Electroboy (20 page)

The next morning, I return to Sabrina’s apartment, and we walk up Madison Avenue to Michael’s, a barbershop that is famous for kids’ haircuts. We’re both amused by the horses and cars that the kids around us are sitting in. The barber takes one look at me, raises his eyebrows, and tells us that he is just going to have to cut off most of my hair. So he gives me a buzz cut—my first one ever. I thank him for a great job, refuse the lollipop, and we walk down the street; all the while Sabrina says encouraging things about my new haircut, and I play with my bristly hair. We convince each other that my trademark long hair is a thing of the past and that this is the most perfect look for summer.

Since I’m two months behind in my rent, my landlord is more than eager to let me out of my lease early. I move from my duplex apartment on West 89th Street to a cheaper sublet, a studio on West 81st Street. I sell all of my antique furniture back to the store on the Upper West Side where I bought it, aptly named Better Times, for about $6,000.

The new apartment is one empty room. Hardwood floors. It echoes. I bring just a floral Ralph Lauren couch that Allison loved, and I sleep in a Murphy bed. At night I sit and watch the traffic go by on Columbus Avenue. Every day I wait anxiously to be arrested. I’ve convinced myself that I’ll be grabbed under the arms by two plainclothes cops in dark suits and thrown into the backseat of an unmarked car. Frightened about entering and exiting my building, I avoid coming and going as much as possible. When my intercom buzzes, I hide in the shower and wait five or ten minutes before I come out. I panic when I hear footsteps near my door and a Chinese menu comes sliding through. I wish they would just
finally come and arrest me. I am frighteningly alone in this place, desperate for the waiting to be over.

One night I’m up late watching a documentary on early Hollywood film pioneers that’s starting to bore me. I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m a little stoned. Phone sex is not going to satisfy me tonight. I grab the Yellow Pages and look under “Escorts.” “Manhattan Nights.” Classy escort service. Upper East Side. Since 1985. I saw the ad a few weeks ago, and I remember I liked the graphics. It isn’t a tacky limousine or a skyline of New York or a big apple. It’s just the profile of a slender and bosomy woman. I call Miss Veronica. “Manhattan Nights,” she says. “Hello, I’m calling about your ad,” I say. She pauses and asks me to tell her something about myself, so I tell her that I’m a young professional in my early thirties, that I travel, and that I’m just looking for a massage. She tells me that it will cost me $200 for an hourlong session. “That’s fine,” I say. She explains that it’s late but that she’s still got a few girls available at her Upper East Side apartment. She describes a few of them for me: a former
Penthouse
model, a Brazilian beauty, and a statuesque Swede. “Tell me about the Swede,” I say. “What does she look like?” “She’s lovely. She’s five feet nine, 125 pounds, 36 - 24 - 36, blond, and has beautiful, tan skin,” she says. She gives me her address, and I tell her I’ll be there by 1:00
A.M.
I grab a couple of $100 bills, brush my teeth, and get into a cab. I feel a rush of anticipation and excitement because I’ve never been to a brothel. When I get to the building on East 79th Street, I ring her apartment and she buzzes me in. In the elevator I think about turning back. My heart is racing. The doorbell makes a weird sticking noise. I feel like running, but a flaming redhead in her midsixties, badly wrinkled from sun exposure, opens the door. She is wearing bright orange lipstick, green eye shadow, and orange nail polish and some type of housecoat that isn’t particularly flattering. “You must be Miss Veronica,” I say. “Yes, I am,” she answers, shaking my hand and smiling. The living room is painted red, and there are three girls inside glued to the television. “You seem like an awfully nice young man,” she says, with a slight Eastern European accent similar to Dr. Kleinman’s. “I
will introduce you to Monika now,” she says. “Follow me. Oh, but first we must take care of business.”

My hand is shaking; I take out the two bills and give them to her. She examines them as if they might be counterfeit. “Brand-new,” I say. She laughs. She leads me to a dimly lit bedroom, where a blond woman with dramatic makeup—glossy red lipstick, green eye shadow, dark mascara, and rouge—and highlighted blond hair is sitting on the edge of a king-sized bed, wearing just a black bra and panties. “I hope you will enjoy,” Miss Veronica says as she leaves the room and closes the door. Standing in this bedroom, sparsely furnished with a bed and night table, I feel pretty lonely. Monika helps me out of my clothes and instructs me to lie facedown on the bed. I look over my shoulder. She’s taking off her bra and panties and standing above me. She begins working my neck and shoulders, taking warm oil from the night table and pouring it all over my back, massaging it in. She has long legs like a dancer, a flat stomach, and firm breasts that sway slightly as she bends over me. Her pubic hair is shaved, and she has a piercing. She’s concentrating on my lower back and moving down my ass to my thighs, and I’m getting turned on wondering where this is leading. She’s taking her time and starts teasing my balls from behind very gently. Then she motions for me to turn over and massages my thighs; my cock is totally stiff. She grabs it, pours some oil on it, and strokes it while I’m playing with her breasts. I guess it’s okay for me to do that. After ten minutes of this, I come, and it’s all over. We say nothing to each other. I get dressed, thank her, leave the apartment, and walk a few blocks to a diner that I know. I order a bagel and cream cheese and then have a banana split, which is what I probably needed in the first place.

