The Acid King

by Jesse P. Pollack

  “You wanna go up to the scene of the murder later?” he asked, strapping on his guitar.

  “Yeah, sure,” Breskin replied.

  “Don’t go up there,” Brian snapped. “There’s nothing there. It’s just the woods.”

  Brian was tired of all the people gleefully wandering into Aztakea to gawk at the spot where Gary was murdered, like it was some cheap sideshow attraction. Breskin quickly changed the subject to avoid confrontation.

  “How did you get involved in this?” he asked.

  “I just had the idea because Gary was a friend of mine,” Brian replied. “I’m just sorry that it took this for us to realize that this stuff shouldn’t be here. I just came across the idea, told Tom Sullivan about it, and we started organizing a committee to get rid of it all. I’ve been down here for almost three hours now.”

  Brian turned to Glen, pointing his sanding block in his friend’s direction.

  “This man right here is very smart,” he continued. “He brought a sign to the Northport Firemen’s Fair saying ‘Demolish Satanism in Northport.’ He stood right in front of the gate all night long. I heard a cop patted you on the back?”

  “Yeah,” Glen scoffed, rolling his eyes. “The same one who gave me a ticket for walking in the road instead of the sidewalk a few years ago.”

  “How do you feel about what happened to Gary?” Breskin asked.

  “I’m sorry that it had to happen,” Brian replied, “because Gary was a good friend of mine.”

  Suddenly Glen Wolf, his friend Karl Blessing, and a few other kids convened inside the gazebo, pulled out their guitars, and began to strum. Breskin walked over as they all started to sing Simon & Garfunkel’s “He Was My Brother” for Gary. Breskin hung around a little while longer as the impromptu band started playing the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” followed by Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” When the group was finished, Breskin overheard Mercedes McGrory tell a friend that she needed to get back to the YDA. He told her that he would give her a ride back, as he wanted to talk to Dennis McBee some more. As the two were leaving, Breskin told Glen he would meet him back downtown later in the afternoon.

  Back at the YDA, Breskin struck up a conversation with Gary’s friend Anthony Zenkus, who also volunteered for the organization as a youth worker. Anthony gave Breskin his honest appraisal of the alleged occult aspects of the murder. The writer wanted to hear more, so he invited Anthony to join him for dinner over at the pizza place next door.

  After grabbing a few slices and drinks, the two sat at a table inside the tiny restaurant and resumed their conversation.

  “A few people I know showed me The Satanic Bible,” Anthony told Breskin, “and from what I read, it’s basically a modernistic appraisal of man, saying man is the highest creature, and you have to love yourself more than anything and screw everybody else to get ahead.”

  “Sounds like capitalism to me,” Breskin replied.

  “It is,” Anthony agreed. “Dennis said it’s a celebration of capitalism. I was looking at it a week ago, and it denounces any kind of animal or ritual sacrifice. It says, ‘That’s not what we’re about. We’re about getting ahead in life.’ ”

  “So, you’re telling me Satanism is Horatio Alger warmed over?” Breskin asked.

  “No,” Anthony replied. “All Anton LaVey is about is making money. I’m sure there really are sick cults out there, though. Listen to Joel Martin on WBAB. He interviews Long Island necrophiliacs and Long Island vampires. I think there’s a power trip in Satanism. It’s got a set way to say, ‘Hey—now you’re powerful. Now you can strike back at the people who screwed you over.’ There’s a lot of lost people everywhere. It’s something to believe in.”

  “You’re a very sophisticated person,” Breskin said, still surprised by Anthony’s intelligence for his age.

  “As I sit here eating pizza with my hands,” Anthony laughed. “Now, I see where the media is coming from because it’s not every day where someone is killed in this way, where the eyes are gouged out. They mutilated the body.”

  “You wanna know why they’re hooked on the ‘Satan’ thing?” Breskin asked. “They need an explanation. Anything this bizarre, this strange, and this crazy, needs an explanation. Every suicide of a young person needs an explanation. Drugs, family—whatever.”

  “I mean, it’s displacement,” Anthony replied. “These kids live here, and they live on the streets or other people’s houses. They’re just pushed aside.”

