Later that week I was at Welcome to the Johnsons, and the girl next to me looked up and said, “Normally I would think a girl dressed like that is a slut. But that girl looks awesome.” I glanced over at a girl on a barstool over by the pool table while unshaven ogres waited their turn with pool cues in hand and smiled at the girl like cavemen with clubs in their hands. She had on a backless unitard, tights, and a series of belts instead of pants. It was Gaga. The girl we all used to ignore had become a central focus.
MONDAYS BECAME MY NEW FAVORITE day of the week. Usually I slept in and ordered some lunch, wrote into the afternoon, and then met up with the crew for an early movie and a drink. The leisure of it all seemed extravagant and I never got over how much movie tickets cost. But if you can pay the rent and keep eggs in the fridge and scrounge up enough for a cab or a show, who really cared? Most of us existed in the post-collegiate habits of shared apartments, stolen music, and house parties that featured a punch made with the second-cheapest rum.
This next Monday, I ran into Gaga and some of her school friends at Pianos. Guy held court at a picnic table in the corner, sipping the lethal frozen margaritas. He wore a T-shirt from an extinct metal band with the sleeves cut off. Sweat dripped off the glass in the late summer heat.
Andrew W.K. had come in earlier to play a solo set of all classical piano. Bret and Jemaine from the New Zealand band and TV show Flight of the Conchords were at the bar taking notes. Jay, the bartender, had just got back from tour with A Place to Bury Strangers. He had a glow I knew all too well. It came from your band touring the country in a van you can’t rely on, playing clubs you can’t trust, on equipment you can’t afford to break. Sometimes it’s good just to get back behind the bar, where at least you could count on yourself. Jay poured two shots of Jameson the second I walked in the door and had one with me.
Most barstools came up to Gaga’s exposed belly button. Watching her crawl up them was sometimes the cutest thing ever because you knew other girls who would do a little hop or get some leverage off the concrete bar, like a swimmer coming out of the pool. Gaga crawled up the rungs like a burlesque dancer. Frequently, she put a knee down on the seat and sat her ass right on the bar.
She had on her new uniform: unitard, fishnets, heels. Adding or removing a slightly oversized leather jacket (a.k.a. “the boyfriend jacket”).
Strangers kept coming up to her. “I love your outfit.”
“Thank you,” she said, smiling. “I don’t like wearing clothes.”
“How do you two know each other?” a scrappy NYU girl asked.
“We are both associates of Mr. Guy,” Gaga smiled.
Unconsciously, I glance over and notice that he’d gone.
Paul, the English manager who hired me, walked over and gave me a devilish little glance when he got a look at Gaga. “Who is this fine lass you have with you tonight?”
“This is Gaga.”
“Oh, I keep hearing about you.” He then turned to Gaga. “When are you going to grace our stage again?”
Gaga, the queen of the court, smiled. “Anytime you want. I’m supposed to go out to LA and record so I have to save my voice starting next week. But we’re playing at the Slipper Room first.”
“Good luck with that.”
“Thank you,” she said.
When Paul walked away she looked semi-despondently around the room. She couldn’t find Guy. I leaned over to her. “I think he’s outside for a smoke.”
She looked sad and I hated to see a pretty girl look sad. “What are you working on?”
Her face lit up. “You’re going to love it.”
“Tell me every single thing about it.” I never had any sisters. But somehow I became one on sleepovers like this.
“I wrote a song about the Killers’ after-party.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“No. And you’re in it.”
“What?”
She sang it to me over the beat of the band in the back room.
I never got over how great her voice sounded. We had friends who were singers because they wanted to be in a band and couldn’t play bass. We had perfectionist, never-gonna-get-it friends who cleared their throats, blamed their range on something they’d eaten, and had us just trust that they had greatness in their lungs. Gaga worked with a vocal coach on new techniques that toned her vocal cords like tuning violin strings. Even when she sang along to the background music, she straightened her spine and reached into the back corners of her nimble range.
“It just came out one day in the studio. Can you believe it? I’m so excited.”
“Do you write in the studio?”
