Widow Basquiat

by Jennifer Clement

  On the airplane she sits beside the country-western singer Mac Davis. He is wearing a cowboy hat, cowboy boots and a belt of matching lizard skin. It makes Suzanne giggle.

  She gets up and goes to the bathroom and sniffs some heroin and puts on some more red lipstick.

  If the airplane crashes she does not care.

  Jean, Rammellzee and Toxic were at the airport to greet me. We drove in a pickup truck on the freeway to Larry Gagosian’s house in Venice. Jean was living in Larry’s house. Jean had a studio for painting on the ground floor with a bed in the middle of the room. There was paint and canvases and oil stick everywhere. Jean would go off and leave me alone in Larry’s house. Larry had a lot of art and every single door to every room locked automatically behind you when you shut it. They forgot to tell me this and one day I was trapped in a room for hours.

  In L.A. we used to go to Mr. Chow’s, where Jean would exchange art for dinner. Jean was friends with Tim Kelly, who was the son of Gene Kelly. Once we went over to Gene Kelly’s house to see Tim. It was a grand old Hollywood house and there was an Oscar on the mantelpiece. I was leaning over the bar with my ass in the air trying to get a drink and in walks Gene Kelly. I was floored. He was an idol of mine. Tim introduced us and I shook his hand. Gene Kelly apparently loved Jean and gave him his jacket from Singing in the Rain.

  Jean told me that Madonna had been there to visit him the week before I came. Madonna, he said, had asked him to take her on a shopping spree. He asked me why I never asked him to do this and I answered that it never occurred to me to ask him for such a thing.

  Then I said, “Will you take me on a shopping spree?”

  And he said, “No. I’m completely broke from Madonna’s shopping spree.”

  MICHAEL STEWART

  It does not take long to find a nice, sweet pair of arms. A kid’s arms. A boy who is even more of a child than she is. He is gentle. He has never felt the whack of a hand to the back of his neck. He has never felt a punch to the side of his face. He has never known his skeleton.

  Suzanne meets Michael Stewart at the Berlin nightclub, where she is a bartender. He is a busboy at the Pyramid Club. Michael Stewart is a shy, light-skinned black man. He comes from a very nice Baptist middle-class family in Brooklyn.

  When Suzanne is in the hospital with PID, which she contracted from Jean-Michel, Michael comes to visit every day. Suzanne is there for two weeks on IV antibiotics and he brings magazines, Coca-Cola and potato chips. They spend New Year’s Eve in the hospital together.

  I’ll never forget how sweet and kind Michael Stewart was. I adored him as if he were my kid brother. He was gentle and quiet. When I was sick in the hospital he came to see me every day. He’d do all the things I could not do like pay my phone bills, etc. He was a little bit awed that I was Jean’s girlfriend.

  THE BERLIN

  Michael sits at the bar and asks Suzanne for a Coke and talks to Suzanne for hours. He comes in every night he can. He chews on toothpicks and eats the olives and cherries out of Suzanne’s bar tray.

  They play tic-tac-toe and geography games. One night Suzanne leans over and kisses his forehead. She tells him he reminds her of her little brother. He tells her he has nowhere to live and she lets him live with her.

  He asks her if he can use the shower and Suzanne says, “Sure.”

  He asks her if he can drink some of the milk and Suzanne says, “Sure.”

  He asks her if he should go out and buy the newspaper and Suzanne says, “Sure.”

  He cleans the apartment while Suzanne is at work.

  They sleep together and sometimes they make love. In the morning Suzanne says, “You remind me of my brother.”

  Once in a while Suzanne disappears for days. She is still seeing Jean-Michel. This never stops.

  A few weeks later Michael loses his job and moves back to his mother’s house on Clinton Avenue.

  LUCKY STRIKE

  Suzanne sees Michael at a club on 9th Street called Lucky Strike, where Madonna is a bartender. They have a few drinks. Suzanne tells him that she is sorry that she is always going back to Jean-Michel, but that she can’t help it. Michael is very sweet and gentle and just strokes her arm and says, “Yes, yes.”

