The weekend blizzard off the Great Lakes dropped twelve inches of powder on Manhattan. The snow turned into slush within a day and that evening Sean dressed in a midnight-blue pinstriped suit specially purchased on Orchard Street. The $310 deposited under the name of Jimmie O'Brian had cleared for withdrawal from an ATM. There was no mirror in room # 301 of the Terminal Hotel to confirm whether he could pass for a businessman and he asked Tammi, “How I look?”
“Like you’re out to rob the rich.” The teenager straightened his tie. She was increasingly nervous about this outing with Johnny. Bank robbery was a major deviation from stealing cars and she surreptitiously searched for a weapon with a caressing hand. There was none.
“I feel nothing like Robin Hood.” Sean was equally anxious about this venture and had given her the rest of his money in case he required bail. They might not be in love, but trust was fine starting point for two people, who knew each other less than a week.
“You will, if you give to the poor.” Tammi brushed back a red strand from her face.
“Namely you?” Sean had adopted Johnny’s lucky charm of giving alms to the bums.
“I’m not poor.” She had socked away $500 from her first week at the Dollhouse. Josie had advised her to bank every greasy dollar for an emergency get-away fund. Not that she was planning to leave New York any time soon.
None of the band members or the regulars at CBGBs cared about her past or age and the word slut was almost a badge of honor among some of the girls keeping a list of the band members with whom they had had sex. Her fellow dancers showed their appreciation at how she had increased all their incomes at Dollhouse. Of course the Terminal Hotel was a pit, the weather was freezing, the city was a mess, and Sean was robbing banks, but these problems were outweighed by the pluses and she hugged Sean with teddy bear tenderness. “I do accept presents.”
“Any suggestions?” He lifted an old leather coat from the bed. He had bought it yesterday on St. Mark’s Place.
“Something a little more personal than a book.” Tammi helped him into the sleeves.
“You don’t like books?” He had been buying them to further her education and the usual Lit 101 classics lay on the bed table bracketed by poetry from Rimbaud, Pound, and Plath with Kozinski’s BIRDS, Anais Nin’s DIARY, THE STORY OF O, Burrough’s JUNKIE, and Maxie Laing’s RUNNING closer to the wall.
“They’re not very romantic.” She had devoured the poetry, but the novels lay unread, because her new life was more exciting than anything written in a book.
“I thought you weren’t into a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship.” Sean held her in his arm, for her presence had given him amnesia about Cheri’s leaving New York.
“That doesn’t mean I can’t pretend once in a while.” She kissed him on the cheek and hastily dressed in an over-the-knee plaid pleated skirt, a white shirt, and knee-high sox to meet Josie at the Orchida on 2nd Avenue for pizza. A leather jacket completed the fantasy of a truant Catholic schoolgirl and she suggested with a smile, “Flowers are acceptable.”
“I’ll bring you dead roses.” Sean wrestled her toward the bed.
A knock on the door broke the clinch. It was Johnny and Sean held up the ATM card, "I haven’t told Johnny that you know about this, so say nothing.”
“I’ll be dumber than a bucket of mud." Tammi opened the door.
Johnny was wearing a leather jacket and black jeans.
“You own any other clothes?”
“This is my look.” Johnny had heard that Halston wore the same jackets and shirts, although the designer had a closet filled with the same clothing, while Johnny had the one. “In the movies actors wear one suit for continuity.”
“That’s the movies.”
“And this is much more. People might not remember me in other clothing.”
“No one is in danger of anyone forgetting you.” Tammi handed Sean his bass and he kissed Tammi good-bye. “I’ll see you at the rehearsal.”
In the hallway the guitarist surveyed Sean with an admiring nod. "If you were a few inches taller, you’d be a GQ model."
"I thought it was better to look like a regular citizen."
"Then you nearly succeeded." The guitarist winked at Sean.
“This is strictly business.”
"You straight boys always think about sex, because you don't fuck enough.”
“I fuck plenty.” Tammi saw to that, although in his love life in Boston had been almost virginal.
“Every man has a little gay in him.” The ex-hippie could act straight all he wanted, but Johnny saw the signs. “It’s how God created the beasts, otherwise jocks wouldn’t sing Queen’s WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS at sporting events and grown men wouldn’t cry during westerns.”
“I don’t cry.” Sean lied, for he wept whenever Shane rode off into the sunset.
“Everyone cries, but no one likes to talk about it. Enough bullshit. We have work to do.” Johnny ran down the stairs to the lobby. Ernie told them both that they needed to pay for their rooms. Neither of them bothered to make a reply to the garrulous desk clerk.
