September 24, 1978 - Journal Entry - East Village

The Red Sox are a game out of first with six games to go.

Few people in our scene care about sports, although Guadalcanal is a die-hard Yankees fan. The Red Sox had a 14-game lead in the AL East. Two weeks ago, the Yankees slaughtered my team in a four-game stand at the Stadium. 43-9. Last night they beat Toronto. Only one game out. Guadacanal says we don’t have a chance. History had proved that should be true. But just once, I’ like for us to beat the Yankees.

Last night I went to a party with Grant at Stan's and ran into Vickie, a skinny blonde with a stutter. I have trouble speaking too and we discussed our speech difficulties. I moved a little closer to hear her better, as he stammered, "I-I-I'm asexual."

"Oh. I wasn’t trying to hit on you.” Or I didn’t I was. You never know with men.

"My friend Jessie thinks asexuality is a disease." Vickie wore a tight white sweater and a half-inch of make-up. She had a wouned dove look, as if she couldn’t fly.

That's stupid." Vickie was a poetress. I loved to hear the staggered cadence of her poems in staggered c her reading with distorted speech.

"I told him the same. I'm not sexual. I stopped as soon as I came to New York, because you don’t have to put out here."

I understand.” I couldn't tell Vickie that I was attracted to androgynous women.

"Sure, you're the same as all men. You'd fuck a hole in a tree.:

Vickie walked away to speak with her friends. None of them were asexual.

"No luck." Grant was always curious about my sex life. Queers like straight men getting shut down, figuring it left them an opening. Maybe Vickie was right about fucking a hole in a tree.

"We were just talking." I had no problem with being shot down, especially since I wasn’t really trying.

"T-t-t-talking?"

Don't make fun of our speech."

Sorry, I was joking."

It's not a joke."

So you got shoot down?"

"Yes."

"Then let's go to CBGBs."

Who was playing didn't matter. We all loved CBs, but a new band from Georgia was heading over Helen Wheels. Kookie dance pop music. As I left the party, Vickie broke from her friends and asked, "Can I go to CBGBs with you? I won't h-h-hang on you."

"No worries."

”Can you get me in for free?”

”Sure, you want to say good-bye to your friends?” Just because she was asexual didn't mean I couldn't be a gentleman.

"No, my friends are assholes.

"Sure, but I have other someplace to go first."

On the way, Grant split to CBs. He didn’t want to miss the show. Vickie and I stopped at One University Place, Mickey Ruskin's new restaurant next to Washington Square. The front bar was packed with arty assholes. I met my connection. Mario. $30 for some blow. A good count. Back at the bar, I said to Vickie, "Let's go.”

A greasy foreign man in a three-piece suit clutched her arm. I guess he was French. I little older than me and from his clothing richer too. He was drunk and with two friends. I had drunk heavy at the party and chopped on the guy's forearm, freeing Vickie. The meatball poked my chest,

"Don't get tough with me."

His accent might have been French. I had taken it in grammar school at Our Lady of the Foothills. Vickie nodded with her head for the door adn was on her way out. I should have left without a word, except I'm from the South Shore of Boston and said, "I don't have time to waste on fools like you."

"Fool? You call me a fool. Who are you?"

Normally I would have japped him, but I wasn't wearing my glasses and said, "This is America, not France. We don't need your type here."

"I'm not French. I am Spanish."

Mickie came over to the altercation. Two bouncers backed me up my side of the story,

"This foreigner is out of line, but I’m leaving. He can stay. Au revoir.”

"Then leave."

Vickie and I walked to CBGBs through dark streets. No one was out at night. Not this close to the Bowery. We did a bump on Bond Street. The blow cured neither of our speech defects, mostly because we didn’t speak. At the door, she asked, ”Why are you so violent?”

”I was bullied as a child and a teenager. People always making fun of my stutter. My glasses. Everything. The bullies were violent. I had to fight them. Now I fight bullies.”

”Even if they haven’t done anything?”

”He grabbed your arm.”

”My saviour.”

The B-52’s were playing ROCK LOBSTER. Vickie vanished once we passed Lisa Krystal, Hilly’s daughter, who comped both of us. Vickie was greeted by friends at the bar. They seemed the same ones, as she had left at the party, but they weren't the same, just not different from the others.

Kim Davis whispered in my ear, "You came here with Vickie here? You know what Alice thinks of that. She's worried about you getting a disease."

