Honest Conversation Is Overrated
Actual Human Interactions Witnessed Or Overheard
In Twentieth And Twenty-First Century America
In Twentieth And Twenty-First Century America
I've been spending a great deal of time at my grandmother's house the last few weeks.As a result, I keep missing garbage day. There are about four full trash bags on my back porch. I made it a point to be home Thursday night, so I could put said trash bags out. I failed to remember. But I did wake up early Friday, to the sound of what, I assumed, was the garbage truck, so I hopped out of bed and on to the arm of the couch, in order to look out the window and see if I had time to get the garbage out. Before I got a clear look, my right leg slid down the arm of the couch, and inbetween the couch's frame and the arm. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.
I tried to pull my leg out of the couch, but my ankle was slightly too large. Ow. Shit. Ow. I pulled and pulled and ow. I started seriously considering dialing 911. The problem being, my cell phone was on the other side of the room, and I was naked. Even if I dragged the couch behind me to the other side of the room, and reached my cell phone and my laundry, there was no way I could get any pants or shorts or boxers or anything around my right foot, what with it being inside the fucken ow couch. I reached into the dirty laundry pile, threw on a sweatshirt, and wrapped a blanket around my waist. Then, I called Divine's name until she woke up. "WHAT DO YOU WANT?" She called. "I need a knife or something. I'm stuck in the couch." "What?" I explained myself. She brought a knife. I cut into the arm of the couch and removed all the cushions. My ankle was stuck between a wooden slat in the arm, and a very pokey metal frame. Whenever I tried to pull my leg up or down, the metal frame would dig into the right side of my ankle, and the wood would scrape against the left side. Ow. Fuck. Ow. "Should I call 911?" She asked. I had now been standing on one foot for about ten minutes, with a blanket wrapped around my waist, and a sweatshirt on. If the paramedics showed up, I would, clearly, die of shame. "Yes. I think you should call 911." "I'm going to use your phone." She said. "I don't want to waste my minutes." I. Hate. Her. Ten minutes later, the paramedics showed up. My leg was still in the couch. I said "Just wanted to make sure you had a story to tell when you got home tonight." "This is nothing." The taller woman said, "The last guy--" The other paramedic interrupted. "Don't tell him. Then he's going to think we're going to tell the next person about him." "You aren't?" I asked. After taking a look at my leg, the inside of the couch, and the rest of my room, the taller paramedic decided she'd use some of the scrap wood left over from my busted doorframe and wedge it between the arm and the frame to get my leg loose. Unfortunately, every time she pried the wood in, the frame dug further into my, ow, ankle. "I don't know what else we can try." She said. So they called the fire department. Fifteen minutes later, four firefighters enter my bedroom. My leg had been in the couch for about forty-five minutes. I was still just wearing the blanket, the sweatshirt, and the couch. And I was still standing on one foot. Three of the four firefighters were of normal to above average intelligence. One of them had the intellectual capacity of a cactus with blunt head trauma. He was the one in charge. Every time he wanted to look at the situation, he'd lean his full weight against the bottom of the couch, squeezing my, ow, ankle even tighter into the couch cunt. "Please." I said. "Please don't lean on the couch that way. Could you lean on the arm, maybe?" The paramedics move all the non-couch furniture, and my laundry, and my books to the other side of the room. The asshole firefighter, again, leaned on the, ow, couch. "The frame is metal." He said. Fucken genius. "If we tried to cut through it, it'd spark like shit." I grimace as he, ow, leaned down again. "Good thing the fire department is here, then, huh?" "I guess we could saw through the wooden beam in the arm, but it's probably going to destroy the couch." "I think the couch has it coming." I said. So a firefighter went out to the truck, which must have been parked in Saskatchewan, given how long it took him to retrieve the battery powered saw. The battery powered saw which hadn't been charged. I had been stuck in the couch for over an hour. The saw didn't work. Fucken Genius asked me "Do you have any electrical outlets?" "No." I said. "I'm Amish. The TV and the computer run on hand cranks." The taller paramedic and the other firefighters chuckled. Fucken Genius leaned on the, ow, couch. Asshole. So another firefighter retrieved an electric saw, plugged it in, and sawed a beam in the arm of the couch. My leg popped right out. No bruise. No swelling. "We're going to have to take you to the hospital to check it out." The not as tall paramedic said, as the firefighters departed. "No." I said. "I'm okay." And I hopped up and down on the leg that had been caught in the couch. I really was okay. So I signed a waiver explaining that I was stupid to not go to the hospital, but then again, I'd gotten my leg caught in a couch, so I was clearly not qualified for MENSA anyway. Also, I missed the garbage truck.
