Whats that?

             Jen and I went to a gay bar for new years because we had no plans and we both desperately wanted to make out with someone when the clock hit midnight, but I think more than anything we had created a fantasy of meeting our future spouses.  We ended up making out with each other, but I still managed to meet this man named Jet and within five minutes of our conversation we were sucking in helium and talking like mice, during which time I had already formulated the story we would tell our kids about how we met.  “You should have seen daddy with that balloon in his mouth, he was so handsome.  He sounded like Alvin and the Chipmunks!”  I don’t know why but in the event that I do ever have children, I see them enjoying a show with an annoying caliber  parallel to Alvin and the Chipmunks, so I think my kids would enjoy my reference to their father sounding like their favorite television personalities.   I didn’t really think we would get married and have kids, but it was just nice to pretend for a moment that something might work out, and that maybe I had met a gentleman.  Before we departed, I sucked in the last bit of helium and asked him to make out with me.  He didn’t, he just took my number and kissed me on the cheek, like a perfect gentleman.
          He called me the next day and asked when my next day off was,  I could barely contain my voice from reaching an obnoxious octave I was so excited.  I told him Wednesday, and our date was set.  We were to spend all day together, and there is no doubt in my mind that would have happened had I not taken him up on his invitation at 2:00 am, Tuesday night, to come over to his house for a “pajama party.”  I knew when I read his invitation via face book messaging, that it was probably a booty call, but the fantasy husband I had made Jet out to be in my mind would never stoop to that level of sex, a level I have not been down to in years.  The level people get to when they are lonely and horny and send a message to a stranger for a quick blow job or finger up the ass.  No, Jet was a gentleman, he would never do that. But just to set some boundaries, I was sure to tell him that we would not be having sex, as I do not have sex with people that I don’t have feelings for, and he agreed to my terms and conditions.
    When I pulled up to the address he gave me, I was greeted by valet parking, and escorted into the 10 story building on the plaza.  Jet met me by the elevators, and we rode up in complete silence.  I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t talk over my loud intuition, which was telling me that this guy was not my future husband but just a rich guy I was probably going to hook up with.
     When he opened the door to what I thought was going to be a nice apartment, my eye balls were sucked into my face and rocketed out of my ass hole, at the overwhelming sight of this mans 10th story penthouse.  What wasn’t engulfed with marble, granet, stainless steel, or onyx was coated with an indescribable shimmer that can only be afforded by the rich and famous.  “I’m home” I thought to myself.  I felt like Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman” and Carrie Bradshaw with Big, I felt like a fucking princess who had been returned to the castle she was violently separated from at birth by her well intentioned yet inadvertently evil parents.  Jet was leaning against a glass statue of an elephant looking at me.  He stood 6”3’ but maybe a little taller on account of his Armani boots, his perfect jaw structure was  grinding back and fourth, and his hair line, however reseeding, was overlooked in light of the 12 foot Thomas Kincaid  painting hanging above and behind his head.   He must have known I was week at my knees because at that moment, he made his move.
     I was wearing a very ugly sweater that somehow looked only a little ugly on me and resembles something the late Mr. Rogers would have worn to a petting zoo before molesting every young boy able to take directions but not talk.  Jet saw this as an in, and approached me slowly and with a sensual stride I have never seen exhibited in a man, and though it appeared to be rehearsed, I could feel the hair on my neck become erect.   He unbuttoned the first wooden button to my sweater and sang, “So, let’s make the most of this beautiful day, since we’re together we might as well say,”  he unbuttoned the second button, “Would you be mine, could you be mine.” At this point, he is singing so softly into my ear that at times his voice cracks and becomes an inaudible whisper.  He unbuttoned the last button, “Wont you please, won’t you please.  Please won’t you be my neighbor?”
            I don’t know if it was the fact that I was being pressed against marble pillar that probably cost more than my student load debt, or the fact that this weird 26 year old just sang the Mr. Rogers theme song in my ear and was sucking on my neck like a lollypop, either way, my guard was not just down, it had been demolished.  “What,” I thought to myself as my spine shivered at his mouth finding an untouched and dry portion of my neck, “could be wrong with this guy because something is not adding up.”  And then, as if it were divine intervention, I saw the lines of cocaine on his granet table top.  My guard was up again.  It’s weird how quickly someone can tear down your guard, the only thing that protects your morality and self worth, but what’s even more fascinating is how fast a person can piece it back together at the fist sign of danger.
     He saw me looking at the coke, “it’s just sugar for coffee” he said.  Given the fact that I lived for 9 months in a cocaine den with a transexual porn star, I knew it was coke, but convinced myself that maybe it was sugar.  I mean, lots of people dice their sugar into five perfectly symmetrical lines using credit cards to scoop it into their coffee cup right?  “What do you do? How do you afford all of this?” I asked.  I don’t know why I asked that question, it just felt appropriate.  “I’m well kept, lets just say that,” he responded, giving me a look that commanded I not ask another question.  “Oh so you’re mooching of your parents?  You have a sugar daddy?  You sell drugs and your body?”  Still nothing.   He would not tell me what he did for a living, which when coupled with the cocaine on the counter supplied ample indications that, maybe, I should count my losses and run .  But then I caught a glimpse of his bathroom and further, his stone wall shower, and I decided that I was over reacting, that a little mystery is fun, and that I should just suck it up both literally and mentally.
             I tend to do that a lot.  Have a colossal red flag punching me in the face, I think this is called intuition, and act like I can’t feel the wind blowing my hair back with each wave of it’s leviathan fabric.  Even as a child I ignored my keen sense of intuition and constantly found myself in trouble that could have been avoided had I listened to that voice saying things like, “Ryan, maybe you shouldn’t stick that fork in the electrical outlet,” or “perhaps you should wait five minutes before shoving that steaming hot casserole into your mouth.”
            Take the time I almost died in my grandma’s pool for example; I must have been 10 or 11 years old, and it was November.  She had covered her pool with a black plastic tarp that sagged down two feet and rested on top of the water.  I remember taking into account the fact that the only thing keeping this flimsy plastic tarp from getting sucked into the pool was long rubber sacks of water laid on the edges around the pool.  Still, I thought it could support my weight, not only did I think it could support my weight but I thought the thin layer of ice could too.  I threw an acorn on the ice and it didn’t break through, so, against that voice that was screaming at me not to step on the ice, I did it anyway.  There wasn’t even that moment where you’re standing on the ice, tapping it with your toe to see if it’s safe, I just fell right through.  I was under a sheet of ice, getting wrapped up in cheep pool tarp plastic and thinking, “I’m going to die if I don’t’ get out of here.”  I knew that if I kept moving it would make it worse so I sat still in the water until I floated up to the surface, I then slowly pulled myself towards the wall of the pool and carefully got out.  I fixed the tarp and told my grandma I only fell in a little bit, because I didn’t want her to worry.
         Jet gave me a silk robe to wear to bed.  It took him about as much time as it took me to put it on that it did for him to rip it off of me.  He kept trying to have sex, but I resisted.  He was growing angry with me because I wouldn’t let him enter me, he even got up and went into the bathroom a few times to keep from yelling at me.  My intuition was screaming for me to leave, but I was there and I needed him to calm down.  I was scared, uncomfortable and lost.  I gave him a blow job and somewhere between blowing a stranger in a silk robe at a top floor penthouse, and talking myself into staying the night, I began to realize some things about myself. For one, I realized the influence marble floors have on my pride and morality. Almost equally profound to the last realization, I became frighteningly aware of how scared I am, a fear that was revealed to me when I was drowning in his sheets thinking, “I’m going to die if I don’t get out of here.”