  Suzanne says, “You can come back and stay with me if you like.”

  Michael says, “Yes, yes.”

  After a few hours he leaves the bar and takes the LL subway to Brooklyn.

  It is alleged by the police that Michael was writing graffiti, yet no graffiti or markers are found. Michael is arrested. The officer claims that Michael resisted arrest. The arresting officer calls for a backup unit. Five cops arrive.

  Suzanne thinks: he was so slight and gentle; I could have put a pair of handcuffs on Michael.

  It was about ten in the morning when I got a call from Michael’s mother. She told me that some police had come to her home and told her that Michael was in the hospital. She was calling from the hospital. She was in the emergency room. She told me to come. I arrived at the emergency room of Bellevue Hospital and found Michael’s parents there. I asked what had happened. They said that they did not know.

  Michael’s mother was a pleasant, short woman with light skin and a deep sadness and worry in her black eyes, which always looked watery like pools. She had a very pretty face with a big, thin stretched smile. When she smiled her whole face lit up except her eyes, which always remained sad—probably because of the death of her first son. Michael’s father was perhaps the most elegant man I have ever met. A tall, thin light-skinned black man with white features. He always wore a suit and tie and a ’40s-style hat, which he removed whenever he entered a room. He was quiet, shy and modest like Michael. I was impressed by his dignity. He always sat in the visitors’ room reading The New York Times from cover to cover. He was in terrible pain; you could see it on his face. But he was so silent with it. He just kept reading and reading and reading.

  I asked Michael’s mother why no one had told her what had happened and she said all she knew was that he had been arrested and was now in a coma.

  I went up to the emergency room desk and said I was Michael Stewart’s fiancée (which I wasn’t) and I demanded to see him and to know what had happened. I was told that the information I wanted was not available at the time.

  I was then approached by a plainclothes detective, who immediately started to question me. He asked me questions about Michael. Did he do drugs? I said no. Was he known to be violent? I said absolutely not. Then I became very angry and I started to question the detective. The detective said he did not know anything. This I instantly found curious. He was a police officer. It was either one or the other. The police either found him this way or they did this to him. That would be in a police report and the detective would have access to that information. I knew that something was not right. I then asked him exactly what state Michael was in and if he was going to die. The detective whispered, “Yes.” I told the detective that I would not answer any more questions until I had a lawyer present. I walked up to Michael’s mother and I asked her if she knew a civil rights attorney. She said she did.

  When the attorneys arrived everything began to move quickly. We were whisked into a private room. Finally, the lawyers and their own doctor were allowed to see Michael. When the doctor came back, he sat down and said, “There are so many things wrong with your son you should hope that he dies.” We all let out gasps. But no one cried. The doctor told us he was brain-dead. He said that he had a massive hemorrhage at the base of his brain that appeared to have been caused by strangulation from an illegal choke hold with a billy club. He also said that Michael had numerous abrasions and contusions all over his body and lacerations on his wrists and ankles that appeared to be from handcuffs and foot shackles.

  THE NEXT MORNING

  Suzanne calls Fiorucci, where she is working for Maripol, the jewelry designer. She says that she will not be coming to work. Suzanne cuts her hair. She goes to a thrift shop and buys a conservative pink blouse, a bla
ck skirt and a plastic string of pearls. She calls Jean-Michel’s loft but no one answers.

  She borrows a friend’s camera and goes to Bellevue Hospital. Michael is in a room with a police guard outside the door and a video camera in the room. They tell Suzanne this is because Michael Stewart is under arrest. She tells the police officer, “Sir, mister, he is my boyfriend. Sir, mister, please let me in for two minutes. Please, sir, please, mister.”

