Black Neon

by Tony O'Neill

  If we can bring ourselves to flick to the last image contained in the aforementioned bestselling photo-essay “SICK CITY: THE LAST TESTAMENT OF JACQUES SELTZER” (Fantasmagraphique) we find an image of Seltzer laying there dead as a dodo, as naked as the day he came into this world except for that iconic eye-patch. The emperor truly has no clothes. Jacques Seltzer, a man who had once been compared to both Andy Warhol and Federico Fellini in the space of a single New York Times review (which says more about the idiocy of the critic making the statement than it does about any alleged talent that Seltzer actually possessed) is finally exposed for what he really is: a fat, dead moron whose heart conked out in a sleazy Hollywood motel room. Not a martyr, not a genius, nor any of the other ridiculous labels that have been thrust upon him since his squalid little death. He’s just another dead junkie, and not even a particularly talented one.

  What is BLACK NEON?

  A year after its release I think we can finally answer the fan boys’ question.

  First and foremost BLACK NEON is an unholy mess. It’s a collection of snapshots of drug addicts, transvestites, whores and drug dealers. Unlike, say, Diane Arbus who managed to infuse her subjects with a peculiar kind of beauty and pathos, here street life is presented as a spectacle to be gawked at, even as the line between the subject and the artist becomes blurred. Does BLACK NEON really mean – as Bono speculates in one monologue – “That twilight place where the darkness inside of Jacques Seltzer finally ignited with the eerie combustion of Creation”? After viewing this sleazy, disjointed mess most people are still none the wiser. In their naivety, they seize upon this lack of narrative coherence as a sign that the movie is somehow intellectually daring and simply operating on a level that our small minds cannot yet comprehend. My friends, the truth is hiding in plain sight. BLACK NEON is a suicide note, the last gasp of a man who knew he had been wildly overrated, a man who could never – with his meager abilities as a filmmaker – live up to the hype he had himself created. Instead of even trying he chose the easy route – an OD, an unfinished movie, and let the public fill in the blanks with their own fevered imaginations. “It’s better to burn out than fade away,” claimed Neil Young, and for Seltzer it was not just better, it was actually a necessity. If Seltzer hadn’t died trying to deliver this movie then there is no doubt that BLACK NEON would have been the cross his reputation was ultimately nailed to. Instead BLACK NEON remains the shadowy, elusive beast it has always been despite a successful theatrical run and huge sales on DVD and Blu-Ray. One critic has called it the cinematic equivalent of the legendary lost Beach Boys album, Smile. I call it bullshit. It’s this critic’s opinion that if Jacques had have delivered a finished movie, the best he could have been expected to come up with would have been Kokomo. And that’s being generous.

  No, BLACK NEON, despite the puzzling success it has achieved in these last twelve months, is a stinker. It is as vague and non-committal as its title, profoundly un-profound, about as deep and meaningful as a puddle of skid row piss. In other words, it’s the perfect homage to the dubious talent of Mr. Jacques Seltzer, one of the most overrated hacks in all the annals of cinema…

  *

  Randal shuffled slowly forward, moving inch-by-inch toward the customs desk. Weak and shaky, he had downed several whiskies on the plane in an effort to smooth over the insanity of his current situation. Now the combination of the tropical heat and all that booze made him feel unsteady. Sweat poured down his pallid face. Around him was a sea of pale, white flesh in Hawaiian shirts, flip-flops, khaki shorts and sun hats. Just ahead of him a group of blonde, corn-fed girls from somewhere in the Midwest squealed as a tiny crab scuttled past their feet, eventually disappearing underneath a vending machine. The line moved forwards. Randal wondered one more time exactly what in the hell had possessed him to get on that plane. His shirt was soaked through as the last of the meth worked its way out of his system. In his bag he had enough clothes to last him a couple of days at the most. He looked once more at the hastily scribbled address on the scrap of paper in his hand.

