I tossed and turned the entire night.
Happily, it was bright and sunny the next morning. I phoned them at noon and woke them up. Nancy asked me to call back in an hour. I did and woke them again.
“We’ll get up,” Nancy said. “Come for us in an hour.”
David picked them up. They weren’t in the lobby when he got there, he later informed me. So up he went up to their room and knocked on the door. Nancy called for him to come in. They were still in bed, naked, watching Saturday morning cartoons. When David walked in they got out of bed, put on their rumpled clothes from the previous night, and took a swig each of methadone from the Fairy Lotion bottle. Then Nancy said, “Let’s go.” Neither of them got washed or brushed their teeth.
David said he walked fifty feet ahead of them down the corridor and out to the car. He noticed the people noticing them. He was, he said, embarrassed to be seen with them.
About halfway home Sid tugged at Nancy’s sleeve and whispered something to her.
“Sid wants a hamburger,” Nancy informed David.
“McDonald’s be okay, Sid?” David asked.
Sid whispered his reply to Nancy.
“That’d be fine,” Nancy told David.
David pulled into McDonald’s and waited outside in the car while Nancy and Sid went in to get Sid’s hamburger. As he waited the people who came out were all pointing inside in amazement, laughing, pulling their hair straight up. After a few minutes Nancy and Sid came out with Sid’s hamburger, blinking at the sunlight.
Sid picked at his hamburger as they drove home. He was still working on it when they arrived.
Nancy wanted to swim. Neither she nor Sid had suits. I gave her one of mine. David found a pair of jogging shorts for Sid, who could barely keep them on, he was so thin. He legs were incredibly pale. I doubted that they’d ever been exposed to the sun before.
They jumped in the pool. We sat by the side and watched them. They splashed and frolicked like two little kids. They dunked each other and giggled and tossed a beach ball and attempted zany dives off the board. They were without a care in the world. It was a typical suburban scene, just like a million others you’d have seen around America that summer afternoon. The only difference was that we were the only suburbanites in America who had Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols in our swimming pool.
He was exhausted within ten minutes.
The two of them stretched out in the sun on lounge chairs. Suzy had made plans to visit her friend Laura, so she left. Frank, David, and I had lunch on the patio. Nancy and Sid said they weren’t hungry.
He was green after five minutes in the sun.
“I don’t feel very well,” he said weakly.
“He’s probably not used to the sun, Nancy,” I said. “Maybe he should sit in the shade.”
She helped Sid move to a chair in the shade. When he still felt ill, I suggested she take him inside where it was air-conditioned.
“Stretch out on the sofa in the den, Sid,” Frank said.
“May I watch the telly?” Sid asked.
“Sure,” Frank said.
“Any cartoons on, Frank?”
“Don’t know. Probably.”
“How about Sha Na Na. Is it on?”
“Tonight, Sid,” David told him. “At seven.”
Nancy took him inside, laid a towel down on the sofa to protect against his wet suit. He stretched out. When I came inside she was sitting on the end of the sofa, stroking his head, which was in her lap.
“How does he feel?” I asked her.
“A little better,” she replied.
“Does he want something cold? Sid, would you like a drink? A cold drink?”
“Please, Mum.”
I brought him some juice. He thanked me and drank it. Then he sat up and lit a cigarette. Nancy turned on the TV and found some cartoons for them to watch. They sat there on the sofa for the remainder of the afternoon, chain smoking, staring at the TV, glassy-eyed. They seemed stuporous. Occasionally they would nod off, lit cigarettes in hand.
After the first time a live ash had tumbled onto the oatmeal tweed sofa and begun to smolder, I stayed in the den with them, watching them carefully, vaulting across the coffee table every once in a while to catch the falling ash in an ashtray before it did any damage.
Toward the middle of the afternoon Suzy returned with her friend Laura. They were very close, and Suzy wanted her to meet her big sister. Laura had been prepared for how they looked, and acted as if she didn’t notice.
“Hi, Nancy!” exclaimed Laura, so cute and perky, so alive.
