Honest Conversation Is Overrated
Actual Human Interactions Witnessed Or Overheard
In Twentieth And Twenty-First Century America
In Twentieth And Twenty-First Century America
It's been 2:18 for over a month now. I get up at 2:18. I sleep at 2:18. Life at Zuzu's is consistently 2:18.
The last time it was 2:17 was when Renee Francois, a French student (quel suprise), moved in. Renee has the peculiar habit of launching into showtunes during the midst of conversation: "Hey, Francois, how's the new job?" "It's good for my brain...I could while away the hours, consulting with the flowers..." It's cute until you're trapped in a car with him for ten minutes. "Is he gay?" Zuzu asked me. "Either that or he's French." It was still 2:18 when he moved out last weekend. One of his friends, a very Elvis Costelloish nerd, came over to help him move. "Stop oogling my tenant's friends." Zuzu said. "I'm not oogling." I said. "I've never oogled anyone in my life. I'm ogling. Check out his ass." And for once, I wasn't calling attention to my favorite boy part because of its shape, but because of what was in the back left pocket: a red bandanna. "What does it mean?" She asked. I made a fist with my right hand, a small hole with my left, and then punched the right hand through it. We tried not to giggle everytime Costello walked down the stairs. "It could just be something else." Zuzu said, but the next time I saw Francois walk down the stairs I noticed the red bandanna in his right pocket. I had to go out back and laugh into my fist until the look of my fist grossed me out, which caused me to laugh even harder, then I was thinking the word "harder", and I was a snort away from hiccuping. Shortly after Francois moved out, Zuzu adopted Pup Ratzinger, an impossibly cute (not miniature, thank God) dachshund who only barks when barked at, and has a nearly insurmountable fear of stairs. For some reason he reminds me of Dmitri. Last night, while Zuzu was training Ratzinger, Landlord, Doctor O, Straight Roommate and I went out to a French Bistro to wish bon voyage to Straight Roommate, who will soon be replaced by an Evangelical Christian. I couldn't imagine why Landlord was inviting an Evangelical to live with us until I saw a picture of our future roommate. He's a Chinese guy in his early twenties. Landlord would invite Reverend Phelps to live with us if he looked remotely Asian. "Don't prejudge him because he's Christian." Landlord said when I rolled my eyes at his the picture he's brought with him. "It's not that." I said. "Look at the banner he's standing under: Crusade for College Christianity? Crusade? No one in their right mind would combine the word Christian and Crusade these days unless they were trying to evoke negativity or violence. Why not just call it 'Kill a Campus Muslim for Jesus'?" We argued semantics for a few minutes until the hot, obviously straight, Asian waiter took our order. I don't like American French Food. Pate disgusts me, and if I'm paying twenty dollars for an appetizer, it better suck my cock before I eat it. Dr. O and I split an order of escargot in garlic butter that was amazing. Then, I had some lobster bisque. For $18 I got two tiny pieces of lobster in about an ounce of bisque. Next time, I pick the restaurant. This whole week has been a series of papercuts with elaborate bandaids. No working computer means I spend more time Chez Zuzu, overindulging on homemade food and watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force with her son, Lot. Put some ice on it. Because yet another coworker was late, and I spilled coffee on myself, I had to skip a night out with a cute non-poetry-slam bisexual and his friends. Instead, I spent hours on the phone talking with cute friends in Iceland and California. Kiss it and make it better. I still haven't made it to the post office, and I have a ton of shit to send, so I go home and eat a half dozen macaroons I bought at the French restaurant. Bathe me in Bactine. Fuck papercuts, all of my problems are two tiny pieces of lobster in an ounce of bisque. People would kill for my problems. Except Tuesday night. Tuesday night was a six pound order of escargot sauteed in battery acid. Tuesday night was Reverand Phelps with automatic weapons. Instead of a papercut, Tuesday night was a guillotine. For the eleventh time in one day, I'd identified someone as the cutest person in the world. I watched him watch me watch him for ten minutes before he came to the counter to order some "Mode?" No one has called me Mode since I was a camp counselor over ten years ago. "Grant?" I can't believe I was checking out one of my former kids, why he must only be...25...ok, I can believe it. I just forget that the "kids" I counseled were only three years younger than me. The chasm between 14 and 17 seems immense, but 25 and 28? Who cares? I walked around the counter and hugged him. An act that would shock most of my friends who seem to think I wrap myself in barbed wire to keep people from touching me. "How've you been?" "Better." He said. "I've been much better than today. My mom's here." He waved in the general direction of the hospital. "Breast cancer." "I'm so sorry." I said. "Oh, it's no big deal. It's just that this is the first time I've been back to Mass since the Bernard thing." "Bernard thing?" I asked. He gave me the Velociraptor Look. "You don't know? Oh my God, it must have been after you left. Do you want to go out for a drink after work? I'm buying." I don't remember the last time I said no to that question. For the next hour, I flashed through disjointed memories about my days as a camp counselor at Camp Davis. Nothing emotional, just a series of snapshots of people I'd forgotten. Bernard. Bernard was my nemesis. When I was an eleven year old camper, Bernard was a twenty year old counselor. He taught archery. All the cool boys got special permission to spend time with Bernard at the range, while the rest of us suffered through gymnastics or horseback. I was not cool, so I hated Bernard. The first year I was a counselor, Bernard was unemployed due to his mistakenly thinking he was more valuable to the camp then he was, so I got to work on the archery range with his assistant. Sure, the cool boys spent a lot of time hanging out with me, but so did the uncoordinated girls, the boys with lisps, and even the girls who smelled like their fathers' insecurities. When Bernard returned the next year, I was banished from archery, forced to teach swimming to the kids not cool enough for bows and arrows. At after work parties, Bernard shunned me, and spread the rumor that I was a fag. I wanted to shatter his smile into arrowheads. Oddly enough, it was Bernard who offered the peace pipe. I was dragging a cooler down to a beach with a group of