Party Monster

by James St. James

And he threw a few dozen drink tickets at her and escorted her to the bar.

  “I’m the one you should be talking to. It’s all about me. James used to be someone . . . When were you famous, James? The fifties?”

  I could see the wheels spinning. They were shooting off sparks, they were going so fast.

  “You know you’re absolutely wonderful,” he continued. “We’re going to get along like two peas in a pod. Yes. You know I have this little magazine, Project X, have you heard about it?”

  Mavis suffered a mild stroke, which pleased Michael to no end.

  “You would be perfect for a feature we’re doing on the new ‘IT GIRLS.’ Of course, we’d have to set up a photo shoot for next week . . . ”

  I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “GODDAMNIT, JUST GIVE HIM A VIAL OF COKE AND A VIAL OF K—Michael, it’s been wonderful spending time with you. It always is. But, look! Oh My God! Isn’t that Michael Musto over there? He looks thirsty. Maybe he’ll finally be your friend if you go talk to him right now.”

  “Don’t think I don’t see right through you, James St. James.” And he took his drugs and scampered off.

  I took Mavis into a stall.

  “You are in league with the devil, woman. I’m telling you the truth. Yes, Michael can be dazzling. But it’s just surface shine, dear. He doesn’t have a soul. Or a heart. Please don’t trust him, whatever you do. Yes, he can do a few things for you. BUT YE GODS, at what price? He will bleed you dry and toss your withered corpse aside. He’s done it before.”

  I shook her violently, trying to impart the urgency of my message.

  “I know you need to make money—but is that really what you’re all about? I thought this was about helping each other, being there for each other, A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY, MAVIS, that we make together. It’s about FAMILY. Weren’t we all going to get an apartment together? Michael isn’t one of us. He’s a scheming, manipulative monster—only out for himself. You shouldn’t even talk to him.”

  “DON’T WORRY,” said a suddenly confident Mavis, “I CAN HANDLE MICHAEL ALIG. But he is a fascinating case study. I want to talk to him. Get inside his head. He’s a businessman. I can tell. Just like me. I bet if we put our heads together. . . . But don’t worry. He can’t pull anything over on me. I’M SMARTER THAN MICHAEL ALIG. I WAS THIRD IN MY CLASS AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY. HE’LL NEVER CON ME.”

  Please.

  PLEASE!

  PLEASE LET ME SKIP AHEAD A YEAR. Just six months! You’ll love it. Of course, you already know that no good can come of any of this. So please, let me just show you a quick picture—Thanksgiving, maybe—when Mavis and Michael are thrown out of Tavern On The Green for smoking crack under the table . . .

  Oh. OK. But just you wait.

  We’ll put the Mavis saga on pause there, and rejoin Freeze in the chapel of the Limelight. The dead center of the chapel to be precise. Surrounded by a large group of clubgoers hanging on his every word.

  Freeze was delighted to discover how amusing he was—how everybody, suddenly got his eclectic brand of humor. The witticisms fairly tripped off his tongue and were greeted with gales of laughter from charmed freaks everywhere.

  He was the life of the party—his sideburns were a hit! Why on earth had he languished at Bella’s beck and call all those years? Why wasn’t he here all that time, with people who appreciated him for who he was?

  The man beneath the chaps. The real Freeze. These earnest and caring drag queens saw the real him.

  He, too, had given away and consumed most of his drugs. Passing out bumps to the little people was such fun. And he used the drug-filled straw—with your bump on it—as a pointer, to stab and drive home the punch lines to his fascinating stories, so that in order to do your bump you had to listen to the whole story and chase the straw around with your nose for half an hour.

  Freeze just babbled on while your bump hovered just out of reach, always one step ahead of your nose . . .

  If you didn’t know that’s what was happening, it was a very funny sight to walk in on, indeed. Freeze in the middle of a crowd, surrounded by what looked like a dozen little kangaroos bobbing their heads in unison. Bobbing and weaving, chasing the straw.

  Yes, Freeze was quite a mess that night. I’m not sure whether or not he knew what he was doing then. Torturing people by withholding their bumps.