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I used to give my roommates, Celeste and Sir Trick, who were a couple, a hard time because every week or so I'd need to take a piss while they were busy fucking in the shower. When my boyfriend, Sora, moved in, I had to decide whether to take the high road, and not seek vengeance by long shower-fuck sessions, or take the low road, and see if we could make more noise.
For once in my life, I took the high road. Apart from a couple of noise battles (when you try to prove how much better your sex is by increasing the volume of moans, shouts, and smack noises), we tended to let our sex remain private. One afternoon, Sora and I were in the kitchen arguing over something stupid, and we heard the roommates getting it on. We ignored it. And after a half hour or so, Celeste came into the kitchen, with a huge glob of come on the front of her shirt. Sora and I contained most of our laughter, and didn't even say anything when she said "Oh my god, dude!", turned around, and ran into her room to change her shirt. Later that night, after drinking enough Coronas to be declared official citizens of Mexico, Sora and I stumbled into our room for some loud, sloppy, lights out, almost sex. Because Sora had a nasty habit of falling directly asleep after orgasm, we had a standing/sitting/laying down agreement that I always got to come first. So I did. Once devoid of sperm, I knelt down to reciprocate, and Sora promptly rammed his cock into my nose. After the requisite name calling (I chose douchenozzle for this particular occasion) and ass smackage, I forged ahead with the fellatio. Once he'd come, we made out for a bit, and then Sora decided to take a shower before he fell asleep. He threw a towel around his waist, and walked down the hallway to the bathroom. He was too tired to hear the water running, so when he opened the door, the apartment was filled with all three of my roommates screaming. Sora screamed because he'd walked in on Celeste and Trick's shower sex, and Celeste and Sir Trick screamed because Sora's face and belly were covered in blood. Apparently, he'd rammed my nose harder than either of us had realized. The next day we put memo boards up on our bedroom doors, and the bathroom with "Occupied" and "Vacant" signs. “What the fuck?” I scream.
And Ben peeks his head out from the kitchen. “What’s wrong?” “You know that crazy bitch who’s moving into the room down the hall from me?” “Yea.” he says, fluffing his hair, “I don’t like her.” “She put an ad on Craigslist saying my room is for rent.” “Are you sure it’s not for the room downstairs. I mean, if you don’t like her, maybe that Becky chick doesn’t like her either. It’s probably just a misunderstanding.” I reread the ad. “No. There’s no misunderstanding. The headline is Shitty Roommate Must Go, and there’s fucken pictures of my room, with all my stuff in it." “Woah.” Silence. Silence. “I’ll just finish making the tea then.” I call Celeste, and start verge of tear bitching about this crazy situation, and how I can’t afford to put a deposit on a new place to live, and...and she says she’ll be over to Ben’s as soon as she can, in order to help me come up with new ideas about where I might move. “You could stay here.” Ben says, and hands me a cup of tea. “Really?” “As long as you don’t mind sleeping on the van seat.” Oh. I sip the tea. It’s wretched. “Oh, I forgot to mix it with the orange juice. Want some?” I decline. I’ve never liked orange juice. “Suit yourself.” And he lights up a Galouises. “Where’d you get that?” I ask. “I thought you told me that the convenience stores nearby were officially out of them, what with the whole French not exporting them here anymore.” “Yea, but I keep finding stores with a couple packs left. I should just stop smoking them, but it’s like that exboyfriend who’s no good for you, who calls every once in a while, and you can’t help but invite him over and fuck him.” “You are now, officially, the King of Analogies.” He smiles. I get the chills. “I kind of ground up the stems, so the tea is a little...thick. Next time I think I’ll leave the stems out.” Saying the tea was a little thick was like saying Don King was a little unscrupulous. A tad wordy. I use a spoon to chew the first half of the tea, chasing it with lemonade. The second half, I down as quickly as possible, but not as quickly as Ben does. “Is it hitting you yet?” He asks, his eyes: a cat watching a nuclear explosion. “I don’t know.” We head up to his roof to smoke, and watch the sun consume the city around us. A hot guy comes up and starts doing tai chi in front of us. This is the best high ever. My phone rings. It’s Celeste. She'’s downstairs waiting to be let in. While I go downstairs, Ben grinds up another batch of tea. “Your eyes.” She says. “Have you been crying? You looked positively wrecked.” But I’m not wrecked. I’m rebuilding. When I was sixteen, I made a bet with my mother. I would not be caught smoking, drinking, or doing drugs between the time the bet was placed, and my twenty-firstbirthday. If I succeeded, she’d buy me my first used car.
