MIKE ≠ LISK
My five data points go down in flames.
Sweet T. (the missus) is still in North Carolina visiting relatives. Since dropping her off at Newark Airport Monday morning I’ve been hunkered down working on NIHILISTIC, leaving only to run brief errands. Being away too long makes me nervous for Roger, our sixteen year-old orange tabby. A few weeks ago, after a health crisis, he lost most of his eyesight. Our “King of Cats” is slowly adjusting to his new disability, able to find his food, water, litterbox and favorite perch… so tonight I let loose. I thought of catching the first night of the Hi-Tides Surf Music weekend in Asbury Park, then remembered our recent California vacation and its operating principle: events and destinations are less important than time face-to-face with those we love. So I’m visiting Jeff Maschi. On the phone two days ago he raved about a band playing outdoors at the American Legion adjacent to his Milltown condo building:
They play obscure country, rockabilly, old rock and roll. And this guy Gabe? You REALLY need to talk to him. He’s played with EVERYONE and everywhere!
I’m due at Jeff’s around four. We’ll have an hour to get caught up over a beer before three of his local friends join. At six we’ll walk next door to the American Legion and catch – no kidding – “Senior Moments” (Jeff stage-whispered their name, then made me swear not to repeat it).
Like other NIHILISTIC characters (Billy, Glenn, Jim, Mike), Jeff and I met in seventh grade, thrown together in Lindenhurst Junior High from elementary schools all over town. Jeff’s 1974 neo-hippie look – leather vest over high-collar shirt, bell-bottoms, boots with a heel, large medallion around his neck – stood out in a school full of kids attired in JC Penney or Sears catalog offerings. Add his omnipresent stack of books and I’m thinking Who IS this WEIRDO?! and Maybe I should trip him? The nail that sticks out gets hammered down, so as Jeff started down a flight of stairs, I stuck out my foot. He went flying one way, the books another, both crumpling in a heap at the bottom landing. That’ll show him! What a mean fucking thing to do, right? Jeff got hurt. What can I say? Shit rolls downhill and my childhood strictly adhered to the motto Me aliquis carpit, invenio aliquem carpere.1 Psychologically, transferring feelings I didn’t want to have – I’m a fat fuck worthy of mockery – onto another outcast didn’t provide the discharge sought. Instead, I felt sorry for Jeff. It’s true: hostility, once it subsides, often creates a vacuum into which good feelings flood. That’s what happened with us. Jeff and I became friends, only truly bonding when we performed in high school plays together. Next year, our friendship turns fifty and there aren’t many I’ve had as long. Unfortunately, despite living an hour apart, Jeff and I rarely convene. So I’m looking forward to hanging out at his cool loft-style Milltown condo. Before I leave, I finish today’s NIHILISTIC Substack post, titled That Feel, scheduled to go out at three PM. In it I repeat my MIKE = LISK suspicions.2 Am I being cavalier? Perhaps. Do I have valid reasons to think my old Nihilistics bandmate is a viable suspect? Yes. Is there any evidence? No, just the circumstantial kind. Maybe too much True Crime content’s seeped into my brain but I keep going back to that Thanksgiving night in 2000 when Mike tried to strangle me to death. It felt like something he knew how to do because he’d done it before. If it turns out Mike DID kill someone, as the saying goes, I’d be shocked but not surprised.
I’m out the door to Jeff’s around two-thirty, fighting heavy, brutal Friday afternoon traffic down the New Jersey turnpike. I get to Milltown early, stop at a local convenience store for a buttered roll and coffee because I skipped lunch. Again. It’s exactly four when I park behind Jeff’s building in the designated spot and text him HERE. He comes down, lets me in with a compliment.
What, you lost more weight?! You’re beginning to look positively slender, my friend!
“Thanks. But I knew I shouldn’t have gone with shorts and sandals. Is anyone else gonna be in shorts?”
I don’t know. Don’t worry about it. Come on up.
Jeff’s wearing a black T-shirt with a white screenprinted logo for Long Black Limousine, a Country covers band. His jeans are ripped at the knees and the back pocket bulges with a fat biker wallet on a chain. Jeff’s shaggy hair’s gone silver but he still has plenty and I wonder how I’d look if I retained any. We go up to his corner loft, decorated with the sort of defunct American-made objects –typewriters, rotary phones, old lighters, vintage signs – I collect, all churned out by factories long ago turned into condos… like this one. Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two are on the stereo and Jeff turns the music down a bit so we can talk.