“Of course. That’s the best part. Figuring out what comes out of you when you have nothing.”
“I’m the same way. Every day I sit down to do my writing and I usually don’t have anything but a vague outline to work off of.”
Her eyes brightened. “Are you writing again?”
“Every day,” I let out my sheepish smile. “Don’t ask me how well it’s coming but it’s coming. I let go. Now I’m holding on.”
“Is this Mercutio?” She turned to her friends. “Brendan is rewriting Romeo and Juliet. Isn’t that brilliant? Such a good story. I can already see it being a big movie. You’re going to be huge.”
Her friends smiled and nodded, still never quite comfortable in Gaga’s new world.
Gaga and I went back to talking about craft. “So by not keeping a notebook, every day you get to surprise yourself like you’re reading it for the first time?”
“Exactly. Also, I don’t want to be one of those Moleskine-wielding schmucks at the bar trying to look deep,” I said. “Being a regular drunk is fine by me.”
“Yes,” she giggled. “I never make notes. I always say if it doesn’t stick with you it wasn’t that important.”
“I’m with you on that.”
“When do I get to read it?”
WE STRUT HER AROUND TO a few other bars as I vaguely hit on her cute friends. Gaga caught stares and admiration on every corner of the LES. Her ego never swelled, but it did fan her fame flame. By the time we passed the streetlight on Rivington, she was glowing.
Her friends basked in it with her, and some of the attention focused on Gaga deflected off on to them. Like most guys, I get easily distracted by pretty girls in small groups. I call them Planeteers. One of them is blonde, one of them is nice, one of them is funny, and one of them is just tall. But when you see a group of five nice girls together, the excitement somehow morphs them into one gorgeous Captain Planet.
Finally settling on St. J’s, we slid into a half-moon-shaped leather booth, with Gaga perched on the back like in a fifties beach movie, scrunched up in the back of a packed convertible. We lost ourselves in the night. St. J’s was the perfect little place to sit with a good friend and listen to good music and have a good time.
Hours later, Guy came roaring into St. J’s with a goofy smile on his face. I didn’t make a big deal about it and I went back to talking to Gaga’s friends. She went to be with him as he faltered onto a barstool. “Are you drunk?” she asked him. Such a preposterous question when all of your friends were, by profession. He laughed in her face.
Minutes later, I watched him stab another cigarette into his mouth, hop off the bar stool, and walk himself out for a smoke. He never returned.
GAGA CALLED HIS PHONE A half dozen times while her friends trickled home.
“Maybe he’s out of battery,” I told her. She texted him. “He probably just went home.”
“Why didn’t he wait for me? I would have gone home with him. Especially if he needed me to make sure he got home okay. What if he’s dead?”
“He’s probably just in a basement bar with bad reception.”
“Did he say anything to you? Is he mad at me?” In the prime of your life you can only be divided by yourself, and one.
“It’s probably nothing.”
“What did he say? Tell me everything.”
“
Nothing. But he had band practice today and you know how they get. It’s basically drinking practice.”
“Did he say anything? You know how he doesn’t like it when we get on his case or tell him he’s drunk.”
She wanted to cry into her phone and press send. I couldn’t stand seeing her like this. “Don’t worry about it. He’ll call. I’ll check up on him in the morning. Do you want me to wait until we hear from him?”
She teared up. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I wasn’t accusing him of anything. I just asked if he was drunk, like maybe he wanted to just go over to my place. I live two goddamn blocks from here.” Guy lived in a remote part of Brooklyn where the container ships docked on the other side of the expressway from the nearest subway.
Poor girl, beating herself up like this over something she said. I guarantee he didn’t hear her.
“I don’t think he’s mad. But the only thing we can do is go calling around and asking for him. And you know he’ll hate that.”
Gaga fell silent. All that buoyant fame she had moments ago burned out like a table candle. Her lower lip trembled. “Will you walk me home?”
IF THERE IS THE INVERSE of a fag hag, I am it. I’m a straight guy who notices when someone’s girlfriend gets a new haircut. I pay for the cab when we go out. I buy you dinner when he’s bartending and I only take pictures of you where you look cute and skinny. I notice when you have new shoes versus an old pair you don’t wear often.