Years later, I learned that the actual bet wasn’t that I wouldn’t get caught, but that I wouldn’t do any of those things. But by the time my mother passed this revelation on to me, I was already on my second car, and was in no financial position to reimburse her for the first one. I have a very competitive nature. Not only was I fixated on winning the bet, but I also gauged my rate of drinking, smoking, and doing drugs against the rates of my friends. I figured, if I was smoking, drinking, and doing drugs less often than my friends, then I wouldn’t get caught, I would win my car, and I would have the satisfaction of being a better person. While I did have a brief addiction to cigarettes when I was twenty-one, I generally only smoke a cigarette or two every six months, when I’m exceptionally stressed. I drink socially, and until I started spending time with Ben, I had been decidedly antisocial. I’ve also held true to my ideal of drug usage. I don’t pay for them. Ever. This way, I don’t run the risk of becoming addicted to them. I do drugs on a purely peer pressure basis. For the most part, I only smoke pot. And again, not very often. Apart from pot, and a few cups of mushroom tea when I lived in Burlington, Vermont, I’ve only ever done one drug, mescaline. I was sixteen, and my high school roommate (thank you, boarding school education), JBob, had bought some from another student. He’d never done it before, I’d certainly never done it before, so we decided we’d do it together, and invited our friend Matt to hang out with us so that we wouldn’t do anything stupider than the sort of things we usually did when we were together. About an hour after we took it, we weren’t feeling anything. Neither of us had ever been buzzed from any of the pot we smoked, so we decided that our experiment with mescaline was a failure, and decided we would go into town and watch a movie. As luck would have it, there was a brand new movie out that all three of us (me, JBob, and Matt) wanted to see: Natural Born Killers. Well, the mescaline kicked in at some point during the movie. I don’t know when. I don’t know what I hallucinated and what was actually in that fucked up movie. All I know is, I haven’t been able to watch the movie since. I also haven’t touched mescaline since. “Have you ever done speed?” Ben asks. It’s Labor Day, and we’ve just finished an extra large pizza, a bottle of Jack Daniels, two liters of Coke, and four hours of watching the Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston reality show. “Never.” I say. “You’ve got to try it.” He says. “I got so much writing done when I was on speed. I mean, it was all terrible, but I used to get sooooo much accomplished. You’d love it. I mean, I’ve always been hyper. My mom used to say I was like a kid on speed, but the truth is I totally was a kid on speed.” Ben kicks his voice up an octave. “Look at my Lego castle. I used 2,458 pieces. The princess sleeps in this room. See the way the drawbridge works…” and he is talking a mile a second, and I am laughing too hard to keep up, because it isn’t that he was a kid on speed when he was a kid, he’s a kid on speed now, just without the actual speed...or the kiddiness. He talks like this all the way to the bus stop, during the entire trip to his house, and most of the way to the grocery store where we are, for some reason, buying a coffee grinder, lemon juice, lemonade, apples, nectarines, and bananas. “I haven’t had bananas in ages.” I say, setting him up for a gay joke. “Why not?” He asks. “I don’t know. I like them, but I mostly have apples when I’m feeling healthy. Apples are my favorite fruit.” Ben smiles. “I thought I was your favorite fruit.” He is. When a cute guy walks by him in the cereal aisle, Ben’s eyes and body follow the cute guy to the left. I push his left shoulder and he turns to the right, toward me. “I wonder if that’s an instinct?” He asks of his newly discovered navigation control. “I don’t know. But there are other portions of your body I’d like to press to find out what happens.” He shakes his head. “Booooo.” And then, “Have you ever done opium?” “No.” I’ve always been leery of opium. All those terrible TV spots tell you that marijuana is a gateway drug, but they never mention which drugs it opens the gate to. Opium, from all the Burroughs I’ve read, is the gateway drug to heroin. And while I have no fear of needles in doctors’ offices, I have no desire to start sticking them into my arm, taint, or spine on a regular basis. Plus, I’ve never been turned on by young Arab boys, or shooting a loved one in the face. “It’s a really mellow high.” He says. “It’s like the anti-speed. Of course, it makes you really nauseous and shit, but that’s totally okay because when you do opium, you do opium with your friends, and puking is like conversation when everyone’s high.” “I don’t think vomit is a language I want to speak.” “You’ll love it.” He says. And on the way back from the grocery store, we stop at a florist, where we buy a dozen dried poppies. While Ben grinds the poppies in his newly acquired coffee grinder, I