| The New York Optimist |
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HOTEL HELL
Text & photos of Johnny Nickson By Walter Cessna
I've always been intrigued by people who actually live in hotels. A friend of mine, a
manager at one of those trendy nightclubs, told me about his current slice. He lived
at a rather scary, but popular none the less, establishment called Hotel 16. The boy's
name was Gila Monster, which was more than enough to spark my curiosity and
pay a visit.
Hotel 16 is a chic little fleabag in the Thirties on the East Side. It's home to ravers,
drag queens, style exiles, dealers and assorted astonished tourists. The latter try not
to act too conspicuous as they assess the local crowd. These are over-styled and
overly hyper, young and old fags, freaks and posers brought up on a dangerous diet
of Edie and Andy, too much club hopping, not enough sleep and a voracious need
to consume large quantities of drugs and alcohol.
I arrive around seven p.m. on a Tuesday evening and check into a single for $80
bucks a night. Ouch! I look around at the Domsey's attired denizens loitering about
the lobby and wonder how they can afford this joint. Maybe they're just a bunch of
rich kids dressing down. Wouldn't that be original.
The one who attracts the most attention is this seven foot high club kid with
Frankenstein bolts permanently riveted into his neck, a pink afro and a turquoise
glitter spandex jumpsuit that velcros over the tips of his foot high stacked sneakers
painted a fetching color of neon green.
The Japanese tourists are hardly discreet and actually slip the savvy club kid twenty
bucks to pose in their room with them. I follow the newly formed tribe to their first
floor quarters and watch through their unclosed door as they practically make the
poor kid fuckin' Vogue for them and shit.
Smelling a couple of live ones, he asks to use the phone and in seconds a trio of
green, blue, and orange haired trolls spring into the room in search of twenty bucks
and a place in the tourists scrap books back home. Suddenly, a short Japanese
chick in a Chanel suit notices me standing in the open doorway. Sensing I'm not
part of the local scenery and just a nosy neighbor, she slams the door shut in my
face.
I wait for the club kid to come out for what seems almost a half an hour. Finally,
he stumbles out on his platform sneakers, looking a bit dazed. I introduce myself,
explaining that I'm a friend of his boyfriend, and I ask him if he might like to hang
out.
"You're not a fuckin' narc are ya'?
"No. Why? What were you doin' in there?"
Gila starts laughing and picks a huge powdered white booger, the size of a Dunkin'
Donut's munchkin, out of his flaring nostril.
"Shit, those crazy Japs wanted to know where they could score some coke. I just
happened to have some left from the club last night," Gila said. Then he starts
laughing hysterically again.
Text & photos of Johnny Nickson By Walter Cessna
I've always been intrigued by people who actually live in hotels. A friend of mine, a
manager at one of those trendy nightclubs, told me about his current slice. He lived
at a rather scary, but popular none the less, establishment called Hotel 16. The boy's
name was Gila Monster, which was more than enough to spark my curiosity and
pay a visit.
Hotel 16 is a chic little fleabag in the Thirties on the East Side. It's home to ravers,
drag queens, style exiles, dealers and assorted astonished tourists. The latter try not
to act too conspicuous as they assess the local crowd. These are over-styled and
overly hyper, young and old fags, freaks and posers brought up on a dangerous diet
of Edie and Andy, too much club hopping, not enough sleep and a voracious need
to consume large quantities of drugs and alcohol.
I arrive around seven p.m. on a Tuesday evening and check into a single for $80
bucks a night. Ouch! I look around at the Domsey's attired denizens loitering about
the lobby and wonder how they can afford this joint. Maybe they're just a bunch of
rich kids dressing down. Wouldn't that be original.
The one who attracts the most attention is this seven foot high club kid with
Frankenstein bolts permanently riveted into his neck, a pink afro and a turquoise
glitter spandex jumpsuit that velcros over the tips of his foot high stacked sneakers
painted a fetching color of neon green.
The Japanese tourists are hardly discreet and actually slip the savvy club kid twenty
bucks to pose in their room with them. I follow the newly formed tribe to their first
floor quarters and watch through their unclosed door as they practically make the
poor kid fuckin' Vogue for them and shit.
Smelling a couple of live ones, he asks to use the phone and in seconds a trio of
green, blue, and orange haired trolls spring into the room in search of twenty bucks
and a place in the tourists scrap books back home. Suddenly, a short Japanese
chick in a Chanel suit notices me standing in the open doorway. Sensing I'm not
part of the local scenery and just a nosy neighbor, she slams the door shut in my
face.
I wait for the club kid to come out for what seems almost a half an hour. Finally,
he stumbles out on his platform sneakers, looking a bit dazed. I introduce myself,
explaining that I'm a friend of his boyfriend, and I ask him if he might like to hang
out.
"You're not a fuckin' narc are ya'?
"No. Why? What were you doin' in there?"
Gila starts laughing and picks a huge powdered white booger, the size of a Dunkin'
Donut's munchkin, out of his flaring nostril.
"Shit, those crazy Japs wanted to know where they could score some coke. I just
happened to have some left from the club last night," Gila said. Then he starts
laughing hysterically again.
| Hotel Hell By Walt Cessna |
"So what's so fuckin' funny then," I ask suspiciously.
"So I sold them a coupla' lines for almost two hundred bucks and they even said
thank-you! Can you fuckin' believe how stupid some of these dumb ass fucks are?
Jesus! It kills me."
I look at him as non-judgmentally as possible and lean back against the wall,
staring at the fuzzy pink forest springing from his brain. Gila turns and starts to
walk down the hall.
"So do you wanna talk or not. Come down to my room. I think my roommates
might be home."
"What's yer name," I ask as I push myself off the painted paneling and follow.
"Everybody calls me Gila Monster."
I follow him down one hall, turn right, and go all the way down to the end of
another, the whole time listening to him spill the beans on his roommates: Mos and
Myka. From the sound of it, to describe these three young lives as a living soap
opera would be more than accurate.
He seemed to want to talk more about his roommates past than his own. With
expert attention to detail he filled me in. Mos and Myka were almost fourteen and
thirteen years old the last time they saw their father. He was a Russian immigrant
who had been living in the States since 1945. Everyday of his life was spent
working in Brooklyn in his beloved shoe repair shop, from sunrise to sunset.
One night, as he was coming from behind the counter to lock up the store for the
night, a couple of neighborhood kids burst in and angrily demanded that he turn
over all the cash in the register. Instead of doing what they said, he tried to jump
back behind the counter for his gun, but one of the youths was too quick for him.
The last thing the poor guy saw was a baseball bat being swung in the direction of
his face.
The kids fled with the money, leaving their bloody Nike and Puma footprints
displayed everywhere like some sort of bizarre artwork. Mos and Myka's father
was found by the police a few hours later when their mother went to the store to
see why he was so late. She discovered him lying in a pool of blood, a wooden
baseball bat split in two with the words "Joe DiMaggio" spelled out on the top tip
of one half.
Mos reacted by not reacting. He spent most of his time cutting school like he
always had and hanging out with his band, a bunch of other losers like him. They
spent their days avoiding the cops who patrolled the streets looking for class
cutters by hanging out at whoever’s parents weren't home that day. As a band
they were a joke. They had never performed, didn't have a name and only knew
one song: "TV Party Tonight" by Black Flag.
