by Richard Boch
I survive the dance—and another night at the door. Home before the morning rush, I finish the last lines of coke and wonder why I can’t sleep. Sometimes I wonder what the fuck I’m doing; other times I tell myself, “I’m fine.” There are still moments when I see myself becoming a good painter. Maybe what I’m doing—whether it’s the Mudd Club or the drugs—is just a phase; twenty-six, running with a fast crowd in the fast lane and dodging bullets. Too much coke, then three or four drinks to avoid a tooth-grinding freeze that even a bag of Poison or Doctor Nova can’t melt away. Then there’s the shifting reality of standing on the steps of 77 White, facing an anonymous crowd—and feeling or not feeling alone.
Word’s Out
One night the following week, I look over at Steve. He’s not talking but keeps asking me if I’ve heard anything. I tell him the only thing I’ve heard is, “it’s happening.”
Word’s out that Jerry Brandt’s new club on East Eleventh Street is opening in May. From what I can tell it’ll be a place to go first, before Mudd, to see a band, then head for White Street around 1 or 2 A.M. It’s what everyone does anyway.
The next word, DJ Justin Strauss is leaving Mudd for East Eleventh but I have no idea if it’s true. Abbijane’s his best friend so she must know, and if she knows, DJ David knows. I like Justin and I’ll miss him, but I’ll see him at the new place.
I’m ready to head outside when David cues up Elvis Costello’s “Watching the Detectives.” It’s loud and heavy and the floor’s shaking. I turn around and start dancing.
Justin might be leaving—but the dance floor at Mudd is unstoppable.
The Colombians
For better and for worse, I was unstoppable too. When I met the Colombians on the second floor of the club, things quickly went beyond anywhere I’d been before. Friday night was turning Saturday and it was still dark when we departed White Street. I believed I knew what I was getting myself into.
We arrived at the loft, I put on some music, and the three of us finished off an eighth of an ounce of coke. I couldn’t move; my mind and body disconnected.
The Colombians made themselves at home and laid their gun on the table. They decided they wanted one of my paintings and insisted we make a trade. I managed to stand up, figured out how to speak and rolled up a large painting on paper that was hanging on the wall. We took a cab to an apartment on East Seventh Street along the south side of Tompkins Square Park and made a seven o’clock swap for nearly two ounces of golf-ball-sized rocks of cocaine. We got back to Murray Street around 8 A.M. and opened a bottle of Rémy I had stashed under the sink. I spilled the bag of rocks on the kitchen table and just stood there, trying to breathe. I’d never seen anything like it.
I called Solveig and told her, “You have to get down here right away, you won’t believe this.” She called the garage, got in her car, came right down and couldn’t believe.
A frozen dream lasting several sleepless days—and as many bottles of Rémy Martin—started to play itself out. I wanted to fuck the Colombians but they wanted to fuck Solveig: aside from the coke, a lose-lose situation. Together we wore them down and the Colombians left by early afternoon. The rocks stuck around for a few weeks. Solveig and I cleaned my studio, rehung some paintings, swept the floors and rearranged furniture. The painting that left Murray Street began a new life on East Seventh, never to be seen again.
Monkey in the Bedroom
Eight hours later, I was back at the Mudd Club. The door was busy but I could barely speak. The Colombians came by to drink and find girls who’d fuck for cocaine. Lynette showed up, came home with me after work, and we dove deeper into the frozen. We left my place around noon and cabbed it to her apartment on Bank Street. By the time we got there, my head was pounding, my nose was bleeding and there was a caged monkey in the bedroom. I was wide-eyed and crazy but the monkey was real. We smoked a joint and tried to relax but I couldn’t shut my eyes. Lynette pulled the curtains on the daytime night and I drifted without sleep.
Within two or three hours, the noise in my head finally stopped. The monkey stayed in its cage and never made a sound. I could hear myself breathing.
Getting up, nearly 10 P.M., I pulled myself together. I walked from Bank Street to One University Place and sat in a booth with Patti D’Arbanville and a good-looking, blond Canadian hockey jock.
