Perfect Day

Bettye Kronstad

Description

‘Hey, you! Beautiful!’

The voice was compelling—an order. So I turned around.

‘Yeah, you,’ he said. ‘What are you doing in here? You look normal.’

‘I am,’ I said.

Bettye Kronstad met Lou Reed in 1968 as a nineteen-year-old Columbia University student; they were married, briefly, in 1973. Their relationship spanned some of the most pivotal years of his life and career, from the demise of The Velvet Underground to the writing and recording of his seminal solo masterpieces Transformer, for which Lou wrote ‘Perfect Day’ about an afternoon they spent together in the park, and Berlin, which draws on tales from Bettye’s childhood.

In Perfect Day, Bettye looks back on their initially idyllic life together on the Upper East Side; Lou’s struggle to launch a solo career after leaving perhaps the most influential rock band of all time; his work and friendships with fellow stars David Bowie and Iggy Pop; and his descent into drink and drug abuse following the success of Transformer, which sent him spinning out from gentle soul to rock’n’roll animal and brought a swift and calamitous end to their relationship. The result is a powerful and poignant meditation on love, loss, writing, and music.

Sujets

• Musique
• Culture musicale
• Histoire de la musique
• Styles
• Genres
• Rock
• Music

Informations

• Publié par: Jawbone Press
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781911036074
• Langue: English

Extrait

A Jawbone ebook
First edition 2016
Published in the UK and the USA by Jawbone Press
3.1D Union Court
20–22 Union Road
London SW4 6JP
England
www.jawbonepress.com

ISBN 978-1-911036-07-4

Volume copyright © 2016 Outline Press Ltd. Text and images, except where otherwise noted, copyright © Bettye Kronstad. All rights reserved. No part of this book covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or copied in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews where the source should be made clear. For more information contact the publishers.

All of the photographs used in this book are from the author’s collection, except: cover image Hulton Archive/Getty Images; Lou in London Michael Putland/Getty Images; Cafe Royal Bettmann/Getty Images; Amsterdam Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns.

EDITOR Charlotte Cripps
COVER DESIGN Mark Case
EBOOK DESIGN Tom Seabrook
contents

chapter one the elevator
chapter two reading poetry
chapter three four in a bed
chapter four new york, new york
chapter five a surprise engagement
chapter six perfect day
chapter seven on the road, part one
chapter eight on the road, part two
chapter nine transformer, part one
chapter ten till death do us part
chapter eleven transformer, part two
chapter twelve going down
chapter thirteen berlin
chapter fourteen divorce, reconciliation
chapter fifteen last exit

