The Edge Becomes the Center Page 9

  Writing on trains is the ultimate. You can’t stay there all day. You gotta be in and out. Time is not your friend. Don’t strain your brain, paint the train. I wasn’t great by any means, but I went to New Lots, I went to the J Yard, I went to the Ghost Yard, I went to prestigious yards where we would just stop and look around—where the fuck am I? I’ve been to mad, grand, crazy yards.

  When I was sixteen, Patti Astor and Bill Stelling, they opened up the Fun Gallery, thank god. They made graffiti expensive. Fab 5 Freddy is the reason. He did Andy Warhol soup cans on the trains, so these niggers go, “Oh, these kids aren’t stupid and they know about art. They know their place. They have taste.” Fab 5 Freddy brought it all together on my block. It was good. I’m lucky. Things happened to me, random, Random Raul.

  Another cackle.

  I went across the street and introduced myself. My friends, they were scared, they wouldn’t go. I didn’t give a shit—they were on my block! That’s my block! I grew up there. If it was on another block, I would never in a million years have introduced myself to them. I was just like fuck it. Jean-Michel, Keith Haring, those dudes, they were on my block. I didn’t give a fuck about school anymore.

  I didn’t graduate. I was two credits short. Algebra or trig or some weird shit. It didn’t affect me. I was hanging out with rock stars, gods.

  Rene Ricard, he’s an art critic. He was one of the stars in the Andy Warhol movies. Went to Harvard. Rene Ricard’s not his real name. I know his real name but I can’t tell you. So he wrote an article on Jean-Michel in Artforum. Jean-Michel started making mad whop. He wrote an article on Keith Haring and that’s it. Every time this guy wrote an article on you, you were set. Who the fuck is this guy? This guy’s got the Midas touch. So I had my little graffiti crew, the TSC, The Style Counselors, and I said, “Listen to me, find this fucking guy, Rene Ricard, and bring him to my house. When you find him, call me.”

  Couple of days later this kid in my crew: “Yo, I got this guy Rene here, what do you want me to do with him?”

  “Yo, bring him to my house—I’m eating, bring him over.”

  So he brings him over. This guy is the fucking genius art savant. We used to hang out. He was like a big mentor, big, in my life. He’s the kind of guy, you go to Europe, he’ll write you a letter of introduction. You show it to the people at the hotel, they treat you like a god. He used to like me. He had the hots for me, but I wasn’t gay. I’m pretty sure, maybe, he said he slept with me to people, but I didn’t give a fuck, it was an honor hanging out with this fucking guy. He had the hots for me and I had the hots for his knowledge, for his brains, like who the fuck are you? What do you know? And that motherfucker, he introduced me to Clemente, Julian Schnabel, Brice Marden. I had never met people like that before. They took me in. I was like the little kid in the group. It’s almost like I’m spoiled from that time, like nothing really impressed me after that. Good time to be alive and shit, that’s what I’m most proud of: I’m nobody but I was around during good times. I’m going to fuckin’ Warhol parties, eating seaweed. What the fuck is this? I would just eat it because everybody else was eating it, I didn’t want to be a fuckin’ idiot.

  And this is how I think—this is how a sixteen year old thinks: So Futura was doing a mural for Citibank on Seventeenth Street, which is now the W Hotel. This is how a sixteen year old thinks: I’m gonna steal that shit and I’m gonna tell him that I found it, I’m gonna give it back to him. Me and my crew, we took all this down. And everybody was like, “Oh my god, somebody stole it!”

  And I was like, “Yo, I know where to get it—you want to get that back?”

  He’s like, “Yeah.”

  And I gave it back to him, and we became friends ever since then.

  Jean-Michel, he didn’t stand a chance with these people. The big, big dealers. They kind of study you as a human being and shit. It’s not even about your artwork. They just want to see what kind of person you are, and project an image to sell your work. It’s psychological shit. All this fucking money. It changes your relationships, obviously. You’re giving your friends drawings, they’re selling them and shit.

