DISGRACELAND - Lou Reed (An Origin Story) Pt. 1

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

Lou Reed is one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll characters of all time, one known to lie and exaggerate his own mythology during interviews about his past. In this special 2-part episode, Lou’s origin story with the Velvet Underground runs straight through Manhattan transgressions, murder mysteries, drug abuse, and all the other crimes, criminals, and antisocial behavior depicted in Lou’s legendary lyrics. This episode was originally published on March 28, 2023. To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at ⁠www.disgracelandpod.com⁠. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at ⁠www.disgracelandpod.com⁠⁠. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - ⁠GET THE NEWSLETTER⁠ Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: ⁠Instagram⁠ ⁠YouTube⁠ ⁠X⁠ (formerly Twitter)  ⁠Facebook Fan Group⁠ ⁠TikTok To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. Heads up, everybody. This is not your typical disgraceland episode where we tell the story of a musician through the true crimes they committed or that were committed to them.

For this two-part episode on the Velvet Underground's Lou Reed, we're doing something different. To honor Lou's habit of basically lying and exaggerating his way through most interviews about his past, we examine Lou's origin story in the Velvet Underground through the crimes, criminals, and transgressive behavior depicted in Lou's Velvet Underground lyrics to explore what really inspired Lou Reed, one of the greatest rock and roll characters of all time,

to create some of the coolest and most influential music of all time. All right, let's get into it. The stories Lou Reed told in his Velvet Underground songs are insane. Manslaughter in the song The Gift, sadomasochism and sexual deviancytesy in the song Venus and Furs. drug abuse and heroin, and I'm Waiting for the Man, prostitution in the song, there she goes again, and of course, murder in the murder mystery. In the stories Lou Reed told about himself to the rock press,

those were insane too, that he once put a rifle to a man's head, that his parents forced him to undergo electro-shock treatments because he was gay, that he graduated from Harvard. Not sure why I would brag about that one, but I digress. Lou Reed was once quoted as saying, I've lied so much about the past, I can't even tell myself what is true anymore.

The point is, Lou Reed told tall tales, both in song and in real life. And you know what? That's fucking awesome. The best rock stars are experts stewards of their own myths. Lou Reed, like Bob Dylan, David Bowie, and Kurt Cobain,

mastered this skill because he studied the storytelling mastery of writers such as Raymond Chandler, Hubert Selby Jr. and William S. Burroughs. Lou combined their transgressive influence with his own subversive coming-of-age experiences in mid-60s Manhattan as he wrote the lyrics for his band The Velvet Underground. Make no mistake, this is not a Velvet Underground episode, though. This is a Lou Reed origin story that takes place during his time in the beginning days of the Velvets. A time when Lou Reed was making his first great music.

Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Slow Drag MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to love us here and now you're gone by the Supremes. And why would I play you that specific slice of stooping the boss at Motown cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on March 12, 1967. And that was the day that Lou Reed's Velvet Underground released their first album and forever changed modern music. On this episode, a multitude of mid-60s Manhattan transgressions, a murder mystery, sadomasochism, drug abuse, and the tall tale of the Velvet Underground's Lou Reed. I'm Jake Brennan, and this.

is disgrace land. I was two sips into a lukewarm Maxwell house when Marsha Bronson's beauty finally revealed itself. Prior to that, the white light of trauma and the white heat of guilt, Marsha wore both like a ghost, and as such, she was nearly invisible to me. But that was then.

Here in the now, the Sunday morning sunlight shone through her mother's Long Island kitchen window and revealed the truth. I was unnerved. She was young, 19, but I wasn't surprised. Marcia's mother was once a beauty too. Now she was an undiagnosed manic depressive, overprescribed on lithium, only two more nervous breakdowns away from electroshock therapy.

Marcia's father was an old army connection. Now he was a bull out at Rikers, a mean son of a bitch. And this morning, Big Bill Bronson was especially angry. His daughter's boyfriend, Waldo Jeffers, was dead. His daughter, Marcia Bronson, was accused of killing him. And if I didn't get her off, her father would put me in a box. I owed him. It was a large debt, the kind you take on at war, where Jesus looks the other way and you accrue debts you can never pay off, despite your better angels. I had other debts too, the kind you take on downtown, where Uncle Dave passes your pony debts off to Italian roughnecks with horsecocks and crooked noses.

