MAYBE TOMORROW - A novel by Peter Nolan Smith Chapter 4

IV

Two hours past midnight the Olds 88 crossed a bridge spanning a black tidal river. Co-Op City’s stark highrises loomed on the left and abandoned wrecks lined the Interstate to remind motorists that crime didn’t sleep in the Big Apple. Thee minutes later Sean lifted his foot off the gas and veered onto the Bruckner Expressway.

Off the elevated highway flames leapt from a vacant building unattended by fire trucks. Smoke smoldered from neighboring tenements without any spectators. This part of the Bronx had been deserted for most of the decade.

The sleeping runaway on the passenger seat came from small town up north. She probably had never been to a city bigger than Boston and New York was no city for a young girl on her own.

The Olds shuddered over the rough pavement and Sean steered hard right to avoid a deep pothole. Breakdowns in these derelict neighborhoods were a nightmare for motorists passing through the city. Roaming road gangs could strip the tires and engine off a vehicle in less than five minutes, while the owner tried to find a tow truck.

The heavy Oldsmobile rumbled off the highway and Sean headed toward the Willis Avenue Bridge. The car dove into a treacherous dip in the badly-maintained road and the chassis bottomed out with a screech of metal. The young girl stirred from her slumber and rubbed her eyes for several seconds. before asking, "Where are we?"

“Almost in Manhattan." Sean jerked the wheel left to avoid an axle-snapping chasm.

"Really?" Kittery was a small village. Portsmouth was barely a city. Boston was big, but not big like this. Her eyes widened in awe of the panorama of tall apartment buildings across the East River. “I never thought I’d make it.”

“I’m not a bad driver.” The Olds bisected a lane of cars. Horns blared and fists were shaken at the car exiting onto the ramp for Harlem.

“I believe you.” Tammi giggled, sounding twelve. “But the other cars are avoiding yours like it was a shark in a swimming pool."

"The gash on the side is thanks to your friend." The car chase in Connecticut had added an unwanted detour to the trip from Boston,

"And normally after a driver has an accident, they check out the damage." She lit a cigarette and the smoke bit into her lungs. "Meaning?” Sean fussed through the radio to find The Doors' RIDERS ON THE STORM.

“That this isn't your car.” Tammi smirked with the cigarette dangling from her lip. She had spent hours practicing the look in the mirror. “Don’t look so innocent. It’s obvious that this is a stolen car, but I won't report you to Santa Claus or the police."

"It’s not stolen. It was given to me."

“For a Thanksgiving Day present?”

“No, the owner paid me to make it disappear?”

“You do magic tricks like a magician.” The teenager mocked him with fake amazement.

“No, the car is a gas guzzler too much gas. Nobody wants to buy it, so the owner contacts me and I tell to leave it on the street with an extra set of keys under the seat. I drive to New York, park the car in a bad neighborhood, and leave the keys in the ignition, then it's stolen by real thieves and the the next day the owner reports the theft to the police. A month later he gets a check from the insurance company. Happy ending.” Sean hadn’t told any of his friends about his sideline. He shouldn't have told Tammi, but once she got out of the car, he would never see her again.

"You make it sound like you're doing a good deed.” She was a little young to be so sarcastic.

“Only the insurance company gets hurt." Baptized a Catholic Sean had given up of worrying about his immortal soul long ago. “And this is the last car I disappear.”

"I don’t give a fuck whether this is the first, last or the hundredth car you ‘disappeared’. To me it’s a ride.” Tammi twisted the dial to banish RIDERS ON THE STORM from the radio. "I hate that oldie music."

"Oldies? I saw the Doors in 1968. They played for three hours at the Uptown Bus in Boston. I started a band, hoping to be a rock god. All I ever played were pool parties.”

"Sorry, hippie boy, but this is 1976 not 1968." Tammi spun the knob to a droning voice accompanied by a 3-chord band and she sang along with the chorus. "Road, road, roadrunner, goin’ fifty mile an hour."

“Not bad.”

“Me?” Tammi wasn’t used to anyone say something good about her.

“You sound like Dusty Springfield without training.

“So you’re not only a car thief, but a musical expert.” Her father had listening to Dusty Springfield, so she didn’t take comment as an insult.

“I know music. Who’s playing now?” Sean slowed down to get off the bridge.

“I have no idea.” The local station out of Portsmouth was dominated by Top Ten Hits.

“That’s Jonathan Richman in the Modern Lovers and the song’s called ROADRUNNER.”

“I never heard it before, but I like it.” She turned up the volume, but when the song segued to BETH, she ruthlessly shut off Kiss’ hit and hummed Dolly Parton's JOLEEN.

"You hate the Doors and like country?" The driver grappled with the shuddering wheel, as the Olds sped down Lexington Avenue.

"At least you can sing country around a campfire." Tammi gawked at the forlorn projects and the black men on the sidewalks well past midnight. "Is this Harlem?"

"Yes,” Sean answered, pacing his speed to avoid stopping at a red light.

"I always pictured Harlem this way." The young girl was astonished by the number of black people on the sidewalks. "Bright lights. Lots of black people. There are no blacks back home."

“You know anyone in New York?” He was sure that the answer was no.

“No one from my town ever leaves it, but I have enough money to stay at a hotel.” Tammi examined the driver’s thick-boned face. He reminded her of an extra from a 1960s caveman movie, and she asked, "How about you and me splitting a hotel? Money goes longer with two than one."

"I....I..."

Tammi laughed at his stammering.

"Let me guess. You have a jealous girlfriend?"

“Sorry." Sean was two hours late for meeting Cheri.

"Sorry for having someplace to go?” She had done fine in Kittery owing no one nothing. “You in love?"

"Yes." Love was the only word to describe the feeling of Cheri’s embrace.

"Then all’s forgiven." Tammi stopped speaking and the Olds rolled down avenues and streets surrounded by the gauntlet of increasingly taller buildings. After fifteen minutes she pulled out a cigarette without lighting it and pressed her face to the window.

“I know where I am. This is where they drop the ball on New Year's Eve."

“It’s Times Square.” The glow of the marquees and flashing neon billboards camouflaged the area’s legendary sordidness. On the sidewalk two young boys were rummaging through a fallen man’s pockets. No one on the sidewalk interfered with the robbery.

"Tammi, no matter how terrible it was at home, you're too young for this. In 1969 I watched hundreds of girls flocking to the hippie corner in Boston Commons. They drifted away to free-love communes on Mission Hill or go-go bars in the Combat Zone. Each of those places were a thousand times safer than Times Square.”

"I’m willing to listen to an alternative.”

"I give you the money for a bus ticket home."

