I was surprised that it was my sister on the phone.
"Hey."
"Hey, what's going on Janet?"
"Oh, not much."
Right. She hadn't called me in San Francisco in nearly a year. And never on a weekday morning. Something was definitely going on.
"I just wanted to tell you that Dad is back in A.A."
I hadn't seen or spoken to my father in nearly ten years. Things had finally just sort of petered out between us. There was no final denouement, no cataclysmic blow-up, suitable for a made-for-tv movie. I just didn't appear at his house one year for Christmas. And he just never called to see where I was. Ever again.
And that's where we left it. A non-discussed, not-agreed upon, agreement.
For 10 years or so, holidays in Orlando had followed the same pattern. Early Christmas day, presents would be exchanged at my mother's house, her tiny bungalow festooned from end to end with the Christmas detritus of my childhood. Tree ornaments I made in grade school, cut out of greeting cards. Tattered felt stockings, on which I'd written my name with glue and glitter. That ridiculous cardboard fireplace that Mom put out every year, saved from our trailer in North Carolina.
Mom's portion of the day was at once comforting and melancholy. She'd get increasingly manic as the day went on, realizing that her time with my sister and I was growing short. She'd rush out story after story, and zip around the house grabbing at pictures we'd seen many times.
Finally, late in the afternoon, my sister and I would begin discussing "The Plan".
Our travel mode over to our father's house was always a big component of 'The Plan'. I preferred to follow my sister in my rental car, to maximize my departure options. She always wanted me to ride in her car, to maximize the impression that we were still some sort of cohesive family unit.
Another critical element of departing for my father's house was the advance reconaissance. That involved calling our step-mother and ascertaining how drunk my father was already, how drunk SHE was already, who was there, who was coming, when they were expected, and whether they thought they'd be going anywhere after dinner.
From all of that we'd lay out various strategies, excuses and escape plans...should the evening turn ugly. We were kidding ourselves, of course. The evening always turned ugly.
We'd be greeted politely at the door, cheek kisses from my step-mother, and a non-comittal wave thru the kitchen porthole from my father.
The house would be a madhouse of activity. At the front door, a steady stream of smashed ex-Marines trailed by a steady stream of bitching third wives. In the back yard, customers from my dad's saloon, gathered around an explosion of free booze, which my father had extorted from his suppliers.
At some point, there'd be an argument, usually about the food and where it went. My father would take the plate in question and smash it against the closest wall. My step-mother would wail and flee into the backyard, sobbing.
Standing barefoot in her rock garden, cigarette hanging from her lips, the ash nearly burned all the way down, swaying in a Johnny Walker haze, supporting herself by holding onto one of her plaster garden gnomes, she would scream at me.
"You know what, Joseph? Hey, you know what? The only pershun in thish whole FUCKING WORLD that understands what I am going through ish YOUR MOTHER!"
She'd punctuate each sentence by jabbing her finger at me, her gaudy Shopping Channel bracelets sliding down her stick-like arms.
Inside the house, my father would turn his Vicki Carr record up to maximum, treating the entire neighborhood to a scratchy performance of "It Must Be Him." My sister would be on her knees, cleaning up the smashed food, tears silently sliding down her face.
So.
One year, as the time to leave for Dad's house came, I walked into my mother's kitchen and said, as I did every year, "I don't want to go over there."
"So don't go."
That suprised the shit out of me.
"Oh, you know I have to go, it's just that.."
Mom turned away from the sink and lifted a soapy hand to stop me.
"Every year you say you don't want to go. And every year it turns into a horrible nightmare. If you don't go this year, will you feel any worse than you do every time you DO go?"
Bingo.
I didn't go. And they didn't call. Ever again. And I felt like I'd just been paroled from some prison, the kind that specialized in emotional abuse. Bad metaphor to be sure, but pretty close to what I felt.
Now, fast forward back to my sister's phone call to me in San Francisco.
"Dad is back in A.A.? Whoopee."
"Joe, this time he really means it."
Right. This time he means it.
This is the same guy who'd get smashed and yell: "It's the easiest thing in the WORLD to stop drinking, I've done it a HUNDRED times!"
"He's already gone through seven steps, Joe. He's never made it to step THREE before."
"Well, give him a gold star for me."
"And Step 8, which he's on now, is where he apologizes to the people who have been harmed by his alcoholism."
Fuck. The REAL reason for this phone call.
"Janet, are you trying to tell me that Dad is going to be calling me?"
"Um..."
"JANET! Did you give Dad my phone number? Does he KNOW I'm living in San Francisco??"
"Well, now Joey..." She only called me Joey when she was scared.
"Fucking GREAT! Thank you very much! Do I get to know when he's going to call?"
"Well, I gave him your San Francisco information yesterday."
Shit.
I got off the phone with Janet and went for a walk to calm my nerves. Just down the hill, in the Castro, I dove into Radio Shack and bought a Pacific Bell caller-ID unit. Back at the house, I got PacBell on the phone, had the thing active within an hour. For the rest of the week, everytime the phone rang, I'd jerk my head over to the caller-ID, my stomach already knotting up.
Monday morning, I was sitting at my desk when the doorbell rang. FedEx. I hardly glanced at the thick envelope when I signed for it. I was home officed, I got packages from the various delivery services all day. Later, after lunch, I scooped up all the mail and packages and sat down in the living room.
The first thing I picked up was the fat FedEx envelope. The return address caught my eye at once, my last name was on the return address as well as the delivery address.
"What could Mom be sending me?", I thought.
Then I realized that the zip code on the return address was NOT my mom's.
It was from Dad.
I ripped the tab on the cardboard, and out fell.....a videotape.
"Oh, you fucking coward. You piece of shit BRAVE MARINE!," I said out loud to no one.
My Dad couldn't even fucking face me on the phone, so he fucking VIDEOTAPED his Step 8 apology to me. My hand clenched so hard on the tape, it popped out my hand and clattered under the dining room table. I got on my knees and was reaching for the tape, when the phone rang.
I grabbed the tape and walked over to the desk. Even with the tape in my hand, I was afraid it was Dad on the phone.
It was Mom.
"I don't know how to tell you this, so I'm just going to say it. Your father died this morning."
Dad had gone on one of his famous Las Vegas golfing expeditions with his buddies. He didn't drink the entire weekend. That morning, picking up his clubs from the baggage carousel at Orlando International, he collapsed. He died in the ambulance.
Putting the phone down, I turned the tape to read the spine. In my father's familiar crisp block lettering: FOR MY SON.
I've never watched the tape.
The Dance Of The Sugar Plum Lesbians
Grand Central Terminal functions as the mechanical heart of midtown New York City, pumping out several thousand workers and tourists on one beat, then sucking in several thousand more on the next.
The rhythms of the terminal are fascinating.
Beat. Four thousand, inbound from New Haven.
Beat. Three thousand, outbound to Westchester.
Worlds collide on the main floor.
The tourists gawk up at the gloriously ornate ceiling and uselessly flash their digital cameras at objects hundreds of feet away.
The commuters rush up to the track displays to determine their track number, then dart across the terminal floor, dodging the milling tourists like a running back heading for the end zone with two seconds left on the clock.
It's mesmerizing. It's majestic.
And sometimes, like tonight, it's magical.
I'm walking through the massive main room just as the holiday laser show begins on the ceiling. To the tune of "Take The 'A' Train" the laser depicts two trains arriving from different directions. The trains stop opposite each other, and a reindeer leaps out of each one and crosses over to the opposite train.
The laser traces the outline of one of the zodiac constellations painted on the ceiling, and the Cancer crab leaps to life and becomes the Crab Conductor, waddling down the center aisle of the car, punching the reindeers' ticket stubs with his claws.
I move over to the edge of the room, near the entrance for Track 25, so I can watch the reaction to the show. As usual, I'm more entertained by watching the audience than by watching the actual show.
At the ticket windows, standing in front of signs that say "Harlem Line" or "Hudson Line", commuters tilt their heads painfully back to view the show directly overhead. The tourists cluster in delighted circles, holding each others' elbows for balance as they nearly bend over backwards.
Some people move to the edges of the great hall, as I have, to remove themselves from the traffic flow while they watch. Among those that come to join me on the perimeter of the room is a lesbian couple. They stand quite close to me, the taller woman behind the shorter one, with her arms wrapped around her, supporting her a bit, as they both lean back on the marble wall.
The shorter woman is stout, with a large firm chest. Her hair is short and brushed back into what might have once been called a ducktail. She has an ornate tattoo on her left forearm, and she has a leather wallet protruding from the rear pocket of her jeans, attached to her leather belt by a short silver chain. She has more than a passing resemblence to Tony Danza, her big boobs nothwithstanding, so naturally (in my head) I name her Toni.
Toni's girlfriend is blond, her short ponytail dangles just above her collar. She is wearing long Christmas tree earrings, which nearly brush her shoulders. Her lanky, sinewy limbs are bound in a tight running outfit, over which she is wearing a school athletic jacket. I imagine that she might be a coach at Yale or Harvard, perhaps a girls lacrosse coach, or maybe track and field.
Coach is squeezing Toni tightly, and they bounce together to the music a bit. Coach looks over at me and catches me smiling. She nudges Toni, who looks over at me too, and we all grin goofily at each other for a moment.
Overhead, a new show begins. The familiar opening notes of Tchaikovsky's "Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairies" ring out as the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building sprout arms, bow to each other, and begin waltzing across the ceiling.
I look around the room and it's as if time was frozen for just a second, every person stopped in mid-stride, eyes cast upward, mouths open in silent joy.
Toni pushes away from Coach, turns around and delivers her a bow as deep and as elegant as the one just depicted overheard.
"Madame, may I please have this dance?," she asks Coach.
Coach looks around a bit awkwardly, "You are TOO much!" And she giggles.
"Madame, I must insist!," says Toni, as she takes Coach's hands into hers.
Coach relents and she and Toni begin a beautful, slow waltz, moving in half-time to the music. As you might have guessed already, Toni leads.
As they dance, their eyes remain locked on each other. Toni is giving Coach an intense look, her lips tightly curled into a satisfied smile. Coach is grinning from ear to ear, and again she giggles.
All around Coach and Toni, the tourists, the businessmen, the students, the conductors, even the guy with a broom, they're all watching. Some are expressionless, but more are smiling, and some of them...some of them are frantically fussing with their cameras, eager to capture this magical New York Moment.
Serendipity prevails, the tune ends, and Toni dips Coach backwards with a dramatic upsweep of her free arm as a firestorm of camera flashes erupt around them. Toni pulls Coach up and close to her, and they hug. There's another camera flash, and the crowd begins to move along.
Then.
"Hey, look!"
The laser show is being concluded with giant sprigs of mistletoe appearing over our heads. This time, it's Coach who bends down and plants a long tender kiss on Toni's non-lipsticked mouth. There's another flash of cameras from the delighted audience.
Toni takes Coach's hand, and they begin to move off towards the exit.
"Oh, don't stop yet!," says a disappointed woman, still rumaging for her camera.
Toni looks back over her shoulder and says, "I never will."
The mechanical heart of New York City, Grand Central Terminal, beats again, but this time I hear a different rhythm. This time I hear a double beat.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYBODY!
The rhythms of the terminal are fascinating.
Beat. Four thousand, inbound from New Haven.
Beat. Three thousand, outbound to Westchester.
Worlds collide on the main floor.
The tourists gawk up at the gloriously ornate ceiling and uselessly flash their digital cameras at objects hundreds of feet away.
The commuters rush up to the track displays to determine their track number, then dart across the terminal floor, dodging the milling tourists like a running back heading for the end zone with two seconds left on the clock.
It's mesmerizing. It's majestic.
And sometimes, like tonight, it's magical.
I'm walking through the massive main room just as the holiday laser show begins on the ceiling. To the tune of "Take The 'A' Train" the laser depicts two trains arriving from different directions. The trains stop opposite each other, and a reindeer leaps out of each one and crosses over to the opposite train.
The laser traces the outline of one of the zodiac constellations painted on the ceiling, and the Cancer crab leaps to life and becomes the Crab Conductor, waddling down the center aisle of the car, punching the reindeers' ticket stubs with his claws.
I move over to the edge of the room, near the entrance for Track 25, so I can watch the reaction to the show. As usual, I'm more entertained by watching the audience than by watching the actual show.
At the ticket windows, standing in front of signs that say "Harlem Line" or "Hudson Line", commuters tilt their heads painfully back to view the show directly overhead. The tourists cluster in delighted circles, holding each others' elbows for balance as they nearly bend over backwards.
Some people move to the edges of the great hall, as I have, to remove themselves from the traffic flow while they watch. Among those that come to join me on the perimeter of the room is a lesbian couple. They stand quite close to me, the taller woman behind the shorter one, with her arms wrapped around her, supporting her a bit, as they both lean back on the marble wall.
The shorter woman is stout, with a large firm chest. Her hair is short and brushed back into what might have once been called a ducktail. She has an ornate tattoo on her left forearm, and she has a leather wallet protruding from the rear pocket of her jeans, attached to her leather belt by a short silver chain. She has more than a passing resemblence to Tony Danza, her big boobs nothwithstanding, so naturally (in my head) I name her Toni.
Toni's girlfriend is blond, her short ponytail dangles just above her collar. She is wearing long Christmas tree earrings, which nearly brush her shoulders. Her lanky, sinewy limbs are bound in a tight running outfit, over which she is wearing a school athletic jacket. I imagine that she might be a coach at Yale or Harvard, perhaps a girls lacrosse coach, or maybe track and field.
Coach is squeezing Toni tightly, and they bounce together to the music a bit. Coach looks over at me and catches me smiling. She nudges Toni, who looks over at me too, and we all grin goofily at each other for a moment.
Overhead, a new show begins. The familiar opening notes of Tchaikovsky's "Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairies" ring out as the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building sprout arms, bow to each other, and begin waltzing across the ceiling.
I look around the room and it's as if time was frozen for just a second, every person stopped in mid-stride, eyes cast upward, mouths open in silent joy.
Toni pushes away from Coach, turns around and delivers her a bow as deep and as elegant as the one just depicted overheard.
"Madame, may I please have this dance?," she asks Coach.
Coach looks around a bit awkwardly, "You are TOO much!" And she giggles.
"Madame, I must insist!," says Toni, as she takes Coach's hands into hers.
Coach relents and she and Toni begin a beautful, slow waltz, moving in half-time to the music. As you might have guessed already, Toni leads.
As they dance, their eyes remain locked on each other. Toni is giving Coach an intense look, her lips tightly curled into a satisfied smile. Coach is grinning from ear to ear, and again she giggles.
All around Coach and Toni, the tourists, the businessmen, the students, the conductors, even the guy with a broom, they're all watching. Some are expressionless, but more are smiling, and some of them...some of them are frantically fussing with their cameras, eager to capture this magical New York Moment.
Serendipity prevails, the tune ends, and Toni dips Coach backwards with a dramatic upsweep of her free arm as a firestorm of camera flashes erupt around them. Toni pulls Coach up and close to her, and they hug. There's another camera flash, and the crowd begins to move along.
Then.
"Hey, look!"
The laser show is being concluded with giant sprigs of mistletoe appearing over our heads. This time, it's Coach who bends down and plants a long tender kiss on Toni's non-lipsticked mouth. There's another flash of cameras from the delighted audience.
Toni takes Coach's hand, and they begin to move off towards the exit.
"Oh, don't stop yet!," says a disappointed woman, still rumaging for her camera.
Toni looks back over her shoulder and says, "I never will."
The mechanical heart of New York City, Grand Central Terminal, beats again, but this time I hear a different rhythm. This time I hear a double beat.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYBODY!
Clouds And Miss America
I had just hung up on Gary a few minutes earlier, and was about to leave the house for work, when he called me back.
"Joe, um...something has happened." Gary's voice was quavery and high.
"What? What's the matter?"
Gary's voice came rushing back. "I'm at Wendy's. I'm mean, I'm in the drive-thru. I can't see anything. I don't why I'm calling you in San Francisco...I just hit the redial I guess."
About six months earlier, Gary had lost all the vision in his left eye. He had CMV. He was taking oral gancyclovir in the hopes of staving off the loss of his right eye. And he seemed to be doing great.
Just that week, the local early evening newsmagazine show had done a feature story on Gary. Their newly hired reporter was the most recent Miss America, a local girl done good. Miss America and Gary had been close friends in high school, and when she chose AIDS awareness as her 'platform', despite strong dissenting advice from her advisors, Gary was ebullient.
Gary spoke of his 'good friend, Miss America' so often, sometimes we teased him about it. Miss America had done some photo ops, with 'her friend with AIDS' during her reign, and naturally she came back to Gary when it was suggested that she do a story on the new hope being offered by the just introduced anti-retroviral cocktail. There was no mention of Gary's eye problem during the story, and Gary told us the next day that he was disappointed that the scene of Miss America sitting on his bed, hugging him, didn't make the story.
"What do you mean you can't see?" I asked, hoping that I sounded strong and confident.
"I mean, I just ordered some food, and I pulled around to pay...and I ..I thought that the sun was going behind some clouds....but it just got worse and worse. I can't see a fucking thing, Joe."
Just then, I could hear some talking. A Wendy's staffer had come outside to see what the hold-up was. I told Gary to hand them his phone.
"Hello, I think your friend needs help." It sounded like a young girl, with a strong Cuban accent.
"Yes, he does. Is he still blocking your drive-thru?"
