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: 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, and the stash hidden 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 sun burst 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 at the right peripheral vision the sight 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 criss-cross 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. It had once been thought it would be a local workout spot for the gentry down the road. Just behind 9th Street looking war torn, stood new brownstone row houses, colorfully painted and clean, with garages within the walls. Some money spectacled real estate smart ass must have thought the location for a Yuppie gym was ideal. But the guy couldn't bring enough parties to the table as he had thought; probably when they finally eye balled the spot, 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, having a house upstate in Croton on Hudson). Although rocknroll was the art which 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 for such a pampered youth. He had found his niche and had the cool to grow there and connect with his passions. His luxuries. Despite the loss of his roommate, the other although former resident, and compatriot and boyfriend/lover and equally beautiful boy back to Boston, things were good at the moment. His gig was cool, playing bass behind one of the great punk rockers, the lead guitar of the former great Rigids, giving great rocknroll and great stage shows, laying on the paint 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 Leopald 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 faux leather 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 which 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. Enough for a bagel with a short swath 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 night time 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?

"What the fuck you doing man?" A Latino lilt to his speech dampened down by a certain need for quiet and the Manhattan cool that worked to subdue it by letting it slide out the side of the mouth. Joe wasn't good at being mocked. It reminded him of the time up in college when he was wasted on acid and at his lowest and he was taunted by the large handsome black man also named Joe. Quickly and quietly taunted but enough for him to feel impotent, unable to defend his pride. "Look, you want to cop. You're alright, right?" Joe always felt, despite the many misadventures, that he was alright. "Okay. Go over to that building," pointing to the apartments on the other side of the empty lot. "Up to the third floor, 306, and let them know... Tell you what." Jesus paused to reassure himself. He decided it was a good idea. "Let me show you." Jesus began walking away, towards the apartment building leaving Joe behind. "It's cool man. Come on." Joe was frozen and then he cracked open and pursued the quick Jesus. Jesus if he could would slap himself in the back for his cunning. Let Lani see what a buffoon this skinny white junkie is and Jesus must glow beside this nonentity. It was early enough, before school started. And lo and behold after the knock and the reply to "Who?" when Mr. Martinez opened up, there sat, just as he had imagined, chewing up her cereal, the radiant creature of his passion, Lani.

"'Zus, hello, who's this?" asked the gentle small plump man with sad eyes and a breathy voice neither too high nor too low.

"Hi Mr. Martinez. Hi Lani. The guy's cool," Jesus was on the edge of self-deprecation, thinking how dumb he was not to at least catch the client's name. And there sat Lani and her mystical smile watching the near slip up, the fuck up. She had, in her own shy way, been turned away, averting her face from his but then at the most inopportune moment raising it up and seeing him. Really seeing him. "Joe," said Joe. She looked at Joe and when their eyes met...

Was Joe a ladies man? If girls in their late teens qualify as lady material. And to him it had. Despite or through his density he had made love to girls and had girls in which he shared love for a period of time and he took them seriously, as seriously as himself. These were women whom he could have quiet conversation easing themselves into morning after they had attacked each other and penetrated each other. And it tore him apart when they left. Or, though less, when he left. The key to the lack of longevity and the painful surprise of the split was the density of his silly little brain. He just didn't listen. Not enough. Never enough. Did they? He was too dense to notice if they did or not. What it was was sex and without the sex there wasn't... anything? Nothing to which one would be interested enough to listen. Being young and just finding out how luscious pleasure can be it can become an obsession.

His life in New York. The two years he had so far survived there. He had known no women for any stretch of time. Flings might be an apt word. Though lusty and exciting, like floating above reality on a carpet of flesh that breathed and lunged, giving pleasure, they were not near enough to the soulful ground dwelling love to have much resonance. Not meant to last. Such is pleasure. But the thing was he hadn't pursued it and he wasn't so hot pursuing it anyway. Accidental in his mad dash over thousands of seconds, mundanity tripping over the sublime moment, a naked tumble, and the feet callused from all that time stumbling naked through life, Joe slipped by his sexual moments without noticing.

He looked into her eyes. They were a stranger's eyes. But...