By the time Mos turned fifteen he had grown tired of the other boys macho antics
and hung out in the city with a bunch of punk street kids begging quarters on the
Lower East Side. Most of the kids were squatters and didn't go home to a nice
house when it got dark. The older ones picked on Mos and called him a bourgeois
skunk punk and would steal the three or four quarters he had managed to collect in
a dirty tubesock. To make matters worse, Mos had just come out of the closet and
had centered his affection on one of the older punks who regularly beat the crap
out of him. When the guy found out, he tried to kill him, and pretty much made it
impossible for Mos to hang out with any of the other kids cause word was out- he
was a fag.
Mos was now an outsider not only at home, but also on the street. His sister Myka
had also been retreating into the world of post punk rebellion. Much to Mos's
chagrin however, she started hanging out with all the older punks on the scene
who loved having a pretty new recruit to replace the fag. Mos would tell her the
only reason they wanted to be friend’s with her was so that they could all take
turns fucking her. Myka casually replied that they had, and that she had loved
every fuckin' minute of it.
Their mother was at first worried about her children’s steadily decreasing
normalcy, but was unable to do anything about it since she now ran the shoe store
and had discovered she was pregnant with a third child about three months after
her husband’s death. Once the baby was born, she had even less time to look after
Mos and Myka, who were hardly ever home anyway. When they were home the
only two words ever exchanged was fuck and you. The more they misbehaved,
the less she cared about the "little fucks," as she was prone to call them. She
couldn't deal with how freaky they looked, or how cool they said it was to dress
like a living corpse. The less she saw of them the better as far as she was
concerned.
"So I sold them a coupla' lines for almost two hundred bucks and they even said
thank-you! Can you fuckin' believe how stupid some of these dumb ass fucks are?
Jesus! It kills me."
I look at him as non-judgmentally as possible and lean back against the wall,
staring at the fuzzy pink forest springing from his brain. Gila turns and starts to
walk down the hall.
"So do you wanna talk or not. Come down to my room. I think my roommates
might be home."
"What's yer name," I ask as I push myself off the painted paneling and follow.
"Everybody calls me Gila Monster."
I follow him down one hall, turn right, and go all the way down to the end of
another, the whole time listening to him spill the beans on his roommates: Mos and
Myka. From the sound of it, to describe these three young lives as a living soap
opera would be more than accurate.
He seemed to want to talk more about his roommates past than his own. With
expert attention to detail he filled me in. Mos and Myka were almost fourteen and
thirteen years old the last time they saw their father. He was a Russian immigrant
who had been living in the States since 1945. Everyday of his life was spent
working in Brooklyn in his beloved shoe repair shop, from sunrise to sunset.
One night, as he was coming from behind the counter to lock up the store for the
night, a couple of neighborhood kids burst in and angrily demanded that he turn
over all the cash in the register. Instead of doing what they said, he tried to jump
back behind the counter for his gun, but one of the youths was too quick for him.
The last thing the poor guy saw was a baseball bat being swung in the direction of
his face.
The kids fled with the money, leaving their bloody Nike and Puma footprints
displayed everywhere like some sort of bizarre artwork. Mos and Myka's father
was found by the police a few hours later when their mother went to the store to
see why he was so late. She discovered him lying in a pool of blood, a wooden
baseball bat split in two with the words "Joe DiMaggio" spelled out on the top tip
of one half.
Mos reacted by not reacting. He spent most of his time cutting school like he
always had and hanging out with his band, a bunch of other losers like him. They
spent their days avoiding the cops who patrolled the streets looking for class
cutters by hanging out at whoever’s parents weren't home that day. As a band
they were a joke. They had never performed, didn't have a name and only knew
one song: "TV Party Tonight" by Black Flag.
By the time Mos turned fifteen he had grown tired of the other boys macho antics
and hung out in the city with a bunch of punk street kids begging quarters on the
Lower East Side. Most of the kids were squatters and didn't go home to a nice
house when it got dark. The older ones picked on Mos and called him a bourgeois
skunk punk and would steal the three or four quarters he had managed to collect in
a dirty tubesock. To make matters worse, Mos had just come out of the closet and
had centered his affection on one of the older punks who regularly beat the crap
out of him. When the guy found out, he tried to kill him, and pretty much made it
impossible for Mos to hang out with any of the other kids cause word was out- he
was a fag.
Mos was now an outsider not only at home, but also on the street. His sister Myka
had also been retreating into the world of post punk rebellion. Much to Mos's
chagrin however, she started hanging out with all the older punks on the scene
who loved having a pretty new recruit to replace the fag. Mos would tell her the
only reason they wanted to be friend’s with her was so that they could all take
turns fucking her. Myka casually replied that they had, and that she had loved
every fuckin' minute of it.
Their mother was at first worried about her children’s steadily decreasing
normalcy, but was unable to do anything about it since she now ran the shoe store
and had discovered she was pregnant with a third child about three months after
her husband’s death. Once the baby was born, she had even less time to look after
Mos and Myka, who were hardly ever home anyway. When they were home the
only two words ever exchanged was fuck and you. The more they misbehaved,
the less she cared about the "little fucks," as she was prone to call them. She
couldn't deal with how freaky they looked, or how cool they said it was to dress
like a living corpse. The less she saw of them the better as far as she was
concerned.
"By the time Mos was seventeen, they had runaway from home and moved here. I met Mos in the elevator one day. He moved in the next day
and Myka moved in the following week.
"Why are you so knowledgeable of Mos's life?" I ask. "You seem fascinated by him."
"I lost my virginity, if you can call it that, to him," Gila said nonchalantly.
"Oh. That makes sense. So what’s your story."
"Don't sound so cryptic, honey. There's not much to tell. Let's see, I moved to New York from Union City exactly five months ago. I left the
morning of my seventeenth birthday. My dad’s dead and my mom is remarried. He's nice. I think his name is Moron. I mean Myron. Yeah,
that's it."
He stops for a second and fishes out a Camel filter tip, lights it with a lime bic, and continues through exaggerated puffs of smoke.
"I started hanging out at clubs like Slimelight, where I fell in with a bunch of junkie Club Kids who re-made me. God, I was such a nerd then.
With a little help and a few stolen items, I became Gila Monster; formerly Morris Rosenbaum. Pink afro, foot high sneakers and neck rivets. I
was never the same again. That’s where I met my new boyfriend. He's a manager. Do me a favor though? Please don't tell Mos."
"Why? Are you still going out with him?"
"No, but he's really jealous. I don't want him trying to OD again or something crazy like that."
We travel up endless flights of stairs and then down another two hallways until we reach the room. He pushes open a door, which is slightly
ajar anyway, and we walk in on two black hairy moppets, a skinny boy and an even skinnier girl, bending over a lilac colored wooden table and
snorting up several thick slices of rocky looking cocaine. The girl looks up first and smiles at me, then walks over to the toilet which sits in the
far right corner of the room, pulls down her pants and squats on it. As the sound of urine splashes against the crusty porcelain, she blows me
a kiss and introduces herself.
"Hi. I'm Myka. Who the crap are you?"
"I'm Walter."
Mos finishes the last line, leaving nothing for Gila, who walks over to him and smacks him hard on the ass.
"You greedy little bastard, now I've gotta walk all the way over to Seventh Street and get some more!"
"Don't sweat it, Gila," Mos said as he wiped his gums with a coke covered pinkie, mimicking the toothbrush he probably hasn't used in a
coupla' months judging from his less than splendid breath. "I'll go get some before I hook up with you and Myka at Jackie 69 later."
Mos walks over to me and shakes my hand.
