Living with Legends

My girlfriend Susan and I were in the Malibu Diner late one evening, on 23rd St., east of the Chelsea.  There was a young guy sitting at the table behind me, looked like a bridge-and-tunneler, a Jersey guy. He was talking to two girls who looked like they were from Jersey as well.  The man had his hair slicked back and wore a leather jacket; the girls wore tight pants and spangly tops.  Though they seemed out of place in the homey diner, I figured they just needed to fuel up for a night of clubbing.

The man related a story in a loud voice.  He said he was at a club one night and they were having a male strip show.  “You know, like Chippendales,” he said.

In response to the girls’ puzzled queries, he explained that he went to such places because, “When those girls get done watching all those sweaty male bodies gyrating up on stage, they’ll be hungry for some hard cock, and I’ll be all too happy to provide it for them.”

I wasn’t even tempted to laugh, since I knew that was why most men go to see male go go dancers.
          “Anyway,” the guy went on, “So I’m in this club filled with people, when somebody throws a beer bottle and hits this girl in the head over near the DJ booth. So she’s on the ground and her head’s all cut open and she’s bleeding all over the place.  I’m just heading up the stairs to the second level, when this guy starts screaming that I did it and he comes running after me, swinging like he’s gonna kill me.  So I push him back down the stairs, but there’s a crowd of people on the stairs and so they catch him and he can’t fall far.  He keeps trying to come back after me, and I keep kicking him back down the stairs.
        “Then the DJ gets on his cell phone and tells the management there’s a fight.  Then about eight big bouncers and a couple of the strippers are there in about two seconds, and they’re grabbing me and restraining me like I’m going to go after the guy.  And I’m just like, hey dude, I’m not doing anything, just minding my own business.  I don’t know what the fuck his problem is.
      

“They threw the guy out, and then they took the girl out of the club and put her in an ambulance.  So I thought that was it.  But then after about five minutes one of the bouncers said that the guy I fought got on his cell phone and called all his friends and now they were waiting for me outside the club.  Some of them came out of the club and some of them drove there from other clubs, and now they were all out in front of the club trying to overturn cars and shit.  They were trying to rush the door, saying I beat up their friend’s girlfriend and now the club was protecting me.  The bouncer said if they just let me walk out the door those guys would kill me, so they were going to have to sneak me out the back door to 11^th Avenue.
         

“Well, when we got out there, one of the guys who was after me was there with his cell phone.  The bouncers were trying to hail me a cab, when all of a sudden all these guys start running around the corner, heading our way.  The bouncers were able to hold them back, but then they said if they put me in a cab those guys would follow and wherever the cab let me out they would get me and beat me up.  So the head bouncer, Shorty, said he was going to take me home in his SUV.  Sure enough, as soon as we got in, those guys came roaring around the corner in their cars, but the bouncers were waiting for them and they blocked their way with two trucks.  Shorty had a gun so he could protect himself.

It sounded like the bouncers had dealt with this sort of thing before, perhaps on a semi-regular basis.  I made a mental note not to be caught dead in this particular club.

“Shorty asked me where I lived but I’d didn’t want to go home yet, so I told him some place on 37th St.," the guy went on.

“When we got to the building on 37^th St.Shorty said, is this where you live?  I said, yeah, and he said, I’m not going to drop you off here just in case they’ve been following.  I don’t want them to see where you live.  So he drove me around the block and let me out.”
         The girls didn’t say anything.  The table lapsed into silence as they ate their food.  The story seemed to be over.

I had been sitting with my back to the guy and I wanted to see what he looked like, so when we got up to go I glanced in his direction.  He glared at me, aware that we had been listening—though he had made no attempt to keep it quiet.

We paid at the register and left the diner.  “He seemed very angry,” Susan said, disturbed by the story.  “And you know he was the one who threw that bottle too.”

Yeah, sexual frustration’s a bitch, I thought.  “I wonder if that story made those girls hungry for his cock,” I said. (Ed Hamilton 2006)

     Walking through the lobby on Sunday after-noon, I noticed that Jerry had a group of college students lined up for one of his Chelsea Hotel tours.  In all the years I’ve lived here I never have gone on one, so I figured this was my big chance.  Knowing that he wouldn’t reveal his secrets to an outlaw blogger such as myself, I quickly ran upstairs, donned a collegiate disguise, and hid myself in amongst the kids.             
         Jerry didn’t tell too much that I hadn’t heard already, but it was interest to note how he tailored the message to appeal to a younger audience.  He talked about how the Grateful Dead used to live here, back in the 60s, and said they gave the absolute best parties in the history of the hotel.  He said you could get happy just by walking by their door.
          He told a familiar story about how Jimi Hendrix was hanging around the front desk when an old lady was checking into the hotel and, mistaking him for a bellhop, ordered him to carry her bags upstairs.  Well, in Jerry’s version, Jimi was such a nice guy that he actually grabbed the ladies bags and went up with her in the elevator.  Unfortunately there were no tales of more recent rockers such as Rufus Wainwright or Ryan Adams.
          Jerry told one thing I didn’t know – the room off to the right of the lobby, which is now being refurbished as Stanley’s office, was originally a “Ladies Waiting Room.”  This, naturally, inspired Jerry to tell a joke about hookers – of which he commented that we no longer have any here.  At that exact moment a resident was walking past.  “Yes we do have hookers!” he said.
            “You got that right!” I exclaimed on impulse.  But then, my cover blown, I had to flee up the stairs as Jerry and the college students presumably adjourned to the famous Hotel Chelsea Bar to do a few beer bongs and jello shots.