New York nightclubs closed at 4am in 1979, however many people didn't want to go home after Studio 54, the Mudd Club, Xenon or CBGBs. The Mafia ran the after-hour clubs like the Cisco Disco, the 82 Club and the Nursery on 3rd Avenue. Drinks were served with an undesirable degree of danger, so when nightlife impresario Arthur Weinstein announced the opening of an after-hour club in his apartment on New Year’s Eve, the city’s elite flocked to the Jefferson Theater on East 14th Street to celebrate the coming of a new decade.
After convincing his wife that this illegal venture would coin good money, Colleen transformed their loft with a little paint, mirrors in the wall, art-deco furniture, and eclectic lighting into an Eden after midnight.
Arthur's good friend, Scottie was the bartender, his wife acted as hostess, Arthur spun records, and I worked the door. 11pm passed without anyone entering the Jefferson. Midnight came and went. The four of us drank champagne and Arthur shrugged an apology.
"So it wasn't such a good idea."
Nearing 2 we feared the worst, then super-model Christie Brinkley strolled up the stairs and kissed Arthur on the cheek.
"I hope you're ready." She was with two gay friends.
"Ready?"
"I invited everyone from Studio." The blonde cover girl turned to Coleen. "I love what you did with this place. It's so 40s."
"Everyone?" I whispered to Arthur.
"Anyone mentions her name, let them in for free. For tonight only." Arthur knew his business.
Within the hour taxis and limos pulled up in front of the Jefferson, which immediately became home away from home for those late-night revelers unwilling to call it a night. Movie stars, musicians, models, bankers, politicians, go-go girls, punks, gays, cops, and dealers danced till dawn as if the second-story club was the Noah's Ark of decadence. We thought the party would last forever, then again most of us were loaded on drugs.
Arthur saw it different.
The precinct cops were on the take. Internal Affairs were investigating their involvement at the Jefferson. After-hour clubs had a short life in New York and slightly before Memorial Day Arthur warned his wife to stay away from the club.
"Anything wrong?"
"Just a hunch."
His premonition was on the money.
Two nights later the police raided the club at 3am.
Scottie slinked out the front door through a gauntlet of police and Arthur climbed down the fire escape under a black Halloween cape. Not everyone got away free.
Internal Affairs arrested two 9th Precinct officers, a sanitation cop, a bag man for the fire department, two transvestites, a circus clown, two barboys, the son of a CIA agent, three female bartenders, and me. The sanitation cop put up a struggle. The cops hauled him into the back bedroom and broke his leg with a baseball bat.
They were playing hard ball.
"Anyone else want some." A plain-clothed officer waved the baseball bat at us.
We shook our heads.
Thirty minutes later an ambulance arrived for the injured cop and the officers led the other arrestees into a paddy wagon. We were arraigned in the morning and the judge released me without a charge, recognizing me from the West 4th Street Basketball Cage..
Arthur, Scottie. and I that night at the Ritz. They surveyed the bar with a visible nervousness. A psycho cop had visited Arthur in the morning. A double blast from a shotgun had punched a hole in the ceiling.
"He was from the 9th."
"Guess they want you to keep your mouth shut." I had been slipping their bagman $200 a night.
"What Internal Affairs say?"
"They didn't ask us anything."
"No names?" Scottie wore the same jeans, shirt, and jacket as the previous night. His hair stuck straight up in the air, so he resembled a hobo on the run. He could use a shower.
"They knew your names. Mine too. They said they would be taling with us."
"But not tonight, but you never know." Arthur couldn't help us. We were on our own.
The Jefferson closed its doors forever. Those arrested never went to trial and the story of crooked cops was buried in the back pages of the newspapers. No one said nothing. I tried to find another job, but the summer was a tough time to get work.
Within a month we were broke. Arthur kept talking about opening another place. His wife thought he was crazy, but agreed to decorate the next venue, if he could find a place.
"Think about how we can do if it was bigger." Arthur told Scottie and me. "Bigger means more money."
"Bigger means more trouble too." I was familiar with the West Side precincts, but I had nothing going for me and said, "
“We’re with you all the way.”
Arthur’s search for the right spot took time.
Scottie glommed the bar at the Ritz and I stood at the door of the Mudd Club in the sweltering August heat.
I contemplated getting a day job, then things fell into place as Arthur found an abandoned garage on West 25th Street along with investor to finance the Continental. Arthur informed the landlord that he was opening an art gallery.
Coleen, Scottie, and I were the first people to see the place.
"It just needs a little work." The floors were caked with oil. The walls sagged with mildew, and the ceiling panels hung from the ceiling like limp tongues. "We don't have to make it livable. Only good enough to serve drinks. We can open by Labor Day."
"Who's going to do the construction?" Scottie asked, since the only time we used a hammer was to chip the ice out of the freezer.
"You guys and your friends," Arthur said without saying how. "I'm no contractor."
