There was a staircase that led from my small bedroom up to the attic of the house I grew up in. I kept the door closed tightly, but long red centipedes still came out of the attic and crawled across the walls of my bedroom.
Dusty spider webs filled the ceiling and corners of that attic. The floor was unfinished, so you had to be careful where you stepped. Or crawled. I always crawled when I had to go up there.
The time I ate peyote cactus and was having a bad trip, holed up in my bedroom until it passed, I saw demons coming down the stairs out of that attic.
My younger sisters came in to check on me periodically to see if I was OK. I felt a great relief when they visited, but they couldn't stay long for fear of making our mother suspicious. I had told her I wasn’t feeling well and needed to lie down.
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I remember two scary staircases in New York City in the early 60s when I was hanging out with John. One time I had to pee really bad and there just wasn’t any place to do it, so I used the landing at the bottom of a staircase in a run-down building, hoping no one would come by and see me.
Another time we sat at the top of a staircase in another run-down old building to shoot up heroin. John asked me to take off my belt so he could use it to tie up my arm, and then his own arm, cooking up the heroin, sterilizing the needle with the flame from a match.
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Yesterday my granddaughter Rachel and I went to Binghamton to check out the Bundy Museum of History and Art. The director had offered to show my art next year in one of their galleries where they have rotating exhibits of local artists.
As we drove down Main Street looking for the museum, we were not impressed by the seedy look of everything. This end of town seemed far away from State Street where the galleries were and mobs of people roamed on a warm spring gallery night.
We found a parking spot on the empty street in front of the museum and walked up to the front door. A sign said, “Ring the bell.” We did, but there was no response.
We walked next door to the offices—where we were supposed to go in the first place—and met the director. He was a young man, from California, he explained, and I wanted to know more about how and what and why he was there—since 2005, he said—but he was reticent.
He did give us a short tour, however, taking us inside the museum and up to the second floor. “The gallery is on the third floor,” he said. And then we were faced with a closed door. He opened it and there was a narrow staircase like the one leading up to my childhood attic, with a thin, insubstantial railing that didn’t even go all the way up.
The gallery space at the top of those stairs matched the quality of the stairs: low ceilings, uneven walls. Cramped. In the current exhibit, two of the paintings had been hung right in front of the windowpanes.
When the director asked about whether I’d want to hang the show myself or let him do it, I said, “I don’t want any of my paintings hanging in front of the windows.”
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Afterwards, as Rachel and I walked to the car, she said, “You can do better than that.”
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Another scary staircase I remember was one that folded down from the ceiling in a hallway, leading into an attic. I can see it unfolding and remember climbing it gingerly, afraid to stick my head into the opening at the top.
Where was that staircase? I don’t think it was that long ago that this staircase existed in a house I lived in, and I know Adrian lived in that house with me. I recall him standing at the bottom of the ladder, supporting me.
We lived in so many houses—maybe that’s why I can’t remember which one it was.
If Adrian were here, I could ask him about that staircase.
But he’s not.