“Hello,” said Nancy quietly, barely noticing her.
“And this is Nancy’s boyfriend, Sid,” Suzy said. “Sid, this is Laura.”
“Pleased to meet you, Sid,” she said.
Sid didn’t notice her at all. He just looked right through her.
There was an awkward silence. Then Suzy and Laura went outside.
A little later the phone rang. It was a friend of David’s, a fellow counselor from camp who happened to be visiting some relatives in Huntingdon Valley. David suggested he drop by for a few minutes.
I wish I had a picture of Bob’s face when he walked into the den, unsuspecting, to find Sid Vicious on the sofa with our daughter. Bob’s eyes widened and for a moment he looked as if he were going to choke. Then he swallowed and, with terrific effort, held on to his cool. After exchanging pleasantries with us, he was introduced to them.
“Hi, Nancy,” Bob said.
She nodded.
“Nice to meet you, Sid,” Bob said, sticking his hand out.
Sid stared at the hand, uncomprehending for a moment, then up at Bob. Finally he stuck out his own hand and they shook.
David took Bob outside to shoot some baskets. As they went out the back door I could hear Bob saying, “I can’t believe it! Sid Vicious is in your den watching cartoons!”
It was pretty hard to imagine.
Another ash fell onto the couch.
“Nancy, your cigarette!” I cried.
“Huh?’ she said.
“Nothing,” I said, swatting at the dead ash on the upholstery. “Forget it.”
I went into the kitchen—stomach knotted, teeth clenched—to find something to do. I couldn’t sit there anymore looking at the two of them.
What I really wanted to do was shake her and scream, “Look what you’ve become! You’re not my Nancy! Where’s my Nancy? I want my Nancy back!”
There was no point in saying anything to her. I couldn’t reach her. She was lost to me. My arms ached to hold the baby Nancy, ached for a fresh start.
I didn’t know how much longer I could stand having them there. I wanted them gone.
Suddenly Nancy appeared behind me.
“Mum, would you take me to the hospital?” she asked.
“What for?” I demanded, alarmed.
“I, uh, got beat up by the Teddys a few weeks ago and they pulled my ear off. A doctor sewed it back on, you know, but I forgot to get the stitches out. Just remembered.”
“Here, let me see,” I said.
She pulled back her hair and turned so I could get a good look. First I noticed the yellowish bruises and open sores along her hairline. Then I saw the ear. Revulsion swept over me as I saw the row of stitches that ran along the back of her ear, all the way from the top, where the ear met the skull, to the bottom, where it joined the neck.
It did, however, look clean and healed.
“We’ll have an awfully long wait at the hospital,” I said.
Not to mention another scene.
“How about your doctor, Mum?”
“It’s Saturday. He’s off. Tell you what, I can take them out. There’s really nothing to it.”
“Okay.”
I went upstairs to fetch a pair of small toenail scissors. I washed them in alcohol, took them downstairs with the bottle of alcohol, some cotton, and antibiotic ointment. Nancy was waiting for me in the kitchen.
“Stand next to the
window,” I said. “The light is better.”
She obeyed.
“Okay, now don’t move,” I said.
“I won’t.”
She stood perfectly still for me as I cut the little catgut knots one by one and pulled the stitches out. I worked smoothly and calmly, as if I took out stitches every day. In actuality, I had never done it before. When I was done, I cleaned the ear and put ointment on it.
“It looks fine,” I said.
“Thanks, Mum. Could you make me an appointment with a plastic surgeon? These scars all over my arms. I’d like to get ’em off.”
“We’ll see,” I said.
I sensed another presence in the room. I turned to find Sid looming in the doorway.
“Mum,” he said, “I need a doctor for me eye. It won’t stay open, you know. Could you make me an appointment, too?”
I looked at her, then at him. I felt myself getting sucked into their universe. Now there were two of these helpless souls for me to take care of. My burden was doubled. I took a deep breath, let it out.
“I’ll try, Sid,” I said.
