In the Shadow of the American Dream (22 page)

So Danceteria is opening an extra night a week, you and Lois have to come down one night, I'll call ya soon and we'll set a date for it and I'll put you on the guest list, okay? I'm supposed to see the Picasso show (Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole) in July. The upstate parties were good especially the car scenes on return as I've taken photos of friends sleeping but always wanted one of myself in that state, totally unconscious, ya know?

Last Saturday night at Danceteria was the worst ever. Now I'm head busboy and run all three floors helping the other busboys out. Chuck, this great guy who usually gets stuck with the main floor and is now a good friend, we was runnin' nuts with the crowd breaking stuff up and dropping bottles like those newsreels of bombs floating out the bottoms of airplanes. A pipe in the wimmen's room burst twice sending cascades of water everywhere. You don't know what tough means till ya stepped into a crowd of wimmen in a tiny john in a rock club at 3
A.M.
with mops and alla them turn around and abuse ya while yer tryin' ta mop the fuckin' floods up and some woman's doing Chaplinesque stumbles with a beer in one hand and a head fulla quaaludes and sayin' does the bus stop here? Then later we found her in the men's room calmly discussing an elephant-sized turd draped over the top of the only toilet. We said, Fuck this, man, the salary ain't that good, and left the rest of the desperate Danceteria boys to deal with it. Then at some point when we both were gonna quit for the twentieth time, Chuck spied these two assholes on the main dance floor throwing each other about the floor, “artfully arranging themselves into living sculptures,” and ran over and kicked the guy square in the ass and said, Git up muthafucka (he's from Memphis) you ain't the only person in this joint, and left the guy yellin' at the top of his hack daniels lungs, He KICKED me he
kicked
me. Jesus gimme a break …

Brian's been ill. Lady Doc told him yesterday he may be the first person in twenty-five years to have rheumatic fever. Test comes back today and we'll find out thank god it ain't contagious.

So this has been my life this past week. Oh yeah, Carole (remember her from Bookies) appeared before me at Danceteria like a vision in leather jacket and crow black hair askin' for a Heineken. Had a good long talk and we'll get together sometime in the near future. She's movin' into town in two weeks.

Look, I'm light-headed from no food since last night, gotta run and buy somethin' to eat before my ears fall off. Good to get yer letters, hope all is well and hello to Lois and Mike and Mona and we gotta get together soon okay? Bye-bye.

*
David describes this story in a monologue, “Boy in a Coffee Shop on Third Avenue,” in
The Waterfront Journals
.

August 1980–January 1981

[No date]

Down in the piers going towards sunset, the river easing into dusk, times I think I see myself from a distance entering the ribbed garagelike doors of this place from the highway, times I gain a certain distance from myself and wonder why it is these motions are continued, animal sexual energy, the smell of shit and piss becoming overwhelming insofar as everyone uses this joint as an outdoor toilet, getting fucked and letting it loose in some spare corner, rage from months of old sex, stained clothes, and pools of urine. To get past this you have to breathe light and stay near the openings of the walls and walk way back to the end where the walls open out into the river and some concrete platform that rides out a ways and every so often crumbles into the sea. Deep in the back of the mind some of us wish it would all burn down, burn away in some raging torrent of wind and flames, pier walks collapsing and hissing into the waters, somehow setting us all free from past histories of this warehouse, of its once long ago beautiful rooms that permitted live films of Genet and Burroughs to unwind with a stationary kind of silence, something punctuated by breathing alone, and the rustle of shirts and pants sliding, being unbuttoned or folded back. Walking towards the entrance, the sun had gone down behind the Jersey factories leaving just a pale darkness inside the place, figures could appear and disappear, become vacant or nonexistent. Suddenly out of one of the side rooms that once had been a loading dock there was a series of high-pitched hysterical screams and in all of that gathered darkness a figure of light flew out, speed motions of arms and legs pumping, propelling it towards the far wall, blur lines of movement, an abject silence following in the wake of screams, and I immediately thought to myself: stupid queen. For there were times in the past when drag queens, weary of the lonesomeness amidst all this blatant standing in doorways, made clinical comments on the muffled sounds of interlocked limbs. But this time the figure stood in dim light holding one hand to his neck and shaking. Several guys and myself rushed over.

There's a guy in there with a knife. He cut me, he said, turning his head to the side, exposing a long red wound on pale white skin. I turned blindly, rushed along the floor till I found a door that had been ripped off its hinges, and tugged like a madman at a two-by-four that had been nailed into its surface: a great roar as the nails pulled out. I rushed with it into the side room looking for the man. The kid had described him: black hair, white guy, mechanic's overalls and blue windbreaker. He said, I thought something was strange about him, like he didn't seem too interested in getting it on, at least not near other people. I had second thoughts, but unfortunately I was too attracted to listen to them. I felt him cut me, and I pushed him away and started running and screaming. There are several small enclosures in the loading dock area; some guy poked his hand through the windows and flicked a lighter while I covered the doorways ready to bash the guy's head if he came running out.

