Sean woke to a throbbing headache, swollen knuckles, and a delirious argument about Robert Kennedy’s having contracted his brother’s death to avenge Marilyn Monroe’s murder by the FBI.
Opening his eyes, he discovered that he was naked in Cheri’s old room.
The afternoon sun was slipping below New Jersey’s low skyline across the river painting a silver glimmer on the ominous clouds’ underbelly. Most of today, which was Thanksgiving was gone and he settled into the pillow with images of last night screening in his head as a film burnt by a bulb; the Ramones, the beers, the fight outside, the chorus from T-Rex BANG-A-GONG, and then a blank coma until now, which had a simple explanation.
Johnny had drugged him at the bar.
Johnny had brought him to the hotel.
Johnny had undressed him.
In a dazed panic Sean tottered across the room to his jeans. He fumbled with his wallet, expecting the worst, except his money was still there. Relieved on his fear he collapsed on the bed, destined for another bout of unconsciousness, except a brunette in a Chinese silk bathrobe entered the room. Sean blinked to clear his eyes and croaked, "Cheri."
The thin artist smiled, as if yesterday's vanishing act had been a joke.
"I'll show you funny." Sean leapt from the bed and yanked the brunette by the hair to discover that he had ripped a wig off Johnny’s head.
Stunned by Cheri’s second disappearance, he sputtered, "C-ch-cheri____."
Sensing Sean wasn’t amused by his deception, Johnny backed away out of striking distance. "Cheri left me her clothes, but I had you fooled, right?"
The car thief responded with a punch to the wall.
A crack snaked from ceiling to floor and the shouting ceased next door. He whacked the wall with repeated rights and lefts.
”Enough already.” Johnny bearhugged the hippie, who didn’t put up much resistance, and said, “Bet you freaked your parent, teachers, psychiatrists, and girlfriends with this violent streak, even more after you told them it excited you.”
”I wasn’t that way as a kid.” Sean’s daily beatings by his 7th Grade schoolmates was a secret that he wasn’t sharing with a man disguised as his ex-lover and he shook off the guitarist. "Did you drug me?"
The truth was more convenient than Johnny’s initial impulse to lie. “I slipped two Quaaludes in your beer.”
“Why?” Last night Sean would have voluntarily downed the muscle relaxants.
“Cheri was supposed to be the lead singer in my band and you scared her off with your puppy dog love.” Johnny glanced at the hippie’s crotch. Unexpectedly aroused by the longhair’s Neanderthalism he tightened the robe’s belt around his waist and leaned against the doorjamb. “So I decided to rip you off.”
"But you didn’t?" Sean was unnerved by Johnny’s stare.
"You protected me.” Johnny’s code of ethics arose from an instinct for survival, instead of greed. “Not many people do that.”
"I would have helped anyone.” Sean pulled on his jeans and searched for his shirt.
“But you helped me.”
“I’m straight.”
“No one said you were gay.” A majority of the hustlers on 8th Avenue were heterosexual, saying they were on the game for the money, but Johnny knew better. His first sex with a male had been with an older man in the bathroom of a 42nd Street movie theater. He had been twelve. The bald man’s fellating him was more satisfying than the parish priest’s furtive groping, though not as intoxicating as his experiments with Dave. In Florida he had tried to date girls. Getting to first base had proved too much work. Men were so much more easy. They never said stop.
“I know how you people think.” Sean’s friends at Boston’s 1270 Club asserted no man was completely straight.
“Spare me the ‘you people’ bias.” Johnny favored straight men; ironworkers, sailors and firemen to gays. “Besides I’m not here to discuss sexual hang-ups. Reason #2 why I didn’t rip you off is that yesterday I met this rich kid. We formed a rock band GTH. Going To Hell. He’s the organist, I’m on guitar, and my friend, Frankie, is on the drums. Cheri was supposed to be the singer, but we’ll find another girl quick. How you like to be bass?”