“Thank you. That’d be very nice of you. I don’t like my eye, you know. I got it in a fight. People always want to fight with me. Teachers. Policemen, Teddys. Everybody. I don’t want to, but they do.”
“He’s really a very sweet lad, Mum,” Nancy said.
They returned to the sofa and began to nod off again.
When it got to be about six, I asked Nancy what she and Sid felt like for dinner.
“Can we go to the Village Inn, Mum? I want to take Sid there.”
The Village Inn was an old family favorite, a neighborhood Italian restaurant we’d taken the children to many times through the years. Evidently Nancy had fond memories of the place. However, to go into the Village Inn dining room meant walking through the bar, a popular blue-collar conservative hangout. It would be impossible to take Nancy and Sid through there and emerge unscathed.
Frank and I exchanged a worried look.
“I don’t know, Nancy,” I improvised. “It’s gotten to be so crowded.”
“I don’t mind,” she said.
“We’ll have to wait a long time,” I said.
“I don’t mind,” she said.
“Sid will miss Sha Na Na at seven,” Frank pointed out.
“Sha Na Na?” said Sid, perking up. “I don’t want to miss Sha Na Na. They’re my favorite.”
“We could order takeout and eat it here,” Frank suggested. I blew him a kiss when Nancy agreed.
David took the orders—both Nancy and Sid wanted spaghetti and meatballs—phoned them in, and went to pick them up with Frank.
Nancy and Sid helped themselves to vodka and tonic and began to kiss and grope at each other on the den sofa. I didn’t like watching Sid touch her. It wasn’t that I hated him, because I didn’t. Actually, I felt kind of sorry for him. He seemed like a victim of Malcolm McLaren’s promotion machinery. For a brief time he’d been a star. Now he didn’t know who or what he was. He seemed like a genuinely confused kid. No, the reason I didn’t like watching him touch her was because the two of them were totally oblivious to my presence in the room. I felt I was witnessing an intimacy I wasn’t supposed to see, really didn’t want to see. It made me want to avert my eyes. It gave me the creeps.
They lived in their own little world, Nancy and Sid did.
I went into the kitchen to set the table in there for the four of us. Nancy and Sid would eat in the den before the TV. Suzy followed me in there. She was angry.
“How can you stand this!” she demanded. “How can you watch them? How can you watch her dying like that? Why don’t you do something?”
I wanted to say “Suzy, if I let myself react at all, my head will simply blow right off.” But I didn’t want her to know I was so upset. And I was too upset to explain myself. I shut her out. I shouldn’t have, but I did.
“They’ll be gone tomorrow,” I said. “Let’s just get through the weekend, okay?”
She glared at me. “I don’t see how you can put up with it. Your own daughter.” Then she stormed out.
Frank and David came back with the food. Suzy came downstairs grudgingly and we four ate silently in the kitchen while Nancy and Sid ate in the den, watching Sha Na Na, of course.
“Debbie?” Sid called.
“Yes, Sid?”
“Best fuckin’ food I ever ate. Best fuckin’ ever!”
“We think it’s good, too, Sid!” I called back.
He ate, at most, a third of it. He had little appetite for food, it seemed. After dinner the four of us watched the two of them nodding off on the sofa, ever alert to the falling cigarette ashes.
Suzy was still angry. She glared at her sister with a combination of curiosity and disgust. Nancy caught her.
“If you look at me like that one more time I’ll cut your fucking face up,” she snapped viciously, her eyes cold.
Suzy froze. There was total silence. I couldn’t stand the tension in the room, so I went into the kitchen. Suzy followed me in there, wide-eyed.
“Do you think she will?” Suzy whispered, terrified.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I really don’t know.”
Suzy went up to her room. She was so scared she went back to her apartment early in the morning, before Nancy and Sid came back from the hotel. Suzy never had the chance to see or speak to her sister again. That little scene they’d played out in the den was their final communication.
Frank took them to the hotel that night. I picked them up on Sunday at about one o’clock. Just like David had the day before, I found them naked in bed. They got up pulled on their now filthy clothes, gulped their methadone, and were set to go.
