Cyndi Lauper: A Memoir Page 6

  When I got out, I was too weak yet to work. Sometimes if the hostel had some interesting people I might like, I’d put them up at my place for a while. There was a kid named Ann Marie who stayed with me once who was a runaway. She had an older boyfriend—who was really a pedophile, if you ask me. They were going to put her in a correctional juvenile place for delinquent kids unless someone adopted her. I wanted to, but I couldn’t because I was too young, I was still nineteen. I felt so bad. She never forgave me.

  And while I was trying to get better, a couple came and stayed with me—a guy named Tommy and his girlfriend—and they took care of me. And then she left and he stayed, and he became my boyfriend after a while. He wouldn’t leave (I know, again with that). Tommy was such a charmer and could talk you into anything. He wasn’t working, so he spent a lot of time hunting. One time there was nothing to eat for dinner, so Tommy went out with his gun, shot a squirrel, and brought it home.

  There it was, on the kitchen counter. All I could think of was that one time when the Magic Bus had made a stop on the way to New York, and I saw a guy fishing, and he taught me how to clean a fish. Thank goodness, I remembered how to do it, because that’s how I took care of that squirrel. So I did what I had to do. I cut its head off and peeled back the skin, and I thought, “Hmm, there’s not a lot of meat.” But I took whatever was there and chopped it up. Then I cut up an onion, put olive oil in a pan with some basil, a little garlic, and a bay leaf, and sautéed the squirrel. Then I threw in a can of tomatoes, some wine, a little sugar, and a little salt and let it cook for a while. Tommy took a cab home and invited the cab driver to dinner. The cabbie loved it, and after dinner he said, “This is really delicious. What kind of meat is this?”

  I told him it was chicken and he said, “No, it’s not.”

  I said, “Yes, it is.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “No, it’s not, it’s gamier.”

  I said, “All right, it’s squirrel.” He didn’t believe me and we went back and forth a couple of more times. The squirrel’s head was in the trash, and the pelt, too, so I showed him the pelt, and he got really upset.

  After a while, I realized that Tommy was never going to work. It hit me that although there was something very charming about him, he was a bum, and he was really dirty. He didn’t like taking baths or showers. That got old pretty fast.

  In the meantime, the people in the welfare office worked it out so that I could go to Johnson State College in Johnson, Vermont. They had this thing called the PROVE Program where you could get a scholarship if you proved yourself through your work. I just wanted to take art, but they wanted me to take English and history. As I mentioned, I always had a lot of trouble with English and didn’t want to take it. I couldn’t write a paper or read the amount you needed to in college. I couldn’t focus on a page. I had attention deficit disorder or something; I still don’t read a lot. I could do things visually then and I could write creatively. But I never learned the basics of writing out a report.

  Of course, at the time, I didn’t know that what I might have had was ADD. And I couldn’t figure out if my problem was from a traumatic childhood or if maybe I was just fuckin’ stupid. I just thought that maybe my short stint in a convent school where the nuns got a little brutal might have contributed to my condition. That lovely boarding school run by what I’ve always called the Sisters of No Mercy or Charity at All, especially if the children wore their patience a little thin. Maybe I was just hit in the head too much. And listen, I got by as a stupid person pretty good, because I could do other things and I could verbally articulate some things well. Sometimes I would get up in class and talk to the teacher and ask questions, and then when I sat down I would hear, in my head, “You really are brilliant.” I would think, “I’m not brilliant; I’m actually kind of stupid.” Then I’d hear, “No, you’re not.” I’ve always felt like there was this really strong presence of a guardian angel around me. Either it was a guardian angel, or I had to completely schizoid out to survive.

