Bacon bits. Metal cans spill onto linoleum and Susie says "Bad boy Joey bad boy." She glances up and around and with just a hint of cringe glues on my green eyes. Look ma, no scabs. Nicks and cuts though. Purple bangles in her ears, soft sensations in her breast, I feel blue no rhyme is new this don't scan either so I guess I fail the test. The current model is orange and already obsolescent. Those plastic jewels. I remember. Welcome to the Bud(g)i-mart shopping adventure. Joey's a ruckus from between your creamy thighs but he's a "Cute kid" cause he's got Spanish eyes. I still love feed me your natural lips Spartan body and naked bush. And amphetamines? I feel like I'm bouncing off the walls. I don't know what crazy mixed up tragic wish I hope I had a savagely simple firm yet alien ripe oxymoronic thing to say. Oh god.
"I’m not sure I want to-"
"Talk. Hello and good-bye then?"
"No, wait."
And whipped cream. When we were young we used to play with each other. Even before we met. Back then we arrogantly exchanged stares. Later we discovered mind and word games and had even more fun. Philosophy is a mental meal. I've always had problems sticking to a diet. She said. She was the actress. I the abstraction. Though I think we'd both admit that neither of us ever thought clarity was in itself much of a virtue. If that's even an issue. These days.
"I guess I'd have to say I'm sorry. I could have forgiven you."
"You should have. I only made a mistake."
"I wish I would have. But I wanted to play victim. You know it had always been the other way around."
All you want. You can't both do it unless you're pretty. Neurotic, that is. We used to frolic away the days in those big open fields. And we made love everywhere. I remember once at night beside a hill underneath a quartz halogen streetlamp. Earlier that evening we had set down by the side of a rubber track but some bozo got it in his mind to do twenty laps. It was fun getting ourselves out of that situation. It really was though.
"Are you married?"
"No, not yet. Meg and I talk about it. I suppose it's the thing to do."
"I'll admit it was a mistake."
But nothing else. So she had taken off everything underneath her dress before and I stripped away my shorts right there. Her warm soft body sprawled out on the ground. Are the super colossal olives packed in oil? It was prickly but oh such a nice kind of prickly. All the earth and grass around us. Making love with the archetypal mother I'II never forget.
"Are you still together?"
"Separated."
The secret is: you'll hate it. I overheard two girls talking yesterday. The one's telling the other that she'd have to admit it took a lot of courage for him to come back and say he's sorry. That's true says the other are you going to take him back? I don't know I suppose it's mean but I really like having the little fucker right where he is.
"...well, I’ll see you when I see you?"
"Not if I see you first."
That's why it works. It's an atrocity. Everybody dies. Meanwhile Joey's off wandering in aisle five, absolutely lost in the supermarket.
A shot. Echoes in the air on a dark street. I strut my style and these three guys each in turn spit on my path. Think you're hot, huh? They say. Well I like my leather. I see a crowd ramble on out of the bar. Debbie tells Josephine there's gonna be a fight. I don't know, these zany frat guys. So I stand by the side of the parking lot kinda leaning on this brick wall and this short guy wearing thick glasses comes up to me. I think he asks me for a match so I tell him I don't smoke. Marlboro fliptop folded up in my T-shirt sleeve. He says "I do not know the words for it but will do for you what you want." I really want to watch the fight. Diplomacy. It never happens it seems they'd rather talk. So he follows me. I have this friend who lives nearby but it turns out he's at a party. At least my foreign friend doesn't know that.
I saw an old man sitting on a park bench, crying. I read in a book that the years sliply quick by. Sic. I know a lot of people like that but my favorites are the sexual deviates. You can't separate things one from the other though I'm told. Gestalt. Problems. If you don't have any then you gotta make them. Spontaneity. Girlish foolishness. I didn't mind the blood streaming down all over my face. I suppose I shouldn't say I liked it though. I'm not one of them. Discipline. See I know how to spell it must be something else then. Purpose. Creativity. Absurdity. So I watched her from across the room, trying to be cool and suave but nervous as anything and not knowing at all how to deal with it. I felt betrayed somehow when noticed there were others. But the way she coyly bit her lip... Dykes. Yeah I'm one of them. Come on baby crack my code.