epilogue
illustrations
acknowledgments
about the author
the elevator
. . . . . . . . . . CHAPTER ONE
New York City, 1968.
Just as I pushed the down button there was a ding and the elevator to my left opened, pouring a crowd of people out into the hospital hallway. After the last person stepped out, I took a step toward the empty elevator, when suddenly a voice behind me cried, ‘Hey, you! Beautiful!’
The voice was compelling, an order. So I turned around.
‘Yeah, you,’ he said.
I didn’t say anything, but my eyes took in a skinny guy in a blue denim shirt with white mother-of-pearl snaps half undone, exposing an abundant growth of chest hair. A wide, worn leather belt was slung low on his narrow hips, holding up his stylishly weathered bell-bottoms. The hems were appropriately frayed and shredded from being dragged on slick city streets and flared out around him in a perfectly composed puddle. His hair was in an Afro, but a soft, curly light brown one, carefully coiffed. He had his thumb hooked over his belt buckle, and the rest of his hand hung down, carefully pointing to his crotch. He was looking straight at me, a bemused but commanding expression on his face.
‘What are you doing in here?’ he asked. ‘You look normal.’
I took the punk in, paused a minute, then looked him straight in the eye.
‘I am,’ I said.
By now he was standing directly in front of me. My first impression was that he had a serious ego, but I knew this often implied quite the opposite. He was disarming, the kind of guy who let you know how he felt about you; he didn’t play any games.
I turned on my heel and walked into the open and waiting elevator.
Ouch!
I felt a sting on my bottom. As I turned around to face the front of the elevator, I took a look once again at this wannabe rock star with a pretty face. He was smiling. Had this guy just slapped me on my bottom?
I calmly stared forward, blatantly avoiding his gaze, ignoring him. I arranged a slight smile on my face that I hoped had just the right amount of a hint of a sneer. It gave me the look of an ice queen, and with my long-legged, fashionably thin Scandinavian blondeness, if I kept my mouth shut long enough, people thought that’s what I was.
As the doors began to close, he shouted out, ‘I’m here to visit Lincoln. Do you know him?’
I still didn’t say anything, but yes, I knew Lincoln. He was a smart man who’d had an unfortunate accident when he made a suicide jump in front of a train at 59th Street and Lexington. Regrettably—for him—his attempt failed, and he’d sliced off an arm and a leg instead.
‘Well, if you do know Lincoln,’ said the skinny guy as he stuck out his hand to hold the elevator doors open, ‘ask him about me. My name is Lou Reed.’
He paused so I had time to let the name sink in, like it should mean something to me, and continued to stand there staring at me. I had no idea who Lou Reed was. Later on, Lincoln told me he was the principal writer and lead singer of The Velvet Underground. Like everyone else in the city who was seriously interested in rock’n’roll, I’d heard of them and I liked their music, but I hadn’t gone out and bought any of their albums.
For me, this certainly wasn’t a love-at-first sight experience; nor could I foresee the intensity that lay ahead of us. Our relationship would last five years; we were engaged for several of those years, although we were officially married for less than one.
While Lou projected a rock star persona—and there remained little doubt that his visceral, larger-than-life personality could pull off this act flawlessly—from where I was looking, he seemed dissipated, almost defenseless. It was like he was reaching out to me from some unknown place, and was compelled to seek me out, perhaps without even knowing why. As we stared at each other a myriad of unspoken messages traveled back and forth between us, and it was unmistakably transparent that whatever our communication set, it was not dependent upon language.
The elevator door began to close, but he kept his hand over it, denying it permission. He saw in my face that his name had fallen on deaf ears.
‘I’m his best friend,’ he said. ‘Ask him!’
Again the elevator wanted to close, and again he pushed it back. But it punched back at him, again and again, banging and shuddering.
Soon the alarm will go off and all hell will break loose, I thought— especially in this place.
But all I did was look at him as he looked at me.
All at once his hand fell slack at his side and, as the doors finally began to close, he continued to stand there, unmoving, staring at me with this confident, but kind of silly, dazed expression on his face that didn’t at all compliment the arrogant hipster who looked like he’d just stepped out of Central Casting.
Then, quietly, he said, ‘So will you ask him about me?’
That’s when the doors closed, and I thought, with probably a faint sigh of relief escaping into the empty chamber.
Oh, that’s all I need: another nut job .
I’d only been in New York about a year and a half. I’d started out in Greenwich Village in a fifth-floor walkup, but now I was living in university housing near my soon-to-be ex-fiancé while I worked my way through a comparative literature English course for my bachelor’s degree at Columbia, typing up the law professors’ cases and conducting some of their research.
But it wasn’t until after the elevator doors completely closed, shifted gears, and began to drop that I pulled my jacket closer to me, inserted the razor sharp teeth of my zipper into its box, and pulled it up to my neck. And immediately forgot about the dude with the—all right, I noticed—pouty, Betty Boop lips and girlish, upturned nose who, nevertheless, gave me my first and only butt slap.
* * *
Spring 1968.
I hadn’t spoken to Lou in a couple of months, although I’d seen him visiting Lincoln in the hospital. I cared about Lincoln, and Lou meant a great deal to him. It was about the only time I’d see Lincoln laugh, and after Lou’s visits, Lincoln looked supported and greatly encouraged. Lou seemed to give him hope that he could survive his recent tragedy, despite the devastating injuries to which he now needed to adapt.
Lincoln always told me when he was expecting Lou, and invited me to join them, but I never did. Although we’d established an implicit understanding when we met near the elevator, what Lou and I actually said to one another hadn’t been much. But after I saw what a good friend he was to Lincoln, the idea of getting to know Lou a little better seemed more attractive. If I happened to be there when Lou was visiting, he’d wave me over to talk with them, but I’d just smile, wave, and walk on by. I didn’t want to be a distraction during his visits, because he seemed to have such a positive impact upon Lincoln.
Besides, I had a great deal on my mind. I’d applied for a New York State scholarship, and had just received its acceptance. Not only was I planning how best to break off my engagement, I needed to finalize the details of the trip to Europe I was planning to take with my college friends. I had finally finished the application for my passport, but I still needed to secure the student package deal I was purchasing for my trip.
I was also busy preparing for my studies at Columbia in the fall as a full-time student, which was very time consuming—filling out papers and getting them signed, finding new housing, selecting the courses that I’d take in the fall. I was thrilled about winning a full scholarship to an Ivy League school—I no longer needed to work at the law school full-time and attend evening classes to get my degree!
The year 1968 was one of the most tumultuous years in the history of this country. In modern times, if ever the country was close to a revolution, this was the year. I was one of those college kids who protested against the Vietnam War. On October 21, 1967, I was tear-gassed while attending the demonstration against that war in Washington D.C., along with thousands of others. While walking through campus to work on April 23, 1968, I watched as students began lining up at the foot of Lowe Library’s steps for the student riot there. I was swept up in it, tear-gassed again, and felt the hard edge of a New York City cop’s billy club.
With burning tears streaming down my face, I managed to extricate myself from the riot and blindly stumbled down the hill at 116th Street and Broadway to my new student room, into which I’d recently moved. Unlike many protestors, I somehow avoi