On the Road with Bob Dylan (32 page)

Ratso kibbitzes a bit with Al and then heads outside to talk to some of the kids. But he no sooner gets out the door than one skinny student corrals him, pointing to a Bob Dylan button that the reporter picked up in New Haven. “Hey man, can I buy that off you? I’d really like that.” Ratso looks at this kid, who seems to be around twenty-one, well groomed, dressed fairly conservatively in sweater and slacks, but whose conservative demeanor is belied by the strange, intense stare that he’s fixing on the reporter right now. “C’mon, man, I’ll give you ten dollars for the button,” he pleads, and Ratso, down to his last five dollars, almost sticks himself taking off the pin.

Outside it looks like some refugee camp, blankets, sleeping bags, groups of three and four huddled together, passing around bottles. The crowd has swelled to about seventy-five.

All of whom are under the watchful eyes of Chuck Stern, one of Al’s assistants, and his elderly mother who are peering out through the glass doors. Ratso reenters and sidles up to Chuck.

“Half these people ain’t dealing with a full deck,” Stern chuckles at the mini-Woodstock outside and fingers the gun strapped to his hip. “You got a gun?” Ratso marvels. Chuck laughs. “They call this the Combat Zone.” His arm sweeps out covering the streets. “We sit on all this money, and every degenerate and malcontent around is after it.” Mrs. Stern ambles up, a nice old Jewish mother. She looks out at the crowd and shakes her head. “I don’t care, I don’t care what happens, honey, all I want to do is get the sale over with tomorrow. My son Chuck and I stood up and sold Who tickets,
we sold three shows in one day without all this baloney and rigamarole. It went easy, in eight and a half hours we sold out three shows. In and out.” She smiles and touches her hair. “See my gray hair? I got that doing rock concerts. But I love these kids though, without them where would anybody be? Some call me the Witch, they come up to the window and scream, ‘The Witch is here.’ But others,” Mrs. Stern smiles maternally, “others call me ‘Ma.’”

Ratso gets restless and starts on a walking tour of the Combat Zone, keeping one eye open for any potential film discoveries. He steps into a few bars, watching some tired, bored-looking dancers go through their bumps and grinds. Finally, he stumbles into the Two O’Clock, a huge, Las Vegas-style showroom that features three rooms of stripping. Ratso sits down in front of one of the circular stages just as a cute platinum blonde named Monique starts her act. She’s got an animal act, rubbing little teddy bears into her crotch, pulling dogs over her curves, culminating when she grabs a monkey with a dildo and inserts it, then pulls it out and squeezes a globe, causing rivulets of what looked to be Jergen’s Cream to spew all over her immense breasts. Ratso realizes he’s hungry and walks down to the White Tower on the corner.

After dinner, Ratso drives back and enters the theater. In the box office, he sees Seltzer, Jacob Van Cleef, Al Terbin, and Chuck Stern huddled over the tickets. The reporter sneaks in the office then announces loudly, “Stick ’em up.”

Chuck Stern whirls and pulls out his gun, training the .38 right at Ratso’s heart. Seltzer rolls his eyes heavenward. “Ratso, don’t ever do that, don’t even fool around when we’re counting tickets.”

The reporter apologizes and they return to the ticket-counting. Afterward Terbin ambles over to Ratso. “That Jerry’s the greatest thing I ever saw.” He points a fat finger in Seltzer’s direction. “I was talking to him and not for one second does he take his eyes off Mrs. Stern counting the tickets.” Terbin shakes his head in awe.

It’s about 5
A.M.
now, and the Pepper Steak luncheonette across the street has remained open all night to accommodate the few
hundred kids who’ve lined the sidewalk outside the Music Hall. Inside, Ratso sits down to some hot tea and throws a quarter into the jukebox. The place is occupied only by a few kids from the line and a few early-morning workers.

Suddenly Ratso almost chokes on his tea as his eyes follow the strangest-looking person he’s ever seen. She’s in her sixties, with a weather-beaten craggy face that looks like it was lifted out of Mount Rushmore. And she’s wearing all men’s clothes, an old squashed fedora, a seedy tweed sports coat, baggy trousers, wing tips, one red and one green sock, and a floppy old white shirt that’s having a hard time keeping her pendulous tits covered. She sits down opposite Ratso and immediately goes into a strange ritual, grabbing a napkin and scrubbing the table in a frenzy. Then she starts arranging her clothes, fidgeting with the sleeve buttons, pulling the arms down, then she licks her fingers. She coughs and then repeats the ritual. Jesus, Ratso thinks, an obsessive-compulsive ambulatory schizophrenic dyke. He bolts up and calls the film crew, waking up Howard Alk but eliciting a promise to send a crew right down.

