A Killer Slays Me
The Sunday Times
August 2004
Why do people fall in love with convicted murderers? Maybe the criminal’s celebrity status makes them appealing. There’s definitely something very fresh about a handsome young man crying on camera. That’s where I first saw the Menendez boys – on Court TV, in July, 1993. It’s a channel I usually skim, but instead of skipping past ex-spouses fighting over a custom-made couch, I paused when I noticed Lyle and Erik taking the oath at their pre-arraignment trial in Los Angeles. They were accused of brutally slaying their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. I’d read about their story in the paper, but seeing Erik and his brother humbled in glorious color, well-mannered and shy and adorable, I wondered how anyone could even consider these two to be brutal.
The facts were these: On August 18, 1989, the rich kids with movie star good looks wandered into their parents’ Beverly Hills mansion, and with big rifles, blew the two away. Jose took five bullets, and Kitty, who’d always seemed more fragile, took ten. The boys were turned in by Lyle’s psychiatrist, and it appeared as if two brats had slaughtered their parents for the inheritance, which would’ve been an easy case to prosecute. Until the sexual abuse by their father was revealed during Erik’s tearful testimony. And that’s when my real interest began. Not because I’d been abused physically, but maybe because, like everyone else, I’d thought about putting a couple of bullets through my parents’ heads at Christmas.
The boys were tried separately, so the program would bounce from trial to trial. I watched, transfixed, especially when Erik’s case was being featured. He was sincere, he wrote poetry, and he seemed so much more comfortable on camera, sometimes looking directly at the lens, his left eyebrow arched, a wry smile crossing his full lips, and I wondered, is he staring at me? What’s he thinking about? Is he wondering the same thing about me?
And when, on September 27th, head bowed, heavy with tears, Erik described how he’d been sodomized by his father for bad grades or a poor tennis performance, the jury wept. I wanted to hold Erik, to rub the tension from his muscled neck, which, even in the midst of treacherous prosecutorial questioning, could turn gracefully as he offered a reassuring smile to a relative in court. I watched his every move with my good eye, because I wanted what I thought he wanted – intimacy.
So I wrote, hoping to make the penal system work in our favor. First, I let Erik know that I was there for him. Erik had, eventually, admitted to the crime. I wanted him to know that I respected that sort of honesty. And I queried as to whether or not he’d found a tennis partner in prison?
I lied to him a bit about myself, writing that I was at University, just so he felt comfortable relating to a peer. I didn’t want him to think I was some leering, creepy homosexual with too much time on my hands. I told him I was studying French, and so I was frequently « ma maison » in the day while his trial was on the « television ».
“If you ever need un ami, he could count on me.
Bonjour,
Allen Drake.”
I decided to give as little true information about as possible to this potential lunatic.
I was sure he’d received thousands of fan letters. He was, after all, a media star. So I was surprised when, just one month later, I found his response in my box. I expected a form letter. At least, that’s what Dahmer had sent.
Instead, Erik wrote to me. To me! An out of work comic who does shows at the Edinburgh Fringe when he feels depressed. But Erik didn’t know these things about me. He only knew what I’d lied to him about. And that was his most appealing characteristic. His lack of knowledge about me.
His tone was oddly trouble-free.
“Dear Allen:
Sorry I haven’t responded to your letter until now, but busy isn’t the word for what I’ve been! Anyway, it’s nice to hear from you, and keep in touch.
Thanks – Erik M.”
I read it aloud several times. Then I turned the page over. Nothing on the back.
“busy isn’t the word for what I’ve been.”
These words rang in my head. I thought, this has to be a joke. So where’s the “Ha ha, just kidding!” I was sure a friend was pulling my leg. But I hadn’t told any friends I was corresponding with Erik. I’m not that nuts. Anyway, this was my private time with my boy.
But if I took our relationship so seriously, I couldn’t understand why Erik was responding so casually. Acting as if nothing had happened! He’d killed his parents for God’s sake, and the best he could write was “busy isn’t the word for what I’ve been!” Such a remark almost begs a hand flittering gesture. It sounds like something a queen would say after a full day of shopping. The note seemed almost flamboyant. I was embarrassed.
