by Jarett Kobek
His body healed itself on the tenth night, something of a spontaneous miracle, as his summer courses began the very next morning.
The next day, while he attended classes, I manifested all of his symptoms. Simultaneously. Lost voice, copious production of phlegm, fever deliriums.
Patient Zero was too busy with his book learning to offer much nursing, so he telephoned Jon and said, “Jon, if you love your lady, you’d better come over to our swinging pad.”
One of the Lower East Side’s premier thrashcore vocalists, in whom I’d invested my affections and affectations, sat at my bedside for many long days, suffering my every outrageous complaint.
Alas, none of his tender ministrations helped, no matter the attempt. On my seventh day, he said, “You won’t find someone who hates the medical establishment more than me, but you’ve got to go to a doctor.”
“I don’t know how,” I said. “I’ve never made a doctor’s appointment.”
“Should I call your mother and ask about your insurance?”
“No, not Mother!” I said. “Just find a doctor, please.”
He scheduled an appointment. He slept beside me throughout the fever-soaked night.
*
The doctor was a woman in her earlier fifties, dyed auburn hair hanging flat on the sides of her head. She inquired how long I’d been sick, to which I offered a truthful answer.
“What is it with you people?” she asked. “Do you need to lose an arm before you get help?”
She prescribed a weeklong course of antibiotics. Jon helped with the pharmacy.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I asked.
“I’m pretty fucking sure this is where I should be,” he said.
By their sixth day, the antibiotics cleared my infection. On the seventh, I hoped to rest like the Good Lord Almighty, but this proved impossible.
An itching in my vagina prevented peace. Urination became an episodic visit to pain. On the eighth, the discharge started. What pleasure it is to have corporeal form!
We hadn’t fucked since I’d taken sick, entering into our third week of enforced abstinence. Jon was like a starving animal hungry for raw meat, pressing for it, voicing inchoate complaints about losing the summer.
I was too ashamed to explain why we simply couldn’t. What do you offer to the man that you love? “Sorry, sonny Jim, but at this very moment my vagina is expelling chunks of clotted cream. This state of affairs probably renders the area rather inhospitable for your own genitalia!”
I called Минерва and asked if she wouldn’t accompany me to the doctor. “Trouble?” she asked. “Yeast infection? Is nothing. Doctor will fix.” But would she come with me? “Okay, Joe, why not? I experience American medical practice. Plus is good excuse. Winterbloss wants see Batman movie.”
*
The very same doctor came into the examination room. I worried that she lacked recollection of yours truly, so I spake, “Doctor, I hope you’ll note that I scheduled my appointment very promptly!”
“What’s the problem?” asked the doctor.
“Her pussy is yeasting,” said Минерва.
“It’s true,” I said. “My cup runneth over.”
“Young lady,” said the doctor. “It’s my firm belief that women generally know more about what’s going on with their bodies than anyone else. If you say it’s a yeast infection, I believe that it’s a yeast infection. I could do the swab and slides and prepare a culture, but I have a feeling that it’ll only confirm what you’re telling me. Let me ask you, do you want to go through the process, or do you just want a cure?”
“The cure, please,” I said. “I won’t stand for another minute of this terrible itching.”
She prescribed the weeklong application of a topical solution. Under no circumstances should I attempt intercourse.
“Doctor,” I asked, “what do I tell my boyfriend?”
“Tell him the truth,” she said.
I was sure Jon’d seen more infections than I could imagine, his natural scene involving junkies and crackheads, two groups not renowned for robust health.
Yet I’d begun thinking of myself as an island of sanity in the madness of his life. I’m not a blushing robin, I’m not afraid of the horrible things that my body can produce, but in the end, one simply need face reality. Body-positive feminism fails at the yeast infection.
I dissembled, I dissimulated, I performed an outrageous amount of oral sex. By the end of the week, all evidence of infection disappeared. Terrified that those unfortunate white stains would return to my underwear, I kept Jon leashed for another seven days.
