April 29,1978

Ann, her mother, and I went dinner at Serendipidity 3. Tim Dunleavey and William Lively joined us. The four of them went to a play on Broadway. I headed down to CBGBs. The Tuff Darts were on stage. I drank a beer, wearing a suit. I didn't have any money, but as my Nana said to me, "It's one thing to be broke, it's another look it."

A couple from New Jersey were picking on a gay boy. I never liked bullies and told them to stop. They swore at me, saying, "Mind your own business, fuckhead."

I laughed at them and the boy got ready to spit at me.

"You spit on me and I break your face."

I swallow my gum, since it's never good to get whack with a slack jaw.

His drunk girlfriend crowed, "Go ahead, you faggot."

The gay boy fled the bar area. Merv the bouncer was nowhere in sight. Her friend cleared his throat and said, ""You're six million times a Jew. I should shot you."

"Why don't you do everyone a favor and try and be human."

"Fuck you." He brandished the gun in his waistband.

I sucker-punched him in the jaw and grabbed his shirt so he couldn't get away. He struggled to get at his gun. I punched him in the nose. Blood poured from both nostrils. I struck him again. KO. I released him and he slumped to the floor. No one at the bar had even noticed the brief fight and I bent over to get his gun. His girlfriend kicked at me, screaming in pure Brooklynese, "Wait till my father hears about this. He'll kill you."

I restrained her as best as I could, as her boyfriend rose up and blindsided me with a sharp right. His best punch and I heard a tooth crack. I turned to him, but before I could get revenge, people restrained us. Merv thew them out and I followed. They were gone and I went inside rubbing my jaw.

Several minutes later Ann came up, swearing under her breath at Hilly's daughter, "I hate her. She made me pay."

I never paid.

I don't know why.

"You missed my fight."

"I was wondering what was the commotion. I figured it was some idiots having a fight."

"That's me." I didn't tell her about saving the gay boy and we left the bar. Ann walked me to 11th Street. I invited her upstairs.

"I can't. My mother's afraid of the city."

"With good reason." New York was dangerous. "I'll walk you home."

"You don't have too."

"It's a dangerous city."

At her door she kissed me and said, "Come by at 3. My mother will be at a play."

"I'll be there."

LATER

Ann wasn't home at 3 and I figured she had gone to the matinee with her mother. I thought about calling an old girlfriend, but decided to wait for Ann. Her mother can't stay in New York forever.

LATER

People are full of shit. None of them mean what they say. I would rather be a hermit than have to listen to their drivel and my room at the SRO is like a Trappist monk's cell. No phone. No TV. The more possession you have the less you are yourself. Only a few visitors come here; William Lively, Mark, Eleanor, Ann, Anthony, Jaci, Kim, and Andy Reese.

Ann is the only regular.

No one else has returned to this squalid room. My life becomes completely obscure here. Often I'm lonely. The four walls never change. except for the pattern of the cockroaches' wanderings. These vermin are more alive than me and if the hotel burned to the ground, there would be no trace of me. My remains will be sent to a pauper's grave, since I couldn't afford a cremation and that's the end I want.

Bones ground to dust. A warm urn filled with white ashes.

LATER

Thank the stars for CBGBs. It's my only source of entertainment. Cold beer and punk rock. I need money.

LATER

Where is Ann? Where is Andy? Where is my Mother and Father? Where are my brothers and sisters. Where are my teachers? The wall to my left matches the other three walls And the ceiling, but not the floor. I am the only one in this room Everyone else in the world is outside. Where am I? Here? Where are you? Not here. Where are you and I?

LATER

Ann and I went to Max's. It was too smoky for my lungs. The doorman was charging $10 to see the Heartbreakers. I shook my head. I had no money and walked Ann back to her apartment. Outside on the street I whispered, "Let's fuck."

"My mother's there."

"I know, but we can pretend to be in high school."

"I'm not a high school cheerleader."

"I never said you were." My hand slipped under her dress and strayed between her legs.

Ann pushed me away and said, "Go now."

She wasn't angry, but didn't kiss me good-night.

I jumped the train and sat smelling her on my fingers.

Wishing it was more.

LATER

A junkie gave me a Black Beauty on 6th Avenue. "I seen you play B-Ball at West 4th. You play defense. If you have money one day, give me $2."

I dropped the pill and continued to my room. The ruthless rush of Speed drove my blood through the night. Speed is not a good bed companion. I felt strong. I felt not alone. It was all a delusion.

april 28, 1978

Ann's mother is in town from Charleston, West Virginia. I've never been to Appalachia. Ann keeps telling me that she's not from a 'hollah'. I believe her, but I do like her accent.

Ann's mother's visit means no sex for a couple of days.

