Untitled (Warhol) © 1994

Photo © 1965 by Burt Glinn

Below is yet another snippet-of-nothing, written more than twenty years ago. I have long been fascinated with the notion of time travel, and the idea often seeped into my scribblings, from middle school and onward.

This was written while in the throes of wickedness with a guy I then adored-- the one who inspired the poem "Selene, She Makes Me Empress"-- I had penned a few short literary exploits of our alter egos, Jimmy and Lydia.

I'd read many biographies about the crazy world of Warhol in my teens and twenties, and was fascinated with the madcap Factory crowd. During a week-long visit with my then-love in Pittsburgh, we visited the newly-opened Warhol Museum, and being around the silver clouds and Brillo boxes must have triggered the idea of perhaps going back in time and space to that insane period, complete with its drug-addled characters. I never really explained how the protagonist "did" it; she had somehow recently discovered her ability to move through time, and now wanted to share it with her beloved other half and playmate...
Again, a trifle. Quite dated, as it was a world without smartphones or instant gratification or 9/11. There's also nothing in the way of editing, and you will by now notice the standard style of a piece possessing neither beginning nor end... 


... she held the postcard before her eyes, which were now glazed-- not out of confusion, but rather with a newfound understanding, as if peering through a window that had been fogged only moments ago, now streaked clear by the sudden, careless backswipe of an invisible hand.

“I wanna go there," she breathed. "And I want you to come with me." Jimmy took the plastic cup of vodka and orange juice away from her free hand.

"You're insane. You've had too much. You shouldn't even be drinking--"

"No. I can feel it, Jimmy. It's so unreal, it's real. It's so insane-- it's sane. Don't you see? It all makes sense. It's not something I can explain. It's not like words, it's... it's feelings." She peered intently at the black and white photo.

"Maybe you were only dreaming, Lydia. I mean, it's just not possible."

"I think I can take you with me," she said, with a tone of finality in her voice.

"Besides, if you really could do it, I mean, there's hundreds of places and times way cooler. Major pivotal points in history. The Inquisition. The construction of the Pyramids, the Great Wall. Vikings. Genghis Khan. Kings, queens, knights, chivalry... wars... treaties... the dinosaurs..."  There went Jimmy, the history buff. She didn't need encyclopedias or museums or PBS. Jimmy knew all, with an almost frightening accuracy.

"Well, I guess our definitions of 'way cooler' are way different," she sniffed, staring at the image of the little silver-coiffed man with the albino skin, who clutched a camera close to his black turtlenecked chest, along with his two spaced-out compadres, circa 1960-something. "I wanna know, I wanna see... those fabulous glittery moments that I've only read about in books... I want to be able to say that I was there... even if only to myself."

"You're insane," Jimmy repeated with a laugh, chewing on a handful of Good n'Plentys and staring at the television screen that played a series of videotaped Duckman episodes. He kissed her neck, and finding it cold, jerked away. "Christ, are you okay?"

"You don't wanna go, fine. I do. I'm going without you."

"You're not serious."

"Is this the face of someone who's kidding..?" Her green eyes burned to a dark brown. No, it definitely wasn't.

"But, like, don't you have to set a time, a date, a place..?" he asked, still chewing the pink and white capsule-shaped candies.

"Details, details. You're obsessed with details. It's not healthy. No, silly. I don't need details. This isn't Back to the Future or  Time After Time. There are no levers to pull, no buttons to push, no destinations to be keyed in. You just think. Focus. But remain in a dreamlike state..." She shut her eyes, and her head bobbed to her chest, her neck going limp. "Come here..." she whispered. "...and don't mock me..." She reached out and took his face in her cold clammy hands, pulling it to her own, pressing his cheek against hers. He flinched, as her skin seemed to be dipping considerably in body temperature. How did she do it? Did she really travel astrally, leaving behind her earthly body to go dormant in waiting? Could she truly surf the waves of time, cresting and beaching herself on different decades of her choice? And how could she take him along? Drag him behind her in an inflatable ethereal dinghy? And did he need a lifejacket for this?

Her lips suddenly found his, and she was licking halfheartedly, forging a link between them, her tongue cold and wet, but not at all displeasing to him. "Shut your eyes..." he heard her say, only she hadn't spoken. She couldn't have made any coherent sentences what with her tongue lingering in his mouth. He obeyed just the same, gazing at the pink and brown patterns, only to find her, grainy, but still Lydia just the same-- she was squinting back at him strangely, up and down, gesturing at his clothes.

"What...?" he started to ask, then felt a hand against his cheek, shushing him. Her image slipped just out of his line of vision, hidden by all the pink and orange patterns that were floating behind his eyelids. Oh. I'm not supposed to talk. I'm supposed to think... her image came back into view again, and in the outside world, the world of his bodily senses, he felt the chilled palm move away from his cheek.       

"You're not honestly wearing that... are you?" she asked. He looked down at himself. He was dressed in his usual t-shirt and jeans combo. She'd never voiced a disliking to it before.

"Jesus, Lydie-- I mean, I realize I have all the fashion sense of a baked potato, but what gives? I thought you liked this shirt. You've borrowed it enough." The t-shirt depicted Marvin the Martian of the Warner Brothers cartoons. It was one of Jimmy's favorites to wear.