check my e-mail. Note from my mom’s boyfriend letting me know that my mother may have cancer, porn spam, invitation to a lesbian wedding, Viagra spam, and an e-mail from Celeste: Dude, my roommate was going through Craigslist looking for an apartment for his new girlfriend, when he found this ad. Isn't that your room? It's 3:15. Soon the buses will be leaving. But now the parking lot is swarming with campers. Ross is doing the robot in the middle of it. Grant is crying near the bushes. Allyson is bouncing a soccer ball on her head. Eric is digging in the sand, as usual. I don't know who the twins are, but they won't stop poking me. Where the fuck are all the counselors? I shouldn't be left by myself with hundreds of children moving around a parking lot filled with soon to be moving buses. Where is AJ? Christine? Diama? Fuck, I'd even settle for Bernard, just SOMEONE. Then, the rabbit bus starts backing up. A child screams. I start to run over, but now the goat is backing up, then the skunk bus, then the turtle, then the zebra bus, and the unicorn. I don't know which direction to run in. All the children are screaming. Stop the fucken buses can't you see the children are my curtains being pushed back by the fan. The beeping buses, then, must be my alarm clock. I pull it out of the wall. No, not my alarm clock. What, then?
"What the fuck?" Sole Remaining Gay Roommate Dale asks. "Is that the fire alarm?" "What do you think?" I can never resist answering a question with a question. "Is the house on fire?" "Do you smell smoke?" Dale and I may be more similar than I'm comfortable admitting. A brief check of our bedrooms and our bathroom reveals firelessnes. Ditto the kitchen, the living room, and the two bathrooms. "Do you mind checking Bikey's room, while I investigate the basement?" And before he can protest, I bound down the stairs, where there is not so much as a spark. From upstairs, I hear "Oh. My. God." So the fire is in Bikely's room. I race back up the stairs. "Where is the fire extinguisher? Have you called 911?" Dale is standing on the threshold of her room. "Have you ever seen such a sty?" "So, it's not on fire?" "Would I be just standing here if it was?" "Do you think the fire is in the other apartment?" A couple of weeks ago, Dale left some pork roasting in the oven while he went canoeing in the Amazon or something, and the smoke detectors went off. Bikey told me we had to be careful because our smoke alarms were connected to the ones downstairs, and we wouldn't want to wake up our downstairs neighbors late at night. "Right," I said, "Let them burn." "Are our smoke detectors connected to theirs?" Dale asks. "How long have you lived here?" We walk down to their front door. "Should I knock?" I roll my eyes at him. "Do you think they're home?" He pounds on the door. "Nope." He says. "Nobody's home." "Ha!" I say. "That was a statement, I win." "Dude, our house is no fire, and you're playing grammar games?" I blush. "Weren't you?" "Do I need to answer that?" I cup my hands around my eyes and look in the window. "Do you see any smoke in there?" "Do you?" I didn't. But there was a fire somewhere in the house, and it probably wasn't getting any smaller. "Isn't there a door in the basement that goes into their apartment?" Dale cocked his head. "Do you think it's unlocked?" It wasn't. We took turns trying to batter it down with Law & Order style shoulder lunges. When that failed, I attempted a few kung fu style kicks, with much the same results. Though, I did almost fall down the stairs a couple of times. "Wasn't one of their windows open?" "Are you giving up on the door?" I went outside, and cut the bottom of the screen with my key. I then pried the screen off. "Isn't this breaking and entering?" I rolled my eyes again. "And trying to break their door wasn't?" I lifted myself up, and was halfway into the window when Dale asked "What if the neighbors see us?" I froze. "Do you hear anything?" "What?" "Their alarms aren't going off. Just ours. The fire is in our apartment." "Ha!" Damn. "Do you think I should call the fire department?" "Do you have a better idea?" I asked. "Is that a rhetorical question?" We took a break from our game so he could call the fire department, and I could replace the screen, hoping they wouldn't notice the gaping hole at the bottom. I joined him on the porch when I was finished. "Is this not the worst way to start a day ever?" "Could be worse." I said, conceding our contest to make a point. "At least you don't own that car." I said, pointing to a car with a busted window, and a pile of broken glass under it. "Ha!" He said "Wasn't that a statem--wait, I do own that car." After he ascertained that nothing but his radio's faceplate, and a few CDs had been stolen, he called the police to make a report. "Didn't you just call the fire department?" The woman on the other end of the phone asked. When he conceded yes, she asked for his registration number. "It's in the house." He said. "The one on fire?" She asked. When she was done laughing at him, he hung up and lit a cigarette. "Do you really think you should be smoking when the fire department gets here?" He put out the cigarette on the railing, and shot me an evil look. "Do I care?" Whoever started the stereotype that firemen were hot, certainly didn't live in any neighborhood I've lived in. Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather have a troop of non-attractive, competent firemen than Zoolanders with large hoses. These firemen were Rescue Me firemen, which makes sense, the show takes place in Boston, I live in Boston. Still, having Dennis Leary rush into our house, then come back out and say "Your smoke detector has low batteries, everything is fine." is a very anticlimactic result to a morning fire. And, what the fuck, what kind of smoke detector is designed to go off loudly and set off the other alarms in the house when it's low on batteries? Wouldn't a simple occasional beep be sufficient? Maybe the lights could go out or something?
With tragedy averted, Dale duct taped his broken car window and drove to work. I got dressed and headed to the coffeehouse to hang out with Celeste. Poor Celeste was still stuck in New York, where she had apparently been punched in the face while waiting for the Chinatown bus, because...well because the Chinatown bus sucks, never shows up when it's scheduled, and, according to yesterday's newspaper, has a tendency to go up in flames every other month or so. Suddenly, fifteen bucks to get from Boston to NYC isn't looking so hot good. I'd rather spend the extra ten bucks to go Greyhound, and live through the experience unscathed. Because Celeste was not there, I volunteered to work her shift, even though I haven't so much as looked at a cup of coffee in two months. Apart from a few of the regulars asking me where I'd been, the shift was largely uneventful, until the last hour. I was pouring out the coffee of the day (Mango Duck Chutney) when I noticed someone at the counter. "?b-l-u-e-b-e-r-r-y m-u-f-f-in?" "of-course ?want this? ?want that?" "that ?busy day?" "not yes-not no ?coffee?" And I suddenly realized I was signing to a stranger. A stranger had walked up to my counter and, without any introduction, begun speaking with me in pidgin sign language. "no coffee thanks" "?how you know I sign?" I asked. "you fingerspell and" (mimes pouring) "coffee same time" Right, I do have a tendency to fingerspell when I'm daydreaming. I wasn't aware you could notice that across a crowded room, though. "William!" Did someone step on a bird with strep throat? No, it's just some obnoxious woman yelling at.... Who is she yelling at? "WILL-YUM" She's coming right at me. Ohhhhh. "?name w-i-l-l-i-a-m?" I asked. His eyes conveyed the question "Are you psychic?" while his fingers remained motionless. "someone yell at you" William turned around. "?what?" Then he signed something I couldn't see. "Don't sign to me." She said. "I don't have a clue what you're saying." "I thought we were supposed to sign to each other as much as possible so we could get fluent faster." His voice is...flawless. Deep, rich, and...not at all the voice of someone who can't hear their own voice. "I don't have time for this." She says. "Do you have my muffin?" "Yes." He says, holding up the bag. "Is it hot?" "No." I say. She bristles that I have addressed her. She clearly wasn't asking for my input. "Well, heat it up then." "I can't." I say. "No microwave or oven." "Why not?" She asks. William turns around and starts watching my lips. He definitely can't hear. I'm guessing, based on their conversation and his incredibly precise voice, that he only recently lost his hearing. And, that this cunt is his mother. "We're a coffeehouse, not a restaurant, per se. We just sell muffins, biscotti, and cookies." "So buy a microwave to heat up muffins for people." Twat. "We don't have room for a microwave. Plus, in the year I've worked here" this is a complete lie, I worked there for all of three or four months "you're the first person who ever asked to have their muffin heated." "Well now I don't want it. So you just lost a customer. Maybe you should rethink your position on microwaves. Let's go William." Yes, bitch. The $1.50 we just lost because you don't want a muffin will make me rush over to Best Buy RIGHT NOW to buy a microwave. Clearly, you win. William looks like he just sat in water. "sorry" he says to me "mom" Then he turns away, pauses, turns back and says "see-ya" "later" I reply. "?later?" "l-a-t-e-r" "William!" Cunty McFucker shouts. "Let's go." And because I have lost my tact when it comes to this woman, I look straight at her and say "He can't hear you, lady, he's deaf." William's eyes telescope large. "sorry" I sign. "same" And his laugh sends me in orbit around the coffeehouse. I may never touch the ground again. Yet another school is several months delinquent in paying me for a gig. Ugh. Zuzu is still dealing with the divorce from hell. Ugh. Two out of my three new roommates are fighting so fiercely, they can't be in the same room with each other. Ugh. I had to interview for a room I'm already living in. That's not so much of an ugh as a huh.