Online Dating 101

        Well, it's happened, I've become a member of an online gay dating website.  So far the only men interested in me go by the code names; CummyBear69 and Dixin2deep24, and whose interests include but are not limited to, sucking cock, clubbing, and reading the Twilight series.  Maybe it's because most gay men share the mentality of horny teenage girls, but every gay profile I've looked at, under books reads, Twilight.  To me, liking the Twilight series is about as unattractive as hairy nipples, it makes me gag. I'm not ugly by any means, but for some reason no one of any caliber has messaged me.  Perhaps I shouldn't have put the disclaimer, "Don't talk to me if you've ever considered clubbing as a hobby of yours, also sluts need not apply."  "Are you trolling for men?" Jen asked me last night as I was glued to my computer ferociously clicking on random profiles. I fought the urge to slam my computer shut and throw it against the wall, but I couldn't cover it up, she knew.       
        It's been a while since I've met a man online.  When I was younger I only met men online, usually on myspace.com.  I was 17 when I met my first boyfriend.  His name was Doug, and when he messaged me on myspace telling me I was cute, I instantly got diarrhea.  My bowels have a cosmic reaction to emotional bombs, like I usually have to stop someone half way through breaking up with me so that I can go blow my brains out of my ass.  I don't cry after I loose a lover, I just shit a lot. Getting that message from Doug was the first affirmation I had of my sexuality I was desperately trying to conceal by dating every overly religious girl in high school.  I figured dating religious girls meant no sex until marriage, which I was more than okay with.  Unfortunatly, this plan backfired when I dated Alison Petters, who man handled me for a good hour one night, getting more and more confused when I couldn't get an erection.   I told her it was the anti-depression medication I was on, and when she found out it was actually because I was a full fledged goo gobbler, she punched me so hard in the face I swear I almost lost consciousness. 
        I messaged Doug back a week later after finally coming to terms with my sexuality.  His profile picture was of him on his bed, the camera on his waist, and angle that captured perfectly, his sculpted abs and 90 degree jaw line.  We decided to meet in the middle of Naperville Park after midnight.  This was before I had common sense.  He looked just like his pictures, only clothed, and he smiled the the entire walk towards me, over the dark field.  I remember my heart beating so fast that I could feel the fatigue in the form of agonizing chest pain, but more than anything I remember the conversation we had under the stars.  It was the first time in my life I felt normal.  The first time in my life I didn't feel like I was sick and perverse.  It was also the first time in my life that I flirted. 
        I don't know if it was his soothing voice, or his movie star good looks, but within a few hours I was in his bed giving him the worlds worse blow job.  At that point the closest thing to oral sex I had ever experienced was the banana I tried to deep throat at my sophomore lunch table, after which I blew chunks all over my basco stix -a delicacy at Oswego High School-.   Even though I nearly bit his dick off, we became boyfriends the next day.  I still marvel at the power a blow job, even if it's bad, holds over a man.  Oral sex or really any kind of sex is a tool in which you can trick men into commitment or even into paying for dinner. 
        I was working at a dog kennal, and my job was to clean the trays that caught the falling puppy shit from the cage above.  I would preform this duty by jetting boiling hot water through a sand blaster and obliterate the shit clean from the tray.  It wouldn't have been a bad job had it not been for the fact that when boiling water traveling at the speed of light collides with runny puppy mush, a chemical infusion forms and shit steam is created.   It was like taking a hot shower and having a mastodon poop in your sink, or in my case, having Jen poop while I'm taking a shower.  Try as I did to cover the smell of turds excreting from my skin with axe body spray, the smell just wouldn't leave.  So I would go to Doug's house after work, smelling like a horse stable and try to cuddle up next to him.  He told me once that I smelled like a barn, and quickly lost interest in his boyfriend who smelled and gave blow jobs like a garbage disposal.  Now, for the sake of redemption, I must say that over the years I have achieved an expert status in the field of blow jobs.  I was once told by one of my recent ex's that I could blow the screws off of a fire hydrant. 
        I accidentally memorized his password to myspace after accidentally watching him login a few times, and decided to sign in and rummage through his inbox, mostly because he hadn't talked to me in a week.  Good thing I did because I saw a message from some douche named Sam saying, "Thanks for dinner, and a great night."  After shitting out sand I ate when I was 4, and knowing Doug and I were over, messaged Sam and invited him over for some of my parents vodka and a blow job.  He was surprisingly okay with the idea and had the same motives as I did, once he found out that Doug was playing both of us like puppets.  Sam came quick to my house the next night and I blew him in my basement while my parents watched a Carol Brunet marathon upstairs. 
        I walked Sam to the door, my mother watching me from the couch, we said goodbye and hugged each other the way that hookups hug.  With one arm patting the shoulder blade and the other dangling to the side.  I sat down next to my mom on the couch, a few minutes later I got a text from Sam thanking me for a good time.  I smiled a revealing smile, and my mom looked at me with a revealing look.  I was so embarrassed I wanted to slam my phone shut and throw it against the wall, but I couldn't cover it up, she knew. 
   

Coasting.

     My boyfriend and I were hanging out today, avoiding anything remotely responsible or productive and smoking weed.  My boyfriend's name is Mark, he doesn't talk much but makes up for it with his body and his "clothing optional" attitude.  As we were lying on my couch together, tangled in yet another chapter of a sappy memoir written by a hopeless and loveless women, I caught a glimpse of the clock and wanted to cry when I realized I had to actually do something in less than an hour.   At 4:00 I was to meet William, the gallery owner where my art has been hanging for two months; my show time was up and I had between the hours of 4 and 5 to haul my unsellable art out of the gallery.  I would have asked for Mark's help but unfortunately he is a manikin I bought two years ago at a going out of business sail at some crappy novelty store.  He was modeling a strap on dildo when I found him, but past being plastic eye candy, Mark is perfectly useless.
    Today was the first art show in a long time I have taken down without Cow by my side, bitching with every canvas he was forced to help me carry up a flight or two of stairs.  It made me miss him.  I mean sure, he was kind of a drunk and sort of an ass hole; but when times were good, they were enraptured and beautiful.  Not to mention when something needed to be moved, like say an art show or my apartment, he was always willing to help, his complaining silenced with a ham sandwich or beer.  I moved my show without him though.  Stuffing my best work into my car, making about a hundred trips inside and out. 
     I remember telling my mom when I was really young, maybe 7 or 8, "I'm gonna be an artist, but not the kind that starves."  Well, I've become an artist, and I ate chips for dinner tonight.  I'm not technically starving but I swear to God if I eat one more can of garbanzo beans for breakfast, I'm going to use the can opener to stab myself in the throat.  I've sold pieces here and there, but the effort of getting, setting up, and taking down shows for such a small prophet is taxing, and today I almost thought I was burnt out on the whole thing.  Pressing on alone is going to be more work than I thought, and if you don't already know this about me, I'm strongly opposed to hard work. 
     I needed to get gas on my way back from the gallery, so I pulled into "the bad Shell station" which is known for it's prostitution, drugs, and frequent murders.  I watched, as a truck slowly coasted into the parking let, crawling to a stop about 10 feet away from the gas pumps.  The woman driving got out and yelled, "I was so fucking close!"  It didn't take long for people to start honking, as she was blocking the entrance. She had run out of gas not even a full car length from a gas pump, and I thought about how I feel that way sometimes. Getting so close to something you can see it, and then running out of fuel right before getting there.  The woman walked into the Shell station and emerged with help; three men who volunteered to help the damsel in distress, they all seemed to find humor in the situation and laughed as they pushed her car out of harms way. 
     I started my car after putting the last ten dollars I own into the tank, and rolled home to take all of my art back into my living room, where it will sit for a month before I get another show.  Jen wasn't home so I would be doing it alone, and as I fought with the door, trying to keep it open with my toes, and wedging my elephantine canvases through the small opening, I became angry.  At first I was angry at the door, but when I fell over my own art, landing on my apartment floor like a piece of wet toilet paper, I realized that I was mad for a multitude of reasons, the first being the fact that I'm alone.  I mean for Christ-sakes, my own parents have not been to the past 4 art shows, and my closest friends have been to busy having sex and working to come.
     I sat on my floor crying like a total tampon for a good half hour.  I needed someone to help me.  I needed someone to scoop me up in their arms and tell me it's okay, pick me up off the floor, and help carry up the rest of my art.  I needed Cow.  "I was so fucking close" I thought to myself at the thought of Cow.  I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, I could see a life with him, we both just ran out of fuel before we got there.  I picked up my phone to call him, to see if he could help me, and maybe hold me like the big bellowing vagina that I have become.  Luckily, my friends voices stopped me from hitting call.  I wipped my snotty nose, picked my own God damn self up, and finished lugging my crap upstairs.  I felt stupid for crying and feeling lonely because even though my friends weren't anywhere to be seen, they still helped me.
They came to push me out of harms way.

