He had called his apartment: “The cave of the drunken Prince.”
I smiled the first time I heard it and had been drawn in.
Later, as I heard him repeat, the obviously well worn line,
to so many others, I felt cheated.
The words had grown stale and worn as in time had he.
No longer did they swarm to hear his tales of Warhol –
His part in Andy’s15 minutes of fame, the stories of Studio 54.
“Johnny be good, Johnny be good” they had - chorused,
as he held court at the bar.
“No, I’m Johnny too bad” he’d reply in his lazy southern drawl and then launch into another performance. I was captured with all the other fresh faces.
“I’ll never forget Warren’s face when I said ‘Sorry honey can’t let you in.”
“Don’t look so hard done by, baby. Why I didn’t even let in lil’ ol’ Frank or Woody”
“Frank may have done it his way, but not at the 54 on opening night he didn’t.”
He would laugh loud and hard, throwing his head back, hair in a tangle
bowing it forward, he’d run his fingers through those golden locks, and when he looked up again the curls fell perfectly around his cherubic face.
His deep blue eyes flashed with pleasure as they met our wide eyed expectant attention.
He was hooked to the attention as much as all the drugs and booze he consumed - and of course the sex.
Spotting his prey for the night, me, my innocents sparkling, attracting him by its pure light, he moved in for the kill, he continued:
“Singing with Liza, on top of the bar, New York, New York,
so loaded I could hardly stand”
“Tell them about Bianca,” came a voice from the crowd.
“Don’t think I will ever help a naked lady up on a white horse again. You have no idea how hard, it’s not every day you’re cheek to cheek with Bianca’s butt”
“She rode in across the dance floor; it was knee high in glitter”
“I just headed for the coke stash, waited for her to finish so I could strut my stuff to Saturday Night fever”
“Move over girlfriend, Johnny’s here now,”
He waved a dismissive hand and laughed again. By then he had me firmly in his grip, well and truly. Like being caught in a honey trap, I swooned to the smell of his sweet breathe.
Like Johnny and so many others, I had come to the place where at last I thought I belonged. Where I could be myself for the first time, dare to dream, free at last from those who didn’t understand, who disapproved.
Free to love.
Yes these were the golden days.
The days that gave freedom, to music, fashion and art.
Sex was liberating, fun and abundant.
Cocaine, not addictive they’d said, was every where for the taking.
There was even love too if you were lucky.
And then, and then it came. Silent and deadly. Tearing a swath through our number. None of us knowing what it was, or why it chose so many of us.
I wasn’t one of the first but I watched as one after another they fell, like ten pins.
Then Johnny too, his face grew thin; he covered up the marks with make-up.
His strong body turned weak. His blood black and whispery in his veins,
Where was the laughter now Johnny?
No time left for laughing, just fear-fed tears when no one was around.
He still tried to use his charm but now it seemed predatory.
It wasn’t that he wanted to hurt anyone. But he did, over and over.
I Know he came to hate himself, .Johnny couldn’t bear to be alone, couldn’t bear to look at what he had become.
And now as I watch, his blood running hot and fast, then slowing to a trickle, the smell acrid, strong, is overwhelming.
I sit and I wait. I look at his hair, now greying at the roots, it lays limp and sweat sodden.
His body grows cold and hard. Outside winter air freshens for snow.
I wait for the police to come, stroke his brow and whisper
“Sleep sweet prince, sleep now.”
