A group of eager new cycling enthusiasts formed on a recent cloudy Sunday morning in Central Park for Bike Handling 101. Melissa Groves had just returned from the Adirondacks where, at the age of 35, she mounted a bicycle for the first time in 20 years. Jon Woods, 26, hadn’t ridden a bicycle since college, but had just registered for this year’s Five Boro Bike Tour.

We meet Green Cyclists co-founder Philip Kiracofe, 38, and his assistant Doug Gould, 24, at Tavern on the Green’s parking lot off West 67th Street. Attendants stationed at a rental stand dole out bicycles and equipment. Kiracofe says his outfit won’t stop until every ablebodied New Yorker has a bicycle and feels confident enough to ride it in the city.

Joining the group, I must wear a helmet with the rest of them, although I’ve spent two years commuting nearly every day between Brooklyn and Manhattan on road and single-gear fixed bicycles. As a child in rural New Jersey, I’d ditch my helmet in the weeds just after I left my driveway. After a day of debauchery as a renegade, just before reaching the home, I would fish through the brush, retrieve my helmet, put it back on and coast back to the house—the safest leg of my trip. As students under Kiracofe’s care, however, we all must wear helmets—and obey all traffic signs for that matter.

"[As cyclists,] we need good PR," Kiracofe explains. "And police have been handing out more and more tickets to bikers, especially here in Central Park."

When everyone is geared-up and adjusted, we trek to higher elevation, to a fountain in the middle of a cul-de-sac overlooking a pond in Central Park. The asphalt track surrounding the fountain serves as this class’s training grounds.

To begin, Kiracofe instructs his students to ride and then, after a few satisfactory laps, they must effectively stop. He teaches them feathering, a process of slowing down by teasing the brakes. Then, Kiracofe kicks it up a notch. He cordons off a small 15-footwide section of asphalt and instructs his students to perform figure eights, a veritable feat that has them—hell, would have even seasoned bikers—occasionally running into one another.

Not until Kiracofe brings his students atop the tiny elevated brick platform that surrounds the fountain does the class take its true form, and it becomes clear this is not so much a class about how to ride a bike, as much as it is about how to ride a bike in New York City. As the students tightly circle the fountain, just inches from its cold concrete basin, the photo-snapping foreigners enter the scene and become obstacles. Kiracofe’s pupils teeter over their handlebars to avoid running over the hapless gawkers.

And then it happens, as if it were planned from the start: A big, furry, black dog—that has clearly made this a weekly, if not daily, ritual—yanks his owner toward the fountain and leaps up and into the fountain’s bath. Unbeknownst to dog and owner—and between the students and their roundabout trajectory—they’ve created a clothesline for the cyclists to avoid. After a playful splash, the dog exits her bath, leaving a sopping trail, and the students continue along.

During a less-stressful moment, Doug Gould tells me how he started working for

Green Cyclists. "I met
Philip in Haiti, during a disaster relief effort, after the earthquake,"
he says. Later, Kiracofe adds, "We actually first met on the airplane.
We were the only white people on it…We left during the first wave of
efforts, while tremors were still shaking the island."

Kiracofe,
a tri-athlete, teaches all levels of bike riding, although, he admits,
Bike Handling 101 offers his year-old business the greatest potential.
According to Kiracofe, only 1 percent of New York City’s population owns
a bike—let alone rides one. To expand his efforts, Kiracofe is reaching
out to corporate offices based in Manhattan, offering course packages
for employees who live in the city, highlighting the innumerable
community, environmental and health benefits. "Recent legislation now
requires all public and commercial buildings to install bike stands in
front of building entranceways," Kiracofe says. "It’s a no-brainer."

After
the final drill, which involves riding a straight line along the
badminton courts, we take to Central Park’s bike-and-car lanes, which
are filled with rollerbladers, cyclists, joggers, walkers,
baby-strollers, police buggies and a few horses. Serendipitously, the
clouds break, the temperature steadily rises and the sun warms everyone,
a welcome reprieve after the rainy spring.

We
cruise through the park toward Columbus Circle, and the students
prepare themselves for their first bikeride through Manhattan’s busy
streets.

