WHAT LEADS US to do the wicked things we do? I mean, the truly perverse, heinous stuff? Is it the devil? Or some self-destructive impulse? Some kind of illness buried deep in our bones? Or is it about hopelessness, in the end? 

   About desperation?

   Hey, listen up.

   Ain’t easy being a mama in this world. This much is true.

   Being an artist who’s female is even worse.

   Yeah, go ahead. Roll your eyes. Laugh.

   But here’s the sick truth:

   All I ever wanted to do was to make art. To earn the respect of my peers. To contribute something of cultural value.

   I never thought the path I would take would earn me the contempt and ridicule of my family and friends, or, worse, land me in big trouble with the law.

   Never thought the path I would take would go so far as to make me and my ex-best friend, Serena, the butt of some national joke, featured in opening monologues of the Tonight Show and Late Night—featured on the cover of The National Enquirer and The NY Post—my name and face dragged through the mud.

   I was an embarrassment to all. Called a whore, a man-hater, a castrating dyke and a pornographer.

   What could I say to all this?

   During the trial—televised on Court TV—when I stood up in my own defense and cried, “But I’m a victim of circumstance!” the jury all laughed. So did the judge—also, a woman. Even my court-appointed lawyer chuckled a little. He tried to hide that fact. But I still caught it.

   All right, so maybe I am an idiot.

   But who would have known that things could go so wrong?

   Should I call on God—or the devil—to help me out, here?

   Oh shit.

   Where to begin?

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   Serena.

   I first met her as a photographer.

   Photography is what I do. My love, my art, if you want to call it that.

   Serena was fronting a band called The Sirens, probably the 3^rd or 4^th Lower East Side band she’d started since the age of 15.

   Serena’s calling—or art—was performance. The Sirens was a post-punk performance band. By “performance” I mean they incorporated a stage show that was one part F.Y. performance art. She flipped the audience and used stage props like giant “labial” wings and fruit-colored jelly dildoes. Part of her job as performance artist/band leader was to provoke an audience, as well as entertain them.

   Often, it was said, she did neither.

   But, it wasn’t like she couldn’t sing. Don’t believe the haters.

   Anyway, I was granted full access to photograph her band on tour. Her first national tour, which included six states, places like Austin Texas, Portland Oregon, Chicago Illinois … right back to New York Fucking City, where she and I are from.

   We were both 19.

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   Of course, rents being what they are in NYC, Serena couldn’t earn a living from her art. Her website, DIY-printed paraphernalia, and T-shirts helped, but they weren’t enough. My own photography earned me close to nothing. Serena was a little better off, but she still had to scam money, as I did, through temp jobs and the like. She even tried starting a cleaning service, which I was a part of.

   That lasted three weeks.

   People are pigs and when I found myself on my hands and knees scrubbing crystallized cat pee from a bathroom tile floor, I thought, “This is it: as low as it gets.”

   (Little did I know.)

   Serena? Forget it. She would get high half the time and not even bother showing up.

   Oh yeah. She liked to get high, Serena. I forgot to mention that. I mean, okay, I did too, on occasion. But Serena took it to a whole other level.

   And if there was yeyo around, forget it.

   That fine white powder was her weakness. No shit.

   I maybe smoked when someone lit a bowl—not to seem unfriendly. Even scored a little weed on my own, now and then.

   Harmless shit.

   I liked to drink, too, in local E.V. bars. I never turned down a Raspberry Stoli and soda. Especially if it was free.

   But Serena? The word to use was “ravenous.” There wasn’t a drug on this earth she hadn’t tried. And I’ve seen her put away a dozen shots of Maker’s Mark in one sitting and still ask for more.

   In the beginning of our relationship, she kept asking me for drugs.

   “I don’t have any,” I would tell her. “No money either.”

   “Yeah, babe,” she would laugh. “You and me both.”

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   Call it a lifestyle issue, then, or plain bad luck, money was a sore spot, always.

   Earning it honestly, of course, was out of the question. To do that meant killing endless hours as a wage slave, which she could no longer afford to do, or additional schooling to pursue better opportunity, the cost of which she could afford even less.

   “Money makes whores of all of us,” my boyfriend Raymond once said. And I agree.

   One way or another, we all have to find ways to make it.   

   Serena, being a resourceful gal, cooked up all kinds of schemes that didn’t finally involve having to take all her clothes off. One of her schemes, early on, involved taking out free ads on craigslist.

   Looking back on it now, I can be judgmental and say it was fucking weird, say it was wrong. So can she. Now.

   But we live in a free market economy, which promotes exploitation, and capitalism is the breeding ground for corruption. What can I say?

   Besides, there were other factors, other needs … ones you’ll hear about, as this true-life tragicomedy unfolds.

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