  He points at another photo:

  The top three graffiti artists are Lee, DONDI, and S-E-E-N. The funniest thing about graffiti is when you see a European kid doing it—I don’t know. When a New York kid does it, it’s like he’s from New York, he’s got the style, he’s got this attitude, he’s from New York. When a European dude does it, they’re imitating it. I can’t explain it. New York is different from energy anywhere else.

  On the trains, before they used to give you a fine and nothing happened to you. Now you get caught on a car, you going down. Last painted car was—what?—1989? Yeah, 1989. The death of subway graffiti. This kid Mike said something really interesting. He said, “We lost the trains but we gained the world. Because after we got off the trains it spread through the whole city.” It was really a beautiful way of putting it. These motherfuckers, they can’t write on trains no more so they got to do the next best thing: really hard to do shit, like turn the shit into a James Bond movie.

  I can’t go out with cans now, I’ll get caught, my age. Forty-six years old. Graffiti used to be like, oh, this poor kid, but now all these new art kids are like, check out what I can do. So the niggers are doing wild stuff on the streets.

  Raul lights his blunt and stands in front of his graffiti-covered refrigerator, pointing out each signature:

  This is one of the first superstars in graffiti history. This nigger, Stay High, he just died. Stay High 149. He fucked everybody’s head up. You know, it looks corny to you right now but he did that shit 1970, 1969—that was a big fucking deal. When you see tags like this when you’re a kid, you’re like, “What the fuck is going on right now?”

  He points to another name:

  Yo, Phase 2. Greatest graffiti writer of all time, this nigger basically invented graffiti right here. That’s why this refrigerator ain’t going nowhere. He invented drips, arrows, numbers, everything. All this shit, putting a 2 by your name. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if it wasn’t for him. His name is Lonny, he’s totally nuts and amazing.

  He points at other signatures on the side of the Kenmore:

  That’s Zephyr.

  That’s Futura.

  Futura took me to his house out in Brooklyn. I was fucking freaking out and shit. Smoking weed. I didn’t really like coke. I just did it like seventeen, eighteen, nineteen because everybody else was doing it but it’s not really me. That white powder takes you to weird places. Going up is the way to go, but coming down, it’s like the worst fucking feeling ever, fuck me! Slippery, slippery slope. It’s weird, people love that shit. They have an insatiable appetite. I’m a weed guy. I’m a pothead. I used to be buying this cheap weed and they were smoking green buds already. C— was the first one to bring buds from California to New York and we were like, “What the fuck is this shit, nigga?” Cali, nigger! He brought that shit from Cali. That was jumping, the weed scene, it just turned green—’80, ’81, ’82.

  That’s when New York was New York. Mud Club, Max’s. A good time to grow up. Andy Warhol used to always be in Keith Haring’s studio. I was scared to death of him. Sometimes on Sundays he would have these little picnics at Central Park. Used to go. Bugged the fuck out. Fucking Andy, he was alright. I used to have a baseball team and he’d always come watch us. Interview magazine had a baseball team, and we used to beat the shit out of them all the time. My team was Futura; Fab 5; Zephyr; Ricky Pow, used to be a famous photographer; the Beastie Boys; two or three kids from my neighborhood who were really good at baseball; and me—and we would kill it.

  I was working getting weed for people and shit. I was working on my own with that, and then this big deal, this lady named A—, she got robbed and shit, and someone said to her, “Yo, you should have Raul do it for you.” And she did.

  So I had the weed thing and I used to steal linen canvases from Utrecht and sell them to all the big paint
ers. My dream was to be—I used to want to work in Duggal, to have these big machines that print the big color photos. They’re these beautiful, awesome machines. I sold weed to this girl that worked there. She used to let me come in, we used to smoke and she’d print and let me see it. It was like, “This is what I want to do with my life.”

  But the interviews didn’t go too good. They didn’t hire me. I was dressed nice. Whatever. That’s when I really got into the weed thing. What do they say in the movies, in the books? “The rest is history.”

