Roseland Ballroom, 5AM.
Steve and I have been on the dancefloor for hours, as the swirling maelstrom of thousands of leather-clad bodybuilders spins around us. The men move in and out...of our field of vision, momentarily illuminated by an explosion of strobe lights, then sucked...back into the darkness.
This Steve's first Black Party, my ninth. Finally, he tells me that he's relaxed enough to "go exploring" and I take him upstairs to...(cue sinister music)...the balcony.
At first, we spend a few minutes peering over the rail, watching the dancers roil and throb beneath us as one huge carnal beast. Then Steve takes hold of my belt loop and I lead him to the long, dark, cock....riddled area of the balcony that runs the length of the room.
I want to show Steve all the hot men getting nasty in the dim darkness, and since he's never seen anything like that, I'm carrying myself as the supremely jaded, seen it all before, nothing surprises me queen that I can be.
Inching throught the hot...pulsating...sweaty crowd, we can scarcely see where to put our feet. The music is so loud, we have to shout in each other's ears.
Then we move into a section that is shielded by a wall, the music volume drops by more than half...and we fall silent.
We see a guy...blowing a sexy black go-go boy, the box he's standing on thinly lit by an orange spotlight. We see a guy...leaning against the wall getting fisted while standing up, which even I think is a pretty neat trick. We see groups of men standing in tight circles, their pants at half-mast, engaged in some mutual beefy-jerky. In the corners, various guys are openly snorting lines of various white powders off the backs of various other guys' hands.
And then...I see something so shocking, so unexpected, so offensive that I accidently shouted out loud.
"THAT guy is SMOKING!!!"
He Is Risen
The door buzzer startled me, as it always does, and I scrambled unneccesarily to press the "talk" button, as I always do.
"JOSEPH?"
It was Keith. The "JOSEPH?" thing is an old joke between us, from when I was apartment hunting and an old man decided he needed to teach me how apartment buzzers worked in NYC.
"I'll press da button and say "who is it?" and den you say "JOSEPH" and den I'll press da udda button and let youse in."
Keith was slow climbing the four flights to my apartment and by the time he got to the door, I was putting my coat on.
"Sorry to make you come all the way up, I shoulda just met you downstairs," I apologized.
"It's OK, I have to use your bathroom anyway," he said.
A few minutes later we were in his car, headed to meet friends for brunch in Chelsea. While he drove, Keith skillfully managed to answer his cell phone about five times, while cursing cab drivers, while smoking, while complaining about his ex-boyfriend, while changing the CD about 10 times, "Have you heard this? Have you heard this?"
Stopped at a light on 23rd Street, he said, "Sorry I was late getting to your place. My dad called me on the way to wish me 'Happy Easter', and I had to pull off because I just burst into tears."
I'm used to Keith saying things like that so I dryly replied, "Oh? I didn't know Easter was that important to you."
"Well, I told him that when I come home to see him next week-"
"To Atlanta?" I interrupted.
"Right. I told him that I had something very important to talk to him about. And he said my mom called and told him "It's HIV. I know it's HIV. Your son has HIV."
"Your parents are divorced, right?"
"Oh, yeah. For about 20 years," Keith said.
"But you're closer to your dad? That's kinda weird for a gay boy," I mused.
"Oh, my mom has always made it very clear that my brother was her favorite. Maybe I should have committed murder and gone to prison and she would have liked ME, too."
I looked at Keith incredulously. "Is that what your brother did? Killed somebody?"
"Yeah, but in his defense, I've heard it was negligent homicide," Keith said.
"'In his defense'? How long is he in prison for?"
"Life," Keith said and lit another cigarette.
If my thousands of hours watching Law & Order have taught me anything, it's that you don't get a life sentence for negligent homicide, but I didn't mention that to Keith.
"So how are you going to break the news to your dad?"
Keith is 37 years old and tested HIV positive several months ago.
"Well, I probably won't have to. He'll take one look at me and know," he said.
"From the weight loss?"
"Yeah."
"Honey, you know you haven't lost all this weight from HIV," I pointed out.
"Well, which is worse? Should I tell him his son is a raging crystal addict? That I've spent the last few years going days and days on end without sleep or food while I fucked half of the city?"
For the last couple of years, Keith, once a mainstay of my New York world, had faded from my social life, appearing only randomly and unexpectedly. And I'd missed his sharp wit, his passion for music, and his generousity.
"And you think it's better just to tell him you have HIV?" I asked.
"HIV is something he's probably been expecting for 20 years. That I'm a tina whore isn't."
"Yeah, it probably isn't," I nodded.
"Anyway, I think the weight should come back pretty quick, now that I've stopped."
"How long has it been?"
"Last time I used was Christmas, so I've been clean for about 3 months," he said.
"But are you still wanting to do it?"
"Oh, all the time. But I've decided to get back out into the world and try to fill my time with the things we used to do, like you taking me to The Eagle last night. I could see some of those guys looking at me thinking, "I thought you were dead.""
"You don't think being in a nightclub around partying people might trigger you?" I asked.
"Sweetheart, crackheads like me aren't going to bars, we're sitting at home in front of the computer trying to hook up."
"Right."
"Anyway, I told myself that 2005 was going to be a new start for me. This new job, the new apartment, breaking up with Carlos, getting clean. I'm starting over again." he said, and flicked his cig out the window.
"It's a whole new YOU!" I laughed.
"The bitch is back!" he said with a snap of his fingers.
We parked on 8th Avenue and I followed Keith into the restaurant, happy...but worried.
"JOSEPH?"
It was Keith. The "JOSEPH?" thing is an old joke between us, from when I was apartment hunting and an old man decided he needed to teach me how apartment buzzers worked in NYC.
"I'll press da button and say "who is it?" and den you say "JOSEPH" and den I'll press da udda button and let youse in."
Keith was slow climbing the four flights to my apartment and by the time he got to the door, I was putting my coat on.
"Sorry to make you come all the way up, I shoulda just met you downstairs," I apologized.
"It's OK, I have to use your bathroom anyway," he said.
A few minutes later we were in his car, headed to meet friends for brunch in Chelsea. While he drove, Keith skillfully managed to answer his cell phone about five times, while cursing cab drivers, while smoking, while complaining about his ex-boyfriend, while changing the CD about 10 times, "Have you heard this? Have you heard this?"
Stopped at a light on 23rd Street, he said, "Sorry I was late getting to your place. My dad called me on the way to wish me 'Happy Easter', and I had to pull off because I just burst into tears."
I'm used to Keith saying things like that so I dryly replied, "Oh? I didn't know Easter was that important to you."
"Well, I told him that when I come home to see him next week-"
"To Atlanta?" I interrupted.
"Right. I told him that I had something very important to talk to him about. And he said my mom called and told him "It's HIV. I know it's HIV. Your son has HIV."
"Your parents are divorced, right?"
"Oh, yeah. For about 20 years," Keith said.
"But you're closer to your dad? That's kinda weird for a gay boy," I mused.
"Oh, my mom has always made it very clear that my brother was her favorite. Maybe I should have committed murder and gone to prison and she would have liked ME, too."
I looked at Keith incredulously. "Is that what your brother did? Killed somebody?"
"Yeah, but in his defense, I've heard it was negligent homicide," Keith said.
"'In his defense'? How long is he in prison for?"
"Life," Keith said and lit another cigarette.
If my thousands of hours watching Law & Order have taught me anything, it's that you don't get a life sentence for negligent homicide, but I didn't mention that to Keith.
"So how are you going to break the news to your dad?"
Keith is 37 years old and tested HIV positive several months ago.
"Well, I probably won't have to. He'll take one look at me and know," he said.
"From the weight loss?"
"Yeah."
"Honey, you know you haven't lost all this weight from HIV," I pointed out.
"Well, which is worse? Should I tell him his son is a raging crystal addict? That I've spent the last few years going days and days on end without sleep or food while I fucked half of the city?"
For the last couple of years, Keith, once a mainstay of my New York world, had faded from my social life, appearing only randomly and unexpectedly. And I'd missed his sharp wit, his passion for music, and his generousity.
"And you think it's better just to tell him you have HIV?" I asked.
"HIV is something he's probably been expecting for 20 years. That I'm a tina whore isn't."
"Yeah, it probably isn't," I nodded.
"Anyway, I think the weight should come back pretty quick, now that I've stopped."
"How long has it been?"
"Last time I used was Christmas, so I've been clean for about 3 months," he said.
"But are you still wanting to do it?"
"Oh, all the time. But I've decided to get back out into the world and try to fill my time with the things we used to do, like you taking me to The Eagle last night. I could see some of those guys looking at me thinking, "I thought you were dead.""
"You don't think being in a nightclub around partying people might trigger you?" I asked.
"Sweetheart, crackheads like me aren't going to bars, we're sitting at home in front of the computer trying to hook up."
"Right."
"Anyway, I told myself that 2005 was going to be a new start for me. This new job, the new apartment, breaking up with Carlos, getting clean. I'm starting over again." he said, and flicked his cig out the window.
"It's a whole new YOU!" I laughed.
"The bitch is back!" he said with a snap of his fingers.
We parked on 8th Avenue and I followed Keith into the restaurant, happy...but worried.
The Black Party, The Video
Here's the short video of the second short story I read at WYSIWYG, images and editing courtesy of Rich Calarco, of RichEdits.com.
Payments
(Here's the first story I performed at WYSIWYG, which describes a day spent shopping around Manhattan, with my friend Eddie. The video clip of this story is here and linked in the previous post.)
Chinatown
As usual before I visit my family in Florida, my sister has sent me on a quest to find the latest, hottest handbag knock-off. After visiting only two stalls, I find a bag that matches the picture in my sister's email.
The middle-aged Chinese woman trailing me through her stall purrs with delight when I pull the bag off its hook.
"Yes! New bag! Most popular!" she chirps.
"Ok, how much?"
