He and Nancy sank deeper into drugs and despair. I spoke to her about once a week and each time she sounded lower. She and Sid went out of of their room at the Chelsea less and less. One night one of them nodded off in bed with a lit cigarette and set the mattress on fire. Reportedly, a hotel employee rushed up to their room with a fire extinguisher to find them wandering around, oblivious to the smoldering mattress. The manager moved them to another room, room 100.
■■■
I decided to answer it. It was Nancy.
“Mum, what happened before between you and Sid?”
“He was very nasty. I warned him I was going to hang up.”
“Wait, hang on.” She turned away from the phone to talk to Sid. “Here’s your match. Now light your cigarette and leave me the fuck alone,” she said to him. Then she was back. “He’s very upset, Mum. A very upset lad. He has a lot of problems.”
“Where is he now?”
“Right here. But he’s out of it. You don’t have to worry about him.” Her voice was calm, her speech clear. It was the most lucid she’d sounded in a long time.
“Are your kidneys really bothering you, sweetheart?”
“Yes. I think I have an infection. I’ll be all right, though. I’ll go see a doctor tomorrow. What kind do you go to for kidneys?”
“A urologist. Go to the emergency ward of the hospital tomorrow and ask for one. If there isn’t one there who can treat you, call me. I’ll get you the name of someone in New York to see.”
“Okay, Mum, I will. Thank you.” She paused. “Mum?”
“Yes?”
“Did Daddy ever beat you?”
I was so taken aback by the question, I didn’t know how to answer it. I made a joke out of it. “No, but I’ve thrown a few things at him.”
There was silence from her end.
“Nancy, why do you ask?”
“You know all the times I told you I got beat up by the Teddys in London? Got my ear torn off? My nose broken?”
“Yes.”
“It was Sid who was really doing it. And … and now he’s started doing it again.”
“Why?” I gasped, horrified.
“He’s upset.”
“Nancy, why do you put up with that? Why don’t you leave him?”
“Because … well, he’s having a terrible time. He’s getting hassled. He can’t get work. He’s depressed. He’s not himself.”
There was a long pause.
“Maybe one of these days you will find me on your doorstep,” she said softly.
“We’re always here for you, Nancy. If you ever hit the bottom and need us, we’re here to help you. You can count on it.”
“I am at the bottom, Mum. This is it.”
She’d come out of her fog. She was rational. We were communicating.
“Mum, do you remember that detox hospital, White Deer Run? It’s somewhere in Pennsylvania. Our next-door neighbor had to go there, remember?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think Sid and I could get in there? We have to get off. Just have to. Could you call? Could you find out for me if it’s locked? I don’t want to go if it’s locked. I can’t stand being locked up.”
“I know. I’ll call tomorrow and find out.”
“Thanks.”
“Let me know how you are. Let me know what the urologist says, okay?”
“I’ll let you know.”
“Good.”
“Mum?”
“Yes?”
“Does Daddy love me?”
“Of course he loves you. He’s always loved you very much.”
“He doesn’t act that way.”
“How does he act?”
“Like he’s afraid of me.”
“That’s because he has to walk on eggs with you, sweetheart. Everyone has to. You’re very sensitive. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mum. I do. Tell Daddy I understand. And … and…”
“And what?”
“Tell him that I love him.”
“Okay, sweetheart. I will.”
“How’s your mom? How’s Essie?”
She hadn’t asked about her grandmother in three years.
“She’s fine.”
“Send her my love, will you?”
“I’ll do that.”
“Goodbye, Mum.”
“Goodbye, sweetheart.”
As I hung up the phone I heard her yell, “I love you, Mommy! I love you!”
I wanted to tell her that I loved her, too, but it was too late. The connection was broken.
I gave Frank her message.
“Nancy said that?” He was surprised and touched.
“Uh-huh. It was a very strange call, Frank. Spooky, kind of. It was almost as if she were saying good-bye.”
I called White Deer Run on Monday afternoon from the office. The woman I needed to speak with in admissions was out sick. I was told to phone later in the week.