The Smelly Robe.

        Brian and I had been fighting a lot, about normal things I think, like who was going to change the cat litter box and which one of us had a worse drug problem.  One fight outstandingly, got to the point where my words were obviously doing little damage to his ego, not even the comment about how his mother didn't love him, was able to cause an emotional response more dramatic than the flap of a butterfly wing against a golf ball.  So I threw a lighter at his face.  This fight was caused because Brian had pompously requested that I not wipe my mutant boogers on and under the couch.  I see this as a reasonable query now, but at the time I was four martinis in and he might as well have asked me to prostitute my body to make up for the past four months in rent that I was to lazy to pay.  It's not that I couldn't make money, I was just really opposed to working more than an exhausting 20 hours a week.  And health insurance?  Health insurance Shmelth insurance, I had the foresight of a def bat during a hunt.
       I honestly didn't understand what the big deal was, I mean earlier that day Brian had woken up and blew his nose, not into a tissue, but my big brown robe.  Not to mention that we had spent the past six months pissing into milk jugs and dumping them out the window, because the thought of facing our crack head roommate and her tyranny friends on the way to the bathroom, proved to be to much.  Notably, yes this was my first real relationship so I had no idea what was normal and what was not, but peeing into tipped over dehumidifiers and occasionally shitting in bags on particularly scary nights, raised a red flag that even I could see.  That's why I didn't understand what the big deal was, as we had been living like barn animals for the entire duration of our relationship, that I wipe my boogers on our furniture.. But I loved that brown robe he used as a Kleenex, which is why when he told me that wiping my boogers on the couch was disrespectful to our guests, I became irate and cannon balled a red Bick lighter into his eye socket.    
        A few months earlier I went to a thrift store with my friend Abbi.  In high school, Abbi and I used to hit up every thrift store within a 17 year old's driving distance, and steal as much crap as we could fit into her signature carry-all purse.   I don't know how we never got caught because we practically stole the jewelry off the clerks ears and necks.  Then again it's not like we were stealing from Halls, we were stealing glued together precious moments figurines from twenty years ago.  We snailed through the used clothes aisle, and because we were stoned, we were crawling on our hands and knees laughing so hard that we sounded like a thousand Fran Drecher's stubbing their toes on a thousand end tables.  As Abbi wondered off into the used candle area, I found myself sequestered on top of a pile of miss matched shoes, staring at the ugliest robe I had ever seen.  It was a yellowish brown color, and had been worn so many times that I could see through the thin fabric.  There were stains covering every inch of the robe, creating a disgusting brown tie-dyed effect.  And oh my God, the smell that blasted out of the crusty pockets resembled a smell I had encountered before at a dump, where I stuck my head into a rusty oven, wedged in a pile of what looked like dead slugs.  Despite the horror story this robe most likely had to tell, it still had an irresistible charm to it. Such a revolting article of clothing had to be superior in comfort and mobility, even though it looked like the loin cloth of an alpha ape.
        I grabbed the robe off the tattered hanger and happily galloped over to Abbi, who was playing with a remote control car, that still had some battery life left in it. "Abbi, look at this think, I have to have it!" She crashed the car into a pile of kitched appliances and examined my robe, holding in front of her in terror.  Based on the face she was making you would have thought she was inspecting a dissected buffalo turd in her hands, and not a rope I desperately wanted.  "Why?  This smells like it was worn by a rotting cadaver, and look, I can see you right through it," she said, holding it between us, using only two finger tips.  "It's only three dollars, can't you use your jew bag magic to haggle them down to 75 cents, because that's all I got." At that she took it to the clerk, holding the robe in her fist and said, "This is disgusting, and no one will buy it, we're going to take it."  The Hispanic woman shook her head in agreeance, almost as if she was wondering how a piece of shit like that even made it on her shelves.  We were not even in the car before I slung the robe on.  It dragged on the gravel parking lot behind me, acting as a broom and sweeping up trash.  By the time I got to the car, I had swept up a dixi-cup, and empty pack of cigarettes, a receipt and about a hundred leaves. 
        I still can't quite explain it, but the second I put that robe on, everything wrong in my life melted away with the security only a severely worn comfort robe can supply.  For a month I wore that robe to school, grocery shopping, and in place of a fall jacket. Brian refused to go in public with me when I wore the robe, he said he didn't like the way people looked at us.  It was true, every time I went into a restaurant or bank, people were visibly off put, probably because I looked like a brown member of the occult.  
        I suppose, aside from how garish it was to look at, the only other downside to the robe was its ability to imitate a box of baking soda.  It absorbed every offensive odor it floated past and  locked the scent in the thin weaves of the crusty fabric.  Once, when Brian was throwing a party at our apartment, he pulled me aside and said, "Ryan, for fuck sake take the robe off, you smell like a litter box and Tonya is making fun of you."  I refused to de-robe and in protest, drank a bottle of Jim Beam and vomited on the kitchen table.  The robe was destroying my relationship with Brian, among other things like alcohol and my non existent pay checks.  We were two of the most broken people in Oswego Illinois, and worked souly because we were all each other had, not to mention the sex.  I swear to God, I saw stars when we had sex. But as it turns out, sex is not a good reason to stay with someone who hates you.  I threw the robe away once it had been glazed in Brian's snot.  I know it was gross, but I had limitations to what I will wear, and boogers are on the list of things I refuse to wear.
        A lot of time has passed since I said goodbye to Brian and goodbye to the state of Illinois and I haven't thought about that robe in years.   A few days ago I was at the mall killing time and saw a silk robe for only 18 bucks.  Even though I'm not sure how rent will get paid this month, I bought it anyway, I had forgotten how much I loved robes.  I went home that night, put the robe on, and stood in front of a full length mirror for a lost time.  In that time, I retraced the steps I took in my old tattered robe.  I thought about how I'm still as lost as I was back then, how I'm still searching for the same things.  I thought about the trouble and space the robe put between Brian and I, but I also thought about the euphoric feeling I got when I wore it.  I stood in front of that mirror and cried.  Because, along with Brian, I've lost that feeling.  What I've yet to loose, is the resentment I feel when I picture Brian blowing his nose into my security.