I considered ending our brief tete-a-tete. Then the gruesome details of the murder scene were explored, and Erik, upon seeing his mother’s face riddled with bullets, broke down again, ringing his hands and pulling at his own beautiful hair. He seemed to be begging for help. I was unabashedly gripped. I couldn’t leave the house. I lived like someone in a witness protection program, consuming only Gatorade and Chinese delivery. For me, I realized, there’s a sort of eroticism in someone who can take a life. I find that kind of power intoxicating. Which must be why I’m so turned on by rap singers.
When I sent Erik my second letter, I wrote that I’d seen his recent testimony, and I applauded his stamina. “Tres magnifique!” The jury seemed obviously on his side, I assured him. He’d be free in no time at all. I signed it “Yours in life, Allen.”
However, both juries were deadlocked over the moment of reloading. The boys had blasted away their father first, he’d been meaner, but then they chased their mom and before she died, they ran out of bullets. That’s when Lyle and Erik lowered their rifles, and reloaded. Then Lyle – not Erik, or so I told myself, not my sweet baby – held his rifle against Kitty’s temple for about 30 important mind-calming seconds, before blowing off the rest of her head.
My question to Kevin, my food delivery guy, was why tell the jury any such specifics? Lyle and Erik killed the only two witnesses to the crime. Why not let crawling moms lie? Aren’t secrets meant to be kept? Clearly, Kevin suggested, they wanted if off their chests. Yummy, I thought, tipping Kevin, their smooth, young chests.
And Erik wanted mercy, which I was happy to offer, even when mistrials were declared, for both boys actually. But before I could write, reassuringly, the second letter from Erik arrived.
“Dear Allen,
I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but a mistrial has been declared. I can’t tell you the relief I feel at not having to die. For now.”
He was shocked that some people didn’t believe the abuse defense.
“Perhaps it’s too much for them to accept.”
I was heartbroken by his familiarity, and rattled by his defenselessness. Before I could respond, a third letter arrived.
“I’m to be moved, again…I’m terrified and I feel invisible…I just wish my mother were here, holding me, telling me everything will be alright.”
Reading that letter made my stomach ache. I felt anxious and angry, which, after twelve years of therapy, I recognized as love. So I wrote again, just wishing him luck on his upcoming retrial. My letter was brief, but supportive and self assured, like a coach’s note the night before Wimbledon.
“Chin up, Chippie!” That sort of thing.
Sadly, in the retrial, judgment was swift. After all, the media had moved on to the comparatively glitzy, vulgar OJ trial. Out of the limelight, an impatient judge pushed the trial through in record time. Erik and Lyle were tried together and found guilty. They were sentenced to life, without parole.
Then Erik made the second worst decision of his life. He got married. Killers almost always do. And hold on to your seats. To a woman! Someone named Tammi Burke. Yes, that is Tammi, with an ‘I’. Erik’s last letter, his fourth and the most disappointing, was typed, with “Dear Allen” hand-written at the top. It said, “Thank you for writing, but Erik could no longer be reached through the post.” Obviously his wife is handling his correspondence. But she won’t last. She’s just some beard he’s hitched himself to, satisfying the hetero hungry press. Erik knows the truth, and so do I. I’ve got the letters to prove it!
The Lady Is A Champ
AXM Magazine
June 2006
Until recently, I thought drag was like stand up comedy: you did it because you couldn’t do anything else. I don’t think of drag as a particularly gay phenomenon, in the same way I don’t think of cocksucking as gay. It’s just something gay men do better, but no one’s an expert, because it’s not an expertise. Drag is child’s play. It’s naughty and silly, it’s giggling and licking and slurping. It’s blowjobs with glitter.