"I haven't played bass in years." Sean had mastered the chords for DIRTY WATER, WIPEOUT, FEVER, HEART OF SOUL, and several garage hits in 1967 without achieving any virtuosity on the instrument.
"Most musicians on the punk scene haven’t struck a triangle in a school play.” Musicians generally regarded bassists as one step above roadies, although The JBs’ master, Fred Thomas, had unceremoniously carried James Brown to the pinnacle of Funk.“Cheri mentioned you were a poet. Maybe we can cannibalize a poem for lyrics."
“I might have one or two.” Sean’s skepticism about Johnny’s proposition was blinded by a vision of rock and roll stardom.
“Good.” Johnny baited his interest further. “Music consists of chords. Chords played at the same time and speed with other instruments. All you have to learn for punk are three-chord progressions in certain keys. No one has to be Mozart. We rehearse a month and put on a couple of showcases. I have connections in the record business and within two months, we'll sign a contract.”
"Overnight success rarely happens overnight for anyone around from the beginning.” Sean had watched Aerosmith struggle for years in a cramped apartment on Commonwealth Avenue. They would have starved if it wasn’t for the generosity of BU co-eds.
"You’re right.” The hippie wasn’t stupid, once you discounted his falling in love with Cheri. “Being in a band is hard work.”
“I’m not scared of work.” Sean had driven taxi eight hours a night to pay for college.
“So you want to be a rock and roll star?” The question had been a hit for the Byrds in 1967.
Sean hesitated for a second. This stranger had dosed him with ‘Ludes. He was gay and a possible drug addict, but this very risky long shot offered a better option than hitchhiking to LA to sleep on the beach.
"Sure, why not?" It wasn’t like Johnny was going to mickey him again.
"Then come to my room. I have a bass with your name on it." Johnny snatched his wig off the floor and Sean followed him down the hallway to room 314.
"You'll have to excuse the mess.” Johnny opened the door.
The room was slightly bigger than #301, yet was crowded to the ceiling by the hundreds of LPs and 45s precariously piled against the walls. Unmatched shoes cluttered the floor and three amps towered over the bed. A blowdown of guitars was stacked in the corner and Johnny picked up to a Fender Bass. "Play that."
"Now?" It had been over ten years since he last held a bass.
"Ain't no time like the right time,” the guitarist quoted the old Blues Project song.
"And, baby, the right time is now." Sean’s fingers crabbed over the thick strings trying to find the corresponding chords.
“Close.” Johnny responded with encouragement.
”But not every close.” The years of neglect had erased every progression from his memory.
”Playing bass is like falling off a bike. You’ll remember it if it hurts.” Johnny plugged the guitar and bass in two small Peavey Amps, emitting matching buzzes and the thump of the bass.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” The guitarist reduced the volume. “My neighbors sleep late. You know the song LOUIE LOUIE?"
“Of course.” The Kingsmen’s cover of Richard Berry’s song had surprised everyone in 1964.
”Watch my fingers. These are the basslines.” Johnny strummed the four classic chords and Sean clumsily repeated AAA*/*DD*/EEEE/*DD*/AAA*/*DD*/*DD*/EEEE/*DD*.
"You weren’t lying about being in a band.” Johnny arched an eyebrow.
“All the cover bands played LOUIE LOUIE in 1968.” Sean missed the bridge and apologized for the error.
“As long as you learn from your mistakes, no problem. Now follow me.” Johnny guided the ex-hippie through the chorus, bridge, and hook. Sean followed doggedly for several minutes, appreciating the economy of Johnny’s style. "You weren’t lying about being in a band. You’re great.”
"Me and about ten thousand other lead guitarists in America, but the core of LOUIE LOUIE is the basis of punk, except it’s faster and louder and stripped down to the basics." Johnny cued a 45 on a dusty stereo. "Here’s an oldie from your hometown. DIRTY WATER.”
