by Neal Pollack
He’d been drinking cough syrup since he was eight, whiskey since he was fourteen, smoking marijuana since he was nineteen, and, for the last two years, popping pills, shooting heroin, and snorting drain cleaner off back issues of the Saturday Evening Post. At first he’d been insatiable and wild, able to wake at dawn with little aftereffect. But of late, he’d found himself stirring at noon, and then unstirring, then waking up again just before dusk, hungry and alone. At times he withdrew into the damned sanctums of his brain, cursing the abomination that he’d become, wondering how to get an invitation to that party he’d heard about, trying to figure out who would publish him next. A dog with two heads named ambition and desperation gnawed at his mind, and a jungle cat named confusion roared alongside. His muscles ached. His bones throbbed. He’d lost his way. He wasn’t quite yet twenty-five.
The buzzer rang.
“What?” Pollack said into the speaker. “What?”
“It’s Nico,” said the voice. “And I’ve brought twenty-five friends.”
So the cycle began again.
Andy Warhol began to curate shows at the Dom Theater on St. Marks Place. Pollack told him no one would pay attention, but Warhol ignored him. He called his show the Exploding Plastic Inevitable and charged five dollars. The Velvets played with their backs to the audience. Warhol showed films. On another wall, he showed slides. On a third wall was a kinescope of animals being tortured. Gerard Malanga wore leather pants and danced rhythmically. Beautiful women in leather bustiers cracked whips at one another, relishing the streaky blood that squirted from their welts.
Wearing only an executioner’s mask, Pollack sat center stage, grinding on a broom.
“I AM THE ANGEL OF DEATH!” he said.
The dancers ran through the audience, shining flashlights in people’s faces. They dry-humped one another in a winding mass. The audience was shocked, shocked.
Nico, standing next to Warhol, gazed on the scene from the balcony.
“It’s like the Red Sea,” she said, “paaaaaaarting.”
“This is my happening!” Warhol said. “And it’s freaking me out!”
“WHOOOO!” Pollack screeched from the stage. “WHOOOO! S and M! S and M!”
“He must be stopped,” Warhol said.
But against Andy Warhol’s wishes, Pollack went on tour with the Exploding Plastic Inevitable. One night in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he and Nico spent hours pacing their hotel room, staring each other down, mad, poetic, and desperate.
“Come on, Nico,” he said. “Let’s get outta here.”
“Not until you give me my pills back,” she said.
“I need those pills!” he said. “I need them to live!”
“Leave me alone!” she said.
Pollack grabbed her hair.
“You wanna cross the Nealster?” he said.
Nico wrenched away, dove for the door, and ran downstairs to the bus. Lou Reed was simultaneously giving and receiving a blow job.
“He’s trying to kill me!” she said. “Oh, please help! Neal’s going to kill me!”
Pollack sunk his head in his hands.
“I’m a monster!” he said. “Oh, dear god!”
It was time for an aesthetic and personal reckoning. Pollack was wracked with boundless guilt. Was this what he sought? Whips and art films in college auditoriums? Fistfights with German hipster succubi? Quiet, secret betrayals and noisy, anonymous group sex? Well, yes. But how far could he go by partying and making art with the coolest, most intelligent people of his generation? In his diaries, Pollack wrote, “As I sat there on that motel room bed with my cock hanging out and Lou Reed pounding on the door, I took the needle from my arm and I knew it was time to move on.”
He went to a bar called Mother’s and wrote this archetypal garage-rock song:
You can smoke my cigar
You can ride in my car
You can buy me a bar
You can play the sitar
But I won’t be…
Happy.
You can piss in my bed
You can spray-paint me red
Pound my brains till I’m dead
You can Flintstone my Fred
But I won’t be…
Friendly.
You can strap me sidesaddle
In a hotel room
Or split open my ass
With an extra-thick broom
You can suck on my monkey
From Beijing to Khartoum
But I won’t love you.
(one, two, three, four)
’Cause I’m a seeker.
