Pretend It's Not Me Page 4

Donnie worked at the post office in Jersey City.

He left everyday at 1 o'clock in the afternoon and wasn't back home until late at night.

I'd sleep on the couch in the livingroom until he got up then I'd move to his bed. We'd talk and laugh together while he was ironing his clothes and getting ready for work.
I loved this time I spent with Donnie, I had a lot to digest, so much to learn about life. I was still just 15 so everything about the world was new to me.

Back then I had no money or connections and had to rely on what limited social skills I had. I As I got older I got craftier.

Going to Studio 54 had been a dream of mine long before I got to New York. I knew one of the owners was gay and that he liked to "party".

By this time I had morphed into Niki St Germaine, my stage name. What stage you ask? Well, any stage I came across! Thinking it sounded sophisticated I called the main number for Studio 54, told them who I was and asked for Steve Rubell.

When he came on the line I told him we'd met a few nights earlier and that he'd given me his number and asked me to call him. Knowing he was a lush who also did drugs I was hoping he'd had a blackout that week so when he couldn't remember meeting me he'd assume that was why.

And that's exactly what happened.

There was a private party that night for a famous designer and he put me on the guest list.

While everyone was getting out of their limousines I was getting off the D train from Brooklyn. I strode up to the velvet rope and gave them my name. They had no idea who I was, I wasn't on the list.

Humiliated, I went to the nearest pay phone and called the club. A woman with a thick spanish accent picked up and when I told her what happened she apologized and asked me to come back and she would make sure I was on the list.

It worked and I got in.

There was a $20 cover charge, thank god I didn't have to pay it because I had less that 5 bucks on me.

Studio 54 was located in an old television studio. When you came through the front doors there was a really long red tunnel you had to walk down to reach the club. You can hardly see anything at this point. The music is pumping and at the end of this long tunnel you can see some lights flashing, but until you reached the end you had no idea what was there.

Finally it comes into view, this fantasyland of light and sweat, of music and bodies and desire. A huge man in the moon would shoot foam hearts and moons and stars onto the dance floor.

There were rows of seats in the balcony overlooking the whole club. Arms and legs and organs were rubbing together, the sounds of ecstasy co mingled with the sounds of coke being snorted and the smell of poppers being inhaled.

I introduced myself to Steve, we liked each other, he took me to his office and from that night forward if he was there I never had to wait in line or pay a cover charge.

Everything about this club was exciting, even the bathrooms. On the counter in the men's room was a huge tray of different colognes. In the women's room they had perfumes. Of course there was an attendant at the ready with a towel to dry your hands. I'd never seen this kind of opulence in a club bathroom.

I didn't know it while it was happening but the songs I was dancing to were becoming the soundtrack of my life. They were imprinted on my sub conscience. No matter where I was or what I was doing, when I heard them I would be transported right back to 1978 and the dance floor at Studio 54.

France Joli's Come to Me,

Ashford & Simpson's Found A Cure,

The Weather Girl's It's Raining Men,

Loletta Holloway's I May Not Be There When You Want Me (But I'm Right on Time).

These were a few of the songs that defined my 15 year old life. They were the anthems that lit a fire of rebellion under me. All the pain I felt over my family's betrayal seemed to fade away when I was on that dance floor.

Of course it was always there, just waiting to fuck me up.

One night I called my father from Studio 54. When I told him I was in New York he didn't believe me. Back then you could receive calls on a payphone so I gave him the number and when he called me back he went silent. It was really strange.

No one expected me to crawl from the wreckage they left me in. I guess the fact that I'd made it to New York City from Toronto on my own left him without much to say.

I had a big life ahead of me and this was just the beginning.