"Yes, he needs to move."
"OK, yes...I understand. He's having trouble seeing right now. Is there any way you can help him move his car?"
"I can't drive the customer's cars, no way I can, sorry."
By now, I could hear the angry honking of cars backed up in the drive-thru. The manager was summoned, and he reached in thru Gary's window and steered Gary out of the lane, and into a parking spot. Gary's phone began that annoying, almost out of juice, beeping that early generation cellphones made, then went dead.
I picked up my landline and called another friend in Orlando. He called another friend who lived close to Wendy's, and within 15 minutes we had 4 people there. Gary's roommate arrived from work, and they took him directly to the hospital.
Gary never regained his vision.
And with his vision, went his hope. Gary began a rapid spiral down, lost more weight, got a fungal throat infection, pneumocystis.
Eight weeks after the Wendy's incident, he was dead.
We scattered Gary's ashes off Pas-A-Grill Beach, near St.Petersburg, as Gary stipulated. We then went directly to T-dance, as Gary stipulated. We got spectacularly drunk, as Gary stipulated.
Miss America did not attend.
.
"Joe, um...something has happened." Gary's voice was quavery and high.
"What? What's the matter?"
Gary's voice came rushing back. "I'm at Wendy's. I'm mean, I'm in the drive-thru. I can't see anything. I don't why I'm calling you in San Francisco...I just hit the redial I guess."
About six months earlier, Gary had lost all the vision in his left eye. He had CMV. He was taking oral gancyclovir in the hopes of staving off the loss of his right eye. And he seemed to be doing great.
Just that week, the local early evening newsmagazine show had done a feature story on Gary. Their newly hired reporter was the most recent Miss America, a local girl done good. Miss America and Gary had been close friends in high school, and when she chose AIDS awareness as her 'platform', despite strong dissenting advice from her advisors, Gary was ebullient.
Gary spoke of his 'good friend, Miss America' so often, sometimes we teased him about it. Miss America had done some photo ops, with 'her friend with AIDS' during her reign, and naturally she came back to Gary when it was suggested that she do a story on the new hope being offered by the just introduced anti-retroviral cocktail. There was no mention of Gary's eye problem during the story, and Gary told us the next day that he was disappointed that the scene of Miss America sitting on his bed, hugging him, didn't make the story.
"What do you mean you can't see?" I asked, hoping that I sounded strong and confident.
"I mean, I just ordered some food, and I pulled around to pay...and I ..I thought that the sun was going behind some clouds....but it just got worse and worse. I can't see a fucking thing, Joe."
Just then, I could hear some talking. A Wendy's staffer had come outside to see what the hold-up was. I told Gary to hand them his phone.
"Hello, I think your friend needs help." It sounded like a young girl, with a strong Cuban accent.
"Yes, he does. Is he still blocking your drive-thru?"
"Yes, he needs to move."
"OK, yes...I understand. He's having trouble seeing right now. Is there any way you can help him move his car?"
"I can't drive the customer's cars, no way I can, sorry."
By now, I could hear the angry honking of cars backed up in the drive-thru. The manager was summoned, and he reached in thru Gary's window and steered Gary out of the lane, and into a parking spot. Gary's phone began that annoying, almost out of juice, beeping that early generation cellphones made, then went dead.
I picked up my landline and called another friend in Orlando. He called another friend who lived close to Wendy's, and within 15 minutes we had 4 people there. Gary's roommate arrived from work, and they took him directly to the hospital.
Gary never regained his vision.
And with his vision, went his hope. Gary began a rapid spiral down, lost more weight, got a fungal throat infection, pneumocystis.
Eight weeks after the Wendy's incident, he was dead.
We scattered Gary's ashes off Pas-A-Grill Beach, near St.Petersburg, as Gary stipulated. We then went directly to T-dance, as Gary stipulated. We got spectacularly drunk, as Gary stipulated.
Miss America did not attend.
.
"Aunt" Susan
UPDATE: Go away, perverts. There is NOTHING about incest in this story.
My mother's sister, Susan, was eight years younger than my mom.
She was everything my mother wasn't.
My mom was married and pregnant and living in a trailer in North Carolina within months of high school graduation.
Susan was a hippie. She was THE hippie.
She wore tie-dyed clothes, and fresh flowers in her waist-length jet-black hair. She called the cops 'pigs' and the government 'The Man.' She taught me how to string beads for necklaces, which my father would immediately throw in the garbage. She taught me the words to Dylan's 'Like A Rolling Stone.'
Once, she let me hang out while she and her friends sat around and set dry cleaning bags on fire. I was a kid, thinking 'Cool...FIRE!'....and it was many years before I realized that they were all tripping on acid, watching the plastic curl and smoke.
While my mom seemed smart and prim and restrained, Susan (and we were NEVER allowed to call her 'Aunt') was foul-mouthed and wild and entirely fascinating.
Shortly after she finished high school, she married for the first time. Bad Billy was his name, I don't think I ever heard his last name. He had wild eyes, a bushy beard and he never wore shoes. He left Susan to go live in a commune.
In 1969, a bunch of Native Americans occupied Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco Bay, in protest of how the government was treating them. By then, Susan was an art student at NYU, spending all of her time throwing pots and weaving giant macrame 'hangings'.
That year at Christmas dinner, Susan announced that henceforth she would be known as 'Sioux', in solidarity with her oppressed red brothers.
My grandfather shouted: 'Jesus H. Christ!' and stomped out to a bar.
Sioux's present to my mother that year was a huge glazed urn, with her new name scratched into the bottom.
Sioux married a couple more times, hippie-style free love arrangements. Both husbands evaporated to Canada after being drafted for the Vietnam war. I don't think I ever met either of them.
Sioux then began a pattern that would define the rest of her life. Through one of her husbands, she landed an apartment at the top of Stuyvesant Town, on the Lower East Side.
Rent control had already been in effect on the apartment, for decades. She got the place for dirt. Sioux illegally subdivided the sprawling two bedroom into four small bedrooms, and took in tenants...turning a healthy profit. Most of her tenants were art students or musicians.
In the mid-70s, Sioux immersed herself in the burgeoning punk scene. She began to wear only black clothing, something she did for the rest of her life. She hung out at CBGB's with the Talking Heads and Blondie. She fucked half of the New York Dolls and ALL of the Ramones. She got arrested at CBGB's, in the can, for giving a joint to a cop...at least, that's how she told it.
She became the quintessential New Yorker, the black clothes, the smoking, the cursing. Anybody who lived above 23rd Street was a 'fucking idiot'. My mother was clearly depriving her children of the real world by raising them outside of New York. It was 'abuse' she told my mother once, that we had to ride a school bus.
Sioux became Susan once again, sometime around 1977, due to some bitch in a band having the same name. Siouxsie Sioux. Of 'and the Banshees'.
My family had moved to Florida by then. Susan was visiting us, during spring break. She was still going to NYU...a professional student.
Susan sat on the floor in my bedroom, flipping through my albums.
Star Wars soundtrack..'Ugh'.
Stevie Wonder....'Hmm'.
Sister Sledge...'Spew'. Yes, she really SAID 'spew'.
Then she came to Village People.
Now, the first Village People album didn't look like any of the subsequent albums. Yes, it had the same giant art deco 'Village People' logo at the top, but the photograph of the 'band members' was a steamy, black and white photograph of young men, models assembled purely for the album cover. No Indian, no leatherman, no cop. Just a half-dozen young men wearing punk-ish clothes in an alley.
Susan looked at the cover. 'This looks like it has possibilities'.
For a moment, I thought she was going to ask me to play it for her. Part of me wanted her to, because I f*cking LOVED that album. But I also knew that she was expecting the music to live up to the artwork.
She flipped the album over and read the song titles out loud.
'Fire Island'....'Key West'...'San Francisco'....she stopped there.
Susan slowly put the album back on the stack, and looked at me.
I was only 18 years old and had never come out, not to a family member anyway. I steeled myself for what I knew was coming next.
'Are there any good titty bars around here?'
I nearly fell off my bed.
'Um...what?'
'I wanna find some dive bar and watch chicks dance and maybe score some blow...any place like that in Orlando?'
I turned bright red.
'Well, there's a place called 'The Bottom Drawer'...I've never been there...but from the outside it looks.....um....dive-y.'
Later, I heard Susan call information and get the address.
Back in New York, Susan continued to careen through the local music scene, dating musicians, writers, bartenders. She finally finished NYU, with an art degree, nearly 15 years after she started.
From then on Susan's daytime life was a long series of temping jobs with various media companies. Viacom. Time-Warner. NBC. Chrismas gifts were always a huge box of assorted swag, stolen from her employers. One year, it was all things Beavis & Butthead.
In 1995, Susan was diagnosed with pervasive esophageal cancer. She'd smoked heavily for nearly 30 years by then, so no one was really suprised.
Even after chemotherapy, radiation, surgery...Susan showed no improvement. My mother and my sister spent every weekend shuttling up from Orlando, to St. Vincent's Hospital to visit her.
At the end, Susan was confined to an oxygen tent. She'd withered away, skeletal is the only word to use. Her hair gone, tubes in both arms, not even the energy to chew food....she STILL found the energy to use that famously foul mouth.
Her final coherent words to my mother: 'Fat fucking lot of help YOU'VE been!'.
My mother fled the room, never getting the will to return.
The next day, as my sister walked in, Susan pulled her mask off and rasped: 'Those shoes with THAT skirt? You MUST be joking!'
After Susan died, we went to her Stuyvesant Town apartment to go through her things. The vulture grapevine had already been alerted to her death, there were two dozen notes on her door, inquiring about the disposition of the apartment.
By then, she'd stopped taking tenants, and the place was a rabbit's nest of paintings, albums, full ashtrays and piles and piles of art books. The spare bedrooms were littered with boxes and boxes of junk. Shoes. Winter coats. Hundreds of copies of the Village Voice.
I found a huge pile of spiral notebooks. I picked one out and sat at the kitchen table and began flipping through it. It was filled with drawings, abstract doodling, non-sensical words, and lists. Lots of lists. Lists of bands. Lists of artists. Lists of people I'd never heard of.
Then I came across a page that was different.
In huge bold strokes, the sentences moved directly from the top of the left page and over onto the top of the right.
'I WANT TO GET F*CKED. I WANT TO F*CK SOMEBODY. I WANT SOMEBODY TO WANT TO F*CK ME'.
My mother walked over.
'Anything interesting?'
Quickly, I flipped the page.
'Um, not so far. Just some drawings.'
My mom leaned in to see. I had landed on another page of lists.
In pink magic marker:
I HAVE THREE THINGS TO BE THANKFUL FOR:
1) my lesbianism.
2) my emerald green eyes.
3) that I don't have Dorothy's nose.
I looked up at Dorothy.
'Mom, didn't Susan have dark brown eyes?'
My mom sighed.
'Yes, dear. She did.'
(originally posted 5-18-04)
My mother's sister, Susan, was eight years younger than my mom.
She was everything my mother wasn't.
My mom was married and pregnant and living in a trailer in North Carolina within months of high school graduation.
Susan was a hippie. She was THE hippie.
She wore tie-dyed clothes, and fresh flowers in her waist-length jet-black hair. She called the cops 'pigs' and the government 'The Man.' She taught me how to string beads for necklaces, which my father would immediately throw in the garbage. She taught me the words to Dylan's 'Like A Rolling Stone.'
Once, she let me hang out while she and her friends sat around and set dry cleaning bags on fire. I was a kid, thinking 'Cool...FIRE!'....and it was many years before I realized that they were all tripping on acid, watching the plastic curl and smoke.
While my mom seemed smart and prim and restrained, Susan (and we were NEVER allowed to call her 'Aunt') was foul-mouthed and wild and entirely fascinating.
Shortly after she finished high school, she married for the first time. Bad Billy was his name, I don't think I ever heard his last name. He had wild eyes, a bushy beard and he never wore shoes. He left Susan to go live in a commune.
In 1969, a bunch of Native Americans occupied Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco Bay, in protest of how the government was treating them. By then, Susan was an art student at NYU, spending all of her time throwing pots and weaving giant macrame 'hangings'.
That year at Christmas dinner, Susan announced that henceforth she would be known as 'Sioux', in solidarity with her oppressed red brothers.
My grandfather shouted: 'Jesus H. Christ!' and stomped out to a bar.
Sioux's present to my mother that year was a huge glazed urn, with her new name scratched into the bottom.
Sioux married a couple more times, hippie-style free love arrangements. Both husbands evaporated to Canada after being drafted for the Vietnam war. I don't think I ever met either of them.
Sioux then began a pattern that would define the rest of her life. Through one of her husbands, she landed an apartment at the top of Stuyvesant Town, on the Lower East Side.
Rent control had already been in effect on the apartment, for decades. She got the place for dirt. Sioux illegally subdivided the sprawling two bedroom into four small bedrooms, and took in tenants...turning a healthy profit. Most of her tenants were art students or musicians.
In the mid-70s, Sioux immersed herself in the burgeoning punk scene. She began to wear only black clothing, something she did for the rest of her life. She hung out at CBGB's with the Talking Heads and Blondie. She fucked half of the New York Dolls and ALL of the Ramones. She got arrested at CBGB's, in the can, for giving a joint to a cop...at least, that's how she told it.
She became the quintessential New Yorker, the black clothes, the smoking, the cursing. Anybody who lived above 23rd Street was a 'fucking idiot'. My mother was clearly depriving her children of the real world by raising them outside of New York. It was 'abuse' she told my mother once, that we had to ride a school bus.
Sioux became Susan once again, sometime around 1977, due to some bitch in a band having the same name. Siouxsie Sioux. Of 'and the Banshees'.
My family had moved to Florida by then. Susan was visiting us, during spring break. She was still going to NYU...a professional student.
Susan sat on the floor in my bedroom, flipping through my albums.
Star Wars soundtrack..'Ugh'.
Stevie Wonder....'Hmm'.
Sister Sledge...'Spew'. Yes, she really SAID 'spew'.
Then she came to Village People.
Now, the first Village People album didn't look like any of the subsequent albums. Yes, it had the same giant art deco 'Village People' logo at the top, but the photograph of the 'band members' was a steamy, black and white photograph of young men, models assembled purely for the album cover. No Indian, no leatherman, no cop. Just a half-dozen young men wearing punk-ish clothes in an alley.
Susan looked at the cover. 'This looks like it has possibilities'.
For a moment, I thought she was going to ask me to play it for her. Part of me wanted her to, because I f*cking LOVED that album. But I also knew that she was expecting the music to live up to the artwork.
She flipped the album over and read the song titles out loud.
'Fire Island'....'Key West'...'San Francisco'....she stopped there.
Susan slowly put the album back on the stack, and looked at me.
I was only 18 years old and had never come out, not to a family member anyway. I steeled myself for what I knew was coming next.
'Are there any good titty bars around here?'
I nearly fell off my bed.
'Um...what?'
'I wanna find some dive bar and watch chicks dance and maybe score some blow...any place like that in Orlando?'
I turned bright red.
'Well, there's a place called 'The Bottom Drawer'...I've never been there...but from the outside it looks.....um....dive-y.'
Later, I heard Susan call information and get the address.
Back in New York, Susan continued to careen through the local music scene, dating musicians, writers, bartenders. She finally finished NYU, with an art degree, nearly 15 years after she started.
From then on Susan's daytime life was a long series of temping jobs with various media companies. Viacom. Time-Warner. NBC. Chrismas gifts were always a huge box of assorted swag, stolen from her employers. One year, it was all things Beavis & Butthead.
In 1995, Susan was diagnosed with pervasive esophageal cancer. She'd smoked heavily for nearly 30 years by then, so no one was really suprised.
Even after chemotherapy, radiation, surgery...Susan showed no improvement. My mother and my sister spent every weekend shuttling up from Orlando, to St. Vincent's Hospital to visit her.
At the end, Susan was confined to an oxygen tent. She'd withered away, skeletal is the only word to use. Her hair gone, tubes in both arms, not even the energy to chew food....she STILL found the energy to use that famously foul mouth.
Her final coherent words to my mother: 'Fat fucking lot of help YOU'VE been!'.
My mother fled the room, never getting the will to return.
The next day, as my sister walked in, Susan pulled her mask off and rasped: 'Those shoes with THAT skirt? You MUST be joking!'
After Susan died, we went to her Stuyvesant Town apartment to go through her things. The vulture grapevine had already been alerted to her death, there were two dozen notes on her door, inquiring about the disposition of the apartment.
By then, she'd stopped taking tenants, and the place was a rabbit's nest of paintings, albums, full ashtrays and piles and piles of art books. The spare bedrooms were littered with boxes and boxes of junk. Shoes. Winter coats. Hundreds of copies of the Village Voice.
I found a huge pile of spiral notebooks. I picked one out and sat at the kitchen table and began flipping through it. It was filled with drawings, abstract doodling, non-sensical words, and lists. Lots of lists. Lists of bands. Lists of artists. Lists of people I'd never heard of.
Then I came across a page that was different.
In huge bold strokes, the sentences moved directly from the top of the left page and over onto the top of the right.
'I WANT TO GET F*CKED. I WANT TO F*CK SOMEBODY. I WANT SOMEBODY TO WANT TO F*CK ME'.
My mother walked over.
'Anything interesting?'
Quickly, I flipped the page.
'Um, not so far. Just some drawings.'