Tammi visualized the return ride to Kittery, her stepmother cooking turkey, her stepsister’s smug smile, the boys at school begging for a quick trip to the Fort, and the girls at school calling her the town pump.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because this place was made for girls like me. Stop.” Tammi twisted her head.

“Where?” Sean cut off a yellow taxi and pulled over to the curb.

"Right there." Tammi pointed to a poster GIRLS WANTED underneath a blinking neon marquee.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Dead serious.” She pulled up on the door handle.

“This is wrong." The slender brunette was the same age as his youngest sister. "If it was so wrong, you'd be crying, hippie boy, besides I’ve heard that song, "If I can make it here, then I can make it anywhere.' It had to be true for somone, so why not me?"" Tammi leaned across the seat to kiss Sean with a tenderness better suited to the end of a junior prom date.

“What if they don’t give you a job?” Sean doubted that she had valid ID.

“Oh, they’ll give me a job.” Tammi smiled with the wanton pleasure of being who she wanted to be.

The teenager popped out of the car and clomped to the DOLLHOUSE in her one high heel. The brutish bouncer stopped Tammi, then she reached into her jacket and produce what seemed to be an ID, then danced a seductive Watusi as an audition. Ten seconds later the bouncer waved the teenager inside the Playpen. Her disappearance was too fast for his tastes and Sean opened the door to rescue her from the naked truth of Times Square.

A uniformed cop rapped his billyclub on the hood.

“Shut the door and move it. This is a no parking zone.”

"My friend went into the Dollhouse."

"Then she ain't comin' out any time soon." The scruffy cop shut the door with a shove. "You want to wait. Stick this shitbox into a parking lot."

"Yes, officer." Sean was angered at his inability to be two places at once, but he didn’t need the cop running the plate.

His right foot stomped on the gas and the Olds weaved out of Times Square with the big V8 begging for speed. The car might not have been owned by Sean, street maintenance was a low priority on the impoverished city administration’s agenda and 7th Avenue’ rutted surface challenged the Olds’ suspension to the limit.

At 34th Street the chrome bumper narrowly missed a bum’s shopping cart. At 23rd the under chassis once more blistered steel on a bump topped by a manhole and a meteor shower of sparks sprayed against the ragged asphalt. Sean turned west on 14th Street. By 8th Avenue the sidewalks were devoid of foot traffic. The lights were with him, as the tires rattled over unpaved cobblestones of the Meat Market.

The Olds turned south under the West Side Highway following the train track for a few blocks before crossing West Street. Sean braked hard to halt the Olds before the lip of the Hudson River embankment.

The headlights lit the first hundred yards of the black trough of water separating New York from the rest of America. Sean shoved the column shift into Park and turned off the engine without taking the keys. Stepping out of the car he zipped up his jacket and pulled a screwdriver from his pocket. Sean scanned the street.

The smell of Old’s burnt rubber mixed with the rank tidal water and a block north shadowy men wandered into a twisted metal pier. Cheri had explained that homosexual trespassers used the fire-scorched warehouse for shadowy orgies. Sexual outlaws were no threat to him.

He crouched behind the Olds and unscrew to the license plates, then repeated the process with the one on the front bumper, then tossing both into the river. A Checker taxi passed him. The driver didn’t even bother to look at him. This time of night there were no good reason to stop on this side of West Street and Sean grabbed his canvas bag from the rear of the Olds. He glanced across the street to the third-floor of the Terminal Hotel.

The corner room’s lights were out. Cheri had to be home by now. The waitress finished work at 2. Sean hefted the bag over his shoulder and smiled to himself, thinking about her naked in bed.

A new life awaited him and Sean eagerly climbed the Terminal Hotel’s crumbling steps, nearly knocking over a bottle of NightTrain shared by two winos. Their garbled curses barely grazed his ears, as he entered the musty lobby. No one alive had seen this establishment’s heyday and Sean vowed to move someplace better tomorrow.

"I'm here for Cheri." He rapped on the counter to wake the sleeping desk clerk’ attention and looked at keys on the wall. #301 was there.

“Cheri?” The wiry clerk scratched his unshaven jaw.

“She’s in room 301.” Sean dropped his bag on the floor. It had gotten heavy on the walk from the Olds.

“You mean she was in 301.” The clerk grinned without showing his teeth. Life had a funny way of not working out according to plans at the Terminal Hotel.

“What you mean ‘was’?” He shook his head in disbelief.

"Like past tense ‘was and now is not’."

"I was supposed to meet her." The old man had to be lying about her checking out.

"Hey, women change their minds." The clerk pretended to examine the ledger. “You musta missed her by three hours. Tough break.”

"Where'd she go?" Sean glanced over to a young blonde man in a leather jacket. He was paying too much attention to this conversation and Sean resisted telling him to mind his own business. This was not his city.

"She said Paris.” The clerk glanced overhead. “Plane’s probably halfway across the Atlantic by now."

"She leave a message?"

"Yer name is Sean?" The clerk grabbed a letter pinned to the wall.

"That's me." At this moment he wish that he was someone else.

"Then this is for you." The clerk suppressed a grin. “I read it earlier. You want me to tell you what it says.”

“No.” Sean dropped his bag and devoured the four sentences hoping to read a comforting explanation, instead Cheri had written that she was going to Paris to study art at the Sorbonne. There was no mention of ‘them’ or when she might returned. The last sunbeam in his solar system was sucked into a black hole with no promise of a dawn on the horizon.

"Bad news, kid?" asked the clerk fighting back a grin.

Sean shook his head and left the lobby with his bag over his shoulder. On the steps he released the letter and the night wind seized the page before it hit the sidewalk. Across West Street was a black river and he stumbled forward into the night.

Two seconds later Johnny Darling bent over to pick up the discarded letter from the sidewalk. He read the four lines in less than two seconds. Cheri’s words were as deadly as a script of a snuff film and the guitarist stuffed the sheet of paper into his pocket before trailing the hippie down the sidewalk.

Plenty of men left the Terminal Hotel blanketed by a similar despair. More than a few ended up in the river.

When Cheri's rejected lover reached the other side of the West Side Highway and punched the hood of a dented Chevy Vega with New Jersey plates. The metal buckled under his fists and Johnny shouted, "Go easy on that car. It’s already been knocked out."

“Get the fuck away from me.” The hippie lashed out a quick right.

“Slow down, Sean, I'm not trying to fuck with you." Johnny sidestepped the roundhouse swing and lifted his hands to demonstrate his harmlessness.

"Who the hell are you?" Sean snarled at the intruder to his fury with red murder in his eyes.

"I'm Johnny. I live at the Terminal.” Johnny didn't need a broken nose and wisely kept his distance from the hippie.

“And?” Sean pushed his hair out of his face.

