I am enormously grateful to the following people and places for their help in writing this book.
For their information: Julie Babcock; Marty Babcock; Seth Duppstadt; Maria Greco; Esther Palmer; Richard Bailey of Club 242 Main, Bald Bill and Rob Dix of Yankee Tattoo, and Tom Toner of Good Times Gallery, all of Burlington, Vermont; Art Eisenberg of the DNA Laboratory, University of North Texas; Paul DeRienzo, “The History of the Tompkins Square Park Police Riot”; Noah Haglund, “Fire Sacrifice: A Hare Krishna Wedding”; Inside Straight Edge, a National Geographic documentary; Ed Rosenthal, Marijuana Grower’s Handbook; and especially the following authors and editors: Michael Azerrad, Our Band Could Be Your Life; Steven Blush, American Hardcore: A Tribal History; Ross Haenfler, Straight Edge: Hardcore Punk, Clean-Living Youth, and Social Change; Beth Lahickey, All Ages: Reflections on Straight Edge; and Cris Wrenn, Alex Brown, and John Porcelly, Schism.
For their insight: Ann Beattie, John Casey, Lan Samantha Chang, Robert Cohen, Deborah Eisenberg, Kathryn Kramer, Alice McDermott, Tom Paine, Francine Prose, and Helen Schulman, whose voices still ring in my ears, and especially Christopher Tilghman, who told me to keep going; all of my workshop friends at the University of Virginia, who made scrupulous comments on hundreds of pages; my brilliant and bighearted late-draft readers: Mary Beth Keane, Anna Solomon, Ursula Villarreal-Moura, Gina Welch, and Callie Wright; Adelaide Wainwright and Abigail Holstein, assistants extraordinaire; Jim Rutman, my dream agent and the smartest person I know, who gave me a second chance; Lee Boudreaux, whose unmatched enthusiasm and painstaking edits did as much for my manuscript in eight weeks as I’d done for it in eight years; and all the other talented people at Ecco who helped bring this book into the world.
For their support: the Poe/Faulkner Fellowship at the University of Virginia, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Poets & Writers, my superb students and colleagues at James Madison University and Ithaca College, and all my friends and family, including Sandra Squadrilli and Ted Lech (the original saints of St. Mark’s Place), Sam, Keri, and Cameron. Thank you especially to my brother Peter Henderson, whose birth led me to ask questions; to my uncle Peter Babcock, whose death led me to ask more; and to my eternally generous parents, Ann and Bill, who told me I could do anything.
Nicolas, you can do anything, but don’t ever do any of the stupid things in this book.
Finally, for his information, insight, support, and much more: Aaron Squadrilli, whose story made this one possible.