On the Road with Bob Dylan (31 page)

Ratso hears a muffled conversation then Howard comes back. “Here, Bob wants to talk to you.”

“Hey man,” Dylan greets Ratso. “Listen, line up all the pool halls and all-night diners you can find.”

“How about whores?” Ratso screams. “There’s millions here, and transvestites, pimps, all that shit.”

“Yeah, yeah, pool halls, whores, and all-night diners.”

“I can’t make the gig,” Ratso apologizes.

“Man, you missed last night. It was super. O. J. Simpson came. O. J. got into a rap with T-Bone.” Dylan laughs.

“Hey, where are you staying in Boston?”

“I dunno,” Dylan answers.

“C’mon, you can tell me.”

“Hey, I’d tell ya, but I don’t know,” Dylan protests. “Shit, if anybody can find it you can. I don’t even know, you’ll find it. See you tomorrow.”

Ratso bounces back onto Boylston, buoyed by his mission. He strides immediately into The Store, an odd-looking establishment that’s open twenty-four hours and takes food stamps, as the large signs boast. The reporter prowls down the aisles, admiring the range of merchandise, everything from food to clothing to magazines to Maalox. He finds the manager, a young guy around thirty, well dressed, and asks about the clientele.

“In this area, we get everything that walks, bums, winos, hookers, street people.” In the background, WBCN is blaring
Little Walter’s Time Machine
, a bizarre program that seems to have been lifted intact out of the ’50s. By now, Ratso has induced the manager to show him where the whores hang out and the two of them walk out and huddle in the fall night chill.

“Not too many whores out tonight,” the manager surveys, “maybe ’cause of that scare. There’s a guy in a pickup truck driving around in a leather jacket, blue beret, glasses, and jeans and cutting up girl’s faces after they suck his dick. But you ought to try Bulkies’, the deli down the block. The hookers always hang out there for coffee.”

Ratso thanks him and scurries down the block. He enters Bulkies’ and slides into a booth. It could be any deli in New York, Ratso thinks, the same glarey orange vinyl decor, the busty, ugly waitresses, the scattered businessmen eating chopped liver, and yes, the chinchilla-wrapped hookers sipping coffee in the rear booth. The journalist decides on corned beef, Dr. Brown’s soda,
and a side order of derma, and by the time he finishes relaying the order the waitress has already offered him a Compoz.

By the time the food comes, the place has filled up. In the next booth, four gays are discussing football, of all things. Four more hookers have filed in, two of them with a black pimp dressed in green crushed velvet. At the round table to Ratso’s right, a half-drunk businessman is busy trying to pick up one of the zaftig waitresses, while a tough small Irish-looking guy cracks up. Ratso finishes his sandwich and joins the table.

“Hi, I’m Phil Dryden, I’m in the shoe business,” the tipsy, suited one says, then returns his attention to Arline, the brassy waitress. “I married a well-to-do girl,” Phil explains, “but I want to go to bed with her.” Arline recoils in mock terror. “Honey if I’m not there, start without me.” Ratso turns to Murphy, who’s been quiet through all this. “What do you do?” he says to the Cagney lookalike. Murphy whips out his wallet and flashes a gold badge, instantly replacing it in his pocket.

“I’m a night judge in Superior Court. I set bail in Superior Court cases,” Murphy lies. Ratso figures him to be a bail bondsman, and asks if he knows any of the prostitutes scattered around the room, explaining that he’s looking for people for the Dylan movie.

“Murphy? Ha, ha,” Arline booms, “you should see the cast of characters he knows.” Murphy smiles. “You want to meet some whores?” he says portentously, his eyes twinkling. “Follow me.”

Murphy leads Ratso to a booth in the back occupied by two young white girls. One is wearing a white fur coat, piled-up reddish hair, and a fancy dress, the other’s got short hair, one great big earring, a black leather coat, and her boobs spilling out of a black dress. Murphy introduces them as Rega and Kim, and tells them about the movie.

“How much money for the movie,” Rega challenges Ratso, “nobody donates anymore. Two thousand dollars and I’ll do it.” She looks down the aisle. “Get that fucking broad,” she motions toward the waitress, “what a dingy creep.”

“C’mon,” Murphy says soothingly, “she’s all right. She’s a poet.”

“I’m a poet too,” Rega snaps, “I’m starving to death.”

The waitress, who seems to have a clubfoot, limps up.

“Can I have my water?” Rega asks coolly. “I want my ice to chew on.”

The girls’ food comes, hamburgers and French fries, and Rega starts to scatter onions over her burger as Kim looks on, horrified. “Oh, it’s OK,” Rega reassures, “it’s after 2
A.M.
, I’ll eat onions. Who cares? I’ll just go home and let my dog lick me.” She looks toward Ratso and turns serious. “The last time someone tried to film down here the camera got smashed,” she says ominously.