My mom leaned in to see. I had landed on another page of lists.
In pink magic marker:
I HAVE THREE THINGS TO BE THANKFUL FOR:
1) my lesbianism.
2) my emerald green eyes.
3) that I don't have Dorothy's nose.
I looked up at Dorothy.
'Mom, didn't Susan have dark brown eyes?'
My mom sighed.
'Yes, dear. She did.'
(originally posted 5-18-04)
933 Harrison
During my six years of living in San Francisco, I visited just about every gay establishment in town. I'd hit the discos, the bars, the restaurants, the porn shops, the gift shops, the clothing stores, the record shops. I like to give my people all of my business.
Occasionally, I'd even get the notion to drop in at one of the local sex clubs.
Actually, replace get the notion to with 'be insanely driven to'. And replace drop in at with 'stay until closing at.'
Oh, and replace occasionally with 'three times a week.'
My favorite sex club in San Francisco (and the world, for that matter) is the legendary Blow Buddies. I won't go into any lengthy description of Blow Buddies, most gay men in America have been there or at least heard of it. The rest of you just.would.not.understand. Let's just say that even on a slow night, Blow Buddies provided a rich menu, a smorgasbord, an All-You-Can-Eat buffet of hot, willing, horny men. All I had to do was arrive, pull off my shirt, and begin sliding my metaphorical cafeteria tray past a seemingly endless selection of steamy dishes from around the world. (OK, let's end this horrible sex-as-food thing...HERE.)
I didn't have a car for the first few years that I was in SF. That's not so uncommon, San Francisco is one of the very few U.S. cities other than New York, where you can live pretty easily without a personal car. So, I was usually taking a cab when I would go to Blow Buddies.
However.
I had a little problem . It might be hard to believe it, but yes, ME...Joe.My.God. himself, relentless outspoken activist and warrior for gay causes, was embarrassed to tell the cab drivers WHERE I was actually going. Ridiculous, but true.
I'd flag down a passing cab from outside the disco, or bar or party. I'd hop in, the driver would bark his 'Where to?', and I'd LIE.
'Oh, I'm going to the Shell Station on Harrison Street.'
Right, who the HELL takes a cab to a gas station? Sometimes if it was early enough, I'd give the name of a nearby bar. Once or twice, I even pretended I was looking for my car parked on the street near Blow Buddies.
I mentioned my discomfort about this to a couple of my friends. Of course, they used it against me, at every opportunity.
'Hey, Joe. This is Leif. We're going out tonight if you wanna join us. Meet us around 10pm, somewhere on Market Street, in the general vicinity of some, uh...bars.'
Bastards.
One night, I slipped up. I stumbled out of Daddy's on Castro Street and hailed a cab. The cab that pulled over was was an old beat up one from one of the smaller, grungier cab companies, of the many that service San Francisco.
The driver was a huge, hairy, tattooed Rob Zombie clone with a ZZ-Top styled beard that reached the bottom of the steering wheel. He had a pipe clenched between his teeth and huge skull ring on his thumb.
After about a block, he stared into the rear-view mirror and grunted back at me, 'So ya gonna tell me where you're goin?'
I snapped out of my beer haze a bit and sat up.
'Oh, right, sorry. Take me to 933 Harrison Street.'
Fuck and FUCK! I gave him the EXACT address for Blow Buddies. I sank back into the seat in shame and rolled the window down to cool my hot and flushed face.
We rode in silence for another block or two. The driver slowed on Market, preparing to turn. Suddenly, his head snapped up in recognition.
'You said 933 Harrison?'
'Yes.'
We made our turn onto Octavia. The driver looked back at me again.
'You mean Blow Buddies,' he spat with derision.
'Yes,' I repeated, quieter.
At the next stoplight, the driver turned around and glared at me.
'Man, I fucking HATE that place!'
'You do?' I said, putting my hand on the door handle, just in case.
'Yeah, I fucking HATE Blow Buddies.'
'OK,' I said.
His shook his head in disgust.
'The guys in there, they NEVER wanna give me their loads!'
Occasionally, I'd even get the notion to drop in at one of the local sex clubs.
Actually, replace get the notion to with 'be insanely driven to'. And replace drop in at with 'stay until closing at.'
Oh, and replace occasionally with 'three times a week.'
My favorite sex club in San Francisco (and the world, for that matter) is the legendary Blow Buddies. I won't go into any lengthy description of Blow Buddies, most gay men in America have been there or at least heard of it. The rest of you just.would.not.understand. Let's just say that even on a slow night, Blow Buddies provided a rich menu, a smorgasbord, an All-You-Can-Eat buffet of hot, willing, horny men. All I had to do was arrive, pull off my shirt, and begin sliding my metaphorical cafeteria tray past a seemingly endless selection of steamy dishes from around the world. (OK, let's end this horrible sex-as-food thing...HERE.)
I didn't have a car for the first few years that I was in SF. That's not so uncommon, San Francisco is one of the very few U.S. cities other than New York, where you can live pretty easily without a personal car. So, I was usually taking a cab when I would go to Blow Buddies.
However.
I had a little problem . It might be hard to believe it, but yes, ME...Joe.My.God. himself, relentless outspoken activist and warrior for gay causes, was embarrassed to tell the cab drivers WHERE I was actually going. Ridiculous, but true.
I'd flag down a passing cab from outside the disco, or bar or party. I'd hop in, the driver would bark his 'Where to?', and I'd LIE.
'Oh, I'm going to the Shell Station on Harrison Street.'
Right, who the HELL takes a cab to a gas station? Sometimes if it was early enough, I'd give the name of a nearby bar. Once or twice, I even pretended I was looking for my car parked on the street near Blow Buddies.
I mentioned my discomfort about this to a couple of my friends. Of course, they used it against me, at every opportunity.
'Hey, Joe. This is Leif. We're going out tonight if you wanna join us. Meet us around 10pm, somewhere on Market Street, in the general vicinity of some, uh...bars.'
Bastards.
One night, I slipped up. I stumbled out of Daddy's on Castro Street and hailed a cab. The cab that pulled over was was an old beat up one from one of the smaller, grungier cab companies, of the many that service San Francisco.
The driver was a huge, hairy, tattooed Rob Zombie clone with a ZZ-Top styled beard that reached the bottom of the steering wheel. He had a pipe clenched between his teeth and huge skull ring on his thumb.
After about a block, he stared into the rear-view mirror and grunted back at me, 'So ya gonna tell me where you're goin?'
I snapped out of my beer haze a bit and sat up.
'Oh, right, sorry. Take me to 933 Harrison Street.'
Fuck and FUCK! I gave him the EXACT address for Blow Buddies. I sank back into the seat in shame and rolled the window down to cool my hot and flushed face.
We rode in silence for another block or two. The driver slowed on Market, preparing to turn. Suddenly, his head snapped up in recognition.
'You said 933 Harrison?'
'Yes.'
We made our turn onto Octavia. The driver looked back at me again.
'You mean Blow Buddies,' he spat with derision.
'Yes,' I repeated, quieter.
At the next stoplight, the driver turned around and glared at me.
'Man, I fucking HATE that place!'
'You do?' I said, putting my hand on the door handle, just in case.
'Yeah, I fucking HATE Blow Buddies.'
'OK,' I said.
His shook his head in disgust.
'The guys in there, they NEVER wanna give me their loads!'
Sentences
I was in love with Mrs. Shireman.
Teachers in my elementary school were all stamped from the same mold. They wore an air of resigned imposition. Everything was a chore, a bother. Each child a pestering gnat buzzing around their elephantine legs.
Miss Rose. Miss June. Miss Virginia. They all seemed to be named after flowers, or months or states.
But Judy Shireman, our brand new third grade teacher...she was...different.
The other teachers all wore their hair twisted up into prim buns. Mrs. Shireman had a dyed-blond flip. While her colleagues lumbered through the halls in billowing, shapeless Simplicity pattern muu-muu's, Mrs. Shireman wore mini-skirts with matching jackets or bell-bottomed pantsuits.
She was smart, pretty, funny. When a kid was talking to her, she paid attention.
She was Marlo Thomas. She was Agent 99. She was Batgirl.
And I was in love with her.
I was a difficult student. Way too sharp for your average third grader. Insanely hyperactive.
Mrs. Shireman would be handing out an assignment, "Boys and girls, please put your names..."
"I'm done, Mrs. Shireman!"
She would smile at me patiently.
"OK, Joey. Let's find something else for you to enjoy while everyone else does the assignment."
She was very skilled at using leading words like "enjoy", even when I was driving her nuts with my Ritalin fueled battiness. I was earning straight A's from Mrs. Shireman, except in the category of Conduct, although I should mention that in Orwellian rural North Carolina Conduct was actually called Citizenship.
I guess if you were a talkative 8 year old you ran the risk of recruitment by Soviet agents.
To battle my hyperactivity, Mrs. Shireman would invent things for me to do. She called them "experiments".
"Joey, let's perform an experiment. I want to find out how many times you can walk out to the flagpole and back, until the last student finishes the test."
She would tap on the classroom window to let me know when the "experiment" was over.
Mrs. Shireman and my mother were friends. They were about the same age, both from New York City. Kindred spirits of sorts, each set adrift in the cultural wasteland of Carteret County.
My mom and I visited her at her apartment a few times, where they'd talk about the Beatles and Elvis and I'd wander around marveling at her modern furniture. Eight years old and I was already developing a minimalist aesthetic.
I was the teacher's pet, obviously. I willingly stayed after school to clap erasers, staple papers, whatever. I graded tests, ran the mimeograph machine, anything to earn one of those approving smiles.
The other kids hated me. They knew Mrs. Shireman socialized with my mother, because I bragged about it. They resented her attempts to keep my hummingbird metabolism from totally disrupting their lessons, as favoritism. They'd make kissing sounds whenever I was up at her desk, or write "Joey + Mrs.Shireman" on the chalkboard. I didn't care.
One day, Mrs. Shireman snapped on me. I'd been up and out of my seat several times, and each time she'd return me to my desk with her firm grip on the back of my neck. Then I committed the mortal sin of talking during a test.
"Joey, please come up here!"
The other students exchanged gleeful looks. Hah! Finally!
"Joey, do you think it's fair to the class when you talk during their test?"
"I was just..."
"After school I want you to write sentences. 100 times, 'I will not talk in class'."
I was humiliated. Sentences! Me!
I returned to my desk. The other students found every opportunity during the rest of the day to make fun of me. Mr. Smarty Pants, Mr. Teacher's Pet had to stay after school and write sentences. When the bell rang, the other students filed out the room, taking great care to say 'Goodbye' to me, making sure I knew their pleasure in watching my fall.
Mrs. Shireman brought me 10 sheets of the special 'sentence writing' paper, the coarse sheets with oversized lines meant for first graders to practice writing the alphabet. I didn't even look up at her. I was furious and I had already plotted my revenge.
For an hour, I sat and wrote my sentences. I wrote with strong, angry strokes. A dozen times I had to stop and shake out the cramps in my hand and roll dry the sweaty pencil on my lap. While I wrote, Mrs. Shireman graded some papers, then read from a paperback novel. When I finished, I strode to the front of the class and put the sheets on her desk, face down.
Mrs. Shireman looked at me, sadly.
"Joey, I'm really sorry it had to come to this. You know I love you very much, and all I want is for you to learn and grow up to be the fantastic person I know you can be."
Maybe she said more, it seems like I stood there a long time. I couldn't hear anything else she said, because by then the loud painful buzzing in my ears was drowning out her words. Standing there, unable to meet her eyes, all I could think was: 'WHAT HAVE I DONE??'
On the pages on her desk, still face down, were not 100 sentences saying 'I will not talk in class.' Instead I'd written 100 times, in all capital letters: I HATE MRS. SHIREMAN!
Mrs. Shireman dismissed me, with an affectionate rub of my hair. Wordlessly, I walked out. When I got out of her sight, I raced down the hallway and out of the school doors. Running behind the hedges, so I couldn't be seen, I doubled back along the rows of windows. My mind was racing. I knew how to jimmy the windows to the classroom. Once, when Mrs. Shireman had locked her keys in our room, I broke in for her. All I had to do was zip in and grab those sheets.
It was too late.
Watching from the bushes outside, I saw Mrs. Shireman pick up my sentences. Her head cocked in puzzlement for a moment as she leafed through the pages. Her purse dropped from her shoulder onto the desk, and she pressed the sheets of paper to her chest, slumping down into her chair.
And she began...sobbing.
Her tiny shoulders heaved convulsively, and her head dropped down onto the desk. I could hear her cries.
I saw Miss Virginia walk by the open classroom door. She made a tentative move like she might walk inside to see what was going on. Then she saw me standing outside in the bushes. I jumped back, and fell into the hedge, scraping my face open. On my hands and knees, I burrowed out to the other side, jumped up and ran home.
When I burst through our front door, I was wailing inconsolably. I had blood all over my face from the hedge. I couldn't stop crying to explain to my mother, not that I would have. My mother thought that I'd been beaten up by bullies at the school. It had happened before. She called over to the school, but the principal told her that I'd been kept after class by Mrs. Shireman.
Even though they were friends, Mrs. Shireman never told my mother what I'd done. She continued to treat me fairly, but things were never the same between us. The school year ended a month later.
That was her one and only year as a teacher.
Teachers in my elementary school were all stamped from the same mold. They wore an air of resigned imposition. Everything was a chore, a bother. Each child a pestering gnat buzzing around their elephantine legs.
Miss Rose. Miss June. Miss Virginia. They all seemed to be named after flowers, or months or states.
But Judy Shireman, our brand new third grade teacher...she was...different.
The other teachers all wore their hair twisted up into prim buns. Mrs. Shireman had a dyed-blond flip. While her colleagues lumbered through the halls in billowing, shapeless Simplicity pattern muu-muu's, Mrs. Shireman wore mini-skirts with matching jackets or bell-bottomed pantsuits.
She was smart, pretty, funny. When a kid was talking to her, she paid attention.
She was Marlo Thomas. She was Agent 99. She was Batgirl.
And I was in love with her.
I was a difficult student. Way too sharp for your average third grader. Insanely hyperactive.
Mrs. Shireman would be handing out an assignment, "Boys and girls, please put your names..."
"I'm done, Mrs. Shireman!"
She would smile at me patiently.
"OK, Joey. Let's find something else for you to enjoy while everyone else does the assignment."
She was very skilled at using leading words like "enjoy", even when I was driving her nuts with my Ritalin fueled battiness. I was earning straight A's from Mrs. Shireman, except in the category of Conduct, although I should mention that in Orwellian rural North Carolina Conduct was actually called Citizenship.
I guess if you were a talkative 8 year old you ran the risk of recruitment by Soviet agents.
To battle my hyperactivity, Mrs. Shireman would invent things for me to do. She called them "experiments".
"Joey, let's perform an experiment. I want to find out how many times you can walk out to the flagpole and back, until the last student finishes the test."
She would tap on the classroom window to let me know when the "experiment" was over.
Mrs. Shireman and my mother were friends. They were about the same age, both from New York City. Kindred spirits of sorts, each set adrift in the cultural wasteland of Carteret County.
My mom and I visited her at her apartment a few times, where they'd talk about the Beatles and Elvis and I'd wander around marveling at her modern furniture. Eight years old and I was already developing a minimalist aesthetic.
I was the teacher's pet, obviously. I willingly stayed after school to clap erasers, staple papers, whatever. I graded tests, ran the mimeograph machine, anything to earn one of those approving smiles.
The other kids hated me. They knew Mrs. Shireman socialized with my mother, because I bragged about it. They resented her attempts to keep my hummingbird metabolism from totally disrupting their lessons, as favoritism. They'd make kissing sounds whenever I was up at her desk, or write "Joey + Mrs.Shireman" on the chalkboard. I didn't care.
One day, Mrs. Shireman snapped on me. I'd been up and out of my seat several times, and each time she'd return me to my desk with her firm grip on the back of my neck. Then I committed the mortal sin of talking during a test.
"Joey, please come up here!"
The other students exchanged gleeful looks. Hah! Finally!
"Joey, do you think it's fair to the class when you talk during their test?"
"I was just..."
"After school I want you to write sentences. 100 times, 'I will not talk in class'."
I was humiliated. Sentences! Me!
I returned to my desk. The other students found every opportunity during the rest of the day to make fun of me. Mr. Smarty Pants, Mr. Teacher's Pet had to stay after school and write sentences. When the bell rang, the other students filed out the room, taking great care to say 'Goodbye' to me, making sure I knew their pleasure in watching my fall.
Mrs. Shireman brought me 10 sheets of the special 'sentence writing' paper, the coarse sheets with oversized lines meant for first graders to practice writing the alphabet. I didn't even look up at her. I was furious and I had already plotted my revenge.
For an hour, I sat and wrote my sentences. I wrote with strong, angry strokes. A dozen times I had to stop and shake out the cramps in my hand and roll dry the sweaty pencil on my lap. While I wrote, Mrs. Shireman graded some papers, then read from a paperback novel. When I finished, I strode to the front of the class and put the sheets on her desk, face down.
Mrs. Shireman looked at me, sadly.
"Joey, I'm really sorry it had to come to this. You know I love you very much, and all I want is for you to learn and grow up to be the fantastic person I know you can be."
Maybe she said more, it seems like I stood there a long time. I couldn't hear anything else she said, because by then the loud painful buzzing in my ears was drowning out her words. Standing there, unable to meet her eyes, all I could think was: 'WHAT HAVE I DONE??'
