"LONE-STAR" ...

A tiny, silver star lodged into the cracks of an old sidewalk on the lower East Side amongst gum smudges, cigarette butts and deteriorating pavement.  This is a cell pic of an old photo I took during my early years of wandering Lower Manhattan during the "filming" of my anonymous life there.  The first thing that came to my mind when I found this photo in a book of poems by Eichendorff was my next ghost story...  "Lone-Star",  another long lost spirit who was just one in a million of countless "stars" in the old galax-city of New York.


...Soho, Manhattan.   Yuletide 1999... 

 I found myself looking at the Christmas window displays in the small shops in Soho on a cold December day, when I froze in my steps at the sight of an unusual holiday arrangement that was brightly illuminated in one particular boutique.  It was a giant piece of driftwood that was atop a glittery snow "blanket" that was bedecked with twinkling lights,  tinsel, ornaments and five or six large, very shiny beads bags or pouches that gave me a shuddering deja-vu as I stood there staring at them in the cold, darkening air.  "Star",  I whispered to myself... a long lost friend that had disappeared in the late Autumn of 1991 after tragic disappointment and disillusionment.  I rushed into the shop to ask the clerk about the all too familiar creations that were hanging in this window many years after he vanished.  I was stunned to hear that the "artist" who had hand made these very expensive items had passed away sometime in the early 1990s... or had he?  We must now go back another decade to tell the story of "Lone-Star".



It was mid Summer of 1989 and I was a teenager drifting along the banks of the Hudson on the lower half of Manhattan.   I grabbed a can of soda to take a break and relax by the river, when I happened upon my next ghost story,  purely by chance.  I was daydreaming (which I did very well back then), looking out at the Hudson river when my lazy eyes caught a familiar sight amongst all the urban-niss of the waterfront.  It was a bird that was diving gracefully in and out of the pier pilings and docks.  All of a sudden I heard a voice behind me say... "Its a barn swallow".  Well, I knew that already because we had many barn swallows that nested in the eaves of our boathouse and cottage on a lake in the far north close to Quebec.  I looked back to see where the voice came from, it was a studious, book-wormish looking character who was wearing a red flannel shirt, old fashioned dungarees and work boots.  He sat down a few feet from me to tell me that he was from the Dakotas where these type of swallows were common and numerous.  I introduced myself and was immediately taken aback when he told me that his name was "Star".   I thought he was joking until he explained that his real name was Stern (the German version of Star).  I already knew that was what it meant, anyone with a name like mine would know why.
We hit it off right away because we were just two nomadic souls from the rural North traversing the dangerous waters that surrounded the city.  He reminded me of a very young Franchot Tone circa the 1933 film "Bombshell" as far as actors go and he seemed to have the same cool, classy temperament as that film star.  He was also an old soul like me but he was more obsessed with the country-western genre of  music, prairie songs, classic western films and clothes.   We were also very similar in many ways as far as behavior and habits went.  He would sometimes sit outside by the river, very quiet and stoic oblivious to anything around him for a whole afternoon, which I also did.  Others found it peculiar, I didn't at all in fact I found it to be the norm.  Star would also sit alone in the dark in his studio or on his roof for hours after midnight (even in the snow in Winter),  just "being" in the moment.  I realize now many years later that it was our unique way of meditating and healing (day and night), without understanding that that was exactly what we were doing back then.  I can recall now just in this very moment that he was always listening to the "Cherokee Cowboy" (Ray Price) at home... it was THE  soundtrack playing in his little studio.

I was already working at the cafe carousel and had a lot of free time during the days to hang out back then.  Neither of us had a telephone so we would just show up at each others doors or meet by the river.  Everyone came to New York City for one specific or many different reasons back then and Star was no different from all of the other dreamers in that respect.  He was originally from a farm but had also lived in the big city out there where he had extended family... Pierre, South Dakota.  Star's family were also of part American Indian descent like mine and he had spent time with people from the tribe there learning handcrafts, especially beading jewelry, belts and other items.  This special talent would soon possess Star to create his own "line" of clothing accessories that would become very popular in Manhattan...  but it would also bring about his undoing and tragic disappearance due to his naive disposition and inability to adapt to the often ruthless, exploitative and tough world of art and "fashion" in the make it or break it concrete island of New York.
I discovered Star's true, unique talent one day when I showed up unannounced at his studio-work shop.  He was sitting in the window and appeared to be "weaving" something small and was surrounded by little bowls of shiny objects.  He told me that Tuesdays were his "beading" day, when he put the finishing touches on the coin pouches and belts that he created.  I was amazed at the incredible detail
of each project that he had made by hand.  They were truly a work of art so I was not surprised when he told me that he sold them to many shops in the Soho area.  He was incredibly talented and I was sure that big things would happen for him.  I was also amazed at the amount of time that he put into each creation, some took a week with countless hours of tedious hand work.
I also remember being very surprised that he always seemed to be broke despite the fact that he was working on his art all night, every night like magic elves in an old man's cobbler shop.  His life seemed to be right out of a Grimm's Brothers Fairy tale... in 1989 lower Manhattan.  I found out the real appalling reason for his lack of green and gold by chance when I accompanied him to drop off some of his pieces at a shop in Soho.