  “Is Northport unusual in that regard?” Breskin asked. “Are there street people in, say, Scarsdale? When I was growing up in a suburb a lot like this, there were no street kids.”

  “I’m telling you, these people are everywhere,” Anthony insisted. “These people weren’t terrorists. I mean, if you walked by, they’d say hi to you. It’s not like the Knights of the Black Circle are riding around on motorcycles, shooting up people’s windows. Things like that just don’t happen. If you read The Satanic Bible, it has a lot to say about power and wealth—things these people don’t have. I hate to be analytical, but it seems like Satanism is a way to realize stuff they don’t have. They’re being just like their parents. It’s so capitalistic.”

  “What else have you heard about Ricky?” Breskin asked.

  “This is secondhand information,” Anthony replied, “but someone I know said the cops supposedly told Kasso he was going to die anyway, so he might as well kill himself.”

  “I don’t believe in capital punishment,” Breskin said, “so I don’t think he deserved to die, but you can’t do something much worse than what he did. I mean, on that level, who gives a shit what drugs he took beforehand? He’s still responsible for the action of taking those drugs.”

  “I agree,” Zenkus said.

  “All the people who have talked to me have been very open like you,” Breskin said, “but no one wants to tell me who was in the Knights. People say the Knights don’t even really exist, yet no one wants me to find them.”

  “The Knights of the Black Circle had nothing to do with this,” Anthony insisted. “Ricky was too clicked out—even for them.”

  “But in an existential way,” Breskin replied, “everybody is responsible. Everyone saw what the kid was doing.”

  “In a way,” Anthony said. “Especially since he robbed a grave. The papers called it ‘Satanism.’ That’s not Satanism. A true Satanist doesn’t rob graves or sacrifice animals. I just thought it was some freaked-out kid and then this happens. He should have been checked out.”

  “He was checked out,” Breskin told him. “The psychologist said he was just ‘antisocial.’ ”

  Anthony shook his head at the suggestion.

  “ ‘Antisocial’ means sitting in a corner at a party,” he insisted. “ ‘Sociopathic’ is robbing graves. There’s a difference.”

  Breskin took a sip of his drink.

  “Well, I want to talk to those psychiatrists,” he said. “That’s the tangent of the story that I’m interested in.”

  “It’s a good tangent,” Anthony replied. “I’m just worried that this is going to be a really negative thing for kids here. They’ve had enough unnecessary tragedy. Their friends have been killed in motorcycle accidents or died of cystic fibrosis. This kid Robbie Clayton got killed at a party last year, and now all this stuff. It’s all just unnecessary. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m really scared. . . .”

  * * *

  After Breskin finished interviewing Zenkus, he went out and bought a copy of The Satanic Bible. Sitting on the bed in his rented room, Breskin flipped through the book until he came upon a chapter entitled “On the Choice of a Human Sacrifice.” In this chapter, LaVey describes a “symbolic” sacrifice by writing that “the victim is destroyed through the working of a hex or curse, which in turn leads to the physical, mental or emotional destruction of the ‘sacrifice’ in ways and means not attributable to the magician,” adding, “The only time a Satanist would perform a human sacrifice
would be if it were to serve a two-fold purpose; that being to release the magician’s wrath in the throwing of a curse, and more important, to dispose of a totally obnoxious and deserving individual.”

  Ricky made sure to end his confession by saying Gary “got what he deserved.” Breskin wondered if this could have been a reference to the passage on page eighty-eight of The Satanic Bible. He quickly jotted down this quote in his notebook and kept reading.

  On the very next page, Breskin took note of LaVey writing, “The question arises, ‘Who, then, would be considered a fit and proper human sacrifice, and how is one qualified to pass judgment on such a person?’ The answer is brutally simple. Anyone who has unjustly wronged you—one who has ‘gone out of his way’ to hurt you—to deliberately cause trouble and hardship for you or those dear to you. In short, a person asking to be cursed by their very actions.”

