Bottoming for God (eBook)

Barb Morrison (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
150 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-9883400-1-0 (ISBN)

Infos

Bottoming For God: A story about gender euphoria, sobriety, old skool NYC, true love, past lives and coming home.

Textauszug

chapter 3

the loveless

the drug dealers outside our building took a liking to us. by 1987 crack had been on the the streets of NYC for a few years and people were insane. if you needed to ride the L train, no one in their right mind would take the 3rd avenue subway stop. you’d walk the extra few blocks west to union square because if you dared to walk down into the 3rd ave stop, you’d either get jumped or you’d get a tweaked out contact high from the crack cloud.

the main dealers with the goods were a couple of rastamen who were transplanted from crown heights and their runners, two of which were these chicks named monique and sondy D.

monique was a chocolate brown whoopee goldberg type with scars all over her face and super nappy messed up afro puffs. sondy d was her caramel colored side kick with a short tight crew cut. the only visible scar she had was cut right into the back of her head. she always had a frown unless she saw us then it’d turn to a half smile, half sneer. both of them would look us up and down like they were trying to clock if we had anything in our pockets or bags that we could share with them. the two of them were ALWAYS in dirty clothes. big raggedy dirt covered shirts and leggings like they got them from the throw aways at goodwill.

it was THEIR dangerous neighborhood but because they loved me and wiley, we were always safe on our block. they’d call us “the blondies” and they’d yell out half a block away when they’d see us sauntering up the street.

YO BLONDIES ! COME ON TA DA WEEDJAM BEFORE DA BALDHEAD TAKE A DOWN IF YOU AINT BLACK UP YET TODAY MON.

they’d offer us a hit off something to try and they’d always come through if we needed to buy a little bit here and there. they hung out on our stoop and in our hallway doing whatever deals they needed to do, getting high, turning a trick or roughing someone up. there were many times when we’d hear someone pounding on our door, usually thinking it was old man ronald until we’d hear one of them begging us to let them in cuz “HE’S GONNA KILL ME HE’S GONNA KILL ME”.

we always minded our business.

only ONE time someone was really dead in the hallway so we figured that was a decent ratio of true drama to crying wolf.

because we worked in the coolest punk rock clothing store in the east village, we were also able to acquire anything we wanted on st marks from other businesses. we ate for free in every restaurant on the block because we outfitted all the waitresses with whatever clothes they wanted. we also drank for free at every bar. no matter what shop we walked into we had cart blanche. record stores ? everything free. guitar shops ? sure we could do a trade with a few motorcycle jackets and come out with the best guitars.

remember this was before digital ANYTHING. store inventory was done BY HAND and pretty much PENCIL. so smudging a delivery packing slip was not rocket science. when the store would receive a shipment of twenty motorcycle jackets we would change the 2-0 to a 1-8. a couple of cute waitresses on st marks would now have new leather jackets and we would have free dinner for the next month.

so me, wiley and these two guys named jerry and frankie rock started this band called “the loveless”. we named it after the 1981 movie starring willem dafoe.

one reason was cuz the film was so damn cool but another reason was cuz we were already wearing the garb. all four of us were decked in head to toe leather. steel toed motorcycle boots, leather pants or chaps, slick black trench coats or biker jackets and i even had a leather turtleneck shirt. man that thing was hot. i mean temperature wise.

our music was a combination of stiff little fingers & generation X era punk, jacked up bauhaus and a bit of motorhead thrown in. we were loud and feisty but always ALWAYS dark. the kind of dark that almost gave you an edge of dreamy but instantly got covered up with an aggressive bark.

the drag we were sporting made us untouchable. the name of the band said we were unlovable and living in that crazy building totally made us unreachable.

before i get into more about the band i wanna say something about being unreachable in that building.

there were no phones in the building so we had no phone number. these were the days before the internet and before cell phones or beepers. there was a pay phone downstairs by the subway entrance that was broken most of the time but once in a while you could get someone to call you on it. you’d have to stand there and guard it while you waited for whoever said they’d call you at 8pm or whenever.

