Pull Up To The Bumper
Summer in the City 1981
My love affair with an idealized vision of The City began sometime in 1970. My friend Richard and I rode the bus from the suburbs to downtown Cincinnati on a Saturday afternoon. In the chili parlor off Fountain Square, all the other kids were right in our age range, 12–14, and though most of them were black it didn’t matter here, we were all spinning on our stools and eating coneys and bobbing along to the Five Stairsteps’ “Ooh Child” (a heartfelt Jackson 5 knockoff) on the radio. That moment in the chili parlor took root in my consciousness. Soul music and social diversity became forever associated with The City in my searching pre-teen mind.
Ten years later, I visited New York City for the first time and it happened again. For five days and nights, everywhere we went, Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You” emanated from storefronts, passing cars and the portable stereos known as ghetto blasters or boomboxes. I attended some great live music shows during that trip, including Parliament/Funkadelic at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, maybe the best concert I’ve ever seen. But the sound that echoed in my head back in the Midwest was the music in the street.
One year later I was back. My first six months in New York were difficult. City life overloaded my senses on a daily basis. Yet at the same time I felt isolated amid the millions and millions of people. Outside of work, I spent much of my time alone, reading or listening to the radio. I couldn’t afford a stereo or television. I lived in a seedy rooming house in Greenwich Village, what was known as an SRO (Single Room Occupancy). One room with no kitchen and bathroom down the hall: I cooked on a hot plate. My neighbors included an opera student who practiced all day in her room, a middle-aged hotel bellhop, the requisite junkie thief and another guy my age who turned out to be a high-end male prostitute. I spent as little time “at home” as I possibly could.
However I did make one fast friend during this solitary period. He proved to be a frequent companion, off and on, for the next few years. There was a catch, however, a complication that meant our platonic relationship would always be unrequited. My first friend in New York was a voice on the radio. But what a voice! And what taste in music!
If Frankie Crocker isn’t on your radio, your radio really isn’t on…
During the long hot summer of 1981 I hung out in nearby Washington Square Park. The big portable radios resounded throughout the square, from the grand arch to the disused fountain, dozens of boomboxes tuned to the same station. So from all corners of the park, I could hear the baritone announcer reading the resonant ID and promo.
W…B…L…S…Number One….Where you hear THIS: followed by five seconds of “Square Biz” by Teena Marie; and THIS “Magnificent Dance” by The Clash; and THIS “I’m In Love” by Evelyn Champagne King and THIS “I’ll Do Anything For You” by Denroy Morgan; and THIS “Heartbeat” by Taana Gardner and THIS “Never Too Much” by Luther Vandross…It’s all happening NOW on WBLS-FM New York
Sometimes, the music in the street commented on my new life like a boombox Greek chorus (“Can You Handle It” by Sharon Redd). I could never quite decide whether it was tragedy or comedy.
The weekend afternoons I spent in the park were my first and only taste of street life. I’d watch people getting cheated at chess, or buying beat reefer from the scurvy vendors who thronged like piranhas around the southwest entrance. In the square itself, student clowns and apprentice acrobats performed their stunts with crazed abandon. There was a fire-eating daredevil whose act I watched between my fingers, sensing every performance would end in disfigurement or death. His homemade torches resembled Molotov cocktails. This guy looked like he ran away from the circus.
The fountain basin served as an open-air theatre for itinerant musicians and comedians. People sat in rows on the concrete steps as if they were perched in the ballpark bleachers. The typical bill of fare on a Saturday might include a ragtag bebop ensemble, a troupe of incredibly nimble street-dancers accompanied by drummers pounding plastic buckets, and last but not least, a succession of self-styled funnymen. The unfortunate religious fanatics who strayed into this arena never fared too well.
By far the most popular performer in the park, the star of the circuit, was a wild-eyed guy named Charlie Barnett. He’d come running through the park, banging on a hubcap or blowing a whistle in between in shouts of “Showtime! Showtime!” His high-energy delivery and raunchy riffs weren’t merely derived from Richard Pryor’s, in many cases they were Pryor’s, almost verbatim. His entire act was a cover version; Charlie Barnett was a Richard Pryor tribute band. He was also funny, in small doses.