Out on Jane Street the snow on the sidewalks glowed an unhealthy chrome color under sodium crime lights and Johnny tightened the scarf around his neck. A wire brush cough grated through his lungs and he chattered, “This is way too cold for November.”
“Maybe the Russians are experimenting with the weather.” Sean had read about the conflicting economic systems were spending billions to gain an advantage in the global struggle for the hearts and minds of the oppressed.
“More our own government trying to boost consumption for the oil companies.” Johnny expounded on his own theory of the global winter.
“Both systems are shit.” Sean had no bets on either side winning the Cold War, despite the 1975 collapse of Viet-Nam, Laos, and Cambodia, however there was no drag racing, strip clubs, or roller coasters in the USSR and they were in the USA. “We have to live with what we got.”
”Except when we take what we want. You have the ATM card?”
”In my pocket.”
”Then let’s make money.”
A Checker cab rattled down Jane Street and Johnny waved $20. The taxi stopped at the corner. Sean hesitated getting inside.
“Can’t we walk to the first bank.”
“Only losers walk.” The slush was seeping into Johnny’s boots he pulled the ex-hippie inside the Checker, telling the driver, "This will be a short ride, but we’re stopping at a couple of banks."
"And?" The veteran driver only cared about receiving the metered fare and a reasonable tip.
"This now and another twenty, if we hit four in less than forty-five minutes." Johnny passed $20 through the window.
"Where's the first bank?" The driver pocketed the money. $40 was a good start to his shift.
"Sheridan Square." Johnny slammed the door shut.
Five minutes later the taxi reached the tobacco shop on 7th Avenue. and Sean got out of the yellow cab and walked across Christopher Street to the bank’s cash machine. He slid the plastic card slid and entered the requested PIN number. As the machine whirred underneath the steel cover, he surveyed the early evening crowd of gays cruising the foot traffic headed for the riverside bars. Any of the mustached men in jeans might be undercover cops and he readied to run, except when the slot issued $300 in crisp $20 bills, no one grabbed him.
Back in the taxi Sean victoriously brandished the money and Johnny modestly shrugged to acknowledge his expertise at scams.
”Easy, huh?”
”So far so good.” He was still down $10.
“Where next?” the driver asked without looking at them.
“Fifth and 8th.” Johnny had planned the shortest route between the branches of the same bank. If they were quick, they might hit five ATMs before the bank’s computer registered the overdrafts.
At each stop the ATMs issued $300 from the ATMs. No alarms. No bells. No guards with guns and after the five bank in Chinatown, Johnny dismissed the taxi with the promised $20.
“It worked.” Sean thanked the stars above. Only a few were bright enough to break through the light cloud of Manhattan.
“You had your doubts?” Johnny hadn’t been sure either.
“You risked nothing.” Sean patted his coat pocket for the money. $1200 in twenties formed a small stack and he returned Jimmie O’Brian to the grave by tearing the fake license in pieces and stuffing the ATM card into an empty trashcan.
”That’s true, but I’ll do the next one.” The IDs of five more dead men were waiting their reincarnations at the Terminal Hotel. “We don’t have to meet the rest of the band for another hour. Let’s get something to eat. Robbing banks makes me hungry.”
Aglow with success they walked to Wo-Hop, a basement restaurant on Mulberry Street. The waiters were slurping noodles at a round table. Sean and Johnny sat in the corner. A short waiter pushed away his bowl and came over to took the lo wai’s orders, after which Sean divided the money under his coat.
”I’m putting away $600 for our stake, plus taking back my original $300, leaving us $150 each for the night’s take.” He passed a thin wad of cash to the guitarist. “You have a problem with that math?"
”No, it’s not that.” A wave of nausea growled from his stomach and a fever flushed his face. It passed quickly and he stashed the money inside his jacket, telling Sean, “It’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.”
"Tomorrow I'll go over to Brooklyn for another driver's license."
"Why Brooklyn?" Johnny figured that he was little dope sick and pushed away his soup.
“Even the most apathetic office clerk, and they can’t get much worst than Center Street, will catch onto issuing one person multiple licenses.” Sean had waited in three lines over five hours to process the five licenses. The clerks treated the applicants with a range of attention varying from benign neglect to utter hostility. "I haven’t spend more than a day in jail and intend to keep it that way."
”I like the ‘be prepared for anything’ attitude.”The ex-hippie was smarter than he looked.
"This isn't anything like the Boy Scouts. The city and New Jersey have ten DMVs. Between us we can pull this off twenty times. Twenty times nine-hundred adds up to $18,000. Divided by two means nine thou each."