“Cheri was my friend and I'm sorry to tell you that you’re not the first guy whose heart she broken. She had this hillbilly boyfriend from West Virginia named Bix. I think he was studying math at the New School. Anyway they went out for a year, but Cheri never kissed Bix. Not once. After she deserted him, Bix moved in a cave in Central Park, mumbling numbers like a bingo announcer. His parents finally committed him to a mental hospital”

“I’m not Bix,” Sean had heard a different version from Cheri.

“I'm not saying that you are, but Cheri had a little problem of letting men confused lust for love and men had an even bigger problem with her small problem.” Johnny intuitively recognized how the hippie brutal features might have appealed to Cheri, who balanced deep-seeded sexual masochism with a dangerous streak of mental sadism. “You know she talked about you?"

"What she say?" Sean demanded with the desperation of a drowning man swimming to a sinking raft.

“She said you were from Boston, wrote poetry, and stole cars. That you?" "Yeah." Sean nodded with a heavy head. "She say why she left New York?"

"The hotel clerk said she was spooked.”

“Spooked?”

“Love scares people.”

"Damnit." Sean had believed his own lies and punched the car again and again.

"Stop it, breaking your hands won’t bring her back." Johnny hauled the hippie way from the Chevy. The owner was probably in the pier fucking a complete stranger.

"Oh, yeah, watch this." Sean shrugged off Johnny and smashed a window with a left hook.

"Suit yourself, but it's not easy eating pizza with a busted hand."

"You think I want pizza." The hippie lifted his bleeding knuckles.

"Not tonight, but maybe tomorrow." No city had better pizza than New York.

"Fuck pizza today and tomorrow."

"ou”re only saying that because you can't see tomorrow." Cheri's lover was primed for the taking and Johnny unreeled his pitch with the glib ease of a carnival barker shilling a Kewpie doll to a ten year-old girl’s father. "You have two choices.”

“Two?” Sean hadn't thought that he had any.

>“One, go back to Boston.”

"Impossible. I burnt all my bridges back there.” Sean understood Tammi’s decision better now.

"Tough walking across a burnt bridge, so choice number two is stay here.”

Sean surveyed the grimy belly of the West Side Highway. Water dripped from the steel girders and rats scurried along the struts supporting the roadway. He gasped for breath. The air smelled of rotten meat. This city was rotten to the core and he said, "I came here to be with Cheri and now she's gone."

"So if you go, where will you go."

"I don't know."

Johnny sensed the wavering of of his indecision and said, “You can always leave tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Leave today, leave tomorrow. No one is stopping you. Do what you want. It’s your life.”

Sean took a deep breath. Driving a stolen car was a bad idea. He needed sleep and picked up his bag. "I'll stay the night. Tomorrow I'll figure out tomorrow."

"Now you're thinking. Let's get you a room." Johnny accompanied Sean across West Street at a slow pace. "Once you're settled, we can eat. How's that sound?"

"I'm not hungry." This evening was unfolding as a scene cut from MIDNIGHT COWBOY with him as Cowboy and Johnny cast in the role of Ratso. This deja vu worsened inside the Terminal Hotel, where the wizened clerk smiled, as if he had expected to see Sean again.

"So Sean, yer wanna a room? 301 is available. It even had a view."

"I know it." Sean slapped a twenty and signed the register.

"That's right." Ernie wasn't worried the hippie might try something stupid, then again stupidity was how most people ended up at the Terminal Hotel and he slid the key across the desk. "Enjoy yer stay, Mr. Coll."

"C'mon, I'll be your bellhop." Johnny lifted the canvas bag and climbed the stairs to the third floor maintaining a constant banter to prevent Sean from rethinking a hasty decision. “Most tourists visit New York for the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. I’ve lived here most of my life and I haven’t been to any tourist places, because I’m into music and not concert rock, but clubs and bars. You know what you need. Some music to soothe your soul."

"I don't think so."

"Too bad, because Max's and CBGB's offer four bands a night." Johnny stopped before Cheri's old room."

"I said I'm not interested." Sean stared at the door.

"Okay, okay, I get the message, but if you need anything, knock on 301. Anything at all."

“Thanks.” Sean stepped into the room and shut the door. He ignored the cracked walls, the dangling flypaper, and the nude painting on the wall, because a faint fragrance belonging to Cheri lingered in her absence.

She should be in this room with him.

Only last weekend they had lay in bed naked. She had said that she would be waiting. He wasn’t supposed to be alone now.

Sean went to the window and tried to open it. The management had nailed it shut and he took a step back to a running start only to hear Johnny ask, "Did Cheri's leaving hurt that much."

Sean saying nothing said everything. Johnny wasn’t letting Cheri's jilted lover jump through the window to give EMS drivers a chance at his money and stepped into the small room.

"Listen, you'll fall in love again and sooner than you fear.”

“Fear?”

“Love is never love without the risk. I have a good idea. We should go get a drink."

"I'm not into gay bars."

“I know that, but I'm talking about CBGB's. It's not straight and it's not gay. Boston has nothing like it." "I don't know. "What there not to know?" Cheri's lover was smart to mistrust him, although anyone’s misgivings melted after a taste Johnny’s 'special' drink. “CBGB's is rock and rock, cheap drinks, loose girls, and much more.”

“Much more sounds too good to be true.”

"Perhaps it is, considering CBGBs’ is an abbreviation for country-bluegrass-blues.” Johnny had forgotten the meaning of the OMFUG on the awning.

“Country?” Sean remembered Tammi singing along with Dolly Parton. She was dancing naked in Times Square. He should have taken up her offer of sharing a room. “I don’t care for country.”

“No one plays country at CBGBs.” Not since punk took over the stage.

"Is it far?" He wiped his bloodied hands with a soiled towel.

"Less than ten minutes away.” Tonight was working out with his first meeting Charles and now Sean. He had given the first a miss, but there was no way the hippie wasn't paying for his introduction to New York. “You'll love CBGBs. Trust me."

"Okay."

Two minutes later the two young men left the hotel. A taxi stopped for them on Jane Street. Johnny gave the driver an address on Bowery. It was a little after 3am and he had one more job to do before he could sleep for the night, until then there was no rest for the wicked.

MAYBE TOMORROW - A novel by Peter Nolan Smith Chapter 14

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.

MAYBE TOMORROW - A novel by Peter Nolan Smith Chapter 18

GAD-GAD-GAD

Sean repeated the chords four times in synch with the guitar and bounced into the hook, but he missed the bridge and Johnny dropped his hands in disgust.

“We’ve been practicing this song over for an hour and you haven't gotten the sequence right once. It's refrain, hook, refrain, hook, refrain, hook, bridge, and hook."

"Something is wrong with me.” With the Hung no one had cared about his timing, but Punk was more exacting than a garage band and Johnny’s patience was running thin. "Yeah.” Sean’s stubborn fingers resisted mimicking the marching Disney notes.

