19 Jamming with Richie

From "The Richie Havens Mystery"

I once met Richie Havens in 1966 at a house party in Brooklyn. The gathering was at the home of a cousin of one of his friends, a guy who like Richie seemed to have roots in the Caribbean. My boyfriend and soon-to-be-first husband was friendly with both the friend and Richie as well as the cousin. It was all about friends and he said it would be a “blast” and possibly a “gas.” We took the train out to Brooklyn from the Village where we were living at the time in a hot water flat. I swear this is true, about the water temperature. It was so weird though- cold would have been much better because you’d have a choice, you could heat it up if need be, or take a quick icy shower, although you couldn’t cool it down fast if you needed to- but back to the story. A sort of mystery ensued as a result of that meeting, an unanswered question about a missing person, a woman. Richie’s obit reminded me of the whole thing.

The party was in the basement of one of those smallish, respectable, working class homes with tiny backyards that stood in a family neighborhood full of houses just like that, a kind of black Archie Bunker street, at least from the outside. The downstairs was small and packed with friends, all of whom were “rapping” to each other. Everyone was smoking pot. The air was so thick in truth with marijuana that you did not have to smoke to get high. I never really enjoyed smoking and recall practically hurling myself through the back door at one point to get some air. It was summer, and the backyard reeked of reefer too. There was simply no escape. . . .

Just about the time Richie was getting ready to play I was itching to leave, although I was sure the boyfriend would tell me just to “hang loose.” I never had heard of Richie ‘till my boyfriend and his friends talked about him and was wondering what the big deal was. Actually I had never heard of a lot of people on “the scene” in those days as I had been living overseas for a couple of years and had pretty well fallen out of touch. A few weeks before the party in fact I had been introduced to Andy Warhol at a local Village watering hole by our very gay friend Jason who said Maaaarilyn, there’s someone I want you to meeet, and had no idea who he was either. However I immediately thought the guy was an albino because of the platinum hair and eyebrows- a fact which though interesting in itself did not explain why Jason was fawning over him as if his life depended on it. Then too I wanted to get away fast. I have nothing against albinos but this one seemed strange. Jason himself as it turned out was a sort of celebrity in his own right and soon-to-be star of a classic one man biopic by the famous underground film maker Shirley Clark. Needless to say, she too remains a total non person to me, if not to many others. My boyfriend had all sorts of friends, some of them quite well known in the arts, many of them just acquaintances, and even people I had studied in my drama courses, though each time we met them I had no idea who they were. Nor did I especially care. I was young and trying to survive while learning a strange new language that had overtaken everyone’s friends during my absence. Grasping phrases like “groovy” and “far out” or the more serious “heavy” with its cryptic connotation of incredible emotional intensity was challenge enough, as was finding a place to live far far away from home forever. I was going to be a famous writer.

But I stray from the story. Richie played and sang and the gig was okay and it was clear that he was “boss” although I was not “blown away” as it  was a bit loud and after the playing was over his wife was standing at his side and she had a young kid and a baby with her. She was tall and thin and white and had long straight hair and maybe she was wearing glasses too and she was the epitome of a tall, thin, white, straight-haired sixties person married to a black guy, which in those days was still a bit shocking. I admired her courage. I thought about all the shit she’d have to go through having chosen Richie as her “old man” even though he was destined for stardom. She gave out the air of being quietly strong. In a word, she was cool.  

When I was still married to my original old man, whenever we would see Richie on “Sesame Street” the old man would laugh and comment affectionately: When the hell is Richie gonna get some teeth? This response sort of kept up the connection of intimacy between Richie and the old man, who was now a father himself but not as famous. We never even considered going to Woodstock because we had a toddler, and much later on friends who had been seriously considering the idea told us they had to abandon it because word had it the road was blocked and the thruway had become a parking lot.  We did watch the moon landing on TV though, with much incredulity, talk about far out, and get scared to death by the Manson murders. Then time passed, things changed.

So when Richie died recently and I read the obit I was amazed to find no mention whatsoever of the tall, thin, straight-haired white chick who had stood quietly and confidently at his side during the house party. She had been erased. Gone. Finito. As if she never existed. I checked other obits. Same thing. Missing in action. There was brief mention of a second relationship, references to children and grandchildren, nice things like museums that Richie did for all children, and after much, much searching I even found one allusion somewhere to the fact that Richie once had been married “a long time ago.” Hmmmm. A couple of the obits also noted that he liked to keep his personal affairs “private.” Hmmmm again for a guy who was quoted as saying that he was in the “communications” business. What happened to her? Did she escape? Had she too made another life? Why was she invisible? Maybe she was dead. But even so, why not mention her? She took a chance and lost.

She definitely was worthy of mention.

April, 2013