Six months pass. Unemployment runs out. I’ve borrowed about $7,500, and now friends stop loaning me money. I am not getting any financial support from my family. So I pawn my watch, my camera, and my great-grandfather’s silver flask at Century Pawn-brokers
on Eighth Avenue. $500. It’s not going to go too far. When Annike returns from Germany, we engage in a survival game together. She’s nervous about the D.A.’s office, but we don’t talk about it much. After months of subsisting on loans, pawned items, stealing from the deli, and the sale of my remaining Kostabi “products” (we still had some of my legitimate paintings and lithographs that we sell to some contacts in the art world), we realize we need to generate some income. One weekend my sister offers us the opportunity to paint an office space and earn some money. Nancy feels sorry for me and wants me to move on with my life, but in the meantime she tries to help out any way she can. Annike and I work well as a team: she is the leader, making the job estimates and dividing the work, as well as the real talent. I provide the energy, spirit, and enthusiasm. This leads to an abrupt decision to go into the contracting business together. We bill ourselves as Ivy League Painters. Our colorful flyers, which we post all over the Upper West Side, attract a tremendous amount of attention and get a good response. Soon we’re doing a few jobs around town, including painting and plastering. If clients want wallpapering jobs done, we do that, too, although we have no experience. Electrical work? Not a problem. We’re bringing in anywhere from $500 to $2,000 a job, so our financial problems are lessened. Finally we can pay some bills. But the work isn’t steady and I’m not very dependable—I have a hard time focusing. I lose interest in a job quickly and slack off. We both want to be dealing art full-time and think this contracting work is beneath us.

I’m at the apartment of Sally Randall, one of Mark’s favorite painters at Kostabi World and a well-known name in the downtown art scene, to celebrate her birthday. Sally is tall, with long black hair and pale skin, and is leaning up against the kitchen door. I can’t quite get to her from where I am. The place is filled with familiar faces, and of course everyone there is aware that I am one of the alleged counterfeiters. They haven’t seen me in months, and I feel a bit uncomfortable. I’m drinking a vodka tonic to control my agitation. I don’t know why I decided to come to this party in the first place. But I make my way over to Sally to wish
her a happy birthday, and she seems thrilled to see me and lets out a shriek: “Oh my God, you came! Thanks for coming, how are you doing?” “Fine so far,” I tell her. “We miss you,” she says. Doug, a painter who now has a crew cut, comes up to me and shakes my hand. “Congratulations, you kicked that motherfucker in the ass,” he says. I laugh. “How much did you make?” he asks. “Not enough to pay the legal bills if I end up in court,” I tell him. Another painter, Rick, who I don’t know very well, asks me, “How did you reproduce the paintings so exactly?” “In the same way they’re projected on canvas at Kostabi World,” I say. I’m titillated by the questions and want to talk about it, but at the same time the apartment is crowded and I want to get out and into a cab. I leave without saying good-bye to Sally. Tomorrow is Lauren’s birthday, but I already bought her a pair of diamond earrings and I can’t think of anything else to get her. She’d probably appreciate a DustBuster as much as jewelry. I walk for a few blocks and get an Amstel Light at a deli, then grab a cab and head to the Second Avenue Deli because I haven’t eaten all day. I order a turkey and chopped liver sandwich, which is enough for two people, so I take half home and leave the other half in a bag on a newspaper box hoping a hungry homeless person will find it. I’m thinking about the possibility of being arrested: when it will happen, where it will happen, what I’ll be wearing, whether anyone will see me being taken from my apartment, if I will be handcuffed. And I keep hearing them read me my Miranda rights. Stop. I hail the next cab and go to the Michelangelo Hotel off Times Square. There’s a Harry Cipriani restaurant and bar there, and I go in to see Franco, my bartender friend, who is dressed in his usual black tuxedo. I order a vodka tonic. “It’s on the house,” he says. “Thanks,” I say. I put down a $5 bill, which he immediately pushes back into my hand. “Please, Franco,” I beg him. The bar is full of theatergoers and businessmen. “How come I don’t see you around here too much anymore?” he asks me. “I moved to the Upper West Side,” I tell him. “Very fancy,” he replies. I finish my drink, leave the hotel, and walk down the block toward Times Square. The same prostitutes are working the corner of 50th Street and Seventh Avenue
that were there a year ago. “Want a date?” a chubby blond girl asks me. “Not tonight,” I tell her. I smile at her and look away. I’m walking at a frantic pace, and Times Square is crowded with pedestrians. I want to take a total tally of everyone within the periphery of Times Square and find out some statistics about each one of them and how they differ from one another. Do any of them speak Swedish? How many of them have O+ blood? How many are carrying guns? How many have sexually transmitted diseases? Are any of them twins? Then I give up trying to play this ridiculously obsessive game. All these people are the same. They all eat. They all sleep. They all fuck. They all masturbate. It’s just a matter of how they do it and how often they do it. So I get into a cab and go back to my apartment and do chores. I pay bills (I owe Con Edison, New York Telephone, and Manhattan Cable for two months; it’s going to be tough with only a little more than $500 in my checking account), make piles of clothing for the cleaners, write letters to friends about my legal troubles, and scrub the bathroom tub and floor. I’m hoping the crazies will go away and I’ll be able to fall asleep. But I’m wide awake for about six more hours, lying in bed watching CNN until it’s light outside. I’m dying for something to drink, but I don’t have anything in the house. By now my body is aching, even though my head feels like I could start the day again without going to sleep. I’m agitated and decide to go out for a walk and find a diner to satisfy some craving. There are only about three or four people in the diner when I walk in, and I take a table by the window on Broadway. I order a Swiss-cheese omelette, home fries, and a bagel with cream cheese. The waiter brings me a glass of orange juice. Did I order that? The food resuscitates me, and I come home and try to fall asleep. But it doesn’t work. After a couple of hours of watching porn videos and masturbating, I pass out from exhaustion and don’t wake up until 4:00
P.M.
the next day. My entire schedule is screwed-up.