On the pages on her desk, still face down, were not 100 sentences saying 'I will not talk in class.' Instead I'd written 100 times, in all capital letters: I HATE MRS. SHIREMAN!
Mrs. Shireman dismissed me, with an affectionate rub of my hair. Wordlessly, I walked out. When I got out of her sight, I raced down the hallway and out of the school doors. Running behind the hedges, so I couldn't be seen, I doubled back along the rows of windows. My mind was racing. I knew how to jimmy the windows to the classroom. Once, when Mrs. Shireman had locked her keys in our room, I broke in for her. All I had to do was zip in and grab those sheets.
It was too late.
Watching from the bushes outside, I saw Mrs. Shireman pick up my sentences. Her head cocked in puzzlement for a moment as she leafed through the pages. Her purse dropped from her shoulder onto the desk, and she pressed the sheets of paper to her chest, slumping down into her chair.
And she began...sobbing.
Her tiny shoulders heaved convulsively, and her head dropped down onto the desk. I could hear her cries.
I saw Miss Virginia walk by the open classroom door. She made a tentative move like she might walk inside to see what was going on. Then she saw me standing outside in the bushes. I jumped back, and fell into the hedge, scraping my face open. On my hands and knees, I burrowed out to the other side, jumped up and ran home.
When I burst through our front door, I was wailing inconsolably. I had blood all over my face from the hedge. I couldn't stop crying to explain to my mother, not that I would have. My mother thought that I'd been beaten up by bullies at the school. It had happened before. She called over to the school, but the principal told her that I'd been kept after class by Mrs. Shireman.
Even though they were friends, Mrs. Shireman never told my mother what I'd done. She continued to treat me fairly, but things were never the same between us. The school year ended a month later.
That was her one and only year as a teacher.
Back In The Saddle
Faithful Readers: Many apologies for my lengthy absence. As some of you know, Joe.My.God. was hacked into and deleted on Saturday, November 20th. As a fellow blogger sometimes says, I am completely compu-tarded, so I truly had no idea what to do. After a couple of weeks of hopeless dithering, a friend suggested that I write the world famous rock icon that we both know, and ask that he send up a flare to his vast readership. Within minutes of his posting, I got lots of kind offers, all of which I am deeply grateful for. The well-known blogger/hottie from Cleveland, Jockohomo went into my account and 'tinkered', and voila....I am BACK! Again, many thanks to Bob and Jim, and anyone else who to endure my whining. There's lots of fun stuff coming up on Joe.My.God., dirty gay sex, fist fights, car wrecks, drag queens, and ....of course...my mother.
Departure
Setting: JFK airport. The jetBlue terminal.
I'm sitting in the crowded pre-boarding area, waiting for my plane to Florida to arrive.
Seated next to me are a man and his young son. The father is in his mid-30s, and has a long black ponytail, tied back with a colorful turquoise clasp. I judge him to be Native American, then notice he is wearing a Cleveland Indians sweatshirt. Irony? Perhaps.
His son is about ten years old, wearing a hooded sweatshirt that says "Brooklyn", and Air Jordans. He has on headphones and I can hear abrasive rap music blasting from his player. His dad nudges him.
"So, what do you think?"
The boy shakes his head, removes his headphones and barks out a sullen, "What?"
"What do you think?" his dad repeats.
The boy looks at him defiantly, "What do I think about WHAT?"
His father indicates the door to the jetway and says, "I mean, all this. What do you think about it?'"
His son looks away. After a moment he says, "I don't know. Does it matter what I think?"
"Of course it matters to me what you think."
The boy remains silent. His father stands up to go throw away his coffee cup, and I notice his son's burning eyes follow him. When his father turns around, the boy quickly shifts his gaze to the arriving plane, now pulling up to the gate.
His father sits back next to me and leans forward with his elbows on his knees. He stares at the carpet and says, "You know....you can email me."
"I know", says the boy.
"And I'll email you right back, I promise," his dad says, nodding his head to emphasize that promise.
"OK," the boy says, indifferently.
They sit there in silence until the gate agents begin announcing the rows. We all stand up, and I get in line behind them. Only when we reach the door do I realize that only the boy is flying.
"OK, this is it," says the father.
"Yeah."
The father opens his arms and hugs the boy, who endures the embrace with his arms held stiffly at his side.
"Bye son," the man says. "You'll be fine. You'll like it there. I'll call you and your mom tonight."
"OK, bye." The boy breaks away and marches resolutely down the ramp.
I follow him onto the plane. He has the window seat in my row, and I watch him clumsily latch his seatbelt. He ignores the pre-flight safety instruction, instead focusing his attention out the window, as we are pushed back from the gate.
As the plane starts to rumble down the runway, I see the boy's lower lip begin to tremble. We lift off and climb sharply, then make a steep bank. The lights of Manhattan swing up into the boy's window. He turns his back to me and puts his hands on both sides of the window.
To anybody else on that plane, they are seeing the back of a curious little boy, lost in the wonder and fascination of New York City thousands of feet below him.
The cabin lights blink off, and the boy's face is suddenly reflected back. His eyes are closed and his mouth is open, in a silent wail, as his world drops away beneath the plane.
.
I'm sitting in the crowded pre-boarding area, waiting for my plane to Florida to arrive.
Seated next to me are a man and his young son. The father is in his mid-30s, and has a long black ponytail, tied back with a colorful turquoise clasp. I judge him to be Native American, then notice he is wearing a Cleveland Indians sweatshirt. Irony? Perhaps.
His son is about ten years old, wearing a hooded sweatshirt that says "Brooklyn", and Air Jordans. He has on headphones and I can hear abrasive rap music blasting from his player. His dad nudges him.
"So, what do you think?"
The boy shakes his head, removes his headphones and barks out a sullen, "What?"
"What do you think?" his dad repeats.
The boy looks at him defiantly, "What do I think about WHAT?"
His father indicates the door to the jetway and says, "I mean, all this. What do you think about it?'"
His son looks away. After a moment he says, "I don't know. Does it matter what I think?"
"Of course it matters to me what you think."
The boy remains silent. His father stands up to go throw away his coffee cup, and I notice his son's burning eyes follow him. When his father turns around, the boy quickly shifts his gaze to the arriving plane, now pulling up to the gate.
His father sits back next to me and leans forward with his elbows on his knees. He stares at the carpet and says, "You know....you can email me."
"I know", says the boy.
"And I'll email you right back, I promise," his dad says, nodding his head to emphasize that promise.
"OK," the boy says, indifferently.
They sit there in silence until the gate agents begin announcing the rows. We all stand up, and I get in line behind them. Only when we reach the door do I realize that only the boy is flying.
"OK, this is it," says the father.
"Yeah."
The father opens his arms and hugs the boy, who endures the embrace with his arms held stiffly at his side.
"Bye son," the man says. "You'll be fine. You'll like it there. I'll call you and your mom tonight."
"OK, bye." The boy breaks away and marches resolutely down the ramp.
I follow him onto the plane. He has the window seat in my row, and I watch him clumsily latch his seatbelt. He ignores the pre-flight safety instruction, instead focusing his attention out the window, as we are pushed back from the gate.
As the plane starts to rumble down the runway, I see the boy's lower lip begin to tremble. We lift off and climb sharply, then make a steep bank. The lights of Manhattan swing up into the boy's window. He turns his back to me and puts his hands on both sides of the window.
To anybody else on that plane, they are seeing the back of a curious little boy, lost in the wonder and fascination of New York City thousands of feet below him.
The cabin lights blink off, and the boy's face is suddenly reflected back. His eyes are closed and his mouth is open, in a silent wail, as his world drops away beneath the plane.
.
Fantasy #8
You arrive to find my door unlocked.
The members of the Supreme Court are already here, and the sex party is in full swing.
On my bed, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor are sharing a large double-ended dildo. Some of the male members of the Court are in the living room, gathered around my large-screen TV, slowly masturbating to "Raiders Of The Lost Arse."
The judges notice your arrival.
Clarence Thomas shoves his hand down your pants and says, 'NOW, I'm ready for some affirmative ACTION!"
William Rehnquist weakly motions you over to his chair. Removing his oxygen mask, he rasps "Call me......Miranda." You step back awkwardly.
Anthony Scalia begins an erotic dance, allowing a brief glance of the leather harness beneath his lavender robes.
There's a loud knocking on the door.
It's John Ashcroft.
I slam the door in his face.
*HOT*
The members of the Supreme Court are already here, and the sex party is in full swing.
On my bed, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor are sharing a large double-ended dildo. Some of the male members of the Court are in the living room, gathered around my large-screen TV, slowly masturbating to "Raiders Of The Lost Arse."
The judges notice your arrival.
Clarence Thomas shoves his hand down your pants and says, 'NOW, I'm ready for some affirmative ACTION!"
William Rehnquist weakly motions you over to his chair. Removing his oxygen mask, he rasps "Call me......Miranda." You step back awkwardly.
Anthony Scalia begins an erotic dance, allowing a brief glance of the leather harness beneath his lavender robes.
There's a loud knocking on the door.
It's John Ashcroft.
I slam the door in his face.
*HOT*
The Silent Shuttle
It was nearly midnight when I boarded the 'S' train shuttle under Times Square. The train was already waiting when I arrived at its platform, doors wide open, and not a passenger in sight.
I walked up to the first car and stepped in, marveling for a moment at my first time being the only person in a subway car. Normally, the 'S' shuttle is packed, full of tourists and office workers zipping back and forth between Grand Central and Times Square, under 42nd Street.
Over the next few minutes a few other stragglers boarded the train, although nobody entered my car. I began to play a silly mental game, trying to will approaching passengers into selecting any car but mine. I wanted to have a subway ride all by myself.
Just as the doors were closing, three black women entered my car, down at the far end. The sistahs were LARGE, tall and wide, and all sporting big, complicated hair-do's, with beads, ribbons and some multi-colored strands woven throughout. The kind of hair style that my co-worker Devasha calls 'Outer-Borough Weave.' I think parts of their hair might not have actually been hair, in fact. Think Patti Labelle, late 80's, 'New Attitude.'
Two of the women walked down the length of the car, and seated themselves directly across from me. Slightly odd, because the car was empty other than me. The third woman briefly seated herself at the far end, then sprang up to follow the first two down towards me. However, rather than sitting with her friends, she chose the seat across from them, directly next to me, her purse and jacket brushing me slightly when she sat down.
I had only a moment to ponder this gross breach of public seating etiquette (you know, seat yourself as equidistant from your fellow passengers as the number of riders will allow), because immediately I sensed a thick tension between the three women, and I was intrigued.
As the train lurched out of the station, the two women across from us glared at the one next to me. Occasionally, the two of them would share a glance between themselves, eyes narrowed, lips pursed. The woman next to me ignored them, staring blankly straight ahead. She didn't scan the car as riders normally do, reading the ads or checking out the other passengers (which would have just been me or her friends of course.)
As I am wont to do, I began mentally drafting the backstory to this cold war. Were they feuding over a man? Did the one next to me betray the other two in some way that only women could understand? Maybe they were related and arguing over child care or an elderly relative?
We bounced along in utter silence. A silence heavy with accusing looks and defensive body language. A silence broken only by the cell phone of the woman next to me. It called and called to her, in the voice of Usher, 'Yeah....Yeah....Yeah', but she ignored Usher, keeping her hands folded tightly in her lap.
The ride to Grand Central is a short one, and after less than two minutes of this staring contest, the train ground to a stop. The driver inexpertly allowed the train to make a final sharp jolt, causing my seatmate to bounce heavily into me. I smiled at her and made that 'woo' face that strangers share sometimes in those situations. She smiled back at me, and pulled herself to her feet, using the overhead bar.
As the doors opened, she turned to me and said, 'Now, YOU have a great night, ya hear?' With that, she stepped out, never having spoken to or looked at the other two women, since she had seated herself next to me.
Being the well-trained Southern gentleman that I am, I paused at the door to allow the other two women to detrain ahead of me. The two of them gathered themselves for a moment, a deliberate act calculated to allow the other woman to move farther away from them. I smiled at them faintly as I waited for them to pass through the door. They stopped in the door frame and looked at me conspiratorily.
One of them extended a finger with a huge decorated nail and pointed at the first woman, who was now walking towards the exit stairs.
"You see her right there?"
"Um...yeah," I replied.
The second woman splayed her fingers and make a couple of jabbing motions up at her enormous hair.
"Well....she need to have her knots re-tied."
With that, the two of them burst into high-pitched laughing, holding on to each other for support. The first woman stiffened at the laughter, but didn't look back. She reached for the bannister and began the climb up into Grand Central.
.
I walked up to the first car and stepped in, marveling for a moment at my first time being the only person in a subway car. Normally, the 'S' shuttle is packed, full of tourists and office workers zipping back and forth between Grand Central and Times Square, under 42nd Street.
Over the next few minutes a few other stragglers boarded the train, although nobody entered my car. I began to play a silly mental game, trying to will approaching passengers into selecting any car but mine. I wanted to have a subway ride all by myself.
Just as the doors were closing, three black women entered my car, down at the far end. The sistahs were LARGE, tall and wide, and all sporting big, complicated hair-do's, with beads, ribbons and some multi-colored strands woven throughout. The kind of hair style that my co-worker Devasha calls 'Outer-Borough Weave.' I think parts of their hair might not have actually been hair, in fact. Think Patti Labelle, late 80's, 'New Attitude.'
Two of the women walked down the length of the car, and seated themselves directly across from me. Slightly odd, because the car was empty other than me. The third woman briefly seated herself at the far end, then sprang up to follow the first two down towards me. However, rather than sitting with her friends, she chose the seat across from them, directly next to me, her purse and jacket brushing me slightly when she sat down.
I had only a moment to ponder this gross breach of public seating etiquette (you know, seat yourself as equidistant from your fellow passengers as the number of riders will allow), because immediately I sensed a thick tension between the three women, and I was intrigued.
As the train lurched out of the station, the two women across from us glared at the one next to me. Occasionally, the two of them would share a glance between themselves, eyes narrowed, lips pursed. The woman next to me ignored them, staring blankly straight ahead. She didn't scan the car as riders normally do, reading the ads or checking out the other passengers (which would have just been me or her friends of course.)
As I am wont to do, I began mentally drafting the backstory to this cold war. Were they feuding over a man? Did the one next to me betray the other two in some way that only women could understand? Maybe they were related and arguing over child care or an elderly relative?
We bounced along in utter silence. A silence heavy with accusing looks and defensive body language. A silence broken only by the cell phone of the woman next to me. It called and called to her, in the voice of Usher, 'Yeah....Yeah....Yeah', but she ignored Usher, keeping her hands folded tightly in her lap.
The ride to Grand Central is a short one, and after less than two minutes of this staring contest, the train ground to a stop. The driver inexpertly allowed the train to make a final sharp jolt, causing my seatmate to bounce heavily into me. I smiled at her and made that 'woo' face that strangers share sometimes in those situations. She smiled back at me, and pulled herself to her feet, using the overhead bar.
As the doors opened, she turned to me and said, 'Now, YOU have a great night, ya hear?' With that, she stepped out, never having spoken to or looked at the other two women, since she had seated herself next to me.
Being the well-trained Southern gentleman that I am, I paused at the door to allow the other two women to detrain ahead of me. The two of them gathered themselves for a moment, a deliberate act calculated to allow the other woman to move farther away from them. I smiled at them faintly as I waited for them to pass through the door. They stopped in the door frame and looked at me conspiratorily.
One of them extended a finger with a huge decorated nail and pointed at the first woman, who was now walking towards the exit stairs.
"You see her right there?"
"Um...yeah," I replied.
The second woman splayed her fingers and make a couple of jabbing motions up at her enormous hair.
"Well....she need to have her knots re-tied."
With that, the two of them burst into high-pitched laughing, holding on to each other for support. The first woman stiffened at the laughter, but didn't look back. She reached for the bannister and began the climb up into Grand Central.
.
Niece Knowledge
While my sister knows better than to broach the issue of religion with me, she couldn't resist sharing this recent exchange with her three year old daughter, Alicia.
Alicia: "Did Jesus die?"
Mama: "Yes, he did."
Alicia: "He smoked, didn't he?"
Alicia: "Did Jesus die?"
Mama: "Yes, he did."
Alicia: "He smoked, didn't he?"
O' Canada!
I've never been to Canada, but I'm told Vancouver is quite lovely. While I ponder, here are some helpful phrases to get through this dark, dark day:
-Je suis un Américain et je cherche l'asile.
-Ako ay Kano at naghahanap ng kanlungan.
-Ich bin Amerikaner und ich suche Asyl.
-Soy un americano y busco el asilo.
-Sono un americano e cerco asilo.
-Eu sou um americano e eu procuro o asilo.
-Ik ben een Amerikaan en ik zoek asiel.
-I'm an American, and I seek asylum, eh.
(And please, pedants of the world...these are mere Google translations, don't be hatin' on me)
-Je suis un Américain et je cherche l'asile.
-Ako ay Kano at naghahanap ng kanlungan.
-Ich bin Amerikaner und ich suche Asyl.
-Soy un americano y busco el asilo.
-Sono un americano e cerco asilo.
-Eu sou um americano e eu procuro o asilo.
-Ik ben een Amerikaan en ik zoek asiel.
-I'm an American, and I seek asylum, eh.