sometimes while you were waiting, a stranger would walk up and try to use it. then a fight would ensue and you’d have to get street on their ass to make them walk another block for their call.

also there were no doorbells or buzzers in the building. so no one could visit unless you made a plan to meet them downstairs which was a smart move anyway cuz your visitor woulda been hassled like crazy by sondy d, monique or the other guys.

i guess it goes without saying that we had no mailboxes either. the building was pretty much an anonymous gaping wound in the concrete jungle. you basically disappeared into it.

i personally loved this because my family had no way of finding me. my mother and brothers had no idea where i was. lost in NYC. 19 years old. maybe on a milk carton, maybe not. i loved it. until the day my grandmother died and my brother shawn pulled out his best sherlock holmes. i had sent my family a box of stolen punk rock clothes and shoes the christmas before. with no return address. just bestowed them with my best sid vicious santa claus even though none of them wore stuff like that.

my brother went deep into his closet and pulled out the purple mondo creepers he received from me, looked at the label inside the shoe, called information in NYC and asked if there was a store with that same name. when they put him through he asked if i worked there and they said “yeah she does but she’s off today. her roommate wiley is here though. i can give him a message”. wiley came back to the squat that night with a scribbled piece of paper that said “call your brother. your grandma died”.

my grandma was my best friend when i was a little kid. they moved her in when the fighting started getting real real bad. my mother would be working every night til 4am so somebody had to protect me. i suppose the fighting musta been REAL bad cuz they moved her INTO MY ROOM. i didn’t mind at all. she paid attention to me. she would cook polish food like borsht and stuffed cabbages and pierogis for me. at night we would play cards and watch the love boat and fantasy island and eat peanut butter toast. she bought me my first skateboard when i was nine. and a ski jacket that was UNISEX which meant i could pretend it was a boys jacket. yeah she was my best friend for sure.

but by now i was way too far gone for that emotional crap. remember i was THE LOVELESS. so without showering, and with my best scowl i jumped on a train to the funeral and sat in the back row with filthy hair, an oversized FUCK YOU nose ring and black circles under my eyes.

i paid my respects to my grandma and slipped out withholding any further info on my whereabouts to my family.

i was back in my dirty metropolis within no time. exactly where i wanted to be.

so where was i….

the loveless was a gang of hoodlums whose main goal was to start trouble no matter what. when i say we engaged in crimes - there was a reason wiley constantly quoted “the old ultra violence”. the only thing i can honestly say we weren’t guilty of was murder. or at least not that we know of. i’ll shut up about that now to protect the somewhat innocent and also cuz thats a lotta territory to cover lets just leave it at : we were young, pissed off, full of energy and depending on whose side you were on - a lotta fun.

to me, being in a band was always first and foremost about being in a gang. a band was supposed to be brothers in crime that happened to play music too. this is how “the loveless” fell in love with each other.

we were hard drinking, hard fighting, dirty rotten scoundrels. somebody always had a black eye or a split lip. it wasn’t a stretch at all. the best bands were the ones who got into fistfights WITH EACH OTHER and we all wanted to be in the best band. the four of us were products of our environment. we wore it with pride like decorated generals.

when i first moved to NYC i tried out a few bands but none of them fit the way this gang of misfit rebels fit me. some bands wanted me to play math rock which was fun for about a week, and i could certainly handle it musically but i wanted the camaraderie of TROUBLE. i wanted to get in bar brawls with my guys and wake up the next morning not knowing which bruise was for what reason. i wanted to “hear” about what happened at our shows cuz i was way too drunk to remember. i wanted to jump from roof to roof running from the cops with the same guys i made music with. i tried on “the loveless” and we fit like a glove.

we had our first show at an underground club called “the lismar lounge”. the lismar lounge was LITERALLY under ground. you had to enter through one of those gates in the sidewalk that went down into a basement. most of the bands on the lower east side couldn’t play worth shit. we on the other hand actually had some good songs and we looked great so we instantly gained a following the night of our first gig.

jerry, the spiky black haired junkie...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 15.9.2023
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• ISBN-13: 979-8-9883400-1-0 / 9798988340010