"How much are you going to pay?" I was only interested in money.
"Not much." Arthur was living on the edge. “But you’ll have a job at the end of it.”
"Throw in lunch and you got a deal."
"Deal." Arthur's word was good enough for Scottie and me.
Werthel, a lanky 19 year-old from the Five Towns, wanted to join the work crew. During the last months of the Jefferson his drug use had gone from daily to hourly. This job was going to be his rehab.
"Why don't you go to real rehab?" Scottie asked at the apartment that Werthel shared with his friend, Richie Boy. "Your father has money."
"I don't want my old man to know about it.” His father was a dentist. He expected big things from his son. Werthel was swearing off blow forever. He gave us the last of his stash. "Have a party."
"You mind if I take some change too." Scottie stared at a bowl filled to the brink with quarters on the glass coffee table.
"Sure, but only as much as you can grab with one hand."
Scottie snatched a handful and Werthel grabbed his wrist, so hard that Scottie's take was decreased by half.
"You're the meanest man in the New York," Richie Boy declared from the sofa. Werthel and he were schoolmates from kindergarten. No one knew him better.
"Do you guys think I'm mean?" Werthel seemed hurt by the accusation.
"I won't, if you let me take another handful." Scottie was ready for double or nothing.
"You had your chance."
"He gets another. No interference. None."
Steve glowered at me, but let Scottie have a free go at the quarters. My nickname wasn't 'Maddog' for nothing and I said to Scottie, "Let's get out of here."
The coins covered a sandwich at the nearest deli. The cocaine went fast at AM-PM, an after-hour club, abutting the exit for the Holland Tunnel. Free cocaine always had a funny way of making you too many new friends.
Breakfast was a coffee and a bagel at Dave’s Luncheonette. There was no lunch.
On Monday morning we showed up to West 25th Street. The street shimmered with heat. Arthur's craggy-faced partner waited for us. Paulie was a model, whose face had graced the cover for a Time Magazine's article on Herpes. We nicknamed Paulie HP.
"You were supposed to be here at 8." HP stood with his twin brother and a friend. Both of them wore very professional carpenter belts with hammers and nails. HP asked us, "Any of you have tools?"
"Tools?" Scottie's only tool was a beer-opener. Mine was sheer muscles.
"I'll take that as a no." HP gave the carpenter friend $40. "Go get some hammers and shit. The rest of you I don't want you talking to anyone about what we're doing. I also want you here on time. 8am. We finish when we finish. No overtime."
"What an asshole," Werthel muttered under his breath. As the meanest man in New York he could have knocked all three of them.
"We work at our pace."Working construction for below-minimum wage was my version of Hell.
Thirty minutes later we were tearing down the walls. Scottie and I loaded up metal onto a trolley. Werthel pounded the walls with a sledgehammer. Decades-old dust covered our bodies and acrid sweat poured out of our skin. Arthur showed up at noon.
"You look like asbestos miners."
"Is it lunch time yet?" Scottie was exhausted from the first physical work that he had done in years. I wasn't in much better shape, however Werthel was running on fumes of his spent addiction ready for more.
"It’s lunch when I say it's lunch." HP countermanded Scottie’s suggestion.
"Who elected you god?" Arthur snidely demanded in our defense.
"I’m paying for them to work. Not have a picnic."
"Don't be such an asshole." Arthur was our union rep and stuck out his hand to HP. "Cough up."
“Cough up what?"
"Lunch money." Arthur was counting on lunch too.
"I never said anything about free lunch." HP was a stingy as a thirteen year-old boy on his first date.
Werthel, Scottie, and I muttered 'asshole' under our breath. Arthur examined the scrap metal.
"We'll get rid of the scrap and be right back."
Arthur and Scottie rolled the trolley onto West 25th Street. The temperature would have been 95 in the shade if there were any trees. The trip took them 20 minutes. The junk dealer had given them $9. They came back with three cheese and mayo sandwiches. Werthel had brought his own, a salami and cheese with pickles on a roll. I could smell it from ten feet away.
"Lunch is over." HP complained about us taking too much time.
"I’ll talk to him." Arthur was good with people, only HP wasn’t people. By week's end we wanted to quit.
Arthur begged us to reconsider.
"You quit this asshole won't hire you at the club." Arthur was powerless to stop HP from being an asshole. I picked up a steel pipe. Arthur shook his head. "We need his money."
Werthel was supposedly attending summer school and his mother gave him a weekly stipend.
Scottie and I ate a $1 slice of pizza. We were losing weight and Werthel was getting stronger. We tried to schnorr his left-overs, but he'd throw the half-eaten sandwiches in the trash. Scottie and I were too proud to dig out his scraps. He was our friend, but we transferred our hatred from the model to Werthel.
