Greg's Gift, Part I

How a surprise visit turned an easy-going afternoon into a memorable couple of days I’d share more than twenty years later…

Special Delivery

Spring 1997: Eddie Murphy got busted with a transgender prostitute, Gary Kasparov was defeated by an IBM computer, Donald Trump split with Marla Maples, and Greg our unFriendly Neighborhood Drug Dealer bounded up three flights to the door of my Chicago pad. Bang, bang, bang— “Open up, let me in!” — Bang, bang, bang! I ran over and peeped through the peephole.

A profusely sweating bald head with enormous bloodshot eyes stared back, the fish eye perspective making terrified Greg look even creepier than usual. Bang, bang — I swung the door open, if only to quiet the noise. He stood gawking in t-shirt and worn jeans, drenched in sweat and clutching a large gym bag that he immediately thrust into my face: “You gotta take this!”

On impulse I accepted his large and unwieldy duffel bag, rattling and clinking as its surprisingly substantive mass shifted over. “Here’s my stash,” Greg gasped breathlessly, not bothering to keep his voice down. “The cops are about to bust me and I need to get rid of this — You’re the only one I can trust — I gotta hang low for a while — Keep it safe until whenever — Thanks, man!”

Stunned, I watched Greg turn around and bolt into the stairwell. Still holding his bag I chased him to the landing and called out, “When you coming back?” As he bounded down two steps at a time he cupped his hands and shouted, “Maybe sooner maybe later— ” “Hey!” I yelled back, too little too late. “Help yourself!” he suggested, top of his bald head bobbing then vanishing below.

I ran back into my apartment, shut the door, dropped the bag, and darted to the front window. I gazed through smoldering cigarette smoke down onto the nondescript Wrigleyville street, tall maple trees casting wide-arc’d shadows across sidewalks full of young moms pushing baby strollers, baseball fans and Windy City tourists… But no sign of Greg the Now-Former Drug Dealer.

I finished my cigarette, drank the last of an espresso, and contemplated what the hell just happened. I tried to regain control by imagining myself director of this Indie movie, the cinematographer dollying from my POV in the kitchen down the hall to my front door. Cut to a medium shot then zoom to Greg’s bag where I’d dropped it, a blue nylon duffel with black velcro straps and zipper.

The world can be divided between people who believe the gangster’s briefcase from the movie Pulp Fiction contains either: 1) an actual glowing object such as gold bars, shining jewels, perhaps a mysterious alien artifact; or 2) an irrelevant abstraction that instead beckons the viewer to creatively imagine anything valuable enough to trigger a relentless drive for its repossession.

I fall into the latter group, embracing the artifice Alfred Hitchcock called a “MacGuffin” — a bounty the characters are after but the audience doesn’t really care about. Knowing the contents of that briefcase is not only pointless, but distracting: whatever’s in there obviously worth retrieving and even dying for, the viewers instead focused on the conflict driving toward resolution.

Maybe that’s why I didn’t peer inside Greg’s bag before I accepted it. Another reason was being caught off guard that spring afternoon about twenty years ago when one moment I stood inside my kitchen smoking and caffeinating, idly wondering if I should buy Amazon’s newly issued stock at a risky $18 a share — and the next found myself an accessory to somebody else’s problem.

Cut! A good editor could make this whole scene vanish, splicing before-and-after-visit into a seamless Tuesday afternoon. No such luck, as there still sat his bag, beckoning to be opened — or at least hid from the cops who had likely surveilled Greg from several blocks away right to my apartment door. “Sorry, Officer,” I’d say as they dragged me away. “I was just doing a friend a favor...”

Secret Admirer

I tended bar up the street and knew hundreds of people by name, thousands by sight, yet could consider few if any close friends. In ways my scene hardly differed from that of drug dealers like Greg, arguably more parasitical yet by any stretch performing a similar public service: I sold legal drugs, they sold illegal drugs, each of us servicing the same drug-addicted customers.

As colleagues of sorts, Greg and I were suspicious of yet dependent on each other. The lines crossed closer when I was promoted to manager, ostensibly responsible for keeping the bar safe from low lives, petty thieves, violent drunks, and, of course, drug dealers. In exchange for letting him and his pals operate I got invitations to the best parties and a friend-rate on their goodies.

Greg’s specialty was quality methamphetamine, affectionately called “tina” and sold in fifty dollar tiny baggies of crystal shards. Years before Breaking Bad our boy was the local Jesse Pinkman, distributing for an unseen hillbilly Heisenberg whom Greg knew from his barnstorming flyover days and now sold for in the city. I stared at his duffel, too heavy and bulgy for just meth.

His bag had to include “Special K.,” breakfast cereal nickname for ketamine, another dance club favorite. Used by veterinarians to anesthetize bulls, the drug was sold in its original glass vials with a steer embossed on the label. Recreational users poured the liquid onto a plate, baked it in an oven until the solution crystallized, then chopped it into powder for snorting. Really really.

So I broke my own briefcase MacGuffin rule and guessed his stash contained baggies and bottles — and who knew what else? Fearing the alluring glow and too freaked to actually open it, I tossed the large gym bag into the bottom of my bedroom closet as the realization struck me that Greg’s stash was now my stash: thousands of dollars in drugs, and years in felony possession jail time.

Knock, knock. The door again? Seriously? Now? A surge of paranoia nearly knocked me off my feet. Knock, knock — “Mookie? You OK?” I recognized the voice of my neighbor, Liza, and I wasn’t sure if relief, terror, or annoyance were appropriate. “Did you hear banging and yelling? Hi. Are you alright?… Hello. Do you miss me? Can you let me in? Please? — I have a present for you!”

I covered the duffel bag with dirty laundry, shut the closet, opened the front door, and greeted Liza who stood leaning heavily on one foot, hand on a swaying hip, winking. We were months into playing an exhausting game of cat and mouse featuring impromptu visits, awkward teasing, and endless arguing. Sparks flew until countless excuses made grown-up sex impossible.

“I watched you from my window last night,” she whispered, her creepy alcove-to-alcove spying always weirding me out. “You know I hate that,” I smirked, annoyed at our repetitive mating games, but now welcoming the distraction. “Did I tell you that I have a present for you?” she asked. “You sure did,” I said, shuddering at the reminder of the gift my good pal Greg had just delivered.

“Let’s party!” I suggested, eager to get as far from the contraband as possible. “Come over to my place tonight for dinner,” she offered. “I made you something special.” “Is that my present?” “Guess!” she smiled, “why don’t you bring over wine and weed?” I gave her a peck on the cheek, ran to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle and a joint, and slammed my apartment door behind us.

Her place was right across the hall, the chronic agony of our perpetually failing romance fueled by acute convenience. Her one-bedroom pad was the mirror image of my own, but as tidy and well-furnished as mine was messy and unfinished. I never got laid in either, but at least in hers she was more calm and relaxed, a sexless rest stop along our route to romantic oblivion.

Date Fright

Elaine and Kramer never actually dated on Seinfeld, but imagine the mess if they had. Liza and I were worse, because at least Elaine put out and Kramer would suddenly vanish. In contrast I stubbornly over-stayed my welcome trying against all odds to somehow hit it, while Liza foolishly clung to the false hope that I was the “Nice Jewish Boy” of her dreams I obviously wasn’t.

Utterly delusional, we relentlessly disappointed each other. Our backgrounds as the children of Holocaust survivors made the dynamic even worse, her ancestors Polish, mine Hungarian. Powerful familial instincts were triggered yet diametrically at odds: Liza proudly embraced her heritage and saw me as a viable suitor, while I fled from a horrific past she constantly reminded me of.