I rarely ran into any of my neighbors in the park, which was initially part of its appeal.
Eventually I became friends, more or less, with two people in the building. Frank and Jeff both lived on the first floor, in two-room suites, while everybody else made due with a single. They provided my crucial primer in the promise, and perils of radical self-invention.
****
Jeff, the superintendent, was a gangly middle-aged man, well over six feet despite stooping a bit. Grey scraps patched his lank black hair while gigantic bug-eyed glasses magnified his incongruous green eyes. A strategic deployment of rubber bands bound these ocular relics of the previous decade.
If nothing else, I was impressed by Jeff’s resourcefulness. His not-readily-apparent means of making a living was something he didn’t try to conceal. No, he was eager to share his acumen. The superintendent job provided free rent plus a meager salary. Considering that his duties seemed to consist of collecting the rent and taking out the trash, in that order of frequency, his $25 a week looked generous from where I slept.
His main gig and true calling, his métier, was scavenging. Jeff was a garbage broker, a speculator in recyclables, a trash tout. He picked investments out of the staggering array of flotsam and jetsam just left there to rot in the city streets. He combed the urban beaches, the New York equivalent of those borderline-derelict Florida retirees who used to patrol the oceanfront, wielding their metal detectors like divining rods.
Naturally, Jeff offered to share his finds with me, asking for a nominal fee only after he’d hauled the junk up to my apartment. None of this was desired nor encouraged. Jeff would show up, plunk down a tattered lamp or rusty toaster oven and start to admire it aloud, conducting a sort of hard-sell seduction until I’d finally fork over the suggested $5 or $10 just to get rid of him. Returning all this weather-beaten house ware to the street wasn’t an option, not after his wounded inquiry the one time I tried it.
“You’re not going to believe this but I found another table fan just like yours…hey wait a minute…” Eventually, the unbidden furniture and appliance deliveries wound down. There just wasn’t much room left in my room.
Consulting Jeff about hot plate cookery would’ve been ridiculous. He ate all his meals in restaurants. How this squared with his frugality is a tribute to his one visionary talent. Jeff Riedel, as he was listed in the phone book, was the budget gourmet supreme, an indispensable guide to the culinary underside of downtown Manhattan. He became my mentor in the matter of finding tasty, sustaining meals on the cheap. Jeff was the first foodie I encountered.
“I used to be able to get by on $5 a day but New York is so expensive now.” So he said repeatedly, with a sigh and without irony.
In Chinatown, Jeff introduced me to another side of the city, a world within a world, at once alien and alluring, delectable and disgusting. Chinatown offered a melee of sights and smells. Mott Street, the main drag, contained restaurants, bakeries, takeout stands, souvenir shops and outdoor market stalls stocked with unfamiliar fruits and root vegetables that looked like unearthed tree stumps. Fishmongers stacked rows of fragrant specimens on ice along the sidewalks, heads and tails intact, dozens of species set out in the sun alongside barrels of edible shell creatures ranging from shrimp to snails to wriggling live crabs. Until then, I’d only shopped at Krogers and A&P in the Ohio suburbs, or the crunchy granola hippie food co-ops in my college town.
Jeff insisted on practicing his beginners Chinese everywhere we went, to the general bemusement of waiters and countermen all over Chinatown. Something was off with his delivery. He never seemed to establish the common ground that basic conversation is built on; he’d proudly deploy the vocabulary words he’d just defined for me and the targeted Chinese-speaker would invariably grimace and shake his head.
“No.”
His geeky enthusiasm for Chinese culture was, uncharacteristically for Jeff, straightforward and sincere. I almost found it endearing, or perhaps it just made him more endurable. Another hat he wore (his phrase) was that of ESL (English as a Second Language) instructor, a tutor for recent immigrants. Despite my growing skepticism about Jeff’s character, between his constant evasions and clumsy money-hustling schemes, I registered something resembling compassion in his quavery voice whenever he spoke about his handful of “clients.”