"That much?" Johnny had not calculated the numbers.
"Do the math.” Sean had started his freshman year in college as a math major. He had always been good at math, although by his sophomore year he had failed Multivariable Calculus thanks to too many hours driving cab to pay for school.
“You know we could take this on the road.” Not ripping off Sean had reaped the unexpected bonus with finding Tammi for GTH and their flawless completion of the ATM run. "They have anything interesting in Beantown?"
"The Gardner Museum, Copps Hill cemetery, and the Peabody Museum during the day and at night the 1270 Club, The High Hat Lounge, and Hillbilly Ranch.” Boston’s streets were small, the avenues narrow, and the nights short, while Manhattan boiled with a raucous wildness promising more than madness. “The ATMs will make the trip worth our while, if they’re close enough together.”
“Phillie might work too, if the banks are close enough, otherwise it's a waste of time.” Johnny watched Sean scrawled words on a napkin.
While the ATM scam was a good score, GTH was their path to the future, however the Bostonian’s failure to synchronize with the music was seriously jeopardizing his position in the band. Tammi grimaced at his continual flubs and the other two members had been plotting his replacement behind his back. Johnny had convinced Charles and Frankie to give him a chance, but the clock was ticking.
Sean handed the paper to Johnny and slurped at the soup. He read the twelve lines quickly. They proved that his supporting the ex-hippie wasn’t a mistake. "I can write music for it."
“I’ve been worrying a lot about my playing.” Sean signaled the waiter for the bill. “I’m willing to practice more to stay in the band.”
“It will be a lot of work?” Johnny was surprised by his having read Sean’s mind. Maybe the old gypsy lady hadn’t been joking about his having the gift.
“I was on a football team in high school. We were state champions. I hated the practice, the coach’s shouting, but loved being part of a greater cause than myself.” In his junior year he had viciously yanked the facemask of an opposing fullback. The foul had saved a touchdown and the game. The league had complained about his unsportsmanship and demanded his dismissal from the team. The lack of support from the coaches and team had been a bitter blow. “I get the same feeling from GTH.”
“I’ll help you.” Johnny clapped Sean on the shoulder and wondered if John Lennon had experienced a similar problem with Ringo’s drumming. This conjecture was irrelevant, because the Fab Four were ancient history and not one of their songs was on CBGB’s jukebox. “You’ll have to help yourself too.”
“I will.” Sean threw $10 on the table and told the waiter to keep the change for a tip. He bowed wishing them ‘Melly Chlistmas’ and they walked toward the rehearsal space in Chinatown.
Snowflakes were swirling on a Canadian wind. The cold weather was driving the people from the streets. Reaching Chrystie Street. Johnny said, "Look around us.”
Sean did a 360. The park across the street was empty. The lights on the Empire State Building glowed red and green for the holidays and a subway train rumbled over the Manhattan Bridge. His breath hung in the air. “What am I supposed to be seeing?”
"This city has over seven million people and on this street there’s only you and me. Why? The people are too scared to come out after dark. And why are we here? Because we’re alienated from them, TV dinners, nine-to-five jobs, the suburbs, commuting, the Democrats and Republicans. We want revolution, change, and anarchy, but one day the police will retake the streets and no one will remember the beauty of this moment." Johnny picked an empty beer bottle from the trash and threw it against the side of a building. Its shards fell noiselessly into the snow. "C'mon, it's a long weekend for thieves. You spent an hour robbing banks. You're one of us, aren't you?"
“For life.” Sean heaved a beer bottle over a four-story tenement. It smashed unseen atop the roof and the two men laughed with the giddiness of the truth. This was their city and more importantly their time. Putting his arm over Sean's shoulder, the blonde guitarist shouted, "Now let's rock n' roll."
From anyone else the request might have sounded corny, however Sean yelled, "Gabba-Gabba-Gabba-Hey." and they sang the Ramones’ song all the way to the loft building.
"Elevator or stairs?" Sean smelled the dead chickens.
"Stairs." Johnny unlocked the door. “Ready, steady, go.”
They climbed the stairs two at a time and burst into the penthouse gasping for breath, where Frankie greeted them by saying, "That smell could make a train take a dirt road."
"It like every chicken in the world is getting killed downstairs." Johnny plugged the Les Paul guitar into his amp and Sean winked at Tammi. Her blouse was unbuttoned to reveal her bralessnss. He disregarded Charles staring at her in a less than brotherly fashion, especially after she kissed him in front of the band.
“You forgot the roses.” Tammi had been dreading a phone call from jail.
