by Jarett Kobek
I woke around eleven in the morning. The phone was ringing. My head was killing me. I answered the phone. It was Parker Brickley, my literary agent.
—Lazarus rises from the tomb, he said. I’ve been calling all morning.
—I went to Disco 2000, I said. This girl sold me heroin.
—Nail me to the cross, said Parker. I didn’t bet the farm for you to overdose. Are you one of those assholes who can’t handle the godawful stress of an audience that loves their writing? Heroin? Holy fucking shit.
—I only smoked it, I said. I’m afraid of needles. Can you be a little less loud? Why are you calling anyway?
—Slake my thirst, gorgeous, and tell me of Infinite Jest.
—I vomited last night in the same spot that my cat vomited, I said. I’m not of the proper caliber to write about David Foster Wallace.
—Thank fucking god, said Parker. My balls have been retracting with the fear. You can’t be trusted. Knowing you, you’d go and give it a bad review. Remember that you’re a professional. The days of truth are long over. Welcome to the big leagues. Every professional writer learns to be a fucking liar. That illusion of writers who tell the truth at all costs? It’s a child’s dream. I’m a fucking liar, too. Do you think I enjoy the work that I represent? Only you and Jane Smiley. One day, Parker Brickley will write an autobiography and call it A List of Things and People That I Pretended to Like. Each chapter will be about some hack whose book I said that I loved. The first chapter will be about Mona Simpson.
APRIL 1996
Baby and Adeline Go to the Mars Bar
After the reconciliation between Adeline and her mother, Suzanne became an increased presence in our lives, a happenstance once as likely as a return of Caesar’s Comet.
With the focus of madness transferred to Emil, the sudden slackening of attention gave Adeline a newfound tolerance for her dear old mère. She didn’t even object when Suzanne flooded Emil with plastic toys. The only downside was the elder woman’s increasingly regular residencies at the Plaza Hotel.
Adeline made hay while the sun shined, playing off Suzanne’s love for the grandchild and making her mother babysit whenever she was in town. The Grande Dame would decamp on 7th Street for hours, while Adeline ventured outside and experienced, for the first time in years, an adult life.
Within limits. Adeline wouldn’t travel too far from home, so we settled on routines and outings contained within the East Village’s borders. Typically this meant dinner at Around the Clock followed by drinks at the Mars Bar.
Of the establishments in old scumbag New York, it was the Mars Bar that best weathered the waves of gentrification. They only demolished the thing in 2011, when its walls were so covered in graffiti and filth that I wondered if any plaster remained. The toilets were works of art, little closets filled with broken bowls, every centimeter covered in ink, spray paint, and human effluvia. I once met a woman who said that she’d had sex on the pinball machine. I have no idea if it’s true. It seems credible. I pray for her soul.
Anyhoo, back in ’96, the bar was not quite the mess of its later years. The exterior was surprisingly clean, and its glass brick windows were intact. The name was painted in white letters above the entrance: MARZ. Above the name: CHECK YOUR MIND AT DOOR.
Which is exactly what Adeline and I did, coming in after dinner. Part of the appeal was the clientele, rock ’n’ roll relics from the punk scene passed over by circumstance and time. It only took about ten minutes before some hapless Mad Tom started screaming about how Richard Hell was a cocksucker or Bobby Steele was a prick or Patti Smith was a fucking stuck-up fucking bitch who needed to be fucked.
Adeline and I ordered gin-and-tonics. The bartender was a young punk girl. Every bartender at the Mars Bar was a young punk girl. She gave us our rotten drinks. We sat on stools, attempting to ignore the taste and the assault on our stomachs.
—Baby, said Adeline, tell me, do you know of the band The Gits?
—Don’t talk about bands, I whispered. You don’t know who is listening.
—Are you still worried about that dreadful man?
The previous time that we were in the Mars Bar, I’d gotten drunk enough that I shouted about how much I hate Led Zeppelin. Every time there’s a song on a radio that’s playing too fucking low, I screamed, I always mishear it as fucking “Good Times, Bad Times.” It’s such a shitty song! Led Zeppelin is such a fucking shitty band!