I see her evaluate me in an instant, and I don't miss her well-trained eyes casting down to see my footwear, well-worn New Balance sneakers.
"For YOU, special price. Thirty dolla."
I'm just about to pay for it, when on a whim, I decide to pick up something for my dear friend, the fabulous Terrence Hunter.
"Where are the men's bags?" I ask.
She shakes her head, "No man. That lady bag!" she insists, pointing at the one in my hand.
"Yes, I know. But where are the bags for men? You know attache' cases? Satchels? For men?"
"No man. LADY BAG," she repeats, shaking her head at my denseness.
But I don't give up. "What I want is a bag FOR a man!" I insisted, patting myself on the chest.
No luck. Suddenly...inspiration.
I put one hand on my hip, and hang other one in the air, my wrist limp.
"You know, a bag for a FANCY man!"
Her eyes widen and she smiles broadly, "Ohhhhhh. YEEEEES! FANCY MAN!!"
She leads me around the corner to a small collection of slightly less feminine bags. I select a "Prada" satchel, for which I pay a "special price."
The West Village
Eddie and I are standing on the corner of Christopher and Bleecker, waiting for the light to change. Just as it does and we step into the street, a young scruffy homeless guy leaps up from a milk crate and follows us.
In the middle of the street, he shouts at us, "Hey!"
We ignore him.
"Hey boot man!"
We ignore him.
"Hey, I'm TALKING to you, boot man!"
And since neither of us are wearing boots, we continue to ignore him.
We reach the other side and he continues.
"You think you're pretty hot in those boots, DON'T YOU??"
Under his breath, Eddie asks me, "How do you KNOW him?"
I looked at him incredulously, "I don't KNOW him! Just keep going."
Scruffy Boy is still hot on our tails. He shouts again, "Let me tell you something man, ANYBODY can wear boots! Anybody can wear boots!"
I see the frightened look on Eddie's face and whirl around to confront Scruffy Boy.
"Look, if we give you a dollar will you leave us the fuck alone?"
"No, I won't. That'll take TWO dollars."
He snatches the bills from my hand and turns around.
We're about 30 feet away when he shouts at us one last time, "ASSHOLES!"
Chelsea
I'm waiting outside a thrift shop, having put my foot down with Eddie after he's dragged me into every crummy secondhand shop in Manhattan. Eddie is endlessly fascinated with everything, especially if it's old and crummy, and since I am basically fascinated by NOTHING old and crummy, it's a sore point between us.
I pace up and down the block, while keeping an eye on the thrift store door.
There's a bag lady wheeling a shopping cart up the street, and cars are slowing to avoid her, the drivers turning to her a digusted look as they pass.
I decide to find something fascinating in the store fronts as she passes me, but true to the theme of the day, she calls out to me.
"Hey mister!"
I turn and say "Hey", and turn back to the window.
"Hey mister, I gotta tell you something!"
I turn again and say "That's OK" and put my hand up.
"I have to tell you something VERY important!"
"No thanks", again with my hand up.
She continues on, so I start to walk down the block. After a few seconds I turn to see where she is, and JUMP because she has run right up behind me.
"THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!" she shouts, and grabs my elbow.
I shrink back, "OK, OK, what?"
"Fire is hot! Ice goes in the freezer! Fire is hot! Ice goes in the freezer!" she says insistently, shaking my arm.
I pull back, "OK, well then...thanks for telling me."
And I give her a dollar.
That night, Eddie and I are at Christmas party in Harlem, having a drink in the kichen, when a guest arrives with a bag of ice and asks "Hey, where should I put this?"
I look at Eddie and say, "Well....I've heard that ice goes in the freezer."
Eddie and I crack up.
The guest throws the bag in the sink and walks out, "Assholes".
Times Square
Heading down 42nd Street towards Times Square, I forget to cross the street at 6th Avenue, which I usually do so I don't have to walk past the shouting Christian woman with her megaphone, her card table and her gory placards of aborted fetuses.
Even worse, the heavy crowds on the sidewalk force Eddie and I into walking very close to her station at the top of the F train stairs.
"...because God knows when you sin! And an adulterer or FORN-i-cator will NOT enter the kingdom of Heaven! Sinners, you need to repent NOW and let the GLOR-REE of Christ JEE-sus fill your heart!" she bellows as we pass.
On impulse, I turn and give her the double-deluxe Brooklyn bird, two middle fingers with an upward swirl.
Without missing a beat, she points at me and shouts, "Because THAT'S what SINNERS do! They make OBSCENE gestures and become HOMO-SEXUALS!!"
So...I give her a dollar.
The Upper East Side
(The 6 train platform, 68th Street, 8AM the next morning.)
I guide Eddie to the far end of the platform, where we have a better chance of getting on the train, should it be as crowded as it usually is. Slowly, we weave our way in and out of the commuters, each of them lost in thoughts of the upcoming day.
Eddie, who has no inside-voice, starts talking to me, his booming voice almost feeling like a sacriligious interruption of the trance-like state of the waiting passengers. The closest ones follow the sound of his voice, their faces locked in the well-practiced New York expression-free mask.
I begin to shush Eddie, but from the middle of the platform comes an even louder voice.
"Nothing you do today will any difference," the female voice drones.
We all look in her direction, but we can't see who it is.
"This is as good as it's EVER going to be," she continues, as loud as any subway loudspeaker.
The passengers shake their heads and try to retreat back into their thoughts.
"You think you are going somewhere but you are NOT!"
"Who IS this crazy bitch?" we all begin to think.
Eddie leans in, "Are you dying to see who's doing that?"
"Yeah!"
"Let's go down there."
As we weave our way back down the platform, I imagine that we're going to find some deranged bag lady, maybe that one I've seen wearing a hat with a plastic monkey on it.
Instead, we find a young woman, wearing a stylish pantsuit. We pause for a moment and she lets out another pronouncement.
"If you think you are doing something important today, you are wrong."
I ask Eddie, "Is this performance art?"
He shakes his head, "Whatever it is, it's depressing as hell."
"Your job isn't your life. It's what to do to get one," the woman intones.
The passengers crowd onto the arriving train, but now they are suddenly reconsidering the world and their place in it....and that IS art.
We get on the train too, but I'm wondering if I should have given that woman a dollar.
Chinatown
As usual before I visit my family in Florida, my sister has sent me on a quest to find the latest, hottest handbag knock-off. After visiting only two stalls, I find a bag that matches the picture in my sister's email.
The middle-aged Chinese woman trailing me through her stall purrs with delight when I pull the bag off its hook.
"Yes! New bag! Most popular!" she chirps.
"Ok, how much?"
I see her evaluate me in an instant, and I don't miss her well-trained eyes casting down to see my footwear, well-worn New Balance sneakers.
"For YOU, special price. Thirty dolla."
I'm just about to pay for it, when on a whim, I decide to pick up something for my dear friend, the fabulous Terrence Hunter.
"Where are the men's bags?" I ask.
She shakes her head, "No man. That lady bag!" she insists, pointing at the one in my hand.
"Yes, I know. But where are the bags for men? You know attache' cases? Satchels? For men?"
"No man. LADY BAG," she repeats, shaking her head at my denseness.
But I don't give up. "What I want is a bag FOR a man!" I insisted, patting myself on the chest.
No luck. Suddenly...inspiration.
I put one hand on my hip, and hang other one in the air, my wrist limp.
"You know, a bag for a FANCY man!"
Her eyes widen and she smiles broadly, "Ohhhhhh. YEEEEES! FANCY MAN!!"
She leads me around the corner to a small collection of slightly less feminine bags. I select a "Prada" satchel, for which I pay a "special price."
The West Village
Eddie and I are standing on the corner of Christopher and Bleecker, waiting for the light to change. Just as it does and we step into the street, a young scruffy homeless guy leaps up from a milk crate and follows us.
In the middle of the street, he shouts at us, "Hey!"
We ignore him.
"Hey boot man!"
We ignore him.
"Hey, I'm TALKING to you, boot man!"
And since neither of us are wearing boots, we continue to ignore him.
We reach the other side and he continues.
"You think you're pretty hot in those boots, DON'T YOU??"
Under his breath, Eddie asks me, "How do you KNOW him?"
I looked at him incredulously, "I don't KNOW him! Just keep going."
Scruffy Boy is still hot on our tails. He shouts again, "Let me tell you something man, ANYBODY can wear boots! Anybody can wear boots!"
I see the frightened look on Eddie's face and whirl around to confront Scruffy Boy.
"Look, if we give you a dollar will you leave us the fuck alone?"
"No, I won't. That'll take TWO dollars."
He snatches the bills from my hand and turns around.
We're about 30 feet away when he shouts at us one last time, "ASSHOLES!"
Chelsea
I'm waiting outside a thrift shop, having put my foot down with Eddie after he's dragged me into every crummy secondhand shop in Manhattan. Eddie is endlessly fascinated with everything, especially if it's old and crummy, and since I am basically fascinated by NOTHING old and crummy, it's a sore point between us.
I pace up and down the block, while keeping an eye on the thrift store door.
There's a bag lady wheeling a shopping cart up the street, and cars are slowing to avoid her, the drivers turning to her a digusted look as they pass.
I decide to find something fascinating in the store fronts as she passes me, but true to the theme of the day, she calls out to me.
"Hey mister!"
I turn and say "Hey", and turn back to the window.
"Hey mister, I gotta tell you something!"
I turn again and say "That's OK" and put my hand up.
"I have to tell you something VERY important!"
"No thanks", again with my hand up.
She continues on, so I start to walk down the block. After a few seconds I turn to see where she is, and JUMP because she has run right up behind me.
"THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!" she shouts, and grabs my elbow.
I shrink back, "OK, OK, what?"
"Fire is hot! Ice goes in the freezer! Fire is hot! Ice goes in the freezer!" she says insistently, shaking my arm.