Those guys got paid, or else? I needed money, except Big Bill wasn't paying for this piece of work. Like I said, Big Bill was in paying for this piece of work. Like I said, Big Bill was paid. was collecting. That meant I was hustling for him until I got his daughter off. If only Waldo could have done the same, I wouldn't be in this mess. And that was Waldo's problem. He waited for it, his whole life. He never took it. So when the time came to go out and get it, Waldo wound up dead in a box. Waldo descended from Locust, Pennsylvania. He met Marcia at college in Wisconsin. When semester broke, Waldo headed back to PA and Marcia after a brief rendezvous with Waldo in Manhattan, returned to her off-campus apartment in Wisconsin rather than spending the summer with her parents out on Long Island.

Marcia swore to Waldo she'd be faithful. She lied. Waldo bought it. Marcia called, but only twice. She wrote too, but again, only twice. The way Marcia saw it, Waldo's insecurity and imagination got the best of him. He was the jealous type. Anyone could see it, and prone to nightmares.

Marcia said he couldn't sleep. Said this was just the type of dumb, love-struck shit-heel thing Waldo would do, too, but that he wouldn't have done it alone. And if I, read Mont-Alan-Lewis, ace to my friends, ace-luis to my clients, if I was worth the ink on my private dix license, then I could prove O'Waldo had a conspirator, not just an accomplice, someone who put him up to it. And if I could prove that, then I could shift the blame away from Marsha,

and Big Bill would be satisfied, and I, well, I could get back to my ponies, make back my role, and put some space between me and no-nose nuncio. But back to Waldo. Never wanted to sit at the head of the class. The idea was too simple for him to come to alone, and too daring for him to do on his own without prodding. Waldo, despite mowing and edging the Edison's lawn for $1.50 every other week, was broke, and there was no way he could afford a bus ticket to Wisconsin to surprise Marcia.

So, the idea was to mail himself there in a cardboard box. Stapled gunned and pack taped delivered to the attention of Marcia Bronson care of the Clarence Darrow Post Office Madison, Wisconsin, all the way from the great state of Pennsylvania. When Marcia opened the box upon delivery and Waldo emerged from inside, they'd be reunited and overtaken by love. Or so Waldo thought. The night before he arrived, in a box, via the U.S. mail, Marcia spent the better part of the evening in the backseat of a 66 Mustang, fighting off a boy named Bill's octopus arms. She liked him, or with that name, he couldn't help but remind her of her dad. And for her dad, she put up a fight, resisting young Bill's advances. But eventually the dackeries won out. Marcia gave up the fight and submitted to the caresses of sexual oblivion. This morning, she didn't return. regret it. But she did regret her hangover. When the package arrived, with Waldo, her boyfriend hidden inside, beaming with desperation, Marsha and her roommate Sheila struggled to open it. Inside, Waldo choked down an excited squeal. He was on his knees, perched like an obedient puppy

in anticipation of a treat. Marsha, with some regret, noted the return address was from Waldo. Sheila asked Marcia why she still bothered with that schmuck. Waldo took it like a bullet to the gut. A Marsha tugged at the box's flap, and it refused to open. She shuffled into the kitchen for some scissors, and those didn't work either. She remembered there were old tools in the garage. Marcia settled on the first large, capable tool she could find. An old sheet metal cutter. It was pre-war.

Just like me and Marcia's dad, it was a special vintage. Its shear stretched eight inches. Waldo in the box was so excited he could hardly breathe. Marcia tried cutting into the taped edge of the box, but the sheet metal shears were too old and offered little action. And with her hangover calling the shots, Marcia stood impatiently above the box. She raised the sheet metal cutter over her head with two hands and brought it down in one giant stabbing motion with the entire weight of her body, right through the middle of the

package, through the masking tape, through the cardboard, through the packing cushion, and straight to the top of Waldo Jeffers' head. When they found Old Waldo in that box, the sheet metal cutter was sticking straight out of his skull. The two sides of his head had split slightly, just as a watermelon would. Waldo was dead. Marcia killed him. And if I didn't prove that she didn't, I'd be dead, too. In 1967, New York City, the avant-garde rock and roll band, the Velvet Underground, recorded the song The Gift about the troublesome death of Waldo Jeffers at the confused hand of his college sweetheart, Marsha Bronson. The Velvet Underground's main singer-songwriter, Lou Reed,

found his inspiration for the gift in the story of Waldo Jeffers' death depicted in the daily news. The details of the true crime screamed off the pages of the newspaper at the student poet-common musician. It was the exact inspiration the 23-year-old needed. Upstarts, the Velvet Underground, were at the time in 1965 in need of an identity, and Lou founded in the gritty cracks of mid-century Manhattan with all of its grime, vice, and beatnik's subversiveness. Lou Reed embodied the city he called home, and he knew out a hustle inspiration from the pages of a daily rag into one of his songs. The Velvet Underground were on their way to where I didn't know. All I knew was that Lou was the perfect Patsy, and when I was done with him, Marshall would be free, and Big Bill and me, we'd be squared.

