The Losers' Club: Complete Restored Edition! by Richard Perez -- FREE Preview!

The Losers’ Club:
Complete Restored Edition by Richard Perez
copyright © 2005— all rights reserved

Novel excerpt—page 41
“Up St. Marks Place”

The author, Richard Perez

59.

On the corner of 6th Street, ragamuffin skate punks congregated, soliciting funds, while up the block, a high-spirited gal with neon-green hair and yellow day-glo lipstick hawked issues of a revived journal entitled, Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts.

“Fuck you, sir?” she cried to impassive pedestrians. “Ma’am?—Fuck you?”

“What’s next on the agenda?” she asked. They’d just come out from yet another nondescript local dive.

“Dancing,” she grinned, reaching for his hand. “That’s something we haven’t done in a short while.”

Holding hands, tipping right on Avenue A, Martin and Nikki rolled past the raised gate of the Pyramid Club, past the slouching street vendors displaying their usual wares of tattered books, clothes, incense and scented oils. Reaching Alcatraz (a head-bangers bar) and the crowded corner of St. Marks Place, they swung left. “We going where I think we’re going?” Nikki asked. “Mind?” Nikki rocking hard against him, eyes narrowed in mock intensity: “Oh I mind, buddy.—I mind .…”

Up St. Marks Place, across the cracked and uneven pavement, Martin and Nikki eyed the joint with the bright yellow and blue awning—their favorite drag bar/restaurant—Stingy Lulu’s, where in the past, they’d met to share meals and lost time together.

Up they went, passing the many places they’d hung out in together: intimate Anseo’s, folky Café Sin-e. Onwards past the dark doorways and boarded storefronts windows brightened with overlaid posters and flyers. Slack West Indie merchants softly chanting: “Smoke, smoke.” “Sinse, sin-semilla.” “S’up, mon—you don’t have to buy it, just look-at-it.” Voices that were usually annoying but somehow not tonight. Across the way was Moroccan Café Mogador and the open-all-hours Yaffa Café. On their left, they passed the basement St. Marks Studio Theatre, the sidewalk billboard banked with fluttering tiny yellow flyers, declaring tonight’s program: Cannibal Cheerleaders on Crack!

Martin couldn’t recall the last time he felt this good. Was it the booze? the neighborhood? the weather? Nah, he thought, tightly holding Nikki’s hand, clutching her hand as if hanging on for dear life .…

Crossing the street, forward up St. Marks, they passed Theatre 80, treading over the worn cement foot-and-handprints of old actresses: Joan Crawford, Joan Blondell, Gloria Swanson, et al. (When they first met, it was a grind house, showing scratchy, often hilariously ruined “Old Hollywood” prints—double features.) Across the street was the casually dilapidated Holiday Cocktail Lounge where afterwards they’d go for drinks, Serge Gainsbourg a favorite jukebox pick.

Nikki brought up that morning’s telephone conversation with her mom. “We’re finally getting there, I think. To that place of tolerance and mutual respect.” She faced Martin, eyes widening: “Oh, did I tell you. She’s thinking of getting hitched, again?—Número cinco, can ya believe it?” “Damn,” Martin said, trying to wrap his mind around that thought. Nikki laughed. “Marriage number five! And she still wants to rush it!” They walked past the iron-wrought gates of the old Club 57—once a vital part of the East Village art scene—now, ironically, a mental health institute.

“Checked him out?” Martin asked. Nikki said, “No, not yet. She wants me down there, though. To meet him. In Miami.” They swept by several cheerless street vendors, whose wares—displayed on ratty blankets—were being impounded by the police, until at last arriving on the busy corner of 2nd.

“So what,” Martin said, “you’d be like, the maid of honor at their wedding?” “Hell no,” laughed Nikki. “I’m not that far gone. I’ll be there, at the reception, sure. But only as a guest. To show my support.” Martin said, “Gotcha.’” Nikki joked: “This one should last all of three weeks!” They lingered at the light, watching yellow cabs zoom by, bumping and pounding over potholes and heavy iron plates. At this point, looking ahead, the street took on a carnival-like atmosphere, heightened by lights and a palpable nervous energy. Swarms of people moved in all directions, seemingly to no end; the noise level increasing, too, mostly with the din of traffic: screeching brakes, sirens, bleating car horns, thumping woofers of pimped car stereos: chuga-boom! chuga-boom!, boom!-boom!-boom!, chuga-boom! …

All around night-trippers laughing, shrieking, arguing. Languages intermingling: English, Spanish, French, Chi-nese, Arabic.…

“Will you take me along?” Martin asked. “Where?” asked Nikki. “Y’know,” he said. “To Miami.”