I pull back, "OK, well then...thanks for telling me."
And I give her a dollar.
That night, Eddie and I are at Christmas party in Harlem, having a drink in the kichen, when a guest arrives with a bag of ice and asks "Hey, where should I put this?"
I look at Eddie and say, "Well....I've heard that ice goes in the freezer."
Eddie and I crack up.
The guest throws the bag in the sink and walks out, "Assholes".
Times Square
Heading down 42nd Street towards Times Square, I forget to cross the street at 6th Avenue, which I usually do so I don't have to walk past the shouting Christian woman with her megaphone, her card table and her gory placards of aborted fetuses.
Even worse, the heavy crowds on the sidewalk force Eddie and I into walking very close to her station at the top of the F train stairs.
"...because God knows when you sin! And an adulterer or FORN-i-cator will NOT enter the kingdom of Heaven! Sinners, you need to repent NOW and let the GLOR-REE of Christ JEE-sus fill your heart!" she bellows as we pass.
On impulse, I turn and give her the double-deluxe Brooklyn bird, two middle fingers with an upward swirl.
Without missing a beat, she points at me and shouts, "Because THAT'S what SINNERS do! They make OBSCENE gestures and become HOMO-SEXUALS!!"
So...I give her a dollar.
The Upper East Side
(The 6 train platform, 68th Street, 8AM the next morning.)
I guide Eddie to the far end of the platform, where we have a better chance of getting on the train, should it be as crowded as it usually is. Slowly, we weave our way in and out of the commuters, each of them lost in thoughts of the upcoming day.
Eddie, who has no inside-voice, starts talking to me, his booming voice almost feeling like a sacriligious interruption of the trance-like state of the waiting passengers. The closest ones follow the sound of his voice, their faces locked in the well-practiced New York expression-free mask.
I begin to shush Eddie, but from the middle of the platform comes an even louder voice.
"Nothing you do today will any difference," the female voice drones.
We all look in her direction, but we can't see who it is.
"This is as good as it's EVER going to be," she continues, as loud as any subway loudspeaker.
The passengers shake their heads and try to retreat back into their thoughts.
"You think you are going somewhere but you are NOT!"
"Who IS this crazy bitch?" we all begin to think.
Eddie leans in, "Are you dying to see who's doing that?"
"Yeah!"
"Let's go down there."
As we weave our way back down the platform, I imagine that we're going to find some deranged bag lady, maybe that one I've seen wearing a hat with a plastic monkey on it.
Instead, we find a young woman, wearing a stylish pantsuit. We pause for a moment and she lets out another pronouncement.
"If you think you are doing something important today, you are wrong."
I ask Eddie, "Is this performance art?"
He shakes his head, "Whatever it is, it's depressing as hell."
"Your job isn't your life. It's what to do to get one," the woman intones.
The passengers crowd onto the arriving train, but now they are suddenly reconsidering the world and their place in it....and that IS art.
We get on the train too, but I'm wondering if I should have given that woman a dollar.
Payments, The Video
Thanks to the lovely and talented Rich Calarco, of RichEdits.com, here's a video clip of the first story I read at WYSIWYG, "Payments".
I'll put the text version up tomorrow, so that I don't ruin the storytelling for those that want to watch the video first.
They say the camera adds ten pounds, right?
How many cameras are ON you, Monica?
I'll put the text version up tomorrow, so that I don't ruin the storytelling for those that want to watch the video first.
They say the camera adds ten pounds, right?
How many cameras are ON you, Monica?
Joe Is So Getting Laid Tonight
The emcee of last night's WYSIWYG, the luscious Chris Hampton, introduced each of the performers by reading a Googlism, which is the result delivered when typing someone's name into Google, as in "Joe is....". The best one she got for me was "Joe is...SO getting laid tonight."
And while that didn't come true, I had an amazing time at WYSIWYG! All the performers did a great job and the show ran like clockwork, thanks to Chris, Andy and Sparky. The show was taped by tv editing whiz Rich Calarco, BIG thanks to Rich! The show was sold out and I hope none of my people didn't get in.
My people. Heh.
Big thanks to all the fellow bloggers and friends that came out to support me: Aaron, Chris, Davis, Erik, Steve, Daniel and Ken!
Bear hugs to Eddie for coming all the way from Philly, and being a good sport and letting me call him out from the stage.
A special treat was a visit from none other than Miss Curly McDimple. Curly brought a couple of her own blogging buddies, hello ladies!
As for my bit, I think I fidgeted with my new glasses too much, they kept sliding down my nose. But I did a better job making eye contact with the audience than I did at BlogJam, and I got laughs in all the places I hoped I would (and a few where I didn't expect any!).
I could get used to this.
And while that didn't come true, I had an amazing time at WYSIWYG! All the performers did a great job and the show ran like clockwork, thanks to Chris, Andy and Sparky. The show was taped by tv editing whiz Rich Calarco, BIG thanks to Rich! The show was sold out and I hope none of my people didn't get in.
My people. Heh.
Big thanks to all the fellow bloggers and friends that came out to support me: Aaron, Chris, Davis, Erik, Steve, Daniel and Ken!
Bear hugs to Eddie for coming all the way from Philly, and being a good sport and letting me call him out from the stage.
A special treat was a visit from none other than Miss Curly McDimple. Curly brought a couple of her own blogging buddies, hello ladies!
As for my bit, I think I fidgeted with my new glasses too much, they kept sliding down my nose. But I did a better job making eye contact with the audience than I did at BlogJam, and I got laughs in all the places I hoped I would (and a few where I didn't expect any!).
I could get used to this.
WYSIWYG Reminder
Just a reminder that WYSIWYG is taking place this Tuesday. Come see me and NYC bloggers Eurotrash, Maccers, Dan Rhatigan, Guilia Rozzi, and Jeff S.
I'll be reading a new essay called "Payments".
I'm told the show is being held in the smaller, downstairs auditorium.
Better watch out for me and tight spaces, I'm told that I'm all hands.
Marketing Talk With Mike And Joe
MIKE: Hey did you see the S Train this morning? It's all covered in ads for that HBO show, Deadwood.
JOE: Yeah, I saw that. It looks pretty cool with all the seats and walls covered, I wonder how they did that.
MIKE: It's some kind of wrap, I guess. The Times Square station has all the poles wrapped entirely too.
JOE: Yuck, I thought that hack Christo left town! Oh, did you see that the U.S. Army is putting ads on the race cars in NASCAR races now?
MIKE: You're kidding.
JOE: Nope, they're out there glamorizing war, getting all those teenage boys excited watching fast cars and every time one zips past the camera, POP, you get a subliminal message to join the army.
MIKE: I don't know about that. I watch NASCAR and I've never felt the urge to buy Valvoline.
JOE: As far as you know. Maybe you just haven't been in a stores that sells valvos, or whatever Valvoline is for. It sounds like something to grease up your heart.
MIKE: Well, I will say that the Levitra car last week, did kinda make me horny.
JOE: Dude, potato chips make you horny.
MIKE: True.
JOE: I think if the Army can put ads on race cars, then they should sell space on THEIR vehicles.
MIKE: Ooh, right, a big ole tank rolling through downtown Baghdad with the Nike swoop on it!
JOE: "Just Killed 'Em!"
MIKE: Maybe they should start branding the body bags.
JOE: And put Halliburton on them.
MIKE: No shit. Or maybe brand the prosthetic limbs these poor kids are coming home with.
JOE: And put oil company logos on them.
MIKE: Actually, no. That's not fair. These guys just lost their arm or leg, let them have some bling.
JOE: Like a Prada arm? A Louis Vitton leg? A signature Beyonce' hand?
MIKE: Oh, absolutely. And then, the after-market companies would start coming out with the different wraps and covers, ya know "Wrap your limb with a personal skin!"
JOE: You could get Hello Kitty or Spider-Man!
MIKE: And you know those things would be bootlegged in 10 seconds, and you could go down to Chinatown and get a fake one.
JOE: A fake, fake arm?
MIKE: And then the feds would bust them for counterfeiting and we'd see a news story with the Army crushing a bunch of counterfeit blinged-out arms and legs under a steamroller.
JOE: Oh no! They'd donate them to a public hospital and then only the people without insurance would have to wear the cheap-ass fake shit.
MIKE: Ya know....fuck The Man!
JOE: Yeah, I saw that. It looks pretty cool with all the seats and walls covered, I wonder how they did that.
MIKE: It's some kind of wrap, I guess. The Times Square station has all the poles wrapped entirely too.
JOE: Yuck, I thought that hack Christo left town! Oh, did you see that the U.S. Army is putting ads on the race cars in NASCAR races now?
MIKE: You're kidding.
JOE: Nope, they're out there glamorizing war, getting all those teenage boys excited watching fast cars and every time one zips past the camera, POP, you get a subliminal message to join the army.
MIKE: I don't know about that. I watch NASCAR and I've never felt the urge to buy Valvoline.
JOE: As far as you know. Maybe you just haven't been in a stores that sells valvos, or whatever Valvoline is for. It sounds like something to grease up your heart.
MIKE: Well, I will say that the Levitra car last week, did kinda make me horny.
JOE: Dude, potato chips make you horny.
MIKE: True.
JOE: I think if the Army can put ads on race cars, then they should sell space on THEIR vehicles.
MIKE: Ooh, right, a big ole tank rolling through downtown Baghdad with the Nike swoop on it!
JOE: "Just Killed 'Em!"
MIKE: Maybe they should start branding the body bags.
JOE: And put Halliburton on them.
MIKE: No shit. Or maybe brand the prosthetic limbs these poor kids are coming home with.
JOE: And put oil company logos on them.
MIKE: Actually, no. That's not fair. These guys just lost their arm or leg, let them have some bling.
JOE: Like a Prada arm? A Louis Vitton leg? A signature Beyonce' hand?