They smashed my head face first into the dirty window of the Union Square diner. That's when I saw him, sitting at the counter. He saw me, too, briefly, and then he looked away, as did the other patrons. But Lou looked back at his newspaper, and the others just stared off in a sweet nothing, caffeinated and vacant. I could tell him that instant that Lou was different, alive. Outside, beardless Harry turned me around and stood me up straight, backed my shoulders into a lamppost and let loose with a wild left.

It was half of what he was good for. I'd get the rest in three days if I didn't have Nuncio's Vig. Harry delivered his promise with his trademark stutter. I understood him better than most. Harry didn't want to deliver on his promise. He was just doing his job, but he'd be back, and he'd make it worth his cab fare next time. I believed him on that account, too. Harry scat-mooched, I shook it off, collected myself,

and dragged the heat of the New York night into the diner with me. I counted two absent glances from the nighthawks and not one from Lou. I slid into a booth with an easy sight line toward the counter, close enough to read the large print on his daily news, but far enough away where I couldn't discern the smell of his lucky from the rest of the smoke hanging under the low ceiling. Lou wore the quilted collar of his leather bomber up high against the back of his neck as if to say, don't bother me. I took my cue. I was content to observe. Lou was like a cool breeze, even sitting there in the diner. He iced out the bustle and somehow charmed the waitress with this stony glare

as she refilled his cup. The Puerto Rican bus bus bus. a real switchblade type named Jesus, sweated over the way Lou filled out his Levi's there on the vinyl top bar store. Lou was aware of the attention and he welcomed it. Some jungle rhythm that I couldn't pretend to understand poured out of the jukebox under the high-pitched squeal of a doper horn. I cringed, but Lou played easy, tapping in time with the exposed steel toe of his elevator boot against the bottom of the stool stand.

The frozen pat of butter on the edge of his knife hit his mouth minus the toast and didn't stand a chance. The butter was all he needed. All he could really stand. And my hunch was confirmed. In my business, most times, all you have is a hunch, your gut. And my gut told me that if Lou Reed didn't do it, and I knew he didn't, then he sure his shit could have done him.

And besides, either way, that little Long Island pissant was guilty of something, and surely that had a matter somewhat. Whether or not he did or didn't conspire with Waldo Jeffers to pull that cockamani stunt that wound up old Waldo in a box didn't matter to me. What mattered to me was, like I said, that he could have conspired with his former childhood and able to do such a thing. It was the potential. That's where the percentage was.

Odds were, Lou was thinking the same thing right now, reading his daily news, sipping his sludge, meditating on Big Bill's Beauty Queen and all that baby baby where did our love go horseshit they sell soft and nickel seabergs like the one in the corner. I hated the noise, but was still able to settle into the familiar calm with a greasy spoon. And just when I was beginning to see the light of a future without downtown debts, my pass blew through the diner door like an uptown atre. She collapsed into my booth, grabbed my cup of Joe, brought it to her lips, took a loud slurp and never once broke eye contact with me. She put the mug back onto the saucer. Got no kick. What's it? Morning to you? The post-midnight

hour made it smart ass, and the slight curl of her lip made it all right. Nah, I said, I'm working. She looked around, made Lou in an instant, leather boy at the counter. Ding, ding, ding, Dorothy, we have a correct answer. What did he do? she asked. Doesn't matter, I responded. What do you want? Money, she said. What did she ever want? And I owed it to her. Whether or not the kid was mine, it was coming one way or another. And she was just a kid too, practically.

No next to kin, no one. Just me and an old pimp on the outs. It took that queen for a day thing too far, or now went by the name Duran Ronda. She, he, couldn't even pimp right so young Pearly May here. Stephanie was her name when she was off the street. She, who was maybe the soon-to-be mother of my child, was out of a job, and it wasn't as though she was employable anymore anyway, so money was the least I could do for her.