(And please, pedants of the world...these are mere Google translations, don't be hatin' on me)
Blog Jammed!
Last Saturday I hopped on the southbound Amtrak and picked up my buddy Ed at the Philadelphia stop. We got to DC around 5pm, checked into our hotel, then I tried to show Eddie around the gayborhood, only it turned out that my memory of *where* the boys are is somewhat out of date.
We had a quick bite to eat, scammed a DSL patch cord from the hotel front desk, then shot out an email to the BlogJam guys, letting them know we were available to be entertained. The ever-gracious Bob Mould called us almost immediately and invited us to the Velvet Lounge, to attend the Morel concert, celebrating last week's release of the new album, "Lucky Strike."
We got to the venue around 11pm and immediately met a calvalcade of Stars Of The Blogosphere....Waremouse (Mark), Chromewaves (PJ), and GeekSlut (Stephen). I introduced myself to Rich Morel at the bar, and pulled Ed over to meet Bob (whom I'd only met myself a couple of weeks ago at the NYC Virgin Megastore queer rock showcase).
The Morel show started upstairs almost immediately, and let me tell you people...it fucking ROCKED! While I'd heard of Rich Morel over the last couple of years, it was for his amazing remixes....Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode (my two favorite bands)...and something by him I had on a Deep Dish mixed compilation. I had never picked up his spectacularly reviewed 2002 release "Queen Of The Highway", (a grotesque oversight on my part, which I have since corrected).
The five piece band fronted by Rich was tight, energetic and engaging. Rich's husky, sexy voice perfectly complemented the deep house-y grooves and almost ethereal electro-pop of the new album. The packed house shook and the floor literally bounced up and down as we danced. I shook my groove thang, got my freak on, and got on down with my bad self. I'll definitely be attending the Morel show in NYC on November 12. Stop reading this post right now, and go out and get "Lucky Strike" ...RIGHT NOW. I'll wait here.
OK, you're back? Are you jamming to the best album of 2004? Cool. I'll finish telling the story while you groove.
Sunday night, Ed and I got to the BlogJamDC venue around 730pm, to find a note on the door announcing that bloggers VividBlurry and Wonkette would not be appearing. Jim Barrett, the co-creator of the show introduced himself to me immediately (hot beard Jimbo!) While the crowd began to gather I met the rest of the BlogJam performers....Dogpoet (who somehow is the ONLY Powerhouse bartender I managed NOT to bag, back in SF...dammit), Andrew Sullivan (who is much beefier than I remembered), and the erudite Chrisafer.
While waiting for my turn on stage, I met fellow bloggers Homer and Larry, both sweet handsome guys. I tried not to be *too* nervous, but I was noted pacing and wringing my hands a little bit. To my regret, it was hard for me to focus on Dogpoet's performance, because I was up immediately after him. Everyone says he was amazing, I'm going to have to beg for a personal recreation.
When my turn came, I read a couple of older things, from my first month of blogging. I wrapped up with 'The Goodbye Song' which I'd only finished in the hotel room, a few hours earlier. I was a little worried about reading such a downer of an essay, but I think it went over well. My only real miscue was coming upon a blank page in my notes, and fumbling for a moment to regain my place in the story. After the show, some of the audience flattered me by asking me a lot of very informed questions about some of the stories and people I've written about, particularly 'Terrence'. I also got to meet Sparky, one of the organizers of WYSIWYG, the NYC show that was the genesis of BlogJamDC.
I had a fantastic time in DC, it was my first time reading my work publicly. Huge thanks to Bob, Jimbo and Rich for all their work. And thanks to everyone I met at the show. Your kindness and compliments were greatly appreciated.
Now, back to the work of JoeMyGod. I've got a backload (heh...'load') of stories to post, and I'll be wrapping up the serial stories in progress, over the next couple of weeks, with a few new ones ready to start.
We had a quick bite to eat, scammed a DSL patch cord from the hotel front desk, then shot out an email to the BlogJam guys, letting them know we were available to be entertained. The ever-gracious Bob Mould called us almost immediately and invited us to the Velvet Lounge, to attend the Morel concert, celebrating last week's release of the new album, "Lucky Strike."
We got to the venue around 11pm and immediately met a calvalcade of Stars Of The Blogosphere....Waremouse (Mark), Chromewaves (PJ), and GeekSlut (Stephen). I introduced myself to Rich Morel at the bar, and pulled Ed over to meet Bob (whom I'd only met myself a couple of weeks ago at the NYC Virgin Megastore queer rock showcase).
The Morel show started upstairs almost immediately, and let me tell you people...it fucking ROCKED! While I'd heard of Rich Morel over the last couple of years, it was for his amazing remixes....Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode (my two favorite bands)...and something by him I had on a Deep Dish mixed compilation. I had never picked up his spectacularly reviewed 2002 release "Queen Of The Highway", (a grotesque oversight on my part, which I have since corrected).
The five piece band fronted by Rich was tight, energetic and engaging. Rich's husky, sexy voice perfectly complemented the deep house-y grooves and almost ethereal electro-pop of the new album. The packed house shook and the floor literally bounced up and down as we danced. I shook my groove thang, got my freak on, and got on down with my bad self. I'll definitely be attending the Morel show in NYC on November 12. Stop reading this post right now, and go out and get "Lucky Strike" ...RIGHT NOW. I'll wait here.
OK, you're back? Are you jamming to the best album of 2004? Cool. I'll finish telling the story while you groove.
Sunday night, Ed and I got to the BlogJamDC venue around 730pm, to find a note on the door announcing that bloggers VividBlurry and Wonkette would not be appearing. Jim Barrett, the co-creator of the show introduced himself to me immediately (hot beard Jimbo!) While the crowd began to gather I met the rest of the BlogJam performers....Dogpoet (who somehow is the ONLY Powerhouse bartender I managed NOT to bag, back in SF...dammit), Andrew Sullivan (who is much beefier than I remembered), and the erudite Chrisafer.
While waiting for my turn on stage, I met fellow bloggers Homer and Larry, both sweet handsome guys. I tried not to be *too* nervous, but I was noted pacing and wringing my hands a little bit. To my regret, it was hard for me to focus on Dogpoet's performance, because I was up immediately after him. Everyone says he was amazing, I'm going to have to beg for a personal recreation.
When my turn came, I read a couple of older things, from my first month of blogging. I wrapped up with 'The Goodbye Song' which I'd only finished in the hotel room, a few hours earlier. I was a little worried about reading such a downer of an essay, but I think it went over well. My only real miscue was coming upon a blank page in my notes, and fumbling for a moment to regain my place in the story. After the show, some of the audience flattered me by asking me a lot of very informed questions about some of the stories and people I've written about, particularly 'Terrence'. I also got to meet Sparky, one of the organizers of WYSIWYG, the NYC show that was the genesis of BlogJamDC.
I had a fantastic time in DC, it was my first time reading my work publicly. Huge thanks to Bob, Jimbo and Rich for all their work. And thanks to everyone I met at the show. Your kindness and compliments were greatly appreciated.
Now, back to the work of JoeMyGod. I've got a backload (heh...'load') of stories to post, and I'll be wrapping up the serial stories in progress, over the next couple of weeks, with a few new ones ready to start.
The Goodbye Song
In 1994, Jimmy went into the hospital again. He'd been in and out of Broward General a dozen or more times over the last couple of years, and it was getting harder for his friends, including me, to maintain the usual matching levels of panic and hope that most people experience when a friend is very sick.
It didn't help that Jimmy was a terrible patient. When he was able, he'd leave the hospital grounds and walk across to the convenience store to buy cigarettes, which he'd smoke in the hospital stairwell, striking a ghostly figure in his gown, under the emergency lighting. He cursed the nurses when they confiscated his smokes, and he cursed the housekeepers for cleaning his room while he was watching tv. He cursed his friends for not visiting enough, and he cursed us for waking him up when we were there.
And of course, we forgave him continuously.
"This isn't Jimmy," we'd say. 'Not OUR Jimmy." Then we'd blame the illness, or the medications.
But in fact, Jimmy hadn't been Jimmy since Barney died, in 92. Barney had been a core member of my inner circle, ever since college. And ever since college Barney had barreled through our lives with an everchanging series of 'husbands', all of which had their arrival heralded as Barney's 'One.True.Love.' It became a running joke.
"Who's that with Barney? This week's One.True.Love?" And then we'd snicker.
And one week, in 1990, it was Jimmy. That week stretched into a month, which lasted through the summer, which became a holiday season spent in a whirlwind of parties with Barney and Jimmy, the likes of which none of us had seen. Looking back, I think we were all subconsciously speeding up the timeline of our world.
Go more places. Throw bigger parties. Love each other harder.
The biological clock was real for us, man. And that fucker was counting down fast.
Barney and Jimmy had less than three years together. The first year, Barney bought a dilapidated bungalow in Wilton Manors, which they quickly turned the showplace of the neighborhood, largely thanks to Jimmy's home repair skills and Barney's amazing gift for ornamental landscaping. It wasn't very long before real estate agents were driving unconvinced home shoppers past their house.
Their second year together, Barney landed a huge promotion at his company, and with his Christmas bonus, he bought Jimmy a cherry-red Jeep, stunning us all. Jimmy had wanted a Jeep ever since he was a little boy, and Barney told us that Jimmy had sobbed uncontrollably when he saw it in the driveway on Christmas morning.
In '92, Christmas fell on a Friday, and most of us scattered to spend the weekend with our bio-families, planning to regroup for New Year's Eve. At their home, on Christmas Eve, Barney went to bed with a fever and a terrible cough. In the morning, Jimmy could hardly wake him. Barney was transported by ambulance to Broward General and was put on a respirator. The doctors said it was the fastest moving case of pneumocystis they'd seen since the 80's.
Jimmy made an uncomfortable call to Barney's parents in Pensacola, who made immediate plans to fly to Fort Lauderdale in the morning. The hospital refused Jimmy's request to be at Barney's bedside, forcing him to take a vigil in the vending machine room.
In the morning, Jimmy was buying his breakfast from the candy machine, when a hospital administrator tapped on his shoulder. Barney had died a few hours earlier. He'd choked to death. Barney died alone, with his One.True.Love. standing 100 feet away.
The next weekend Barney's parents arrived with a U-Haul and took away all of Barney's possessions, including all the household items that he and Jimmy had owned together, from appliances and linens right down to the artwork off of the walls. Jimmy watched helplessly as they hitched up the red Jeep, which for some reason was in Barney's name, and towed it away.
It was about two years after Barney died that Jimmy had started to have problems himself. It was PML...Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy. Dizziness, disorientation and memory loss quickly took over Jimmy's ordinarily effusive personality.
During Jimmy's final hospital stay, he shared his room with an older man, also with AIDS. I'd seen this man and his lover around the leather bars of Ft Lauderdale over the years, the two of them always in complete leather gear, no matter the occasion. Once, we saw them in the downtown supermarket, shopping in leather chaps. They seemed completely devoted to each other, and somehow we thought they were cute, and spared them our usual withering scorn we probably would have heaped on someone we'd seen shopping in assless chaps.
My roommate and I were headed down the hall to Jimmy's room one evening, and as we approached his door, we could hear singing. A single, low voice gently singing a familiar song. We stopped outside his room and could see that it was the lover of the man in the other bed. He was dressed in his finest leather, and he was standing just inside the curtain that was drawn around his husband's bed, singing him a song we'd heard many times in the clubs.
We'll always be together
However far it seems
Love never ends
We'll always be together
Together in electric dreams
After he finished the song, he walked past us without a glance, his shiny boots clicking loudly down the hall.
We tried not to look around the curtain as we walked over to Jimmy's bed. Jimmy was sitting up and looking out the window. He didn't acknowledge our presence for a minute, which we'd gotten used to. Finally he looked over at us and said, "Did you hear that guy singing? What a waste of time, his husband died hours ago."
"Oh...really," I said.
Jimmy laid back on his bed and stared up at the ceiling.
"I don't know, maybe it wasn't a waste of time, who knows? Do you think Barney can hear us?"
'I don't know, honey."
"I wonder what I would have sung to Barney if I had been....," Jimmy trailed off.
Jimmy reached into his shirt pocket for his cigarettes, an instinctual move really, because not only did he not have cigarettes, his dressing gown didn't have a pocket. He made a frustrated noise and looked back out the window, dismissing us with a wave of his hand.
He died the next day.
.
It didn't help that Jimmy was a terrible patient. When he was able, he'd leave the hospital grounds and walk across to the convenience store to buy cigarettes, which he'd smoke in the hospital stairwell, striking a ghostly figure in his gown, under the emergency lighting. He cursed the nurses when they confiscated his smokes, and he cursed the housekeepers for cleaning his room while he was watching tv. He cursed his friends for not visiting enough, and he cursed us for waking him up when we were there.
And of course, we forgave him continuously.
"This isn't Jimmy," we'd say. 'Not OUR Jimmy." Then we'd blame the illness, or the medications.
But in fact, Jimmy hadn't been Jimmy since Barney died, in 92. Barney had been a core member of my inner circle, ever since college. And ever since college Barney had barreled through our lives with an everchanging series of 'husbands', all of which had their arrival heralded as Barney's 'One.True.Love.' It became a running joke.
"Who's that with Barney? This week's One.True.Love?" And then we'd snicker.
And one week, in 1990, it was Jimmy. That week stretched into a month, which lasted through the summer, which became a holiday season spent in a whirlwind of parties with Barney and Jimmy, the likes of which none of us had seen. Looking back, I think we were all subconsciously speeding up the timeline of our world.
Go more places. Throw bigger parties. Love each other harder.
The biological clock was real for us, man. And that fucker was counting down fast.
Barney and Jimmy had less than three years together. The first year, Barney bought a dilapidated bungalow in Wilton Manors, which they quickly turned the showplace of the neighborhood, largely thanks to Jimmy's home repair skills and Barney's amazing gift for ornamental landscaping. It wasn't very long before real estate agents were driving unconvinced home shoppers past their house.
Their second year together, Barney landed a huge promotion at his company, and with his Christmas bonus, he bought Jimmy a cherry-red Jeep, stunning us all. Jimmy had wanted a Jeep ever since he was a little boy, and Barney told us that Jimmy had sobbed uncontrollably when he saw it in the driveway on Christmas morning.
In '92, Christmas fell on a Friday, and most of us scattered to spend the weekend with our bio-families, planning to regroup for New Year's Eve. At their home, on Christmas Eve, Barney went to bed with a fever and a terrible cough. In the morning, Jimmy could hardly wake him. Barney was transported by ambulance to Broward General and was put on a respirator. The doctors said it was the fastest moving case of pneumocystis they'd seen since the 80's.
Jimmy made an uncomfortable call to Barney's parents in Pensacola, who made immediate plans to fly to Fort Lauderdale in the morning. The hospital refused Jimmy's request to be at Barney's bedside, forcing him to take a vigil in the vending machine room.
In the morning, Jimmy was buying his breakfast from the candy machine, when a hospital administrator tapped on his shoulder. Barney had died a few hours earlier. He'd choked to death. Barney died alone, with his One.True.Love. standing 100 feet away.
The next weekend Barney's parents arrived with a U-Haul and took away all of Barney's possessions, including all the household items that he and Jimmy had owned together, from appliances and linens right down to the artwork off of the walls. Jimmy watched helplessly as they hitched up the red Jeep, which for some reason was in Barney's name, and towed it away.
It was about two years after Barney died that Jimmy had started to have problems himself. It was PML...Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy. Dizziness, disorientation and memory loss quickly took over Jimmy's ordinarily effusive personality.
During Jimmy's final hospital stay, he shared his room with an older man, also with AIDS. I'd seen this man and his lover around the leather bars of Ft Lauderdale over the years, the two of them always in complete leather gear, no matter the occasion. Once, we saw them in the downtown supermarket, shopping in leather chaps. They seemed completely devoted to each other, and somehow we thought they were cute, and spared them our usual withering scorn we probably would have heaped on someone we'd seen shopping in assless chaps.
My roommate and I were headed down the hall to Jimmy's room one evening, and as we approached his door, we could hear singing. A single, low voice gently singing a familiar song. We stopped outside his room and could see that it was the lover of the man in the other bed. He was dressed in his finest leather, and he was standing just inside the curtain that was drawn around his husband's bed, singing him a song we'd heard many times in the clubs.
We'll always be together
However far it seems
Love never ends
We'll always be together
Together in electric dreams
After he finished the song, he walked past us without a glance, his shiny boots clicking loudly down the hall.
We tried not to look around the curtain as we walked over to Jimmy's bed. Jimmy was sitting up and looking out the window. He didn't acknowledge our presence for a minute, which we'd gotten used to. Finally he looked over at us and said, "Did you hear that guy singing? What a waste of time, his husband died hours ago."
"Oh...really," I said.
Jimmy laid back on his bed and stared up at the ceiling.
"I don't know, maybe it wasn't a waste of time, who knows? Do you think Barney can hear us?"
'I don't know, honey."
"I wonder what I would have sung to Barney if I had been....," Jimmy trailed off.
Jimmy reached into his shirt pocket for his cigarettes, an instinctual move really, because not only did he not have cigarettes, his dressing gown didn't have a pocket. He made a frustrated noise and looked back out the window, dismissing us with a wave of his hand.
He died the next day.
.
The Pocket Piece, Part 5
The Pocket Piece, Part 4
Time stood still for just a moment in that rented bedroom.
