listen. You have a choice. Sean or Charles.”
“Or nobody.” Her being with either man wasn’t chiseled in stone.
“You won’t be so stupid.”
“Stupid?”
“I spend too much time alone, which is one of the reasons why I took care of Frankie.
It was nice having someone to care about, when everyone only cared about themselves. The same went for GTH.” Johnny gagged on his inhale and his eyes popped apart. "Shit, that wasn't good. Perhaps I'm being punished for sounding so philosophical. Hey, I bet that's the first time I used that word in my life. Maybe I missed my calling.”
"No, you were great on guitar." Tammi had to be strong and stifled her whimpering.
"And Hell needs another dead rock musician like Ronald Reagan needs more shoe polish in his hair. Tammi, I lived in a small town too. People looked at me and saw the devil. All because I was a little strange. They couldn’t understand there was another world beyond the TV. Beyond the lies Hollywood tells us. They only believe what they’re told to believe, same as anyone until they hear the truth.”
“I can’t be so forgiving.”
“You don’t have to as long as you’re lost.” He had very little left in him.
“Can I be found?” Johnny was talking about a deeper meaning in life than fame and fortune.
“Only if you follow your heart. I didn’t and look where it got me.”
“You’ll get better. ”
“No, Tammi, never.” Johnny smoothed her hand, feeling its youth. His had been too fleeting. Everyone’s was once it was over. “I should have devoted all my time to music. There were so many songs I never will play, so please make that decision for your own happiness. No one’s else. Tammi?”
"Johnny?"
Faced with death the dying and living seek answers to the mysteries of their life and Johnny demanded in utter seriousness, “Was I beautiful?”
Smiling in recognition that Johnny's narcissism was stronger than death itself, she kissed Johnny on his forehead. It was hot and he smelled sour. "You were the most beautiful boy I met and I love you."
"I always wanted somebody to love me." His face wasn't strong enough to muster any accompanying expression. “You mind holding my hand for a little while?”
“No, at all.” Tammi’s hand clutched Johnny’s fevered palm and prayed for his soul.
None of her prayers had been answered in years, however a greater power had to protect Johnny and she was not picky about what God rescued him on the other side, since they were all the same once you left this life. After a half-hour Johnny opened his eyes and smiled wishfully, “Thanks, Tammi. I really enjoyed performing with you. Send in Frankie, so I can say good-bye before I sleep.”
“Sure, Johnny,” Tammi slowly released the guitarist’s hand.
In the corridor Frankie slept in an impossible position, drifting into the land of nods. Sean and Charles sat separated by a chasm of silence. They had rarely spoken and neither had cared for each other, mostly because they had been competing for the love of a single heart. This contest for Tammi appeared foolish in face of Johnny’s impending death. Words swelled inside each young man and Charles spoke first, “You were brave on the roof.”
“More stupid than brave.” Sean was astonished that he had caught onto the billboard.
“Same as you paying Tammi’s ransom.”
Charles lifted his finger to indicate Sean shouldn’t speak to loudly about the kidnapping. “I did my best.”
Sean crouched forward with his fingers knitted together and Charles leaned closer to the bass player. “When I met Johnny, he swore we were all the same. I hadn’t believed him, only he wasn’t too far from right.”
“I learned a lot too.” The blonde hustler had introduced him into a new world.
For that gift alone Sean humbly had to announce, “I’m quitting the band.”
“You weren’t so bad,” Charles said and Sean smiled, “No, I was terrible.”
“It worked.” Charles had never been so whole as on stage at CBGBs or at the loft. Before or after his accident. “All of us together.”
“It’s still better, if I hang up my bass.” Sean’s musical talent was better suited to a kazoo.
“You have any plans?” His leaving GTH was no great loss, although the band’s break-up made the next stage of recording Tammi much easier.
“To tell the truth, I haven’t any idea.” Sean had enough money to writing poetry for a year or longer. A pen and pencil were certainly lighter than a bass guitar and amp, but both of them struggled with the question they dreaded most and finally Sean asked,
“What about Tammi?”
