At the corner of Rivington Street, I could hear its howl, as clear as the wolf that begins “Thriller.” The call of the wild sang out into the night. I had my fun. But I needed to get a job. I needed to grow up. It would take some time. But I got time. Luckily I knew that after a ten-minute walk in Chinatown I could catch the B and take it one stop to my house. I might even get home in time to—
“CHEERS, BUDDY!” GUY AND I dropped our whiskey glasses on the bar at St. J’s five minutes later. He hit the button on the smoke machine. Between manning up when I got fired, watching out for Gaga when they broke up, and helping him when he finally decided he wanted her back, Guy and I were better friends than we’d ever been. Starlight danced in the corner, shaking her ass in the red light as the New York Dolls blared on the bar speakers. Even in the dead of winter nothing tasted sweeter than the ice cold Budweiser that lay flat in St. J’s refrigerator all day.
Leigh texted, “How’s it going, birdie?” Things had gotten rocky with Leigh after the show. But we made it through that first fight, laughed about it, and went searching for another.
“Still in Manhattan. Almost done?” I had—don’t judge—gotten over Nikki by dating another waitress. This one a part-time student at NYU.
A brace of scenester girls slipped into the bathroom together, clogging up the line. The two single-stall bathrooms in back held the room hostage. As I waited in line, I felt the ghostly vibration of my phone, which turned out to just be the friction of dry winter fabrics. I missed her.
I looked up and catch a familiar face. The Devil arched an eyebrow at me and just said, “Coke, weed, X . . .”
The greatest trick The Devil pulled.
“ . . . Ambien, Oxycontin, Viagra.”
The Devil stayed true to his name—he described perfectly a weekend from hell.
“No, thank you,” I said like a good boy, and closed myself in the bathroom alone.
“Getting ready to leave midtown. Should I come meet you downtown?” Leigh texted. And then: “I have all my school stuff.”
I typed, “Yes. I’m at St. J”—and then I looked up. I should just tell her to go home. I should go with her. I should go home with a beautiful woman and she should read a book next to me in bed. I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. But if you get to read a book in bed with a beautiful woman, you should just in case you never get to again.
I left half a beer on the back of the toilet where someone had tagged “Bea Arthur” on the seat. Just past the go-go platform, I heard a speedy-mouthed girl talking loud into her phone: “Gross, what are you doing there,” she said. “Come meet me at St. J’s. I hear Fridays at St. J’s is real hot right now.”
ON THE WAY TO THE door I ran into Gaga. She floated in on a cloud of pure happiness. Her heels almost propelled her into the air as she jumped on me and gave me a huge hug. “I didn’t know you’re in town,” I said.
“I leave tomorrow!” She held on to me.
“How did the meeting go with Bert?”
“He’s taking over! It’s all happening!” She rushed to tell me the news on her way to tell Guy.
“Good, baby. I’m glad.”
The arrival of Bert must mean the exit of me. I’d made her promise to do it and I didn’t think it would happen so immediately.
“It’s really happening! All of it! It’s all starting to click.”
“Good.”
“I’m going to be huge. And I’m taking you with me.”
I smiled at this.
“They’re filming my video in six weeks. We need to come up with ideas.”
“Wow. You work on a record for two years and then one day it all comes together.”
“Are you ready to be in the video?”
“Of course. Are you bringing everyone out?”
She smiled. “Just you.”
EVERY TIME I TAKE THE J train, I remember the time I came down to New York by myself when I was twenty. I’d had a really bad breakup at some point in college, which, I believe, is now a graduation requirement. My travels around that time vaguely resembled those of a crazy old man whose dog has run off to die. The old man would take the same walk he’s taken a thousand times, listening for the tinkle of license on collar, calling out her name and hoping she’ll just come back. Everyone told me that I should get out, move to a different city, try something new. Williamsburg, everyone said. Being self-reliant, I took the train to Grand Central and looked up Williamsburg on a subway map. In the great unknown blob that we called Brooklyn, there was the word “Williamsburg” printed in brown ink, stretching from the Navy Yard to somewhere halfway to Long Island. I took the J train to the “g” in “Williamsburg.” I didn’t find the gentrified college town of skinny kids in identical black plastic glasses. I landed in the ’hood, underneath an elevated train line in the dark. I circled the block a few times, wondering if I had missed a record store or if I would ever get over this feeling of being lost for the rest of my life.
No one told me about the L train or the record shops just north of where I’d gotten off (and quickly gotten back on) the train. But this night, years later, it was this Williamsburg I landed in, and I walked up Union Avenue and waited for Leigh to come out of the L train. These empty streets and boarded-up storefronts stood nonchalantly and I walked through the always-dark shadow of the elevated train tracks. Union Avenue was almost entirely under construction. Gone were the rotting old homes with their ironed slatted windows. These new buildings aspired to live a new life as more than just apartments. They had gyms, doormen, courtyards, and game rooms. One of them would have a bar in the lobby. Entire blocks of old, drab, vinyl-sided homes were plucked off the board like little green Monopoly houses before the big red hotels go down and the rent goes up.
