Excerpts

    “Hey, birthday boy—you lost?”

    I turn from the dance floor and there he is—another clone—baby-faced, blonde, shirtless and muscular.  He smiles affably, waiting for an answer. I’ve met him half a dozen times at different parties. I should remember his name but I don’t.  Instead, I buy some time.  “Am I lost?  As in, am I having an existential crisis? Feeling morally and spiritually bankrupt?”

    He raises one eyebrow.  “As in, are you so fucked up you lost your wife and friends on the dance floor?”

    “Ahhh.  The answer is yes.”

     “To everything?”

    “Just about.”

    “Then, let’s finish the job.”

    “How so?”

    He pats his pocket.  “Got a little something-something right here.”

    I give up on remembering his name and consider his offer.  The ecstasy has all but worn off; only the slightest tinge remains, soon to be replaced entirely by fatigue.  I’d felt the shadowy edges closing in, forcing me off the dance floor to the relative quiet of the mezzanine.

    “Must look like I need it, huh?” I say.

    “Way too serious for the occasion.”

    I’m at a familiar crossroad. Pass, and I’ll straighten up soon, call it a night—before dawn—and spare myself days a day of feeling like I need dialysis.  I look out over the packed dance floor.  On the other hand, tomorrow is my birthday.  What is it Rachael always says?  “More is more.”  Besides, this is Saturday night of Pride weekend—prime time.  No one I know is going anywhere for a long, long while.

    I smile. “Awfully generous of you.”

    “Atta’ boy.” 

    He reaches into the front pocket of his jeans and pulls out the bullet-shaped snuff-snorter attached to a large vial, nearly full of white powder.

    He gives the bullet a backwards-forwards twist filling the chamber and brings it up to my nostril.  I inhale deeply and jerk my head back as the Ketamine slams against my sinuses.  A chemically-tinged sweetness with a hint of vanilla drains down my throat. 

     “Thanks.”  I rub my nose. “I think.”

    He smiles.  “The gayest straight man in America?  He deserves it”. 

    Now I remember this guy’s name and reputation.  Michael Murray, The Ketamine Kid, is notorious for treating his K like a precious commodity, spending hours chopping it up so finely it blasts into your bloodstream like a blitzkrieg, sweetening the assault with a little vanilla extract.  Michael does some minor-league dealing, but is as proud of his handicraft as any artisan, frequently offering up free samples to the unsuspecting.  I’m going down, and soon.

    I nod, resigned to my fate. “Five minutes to blast off.”

    “It’s not for nothing they call it tripping, my man.” 

    I watch him administer himself two bumps. If he’s standing in five minutes, he’s an alien. Michael leanings forward, palms down, resting his weight on the railing which runs the length of the nearly-empty mezzanine.  He looks on, proud as a lord surveying his land.  

    “Fierce night,” he says. 

    Indeed.  The crowd is packed chest-to-chest—a mass of color shifting with the music:  red to green to white.  After several hours of dancing and layering on drugs like stacks of firewood, everyone is settling in for the long haul—distance runners catching a second wind.

    “Hey Michael,” I say, “Remember the days when we used to do one hit of X, be home in bed by 4 a.m., and that was enough?”

    Michael cocks his head, then clicks his tongue. “Vaguely.”

    The lights flash bright and I squint. 

    He taps my shoulder.  “Come on now, don’t get nostalgic on me.  Go home before dawn?  Might as well stay home.  Junior doesn’t get serious until the sun comes up.”

    He has a point.  The music is a potent force, especially when it’s delivered by deejay Junior Vasquez: club icon, protégé of Madonna, and volatile diva in his own right. His specialty is blending songs and beats, wrapping them in nearly sub-sonic bass, and slamming them down on the crowd like a giant, percussive fist.  When he’s on, Junior creates sounds—sonic booms; droning, jagged low tones; high-pitched shrieks—building them to a punishing crescendo.  He takes music and turns it inside out, folds it back on itself.  It’s the soundtrack to insanity—powerful as any drug.   

    The music and lights synchronize and begin another slow build up, a single snare drum snapping slow eighth notes, increasing tempo, faster and faster, measure after measure, blending to a blur of sound and light, bursting to a new plateau, the base line rips air, the crowd screams, leaps, reaches for the sky.  The hair on my arms and the back of my neck rise.  I laugh out loud, every sense overloaded, overwhelmed.  There it is.  For a moment everything is as it used to be—brilliant, joyous, connected—the X stages a slight comeback, filling me with warmth and euphoria.