"My name is Mos. Feel like takin' a walk with me? I'll cut you in on a few bags for free. I could use the company."
"He's just afraid of scoring on the street alone," Gila cut in, and he and Myka burst out laughing.
"You might as well go with him," Myka says. "At least we’ll know he'll get his ass back here in one piece."
"I'd really appreciate it man," Mos says as he throws his arm around my shoulder and leads me through the apartment door, a tad forcibly.
Before the door swings shut, Gila's voice can be heard calling out for Mos to pick up a pizza on his way home.
"Extra anchovies, okay sweetie," Gila yells.
"Whatever you say darling," Mos replies as he flips Gila the bird and leads me out to the street.
Mos and I headed down Second Avenue, then turned left on Fourteenth Street until we reached Avenue B. where we hooked a right, keeping a
firm pace until we reached Eighth and B. We slowed down and looked for cops. Mos was growing intense and uneasy, jerking his head about
in a paranoid rhythm. I took in a good, stiff whif of the funkdafied air, relaxing a bit as we finally turned the corner on Seventh Street with not
a blue uniform in sight. Mos is wheezing now and groping at his neck, trying to force a fistfull of air from his tightly clenched throat.
"Are you okay," I say, praying this kid isn't about to have some sort of seizure. He's fumbling through his jacket pockets but keeps coming up
empty handed. When Mos goes digging into his shirt pocket he discovers three comtrex cold tablets which he carelessly pops into his mouth
and chews down to a fine grain which takes much effort to swallow.
Finally, after the longest minute I've ever experienced, he pulls a Primatene Mist inhaler out of his pants pocket and lifts the respiratory
rejuvenator to his open orafice and sucks in a rush of air as he sprays the lung loosening agents liberally down his throat. The invisible mist
spreads first across his tonsils and then mercilessly races into his breathing apparatus with a full throttle force that temporarily stuns him,
knocking him onto the garbage strewn street below. After a few seconds he stumbles back up on his feet and casually rubs the dirt from his
backside.
Mos then pulls out a bottle from his back pocket and unwraps it from a twisted brown paper bag. It's thick brown glass was caked in what
looked like sticky syrup and a worn prescription tag was slowly shredding itself off it's front. Mos held it up to his eyes and read the label
aloud.
"Codeine. Do not take on an empty stomach. Tea and dry toast recommended." Mos scratched his head and tried to remember what he had
eaten that day.
"I guess that half a bag of stale orange Chee-tohs doesn't count."
With nervous, bone white fingers trembling at the cap, Mos slowly unscrewed it and poured a long, unhealthy swig straight down his now
unclenched throat. When the bottle was empty, he threw it hard into the street, watching in a trance as the broken glass spiraled against the
pavement and shattered into a wide slew of splintered shards amongst our feet.
"Didn't scare you now, did I?" Mos purrs and slaps me on the back as we restart our journey down Seventh Street. "I got a real bad case of
bronchitis!" he laughs. Mos puts his arm out to stop me about midway down the block.
"Destination spotted, but the lookout is unknown," Mos whispers to me as we attempt to walk by him and into the building. Is this extremely
young and stupidly macho Puerto Rican as bad ass a motherfucker as he's posing to be? We soon find out as we walk past him and attempt to
climb the stairs, when he kicks Mos square in the butt and grabs me by the back of my hair.
"Yo! You'd be well advised to check yo'self cause the police is right around the fuckin' block."
Mos turned around and stared the kid in the face.
"I just wanna score some coke."
"Well you better move yo' ass quick homey cause they been cruisin' by like fuckin' clockwork. They busted three spots yesterday."
"How often?" Mos asks nervously as I look over my shoulder for that familiar shade of blue to rear it's ugly head.
"Every fifteen minutes or so man. Look, go inside and check out Mookie, he'll fix yo' shit right the fuck up! Now get goin' before you get all
our fuckin' asses busted!"
Mos didn't say thanks as we proceeded up the splintered steps two, then three at a time. We burst through the door like a rocket and are
immediately pulled aside by a hand extending from the shadows as the door slams shut.
and Myka moved in the following week.
"Why are you so knowledgeable of Mos's life?" I ask. "You seem fascinated by him."
"I lost my virginity, if you can call it that, to him," Gila said nonchalantly.
"Oh. That makes sense. So what’s your story."
"Don't sound so cryptic, honey. There's not much to tell. Let's see, I moved to New York from Union City exactly five months ago. I left the
morning of my seventeenth birthday. My dad’s dead and my mom is remarried. He's nice. I think his name is Moron. I mean Myron. Yeah,
that's it."
He stops for a second and fishes out a Camel filter tip, lights it with a lime bic, and continues through exaggerated puffs of smoke.
"I started hanging out at clubs like Slimelight, where I fell in with a bunch of junkie Club Kids who re-made me. God, I was such a nerd then.
With a little help and a few stolen items, I became Gila Monster; formerly Morris Rosenbaum. Pink afro, foot high sneakers and neck rivets. I
was never the same again. That’s where I met my new boyfriend. He's a manager. Do me a favor though? Please don't tell Mos."
"Why? Are you still going out with him?"
"No, but he's really jealous. I don't want him trying to OD again or something crazy like that."
We travel up endless flights of stairs and then down another two hallways until we reach the room. He pushes open a door, which is slightly
ajar anyway, and we walk in on two black hairy moppets, a skinny boy and an even skinnier girl, bending over a lilac colored wooden table and
snorting up several thick slices of rocky looking cocaine. The girl looks up first and smiles at me, then walks over to the toilet which sits in the
far right corner of the room, pulls down her pants and squats on it. As the sound of urine splashes against the crusty porcelain, she blows me
a kiss and introduces herself.
"Hi. I'm Myka. Who the crap are you?"
"I'm Walter."
Mos finishes the last line, leaving nothing for Gila, who walks over to him and smacks him hard on the ass.
"You greedy little bastard, now I've gotta walk all the way over to Seventh Street and get some more!"
"Don't sweat it, Gila," Mos said as he wiped his gums with a coke covered pinkie, mimicking the toothbrush he probably hasn't used in a
coupla' months judging from his less than splendid breath. "I'll go get some before I hook up with you and Myka at Jackie 69 later."
Mos walks over to me and shakes my hand.
"My name is Mos. Feel like takin' a walk with me? I'll cut you in on a few bags for free. I could use the company."
"He's just afraid of scoring on the street alone," Gila cut in, and he and Myka burst out laughing.
"You might as well go with him," Myka says. "At least we’ll know he'll get his ass back here in one piece."
"I'd really appreciate it man," Mos says as he throws his arm around my shoulder and leads me through the apartment door, a tad forcibly.
Before the door swings shut, Gila's voice can be heard calling out for Mos to pick up a pizza on his way home.
"Extra anchovies, okay sweetie," Gila yells.
"Whatever you say darling," Mos replies as he flips Gila the bird and leads me out to the street.
Mos and I headed down Second Avenue, then turned left on Fourteenth Street until we reached Avenue B. where we hooked a right, keeping a
firm pace until we reached Eighth and B. We slowed down and looked for cops. Mos was growing intense and uneasy, jerking his head about
in a paranoid rhythm. I took in a good, stiff whif of the funkdafied air, relaxing a bit as we finally turned the corner on Seventh Street with not
a blue uniform in sight. Mos is wheezing now and groping at his neck, trying to force a fistfull of air from his tightly clenched throat.
