1979 : havasha

I really have no idea how I wound up on that motorcycle.

I was hiding under blankets on Lola’s couch, while she petted my head and murmured something that sounded vaguely like “nice kitty”. Things had veered off in a direction I didn’t know what to do with and Lola’s Chelsea couch was a safe distance from the East Village and miles away from Times Square. I sipped chamomile tea,  mumbled quiet nonsense to myself and tried to find my way back.

And then, Havasha appeared. He’d been a brief bit of harmless crazy before I even moved into the East Village. He was a little…special. Every morning, he drank his own pee, something to do with his martial arts training and while I’ll drink just about anything no matter how foul if it gets me fucked up, I draw the line at pee. Even my own.

I took a sip of tea, looked up and he was there. Crouching on muscular haunches in front of me, his short thick body leaned on Chester the Dog for support. Chester & Havasha, tilting their furry heads this way and then that way, the two of them sniffing the air around me, they could have been brothers. Squatting there, jeans streaked with grease and street dirt, his chestnut hair matted into clumps, square yellowed teeth, big, like lemon flavored Chiclets you’d found at the bottom of your purse, giant horse teeth in a smile just this side of madness, he looked a little bit…troll-like, like maybe he knew the secrets of the universe

She needs a drink, he said.
Apparently he did know the secrets of the universe, or at least the secrets of mine.

I hadn’t had a drink since the Porkpie…only two days ago? I’d lost control of the days and nights and had to keep reminding myself what followed what. Too much of the big and scary. I was afraid even a deep breath would cause the walls to collapse, everything would come crashing down, crushing me, breaking windows and bones, cockroaches would fill my mouth

She needs a drink, he said. And a good time.

I was the couch, waiting for the return of my sanity.

And then I wasn’t.

How he found me there I have no idea. One minute I was on the couch in borrowed pajamas –I blinked–and I was on the back of his motorcycle, a behemoth 1100 with crash bars front and back.  I traded toast and blackberry jam for mescaline, chamomile tea for vodka. Vodka & Kahlua. Vodka & Kahlua with Milk. Kahlua, Amaretto & Milk.  And finally, when the bars ran out of milk, Kahlua, Amaretto and Vodka.

Havasha stuffed handfuls of quarters into jukeboxes in the back of each bar we stopped at, making sure I had everything I needed. Music loud enough to drown out the noise outside. Mescaline to drown out the noise inside.  A motorcycle that could get me anywhere but here, and fast. Vodka, because a day without vodka is a day without sunshine. Cigarettes, because you can’t live on Vodka alone.

Life was beginning to feel normal again.

Minutes grew into hours and the white hot mescaline morning slid us into yet another bar. Another drink. Hours turn into seconds. Another hit of mescaline.

Time stops.

We watch, crouched in a dark bar at the end of a deep hallucinogenic tunnel, a million miles away, the air damp and cool as silver glitter floats slowly from a pussywillow grey sky, each silver piece shattering into a thousand deafening shards as it hits the quiet cement sidewalk outside.

Time for one more drink before it really starts raining, I think as my mind scrambles out of the tunnel, scratching and clawing, only to slip back down inside. One more drink before we need to get the bike off the streets.  There’s always time for one more drink.

Sharp, cold silver needles shower down on me, pierce my skin, cry down my face. The chrome monster between our legs roars to life and I hold tight at Havasha’s thick leather waist, burying myself in the matted fur at the back of his neck.  We scream into the storm, racing down Second Avenue, rushing away from the wet, afraid of melting. The asphalt, slick with oil and water, shrinks back, exposing bits of Old New York and its cobblestone streets. I scream at the night, howl along with the roaring engine, sharp needles pierce my tongue and fill my throat.

I scream at the panel truck.
Parked directly in the path of our mescaline blind ride.

The truck appears not to notice me
and the motorcycle
seems to have no intention
of Evil Kneiveling anything at all this evening.

Posted October 5, 2009 at 2:18 pm, filed under the diary and tagged 1979, blink, dirty boys, drinking, drugs, East Village. Bookmark this post. Follow any comments @ RSS feed for this post.