Our opposing instincts stubbornly played out, to predictable effect. Thankful to be free of Greg’s stash, at least for now, I slouched with a sigh of relief onto Liza’s couch until she propped me up in front of her rumbling refrigerator. The fridge door was covered in photographs, including several of her parent’s second house in Florida. She pointed and gestured as if pitching real estate.

“My dad promised me this home as a wedding present,” she said, tearfully. “Central air conditioning, three bedrooms, a renovated kitchen, half an acre of land for the kids to play, and a basement den where you could set up your Man Cave…” Jesus, she did this every time, subtle as a dowry FedEx’d overnight: when you absolutely, positively are desperate to get married.

Smooth as a jackhammer in an orphanage, I switched gears. “What’s for dinner?” We stood flush with the warm stove, and I placed a hand on her ass. She batted it away and launched into 20 Questions, typically the next move after I ignored or rejected her implicit marriage proposals. “How many girls did you date in high school?” she asked, grimacing. “How many in college?”

She was vetting a potential husband by interrogating a suspected libertine. Despite her fantasy of meeting Mr. Right, she knew I managed a dance club, lurked with neighborhood rapscallions, and led a Vampire-like nocturnal existence. The less I met her criteria the more she wanted to change me, as if I were a tainted cheese gobbled up and barfed back out, over and over again.

“I’m a serial monogamist,” I said, trying to change the subject and calm her down, failing at both. “What does that mean?” she snapped, hair flipping and sashaying back to the couch. She was dying to ask if I were gay, a drug addict, surely both. My response never mattered, anyway — she was always compulsively attracted and reflexively repulsed to the brink of hysteria.

Having learned a life-lesson from Greg, I bum-rushed Liza with drugs. “Let’s get drunk and high!” She was a luscious kisser, nibbling at first then probing. Her rapid warm breaths accelerated our arousal. My tongue explored, she’d reciprocate in kind. I’d go faster and deeper… Her erogenous zone was her right thigh, which I’d rub gently until she’d freak out and make me stop.

At dinner our adolescent flirtation regressed to shameless infantilism. Plastic place settings and Barbie & Ken role playing ensured our absurd courtship remained whimsical, campy, and ridiculous. Liza offered tiny servings, teased each morsel, made me ask for more. She doted on me but never fucked, clinging to the “boy” in boyfriend while obsessively yearning for a husband.

We wound up in bed, as usual. The shift from paranoid neighbors to feuding faux siblings to dysfunctional lovers could take twenty seconds or two hours, but was repetitively played out with tedious banality. Tonight I was more patient to ensure she’d let me stay the whole night, keeping me out of range of the telltale duffel bag that still lurked in my bedroom closet across the hall.

Mourning Breath

We all have our strengths and weaknesses, many of them in the sack. Allergic to penetration, Liza compensated for her self-imposed sexual handicap by administering world class hand jobs. Her mad skills were enhanced by the realization that she’d never allow things to go any further, so whenever she made her move I made the most of it, fuck you Franky Goes to Hollywood.

Following my release she’d let me touch her, too, but never to orgasm. After revving her up she’d push my hand away and rub her thigh against my leg; in full control, she insisted on climaxing herself. Both satiated, we’d fall asleep or argue again. Luckily that night the wine and weed sedated us, our naked sweaty bodies entangled yet still light years away from any true intimacy.

At some point deep in the night I woke up to take a leak, and noticed a subtle but alarmingly foul smell. A malodorous combination of rotting meat and human shit, the funk was bad enough for me to check if the garbage were taken out or the toilet overflowed. The coast in her apartment seemingly clear, I opened a window, crawled back into her bed, and fell fast asleep.

Next morning we woke to stale coffee and a fresh feud. “You never shared your thoughts about my wonderful house in Florida,” Liza jabbed. “You never put me in your mouth,” I suggested, jumping up to go as she hurled punches, kicks, and invectives. “You’re a mean Schmookie,” she yelled. “And I hate you!” She flung a macramé pillow as I opened the door and we both gasped.

“Gawd, what’s that awful smell?” she asked, the funk from last night wafting back into her apartment with vengeance. I shut the door and faced her, “You never gave me my present.” She finger-waved, “You were a bad boy! Maybe next time if you’re nicer to me I’ll show you.” Our trysts typically began in conflict and ended in self-pity. I held my nose, air-kissed her bye-bye, and left.

Concerned the smell might be emanating from Greg’s bag, I lurched across the hall and unlocked my door. Ducking into my apartment, I was relieved the odor came from elsewhere as my three cats serenaded me, meowing hungrily from the kitchen. Zippy was a pompous snow white prima donna; Flippy a black long-haired broken-tailed mongrel; and Little Bitch a feisty young tabby.

With all the commotion surrounding Greg’s invasion, I’d forgotten about my kitties. Usually denigrated to the status of a walking piece of furniture that fed them, by neglecting them I was further reduced to a nuisance that impeded their luxurious napping. Flippy and I were tight, but even she seemed annoyed: Pussy-whipped here, too, I was in the doghouse everywhere.

My felines finally fed, I thought about Greg’s unwelcome delivery again, which like a magnet pulled me back to the bedroom closet. Hoping the bag were gone — either stolen during the night or his visit a vivid hallucination — I opened the door, uncovered the dirty laundry, and regrettably found the big blue duffel exactly where I’d left it. I hefted it up and threw it onto my bed.

Greg’s gift got symbolic for me again, its contents less important than the situation they’d created — and not by accident, either. Everyone seemed to dump their problems on my doorstep, and I’d been absorbing that bad mojo my whole life without considering the consequences. Maybe I was the nice guy Liza dreamed about? Or maybe I appeased people just so they’d go away?

My musings didn’t ghost the bag, so I made myself feel better by trying to hide it elsewhere in the apartment. Too big to go beneath my bed frame, too heavy to go on a shelf above the litter box, and too valuable to toss into the trash, I decided to conceal it in plain sight like Edgar Allen Poe’s “Purloined Letter” and nonchalantly tossed it into a nondescript corner of my living room.

Twins Primed

Problem ostensibly solved or at least ignored, I felt refreshingly svelte. Here was a man of sophistication, a guy people could trust. A social introvert, I flourished at the boundary between being completely ignored and incessantly talked about, somehow flying under the radar while steering the ship. All of a sudden the ball was unexpectedly in my court, thrilling and terrifying me.

Life back to normal, I ran errands for half an hour until a panic attack sent me rushing empty-handed back home. My confidence was hardly bolstered by the shining red and blue lights, squad cars, and big, black, unidentified van now blocking the street right in front of my building. Shit! l got exposed. Ratted-out? Followed? My goose, cooked. The CPD were here to bag the Bag Man…

As the Chicago police swarmed my mind raced. I’d have to move fast, but where could I hide? My friends were either at their day jobs or impossible to reach. Remember this was spring 1997 and few had those exotic Nokia flip phones, as Get Smart cool as they were rare. Wired telephones and wax paper fax machines made work, dating, and fleeing from the cops a pain in the ass.

Archaic tech made drug dealing more challenging, too, which again got me thinking about Greg. Neither of us had mobile phones, but we had pagers, little black plastic boxes clipped to our belts that buzzed or vibrated when someone called your pager number. A tiny screen revealed the number trying to reach you, which you would then call back from the nearest land line.

