STATESIDE PLEASURE DOME
Melik Kaylan explores
the strange world of a Manhattan drug-dealer
New York THERE is a certain kind of name-dropper whose range of acquaintance grows so wide and nuanced over the course of an evening that, by the end, it always includes one or two notable criminals, inevitably the nicest people he's ever dealt with. This insouciant appreciation of criminals has always struck me as a peculiarly Western vice, no doubt some obscure form of romanticism.
At any rate I have run into a lot of it lately, chiefly in the form of friends re- sponding to a recent Spectator article of mine. The article CA cocaine dealer's investment plan', 15 April) was about a too genteel cocaine dealer I had met in London, a type that I concluded couldn't exist Stateside, where I live. Until I got back here that is. As I found out, in savvier circles it is apparently a little feeble not to number one or two purveyors of the better class of drugs among one's fellows. Indeed, I received numerous offers of introduction.
One came from a young colleague who told me simply that his supplier was a very interesting and odd character who would be worth meeting. But we had to act gingerly, said my friend, for his man was a little highly-strung and dealt with new people reluctantly and only after careful vetting. This seemed fair enough, if a mite inconsistent, since the man also insisted on marketing his wares with elaborate packag- ing gimmicks surmounted by an identifi- able corporate logo — his own. My friend set about persuading our quarry — let us call him Aaron — to risk an interview. It took a fortnight or so and finally we met in the SoHo area of New York where he lives. He turned out to be a white kid in his late twenties, messy-haired and faintly bleary of eye with a little tell-tale wobble in his smile.
Aaron sold only hashish and only the finest quality from Afghanistan. He pre- sented me with a little gift, packaged like expensive perfume. Inside a diminutive faux-porcelain china box topped by a red velvet heart was a square of dark chocolate with cannabis mixed in. It was accompa- nied by one of those little ingredient booklets that you get with medication listing the percentages, from cocoa and sugar down to Psychoactive ingredient: cannabis 4.5 per cent'. This was his most popular product, which he sold thus pack- aged for $10. I asked him why he went to so much superfluous trouble and he ex- plained that he was 'into the future' and this was how drugs would soon be sold; Folk t' North are generally friendlier than folk down South.' that if only they were sold like that now they would not remain illegal for long.
Aaron lives in a loft, a cavernous space once used for light industry common in downtown Manhattan — and very expen- sive. His place is sparsely furnished and overrun with the latest computer gadgetry. He walks around with earphones and a slim attachment that snakes around to his mouth, the sort that air-traffic controllers use, only he uses it for drug dealing. He spends his days communing with his com- puter and with others around the country who do the same. Because he abjures chairs, he has put his computer at the end of his mattress on the floor. He lies full length and extends his arms over the keyboard for hours at a stretch, which, he says, is very painful and requires the right mental attitude'.
Aaron grew up in Manhattan and attended private schools of the liberal sort that only the most affluent can afford. Like many educated people who choose to live by illegal means, he has developed an intricate ideology which is self-consciously hostile to conventional mores. I once knew a highly literate lewd dancer who would read Maupassant, Anais Nin, and Virago paperbacks during her breaks. Aaron's intellectual posturing reminded me of hers in many ways.
Throughout our conversations, Aaron talked with a gelid smile, and shaped his intonation accordingly. His true interest, he said, was in people being allowed to select their own reality. At present the chemical methods were the most efficient and available. Unfortunately, they were illegal. Even when new 'designer' drugs are invented, the government quickly outlaws them. But electronic techniques which were legal and safer, were catching up, he said. Had he tried them? Oh yes, he'd tried them all. Developed from the bio-rhythm machines of the Seventies, which merely gauged your moods through your neuro- waves, the new technology now permitted you to induce specific states. Like flotation tanks, he said, they could relax you to the point of waking hallucinations. Or they could stimulate you. Sexually? Funny I should ask, he was currently experimenting with that, he said.
Sounding, no doubt, a little incredulous by now, I wondered how exactly these things worked in practice. They were either attached to the brain by electrodes, or one could get visors which beamed lights into one's eyes. You could even do it by sound, he said. These machines were called 'psycho-energisers' and there was now a centre in Manhattan where you could pay to have sessions, or buy a machine which you hooked up to your phone and dialled in to the centre for `brainwave massage'. Corporations were investing in them for weary executives, Even Vogue and the Wall Street Journal had written it up, he said. I checked later, and indeed he was right. Had he tried them while high on 'chemicals', as he liked to say? Yes, but the effect changed little. Did he recommend it to his clientele? Yes, usually doctors and lawyers and such, who had stressful jobs, he said.
I must have gawped, because he soured mildly, and explained that his clients, the purchasers of his 'chocolates', were mostly doctors, lawyers and professionals, in fact they were his friends. He often communi- cated with them by computer. I mused on this a while. Finally, I asked him if he had ever considered doing anything else. Yes, he said, he had thought sincerely about joining the armed forces, but had decided that it was really not for him.
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