  But soon enough it would take on a sadistic quality. He learned the art of making people dance for their dinner, seeing how long he could make them suffer, while he looked more and more fucked up. That way, you could never say: “Freeze, you’re fucking with me” because being a mess means it’s never your fault.

  You’re the crazy one.

  “James, you’re paranoid. Of course you can have a bump. I’m giving it to you right now. GOD. YOU ARE SO IMPATIENT. I’m just feeling my X.”

  It was an infuriating game.

  But Bella had probably been doing it to him for years.

  “Let him have his moment.”

  That became my mantra in the coming months.

  There was a party afterward, at Mavis’s new place. A rip-roaring wingding, as far removed from anything at Bella’s as we could get. And it was filled with Very Important Drag Queens. Movers and Shakers. Tippy-top, each and every last one of them. Not a hanger-on in the bunch. No sir.

  So of course there was a blizzard, a never-ending, complimentary blizzard for your nasal enjoyment.

  I saw Mavis get tense near the end, when the abacus in her head started adding it all up.

  She and Freeze retreated to the bedroom to count up the night’s grosses.

  She had her little ledger and her little Cross pen. This was all going to be accounted for. This was all going to be legit. She went to college for this.

  Hmmm . . .

  The night’s profits . . .

  Why, it says here . . .?

  That can’t be right! . . .

  I don’t understand.

  It says here, we LOST $2,000!

  How did that happen?

  “I owe you seventy-five dollars,” I offered, “and we did that bump in the stall . . . ”

  “NO. NO. NO. IT’S NOT YOU, JAMES. I trust you. But somehow we’re in the hole.”

  We all stared at each other blankly, uncomprehending. That’s strange. I remember lots of transactions. I saw her hand out, why, dozens of vials and bags!

  “It must have been Michael,” I concluded, “I told you not to trust him.”

  “No that’s not it. I think we just gave too much away.”

  “Gurgle snerf,” Freeze said in agreement (although between you and me, giving away too much was never Freeze’s problem in those days).

  “Well, yes and no,” little old helpful me put in his two cents. “Now, Mavis, it was your first night. Of course, you had to make a splash. Now everyone knows you. They like you. They saw how generous you are. And more importantly, THEY SAMPLED YOUR WARES. They know now that they’re dealing with quality. You HAVE TO GIVE A LOT AWAY in the beginning, to spread the word, to build a name . . . to build a solid reputation . . . for good drugs dealt to you with a smile. Service with a smile.”

  Oh ha ha ha ha.

  (You see that’s actually a very clever pun. Pause here to let it register. “Services” is drag slang for cocaine, as in: “I need some services here, Miss Thing!” So: Services with a smile. They should make T-shirts! I am so good . . .)

  “You’re right” she agreed, “You are always so right. Establish ourselves. Let everybody sample it so they know how really good this shit is . . . ”

  “And it is good shit, Mavis.”

  “Yea.”

  “Really good shit.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “That’s some amazing shit.”

  “Do you want a line?”

  “I’d love one—you’re a doll.”

  Freeze had passed out on the couch, upside down and contorted like a pretzel.

  Mavis and I did some more coke and I congratulated her on a ma
rvelous debut, and then we had a

  really

  long

  talk

  about the importance of balancing your checkbook. Then after two or three hours, it veered into something about “prioritizing invoices”—I couldn’t quite follow—she was clearly excited by it, though. She was screaming and leaping about the room, digging through drawers, drawing me “diagrams” that were incredibly detailed and accurate squiggle lines that missed the page entirely and were written on Freeze’s silk pirate shirt.

  “Whoops!” she laughed. We both laughed.

  “Special K must be kicking in. Motor skills—GONE!”

  Hmmm. I may have met my match in this one.

  Imagine, I meet a crop duster from Ohio, and she can keep up with James St. James. Bump for bump.

  She was good.

  Now if we could just get her to stop shaking like that, and get her off the floor. “No, Mavis, you didn’t lose a gram!”

  Or did you?

  Maybe I should check.

  Just to be safe.