Nancy didn’t call on Monday night. I supposed she had nothing to report about her kidneys.
■■■
Our friends and family greeted us inside our refuge. We decided to watch the late TV news and see what was being said about us and our daughter. We turned the set on in the den and sat down.
We didn’t have long to wait. Nancy’s death was the lead local news story. The news was far worse than I could have imagined. “Punk girlfriend” Nancy Spungen hadn’t been beaten to death, as I’d assumed.
She’d been stabbed in the abdomen with a seven-inch hunting knife.
Stabbed. A big, ugly knife had been plunged into my baby’s stomach.
There was blood. There was pain. I winced, chest aching. It was more real now, more awful.
Sid had been arrested and charged with the murder. A filmed report from outside the Chelsea Hotel showed Sid being led out by the police, wearing handcuffs, real handcuffs this time. He was pale and dazed. There were scratch marks on his face.
“I’ll smash your cameras,” he snarled at the press.
According to Manhattan Chief of Detectives Martin Duffy, Sid had awakened at 10:50 a.m., still feeling the effects of Tuinal, a depressant he had taken the night before.
Nancy was not in bed next to him. Rather, the bed was covered with blood. Her blood. A trail of it led from the bed to the bathroom. Nancy was on the bathroom floor, under the sink, clad only in her fancy black underwear, a stab wound in her stomach. She’d bled to death.
The Chelsea Hotel switchboard, the police spokesman advised, received an outside call at about this time asking that someone check room 100 because “someone is seriously injured.” It was not clear if the call had come from Sid.
Hotel employees went up to the room to find signs of a struggle, and Nancy’s body. Sid was not in the room. He returned a few minutes later, before the police got there.
Hotel neighbors reportedly heard Sid tell police, “You can’t arrest me. I’m a rock ‘n’ roll star.”
One of the arresting officers reportedly replied, “Oh, yeah? Well, I play lead handcuffs.”
An unidentified friend of the couple, the TV newsman reported, said he had been out with them that night until four a.m., at which point Nancy had begged him to come back to the Chelsea with them because Sid was “acting strange.” Sid had, the friend said, pressed a hunting knife against Nancy’s throat. “He beats her with a guitar every so often,” the reporter quoted the friend as saying, “but I didn’t think he was going to kill her.”
■■■
The phone rang almost immediately. Frank picked it up. Someone shouted into the phone, “She was a no-good twat!” and then hung up. Frank put the phone down, shaken. It rang again. A different caller hollered,
“Cocksucking cunt bitch!” and hung up. Frank took one more of these awful, hateful calls before he decided to leave the phone off the hook.
We were bewildered by this turn of events. My God, Nancy had not murdered anyone. She was the victim. Yet, somehow, the murder suspect and his victim were interchangeable in this case. The media had made Nancy and Sid into personifications of the punk movement. Some people identified with them. Others hated them. Her murder seemed to stir up both sides.
In death, Nancy was bringing out people’s anger, just as she had in life.
■■■
When they asked if we could pinpoint the last time we’d spoken to Nancy, I told them about our phone conversation the previous Sunday, when she confessed to me that Sid had been beating her, and that she might leave him.
“Was she afraid of him?” one detective asked.
“Nancy wasn’t afraid of anyone,” I replied.
Then I told them what happened when Sid got on the line, that instead of his usual passive, polite manner he was rude and belligerent—a different person.
“What was he angry about?” Detective Brown asked.
“Money,” I replied. “They needed money and he wanted me to send some.”
“Hmm,” Brown said. “We’d been led to believe they always carried large amounts of cash on them. In the thousands.”
“Maybe they did when they had it,” Frank said. “But they didn’t have it. They were broke.”
“Are you sure about that?” Brown asked.
“They asked us for money,” I said.