Yeah, oh yeah
I’m a seeker.
I can cut off your hair
Take you to the state fair
Win a big teddy bear
I can be your au pair
But I’ll never…
Kiss you.
I can make you a pie
I can find you a guy
I can spit in your eye
I can laugh while you die
But I’ll never…
Want you…
Pollack drank a Pabst Blue Ribbon and a shot of Maker’s Mark, and then another, and another, while he worked on the song. It was a perfect expression of what he felt, a guttural shout of rage against hypocrisy. But it wasn’t right for Lou Reed. Lou didn’t have the vision to bring these words to life. Who could do it, then?
A band took the stage. They were the grimiest, scuzziest degenerates Pollack had ever seen. Oh, they were disgusting. They called themselves the Prime Movers. During the first number, the bass player set himself on fire.
“Put that out!” Mother said.
“Bite me, Mother,” said Ron Asheton. “I’m a dirtbag!”
But no one rocked harder than the drummer, a little pimple-faced kid in a white shirt and tie. Between numbers, he sat there shyly, head bowed, sticks hanging limply by his arms, but as each song kicked up, he flailed like a demon, pounding, grinding, evil, dying.
A stool came out of the crowd and hit the drummer in the head.
“Ow!” he said. “Gee! That hurt! Don’t do that again!”
Out flew a bottle. It got him on the chin.
“Golly!” the drummer said. “That wasn’t nice!”
And then he just kept playing.
Pollack downed another shot. He looked at his lyrics.
I’m a seeker, he said to himself. He felt alive. The drummer soldiered on.
“I have found him,” Pollack said. “I have found the one.”
James Osterberg lived in a trailer camp in the middle of a farm off US Highway 23 between Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, Michigan.
“I don’t usually take people home with me,” James said. “I’m ashamed.”
“I’ve lived in worse,” said Pollack. “I respect the workingman, because only the workingman can create true rock ’n’ roll.”
Inside, a middle-aged couple was watching Get Smart.
“Mom, Dad,” James said. “This is Neal Pollack. He’s a writer from New York.”
“You need a bath, young man,” said Mrs. Osterberg.
“It’s true, ma’am,” Pollack said.
“I wanna show you my room,” James said.
The room wasn’t much, a few Rolling Stones records, a baseball glove, a poster of Mickey Mantle, clothes strewn everywhere, just another sad lair of a dirtball teenage slob.
Pollack sat on the bed.
“Lemme tell you a secret,” James said.
“OK,” said Pollack.
“I’m telling you because of all those nice things you said to me at the bar about me being the savior of rock music.”
“I meant every word.”
“So listen, you see that shoebox on the windowsill?”
“Yes.”
“I shit in it.”
“You shit in a box?”
“Yeah. And then I put it on the windowsill, because I like to watch the birds eat my shit.”
Pollack stared at the kid.
“Damn,” he s
aid. “You are weird.”
“Gee,” said James.
They went outside. Two big jocks in overalls came up to them.
“Hey, Osterberg,” said one of them. “You still playin’ with dollies?”
James withered visibly.
“No,” he said.
“You still have your teddy bear?”
“Yes.”
They pushed him, and he fell, crying.
“I wouldn’t touch him, boys,” Pollack said, his eyes filling with wild menace. “I’m from New York City and I could slit your wrists with my teeth.”
The jocks backed off.
“We’ll get you, Osterberg,” one of them said. “Your friend has to go back to New York sometime.”
James drove Pollack back to the motel in Detroit. It took them forty-five minutes.
“You need a drink,” Pollack said.
“Aw, I don’t drink much,” said James.
“You need something. Come up to my room.”
Nico was there in bed. Lou was in bed next to her. Gerard Malanga was in bed next to Lou. Someone else was moving around under the covers. They were smoking joints and shooting up and also doing acid.
“Gosh!” said James.
“Hello, handsome,” Nico said.
