name—he quests on bicycle to Rockville Centre, Long Island, with his own name pinned to his jacket, so as to flush her out of hiding, meeting many characters along the way, but not her. Funny thing that did happen was all of above—the providential telephone mistake begetting hourslong conversation mutually dug—but her name was Marilyn Blumberg, which she did not conceal, from Rockville Centre, who played folk guitar and shared his passions for Kerouac and radio humorist JeanShepherd and roaming the city affecting hipness (“I thought I was another Joan Baez—dark hair split down the middle, black jeans, black turtleneck, black shoes, very beat, very New York, very very cool.”). Before hanging up, they made plans to meet at the New York World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows beneath the Unisphere globe sculpture (his idea) directly under the tip of South America—under Tierra del Fuego. She told him to have a flower in his teeth in order to recognize him. “He said, ‘I’ll do it!’ He told me it would be a rose. I’ll never forget when I first saw him sitting under there—he had a carnation in his mouth; he said he couldn’t find a rose—and I was surprised that he was this tall and lanky, sweet and cute guy. He was a little abashed initially because it had been much easier to be over the top on the phone. But he loosened up over the course of the day. I just couldn’t believe I was meeting this guy from the phone.”
Once loosened, he led her to the African Pavilion, hearing drums pound as they got nearer, and there amid huts full of antelopes and zebras and birds was Olatunji on congas, representing Nigerian heritage, playing, leaping, suddenly recognizing his pupil
—Ahhnndeeee!
—which, as per plan, impressed Marilyn (“Andy was very excited to show me that they knew each other.”); they spoke with the great drum master for a while, felt almost as though special blessing had been conferred, knew they would see more of each other. They did; usually they would meet at Penn Station, training into town from opposite ends of Long Island—“Mostly, I snuck off to see him,” she said—then descend upon Greenwich Village to hang out. They explored coffeehouses and folk clubs and bookstores. “We would just enjoy being kooky together, doing little spontaneous playlets on the streets, little Marcel Marceau mime things, performancy things. He was awfully good at it. Or he might imitate people he saw, but never in a nasty way. He was very very intent on people watching. He always made me laugh. Then we would go to Washington Square Park and sometimes I’d bring my guitar and we’d sing, which was cool.” He tried out his Elvisspeak on her, demonstrated for her his ability to lip-synch to the Mighty Mouse theme song (his idea for children’s parties, he explained, was to move his mouth only when the voice ofMighty Mouse declared “Here I come to save the day!”), became many other people for her—sometimes this scared foreign guy with a funny accent—which seemed to be a very big part of just being himself. “He absolutely worked at being very uninhibited that way. But the relationship never got very intense. Mostly, it was about hanging out and talking on the phone. There wasn’t anything like intimacy, but Andy was very shy.”
He and Michael knew a song, frequently sung by miscreants at summer camp, which went: “Last night I stayed at home and masturbated, it felt so good, I knew it woooould—long strokes, short strokes, knock-it-against-the-wall strokes, slam it, bang it….” Passing each other in the house, one would sing to the other, “Last night I stayed at home,” and the other would sing, “And what’dja dooo and what’dja dooo?” Brothers. They smiled secretly and never sang any further.
Meanwhile …
The rebellion, such as it would become, coincided with other chaos, with desperation no adolescent son—this one especially—might care to fathom. Stanley Kaufman was in
Once loosened, he led her to the African Pavilion, hearing drums pound as they got nearer, and there amid huts full of antelopes and zebras and birds was Olatunji on congas, representing Nigerian heritage, playing, leaping, suddenly recognizing his pupil
—Ahhnndeeee!
—which, as per plan, impressed Marilyn (“Andy was very excited to show me that they knew each other.”); they spoke with the great drum master for a while, felt almost as though special blessing had been conferred, knew they would see more of each other. They did; usually they would meet at Penn Station, training into town from opposite ends of Long Island—“Mostly, I snuck off to see him,” she said—then descend upon Greenwich Village to hang out. They explored coffeehouses and folk clubs and bookstores. “We would just enjoy being kooky together, doing little spontaneous playlets on the streets, little Marcel Marceau mime things, performancy things. He was awfully good at it. Or he might imitate people he saw, but never in a nasty way. He was very very intent on people watching. He always made me laugh. Then we would go to Washington Square Park and sometimes I’d bring my guitar and we’d sing, which was cool.” He tried out his Elvisspeak on her, demonstrated for her his ability to lip-synch to the Mighty Mouse theme song (his idea for children’s parties, he explained, was to move his mouth only when the voice ofMighty Mouse declared “Here I come to save the day!”), became many other people for her—sometimes this scared foreign guy with a funny accent—which seemed to be a very big part of just being himself. “He absolutely worked at being very uninhibited that way. But the relationship never got very intense. Mostly, it was about hanging out and talking on the phone. There wasn’t anything like intimacy, but Andy was very shy.”
He and Michael knew a song, frequently sung by miscreants at summer camp, which went: “Last night I stayed at home and masturbated, it felt so good, I knew it woooould—long strokes, short strokes, knock-it-against-the-wall strokes, slam it, bang it….” Passing each other in the house, one would sing to the other, “Last night I stayed at home,” and the other would sing, “And what’dja dooo and what’dja dooo?” Brothers. They smiled secretly and never sang any further.
Meanwhile …
The rebellion, such as it would become, coincided with other chaos, with desperation no adolescent son—this one especially—might care to fathom. Stanley Kaufman was in
Similar Books
