“I don’t know if he made advances toward Ricky one night or something,” Richard Schock recalls, “but somebody told me that they kind of broke up after that.”
Whatever the case might have been, Ricky and Pat’s friendship ended with a violent confrontation one June afternoon on Bayview Avenue, near Northport Village Park, now called “the Old Park.” While no one heard the words exchanged between the two, several people saw the punches thrown when Ricky knocked Pagan Pat to the ground. As a small group of stoned teenagers quickly approached the commotion, Ricky looked at the silver pentagram around Pat’s neck. Clutching the necklace in his hand, Ricky yanked it off and fled, leaving a bloody pulp behind. As Pat writhed on the ground, bleeding profusely from his face, the teenagers descended upon him, giggling wildly. High on LSD, they began shouting, “HALF-FACE!” convinced his injuries were a ghoulishly hilarious hallucination.
Once Pat pulled himself up off the ground, he hobbled over to the Northport Village Police Station to report the mugging. He told the officers about his pentagram necklace and some cash being stolen and how his face was pummeled until it bled. It is currently unknown if Pat told the police who was behind the assault and theft, but considering Ricky—an ever-present character downtown—was never arrested and charged with what he had done, it’s likely Pat never did. After all, even if the cops did bust him, it wasn’t like Ricky would be going away for life. He would have gotten a slap on the wrist and been back on the streets in no time.
In any case, Pagan Pat was never seen with the Acid King again.
* * *
Ricky’s friends were finally becoming concerned for his well-being. It was easy to write off his earlier hijinks by blaming them on the drugs or acting out for attention. His pals even dismissed the grave-digging episode—Randy Guethler had done worse and no one seemed to mind. But now there was a darkness surrounding Ricky that made people uncomfortable. A rage that had been building for years was finally seeping out, and no one knew how to help him control it. Some of his friends wondered if something truly sinister had happened between Ricky and Pagan Pat, or worse—at home. Like many teenagers do, Ricky’s friends whispered gossip behind his back, but most neglected to offer him any real assistance or advice, simply ignoring his behavior and hoping it would go away. Others gave up without even trying, assuming he was already too far gone.
One day Ricky showed up to the New Park wielding a baseball bat and began striking the roundhouse’s support posts—while his friends sat inside.
“I wanna kill someone . . . ,” he muttered in between each vicious swing. “I wanna fucking kill somebody. . . .”
Ellie Love, who was sitting in the roundhouse, yelled, “Ricky! You’re too close to us! You’re gonna hurt us!”
Suddenly a switch seemed to flip inside Ricky’s mind. He lowered the bat, turned to Ellie, and said, “I would never, ever hurt you.”
“He was walking around town like that for at least a week,” Ellie recalls. “Just murmuring with his shoulders hunched. We just thought it was the drugs speaking, not him. He was emaciated and looked like a zombie. Ricky was a walking drug by that point. . . .”
Ellie had good reason to believe her friend looked like a zombie. In the last month, he had lost nearly forty pounds, almost certainly the result of sleeping in the woods and going without eating for long stretches of time. Most of Ricky’s drug profits were going toward buying more stock for business and personal use. Spending nearly every hour of every day high on either LSD or angel dust, Ricky found little desire or opportunity to eat a decent meal.
One weekend when Dick and Lynn were out of town, Ricky called home to see if Wendy would let him in to take a shower. She told him the coast was clear and that he could walk over. After Ricky took a long, hot shower, he went downstairs to the basement playroom to grab a few things that might make living in the woods a little easier. He didn’t see much in the way of camping or survival equipment, but he did find an old red-checkered tablecloth that looked to be of some use. The tablecloth was made from durable vinyl, and Ricky figured if he draped it over a lean-to made from a few wooden shipping pallets he had up there, it would keep most of the rain out. Many years earlier his mother had laid it out on the kitchen table for his childhood birthday parties. Now this old tablecloth would be the only barrier between him and the elements as he slept on the wet dirt of Aztakea Woods. He put it under his arm and walked back upstairs.
There, Wendy was waiting for him in the living room. As Ricky went to leave, she stopped him and held out a few dollar bills—the only money she had to her name at eleven years old.