"Firstly Vickie's asexual."

"She is?" Kim's regard for the scrawny blonde climbed a few steps.

"Yes, and cool out, I'm only sleeping with Alice no matter what she thinks." It was a lie, but a lie she, unlike Alice, was willing to believe.

I ended up reading Karen Crystal's palm.

"You suffer from incredible angst." Her marriage to Hilly had been over nine years, but they remained partners in the bar. Her only job in the place seemed to stop us from smoking weed. “Anyone can see that?”

"Don’t let anyone smoke pot in here. Cops bust someone and the bar is shut. This isn't no methadone clinic." < p>Obviously she had never been to the dressing room behind the stage, which seconded for a shooting gallery. Me, I wasn't into skag. I liked my drink and liked the B-52s more. Everyone at the front of the stage danced into a frenzy and no one ever danced at CBGBs. Guadacanal and I drank beers after the show and finished off the blow. I got home after 3.

"My love for Alice overcomes my lust. I let her sleep. She woke early. She had to work, but cuddled up to me and said, "I'm so scared when you go out alone at night. I worry you getting a disease.”

”Not to worry.” At least I didn’t.

The Red Sox lost last night. The Babe Ruth curse stays strong.

September 3, 1978 - Journal

CBGBs was packed for the Dead Boys recording a live LP. At the bar Alice had drank bourbon with Kim like a cowhand off the range. The two werevmore than a little drunk and fought off anybattempt stop their drinking. Various girls flirt with me at the pinball machine. I refused them. Neither Kim nor Alice were safe. Mostly from their selves.

After the end of the show we accompanied Guadacanal from the Geeks and his frail from DC to his place on 3rd Street. Alice was legless and lurched across the sidewalk. I shoukd havevtaken her home tomour place, but she wasn't done with the night. We went up to his apartment and sat at the kitchen table in his apartment. Alice slips onto the floor. Everyone laughs, as she says her bones have melted to butter. I lay her on a sofa and Guadacanal breaks out an ounce of blow. We huff thick rails, almost like we have a death wish. His girlfriend joins Alice. We stay at it, then he huffs a finger thick line, coughs and flops on the floor. Not breathing. I thump on his chest. He coughs and vomits on himself. I slap his face. Nothing. Two comatose kittens on the sofa. A dying man on the floor. I lift the phone. No dial tone. Guadacanal's breathing is shallow and getting ready for a flatline. I toss him over my shoulder, grab the keys, and hurry to 1st Avenue to hail a taxi.

"Bellevue."

I throw the driver a twenty.

"Fast."

It's almost five. Traffic is light. Still dark. No pedestrians. Five mintues later we're in the ER. Doctors ask questions. I tell the truth. They know it before I say it. My friend is swept into a recovery bed IVs sprouting from his arms. The doctors and nurses see ODs all the time. Hevhas regained consciousess and wants to leave. interns restrain him Guadacanal will be fine. I return to his apartment. The DC girl is gone. Ske took the blow. The dawn is rising. i huff thedregs on thebtable and I wrestle Alice home to East 10th Street and tuck her into bed.

I can't sleep.

At noon Alice wakes, surprised to find herself in the apartment.

"I had a dream I was in Morgantown with my brother. I want to go to some open spaces. I need the country."

It's a sunny day. I still haven't slept.

I had visited her grandmother's haunted house outside Charleston. Two days of rain. Water dripping inside the house. A cold damp in the middle of the summer. I had felt trapped by the weather and the mountains and hollows. Almost as if there was no where to run, but Alice had been inspired by a photo of the glammed-out New York Dolls before Gem Spa and run away from her hometown like some many of us in the East Village.

"New York has gotten to me."

I said nothing about Guadacanal's OD. I could have been him. I doubt he had been in any condition to carry me down the street.

"I want to go somewhere."

"It's Labor Day weekend." Everyone in New York has left the city, but us and everyone we know, except Guadacanal. All I want is a hot dog from a BBQ. Instead outside the streets are steamy and garbage line the sidewalks, mostly because there are not enough trashmen, since the President told the city to go fuck itself two years ago and the sanitation workers went on strike to protest the layoffs. It was either money for the police or trash. The police won out. Tourist remark on the swirling trash. The cops raid drug dens. None of the middle class feel safe. I'm not scared and Alice is brave. This is our city. Nothing is going to get better soon. But swe aren't asking for better.

