Another One Bites The Dust.

Once the Mudd Club closed at 4am, most of the post-punk clientele scurried home to the East Village, Tribeca, or Soho. Those with money in their pockets prolonged the evening with a stop at Dave’s Luncheonette on Broadway. Tuxedo Moon had performed on the small stage that night. My girlfriend and I had invited the singer to join us at Dave's.

The three of us entered the crowded greasy spoon and sat at the counter. All the tables were filled by our friends. The waitress knew our orders. Mine was a greasy cheeseburger on toast. The guy from Tuxedo Moon wanted a grilled cheese sandwich. My hillbilly girlfriend went for a chocolate shake. Alice was a vegetarian. She looked like a very young Shirley MacLaine. I loved THE APARTMENT. Alice could have been cast as the elevator girl in the remake. I was no Jack Lemmon. She wanted her name in bright lights and conversed with the musician about their attempts to hit the big time. NO TEARS FOR CREATURES OF THE NIGHT was a hit for us. It got no play on the radio.

The musician spoke to Alice, as if I was a stranger at the counter. Alice ignored me in a starstruck trance. The musician was big time in our crowd. I ate my cheeseburger and blinked in the harsh light of the luncheonette. The musician seemed to expect me to leave the two of them alone.

Alice was my girlfriend.

She was coming home with me.

Their conversation meandered from music to acting to her school to her home in West Virgina.

"I've been to West Virginia." The musician signaled the waitress for another glass of water.

"You have?" Alice's interest revved up, because no one on the East Coast was familiar with her home state. I had spent the summer painting her father's house in Charleston. The paint had splattered over his plants. Her old man thought I was sloppy.

"Yes, we were driving from a gig in Nashville to Pittsburgh. It was wintertime. The highway was really foggy."

"The hollows get thick with mist that time of year." Alice loved her state.

"None of us wanted to pay for a hotel so we drove through the night and around dawn we came over hill. I didn’t see the crash until it was too late.”

“You drive into the cars?” Alice was enthralled by mayhem. Hillbilly loved Nascar.

“No, but there were two cars smashed on the highway. Bodies were on the pavement. I ran over one of them. Thump. It was either that or go off the road. I almost did a hit-n-run, except a truck stop was at the bottom of the hill. I ran into the diner, telling the waitress, “There’s an accident up on the hill.”

“We get them all the time.in the fog. She listlessly wandered over to the jukebox and put in a quarter. Her choice was ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST by Queen."

I laughed like a man who had heard a new joke.

"What's so funny?" Alice wasn't so amused.

"Nothing." I couldn't explain to her the humor and the musician from Tuxedo Moon wasn't about to help me. He wanted Alice to leave with him. I said to say something to make her stay. We were still in love at that point.

"I've had a few accidents in my day. The worst was in the spring of 1970 when a drunk lady driving a Buick Riviera smashed head-on into my VW Beetle. I was thrown out of the car. Time went slow-motion. I saw wheels and dust going by my head. I shut my eyes waiting for that same thump you heard when you ran over that guy on the highway. The wheels missed me and I stood up with the driving wheel in my hands and shook off the dust. Not a scratch on me." The accident had occurred at Nantasket Beach. Many times I've thought that in another world I died that night, but in this world I was alive. "I got to the hospital and no one played anything on the radio, but if they did, it would have been BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER, since that was # 1. I like ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST better."

Alice and I said good-night. We took a taxi home to our apartment on East 10th Street. We fell asleep in the bedroom. The mattress was on the floor. We were young. She never mentioned Tuxedo Moon again, but anytime ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST plays on the radio I think of the thump of tires over a body.

I'm glad it wasn't mine.