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Teg --

What a fucken life.

I haven't forgotten you, nor your letter, nor the fact that there were
questions in your letter that are for-now unanswered. One I remember
was need vs.~desire. It occurred to me to ask in return: what is the
difference 'tween need and desire. (Besides the obvious I need water
and desire a new stereo, etc.) I did come up with one answer but I
think it was obvious and unsatisfying.

But I'm digressing (can't you tell).

What a fucken life.

Great zine, BOS. Boy, I hope I stay on your good side so's I don't
warrant a public flaying. But I guess I'm not worried anyhoo. Har har.
Kidding aside, one thing to think of: you chastised someone once for
airing dirty laundry in public. Is that not what you did with Mark
Ewart? It seemed quite personal to me, though none of our zines are
exactly of broad-scale interest I suppose\dots

I'll get dirt out of the way first.

I talked to Bruce LaBruce the other night on the phone. Matt Smith
came by, and showed me a copy of his rant/guest ed.~for queer MRR.
(One of which I just purchased; according to Matt, it's definitely
good. Haven't even glanced at it yet.) After reading it, I wrote a
quick letter, saying too bad we didn't talk at SPEW but we were both
busy, etc. Included an ENOUGH ROPE.

So he called a week later. He appreciated ER, as expected. We talked
dirt in the predictable manner, including you. He said ``Teg, he
seemed upset that we didn't talk serious or something.'' or something
to that effect. I told him of your experiences at SPEW. You should to
know (since i'm telling you now) that BlaB is, actually egotistical,
of course, and he {\it does} work the {\bf Bruce} thing way hard, but
he definitely intentionally overacts it poking at himself the whole
time. (Complicated by his old routine that covered up for his constant
drunkenness; routine in the Burroughsian sense. He stopped drinking,
but the Routine remains.) He claims his soon-to-be-released zine
MONSTAR will address this specifically, I'm sure in his usual obtuse
is-he-serious way. 

Which brings me closer to, but not yet at, the present.

Things are really, really bad, and really, really good.

The changes in my life from discovering the extent of my hypoglycemia
remain amazing. It has changed everything. Except for a couple of
times getting overtaxed, I haven't freaked out since SPEW. I just
gotta eat, eat, eat. Not quality, or quantity even, just constancy. It
has changed the way I look at nearly everything.

One of the positive side effects is I'm meeting boys, having dates and
occasionally sex. Truly good sex Fri.~night. Not great, but solidly
Good. (Great takes practice.) I've always been good as visualization
(my mother does it, that's where I got it), and with my head being
clearer and all, things have improved. Last week I had three (3)
tentative dates, alas, which collapsed, then I met Barry Fri.~night at
KLUBSTITUTE, but then one of them (Daniel) called yesterday (Sat.) and
Todd was at KLUBSTITUTE EAST Sat.~night. Barry is odd (of course).
Skinny, 120lbs., pierced everything, but homemade, not a Tribal
fashion clone. Definitely a freak. We did the stay up til 4am
smooching thing out at Tire Beach (an amazing desolate mile-long
abandoned pier with promontory of rubble jutting out into San
Francisco Bay) then wonderful masturbatory sex til late AM. Giant
ears, he looks like an elf.

Todd is 6-foot-6, skinny as me, 21 (so he says), and as fucked up as a
suburban kid can be. Well, not {\it that} bad. But close. He hustles,
and is schizo about sex ``vs.'' friendship/closeness in that
predictably suburban hustler way. So our relationship is basically me
being his mentor. No sex involved, alas. It's kinda OK though. He
freaks out over his thought processes, and I have to convince him it's
only because he has a brain, and the only odd thing is that he notices
it's working parts. He tells me of his absurd, half-hearted suicide
attempts. I think they will abate. He simply needs someone to take him
seriously, and I don't mind, cuz I actually like the fucking freak boy
and he knows it. 

Oh, how else can I evade getting to the point. I know!

I discovered this cool thing I haven't explored yet re:~my
hypoglycemia. When I get hungry (blood sugar drops) I start yawning a
lot, then I get tired, though when I try to sleep it's slightly hard
to (I do not have any trouble sleeping at all otherwise). My 
not-quite-asleep state is of course the hypnogogic state. I now have a
fairly easy to repeat method of inducing it, without unpleasant side
effects, other than I have to manage my caloric intake before and
after. I will follow up on this once the localize crises are over.