This month has been ughly. The first weekend I lived in the new house, I lived here alone, terrified that all of the other roommates had been killed in some sort of Satanic ritual, and that their ghosts would soon be back to begin haunting me. A few days later, I came home drunk after a night of poetry and Bikey and her boyfriend were in the kitchen. They both appeared to be alive. "Yea, we were in VT for the weekend. I rode my bike up there to play recorder in an early music festival." She rode her bike from Boston to Vermont? I was about to ask her more intriguing questions when The Sole Remaining Gay Roommate, Dale, and The Other Girl, Chippy, entered the room. Upon their arrival, Bikey and her boyfriend vacated the room. "I fucken hate her." Dale said. "Dirty ass bike dyke with her ugly ass hobbit boyfriend." Ugh. "It's a good thing you're not judgmental." Chippy said to Dale. "I'm not judgmental. I just don't like people who are ugly. Or fat." I went upstairs to my room, trying to guage if a jump from my window would kill me. I decided it would only bruise my shins, and there's little as embarrassing as a botched suicide attempt during your first week in a new apartment. By the end of the first week, Chippy had moved out, replaced by her friend, Allison, who was subletting. The two of us enjoyed watching Dale and Bikey not interact with each other. One of us would talk with one of them, the other would talk to the other, and we'd try and see how close we could get them before Bikey (clearly not the alpha in the situation) scurried into her room. We couldn't even get them on the same floor. On the rare occasions that I've left the house, I've either been hanging with Celeste, or dropping off mail at the Post Office. Apparently there is a LARGE PACKAGE waiting for me in Quincy, where I haven't lived in over four years. But if there's a good reason to go to Quincy, it's to get my hands on a large package. I was discussing the mail situation with Chippy, who was moving some of her stuff out, when I mentioned how the last night I went to pick up stuff at Landlord's, I found that he had unpacked MY belongings from MY suitcase, and hidden it, claiming MY suitcase, which had MY name written all over it, wasn't mine. This inspired me to make several other Landlord rants prompting Chippy, who I'd only spoken to once before, to say "These stories sound familiar. I think Feral (the roommate I had replaced) told them to me. He got them from some guy's Livejournal. Oh my God, you're that guy!" "Really?" Dale asked. I am that guy. So I told them how I met Feral via Livejournal, and how we'd had dinner a couple of times, how I'd met his boyfriend, yadda yadda. "So what's your journal about?" Dale asked. "Embarrassing stories mostly. It started off as anonymous gay confessions, but it's sort of expanded into embarrassing everythings." "Wow. There's this guy who lives down the street that Feral knows who writes a journal filled with awkward stories. You should meet him." Chippy and I stared at him for a full minute and a half of awkward silence. "I am that guy who lived down the street." "Oh, right." I really hope he was drunk. Personally, I've been finding myself getting drunker than usual lately. After several months of not really drinking so much, many people and bartenders are determined to dehydrate me via alcohol. Jim Beam's been winking at me, and Captain Morgan has officially appointed me as first mate. I was relieved to discover that Midori is actually a man. No reverse Crying Game incidents for me. At some point this week, I really have to stop putting off going back to my old jobs. There's only so much ramen noodles my digestive system can take. Ugh. This month is an ostrich on a canoe. Midnight, June 30th/July 1st, and I am running to catch one of the last busses to take me to the last train between me, and Clitty's house. Clitty, who is moving the very next day, has offered me a bean bag and conversation. But first must come the bus. I am thinking "Future Fry Cook. Future Fry Cook." This may be the last time I ever take this bus, and wouldn't it be funny to run into him again.