Everytime I go into the city I see her. Everywhere. And I thought you had to take drugs to have hallucinations. This time we won't use any lubrication. He's an older man. If can't be a woman then I guess I'll have to play the pampered child. I accuse him but what he doesn't know is like it. think I'll have one. Perhaps he suspects. O.K., just relax while I...oh baby. Now stop! Tense up. You're the tightest thing I've ever had. Do I really make you that happy? That and so much much more. It's nice to be loved. like the way she shatters. In my arms. While being held down. When the rush of passion dies. You go on living. Maybe. Is this real?
I held a knife to her throat. She didn't move. I scratched her and it bled. She pushed her neck into the blade. More blood. Then she got upset. Love is healing as well as hurting. Is there a problem in our relationship? I hope so. My psychoanalyst chewed on his cigar played with his beard rubbed eyes underneath spectacles and said: Reactor formation. Or maybe that was my father the nuclear engineer. I don't know it's all Einsteinium to me. They keep his brain in a cardboard box in Dakota or someplace out go west young man you know. His problem is that he's just too sensitive. That's why he wears a mask. I have this friend, well he's an acquaintance more actually Harold. And he was born deformed or somebody threw acid at him or he fell on concrete. So he wears this gold mask all the time. He's really self-conscious about it took him years to finally get up the nerve to go outside even. Knowing what a big step it was for him we told everybody talk normal act normal he just wants to be treated normal but whatever you do don't ask him about the mask. It's important for his self-image you know. We're all waiting kinda tense what are we going to say to him just remember the one thing not to. The closet door opens and Harold slinks out. We all nod to him but it's really awkward we're all milling about so just to break the ice I say "Hey Harold," and then wouldn't you know the first thing that pops into my mind I blurt out: "How's the old mask there?" He's still hiding it out now down in the basement years later. Greater intimacy I think I'll give it. A shot.
(An Explanation)
I never met my brother Joey. He died before I was even conceived, hit by a car as he ran into the street. Neither of my parents has ever told me much about him. There's a whole album filled with pictures of Joey but I think I'm the only one who's looked at it in years. Once when I was eight my father came home from work and found me alone in the house. When my mother strolled in hours later, he slapped her around, yelling that she ought to take better care of her daughter than she had her son. Not kill me like she did Joey. But I'm old enough to take care of myself now.
My grandmother tells me all men are assholes and my mother says the same thing. I can't see why either of them got married. From what I've been able to figure out my parents got separated after Joey was born, but then he died, she had a breakdown and the two of them got back together. When I came along she had something like a hysterectomy. She blames me for that but I can't see why she'd want to have anymore kids, if she thinks turned out so bad. My mother is what you'd call a cocktease. Anything that's got a penis is fair game. She goes to the club, which we really can't afford to belong to anyway, and puts the make on every guy from Mr. Richards the lawyer to the janitors who clean the place.
Actually I think it boosts my father's ego, the way she carries on. Although they constantly fight, it seems they have a better time when he thinks she's just screwed someone else. I'm tired of waking up in the middle of the night by the both of them going at it, having a grand old time knocking it to each other. She rants on about the last time she had sex with some guy: in a locker room, office or closet at the club, in a truck, men's room or alley, even on my father's blue recliner in our living room. He calls her a whore and bitch and then they both moan all the louder. I think she lies a lot. I mean most of the men she tells my father about know better than to take her seriously. That's not to say she doesn't pick up any guys though.
One day last year I came home from practice and found her entertaining a guest, Harry, a county building inspector or something like that. They were both getting sloshed on gin. She introduced me to him as her little pet tramp. The guy puts his grubby hands on me and makes this comment about daughters taking after their mothers. Then he suggests that we all hop in the sack together, he's always wanted to take on two generations of pussy at once. That's the only time I've ever seen her do anything close to defending me. She kicked gross old Harry right in the balls and screamed at him until he hobbled out of the house. She didn't say a word to me for days afterwards.
Mary, my basketball coach, says my mother should be tossed in the looney bin. She's let me stay at her place when things have gotten out of hand at home. Actually I sleep at her apartment most of the time now. When I graduate Mary says I should move in with her. I think I'll do that. In a way I guess I'll be glad not to have her as a coach anymore. It's different when we're at practice than when we're alone. When we're in bed together she's so soft and gentle. Mary isn't like a guy who you know is feeling you up, trying to turn you on just so you'll let him jump you and he can get himself off. I love Mary. It's a nice, warm feeling. It really is.
Copyright © 1985 by Edward Beuchert