Irish friends when Bernard drove by in his black Jeep and blew the horn at me. "Hey Mode, I'm having a party at my house tonight. If you and your friends want to stop by, that'd be cool. Just bring some beer." So a sixpack of Zima and a sunburn later, my friends and I were sitting on Bernard's porch, listening to the Black Crowes and mingling with some of my other coworkers. The night was fireworks with no calendric meaning. I stumbled into the kitchen for another Zima when Bernard grabbed me by the hair and said "Take your faggy ass friends and get the fuck out of my house." The people around us supplied the "What the fuck?" for me. "You come into my house, trash my living room, drink my beer, and..." "What are you talking about?" his girlfriend of the week asked. "The living room is fine, and he brought the beer, remember?" I ran out of the house before he could respond. I stopped on the porch and looked at my friends. "We have to leave. Now." From that day forward, we spoke in scowls and glares. Then I grew up, took a real job and forgot all about him. "He molested us." Grant said after our third shots of tequila. "Fuck." Was the only thing to say. "Didn't you ever wonder why it was only the cute boys? Why he called everyone he hated 'fag'?" I hadn't. Then again, I'd been a naive 18 year old when I'd left. "He made me hate myself for years. Then I found out he'd started messing around with my little brother and..." He took another shot. "It had to stop." My tongue was granite, my eyes seized. "There were so many of us...Jared ended up in jail for some hate crime thing. Brad still won't talk about it with anyone. And Ryan ended up killing himself." No. No. Must not break shot glass in fist. Must not shake Grant until he sucks his story out of my brain to some place safer. Must not drive back east, find whatever cell Bernard is currently occupying and rip his balls out via his ear canal. "Fucked up, huh?" I heard nothing else until goodbye. A brief hug. I gave him my phone number and told him to call me if he needed to blow off steam. I've spent enough time in hospitals this past year staring at white walls to know the loneliness of fluorescent lights. "Sure." He said. "I'll probably come down and get coffee from you tomorrow. Mom might come with me. She'd shit if she knew you were here. You were one of her favorite counselors." "That'd be great." I said. I didn't see either of them on Wednesday. Thursday was my day off. Yesterday I took long breaks, and spent most of my non-break time reorganizing shelves. I'm staying at Zuzu's to avoid the temptation to answer the phone at my house. When I close my eyes I see a slideshow of kids with question mark eyes and closed mouths. I wish I'd been smart enough or strong enough to help them back then. Today, I'm thankful I'm out of earshot.
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You are not regular. I don't care if you shit every day at 8:45 AM, spend from 9-5 in a cubicle crunching numbers and drinking coffee. The fact that you like "24" and "Desperate Housewives" makes you average, but "average" and "regular" are not the same thing. Six inches hanging straight down may be average, but it ain't regular.
Three customers at work today asked for a "regular" coffee; one meant a medium black houseblend, one wanted a small houseblend with two creams and two sugars, and one wanted a shot of espresso. Words failed me, but not as much as the word "regular" failed them. When a person writes a personal ad, and says he's a "regular guy", I picture an obese black underwear model with blonde hair, purple eyes, wearing only a sweater vest and six Swatch watches. His ass has a door over the hole that says "unleaded only". You know, regular. I don't like regular people. My friends have style: Zuzu is adopting a dachshund (against my advice) and, because dachshunds are German, naming it Pup Ratzinger. Celeste uses a 1950's era medical kit as a purse, and even writes with pens shaped like syringes. Dmitri drinks ketchup straight from the bottle when he's nervous. My friends don't even have regular names. *** Landlord woke me up at 5 AM to tell me my room was messy. I knew this already. "Why are you in my room anyway?" "I'm looking for dishes." he said. "Try the kitchen." I rolled over and fell back asleep. I dreamed I was on "American Idol", freestyling a Christian gospelesque song while Billy Joel played classical piano. I have this dream every Tuesday. It's a regular occurrence. I rewoke up at 9:30, had eggs and toast with my new roommate, an Australian woman who tests the effects of psychotropic drugs on schizophrenics. I call her Dr. O. "When I was sixteen," I told her, "my roommate, JBOB and I took mescaline for the first time. Just as the high started kicking in, we were given free tickets for a preview showing of Natural Born Killers. When it let out, we alternated between hiding in doorways and searching the city for Laura Palmer's remains. I haven't touched mescaline or NBK since." At ten thirty, I caught a bus to work. A complete stranger with piercing green eyes said, as he stepped off the bus, "I love your haircut." I stammered out a weak "Thanks?". He turned around and waved. His shirt said "Future Fry Cook". The film version of my life has run out of extras. I was barely at work for a half hour when Clarissa called. Twice. Fuck Clarissa, I should refer to her as Needy Smurf. No, that's too harsh. Needy Bitch. She's been telling my coworkers she's my girlfriend, and she constantly "calls me back", which is remarkable only because I never call her first. After an uneventful day of pouring coffee, I took the T to Quincy to mail books to prisoners. As I opened the door to the church I heard "Safey?" And across the street was my beautiful ex-not-quite-boyfriend, MAMIP. "It really is you." I wondered if he was surprised at my haircut, the fact that I was wearing the shirt he bought me, or that I was entering a church. Turns out, one of my illustrious former coworkers told him I'd moved back to Arizona. "Right." I said. "Just after I had breast augmentation and took up drinking kerosene and lighting my belches on fire." He stared blankly at me. I am on the receiving end of this look more than I care to admit. We exchanged new phone numbers and soap opera stares until he had to go to work. When I was finished with my volunteer work, I headed over to Zuzu's for dinner. Then I headed home and went to sleep. Alone. If I were a gerbil, my water bottle would be filled with Cherry Coke. If Dmitri were a gerbil, he'd be doing commercial modeling for Habitrail. If I were a gerbil, and Dmitri were a gerbil, we could have the kind of hot, kinky gerbil sex that doesn't invoke the urban myth of Richard Gere and an Emergency Room visit.
