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Chapter Two |
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In her
best-selling biography, Polly Tarantella makes clear that she ranks the most
significant days of Crystal Passion�s life as those from when she arrived at
JFK airport until her fateful last day on American soil. It�s probably not
surprising that an American writer asserts that Crystal�s few weeks in America
should be her most important. Although Polly interviewed me for the book and we
continue to exchange e-mails, there�s a lot in her account I don�t really
recognise. And this is even though I�m so liberally quoted: to the extent that
I seem to be by far the most important member of her band (with the possible
exception of Judy).
The Customs Officers who interrogated us at the airport were just doing
their job. I don�t agree that their actions were either unwarranted harassment
or a concerted effort to keep Crystal Passion out of the United States. The
weeks we toured America were undoubtedly important but even though this was where
her career as a singer and musician came to an end, I wouldn�t say that this
episode in her life is what defines her or what most makes her music worth
listening to. Surely it�s not the manner of your passing but what happens
before that exemplifies the worth of a person�s life. I definitely don�t
believe that Anna Walentynowicz framed Crystal or anyone else in our entourage.
I don�t subscribe to the theory that the drugs they found in the corridor had
been deliberately planted as an excuse to charge and prosecute Crystal. I think
they were dumped simply because if they�d been discovered on the person of
Jenny or anyone else in the band, our tour would have ended before it even
began. And I don�t believe that Peter Piper the Senior Customs Officer was a reluctant
partner in a shadowy conspiracy to bar Crystal Passion from ever entering
America.
On the other hand, it would be difficult for Polly to make such grandiose
claims for Crystal Passion and her music if she didn�t present our disastrous
final tour as one that had been deliberately sabotaged. I don�t think she could
have called the biography Crystal Passion: Saviour of Rock and make so
many bold claims if our tour across the United States hadn�t somehow been the
victim of a deliberate policy of harassment rather than just an unfortunate
comedy of errors.
Many people, including me, take issue with Polly�s characterisation of
our music as being Rock at all. In the United States in particular, but to a
certain extent in the UK and Europe also, Rock Music has become so elevated in
popular esteem for the older generation that almost any type of music needs to
be marketed as such to attract the attention of the wider media. It can then be
marketed as being sonically accessible and benefiting from a rich venerable
heritage. Crystal Passion�s music was a lot of things, but it probably can�t
easily be placed on a dotted line of musical progression that begins with Bill
Haley and Chuck Berry, rises to its most lavish and pompous in the 1970s, and
has ever since limped along as the music of middle-aged Dads and Russian Prime
Ministers.
I don�t blame Polly for how she�s made such a big deal. Nobody would buy
a book about Crystal Passion if they didn�t think there was something special
and compelling about her. Of course I do think she was special and
compelling. It�s just that when she was alive she attracted almost none of the
attention she�s getting now.
I think Polly addresses an apparent need to plug in the gaping hole in
Rock Music�s myth of popular music�s cyclical reinvention. There�s been nothing
especially significant since Acid House burst onto the scene. And that was big
mostly in Europe and hardly at all in America: the original home of House
music. Rock critics like to have a narrative to describe the history of popular
culture. And Rock fans like to define their lives in relation to this
narrative. 1967 was the Summer of Love. 1977 was when Punk shook up the musical
establishment. 1988 was when clubbing went from the periphery to the heart of
youth culture. Hair-length, trouser flare, attitude, turn of phrase, and record
collections all become part of something bigger and more significant. And even
though British Rock critics have a different perspective to those in the
States, they all have a shared faith in a similar mythology.
And then come the 1990s, what happened? Where was the next musical
revolution? And into the 21st Century, what happened to that elusive
next big generation-defining event?
My opinion is that teenagers and young people just switched the focus of
their attention away from music. Now they�ve got the internet and mobile phones
and computer games and all that stuff, what�s so important about the music in
the background? Is it any coincidence that the last noteworthy musical revolution
(in Europe at least) came about in 1988 just before the time PCs started to
appear in ordinary people�s homes?