Gaga had this purposeful step when she walked, which made up for the foot we had in height difference. I’m six foot two and I walk like a busy New Yorker. She clomped down the streets in heels, effortlessly slaloming around rusted hatchways, subway grating, and other sidewalk dangers, forcing me to keep up.
“Look. You know how he gets.”
She let out an angry sigh. “He’s such a fuck.”
“You know what I think? His pride took over and he got embarrassed about getting so drunk. He likes to be in control.”
“I would have taken care of him. I don’t care if he gets drunk, we could have just gone to bed,” she said, envisioning her forthcoming loneliness. And just before she started to tear up again she smiled at me in the moonlight and said, “You’re such a good friend.”
“I had fun,” I said. And then I realized that I really did. “I haven’t had this much fun since—”
Gaga cut me off before I could mention Nikki. “Since before?”
“Yes. But since before it was good. Months ago at this point. You know how they say it’s not over ’til it’s over? It was really over before it was over.”
“I’m sorry I’m such a mess. I really had fun too. If we could cut out the drama then you and I had the perfect little Lower East Side date tonight.”
In the panic of my oversensitivity my heart started racing. “Oh, totally,” I finally forced out. I totally had fun and that in no way meant I took my friend’s girlfriend on a date. “If we’d met last week and I got your number this is exactly what we’d do. I’d take you to Pianos and totally impress you with how I know everybody in the scene. We’d check out a show and then hit up a few places, end up at St. J’s.”
“You’d feed me shots until all we could talk about was our favorite records, and then we’d gossip about people we both know.”
“And then, like, your ex would pop in drunk and we’d have to pretend we needed to be somewhere else.”
“Yes!” Her voice had a flutter to it, but with a creaky wrinkle in it like a butterfly spreading its wings for the first time. “But then it’s getting late and you’d have to walk me home. So much fun! My little heart racing, like, ‘Ohmygod, is he gonna kiss me?’”
Our footsteps slowed down as we got closer to her block. We lost cadence, one of us trying to get the other to lag behind. We had rushed the wrong part of the night with other people’s problems. The entire block fell into a silence, filled only with the sound of my keys nervously bouncing along on my leg and the staccato metronome of her clacking heels. At the door to her building we shared an extra moment of silence. If we were buddies she’d invite me up for a little nightcap of whatever she had left to drink. We’d listen to records while I snooped through her bookshelves. If we were on a date she’d invite me up for a little nightcap of whatever she had left to drink. We’d listen to records while we snooped through each other’s souls. Tonight didn’t feel like either.
She climbed up into the doorway and turned to face me. The step evened out our height difference. She looked at me with those beatific eyes. Time stopped. My heart did not. She caught herself, bit her lower lip, and smiled, looking down at her feet doing a nervous dance. My cheeks swelled up like someone holding back a smile.
I heard myself say, “I’ll call you if I hear from him, okay? I’ll let him know you got home safe.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head and looking like a wide-eyed harlequin in her eye makeup. “He can never know that you walked me home. He gets jealous.”
“Oh, c’mon. It’s me. I’m like a gelding.” I think I said that just to hear it. “A eunuch.”
“Not to him you’re not. You come into the bar every week with a different girl and all he talks about is how he can’t believe it.”
“Oh, that’s not true.”
“It is.” She looked dead serious. “You know how he gets. Especially about you.”
“I have a hard time believing that.”
She put a hand to my chest and looked me straight in the eye. “If he says anything, you say you put me in a cab when we got separated.” She looked down at the hand on my chest, still electric from my beating heart pounding back at it.
“That doesn’t make any sense. Logistically. We were never more than three blocks from your apartment. It’s just not polite or smart to let a girl walk alone.”
“Then tell him you didn’t see me.”
“Don’t put me in the middle of this. You’re my friend, but he’s my boss. I just care that you got home okay. Goodnight.”
