Electroboy (16 page)

A few weeks after my twenty-eighth birthday I realize that something is not functioning properly, and I’m convinced I should go for a CAT scan. I feel like I have an abscess swelling deep inside my head—I imagine that there’s pus within the depths of my brain—just waiting to explode. One day it’s going to burst and some unfortunate cleaning lady is going to be called in to mop it up off the floors and scrape it off the walls. Or maybe I’ll be on the crosstown bus and it’ll splatter all over the other passengers and the windows. You see, it works like this. When I wake up in the morning, I receive a signal that tells me, for example, whether to pack up and head to Los Angeles or to catch the next flight to Morocco or to just lie immobile in my bed and watch CNN all day or scrub the bathroom floor and tub until my hands are blistered. The decision is already made for me. It’s somehow predetermined. I don’t have a say. I don’t call my own shots. I’m not really in control anymore. I guess that’s why I finally make the appointment to see Dr. Herbert Kleinman, a well-known psychiatrist on the Upper West Side. Because every other psychotherapist and psychiatrist has failed me in the past, I have no expectations of our first meeting. Actually I figure it will be another three-month relationship that will probably end in another unpaid bill, resulting in a collection agent coming after me.

May 15, 1990. Upper West Side
.

My meeting with Dr. Kleinman is at 7:30
A.M.
I’ve never heard of a doctor who starts seeing patients so early. I’ve had only three hours of sleep and barely pull myself together. I look like shit, unshaven and unshowered. I wet my hair down, throw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and try to cover the dark circles under my eyes. Dr. Kleinman is an older man with a mysterious European accent, and I am struck by his kind manner. He makes me feel very welcome in his office, and he smokes a cigar, which relaxes me. He seems confident and ready to attack my problems. I tell him that I am quite disturbed over my recent breakup and that I’m trying to erase the thoughts through incessant activity—working, socializing, drinking, and doing drugs. I tell him that I’m hypersexual, and he tells me that he is not surprised, since I was used to having sex on a regular basis. I discuss the issue of not having control of my life. We talk for forty-five minutes, and he confidently tells me he thinks this is simply a case of depression. And he has the perfect solution. He prescribes a new drug on the market; it is called Prozac and has shown some very good results. He thinks it should clear things up right away. I leave his office with a prescription and an appointment to see him in two weeks, and a feeling of hope.

That night, I take my first 20-milligram yellow-and-green Prozac. I dream that Dr. Kleinman is driving an ice cream truck around the Upper West Side, passing out Popsicles in the shape of Prozac capsules, and people are lining up for miles. In the morning I check to see if I feel any different. The next morning I look into the mirror. No change. I take an extra 20-milligram capsule before I go to work, just to speed things up. About two weeks later I’m in the shower washing my hair and I realize that I’m in a really good mood for the first time in a long time. I feel like I could be doing a commercial for shampoo—lathering up my hair, singing and smiling in the shower. I go back to see Dr. Kleinman and he puts me on 40 milligrams a day. The Prozac seems to keep me on the high side, and I don’t slip into any depressions. I also happen to be moving faster than the speed of sound. I call my parents
and tell them about my success with my new psychiatrist and medication, and they are relieved.

June 27, 1990. New York
.

I’ve got a million meetings today, and none of my list making is helping to keep things connected. A meeting with Ellen Salpeter, the young representative of Dyansen Gallery, a large chain of art galleries across the country, about an exclusive contract with Kostabi World to publish a limited-edition graphic series, which will mean huge revenue for Kostabi World and a sizable commission for me. A meeting with Lauren and the Du Art film-lab people—I don’t know why I ever got involved in this project. It’s costing me a fortune and taking up a huge chunk of my time, although Lauren is taking care of all the production details from hiring the cinematographer and crew to organizing the shooting schedule. But I love Lauren to death, and I promised to see the project through to the end—$75,000 at final count. But Lauren could convince me to jump out the window of a skyscraper without a net below me. And we’re shooting footage in Pennsylvania over the weekend with Emmaus, and we’ll all have fun driving in the van and shooting the lead singer performing at his childhood church. Then I’ve got an F.A.O. Schwarz presentation for revamping our William & Clarissa marketing plan. Dinner at Arqua with two Japanese dealers who are interested in a one-hundred-painting deal.

