Patti Smith

by Just Kids

  My family sat around the table. My father read us Plato. My mother made meatball sandwiches. As always there was a sense of camaraderie at the family table. In the midst of it I received an unexpected call from Tinkerbelle. She told me abruptly that Robert and David were having an affair. “They’re together right now,” she said, somewhat triumphantly. I simply told her the call was unnecessary, and that I already knew.

  I felt stunned as I hung up the phone, yet I had to wonder if she’d merely put into words what I had myself divined. I wasn’t sure why she called me. It wasn’t as if she was doing me a favor. We weren’t that close. I wondered if she was being mean-spirited, or merely a tattletale. There was also the possibility that she wasn’t telling the truth. On the bus ride home, I made the decision to say nothing and give Robert the opportunity to tell me on his own terms.

  He had that flustered look, like when he flushed the Blake down the toilet at Brentano’s. He had been to Forty-second Street and saw an interesting new male magazine, but it cost fifteen dollars. He had the money but wanted to be sure it was worth it. As he slipped it out of the cellophane, the owner came back and caught him. He started yelling, demanding Robert pay for it. Robert got upset and threw it at him, and the guy went after him. He ran from the store into the subway and all the way home.

  “All that for a goddamn magazine.”

  “Was it any good?”

  “I don’t know, it looked good, but he made me not want it.”

  “You should take your own pictures. They’d be better anyway.”

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s a possibility.”

  A few days later we were at Sandy’s. Robert casually picked up her Polaroid camera. “Could I borrow this?” he asked.

  The Polaroid camera in Robert’s hands. The physical act, a jerk of the wrist. The snapping sound when pulling the shot and the anticipation, sixty seconds to see what he got. The immediacy of the process suited his temperament.

  At first he toyed with the camera. He wasn’t totally convinced that it was for him. And film was expensive, ten pictures for about three dollars, a substantial amount in 1971. But it was some steps up from the photo booth, and the pictures developed unsealed.

  I was Robert’s first model. He was comfortable with me and he needed time to get his technique down. The mechanics of the camera were simple, but the options were limited. We took countless photographs. At first he had to rein me in. I would try to get him to take pictures like the album cover for Bringing It All Back Home, where Bob Dylan surrounds himself with his favorite things. I arranged my dice and “Sinners” license plate, a Kurt Weill record, my copy of Blonde on Blonde, and wore a black slip like Anna Magnani.

  “Too cluttered with crap,” he said. “Just let me take your picture.”

  “But I like this stuff,” I said.

  “We’re not making an album cover, we’re making art.”

  “I hate art!” I yelled, and he took the picture.

  He was his own first male subject. No one could question him shooting himself. He had control. He figured out what he wanted to see by seeing himself.

  He was pleased with his first images, but the cost of film was so high that he was obliged to set the camera aside, but not for long.

  Robert spent a lot of time improving his space and the presentation of his work. But sometimes he gave me a worried look. “Is everything all right?” he would ask. I told him not to worry. Truthfully, I was involved in so many things that the question of Robert’s sexual persuasion was not my immediate concern.

  I liked David, Robert was doing exceptional work, and for the first time I was able to express myself as I wished. My room reflected the bright mess of my interior world, part boxcar and part fairyland.

  One afternoon Gregory Corso came to visit. He called on Robert first and they had a smoke, so by the time he came to visit me the sun was going down. I was sitting on the floor typing on my Remington. Gregory came in and panned the room slowly. Piss cups and broken toys. “Yeah, this is my kind of place.” I dragged over an old armchair. Gregory lit a cigarette and read from my pile of abandoned poems, drifting off, making a little burn mark on the arm of the chair. I poured some of my Nescafé over it. He awoke and drank the rest. I staked him a few bucks for his most pressing needs. As he was leaving he looked at an old French crucifix hanging over my mat. Beneath the feet of Christ was a skull embellished with the words memento mori. “It means ‘Remember we are mortal,’” said Gregory, “but poetry is not.” I just nodded.

  When he left, I sat down on my chair and ran my fingers over the cigarette burn, a fresh scar left by one of our greatest poets. He would always spell trouble and might even wreak havoc, yet he gave us a body of work pure as a newborn fawn.