AUGUST 1989
Daniel Rakowitz
On August 19th, at 6:30 pm, in Gramercy Park, a subsurface ConEdison steam pipe went kablooey. An eighteen-storey geyser, steam and mud thrown high above the city, windows blown out, cars destroyed, the park splattered with filth. Edwin Booth covered with Manhattan’s subterranean muck.
If I’d ventured out of doors, ambulated up to Cooper Square and looked north, I would’ve seen a steam cloud rise above the city like an ill-tempered djinn menacing Baghdad. Yet it was an awful drizzling New York night, the air thick as molasses. I refused to leave our apartment.
At roughly the same moment, Daniel Rakowitz was brutally murdering the Swiss dancer Monika Beerle in a dilapidated building on the corner of C and Ninth.
One version of the story says that Beerle, who may or may not have had drug problems, invited Rakowitz to live with her. Another version says that it was Rakowitz’s apartment, that he invited Beerle to live with him, that she paid the back rent and assumed control of the lease. Either way, following a short period of cohabitation, Beerle wanted Rakowitz gone, splitsville daddy-o, like oooout of her life.
Who can blame her? Rakowitz must have been hell. The man spent most of his days in the environs of Tompkins Square, arguing for the legalization of marijuana, growing ever more unhinged, telling people that he was the Risen New Lord, a living god whose followers would triumph over America.
The storefront at 335 East 9th Street housed the Temple of the True Inner Light. Anyone could attend Sunday service and be given a free dose of DPT, or dipropyltryptamine, a legal hallucinogenic. The sole requirement for receiving this head-chugging charity was that its recipient must consent to suffer a lecture about the true nature of Christ, some silly nonsense about God’s incarnation within lysergic acid.
There is a story that Rakowitz visited the temple. When he ambled through its garish front, did he admire its tripped-out yellow and red primary colors? Did he stop to look at the plywood covering its display window? And if so, did he take note of the vast mandala painted thereupon? Did he read the words beneath? “The Psychedelic is The Creator.” When he opened the door, did he notice the magic mushroom painted above the address? And did those feet in ancient times walk upon Manna-hatta’s daughters’ green?
Rakowitz ranted at the tiny cluster of true believers. Antichrist, dead animals, 696, fascist uprisings, the exact location of the soul within the human spleen.
The monologue grew dark enough that the adherents brought him outside and checked his bag for weapons. What did they find? His pet rooster, named Rooster, and a German-language copy of Mein Kampf.
So again remember Beerle, spending fourteen days in a cramped two-bedroom apartment alongside this creature. She did the sensible thing, informing Daniel that he must leave, as her sister was soon to visit from Switzerland.
Rakowitz, high on marijuana and tripping on LSD, punched Beerle in the throat. This may or may not have killed her. If it did not, he strangled her with a cord. He dragged her body into the bathroom, abusing it with a knife.
For about a week, the bathtub held some portion of Beerle’s body.
There occurs an influx of people, their number unknown. Some witness Monika’s head on the kitchen stove, where Rakowi
tz is boiling the meat off her skull. Sylvia or Shawn, the previous roommates? Perhaps Crazy Dave, the building superintendent? Others?
One rumor has it that Rakowitz cooked and ate a portion of Beerle’s brain. Another story was that he boiled her flesh into a soup and then served it to the park’s homeless population.
Perhaps this begs the question of why would anyone accept soup from a lunatic like Rakowitz. It turns out that for all his flaws, he believed in charity. He had a history of cooking large dinners for the encampments.
The unused portions of Beerle’s flesh are flushed down the toilet, her offal joining with sewer waste. Within a week of the murder, stories begin circulating through the neighborhood.
*
Jon always had a common touch. Rumors gravitated to him. We were in Le Snakepit, across from the park. I bought a gaudy pentagram belt. As we left the establishment, a dirty junky teen, ripped denim and sweat stains, stumbled from Tompkins and called Jon’s name. We waited as this boy crossed the street. He talked with Jon, ignoring me.