My outburst attracted the man sitting beside me, a middle-aged guy with unfortunately long hair. He told me how much he hated Led Zeppelin too, and then told me about his idea for a screenplay, a film about vampires that lacked any plot. All he had was the opening scene. The camera is focused on a puddle. Pedestrians step around the water, keeping their feet from getting wet. We see their reflections as well as their feet. Finally, a foot stomps into the puddle. There is no reflection. The camera pans up and reveals THE VAMPIRE, wearing reflective sunglasses and a black leather trench coat.
In response, I made the mistake of talking about a club person only rumored to exist, this kid from Bombay. No one had seen him during the day. Supposedly he drank blood and slept in a coffin in the abandoned subway station on the 6 line, the one at 18th Street between Union Square and 23rd Street. Michael had dubbed him the Vindaloo Vampire.
The guy in the Mars Bar loved it. He suggested that we go to a show at Coney Island High. I was preparing to leave before Adeline saved me from my own intoxication.
—I’m still worried, I said. These rock ’n’ roll people are terrifying.
—Cease your nancy boy prattling, said Adeline. Have you ever heard of The Gits?
—Alas, no, I said. I’ve never heard of The Gits.
—I purchased their debut at Sounds. Frenching the Bully. Baby, do you know, it’s absolutely brilliant? The production is rather crude, but the songwriting is strong and the vocalist is exceptional.
—I’m glad you liked an album, Adeline, I said.
—I went back to Sounds and asked the disagreeable employee if they had any other albums by The Gits. He said there was another album, but it was not in stock. Then he told me the most horrible story.
I ordered another round. Adeline waited before continuing. A deaf mute named Felix came in through the entrance. He sat at the bar, a few stools down, pointed to his mouth, and emitted a squealing whimper. He was a regular.
—The vocalist of The Gits, said Adeline, was this woman named Mia Zapata. One night, she was hanging around with what I gather were a group of other musicians. She said her goodbyes and headed home. She stepped out into the night and promptly disappeared. The next morning, a jogger discovered her body. She was raped and beaten and strangled. She was young and beautiful, but now she was battered and dead. Her murder remains unsolved. The mystery remains. The killer at large. Isn’t that simply the way things are, Baby? Imagine the web of her death, all the inflicted pain, spreading from person to person to person. I’m not one of those delusional fools who believes it’s ever so much sadder when a talented person dies rather than an ordinary plebe, yet there is something to be said for Mia Zapata working for years, playing shows, writing music, and recording only to have it stolen away before she reaped the rewards. Those are the moments that terrify yours truly, life’s irrevocable instances. What cannot be taken back. Most such moments are self-inflicted. Yet even in a life of repulsively clean rectitude, one can still be attacked in the street. Identity is porous. It isn’t simply who you are. It’s the damage that others inflict upon you.
A woman raped and strangled and beaten. I knew where the evening would end.
—I’m working on a new short story, I said. It’s called “White Walls.” I’m back to science fiction, to pure genre. The action takes place in the far future, in a Neo-Marxist Utopia. The human animal has rejected capitalism, but class and social distinctions prove persistent. A law is passed. People may not fuck each ot
her other than in very specific, controlled circumstances. Sexual partners must have sex in white rooms, completely naked, wearing no makeup or accoutrement beyond bathing caps that disguise hairstyles. Only through sexual communication without the normal markers of class identity can the socialist revolution move forward.
—That’s a concept, said Adeline. Where’s the story?
—I don’t have it yet. I think it’ll be a love story. Who are the perverts in a society that regulates sex according to Neo-Marxist dogma? It’ll be people who break the sex laws of the white walls. People who dress like different social classes. Poor dress as rich, rich as poor, and they screw like animals. It’ll probably be a Romeo and Juliet thing. A poor man and a rich man who wear each other’s clothes.
Felix slapped his hands against the bar. The bartender shouted, telling him to calm down or get out. He calmed down. I wondered how he understood.