“I’m leaving the decisions to her.” Charles had offered her a world out of the many life offered you daily. Only she could choose which was the best for her. Sean grinned with a shared understanding. “Yeah, she’s a little unpredictable.”
“We all are after meeting Johnny.” Charles couldn’t guarantee the permanence of their transformation. Neither could Sean and the two shook hands, as Tammi emerged from the room. They were embarrassed for having excluded her from a pact about the rest of her life and she walked over to Frankie, shaking him awake. He was surprised to be in a hospital corridor and hearing Tammi say, “Johnny will see you now.”
Frankie lowered his head and entered the ICU unit, almost as if he did not expected to come out and in many ways he was right, for Johnny’s dying was changing his life. All their lives and Tammi looked at the two men. Charles would do anything for her and with Sean there was always the danger he would do anything to her. The organist was aching and the ex-hippie was trying to be brave. This decision was one she didn’t have to make right now, but she rushed into Charles’ arms.
Sean dropped his eyes. He was no longer wanted by anyone in New York. He stood to leave, but Frankie exited from the ICU unit after about thirty seconds.
Johnny had informed him about his plan for his parents to take him under their wing.
Frankie was completely shattered by the reality of his friend's death and dropped his hands at his side. There was no more Johnny or Hollywood, movie stars, and palm trees. He might have cried if he hadn’t seen Sgt. Weinstein in the hallway. The cop couldn’t let Johnny go. The drummer approached him and said, “Why can’t you leave him alone?”
“Frankie, I’m here to say my good-byes.” The detective had nearly suspected a con, however the nurses were scared of catching an infectious disease. Johnny was dying and he intended to adhere to his promise. “I know how much he cared for you and that you were his best friend and more like a brother.”
Frankie was overwhelmed by the policeman’s statement and allowed himself to be comforted in his arms. Tammi was puzzled by the appearance of this man from West 45th Street. Charles figured him for Johnny’s friend. He knew all kinds of people, but to Sean the detective at the nurses’ station was after answers. Their halt to the ATM binge slightly allayed Sean’s fears about any arrest. More worrying was Tammi’s and Charles’ desperate embrace. It was more than familiar and he saw this moment as the last scene of a movie, whose finale was sadly too predictable. He entered Johnny’s room to avoid seeing, if he was right about the outcome.
Over in Brooklyn the East River thin church steeples pierced the low blackness of the moonless night. He nearly commented on the beauty of this evening, except the guitarist's eyes were shut. His chest rose slightly with each breath of oxygen he sucked from the mask. Sean touched his face. He was warm and his breathing was more strained than before. "Johnny, can you hear me?"
"Yeah." Johnny rasped through parched lips. "Am I dying?"
Sean’s mother had lied to his grandmother the night of her death and he understood why. "The truth or a lie?"
"The truth." Johnny panted, as if it were his dying breath.
Sean sped the flow valve of the morphine drip. “You have a serious disease.”
“Fatal?”
“Very.”
The guitarist sighed gratefully, as the drug sought his pain. "Oooh, that’s good.
“Morphine.” Sean regarded the saline bag.
“The classy stuff.” He stayed still for several second, then said, “I expected to die in a car crash or an OD. Not in bed like an old man."
"You hardly look old.” Johnny had predicted this fate on their walk along Bleecker Street to CBGBs and Sean struggled to recollect any other prophesies the guitarist might have made in the last month.
“I feel like King Kong suckerpunched me.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Liar.” Johnny's nose had been cracked in two places and multi-colored bruises encircled his eyes.
"You'll always be that cute boy I met on West Street."
"I'm glad you think of me that way." He closed his eyes and swooned into his pillow.
Sean ran into the corridor. Tammi and Charles were gone and the police officer had vanished with Frankie. Doctor Bertoni was in the lounge and he hauled him into the room. The doctor examined the readings of the instruments and said, “I hope his parents arrive before he goes.”
“You mind if I stay with him.” Sean wasn’t letting Johnny die in a room alone.
“It’s against hospital rules.”
“Please.”
“Just this once.”
“What about the rest of the band?”
“It’s best, if one person stays in the room.”