“The Standells weren’t from Boston.” DIRTY WATER had been the encore of that fateful pool party in 1967 and his fingers fumbled over the frets. "Sorry."
“Don’t say sorry, until you’ve done something really wrong.” Johnny recalled his own traumatic birth on guitar and strummed a chord in imitation of the Who’s Pete Townsend. "Plus you can’t get any worst, right?"
"I'm not so sure about that."
“Let me help you.” The guitarist positioned the hippie's fingers to an e-chord and started strumming his guitar fast. “We’re going to play this chord over and over again.”
“How many times?” Sean’s fingertips were red from abuse.
“You’ll when to stop.” Fifteen minutes later Sean put down the bass. His hands had reached their limit.
"That's enough for today." Johnny turned off the amps
“Great.” Sean balanced the bass against the wall and stood up to leave, even though he had nowhere to go.
"Take it with you. It’s yours."
"I can't." He wasn’t sure if he could ever play bass.
"It's not a gift. It's an apology.” It was the least he could offer for having dosed the hippie last evening.
“I’m not a musician.” Sean wanted to dip his fingers in ice.
“Trust me, you will be.” Johnny threw on a leather coat and swept a handful of coins from the table. “Wait a few minutes here, I have to call the drummer and the rich kid.”
The door shut and Sean flexed his fingers. Whatever Johnny’s game was, he was certain that the pain in his fingers would never translate into skill. If he left tomorrow morning, he could be in LA within five or six days. He was almost out the door, but caught the cover of AFTER BATHING AT BAXTER'S on the floor.
He had listened to the Jefferson Airplane’s third album a thousand times at his hometown library and reverently withdrew the vinyl disc from the sleeve. The surface was unscratched and he cued SPARE CHAYNGE on Side B. Picking up the bass he ineffectively tried to match Jack Cassady’s solo by plunking single notes on the top steel string. Johnny was right. If he practiced three or four hours a day, he would improve over time, never to perfection, but Sean decided to stick it out with GTH to achieve a long suppressed boyhood fantasy of rock and roll fame.
As Grace Slick sang the lines to COMBS IN HIS HAIR, Johnny entered the room and remarked, “I have to say this about the Airplane. They followed the very successful SURREALISTIC PILLOW with a devastatingly uncommercial LP and I respect them for freaking out the record company people by dosing the golden goose of Flower Power with LSD. How are your hands?"
"They feel like the Mafia failed to pull out my nails."
“It’ll get worst before it gets better.” Johnny smiled at the hippie’s simple humor and said, “I told you about this rich kid. We’re meeting Little Richie Rich at Max's. It was Warhol’s old hang-out and they put on a Turkey dinner for the punks.”
"Do the Underground go to Max’s?" The flame in his heart for Nico burned with eternal devotion.
"Sometimes Lou Reed shows up, but he’s more into trannies than hippies." Johnny tugged on Sean’s thatched roof of split ends. "And this is seven years too Woodstock for CBGBs."
”You think I need a haircut.” Sean recollected Cheri's calling his hair a mane. The compliment had become an insult and he touched the scraggly hair.
"More a mowing. Come with me." Johnny dragged Sean to a hallway alcove, where a beer-bellied drunk slept on a distressed Barcalounger.
"Hey, Dynamite, time to work." Johnny knocked on the doorframe.
”What the fuck?” The alcholic’s eyes were the color of ham and eggs. He focused on Johnny and groused, "Ya shoulda cum befer I drunk my wine."
Two empty Muscatel bottles lay at his feet.
”I can afford a barbershop?"
"There aren't any more 'real' barbershops and course hair salons are fine, if you want a suedehead like Danny Terrio.” Most American women loved TV’s SOLID GOLD puppy-cute disco-dancing host. The girls at CBGB’s preferred scruffy over spit and polish. "If you’re after disco, you can join ten million people wearing polyester dancing to the 110 beats per minute, otherwise I'm giving you the chance to kill that unhappy hippie beating up a car.”