“Here,” she said. “In case you need it.”
This was the first time in a long while that someone in his family had done something for him out of love, instead of obligation.
“I . . .” Ricky struggled to find the words. “I can’t take your money, Wendy.”
He gave his sister a hug and, like so many times before, left his parents’ home facing an uncertain future.
Chapter 27
MATTHEW CARPENTER HAD BEEN AWAY for a long time. His parents had pulled him out of Northport High School three years earlier, when his drinking and drug use had gotten out of hand, and enrolled him in a private boarding school. By eleventh grade, however, Matthew’s behavior had not improved, and he was expelled. Luckily, his mother convinced Northport High to take him back, but wanted him out of the house as often as possible during the summer. She was going through difficult times of her own, having recently divorced her husband, and didn’t want to deal with Matthew’s problems. After leaving her home and moving into a rented house on Bayview Avenue, Matthew’s mother asked him to go out and find a summer job.
Walking down Main Street, Matthew saw a familiar face staring into the window of Village Books—Ricky Kasso. As Matthew headed over to say hi, he noticed Ricky making a series of bizarre faces and gestures at his own reflection in the glass.
“What are you doing, Ricky?” Matthew asked with a laugh. “What are you on?”
“Drugs,” he replied.
“By then, Ricky would only say ‘drugs’ if you asked him what he was on,” Matthew recalls. “He would never be specific. I hadn’t seen him since junior high school, but the first thing I noticed that day was that he and I were both dressed very similarly. Ricky was wearing a black leather jacket, a concert T-shirt, a pentagram necklace, black jeans, and biker boots.”
The two stood outside Village Books catching up. Despite his issues at home, Matthew was in a jovial mood. It was a beautiful day, and he was enchanted by the vivid shades of green foliage swaying in the gentle June wind. He was also happy to run into his old buddy downtown. Ricky, however, seemed sullen and forlorn.
“So, where are you headed?” Matthew asked, trying to keep the conversation light.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Ricky replied. “I don’t really have anywhere to go. My parents kicked me out.”
Matthew pitied his childhood friend. Granted, he didn’t have much to offer Ricky, other than a couch to sleep on inside his tiny bedroom—but it was better than sleeping on the street.
“Hey,” Matthew said, “why don’t you come hang out with me?”
Back at the rented house on Bayview Avenue, Matthew showed Ricky the outside door that led straight to his room and pointed to the red velour couch he could use as a bed. The couch wasn’t very long, which was problematic for Ricky, but he figured he could always stretch out on Matthew’s black linoleum floor if he got too uncomfortable. Ricky took off his leather jacket and asked if he could take a bath.
“Sure,” Matthew replied. “No problem. Go ahead.”
While he cleaned up, Matthew took Ricky’s clothes and put them in the wash. The dirt stains on his jeans made it obvious that his friend had been sleeping in the woods. Once Ricky’s shirt and jeans were dry, Matthew handed them back to Ricky, who gave him his wet towel in return. The two didn’t know it yet, but Ricky had just given Matthew scabies.
La
ter that night, Ricky crashed on the couch, using his leather jacket as a blanket, as Matthew didn’t have a spare. Ricky figured he would just sneak back into his parents’ house and grab one, along with a few of his things, sometime later that week. Unfortunately for him, he was about to discover that he had very few possessions left in the world. While hanging out with a girlfriend, Ricky received word that his parents were having a spring cleaning yard sale and several of his belongings were being sold. Ricky quickly rushed to a phone and called his parents. His mother picked up.
“Did you have a garage sale?” Ricky asked.
“Yes,” Lynn replied.
“What did you sell?”
“Your stuff.”
Ricky couldn’t believe his ears. Sure, his parents had been kicking him out for the last three years, but they always eventually let him back in. Even when he was sleeping in the basement, Dick and Lynn usually left his things alone. Now they were trying to erase any hint of his former presence. To add insult to injury, they were now profiting from his absence.
“Did you sell all of it?” Ricky finally got up the nerve to ask.
“Not all of it,” Lynn replied.
