BLOODBATH

by James St. James

  It’s not such a terrible way to live. It’s neither Heaven nor Hell. Because if you’re never really sad—you know too much to let life surprise you or to get to you—then, you’re also never really happy. That was the Purgatory Freeze faced as a street person, depending on his former fans to take care of him.

  But I don’t think he was bitter about his fall. Impassive, maybe. Philosophical, probably. Bitter, no.

  In fact: there was a strength and dignity to Freeze Number 3 that was admirable, truly. He faced the unknown each day—rejection, hunger, withdrawal—without flinching.

  He was broken, to be sure, but his blatant refusal to pick himself up, dust himself off, and get on with it, to find a home, find a job, get a life—well, it was breathtaking in it’s audacity. He was, without a doubt, the most imperious vagrant you would see.

  He expected to survive and, in fact, he did.

  It was inevitable that he would end up with Michael. Mavis was gone from both of their lives, and with Michael’s spiraling heroin addiction, they were perfect together.

  After spending the summer and fall of ’95 drifting from pillar to post, he landed at Michael’s condominium just in time for Michael’s eviction.

  I mean, well, who forgets to pay their mortgage for three years?

  And who else could get away with it for so long?

  Peter was still willing to help. He offered to pay the back fees—but it was finally decided that it would be easier to just get another place. It would be cheaper in the long run.

  So Michael and Freeze began house hunting together.

  They clicked—tic toc.

  And if you thought Michael and Mavis made a combustible pair, Michael and Freeze were nothing short of Hiroshima, mes amours.

  Together, they brought out an oily quality in each other that usually was kept hidden.

  Seeing them together, watching them work, made me shiver. They were like evil twins who spoke their own language.

  And their syrupy sweet baby talk to one another, well it was just plain spooky.

  Freeze, with a glue stick in one hand, a scrap of fur in the other: “Michael, Snooky, la-da-doo?”

  Michael: “Yes, Freezeskers, lover-la-da?”

  THAT, my friends, is the true heart of darkness. Speaking together in tongues—one mind, one goal.

  I am reminded of a great quote by Stanislaw Lee: “I give you bitter pills, in a sugar coating. The pills are harmless—the poison’s in the sugar.”

  Therein lies the basis of Michael and Freeze.

  They had a systematic way of getting what they wanted, a sort of telepathy that instantaneously sized up potential victims, discreetly pointing out weak spots, Achilles’ heels, any jugular veins the other swindlers might have overlooked.

  They worked successfully together. (If you define “successful” as: creepy, craven grifters, then, by golly, they were at the top of their class.)

  But the free fall was gathering speed.

  They found a loft they both liked, and Peter paid the deposit, and somehow they forgot and left both of Michael’s cats there alone in the empty loft for weeks before they moved in. When they decided against the loft after all, they remembered Miss Kitty and Spikers …

  And ran back to fetch them.

  Spikers was dead. Starved and frozen. Kitty was on death’s doorstep as well, but somehow pulled through. Only to run away two months later. And nobody missed her.

  THAT MICHAEL FORGOT AT ALL, and left his beloved Spikers to starve to death, shows just HOW FAR GONE HE WAS AT THIS POINT.

  He and Freeze together were trouble. They doubled the dosage, increased their powers, and yet subtracted the whole of their former selves.

  Michael and Freeze eventually moved back into the old Riverbank apartment building on the West Side, where, years ago, Michael and Keoki and I had all lived as young and wacky neighbors. But those days were long gone. Michael was no longer … well … young anymore. There were still spurts of wackiness, but basically, it was sad watching that magical life force drain out of him because of the drugs.

  Michael and Freeze hoped it might be a new beginning for them. A rebirth. They got a cute two-bedroom apartment, well cute until Michael got a hold of it. Michael’s taste was very Ethan Allen, if you know what I mean.

  So.

  It’s September and the stage is almost set for the much anticipated denouement of our little Greek tragedy. Things are happening quickly now. Dark forces are gathering. Fate is about to intercede and change everything forever. It’s coming. Soon. Soon. There still remains one element that is missing, but we’ll get to HIM soon enough. I promise.

  For now, let us merely gaze at the great tableau frozen in front of us, as the curtain slowly falls on Act II. The dust has yet to settle from the Mavis Mess, and the lighting here is so faint and gloomy, it’s hard to make out what’s going on. Some of the characters’ actions are unclear.

  We can certainly see the DEA circling about, trying to “blend in,” to great comic effect. Big ugly apes in pearls and lipstick, awkwardly carrying lunchboxes. Apparently, the powers that be want Peter Gatien’s head on a platter. And they’ll sacrifice anyone’s dignity to get it. There is a general sense of unease, almost paranoia, in the clubs these days. Many of the flashier people are crowded right off the stage. Others are relegated to the background. And then there’s Michael, shrouded in shadows, blowing smoke rings from his crack stem.