He had never met her mom or anyone from her family actually, just as she had never met any relatives of his. It seemed strange: this rootlessness, this disconnectedness and pervasive lack of attachment. As if, at any moment, either of them could just blow away, like spores of a late season dandelion, float off and vanish without a trace. In New York City, this happened every day. It made him suddenly feel melancholy.

She leaned closer, holding his gaze, as if trying to confirm the truth of this statement.

Crossing 2nd Avenue, pushing ahead through sidewalk traffic, they took in a dazed soul handing out psychedelic flyers, the corner Gem Spa Newsstand, and then crammed tourist stalls and brightly-lit souvenir shops.

On stoops or lolling on the sidewalk were the occasional congregations of retro-punks, existing almost as postcard images, most in leather jackets embellished with chains, metal studs, and Wite-out, or dressed in layered clothes visibly torn and held together with safety pins; some wore the perfect “hedge-hog” or Statue of Liberty cut, or the neatly ironed spectrum-colored Mohawk; others, less fashionable, wore their sheared and dyed scalps cut along the sides with giraffe and leopard skin markings. These retro-punks stood idly shooting the shit and now and then posing sourly and cadging for “y’know, man … like change?”

Along the way, Martin and Nikki discussed how things down this block used to be: “A drug center, I swear. That’s all it was. And not all these stalls and crap.” He squinted at the shops. “Things have sure changed a lot since.”

“Booksellers!” railed Nikki. “Imagine that. These days you couldn’t even peddle your own poetry books! It’s against the law!”

It was the sad truth: a case of shifting priorities, civil apathy, and denial of cultural history in the Village.

“’Rights,’” she said, smirking. “Uh-huh. They went with the constitution.”

In the middle of the block was the Community Center, once home of The Dom, a famous bar and dance hall, then site of Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable. Now a drug treatment center.

Crossing the street—threading through advancing strangers, swirling shadows—Martin and Nikki finally stepped up to a plain, unmarked steel door. Martin pulled at it—it gave—and they slipped inside and up the long flight of stairs illuminated by blue tube light. Paying the cover, they advanced to the second floor of a space for years known as “BB’s” or Boy’s Bar, tonight hosting the bi-weekly glam revival party dubbed “Blackdoor NYC.”

No sooner did they set foot inside the place, than Martin offered, “Buy ya another?”

Batting her eyelashes, tipping her head demurely, like a cartoon southern belle. “Why, sir,” she drawled. “I hardly know ye’.”

“Ahhh, why not,” she yielded. And, together, they swag-gered across the murky, scarcely crowded room, a T-Rex ballad warbling over the PA.

Finally at the bar, she turned to him. “Let me get it, this time. You grab us a spot?”

“I can deal.” And, grinning, Martin swung back across the room, finding a small table by the entrance, where he took a seat against the mirrored wall.

At first glance, the joint resembled any other East Village bar, painted black and illuminated by hazy light. There was an old pool table off to one side, several TV monitors (projecting arcane commercials), and along the walls more mismatched tables and chairs.

What made the place visually exciting, though, was not the room itself or the minimal décor, but the people who would eventually come to occupy it—the fetishistic, oddly-obsessed and slightly-off-kilter revelers—who would put in an appearance on this night and give it an almost delirious, magical air.

All types showed up, and as Nikki brought up the Red Stripes, she and Martin watched them arrive:

There were rockabilly boys with pompadours and elephant trunk haircuts, short-cuffed vintage clothes, leather and suede creepers. And there were the out-of-wack sixties revivalists and Edie Sedgewick cultists: those with Twiggy-like short hair, false eyelashes, green and blue eye shadow; neo-mod girls sporting the “Cleopatra look” in micro-mini skirts and Op Art go-go boots.

Sixties revivalists also included nuevo-hippies, un-washed art degenerates mostly, wearing the occasional Afghan jacket and other yippy paraphernalia: fruit-colored granny glasses, top hats, and love beads. The occasional high-rise afro wig even made an appearance: as did the sporadic Barbarella-like leather or PVC outfit.

The retro-futurist eighties could be seen: doomsday ethos crossed with gloss punk, Blade Runner-inspired artifice fused with Liquid Sky geometric face paints. Heavy Metal studded wristbands, plastic style, and exploding hair.