The three detectives exchanged a look. Apparently this was a valuable piece of information. (Later there would be some speculation that Nancy had been murdered by a third party, a robber who was after Sid’s bankroll. There was no such bankroll. I don’t know who thought it existed or upon what basis, but evidently it was someone who’d spoken to the police.) Detective Brown lit a cigarette, sat back in his chair. “You folks must have a million questions of your own. Now it’s your turn. Fire away.”
“Did she have any pain?” I wanted to know.
“She died right away,” he told me.
“How many wounds?” I asked.
“Just the one.”
“Do you think Sid did it?” Frank asked.
“He said he did right when we got there. Of course, he was also totally out of it. A good lawyer will say he was out of his head with grief and get it thrown out. Can’t take a confession like that to court. We’re working on it, though. We’ll build a case.”
“Did he say why he did it?” I asked.
“He said, ‘Because I’m a dog. A dirty dog.’ I’ll tell you, he was pretty incoherent. Still is. We got him out at the drug detox ward on Riker’s Island. Our theory right now is it was a lover’s quarrel that went too far.
Seems to go with what we know about their relationship. It appears she bought the knife. On Tuesday. Place in Times Square.”
“What will happen to him?” I asked.
“His hearing’s this afternoon. His manager is flying over for it.”
“Nancy was his manager,” I pointed out.
“His ex-manager then.”
“What will happen at the hearing?” Frank asked.
“He’ll probably be let out on bail.”
“What if he comes after us?” I asked, stricken with sudden and to me very real terror.
“I wouldn’t worry about that, Mrs. Spungen. I doubt you’re on his mind.
Even if you were, there’s no reason to believe he’d want to kill you.”
But I did worry.
■■■
She put a fresh form in the typewriter, typed in Nancy’s name. A man came in from outside, took off his coat, and sat down at the next desk. He began to pick his lunch out of his teeth with a toothpick.
“Have you seen my car keys, Jack?” she asked him.
He shook his head.
“Some fucker stole ’em,” she said.
He nodded his head, spat into his wastebasket.
She turned back to us. “What did you say the date of birth was?”
Frank repeated it. She typed it in. Then she asked for “the body’s” height, weight, and eye color.
“Fucking car keys,” she muttered as she typed in our responses. “Why me? Why me?”
Then she asked about distinguishing marks or scars.
“She has a number of them on her arms,” I said.
“What kind?”
“Long ones.”
“Lateral?”
“Yes.”
She typed in my response. “Any other ones?”
“Behind her right ear,” I said, “there’s a scar from where she had the ear stitched on. That’s fairly recent.”
The woman looked at me, incredulous. “How do you know all that about that piece of shit?”
I sucked in my breath. I looked at Frank, who gripped my hand tightly. I think he wanted to dive across the desk and kill the woman with his bare hands. I know I did.
“She’s … she’s my daughter,” I finally managed to say.
My reply went right by her.
■■■
Sid, clad in black suit jacket, black shirt, black pants, and black shoes without socks, had to be led into the courtroom by two people.
“Boy, I don’t know whether he was stoned or sick or what,” said one of the detectives, “but he was in really bad shape. His eyes were glazed over; he was shaking. The guy could barely stand up.”
The assistant DA argued that Sid, who wasn’t an American citizen, should be denied bail on the ground that he might flee the country. Sid’s lawyers (“a real fancy Park Avenue bunch,” the detective said) argued that New York was now where Sid worked, and that he would not leave it. The judge set a cash bail of $50,000. It was a low figure, but all of it had to be raised in cash-not the ordinary one-dollar-for-every-ten bail ratio. This made it the equivalent of $500,000 regular bail.
“Did Sid say anything?” I asked the detective.
“One thing,” he replied. “He said he wanted to get out on bail right away so he could come to Nancy’s funeral. He really wants to be there.”
“W-will he try to come?” I gasped, horrified.
“When is it?” the detective asked.
“Sunday,” said Frank. “We’re not making it public.”
“Well, I’d say it’s not too likely. Would you, Murphy?”
The other detective nodded. “Nobody can raise that kinda cash on a weekend.”
“Not even a guy like McLaren?” asked Frank.