This morning we showered in the SRO hotel's bathroom. Back in my room Ann slipped on her panties Wait a moment." I had an erection.

"What do you think you're going to do with that?"

"Give me a naked hug."

"I know where this is going," she answered, but leaned over to my body.

I rubbed her smooth back, massaging her muscles.

"Let's fuck."

We'll be late for work."

Me to a Wall Street executive dining room and her to the theater.

I wanted flesh and said, "Okay, but just suck me a little."

"Damn, don't you ever stop."

"Her mouth surrounded my cock. I came within a minute.

"Happy now?" She dressed quickly.

"Happier." I put on my clothes slowly, hoping she would want more, but she left and I did the same five minutes later.

LATER

I haven't smoked reefer for three days. The longest stoppage, since the DEA was spraying the marijuana crops with toxic pesticides. Paraquat poisoning 15 million pot smokers. The DEA is a semi-criminal government organization set up by Nixon to persecute anyone not in the silent majority. They should be hung by the balls. The first batch of paraquat weed had me coughing like I was going to lose a lung and I stopped for several months, until my friend Andy in Boston found a dealer with clean Mexican marijuana.

Ann doesn't smoke at all.

Me I like it all.

Hash, tar resin, kif, and opium the ket to dreams and an addiction to escape from this world. Reality is a problem for me. I can't stop the fascist corporate rape of the world. Not by myself.

Only in dreams do I win the battles.

April 27, 1978

I went all the way up to EST in Times Square. Ann had called to say that her pregnancy test had come out negative. For the last two weeks Ive been finishing in her, because I thought she was pregnant, but I must be sterile from eating too many Twinkies watching Tv high on LSD during the early part of this decade. Sterility was the price I paid for that binge, but at least I can get an erection.

Arriving at the theater I asked the other college students where Ann was.The assholes had no idea.

They said ti as if they were hiding her.

Paranoia is a another lasting effect of Acid.

LATER

I waited for Ann. She was happy to see me. I thought her very beautiful in a jean jacket and her brownish hair flicked with blonde from the Spring sun.

Afterwards I visited Tim Dunleavy. He said nothing about me stealing money and I wondered if Anthony had been telling me a lie, since he still suspects of stealing his money. He has taken lengths to distort who I am to my friends.

Fuck him.

But I don't have many friends here.

Willem asked, "Who are your friends in New York?"

I took my time answering and Willem said, "If you have to take that long, you don't have any friends."

"Someone once said if you have one friend, you're lucky. If you have two friends, you're blessed, and if you have three friends, you're a liar."

"And what about no friends?"

"You're lonely, but I have plenty of women friends here. My father's only friend is my mother. Funny, they had six kids and I've never heard them making love. They must have been doing it quietly. I didn't know anything about sex as a kid. When someone informed me about the physical act, I said to them, "My parents wouldn't do that."

"I guess you were wrong at least six times."

"I guess I was."

Ann makes only a little noise and I suspect I grunt like a caveman.

Not nice.

I'll try and work on sounding more human.

April 26, 1978

Last night I went to a jungle-themed ball at Le Clique ball. The gay disco was packed with Tarzan fire-eaters, mime artists, Me Jane dykes, queers dressed as zebras and giraffes, transvestite strippers with silicon tits dressed in animal skins, straights in suits and leather freaks led by a naked Marc Stevens and a lady friend covered with gold paint to their very assholes.

"So glad you came." Marc hugged me with wild eyes and flittered into the crowd. He left a metallic stain on my jacket like he had the Midas touch. Kim Davis, his neighbor, was my dance partner and we danced the swim swigging tequila. A drag queen grabbed the bottle and gulped down the better part of the last half. I almost punched her arm, but Shannon had great legs and we danced face to face. She could easily pass for a woman.

"Come with me."

I refused.

This was not a night to be with drags of fag hags. A gay boy in a loin cloth stuck a 'lude in my mouth. I chased it down with the last of the tequila. It had no effect and I said to Kim, "Let's go to CBGBs."

We took a taxi there and as soon as I entered the bar, the 'lude hit. I was barely able to stand and Kim planted me in a chair.

Damn, my generation does drugs and does them all the time; coke, heroin,MDA, downers, speed, anything we can get our hands on.

Kim handed me a beer.

Xcessive, Clay, Karen, and Greg were the only people I knew at CBs. I staggered from the bar. I stopped at a phone booth in Washington Square and phoned Ann.

"Can I come over?"

"I'm asleep."

"Say something to me." I was blown away by the emptiness of the evening. No one was on the street. It was 1 AM. I was glad not to be on a bridge. I have a problem with them in this condition.

"I love you."

