Party Monster

by James St. James

  Weeks passed until one night I was alone for the first time in forever.

  Suddenly, there was a pain, here, in my stomach—a sharp oomph that didn’t go away, it got worse, until I was on the floor, shaking.

  I was hot and sweaty, but my skin was cold, ice cold. The pain was unbearable and I wanted to call an ambulance. The phone was off, of course. It had been disconnected for over a month. Anyway, after the last two overdoses, another ambulance and I could say goodbye to a lease renewal. My landlord was beginning to think we did drugs.

  What was happening to me?

  Food poisoning?

  Was my stomach exploding?

  Appendicitis?

  I did what anyone would do, in such a situation: I crawled over to the Pyrex and scraped up some more K.

  Shaking.

  Dripping.

  But: up and at ‘em, into a grateful left nostril.

  Then I waited, and as I slipped into K-land, I think the pain subsided. But who can tell, really?

  Meanwhile, across the ocean and halfway around the world, somewhere in Germany . . .

  DIANNE BRILL—

  The All-Time Supreme Goddess and Ruling Empress of Downtown—

  DIANNE BRILL, who to this day if her name is whispered in some dark corner, three rooms away, Michael and I will SNAP TO ATTENTION, fluff our hair, spit-shine each other’s face, and nervously shriek: “Where?! Where is she?!!”

  DIANNE BRILL, who was probably appalled with club kid antics, thought they demeaned Downtown, and most likely held Michael personally responsible for the collapse of her empire so many years ago . . .

  DIANNE, who was living in Germany, for God’s sakes, and hadn’t stepped foot in a New York nightclub in ten years . . .

  According to Michael, Dianne heard about Michael’s little problem—I can’t even begin to imagine how—I think Michael made it all up to impress me—and on Michael’s behalf, she called her ex-husband and Michael’s former mentor, Rudolf. He supposedly sent Michael and Freeze some subversive sort of publication that discussed in depth how the laws work for the criminals, what to say during interrogations, how to get rid of evidence, etcetera. I think Michael was just making it up.

  Nevertheless, Michael and Freeze hatched a plot. It was determined that Michael would leave the country, and, ACCORDING TO MICHAEL (although I will never believe this was actually a serious course of action in anybody’s mind but Michael’s), he would go off to Germany and live out the rest of his years with Rudolf, making obscure European art films with Dianne. Can you imagine? I was so jealous—that had always been MY DREAM TOO!

  But until the time came when he could feasibly leave the country, he would go to Denver and detox at Keoki’s home there.

  That was the plan.

  The following week, in the Village Voice, there was a sidebar to Musto’s column which gave his plan an added urgency:

  Here’s the latest story going around about what supposedly happened in that recent club-land 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).

  It was the first official mention of the incident in the media, and, I might say, a pretty accurate report of what happened—except that at this point, sure, there was a lot of gossip—but no hard facts, and certainly nothing as specific as a hammer hit and some Drano.

  After that initial piece in the Voice, everything just flew out of control. Life was insufferable. I was pelted with questions everywhere I went. Chased through clubs. Over and over again I was confronted with the question of “a club kid cover-up.”

  Once and for all now, let me say for the record that all this hoo-ha that’s been made about the so-called circle of friends that conspired to cover up the truth and protect Michael at all costs, well it’s just that: hoo-ha.

  We didn’t ask to be a part of his Blood Feast fantasy. We didn’t want to be the ones to “make it all OK for him.” We weren’t in any positions to help ourselves, much less play nursemaid to the Black Hole of Downtown.

  Michael has since said that by confiding in his friends, and involving us in every gruesome aspect of it all, it took the burden off him alone. “Now it was everybody’s problem.”

  Well, however selfish that is, it just might have worked if he had a crackerjack team of razor-sharp specialists in his corner.

  But Michael had us:

  Gitsie

  Jenny

  And me.

  There were others, later, but essentially he had us and we were all

  deluded

  polluted

  diluted

  And persecuted.