  The room smells of rotten meat. Suzanne throws her coat over the camera and pulls back Michael’s sheets and photographs every single mark on his body. His face is covered in small cuts, and bits of glass are visible in his flesh. (Later she learns that the police broke the window of the police car with his face.) His face is huge and swollen. His eyes are bloated, closed pieces of red and black meat. He has cuts and bruises all over his chest and legs. His head is wrapped in a gauze bandage. Tubes are coming out of his nose and there is a respirator tube in his mouth. There are welts on his ankles and wrists. There is no place on his body that has not been hurt.

  She can’t touch him. He cannot stand for anything else to touch him.

  Michael Stewart’s parents surrender to this frail, skinny girl who is so strong she can set the world on fire.

  I immediately started working with the lawyers on the case. They told me that the most important thing we needed was press coverage. No reporter would cover the story at the beginning. The lawyers told me to go to Peter Noel at the Amsterdam News. So I did. He was the only reporter who would talk to me. I also started meeting with members of the National Black United Front. At first they did not accept me until I told them that I was half Palestinian.

  I also became aware that the lawyers were going to cost a lot of money. As almost every single art gallery in SoHo was showing graffiti art at the time, I went to them and told them about the case. I said that Michael was a graffiti artist. (He wasn’t, he just dabbled in it because it was hip.) I told them they should donate money for his legal defense. In one month I raised fourteen thousand dollars. The bulk of this money was donated by Keith Haring. Many galleries also donated money and Madonna did a benefit at Danceteria.

  After two weeks, Michael died. He died on September 15, 1983. I remember this date so well because I read somewhere that on September 15, 1963, five young girls were killed by a bomb in a church in Birmingham, Alabama, by the KKK. I found it a very strange thing that Michael died exactly twenty years to the day of this incident.

  The Stewarts’ lawyers’ forensic pathologist found the final cause of death to be strangulation caused by an illegal choke hold with a billy club and a massive brain hemorrhage. The medical examiner for the city made a formal statement to the press saying that there was no evidence that the injuries sustained while in police custody had caused Michael Stewart’s death. When asked by the press what caused the death of a healthy twenty-five-year-old, he answered, “Heart failure.” It was simply unbelievable.

  The lawyers later discovered that someone had Michael’s eyes removed. This was not a standard procedure and he should have secured permission from the lawyers and the family. It appeared that someone had also secretly placed Michael’s eyes in a bleaching formula that would bleach out the hemorrhaging that could have been proof of strangulation.

  A group of us got together and demanded an inquiry into the autopsy report to prove that there was a city cover-up of racially motivated police brutality. We got about four thousand signatures.

  I then went with Reverend Herbert Daughtry, who was the head of the National Black United Front, to City Hall. We had notified the press and they were all there. Every New York news station and newspaper. Suddenly all the news cameras flashed and Rev. Daughtry said to me, “Suzanne, I am not in good standing with the mayor. You do it.” I was shocked. I thought that he was going to do it. I instantly became composed and walked up the steps of City Hall by myself and handed the petition to Mayor Koch’s lawyer and said, “On behalf of the citizens of New York, I present you with this petition that demands a formal inquiry into the chief medical examiner’s report concerning the death of Michael Stewart while in police custody.”

  A grand jury investigation did ensue, but all the police were let off free. Then a civil suit was conducted and the family received one million dollars for wrongful death. But those police officers are still out there walking the beat.

  INVITED TO HARLEM

  Suzanne is invited to Harlem to a place called Fight Back to speak about the Michael Stewart case. It is a small room with wall dividers and the walls do not go up to the ceiling. Everyone is black except for one pregnant Puerto Rican woman and her husband. Suzanne realizes she is in the wrong place. This is a very radical black Muslim Five-Percent Nation meeting. These people believe you should arm yourself against whites. They believe all whites are the devil and they believe in the revolution that will come when blacks will take over the world. They are all radical extremists and followers of Louis Farrakhan.

  They ask Suzanne to go up to the front of the room and speak about the Michael Stewart case. Which she does.

  A man in the back of the room starts screaming, “White bitch, white girl!” He is asked to leave the room.

  Five minutes later this man returns with a ski mask on his face and a gun, which he points at the door. “White bitch, you’re dead,” he screams. Someone jumps up and shuts the door on this man.

