ALMOST A DEAD MAN - CHAPTER 2

Howling sirens drove the panicked East Villagers into the Astor Place Subway. Most failed to pierce the scrum at the head of the stairs to the station and they raised their eyes to the speck falling to Earth. A white flash vaporized New York into the ionosphere.

“DOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAA."

The subhuman scream ping-ponged up the canyon of East 10th Street tenements. Inside the third-floor railroad flat’s bedroom a man’s naked body twitched on the floor futon. An arm over his face failed to block out the madman's wail and the thirty year-old tossed off the damp sheet to jump out of the bed. The blood drained from his skull and he collapsed toward the window. The temperature was climbing into the 90s. All June had been hot since his return from Paris. Outside a middle-aged Polish woman fled down the sidewalk from a dope-sick junkie mauling a parked car with an iron pipe. Sparkling fragments flew in the sunlight. Sean’s motorcycle was a single car-length from this psycho-storm. Down below the madman arched his face to the broiling sun and emptied the ashes of his soul.

"DOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAA."

No woman answered his two-syllable aria. A cop car rounded the corner. The madman stood erect and waved to the officers. His good posture masked his mania Nothing short of an 'officer-down' call was extricating the policemen from their air-con cruiser. With the cruiser out of sight the junkie demolished another windshield.

His Yamaha 650XS was on deck for batting practice. Sean rushed to fill a trash bag with water from the brimming tub in his kitchen to save his motorcycle. Quickly aiming, he heaved the heavy plastic sack out the window. Liquid beads sprayed from its rupturing seams. Ten pounds of water accelerated from forty feet and the impact leveled his target to the sidewalk.

The torn plastic shroud flapped over the flattened man. Water dropped from that height could be fatal. Sean reached for the phone to call 911. As the phone rang, the madman staggered to his feet off in the directions of Tompkins Square Park. It was hard to kill junkies. There were no witnesses on the street. He hung up the phone.

Sean flopped on the living room couch. The floor fan pushed sullen air around the living room. Sweat ran down his body like he was a martyred saint’s miraculous weeping statue. The madman had only been a menace to property and his Yamaha XS 650 wasn’t worth a life. Every psychiatrist and girlfriend had blamed his violent streak on his childhood. His parents had provided him everything necessary to be normal and he tried to examine his past for the millionth time to discover what set him apart from everyone else. Dyslexia, bullying, and speech impediments were clue to a mystery not yet solved and now these dreams of nuclear destruction.

He lay on the battered sofa. Seconds swelled to minutes and the hours thickened until a tainted breeze from the distant Hudson stirred heat-swollen air. Sheet lightning crackled across the sky and the thunder echoed the rumbling of the nine-pin balls from Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Nobody read him anymore.

The WINS radio reported not a hint rain ahead to relieve the overheated city. He shut off the radio and slipped into the tub in the kitchen. It had been full for several days.The water wrapped around his body like a discharged placenta.

After the murder at the Continental in the winter of 1982 Sean had fled New York. Lisa had sworn to meet him in Paris. A week later heard from a friend that she had gone to LA to get into the movies. He didn’t blame her for not coming to France, but she was always on his mind. His fingers wrinkled after twenty minutes. They were ready to become thirty. The ringing of the telephone broke his trance. He leaped from the bath and grabbed the phone on the third ring.

It was an oversea call. Lisa wasn’t on the other end. A German was.

"This is Kurt Oster. You remember me?" A man's voice crackled over trans-Atlantic connection.

"Who can forget Paris?" The German possessed a jet set life of multiple-city dwellings, cars, and beautiful women. Sean had translated some documents for his teletype business in his second-story house on Rue Des Deux Pont. Kurt liked when asked if he needed anything Sean had requested champagne. He served him Moet. It was 10am. They had done drugs together more than a few times. The two of them were acquaintances more than friends.

“Sure, I remember you.”

A puddle of water spread beyond his bare feet. He wrapped a towel around his waist and sat on a kitchen chair. Outside in the alley the willow branches were still in the breathless heat.

"New York in the summer. Hell, no?"

"Pretty close to it. Only me, the poor, the depraved, and the dying."

"You speak a little German, yes."

His high school class had ridiculed Sean’s reading of Kafka's DAS URTEIL, until the warty Bavarian teacher had snubbed out his Pall Mall.

"Herr Coll's accent is better than the rest of you hairdressers."

