BLOODBATH

by James St. James

  Angel didn’t seem to mind. “Whatever. We’ll figure it out later.”

  “You’re on the budget for Wednesday and Saturday.”

  You are SO GOOD at it. Hats off.

  Funny that he was so understanding then … when just a month later, the two of you came to blows over the amount of money that you owed him. That was the first time he ever stood up to you, wasn’t it? In fact, it was probably the first time any club kid ever stood up to you.

  I can only guess how much you must have stolen from him that time, and what sort of debt you must have accumulated—you must have just pushed him about as far as he could go. Imagine Angel (!) getting up the nerve to push YOU! Hit YOU! Question your absolute authority! When he appeared to worship the ground you walked on!

  But he did. He pushed you. He hit you and you fought back. The whole scene talked of nothing else for days. That’s how you got that nasty bruise on your neck, right? Or was that a lie, too? Setting up the alibi, hmmm?

  That was near the end of February, just a week or two before you slaughtered him.

  Don’t you wish now that first scuffle had been the end of the relationship? That he would have packed up his things and left your sorry old junkie-ass when he had the chance? Then he would be alive, and you would be free, and the rest of us could sleep nights without the weight of all this self-righteous indignation bearing down upon us.

  I called you a few days after the fight, and Angel picked up the phone.

  “What on earth are you still doing at that house?” I asked.

  “Oh … you know.”

  “No, I am sure that I don’t know, Mister. You are an idiot to stay there. What possesses you?”

  He ignored my comment. “Michael and Freeze are at Bowery Bar right now.”

  “Tell them I called. And really, Angel, think about what a fool you’re being.”

  Click.

  That was the last time I spoke to him. Those were my last words to him. “You’re an idiot. You’re a fool. Why are you in that house?”

  I told him to get out. Call me Cassandra, but I knew something was wrong. I wish I could say, “I told you so.” I wish I could laugh in his face.

  But of course, it’s too late.

  They never listen, do they?

  On Sunday, March 31st, I wandered out of Club Expo into an unseasonably late snowstorm. I stumbled around Times Square, lost in an industrial strength K-hole, for close to an hour, without my shoes on. Somehow I found my way to your house, where I thought I would be safe and everything would be all right.

  That’s when you served me tea and scones and a little dollop of heroin and told me that you had butchered Angel and tossed him in the Hudson River.

  So much for warmth and safety.

  “Does this change how you think of me?” you asked, that night when you told me.

  “Do you still love me?” you asked.

  And when I said that nothing could ever be the same for me anymore, that I could never be happy just dressing up and going out, that I could never find joy in nightclubbing ever again—well, you started crying so hard you got hiccups.

  And you hugged my knees and said that was the worst thing I could have ever said—that that was the one thing you never wanted to take away from me.

  How silly that would sound to anybody who was listening! How superficial to say that because of a murder, I didn’t feel like dressing up anymore! That I didn’t want to go to parties anymore!

  I now know that you CAN’T just make up your own rules. And you CAN’T just live in your own little world.

  Easy stuff for everybody else.

  Suddenly, at age twenty-nine, I had to face the fact that the lines were drawn on the road because it was best for everyone that way.

  Your example taught me what I thought I would never find in myself: that to endure you must live within society’s structure, and work with it, and join in the rest of the world.

  So, if it’s superficial that my response to your murder is to stop wearing false eyelashes—then goddamnit—SO BE IT.

  And, you know, finally, when all is said and done: God Bless Angel.

  GOD FUCKING BLESS ANGEL.

  Can we just say that?

  Can we just get that out there once and for all?

  Can we just acknowledge his passing and mourn for a moment?

  He never knew what hit him, did he?

  He never knew how short the ride was. He hadn’t experienced life yet—how could he understand death when it came for him?

  I don’t think anyone will ever know what really happened that day. I don’t think I even care anymore.

  Sometimes at night, I see the shadow of your claw. I hear the beating of wings, and there is a sudden spray of blood upon the wall. A breath stops, and with it goes somebody’s world. Feathers fall gently to the ground and there is a close-up of your smiling blue face, with those awful red polka dots.

  Angel is gone.

  I’m back there again and I’m always there and I can never leave.

  Now, I don’t believe that the conscious mind can survive death. But I pray that something lasts, and I hope that somewhere in this world there is something left of him.

  And if there isn’t, then I’m going to make it up, and I’m going to make it so. I’m hanging on to a piece of light and I’m going to let it live forever.

  Happy re-birthday, Angel.

  EPILOGUE

  Suddenly, I was thirty.

  Suddenly I was this cranky old clam with a flat ass and hairballs in my ear. Suddenly my age-defying makeup, didn’t. I was old and all alone in a strange new town. And when I looked in the mirror for comfort? Why, there was some strange leathery old faggot staring back at me with yellow, rheumy eyes.

  Where was that strapping young buck of yore?