I said to her, I got an idea. While I'd play cops and robbers, she turned her mouth into a scow. For old time's sake, I said, you that broke, she asked. Twice as much, how bad she wanted to know. Not so bad as I need to take it on. on the arches. I've got something I'm working. Leather boys got bread, she said, nodding to loo at the counter. How do you know, I asked. A girl's got to eat, she replied. At least he's got

bread at the moment. He's about to blow his wad. I stared at her and sipped my coffee. And when I was done, I left the silence work its gravity on what I was about to say next. I ain't no hustler. The streets are your game. I'll help you out as best I can when I can. And now ain't one of those times when I can, but all tomorrow's parties are lined with silks and linens of yesterday's gowns. You help me out now with work, and I'll help you out when I land this bucket of bolts. She grabbed my coffee cup again and drained it in one goal. Do I have a choice? She asked. Not if you want to eat tonight, you don't. I pushed my plate over to her side of the table. She said about devouring the dry toast and runny eggs and called for the waitress to bring her

her tomato juice. Stephanie spoke in short grunts in the micro seconds between chewing and swallowing. Leather boy, he's got a Jones, I figured I said. He also likes the Vaseline I also figured. But that's beside the point, right now. Why's that I wanted to know? She finished my play. And then she said, because in about four seconds, that pretty young waitress over there is about to make change for your man. Then he's going to lay that change on the rest of his short stack, and that stack is going to total $26 in his hand, and then your man is going to head uptown to wait for his man. I smiled at her, and then I said, remind me again why we ain't married. She responded by saying, you're a degenerate gambler, and I'm an out-of-work-working girl.

Oh yeah, I said. She smiled. The leather boy collected the smokes and hit the street. And we ditched on the bill and hustled out behind him. We'll be right back after this. Word, word, word. Lexington Avenue in 125th Street. The morning sun was in the sky,

but it only wanted to shine on the better half of Manhattan. Lou leaned uneasy on a lamppost. That bohemian cool breeze stick played differently up here in Harlem. Hey, white boy, what are you doing uptown? We hung back in a doorway across the street and watched him try to worm his way out of the question. Nothing, just waiting on a friend. That right. The local just stared with menace.

Lou shifted awkwardly in his tight cuffed denim. He chasing our women around? Furthest from my mind? And then Lou laid it on a touch too thick, finishing his sentence with, sir. Fuck you call me, white boy? The local pulled his blade. I started to step out of the doorway and toward the street to intervene. in what would most certainly end with me lying in St. Luke's like a stuck pig.

Stephanie braced me with one arm stopping my progress, leveling a steady hand in mid-air as to say, cool out, and she never took her eyes off Lou and the local. Hold up, she whispered. Lou's cool. And he was. Lou grinned at the local's knife. His smile combined with the matter-of-fact tone of his voice cooled the heat on the street. I'm just looking for a dear friend of mine, Lou said. The local lowered his knife. Cool. and waltz down one-two-five. Lou kept his lamp post leaned strong and stared down the street. I could practically hear his spine stiffen when he saw his man.

And there he was, all dressed in black, PR shoes, big straw hat. Lou checked his wristwatch. His man was right on time. Never early, always late. They traded quick nods for hellos and bounded up the brownstone stairs. Lou emerged 90 minutes later, noticeably groggy, and staggering his steps over to low.

Lexington. He descended down the subway steps for a downtown train. Stephanie and I gave loose chase. Lose senses were dulled. He wasn't going to make us, so we stayed closer than normal. I was two bodies behind him on the train hanging from a subway strap and I could practically smell the innocence on him. He was young, naive, and clearly mixing himself up in the kind of city danger that forever leaves a mark. He wanted it, though. I could see it in his dope-smacked eyes. Stephanie nudged me and nodded for me to follow her to the back of the train. We moved into a couple of empty seats, close enough for I could still clock glue,

far enough away where he couldn't hear us over the subterranean rumbled and squeal. She got right to the point. What do you want with him? Got a client likes him for something. Something, huh? Let's just say it's something in the realm of transgressive possibilities this little shit here would evolve himself in. When did you become a wooder kind of man?

In my business, you rely on gut, the certainty of your gut, not on percentages, not on possibilities. That was lawyer work, weasel sweat. I gave it to her sideways. When I became a wanted man downtown, when I became a would or could or should or just might maybe be a father type of man. Look, I said, the kid's dirty, one way or another, look at him, he could barely stand. Guy I know, dear friend, his daughter's just a kid, like you. She's on a thread. DA is going to pull that thread.

She's going to spend her early 20s and the rest of her life behind bars she has no business being behind. Behind bars, our boy Lou here is destined for her anyway. She gave me a look of disgust and said, If you say so, I do say so. She then said, well, if that's the way you want to play it, you better be ready for what comes next. What's that?

