In this film, Sparger gives the world a movie about Louis Raphael. He intends that people interested in Raphael will find out about him through Sparger. It’s not exactly crooked or illegal. But it’s unjust in some way that’s beyond the reach of human law.
That kind of thing only gets resolved in fairy tales. Which I take it is why you are here before me in that blue and silver dress on this Bowery sidewalk. And why I bow you into Ling’s Fortune Cookie. You’re on everybody’s guest list whether they know it or not.
The Fortune Cookie is new since the last time you were around. Back then the site was still an upscale gay baths. Now it’s a Chinese restaurant with waitresses who happen to be Asian guys. Drag is the gimmick of the moment.
From inside the door we get to see the aging, slightly raddled survivors of the Mudd Club plus their younger tricks and camp followers. The walls are hung with shots from the movie.
Some of the stills are of Raphael’s paintings. Out of backgrounds of dark carnival colors, Caribbean faces stare. Like they’re looking out of a deep, rich night into this bright room. Not angry. Not happy. Glaring not at but right through the viewer. And scrawled on the canvases are phrases in Spanglish and pidgin French, slogans that—when you decipher them—are like bizarre ads. “Breathe Oxygen Every Day,” that one over there says.
Raphael, of course, is dead. And Sparger has yet to make his dramatic entrance. It’s uncool to turn and stare at new arrivals. So everybody glances out of the corner of their eyes as the door opens. It’s obvious from their reactions that they see nothing but me surveying the room. I alone am aware of you. Everyone goes back to watching the murderers.
Two of them are in the room. For an event this big, the jealous sculptor who threw his wife out the thirty-story window and the coke-crazed art dealer who tortured and butchered the fashion design student—both showed up. They arrived separately and alone. Once each realized the other was here, they tried to stay as far apart as possible. Like both are afraid of guilt by association.
It’s the chance to witness this kind of encounter that brings out the crowds. Alert as forest animals, they watch a wife killer/sculptor powerful enough to throw almost anybody out a window, a sadist/gallery owner, sleek and taut, who could be at any throat in a moment. But those things won’t happen. Not to people who have survived Max’s Kansas City, The Factory, and Studio 54. The craziest part is that I’m here to keep out dangerous riff-raff.
In the mundane world, justice is a contest between bad luck and cold cash. The sculptor walked free, the dealer only served time for tax evasion. I almost feel sorry for the murderers. Compared to some of the guests, they seem pathetic. And theirs isn’t the kind of wrong that concerns the Huntsman.
Fairy tale justice is sure, if not always swift, and the punishment is appropriate. My only question is which tale gets told tonight. You smile at the question and there’s a glimmer like gold, like sun-fire when you do.
Seeing that, I remember how I found my place in the world. The place where I got brought up was in the Five Towns out on Long Island. Kind of a surprise right? But I was the tough, poor kid in the soft, rich town. In school, I got kept back once or twice. And I was big to start with.
Dyslexia, as I say, was the problem. My oldest girl has it too. Now they can actually do something. Back then when I reached ninth grade, they sent me to this old lady who sat in a little office in the cellar of the school. Just her and me.
She’d have me read and correct me. Stupid stuff. Not Dick and Jane but very simple sentences. It didn’t seem to help and I hated her at first. Eventually I worked my way up to a book by the Grimm brothers. Those stories stuck with me. Maybe because I’d never read anything else. Or maybe because the old lady was a witch. No disrespect intended, in case you belong to the same union or something.
The characters I liked weren’t the princes or princesses. In fairy tales, they’re a dime a dozen. You can’t tell them apart. Poor tailors and honest woodcutters didn’t do it for me either. I knew what it was like to be poor if not honest.
The out-of-work soldiers, sly, smart and smoky, making deals with the devil, caught me first. Like a prophecy, you know. Because rich kids get into as much trouble as ones in the ghetto. Drugs, stolen cars, breaking and entering: whatever they did they wanted me along as protection.
But the rules are different for rich kids. When trouble came down, they all went into counseling. Forty years ago, poor kids went in the army. Right then that meant ‘Nam. I did my tour in a bad time. When it was over, I became a discharged soldier, every bit as bent and nasty and bitter as the ones in the stories. It happened the devil wasn’t signing deals for souls at that moment or I would have gone that way.
Instead, I bummed around for a couple of years then started to contact old friends. A lot of them had finished college, taken their time about it, and ended up in New York. So I followed them to this city with nothing but a duffle bag with my clothes and the only book I ever read.
But everything was in that book. New York was full of frog cabbies who were actually actor princes under a cruel spell. Cinderella waited tables in every bar. Acquaintances had started their own little kingdoms: clubs and restaurants and galleries. Sometimes those places weren’t in the best neighborhoods, or the patrons forgot their good manners, or the wrong kind of people wanted to come inside. They started calling me.
Maybe a tiny bit wiser, I put the idea of the discharged soldier behind me. There’s another kind of guy in a lot of the stories. He never has the major role. But I didn’t want stardom. He gets different titles: forester, game keeper, the hunter. He plays key parts. And I have the feeling he’s around even when he’s not talked about. Every king or queen needs a royal huntsman. That at least is how it worked in the dark woods of Manhattan.
2
That’s my secret identity. It’s because of Rinaldo Baupre that I discovered it. And it’s because of him that I first saw you in action. Rinaldo is standing over there looking, as always, like he’s in pain. No the years have not been kind to him. Drug treatment. Mental hospitals. It’s like something’s been tearing Mr. Baupre in two.
Sometimes with celebrities, it’s amazing how much smaller they are in real life than in the media. With Rinaldo it’s the opposite. I’m always surprised that he’s average height and build. On first meeting, he seems pretty creepy but in no way misshapen. Inside, though, he’s a dwarf, a troll.
Mr. Baupre wrote the script for Raphael! And he’s treated his own part in Louis’ life very sympathetically. It turns out he was the kid’s mentor and inspiration. Lots of amazing changes have gotten rung on history.