  Michael is on his way out, can’t you feel it? Listen to the thunder of a thousand new hooves, a whole new generation of kids pushing and surging into the Limelight who don’t know, don’t care, don’t want to know or care about club kid looks and clubland etiquette. Sorry, Grandpa—they just want to dance. They just want KEOKI, the Superstar DJ, who has pushed his way out of Michael’s shadow, become a helluva DJ, and climbed into a lofty new position of power. It’s his turn to take his rightful place in our Pantheon of the Painfully Hip. Keoki has dyed his hair leopard, RAR! and has a dozen “assistants” help him pick out which pair of chaps to wear to that night’s gig.

  But poor Michael is losing his touch, can’t you see it? He’s lost the will to go out and work the crowd, press some flesh, lure in those unsuspecting young pups into his lair. He has also lost his precious club kid magazine, Project X (it fell through the cracks, so to speak), and without that wacky bit of propaganda to fuel his fans’ ardor, he loses not only his puppet-master’s pulpit, but also a certain degree of validation.

  The scene splinters.

  Nothing seems fun anymore.

  And amidst this chaotic disorder, amidst the clamor and clanging and changing of the guard, as the old once again despair to make way for the new—there, in the wings, waiting to make his appearance is the last element of our story. Yes! Over there! In the corner! Wandering onto our stage, coming into view, is one lone figure, one small figure, one terribly silly little drug dealer, all decked out in a pair of wings! Wings, of all things!

  Here, now, pushing his way forward, up through the ranks, is a third-rate Mavis (if you know what I mean), demanding to be heard. This poor player wants his God-given privilege, as a Club Kid Superstar Drug Dealer, his right to strut and fret his hour upon the stage—then be heard no more.

  Look, in the spotlight now, front and center: the most important, yet least interesting character of all—our aspiring corpse has wandered onto center stage!

  LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, without further ado, as the lights go down, allow me to quickly introduce to you, THE ONE, THE ONLY …

  Angel Melendez.

  Oh!

  I see that got Michael’s and Freeze’s attention! They seem to be looking toward the spotlight with undisguised greed. Notice them as they creep forward and circle their intended prey, all the while eyeing his large bag of pharmaceuticals, and the many pockets bulging with too much cash.

  Tic-toc, see them smile and warmly greet and embrace Angel, as they lead him off the stage. And into the Riverbank. “Of course you can stay with us!�
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  Watch Michael and Freeze work to gain Angel’s trust.

  And that is how our story begins.

  But before the curtain falls, let me leave you with one question—ponder it as the events unfold, then riddle me this:

  If one day, Mother Teresa was out weed whacking and accidentally chopped off Hitler’s head—WOULD THAT NECESSARILY BE SUCH A BAD THING?

  I mean … if a person commits a crime, and no one cares—can we all just adjust our lip liner?

  Look, I’m just being honest here. I think that the whole point of my story is that nobody ever implicated Dorothy in the double witch homicides of Oz because, well … you know…. She’s Judy Garland, for God’s sakes, and Louis B. Mayer forced her into a life of drugs at such a young age, poor thing …

  Just remember that as we …

  FAST-FORWARD TO …

  THE AFTERMATH

  I was an absolute puddle when I left Michael’s house, just a big old body of water. How was I supposed to deal with this? I’m no good in a crisis. I fall apart when my mascara clumps. Defrosting my refrigerator is a traumatic ordeal. I freak out at ATMs. I spend hours agonizing over the phrase: “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear” … How was I supposed to deal with police interrogations, stalkarazzi, and the inevitable courtroom appearances—because this will end up in the courtroom, how could it not?

  Oh, this was not an easy thing to digest.

  I needed to do some serious thinking.

  Very serious …

  Serious, yes …

  Now, where to begin …

  Well, Angel is dead. Let’s begin there. How do I feel about that?

  I’m not upset about Angel, not by any stretch. He was a horrible person … my what pretty shoes … it’s just that he didn’t deserve … oh!

  A string of lights sparkled on a balcony high and away.

  Well, nobody deserves to die like that … and why did they have to use the Drano? … I don’t think I understood that part …

  Is that vanilla I smell? I really like vanilla … underrated, really …

  Hmmm. Nothing seems to be sticking in my head. Blank slate. Empty cave. All the crowded, tangled thoughts that are usually diving and swooping around the inside of my head, like bats or too many pigeons, must have flown out my ear. I was alone in my head for once, and I did not like it.

  Not at all.

  I had made it all the way to Tompkins Square Park; I was thirty steps from my home. But I couldn’t face making small talk with the blissed out ne’er-do-wells that were always jonesing on my floor.

  I sat and watched pigeons peck at a pile of vomit, instead.

  I hobbled around the park, through the wide open slopes of gorse and heather, pretending to be crippled—that always kills a few minutes.

  I tried standing on my head, but as my head is completely misshapen—all isosceles angles, really—and the pavement was cold and sticky, and a crowd was gathering around me, screaming “You suck!”—I quickly gave up.

  I know it sounds cliché:

  But I’d start off thinking about Angel, and how an argument could get so out of hand …

  I’d grapple with it for a good long while, really I would. And I would go in circles, until I finally just had to stop and wonder about something else, like just why was it that Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge?