I'm not a gerbil, and neither is Dmitri. We are two humans who met through Livejournal, decided to hang out in person, and decided that a trip to an art exhibit would be fun. we hadn't anticipated that said "art exhibit" would be inside a warehouse that gave off serious Freddy Kreuger vibes. But there we were, on the wrong side of a swinging door. On our side of the door: wood chips, a fake hanging water bottle, large fake gerbil turds, a bowl full of water, another bowl full of stale crullers that were supposed to look like gerbil food, no other door, and the windows were barred. On the other side of the door, ominously approaching footsteps. Footsteps that never materialized into another human being. During our moment of fear, I should have wrapped my arms protectively around Dmitri and maybe kissed him. I didn't. The two of us just sort of wandered around the giant cage making jokes about how bizarre it was that this exhibit was held inside a seemingly abandoned warehouse. While I kicked fake turds, Dmitri swung on the giant bird swing, the only part of the exhibit that was out of place with the whole Gerbil Cage Mystique. I've owned several gerbils in my day, and never bought a trapeze swing for any of them. Gerbils would make shitty acrobats. From the life-size gerbil cage, we made our way to The New England Aquarium. We were supposed to meet Zuzu there in the early afternoon, but like just about all my friends that I'd made plans with during Dmitri's visit, she failed to show. So we went in without her. On our way in, our photograph was taken. I would have liked a photograph of the time we spent together, but their photo looked like shit, I hated my hair, and they wanted like a bazillion bucks for a cheap ass picture that we hadn't been prepared for. After making our way through the jellyfish exhibit, where Dmitri proved his skillz at video games by defeating a jellyfish game designed for six year olds, we arrived at The Giant Ocean Tank. As we circled the tank, Dmitri said some rather insightful things about sharks and giant turtles before jumping back about five feet and letting out a rather loud "Oh, gross!" I imagined that if I looked hard enough, I'd see an amputated bloody hand floating in the tank. Then, I remembered how Dmitri felt about other human beings, and realized he'd be overjoyed to see that the Aquarium was feeding human beings to the fish. "What is it?" I asked. "That fish. It's so huge and ugly. I hate giant things." I made a mental note not to show him my penis, then I made another mental note that I didn't have a giant penis, and we would both be safe should penis presentation time ever arrive. At the top of the tank, an old lady was telling a young mom and her brood something interesting about sharks that I fully intended to remember and write about, but the goldfish part of my brain has since vanquished. Dmitri and I discussed how unhungry he was after the traumatizing giant fish situation, and headed back down around the tanks to check out The Penguin Pool. For those of you just joining this journal, I love penguins so much, I am tempted to write I <3 Rockhoppers the most. Maybe it's the punk rock hair, maybe it's the way they honk for attention, I don't know. But it was at The Rockhopper exhibits that I had my first revelation concerning my feelings for Dmitri. Rockhoppers are incredibly territorial, and, while sociable, don't appear to be overly friendly. While we watched, one of the aquarium employees was moving around the pool doing something scientific. The Rockhoppers were taking turns honking at him. One would spend ten seconds "singing", then another would begin. There was never any overlap in the honking, and there as rarely a second between one penguin's honking and another. They were cute, obnoxious, and loud. Like Elvis. Like Alex. Like Dmitri. Nothing at all like MAMIP or Liam or Ryan; they were Magellanics. I thought I'd passed through my Rockhopper phase, now preferring a less needy guy who loved me more than the attention I lavished on him. Don't get me wrong, I am not and was not in love with Dmitri. I love his writing, the way he thinks, the way he blows into his own ear with a bendy straw when I accidentally stop paying attention to him for ten seconds while Clarissa asks me a question. I think he is mentally and physically amazingly beautiful, but I wasn't in love with him. I was just terrified by how easily I could have been in love with him if the scenario was a little different: say, we lived in the same city, or if I wasn't spending so much of his visit brooding over my irresponsible friends, or if he didn't have a boyfriend. I may be a naive, lust hungry, easy target for falling in love, but I have enough self-control to never allow myself to be in love with someone who is in a relationship already. "He's not your type." Clarissa said well after Dmitri had left Boston. "What is my type?" I asked in my vaguely annoyed tone of voice. "I don't know. He's so Young. Don't get me wrong, he's adorable, and really sweet, but don't you think you'd be happier with someone older?" This from the thirty-eight year old, currently lusting after eighteen year old breakdancers. "He doesn't write like he's Young. And, I mean, he does act Young, but he's so self-aware. I act Young all the time. It's what keeps me from being a depressed misanthrope like you." Wisely, the topic of conversation changed at that point. So what if he was is seven years and seventeen days younger than I am? He's...not available, so why bother finishing that particular line of logic? "Do you want to go dancing?" He asked me, the night after our gerbil excursion. The answer was Yes. I've never been a club kid, never spent much time at Manray or any of the clubs in Provincetown, but I've always secretly wanted to go, and now I had the opportunity to be guest listed at a club where I could dance with an insanely hot, nerdy, meglaphobic gay crush. So why didn't I go? There's no conceivable reason why ACDC's "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You" is stuck in my head. No one around me recently has sung or referenced that song, no one has rocked (or appeared about to), and I have not seen someone salute anyone since I shaved off my Hitler mustache in the mid nineties (I'm kidding, I'd never shave off my Hitler mustache...I mean, I've never had a Hitler mustache).
