Toawrds the end of the summer I started on my mission to get Gauloises. They’ve been getting scarcer. It took a lot for me to get it together after work and go to the Village and see if any were still in stock. I always set myself up for disappointment and sure enough I wasn’t.

I do have some unease at going to the Village while suited. It used to be the province of hippies, bohemians, and punks. Now that’s all changed. It’s not anything like it was 25 years ago when I used to go all the time. But then again, I’m not like what I was 25 years ago.

Laszlo Papp used to go in on weekends and he turned me onto stores like St. Mark’s Sounds and I tagged along. I loved it there. The red haired Englishwoman behind the counter, the wall of the latest 45’s from all over. Laszlo drove a big muscle car and we’d park somewhere and just stroll around.

Go to St. Mark’s Bar after hitting Trash and Vaudeville or Manic Panic. He’d shop there. I was more into the music. I’d spend maybe 30 dollars and get about 4 or 5 singles, and a couple of albums. Man it was great.

We’d sit on the steps outside, I’d see guys going into the St. Mark’s Bathhouse. Never really wondered what went on there. Honestly. I was also a bit closeted at the time. Out only to myself.

Never did sexuality ever come up. At least my sexuality never came up. One time in the dead of winter Laszlo and I were on Avenue A, when it was a block away from Desolation Row. We were looking for some friends of his, pounding on a boarded up door when a street guy walked past us and looked and said, ‘They have guns and they’re pointed at you’.

That’s all we needed to hear. We ran serpentine back towards First Avenue.

I remember some summer day, no one really in town, I was leaving Sounds. On my way to the record store, I passed Trash and Vaudeville and saw a stretch limo idling outside. Didn’t think much of it. As I walked down the steps after buying the lastest records, I see a man in high heels, followed by a bigger burly man trailing a few steps behind, while the limo cruised the curb.

It was Prince. People hung out the window and said they loved him. He didn’t seem to notice, and no one approached him. This was the summer before Purple Rain. He didn’t really hit mainstream radar yet. I ran to a pay phone outside of Gem Spa and called my friend Rita who didn’t believe me.

A few years later, my ol’ pal Randy and I started going to St Marks Place. Me to buy more records, Randy for his comic books. Then I would buy my comic books and he would buy his records. Back and forth across the street. All the time with my brown Ford Econoline van parked on the street, since I had commercial plates. Man were our eyes red.

I wasn’t wearing suits then. Now I play by somebody else’s rules. The neighborhood has changed. I’ve changed. Sounds no longer sells singles. I don’t even have a record player. I threw out a lot of records in my last move. Tied them up and left them at the curb. Would I really be playing ‘Kings of the Wild Frontier’ ever again? Looking at Adam Ant’s face, I knew I wouldn’t.