The demolition got harder and dirtier. None of us knew what we were doing. Scottie was nearly decapitated by a falling slab of sheet rock, Werthel fell off the ladder, and I mashed my thumb with a hammer. Arthur suggested that I go see a doctor. HP wouldn't pay for the visit and I wrapped my thumb with a torn tee-shirt.
Worse was our constant hunger.
One day Scottie and I were begged Werthel for some money and he said, "I'll race you for a sandwich."
"Me?" Scottie was short, but very fast.
"No, Maddog." He pointed to me.
I had been a cross-country runner in high school in 1969. My best finishes were 3rd and 4th place. I had drank until dawn with Richie Boy. Vodka drowned my every pore and my legs wobbled in the heat. Werthel was wearing fresh Adidas. "Two sandwiches versus I getting your day's wages."
Arthur and Colleen got out of a cab. HP and the rest of the crew stopped working.
"You're on." My cheap work boots weren't made for arae on cobblestones.
"I'll take some of that bet." HP yelled from the loading platform. "But you have nothing to bet."
"I do.” Arthur pulled $100 from his pocket and Colleen slapped his hand. The money was meant for an over-due bill.
"Straight up." HP was giving no odds.
Arthur looked at me. "You can do it, kid?"
"No problem." Arthur was 35. I was twenty-nine. His saying 'kid' made me feel younger. I loosened up my body.
"Scottie, you hold the money." Arthur and HP handed the c-notes to Scottie. The model glared at Werthel. "If you throw the race, I'll welsh on the bet."
"I’m not throwing any bet. I’m the meanest man in the New Work.” Werthel tossed his sandwich in the trash. This race was a final test of his drug treatment. "You ready?"
"100 yards,” I said, because he was definitely faster for the first 50.
"100 yards it is." Werthel dropped his tools. Scottie was the referee. Werthel and I walked off the distance in the middle of the street. Workers from the street stood on the sidewalk. More bets were placed on Werthel. The odds were in his favor.
"You know we don't have to do this. You could give me the money for the sandwiches and I'll be your slave." I was more hungry than proud.
"No way, Maddog." Werthel walked to a manhole cover and crouched like Jesse Owens, while I stood at ease, both arms at my side.
Scottie shouted from the finish line. "On your marks. Get set. Go."
Werthel and I burst down the street. He pulled ahead. One yard. Two yards. I dropped my head and pushed harder. My feet slapped onto the hot pavement. Shouts filled my ears. We were neck and neck.
Scottie was only ten yards away. I leaned forward and beat Werthel across the line by a foot. Colleen screamed with delight and HP called for a rematch. Arthur grabbed the two $100 bills.
"No rematch, Herpes Boy. He won fair and square."
I thought so too, then Arthur winked at Werthel. He gave me $10.
"Maddog? You won your sandwich. Enjoy."
Arthur handed Scottie and me $20 each. The sandwiches from the closest deli were terrible, but victory was a powerful condiment.
That Friday HP said he'd pay us at his apartment. We went to One 5th Avenue after 5. The doorman said that HP had flown to Paris to shoot a commercial about acne. We didn't see him till the following week. After Herpes paid us, Werthel called him an asshole.
"You’re fired."
"You can’t fire me. I quit." Werthel chucked a hammer at HP. The hammer quivered in the wall.
Werthel stomped off the site and HP said, "Don't even try to come to this club."
“Asshole.” Arthur was a good judge of character and we echoed his sentiment with a chorus of mutters.
Later that night we visited Werthel at his apartment. Richie Boy had a good laugh at everyone's version of the race and Scottie asked, "Werthel, how it feel to lose to an old man?"
Werthel put down his Diet-Coke.
I didn’t lose. I threw it?"
"You don't like losing at anything. Even checkers when we were kids." Richie Boy was speaking from experience
"I made it look like he won." Werthel folded his arms across his chest.
"Shut up already,” Arthur sat forward on the sofa. "I saw your face. You wanted to win and thought you could beat a drunk and maybe if you hadn't eaten your sandwich before the race you could have beaten him, but he won, because he was faster."
"I could beat him now."
Werthel was right. I had drunk 5 beers. My feet, legs, and heart were on the disabled list.
"Maybe." Arthur wasn’t letting Werthel slide. "But this afternoon who was faster? Maddog was."
Werthel waited several seconds and grunted with an off-center smile. "He was faster."
I have a good eye for winners." Arthur was looking at Werthel with a sly grin. "And an even better one for losers and no one’s a big a loser as HP."
"Asshole." We clinked glasses and drained our drinks. Werthel finished his Diet coke and turned to me.
"Sorry being the meanest man in the New York."
"Herpes boy HP is the meanest man in the the city. Not you." We’d get back at HP once the club opened for business.
"Thanks, but I can be meaner than HP."
"As long as it's not to us, who cares." Arthur added, because while Werthel might be the meanest man in the New York, he would always be one of us and to this Werthel had nothing to say. He could only smile.
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