“I’ll be quiet.” Sean slid a chair to the bed and the doctor left the room. Over the last two days of his grandmother’s life Sean had joined various family members sitting with her deathbed. She had been confused by each change of the guard and frightened by their sad faces. She had died when the family members were out of the room. The nurse had said that it happened a lot. The Italian explained the situation to Tammi, Charles, Frankie, and the undercover cop. She waved to Sean through the door’s window and they vanished from sight. He was alone in the room with Johnny, his stagnant breathing, and the machines beeping the signals of his death.
The nuns had told him that the last sense to leave your body was hearing. Johnny had loved music and Sean cleared his throat to sing WALK ON THE WILD SIDE, WILD THING, BORN TO BE WILD, hummed SLAUGHTER ON TENTH AVENUE, mumbled the words to ZIGGY SAWDUST, YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT, LOLA, IT'S A MAN'S WORLD, STAND, and strangely found himself in tears singing THE CIRCLE GAME. The words must have worked magic, for Johnny huffed a deep breath. "That was scary."
"What?"
“I had been floating in a maelstrom of my life. Old faces, so many old faces. It was scary and comforting.” Johnny had seen the white light at the end of the tunnel and grinned impishly. "It wasn’t half as scary as you singing Joni Mitchell."
"Very funny, but I was doing the Dave Van Ronk version.”
“Oh, I love the way he sang TEDDY BEAR’S PICNIC.”
“Me, too.” The words were a jumble of half-forgotten syllables. “I really loved was my mother singing TRAIL UP IN THE SKY.”
“There’s a gold mine in the sky far away and we’ll go there my old friend one sweet day.” Johnny spoke the lines, as if he had been taking singing lessons from Rod McKuen and Sean took off the oxygen mask to give him a sip of water. Johnny sucked at it greedily and said, “Tammi loves you."
“She’s made her decision to be with Charles.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Johnny studied his face. His eyes exhibited no reaction to this news, because he was stuck in a mire of self-pity. This was his last chance to meddle in Sean’s life and he asked, "So you intend to keep acting a Rebel without a Home?"
"She can achieve more without me in her way." She belonged on American Bandstand and he heard her name on Kasey Kasem, because she would sell-out. Anyone would when offered everything behind door number three in LET’S MAKE A DEAL.
"How very noble, except this decision is hers." He lifted his hand and drew in a rasping breath grating down his windpipe.
Sean touched Johnny's shoulder and said, "Rest."
"Shit, I am about to die and you’re interrupting my final testament."
"Sorry." Sean doubted his composure would be so calm.
"Sorry? We had a good time. I kept pushing and pushing on bass, until your fingers practically fell off.” Johnny considered that accomplishment and heard the faint echo of feedback from his guitar on MAYBE TOMORROW.
"You knew?" Sean lifted the callused tips of his fingers.
"Sean, your face is about as easy to read as a comic book." Johnny's head rolled on the pillow and the future was all too evident, which is why he had asked Sean about living or dying. “You’re a shitty liar. You haven’t given up on Tammi.”
“Maybe not, but all fairy tales end with the girl marrying the prince and not the stable boy.”
“Sean, this isn’t a fairy tale.”
“Johnny___” He hated hearing this.
“No, let me have my say.” Johnny took a breath of oxygen from the mask. “Sean, you need my help and I’m not going to be around much longer. I’d love for this scene to hit it big; Tammi lip-synch on American Bandstand, hear the Ramones on the radio, watch Johnny Thunders grow old. The only problem is you can't dance to punk and dance is the sensation the music industry is selling America; the Hustle, Electric Boogie, Slide. Not punk, the blues, jazz, classical, and chamber music. Dance, dance, dance. Get their feet moving, so they buy with their bodies instead of their minds. TV's as bad, people doing nothing, watching the same shit, until they lose all their other choices."
"Punk will change that."
"Yeah, for a year or two, then the music will return to normal." The year 2001 was clearly more visible than the movie. “Disco will win and they’ll make a version of punk you can dance to. People will think it sucks and disco will win. There’s a new style in the Bronx. These brothers rap to old records. I seen it and the record companies will love it. They won’t pay any bands or musicians for the music rights. Videos will require beautiful people and there’ll be boy bands with pretty faces and teen girls selling sex to high school kids. The record companies making all the money and not the dancing puppets. I’m happy I won’t be around to become a grumpy old geezer moaning about the way it should have been.”