Ratso sits down and asks her her name.

“Amy,” she squeaks, through a puff of her cigarette, and resumes cleaning, this time working on the floor with her worn napkin. Then she bolts upright and starts waving her arm. “Get out here, leave me alone, you cocksucker,” she screams at the air.

“What’s at the Music Hall?” she asks Ratso, then coughs tubercularly into her napkin.

“Bob Dylan.” The name draws a blank with Amy. “Joan Baez too.”

“In picture or in person?” Amy asks.

“In person,” Ratso informs.

“She’s OK. She’s with the Carpenters,” Amy decides, then points to the jukebox. “Do they have anything by the Carpenters there?”

Ratso walks over to the jukebox and drops a quarter in. He plays Billy Swan’s “I Can Help” and “Fly Robin Fly.” Amy pulls out a wrinkled napkin from her pocket and picks out some change, attempting to pay Ratso for the music, but he refuses and she goes back to
picking lint off her jacket, then violently starts wringing her hands. Ratso buys her cake and a coffee.

“Who’s Bob Dylan?” she asks. “Who’s wonderful an hour from now?” She blows her nose loudly. “Is there a Joan Baez record on the jukebox? Who’s Bob Dylan anyway? A singer?”

“Fly Robin Fly” comes up, and Amy starts swaying to the beat. “You got a light, mister,” she asks Ratso, then rubs her eyes and starts fixing her gray crew-cut hair. “What is this, fly what?”

Ratso picks out a few more tunes, again declining Amy’s pennies, and sits down. “Where you from, Amy?”

“From New York. Manhattan. I had a place in Staten Island, I lived in a church in Staten Island. I was born in England, only very little when my mother came over. My mother was married. I lived seven years in Boston. Hey, play that one again.” She likes “Fly Robin Fly.”

Amy lights up another cigarette and Springsteen’s “Born To Run” comes on, prompting her to leap up and start a weird dance, her arms dangling from her sides like a simian, her fingers snapping, then she starts picking at her nose. Amy finally sits down and fixes her pants, then starts snapping at the air again. “You shut up. Get away from me.”

“Relax, Amy,” Ratso urges. Amy bursts into tears. “C’mon Amy, stop crying,” Dom the owner pipes in. He comes from around the counter and brings her a glass of water. “Can’t lose the star,” he winks at Ratso, “this is your big break, darling. Fix your pants.”

“I gotta go to the bathroom,” Amy mumbles. But Dom’s is broken so Ratso offers to escort her to the hotel next door. They step out the door, but Amy hesitates, holding the door open for her companion in spirit. At the hotel, Amy pauses a second, then chooses to go into the women’s room. Ratso waits a few minutes, then hears screams echoing through the empty bathroom.

“Amy,” he yells inside, holding the door ajar, “what are you doing in there? Hurry up, we gotta get back. The film crew’s coming.”

“OK, Ratso,” Amy wafts back chagrined, then orders more softly, “get out of here you cocksucker, leave me alone.” A few minutes
later, she sheepishly trudges out of the john and they walk back to Dom’s.

“All right, we got the stars, Valentino and Greta,” Dom laughs as Ratso and Amy come back in. The film crew still hasn’t arrived and when he calls Ratso finds they haven’t even left the Boxboro hotel yet, a good forty-five-minute drive. It’s almost nine now and the tickets are about to be dispensed. Ratso slams the receiver down, tells Dom to keep an eye on Amy, and rushes across the street. He’s lined up at least ten people for the shooting, Bob (a weird Jesus freak he met earlier who’s convinced the reporter is Dylan), Julien, Debbie, two emergent leaders on the line, Al, Mrs. Stern, and he’s running around the line and in and out of the theater like Peckinpah on speed, making sure the cast is prepped.

An orderly line has been formed by now, a line that stretches up the block, around the theater, and almost to the next block. Al is standing in front of the box office, barking out orders like a general. Ratso’s watching the Matinee Fox in action when Bob the Jesus freak comes up. He’s got the weird smile again, and that hazy look. “You’re Bob, right Ratso?” he asks the reporter. “Huh?” Ratso stares. “Are you Bob? You’re playing here, aren’t you?” “I’m not Bob,” Ratso maintains. Bob just smiles. “You’re not Ratso, you’re Bob,” and he disappears back into line.