Sean had a lisp and a stutter as a young man. He didn’t even speak English well. "Ein bissen."

"You are Irish, yes?" This was an interview.

"Irish and American." That nation had granted second-generation blood citizenship in both Ireland and the EEC.

"Good, because you need papers to work at my new club in Hamburg. Your friend, Bertram Bellepas, will be the DJ. You know him.”

“Yes.” They had worked together in Paris.He was almost a friend. As much a ny junkie can be a friend.

“The city is beautiful in the summer. The women more so. It’s the summer solstice and the days are long. I will pay you a thousand Deutschmarks a week, plus a one and a half percentage of the gross, which I figure about two-thousand marks a month. If you agree, a ticket will be waiting at Lufthansa. I will meet you at the Hamburg airport. It will be summertime and the living is sleazy.”

Sean had seen the city in Wim Wenders AMERICAN FRIEND, the film-noir 1977 adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s RIPLEY’S GAME. It looked dangerous, but the name also conjured up the Beatles at the Star Club, a vast harbor on the North Sea, and sex trade on the Reeperbahn. Working six months came to roughly fifty thousand marks or roughly $30,000.

"Ich musste uber es zu denken."

“What’s there to think about?”

Sean’s savings from working the winter at a Paris nightclub were down to a couple of hundred dollars. Rent was due on the first of July. There was only one reason to stay here and Lisa had been gone over six months, still Sean answered, "I'll tell you tomorrow."

"You'd be making a big mistake not to come. Here’s my number.”

Sean wrote it down. “Tschus.”

Sean said the same. It was more familiar than Auf Siedersehen. The line went dead.

He had not expected fate to provide a salvation in Hamburg. At worst Bruder Karl had to be smiling in heaven at the prospect of his worst student working in Germany. Hopefully his classmates were destined for hell. They all had been Tyrannen or bullies, except for the one black student in the class. For some reason they left him alone, which was inexplicable in a Boston suburb. The long summer's day surrendered to night without any temperature drop. It was the solstice and the was setting at the western terminus of 10th Street.Sean got on the Yahama and drove up 1st Avenue to East 77th Street. He parked the bike on the corner and walked halfway down the block. The windows of the third-floor apartment across the street were dark. Lisa's name remained on the mailbox and last week the building super had said her rent had been paid in full for three months. She had to show up some time. A bottle whistled by his head.

"Bastard. Man. Bastard."

A wizened woman in shredded plastic bags searched the garbage for another missile.

"I'm the only crazy on this block. You're not crazy. You're only in love with a woman who left you for another man and she’s never coming back. You don't think I see you, because I'm nobody, but I've seen you and your whore. You didn’t lose your girlfriend. Just your turn. She was fucking that Russian and everyone else. All you bastards want is for us to be whores, and when we’re not your mothers, then you throw us out on the street.”

He had seen the old woman many times. He sometimes gave her a dollar. Her name was Estelle. She never told her story and never had a kind word for anyone. He expected no less. The old woman tore apart her plastic sheath. Her skin was caked with rivulets of sweat. He returned to his motorcycle. The kickstart ignited the 650cc engine with a flaming backfire. Dogs barking joined the howl of car alarms. He revved the motor and raced up the block to 2nd Avenue.

Only one thing was capable of erasing the old woman’s accusations. He burned the next red light. A newspaper truck missed him by inches. It was just a question of time, until an impact with steel car exorcised his obsession with Lisa.

At 23rd Street he broke free of the traffic flow and shifted into fifth gear. At this speed any crash was fatal. At 14th a redhead the same height as Lisa was getting into a taxi. Sean braked and swerved to a halt. A man in a suit ran up and lifted the young redhead’s skirt. She laughed, while he forced her into a taxi.

The yellow Checker pulled away from the curb. Sean blasted through the red light in pursuit. A siren whooped behind him. The redhead turned and Lisa's mirage dissolved into another woman’s face. No cop in the New York would believe his having seen his ex-girlfriend’s double, but running from the police was always a bad idea, unless he had a few day’s head start.

Sean veered to a stop at the curb and pulled off his helmet. Two car doors slammed and cop shoes flapped against the pavement. A flashlight beam blinded his vision. A gruff voice ordered, "Get off the bike."

"What's the problem, officers?” Sean balanced his bike on the kickstand and lifted his hands.

"You see what I see, Kev?"

"I can't friggin' believe my eyes. Sean Coll in the flesh."