  Jesus Christ, he was out of his mind.

  He was supposed to have checked into a North Hollywood treatment centre called Cri Help this morning. Instead he allowed himself to be talked into this insane rendezvous. From the moment he ordered the cab driver to head to LAX instead of the rehab, Randal’s recollections of the day took on the woozy logic of a fever dream. Smiling at the girl at the booking desk as he handed over his credit card. Shooting the last of his 8-ball in an Applebee’s bathroom, dumping the syringe down the toilet bowl. Talking to a pretty brunette in some faceless airport bar, telling her his name was Tommy and that he was on his way to his brother’s funeral. Filing on the plane. The cold bolt of dread as he watched Los Angeles – splayed out before him, glittering and empty as a just-paid whore – submerging further and further beneath a sea of smog. It seemed it was only then that he fully comprehended the enormity of what he had done.

  Now, as he edged closer to the customs desk, he considered the possibility of turning around and begging someone from the airline to put him on the next plane back home. Maybe he could tell them that his mother was dying. Who in the hell could say no to a dying mother, for Chrissakes?

  “Next!”

  Randal looked up. While he had been standing there debating whether or not to turn around, he had somehow worked his way up to the head of the line. He walked up to the customs agent – a pretty but stern-looking young woman – and handed over his passport.

  He smiled nervously as the agent swiped the passport and then proceeded to tap disinterestedly on her computer for a while. An insane notion gripped him. The computer would tell her that he was on the lam – from his family, from drug treatment, from life itself – and he would be carried out of here in chains. He was about to break down and beg her not to have him arrested when she looked up to Randal and asked, “Where will you be staying while you are in the country?”

  “Uh… I’m staying with a friend of mine. In…” he peered at the scrap of paper again, “Montpelier?”

  The girl looked him up and down and then nodded. She smiled, revealing a row of bright, white teeth with a prominent gap in the middle. She stamped his passport, and then handed it back to Randal.

  “Welcome to Jamaica,” she said.

  *

  The cab ride took around twenty minutes. He had followed Jeffrey’s advice, and avoided the van drivers who congregated around the main entrance of Sangster International airport eager to hustle the tourists over to their all-inclusive enclosures for inflated prices. Instead he walked out to the car park, where he found an idling taxi. The car was old, beaten up. The driver was skinny and weather-beaten, eyeing Randal up and down before gesturing for him to get in the backseat. The driver stopped along the way several times to pick up more passengers and by the time Randal had made it to his destination he was sandwiched in between an old Rastafarian who was singing along to the radio in a sweet, high voice and two teenage schoolgirls in their uniforms. In the front seat was their mother, an enormous woman with a braying laugh, and everybody talked among themselves in an impenetrable patois while Randal drifted in and out of consciousness.

  “We’re here, man! Wake up!”

  Randal jerked awake. The car was empty now. Randal handed the guy a ten and stumbled out onto the roadside without waiting for change. He was on what looked like an unfinished two-lane highway. On the opposite side of the road were lush, green hills that rose up toward the sky until they were totally engulfed by a low ceiling of mist. On Randal’s side was the Caribbean Sea, perfect, blue and sparkling. It was late afternoon, and the humid air was cooled slightly by a breeze that blew in from the water. He was standing outside a wooden shack with a hand-painted sign that read Jerrell’s Place. Music drifted out from the bar, the clinking of glasses, laughter. Outside the shack a child who looked no more than ten or eleven years old was cutting up mangoes with a mach
ete. He walked in.

  It was easy to spot Jeffrey. For a start he was the only other white person in the place. He was dressed in head-to-foot black. All eyes turned to Randal as he walked into the shack. Jeffrey was sitting at the bar, tossing back a drink. When he noticed Randal he waved him over. The locals went back to their conversations.

  Randal took the seat next to Jeffrey. The far side of the bar was completely open, so you could step out onto the white sand if you wanted. Beyond that was the pure blue of the Caribbean sea.

