I’ve never snorted rat poison before but I was glad that I could cross that from my list of things I shouldn’t have done. That feeling of being so close to death brought me a god-like control that’s beyond any of my senses, the type of control David Bowie had over the stage while performing at the Nassau Coliseum, back in 1976. David Bowie was invincible. Anyway, I digress. We sat on a bench outside the School For Visual Arts while we waited for our lungs to be able to inhale again. I covered my boyfriend’s mouth and busted in laughter as he pushed himself away from me, falling flat into the garbage bags in the middle of the street, where he proceeded to make snow angels in midsummer. In our minds, we were worth millions in prices.
It took us nearly an hour to go from 17th Street and Seventh Avenue to 17th Street and Avenues of the Americas. That one block trip included rapid emotional changes, moving buildings, and heart palpitations faster that a horse during a race; laughter mixed with cries for help, and enough cocaine to send the city that never sleeps to its grave. Dick, my boyfriend, took precisely enough steps to make sure that his hearts didn’t explode, and then we rewarded ourselves with another bump. That was what happened when we run out drug dealers that trust us in NYC. We found ourselves half-alive, on poison lazed drugs in the middle of the block with no one to blame but that random drug dealer on the corner.
We had pre-gamed in our house with an eight ball while listening to Station to Station. Jamie Tee was playing that night. He was New York City’s best Puerto Rican David Bowie impersonator. Jamie Tee also had an affinity for my boyfriend’s boots. I wasn’t worried about the boyfriend as much as I was upset that Jamie Tee did not find my boots worth licking in the bathroom at Santos Party house after his show.
I’ve caught Jamie Tee in the bathroom licking my boyfriend boots several times after that. The first time I cried about it. The second time I asked Jamie Tee for a bump to forget about it. The third time I stayed by the door in the bathroom to make sure no one went in. I remember thinking that if it happened again I would charge a fee at the door for people to look at the spectacle. That night Jamie Tee performed David Bowie’s Low album in its entirety. I danced as I reminded myself of the mess we’ve made of our lives.
After the show, we ended up at someone’s fancy Brooklyn apartment, back porch, a view that people cried about, a doorman, elevators with cameras, laundry in apartment and shit We sang Heroes until I caused a scene after my boyfriend and Jamie Tee disappeared. It would had been fine if they left us with something to snort, but all I had was a semi-cold beer and the goddamn worst rendition of “Wild Is The Wind” that I have ever heard. I screamed, “No one does David like Jamie” as I busted open the bathroom door where I found my Boyfriend with his boot on top of the toilet seat; Jamie knelt over the toilet like if it was a throne. Jamie looked at me and said, “What do you want?” My boyfriend grabbed a hold of me, knowing my temper, pulling me away with his arms under my armpit. He pulled me into the apartment, out the door, all the way down the building while I threatened Jamie incomprehensibly.
I cried in the cab on the way back to Harlem. It was attention cry, no real tears. My boyfriend told me not to worry about Jamie Tee, “He isn’t worth it,” he said. He told me, “Jaime is just a skinny old man with a drug problem and hair extensions that still lives with his mom up by The Cloisters, and you’re better than that.” I told him, “David Bowie is just a skinny old Lad from Brixton, with crooked teeth, one blue eye and one brown eye, who happened to hear God’s voice through Little Richard.”