OK here we go.

Fucken Deke, I could kill him. Or, I may not have to. He's doing a
good job all by himself.

Did you know the extent of his speed (aka crystal methadrine just to
be crystal clear he he) use? It's pretty fucking high. Bad puns
intended. Worse, he's a needle freak, he loves the needle part.

This is a very, very long story. I am not sure I want to, or can, tell
the whole thing. I know I can represent ``his side'', even though of
course objectivity is impossible under any circumstances. It wears me
down just thinking of it.

Not sure what you knew (ie.~factually), but your paragraph about
Deke's walls in BOS being his own construction was right-spot-on. 

Apparently it's been going on for a long time. He's good at being
sneaky, and I've been good at not noticing. Not a denial thing, not
noticing. He's always been erratic anyways, you know? One of his more
interesting, if not finer, points. 

From the ``beginning''. Beginning of my part that is.

A few months ago along with the zillion other things we talked about,
speed came up. I don't fucking like it, or more accurately, the social
context in which it exists, and the destruction that seems to be
always around it. He kept defending it as a ``tool'' and other
specific things I cannot recall.

I specifically remember taking it very seriously, in that I handled it
very hard-edged ethically: I told him my opinions of the 
speed-package-deal, told him I thought that his doing it was dangerous
for all the seemingly-obvious reasons, plus if use escalates, as it
always seems to, that it will eventually involve his friends against
their will, and that I believed that his use would escalate to that
point simply because of my observations. I also told him I was not
going to moralize, nor was I going to ever ``support'' his decision,
as he put it. He mentioned needle use at this time somewhere.

This or something like it happened I think three times total in a
month or so.

So it was obvious to me that it was escalating, in the predictable
manner, and his excuses and reasons were all predictable too (``a
quarter lasts me a long time'' etc).

So, I started talking to some of my trusted friends (Valerie, Diet,
etc) about it, and for information on how to deal with that point
when/if he gets out of control and it starts to become his friends
business. (ie. creepy friends, cops, crazy behavior, etc).

Apparently I talked to one or two too many people. Word got out. I
have to admit, I did not think about the consequence. In my defense,
I'll only say that he never told me it was a secret, either. Whatever.

So it blew up. He heard of me talking to people in some roundabout
way. He was angry, but rational, and when I told him the story,
understood, but wanted to know what I was going to do to fix it. I
told him I would honestly think about it. This was about two weeks
ago, in NEW YORK PIZZA in the Castro.

Though it was ``rational'' (ie.~the parameters of our conversation
remained within bounds I did not consider unusual for us) it got
heated, and hurt a bit on both sides, understandably. He was arguing
``rationally'' in favor of his needle-speed use, and I was saying, if
you choose this path, at some point (assuming escalation, etc) I will
reevaluate our friendship, etc. He said it means I did not trust him,
with broad implications. I reiterated my judgment (he emphasized that
word) was based upon observed fact, that I thought his speed use would
escalate, etc. We left it at that, on more or less decent terms.

Two days later he blew up. I don't know the chain of events. He called
on the phone and ranted. This is about 10 days ago. He pushed the
trust thing, and me cutting off his friend, etc. I was caught
unawares, and fell into the trap. 

Later I realized -- he was in koo-koo mode that last time we talked in
the pizza place. See, I was assuming, for that conversation, that he
was arguing more or less dispassionately, that his speed use was
intentional, conscious, a tool at his disposal, and not a problem. So
I was trying to explain that, when it escalated it would become a
problem, etc.

Well, it was {\it already} a problem at that point, only I didn't know
it. So here I am, talking to my best friend, someone pretty freaked
out, and telling him I'm gonna basically cut him off. Oops.

Two more days later, after having spoken a few words with his roommate
Matze ({\it maht - zuh}) (beautiful German punk boy) who pointed out
that Deke was pretty far gone, and what he needed now was friends. So
I called him up, to arrange to talk to him, and tell him I still
wanted to be his friend. He was post- post- etc and calm. Turns out,
he had a house-meeting with Matze and Debby anyways, so I was invited.
This was last Friday AM.