“Don’t you want to pack?” I asked, wary that they’d changed their plans and were going to stay longer.
“Oh, right,” remembered Nancy, heaving their few possessions carelessly into an overnight bag. “All set, Mum.”
I checked them out of their room and brought them to the house. Frank had picked up lox and bagels for Sunday brunch, per Nancy’s request.
Nancy piled cream cheese and lox onto her bagel and began devouring it with gusto. Sid just nibbled on a dry bagel.
“Have some lox, Sid,” Frank offered.
“Oh, no,” he said. “No … I can’t eat that.”
In midafternoon, Nancy decided it was time for them to catch a train back to New York. We drove them to the station. Frank and I got in the front seat, David in the back seat with Nancy and Sid. Nancy said nothing in regard to Suzy’s absence, though she did clutch her sister’s offering of chocolate chip cookies.
“Thank you so much for having me,” Sid said as we pulled out of the driveway.
“Our pleasure, Sid,” Frank said.
“I didn’t know people lived like this,” said Sid. “In a fuckin’ palace.”
We drove in silence for a while. Then out of nowhere, Nancy quietly said, “I’m going to die very soon. Before my twenty-first birthday. I won’t live to be twenty-one. I’m never gonna be old. I don’t wanna ever be ugly and old. I’m an old lady now anyhow. I’m eighty. There’s nothing left. I’ve already lived a whole lifetime. I’m going out. In a blaze of glory.”
Then she was quiet.
Her words just lay there like a bombshell. No one wanted to touch them. She hadn’t issued a threat, simply made a flat statement. We all believed her. Even Sid.
We got stared at by everyone again at the platform. When the train pulled in Nancy hugged me.
“My beautiful mum,” she said softly. “My beautiful mum.”
She released me. “Didn’t I tell you she was beautiful, Sid? Wasn’t I right?”
Sid nodded.
We hugged again and kissed. Then she kissed Frank and David. Sid kissed me again on the cheek, and again I shuddered. Then he shook hands with Frank and David.
“Very nice to meet all of you,” he said.
“Don’t forget to call when our stuff comes,” she
said.
They got on the train. We watched from the platform as it pulled away. She waved from the window. We waved back.
She’d issued a warning to us in the car, but I had no inkling that this was the last time I’d see her alive. I felt only relief that she and Sid were gone.
“I honestly can’t understand her,” David said as we drove home. “She’s dying. She knows it. Why won’t she stop herself?”
“She doesn’t want to,” Frank said sadly. “She wants to die. She has for a long, long time. It’s been her goal.”
“But why?” asked David.
“She hates being alive,” I said. “She hates her pain. She hates herself. She wants to destroy herself.”
“Isn’t there anything you guys can do?” asked David.
“Yes,” I said.
“What?”
“Watch her die.”
Chapter 21
Nancy lived out her rock fantasy in New York, sharing the bed and the career of a star. But she and Sid were running out of time.
He collapsed in the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel their first week there. Nancy phoned me from the hospital in hysterics.
“Save him, Mum!” she cried. “Save him! The doctor says his brain might be damaged! What do I do? Help me! Oh, please!”
As always I calmed her down. And as always it left me a wreck.
“The doctor will take care of him, Nancy. He’ll be fine. You’ll see. Call me tomorrow, okay?”
She did. Sid was okay.
Nancy did manage to find them a methadone center, but the lines were long and every day Sid was taunted and provoked by the other addicts. He got mad. He got in fights.
“They keep hasslin’ my Sid,” Nancy reported. “He’s got this hot button, Mum, and they just won’t leave it alone.”
She went to work on Sid’s career.
She tried to line up recording contracts for him, but found little interest from the record companies. Sid had no actual career. All he had was a claim to fame. But neither she nor Sid realized that.
“It’s not workin’ out the way we thought,” she told me over the phone. “Nothing’s happening. Sid’s real depressed.”
They went back on heroin.
And I Don't Want to Live This Life : A Mother's Story of Her Daughter's Murder (9780307807434) Page 35