Living with Legends

As you can imagine, a lot of people have been sending e-mails of support and I’ll be posting them throughout the week. Here’s one to get you started.

Say What You Want About Stanley Bard (He Never Sucked The Nipple of a Mugwump)

I heard a rumor that new management was staying in room — and as I am a warm fellow I trotted down to the –-th floor to greet them with a fruit basket and a bottle of moderately priced red wine.

The door creaked open at the first knock and what I saw inside was a nightmarish concoction of Lovecraft mythos and Burroughs imagery.  I tell you my first instinct was to close the door and never look back, but in the dark folds of a stained red bed sheet, illuminated by the sign’s neon glow, I saw a small baby crawling on what appeared to be discarded chicken bones.

I summoned the courage to move my stubborn legs, aware that the floor beneath me was unnaturally sticky, even for the Chelsea.  Maneuvering my way through a tangled web of chains hung like ribbons at a child’s birthday party, I approached the infant, now as still as a doll. Then the door slammed shut behind me.

I turned around and saw, to my utter horror, the headless body of David Elder.  I tell you now, as God is my witness, I thought that my heart would stop right there, but as I found out, there is something beyond fear, that is when your insides turn against you.  When I heard the voice of David Elder I felt the stomach acid sting at the back of my throat, but when I realized that it was not coming from the headless body but from the baby now tugging on my pant leg, I let forth a long volatile spew which very description would induce the same end.

"Are you a tenant?"  It… he asked, but before I could answer two more voices came from the darkness, "Are you an artist? We like artists"

It wasn’t until today when I looked on your blog that I knew who it was I saw when Baby Elder plugged in those tangled blue Christmas lights.  There, in a bib, his body shining, was Andre Balazs and his partner Ira Drukier.  They both looked to be sucking on the body of an old man whose whimpers sent an undulating chill up and down my spine.

Baby Elder, who seemed to be enjoying sitting in a pool of bones and vomit, spoke, "You see, we don’t want to get rid of all the artists.  We need you.  You are our food."  He licked his lips and crawled over to Andre’s lap.

"You’ll never get away with this!" I heard someone saying and then realized it was me.  "We’ll leave!  You can’t keep us here!"  I was beginning to feel my body again.

"Silly artist," said Baby Elder, "We won’t ever ‘keep’ you here." An ungodly moan came out of the old man and I could see, as his head rolled around, that he looked a lot like me.  Baby Elder let out a laugh.  "We can never keep you here if you want to stay."