  While I was living in Vermont, I still made trips back to New York. I’d hitch, and take my dog and my easel. I would be on that big highway that goes from Vermont, and I would be so scared. It was cold, and I was frightened for my life all the time. I got in this one car with a guy who brought me back to his house and let me rest before he took me to the next spot. He was very kind. I was very lucky that I wasn’t killed or something. (But, I mean, I had the dog too. It’s kind of hard to kill you and the dog, right? Well, I guess if you’re motivated, you could.) When I made it back to New York, I would visit Bob Barrell, and we’d paint, and he would teach me about painting. He once told me that a painter is a great liar because you’re taking a flat surface and making it look like it’s three-dimensional, not flat but something with depth. It’s the craziest thing, but some of the techniques that he taught me I use in my makeup when I paint my face or when I’m adding color to my blond palette of a head.

  So as I was taking courses for this art scholarship at Johnson State, I got a job as a nude model in one of the classes. I modeled in the watercolor class. I loved watercolor but didn’t get into the class, so I worked there so I could watch the teacher. Unfortunately, artists hardly ever view the models as people who might be attending a class they couldn’t get into. The great thing was that because I was also taking art history classes, I was able to pose like the models in the paintings I studied and then watch how the students translated those poses in pen, ink, and watercolor. Which I loved.

  Most of the art history books I read were dreadfully written though. I had a hard time reading them but I loved the paintings so much I made myself get through the writing that made no sense. And I was making art with my body. I would twist myself to make a line that would run down the page or pose in a shape I would have liked to draw myself. And I could stay that way for a long time. Then I would watch the students draw and paint, and listen as the teacher came over and talked to them. I don’t think any of them really realized how much I was watching. They probably thought I was an exhibitionist or some kind of tramp.

  I never had much luck with young men. And I would hear gossip from men I dated come back to me. The first young man who was really kind to me as a boyfriend was this short African guy from Nigeria. I started hanging out with him, and sleeping with him, and everyone in the school freaked out. Apparently he was with another white girl from the school who was very sweet and he ditched her for me, the crazy-girl freak. We’d go to dorm parties and his pattern was that he’d get wasted and then somehow get in a fight with someone who he insisted had insulted him. Now, this guy never acted like a jerk to me, but at these parties he’d always curse and get angry and so drunk that I’d have to help him back to his dorm room or mine. I never felt I could help him the way he helped me. And then I bumped into that sweet girl with the biggest sad eyes that he broke up with one too many times. I just couldn’t hurt her like that anymore, and maybe this girl could help him better than I could. So I ended it.

  There was this one woodworking teacher who taught me a lot. One night, he was going to give me extra help and teach me how to use the machines. Since he thought I was such a space cadet, he wouldn’t let me use the big chopping machine. I was making a wooden toilet with a wooden toilet-paper roll. (It was statement art.) Well. He walked into the wood shop and swept his arm across the table to clear off everything—very dramatic, like, “All right, are we gonna do this thing or not?” I was thinking to myself, “That’s really fuckin’ nice.”

  Listen, if you’re one of those girls who slept around, it was supposed to be free love, but like I said, it wasn’t. Not for the women. I used to hear the things they said about me. If you went on a date and had sex with someone they would tell everyone if you gave good blow jobs or whatever it was. I used to think, “Should I talk about how you were? Unattentive and jiminy-quick-like in bed?”

  But I was glad to have a real college experience. At first
I was in a dorm and that was pretty cool, but I kept trying to sneak my dog in and they weren’t happy with me, so I left. I ended up staying at a bunch of different places. I had this one awful roommate who rode his motorcycle in the house. To get some air, I’d walk my dog at night but there were graveyards everywhere. She’d run in one to take a leak on a gravestone, and I’d run in after her trying to get her out. I was freaked out; I would think, “Oh my God, that person would be so pissed. And, actually, they were.” I also lived in a place called the PROVE Program house, since I was part of the PROVE Program. There were other folks in the house who were doing the same thing, including people from prisons who were trying to rehabilitate—ex-drug addicts, ex-felons. They also housed people who had nervous breakdowns. Some of those kids had a very tough time in moments of stress. One kid was freaking out and wouldn’t get out of his chair, so his family just carried the chair out and put him in the back of a truck. But the people in the PROVE house were good kids. People would always pass judgment on them, and I know very well what that’s like.

