"Suitcase Sam" originally appeared in
Red Scream Magazine

I was at my regular bar when Jimmy Diordan first told me what a Suitcase Sam was. First off, everyone called him Dio. Secondly, he was not one to tell tales, and every old hustler has tales to tell. Not that anyone listens to the stories to begin with. That’s the first thing you learn in a Times Square hustler bar, of which there are a diminishing few: everyone’s talking, no one listens. The thing with Dio, he was different. He wasn’t there to eek out a trick or scam drinks -he knew he was too old for that, he had too much dignity. Nor was he there to pay for it, either; the young Hispanic boys at the other end of the bar didn’t interest him in the least. No, he was like me; he was here simply to drink, or pretend to drink while getting discreetly loaded in the bathroom.

Dio and I sized each other up early on and got along well. We were about the same age and of the same disposition, except I wasn’t like Dio: I was buying, not selling, so the pseudo-macho boys at the other end of the bar were an occasional interest. But not so much. Like Dio, I liked to get loaded, though I was brazen enough that if I wanted to fuck one of them, we could do it in the bathroom; I didn’t need to pay extra for a hotel room.

Dio would have still been cute if he hadn’t turned so many tricks, or so studiously flirted with heroin. He looked used up. His features were good, but his skin was drawn in some places while slightly loose in others. He looked like cheap hotel furniture, worn but ready, durable. I guess we knew we could tell each other anything because we had done some bumps of smack in the bathroom stalls a few times. Anyone who snorts heroin instead of shooting thinks they’re so fucking clever, beating the needle and all, like you can’t get hooked: the kind of lie that makes for a natural friendship

So one night while we were particularly loaded, after many conversations, I confessed to Dio that I had once been married.

Nonplussed, he asked me the question. “Have you ever seen a Suitcase Sam?”

I didn’t understand the question, was barely listening, in fact (we’d done some heavy bumps in the bathroom; everything glowed with that special, crinkly kind of yellow that shines through black and white movies as they age).

“No.” I said. His forehead was shiny, with yellow spots. I thought I could detect the hidden grid of a car headlight.

He smiled and relaxed into his drink. A game of chess was on and he was in the lead. “That guy over there. He’s a collector, that’s what you call a guy who owns a Suitcase Sam. Most only own one. One’s enough. But some guys, they’ve got to have everything.”

I nodded, not knowing what he was talking about, but agreeing with the sentiment. I looked over at the guy. Typical of the older men who frequented an establishment such as this: perpetually on edge, probably married, a wedding ring heavy below the silt of change and lint in their pants pocket. Nurse one drink, score with the right hustler then off to a hotel that charges by the hour. “Funny thing about trade like that,” Dio once told me, “all they want to do is suck cock. All this trade here, they’re pussy bottoms, man.” Except this guy who, ridiculously, wore sunglasses. He wasn’t paying attention to the young men though, but conversed casually with the bartender. Otherwise he looked normal, a sad salesman, wide suitcase by his side a faded, pocked-plaid.

Dio said “Don’t stare.” So I looked away.

“So what’s a Suitcase Sam?”

Dio took a long pull from his drink, dropped the tumbler so ice crashed against the glass, lit a cigarette and waited. I nodded to the bartender to fill his glass. As I had indicated earlier, he wasn’t prone to histrionics or drama, so I figured this was worth my patience and money.

It was horrible, what he said.

We were so stoned, I guess it loosened more than his tongue, it cracked the safe where anyone would store such things that no one should know, and if you were suddenly privy to something of such a nature, would naturally lock away. Some things were never meant to be shared.

And no one shares their Suitcase Sam.

First Dio asked me if I’d ever heard of the slave auctions in the Meatpacking district. One night we had both laughingly confessed to having perused some the more tawdry bars in that locale. S&M shit. Though I had never been to such an auction I knew of them. It was no big deal - after all they advertise in the Village Voice. “Well, that’s kindergarten. This is kindergarten, compared to a Suitcase Sam.”

He measured me with a look that was disquieting, to say the least. And then the urge grew, just above my stomach. It always feels like that, when I’m ready for another bump, like someone opened a window inside me and the breeze blowing through might clean me out. I got up and went to the bathroom. Dio dutifully followed; as usual I was holding and he was not. Another bump. Then one for him, one for me. I collapsed lightly against the stall wall and slipped toward the floor, the porcelain bowl yawned slightly, the shreds of toilet paper floating within coalesced into a white, scarred tongue. I thought I could live there, right there on the dirty floor. Why do human beings need more space than this? This was perfect.

