Willy DeVille was too paranoid to tell me where his house was, so he suggested we meet at Bickford's, and thus were new dimensions of 14th Street revealed unto me.

As I entered the coffee shop at the corner of 14th Street and 7th Avenue, I was immediately impressed with its scents, which I can only describe as Musty Hospital. Likewise, though the light inside was all natural as it streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, it appeared to be uniquely gray.

Willy was late, so I seated myself at the winding counter and surveyed the other patrons. Across from me, a dishevelled young woman with black circles around her eyes fought the nod and slurred a conversation with her male companion, who was either somewhat better self-possessed or dead. Periodically, her volume rose to a half-hearted argument level. No response. Two seats to the right of me, a neatly dressed pensioner, probably out for his afternoon constitutional, methodically administered himself spoonfuls of soggy, cold cereal in between hacking coughs. As I considered the plastic menu, the 7th Avenue side door of the shop opened and a hefty and disinterested nurse wheeled in the shrunken carcass of a very old woman who seemed not to know. Pulling up to a stool near the junkie couple, the nurse set the wheelchair's brake, folded back the footboards, and coldly applied her nursing school knowledge of medicinal leverage to hoist the old lady up on the counter stool. At which point the patient came alive, barking out for coffee and toast.

Willy DeVille had still not arrived when the waitress pulled up in front of my place and cast dead eyes on me. I put down my menu and thought: At last, a restaurant worthy of 14th Street! Then, to be on the safe side, I ordered a grilled cheese and tomato because it doesn't involve ground meat.

Geographically, 14th Street west of 4th Avenue is a no man's land between two distinct New York neighborhoods, Greenwich Village and Chelsea. Economically, it is a boomtown area for useless and/or cheaply-made consumer items (not to mention bad drugs—a whole other story) many of which have been stolen from cargo areas around the city. Spiritually, needless to say, 14th Street is a void.

Those people who must pass through here generally do so in a trance. Those who knowingly remain here are so far outside mainstream America that they might just as well be on another planet. Try and imagine your average shopkeeper ordering three thousand imitation terrycloth JesuS tapestries with plastic backscratchers to match. Imagine him stealing them! Only in New York is right, which is why I got Willy DeVille over here to go shopping: Only a New Yorker, I figured.

I figured Willy DeVille would be attracted to 14th Street. He sort of looks it. I figured he'd at least like the clothes. I also figured that he'd dig to macho down the street, jivin', handling it, proud to be a New Yorker walking through one of New York's other worlds. Like in his music. Like "Venus Of Avenue D." I figured all this about Willy 'cuz I myself have cultivated a cynical feel of this place I live next to and essentially fear. I figured wrong.

When Willy finally arrived at Bickford's, he dove straight for a couple of cups of wake-up coffee and took no notice of the place. We talked a little about his new record, Return To Magenta, and about how much he enjoyed working with producer Jack Nitzsche. Then we went out on the street where I tried to steer him towards a few of my favorite joints, "I'm naturally speedy," he said, and so he was as he hustled down the sidewalk hunched up against the cold, hands in pockets.

He wanted to look for some new shades and was curious about earrings, both of which are abundant on 14th Street. We checked a few places, but he was disappointed they didn't have the right horn-rimmed glasses. He examined a wrap-around pair and, almost as an exercise, explained to the photographer, "You see here, these are too thin. These are too punkette." He spat the last word. At a stand near Sixth Avenue, he stopped and fingered some earrings. The Puerto Rican guy watching over the shop and the Arab guy next door each shouted at the photographer to take their pictures. Willy said to us of the Puerto Rican's earring display, "Those things'll turn your ears green," presumably because they weren't real gold. Willy didn't appear to notice. He proceeded quickly and earnestly down the street. He grew up over on the Lower East Side. Maybe all this was just reality for him. Maybe a little too much now that he's finally getting out.

We walked a bit further and some sinister-looking knives in a store window caught his eye. Inside, he asked to see one and they guy pulled it out of the display case, trying to sucker us into thinking it was a real gravity knife by half-pulling the blade out and then, in one motion, flicking it the rest of the way. Willy inspected it with the eye of a connoisseur, put it down, and left without comment. Further down the block, Willy refused to pose with a Jesus towel. "I wouldn't hang that shit on my wall. That's not what I got on my wall," he said by way of explanation, in spite of my assurances that that wasn't the point. A few steps later, a merchant sat on a tall ladder outside his store guarding it against shoplifters. (I mean, what good is stolen merchandise if it's stolen, right?) Willy shrugged and dutifully agreed to pose with the guy. We walked some more (actually the photog and I trailed behind the speedy rock singer) and finally Willy felt too cold.

I herded him over to the warmth of the Bells Of Hell for a drink, but he doesn't drink. So we sat in the Bells and drank Cokes and he was knocked out by the juke box selection (particularly when Edith Piaf came up) and generally appeared more animated indoors. He pumped quarters into the record machine, playing old rock 'n' roll (he knows his stuff), and talked with me about the new album some more. I'm looking forward to it. He told me he changed a phrase in the David Foreman song he's doing because Toots thought it was a little too macho and he had to agree. He doesn't go for that macho crap. He does go for cool, though, and thinks that that's the way rock musicians should be. Cool, not nurds like some of the new people. Then again, he allows, you can go overboard with that, too. He also likes art, all the arts, in fact, and someday wants to live on a Rue in Paris. Not on 14th Street. Eventually he had to leave.

Eventually I left too, going back by 14th Street because it's on my way home. They were taking in the stand with the red, white and blue Afro wigs made of real "humen hair." Quitting time on Mars. I guess it's a peculiar little obsession.