“I’ll buy them later.” No one outside of his family had cared about him for ages.
"Anyone happy I’m back?" Johnny joined Frankie and Charles at the battery of space heaters blowing hot air into the drafty penthouse. His question hadn’t been directed to anyone in particular and Bobby Vacca said, "Sorry, queer boy, no one missed you.”
None of the other band members reacted to the slight, but Johnny had endured endless incidents of gay-bashing along with society’s implicit approval of this prejudice, despite millions of America’s sons, daughters, husbands, wives, mothers, and fathers being sword-swallowers, muff-divers, dykes, and fags, but he bit his tongue, vowing to avenge the Italian’s homophobia later. "You all ready?"
Charles Ames III limped over the organ, Frankie sat behind the drum kit, and Sean plugged in his bass. Johnny noted the redhead’s hesitancy before the microphone and motioned with his hand. "Tammi, can I speak with you a second?"
"Sure.” She joined Johnny by his amp and peeked out the corner of her eyes at the rest of the band, gulping with apprehension, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.” Back in Kittery she had always been doing something wrong.
"Well, then I’ll tell you.”
Tammi shut her eyes, expecting to be told she was out of the band.
“You’ve been singing with us five days and I haven’t once heard the voice from the hotel room.” She had been accepted by the band for various reasons; Sean slept with her, Frankie borrowed money from her, and Charles had a crush on the teenager. CBGB’s audience was less forgiving. “My first night hustling in Times Square I thought that all the pervs were trying to kill me. Within a week I was everyone’s darling. How you feel hitting the stage at the Dollhouse?”
“I thought they were selling me into white slavery.” She had been a runaway with one shoe to her name.
“One shake of that teenage ass and you had the crowd licking your toes. Same goes for your singing. The audience wants to hear your soul. Not see your ass, your face, or know your background and you deserves a bigger stage than the Dollhouse.”
“Really?” Tammi felt that they were brother and sister separated at birth.
“Strippers are a dime a dozen. More like $25 for ten minutes, but a singer can send people’s souls to heaven or sentence them to the Hades.” Johnny ripped a fiery lick. “All you got to do is let go of who you were and be who you will be. You ready?
“Heaven and hell with no in-betweens.” Tammi clasped the mike. She had never been who people thought she was. Now she had a chance to prove them wrong.
"Let’s do MAYBE TOMORROW." Johnny announced and the others groaned as would a film crew being told they have to reshoot a difficult scene for the hundredth time. “C’mon, it's a great song.”
“If we ever get it right,” Frankie sulked and the entire band eyed Sean.
"I'll work on it."
"If you lived to a million, you___" Frankie recognized Tammi’s potential but also that the bass was hopeless.
Johnny lifted his hand to stop Frankie from finishing his sentence.
"Sean has been playing bass less than a week. He will be fine and we’re sticking with him.”
Charles and Frankie silently acceded to Johnny’s wish and he visually pleaded with Sean before saying, "On the count of three."
Frankie lifted his drumsticks, Charles poised over the keyboard, Sean plotted his fingertips over the bass, and Johnny counted, "One-two-three."
After the opening bar Tammi exploded with the words, "I dreamed about something I didn't get until today."
The band started together, but lost Sean by the first chorus.
Johnny lowered his hands in frustration and the band stopped playing.
"We have to talk." Johnny pulled Sean aside.
“I'm sorry.” The ex-hippie guiltily lowered his head.
"Sean, you're letting down other people."
"What can I do." His setback deflated the exhilaration of the ATM thefts.
“Just do your best.” Johnny wasn’t letting Sean give up.
”That’s what I’m trying to do.” The rest of the band regarded the bass player, as if he had killed the kindergarten hamster.
"Then you can only get better and I’ll help you get there.”
Unfortunately Sean's best was far from passable.
He missed transitions from the bridge to hook, blew breaks, and generally his fingers flubbed over the bass, as if hands well all thumbs. Luckily Charles Ames III was picking up the spirit of punk and Frankie’s drumming reinforced the bottom for the lead guitar, but it was Tammi who made them shine.
Each year thousands of actresses, singers, and artist sacrificed their souls to the altar of fame. Most failed their quest, however Tammi’s voice was reserved for the gods and GTH was willing to worship at her feet, if she brought them to the stars, and her voice cast its magic spell for two hours before Johnny announced, "That's it for tonight. Anything else is counter-productive. Meet here tomorrow at sunset.”
“I have to work tomorrow night.” Tammi watusied side to side.
“Anyone have a problems with an afternoon session?”