As we ride
single file along the greenpainted bike lane into Times Square—a place
typically avoided at all costs on both bike and foot—Kiracofe randomly
asks if I’ve ever skied. I tell him that I have and figure he’s making a
savvy analogy: that the city’s relentless rhythm is to biking as
gravity is to skiing. This was never more apparent than when I worked as
a bike messenger. It lasted only three days but, as the magic number
implies, like when I learned to ski, it was hell the first two days and
absolute bliss by the third.

During
our ride through the city, we spend nearly as much time walking our
bikes through the Times Square "mall," which is festering with tourists,
as we do riding through the adjacent streets. We travel up Seventh
Avenue, off the bike path, alongside the traffic, where many of New York
City’s most enthusiastic bikers claim you experience the city at its
most authentic.

Finally,
we reach the Central Park West bike lane, which brings us back to where
we started, at Tavern on the Green’s parking lot. All cycling students
have survived. I take my helmet off—not a moment too soon—and chuck it
into the bin with the others.

I
approach Jon and ask him how it went. "Good," he says, beaming with
confidence. He goes on to recount fond memories of riding the Five Boro
Bike Tour with his stepfather before he left for college. "I’m excited
for this year’s tour."

As
Melissa, the most unsteady of the four students, waits in line to
return her bike, I ask her how it went. "It was great! I need to buy a
bike now," she says. "I think a hybrid is good, like the one I rented
today." I ask her if she’ll ride to work in Manhattan. Her smile turns
wan. "Possibly," she says, with a hopeful glint in her eye. "But it’s
more about going to the parks. I want to ride down to Coney Island—to
places like Prospect Park and the Promenade. The subway just isn’t
reliable. I want to be outside more."

Before
I leave, Kiracofe tells me about a recent 33-year-old student who had
never ridden a bicycle in her life. So I give her a call to find out her
story.

"I was
scared," Tina Tan says. "I tried once as a kid, and I was like, No way!
And I gave up before I could give it an honest go." More than 20 years
later, Tina went online to research bike-riding classes. She found Green
Cyclists and commissioned Ben Gould. Now, one month later, Tina can
ride a bicycle.

I
ask Tina, who grew up in Queens, why now? "I wanted to pick up a new
skill. I consider myself an outdoorsy person," she said. "And my husband
is a tri-athlete. He’ll be participating in his first New York City
triathlon in August. And it was time to learn. I asked myself, ‘What’s
the worst that could happen? I scrape my knee?’ So, I went for it." She
explains that it only took three classes before she felt confident
enough to ride solo. "And it felt so good… I felt so free."

I’m
curious, so I ask if she was embarrassed, not knowing how to ride a
bicycle and if she regrets waiting so long to learn. "I was never really
that embarrassed. Growing up, I had plenty other activities to choose
from. As for regret, I try not to live with regret. Have I missed out?
Of course. But, I don’t look back and wish things different. Coulda,
woulda, shoulda."

I
leave the park, wondering if maybe riding a bike in New York isn’t just
for lunatics anymore. On my way back home in Brooklyn, I hop on the
Hudson River Park bicycle path and travel downtown. I decide to shoot
off the path onto 10th Street and find a quaint café in the West
Village. I choose a table outside, take a deep breath, close my eyes and
feel the warm sun on my face. My nose is already pink. This is a Sunday
afternoon, I think. A gust of wind then comes along and lifts my paper
napkin into the street. I rise and leisurely step onto the sidewalk,
reach for the flyaway napkin and I am nearly trampled by an oncoming
pedestrian. 

NYPress: I have to say, in the very
beginning, when the vampire is up in the rafters and sucks the baby’s blood and
then drops the body down onto the floor… That opening scene prepared me for a
gruesome film. Did you write that scene?

Nick Damici: Oh yeah. And if it were up
to me, I would have shown even more detail. But you can only do so much on a
small budget.

In what capacities were you and Jim Mickle
writing the script for Stake Land?

Well it was a back-and-forth process. I wrote
the story and then I gave it to Jim, and he would basically read and edit what
I wrote. Jim was more of an editor throughout the process. We went back and
forth many times like that.

When did you and Jim Mickle begin
collaborating?

Jim and I met on the set of a student film when
he was a student at NYU. We were at this really creepy old house up there in
Connecticut. I mean this house, alone, was a horror story. I guess it kind of
set the tone for our relationship [laughs].
So we got to talking and formed a friendship. From there on out we continued
working together. Then we did Mulberry Street together. Jim Mickle has
been great to collaborate with. He’s a true talent.