"Let's give it one more try." Johnny thumbed TAKE ME HIGHER’s bass line and on the count of four Sean hit the opening, then stumbled over the hook and guitarist’s face grew indistinguishable from the frustration the rest of the band had worn throughout the earlier rehearsal. This emergency session was his last chance.

Remembering his mother’s voice, Sean hummed one line, reached the break, and sang the hook aloud. He crooned the second refrain, the hook again, the third refrain, the hook, and flawlessly crossed the bridge into the hook. “Can you take me higher.”

"Holy shit." Johnny eyed Sean. "That wasn't a fluke, was it?"

"No.”

"We can always use another back-up singer." A little encouragement never hurt, although Johnny planned on turning down Sean's mike during rehearsals.

“I might even get my picture on the album sleeve.”

“Don’t push it.” They finished the five songs without a single flub and Johnny was ecstatic. "This breakthrough is a cause for a celebration. If we hurry, we can catch the Heartbreakers’ closing set."

"Tammi expects me to be waiting at the room." Sean enjoyed hearing her footsteps in the corridor and the click of the door latch as much as watching her undressed or sharing a shower in the hall bathroom.

"She won’t get back till 3. You can make it home with plenty of time to spare. Hey, it’s not like the Heartbreakers are living forever." Johnny wasn’t accepting no for an answer.

"Since you put it that way, why not?" Sean rested his bass against the wall.

"You're taking your bass?" Johnny was naked without his instrument.

"I'll give the rock star routine a rest tonight." The girls at Max's were more dedicated to saving the Heartbreakers from self-destruction than seducing a rookie bass with a girlfriend, plus he had a battered Rickenbacker for practice in his room.

"Up to you, my friend." Johnny slung his guitar over his shoulder and and wrapped a black silk scarf around his neck to conceal an eruption of sores. "You ready?"

”Whenever you are.”

The two of them filled their lungs and descended through the stench of the poultry killing fields. Hitting the deserted street, Johnny gasped, "Man, that's getting worse."

"You think one day it might get better.”

“I doubt it.” Something that bad only got worse.

Two Checkers approached, but Sean flagged a new cab off the Manhattan Bridge. Getting in the back, he told the driver, “Union Square.”

"What’s with your grudge against Checkers?"

"I used to drive them in college.” Sean saw the intersection before the Roxbury Projects clearly. “I ran a red light and nearly killed the driver of a Mustang, so I take the other ones now.”

"You graduated from college?"

"In four years." Sean had started as a scholarship math major. Smoking pot in his freshman had ruined his feel for abstract equations and LSD in his sophomore year had erased his ability to consider one plus one a simple equation. “I didn’t do so good.”

“But you finished?”

“By the skin of my teeth.” He had graduated sine laude in 1974.

“Why didn’t you get a real job?”

It was a good question.

“I’m not the type of person to have a real job. A bank interviewer called me a ‘drifter’.”

“You mean like Clint Eastwood ‘drifter’?” The term had all kinds of sexy connotations, but Sean shook his head. “More the ‘Dynamite’ kind of drifter.”

“He was in the Marines thirty years.”

“I could never stick with something that long.”

“Not even a relationship?”

“My longest was five years with my high school sweetheart.”

“Why it end?”

“Because I recognized I would never be able to settle down.”

“Does Tammi know that?”

“It’s not something we discuss, but she’s no fool.” Sean was very uncomfortable with questions he didn’t ask himself. Thankfully the taxi stopped before Max’s and he paid the fare. As they walked to the entrance, Sean said, “Maybe one day I’ll talk to her about it.”

“But not tomorrow.” Johnny was glad Sean wasn’t committed to Tammi. It gave him hope, although the ex-hippie saw it as more as despair. “No not tomorrow.”

They squeezed through the crush at the entrance and the doorman waved them into Max’s. The Heartbreakers were jamming to CHINESE ROCKS and the ex-New York Doll lead guitarist launched into a solo wrenched from the garbage dump of his soul. Dee Dee Ramone’s song about heroin addiction on the Lower East Side was a Punk anthem. The crowd was star-studded. Several waved to him and Sean started feeling good about his life. He had conquered the bass, had money in several banks, lived with Tammi, and was almost grateful to Johnny for persuading him to stay that first night.

As he ordered a beer, a soft hand slipped under his shirt. Supposing it belonged to Tammi, he backed into the inviting belly and a falsetto hissed, "Surprised, big boy?"

"No, I’d recognize that seductive voice in my sleep.”

“You dream about me?”

“No, just what you’d do to me.”

“Oooh, sexy.” Dove dipped her finger beneath his jeans.

“Sorry, I don’t trust myself.” Her fingernails scrapping the top of his pubic hair was a little too tempting for comfort and he pulled out her hand.

“Not many people do.” Most transvestites in Times Square or the 82 Club were hormone-ridden hags, however in bell-bottom pants, a silk shirt unbuttoned to her navel, and a flipped-out shag Dove resembled a lean Farah Fawcett ready to run away from her partners for a long weekend in a cheap hotel.

"You on a date with CHARLIE'S ANGELS fan?"

"He was more Bosley's brother.” Dove knew what straight boys liked and struck a Vogue pose. “Are my clothes a little out of place?"

"People here are too loaded to worry about your style." The girls wore streetwalker hand-me-downs and the boys clad in rumpled jeans and torn t-shirts.

"You care to join them?" Dove dangled a packet of white powder in the air.

"That doesn’t look like sugar."

"It’s a little of this and a little of that.”

“A Speedball by any other name."

"Hmmmm. China white and pink Bolivian is a sure-fire formula to create Queen for a Night.” Dove huffed a fingernail of powder. Viktor was in Brooklyn dropping off fake $20s and Tammi was working the Dollhouse. A rail of dope would lower Sean’s resistance to sex with a woman who was really a man. “How about crowning you King?"

“I’d love to.” His mother had accused him of losing his edge after smoking pot. She had been right, but this scene, the morning rush hour, work, sleep, sports, war, politics, religion, TV, the movies, and music were fueled by drugs, whether it is heroin, cocaine, steroids, pep pills, sedatives, booze, coffee, sugar, or cigarettes. Drugs were a way of life in America and no one was cold-turkeying from the mainstream, for even Billie Graham drank his coffee sweet, but a night with Tammi was more satisfying than any cheap high and he told Dove. "But I’m abstaining these days."

"All the more for me." Dove kissed him on the cheek. "Be seeing you in my dreams."

The band ripped into BORN TO LOSE.

