There is no excuse for killing someone, no reason to justify being wholly or even partly responsible for the death of another human being. I have never been a violent person. I don't even like sports.

To me, capital punishment is even wrong, but the fact remains that a Sunday morning about three years ago, which began like any other in my life, ended in the death of my friend Angel Melendez. I am now serving a 10-20 sentence for manslaughter.

I am responsible for another's death, and though I do not endeavor to seek out an excuse, I do search within for some kind of explanation, some glimmer of understanding as to how and why something like this could have happened.

Looking inside myself, I see roads that lead back to my past. To hope to understand the events of that tragic Sunday I must travel down those roads looking for signs. What strikes me first when I think about my past, especially now living the harsh reality of incarceration, is the total lack of boundaries.

Pushing the limit was an exciting way to live, I cannot deny that. But the problem was that in a world of an unending supply of drugs, almost limitless amounts of money, and complete decadence and indulgence, a world of no boundaries is possible. To me, pushing the limits was a way to make a difference in the world, to hopefully change outmoded ways of popular thinking, to make some kind of cultural impact. The thought that this lifestyle would end up hurting someone else, let alone killing them, was the furthest thing from my mind. Looking back, though, I see that there were indications that my life, my friends' lives, were utterly out of control. I should have paid attention to the signs.

After the first time I actually overdosed, I woke up in a small, dark, cramped room, filled with boxes. Somebody's storage room, or so I thought. But whose? It was such a tiny room, 6 feet by 6 feet at best. Where was I? Why was I alone? I felt a wet, sticky floor beneath my left arm. There was a bare light bulb on over me which shed enough light for me to turn on my left side and notice that the substance was blood! Where was it coming from? Feeling up and down my body for cuts, I soon realized it was my arm. It was cut all over with little shards of glass sticking out.

Then it hit me. I didn't know who I was! This was some sensation. I mean, I felt "normal,'' other than the fact that I didn't know what my name was, where I worked, who my friends were, or where I was. I still knew what a lightbulb was, still knew blood when I saw it, but didn't have any consciousness of time-- past, present or future. I knew that I must have friends and family, but who and where were they?

I got up. This was no "room'' after all--it was a walk-in closet. Even though the light in the closet was on, the lights outside the closet were off, and so my world consisted of that small space.

Finally I got up the nerve to actually venture out of the closet, and into a vaguely familiar room. I fumbled for a light switch. I must not be too bad off, I knew what a light switch was! I felt along the walls until I found one, then turned on the lights, only to discover an entire dinner plate filled with cocaine on the floor! It looked as if it had been kicked, or bumped, because almost half the cocaine was spilled. Why was I bleeding? A broken glass on the floor of the closet answered that question, but more importantly, why was I naked?

Had I been with somebody when this happened? If so, who was it? Did I even know this person? Instantly, the frightening thought of a stranger being with me had come to my mind. Was I sexually assaulted? I didn't exactly know where I was yet, but the room looked semi-familiar. I looked outside the window -- it was twilight -- the time that could either be dusk or dawn. But I didn't even know the date, or even the year, for that matter. A nearby digital clock read 6:15. Great. A.M? P.M? Either way, it scared me. Did I miss an entire day? Days?

I walked into a bathroom. The bathtub was full of water, and there was a towel in the next room. Was I taking a bath?

Before I could even answer my own questions, I bent down, picked up the plate of cocaine, and used some. Within the next minutes (or hours?) things slowly became clearer and clearer to me. Yes, I had been taking a bath. That much I did remember. Then, one by one, I remembered other things, too. I had gotten home from the Limelight after hosting my weekly Wednesday party Disco 2000. I had taken a bath to wash off the evening's fun, and was doing cocaine to bring me up from the Rohypnol I had taken upon leaving the club on the way to pick up more heroin. For the very first time ever, the overload of uppers and downers must have caused me to have a seizure, because I did remember feeling light-headed after rising out of the tub. Eventually my identity started to come back to me.

I am known as the "King of the Club Kids,'' and I remembered my name. It is Michael. Michael Alig.