Stake Land looks to have had a significantly larger budget compared to that of
Mulberry Street’s.

Oh, it wasn’t very much at all, but it was
about 10 times more than Mulberry Street. We shot Mulberry Street
right there in my apartment, between Mott and Mulberry. We literally had no
budget. I’m still peeling of production tape from the ceiling. [Laughs] I still have lighting poles up
on the shelf in my closet. A little advice: Don’t offer your apartment as a
place to shoot a movie. [Laughs]

So why horror?

Well, I’m not confining myself to horror. But,
I definitely have the most fun with the horror genre.

Do you have a favorite horror movie or book?

I have to say—and this is not really considered
a horror movie, per se—but the old King
Kong? My god, that movie is a masterpiece. It’s always been a great
inspiration for me. That’s what going to the movies is all about.

As for books, I mean you’ve got Stephen King of
course. And Richard Matheson was clearly a huge inspiration for Stake Land.
His work is brilliant.

The old, abandoned factory and warehouse spaces
where you filmed were really something else. Stake Land has some great
shots of you guys rummaging around the wreckage. How did you find those places?

Brent Knuckle, he’s our location guy. I have no
idea how he did it. He found all those places, mostly in upstate New York,
where we shot the winter scenes. We shot the summer scenes in Pennsylvania,
around Pottstown.

I heard you did some camping during the film.

Oh yeah. I camped out in Pennsylvania for about
three weeks. I consider myself a bit of a woodsman.

But yeah, all those abandoned places have been torn
down. It’s like our movie rolled through all those places and they just came in
and demolished it all after we finished shooting. Those places are all gone
now.

We hear you’re into mixed martial arts.

Well, yeah. Yoga, boxing, martial arts.

What do you think about the ban on kickboxing
in New York?

I don’t think politicians really know the
physics behind these types of sports. The real power behind a punch comes from
the legs. In many ways boxing is just as dangerous, if not more. When you see
these guys on top of one another pummeling each other in the face, they’re not
really getting behind it like a boxer can. There’s only so much damage an
ultimate fighter can inflict with an elbow or fist when straddling his
opponent. I don’t know why New York has kept it illegal.

So—we have to ask—are you still dating the
owner of Tom and Jerry’s?

Yes. We’re still dating. We’re going on about
17, 18 years now. I remember when [New
York Press was] located down there, by Tom and Jerry’s; you used to come
down a lot. Yeah, 17 years ago, I was a barback there.

You’ve had a successful acting career. Why do
indie films now, at this point in your career?

I’ll tell you. I’m tired of playing the same
character: cops, FBI agents, police enforcement types. I want to branch into
different roles. And I’m having a lot of fun writing and working with Jim.

The novel takes place entirely in Gainesville, Fla., in 1999, and follows a band of Dumpster-diving rebel youth— including a number of University of Florida refugees—living in a squat called Fishgut. David, the narrator, notes, “The school is more than the main thing here. It’s the only thing.” David is a jaded college dropout working at a customer call center who waxes poetic on web pornography, the follies of past relationships and the dreaded fear of having to return to his parents’ home in South Florida, where his “childhood bedroom waited like an armed bear trap.”

Right when David introduces Fishgut, his four constituents and an ominous deserted tent-turned-candlelit shrine (that Parker, Fishgut’s disciple-slashprophet, camped in before going AWOL) comes an interruption. David suddenly stops narrating (he returns again for a short segment near the end). The story becomes a metaphysical, five-character bildungsroman taken over and chronicled by an omniscient narrator—a narrator the story is really about. So much so that we lose sight of the five main characters, whose portraits haven’t yet fully formed and never do.

Omniscience is a novelist’s most dangerous tool. If not applied with an appropriate level of restraint, it can ruin even a great story.

In what seems an attempt to bottle every emotion, observation and existential sensitivity, the omniscient narrator encroaches on each of the novel’s five free-thinking, anti-establishment, Gen Y personalities by leeching off their colloquium and temper, going so far as to pose unnecessary questions that risk redundancy and smear the characters. It even helps them think: “Fuck, but he sounds like Parker, doesn’t he? This is fortune cookie logic. Enough, enough. Think about something useful, man. You don’t want to be like them… So he thinks about Seattle, and how the New World Order is coming.” The narrator mocks them. And by doing so, Taylor’s prose gets laborious, the plot convoluted, the narrator bothersome.

