Heroin and the Lower East Side

The Lower East Side has transformed beyond recognition. I'm not old enough to remember New York in the seventies or eighties, but I remember New York in the nineties. You may have heard it, you may have read it, and it's true: this city has changed.

I don't remember Soho or the Village, but I remember rundown Chelsea, the redlight "West Village" where you really didn't want to end up anywhere near the SROs on the Hudson after dark, and an empty and lifeless Lower West Side (Tribeca). Well, in the case of Tribeca, not much has changed. On the Lower East Side and especially Alphabet City, I remember the shooting galleries near Tompkins Square Park and the junkies and the ancient Eastern European and Italian women who would step over them, shaking their heads, as they walked to temple or church. Chinatown hadn't moved as far west as it eventually would, and there were many more Puerto Ricans in the area. I have a nostalgia for the look of it, for the diversity of it, for the bizarre, surreal condition of those years, but I do not miss the filth and the fear and the terrible poverty of life. People who reminisce and wish we lived in the seventies again, they're very selfish--it is an expression of privilege. The Lower East Side is filthy now! Can you imagine what was like when they were really filthy? You don't want to. You hardly see syringes on the streets these days, because heroin moved to the suburbs about ten years ago when big pharm reformulated oxycontin, but back then there were "rigs" everywhere in the nineties, sometimes floating in buckets full of opaque, pinkish water, one of the more disgusting things I've ever seen.

Why am I writing about the Lower East Side? I came across this piece, which is an articulate and accurate expression of suburban malaise and its discontents, and I have to confess I felt a touch glad when I read you could still buy heroin around Union Square. That triggered a number of memories, of being told I could go as far as Washington Square but that if I went east of Broadway and was caught I would be in big trouble, of venturing east of Broadway, of later trekking with my cousin to real Lower East Side apartments of friends of hers and thinking it was the coolest thing. An unusual and interesting project would have been/would be an ethnography on the heroin culture of the inner cities, before it all vanishes, in places like the Lower East Side, or Seattle, or Downtown Los Angeles/all Los Angeles.

The Blizzard was a total hoax, and it was incredibly frustrating to have the subway shut down for twelve hours. My mother called to remind me that "it wouldn't be a good idea to walk out on the Manhattan Bridge, and, take pictures, or whatever it is you do." Believe it or not, I went out for a few hot toddies at a bar down the block Monday night. It was the rare opportunity one has as an adult to misbehave and to harmlessly flout the rule of law, something I can rarely resist. I discovered a good number of fellow flouters upon arrival, and as usual the bar stayed open until 4. I met a guero--a catch-all term in Mexico for people of pale/light complexion, with "European" features--from Mexico City, who works at an ordinary restaurant in Park Slope. This in itself is odd enough, as people who look "white"--for lack of a better term--are not expected to "work" in Mexico. It is a caste system in many ways similar to what exists in India, and is broadly the case in much of Latin America. If you think we have a class/caste system in the United States, you're right, and we do, but it is essentially a have/have-not system, and upward mobility is highly feasible/expected for the haves. In Latin America, there is a hierarchy and a racial structure--not to say there isn't a racial structure in the US--that is very, very difficult to escape or transcend.

The guero in the bar was immediately of interest to me as it was very clear that this was no run-of-the-mill individual: he had attended a well-known prep school in Mexico City (the equivalent of Trinity or Dalton) and gone on to an equally well-known (and costly) private university. What on earth was this person doing in Park Slope waiting tables?

Well, as Mexicans are prone to do, with the drink, he began to confess, and it's an interesting story: he moved to New York with a girlfriend, as you suspected. The parents did not approve, they're estranged, and there is a substantial amount of money and a position at stake. He has no papers. The couple lived together happily for some time, until they ran out of money and wound up in a flophouse in Sheepshead Bay, where both began to work in the kitchen of an Uzbek restaurant (she's American). If neither worked, neither ate, and over the summer they lived on dollar slices of pizza at Coney Island. They were miserable, but happy together, for a year or two. Then they were miserable and miserable with one another, for another year before they split up, she having found someone new, he devastated. He had grown to love New York, though, and had no interest in returning to Mexico, and so found the job at the restaurant in Park Slope. I can't imagine what the society parents would think had they any idea their educated son had moved into an SRO in furthest Brooklyn with the American girl (of all things!) he ruined himself for, to work in the kitchen of an obscure Central Asian restaurant without papers like a commoner! He said he changes his phone number regularly because his parents have hired private investigators to track him down. He's lived in New York for two or three years.