"I told you that was his bike, but you said, "Naw, Seano's out of town.” Guess you were wrong," the tobacco-harsh voice commented with the pleasure of being right.

The flashlight shut off and Sean blinked away the sunbursts. The two NYPD officers grinned like drunken hunters discovering a snared animal. Kevin Driscoll was thinner than his partner, but still had forty pounds and a few inches on Sean. Neither cop was shy about tossing around their weight.

They were the pride of the 9th Precinct. The setting for the TV show KOJAK. Nothing on that show snitched out these two cops’ crimes.

"Welcome back, Seano." deRocco took off his perforated summer-weight cap and scratched his balding head. “We heard you were in Paris. You shoulda stayed out of town."

"I'm leaving as soon as I can." Sean had not counted on deRocco and Driscoll. They were as lucky as he was unhappy that they were still in uniform.

"You believe that, Kev?" deRocco was the brains of the pair.

"Nah, it's bullshit." Kevin Driscoll waved on the gawking drivers and deRocco stepped closer. The whiskey heavy on his breath never a good sign in hot weather. "Drop yer fuckin' hands. This ain't no arrest. We just wanna talk with you."

"I haven't talked to no one about the night Johnny Fats was killed."

"Why should we believe you?" Driscoll slapped the flashlight into his palm.

One thin dime changed this balance of power.

"If I had ratted you out, would I be here now?”

“No, you would be in a grave.”

“A cop in jail isn't a pretty sight."

"You threatenin’ us?" Driscoll dropped his hand to his .38. The citations above his badge attested to multiple cold-blooded shootings in line of duty to the NYPD.

"Not at all.”

Seven months ago on a snowy evening Sean had discovered the precinct's bagman in the Caddy parked behind their after-hour club on East 14th Street. A single bullet hole perforated Johnny Fat’s left temple. A gun in his left hand. Johnny Fats was right-handed. Somehow a Grand Jury ruled it 'death by misadventure'. The ensuing IAU investigation suspended fifteen cops from the Twentieth Precinct. Two were in upstate prisons serving long term for various crimes. None of them murder. No one had all the answers to the whys and whos. Sean possessed more than most.

“Just I saw you leave with Johnny Fats.”

"We weren’t involved with his death." Driscoll protested, not knowing what if anything the bagman had said to Sean.

"Shut up, Kev." deRocco's eyes were blank of emotion. “We came back before he was offed."

"Sgt. Ferguson thinks that piece of timing is a little off." The IAU sergeant had plenty of theories, mostly of them unprovable hunches on the money.

"That cocksucker." deRocco spat out the words.

Sean smirked, having heard the precinct cops gossip about deRocco's sexual leaning. They had once been staking out of dope drop on East 4th Street. Te gang member made them and approached the unmarked car. They discovered two men engaged in a sexual act. Queer had saved both their lives.

"What you smilin' about?"

"Nothing." Cops had a hard job in New York City, however these two were well past redemption. AS lucky as they had been, bad luck was waiting for the, but not tonight. “Today I got a phone call today from Germany. They offered a job at a nightclub there. Maybe I should go?” “And stay away for a while too.” deRocco lit a cigarette. "You're a lucky fuckin' Mick, Seano."

"You want to contribute to my bon-voyage fund?"

Driscoll feigned a punch and Sean ducked to his right.

“Don’t push it, Seano. Consider yourself another asshole from Boston who lived in New York too long. Just get the fuck out of town. You have three days.”

"Sure, I'll send you a postcard. Ich liebe dich.” The two officers returned to their blue-and-white cruiser, and then u-turned across 14th Street into the Ninth Precinct. Sean had to face the truth that he had come back to the scenes of the crimes, because of his love for Lisa. Thousands of other women lived in this city. Falling in love with one seemed cursed by his obsession with Lisa. She was not coming back any time soon. Of this he was sure.

Sean obeying all the lights back to his apartment.

By the time he reached East 10th Street, he thanked deRocco and Driscoll for forcing him to accept Kurt's offer. Maybe a life a few thousand miles away from New York might free his soul. Something had to someday.

Photo (th Precinct Investigation Unit 1979

LOST BY THE EIGHT BALL

From 2013

None of the cops from the 9th Precinct were happy about the closing of the basement bar next to their station house in the summer of 1980.

