When I lived in the Village in the early 1970s, during and after my student years, I ran with a pack of (mostly) exceedingly handsome/moneyed/sexually ambiguous guys — all friends from NYU — who were as obsessed with the disco/downtown scene as I was. One winter night in (I think) 1973, we were sharing desserts at Serendipity (where we'd occasionally close up the place and go dancing with the cute waiters), when Jackie Curtis, one of Andy Warhol's transvestite "superstars," plunked herself down at our table.
We were duly superstar-struck: Jackie had appeared in "Flesh" and "Women in Revolt," had an "A" (for Andy) tattooed on her broad shoulder; her tattered jeans (circa her "James Dean for a day" period) were framed and displayed in the restaurant's the second-floor gallery, and Lou Reed had recently immortalized her in that song.
That song — atonal and melodic, its irresistible morph of ennui and intensity, seediness and grandeur — was our anthem. It didn't occur to us that its iconic "Jackie, just speedin' away" was dead broke. She was on the outs with Warhol et al., having been kicked out of The Factory for acting too crazy. (I know, right?)
What happened next, like much in life, was a quid pro quo. We had enough money, food, and cars between us (from parents, of course) to make New York City a less harsh place for a superstar on the skids. And Jackie Curtis attaching herself to us made us feel we'd arrived. No longer were we "just" Jewish and Italian kids from Brooklyn, Jersey and the Island, toiling in entry-level jobs and grad programs; we were subversive — glamorous, decadent denizens of downtown.
For once in my life — though I determinedly remained a kosher-keeping, home-for-Shabbos, zero drinking/smoking/drugging kind-of-girl — I was freakin' cool. Some labeled it hypocrisy; I considered it a perfectly legitimate dichotomy for an artsy-fartsy intensely romantic daughter of Holocaust survivors who dug looking — but never going — over the edge. And I celebrated that dichotomy fiercely, mostly at a disco called Le Jardin on E. 43rd Street that had a sound-system that would make your heart thump the instant you got into the elevator. Glittering, pulsating lights, palm trees, a roof garden, the most beautiful bartenders, white leather banquettes the size of queen beds (or so it seemed). In that elevator, you'd rub shoulders with Warhol, Liza Minnelli, Halston, Truman Capote, Diana Ross, Salvador Dali, Sylvia Miles, Bianca Jagger, and the like (or so you told people). Studio 54 was years from opening, and Saturday Night Fever was years from release.
Freakin' cool.
That winter, Jackie would often clutch my arm (I still remember the shivering, stubbly whiteness of hers) as we clomped across downtown's wide boulevards in ridiculous platform shoes, feather boas wafting in the frigid wind. She truly belonged to this neighborhood; she'd grown up on Second Avenue and 10th Street in her grandmother's bar, Slugger Ann's. And she was really smart and talented. She wrote and starred in her own plays (i.e. Glamour, Glory & Gold), and had nonstop hilarious, acerbic things to say about all the icons of the day. But those things, I don't remember.
It was Jackie who said that my face was "sexy, but entirely too mobile." She told me I should shave off my eyebrows to become more "inscrutable." So I did. Rather quickly I came to realize that inscrutable wasn't my style, but the eyebrows never fully grew back.
After a while, I drifted away from the scene. Jackie's career had a resurgence, but she continued to hang out with one of the guys (the one most assured to have his dad's credit card and ebony Cadillac) until he moved to Italy for medical school. On a summer night in 1974, I decided to reunite with the old crew at a gala evening starring Jackie and Holly Woodlawn at the New York Cultural Center. I was almost dressed when my brother called and begged me to come with him and his friends to see Springsteen at the Bottom Line. I'd never seen Bruce live; I'd fled from all things Jersey as young and as fast as those ankle-strap platforms would take me. But that night, I spontaneously decided to unstrap them, unearth sandals and jeans, and go with my brother. It somehow felt momentous, and right.
Le Jardin eventually closed, as did most of the other clubs, often via questionable fires or police raid. AIDS struck. Many died. Jackie, of an accidental heroin overdose, in 1985. By then I was married with a baby, and living in Connecticut.
So much for the wild side.
I saw Lou Reed in concert several times through the years, and figure I probably crossed paths with him in person as well. The only encounter I actually remember, though, was just few years ago, when I was sitting in a car with my sister-in-law Elisa, paused at a red light in Hell's Kitchen. Lou and a few other guys were walking down the street. I never utter a word to celebs I spot in the city (or anywhere else), but Elisa is much less self-conscious. She rolled down my window and started shouting, "LOU, LOU!" He and his entourage looked over.
Oh, what the hell.
"LOVE YOU, LOU!!!" the two middle-aged ladies screamed into the street.
"Love you too!" he rasped back, grinning, and walked on.
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