MIKE: Oh, absolutely. And then, the after-market companies would start coming out with the different wraps and covers, ya know "Wrap your limb with a personal skin!"
JOE: You could get Hello Kitty or Spider-Man!
MIKE: And you know those things would be bootlegged in 10 seconds, and you could go down to Chinatown and get a fake one.
JOE: A fake, fake arm?
MIKE: And then the feds would bust them for counterfeiting and we'd see a news story with the Army crushing a bunch of counterfeit blinged-out arms and legs under a steamroller.
JOE: Oh no! They'd donate them to a public hospital and then only the people without insurance would have to wear the cheap-ass fake shit.
MIKE: Ya know....fuck The Man!
Who Said That?
Faithful readers,
This morning I received my first ever comment spam. A lady named "Mary" simultaneously offered us the chance to enlarge both our penises AND our breasts.
Clearly, Mary is a regular reader of Joe.My.God.
Following Mary was an anonymous commenter who made his familiar hit-n-run jab at my writing style. Which is fine, I welcome all feedback, blah blah blah. But I do insist on knowing who is talking to me in these situations.
For these reasons I've disabled anonymous commenting for the time being. I apologize to those who regularly leave "anonymous" comments, yet identify themselves in the text of their comment.
I've often considered the point of enabling comments at all. I never know if it's just a shamelessly transparent vehicle for continuous validation, an effective means of judging what works and what doesn't, or a simple way to engender a sense of community among my readers. Probably a little of all three, of course. But still I wonder if it's no small coincidence that some of the writers I admire most do not allow comments.
I'll be moving all of y'all over to JoeMyGod.com sometime in the next few weeks. There'll be a few more bells and whistles over there, including a better comment interface, but the look will be familiar overall. If anyone has any suggestions for additions to the new site, I'm receptive.
In the meantime, you non-Blogspotters can register with Blogger in less than 60 seconds and have a handy user name for shout-outs and bitches.
Ah persheyate it, y'all.
This morning I received my first ever comment spam. A lady named "Mary" simultaneously offered us the chance to enlarge both our penises AND our breasts.
Clearly, Mary is a regular reader of Joe.My.God.
Following Mary was an anonymous commenter who made his familiar hit-n-run jab at my writing style. Which is fine, I welcome all feedback, blah blah blah. But I do insist on knowing who is talking to me in these situations.
For these reasons I've disabled anonymous commenting for the time being. I apologize to those who regularly leave "anonymous" comments, yet identify themselves in the text of their comment.
I've often considered the point of enabling comments at all. I never know if it's just a shamelessly transparent vehicle for continuous validation, an effective means of judging what works and what doesn't, or a simple way to engender a sense of community among my readers. Probably a little of all three, of course. But still I wonder if it's no small coincidence that some of the writers I admire most do not allow comments.
I'll be moving all of y'all over to JoeMyGod.com sometime in the next few weeks. There'll be a few more bells and whistles over there, including a better comment interface, but the look will be familiar overall. If anyone has any suggestions for additions to the new site, I'm receptive.
In the meantime, you non-Blogspotters can register with Blogger in less than 60 seconds and have a handy user name for shout-outs and bitches.
Ah persheyate it, y'all.
The Day I Helped Kill A Baby, Conclusion
Continued From Part 2
Cathy and I entered the doctor's office to find a surprisingly large waiting room. There were several clusters of sofas and chairs, coffee tables, and a couple of televisions tuned to The Price Is Right, but with the sound off. The effect was not-unlike an apartment complex clubhouse. The room was heavily carpeted and almost completely quiet, despite the presence of more than a dozen women.
The women all looked at me when we walked in. I felt acutely aware of being the only man in the room. Cathy walked up to the frosted window and tentatively knocked on the glass. The window opened slightly, and the woman seated on the other side indicated for Cathy to come around into her office. It seemed appropriate that the reason for her visit not be discussed through a window.
I took a seat where I could see the window and watched Cathy's silhouette behind the glass. The silence in the room was oppressive, all I could hear was the turning of magazine pages and the air conditioner fan.
It began to dawn on me that all the women in the room were mother and daughter, save one sister act. The younger women uniformly seemed defeated and frightened, the mothers seemed worried, yet angry. The two sisters sat with their hands clasped, pushed down between the sofa cushions, the younger one nervously jiggling one leg.
A nurse appeared in the hallway, "Harrison?"
The mother and daughter closest to the nurse answered in unison, "Yes?"
"Miss Harrison," the nurse clarified.
They both stood up, and the daughter turned to give her mother a pleading look.
"I'm coming with you," the mother answered firmly.
"I'm sorry Mrs.Harrison," said the nurse, "but only the patient is allowed in the treatment room."
The mother's shoulders slumped and she hugged her daughter then leaned back and put her hands on both her daughter's shoulders, "I'll be right here sweetheart. It'll be over before you know it."
The daughter and the nurse disappeared down the hallway. I could still see Cathy behind the glass. The coffee table in front of me had a stack of brochures on it, titles like "So You've Decided Against Children" or something like that.
I started to notice that the women, the mothers that is, were casting me occasional glances. Glances heavy with accusation, thick with anger. I tried not to look around, but every time I did, at least one of them would hold her gaze on me for several seconds.
"You bastard!" the glances said. "You monster, you defiler of innocents!"
I began to feel defensive. "Hey, at least I'm here...where are their men?" I thought
Then, "Oh, wait. It's not my baby. Well, where are their gay friends?"
Cathy had told me once, drunkenly, that every girl needs a gay boyfriend for emergencies. She certainly wasn't thinking of this emergency, but I was glad to be there for her.
Finally, after about thirty minutes, Cathy reappeared. She down next to me, her mascara a tiny bit runny.
"Sorry this is taking so long, that woman asked me a lot of questions."
"It's OK, I told you I'm blowing off school today," I said. "What did she ask you?"
Cathy picked up a brochure and began fanning herself with it. "Lots of stuff. Did I understand the procedure, did I have any children, did I want..."
She stopped and let out a huge sob. It was the first time I'd seen Cathy cry, about anything. She dug into her purse, but the woman across from her handed her a tissue, which she accept with a nod of thanks.
Before I could say anything, the nurse called her back.
"I'll be right here!" I promised, sounding a bit too cheerful.
After Cathy went back down the hallway, I sank back on the sofa. This time every woman in the room was looking at me, daggers in their eyes.
I recrossed my legs, at the knees instead of the ankles. Maybe that looks gayer, I thought, and they'll get the picture. I picked at some nonexistent lint on my shirt. Maybe I even played with my hair a little. I thought, "Dammit! Why isn't there a radio on so I can lip sync to Donna Summer or something!"
After only about ten minutes, Cathy came back out.
"OK, let's go."
"That was fast!"
"Yeah, let's go."
"Don't you have to pay or something?"
Cathy slung her purse on her shoulder and walked out the door. I followed her out and opened the car for her. We stood there with the doors hanging open for a minute, letting the hot air out of the car. I couldn't read Cathy's expression behind her sunglasses.
We were about a mile down the road when she finally spoke.
"The doctor wouldn't do it."
"Why not? Did he -"
"He said I didn't seem like I was sure I wanted to do it. The nurse told him that my interview was unsatisfactory."
"Well, it's not his decision to make!" I said.
"Well, I can't make him do it."
"Was the nurse...right? Are you changing your mind?"
Cathy started to light a cigarette, looked at it for a moment, then dropped the pack back into her purse.
"I don't know. Maybe. They told me to come back in a week if I decide I'm sure."
Cathy never went back. A month later, her parents drove down from their mid-western small town, packed her up and took her away. We hardly got to say good-bye. She never even gave notice at work.
For a long time, I'll admit...I was pissed at her. Pissed that she took off with hardly a word about it to me, but also selfishly pissed that my favorite partner in crime was gone. I stopped going to the pool at the front of the complex, where we had met most afternoons, and started going to the smaller, crummier pool at the back, where I wouldn't reflexively look for her every time I heard the gate open.
Over a year later, I got a xmas card from her. Enclosed was a picture of a cute baby boy sitting on Santa's lap. Up until that card came, I never knew for sure whether she'd gone through with the pregnancy.
During the next ten years or so, Cathy and I corresponded sporadically, occasionally surprising each other with a phone call. She got married a couple of times, but the marriages didn't work out. I kept her up to date with my jobs, my moving around, my love life.
By the time I moved to San Francisco, we'd been out of touch for several years. When my father died, I flew home to Orlando. By coincidence, Cathy was in town, had seen my father's obituary in the paper, and called me at my mother's house. She wanted to come to my dad's wake and bring her son. I'd taken her to my dad's saloon a few times, she had become casual friends with my dad and my step-mom, once even winning their bar's pool contest.
With all the tenseness of my dad's service, I forgot that Cathy was coming. When I saw her in the front yard, I was amazed at how good she looked. Still tan, still smoking, still big ole hair. Her son Danny was a boyish, lanky, good-looking kid.
Cathy and I caught up for a few minutes, then I got pulled away to be re-introduced to some distant relatives. Later, as happens at these things, I found myself in the backyard with all the men. Danny joined us and I introduced him around to my dad's friends, all former Marines.
Dad's friends asked me some perfunctory questions about my job in San Francisco, the weather out there, etc. I noticed that they politely avoided asking me about relationships or kids. I guess Dad had gotten the word out about me.
As most of these guys were retired, the conversation turned to young Danny. He was just out of high school and working for a small hardware store. He asked the old Marines a lot of questions about how old they were when they joined, what they trained to do, whether it helped them get a job when they got out. Danny was interested in being a mechanic.
The Marines, of course, were completly gung-ho about how joining the service would "turn a boy into a man" and "show him the world" and "give him the skills to fix any engine known to God and man."
And despite my dim view of the military, and especially the Marine Corps and the havoc it had wreaked upon my family, I pretty much agreed with everything they said. It was my dad's wake, after all. It would be been terribly disrespectful to those men (not to mention my dad, although that wouldn't have bothered me nearly as much) to suggest that a young man could ruin his life by joining up.
