Gomer

I went to the NYC monthly show at the Penta for most of high school. There was never any adult oversight outside of the convention itself—Jay reveled in rulebreaking. He put millions of dollars' worth of cocaine up his nose over the few years I knew the man, and liked to have the kids out of sight and mind. The rules were, "Work starts at seven. Don't die." and he would set us loose in whatever strange and hostile city was buying merch this week. I can only imagine how bizarre a childhood this sounds to today's youth—even at home, I was a latchkey kid. I woke up to an empty house, got myself off to school from age 7 on, and came home to an empty house after. I saw my parents for 45 minutes at dinner, otherwise only when they wanted to share something.

Mostly, I read books and raised myself. I was safe, strangely enough, wandering around Greenwich Village at fifteen years old, looking twelve and bewildered. I looked too vulnerable, and predators took pity/sensed a setup. Still do. Remember—this was the bad old days of NYC. Before Guiliani had all the squeegee people rounded up and shot, and I fortunately never even pulled the flick knife I bought. It literally was the only thing I had on me worth stealing. I never did many drugs because nobody would sell them to me. I recently spent time homeless in Africa and the locals all looked out for me.

I know Chicago throws one hell of a 4th of July party. Gomer and I got off on the wrong subway stop and had to hoof it a good mile or more through the barrio. I'm reasonably inconspicuous, but Gomer is six foot five with flaming red hair. The little kids were shooting bottle rockets at us. We ended up by Lake Michigan, and Gomer had me hold his shoes and shirt while he swam out to a party on a boat docked in a marina.

I'm sitting on shore feeling abandoned, and sober, and when I saw him crack his second beer I swam out to join, burdened by two shirts and sets of shoes. I barely made it, but we were both competitive swimmers. Only the watchers were freaking out. It turns out he was only staying on the boat because the water was vile, and there was a taxi boat for getting back to shore. Gomer was just waiting to be picked up. I got a beer out of it, but ended up scrubbing diesel residue off for 45 minutes.