Sean drank his beer, watching Patti Smith, Richard Lloyd from Television, Joey Ramone, Anya Phillips, Xcessive, Legs McNeil, Cheetah Chrome, Judy Nylon, Cookie Mueller, and Maria Duvall unabashedly performed for the reputed movie camera which Andy Warhol had hidden in the ceiling. A redhead from the play WOMEN BEHIND BARS licked her tongue over bruised lips and Sean might have accepted her invitation to the bathroom, if a man hadn’t said, "I'm talking to you."

"Me?" Sean shouted over the slagheap of noise.

"I almost didn’t recognize you without the wig.” The blonde biker from his first night in town shoved him into the bar. “Spotting your fag friend connected him to You."

Sean’s feigning ignorance about that fight was almost the truth, since his memory had been partially erased by Quaaludes. “Sorry, can I buy you a drink?”

"A drink? You busted my nose." The biker jabbed Sean’s chest with his finger and nodded to someone. "Sorry's not gonna cut it. You wanna fight?"

"You mean a duel in Union Square?”

“Duel?”

“Yeah, if I'm not there at dawn, start without me." Sean didn’t have the time for a brawl with a boltneck from New Jersey, but a hard metal object whacked him in the head and a loud ringing in his ears replaced The Heartbreakers. Another blow clouded his eyes with a misty nebula, as the biker launched a sucker punch. He might have broken his jaw, if Dove hadn’t stuck a lit cigarette in his eye.

“Take that, motherfucker.”

The biker screamed with blissless agony and Dove dragged Sean from the bar. He tumbled down the stairs and slumped against the door. The biker was on the top landing, wrestling with the bouncer. Dove lifted Sean to his feet and out onto the street, where she loaded him into a waiting taxi, yelling, "Move it."

"Okay, lady, I'm not deaf. Where to?" the driver asked over a West Coast Ranger’s hockey game. Dove threw ten dollars over the seat. "Just go."

Warm blood dripped red blossoms on Sean’s shirt and the driver expressed his concern by shouting, "Keep that off the seat."

"Just drive." Dove produced a Kleenex from her pocketbook and daubed at Sean’s face. The left side of his face was pocked with small lacerations and he asked, "What he hit me with?"

"A chain wrapped around his fist." Cheri wasn’t fussy about a little mess.

"Damn." An excruciating pain flared within his skull. At least he wasn’t missing any teeth. "Thanks for saving me."

“My pleasure.” Dove stuck a packet under his nose. “How about a pain-killer?”

Mindlessly Sean inhaled the powder. Its bitterness coated his nostril and he snorted another line. An acrid wetness hit the back of his tongue, then a warm heaviness kidnapped his body and he slumped into the seat, hoping no one paid the ransom. Dove wiped away the excess drug. “I’ve been thinking about you. Having you naked. Kissing your lips.”

"That's nice." Sean drifted deeper into the enveloping murk.

"And then doing things a woman could never do.”

"Sounds like a dream.” Sean was too drugged to visualize what Dove had in mind.

"Can I come home with you?" Dove leaned closer to Sean, whose silence was a pleasant change from Viktor’s half-translated horror stories about Brighton Beach.

"Your place?" His eyes rolled into his head, leaving him at Dove's mercy.

"No, yours." Viktor had a terrible habit of appearing at all hours at the Grammercy Park Hotel.

"Why not? The Terminal Hotel. West Street. Room 301."

“Tammi won’t mind?”

“Tammi thinks you’re great.”

"Then this will be a night you won't forget." Dove kissed him on the neck and told the driver. “The Terminal Hotel."

"You’re the boss, lady."

Stroking his arm Dove pretended that Sean was her boyfriend. As a prisoner in a man's body she was a master at self-delusion. Unfortunately when the taxi reached Jane Street, Sean was breathing shallow and she lifted his eyelids. His pupils were blind to the light and Dove swore, "Shit."

"Problem?" the driver asked, shutting off the meter.

"He had a little too much to drink." Dove couldn’t dump him in the street. "Driver, mind helping me with lover boy?"

"For an extra $10, sure.” The driver turned off the engine.

“$5.”

“It’s a deal.”

Inside the hotel the two struggled with the legless occupant of room 301. Their furtive exit two minutes later suited Ernie, for the clerk avoided problems after midnight. Concentrating on the NY Times Crossword puzzle, he forgot them their coming and going and that small gift of ignorance was his best guarantee that tomorrow would be just another day to forget even if the occupant of #301 didn’t make it through the night.

MAYBE TOMORROW - A novel by Peter Nolan Smith Chapter 23

The door bell to the first-floor apartment rang a little before 11:30pm and Josie Cane reduced the volume of SERPICO on TV. None of the cops in Times Square were as good-looking as Al Pacino and she was glad to be spared any fixation for men in uniform. Nurse, nuns, and cheerleaders were another story and she suppressed her fantasies, for her late-night caller was probably the Chinese delivery boy with her moo sho pork. Chinese food and the Tonight Show would have to pass for paradise tonight.

>The black stripper pulled her night gown tight and opened the door to find Tammi on the steps. Tears had run her mascara and the little redhead was carrying a plastic bag. It had to contain her clothes.

“Sorry to disturb your night off.” The teenager stood pigeon-toed with her head cantered to the side, obviously embarrassed. “That offer for the couch still stand.”

“For tonight and forever?” Josie glanced over the young girl’s shoulder at the Lincoln parked by the curb. It was new and the boy inside stared at Tammi, as if he had bet his heart on Josie’s reneging her offer of hospitality. “But your gentleman friend appears like he could offer more comfortable accommodation than my old sofa.”

"Keeping him a friend will make insure he stays a gentleman.” Tammi waved to Charles and squeezed by Josie into the basement apartment. he black woman locked the door and followed the redhead, who sat heavily on the sofa to release a heart-breaking sob. "From that 'I lost Ken' expression on your Barbie face, I'd have to say that they’re repainting the Honeymoon Suite at the Terminal Hotel.”

“I never thought I could feel this bad.” Tammi shucked her white leather coat. The Catholic schoolgirl outfit smelled of mothballs and her hair had unraveled like cotton-candy in a summer storm. Breathing in the fragrance of a young girl in love, Josie cursed her vow of friendship. “I told you Sean was no good."

"You say that about all men."

"Men are dogs and given the chance they'll embarrass a dog.” Few men were saints and the girls at the Dollhouse sadly excelled at collecting bastards. “I had a friend. She was getting married to her high school sweetheart. The wedding was beautiful and the best man insisted on joining them on the honeymoon in Bermuda, where he seduced the newlywed bride and they ran away. Did they live happily ever after? No. He went back to his wife and left the bride to find her own way home. Happily ever after, bah.”

“I thought Sean was different.” Mostly because she wanted to be someone other than the girl she had left behind in Maine.

“Well, you thought wrong.”