"I won't let punk die.”
"The first time a punk’s on TV, you won't have a choice." Johnny's voice was a candle burning to the quick of the wick.
“Rest, Johnny.”
“I haven’t the time to rest anymore. This is it.” Johnny tried to sit up. He failed and lay on the pillow. A minute later he said, "Sorry, shouldn't be fighting so hard____it's hard to give up."
"I won't."
"You have to realize that this scene won’t succeed, but like garage rock it'll haunt them. Punk, funk, garage, and metal are the only things close to pure rock. The rest is baby food for the masses. No matter how much they get the radio, press, and the TV to tell us we should listen to that crap, they’ll always be a voice saying, “No.”
"I'm sorry you won't be around to see Part Two. Or three.”
"I'd be about forty and nothing's worse than an aging rocker."
"You're saying live fast, die young is the way to go."
"I've retired my leather jacket. No more encore." Johnny opened his eyes and peered through a teary film. "And twenty years from now they'll be a new bum's rush of kids to resurrect the past to be the future. They’ll think it’s a haircut or a leather jacket, but it’s much more than that. It’s a revolution. No one will need to tell them that, because the forces of reaction will have fucked them up so much, that punk is there only way out of becoming a machine. Promise me you won't sneer at these newcomers. They're you and me. Only a little younger."
"Johnny, I was a hippie before you met me, so I can only repay you by forgiving them when my time comes to be older." The new generation of punks were bound to regard their precedents as dust in the wind, but neither of them had started GTH to erect any monuments to rock and roll.
“You know it’s funny.”
“What?” Sean soothed his friend's fevered brow with a cool palm.
Johnny studied him with liquid eyes and said, "I only regret the things I didn’t do."
"Such as?" Sean bent over to hear the guitarist.
"You and me never____" The guitarist squeezed his palm to convey his meaning.
"Johnny, I'm straight."
"Other straight boys fooled around.”
“Not me.”
“Was I ever in the running?”
"If I were on the other side, I would be my first choice."
"I guess I'll have to trust you." Johnny’s skin visibly sagged on his bones and Sean whispered in his ear. "Should I give Frankie that $10,000?”
"Hell, no, he'd kill himself. Give it to my parents to hold for him." Johnny hissed and gulped out, "There's another eight thou in my acoustic guitar. You have a party with it. Now make my year by kissing me Merry Christmas.”
Sean pressed his lips to Johnny’s mouth. His lips were nearly lifeless. They broke apart and Johnny sang lightly, "Take a walk on the wild side."
"I'll try, Johnny, I’ll try.” Sean held the guitarist’s hand and serenaded him with STORMY MONDAY. Nearing dawn Doctor Bertoni opened the door. Two older people were with him. From the stricken faces Sean guessed they were Johnny's parents. He sensed a surge of life into Johnny's body and the guitarist stared through Sean with a confounded despair indicating he hadn’t intended his parents to witness their oldest son die. "Mom, Dad."
This was a scene reserved for family and Sean left the room. No one was in the corridor. He was exhausted, hungry, and close to tears. Doctor Bertoni emerged from the room and said, “Your friends went out for a breath of air about an hour ago.”
“They say where?”
"No."
Sean was exhausted and Doctor Bertoni advised, "This might take awhile. Why don't you grab yourself a coffee in the cafeteria?”
Sean imagined the doctor had told him this, because eating is the most basic function a body can handle at times of mourning. To prevent his refusing, the doctor led him to the elevator and Sean thanked him for his help.
"I wish I could have helped more."
"You got me to play with Johnny again." Sean stepped onto the elevator. On the way to the basement Sean punched the wall and the elevator rang from the impact. Johnny was dying. Tammi had chosen Charles. Her choice served her best interests and he deserved nothing after having betrayed her with Caroline.