“So these Sams,” he slurs. “They want this. They want to be owned.”

He paused so I searched for something to say. I could hear an old man in the stall next to ours sucking a hustler’s cock; I thought of animals gathering at a salt lick during the night near a cave: carnivore rubbing shoulders with deer. A spring bubbling nearby. “Like a slave,” I said.

Dio shook his head “no” for the longest time. I thought of how animal eyes captured in photographs taken at night have an added veneer; a blue florescent glow that erases the living pupil, creating saucers of cool pity.

“No no no,” he said. “They want to be owned but they need, they need...the element of escape to be removed. A pet doesn’t even know its property, it’s so fully owned. ” His eyes narrowed and focused at something over my shoulder, proud of his summation, as if it had only just occurred to him after years of searching. I looked at him, waiting for him to say more. I was comfortable leaning against the stall wall. Everything he had said was absorbed by the smack.

The ancient cocksucker next door slowed his slurping, the hustler, ready to burst, lit a cigarette. Smoke slowly poured over the partition. When you can hear someone giving head but can’t see them, it sounds terribly like a child eating spaghetti. I wanted to share this stellar observation with Dio, but it seemed somewhat inappropriate, what with the topic at hand and all. I couldn’t help smiling at my own thought though and he misinterpreted this as what, I don’t know.

Dio got earnest. “See, they want to give up more then everything. I, I…everything’s gone. The only thing left is inside and it can never get out.” He shook his head as if overcome by a sadness that belied the effects of the smack I had generously just shared. Unexpectedly he pushed the stall door open and left.

Alone, I contemplated the sparkling toilet, mouth stretching in a huge “O”—as if about to draw breath. Next door I could hear the old man’s soul flap its heavy vermillion butterfly wings as the hustler shot a load down his throat.

I didn’t see Dio for a week after that.

Not that it bothered me. There are no expectations here. Scratch that. There’s nothing but expectations here, friendship just isn’t one of them. Whenever Dio wasn’t around I re-focused on the hustlers; one’s I’d yet to sample. And I was patient. I wasn’t interested in white poseurs flaunting ghetto chic; I like Hispanic and I like them young, tough. But every time I made a connection I thought of that old cocksucker that night in the stall beside me and imagined him on his knees, growing useless insect wings, tattered membranes weakly unfolding as he nurtured the youthful, thick cock in his mouth. I could see the boy’s mulatto face; a slight mustache, bored expression, no hint of ecstasy. Invariably he would yawn and a mosquito’s giant, gray proboscis would emerge to grease the old man’s balding head.

So I was quietly relieved when Dio returned. And we did the dance, not greeting each other beyond a nod; I knew he was playing it cool. He didn’t want to seem too eager to see if I was holding. Like I said, Dio had class.

Later in the night he saddled the stool next to mine and bought me a drink. Since he had last been in the bar the old man with the suitcase and sunglasses had yet to return—around midnight he came in, suitcase at his side. I said nothing.

Another thing about Dio, he drank scotch straight, as did I. All these hustlers, trying to look huge in their sweatpants, new sweatshirts unzipped low to reveal fine, broad, hairless chests overlade with gold chains. All of them drank flamboyantly sweet drinks, sipping them noisily through the little stir straws.

Dio sighed and looked at me. He knew I remembered everything from our previous conversation, and that I was too much of a gentleman to demand an explanation.

“See, what I was talking about the other night, it should never be repeated.” And he gave me a look that would crack tombstones. I nodded. “Okay. Listen. This is it. This is like the end of knowledge and what people will do. Do to each other.” I felt cold but was desperate for him to continue. “See, a Suitcase Sam wants it, but they don’t know what it is they want. It just happens to them when they run out of options. No more ‘safe words,’ no more dungeons and leather masks. This is something that cannot be bought or sold because slavery, for some people, is the greatest of freedom, a release from everything.” He pulled himself away from his drink, squaring his shoulders as if he were ready for something to approach.