”This afternoon I watched the student couples. They looked so sweet, but the men couldn’t just hold hands with their dates.” Hugging her knees, she asked, "Are there any nice men?"

"Gay men are nice, but only because they have sex with men and understand what kind of motherfuckers men are. The human race is lucky to have survived this long with the way men treat women. I mean how did we have sex with a hairy man who hits you over the head with a club and drags you into a stinky cave?"

The lump in her throat choked most of Tammi’s smile. "You ever see a caveman drawing like that?"

"No, but men have evolved to whacking us with drink or drugs, instead of a club." Josie was dying to comfort her with a hug, except the redhead deserved a friend more.

"So let me guess. Sean did something stupid?"

"No, I did. I trusted him." Tammi blew her nose.

"You can only trust people up to the point where they will fail you.”

Tammi burst into tears and Josie fought off joining the young girl’s crying jag, but one of them had to act strong and she handed the redhead a towel, then listened about Sean's vow, his OD, her leaving, and Charles' sister. "…..and Charles gave me a ride."

"Wait a second.” Any girl at the Dollhouse would kiss Fatso’s ass in Macy’s window to hit on a millionaire. “A rich man is easier to love than a poor one.”

"Charles doesn’t light up my life."

“Light up your life?” Josie laughed and Tammi made a face.

"Sorry, girl, sometimes I forget I was young once. Hell, you love this boy?"

"No, you’re right. I’m stupid.” She hated herself for loving his stopping on the highway and coming to the Dollhouse as much as his embrace, his smell of his skin, his voice, and his touch in the early light of dawn.

“We’re all stupid, when it comes to love. You done with him?”

“I walked out.”

“Walking out doesn’t bury the ghosts. You really done with him?”

“No.” She wanted him back. She wanted to feel him in bed next to her. She wanted to be in love. “No, I’m not done with him.”

"Ain't no little bird gonna win him back. You have to be a flying hawkwoman. Stick your claws into him and pluck his heart, otherwise it's a waste of your love." Josie seized the redhead. "You're a Dollhouse dancer. Sexier than Raquel Welch. More fire than Cleopatra Jones. Corporate bigwigs drink champagne from your sweaty shoe. Executives buy your underwear. How hard can it be to win a rocker's heart?"

"A breeze?" Tammi had no idea of its cost.

"Not a breeze, a ‘herricane’." Josie emphasized this tempest by blowing on her arm and the young girl smiled. "See, you have life inside you yet, just be careful with your wishes. You’re a star. I’ve seen it on the stage. I bet I'll see it with that band.”

“You will.”

“And then you’re not the kind of woman to throw away the world to clean a man’s underwear.”

"I'm throwing anything away," Tammi announced with a defiance forged by her years as Kittery High's whipping post.

The young redhead's eyes widened in expectation of Sean’s arrival. Josie went to the door. Tammi lowered her head upon seeeing that the caller was the Chinese deliveryman. Josie paid the bill and asked, "Wei emigrated illegally. Why you working, Wei?"

"To make a kung-fu cowboy movie in Hong Kong. You be star?" Wei asked excitedly. “Make you a star in Hong Kong.”

"Not tonight, Wei," Josie tipped him a dollar and locked the door. "Everyone comes here with a dream."

"Even you?"

"No one wants to hear this whore’s tale of woe.” The black woman had shackled her past in the closet and took a bottle of rose wine from the refrigerator. She placed the bottle and two glasses on the coffee table, then changed the channel. “Here’s Johnny.”

Tammi turned her head to the TV. Johnny Carson was starting his monologue on the Tonight Show. Sean liked watching Carson and her heart rippled with sorrow.

"I'm not in the mood for Johnny."

"That's too bad. James Brown is his guest tonight." Josie loved the Godfather of Soul.

"Maybe we could watch him a little, but until then I'd like to hear your story."

"And drink a little wine?" Customers inevitably requested an explanation for her landing on 42nd Street. She had told so many versions, she had no idea which was the right one anymore, but she had a story to suit this occasion and she carried two jelly jars of wine to the couch. “It's not a story for the sober.”

“Then pour and let your unconsciousness be your guide.”

Josie filled their glasses to the brim and clinked the young girl’s glass. "To old memories getting older and us aging a day,"

"To them getting so old you forget them." Tammi added and they drained the glasses, because getting drunk was the one sure way to insure she could tell the truth the next day without regretting having to live a lie.

MAYBE TOMORROW - A novel by Peter Nolan Smith Chapter 25

Low dawn clouds glided over the city with the threat of snow tucked under their gray bellies and Johnny Darling laid his forehead against the chilled window glass to slacken the fever racing in his veins. After a few minutes he sat up straight in his bed without the hacking cough which had tormented him throughout the night. The struggle had taxed Johnny to the limit, but for the first time in days he was hungry and his hunger was craving for a slice of pepperoni pizza.

It was a long walk to Ray’s World Famous Pizza on 6th Avenue and he pulled on jeans, long-sleeved t-shirt, heavy boots, a sweater, and long leather coat as protection against the cold. As he searched for a missing glove, Sean entered into the room and fell on the bed. His facial bruises were black and blue, but the scars had hardened to scabs and Johnny asked, "How was it?"

"How was what?" Sean was guiltier about his night with Caroline Ames than taking off six ATMs this morning.

“Caroline.” It wasn’t any of his business.

”Fierce as wrestling with a lioness in heat.”

”The ice queen?” Johnny lifted his guitar. His glove had been hidden underneath along with his scarf.

“One and the same. I never saw it coming.” Caroline’s seduction had happened a little too fast and he questioned her real motive. His paranoia connected the sister to her brother ‘s affection for Tammi. They were using him and her and he vowed to switch the game on them.

"Sean, that girl had more meow than a kitten on catnip."

“So I found out.”

Johnny strummed a few bars from Neil Diamond's SWEET CAROLINE.

“But there’s no such animal as free sex.”

"Yeah, we all pay for it, right?” Sean wasn’t interested in a lecture from a junkie hustler about the wages of sex, even if he was on the money.

"I’m asking you to be a saint." Straights tended to turn sex into a complicated equation of wants and desires, but even his gay friends weren’t immune to confusing a fuck with THE LOVE STORY and this mutually shared great expectation was destroying the liberation of the sexual revolution. “Sean, we're in a rock band and rock musicians have sex. With groupies and girls you meet in the clubs. Just do everyone a favor and keep it out of Tammi’s face."

"Tammi left me."

"After you broke your word about getting high."

"Anti-drug advice is rich coming from you." Her confiding in Johnny was no surprise, for Tammi had few other choices for a big sister in this city.

"Maybe before, but I'm staying clean, so this band can play someplace better than a Chinatown chicken-bone palace." They would never convince other people that GTH was more important than drugs and sex, if they started fighting amongst themselves. “We have to respect each other.”