“Monday. That’s when he’ll get out, most likely.”
“Anyway,” added the other detective, “say he does get out Saturday. He can’t leave the state.”
“Who’s going to stop him?” I asked.
“He’d be in violation of his bail,” the detective said.
“Who’s going to stop him?” I pressed.
“We do the best we can, Mrs. Spungen,” he said.
I couldn’t believe this. The bail process made no sense to me, still doesn’t. They were saying they thought he’d murdered my daughter, but they were setting him free in exchange for some cash-free to come to Nancy’s funeral, to our home.
He knew where we lived.
■■■
The years she lived must not be lost to us in the shadow of her death.
“What I am about to say is her family’s tribute to Nancy.
“From the time of her birth, Nancy was a special, gifted, and troubled girl. Despite the love, caring, and concern of her family she experienced an inner torment and disquietude. She turned to drugs not for sensationalism, but for relief from the pain that afflicted her. She knew herself, but was not responsible for the consequences of her actions. She lived for each hour, each day, and consequently much living was crowded into the years of her life.
“She was capable of compassion, and of perception rare and unusual for her age. These are signs of her special gifts.
“The following was written by her cousin, Dean Becker. It captures the feelings Nancy would have wanted to express about herself to her family:
“Don’t misunderstand me!
What I do has purpose
A meaning you may not see.
I know what I’m doing.
Please don’t judge me
From where you stand.
“My life is my own
My decisions are in my hands Don’t try to make your dreams
A part of mine
For I have my own.
“Don’t misunderstand me!
Be happy in your thoughts.
Your recollections of our happiest hours Will be enough to help you forget
The bad times – the hard times
The sadness you feel today.
“Nancy is now at peace,” the rabbi continued. “She saw, heard, felt what others did not and could not. She was different.
“May her family go forth from their pain of separation, to strengthen each other, to face the ongoing tasks of life with courage. And with love for each other, and remembrance of the goodness and happy hours you shared.” I felt very comforted by what he said. We all did. It was beautiful and right.
The limousine took us to her gravesite, where chairs had been set up under a canopy. The rabbi said a few more words, then she was lowered slowly into the ground.
I reached over and broke off a yellow chrysanthemum from the blanket atop her casket. I needed it. It stayed on my nightstand for three nights.
Then I pressed it into her Darlington yearbook, where it remains.
I felt incredible relief as we rode home. Nancy was safe and protected now. For her, the fight was over.
■■■
I dialed the number. It was a hotel switchboard. I was put through to Sid’s room. It rang.
“Hullo?” said Sid.
“Sid?” I said, my voice cracking. “It’s D-Debbie Spungen.”
“Oh, Debbie, thank you. Thank you so much for calling. I wanted you to know, Debbie, how very, very sorry I am I couldn’t come to the funeral.»
“That’s okay,” I said. I couldn’t believe how calm he sounded.
“I wanted to so very much,” he said, “but they wouldn’t let me out. They wouldn’t let me say good-bye to my Nancy.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m sorry she’s dead, Debbie. So sorry.”
Suddenly there were so many questions I wanted to ask him. Had he done it? Why? How? But I was afraid to ask them. I remained silent.
“Debbie, I don’t seem to … I don’t know why I’m alive anymore, now that Nancy is gone.”
“I understand,” I said.
“I knew you would, Debbie. You’re the only one who could.”
“Sid, I … I can’t talk anymore.”
“May I call again?”
“I … I’ll have to think about it.”
“You know, Debbie, you’re the only real friend I have left. Thank you for talking to me. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Sid.”
■■■
I dreaded our return home. I waited until Frank had gone in the house before I would go in. I was subtle about it—he never noticed how terrified I was that there might be cameramen in there.
■■■
There was quite a lot of mail, much of it condolence notes. One letter was addressed to me personally in large, shaky handwriting with little circles over the i’s instead of dots. There was no return address. I feared it was an obscene letter. I took a deep breath and opened it.
It was from Sid.