The entire band shook their head. She was the star and Johnny said, “Afternoon it is. Three PM.”
Charles fingered a free-style version of LOVE-NO-LOVE and she said, “We need to work more on that song.”
"I agree." The teenager’s vitality reverberated through the crippled millionaire to opiate the pain in his body. On the other hand Sean wished a snowstorm would cancel tomorrow's practice, only the night sky was dotted with stars.
“I’m done.”
"We can practice without a bass," Tammi stated without regretting her frankness.
“Or play a gig.” Frankie thumped a beat on his bass drum.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Sean hadn’t expected her defection.
Johnny had to support him or else GTH was minus a bass player.
"Listen, we're not the Grateful Dead free-styling a song for hours. And GTH’s not ELO or YES either, so we don’t have to be little Mozarts on our instruments."
"But___" Frankie started and Johnny cut him short. "Punk’s about raw power stabbing the heart with a stiletto, striking the skull with a hammer."
"We still have to sound____" Tammi halted mid-sentence, for the elevator noisily began its ascent.
“Anyone expecting guests?” Johnny turned to the elevator doors.
No one answered and he went to the window to gaze on the empty street.
"There’s no police car."
The mention of 'police' reminded Sean that he had robbed five banks and Tammi was a runaway. No one could prove the first and he grabbed a mike stand to prevent any authorities from taking her away. Possessing a packet of dope Frankie moved toward the stairway. Having never committed a crime his father couldn’t fix, Charles was puzzled by their reactions. “Why should the police come?”
“Perhaps one of the chickens filed a noise complaint,” Johnny answered, as the elevator shuddered to a halt and the doors parted for a bearded man in the black sweater. “No, much worse.”
"Why no ‘hellos’?” Nick Arcc approached Johnny with a snide smile.
"No one invited you, that’s why, Nick.” GTH wasn’t ready for anyone’s eyes or ears.
“Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, I’m not real record company. I do drugs. I live in the Lower East Side." The A&R man had broken his teeth on tricking with on-leave sailors and he wasn’t intimidated by the glares from the two straight men in the loft. "Frankie I’ve met. Who are the rest of the band?"
"Sean, Charles, Tammi, meet the lowest, most thieving, manipulative, backstabbing A&R man in America." Johnny protectively clasped his guitar to his chest. “None other than Nick Arcc."
"I'm glad you feel free to speak your mind. Kids, my job is to find talent. Search the bars, clubs, garages, basements of this city and the entire East Coast for bands with the talent to rise to the next stage. It’s a dirty job and I like the filth." The loft was freezing outside the circle of space heaters, yet the record producer was sweated, as if it was the middle of June.
"He skipped 'missing link'." Tammi pointed to the luxuriant hair sprouting from the neck of his sweater.
"I love punk girls with spunk, the Latin drums, the classical organ, and the stuttering bass. And Johnny, that guitar? Could the Rock Gods have blessed you with a little Jimi?” The producer licked his lips at the bass player. He was rough and probably savage in bed, only he wasn’t here for fun and games. Scherrying Johnny into a corner, he whispered, "Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. Frankie’s a junkie, the organist’s a cripple, the bass sucks, the roadie's a Mafia wannabe, and the lead singer is so underage it's only a question of time before the police arrest her as a runaway."
"Is that a threat?" GTH was six days old and Johnny was as protective as a newly born’s father.
The A&R man stared him in the eyes. He had seen Clive Davis pull the same trick on Carly Simon during a contract dispute and she had signed for a fraction of her potential.
“Ames is a old family with lots of money. Rich families have problems and your friend is one of them. You know he jumped off a roof? The look on your face says no.” The A&R man lowered his voice to a lizard lisp. "Of course, you could care less, if he threw himself off the Empire State building, cause you're getting this band together to rip him off.”
“GTH is a band, not a scam. We’re into this for the music.”
“Music?” Nick laughed. “More noise than music.”
“It’s typical of record industry scum like you to treat punk like it’s shit.”
“Not punk. You.”
“Fuck you.”
“Love to.”
“On a cold day in hell.”
“Plenty of those in New York this time of year, but I can help lend your scam a little authenticity."
"Get the fuck out of here."
"You punks are a joke. You think all it takes to conquer the world is three chords, but no show at Max’s and CBs reaches more than a few hundred people. To touch the masses you have to manipulate the media. Records, Radio, TV, critics saying you’re great. The public will respond to the machine and you’ll sell records. Make money. Ride in jets. Drive fast cars.” Nick Arcc raised his voice for the rest of the band to overhear his spiel. “And to hit the big time. To record a best-selling album I’m your man. A piece of shit willing to sell his soul to get the best deal from the Devil.”