Nevertheless, if you�re a Rock critic who�s written for Rolling Stone,
Mojo, Q and the New York Times, you�re not going to buy
into the idea that the history of Rock Music and its musical revolutions have
just come to an end just because you can download Angry Birds and listen
to music on Spotify on your phone and browse Google for previously rare records
from Guatemala, Azerbaijan or Detroit. You�re going to want a saviour of Rock�a
messiah who heralds a new Second Coming�that�ll be as exciting as the Beatles
were when they cracked the American market; when Woodstock and the other Rock
Festivals were major cultural events rather than well-organised weekend family
outings; and when the future seemed bright, hairy and sexually promiscuous.
Polly Tarantella�s thesis is that there was some kind of conspiracy on
our American tour to nobble Crystal Passion from the moment our plane touched
down in New York City. Although I understand how it might seem like that was
what happened, it didn�t seem so at the time.
It was inevitable that once we�d finally got past Customs, Tomiko would
have already departed for the Hotel Gettysburg with her luggage. There�d been a
guy from Sanity Records to meet us at the airport, but it wasn�t Kai Pharrel.
Even for a tiny New York record label, the boss was too big a wig for the likes
of Crystal Passion. Instead, Tomiko was greeted by Barnie, a lanky teenage kid
with almost as many tattoos and piercings as Judy Dildo. He knew everything
there was to know about Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana and Pearl Jam; and
bugger all about Crystal Passion or what was happening on the UK scene that
wasn�t the Stone Roses. When it became apparent that the rest of the band
wouldn�t be joining them any time soon, rather than continue to wait Barnie
drove Tomiko into Manhattan and 54th Street West in a van that would
have been a tight fit for all of us but was pretty generous for just Tomiko and
him.
And knowing Tomiko as we all did, none of us were surprised to find her
in bed with Barnie when we finally got to the hotel well after midnight,. He�d
been under the impression that we were all just a bunch of dykes and he
couldn�t have been more delighted to discover that Tomiko succumbed so
willingly and eagerly to his clumsy passes. Mind you, even by the standards set
by the rest of us, Tomiko was always willing and eager. It took almost no
persuasion for her to divest her clothes and suck off a strange guy�s dick.
However, with all the HIV and AIDS and stuff around at the time, she normally
preferred sex with other girls where there was much less risk of a nasty
surprise resulting from a night of unplanned intimacy.
We weren�t at our best at all when we finally checked in at the Hotel
Gettysburg. Tomiko�s evening had been by far the most enjoyable of any of
us�that was for sure. Even the journey from the airport to the hotel was a
trial. None of us knew our way round New York. We didn�t know anything about
having to buy tokens or whatever for the subway. We didn�t know where the
subway lines went. First of all we detrained (as they say in America) at 54th
Street East on Lexington Avenue. It was only after an hour or so of wandering
about hopelessly lost in a district that was a lot posher than we expected that
we discovered our mistake and somehow made our way via Grand Central Station to
54th Street West. At least, unlike the London underground, New York
subway trains ran well after midnight. And all the while we were terrified that
we�d get mugged or shot or gang-raped. All we knew about New York came from
movies like Taxi Driver and we expected there to be junkies, hookers and
criminal gunmen on every street corner.
The Hotel Gettysburg lived up (or down) to our low expectations. It was
just the sort of dive I�d imagined all of New York was like. Clearly, Sanity
Records spared at least some expense for us. This was definitely not America at
its best. It was an America that smelt of cat�s piss; where the carpet was kind
of sticky; where there was the constant musk of stale tobacco smoke; where the
escalator didn�t work; and where the receptionist informed us that rooms were
also available by the hour.
Despite it being so late, we had to decide who was sharing which bed in
each of the four rooms that had been reserved. Only Tomiko knew where she might
as well stay the night and Barnie was already taking up precious space. As band
leader, Crystal had first choice as to which bedroom she could sleep in and I
don�t know how many of us were hoping that she�d be the one with whom Crystal
would share her bed. On this occasion, she offered to share a room with Judy
Dildo and�despite being the one we all suspected as being the cause for our
detention�Jenny Alpha. I�d be sharing my bed with Jacquie, while her sister
Jane pushed two beds together so she could sleep with Bertha who was too plump
for there to be space in just the one bed for both of them.