"Are you okay," I say, praying this kid isn't about to have some sort of seizure. He's fumbling through his jacket pockets but keeps coming up
empty handed. When Mos goes digging into his shirt pocket he discovers three comtrex cold tablets which he carelessly pops into his mouth
and chews down to a fine grain which takes much effort to swallow.
Finally, after the longest minute I've ever experienced, he pulls a Primatene Mist inhaler out of his pants pocket and lifts the respiratory
rejuvenator to his open orafice and sucks in a rush of air as he sprays the lung loosening agents liberally down his throat. The invisible mist
spreads first across his tonsils and then mercilessly races into his breathing apparatus with a full throttle force that temporarily stuns him,
knocking him onto the garbage strewn street below. After a few seconds he stumbles back up on his feet and casually rubs the dirt from his
backside.
Mos then pulls out a bottle from his back pocket and unwraps it from a twisted brown paper bag. It's thick brown glass was caked in what
looked like sticky syrup and a worn prescription tag was slowly shredding itself off it's front. Mos held it up to his eyes and read the label
aloud.
"Codeine. Do not take on an empty stomach. Tea and dry toast recommended." Mos scratched his head and tried to remember what he had
eaten that day.
"I guess that half a bag of stale orange Chee-tohs doesn't count."
With nervous, bone white fingers trembling at the cap, Mos slowly unscrewed it and poured a long, unhealthy swig straight down his now
unclenched throat. When the bottle was empty, he threw it hard into the street, watching in a trance as the broken glass spiraled against the
pavement and shattered into a wide slew of splintered shards amongst our feet.
"Didn't scare you now, did I?" Mos purrs and slaps me on the back as we restart our journey down Seventh Street. "I got a real bad case of
bronchitis!" he laughs. Mos puts his arm out to stop me about midway down the block.
"Destination spotted, but the lookout is unknown," Mos whispers to me as we attempt to walk by him and into the building. Is this extremely
young and stupidly macho Puerto Rican as bad ass a motherfucker as he's posing to be? We soon find out as we walk past him and attempt to
climb the stairs, when he kicks Mos square in the butt and grabs me by the back of my hair.
"Yo! You'd be well advised to check yo'self cause the police is right around the fuckin' block."
Mos turned around and stared the kid in the face.
"I just wanna score some coke."
"Well you better move yo' ass quick homey cause they been cruisin' by like fuckin' clockwork. They busted three spots yesterday."
"How often?" Mos asks nervously as I look over my shoulder for that familiar shade of blue to rear it's ugly head.
"Every fifteen minutes or so man. Look, go inside and check out Mookie, he'll fix yo' shit right the fuck up! Now get goin' before you get all
our fuckin' asses busted!"
Mos didn't say thanks as we proceeded up the splintered steps two, then three at a time. We burst through the door like a rocket and are
immediately pulled aside by a hand extending from the shadows as the door slams shut.
"What's up wit' comin' through that door like a fuckin' cannonball boys? Yous' got
somewhere you gotta go or somethin'?"
The guy was about five foot six, neatly shaven and stunk of whatever it was he
combed his greasy black hair back with. It smelled like Vicks Mentholated Vapo-Rub.
He was wearing a pair of tight and very tapered burgundy corduroys that were
precisely creased straight down each pant leg and a gray suede Members Only jacket
that had seen better days.
"You lookin' for somethin' guys, cause I don't got time to bullshit. What the fuck you
want, huh?"
"We want some coke," Mos says as he grabs a few twenties out of his pockets and
hands them over to Mookie, who eagerly pockets them. He then took a few tiny,
handmade tin foil envelopes out of his jacket and placed them in Mos's hand. Then he
grabbed both hands with his free one and squeezed them together as tightly as he
could.
"What's the magic word you little snot nosed fuck?"
"What magic word?" blurted out Mos, whose hand had turned deathly white as he
was now being forced onto the ground by the tiny but powerful dealer.
"It's thanks man. You fuckin' kids got no manners today!" Mookie spit out as he
released Mos and took a step back from the obviously pained youth.
"Now get the fuck outta here, or I'll have to get serious with both of you."
I'm already at the door when I turn around to see what's taking Mos. He has gotten
back up on his feet and seems to be reaching for something in his sock. Mookie has
turned his back, but Mos grabs his shoulder and spins him around.
"What the fuck are you doin..." I slowly utter but it's too late. Mos is holding an
exacto knife in his left hand which is swinging high in the air, about to thrust into
Mookie's face.
"You stupid fuckin' kid, I'm gonna kill you!" Mookie screams as he blocks the blade
with outstretched hands that quickly spurt blood. Mos is fearless and he unbelievably
takes another swing with the knife at Mookie. This time he hit him in his eye, causing
him to fall back on the cracked beige tiles lining the hallway floor. Blood seems to
flow everywhere, and my first inclination is to run, but instead I'm frozen. Not in fear.
Maybe not even shock. Sick curiosity is the only term that springs to mind.
By this point I notice Mos is once again gasping for air. He turns toward me and looks
blankly into my eyes as he pulls his inhaler from his pocket. He sucks down on the
pump as he stumbles towards me and feebly throws his arms around me in a hug. I
throw open the front door and a rush of hot air smacks us in the face, momentarily
recoiling us backwards. We forge ahead and barrel at breakneck speed through the
entranceway, almost falling down the front steps smack at the lookout's feet.
"What the hell was all that screamin' in there about?"
Mos and I stumbled back onto our feet and pondered the question put to us.
"I don't know how to say this, but there's been a...," I offer before he cuts me off.
"Been a fuckin' what?" he shouts.
Mos stared down at the obvious bulge in the guy’s crotch and looked back up at him
and smiled. This was hardly the time to be cruisin' some jerk I thought when Mos's
voice broke my concentration.
"You're packin' quite a nice piece there, ain't you honey?"
"Why you little fuckin' faggots, you're dead!"
Just as the lookout was about to jump on us, Mos plants a swift kick to his balls,
stopping him dead in his tracks. He falls face front, grabbin' at his nuts as his face
makes love to the sidewalk. We tip toe around him and bolt down the block, never
once looking over our shoulders, just straight in front of us. We ran and ran and ran,
only stopping when our luck for green light gives out at the corner of Saint Marks and
Second. When the light finally fades from red to green, we cross the street, walk into
Gem Spa and order two egg creams.
"Extra thick please," Mos stammers as I flip through the latest Italian Vogue.
As the counter dude hands them over to Mos, some of the sticky sweet contents spill
from the over filled cups at his feet.
"Yo, dude! Could you give me a lid for this? It's spillin' on my Puma's if you know
what I mean."
I stare down at Mos's dry feet and notice he's wearing Converse hi-tops. When the
guy turns around to find a cap, Mos grabs my arm and we slither out of the just
opening door without paying as a group of painlessly pierced ravers storm the store in
search of change for the video games outside. The counter guy spins around and
hands the lid to one of the kids who's trying to palm him a buck.
"I don't need no lid man, give me four quarters," the kid says as the guy looks
confused and starts cursing under his breath in his native Pakistani tongue.
Meanwhile, Myka was sitting alone at the bar in the lounge of Jackie 69, nursing a
Long Island Iced Tea that she had bought with her last six bucks almost an hour ago
when we finally barged loudly into the club.
"What took ya's so fuckin' long," Myka wailed as Mos strode up to her and planted a
big, sloppy kiss on her cheek. I took a place next to them at the bar and tried to
absorb her transformation from young punkette into a sleek and almost sophisticated
night creature. She had changed from her ratty black jeans into a long eggplant
colored antique satin dress, most likely from the twenties I would guess from its
precariously low hip sash. Her breasts defied gravity, and even without the aid of a
Wonder Bra they stood up at attention, proudly pointing at all those who strode by.