All week long, the wrong things have been popping into my head: that horribly catchy Maroon 5 single, Manamana, the word "phlebotomy". At work, a softspoken man was trying to order a raisin scone, and I kept hearing him say "bra strap, bra strap, bra strap" over and over. The crazy quotient in my life keeps escalating. My mother called last week to tell me she heard an ad for a job on the radio that would be perfect for me: bag checker at Logan airport. When I tell her that I'm not the least bit interested, she asks if I'm content to bag groceries for the rest of my life. I've never worked in a grocery store in my life, but now I'm considering it just because I think she's prejudiced against supermarket clerks. Yesterday, she called and asked if she could visit on Saturday. Just as she hung up, Zuzu called and suggested driving to New York City on Saturday to see a poetry event. When I reminded her that Dmitri is going to be in town on Saturday, and that he might not want to spend ten hours of his visit in a car, I realized that the real issue was that I didn't want to be trapped in a car for ten hours with Zuzu, Dmitri, and Zuzu's latest "boy toy", a guy who, within the first five minutes of my first conversation with him, brought up both how easy it is to murder someone AND how complicated his life has been since he was released from the mental institution. Today, I received an e-mail from someone saying that they were removing me from their friends list because I mentioned in an entry that I don't like cunnilingus. If you've read enough of my journal to decide to add me as a friend, and you don't realize that I'm not going to be a huge proponent of cunnilingus, I just don't know what to say except: "Penguin lust." Crush. Crush. Crush. Orange Crush. Grape Crush. High School Crush. Crushed Velvet. Crush from Demolition. Crush. Crush. Crush. I've had every sort of crush imaginable. Hot boys with no brains. Smart boys with no asses. Big dicked, boner-brained hipsters, hippies who've met every criteria associated with the word thick you can imagine, I've even crushed on dorks with overbites so big you could hang them from the Sears Tower by their upper jaw. Does anyone remember Strawberry Crush or Watermelon Crush? Back in the days of Fresca and Tab you could get any type of Crush you wanted. The options were...well...crushing. I've been all kinds of crushed. Emotionally, physically, spiritually, agnostically. I crush. You crush. We crush. I have been crushed.
The two people I've fallen hardest for, I haven't been able to write about. MAMIP and Liam. Liam was a pretty typical crush for me: cute nerd who everyone thinks is quiet, but is secretly a jaded neurotic type with a killer body and hot nerd tongue. Not that we ever kissed, but the ex-girlfriend who stole his virginity, then did the whole "I think I'm pregnant" routine with him TWICE when he tried to break up with her, she told me the things he could do with his tongue were amazing. Unfuck her for torturing me that way. MAMIP was far from typical. Sweet, charming, sincere, honest, sexy. He has a voice that makes women (and ten percent of the guys) orgasm from fifty feet away just by saying the word "Oy." His Portuguese Oy has often caused me to give a Yiddish Oi. His voice. A man that hot, but so sweet and shy shouldn't have that kind of voice. He should have to talk through JAWS...with a lisp. But no, he's got Voice. Imagine my pants splattering surprise when, after seven months of not talking to each other, he called me. When his name showed up on Caller ID, I dropped the phone on the sidewalk, then scrambled to pick it up, elbowing two old ladies, and a toddler with a clear learning disability. "Hey (let's for the fuck of it call him Mark) Marc!" "¿Stevie?" He had dialed the wrong number. "No, it's Safey." "Oh, hey Safey. I'm sorry I was trying to dial someone else." Imagine how disappointed I'd be if that's how the conversation had actually gone down. It didn't. After seven months, I'd had all the silence I could take from him. So I called him when I KNEW he'd be at work. How did I know? Certainly not because I called his work first to find out if he was there. What kind of desperate psycho do you think I am? Surely not THAT kind. When his voicemail picked up, I smoothly left him a message: "Oh, Marc, I'm sorry I was trying to call my friend Martin. Hey, I haven't talked to you in ages. I don't know what you've been up to lately, but I miss hanging out with you. Maybe I'll stop in and visit you at work one of these days. Happy Holidays." Oh, yeah. I'm smoove like Smoove B. I combined my awkward lack of social skills, creative dishonesty, and free cell phone minutes into a looooooooooooooooove trap. And that's why I dropped the phone, and beat up a couple of septuagenarians and an infant to get at my cell. "Hey, Marc, how are you?" "I'm good." And the way he said good was just...soooo...gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood. It was twenty-someodd degrees and I was melting. "How are you?" Well, I was, if not depressed, very much apathetic. No Internet access, I'm not fully moved out of my old place or into my new one. I've been couch surfing by request. A few nights with Zuzu, a few with Cali, now with Celeste. All in all this week has gone from not very good to wow, this is going to suck. Until the call. I'd regale you with all the sensual details of our conversation, like how we're going to get together for coffee, even though neither of us drink coffee, but that sort of thing is boring. Instead I'll talk about all the sex we aren't going to have because he's probably still not out, and he lives with his close-knit family, and I now live with... Ahhh, the new house. The Landlord is The King of Signs. The door tells the mailman where to leave which letters. There's a sign on the bottom stair telling you to watch your step, and clean your feet. At the top of the steps, each bedroom door is marked with which roommate lives in the room. There wil be four of us, including the landlord. We certainly don't want to get all confused thinking someone lives in the wrong room. The kitchen tells you which glasses The Landlord would rather you use, as well as which spices go with which kind of food, and how long to dry each type of dish. Don't even ask about the full colored manual in the washing room. It has graphs. Plural. GraphS. The first night that I crashed at my future house, there was a note telling me how to turn on the lights. Unfortunately, I couldn't see the sign because all the lights were out. This caused me to stumble into Roommate #1: The Frat Boy, who was stumbling drunkenly down the stairs. He gave the typical Frat Boy Mating Call "What the Fuck?" when he bumped into