Lani had a need for control as tight as Joe's. Very seldom were the times in which she could be found bowing down to the Goddess of Lust. Once it had nearly raped her, which gave her an even tighter rein. She knew of Jesus' lust. She felt his desire. It warmed her, but, despite his gentlemanly gestures which she found amusing, she sensed his anger and the pride he took in it. It's what broke him down. She knew girls who envied his lust for her, who resented it and her refusal of it, deciding she was stuck up and that's what characterized and ostracized her at school. Such marginality could hurt, and it did in the sense that she felt it betrayed her goodness and intelligence and clear headed awareness, but she found the marginal ones a small but accepting and trustworthy group. Mostly trustworthy. Wasn't it one of them who lured her into his lair, his madness, who went psychotic when she succumbed to his dark charms? Yes him playing the bass and his low singing were ultimately lascivious and she let them enter inside her and thrill her. Was it the body drug, the inhaled pheromone that switched it on? Or the exquisite touch of lips and tongues? Or his too quick touch at the warm gap at the center of her hips hidden by pantyhose and panties but still making contact, not pleasantly, a slap and a stab wrapped up together startling her, making conscious again the briefly lapsed control. Out of it she learned her power. He attacked with an unequivocal ferocity and strength of a large cat and she defended herself admirably and unequivocally. She made him understand she was no quick catch and would never be his catch.

Jesus understood one thing about his relationship with Lani. She would be a wonderful wife and mother to their children. It was his one best hope for good in this lousy world. Sure, she was pretty and would always be, just like her mother. And like her mother she had the hips to provide him with healthy children whom she would nurture. Sure, just as any top man in a successful gang was expected to enjoy the luscious pleasure of hot, sexy, beautiful girls who flaunted their shape and movement for his benefit, his cock was not to be exclusive to her. His heart would be and was.

Lani sometimes, in the silence of her lonely room, would think of Jesus and wonder if she was mad. The boy was gorgeous. He was charming and disarming. She was comfortable with him even though she knew it couldn't last. His friendship was all ulterior motives. Hers was not at all. But why not? Outside the fantasy room, when Jesus lived physically in front of her, she would look into him and find a glint speaking passages to her. Those passages led to clever plans for her, her conquest and then others. There was a loss of integrity in that glint. She wanted all of a man. Not him. The one in which to share a life. Together. Their eyes met.

He could have sat down. This was a gracious room. They would have offered breakfast. Joe realized how much he reeked of a day at work and drink, with a touch of the drunk and a tad of a jones and maybe a forgotten to him but apparent to those nearby bit of fecal material or uric acid or just good old b.o. reeking in his wake and declined before being offered.

She watched intently as Joe did his business with her father. Joe felt those eyes and wanted to share his with hers and have words with her and get to know her. It wasn't a right time. Would this funny ironic odd and surprising moment pass away to nothing more perhaps than a happy new way to cop? He hoped not. She hoped not. Did they know they shared this? He hoped so. She hoped so. But it was okay for both that it was a short first meeting.

The only one disappointed was Jesus. He didn't suspect the sudden alliance between his girl and the Mericone Joe. He was embarrassed he brought Joe up for just two bags. Mr. Martinez didn't care. Lani didn't care. Jesus decided Joe was even more of an embarrassment than he even thought possible. He resented it. It put Jesus in a bad light for Mr. Martinez and his daughter. Disrespect.

When Jesus got angry, he got jittery. It wasn't hard to tell there was a short fuse burning. Mr. Martinez got the dope bundles for Jesus and nearly pushed him out the door. The mild mannered persona has its advantages.

Once Jesus was gone, Joe made his exchange, adding another ten. He'd have to wait for supper until the next evening's free meal at his place of employment, and he'd be bumming smokes from his roommates or mixing up and rolling up the old guts of the cigarette carcasses laying in wait for such poor times, but he gained three more dimes with just the one ten. The advantage of no middle man. He liked the advantage and hoped to be that man next time. After one more glance into pretty Lani's deepest brown and richest touchstone eyes and falling further inside them, Joe slipped out.

The cold wind still swept away the sidewalk of any apparent bystanders. It was early. Soon the peddlers would appear ghostlike, materialize and then dematerialize and so would their customers. Despite the cold air, the wind did not block his way or push him along. It mostly pushed him sideways when he entered an avenue. He would hop-skip through it and return to his slow gait. He wanted what was pressed in his hands and hidden in the jacket pocket. Something was suffusing that need with calm. It was near Avenue A when the slow gait became effective. Lani had caught up to him. They hit the wind together and it made each of them twice as strong against it. They made it to 10th Street before they began their conversation which would never quite end.

"Hi," spoke Lani shyly.

"Hi," returned Joe. He had been thinking it would have been nice to take her about her shoulder with his right arm when they had done battle with the wind. She wouldn't have minded. "Going my way?"

"Guess so," she replied, delighted that the conversation had some legs. "School's a couple blocks down on 12th."

"School? Around here?"

"High School. P.S. 35."