Heck, I even brought up the G.I.Bill, and enthusiastically described how Danny could do a few years with Uncle Sam, then get a free college education. Somehow, Danny had never heard of the G.I. Bill, and he got very excited about that information.
I had breakfast with Cathy and Danny the next morning, before we all headed home. Cathy and I had to stiffle our conversation quite a bit, as we couldn't exactly reminisce about our wild days, with her son sitting there. Instead, we listened while Danny recounted our talk about his joining the service. He seemed to particularly bring up the the things that I had said, to win points with his mom.
When Danny got up to use the restroom, Cathy asked me "Do you really think it's a good idea? You always told me the Marine Corps wrecked your family."
I said, "It's not right for everybody, you're right. But who knows, my dad might have been a freak no matter what job he had."
"I suppose. The college thing is pretty sweet," she mused.
"And if he hated it, he could always get out by saying he's gay!" I exclaimed.
That xmas, the card I got from Cathy included a picture of Danny in an Army uniform. Even with a crew cut and wearing the camouflage, he looked like a baby.
Danny received training in aircraft and truck maintenance, in which he excelled. When his initial enlistment expired, Cathy said he re-upped without hesitation.
Shortly after arriving in Iraq, he was killed.
Cathy and I entered the doctor's office to find a surprisingly large waiting room. There were several clusters of sofas and chairs, coffee tables, and a couple of televisions tuned to The Price Is Right, but with the sound off. The effect was not-unlike an apartment complex clubhouse. The room was heavily carpeted and almost completely quiet, despite the presence of more than a dozen women.
The women all looked at me when we walked in. I felt acutely aware of being the only man in the room. Cathy walked up to the frosted window and tentatively knocked on the glass. The window opened slightly, and the woman seated on the other side indicated for Cathy to come around into her office. It seemed appropriate that the reason for her visit not be discussed through a window.
I took a seat where I could see the window and watched Cathy's silhouette behind the glass. The silence in the room was oppressive, all I could hear was the turning of magazine pages and the air conditioner fan.
It began to dawn on me that all the women in the room were mother and daughter, save one sister act. The younger women uniformly seemed defeated and frightened, the mothers seemed worried, yet angry. The two sisters sat with their hands clasped, pushed down between the sofa cushions, the younger one nervously jiggling one leg.
A nurse appeared in the hallway, "Harrison?"
The mother and daughter closest to the nurse answered in unison, "Yes?"
"Miss Harrison," the nurse clarified.
They both stood up, and the daughter turned to give her mother a pleading look.
"I'm coming with you," the mother answered firmly.
"I'm sorry Mrs.Harrison," said the nurse, "but only the patient is allowed in the treatment room."
The mother's shoulders slumped and she hugged her daughter then leaned back and put her hands on both her daughter's shoulders, "I'll be right here sweetheart. It'll be over before you know it."
The daughter and the nurse disappeared down the hallway. I could still see Cathy behind the glass. The coffee table in front of me had a stack of brochures on it, titles like "So You've Decided Against Children" or something like that.
I started to notice that the women, the mothers that is, were casting me occasional glances. Glances heavy with accusation, thick with anger. I tried not to look around, but every time I did, at least one of them would hold her gaze on me for several seconds.
"You bastard!" the glances said. "You monster, you defiler of innocents!"
I began to feel defensive. "Hey, at least I'm here...where are their men?" I thought
Then, "Oh, wait. It's not my baby. Well, where are their gay friends?"
Cathy had told me once, drunkenly, that every girl needs a gay boyfriend for emergencies. She certainly wasn't thinking of this emergency, but I was glad to be there for her.
Finally, after about thirty minutes, Cathy reappeared. She down next to me, her mascara a tiny bit runny.
"Sorry this is taking so long, that woman asked me a lot of questions."
"It's OK, I told you I'm blowing off school today," I said. "What did she ask you?"
Cathy picked up a brochure and began fanning herself with it. "Lots of stuff. Did I understand the procedure, did I have any children, did I want..."
She stopped and let out a huge sob. It was the first time I'd seen Cathy cry, about anything. She dug into her purse, but the woman across from her handed her a tissue, which she accept with a nod of thanks.
Before I could say anything, the nurse called her back.
"I'll be right here!" I promised, sounding a bit too cheerful.
After Cathy went back down the hallway, I sank back on the sofa. This time every woman in the room was looking at me, daggers in their eyes.
I recrossed my legs, at the knees instead of the ankles. Maybe that looks gayer, I thought, and they'll get the picture. I picked at some nonexistent lint on my shirt. Maybe I even played with my hair a little. I thought, "Dammit! Why isn't there a radio on so I can lip sync to Donna Summer or something!"
After only about ten minutes, Cathy came back out.
"OK, let's go."
"That was fast!"
"Yeah, let's go."
"Don't you have to pay or something?"
Cathy slung her purse on her shoulder and walked out the door. I followed her out and opened the car for her. We stood there with the doors hanging open for a minute, letting the hot air out of the car. I couldn't read Cathy's expression behind her sunglasses.
We were about a mile down the road when she finally spoke.
"The doctor wouldn't do it."
"Why not? Did he -"
"He said I didn't seem like I was sure I wanted to do it. The nurse told him that my interview was unsatisfactory."
"Well, it's not his decision to make!" I said.
"Well, I can't make him do it."
"Was the nurse...right? Are you changing your mind?"
Cathy started to light a cigarette, looked at it for a moment, then dropped the pack back into her purse.
"I don't know. Maybe. They told me to come back in a week if I decide I'm sure."
Cathy never went back. A month later, her parents drove down from their mid-western small town, packed her up and took her away. We hardly got to say good-bye. She never even gave notice at work.
For a long time, I'll admit...I was pissed at her. Pissed that she took off with hardly a word about it to me, but also selfishly pissed that my favorite partner in crime was gone. I stopped going to the pool at the front of the complex, where we had met most afternoons, and started going to the smaller, crummier pool at the back, where I wouldn't reflexively look for her every time I heard the gate open.
Over a year later, I got a xmas card from her. Enclosed was a picture of a cute baby boy sitting on Santa's lap. Up until that card came, I never knew for sure whether she'd gone through with the pregnancy.
During the next ten years or so, Cathy and I corresponded sporadically, occasionally surprising each other with a phone call. She got married a couple of times, but the marriages didn't work out. I kept her up to date with my jobs, my moving around, my love life.
By the time I moved to San Francisco, we'd been out of touch for several years. When my father died, I flew home to Orlando. By coincidence, Cathy was in town, had seen my father's obituary in the paper, and called me at my mother's house. She wanted to come to my dad's wake and bring her son. I'd taken her to my dad's saloon a few times, she had become casual friends with my dad and my step-mom, once even winning their bar's pool contest.
With all the tenseness of my dad's service, I forgot that Cathy was coming. When I saw her in the front yard, I was amazed at how good she looked. Still tan, still smoking, still big ole hair. Her son Danny was a boyish, lanky, good-looking kid.
Cathy and I caught up for a few minutes, then I got pulled away to be re-introduced to some distant relatives. Later, as happens at these things, I found myself in the backyard with all the men. Danny joined us and I introduced him around to my dad's friends, all former Marines.
Dad's friends asked me some perfunctory questions about my job in San Francisco, the weather out there, etc. I noticed that they politely avoided asking me about relationships or kids. I guess Dad had gotten the word out about me.
As most of these guys were retired, the conversation turned to young Danny. He was just out of high school and working for a small hardware store. He asked the old Marines a lot of questions about how old they were when they joined, what they trained to do, whether it helped them get a job when they got out. Danny was interested in being a mechanic.
The Marines, of course, were completly gung-ho about how joining the service would "turn a boy into a man" and "show him the world" and "give him the skills to fix any engine known to God and man."
And despite my dim view of the military, and especially the Marine Corps and the havoc it had wreaked upon my family, I pretty much agreed with everything they said. It was my dad's wake, after all. It would be been terribly disrespectful to those men (not to mention my dad, although that wouldn't have bothered me nearly as much) to suggest that a young man could ruin his life by joining up.
Heck, I even brought up the G.I.Bill, and enthusiastically described how Danny could do a few years with Uncle Sam, then get a free college education. Somehow, Danny had never heard of the G.I. Bill, and he got very excited about that information.
I had breakfast with Cathy and Danny the next morning, before we all headed home. Cathy and I had to stiffle our conversation quite a bit, as we couldn't exactly reminisce about our wild days, with her son sitting there. Instead, we listened while Danny recounted our talk about his joining the service. He seemed to particularly bring up the the things that I had said, to win points with his mom.
When Danny got up to use the restroom, Cathy asked me "Do you really think it's a good idea? You always told me the Marine Corps wrecked your family."
I said, "It's not right for everybody, you're right. But who knows, my dad might have been a freak no matter what job he had."
"I suppose. The college thing is pretty sweet," she mused.
"And if he hated it, he could always get out by saying he's gay!" I exclaimed.
That xmas, the card I got from Cathy included a picture of Danny in an Army uniform. Even with a crew cut and wearing the camouflage, he looked like a baby.
Danny received training in aircraft and truck maintenance, in which he excelled. When his initial enlistment expired, Cathy said he re-upped without hesitation.
Shortly after arriving in Iraq, he was killed.
The Diarist Awards
Faithful readers: A couple of days ago, I got a nice email from the lovely folks over at Diarist.Net, letting me know that I was a finalist in their quarterly essay awards.
Even more surprising is that I'm actually a finalist in their Most Romantic Entry category for my holiday story "Dance Of The Sugar Plum Lesbians".
Considering that just in the last couple of weeks I've touched on fisting, scat, cannibalism and abortion, "Most Romantic" is an interesting place to find myself, no?