Later that summer he asked me to attend an evening meeting with him, a recruiting event for an ESL teaching volunteers group. I told Jeff that I had just started my low-paying editorial job at an obscure trade magazine and wouldn’t have time to donate until I got out of debt. But he didn’t let it drop and I didn’t have anything to do when the night arrived, so I went along thinking I could get a free beer or glass of wine, and a peak at the other potential volunteers, i.e. hopefully people my own age for a change.
The party took place in a loft ten floors above Broadway near the Flatiron Building. As we waited for the rattling antique elevator in the litter-strewn lobby, Jeff motioned me closer to him, speaking in a nearly inaudible voice. There was nobody else around.
“You might hear some people tonight call me Jed.”
“What, as in Jed Clampett?”
“Wha-what do you mean?”
“It was a joke, never mind, what’s the deal with this Jed business?”
“Well it’s another name I use. Jeff, Jed, Jay sometimes.”
“Huh. So this means Riedel isn’t your real last name.’
“It is now. I’ve used other variations.”
“I know this is a dumb question, Jeff, but why bother? Doesn’t it get, uh, complicated, maintaining these different identities?”
“Mark, the great thing about New York is how you can lead different lives.”
Right on cue, the elevator doors ended our conversation with a thud. I was relieved.
****
Frank was my peer, high school class of 1976, an Italian-American native of Brooklyn who’d recently made the giant leap across the bridge.
Frank was matter-of-fact about his sexuality but respectful of the fact that I wasn’t gay. (Though he pulled a puzzled face when I remarked about his exquisite younger sister, raven-haired and olive-skinned like Frank, after she stopped by one Sunday night). Frank eschewed the macho costume that still predominated among homosexual men in the city at that time, the so-called “gay clone” look. He dressed in meticulous preppy style that highlighted his athletic build. Even I perceived that he was strikingly handsome. Frank resembled a male model, rather than one of the Village People.
We had an easy rapport. Mostly we talked about our shared experiences: Catholic school, boring office jobs, dreams of making it in Manhattan. Not the same dreams, to be sure. And when it came to the execution of our ambitions, the reality of making those dreams happen, in other words just how far you’re willing to go once you get here — well, that’s where Frank and I parted company.
His first floor digs comprised a regal suite compared to my Spartan studio. Or perhaps it just seemed more like an apartment, less like a cheap hotel room. The absence of a kitchen was better concealed. I basked in the rush of his air conditioner, openly expressing my envy of the extra space, much to Frank’s undisguised delight. Configuring his spread, he had adhered to the classic living-and-bedroom arrangement. Next door, Jeff slept on an exploded sofa in the front room, while his back room functioned as a bottomless closet.
Frank was a congenial, generous host. He’d guide me to the sleek, incongruous black vinyl couch, fetch me a cold drink, and then settle back into his canvas director’s chair. From there he’d project images of the glamorous life he intended to lead, a flickering series of slightly clichéd scenarios. Frank didn’t seek to possess wealth and power, necessarily. He fiercely craved proximity to power, access to wealth. Frank was into the deluxe lifestyle, the pleasures and perks. Concepts like accomplishment, hard work and paying your dues were definitely not part of his game plan.
Frank was more than generous, I realized over the course of our visits. Sometimes we shared a high-octane joint he provided. Once he unveiled a hand mirror bearing thick lines of cocaine. Yet Frank appeared to be one of those people upon whom recreational drugs have little effect. Nevertheless he kept the stuff on hand, offering it up with a demure “somebody gave me something.” He was naturally wired, buzzed with energy, telling stories, jumping from subject to subject. Frank tried to listen when it was my turn but there were multiple demands on his attention. His phone rang. Frequently. Our socializing was often curtailed at very short order. Nothing personal. He was a busy guy.
