Big Ol' RV in NYC
"The tide waits for no man," says Ron Britt as he prepares to move his vehicle, perhaps the most unique in all of New York, at 8 a.m. on a wet Wednesday. The "tide" is the parking restrictions on the leafy West Village block where his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend lives, and the vehicle is the "Free Willie Nelson," a '73 Dodge Travco RV whose navy and white paint job gives it a vaguely whale-like appearance.
Britt, a 44-year-old harmonica player/handyman, explains how the name describes the vehicle's look, which he calls "saltwater cowboy?Orca on the outside and Western on the inside, including animal hides and antlers." A tireless pitchman who peppers conversations with puns, soundbites and folksy metaphors, Britt has his phone number stenciled on the bumper and never tires of hearing from pedestrians who saw the Willie and felt compelled to call. He'd tell you Free Willie stories all day if you didn't have the heart to stop him.
Measuring 28 feet from the picket fence that adorns the grille to the wooden deck affixed to the back bumper (where the license plate reads SEE WRLD), the Free Willie is representative of the "art car" movement that's more popular out West than here: automobiles covered in grass, glass, Barbie doll heads, etc. Britt bought it six years ago for $4000 from a pack of Seventh Day Adventists in Wisconsin. Nearly three decades after it rolled off the assembly line, the Travco runs "like a scalded dog," he says, and is "comfortable as a blue jeans shirt." The gas mileage? Eight to the gallon.
Everyone in New York has his 9/11 story, and Britt, originally from Roswell, NM (which makes sense), is no exception. His starts on 9/10, the day he and a Tribeca-based girlfriend broke up. Britt did what any man in his situation might do: he went to the Raccoon Lodge on Warren St., tied one on and crawled off to sleep in the Willie, parked a block from the World Trade Center. "I was sleeping off a hangover," he recalls, "when I was awoken by the first plane hitting the tower." Britt says he stumbled toward the wreckage, hoping to put his handyman skills to use, then split when the first building came down. He returned to the Willie later that night to find it covered in a carpet of debris, every car around it destroyed. "It was like Dante's Inferno." He climbed in, turned the key and she sparked right up; Britt still wonders if the Willie's religious past helped spare her. He scooped a bottle of ash from the roof and keeps it in the Willie.
True to character, Britt is fighting the war on terrorism in his own way. "There's still a funk hanging over downtown," he says of the neighborhood he calls HeroHo, and he's organized a two-pronged musical attack aimed at helping Lower Manhattan get its groove back. His band the Lucky Ones hosts Monday night jams at Rosie's on Murray St., and he's planning what he's named "Re-vibe"?a "civilian USO" effort that involves rigging the Willie with a p.a. system and employing friends from bands like Rogue's March, the Novellas and the Itinerants to perform at various outdoor locales downtown. "One stockpile of ammo that New York has is talent," he says. "My friends aren't construction workers or EMTs or firemen. They're musicians, and they want to help."
Britt says he hopes Re-vibe will attract the services of Mayor Bloomberg, area residents like Robert De Niro and musicians like David Byrne and David Bowie. Of course, Willie Nelson would be a logical choice to participate as well. Britt met his idol following Nelson's Irving Plaza gig a few months back, and the two exchanged photographs: Britt gave Nelson a photo of the Free Willie, and Nelson gave Britt an autographed picture of himself.
It's been the kind of week that tries Britt's indomitable optimism. The West Village girlfriend and he have parted ways, meaning he'll split time between friends' couches and the Willie's bed, and someone has slammed into the Willie's tail end, causing transmission problems. The star of last summer's Coney Island Mermaid Parade is being towed down Broadway as Britt mans the steering wheel. It's impossible not to stare at the beached whale as it ambles by, and everyone does.
Despite this run of bad luck, Britt is upbeat as he answers the top 10 questions he's asked about the Willie (#3: No, Willie Nelson's not in jail. #4: No, he's not in the camper, either). Why does he think Willie seems to charm all who see it?
"There's a wanderlust that exists in every single American," he replies, struggling to turn onto Bond St. without power steering. "RV-dom as a lifestyle is the American Dream."