Tammi had been dreaming of her pillow at the Terminal Hotel for the last two hour of her shift and she tipped the taxi driver an extra five for having driven to her destination without making any comments about picking her up in front of the Dollhouse. Ernie wasn’t at the desk and the teenager hurried through the lobby avoid any contact with the huddles of derelicts wrapped around the heaters. They were mostly harmless, but this was New York and nothing stayed harmless forever.
She climbed the stairs on dance-worn feet to the third floor. 301 was at the end of the corridor and Tammi opened the door, expecting to find Sean asleep, except the bed was empty. There was no note. Only a pile of his clothing in the corner, upsetting the tidiness of the shabby room which she had been transformed into a home with her purchases of a small stereo, TV, flowers, stuffed pets, candles, pillows, sheets, and blankets.
The hotel had no maid service and she tidied up Sean’s pile of clothing.
His possessions were minimal; clothes, photographs, several dozen punk and jazz records, and a journal, in which he wrote daily, most assuredly about her. She picked it up. Half the pages were bloated from ink. Reading whatever he had written was too much like theft and she put down the journal, then listened for his footsteps in the hallway. There were none and the exhausted teenager figured that he was out with Johnny. Possibly up to no good, but they were big boys.
Once the room was presentable, Tammi fell into bed and read Georges Bataille’s STORY OF AN EYE. The sick little stories sexually stimulated her and Tammi yearned for Sean’s body. The minutes became an hour and the book dropped from her hands. She tugged the cover to her neck and fell asleep, awaiting the ex-hippie’s hands on his body. Two more hours passed without his arrival and Tammi sat up in bed. She went to the window and looked down on the empty street. It was almost five in the morning. Sean had never stayed out this late and she worried that he might have gotten hurt in a fight.
She tried reading the book, but as dawn lightened the sky, the teenager no longer trusted her heart's lies. Sean was not in a hospital calling her name. He was panting in another woman’s arms. Josie had warned her that a man is a dog in clothing and she had been a fool to believe that Sean came from a kinder background than the boys of Kittery.
Tammi furiously gathered his clothes, intending to throw them into the street, except the windows had been nailed to the sash, so she tossed his clothing into the corner, after which the teenager attacked Cheri’s wall mural with a stiletto heel, gouging his eyes and obliterating the painted groin.
Breathless from the maddened exertion at the two-dimensional voodoo doll, Tammi sat on the bed furious with herself, then heard a scrapping at the door. She yanked open the door and Sean collapsed inside the room.
Tammi screamed.
The ex-hippie’s shirt was spattered with blood from the scars etched on the left side of his face. His skin was a deathly shade of white. Tammi knelt to find a faint pulse nd she pried apart his eyelids. The pupils failed to register the light in the hallway. Having found her father in this condition countless times, she instantly diagnosed Sean as having OD’ed and yelled, “Wake up, you bastard."
Several heads popped into the hallway. This scene had been repeated too many times in the Terminal Hotel to spark any interest or help and the doors slammed shut.
Sean failed to respond to her calls or her slaps to his face.
As much as Tammi hated him now, she didn’t want him to die. After dragging him inside the room Tammi ran down the hallway to pound on # 314’s door. "Johnny, open up."
After ten seconds Johnny appeared at the door, pulling on a bathrobe.
”What’s wrong?”
It’s Sean. He’s dying.”
Dying?” Johnny didn’t need a drama this early in the morning. “He just had too much to drink.”
”No, she’s ODed.”
”ODed.” The ex-hippie was no junkie.
”Come.” Tammi dragged Johnny to 301, where the bass player lay inert on the floor. "Get his other arm.” Johnny bent over to hook the crook of his elbow underneath Sean's armpit. “We’re taking into the bathroom."
"Shouldn't we go to a hospital?" Tammi asked, pulling him to his feet.
"He’s not dying this morning, if he didn’t die last night." It was nearly the truth.