Even fewer were excited by its re-opening as a French bistro. Evelyn’s Bistro was another sign that the East Village was giving way to a new crowd. Not wanting to lose customers, the petite Parisienne maintained the rundown decor, employed the foul-mouthed lesbian bartender, kept the warped pool table, and cuffed the police officers a free drink for every three that they bought with cash, but the blonde chef won their hearts by cashing their checks without a fee and soothed their souls with her cassoulet.

Evelyn truly had a gifted hand at the stove and I adored her cote du porc a moutarde. That year I was the doorman at the Jefferson, an after-hour club located on east 14th Street above the closed theater of the same name. Evelyn, her daughter, two sons, and friends were on my permanent guest list. Accordingly I ate for free at her restaurant. It was a good deal for all concerned parties.

As for the cops we were friends, since they were on the payroll of the Jefferson.

Evelyn’s clientele were punks, new wavers, strippers, writers, artists, drug dealers, and b-models.

None had achieved an overnight success. Continual failure was no reason to stop the party, even though a meal at Evelyn’s was more expensive than Polish food at the Kiev Diner. The food was appreciably better and finding money was easy for people on the hustle.

At night laughter and conversation drowned out the music from the corner jukebox, the bartender poured three-second shots, and the mélange of law with disorder created a subterranean scene lurking beneath the radar of the rest of New York. I established the rules for the pool table and every Monday Night Evelyn’s held a ‘Mr. Cool’ contest. The prize was that whoever won the final game of eight-ball was called ‘Mr. Cool’ for the rest of the week.

The cops had been playing the dead rails and sodden pockets of the quarter-a-game table for years. They were unbeatable, unless they had been drinking and these cops liked their drink after finishing a long shift on the Lower East Side.

By Ten O’Clock I beat the best of them and the table opened for Evelyn’s clientele. They ate, they drank, they played pool, and they spent money. None beat me at pool and my winning steak ran a solid month. Even Lora, the surly bartender, addressed me as Mr. Cool.

On the fifth Monday night I ran the table on my challengers. I sunk four striped balls on the break, split-pocketed a pair, and knocked down the Eight-Ball on the double bumper, after which I stepped away from the table for my rivals to battle for the chance to dethrone me. Evelyn served me steak-frites at the bar, Lora topped off my wine. The jukebox played Joy Division.

Frank deRocco came over to me. The tall cop was the precinct bagman for the Jefferson. His partner Kevin was the best pool player in the bar, but he was sleeping on a pile of beer crates.

“You know that kid over there?” deRocco eyed a young man in his twenties playing pool.

“Never seen him before. Why?”

“Because his family are ‘family’.”

The 9th Precinct was north of Little Italy, but the fat boys controlled the drug trade of the Lower East Side out of a 1st Avenue restaurant. No strangers ate at the Lanza’s and Frank said, “Heavy family.”

“Really?” My only familiarity with the Mob was from movies and walking by Umberto’s on Mulberry Street, where an assassin had murdered JoeyGallo, infamous Profaci Family hitman.

“Stay away from him. That kind of Wop is nothing, but trouble.” deRocco slapped me on the back and went over to wake up his partner. Kevin and he worked the midnight to eight shift. The shadows of night protect the team from wandering eyes.

The trim newcomer vanquished each pretender. Despite a jaw the size of a shovel he was handsome with slicked black hair and wore a tattered 1950s suit.

Evelyn knew him. Her sons hugged him. Several girls whispered in his ear. He was an up-and-coming actor.

After finishing off the last competitor, he announced, “I’m Mr. Cool.”

“Not so fast.” I walked up to the table with a beer in my hand. He was slightly shorter than me, but gripped his pool cue, as if he might need it. I pointed to the table “I was Mr. Cool last week. You have to beat me to be this week’s Mr. Cool. My break. That okay with you?”

“Sounds fair.” He smiled his acquiescence and said, “My name’s Vince.”

“Rack the balls tight.”

I chose the least warped stick from the cues and leaned over the table. My break shot smashed into the triangle of fifteen balls. I sunk one solid, then missed on the Two Ball.

“I’m feeling lucky.” Vince took off his jacket and placed it over a chair. He studied the lay of his balls and dropped three balls in succession. A few customers stopped eating to watch his play. I grudgingly admitted to myself that the young man had style, even though his shoes were obviously two sizes too big for his feet.

“Where you from?”

“Buffalo.” He spun the chalk atop the cue. “Someone told me you used to have a girlfriend from there. Her name was Lisa. I knew her back then. She was hot.”

