Chapter 1
1980. A new decade. A few months, maybe a season, the fall, had come and gone since Clinton Street south of Houston had been busted twice and closed. Where once the diverse underbelly of junkies, the punks and suits, men and women, young and not so young, could line up a block over and wait their turn to dash across Clinton to the door they heard was the one to go to without worries about being arrested or being mugged, heroin and cocaine had splashed with an explosive and, after the second bust, definitive disruption all over the Lower East Side. The little white plasticene packets with their distinctive brand names stamped on them, several more brands then before and somehow leaking out what brand name is best, along with the rolled and flattened aluminum hiding the coke, were now being sold up long dark and scary steps to the third, fifth floor tenement apartments with the slots in the doors through which the transactions were made. Or just milling around on 10th between C and D, out on the street, the stash hidden nearby under a typical alphabet city/east village/lower east side brick row house, the entrance being through the neighboring empty lot and under the house's broken side wall.
Joe didn't know his name at the time, but his face was familiar. Jesus figured when the guy came up to him it was a regular, though he dealt his tiny white waxy packets out to many similarly young and gaunt and leather jacketed strangers. Jesus was never good with faces. He was good with types. The punk rock type.
He didn't know the guy was named Joe. He'd learn it later at less good times. Times were good now. His brand was obviously favored at the moment and therefore his traffic was particularly brisk. The yellow half sunburst was a pocket full of burning cold hard cash. Despite the subtlety of the stamp (a yellow sun was not easily spotted as it faded well into the white background), it was attracting a lot of attention. The negotiations went around twice before ninety for a bundle of ten was agreed, though Joe had hoped for a second free dime for his work. A quick touch of hands was enough to palm the exchange.
Adrenaline is a given when you are walking up through Alphabet City with a hand loaded with illicit drugs, that is, a load to make one loaded. Luckily, and at the moment Joe was feeling like he was on the lucky side of things, he only had a couple of blocks to go to deliver the shit. The street market of dope peddlers quickly retreated behind him a block back, unbeknownst to them. One or two stragglers passed him by as they as nonchalantly as possible and in their thin way like the wind was just tossing them around the corner and down 10th, headed over to where he had just been. Another block passed and the stoop dwellers and the passers-by had other agendas. People out savoring the last of an Indian summer before the cold blasted through. A block along Tompkins Square Park he caught sight at the right peripheral vision of dog walkers and other pedestrians along with semi-permanent residents, living outdoors in the square, and drug peddlers of a different tact, selling other sorts of drugs, probably mostly counterfeit, from the green benches lining the crisscross pathways.
Around the corner was his destination. A peculiar building, short and stout and housing only two apartments, one per floor. He pressed the button labeled 2. Once being thought it could be a local workout spot for the gentry just down the road (behind the war torn 10th Street where Joe had just copped stood new brownstone row houses, owned by new money, colorfully painted and clean, with garages within the walls). Some money spectacled real estate smart ass must have thought the 9th Street location for a Yuppie gym was ideal. But the guy couldn't bring the parties to the table he had thought; probably when the potential backers finally eyeballed the spot and the desperation surrounding it, and sold it off to a contract law clown swimming in enough money to be looking for a little in the loss column to flatten out his taxes. His brilliant idea/ideal was a loft space for the rich bohemians he knew haunted the broken down and busted East Village looking for inspiration or injection. The lawyer didn't care which. He got a kick out of handling these foundlings from wealthy homes who were rich enough to have the time enough to do some good art downtown. He didn't care what art. He loved all art. That's why he lived in the city (or at least an apartment during the week, having a house upstate in Croton-on-Hudson for the weekends). Although rocknroll was the art that gave him the least appeal, it was the art made by the current residents of Apartment #2.
One current resident, Ned, had a long leash well embedded with jewels from his father's investment endeavors. An allowance of thousands per month allowed his choice of luxury. Playing rocknroll. Getting stoned. Hanging out. Young and tall and blond pretty, he was also tough, big and strong for such a pampered kid. He had found his niche and had the cool to grow there and connect with his passions. His luxuries. Despite the absence of his roommate, the former resident and compatriot and boyfriend/lover and equally beautiful boy back to Boston, things were good at the moment.
Ned's current gig was cool, playing bass behind one of the great punk rockers, the infamous Leopard. The lead guitarist of the late great Rigids, giving great rocknroll and great stage shows, laying on the make up to give the green glow of ugliness where it could be found in his face and watching his singer hang himself twice a night and a downtown legend what with his loud clown clothes and bright orange hair and his screaming fits across bars with his life mate Leopard once Leopold and Safari once Sophie Tool once O'Toole, here was the Leopard himself getting high with Ned, or at least waiting to do so, waiting for the stiff brick, always dependable Joe to return with the stuff. Joe was such a serious boy. That made him an oddity in the rocknroll world of oddities; of freaks the audience gets a kick out of seeing. Joe was the most trustworthy junky Leopard had ever met. Knowing he was the one copping was an extra salve of optimism during the shaky wait for one's money to become drugs and there he is. Ned rose from the floor to buzz him in.
It definitely was a good day. Ned provided Joe with a new set of works. His had gone the way of all needles, dull point and filthy. There was nothing like a virgin needle to make a good shot. It was a good day. He dropped the cotton fresh made from the now non-filtered cigarette dangling from his mouth. And dangling from his left biceps was the bright red plastic tie, a harsh but true tourniquet. As usual raising the proper vein was a snap. He had always had good veins and the amount of pricks they had experienced was far less then the abundance of tracks his good friend Johnny had made into lines of thick skinned calluses nearly impossible to penetrate despite the capped hills on his hands wherein the cap is a hopeful guide to lead the needle to the blood flow below. The rush when the tip connected to the vein at the elbow hollow was provided by Ned (a remarkably generous fellow that day) with a few grains of fine Peruvian flake. The chemical concoction taste hit his mouth, and he savored it. Even more he savored the roll of a rush, a dull warm rush that swept through his body to his toes. And even the little itches, especially at his nose, which followed behind the rush, were worth the taste. It was a lucky day. It was a good day.
************
Ever the reasonable one, Joe had saved enough of the second packet of half sun to pick him up that late afternoon before going to work. It lifted him there. It got him through the night.
A slow night of waiting on tables (mostly waiting for customers) had brought him the bare minimum of cash for the long night into morning before he could legitimately (so to speak) score again. He had enough for a bagel with a schmeer of cream cheese across it and a regular coffee and a couple of drinks at the after hours club. He'd still have enough for a couple dime bags.
The morning sun scratched away at the gentle yet fearful blanket of darkness while scratching at Joe's nighttime eyes. He gingerly entered the street for his connection. Sometimes, like the day before, it's there. But often it's a waiting game. Like that day. The chill wind swept up through the buildings, freezing away the sanity of loose talk and laughter of street life until a quiet stillness framed a stiff rock like marble or granite tableau that whipped through Joe's body like a stinging swarm of insanity bearing ...what? God? Gods bearing pee shooters of adulterated angst coasting, surfing the currents of air and aiming with the currents in mind all over Joe's face and his hands and through his coat and pants. In the enemy hour, these were the times to wait. Jesus had nothing to offer, empty palms awaiting fulfillment. Too bad Joe was too early.
"Where can I go? Do I look like I belong here?" Joe thought. He stood hanging on that thought, hanging at the edge of the concrete, leaning over the curb, acting the child at play. As he twisted at his ankle a gentle and not crippling twist, the slight pain a brief distraction, he looked up into Jesus' eyes and there found a laugh brimming, the smile lifting up tight at the corners. Was he the fool, the drunken stoned junkie fool?