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MAY 27, 1978 THE VILLAGE JOURNAL ENTRY

A week ago Pip announced she was throwing an incredible quadruple Gemini birthday party at Kim and Kyle Davis' apartment on Bleecker Street. Sean, Eric, and Kim had hung blue and white balloons overhead. Sean, an movie set designer, had decorated her apartment. plastered xeroxed photos of the four natal celebrants on the wall and lit the living room with pulsing blue lights. Punk and funk music. Beer and bourbon. Tons of people. She one. Me one too. Her best friend Cyrena and a heartthrob, Amos. She invited two hundred people. That night over a hundred crammed into the duplex. I knew many of them.

A ballerina said, "I saw you on 42nd Street. You entered a peep show with a blonde. Do you like porno? Would you like to see me naked?"

"Yes."

By the bathroom door, Alice entertained lithe lesbian actresses with a funy spiel about the poetry police. I had heard it a couple of times. Normally, as she gets drunk. The ballerina led me out of the apartment in a slow-motion pas de deux into the stairwell. Her name is Dove. She tells me to keep my distance. I nodded, although my hands want to rip off her dress. She smiled at my distress and peeled the dress from her shoulders, as if under George Balanchine's direction. It fell to her feet. Her body was emaciated by dance, revealing every sinew, muscle, and bone. "My name is Dove. One day if we're lucky, we will fuck." Her hand drifted elegantly to her crotch and rubbed her labia, then licked her fingertips. She didn't offer them to me, and I realized she was baiting me to take her against her will. It wasn't the first time a woman to misinterpret my innate propensity for violence as sexual. "Like you said. Not tonight." I returned to the party. ANARCHY IN THE UK blasted on the stereo. Kyle chatted with Billy from Television. She is so in love with the drummer and couldn't be happier with his attention solely hers. Excessive enters and shouts, "Now the party begins." “I love him.” X starts an argument with a bassist from the Testors. I step in. "It's a party, and if anyone is going to start a brawl, it's me. I'm one of the birthday people." We spoke for a few minutes and somehow I diverted the two of us into a ballad of loneliness. "Oh, wow. Not easy to be alone with this many people here for your birthday." "Easier than you think." I went over to Alice. "Ignore me." She drank a slug of 101-proof bourbon, then silked away to hillbilly dance with Barbara, another lesbian, returning to the bathroom to extoll the virtues of hard drinking to those waiting for a piss. She was very funny. even the partygoers inside the toilet laughed at her humor. Kim gets drunk with Marc Stevens, Mr 10 1/2 of porno fame. He whispers he wants to talk with me. "Later." I glanced at his crotch and he smiled like to say it's all there. Patrick, the cook from Elephant and Castle, shows up with a bottle of bourbon. I don't know how it became the drink of the party. He hands me a manifesto for the National Resurgence Party, which I promptly lose. Ro shows up. I'm too drunk to form sentences. We score some speed, but a popular solo singer steals half. Cyrena get her photo taken by Sean and his father. Roz shows as does William Lively and Andy Reese, then Clover. Alone, Blonde, Young. We spoke in the hallway, "I haven't been avoiding you. My Texan sponsor is in town. He leaves tomorrow." Amos, Kim's love, is drunk and leans against the wall supported by wobbly knees. Ann makes out with Excessive, who pukes and I have to sober him up in the kitchen with a bump of speed. Bruce and Lewis enter with gifts of a tie and hankercheif. Klaus comes with Claudia. Dark and mysterious in leather. I say nothing to her. Little John is drunk. Kim's Greenwich friends become invisible. The bourbon has blurred everyone's vision and stripped away their inhibitions to the bone. It is the height of the Sexual Revolution and we are all rebels with a cause of flesh to flesh. Rhonda makes move on Alice. Anthony stands close as a voyeur, wishing he had been camera back from the repair shop. I speak to Sean about film and anarchy. Markey from the Ghosts has not stop dancing. Sweat flies off his body to UP BONDAGE UP YOURS. Rick Danger loses his leather jacket. Someone stole it. Marc invites me over to his apartment for some blow. He takes out his cock. Long and thick and not hard at all. "Touch it, " he says, as if it was a pet snake. His girlfriend, Jill Monro, enters the apartment. We do some more lines and she hefts his limp cock. "He does blow and he's useless in bed. Sweet, but useless." I go back to the party. Eric is making out with a girl whose name I can't recall. It is not Alice. "How big was it?" Klaus licks his lips. "Go over and ask. I'm sure he'll show it to you." He brings Andy Reese with him. Clover and I kiss in the stairwell. "One day you and me." "What about now?" I know she wants me to have my way with her. "One day." Not tonight. Alice hasn't spoke a word to me in hours. She's kissing one of the Greenwich girls. The lights go out. A blown fuse. We light candles The beer runs out, so does the ice. We find R&B music on a transistor radio. We have plenty of bourbon. Creeps from CBGBs arrived at the door. I tell them to fuck off. William Lively cries when I refuse him. People puke over the railing in groups of two and three. Cyrena leaves with someone other than Sean. Alice is out cold on the couch. Kim and Amos are on the floor. There is no sign of Kyle or Billy. I bring back Alice to her sublet. I put her to bed and she slurs, "I wish you were David Bowie." “I heard Mr. 10 and a Half is coming,” Klaus whispered in my ear. The German opera singer was a fiend for size and he shivered saying, “10 and a half. Divine.” Klaus critiqued gay porno films, as if he was voting for the XXX Oscars. He love going to the Adonis THeater on Eighth Avenue. Never missed a new film. My hillbilly girlfriend wandered off to CBGBs to see the Mumps. Alice didn’t like drinking and liked me drunk less. A minute later, a curly-haired man came up to me. He was Marc Stevens and he said, “I thought she would never leave. My name is Marc.” “Pip mentioned you.” I looked through the crowd. His better half wasn’t in the room. “She mentioned you too. Her brother.” Marc wore a white jumpsuit. He was the thinnest person in the room. His hand touched my ass. “You want to do some blow?” “Yes.”