The magic of letting go

        I went to the park today to let my pet snail, Snaily, go.  In my adult life I've gotten less creative with my pet names.  For instance my last gold fish's name was Ball and the pet rat I had a few years back was named Rat-fink.  When I was younger though I had a lizard named spooky because he had a pattern in his scales near his plump tail that resembled a ghost when you tilted your head just right.  Then there was Princess Squeebers the kitten I dressed in pink dresses made for poodles.  I guess somewhere along the line I lost my talent in naming pets, because as I was holding Snaily, the snail, in my hands today; I couldn't help but feel slightly sad that it had come to this.  Snaily's other snail comrades, snail 1 and snail 2 have recently passed away because every mosquito in Kansas City decided to lay their eggs in my fish tank, and apparently they attack things even in the water.    I don't think they were actually harmed by the larva, I literally think they pestered my snails into their shells where they starved.  I figured the mosquito larva would just spring wings soon and fly out the window in one big swarm.  Instead they attached themselves to my poor snails and annoyed them to death. 
        But Snaily was hanging on for dear life and I knew I had to let him go.  I drove to the nearest park and sat by the water inspecting the intricate details in his shell.  I half hoped one of the children running and playing near by would come up to me and ask if they could see the snail.  I would say yes, and unload my wealth of knowledge on snails to the curious kid, while the mother joined in and we all waved goodbye to my snail as he slowly meandered into the depths of the man made pond.  I don't know why I wanted this to happen but I played it in my head for the entire duration of my cigarette.  I think it's because the kid in me that fell so in love with that snail wanted to share the burden of letting it go with another kid who would understand the magical strangeness of letting an animal go back to the world.   
        Then, before I let Snaily go, a toddler came up to me and said, "Whats dat in yeour hand?"  FINALLY, I thought, now I don't have to do this alone! "It's an apple snail, I'm letting him go in the big water because he wasn't happy in my fish tank."  The kid grabbed Snaily out of my hand, but did it gently, as if he knew it was a fragile creature.  His mother who was holding his other hand, slapped it out of his curious palm, "Get that nasty ass thing out of your hand."  Snaily plopped into the water, and the mother of the year all but ripped the kids arm out of socket as she drug him away, scolding him.  It didn't go as I had planned, "what a total bitch" I mumbled under my breath, just loud enough so she could hear it from twenty feet away. 
       As I watched Snaily spiral into the water, slowly entering a depth that the sun could not reach; I couldn't help but be reminded of how terrible I am with animals and pets.  Try as I might to love them and take care of them, they always end up dying or freezing to death.  When I was about 10 I had a pet rat named Ratski, Rat-fink's mother.  Ratski decided to sneak out of her cage and rape my brothers pet rat, named Rat.  A few weeks later Ratski gave birth to 14 babies behind the dry wall of our downstairs living room.  I guess there wasn't a lot of food back there because when my dad cut a hole into the wall with a power saw, she had eaten a considerable amount of her children.  "Throw these rats outside where they belong" my father bellowed as he began patching the massive hole in our wall.  "But it's snowing outside and they don't have hair yet."  "They will grow hair when they have a reason to."  So I lovingly set the 8 baby rats into a soft pile of snow.  I checked on them the next day and they were still there!  Only they were frozen.   I stood there staring at them, wondering why they couldn't move, where body heat came from, and if it was my fault they were dead. 
      Accidentally murdering an entire litter of baby rats is one thing, but intentionally killing a baby blue jay when I was 6 turned out to be much more traumatic than one would expect.  It was an ordinary day in the prevailingly boring town off Stillwell Kansas, and I was forced to go outside and socialize with the neighborhood kids after spending half of my day playing hangman on a toy computer.  My brother must have been digging holes somewhere because he was no where to be found.  I wasn't the most popular kid on my culdesac, this was reveled to me one day when some ass hole kid named Chase thought it would be funny to slap me in the face with his little brothers shitty diaper.  He did it in-front of all five of the other culdesac kids, and they all joined in.  But they were the only kids to play with so I learned to make due with torture, after all it beat the hell out of lining up my stuffed animals and yelling at them for not cleaning my room.  There was one kid named Joshua, he was my age, and he was my best friend when no one else was around.
     Alone, we would play power rangers in his basement, feed his dog mustard sandwhiches and laugh when the dogs farts smelled the hole house up.  Before school each day I was dropped off at Joshua's house, at the end of our street, where he lived with his grandparents who were comically old.  My mom left for work before the sun came up, so sometimes Joshua would still be sleeping.  On those mornings I would crawl into bed with him, and we would giggle under the covers, sometimes falling asleep against each other.  He was my first crush, my purist crush.  It was the kind of crush kids get before they are tainted with the poison of sex, lust, and emotions.  So when I was sent outside to play I looked for Joshua, even though he pretended not to know me around the other boys. 
        I stepped outside and into the sun.  I could feel the sun on my scalp, my hair was white and thin as a child; my skin was even whiter.  I felt my mother watching me so I walked towards the kids in the distance.  They were in the middle of a field in a circle yelling when I got to them.  I slowly edged my way to the circle keeping my head down, because it was best to wedge yourself into the group rather than come running.  When I got close enough to see inside the circle, my eyes were immediately fixated on the baby blue bird they were kicking and poking back and fourth.   There were no trees around so it must have just begun to learn flight, and got just far enough to land in a field.   I've never been an intimidating person, a truth I was forced to accept when I was 16 and worked as an usher at a movie theater.  I asked a group of kids to keep it down during a movie.  Somewhere between getting a 40 ounce coke thrown at me, and cleaning up the pee they left me under the seats, I realized that perhaps I'm not the most assertive person in the world.  But something came over me and I jumped in front of the bird and flailed my arms like a lunatic, telling them to stop hurting it.  To my surprise it worked, because they ran away laughing. 
        I remember looking at the baby bird and knowing it wasn't going to live, and because I recently had my toe nail ripped clean off by dropping a can of tomato sauce on my tender six year old foot, I understood what pain was.  I also understood that the baby bird was in pain.  I picked up a rock that was stuck in the earth nearby and hovered over the baby bird with the rock held high above my head. I watched it's broken wings try to flap away, but instead of flight, it let out sounds.  I looked at Joshua who was lagging behind the other boys who were almost home.  I threw the boulder down, crushing the bird underneath.  Joshua stopped and looked back at me, he waited for me as I ran to him. He was crying.  I think I was too, I don't really remember how I felt. All I remember thinking was that I had to let the baby bird go.  Joshua and I ran side by side, confused in the magical strangeness of letting an animal go back into the world.