I can remember how the icy London air whistled in around French Fred's arm, how he looked like a frightened child, stripped in that moment of his carefully constructed brooding sexiness. I remember watching the cloud of alcohol and fatigue fade from the faces of my friends, replaced by fear and horror.
But mostly, I remember unexpectedly seeing my own face reflected back in the remains of that broken window, and how I caught an expression on my face that I'd never seen in any mirror. In that sliver of window I saw myself contorted and angry. I saw my father's face, cruelly drawn and leaning down in that much-too-close way he had learned to best intimidate his Marine recruits.
I was angry at Fred for his panicked reaction, for breaking the window, for being French. Hell, I was mad at him for having BLOOD, which was beginning to pool on the floor. I was mad at my dumb-ass drunk friends for acting like wasted frat boys on spring break. And I was mad at myself for being so damn horny for Fred that now I was in this ridiculous situation, and I was standing NAKED in front of my three oldest friends.
I tried to pull things together, saying in a surprisingly calm voice, 'Fred, please don't move.'
Somehow he understood that, so I reached behind the bedroom door and pulled down two towels, knotting one around my waist. I rolled the other towel into a fat tube, and moved to the window. With Ken's help, we kept Fred's arm still and lifted the glass shards out of him, rather than trying to pull his wound back through the jagged edges. To this day, I'm amazed that we were that lucid.
Fred pulled his arm back inside, and I quickly wound the towel around the gash, but not before it spurted enough blood to make Fred's knees buckle.
I looked at the guys, 'So should we call 911 or whatever they have here?'
Ken and Jim made faces. We'd already had some noise complaints from the apartment downstairs, and while the apartment was only rented for another two days, we didn't want any trouble for our friend who'd found the place for us. An ambulance would certainly be 'trouble', especially in the circumstances of 4 American tourists and a French illegal, all of whom likely had *some* sort of contraband in their pockets.
'Well, how is he feeling? It looks gross. Don't they have free med-...oh but he's not English.'
We decided that sending French Fred home was out of the question. Man, I went right back to loving those guys again when I saw what *good* men they were. But we had to figure something out quickly. Something that didn't let Fred bleed to death, or worse, get deported. The towel around his arm seemed to be stopping the blood pretty well, but Fred was pale and his hand shook when he tried to take a puff from a cigarette handed to him. So, what to do? Where to take him?
Ed remembered that his ex-boyfriend's new roommate was from Cameroon, and hey, don't they speak French in Cameroon? So we decided to call the Cameroon guy and let him translate for Fred. Oh, I should mention that Ed's ex-boyfriend lived in Argentina and spoke no English, just Spanish and German. But the Cameroon guy spoke German AND French. And Ed spoke Spanish.
Remember the episode of " I Love Lucy" in which they're all thrown into a Parisian jail for passing fake franc notes? And hilarity ensued when the hilariously improbable events were hilariously explained German -French, then French-Spanish, then Spanish-English? Yup. Just.Like.That. Only much, much gayer, and with bleeding.
Amazingly, we got through to Ed's ex on the first try, although it was around midnight in Buenos Aires.
Me: 'Ask him to get the roommate that speaks French.'
Ed: (in Spanish) 'Hey sweetie hunny bunny babykins....'
Okay, maybe I have no idea what Ed was saying but it *seemed* like kissy talk.
Me: 'Ask him to get the roommate that speaks French.'
Ed: (in Spanish) 'Hey, how bout them Cowboys?' (or something).
Me: 'ASK HIM TO GET THE ROOMMATE THAT SPEAKS FRENCH!'
Ed: (to me) 'Dammit Joe, WAIT! I just woke them up, I have to be NICE. It's fucking O-dead hundred in the middle of the night there.'
Ed liked to pepper his language with forceful military expressions, although the only military action he'd ever seen was in the dirty bookstore outside of Patrick Air Force Base in Cocoa Beach, Florida.
Without going through all of the who-said-what-to-who-in-what-language, and HEY, you've all seen that Lucy episode a gajillion times anyway.....we figured out that French Fred had no money to speak of, no health insurance, lived with other French illegals, but sounded very sexy when speaking French to a Camaroonian living in Argentina with a German roommate.
Through our gay Code Talkers, French Fred made it known that he wanted to simply go home to his roommates, and I told the others that I would go with him and not leave him until I was satisfied he would be looked after. Jim walked us down to the tube station.
'OK, well you know the number for the apartment,' Jim said.
'No, honey...I know the apartment NUMBER.'
'Oh. Wait a minute, ' he said and ran back to our flat. I blocked the wind for Fred and he shivered a bit inside my coat.
Jim rushed back within five minutes and put the number in my pocket, saying, 'Be careful where this guy takes you! Watch out you don't end up in Ploughsbury-On-Thames!'
'OK, well hopefully I'll be right back,' I said.
'Do you know the name of our tube station?' Jim asked, for the fucking infinity-squared time since we'd gotten to London.
'You mean the name that's hanging overhead right now in 30 feet high blinking letters? The name of the station that's also the name of this street, and the name of our apartment building? The station that we've been in 8 times a day for 8 days? No. What is it?'
'Don't get snippy with ME, missy! It wasn't ME who brought home Spasmo L'Wetback.'
'Yeah, yeah. I know. You can make fun of me later,' I said, pulling Fred towards the subway entrance.
Jim nodded solemnly. 'And you know I will.'
'I know.'
'And make him take a shower, he's kinda stinky.'
I didn't catch that, so I cupped my ear towards Jim.
Jim repeated, 'I said, he's kinda stinky!'
'What??'
'I SAID HE STINKS!'
Damn! One of our favorite bits from the SNL cheerleaders, and I walked right into it.
Jim was jumping and giving himself a high-five, as Fred and I sank out of sight on the tube station escalator.
-to be continued-
Time stood still for just a moment in that rented bedroom.
I can remember how the icy London air whistled in around French Fred's arm, how he looked like a frightened child, stripped in that moment of his carefully constructed brooding sexiness. I remember watching the cloud of alcohol and fatigue fade from the faces of my friends, replaced by fear and horror.
But mostly, I remember unexpectedly seeing my own face reflected back in the remains of that broken window, and how I caught an expression on my face that I'd never seen in any mirror. In that sliver of window I saw myself contorted and angry. I saw my father's face, cruelly drawn and leaning down in that much-too-close way he had learned to best intimidate his Marine recruits.
I was angry at Fred for his panicked reaction, for breaking the window, for being French. Hell, I was mad at him for having BLOOD, which was beginning to pool on the floor. I was mad at my dumb-ass drunk friends for acting like wasted frat boys on spring break. And I was mad at myself for being so damn horny for Fred that now I was in this ridiculous situation, and I was standing NAKED in front of my three oldest friends.
I tried to pull things together, saying in a surprisingly calm voice, 'Fred, please don't move.'
Somehow he understood that, so I reached behind the bedroom door and pulled down two towels, knotting one around my waist. I rolled the other towel into a fat tube, and moved to the window. With Ken's help, we kept Fred's arm still and lifted the glass shards out of him, rather than trying to pull his wound back through the jagged edges. To this day, I'm amazed that we were that lucid.
Fred pulled his arm back inside, and I quickly wound the towel around the gash, but not before it spurted enough blood to make Fred's knees buckle.
I looked at the guys, 'So should we call 911 or whatever they have here?'
Ken and Jim made faces. We'd already had some noise complaints from the apartment downstairs, and while the apartment was only rented for another two days, we didn't want any trouble for our friend who'd found the place for us. An ambulance would certainly be 'trouble', especially in the circumstances of 4 American tourists and a French illegal, all of whom likely had *some* sort of contraband in their pockets.
'Well, how is he feeling? It looks gross. Don't they have free med-...oh but he's not English.'
We decided that sending French Fred home was out of the question. Man, I went right back to loving those guys again when I saw what *good* men they were. But we had to figure something out quickly. Something that didn't let Fred bleed to death, or worse, get deported. The towel around his arm seemed to be stopping the blood pretty well, but Fred was pale and his hand shook when he tried to take a puff from a cigarette handed to him. So, what to do? Where to take him?
Ed remembered that his ex-boyfriend's new roommate was from Cameroon, and hey, don't they speak French in Cameroon? So we decided to call the Cameroon guy and let him translate for Fred. Oh, I should mention that Ed's ex-boyfriend lived in Argentina and spoke no English, just Spanish and German. But the Cameroon guy spoke German AND French. And Ed spoke Spanish.
Remember the episode of " I Love Lucy" in which they're all thrown into a Parisian jail for passing fake franc notes? And hilarity ensued when the hilariously improbable events were hilariously explained German -French, then French-Spanish, then Spanish-English? Yup. Just.Like.That. Only much, much gayer, and with bleeding.
Amazingly, we got through to Ed's ex on the first try, although it was around midnight in Buenos Aires.
Me: 'Ask him to get the roommate that speaks French.'
Ed: (in Spanish) 'Hey sweetie hunny bunny babykins....'
Okay, maybe I have no idea what Ed was saying but it *seemed* like kissy talk.
Me: 'Ask him to get the roommate that speaks French.'
Ed: (in Spanish) 'Hey, how bout them Cowboys?' (or something).
Me: 'ASK HIM TO GET THE ROOMMATE THAT SPEAKS FRENCH!'
Ed: (to me) 'Dammit Joe, WAIT! I just woke them up, I have to be NICE. It's fucking O-dead hundred in the middle of the night there.'
Ed liked to pepper his language with forceful military expressions, although the only military action he'd ever seen was in the dirty bookstore outside of Patrick Air Force Base in Cocoa Beach, Florida.
Without going through all of the who-said-what-to-who-in-what-language, and HEY, you've all seen that Lucy episode a gajillion times anyway.....we figured out that French Fred had no money to speak of, no health insurance, lived with other French illegals, but sounded very sexy when speaking French to a Camaroonian living in Argentina with a German roommate.
Through our gay Code Talkers, French Fred made it known that he wanted to simply go home to his roommates, and I told the others that I would go with him and not leave him until I was satisfied he would be looked after. Jim walked us down to the tube station.
'OK, well you know the number for the apartment,' Jim said.
'No, honey...I know the apartment NUMBER.'
'Oh. Wait a minute, ' he said and ran back to our flat. I blocked the wind for Fred and he shivered a bit inside my coat.
Jim rushed back within five minutes and put the number in my pocket, saying, 'Be careful where this guy takes you! Watch out you don't end up in Ploughsbury-On-Thames!'
'OK, well hopefully I'll be right back,' I said.
'Do you know the name of our tube station?' Jim asked, for the fucking infinity-squared time since we'd gotten to London.
'You mean the name that's hanging overhead right now in 30 feet high blinking letters? The name of the station that's also the name of this street, and the name of our apartment building? The station that we've been in 8 times a day for 8 days? No. What is it?'
'Don't get snippy with ME, missy! It wasn't ME who brought home Spasmo L'Wetback.'
'Yeah, yeah. I know. You can make fun of me later,' I said, pulling Fred towards the subway entrance.
Jim nodded solemnly. 'And you know I will.'
'I know.'
'And make him take a shower, he's kinda stinky.'
I didn't catch that, so I cupped my ear towards Jim.
Jim repeated, 'I said, he's kinda stinky!'
'What??'
'I SAID HE STINKS!'
Damn! One of our favorite bits from the SNL cheerleaders, and I walked right into it.
Jim was jumping and giving himself a high-five, as Fred and I sank out of sight on the tube station escalator.
-to be continued-
Hell's Kitchen
Three years ago, I lived in Hell's Kitchen, the only Manhattan neighborhood with a name more storied than its residents. I was on West 40th Street, off 9th Avenue. Right behind the Port Authority bus station. In fact, the in-bound Lincoln Tunnel bus-only ramp flew past my 4th floor bedroom window, a scant fifty feet away. On more than a few occasions, my houseguest-de-l'heure would open my blinds and be startled to find a traffic jam of packed buses blankly staring in at our festivities.
Across from my apartment building was a Baptist Church. On weekends, a long line of budding evangelists camped out front, waiting for that day's Two Minute Hate before they headed into Times Square with their pamphlets and suburban smiles. I'd usually see a handsome bearded man with a clipboard, organizing these kids as they poured off their bus, sleeping bags slung over their shoulder.
A few months after I moved into the neighborhood, he introduced himself to me at The Dugout, a bear bar, down in the Village. After I got to know him, and after I watched those kids hand out sandwiches and soup in both sweltering heat and swirling snow, I decided to spare them my typically snarky comments when I passed them on the sidewalk.
Just up the block from the Baptist Church was the Manhattan office for the State Department of Parole. The hand-lettered sign in the heavily fortified window said, 'No Guns! No Girlfriends! No Kidding!' This place operated to ensure a nonstop traffic flow of felons down my block, office hours only, please.
Sharing the western wall of my apartment building, was the New York County Center For Displaced Women. A catch-all agency that dealt with women with drug problems, legal problems, housing problems, man problems. It was run by nuns. Capital 'N', nuns. Sort of a quasi-governmental agency, the type of which NYC seems to have many. These nuns were HARD looking. As in, they ain't gettin' NUN. And it was strictly a daytime walk-in operation. You had to have your problems solved by 5pm, because that's when they pushed you out of the door with a sandwich in one hand, and a lotta nuttin' in the other.
One of the unhappier clients of the Ain't Gettin' Nunnery took to a bizarre daily ritual. Standing on a piece of cardboard in front of our adjoining doors, she'd loudly recite from her bible, shouting up at the nuns in the windows, in one of the most hilariously thick Queens accents ever heard this side of Edith Bunker.
"So I pray dat Gawd,
Who gives ya hope,
Will keep ya happy."
This would go on all day, on most weekdays. She was devout in her deliverance and I was always curious to know how the nuns had wronged her, but she was dirty and looked like she probably would cut me if I asked, so I never did.
Sharing the eastern wall of my apartment building was the New York County Public Housing administration office. Not the main office, no...this was the place where the destitute and nearly homeless could come view 'Model Apartments' that the city was building here and there. Complete representations of the floorplans were made, because many of these units under construction were to be sold to their tenants, either at the onset, or eventually. Looking at the posted income requirements for these Section 8 units, I finally understood what homeless activists say about being 'too poor for public housing.'
Now being ringed in on all four sides as I was by bus ramps, public housing offices, a drop-in shelter, and a Baptist soup kitchen, you *might* think that my apartment building was pretty crummy. In fact, it was one of the nicest places I've ever lived. Certainly the nicest in NYC. That's the bizarre charm of Hell's Kitchen. I lived in a very nice apartment, in a good building, on an 'OK' block, of a *very* scary neighborhood.
A mere hundred yards from my front door was a nonstop swirling Otherworld. A 24-hour one-stop supply shop for Crack and Crazy. I used to give friends directions to my place by telling them that I was right on the corner of Crack and Ho. Go straight down Crack, until you see the Ho's, and turn right.
I learned very quickly to keep my eyes cast down, when passing by anyone, especially with groceries, because you'd be followed by hungry addicts. Once, I put my bags down in front of my building, as I fished for my keys and became distracted by a phone call. I turned around and there were three men pawing through my groceries, which I abandoned and fled inside to safety.
The dealers tended to huddle under the Verizon phone booth shelter on the corner. Although, I guess since some madman had ripped the guts out of all the phones, it was actually a Verizon Drug Dealer shelter. I saw some crazy things go down over there, as I'd move further and further into Ninth Avenue, desperately waving for a taxi, trusting that the people in the cars would be less likely to hit me, than the people on the sidewalk.
File this under 'It Really Happened':
I'm waiting to cross Ninth Avenue, during a pelting rainstorm. Next to me, at the Verizon Drug Dealer shelter, I see one of the regular dealers making a sale. His customer is a Hassidic Jew, in full Hassidic drag, the long coat, prayer shawl, the curly sideburns, the whole schmear. It was unusual to see one by himself, usually they'd be waiting for their special Hassidic Only buses that stopped over on the far side of the bus station. So this guy is buying crack. AND he's HAGGLING the dealer. Come ON people! I couldn't believe I was witnessing such bizarre, wholesale enactment of stereotypes. It was as hilarious as it was sad. If I hadn't recognized the dealer, I might have thought it was some kind of street theatre. Just as I stepped off the curb, the dealer pushed the Hassidic guy backwards.
'Bitch! I done TOLE you how much!'
Man, if I tried to pitch that scene to a network, they'd cry 'Hate Crime!' That's what they'd all cry, 'Hate Crime!', while pointing at me and my script. And maybe it was.
I tended not to keep the windows open, up there on the 4th floor in Hell's Kitchen. Otherwise I'd hear the hookers all night long.
'Heeeeeey girl!'
and
'Bitch, don't try it!'
After exactly one year, I moved to another 4th floor walk-up apartment, this time in the West Village, on Christopher Street, where I'd hear the tranny hookers all night long.
'Heeeeeey girl!'
and
'Bitch, don't try it!'
Across from my apartment building was a Baptist Church. On weekends, a long line of budding evangelists camped out front, waiting for that day's Two Minute Hate before they headed into Times Square with their pamphlets and suburban smiles. I'd usually see a handsome bearded man with a clipboard, organizing these kids as they poured off their bus, sleeping bags slung over their shoulder.
A few months after I moved into the neighborhood, he introduced himself to me at The Dugout, a bear bar, down in the Village. After I got to know him, and after I watched those kids hand out sandwiches and soup in both sweltering heat and swirling snow, I decided to spare them my typically snarky comments when I passed them on the sidewalk.