“That she was.” Lisa had left six months ago to model in Europe. I hadn’t heard from her since.

“I went out with her a little. She was a great lay.” The broad-jawed Italian didn’t need to say that, but he apologized with faux sincerity, “Oh, I thought you were over her. Sorry, man.”

“Nothing to be sorry about.” I thought about Lisa all the time. “I’ve moved on.

“It’s the only thing you can do.” He blew the dust off the cue and sank another two shots before blowing a ricochet by a few centimeters.

“Tough luck.” I had three gimmes positioned before the corner pockets. The fourth shot required a long carom from one end of the table to the other. I had been a math major in college and calculated the angles before stroking the ball without any English. Its trajectory off the bumper was perfect, then lost course over a warp in the felt.

“Scratch.” The lantern-jawed actor declared in triumph. “I get a free shots, right?”

“It’s the rule.” They were the same everywhere in America. “Looks like I’m in trouble.”

“You can’t win them all.” He bent over the table and sunk his last ball.

The Eight Ball rested against the bumper and he called, “Eight in the corner.” He took a second too long to adjust his aim and the cue ball erred off the black to scurry into the side pocket.

“I win.”

“But what about my second shot?” He was shocked by the loss.

“Scratch on the Eight. It’s over. I remain Mr. Cool.” The house rules were simple. They were mine.

“For this week.”

“Now is all that matters to me.”

A beautiful blonde entered the bistro with a small poodle and Lora shouted from behind the bar, “No dogs allowed in here.”

“It’s not a dog.” Vince went up to Lora and slipped $5 into her hand. “It’s a pet and a cute one too.”

“Okay, but only for you, Vince.” His charm worked even on dykes and he sat with the blonde. Later I found out later that Vince and the German girl lived together down in Little Italy. Like deRocco said. Vince had family there.

One night he played at the Mudd Club with an art band. The lead singer was the darling of the Warhol set. Vince hated the lack of limelight. Even Charlotte Rampling came to the gig. Vince left with her. The German girl cried holding her dog. I bought her a drink. She said ‘danke’ between sobs.

Every Monday night we played for the honor of Mr. Cool. I was more lucky than good and he was more good than lucky.

Evelyn called us ‘les Mssrs. Demi-Cool’.

Early one Monday night in late September the German girl came into the bar. She drank two whiskeys and picked up the cop Frank. He wasn’t really her type and I asked Lora what was the story.

“I don’t know. Something about Vince and the dog. I don’t understand German. Frank will be back. He has the late shift with Rip Van Winkle.”

Lora pointed to Kevin on the crates. They were his home away from home, now that he was legally separated from his wife.

Two hours later Vince showed up with a black eye and a swollen forehead.

“What happened to you?” He wasn’t anyone’s punk.

“Anna hit me with a frying pan when I wasn’t looking. I was lucky it was stainless steel.”

“Really?” I read the manufacturer’s mark on his forehead.

“Yeah, it’s the San Gennaro Feast in Little Italy and my uncle has his concession where you have to get a quarter on a spot 100% to win the grand prize. It’s almost impossible, since the spot is the size of a quarter.”

He ordered a beer from Lora. She poured it in a glass. Vince drank half in one gulp.

“My uncle was sick and asked me to take over the concession. I didn’t have a grand prize, so I grabbed my girlfriend’s puppy. No one has won the grand prize in the thirty years that my uncle ran the game. It was a good money earner and he said that I could keep 25% of the winnings.”

“Let me guess. He taught you how to bump the game.” I had seen the scam at work. Vince was right. No one won fair and square on Mulberry Street.

“A magician never tells his tricks.” Vince looked to the door and asked me, “You see my girlfriend tonight?”

“She split with Frank the cop about an hour ago.” I could have said nothing, but as an Irishman I couldn’t give up the chance to get back at him for that remark about Lisa.

“Where they go?”

“Don’t know, but he’ll be back.” I nodded over to Frank’s sleeping partner. “He left a security deposit. So what happened to the puppy?”

“Shit happens, that’s what.” The actor walked over to the pool table and racked the balls. We chose cue sticks and I gave him the break, since Vince was the standing Mr. Cool. He pocketed nothing on his shot and I dribbled in two. He came back with three and scratch on his fourth shot. I got nothing and he put down one. I was well behind after he eliminated another ball. I sank two, but almost scratched leaving him an excellent lay.