      
    

Valtrex

     I've been with a lot of men sexually but I've reserved actual sex for the only two people I've actually loved. I did this on purpose to protect myself from HIV and STDS.  Unfortunately both of them gave me an incurable and painful disease.  Brian gave me herpes.  Well, it's just a cold soar on my lip that appears once or twice a year when I'm stressed out or extremely pissed off, but there is always some ass hole out there that feels the need to tell you, as if you don't already know, that cold soars are a form of herpes.   Usually it's my brother.  Somehow whenever my cold soar decides to grace the world with it's shimmery puss, my brother Nick, is always there to yell, "YOU HAVE HERPES" and then laugh until I either cry or kick him in the shin.  But I can't remember the last time I called Nick by his name, as his permanent nick-name is Dyke, so I guess we're even now. Then there is Cow, he gave me MERSA, a highly contagious staff infection that is resistant to antibiotics and causes huge boils to form where small cuts used to be. 
      I spent the better part of my morning preforming yet another surgery on myself.  Digging into and draining a MERSA infection that is slowly taking over my leg.  Holding back tears I couldn't help but feel slightly irate in blaming Cow and Brian for their permanent scars on my body.  As if they hadn't already ripped my heart out, cut it up, poured lemon juice on it, and put it back barely beating; I now have to be reminded of them every time I get a cold soar or an abominable boil. 
     I remember the exact moment I acquired the cold soar virus.  Brian was taking care of me when I had mono.  I got fired from my job at Kohls because I hadn't been able to get out of bed or even make it to the toilet before puking for three weeks, much less be able to handle standing behind a register answering questions about the early bird sail and weather or not the senior discount would be applied in addition to it.  I was utterly dependent on Brian to be my mother, my lover, and my pay check; a responsibility that will destroy a partners desire to make love or want to touch you.  Not to mention the perpetual stream of boogers that were cascading from my nostrils and the smell of sickness that permeated through our room with the intensity of a fingernail polish and gasoline cocktail.  Brian hadn't touched me in almost a month before I started feeling better.
     I mustered the energy to clean the bedroom, take a shower, and sort of style my hair while I waited for him to come home from work.  When he arrived I was fully dressed, something neither of us had seen in quite a while, and I thought this would excite him.  I tried to kiss him but he turned his head and my lips softly landed on his cheeks, where they stayed in disbelief for a few moments.  "I have a cold soar Ryan, I can't kiss you until it's gone."  I looked at him as if he just told me he rode a tricycle home from work.  I remembered from health class in high school, from which I had just barely graduated,  they showed a plethora of pictures containing blistered genitalia, dying aids victims, infected vagina's and a long list of famous people who have died from syphilis.  Never had I heard of a cold soar, and it didn't appear to be as awful or as repulsive as the pictures I'd seen in school.  "Who gives a shit!" I said, planting a big smooch on his big herpe blister.  It felt like the big kiss in Funny Girl where Nicky Arnstein lays one on Fanny Brice in the solitude of a rented out dinner room in a high end hotel.  I could practically hear the string instruments roar in the ferocity of that kiss.  He pulled back though, cutting the off the violin right before the crescendo of climax and he said, "Ryan, you don't get it, I have a cold soar and I don't want you to get it." 
     He was right, I didn't get it.  I didn't get it a week later when I felt a tingling sensation in my lower lip accompanied by a throbbing blister.  I didn't get it when I went to the doctor and tested positive for herpes simplex 1 - that's the technical term for cold soars - and I didn't get it when our relationship ended, his mark on my body did not.  When I met Cow, I had just received a clean bill of health from the doctor.  I don't know why but a negative HIV result makes me horny.  It's like I know I'm clean, and I want to share that with the world, which is exactly how to not stay clean.  I know this, but seeing a negative gets me so excited I practically roll into the gay bars on my back in a gynecologist's table, feet in stirrups and all.  So needless to say, when I met Cow I was ready to get down.  And we did within hours of meeting, going against my morals that required love for sex.  I just figured we'd fall in love later, and we did.  The following week, I forced Cow to get an HIV test so I could have the comfort of knowing I wasn't sleeping with a disease bucket.  I practically had to coat his pillow in chloroform in order to get him to stop protesting.  I swear to God he couldn't have been a bigger bitch about it, but like everything else in that relationship one of us reluctantly caved to appease the other. 
     Turns out Cow didn't have HIV but what he did have was advanced MERSA.  "Holy shit Ryan, you have to get over here, there is a huge boil on my armpit and it's about to pop!" He screamed into my phone while I was at work.  Luckily I rarely did my job and I was my own boss who made my own hours, so I left my office and dove thirty miles to Cow.  "Don't you dare pop that son of a bitch until I get there or I swear to God I'll shove everything back in there and make you pop it again!"  Cow's armpit looked like someone shoved a white egg underneath his skin, coupled with a tuft of armit hair it looked like a crowning baby.  I should mention that I've had an infatuation for popping pimples since I started getting them on my back in 8th grade.  My skin cleared up when I turned 20 so it's rare that I get to enjoy popping them on my body these days.  When I saw Cow's boil, I fell in love.  I watched in glorious horror as he drained the monster, I even helped.  It was a mystery to me then, that weeks later I had a similar boil on my thigh.  It wasn't until Cow got an inection in his nose that we went to the hospital and discovered he had a staff infection called MERSA and that it was highly contagious.
     His face was swollen like a balloon, and I tried to make him laugh by pretending to be a doctor and inspect him while we waited for the real doctor, who judging by the rate at which she was taking to help us, had no legs and misplaced her wheel chair.  I took humiliating pictures of him with my new i-phone, and we both laughed harder than we did at the Kathy Griffen concert we went to a year prior.  This is when I loved Cow the most.  I wasn't even mad that he had given me MERSA, I was just happy to be sitting by his side at the hospital.  I hate to admit it, but it's one of the best memories I have with him.  Almost as much as I hate to admit that I have herpes.

Transparent.