Together they manhandled Sean's beanbag body into the hallway shower room where Johnny slapped the ex-hippie's face, who registered no reaction to the increasingly harder blows.
”Asshole hippie.” Johnny positioned Sean in the shower and twisted the cold knob. The stream of icy water splattered over his face and Sean sputtered, "What am I doing here?"
"Coming back to life, you idiot." This was as much of a lecture as Johnny was willing to give this morning.
“How I get back?” A black hole of time had riffed across his night.
“Bastard.” Tammi swore. He had failed her no-drug edict.
“I’m sorry.” Sean covered his eyes against the shower spray.
“Sorry?” The teenager was deaf to any line of defense. “It’s too late for sorry.”
“Tammi.” Johnny shut off the water. “He’ll be fine now.”
“Yeah, junkies always are.”
“I’m not___” Sean started, but seeing Tammi’s indifference to excuses, Johnny said,“Just shut up.”
Sean did as he was told and let them help him into room 301. He fought off his wet clothes, knowing he would feel like death warmed over this afternoon and fell onto the bed.
He was out cold in a second and Johnny motioned Tammi to join him in the hallway. She was very angry at Sean and sensed that she was reasdy to leave him and the band. Johnny said, “Tammi, he’s no junkie.”
“I never want to see him again.” She glanced inside at the man on the bed, seeing her father.
”Okay, you wanting to leave him is one thing, but I have good news. We have a gig.”
“A gig?” This news took her by surprise.
”It’s not Madison Square Garden, but CBGB’s amateur night.” Johnny rightfully downplayed it. “This Monday.”
"You're kidding."
"No, so we have a lot of work for the next few days."
“Non-stop rehearsals.”
“
As many as possible. The other good news is that Sean can play bass as long as he sings along with the songs.”
“Great.” She wished he was dead.
"Give Sean a break. He was in a fight at Max’s. A biker has a hard-on for me.”
“A fight explains the cuts.” Tammi examined his face. “Not the dope.”
”That part of the story I don’t know about.” Johnny was lying, because the barman at Max’s had recounted the fight blow-for-blow as well as Dove’s saving Sean. She always had a stash of drugs in her pocketbook to cover all circumstances. Sean must have taken too much dope by mistake, but Johnny couldn’t snitch out the ex-hippie and said, “That mystery Sean will have to solve for you.”
“Thanks for your help.” Junkies protected each member of their cult and she closed the door. “I'll see you at the rehearsal.”
”Don’t bet on it.” She slammed the door shut and Johnny walked back to his room figuring that Tammi adn Sean would have an argument, kiss, and make love as would any young lovers in the modern world.
Johnny hurried down unheated hallway to his room and Johnny sat on the mattress next to a doped-out Frankie. He breathed deeply and then hacked out a rib-wracking cough, which was followed by a pain like a shark was eating his lung. It was too late to visit the hospital and the guitarist quickly arranged his works; a spoon, a match, a piece of cotton, a syringe, water, and $20 bag of heroin on the night table. The dope cooked fast and he strapped the belt around his bicep.
The needle sucked the narcotic stew into the syringe and tapped the vial several times to free an air bubble, then poised the needle over his vein.
Johnny hesitated before jabbing the point home. His guitar-playing had improved with his kicking dope. He had a band, friends, and money. With drugs it was impossible to have any of the three.
Tonight none of that mattered and the needle slithered under his skin to puncture the blood vessel. A red rose floated in the syringe. Johnny depresed the plunger to the bottom and then flushed the syringe with his blood.
The effect was immediate and Johnny laid the needle on the night table. He lay down on the down dowsy with dope and stroked the puncture marks dotting Frankie' skin.
Drugs were killing the young boy, but a much more sinister doom was gnawing at Johnny and he put his hands together to pray to something greater than heroin. The blonde guitarist passed out before reaching the ‘heaven’ in the ‘Our Father’, which was a great place for the damned to stop before they were ready to repent for their sins.
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