Clover, Anthony, and I are creating a photo-roman based on my story and featuring his photos. Our cast includes Rhonda, Cookie, Klaus as well as Andy Reese playing a hustler gunman. Everyone else from previous test shots; Mark Mitchell, Wendy have been exed from the future shootings. Anthony wants to finish this fast, so he can show the results to a Bridgehampton Gallery. Clover loves the first prints and asks, “Where is Bridgehampton anyway?”
Rent boys.
Hookers on the Strip.
Flesh peddlers.
Martinis at Hojos.
And let's not forget the pimps.
Now Babylon is no more.
But Times Square was something else in the 1970s.
Yesterday Clover and I acted out mini-dramas on 42nd Street. Both of us dressed in the nines. Her skirt cut high to her thigh. We weren’t from the sneakers and jeans brigades. The pedestrians wondered who we were; a young blonde runaway and her protector. Anthony Scibelli snapped shots of us. He seemed very pleased with the results, even without printing the shots. We went into a peep show and the cashier allowed us to engage in various suggestive poses. The XXX shop's customers voyeured with honest intent. One man rubbed his groin. Clover shut the door on everyone, including Anthony. We made out and groped each other.
Afterwards the three of us walked over to piers. As we posed in the soft afternoon light before the derelict USS Pennsylvania, dancing over the barnacled dock, we drank Jack Daniels. My stomach reacted badly, still recovering from the previous evening's drunk. The shoot stopped when Anthony dropped his Minolta.
He headed home uptown to Harlem, hoping to fix his camera's shutter.
We wandered back through Times Square.
No one paid attention to us now.
“I’m from San Francisco. I used to crowds like this.” Clover said and then added, You haven't been coming to Tim's lately.”
“Yeah, he thinks I stole money from him.”
“Andy Reese told him that, but it was probably Andy, who was the thief. He has a drug problem. You might be a thief, but you don’t seem the type to steal from friends.”
“Thanks,” I explained that I had gotten rid of gas-guzzlers from Boston for people who would file an insurance claim for a stolen car. The owners had gave me the keys and $300 to vanish them in New York. They reported the disappearance a day later. I had done it three times thanks for a lawyer's friend ands had helped also James Spicer with the ATM scam, which entailed opening accounts on dead people’s IDs and putting $300 in the back. The ATM machines had a 45-60 minutes lag before registering the withdrawal. You could hit three. Four, if you were lucky. Once I left James’ apartment in Park Slope, I had been honest,
We entered Bryant Park. The shadows stretched across the lawn. Clover was a little drunk. We sat on a bench and finished the Jack.
“Could I kiss you?” she asked leaning close. Her breasts pressed against my arm. Her neck smelled of youth.
She wore red lipstick and after a long session none remained on her bruised lips. Some of mine. I thought fucking her would be nice, but when we arrived at her St. Mark's Place apartment, she said, “Not tonight, but I was curious to find out how you kissed. Nice.”
Nice, yes, nice.