And then the train screeched to a stop. We hit the street farther back than I would have liked. Lou was moving fast. He quickly ascended the stairs and then headed down St. Mark's place and eventually to his St. Mark's apartment building. We went in behind him, but he was gone. Every door in the hall was black except for the one in the back. White light exploded from its crease.

We opened it slowly. The white heat from the bodies inside smacked Stephanie and I in the face. Music blared. No one noticed us. The space was completely open. No rooms. just open space. Couches lined the walls peppered with young, beautiful, androgynous, entangled bodies. There was a band against the far wall making excruciating noise. Apparently, I was the only one whose

ears were bleeding. A more white light. This from film projectors blasting images onto the band and the wall behind it. Grotesque, hedonistic images. Bodies writhe on the dance floor mirroring the celluloid action. A man in a white wig and dark glasses who reminded me in one of those port-side, sure leave boy toys seemed to be in charge of everything. Where the hell was I? On the makeshift stage, a tall, icy blonde, gently tapped tambourine. Three members of what looked like the Adams family made their instruments scream for help behind her while a little boy with a penny haircut banged on a disassembled drum kit spread out on the floor. I turned to Stephanie and screamed over the music into her ear. Someone ought to call the Bureau of Child Welfare, nodding to the little

boy playing drums amidst the intensely adult bacchanalia. Stephanie yelled back, informing me that the drummer was actually a full-grown woman, not a little boy. I thought a Joe Namath who repressed the urge to spit. Recognize anyone else? Stephanie asked. I did, our boy Lou. On stage, black sunglasses had doubled as a blindfold rap. Electric guitar hung high up on his chest. He used it to assault the audience. And at the same time, he spoke softly into the microphone and a manner that suggested singing, though I couldn't really be sure. The band tightened up and brought it down. Lou's words were shocking, because it makes me feel just like a man when I put a spike into my vein. The dance floor in front of him opened up. One man, if you could call him that,

a real mess hall beauty queen went into full performance mode, and leather chaps he seduced the disinterested audience with a bullwit. It was all show, a big howdy-duty production, a bunch of kids, whose parents didn't give him enough love crying out for attention. But in the shadows, back against the wall, things were darker. What Lou copped up in Harlem, what Lou sang about up on that stage was what a number of couch criminals were currently jamming into their arms with real-life spikes and nodding off and to sweet nothing on. Those who would already come out on the other side worked out their kernel energy

on one another right there in public, writhing on top of each other, licking boots, grinding heels into flesh. And back on the dance floor, Mess Hall Mary, Mock crucified him slash herself. I'd seen enough. The band wrapped. Lou plopped onto a couch and I needed a drink. He wasn't going anywhere.

So I hit the door behind the makeshift stage in search of something wet. What I got was darkness, more bodies, more insufferable noise passed off as music, but this vibe was different, more subdued, thick with something that could put a chill on your spine. Someone handed me a drink and I thought nothing of it and threw it back. I felt it quick. A million tiny bullets speeding up my bloodstream and moving through my brain, messing up my mind. And that tickled down to my toes,

just like the South Korean pet pills we took in the war with times a thousand. The feeling was familiar but euphoric. Suddenly, nothing mattered. Not Lou, not Bill, not for nothing, no-nose nunzi or neither, nor maybe baby Stephanie. They all drifted away, and I stumbled onto a sofa. I felt a man fall down close to me. He was snug against my side.

I could barely see through the vapors and trails of the spinning room's light revolutions. On his chest, the gold nameplate hung from a gold chain. In cursive letters, it read, Jesus. Jesus stared into my pinprick eyes. He was not forgiving me for anything. I felt the sharp steel against my belly, a little switch, no doubt. Your wallet, motherfucker. I heard him, but I was powerless to move.

Whatever speed was working through my system at the moment, It was cut with something debilitating that bore down on my shoulders and held me in place with fear, paranoia, and psychosis. It was Lou. He took his cool hands off my shoulders, circled around the couch, and squeezed in between me and Jesus, diffusing the switchblade drama in the process. Jesus wandered. Lou looked at me with eyes I couldn't place, familiar but so far away, like an old actor's name on the tip of your tongue. Then, Mess Hall Mary arrived fresh off the dance floor and squeezed in,

between Lou and I. Lou grabbed my eyes with his. He swung his arm around Mess Hall Mary, pulled him slash her in, locked lips, engaged in one of those overacted big Hollywood kisses and never once broke eye contact with me. And that's when the room went black. I woke up in blackness.