I downed my drink and tried not to stare at the old man. The suitcase sat at his feet. It was the same worn one as last time. It looked heavy. Full. The window above my stomach began to open again. Forgoing another drink I headed toward the bathroom. It was time for the first bump of the evening; Dio waited a few minutes before following me in.

In the stall I tapped out a tiny brown pinch on my wrist, inhaling deeply I closed my eyes. Luminescent larval cocoons spun about the room. Remembering my guest I opened my eyes and tapped out a graciously large bump onto his wrist. Dio inhaled, closed his eyes and waited. I listened to the room; a languid faucet dripped honey, no one else was here. So I grabbed onto my soul like a broomstick, aimed it a Dio and spoke oh-so deliberately: “Tell me.”

He blinked, eyes sparkling, then delivered. “It’s amazing. They carve a person down until they are the perfect…perfect receptacle.” He nodded affirmatively as the smack raced through his veins. They carve people up until there is nothing left but the holes.” He blinked. His eyes rolling behind his lids just a bit; I’d purposefully given him an extra large hit, wanting to get to the bottom of this.

Dio started to laugh a wet laugh. “See, cut off their arms and legs, blind them, pull out their teeth, and what do you got? Someone who lives in a suitcase, someone who aims to please because they can’t aim at anything else.”

Butterflies all around, invisible, threatening. I laughed, too. Preposterous. I poured out two more bumps each.

A minute later, “So you want to see a Sam.” He was not asking, but stating the obvious.

“Sure.”

“I can arrange it but you have to deliver. The old guy at the bar is hooked; he’s been mainlining for over twenty years and if he’s coming in here, he’s running on empty. Meaning he’ll do anything for a fix, even break the taboo and show us his Suitcase Sam.” Dio looked at me. His eyes were glassy yet dry, like he hadn’t cried in years.

That very next night he arranged for us to see a Suitcase Sam.

And Dio was right: the collector was deep into his addiction and thus more prone to relax the strict code of secrecy among collectors. His apartment was nearby, in Hell’s Kitchen. Ninth Avenue was a mess; a jumble of bars and dilapidated apartments, basically the spillover from Port Authority. We made our way up the dirty, uneven stairs of a five-floor walk up, knocked on the door then waited an inordinate amount of time. The old man answered the door, agitated.

Fat and gray, wrapped in an even grayer bathrobe, he let us in to an impossibly large apartment. An antique television broadcast indiscriminate images. I could see why he wore sunglasses at the bar; his eyes were fleshy, a pulpy maze of cataracts. He sat in the kitchen without saying a word, obviously waiting for a fix. Dio whispered to him assuredly while shooting me a rather serious look. I understood and produced a fresh bag of smack while Dio helped the old man secure his works. Grandpa was going to shoot his share of the dope, a procedure which always made me uncomfortable, so I looked away.

I studied as much of the place as I could in the dim light: a railroad apartment, every room tumbling into the other down scratched and dusty wooden floors; claw-like radiators gathered malevolently beneath each window. The old man got loaded, one arm tied off, slack skin hung lose beneath rubber tubing. His spoon fell to the floor. He sat in his chair, crusted eyes rolling back in his head.

“Let’s take a peek.” For the first time in our limited relationship, Dio sounded like a kid, excited, nervous. He led me to the front room, a dingy expanse overlooking the Avenue, illuminated by the light of a long neon hotel sign.

Beside the bed sat a pregnant suitcase.

Dio used all of his strength to heft the bag up onto the sagging bed. He popped both locks. I urged him onward with my eyes. I was ready for a fix, a drink, for anything, anything but what was in that bag. Dio flipped the lid.

A torso but…not. An odd, puppet-like thing. But living. It moved. It was pared down to the minimum of what you could call human.

Vomit rose in my throat.

No legs, no arms, face disfigured, smoothed and limited. Sensing that its case had been opened it roiled; all oiled hairless muscle; greasy ball-bearings of flesh. Open toothless mouth pouring out an indefinable pain. Eyes removed, lids sewn shut in a neat series of X’s; ears soldered closed, everything shaved: the scalp and chest hairless. Buttocks pulsating, cheeks clapping like a trained seal ready for a treat. Really, this was a thing, a thing with two gruesome mouths; its anus distended from obvious, repetitious abuse, pummeled into a purple pout, greedy lips, sick mimic to the soundless pucker at the other end. Just then it whinnied. The strange noise rattled from within its chest, guttural.