“It’s slow tonight,” Kim breaks the silence.

“Do you know Alison, the fat broad?” Rega asks. “She got cut up. And TC with the big boobs, she got cut up with a rock. Must be the same guy. Nobody’ll bust him.”

“They got a good description of him,” Ratso interjects, “he drives a pickup truck.”

“So what,” Rega spits. “He’ll change cars and come down in a Volkswagen. A girl was stabbed last week in Liberty Mall. I didn’t know her, but she had hooker shoes. Sequins on her heels. It was just a slasher. In New York, at least, the cops protect the girls. Here they do shit. I had to fight once to get out of a car that took me out to Chelsea.”

Murphy looks bored and he takes out his beeper and flips it on, producing a blast of static. Rega laughs. “I got a beeper too, Murphy,” she bats her eyelashes, “I’ll show it to you.” Ratso offers the girls tickets to the Boston shows, but Rega politely declines. “You can keep the tickets. We won’t be able to use them, we’ll be working. You know, you remind me of Donald Sutherland. You’re better-looking than Sutherland, though, Ratso.” He smiles and offers the girls Hurricane T-shirts instead. Rega’s eyes light up.

“Yeah, I might want a small. Listen, if you go in to any of the places in the Combat Zone, where the hooker bars are, don’t ask
too many questions. You don’t want your glasses smashed.” Rega stares at Ratso, concerned.

“Do you have a pimp?” the reporter wonders.

“No, any girl that has a pimp is just a masochist.” Rega frowns. “They hate themselves, they must want to inflict pain on themselves.” She looks down at the empty plate. “It’s T-shirt time, huh?”

Ratso tries to stall. “How much do you charge?”

“Fifty dollars an hour,” Rega shoots back, “but that varies. I like to make it with Chinks. They come quick, in your hand. They’re look freaks.”

A tall black girl in a long white chinchilla coat lopes by and Murphy stares at the new arrival. Rega slips on her fur coat and they head for the door, passing a white girl accompanied by her black pimp.

“I’m gonna have my own car, someday,” Rega dreams, “a Rolls. I’ll make five hundred dollars a night.”

Murphy frowns. “So what, I’m lying,” Rega continues, “I’m better off than that chick we just passed. She better make it or she gets her teeth kicked in. That spade looked like a mean bastard. I’d never give my money away. I don’t know, maybe she likes it. Look how many square women stay with a man for fifty years and get beat up every day, fuck ’em three times a week? What’s the difference? But with these guys, it’s not love taps. I know that broad, she gets cracked bad, but she’s out there like rain, snow, sleet, no matter.” Rega looks down at her watch. “I’m almost all right for tonight, I came out at ten o’clock, it’s three now.” She looks down deserted Boylston Street with no tricks in sight. “What am I supposed to do,” she shrugs, “manufacture it?”

The four of them walk around the corner to Ratso’s car and he opens the trunk and emerges with two T-shirts. “Oh, this is cute, honey,” Rega gushes, “I’m wearing it tomorrow night. I’m in a bowling league.” They pile into the car, and Ratso starts down Boylston. “I went out with Dustin Hoffman,” Rega offers, “four
years before he made it big. He was with a theater company in Boston. He looks like Ringo, he’s cute.” Murphy summons Ratso to a halt and the three get out and head for his car. Ratso drives on to check out the Howard Johnson’s, another hangout for the night people in the area.

It’s 5:20
A.M.
but the adrenalin is still pumping as he swings the Monte Carlo down to the Howard Johnson’s and parks behind three Cadillacs in a row. He slumps onto a counter stool, next to a well-dressed man in a trench coat. Shit, he curses silently, no hookers. Only about six burnt-out night people, and a couple of pimps, looking out the window and jiving.

A post-amphetamine gloom begins to descend on our reporter, a gloom intensified by the leering eye of a homosexual on a nearby stool. He’s about to pack it in and head back to Cambridge when one of the most beautiful women he’s ever seen strolls in. She’s a silver blonde, with delicately rouged cheeks, black satin pants, and a red wool jacket. Jesus, Ratso whistles to himself, she looks just like Monroe. I wonder what she charges? Suddenly the reporter decides it’s time for some participant-observation.

But just as suddenly she’s joined by her friend, who comes in carrying a huge Sterno log, wearing a ratty fur coat, a curly blond wig copped no doubt from an old Three Stooges movie, and red pumps. Ratso’s visions of a bacchanal dissolve like the cream in his coffee. But what a pair for the movie, the most beautiful and the tackiest transvestites ever. He picks up his cup and moves down the counter. “Can I join you?” he asks with a smile.