February 27, 1992. New York
.

Still no word about Kostabi—the quiet is getting a little bit scary. But as every day passes, I forget more and more what happened. It feels like a weird dream, like I was on cocaine the entire time and reality was distorted.

I hear through the grapevine, from Kostabi employees who bump into Annike downtown, that it looks like the Manhattan D.A.’s office is about to take some type of action against me. I panic. I need a criminal defense attorney right away. My parents find the name of one through a family connection. Stuart Abrams, a gentle but intense man in his early forties, was formerly an assistant U.S. attorney with the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York. He agrees to see me the next day.

February 28, 1992
.

I shower and dress, take the subway to Grand Central, and meet with Stuart at his office in the Helmsley Building on Park Avenue. Legal books line his shelves, and files are piled high on his desk, next to photos of his children, who have red hair like he does. I stammer through the story, impressed with how calm and non-judgmental he seems. He doesn’t even crack a smile. After about a half hour, he tells me he’s relatively confident that my case isn’t the type the D.A.’s office will take on because it’s a ridiculous one with an unbelievable witness—Kostabi. He warns me not to speak to anyone who calls me about the case and to “sit tight and wait it out” and that “hopefully the case will be dropped.” I leave his office feeling a confidence I haven’t known in a while.

March 1, 1992
.

Lauren and Jonathan are a great comic duo who play off each other quite well, and I’m always entertained by their humorous interaction. One night, when Lauren is nine months pregnant, she and Jonathan invite me over to dinner. When I arrive Lauren is in
the kitchen, frantically cooking her famous lemon chicken and rice. There always seem to be too many pots and pans covering the stove and countertops when she cooks. Everything is steaming and smoking and seems out of control. While she is slaving in the kitchen about to give birth, Jonathan is lying on the couch watching television and barely picks up his head to acknowledge me. “Hey, Jonathan, you could say hello to our friend,” Lauren says. “Oh, yeah, hello, Drew, have a seat,” he mumbles. I stay in the kitchen with Lauren. “What’s wrong with him?” I ask her. “It’s just him,” she says. “But give him about ten minutes, he’ll come back to life again.” We both laugh. When we sit down at the table Jonathan suddenly perks up and tells us about his session with Dr. Kleinman today. He does a perfect imitation of Dr. Kleinman when he explains what happens when a patient starts a new medication: “He
vill
get high!” We all laugh. Lauren sees Dr. Kleinman, too. She’s even sent a family member to him for crisis treatment. Lauren sees him for her anxiety and panic disorder, which have really come to a head during her pregnancy. She can imitate Dr. Kleinman well, too. “Zis anxiety, it
vill
go away,” she says. But Lauren’s anxiety is a real issue, and you never know when it’s going to strike. We’re about halfway through dinner and she gets up from the table with a look on her face as if she’s seen an apparition. I’m not sure if she’s joking or it’s real. “Oh, no, here we go,” says Jonathan. Lauren is starting to have a slight anxiety attack, and we walk her into the living room and sit her down on the edge of the couch. “There’s no way I’m going to make it through this pregnancy. Oh, my God. I hope this baby will be normal,” she says. She jumps up from the couch and starts yawning repeatedly, whistling, and sticking her fingers in her ears. Jonathan, in an effort to comfort her, mimics her motions. “Let’s all do the anxiety shuffle,” he sings. He starts laughing and dancing with her. He and Lauren are yawning, whistling, sticking their fingers in their ears, and dancing around the living room in circles. Their apartment has transformed into a mental ward. I finally convince Lauren to sit down on the floor in front of me, and I rub her shoulders until
her anxiety starts to subside. We all end up laughing while Jonathan entertains us with his antics.