I saw nothing, but I could hear their screams. Women and children. Their flesh burning right off of their bones. The result of our American GI torches. The ones we couldn't burn, though, we'd drown. North Korea was no beach blanket bingo. They never stood a chance. The ones we couldn't throw from the Soctane Bridge,

we held down underwater with our bare hands in the So-Wan Reservoir. Then, there were the wild dogs. Can't take credit for that one, and frankly, I would have preferred to have avoided that whole mess. Some South Korean brass got that idea. Jesus Christ, son, what a fucking mess. You thought people feared being burned alive or drowning? Nothing brought more instant horror than a pack of wild flesh-eating dogs, teeth-beared, starved for days, and willing to do anything except skip their next meal.

They tore through civilian skin and bone. Women and children first. Commies had no sense of honor, not even in defeat. Their screams never stopped. Not then, not now. My headache was familiar. It was more of a reminder than anything else. A reminder of the impending pain about to come.

The sweats, the chills, the body aches, the nausea, the uncontrollable twitching. Lou wasn't the only one. I had my own Jones. Hadn't felt it since just after the war, but there was. it was. Back to say, hey ho, let's go, little buddy. It's been a bit of a moment and you thought you had me lick, but I'm always here waiting for the right moment to make an appearance and to show up and let you know just whom's boss. In that moment, was now. My South Korean pet pill habit during the war, a habit picked up to stay awake on long overnights, discharged me as a real American infatomy in Archie. Couldn't live

without those little beauties when I got home, but cold turkey set me straight. Last night, though, whatever was in that drink, speed was definitely the top of the list and now my Jones was back, triggered by the juice job whipped up by one of those Fire Island A-heads. So my new reality was this. If I wanted to get my head straight, I had two options. Number one, sweat out the Jones and waste two or three days crashed and drying out. Number two, grab a pill, speed my headache into oblivion and get back on the case without wasting any real time. Option two was clearly the best option. I'd take half a hit, just enough to kill the Jones, then gradually reduce my intake from there until I solve this thing for Big Bill and be done with the pills after that.

Option number two is problem number one. I had no speed, and I had no idea where to get any speed. Maybe Lou did, though heroin seemed to be his game. Maybe one of his bandmates did. They certainly looked like speed freaks. Well, most of them. That blonde femme fatale with the tambourine was strictly downers. I tried opening my eyes, but they wouldn't cooperate. and they were caked shut. And that's when the smell hit me. And the taste, that smell, that taste, the feeling of whatever was caking my eyes shut.

It was the Sinschaun massacre all over. It was blood. I sat up with a shot, took my fingers and peeled my eyelids back. The slight crinkle of separating flesh gave way to a darkened vision. I gagged and spit up someone else's blood. I snorted in air through my nostrils, pushing more blood down the back of my throat, and then out of my mouth at heavy.

sprays. I looked around the loft from the previous night's party, darkness all around. The only illumination coming from the space between the front door and the hallway, white light. Up close to that light, I could partially make out a figure slumped against the wall. I stumbled a 15 or 20 feet or so over to it. My shoes slipped on something slick. I hit the floor with a thud. I was now rolling in blood, covered in the irony molasses. I gagged, I heaved, my headache screamed. I got up. I felt down again, more blood on my face, on my palms. I pressed myself to my hands and my knees and crawled through the pool to the slumped figure against the wall. Oh, sweet nothing, don't let it be. Not now. We were so close. But there she was. There, there they were. Stephanie and her unborn child,

my unborn child, both dead. A switchblade stuck straight out from her chest. Her torso was as perforated as a pasta strainer. Her blood pooled all around her. And despite the instant horror, I remained calm. Trauma always slowed my world down. And right now with my head, it's exactly what I needed. Besides, I'd actually seen worse, much worse. I grabbed Stephanie and pulled her close. Even though she always said she's not afraid to die, the fact that this was our last embrace still stung. I patted down the frizzy locks on her head. I whispered to her and mangled our father and caressed her cheek. That's when I felt it. Something unnatural in her mouth. I felt my stomach drop. I pried open her jaws and reached in with my hand. I pulled out a lot of bills.

Stephanie, in addition to being stabbed full of countless holes, have been gagged. I closed my eyes, but it didn't help. And the tears came quick. And my diaphragm sputtered and my chest heaved as I sobbed uncontrollably. I opened my eyes and looked down at what I pulled from Stephanie's mouth. $26 in my hand. This murder mystery and this episode of Disgraceland is to be continued. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All-Axist member, thank you for supporting the show.

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