Less than twenty-four hours into babysitting his drugs, I was over it. I vowed to page Greg ASAP, then stand ready by my wall phone poised for him to call me back. I’d tell him thanks but no thanks, he’d have to pick his shit back up, pronto. For now, though, I was stuck with his stash, and wondered whom to page or ring to avoid having to go back to my bachelor’s pad and get arrested.

The nearest pay phone was in the 7–Eleven on Halsted. Taking the long way around I sprinted into the place and nearly ran right into Minnie, carb-loading potato chips, candy, and gum, his arms already full of the week’s latest comic books. As avid a reader as he was a collector, he worshiped superheroes with the same enthusiasm his identical twin brother Mickey tried to become one.

Throughout my life I’d met and gotten to know several sets of identical twins. They seemed to fall into two distinct categories, pairs that either: 1) strive to look alike, act alike, and do everything together; or those that 2) do their best to differentiate and distance themselves from each other. I call them “Can’t-Beat-Em-Then-Join-Em” vs “Can’t-Join-Em-Then-Beat-Em” type twin sets.

I’m no expert, but the dueling psychologies make sense. Think about it: you share the planet with another human being having the exact same genetic code as you do, your very own same-age clone. So either you embrace it and each other to create a composite person, or you resist the draw of duplicate DNA and claim your unique identity by becoming divergent in every way.

Mickey & Minnie fell squarely into the latter group. Both were gay, but polar opposites in morphology, mood, and manner: Mickey was clean cut, athletic, straight-looking and straight-acting; in a deep voice he’d salute and say “Yes, Sir!” Minnie was goatee’d, skinny, boldly swirling girl from one fabulous moment to the next; in a high-pitched voice he’d swish and say “Hey, Baby!”

Minnie gushed, giggled, and smacked a big wet kiss on my cheek. “Mookie! Want to come over to my place to eat junk food, watch movies, and do some drrrrrrrrrrugs?” I was in. What better way to flee from the cops for harboring a big bag of drugs than to be up the street doing more drugs? If I’d fallen victim to Greg’s escapist shenanigans then why not play my own game, too?

Breaking Good

The only thing predictable about predictions is that they’re usually wrong. That’s because small factors have big consequences over time, unknown variables abound, and as William Goldman memorably said of Hollywood, “Nobody knows anything.” But the main reason is prediction-making pundits are often far removed from the real world where things actually go down.

So after prognosticators envisioned flying cars, Moon bases, and Jeff Bezos going bankrupt, eventually the housing market crashed, social media destroyed democracy, and Amazon’s market cap topped a trillion dollars — all great reasons to follow one’s own intuition and stay the course. Paying close attention and not getting distracted certainly help, but who has time for that?

As a raving comic book fan, Minnie accurately predicted the dominion of superhero franchises at the movies, his investment taking the form of thousands of first editions meticulously stored in banker’s boxes throughout his apartment. Each issue was immaculately framed on white paper backing boards and wrapped in plastic, packed and organized by series and date.

“Spiderman is my favorite!” he swooned, tossing me his most recent adventure. “Until I buy the next Hulk, X-Men, or Wolverine…” A loyal Marvel aficionado, Minnie nonetheless had a sweet spot for Batman, especially the Dark Knight series. Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson had already hit the silver screen, but Minnie saw the future. “They haven’t even scratched the surface, Baby!”

Mickey & Minnie’s father was a gifted engineer who helped design optics on the Hubble Space Telescope until falling off the wagon. Addiction ran in the family, compelling Mickey to flee from the disease with compensatory self-control and exaggerated machismo, and Minnie to run headlong into it with shameless enthusiasm for sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll — and comic books.

As an identical twin, Minnie never went halfway. “Want a bump?” He looked gaunt and sweaty, his skin pasty, eyes bloodshot — actually pretty healthy considering he hadn’t slept in ninety-six hours. He dipped his front door key into a small baggie of powder, and hovered a tiny mountain of tina under my nose for hoovering. “Keep it zipped up, Baby. It’ll stay fresher, longer!”

Snorting meth feels like sniffing airplane glue then getting intravenously jacked with a hundred espresso shots. The pure adrenaline rush is similar to when your autonomous nerves react to sudden danger before your brain has a clue what’s going on, such as instantly leaping out of the way of an out of control car. Now imagine that exhilaration lasting continuously for hours.

Cocaine was pure garbage in comparison, a fleeting high crashing into a dismal low. Meth instead created the illusion of total transformation: Rapidly absorbed through my nose and rushing into my bloodstream, it zig-zagged up each vertebra until exploding inside my head. Doubt sparked into decision, hesitation flipped into heroism. I couldn’t wait to evolve my entire existence!

In principle, at least. Everything was suddenly so clear and compelling that the countless options overwhelmed me, making it impossible to do anything at all. Like ritalin for children this ultimate speed bump had chillaxed me into an actively catatonic state of hyper-aware lethargy. I became superhero Methamook, able to accomplish absolutely nothing with epic confidence.

Hours zoomed by in minutes, during which we wandered aimlessly around Minnie’s apartment, read comic books, bumped more meth, and danced to hyper-decibel loops of his favorite song, “Roll with the Changes” by REO Speedwagon. A disco ball spun and flashed, inducing seizures in his cat that scurried under a bed. “Hey, Baby!” Minnie yelled. “Imagine the techno remix!”

Hanging Around

We fist pumped and visualized a gay dance club scene revitalized with EDM appropriations of rock ’n roll classics, Lisa Stansfield and Cher replaced by Led Zeppelin and Bono. I couldn’t tell if our Bizarro World fantasies were Minnie’s way of connecting with me through our shared taste in rock music, or if he actually believed such a set list could work, perhaps as a quirky theme night.

Since I managed the club and hired the DJs, it dawned on me he might not only be pitching his eccentric ideas, but himself as the mock jock to pull them off. He’d expressed interest in the role before, and I hadn’t taken him seriously. Recent events heightened my suspicions: Greg offered me a bag of drugs to keep them safe, now Minnie seemed to ply me with speed for a gig.

My paranoia lasted only as long as the next song, which was the same lousy song blasting on that continuous loop for at least the twentieth time. If Liza and I were too fucked up to screw, then Minnie and I were too meth-addled, punch-drunk silly, and hysterically obnoxious to blow each other. We were summoned for a much higher purpose, anyway: The show must go on…

“Hello, Sir!” interrupted Mickey, abruptly standing at attention by the door as Minnie and I contorted to the music in what must have looked like manic yoga positions. “Mind if I turn down the music, Sir?” Like a commando invading a nursery school, kindergarten cop here reminded us through his equally extreme and polarized conventionality that all three of us were batshit crazy.

Where did my thoughts go? What time was it, anyway? The twins were now whole, the planet regaining balance as Mickey scrambled to clean up the mess of potato chips, candy, and gum wrappers strewn about while Minnie and I struggled to recall when and how we’d consumed all that crap. “Thanks, Mick,” I said, mock saluting. “Can I repay you with a big bag full of drugs?”

Minnie convulsed with laughter, fell off the couch and turned up the stereo. As the interminable song shattered eardrums Minnie swayed his arms side to side, gyrated his hips, and genuflected in warm deference to his twin brother, frantically washing a mountain of dirty dishes left in the kitchen sink. The brothers had finally canceled each other out, I was Saved by Zero, and left.

Remembering to check my wrist watch, another relic from those pre-digital days, I was relieved that two hours had passed and I still hadn’t been arrested. Taking the long way around the block, I cautiously looked down my street and was again relieved that the coast was clear, all the squad cars gone except for the unidentified double-parked black van, which could have been anything.