Her round face was just barely peeking out from under a heavy handed layer of cheap
make-up applied in the most fucked up yet correct fashion. Multiple layers of caked
on pink eye shadow garishly blended into her liquid black eyelinered in eyebrows.
Thick, catwoman-like black rimmed eyes were drawn out into two distinctly sharp
points. Her lips were an almost clownlike yet charming swirl of matte pink lipstick,
which she constantly kept reapplying till there must have been at least twenty or thirty
coats painted on in just the past five minutes alone. Her cheeks were decorated with
Hello Kitty stickers and her hair, which had been worn on top of her head back at the
hotel, was now hanging in several shaggy layers that lurked over her eyes like a jagged
cliff.
"What the fuck are you lookin' at," Myka says as she notices me staring at her and
turns around and orders another drink. I order one, and so does Mos. After about two
or three more we're all ready to do a little toot. Myka leads both of us by the hand to
the bathroom where we wait impatiently in line for almost fifteen minutes before
Myka rudely breaks the line and pushes us in a stall ahead of someone who might
have been Rupaul, but I was too drunk to really notice.
Myka squatted over the cracked toilet seat, took a shit, gropes the last few feet of
toilet paper off of it's roll and wipes her ass clean. I'm beginning to think that
defecation in the company of strangers is more than just a passing trend in her life.
The music from the dance-floor shakes the entire building into mini-earthquake mode.
Meanwhile, some jerk is being really annoying by pounding on the stall door.
"Fuck you asshole," screamed Myka. "Can't you fuckin' wait till I finish taking a
goddamn dump? Shit!" For extra emphasis, she then slams the door with her open
palm as if she were swatting some huge mutant fly. The massive slam finally silences
our detractor and we all get back to the situation at hand; getting off.
Myka lowers the toilet lid and sits on it, leaving myself, Mos and Gila squashed up
against her left side, pinned to the wall. Mos pulls out two of the tin foil bags and
hands them to Myka, who spills their contents out on top of the toilet paper dispenser.
She starts to cut up several series of small, precise lines that she finally pushes into
four snortable rows. She devours the first two instantly, leaving two more for me,
Mos and Gila to split. As usual, Gila isn't featuring selfish behavior.
somewhere you gotta go or somethin'?"
The guy was about five foot six, neatly shaven and stunk of whatever it was he
combed his greasy black hair back with. It smelled like Vicks Mentholated Vapo-Rub.
He was wearing a pair of tight and very tapered burgundy corduroys that were
precisely creased straight down each pant leg and a gray suede Members Only jacket
that had seen better days.
"You lookin' for somethin' guys, cause I don't got time to bullshit. What the fuck you
want, huh?"
"We want some coke," Mos says as he grabs a few twenties out of his pockets and
hands them over to Mookie, who eagerly pockets them. He then took a few tiny,
handmade tin foil envelopes out of his jacket and placed them in Mos's hand. Then he
grabbed both hands with his free one and squeezed them together as tightly as he
could.
"What's the magic word you little snot nosed fuck?"
"What magic word?" blurted out Mos, whose hand had turned deathly white as he
was now being forced onto the ground by the tiny but powerful dealer.
"It's thanks man. You fuckin' kids got no manners today!" Mookie spit out as he
released Mos and took a step back from the obviously pained youth.
"Now get the fuck outta here, or I'll have to get serious with both of you."
I'm already at the door when I turn around to see what's taking Mos. He has gotten
back up on his feet and seems to be reaching for something in his sock. Mookie has
turned his back, but Mos grabs his shoulder and spins him around.
"What the fuck are you doin..." I slowly utter but it's too late. Mos is holding an
exacto knife in his left hand which is swinging high in the air, about to thrust into
Mookie's face.
"You stupid fuckin' kid, I'm gonna kill you!" Mookie screams as he blocks the blade
with outstretched hands that quickly spurt blood. Mos is fearless and he unbelievably
takes another swing with the knife at Mookie. This time he hit him in his eye, causing
him to fall back on the cracked beige tiles lining the hallway floor. Blood seems to
flow everywhere, and my first inclination is to run, but instead I'm frozen. Not in fear.
Maybe not even shock. Sick curiosity is the only term that springs to mind.
By this point I notice Mos is once again gasping for air. He turns toward me and looks
blankly into my eyes as he pulls his inhaler from his pocket. He sucks down on the
pump as he stumbles towards me and feebly throws his arms around me in a hug. I
throw open the front door and a rush of hot air smacks us in the face, momentarily
recoiling us backwards. We forge ahead and barrel at breakneck speed through the
entranceway, almost falling down the front steps smack at the lookout's feet.
"What the hell was all that screamin' in there about?"
Mos and I stumbled back onto our feet and pondered the question put to us.
"I don't know how to say this, but there's been a...," I offer before he cuts me off.
"Been a fuckin' what?" he shouts.
Mos stared down at the obvious bulge in the guy’s crotch and looked back up at him
and smiled. This was hardly the time to be cruisin' some jerk I thought when Mos's
voice broke my concentration.
"You're packin' quite a nice piece there, ain't you honey?"
"Why you little fuckin' faggots, you're dead!"
Just as the lookout was about to jump on us, Mos plants a swift kick to his balls,
stopping him dead in his tracks. He falls face front, grabbin' at his nuts as his face
makes love to the sidewalk. We tip toe around him and bolt down the block, never
once looking over our shoulders, just straight in front of us. We ran and ran and ran,
only stopping when our luck for green light gives out at the corner of Saint Marks and
Second. When the light finally fades from red to green, we cross the street, walk into
Gem Spa and order two egg creams.
"Extra thick please," Mos stammers as I flip through the latest Italian Vogue.
As the counter dude hands them over to Mos, some of the sticky sweet contents spill
from the over filled cups at his feet.
"Yo, dude! Could you give me a lid for this? It's spillin' on my Puma's if you know
what I mean."
I stare down at Mos's dry feet and notice he's wearing Converse hi-tops. When the
guy turns around to find a cap, Mos grabs my arm and we slither out of the just
opening door without paying as a group of painlessly pierced ravers storm the store in
search of change for the video games outside. The counter guy spins around and
hands the lid to one of the kids who's trying to palm him a buck.
"I don't need no lid man, give me four quarters," the kid says as the guy looks
confused and starts cursing under his breath in his native Pakistani tongue.
Meanwhile, Myka was sitting alone at the bar in the lounge of Jackie 69, nursing a
Long Island Iced Tea that she had bought with her last six bucks almost an hour ago
when we finally barged loudly into the club.
"What took ya's so fuckin' long," Myka wailed as Mos strode up to her and planted a
big, sloppy kiss on her cheek. I took a place next to them at the bar and tried to
absorb her transformation from young punkette into a sleek and almost sophisticated
night creature. She had changed from her ratty black jeans into a long eggplant
colored antique satin dress, most likely from the twenties I would guess from its
precariously low hip sash. Her breasts defied gravity, and even without the aid of a
Wonder Bra they stood up at attention, proudly pointing at all those who strode by.
Her round face was just barely peeking out from under a heavy handed layer of cheap
make-up applied in the most fucked up yet correct fashion. Multiple layers of caked
on pink eye shadow garishly blended into her liquid black eyelinered in eyebrows.