I was as used to gay guys hitting on me as they were accustomed to seducing straight guys. To them, they considered everyone potentially gay. No one was 100% straight.

“Not here. There are too many coke vultures.” His soft brown eyes darted over the crowd, as if he were looking for someone special. “Let’s go to my place.”

Two men leaving a party together was no scandal. Pip leaned over to Klaus and pointed out my departure. The singer gave me the green light with a wink and shouted, “Gluck.”

“I don’t need good luck.” I was straight or at least that’s what I told myself, but everyone in the Village was a little bent in one way or another.

“Your friend is cute in a strange way.”

“Klaus likes you.”

“All size queens desire Mr. 10 and a Half.”

“I bet they do.” I had seen nudes of him in Swedish Erotica, the best straight magazine in Times Square’s porno shops. He was big. Not John Holmes big, but big.

Marc tiptoed down the hall.

“I don’t want any of the neighbors seeing us. They are busybodies. Always peeking through the peepholes. Like this hallway was in a porno movie. My wife is very jealous.” He opened the door and pushed me inside.

“My girlfriend is never jealous.” She didn't have a jealous bone in her body, as if our together was just killing time, until she met David Bowie.

“Everyone is jealous. I don’t believe she isn’t. Not about you. Sex is just sex. Nothing more.”

Marc shut the door. The one-bedroom apartment was decorated with dark brown furniture favored by gays for hiding stains from intercourse. The XXX actor went into the kitchen to fetch a Pond’s cream jar from the cabinet. I thought this was going too fast, but he opened the jar filled a white powder with a pinkish glow.

“Bolivian flake from one of my admirers.”

"I've never tried it." I had only heard of it

"You'll love it."

We sat on the soft module sofa. The cushions wrapped around me like a Venus Fly Trap. The music from Pip’s party thumped the wall. I recognized the song as X-Ray Spex’s UP BONDAGE UP YOURS.

“You like that music?” Marc spilled out a mound of blow. Lines thick as rope.

“I’m a punk.” I had been since seeing the Ramones play CALIFORNIA SUN in the winter of 1976. Their speedy version of the Rivieras’ hit opened my eyes to a new world and CBGBs became my second home.

“I like leather, but not that music. I’m more into disco.”

He unzipped his jumpsuit to his belly button and handed me a straw. “Enjoy.”

I huffed the first rail. This was not street gear, and the coke burst into my nasal capillaries with the intensity of an Incan sunrise, then scorched through my veins with an avalanche of euphoria. I fell back into the sofa with my bones sizzling on Andes Barbeque.

“Good, huh,” Marc whispered in my ear. His lips were tender on my earlobe. He spooned a small pile into my other nostril. “Breathe.”

