New Dark Ages Page 8

  “No reports of anything bad,” Laverty said. “And we are certainly paying attention.”

  “That’s good,” I said, and X nodded. “So you think the killer wasn’t there last night?”

  “We don’t know,” Laverty said, her pretty face impassive. I got the sense that she wasn’t being totally candid about something. “Obviously, we’re happy that nothing ser­ious happened.” She paused. “Except for the brawl, that is.”

  X looked away and I blushed. Laverty was already one of the few people who could actually leave me a bit tongue-tied.

  I stammered a bit. “Yes, well, I probably shouldn’t have, uh—”

  “Kicked that fellow in the face?” Laverty said, smiling.

  “Um, yeah.”

  “I agree,” she said, looking at us like a disapproving parent. “Given what took place in Ottawa and New York, I would suggest, gentlemen, that every effort be made to keep your performances violence free. Obviously.”

  We finished our drinks and discussed the next stop in the tour, which would be in Montreal. Laverty said it was unlikely that she’d be there. It was Canada, and it would require too much paperwork.

  We crossed the border at this little town called Beebe Plain, in Vermont. The main drag was called Canusa Street, and half of it was in America and the other half in Stanstead, Quebec, Canada. Super weird.

  Anyway. Our arrival there — the Hot Nasties in the Econoline, the Punk Rock Virgins following in their station wagon — caused no shortage of confusion for the French-speaking Canadian border guards. When we pulled up and stepped out of our vehicles, the border cops acted like some biker-jacket-wearing space aliens had landed on Canusa Street. I heard what sounded like a lot of French swear words: Câlisse! ­Sacrament! Tabarnak!

  Admittedly, we were probably not the kind of folks they were used to seeing at their sleepy little border crossing. Decked out in black leather, the X Gang ­probably looked like we’d kill someone for spare change. Adding to their consternation was Bembe Smith, this giant, dreadlocked Rasta, wearing white shorts and a bright green Burning Spear T-shirt. And the Punk Rock Virgins, too, all in matching army jackets with “PRV” spray-painted across the back, and with wild, spiked, jet-black hair. Leah ­Yeomanson, meanwhile, was also wearing a T-shirt that read SMASH THE STATE.

  “Bonjour, messieurs,” Bembe said, switching to what sounded to us like perfect French. “Devons-nous ­commencer?”

  Wow. Bembe spoke French. Who knew?

  The border guys stared up at Bembe, mouths agape, and then nodded. “Oui,” one finally said, pointing to the door to their little office building.

  Off they went with Bembe, who had everyone’s passports, as well as the other paperwork: contracts with venues in Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto, addresses for the places where we’d be crashing, a list of all our instruments and gear, and a breakdown of all the merch X sold at the shows — mainly Hot Nasties and Punk Rock Virgins T-shirts, the Nasties’ first extended-play single on Stiff Records, and the Virgins’ homemade cassette collection, Feminist as Fuck.

  We waited outside for Bembe, where we got a lot of stares from the locals. Now, when you’re on the road with a band, you quickly learn things about yourself and the people you’re traveling with. Weird alliances get formed, health inevitably deteriorates, friendships get strained, romances begin and end. And sometimes, bands break up.

  None of that stuff had happened yet, but there was no shortage of tension, that’s for sure. The knowledge that our pre-tour had maybe resulted in the deaths of three people — Johnny Raindrops, Colleen Tomorrow, and the kid in Ottawa, Nuclear Age — had left us all with no shortage of guilt. It was hard to enjoy ourselves when people who had come to see us were getting, you know, killed.

  I needed some speed.

  So, as we waited for Bembe, I thought about how the Nasties-Virgins caravan had already formed little groups. There was X and Patti, off in their own ­ultracool, stoic Punk Rock Super Couple world. There was Mike and Bembe and Sister Betty and Leah ­Yeomanson, ­improbably, having a grand old time, ­despite how ­totally different they all were — the ­biker, the ­Rastafarian, the skinny white punk rock girl, and the skinny Native- American punk rock girl. There was Sam, ­Eddie, and Luke, of course, sticking as closely together as they had done since ­Jimmy Cleary had been killed. And then there was me, with my new best friend, ­Baggie.