“Respect each other?” Neither holding Tammi nor smelling her skin was happening today, bed. "So you condone Tammi’s leaving with Charles?"

“How dare you accuse Tammi of being a whore after you spent the night with Caroline?" Johnny had heard the tales about Charles’ sister from the driver.

“Can’t I make a mistake?”

“Sure, but don’t expect me to congratulate you.” The ex-hippie’s falling victim to her appetite failed to excuse his hypocrisy.

“Thanks for the support.” Their partnership went only so deep, but Johnny was right about Caroline Ames being more Mary Magdalene than the Virgin Mary. “She's crazy."

"How so?"

Most men will boast about their sexual exploits as soon as they meet another male, however Sean feared that his words might work their way to Tammi. "Can't say?"

"Can't say or won't?"

"A little of both." Despite Caroline's wildness he preferred a night in Tammi’s arms.

"If we were at a hockey game in the Garden, the entire section would have heard about your fucking Caroline.” Johnny was actually glad to have been spare the play-by-play description of heterosexual breeding habits. "She say anything about the band?"

“She liked us. Said she hadn’t heard anything like us.”

“Anyone could say that.”

“I wouldn’t say that she trusts us.”

"People of her class mistrust anyone with less than ten million dollars in the bank and they certainly don’t fall in love with the help.”

"Who mentioned anything about love?” Sean had told three people that he had loved them; Cheri, a divorcee from his father's office and a teenage girl from a Brahmin family on Beacon Hill. Cheri was in Paris, the divorcee had slept with him to avenge his father’s refusal to do so and the teenager had run off for a second-story thief from Jamaica Plain. It was too late to find out, if Tammi might have been his one opportunity for the real thing.

"Glad you understand your situation." Johnny yearned for the love of a straight man, even though this sentiment might never be reciprocated other than on a platonic level. Still there was more to this life than love and one of them was staying out of prison.

"Listen, we have a problem."

"How so?"

"Frankie was questioned by a cop." Johnny emphasized the final word.

"Shit." Sean had fooled himself into believing that the police were too busy to bother with such a small hits.

"You tell anyone about this?” Johnny fought off a flashing chill. “Tammi?"

"No, I told nobody anything." No matter if they never spoke again, he trusted Tammi to not say anything about the ATM thefts. With $300 sitting in six separate accounts Sean’s share totaled over $4000. “They haven’t the manpower to cover all the ATMs in the city in the present economic climate.”

“Robbing banks is a Federal offense.” Johnny was worried that Sean’s reckless determination might violate his code against greed. “Minimum five years hard time.”

Neither the promise of $5000 in the bank nor $6500 he had reaped from his crime spree had prevented Tammi’s departure. His Irish grandmother had asserted if you lost a possession, then it wasn’t really yours. The old lady from Galway had rarely been wrong.

“I’ll close my accounts tomorrow in Wall Street.”

“I’ll do the same Midtown.” Neither of them had worked those banks and Johnny was relieved by Sean’s understanding that the cops had the previous banks under surveillance. He was a good partner. “Any more isn’t worth the risk. Hell, we might make it at CBGBs.”

"Will we be ready?" Performing in front of the crowd frightened him almost as much as the police.

"We'll knock ‘em dead."

"I hope so." Sean stepped back involuntarily, spying the sores on Johnny’s neck. "Are you all right?"

“Quitting dope is harder than I imagined." Johnny lied about the true state of his condition.

“Is it rock and roll, if there's no drugs?" Sean joked and Johnny answered with deadly seriousness, "Frankie can cover that end for all of us."

“And I’ll stick to beer and booze.”

“Me, my music.” Johnny got up from bed.

“Where you going?" Sean went to the door.

“For a slice of pizza and then listen to music, till the sun goes down. You can join me, if you'd want."

"I'll grab my bass." If Tammi wasn’t here, Johnny was the next best substitute. They were friends and friendship was more important than love and success, especially if you didn’t play it safe with either.

MAYBE TOMORROW - A novel by Peter Nolan Smith Chapter 26

Dojo's on St. Mark's Place offered a cheap breakfast and after finishing his bacon and eggs Sean met Caroline for a double-bill of THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE and THE OPENING OF MISTY BEETHOVEN at the St. Mark’s Theater. The latter movie screened first. A few ragged men sat in the front rows to take advantage of the cheap shelter from the cold. Caroline and he moved to the back of the theater. They weren’t alone, but he couldn’t see Caroline’s hands in the dark, as they unzipped his Levis.

”Not here.” There was a word for Caroline, which Sean had heard it from Tammi on the way down to New York. Only her wealth saved her from any judgment.

”And why not?” She wasn’t listening to him and whispered, “Don’t you want to fuck me the same as the girl in the movie.”

”Not right now.” When he was a young boy, Sean had fantasized about rescuing a princess only to be rejected, because she was royalty and he was nothing.

”I know why. You’re thinking about Tammi.” Charles’ sister laughed under her breath. “Men are so stupid. She doesn’t want you any longer.”

”Because she wants your brother.” Sex wasn’t enough for him. He wanted more and more was not Caroline was willing to give him.

”I don’t know who she wants, all I know is that she doesn’t want you and I do.”

“I have to go.” Tonight was the gig at CBGBs


”Not yet.”

Her words mocked him, although not as much as his surrender.

Two hours later they walked out of the theater. She kissed him on the lips.

“I’ll see you at the show.”

Caroline flagged a cab and rode away without a backward glance.

Sean walked down to Chinatown in the grim afternoon light. He climbed the stairs to the loft. He was the first one there and turned off the space heaters to warm the penthouse, then sat on his amp, thumbing the bass. He played the entire set, singing the words, as if the lyrics could conjure up a magic spell to resurrect his romance with Tammi.

Unfortunately the age of magic had died with the burning of witches over three hundred years ago. A little before sunset the other members of GTH arrived, exhilarated by the upcoming gig. Johnny handed them a list of songs. "This is the set for tonight. Five songs.”

“Nothing more. Nothing less.” Tammi adjusted the height of the mike. She didn’t look at Sean.

“We’ll run though it a couple of times.” Johnny tuned his guitar and checked Sean.

The bass player was suffering from extreme self-pity and Tammi was miserable with Sean’s liaison with Caroline. Charles was fooling himself, if he imagined Tammi would one day be his, then again he had the money to finance this deception. Johnny opted to remain the bandleader rather than act as Cupid for their love triangle, which was a dangerous role in any circumstance, since a loser or winner inevitably hates you for helping the other person.

“Everyone ready?”

Frankie lashed on his snare. 


"Going to Hell tonight."

"One-two-three-go." Tammi shouted and the band launched into LOVE-NO-LOVE's bars with a ragged enthusiasm. At the end of the intro bar, the redhead screamed into the mike, "Been around this world too long. Gonna to say my good-byes."