    “See what I mean?” yells Michael.  He waves one hand over his head and spins like a dervish.  “You want to get nostalgic about something, wait a few years and get nostalgic about this.  This is what it’s all about.”

    The house lights spin wildly on dozens of criss-crossed aluminum trusses and descend from far above us to rest just above the tallest dancers. Thin strands of green lasers fan out from each side of the club, tracing broad, slashing vertical arcs.  At each corner of the dance floor, muscular go-go boys mount four floodlit six-foot square black boxes and begin to sway, detached and blasé, as the crowd swirls below.

    Spectacle—no one delivers it like the boys.  I rock side to side with the music. “Proud to be a gay man in America?” I ask. 

    Michael looks at the podium dancers, then at me.  “Bursting with it.”

    I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. There’s that grinding feeling in my gut again, the one I get just before the house lights come up and I have to step out from the club into the daylight—a pang of dread―the jarring reentry to the other world, the crash, the depression, dragging myself along.  This world has always been the opposition of dark and light, but tonight for some reason, the demons have the upper hand. 

    “It’s the end of the world as we know it,” I say.

    “Nah.” His eyes don’t leaving the dance floor.  “It’s Gay Pride weekend in New York.”

    “The difference being?”

    “Whatever it is, it’s amazing.” His attention is fixed on the podium dancer on the far side of the dance floor.  “And so is he.  I’m going to get a closer look.  Interested?” 

    I shake my head no. 

    “Right,” he says.  “Why would you be?”  Michael nudges me with his shoulder.  “Not that there’s anything wrong with girls.”

    I smile.  “Wouldn’t go that far.” 

    He laughs.  “I’ll take your word for it.  Lost the little woman, huh?”  

    “Yeah, she must be off baking cookies and pressing my shirt.”

    Michael points to the black cotton tank top tucked into the waist band of my leather jeans.  “Thought that one looked a little wrinkled.”

    “She’s been falling down on the job.  Time I sat her down and gave her a talkin’ to.”

Michael shows me his palms. “Give Rachael a talkin’ too?  Better you than me, my man.”  He takes a step away from me, stops as though he’s forgotten something and says, “By the way, take it from a professional.  You better sit your ass down somewhere, and soon.”

    Thanks, Michael.

    “You can thank me later.”  He leans over and plants a kiss on my cheek.  “Happy birthday.”  I wipe the wet spot with my palm and watch Michael navigate the crowded steps leading down to the dance floor on steady legs, impressive, considering he’s done enough K to bring down a Wildebeest. 

    It won’t be long now before it hits me like a sharp right cross.  I look around for Rachael, beginning at the center of the dance floor though I know it’s unlikely I’ll find her there.  That space—downtown—is generally staked out by the largest, highest and horniest boys.  Tonight is no exception.  Dozens of them have formed a tight, groping conga line, spiraling out from the center like a constellation.  Women aren’t welcomed downtown, not even Rachael.

    Then I spot her—the femininity set in stark relief against the plane of shirtless men. She’s outfitted in full club regalia:  black vinyl combat boots, white leather hot pants, and a studded black leather bra top. Her dark mane of hair is arranged the way I like it best:  pulled back, exposing the magnificent face—full lips, dark eyes, brilliant smile.  She and Christian are deep in conversation, oblivious to the two-story bank of speakers pounding out the music just above their heads.  Rachael bends forward, convulsed with laughter.  Christian spots me over Rachael’s shoulder, spins her around and, using the cocktail in his left hand, points up in my direction.  They smile and wave for me to come down.

    I raise my hand, but at that moment I become viscous, my blood replaced by racing-grade motor oil.  The dance floor fractures into angular splinters of color then reforms into a crystalline carousel, spinning clockwise like a dervish.  I close my eyes and imagine individual particles of Ketamine teaming up with the Ecstasy, racing through my nervous system like a frenzied Pac Man. 

    My eyes open and Palladium has been filled with automobile-sized fluffy pom-pom balls made of cotton and anthracite.  I reach for the mezzanine’s railing and grasp air.  Down on the dance floor, bodies are tinged with spectacular orange and cobalt auras.  The music cracks, sending sparks flying from the ceiling in neon shards.  Then, sound fades to a muffled thump and I am suddenly aware of a heartbeat rumbling through my body, down to the dance floor, through the walls and ceiling and catapulted up to the sky.

