The two-day break from shooting dope had reduced Johnny to a shivering shell, but at least it was warm in his room, for snowflakes were falling outside his window. Judging from the weak light of day, he guessed the time to be a few hours past dawn. Every ounce of his body begged him to stay in bed, instead he got up and dressed in a matter of minutes, then walked down the hallway to room 301 and knocked hard on the door.
”What is it?” Sean opened the door with a sheet wrapped around him.
"We have to get equipment for the band." The only way GTH would happen was if Johnny did everything, so the other band members only had to worry about the music.
"Like what?" Sean scratched his head, as if he expected that he still had long hair.
"I'll tell you on the way. Get dressed and meet me in the lobby.” Johnny walked down the stairs on uneasy legs. A shot would staighten him out, but he didn’t want Charles to see him in his natural state.
"Looking good this morning.” Earl sneered from the desk. The alkie was no stranger to withdrawal symptoms from booze and appreciated someone else suffering for a change.
”Fuck you, Ernie.” Johnny committed this moment to his memory. His revenge would come the next time the desk clerk was three quarters short of a bottle of Thunderbird.
”Mighty touchy this morning.” Ernie returned to his newspaper. it was from two days ago.
Five minutes later Sean entered the lobby and Johnny wrapped his arms around his chest, as they walked to 8th Avenue to get a taxi.
”Do we really need to be doing this now?” Sean had drunk ten beers at CBGBs last night.
”Being in a band requires more than songs. Normally a manager might get equipment, but GTH doesn’t have a manager. Right now it’s you and me, unless you want to go back to the Terminal Hotel and be a bum.”
”No, I’m with you.” Sean spotted a cab and lifted his hand.
Once they were inside Johnny directed the driver Lower Manhattan stopping at various apartments to scavenge equipment from unhappy musicians, who also liked to see late.
Charles Bobo Shaw lent a drum kit for Frankie and Johnny redeemed a twitchy monitor system from a pawnshop on 3rd Avenue. They brought everything back to the Hotel Terminal.
”Ernie, we’ll be leaving this shit in the closet for a few hours.” Johnny gave the clerk two bottles of Zapple wine. “Make sure no one steals it.”
”No one steal anything in the Termimal, but time.” Ernie unscrewed the cap of one bottle and slugged down a big gulp. “It aint’ thunderbird, but it ain’t milk either. Thanks, Johnny.”
”I take care of your end. You take care of mine.” Johnny and Sean crammed the lobby closet with the equipment and then retreated to room 314 in the Hotel Terminal, where they adapted Sean’s poems LOVE NO LOVE, and TAKE ME HIGHER into songs.
Sean's lessons on bass were torture. The tips of his fingers were bloody after three songs.
"Don't worry, they'll be fine in a week." Johnny called their creative session to a halt and they killed the wait for Frankie by sampling Johnny’s record collection; Serge Gainsbourg’s BALLAD OF MELODY NELSON, Françoise Hardy’s PREMIERE BONJOUR DU JOUR, Brigitte Bardot’s HARLEY DAVIDSON, Spirit’s WE GOT NOTHING TO HIDE, Clear Light’s MR. BLUE, Judas Priest’s HEAD OUT ONTO THE HIGHWAY, Jeff Beck’ AIN’T SUPERSTIOUS, Joe Tex’s I DON’T BUMP WITH NO BIG FAT WOMEN, and David Porter’s SLOOPY. Songs the radio exiled from their playlists in favor of Captain and Tenille.
“It’s all about controlling the market.” Johnny had heard the stories from various underlings in the music industry. “When we’re kids, the ads told us to eat candy and buy toys and see movies and watch TV. You and I have fewer and fewer choices and music suffers from the same dilemma. The corporate executives expect us to act in a certain way, so years later we’ll react to the proper stimuli and buy the right cars, appliances, and presidents. Luckily punk is a detour from the traffic-jammed freeway of consumerism. They might have the cops to keep us from the off-ramps, only we’re running right through the road blocks.”
“You think ‘they’ will let ‘us’ stop people from buying shit?” Sean had no illusions about money’s influence over their free choice. Americans purchased cars with no style and consumptive gas mileage, drank a teeth-eating soda, and tobacco killed hundreds of thousands of people each year.
“A little, if they can make money from us at the same time.” Johnny had read Marx, Engels, Mao, and Lenin without translating the communist tracts into revolutionary actions, since his devotion to anarchy resisted authority at any level.
“Isn’t that a sell-out?”
“Even the MC5 had to eat. Didn’t you say that they played at your high school?”
“Yeah, my all-boys school raffled off the most chocolate bars in Boston and our reward from the diocese was a concert from MC5. The brothers had heard about KICK OUT THE JAMS and ordered the band to change the lyrics. We threatened a strike, if they couldn’t perform the song.”
“And there was a compromise?”
“No, they did the entire album, except KICK OUT THE JAMS. When they left the stage without saying ‘motherfucker’, we stamped our feet and smashed chairs, chanting ‘motherfucker’ at the top of our lungs.”
“And?”