"I love you too." I hung up soothed by her words and swore to get a real job. Ann might be pregnant. She would make a good wife, but my fears rose up; divorce, getting fired from work, get old.

Not a pretty story."

I made it to the SRO hotel and crashed and in my shabby room's worn bed without taking off my clothes.

TKO.

Transvestites are hard to recognize, especially one as beautiful as Shannon. She looks like a Vogue model. The first ones I met were at the Other Side in Boston. One named Gerry was gorgeous, but I'm not into them sexually and I once asked Gerry, if she had a penis.

"I'm proud to be a man."

LATER

This morning I called Ann at EST and a young girl told me, "She didn't come in today."

"Shit," I say to myself. "Where is she?"

I phoned her apartment and no one answered thought she might have gone to get an abortion.

I went outside and saw a handsome young man with two children on 5th Avenue. He wore his out-dated hat and his thread bare blazer with elegance and I imagined him to be a mirror of my future.

Ann is the only woman I want in a city of millions.

I'll call her at and ask if she wants to see COPS, a theater piece starring Willem. The blonde actor is a good man. I'm not. I don't fight fair. Just a bastard without a real room or phone or job.

My mother would hate to see me this morning.

Shattered.

No she wouldn't.

She loves me always.

LATER

Death house on a barren isle no one come here to turn around tricks a life's path ends As a last gasp the surrender of will to the final goal life's negative eternity the square root of all zeros death house, no one goes forever I come there senseless I leave the same way.

It's 7 PM.

I want to see Ann.

I've waited all day.

Sickened by love.

I'll call her now.

April 25, 1978

This morning I lay in bed, shell-shocked from sleep every twenty minutes by the thought I will be late for work at the executive dining room. Ann woke and dressed for her day at EST and lent me money to pay rent on my SRO room. A guilt-ridden gift I accepted with gratitude. Why can't I make money?

She left the room and I looked at the clock.

I fell back asleep for another hour and then headed downtown to Wall Street, where I had a starchy breakfast with Faro overlooking the harbor from the 37th floor.

"Flacco, eat more. You thin like chicken."

"I hate this food."

"It's free and it's what the ricos eat and they are all gordo."

"Fat?"

"You not so stupido. Time to work."

We served the corporate execs canned fruit cocktails, fatty meat, and desserts. They are so devoid of humanity and look like they are living in the wrong body, even the young preppy go-getters, but none of them are really young.

In this dining room 35 is young.

I'm only 26, but these fatso are successful.

Not me.

I met Ann for a late lunch. I held her hand. I told her I was scared. She kissed me and said, "Don't worry."

Several seconds later a bum came up to us holding a bottle of Thunderbird Wine in his hand and said, "You young people look good together. Don't leave each other. I did and look what happened to me."

Ann and I looked at each other. Our glances accused the other of wanting to end it. The future is uncertain other than Ann's graduation from college.

The wino pointed at Ann and slurred, "You know this man of yours is in trouble. Stand by him. Don't let him sink, even if he deserves to fall. You could be with a million people, but for right now this man is the one you should be with."

"I should hired you as my PR man."

"Shut up, I ain't talking to you."

"I was sitting drinking my 'bird and saw you kiss. I don't mean to be personal, but you two look good together. Probably too good to stay together, but for now stand by your man and you stand by your woman..

He walked away without asking for money or food or wine. Sitting on a bench to drink away the memories of who he was forever.

I let go Ann's hand.

Funny how people lose the people they love and for what?

I can't define love, but I can say what being with Ann is.

She will do everything I will do, a good companion for someone so alone in a city of millions.

LATER

Light blocks out the dance of shadows But I still see globs of swirling rays Angels Forever a companion to darkness

LATER

Marc Stevens invited me to a disco function. I said yes not having been to a good disco since I became a punk.

"I have no money."

"And you think I do. We get in because we are who we are."

"I know who you are, but who am I?"

"Peter the Thief of Hearts. You'll find out soon enough."

We dropped LSD and at the disco everyone became a hallucination of zombies. Marc asked, "Are you getting off?"

"I'm having trouble staying down."

He was naked and shimmering in silver flakes.

His long penis hung down his thigh.

"You want to touch it?"

"I don't like snakes." I saw fangs and Marc laughed like the devil in the Garden of Eden.

I ran out of the disco into the night.

It was raining and walked back to my SRO room.

Alone.

Alone in my room.

Alone in my bed.

I came to New York knowing three people.

Ro.

She left for Paris hours before my arrival from Boston in a stolen car.

James Spicer.

He stole my unemployment checks.

Michael.

No one had seen the hustler since he left for Miami.

After fifteen months in New York I have no penthouse, no servants, no limo. No coke. No credit card.

