I recently gave a reading and a Q&A in Manhattan at which most of the audience was under 40—that is, born after 1985. One of the questions’ recurring themes was curiosity about New York in the 1980s.
Two days later I picked up the papers and read about a man who sexually violated a corpse in the subway. My first reaction of utter horror—I mean, seriously, are you f---ing kidding me?!—was complicated by a sense almost of déjà vu, as if I’d been transported back in time to an era of urban crime and chaos in which such an occurrence would not have seemed so outlandish. The era, for instance, of the immortal 1983 New York Post headline, “Headless Body in Topless Bar.”
Of course, it was from the Post that I first learned about this week’s nearly inexplicable event, although it has to be said that even the Post seems to be out of practice, after years of gentrification of the city, in dealing with this level of psychopathy. The headline “‘Necro’ sicko on subway” doesn’t really do justice to the nature of the crime, nor does it have the tabloid’s signature waggish, punning gallows humor.
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You can hardly blame them. This kind of thing no longer happens every day in the city, although, reading the Post over the last few years you could be forgiven for thinking that armageddon is upon us—particularly underground. But they haven’t reported anything this nasty, or kinky in decades.
The Times’ headline was as usual straightforward and informative: “Police Seek Man Who They Say Violated a Corpse on an R Train.” (A matter of factness that seems, as often with the Times, inadequate to the occasion.)
A friend of mine, in an email asking if I’d seen the item, ghoulishly remarked: “my first thought was New York is back.” Well, yes. Maybe. In 1980, New York experienced a record number of murders. The tabloid-ready city of the “Preppy Killer,” the “Coma Baby,” the Crack Epidemic and the “Queen of Mean” was back this week, although even jaded veterans of that era, like myself, are a little freaked out about this one. I’m trying hard to think of a crime from the ‘80s this nasty.
According to the Times, the deceased was violated both orally and anally. Which raises questions. What are the chances that a necrophiliac just happened to wander by while the corpse was lying there? Was anyone in the train car at the time? And last but not least, how did he die? Surveillance video shows a woman giving the victim something to smoke prior to his death, the Post reported; she then robbed the dead man. The necrophiliac also rifled his pockets.
So yes, I guess New York is back. Stay tuned.