We left. Adeline rushed to the east side of Second Avenue, then north toward the Anthology Film Archives. I knew where we were headed. I followed anyway.
As we moved closer to the address, I couldn’t remember a single time that Adeline and I had visited together. I’d seen her zine. I’d heard her talk about the Incident. I’d watched her nervous breakdown. I’d passed the address almost every day of my life. I could not remember a single time when we’d gone as a duo and peered up at the filthy tuxedo and that pathetic neon.
But there we were, standing on the pavement. After the emergence of Adeline’s fixation, I’d asked around. Several people said the place was haunted. People had witnessed ghosts moving behind the tailor’s dummy. I hoped that a specter would come upon us. At least then it’d be for something.
—I’ve tried speaking with her family, Adeline said. The woman who was murdered. Every time that I start, I halt myself before getting out a word. I’m appalled by the idea that the pain inflicted upon them is something in which I feel a personal involvement. I’m appalled that I know the name of the woman. Why should I know anything about it? All the world’s murdered women. Helen Sopolsky. Mia Zapata. We must abandon our childish beliefs. There is no such thing as justice.
APRIL 1996
Michael Musto Breaks a Story
The next Tuesday, I checked “La Dolce Musto.” There was more about Michael Alig. Word around town, wrote Musto, is that Michael was planning to move to Germany, to live with Rudolf, who used to run Tunnel. Musto implied that Rudolf had no idea that Michael was on his way.
A week passed. I was in a celibate period. Adeline had convinced me. She’d gone through several phases herself, eschewing the arts of pleasure, and thought it might be interesting if I gave myself a break from screwing.
Life became very boring, the pointlessness of existence driven home during the blank hours that I couldn’t fill with the chaos of human relationships. My brief heroin interlude excepted, I’d also stopped using drugs. I wasn’t seeing any club people, so how would I even score? Again, this de facto choice only made the boredom that much more palpable. At least I had my cat.
The next week, the next Tuesday, the next “La Dolce Musto.” The world fell apart. April 30th. The column itself was ultranormal, Musto writing about John Waters and Billy Wilder and Madonna and Sid Caesar and Nathan Lane. What caught everyone’s notice was a sidebar on the right side of the page.
NIGHT CLUBBING
Here’s the latest story going around about what supposedly happened in that recent clubland scandal; Mr. Mess was fighting with Mr. Dealer about money Mr. Dealer was owed. It escalated to the point where Mr. Dealer was choking Mr. Mess. Just at the moment when Mr. Mess #2 happened to walk in. Mr. Mess #2, a quick thinker, promptly hit Mr. Dealer over the head with a hammer. Not happy with that, he and Mr. Mess decided to finish Mr. Dealer off by shooting him up with Drano—a trick even the twisted twosome in Diabolique didn’t come up with. After Mr. Dealer died, the other two set to work chopping the body into pieces and throwing them into the river. “But I didn’t actually kill him,” Mr. More-of-a-Mess-Than-Ever has allegedly remarked (but he’s unavailable for comment).—M.M.
There was no reason to assume that it was Michael. But of course it was Michael. No one else in clubland would warrant the space. Even murder has its hierarchy. If Gitsie had killed someone, it’d be a five-hundred-word story about her arrest and then a three-hundred-word story about her conviction. It wouldn’t be gossip. Everything with Michael Alig was gossip.
Gitsie’d said Michael was staying at the Chelsea with Brooke. I went across town to the hotel. Entering the lobby, it came to me that I hadn’t been inside since Regina and I visited Christina. Another dead denizen of clubland. That was six or seven years earlier. It felt like twenty thousand. The steady pounding of time kept beating against me.
When I told the desk attendant that I wanted to see Brooke, he went slightly pale but then examined my wardrobe. I was dressed like any other respectable young professional. He gave me her room number. I took the elevator up to the third floor. I knocked.
I didn’t know Brooke very well. We’d only talked for a few minutes. I’m sure she knew me by sight and, I suspect, writerly reputation. Not that any of the club kids read my book. Only Michael and Franklin read books.