I am living in a big closet.

But I do have Ann.

LATER

Ann was in a crazy play at St. Marks-On-The Bowery with Jackie 'Drag' Curtis, and Amos Poe. Ann played a Jayne Mansfield reincarnation. She wasn't confident on stage speaking, since the play was driven by absurd transvestite humor and Tom Scully the writer was really really straight. He wrote himself into the play as a murdered poet raped by Ann.

I wondered if he got an erection.

The after-party featured a live band staring at a woman wearing a moth-eaten dress.

Before leaving I went to the bathroom.

Sabrina passed me and I pinched her ass. She followed me upstairs close. I felt the heat from her thighs.

I pushed her away and went home alone.

More than ever.

April 24, 1978

I woke this morning with nothing in my stomach and a foul taste in my mouth. Ann lay asleep, warm and naked. I was in no condition to attempt sex. I showered quickly and left for work. Damn, why don't our times coincide. "Liberty without justice is shit,"Said Faro, the head waiter at the executive dining room, as we set up the tables for lunch. The Hudson lays 26th stories beneath us, a dirty blue stream beyond the urban tumble. Across the river lays New Jersey. I never go there and reply to Faro, "There is no justice in this world.

"Or the next."

"You have that right."

I hear from none of my uptown friends and if it weren't for the photo-serial I started with Anthony, I wouldn't speak with him either for having suggested that I robbed them and saying, "You better not come around here no more.

Fuck those assholes."

LATER

The spring atmosphere on Rector Street clears my head; the hedges are budding, which is the only green within blocks. I look at the other men in their suits. I could have been one of them by deciding to stay with the North Shore job at Ventron Corporation; business suit, sharp haircuts, fading tans from winter vacations, instead I wanted to become an underground star, except Warhol and Lou Reed transformed the revolution of the 60s into a mass appeal to the masses. Warhol's last piece was a pickle jar filled with $1 million of gems. When asked why by a reporter, he cleverly answered, "Because they wouldn't fit in a ketchup bottle."

I get the feeling that this art jester doesn't perform for himself, but the amusement of the elite, especially after the shooting in the 60s. I remember the headlines WARHOL SHOT.

The six-shooter mentality of America has interrupted the flow of time, "JFK, RFK, Martin Luther Ling, Malcolm X. George Lincoln Rockwell, Larry Flynnt and the students at Kent State and Jackson State accompanied by failed assassination attempts on Fred Hampton, Gerald Ford, and Lenny Bruce. Each of these violent acts has taught Americans the philosophy of the gun determining how the future will be shaped by bullets.

"Gun don't kill people. Bullets kill people," said one gun proponent.

Bullshit.

Bullets is how LBJ became president

Nixon benefited from RFK's death in 1968.

Slags of lead sculpting this country from the New Frontier into the Great Society to the Silent Majority scared on crime and its own shadow. It's easier to kill your rival than run against him. An entire generation has been crushed by the Vietnam War and drugs. They changed history.

I still smoke pot and drink.

I forget the woes of this world.

Sleep the sleep of the dead.

My writing is threatened by my drinking. I am my main problem. What am I waiting for? Inspiration? These journals are only an insurance policy for the future. Fifty years from now I will re-read them and say the same thing as now. I suck.

LATER

This windowless building on Church street belongs to AT&T. Its center is hollow to protect it from the devastation of an atomic bomb. The corporations are ready for anything. Their consumers none. We might get wiped out by the nuclear exhnage, but for the corporations there will always be trade with the aliens.

April 23, 1978

Lolita on the subway Old men stare They squeeze her flesh with their imagination She is fourteen, ripe, and white. She stares my way, hardening my blood Her brown devil eyes describe speechless acts Nights surrounded by masturbating men And her saying, "I'm a virgin. Do you want to watch." No one refuses the offer of those lost lips. She get off at Union Square.

I played hoops at West 4th Street for the first time since the fall. My shooting was one-for-eight. My defense was still tight. I rebound and pass to the guards. They never return the ball. In New York if you have the ball in your hands, you shoot, so you have to ready to catch a pass and release it within a second. My shooting sucked. No trajectory. No spin. No basket.

This weekend Ann was in a good mood. We went to the Erasers sock-hop. And I thought we were finished. I can't remember why, but we felt safe in each other's arms. A security no words can describe. We no longer fight for time together and sex is no so urgent.

Ich bin sehr hoch.

Four years of German and I can read what I write

DARE THEY NOT TO SEEK HIDDEN, THE SEARCH FOR TREASURE.

The drunk at Ensemble Studio Theater was rough, but at least I didn't puke in public. Red wine, cheap red wine, makes me retch and outside on the street I tossed everything out of my stomach. My nausea can not be cured by water. Only a long sleep.