James woke at noon. Outside the Algiers Motel, trucks were roaring. No. That was his head. Oh, god. The sheets were sticky, and where they weren’t sticky, they were crusty. He looked around. The room was festooned with discarded needles, beer cans, pizza boxes, roaches, empty packs of cigarettes, and blood-soaked towels.
“Ohhhhhh,” he said. “I’m late for school.”
The tour bus was gone. They all were gone. He thought about the night and smiled. Then he thought about what had happened later in the night and wept.
On the motel dresser was a note.
“Dear James,” it read. “What we did to you last night was unforgivable, but we aren’t sorry. We all agree that you are the true spirit of rock, and we can’t apologize for your debasement. It had to come eventually, at someone’s hands, and at least we knew what we were doing. With proper lubricant, it will be less painful the next time. Remember, be loud, be strong, be a man, and never let anyone tell you how to live your life. You are a golden god and owe nothing to anyone. Your starter kit is in the top drawer. Good luck. See you in heaven. Love, Neal.”
In the drawer were a fat joint, a bottle of Tuinals, gilded pants, some eyeliner, and a silver tube of lipstick with the engraving “THIS BELONGS TO NICO.”
“Nico,” James sighed. “Nico….”
He took off his T-shirt. His chest was young and raw and sleek. He removed his jeans and slipped on the gilded pants. Slowly, he applied the eyeliner and the lipstick, and gazed at himself in the mirror.
“I am a beautiful man,” he said.
He went out on the highway. A carful of girls picked him up.
“Ladies,” he said, “do me. And then take me home.”
As he walked toward his trailer, a jock approached.
“Oh, look, Osterberg’s wearing makeup!” he said.
He stared at the jock, his hands on hips.
“Oh, you little turd,” he said.
“What’s the matter, Osterberg? Boyfriend dump you?”
Iggy Pop leapt upon the jock and buried his teeth in his neck. He howled and ripped, emerging covered in gore. The jock howled in agony and struck out. Iggy dodged him and kicked him in the nuts. The jock limped away, sobbing. Iggy raised his hands to the sky, triumphant. He said:
“I’m a streetwalking cheetah with a heart full of napalm!”
Pollack got kicked off the Velvets tour one night in San Francisco. He celebrated by falling asleep on the sidewalk at the corner of Haight and Ashbury. In the morning, a boot was kicking him.
“Hey, man,” a voice said. “You’re blocking my motorcycle.”
“Whuhhhh?” Pollack said.
“Come on, you bum. I’ve got to get to work.”
“I’m not a bum,” said Pollack. “I’m a rock critic.”
The guy looked at him.
“You need a bath,” he said.
Pollack looked up. The guy wasn’t bad looking, in a Berkeley dropout kind of way.
“Well then,” Pollack said. “Why don’t you give me a scrub, big boy?”
An hour later, Jann Wenner rode to the office on his motorcycle. Pollack held on behind him, trying not to vomit. Wenner said he was starting a new magazine about rock music that would “revolutionize” the “youth culture” but also be “professionally reported and edited.”
“Pfft,” Pollack said.
The Rolling Stone offices were two rooms, a few typewriters, a couple of phones, some Moby Grape posters, and records piled everywhere. But it was clean overall, too clean for Pollack, who made a mental note to piss in a corner when no one was looking. Two guys were sitting around listening to Jimi Hendrix, smoking a joint.
“This record is quite interesting,” one of them said.
“It’s shit!” Pollack said.
He ripped the record off the turntable and smashed it.
“That’s what I think of this record,” he said.
Wenner’s employees were stunned. One of them started to cry.
“Quit your whining,” Wenner said. “Call the record company. Tell them the Hendrix they sent us is warped, and we need a free copy. Emphasis on free.”
Pollack sat on a couch, picking his nose.
“Why not write a review for us?” Wenner said. “A real review on a typewriter. Pick any record you want.”
“OK,” Pollack said. “I need some whiskey.”
