Relay: The Great Radio Station in the Sky

The two women hurried south, coats pressed to bodies as the wind picked up on Third Avenue. 

“It’s not the end of the world. It’s just. . . .”

“I know.” 

That was all I heard, hurrying north to the Jitney, but I knew, too. It’s just . . . that this winter of discontent has been overrun by unambiguous signs of impermanence, many in the world of my obsession, music. It’s become something of a downpour, and I’m drenched and trembling under the weight of it.

Wes, a friend and former co-worker who left Billboard to make the rock ‘n’ roll documentaries “Lemmy” and “The Damned: Don’t You Wish That We Were Dead,” was properly crestfallen when Lemmy Kilmister died on Dec. 28. Wes posted, on social media, very eloquent tributes to the subject of his first film, to whom he had obviously grown close over several years. 

Then, on New Year’s Eve, Natalie Cole was dead at 65. And then, in the morning of Jan. 10, a shockwave from the radio: David Bowie was dead. It seemed impossible, a stunt, maybe, to promote the album released on the artist’s birthday, just two days earlier. But no, we learned. He had been ill for some time. 

The universe brightened, briefly, on the weekend, and we took an early bus to Manhattan to see the Complete Unknowns in a matinee performance at the B.B. King Blues Club and Grill. It was great fun, getting away for a day and immersing ourselves in the hustle and flow of the city. 

After the show and congratulatory hugs and handshakes, we went downtown to Pete’s for a drink. A stop at the restaurant and tavern frequented by O. Henry remains a pilgrimage, one I hate to miss now that such ventures are few.

As it happened, a couple was standing to leave and we took the corner seats at the bar, crowded in the late afternoon, and sipped wine and talked about music and the city and us and the long journey home. 

A few years ago, I recounted a visit to Pete’s and its dim-yet-eternal place in early childhood’s memories. “It was good to see José in the back, under the gas-lit chandelier at the cashier cage,” I wrote. “José was at Pete’s way back then, and he’s still there. All the others — Mr. Frawley, Dottie — had died years ago.”

I couldn’t see to the cashier cage, at the opposite end of the bar, and it was time to go home. The bartender approached as we stood to leave. 

“Is José still here?” I asked. 

“José died one year ago today. He left here that night, and everything was fine. He died in his sleep.” 

It was a slow, uncomfortable ride as the exits wore on. As the Jitney neared Manorville, I took out the iPhone, for the 13th time, and called up The Star’s website. That was when I learned that Rusty Drumm, too, was gone.

I didn’t meet Rusty until 2012. Though we both lived in Montauk in the ’70s, I didn’t know him then, of course; I was a kid, he a young adult having the time of his life. Later, in the office, he shared incredible tales of Montauk in that glorious decade: of the Rolling Stones, crashing at Andy Warhol’s estate as they rehearsed for a tour; or tending bar at Shagwong, a notoriously raucous establishment, particularly back then. 

And there was the big one, a thrill we had both known: meeting John Lennon, who, in those idyllic summer months of 1976, seemed to have finally found peace of mind in his newfound freedom from celebrity. Like life, that freedom would prove ephemeral. 

The hits keep on coming, on that Great Radio Station in the Sky, in this winter of discontent. On Jan. 18, Glenn Frey of the Eagles. Ten days later, Paul Kantner and Signe Toly Anderson — not one, but two members of Jefferson Airplane. 

On Saturday, we drove to Montauk. As the Manor was our destination, I thought we should pause at Fort Hill Cemetery, where Rusty lies. Ten minutes later, though, we were still rolling up one street and down another, each as unfamiliar as the last. Where was that confounded cemetery? Another time, perhaps. 

On the way out of town, we stopped at the overlook on the Old Highway. The sun and surf were high and the day was mild as the ocean ferociously, insistently pushed against the land, just as it did in my earliest memory, just as it would forever. 

This was a better place to contemplate Lemmy and Natalie and David and Mr. Frawley and Dottie and José and John, and Rusty, and the transitory nature of things. It’s not the end of the world. It’s just . . . you know. 

Christopher Walsh is a reporter at The Star.