Please take the time to visit the other finalists and say something kind if you are so inclined. Unlike other blog contests, voting is limited to fellow bloggers. Additionally, you may only vote once. I found some great writers that are new to me, I'm sure you will too.
We now return you to Joe.My.God. which is always in progress.
Even more surprising is that I'm actually a finalist in their Most Romantic Entry category for my holiday story "Dance Of The Sugar Plum Lesbians".
Considering that just in the last couple of weeks I've touched on fisting, scat, cannibalism and abortion, "Most Romantic" is an interesting place to find myself, no?
Please take the time to visit the other finalists and say something kind if you are so inclined. Unlike other blog contests, voting is limited to fellow bloggers. Additionally, you may only vote once. I found some great writers that are new to me, I'm sure you will too.
We now return you to Joe.My.God. which is always in progress.
The Day I Helped Kill A Baby, Part 2
Continued from Part 1
"I'm pregnant."
I froze, the knife poised in mid-air. I thought for a second, then answered with all the coolness I could muster.
"OH MY FUCKING GOD!"
Cathy gave a bitter laugh, "Oh, don't worry. It's not you."
"How can you be sure?" I asked, a tiny bit calmer.
"Because I've already had my period once since you....." she said. "Anyway, I'm pretty sure it's that guy David, remember the one I met on the beach?"
"Yeah, I think so. He's the one that works at Jeans West?"
"No, he works at Merry Go Round, the Jeans West guy was Adam or something."
I pulled the phone around the corner of the bar and squatted down so I wouldn't be heard. "OK, so what are you going to do?"
"What do you mean? I'm going to get an abortion of course! I can't be having a baby, I just bought that hot new bathing suit!"
We both laughed a little bit at that, but I heard the fear in Cathy's voice
A couple of days later Cathy and I went to get the results of her rabbit test. I drove her downtown even though I had classes that day. We were running early so we stopped at Steak-N-Shake on the way and had lunch in the car.
"You've been pretty quiet. Are you rethinking the abortion?" I asked.
Cathy shook her head and wiped some vanilla shake from the corners of her mouth. "No, not reconsidering it. I've just been thinking about my mother and how old she was when she had me. She had me when she was 19, can you imagine ME with a five year old right now?"
"Yeah, that would be weird. We probably wouldn't have ever met," I said.
Cathy stopped chewing and stared at me. "Why? Do you hate kids or something?"
"No, I don't hate kids. But girls with five year old kids don't spend their days lying around the pool and barhopping with gay men, do they?"
"I guess not," she said.
Again,it was quiet for a couple of minutes. We watched the waitresses hustle orders out to the cars, their uniforms soaked with sweat.
"Are you real sure you're even pregnant?" I finally asked.
"Oh yeah, honey. I am Miss Clockwork. They could launch the fucking space shuttle on my periods. 5-4-3-2-1...Mission Control, we have a bloody lift-off!"
I dropped Cathy off at her doctor's office and went into the mall next door and played pinball for a couple of hours. Cathy was standing in front of the building when I went back to get her, checking out her hair in the window. She seemed upbeat when she jumped into the car.
"So how's that rabbit doin'?" I asked, trying to match her mood.
Cathy pulled down the visor and examined her lipstick. "Honey, let's go buy a shovel, cuz that bitch is d-e-a-d!"
"You seem pretty cheerful." I said, casting her an uncertain look.
"Well, the doctor said I was probably no more than 6 weeks pregnant, and that the abortion would be a piece of cake. In fact, I just scheduled it with some other doctor he knows. I asked for Monday, you know so this weekend isn't ruined and I have time to feel better for next weekend."
It was so typically Cathy to make sure that the minor inconvenience of having an abortion didn't interfere with her rigorous nightclubbing schedule. And I'll admit, I loved her for that.
Monday morning, I took Cathy to a complex of industrial-looking buildings on far southern outskirts of Orlando. We crawled uncertainly along seemingly endless rows of warehouses and loading docks until we came upon a single-story building set off from the rest, with just a "Doctor's Office" sign planted in front of the hedge that neatly blocked all the windows and the door from the view of passers-by.
Cathy had become increasingly nervous over the weekend and we sat in the car for a few minutes while she gathered her nerve.
"You sure about this? You don't have to do it today you know," I offered.
"Yeah. I'm pretty sure."
"PRETTY sure? There's no undoing this, honey."
She bit her lip, "I know, I know! Tell me I'm doing the right thing!"
"You are doing the right thing," I said flatly. "Actually, I can't tell you that. I don't want you throwing it back at me someday that I told you to do this. It's ALL you, baby."
"Don't say 'baby'!" she said, not looking at me.
"Sorry."
Cathy flicked her cigarette out the window, looked at me and said, "OK, let's go in."
Continue To Conclusion
.
"I'm pregnant."
I froze, the knife poised in mid-air. I thought for a second, then answered with all the coolness I could muster.
"OH MY FUCKING GOD!"
Cathy gave a bitter laugh, "Oh, don't worry. It's not you."
"How can you be sure?" I asked, a tiny bit calmer.
"Because I've already had my period once since you....." she said. "Anyway, I'm pretty sure it's that guy David, remember the one I met on the beach?"
"Yeah, I think so. He's the one that works at Jeans West?"
"No, he works at Merry Go Round, the Jeans West guy was Adam or something."
I pulled the phone around the corner of the bar and squatted down so I wouldn't be heard. "OK, so what are you going to do?"
"What do you mean? I'm going to get an abortion of course! I can't be having a baby, I just bought that hot new bathing suit!"
We both laughed a little bit at that, but I heard the fear in Cathy's voice
A couple of days later Cathy and I went to get the results of her rabbit test. I drove her downtown even though I had classes that day. We were running early so we stopped at Steak-N-Shake on the way and had lunch in the car.
"You've been pretty quiet. Are you rethinking the abortion?" I asked.
Cathy shook her head and wiped some vanilla shake from the corners of her mouth. "No, not reconsidering it. I've just been thinking about my mother and how old she was when she had me. She had me when she was 19, can you imagine ME with a five year old right now?"
"Yeah, that would be weird. We probably wouldn't have ever met," I said.
Cathy stopped chewing and stared at me. "Why? Do you hate kids or something?"
"No, I don't hate kids. But girls with five year old kids don't spend their days lying around the pool and barhopping with gay men, do they?"
"I guess not," she said.
Again,it was quiet for a couple of minutes. We watched the waitresses hustle orders out to the cars, their uniforms soaked with sweat.
"Are you real sure you're even pregnant?" I finally asked.
"Oh yeah, honey. I am Miss Clockwork. They could launch the fucking space shuttle on my periods. 5-4-3-2-1...Mission Control, we have a bloody lift-off!"
I dropped Cathy off at her doctor's office and went into the mall next door and played pinball for a couple of hours. Cathy was standing in front of the building when I went back to get her, checking out her hair in the window. She seemed upbeat when she jumped into the car.
"So how's that rabbit doin'?" I asked, trying to match her mood.
Cathy pulled down the visor and examined her lipstick. "Honey, let's go buy a shovel, cuz that bitch is d-e-a-d!"
"You seem pretty cheerful." I said, casting her an uncertain look.
"Well, the doctor said I was probably no more than 6 weeks pregnant, and that the abortion would be a piece of cake. In fact, I just scheduled it with some other doctor he knows. I asked for Monday, you know so this weekend isn't ruined and I have time to feel better for next weekend."
It was so typically Cathy to make sure that the minor inconvenience of having an abortion didn't interfere with her rigorous nightclubbing schedule. And I'll admit, I loved her for that.
Monday morning, I took Cathy to a complex of industrial-looking buildings on far southern outskirts of Orlando. We crawled uncertainly along seemingly endless rows of warehouses and loading docks until we came upon a single-story building set off from the rest, with just a "Doctor's Office" sign planted in front of the hedge that neatly blocked all the windows and the door from the view of passers-by.
Cathy had become increasingly nervous over the weekend and we sat in the car for a few minutes while she gathered her nerve.
"You sure about this? You don't have to do it today you know," I offered.
"Yeah. I'm pretty sure."
"PRETTY sure? There's no undoing this, honey."
She bit her lip, "I know, I know! Tell me I'm doing the right thing!"
"You are doing the right thing," I said flatly. "Actually, I can't tell you that. I don't want you throwing it back at me someday that I told you to do this. It's ALL you, baby."
"Don't say 'baby'!" she said, not looking at me.
"Sorry."
Cathy flicked her cigarette out the window, looked at me and said, "OK, let's go in."
Continue To Conclusion
.
The Day I Helped Kill A Baby
Cathy was one crazy bitch.
She was working as a waitress at the restaurant where I bartended. I was a college sophomore under the delusion that I was working towards becoming a lawyer. Cathy was a hussy working under the conclusion that there was no such thing as being too tan.
So it made sense that we met poolside at the apartment complex where we both lived.
Cathy called out to me from the steps of the pool, where she was lounging. "Hey bartender guy! Come here, I want to ask you something!"
I looked up from my chair, shielded my eyes and squinted at her.
"C'mere!" she repeated.
I walked around the pool to the steps.
"Hey. What's up?"
"I saw you yesterday, working behind the bar while I was training, right? You're Joe?"
"Yeah, right. You started last night?" I asked, barely remembering her.
"Yeah, I'm Cathy, hi."
"OK, hi Cathy. What did you want to ask me?"
"Well, I was being trained by Jerry last night, and I was just wondering if you two are fucking."
My eyes widened and I think I got a little bit dizzy because I reached out and grabbed the pool rail. Jerry was this smoking hot waiter with long sexy sideburns and an expert pimp walk that made his butt jump, even with a tray of food on his shoulder.
"Um..." That was all I could get out.
"Oh, please. I saw you two flirting all night!