  At that point, I was still determined to be a painter, so I painted on every surface I could find. One time I took the shoes that I had worn in Algonquin Provincial Park and put gesso, which is like a white surface primer, on the bottom of one of the shoes, and painted on that. I took one of the sketches I made on the trip, of a place by the river where the water washed over the rocks, and painted it in acrylic. Then afterward I took real rocks and glued them on, so the rocks would come out of the painting. It was pretty neat. I also took a small tree branch I saved and put it through the toe of the shoe. I showed that piece in an art show at school, and it was stolen. But I was told that only the really good pieces were stolen, so that’s good.

  I was also deejaying at the radio station at school. I got the gig after I called the station and complained that they weren’t playing enough women. The early seventies was a time when people were still in that hippie mentality of wanting to change things and make them better. The guy at the station told me, “If you don’t like it, come down here and be a deejay for us, and you can play all the women you want.” I went in as a belligerent kid, but then I saw how fun it was. I loved it there. I played all kinds of music, and in between I’d put in bits of comedy things, and then segue into aeolian harps or something. I always made sure there was some kind of story going on with the music. It was very trippy. In fact, a lot of people used to trip to my shows.

  I brought more women to the airwaves, and I was the first female streaker on campus, too. It needed to be done—there were a lot of guys doing it, and it was time for a female. I had my boots on and a hat, and I ran naked through the cafeteria. One of my art-student friends said, “Cyn, I couldn’t help but recognize you, because I draw you all the time.”

  And of course I played music too. I had some friends who lived in a different dorm that was an old converted farmhouse. Sparkle and I would run across a cow patch (sidestepping the cow pies) between my dorm and theirs. I’d bring my guitar and we’d all sing and jam together all night. I had a guitar that I’d play called Athena—the one people gave me money for playing when I was sixteen. She had a thin neck and a nice sound. We’d sit around playing and any sound was welcome. You could play glasses if you wanted; it didn’t matter what you picked up, and I kind of loved that. One time, a teacher told me that I could join his band but that I’d have to pull my weight by writing songs. I was so excited. After dinner, in Johnson, everyone sat around and played.

  During that time, B. B. King came to the college for a show. I shook his hand, but I remember I was so scared that I couldn’t look in his eyes. I went from that frightened handshake to making a record that he played on two years ago. The arc and the miracle of a lifetime is what really stuns me. It reminds me, “Don’t count yourself out.” A lot of stuff happens in life for a reason, and for all I know, that handshake, on some spiritual level, might have been carrying the message, “Hi, in twenty or thirty years you’ll be a musician, and I’ll be playing on your record.”

  I was at college for a year and two months. I tried really hard, but once again I was failing, and I just couldn’t bear it. My art grades were fine, but I flunked Greek history, I was failing English, and in addition to that, I was in debt. When I made up my mind to leave and hitch back to New York, I cried my eyes out. I stopped at a church, like any good Italian, and prayed to Jesus, my secret friend, and all of a sudden I felt him standing on the side of me with no sadness. In a way, he was telling me without words that this failure was okay, that I should just go home. I’ll never know if it’s just my imagination that makes me hear and see things, but I’m glad I do. It helps me get through life.

  When I came home from college in 1972, I walked down from Jamaica Avenue and people threw rocks at me because of my clothes. I remember I was wearing a long green coat, which was really kind of cute; my “hat full of stars” that I had created after reading Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit book; socks that were like candy canes, white and red; and big red clogs that were size 8. I was a 7 but I liked them, so I wore thick socks, but that’s how I got my bunions. So never do that, okay? Get shoes that fit.

  Soon enough I was back in Bob Barrell’s studio. One night he was having a party, and I was playing guitar for everyone, and another art student named Fran Kissinger sat her butt down next to me and said, “You know, you have a professional voice—you should really sing professionally.” Well, why not? I started looking at ads for singers in the newspapers, but what they usually wanted were black girls to sing background for these white guys. (Which, when you stop and think about it, is like, “An all-white band and black background singers? What the fuck is that?”) Then I heard about a company that was looking for singers. I met with a guy who told me that I should learn all these different songs that were on the radio. I performed for him, and it seemed to go well, but then I got in trouble.