  Then I’d give the hammer issue another whirl, but would just end up wondering why FOX canceled a perfectly good show like Herman’s Head.

  And so on.

  I dreamed I was Mary Hart—my hero—she of the marvelous million-dollar legs and soothing sotto voice. Oh, she is just my absolute idol!

  Anyway, I was Mary and I was with my boyfriend, Dr. Dre—not the fat one. (Well, not the really fat one.)

  Anyway.

  We were kickin’ it back in the ’hood, you know. The sun was shining and the Negroes were singing and my hair was flipping so nicely …

  Suddenly we were all underwater—you know how dreams are—and I stopped being Mary and Mary became somebody else—it all seemed so clear, except that it wasn’t clear of course, because we were underwater. Mary wasn’t what she claimed to be, in fact she had a chainsaw and was busy hacking away at some sailor.

  Well, it doesn’t take friggin’ Dr. Joyce Brothers to interpret this little vignette. Scholars won’t be scratching their heads here. No need. It’s just your standard post-Freudian pop imagery.

  But this is odd: the upper half of the sailor floated by and I caught his thoughts. They were very calm. “Help me into the next place,” he said, reaching. And, I too, felt a pang, a longing to go with him. Everything was warm and sad and joyous, too, and I woke up crying.

  Reality can be a rather free-floating concept when there are three drug dealers staying in your apartment who owe you rent. Reality can be dismissed in the whiff of your nasal spray, the chopping of a razor blade, and the scoop of a straw.

  And so it was in the days and nights immediately following Michael’s disclosure. I went on an extended vacation, a much needed retreat from the world.

  Three bottles of liquid ketamine a day … that’s what I asked for, that’s what I got …

  … that cooks up to about four grams of K …

  … this before I even went out at night.

  I spent a lot of time on the ceiling. It’s an easy place to be, once you adjust to it, once you acknowledge that you are, indeed, upside down, or maybe everyone else is, as well.

  Of course, it doesn’t really matter.

  Sometimes there are three or four of everybody, sometimes they turn into my great-aunt Dessa; sometimes they just float out of their seats and gently explode like little soap bubbles—

  And as for those other matters, that distasteful bit of … what?

  It’s gone.

  This is my world now; insert fantasy here. A window opens, it’s beautiful. Go to it, ease into it, make yourself at home. There’s no need to ever come out. We still have two bottles to go.

  And when that’s gone, there’s always more.

  Life can be easy, when you hold the lease. If my friends the drug dealers say no, it’s their asses on the street. This is New York. And I always have such cute apartments, people put up with a multitude of my sins.

  At night, at the clubs, I was a lumbering old lug nut. One of those slobbering idiots I used to run from, myself, every night. I had become a spastic mute so that I would be unable to give voice to my building rage and frustration.

  It wasn’t attractive. It wasn’t healthy. It was stupid. But, then I never claimed to be Eleanor Roosevelt.

  People, this is my sanity we’re talking about. I was under a lot of pressure.

  The gossip had begun swirling in clubland. People noticed Angel’s absence in that painful way they do when a drug dealer isn’t around to service them. Nobody cared about him personally, but, shit, they needed that bump.

  As the Gladys Kravitz of the New York City club scene, I was expected to have an opinion on just about everything. I always reacted quickly and rather shrilly to the comings and goings of the various club kids, to their surges in popularity, and their inevitable downfalls. You could find me on any given night, waving my arms in disgust at the whole lot of them.

  It was no surprise then, that during this time people turned to me as Gossip Central.

  “Did you hear? They found his head in the Bronx …”

  “… hands in a freezer in Staten Island …”

  “… face bashed in …”

  “He was mugged in Harlem …”

  “… in the Witness Protection Program …”

  “The Post said he was the possible victim of vampires in the East Village.”

  Everybody wanted my opinion; I always had my nose in everybody’s business anyway, how could I not know something?

  Rather than answer every question, rather than lie, or be evasive to every inquiring drag queen—it was easier to blast off on a rocket ride of K and fall
into a trash heap someplace dark, where I could stay and pretend I was Cinderella sleeping in the ashes.

  Everybody learned to leave me alone.

  Eventually, it was easier to just stay home and feel sorry for myself.

  I looked like hell. I was grumpy and consumptive.

  Just imagine: skin like wax paper—thin and translucent—a web of purple veins throbbing and humming, just below the surface …

  Nervous, clawing hands, grabbing at ghosts.

  I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know what was going on around me. Elizabeth Taylor could be River Dancing on my kitchen counter and I wouldn’t have noticed.

  So more, more. Cook up some more.

  And I was drinking a lot. There were times when I blacked out and woke up screaming.

  And always there was a crowd of people around to feed me more. The usual suspects: dealers, drag queens, hangers-on. Homeless club kids. No matter how much I needed to talk to someone about the evil in my life, it was never the right time, and just easier to do more.

  And hope it all went away.

  But of course it didn’t.

  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?