I couldn’t help but take a closer look. Its tongue had been sheared as well. Arms clipped neatly at the shoulder, the legs taken as close to the pelvis as possible, all sealed with a thick scar of gristle. Moving like a desperate snake unable to shed a burning skin, frenzied from the attention, its genitals were gone, nothing but a mass of red scar.

Dio stood back, proud, responsible. “That’s a Suitcase Sam.

We might as well feed it.” And he unzipped his pants and pulled out his cock, squat and limp but rising. The Suitcase Sam wagged in anticipation. He fed his thickening member into the red raw mouth. It hummed with delight, gumming and slurping at Dio’s dick while still in its luggage bassinette. I didn’t want to see this so I turned and took a desperate bump off my wrist.

Back at the bar Dio was all talk. He was like a fountain, having finally found a confessor. Though I was more dazed than truly dedicated to such travesty, I had to know.

“I found out about them from a guy I know who deals Ketamine, he gets it off a veterinarian who does the procedures. They’re a tight group. Tighter than the snuff flicks crew but definitely a scene that likes to get together. These collectors, they show. Like fucking dog shows. And they take them with them everywhere. It’s a whole culture.”

He spilled the whole story. How they had been around for years. They were the last stop in the sexual underground. Total domination meets surgical submission, taking slaves from auctions and other masters and diminishing them; paring them down to base elemental attributes. Fed cock and baby formula, they were clean-shaven to augment the fact that they were ornament, not person. Most were smallish men, chosen for their thin, compact torsos. Apparently their life-span isn’t terribly long. It’s easy to forget to feed something habitually left in a suitcase; a real problem collector’s lament.

Dio told a funny story about a collector who purposely carried his bag at the airport. When it was scanned the baggage checkers naturally inquired. The collector coolly replied that he was transporting an anatomical dummy and nothing more. No one checked. I mean, why would they?

I felt uneasy that Dio was telling me so much at the very place where we had first seen a collector, there at the other end of the bar, as if this place was theirs, our conversation a knowable violation. I wanted to go somewhere else, but didn’t want to interrupt his story, it was too unreal. I had jut seen the world on a leash. Dio had inadvertently stumbled onto a secret that was the prelude to real danger. The pouch of smack in my breast pocket felt like bubblegum.

This bar, my thoughts, Dio’s conversation, even my clothes, everything felt extremely claustrophobic. “Look. I’ve got to go.” I pushed away from the bar and fled. I don’t think Dio noticed I had left in a panic; we were too loaded to touch our drinks but he was staring into the slope of ice and liquor in his half-lifted glass. Dio was frozen in the moment, as if the very wave building enough strength to crush him had also lifted him far enough aloft until he could see the ocean in its entirety.

The next night I entertained the idea of not going back to the bar, of doing something else, maybe checkout one of the clubs in the Meat Packing District. But they didn’t open until late. I didn’t want to score but I did. Restless, I got on the train and went downtown. At the bar Dio was talking quietly to Randy; Randy was a young hustler new to the bar, new to the game. He had a quick smile, the largest, whitest teeth you had ever seen and massive, black biceps highlighted by the new, white sleeveless t-shirts he always wore. No doubt Dio was dispensing tips of the trade, so I joined them but only just so, sitting on the periphery. When I sat down I noticed Dio had a suitcase tucked between his legs. I froze and thought about getting up, but Randy was eyeing me so I returned the smile. He was thirsty, hoping I would buy him a drink. I pulled out a twenty and told him to play a song in the jukebox. He got the hint and took off. The bartender brought me a drink and I turned to Dio. “Taking a vacation?”

He laughed and patted me on the shoulder. “I’m going to take you for the ride of your life, my friend. Want to go to a convention?”

I eyed the bag at his feet. It lacked the radioactivity of the old man’s luggage from the previous night. “What’s up?”

“If you give the old man a gram we’re in. We just walk in with him and no trouble. It just so happens that there’s a convention in town tonight. This bag is just cover. We won’t go in until everyone else is there. No one will notice that we didn’t open ours.” He patted the bag at his feet.

The window above my stomach opened wide. I felt ready to dive in so I got up and went to the bathroom. Dio waited a few minutes and then followed me in.