I’ve begun taking on tremendous responsibility for the direction of the studio’s everyday operation. This includes production of paintings from the think-tank stage through painting, titling, invoicing, and shipping. I am also negotiating deals with the large galleries for orders of large numbers of canvases and limited editions of graphics. The goal is to raise enough money quickly—about $800,000—so that Mark can purchase an apartment at the CitySpire Building on West 56th Street. The Prozac is making me
feel highly motivated and energized, and I’m more productive than ever. But while I’m traveling the globe trying to raise money for his apartment, Mark is completely focused on his project for the world’s tallest building, where he plans to house the new Kostabi World as well as live. It will be a building for art, for artists, for galleries and museums. He spends his days drawing sketches of it and actually goes as far as hiring the architectural firm Kohn Pedersen Fox to draw the preliminaries. It’s all he talks about. I’m pretty pissed off that he’s wasting his time on this ridiculous project. When I press him about how serious he really is about it, he expresses surprise. This building has become his passion. His desk and floor are covered with blueprints, and the idea people are busy sketching the world’s tallest building from every angle, around the clock. He is already starting to figure out how he’ll divide the space in this multibillion-square-foot megastructure: between museums, artists, residences, commercial space, and public space. He is racing around Kostabi World in his suit and tie as if he were Donald Trump, not giving any consideration to how it’s all going to be financed. I wonder what the architects are thinking about the whole thing. Mark points to the highest level of the building on a blueprint. “That will be my living space,” he says—yet we still haven’t figured out how to buy his apartment at CitySpire. Now I realize I’m dealing with a lunatic.

After dinner at Arqua with clients from a new Japanese gallery, I take a cab back uptown to my apartment. It doesn’t feel like I’m going to be staying here too long—I’m restless. No phone messages. There’s nothing on television. The
T
-word is coming on—trouble. Drugs. Sex. I’m not going back downtown or out to a bar. I could order in sex. But I’m not paying for it tonight. I get on the phone and start talking to a few different guys on one of the phone-sex lines. Nobody too interesting. Finally I hear a guy who sounds good. Nice voice. Good laugh. His name is Jeffrey. “Bi-curious” with a girlfriend. Always the most fun and fucked-up
kind. He’s been partying for a few hours, smoking coke. We talk for ten minutes about lots of things. Work. (He’s a television producer.) Sex. What else? What he likes to do. He’s a top. He’s a big voyeur. He gets off on beautiful bodies. He likes watching guys fuck girls. (We’ve got a few things in common.) Says he’s in the mood to party and play. He’s in the 60s between Park and Lexington. I figure I’ll give it a shot. I take his number and call him back. He answers. Phone-line protocol. I take his address. Get dressed. Jeans. T-shirt. V-neck sweater. Take a few thousand dollars from the freezer. My frozen assets. Never know.

The concierge rings apartment 35B and announces my arrival. He’s a bit curt. I get the sense that I’m not the first visitor of the evening. I nervously ride the elevator, slightly buzzed, wondering if I reek of the five or six vodka tonics I consumed earlier this evening. Fuck it. I’ve got nothing to lose. I ring the bell and the door opens. Standing in front of me is a good-looking guy, about thirty years old, six-feet-two, 190 pounds, messy brown hair, green eyes, a cleft chin, and a worked-out chest and arms. Real straight boy. Looks kind of like he could do a deodorant commercial. He’s wearing a light blue UCLA T-shirt and a pair of jeans. He’s barefoot. Next to him is Einstein, his golden retriever puppy. We shake hands and he invites me in. Big hands. Solid grip. Good eye contact. It’s safe to go in, I tell myself.