Instead, I see a hot guy fidgeting under the T sign. "Thank God." He says. "There's another bus coming?" I reach into my pocket and pull out a stack of bus schedules. Like a good magician's assistant, he picks out the schedule for the 101, which will whisk us to Sullivan Square. "Wow." He says. "Are you always so prepared?" "No, I'm moving, and I found my T schedules just as I was leaving the house." Tonight has been cast glances out of focus. Move out. Is this my suitcase? Pile of unmarked papers. Where is my cell phone? Do I have everything I need? Turn off the air conditioner. "Where are you headed?" "Allston." "Me, too." I say, feeling inappropriately closer to him. "I'm going to stay with a friend on Ashton Street." "I live on Ashton Street." He says. "Weird." And the bus comes, and we exchange horrible roommate stories. My Melissa Plummer stories are trumped by his tale of a roommate who stole all of his possessions while he was at work, down to pictures of his girlfriend and his underwear. He keeps looking at me like I'm his favorite pint of Ben & Jerry's, and I think, hmmm...maybe something could happen, I mean...pictures of his girlfriend. He casually drops his girlfriend so many times during our conversation, that I think, perhaps, I should pick her up. I'm tempted to get off at the same T stop as him, and talk more, maybe exchange contact info, but I want food and stability and focus. At the all night pizza/sub place, the frat boys are screaming obscenities at the guy behind the counter. "Fuck moo." Says one. I presume I have missed the context for this. I order chicken fingers, and Cherry Coke, and contact info for hot guys who are as oblivious to drunken frat language as I am. Two out of three ain't a Meatloaf song. Clitty is tired, and chatty when I get there. I eat chicken fingers in her kitchen, let her cat chew my fingernails for me. I want my own place. No more Landlord. A former and recurrent coworker has a friend "I think you two would get along great, but he's kind of particular about" and I don't care what he's particular about, I'm done moving in with particular people I don't know. I know Zuzu. I know her particularities, and how best to mesh with them. So I head over to her house. Pup Ratzinger licks my eyes out, and nibbles off my nose. For once, I may have needed it. For two days, we shop together. Mainly meaning, she shops, I assist as best I can. No one is selling focus or a way for me to move my suitcases, or a permanent place for me to move them to. After Zuzu's, I spend time on Celeste's couch, playing The Vagina Game with her and Trick. It's fun, but I don't want to stay. I should be on The Vineyard this week, spending time with my Dad, but the people I'd planned on traveling with are having their own trauma. Little tragedies, like my own. I find myself longing for the days when I could turn my tiny grain of sand problems into beaches large enough for me to spread a blanket on and get comfortable. Melodrama seems just out of reach. "I am so out of touch with the world." I tell Zuzu. "I focus on every day so precisely, that I have no concept of how to handle my future." She pours me another Kahlua and Stoli. Celeste, Trick, and I share a few Ginger Beer and Stolis. I can't drink enough to sleep. As of July 1st, I will officially be moving ou of The Catty Real World. I really like Dr. O, and Evangelical seems like a really nice guy, but once again I came back home early from a trip out of town to find someone other than me in my room, and that's not fucken cool whether FOOD is included in the rent or not. He also left me a note that my room smells like smoke. It does. I, however, don't smoke, so he probably had one of his young Asian friends set up in my room while I was gone, and said person smoked in my fucken room. Hate hate hate. Hate hate hate. But what do you expect from a 62 year old fag who spends all his money seducing young Asian boys with no self-esteem over The Internet. "I hear what you're saying, and I do love you (fill in name of the week here) but Malaysia is so far away. If I can go there and be with you, I will, but if I can't I have to move on. No. No, I love you. Of course I love you, you're very special to me. But I need space." And apparently The Pacific Ocean isn't space enough.
I woke up to a note telling me that Landlord and I "need to talk", meaning, he finally found someone willing to pay more rent for my room, than I'm willing to. He lowered the rent for me because nobody wants the tiny little room that I'm currently inhabiting. But, not being in the mood to talk with him, I just left a note that said "July 1st, I'll be moving out." Sometimes, no matter how badly you want to fuck a guy, you really have to pee first. It's important in these situations that you put your bladder's interests before your testicles, even if it means an extra minute and a half of not yet fucking. I know this, but I am drunk, and Eric looks so cute in his boxer briefs. Surely I can wait a few minutes an hour or two.