Just up the block from the Baptist Church was the Manhattan office for the State Department of Parole. The hand-lettered sign in the heavily fortified window said, 'No Guns! No Girlfriends! No Kidding!' This place operated to ensure a nonstop traffic flow of felons down my block, office hours only, please.
Sharing the western wall of my apartment building, was the New York County Center For Displaced Women. A catch-all agency that dealt with women with drug problems, legal problems, housing problems, man problems. It was run by nuns. Capital 'N', nuns. Sort of a quasi-governmental agency, the type of which NYC seems to have many. These nuns were HARD looking. As in, they ain't gettin' NUN. And it was strictly a daytime walk-in operation. You had to have your problems solved by 5pm, because that's when they pushed you out of the door with a sandwich in one hand, and a lotta nuttin' in the other.
One of the unhappier clients of the Ain't Gettin' Nunnery took to a bizarre daily ritual. Standing on a piece of cardboard in front of our adjoining doors, she'd loudly recite from her bible, shouting up at the nuns in the windows, in one of the most hilariously thick Queens accents ever heard this side of Edith Bunker.
"So I pray dat Gawd,
Who gives ya hope,
Will keep ya happy."
This would go on all day, on most weekdays. She was devout in her deliverance and I was always curious to know how the nuns had wronged her, but she was dirty and looked like she probably would cut me if I asked, so I never did.
Sharing the eastern wall of my apartment building was the New York County Public Housing administration office. Not the main office, no...this was the place where the destitute and nearly homeless could come view 'Model Apartments' that the city was building here and there. Complete representations of the floorplans were made, because many of these units under construction were to be sold to their tenants, either at the onset, or eventually. Looking at the posted income requirements for these Section 8 units, I finally understood what homeless activists say about being 'too poor for public housing.'
Now being ringed in on all four sides as I was by bus ramps, public housing offices, a drop-in shelter, and a Baptist soup kitchen, you *might* think that my apartment building was pretty crummy. In fact, it was one of the nicest places I've ever lived. Certainly the nicest in NYC. That's the bizarre charm of Hell's Kitchen. I lived in a very nice apartment, in a good building, on an 'OK' block, of a *very* scary neighborhood.
A mere hundred yards from my front door was a nonstop swirling Otherworld. A 24-hour one-stop supply shop for Crack and Crazy. I used to give friends directions to my place by telling them that I was right on the corner of Crack and Ho. Go straight down Crack, until you see the Ho's, and turn right.
I learned very quickly to keep my eyes cast down, when passing by anyone, especially with groceries, because you'd be followed by hungry addicts. Once, I put my bags down in front of my building, as I fished for my keys and became distracted by a phone call. I turned around and there were three men pawing through my groceries, which I abandoned and fled inside to safety.
The dealers tended to huddle under the Verizon phone booth shelter on the corner. Although, I guess since some madman had ripped the guts out of all the phones, it was actually a Verizon Drug Dealer shelter. I saw some crazy things go down over there, as I'd move further and further into Ninth Avenue, desperately waving for a taxi, trusting that the people in the cars would be less likely to hit me, than the people on the sidewalk.
File this under 'It Really Happened':
I'm waiting to cross Ninth Avenue, during a pelting rainstorm. Next to me, at the Verizon Drug Dealer shelter, I see one of the regular dealers making a sale. His customer is a Hassidic Jew, in full Hassidic drag, the long coat, prayer shawl, the curly sideburns, the whole schmear. It was unusual to see one by himself, usually they'd be waiting for their special Hassidic Only buses that stopped over on the far side of the bus station. So this guy is buying crack. AND he's HAGGLING the dealer. Come ON people! I couldn't believe I was witnessing such bizarre, wholesale enactment of stereotypes. It was as hilarious as it was sad. If I hadn't recognized the dealer, I might have thought it was some kind of street theatre. Just as I stepped off the curb, the dealer pushed the Hassidic guy backwards.
'Bitch! I done TOLE you how much!'
Man, if I tried to pitch that scene to a network, they'd cry 'Hate Crime!' That's what they'd all cry, 'Hate Crime!', while pointing at me and my script. And maybe it was.
I tended not to keep the windows open, up there on the 4th floor in Hell's Kitchen. Otherwise I'd hear the hookers all night long.
'Heeeeeey girl!'
and
'Bitch, don't try it!'
After exactly one year, I moved to another 4th floor walk-up apartment, this time in the West Village, on Christopher Street, where I'd hear the tranny hookers all night long.
'Heeeeeey girl!'
and
'Bitch, don't try it!'
7th and 12th
Last night, in front of St. Vincent's Hospital, I was standing in a large group waiting to cross the street. Next to me were two women, one holding a little girl. The woman holding the baby had puffy eyes, red and swollen from crying.
The older woman said, 'Well, it's good what the doctor said about the machine doing the work. Maybe that way he is resting.'
The young woman nodded distantly. 'I can't think about it any more. I just want to go home and take a hot bath and forget my life.'
I guess she instantly realized how self-pitying that sounded, because she shook her head in disgust, flashing me an embarrassed look as she impatiently stepped on and off the curb.
The older woman, heavyset, wearing a custodial smock, said, 'No, you are right. You need to get home and try to relax and not be all stressed. You need to be strong right now, strong for your son.'
The younger woman shifted the little girl in her arms to her other hip, and tilted her head back.
'Ay, Mami! Don't get me started again! I can't cry anymore. I'm done with that. I don't even think I have any more tears left.'
The older woman regarded her sadly.
'I gots some news for you, mija. When it comes to your babies, you don't never run out of tears.'
The light changed, and they stepped into the crosswalk, instantly engulfed by the crowd.
The older woman said, 'Well, it's good what the doctor said about the machine doing the work. Maybe that way he is resting.'
The young woman nodded distantly. 'I can't think about it any more. I just want to go home and take a hot bath and forget my life.'
I guess she instantly realized how self-pitying that sounded, because she shook her head in disgust, flashing me an embarrassed look as she impatiently stepped on and off the curb.
The older woman, heavyset, wearing a custodial smock, said, 'No, you are right. You need to get home and try to relax and not be all stressed. You need to be strong right now, strong for your son.'
The younger woman shifted the little girl in her arms to her other hip, and tilted her head back.
'Ay, Mami! Don't get me started again! I can't cry anymore. I'm done with that. I don't even think I have any more tears left.'
The older woman regarded her sadly.
'I gots some news for you, mija. When it comes to your babies, you don't never run out of tears.'
The light changed, and they stepped into the crosswalk, instantly engulfed by the crowd.
Fantasy #9
You arrive to find my door unlocked.
You enter my apartment and see that I have transformed it into a performance art space.
In one corner, Yoko Ono is blowing smoke rings at the blossom of a wilted orchid. Between puffs, she throws her head back and yells: 'Wessonality!'
On my bed, Karen Finley is writhing naked in a pool of melted chocolate, pressing a photograph of Dr. Robert Atkins to her vagina, while groaning, 'Compliant...compliant...compliant.'
The Blue Man Group are standing in my toilet, chanting, 'Our act is down the drain! Our act is down the drain!' Privately, we snicker at their transparent literalness.
Having come prepared, you pull a string of Xmas lights out of your bag, loop them around your neck, plug them in and leap out of my window shouting, 'IT'S ALL FOR YOU, SANTA!'
*HOT*
You enter my apartment and see that I have transformed it into a performance art space.
In one corner, Yoko Ono is blowing smoke rings at the blossom of a wilted orchid. Between puffs, she throws her head back and yells: 'Wessonality!'
On my bed, Karen Finley is writhing naked in a pool of melted chocolate, pressing a photograph of Dr. Robert Atkins to her vagina, while groaning, 'Compliant...compliant...compliant.'
The Blue Man Group are standing in my toilet, chanting, 'Our act is down the drain! Our act is down the drain!' Privately, we snicker at their transparent literalness.
Having come prepared, you pull a string of Xmas lights out of your bag, loop them around your neck, plug them in and leap out of my window shouting, 'IT'S ALL FOR YOU, SANTA!'
*HOT*
The Pocket Piece, Part 4
The Pocket Piece, Part 3
French Fred and I followed Jim out of Bromptons, Fred's hand in my back pocket. Outside, there were a few minutes of confusion as I tried to figure out exactly where French Fred and I were going to fuck. Jim stood a polite ten feet away, smoking.
'So, um....where do you live?' I asked.
'Lyon.'
'No, I mean where in London are you staying?'
'Ah! Glphem blrr roos klxzbu.'
'Um, is that near Soho?'
French Fred shook his head vigorously, and tugged my sleeve, indicating a waiting taxi.
Jim called over, 'I hope you know where you are going!'
'Nope. Not a fucking clue.'
'Watch out, he probably lives in Ploughsbury-On-Thames!'
Ploughsbury-On-Thames was a fictitious place name that Jim used whenever we seemed to be lost in London. Where does this train go? Oh, Ploughsbury-On-Thames. Where in the world are we now? Must be Ploughsbury-On-Thames.
'Do you think I can bring Fred back to our place?'
Our place was a rented apartment above the 24-hour Burger King in Leicester Square. My roommate back in San Francisco (who was English) had found it for us, through a friend of his. It had two bedrooms, a bath, a living room and a full kitchen. It was fairly priced, and despite the fact that its location was the London equivalent of living above the Ramen Cup-O-Noodles sign in Times Square, we had quickly grown to appreciate its convenience to the clubs, shops and tube station.
Jim shook his head, 'Honey, that's up to you. You know I don't care, but what about Ken?'
Ken was my ex. We'd been together for seven non-consecutive years in the 80's, and continued to live together right up until I moved to San Francisco. Ken visited me there often, and we both had very, ahem, active social lives, we just never flaunted tricks in each other's faces.
Somehow, I communicated to French Fred to come with us, and we all walked back over to the Coleherne to pick up Ken and Ed for the ride home. However, the Coleherne was closed, only a few stragglers remained outside, desperate remnants of the sidewalk sale that every gay bar in the world has after it closes for the night.
We took a cab back to Leicester Square. I steeled myself for a possible confrontation with Ken over French Fred, but Ken and Ed, those cheap tramps, were still out somewhere. Jim sweetly pulled the covers off of his bed, and sacked out on the couch in the living room, leaving our bedroom to French Fred and myself.
Fred sat on my bed, smoking and smoking looking. We undressed facing each other and I felt uncharacterically nervous, and spent a few minutes wasting time by pawing through my cds and selecting something to set the mood. Finally, I clicked off the lights and laid down beside Fred. The windowshade scarcely blocked the riot of flashing lights out in Leicester Square.
Outside in the hall, I heard Ken and Ed roll in. They were clearly smashed.
Fred saw me listening intently to the discussion between Ken and Jim, and jerked his head towards the door with a questioning look.
'Oh, that's my ex-boyfriend.'
'BOYFRIEND!' Fred exclaimed, bolting upright. That was one English word he DID know.
At that moment a loud crash, followed by cursing, came from outside the door. I found out later that Ed had drunkenly tried to pull his suitcase off of the closet shelf and it had sprung open and its contents rained down on his head.
Fred leapt off the couch and dove for his pants, jumping up and down as he wriggled in the leather.
I tried to calm him, 'No! No! It's OK! He's just my EX boyfriend! My EX!'
Fred started shouting at me. 'Gbmel brros rmmrow! No! NO!'
The guys must have gotten worried from all of Fred's shouting, because one of them knocked on the bedroom door.
'Joe! Is everything OK? Joe?'
'Everything is FINE. Go away! You are SCARING my friend!'
Wrong answer. Because that just made them think it would be REALLY hilarious for ALL of them to start knocking on the bedroom door.
'Joooooooe! Joooooooe! Are we scaring your friend? Viva la France! Frog legs! FROOOOOG LEGS!'
That really sent French Fred over the edge. He pulled on his boots and his jacket, and rushed over to the window and started tugging on it. Jim and I had been unable to open the window all week, deciding that it was probably painted shut. Fred strained at the sash, the veins in his neck going purple .
I tried to calm him, 'Please! Fred! Really! It's OK! It's FINE!'
Fred ignored me and put his shoulder to window and tugged.
'Merde! MERDE!'
The knocking on the door stopped at the precise moment that Fred's shoulder went through the window, sending chards of glass sailing down to the to the cobbled alley.
A moment of terrible silence. Fred looked at me helplessly. Someone opened the door cautiously, and Ed stuck his head in.
'Hi honey, what's going on?'
I looked at Fred, then at Ed. Peering over Ed's shoulders were Jim and Ken, with anxious expressions.
I turned on the light. Fred was frozen where he'd broken through the window.
'I guess we better find some bandages.'
-to be continued-
French Fred and I followed Jim out of Bromptons, Fred's hand in my back pocket. Outside, there were a few minutes of confusion as I tried to figure out exactly where French Fred and I were going to fuck. Jim stood a polite ten feet away, smoking.
'So, um....where do you live?' I asked.
'Lyon.'
'No, I mean where in London are you staying?'
'Ah! Glphem blrr roos klxzbu.'
'Um, is that near Soho?'
French Fred shook his head vigorously, and tugged my sleeve, indicating a waiting taxi.
Jim called over, 'I hope you know where you are going!'
'Nope. Not a fucking clue.'
'Watch out, he probably lives in Ploughsbury-On-Thames!'
Ploughsbury-On-Thames was a fictitious place name that Jim used whenever we seemed to be lost in London. Where does this train go? Oh, Ploughsbury-On-Thames. Where in the world are we now? Must be Ploughsbury-On-Thames.
'Do you think I can bring Fred back to our place?'
Our place was a rented apartment above the 24-hour Burger King in Leicester Square. My roommate back in San Francisco (who was English) had found it for us, through a friend of his. It had two bedrooms, a bath, a living room and a full kitchen. It was fairly priced, and despite the fact that its location was the London equivalent of living above the Ramen Cup-O-Noodles sign in Times Square, we had quickly grown to appreciate its convenience to the clubs, shops and tube station.
Jim shook his head, 'Honey, that's up to you. You know I don't care, but what about Ken?'
Ken was my ex. We'd been together for seven non-consecutive years in the 80's, and continued to live together right up until I moved to San Francisco. Ken visited me there often, and we both had very, ahem, active social lives, we just never flaunted tricks in each other's faces.
Somehow, I communicated to French Fred to come with us, and we all walked back over to the Coleherne to pick up Ken and Ed for the ride home. However, the Coleherne was closed, only a few stragglers remained outside, desperate remnants of the sidewalk sale that every gay bar in the world has after it closes for the night.
We took a cab back to Leicester Square. I steeled myself for a possible confrontation with Ken over French Fred, but Ken and Ed, those cheap tramps, were still out somewhere. Jim sweetly pulled the covers off of his bed, and sacked out on the couch in the living room, leaving our bedroom to French Fred and myself.
Fred sat on my bed, smoking and smoking looking. We undressed facing each other and I felt uncharacterically nervous, and spent a few minutes wasting time by pawing through my cds and selecting something to set the mood. Finally, I clicked off the lights and laid down beside Fred. The windowshade scarcely blocked the riot of flashing lights out in Leicester Square.
Outside in the hall, I heard Ken and Ed roll in. They were clearly smashed.
Fred saw me listening intently to the discussion between Ken and Jim, and jerked his head towards the door with a questioning look.
'Oh, that's my ex-boyfriend.'
'BOYFRIEND!' Fred exclaimed, bolting upright. That was one English word he DID know.
At that moment a loud crash, followed by cursing, came from outside the door. I found out later that Ed had drunkenly tried to pull his suitcase off of the closet shelf and it had sprung open and its contents rained down on his head.
Fred leapt off the couch and dove for his pants, jumping up and down as he wriggled in the leather.
I tried to calm him, 'No! No! It's OK! He's just my EX boyfriend! My EX!'
Fred started shouting at me. 'Gbmel brros rmmrow! No! NO!'
The guys must have gotten worried from all of Fred's shouting, because one of them knocked on the bedroom door.
'Joe! Is everything OK? Joe?'
'Everything is FINE. Go away! You are SCARING my friend!'
Wrong answer. Because that just made them think it would be REALLY hilarious for ALL of them to start knocking on the bedroom door.
'Joooooooe! Joooooooe! Are we scaring your friend? Viva la France! Frog legs! FROOOOOG LEGS!'
That really sent French Fred over the edge. He pulled on his boots and his jacket, and rushed over to the window and started tugging on it. Jim and I had been unable to open the window all week, deciding that it was probably painted shut. Fred strained at the sash, the veins in his neck going purple .
I tried to calm him, 'Please! Fred! Really! It's OK! It's FINE!'
Fred ignored me and put his shoulder to window and tugged.
'Merde! MERDE!'
The knocking on the door stopped at the precise moment that Fred's shoulder went through the window, sending chards of glass sailing down to the to the cobbled alley.
A moment of terrible silence. Fred looked at me helplessly. Someone opened the door cautiously, and Ed stuck his head in.
'Hi honey, what's going on?'
I looked at Fred, then at Ed. Peering over Ed's shoulders were Jim and Ken, with anxious expressions.
I turned on the light. Fred was frozen where he'd broken through the window.
'I guess we better find some bandages.'
-to be continued-
Fantasy #10
You arrive to find my door unlocked.
You enter my apartment and see the furniture piled up in the corner, the carpet rolled back.