Thick, catwoman-like black rimmed eyes were drawn out into two distinctly sharp
points. Her lips were an almost clownlike yet charming swirl of matte pink lipstick,
which she constantly kept reapplying till there must have been at least twenty or thirty
coats painted on in just the past five minutes alone. Her cheeks were decorated with
Hello Kitty stickers and her hair, which had been worn on top of her head back at the
hotel, was now hanging in several shaggy layers that lurked over her eyes like a jagged
cliff.
"What the fuck are you lookin' at," Myka says as she notices me staring at her and
turns around and orders another drink. I order one, and so does Mos. After about two
or three more we're all ready to do a little toot. Myka leads both of us by the hand to
the bathroom where we wait impatiently in line for almost fifteen minutes before
Myka rudely breaks the line and pushes us in a stall ahead of someone who might
have been Rupaul, but I was too drunk to really notice.
Myka squatted over the cracked toilet seat, took a shit, gropes the last few feet of
toilet paper off of it's roll and wipes her ass clean. I'm beginning to think that
defecation in the company of strangers is more than just a passing trend in her life.
The music from the dance-floor shakes the entire building into mini-earthquake mode.
Meanwhile, some jerk is being really annoying by pounding on the stall door.
"Fuck you asshole," screamed Myka. "Can't you fuckin' wait till I finish taking a
goddamn dump? Shit!" For extra emphasis, she then slams the door with her open
palm as if she were swatting some huge mutant fly. The massive slam finally silences
our detractor and we all get back to the situation at hand; getting off.
Myka lowers the toilet lid and sits on it, leaving myself, Mos and Gila squashed up
against her left side, pinned to the wall. Mos pulls out two of the tin foil bags and
hands them to Myka, who spills their contents out on top of the toilet paper dispenser.
She starts to cut up several series of small, precise lines that she finally pushes into
four snortable rows. She devours the first two instantly, leaving two more for me,
Mos and Gila to split. As usual, Gila isn't featuring selfish behavior.
"Hog!"
"Fuck you Gila, I got carried away. EXCUSE ME!"
Mos grabs the rolled twenty from Myka's grasp and snorts a whole line for himself.
"Like sister, like brother," Gila smirks as he swipes the twenty from Mos's clutch and hands it to me. "Kids today got no manners. Here honey. Take the
whole thing. I'm not in a coke mood anymore. I'm featuring K. tonight."
I seized the twenty and bent down low, silently hovering the crystal white powder spread beneath me. As I bring my head up I look straight into Myka's face
and immediately realize that something is not quite right. Suddenly, a small trickle of blood slowly begins to ooze out of her left nostril, practically splashing
down on the last little bit of powder on top of the dispenser.
"What's up with your nose, Myka," asked Gila, cutting me out of my self induced stupor.
"Never mind her fuckin' nose man, something ain't right with this shit!" Mos cried.
"What the fuck are you talki..." I manage to spit out through now trembling lips and a quickly deteriorating vision.
"Oh my God...I think we just did K.! My mouth ain't numb like from coke...oh shit...oh fucking shit," Myka started to scream, but Mos quickly covered her
mouth, releasing it only when her teeth had sunk far enough his fingers to cause blood to bubble out.
"Owww!!!"
"We did K. We did K. You know I can't handle K.! I'm gonna fuckin' freak the fuck out!"
Myka was having the worse reaction amongst the three of us that had ingested the drug. K. is short for Ketamine, a cat tranquilizer. It can only be described
as acid meets speed with a bad case of vertigo thrown in so you're really fucked up. Air becomes Jello, the ground is made of oiled balls. It lasts about an
hour or two if you only take a small little sniff.
Doing a whole line is equivalent to erasing the following eight to ten hours out of your life, unless you're lucky enough to puke the shit out of your system
early into the ride. I can never understand why people call these “recreational drugs” when it becomes such a task to maintain your life while on them.
Suddenly, I could feel my toes curling underneath my feet. Myka had grabbed hold of the sink to support her shaking body and Mos was leaning against
Gila, crying like a baby. An almost pleasurable wave of nausea swept over us, crashing into our senses like lightning striking a tree. The sky seemed to
appear as if out of nowhere, suddenly exploding around our heads and crashing in all around us. I thought how ironic it was that Gila had wanted K. and was
the only one not high on it. Then I thought this might be that dealer Mookie's revenge on Mos. Now I know I'm high, but Myka was the first to completely
freak out.
She unlocked the bathroom door and swung it open with such force it knocked the girl waiting in front of it clear across the bathroom. The floor seemed to
be rocking back and forth, and I was sure everybody could see the ceiling dipping dangerously above our heads. A guy spills his drink all over Myka as she
clumsily crashes into him backwards. Mos tries to run to her aid but trips over some bridge and tunnel troll’s feet and falls flat on his mixed up face. Myka
reacts to the spilled drink as if a swarm of locusts is flying around her face and starts screaming like a banshee, causing only a few modified stares and
heavy round of applause from the bartender.
"Walter, stay here honey...I'm gonna get that crazy girl and bring her in here to puke. Okay?"
"Okay Gila," I manage as I sink into a fetal position on the bathroom floor, praying for an ending to appear soon. I've only done K. once before (ironically, it
was also by accident), and to say I don't like it is an understatement. However I knew not to over-react. The only way to bring myself down was by puking
and not freaking out. I looked back into the room and fell into an astonished trance, not quite believing my own two eyes.
Myka is stumbling through the crowded room, stepping on or colliding with each trendoid she passes on her journey to God only knows where. Gila reaches
Mos first and drags the crying boy back into the bathroom where the door woman, Pussy Fritter, is administering the best sort of vixen first aid she can; a
cold Heineken and a warm finger down an unobliging throat. Within two minutes she has forced me to vomit and then rinse my mouth out with beer, all the
while stroking my hair and telling me that I'm going to be alright soon. Mos is given the same treatment, so Gila goes off in search of Myka, leaving us in
able hands.
Myka has found her way to the dance floor, where, Gila later fills us in, she is bounced back and forth between the manic dancers like an extra ball in a
pinball machine. A frustrated dancer, after having been stepped on almost a dozen times by Myka, slams a vintage Partridge Family lunchbox into her. It
spins Myka even further out of control. She spits out a wad of U.F.O (unidentified phlegm like object) in the club kids direction, hitting a scary looking drag
queen instead, who takes off one of his high heels and tosses it with an extreme amount of velocity right at Myka's head. The connection is made and Myka
crashes off the dance floor, running backwards in fear toward the staircase outside in the hall.
Gila runs after her but is too late. Myka takes one step backwards at the tip of the steps and falls with a silent thud to the bottom, her screams drowned out
by the deafening house music pumping from the dance floor upstairs.
"Yo, that bitch must be really fucked up", a club troll practically hisses, while his badly dressed cohort snickers through drags of her Parliament filter tip and
nods her head in agreement. Gila runs downstairs, but a security guard reaches her first and barks into his walkie-talkie for an ambulance. Gila reaches down
and picks up her wrist, feeling for a pulse. Although there is one, her breathing becomes increasingly labored and her complexion goes from very red and
splotchy to ghostly sheet white within seconds.
By this time, Mos and I, although still pretty fucked up, are able to get up and drag ourselves towards the commotion. As we look down from the top of the
stairs we are met with the sight of Gila bending over Myka's twisted body.
"Myka!" Mos screams and drags me by my hand down the steps while my other numbly grabs for the railing.
"Security just called for an ambulance," Gila whispers to us.