  Ricky certainly felt that Gary had wronged him. After all, he was living on the streets with very little to his name. The only money coming his way was through drug dealing, and Gary had stolen most of his stock. It wasn’t just a matter of getting high at that point; it was about having the money to survive while virtually homeless. Did that excuse what Ricky had done? Of course not, but Breskin began to wonder if these writings had indeed influenced Ricky, or, at the very least, justified the murder in his own PCP-fueled mind.

  Chapter 41

  THE RAIN STARTED AS GARY’S second visitation at the Nolan & Taylor-Howe Funeral Home began. Dozens of teenagers slowly filed inside the large brick house on Laurel Avenue, tossing their cigarettes aside. Johnny Hayward was there. So was Lion, along with Dorothy, Glen Wolf, Tom Sullivan, and countless others who knew and loved Gary in life.

  Another teenager who shuffled in to pay his respects was Matthew Carpenter. When he and his girlfriend Carol had returned to Northport a few days earlier, they found reporters literally sitting in trees, trying to take as many photos of the New Park as possible. Some were from London, while others had flown in from as far as Japan. He couldn’t believe the attention this story was getting. When he picked up a copy of Newsday, he saw why. The newspapers had been labeling Ricky a Satanic cult leader for nearly a week, calling Gary’s murder a “ritual sacrifice.” Before leaving for the funeral home, Matthew smoked a joint and tucked the article in his pocket.

  Walking inside the funeral home, he navigated through the maze of mourners, past Gary’s casket, which was adorned with a photo of the murdered boy, and walked up to Herbert and Yvonne Lauwers.

  “You know this wasn’t Satanism, right?” he said, pulling the article from his pocket. “This was just drugs.”

  Before Herbert or Yvonne could reply, one of Gary’s friends walked up, gently placed his hands on Matthew’s shoulders, and said, “You should go.”

  Matthew left, completely embarrassed by what he had done.

  After the viewing ended, everyone walked outside for cigarettes and conversation. David Breskin was sitting there waiting. The wake was a private affair, and he didn’t want to wear out his welcome on his first day by intruding inside. He quickly found Glen Wolf and they began to chat, mostly about the controversy surrounding the Knights of the Black Circle. Breskin was soon introduced to Mike Drogos, a friend of Gary’s, and more importantly, a friend of the Knights. Drogos found Breskin easy to speak with, unlike the other reporters who had stormed the village.

  “The papers are mostly wrong,” Drogos told him. “There’s only a couple people into Satanism. There’s no gathering, no chanting, none of that shit.”

  Drogos turned to his friend Lion.

  “Where’s Johnny?” he asked.

  “He went inside to get his jacket,” Lion replied, pointing to the funeral parlor.

  “I need to give this guy his number,” Drogos told him. “He’s where it’s at. He ain’t no fucking newsman. He’s from the Stone, man.”

  “Rolling Stone?” Lion asked.

  “Yeah,” Breskin answered.

  Lion walked over.

  “What do you want to know, man?” he asked.

  “I want to know the truth about the whole story and not just the bullshit I read in the Post or the Daily News,” Breskin replied. “They’ll spend a day or two on it. I’ll probably spend a month or two on it.”

  As Breskin was reassuring Lion, Johnny Hayward, Dorothy, and Tom Sullivan emerged from the funeral home. Still shaken from Gary’s murder, Johnny was a brooding shell of a devastated young man.

  “Johnny, come here!” Lion hollered. “This guy is from Rolling Stone. He wants the truth, man.”

  The boy approached Breskin.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  Breskin could see the hurt in Johnny’s eyes and cut to the chase.

  “I’m trying to find out the whole story,” he said. “I’m trying to present it thoroughly instead of all the sensational bullshit that’s in the papers.”

  “I used to hang out with the Knights too,” Johnny replied, “but I was never a member.”

  “What was different about the Knights compared to anybody else?” Breskin asked.

  “Nothing,” Johnny insisted. “They were just a group of friends.”

  Lion, however, disagreed.

  “You were killin’ fuckin’ animals,” he said, staring at Drogos.

  “We weren’t killin’ no fuckin’ animals, man!” Drogos replied.

  “You weren’t the ones who went around killing cats and shit?” Lion asked.