Up the street I could make out a halo of blond hair ahead as Leigh walked out of the Sunac market. She held a pair of chopsticks in one hand and a bag of supermarket sushi and a seaweed salad. Her first words were “Did you eat?”
“No.” I actually couldn’t remember when I had eaten last.
“I figured. Let me drop my things at home and I’ll feed you. Anything going on tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
I smiled. “I hear Fridays at home are real hot right now.”
Hanging on the telephone
You’d get one day, one amazing day in late February, where the exasperated weathermen couldn’t quite believe the Doppler. You’d wonder for a second if the harsh winter had abandoned you. Defiant girls put on sundresses and took long walks at lunch and braved the outdoor tables and the too-cold slats of the benches in the park, their pale thighs thirsty for sunshine. All around you there’d be New York smiles, the jubilant faces of the community that rose to any challenge. We did it, everyone! We did it! The excitement and the bare legs and the noise of birdsong and voices filled the streets. It held its promise—it meant things were happening, things were coming to life. The sun fed my freckles and dusted off my smile.
The weather only lasted for the day. But you had to hold on to that day for six more weeks and never let it go.
THE VIDEO GOT CANCELLED AGAIN. But the recording continued. With Gaga in California I couldn’t book any shows. I didn’t have my great go-go dancer that always got me asked back.
The money never seemed quite enough and my creditors still mounted their confederacy against me. Paying off the electric company meant screwing the gas line for the month. I still DJ’d at St. J’s and 151, sometimes filling in on Mondays just to get a few beers and the fifteen-dollar payment for the night. With Gaga away I still made up for our lost time with emails and texts. I knew that people must have wanted her to have her time to create out in California. But that also left her feeling like her friends had forgotten her. I made it an extra point to tell her when people would ask me about her. She loved knowing that her scene went on without her but awaited her return.
On weekends I picked up shifts at a jazz bar uptown across the street from Elaine’
s, the St. J’s of a particular generation of writers. On my way to work every night I peeked in the window, hoping for a glance of the smart gray-and-white suits on Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Wolfe, and Gay Talese.
One night as I was closing up the bar, I talked on the phone with Michael T. He had a Friday night party at Lotus called Tattler, and he wanted me to host the night. When I got there he of course asked if St. J’s had burnt to the ground and if Gaga were doing as wonderfully as he hoped. “Michael T. asked about you,” I texted her. “I told him you’re being brilliant.”
She did the uncharacteristic thing of calling me on the actual telephone. “Hey! I’m so glad you called.” I was too. Uptown can be lonely.
“Hi, baby! That’s so sweet of you to say. What did Michael T. have to say about me?”
“He just wanted to know that you were well.”
“I miss my friends.”
“I told him that. He says he wants to do a party with you when you get back.”
“With us you mean.”
“So what’s up? You going to some crazy LA party with bikinis and hot tubs and ‘meetings’ and lots of linen pants?”
“Do all of your LA references come from Annie Hall?”
“Pretty much.”
“I don’t really get to go to parties. I’m kinda trapped. I still don’t drive and Troy doesn’t want me drinking or straining my vocal chords while we finish. I’m only allowed to have white wine and only once in a while.”
“You poor LA thing.”
“What have you been up to?”
“DJ’ing. I’m filling in at a friend’s bar and saving up . . .” I almost didn’t want to mention the video. It seemed like such an exotic and amazing thing. People entered contests to be in their favorite band’s music video. And lately Gaga had become my favorite band. No matter what happened, I still wanted to do that video.
“Look, uhm, I can’t do that show on the twenty-eighth. The one with Theo and the Skyscrapers.”
“Oh.” I tried not to get discouraged, especially around her and about her. I really needed that money.
“I could swing it if I were out there but it’s just not going to happen with me in California.”
“No worries.” I had saved. Saving is easy when you’re planning a trip. Every coffee or sandwich I bought at home was one less I could have on my trip. I economized down to my caloric intake. In the interest of full disclosure, I would like to say that from the very start I knew that California would put me in touch with people who knew people. Mercutio was a play now. It had a new script. None of my fantastic digressions mattered and my long-windedness evaporated under the weight of the dialogue. “So what are you doing tonight?”
“Nothing.”
“That must be nice.”
“I guess. But I miss home. I wish I could finish my days recording by coming down to see you at Pianos or waiting on a stool at St. J’s. It just feels kinda . . . I don’t know . . .”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
“Like do you ever finish writing and just wish you could read it to someone?”
“All the time. Luckily I am shy about one thing, though.”
“But you shared it with me.”
“You’re different.” When it came to writing I could never change the subject fast enough. I felt like a mere hobbyist, a model-train enthusiast who wore a real conductor’s cap when no one was looking. Writing, even journalism or book reviews, always felt so personal. You know what it feels like? It feels like a friend asks you in public about your psychotherapist. There’s no shame and you should be applauded for doing the work that others would rather ignore, but somehow it feels greedy and self-indulgent.
“You’re sweet.”
Even in New York Gaga and I would never have a phone conversation this long. We might close down a bar and lock ourselves in, but most people don’t talk on the phone and it’s rude to take up someone’s time like this so I felt I should say good-bye. But then I thought of her. Even Guy couldn’t call her tonight. He had to work until five most nights. So I decided to just keep her on the phone. “You got any more ideas for this video?”