  Suzanne cannot swallow. Her mouth moves and says, “I am a follower of Islam. If I must die I will die in the name of the almighty Allah.”

  Everyone stands up. Everyone is suddenly very frightened. The women crowd around the pregnant woman and the men crowd around all the women and they leave together in a huddled mass.

  After this, Suzanne stops working on the Michael Stewart case. She is frightened and moves back to Canada for a few months, afraid that she might be deported. She thinks her telephone is bugged and that people are following her.

  MICHAEL STEWART’S FUNERAL

  Michael’s mother has chosen to have an open casket. Even though the body is very badly beaten and even though an autopsy was performed. She wants everyone to see what was done to her son. She speaks at the funeral. She says something short and simple. She says something like, “When Michael was a little boy, I taught him to believe in justice. I taught him that if he treated people the right way he would be treated the right way. The first song he learned to sing was ‘God Bless America.’ ”

  The designer Dianne Brill donates a suit for the burial. Dozens of news cameras are waiting outside the church.

  The girl is wearing a tight black skirt and black fishnet stockings.

  Suzanne says, “Michael would have liked me this way.”

  The girl puts three of her bracelets in the coffin.

  I don’t believe in God. But I do believe that each of us has some sort of inner dynamic, that we are not always aware of, that guides us in life to witness certain profound things. These profound things change us forever and bring us closer to our ultimate selves. My relationship with Jean-Michel Basquiat and the death of Michael Stewart were experiences of this nature.

  UNTITLED (DEFACEMENT)

  Jean-Michel paints Untitled (Defacement), 1983. Acrylic and ink on wallboard, 25 x 30½ inches. The painting is of two policemen beating up a small, childlike black figure that already appears to be in a shroud. The head is surrounded by a halo. There is graffiti in the background. It says: C.O.P., hoh and DEFACIMENTO?

  Jean was very upset by Michael’s death. It made him feel very vulnerable. But, at the same time, he was very mad at me for causing such a fuss over Michael’s death. He even told me that I should forget about it, that it was over and done with, and that there was nothing that I could do about it. He hated that I was working on the case and that I was so obsessed with it. I think it really frightened him. I think he thought he was next. He always thought that the police, the government or the people in charge were going to kill him. He was such a barometer for the racist culture he lived in.
He felt everything around him in a very heightened way. It was not only cocaine paranoia.

  BAREFOOT

  Jean-Michel calls Suzanne and tells her to come over. He actually says, “Come over and play, Venus.”

  He is freebasing coke because he has developed a hole in his nose and has a piece of cotton stuck in one of his nostrils. He is wearing a blue Armani suit that is covered with paint. Jean-Michel is so skinny the suit flaps around his skeletal body. He is barefoot and there is paint all over his flat, wide feet. Suzanne does some coke too.

  Jean-Michel tells Suzanne to lie down on a canvas that is on the floor. She lies down feeling the pitter-patter of the coke inside her. Jean-Michel draws a line around her body, over her head, down her arms and in and around her fingers. He tells her she can get up. They do some more coke.

  Then he fills in the life-sized portrait with a liver, heart and spleen. He draws two eggs for eyes and a big watermelon mouth. He kisses the face in the drawing but he does not kiss Suzanne.

  When they start to come down from the coke they go to bed and shiver and shake in each other’s arms.

  I first met Keith Haring at Club 57, which was in the basement of a church on 8th Street. He was a really nice guy. Jean introduced him to me. He and Jean had a great deal of respect for each other. But my strongest association with Keith was at the Paradise Garage club. This club was a really tough black gay club, a huge loft with no liquor license. It was so cool. There was no liquor so everyone came high on mushrooms, pot and mostly hallucinogens like ecstasy and acid. Jean went there a lot and so did I. But usually not with each other. He would see me there and get mad. He didn’t like me hanging out there because this club was a really tough black club. There were metal detectors at the door and there were not that many girls that hung out there. I guess Jean thought he would have to keep an eye on me.