Dear Debbie,
Thank you for phoning me the other night. It was so comforting to hear your voice. You are the only person who really understands how much Nancy and I love each other. Every day without Nancy gets worse and worse. I just hope that when I die I go the same place as her.
Otherwise I will never find peace.
Frank said in the paper that Nancy was born in pain and lived in pain all her life. When I first met her, and for about six months after that, I spent practically the whole time in tears. Her pain was just too much to bear. Because, you see, I felt Nancy’s pain as though it were my own, worse even. But she said that I must be strong for her or otherwise she would have to leave me. So I became strong for her, and she began to stop having asthma attacks and seemed to be going through a lot less pain. [Nancy had had asthma since she was a child.] I realized that she had never known love and was desperately searching for someone to love her. It was the only thing she really needed. I gave her the love that she needed so badly and it comforts me to know that I made her very happy during the time we were together, where she had only known unhappiness before.
Oh Debbie, I love her with such passion. Every day is agony without her. I know now that it is possible to die from a broken heart.
Because when you love someone as much as we love each other, they become fundamental to your existence. So I will die soon, even if I don’t kill myself. I guess you could say that I’m pining for her. I could live without food or water longer than I’m going to survive without Nancy.
Thank you so much for understanding us, Debbie. It means so much to me, and I know it meant a lot to Nancy. She really loves you, and so do I. How did she know when she was going to die? I always prayed that she was wrong, but deep inside I knew she was right.
it was such a beautiful love. I can’t go on without it. When we first met, we knew we were made for each other, and fell in love with each other immediately. We were totally inseparable and were never apart.
We had certain telepathic abilities, too. I remember about nine months after we met, I left Nancy for a while. After a couple of weeks apart, I had a strange feeling that Nancy was dying. I went straight to the place where she was staying and when I saw her, I knew it was true. I took her home with me and nursed her back to health, but I knew that if I hadn’t bothered she would have died.
Nancy was just a poor baby, desperate for love. It made me so happy to give her love, and believe me, no man ever loved a woman with such burning passion as I love Nancy. I never even looked at others. No one was as beautiful as my Nancy. Enclosed is a poem I wrote for her. It kind of sums up how much I love her.
If possible, I would love to see you before I die. You are the only one who understood.
Love, Sid XXX
P.S. Thank you, Debbie, for understanding that I have to die.
Everyone else just thinks that I’m being weak. All I can say is that they never loved anyone as passionately as I love Nancy. I always felt unworthy to be loved by someone so beautiful as her. Everything we did was beautiful. At the climax of our lovemaking, I just used tobreak down and cry. It was so beautiful it was almost unbearable. It makes me mad when people say “you must have really loved her.” So they think that I don’t still love her? At least when I die, we will be together again. I feel like a lost child, so alone.
The nights are the worst. I used to hold Nancy close to me all night so that she wouldn’t have nightmares and I just can’t sleep without my beautiful baby in my arms. So warm and gentle and vulnerable. No one should expect me to live without her. She was a part of me. My heart.
Debbie, please come and see me. You are the only person who knows what I’m going through. If you don’t want to, could you please phone me again, and write.
I love you.
I was staggered by Sid’s letter. The depth of his emotion, his sensitivity and intelligence were far greater than I could have imagined. Here he was, her accused murderer, and he was reaching out to me, professing his love for me. His anguish was my anguish. He was feeling my loss, my pain—so much so that he was evidently contemplating suicide. He felt that I would understand that. Why had he said that?
I fought my sympathetic reaction to his letter. I could not respond to it, could not be drawn into his life. He had told the police he had murdered my daughter. Maybe he had loved her. Maybe she had loved him. I couldn’t become involved with him. I was in too much pain. I couldn’t share his pain. I hadn’t enough strength.
I began to stuff the letter back in its envelope when I came upon a separate sheet of paper. I unfolded it. It was the poem he’d written about Nancy.
Nancy
You were my little baby girl And I shared all your fears.
Such joy to hold you in my arms
And kiss away your tears.
But now you’re gone there’s only pain.