We did a whole night’s worth back at the bar, so to re-supply and score for the old man we had to go back to my apartment. Dio whistled appreciatively as I opened the door. I explained to him that the place isn’t really mine. I rent it from an old college friend; it’s been in his family for years so its rent stabilized—meaning I pay a ridiculously low amount, probably what keeps me in drugs. All of the furniture is theirs. I own nothing but my clothes and a few unread books.

I called my guy. My dealer only makes house calls. That’s how the best ones do it. Dio sat there nervously, rubbing his hands on his thighs while I eyed the suitcase. I gave it a lift: light as a feather. I went out on the balcony and grabbed a loose brick from under a barren flower pot. I wrapped it in a towel and placed it in the suitcase. Hefting the bag, Dio smiled as my door buzzer rang.

The trip downtown was a marvelous rollercoaster ride, skyscrapers bent like palm trees in our wake, the neon signs of Times Square celestial gates to somewhere delicious. The old man wouldn’t get in the cab until he scored so we went upstairs and waited for him to shoot. We did some bumps. He shot again then we were out. I noticed that his suitcase was identical to ours, resting side-by-side between him and Dio. I was paranoid that they would accidentally switch them; I couldn’t stop imagining scenarios where this indeed happened, costing us our precious lives: being caught and fed to a kiddy-pool filled with Suitcase Sam’s fitted with sharp silvery dentures, blindly snapping away. Or the old man, opening his suitcase and the brick and towel falling out; shrugging and pointing to us and the collectors standing impatiently as doors swing open and huge men in medical gowns and surgical masks lead Dio and I away. I recognize one of the men behind his mask. It’s Randy from the bar. He flashes me a huge smile, stretching his mask until the cotton almost rips. My fear solidified when I realized we were driving over the Manhattan Bridge—I didn’t know we were leaving the city.

Driving through Brooklyn I was mesmerized by the dark landscape—the low buildings and weak streetlights, shuttered store fronts and weedy vacant lots, the occasional burning shopping cart. Suddenly we were back on an expressway then off again, idling in front of a non-descript hotel; a plane roared by overhead, the sign over the building across the street was in Korean. We were near JFK.

We got out of the cab and followed the old man through the hotel lobby. No one was behind the desk. I renewed my fear of the switched suitcases and stared hard at both of them, then lit a cigarette. The old man pushed through unguarded double-doors and into a non-descript banquet hall. All of the tables were pushed against the wall so that the room was ringed with chairs, many of them vacant, others occupied by empty suitcases. I was glad I lit the cigarette; it gave me a focus, something to pull my attention, however briefly, away from the horror on the floor.

At first the room looked like it was filled with proud parents, milling about as their babies frolicked on the floor. My initial thought was of infants, their floundering movements and hairless heads. No, the heads were too large, and only the ones on their backs floundered about; any Suitcase Sam upright scrambled oddly fast, raised slightly on their nubs, sideways like a crab. Very fast, one came at me, red open mouth a vacumm-like wound. A large, gregarious-looking man in a weathered cowboy hat broke away from his group and followed quickly behind the creature, scooping it up as I lifted my leg in revulsion. “Ups-a-daisy there, Beatrice! Sorry partner, she sure gets excited when she’s around new people.”

She. Dio said that all of the collectors referred to their Sam’s as “she.”

The thing smacked its toothless jaws at me; strained movement behind the angry X’s where eyes should be. The man asked me where I was from.

“The Upper Eastside.” What’s next, I thought, is he going to ask me what I majored in at college?

“Great city you all got here. Hope to take in a show this trip.” He placed Beatrice on the floor, faced it toward a pile of Suitcase Sam’s bumping and nibbling on each other in the middle of the room, then sauntering away with a wave of his hand behind his head. Men were clustered about the room. A few huge, bearish men in leather kept their Suitcase Sams on shiny leashes, in matching miniature leather attire. Most were dressed casually and talked seriously, arms-crossed, about the care of their Suitcase Sam.

“Don’t shave hon, wax.”

“If I’m at work I keep him in diapers—everyone but me has a Sam that can go on newspaper.”

“This is my second Sam. I brought both to the San Diego Con but they fight, so I only travel with one.”