I obeyed his command. The coca sizzled my senses. I heard motorcycles running on my blood and the universe shimmered out of focus. I was in no condition to resist Marc’s advances. He undid his zipper. Out flopped his cock.

He was a veteran of porno movies. Millions of XXX viewers had seen him in MICHAEL, ANGELO, AND DAVID. Hundreds of thousands wanted him. I gripped his thick member with the tenderness of a butcher preparing to cut a steak. The photographer Robert Mapplethorpe had immortalized this penis in a black- and-white shirt titled MARC STEVENS MR. 10 and a Half, 1976. I gave it a squeeze.

“It’s not hard.”

“Rough trade gets me erect.”

Marc’s admission was not a confession, but a request. I pinched his nipple and his cock stiffened with a throb.

“I like being the queen,” murmured Marc. “You wanna be king?”

He undid my jeans. My cock was semi-hard.

"I think we did too much blow.”

“Or not enough.”

Keys turned the lock of the front door. The actor sat up straight and zipped his jumpsuit.

“It’s my wife. Do some more blow.”

I snapped out of my trance and zipped my jeans. A statuesque brunette entering the apartment had a couple inches on us in her stiletto heels. She regarded the coke and then the two of us. Her smile held none of the unease of seeing her man with another man. Marc introduced us.

“Jill, please to meet you.” His wife held out her hand with a tilted wrist.

I offered mine, expecting a limp handshake. Jill crunched my knuckles in a vise. Marc was her man. I winced with a pained grin and ripped my fingers loose.

“I

met him at the party next door. It was fun.”

“I can see that.” Jill sat down with the surrender of accepting Marc for what he was.

“Nice meeting you too. Time for me to rejoin the party.”

“Leaving so soon?” Marc was in no position to pursue his desire.

“It’s getting late.”

“Thanks for coming.” Jill smirked with the pleasure of re-establishing her dominance over my host.

“Sure, just one more thing.”

“What?” Jill straightened her posture, as if she was ready for a fight.

“A good-bye gift.” I bent over and snorted the other two lines within two seconds.

“Thanks," Marc laughed and Jill joined him.

“Sure you want to leave?” She spread her legs to invite a touch. She was a sexual adventurer like all of us in the Sexual Revolution.

“I already have a lover.”

“Lucky girl.” Jill kissed Marc on the cheek. “Same as me.”

He spilled out more blow. She delicately bowed her head to inhale her first line. They looked like such a nice couple. I returned to the party. Pip grabbed me.

“What happened?”

“His wife came home.”

I poured myself a vodka. There was no ice left.

“And what were you doing?”

“Talking that’s all. I have a girlfriend.” Pip was a spy for my hillbilly girlfriend. They were good friends. All men were the enemy.

“And I’m not gay.”

“And you’re not straight either.” Pip shrugged with disappointment. She had been all ears for some good dirt, but left me to flirt with the Ghosts' young guitarist. I stayed for another hour. The coke ran its course. Klaus lived in the East Village. We shared a taxi to St. Mark’s Place.

“So how big was it?” The German was all ears. “Have you seen his movies?”

I could tell Klaus anything. He loved keeping secrets.

“Yes.” His eyes widened with delight.

“It was that big and thick.” I didn’t comment on the softness of his penis. “Wunderbar.”

“He said you were cute.”

“Really?”

“Maybe you’ll get lucky one night.”

“I can only wished and hope.”

“Klaus dropped me on St. Mark’s. I walked to 10th Street.

My hillbilly girlfriend was asleep in our bed. I took off my clothes and slid next to her. After all the cocaine, I doubts, if I could fall asleep.

“How was it?”

“What?”

“Mr. 10 and a Half.” The phone was by the bed. Pip must have called her. “Big and thick.”

“Too big for me?”

Yes.”

“And you?”

“I went strictly there for a look-see. I came, I touched, I went.”

She was a good actress to pretend that she believed me and I didn’t mention the temptation. She was strictly GP-13 and I fell into a wired maze of dreams. None of them were XXX and that was probably better for Alice. Better for me too, because 10 inches was as a big penis in dreams as it was in real life and Mr. Ten and a Half even more so. Klaus and me at the party. Foto by Kim Davis. .

May 11, 1978 III - East Village - Journal

Last night Alice and I smoked opium in my SRO on East 11th an 5th. I had scored the O from Fred, my neighbor, a queen who collects Nazi memorabilia. He even has a human skin lamp and a SS female uniform whihc fits his girth. Fat she was no ELSA SHEWOLF OF THE SS. A total slave in the Toilet by the Hudson.