And nothing I can do.
And I don’t want to live this life
If I can’t live for you.
To my beautiful baby girl.
Our love will never die.
I felt my throat tighten. My eyes burned, and I began to weep on the inside. I was so confused. Here, in a few verses, were the last twenty years of my life. I could have written that poem. The feelings, the pain, were mine. But I hadn’t written it. Sid Vicious had written it, the punk monster, the man who had told the police he was “a dog, a dirty dog.” The man I feared. The man I should have hated, but somehow couldn’t.
How was I supposed to react? What was I supposed to do?
The Valium did not help me sleep that night.
■■■
I already knew it, I told her—the press genuinely made me feel as if I were walking around the house stark naked with the window shades up. I said I didn’t see how I’d be able to get back on track until I was sure the reporters were gone – for good.
And they were far from gone. The second week after Nancy’s death the story merely entered its second phase: PROMOTERS OF VICIOUS TURN SLAYING INTO HYPE read the Philadelphia Inquirer headline that week. The story quoted McLaren as saying Sid was set to finish a film about the Sex Pistols, record a brand-new album, and begin to make some TV talk show appearances. A Sid Vicious concert tour was in the works, reported the Philadelphia Daily News, commencing with that October 27-28 appearance at Artemis in Philadelphia that Nancy had booked for him. David Carroll, owner of Artemis, joined McLaren in denying that he was exploiting Nancy’s murder. Rather, Carroll described himself as a personal friend of Nancy’s.
“Now that she’s gone,” Carroll reportedly said, “I have to ask, what would she have wanted him [Sid] to do? She would have wanted him to play rock ‘n’ roll.”
The press showed up on our doorstep, hoping we’d vent our outrage over Sid’s being allowed to perform in Nancy’s hometown just two weeks after her death. We were outraged, but we kept quiet. Fortunately others spoke for us this time.
An editorial in the Philadelphia Bulletin angrily denounced the tasteless profiteering. “The very idea of new promotions of Sid Vicious based on his current notoriety leaves us aghast,” wrote the Bulletin’s editors. “Still, we suppose it isn’t all that surprising that the folks who brought us punk rock would now look for an even more disgusting way to line their pockets.”
Our friends rallied in our support, offering to go down and picket Artemis for us. We appreciated this and might have taken them up on it had it been necessary. As it turned out, it wasn’t.
On October 23, eleven days after Nancy’s death, Sid tried to kill himself in his room at New York’s Seville by slashing his wrists with a broken light bulb. He also tried to jump out the window. Anne Beverley, said the newspapers, quoted her son as screaming “I want to die! I want to join Nancy! I didn’t keep my part of the bargain!” Sid was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Bellevue Hospital, and the reporters were back on our front porch. Had there been a Nancy-Sid suicide pact? they wanted to know.
Or were these false dramatics on Sid’s part to lay the foundation for an insanity plea. Again, we kept quiet.
Based on the contents of his letter to me, I felt Sid’s suicide attempt was a genuine one. This belief was confirmed two days later when Sid phoned me from Bellevue, again going through an operator with an urgent message.
I returned his call for the same reason I had the first time-fear of what he might do to us if I didn’t.
“I can’t live, Debbie,” he said weakly. “I tried to kill myself.”
“I know.”
“I tried, but they wouldn’t let me. Now I sit around here and do nothing.
They’re afraid I’ll try again. And I will. Can you come visit me, Debbie?”
“I can’t, Sid.”
“I so want to see you.”
“I can’t,” I repeated.
“Please call me then. Please.”
“I have to hang up now.”
“I love you, Debbie.”
“Goodbye, Sid.”
A few days after that I got a second letter from Sid, this one even more anguished than the first. Sid’s second letter also gave me some insight into what might have happened that night at the Chelsea.
Dear Debbie,
I’m dying. Slowly, and in great pain. My baby is gone, without her I have no will to live. I love her so desperately. I know I can never make it without her. Nancy became my whole life. She was the only thing that mattered to me.