The elevator doors opened and Sean walked into the cafeteria to order a bagel and chocolate milk. It tasted great. He nearly ordered another, and then he decided to let that moment rest unchallenged by repetition.
Hearing a Muzaky COME ALL YE FAITHFUL he remembered it was Christmas Eve and sought the nearest payphone, dialing the first number he had memorized. His father answered on the second ring and Sean said, "Merry Christmas."
They hadn’t spoken in a month, yet his father expressed no surprise in hearing his son's voice. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine." Sean answered, comforted by the older man's undying concern.
"Are you coming home today?"
"I wasn't planning on it before, but I will now."
"Are you sure you’re fine?"
"Yes, everything is fine." They didn’t need to hear the truth over the phone. "I'll be there by the afternoon."
The music on the elevator was playing a saccharine JINGLE BELLS and Sean hummed along to the old standard. The doors led onto the 7th floor and he stepped into the corridor, wondering whether Johnny had another day left in him, then saw the guitarist's mother and father holding each other in the corridor. Their grief was absolute and Sean's mouth dropped with the realization Johnny must have died during his epiphany about chocolate milk with a bagel. He approached the guitarist’s parents and the old man said, “Johnny’s gone.”
Sean had seen his grandmother’s die, been to his best friend’s funeral and three fellow high school students’ memorial after they tried to beat a train across the tracks. The pain of this loss was worst. “My name's Sean. I’m sorry.”
The father glared at Sean, the leather jacket, the spiked hair, and the boots and the mother clutched his arm. "Johnny said you were his friend. Where’s Frankie?”
"Around someplace.” He must have left with the cop.
“We were supposed to drive Frankie south.” Johnny’s father had a crew cut. His mother’s hair was curled. They were Middle America. Same as any of their parents, but they weren’t scared of a kid from the Bronx. “Will he go with us?”
“Frankie would love it.” Sean handed them the $10,000. “Johnny wanted Frankie to have this. It was from our advance from the record company.”
“So he really was in a band?”
“And he was great. He tell you about Frankie?”
“Yes.” The old man nodded in compliance with his son’s request. “Now we'd like to be alone with our son. You can call us at the Plaza. The name's Darlino. Maybe this afternoon."
"Sure, I understand.” The parents were most certainly curious about Johnny’s life and he was concocting a fantasy tale for their benefit, since most truths are best laid to rest with the dead. He walked away and stood at the elevator on the verge of tears. One month was all of New York he could handle. Doctor Bertoni wrapped his arm around him. "I wish there was a way of making sense of it for you.”
“Me too.” Death had come in a heartbeat.
“Sorry, I'm not God."
"Today I doubt one exists." Johnny had touched many people’s lives and Sean’s more than most in the last month. He should have touched more.
“Well, that's a strong statement against Christmas.”
“I’m not in a Ho-Ho-Ho mood.”
“There’s hundreds of reasons to not believe in God, but it’s the small miracles that make me wonder, if I might be wrong." The elevator doors opened and the two men stood between two sleepy nurses. Their hands combed work-worn hair for the benefit of the doctor. He ignored them. "God forbid that I start attending to church.”
“I do light candles occasionally.”
“Old habits die hard. Maybe I’ll believe in something more than nothing. It would make my wife happy.”
"I wish I was so positive." Johnny had clothes, three guitars, amps, and a collection of records to show for twenty years on this planet and you couldn’t get closer to nothing than that, unless Sean looked in room #301.
"You will again, until then you should have this." Doctor Bertoni produced a cassette tape. "I recorded the CBGBs show and the one at the loft. I love music, so the quality is excellent. You can hear Johnny. One day it might be an underground classic."
Sean doubted GTH would exist as anything other than a footnote to punk, but thanked the Italian for the tape. At least Johnny would live on as music. On the ground floor the day shift was filing through the rush of outpatients. Life was proceeding seamlessly despite Johnny’s death. It would after his too. At the revolving doors Doctor Bertoni handed him a card. "If you want to talk or eat an Italian meal, give me a call. My wife is a fabulous cook."
Sean slipped the card inside the cassette. "I'll call you after Christmas."