Still buzzing, suffused with a disorienting combination of chutzpah and fatalism, I self-consciously shambled to my building and struggled up the steps to my third floor apartment. On a landing I ran right into two uniformed men wearing black helmets, flak jackets with TACTICAL embroidered across the back, and cargo pants loaded with walkie-talkies, automatics, and ammo.

“You live here?” the taller one blurted, nearly knocking me off my feet. “Yes,” I said, blindsided. “You OK?” he asked, scrutinizing my look of abject terror — and the waterfall of clammy meth-induced sweat rolling down my cheeks. “I think so,” I said sheepishly. His partner jibed, “at least he looks better off than the guy we just cut loose!” Both of them laughed and headed back down.

As I turned the corner of the staircase I noticed the apartment directly below Liza’s was open and exuding a horrific vibe — and smell. “Did you hear what happened?” another neighbor asked me as she crossed the landing, giving me the grease: a young resident had hanged himself in his closet, the body decomposing for over a week before being reported missing and finally found.

Never Mind the Bullocks

Mystery solved, my existential angst began. Sight is the brain processing light that’s impacted the eyes; hearing is sound vibrating one’s eardrums; touch is physical stimulation of the nerves in the skin — but taste and smell are triggered by physical stimuli that enter the body: When you smell, you’re taking in molecules you sniff, be they the good, the bad, or the revolting.

The cops weren’t here for me, they were here for him. For days I’d inhaled gases released from my deceased neighbor’s putrefying body. The rancid odor hadn’t dissipated yet, that horrific combo of spoiled meat and raw excrement. Worse still, I thought about the poor guy’s agony for months and likely years before his all-too avoidable suicide, conducted alone only a few feet away.

What a mess — and I thought I had problems? My recent emotional roller coaster ride downshifted from raging paranoia to escapist romance to frivolous partying right into humanitarian crisis. I never got to know the guy who died, could hardly remember what he looked like. Unknown neighbors are typical; might indifference help explain our paralyzing urban loneliness?

Had I known, could-I-would-I-should-I have done something to help my brother out? Tragedies happen everywhere, but when they hit nearby we feel connected and therefore somehow responsible. If walls could talk they would tell us about the lives lived akin to our own, fraught with excitement and joy but also despair and death. All that separates is space, time — and empathy.

These thoughts were heavy as I trudged up the final flight of steps to my apartment, half-expecting Liza at my door only to find Alexa there instead, hips pumping, hair flaring, and eyelashes fluttering. “Where have you been?” Alexa was one of my many neighborhood friends who drove Liza crazy, probably the neighborhood friend who drove Liza the most crazy.

A male-to-female transgender hairdresser, Alexa was still “under construction” and required occasional silicone tune-ups. Perhaps in the same way Greg counted on me to hide his stash, Liza neurotically teased me, and Minnie partied with me to abandon, Alexa randomly visited with vials, needles, and zaniness, confident I would indulge and care for her.

Off the grid and devoid of health benefits, Alexa pursued her reconstructive and cosmetic work on the black market. Entrepreneurs criss-crossed the Mexican border to bring back the goods: unregulated, the product quality was questionable; unsupervised, trannies recruited each other and friends like me to inject the bootleg synthetic gel into their expanding butts and breasts.

Alexa stormed in as she usually did, every entrance a grand entrance, every gesture over-the-top. Many even within the gay community found her annoying, but I could sense her sincere passion and heartfelt earnestness. Despite her nonstop narcissism she was kind, cared deeply for others, had an hysterical, self-deprecating sense of humor, and was always fascinating.

Her father was an old school Italian South Side Chicago mobster and her mother a Cherokee Indian, creating an unlikely and incendiary union. An older brother was locked up long ago on drug and murder charges. Back home Alan was naturally effeminate and bravely defiant, beaten up and kicked out. Estranged from family since high school, Alexa never looked back.

She struck a pose and vogued. Imagine a curious mashup in personality and presence of Sandra Bernhard with Sandra Bullock: Alexa had Sandra1’s clever, biting cynicism along with her sharp facial features and penetrating stare; she also hybridized Sandra2's cute spaciness, affectionate warmth, and demure femininity — both further dimensionalized by exotic transsex appeal.

“Time for My Close-Up”

Injecting contraband Mexican silicone wasn’t on my resume, but I grew adept at it. That made Alexa appreciative of me — or maybe gave her an excuse to get my attention and hang out? I never knew for sure which part of her was a femme “act,” which behaviors were spontaneous, and which orchestrated to attain an objective. I bet she didn’t know, either, making it all the more fun.

“Bang-away, Babe!” she purred, pulling down her jeans. The needle was thick to penetrate muscle and the force had to be just right: thrust too light it could painfully bounce off; too hard and real damage could be done. I again thought of Pulp Fiction, the adrenaline shot scene layered with metaphor, oozing with unrequited love, unspoken lust, and the circumstantial absurdities of life.

“Wooaahhhhh…” she exhaled, a couple years before Neo jumped across buildings in The Matrix, dissolving the boundaries between perception and reality. She gasp-giggled uproariously as I plungered the stuff into her right cheek— “That really hit the spot!” — then slid the needle smoothly back out. “You’re a pro. I’d recommend you to all my tranny friends, but they’re evil!”

After the left glute her breasts were next, a far more delicate procedure that demanded my full focus and shots of whiskey to calm her down. Alexa usually got delicate titty boosts from a transgender friend who specialized, but The Doc was out of town and we were on our own. She took off her shirt and bra, braced herself as I raised the needle. We made eye contact, a magic moment.

From within her dark brown iris a flaring and dilated pupil peered back deeply into my soul. The intense vibe was soothingly familiar yet eerily alien, neither male nor female, young nor old, wise nor foolish, courageous nor fearful, sacrosanct nor licentious. We mind-melded before realizing what just happened, diving into and out of ourselves, flipping us both completely out.

We blinked, then she leaped — literally — onto a chair. Already 5'9" (“I’m supermodel height, Babe!” she’d often say) Alexa now stood a head taller, fake tits in my face. She defensively cupped them in each hand, her respective thumbs and index fingers squeezing left then right nipples. “Mind if I change the channel?” I joked, twisting them. “You’re out of control!” she screamed.

Plummeting backward I caught her, and leaned to counterbalance. We stood holding each other up for a moment like two modern dancers until our equilibrium was shattered and she fell back into the chair, taking me with her. The momentum sent us rolling across the living room and right into Greg’s duffel bag, which stopped the chair suddenly and hurled us both to the floor.

Alexa was so hyper-focused on herself she rarely noticed anything around her. Understandably, quite a bit was on her mind: clothes, shoes, makeup, hair, endless tweezing... She was her own full time job, which made my hidden-in-plain-sight strategy for Greg’s stash effective. But once something came to Alexa’s attention she became obsessed by it, as if she willed it into existence.

“What’s in the bag?” she asked as she stood up again, still topless. “I’m not sure,” I said, standing next to her. “Greg dropped it off yesterday, so it’s likely packed with drugs.” “Oh, really…” Alexa said, prodding it. “Let’s open it and find out!” The realization struck me that I’d had his goods for more than a day and never once peeked inside, making me ravenously curious — and alarmed.