I look up and stare straight into the eyes of a black man big enough to fight off a small army. I look over at Mos who is cradling his sister’s head in his arms
and I wonder what could fucking possibly happen next.
"If they take her to the hospital they'll find out she's a runaway. Then you won't see her again cause your mother will come for her," Gila said.
"Our mother doesn't fuckin' wanna see us."
"Then the state will send her to a home and you really won't see her again," replied Gila.
"Are you trying to freak him out?" I ask.
"Yes I am. C'mon Mos. We gotta get her outta here before the ambulance arrives. I gotta plan," offered Gila.
All three of us leaned over Myka and pondered our possibilities. We decided a diversion was necessary to distract the guard. Mos volunteered to be the bait
while Gila and I carried Myka out a fire exit.
"What if she's really hurt and needs to go to the hospital?" I ask, risking being looked at as a traitor, Their response eases my fear.
"If she needs to go to the hospital it will be with us, and not an ambulance that might have a police escort who might insist on seeing I.D. This way I can get
something fake made up for her real quick back at the hotel," answered Gila. "Okay?"
"Okay," I say. "Hey Mos, what are you gonna do?"
"I don't know yet. I'm gonna go with the flow, if you know what I mean. Just be ready when all hell breaks loose to get the fuck outta here. I'll meet you
back at the hotel," Mos says and then scratches his chin. "If I don't get busted that is..."
With that, he was gone, having run into the other room to do only God knows what. Meanwhile, Gila had a plan of his own and signaled a few local raver
fucks over and whispered some instruction in their ears. Then loud enough for me to hear he said, "Meet us by the side door fire exit."
"No sweat dude," an orange haired freak shot back before he and his friends scooted out of the club.
"Are they gonna loan us their car?" I ask.
"Not exactly," says Gila. "But don't worry, it's transportation."
Believe me, I was worried.
Out of nowhere a loud explosion rang out from the other room and a large dusting of smoke billowed into the hallway. The security guard took off and Gila
and I carried Myka's unconscious frame out the side fire exit door. When we walked up the emergency stairs to street level, we were met by the young
ravers who were pushing two souped up shopping carts refashioned into reclining seats on wheels, complete with stolen safety belts. Mos hadn't appeared
and the sound of an ambulances’ siren could be heard cutting across Fourteenth Street closely followed by the unmistakable squeal of a police horn.
The next thing I know we are being wheeled down Hudson Street in these crazy, customized shopping carts pushed by a young crew of ravers and skate
thugs, each sporting a hair color not quite ever experienced in nature. Myka is sprawled out in one while Gila and I share another. There are almost a dozen
kids, some on inline skates, others on skateboards, each one racing the night at break neck speed, carelessly careening between temptations and trouble.
When we had reached Bleeker Street, the kids dropped us off and said good-bye, the only girl in the group administering a Hello Kitty band-aid to Myka's cut
shoulder and kissing her on the forehead before furiously skating off to join her friends. I look over at Gila who looks at me, and for no good reason we both
break out laughing. The only thing that stirs us from our newfound merriment is the groggy avalanche of Myka's incessantly grating voice calling for
immediate attention.
"Where the fuck am I...and why does my head hurt so much? What the fuck is going on?"
"It's been along night honey, it's time to go home," Gila said softly, then hailed a passing cab, a checker no less. How weird is that. After all we had been
through, something like getting a checker can certainly lift the spirits . There are maybe two in the whole fuckin' city, you know what I mean? Myka
surprisingly shuts up and gets into the cab, resting her head in Gila’s lap and her feet in mine.
We pull up to the hotel and the first thing we see is Mos standing on the front steps with his arms crossed like he's fuckin' Superman for christ-sakes. We
pay the cab and drag ourselves slowly out of it. Mos leaps down the steps four at a time and comes to his sisters aid, who's having trouble walking.
"Mos, why weren't you in the cab with us, how'd you get home?” mumbled Myka.
"I ran out of the club with the rest of the other people after the explosion. Nobody could figure out who was responsible."
"How'd you cause the explosion," I ponder, almost afraid to ask.
"I knocked over the video monitor and poured a beer over it. Then I ripped all the cables out of the wall. Then boom!"
"How clever," Gila coughs as he continues to lead us up the steps and into the hotel. I loosen my hand from his grip and turn back.
"What's up honey? Gotta keep an appointment?" Gila asks.
"Kinda," I say, offering an insincere smile before I trot down the block. I mean shit, I've had enough excitement for one night. I look back just once and
watch the three of them struggle up the steps and disappear into the building, realizing that their tomorrow will most likely make today seem tame. Anything
can happen. Most of us expect it. Others exploit it. That's usually when all hell breaks loose. The shit hits the fuckin' fan. You know what I mean?
END
"Fuck you Gila, I got carried away. EXCUSE ME!"
Mos grabs the rolled twenty from Myka's grasp and snorts a whole line for himself.
"Like sister, like brother," Gila smirks as he swipes the twenty from Mos's clutch and hands it to me. "Kids today got no manners. Here honey. Take the
whole thing. I'm not in a coke mood anymore. I'm featuring K. tonight."
I seized the twenty and bent down low, silently hovering the crystal white powder spread beneath me. As I bring my head up I look straight into Myka's face
and immediately realize that something is not quite right. Suddenly, a small trickle of blood slowly begins to ooze out of her left nostril, practically splashing
down on the last little bit of powder on top of the dispenser.
"What's up with your nose, Myka," asked Gila, cutting me out of my self induced stupor.
"Never mind her fuckin' nose man, something ain't right with this shit!" Mos cried.
"What the fuck are you talki..." I manage to spit out through now trembling lips and a quickly deteriorating vision.
"Oh my God...I think we just did K.! My mouth ain't numb like from coke...oh shit...oh fucking shit," Myka started to scream, but Mos quickly covered her
mouth, releasing it only when her teeth had sunk far enough his fingers to cause blood to bubble out.
"Owww!!!"
"We did K. We did K. You know I can't handle K.! I'm gonna fuckin' freak the fuck out!"
Myka was having the worse reaction amongst the three of us that had ingested the drug. K. is short for Ketamine, a cat tranquilizer. It can only be described
as acid meets speed with a bad case of vertigo thrown in so you're really fucked up. Air becomes Jello, the ground is made of oiled balls. It lasts about an
hour or two if you only take a small little sniff.
Doing a whole line is equivalent to erasing the following eight to ten hours out of your life, unless you're lucky enough to puke the shit out of your system
early into the ride. I can never understand why people call these “recreational drugs” when it becomes such a task to maintain your life while on them.
Suddenly, I could feel my toes curling underneath my feet. Myka had grabbed hold of the sink to support her shaking body and Mos was leaning against
Gila, crying like a baby. An almost pleasurable wave of nausea swept over us, crashing into our senses like lightning striking a tree. The sky seemed to
appear as if out of nowhere, suddenly exploding around our heads and crashing in all around us. I thought how ironic it was that Gila had wanted K. and was
the only one not high on it. Then I thought this might be that dealer Mookie's revenge on Mos. Now I know I'm high, but Myka was the first to completely
freak out.
She unlocked the bathroom door and swung it open with such force it knocked the girl waiting in front of it clear across the bathroom. The floor seemed to
be rocking back and forth, and I was sure everybody could see the ceiling dipping dangerously above our heads. A guy spills his drink all over Myka as she
clumsily crashes into him backwards. Mos tries to run to her aid but trips over some bridge and tunnel troll’s feet and falls flat on his mixed up face. Myka
reacts to the spilled drink as if a swarm of locusts is flying around her face and starts screaming like a banshee, causing only a few modified stares and
heavy round of applause from the bartender.
