Richard Hell crossed my path in NYC.

 

Met Richard in New York when he was the MC for the Monday night reading series at the Poetry Project at St Mark's Church in 1987, last century. 

I was engaged to a writer called Mike, and we went every Monday.

There were some characters. I remember in particular some Warholian drag queens, one was called Margaret Howard-Howard (say that with an English accent!).  Penny Arcade was there. Sparrow. Maggie Dupris. Eileen Miles. John Giorno. Typewriter writers, reading from dimpled pages. We loved it. We sat in the front row.

One of the Monday nights, maybe the last Monday of the month, there was a sign-up open reading. 

Mike read something and afterwards Richard came over and we went out to dinner together at 7B in the East Village. 

Richard was putting together a publication called CUZ. It was a compilation of some of the poets who read and Mike was chosen. I remember helping out, collating the pages from the printer in the
church. Some girls can knit and crochet, I am a super-collator. 

 

I had arrived in Brooklyn, New York, on Labor Day with 90 days to get married. 

The summer had been long and warm. We actually went to Coney Island on November 9 and I wrote a postcard home to say I had paddled in the sea.

November 12, however, I was called in to my coat check job at the Odeon, Tribeca.

On the Saturday, around 9:30pm, the restaurant was buzzing and, since I stood at the door I witnessed the bus boy coming with a huge tin of salt. 

Snow had started to fall. 

 It was a light dust to start with and then it kept snowing and snowing but the salt kept the pavement clear.

By the end of my shift the snow was almost 7 inches deep already, and it kept snowing, and then didn't thaw out for ages. In fact we had to dig the car out on December 2 before we drove over to Gotham City Town Hall. 

If I didn't get married that day my 90 days would be up and I would have been illegal.  

Richard offered to be our best man.

We arrived with our Marriage License and handed it to the lady behind the desk sitting under a huge sign with lots of hand-written rules, in different colours. 

No smoking. 

No spitting.

No loud radio playing.

No guns.

No bills larger than $20.

PS no blood test required. 

Richard had brought a poloroid camera. 

Ahead of us was a Large Lady in a bright pink dress with her very thin well turned out Gentleman in a navy blue suit. When they entered the 'Wedding Chapel' they took a ghetto blaster with them. We could hear a muffled Bridge Over The River Quai ten minutes later before they emerged. .

They saw Richard and stood perfectly still thinking that it he must be a photographer. 

He caught on and obliged, "Smile."

A young boy appeared in between them, obviously her son, and they all smiled.

They tried to pay but Richard said, "Nah, good luck." 

Meanwhile, we had been at the counter and I had seen a book of receipts open with skyline of Manhattan printed on them. 

To get married was five dollars and I said to my fiance, "Let's get a receipt." 

"Your bride is your receipt," said the lady, smoking. 

 

I wore a black Chanel jacket I had found in a thrift store, a hat with a blue broach belonging to my grandmother. My pleated skirt was new from Barney's Department Store on Fifth Avenue. 

We'd borrowed five dollars to pay for the ceremony. 

We had snow for confetti when we left the building and we ate at Pete's Tavern near Grammercy Park. 

I think Richard came to lunch with us. 

I cant remember because we had a lot to drink. 

We went home and called our parents in one of those lighted phone booths in a bar across the street that was run be ex-cops who were watching the crack dealers out the window. 

That evening we got changed and went to hear Richard read with Jim Carroll at the Poetry Project. 

Jim Carroll had written The Basketball Diaries. 

When I worked at SPIN magazine someone called to report Johnny Thunder's had died. 

I called him on the phone. 

 

I was able to get him an assignment at NME, Richard being a writer and poet by then, and later, since I knew he would have a pen, he was best man at my divorce, and he helped with the paperwork.

What with one thing and another we have lost touch.

It was Richard's birthday yesterday. 

I follow his career with interest as they say.