“So what about the puppy?”

“Everything was cool. I must have made over $500 in quarters. You know how much that weighs? Almost fifty pounds.” Vince shook his head. “I had enough to pay my share of the rent and was thinking about closing down, when this Jersey guy comes up with a handful of quarters. About $5 worth. I guess I got greedy, because I said, “What the fuck.” Anyway the guy misses every time and I’m egging him on. Finally he flips a coin in the air and it lands flat on the dot. No bounce. Nothing. I nudged the box. Nothing. The puppy is barking in its cage. The guy wants the dog. His girlfriend wants the dog. I offer him money. He says no and grabs the dog. I punch him, the dog escapes, the cops come and I have to give the guy $100 in quarters. Fucking mook.”

“So you lost the dog?”

“Yes, I lost the dog and when I told Anna, she went crazy.” Vince drew back his hand and slammed the cue ball with all his strength. It flew off the table and rolled down the bar to the door, where his girlfriend stood with Frank deRocco, who was holding the puppy in his arms.

“I find puppy, no thanks to you.” She stormed out of Evelyn’s and Vince ran after her, grabbing his jacket on the way.

The eight ball sat on the table.

I sank it.

He didn’t come back that night or the next Monday, because Hollywood called him to act in a movie. He almost became a star.

I never played anyone else for Mr. Cool.

Vince made a name for himself out west, Lisa remained in Europe, the Jefferson was raided by Internal Affairs that winter, Evelyn’s remained open for another two years, and every once in a while Vince’s ex-girlfriend came into the bar with her poodle. It was no longer a puppy. Anna said that Vince was sending for her as soon as he had a place. Lora gave her free drinks. They were a couple some nights. No one liked sleeping alone, but I was then Mr. Cool and Mr. Cool never minded sleeping alone.

THE END

The Twentieth Century gathered year and Vince Gallo made movies, raced motorcycle, and then became a fascist and will never be cool again. In fact he never was. Me, I was a loser and losers are always cool as long as they remain too stupid to surrender the struggle.

April 13, 1981 – The Ritz after the Jefferson Raid – Journal Entry

Paul Garcia, Arthur's partner, at the Jefferson, said he was going to be at the Ritz tonight. I walked there at 10 expecting a no-show, but he was speaking with the owner at the downstairs bar. Jerry signaled the barman and said, "Give this man whatever he wants to drink. He had a rough night."

Jerry was one of us, but not Paul, who surprised me by cuffing me money.

$150.

My nightly pay.

I counted it twice.

"It's all there," the model said annoyed by my distrust.

"I'm not good with numbers." I counted the money again and ordered a Stoly Screwdriver. It was Arthur's favorite drink and

"Thanks for the money." Most people would have stiffed an employee after a police raid. Paul hadn't needed to pay anyone. "Have you seen anyone?"

"Scottie's upstairs," answered Paul without asking anything about the raid. The less he knew the better. "We're opening this weekend. Are you in?"

I nodded yes and raised my glass.

"To the Jefferson."

I climbed the back stairs to the rear bar where Scottie was speaking with the bartender, Don, who was now going out with my ex-, Elizabeth. I was happy for the new couple, but not with Scottie looking over my shoulder.

"What? You think I'd snitched you out to the police?"

Last night I had seen him leave the Jefferson without a police escort. His eyes had met mine. He saw no one and I saw no one back.

"Just checking."

I leaned close and said, "They aren't after us. They're after Arthur."

They were Internal Affairs and the criminal element of the 9th Precinct.

"He made it out the back door."

Arthur had said he was the only one they were after.

"I figured as much. Paul paid me my wages. you know I went into the Jefferson this morning."

Scottie didn't have to ask why.

"Conniver the Australian bartender was my lookout and I climb up to the Marquee. I searched the place for money. I found none, but I got more than a few bags of blow. I did them all with Conniver at my place. It wasn't that much."

"Cool, we're opening this weekend."

"I told Paul I'm in."

"Good." He raised his glass and we silently toasted whatever was in our mind.

Nothing. = ncsza a nbbvcccxxz/.,mnmk,kj '

April 12, 1981 - The Jefferson Raid - East Village - Journal Entry

After midnight above Jefferson Theater the exquisite wickedness of Arthur Weinstein's apartment became a home away from home for hell-bent nightlifers raced at full-tilt to utter abandonment. I ran the door and had to refuse several unlikely party-goers. Something was not right about them. They looked like cops and one couple were too friendly, offering me $50 to get in the door. I refused them and went upstairs to warn Arthur about a possible raid.