'The Littlest Rebel' is being projected onto the wall, opposite a floor-to-ceiling mirror.
I am tap-dancing in the middle of the room. I am nude.
Luckily, your own tap shoes are in your bag. You strip down and join me.
We hold hands as we dance, facing the mirror and watching the movie behind us, copying every move.
I am Shirley Temple, you are Bojangles.
Our cocks flop comically.
You impress with a sexy Paddle & Roll. I counter with an electric Shim Sham Shimmy.
There is a pounding at the door. It's the building superintendent with two cops.
They have tap shoes.
They are nude.
*HOT*
You enter my apartment and see the furniture piled up in the corner, the carpet rolled back.
'The Littlest Rebel' is being projected onto the wall, opposite a floor-to-ceiling mirror.
I am tap-dancing in the middle of the room. I am nude.
Luckily, your own tap shoes are in your bag. You strip down and join me.
We hold hands as we dance, facing the mirror and watching the movie behind us, copying every move.
I am Shirley Temple, you are Bojangles.
Our cocks flop comically.
You impress with a sexy Paddle & Roll. I counter with an electric Shim Sham Shimmy.
There is a pounding at the door. It's the building superintendent with two cops.
They have tap shoes.
They are nude.
*HOT*
Fantasy #11
You arrive to find my door unlocked.
You enter my apartment and see me standing before the mirror, dressed as TC Bear, the team mascot for the Minnesota Twins.
I offer you a selection of several other team mascot costumes. You choose Fred Bird, of the St.Louis Cardinals, not commenting on the huge hole ripped out just below the tail feathers.
We move to the couch and watch the playoffs, during which I gaze at you lovingly, with my huge, unblinking plastic eyes.
You leave.
*HOT*
You enter my apartment and see me standing before the mirror, dressed as TC Bear, the team mascot for the Minnesota Twins.
I offer you a selection of several other team mascot costumes. You choose Fred Bird, of the St.Louis Cardinals, not commenting on the huge hole ripped out just below the tail feathers.
We move to the couch and watch the playoffs, during which I gaze at you lovingly, with my huge, unblinking plastic eyes.
You leave.
*HOT*
Fantasy #12
You arrive to find my door unlocked.
You enter my apartment to find me sitting on the couch, surrounded by Donna Summer albums.
Before we get naked, I insist that you recite the entire Donna Summer discography in chronological order, including label affiliations and greatest hits packages.
You comply, without errors.
We proceed.
*HOT*
Fantasy #13
You arrive to find my door unlocked.
You enter my apartment to find me sitting on the couch, surrounded by photo albums. We spend hours curled up, while I flip though hundreds of photographs from my childhood, as you pay rapt attention.
Occasionally, you interrupt my narration to say things like:
"Now, WHICH aunt is this one again?"
and
"Don't you look cute in your Little League uniform!"
and
"Now, WHICH aunt is this one again?"
You leave.
*HOT*
You enter my apartment to find me sitting on the couch, surrounded by photo albums. We spend hours curled up, while I flip though hundreds of photographs from my childhood, as you pay rapt attention.
Occasionally, you interrupt my narration to say things like:
"Now, WHICH aunt is this one again?"
and
"Don't you look cute in your Little League uniform!"
and
"Now, WHICH aunt is this one again?"
You leave.
*HOT*
Fantasy #14
You arrive to find my door unlocked.
You enter my apartment to find me standing at the kitchen sink, curlers in my hair, wearing a tattered housecoat. A Virginia Slim 120 is hanging from my lips, its long ash threatening to fall into the soapy dishwater.
I wash. You dry.
You leave.
*HOT*
You enter my apartment to find me standing at the kitchen sink, curlers in my hair, wearing a tattered housecoat. A Virginia Slim 120 is hanging from my lips, its long ash threatening to fall into the soapy dishwater.
I wash. You dry.
You leave.
*HOT*
The Pocket Piece, Part 3
The Pocket Piece, Part 2
Only a few steps inside the club, Jim and I had to spend a moment blinking and swallowing as we were assaulted by a thick melange of fumes. Cigarette smoke (did EVERY Brit smoke?), disco fog, stale beer, and the unmistakable sting of amyl nitrate hung close to our faces under the low ceiling.
To our left, on a slightly sunken dancefloor, tightly packed shadowy figures moved to the beat of the EXTREMELY LOUD sound system. We traced the edges of the dance floor with our fingers in our ears and headed for a long bar, where several bartenders were feverishly at work ignoring the patrons.
At the bar, we flailed our arms comically to attract the bartender's attention. Jim looked around, 'So much for finding a place to sit down.'
'Well, the last place was too bright, and this place is TOO LOUD!', I said to Jim.
'WHAT?', Jim shouted back.
'I said if we expected to find a place to sit and talk, we're gonna be out of luck!'
Jim look horrified.
'Madonna was HIT BY A TRUCK???'
'What? Who told you that?,' I asked, looking at the bartender.
'Didn't you just say something about Madonna getting hit by a truck?'
'Oh brother, honey. I said that we're GONNA BE OUT OF LUCK, if we expected to sit down. You've got your disco ears on already, and we've only been here ten minutes!', I snickered.
The sexy but unsmiling barman brought over two lukewarm Red Stripes. Jim counted out several pound coins and dropped them into the hand of the barman, brightly saying, 'Well, thank you VERY MUCH!'
'You tipped him, didn't you?' I asked for the tenth time this trip.
'Well, just a pound. Shut up. You know I just can't NOT tip a bartender.'
We'd been teasing Jim about that all week, although we'd all been quietly tipping them ourselves.
We drifted around the inside of club, getting our bearings and checking out the crowd. The dancefloor was jammed, mostly with younger club kids. Lurking around the bar and in the darker parts of the club were an odd mix of punks, skinheads, art fags and a few drag queens.
A handful of leathermen, probably refugees from The Coleherne, were posed in a corner, trying to maintain an aloof masculinity, but still occasionally succumbing to the insistent beat, carelessly allowing themselves a fleeting disco flourish, which they would immediately quell, then compensate for with an even more exaggerated swagger.
Jim left me standing near the leathermen and went in search of the restroom. A minute later he was back, breathless.
'Guess who I saw in the bathroom?'
I said, 'Were you looking though a gloryhole again?'
'Not THIS time, very funny. No, I walked up to the urinal, which by the way is JUST this huge tiled wall with a drain running along the bottom, that goes the entire length of the room, no privacy WHAT-so-ever. What is UP with this country and the public restrooms? If I was slightest bit pee-shy, I'd prob-'
I cut him off, 'Jim, who was in the bathroom?'
'Oh, it was London Losira.'
'Oh, no way!'
Now, the 'Losira' moniker requires a bit of explanation. Jim and I were both huge Star Trek geeks. In one episode, Kirk, McCoy and Sulu are stranded on a deserted planet. The planet is defended by a computer program that sends a beautiful but deadly female alien, named Losira (played by the lovely former Miss America, Lee Meriwether), to attack the crew. Each time she appeared, Losira's touch was fatal, but only for whomever the computer sent her on that occasion. Kirk and crew would form a circle around her, shouting, 'Who are you for? Who are you for?'
So, whenever Jim and I couldn't figure out which of us was being cruised, (and we were most definitely NOT a package deal) we'd name the cruiser in question 'Losira', until we knew who he WAS for, or no longer cared.
'London Losira' had been cruising one or the both of us all week long, in several bars and discos from Soho to Earl's Court. He was strikingly handsome, with a jet-black crewcut, pale skin, and a bit of a superior smirk. We never spoke to him, never figured out who he 'was for.' We had danced near him at Love Muscle, the previous Saturday, and purred approvingly when he removed his shirt on the dancefloor, but still never got past the 'Losira' stage.
Jim and I waited near the restroom, and about a minute later London Losira walked out, doing a comical double-take upon seeing us. Giving us several backwards glances, he pushed through the crowd and took up position edge of the dance floor.
Jim said, 'Ok, let's settle this.'
He pulled me behind him, following Losira. Jim took up a position a few feet to the right of Losira, and I took one a few feet to the left. Losira cast glances in both our directions and jumped down to the dancefloor, alone. Jim looked at me and rolled his eyes. I shrugged and we both joined Losira. After a few minutes of, at first, 'accidental', then not-so-accidental bumping into Losira, it became clear.
Losira was for me.
Jim abandoned us and went to do his own thing. I introduced myself to Losira, trying to be heard over the clanging music.
'Hi! I'm Joe!,' I shouted, extending my hand.
Losira grabbed my hand and yanked my body against his.
'Snrufl glelm flwro mrrumr!', he growled, as he shoved his palm against my crotch.
'OK.' I smiled idiotically. 'What's your name?'
More incomprehensible grunting, delivered in that sexy Losira way. I pulled him off the dancefloor and down a hallway, as far away from the speakers as we could get. That's where I learned that Losira was, in fact, named Fred. Fred was from France, working illegally in London as a waiter at a French restaurant. I wasn't entirely confident with any of this information, as it was largely gleaned through pantomime.
French Fred and I hung out at the bar for an hour or so, slamming more Red Stripes, and making out a little bit. I had to restrain him a few times, or he'd have had my cock out right there. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you, I just didn't know about local custom. Right.
Finally, Jim walked up and I gave him a ten-second recap. Jim tried to be bored with it all.
'So, are you going home with him?'
'I don't know, we haven't talked about it. Or maybe we HAVE, who knows, I can't understand a thing he says.'
Jim made a big show of getting out the claim tickets for our coats, and headed down the hall to the coat check. French Fred gave me a sly look, fumbled in his pockets for his claim ticket, murmured in my ear, then followed Jim.
Jim came back with our coats and asked, 'Well, what's the story?'
'Don't get mad, but I still don't know.'
'How can you NOT know?,' Jim snapped.
'Well, after you went to get our coats, I think he said 'I want you to fuck my hole.'
Jim rolled his eyes, 'Well, that sounds pretty definite!'
'Or, he MIGHT have said, 'I want to get my mink stole.'
Jim snorted. 'So, I guess if he DOESN'T come back with wearing fur, you're fucking him.'
French Fred reappeared a moment later. He was wearing a black leather jacket.
- to be continued-
Only a few steps inside the club, Jim and I had to spend a moment blinking and swallowing as we were assaulted by a thick melange of fumes. Cigarette smoke (did EVERY Brit smoke?), disco fog, stale beer, and the unmistakable sting of amyl nitrate hung close to our faces under the low ceiling.
To our left, on a slightly sunken dancefloor, tightly packed shadowy figures moved to the beat of the EXTREMELY LOUD sound system. We traced the edges of the dance floor with our fingers in our ears and headed for a long bar, where several bartenders were feverishly at work ignoring the patrons.
At the bar, we flailed our arms comically to attract the bartender's attention. Jim looked around, 'So much for finding a place to sit down.'
'Well, the last place was too bright, and this place is TOO LOUD!', I said to Jim.
'WHAT?', Jim shouted back.
'I said if we expected to find a place to sit and talk, we're gonna be out of luck!'
Jim look horrified.
'Madonna was HIT BY A TRUCK???'
'What? Who told you that?,' I asked, looking at the bartender.
'Didn't you just say something about Madonna getting hit by a truck?'
'Oh brother, honey. I said that we're GONNA BE OUT OF LUCK, if we expected to sit down. You've got your disco ears on already, and we've only been here ten minutes!', I snickered.
The sexy but unsmiling barman brought over two lukewarm Red Stripes. Jim counted out several pound coins and dropped them into the hand of the barman, brightly saying, 'Well, thank you VERY MUCH!'
'You tipped him, didn't you?' I asked for the tenth time this trip.
'Well, just a pound. Shut up. You know I just can't NOT tip a bartender.'
We'd been teasing Jim about that all week, although we'd all been quietly tipping them ourselves.
We drifted around the inside of club, getting our bearings and checking out the crowd. The dancefloor was jammed, mostly with younger club kids. Lurking around the bar and in the darker parts of the club were an odd mix of punks, skinheads, art fags and a few drag queens.
A handful of leathermen, probably refugees from The Coleherne, were posed in a corner, trying to maintain an aloof masculinity, but still occasionally succumbing to the insistent beat, carelessly allowing themselves a fleeting disco flourish, which they would immediately quell, then compensate for with an even more exaggerated swagger.
Jim left me standing near the leathermen and went in search of the restroom. A minute later he was back, breathless.
'Guess who I saw in the bathroom?'
I said, 'Were you looking though a gloryhole again?'
'Not THIS time, very funny. No, I walked up to the urinal, which by the way is JUST this huge tiled wall with a drain running along the bottom, that goes the entire length of the room, no privacy WHAT-so-ever. What is UP with this country and the public restrooms? If I was slightest bit pee-shy, I'd prob-'
I cut him off, 'Jim, who was in the bathroom?'
'Oh, it was London Losira.'
'Oh, no way!'
Now, the 'Losira' moniker requires a bit of explanation. Jim and I were both huge Star Trek geeks. In one episode, Kirk, McCoy and Sulu are stranded on a deserted planet. The planet is defended by a computer program that sends a beautiful but deadly female alien, named Losira (played by the lovely former Miss America, Lee Meriwether), to attack the crew. Each time she appeared, Losira's touch was fatal, but only for whomever the computer sent her on that occasion. Kirk and crew would form a circle around her, shouting, 'Who are you for? Who are you for?'
So, whenever Jim and I couldn't figure out which of us was being cruised, (and we were most definitely NOT a package deal) we'd name the cruiser in question 'Losira', until we knew who he WAS for, or no longer cared.
'London Losira' had been cruising one or the both of us all week long, in several bars and discos from Soho to Earl's Court. He was strikingly handsome, with a jet-black crewcut, pale skin, and a bit of a superior smirk. We never spoke to him, never figured out who he 'was for.' We had danced near him at Love Muscle, the previous Saturday, and purred approvingly when he removed his shirt on the dancefloor, but still never got past the 'Losira' stage.
Jim and I waited near the restroom, and about a minute later London Losira walked out, doing a comical double-take upon seeing us. Giving us several backwards glances, he pushed through the crowd and took up position edge of the dance floor.
Jim said, 'Ok, let's settle this.'
He pulled me behind him, following Losira. Jim took up a position a few feet to the right of Losira, and I took one a few feet to the left. Losira cast glances in both our directions and jumped down to the dancefloor, alone. Jim looked at me and rolled his eyes. I shrugged and we both joined Losira. After a few minutes of, at first, 'accidental', then not-so-accidental bumping into Losira, it became clear.
Losira was for me.
Jim abandoned us and went to do his own thing. I introduced myself to Losira, trying to be heard over the clanging music.
'Hi! I'm Joe!,' I shouted, extending my hand.
Losira grabbed my hand and yanked my body against his.
'Snrufl glelm flwro mrrumr!', he growled, as he shoved his palm against my crotch.
'OK.' I smiled idiotically. 'What's your name?'
More incomprehensible grunting, delivered in that sexy Losira way. I pulled him off the dancefloor and down a hallway, as far away from the speakers as we could get. That's where I learned that Losira was, in fact, named Fred. Fred was from France, working illegally in London as a waiter at a French restaurant. I wasn't entirely confident with any of this information, as it was largely gleaned through pantomime.
French Fred and I hung out at the bar for an hour or so, slamming more Red Stripes, and making out a little bit. I had to restrain him a few times, or he'd have had my cock out right there. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you, I just didn't know about local custom. Right.
Finally, Jim walked up and I gave him a ten-second recap. Jim tried to be bored with it all.
'So, are you going home with him?'
'I don't know, we haven't talked about it. Or maybe we HAVE, who knows, I can't understand a thing he says.'
Jim made a big show of getting out the claim tickets for our coats, and headed down the hall to the coat check. French Fred gave me a sly look, fumbled in his pockets for his claim ticket, murmured in my ear, then followed Jim.
Jim came back with our coats and asked, 'Well, what's the story?'
'Don't get mad, but I still don't know.'
'How can you NOT know?,' Jim snapped.
'Well, after you went to get our coats, I think he said 'I want you to fuck my hole.'
Jim rolled his eyes, 'Well, that sounds pretty definite!'
'Or, he MIGHT have said, 'I want to get my mink stole.'
Jim snorted. 'So, I guess if he DOESN'T come back with wearing fur, you're fucking him.'
French Fred reappeared a moment later. He was wearing a black leather jacket.
- to be continued-
Fantasy #15
You arrive to find my door unlocked.
You enter my apartment to find that I am not home.
The place is trashed, clearly you've just missed a large sex party.
You begin cleaning, bagging up beer cans and empty lube containers. You wipe down my sling, unhook it, and store it under my bed. You pick up towels and changes the sheets. You rewind and reshelve my porn tapes.
You leave.
*HOT*
You enter my apartment to find that I am not home.
The place is trashed, clearly you've just missed a large sex party.
You begin cleaning, bagging up beer cans and empty lube containers. You wipe down my sling, unhook it, and store it under my bed. You pick up towels and changes the sheets. You rewind and reshelve my porn tapes.
You leave.
*HOT*
Fantasy #16
You arrive to find my door unlocked.
You enter my apartment, where I am sitting on
my couch with Amanda Lepore. We are naked.
You light Amanda's cigarette.
You leave.
*HOT*
You enter my apartment, where I am sitting on
my couch with Amanda Lepore. We are naked.
You light Amanda's cigarette.
You leave.
*HOT*
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)