Brooke was a mountain of a girl. She regularly dyed her hair a rainbow spectrum of color. There were a ton of piercings in her face.
—Hi, Baby, she said.
—Is Michael here?
—No, she said.
—Can I come in?
—Okay, she said.
Other than a chair and a little table, Brooke had no furniture. Eight mattresses lined the floor, covered with piles of clothes and the unconscious bodies of two drugged-up kids. They couldn’t have been more than seventeen years old. Ashtrays were everywhere, overflowing with cigarette butts. A few black trash bags were wedged between the mattresses. It was like being back in David’s squat.
—Take a seat if you want, said Brooke.
I sat on the least disgusting mattress. It was like stabbing yourself with the dullest knife.
—What’s up, Baby?
—Did you see the Voice?
—I only just woke up.
—Michael Musto. There’s a piece about a certain someone killing a drug dealer and then chopping up his body. I got the distinct impression that the certain someone was Michael.
—Oh fuck, she said. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck Michael fucking Musto.
—Where’s Michael? I asked.
—I haven’t seen him for a few days. Fuck. Fuck. He’s staying with this guy he met at Future. Fuck.
—Did Michael do it?
—I don’t know. It’s Michael. Who knows if it’s true?
—Did he tell you that he did it?
—Yes.
—What are you going to do? I asked.
—I don’t want Michael to get in trouble. I’m not going to be the one who gets him in trouble. I’m not the only one who knows. Everyone knows. He’s told everyone, Baby. No one’s sure whether or not they believe him.
One of the kids stirred.
—But don’t worry, said Brooke. It’s not like he killed anyone that matters. It was only Angel.
—The drug dealer?
—If you can call him that.
I stood up.
—I’m going to try and find Michael, I said.
—Before you go, said Brooke, do you want to buy any coke?
MAY 1996
Baby and Parker Play Pool
Other articles followed. In daily tabloids that did not hesitate to name names. Michael was outed in the news media as a murderer. There was no police investigation.
As a victim, Angel offered multiple deficiencies. Brown skin, Hispanic last name, gay, drug dealer. These comprised a mathematical formula for official indifference. The NYPD didn’t care.
Michael split town, embarking on a gr
and journey through the American Middle West. Denver, Chicago, even back to South Bend. A drug-fueled odyssey in a rented van through the badlands. He brought Gitsie as his copilot.
Back in New York, I dealt with the inevitable chaos of forthcoming publication, obsessing over every little detail. There were arguments about the cover. There were arguments about copy editing. There were arguments about typefaces. There were arguments about blurb quotes. There were arguments about jacket copy.
For the nine thousandth time, I thanked heaven for the angelic cataclysm of Parker Brickley. He rallied to even the most minor concern, screaming and cursing until it felt as though he’d shatter every window in Midtown.
The official indifference didn’t extend to Peter Gatien. In the early morning hours of May 15th, the DEA raided his apartment. Gatien was indicted on two charges of conspiring to distribute MDMA in Tunnel and Limelight.
At the obligatory press conference, Zachary W. Carter, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern United States, remarked: —Dealing Ecstasy was not just lucrative, it was the centerpiece of the operation. These clubs existed to distribute these substances. The drugs were the honey trap that attracted these kids to the clubs.
Despite their owner’s incarceration, both clubs remained open.
I couldn’t be bothered checking out the scene. Disco 2000 run by Walt Paper while Michael Alig was in South Dakota. Peter Gatien rotting for two weeks in the Metropolitan Detention Center before making bail. It was the definition of threadbare.
A few days after Gatien’s arrest, A. J. Benza published an article in the Daily News. Entitled “The Curious Case of the Club-Land Canary,” it detailed the hammer affair between Michael and Angel, but with a very specific twist. Benza insinuated that Michael had turned informant against Gatien, and that Alig’s exodus wasn’t about escaping his own heat but rather that he’d been tipped off by the DEA about the coming raid. The idea turned out to be prescient.
