Chelsea Horror Hotel

by Dee Dee Ramone, Joe Dante

Genres: General Fiction; Humor & Satire; Horror

Synopsis

Dee Dee Ramone doesn't quite know what he's getting himself into when he and his wife Barbara move into the squalid Chelsea Hotel with their dog Banfield. He spends most of his time trying to score drugs and walking Banfield, with whom he can magically communicate. Meanwhile, he can't stand his neighbors and shies away from violence, but wishes everyone were six feet under. He also thinks that the room he's staying in is the very room where his old friend Sid Vicious stabbed Nancy Spungen, and begins having nightmares of Nancy emerging from the bathroom with a knife wound. After one of his nightmares, an evil force enters his hotel room and hurls him against a wall. Dee Dee also gets involved with the transvestite lover of one of his gay fellow addicts. When his wife finds out, the two fight it out and become seriously wounded. During all this, Dee Dee is tormented by the living and dead demons that plague the hotel, along with the ghosts of his old dead punk rock friends Sid Vicious, Johnny Thunders and Stiv Bators. And that's when the Devil himself decides to join the party . . .

Release date: March 1, 2016

Publisher: Da Capo Press

Print pages: 256

Sample

foreword

With its surreal echoes of Naked Lunch, Dee Dee Ramone’s phantasmagoric acid trip of a novel was published in 2001 (the year of 9/11), approximately a year before his death by heroin overdose a few months after the Ramones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Moving into New York City’s Chelsea Hotel, Dee Dee, his wife, Barbara, and his (talking?) dog, Banfield, contend with violent crazies, amorous transvestites, the malevolent ghosts of drugged-out punk stars, and even The Devil Himself in an appropriately apocalyptic finale.

I can’t say I knew Dee Dee or the other Ramones especially well, as my contribution to their cult movie, Rock ’n’ Roll High School, was pretty minimal, nor was I lucky(?) enough to ever reside at the fabled Chelsea. However, I did spend time in my own Horror Hotel, the crumbling, long-gone Greystone Apartment Hotel on Pine Street in Philadelphia circa 1965.

The similarities with Dee Dee’s dark chronicle are legion, minus the presence of The Devil (I think).

The Greystone’s inhabitants were a rogues’ gallery of drunks, addicts, and psychos of all colors and creeds. One time the elevator door opened on the wrong floor, and I witnessed a murder in progress. The floor was covered in blood and lymph, the victim sporting a fatal indentation from the bloody fire extinguisher held aloft by one of the two “suspects” as they eyed me quizzically. “Oops—wrong floor,” I croaked as I pushed the DOWN button as quickly as I could. Never saw a cop, never heard about it again. Just another day in the life of an impoverished art student who spent all his money on movie tickets. Chelsea Horror Hotel reminded me of those frazzled days and how, for at least a portion of our youth, most of us bumpkins who tried to make it in The Big City lived in the kind of dangerous squalor that would have made our parents blanch.

In the end Dee Dee turned out to be as mesmerizing a novelist as he was a bassist and songwriter. Hopefully this new edition of his only novel will garner renewed attention to a side of him that most of his fans haven’t seen—the screaming voice of a punk Lovecraft.

—JOE DANTE

1

the demon alcohol

MIKE IS sixty-eight years old. A bum, an alcoholic, completely untrustable with a dirty cast on one leg that should have come off months ago. Since he has nowhere to live and all that, he’s filthy. He also told me that he spent twenty years behind bars in a New York state prison. When I first saw him, he was sitting on a wooden rack bench outside of La Nouvelle Justine—a straight, gay, S&M bar and restaurant near the Seventh Avenue subway on Twenty-third Street.

Despite being a down and out bum and everything, he was still in very good spirits. Maybe because he was drunk. He had a nice comment for everyone who passed by, but no one paid much attention to him because he wasn’t panhandling. Still, I thought it was weird that the people from La Nouvelle Justine would allow him to sit on the bench outside their establishment. But they did. He was helplessly drunk. The street life and booze had really wasted him. He liked my dog, Banfield. Banfield is an Airedale terrier and is a real attention getter. He’s got a winning smile and everybody loves him.

I was hoping Banfield would take a quick piss, but he wanted to lark about till Mike called him over. Somehow, Banfield pulled me with the leash, flopped himself down on the sidewalk, and made himself comfortable. Mike had captured us almost effortlessly, and this pleased him immensely. Then, Mike tried to make conversation, “Hey, what’s yer name? When did you get out? That’s a cute dog you got there.”