I hefted the duffel onto the chair and rolled it into a corner, as if afraid the bag would explode. “We forgot about your tits,” I reminded her, trying to deflect. “Thanks for pumping up my ass cheeks, Babe,” she said, tossing her top back on and pulling her pants up. “But now we’ve got other fish to fry!” Curiosity shifted into determination as she unzipped the bright blue bag’s flaps…

What Dreams Are Made Of

“Oh — My — GOD!” Alexa blurted, a drama queen who exaggerated a hiccup now making the paint peel with blistering shock & awe. “Shhhhhhhhhh!” I waved and grimaced, equally excited yet scared of stirring the neighbors. Standing behind her my line of sight was poor, further obfuscated by Alexa’s enormous Housewives of Lincoln Park perm that had a mind of its own.

I sidestepped as she opened the bag slowly, imagining the crescendoing drum roll… My initial prediction proved predictably right: countless plastic baggies packed with crystallized methamphetamine, and at least two dozen bovine-embossed vials of liquid ketamine. For bonus jail time Greg included bottles of gamma-hydroxybutyrate, and a shrink’s cabinet worth of psychoactive Rx.

“We could have a helluvah time in Vegas with this stuff!” Alexa echoed Slim Pickens from Dr. Strangelove, rubbing her hands over the drugs as if casting a spell or exorcising demons. “We can party like it’s 1999!” Her rites didn’t resurrect Aleister Crowley or summon Prince, but did snap me out of fearing Greg’s bag. Metaphors mixed, analogies short circuiting, I wanted to dive in.

Not so fast! Unpredictably and quite surprisingly, drugs were only a portion of the bag’s total volume and mass. The majority was unexpectedly consumed by bulky mementos from an intimate long term relationship: a stockpile of framed photographs, cards and letters, memorabilia from amusement parks, parties, boat rides… All featuring Greg and what looked like his young lover.

“Awwwwww,” Alexa blushed. She instantly ignored the drugs and created an impromptu Lovers’ Shrine in my living room. She placed the framed photos in a neat row, meticulously folded the cards and propped them up alongside the pictures, and tastefully spread out the mementos in concentric rings around the center. She stood aside, hands on her hips, head nodding in approval.

“Both boys are ugly,” she said, pointing. “But together they make such a cute couple!” Greg was twice Gary’s age, they’d met at a bar, and became instantly inseparable until their quarreling spiraled into domestic violence. Everyone knew about their tumultuous courtship, but who sensed they were this close — to the point their memorabilia rivaled Minnie’s comic book collection.

I could easily envision Greg in a panic, his paranoia raging, feeling as if his arrest were imminent and tossing all his contraband into the bag. Such behavior was logical and inevitable given his condition as a dealer and a user. But I never would’ve thought he’d also throw in this sentimental motherlode, clearly cherished, no doubt making him feel equally vulnerable and exposed.

Turned out a bag full of lovers’ keepsakes had fueled my fears as much all those speed baggies and tranquilizer bottles. The connection made sense, said as much about me as it did about Greg, and helped reveal why I accepted his stash in the first place: Love was indeed a drug as Roxy Music sang, addiction a cycle of pleasure and pain, joy and despair, too much never enough.

The rush of emotion sent Alexa into a tailspin, her focus flip-flopping from her ersatz Love Temple back to the bag, now entirely full of extremely dangerous drugs. She held up a glass vial, pointed with a long polished nail at the bovine icon on the label. “Mooo-kie,” she giggled, grabbing and squeezing her synthetic teets. “Now that you’re done needling, get to some milking, Babe!”

Alexa was always weird and flirty. Today’s visit was oddly different, though, our new vibe palpable. Exploring Greg’s gift exposed more than just its contradictory contents — it catalyzed my own. Liza’s teasing and Minnie’s meth made me ravenously horny; my neighbor’s shocking suicide and Alexa’s heartfelt homage made me effusively maudlin. “You’re a mess!” she observed.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Travesty

She was right. Impossible to remember who made the first move, Alexa and I awkwardly embraced and kissed. She dropped the vial, which bounced and rolled across the floor. The state change jarred our romantic revelry as we simultaneously opened our eyes, stared back into each other’s souls, and shuddered. All three cats sat on a mantel watched us, purring, mesmerized.

Alexa impulsively broke free, called out, blew up the moment. “Time to bake some K.!” She picked up the vial, gawked at me with a mischievous smile, raised an eyebrow, and swished to the kitchen. What just happened? Did we remember before we’d started, forgot after we’d finished? Had we taken old Jim Morrison up on his titillating offer to break on through to the other side?

“Betty Crocker kiss my ass!” she cackled, opening the bottle and pouring the clear liquid onto a ceramic plate. I turned the oven on, set it to 375. “Always good to preheat, ‘Lex,” I said, disoriented by our spontaneous make-out session. “Look at you, Mr. Scientist,” she said, rubbing my right thigh. Random, or did she somehow sense Liza’s erogenous zone, teasing me?

We leaned in front of the oven and peered through the door glass, waiting for the ketamine to crystallize. The reaction would happen instantaneously, starting with a random impurity around which the first crystal formed, then rapidly spreading across the entire plate. Alexa put a hand on my ass, again uncannily channeling Liza by playfully mimicking my own ham-fisted moves.

With Liza I was instigator, her role to taunt and tantalize, then defiantly reject my every advance. She was attracted yet afraid, comfortable yet insecure; we both knew we’d never get anywhere. With Alexa I was the object of her desire, and she left it up to me how I wanted to play it. I sensed she’d do anything I asked with the zeal and precision of a method actor. How could I resist?

Why would I want to? Years earlier in LA some friends and I zoomed up the Pacific Coast Highway when in the distance loomed a super fine hitchhiker: hot pink go-go boots beneath patent black leather short-shorts, breathlessly tight day-glo tank top barely containing pendulous double-Ds, all that lusciousness capped by an exploding mop of flaming peroxide blond hair.

But as we approached our desire shifted into indecision then reflexive derision as a Sexy She morphed into a convincing but ultimately adams-apple-toting Biological He. “That was a close call!” one of us yelled into the wind. “Always look under the hood!” another advised. I’ll never forget her sly wink and hair flip as we roared past: “Got you!” she curtsied, flashing her tits.

What struck me then and has lingered since is how a car full of ostensibly hetero early-20s males sported boners for a super hot hitchhiker — until realizing the hitchhiker was transgender. Our cultural egos shut down our primal ids, a bad human habit that’s triggered oppression, wars, and 33 seconds of Frank Zappa’s “Whatever Happened to All the Fun in the World.”

Point is we were attracted to a person — until for reasons that had zero to do with our initial attraction we weren’t. You might say we were “fooled,” but erections don’t lie, and self-confidence is sexy, no matter the source. That wink highlighted our weakness, not hers, and was her parting message that thanks to our own stupidity we’d just missed the best blow jobs of our lives.

The lesson reminded me of a quote attributed to William James, C.S. Lewis, and Mr. Spock: “The difference that makes no difference is no difference.” Especially apropos for gender and sexuality, which are more fluid than most people realize or accept, the phrase suggests that desire speaks its own language, one best translated by warm hearts rather than cold minds.

“That’s Pride, Fucking With You”

The kitchen was getting hot, and so were we. Alexa leaned in to check the baking process and caught me staring at her tits the moment the ketamine crystallized. “Bing-bing-bing!” she chimed, again shattering the moment. I shut off the oven, donned checkered mitts, and removed the hot plate to cool on the stove top. She giggled and pranced back to forage in the duffel bag.