There was something earthy about Frank, and something earnest, too, for all his displays of presumed sophistication. Of course he could be too grand at times, affecting a lofty air, letting everybody know he was destined for far better things than our current humble surroundings. But the funny thing was, as far as I could see, Frank seemed to get around in pretty high style already — especially for a guy living in a dump.
Returning from work one humid July evening, I paused on Carmine Street. After browsing esoteric disco records at Vinyl Mania, I contemplated a budget supper at Joe’s Pizza. Suddenly, a loud and suspiciously familiar voice assaulted my eardrums. “Mark Coleman! Hey Mark!” It sounded like Frank but I couldn’t locate him until I turned to look at the long black limousine idling in traffic directly in front of me. Frank’s statuesque head and shoulders popped out of the open sunroof. He was literally cackling like a lunatic. “Mark! Hurry Up! C’mon, Mark! Get In!” When we turned north onto Sixth Avenue, Frank yanked me up through the sunroof. I felt pretty silly, and also wildly exhilarated, as we headed uptown, hooting and hollering. The only thing missing was the ticker tape.
A few weeks later I lingered on the front stoop of our building in the evening shadows, watching the two-lane pedestrian traffic flow to and from Washington Square Park. Slinky and suggestive, Grace Jones’ “Pull Up To the Bumper” was the song of the moment on WBLS. From my spot I could hear Sly & Robbie’s rocking reggae rhythms in stereo, broadcast from passing radios on both sides of the street. Just as I got into the groove a discordant squeal interrupted my reverie. A lumbering, lumpy man in an old army jacket entered my field of vision. He came straight out of the early Seventies, complete with greasy long hair and drooping mustache. On his shoulder rested a huge boombox. As he passed, head down, I recognized the piercing sound of Lou Reed’s voice and John Cale’s viola. Amid all the disco songs I usually heard in the street, “Heroin” by the Velvet Underground reverberated like a funereal dirge, or a car wreck. “Hey” I shouted. When I looked down the sidewalk, he was already gone. He was legendary rock critic Lester Bangs.
“Hey.” Before I could process the moment and reflect about a torch being passed, somebody had snuck up on me from the other direction. This voice was quiet, authoritative and unfamiliar.
“Uh, hey, yeah. Yes?” I turned to face the man at the gate.
He was thickset, graying blond hair, suit and tie. The likelihood that he knew somebody in the building was, in my estimation, slim to none. No way, this guy must be a salesman.
“So can I help you?”
“Could you open this gate? Mitch. I’m here to see Mitch.”
“Mitch? Look there isn’t anybody here named Mitch. Sorry.”
“Mitch, you know, he lives in the back apartment.”
I started to reply, and then stopped myself. Swinging the gate open, I stepped aside as he ambled up the stairs to the front door.
“The doorbells, ah, those buzzers don’t work.”
At this, he turned around and glared at me.
“Take a look at the names on the intercom and see if you recognize Mitch’s last name.” Now I was trying to be helpful.
When the front door opened, seconds later, I watched in amazement as Frank waved the man in. Shooting me a look, my friend apologetically rolled his eyes and slammed the door shut.
****
The dangers of living in such a decrepit and neglected building, so obvious in retrospect, never occurred to me until it was too late. Around 4:00 AM one August night, I awoke from a womb-like slumber. Automatically I got up to urinate. When I opened the door and stepped toward the bathroom, it seemed like I was still asleep, dreaming. A choking mist filled the hallway. I couldn’t see two feet in front of me. As I stumbled back into my room, the acrid smell in my nostrils registered in my brain.
FIRE!
Struggling to remain calm, I sat down on my bed, pulled off my gym shorts and put on the jeans I’d worn earlier. As I tied my sneakers, the unlocked door burst open and a fireman appeared. He grabbed me by the arm and shoved me toward the door. Wait.
“Are you alone here?”
“Yeah!”
He glanced over at the back window. No fire escape.
“Is there anybody else on this floor?”
“Two other people, no the girl’s not here. Guy across the hall.”
“OK we got him. All right I’m taking you downstairs.”
I fumbled for my wallet, keys. What else should I bring?