Jeffrey’s apartment is a bit of a mess. My first instinct is to offer to help him clean up a little. He invites me to sit down and relax and offers me a drink. Vodka and Scotch bottles and empty Diet Coke cans cover the glass coffee table in front of the matching white Palazetti couches. He brings me a glass with ice. I point to the vodka, and he pours me a generous drink. Einstein is under the table, which is littered with Marlboro Lights, full ashtrays, pipes, lighters, an old Blimpie sandwich, and back issues of
New York
magazine. He lifts his glass to mine. “Here’s to good friends,” I say. “Tonight is kind of special,” he adds. We laugh. It’s unusually quiet thirty-five stories high. The lights are dim. This guy is making me nervous, so I take a drink. He asks me if I’m in the mood to smoke some coke, and I tell him I’m
always
in the mood to
smoke coke. I sound like an addict. He double-checks that all the shades are drawn. He puts on Blondie. “Heart of Glass.” Much better. Time for drugs. He fills the pipe with some crack and takes a big hit. He’s leaning back on the couch and lifting his hips off the launchpad, lips pursed, smiling. He refills the pipe and passes it to me. I take a deep breath of the white smoke, and it tastes like a creamy vanilla dessert—it’s so rich and fluffy it goes straight to my cock and balls. They’re tingling. I’m as high as I can go on my chart. Suddenly I care about Jeffrey and Einstein. They’re mine. I put my arm around Jeffrey’s shoulder and rub his neck. He puts his head between his knees and starts laughing. We laugh together. We just sit next to each other on the couch waiting out the high. I’m petting Einstein. I get up and go to the bathroom and spot a Cindy Sherman photograph on the wall that I really like. Shit. He’s got a Cindy Sherman photograph. I don’t say anything. Maybe I can get him so fucked-up that I can steal it. I piss in his sink and go back into the living room. We’re both barefoot at this point, so now there are two sets of naked feet on the white carpet underneath the glass coffee table. We take another hit. He stands up, takes off his jeans, and throws them on the floor. He’s getting serious. Of course this guy doesn’t wear underwear. Faggot. I should have known. He walks around the room showing off his ass. Not bad. He sits on the couch and turns on the VCR and starts watching a video of a group of guys taking turns fucking a blond girl with big boobs. He lubes up his cock with some lotion on the coffee table and starts jerking off in front of me. He smiles. I guess this is what I came here for. I take a hit until I feel real turned-on and sit down next to Jeffrey. I pull off my jeans and briefs and start sliding my hand up and down my cock. Then I start stroking his. It’s pretty massive when it gets totally hard. It looks like a missile or a rocket. I’d like to have one that big. I don’t know what for. Just for show, I guess. Out of nowhere he asks me my last name. I stumble for a minute, then give in and tell him. He tells me he knows my sister. I guess my jaw drops. He starts laughing. Jeffrey has this incredibly deep laugh. Great. He knows my sister. Should we call her now or wait until we’re done? I’m fucked now. Guess
what? I just jerked off with your brother. I’m craving another hit of coke, so I smoke some more and get even more turned-on. On the coffee table is a framed picture of Jeffrey and another guy, who looks just like him. It’s his brother. He probably has a big missile dick, too. They’re with their mother and father skiing in Aspen. They’ve been watching this entire display of lewd behavior from the coffee table the whole time. I’m a little embarrassed for Jeffrey.

Jeffrey gets up and announces that he’s going to take a shower and that I should make myself at home. I already feel at home. I’m in my briefs. Watching television. Eating popcorn. Einstein is snoring under the table. Once I hear the shower running, I start rifling through Jeffrey’s desk. I feel like I’m on a game show desperately searching for clues to something.
Beat the Clock
. On his desk is a photo of Einstein with a ribbon on his head at Christmas. The frame is monogrammed with the initials PJB. Something’s off. I find his wallet with his driver’s license, an American Express card, a Citibank card, all bearing the name Patrick J. Bailey. I should have figured. The old use-your-middle-name-as-your-first-name trick. I’ll deal with this. Then I find rubber-banded piles of pictures of him at black-tie events with lots of beautiful girls and boys getting drunk and celebrating with their arms around one another holding champagne bottles. There are even some of him with Calvin Klein standing near a pool—looks like Miami or Los Angeles. He’s got about $1,000 in cash and a bunch of Chinese menus. And crack pipes. Lots of them. I go into the refrigerator, and it’s empty except for some peanut butter and jelly and bread. I’m not in the mood for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I find his passport on top of the refrigerator. It’s brand-new. He must be going somewhere soon. Bad picture. Looks like Marcus Schenkenberg on a bad day. Probably spent the night before partying. He comes out of the bedroom wearing just a robe and tells me he feels much better and that I should take a shower. He gives me a towel, a pair of sweats, and a T-shirt to change into. I jump into the shower and stand under the jet of some Sharper Image faucet gadgetry that pulses on my brains. I start coming back to life. I use his Kiehl’s grapefruit liquid soap and feel like I’m sterilized and ready for
surgery. I dry off and walk back into the living room, where
Patrick
is smoking more coke.