Out came a small amber bottle of amyl nitrate, retched stuff that reeked like paint thinner and when sniffed induced an even worse buzz. I knew I liked her because I took a mind-numbing hit without reservation. I felt like a horny teenager in high school on my first date, carrying an over-sized popcorn bucket and large diet Coke into a shitty romantic comedy just to get laid.

My adolescent flashback continued as the room swirled and we both swooned, grabbing each other and going for it. I quickly noticed that the difference that makes no difference is actually quite a difference in this strange scene / since her parts were like my parts, if you know what I mean / But I didn’t care, and neither should you / All sex is weird, each to our own point of view.

Dr. Seuss never wrote Hugs After Drugs, but if he had the illustrations would perfectly capture how I felt and how we must have looked. Alexa’s unabashed enthusiasm fueled my own, the sheer momentum of our desire sweeping us into each other’s arms and between each other’s legs. I imagined Liza spying on us, aghast in speculation, as you likely are now: Who fucked whom?

Up to now Alexa and I had enjoyed our frivolous fun. She was merely one of many neighborhood personalities I lavished surrounding myself: a NSFW Sesame Street of memorable and alluring characters who were gay and straight, male and female, and everything in between. I loved to get lost within this effervescently diverse milieu of outcasts, rebels, and libertines.

As an outsider among outsiders, I, too, hid in plain sight. Estranged from my family, dodging a conventional career path, immersed in an alternative lifestyle, I was everywhere and nowhere, involved yet non-committal. An atrophied adult, fidgety savant, and macho Peter Pan I couldn’t figure out if I were running away or running toward, and honestly couldn’t have cared less.

I didn’t even know what caring meant, since the goals of finding a life partner, starting a family, getting a job, and all the trappings of adulthood seemed like pointless impediments to my personal freedom. To cite another movie, I was like the drug addicts in Trainspotting — arguably less at the mercy of the chemicals, and certainly not Scottish, but similarly choosing to opt-out.

Alexa — whether she meant to or not — was forcing me back in. Now that we saw what lurked inside Marcellus’ briefcase and Greg’s gift, the MacGuffin became “the thing,” that which I was only beginning to understand and increasingly felt I had to indulge to survive. Shit got real, the chase was on: consume the contents, especially now that I found what’s actually in there.

Between the traditionally binary “male” and “female” / “white” and “non-white” flourishes a wide spectrum of physical and behavioral variation that makes the world a more interesting and better place. Rather than celebrate and indulge all human possibilities, many instead judge and abuse them, revealing a deeply lurking Fear of a Black — and sexually more open — Planet.

Nowadays gender and identity have become politicized, often to the point of absurdity. Easy to see where the PC whiplash came from, “gender identity disorder” not reclassified until 2013 when even Barack Obama refused to publicly accept gay marriage. Imagine the stigma and shame Alexa and her peers had to endure — all the more reason I quickly got so infatuated by her.

Love’s Bitter Mystery

Before the freshly crystallized ketamine had a chance to cool down, we got naked and ravaged each other without hesitation or reservation. Hours vanished since Alexa had first appeared at my front door. The sun set on this first day after Greg’s unexpected visit, my apartment eerily illuminated by pale yellow streetlights painting long shadows across the walls and ceiling.

In between tantric transsex sessions we crushed and snorted the K., then dipped into Greg’s bag for more goodies. The speed fired us up as the tranquilizer numbed us out. My paranoia at getting busted with Greg’s stash shifted to concern that he’d soon return to reclaim his loot. Dawn lit the room as suddenly and stealthily as dusk had darkened it, both of us insatiable.

I squinted into the morning sun and wondered how my interminable and essentially sexless game with Liza had so unexpectedly burst into this instant and explosive fling with Alexa. The purloined duffel bag still lurked in a corner, its velcro straps removed and zipper flung open as if to answer that question — annotated by the Love Shrine, intact and shimmering in the light.

I was 33-years-old, the age Jesus got crucified. Most of my Chicago peers were married with children, had professional careers, mortgages, and retirement accounts. If my nomadic lifestyle made any sense at all then I could at least take solace in my stubborn commitment to non-commitment: last I checked I felt genuinely free and happy, expectations and responsibilities be damned.

Living at high risk paradoxically enabled me to play it safe. By working odd jobs, doing drugs, and having sex with strangers I exposed myself to poverty, addiction, and disease — but I also protected myself from corporate rot, existential ennui, and asphyxiating monogamy. Falling in love was my most frightening phobia, since a passionate relationship typically triggers all three.

Hitting it all night with an Italian-Cherokee transgender hairdresser while blitzed on endless bumps of ketamine, methamphetamine, and amyl nitrate was certainly a far cry from marrying my prom date, investment banking at Goldman Sachs, and country clubbing in Lake Forest — but lights flashed, robot arms waved: “Danger, Will Robinson!” I was falling for her, and she, me.

As if Alexa sensed my fears, she instinctively matched and amplified her allure to tip me over the edge and also try to win me over. Before I knew it she made herself right at home, started cleaning up, rearranging my barracks furniture, and making breakfast. My three cats scattered as she donned an apron to proclaim herself happy homemaker and queen of “our” one-bedroom dump.

The sheer absurdity of the situation shielded me from its gravitas, as Greg’s boundless pharmacopoeia numbed me to its many dangers. Born a white male, I had engineered my entire existence to become that which I was not; as a male-to-female transgendered person of color, Alexa had transformed her life and body to become that which she believed herself to have always been.

As I ran away from everyone and everything, she pranced toward the one thing she felt made her happy: a masculine man unabashedly excited by and passionately adoring the faux femme she worked so hard to attract him with. The only glitch: “real men” dug “real women,” right? She could race until getting clocked: time’s up, she’d be found out, her “true” gender exposed.

Enter the Mookz, a dude who just didn’t care. Cynically skeptical to my core, I dismissed the fictions of organized religion, big government, and sexual norms. Alexa appreciated that I accepted her like Greg’s dealing, Liza’s neuroses, and Minnie’s zaniness. They got my attention and filled my moral vacuum by wanting something from me — and what Alexa wanted was love.

Tattooed Love Boys

The only problem was that none of these folks seemed to care what I wanted, and I was getting to the point where I wasn’t paying much attention, either. As Alexa puttered around my apartment in full tranny housewife mode, the irony didn’t escape me that Liza and I had reversed roles: now I was the one terrified of emotional closeness, already making stuff up to keep us apart.

“Isn’t Thursday a salon day?” I asked, firing up the espresso machine and lighting a filter-less Camel, activating muscle-memory to try and return to my preferred ground state of me, myself, and I. Thursday night was also the first shift of my four-evening weekend cycle at the bar, so getting her out of my apartment made logistical sense, too. The show, indeed, had to go on.

“Let’s get tattoos!” Alexa heroically announced, whipping off her apron, reaching behind and grabbing her freshly boosted butt cheeks. “I’ve always wanted Betty Boop on my ass — now’s as good a time as any!” A genius at the jolting state change and random non sequitur, Alexa outdid herself: getting a lovers’ tattoo in Chicago was just a step short of getting married in Vegas.

Alexa was also brilliant at instinctively channeling my desires, a reverse-clocking where she could figure me out before I even understood myself. I’d always wanted a tattoo, too, but like most things in life preferred a chaperone to invite and entice me into the new experience. Voila! So here she was, again making herself conveniently — if not altruistically — available.

“I’ll do it,” I acquiesced. “But there’s no way I’m getting your name permanently inked on my body, OK?” Her left eyebrow slowly rose, showed off its kung fu, smoothly returned to its ground state. “You don’t have to!” she guffawed. “Because whenever anyone asks you about your tattoo, you’ll tell them the whole story about how you got it — and how you got was with me!”