In my room with a wndow on the airshaft ee got undressed into our underwear. Alice taking off her bra and slipping into a small wife beater teeshirt. We chase the dragon on tinfoil. She was wasted after a single huff. It was strong. This was my third time. It wasn't hashish,

"I love the smell. Like we were lost in Hong Kong. Smoke some more."

I played a match under the foil. the brown tar bubbled spewing white smoke. I exhaled in Alice's face. She moaned and said, "Fuck me."

I didn't think she knew where she was or who I was. Lost in a narcotic dream. She passed out a minute later, my hard cock inside her. I masturbated without cumming and joined her in lotus land naked, our limbs intertwined.

Dreams melted through the stupor. Naked with John Holmes trying to push his cock in my ass. And Alice trying to help him. I woke and pushed Alice away from me, her finger in my anus. I liked it. She sniffed her finger without making a face.

"What is it?"

I had a bad dream. I told her about getting fucke up the ass.

"You poor darling."

She fingered my ass.

We lay together the thigh between mine her stomach pressed him on we went back to sleep

Right before noon I woke and we fucked. I came. Alice did not.

"I don't know what's wrong with me. When I was young, one of my boyfriends left me, because all I wanted was sex. Sorry, now I'm not even interested. I don't mind you fucking me. I don't know why I don't want to come. Sometimes I just want you to fuck me."

When she does, she lies like a dead person or a starfish and I fake cumming. I want to say it's because she's so worried about her school about graduation her play her weight these worries prevent her from enjoying herself, uncomfortable with who she is and sometimes she asks for advice with her play, but when I try and say something she shuts me down, saying that's stupid or I can't work with you just huffing.

Later she left for the theater. That evening we were on the phone about how spending too much time together it spoils our appetite for each other

"I have to finish my school work. I like waking up with you at your place. It leaves me feeling that I have abandone everything. I'm so disorganized this time of year and I have to finish so much."

I agreed, but suggesting we spend less time together. Usually the sign breaking up.

Later that night in an elevator in my building after I push the fifth floor button she asked, "This is a hypothetical question but how would you feel if I left you."

"I wouldn't do anything drastic."

So it seems as if the wait for her departure has been paved. Alice only needs me as a friend and protector and fucker, until she leaves for Appalachia, but I thought, "You'll be back."

However I'm beginning to doubt that one must be prepared to soften the shock of an amputation of a romance. A nice affair, but nothing's really occurred besides my falling in Love. Funny how life slips between highs and lows without any advanced notice, but then we would be no better than a pet dog knowing what time we're going to be fed or petted or killed. The unexpectancy of life has meant leaving so many people.

The high school quarterback, the cheerleaders, the student presidents, College big men on campus, all of them mean nothing now in New York City. I was nothing to them, when I was young. Think to them now too. I doubt any of them remember me. I was always alone. I feel strong. No threats no fears being scared will never come back. Never having to worry about how people see me or when Alice ask me, "Why don't you smile?"

True, I grin, instead of laugh. Smiling? I wish I could, but smiling feels too much like accepting them world around me. Satisfied as I leave childhood and become an adult unlike Peter Pan

I will never grow up.

I have no innocence . I will not regain virginity. To have no creative skills. Writing in this journal delaying realization that an artist cannot be swayed desires to be somebody.

Later

I was in Cornelius Street Cafe with Alice, Kim, Amos, and Serena, Sean's wannabe girlfriend. We are planning the four Gemini party. Amos, Kim, Serena, and me. Atkins Bleecker Street apartment. We have given out over 100 invitations at CBGB's and Easats Village bars and restaurants.

My back was to the door, which I never like. Always worried that someone with whom I had a fight they hit me in the back of the head like Jack McCall shooting Wild Bill Hitchcock in Deadwood, while he was holding the dead man's hand.

Two fingers poke me in the back in the mystery voice said, "What are you doing here?"

It was Ro and I wanted to protect myself look and she looked very vulnerable since coming back from Paris. Our past barely crossed with chance meetings rarely lasting more than a minute.

Alice scolded me, "You never introduced me to anyone."

"Ro, this is Alice."

I said without explaining who was who. Basically wanted to shield her from knowing that I had been in love with Ro. Maybe even not now but maybe yes.