West Side Highway

The City was in Ruins.

No one wanted to be here.

April 13, 1978

This is the first entry in a new journal. I won't be concerned with the past. It was covered by other journals. I've wanted to stop writing.

I can't. Not The Rockettes.

I'll never go out with one of them.

@ Blimpie's on 6th Avenue

I feel alone after a night on MDA.

Even though puffy white clouds defile a blue sjy.

A LITTLE LATER @ Dojo's Restaurant on St. Mark's.

My body is played out from mediocre debauchery.

I feel little reason to write.

No one cares, especially not me. She agreed. Her apathy toward me increases with each day she devotes to the theater.

I am lost. Mark Amitin, the producer of ALBEE DIRECTS ALBEE, ran into me on 23rd Street and said, "That look." Leather and platform shoes.

"You are a white nigger."

I don't feel like one.

In fact I don't feel like anything after rereading this shit, but people view me differently than other people. I hold no real job. I don't know where my next money is coming from. I never pay taxes. I knocked on my college loan and stole a car to come to New York.

I'm white and while it might be a disguise, my skin color is a strong refuge from the Law, which is why the jails and prisons are packed with blacks. A white boy will be questioned by the cops. A black boy will be thrown in jail.

If he's lucky.

None will be as lucky as me.

I'm white.

SCREAMING RUN THE MAN DOWN THE TILED TUNNEL FAST NO ONE HEARS NO ONE SEES HIS SCREAMS HAVE NO MEANING HE IS ALONE RUNNING THROUGH THE TUNNEL'S ECHOES.

MUCH LATER

New Yorkers are returning from Florida with lizard tans. My skin is winter white. Escape is available, but not desired. New York offers more than the rest of the cities in the USA, but people here keep asking, "What are you doing this summer?"

I have no plans.

West Coast or Europe.

People I know talk about those destinations.

No one is going to Cleveland.

A city is the throes of urban decay blanketed by a chemo-metallic smog.

I'm not going there too.

LATER @ 3RD AND 54TH

The Upper East Side is where the money is in New York.

The home of fat cats, art, high-end boutiques, and museums. Our honesty is questionable, but I am exaggerating for a good story and not profit.

Doesn't make me any better.

Only different.

Testing gullibility.

Even my own.

Really?

I will say anything for shock treatment with a total disregard to consequences.

And if people don't respond react in any way at your disposal.

Do anything

The right stimuli will get the right response.

The wrong might get the wrong.

Who knows?

But I don't understand why I don't work.

I am on the last legs of my unemployment checks from teaching at South Boston High School.

Drinking a cold beer on Spring Street.

Fuck 2016

To hear FUCK YOU 2016 by John Oliver and his , please go to this URL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ6WPo-oW5Q

April 15, 1977

Last night Ann and I saw three one-act plays, which were all pieces of shit.

Ann was mad at me, because I had little good to say about the plays, whose themes were abortion, pregnancy, and bag ladies.

Later we visited the Davis sisters on Bleecker Street. It was Kyle's birthday. The sophomore got sick from drinking too much. I went home with Ann and in bed she said, "I've been thinking about your ultimatum."

She explained that she needed people around her from the theater and while I might satisfy her physical needs, my antipathy towards theater disturbs her. I said nothing, but decided to chill out on my views and help her however I can.

I slept in my jeans and tee-shirt.

Ann wore a night gown.

A sheet and our states of mind separated us.

I made no attempt to bridge the gap, but woke in the middle of the night, asking myself, "Why am I such an asshole?"

I couldn't only come up with the answer that I'm scared that Ann is lost to me. She seeks her freedom, which shouldn't be stifled. I returned to sleep.

Glad Ann is happy with her new life.

My feelings mean nothing.

someone wrote these words.

April 21, 1978

Last night Richard Hell played at CBGBs and his performance was less than extraordinary. I had to sneak by the doorperson Roxy to get in for free. Lisa the cashier waved me inside. The club was packed with assholes drawn there by good press or the Voidoids. Xcessive from the Ghosts kept shouting, "Richard is a forkhead."

His numerous female friends yelled back at him.

His lead singer Markey joined in and we all had a good laugh.

This morning I am running late to make my job at Rector Street.

I'm always late.

I couldn't care less.

This waiting tables for nuclear engineering executives is meangingless, especially since it pays so little.

$80 a week.

I need money fast.

More money than I can get selling blood.

Ann wasn't home when I called this morning.

Her theater gig is eating up her time.

11am to midnight.

She isn't getting paid.

I've seen a number of films about the theater.

The boyfriends and husbands wait at home.

The actresses stay out all night pretending that art is life.