"Walter, stay here honey...I'm gonna get that crazy girl and bring her in here to puke. Okay?"
"Okay Gila," I manage as I sink into a fetal position on the bathroom floor, praying for an ending to appear soon. I've only done K. once before (ironically, it
was also by accident), and to say I don't like it is an understatement. However I knew not to over-react. The only way to bring myself down was by puking
and not freaking out. I looked back into the room and fell into an astonished trance, not quite believing my own two eyes.
Myka is stumbling through the crowded room, stepping on or colliding with each trendoid she passes on her journey to God only knows where. Gila reaches
Mos first and drags the crying boy back into the bathroom where the door woman, Pussy Fritter, is administering the best sort of vixen first aid she can; a
cold Heineken and a warm finger down an unobliging throat. Within two minutes she has forced me to vomit and then rinse my mouth out with beer, all the
while stroking my hair and telling me that I'm going to be alright soon. Mos is given the same treatment, so Gila goes off in search of Myka, leaving us in
able hands.
Myka has found her way to the dance floor, where, Gila later fills us in, she is bounced back and forth between the manic dancers like an extra ball in a
pinball machine. A frustrated dancer, after having been stepped on almost a dozen times by Myka, slams a vintage Partridge Family lunchbox into her. It
spins Myka even further out of control. She spits out a wad of U.F.O (unidentified phlegm like object) in the club kids direction, hitting a scary looking drag
queen instead, who takes off one of his high heels and tosses it with an extreme amount of velocity right at Myka's head. The connection is made and Myka
crashes off the dance floor, running backwards in fear toward the staircase outside in the hall.
Gila runs after her but is too late. Myka takes one step backwards at the tip of the steps and falls with a silent thud to the bottom, her screams drowned out
by the deafening house music pumping from the dance floor upstairs.
"Yo, that bitch must be really fucked up", a club troll practically hisses, while his badly dressed cohort snickers through drags of her Parliament filter tip and
nods her head in agreement. Gila runs downstairs, but a security guard reaches her first and barks into his walkie-talkie for an ambulance. Gila reaches down
and picks up her wrist, feeling for a pulse. Although there is one, her breathing becomes increasingly labored and her complexion goes from very red and
splotchy to ghostly sheet white within seconds.
By this time, Mos and I, although still pretty fucked up, are able to get up and drag ourselves towards the commotion. As we look down from the top of the
stairs we are met with the sight of Gila bending over Myka's twisted body.
"Myka!" Mos screams and drags me by my hand down the steps while my other numbly grabs for the railing.
"Security just called for an ambulance," Gila whispers to us.
I look up and stare straight into the eyes of a black man big enough to fight off a small army. I look over at Mos who is cradling his sister’s head in his arms
and I wonder what could fucking possibly happen next.
"If they take her to the hospital they'll find out she's a runaway. Then you won't see her again cause your mother will come for her," Gila said.
"Our mother doesn't fuckin' wanna see us."
"Then the state will send her to a home and you really won't see her again," replied Gila.
"Are you trying to freak him out?" I ask.
"Yes I am. C'mon Mos. We gotta get her outta here before the ambulance arrives. I gotta plan," offered Gila.
All three of us leaned over Myka and pondered our possibilities. We decided a diversion was necessary to distract the guard. Mos volunteered to be the bait
while Gila and I carried Myka out a fire exit.
"What if she's really hurt and needs to go to the hospital?" I ask, risking being looked at as a traitor, Their response eases my fear.
"If she needs to go to the hospital it will be with us, and not an ambulance that might have a police escort who might insist on seeing I.D. This way I can get
something fake made up for her real quick back at the hotel," answered Gila. "Okay?"
"Okay," I say. "Hey Mos, what are you gonna do?"
"I don't know yet. I'm gonna go with the flow, if you know what I mean. Just be ready when all hell breaks loose to get the fuck outta here. I'll meet you
back at the hotel," Mos says and then scratches his chin. "If I don't get busted that is..."
With that, he was gone, having run into the other room to do only God knows what. Meanwhile, Gila had a plan of his own and signaled a few local raver
fucks over and whispered some instruction in their ears. Then loud enough for me to hear he said, "Meet us by the side door fire exit."
"No sweat dude," an orange haired freak shot back before he and his friends scooted out of the club.
"Are they gonna loan us their car?" I ask.
"Not exactly," says Gila. "But don't worry, it's transportation."
Believe me, I was worried.
Out of nowhere a loud explosion rang out from the other room and a large dusting of smoke billowed into the hallway. The security guard took off and Gila
and I carried Myka's unconscious frame out the side fire exit door. When we walked up the emergency stairs to street level, we were met by the young
ravers who were pushing two souped up shopping carts refashioned into reclining seats on wheels, complete with stolen safety belts. Mos hadn't appeared
and the sound of an ambulances’ siren could be heard cutting across Fourteenth Street closely followed by the unmistakable squeal of a police horn.
The next thing I know we are being wheeled down Hudson Street in these crazy, customized shopping carts pushed by a young crew of ravers and skate
thugs, each sporting a hair color not quite ever experienced in nature. Myka is sprawled out in one while Gila and I share another. There are almost a dozen
kids, some on inline skates, others on skateboards, each one racing the night at break neck speed, carelessly careening between temptations and trouble.
When we had reached Bleeker Street, the kids dropped us off and said good-bye, the only girl in the group administering a Hello Kitty band-aid to Myka's cut
shoulder and kissing her on the forehead before furiously skating off to join her friends. I look over at Gila who looks at me, and for no good reason we both
break out laughing. The only thing that stirs us from our newfound merriment is the groggy avalanche of Myka's incessantly grating voice calling for
immediate attention.
"Where the fuck am I...and why does my head hurt so much? What the fuck is going on?"
"It's been along night honey, it's time to go home," Gila said softly, then hailed a passing cab, a checker no less. How weird is that. After all we had been
through, something like getting a checker can certainly lift the spirits . There are maybe two in the whole fuckin' city, you know what I mean? Myka
surprisingly shuts up and gets into the cab, resting her head in Gila’s lap and her feet in mine.
We pull up to the hotel and the first thing we see is Mos standing on the front steps with his arms crossed like he's fuckin' Superman for christ-sakes. We
pay the cab and drag ourselves slowly out of it. Mos leaps down the steps four at a time and comes to his sisters aid, who's having trouble walking.
"Mos, why weren't you in the cab with us, how'd you get home?” mumbled Myka.
"I ran out of the club with the rest of the other people after the explosion. Nobody could figure out who was responsible."
"How'd you cause the explosion," I ponder, almost afraid to ask.
"I knocked over the video monitor and poured a beer over it. Then I ripped all the cables out of the wall. Then boom!"
"How clever," Gila coughs as he continues to lead us up the steps and into the hotel. I loosen my hand from his grip and turn back.
"What's up honey? Gotta keep an appointment?" Gila asks.
"Kinda," I say, offering an insincere smile before I trot down the block. I mean shit, I've had enough excitement for one night. I look back just once and
watch the three of them struggle up the steps and disappear into the building, realizing that their tomorrow will most likely make today seem tame. Anything
can happen. Most of us expect it. Others exploit it. That's usually when all hell breaks loose. The shit hits the fuckin' fan. You know what I mean?
END
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