[No date]

Things change when the air changes: that's a statement uttered by some homeless Joe a long time ago, almost a year, when Brian and I first moved into Vinegar Hill. So here it is, I'm sitting in an apartment on 2nd Avenue in the East Village. Second night I've slept here. There's a dog that pisses on everything and tears apart the faded couch cushions and digs to China through the soft stuffing sitting in a chair opposite me watching the clockwork characters' movements, tiny and unattainable on the cobblestone streets below. First time in years when everything is up in the air. I'm unsure of work and it seems a lot of people's lives are on the line, all of them either sleeping or waking across the city right now. The Club was busted last Saturday night. I was coming up from the basement with two water pitchers in my hand. George, the jerk who stands at the exit door, wasn't there. I remember feeling perplexed and wondering where the fuck he'd gone. Looked around the crowded main floor as I stepped through the door, I caught sight of him as he skulked away with a wounded animal look on his stupid face. He looked right at me but kept on walking. As I crossed the floor with the empty pitchers in my hand to the main floor bar Carol Black ran by right behind me, grabbed me by the shoulder, and said, Cops are here! and continued on. I shook off that image, thinking it was just like the firemen's visit, they'd look around and then split. As I reached the main floor bar, I saw this big beefy detective in a brown suit and striped tie like Alfred Hitchcock standing behind the bar. Behind him, Barbara had a worried look on her face. I reached for the water/mixer hose and a fat cop snapped, Bar's closed! I gave him a disgusted look, waved him away and reached over, grabbed the spigot, and started filling the pitchers. He slammed my hand away and yelled something unintelligible, and I backed away in confusion. Something was happening. I walked around towards the front ticket booth and saw Michael Parker and Lolo and about seven others shoved into the ticket booth illuminated in all that darkness of the hall with fluorescent lights. Others were along the wall. Dick was rushing around. I turned and rushed downstairs, people still dancing and DJ's putting on records like normal. Went over to the bar where Max Blagg and Tim were and leaned over the bar and said, Tim, there's something really weird going on upstairs. Call Max over. Max! There's something going on upstairs. The cops are here, and they got all these people lined up behind the ticket booth with their hands in the air. No sooner had I finished than a hand latched onto my shoulder and spun me around. It was some beefy dick and he held me for a second and stared into my eyes. Then he pushed me away and was joined by a second cop. The first one bent low to go under the counter of the bar but banged his head 'cause there was no opening there. He stood back up and the second cop helped him over the counter. He handcuffed Tim and Max. I was shocked and backed up slowly into the crowd, stood back as they led him out and up the stairs. Upstairs Carol Black grabbed onto me and told me to sit down along the wall like one of the customers. It was clear that anyone working there was being arrested. When the cops were arresting Max I remember looking for a fire extinguisher with the thought in mind of firing it on the cops: these fantastic ideas of creating confusion, setting people free. I stood back and watched him and Tim be led up the stairs to the main floor, following minutes later. Tried to push through the confused crowd to the mezzanine in order to see what was happening to Brian and the others up there. But the cops had gone up before me and were in the process of shoving customers down the stairway to clear the upper floor. Wandering around the main floor, customers yelling for drinks: I just bought drink tickets! Cops punching people around, arresting some momentarily, letting them go minutes later if they did not work in the club. Carol Black grabbed me and pulled me to the side: Pretend you're a customer. We sat down on a side bench, my arm around her shoulder, hers around my waist, talking in undertones to try and make sense of the confusion. Finally cops began clearing customers from the club, threatening them with arrest if they stayed behind. We waited until it was no longer safe to stay and slowly walked out in the last lines of the crowd. Saw seven or more people in the front ticket booth under sickening fluorescent light—a couple with faces bloodied—all with hands in the air looking frightened. Lolo looked at us and moved his lips, Leave, leave, nodding towards the exit.

January 21, 1981

Reagan is the president of this country now. What more or less do we need …

I haven't moved to put words down in here in ages, going through a time in my life that seems desperate, surreal, awful, and slightly wondrous, all simultaneously. Met a fellow a month or so ago—Peter Hujar—a photographer who in some interesting ways is like a mirror of scenes I'm entering or have entered. When I talk to him or vice versa, it's like seeing senses unravel that are almost the same, separated by social class or money or something like age attitude. I still have hope in my life somehow. He has the same desperate and at times confused outlook but minus that one seed of hope—a kind of hope or desire that could be bogus or real, but nevertheless I have in me and which helps me ignore the difficult things that surround me, or at least lets me see them as transitory with some future point in store that will absolve me of all this searching or desire or confusion.

New York City

September 1, 1981

I'm sitting in the park up on 15th Street, long after the sun's gone down. I'm sitting there in the darkness under some trees on a bench and this seedy red-haired man in a cheap business suit suddenly walks over and slides onto the bench next to me, simultaneously mumbling something. It sounded like, How does an egg come out? He said it quick, fumbled his dirty hands against each other, quick nervous pats to the hair sweeping around the sides of his ears. I was disturbed by the way he moved up and sat down. I'd been looking at this young guy sitting over on a railing: the young guy was watching the two of us, me and this seedy guy, wondering if we were making contact.

I had no patience: What did you say?

Uh … how does one come out?

I felt thoroughly disgusted. The guy had some hideous skin rash, greasy temples. He wouldn't look at me, just stared straight ahead as he talked, his hands like two small bird wings, long nails, clattering against one another. I looked at him hard and snapped, I don't know what you're talking about.

He flinched slightly. You don't know what I'm talking about? How does one come out? How does one go about doing what those guys over there are doing (he motioned towards the park hut where in the leafy shadows I could make out the forms of a series of men in various leaning positions). I mean, I never did it before. I don't know how … I wish I could find someone to teach me …

Don't worry about it. It comes natural …

Yeah, but how do you meet someone? How do you approach someone, like how did those guys start to do it?