  I had a rent-controlled apartment, a little studio. I was in love with this girl and shit. It was time to move on. And we moved to Mercer Street. All of a sudden I went from paying $400 to two grand. That was a big fucking jump. I was in love with this girl, and I had to provide and man the fuck up. I remember I was walking the streets thinking, where am I gonna get the money for this fucking apartment? I ran into this guy I knew—hadn’t seen him in five years, so I was bugging out. He was a booker for a model agency. He asked, “You know where I can get some?”—Raul mimes sucking back on a joint even though there’s still half a glowing blunt in his other hand—I was like, “Do I?”

  He took me under his wing, introduced me to everybody. It was a big deal, the model industry. I went from having, like, a nickel in my pocket to—I had two hundred grand on me in one year. That’s unbelievable. I had never had that kind of money. It was overwhelming at twenty-seven.

  People were kind to me and took me under their wing, and I always remember that. Roberto Clemente said if you can help somebody and you don’t, you’re wasting your time here on earth. I enjoy everybody. I enjoy bums in the fucking street. As long as you have a good heart, I don’t care if you’re rich or poor, I’ll be your friend. I don’t judge nobody. I don’t care if you’re a freak. I’m a freak, everybody’s a freak. But if you have a good heart, you’re a good person, I’ll try to help you out. If you’re evil with bad intentions, get the fuck out of here!

  I stopped smoking when I was thirty for ten years because I had to concentrate on that shit. I was a one-man company. Five g’s, six g’s a week, ten years. The older I got, the better I was at it because when I was younger I was more temperamental and angry, and you gotta have temperance with people. You gotta be patient with people because they’re probably stupid. You can’t get mad at every little weird thing that happens. You can’t be arguing or fighting with people. It takes one person to flip on you and rat you out.

  I’m a good evaluator of character—I have to be. If I’m sticking my neck out, I have to see if I feel you. I get a good vibe. I’m always pretty much dead on. I can always tell who I’m going to see again, who I’m not going to see again. It’s a whole art. Gaining people’s trust, you know, go to their house and shit. It’s discipline. Etiquette, too. Not any idiot could do it. You could do it on the low end and be on the street, but if you’re gonna deal with really rich people, celebrity, it takes a little bit of—you know.

  Je ne sais quoi.

  Raul has expanded his product line over time, adjusting inventory according to demand. Recently someone asked him if he had any acid and he responded: “Get the fuck out of here. What do you think this is, 1970?” The oversized pockets of his hoodies and puffy jackets are filled with what will move: cocaine, a grab bag of prescription pills, maybe a little ecstasy for lingering aficionados, and, of course, weed, which is masked by generously applied cologne.

  Raul is proud of his clientele, always managing to rattle off the names of high-profile patrons. I have seen Raul in action with the kinds of people who are never far from the cameras on Oscar night, or Grammy night, or Emmy night. And many of his stories invoke the exotic—the New Yorkers who carve out niches so strange, so unexpected, that they could only thrive in this city. The city cannot resist these people: Raul opens an old issue of a prominent magazine and points to a giant color photo of a man and a turtle.

  That’s my friend E—, he lives in the building. That turtle is worth a million dollars. He’s into conservation. Nigger goes to these crazy places and buys mad turtles. He keeps them on the roof. There ain’t none there right now. He’ll have them here and then he sends them out to Cali. He’s got a compound. They try to do anything possible to keep these motherfuckers going, breeding them and shit. They’re like gold, man. Half a million dollars to a million, a million and a half, they’re mad extinct.

  When I first started it was a lot of people doing what I was doing and I had to separate myself. You have to prove to people that you’re a righteous dude. It’s just relationships. That’s what business is. Relationships. You gotta be cool when you meet them and be consistent of course, punctual and all that shit. Sweat the small stuff. A lot of people, they look to me, not because of what I have, it’s how fast I get it to them—they’re into that. When they call, they know it’s happening. It’s not “maybe”—oh no, it’s gonna happen. They’re into efficiency. They’re hooked on that more than anything.