It was pretty OK, energy-wise. He reiterated his ``decision'' to do
speed, and told us of the wonders of needle use, etc. It wasn't a
problem, it was a tool, etc. Turns out, it's been going on for a year,
though I think the needle part less than that. I don't know. So who is
this Deke person anyways?! I told him, lucky for me with witnesses,
that we gotta start our friendship over in some basic ways.


I was never able to explain to him that the ``I'm cutting you out of
my life'' thing was my response to what I assumed was a ``rational''
decision of his to pursue a needle-speed use, and not cutting off of a
friend in need.

As you've probably seen, there was a script being played out; no
matter what the players did, it unfolded as written. Only Deke can
rewrite it.

And last night, if there was any doubt\dots{} I took him to
KLUBSTITUTE EAST, too long to explain but it's 18-over kinda suburban
newly out kids and snooty blond disco bunnies mixed with Diet's
KLUBSTITUTE friendly weirdos. (Not bad for one sentence.) 

He immediately had a bad time, but that's not new, and until my
metabolic change, I would have too. It was rather clean-cut overall,
and you know Deke\dots{} whatever. At one point, we're setting on
either side of this railing thing, me on a big speaker, him at a
table. He's mumbling GERMs lyrics, etc. (Not too unusual.) Then he
lays his right arm on the railing, grinds his cigarette out on his
forearm, then looks forlorn. I say, (because it was so obviously
contrived), ``Very punk, Deke.'' He says no or something, then ``the
pain last only a few seconds, the scar forever'' then points to the
scars on his left arm, self-inflicted I believe a long time ago. Then
he grabs my hand HARD and doesn't let go. (For added drama, Todd the
aforementioned space-case fuckup runs over and sits next to me and
leans on me, the most intimate he's ever been. (A minute or two later
he tells me to remove my arm from behind him, so that people will know
that he's ``free'' (his word).) This lasted for a few minutes, which
seemed like hours; Deke on my left, clutching me, Todd on my right,
smiling and pushing his warm bony body into mine. My mind folded
inward for a moment.)

On the way home, he's quoting GERMs and NECROS lyrics endlessly, the
ones about ``sticking the needle in'' and suicidal stuff etc.  As I
drop him off, he says he had a good time in spite of himself. I was at
a loss of words.

Two days later (Tues.) he called me. Sounds completely fine. It's like
two different (or more) people. 

There are many parallel texts here, of course. A sampling follows.

Clay: RIOT GEAR co-conspirator? He used to have a speed problem,
relatively slight as those things go, and a bad self-esteem problem,
which he's doing just fine with. He was doing the (I hate this word)
``enabling'' thing with Deke; walking with him to the needle-exchange,
hanging around while Deke got high, etc. At some point in the past,
Deke had told Clay to ``tell me when I'm fucking up'' (I remember
doing that to my best friend as we were about to embark on the usual
13-yr-old experimentation with pot and LSD\dots), so, Clay did. Deke
did not like it. Then Clay wrote Deke a letter, saying he's not
working in zines with him, that Deke's speed trip is too near and too
painful and such for him to deal with. (Clay isn't callous and didn't
do it without some thought. We talked about it a bit.)

So now I've told you. Since telling people about it is what triggered
this wave of trouble (it would have happened anyways), I'll probably
get in trouble again when he finds out I told you. It's Deke's
business, after all, as he maintains. At what point is it ``mine''? 

\vskip.5in

That ``boy of dubious racial background''? Damian. Last I knew, a
part-time junky. I can get contact info if you so desire.

Deke's other friend Damian, also of dubious racial background (who I
thought you meant at first! until I realized he wasn't at SPEW, though
he is from LA!) is also a nodder and speed do-er. Needle style. Great.

So things are Not Good in San Fag Sicko. But this has {\it always}
been SF's ugly underside. Literally evry single person I knew/know who
got HIV up until a year or two ago, had done IV drugs of some sort.
The party circuit here is particularly ugly; was so in the 70's, still
is now. It's no longer glamorous to vomit in public, so you see less
of it on the streets. Progress?