  (Gitsie you may not know yet. She was Michael’s latest girl of the minute—a sweet and sexy wild child. Think Drew Barrymore for the movie. . . . Saucy, sassy, hippy, happy—Gitsie was many things, but “capable” was not one of them.)

  So there we were.

  A bunch of emotional invalids, so disabled by our own demons that looking to us for help was like asking Christopher Reeve to “get off his lazy ass and help out with the dishes once in a while!”

  I mean, what on earth could we do?

  It took this Gitsie chick an hour to peel a banana, for God’s sake!

  And Jenny! LORD LOVE A DUCK—don’t get me wrong—I LOVE HER TO DEATH. Sweet as pie. Pretty as the day is long. Gentle as a lamb . . . but how she makes it through each day without, you know, falling in manholes or eating poisonous bugs . . . I mean, just look at her! Her smudge-proof mascara is impossibly all over the place—on her teeth, on my walls. . . . The girl is a mess.

  And me? I had vomit chunks in my underwear. I spent most of each day thinking I was Queen Victoria, traipsing around Buckingham Palace.

  Not the ideal crew of spin doctors he envisioned, huh?

  So if it was help Michael wanted, well, whoops, he was fresh out of luck.

  If it was absolution he was after, we couldn’t even comprehend it all yet, much less work out a moral position.

  And if it was a drowning man’s desperate attempt to drag us down with him—honey, we were already in the water and pretty much out of breath ourselves.

  So this “subversive circle,” and the underground railroad we supposedly provided, was really just a lonely group of losers who, for various reasons, did nothing but nothing.

  We couldn’t go to the police. Drug addicts don’t go to the police. That was never even an option. They were the enemy—they harassed us, scared us, ruined our fun . . . gave us hives. No, no, no.

  And besides, they wouldn’t have believed us if we hobbled in, all rouged up, and bewigged, still reeling from last night’s festivities. As a rule: club kids don’t make credible witnesses.

  Oh, we know the police had heard all the rumors. And they considered them to be just a bunch of third-hand allegations made by crazy drug addicts and drag queens, about a scumbag dealer and possible illegal alien—SO WHO REALLY CARED?

  And note that in every article about Angel’s disappearance and the growing suspicion of Michael and Freeze’s alleged involvement—every single one of the writers—from Michael Musto to Richard Johnson to Beth Landman to Frank Owen to A.J. Benza, and on down the line—they ALL contacted the police and they all got the same response:

  “WITHOUT A BODY THERE IS NO CRIME. THERE IS NO INVESTIGATION OF MICHAEL ALIG AT THIS TIME.”

  In article, after article, after article. No body. No crime.

  So, short of donning my old frog suit and dredging the Hu
dson River myself, there were precious little options open to us.

  And for some psychotic reason, Michael kept pushing back the date of his departure. I think he liked all the attention.

  I know he liked the attention.

  “JAAAAMES!” he screamed outside my window.

  Oh, good Lord, no. Not now. Please not now.

  “JAAAMES LA-DA-DOO!”

  Whoomph. There it is again. That . . . unbearable pain . . . in my stomach . . . Quick, get me my K!

  “LOVER! LADY! LA-DA-D’YOO!”

  Please, no skrinkle-skroddles or logger blaggers at five o’clock in the morning.

  “SKRINK HEAD LOVER, FLOP HEAD POODLE DEE POO!” He was singing and dancing in the street.

  Oh, that’s it. I just lost my lease. I can see my landlady’s light going on. My neighbors are straining to look out their windows . . .

  Can I hide? Can I turn off the lights? Will he notice? WILL HE JUST GO AWAY?

  “HURRY UP! LET ME IN! THIS IS OUR LAST NIGHT TOGETHER, FOREVER!”

  My pain lifted. If only . . .

  Sigh.

  Just one more bump, then: “Will somebody stop his caterwauling, and let him the fuck upstairs before I get evicted and my stomach explodes?”