Another doctor greeted Dr. Bertoni with a rib about working the night shift. Sean took his cue to leave and pushed through the revolving doors, immediately struck by the drop in temperature. It was even colder than last night and the clouds promised snow.
Shivering under his leather he walked to the Triumph. Several tickets were tied to the handlebars. He threw them in the gutter. Paying them made no sense. Nothing did and he straddled the bike. His parents were waiting, but he couldn’t risk staying in Boston for the winter. It might become for the rest of his life. The sky was clear.
Washington was a few hours’ drive away. By nightfall he might reach South of the Border. $20,000 was a lot of money in Florida.
He thumbed the throttle. The starter pedal rise to the top of its mark. He lifted his foot to kickstart his bike. The 750’s backfire was a fitting eulogy for Johnny before he hit the road for the end of the highway. Key West was reachable tomorrow night; beaches, Pina Coladas, key lime pie, and Radio Cuba.
His foot stamped on the kickstart. Nothing. He fiddled with the choke and stomped harder. Nothing again. He tugged on the wiring and prepared another attempt to start the engine. It failed and Tammi ran up before he could try again. "Sean, it’s Christmas.”
“So?”
“Where are you going?"
"I was thinking Florida. Key West." Charles’ limo was behind him. Bobby was at the wheel and Charles was in the rear.
A gust of wind blew a veil of hair across her face. "When?"
"The day after Christmas.” He swung off the bike and started to push. Ralphie’s on Avenue B might be open. They might be able to start the bike. Tammi followed him and asked, "Alone?"
"Tammi, why you bothering with me. I’m no good. Not as a poet. Not on bass. Not with people.” Sean had an entire list of his failures memorized dating all the way to a throwing error in Little League. Those mistakes weren’t as important as today and he said, “I couldn’t save Johnny.”
“Sean, no one could.” She was keeping pace with him and he said, “Tammi, don’t you get it. I’m no good.”
“And I am?” Sean had been her first fan.
“Better than you think.” His resolve to walk out of her life was weakening and he asked, “What about you and Charles?”
"There never was a me and him." Tammi quit walking. Josie had said to pick Charles. Frankie and Bobby had suggested the same choice. Even Fatso from the Dollhouse had voted for the money. Tammi hadn’t gotten this far by following other people’s advice. She had to obey her heart. "The real question is about me and you."
The best Christmas present he could give Tammi was a lie, however he said, "There still is a you and me, if you want it.”
“I do.” This wasn’t a wedding.
“I have to warn you I haven't been very successful with relationships."
"No one's perfect." It wasn’t forever.
He balanced the bike’s weight on its kickstand. The limo was parked by the hospital. Tammi should walk back to it, however he was selfish. “I can’t offer you anything more than love.”
"You really are as stupid as you look." She held onto his arm to indicate she would fight him, if necessary. “That’s all I expected.”
“Same rules as before?”
“For the moment, yes.”
"Then let's head south.”
“Sunny.”
“Beaches.”
“Warm."
"I'd like that." Tammi waved to the limo and it drove away from the curb, although she hadn’t burned every bridge. Charles was in better shape than when they started the band and some girl was bound be lucky, if they weren’t as stupid in love as Tammi, plus they had a plan to start an independent record label based in Manhattan. Sean didn’t have to know anything about this arrangement till after the holiday. It wasn’t a lie, at least not as bad as others she had heard in the last month or planned on telling in the years to come.
“How about my family’s place for Christmas dinner?” They might consider him crazy for bringing home a sixteen year-old girl with flaming red hair, but only until Tammi sang with his mother. They would be happy he was not alone and so would he.
“Sounds great.” It would be nice to get out of the city for a day or two.
Somehow Sean had ended up with the girl and he wasn’t bothering to question why, especially after she kissed him and asked, "Are we taking the bike?"
“No.” Tammi was wearing a leather jacket and mini-skirt. Her fingers were bleached of blood. No woman liked the cold for too long, so he withdrew the key from the ignition of the motorcycle and put his arm around Tammi. He might come back for it and then again maybe not, because not knowing the future was the beauty of tomorrow.
THE END
No comments:
Post a Comment