“The MC5 returned for their encore.”
“They say the word?”
“Yes, and we never wore ties, jackets, or uniforms again.”
“Amen to the revolution.”
Just as the sun set behind the Palisades, Frankie knocked on the door. The young drummer looked like he had spent last night on a roof and was in need of a fix more than Johnny. He wasn’t getting a bag of dope for free and Johnny got to his feet.
”Time to work.”
”It’s a little early to hit Times Square.” Frankie was shaking for his jones.
”Not Times Square, but some manual labor.”
The three of them descended to the lobby and moved the furniture to the steps of the Terminal Hotel. The snow had stopped, but the air was colder than in the morning. Charles’ Lincoln was parked by the curb.
”I like people who are on time.” Johnny had no watch. “It shows that he’s serious.”
”I was on time too.” Frankie boasted with a whine.
”And I’m proud of you too.”
The muscular driver got out of the car and popped the trunk.
”Sorry, I can’t help you.” Charles poked his head from the rear window.
”No need. We have enough hands as it is.” Johnny loaded the drum into the back seat and the amps into the trunk. The three of them made another trip upstairs for the guitars, which barely fit into the front seat.
”This will be a tight squeeze.” The driver didn’t like using the TownCar as a truck, but he was Charles’ man and said, “The name is Bobby and if I think you’re out to rip off Mr. Ames, then I rip off your ear.”
”Thanks for the warning.” Johnny opened the back door and the four of them rode in the cramped back seat to a block north of the Manhattan Bridge in Chinatown.
“This is it.” Johnny helped Charles from the car, pointing to the five-story commercial building. No lights shone from the windows and a faint stench emanated from the brick walls. Frankie hated stairs with the passion of any project dweller. “Is there an elevator?”
“Straight to the penthouse.” Johnny unloaded an amp.
“Sheer luxury after the Terminal.” Sean hauled his bass into the building.
An inhuman babble pierced the walls, as they filled the freight elevator.
Frankie asked, “What’s that noise?”
“And that smell?” Sean kicked at the feathers on the floor.
A door opened in the corridor and a sweating Chinaman threw a bag of bones from a harshly lit room.
Inside scores of laborers slaughtered hundreds of chicken. Another Chinaman dumped the bones into an industrial grinder. Johnny ushered the band onto the industrial lift, pressing the button for the top floor. As the elevator rose from the ground floor, the driver coughed, "Shit, that’d make a maggot gag."
"That’s why the rent is so cheap." Johnny smelled his sleeve for the reek and Sean tried to spit out the stench. “Now we’ve solved the mystery of General Tso’s Chicken.”
Charles had never smelled such a gut-churning odor. “Is this the best you could find?”
“Believe me I saw more worse places." A damp basement below Avenue C had been cheaper, although the shooting gallery on the second floor presented too great a temptation for Johnny or Frankie. “Here we have no neighbors to complain about noise, so we can practice at any hour.”
Frankie yowled at the top of his lungs and the other band members covered their ears. <
Last night’s bands at Max’s and CBGB’s had proven musical talent wasn't a prerequisite for this ‘scene’. Still Charles Ames III was partial to a voice more melodious than the chickens’ death clucks.
"Are you the lead singer?"
“No, I beat the drums.” The teenager rattled the tambourine in the air to annoy the rich kid. “Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me.”
“Nice try, next." Charles’ manner sat uneasily with the other three, for no band is a true democracy or a strict dictatorship and Johnny suggested, "Either Sean or me."
"Can either of you sing?" Charles lifted a dented microphone.
The Hung’s final gig had been for two spoiled brothers on Brush Hill Road. They had thought the world owed them a laugh. Sean had taught them what was funny when they had chained a deaf girl naked in a dog house and Charles was primed for a similar lesson.
"I was in a choir."
The squat Italian driver laughed from his belly.
He wasn’t in the band and Sean demanded, “Why you laughing?”
“You being a frigging choir boy.” The driver’s scoff suggested he only visited to church to rob the collection plate and the guitarist stepped between them. “Luckily GTH will never be hire for a church gig. Once we set up, we’ll find out, if who has a voice.”
"And if no one does?" The drummer was a drug addict and the bass had been recruited from a missing link clan. Charles would have never spoken to either before meeting Johnny and once more questioned the wisdom of this venture.
"This is a city of seven million people.” Johnny yanked at the elevator door and stepped into a darkened space like he had a cat’s night vision. “One of them has the right voice for GTH, but we don’t ahve to worry about that right now. Let's unload the elevator."
Johnny flipped on a light. The old loft was huge. The broad wooden floor planks bore the scars of heavy machinery and the tin walls were yellowed by age. The windows offered a spectacular view of Lower Manhattan, although the Manhattan Bridge was partially blocked by a billboard on the next building.
Charles swept a finger over the dust on a table. No one had worked here for years.
"Hey, I can see my breath," Frankie complained and Johnny shot the drummer an angry glance. He could without any negativity from his protégé. "Tomorrow we can score space heaters and clean the place. Anyway GTH isn't about interior design. It’s about music. Let's hear how we sound."