I didn’t know Patti but I knew she grew up in Greenwich Village and started hanging out on Bleecker Street when she was either twelve or thirteen. She appeared in Andy Warhol’s Flesh when she was barely legal; her film and modeling career and relationship with Cat Stevens were all part of the D’Arbanville mystique. We hung out for an hour or two and left One U after midnight. We stopped by Murray Street, sat around the kitchen table and broke out the rocks. We got thirsty and walked up Broadway to the Mudd Club. Steve was happy to meet Patti and she was happy to be back in New York. Singer-songwriter Elliott Murphy rushed over and gave her a kiss. Lynne Robinson leaned over and whispered, “Oh God, she’s a fucking legend.” I was just happy that my nose stopped bleeding.
The rocks were so pure and hard, I shot one across the room trying to crush it with a spoon. My friend James snorted up a pile and had to lie down on the couch, panicked and wiped out by a mini-stroke or mild heart attack. His girlfriend, Lisa, iced his neck and forehead while I lit a cigarette and did another line. An hour later, we headed for White Street.
I knew cocaine was a losing game but I kept playing. I froze more than a few brain cells, burned a million more and sold a piece of my soul along with that painting. Trapped in some sort of holding pattern, I felt like I was running in circles and still had no clue. I was writing off the wreckage as a minor scratch-and-dent, unable or too distracted to look at myself. I believed that drugs and drinking and even sex were all part of the creative process. Surrounded by visionaries fueled by excess, I ignored the bodies on the side of the road. I wanted to be happy and successful but was unwilling to make even the slightest change.
No Food in Her Braces
Assuming everything would remain the same or get better on its own, I couldn’t see the possibilities of tomorrow. Blinders on, I never looked past tonight. I figured I’d keep working at the Mudd Club, keep painting and at some point sell my paintings for dollars instead of ounces or grams. At some point I’d tire of cocaine and get bored with heroin. I never considered that a hot dog and a subway token would ever cost more than fifty cents. I was dreaming.
Then, on April Fools’ Day 1980, New York City’s transit workers walked off the job and everyone quickly realized it wasn’t a prank. I couldn’t imagine what kind of grievance anyone would have driving a bus or working in the subway, but it seemed that some people were never happy. Living nine blocks from the Mudd Club, the dispute for me was a minor inconvenience, but the first transit strike since 1966 affected nearly everyone else. For Jackie Shapiro it was panic on the Upper East Side.
Jackie usually had her nightly routine figured out. “No food in her braces” was rule number one. Number two was to make sure she had her keys, lipstick and ten dollars tucked in a Marlboro box. Avoid using Mudd Club toilets was number three. She played it by the book until the transit strike threw everything out the window. She had to get to the Mudd Club but if she wanted to eat at Dave’s, Wo Hop or the Kiev, her budget wouldn’t cover a taxi.
Jackie took a few deep breaths and with careful consideration decided the only solution was to hitchhike down Second Avenue. Hoping for the best, she hooked up with her friend Karen and stuck out her thumb. In a scene right out of a Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel, a freak with what Jackie called a “full coverage, religious icon dashboard” pulled over. Karen jumped in back and Jackie sat up front talking, trying to keep the “creepy vibe” in check. In what amounted to a Mudd miracle, their new friend kept the chainsaw in the trunk and drove them all the way to White Street. The strike ended April 11, its effect on club attendance minimal. Jackie survived, stuck to her budget and never missed a night.
I never knew what the transit workers were so upset about but was happy it all worked out. I never stopped to consider that New York City and the way I was living might change, and get very expensive. Gentrify and yuppify were soon to become dangerous, dirty words; Bohemia, just another body tossed to the side of the road.
Ecstatic Stigmatic
Two nights later I put away the cynicism and lost the sarcasm. The news was bad and the circumstances unbelievable. Despite a lack of detail, I kept hearing the story all night long.
On April 12, 1980, Mirielle Cervenka was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles. The accident was a freak hit-and-run. She died instantly, while the others involved were barely injured. Mirielle was the sister of Exene Cervenka, the singer from the band X; and she was married to Gordon Stevenson, formerly with Lydia Lunch’s band, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. Mirielle, an artist and No Wave pioneer, lived with Gordon near White Street and hung out at the Mudd Club. The news spread quickly; the dance floor seemed to pause for a minute.