Clever in concept, the structural density of the novel does not achieve the value of Taylor’s earlier work. In many ways, The Gospel of Anarchy serves at the behest of its narrator rather than that of its audience.

The story proceeds to follow each of the five characters as they anticipate a Y2K apocalypse, the subsequent revolution and the repatriation of Parker, whose scribbled-in notepad becomes Fishgut’s anarchist manifesto. Parker never appears, but the characters seem to represent, in his absence, the full circle of an anarchist’s maturation. As their stories unfold, little more than a cohort of young, lost hedonists is revealed.

Over the course of the story, the main characters beat the crust punk, New World Order ideology to a pulpy mess through a haze of pot smoke and the occult. Creepy threesomes and existential diatribes fill the gaps. Taylor represents this generation of twentysomethings in a way no author has done, by depicting a highly sensualized graduation from childhood at the wide turn of the 21st century—what might have happened if you quit your job and toured with His Hero Is Gone or, better yet, gathered your closest friends and lovers into one abandoned house to live, party and play your own goddamn music, every day.

Finally, well into the second half of the novel, Taylor exhibits Parker’s notes (like CliffsNotes), the tenets that have Fishgut’s occupants swimming: “ephemerality is no longer a mere characteristic, but it is become a value. Affinity groups, squats, Rainbow Gatherings, Burning Man; whole minor civilizations appearing like mushrooms after rain, disappearing like sun-burnt mist, untraceable, a vision, a dream.” Parker’s notes are too late and unremarkable—the composite of which fail to fit congruently as whole or to jumpstart the flatlining plot.

By the novel’s conclusion, David reads best. His digressions are a pleasure, reminiscent of Taylor’s short story prose. Which is not to say that David should have narrated the entire story; the omniscient narrator is fundamental to the function of this novel. It is to say that a less mouthy narrator would have sheared off a good chunk of wasted prose.

Notwithstanding, Taylor is an undeniable talent with a contemporary voice that this new generation of skeptics has long awaited—a young champion of literature.

Before I left for college, my friend Kevin prepared me for what he said would be the best years of my life. "Stay in school as long as you can," he said. "Get as many degrees as you can. Be a doctor. Get your law degree. Just stay in school." He was 33 at the time, and I believed him. At least I wanted to believe him. Truth was, I knew about as much about myself and what I wanted from a college education as I did when I was 14—which was nothing. College simply prolonged my adolescence; it was a protracted version of high school that began with egregious social—and sexual— blundering and ended with such monotony that I left early.

In the late 1980s, Kevin went to college a virgin and, by the time he left five years later, he claimed to have slept with over 100 women. A handsome guy—boyish, blond, a littler shorter than average but well built— Kevin was a tough Staten Islander with a particular, insulting humor. And he was my informal brother-in-law turned collegedeviance advisor. He recounted stories in which he had gone from one dorm room to the next, entering multiple coeds on a single night; stories about "going brown" and finding "chocolate milkshakes" in the toilet. I would listen attentively, quip and encourage, as a good student would.

The night before I left for Boston, we sat in his basement and sipped Johnny Walker Blue, a gift from his father on his wedding night, and he told me what he wouldn’t give to switch places with me. In what has become a recurring theme in my life, Kevin had appointed himself my mentor (had even offered to adopt me in my remaining months of adolescence) since I’m a good listener. Though, ultimately, I realize it’s because I am quietly in search of a father figure. It’s a vulnerable position to be in, one that has gotten me into more trouble than I care to admit.

A month had gone by and, though I was not a virgin, I was dry—not "getting my dick wet" as Kevin would say—and smoking incessantly, nearly a pack a day. I was smoking so much even before classes began that one of the girls I met during orientation playfully dubbed me "The Smoker," which upset me so much I smoked even more.

I left my dorm room for another of my nervous smoke breaks but had forgotten a light, so I walked across to the other dorm and met another smoker, a small brunette. Her name was Erica and she was wearing a puffy, purple jacket. I lit my cigarette, and we exchanged phone numbers.

