IVThe stripped-down wrecks along the Interstate marked New York City’s northern border. Flames leapt from an abandoned tenement in Hunt’s Point. Smoke smouldered from their neglected neighbors. Not a single police car or fire truck was in sight and the hippie driving the Olds 88 looked at the girl sprawled across the passenger seat, then concentrated on the road. It was in terrible condition. Rumbling over Willis Avenue Bridge, the heavy car hit a pothole and Tammi rubbed her eyes for several seconds before asking, "Where are we?"
"Entering Manhattan." The hippie jerked the wheel to avoid an axle-snapping chasm.
"Really, mister?" Her eyes widened with awe. She had never seen so many buildings and the lights stretched as far as she could see.
“You mind stop calling me 'Mister'?”
“You have a problem with ‘mister’?” Tammi probably considered anyone over twenty as old as dust.
“Mister makes me feel a thousand years old. I’m 25.”
"You have a name?"
"Sean."
Badly navigating the tangled exit, the Olds bisected a lane of cars. Horns blared and fists were shaken at the car turning onto the ramp for Harlem.
"I'm Tammi," she giggled, sounding twelve.
“You want to share the joke?”
"Other cars are avoiding yours like a shark in a swimming pool."
"Well, it does have a gash on the side, thanks to you."
"Normally a driver has an accident. They check out the damage."
"We had someone after us.” Sean fiddled through the Christmas songs on the radio.
“This car is stolen, but I won't report you to Santa Claus." Tammi flicked the cigarette out the window.
"It’s not stolen. It was given to me."
“You mean you got it for a Thanksgiving Day present?”
“No, this lawyer paid me to disappear it?”
“Like a magician.” Her voice was steeped with fake amazement.
“No, the car eats too much gas. He doesn’t want it anymore. I drive it to New York, leave the keys in the ignition, and the real thieves do the rest.” The hippie spoke like this was an act of revolution. “I get $300 a car.”
“Sounds like a good job.” She was a little young to be so sarcastic.
“It’s not a job and this is the last car I disappear.”
"I'm not the cops and I don’t give a flip whether this is the first, last or the hundredth car you ‘disappeared’. To me it’s a ride.” Tammi twisted the dial. RIDERS ON THE STORM survived two seconds. "I hate that oldie music."
"Oldies? I saw the Doors in 1968. They played three hours. I started a band, hoping to be a rock god. All I ever played were pool parties.”
"Sorry, hippie boy, that shit is out." Tammi spun the knob to a droning voice accompanied by a 3-chord band.
"Road, road, roadrunner, goin’ fifty mile an hour."
Tammi sang along with the chorus.
“Not bad.”
“Me?” Tammi wasn’t used to anyone say something good about her.
“You’re like Dusty Springfield with a little Judy Garland.
“You know music? Like who’s playing now?”
“No.” She only knew music from the radio.
“That’s Jonathan Richman in the Modern Lovers. The song’s called ROADRUNNER.”
“I never heard it before.” She turned it up, but when the song segued to BETH, she ruthlessly shut off Kiss’ hit and hummed Dolly Parton's JOLEEN.
"You hate the Doors and like country?" The driver grappled with the shuddering wheel, as the Olds rattled down Lexington Avenue.
"At least you can sing it around a campfire." Tammi gawked at the projects and the black men on the sidewalks. "This Manhattan?"
"Harlem.”
"I always pictured Harlem this way." The young girl was astonished by the number of people on the sidewalks. "Bright lights. Lot of people. Not like home. Back there no one on the streets after dark. No one.”
“You know anyone in New York?”
“No.”
"You have a place to stay?"
"No." $80 would buy a night in a hotel. The hippie’s thick-boned face reminded Tammi of an extra from a 1960s caveman movie. Dumb with a good heart and she asked, "How about you and me splitting a hotel? Money goes longer with two than one."
"I....I..."
Tammi laughed at his stuttering.
"Let me guess. You have a jealous girlfriend?"
“Sorry." He was already late for meeting Cheri.
"Sorry for having someplace to go?” She had done fine in Kittery owing no one nothing. “You in love?"
"Yes." It was the only word to describe the feeling.
"Then all’s forgiven." Tammi stopped speaking and the Olds rolled down a gauntlet of increasingly taller buildings. She pulled out a cigarette without lighting it. This was a big city, then she pressed her face to the window. “I know where I am. This is where they drop the ball on New Year's Eve."