  So we crawled around and picked at the carpet, until suddenly it was night and it was already time to start getting ready.

  How did that happen?

  The whole day just slipped away like so many bags of cocaine.

  Freeze needed a solid three hours to get ready, and when we woke him up he leapt off the couch and ran to the sewing machine.

  “I was just having the most marvelous dream. All about fluorescent armbands . . . ”

  “Oh goodness. Yes. It’s all about the fluorescent armbands for spring. Absolutely.”

  What in the HELL was a fluorescent armband?

  That’s ridiculous!

  “Get me a light!” he pointed to his lighter, sitting right next to him. There was an odd, imperious tone to his voice—one I had never heard before.

  “Of course, darling.”

  Well, it turns out, in case you haven’t guessed: fluorescent armbands are . . . bands . . . that go around your arms . . . around your biceps . . .

  And they’re fluorescent . . .

  Always on the cutting edge, that Freezer.

  He put on a completely different pair of identical chaps . . . moussed, THEN GELLED his sideburns this time . . . penciled in his goatee, then BLENDED each line . . .

  A trademark look was forming here . . .

  Superhero Leather Fag.

  He spent four hours getting ready, and he looked exactly the same as when he woke up.

  Drug addicts are so funny that way. Just spinning around, lost in their own little world. Doing so much, accomplishing so little.

  How sad.

  But, we’ll think about that later. Right now, I needed another bump, and then I was teaching Mavis all about the history of the ficus.

  A funny thing happened that night when we went out. When we got to the door of Club USA, the doorman, the toughest in New York, said: “You must be Myrtle. I mean Mavis. You canned tomatoes in New Mexico, didn’t you? And now you’re the new IT Girl.” He looked her up and down. “That’s a witty interpretation of spandex—go right in.”

  Who’d have thunk it?

  And there were many joyful reunions for Freeze. All night long, he found REALLY GOOD FRIENDS, and once again he was at the top of his game—the new Tallulah Bankhead! And I mean that literally. Tossing off the bons mots, while face down in the toilet. Now that I think about it, he even sounded like her: smug, imperious, pampered, slurred.

  Mavis, too, made quite a splash. She was enthralled by the freak show and wanted to REALLY GET TO KNOW each and every little cowboy and fairy princess that traipsed past.

  And the freaks responded to her, in kind. They looked at her like she was, well, let’s call a spade a spade—like she was a grocery bagger from the A&P in Minnesota.

  Which she was.

  So she gaped at them and they gaped at her. She was the oddest thing they’d ever seen. That hair! Was she serious?

  But one thing I’ll say on the club kids’ behalf—they are nothing if not open-minded. And Mavis was so drop-dead normal looking, she could have been from Mars.

  And, again, who’d have figured? I was right! By keeping the “superstars” happy with free drugs, they managed to become rather high-profile themselves. It got to the point where no party could start without them. They were as indispensable as drink tickets and disco balls.

  And grasshopper Freeze had learned well the Lessons of Divadom from Bella.

  His entrances became precisely and dramatically timed.

  He learned that for every party there is that one glorious moment—when all the right people have arrived and found their optimum posing space . . . and they are saying all the right things . . . and the energy level rises . . . and the glamour and the excitement bubble up into a frothy, heady, undeniable crescendo of chic.

  When it’s right, you can feel it from the tip of your heel to the top of your wig.

  Freeze discovered the trick of arriving just scant moments AFTER the peak SHOULD HAVE OCCURRED, but somehow fizzled . . . and then, while everybody wants to scratch their heads in confusion (but just can’t muss that ’do), and while they look around in disappointment to see what went wrong . . . Suddenly

  KAPOW!

  The Dynamic Duo breeze into the room, wearing their space-age headphones (de rigueur for the modern drug-dealing team), and there is a great whoop of joy—“Oh! THAT’S what was missing!”

  Mavis and Freeze!

  “Let the festivities begin!”

  They gave away lots.

  And consumed copious amounts themselves.

  So they simultaneously lost much money through their hobnobbing with the hoi polloi, and, in so doing, they earned a loyal legion of wanna-bes who more than compensated. They paid cash to be included in all the fun.

