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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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. The phone is knocking on my bedroom door, upset that I've turned the ringer off. It passes me a note: "Hi. I am an Ellen Jamesian..." I crumple it up without reading the rest of it, and go back to sleep.
The phone is tickling my feet with its semi-erect antenna. I crack my knees, and curl into the fetal position. "Can't you hear the phone ringing?" Landlord asks. It's not yet eleven o'clock, but I am passed out and what the fuck is Landlord doing in my room while I'm sleeping. "The phone is for you." "I am asleep." I tell him. "Are you going to get the phone?" "It's not ringing." While the phone was napping, I tore out its vocal chords. "It's for you." He is a Mynah Bird. "Fine. I'll answer it." I say, sitting up, the quilt shielding my naked body from the Landlord's vagabond eyes. "Ok." I say. "I'll get it." He is a rabbit in headlights. Swaying with the cobra, but my cobra is hidden under the quilt. "You can go now." "Aren't you going to get it?" He asks, licking his lips. "Yea. Thanks. Could you please get out of my room?" X-Ray Tech moved out in March because Landlord has no sense of privacy. I've done my best to explain my boundaries: If you need to come into the room, knock. If no one answers, stay out. If I say "Come in," come in. If I don't, don't. "It's just that the phone kept ringing and no one was answering it. It's for you." "Yes." I say. "I get it. Phone for me. Please get out of my room so I can answer the phone." The week Dr. O moved in, Landlord had scheduled his annual carpet cleaning but neglected to tell any of us until 5:30 that morning. I was still asleep when he knocked on my door, and, according to Dr. O, said "Carpet Cleaners are coming today." My room was sorted piles of laundry, unstapled chapbook pages, two decks of playing cards arranged by numbers. "Why didn't you clean your room?" He asked when I got home from work. "The carpet cleaner couldn't clean the carpet in there." "Carpet cleaner?" I asked. "I told you this morning that the carpet cleaners were coming and you responded." He said, leaning into me like an elderly queen making a point. "I responded?" I asked. "Yea." Dr. O said. "I think you said 'It's five o'clock in the fucken morning, what do you want?'." Landlord squints at her. "Oh. Well, I didn't hear what he said, just that he responded." I understand this. I don't care what you say, just say it. Whisper your confession, scream your dissatisfaction, murmur a non-sequitur, just fucken talk. I don't deal well with silence. But these days, I'm dealing it face down, fifty-two card pick up style. And whether it's the two of hearts or the queen of spades, all silence looks the same from the back of the deck. I've got to go. The phone isn't ringing. 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. 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. I would like to apologize to The American Public for the current blizzard situation. It's my fault. In September 2000, I moved to Burlington, Vermont, where I spent some time hanging out with my friends, Dagster and The Soggy Blind Lesbian (they have real names, but they're intimidated by my other friends' cool monikers). 2000/2001 was the snowiest winter in Vermont in 50 years. On December 26th, the three of us had a reunion, and sure enough it was a disgusting snow muck in Boston. Last Sunday, Dagster and I made pizza and went out to a poetry slam. It snowed. Today, I passed her on my way for a brief visit with my mother on The Cape. I'll be lucky to get out of here by Monday.