Mirielle was in L.A. for the premiere of Ecstatic Stigmatic. Gordon made the film and she was the star. The movie explored themes of religious fanaticism and insanity with enough blood and Gotharific imagery to make it entertaining. The supporting cast, seemingly drawn from a Mudd Club pool, included voluptuous vocalist and performer Brenda Bergman and No Wave New York associate Arto Lindsay. (Mirielle and Gordon, along with artist-musician Robin Crutchfield, were all founding members of Lindsay’s band DNA.)
Posters for Ecstatic Stigmatic covered the neighborhood and lined Cortland Alley. The movie’s premiere went on as scheduled—April 14 in Hollywood.
I can still see Gordon and Mirielle walking up to the door; I can picture where they stood and I remember opening the chain. Then I remember hearing the awful news.
Before long Gordon returned to New York and came back to the club several times. His own death a few years later signaled a community on the verge of devastation, battling an enemy no one could comprehend. Cookie Mueller was Gordon’s friend and she wrote about him. That’s all I recall.
The Walter Steding Theory would consider it all part of another constellation, one that burned bright before spinning out of control. I didn’t know Mirielle or Gordon well. I’ve never seen the entire movie.
Roommates
The loft on Murray Street was spinning too, but I managed to hang on. The nights went on for days, and the brain cells kept burning. Teri had moved uptown with Ricky Sohl and Wayne was gone nearly six months. Lynette’s friend Peter Davies started crashing at the loft, unofficially taking up residence.
One night when Steve Mass was outside I introduced Peter as my new roommate.
“Everybody lives at your place,” said Steve.
“Almost everybody.”
Peter easily adapted to the never-ending party and the odd hours of a passed-out doze masquerading as sleep. There were no house rules, no privacy and no commitment. The arrangement lasted a month until Peter spiraled off on a downhill run, searching for a place of his own. Gary and I weren’t alone for long.
Musician and Lounge Lizard Steve Piccolo left East Thirteenth Street around the same time the other bedroom at Murray opened up. We had a lot of the same friends, a high tolerance for crazy and shared many of the same interests. The rent, if you paid it, was cheap, and you could walk to the Mudd Club in less than ten minutes. The setup was perfect and Steve moved in. The wheel kept on spinning and nothing seemed to change: I was still working five nights a week, still running in and out of One University, still chasing something I’ve never been sure of.
No Jeans
Walking up Broadway on my way to work I’m able to talk to myself, ask hard questions, but only answer the ones I choose. I’m able to breathe even while smoking a cigarette. Between two roommates at home and working with a clubful of more than half strange, this is the only time I’m ever really alone. Standing outside Mudd saying yes or no is still hard work but the warm nights make things easier. My new uniform is a light-green windbreaker, some beat-up Levis and a pair of pointy, tan suede cowboy boots. My hair’s getting longer and I’m wearing a paisley bandanna tied around my neck. The entire look is a retread nod to college life, yet far removed from dropping acid and catching the Dead or Hot Tuna at the Waterbury Palace.
I tell the crowd outside “No jeans” and if anyone points at me I tell them, “Mine don’t count.” I make some exceptions and even allow an occasional denim-clad friend in for free. If Steve asks how that person got in, I throw one of the security guys under the bus.
The exception I take responsibility for are two handsome South Americans dressed in white shirts, good shoes and tight-fitting jeans. They shake my hand with a folded-up fifty, never stop to talk and always pay the cover. I usually take a break after they arrive, unfold the bill and spend a long moment admiring the half-gram inside. It’s the good stuff, flaky and golden with that mother-of-pearl shimmer: Bolivian cocaine before it’s been stepped on.
I pull a straw out of my Marlboro box, do some lines and fly back up the stairs. I’ve become a pro when it comes to squeezing thru the crowd and I’m at the door in thirty seconds. No excuse me, no wasted time. If I stop for a drink, the trip takes a full minute.