“Yeah, his name is Banfield.”

“Oh.”

“Well, I guess no one talks to you, huh?” I said. “It’s hard, right? Never talking to anyone?”

A weird expression sort of came over old Mike’s face. I was too much for him. I know that I’m not that normal. Sometimes I put people off a bit at first, but Mike adjusted and soon we were sort of having a nice time.

This is not very New Yorkish, I thought to myself, talking to a stranger on the street. I have a big heart, but these street situations usually go from bad to worse. I know what it’s like to be homeless and rejected, but I was also clean and just had a bath and was not looking to catch fleas. And I didn’t appreciate it when, without warning, Mike somehow hopped off the bench into my arms for a hug. Then, I had to support him so he wouldn’t drop to the sidewalk because he couldn’t balance on his bad leg. He was also very stoned.

“Dee Dee, you’re a wonderful man. May God bless you.”

It was like having the wind all of a sudden blow a piss-soaked Kleenex into my face. Somehow, I managed to get things back under control. Then, I ended up loaning Mike a few bucks. I knew he was going to buy beer and I thought it was okay.

I was secretly hoping he might get himself a container of chicken soup. Mike looked sick. His face was flushed red from the alcohol. His eyes were puffy and leaking pus. He was covered in old dried up vomit and the cast on his bad leg was a horrible yellow color from being pissed on.

Later that night, when I was sitting in my room, I started worrying about him. It was August, but it was a chilly night. My wife, Barbara, the Latin bombshell who lives with me, was asleep—naked except for her panties. I don’t know why women always put them back on. Oh well. Everything was quiet.

Thank God we have a home, I thought, as Banfield snuggled up to me in front of the TV.

I would see Mike in the neighborhood everyday. He tried to mind his own business, but since he was such an eyesore, the police had to chase him off Twenty-third Street from time to time.

It was quite an effort for him to get up and move, but he didn’t give the cops an argument, and would just leave his spot on the sidewalk and struggle down to the opposite side of the street. What I’m trying to say is that there didn’t seem to be any violence in him, which can be a very good defense in New York City. I am sure though—and would bet on it—that in his day, Mike had done everything a bad man can do. Once, I saw him around seven o’clock in the evening. It was about to rain. Everybody had gotten out of work already and gone home. The city was getting quiet. People should be home eating dinner at this time, and then watching TV.

“Mike, where are you going to go?”

“Oh, I’ll go sleep down in the subway tonight to get out of the rain.”

“Will you be all right?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” he replied. “I’ll be all right.”

“Okay, I’ll see you,” I said. “Come on, Banfield,” I coaxed, trying to get him to concentrate on going home instead of smelling the garbage spilling from black plastic trash bags piled up and down Twenty-third Street. I wanted to get back home by eight o’clock. That’s my goal everyday. Eight o’clock—it’s TV time.

Later in the night, bums come out to search through the black plastic trash bags for bottles and cans. It makes quite a racket outside my window all night. In the morning, when I take Banfield out, the whole street is a big mess—very smelly. Broken glass and oil stains all over the sidewalk. They clean it up everyday—the storeowners and the garbage men. I don’t know why, but at six in the morning, there are some bums—some still very drunk—laughing and seemingly very pleased with themselves, drinking coffee and eating doughnuts outside Caesar’s Deli on the west side of Twenty-fourth Street at Seventh Avenue. I think they are the ones that must have collected the most cans and bottles and are celebrating after a hard night’s work.

My friend, Mike, is not the hard working type though. The last time I saw him, he was sleeping on the sidewalk outside the Thai Regional Taste Restaurant, which is right next to Caesar’s Deli. Mike looked very bad. He was dehydrated. His eyes were caked shut with dried pus. I went right over to where he was lying to give him a closer look, but I couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive. So I bent over him, holding my nose because of his bad odor, and tried to get his attention.

“Mike,” I said. “Can you wake up?”

The situation looked bad. He needed help. I went to a payphone and called 911. I explained to the operator about Mike and she was wonderful. I couldn’t believe they were going to help. And an ambulance got there in ten minutes to pick Mike up and take him to the hospital. It was a miracle—especially since New York is such a hard city. The paramedics were great. They were huge, with really big muscles. They looked like they could deal with anything. They also put on plastic gloves before they touched Mike, which I thought was pretty smart.