  He invited me to his house for dinner and I thought it was a date. So I went, and it was really nice—candlelit and everything. I was probably twenty at the time and thinking, “What a nice guy, he’s actually making dinner for me. Who does that?” And then, of course, he came on to me. I was flattered and went for it, then all of a sudden he got a phone call. He hung up, said his wife was coming home, and ushered me out and put me in a cab. That was the end of that. I was such a stupid kid.

  But then I went to another audition, for a cover band. This time Fran came with me because I decided that I wasn’t going to go on auditions alone anymore. I sang the Gladys Knight and the Pips song “I’ve Got to Use My Imagination,” and I made a mistake and sang higher than I should have. I just pushed a little, and I couldn’t believe the big voice that came out of me. It was so loud and so strong that I was thinking, “Holy shit, where did this come from?” You should have seen everyone’s faces, too. They were looking at me, surprised, and I’m thinking, “You think you’re surprised?” I once had a dream where an angel told me I was a sleeping lion, and at that moment I thought, “This must be my roar.” I kept going, though, because I was in an audition situation. I joined the band. (I’m leaving out the band’s name, for reasons that you’ll see later.)

  There was a gay singer who looked a little like John Travolta and a bass player who dressed like Bootsy Collins, although he was a white guy. I was a background singer, but every once in a while the background girls would sing lead, so whenever the band was sort of losing the crowd, they’d have me step up and do something like “Lady Marmalade,” “I’ve Got the Music in Me,” or “Tell Me Something Good.” I sang background with this other girl, Dale, who was awesome. I sang the high harmonies, so they started calling us Chip and Dale.

  Along with my new band, I got a new place to live: Fran’s apartment. She made a deal that I would be a live-in nanny for her two kids. So I did the gigs at night with the band, but then I had to get up early in the morning and take care of the kids. And soon it started to get really weird. Fran was going through a very traumatic time because there w
as a lot of turmoil with her ex, and the kids were a little out of control. And one time I slapped her son. The kid did something to me, and it was a snap reaction. He went into the wall, and I never forgave myself. I was a kid myself, but I should never have ever, ever hit him. It’s just wrong, because if you teach violence, violence begets more violence. I could never get it right because I didn’t know how. I couldn’t be the nanny that she needed and I couldn’t bring stability to the place, so finally I just left.

  So I moved back to my mom’s place in Queens, and Fran started working in a bar as a barmaid to support her kids. Through her bar, I met a couple of guys I thought I was going to be with, because I just wanted to go out on a date. They never worked out. One guy was a Vietnam vet, but I was not sensitive to his plight and I told him I had marched against the war. He freaked out. That date ended abruptly. It should have because no one treated those guys fairly when they came back and I was a stupid kid who didn’t understand that. Then later, when I was the lead singer in the band, I started seeing this other guy who was friends with the drummer. But that ended when he became a nervous boyfriend who had to make sure everything ran smoothly at the clubs, even though he wasn’t our manager.

  The band got some good opening gigs. We opened for Wayne County—once when he was Wayne, and later when he was Jayne. Remember that musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch? It reminded me very much of Wayne/Jayne, although actor John Cameron Mitchell said that the character Hedwig was based on a combination of a couple of people. Wayne was wild and funny. I was always afraid of him. He did say some nasty things to me, but I didn’t care. We played at the Coventry Club on Queens Boulevard, where Kiss played their first gig. We opened for Isis, whose lead singer was a beautiful lesbian. She had white-blonde hair that she sprinkled with glitter. She also wore a white glittery shirt and shiny pants. She looked like an ice queen, but her guitar playing was on fire. In those days it was cool to see people living alternative lifestyles in those glitter bands—but even though a gay man could break through then, a declared lesbian never could.