        I started to realize the other day that perhaps my problems with jealousy are getting out of hand, when at work, I became belligerently jealous of a blind kid.  We sell these reusable shopping bags at work and a large portion of the proceeds go to the Make a Wish Foundation. The design on the bag was painted by a visually impaired child and people eat it up.  I've been slowly building resentment towards this kid for a few months, going unnoticed until a few days ago.  I was ringing up a couple in their mid fifties and they would not shut up about how amazing his artwork was.  First of all, I could do what he does with my eyes closed, literally.  I mean his artwork is just smeared paint across a rugged surface.  Secondly, how blind is "visually impaired" anyway?  I'm pretty sure if you require reading glasses you are technically visually impaired. Actually, I just Googled it and found out, "A visuall impaired person is: Someone who has an impairment of visual function which cannot be improved, by the use of corrective lenses, to a level that would normally be acceptable for reading without a special kind of light."  According to that definition, I am visually impaired.  I have dyslexia.
        "It's so amazing that a blind child can create this artwork don't you think honey?" "Oh yeah, its beautiful, do you guys sell a lot of these bags, I hope so because it's such a great cause."  She asked me.  I wanted to puke.  "He's not that blind actually," I said, before quickly realizing that I could loose my job for being an ass hole and recovered with, "but yeah his art work is magnificent."  They ended up buying 45 dollars worth of his blind bags, and I couldn't help but physically fight the urge to punch them in the face on account of the artwork I have sold in the last month is totaling in zero dollars.  As far as I was concerned, the visually impaired kid was 45 bucks ahead of me and probably got laid on a more frequent basis than I do.  Maybe, I thought to myself, I should stab my eyes out with a salad spoon or saw my hands of with a table saw so people will like my artwork more.  "Isn't it amazing the art Ryan is able to create with no hands not to mention his visual impairment?" The critics would most likely rave while sipping wine at my New York gallery opening.  Oprah would be serving orderves in roller skates and I would be posing for pictures to be released on my new reusable bag line.
        Being jealous of a charitable child who makes the best of his visual impairment by making offensively mediocre art is embarrassing in and of itself, but when everyone knows your jealous it does a lunge right over embarrassing and lands hard on humiliating.   I found myself talking shit on this kid to a close friend and he said, "Ryan it sounds like you may be a little jealous." I was stunned and quickly changed the conversation towards something more lighthearted like the Tsunami in Japan.  He was right though and I was slapped with the realization that I'm about as transparent as triple distilled water.  And that's where things get humiliating, when people see right through you.  For that reason alone, I think I will be single until the world stops spinning, or until I can learn to conceal my inner monologue or looks of discontent, jealousy and desperation. 
        When I'm single I'm way more fun to be around, this has been told to me by literally every single person in my life currently.  And it's true, I'm way more likely to get totally tanked and strip on a pole to techno renditions of "Hung Up" by Madonna when I'm single, opposed to when I'm in a relationship and I might get a wild hair and make a Mediterranean pizza and drink wine with my lover under the night sky.  I don't know what it is, but when I'm single, it's as if all the stripper poles in Kansas City call my name, because I have been half naked on every single pole within an hours driving distance, excluding Bazooka's.  Bazooka's bouncers would probably kill me if I stole the spotlight from one of their pregnant strippers.   Even though I'm considerably more fun to be around when I'm single, I also become obsessed with not being single.  I'm sitting in a coffee shop surrounded by about 30 men, and I have pictured my life with each one of them.  So far, blue shirt guy is the most viable option, as he is the only one who is under 40. 
        It's not that I'm desperate, oh wait, that's exactly what it is.   But not for the reasons most are desperate.  I don't need a man to validate me, make me feel worthy, or even be around that much.  I just want a man to take me to dinner, have mind blowing sex, and financially support my non-lucrative art career.  Is that to much to ask for?   It seems that every place I walk into when I'm single I scope out within thirty seconds and get pissed off every time I my future husband is not sitting at a table with a folded up triangular piece of paper with my name on it, waiting for me with a briefcase full of money in one hand, and a wedding ring in the other.    It sounds like I'm kidding, but these are the things I look for when I walk into a bar, coffee shop, or public restroom.  Sometimes I catch eyes with attractive men who are obviously into me, but I'm pretty sure my frantic head movements, kinda like a parakeet looking for a nut, gives me away.  I'm sure if I played it a little more cool I could land my prince.  No one likes to see through desperation, in fact, on my list of attractive qualities, desperation is on the bottom of the list, right under living with parents. I can't help it though.  I just like scoping out men, even if I'm not planning to have kids with them.  Sometimes I actually spark a conversation with someone, but usually murder it by the time the second sentence expels from my mouth.
        Last week, there was a hot lanky guy walking a dog in-front of my apartment when I pulled up.  I put my cigarette in my mouth and got out of the car as dramatically and oversexed as I could.   It actually worked, because the lanky guy walked over to me, arguably with a little more of a dramatic stride than me.  "Hey I was thinking about moving into the neighborhood, is there a number I could call to get more information about it."  His voice was sexy and holy shit, he was asking me for my number, things were going really well; he would be picking out floor tiles with me in no time.  Not knowing what to say, I looked around searching for wit, when my eyes landed on a huge sign that said, "Central Apartments: 816-352-2365."  I lifted my arm and pointed at the sign, "there is a number on that sign, you should try that," I said feeling instantly shamed.  He looked at me with a puzzled twist, and I watched his big flirty smile slowly crawl down to a reserved frown, kinda like when someone bakes cookies for work, and someone, not from work gets excited and asks, "HEY, I love cookies, can I have one?" When you say no, they always look like you punched them in the gut.  Hot lanky guy walked away with his dog, leaving me on the sidewalk watching him walk away. "What the fuck Ryan?!" I said to myself. 
        Hot lanky guy and I didn't work out, but I think running into him was a good 2 part lesson.  If I become transparent in a good way, a way that invites people to talk to me, then I will probably get hit on a lot more and maybe even meet someone worth a damn.  And, I need to work on my flirting skills.  I've known the latter part of that lesson for years, as my flirting conversation usually includes my past experiences with drugs, piece of shit men I'm still pissed off about years later, and my strong affinity towards not working.  When I tell someone a funny story about me passing out on NyQuil martinis in a dive bar and shitting my pants, often times it's perceived for what it really is, sad.   People tend to see me for what I really am, as transparent. 
I guess people need a little more mystery.  
        I was once told by a man named Ben, who I was madly in love with, "Ryan I don't need to hear your farts, or really even know about them.  How am I supposed to find you attractive if you fart all the time.  It's just gross, and leaves no mystery about you.  Everything is just so open with you."  I hate to admit it, but I strongly believe that if I farted less on Ben then we would be married by now.  I also hate to admit that even though Ben needs to develop a sense of humor that involves laughing at fart and ass jokes, he might have been onto something, because I really am gross.  When I lived with Aaron, I used to trim my toe nails with my teeth, while he sifted through bills or indulged in a book.  He would look up in disgust when I would alternate between beer and toe nails.  I smell bad sometimes too.  Sure I'm cute to look at, but get to close to me on a day when I feel particularly lazy and "forget" to brush my teeth or put deodorant on, and you might as well stick your finger down your throat and vomit because it will save you from doing it involuntarily.  I've been known to pee in sinks when I drink, and sometimes if I just don't feel like lifting the toilet seat.  I get violent when I'm upset, like I wont hit you but I will maybe throw something at you.  I cry at the drop of a hat, and I have the social ineptitude of a drunk hyena.  And I also sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes; I get scared and push people away.  Maybe it's not a mystery then, that my lack of mystery chases of men like a kid chasing pigeons in New York City.
        But I feel like someday someone will find me.  I'll probably be sitting in a corner somewhere bitching to some poor stranger about how much I hate blind kids who make art.  I will probably smell bad, and look disheveled.  I might even be drunk, who knows.  But he will find me.  He will see through me.  And he will love me. 

