House of Nutter by Lance Richardson

Author:Lance Richardson [Richardson, Lance]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2018-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

* * *

It was, indeed, all going on in New York, though not quite in the way Tommy intended. But such is bipolar disorder: soaring periods of “never felt so good” can be followed by a rapid freefall to “rock bottom,” as David was describing his life by August.

What triggered this dramatic swing?

Where to begin?

In May, David had relocated to the Upper West Side after relations with the artist in his SoHo loft had eroded past a point of no return. Then horrendous eczema had broken out across his body, seemingly impervious to treatment. John Lennon had floated the idea of David taking some photos—a new album cover—but it fizzled out, yet another disappointment from the Dakota. And Bill King was being even more obnoxious than usual, with the cocaine situation at his studio spiraling out of hand.

The cocaine situation: As David recalls, the whole thing began back in November 1974, when King had asked him to collect a package from “this nice little man” at the Chelsea Hotel. This nice little man was Billy Maynard, a rock photographer of drag bands like the Cockettes who also happened to be a drug dealer, though David failed to make that connection until Maynard was beaten to death a short time later in Room 803. Reading about the murder in a newspaper, David experienced a moment of horrifying clarity. “And then, of course, when I was ‘in,’ ” he recalls—meaning complicit with King’s cocaine habit, as though that followed naturally—“we used to have to test the coke when it came into the studio to see what it was cut with.”

Recently, David and the staff had been testing the cocaine a lot. Photo shoots needed the stuff like an engine needs oil, and all income seemed to be outgoing to dealers to keep the supply flowing steadily. David recalls being threatened, more than once, by dealers who were paid late for their services. He also remembers King encouraging an atmosphere of paranoia by, for example, installing bulletproof glass in the studio windows.

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