SEXIS WRONG

ecause of the large amount of chlorine at the establishment.
“That happens to be a fact,” said Levenson. He went on to
state that his contacts had notified him that an Israeli bacteriologist
was three to six months away from developing an
AIDS vaccine.
During another broadcast, Levenson set his sights on Mayor
Koch, calling him an epithet, referring to his sexuality. By now,
it probably didn’t matter at all what Levenson was saying. The
city was already on a rampage, shutting down gay clubs like
the Mine Shaft and others. Plato’s was bolted, too, after inspectors
observed prostitution on the premises. After some
shifty legal tussling, Plato’s reopened but was shut down for
the last time on the afternoon of December 31, 1985. “New
Year’s Eve made $40,000 for the club. He needed that money
to stay open,” says pornstar Ron Jeremy, who consoled
Levenson that evening. “I did not let him out of my sight.”
In the following months, Levenson stayed at his mother’s. He
claimed that he was on the run from some organized-crime
types. More likely, he was just lonely. But he was not beaten,
at least not completely. Levenson launched a comeback,
attempting to open a 1950s-style club in the Village. But it
flopped. “People wanted to fuck more than rock,” Levenson
lamented.
Later, he moved in with his son in New Jersey, staying on
his couch. Levenson escaped through television and sweets,
gorging himself on gallons of ice cream smothered with chocolate
fudge. “He said, ‘I need the sugar. I’m sick,’” recalls the
Prince, who assumed a somewhat parental role with his father,
encouraging him to hold on to his dwindling savings. “At
one point I just gave up. He just never wanted to grow up!”
After failing to show up at a pizza job, Levenson was imprisoned
for a year for breaking his parole. When he got out, he
took an array of jobs, ranging from renting apartments to selling
carpets. “Who’s gonna hire the ex-owner of Plato’s Retreat?”
Levenson asked. Eventually, he wound up driving a
cab, once again playing the host.
He didn’t give up on love either. At a Parents Without Partners
social, he met Marilyn. They dated and eventually married and
moved to New Jersey. Their relationship wasn’t about sex;
it was about long-term companionship. Now Levenson was
just an average, suburban working stiff. And he was content
with all of it. Ultimately, though, Marilyn was not, and they
split. Levenson returned to Brooklyn, heartbroken.
One night, a bloated Levenson reflected on the fleeting nature
of fame:
Nobody wants to know you. When you’re not up
there anymore, nobody. The phone don’t ring,
nothing. Believe me. What could I do for anybody
then? Who was I? The ex-owner of Plato’s Retreat.
And that’s the way the world is.
Everybody that called me to, this one, that one,
they all forgot me. Everybody. Believe me. Movie
stars. You don’t see Sammy Davis, Jr. calling me
no more. Isn’t that funny. Hugh Hefner? He didn’t
know, know who Larry Levenson was anymore.
You asked him today. He wouldn’t even remember.
Funny, but I used to go to Plato’s bashes and sit
down and bullshit with him. When I had the club.
That’s how people are. People don’t care. Once
you’re—it’s over. The minute they came in and
closed those doors—Larry who?
One late night, his eyes welled up as he drove near Columbus
Circle. “My mother always told me it was going to turn out
this way.”
Meanwhile, swinging never stopped completely, continuing
on a much smaller scale at Manhattan’s Le Trapeze, or Plato’s
Repeat, which Pernice opened in Fort Lauderdale. Levenson
swung into an even deeper depression, blowing his Plato’s
cash on high-priced call girls and crack, indulging in the latter
while a disturbed Ron Jeremy looked on. “He was sweating
profusely.”
In his final few years, the erstwhile King of Swing slept on a
box spring behind a wall of medicine bottles, his caller I.D.
shut off. A videocassette of the movie Big lay conspicuously
atop his VCR.
Before he gave in to a heart condition at the age of 62, Levenson
made his final public appearance at Screw’s thirtieth anniversary,
where he once again feuded with Goldstein, who
called him “a has-been.” As the adoring throng of Channel J
jerkers parted for him, the fallen King kept his head up, his
mouth shut.
Larry Levenson’s last exit was more adult than regal.
INSIDE THE CAVE 77