“Can I come over and get it?” he asked.
“It’ll be waiting outside,” Lynn said coldly before hanging up.
Soon after, Ricky arrived, gathered his things from the front lawn, and returned to Matthew’s house. For the next two weeks, the boys spent nearly every day together, usually smoking weed and discussing music. Sometimes Ricky would talk about the problems he had with his parents. He told Matthew about the ketchup incident, his clothes being thrown out on the lawn, and his time in South Oaks. When Satan would come up in conversation, Matthew would openly wonder why Ricky had developed such a dark interest while he was away.
“Why would you knowingly choose evil over good?” Matthew asked
“To gain power,” Ricky replied. “Drugs make me feel closer to evil. They give these . . . abilities.”
“What kind of abilities, Ricky?” Matthew asked.
Ricky thought for a moment.
“When I’m on them,” he replied, “I can see evil. . . .”
Matthew didn’t press the issue any further. He didn’t mind Ricky’s ramblings about the devil too much. When the topic came up, Ricky never tried to “convert” him, and Matthew paid Ricky the same respect by not trying to sell him on Christ. Ricky’s habit of giving Matthew free drugs in gratitude for a place to sleep also helped his friend look the other way.
Jimmy Troiano and Albert Quinones didn’t mind either. The two would sometimes show up to Matthew’s house, ready to party. The teens were afforded a relative amount of privacy due to Matthew’s mother’s work schedule, and they often sat in the bedroom, smoking pot and blasting Black Sabbath.
One night the group invited a few girls back to Matthew’s house. One of them, a friend named Tina, entertained everyone by repeatedly claiming she could conjure the spirits of dead people. While Tina carried on about her supposed supernatural abilities, a ceramic coffee cup used as a makeshift ashtray began to emit smoke. A small flame soon rose from the mug; the result of too many cigarette butts being placed inside.
“Aha!” someone cried out. “Satan is here! Welcome! Welcome!”
Everyone laughed at the joke, put out the fire, and resumed drinking.
None of the kids sitting on Matthew Carpenter’s front porch that night could have had any clue that “Satan” wouldn’t be a laughing matter for long.
Chapter 28
BY THE TIME THE THIRD week of June 1984 rolled around, Ricky Kasso still hadn’t let go of his grudge against Gary Lauwers—despite having already made his money back, plus extra, thanks to Mrs. Lauwers. All that mattered was that Gary still owed him twenty dollars. One of the few times Gary dared to show his face downtown, Ricky quickly found him and beat the boy to the ground.
Johnny Hayward was nearby, and while he saw Ricky’s point, he couldn’t stand watching his best friend getting hurt.
“Hey!” Johnny shouted as he pulled Ricky off Gary. “Don’t ever touch Gary in front of me or I’ll stomp your ass! He deserves to get his ass whipped because he ripped you off, but I ain’t gonna let you do it in front of me.”
“All right, man,” Ricky replied. “I can respect that.”
Ricky left Gary with a reminder to pay up and walked away.
Later that night Gary and Johnny pulled Midnight Auto again, stealing a handful of car stereos. Johnny left the haul with Gary, who planned to sell them to one of his connections, and said he would be back for his share of the money in a few days. Gary quickly sold the stereos, but instead of setting Johnny’s cut of the cash aside, he spent all of it.
On Sunday, June 17, Johnny caught up with Gary at the Phase II pizzeria on Main Street. When he asked for his cut of the money, Gary told him it was gone. Johnny was at a loss for words. First, Gary had been stupid enough to steal from Ricky, but now he was stealing from his own best friend? The two teenage thieves had always lived by an unspoken code: You steal from people you do not know or from companies that can afford it; you do not steal from your family. Gary had already broken that rule with Ricky, and now he was breaking it with him. The feelings of utter disappointment and frustration festering inside Johnny quickly reached a boiling point. He lashed out and punched Gary hard, throwing him against one of Phase II’s arcade games.
“Fuck you, you prick!” he screamed. “You stole from me!”
Before Gary could reply, Johnny stormed out of the pizzeria.
The two best friends would never see each other again.