me. I introduced myself, he went to the bathroom, and then to bed. I haven't seen him since. Roommate #2 is on The Real South Beach Diet. Pills. Many many many pills. Even Barry Bonds has called the house asking Roommate #2 to stop taking so many goddamned pills. It's freakish. The way he hunches over when he shuffles downstairs to smoke or take some pills. It's the only thing he leaves the house for: to get more pills from the pharmacy. Luckily, Roommate #2 will be gone in two weeks. I'm not sure who will be replacing him. Frat Boy will also be gone in the new year. Roommate #3 is...I didn't get his name. He was talking to me for about ten minutes, but the entire time he was talking, all I was thinking was "pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty", which I'm pretty sure means he's straight. Which beings us back to Marc, who isn't straught, but who plays one in his social groups. I've missed him like astronauts miss gravity. He wants to see my new place. In my mind this means we're going to fuck all day, fall in love, make beautiful Brazilian-Irish-American babies. But I know in his mind, he's just curious about where I live. I'm fairly pessimistically certain that he's incapable of loving me with the furor that I love him. Next week, I'll be back in his orbit. He will pull every bone, muscle, and organ into a new alignment. I will be so atrophied that the gravity of his kiss will tear through my body, leaving me as a pile of bones on the carpet of my new place. Crushed. Again. When I was just four years old, the family dog died. I don't remember too much about it. I'm not even entirely sure if Razzy was a Rottweilier or a Black Lab. He is a big and blackish blur in my memory. My father told me some confusing nonsense about a "puppy farm in the sky" which led me to picture a floating garden with puppy heads growing in neat little rows.
Shortly afterwords, my parents and I went out to choose a new family pet. Over the years my mother had developed an intense allergy to dogs and cats, so eventually we were the proud owner of blue parakeet. He didn't lick me nearly as much as Razzy had. There was never much drama surrounding family pets. I've owned one cat, three parakeets, umpteen billion fish, two hamsters, an assortment of gerbils that I bred for a local pet store, two chinchillas, six leopard geckos, one calote, one anole, and one flying squirrel. Not all at the same time, though I did have a gecko, the cat, the squirrel, the calote and the anole all in the same house for a brief period of time. On the rare occasions that the pet died (the squirrel and Spider the Chinchilla I gave to a friend of mine), I buried/flushed it (buried the fish, flushed the cat obviously) and went on with my life. When Zuzu's cat, Eureka, died after sixteen years, she and her son were understandably devastated. Eureka had been the only family pet. A true member of the family. I loved the little furball, even though he pissed all over my papers when I decided to move to Vermont. After a few weeks of grief, Zuzu decided to go pet hunting. Because Zuzu is stubborn, and, well, batshit crazy, she couldn't go the normal route of pet stores or animal "shelters". Instead, she decided to call another one of our crazy friends for advice on what type of dog to get. A golden retriever? Too big. A miniature dachshund? Too likely that I'd punt it through a window when I visited. I put my vote in for a chihuahua. I'm not a big fan of little dogs, but ever since I heard someone read a poem about how they shiver because they're in a state of constant orgasm, I've had an affinity for the little Taco Bell spokesmen. Plus, if Zuzu ever brought the dog over to my house, I would sit in front of the lizard tank and say "Heeeeeere leezard leeezard leezard" over and over again until it either stopped being funny, or the dog died of starvation. Zuzu decided to call our friend Eve to get her opinion. I love Eve, she's a rock star. She served as bridesmaid to dozens of couples during the night they legalized gay marriages in Boston. The thing is, if you ask Eve whether or not she thinks you should get a chihuahua, she will give you a six hour lecture on the history of dogs beginning with their evolution from dinosaurs to their current role as purse accessories. It was during Eve's canine magnum opus that Zuzu and I first heard of a lesbian couple who bred border collies. We agreed that border collies were beyond cute with their hypnotizing eyes and reserved nature. So Zuzu contacted the breeders (lesbian breeders? I've discovered a new oxymoron!) and set up an appointment to meet with them. But she weren't just going to go to their house and hang out with dogs, Donna and Elaine (the lesbians) wanted to show Zuzu the breeding process. So why shouldn't I tag along? What's more exciting than a Sunday afternoon kicking back a few Jack & Cokes and watching dogs fuck? We reached Donna & Elaine's at around 11 AM. We had heard the dogs barking since 9:15. During our conversation with Donna, we had to yell in order to be heard. I was amazed at the way Elaine seemed to waltz around the room completely oblivious to the constant yapping of puppies. Turns out she's Deaf. After some ASL dialogue, and witty repartée, we were ready to watch the breeding. At least, I thought we were ready. I'm familiar with canine sex habits. Male sniffs female. Male gets erection. Male commences fucking. Mother Nature makes male doggy's cock so engorged with blood that he can't pull out until his little spermies have established property rights in female's uterus. No big whoop. The lesbians, however, had a different breeding method. While we watched, a male dog, who we'll call Harrowed, was picked up by Elaine. Donna entered the room with a female dog, appropriately known as Bitch. Bitch was put down on a table so that her face and Harrowed's were level, though Harrowed was still being held by Elaine. Harrowed began sniffing her face. At this point, Donna brings out a large tube and begins jerking off Harrowed into the tube. When the tube is filled, Donna attaches it to a syringe and proceeds to inject it into Bitch's vagina. "Oh don't look so traumatized." Donna said, while I sat in a chair looking and being traumatized. "How did you think dogs were bred." I know how dogs are supposed to breed. What these people, these lesbians were doing was just cruel. Just because they can't get pregnant without use of a sperm donor and a turkey baster is no reason to inflict their lifestyle on their dogs. Fuck marriage and adoption, lesbians should not be allowed to breed dogs. A witch, an orphan, and The Phantom of the Opera walk into a bar. The bartender says "What the fuck?" The orphan says "Can we use your restroom?"