Jacquie was probably my first true love. We�d been lovers well before we
first met Crystal and before I�d been given the stage name of Pebbles. In fact,
Jane, Jacquie and I had become a kind of threesome�two black sisters with
Zimbabwean heritage and a girl from Bethnal Green�who shared not only our
bodies but seminars and lectures in Marine Biology. Jane and Jacquie were
twins, but not identical ones. They also had African names that were a
lot more exotic than the names by which they were mostly known. Jacquie�s other
name was Bonani and Jane�s was Jabu. Jacquie had the bigger thighs and rounder
buttocks, while Jane�s tongue could reach places inside me that never ceased to
surprise me when we progressed beyond our initial awkward Sapphic fumbling
towards harder, faster and more visceral love-making. But that wasn�t what I
wanted tonight. I was far too tired. Jacquie had to content herself with just a
kiss and a cuddle. That wasn�t so for Bertha and Jane who were both loud and
energetic. But they were no match for the trio of Crystal, Jenny and Judy,
whose fucking in the room next door was loud enough to be heard across the
corridor and during which Judy was as always the most vocal.
Having gone to bed so late, it was no surprise that none of us got up
early the following day. Uncharacteristically, it was Judy who woke me up
rather than the other way round. She banged on our hotel room door, not having
bothered to cover her naked body, and it was Jane who eventually answered the
door.
�The gig�s off this evening,� Judy announced without preamble. �It�s been
postponed till tomorrow. And that�s not all the bad news��
�There�s more?� Jane asked.
�There�s still no news about our gear. Crystal got in touch with the
airport and they said there were administrative reasons why we won�t be able to
pick it up for at least another couple of days. It�s a question of getting the
properly qualified officer to check our property: apparently because we�d
designated it as valuable and easily damaged. And whoever that guy is, he isn�t
immediately available.�
�But the gig�s still gonna happen before we�ve got the gear,� said Bertha
who along with Jenny Alpha was one of only two of us who�d benefit from having
nothing to set up on stage.
�And the gig�s not even gonna be at such a good place,� said Judy. �We
got a call from Kai Pharrel: the top honcho for Sanity records, at least here
in New York��
�The record label�s based in New York,� Jacquie interjected.
�OK. He�s the number one guy for the whole deal. Whatever. Anyway, he
didn�t have much to say even though Crystal was the one who took the call.
There was a double booking or something at the club where we were supposed to
play. So we�ve been muscled out of the way for a House DJ with a Latino name
and we�ve got a last minute booking at a club in Upper Manhattan��
�At least it�s in proper New York,� said Bertha. �Not one of the other
boroughs.�
�Well, it�ll still be a shithole of a dive. And I don�t see how we�re
gonna get even a dozen people through the door with the amount of time left to
promote it. Anyhow, we�ll have the chance to talk about it with Kai this
evening. He�s invited us to his loft apartment in SoHo.�
�Soho�s in London,� said Bertha.
�No, it�s South Houston on the Lower East Side. They call it SoHo here.
Weird, eh? But we�ll get to find out more about it tonight. Kai�s invited us to
a party at his place. I guess he thinks we�ll liven it up a bit.�
�Fucking right we will!� said Thelma who appeared from behind Judy in the
frame of the door. She was also naked apart from a cowboy hat incongruously
balanced over her short-haired pixie face. �This Kai guy�s obviously heard of
our reputation.�
�Speak for yourself, girlfriend,� said Andrea who was generally rather
more restrained in her appetite for drugs, drink and sexual partners. She�d
slipped on a tee-shirt and nickers, and looked almost decent. She was my
younger sister and thankfully respected the taboos regarding family intimacy
rather more than did either Jacquie or Jane. We�d both been students at the
same university at the same time and although she also studied for a Biology
degree her specialist subject was Botany rather than Marine Biology.
�Lower East Side party or not,� Judy elaborated, �it�s just another
fucking disaster. Kai had better deliver on the drugs��
��if not the Sex and Rock and Roll,� said the Harlot, who liked to live
up to the reputation implicit in a nickname she�d earned because her
unpronounceable Polish surname sounded a bit like �The Harlot� as well as
because she was at least as promiscuous as anyone else in the Crystal Passion
band.