Well, not exactly. What she saw was me getting all flustered and nervous whenever Jerry placed an order with me. Jerry knew my story, though. The only one at work that did, as far as I knew or hoped. He'd just wink at me and carry on with his super-groovy schtick, which let me know that he was onto me, but just found it slightly amusing.
"You're crazy, I...," I started to deny.
"It's OK, honey," Cathy interrupted. "I happen to LOVE gay boys! Hey! Do you ever go to the Parliament House?"
"Only about 7 nights a week!" is what I should have answered.
"Oh, um...yeah. I know about that place," is what I said instead.
"Cool! You wanna go with me tonight? It's 25 cents drink night!"
And so began a beautiful, twisted, and to my friends, baffling friendship.
Most nights, I'd be closing the bar while Cathy was taking the last customers. As a new waitress she had to close the place, sometimes working an hour or so past the dinner rush. Since I had to stay until the bar closed at 10pm, I was always glad to have her company.
When we were bored, which was often, Cathy would entertain us by instigating fights between dining couples. She'd be extremely solicitous to the man, sometimes complimenting his choice of wine or going out of her way to brush his arm as she leaned deeply across the table with his meal. Often, she'd take his date's order with a bored expression or without breaking her gaze at the man.
Sometimes, she'd call me over into the side station before serving the meals.
"Joe, you see that hot guy out there in Booth 14? Well, this is his steak."
And she'd lean down and lick the guy's steak, pick up the plates and head into the dining room. The woman would be served by Cathy dropping her plate in front of her from a height of several inches. Then she'd serve the man his steak, purring, "Heeere you go!"
We'd watch him eat it from the bar while Cathy said things like, "Oh my god, I'm totally getting wet. It's totally like we're French-kissing!"
Sometimes she'd ask me to dare her do something, like lift up her uniform as she walked through the crowded dining room. She never wore underwear, once nearly causing a old man to fall off his barstool when she flashed me from the end of the bar, thinking I had no customers.
Another favorite trick was for her to slip false names onto the hostess' clipboard.
"Balls? Balls, party of two?"
After work we'd race home to our apartments, change clothes and follow each other to the Parliament House. We had to take separate cars, in case either of us picked up, which she did almost as often as I did.
At the bar, Cathy attracted a lot of attention. She was almost drag queen glamorous, with her deeply tanned skin, her huge elaborate hair, and her dramatic make-up. She was often hit on by tranny chasers. Cathy thought it was hilarious to let them think she was a tranny.
The tranny chasers would never imply that she wasn't a real woman, because that would have destroyed their own illusion, so she'd let them buy her drinks and kiss her. A few lucky ones are probably still jacking off to the memory of the gorgeous tranny that blew them in the bar's parking lot.
I'd usually follow Cathy into the ladies room when she needed to pee, because the stalls sometimes didn't have doors on them, and she needed me to "play door" for her. I'd stand there with my back to her, and we'd rag on draq queens after they walked out.
One of them heard us one time, and I guess we'd been dissing her "sister", because when Cathy came out of the stall, the queen aggressively demanded to borrow some of Cathy's blush.
Cathy, drunk off her ass, said "Oh, you don't need blush, all you have to do is THIS!" And then, using both hands, she tweaked the queen's cheeks, twisting hard.
The queen bellowed, "Oh NO, you fucking did NOT, you bitch!"
Cathy and I fled the ladies room with the queen right behing us. We raced down the mirrored hallway towards the disco as a stiletto buzzed past my ear, belting Cathy squarely in the back of the head.
Cathy screamed, "MY FUCKING HAIR!" and went to the end of the bar and began gathering up glass ashtrays and hurling them at the queen. The queen held her purse in front of her face, shrieking, as she tried to back away, but wobbled on her one high heel and fell backwards.
Cathy was on top of her instantly, tweaking the queen's cheeks again and again, "Here's your BLUSH! Here's your BLUSH! Here's your FUCKING blush, you cunt!"
We didn't go back to the Parliament House for awhile.
Since we worked nights, we spent most of the days that summer hanging out with each other at the pool or watching soap operas. We were perfect comic foils for each, and to this day, she's one of the few people I've ever known who could make me laugh until I cried.
A lot of the fun I had was at Cathy's expense, as she was stupendously stupid about some things.
There was the time that she brought her phone over to my apartment so that she didn't miss any calls while she was there. Modular-plug phones had just been installed in our apartments and I sat there quietly while she unplugged my phone and plugged in hers.
After a few minutes, I couldn't stand it anymore and said, "Uh, you know Cathy...if the phone rings, it's not gonna be for you."
"Why not, it's MY phone!"
And then there was the time that she ironed her waitress uniform, put it on and decided that the collar needed a small touch-up, which she lazily did with the uniform STILL ON. I wonder if she still has that scar.
But mostly it was her incredible wackiness about her sexual appetite that delighted me most. She'd call me right after some dude had left and give me a filthy play by play including vocalized recreations of her pussy noises.
Once she called me to say she was gonna drive home naked from a boyfriend's house and for me to meet her in traffic. We drove down Colonial Drive, side-by-side, Cathy behind the wheel, completely unclothed.
Another time she called to ask what I was doing.
"Not much, what are you doing?"
"Oh, I'm watching General Hospital, eating a tuna sandwich and having a glass of iced tea. Oh..and getting fucked. Did I mention that before?"
I cracked up, "You're getting fucked RIGHT NOW? While you're eating a tuna sandwich?"
"Yeah, and drinking iced tea."
"Exactly how are you managing all this while on the phone?"
"Oh, I'm bent over my loveseat, the plate is on the cushion, the glass is in my hand and this guy is fucking me from behind. Oh, I'm smoking too. So, do you wanna go out tonight?"
About six months after we'd known each other, we spent a beautiful Monday at the pool. We were both off that day, and we spent several hours taking turns shuttling pitchers of frozen daiquiris out to our chairs. Completely smashed, we staggered back to Cathy's apartment for General Hospital.
And we fucked.
I'm still not sure how it happened and she probably isn't either, but it did. Afterwards, neither of us felt embarrassed, in fact I think we probably both had thought that it was inevitable. And I'll have to say that it was pretty good, but I never did tell Cathy that she was my first woman.
It wasn't long after that that Cathy called me at work. I pulled the long cord of the hostess' phone across the bar and resumed slicing lemons.
"Hey Cathy, what's up?"
"Well...you're not going to believe this..."
Continue to Part Two
.
She was working as a waitress at the restaurant where I bartended. I was a college sophomore under the delusion that I was working towards becoming a lawyer. Cathy was a hussy working under the conclusion that there was no such thing as being too tan.
So it made sense that we met poolside at the apartment complex where we both lived.
Cathy called out to me from the steps of the pool, where she was lounging. "Hey bartender guy! Come here, I want to ask you something!"
I looked up from my chair, shielded my eyes and squinted at her.
"C'mere!" she repeated.
I walked around the pool to the steps.
"Hey. What's up?"
"I saw you yesterday, working behind the bar while I was training, right? You're Joe?"
"Yeah, right. You started last night?" I asked, barely remembering her.
"Yeah, I'm Cathy, hi."
"OK, hi Cathy. What did you want to ask me?"
"Well, I was being trained by Jerry last night, and I was just wondering if you two are fucking."
My eyes widened and I think I got a little bit dizzy because I reached out and grabbed the pool rail. Jerry was this smoking hot waiter with long sexy sideburns and an expert pimp walk that made his butt jump, even with a tray of food on his shoulder.
"Um..." That was all I could get out.
"Oh, please. I saw you two flirting all night!
Well, not exactly. What she saw was me getting all flustered and nervous whenever Jerry placed an order with me. Jerry knew my story, though. The only one at work that did, as far as I knew or hoped. He'd just wink at me and carry on with his super-groovy schtick, which let me know that he was onto me, but just found it slightly amusing.
"You're crazy, I...," I started to deny.
"It's OK, honey," Cathy interrupted. "I happen to LOVE gay boys! Hey! Do you ever go to the Parliament House?"
"Only about 7 nights a week!" is what I should have answered.
"Oh, um...yeah. I know about that place," is what I said instead.
"Cool! You wanna go with me tonight? It's 25 cents drink night!"
And so began a beautiful, twisted, and to my friends, baffling friendship.
Most nights, I'd be closing the bar while Cathy was taking the last customers. As a new waitress she had to close the place, sometimes working an hour or so past the dinner rush. Since I had to stay until the bar closed at 10pm, I was always glad to have her company.
When we were bored, which was often, Cathy would entertain us by instigating fights between dining couples. She'd be extremely solicitous to the man, sometimes complimenting his choice of wine or going out of her way to brush his arm as she leaned deeply across the table with his meal. Often, she'd take his date's order with a bored expression or without breaking her gaze at the man.
Sometimes, she'd call me over into the side station before serving the meals.
"Joe, you see that hot guy out there in Booth 14? Well, this is his steak."
And she'd lean down and lick the guy's steak, pick up the plates and head into the dining room. The woman would be served by Cathy dropping her plate in front of her from a height of several inches. Then she'd serve the man his steak, purring, "Heeere you go!"
We'd watch him eat it from the bar while Cathy said things like, "Oh my god, I'm totally getting wet. It's totally like we're French-kissing!"
Sometimes she'd ask me to dare her do something, like lift up her uniform as she walked through the crowded dining room. She never wore underwear, once nearly causing a old man to fall off his barstool when she flashed me from the end of the bar, thinking I had no customers.
Another favorite trick was for her to slip false names onto the hostess' clipboard.
"Balls? Balls, party of two?"
After work we'd race home to our apartments, change clothes and follow each other to the Parliament House. We had to take separate cars, in case either of us picked up, which she did almost as often as I did.
At the bar, Cathy attracted a lot of attention. She was almost drag queen glamorous, with her deeply tanned skin, her huge elaborate hair, and her dramatic make-up. She was often hit on by tranny chasers. Cathy thought it was hilarious to let them think she was a tranny.