People regularly ask me, "Didn't you notice what was happening to you? How did you allow yourself to fall into such a state?'' The answer to that is: No, I didn't realize what was happening. And when my family, friends and even my boss tried to warn me, I still didn't agree with them. As far as I was concerned, they simply didn't understand that I was in complete control.

I believe there were several factors in my evading reality. The first were the usual Freudian defenses of denial, rationalization and intellectualizing, for me to subconsciously block out any unpleasantness. Then there was the actual physical addiction to heroin. My level of drug addiction isn't something that happened overnight--it took years to develop. It happened so gradually that by the time I realized it my body needed the heroin for nourishment, and it was too late.

While some may misinterpret this next reason as a cop-out, I still firmly believe that, on one level, another significant reason has to do with my homosexuality. In my experience, the homosexual lifestyle in major cities is all too out of control, and willed by a subconscious desire to self-destruct. I dealt with that by medicating myself with drugs.

However "politically correct'' it is to be gay, the reality is that it isn't actually correct, not in the daily existence, be it at work in New York City, where I operated my nightclubs, or in the average McDonalds in Ohio. Thus, there is this pain that is made easier to deal with by the formation of a gay subculture and also, in many cases, by the use of drugs, and the ability to "party your life away.'' I am not trying to point a finger of blame, as ultimately I have nobody to blame but myself. I am only trying to understand why.

Just prior to my arrest I had sequentially overdosed four times with naloxone treatment in the emergency room, narrowly missing death. I didn't learn from those experiences (most junkies don't) and continued using heroin in a bizarre act of flirting with death. Actually, at that point I would have welcomed death, as being "normal'' again seemed so impossibly out of reach to me that life didn't seem worth living. Unfortunately, for me all of this ended in the death of my friend Angel, and my resulting incarceration.

But in prison, with the forced end of a constant, affordable supply of drugs I realized that I had no choice but to stop. Heroin is widely available in most jails, especially Riker's Island, where its use is common knowledge among inmates and officers alike, but its price, questionable quality and inconsistent supply make it a highly priced smuggled commodity that can become a life and death game. The only way to stop was to allow them to lock me up in a solitary cell for several months, to ensure that I would not give in and use heroin. It was probably the most important decision of my life, because the alternative was death.

In retrospect I realize that I didn't stop using heroin on the streets because of the protective shield drugs created, and their ability to make life worth living through their unnatural euphoria. At the time, life was just one great time after another, and I believed life wouldn't be worth living sober because a normal, mundane set of rewards and incentives wasn't enough to keep me happy. It was either being the abominable "pleasure junkie'' or just existing, and the latter I simply didn't think possible.

Either way, I was a pleasure junkie, trying to derive as much pleasure out of life with as little work as possible. The urge to "feel good'' is universal. It's an innate drive to feel more complete, more satisfied than the moment before, yet the more things we discover, the hungrier we seem to be for more still.

Little children have the right idea. Their entire lives revolve around simple pleasures like playing and eating. In fact, even when they cry they're seeking the pleasure of the mother's nurturing touch. Little children are allowed--even encouraged -- to lead a life of pleasure.

This is, perhaps, one of the main reasons for my refusal to "grow up.'' It is why much of my adult life has been spent creating environments for myself and others, where adult responsibilities take a back seat to childlike wonder and surprise.

I also regret the way this situation has affected the mainstream media's opinion of many people who lead alternative lifestyles. I hope that most people realize that the vast majority of individuals who choose to embark on a creative or alternative life path do manage to do so without killing anyone.

Now, after over a year of sobriety I see that I was wrong. Once again, I'm experiencing life clearly through my senses and the clean way in which they are processed in my mind, enjoying a renewed, child-like innocence. A smile or a laugh isn't just a reaction to the most extreme situations anymore, but to my average daily experiences like eating a piece of sour candy, or seeing a fat boy in the prison yard with the crack of his butt exposed for everybody to see. I believe this is just the beginning. It will take some time for my brain to rewire what's important in my life, but the point is, I do see massive improvement in an area which I felt was hopeless.

I am looking forward to a symbolic kind of rebirth that, I pray, a few years in prison will allow. Now, however, it will be the small, subtle life experiences that will be my reinforcement. Parties in jail are dangerous.

MICHAEL ALIG

©South Bend Tribune -- January 10, 1999