Diet and I have been kinda freaking out lately over all this. There
are more well-along needle users in our midst, and we were surprised
at how many we didn't know about. One was caught stealing cash (big
surprise). One person doing opiates ``last year'', now clean. We
always wondered why she seemed so\dots slow. Big fucking fag/punk
local columnist, speed fool. Ditto his roomies and friends. Most of
them sneak around, quite well. It's no longer considered cool to vomit
or OD in public. How times change.

A friend, one my earliest HOMOCORE correspondents, who now lives here,
his best friend Paul X from Philly, just OD'd back in PA. I knew Paul
sorta, we corresponded, met when he visited here.

I wonder how much of this is the old world leaving. The new one, the
MTV kids who are now what's populating gay bars, don't even have that
tiny useless bit of socialization from the previous generation (even
if it meant just getting cruised by those 10-years older). People my
age, 30's, are either fucking dead now, dropping dead, or taking care
of the near-dead. And the nasty party drugs will go with them. NOT.

I genuinely don't know how to transmit the information. The fucking 
E-heads will probably all have Parkinson's from consuming shitty MDMA. 

I've been having this foreboding this last month, even before this
Deke/speed thing. Maybe I merely felt it coming. I also felt a sense
of relief somehow. Pressure had been building for a long time. A
couple of times I tried to talk to him, when I was feeling really
shitty and lonely and depressed, and he cut me out, ASAP. Once, OK, he
was a bit drunk and I had just dropped in. But three, four
times\dots{} needless to say it put a bit of distance between us, even
if he doesn't recall it or agree if he does.

So besides being stressed out (I developed this cold\dots), and not
able to concentrate on some of my projects, and all the too-obvious
side effects of all this, I'm not depressed or whatever. It is not
making my life and world dissolve into undifferentiated mush. If
anything, it's having the opposite effect. I can tell the
righteousness part from the others, it's not that. I'm not exactly
sure what yet.

The foreboding is broader than that though. War that has been 
a-brewing for a long time. War on wierdos, for control of resources
and for control itself. End-game time. It's like some sort of
survivalist-like thing, ie.~the need to consolidate, plan for winter,
complete some things, and start others that will carry on in the mean
time. Rather vague. In any case, I won't be packing guns and supplies
up into the hills or anything, I don't mean anything that concrete or
literal.

At least I'm getting laid now.

I discovered some mental skills recently that have been not really
dormant, I just didn't realize what it was. A bit terrifying. Testing
underway. Empirical data only so far. For some reason I'm embarrassed
to say: telepath. Probably because it sounds so crazy. Not Star Trek
Dr.~Spock nonsense, it's quite physical, I'm convinced. An
communication device for rather low-level emotional and bodily\dots{}
something. It has been a factor in nearly everything I do, including
the boys I like, the way I learn, etc. (Makes for some rather
effective -- and terrifyingly literal -- visualization. Beware of what
you ask for, you may get it\dots) Skill/sense, or Law of Fives? Time
will tell\dots

That boy Michael I met/obsessed on at SPEW? We're still talking (and
maybe visiting; should know this week). I told him about the Deke
Thing, and he wrote me the best fucking letter. He knew exactly what
was what, put it succinctly and non-judgementally. When I first met
him, I thought he was much older than the 22 he is. He's sometimes
scattered throughout his life (nothing exceptional) but at his core
he's pretty together, ``far wiser than his years'' as the saying goes,
and there's a sadness about him I don't understand, and there are
things we agreed to leave alone until we're face to face again. I get
the sense also (from afar) that he is kind of a stable point for a lot
of his friends. 

I had been converging on it slowly, but Michael put it best: Deke will
simply need to know I still love him. Arguing against his needle thing
etc.~is obviously a dead-end (I figured that much out). He'll
hopefully stop before he kills himself, but he won't be the same
afterwards; as Michael put it, the spark that makes Deke Deke will be
gone because speed will have taken over providing it.

Daniel called tonite. He's the incredibly pretty 18 yr old brilliant
one just moved here from LA. We've got a date for Thursday. I tell ya,
this is unprecedented. I have to schedule dates to avoid
clashes\dots{} this has never happened to me in my life. I am not
complaining. 

When are you going to visit here?


\bye