We didn�t get to Kai�s apartment much before midnight but we were still
amongst the first to arrive. This time we navigated the subway rather better
than the night before, but it was remarkable how soon we got lost in Manhattan.
We�d thought the city was all Avenues and Streets at right angles to one
another like in all those movies with yellow taxis cruising down 5th
Avenue. It was nowhere near as simple as that in the district around SoHo and
Greenwich Village where we hung out for most of that evening. We quickly
discovered that bars in New York are nothing like as friendly or welcoming as
even a London West End pub. In fact, we were more than glad for the lines of
coke that Jenny managed to score. That is, all of us with the inevitable
exception as always of Crystal who passed on the offer and imbibed nothing
stronger than still mineral water.
Kai Pharrel and his boyfriend were both in their apartment when we
ascended to the top floor in an antiquated lift with iron-framed elevator doors
that was probably built before even the Empire State Building. Both Kai Pharrel
and his lover were in their early 50s and I soon learnt from them that Sanity
records was mostly just Kai�s expensive hobby. While he fussed around with
bottles of Californian wine and gestured towards the bowls in which he�d
provided his guests with good quality Jamaican grass and Mexican hash, he
explained that he�d always been a big fan of music, especially what he
considered �far-out� bands like the Velvet Underground, Suicide and the Talking
Heads. So when he made his fortune from selling the real estate in Upper
Manhattan he�d originally purchased for virtually nothing, he set up Sanity
records in the hope of finding the next New York Dolls or Television.
�Instead what we�ve got,� said Pedro, Kai�s boyfriend, �is a bunch of
East Coast would-be Pearl Jams and a rather more lucrative line in House and
Techno��
��And us,� I said.
�Yeah, you. And a few other limey bands that Kai�s pal, Zack, sends him
over from Gospel records in London.�
��And Madeleine too,� I said loyally.
�Madeleine?�
�Our agent?�
�Oh, Maddy. She�s your archetypal fag hag, ain�t she? Absolutely
adorable!�
Steadily more people began arriving and everything changed as they did
so. Initially it seemed most likely that all there�d be was a polite evening of
passing joints round the room supplemented by glasses of rather better plonk
than we deserved and the background music of Cabaret Voltaire. However, as more
people arrived�most of them men and not all of them exclusively homosexual�the
mood began to change. And when some kids arrived who were younger than any of
us, including Andrea, I began wondering about the safety of Kai�s abstract
expressionist paintings and the massive stereo speakers that were by no means
yet cranked up to full capacity.
But that cautious attitude amongst other things also changes. This was
going to be an evening that could be celebrated by Ian Dury�s famous song after
all.
First of all there was the Sex.
This was one of the few vices�if it can be described as a vice�which
Crystal engaged in as actively as anyone else in the band. She looked like an
angel and had the manners of a saint, but she fucked like the devil. She was
equally as generous with her love in a physical sense as she was in an ethereal
platonic kind. There wasn�t one member of the Crystal Passion entourage with
whom she�d not had sex many times over, although Judy and I were her most
ardent lovers�with the possible exception of her husband, Mark, who was exactly
as ambisexual and carnally promiscuous as she was. But Crystal was only one
member of the band. All of us were lovers of other women, although in some
cases this hadn�t been until Crystal introduced them to the pleasures of
Sapphic love. Most of us also enjoyed having sex with men, but to markedly
different extents. I�d always considered cock to be second-best to pussy, but
Judy was more inclined towards men than women, even if she sometimes used her
set of strap-on dildos in ways a man mightn�t expect. Neither Jane nor Jacquie
cared for men at all, though they tolerated it in a group sex setting. Bertha
would rather frig herself than let a man touch her.
With all the new flesh arriving on the scene and so much of it already
buzzing on Ecstasy and coke, it was as inevitable as night follows day that
pretty much all of us would get naked and writhe around together on the
mattresses, sofas and rugs. And as several of us had shed our clothes almost as
soon as we had the excuse, the opportunity for sex could hardly have been more evident.
Crystal was never comfortable with textile against her skin. Her habitual
nudity was really no more remarkable for her than it would be for someone else
to remove their overcoat and shoes when they crossed the threshold to another
person�s house.
Together with the Sex, there was also the Drugs.
