Nicky Marotta (Robin Johnson) and Pamela Pearl (Trini Alvarado)
are two teenage girls who meet in the New York Neurological Hospital,
where they are both being examined for mental illness. Pamela feels
lonely and misunderstood, and is neglected and exploited by her father, a
prominent and wealthy environmental commissioner running a campaign to
"clean up" Times Square. Nicky is a tough-talking street kid
with musical aspirations, sent to the hospital for an evaluation after
an altercation with the police. Sharing a room, the frank Nicky and the
shy Pamela become friends; Nicky tells Pamela that she stages seizures
to keep out of juvenile detention. Nicky admires Pamela's poetic spirit;
Pamela admires Nicky's forthright attitude, and resents the
condescending way in which the doctors treat her. Nicky tells Pamela not
to take her meds
as they "take your fight away." She also reads a poem that Pamela wrote
about her: "Your ribs are my ladder, Nicky/I'm so amazed, I'm so
amazed." Nicky is released from the hospital, and later returns,
ostensibly for an appointment for her social worker, but really to break
Pamela out. Both girls escape from the hospital, steal an ambulance,
and hide out in an abandoned Chelsea Piers No.56 on the Hudson River. Pamela and Nicky seal their devotion to each other with a blood oath and make a pact to scream out each other's names in times of trouble.
There is a city-wide search for Pamela, after her father reports her
as missing and accuses Nicky of kidnapping her. Nicky and Pamela try to
eke out a living by engaging in card games, petty larceny, and odd jobs.
Using discarded furniture and lines, Nicky and Pamela deck out their
warehouse hideout, making it a bohemian-style apartment, and craft costumes for themselves. Meanwhile, late-night radio station disc jockey Johnny LaGuardia (Tim Curry),
who broadcasts from a penthouse studio overlooking Times Square,
realizes that Mr. Pearl's missing daughter is the same "Zombie Girl" who
sent him letters, telling him how sad and lonely she feels. LaGuardia,
who resents Mr. Pearl's "Reclaim Rebuild Restore" campaign to redevelop
and gentrify Times Square, uses his radio station, WJAD, to reach out to
Nicky and Pamela; he reads out Pamela's poetry over the air.
Nicky and Pamela write songs together and form an underground punk rock
band, The Sleez Sisters, with the help of LaGuardia, who sees Nicky and
Pamela as a symbol of youthful rebellion and an opportunity to
undermine Pamela's father. The Sleez Sisters become a hit with the
city's disillusioned youth after broadcasting their volatile punk rock
songs and speeches on WJAD. Nicky and Pamela encourage their fans to
throw TV sets off apartment rooftops; they also send messages to the
doctors who treated them, and to Pamela's father, through their songs.
Pamela tells her father through WJAD, "Dear Daddy, I am not kidnapped. I
am me-napped, I am soul-napped, I am Nicky-napped, I am happy-napped.
We are having
our own renaissance." She also says, "You want to
make Times Square as cold as your icy eye? Why do you want to punish
people who aren't like you? You know, at home, I've heard you use the
following words: spic, faggot, nigger, psycho. Well, I just want you to
know,
your daughter is one."
Mr. Pearl responds by issuing a press release, stating that Pamela is
ill and requires medication, and that Nicky is unstable and dangerous.
Pamela and Nicky subsequently have a falling out when they realize that
their lives are on divergent paths. Pamela is content with her newfound
sense of identity, and wants to return home. Nicky wants to continue
with the Sleez Sisters, and becomes jealous of Pamela's relationship
with LaGuardia. She accuses LaGuardia of exploiting Pamela and herself,
and throws Pamela and LaGuardia out of the warehouse hideout.
Nicky has a breakdown, wrecking her home and destroying the journal
she shared with Pamela. After a failed attempt to drown herself, Nicky
drunkenly breaks into WJAD and demands that LaGuardia put her on the
air. Midway through her song, Nicky breaks down and asks Pamela for
help: "My heart/It's pumpin'/My foot/It's runnin'/My head/It's
hurtin'/It's hurtin' me/I never told you/Everything/I never said the
stuff I should/I was chicken to tell you/I never thought I could/Find
me/Help me/Save me/Can you hear me?/Can you feel me out there?/Pammy!
I'm callin' you, Pammy! Pammy!" Pamela rescues Nicky, and takes her to
her father's office in the middle of Times Square. Pamela calls all the
local radio stations, announcing an impromptu, and illegal, midnight
show in Times Square, on the rooftop of a 42nd Street Grindhouse.
A message is sent out to the fans of the Sleez Sisters, inviting them
to attend the concert. Nicky says, "If they treat you like garbage, put
on a garbage bag. If they treat you like a bandit, black out your eyes!"
Girls across the city create their own versions of the Sleez Sister
uniform in response to the announcement, and board buses and subways to
converge in Times Square.
In her signature garbage-bag costume and bandit-mask-style make-up,
Nicky sings on the marquee roof above a crowd of cheering fans. With the
police approaching from behind, Nicky jumps off the edge of the marquee
and into a blanket held taut by a group of fans. Camouflaged in the
crowd, Nicky manages to evade capture by the police. Pamela watches her
friend vanish into the night.