Thus far, it's been an eventful 2005. The new apartment...the new aprtment...Dear God, the new apartment. The day after Christmas, my Dad dropped me off at the ferry (with an er, not an ai, wise-asses), and I headed into Boston to have dinner with the aforementioned Dagster and SBL. On my way, I decided to stop at my new apartment and put my luggage in my room, so as not to drag hundreds of pounds of suitcases around in the freezing snow. Now, I know Boston pretty well. I'm fairly new to Slummerville, but I know I live off Broadway, so when I get off the T and see a bus that says "via Broadway", I get on it. For whatever reason the "via Broadway" bus does not run via Broadway. So I had to ride it all the way back to the T station, and then walk the mile or so home. I was not inhappymode. Now, those of you regular readers might think what happens next would be something of an enjoyment for me; a late Christmas present from the God of Twisted Whores: I opened the door to my new apartment, a room I'd set up with all my belongings, a bed I'd slept in twice, and what do I find? Three half-naked Chinese boys. The room is filled with suitcases that I don't remember owning, and there are three half naked Chinese strangers sleeping in my goddamned bed. Did I strip off my clothes and join them? Take off my shoe and beat them until they ran screaming out into the snow? Read them the advanced copy of the Are We There Yet? screenplay until they beat each other to death with my industrial sized stapler? No. I calmly closed the door to my room, and had a bit of a "what the fuck?" session with The Landlord. The crazy assed, what the hell was I thinking moving into this place Landlord. Oh, right, I was thinking "Food is included in the rent." Unfortunately, sanity, privacy, and a healthy sense of personal boundaries were not. Having griped out some of my stress, I head into town to meet Dagster and SBL. About halfway there, I get a phone call from SBL, Dagster and she have been in a minor car accident (I told Dagster she should have let the blindie drive). They are fine, but are freaked out about the snowy driving conditions, so they go to Dagster's house, which is also in Slummerville. I go to The Lizard Lounge for poetry. I am one of five people including the real host, and the bartender that is stupid enough to go out for poetry during a snowstorm. We drink free drinks, and I catch a cab Chez Dagster. By the time I get home, it is the 27th, and the Chinese Boys are barricaded in another room. Apparently, the pill popping gay roommate sat on one of their faces at three o'clock in the morning, so they decided to move into an empty room, and put a desk in front of the door so he couldn't get in. My room no longer shows evidence of anything Chinese, not even General Tso's Chicken. The Chinese boys (who are mildly hot, but a tad on the rich and clueless side for me) head out to New York, leaving me, Landlord and Pill Popper. Pill Popper regales me with tales of his youth on Cape Cod. He repeatedly refers to me as Michael, Jonathan, and occasionally Frank; never by my proper name. He goes into vast details about all the clubs he used to go to on The Cape. Unfortunately for him, I actually did grow up on The Cape, and know that every story he tells me is complete and utter bullshit. Fairy fantasy tales. Meanwhile, The Landlord has adopted a Korean houseboy. Korean houseboy won't let me do my own dishes, won't let me cook my own food, and gets in the habit of interrupting "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" to ask me questions about American culture. He has a fetish for "silver hairs." Hence, he is fucking my Landlord, though he is about five years younger than me, and Landlord is thirty years older. I try and stay out of the house as much as possible. New Year's Eve Eve, I am rescued from the madhouse by my friend, Celeste, and her ultra-cool roommate. We eat pizza and play arcade games at The Good Times Emporium. I even beat a straight boy at air hockey. Actual New Year's Eve, I move my stuff into my new new room; a refinished attic with all sorts of cool angles, and closet space for all my friends who can't deal with their sexual orientation. I set up my bookcase and my laptop, and mourn the fact that my computer isn't equipped for wireless Internet yet. Back in the days of dorm rooms and keggers, when naked Colombians wandered the halls trolling for horny Insafemodes; back when straight roommates didn't want their in the closet but probably obviously gay roommates to walk in them during "special time" (generally third period); back when third period was a time for Latin Class, and did not mean you were dating a twelve year old girl; back when you just didn't feel like blowing the kid across the hall or helping him with his remedial math; back then there was a system. Each door had a crudely drawn map or a piece of construction paper with notes such as "In the room studying, do not disturb", "Decided to find out what my French teacher looked like...am actually at class", "Hockey practice" and other possibilities for where people were and what they were doing. This way you didn't have to waste your time knocking on the cute boy's door, begging for his sweet ass, because you knew he was rehearsing for some play that probably involved him wearing tights. This meant you had to go to your room and put a pin in the "Do Not Disturb" area of your map in order to go masturbate to the thought of the cute boy in tights.
I look back fondly on those times. Especially when I think of Fledge in tights. Looking back on them fondly, however, does not mean I want to relive them. So when The Landlord casually mentioned that he'd like me to leave notes letting him know whether or not I was home, and where I would be if I wasn't home, I gave him the Spock eye. Apparently, I'm so quiet, that he's never certain if I'm home and if he'll disturb me. I pointed out that if I was disturbed I would cease to be quiet, come out of my room and say something. Still, he wanted the notes. I debated using Post-It Notes and making various "In" "Out" "None of your fucken business, what are you a stalker?" statements for various occasions. I even debated carving the word here into the door with a question mark after it. There's your note, bucko. I was just about to go out and buy a stack of Post-It Notes when I remembered the old map system. Ten points I could possibly be at, one pin. Here's what I came up with: "Doing lines off a whore's ass. Please knock before entering. BYOC." "The moaning you hear is just a TV show I'm watching. What sounds like a squeaking futon frame is a digital recording of dolphins talking. It helps me relax. I'm certainly not having sex in your house. Oh, and don't bother checking for the cute Colombian kid downstairs, he's uhhh...not there." "It may sound like I'm home, but that's because you're a delusional control freak who hears things that aren't there. Don't worry, though, I'm not having a conversation with your therapist right now or anything." "On streetcorner making rent" "That smell isn't pot smoke, I'm not even home. What? Stop looking at the door like that. Don't even think about knocking! Hey, I said--" "Out. But not all in your face about it." "I spent all of last night/this morning on a Moonbounce with the Brazilian national college soccer team. If you even think about knocking before 8 PM, I'll have Max decapitate you with a swift kick of his soccer ball." "Turn around. Sucker." "In Fallujah fighting insurgent terrorists to make the world safe for Democracy, just like a Good Little American Patriot. I'm definitely not sleeping with your boyfriend at The Park Plaza hotel. That would be wrong." "I'm just sitting on my desk waiting for YOU whoever YOU may be to come in. Don't bother knocking, just come in. I promise the rattlesnake waiting on the other side of the door has been defanged. He's really a sweet little snake. He loves to be punched, though. Why don't you punch him on your way in?" 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. I am a terrible judge of character. I confuse people's generosity with martyr complexes. I can't tell the difference between a wonderful, giving person with a few quirks, and a complete psychopath with moments of humanity. So it is that I completely misjudged the house that I assumed would be Gay.
I made the assumption because so many of the people who replied to my roommate ads were GGGGGGAY, and came right out and mentioned that they were looking for GGGGGGAY roommates. So when I read the e-mail from someone who had a house that he touted as having an "International flair", and made perfectly innocent statements that, because of my interactions with other "innocent" statement makers, I believed they were codes for "I am a dirty pervert who will give you a cheap place to live so long as I can fondle myself while I watch you sleep." This was not the case at all. In order to prep myself for impending Gayness, I spent the entire two mile or so walk to the house listening to music that I won't admit to publicly, some of the artists' names rhymed with Wisteena Magumera and Whitney Gears. I took off my headphones just as I approached a house where a man somewhere between his late fifties and late sixties was leaning over, working on a garden. Unlike the stodgy Harvard professor/landlords, though, his look was complimented by a natural unegotistical speech pattern, and actual eye contact. Borderline creepy eye contact. But borderline, so that's okay. Once we went in the house, he offered me coffee. I don't drink coffee. So he offered tea. I don't like tea either, but I'll drink it when someone is politely trying to make me something hot to drink. The house was gorgeous. Very well preserved (cleaning service comes in every other week), great natural lighting, nice open feel. In fact everything about both house and landlord seemed open. The only part of the interview that left a bad taste in my mouth was the tea that scalded my tongue when I drank it too quickly. The rent even includes food. FOOD is included in the rent. FOOD. You make a grocery list, the landlord buys you food. FOOD. Did I mention that FOOD is included in the rent? A comfortable, well lit house with rent that includes utilities, high speed internet access, cable TV, FOOD, LAUNDRY DETERGENT, no-coin-necessary washer/dryer, and cleaning service. Seriously, even if this guy kills me in three months and buries me in his basement, at least I will die happily in a sort of writer's utopia that has FOOD included in the rent. If he rents the room out to someone else, I will be insadmode. |
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