Party Monster

by James St. James

  “Only three nipples? Grow another dozen and we’ll talk!”

  “Queerdonna, huh? You’re a four-hundred-pound cross-dresser who lip-synchs to Madonna? Maybe you can open for someone on a slow night.”

  “A bearded lady? Dye it green and sit naked in a tub of lime Jell-O—we’ll talk on St. Patrick’s Day.”

  “NO, there is nothing freakish about sucking yourself off. I’m going to do it myself on my lunch hour. Don’t waste my time!”

  I can’t remember if he ever got his dream booking: Lori and Dori, the Siamese twins connected at the head, who played country-and-western music. Those were the lofty heights he aspired to. Only the best for Disco 2000.

  There were two performers he found that not only made the cut, but made nightclubbing history . . .

  The first was known only as the “Pee Drinker,” an apt name and an apt description of his particular forte.

  Michael loved that. Of course, Michael loved anything to do with bodily functions.

  The Pee Drinker would stand on stage, with his trousers around his ankles, and fill two or three plastic cups with hot . . . steaming . . . piss. Then, while the audience squirmed and winced and tried not to look, he guzzled them down with gusto. He then licked his lips, shook his penis, and took his bows.

  That was considered shocking in the early days. Scandalous, even—can you imagine? How young and easily amused we were back then. Later, the poor Pee Drinker was reduced to entertaining stray Jersey girls at a back bar, drinking piss in exchange for free beer.

  We were on to more sophisticated outrage by the mid-’90s.

  The performance that will forever resonate in my head, the one I still can’t believe, can’t stop talking about, can’t stop thinking about, dreaming about, screaming about, was a gal named IDA SLAPTER.

  Just your average, typical trailer-park trannie from Austin, Texas.

  Nice enough. Chatting with her at the bar, you probably didn’t give her your full attention—seen one Southern drag queen, seen ’em all—huh? But it’s those seemingly normal exteriors (the beehive hairdo, the pennyroyal house dress, the stubble beneath the pancake . . .) that hide TRULY DERANGED minds. Watch out for the average—they’re usually hiding something big.

  On Christmas Eve

  On stage

  Ida stripped naked and pulled a full string of LIT CHRISTMAS BULBS, one at a time, out of her ass.

  She made her way slowly across the stage.

  POP! And twinkle!

  POP! And twinkle!

  Until you couldn’t help but be swept up in the pure joy, the awe-inspiring grandeur of the season. A twenty-four-foot string of lights coming out of Ida’s butt, really reminded you of the true meaning of Christmas.

  AND IF THAT ISN’T ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU PAUSE AND MARVEL AT HER SPIRIT AND DETERMINATION . . .

  Listen to the whole story, from its miraculous conception to its majestic delivery.

  “Light bulbs up the ass, no big deal!” you say. “On a good night I can fit a Butterball and two sweet potatoes up my bum!”

  Aye—but here’s the rub:

  How did these bulbs come to shine so brightly? They weren’t plugged into an electrical socket . . .

  An hour before her performance, Ida lay spread-eagle on the ground, and she had a helping hand (and how) slowly, carefully, millimeter by millimeter—INSERT A BATTERY PACK INTO HER UPPER INTESTINE.

  If that isn’t a true showbiz trouper, why I’ll eat my Ann Miller wig. And they call Gary Collins the hardest working man in show business!

  And all this glorious anarchy belonged to Michael—lock, stock, and barrel. He was revered far and wide as the king. And being king is good. From now on, Michael is free to live in his own magical kingdom. He has the money, the connections, and the clout to indulge any of the many psychotic disorders that he calls “fun.”

  Close your eyes and pick one of the seven deadly sins. Now open them, and SURE ENOUGH, there’s Michael, in the middle of it. Waving you in to join him.

  And being king means that reality can simply be dismissed. And the OUTSIDE WORLD NEED NEVER TOUCH HIM. All those little things like bills and rent and food and outfits were all magically taken care of by the Patron Saint of Downtown Superstars, Peter Gatien, and his helpful staff of grunts.