“Hey, I’m getting some old pictures digitized and brought you copies. Here.”
Jeff grabs the manila envelope I hand him, pulls out the contents. We splay the photos out on his dining room table.
Wow. Where were these taken?
“I believe that’s your old Hoboken apartment, the one on Jefferson. Or maybe it was Tom’s? Or Jim’s? Fuck if I know. You all lived there at one time.”
Jeff points to a picture of him in a tuxedo shirt, his bow-tie undone.
Was this a wedding?
“That was New Year’s Eve. Remember? You threw a party at your place. I brought Paula.”
Oh, shit! That’s right.
We go over a few more Hoboken shots and Jeff tells me to keep them, get them digitized.
“I have negatives for all these. You keep them and I’ll let you know if I need them back.”
Jeff stuffs the pictures into the envelope, steps over to his small bar and pours us each a Scotch. We sit on facing stools and begin getting caught up. I’m telling him about Roger’s travails when he looks at his watch and interrupts me mid-sentence.
Shit! I forgot I told my father you were coming by and we’d call him. I gotta do it now.
This is a thing now when we’re together: Jeff rings his eighty-eight year-old father down in Virginia and I fumble for what to say. After the sing-song greeting “Hey, Mister Maschi.” – evoking my appearances at Jeff’s Lindenhurst front door circa 1978 – we’re told all about the furniture repair side-hustle Master Carpenter Thomas has started. Jeff’s speakerphone’s not loud enough, so he runs upstairs, retrieves a small Bluetooth speaker and connects it as his father tells us of an heirloom rocking chair he restored.
Yeah, the webbing was all rotted so I fabricated new ones from some of Mary’s old belts that don’t fit her no more.
Jeff hands me his phone and I see pictures of his Dad and the chair. With a Watch this glance, I drop a line meant largely for us.
“Hey, Mr. Maschi… I have an idea. You know how they have loaner cars at the dealership? Maybe you should have loaner rocker chairs.”
Jeff lets loose his trademark guffaw but his father barrels past my joke to boast about the ad bringing in all the business.
It’s a little ad in a local paper. It was only twenty dollars! And I’m gettin’ all kinds of work.
Jeff – realizing his mother’s caretaker can hear us – says Hello, Linda. In a Southern accent Linda jumps in with something about the TV show Flea Market Flips. I tell her I used to watch it and Linda, prompted by Jeff’s Hey, Linda: tell Chris what show you just saw! – switches topics. I’m confused, or perhaps just old.
“I’ve heard of Jelly Roll Morton and the concept of jellyroll… but I never heard of this guy.”
Jeff explains.
Jelly Roll. He’s a rapper. Like three hundred pounds. Tattoos all over his face. You know, Jelly Roll.
Linda complains about the two boxes of Liquid Death water she bought at the Jelly Roll show – Eight dollars. EACH. Do you believe that? EIGHT DOLLARS FOR WATER! – and we talk until Thomas interrupts to say I need to deliver this rocking chair. We say goodbye and back at the bar Jeff asks if I want a gummy.
“Sure. That’d be great. I forgot to bring one from home.”
He hands me a small rectangular tin. I open it, pull out a squat, square gummy, cut it in half with the blade on my Leatherman Micra. I pop it in my mouth, then get an idea.
“Hey, how about I interview you for the book? I talked to Glenn Katz yesterday for a solid ninety minutes. You remember Glenn?”
I don’t think I knew him that well. I know he went to school with us and he was friends with you…
“Yeah, well… he was gone in a few years, moved down to Florida with his mother and brother. Shit, that family just imploded.”
I tell Jeff the story I’ve dubbed “My Lesson In Envy”: How I was twelve and befriended Glenn, then wished I could’ve been in his family instead of mine. And how it all ended horribly.
“Glenn lived in a nice house on the newest block in Lindenhurst. Glenn’s father Harvey was a lawyer, bought a new Lincoln Continental every year or every other year. His mother Sheila kept the refrigerator stocked with Diet Pepsi and Fresca. I think they had a woman who came in and cleaned. They were the first people I knew with an automatic garage door opener. Shit, I was so impressed by that. They even owned a cabin cruiser. We’d go out on the Great South Bay and Sheila would lay on the deck and say ‘Harvey! Can you make the boat not rock so much?!’ and Harvey would say ‘Sheila, I can’t control the WAVES!’ One summer Harvey paid us a bunch of money to scrape the barnacles off the hull of that boat and repaint it. Shit, I spent as much time at Glenn’s as I could.”