“Not now.”
“Why are you scared of success.”
Sean read the mounting tension between the two as easily as a Casper the Ghost comic book and interrupted the hairy intruder.
"It's time to go, Apeman."
“Do you have any idea who you're talking to?”
“I don't give a rat's ass who you are and you shouldn't either.”
The A&R man hadn’t survived an Iggy tour, trashed a hotel room with The Who, or shot drugs with the Dolls by allowing nobodies to threaten him. “One phone call and GTH is ruined."
“Ruined?” The words of the Stones’ WEST COAST UNDER-ASSISTANT PROMO MAN belittled the bearded man’s power.
“Yes, over before you even started.”
The threat triggered the madness in Sean and his left hand grabbed the A&R man’s fleshy neck. His face showed that it hurt and he begged, “Let me go.”
Sean dragged the squirming promo man over to the empty elevator shaft.
“I know people. Important people. They won’t let you get away with this.”
“Forget them. At this instant I'm the most important person in your world."
Nick’s eyes gaped at the black hole.
“I’ll do anything.”
It was too late for anything, because Sean’s blood had boiled the reason from his brain. He was angry at Cheri’s leaving him, his near-dismissal by GTH, and his lack of skill on bass. If he released his grip, the fat man would plummet to the top of the elevator roof. His world would change and not for the better. He had lived through his mistakes before and his fingers loosened their hold on the fat man flapping his arms in a useless attempt to fly.
"Stop, Sean,” Tammi begged from behind him. “Forget the past. You have this band. You have another night with me.”
The blood roaring in his ears almost blocked her word, yet a future with Tammi was more appealing than several years in prison and Sean hauled the fat man into the loft.
“You crazy____.”
The driver grabbed the intruder’s shoulder.
"Mister, it's time to go."
"Okay, okay, I'm leaving." Nick Arcc cringed with pain, as Bobby shoved the record producer into the stairwell and locked the door. Having his own collection of regrettable deeds, he asked Sean, "Are you all right?"
"I lost it.” He walked away from the band, castigating himself for his temper.
"Were you going to drop him?" Tammi had never seen anyone as close to murder as Sean had been several seconds ago. He was no hippie. NOt before and not now.
"I might have.” He was ashamed by the truth.
”You can be like that with people.” Tammi whispered in his ear.
“I know.” He buried his head in her neck. “It will be better,” she told Sean, but he was dangerous and one day maybe to her, but she hid herself in his arms, because they were more similar than was beneficial for either of them. "That was the perfect ending to a rehearsal," Johnny remarked and the band regarded him with puzzlement. "Nick’s a big mouth. He'll blab at CBs or Max's about Sean’s nearly killing him."
"Shit." Sean pictured the police after him with their clubs and heavy shoes.
“Punk’s about rebellion and misbehavior acts as its Molotov cocktail. He loved it and so will everyone else.” Johnny pointed at Sean and sang, “Wild child, he's a real wild child."
"This is a man’s world." Tammi surprised the band by singing the line from James Brown's hit. “But it wouldn’t be nothing without a woman or a girl. You know I never hear any women’s names other than Patti Smith, Nico, and Debby Harry. We’re not just groupies.”
Tammi was surrounded by five men. The musicians art CBGBs and Max’s expected rock god treatment from girls. She wasn’t letting GTH treat women as second-class humans.
"There aren’t many girl groups on the scene.” Johnny could only think of three, then added, "Tammi does have a point and there are no gay bands either."
"Liberace," Sean suggested to lighten the mood.
"He's as 'out' as Gomer Pyle." No straights ever mentioned Rock Hudson.
"I'm not looking to start a revolution, but you have to recognize that I'm a woman as much as I am a girl," Tammi declared boldly and Frankie tapped the high-hat. "And don’t forget Libre Puerto Rico and Willy Deville."
"I'm glad we have that political crisis settled," Johnny concluded before Sean asserted his love of Irish penny whistle bands or Charles proclaimed the formation of the Rich People’s Freedom League. "Anyone for having a drink at CBGBs?"
The rehearsal and Sean’s outburst had tapped their energy and CBGBs offered more fun than heading home any night of the week. They shut off the equipment, locked the loft, and arrived halfway through Suicide’s FRANKIE TEARDROP.
The pasty lead singer smacked his face with the microphone. His sunglassed organist’s motionlessness vividly counterpointed this partner’s frenetic self-destruction. A Ramone greeted Johnny and asked about Sean’s nearly killing Nick Arcc.