The following day we had lunch in the cafeteria. She was wearing a baggy, pink hoodie that draped over her torso to just above her knees. We grabbed trays, piled them with food and chose a table. Between bites, I asked her how life as a college student was shaping up.

"OK, I guess," she said, slouched and glaring beneath her furrowed brow. I felt the scrutiny. She laid it thick and didn’t hide it. I couldn’t figure out why, but that didn’t stop us from scheduling another lunch rendezvous where we agreed to go out on Friday.

That Friday, I was invited to smoke some pot with a fellow frosh. Afterward we went to lunch, and I watched him choke on and regurgitate his food. Gripped by a heavy bout of paranoia, I left him and met Erica in front of her building.

As I sat by her and her friends, the paranoia slipped away and I relaxed. I started getting a grip; I started feeling cool, suave. When their conversations hit a lull, I gave Erica a nudge.

"So why are you doing that to your sweater?" I asked her.

"What do you mean?" She was wearing a black, knit sweater and had pulled her arm into the sleeve as someone chilly does to conserve body heat. Or maybe it was one of those cute, nervous tics. "I like your sweater," I said. "It’s nice. You shouldn’t stretch it out like that." I was complimenting her attire. I was courting her.

She scrutinized me, smiled softly and then frowned. "I always do this," she said. I could tell she was confused, and so was I.

She elevated her shrouded arm, and I looked at it, noticing through the gaps in the stitching that the lower half of her right forearm was missing.

For a moment, time froze. She was missing an arm. I was stuck inside a vacuum. No right arm. Side conversations continued unbeknownst. I lit a cigarette. Nothing below the elbow. When my cigarette was finished, I stepped on it.

I told Erica that I needed a power nap. "That’s lame," she said. "We’re still going out, right?" "Yeah sure," I told her. "I just need to rest a bit beforehand."

I returned to my closet-sized dorm room and phoned my best buddies from Jersey who were now, as I was, dispersed in various locations along the Eastern seaboard,

receiving educations for some reason that none of us were quite sure about. But I could only reach two people for advice: my roommate from Greece who couldn’t quite grasp my dilemma and who was rolling a spliff (which he invited me to join him on but I declined); and Kevin, who told me, among other things, to "use her stump."

I left my apartment relieved, with an air of indifference. Relieved because I did not plan on having sex, which thus spared me from the ills of performance anxiety—a problem that plagued me throughout high school, from playing basketball in front of a crowd to fornicating.

I met Erica in front of her building, and we trekked to my friend’s apartment, a stunning bachelor pad in an old Boston brownstone. We had a few beers. Not much of anything was said, so we walked home. On our way back, I casually asked about her arm, or lack thereof. She was born that way, she told me.

"Oh, OK," I said. As we neared her building, she invited me in.

"Ah, I’m beat," I told her. "I’m gonna call it an early night."

"Oh, come on," she said. "I have liquor.

Let’s have a drink."

We had two or three drinks each, in rapid secession, and then our clothes were off. Suddenly there it was, nude with the rest of us, in all its grandeur—her abbreviated limb. She had an elbow joint, met by a small, mobile protuberance no bigger, in girth or length, than half a pinkie. I quickly redirected my gaze to her wholesome, normal breasts and neat brown nipples. She had a rather stunning figure, otherwise, something I hadn’t expected because of the baggy sweatshirts I was accustomed to seeing her in. We then proceeded as any two naked, horny college freshmen would. She mounted me and—in the blink of an eye— her limb disappeared past my periphery, her breasts hovering before me like a pair of soft goggles in need of focusing.

On any other such encounter I would have been a flaccid failure, but not this time. Her stump empowered me—represented the solid emotional foundation of trust I required for an erection. I had the upper hand this time. Had she been whole, I think I would have surely fumbled. But no! I was not soft and useless—I was quite sturdy, actually.

I then realized that I would not be living Kevin’s version of college—that I preferred quality, not quantity, and even struck a tune to it which repeated in my head. And so I would sleep with 95 fewer women in college than Kevin had.

But then I did as any dirty, rotten scoundrel would and never spoke to Erica again.

Call it karma, but my next sexual encounter turned out to be with an old perverted man, a rapist posing as a student—a BU sports trainer—who caught me exiting the gym with a proposal: a homework assignment that paid volunteers a dollar for every minute his examination lasted.

I made $14—enough for some beer and another pack of smokes.