     I am on the move.  This fact vexes me because I cannot feel my legs, much less imagine them capable of propulsion.  Yet there’s no denying the slight rush of air past my face and the flash of smiles and shadows of those I pass.  I feel pressure on my arm, glance down and see a hand clutched to it, just above my elbow.  I am being led along somewhere by a disembodied hand.  Oddly enough, I find this arrangement comforting. 

    I arrive before a gold, clinky-beaded entranceway.  Before me, stands an enormous pale man with a shaved head and a tattoo which runs the entire length of his left arm.  His face is emblazoned with jagged Maori warrior tattoos.  I blink and now they’re gone.  Something takes hold of my wrist and turns it so the big man may inspect.  I sense this is someone in authority, someone with the ability to make or break my evening—not to mention my arm.  I straighten my back and try to focus.

    “K or G?” asks the big man.  He still has hold of my wrist. The tattoo on his arm, the head of a phoenix rising from the ashes, throbs to the beat of the music.

    I open my mouth to answer, but from behind me a voice something like mine says, “It’s K.  He’ll be fine.” 

    I have become a ventriloquist.

    The big man says, “Better be.  If he’s G’d up and goes down, he’s out of here. This is a lounge, not a frickin’ emergency room.   Had three ambulances here last weekend.”

“I’m ab-so-lu—” I’m stuck on the third syllable, partly because of the K, but mostly because I’m surprised that my voice has returned to my throat.  I must learn to harness the power of this new-found skill.   I try to give the big man a thumb up, but there’s a good chance the gesture I just made looks like late-stage Parkinson’s disease.  I wrack my brain for something to say to set him at ease, something casual, but not glib.  I lay a Clint Eastwood squint on him, grin, and point both fingers at him as if I’m firing pistols.

    “No prob-le-mo,” I say.

    He grunts, nods and releases my arm.  I glide forward and push through the beads which drag themselves across my neck and shoulders like a quilt made of marbles.      Here I go again, sliding along, a puck on ice, closing in on a padded silver lame banquette coming up hard on my right.  Now, the hand is on my left forearm, guiding me as though I’m a truck backing into a loading dock.  I flop down and backwards, grateful for the banquette’s generous padding.  The table-top’s polished surface swirls and coils.

    “Stay here,” the voice says. 

    I look up to see a broad-shouldered silhouette.  “No prob-le-mo,” I say.

    The silhouette laughs and disappears.

    I’m back.  Funny thing about K―one second you’re in the spin cycle, the next, you’ve materialized, as if through the transporter on the old Star Trek.  

    The lounge is cool, long and narrow, the walls black and lined with banquettes.  At the far end of the room is the deejay booth, whose occupant is laying down a groove, soft and sinuous, nothing like Junior’s take-no-prisoners assault.  The laid-back sound and gentle lighting soften up what’s left of my high. 

    Knots of men and a few women are clustered together at the banquettes, talking and smoking cigarettes.  I look around to see if anyone noticed my spastic tightrope act, but no one’s paying the slightest attention. I suppose they’ve seen worse.

    As if to prove the point, a sinewy, black drag queen appears from the back of the room.  She’s all legs and lanky arms as she glides past.  The five-inch stiletto heels may be a bit much, but they are a look.  She wears a short, black leather mini-skirt, bustier, and a long, straight, onyx-colored wig.  The center of the VIP lounge is her runway, and she’s working it—hard.  Hands on hips, the perfect combination of nonchalance and attitude, she shoots past me trailing strong perfume. 

    There’s a little hitch in her walk and I see why.  The heel of her right shoe is loose at the point it attaches to the sole.  Her Achilles heel.  I’m pleased with my pun and I smile.  She pauses a moment, pivots her body and whips her head around last, like fashion week in Paris.  As she comes by me again, I’m still smiling. We lock eyes, just long enough for her to give me a knowing grin and whisper, “Hola, Papi.”

    The drag queen reaches the other end of the lounge and spins. I close my eyes and watch her image flick and skip forward like a snippet of old film.  When I open them she’s next to me, sliding into the banquette, trapping me against the wall.  I’m in no condition—and no mood—to chitchat with a scrawny drag queen.  She smiles and her eyes sweep over me.  Nice teeth—capped or bleached?  I always notice teeth.  Got that from my mother who says the first things she notices about a man are his teeth and his smile.  The thing about Sinatra, she says—as much as the silken voice and the azure eyes—was that smile.