"Did I look that unhappy?” He had been blinded by the rush of blood..
“Almost suicidal.” There was nothing to gain by sparing the hippie the truth. “Or murderous.”
”That bad.”
”But not as bad as that hair.” “Okay, I surrender." Sean had grown his hair to emulate the flowing locks of the Ultimate Spinach's guitarist. Not one girl in Boston had ever noticed the similarity. He sat on a three-legged stool and the puffy-faced drunk lifted a pair of shiny scissors.
“Nuttin’ to worry ‘bout, hippie boy. I usta cut hair fer da Marines."
"No buzzcuts."
“Well, it ain’t gonna just be a trim either.”
For the next five minutes Dynamite mercilessly shorn his head. Each snip strangely lightened his head, as Johnny spoke about various bands at CBGBs and Max’s; the Ramones, Television, Cramps, Dictators, Wayne County, the Mumps, the Voidoids, Heartbreakers, and their vain struggles against the power structure of radio.
“AM won’t give any punk songs a shot, despite the length of the 45s being tailor-made for their format. The Ramones are trying to release ROCAKWAY BEACH waiting for next summer, but the DJs don’t want to risk their careers on a band that also recorded I WANNA BE SEDATED, so instead the kids get SILLY LOVE SONGS and DISCO DUCK and FM is worse with the DJs pretending to be hip, but we’re going to change all that. You, me, and GTH.”
“We are?” Sean liked a good fight, but challenging th had learned teaching at South Boston High School that the st
“Congress controls the FCC, which in turn instructs the radio stations which songs to play. They even had J. Edgar Hoover investigate LOUIE LOUIE for depravity.”
“There was no ‘fuck’ in that song.” Sean had played the 45 a hundred times without hearing the infamous swear word. Millions of other teenagers had conducted their own research with similar results.
”Of course not. The reason they tried to suppress LOUIE LOUIE was that it broke the format and now regional radio stations are switching to single-format playlists, making it impossible for local bands to break nationally without a push from the record companies who aren’t interested in anything other than the steady diet of crap to placate the parents of tomorrow by spinning rock ‘classics’. Nothing new. Always HEY JUDE or STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN or worst.”
“So it’s one big plot?” Sean was hoping that Dynamite would stop soon.
“No one’s that smart, are they?”
"No one has to be smart to fool the American Public.” Dynamite lowered the scissors and slumped into the Barcalounger. “HL Mencken said that or something like it.”
"How's it look?" Sean’s head felt like another person’s skull.
"Like you were just paroled from prison, but the girls at CBs will die for you.” Johnny brushed off his new friend’s shoulders and stuck five dollars in Dynamite's top pocket. “Now for a change of wardrobes.”
“What’s wrong with these?" The Levi bell-bottoms were from Walker’s on Boylston Street.
"If you have to ask, then you might be a lose cause." Johnny led Sean to his room, where he culled a pair of black jeans and a torn t-shirt from a clump of clothing.
"Try them on. I promise I won’t peek when you’re taking off those hippie rags.”
Sean smelled the clothes. They were relatively clean and he stripped off his jeans and teeshirt.
“I don’t know about this.” The new clothing was tight enough to have been plundered from a younger sister's closet and he wished that the management of the Terminal Hotel had provided mirrors in the rooms, but it was probably for the best that their tenants never saw their reflection at this late stage of the game.
"You'll fit in at CBs just fine.” Johnny handed the ex-hippie a pair of suede black boots to complete the outfit. “You hungry?"
"A little." Pulling on the boots Sean was magically two inches taller than in his Frye boots. His mother had burned his pointy-toed Cuban heels after the Hung’s final performance in 1966.
"Like I said Max’s having a Thanksgiving dinner for punk orphans.” Johnny was changing into the same clothes as the previous evening. “It won’t have mom’s apple pie, but the food won’t kill us.”