We talked literature, and he convinced me to pick up a copy of Octavio Paz's long, likely morose essay Labyrinth of Solitude, which I was told "explains Mexico" (I also found a beautiful edition of The Years with Ross, for balance). I'm also reading Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, and may soon reacquaint myself with George Eliot.

Charlus visits New York this weekend, and I can't decide what to do about it. Kim thinks I should avoid him altogether: for her, there is too much to lose with the new job, the stress, who knows what sort of a tantrum he may throw, etc., but I worry more what he might do if I push away the olive branch. It is a tough thing, having relations who are difficult and unstable, and mean. One experiences a mix of guilt, frustration, and anger. General consternation. If there is a nice dinner in it for me, I'll accept. I have mercenary tendencies.

I have to move again, but I do not want to leave my current neighborhood. I love it and I am happy to live in Brooklyn. My current roommates weirdly watched Obama's state of the union, giggling and clucking and chuckling and gasping along with the address like the utter simpletons they are. It was so disconcerting, and they're so foul and filthy--the sink is constantly full of dirty dishes, one is always having diarrhea or vomiting, they cook constantly and the kitchen is always a mess, filth and clutter has spread to the living room like untreated gangrene--and also judgmental and condescending. Sometimes we're talking politics and one or both of them will explain to me some political item or correct me when it is in fact they who are ill-informed, this being as you know an unpardonable offense. I will not endure it for another month, and I'm sure they can find some filthy person who can abide correction better than I.

Grieg--we endure, like Dilsey.  

Yesterday I went to the Ivorian restaurant the New Yorker reviewed a few weeks ago. The food was of middle quality--neither succulent nor delicious, but perfectly passable.

The real pleasure: to be surrounded by West African French, and to hear, when a red card was produced in the Atletico Madrid/Barcelona match on the television, shouts of "rouge! rouge!" from the gathered crowd. It's La Savane on grotty 116th.

And this is how a friendship ends...

I grew up in a charming neighborhood, where everyone knew one another. We were on the edge of the   heart of downtown, and five of us neighborhood kids were especially close, rambling through backyards and alleyways, causing trouble, playing games, kid stuff. It was somewhat Huckleberry Finn except we were all more Tom Sawyer. Well as we grew up things changed in ways expected and unexpected, though we have all more or less remained friends. The most susceptible to peer pressure in the group, Dougie, I remember him doing blow in the bathroom of our favorite Chinese restaurant when I was still in middle school. It was crazy, this woman had known us since we were kids, and he got down in the bathroom of her restaurant. Dougie became completely tied up with this charismatic loser, Cucumber, and we would all worry about him, especially Reverend, Naleg, and I, but also Anthony. Today Dougie's doing just fine, on the verge of moving to Denver or Santa Cruz or Monterey or wherever, he is one of those fortunate souls constantly in trouble who in the end always manages to slick his way out of the worst of it. A few years ago I heard he had gone to a casino, and a few of them, Cucumber, Dougie, Rico, etc., had thoroughly blazed a van in the casino parking lot. They were unaware or had forgotten that casinos have surveillance and security, and take these things seriously. They were all arrested, and Dougie had what he believed to be mdma. In fact it was meth (two life lessons here folks), and we all thought Dougie might be in serious trouble, not-vote-again kind of trouble. But he managed to squeak through, somehow. He's white and this is America. I digress.

