Coin Toss

March 21, 1984: Sarah marries Amos

AMOS POE I was on drugs at the time. I was starting my heroin period. Sliding down. In January of 1983 she helped me get off it. She actually saved my life. But then once I was clean, I met a French girl, I fell “in love” and left. I made “Alphabet City”. Sarah meanwhile had another boyfriend, Bill Wegman, the dog photographer. In January, I was living in an apartment on Third Street and I went to a party, and lo and behold Sarah was at the same party. I think both of us got bombed. Very bombed. I don’t remember anything that happened between the party and the next morning. All I remember is waking up in my bed and feeling someone next to me, not knowing who it was but that she felt familiar. As Keats said, “Touch has a memory.” I woke her up, she turned around, I turned around. Sarah. We were both looking at each other, hung over and incredulous. “What are we doing?” “I don’t know.”

“This is crazy.” “Yeah, this is crazy.” And Sarah said, “Well, this is either the greatest thing that ever happened or the worst thing that ever happened. There are no grays here. We either really love each other and we should get married or we should never see each other again.” I said, “Yeah, I think the same.”

She said, “What do we do? Get married or never see each other again?” I thought about it, there seemed no rational answer. “Let’s flip a coin.” And she said, “Okay.” So I reached down for my pants on the floor, and pulled out a quarter. “I’m going to flip a coin. You call it.” Sarah said, “Heads we get married. Tails we never see each other again.” It was heads.

We got engaged on Valentine’s Day 1984, got married on the spring solstice, March 21, in the loft I inherited from Bryan Hunt at Great Jones Street, with our wedding party at the Odeon.

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Sarah and Amos pictured with John McNulty, John Lurie, Danny Rosen, Evan Lurie, Arto Lindsay, Bill Rice, and Johanna Heer.

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