"MY friend Red Tate used to say ‘Whatever doesn’t kill you will make you wish you were dead.”
”A wise man.” Johnny was liking the ex-hippie more than was good for a hustler. His blue eyes threatened to hurt any casual lover and Johnny warned himself that falling in love was for suckers.
"The wisest in town.” Red Tate would fit right in at the Terminal Hotel and Sean thought about home for a second. His mother would be serving dessert to his father, brothers, and sisters. A few friends were always invited to fill out the table. They had to be asking where he was and he swore to phone them later.
”Wisdom in short demand in this hotel, but you were smart to not leave New York. You have a new look, a kicking bass, and a warm place to sleep.” Johnny didn’t expect thanks for these gifts and shut off the lights. “Plus I have a proposition for you.”
”What?” He doubted that it was legal.
”I’ll tell you about it tomorrow, but for now let's go. That food won’t last forever.” Johnny pushed Sean out of the room and locked the door. It wasn’t much protection against a professional thief, but most of the residents of the Terminal Hotel were on disability and practiced honesty in everything other than lying to themselves.
They hurried down the stairs into the lobby, where Sean caught the reflection in a cracked mirror and tried to fingercomb the spikes out of his hair.
“Stop. That’s a million dollar look."
"More a million lira." Ernie shouted from his post. “In a $1 bag.”
Johnny flipped the old drunk the bird.
“One day I have to leave this shithole.”
They exited from the hotel into the icy night. A frigid wind gnawed through their clothing and Sean wished her was wearing a sweater. under his leather jacket. Johnny hailed a Chevy taxi and they jumped in the back, happy to be warm.
”Max’s in Union Square.”
”I know the spot.” The driver had a heavy foot with the gas and criticized the country with a manic intensity.
“We’re lettin’ in too many foreigners into America. One day this city won't have any American-speakin’ taxi drivers." The rant lasted for the entire ride.
"At least we won't have to listen to foreign idiots," Johnny whispered, as the taxi braked in front of the Max's.
Half-heartedly subscribing to the driver's prophecy, Sean tipped the driver a dollar before getting out of the Checker.
That was generous,” Johnny commented on the sidewalk.
I drove cab in college.” It seemed colder here than on the river with a sharp wind slipstreaming through the park. Clouds were lowering in the evneing sky. Coming from New England Sean could feel snow in the air..
”Are we going inside?” The soles of the boots were paper-thin.
”Just a second.” Johnny lingered on the sidewalk to greet three skinny girls in plastic jackets and pants. They peered over his shoulder at Sean and Johnny said, "This is Sean, our new bass.”
“You’re starting a new band?” the cutest girl asked and Johnny said, “GTH. Going to Hell’.”
“Sexy devils,” the three girls cooed with Jersey accents and the shortest girl flirted with Sean. “You speak or you the strong silent type?”
“I___” he managed to say before Dove exited from the club with a Slavic-skulled man in his twenties. The blonde was wearing a slick white leather coat and eyed the newly scalped Sean with a withering yearning.
"Appears you have another convert to the cause, Johnny. He playin' for your team?"
"No, he’s on the I-want-girls side," Johnny snapped and Dove quickly retorted, "How he’d feel about being traded to the in-between league?"
Her escort's face muddied with murder and Dove quelled his jealousy with a kiss, then entered the taxi with a wink at Sean.
"Is Dove’s friend aware she's a he?"
"Dove has this strange power to suspend men’s belief in reality with the promise of dirty weekend in a cheap hotel." Johnny hoped Dove was careful with this Russian mafia thug. A 9th Precinct cop had mumbled a nasty tale about his reputed KGB connections. They sold icons and bad paper, also killed people that they didn’t like whenever they were drunk and snorting coke.
"I'd never mistake her for a woman." The Adam's apple and oversized hands were dead giveaways.
"No one mistakes Dove for anything more than what she is, but remember the word 'never' has a funny way of becoming always in New York.”
“Thanks for the warning."
