Page 6 of 7
As Carmel's business grew, so did her private life. She was a finalist on the white-trash TV-20 Dance Party program hosted by Jim Gabbert, where saddle shoes and bowling shirts from Daly City jived to oldies records. She shot pistols at the firing range. At least once a year she stayed at the garish Madonna Inn, a severely overdecorated honeymoon hotel, and brought back tacky monogrammed souvenirs for her staff. She and Robert hopped on their Harleys for rides with the clean-and-sober gang known as the Survivors.
Carmel reunited with her old Slut Central friends for the 1991 world premiere of the film Vegas in Space at the Castro Theater, a fabulous evening of wigs and gowns that represented the pinnacle of San Francisco in full plumage. Although not credited in the film, her taste was represented in the on-screen costumes and hair designs of Doris Fish. The Tarantula was bustling all afternoon, everyone getting their coiffs for the big show.
Sadly, it was a posthumous gala. Fish and Tippi had passed away from AIDS before the film could be finished. To immortalize them, Carmel had Tattoo City's Ed Hardy do portraits of the original Sluts -- Fish, Tippi, and Miss X -- on one of her legs. It would complement a similar image on her arm: her father and brother, rendered from family photos.
Being an extroverted style maven for so many years undoubtedly made it difficult for Carmel to own up to the boring or ordinary aspects of her life. Few people ever knew that she had given a child up for adoption in Australia, and that she was compiling a scrapbook about herself, to be given to him the day he turned 21. Carmel rarely mentioned that she donated funds to finish a tree-planting program along Langton. She always kept the sidewalk in front of her shop clean, and made it a point to stop and chat with whatever neighbor she encountered, her five dogs jerking on the leash. They called her the "Queen of Langton."
After the murder, friends immediately started creating a shrine in front of the Pink Tarantula, lighting votive candles, posting up photos and poems, arranging fresh flowers. The blood hadn't yet been hosed off the sidewalk. An outpouring of grief continued to build. Homicide inspectors remarked to friends they'd never seen anything like it in 30 years. For weeks after, people stood outside the salon and hugged each other, examining the shrine in silence. A Carmel Louise Sanger Website was launched.
The Queen of Langton was growing increasingly distant from her king. In the past, vacations meant the two of them traveling to tattoo and hot rod conventions; they were the sober couple from San Francisco who posed for tattoo magazines. Now they spent less and less time together. Rarely was there any display of public affection. She had always left the financial nuances of the salon to him, but now she expressed dissatisfaction with that arrangement. One day at the Tarantula, Robert kissed Carmel goodbye on the cheek as he was leaving. A friend mentioned to Carmel it seemed uncharacteristic. She explained they were going to therapy, and added, "It isn't working."
It didn't work. People described the divorce as unpleasant, acrimonious. As part of the settlement, she got the Langton property; he retained a building on 24th Street and four of the five dogs. Carmel began to be in better moods. She joked more easily. She wore less jewelry, and collected less kitsch, as if that were somehow part of her past. She started seeing a couple of guys, and went on road trips with her clean-and-sober gang of biker girlfriends, the Black Leather Beavers.
"The thought, much less the spectacle, of these half a dozen striking women riding up on these big Harley Choppers and parking," a friend says, "I don't care who you are, but the world stops. They were really into the theater and drama of it all."
More than one California campground was baffled by the sight of girls dancing around the fire in boxer shorts, to a boombox blasting songs from The Jungle Book. They rode to a convention of Elvis impersonators in Las Vegas. Sometimes, they just sat around Carmel's place, watching She-Devils on Wheels, smoking cheap cigars like the chick bikers in the video.
In the evenings, after the shop closed, people driving down Langton might see the lights on in the salon, and glimpse Carmel, alone, in her pajamas, ironing and combing her hair. Everybody needs some downtime.
The dark blue car was traced to an apartment on Pine Street, and to two suspects: a thug on probation named Marcos Ranjel, 30, and a 25-year-old art-school junkie named Amber Tyler. Inside the apartment, police found a pair of black leather pants, a leather jacket, and an undisclosed amount of U.S. currency. Police administered a polygraph test to Ranjel. Witnesses were shown photos of him, but he was not arrested.
SOMA remains abuzz with speculation: Why Carmel? Was it a mob-related hit, part of a protection racket for the neighborhood? Was her ex-husband, Robert, involved? If so, how would he benefit? He wasn't getting the salon, because the divorce papers stated clearly that she was the sole owner. (Attempts to contact him at a recent address were unsuccessful.) And police aren't talking, because the case is still active.
Three months after Carmel's death, people who knew her still call each other almost every day, trying to keep each other up and going. Even so, some of Carmel's ex-addict friends have begun using again. The building at 71 Langton is in the process of being sold. A book about her is in the works here in San Francisco. Back in Sydney, where the story has been all over newspapers and TV, the immediate family remains stunned. Danny Archer, aka Miss Abood, is busy compiling the archives of Carmel and the Synthetics as part of an exhibit for the Australian National Library.