We�d all taken some Ecstasy tabs, which was about the only drug we�d
managed to smuggle into the States. And, as we discovered, although a taste for
E had crossed the Atlantic to New York it wasn�t nearly as prevalent as in the
UK where it was almost as popular as dope in those days. So, everyone was E�d
up with the customary exception of Crystal. Kai was generous with the coke, but
there was also hash, grass, and sulphate. And some of the other guests also brought
smack and crystal meth along with them. That last was a drug that hadn�t made
much of an impact in the UK, however big it was in the States. I never touched
meth, although I occasionally snorted coke. I can now take the opportunity to
dispel the misapprehension that Crystal Passion had even as much connection
with crystal meth as the Chemical Brothers have with illegal chemicals or the
Snow Patrol with coke.
Kai�s later guests were already pretty much out of it, especially the gay
men. I don�t know on what. I guessed it was E, but it might well have been
poppers. The younger kids all looked like your typical American Grunge and
Metal fan and were all totally out of it: generally more in a messy than
inspiring way. It�s a clich� that Americans know shit about the drug culture,
but I think that�s only because the American scene is so different to the
British one. These kids, mostly boys in their late teens, weren�t really much
different to any you�d meet in London. But then the New York scene�s more like
the London scene than it is any other city on the planet. And these kids
definitely liked to fuck. There was a mix of those with superhuman skill at
maintaining an erection even if they were less than skilled at using it and
those who couldn�t even slip on a condom before squirting semen all over the
place.
Obviously, with the major concern about the big AIDS epidemic at the
time, condoms were very much the order of the day especially with so many gay
men there: including more Muscle Marys than there are in the Chippendales.
And to top it all, there was also the Rock and Roll.
At first it was just music on the stereo, which mostly pumped out a mix
of Hard Techno, New York Disco and Nuyorican Soul. But with so many kids there
in leather jackets, long hair and all that Metal shit that had been around in
the UK since the time I was a toddler, it was no surprise that the music
selection shifted away from club classics towards Grunge and Alt-Rock. And,
also not surprisingly, it turned out that these kids had been invited to the
party because they were Rock musicians who�d been signed to Sanity records and
that instead of listening to CDs they wanted to listen to live music.
I don�t know where the drum kit and the electric guitars came from. Perhaps
Kai kept them in his apartment for just this kind of occasion, but we soon
found ourselves fucking, sucking and fisting not to the metronomic beats of the
New York dance floor, but to a discordant, painfully loud and somewhat
distracting set of Rock songs.
Those of us in the Crystal Passion band represented a wide range of
musical taste. Some of us, like Judy, Bertha and Jenny were Rock fans. Others,
like me, Jacquie and Jane, didn�t like Rock music at all. And if there was any
kind of Rock that annoyed me the most, it was the kind of unnecessarily loud,
shapeless and (to my ears) clich�-ridden cacophony that our Sanity record
label-mates were performing and which served only to fuck up the rhythm of the
fucking.
So, it was actually quite a welcome respite to me when the music came to
a sudden and abrupt end. I was in a Sapphic huddle on a black leather sofa with
Philippa, Olivia and a teenage Goth girl with a ring through her nose, studs
through her nipples and my fist up her gorgeously receptive vagina. I wanted to
continue making love without the distraction of all that guttural yelling and
predictable power chords.
But unfortunately this wasn�t to be.
The impromptu Rock group had generated a din that was loud and shrill
enough to upset all the residents in Kai�s apartment block, so they called the
police to break up the party and allow them a peaceful night�s sleep. But when
the cops arrived and unplugged the speakers, what they saw must have made the
eyes light up of any police officer who wanted to augment their monthly tally
of successful arrests. With all the drugs and explicit sex on display, this was
surely the opportunity for a king-size bust.
Despite Kai Pharrel�s attempt to defuse the situation with, I guess, the
offer of paying a generous fine to the three police officers, Crystal Passion
and her entourage would now have intimate experience of American Law
Enforcement just over twenty-four hours since our encounter with American
Border Control.
�Right, guys,� said one of the police officers to Kai�s assembled guests,
while another stood by the door to make sure that no one slipped away. �We have
a situation here. We�ve had a report of a major noise nuisance and we�ve now
discovered that there�s also been widespread consumption of illegal substances.