    “Having fun, Papi?”  The illusion is shattered.  Her voice is Brooklyn, Queens, Puerto Rico with an overlay of Telly Savalas.

     “Maybe too much,” I say.  The full force of her perfume hits me like a whiff from a broken ammonia ampoule.

    “Been to this little soiree before?”

    I sigh, trying to sound blasé.  “My second.  And you?” 

    Her laugh rumbles.  “Papi, she’s a circuit girl through and through.”  Why do drag queens refer to themselves in the third person?  And why do they always call me Papi?  “This is my sixth,” she says.  I purse my lips and widen my eyes, trying to look suitably impressed.  “I love to paaa-ty.” 

     ‘Paaa-ty’—this could be the lost love child of Tony Curtis and Rosie Perez.

    “Saw you come in,” she says. “You was in quite a state, Papi.”

    “That obvious?”  I set her up for the winner.  “I’d rather be in your state.”

    “Which is?”

    “Fabulous,”  I say.

    She waves me off, but I can tell she dug it.  “Mmmm-hhhhhhmmm, honey, what-eva.” She looks off straight ahead and slides a couple of inches closer to me.   “What’s your name?” Her big, liquid eyes shift to my chest.

    “I thought we decided I’m Papi.”

    She laughs that husky laugh again. “You awe soooo right.  I’m Bianca,” she says earnestly, like a well-mannered eight year old meeting her daddy’s boss.  She extends her hand, dangling from her narrow wrist.  

    Well of course your name is Bianca.  And I’m the Dali Lama.  I touch her hand and it’s all I can do not to jerk mine back. Her fingers are cold and wiry and tremble like the claw of a terrified bird.

    “So what are you doing up here all alone?” she asks.

    “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

    “Oh Papi, Bianca’s heard everything, trust her.”

    “Trust me—Bianca’s you haven’t.” 

    Her Adam’s apple quivers.  She puts her hand on my forearm.   “Boyfriend trouble?”

    I shake my head no.

    “Trouble, though.”

    This is silly.  I have everything I ever wanted.  “Bianca,” I say, “I think you’re barking up the wrong Papi.” 

    She takes my hand in hers and turns it over, leans forward and traces one fingernail across my palm.  “Oh, Papi.  My poor Papi.”  Her voice is softer now, gentle and less affected.  “Ever since I was little, my momma told me I could see things about people.”  The lewdness has disappeared from her voice and her eyes. “She was right.”

    I shake my head to clear it.  Either I’m still high as hell or there’s something to her.  Maybe it’s both.  Nothing to lose.  I spread my fingers.  “What do you see?”

My hand hovers inches below her face.  Bianca reaches across the table and brings over a glass votive, pinched between her slender, dark fingers.  She cocks her head.   “What you doing here, Papi?” 

    She knows something.  Not everything, but something.

    “I’m here,” I say.  “Same as you.”

    She closes her eyes and shakes her head.  A shadow skips across the table.

    “No.  Not the same as me.”

    “What does that mean?” I ask.

    “I belong.”

    I smile.  “Hey, I paid my cover.”

    She studies my face and squints, as though peering through fog.  My smile vanishes. “You’re looking for something, but you in the wrong place, lover.”

    What is this? 

    “How’d you get yourself here?” she asks.

    “Took a cab. You?”

    She squeezes my hand.  “Stop playing.  Tell me.”

    I bite my bottom lip.  “It’s a long story.”

    “I’m sure it is.  Try making it short.”

    “How does anybody get anywhere—baby steps.”

    “What you talking about?” she asks.

    “Have to walk before you can run, don’t you?”

    She looks me over.  “You runnin’ now, ain’t you?” She smiles and shakes her head.  “Talkin’ in riddles.  Chasing something or somebody and don’t even know why.  Like one of them little puppies at the park hustling after their bitch.”

    I don’t like the notion or the image.   I yank my hand away from Bianca and press my palm onto the table top.  “This is some crazy talk for the VIP room at Palladium.”

    “Yes it is.”  She puts down the candle and shifts her body away from me.  “But there’s one thing Bianca knows, Papi.”

    “What’s that?”

    “You need to back yourself up and get on out of here.”

    I grin.  “Something I said?”