I’ve admired the huge hair attempts and the Lily Savage put downs, but truly, between the cigarette smoke and the sour singing, I can watch for maybe two minutes before getting bored by some “tireless” Jerry Herman rendition. Maybe, I mused, drag is like baseball. You have to follow the stats to stay involved. But all the stories I heard added up the same: Plain-faced men who, maybe on a dare, rouged their lips and shaved their chests, and revealed, perhaps even to their own surprise, a gem beneath the rough. Add to the padded bra a microphone and several Karaoke attempts at “I Will Survive”, and – bling! – he’s a drag act.
Then I saw Dave Lynn and Chris Green making up and camping down at Drill Hall. The two got together to share beauty secrets and compare footwear notes for some very discerning London sophisticates who attend salons sponsored by The House of Homosexual Culture. Dave, a non-rich Jew from Hackney, does what might be known as a traditional drag act, in a sequined gown and a flat, blond wisp of a wig (“my comfort wig, it doesn’t require fiddling, I can count on it.”), graciously offering an arm raising big finish. Posh Chris, aka Tina C., is a character comic who thrives on the challenge of creating coy, sly personas, and is considered the next generation of drag performers. What looked to be baton passing became more hand holding, as both these talents shyly let down their guard and toned down their own hype, to have, in Lynn’s words, “Quite a nice chat.”
Lynn was nervous, he said later he felt the crowd, in all their intellectual grandeur, was naturally on the younger Green’s side. Like there were sides. Like a chat is ever a competition, but then, we are talking about gay banter, which must always end in a punchline, of which Lynn has many, and actually, funny as he is, in this milieu, Dave was most entrancing when talking about the challenges of his work.
“Drag was always the lowest, one wrung up from strippers, but lately, as drag becomes more mainstream, you have to challenge yourself. The audience won’t just put up with a man in a dress. People want more, and drag artists have become precious.”
Seven years ago Lynn lost the will to perform. He was overwhelmed by personal setbacks and, frankly, bored with the limitations of intolerant, hateful audiences. At one of London’s harshest nightspots, a pub even the rather subdued Green describes as “infected with ugliness”, one sloppy guest said to Lynn, “I wish you’d lay down and die.”
Dave’s mother convinced him to stay with it.
He told her he was losing confidence, terrified that if he tried anything new, the world, his world, would find him offensive.
“I don’t find you offensive,” his mother said, “so why should they?”
“Just remember to shave your armpits.” His father pleaded, mildly. “There’s nothing more hideous than a drag act with sweaty, hairy pits.”
Halleluiah, sister!
Lynn sings the praises of Jim Davidson (“We’ve worked together. He’s not homophobic in the slightest.”), while bemoaning the existence of bitter pub governors (“The negative atmosphere comes from behind the bar”). But then comes the voice.
The boys rushed off to finish their physical transformation. Ten minutes later, Lynn, in a black, splashy floor-length sleeveless, grabbed the crowd by the balls and shook. Saying I was stunned would be accurate, admitting I felt envy would be specific. The girl can sing, as strong as Streisand, only Lynn is on key. LaPone, who in costume he more than mildly resembles, could take a few notes from Dave about recognizing the audience. And after watching Lynn, John Barrowman might re-discover his own sincerity bone.
Dave’s tune ripped through the room, and when he hit his last note, a B-flat I’m guessing, a glass eye shattered. He slinked and cajoled and required a most appreciative response, working a small, dark room like it was a sell-out at Albert Hall, and loving every single moment he spent on something less than a stage.
When the applause came, thundering, I was sweating, replaying every gig I’ve ever shirked, every audience I’ve ever complained about, every moment I’ve wasted on stage with my insincere joke fumbling and egocentric ruminations.
I sat, humbled by the warmth and generosity of experience and the evolution of a man who gives the energy of a cyclone every night, to everyone, whilst I mince and whine about my lack of TV work. Lynn is brave, and not because he’s feline in a masculine world, but because he does, in three minutes, what most performers can’t even conceive. He moves in, and becomes your dreams. He sang my worries away, and in that final moment, as he brushed past me, I blushed.