  Do you see a perfectly understandable onslaught of delusions of grandeur sometime in the near future? After all, he is lauded and applauded and rimmed clean, everywhere he goes. . . . Please note his complete inability to deal with even the simplest of life’s problems (“blue ecstasy tonight or pink?”) . . . And tell me: is that “Selective Denial” thing a blessing, or a bag on his head? . . . now dig his mind-blowing way of seeing the world: inside out and from such a lofty height. It must be rather confusing to be so savagely observant, yet stuck on a pedestal, so far removed. He has a complete and utter grasp on a world that exists only for him. And when he visits our world, he will make no concession to our customs and beliefs.

  Most importantly though, note his COMPLETE AND UTTER FAITH that, no matter what: he is the golden child, he is the chosen one, and nothing can ever touch him. Silly little things, like public sex with a fourteen-year-old, and breaking into the neighbors’ apartment to pee on their furniture . . . are magically shrugged off. It’s unnerving.

  And potentially destructive.

  But—

  That’s the price you pay when you give inmates control of the asylum.

  When you let the wolves guard the hen house, there’s bound to be a few chicken dinners.

  And when you give a psychotic infant unlimited power and privilege?

  It can level a whole generation.

  Among the litter, the human debris, and the wreckage of lost souls that Michael left in his wake at Disco 2000, was one Jennytalia—CLUB KID EXTRAORDINAIRE! GIRL OF THE MINUTE! NEW AGE EDIE SEDGWICK! PUNK ROCK GO-GO GIRL! EVERYBODY’S FAVORITE RIDE AT DISCO 2000!

  Now don’t get me wrong, I love her to death, don’t have a bad thing to say about her. She’s a peach. She’s a saint, that girl. But let me just say this about that:

  She was bald, back when that was really something.

  And she pierced her own cheeks with large walruslike tusks, and, hard to believe, that too was once considered unconventional.

  So she was a trendsetter.

  She had a certain presence. Star Quality. She never said much, and what she did say never made much sense—but it didn’t really matter. Her liquid blue eyes would fix on you, her boobs would bounce beguilingly—and you were under her spell.

  Sixteen years old, and the doorgirl at the hippest haunt in town, gave her a certain cachet, notoriety.

  When she appeared in a Calvin Klein ad—well, who didn’t? It’s the ’90s! My great-aunt Melba was the original CK Be girl—things got crazy.

  We all went to Paris one year (Michael didn’t—there was a “No Smoking Crack” ordinance on transcontinental flights in those days), and Jenny modeled in the Jean Paul Gaultier show.

  That clinched it for her.

  She was a legend in the making.

  All she had to do was follow in Michael’s footsteps a bit longer, and become, in succession, a crack addict and a heroin addict—EDIE, NICO, JENNYTALIA!

  But club kid stardom always takes its toll.

  Who will ever forget the sight of her sitting in a trash can, trying to open a can of beans with a butter knife—because she was hungry and broke and she had given Freeze all her money so they could complete their week-long crack binge?

  It wasn’t all sequins and cocktails, kids.

  One day I wandered off somewhere, and got a little lost. Through an extremely odd set of circumstances, I ended up in Miami Beach working as a shoe salesman. But, that’s another story entirely.

  When I returned to my senses and came back to New York, I found that Disco 2000 was still hot, and Michael was still on top, but the scene had changed. It was darker and druggier than I remembered. Heroin had made its comeback, and Special K, Rohypn
ol, and GHB were everywhere. Coke and ecstasy were considered passé—dinosaur food.

  Now it was all about being super sloppy and out of control. The looks to look for were: “Damaged” and “Plague-ridden.” Sores and bruises. Ripped and ragged outfits.

  I guess in order to stave off boredom, the now terribly jaded club kids had resorted to massive self-destruction. They went to great lengths to shock and disgust the public at large.

  Contrary to popular opinion, Michael didn’t champion this change. In fact, I think it rather frightened him. Up until the early ’90s, he was a control freak, who only dabbled in a bit of ecstasy now and again.

  That was then.

  Nowadays, the only way to stay in with the in-crowd was to play their game. Had he resisted, he would have been left behind with the other ’80s relics.

  So, in the beginning, he would take a bit of something here, a sniff of something there, and greatly exaggerate their effects.

  “Oh ho! Look at me!” and he would fall down, very proud of himself, indeed.