“How long has this been on?” one of the paramedics asked Mike, pointing to the cast on his leg.

“Five months,” he said.

“It’s got to come off,” they told him. “Come on. We’ll take you to the hospital.”

“Goodbye. Goodbye everybody. God bless you. You’re a good man, Dee Dee,” he told me as they helped him into the ambulance. I gave Mike twenty dollars before they took him away so he would have something on him when he got back on the street. Everybody watching was happy for Mike. I felt like a hero.

Fuck everybody, I thought to myself. I felt real good and I had to go downtown, so I split.

I saw Mike twenty minutes later from a cab I was in that was taking me back to the West Side. He was very, very, very drunk. I watched from the cab as another bum lifted a mostly empty bottle of bourbon from his grasp. Mike must have run for it as soon as he got to the admissions at the emergency clinic. The twenty-dollar bill I gave him must have only made him think of drinking. He didn’t wait to get treatment for his leg. He could have gotten help that he needed real real bad, and he wouldn’t get a chance like this again. Not in New York City. Poor guy. The demon alcohol won again.

It turned into a cold and rainy evening. Later that night, I thought of him sitting outside—wet and cold. Poor man.

2

the chelsea hotel lobby

NOT LONG ago, I was walking down the Chelsea Hotel staircase from the first floor down to the lobby. As I passed the silver fire extinguisher which is next to a Vali Myers self-portrait, I walked into a very heavy situation that was going on at the hotel reception area. Actually, the whole glass top of the hotel’s reception desk was smeared with very scary, dark-red blood.

A very large, crazy and drunk, bearded man was holding a blood-soaked dishtowel on his arm. Despite this large man’s lumberjack demeanor, there was a bit of an effeminate aura about him. He had to be gay.

He was really bleeding a lot. His eyes were gleaming and he was yelling hysterically and threatening all comers. The desk clerk who was behind the reception desk was just cowering away from the situation. Everybody who was there said the same thing when we spoke later about what happened. We were really afraid of his blood. It was really scary. You couldn’t imagine getting into a tussle with this cretin, because it seemed too probable that he was HIV positive. Everyone would have bet on it, that he had AIDS and that if he splashed blood on anyone, it would be certain death for the helpless victim. There was also an empty plastic bottle—pint of pure rubbing alcohol that he had been drinking—on the desk.

He was drinking rubbing alcohol and having dinner at the El Quijote Restaurant next door to the Chelsea Hotel. I heard later that this bum had smashed up the plates and glasses on the dinner table, cutting himself on the sharp edges of the glass and china.

He was drunk out of his mind on the rubbing alcohol and didn’t feel the pain from the wounds on his arms and hands. He knew he was hurt, but he didn’t seem to realize that he was spraying up the place with blood. Maybe it was because he was too busy arguing with everyone in the lobby.

Obviously, the little accident he had in the El Quijote restaurant was a purposely staged stunt for him to get out of paying the check for his dinner. It worked. In this state of mind, his physical condition and the reaction of the other guests quite easily allowed him to walk out of the El Quijote unobstructed and without paying. Then, he strolled into the Chelsea Hotel lobby without a care in the world.

Banfield freaked. He threw himself on the floor in terror. He never once barked or showed his teeth at the bastard. Fucking shit, ain’t it? He should have helped save me or something like that, but Banfield always makes it even worse. Instead, he did that dog spin move—the one where they crouch low to the floor and tangle up their master with the leash, slip off the collar, and run out into the street into the traffic and then you have to run after them and catch them before they get hit by a truck or a taxi or a rollerskater.

Since Banfield had to make such a display of himself, the fucker couldn’t help then but to focus his attention on Banfield, which he did by going, “Ooooh . . . ooooh please . . . ooooh please . . . ooooh yes, please.”

Then, he declared, “I love Aierdales. Does he want to play? Er . . . can I pet your puppy? Pleeease. . . . please, please let me pet him right now,” he demanded in a loud, angry Southern accent.

Then, the chase around the Chelsea Hotel began. I managed with some very tricky footwork to dodge out of his way and keep Banfield from being splashed with HIV positive blood. He was very energetic though, and very tricky. I am hard to catch, but it was a very short chase. In minutes, he was there in front of me again with the sole intention of doing something horrible to me. Maybe this creep could have had a meat cleaver under his shirt. Who could tell? But whatever, he was not going to leave the Chelsea Hotel lobby quietly. He . . .