David Crosby’s death hurtled me back in time. What I discovered? The “me” that lived in New York City back in June of 1970? That guy is a long time gone. But not forgotten.
They played the Fillmore East just a month after Kent State and we were seething. “They” meaning Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. “We” meaning our “core four”: me, Dave, Didi, and Andy. Where are they now? Talk about “long time gone.”
In dog-owner parlance, we were all “rescues”. My home life, like Dave’s, was a physical and psychological shambles. Andy basically had run away from home and lived in a room in a ramshackle Evelyn Place house. Didi escaped a home headed by a predatory stepfather and a manic-depressive mom who painted images of screaming black skulls. Her younger brother hung himself from the fire escape of their flat just south of the Cross-Bronx.
Somehow, we found each other and gave each other the gift of peace, even as the war in Vietnam escalated.
That Saturday night in June of 1970, we got on the #4 train at Fordham Road, got off at Union Square, and walked downtown to the show. We reeked of Caswell-Massey Patchouli, the fragrance a friend dubbed “hippie fart.” We sported long hair. Muttonchop sideburns. Pocket tees. Levi bells. L’il Abner work boots. Thick leather watch straps. Didi wore one of her hand-embroidered peasant blouses. That is, full ’70 white-kid-in- CUNY regalia.
On the downtown train, I remember sitting on the hard grey bench of the Redbird and absently stretching my feet out. They may have touched the base of the silver center-pole. A transit cop came through, and tapped my leg with his baton. I moved my foot back about half an inch. Just enough to complete this little pas de deux without incident.
Outside in the street, the crowd of kids in Union Square was thick. We knifed through, across the street from Dave’s back-office, night-shift, insurance job. This was months before he started his new career as mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service in the Hudson Valley. You got it: hippie mailman. Back then, coming home at 2 a.m. from Union Square to Nereid Avenue on the #2 train was a nightly adventure. He had a lucky spot on the 14th Street platform; it was the spot where he never got mugged.
Closer to the Fillmore, the East Village air became fragrant. I finished the last of my pint of Bali-Hai. We showed our $5.50 tickets and entered our palace.
The music was superb. Soaring harmonies, anchored by Crosby’s angelic voice. An acoustic set. An electric set. All recorded for the “Four-Way Street” double album.
The set intensified. And then they played “Ohio.” Boom! EVERYBODY UP!
We all knew, we all thought: “that could have been us.”
Long, long Neil Young/one-note outtro. Searing our souls. But then, as knowing showmen, they concluded with “Find the Cost of Freedom”.
We exited into the early summer soot. Still shaking with emotion, we ambled onto the uptown IRT. In ’71 I got a job at the Mount Vernon Sectional Center for the USPS, on the truck platform, while still taking 15 credits at CUNY-Lehman, all in the morning. There, I witnessed knife fights between the long-haul truckers (crackers) and the brothers. Why? The drunk/strung-out truckers thought they weren’t getting unloaded fast enough.
One evening, a guy on the platform pulling a fully-loaded skid away from a belt popped a heart-attack. The supervisor took the time card from the guy’s shirt pocket and punched him out on the clock because, I guess, nobody dies on USPS time.
Guys just back from ‘Nam, feeling lucky to be alive, would work beaucoup OT, buy new muscle cars and pack their noses with coke in the parking lot. The Sec Center piped in a top-40 AM station. “American Pie” was in heavy rotation that fall. It seemed as if I heard “A LONG LONG TIME AGO…..” blast over the PA three times an hour. I wanted to scream. This wasn’t working. I was failing everything, but taking home $178 a week. Big money. And yet: “Bad news on the doorstep…I couldn’t take one more step…”
I knew then, that this wasn’t for me. It was never going to be just about the money. In time, I cut my hair. But not my values. For better or for worse. “Guess I’ll set a course and go,” I thought, echoing the lyric to “Wooden Ships”.
“Something touched me deep inside” the day David Van Cortlandt Crosby died. He came from an old-line family. But he, too, was a rescue. We rescues know too well how hurtful value judgements on our choices can be. Could Croz be an asshole? Remember the punchline to the old joke about the whiny customer, the chicken, and the butcher: “Lady, could YOU pass such a test?”
We simply try our best, wooden ships, sailing on the tide. “Easy, you know, the way it’s supposed to be. Very free and easy.”
“Guess I’ll set a course, and go.”