  He painted circles under his eyes and bruises on his body to fit in: “Look, I’m just like you!”

  “I’m a crazy drug addict!”

  But then something began to happen.

  He stopped and listened and found the demons in his head were quiet, quelled. Heroin shut them up.

  There are people who contend that it was the drugs that drove Michael mad.

  I think the drugs held him together a little bit longer. He was already mad. He was always insane. He escaped into drugs to keep the monsters at bay.

  Speaking from experience, there are people who have too much space between their ears, and given the time, do nothing but free fall forever inside their heads.

  It’s a spooky thing to be left alone inside an angry inner-verse.

  Drugs redirect the fall. They cushion it. Give you a parachute. Or maybe just a flashlight and scuba gear. I don’t know how you look at the inside of your head—what metaphor you choose—but for those of us with endless yawning stretches of interior and nothing but nothing to stop us from getting lost in it, drugs can be wonderfully helpful.

  For a time.

  Sure, with Michael, near the end, they exacerbated his downfall. But for many years, they cushioned it. And the downfall was inevitable, believe me. He was crazy to begin with. The drugs just made the ride more fun.

  If we’re all going to hell in a handbasket, we might as well make it a party on the way down.

  STRANGE INTERLUDES

  Now.

  I think I have it.

  Here.

  In a nutshell. Michael encapsulated.

  Seven quick stories—seven very different stories—separated by years, and degrees of importance. Bite-sized bits of lunacy and dementia. Each vignette serving to highlight an aspect of Michael that I think is relevant to the murder of Angel.

  I believe it was Nietzsche—or maybe the Desi Monster—who said that every degree of power involves a corresponding degree of freedom from good and evil.

  I think after I tell you these anecdotes, I won’t have to prattle on anymore about “MICHAEL’S UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE” and “HIS MISPLACED NOTIONS OF RIGHT AND WRONG.” Or “MICHAEL’S LACK OF FEAR” and his “COMPLETE INABILITY TO GRASP CAUSAL EFFECTS.”

  Here we go. Very quickly.

  STORY NUMBER ONE

  We’re throwing an outlaw party at the Burger King in Times Square. At midnight. Burger King has not, as yet, been informed . . . but three hundred of downtown’s A-listers have been informed, and honey—THEY ARE DRESSING TO EXCESS.

  Michael has decided that the next “BIG THING” in fashion should be EXPOSED and ACCESSORIZED genitals. It’s the natural progression of things. So, he is naked except for a blue nose and a whimsical arrangement of sequins and feathers neatly attached to his rather vivid . . . uh . . . nether region.

  “Butt cracks, areolas, and gangly testicles should all be allowed the same fashion options and subsequent media coverage as the rest of the body!”

  So let it be noted. So let it be done.

  It was all part of a well-thought-out manifesto and accompanying fashion layout in the next issue of his magazine—Project X. And tonight he was testing his theory.

  And, my, he DID STAND OUT.

  Outlaw parties are surreal events. When you take a hundred freaks out of their cozy, comfy context, and place them—PLOP!—smack dab into reality, without the benefit of dramatic backdrops and throbbing disco lights and, most importantly, A SELECTIVE DOORMAN, well, their innate silliness is amplified a hundredfold.

  Watch Desi Monster order a hamburger:

  They can’t understand a damn word he is saying, what with the muzzle he’s got on . . . and he can’t see that they don’t understand because he is wearing a slotted mask that only allows a severely restricted field of vision. And his ten-inch platforms mean that he is only seeing a small, two-inch-by-one-inch section above their heads.

  Hilarity ensues as HE gets frustrated, THEY get flustered, and dozens of un-invited restaurant patrons gather to poke and laugh and gawk and gape.

  Now: fill the whole restaurant with similar happenings and visuals and understand why outlaw parties are such anticipated and talked-about events.

  Interacting with the real world, en masse, and watching the real world’s reaction to the spectacle we provided—sometimes violent, sometimes amused, ALWAYS slack-jawed—well, it’s more fun than sitting at home writing this book, I’ll tell you that.

  And for Michael to stand out in this carnival of freaks is quite an accomplishment, indeed.