  My face was cracking, my boobs were sagging, and I smelled like sour milk. Decomposition must be setting in early! Was that a hunchback I saw forming? The heartbreak of scoliosis?

  I was a mess!

  How could this happen to me?

  ME!

  Why, just yesterday, it seems, I was leaping off bar stools and dancing on tabletops with all the insouciance of youth. I was unwrinkled then, and happy. The world was my oyster …

  Then—

  POW! BANG!

  One little murder and I go off the deep end! Next thing I know, I’m this grizzled old she-hag, dry-humping the cigarette machine. Prunella Turkeyneck!

  Ah! Youth!

  Fleeting, fading, slipping away!

  What is one to do?

  Endure, of course.

  So, as I roll toward middle age, leaving yesteryear behind—who really cares if I look like Christina and my testicles are knocking against my knees?

  Who cares if I have nothing to look forward to except a slow, debilitating, downward spiral?

  And realistically looming in my future? Bedpans, liver spots, and ear trumpets.

  Well, what of it?

  There is nothing sad or pathetic about my decay. Look at me. Really look at me—drag this old monster into the light. Poke me with your pitchforks. I will not shrink from your scrutiny! I am James St. James. I am like the Parthenon—something once great, fallen into ruin!

  But I can still stop traffic, goddamnit.

  As I prepare to enter my dotage (please call me Dame St. James from now on), I check the mirror for gout, put on a pretty gray wig, and a lacey little shawl, and powder my face with a bit of talcum … but darlings, I am not yet going to retire, Miss Havisham-like to the attic.

  I am leaving the safety of my home and going to find my manifest destiny.

  With my heavily veined and frail, bony hands, I clutch my walker and head for the door. It takes me ten minutes to walk the twenty-six steps to the elevator—oh, won’t somebody please pumice my corns for me? Then another forty-four steps to the front door of the lobby, where I paused to hock up a phlegmball the size of a Hacky Sack. I consider going back, but then I catch a whiff of hydrange
a on the wind, and it spurs me out into the sunlight.

  Oh! Los Angeles! My home?

  I kick a palm frond from my path, then reflect how nicely it would look rising out of my wig—did I have a couple dozen bobby pins tucked into my clutch? Oh, how the kids would go crazy for that look at Limelight … if only Limelight was still around. At least that nice Mr. Gatien got off. Acquitted of all charges! Good for him.

  I pluck a hibiscus flower and place it behind my ear, instead. I reapply my lipstick in the rearview mirror of a parked pickup truck.

  Well, would you look at me!

  The old girl’s got some snap in her garter yet!

  I looked like one of those Far Side women, with the cornflower sunglasses, wobbly jowls, and elbow fat! What fun!

  It was another 268 steps to the corner bakery. Yumpin’ Yimminy! Look at those young’uns dashing across the street—you’d think they were lemmings! It’s a wonder they make it through the day!

  At Manii’s Bakery, I take my time and look over all the delicious goodies. Lemon Torte! Pecan Praline! Oh, what I wouldn’t give for some ribbon candy!

  Would you look at the precious expressions on those gingerbread men?

  It’s a shame I never had grandchildren!

  I choke back a wistful tear.

  Thirty years old, and still no grandchildren!

  Then I see what I came for. I asked the nice young man behind the counter for a single slice of Cinnamon Raisin Swirl.

  I looked at it long and hard and thought of Michael and of all of the years we spent together.

  Then I shove it all in my mouth at once, and swallow without even chewing.

  The other customers gape at me.

  “What are you staring at? You’ve never seen a man in a muumuu before? What’s the matter? Are my Depends sagging? Go back to your muffins, all of you!”

  And with that, I tossed my walker aside, sprang for the door, and bolted head first into traffic.

  Goodbye Michael.

  Hello World.

  Acknowledgments:

  My deepest and most heartfelt appreciation goes out to everyone involved with Disco Bloodbath.

  To Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey—without you I’m nothing. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You gave me my life back.

  To my agents William Clark and Cat Ledger—without your enthusiasm and conviction, I’d probably still be lying in a mud puddle somewhere.

  To my editor at Simon & Schuster—Chuck Adams, an angel, an honest to God angel, who really understood where I was coming from and helped guide me through the tough spots.

  To Ed Davis, my lawyer, for … for … being so damned thorough.

  To everyone at World of Wonder, especially Thairin, Tiffany, Karin, Ed, Scott, and Harry.

  To all the Downtown Superstars who give the scene its magic: Kenny Kenny, Richie Rich, Sophia LaMar, Amanda LaPore, Astro Earle, Julie Jewels, Walt Paper, Robert and Tim Twin, J.J., Sushi, Sacred, Desire, Tobell, Cody, and Brie. I love you all. I miss you all.

  To Michael Musto and Stephen Saban, thank you for your friendship and support.

  And to Rickie, Rickie, Rickie. It’s always all for you.