“Nick was flapping his arms like a chicken.” The listeners at the bar laughed at Johnny’s imitation of the A&R man’s waving his arms.
Sean was uncomfortable with the guitarist’s reenactment of this incident and gave Tammi $20 to order him a beer. He went to the pinball machine, which he kicked once. Quarters sloshed from the coin return and the ex-hippie jostled the machine with a maniacal sense of timing.
“He certainly is hard on that machine.” Charles was by her side. “When he was holding that guy in the elevator, I remembered my fall.”
“The one that broke your back?”
“Yes.” Charles didn’t like talking about that day.
“From how high?”
“Three stories.” At the time it hadn’t seemed so high.
“An accident?” Nobody jumped from that height for fun.
“I had gone of a school building after a football game. I can still see my friends laughing below me. Only my sister was scared. I was dancingand my foot caught a shingle. I slipped off the roof and hit the ground with a loud crack. For a second I thought I had been shot. When my arms and legs floated away, I understood my injury was much more serious.”
“A broken back?” No one their age considered themselves mortal, which rationalized young people’s dedication to death-defying feats without explaining the repetition of reckless behavior.
“Two places. A specialist at NYU Hospital predicted my death. I proved him wrong. Other doctors said I was permanently paralyzed. They were wrong. I walked again. Not great, but I can walk.”
Tammi held his hand and Charles almost flinched. No one had touched him with such tenderness. Not for a long time.
“You know I have a twin sister.”
“Caroline, right?” He had mentioned her name once.
“Yes. When I was my coma, I was floating in a gray sludge. This rope dangled in front of me and always danced out of reach. One day I grabbed it and emerged from the coma. My sister was sitting next to the hospital bed. I couldn’t speak and squeezed her hand. That connection brought me back to this life. To now, although for the first day I thought maybe I had died and this was the after-life.”
“What changed your mind?”
“This life was too much like the last. The same faces, same people, same TV, same food.” Charles lifted his cane. “And I would have been able to walk in the after-life.”
“You’re walking now.” Her father had claimed that he had died each time he ODed. She had seen him die on several occasions only to come back to life with a start only to have him grow cold that last time.
“It’s not easy.”
“Maybe you were lucky.”
“Surviving that fall had nothing to do with luck.”
“99% of this planet’s inhabitants would have never received the extra treatment, Charles. You were lucky to be born rich.”
“Is there something wrong with that?” She was right. Money had saved him. Money to have doctors, nurses, specialists, hospitals, and therapists.
“No, you didn’t have any choice of who you are, only of what you become. Your accident gave you that freedom same as my leaving home.” Tammi’s rebellion in Kittery had ended with exile, because she had no support. In New York she had her enemies, but with GTH’s backing and Sean’s love she was not alone. “To all those people back there I was only one thing. Here I’m anything I want.”
“Tammi, these people are drug addicts, drop-outs, runaways, misfits, and worst.”
“Yes, they are one-percenters on the borders of the wasteland.” Tammi released Charles’ hand to pay for Sean’s drink. “Which is why we’re destined to be stars. There are lots more of us out there in America and around the world. Millions more, but we can’t pull it off without you, so you have to lose that superiority complex.”
“Superiority complex?”
“Yeah, no one here cares if you’re rich. Yes, they do, but only because they want something for free.”
“And you?”
“I’m happy with what I can get, so try and at least fake you’re one of us.”
“Why should I?” No one other than his father had ordered around Charles and he stared into Tammi’s eyes, expecting that she could read his mind like Johnny. She showed no signs of clairvoyance, as she said, “And you’d be more handsome.”
“Handsome?” No one had called Charles Ames III that in years.
“Charles, I don’t lie. Not about anything. And why? I don’t have too. You have money. More money than God, except money isn’t the solution to your problems.”
“What is?”
“You and only you.” She noticed a trio of girls in plastic dresses gushing over Sean’s skill on the pinball machine. “Charles, you’ll have to excuse me.”
“You coming back?” Charles Ames III’s heart beat hard. Tammi had found his light. One day soon it could be a flame. “I’ll order you another drink.”
“No, but thanks for the offer.” Tammi kissed him on the cheek and strode over her competition. Sensing her unbridled possessiveness, they stepped back and she tugged Sean away from the machine. "We're going."
“I haven’t finished any of my beer.” Sean reached for the beer.
“We can take it to go.” Tammi stuck the cold bottle under her coat and led Sean from the bar. A taxi was waiting by the curb and they sat in the rear. She told the driver their destination and slid to the far side.
"Are you pissed at me?"