I say nothing about this, because Ann is in her glory.

LATER

At work I heard another conversation about shoot-to-kill policies at the nuclear power plants in foreign countries and wondered whether the ones in the USA had the same orders in defending the plants against protestors. They never speak about atomic bombs, even though they think I'm Spanish like the rest of the waiting staff.

Our country should change its Cold War attack strategy. The USSR is huge, spanning two continents. It's factory cities are scattered over its vastness. Any attack on the Soviet industrial capacity would have to be intense.

So where to strike.

The farmlands of the Ukraine, the steppes.

Carpet nuke their underbelly.

The factory cities will starve, but the price for the USA would certainly be the loss of Detroit and Newe York. This afternoon I ran into Klaus. The gaunt German opera singer said, "I have no emotion."

His mother's ill-timed vist from Essen has shocked him into a state of apathy.

"I don't care in the USSR and the USA bomb each other. Or even if I am here. I grew up in a bombed out city. Ruins everywhere."

Like the East Village?"

Worst. You want to come over to my apartment and have some strudel."

Klaus has been cooking cakes since quitting Serendipity 3. I appreciate his generosity and said, "I love your strudel."

"I know you do." Klaus is very German, but he fights his teutonic traits in New York. I bet they would be very strong in Essen or Berlin. Klaus doesn't drink anymore. He has been sickly as of late and eats a special diet to regain his health.

"I hate feeling tired all the time. And more I hate watching American TV. Such schiesse."

April 20, 1978

This morning Ann woke up retching without vomiting.

Ann has missed her period and her breasts are large.

She could be pregnant.

I have no money, but she has the $175 for an abortion at Planned Parenthood.

I would love to have a baby, but it's not my choice.

She is more beautiful than ever and I told her, "I love you."

She said the same thing, but we are not in a good state.

She is independent of me.

I can only be a burden for her.

I have $1 in my pocket.

When we met I was collecting unemployment for teaching at South Boston High School.

That's been over for three months.

A drifter, but I'm working at 26th floor of Ebasco Corp. on Rector Street.

Not as an executive, although I graduated from college with a degree in economics.

A waiter.

Only a little better than being a busboy at Serendipity 3.

The execs are engineers working on a nuclear plant in the 3rd World.

I eavesdrop on their conversation.

They think I'm Spanish like the rest of the crew.

Machine guns protect the plant.

The guards have shoot to kill orders.

I say nothing.

After my three-hour shift I walked out of the building and stroll down to Battery Park. A spring fog veils the harbor. I sit on a bench and read the paper. The Red Brigade kidnapped Aldo Moro, the former PM. Revolution has been stamped out in the USA. The fog melts from the sea.

LATER

Yellow faces glow with menace Dull steel menace with glow War rules everywhere And I'm here in New York.... No gun No cannons Only a knife To take blood Why am I here.

LATER

Last night Johnny Blitz of the Dead Boys was stabbed in the East Village coming from CBGBs.

He was stabbed 17 times in the body. Fighting is stupid, especially with weapons. I haven't fought in a long time, not counting my choking incident with Guadalcanal who now is a good friend. The East Village is rough, but the outskirts of the city are worst.

The Bronx.

Brooklyn.

Decay and desolation.

But not Queens, although the Son of Sam hit that borough hard.

Roz lent me $10. I'm waiting for my tax refund. I still need $31.80 for my weekly rent at the SRO. Why am I so broke.

Four in the morning Johnny lay bleeding On the street A Cleveland boy in New York Red spills from seventeen holes Someone will call Johnny's mother He won't be home soon He might be dead. Sirens sound in the distance. They are getting closer THey are coming for him He sees it all with his eyes closed All but the last minutes When Johnny runs out of film

Ann isn't feeling well. A bad sign which would have made Henry VIII happy about having an heir. We haven't spoken about having a baby. She wants a career. Babies are not good for those. An abortion seems in the works. No one in my generation has had a baby. I want one, but we are sterile because of our goals.

FIGHTING FOR WHAT by Peter Nolan Smith

Everything happened quick in CBGB's subterranean toilets. The release of body waste was rivaled by magic-markering a band’s name atop the thousands of previous honorees in the toilet’s hall of fame and while the inhalation of cocaine or heroin in the stalls was more popular than shooting up dope or speedballs, sex within the battered stalls was a cherished memory for anyone who could remember the moment.

The ladies room was only a little cleaner than the men's room , reflecting Hilly’s belief in sexual equality, for the club’s owner thought that his clientele deserved nothing worst than the very worst and that basement’s grungy atmosphere suit us just fine.

After all we were punks.

One night in 1977 I was at the bar. The Cramps were on stage.