“Times Square.” The glow of the marquees and flashing neon billboards camouflaged the area’s legendary sordidness. On the sidewalk two young boys were pilfering a fallen man’s pockets. No one on the sidewalk interfered with the robbery.
"Tammi, no matter how terrible it was at home, you're too young for this. In 1969 I watched hundreds of girls flocking to the hippie corner in Boston Commons. They drifted away to free-love communes on Mission Hill or go-go bars in the Combat Zone. Each of those places is a thousand times safer than Times Square. I’ll pay a bus ticket home."
“What? You think I should be in bed with my stuffed dolls? No way. I’m not that kind of girl.” Tammi twisted her head. “This place was made for girls like me. Stop.”
“Where?” Sean cut off a yellow taxi and pulled over to the curb.
"There. Right there." She pointed to a poster stating GIRLS WANTED underneath a blinking neon marquee. Tammi wasn’t interested in the alternatives. “I ain’t going back to sad Cinderella Land, so it's GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS for me."
“I feel bad about deserting you." She was the same age as his youngest sister.
"If you felt so bad, you'd be crying, hippie boy, besides I heard that song, "If I can make it here, then I can make it anywhere." Tammi leaned across the seat to kiss Sean with the tenderness better suited to the end of a junior prom date. "Come and see me. We can talk about old times."
“What if they don’t give you a job?”
“Oh, they’ll give me a job.”
Wearing one shoe, the mousy brunette popped out of the car and clomped to the DOLLHOUSE. She danced a seductive Watusi for the bouncer. Ten seconds later he waved the teenager inside the Playpen. Sean started to open the door to rescue her.
A uniformed cop rapped his billyclub on the hood.
“Shut the door and move it. This is a no parking zone.”
"My friend went into the Dollhouse."
"Then she ain't comin' out any time soon." The scruffy cop shoved the door shut. "You want to wait. Stick this shitbox into a parking lot."
"Yes, officer." He stomped on the gas, worried about the cop’s running his plate.
The Olds wove through the traffic with a rat’s cunning. At 34th Street the chrome bumper narrowly missed a bum’s shopping cart. Crossing 23rd the under chassis bottomed on a bump and sprayed a meteor shower of sparks against the ragged asphalt. On West Street the Olds shuddered to a halt, its front fender hanging over the black trough of the Hudson. Shoving the column shift into Park, Sean left the car, unscrewed the license plates, and tossed them in the river. The smell of burnt rubber mixed with the rank tidal water. A block north shadowy men wandered into a twisted metal pier. Cheri had explained that homosexual trespassers used the fire-scorched warehouse for anonymous sex. He hurried across West Street, glancing at the third-floor of the Terminal Hotel. The corner room’s lights were out.
Sean eagerly climbed the crumbling steps, nearly knocking over a bottle of NightTrain shared by two winos. Their garbled curses barely grazed his ears and he approached the desk clerk. No one alive had seen this establishment’s heyday and Sean vowed to move someplace better tomorrow.
"I'm here for Cheri." He looked at the keys on the wall. #301 was there.
“She was in room 301.” The wiry clerk in the tank top tee-shirt lowered the volume of the TV.
“What you mean ‘was’?
"Like past tense ‘was and now is not’." His smile revealed several gaps in his teeth. “Cheri checked out."
"I was supposed to meet her."
"Hey, women change their minds." The clerk pretended to examine the ledger. “You musta missed her by three hours. Tough break.”
"Where'd she go?"
"She mighta said Paris.” The clerk glanced overhead. “Plane is takin' off right now."
"She leave a message?"
"Yer name is Sean?" The clerk grabbed a letter pinned to the wall.
"That's me." His face lit with expectation.
"Then this is for you." The clerk suppressed a grin. “I read it earlier. You want me to tell you what it says.”
“No.” Sean dropped his bag and devoured the four sentences hoping to read the words that she was coming back, instead Cheri wrote she was going to Paris. There was no mention of ‘them’.
"Bad news, kid?" asked the clerk, only Sean picked up his bag and left the lobby. On the steps he released the letter and the night wind seized the page before it hit the sidewalk. One of the winos yelled with delight, "A boogeyman kick ya puppy, sport?"
Sean stumbled forward into a flurry of snow. The cobblestones vibrated from the weight of traffic on the West Side Highway and the black river beckoned him. He was in no condition to resist its call.
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