I’m glad I could make her happy. I gave her everything she ever wanted, just for the asking. When we only had enough money for one of us to get straight, I always gave it to Nancy. It was less painful to be sick myself than it was to see her sick.
When you love someone that much you cannot lose them and still be able to go on. I know that if I lived to be a thousand years old I would never find anyone like Nancy. No one can ever take her place. I love Nancy and Nancy only. I will always love her. Even after I am dead.
I have only eaten a few mouthfuls of food since she died. I may die of starvation in this place. I just hope it comes soon, so that I can be with Nancy again.
We always knew that we would go to the same place when we died. We so much wanted to die together in each other’s arms. I cry every time I think about that. I promised my baby that I would kill myself if anything ever happened to her, and she promised me the same. This is my final commitment to the one I love.
I worshipped Nancy. It was far more than just love. To me she was a goddess. She used to make me kiss her feet before we made love. No one ever loved the way we did, and to spend even a day away from her, let alone a whole lifetime, is too painful to even think about.
Oh Debbie, I never knew what pain was until this happened. Nancy was my whole life. I lived for her. Now I must die for her.
It gave me such pleasure to give her anything she wanted. She was just like a child. She used to call me “daddy” when she was upset, and I used to rock her to sleep. When I was upset, I used to call her “momma” and she used to nurse me at her breast and call me her “baby boy.”
I tried to kill myself but they got me to hospital before I died.
Nancy knows that I will soon be with her. Please pray that we will be together. I can never find peace until we are together again.
Oh Debbie, she was the most beautiful person I ever knew. I would have done anything for her.
Nancy once asked if I would pour petrol over myself and set it on fire if she told me to. I said I would, and I meant it. If you would happily die for someone, then how can you live without them. I can’t go on without her. She always said she would die before she was twenty-one, and I never doubted it.
Goodbye, Debbie. I love you.
Sid XXX
There was a friend’s address on the back of the envelope, in case I felt like writing Sid a reply. Again, I was so terribly confused. On the one hand, I truly felt sorry for Sid. He was a victim of his celebrity. He had loved Nancy and was now in pain. On the other hand, I had no doubt he had killed her. I wanted him punished. I wanted not to feel anything for him but anger and hate.
I kept rereading two sentences from the last paragraph of his letter:
Nancy once asked if I would pour petrol over myself and set it on fire if she told me to. I said I would, and I meant it.
From that, it wasn’t hard for me to imagine what went on that night at the Chelsea. It wasn’t hard to visualize Nancy handing Sid the knife she’d bought and ordering him to prove his love for her by using it on her. By shutting my eyes, I could almost hear her say the words: “I don’t believe you love me. If you really loved me, you’d help me die.” Then I could hear his protestations. And then her screams.
No one will ever know for sure what happened that night. Based on Sid’s letters, my knowledge of Nancy, and the police’s disclosure that she was the one who bought the knife, it is my belief that she engineered her death. She wanted to die, had for years. She was ready to die. So she made Sid the instrument. She egged him into stabbing her by convincing him it was the only possible way he could prove his love for her. Certainly, she was capable of manipulating him. Certainly, he was capable of being manipulated. Sid was the patsy, perhaps unwittingly, perhaps not.
In a figurative sense, I feel Nancy committed suicide, the death she’d long wanted but had been unable to bring about on her own. In a literal sense-in a legal senseI don’t believe you can regard this as suicide.
Nancy did not plunge a seven-inch hunting knife into her own stomach.
Another hand did, and the law said that hand had to be held accountable for its actions, no matter the degree of outside persuasion or inebriation.
But that was and is my belief. I realized at the time that others might not agree, that here was cause for genuine debate and food for vivid courtroom drama. I realized again how much I was dreading Sid’s trial.
I didn’t write back to Sid or phone him again. I never heard from him again. I kept his letters to me a secret from everyone except Frank. I felt that if I disclosed them to the police, somehow they’d end up in the newspapers, end up being sensationalized. I didn’t want that. They were private, personal letters. He made no threats in them. He bared his soul. The letters weren’t meant to be shared.