Sean struggled with his outlets and Charles rested on a radiator, as Johnny and Bobby assembled the organ. Mercifully Frankie assembled his drums without a hitch and tapped an intricate set of riffs on a battered set of bongos. The patter filled the empty space with the hint of the music to come. If nothing, it was fast and loud. When all the leads were in their sockets, Johnny handed them lyric sheets.
"This first song is three chords. Sean learned them in one day. Charles, you follow his bass. The beat's fast. 4/4 and the words are Sean's. He gets first shot at the mike."
“You mean ‘sing’?” He rarely sang in the shower.
"Singing’s the only way a bass player becomes a rock star." The guitarist spread his legs in a classic rock and roll pose.
Sean switched on his bass. A buzz emanated from the amp. His fingers were frozen on the strings and he stepped to the mike, longing for a miracle. Girls loved singers. His name would headline Rolling Stone. Electricity crackled through his body.
"On the count of three. One-two-three."
Johnny strummed the intro and Sean plucked the four bars. He hit the lead verse, fantasizing himself in front of a thousand screaming fans. "I want love-no-love and that's all I need. Tonight___ "
Johnny stopped abruptly and Sean opened his eyes. "Anything wrong?"
"One, you were singing the chorus, and secondly you have to play with us." Johnny tried to go easy on Sean.
”What do you mean?”
Frankie had been taught the conga drums by his uncle, a Tito Puente fanatic, and rattled off a relentless 4/4 beat.
"You ever heard of time, man, cause you were speeding and slowing down, instead of matching my beat."
"Sean will improve on the bass with practice." Johnny waved him from the mike."Unfortunately you won’t be a rock god in this lifetime."
"My singing sucks?" His mother had sung the lead in NO NO NANETTE. He had to retain a fraction of her talent.
"Like Frank Sinatra with a cold." Johnny could lie, cheat, and steal, but not about music.
"And that's bad?" CBGBs had STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT on the jukebox.
"Even for a punk band, yeah."
"Oh." Sean mentally erased his face from eyes of the screaming fans.
"So we have to find a new singer?" Johnny looked Charles. The millionaire halted his Gothic fugue on the organ. "None of my friends are musicians____"
"Dove?" Frankie enjoyed drug binges with the drag queen. Johnny cut him short with an irritability arising from his drought of dope. "One Wayne County is all this scene can handle."
"I have a singer." Sean raised his hand.
“Who you know?” The ex-hippie hadn’t left Johnny other than for sleep in room 301. < p>"This girl I met on the highway. A runaway. Brown hair, mini-dress with one shoe.”
“One shoe?”
“Cinderella, if you’re partial to fairy tales, only her voice is a mix of Tina Turner’s gravel and Dusty Springfield’s velvet."
The combination was intrigued Johnny.
"How old is she?"
"18." Sean thought at most Tammi was 16, but she had a valid ID for 18, if she got a dancing gig at that strip club.
“Where is she?”
"I left her in Times Square yesterday.”
“Times Square?”
“She's at a go-go lounge."
"Runaways last a pimp’s minute there?” Johnny lowered his guitar, as Charles Ames III fingered the first chords to LOVE-NO-LOVE.
"Bobby can bring him to Times Square and we can keep practicing."
"Mr. Ames, I'm supposed to take care of you.” The driver warily regarded the three other members of GTH.
Charles hobbled over to slip him a fifty-dollar bill, "Please do as I ask."
"I'll watch him," Johnny offered and the driver returned the $50, pulling Johnny to the elevator. "You might have ‘Chuckie’ fooled, but you mess with him and I'll throw you off the roof. You got me?"
"Sure, like the flu." Johnny had no immediate plans to harm Charles and told Sean, “Guess it's a go, but the girl doesn't work out, you give her the fifty cents for the A Train back to Times Square."
"That's fair." Sean zippered his leather and Johnny strummed the chords from Del Shannon's RUNAWAY with a laid-back expertise. Smiling at the musical reference Sean said, "I'll meet you CBGBs .”
Johnny handed him the bass.
"If you’re trying to talk a young girl into joining a band, it doesn’t hurt to act the part.”
"So I look like a rock star, right." Sean slung the instrument over his shoulder and the driver wrinkled his nose. "I'll take the stairs."
“I second the motion.”
The door slammed shut and the amps’ humming drowned the wind whistling through the windows. Johnny had slept a hundred worse places as had Frankie and he placed his fingers on the guitar strings.
"So we ready for rock and roll?"
”Never more.” Frankie was daydreaming about limousines and huge mountains of drugs.
”I’ll give it my best.” Charles was a little more relaxed without the other two men’s presence. That confidence might hurt him in the future, but for tonight he was safe and the trio repeated LOVE-NO-LOVE.
They could have performed tomorrow night at a strip club in New Jersey, however Johnny was aiming higher for GTH and he hoped that pure dumb luck would catapult them to this peak in a city too tough to respect any other advantages. It wasn’t too much to ask on the day after Thanksgiving.
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