“Did you hear that shit, man,” he croaked, “that shit with fucking Daniel, man?”
“Yeah,” said Jon de Lee. “I heard.”
“Wait,” I said. “Daniel who?”
“Daniel with the fucking chicken,” said the junky. “He was in the park earlier today, talking all kinds of bullshit about being a fucking god. Someone says, ‘Does God have the right to take a life?’ and he goes, ‘Of course. I have made that decision.’”
“Daniel’s a fucking freak of nature,” said Jon de Lee. “But I don’t believe he did it.”
“You heard about the soup, right, man?”
“Yeah,” said Jon. “Everyone’s heard about the soup.”
“I haven’t heard about the soup,” I said.
“Never mind about the soup,” said Jon.
“Did you know her?” asked the kid.
“I saw her around,” said Jon.
When the junky stumbled away, I pressed Jon, he demurred, I pressed harder. He told me the story, what the neighborhood knew, what the neighborhood didn’t, who’d seen what, who’d eaten what. I couldn’t believe it.
“The rooster guy? Really?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said Jon.
“What about the girl?” I asked.
“Her name was Monika,” he said.
“Why hasn’t anyone called the cops?”
“Don’t be so fucking middle class,” he snapped. “The pigs are kicking the shit out of us every goddamned day. Who trusts the cops? What neighborhood are you living in?”
With the riot well in the past, and the media’s attention drawn elsewhere, the city had escalated its campaign against the neighborhood.
There began almost weekly raids on the homeless of Tompkins Square, their settlement now called Tent City. A routine took hold. The police rushed in, destroyed the shelters, arrested a few protesters, and made a retreat. The homeless came back and rebuilt anew. See ya next time, officer.
The squatters fared no better. One grew accustomed to massive police presences attempting to evict residents who were occupying derelict structures.
These collectives fortified their buildings against state intrusion, leading to scenes of open warfare. Siege engines versus punk rockers with bottles and firecrackers. The cops almost always won. Hundreds of people lost their homes.
“We’re living here because we want freedom from the police state,” said Jon. “We’re at war with organized government. We can’t run to the police. If the stories are true, then the neighborhood will take care of it. In the neighborhood’s way.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“What do you think it means?”
*
I wandered for the next several days, seeking any hint of the murder, about Daniel Rakowitz, about Monika Beerle. I overheard people discussing, openly, details of the killing.
“He cut her head right off, he’s got the head on a stove! Crazy Dave saw it.”
Supposedly, before Rakowitz committed the act, he stood in the park telling people that he would kill Beerle. The day that he did the deed, he came back and discussed his crime. When he split her body apart, he told people. Everyone knew what happened. An entire neighborhood shrugged its collective shoulders. The same old story. Another dead woman on the Lower East Side. More dress suits to hire.
I made Jon take me by Rakowitz’s building. I wanted to see it, I said, for reasons of morbid curiosity, a sick desire to inure myself. “Jon,” I whined, “I want to be exposed to the true brutality of capitaliiiiiism.”
Someone had vandalized the door:
“This can’t last,” said Jon. “Something is going to break.”
He couldn’t have known that what would break was the patience of yours truly. After we said goodbye, I went home and called the 9th Precinct. I explained, calmly, rationally, that a murder had occurred at 700 East 9th Street. I gave them the name of the victim and the name of the murderer. I described Daniel Rakowitz. I asked what would happen.
“I can’t say, lady,” said the man on the phone. “We’ll take it under consideration.”
He hung up.
I’d watched cops from the very same precinct savagely attack and bludgeon the citizenry, but I truly believed that with a murder they might make some effort.
Days ticked by. Nothing changed. Rumors swirled. Was it possible, really, to trust anyone? The people didn’t care. The cops didn’t care. Who cared about Monika Beerle?