LA Woman’s on the avenue
There’s a feeling you get when you look through old pictures and think, warmly, of old friends. You accumulate this feeling at one A.M. once you’ve forgotten any reason not to feel happy. Because of the obviously complicated nature of life and its basic inescapability, this feeling is a gift. A year earlier things seemed so jumbled, so lost. And then right around the time of Gaga’s twenty-first birthday, things just seemed to brighten in that first spring.
Plus, I needed to throw a party if I were going to have anything to eat.
I texted Gaga in LA. “Are you gonna be home for your birthday?” In my mind I made plans for her homecoming. We would have a party at St. J’s with the whole gang together. Conrad boozing the piano and Starlight dancing. I’d get back to DJ’ing, where I belonged.
Again, like the other night, she called me back on the telephone, which we never did. “Hey!”
“Hi.”
“Did you get my text?”
She had an uncharacteristic cautiousness in her voice. “Yes.”
“So will you be in New York for your birthday? I should throw you a birthday party.”
She took a deep, honest breath, like the one at the beginning of “Vanity.” I thought she might have some bad news. “Actually, I don’t think we’ll be in New York for my birthday.”
Wait. “What?”
“Remember what I said about Jimmy Iovine’s famous Friday meetings?” She mentioned the Brooklyn-born head of Interscope, who had produced our beloved Springsteen’s Born to Run. “He keeps everyone late and no one knows why or what they’re there for but they have to expect them?”
“At the Interscope office?”
“Yes.” She laughed. “Well, they’re for real. He just played my new song and made the entire office stay late. I climbed up a chair and danced on the conference table.”
“Okay.”
“So I don’t have a lot of details but when I got your text I thought I should give you a heads-up. Winter Music Conference is coming up in Miami. It’s this big thing at the end of every winter where DJs and radio stations and record labels all come together to fight over what they’ll be playing for the summer.” This is probably not something to be proud of, but I immediately thought of the horn that begins the Skee-Lo song “I Wish.” That unbelievably nineties song was the “song of the summer” at the end of seventh grade.
“Of course,” I lied. “Winter Music Conference.”
“Good, so you know. Again, I don’t have any details, but it’s been planned for months. We’re really late in getting to it and almost everything in Miami is booked solid. But the city will be packed. It’s very up in the air but if we can’t get booked we might do some ‘stunt’ performances.”
“If you’re asking me if I can wire an ice cream truck to be a Lady Gaga Revue truck, the answer is yes.”
She laughed, “See? This is why I love you.”
“We can hand out twist cones with Oreo crumbs and call it ‘Dirty Ice Cream.’”
“Okay, so you’re in?”
“A hundred percent.”
“Okay. That’s all I need to know. Things are happening fast and I don’t even really know what it’s going to look like yet. But they want to shoot the video.”
“Then it’s perfect. We can do this Winter Music thing and then we’ll go straight to LA and shoot the video.”
She paused. I had just invited myself to do quite a lot of things. But in this single phone call I knew that all of her dreams would come true. “Okay. Now the only problem we have—” The phone went silent. I checked it twice to see if I’d dropped the call. God bless American Telegraph and Telephone.
When she finally told me the problem, I could believe it. Guy. “I mean. He’s gonna think—”
“Don’t worry about him,” I said. “I’ll take care
of that.”
“You could try and make it sound fun. Like tell him that I’m going to be busy but that he should come down to Miami and hang out with you and then be in the video with us.”
“Of course. He’d be into that. He likes trips and . . . and”—I was trying to figure out a reason that he would want to be in a music video—“and himself. The guy’s whole life is a music video. He’ll love it.”
Gaga wasn’t convinced. “Yeah . . . but if he doesn’t come . . .”
“Oh, and I don’t have to stay with you. I can take care of myself once we get to LA. I have friends out there.”
You know when you’re out to dinner and someone else’ll ask the waiter for separate checks? Or you’ll be exhausted at a party and someone else tells you they’re going home first? Or you show up to class without your assignment and the teacher announces an extension? That’s the breath of relief she gave me. “Oh, well,” she said to be polite, “that’s good to know because I don’t know what I’ll have to do before the shoot or how long I’ll be there. I don’t really have all the answers now but it’s good to know at least.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll go to Miami and then straight to LA and I’ll take care of it. The Beauty Bar in LA can get me a slot. Maybe we could do a show together like old times.”
AFTER I HUNG UP THE phone, I almost jumped when I heard a voice behind me: “You’re going to Miami?” Leigh had a concerned look on her face. Through my tunnel vision I had forgotten that I had only just stepped out of bed with her when Gaga called.
“Uhm . . . it’s up in the air right now. They’re working out the details—”
“And then Los Angeles.” Her blue eyes clouded over as if she were a kid who learned that Dad couldn’t make it to the recital.
“Again, it’s up in the air. But she just needed to know that someone could come with her. Luckily, I’m underemployed.”
Rivington Was Ours: Lady Gaga, the Lower East Side, and the Prime of Our Lives Page 20
