Rockets Redglare
Lately, I’ve been doing these small studies of degenerate characters. I wonder what makes them all so fascinating to us all?
Today’s special degenerate is a fellow named Michael Morra, otherwise, known as RocketsRedglare. A fixture and a unique character in the Lower Eastside that I knew mainly as a bar customer, but to call him a customer would be a stretch. That would imply exchanging goods and services for money and with Rockets. Most that knew him also understood that getting payment from him was indeed a rare thing: the money, I mean, and the exchange of it. Rockets toward the end of his life and even long before was considered a dead beat and a mooch. He was constantly hitting up anyone within five feet if they could front him a little bread.
The thing is, the Rockets had his charms. First, foremost,Rockets was a junky. A long-time abuser of opiates and as street savvy as they come. He managed to cut out a minor career for himself as an actor and comedian and raconteur. Really it was one hustle stacked on top of another. He was already pretty notorious when I met him, and I was warned that he was a scammer.
On the corner of 7th street and Avenue B was Vasac’s. It’s technical name but it was known by many names. The horseshoe bar, 7B, and so on. It was there I first met Rockets. The bar was famous for being used in the “Godfather “ the spot where Luca Brazi tries to strangle “Frankie Five Angels.” Also, “The Verdict” with Paul Newman was shot there.
I worked as a bartender all around the neighborhood at Lakeside Lounge, Niagra, Arlene Grocery, Avenue B Social Club and was a fixture around there in my own right. Rockets would show up where ever I worked because, the truth is, I was a soft touch and would hook him up with free drinks.
He had already had a lifetime on heroin and methadone. He was raised by his Junky mother out on Lindenhurst Long Island.
Bar owners saw Rockets as a drain and a pest, but he was tolerated by most. He had a certain amount of celebrity cache. A veteran of the punk rock scene, he was one of the last people with Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen on the infamous night of her death at the Chelsea hotel ,and supposedly at the hand of Sid. No one knows, and some accused Rockets of the deed. It is all lost in the blur of drugs and history.
My interactions with Rockets on a more regular basis were in the early nineties. I was wary of him taking up too much of my time while I was busy at The Lakeside. The owner Jim Marshall was tolerant of him, so I would fill his glass while he nodded off in a morphine stupor half the time.
Rockets could be really clever and witty and had an encyclopedic knowledge of film. I would marvel at how if he overheard a discussion that involved film, he would often suddenly pipe in. Out of a fully unconscious nod and interject into the conversation some random fact or actor’s name, and in his Junky whine “It was Jean Tierney” or some actor or actress from the golden age of film. It was something to behold. Rockets had made many friends in the film world and appeared in several Jim Jarmusch movies and in bit parts in so many independent productions. It was amazing to watch him hustle and get around with his enormous girth. Always a bit overweight, he would at times become enormously obese. His health, of course, was always in doubt, and his capacity to drink on top of drugs was pretty alarming. However, even then, he could, in between nodding out could still be reasonably cogent.
A hardcore street survivor, some would make the mistake of treating him like a pushover, and he would become surprisingly menacing. He was also quite nimble on his feet for a drunk fat man. He had enough personal charisma that he always had some cute young woman helping him navigate around.
For years he lived in that famous SRO on 13th street, made famous by the movie “Taxi Driver, “where the giant shoot-out at the end took place.
As junkies go, Rockets had a good run, and it was a testimonial to the human body and how much abuse one could take. Toward the end, he would show up at my own bar almost as soon as I opened the door. I did not mind being viewed by him as a soft touch. I liked him. I enjoyed his company. As a bartender, I often wanted to have someone at the bar that I could hang out with away from the typical punters and tourists.
Rockets would be tucked away in the far corner of the bar, and as I worked, he would give a running commentary on who was a schnook and who was okay. He had pretty reliable judgment when it came to those things. In the early afternoon happy hour, he would be just beginning his rounds because there were at least a few other soft touches around the neighborhood.
Rockets was like an old alley cat that you had admired and survived many attacks from other cats and dogs. You couldn’t help but admire the ability to survive despite all the chemicals and booze.
At different times of his life, Rockets made tacit attempts to sober up. How often and for how long, I have no idea.
I can’t say that I was a close friend of Rockets. I wasn’t, but I liked him, and in the world of bartending, he was respectful and never gave me a hard time. I knew what to expect from him, and his behavior was pretty consistent. He didn’t suffer fools, especially from kids who would dismiss him as an old drunk.
I got the word that Rockets had passed away in 2001 and wasn’t surprised that his body finally gave out. I heard his wake was being held at that old Italian funeral home on spring street between Mott and Mulberry through the grapevine. I thought I’d stop in to pay my respects on my way to work that night on the Eastside.
It was about four in the late afternoon. As I enter the funeral parlor, I spied Rockets in an open casket, and he looked terrible. Usually, you hear quite the opposite when going to a wake. “They looked so natural, or they looked so good!” Not rockets. He looked like a stuffed Cabbage Patch doll, and though the mortician didn’t have much to work with, he had been in terrible condition before he died.
As I came forward toward the casket and looked around, I saw only one other person there. They came over to greet me as if they were a family member greeting me. It shocked the hell out of me that that person was actor Steve Buscemi! I was gobsmacked and was trying desperately not to show too much shock. Just the two of us standing near the casket, and he said to me. “Hi, I’m Steve. Were you a friend of Michael’s?”
I tried to be calm and define my relationship with Rockets, and I sort of threw up my hands and said, “Yeah. I guess so. I was his bartender.”
His face went into full Steve Buscemi’s blank stare.
I knew from the legend that Buscemi had been a bartender at King Tut’s Wah Wah hut in the eighties. And knew Rockets from those days and had maintained a long friendship. Buscemi had, in fact, paid for his funeral. Rockets used to MC a stand-up comedy night there. He said that he gave Steve and his comedy partner actor friend Mark Boone their show biz debut as a comedy duo.
I stood there awkwardly for a minute and tried to make small talk about bartending in the East Village. I could see that Buscemi was a bit anxious about being there alone with me. I approached the open casket. So, I took that opportunity to go like a good catholic school veteran of Wakes and funerals to say a “Fake a prayer” over Rockets. I knelt at his side and had a close-up look at his bizarre stuffed corpse.
After a quick faux hail Mary, I nodded to Mr. Buscemi on the way out with the gravest and most respectful face I could and was so relieved and weirded out. I went to work. I paid my respects, and Respected rocket’s Red glare as a character, and a friend I guess.
