by Jarett Kobek
—The same effect as so many other airliner, you know. Speak of the film, put it in your left ear, just left the other one hang there, with Walkman you can watch film birthday well, you really won’t eat any more response to the, you know, the occasional woman who go ‘How you get that kid to get that off his head because he can’t hear any of these really important instructions?’ You know, instructions that she’s obviously memorized. And the woman comes up to you and goes like, ‘O, you must take those off during takeover.’ And you go, ‘O, I didn’t know that. Excuse me.’ That’s sort of, it really is the next worst thing that can happen to you. O, Dutch is a method of transmission for a film for people who read in triangular pyramids, which doesn’t happen to be on right now.
After Christina explained her idea about blowing up New York with the help of her former landlord, Queen Rex suggested that she and Baby would depart. Christina walked them to the elevator, pressing the call button.
—O, this is the elevator that Sid Vicious died in. No, no, his ghost would always come up in this elevator. And that’s the only room I’ve ever seen Sid Vicious in, is within that elevator. He used to come in and attack me sexually and suck on my nipples. And he still did. He’s not in that elevator, I mean, after all, he made so much money off his money. I mean a lot of people make money off of film. I mean, after all, I’m dead. O, O, O, did I tell you about the time when I saw Andy Warhol’s ghost?
Outside on 23rd Street, Baby thought of seven different questions about Christina, but before he could speak, Regina threw her arms around him, hugging him.
—Baby, she said, can I stay with you tonight?
—I’m not sure about Adeline, said Baby.
—What if I’m quiet? asked Regina. What if I’m as silent as a mouse?
—I don’t know, said Baby.
—It’ll help me, said Regina. Because I can wake up and we can go over to school tomorrow. Otherwise I’ve got to take the train all the way up and then back down.
At 7th Street, the apartment lights were out. Adeline’d expressed her extreme displeasure about Baby bringing home club people in general, and Regina in particular.
—Can’t you keep these creatures within their natural habitats? she’d asked. Why must you allow your scum entrée to our humble abode?
Regina and Baby snuck into the dark. Adeline’s door was shut. Baby led Regina into his room. They slept, his arms draped over Regina.
*
Then there was the time when Baby met Loretta Hogg, a receptionist named Dean who became reasonably popular with people in the know. Among the many shticks of clubland, Loretta Hogg distinguished herself by going out every night wearing a fake pig nose. The effect, taken in concert with her long stringy hair, left Baby greatly disturbed.
There was the time, at Red Zone, when Loretta Hogg sat on a table all night with an apple in her mouth.
*
Then there was the time when Baby ate MDMA at The World, a club on East 2nd Street near Avenue C. The drug hit strong, sending unusual waves from his brain, different from the normal vibe. No sensations of delight in the people around him. Instead a deep fear, high anxiety. He remembered reading that the original definition of panic was the sensation of being lost in a dark woods, a terror brought on by the Great God Pan. Pan-ic.
Pushing outside, he bumped into the doorman, a friend of Michael Alig’s named James St. James.
—Watch it, honey!
Several blocks away, far from the club, Baby continued to hear the echo of the dance floor. Synthesizers, pounding beats. Hi-hats and handclaps. Haunted by house music.
Over to Broadway and up to West 4th Street. Baby walked to Washington Square Park, sitting on a park bench near the red monolith of NYU’s Bobst Library, the building reminding him of his own relationship with the university. A warm reassurance of belonging, strong enough to bring Baby into contemplation.
Los Angeles. Jaime, yes, but something else, too, some unknown occurrence within the missing hours of his acid trip. An unknown amount of his life lost, gone, disappeared. Who knows what he’d done? Costing him the boy that he loved. His broken heart. Did something else break, too? Some part of his psyche fracturing during ego death.
The park grounds were dirty with litter and filled with an assortment of the homeless and criminals. People tried selling Baby drugs. Smoke, smoke, smoke. He ignored them, moving toward the white marble arch. He’d never before noticed that its statues offered two separate depictions of George Washington. Blood was smeared beneath both, chicken bones scattered.