Satisfied, Ratso marches back to Dom’s. But she’s gone. He rushes up to Dom. “Where’s Amy? Where the fuck is she?”

Dom shrugs. “I tried to keep her in here. She kept asking where you were, kept saying that you lied to her, you weren’t coming back. Then she bolted for the door, ran out, stopped, and stuck her head back in and said, ‘But tell him, I love him.’” Dom shakes his head and smiles.

With his star gone, Ratso was crestfallen, so when the film crew arrives he perfunctorily rounds up the kids and they shoot a half hour’s worth but his heart isn’t in it. In fact, the only thing that assuaged the pain was the tall frizzy-haired girl named Sara who went back to Cambridge with him, to help him recover.

But the next day, another blow. Ratso calls
Rolling Stone
for some additional expense money and gets the word from Flippo. It is no longer desirable in their eyes to spend $250 a week to keep the reporter on the road. What they want now is spot coverage, reporting on a few concerts, but not actually traveling with the troupe. Ratso rails at that idea, and slams down the phone in disgust. To clear his mind, he grabs Sara and they drive down to engage in his favorite pastime, scouring the Salvation Army for clothes, all the while scheming how to stay on the road.

That afternoon they drive to Worcester and pull up in front of the Memorial Auditorium. The concert is some four hours away but already the stage door is dotted with ticket-beggars, distant friends of the performers, and various hangers-on. Lisa is back, in her floppy hat with feathers, decked out in a black “Guam” T-shirt. Ratso goes to the door and asks for someone from the film crew. A few minutes later, David Meyers comes out.

“OK, Ratso,” he smiles, “this is your big test. Go out and find an old pool hall, we’re probably gonna do some shooting right after the concert.” Ratso salutes, grabs up Sara, picks up a local kid to act as guide, and spends the next three hours scouring the seamy area of Worcester before finally coming up with one pool hall, two whore hotels, and a great derelict bar. Satisfied, he makes it back to the Auditorium for the concert.

Inside, it’s a gorgeous old hall very reminiscent of the first venue in Plymouth, with a beautiful wood balcony, ornate wood carvings, and a nice marble lobby. And the band seems to be up for this, the first concert in the Boston area. T-Bone is resplendent in a Merlin outfit, complete with long pointed hat, and Soles looks positively Western in his fringed buckskin jacket, matched by Ronee Blakley in her red cowgirl hat.

In fact, the only sour note seems to be Bobby Neuwirth’s voice, which by this juncture resembles a razor blade after a Hare Krishna initiation. And what makes it worse is that the film crew is filming this concert in its entirety and Fedco has brought up a
special mobile sound truck to record the affair for a possible live album.

Sara seems undisturbed. “Is that Neuwirth?” she whispers, pointing to the lanky singer. “I wouldn’t mind getting into his pants.”

“Be careful,” Ratso sneers, “you’re one step away from the gutter.”

Everyone seems to love this smallish hall, especially Dylan, and for the first time that Ratso can recall, he inserts a rollicking version of “From a Buick Six,” introducing it as “an autobiographical song for ya.” By “Durango,” the band is really cooking, four camera crews are positioned at various angles (including the new crew, manned by Michael Wadleigh, who did
Woodstock)
directly in front of Dylan, shooting right up his nose.

The second half is just as torrid as the first, Dylan loose enough to dedicate “Mama You’ve Been On My Mind” to “my mother and your mother.” By the end, he’s positively wailing, ad-libbing yet another new line to “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”: “Take these chains offa me, I can’t walk so good. An old gypsy told me to stay full length in bed, Feel like I’m looking into Heaven’s Door.” The kids lap it all up, and at the end, they stand and cheer for five minutes.

Mel Howard has promised to meet with him back in Boxboro, so Ratso and Sara stop for a bite to eat and head straight to the hotel. But at the desk, the reporter runs into some trouble locating any of the guests.

“Where’s Mel Howard’s room?” he demands.

The night clerk, a young student type, is adamant. “We have orders not to give out rooms. We have to protect our customers.”

“Look, I’m supposed to meet these people here, I know they’re staying here, I’m working with the film crew of this group. Look, give me Kemp’s room. Don’t be a fucking asshole.” The clerk shrugs and goes back to his paperback.

Ratso fumes, the events of the day having a cumulative effect on him from the ugly phone call with
Rolling Stone
to the wasted effort in Worcester to this ridiculous intransigence. Cursing bureaucracies, he grabs a pen and starts scribbling a note to Kemp.