  I know, I know. I shouldn’t have been treating speed like it’s a food group. But, when you’re on tour like we were, speed was kind of indispensable, you know?

  The problem was (a) sleep and (b) the weird hours. On tour, you don’t get nearly enough of (a) because of (b). But you need to maintain (b), because the shows are usually pretty late at night, and so (a) suffers. Sleeping in a Ford Econoline — or on the floor of a Holiday Inn, because you don’t want to crash in the same bed as Eddie Igglesden, and Sam Shiller and Luke Macdonald had decided to share the other queen-size bed — doesn’t work too well.

  So, you start looking for a bit of pharmaceutical assistance. Some guys do smack, some do coke. Being in a penniless punk rock band, all I could presently afford was speed. It did the trick.

  My consumption accordingly started to go up. My weight and mood started to go down. The others ­started to notice.

  While Bembe was still inside talking to the border guards, Sister Betty strolled over to the patch of grass where I was sitting. I’d been watching sedans full of regular folks — Mom, Dad, and 2.5 white kids — get waved through the border crossing without being asked anything. They would stare at me; I would stare back.

  Sister Betty sat down beside me.

  “Hey, big brother. How’s it hangin’?”

  “Hangin’ long and low, little sister,” I said. “Hangin’ low.”

  She laughed, which made me laugh. I looked at her. She wasn’t as drop-dead gorgeous as Patti, but she was still lovely. Thousand-watt smile, green eyes, dimpled cheeks.

  Betty Kowalchuk, Sister Betty Upchuck, was the Punk Rock Virgins’ bassist, Patti’s little sister, and probably the glue that held us all together. Patti was like X, sort of: quiet, a bit moody, intense. Betty was like the pre-speed me: louder, upbeat, easygoing. But Betty, I liked to say, was also sort of the patron saint of the lost and the lonely. She took in strays, of all human and animal varieties. She volunteered for stuff, helping out little old ladies at bake sales and veterans in fundraising drives. And she was the one who could always keep the X Gang’s factions in a state of balance and harmony.

  I thought she probably had a promising career ahead of her in the U.S. diplomatic corps.

  Like everyone else, Betty had been observing me with growing concern — and maybe even alarm. With the exception of X, most of us had always done the same drugs everyone else did — weed, mushrooms, the occasional tab of acid. But the speed thing was new, and Sister Betty was concerned. Unlike X, however, she had a way of talking to me about it that didn’t make me feel defensive and angry.

  “So,” she said, trying to sound casual, and not entirely succeeding. “You look like you’ve lost some more weight, there, big brother.”

  I shrugged. “Corporate Deathburger,” I said, meaning McDonald’s. “Junk food doesn’t agree with my constitution. I’m a delicate punk rock flower, remember?”

  Sister Betty didn’t smile. “It’s not McDonald’s that’s making you lose weight, baby,” she said, serious. “It’s something else.”

  I winced. “Oh, you’re not going to give me a lecture like him, are you?” I said, gesturing in the direction of Patti and X, both of whom were leaning against the Punk Rock Virgins’ station wagon, talking in low tones. We watched them. X said something to Patti that we couldn’t hear, and then he disappeared into the Canadian border guard hut.

  “No,” Betty said, shrugging. “No, I’m not going to lecture you. It wouldn’t work, anyway.” She paused. “I’d just like you to cool it a bit, you know?”

  She didn’t want to annoy me, but she was annoying
me, a bit. The speed — a line or two of which I’d done before we left Burlington — did sometimes give me a less-sunny-than-usual disposition, I admit.

  “Look, I’m fine,” I said. “There’s no fucking problem. Everything’s fine, okay? Besides, from what I’ve seen, the only people causing us trouble on this tour are those fucking straight edge fanatics, you know? The ones who, like X, have sworn off drugs …”

  I stopped. X was walking straight toward the patch of grass where Sister Betty and me were sitting. Quickly.

  “Uh-oh,” Sister Betty said, watching X.

  Uh-oh is right.

  He stopped and stood over us, his face dark. “Bembe is doing his best to delay them, but the customs guys are demanding a search of all of our bags. They are going to be coming outside any minute.”

  “Fuck,” I said.