Baby rounded to the arch’s west side, where he discovered a door cracked open, light coming from within. There was no reason for indecision. He went inside.
Industrial illumination cast shadows across the interior brick walls. A spiral staircase at the other side of the chamber. Baby climbed up, body attuned to the mortar and masonry, the bricks breathing with him. Up and up and up.
He came to the attic. Cluttered with junk. Too dark to discern. Baby continued ascending until he came to the trap door above him. He pushed through and emerged on top of the arch, looking south toward the giant aberrations of the World Trade Center.
North, up the infinity of Fifth Avenue, buildings dissolving into a vanishing point. From the ground, tricks of perspective prevented the pedestrian from comprehending the arch’s true height. Baby experienced the real thing through atmosphere, seven stories up, the winds whipping around his ears.
He sat, back against the marble, eyes closed. Sequences of lights played in the darkness, his body shivering with the stone. If he tried hard enough, patterns emerged in the lights, shapes, almost celestial bodies. Earlier that day, he’d read a poem by Robert Lowell. “Skunk Hour.”
The narrator drives up the central hill of town, sneaking up on lovers in cars. His mind isn’t right. Radios play the song “Careless Love.” I hear my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell, as if my hand were at its throat. Then, as Baby’s professor pointed out, the poem quotes Milton: I myself am Hell. Nobody’s here. Love o love, o careless love.
Baby looked over the side, peering down. The lamps flickered as if illuminated by gas. There were thousands of spirits, shimmering figures, wandering through the park. What are they? Baby wondered. Are they ghosts? Is Emil among them?
Moving with care down the spiral staircase. Still too high to go home, to deal with Adeline. At the bottom, walking outside. The park returned to normal. The dull light of electric lamps. No shimmering ghosts, only the debris of humanity. The starving, the drug dealers.
He sang a song by Patti Smith. “Pissing in a River.” Baby couldn’t remember the lyrics. Words came out strange, improvised, wrong and broken: My vowels sound heavy, bleating your foul. What door will I hand you? Honey I can’t say. What more can I say to you, to make you stay?
James St. James hadn’t left the door. Baby knew him, slightly, introduced by Michael Alig, who’d said that James was the old guard, positively one of those tired nasty mid-’80s Celebutantes. Desperate for relevance, and proving that an old dog can learn a new trick, Jimmy had transitioned into being a club kid. Michael Alig assured Baby that no one minded, not really, if James was so old.
—Honey, you ran out on me! said James to Baby. Where’ve you been?
—Washington Square, said Baby.
—There’s nothing there but disgusting tramps! You missed Brooke Shields. I escorted her, personally, to the VIP speakeasy! And do you know what she did? She asked for my address! She wants to send me a gift! Can you believe how fabulous she is?
Inside, Queen Rex stood beside a disco ball and a peacock-shaped pane of glass.
—Where have you been?
—Out, said Baby. I couldn’t take it.
A middle-aged man with a video camera approached. He kissed Queen Rex’s cheek, calling out, Regina! Regina! Regina!
—Baby, do you know Nelson?
—Baby, this is Nelson Sullivan. Nelson is a friend of Christina.
—Oh, said Nelson, I love Christina.
—Nelson’s a club kid!
—I’m more like a club parent, said Nelson. Well, bye-bye, I’m going upstairs.
Almost 4 am. Queen Rex grabbed the arm of a queen named LaHoma van Zandt, a skinny-bodied blonde. She was beautiful. Baby stared at her, wondering if she were really this beautiful or if the drug was altering reality. The most beautiful queen. LaHoma van Zandt. Baby hung on her words, each spoken in a syrupy Southern accent.
—Let’s go to Robots, said LaHoma. It’s less than a block away!
Other people were dragged along, including Nelson Sullivan and James St. James. Everyone except for Nelson was drunk or high. Screaming in the streets. LaHoma wearing her tiny yellow dress, hopping up and down on wooden heels.
—It’s so amazing! she shouted. It’s so funny!