The Dark Knight

        I went black once and I couldn't do it so I hoped the fence again and landed safely on white; and not because I'm not enticed by the delicacy of fine chocolate.  The rumors are apparently true, because his penis was anatomically incapable of fitting into a hula hoop much less anything attached to my body.  Surprisingly though, he was able to cram it into his Mercedes Benz with no problem.  His name was Brent, a fitting white name for such an incredibly black, black man.  I found out about his penis not by physically handling the monster, but during one of the few expensive dates he took me on, this one in-particular was at a sushi joint, when I accidentally saw it.  It would of had to be by accident because I had about as much intention in sleeping with him as I did in attending a bible study weekend getaway.  I was just in it because he was handsome, rich, and fawned over me like a hungry puppy waiting for a treat.  The expensive dinners helped too. While he blabbed about spirituality and his boring family, I chowed down on flavors I had previously deemed unrealistic.
        Brent went to the bathroom before our dinner arrived, leaving his i-Phone sitting on the table.  At that point the closest thing I had seen to an i-Phone was the 400 pound computer monitor I was using as my Mobil device.  I feel it's important to mention that this was in the year 2009.  After hitting it against the table a few times like a neanderthal, a screen popped up with the option, among many others, to view photos.  And that's when I saw it.  There in all it's glory was a nude photo of Brent in a bath tub with a penis so large even John Holmes would have had a run for his money.  I was just trying to check his text messages to see if he was wining and dining someone else on the side but I was so shocked that I didn't notice him sit back down and take a few sips of his bloody marry.  He must have mistaken my look of horror for intense curiosity because he broke me out of my penis trance by saying, "you like what you see don't you."  I was mortified but smiled and said, "sure do, where's our sushi? We ordered it almost thirty minutes ago," I looked around as if that would help bring the food to us faster.  I felt sick and I felt the date spiraling downwards.  I was going to have to end my fake relationship with Brent sooner than expected.         
        Call me crazy, but the idea of fornicating with something relative in size to a small car didn't sit well with me, and I wondered how I got in this situation to begin with.  I met Brent when I was pricing vibrators at the porn store I worked at called Video Mania.  He romantically asked me if I liked the Treasure Island porn over the Bel Ami porn, and I flirtatiously explained the differences in quality and ass play time while using the dildo in my right hand to emphasize important syllables.  He opted to get the Treasure Island porn entitled; Sperm Bank.  It was at that time that I suggested my favorite porn tittle, "I'm Coocoo For Coco Cocks," it just seemed like something that would be right up his ally.  "I'm not really into black men," he told me.  "In fact, I would like to take you to dinner sometime."  I was taken aback for a moment, I had never dated a black man, and the reviews I've heard are on the up and up, why not?  Besides, the co-worker who I was in love with was putting me on the back burner while he slowly realized how much he loved me, so I had time to kill.   I gave him my number and received a text twenty minutes later that read, "Hey, it's the dark knight, hows my little cream puff?"   For that reason, to this day, I cannot watch Batman: The Dark Knight, without getting an erection; because that text made me feel sexy.  That's one thing I love about the black men I have dabbled in since Brent, they make me feel sexy.
        After dinner, he took me to an overlook of this city on top of a hill, it was beautiful and I almost kissed him, as I am a sucker for beautiful sights.  Fortunately, the sight of his member repelled me from danger.  He took me home and I never spoke to him again, and not for lack of him trying to get a hold of me.  He started stopping by for porn on a frighteningly frequent basis. But I was hung up on my co-worker, and at the time, that's who I wanted to be with.   While I passed time waiting for him to come around, I went on a few more dates with random men.  There was Jack, the stuttering Greek God.  Jack was so beautiful it was painful, and he really liked me.  He was kind, had ambition, had a story to tell, and possessed a body so far out of my league it was comical.  He just had a slight stutter, not a bad one, just a slight one.  And for me, any excuse to turn away someone healthy, I took.  "Can I reasonably see myself with someone who repeats the first sound of the word once or twice, every five or ten minutes?"  The answer was no.  I wish I could go back in time and stop myself from being such a shallow ass hole, but in order to do that I would have had to of also been able to rid myself of my severe fear of intimacy.  Something I'm still unable to do.
        There was Greg, a young man I met on Myspace, back when Myspace was still an acceptable means of communication.  We decided to meet at a dive bar for drinks, and within thirty minutes I was naked.  Greg was the best fuck I've ever had without fucking.  Probably one of the more positive spins on my intimacy issues.  Greg flaked out on me a bunch of times, sporadically throwing in a, "hey sorry I've been distant, wanna come over?" The answer was always yes.  There's nothing more attractive to me than an apologetic ass hole so for three weeks Greg had me wrapped around his finger.  I would leave his house, and go to my co-workers house and cuddle.  Justifying that it was not cheating because co-worker refused to commit, even though he wanted to spend every waking moment with me.  But I'm a words kinda guy, I need someone to say, "I want to be with you" before I am comfortable.  People who say things like, "actions speak louder than words," are mistaken and have probably never had a lover release their heart through their lips rather than touch.  I need words.  I need a lot of words. I live for words.  I guess I'm old fashioned. 
         Co-worker and I, (we'll call him Cow from now on) were on again off again for almost two years, the end of which came three weeks ago.  During our off times, I passed time with more men who were about as worthwhile of my time as a Jehovah's witness.   First there was Cheese, I called him cheese because I couldn't for the life of me remember his name, which was a type of cheese.  I went home with Cheese one night because he promised me pan fried eggs and bacon, which I might add were the best eggs I have or will ever have for the rest of my life. When it came time to go to the bedroom I booked.  I don't sleep with people of whome I can't remember a name.  Another regrettable decision because Cheese was undeniably hot.  If I had a dollar for every time I ran away from the opportunity to sleep with an incredibly hot man, I would have enough money to comfortably purchase a living room set from Ikea.
         I also dated this guy named Phil during one of Cow and I's longer break ups.  Phil was an ass, and he had really bad breath.  Aside from his halitosis, the only memorable thing about him was how he left me.  I gave him an atomic blow job after three weeks of him gaining my trust, and left immediately after-wards, never to be heard from again.  He got what he wanted and I was reacquainted with my crippling fear of intimacy.  There were many other men that came and went with the ebb and flow of my relationship with Cow, none of which knew how to treat someone as an equal or as a lover.  In this respect, I damaged myself to an almost unfixable low.  A low that I am just now stepping out of; leaving the bitterness, resentment, and failures behind me.  I went to Cows house last night, to give him a few books and to get my dumbbell back.  It amazes me that after almost two years of dating Cow, all I had to retrieve from his house was a weight I never used and a few crappy memoirs.  I got my things and we sat in silence for the better part of a cigarette.  There was a lot said in that silence.

But like I said, I'm a words kinda guy.  So I didn't read to much into it.
      

The streets are lined with bullet holes, and lawn gnomes.