The tacky one looks him over, then shrugs. “Sure,” he-she rasps in a low guttural voice. Marilyn, meanwhile, is ordering. “I’ll have a cheeseburger,” she whispers sexily, “and how much is a salad?”

“Seventy cents,” the counterman lisps.

Marilyn sighs the sigh of the world-weary. “All right, I’ll have a salad. With blue cheese dressing.”

Actually, Ratso learns, Marilyn’s name is Lola and the tacky one
is named Betty. The scribe mentions the film and the tour and suggests they participate. “Well,” Lola purrs hesitantly. “She’s a little paranoid,” Betty jumps in, “it’s just that so many guys hit on us.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Lola says dreamily, staring into her compact as she fixes some makeup. “I do like Warhol movies though. I’d have to be high.”

“I’ll get you two tickets for the concert, then after the concert, I’ll take you backstage,” Ratso suggests.

“Give us four tickets so we can bring boyfriends,” Betty rasps. “I don’t want to go unescorted.” She rolls her eyes. “It’ll be fun,” she prods Lola, who smiles weakly. “We’ll dress up very Gatsby, dear, long cigarette holder, makeup, the whole bit. We’re not into music that much, I like Baez though, she’s about the only female singer I like.” Betty frowns. “I don’t even like Barbra Streisand.”

Ratso points to the Sterno log, imagining new frontiers in decadence. “What’s it for?”

“My fireplace.” Lola smiles sweetly.

“Do you guys know Murphy, the bail bondsman?” Ratso realizes his mistake too late.

“He bought his motorcycle off me!” Betty shouts. “I used to have a motorcycle and knee-high glitter boots.”

“Can I have the catsup?” Lola interrupts demurely.

“I threw the boots out, they were destroying my ankles. They were size eight and I took a ten. I like disco music though,” Betty returns to an old subject. “I love the Manhattan Transfer. But personally, I don’t like rock.”

“We’re into R&B,” Lola purrs, then signals the counterman. “Can you put some chocolate in the milk for me? I love the Kinks, though, that’s where I took my name from.”

“I’m the one that named her,” Betty boasts. “She won seven trophies, too. See this picture.” She fishes in her purse and pulls out an eight-by-ten of Lola. “She looks just like Monroe, doesn’t she. Show him.”

Lola strikes an exaggerated Monroe pout, and Ratso shakes his head in wonder. “Make me a star,” Lola says through clenched teeth, “a fallen star.”

“Is there any chance of me going out with Bob Dylan?” Betty growls. “He’s a Gemini and I’m a Gemini too. I don’t know what I’d talk to him about, though. We’re into different things. I’d love to meet him, though.”

“Then come to the show, I’ll take you back to meet him, and you’ll be in the movie,” Ratso decides.

“Well,” Betty hesitates, “OK, it might be fun. You can wear that queen dress, Lola.” Betty laughs and gives Ratso their number.

It’s 6 o’clock and Ratso runs from the Howard Johnson’s to the car. All the hookers have gone home now, even the pimps are nowhere to be seen. Already, some straights are trooping into the restaurant for coffee before they hit work. Incredible, Ratso says to himself, as he heads back up toward Cambridge, Lola was so ravishing that he still entertains visions of balling her. As the wind blasts into the car, Ratso shivers, pulls up the window, and turns on the radio for company. Roy Orbison shoots out, with that 6
A.M.
moan, “Oh, oh, Pretty Woman.” Ratso pulls the window tighter and laughs out loud.

The next afternoon, Monday, he decides to drive downtown to the Boston Music Hall, where tickets are to go on sale Tuesday morning for the Friday night shows. Lines had started forming Sunday afternoon, and by the time Ratso drove up at least thirty kids were camping in front of the old ornate theater. The journalist steps over the huddled hordes and knocks on the glass door of the theater.

Owner Al Terbin, a huge, good-natured man with a penchant for chomping on cigars almost as fat as he is, greets the reporter. “C’mon in, c’mon,” he blasts, grabbing Ratso by the arm. They walk toward his office in the lobby. “Just look at this place,” his beefy arm sweeps an arc in the air, “it’s the largest theater in New England, 4,200 seats, 40 years old, plush marble. We get the finest shows here. The Bolshoi was even here.” They enter the office and
Al directs Ratso to a seat in front of his huge antique wooden desk. “I can’t believe these kids,” Terbin shakes his head, “they been here since Sunday night and I don’t even have the tickets on the premises. Jerry Seltzer is coming in tonight at 7, we’ll count the tickets, seal them, give ’em back to him and then he’ll come back tomorrow morning right before the box office opens at nine. He doesn’t even trust us with them.” He laughs, and chomps down on his cigar.