  But everybody is just floored by the whole decorated genital concept. And ESPECIALLY Michael’s bedazzled and bedecked equipment.

  There are others at the party whose genitals Michael has dressed up as well . . . but they don’t have the—charisma?—GIRTH?—to carry it off with such aplomb.

  Michael was drunk from all the attention.

  Staggeringly drunk.

  So after we all thoroughly trashed Burger King’s upstairs dining room, and the cops came to stop the fun and arrest us all, Michael hops into a cab and tries for a clean getaway. The cabdriver, unfortunately, will not have anything to do with Michael. It’s company policy to discriminate against indecent freaks.

  When Michael steadfastly REFUSES to get out, the cabdriver LEAPS out of the cab and tries to physically remove him. Michael cannily locks all four doors, leaving the mad Muslim stuck outside, banging on the window.

  For some reason, the trunk of the cab is open, and the driver produces a set of golf clubs (?!?). He breaks the cab window and begins beating Michael senseless.

  Bleeding profusely, Michael leaves the cab and stumbles blindly home—TEN BLOCKS AWAY, THROUGH TIMES SQUARE AND HELL’S KITCHEN, with only a few sequins decorating his urethra and a mangy old turkey feather bobby-pinned to his pubic hair.

  He somehow makes it back to Riverbank West, his home, where we are neighbors.

  Once inside, he vomits, then passes out in the lobby, still bloody and naked.

  It took two doormen and a delivery boy from across the street to carry him upstairs.

  He came to, briefly, when his next-door neighbor—an elderly Asian woman—came out crying, “I can no more take this!”

  “Shut up, ya old battle-ax, or I’ll shut you up MYSELF!” quoth Michael, and he raised a fist, which sent her scurrying back to the safety of her apartment.

  STORY NUMBER TWO

  As the club kids grew in number and notoriety, Michael was often asked to throw parties at other clubs around the country. He would then gather up as many drug dealers as he could find, grab a couple of cute Brooklyn boys, and, HURRY! Get them on the plane, put ’em in a housedress, maybe glue a clown nose on them, and then pass them off as “New York club royalty.”

  “What’s your name again?” he’d whisper, as they arrived at the club.

  “Matt.”

  “Oh . . . uh . . . this is Matte Lipstick . . . ” he would grandly
announce to the club owner, “one of New York’s reigning superstars . . . ” And they loved it.

  It was unnerving to discover, after one or two visits, that soon, every city in America had a growing population of club kids, comprised mostly of little Matte Lipstick wanna-bes.

  I hated those trips.

  I vividly recall one time—well, it’s no wonder I’m an old drunk . . . Here. Gather ’round now children as I tell you a story.

  This is a harrowing tale of beating the odds and desperate times calling for desperate measures. Just how far will a man go to get his way? Here is the “Strange but True Story of Flight 452 to Chicago” . . .

  11:00 A.M., and the plane leaves at 11:40.

  And I am a stickler for punctuality.

  Don’t look at me like that. It’s true. I am a fiend when it comes to being on time. Growing up, we had to be at the airport two hours ahead of time. That’s just the way it was.

  And now Michael wouldn’t wake up. We jumped up and down on his bed, we poked sticks up his ass. Nothing.

  At 11:10, he got up and ordered breakfast from the deli downstairs, as I stomped and screamed and turned into my mother: “That’s it! We’re late! We’ll never get there! Might as well unpack! Thank you for ruining my vacation, Michael!”

  11:20, he started packing.

  “Oh! So, now Mr. On Time has decided to get it together! Tell me, Michael, do we have time for a stroll through the park? Shall I fire up the tea kettle? Let’s all play a quick hand of bridge!”

  I scowled and pointed my bony finger of doom at him: “IT’S TOO LATE NOW! Might as well catch up on my Christmas thank-you notes! We’ll never make it!”

  11:25, we were on the road, FOR ALL THE GOOD IT WOULD DO US. I was a seething cauldron of rage.

  “Stop the cab.” Michael screamed to the driver.

  He then hopped out and went to make a phone call as I, you know, breathed fire and spit tacks.

  We got there, though, and miraculously the plane was still there. We are twenty minutes late. Michael didn’t seem surprised. He wasn’t surprised an hour later when we still hadn’t boarded.