A red-haired girl in torn fishnet stocking and black plastic mini-dress ordered a JD and coke. She wasn’t wearing a bra over her billowy 38C breasts. Her wind-tousled hair and tear-ruined mascara betrayed her broken heart, but tragedy was a temporary fix in CBGBs.

She was no ballerina, but moved to the beat of HUMAN FLY with a seductive ease.

After a minute she asked, “What are you looking at?”

“Not what. Who.” I stared her in the eyes.

“And who are you?” Her trampish voice slurried with a slur of ‘ludes.

I told her, “No one.”

“I love no ones. They never stayed around to make trouble.”

“And other people do?”

“Not other people. Other men.” The redhead looked over her shoulder. “But not tonight.”

Our dialogue was heading in one direction and after two minutes she downed her drink.

“Let’s go to the Ladies Room.”

“Ladies room?” .

“Yes, I hate the men’s room. It's so squalid."

"Okay." I signaled to BG behind the bar to watch my beer.

"Good." She grabbed my hand and pulled me through the crowd.

Luxe was singing SURFING BIRD. The voluptuous redhead waved to the ash-skinned bass player. He gave a sardonic grimace to indicate that he had been there before.
As we passed the dressing room, the opening band called out her name.

“Brenda.”

The redhead was popular with musicians.

We descended to the basement and the redhead led me into the ladies room. She pushed open the door to a stall and locked it shut.

“Don’t let anyone in.” She dropped to her knees with the grace of a ballerina auditioning for SWAN LAKE.

I was single, 25, and a punk.

We lived for sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

The upcoming scene answered the sex part of the equation. Brenda was no angel, but a guide to earthly paradise.

After a minute on her knees she pulled down her dress.

“When you’re ready, cum on these.”

"Okay."

I was good at following orders.

A man stormed into the bathroom and pounded on the stall’s door.

“Brenda, you in there?”

Only a boyfriend sounded that angry.

Brenda lifted a fingernail to her lips and stood to pull up her dress.

“Another time.”

Heaven was not to be mine this evening.

“When?”

“Not tonight.”

She kissed me and opened the door.

The man was my size and wearing a leather jacket and engineer boots. His eyes narrowed with fury.

“Brenda.”

She laughed in his face.

“Calm down, Guadalcanal.”
“But___”

“We were only doing drugs.” She held up a packet of cocaine.

He wasn’t buying her lie and turned to me.

“Brenda’s my girlfriend.”

Something about sex in a bathroom brought out my cockiness and I said, “Then that means you’re next.”

I thought that the remark was funny and returned to the bar. The Cramps had finished their set. The bass player winked at me. BG asked if I had a good time.

“Good enough.” Another two minutes would have changed my answer.

A hand tapped my right shoulder.

The gesture was a classic lead-in to a sucker punch. Scrappers from South Boston loved to jap the unaware, but I had been to that school.

I ducked and a fist swung over my head.

It was the boyfriend.

I was too close for a counter-punch, so my hands reached out to clutch his throat. He responded with the same tactic. Within seconds we were choking each other to death. I couldn’t breathe. He was in the same boat.

Out of the corner of my eye I spotted Brenda exiting with the drummer of the opening band. Her boyfriend noticed her exit as well.

“Brenda,” he croaked from my death grip.

“Beer,” I warbled to call for a truce and release his throat.

“You had enough?” He leaned on the bar regaining his breath.

“Sure.” I signaled BeeGee for two beers. Brenda was gone and and out fighting was a thing of the past, so we drank till closing, after which the waitress play JOLEEN on the jukebox. It was a good song with which to end the night.

After that night Guadalcanal and I became friends. We never mentioned Brenda. She became a cabaret singer with too much style to visit the bathroom with men, but at one time she wasn’t bad enough.

Guadalcanal and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Like I said.

We were punks.

ps I'm still friends with Guadacanal

April 18, 1978 - Journal Entry - East Village

A crazed full moon night at CBGBs with the Misfits on stage.

Ann drank herself senseless.

My memory was missing holes, but I recalled her flirting with several punk rockers.

I didn't care, since I fucked the redhead from NEON WOMEN in the ladies bathroom.

Even her pubic hairs were red.

Someone kept knocking on the door.

I finally finished and opened the door.

A rocker was outside and said, "That's my girlfriend."

"Then I guess you're next."

Upstairs he confronted me and I told him, "Fuck off."

He started to strangle me. I throttled him back. Neither of us could breath, but we stopped upon catching the redhead going downstairs with another man. Our grips loosened and he asked, "You want a drink?"

"Yes," I coughed and we were great friends for the night.

Ann left with Kim and Anthony.

I went home to my SRO room alone.