Down the street, Ricky Kasso stood at a pay phone, high on angel dust. Over the past few hours, he had called home three times. During each call, he repeated the same sentence in a groggy, slurred voice: “You know, you got to go to court with me tomorrow. . . .”
The fourth time that Ricky called, Lynn answered.
“Ricky, are you all right?” she asked. “Are you high or something?”
“No, no,” he lied. “I’m straight. Just really tired.”
Ricky hung up and walked to the rear of the Midway, where he fell asleep against a bag of trash. Early the next morning, he made the mile-long walk to the Kasso home, arriving around seven thirty. When Lynn opened the front door, she was horrified by what she saw. Her son was shockingly underweight, his hair was greasy, and his clothes were full of holes. Lynn hollered for Wendy, asking her to grab some shampoo. Wendy ran to the upstairs bathroom, grabbed a bottle of Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific, and gave it to her brother, who quickly washed his hair in the sink. Once he was somewhat presentable, Ricky hopped into the back seat of his father’s Corvette and slept the whole way to the courthouse.
“I’m surprised my dad let anyone ride in that car,” Wendy Kasso says. “I rode in it once and he screamed at me for rolling my window down. It was a ’77. He just came home with it one day. He never discussed it with my mom. She was pissed. We couldn’t afford it and he knew it.”
Ricky’s court appearance was brief. Despite his confession to Detective Varley and his appearance on Inside Newsday, Ricky pleaded not guilty and the judge referred him to legal aid. A subsequent court date was set, and Ricky was permitted to leave. On the way back to Northport, Ricky asked Dick to drop him off at the Midway. When they pulled up to the head shop, Ricky checked his pockets and realized he was broke.
“Can I have a quarter?” Ricky asked.
“No,” Dick replied.
“I just want a quarter so I can get a bagel from the deli,” Ricky insisted. “I haven’t eaten in three days, Dad.”
“No.”
Ricky was furious and desperate. The two began screaming at each other while Ricky’s friends stood in front of the Midway, watching intently. Finally Ricky stormed out of the car and kicked the door, much to the chagrin of Dick, who sped off in a cloud of exhaust. Twenty minutes later Dick returned, rolled down his window, and motioned Ricky over to the car. He threw two dollars at
him and said, “Don’t call me. Don’t come to the house. Don’t ask for anything. Don’t talk to your mother or your sisters ever again. Just leave me alone—I never want to see you again.”
Ricky bent down to collect the dollar bills from the ground as his father pulled away.
“What was that all about?” a friend asked.
“Nothing,” a humiliated Ricky replied. “Asshole just wants me out of his life.”
Ricky tried to shrug off the ordeal and headed inside the deli next door to the Midway to buy his bagel. Later he walked down the side of 25A with his thumb out, trying to hitch a ride to Kings Park. There, he planned to meet Jimmy and score some microdots and dust to sell. Ironically, the one car that pulled over was driven by none other than Tony Ruggi from the Place. Just like Lynn Kasso, Ruggi was shaken by Ricky’s appearance as he got into the car. Aside from his dramatic weight loss, Ricky also smelled horrible and looked gravely ill.
“Ricky,” Ruggi said, “you really should stop by the agency this week. Suzi and I can help you work on a plan to get your life back on track.”
“I would,” Ricky mumbled, “but I’m too busy now. . . .”
“What’s wrong?” Ruggi asked.
“My parents kicked me out again,” Ricky replied. “I’ve been staying with Jimmy in a station wagon in Kings Park. Do you know Jimmy?”
“Yeah, I know Jimmy,” Ruggi replied. “I feel sorry for him. He’s had problems all his life.”
Ruggi paused.
“You know,” he finally said, “I heard about you getting picked up for grave robbing.”
“Don’t believe everything you read,” Ricky snapped back. “That was Randy, not me. He was trying to get back at me for shit. He’s such a waste. He shouldn’t even be alive.”
“Ricky, you’re talking nonsense,” Ruggi replied. “Besides, what about that interview you gave in front of the Midway?”
“It was fun!” Ricky boasted. “I was a star! They wanted to hear some of those things, anyway!”
The Acid King Page 13
