Michael Alig Update: A New Hope

I am totally schizo when it comes to Michael Alig. I hate him, hope for him, support him, abandon him, forget him, obsess over him. He was my dear friend, but then he betrayed me, everyone who loved him and, of course, himself. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there have been books, movies and article after article, but they all paint a very 2-D picture of a very 3 or 4-D man. Michael is now a man. He is no longer a club kid. He is a man who has been incarcerated for 13 years in places we all have nightmares about. He has indeed endured and survived the horrors of the American penal system at it's worst. Yep, he got it up the butt lots and, yes, he has had human excrement thrown at him on a daily basis. You want it sugar coated, then go see that Gerard Butler/Jamie Foxx flick.

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(’’)There is new hope.  My boy “wonder how you could do that” may be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. He has been moved back to the nicer Coxsackie correctional facility. There seems to be a feeling around those in the know that he will be out within a year, if not sooner. I will go visit Michael in the next couple of weeks.

The last time he got busted inside for drugs I threw up my hands in disgust. I had spent so much time trying to help establish him on the outside upon release, but, you know… it’s not about me. It really is about Michael and whether the man who finally walks out of those steel doors is the good Michael or the evil Michael. In Star Wars, as the movies progresses, we see how a sweet young Anakin Skywalker turns to the dark side and becomes the murderous Darth Vader. I’ve used this analogy before. It really describes what happened. Michael was a great young man. Sharp and fun and more creative than those who took his torch after he killed. He was a major, internationally known downtown player before he was sent up the river. That was in the last century. Michael has never used a computer or a cell phone--or had a peach or picnic--since. Neither has his victim. Angel was a drug dealer and I didn’t like, respect or mourn him. That being said, Michael had no right to whack him. On that terrible day Michael woke up stoned out of his mind, but with no intent to do harm. During a struggle with Mike, his pal freeze hit Angel with a hammer. Michael finished off the still living drug dealer, suffocating him with a pillow, and they both hid the body and tried to get away with it. For this Michael has spent 13 years locked up. A judge has decided his sentence-- a judge has been given that job not you or me.

Michael, according to his friend Lovepurple, might be amongst the living sooner rather than later: “Michael was waiting on seeing how much “Good Time” he would be given back before he knows his conditional release date. They want him to complete the six month drug treatment program (he’s on the waiting list to get in) and then it will be determined if he’ll get all his Good Time back. If he gets 100% back, he would be released right away. His counselor believes that as long as he doesn’t get written up, he should be released. Hopefully that will be in the late summer of 2010. This isn’t in stone, but it’s what he’s been told.”

I will once again try to put Michael on the right track. I will talk about his art and be a truthful player in his life, right up to the point where he screws it up. I have new hope that this will not happen. I have new hope that he will come back to the street “rehabilitated,” whatever that means. Maybe it means that he will put others before himself. Maybe he will spend his time helping people. Maybe he wont do drugs and hustle those that are easily hustled. I’ve always been a sucker for lost causes. I’ve married twice and I’m looking for a third. I’ll tell you how much a sucker I am. I’m still friends with them to this day, as it;s been a long time since they betrayed my heart. My heart heals and I forgive. It’s the way I roll and so I will roll with Mike once again.

If you want to write to him here’s the info:
Coxsackie Correctional Facility
Michael Alig # 97A6595
Box 999
West Coxsackie, New York, 12051-0999