"The bag of books should have clued me in. Tough school?"

"What do you mean? Challenging? No. Pretty easy."

"Yeah. It's true most everywhere. Slide you through quick as they can to vacate a seat for the next dumb fool. Not to say you're a dumb fool... I bet you're smart enough to learn something there... Me, I was the dumb fool."

"It's tough not to be the dumb fool."

"They give you a hard time? I guess what I meant by tough."

"Yeah."

"I'd have to say it was different for me. My friends, my little clique, mostly scored high. I never much did and didn't much care. Didn't see the point I guess of putting effort into it. Didn't see the results. Didn't see why. It was a smart little suburb to which the school belonged, full of professionals, professors, doctors, engineers. The expectation was to create a continuum. More of the same, maybe even better. More money. I didn't buy in and haven't yet. Haven't had the reason for study been made apparent yet."

"To me it's simple. More simple than for you. But the same. Except in a different way. The opposite. I'm doing what one's not expected to do, succeed, and by doing so, like you, it's a means of escape. I want to go to college. I don't know what for quite yet. I do know it won't be here." "Outside here?"

"Outside the city."

"Don't like it here?"

"What's to like? Gotta go..."

They stood in front of her school.

"I like you," Joe said, responding boldly to her essentially rhetorical question. "When's school let out?" She let him know. He liked the answer. He would have a couple hours before he had to work.

By the time he got home it was late. He quickly forgot himself in the damp reflection of the spoon where the white powder disappeared into the dampness with a gentle shake. But it was only the most rudimentary boost to the system which had that much need to be boosted. The darkness, blind sleep, nestled there beside where powerful daylight ringed the shade, reams of sun shafting out the sides through the bedroom. No heat in it. The sun carried no heat that day.

The alarm let Joe know he had time enough to dress and go. But it would have to be a fast walk downtown to make his appointment. He had to clean up, make himself presentable. Even with the late fall like cool air he knew he needed to be unexpected that day so he dressed up like going to a dance or opening night. All he had was the black cotton tux jacket and his plastic red tie and his one white dress shirt he always set aside. The black jeans were not an option but were presentable enough and the sneakers were as much a part of the quotidian uniform as were the jeans. Despite all else that might change the black jeans and white gym socks and whatever the newest shade of sneaker was that fit when he got them: black, white, blue, purple, peach, whatever, at the moment black, would always be on out there on the street.

An even faster form of the Manhattan walk had him breezing cross-town to 12th and 1st. He got there as school let out and saw all the youth only 2, 3, 4 years younger but seeming childlike somehow, pouring out the double doors, cascading around the steps which split the crowd East and West. He planted himself across the street to get the best vantage point. Eyes touching on every face strained through the flow like looking for that perfect thing he always wanted in the midst of a hundred similar objects. Finally she emerged alone among the crowd. While others paired or trioed or ganged up together, with their myriad conversations a crackle of enmeshed spears dancing through the late afternoon shadows, she silently clutched a notebook to her chest, the rest of her school books hanging loosely off the back of her left shoulder.

At the moment in which she began her descent from the school down to the street, she spotted him. She had shyly hoped to see this strange, interesting man there, but didn't want to be too disappointed. She wanted to be cool with it, but hope did rock her at her heart beat.

When she looked up at this tall thin man and their eyes met, her face radiated a smile lacking in self-consciousness. Who was this lanky, sexy, gentle man?

Who was this person, this lovely soft, shiny skinned creature whom he loved?

He rocked towards her, stopping himself from springing across the street embracing as if he was greeting her at the airport gate as she emerged from the ramp and through the door after not seeing her, not embracing her for too long and needed immediately to end that time. And it was like that except the time away from such an embrace was infinite. He stood his ground. She crossed to it, invisible wings lightening her steps.

"Hi."

"Hi."

They exchanged nervous "hi's"

They stared into each other's eyes and laughed simultaneously. No test of wills here. A testimonial to their comfort in spontaneity. The laugh relaxed them, channeling the excitement at the heart into a warm, effervescent flow spreading out to the fingers where they exchanged touches and tingles, and down to the lowest chakra, where it warmed and brewed.

The finger touch was brief yet transcendental.

"Are you heading home?" asked Joe.

"No," she replied assertively. "How about we go for a soda."

"A soda?"

"Ice cream soda."

Amidst the suet covered store fronts, making little assertions of their purpose: tables of greasy nuts and bolts attended by matching greasy outfits of men sitting back and still and trying to blend into the suet walls behind them, leaning back into them, there was a beacon shining out from a clean window and an ancient but clean counter beckoned them inside. A chocolate cake in a glass cake saver hovered near their two seats. Through the dark avenue blocks, walking straight East from the school on 12th Street, taking the corner at Avenue B, ringing the bell as they entered the door, an appealing peal of welcome, they were inside and seated and awaiting the sharing of a chocolate ice cream soda (not chocolate ice cream, vanilla, but chocolate sauce and the soda rich with dark and creamy bubbles making a mighty delicious crest inside the tall thick fluted soda glasses).

"Can I ask you a question?" she asked.

"Of course."

"It's about irony."

"Irony?"

"Yeah. It's for my literature class," she said as she paged through the notebook she had clutched to her chest out on the street. "You like literature?"

"Yeah. It was my favorite subject. But I wasn't much good at the irony angle."

"You read Mark Twain?"

"Sure."

"So we got this topic," she found the topic written in her book and recites it, "The ironic gaze of Mark Twain regarding the Adventures of Tom Sawyer."

"Pretty advanced stuff."

"So what's your definition?"

"Irony?" he asked and she nodded. "A twist on what appears to be there which gives another and more meaningful and often humorous glimpse at what's really going on."

"Complicated."

"Yeah. Hard to define. That's a hard question for a high school class."

"It's for college. It's for a college class I'm sitting in on."

"Still hard."

"Yeah."

"Focus, that's the key to writing papers. Find one passage with maybe one or two others if needed and analyze it for irony. How long is..."

"Five pages."

Joe noticed the time. "I gotta go." He dropped a couple bills on the counter, the last of his money. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Okay," she said with a smile. She wanted him to say that. "Bye," she said as he set off the bells over the door and was gone.

Joe made good tips for a Wednesday, which helped, having Thursday off. He was on his game, with a touch of cheer caused by the permanent grin planted on his face. One he hoped would continue and perhaps grow as time went on. He figured on tomorrow being his first date with Lani. During the few lapses of business, he contemplated the possibilities. Though he came up with a few possibilities, he decided to give her first crack at it. He couldn't wait to see her. He was glad nobody else was interested in going out. He would have said no. He went home after a quick nosh and slept the sleep of the innocent.

Indian summer was blown away by the chill of wind channeled down the avenues. Winter was busting forth and dispersing his connection. Joe searched the street. No friendly face welcomed him. Too early, no. It was the afternoon. Too damn cold more likely. He would have to network. Find a replacement sight he didn't know yet. Then he saw the old man, Lani's father. He was nearing the entrance stoop to his row house, walking briskly and bent. Joe walked towards him.

"Mr. Martinez!" Joe said loudly enough that a trace of his voice could be heard by the man before it had completely blown away. Martinez stopped and looked up at him. After a careful glance, Lani's father smiled.

"Met you yesterday," Martinez said in his well seasoned Nuyorican accent. Joe smiled and nodded. "Come on up," he smiled, which seemed to blow away when he spied a tan unmarked police car creeping around the corner and towards them. "Come on," he hurried Joe through the outer door and up the steps.

Martinez's quiet, tall, pretty wife, looking like a matured version of Lani, poured a couple bowls of chicken soup. When Joe sipped from his bowl, it warmed him down to his frigid toes. Martinez even shared with Joe the warmth of the oven baking bread for supper. "This is perfect. Hits the spot. And the apartment is lovely," said Joe to Mrs. Martinez. And it was true. Despite its origination as the same old railroad style configuration Joe knew well from living in one for over a year before moving into his apartment looking over 14th Street, there was a warmth and softness, a homey quality he had never experienced in such places. And it smelled good too. The bread baking, the spicy soup, the cleanliness.

"Thank you. Very kind of you to say," she replied.

Martinez seemed nervous as he glanced through the edge of the drapes down at the street. "What can I get you?" He asked.

"I was looking for a deck," Joe answered.

"Here," handing him ten tiny envelopes bundled together with a rubber band. "Listen," Mr. Martinez continued, very agitated. "Do as I say. Go into the hall bathroom. Make it smell like a fresh one if you can. A couple minutes. You hear some guy getting let in to my apartment. Go soon after that. A couple minutes in there and go." He pushed Joe out and shut and locked the door. Joe obeyed, entered the toilet and thought about doing it there. Shooting up the primo street stuff that Martinez was selling. It was damned tempting, and was a little too crazy. The scene was edgy to say the least, with that worst component, at least when Joe was on the wrong side of the law as he was then, the police were intruding. He kept his works hidden, stashed in his jacket lining and let himself have a good crap. As good a crap as a couple minutes provided. And he was out the door and down the steps and gone.