The song was crude, powerful, stupid, and the band was easily seduced by its power. Sean shed his listless sorrow and Tammi abandoned her disappointment. The music bonded them spiritually and hopefully tonight’s audience succumbed to the song’s simplicity. The band hit the final note of closing song MAYBE TOMORROW and they collectively stopped like a car hitting a brick wall. Tammi dropped the mike, saying, "I'm ready as I'll ever be."

"I’ve been ready for a year." Johnny unslung his guitar. He needed each band members to play for GTH tonight. No love problems. No drugs. No star trips. At least while they were on stage. “Listen tonight, we’ll be nervous. It’s a natural reaction, but we’re going to hell and taking the sinners with us tonight.”

"GTH." Frankie rose from his drum kit.

“Let’s hit it from the top.

Sean and Charles took their time saying, "Ready, set, go."

They were rivals for one heart and Sean glanced at Tammi hundreds of times, hoping for her to decipher thousands of regrets babbling through his mind. The teenager offered no forgiveness and the reflected tension between the two shattered the redhead's voice tendency toward teenybopperdom and the band fed off her swelling intensity with insatiable appetites.

Johnny's guitar sparkled each set leading Frankie to tighten up on the drums and Charles's baroque organ blanketed the bottom with Sean's backing vocals compensating for his occasional flubs on bass. Bobby Vacca’s singing the chorus of MAYBE TOMORROW wasn't for show.

The driver liked them and not merely as a band. GTH respected nothing about the straight world. Johnny was clever, Tammi was cute, Sean was solid, Frankie was relatively harmless, and his employer was metamorphorsizing into a new person, as the quintet thrashed through Bobby’s favorite song LOVE-NO-LOVE.

They were better than good, although no promoter would dare booking GTH as an opening act for Genesis and Top Forty DJs would have to be paid hard cash to stick their songs onto the play list between Cheap Trick and Styx, however the band deserved this shot at fame.

Reaching the end of the song, Johnny put down his guitar. His body was exhausted and he needed some rest. The band looked at him and he said, “No more practice. We’re ready for tonight.”

”We are?” Sean leaned his bass against the amp. They had five songs. The Ramones had twenty.

”It’s a short set.” Johnny had timed the length. “Less than eighteen minutes and if they want an encore, we give them LOUIE LOUIE. Sean, Frankie, and Charles know the chords and I’ll write down the words for Tammi.”

”Are you okay?” Tammi was concerned about Johnny. He had never stopped after such a short time.

”I’m fine. A few hours sleep and I’ll be golden.” A day or two would have been better. He looked out the windows at the fading day. “I’m going back to the hotel. We should meet back here around 9 to pack the van. We’re slotted for midnight. We should be at CBs at 10:30, so if our friends come, they'll stay. I warned them that the only excuse for a no-show was jail or the morgue." Getting another gig depended on drawing a crowd.

"The Dollhouse is closing at 11 and the girls are coming with their dates." Tammi announced, winding the wire around the mike. Charles hadn’t seen many of his old friends after his accident. "My sister is handling my guests."

"I only know a few people from CBGBs," Sean offered weakly, packing his bass. A glance from Booby advised Sean to leave the two alone and the driver dissembled the equipment nearest the door. Johnny approached the bass player and asked, "Are you okay?”

“I guess so.” The quivering harpoon in his heart urged him to confront the two people on the roof, but he had decided to leave New York after tonight’s show. Where didn’t matter. GTH could go to the stars without him.

”You can’t get Tammi out of your head, can’t you.”

”No.” The ache in his heart was real.

”Funny, how things much you care about someone when they don’t care about you.” Johnny breathed shallow drafts. His chest hurt less that way.

”As if you ever have cared about anyone.”

”I care about people. I care about you or else I would have ripped you off that first night for every penny in your pockets and I care about Tammi and Charles and especially Frankie. No one has to care about anyone, but if you don't care about anyone, then you can never care about yourself.” Johnny waved away Sean. “Things will work out with Tammi.”

”How do you know?” Sean zipped up his jacket.

”A gypsy taught me how to see the future.”

”It’s a nice dream.” Sean visualized attacking Charles. It was a particular ugly image and breathed deeply ten times and said, "I’ll stay out of her way.”

“That’s very noble.”

“Noble has nothing to do with it.”

“Either way, I appreciate it and so will Tammi. Stay cool, I have to speak with Frankie.” Johnny walked over to his young friend.

"I told the 'boys' from the Strip that CBGBs was a new piano bar loaded with rich old queens." Frankie’s eyes were glazed from another visit to the Sunshine Bodega on Avenue C. midnight. Frankie, you got that?”

”Sure, what’s not to get? "

”The drummer stashed his sticks, wondering if Johnny had a $20 for him, then realized it was a bad time to ask for cash.

”Tammi, you want to join me for a shopping trip to St. Mark’s Place?” Charles limped across the penthouse to the elevator.

”If that means Trash n Vaudeville, count me in.” She had been eying a white plastic mini-skirt for the last week.

”Frankie, what about new boots? Call them an early Christmas present.” Charles would have preferred a one-on-one situation with Tammi, but the drummer ‘s boots were a disgrace.

”Thanks.” Frankie perked up, figuring that he could boost enough clothing in the basement store to score two dime bags.

”What about you, Sean?” Charles asked from the elevator, surrounded by Tammi, his driver, and Frankie. Johnny was sitting on his amp.

”I’m good.” Tammi was his only desire and she wasn’t for sale anywhere outside the Dollhouse. He tugged on his leather jacket and walked over to the frail guitarist.

”See you back here at 8.” Tammi blew a kiss, as the elevator doors closed on them.

”Johnny, are you really okay?” Sean felt the guitarist’s forehead. There was no fever.

”Fine, I just need a little sleep and here is as good as anywhere else.” Johnny laid down on a stack of cardboard boxes.

”Are you sure?” Sean pointed the space heater in his direction. He hesitated from broaching a forbidden subject with the blonde guitarist.

”You think I haven’t slept in worst places?” Johnny lay his head on an old towel. “Plenty worse that this.”

”Yeah.”

”You want some soup from Wo-Hop when I come back?” Sean was glad that

‘That’s be nice.” Johnny was resting his eyes.

Sean left the penthouse and walked down the stairs. The street was dusted by snow. A couple of Canucks were selling Christmas trees from the sidewalk to motorists off the Manhattan bridge. The pine smell reminded him that his promise to come home for the holidays. Christmas was less than a week away. He had to buy his mother a present, but any purchases could wait until after tomorrow night and he began singing to himself, "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas."

Believing a lie was easy this time of year, especially those he told himself.