Poppers ReDux

Jan. 2 1979 Suicide was headlining CBGBs. The duo weren't for everyone, but the screaming fury of Alan Vega and monotonal drone of his keyboard player Martin Rev was a good remedy for a long holiday of drinking. Anthony Scibelli and I finished two bottles of wine at my apartment on East 10th Street and then walked across the East Village to CBGBs. Flurries of snow whipped under the streetlights. My vinyl jacket offered little protection against the cold and we sped up the pace through the deserted streets.

A small crowd was gathered outside the club. Suicide wasn't that popular. The huddle was mostly transients from the SRO hotel, the Palace. They were standing around a sprawled man. His bloodied body was wrapped in the dingy sheet. On the third floor was an open window. At first I thought he was dead, but a groan signaled he was still with the living.

"Man, can you hear me." I knelt by his head carefully not to stain my jeans with blood and wrapped his near-naked body with the sheet.

"Yeah, where am I?" His grizzled face was pressed to the concrete sidewalk. "I'm not on the Bowery, am I?"

"Where the hell you think you are?" One bum chortled with a bottle of Zapple in his hand. "Park Avenue."

"Not the Bowery." This address alarmed the jumper, but the crowd was short of pity.

"And you look like a used Kotex." The bum with the bottle got laughs from that line.

"Move off." Two cops shoved through the derelicts and took charge. EMS showed up several seconds later. Anthony and I went inside CBGBs. Merv waved us past the cashier. We were regulars. Suicide was on stage. Only 25 people were in the audience. We ordered beers from BG and Anthony pulled out a vial of poppers.

"Rush?" Amyl Nitrate was a dirty high.

"Suicide and Rush on a winter night." Anthony huffed the vapors and handed me the bottle, as Alan Vega started singing FRANKIE TEARDOP.

How could I resist?

Thankfully no one has organized a Poppers Day like 4/20 for reefer, but here's another tale of poppers from a female friend.

"I only had poppers once by accident.

"I was working as a cashier at Bagel & with Keven Kiely of the Mumps and a few other highly entertaining doughboys. One of them said to me "You must take a whiff of my new cologne, you'll love it."

This was in the middle of a busy Saturday with a line of clients ready to pay. The color drained out of everything and I collapsed on a sack of flour in the pantry while the other guys split their Calvin's laughing. I guess we were all desperate for a laugh there. I had my little jokes too."

Always true if interesting.