However, there are far too many of you for us to arrest and take you all into
police custody for questioning. So, this is what we�re gonna do. We�re gonna
take Mr Pharrel to the station for questioning and the one who�s leader of the
band that�s been making this ruckus. What�s the name of the Rock band?�
�They�re called Crystal Parcel,� volunteered one of the young metal fans.
�They�re a bunch of English Rock chicks.�
�Yeah,� said another leather-jacketed guy who�d only a moment ago been
playing guitar but was now standing nowhere near a musical instrument. �It�s
the Brits.�
�Point them out, son,� said the police officer who was old enough to be
the kid�s father.
�It�s these chicks,� he said, pointing towards the group that included
Judy Dildo, Andrea and a naked tattooed metalhead boy.
�So, young lady,� the police officer asked Judy almost kindly. �Are you
the leader of your group?�
Judy looked stunned. I guess she was anxious about the drugs she almost
certainly didn�t have on her person as such�as she was as naked as the rest of
us�but mixed up in the pile of clothes. �I�m sorry, officer?�
�Who�s the leader of your group? Who is this Christine Purcell?�
�Crystal Passion,� Judy corrected the policeman automatically.
�OK. Crystal Passion. Which one is him?�
�Her,� Judy corrected him again.
�OK. Her. Come on, young lady. Could you please just point her out
to us? Otherwise we�ll have to arrest you instead.�
A little shame-facedly, as she was the one in our group least likely to
cooperate with authority, Judy pointed towards Crystal Passion who was standing
naked and slightly apart from everyone else.
The policeman also pointed towards her. �So, miss, this naked woman is
Crystal Passion?�
Although the fact that almost all of us were still naked and therefore
Crystal was no different to any of the rest of us, it was obvious he meant her.
Judy nodded.
�Is your name Crystal Passion?� the policeman asked.
Crystal spoke up clearly and boldly. �Yes, officer. That�s my name. I
shall cooperate fully with your investigations. I shall take full
responsibility if there�s been a misdemeanour of any kind.�
The policeman stepped forward and placed his hand on Crystal�s shoulder.
�Then you�d better get dressed, madam. You�ll be coming down to the station
house with us.�
�If you�re taking Crystal, you should take me as well,� I volunteered
with an act of courage that was untypical of me. �I�m just as guilty as her.�
�That�s not true, officer,� said Crystal in her most authoritative voice.
�Please just let everyone else go.�
�We shall do precisely that, madam,� the policeman said. �But not before
we�ve taken a note of the name and address of everyone here. Now please put on
your clothes and accompany Officer Malcolm.� He indicated a young office with a
strangely unfashionable moustache and rather longer hair than would be expected
for a police constable in London.
And so, Crystal picked up the few clothes she�d set down in a neat pile
beside mine and rather absent-mindedly trotted out of the room without
bothering to put them on and had to be followed by Officer Malcolm who was
clearly embarrassed by her promptness. �Excuse me, madam,� we could hear him
say as he followed her to the escalator beyond the door.
The more senior policeman shook his head with apparent disbelief. �Well,
girls, I must ask you all to get dressed and line up against that wall there.
Please be orderly. We don�t want this to take all night.�
So, we got dressed and lined up as requested. And then, while the older
policeman stood by the door, a third officer pulled a small notebook and pen
out of his inside pocket. He then asked each of us for our name, our address in
the United States and our address in the United Kingdom. Following Judy�s
example, we each gave made-up names and an equally fictitious British address.
And after each of us was questioned, we were allowed to leave the apartment.
�Name?�
�Tracey Thorne,� I said.
�Address in New York?�
�Hotel Chattanooga.�
�Same as the other girls?�
�Yes, officer.�
�Address in England?�
�84 Charing Cross Road, London WC2,� I said referring to the famous film
starring Anthony Hopkins.
�Another one who lives there,� remarked the officer, looking at his
notes. �Doesn�t Miss Katy Lang live there as well?�
He was referring to Philippa who was something of a film buff.
�It�s a big house, officer.�
When I got to the ground level in the same escalator as about half a
dozen of the rest of the band and a few of the Metal fans who assiduously
avoided catching our eyes, I could see both Crystal and Kai Pharrel sitting on
the back seat of a huge police car. Crystal was looking towards Judy and me
with a miserable expression.
