Rod Townsend (aka our commenter Momo), sometimes receives telephone calls from The Past, a mysterious entity that remembers where things used to be in New York before Starbucks and Whole Foods came to town."Hello?"

"Oh, snickersnatch, cheer The Past up. I'm down in the dumps."

"Sounds pretty bad."

"So bad I was crying to a Janet Jackson song."

"That's pretty severe. Has this been going on for a while?"

"No, my depression started when I did a line off a pierced cock in a bathroom stall at Hell!"

"Drugs in a bathroom in hell? Are you sure you didn't just have a bad dream?"

"Not that hell. Hell in the new gayborhood, the Meatpacking District. It's this brand new lounge. Very upscale compared to Mother and The Lure. And convenient to Florent."

"Oh, you've mentioned Florent before. But you had a bad time there?"

"No I was having a great time. I got together with my ex, Luis, and we wanted to check out something 'not in the East Village,' just to try something new. So around ten we started our night by cabbing over to Gansevoort Street. The place has a simple metal sign out front so it was a little hard to find at first, but then we walked through the heavy metal doors and inside the place was bursting with boys."

"Sounds like fun so far."

"And it was for awhile. You walk in and there were black leather banquettes and chairs and stools and people were, like, sitting. The bar took up two sides of a back corner and was really cute. In fact everything, there in the middle of the Meatpacking District was 'cute.' Even the drinks. We're used to the 'vodka cran' crowd, but everyone was drinking cosmos, sloshing them around in martini glasses. All this cuteness should have been a warning sign."

"Warning?"

"Of the evil that was to come. The cuteness was just one sign though. The DJ was playing Spice Girls. And he even played En Vogue. Not the good stuff, but the new stuff, without Dawn Robinson? Just not the same. And then there were the clothes on the boys. Dolce and Comme de Garcon and Versace, all very 'constructed' and 'tailored' and 'fitted'. No Bikkemberg or Dries Van Notten. And certainly no vintage Adidas track pants like mine."

"Vintage? Like from Salvation Army?"

"I'm not that ambitious. I just go to the shops on East Sixth. Anyway, so after a few drinks we got friendly with some of the guys. Over the wailings of Mariah Carey, we got an invitation to make a run to the bathroom. Four of us fit in a stall—gotta love the handicapped. And everybody was doing little key bumps and I, being a little tipsy, was all, 'Just make me a line.' And this other guy was all, 'Only if you do it off my dick,' which I thought was lame, but whatever. He pulls it out and it's a Prince Albert model. With a piercing at the tip? Which explains why he wanted everyone to see it, the freak."

"And this is when your depression began?"

"Well, no! At that moment I was like crazy-euphoric. But once the burning started, I realized what was going on. It wasn't coke on the cock. It wasn't coke at all! It was crystal. Fucking Tina!"

"Well, I've warned you before...."

"If I had known, it wouldn't have happened. The next thing I know there's twelve of us in two cabs headed to an apartment on East 16th between Fifth and Sixth. Really nice place, but then I saw the 72-pack of Trojans, and Luis and I just looked at each other and shrugged. Anyway, two days later, we're sitting in the apartment, still awake and listening to Janet Jackson and sobbing. 'The Velvet Rope.' It's way deep. You should check it out cuddlecunt."

"Oh, um, okay. Not my usual thing really."

"'What about the times you said you didn't fuck her. She only gave you head. What about that, what about that.' That Janet. She's a poet. She's got such a great future ahead of her! I'm going to try to go to sleep now. It's been three days. Talk soon."

Previously: The Death of Wigstock