  “We fucked around with cats, but we never killed them!” Drogos maintained. “It was just a laugh! We’d fuck ’em up, throw ’em in the fire, and let them run out—shit like that.”

  Lion calmed down.

  “I can understand,” he said. “There’s a lot of bullshit being said that never happened, man.”

  “I hate to agree with the newspapers, man, but it was the angel dust,” Tom Sullivan said to Breskin. “There were never any problems like this until I saw angel dust coming into Northport.”

  “It’s easy to blame one thing,” Breskin said. “You can blame this drug, but what about all the other drugs he was taking?”

  “It was pretty much drugs in general,” Tom replied.

  “Okay, but that’s saying something different,” Breskin said, “and that’s not even getting at the reason, because drugs are just a symptom. Why are young people all taking drugs? Why do they want it? Why do they do it?”

  “It’s the culture,” Glen offered.

  “Okay, now you’re getting to the shit that’s not easy to talk about in the newspapers,” Breskin said.

  “He was probably trying to escape his family,” Dorothy said.

  Johnny agreed. “His family sucked.”

  “Did anyone care about Kasso?” Breskin asked. “You saw how he was getting more and more fucked up and desperate. Didn’t you ever think to yourself that the peers instead of the parents or the authorities or the school principal should get him help?”

  “I tried!” Lion insisted. “Dave Johnson tried!”

  “We talked to him every day,” Johnny said. “He just never went. Every day he’d just get up, get some drug, and be on the drug all day.”

  “That’s not true, man,” Lion countered. “He did make an effort to straighten his ass out. He went to take a test to enter the navy, man. He went, man!”

  “He made an effort so he would have a place to stay!” Dorothy fired back. “He went so he could be warm and sleep and have food in his stomach! You think Ricky Kasso was going to take an order?!”

  “How many people do you think knew about it but didn’t say anything?” Breskin asked, trying to cut the tension by changing the subject.

  “Too many,” Dorothy replied as she broke down. “Ricky Kasso wasn’t such a bad person,” she said, fighting back tears, “but he did something terribly bad that no one can forgive him for, but if you really knew him . . . He had a heart. He was a really good person.”

  Suddenly a man approached the group. His outfit, notepad
, and tape recorder gave his occupation away—newspaper reporter.

  “What do you want?” Johnny seethed.

  “Did you guys hang out with Gary?” the reporter asked without bothering to even introduce himself.

  “Yes, we did,” Lion replied, keeping his answers brief.

  “Why?” Johnny demanded.

  “I’m just asking,” the reporter answered in an aloof tone.

  “If you’re gonna print something, get the truth,” Johnny said. “If not, leave.”

  “Well, no one wants to talk to us!” the reporter replied.

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” Lion replied. “There is no ‘cult’!”

  The reporter remained oblivious to their anger.

  “What time is the service for . . . uh . . . uh . . .”

  “For Gary!” Glen Wolf screamed. He couldn’t believe the reporter had already forgotten the name of the victim—their friend—less than a minute after arriving.

  “So, how does Gary’s family feel about all of this?”

  “They obviously feel awful, you idiot!” Lion told him.

  “So, you’re all Gary’s friends?” the reporter asked smugly. “How many friends did Gary have?”

  Breskin had enough.

  “Think of how many friends you have and multiply that number by twenty,” Breskin told him.

  Lion was impressed. This was the first time in five horrible days that a journalist had stepped in to defend him and his friends.

  “I’m looking forward to seeing your article, man,” Lion told him with a smile.

  The reporter adjusted his large, Coke-bottle glasses and looked Breskin up and down. “So, what paper are you with?” he asked.

  “I’m not a reporter,” Breskin replied. “I’m a writer.”

  “He prints the truth,” Glen said, “unlike your shit.”

  The reporter saw he wasn’t getting the scoop he had hoped for and walked away without uttering another word. As he made his way back to his car, Tom Sullivan shouted out, “Make the headline ‘There Is No Cult in Northport!’ ” The reporter didn’t respond. He got into his car, put the key in the ignition, and drove off wearing the same smug look on his face that he’d walked up with. Breskin saw this as a good time to duck out. These kids had dealt with enough for one day.