Save the Robots was situated in a storefront on Avenue B. LaHoma knocked on the gray door. The Judas window slid open. LaHoma pushed her face up to the opening. The doorman let everyone in, despite his reservations about Nelson Sullivan’s camera.
—Do you record everything? asked Baby.
—Day and night, said Nelson. There’s just so many gorgeous people here in Downtown and I’d hate to miss a single one.
Thursday when Baby went out with Regina. Friday now. Thankfully no class in the morning. Sleep the whole afternoon.
Baby ended up downstairs, looking at exposed piping and the empty dance floor, which was covered in sand. Still early. People would be arriving until 8 am. Emptiness of the basement, the emptiness of an occupied storefront, giving drug clarity into the nature of the 1980s. A difference from the era of true disco and Studio 54, when proprietors would transform their spaces into works of wonder. Then the idea had been to pull people from their minds, transport them to other worlds.
Save the Robots, The World, Tunnel, Mars, Red Zone, Limelight. Consciously designed to keep the remnants and echoes of their earlier occupants. An old warehouse. A train tunnel. Part of the appeal, to know that the dance space existed only because capitalism had failed. New culture sprouting up like weeds feeding on the old corpse.
*
Then there was the time when Michael Alig threw a party at McDonald’s in Times Square. Actually, the invite was for the Burger King across the street, but the management had refused to host the illustrious event. Michael Alig improvised, giving a thousand dollars to the people at McDonald’s and making a few unlucky messengers stand outside Burger King to direct human traffic to the new location.
Baby convinced Adeline to come along, overriding almost all of her objections by pointing out that this party, for once, wasn’t happening in a club.
—I don’t even think there’ll be music, said Baby. McDonald’s sure won’t pump it through their speakers.
—Zowie! Swellegant! said Adeline. You melt me, Jackson.
Adeline’s friend Jeremy Winterbloss had given her a copy of a 1940s slang dictionary entitled The Hepcats Jive Talk Dictionary. Adeline had digested its contents, tormenting Baby for two weeks with its lingo.
—I have no idea what that means. Are you coming or not?
—Don’t summon your hexes from Texas, Baby. Of course I’m going.
—Everything’s copacetic?
—Lamp into my spotters, she said. Ultra copacetic. Everything’s grand.
Baby and Adeline dressed. Baby didn’t understand why Adeline bothered getting done up. She had a boyfriend. She hated club people. Who was left to impress?
They smoked pot and took a cab to 46th and Broadway. When they arrived at Burger King, a crowd of obvious club people were walking across the street. Baby and Adeline followed, assuming that these people were in the know.
In coming years, the club scene would be a mortar of high fashion, the pestle of money crushing every possible problem of accoutrement. Watching the crowd drift across Times Square, Baby couldn’t help but notice the threadbare state of everyone’s outfits. They were like Halloween costumes. Fright wigs and goofy makeup. Everything looked so cheap.
The ground floor of McDonald’s was tiny, with only a counter and queue for food. The upstairs dining room area was accessible via a staircase to the immediate right. Baby knew that he’d arrived at Michael Alig’s party when he saw the bouncer and velvet rope blocking off access to the stairs. Baby couldn’t imagine the indignity of being bounced from McDonald’s.
—If this guy doesn’t let us in, said a voice in the crowd, I’m going to bend him over and fist him. On second thought, now that I’ve got a better look at him, I might fist him even if he does.
No one was denied entry. They were the right kind of freaks. Baby held Adeline’s hand, pulling her upstairs, making sure that she didn’t get lost in the crush.
Baby spotted James St. James, Michael Musto wearing a cow-print fur jacket, Nelson Sullivan with his camera, Michael Alig with his face painted with blue and red dots, Michael Alig’s boyfriend DJ Keoki wearing an ugly silver jacket and a risible hat embossed with silver letters that read KEOKI, Julie Jewels of Project X magazine, Christopher Robin, Olympia done up like Marie Antoinette, and a whole host of other people whose names Baby did and did not remember.
—This rockpile sends me, said Adeline. Gun all the able grables and creampuffs. There must be three hundred indexes! B.T.O.