Sure enough, since then I’ve told My Tattoo Story at least a hundred times (and now in writing), and yes, Alexa, each and every time I inevitably tell them about you — well played, girlfriend. The tattoo artist was a client from the hair salon who worked in a parlor not far down Broadway. He’d do a terrific job, she assured me. “Think about what and where you want it, Babe!”

Freshly liberated from fearing the cops, my latest mortal concern was running into Liza, whom for all I knew had spent the whole night snooping on us through the alcove window. So I was relieved when we bounded down the front stairs without a sign of her. The day was cloudless and cool, the bright sunlight scorching our dilated pupils through cheap ZZ TOP sunglasses.

Alexa extended her hand, and I took it in mine. We strolled through Chicago’s Boystown, a block away from where the Cubs played home games. For all the unabashed promiscuity effervescing throughout the neighborhood, especially in the alleys at night, genuine affection was seldom shown. A few bar patrons recognized us, pointed at then ignored us — juicy fodder for tonight’s gossip.

I knew I’d fallen for her because the whole world seemed like a wonderful place, everyone somehow happier, everything for no good reason making perfect sense. Alexa was visibly blissed-out, too, skipping along without any self-consciousness, both of us looking ravenously ragged from zero sleep and more than twelve continuous hours of dangerous drugs and unsafe sex.

A young effeminate punk jeered at her from across the street: “You don’t even look like a real woman!” Alexa shot right back: “Suck my dick, you cunt!” I burst into laughter at her lightning fast whip-smart humor, fearless boldness, and indefatigable spirit. “I give great girl, Babe!” she confirmed, cackling uproariously. If I had any doubts before, that golden moment sealed the deal.

“I’ll Be Back”

The tattoo parlor had a cramped waiting room in front and several draped booths in back buzzing with the whir of electric needles and the rush of endorphins. Alexa knew exactly what she wanted so went first, Betty Boop to manifest on her left ass cheek — to be eventually followed, she hoped, with the cartoon character’s little doggy companion, Pudgy, on her right cheek.

Alexa self-identified with Betty Boop, most notably her juxtaposition of love and lust, comfort and edginess: The world’s most popular pre-WWII sex symbol, Betty was paradoxically demure, curious, and clumsily childlike; naive and spaced-out yet sagaciously wise and always saving the day, pinup provocative yet sibling safe, Betty was combo slut, sister, and best friend.

My heroes, in contrast, were philosophers, musicians, and writers. Since my early 20s I was obsessed with Friedrich Nietzsche, Eddie Van Halen, and Thomas Pynchon — but didn’t want the Birth of Tragedy, VH logo, or Tristero Horn anywhere on my body. To catalyze my creativity and give me fresh ideas, Alexa’s tattoo artist handed me a photo book featuring his shop’s best work.

I flipped through endless pics ranging from rather sedate yin-yang symbols and rose blossoms needled in obscure areas to full body tribal ornamentation featuring flaming spears, menacing skulls, and satanic crests. One guy even had a red and yellow Superman “S” logo etched into the tip of his penis — imagine that thing coming at you or into you, faster than a speeding bullet.

Donning the mantel of a future marketer, I strategized an approach to differentiate my Mookie Brand. How would my tattoo stand out, and what did I want it to communicate about my personality? I noticed that most tattoos were “add-ons” to the bodies they adorned: Whether a wrist band of braided flowers or a vine that wrapped an extremity, most were merely ornamental.

Even the boldest of tattoos that told elaborate stories through words and symbols were essentially cosmetic overlays akin to clothing or jewelry. Few if any tattoos became an organic part of the body they modified — until I found a strikingly detailed 3-D rendering of a pulsating heart within an open chest cavity, engorged arteries bursting blood amid ornate dragons spewing fire…

Then the idea struck me: An homage to a movie, of course, The Terminator. Skin of my left arm ripped open, within the gaping wound a steam punk patchwork of interlocking gears, integrated circuits, and robotic machinery exposed through jagged and twisted flesh. My tattoo wouldn’t be an addition to my body, but a dynamic expression of my body: Behold the Mookinator!

Alexa hated the idea, but her artist pal was intrigued. He drew sketches, and I thought they were cool. We chose the underside of my left arm between wrist and elbow to minimize visibility for working corporate, and maximize it for playing guitar. Alexa’s Betty took less than thirty minutes, yet she staggered out as if recovering from major surgery. “Whoa, Babe, I need a drink!”

My turn: Our chosen spot made holding a suitable body position awkward and straining. The exacting detail, combined with the multicolored treatment depicting complex machinery and metallic endoskeleton drenched in crimson blood amounted to more than two hours’ work. Electric needles gouged new and already exposed areas with excruciating depth and repetition. Ouch!

Sweat roiled my bald head. “You look like you’ve been lifting weights, Babe,” Alexa taunted. To avoid smudging her freshly minted Betty Boop she stood in the waiting room wearing only a t-shirt and g-string thong. Waiting patrons pointed, gave her a big thumbs up. I embraced the searing pain and finally understood how people got addicted to the needle jabs and endorphin rush.

Catch Me If You Can

An hour later we flaunted our His & Her tattoos in a lesbian bar. Nowadays the T in LGBTQ is synonymous with human rights for everyone, but in the 90s transgender folks faced horrific discrimination not only from the straight world, but often their own community — especially gay men projecting a societal bias that hierarchically favored race (white) and gender (male).

Drag queens were campy and fun, but for a biological male to emotionally and physically transform into a female triggered most people, even those who should have resisted the hypocrisy and hate. Lesbians were an important exception, taking delight in celebrations of all-things female. Alexa often sought refuge and friendship in dyke bars, counting on gay gals for support.

Despite being a familiar face, I made these same women suspicious because I grunted, groaned, and grabbed my balls like the typical hetero guys they despised. Attractive male-to-female transgender people also tended to lure questionable dates, often closeted married men. At least the ladies gave me some slack since I behaved myself, tipped well, and had sex with anybody.

Anyway, after a whirlwind couple days the bar was welcome refuge, Alexa calm and in her element, the ultra-butch bartender serving up her signature 100-proof-plus Long Island Iced Teas, as moody as she was. The heavy booze infusion soothed our drug-addled brains, round after round easing post-tattoo pain and making Alexa sway as she stood in the thong, her ass still airing-out.

Dozens of gals gathered around complimenting Betty, eager for Pudgy, several pointing to my Terminator tattoo. Alexa winked at me occasionally, whispered to her soul sisters who whispered back. My paranoid self conceived of a grand dyke-tranny anti-mookie cabal in the works: Alexa was their girl, they guided and protected her, and they seemed to like whatever she was saying. Oh, oh…

Meanwhile outside the bar’s big storefront windows, weekend walking traffic was already streaming up and down Broadway. I’d spent many an hour sitting on that very bar stool sipping toxic lesbian elixirs while idly people watching, so within seconds fell into my groove of zoning-out and taking the world in — until an eerily familiar, sweaty bald head caught my wandering myopic eyes.

Greg? My Greg? Big bag of drugs Greg? — Stop, Greg! — Where have you been? How dare you shamelessly strut by in broad daylight only days after dumping me with your stash? I convulsively stood and must have said all that out loud or knocked over a drink, because the entire bar fell silent and stared at me. I gestured to Alexa “ — gimme five, ‘Lex, be right back — ” and bolted outside.