Dougie was the first of the group to break away, but whenever I see him its all good. If Dougie were to visit I'd put him up no question, and we would have a great time. With Anthony, my charismatic, sensitive, birdlike, full of social potential amigo, its a different story. Anthony in college had a bad girlfriend, Mercedes Salome, who has serious emotional issues. They would have screaming fights in the middle of campus during crowded hours, and they're both very distinct in appearance and dress the part, so everybody knew. This was a campus of 40,000 or so. I remember a sorority girl I saw for a few months told me one night about "these two hipsters" she'd seen "screaming at each other in the middle of the street by the Union" and I knew immediately it was Anthony and Salome. It was a real problem, and when Anthony and I were both big into OC, the height of our friendship, the fights with Mercedes were the worst. Anthony and I went to New York for Thanksgiving during this time, and she would call him at all hours, at least ten times a day. It was unusual. 

Anthony and I had a big falling out because he accused our former dealer of molesting a pillhead, and I told Anthony that this was a lie, because it was, and that I thought Anthony's conviction that he, Anthony, was a drug addict, was a self-deceptive prescription for the symptoms resulting from the damage he sustained during his parent's divorce, that his father is, has been, and will always be the problem (Anthony had at this point embraced his father, the loser who allegedly beat his mother before their divorce). It was real, and we were with friends at an isolated cabin in the middle of the wilderness. Reverend and Forrest were there to mediate, luckily, but it's never been the same with Anthony and I ever since. And then some shit happened between Salome and I, and I still keep in touch with her and am actively encouraging her to move to New York. She's on track for her PhD, but isn't wild about her program or her current situation, and I think she'd do well here. I told Kim and Brooklyn about this and they were both aghast, the typical wide-eyed look of shock followed by the shaking of the head. The issue is, I like Salome, I always have, and it isn't that I hate Anthony but I am prideful and do hold a grudge. I hated how Anthony changed when he stopped abusing prescription meds. I don't believe he ever had a serious addiction issue, at least to OxyContin, which is what he claimed. We had a lot of fun on drugs, especially the opiates: I viewed almost all the films of Jean-Luc Godard, and it was probably a lot healthier than the typical quantities of alcohol most undergraduates imbibe on a regular basis. Furthermore, I've seen real addiction, I know what it looks like: it's a disease, a tragedy, and we don't do nearly enough for addicts in this country. 

Tangent: mass incarceration is the The New Jim Crow. Read Michelle Alexander's book, and, right now, read this: What YOU can Do About Mass Incarceration Now, On Your Own. I am living proof that most drugs do not harm the mind. If you have read this diary, you know that I am not at all uninformed or unintelligent. 

So Anthony and I, well, if he showed up in New York I might not see him. I would make the effort, though.  

Naleg is a pure benevolence, a sage, a mystic, a master. Naleg is a proficient gardner and excellent cook, he is just a fountain of talent and amusement (Naleg is very funny, has a great laugh). Naleg moved to Washington (state) before college, and I've lost touch with him, but I saw him for his sister's graduation in our hometown and it was all good. I think we'll continue to not be in touch but see each other every so often and have it be like Yeltsin and Clinton, two people who genuinely enjoy each other's company but do so at intervals due to circumstances, in this case geography. If he ever visited New York, well, the fun wouldn't stop. 

What's the point of this? The point is that the Reverend, my oldest and greatest friend, whom I have grown up with and known since birth (our parents were friends before we were born), whom I brought to Ecuador and Colombia, has been in New York since Tuesday and I haven't seen him. I'll explain. 

The Reverend lives in Nash Vegas. He's in a band, and they're doing very well, I genuinely like the music, but its a struggle to give the world something it hasn't asked for and doesn't know it wants. There has been slow and steady progress, and luckily for the Reverend, the band are kind, even-headed people, for the most part. He is probably one of the wildest, and some are downright tame, avoid alcohol, etc. But the musician's life has begun to take its toll on my friend. He's picked up cigarettes, which is crazy because he had terrible asthma as a youngster, drinks heavily, late nights/bad food/no sleep. You get the picture. I had to cancel a trip to Montana this summer, but it wasn't my decision, and last November Cash, Reverend, and I drove an Audi from New York to Los Angeles. I won't even start in with the stories, but they range from Houston's best strip clubs, to Rothko, to desert hot springs, to remote New Mexico, to coked out Disney kids walking around naked in Park La Brea.