I disclose them now because I feel they shed light on what happened that night and might help others to understand what Nancy and Sid really meant to each other outside the limelight. I disclose them now because both Nancy and Sid are gone. They can no longer speak for themselves.
■■■
Sid stayed in the papers.
In the second week of December he was jailed again, this time for allegedly slashing the face of musician Todd Smith, brother of singer Patti Smith, with a broken beer bottle. The incident occurred at a rock club where the musician’s band was performing. Reportedly, Sid liked the looks of Smith’s girlfriend, a guitar player in the band. He gave her a lewd pinch and she complained to Smith. Smith told Sid to leave her alone. In response, Sid broke his beer bottle on a table and slashed Smith.
“He is hell-bent on living up to his image,” McLaren was quoted as saying.
Sid was arrested for the attack the following morning when he made his daily check-in with the police a requirement of his bail. He wore a torn black T-shirt, black jeans, and boots.
“I doubt that he’ll be let out on bail again,” the papers quoted a police spokesman. “But he could be.”
His bail was revoked. He was sent back to Riker’s Island.
■■■
On February third, the day of Sid’s death, I was at the bottom.
He’d been released on bail again from Riker’s Island. Reportedly, he celebrated that night with a party at a friend’s Greenwich Village apartment.
He had a few beers and was feeling pretty good. At about midnight he decided to shoot up some heroin. It was too much. He died in his sleep later that night. Sid was found in bed, face up. It was ruled an accidental overdose. He was twenty-one years old.
And then the reporters were back on our front porch with their microphones and bright lights and minicams. They were ringing the doorbell over and over and over again, demanding a comment.
And then Sid’s mother was on the phone. I wondered how she’d gotten our unlisted number. I didn’t ask. She had a question. Could she bury Sid next to Nancy? No, I said. She ended up having him cremated.
And then I was certain it was time for me to hang myself. I was ready now, really ready. I’d had it. This nightmare was never going to end. I couldn’t take it anymore. No more. No tomorrows. I went out to the garage, got that piece of wire. I brought it back into the house, tied a noose around my neck, stood in front of the dining room mirror.
And then, as I stared at myself in the mirror, reality sank in. I realized I was not going to kill myself. I didn’t need to. It was over now. The odyssey was truly over. Sid was dead. There would be no trial. Nothing else could possibly happen. The press would leave us alone, forget about us.
I could start to live again. It wouldn’t be easy. But I wanted to now. I had to. I suddenly realized I had to give purpose to all those years of anguish. I owed it to myself. I also owed it to Nancy. I had to keep my promise. I could do it. I was tough. I’d made it this far. Somehow I was removed the noose from around my neck, called Paula.
“I just heard the news,” she said. “How do you feel? Relieved?”
“Empty,” I said hoarsely. “I feel empty.”
“You’re off the hook now. You have your privacy back. Your life.”
“I know,” I said. “But I have no life.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was thinking about suicide a little while ago,” I said, fingering the noose in my lap.
“Are you still?”
“No.”
“Good. That’s not an answer. That’s quitting.”
“I know. It’s just that, well, like I said. I have no life.”
“You’ve made real progress. I’m glad to hear you say that.”
“You are?”
“Yes. It means you’re coming to grips with the reality of Nancy not being here anymore. You built your old life around Nancy. Everything you did was a response to her. That was your old life. Now you need a new life.”
“You mean, I have to build my life around something else.”
“Exactly.”
“Like what?”
“You’ll find it.”
“I may need help.”
“You’ve got it.”
“Have you found me another mother?”
“Not yet. Still looking.”
I hung up, heard a creak on the stairs. I turned, saw Nancy coming down from her room to model the new ski outfit she’d bought back from Colorado.
The house was haunted. Everywhere I went in it, I still saw Nancy.
Everywhere I went outside of it, I saw phantom reporters jumping out from behind bushes. I saw neighbors whispering.
■■■
hexafu 