"We're planning a birthday Party."

"Am I invited?"

"Of course/ I'll call you later. You have the same telephone number right. 255-3035.

An old man pulled on her jacket. The two of them left. They didn't look like lovers. I said nothing and then Alice leaned over and asked, "Are you thinking of fucking her?"

"No, I have you."

Kim ever mischievous asked, "Who was that? The next fuck of yours."

"Who isn't?"

Chemistry more than a few alliances set a word to Alice. I've never said a word about hers. In many ways they only exist for sex to be shared fucking someone else.

Marooned in the city Seeking exits Once disguised As walls To stand on the shore of an Eastern ocean Seeing Atlantis Beneath the waves He deserts the city To wade in the tide.

Later

Raphaela, the owner's wife blows me in the bathroom.

Journal Entry - January 1, 1978

Death to 1977

Onto a year of 78 RPM.

It's snowing and I'm watching the Broncos beat the Raiders. 20-17.

Last night at 27th Street was weird. I hit on Alta. We made up and dry-humped in a dark corner. THe stripper begged off fucking. I accepted her no, got drunk, puked outside, and sobered up enough to last the rest of the night. Death to disco.

I've always said, "All I need is food and shelter."

Here in New York I eat foreign foods, mostly pizza and falafel sandwiches and live at a SRO hotel on West 11th Street off 5th Avenue. My 10' by 10' by 8' room has linoleum floors, a small bed, a sink, and white walls. $40/week. An imperfect cube located in a good neighborhood. What else can I do, except work as a busboy and rock out at CBGBs, where youth is eternal, the nights run long, and "Do anything you want to do."

My job at Serendipity sucks, but I love my fellow queer waiters and busboys. It also provide constant cash for a punk lifestyle in a blown-out city. The 60s were a time of no limits, while the 70s have borders on people like us, who fled the rest of America, and I foresee the 80s as a time of increasing corporate fascism with fear stealing people of their identity as humans. Most Americans think, "Who cares as long as I can eat potato chips?"

"But there are two more years left in the 70s. Romantically I deal with illusions and hope for fantasies to become real, but Ro left to Paris the day I came here in May, although I recently overheard Andy Reese say to Frank Holiday, "Ro is in Greensboro. I really like her."

"Are she and Kirk going to get married," Frank asked, while I shivered silently with shock.

"They are pretty heavy." Andy answered, looking for my reaction. He is such a nasty queen.

I showed none, but earlier I called Andy Kornfeld, who had read my unmailed letters to her and laughed, "You can throw away those letters. She probably has thousands from other failed lovers. You just have to understand she hates men, because of an ex-lover, who wasn't you. She was like that when I met her long ago."

Our affair meant nothing to her and left me with scar tissue on my heart. I was nothing to her other than a body in a bed, and my hopes were an exaggeration of my desires.

On other fronts Fran Malin remains in Brooklyn. I haven't been avoiding her, but she lives across the East River and she is a little insane. She might have feelings for me, but can't leave her boyfriend for good. Once when we were having sex, he knocked on the door.

"Fran, I know you're in there."

"Say nothing and don't stop fucking me," she whispered locking her legs around my knees.

I stayed hard as she moaned breathlessly, humping in synch with her boyfriend's knocking.

Libby has disappeared into New York. I wonder where she is.

Two days ago Tim Dunleavy told me, "Alice gave me a present for you. and it looks like a good one."

What could it be?

Will Alice come to New York again?

We met at a birthday party for Janet Stephenson, who I was seeing at the time. I left with Alice and her friend and had sex with both of them in a Upper East Side townhouse's unheated pool. I think of her more as a companion than a consort and when she left to go back to college, "I always feel physically responsibly to anyone who spends money on me."

I had only paid the taxi.

Was that the sole reason for fucking me?

A LITTLE LATER

Today I went to Jimmy Day's, Blimpie's, Solo's on 52nd Street, Cowwboy's on 53rd, The Plaza Cafe, Dazzel on the West Side, back to Jimmy Days, to a closed Max's Kansas City, over to Broadway Charlies, CBGBs, and One-Fifth and finally to crash at my SRO room

A wasted evening.

No women or friends.

I called Alice long distance from a phone booth.

No answer.

Ann's gift was a sarcastic note and William Goldman's MAGIC, which has too much dialogue to be a novel, but not a movie script.

1977 is over for good.

It's 1978 minus one.