It was a brisk early morning that I ran into Star by chance on the street.  We decided to get our morning coffees together and drink them down by the river, after he dropped off ten of his new pieces at a shop close by on the way.  It was a quaint little store, but I disliked the owner immediately who completely ignored me as we entered but approached Star like a black widow spider that just discovered a new moth caught in its web.  I sound found out that it was a shameless web made out of exploitation, degradation and outright cheating the outsider artists who provided the evil spider with the very "ornaments" that were to be sold in her cavern of deception.  She grabbed the beaded treasures out of Star's hands and inspected each like it was the hope diamond... under a critical microscope.  I could see just how naive and gullible Star was for the first time.  I was floored when she stuffed them in a bag and said "OK, this is how much I owe you", as she scribbled 80$ down on an old receipt book.  Surely she must have meant at least thirty dollars each, they were true works of hard labor and art.  I went outside to wait and to question Star when he came exited the spiders lair.  I couldn't help but shout out...  "You've got to be kidding, you can not be serious?" "80 dollars for all of that work?"  "Please tell me that this is not true, 12 dollars for each piece?"  Star just stepped back startled and confused, he could not understand my reaction.  He tried to explain the situation but I was not buying it and we drank our coffee in silence.  I could tell that he was taken aback by my reaction but I could also sense that I had "opened his eyes" to this unfair and abusive union of his and those shop keepers in Soho.
I don't think that Star slept well for several nights after this revelation and I believe this is when he started to take another approach to selling his intricate hand works.

I didn't see Star for over a week after that last meeting and when I did he was very quiet and "to-himself".  I had done some investigating on my own and discovered that the spider was making a huge profit off of Star, as if he was nothing but a sweat shop slave.  I called the black widow from a payphone on Mulberry street to inquire about the price range of the beaded goods that I was interested in.  "65 dollars for the smaller, 75 for the larger" she groused,  her mouth filled with food... or another victim she was exploiting like Star.  I was even more shocked at Star's reaction... dead silence, embarrassment and even more intense detachment from everything.  Star went into a tailspin that he never came out of after that, at least not to my knowledge.  He started drinking heavily, staying home in the dark and avoiding daylight until he eventually disappeared one day.  He began to act very strange when I would see him, whispering stories to me about will-o-the -wisps and other small spirits that had taken over his apartment and would not let him rest or sleep.  This went on for several weeks before he turned into a shut in and he became very gaunt and pale in a short period of time.  I woke up one chilly October morning and I knew that he was gone...  I still don't know how.  His landlord told me that Star just left and left everything behind.   I went to see his abandoned apartment and did see that he had left almost everything there as was to my memory,  except I did notice that all of his "beading" materials were gone.  I took a few of his favorite books and plants to keep for him in case he did come back...  He didnt and I never saw him again.  He had a close friend in his building, a girl named Lana who I had met several times.  She was also totally clueless as to what happened to Star.   Lana and I kept in touch for several years after that until we lost all contact when she got married and moved to South Carolina.   I felt pangs of guilt... maybe I should have said nothing to him about his moth and black widow spider situation.  How could I have let that go on though, watching this talented artist get milked dry for nothing until they didn't need or want him anymore.  The life of a true artist or even worse an outsider artist can be cruel and thankless.  This is not how it should be, the human world needs art, music and creation to really be human, grow and advance into the future.

I felt a deep pang of sadness when I found the photo above in a book of "Gedichte" by one of my favorite authors Josef F. V. Eichendorff.  It was very appropriate as Star was also a true artist.  He disappeared in the Autumn of 1991 and I wonder if he is still out there somewhere working on his craft and receiving the same fair treatment and integrity we all deserve.  Star was nothing like the reckless "Meteors" that I have written about before, not at all.  He was more like a shooting star that radiates quietly, then fades away leaving a warm glow to the cosmos.

It still reminds me of the final minutes of the classic film "The Incredible Shrinking Man" as Grant Williams vanishes under the moon and stars forgotten,  or even a stunning Joan Crawfords final scene in the magnificent film "Humoresque", where she walks off into the ocean and the other side forever.  Soft pathos.

The beaded handwork that I found of Stars in that shop in Soho was now selling for over one hundred dollars a piece.  What a disgrace that he never profited from all that hard work, incredible imagination and labor of love.

Star...  Disappeared Autumn of 1991.
Last seen... The lone Star fell, shone bright and then vanished in the sky over Manhattan


Copyright@ 2016 by Fritz Von Ludwigslust.  All Rights Reserved.