�Excuse me, ma�am,� asked a man in a denim shirt with a prominent paunch
for someone so apparently young. He was holding a notepad and pen just like
Officer Malcolm�s. �Can you confirm some things for me?�
�Sorry,� I said angrily. �Who�re you? What d�you want?�
�I�m a reporter from the New York Post,� he said. �You must have
heard of it.�
�No,� I said. �And I�m not gonna answer any questions.�
�Oh fuck, Pebbles,� said Judy angrily and somewhat recklessly. �What the
fuck difference does it make now? I guess you just wanna know what�s happened?�
�Yes, ma�am,� said the reporter. �That�s all.�
�Well, that woman in the car�s Crystal Passion. She�s the leader of our
band: also known as Crystal Passion. The guy with her is our record label boss,
Kai Pharrel. If you wanna know more, just contact the head office of Sanity
records.�
The reporter made no notes. I guess he already knew the answer to these
questions. �And is she always naked, ma�am?�
�Naked?� I asked startled.
�She was butt bare naked when she got into the police car, ma�am. Is she
always like that?�
�Fuck off!� said Judy angrily. �Just fuck off.�
�Do I take that as an answer in the affirmative?� asked the reporter.
�Yeah, if that�s what you wanna write in your fucking rag,� said Judy who
strode off away from him with me chasing behind. �Yeah. She�s stark fucking
naked from fucking morning to fucking midnight.�
Of course, Judy and I knew, as the reporter didn�t, that this was no
exaggeration at all.
We hung around the entrance door to Kai Pharrel�s apartment block until
the police car holding Kai and Crystal drove off. I wept silently and bitterly
as I watched Crystal�s pale, apprehensive face stare through the window of the
car as it drove past us and along the West Side Street. And then we were once
again grateful for the late hours kept by the New York subway service that took
us back to our hotel.
It was weird to see Manhattan in the brilliant early morning sun. It
seemed that even more than London this was a city that never slept, although
the night-time hours attracted a very different set of people. We caught our
first glimpse of the seamy side of the city that we originally thought would
define it. There were dark figures lurking in the shadows of the streets just
off the main avenues. Some men selling drugs and some men and all the women
selling sex. Jenny speculated how much these two different types of merchant
exchanged the proceeds of one trade with the profits of the other.
When we got back to the hotel, most of the guests and staff, including
the room maids, were getting up rather than going to bed. We had breakfast on
the ground floor in the Hotel Gettysburg diner, which was all Formica counters,
sullen Spanish-speaking waiters and a jukebox that featured the music of Bryan
Adams and Meat Loaf on constant rotation. The breakfast was tasteless, soaked
in fat and quite the opposite of what we wanted to eat before going to bed. And
then I retired with Judy who was racked with guilt and remorse at having, as
she put it, �ratted� on Glade.
I told her that this was just a weird way to put it. We weren�t like the
noble gladiators in Stanley Kubrick�s Spartacus. One of us would have to
tell Police Sergeant Callaghan which one was the band leader. And Crystal would
have volunteered the information anyway. Not surprisingly, this isn�t the gloss
that Polly Tarantella latterly puts on the event. This is yet another occasion
in Polly�s biography where Judy Dildo is the villain of the piece for having
cowardly shopped Crystal merely to save her skin from being busted for heroin
and cocaine possession.
We awoke late the following afternoon after a restless night�s sleep to
find Crystal shaking our bed. She seemed rather more perturbed than I�d ever
seen her before, but she was trying to disguise it.
�Bad news,� she announced, almost as soon as I was able to focus my
sleep-starved eyes on her. �It�s not going to be for a couple more days now
till we get our gear released from customs. The woman I spoke to on the other
end of the phone wasn�t very forthcoming, but she said there�s been some kind
of delay processing our case.�
�Fucking bureaucracy!� snorted Olivia from the other bed. �What d�you
expect?�
�It means for sure that our first gig in America will be without almost
all our musical instruments,� said Crystal. �It doesn�t bode well for the rest
of the tour.�
�Fucking shit!� said Judy angrily.