"Don't worry , we're covered by the 9th Precinct."

Jimmy Fats sat with three ununiformed local cops.

A bottle of champagne on the table. They thought they owned the place. We never argued with them

"And the back door is open. Any sign of trouble, lock the door and get out of here. We'll meet at the Ritz."

I returned to the entrance and let in more people glomming my usual 10% from the entrance fees. I questioned one man. He looked like he had recently shaved a beard, but he mentioned a friend's name and slipped me a $50. An hour passed without any troubles at the door or inside. Two stocky men approached me. I didn't like their look.

"Sorry, this is a private party." Friends and celebrities skated inside. Anyone else had to wait until I said go and they paid $20 for that privilege.

They said nothing and one of them grabbed the door before I could shut it.

"We know it's a private party and it's over." For a second I blocked his entry, thinking this was a hold-up, but someone behind him said, "Cool it, Fuckhead, we're the police."

"You have a search warrant?"

"Fuckhead, this is a raid." The SWAT cops blocked my escape up the stairs. they were dying to throw me a beating. The The biggest cop thrusted a paper in my face. "Get out of the way."

"How? Where?" I had surrendered to the moment. "Where you want me to move. Tell me."

A female cop I had earlier refused entry spat in my face, "You remember us. Now you're not so high and mighty, faggot."

"I don't remember you at all. I see a lot of people. I never look at the face. Only the eyes." Hers were green.

"Fuck you, you move and I'll shoot you." She put her hand of her pistol.

"Like I said I'm not going anywhere, until someone says where." The uniformed cops pig-piled against me. They had all probably been refused entry to a nightclub. No one wants them inside a club. An older cop in a suit pushed them away. "Chill it, he's not any danger, are you?"

"None at all." My uncle's father had been a Boston homicide detective. I knew that if the police have you, they have you, and if they get shit, they will give more shit than you need in your life. It was time to hold your sand."

"Good. Get upstairs," he ordered the raiding party and told me, "You come with me."

We climbed up the stairs and entering the apartment he grabbed the New Zealand busboy and handcuffed me to his wrist.

"I didn't do nothing."

"Everyone here has done something." He stuck us on couch. SWAT cops were letting out guests and stopping any of the staff. There was no sign of Arthur, but his best friend, Scottie walked by me with Chuck Nanny, an artist. Somehow the ex-Studio 54 bartender had snuck under the cops' radar. We exchanged less than a glance. His eyes said he had the money.

The plain-clothed officers were having people turn out their pockets. I stuffed my money. $700 in my sock. Cellophane packets were scattered on the floor. No one claimed ownership. I stuck my free hand into the couch. My fingers touched several packets. I stuffed them deep under the pillows. The rugby-playing busboy was worried about getting deported back to the Antipodes.

"Don't worry, we'll be fine. Just be patient. This is the weekend and we're not the only after-hour club in the city. I'll take care of you. Keep your mouth shut and just say 'not guilty' when you're asked for your plea"

"Do you have a lawyer?"

No, but we'll get arraigned after eight. That's went the judges come in, unless we're hauled in front of night court. Just say nothing." I had no idea about the process only what I had heard from friends.

Uniformed offers sat more Jefferson employees on chairs; Conniver, the Australian model/waitress, Emma, my ex-, the coat check trans, and Hal Lucader, a gay model/bartender. Griffin Shea, a mouthy minor-league coke dealer from DC/DJ was roughly shoved next to me. Unlike the rest of them both his hands were cuffed before him. Undoubtably the DC brat had probably pulled his father being in the CIA on them. Arthur must have made it out the back door into the alley. I saw 'Sal', a 9th Precinct cop, escorted out of the apartment and I thought, "There goes his pension."

The cops ransacked the apartment for drugs and money. I eyed an older officer and he came up to me, "What?"

"Excuse me, but that guy at the end isn't us." I nodded to Andrew, who had overstayed his visa. "Probably some NYU student scared about his permanent record."

"Are you saying you work here?"

"No without getting read my rights, but I'm not saying anything you don't already know." My family came from cops and lawyers. "This kid is just a stupid busboy."

"You don't want to say anything about yourself, but snitch him out."

"Just let him go."

"In the morning, big shot."