Last Wednesday night, my roommate announced that he would like to go to Las Vegas. I went over the pros and cons of the city, as I saw them. One of the largest cons (besides Celine Dion and iodine filled shrimp) on my list was the barrage of people who stand outside the casinos smacking flyers against their palms and sticking them in the front of your face. I referred to those people as soulless inbred pieces of shit. This week I call them colleagues. When Zuzu called me and said that a company wanted to pay me $20 an hour to dress up as The Phantom of the Opera and hand out flyers, I thought...well, I didn't think anything, little green dollar signs flashed in my eyes, my dick got hard, and I began to drool. This is clearly a sign that I need to reconsider my career options. On Thursday afternoon, I listened in on The Conference Call of the Damned. Dozens of people from around the country who, like me, had chosen to sell their dignity in order to play dress up, called and asked ridiculous questions of the incompetent managers running the promotion. When the managers felt they had distributed all the appropriate knowledge to us lowly pions, they deigned we could hang up the phone, one of my boneheaded colleagues shouted "I'm SanFranPhantom2004 on AIM, IM me." I considered donating some of my pride to him, but I know he'd only abuse it. Friday night I went to see/participate in a show with Steggy and veritable who's who of my friends list (meaning that if I posted their journal names you'd be like "who's that? I've never seen them comment before"). Unfortunately, I didn't get to do any Insafemode stuff, but that's ok, I got to satirize Steggy AND hear a bunch of my favorite poets from MA. When I got home shortly after midnight, I sat down to watch John Stewart bitch slap Crossfire. The doorbell rang. At 1:05 AM some motherfucker was ringing my goddamned doorbell. Zuzu was that motherfucker. We drove to her house, my humble abode circa 2000, and then again circa 2001. After some pistachios and chai, she gave me the first of the bad news. Chuck the Incompetent (what can you expect from a grown man who goes by Chuck?) had told both men in the promotion that they would be the phantom. The other guy being a 75 year old man. The other character in the promotion being Oliver Twist. Now, for the benefit of mankind, I was willing to concede that I should be the one dressed as a twelve year old orphan. So I put on the torn shirt, ripped corduroys, green neckerchief, and paperboy hat (I bet you'd like to see a picture of that you sick fucks). Meanwhile, Zuzu put on her Tracy Turnblad costume. When I lived in the house with Zuzu, her husband and their son, the neighbors gave us lots of dirty looks. More than a couple of people believed that we were living some sordid swinger life. I can only imagine what these neighbors were thinking when they peered through the windows at 3 AM and saw Zuzu in a big wig and a housedress featherdusting while I wandered around the kitchen dressed like a twelve year old orphan. The next morning Chuck called to give us moral support. He called Zuzu's house and told us how stupid the people from the California promotion were. He called the other half of our team and told them how stupid the Chicago people were. He also mentioned how hard it was to cast the New York show, what with all the black people replying to the ads. "You can't have a black Phantom of the Opera. That would be like a gay Oliver." The promotion was scheduled to start somewhere in the city at nine. At 11 or so, we all met in a parking garage, introduced ourselves and walked out into the public eye. Actually we walked into auditions for the fucken Real World. Picture 2 men, and 3 women dressed in Broadway show costumes weaving through hundreds of 18-24 year old "reality TV" hopefuls. There were a few cat calls. And yes, by putting on ridiculous costumes and walking the streets of Boston we sacrificed a bit of our dignity. You can make fun of us for that. But while we're losers for pretending to be someone else, if your narcissistic ass gets a part on The Real World, you'll be branded a loser just for being yourself. May you all get stuck on Road Rules, trailer trash. From the very beginning of Day One, I got all kinds of flirt play. Mostly from fairly hot looking women, but from a few Broadway geek gays, too. I was returning the flirt to one such boy when I noticed this really sleazy looking Skeletor standing in a puddle of his own drool. He limps over to me and starts talking to me about how much he loves musicals, and he's really happy that young men like myself are able to make money acting in musicals. Whatever, freak. After a few seconds of me obviously trying to ignore him without being so obvious that I drop character, he asks what high school I go to. EWWWWWW. Look you middle-sighted Skeletor looking pedophile, I'm not at all flattered that you think I look young enough to be in high school. I felt like calling over one of the cops that was in the area and asking them to beat him with their nightclubs. I understand the attraction to youth thing, but if I'm sixty years old and approaching what I think to be a high school student on the street in an attempt to get some play, I hope they taser my testicles and drag me back to the senior citizen concentration camp. Don't get me wrong, I don't see anything wrong with old people and young people dating (I'm a little grossed out in most cases, but to each their own deviance) but old people harassing teenagers is just bleurgh. No amount of Viagra in the world... The rest of the day was smoother than a queen's upper lip. People loved us. Hordes of tourists demanded to take pictures of us, and then took flyers by the handful. Not one was thrown on the ground. We were promotion whores. Around oneish we hit The Commons, where we were serenaded by a homeless man dressed as The Cat in the Hat. If I'm ever down on my luck, I will write an inspirational story about this man. At three we turned around, and began our pilgrimage to the car. All in all, a fantastic day. The second day began the badness. Being smarter than the coma patient who dreamed up this promotion, I suggested we head to the Theatre District and hand out flyers about a Broadway themed television show to the people who were paying top dollar to go see Broadway shows. This is why they pay me the big bucks. Unfortunately, parking in Boston on Sunday near the Theatre District is an ugly zoo. It took, literally, hours, for us to find parking. While the women searched for parking Grandpa