Wenner went looking for booze. Pollack sat down and wrote this:
“Loo0ks’ ]ojkdp908-,lk’ ][ki 90-90ej spj99j mknsoidnnl IOIOIJisnn oisoihjhsoijipwmpjghooueornaovi #######~*********!!!! joatrjopgjif9ptkudjgkn0awefk;jpknjpi OPiJuilJhjiPoNIP oeaweipfargaiojit.”
He handed the paper to Wenner.
“Here’s my review,” he said.
“I don’t think this is what we’re looking for,” Wenner said.
“You’re an industry whore,” Pollack said.
“Get out,” said Wenner.
Pollack kicked open the door and went down the stairs.
To one of his assistants, Wenner said, “Follow him and make sure he doesn’t steal my motorcycle.”
This is beneath my scholarly abilities, thought the assistant, who was me, Paul St. Pierre. I endured Wenner’s bossiness because I knew that rock ’n’ roll was the future, both of the American intellect and the soul of the world. I wanted to write for as wide an audience as possible. In Wenner, I saw a like-minded individual who also epitomized entrepreneurship. Even today, I respect Wenner beyond all other figures in rock journalism and appreciate the fact that he continues to give me work.
At that moment, though, I wanted to talk to Neal Pollack, who was fuming and cursing on the sidewalk.
“Hey!” I said.
“What?” said Pollack.
“I saw you at the Velvet Underground show last night.”
“Yeah?” said Pollack. “So?”
“You really made quite a ruckus.”
Pollack sneered.
“What’d you think of the show?” he said.
“I thought it was brilliant. Lou Reed is like Tristan Tzara with a guitar.”
“Like who?”
“Tristan Tzara. He was a European artist—”
“Bullshit,” Pollack said. “Lou Reed is a fucking phony!”
“I disagree.”
Pollack sat on the curb.
“My head hurts,” he said.
He vomited on my shoes.
“Shit,” he said. “Sorry.”
“It’s OK,” I said. “That’s rock ’n’ roll.”
“No it’s not! It’s just an asshole puking on your shoes!”
“But…”
Pollack stood.
“You ever in New York?” he said.
“I live in New York,�
� I said. “My name’s Paul St. Pierre. I’m just out here for a couple months.”
“Look me up,” said Pollack. “Buy me dinner.”
“Where…”
“I’m at Max’s Kansas City every night,” Pollack said.
With that, Pollack walked into the street, where a car promptly hit him.
Mother was baking hamentashen. Norbert smelled it from his room. The apartment in Rogers Park filled with the sweet doughy smell and Gladys’s tuneless humming. Outside his window, the trees budded and the birds warbled. He could hear the quiet rush of Lake Michigan a block away, and the jingle of the knife-man’s cart.
“It’s Purim!” he said. “It’s Purim!”
He bounded out of bed. Running through the living room, still redolent of Vernon’s morning pipe, there was Gladys in the kitchen in her apron. She was in the full blooming flush of beauty.
“I made you some treats,” she said.
“Mommy!” said Norbert. “I love you, Mommy!”
She nudged his ribs.
“Who’s my little man?” she said.
“I am! I am!”
“Who’s my little genius?”
“Me! Me!”
“Hey, buddy, wake up.”
“Whuh?”
A cop was standing over Pollack, poking him with a night-stick. Shit. Still laid out at the Detroit bus terminal. His mouth caked with dried puke. Someone had taken his shoes. Goddamn it, he stank.
“You can’t sleep here.”
Pollack sat up. His spine lacked fluid.
“When’s the next bus to New York?”
“Tomorrow morning. Go get a room.”
“No shoes.”
“Not my problem.”
Pollack emerged into the late June evening. He heard sirens and smelled smoke. The newsstand guy had a radio. He heard, “Reports are that troopers shot and killed three men at the Algiers Hotel in downtown Detroit. The mayor has declared a state of emergency…”
“Great,” Pollack said.
He walked a few blocks, dazed, toward the smoke. A rock flew by his head.