“NOW!”
Next thing I knew we were moving down the stairs, one of the firefighter’s arms wrapped around my shoulders, an axe in his other hand. I began to cough like I had emphysema.
“Time to take a break. Get you some fresh air.”
We stepped off the landing onto the second floor. He kicked open an apartment door. I heard the crash and tinkle of a window being broken and then my head was hanging out in the night air. I was still gulping as he pulled me back in and onto the stairway.
“We’re almost done. You’re doing great.”
“Shit! You’re the one who’s doing great.”
“Save your breath.”
When we finally reached the front door, I nearly fainted. In my swirling vision I could make out a fire engine parked in the street, hoses and water everywhere, flashing lights distorting the faces of Jeff, Frank and my other neighbors as they huddled on the sidewalk. The fireman who rescued me went back to the building while another threw a blanket over my shoulders and pointed me toward a smaller vehicle down the block.
Gradually, my head was clearing.
“You’ll be OK but we’re obligated to take you to the emergency room. Observation. Smoke inhalation. Don’t worry.”
With that, he ignited a cigarette. I’ve never felt so relieved.
At St Vincent’s, I spent about two hours sitting around and five minutes being examined by a harassed doctor who didn’t seem to think there was much of anything wrong with me, and said so, caustically pointing out than I hadn’t been shot or overdosed.
Thank God for small favors.
A friendlier nurse guided me to a shower stall, and then supplied me with new underwear, still in the package, a threadbare pair of polyester pants and a Fifties-style sport shirt. My clothes reeked of smoke and despite my protests, were thrown away.
It was 8:00 AM when I was released and I had no idea what to do next. I wasn’t ready to return to 78 Washington Place just yet, so I went to work. What was I thinking?
Apparently I still smelled like smoke because everyone in the office stared. After telling and retelling my story, it became obvious I wasn’t going to accomplish anything that day. Luther, my boss, made a crack about me wearing some dead man’s clothes and sent me home. For the first time, I failed to appreciate his sardonic wit.
Returning to Washington Place, I felt dizzy when I saw the building. The front façade was blackened and Jeff’s front window was a gaping hole. Most of my fellow residents gathered on or around the front stoop, and I was warmly welcomed. We exchanged war stories, and with rare candor Jeff admitted that the fire was his fault. He fell asleep with the hotplate on, somehow the tablecloth underneath ignited and the rest, as they say, is history. Opprobrium could be meted out later. I was glad that we all didn’t go down in flames together. Just then, a fire engine turned onto the block and slowly rolled to a stop in front of the steps.
Jumping from the sides of the truck, the firefighters were pointing and calling out: “Mark Coleman! Hey Mark Coleman!”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
The man who rescued me came up and reintroduced himself.
He shrugged off my expressions of gratitude with a belly laugh.
“You were scared shitless last night, Mark.”
The captain, a ruddy-faced middle-aged man wearing a dress uniform, emerged from the truck’s cab and pulled me aside.
“You were right to be scared.”
****
Perhaps a more sensible person would’ve moved far away after surviving a fire. But leaving New York never occurred to me, no more than the possibility that I just as easily could’ve died that night. Retreat was not an option. If nothing else, the summer of 1981 prepared me for everything that followed: mugging, burglaries, heartbreaks, lucky breaks, setbacks, unexpected successes and love. It’s flattering to chalk all it up to ambition and tenacity but truthfully what kept me in New York was more like a 23 year old’s naiveté and sense of immortality winning out over common sense and pragmatism.
Eventually boomboxes went the way of subway graffiti yet the funky sounds that first attracted me to New York City and inspired me during the early Eighties linger on, and not only in memory. That unforgettable music in the street and the life experience of everyone who heard it has become part of the city’s psychic landscape, accumulating like layers of linoleum in a tenement apartment kitchen that peel back to reveal evidence of past occupants. We all make our mark on the city, or leave a stain. Even if it’s not readily apparent, some part of us will always remain no matter how high the buildings, or rents, may rise.