Jeff pours himself some more Scotch and asks And?
“One night Glenn picks up the phone to call me and hears his Dad talking to another woman on the extension. Like love talk.”
Oh shit. What did he do?
“He called me all upset. ‘What do I do? Do I tell my mother?’ That kind of thing. And from there, everything falls apart. The affair comes to light. So does his father’s embezzling. Harvey’s disbarred, goes to prison. Sheila attempts suicide, once after they moved to Florida. She ends up in a coma, almost dies.”
Jesus. Really?
“Yeah. That’s why I call it ‘My Lesson In Envy’. But I find out yesterday that Sheila got counseling and ended up meeting a nice guy named Burt. They got married and Glenn credits the stepfather with changing his direction in life. He’s doing real well now, works for a company that builds satellites, has four grown kids, been married forever. Shit. When I went to Florida in 1979 to visit – first time I flew anywhere, Delta Airlines, when people still smoked in the back of the plane – Glenn was an angry fucking guy. After he left Lindenhurst he turned into a jock. All we did when I was there was hang out with football players and get into fights. The kid who liked playing Cat Stevens songs was punching the living shit out of guys. Over girls. Glenn and I didn’t speak for years, He asks me why yesterday and I was blunt. ‘Because you became an asshole. I didn’t like that Glenn.’ He agreed. He said he was headed down a dark path but Burt came along, turned him on to electrical engineering. It’s worked out well for him. We’re talking about visiting him in Vermont. Fuck. You never know how shit is gonna turn out.”
Jeff glances at his watch again.
“What time are your friends coming over?”
Should be here in a bit. Let’s talk and when the phone rings, it’s them.
“Alright. Fuck. I should’ve brought a recorder but I can do it on my phone.”
For the book, huh? What do you want to know from me?
I open the Voice Record Pro app, change some settings, hit RECORD and place my phone on the bar between us.
“You were there. You can talk about how we met, about the Junior High, Mr. Monsell, whatever else.”
Okay, sure.
As the gummy and Scotch kicks in, I put my languishing interview skills to use, hitting Jeff with a series of “back then” questions. He’s expansive, per usual, and thirty minutes is gone before we land on the subject of the book NIHILISTIC: Mike.
I mean, I knew OF him but I wasn’t particularly friendly with him.
“He was hard to miss. Fattest kid in Junior High.”
You know, I really got to know Mike from running into him buying comic books. He was into comic books, I was into comic books… and there was this one store on Wellwood Avenue where we kept crossing paths.
“That might explain the whole MAD magazine thing, which is how I theorize Mike and I met. I must’ve had a copy of MAD with me and he noticed, or vice-versa.”
And, of course, I knew of Mike through you, because you guys had the band.
We keep talking and Jeff reveals another puzzle piece.
Did I ever tell you I visited Mike in 1989? I was out on Long Island and we got together. I think you were already in New Jersey by then.
“Yeah, I moved to Tenafly in 1986. Shit. I didn’t know you saw Mike. Did he talk about the band or about me?”
He did. Said you left the band, moved away. ‘He’s hanging out with his fancy friends in HOBOKEN.’ That sort of thing.
“Ha. ‘Fancy friends.’ Hilarious.”
Yeah. I just remember the way he said that. ‘Fancy friends in HOBOKEN.’ Jesus.
“Man, I’m putting two and two together. What if you were the one who prompted those guys to get in touch with me? You know they asked me to rejoin that year?”
They did? Did you do it?
“I did. We we’re gonna record some old songs, work up new ones, think about putting out another album, play some shows. Maybe I was feeling nostalgic or had nothing else going on. I just remember driving back and forth to Long Island and hating it. And it did not go well.”
What happened?
“What happened? Mike’s drinking is what happened. He’d get progressively drunker every time we’d get together.”
Do you think it was stage fright or something?
“I don’t know. Maybe. But it led to us arguing. That reminds me: in a few days I’m interviewing Paul Bearer – you know the band Sheer Terror?”
I’ve heard of them, yes.
“He says he was there and witnessed it all.”
What do you mean, ‘he was there’?
“He was at the studio. The one run by Ajax, who replaced me on guitar. Paul saw whatever went down between me and Mike. I can’t wait to hear that shit.”