Phantom and I headed to The Wang to pass out flyers. We were quickly told to disperse. When we met up with Zuzu, The Witch, and Thoroughly Modern Millie, we decided to hit up some high traffic locations that we'd avoided the day before. On the way there, we made a return trip to The Common. This time, instead of flocks of tourists, there was a mob centered around one of the park bench areas. The Phantom and I were leary of the mob, so we stood back while the womenfolk began pestering the people of the mob. That's when I noticed the cross. So did Zuzu and "Millie," both of whom backed off. Meanwhile, during a moment of silence for the homeless Christians of Boston, a woman in a witch costume was handing out flyers for a television show. Oddly, no one was struck by lightning. Other highlights of the day included being waved into a senior citizen home where all the residents took pictures and flyers, and getting free advertising by the Duck Tours staff who took flyers, and pointed us out every time they drove past us, making sure to note the TV show we were promoting and when it airs. Go Ducks. On our way through the North End, we encountered some sort of hockey team who took pictures with us. After the photos were taken, I handed one of the ugly monkeys a flyer which he refused. He said "I don't watch no Broadway shows" much the way a hooker will tell a cop "I don't suck no dick for crack money." Around two o'clock we headed toward The Opera House, where The Lion King would be getting out. Unlike those assholes at The Wang, the lovely staff at The Opera House were more than happy to allow us to hand out Broadway related flyers to the people leaving a Broadway show. Right around the corner from The Opera House, a mob of people with photos snapped hundreds of pictures of us, and took hundreds of flyers. They were there to take pictures of The Yankees leaving their hotel room. And so it was that a mob of Yankee fans, Red Sox Nation, the audience of The Lion King, and five soulless TV promoters shared the same block in Boston, MA. We gave out ten thousand flyers. TEN THOUSAND in thirty minutes. They had given us five days to give out fifteen thousand. Chuck and his bosses should each fly out here to Boston and suck my cock for coming up with the "pass out flyers in the Theatre District" idea. They won't. Chuck would probably have said something like "I hope you didn't give any tickets to the gooks or the spics. They don't like Broadway shows." Now we had a conundrum. We'd signed up for five days of work handing our flyers. In one and a half days, the tickets were all gone. We decided as a group to call Chuck and ask him to send more tickets, hinting that we might need more, not letting him now that we were finished with the job. So Chuck mailed us out more tickets. For whatever reason, we were forbidden to work on Monday (further proof that Chuck belongs to some weirdo cult for the creatively challenged). So this morning, the witch, the phantom, "Millie", Zuzu and I met in the pouring rain to hand out flyers in malls. This is, by the way, completely against policy in every mall in America. Incompetent Chuck and friends had not arranged any place for us to go in case of rain. I knew, having done my tour of duty as a mall worker, that handing out flyers on their property was going to get us in trouble. Once again, I came to the rescue. I harassed the nice folks of Borders and Barnes & Noble, all of whom were overjoyed to take stacks of flyers from us. Still, we had been contracted to hand the flyers out on the streets, so in my two size too small shoes (which I forgot to mention earlier), I trudged through the rain where angry suits, aging Valley Girls, and the sort of black-eyelined cutting pseudo-goth whose LJ name likely includes the word "bitch" "pain" or "vindicated" refused to take flyers. There are five common moves used to avoid getting flyers: Move #1 is the no-eye contact fly by. I approve whole-heartedly to this approach. You don't want the flyer or your time wasted. I agree that you have a right not to talk to me, hot and charming as I may be. Move #2: The two handed cell phone approach. This says that you would take a flyer but your cell phone is so heavy that you just can't carry anything else. This is usually accompanied by a shrug. Move #3: The head shake and grimace. Kind of like the no-eye contact fly by but with a "Fuck you for interrupting my very busy day of molesting children and stealing from the poor" cherry on top. Move #4: Feigned interest. You listen to the spiel, ask questions, then leave without taking a flyer. Have you nothing better to do? I don't. If I did, I'd be doing it. Either take a flyer or go back to your job at Starbuck's. Move #5: Arm waving hostility. This is accompanied by screaming and moral outrage. Luckily, none of the promoters in my group were the recipient of move #5. But while we were in Harvard Square in the wind and rain, we were interspersed with people trying to get donations and volunteers for John Kerry and a similar group for George Bush. One poor sap asked some liberal looking guy if he'd like to donate to Kerry. The guy got really indignant and began waving his hands and screaming "I've already given $500 to the Kerry campaign and $500 to the Democrats. Thanks to this ridiculous McBane law (his ignorance, not mine), I can't legally blah blah blah. Why can't you guys give me a pin or something so you know that I've done all I legally can. Stop harassing me blah blah blah." While he ranted, I asked the pro-Bush people for a stack of flyers, and stuck them in the manpurse the guy was carrying. At the end of the day, wet, sullen, burly, blister-footed, I dragged myself to the bar where I have, on occasion, met my prospective publisher. I hoped she would show, see me in all my raggedy glory so she would be inspired to either speed up the publication/check cutting process or at least see the limits I was willing to go to get material for my next book. I'm in the middle of writing this extremely graphic sex scene for the book. I'm dressed in my boxers and my Fantastic Four shirt, with my hair still wet from the shower ("are you purposefully trying to look more gay?" Wiz asked the last time I had my hair slicked outlike this). The doorbell rings. Thinking it's Zuzu, coming over to talk about the reading I'm hosting at the DNC, I run to the door without putting on any pants. On the other side of the door are the two hottest Mormon missionaries. I so just got their phone numbers. You know, just so I could talk to them about God and stuff.