  “So you made it, man…” Jeffrey grinned, “I thought maybe you mighta changed your mind.”

  “Me too.”

  The barman, a tall, old guy wearing a neon green vest with a head full of grey dreadlocks came over and filled Jeffrey’s glass again. “Same for my friend,” Jeffrey said, and the barkeep lined up another shot glass full to the brim with a clear liquid.

  “How you feeling?”

  “Edgy as hell. Did my last hit right before I got on the plane.”

  Jeffrey nodded. “You’ll be fine. Have a drink, this shit’ll blow the cobwebs out.”

  “What is it?”

  “John Crow batty. It’s a kind of local moonshine. Come on. We’re celebrating.”

  They clanked their glasses, and tossed back the shots. Randal nearly choked. The burning, fuel-like substance made him break out into a cold sweat. “Holy fuck,” he croaked, “That shit is disgusting!”

  Jeffrey grinned. “You get used it. You know I kicked my dope habit with nothing but a bottle of this shit and an ounce of weed? It was weird. I was expecting the worst cold turkey of my fucking life, but being out here… knowing that I couldn’t get it, even if I wanted it… it made it seem more manageable, you know? After the third day, I was on my feet. Stayed drunk for about two weeks after that. Now…” Jeffrey looked out to the sea. The surface of the water was still except for the shimmering reflection of the sun. “Now, the very idea of going back on it just seems alien.”

  “You’re telling me you’re clean? Really clean?”

  “Clean as I’ve ever been. I haven’t touched dope in six months. Nothing stronger than rum or weed for me, and I gotta tell you…. I never felt better.”

  Randal looked his old friend up and down. It was true; he looked almost like a different person from the ghoul he had last seen shambling away from him in Koreatown. He was still pale – positively ghostly for someone who had spent the past six months in the Caribbean – but nothing like the translucent white of the old Jeffrey. His face had filled out a little, his hair was clean, and his cheeks were no longer covered in angry-looking sores. The biggest change of all, however, was in his eyes. Randal noticed, for what felt like the first time, that Jeffrey’s eyes were green. They’d always seemed a lifeless, jaundiced yellow before. Now they sparkled as he spoke, burning with the intensity of the newly born.

  “You’re singing a different tune. Last time I saw you, you told me that you’d made your decision. You were gonna stay on using until you croaked.”

  “That’s not what I said. I seem to remember saying something about… barring a message from God himself this was my life. Well, surprise sur-fuckin-prise; old God came through for me. I got a message from him all right, clear as day.”

  “Oh yeah? Go on...”

  “It started off with Rachel. You remember this from the last time we spoke, right? Rachel had OD’d and I’d split? I left her there at the hospital when the pigs showed up?”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Well, I told you I had a feeling that Rachel was in trouble. After I saw you the last time, she dropped off the face of the earth altogether. I didn’t hear boo from her for months. All of a sudden I get a call from a number I don’t recognize. It’s her. Turns out she’s still alive and I was right – the cops busted her that night. Right there on an emergency room stretcher.”

  “You gotta love the LAPD…” Randal shook his head. “What they pinch her for?”

  “Possession. She told me they planted a balloon of dope on her, the fuckin’ assholes. It was the end of the month, you know? I guess they were trying to make their quotas. Anyway, it gets better. When she got downtown, they put her in isolation… away from the general population. I guess they were worried about some asshole queer-bashing her, you know? She was locked up in a cell with this other crazy transsexual chick that was being held over an outstanding warrant. Turns out this chick was a member of this fuckin’ church, The United Church of the Forbidden Gospels of Our Lord Christ.”

  “No shit? I heard of that outfit! They’re, um, a breakaway evangelical sect who minister to transsexuals, right? They’re run by that fruitcake… shit…. Sister Ruth, right?”

  “Yeah, Sister Ruth Magdalene! That’s them. You actually heard of them?”

  “Only bits and pieces. I read an article on them in the Weekly.”