  He stomped up the stairs, leaving a trail of empty heroin bags in his wake. “Why don’t you answer?” He sounded genuinely hurt.

  “Give me a bump of D,” I demanded. It was the least he could do.

  “Oh, James—you know I need it more than you. Besides, I just ran out.” He says this as he’s doing two bags at once, a straw up each nostril—“Give me twenty dollars and I’ll go get you a bag.”

  Bags cost ten dollars.

  “Skrinkle. . . . Blag-lover. . . . We have to make the most of our time together,” he tried a conciliatory cuddle, “I’m leaving tomorrow for Denver.”

  “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace . . . ”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means, you’ve been saying that for a month now, but you never seem to go anywhere, dear—except to the Eleventh Street corner to get your ‘traveling supply.’ ”

  He extended his lower lip and pouted loudly.

  “I come here to see you and spend time with you. Oh, I give up. You are SO bitter.”

  “I am SO close to Eleventh Street.”

  “Sour as an old piece of rhubarb, that’s what you are. Old and wrinkled and alone and bitter. But I love you anyway.”

  We hugged and I gave him twenty dollars.

  PAIN. OW. STOMACH. STOP.

  Two weeks later, he still hadn’t left, and I was forced to attend yet another going-away dinner—his fourth—at Bowery Bar. Halfway through the appetizer, it happened again: the pain in my stomach came back. Rosemary’s baby was feasting on my spleen.

  I screamed and a mouthful of calamari flew out onto the table.

  I slid off my chair and onto the ground where I proceeded to flop around in writhing agony.

  “Trying to steal my moment, James?” Michael asked archly. “Everybody, just ignore the Attention Shifter under the table!”

  “Help . . . me . . .!” I clutched at the tablecloth and sent wine glasses spilling.

  “Really, James. Now you’ve gone too far. You’re never going to see me again. Can’t you let me just have ONE MOMENT in the spotlight?”

  I wormed my way along the filthy restaurant floor, past the stares of disapproving patrons, to the men’s room.

  I crawled under the stall door and finished another vial of K.

  That should get me through the dinner. I stumbled back to the table.

  “Oh, I get it! Everybody look at James! Poor James couldn’t get any attention, so he went off to do his secret stash of drugs! If you don’t give me any—I’ll tell the waiter to give YOU the bill. And don’t think I won’t.”

  “Gobble Dee Goo?” I responded, underwater.

  “Oh, I could just kill you, James. Did everybody hear that? For my next trick I’m going to kill James St. James. Somebody call Michael Musto!”

  But then, after months of faulty planning and aborted attempts, Michael and Gitsie finally slipped out of town that night, under cover of darkness and a cloak of silence.

  A sneaky backdoor exit!

  On the lam from Johnny Law!

  Top Secret!

  Never to be seen of or heard from again!

  The plan was to rent a car and drive cross-country to Denver. There they would camp out with Keoki at Keoki’s brother’s house, and together they could all collectively kick their respective habits. Then, with clear and level heads, they would decide upon Michael’s future.

  But first, before he left . . .

  Michael decided to meet with a reporter from New York magazine, and discuss his plans, his destination, and the reason for his departure. Well, of course he did. He volunteered all sorts of valuable information, about the selling of his new furniture, the highways and byways he planned to use to get to Denver, and, well, he basically left a blueprint the size of a billboard for the police and other reporters to come find him.

  But what’s the point of going on the run if nobody knows you’ve even left?

  Michael’s comments appeared the following week in a small item about Peter Gatien’s continuing tale of woe. As if things weren’t bad enough for the beleaguered club owner, what with the drug raids on his clubs and the impending state income tax audits, now he had to contend with the unwanted media attention his scandal-plagued, recently fired ex-promoter was bringing to him . . .

  Even when he was out of the picture, Michael could still cause problems.

  But for now, he was gone, out of my life, hopefully for a very long time. I could sigh, I might not cry . . . and I could try to get some sleep now.