Johnny and Sean walked through the shrouded entrance into the bar, where the jukebox was playing IMAGINE. One of the girls kicked the machine and the record skipped to the Kinks’ ALL OF THE DAY. Sean tried to rake his hair into order and Johnny drew away his hand.
"I told you before messy's in. Play your cards right and you'll get laid plenty, because we’re here for sex, drugs, and rock and rock, right?"
”I guess so.” Sean’s habitual drug use of marijuana and LSD had vaporized his college years. He had first had sex with his father’s secretary. Other girls had followed, although never enough to satisfy his libido. Maybe it’d be different in New York. “I like those girls.”
”The three from Jersey. We can do better than that.” Johnny gestured for the skinny hangers-on to scram and the trio sat at a wall booth with two members of the nearly defunct New York Dolls. The bartender placed a vodka-tonic in front of Johnny and asked Sean, "Drink?"
"A Heineken and a plate of turkey," Sean answered and a frosty green bottle was slammed on the bar. When he sniffed at the mouth of the bottle, Johnny asked, "I wouldn’t try that twice?"
"You told me 'never trust anyone', right?"
"Glad you're listening." Johnny nodded to the manager of the scene’s top electronic duo.
"Everyone here your friend?"
"A novelist wrote if you had two friends, you were blessed. Three meant you were a liar. These people are no one’s friend.” Johnny pointed to a pasty-faced man wearing black lipstick. “That thin man in the corner.”
“The Josef Goebbels look-alike?” Sean had studied German in high school and college.
"Klaus is a cook by day and at night an opera singer with an unearthly castrati alto, though his balls are intact." Johnny shifted his attention to a Latin brunette with an angelic face. "Maria is sixteen. A Wall Street banker pays for her acting lessons around the corner at the Adler School, but she prefers balling musicians more than the executive or Lee Strasberg.”
"Maybe I'll get lucky one day."
"Sorry, bass players get the girls.”
"McCartney got Linda Eastman.”
“Don’t mention his name in my presence. John was the best Beatle, although Yoko was no prize either. Why don’t you get yourself some food.” Johnny pointed to the buffet against the wall. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
”What about you?”
”I’m a light eater.” Johnny hadn’t eaten in two days and felt no hunger.
As you like it.”
Johnny leaned against the bar and observed the ex-hippie load his plate with free food. His manners bespoke a middle-class family background in Boston. He should have been working at a bank or a law firm and Johnny suspected that the detour from his destiny had something to do with his violent streak. Any further conjecture was postponed by Frankie's exit from the bathroom.
The teenager was high and Johnny grabbed his arm.
”What?”
”I have someone I want you to meet.” Johnny pulled Frankie over to the table at which Sean was sitting.
“Sean, this is Frankie. He's the drummer for GTH. Sean’s our bass.”
“And Cheri?” Frankie shook the stranger’s hand, remarking on the lack of calluses on his fingertips. He was no musician. No one on this scene was anything, but a cheap show.
“She left for Paris.” Johnny’s eyes flashed a warning for Frankie to drop the subject. “We’ll find another singer.”
Frankie was glad to hear Cheri was out of the band.
"So where's our angel?"
"Angel?” Sean imagined that he had misheard the young boy.
"He’s talking about Charles, our organist. And there’s nothing celestial about him other than he hasn't been in public much, so both of you act cool or else he'll retreat back to his monastery. There he is.”
Charles Ames III was at the door, wearing newly purchased punk attire.
With the new haircut the three girls in plastic mistook him for Brian Eno, Roxy Music’s keyboard player. Johnny saved Charles from utter confusion by saying, “He’s with me.”
“Sorry, Johnny.” The girls went back to the Dolls’ table and the guitarist led away the shaken millionaire. "Glad you made it."
"This is the place?" Charles surveyed the dingy bar.