  “Well, apparently Sister Ruth usedta be a big hit on the drag circuit, performed under the name Miss Kunty Kinte for years. Then, so the story goes, Jesus came to her in a vision and had her transcribe some gospels that she claims were written out of the bible over the years by unbelievers and bigots. When she came to there were all these new gospels all written out while she was in a trace, or whatever. She’s been running that church ever since. Supposedly she believes that Mary Magdalene was actually a tranny, and that transsexuals and cross dressers are especially blessed in the eyes of the lord, and blah blah blah. The regular church has denounced them as quacks, but apparently they’re one of the fastest growing evangelical sects in California, ya know?”

  The barman came and re-filled their glasses. Randal tossed back another. “You know something, you’re right. This shit does get better the more you drink…”

  “Told you. Anyway, fuckin’ Rachel swallowed that bullshit hook line and sinker. The chick she was locked up with hooked her up with a lawyer on church funds, she made bail, and the next thing you know she’s out in Reseda running around in some damn commune with this bunch of nut jobs, calling herself Sister Naomi and telling me that she can’t see me unless I quit dope and accept Jesus Christ as my savior.”

  “So she got clean, huh?”

  “Uh-huh. Kicked cold turkey in the cell. This fucking cellmate supposedly laid hands on her or some fuckin’ mumbo-jumbo, and Rachel claims that the withdrawals just faded away like magic. A miracle, she says.” Jeffrey laughed, sadly. “That’s the fucking thing man, I loved the shit outta Rachel but she was always as gullible as hell. I had to keep her from joining the fuckin’ Scientologists after she did a personality test with them one time. So now this bunch of drag queen evangelists got her head all twisted. She was quoting the fucking gospels to me over the phone, man! The only thing I ever saw Rachel read in the whole time we were together was that fucking O Magazine. She useta steal it from the all night newsstand on Cahuenga. All of a sudden the bitch sounded like fuckin’ Joyce Meyer on crack.”

  “So wait. You’re gonna tell me that she converted you or something? Where does God come into this?”

  “I’m getting to that part. Obviously I wasn’t gonna start praising Jesus with the rest of the nutcases so Rachel and I had to go our separate ways. Now Rachel was gone, and I was broke. Things got right down to the wire around seven months ago. I was at the methadone clinic. I’d spent my last ten bucks on my dose and I’m figuring out what the hell I’m gonna do now. I had, like, a day left paid up on my room. I go back there and the guy at the front desk tells me I got mail. Now this was weird. I’d been at the Gilbert for the best part of a year and I never got mail there. Figure maybe it’s a mistake, but there’s my name on the fucking envelope. I almost threw it away, figured it had to be a court summons or some shit. I open it anyway, you know what’s inside?”

  “What?”

  “A check. For thirty thousand dollars. You wanna talk about miracles? That was God, right there.”

  Th
ey sat in silence for a moment. “God sent you a check?” Randal asked, incredulously.

  “Nah. Gibby sent the check. It was all about that contract you had written up to protect me. Apparently they used a ton of footage of me in some dopey documentary that came out, and I was featured on the cover of this photo book they did. That shit’s been selling like hot cakes, and ever since then I’ve been getting paid to do nothing. You ain’t been in touch with Gibby recently? You really didn’t know any of this?”

  Randal shook his head. “I relapsed. Went out big time. He might have tried to call me once or twice the past few months, but you know how it is when you’re using. I didn’t wanna deal with the outside world, you know?”

  Jeffrey nodded. “Well, when the money started coming in, that’s when I decided that I needed to change things around. I mean, I could have stayed in LA for sure and put every dollar into my arm. But… I dunno. Something… some voice inside of me told me ‘no’. I looked at the map, picked out a place, and just…. went. Before I split I hired an accountant Gibby put me in touch with, and he takes care of shit for me. Every quarter he sends me a statement. It’s unbelievable.”