Each time Sean unraveled the black cocoon around his head, his powers of perception collectively crashed into a Kansas cornfield. No one sent out a rescue crew and he crawled clear of the wreckage into the bright sunlight of a hotel room. A stiff wind rattled the window and a woman lay in bed. A blonde. For a second he hoped it might be Tammi wearing the wig and tugged on the silver strands. It was Caroline Ames. She was wearing all her clothes. Her presence failed to explain the painful swelling at the base of his skull.
He had been assaulted in the alley. The biker had been knocked out and this not being a cell eliminated the cop. He reached down for his jeans. His wallet was in the back pocket. He hadn’t been mugged. He tried to get to his feet. A murder of crows picked apart his vision and he crumpled onto the mattress.
Caroline stirred from her sleep. "Are you all right?"
"No." Sean stared at the sun setting over a tenement building. His room in the
Terminal Hotel had an identical décor and he asked, "Where are we?”
“A hotel on St. Mark’s.” The clientele was dominated by the gays frequenting the Baths on the ground floor and the toothless clerk gave them a newly cleaned room for an extra $5. Sean dropped into a near-coma, while she lay on the stale mattress, haunted by a Babel of reverberating moans the thin walls of the adjoining rooms.
Each time these anonymous men groaned with pleasure, Caroline heard an ominous echo of her countless lovers’ sighs of release. It was an empty sound and struck a chord of disgust in whom she had been a few hours ago in Plato’s Retreat. No secret utopia existed to free your soul with sex.
He vaguely recollected banging into walls. “How long have I been out?"
"All day."
Her words distorted on the vowels and closing his eyes ignited a thunderstorm between his temples. "How did I get here?"
"I found you in the alley.” A tall blonde transvestite had recommended the SRO for its proximity to CBGBs. “You didn’t want to go to a hospital, so I bought you here.”
His body sprawled on the greasy alley reminded her of Charles after the fall. So still. So helpless, but then he moved. Charles had too. He hadn’t died and this realization completed a long healing process. A psychologist might explain this re-enaction of her brother’s near-death as an exorcism of her trauma. They were wrong. Wrong more often than right, mostly due to examining a problem without considering the most obvious solution. It was just time for a change.
Sean tried to sit up in bed. He failed. “What happened last night?”
“You don’t remember.” Caroline swiftly put on her high heeled boots and fur coat.
“The details are a little hazy.” A bandage was plastered to his neck.
“Total chaos, the music, the riot, you chasing Tammi. Her knocking you out must have surprised you.” Caroline was equally amazed by the redhead’s sexuality, if she could make her brother and Sean care so much about her.
Sean unraveled the scene in the alley to the point, where he had almost told her he loved her. An unknown assailant had clocked him, not Tammi. “She didn’t hit me.”
“Maybe a meteor struck you in the head.” Caroline visually swept the room for anything she might have forgotten. This dead-end affair was over and neither of them needed any explanations. Finding nothing she caressed his head for the final time. Her fingers weighed on his skull as tank treads. He understood she was leaving for good and asked,
“You want the bike?”
“I’m not an Indian giver.” Caroline was thankful Sean had been her final fling. At least he had been fun. “Good luck with your band and getting that girl out of your head.
The door's slamming reverberated painfully in his skull, but as much as his body and mind told him to stay in bed the rest of his life, Sean dressed and staggered from his room into the hallway and onto St. Mark’s Place. This city was cold. The sky was blanketed with an opaque overcast. Tammi had left him in the alley. Charles had won. His reasons for staying here were down to zero. His motorcycle was in front of CBGBs and he zippered his leather jacket. He was leaving New York. Today and he started toward 3rd Avenue.
A blonde-haired punk with an eye patch across the street shouted out, “GTH.”
“Yeah, Going to Hell.” Sean mumbled with each letter crumbling off his tongue.
Passing Manic Panic the two sisters with the traffic light hair waved for him to come inside from the cold. He smiled weakly, thinking that GTH must have been great to merit their attention.
“Great show last night.” Trish teased her hair high.
“More a riot.” Her sister smiled lewdly and eyed the dressing room.
“You see Tammi afterwards?” He had to know where she was.
“No.” Snookie laughed, figuring Tammi had spent the night out. “No one today too.”
“Thanks.”
Sean struggled down the Bowery. The bums nodded to him. Johnny had been right. It didn’t take much to reach to their level. If he stayed here any longer then he might sink even lower. He spotted the Triumph. Two tickets fluttered from the handlebars and an emblem had been stolen off the gas tank, but it would take him far away. Someplace warm and he straddled the motorcycle.