  Secrecy was smothering Robert and David. Both thrived on a certain amount of mystery but I think David was too open to keep their relationship from me any longer. Tensions arose between them.

  Things came to a head at a party where we double-dated with David and his friend Loulou de la Falaise. The four of us were dancing. I liked Loulou, a charismatic redhead who was the celebrated muse of Yves Saint Laurent, the daughter of a Schiaparelli model and a French count. She wore a heavy African bracelet, and when she unclasped it, there was a red string tied around her tiny wrist, placed there, she said, by Brian Jones.

  It seemed that the evening was going well, except that Robert and David kept breaking away, heatedly conferring off to the side. Suddenly David grabbed Loulou’s hand, pulled her off the dance floor, and abruptly left the party.

  Robert raced after him and I followed. As David and Loulou were getting in a taxi, Robert cried out to him not to leave. Loulou looked at David, mystified, saying, “Are you two lovers?” David slammed the door of the taxi and it sped away.

  Robert was placed in the position where he was forced to tell me what I already knew. I was calm and sat quietly while he struggled to find the right words to explain what had just happened. I didn’t derive any pleasure from seeing Robert so conflicted. I knew this was hard for him, so I told him what Tinkerbelle had told me.

  Robert was furious. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  Robert was devastated that Tinkerbelle had told me not only that he was having an affair, but that he was homosexual. It was as if Robert had forgotten that I knew. It must have also been difficult as it was the first time he was openly identified with a sexual label. His relationship with Terry in Brooklyn had been between the three of us, not in the public eye.

  Robert wept.

  “Are you sure?” I asked him.

  “I’m not sure about anything. I want to do my work. I know I’m good. That’s all I know.

  “Patti,” he said, holding me, “none of this has anything to do with you.”

  Robert rarely spoke to Tinkerbelle after that. David moved to Seventeenth Street, close to where Washington Irving had lived. I slept on my side of the wall and Robert on his. Our lives were moving at such speed that we just kept going.

  Later, alone with my thoughts, I had a delayed reaction. I felt heavyhearted, disappointed that he hadn’t confided in me. He had told me I had nothing to worry about but in the end I did. Yet I understood why he couldn’t tell me. I think having to define his impulses and confine his identity in terms of sexuality was foreign to him. His drives toward men were consuming but I never felt loved any less. It wasn’t easy for him to sever our physical ties, I knew that.

  Robert and I still kept our vow. Neither would leave the other. I never saw him through the lens of his sexuality. My picture of him remained intact. He was the artist of my life.

  Bobby Neuwirth rode into town like some easy rider. He would dismount, and the artists, musicians, and poets all came together, a gathering of the tribes. He was a catalyst for action. He would breeze in and take me places, exposing me to other artists and musicians. I was a colt, but he appreciated and encouraged my awkward attempts at writing songs. I wanted to do things that affirmed his belief in me
. I developed long balladic oral poems inspired by storytellers like Blind Willie McTell and Hank Williams.

  On June 5, 1970, he took me to the Fillmore East to see Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. It was really not my kind of band, but I was moved to see Neil Young, since his song “Ohio” had made a great impression on me. It seemed to crystallize the role of the artist as a responsible commentator, as it paid homage to the four young Kent State students who lost their lives in the name of peace.

  Afterward we drove up to Woodstock, where the Band was recording Stage Fright. Todd Rundgren was the engineer. Robbie Robertson was hard at work, concentrating on the song “Medicine Man.” Mostly everyone else drifted off toward some hard-core partying. I sat up and talked with Todd until dawn and we found that we both had Upper Darby roots. My grandparents had lived close to where he was born and raised. We were also oddly similar—sober, work-driven, judgmental, idiosyncratic wallflowers.

  Bobby continued to open up his world to me.