I said goodbye to no one when I finally moved out of Cranberry Lake. I put in my two weeks notice at Kookaburra Canyon. Told my boss from the fudge store that I needed some extended time off. Then I put all of my non-essential items in storage, and moved to Boston to become a full-time poet and writer.
I moved in with a woman named Zuzu who I’d met at a poetry reading in Cranberry Lake. I’d been slowly moving into her house since we’d met. First spending weekends there, staying up late and making fun of fellow performers that we knew. Eventually, I was there so often that moving there just made sense. In lieu of paying rent, I gave her my grand piano, which her husband used to teach their ten year old son, Lot, how to play. I stayed there about four months, living the dream, before I nearly came to fisticuffs with the man organizing the Boston poetry scene. I was mentioning this to a poet in Vermont that I’dbefriended, when she suggested I move up to Burlington. I had no money saved up, no tentative place to live, no job prospects. Moving up to Burlington would be incredibly impulsive and stupid. I moved up the next day. Again, without any goodbyes. I’d been up there and unemployed for nearly a month when I reached the stage of poor where I was salivating at the prospect of Ramen noodles. Even the mention of the word cheeseburger gave me an erection. After a month of living off popcorn, rice, and charity dinners, I knew I needed a change. More than change, I needed some paper money fast. My friend got me a job packing fudge. This time there were no costumes, thous, or lesbian looking gay boys involved. It was during a shift of fudge packing that Ted tap danced into my life. “You’re pretty good at that.” I said. “Nah.” he said “It’s just real easy to fake on this floor.” I pretended not to stare too intently at Ted, as he and my female coworker flirted. Cut fudge, wrap in tissue, center in box, fold corner flaps, wrap in bow. Cut fudge, wrap in tissue, center in “You can come, too if you like.” he said. “Sorry, I was in Chocolate Walnut Land. Come where?” “My house. I’m having a little shindig. Do you....study?” One of the uberhippies in Burlington goes by the name of Jesse. Jesse is connected to one of the larger, more successful organic drug dealers this side of Canada...and the other side of Canada (that being, Canada). We’ll call him The Guru. The Guru’s legit job was as a book salesman. Therefore, people like Jesse called Guru at work and ordered textbooks instead of drugs. I don’t remember which subjects corresponded with which drugs, but it was something to the effect of mushrooms being Biology, LSD being Calculus, Ecstasy being Anatomy, and cocaine being “look shithead, I don’t deal cocaine, it’s time for you to get counseling.” For this particular party, we’d be studying Anthropology. I brought my bubbler. Do to the vast amount of studying I did at said party, I don’t remember very much of it. Iremember eating some sort of veganesque sandwich. About halfway through, I became incredibly full. Not just full to my stomach, but I could feel my brain pressing against my skull. Memories oozed out my ears. My two month backlog of sperm shot out covering the room with a-- you get the idea. “I should go.” I told Ted’s cat. “I’m really tired, and I have to work tomorrow.” “Don’t you think you should crash here, and call in high?” The cat asked. “No. My boss doesn’t mind me coming in high.” This was true. During my interview, my boss asked me whether I smoked. After a six hour pause where I looked quizzically at my shoes, he said “Don’t worry. I just want to know if I should invite you over to my house for a few weekenders.” “Suit yourself.” said the cat. “Bye Ted’s cat.” “Ted’s bi.” “Huh?” “Bye.” I staggered down the stairs of the apartment and out into the freezing fucken cold streets of Burlington. Having only been in town for a few months, and never having been to the section of town where Ted and his cat lived, I was somewhat unsure what was the most expedient way home. I knew the direction, but there was an assortment of annoying buildings and sculptures in my way. Plus a mall. Fucken malls. I was a bit southeast of the mall when I noticed a pickup truck. I had an intense feeling of deja vu. Once I had ascertained that there was no gun rack or “I hunt red heads for sport” bumper sticker, I returned to my paranoid about everything but the pickup truck state and walked toward the mall. About two minutes later, I noticed a pickup truck. I had an intense feeling of deja vu. Once I had ascertained that there was no gun ruck or “Honk if you love Homocide” bumper stickers, Ireturned to my paranoid about everything but the pickup truck state and walked toward the mall. I was about fifty yards from the mall when I noticed a pickup truck. I had an intense feeling of What the Fuck I Know I've Seen This Pickup Truck At Least Three Times Now, and broke into a run. That’s when I spotted the police car. |
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