But most notably represented and re-interpreted, taking center stage, nearly radioactive in the spot light, was the era of “glam rock.” Ambi-sexuality. Lip liner for men. Glitter eye shadow and blush. Camp projections. There were those glammers—heroin-thin diamond dogs—who vamped around in muddy eye make-up, wearing variations of spandex jumpsuits or flashy rock ’n’ roll wear. There were razor cuts: the ever-present tousled rooster or long disheveled shag, like images culled from long-forgotten issues of Creem magazine. “Glam” style was glittery “show-biz” crossed with a jungle-print trash esthetic: a reveling in the underbelly of sleazy seventies club culture, vaguely illicit, diseased, and junk inspired. The androgyny and dark glamour of Ziggy Stardust, Iggy Pop, and The New York Dolls was most evident.

Neo-seventies dames, on the other hand, were more stereotypically “feminine” and retrogressive, strutting about doll-like and pouty, in tight high-water flares and platforms, satin chokers, and belly-baring baby T’s. Flat long straight hair, parted in the middle, was de rigueur; tiny primary-colored little girl barrettes were in. Thick upper eyeliner and thinly shaped eyebrows were popular, as were cherry red lipstick and bright rich nail polish. It was a glossy, “harmless” projection of early seventies Playboy bunny/baby femme appeal.

What was most peculiar and disturbing was that with some of the patrons, it was not merely a costume party—these were not just playful role re-interpretations: some actually believed that they were living in their own self-chosen, largely re-imagined eras.

As Nikki once remarked: “They all seem kinda lost in their own private little time warps.”

So it seemed the dreariness and sadness of the “real world” was just too much to bear for some people.

And it didn’t end with music sub-cults: one party regular completely believed he was Barbara Eden from the old TV show I Dream Of Jeannie and padded around in harem costume and curled-toed slippers, arms crossed and blinking, “Y-yyes, master!” Another mental defective seemed convinced he was the Soviet spy, Ilya Kuryakin from The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Finishing her drink, Nikki suggested, “Let’s go downstairs before it gets too crowded.”

Through the jostling crowd, Martin and Nikki descended a long, brightly-lit staircase to the main floor and another bar. The wall behind the bar displayed textured junk art from the ‘80s: plastic dolls, piano keys, scrap metal and other debris, permanently soldered to the wall and painted flat black, existing now as a fossilized apocalyptic backdrop. If the upstairs room of BB’s had seemed dark and forbidding on arrival, this floor was even more so. Except for sparsely hung Christmas lights and a few blinking gel-colored spots on the far end, it was completely dark. The pounding music was a louder, shag-nasty glam alternated with rare punk and funk tunes. And as Martin and Nikki made their way to the opposite end of the room, near a short wooden stage (their eyes adjusting to the light), they soon found a decent spot in which to move.

All around them, the usual partygoers, tripping or drunk, were going wild. The floor was jumping. Hands hovering and waving, arms flailing, heads rolling, bodies churning.

Taking the stage beneath a liquid projection light show, three be-wigged black girls began lip-syncing to a glam tune and dancing in perfect unison like The Supremes; while, behind them on a pedestal, a slender Japanese woman in a gold bikini and platinum wig, worked a hoola-hoop. Off to another side, a near-naked belly dancer was fluidly grinding, a pink day-glo smiley face centered on her very-pregnant belly.

Hips swaying, torsos dipping and rising, occasionally hands touching and locking—Martin and Nikki got loose, getting into the crowd around them and each other.

A young retroid in turquoise feather boa and 007 glasses teetered by on what must have been foot high, glow-in-the-dark rubber platforms.

All around them revivalists were performing wicked dance moves or borrowing steps from the past: the Pogo, the Mashed Potato, the Pony, the Jerk. On the sidelines or seated on the embankment surrounding the dark dance floor, others were just crowd-watching or cooling out or nodding, now and then absently raising their sweating cups of beer or fat glowing joints.

There was a good vibe—plenty of handshakes and smiles to go around—and everyone seemed unusually friendly tonight.

The air filled with a kind of sweet promise, Martin and Nikki danced and danced. The music cranking, the floor vibrating under their feet, still slightly buzzed, they were lost in a timeless groove. Under the pulsating lights, they reaffirmed their connection to this time and place. And to each other. And, for a time, Martin and Nikki caught and held on to it.

Finally, at nearly four in the morning, the remaining crowd shagged out and dispersing, they gave in.

“A story of youth, very well told, and it dwells in the mind
long after a reader finishes it.”
— Joanne Greenberg,
I Never Promised You A Rose Garden

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“A story of youth, very well told, and it dwells in the mind long after a reader finishes it.” — Joanne Greenberg, I Never Promised You A Rose Garden Find out more about this great title!

“A story of youth, very well told, and it dwells in the mind
long after a reader finishes it.”
— Joanne Greenberg,
I Never Promised You A Rose Garden

Find out more about this great title!