  The burden was lifted.

  Out of sight, out of mind! (“Out of mind” being the operative term.)

  My K-holes, you see, were becoming more and more fantastical, more majestic, more “de Millean” in nature. Whenever I went under, these days, it seemed I was forever starring in these great biblical adventures, where I played every role, I was in every piece of the set, I was the air we breathed, the film we watched . . .

  It would be a shame to give up such a simple pleasure . . .

  And it is because the heavens and earth had opened unto me, and because God had spoken and there were raptures and epiphanies, it was for these reasons and these reasons alone, purely evangelical reasons, that I became a clinically diagnosed, fully dysfunctional, hopeless old drug addict.

  I thought of myself as a slightly addled Sister Aimee Semple McPherson, preaching the gospel of K to the huddled masses. It was my duty to ingest massive quantities of K and to go into that shrouded, mystical world and bring back some nugget of knowledge to share with my growing congregation.

  There were many groundbreaking, soul-shaking, heart-wrenching scenes that I wish I could share with you. I would wake from these dreams trembling—for I had seen the truth! The universe was naked before me, and I could see the naughty bits heretofore withheld from mere mortals. A very basic truth had been given to me, something urgent that I needed to understand.

  Well, I don’t have to tell you how sad I was whenever the cloud lifted. How I cursed lucidity! I lost everything, always. I needed to find a way to capture and record my visions. I wanted to share my wisdom.

  It was in June that I began keeping my K diaries. Armed with a pad of paper and a pencil, I ventured fearlessly into the depths of the nether realm. I wrestled with elliptical concepts that had baffled mankind for years. I explored wormholes in the time-space continuum, tripped into the Horsehead Nebula, and rolled in globular clusters. I was a protoplanet in a metagalaxy . . .

  I awoke with palpitations.

  What answers were revealed to me? What life-changing things had I written down?

  Trembling, I opened the book and scanned the pages.

  Did I dare even look? Could I handle the truth? Was mankind
meant to know the secrets I glimpsed in K-land? Yes! I owed it to humanity to read it!

  There, on the page, scrawled, scrawled!, like a monkey writing with its toes, was what three hours of labor had produced:

  If letters had eyebrows, these would be arched

  Hello?! “If letters had eyebrows”? What was that? Where did that come from?

  If pencils had necks, I’d wring them!

  This was my Sturm und Drang? This was the foam and thunder that was the voice of God?

  Maybe I just caught the ear of Providence at the wrong time. Maybe Divinity was in the bathroom when I rang. Maybe if I just duck back in the hole, I’ll find Truth.

  Of course, if K had wings, we wouldn’t need straws.

  It was a darker journey, the second time down.

  I suppose it was all my mistake—the radio was on, and you know how I love my Lite FM. I’ve always said: “A day without Neil Diamond is like a day without daydreams.”

  It wasn’t Neil, though, who serenaded me into this particular nightmare; it was the sad-sack sounds of Miss Juice Newton, who sang “Angel of the Morning.”

  For some strange reason, I don’t know why, the words “Angel” and “Mourning” stuck to me as I sank into the cushions and began my reverie.

  I was pulled down, instead of up, this time, and there I encountered Death and Misery, in all their blackened grandeur. Oh, those twin conspirators—always out to ruin my day!

  It was all very red and wet and not the spiritual journey I was used to. Not at all! I don’t remember the specifics, but when I woke up, I knew that I had dealt with something just awful.

  I peered into my journal, and, written in chicken scratch, were the chilling words:

  Evil must be baked at 650 degrees.

  I was apoplectic, and I don’t even know what that means . . . but I had goosebumps and tears in my eyes . . . What a spooky thing to write down!

  I shook my head.

  It all had something to do with long stretches of cracked earth and the spirits that escaped from them—and things being two things at once, which I knew, but didn’t want to acknowledge.

  Then . . . oh, is that Kim Carnes? I just love the timbre of her voice . . .