"I saw you with those girls." Tammi’s eyes flashed with green.
"You're jealous."
"Am not." Tammi had never cared that the boys in Kittery had girlfriends.
"I wasn’t going to leave you tonight." Sean held her closer.
“You’re a big boy, you can go wherever your heart desires.” She turned her head, but he continued caressing her hair. “Tammi, I did consider leaving with them.”
“You did.” All men were the same.
“And what stopped me was wanting you than anyone else.”
Tammi blinked with disbelief. No one had ever wanted her like that.
“We have something.”
“Is there a word for it?”
“It’s stronger than friendship.” Anytime he had been in love, it had ended badly and wasn’t rushing with Tammi. “Does that work for you?”
“Tonight it will have to be.”
Without Sean and GTH she was a teenager stripper and Times Square destroyed them by the hundreds. No one asked any questions after they were gone, but Tammi was different. She had Sean.
In the hotel’s room 301 they wordlessly kissed for several minutes without his hands rushing underneath her clothes and she asked, “Are you waiting for the right mood?”
“No, I just want you to want me more than I want you.” An orgasm lasted a few seconds, while the memory of a caress could survive old age.
“Then I win that contest.” She wanted to prove to him that women are capable of desiring a man for pure physical pleasure. He deserved it and Tammi spread her legs. She pulled off her skirt and unbuttoned his jeans. The two had sex lacking any tenderness and after they shuddered together in a silent orgasm, Tammi locked her ankles behind his knees. “Don’t pull out just yet.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t mind the fucking, but I want more than just sex. Do you have a problem with that?”
“No, but I once saw this German movie called KINGS OF THE ROAD.” Sean circled his palm on her back, breathing in the mingling fragrance of their skins. “The two actors sit in this border bunker and one says that his greatest loneliness was being inside a woman after he’s made love.”
“And you?” Sean’s hands were ships of fluff sailing over her flesh.
“Like I belonged on another planet.” Sean’s penis was shrinking to verify his statement.
“You always feel that way with a woman?”
“I wish I could say, “Never before.”
“And you can’t.”
“I can get away with “Not often.” The time before seemed in a previous lifetime.
“I’ve never belonged anywhere and with anyone.” Tammi was scared to tally her failures to achieve intimacy through sex and held him tight. “I wasn’t so fortunate with my parents. My mother disappeared as soon as she dropped me and my father’s addiction killed him. My stepmother stuck by me, but I had a hard time getting along with anyone and no one got along with me. I became obsessed with the idea of the circus or carnival kidnapping me. I’d leave the windows open for a roustabout to carry me off.”
“And they never came?”
“I always woke in my own bed."
Sean listened to her heartbeat running fast in a panic from telling him about herself. He had been reconstructing her life in snips. It wasn’t a pretty picture.
“You escaped.”
"Thanks to you.” Tammi studied the city lights fluttering against the mural of Sean.
For a minute their breathing filled the silence and they fell apart from one another without breaking their embrace.
“I come from a large family. Six kids and my grandmother lived with us. Anyway my father was worried about us falling from the station wagon and installed bars on the windows. Other motorists imagined we were truants. We parked at the New Hampshire Tollbooth. My brothers and sisters used the bathroom. I came out. The car was gone. Seems my father had asked if I was in the car, and my brother told him I was in the bathroom. My father hated jokes and drove off. About a half-hour later my mother counted heads and asked my brother where I was. This time they believed him and raced to the tollbooth, finding me with a band of gypsies. My mother stole me out of their arms. We drove off without thanking them. At family dinners they say I was crying.”
“And were you?” Tammi stroked his thigh with teenage tenderness.
“I think I was scared.” The gypsies had given him ice cream. “Scared I might have to live with them. I saw how people looked at them. I just wanted to be the same as everyone else.”
“And you were.”
“For awhile.” His life had seemed doomed to repeat the middle-class existence of his parents; the clean house, gleaming car, TV nights, and weekends at the lake house, except millions of people lived in suburban spilt-levels, drove family cars, raised kids, worked 9-to-5, ate fast-food, and shopped at the malls. One less had to make a difference.
“That a story?” Tammi pinched an inch of soft inch under his ribs.
Sean showed no reaction to pain and said, “No, it’s the way I remember it.”
“Every teenager wants to join the circus at one point in their lives.” Tammi nuzzled his neck, smelling the fragments of his aroma underneath the tobacco and sweat. He was violent, robbed banks, and was useless on bass. None of which made him a bad person in her eyes and the teenager nestled closer without wishing for a dream, because she was living this one, until it was over for good.
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