I went through a rough time, and the Reverend forgot my birthday, which is the kind of thing that upsets me, and with me, upsettedness transforms almost instantaneously to anger. The Reverend didn't call, didn't seem to remember until I reminded him, and though I was aware he planned to stay with me, he has other friends in New York he can stay with, so I made no effort to contact him. I actually forgot when he was due to arrive, and because he didn't contact me until the day he arrived, I made no plans. Years ago we would've snuck into the boom boom room or something like that, but meatpacking is beyond dead and I want to start hitting more parties near Central Park or stalk Bowie and Iman in Nolita. Whatever, it would've been a lot of fun. I told Cash I might fly to LA specifically to avoid the Reverend, and Cash gave me the Kim/Brooklyn aghast look, but we both knew it was a joke. The Reverend didn't even know Cash and I weren't roommates anymore, because he didn't bother to contact Cash either. So I called him on Thursday and made amends, said that this was silly, and then he blows me off over the next two days. Saturday I went out in Skid$ Row (my name for Williamsburg), and reached out one last time. Nada. Nothing. Two hours later I get a text, "Are you still at Baby's All Right?" Obviously not, as I went there for dinner (but you shouldn't, the food isn't good) with Lindsay and Kim. What am I to make of this? Am I crazy? Well, yes. But have I done something, anything, to deserve this? No. What is going on with the Reverend? It's sad, really: I feel I've lost my oldest and best friend, and there isn't anything I can do about it. I've reached out, I've made the effort, I admitted I was wrong. He leaves Tuesday and I have meetings all day tomorrow and a big interview Tuesday, so I really don't have much time. 

Via Camille, it looks like Cash will be on SNL. It's pretty crazy, he's doing well in New York and I'm proud of and happy for him. He had a hellish year before we moved out here and deserves this, and besides, I think he's sharp and witty, the kind of person they need. He isn't at all impish, mincing, simpering, insipid, or self-involved. I don't compliment or praise the creative work of friends unless it's actually quality: why would I do that? That's what a bad friend would do. People know this, and it has rooted out the serious from the flock of the frivolous. If Cash plays his cards right he'll go far. Lately women have been commenting on how attractive he has become, which is odd to people like Brooklyn and I because we still have a residual image of him as that chubby kid with a bad haircut and thick glasses who had a tendency to spill nacho cheese all over himself, the face in particular. Loisa had, without any intimation or suggestion, this very same memory of Cash. 

Whenever I see Lindsay she gets out the notebook. Last night I used Charlus' aphorism about New York: "if she's one in a million, there's eight of her in New York and twenty-four in the Tri-State Area." That went into the notebook, with my blessing, though it isn't mine. I have high hopes for Lindsay, I don't think she'll become the next Sontag or Arendt, but she's certainly capable of a Valley of the Dolls or an In Cold Blood. I wish she set her sights far from the Lena Dunham/Kathryn Bigelow gutter.

I began Chimamanda Adichie's Americanah a few days ago, and I'm very impressed. Her writing continues to improve, it's staggering really. She could surpass Woolf, Lawrence, or Achebe at this rate, though what would that really mean? That's a silly thing for me to have written, but I'll leave it. It isn't a question of surpassing, and once writing reaches the level Adichie's has, it is difficult to determine what's better, only what's best. And that is of course always Proust. But Adichie has become the formidable author of her generation. 

Jose and I discussed the legalization of cocaine today. I try to boycott the drug, because when you buy cocaine you provide financial support for violence in Mexico and violence in Colombia. I brought up the recent murder of the students in Guerrero, where I've spent a not insignificant amount of time, and after a long discussion of the morally bankrupt, despotic, and terminally corrupt PRI, we naturally moved to the legalization of cocaine. Jose suggested to me that were cocaine to be legalized in the United States, the cartels would simply and suddenly have a legitimate business. This shocked me, as it was a problem I had not considered (this is uncommon). However, I think it is also not quite correct: were cocaine legalized, the cost would drop substantially. Though the money wouldn't dry up, the legitimization of the cartels would entail a scrutiny that currently doesn't exist. I highly doubt politically the influence of the cartels would change much, although it would certainly decrease somewhat as the wealth of the cartels subsided. Point made. Mexico, mi linda, mi pobrecita.  

Night.