He walked away help his uniformed cops dragged Jimmy Fats from a back room. I later learned that the cops had beaten the NYFD bag man with baseball bats. I doubted he had said a word and shrugged to the busboy.

"I tried. Just remember say nothing, because you know nothing."

A fat donut-eater came up to me and ordered, "Empty your pockets, big shot."

I obeyed his threatening request and pulled out $43.

"That's it?"

"I made a drop before the raid."

He confiscated everyone else's money and I asked, "Can we sign for that?"

"Sorry, I don't have a pen, big shot."

After he left, Griffin whispered with a cocaine wheeze, "I'm going to bolt."

"Bolt?"

"I'm going to break for the marquee and climb out of here. I'll get a cab and call my Dad. He's CIA. He'll deal with this. You in?" Griffin had been recently dumped by Emma, the waitress, for a member of the Rockats and was way gone on blow. I tried to reel him back to Earth.

"Your chances of getting to the marquee are okay, but the climbing down the building manacled to someone else is nil. You'll break your leg, then the police will beat the bejesus out of you."

"Not if I make it."

"I'm out."

"Chicken shit."

"Chicken shit? Go fuck yourself. Go now. Otherwise keep your hole shut." I was angry at him, but more that I hadn't seen the raid coming when it came. I could have shut the door and got out the back. Griffin did nothing and the cops told the men to stand. We were heading downtown to Central Booking.

The older cop told us, "You're being charged with violation of State Liquor Laws. It's a misdemeanor, not a felony, although if you have any legal problems, this could make them worse. Time line? You'll be out of booking by noon at the latest." I groaned, knowing from previous arrests in Boston how long time can be in jail, but this wasn't prison. It was a rainy Sunday morning and a cop joked that we were missing church. No one laughed and we were crowded into a large police van. Jimmy Fats sat on the sidewalk. His right leg was most certainly broken. His face was twisted in pain. I was the last in. Someone shouted my name. Across the street RW was hanging out his wondow. We were friends. I raised my fist and shouted, "Attica."

"Shut up, big shot." A cop shoved me into the van. The cops hated any supporter of the Attica Prison Uprising.

The cops brought down the we left a PBA attorney rescued Jimmy Fats. Their EMS wagon sped away to Bellevue.

The doors shut and we began the voyage downtown.

"Can we stop for pizza. None of us have eaten." <\p>"Pizza for us too."

"Yes, I have $40." The two bills had been in my back pocket.

"Okay."

They stopped at St. Marks and got two pies. They weren't hot. We didn't care. I didn't ask for the change. Griffin was going berserk.

"I want a lawyer. I want a telephone. I want him there when I get there. Fucking pigs."

I leaned over to Griffin.

"If you say another word, I will beat the shit of you worse than any cop beating." The longer the police were pissed at him, the longer they would be pissed at us.

"Oh, yeah, another thing, fuck your father and the CIA." The previous year my sister-in-law, who worked for the Director, tried to get me a job at the Agency. They had rejected me.

The cops brought down Emma, Conniver, and Ellen, or at least I thought her name was Ellen, and put them in a newer and better wagon.

Hal leaned over to me. He was dressed like an Adam and the Ants pirate, which was all the rage in the UK.

"Please don't let them separate us. I don't want to be put in a cage with animals."

"This isn't prison. Just a holding pen." The pretty boy was so pretty was lucky this wasn't prison, otherwise he was some con's stick pussy."

"Say nothing and stick by me. The cops are more worried about illegal Haitians and Cubans than a beautiful boy."

I spoke like I knew the score, but my only brush with the Law had been for a high speed chase in the VW Hatchback. This was all new. We ate the cold pizza on the way down the Bowery to the Tombs. We passed the whores on Delancey who shouted out encouragement. The cop driving asked, "You want some of that? We have time."

"No, I value my life." Something deadly was stalking gays and drag queens. My friend James Spicer had died of it two years ago. No one had a name for it.

We got to Central Booking and rejoined the women. As they processed us, the staff of a Harlem after-hour entered the room. I recognized the bartender. Buff laughed with amusement, "Looks like the party ended uptown and downtown.

"Puto, they ain't downtown. We downtown," said a Latino bouncer from Avenue d and 2nd. "The Midtown to us."

And Flacco was right, but I countered, "Midtown begins at 14th Street, but on the other side of 14th Street from the Jefferson."

"Hell, yeah."

We were us and the pigs were them.

Forever.