RETURN TO THE EAST VILLAGE
("Well, I didn't expect it to be glamorous")
The evening at Grampa's Belle Gente Restaurant was lively and entertaining. Red wine was poured by the waiter into the three girls' glasses without comment. Grampa promptly seated his waiting guests, starry-eyed at their chance to glimpse a celebrity, or "celeb" as Scott called them.
"Are you on the waiting list?" Grampa, the perfect maitre d' asked Debbie, the oldest of the three.
"No," she responded.
"Why? Don't you want to eat here?" the famous Munsters star chided.
Debbie had lived in New York since June and was accustomed to surprises. She was quite the envy of her younger sister Kimberly as well as her sister's best friend Carly, decidedly two of the more starstruck of the midnight crowd. Once during dinner, Grampa had even winked at Carly.
Dinner was consumed, wine was drank. "Drunk?" Debbie, forever the English major, queried.
The beat of Bleecker Street pulsated with the twang of rock n roll bands at the Red Lion Cafe and The Bitter End, the begging of bums and the bustle of the student-age crowd combining to form the hub typical of Central Greenwich Village.
Gradually, the girls walked to a cooler, less dense area, where the road widened, the crowds thinned. Single students and groups of three walked along the darkened street. Rock and roll bars and sidewalk cafes were left behind as the festive cheer gave way to dimly lit grocery stores and parking garages shut down for the night. The echo of metal, like the banging of silver drums, each evening as the doors were rolled over storefronts, crashing to the ground, had long since died.
Broadway was barely recognizable. Where by day, the funky melee of retail shops announced outrageous specials, unique outfits, blasted bouncy hit tunes, now it stood menacingly silent.
"Where's eighth?" Debbie wailed in a frenzy. The girls walked forward, then at Debbie's request walked north. Or was it south?
"Which way's east and which is west?" Debbie cried. "I can never get them straight." The two other girls were growing weary, impatient. Kimberly and Carly had thought Debbie knew her way around the city as, all day long, she had pointed out this tourist attraction and that.
Porch stoops became dilapidated; the cracked sidewalks, cluttered with dirty magazines, torn cardboard boxes, and rag-filled grocery carts, as the transformation from the avant-garde West to the decadence of the East became apparent.
Warehouses sighed with ominous secrets as the former jovial crowd became tense, ethnic, ignorant.
"Spare some change?" A beggar who smelled of an unwashed pile of laundry approached them in a hoarse voice. Debbie handed over her packaged remnants of the evening's supper and he scuttled away, ecstatic.
A lone guitarist drawled mournfully in the middle of Astor Place, barren in the listless night, as a long-haired, blue-jeaned group mellowed to his lament. The girls crossed Astor Place, burrowing further into the East Village to St. Mark's.
"Where...where's the Sockman? All the jewelry stands are gone. No, there's two. Over there. The sunglasses...they're gone, too. Everything..." Debbie bemoaned the loss of the all-night outdoor marts, a prevalent part of her frequent summer forays, the bargaining camaraderie of the summer crowd, the belligerent bums.
The trendy section of Eighth Street was grim without its usual array of all-night jewelry stands, piles of last year's magazines, tables bedecked with the summer's hottest shades and cheapest sunglasses, trendy tee shirts, French postcards, punk hairdos at the point of creation, sloppy pizzas, melting ice creams, all deftly displayed. The former favorite GrassRoots Cafe was lost without its familiar counterparts.
Now dreary brownstones huddled together, as if in cohorts. A sole punk rocker sought solace on the steps of his chosen haunt. Two scrawny men, their black leather jackets flung over torn jeans, sauntered ahead of the girls, headed toward the somber shadows cast over the sign that read "St. Mark's Place."
Up past the Cloisters, that utterly charming old cafe that Debbie had wanted to try all summer. By the wan light of the November moon, she peered through the black wrought iron gates which barricaded its dainty courtyard.
Doorsteps lay deserted, windows long since showed no light, no familiar tunes broke the jaded silence of the East Village.
"My old neighborhood," Debbie thought aloud.
"Oh, Debbie," Kimberly said in dismay.
"Yeah, I guess I didn't realize..."
"Well, I didn't expect it to be glamorous," the younger sister said matter-of-factly.
"You sound like Sherri," Debbie observed, mentioning yet another sister.
The temperature dropped, ever so slightly. Its lead weight sank into the cold dull air.
A rude convertible containing greasy passengers screeched by, jarring their unspoken thoughts with ethnic rock.
"I'm cold," Carly complained.
Debbie tightened her denim jacket around her.
She turned to the girls. "Let's get outta here," she said, as they headed for the yellow illumination of Steve's Ice Cream Parlor.
Doc. # 0444D
ALL THAT GLITTERS
Denise Hickey
Summer of '87
"My old neighborhood," Debbie thought aloud.
"Oh, Debbie," Kimberly said in dismay.
"Yeah, I guess I didn't realize..."
"Well, I didn't expect it to be glamorous," the younger sister said matter-of-factly.
"You sound like Sherri," Debbie observed, mentioning yet another sister.
The temperature dropped, ever so slightly. Its lead weight sank into the cold dull air.
A rude convertible containing greasy passengers screeched by, jarring their unspoken thoughts with ethnic rock.
"I'm cold," Carly complained.
Debbie tightened her denim jacket around her.
She turned to the girls. "Let's get outta here," she said, as they headed for the yellow illumination of Steve's Ice Cream Parlor.
Doc. # 0444D
ALL THAT GLITTERS
Denise Hickey
Summer of '87