“You really are crazy.” The bearded owner of CBGBs was standing in the entrance.
“Crazy?”
“Yeah, riding a bike in this weather.”
“Better than walking.” Especially when you had no idea where you were going.
“That was quite a show last night.”
“Yeah, a regular Altamount.” At least no one had died like in the Rolling Stones concert.
“If you speak with Johnny, tell him to stop by later. I might have a spot open for GTH on New Year’s Eve.”
GTH must have succeeded for the gruff owner to act so friendly. Johnny and Tammi had to be happy. Happier than him. “You didn’t see Tammi after the show, did you?”
“No. She must have left with her friends. Johnny went with Frankie and the rich kid. You want to come by later, please do. Drinks are on me.”
“Thanks.” Sean wheeled on his heels to the Triumph. The metal was icy to the touch and the Bonneville exploded to life with a series of muffler-clearing backfires. Johnny. He had to speak with Johnny. The Terminal Hotel. Room #314. 314.314. 3-1-4.
T
he ride to the Terminal Hotel might have taken five minutes or an hour. Sean saw it in patches; the turn on Houston, the lights at Broadway, the basketball courts at West 4th Street, Cheri’s old restaurant, and the hotel lobby.
Ernie handing him a key. “Yer girl stay away last night. Guess she got a new friend.”
“Fuck you.” Sean stumbled to the stairs and climbed to the 3rd floor. His room was empty. No one had slept on the bed. Nothing of Tammi remained and he tottered to #314. He pounded for a half-minute before the locks were unbolted. Johnny was wrapped in a sheet. "So you escaped the police?"
“I must have.” Sean stepped into Johnny's room. Clothes were strewn over the floor and Frankie was on the bed. He knocked a pile of underwear off a chair and sat. “Johnny, what happened last night?”
“Oh, a riot,” Johnny explained about the police raiding CBGBs and the detective asking for Sean.
“Guess it was a good thing I stayed elsewhere last night.”
“And probably a better thing, if you check out today.” Johnny shut the door and flopped into bed without disturbing Frankie.
“I’m leaving as soon as I can. Where’s Tammi?"
"I thought she left with you?"
"I was attacked behind CBs. Tammi was with me."
"She might be with a friend." The star of the show usually had her pick of the crowd.
"Where’s her friend, Josie, live?" Her sleeping with another man or woman was unacceptable.
"Can’t this wait? I’m not feeling so good.” Johnny’s fever was racing through his body and the red blotches on his body shone with a radioactive intensity.
"You have sores on your neck and chest."
"It’s a rash."
"Worse than that."
"You a doctor?"
"No." This 'rash' was a symptom of a much worse ailment. "Have you seen one?"
"Doctor? I'm twenty and I’ve never been sick before." Johnny put on his jeans and t-shirt. His leather jacket weighed a hundred pounds and his boots were made of lead.
"And Frankie?" A crop of fresh puncture wounds adorn the young boy’s right arm.
"Stop playing doctor, he's still sucking wind."
“Maybe you should stay here.”
“No, I’ll go along.” If only to insure Sean didn’t do anything stupid such as get arrested by the police. Johnny tugged on his boots. There’d be plenty of time to sleep after Tammi and he visited the producer’s office, so he left with Sean, who ransacked the room for his journals and money. The rest was replaceable whenever he ended up wherever.
Johnny was leaning against the wall in the hallway.
“Are you sure you want to come?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Johnny had a hard time walking down the stairs and Sean waited for him in the lobby. Ernie looked at his bag. “You checking out?”
“Just going home for the holiday.” Sean wasn’t coming back here, but the clerk didn’t have to know his plans. No one did. Not even Johnny.
“Rent’s due on the 1st.” He was looking more beat-up than any of the other hard-luck guests at the hotel, proving New York was hard on the young and old. “That goes for you too, Johnny.”
“Yeah, no exceptions for anyone.” Johnny was relieved to see that there were no police cars on the street. Sgt. Weinstein must have had more pressing business than following them, but when Sean straddled his motorcycle, Johnny shivered from the crystalline chill. “What are you doing?”
"We'll ride my bike to Josie's."
Johnny had no choice other than to say, "Okay.”
It took a million shivers to reach Josie's apartment. The black stripper had not seen Tammi after the riot. Sean pushed his way inside to discover she was telling the truth. "I'm sorry. I thought____"
"I can fathom Fred Flintstone’s thinking." Josie prayed the young girl was with the millionaire and pushed him from the apartment. "If I hear anything, I'll have her to call you at the hotel. Maybe she’s at work."