The next morning Ann called to say, "I don't remember anything from last night. What happened?"

"I don't remember either."

I still had $3 of the $4 from the other day.

I never pay for drinks at CBs.

LATER

Anthony called and said, "I'm glad you called. There's $30 missing from my stash. Did you take it?"

"I wasn't at your house last night." He lived on East 60th Street.

"I remember you being there."

"You remember wrong." I never black-out.

"Are you sure you didn't take it?"

"I checked my pockets. All I have is $3."

It took me a half-hour to convince Anthony I didn't take his money and even longer to persuade him that I hadn't been at his apartment, but I discovered that Tim Dunleavey who lived with Anthony had been saying that I had been taking money from them for months.

"I never thought you would steal from me."

"Fuck you."

"Okay, I believe you, but it's probably better that you don't come around here for a while.

Fuck you all." These people think I'm a petty thief.

A car thief on several occasions when I got rid of gas-guzzlers for friends in Boston, but that's Grand Theft Auto.

At least Ann stuck by me or said nothing about it.

Fuck Anthony, Tim, and Alla.

I hope they all fall into a garbage dumpster.

LATER

I was hired to work as a waiter in an executive dining room on Wall Street.

$80 a week plus meals.

My room is $40/week.

I drink for nothing at CBGBs

Pizza is only a dollar.

It won't be easy, but I can live.

After my lunch shift I sat by the harbor.

I don't know anyone down here, but it felt good to be by the sea.

My family came from the coast of New England and the ocean calls to me the way the ocean called Joseph Conrad. I would love to ship out from here and be surrounded by 360 degrees of blue horizon, but I've only been out of sight of land once on a ferry ride to Nantucket.

Whales and dolphins following the wake.

LATER

In Soho A blind man curbed his dog and I wondered if seeing-eye dogs shit in Braille.

I had never seen one shit before.

During a drunken stupor I concluded that seeing-eye dogs were robot-dogs designed by a Pentagon scientist guilty about his developing death rays, but that also that the dog shit was plutonium waste dropped to kill the people of the inner city.

Dog shit is between every parked car in Manhattan.

No one can read the smears on the pavement.

Not even the blind.

I call it the 'Dog-Shit Epidemic'.

LATER

I knew a girl who was an asshole Her brother was an asshole too. Their father was a millionaire. His money came from artificial limbs. Vietnam made them very wealthy But even with all their money, cars, and fancy apartments They remained assholes, Because there is no cure for being an asshole.

My mother used to take us into Boston on shopping trips.

We parked behind Jordan Marsh.

On the side street as a shop selling prosthetic limbs.

A sign hung over the door ARTIFICIAL LIMBS.

The place scared the shit out of me, since at the age of four I had read a Maryknoll missionary magazine about the Church donating artificial limbs to children in the Orient. I still dream about a white doctor strapping tin legs onto a young boy.

The horror.

April 17, 1978 - The Silhouette Of My Head

The light come from behind me in my SRO room on West 11th Street.

April 17, 1977

Bruce talked to a void, voicing his opinions about famous people without making mentioning names. He has obviously met stars, but being a no one I'm unimpressed with his connections, especially since his name-dropping are mostly gossip/

Man is a true asshole.

My friends female and male are futilely beating out their brains to be famous or rich or both.

"I'm gonna be...."

The choices of how to achieve their goals are phenomenal.

LATER

I'm broke.

I called my mother, who said, "Inflation has caught up to us too."

I need to find a job tomorrow or else I'll be dancing at the Gaiety Go-Go Bar and selling my blood as well as my flesh.

I only have $4.

To get up town I jump the subway turnstile.

At the Ensemble Studio outside of Times Square I sit next to a pair of nuns out of their habits.

Maybe they aren't nuns, but there are clean.

Clean like they've never sinned and having spent six years at St. Mary's of the Hills outside of Boston I can smell a nun from a distance even without their drag.

I wore a uniform of white shirt, blue tie, and midnight blue trousers from 3rd to 8th grades.

My pants were patched at the knees.

Now my jeans give out in the crotch and the cuffs are ragged.

The chances of my wardrobe improving are nil, as my workless days repeated one after the other.

The two nuns talked about God before the rise of the curtain.

They look at me, as if I might be a believer.

I say nothing, hoping to disguise my past under a flutter of facades until my life in Hingham, Falmouth Foresides, Boston, and New York vanish, as if I was a Bowery Bum.

A forgotten man with twenty-five years of bullshit behind me.

I wish I could leave the theater and head out to the Lincoln Tunnel. I'd stick out my thumb and head West, until I reach the Pacific Ocean. I would strip naked and swim into the depths with the tide.

It's supposed to be a nice way to go.