  Through him I had met Todd, the artists Brice Marden and Larry Poons, and the musicians Billy Swan, Tom Paxton, Eric Andersen, Roger McGuinn, and Kris Kristofferson. Like a flock of geese, they veered toward the Chelsea Hotel, awaiting the arrival of Janis Joplin. The only credential that gave me entrance to the private world of these people was Bobby’s word, and his word was undisputable. He introduced me to Janis as “the Poet,” and from then on that’s what Janis always called me.

  We all went to see Janis play in Central Park at the Wollman Rink. The concert was sold out, but great crowds were spread out over the surrounding rocks. I stood with Bobby on the side of the stage mesmerized by her electric energy. It suddenly began to pour, followed by thunder and lightning, and the stage was cleared. Unable to continue, the roadies began to break down the equipment. The people, refusing to leave, began to boo.

  Janis was distraught. “They’re booing me, man,” she cried to Bobby.

  Bobby brushed the hair out of her eyes. “They’re not booing you, darling,” he said. “They’re booing the rain.”

  The intense community of musicians staying at the Chelsea then would often find their way into Janis’s suite with their acoustic guitars. I was privy to the process as they worked on songs for her new album. Janis was the queen of the radiating wheel, sitting in her easy chair with a bottle of Southern Comfort, even in the afternoon. Michael Pollard was usually by her side. They were like adoring twins, both with the same speech patterns, punctuating each sentence with man. I sat on the floor as Kris Kristofferson sang her “Me and Bobby McGee,” Janis joining in the chorus. I was there for these moments, but so young and preoccupied with my own thoughts that I hardly recognized them as moments.

  Robert got his nipple pierced. He had it done by a doctor in Sandy Daley’s space while he nestled in the arms of David Croland. She filmed it in 16mm, an unholy ritual, Robert’s Chant d’Amour. I had faith that under Sandy’s impeccable direction it would be beautifully shot. But I found the procedure repellent and did not attend, certain it would get infected, which it did. When I asked Robert what it was like, he said it was both interesting and creepy. Then the three of us went off to Max’s.

  We were sitting in the back room with Donald Lyons. Like the leading male figures at the Factory, Donald was an Irish Catholic boy from the boroughs. He had been a brilliant classicist at Harvard, destined for great things in academia. But he was beguiled by Edie Sedgwick, who was studying art in Cambridge, and followed her to New York City, giving up everything. Donald could be extremely caustic when drinking, and all in his company were either abused or amused. In his best moments he expertly spouted on film and theater, quoted from arcane Latin and Greek texts, and lengthy passages of T. S. Eliot.

  Donald asked us if we were going to see the Velvet Underground opening upstairs. It marked their reunion in New York City and the debut of live rock and roll at Max’s. Donald was shocked to find I had never seen them, and insisted we go upstairs with him to catch their next set.

  I immediately related to the music, which had a throbbing surfer beat. I had never listened closely to Lou Reed’s lyrics, and recognized, especially through the ears of Donald, what strong poetry they contained. The upstairs room at Max’s was small, perhaps holding fewer than a hundred people, and as the Velvets moved deeper into their set, we began to move as well.

  Robert took the floor with David. He had a thin white shirt on, open to the waist, and I could see the impression of the gold nipple ring beneath it. Donald took my hand and we sort of danced. David and Robert definitely danced. Donald, in our various discussions, was right about Homer, Herodotus, and Ulysses, and he was more than right about the Velvet Underground. They were the best band in New York City.

  On Independence Day, Todd Rundgren asked if I would go with him to Upper Darby to visit his mother. We set off fireworks in an abandoned lot and ate Carvel ice cream. Afterward I stood next to his mother in the backyard watching him play with his younger sister. She quizzically eyed his multicolored hair and velvet bell-bottoms. “I gave birth to an alien,” she blurted, which surprised me since he seemed so down-to-earth, at least to me. When we drove back to the city, both of us agreed we had found kin, each as alien as the other.

  Later that night at Max’s, I ran into Tony Ingrassia, a playwright who worked out of La MaMa. He asked me to read for a role in his new play Island. I was a little skeptical, but as he handed me the script, he promised no pancake makeup and no glitter.

  It seemed an easy role for me because I didn’t have to relate to any of the characters in the play. My character, Leona, was totally self-involved, shot speed, and rambled incoherently about Brian Jones. I was never completely certain what the play was about, but it was Tony Ingrassia’s epic. Like The Manchurian Candidate, everybody was in it.