Sams scampered across the floor. Beatrice circled a yawning, pinkish Sam, a ball of taut muscle—as if removed limbs and curtailed senses had somehow refocused its energy into a glistening torso mad with veins and overly-accentuated arteries. The thing’s shaved eyebrows had been replaced by long-healed symmetrical scars of meticulously placed cigarette burns. Human topiary. A bland woman with glasses and unnecessarily long, straight hair hefted her Sam in her arms like a massive infant while listening to whatever advice the twin leather daddies dispensed, their legs slowly entwined by their be-leashed pets.

Somehow I had failed to notice that Dio and the old man had crossed the room. I didn’t think I could walk across such a minefield; a landscape of moving flesh and indifferent collectors. I could see smudged chalk out-lines on the carpet. There must have been a race earlier. With prizes, I bet.

The old man was opening his suitcase. My heart, already sluggish from the smack, lurched into action. I remembered the possibility of switched bags. I wanted to cross the room but my feet were heavy, the carpet a muddy river, Suitcase Sams surfacing, faceless prehistoric turtles mad to gum my ankles. Well, I thought, if it’s okay to smoke in here maybe I could to do a discreet bump; I needed something to help me cross that room. The old man hoisted his Sam from his case. It bleated in pleasure as he held it above his head in a surprising show of strength and pride. Dio nodded and smiled and placed his unopened case down beside the old man’s. Relieved, I walked slowly to the closest seat, sat down and felt at the deflated bag in my shirt pocket. It was flat, empty. We’d started too early and shared the last batch with the old man in its entirety. I thought about finding the bathroom and splitting the bag open; there had to be half a bump of dust in there at the least. I would need to be in my apartment to call my dealer and he wouldn’t like coming up there twice in one night. Dio sat down next to me.

“Interesting party.” He patted my leg, removing his hand to reveal a fat bag of smack.

More than a gram.

Surprised, I asked “Where did you get this?”

Dio feigned a hurt look. “I owe you.”

“Is it okay if I do a bump here?” I covered the bag with the small of my hand. The corners of the plastic bag cut into it like a budding diamond.

“Look around. You think anyone is going to call the cops?”

The old man had come to life in the middle of the banquet room, slapping backs and vigorously shaking hands. Dio rocked back in his chair.

I tapped out a bump of his stuff on my wrist and took a deep hit. Looking at the bag I noticed his shit was darker than what I usually score, grainer, too. And it hit me instantly, like a shotgun blast. Powder burns darkened the edges of my perception. Brown shadows expanded, seeping out from behind the vending machine in the corner, the folded chairs by the door. And then everything got brighter.

A Suitcase Sam bumped my feet.

Beatrice again, beautiful. In my earlier panic I hadn’t noticed the skillful tattooing which adorned her flesh. She was lightly covered with the mocking imprimatur of a famous Italian luggage design, replete with a floppy handle sewn into the small of her back. She sucked at the corner of my shoe as the shadows darkened. I looked longingly at the door. I saw the gray shape of the cowboy approaching, arms extended. Then I blacked out.

I woke up with a start violent enough to knock over the chair beside me. I had trouble opening my eyes and this instantly filled me with dread. Nearly hyperventilating, not knowing where I was, I felt for my wallet. It was there. I noticed my shoes were off. Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I looked around: I was still in the banquet hall. The place was empty. Breathing deeply, the air stale from old cigarette smoke, I tried to stand, thought better of it and sat back down.

The bellmen ignored me as I left the hotel. Likely I was an unwanted reminder of something they were paid triple to ignore. I stumbled out into the parking lot. Receding daylight: I wasn’t just asleep, I must have been unconscious. I didn’t have enough money for a cab; the rocking assurance of the A train would help clear my head.

On the train my mouth was dry. My head felt cleaved, as if I’d been hit by an ax, wound invisible.

At the Franklin Avenue stop a gaggle of old women boarded the train, matching outfits and bowling bags, heading into the city for a night out. One old lady rested her white, withered hands across a pert, zippered bowling bag, gossiping close with her compatriot. I stared at the bag. Round, petulant, I heard it whisper. Velvety voices from within the other bags joined in. A barely perceptible chorus arose, masked by the machine-hiss of train making track.

Next stop, Hoyt Street, I got off.

 

© 2006 Tom Cardamone - Contributor's Bio