BUNDY AND FRIENDS

Last week, over chicken Caesar salads, my friends and I were discussing serial killers. And yes, I was the only one to know an actual killer. In fact, I’ve known three killers. Well, four if you count an acquaintance, but who’s keeping score.

When I was a teenager, I fooled around with a guy named Tom who hammered a man to death. I remember him as sweet with a wonderful sense of humor. He only served a few years in jail. I always wanted to ask him why he did it, but peer pressure kept us apart when he was released; and I have no idea where he is now.

Mark was a young guy I met at a White Castle after a night of drinking. He had a sneer to his smile and a cold look in his cocoa brown eyes that scared me. He once stole my Gucci wallet after we had sex, which I later made my father retrieve - a story onto itself, but that's for another blog. His friends informed me that a few months before we had met, he had killed his mother’s boyfriend in a domestic dispute – very Lana Turner. Later I heard he joined a street gang and overdosed on heroin.

Finally, Michael Alig, the infamous club kid killer and inspiration for the movie Party Monster. We hung out in the early 90s, and one night after vast quanities of booze and pills, we kinda made out. I thought he was an amazing character in a weird Valley of the Dolls kinda way - that is, until I got to know him. He's up for parole sometime next year.