  I saw people back in the days, in the late ’90s and shit. They be like, “Yo, I’ll fly you out to Paris right now.” Shit like that. I used to go out to the Hamptons a lot. I used to be going there twice a day. Hamptons in the summertime. Helicopter. I’d bring my girlfriend. Go there, have lunch, go to the beach for a second. Get on a helicopter, come back. Go back that night.

  When I was still really young, twenty-six, twenty-seven, I had the concierge of the Carlyle on my payroll—you’d be surprised what goes on in that hotel. I remember going to see my guy, standing behind Nancy Reagan. “Just say no”—that was really funny. I’m right behind her. Secret service dudes. And it was just me and her.

  Some dudes, they do this job and they take advantage of girls. Like ugly girls or strung-out girls. I take advantage of socialites.

  He cackles.

  Royal people. Royalty I’ve been with! Billionaire heiresses. Fucking billionaires up in my crib and the husband’s in the Mercedes-Benz outside right here waiting to go to dinner—at the restaurant that I suggested they go to! It’s crazy realities.

  I’m like a therapist or something. People tell me their fuckin’ crazy secrets and shit that nobody should know, they just feel comfortable, they open up. Here’s the thing about me I’ve been the most proud of: you can take me anywhere. You go anywhere, to the ’hood, or to some elegant dinner, I’m your Huckleberry. I can fit in, talk to anybody. You gotta have lots of sides in New York. A lot of realities, you know? People have dark sides and they want to be wild and shit. Some people don’t know how to get it out. People project an image of what they want you to see them as, but they’re not like that at all once you get to know them. I always said I don’t want to get to know somebody too well; it’s disappointing and shit.

  I said I was going to quit at forty-five and I’m still here. I’m forty-seven next week. I got three good years left. I always say when I’m fifty I’ll be dead. Not literally dead but goddamn: you’re fifty!

  These kids, now they’re smoking THC, they’re melting it down and they have all these new things I don’t even know about. They’re really into the percentage of THC. Have you seen that? They’re buggin’ out. Growers are buggin’ out. It ain’t Alphabet City no more. You want to get some dope, it’s like a James Bond movie. Before you see somebody nodding off, be like, “Yo, where’d you get that?” He’d tell you, you’d go. Now it’s like foie gras and expensive bottles of wine and shit.

  Now, I’m semiretired but when I was doing my thing, when I was in the zone, people would come to my house and worlds would meet. People would ask me if I could introduce them to so and so, that sort of thing. I’ve had meetings in this apartment, trying to get people tens of millions of dollars, and I just put it together, trying to make it happen and shit. All walks of life. That’s my currency: knowing people.

  I’ve developed relationships with these people, it’s really weird. We depend on each other. They depend on me, and I depend on them to make a living. Sometimes I’m more addicted to their money. It’s
bugged out. I’m really good friends with big time stockbrokers. Me and them, we have a good rapport, we understand each other. We relate to each other because we always think about money. It’s not a good thing. It’s not good for your soul.

  People say I could have always been big at something else—a producer, something. They think I could apply this to something else but, you know, that didn’t happen. I’m not bitter about it. I know how to make money. I tell girls or friends of mine, “Yo, I got a lot of fucking money, you got any ideas and shit?” And everybody just does what they do. Nobody has another idea. I walk around New York, I feel stupid. I should have an idea here or there. I’d like to take the dirty money and do something with it. I’ll be fifty years old running the streets.

  Two or three years, God knows what this place is going to be like. It’s just a different species, a different animal now, New York, since the Twin Towers fell down. That thing changed everything. That was a turning point. After that they cleaned this bad boy up and it became something else. Everything’s so clean. Everything looks like the Upper West Side. There’s no danger. Before it used to have some flavor, some character. Like a personality. When I was growing up, poor people, rich people, middle class, we all hung out with each other. Now you go to a place, it’s either high end or it’s low end.

  We used to always sit on the stairs on the street; we were little kids—anything we could sit on. And on my block, if you go there now, they have little gates so you can’t sit on anything. That’s when I felt, wow, it’s changing. They put all these gates and all these little spikes all over the neighborhood. You couldn’t sit there. The jig was up.