Tonight I make it back outside just in time—I turn around and there he is. I’m not sure if he arrived in a cab or just came walking down White Street, but despite the pedigree and reputation, Lou Reed is easy. He steps up to the chain, I say “Hi” and he walks in. Ten minutes later, I walk inside to check on him, and he’s at the bar alone. Thirty minutes later, he’s gone. “Sweet Jane”—the live Rock ’n’ Roll Animal version—always a Mudd Club favorite. Nobody cared that Lou Reed was wearing jeans.
I’m back watching the crowd when my friend Edward stumbles up to the door. He’s with three others, including Frank Schroeder, an artist and Mudd regular who lives in the neighborhood. It’s a party of four guys and they’re a little drunk, but the fact that I like Edward works in their favor. Two go in for free, two pay.
A few minutes later, Edward’s outside again, standing next to me, stoned and beautiful. It’s his birthday and he might be turning eighteen. I look around, check the crowd once more, and ask a pretty girl, “How many?” She points to the pretty boy next to her and I say, “Okay.” I spot longtime Mickey Ruskin employee Big Ron Beckner getting out of a cab with Linda Yablonsky, whose own Story of Junk is still a few years away. I send them thru and let in a dozen more people just to loosen things up.
It’s getting late when Edward and I make a run for the basement. I have a little dope, we both have some coke and it takes thirty seconds to get downstairs. Edward dumps two white piles on my fist and I spill the dope on top of mine. We lean in and blast off, look at each other and float away. I have no idea if we’re sitting or standing. For a minute I’m not even sure where we are.
When I finally snap out of it, we’re both leaning against the basement wall sweating, and a little worse for wear. I light a cigarette, grab Edward’s beer and finish it. We take the elevator to the second floor, Edward finds his friends and I slowly make my way downstairs.
I pass Siouxsie Sioux on the way but have no idea when she arrived. I loved the first record and jumped around to “Hong Kong Garden” when it was released two years ago. “Happy House” is her latest single but it hardly looks like she lives there. I say hello and smile—she doesn’t and keeps walking. It’s time I get back to the door.
Outside a few people call my name. It’s late and if they’re a little pretty and only a little drunk I’ll send them in two at a time. I don’t know any of them so they’ll all pay.
Talk of the Town
I’m not sure how everyone managed to go out and spend money or where the money came from. New clubs were getting ready to open and White Street wasn’t slowing down (even though the U.S. economy was in the toilet). Unemployment was high at nearly seven percent and a recession, deeper than anyone anticipated, was in the forecast. Conflicts in the Middle East wer
e only part of the problem and Democrats were surely to blame for everything else. Meanwhile Republicans claimed to have better ideas (like tax cuts and pandering to the rich) but were intent on keeping those ideas secret. Their only non-secret: zombie Ron was getting ready to run—again. Affairs of the state were dire.
Given the nightmare scenario, I was employed, had a nice place to live, and despite my obsession with death drugs and random sex partners, I was healthy. Besides all that, the Pretenders were finishing up their first U.S. tour—ten dates, big cities—and Pete Farndon periodically would call from the road. Last I heard, they were in St. Louis, had time off, and were headed this way.
The band’s show on Saturday, May 3, at New York City’s Palladium was their last stop, and they were staying at “The Gramercy.” When Pete got to town on April 29, he had time on his hands and money in his pocket. We ate and drank at One University, hung at the Mudd Club, shopped at Fiorucci and visited Andi at Electric Lady. I had to work but didn’t let the Pretenders get in the way of my job; I tried to make them part of it.
When Saturday rolled around I met up with Pete and went to the sound check at 3 P.M. I hadn’t heard the band live until that moment but it was something worth waiting for: the Pretenders’ sound was big and loud, and Chrissie’s voice was her own. They tore it up for thirty minutes, the band went back to the hotel and I went home to rest. The Necessaries, with Ernie Brooks and Jesse Chamberlain, were opening the show at 8, but I wasn’t sure I could get there that early. I arrived with Pete around 9.
The Pretenders opened slow and heavy with “Space Invader,” an instrumental written by Farndon. From there they barreled into “The Wait” and followed up with a set that included a cover of Ray Davies’ “I Go to Sleep” and a beautiful new song called “Talk of the Town.”