Wow. And you didn’t see him again after that?
“Not until – what was? – 2000, Thanksgiving? When he tried to strangle me.”
So is that what makes you think he was a serial killer? I mean, what evidence do you have?
I give Jeff my five data points.
“One. He tried to choke me to death. Two: He lived in Lindenhurst and West Babylon all his life, fifteen minutes from Gilgo. Three. When he lost all that weight he’d complain to me about women, how they weren’t interested in him when he was fat and how they were a bunch of phonies…”
Jeff stops me before I can list points four and five.
Okay, okay. But murdering prostitutes? That’s a leap.
“Not prostitutes. Escorts.”
What’s the difference?!
“I’m not sure. I think an escort will go out to dinner with you?”
A phone vibrates and I think it’s Jeff’s, then notice it’s mine. I check the screen and freak the fuck out: Paul Bearer has sent me a text: Mike a serial killer? HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!” Can he HEAR us? Is it the gummy or is my paranoia earned? Shit. I forgot: Paul signed up for the newsletter and must’ve just read the latest. I pick up the phone, text back the same shit I just told Jeff, about Mike trying to strangle me to death, how he lived in Lindenhurst and West Babylon his whole life, blah blah blah. Paul replies a moment later, says Mike might’ve been drunk or pilled up when he went after me but was in no way cut out for the rigors of murder. He drives this point home by saying he knew guys who did “the deed”. He also suggests I “Step back” from my MIKE= LISK theory. Rather than respond, I keep interviewing Jeff, whose own phone now vibrates. Jeff answers, says Good, good. I’ll be right down. and hustles out. No sooner does the door close behind him when my phone vibrates again. It’s Paul. But this time he’s calling. Shit. Shit. I go over to the stereo, turn Johnny Cash down, pick up the call, try to sound nonchalant.
“Hey! Speak of the devil. Are you still able to meet next week?”
In his trademark gruff Staten Island tough guy voice Paul says Hey. Listen, you cannot say what you said. Mike a SERIAL KILLER?!
I’m not exactly taken off guard but I fumble anyway.
“Well… he did… he DID try to choke me to death, Paul.”
Paul repeats what he texted, about Mike being drunk or pilled up and not courageous or coordinated enough for murder. Again he suggests I “step back”, saying You can’t just accuse people like that. Where’s the evidence?
Shades of Jeff. Everyone’s obsessed with “evidence”, eh? Okay. I launch into the five data points and Paul quickly interrupts.
Chris, he has KIDS who are gonna read that shit.
This stops me dead in my tracks. It’s one thing if Jeff doubts me or Paul’s angry. Worse – far worse – is the thought of Mike’s widow or kids suffering through my stupid theory. I don’t want to be on the phone when Jeff returns with his friends, so I wrap it up with Paul.
“You make some excellent points. And of course I care what you think. Hell, you saved my life.3 But, listen, I’m about to go to the American Legion to see some live music…”
Paul laughs.
The American Legion? Good luck with dat.
“…so let’s get together next week and we’ll sort this out. But right now, I gotta go.”
I’m turning Johnny Cash back up when Jeff enters with an I’m back! In tow are two dudes around our age and a woman ten years younger. I’m happy for the distraction, not wanting to get into the Paul call. Jeff’s friends smell like they got high in the parking lot and I’m not stoned enough to mesh conversational gears. We’re consistently a half-step apart, talking over each other, with one guy, too eager by half, not allowing me to complete a sentence before making his own declarations. After I raise my voice – “CAN I FINISH?!” – he apologizes, then barrels on again. When he goes in the kitchen for a beer, Jeff finds me, whispers about how the guy lost his son, the other dude lost his wife ten years ago. He adds They’ve known tragedy you and I never will. I trained too long as a professional wiseass and want to say “Hey, I have a cat at home going blind.” but realize I’m just hangry. Instead, I stand up, ask, “So, are we going?” I’m eager to get to the American Legion, have a beer, buy something to eat. Jeff gathers us, leads us on a brisk, long walk out his building, into the parking lot and past the rakishly-mounted Cobra attack helicopter atop the American Legion sign. As we approach the pavilion we can hear Senior Moments, already halfway through a song, and see a small crowd of old-timers forming to watch. We find a table, cop a squat. The band – how do I say this? – is fucking awful. Gabe and the other guitarist often don’t play the same chords. You can’t hear the keyboards. The singing’s off-key, lackluster. The bass player and drummer aren’t bad but I can tell this will be a trial. I lean over, whisper to Jeff “I feel like I’m in a David Lynch movie.” Jeff laughs, says That’s a GOOD thing, right?