The five-minute drive was a frozen purgatory. Johnny hadn’t been in Times Square in a month and he never came here this time of day. Real citizens hurried by the porno shops and massage parlors. None of them made eye contact with Sean or Johnny, as they pulled up in front of the Dollhouse.
“Wait here.” Sean stormed into the go-go lounge.
“I’m not going anywhere.” The frail guitarist wasn’t so sure about that prediction, as a glacial wind clawed at his flesh. Thirty seconds later the bouncers threw the bassist onto the sidewalk. Shouting a profanity, he jumped to his feet unsteadily and fell onto his bike, announcing. "No one's seen her too."
"Sean, she might have gone home with someone." His body was failing fast in this weather.
"Tammi isn’t like that." Sean started the bike with one kick.
Room #314 was his version of heaven. "This is a waste of time."
"Our lead singer is missing."
"She’s not missing. Not yet.”
“Maybe she ran away.”
“No, I didn’t tell you, but a producer is interested in GTH. He wants to sign us for a record deal. Our songs on the radio. Telling the youth of America about the meaningless, the nihilism, the struggle against despair and true love.”
"Tammi’s more important than a piece of plastic. She might be at Charles’ place.”
Charles’ penthouse was warm. He’d drink tea and call Nick Arcc to say they were running late, although Johnny dreaded Sean's confronting Charles Ames III in his present mood. "Tammi wouldn't be with him."
"Then where is she?" Sean ran to nearest building and kicked the door. "Is she in this building or maybe this one?"
Times Square had its share of wild-eyed madman, however Sean's rage had people crossing the street. Johnny tried to join them, except the amok ex-hippie caught his arm. "There are seven million people in this city. Hundreds of them have met Tammi. Charles is one of them. We're going there."
"We're not going another inch, unless you calm the fuck down.”
“Sorry, I'm worried about Tammi."
"And so am I." All these straight boys fell in love with a stupid girl, who was ignorant of their existence or planned on leaving them as soon as they met a man or woman with more promise. He should only be so lucky. "We'll go to Charles' place. Do me a favor and don’t try anything stupid. The police are after you.”
"Okay, okay, I'm 50% sane." Sean sat the Triumph. "Jump on the back, unless you care to spend the rest of the day pretending to be James Dean slipped off a morgue slab."
Nonpenitently narcissistic Johnny glimpsed his reflection in a chrome-tinted window.
He looked as dire as Sean's ruthless portrayal and wrapped his arms around the bass player's waist, half-expecting a warning to not get so close, instead they roared away, and Johnny closed his eyes, lost in a semi-delusional bliss that they were boy and boy speeding toward warm destination. And he hoped for the bike to continue the weaving through the traffic forever. Unfortunately it ceased before the 57th Street skyscraper.
While Johnny’s condition was hardly inspiring, Sean couldn’t get off the bike and Johnny told the ex-hippie, "I'll see, if he's home."
"If he isn't, we'll wait for him." His feet were frozen and the pounding in his head was descending to the base of his skull. He held his gloved palms over the overheated engine to toast his hands. His head lowered onto the gas tank and his arms slipped to his sides. A Salvation Army band tirelessly battered out holiday songs to his deaf ears. Warmly bundled shoppers gawked at the man collapsed across the motorcycle. Sean had been concussed in car crashes and two fights. This was worst and his brain drowned in a red cloud, until a jostling hand rousted him from the flood. "Sean, are you all right?"
The ex-hippie fought to focus on Johnny’s face. "Where's Charles?"
"The doorman swears he’s out."
“No, he’s not.” Sean stumbled across the sidewalk and collided with a fur-clad matron.
Johnny hooked his arm. "You can’t go in there. Not like this.”
"And why not?" Sean pointed to the penthouse.
The liveried doorman had his hand on the phone. 911 was on his mind.
“Sean, you have to take it easy.”
"Easy is for eggs-over." Sean barged through the revolving door and was spun onto the sidewalk. The blond hustler signaled to the doorman that his friend was his problem and laid Sean on a heating vent. At least they were safe from freezing to death, although none of this was good. Sean should be hiding and Johnny had to contact Nick Arcc, but delayed his call to the A&R man, because if he deserted his bass player, a busybody would call an ambulance. EMS meant police and Sean’s arrest after Sgt. Weinstein ID him.
Johnny prayed Charles returned soon. None of the passers-by were aware of his plea being a question of life or death and he held Sean in his arms, pretending they were someplace warmer than a heating grate. His choices were good as long as none ended up in Hell.
No comments:
Post a Comment