Greg or his convincing stunt double bobbed through the pedestrian parade up to Cornelia Street. At the corner was my favorite fast food joint, catty-corner from the Whole Foods-meets-Trader Joe’s supermarket precursor, Treasure Island. Greg fled across the parking lot like a bald, gangly Jim Hawkins, diving into the bright neon store lights and vanishing within the couscous aisle.

I dodged cars and carts and leaped blindly through the automatic doors just in time to run right into Liza — of course — pushing an over-loaded cart with one arm and holding an over-flowing brown bag with the other. “Schmookie! Funny meeting you here!” Odd she would say that, since she wasn’t laughing, and neither was I. “Aren’t you going to help a girl with her groceries?”

“Sure, but I’m in a bit of a rush right now — ” She let go of the cart and tossed the bag on top of the other groceries, the chaotic jumble about to roll into a pyramid of herbal tea bottles. “You had plenty of time yesterday to play doctor, didn’t you?” Oh, shit. She spied. She saw me and Alexa together — how much did she see, and for how long? I grabbed her cart before it shattered the glass.

Matinee Show

I wasn’t sneaking around or hiding anything from her. We’d never discussed exclusivity or pinned down our ambiguous, utterly dysfunctional relationship. But the warning signs were obvious, even to me, that Liza had her heart set on changing me, winning me over, and ultimately consummating our miserable affair until we got married, drove each other nuts, and retired in Florida.

All my shenanigans fit into the category of annoying and often scary things she’d have to change, check — yet the “winning me over” part remained a long-standing challenge for her. Playing hard to get was one thing, but even world class hand jobs could only get a single woman so far. The catastrophe amounted to frustration for everyone, so why did we keep playing this game?

We played it nonetheless, as I found myself carrying her bag and pushing her cart out of the supermarket. My stalwart independence from American bourgeoisie society notwithstanding, I now felt like a delivery boy juggling an economy pack of tampons, a felony conviction worth of drugs, and a shotgun romance with a neighborhood trans hairdresser conspiring with lesbians.

My manic-depressive mother used to say: “If you listen to exactly what I tell you to do, you’ll do whatever the hell you want.” Institutionalized throughout most of my childhood, a victim of electroshock therapy and non-stop Rx, my mom once shared a mental ward room with Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme of the Manson Family, who was intrigued enough to draw a portrait of her.

I should have kept that drawing. Point here being, if I can even remember, is that decisions dictate destiny, and we must own our choices every step of the way. I chose to help Liza with her shopping rather than chase down a local drug dealer because that made me feel more comfortable, or at least offered me the path of least resistance. Within ten seconds I regretted my decision.

“I’ve figured out why you’re with that transsexual,” she said as I carried her groceries up three flights. “I believe in epigenetics, how environment can alter our DNA. Your relatives were in concentration camps during the war, so you now play out those inherited experiences by conducting medical experiments.” WTF? “The Nazis believed in epigenetics,” I explained, gasping at her door.

Liza had heroically recruited her father to participate in Stephen Spielberg’s USC Shoah Foundation visual archive, a major accomplishment. Getting her dad to open up on camera about his family’s WWII experiences was a valiant, year-long effort, culminating in hours of footage saved for posterity. The organization recently sent her the edited VHS tape. She insisted I watch it.

“I’m eager to check it out, Liz, really I am, but — ” “Sit!” she commanded with the fury of a woman obsessively documenting her own Holocaust. If I were powerless at the foo-foo supermarket, I was now paralyzed in the face of a heart-wrenching testimonial from Poland, 1942–45. Cheeses, antipasto, and chilled wine were served. She pointed to the screen, turned up the volume.

Her father was calm, compassionate, and often tearful throughout. His English was heavily accented yet clear, simple, and powerfully descriptive. The sweeping historical background of his narrative proved less moving than the human details of everyday life — how their family story disintegrated from trivial inconveniences into catastrophic injustices, culminating in genocide.

The honesty and gravitas of his testimonial put our childish nonsense into perspective. My entire “relationship” with his daughter seemed reactive and out of control. Yet we didn’t have stormtroopers breaking down our doors, we weren’t being rounded up and shipped off to our demise. Maybe Liza was right? Had we internalized our parents’ suffering, and couldn’t let it go?

Homecoming Queen

My own father turned sixteen when the Germans rolled into Budapest in March of 1944. With the Russian advance inevitable, the Hungarians acquiesced to help the Germans fortify the Eastern Front, giving them both more time to kill as many Jews as possible. As I watched Liza’s dad I thought about mine, pangs of distress across years of anger and estrangement.

Surviving Nazi, Hungarian Arrow Cross, then Stalinist Russian rule was harrowing and fascinating, but even if we’d been close my taciturn father would never have participated in this storytelling project. Liza’s strategy was nonetheless working, at least in terms of triggering my inchoate and mostly repressed emotions. Her efforts backfired, of course, as they always did.

As the ending credits rolled on the video, Liza held both my hands and looked me in the eyes. “Thank you for watching this with me.” For the first time in our year-long stalemate I felt we genuinely connected. “Thank you for helping your father share his experiences with the world.” She pecked me on the cheek, I hugged her close — and she snapped back again, too much too late.

“You have a duty to your people and family!” she yelled, standing with hands on her hips. “All you ever think about is yourself!” A big fan of Texas Hold ’Em before the game was cool, I considered its dynamics an analog for life; with a pair of Queens in pocket, I gave this hand better than 7:4 odds she’d remind me of the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust just so I’d take her seriously.

“Most of our relatives and friends were killed! And here we are, doing nothing about it!” I should have gone all-in on that bet: Last I checked I didn’t murder them, and last I heard couldn’t resurrect them. That said I admired what she did with her dad, and agreed “Never Forget” meant continuing to remind. But what did all that have to do with me, with us? We were nearing End Game.

“You did do something about it, Liz,” I said, exasperated. “Bravo. Meanwhile all I got growing up was screaming reminders of my privilege for being born American, not a worry in the world, paid for through the suffering and death you continue to obsess about — and the guilt of those who survived, namely my own father who tore me down through his jealousy, abuse, and neglect.”

Liza burst into tears, hit me with clenched fists. I defensively raised both arms to protect my face, exposing the freshly rendered tattoo. At the sight of it her face instantly flipped from raging anger to abject horror. My profile of first generation Holocaust Victim finally complete, I might as well have displayed crudely etched concentration camp numbers or an emblazoned Israeli flag.

Asserting false equivalence between injecting Alexa’s ass cheeks with Mexican silicone and Nazis conducting experiments in Auschwitz was bad enough, but Liza had finally gone Full Jewish Guilt Trip. My defensiveness in the face of emotional vulnerability often sent me fleeing from anxious people, but by any stretch I had patiently built an airtight case for finally pulling the plug on Liza.

The trip across the hall usually took seconds, but now it felt instantaneous as if I were quantum entangled with Alexa, who’d beat me back home from the dyke bar. As I rushed to unlock my door she swung it open, her lace Victoria Secret’s nighties a momentary distraction against the backdrop of my once primal bachelor pad, now disconcertingly transformed into a gaudy boudoir.

I frantically gaped at my apartment, appropriated by all her things. She’d brought in so much stuff that her bar girlfriends must have helped haul it over. How could a drug-infused all-night fuckfest have spontaneously spawned the insane notion to move in with me? Although a chick with a dick had recently banged me for hours, this was the first time I felt truly fucked in the ass.

Continued in Part II...