The stark interior was a stunning contrast to the Carlyle Hotel’s luxurious Bemelsman Room, where he had earlier dined with his father, a woman eager to become the fourth Mrs. Charles Ames II, and his sister. None of them had commented about his haircut, although during dessert his sister Caroline had asked if he were attending a Halloween party. He hadn’t bothered to answer her glib jibe and had excused himself from dinner earlier than expected, but his family was used to his unexplained departures.
"It’s early and the show happens upstairs much later.” He handed Charles earplugs to lessen the volume of the Dictators' CARS AND GIRLS on the jukebox. "Stick these in your ears."
"Thanks." Max’s lacked Times Square’s energy, but its inhabitants belonged to a same class of people as those lurking along 8th Avenue. Charles didn’t belong here. His family mixed with the elite from Sutton Place, Millbrook, and Palm Beach. The previous generation had produced a senator and several judges, yet Charles Ames III stood to gain nothing by following the footsteps of his predecessors.
“This isn’t about Max’s.” Johnny called over the other two band members. “Frankie and Sean have been in bands and you’ll learn fast, Charles, plus the music business has always been more about faddy appearance than anything else and they have this new way of showing music called ‘videos’, which will help sell records. The mop tops made the Beatles, the Dolls without the drag clothes were a flash sensation, and Elvis minus the sequins was a fat slob. If the look is right, then you can fake the music. Are you in or out?"
Riding in the Lincoln had exhausted its possibilities. "When do we start?"
"I've rented us a place in Chinatown to rehearse."
Charles Ames III had been dreading this moment since meeting the blonde hustler.
"Do you need anything?"
"No, I covered the first month.” Nothing scares off a rich person faster than a poor person asking for money, even if it’s one dollar, then again this wasn’t a rip-off. This was the start of a band. “After that we'll kick in equal shares."
"I don't have an organ." The guitarist’s refusal delighted Charles.
"Go to Sam Ash in Times Square and ask for Slow Ed. He deals with the keyboards. Buy a B-3. Used, if possible. Pay him in green and you won't have to pay the tax." Johnny received a 10% commission from recommended sales for cash transactions. "Can we meet tomorrow Eight O’clock at the Terminal Hotel?"
"The Terminal Hotel?" Charles doubted that any his family had stayed at this establishment.
"Oh, it's a real treat on Jane Street. Your driver will find it.”
“I’ll be waiting on the steps,” Frankie said eagerly, for Charles was the epitome of a prince in this city. Johnny had come through again in a big way and this time for a trip to the big leagues.
"I’ll be there on time." Sean nervously wolfed the rest of his turkey.
“You live there.” Johnny laughed, “You better be on time. Anyone up for CBGBs?”
“CBGBs?”
“It's the less classy bookend to this place."
"Less classy than this?" Charles didn’t really care, for any bar was more cheerful than the hospital room in which his back and head had been stretched by wires to reconnect his neck to his spine.
"The Bowery is worst than Union Square. Where’s your car?”
“Outside.” The Lincoln’s engine was running to facilitate any get-away.
“Great, we’ll be riding in style.”
The four of them left Max’s and got into Charles' ride without noticing a short-set man in a black sweater writing down the license plate.
The Lincoln made the light at 14th Street and a voice from Union Square Park shouted Nick Arcc’s name. The furry twenty-five year-old turned to see a quartet of scrawny musicians from Cleveland walking across the street. He greeted them with a smile, for The Dead Boys’ pockmarked singer with the Prince Valiant haircut was most assuredly his type.
“How’s it going, boys.”
“We’re ready for turkey and drinks,” the mottle-skinned bass declared in the moth-bitten leopard-skin pants and the A & R man announced, "First round on me."
As the band cheered his generosity, the bearish A&R man checked the license number. Its beginning with a number instead of Z indicated that the Lincoln was privately owned. The pale punk in the new clothes came from real money and Nick Arcc wasn’t above weaseling in on another hustler’s game. Only time would reveal, if it was for pleasure as well as profit.