This is the first guy in months I've been close to doing anything with. I haven't seen My Future Fry Cook in ages, I don't feel like meeting new people, and I feel like MAMIP is on another planet, even when we're sitting next to each other at the bar. So how can I waste precious naked time peeing? "I'm sooooo hot." He says. He's not being arrogant or narcissistic. Yes, he is good looking, but I'm fairly sure he means, it's eighty fucken degrees. I turn on the air conditioner. "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh." I slide next to him on the bed. This is no small feat. My bed is the size of a pencil case. Eric and I are Sharpies. If we end up fucking, there's going to have to be floor involved. I hate this house. I hate Landlord. I hate that my room is the size of a Pistachio shell. I hate that my room smells like smoke. I hate this place so much that, in the six months I've lived here, only Celeste, Goth Girl, and Dmitri have ever seen the inside of it. Until tonight, the closest I've come to having sex is hearing my cute straight roommate moaning a little too loudly in the other room. But tonight I say fuck this house, and fuck Eric, too, but for entirely different reasons. I liked Eric immediately when we met. I don't remember where that was, or why I liked him, but when I found his phone number on a post-it note in my drawer of doom I immediately thought "Oh cool, it's my friend Eric, the poet, I should call him." Only, when Eric picked up the phone I realized Eric wasn't my friend Eric at all but an entirely different Eric. "Hey, Safey. I didn't think you were going to call me again. How are you?" "Well, I, uh, lost your number for a while. Sorry." I now like Eric because he doesn't small talk, he doesn't care that I have no idea who he is, and he's lying almost naked on my bed. Right. Stop the extemporaneous narration, nearly naked guy next to me on bed. I am not nearly naked, and that needs to be fixed. The problem is, I am a freeballer, so there's no nearly naked me unless I add boxers after I subtract pants. I should go downstairs, pee, change into my boxers and come back upstairs. "I'm thirsty." Eric says. I go downstairs to get juice, change into my boxers, and pee. Unfortunately, someone is in the shower when I get downstairs. I get the juice, drop trou in the kitchen, pick up different trou in the kitchen, and run back upstairs, leaving my jeans in the laundry room. We each down some juice, and start making out. I've never understood the term making out. What is out, and what exactly are the ingredients that go into making it? Sure, saliva, tongues, lips, but those are the ingredients in kissing too. When does kissing become making out? I think the shower stops, I should really go downstairs and pee, but my dick takes it upon itself to pop pout of my boxers and say hello to our new friend, Eric. Eric politely kisses him hello, and I am reminded of a great haiku by Joel Derfner: Remember when I said I disliked oral sex? I meant just with you. Eric is pretty good with his tongue. No Tommy, but adequate. I'm starting to really get into his rhythm when he stops, looks up at me and laughs. His laugh. Imagine a pig gets his hoof caught in a ceiling fan and spraining its (do pigs have ankles?) ankle. You put a cast on it, but whenever it steps on that ankle it makes that little squealing pig noise. This is Eric's laugh. I want to ask him what's so funny, but I start laughing at his laughing, and he leans up to kiss me, and somehow the condom is on my dick and so is Eric's ass, and I no longer care what was so funny. I can only think "Yes" "Wow" "Dear Lord" and "I swear I've never met this guy before in my life, how did his phone number get into my drawer of doom? God I really have to clean that drawer out soon. I'm moving out in two weeks and I should really get a move on and, hey aren't I having sex right now? Yes, right there." Andrew, I mean Eric, Whatever His Name Is is bouncing on me like I'm a Spider Man Hop Ball, and the pressure on my balls as he bounces is almost perfectly balanced with the pressure on my kidneys from the liter and a half of Cherry Coke I drank earlier combined with the juice we chugged pre-fuck. I envision my ejaculation blasting him across the room, followed immediately by a tidal wave of urine filling my Barbie Dream House sized room. This is the unsexiest thought ever, and while I hate to waste a condom "I'll be right back, I really have to pee." Ha, Moment. I have not only killed you, I've chopped you into tiny pieces, and now I am on my way downstairs to piss on your grave. When I get back upstairs Eric is asleep. |
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