  “Betty, you need to go inside and help Bembe delay them,” X said, glaring at me. “Kurt, there is a men’s bathroom out back. You need to get to your bag, right now, get whatever is in there, and flush it down the fucking toilet. Do you understand me?”

  “X, look—”

  “Shut up, Kurt.” His eyes were black. “Just do it.”

  I blinked. It felt like he had slapped my face.

  My eyes stinging, I scrambled to my feet and quickly went over to the Econoline. I could feel everyone watching me as I went. Reaching for the door handle, I saw that my hands were shaking.

  CHAPTER 13

  The strategy, if that is what it could be called, was working. Card-carrying Republicans were flocking to his campaign. Soon enough, so was a senator from Kentucky, then some congressmen from Florida and Michigan and Wisconsin.

  Earl Turner was winning.

  He wasn’t burning any crosses at his well-attended campaign rallies, but he could have, and no Republicans would have cared. The junior representative from Maine had gone full-bore racist, and the Grand Old Party of Abe Lincoln was eating it up. “America for Americans! America for Americans!” the mob chanted at his rallies. Turner would stalk the stage, urging them on, big fist pumping the venomous air.

  The media, and official Washington, were flummoxed. They didn’t get it. No mainstream party candidate had openly peddled prejudice like this for generations. How could it possibly be working? On the day in New Hampshire when Turner declared that he would hold refugees at detention centers — so they could be vetted and checked for “communicable diseases and links to terrorist groups,” he told the cheering crowd in Concord — the media went bananas.

  “Earl Turner has gone too far this time,” the serious-sounding pundits said on PBS political panels. “With his promise to place refugees in Nazi-style concentration camps, Turner has dealt a death blow to his presidential hopes,” they’d say.

  “This is a nation built by refugees and immigrants,” the New York Times editorialized. “Mr. Turner himself is the descendant of immigrants from Great Britain. Under his announced policy, Mr. Turner’s great-great-grandparents would have been barred entry into the very country he seeks to lead. Shame on him.”

  And so on and so on. The press called Turner a bigot and a white supremacist and everything in ­between. But to most Republicans, it didn’t matter. The media didn’t understand that the Republican faithful weren’t gravitating toward the Earl Turner campaign despite his racism — they were supporting him because of it.

  In the days after the Concord rally, Danny O’Heran would carry around a copy of the New York Times in an oversized manila envelope. At the appropriate moment in Turner’s speech, Danny would extract the newspaper from the envelope and walk across the stage to hand it to him.

  Turner would hold up the paper and his faithful would boo. Then he’d say: “Thank you, Danny. I want you to stay and listen to this.” And Danny — along with the crowd, wherever it was they were that day — would stand there and listen, fulfilling his assigned role in Turner’s little stage play.

  Turner would quote the editorial, pausing to let the mob boo and call out. When he’d get to the end, to the part about shame, he’d hand the paper back to Danny, who would quickly move offstage.

  “Shame?” Earl Turner would say, big hands up in the air, as if in surrender. “Shame? SHAME?”

  The crowd would go wild.

  “Shame? I don’t care what the pointy-headed intellectuals and elites at the New York Times have to say about me,” he’d say, voice booming. “But they’re talking about you, too, my friends. They’re talking about you — they’re saying you should be ashamed!”

  Boos, catcalls. Chanting.

  “Do you feel ashamed?” Turner would holler, and the crowd would start yelling, “NO! NO! NO!”

  “Should you feel shame for wanting to take back America?”

  “NO! NO! NO! NO!”

  “Should anyone feel shame for wanting to get rid of a gangster from Jamaica, or a heroin dealer from Vietnam, or some God-hating punk, or some pervert from Pakistan?” he’d say. “I don’t feel shame for wanting that! Do you feel shame for wanting that?”

  “NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!”

  And Earl Turner would smile, fist pumping in the air. Danny O’Heran, meanwhile, would watch from the sidelines. The crowds were getting bigger, and they were getting a lot angrier, too.

  Earl Turner was winning.

  CHAPTER 14

  Eager to change the subject from the baggie incident — and not super enthusiastic about what X was going to say to me when he got me alone — I’d picked up a day-old copy of the New York Times at the little ­convenience store in this tiny placed called ­Georgeville, Quebec. After getting across the border, we’d stopped there to get some lunch.