The tranny chasers would never imply that she wasn't a real woman, because that would have destroyed their own illusion, so she'd let them buy her drinks and kiss her. A few lucky ones are probably still jacking off to the memory of the gorgeous tranny that blew them in the bar's parking lot.
I'd usually follow Cathy into the ladies room when she needed to pee, because the stalls sometimes didn't have doors on them, and she needed me to "play door" for her. I'd stand there with my back to her, and we'd rag on draq queens after they walked out.
One of them heard us one time, and I guess we'd been dissing her "sister", because when Cathy came out of the stall, the queen aggressively demanded to borrow some of Cathy's blush.
Cathy, drunk off her ass, said "Oh, you don't need blush, all you have to do is THIS!" And then, using both hands, she tweaked the queen's cheeks, twisting hard.
The queen bellowed, "Oh NO, you fucking did NOT, you bitch!"
Cathy and I fled the ladies room with the queen right behing us. We raced down the mirrored hallway towards the disco as a stiletto buzzed past my ear, belting Cathy squarely in the back of the head.
Cathy screamed, "MY FUCKING HAIR!" and went to the end of the bar and began gathering up glass ashtrays and hurling them at the queen. The queen held her purse in front of her face, shrieking, as she tried to back away, but wobbled on her one high heel and fell backwards.
Cathy was on top of her instantly, tweaking the queen's cheeks again and again, "Here's your BLUSH! Here's your BLUSH! Here's your FUCKING blush, you cunt!"
We didn't go back to the Parliament House for awhile.
Since we worked nights, we spent most of the days that summer hanging out with each other at the pool or watching soap operas. We were perfect comic foils for each, and to this day, she's one of the few people I've ever known who could make me laugh until I cried.
A lot of the fun I had was at Cathy's expense, as she was stupendously stupid about some things.
There was the time that she brought her phone over to my apartment so that she didn't miss any calls while she was there. Modular-plug phones had just been installed in our apartments and I sat there quietly while she unplugged my phone and plugged in hers.
After a few minutes, I couldn't stand it anymore and said, "Uh, you know Cathy...if the phone rings, it's not gonna be for you."
"Why not, it's MY phone!"
And then there was the time that she ironed her waitress uniform, put it on and decided that the collar needed a small touch-up, which she lazily did with the uniform STILL ON. I wonder if she still has that scar.
But mostly it was her incredible wackiness about her sexual appetite that delighted me most. She'd call me right after some dude had left and give me a filthy play by play including vocalized recreations of her pussy noises.
Once she called me to say she was gonna drive home naked from a boyfriend's house and for me to meet her in traffic. We drove down Colonial Drive, side-by-side, Cathy behind the wheel, completely unclothed.
Another time she called to ask what I was doing.
"Not much, what are you doing?"
"Oh, I'm watching General Hospital, eating a tuna sandwich and having a glass of iced tea. Oh..and getting fucked. Did I mention that before?"
I cracked up, "You're getting fucked RIGHT NOW? While you're eating a tuna sandwich?"
"Yeah, and drinking iced tea."
"Exactly how are you managing all this while on the phone?"
"Oh, I'm bent over my loveseat, the plate is on the cushion, the glass is in my hand and this guy is fucking me from behind. Oh, I'm smoking too. So, do you wanna go out tonight?"
About six months after we'd known each other, we spent a beautiful Monday at the pool. We were both off that day, and we spent several hours taking turns shuttling pitchers of frozen daiquiris out to our chairs. Completely smashed, we staggered back to Cathy's apartment for General Hospital.
And we fucked.
I'm still not sure how it happened and she probably isn't either, but it did. Afterwards, neither of us felt embarrassed, in fact I think we probably both had thought that it was inevitable. And I'll have to say that it was pretty good, but I never did tell Cathy that she was my first woman.
It wasn't long after that that Cathy called me at work. I pulled the long cord of the hostess' phone across the bar and resumed slicing lemons.
"Hey Cathy, what's up?"
"Well...you're not going to believe this..."
Continue to Part Two
.
"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 May 10, 2004
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 May 10, 2004
TV Talk With Mike And Joe
MIKE: So what kind of shows do you think this new gay channel is going to have?
JOE: What, you mean LOGO? I think I read about something with Cher. Don't know about the rest.
MIKE: Cher? That figures. Maybe they can show one of her 300,000 farewell performances. How many times can you say goodbye to someone before they finally fucking leave already?
JOE: No shit! Actually, I was thinking maybe they should do a gay version of the $10,000 Pyramid. They could call it The Fabulous Pink Triangle!
MIKE: Oh, I can already see it. You're in the winner's circle and you're on the last clue..."um...a beach chair...a bikini...a bitchy attitude..."
JOE: THINGS YOU TAKE TO FIRE ISLAND!!!
MIKE: Ding ding ding!!!
JOE: OK, you have 30 seconds to describe seven things you might find in a Chelsea gym locker.
MIKE: Ok, it's round and it goes around...
JOE: A cockring!
MIKE: Ok, it's in a bottle and you take off the top and...
JOE: Poppers!
MIKE: This is too easy.
JOE: OK, how about a gay version of Family Feud?
MIKE (laughs): Right! We could have a team of drag queens against leather men!
JOE: "We polled 100 people and asked them 'What is an item would you bring to a party?'"
MIKE (makes buzzing noise): Lube!!
JOE: I assume that was the leather men answering?
MIKE (makes buzzing noise): Wigs! That was the drag queens.
JOE: I'd have said 'silicone'.
MIKE: This is still too easy.
(Both laugh)
JOE: What show would YOU want to see?
MIKE: Well, how about Movies For Guys Who Like Guys Who Like Movies? A take-off on what they do on TBS?
JOE: What, you mean like some tough guys movie, but with big homoerotic undertones?
MIKE: Right, like "Brian's Song". On the surface, it's this rowdy football movie with hot guys but then James Cann gets terminal cancer or something and Billy Dee Williams has to look after him and it gets all weepy and they say that they love each other.
JOE: And THAT'S when you make your move on the straight guy watching the movie with you? While he's all tore up and crying over James Caan?
MIKE: Well, yeah! First you push the Kleenex box over to him. Then you reach for one yourself and move closer. Next thing, you're kissing the tears off his face.
JOE: And licking your cum off it too?
MIKE: I'm just saying.
JOE: I guess that would work with Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid.
MIKE: And Highlander too! Remember that scene in the parking garage where the hot Scotsman was giving that guy head?
JOE: Sweetie, he was TAKING his head. Bit of a difference. That's not very sexy. I don't think that movie would work.
MIKE (miffed): Well, he WAS an antiques dealer. And the soundtrack was ALL Queen!
JOE: How about an all gay reality show set in a bathhouse? That could be hilarious!
MIKE: Can you imagine the fighting to win immunity?
JOE: OK, that wasn't funny.
JOE: What, you mean LOGO? I think I read about something with Cher. Don't know about the rest.
MIKE: Cher? That figures. Maybe they can show one of her 300,000 farewell performances. How many times can you say goodbye to someone before they finally fucking leave already?
JOE: No shit! Actually, I was thinking maybe they should do a gay version of the $10,000 Pyramid. They could call it The Fabulous Pink Triangle!
MIKE: Oh, I can already see it. You're in the winner's circle and you're on the last clue..."um...a beach chair...a bikini...a bitchy attitude..."
JOE: THINGS YOU TAKE TO FIRE ISLAND!!!
MIKE: Ding ding ding!!!
JOE: OK, you have 30 seconds to describe seven things you might find in a Chelsea gym locker.
MIKE: Ok, it's round and it goes around...
JOE: A cockring!
MIKE: Ok, it's in a bottle and you take off the top and...
JOE: Poppers!
MIKE: This is too easy.
JOE: OK, how about a gay version of Family Feud?
MIKE (laughs): Right! We could have a team of drag queens against leather men!
JOE: "We polled 100 people and asked them 'What is an item would you bring to a party?'"
MIKE (makes buzzing noise): Lube!!
JOE: I assume that was the leather men answering?
MIKE (makes buzzing noise): Wigs! That was the drag queens.
JOE: I'd have said 'silicone'.
MIKE: This is still too easy.
(Both laugh)
JOE: What show would YOU want to see?
MIKE: Well, how about Movies For Guys Who Like Guys Who Like Movies? A take-off on what they do on TBS?
JOE: What, you mean like some tough guys movie, but with big homoerotic undertones?
MIKE: Right, like "Brian's Song". On the surface, it's this rowdy football movie with hot guys but then James Cann gets terminal cancer or something and Billy Dee Williams has to look after him and it gets all weepy and they say that they love each other.
JOE: And THAT'S when you make your move on the straight guy watching the movie with you? While he's all tore up and crying over James Caan?
MIKE: Well, yeah! First you push the Kleenex box over to him. Then you reach for one yourself and move closer. Next thing, you're kissing the tears off his face.
JOE: And licking your cum off it too?
MIKE: I'm just saying.
JOE: I guess that would work with Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid.
MIKE: And Highlander too! Remember that scene in the parking garage where the hot Scotsman was giving that guy head?
JOE: Sweetie, he was TAKING his head. Bit of a difference. That's not very sexy. I don't think that movie would work.
MIKE (miffed): Well, he WAS an antiques dealer. And the soundtrack was ALL Queen!
JOE: How about an all gay reality show set in a bathhouse? That could be hilarious!
MIKE: Can you imagine the fighting to win immunity?
JOE: OK, that wasn't funny.
WYSIWYG!
I'll be making my NYC stage debut at this month's WYSIWYG, taking place March 22nd.
WYSIWYG is a "monthly showcase of readings and performances by bloggers, brought to you by Performance Space 122 and CultureBot.org."
If you can't make it to the show, send us booze.
"I'll be making my NYC stage debut." If you can think of anything more pretentious than that sentence, I wanna hear it.
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