Later, it emerged that others had tried convincing the police, but the authorities knew Rakowitz, considered him a local harmless nut and did not find the rumors credible. Or maybe they saw Beerle as nothing special, one more dead stripper in a neighborhood full of corpses. Who could keep track? There was even a rumor that Rakowitz had worked as a police informant.
Stories like the death of Beerle lose their horror, become amusing, slide into the background tapestry of the neighborhood. Become another craaaazy thing that happened in this craaaaaaazy place.
Classes started. I hardly cared. Weeks passed.
One day, I encountered Rakowitz, walking towards me, coming up St. Mark’s. He wore his denim jacket and jeans.
An acid reflux strike from my stomach up my throat. I jumped out into the street, almost being run over by a Coca-Cola truck. From the safety of the other side, I watched him walk past, oblivious to the world.
*
Then, like that, in an instant, weeks into September, the police picked him up, and asked if he’d killed Beerle. He admitted that he had. They asked where the remains were. Rakowitz brought them to the Port Authority, where he opened a locker. Inside the locker was an army duffel bag. Inside the duffel bag was a plastic bucket. Inside the bucket was Beerle’s skull, her bones, and a whole lot of cat litter.
Jon came over, telling me the news. I lay across my bed, reading a copy of People magazine that someone’d left at Parsons. Don’t ask why I’d brought it home. I haven’t the slightest.
“I thought you’d be happy,” he said.
“She’s still dead,” I said. “It’s one of those things.”
Baby was in the kitchen. He’d been the one who heard Jon shouting in the street, and the one who’d gone downstairs.
“Listen,” said Jon. “Do you want to see it?”
“See what?” I asked.
“The apartment,” he said.
I shouldn’t have, but I did. I said yes. We walked the few blocks, through the park and the latest iteration of Tent City. It seemed fuller than ever. No one cared that Monika Beerle was dead. No one cared that Daniel Rakowitz was insane. It was around then that the sensation rushed up at me, emerging from the concrete of New York. At last I understood that life was not a game which one could win if it was played with enough skill.
The graffiti remained on the buildi
ng’s front door. I was too disturbed to wonder why the door wasn’t locked. We climbed several flights of stairs and came to the apartment. Someone had written on Rakowitz’s door: IS IT SOUP YET? And WELCOME TO CHARLIE GEIN’S SPAUN RANCH EAST. Flowers hung, crisscrossed with police tape.
“People have been coming in and out of here all day,” said Jon. “We just have to slide under the tape.”
A month later, the Village Voice ran a six-page article about the crime. Called “Blood Simple,” it was written by Max Cantor, the actor who played Bobby in the film Dirty Dancing.
The meat of the text came from interviews with Sylvia and Shawn, confirming the worst rumors. They weren’t living in the apartment, but Sylvia did see Beerle’s head on the stove. She had refused to turn in Rakowitz. That’s friendship.
“Jon,” I said. “I can’t. I thought I could but I can’t.”
“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll check it out.”
He opened the door and disappeared inside. For the briefest of moments I saw the interior. Another tiny East Village apartment.
1988, 1989, 1990
Some Things That Happened to Baby During His Nervous Breakdown, Presented in a Random Order
Then there was the time when Baby went to an after-hours party at Cave Canem. He’d come back from California with indisputable evidence that he was terrible at being gay, that his social skills needed work. It was a moment, he resolved, to be with other men, to learn how to be around those who were openly celebratory of their faggitude. Men who weren’t afraid of their desires, who didn’t hide their selves away.
As was his wont, Baby solved this problem in the craziest possible way.
He called Michael Alig.
Cave Canem was on First Avenue near the corner of 2nd Street, next door to the Ortiz Funeral Home. Around 4:30 am, Baby followed a trickle of humanity inside, going to the basement level, where a dance floor sat beside a four-foot-deep pool of water. Baby wondered if the exposed ersatz columns were Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian.