Its crime rate has fallen so spectacularly that it has done much to improve the crime rate of the entire nation.

D


eya's mother knows all about us Kappa Mutha Fucka folks because she reads these musings. She knows all too well our faults and failings and, most importantly, our general bad luck. Thus she required us to leave Deya's car (which isn't really Deya's car) outside New York City, shadowed as the city is by a macabre umbrella of danger.
I've actually heard that New York has cleaned up its act a lot in recent months. Its crime rate has fallen so spectacularly that it has done much to improve the crime rate of the entire nation. This has been attributed to the ruthless anti-crime program initiated by Rudolf Giuliani, the Republican mayor. Say what you will about how annoying Republicans are with their focus on the death penalty, foetuses, Bibles, well-scrubbed picket fences, capital gains taxes, tax breaks for the unlucky people making over $200000 anually, American flags, etc, I kind of like the idea of being able to walk the streets of New York City without fear.
We beached Deya's car at the Newark airport, then waded into a variety of public transportation systems on our way to Diana's place In New York.

First, a bus picked us up in the parking lot and took us to a terminal of the Newark Airport's Monorail. It's a sleek local transportation system designed to funnel passengers between the various disparate airport terminals and parking lots. It whisks smoothely along high above the ground. A little canned female electronic voice irritating chirps out the names of all the stops and urges passengers to "step lively" as they exit.

The Monorail took us to the airport's bus stop, where we caught a local municipal bus to Penn Station in Downtown Newark. That ride cost us $1 each. We were the only white people on the bus except for a military dude, and like us, he was forced to ask the bus driver for help on how to get to his destination.

In the Penn Station, we paced around from one place to the next trying to figure out a way to continue into New York City. Matthew Hart thinks nothing of asking strangers for directions, and he soon spied someone he knew was the "perfect guy to ask," a distinguished but somewhat eccentric-looking older black man. To Matthew's query about how to take a train to New York, the old man replied, "I know, but it's gonna cost you a doller." Matthew has been led to expect the worst in people and naturally assumed this meant the old man wanted a dollar for the wisdom he was about to impart. Wanting the information at all cost, Matthew checked his pocket and found 90 cents of change. "I only have 90 cents," he moaned. "Here, I got a dime," said the old man, generously handing a coin to Matthew, who gladly accepted it rather than explain his presumptions. The old man then explained how to catch a train to New York. Indeed, the fare was a dollar.

Again fights erupted between Leah and Matthew mostly concerning the perceived tone of Leah's voice.

The train took us under the Hudson River and into the roots of the World Trade Center, the place where a terrorist once exploded an enormous truck bomb. We studied maps of the subway system to decide the best way to get to Diana's place in the East Village. The maps were in incomprehensible maze of letters and coloured lines, forming a muddled jumble especially in the part of New York we had to travel through. Again fights erupted between Leah and Matthew mostly concerning the perceived tone of Leah's voice. Then of course, it was naturally our fate to go the wrong way several stops. But at least we were finally in New York. And the driver's flippant way of announcing the stations in his sing-song British accent did much to lift our (Matthew Hart's particularly) spirits.

O


ut on the manic streets of the East Village, we phoned Diana and she gave us directions to her place, on Bowery.

She lived very close to a strange lush little community garden I'd visited in 1994 with a group of Oberlin friends. Her home was the entire third floor of a tall narrow weathered, stained and graffitied brick building. From the outside, the building looked like a great wire-festooned brick slice of bread about ready to fall over after having been cut by some enormous bread knife. Inside, the place was vast and painted brilliant white. In layers over a cave-like face of brick the ages of its stages in the long haul to modern times was revealed. Unpainted metal conduit served as a kind of top-level garnish embodying the latest convenience added. Diana and Verge are subletting the place just for the summer.

Nearby factory workers would pay a small rent for the priviledge of locking themselves in these cages to spend a night safe from thuggery and buggery.

Diana tells me that in its ancient past, this building was crammed with iron cages. Nearby factory workers would pay a small rent for the priviledge of locking themselves in these cages to spend a night safe from thuggery and buggery. Unlike Sara Poiron's new customers, these people weren't doing it to satisfy sexual fetishes.

Verge had been suffering from Strep Throat but today seemed to be well on her way to recovery. Strep Throat makes it extremely painful to eat, and as one recovers, one experiences incredible hunger. One of Verge's friends from Kentucky is visiting the apartment too. His name is Bob. He's kind of the sweet quiet type. At least, he's definitely not the irritating unctious type. My busting on that type will come in tomorrow's entry. I'd slept pretty well during the drive last night. The back of Deya's car had been comfortable what with all the sleeping bags and clothes there. The others, by contrast, were weary. Matthew and Deya elected to take naps while Monster Boy, Leah and I went out with Diana and Verge for breakfast.

We went to Orlin's on St. Mark's Place.

Orlin's has a largely Middle Eastern menu and at least one decorative hookah, though Verge was quick to correct me that it wasn't a Middle Eastern restaurant. This is but an example of a bad vibe thing I felt immediatelty growing from out of nothing between me and Verge. It seemed to me that the majority of things she said to me today were specifically designed to make me feel stupid or that I was somehow defective. She even asked me at one point if I've taken a lot of acid. In a short time I decided it was better just to not say anything to her at all.
The customers in Orlin's were mostly young, white and trendy. Their faces were full of all the latest and most fashionable piercings and their hair was dyed and cut to the latest alternative directions dictated by the rock videos of today. Conforming to the "alternative look" is of the utmost importance if one chooses to hang out on the all-too-alternative St. Mark's place.

While the others mostly ate eggy breakfast stuff, I had a "pita platter."

He's not a junkie, but whenever he's in a big city, he is compelled to score the ultimate opiate. It's a ritual he picked up in Philadelphia.

Back at Verge and Diana's place, Deya was still asleep, but Matthew was up and about, agitated by the process of visitation and the lure of the streets. At a certain point he left on his own to buy heroin for himself. He's not a junkie, but whenever he's in a big city, he is compelled to score the ultimate opiate. It's a ritual he picked up in Philadelphia.
Matthew says that the only people you can trust when buying hard drugs on the street are Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. Black guys and white guys rip you off, he contends. He syas he's never been ripped off by a Mexican. Today he managed to find a smack-dealing Puerto Rican who was, unfortunately, also a junkie. It seems that most serious heroin dealers are not also junkies. And as the cliché goes, you can never trust a junkie. Sure enough, the guy tried to rip Matthew off. But he was unsuccessful; Matthew returned with the goods and experienced his own private glory.
Meanwhile, Diana, Verge and I drank Becks Darks remaining from a recent birthday party for Verge (she's a Leo). There was also vodka, gin, and Carlo Rossi Paisano vino.

We heard a commotion coming down the street and looked out the window to see a moderate-sized demonstration in front of a recently vacant lot. The other day a building a stood there, but the New York City government had evicted its tenants (a mix of squatters and rent payers) and demolished it. I wanted to go mingle with the crowd, so I fixed myself a cup of vodkatea and went down to the street. Diana, Deya, Monster Boy and Leah joined me. I asked one of the protestors what the protest was all about, and he said something incomprehensible in halting Spanish-inflected English. The police (NYPD on their blue-striped cars) had turned out in force and stood ready to quell any rebellion.

There were a rather large number of goths, and they all took their goth thing most seriously. They all had fishnets and used white face paint, even the boys.

We continued on past the protest to a park where alternative types sat evenly distributed on the grass. I watched them all in drunken wonder, especially a seemingly crazy beautiful girl who sat at the base of the tree making marshall arts moves with her hands and a hankerchief.

In the evening Matthew Hart and Monster Boy accompanied me on a mission to eat pizza. I payed for the bulk of it and ate it the way I love to, that is, extremely quickly. As usual when eating hot pizza in this way, I burned the roof of my mouth. I'm a firm believer in acting like an irrational animal when experiencing the animal pleasures.

Back at the apartment, I lay down with a cup of vino, intent on drinking it. But I fell asleep instead.

W


hen I woke up, everyone was gone except Deya, who was taking a second or third nap. Matthew returned in short order. He was in that unusually manic mode that heroin brings to him. His pupils had constricted down to marks of punctuation. He was anxious to go ride on the Staten Island Ferry. I didn't want to do anything so ambitious, but I did want to go do something. We compromised and went for a post-midnight stroll through St. Marks.

All the alterna-brats were out in force. There weren't so many punks. The punk thing is pretty much over with in New York. There weren't even that many people wearing boots even. Perhaps it was the hot weather, but the fashion climate perhaps had also changed. There were a rather large number of goths, and they all took their goth thing most seriously. They all had fishnets and used white face paint, even the boys.

While Matthew did other things, Deya and I sat on some steps and drank some vodkatea we'd brought with us. We didn't notice until we were leaving that the steps went up to a drug/alcohol rehabilitation center and had been clearly marked "no drugs/no alcohol." But to any observer, we looked as though we were drinking tea!

Deya and I are in agreement that we hate being around Matthew when he's on heroin. He looks horrible and insane, he acts like an overly unctious creep, and he talks and badgers too much.

Late at night while the rest of us slept, Matthew, Diana, and perhaps Leah went driving around New York with Diana's brother in his Dodge Dart Swinger.

The people are so crowded together in New York that they behave in a way that to me seems European.

E


verytime I'm in New York City I notice that I have a strange perception that the people there are different. They might look like you or me, but there's something in my head that keeps telling me that they are a different species. This obviously isn't true, of course, but it accounts for the unusual joy I experience when an unknown New Yorker talks to me without trying to get something from me or when some random beautiful New York girl flirts with me across a street.

Of course, New York is also very different from the easy-going Southern town in which I live. The people are so crowded together in New York that they behave in a way that to me seems European. They tolerate smells and noises I cannot stomach, they sit together in their diversity randomly crowded on the subway, having to tolerate each other by sheer necessity. They unflinchingly obey rules (red lights) that in Charlottesville can easily be ignored while ignoring rules (open containers in public) that in Charlottesville are unflinching obeyed. They have no tolerance for others taking advantage of the system at their expense or contributing to their problems, and so they unwitting find themselves obeying rules and behaving orderly in an apparent effort to satisfy karma. The proximity makes people behave more like a superorganism, like a hive of bees, despite their individually selfish motives.

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