  “Holy shit,” I said to no one in particular, staring at the newspaper’s front page. “Holy fuck.”

  We’d made it across the border, yes. As X had directed, I’d gotten my Doc Martens out of my bag and hustled to the washroom, located at the back of the customs checkpoint. Door locked behind me, I fished the sock out of the boot, extracted the baggie full of speed, and quickly flushed the white powder down the toilet. I had to flush a couple times. There was a lot of it.

  I was rinsing out the baggie with water at the sink when one of the Canadian border guys started knocking on the door. “Monsieur?” I could hear him say. “Est-ce que ça vas?”

  I think he was asking if I was okay. All traces of the speed now flushed away, I stepped out of the can, holding the Docs in one hand, and giving the French-speaking border cop a friendly wave with the other. “Bonjour!” I said, then hustled back to the rest of the X Gang.

  Knowing the journey with the guys in the Econoline would now be a bit frosty, I hitched a ride with the Punk Rock Virgins in their cramped station wagon. Half an hour down the road in rural Quebec, both vehicles pulled over in Georgeville, which looked like a quaint New England hamlet, except all the signs were in French.

  The locals, who all resembled extras in a Ralph Lauren Polo photo shoot, all stared at us like we were circus freaks.

  Just like home!

  Anyway. I was getting a submarine sandwich — the boy wearing the Metro Prep T-shirt at the cash had called it a baguette, I think — when I spotted the New York Times. I quickly forgot about the sandwich, bought the newspaper, and walked out front, where Patti and X were talking with Sister Betty. Without saying anything, I handed them the newspaper.

  “Holy shit,” Sister Betty said.

  “Oh my God.” Patti looked stunned.

  X said nothing, inscrutable as always. The Hot ­Nasties and Leah walked over to see what the fuss was about.

  There, on the front page of the fucking New York Times, was a photo of Earl Turner at a podium in Upstate New York, holding up a copy of what looked like another edition of the New York Times. He seemed to be reading from it.

  And there, just a few feet away, in a dark suit and tie, hands in pockets, was a young man.

  Danny O’Heran.

  CHAPTER 15

  The New York Police Department’s Fifth P
recinct was on Elizabeth Street, just off Canal and a few blocks south of CBGB. The precinct was housed in a four-story old brownstone, wedged between a bunch of bodegas and dry cleaners run by Chinese families. It was crowded, dirty, and run-down, just like the neighborhood it served. In 1980, the Fifth Precinct was no dream assignment for any New York City cop.

  Detective Pete Schenk’s office basically wasn’t one. It was a banged-up metal desk in the middle of Homicide’s space, up on the fourth floor. When FBI special agent Theresa Laverty asked Schenk where they could talk in private, Schenk grunted and pointed at an old wooden chair beside his desk.

  “Let’s go somewhere a bit quieter,” she said. “It’s lunchtime, and I know a place not too far from here … and it’s actually relevant to what we’re gonna discuss.”

  Schenk shrugged and followed her out.

  To Laverty, it took what seemed forever to find a parking spot for Schenk’s rusty old Buick Skylark. But, spot secured, they finally stepped into Fanelli’s, just before the lunchtime rush.

  The bartender, an old guy who was weary and wary all at once, squinted at them. “Want food or drink?”

  “Both,” Laverty said.

  “Then over there.” The bartender indicated a row of small tables covered by red-and-white checkered cloths.

  Fanelli’s had been at the corner of Prince and Mercer in SoHo for more than a century, Laverty told Schenk. It was a bar, first and foremost, but it also served food. Their burgers, she said, were considered the best — and most affordable — in the upscale fashion district west of Broadway.

  Schenk looked around. “This isn’t the kind of place I figured you’d know about, Laverty,” he said, sounding amused. “This looks like the kind of place I’d know!”

  They sat at one of the tiny tables, one that looked out onto the cobblestone on Mercer. Schenk grinned. “I’m impressed. I’ve worked a few blocks away from here for years, and I didn’t even know this place existed. You work way down in Fort Myers, and you do?”