  So they then started making money—an inordinate amount of money, a sinful amount of money.

  And when the money keeps coming in, when the geyser is gushing, who can count each and every droplet? It would be petty to do so.

  “Can I borrow these boots, Freeze, dear?” I asked one starry night.

  “Only if I’m not wearing my chaps, dear.”

  I put them on anyway, and in the toe was a wad of three thousand dollars.

  “Well, hello!”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  “Where’d that come from?”

  We were forever finding wads and eightballs and little expensive things they had just plum forgotten about. It made getting dressed so much more interesting . . . every outfit was a little Cracker Jack box just waiting to be opened and mined for fun.

  And just look at them! Why, they even look different! Success and money and power can do marvelous things!

  They say that God is in the details, and FREEZE WAS GOD at this point.

  He began using bronzer, ALL OVER, a two-hour application requiring multiple blending drones—whoever was at hand: “Could you please, in that bowl over there, stir together two-thirds Estée Lauder Super Tan with one-fifth Dior Instant Glow, chill, then add four spritzes of Hawaiian Tropic? Now, at twenty-minute intervals, apply and blend (evenly, now) from the forearm to the wrist. Three times.” This is repeated on each body segment, until EVERY INCH has that marvelous Chef Boyardee glow that we all covet.

  And Mavis, with her new stylish shag, is no longer content wearing dreary old power suits. She has perfected the age old: “Oh NO! Pat’s closes in ten minutes! Quick, tell the salesgirl I need two silver somethings, and damn the expense!”

  That way, later on, when a compliment comes your way, you can languidly acknowledge it like so:

  “Oh this? You really like it? I only had ten minutes to throw it together! Can you believe? But I guess it does work, hmmm?”

  That’s class.

  Weeks passed quickly.

  We went out every night—dressed to the teeth. Or dressed to the dentures in Mavis’s case. Bless her heart.

  I’ve got to hand it to her though, she was a qui
ck learner.

  And as Pop Art Drug Dealers, they looked fabulous while providing an invaluable service. People loved them.

  And from there it only got bigger. A feeding frenzy hit clubland; Mavis and Freeze fever!

  Mavis dyed her hair purple!

  Crazy Mav!

  (But strangely, on her, it just looked . . . normal. Style seemed to just slip off her.)

  So they were “IT.”

  Worshipped. Adored.

  Crowds followed them.

  Boys threw themselves at Freeze, girls at Mavis. Both were ecstatic. Why hadn’t they even noticed their stunning sexual appeal before?

  Bella was furious that Freeze and I had become so close. And that he had unofficially moved into Mavis’s.

  I was spending most of my time there, too.

  My tab was rising, I owed them almost five thousand dollars, but didn’t give it a second thought—we were having such fun. We did so much cocaine, asteroids were falling out of our noses.

  It turns out Mavis was an endlessly fascinating woman. We spent days exploring the intricacies of each other’s minds.

  I don’t remember drawing any conclusions, though.

  But I have dozens of pie charts that explain it all, if you care to look.

  It all seemed so deeply profound and urgent at the time. Oh well.

  Freeze would get so disgusted with us.

  He would pass out for fourteen or fifteen hours at a time. When he woke up and came into the living room, Mavis and I would still be having the EXACT SAME CONVERSATION AS WHEN HE LEFT. Word for word.

  “I just LOVE Oreos . . . ”

  “Oh. Oreos. Yes. But not DoubleStuf . . . ”

  “Well, it’s just too much filling, don’t you think?”

  “Definitely. But now the original . . . Oreos . . . are just wonderful.”

  “Yes. I love a good Oreo now and again.”

  FOR HOURS! Until Freeze would just start throwing things.

  What he didn’t understand though, was it was all about THE SUBTEXT of those conversations. The subtext spoke volumes.

  Usually on the third consecutive day of massive drug consumption and no sleep, I hit my stride.

  That’s when I LOOKED MY BEST—like a slightly crazed supermodel.

  And I was shockingly articulate . . .