�Never mind that, Crys,� I said conciliatorily. �That just can�t be
helped. What about you and what happened at the police station?�
�Oh that,� said Crystal dismissively. �They just asked me a load of
stupid questions. They didn�t even take me into one of those rooms with a one-way
mirror you always see them interview suspects in American cop shows. I just sat
next to Sergeant Callaghan at an office desk almost completely hidden by
ring-binder folders and was asked to fill out this really pointless form which
had questions about ZIP codes and SSN numbers, and had very little in it that
was relevant to me as a UK citizen. Then this Latino woman police officer,
Officer Benita Barbara, asked me questions about the procedures we�d followed
to book gigs and hotel accommodation for the rest of our American tour.�
�Nothing about drugs?� Judy asked.
�Nothing,� said Crystal.
�Nothing about noise nuisance?� I asked.
�Kai was the one who had to deal with those questions,� said Crystal. �He
told me that he might have to go to court for that sometime soon and that he
expected just to get fined and that was all.�
�So why did they haul you in if they weren�t gonna ask you about drugs or
being a public nuisance?� wondered Jenny who�d wandered in from her bedroom.
�I think it was to intimidate everyone,� said Crystal. �To set an example
so we�d respect the law in future. Anyway, I didn�t have to stay long. I got
back to the hotel late this morning and snatched a few hours� sleep before I
phoned up Border Control at the airport.�
�Well, let�s hope the worst is now over,� said Andrea who was arm-in-arm
with a still-naked Tomiko.
Unfortunately, what we discovered after an evening spent roaming the
local bars and restaurants and a third night at the insalubrious Hotel
Gettysburg, my sister�s optimism was totally misplaced.
Although it was by no means a front page article in the New York Post,
there was still the dreaded but expected lurid news story about Crystal Passion
(or Crystal and the Passions, as we were known). The headline read �UK Punks Trash SoHo� and the
article was accompanied by a grainy promotional picture of Crystal Passion
singing on stage with oversized black rectangles blocking out her crotch and
nipples (and the same also but rather unnecessarily for Judy who�d not been
offending anyone�s sense of decency on the occasion the photograph was taken).
�What�s it say?� I asked Judy who was laying out the paper on top of a
bed and repeated choice phrases sprinkled with her own swear words.
�You have a look,� she said, standing aside and letting me squeeze
between Bertha and Thelma who were also reading it.
A quarter of the article was the bold headline, a half was the
unflattering picture and the rest was the prose which served more than anything
else yet printed to herald Crystal Passion�s arrival in America. On the plus
side, it was the first time an article about the band had been printed in a
national newspaper (even if in the States they pretend to be locally based).
Until then, all the articles printed about the band had been in British music
magazines like Mojo, MixMag and NME. But that was quite
simply the only good thing about the publicity.
Just below the headline and to the right of the picture was the
following:
Not since the Sex Pistols and
the UK Punk Rock scene has Manhattan seen the like.
Wild London-based Punk Rock
band, Crystal and the Passions, arrived in SoHo from the UK and made such a
ruckus the neighbours had to call the cops.
Crystal (24), the slender
blonde lead singer of the Passions, was taken for questioning to the NYPD 1st
Precinct Station House.
The Passions are an all-girl
Punk Rock group notorious for their deviant sexuality and wild drug habits.
Their manager, Kai Pharrel
(48), who lives in SoHo said: �Crystal and the Passions are really going to
rock New York State. There�s not been anything like them since U2.�
But given the band�s notorious
reputation for wild lesbian sex, the Post�s recommendation is that you lock up
your daughters when they rock the Five Boroughs.
�Why did they even print the article?� Crystal asked in despair. �We
never made that much of an impact and most of what it says is plain wrong.�
�I guess the reporter must live locally,� Judy hazarded. �It was an easy
thing for him to roll out of bed late at night and write a few column inches
for the newspaper on a slow day.�
�But even so,� said Crystal, �what do you think someone turning up to our
gig tomorrow will think. They�ll be expecting to see some kind of punk rock
group and all they�ll get is me with a guitar and harmony vocals from Thelma
and the Harlot. It won�t be so much the Sex Pistols as Peter, Paul and Mary!�
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