  I wore my frayed boatneck shirt and rubbed kohl around my eyes as I had to appear at my worst. I guess I achieved a sort of junkie raccoon look. I had a vomit scene. That was no problem. I just held a sizable amount of crushed peas and wet cornmeal in my mouth for several minutes before I let it fly. But one night at rehearsal Tony brought me a syringe and said casually, “Just shoot water, you know, pull a little blood out of your arm and people will think you’re shooting up.”

  I almost fainted. I couldn’t even look at the syringe, let alone put it in my arm. “I’m not doing that,” I said.

  They were shocked. “You never shot up?”

  Everyone took it for granted that I did drugs because of the way I looked. I refused to shoot up. Finally they slapped hot wax on my arm and Tony showed me what to do.

  Robert thought it was hilarious that I should be in such a fix and teased me relentlessly about it. He knew well my needle phobia. He liked to see me onstage. He would attend all the rehearsals, so incredibly dressed he was worthy of a part himself. Tony Ingrassia would eye him and say, “He looks so fabulous, I wish he could act.”

  “Just sit him in a chair,” Wayne County chimed. “He wouldn’t have to do a thing.”

  Robert was sleeping alone. I went to knock on his door and it was unlocked. I stood and watched him sleep, as I had when I first met him. He was still that same boy with his tousled shepherd’s hair. I sat on the bed and he awoke. He leaned on one elbow and smiled. “Want to get under the covers, China?” He began tickling me. We wrestled around and couldn’t stop laughing. Then he jumped up. “Let’s go to Coney Island,” he said. “We’ll get our picture taken again.”

  We did all the things we liked. We wrote our names in the sand, went to Nathan’s, strolled through Astroland. We got our picture taken by the same old guy, and at Robert’s insistence I climbed aboard his stuffed pony.

  We stayed until dusk and boarded the F train back. “We’re still us,” he said. He held my hand and I fell asleep on his shoulder on the subway home.

  Sadly, the new picture of the two of us was lost, but the picture of myself astride the pony, alone and slightly defiant, remains.

  Robert sat on an orange crate as
I read him some of my new poems.

  “You should let people hear you,” he said, as he always did.

  “You’re hearing me. That’s enough for me.”

  “I want everyone to hear you.”

  “No, you want me to read at one of those wretched teas.”

  But Robert, not to be denied, pressed me, and when Gerard Malanga told him about a Tuesday open mike moderated by the poet Jim Carroll, he made me promise I would read.

  I agreed to try, choosing a couple of poems I thought suitable to perform. I can’t remember what I read, but I certainly remember what Robert wore, a pair of gold lamé chaps he had designed. We had some discussion about the matching codpiece and decided against it. It was Bastille Day, and I jokingly predicted that heads would roll when those poets checked him out.

  I instantly took a liking to Jim Carroll. He seemed a beautiful person, slim and sturdy with long red-gold hair, black Converse high-top sneakers, and a sweet disposition. I saw in him a mix of Arthur Rimbaud and Parsifal, the holy fool.

  My writing was shifting from the formality of French prose poetry to the bravado of Blaise Cendrars, Mayakovsky, and Gregory Corso. Through them my work developed humor and a little swagger. Robert was always my first listener and I developed a lot of confidence simply by reading to him. I listened to recordings of the beat poets and Oscar Brown Jr., and studied lyric poets like Vachel Lindsay and Art Carney.

  One night after a terminally long rehearsal for Island, I bumped into Jim, who was hanging outside the Chelsea eating a water ice. I asked him if he wanted to come along and go for a bad coffee at the doughnut shop. He said sure. I told him I liked to write there. On the next night he took me for bad coffee at Bickford’s on Forty-second Street. Jim told me that Jack Kerouac liked to write there.

  It wasn’t clear where Jim lived, but he spent a lot of time at the Chelsea Hotel. The following night he came home with me, and wound up staying in my side of the loft. It had been a long time since I really felt something for someone other than Robert.