Regina wasn’t there. Family obligation. She’d called complaining. Baby didn’t mind. It allowed him to include Adeline.
They approached James St. James.
—Hi, honey!
—Jimmy, this is my roommate, Adeline.
—Well, isn’t she just fabulous?
—This cat’s a real snow from Fresno, said Adeline. Ask the cake eater if he’s a boiled owl and if he is, can he mash?
—What? asked James St. James.
—Don’t even, said Baby. It’s too complicated. But Jimmy, are you holding?
They ended up with two tablets of Ecstasy. Baby ate one. Adeline ate the other. Baby momentarily questioned the wisdom of taking drugs in a badly lit McDonald’s on Times Square. On the other hand, the pot was wearing off.
Michael Alig came up the stairs, carrying boxes of food. Everyone screamed. Michael! Michael! Michael! Michael! He stood on a booth table and threw food at the crowd, like the Anti-Christ distributing loaves of poisoned bread. People climbed over each other, fighting, desperate to get their hands on cheeseburgers and Big Macs and French fries.
So lovely, really, so nice to be with these people. All of them knew Baby. Some better than others, but he knew them and they knew him. Something wonderful about that, about being recognized and accepted, about being part of the thing. Adeline was smiling, laughing, touching him. Baby thought, Oh, wow, it’s her first time doing MDMA. Had things changed so much? Why was there a drug that he’d done before Adeline?
—Why, Baby, said Adeline, I do believe that I’m understanding the appeal of these vile people. They’re all so charming, in their grotesque little carnival way.
Michael Alig and his club kids had gone through a phase where they ran around town with whistles hanging from their necks, blowing them throughout the clubs. Baby caught the tail end of this period and was glad for its demise. The sound drove him crazy. But here the whistles were again, blasting away inside McDonald’s.
Right before the food fight, Baby and Adeline started a conversation with Kenny Kenny and Armand. Kenny Kenny had served as the doorman at every club in town. Her head was completely shaved other than a red topknot kept under a silver hat. Looking at the knot, Baby shuddered, thinking of the pinhead girls from Tod Browning’s film Freaks.
Adeline talked at Kenny Kenny and Armand for several minutes, the four of them sitting together in a booth. Baby couldn’t keep track of
it. Across the restaurant, they were singing “Happy Birthday.” Whose birthday was it? Armand said something to Adeline about Louise Brooks. Baby interrupted them, as gently as he could, trying to steer the conversation toward something interesting. As he spoke, he found himself even more boring than Adeline, watching himself from the outside, watching him bore his audience, wishing that he could stop it but being unable.
—All right, okay, you’ve got to understand, said Baby, that Thomas M. Disch . . .
—Not him! said Adeline. I haven’t thought of that dreadful man and his dreadful books since our old Bank of the Metropolis!
—Anyhoo, said Baby, Thomas M. Disch is one of the finest writers who emerged from the Science Fiction New Wave. Probably his best book is The Genocides, which is about an alien invasion of Earth by these giant trees that colonize every square inch of the planet. Most humans have died, and the ones that haven’t are being hunted by these flesh-incinerating machines. Anyhoo, the novel follows the last group of survivors, this creepy community of Bible thumpers with a freakish patriarch who is either Noah or Lot, you pick, and the whole thing is very Biblical in this queered way. Most of the action takes place underground, when the people escape the machines by running into a cave and becoming, basically, worms that live inside the plants’ root network. Oh yeah, I forgot, the plants are kind of edible.
—How does it end? asked Armand.
Armand’s face. Baby couldn’t stop. He had to answer.
—Badly. Everyone dies. The plants are the food for a race of beings who never appear in the book. They used Earth for their farmland.
—Honey, said Armand, that’s about the most boring thing I’ve ever heard.
—Why would you even bother? asked Kenny Kenny. I mean, books? Who reads? Who cares? We’re at a party and you’re talking about books?
Adeline stood up, letting them out of the booth. Michael Alig was behind them, watching, his furrowed brow bending the painted dots.
—I overheard your charming little story, said Michael Alig. It reminded me of Dark Shadows. Have I ever told you about the Leviathan?