I kissed her once on the cheek as a soft gasp of cool air whispered through her lips. My senses paused when I smelled her perfume and felt the softness of her skin. Time stopped again. She gave me a goodnight hug and wouldn’t let me go until she thanked me again. I swallowed and marched myself down the street, gearing up for my glamorous subway ride home. I lived one stop from the LES, if you were willing to walk through Big Trouble in Little Chinatown and catch the first B train to my house when it started running in the mornings.
I got about halfway down Stanton Street when I heard a lone siren calling, “Hey.”
I turned around at the corner. She stood in the light of the open door to her reformed tenement.
“Y-yeah?”
She paused for a second and swallowed. And then she said out of nowhere, “I love you.”
To love and to be loved is an addiction and sadly kind of hard to find a fix.
I put my head down and I didn’t want anything at all to happen. But I wanted her to know what I had to tell her.
“I love you too.”
Her face was shrouded in the dark, hidden by a lifeless streetlight. She nodded and muscled a smile onto her worry-worn face. I crammed my hands into the pockets of my leather jacket. She saw through me and I through her. We were not just two work friends who had implausibly bumped into each other on the street.
There was nothing more to say. In three words she unraveled a mystery that we didn’t know we had spent the whole night trying to solve. Her smile evaporated with her tears and the too-heavy tenement door clamped shut after she sent me a goodnight nod.
LUDLOW STREET SHUTTERED UP LIKE a ready-and-willing warzone. Every storefront had an iron garage-door-style gate that served as a canvas for graffiti tags and spray-painted dicks. Every night was trash night in this mixed territory of commercial and city waste. Rats wandered freely from one Chinese grocer to the next, while roving bands of homeless dudes grabbed bags of commercial trash. They took the thick industrial bags from in
front of restaurants and factories and shops, wound them up, and tossed them ahead like they were making a sound-effects record. The glass and plastic in the trash bags clattered ahead on the street, where they were picked up once again and tossed ahead until they met up with a garbage truck at the end of the one-way street. Others picked through the bottles and cans we’d drained only an hour before. Before sunrise, you only saw the bottom feeders of Lower East Side ecosystem. Us included.
Just for the hell of it, I called Guy to make sure he made it home. I wanted to tell him that Stef got in okay. Maybe he should be a little jealous. Maybe he should feel overprotective. I decided that at minimum, I’d call just to make sure he survived.
Somebody else picked up. “Hello, who this is?” A terse accent screamed into the phone.
“Hello? I’m trying to track down a friend and he’s not picking up his phone. Did you find this phone somewhere tonight?”
“Boolsheet. He won’t get out of the cab. We at his house.” He shuffled the phone a little bit. “Hey, hello? Wakey up. $15.60.” He must have gone all the way home to Brooklyn.
“Should I come collect him?”
“Hold on.” The driver put him on the phone.
“Are you okay? Your girlfriend was worried sick.”
“Don’t use the G word.”
“Fine,” I said. “Your boyfriend was worried sick.”
“Rock ’n’ rollllllll—”
And he hung up on me.
Empty barrels make the most noise
I cruised next-next door to 151 halfway into my first shift at St. Jerome’s. I needed to borrow a bottle of triple sec. In truth, I didn’t imagine that too many cosmos get ordered in a filthy rock ’n’ roll bar, but Gaga would probably come visit on my first day and I want to be stocked so I could make her a margarita.
One-Fifty-One Rivington Street was an unmarked door below street level at the bottom of a stone staircase. A beaded curtain sectioned off the small seating areas and made it look like the basement rumpus room of a suburban San Diego home—a home rented out to three community-college students who later dropped out. Some of the beaded curtains had big gaps. Some of the seats were taped up. The bathroom walls looked like some disturbed eighth grader’s notebook—all graffiti and stickers from bands you’d never heard of. This included the work of “Bea Arthur,” a street artist who used a thick brown marker to tag toilet seats with, eponymously, “Bea Arthur.” Because of this prolific artist, your friends would politely excuse themselves whenever they needed to take a shit by saying, “I’m gonna take a ‘Bea Arthur.’”
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