The evening wears on, the band even covers Under My Thumb, prompting me to comment to Jeff “I thought that song was cancelled.” When Senior Moments takes a break, Gabe comes over to gab with Jeff and lay some history on us, mentioning famous Jersey Shore clubs I never heard of. I can’t concentrate on what he’s saying. The phone call from Paul has me so off-kilter I open the Substack app on my phone, scrub any MIKE = LISK references from the two posts delving into my “theory”. Then I text Paul, tell him what I’ve done and how there’s no way to retrieve the email version that goes out to a hundred people. At least my theory won’t live forever on the web. I’m feeling embarrassed, wondering how I arrived here. True Crime. I blame all the True fucking Crime I’ve consumed.
By nine I’m saying goodbye to Jeff, his third can of Corona and his three friends. Walking back to my car, a new theory lands: If Mike was a serial killer it takes the onus off me. It means I wasn’t his sole target. But why me? What makes me worthy of strangulation? The best I can come up with? Because I left. I left The Nihilistics. I left Long Island. And I left Mike to fend for himself. What are my data points for this (as yet unnamed) new theory? Fuck data points. Between that disastrous 1989 Nihilistics reunion and the fateful Thanksgiving night in 2000 when he finally persuaded me to visit, Mike would periodically call. They’d be rambling conversations and, later (when I got caller ID and wouldn’t pick up), answering machine messages (why I didn’t keep any is beyond me) about the band. When he was sober Mike blamed our falling out on Ron, said he was a bad influence, told me he never meant to ice me out. It’s all Ron’s fault. When he was drunk (his default position) he’d yell, threaten my life, curse me out, yell You ruined my life! Huh? In my mind, I GAVE Mike his life. Absent me, my guitar, my encouragement (“Hey, why don’t you pick up bass? Like Sid Vicious?”), my tutelage, and even naming of the fucking band, I’m not sure there would’ve been a Nihilistics… or how Mike would’ve distinguished himself from all those cretins we grew up with. Or what Ron or – Lord help us – Troy would have to flog forty-three years later. Meanwhile, Mike’s mouldering in the ground, his legend only growing. Big Daddy Bass. The supposed lynchpin around which the rest of us pale in talent. The sole creative force in the band.4
Just past Jeff’s I stop at Four Guys Ice Cream for a soft-serve twist (half chocolate, half vanilla) cone. But, lady, is if this is a fucking small, don’t show me the large. I hurriedly decapitate the cone over a garbage can, then bury the body. There’s a horrific drive north up the turnpike, fighting maniacs all the way to Weehawken, and back home the car goes in the garage as I heave a sigh of relief knowing Sweet T. returns tomorrow. Roger – poor, blind Roger – and Marty greet me and we settle in for some TV. But no True Crime.
Fuck True Crime.
Someone picks on me, I find someone to pick on.
Suffolk County Police – able to hang only four of the ten Gilgo Beach murders on recently arrested Massapequa Park architect Rex Heuermann – say there’s likely another killer.
1985, Paul and I are driving to EJ’s in Long Island City when my 1972 Plymouth Sport Fury is rear-ended by a Checker Cab. I’m knocked unconscious. If not for Paul’s quick thinking – he grabs the steering wheel and slams on the brakes from the passenger seat – we might both be dead.
Some asshole, every time I drop a podcast or post, comments You only wrote one song. BWAHAHAHAHA! He uses the pseudonym “Kasparov Gutman” after Sydney Greenstreet‘s character inThe Maltese Falcon. Which means the dirty little prick knows me, knows I’m part Maltese. What the mouth-breathing moron DOESN’T know is that – like many bands – songwriting in The Nihilistics was collaborative. I contributed lyrics, riffs – whatever it took to make the song work. Back then, no one thought to take any credit. Or, if we did, it said Songs by Nihilistics. But this Kaspar Gutman asshole is gonna bust my balls because he (or she?) thinks all I contributed was Combat Stance? As Mike would say, Buddy boy, go fuck yourself. I was there. I know how it worked. I’ll give up my MIKE = LISK theory but you’re not writing this story. I am. Finally.