She shook her head, rolling her eyes as if at the end of her rope. "Jimmy. We're gonna be with the fabulous people, the beautiful people. The crazy, innovative, artsty-fartsy, decadent--"

"Who gives a shit? Lookit what you're--" With that, Lydia raised her arms above her head, and the white undershirt, baggy olive green pants and black boots all... well, melted away. Granted, the whole motion looked undeniably cool against the backdrop of dreamy swirls, colors and geometric patterns in this in-between world, but nonetheless it scared the shit out of Jimmy. The clothes melted, then morphed (damn, no nudity, to his dismay) into another outfit-- seconds later, Lydia was dressed in a black sleeveless minidress, black tights, black leather hipboots. A silver-looped belt was cinched about her tiny waist. Her hair was no longer fluffed up with spray, but combed flat and shiny against her head, parted over to one side. Her eyes were ringed above and below in kohl, her lashes heavily spidered in mascara, and her lips frosted a faint mauve, her eyelids frosted a sparkly canary yellow. Two big clusters of silver medallions suspended by thin teardrop loops of wire hung at her earlobes, jangling noisily against one another, nearly reaching her shoulders. She pursed her lips, then smiled vampishly.

"C'est groovy, non..?" she giggled. Jimmy was stunned. Lydia had transformed into a sixties' freak in a matter of seconds, right before his disbelieving eyes. "Come on, Jimereeno-- I know there's a Mod in you just clawing to get out..." she purred. "Hey, it's like... I dunno-- think of it as dropping really safe acid... c'mon, trip with me..." Her voice was like honey, and with that his entire body began to tingle-- not in the sexual sense, but rather he felt bathed in a warmth that spread through every cell, coursed through every fiber of his being. He arched his neck back, and felt his body melting, pulsating, undulating into continuous waves of ectoplasmic matter, then coming back together again. Gone were the Looney Tunes tee and jeans-- now he was truly a hipster, in black ribbed turtleneck, black 501's, black scuffed motorcycle boots. Lydia's face beamed in approval. Even his hair had grown in soft waves, flowing to the middle of his back, much to the surprise of his own exploring fingers. It was held in a ponytail by a thin strip of rawhide.

"Holy shit..." he breathed.

"Look at you. You're far out, man. You're like, the epitome of cool..." she cooed, snapping her fingers softly, kissing him full. "Read me some Ginsberg, speak to me about Burroughs, play me some Coltrane... " He pulled away, dazed and tongue-tied,  looking all around for something, anything remotely normal, tangible... something he could relate to.

"We're in an elevator," was all he could manage.

"I can see that," she said, leaning against one of the walls. They were shiny and grimy at the same time, a strange silvery grey paint coating every inch, even the floor. Jimmy touched the door tentatively, pondering the color that had rubbed off against his fingertips.

The door opened with an unsettling clang and squeal, and the scene unfolding before them was one of utter hedonism, chaos, brilliance, decadence, mystery.

"Hi... would you like to be in our movie?" came a small voice, belonging to an equally small, frail-looking man, and Lydia's breath drew inward on reflex. "You're just... just so pretty... so pretty, you should be in our movies..." whispered the waiflike Warhol, reaching into the pocket of his black leather jacket and producing a white capsule which he then popped into his mouth like a candy or coughdrop.

Lydia turned to Jimmy, who was dumbstruck once again. "I... I feel immortalized already," she mumbled breathlessly, at a loss for words. She looked up to see a beautiful young man at Andy's side, one of his Superstars, Joe Dallesandro. Immortalized in Lou Reed's gritty "Wild Side." A lovely specimen, but sexually ambiguous, pretty much like the rest of the fucked-up Factory crowd. Sprawled on an oval black velvet couch lay the hound dog-eyed Taylor Mead beside a chattering Ondine who was twitching every now and again from his penchant for gobbling amphetamines. A tall, leggy blonde with a gorgeously painted face sidled up alongside Jimmy.

"Hello, pretty boy..." she whispered. "We've never seen you before... have a popper..." She held a tiny foil-wrapped hit of amyl nitrate under Jimmy's nose, but before she could snap it open, he turned his face away.

"Uh, no thanks," he protested, but Candy Darling's slim-fingered hands were already weaving a purposeful path down to his crotch. Lydia stifled a laugh. I bet he doesn't know she's really a he... also immortalized in the same Velvet Underground number.   

"Look, she's a black rose, just opening..." murmured Andy, staring at Lydia, rapt, his tiny eyes unblinking behind the black wraparound shades. She was still busy absorbing everything around her. The brick walls had been sprayed silver, the rest layered in foil. Three stacks of silver filing cabinets rested alongside the couch, before which sat a large mirrored ball, the prototype that would be used in discotheques and skating rinks in the decade to come. Ondine seemed to be attempting to grasp the glittering bits of light in mid-air as the ball turned lazily on its mirror-specked dish on the floor. A silent black and white film churned against a screen that was tacked against the far wall, the scene depicting a young man's face only, relatively expressionless. Lydia stared, her cheek feeling unusually warm. This was the infamous Blow Job film of yore...  

Towards the back hovered a striking woman dressed from head to toe in kitschy thrift shop threads, every stitch a slightly different shade of purple-- Ultra Violet, another Superstar...