    She places her index and middle finger on my forehead.  My skin tingles beneath her touch.  “Something you didn’t say.  And those little baby steps?  They ain’t going to work in reverse.  It’s going to take some big-ass strides to get you where you belong.”

    I want to say something funny, but can’t think of a single thing.

    Bianca slides away from me.  “You’ll excuse me, Papi.  My inner diva is calling.”  She stands and smoothes the front of her skirt with her hands.  “I’m sure you understand.”

    Just now, I’m not sure I understand anything.

    She does a pirouette and disappears. I rub my thighs with my palms. What was that all about?  I take inventory:  no shirt, shaved chest, tattoos, leather pants, long hair, drug paraphernalia crammed into every pocket.  I look like a hundred other guys in here. Why would she think I didn’t belong? 

    “No prob-le-mo?” a voice says. “That the best you could come up with?”

    I look up at Rachael, standing next to me glassy eyed and fidgety.  I should be relieved to see her, but I’m not.  I need some time to sort through Bianca’s words and figure out which ones to try on and which ones to toss.  “So, I’m not a wordsmith,” I say, hoping to hide behind some shtick.  “We all have our crosses to bear.  For instance, you’re short.”

    She smiles.  “Yeah, and you’re about to be old.”

    “Yeah, but you’re shorter than I am older.”

    She closes her eyes.  “I’m not even sure what that means.”

    “That makes two of us, but it sounded clever.”

    Rachael scrunches up her nose.  “I’ll take your word for it.  Christian said you were okay, but you looked like one of Jerry’s kids to me.  I sent him up to fetch you.  He said you were in no condition to be fetched.”

    “I’m fine.” 

    She cocks her head and looks at me as though she knows better.  All four people in the next banquette have turned around to stare at Rachael and make admiring comments to each other.   

    “You look rattled,” she says. “What happened?”

    Rattled―I think I’m entitled.  Last night, I watched a picture of our friend turn into a professional mourner and I now I have a mystical connection with a clairvoyant drag queen. I have a sinking feeling that these events are linked somehow to my sinking feeling, but this isn’t the time or place to sort it out. 

    “What happened?” I say.  “Michael Murray happened.”

    Rachael rolls her eyes.  “Oh God.  Someone should make him put a warning label on that bumper.”

    Bianca clomps by and winks.  I’m relieved she doesn’t stop to chat.  References to puppies and bitches wouldn’t go over big with Rachael.

    “Who’s your friend?” she asks.

    “Bianca.  Odd girl, that one.”  Bianca pauses so that her hand may be kissed with great formality by a shirtless man in skin-tight black patent leather pants. 

Rachael pushes the hair out of my eyes. “So, are you feeling better? Everyone’s asking where you’ve been hiding out.”

    She wants me to come downstairs with her.  It’s not jealousy; it’s control. She needs to know where everyone is at all times, especially me.  Well, this is one duckling that isn’t going to be rounded up.  “Who’s everyone?  I doubt anyone knows I’m gone.”

    Rachael frowns, her strategy derailed.  “Okay, I’d like you to come down with me and start enjoying your birthday.”  She slides onto my lap and puts an arm over my shoulder, rocking her combat boots in mid-air. I wrap my arms around her, but there’s nothing behind my embrace except for a vague feeling of resentment.  “Really,” she says, “you don’t want to sit up here all alone, do you?  Just you and Binaca?”

    “It’s Bianca.  Binaca’s a breath freshener.”

    “Come on, Nicky, don’t leave me alone on your birthday.”

    At least she’s being honest.  Except for the part about using my birthday to guilt me into doing what she wants.  I’ll be mostly-honest back.  “Need some down time.      Besides, I’m still a little woozy.” 

    Rachael leans in, puts her lips to my ear and says, “Come with me, husband, and I’ll put an end to that wooziness—guaranteed.”

    Tweaked—thought so.

    “Thought we were staying away from that,”  I say.

    She shrugs.  “Michael Murray found you; Ramon found me.”

    Ramon, huh?  A bit of his crystal ought to knock the voodoo out of my head.  Rachael slides off and tugs on my hand to follow her.  I do, and with her hands holding mine to her shoulders, allow her to lead me towards the exit.  I take small, mincing steps so I don’t step on her heels.

    “Like a puppy.”

    Rachael turns part way around. “What?”

    “Something Bianca said.”

    She frowns.  “That girl is a bad influence.”

    I nudge her forward.  We’ll see.