         One of the benefits to living in a part of town riddled with poverty is that there is no traffic at 9 am when I go to work.  On the other hand one of the downfalls of living in a poverty stricken town is that no one works at 9am and on my days off I am surrounded by crazy people.  I'm sitting in a coffee shop to get some piece of mind and sit in silence with a good book.  There is a obese black man who aside from smelling of owl pellets in a pressure cooker, also came here searching for the same thing.  There are approximately a billion other places to sit here but he decided to sit directly next to me and hold a very intense conversation with himself about computers bringing on the second coming of Christ.  Luckily I brought my head phones and have tuned him out via the lyrical stylings of Regina Spector.
        There is free entertainment around every corner in Westport.  The other night I watched from my porch, four black women take turns punching a highly opinionated withe girl in the mouth, oddly enough to no vial of shutting it.  With each pop in the face a slew of insults spewed from her bloody mouth, I don't think I've heard the word cunt so many times since I myself discovered the weight of that word when I was 18.  I was at a house party with my ex boyfriend, the average age of people there being in the upwards of 35 to 40 years old, and I decided to call this woman a cunt after I ran into her and caused her beer to spill on my face.  I think if I had chosen to call her anything but that, I wouldn't have been pushed backwards into a pile of tractor parts.  But the fact that it got such a big reaction only made me call her and her friends cunts all the more.  I was slapped around like one of those inflatable punching dolls for kids with anger issues.  Once pushed to the floor I popped back up with more insults.  This continued until my boyfriend of the time picked me up by the wrist and, like I was a four year old who just threw a temper tantrum in Wal-Mart, and dragged me kicking and screaming away from the party and into my car seat, where I was told to think about what I had done.  That incident was the beginning of me destroying that relationship with NyQuil and Vodka induced outbursts.          One of my favorite things I've seen from my porch was this woman who had commandeered a Sun Fresh Shopping cart and was using it as a stroller for her six year old daughter dressed in a hammy-down rag dress.  The woman was wearing running shorts and a walk-man and by the way she was furiously speed walking, she was on a mission of weight loss.  What cracks me up more than watching this woman push her toddler in a shopping cart while exercising was the fact that it was 28 degrees outside and snowing sheets of horizontal powder.    I made a back ground story for her instantly, one that I'm pretty sure was dead on.  Her name was Gabriel Mendez and her boyfriend and father of her six year old daughter, Sophia Mendez, had recently left her for someone who was able to loose the baby weight in more timely fashion.  The devastated and profoundly self conscious Gabriel had only 34 dollars left on her food stamps card and was in immediate need of a man to save her.  Given the reason her boyfriend left her, she needed to loose weight at any cost, even if it meant acquiring hypothermia, as she had heard that drastic weight loss was a side effect of the illness.   "Poor Gabriel," I thought to myself from the warmth of my porch window.
        Jen and I chose to live on the second floor because we figured the trajectory of most bullets wouldn't stray above 12 feet high.  When we moved into our current building the land lord comforted us by saying, "there has only been three murders this year on this block, and one of them didn't even happen on this street, it happened at the shell station." He pointed about a hundred yards away towards the Shell gas station.  Apparently some poor sap accidentally tapped his car into the car in front of his at the Shell station and was punished with a bullet to the head; which if you ask me takes the phrase, "an eye for an eye" to a whole new and unnecessary level.  What I do in those types of situations is far more civilized.  I don't like being honked at, cut off, yelled at, or given the finger, and when these things happen I admittedly might over react a little bit.  My car resembles a landfill so at any given point I can reach in any direction and grab a blunt object with no sentimental value.  So when one of the above happens to me, I grab something, usually a half empty water bottle, and throw it at the car who has offended me.  Sometimes I miss, but most of the time I do not.  At least it's better than shooting someone in the head, though I've cut back on these displays of anger given that I could be shot.  It doesn't take much to get shot around here. 
        I've never had a gun in my face but I have been chased with an army machete by my old roommates boyfriend who just so happened to have a severe case of post traumatic stress disorder after his two year stay in Iraq.  We were exceptionally drunk one evening about a year ago after a night in Westport.  When we suggested that he should not drive home and after we forced him to walk home, he decided that he didn't like being told what to do and stabbed Kayla in the arm.  He then chased me with a bloody knife while I screamed like a little girl and drunk dialing the police.  "There is a man chasing me with a knife and he's trying to break in to kill us, he already stabbed my roommate, please hurry," I cried into the phone.  I had grabbed two steak knives to protect myself when he broke in when the sirens were heard.  I was so relieved to see police that I ran outside, forgetting that I had two giant steak knives clinched in my fists.  I was promptly thrown to the ground face down and hand cuffed.  Turns out, it doesn't matter how reasonably you explain your situation to a police officer when you have two stainless steel knives waving around in their face. 
        Come to think of it, I've never had a genuinely pleasant experience here in Westport.  Instead I have a lifetime worth of stories to tell, some sad, some funny, some life threatening.  But among being narcissistic, I am also addicted to stories.  I will and have put myself in jeopardizing situations, thinking, "God this is going to be hilarious to tell."  I love places with danger and a hint of sadness, if only because it means I'm surrounded with people who have lived.  They are not people who have been raised in white suburbia and whose biggest life struggle was getting daddy to give them the car keys for the Saturday night school dance.   These are people who have lost, who have hurt, and who have done wrong.  And a beautiful thing happens, it is rare, but it does happen.   It is when someone who has gone down the beaten path, roller bladed down gravel roads, and been beaten down by life, they become lighter than most.  They are able to laugh at their struggles, give less of a shit to trivial and petty things, and find peace where most cannot.  That is the biggest bennifet to living where I live, I am not alone here, I am right at home.
      

Blow It Out Your Ass

      I find that interviewing for jobs is about as enjoyable for me as watching a dog turd dry in the heat of the summers sun.   It’s difficult, given the fact that I have never left a job on good terms, to use past employers as references; and when I do, I hope to God they never are contacted.   When asked, “why did you leave your previous employer?” Instead of saying, “I was caught smoking pot in the bathroom, I was seen on tape stealing money out of the ’Children’s Mercy’ donation box, or I was sleeping with my co-workers and things got complicated,” I lie and say, “there weren’t enough hours and I wasn’t feeling challenged enough.”   “If I called your last employer what would they have to say about you,” is another question I fear more than death itself, because if I were to tell the truth, more often than not the answer would be, “well he had a bad attitude most of the time and he told me to go fuck myself before walking out in the middle of his shift.”
        It’s not that I’m opposed to being a good employee, it’s just that working hard at the places I work is almost always rewarded with nothing more than a long list of things I’m still doing wrong.  Also, I really hate rules and people.  For example, at the job I currently have, we cannot rest our body weight against the counters, show human emotions that are below ecstatic, or drink out of cups that are not certified by Osha, just to name a few.  Personally, I find the fact that I am given the responsibility of thousands of dollars each day but banned from drinking out of containers void of straws a little infuriating.  The fact that I have, at minimum, four bosses watching every move I make at any given time in addition to being monitored by 360 degrees of video cameras, doesn’t help me push towards the inclination of enjoying myself at work. 
           Recently, I found myself working hard for the first time in my life for the grocery store I work at.  I went above and beyond my job description, did research on what I can personally do to lower waist and improve profit and sustainability in order to get the opportunity for a promotion.  When the time came for the interviews my name was blacklisted the second they saw my secret shopper results.  Because I did not greet the customer before ringing up the first item, and because I made a Jane Fonda reference, I was overlooked for the position.  I am sick of working for companies that see only the negative in people, and I am sick of trying to impress impresionless people.  This is usually the point where I take a shit on the floor and call it a day, but unfortunately I really need this job to secure my uncomfortable life of poverty.  I think what I miss most about being younger was the lack of responsibility that afforded me the luxury of telling a boss to blow it out their ass, before pushing over a display of candy and running out of the building. 
          I once worked for an Indian man named Akesh at a tannery called, ‘Sun Paradise’ when I was 18.  Why this man owned a tannery is beyond me because his skin was darker than a bats ass hole. Akesh hated white people, in fact the only thing he hated more than white people were women, especially women who felt entitled to self respect.  At Sun Paradise, there were only five of us that ran the store, myself and Andrea being the only important ones, while Akesh sat at home watching, via internet, the video camera’s he set up in two feet increments throughout the store.  The phone would ring, “Are you smoking pot in the laundry room?” He would demand.  “Umm no?” was my only reply as I furiously put the joint out in a bucket of tanning bed sanitizer.   “Oh, because I just watched you smoke a pot in my laundry room.”   “Oh yeah, maybe I did, I’m sorry.”
            As favorable as he was to women he was arguably less favorable to gay people.  He found out I was gay, I assume because he listened to conversations between Andria and I where we talked about the biggest cocks we’d ever seen and how many blow jobs we’d given that week.  I don’t know how he didn’t know my persuasion the moment I interviewed for the position as I am not only extremely gay to look at, but I was a guy wanting to work at a tanning salon. The only thing gayer than a male tanning salon clerk is a male Pomeranian dog groomer who also performs anal bleaching.  He told me that if I ever told a customer I was an abominable homosexual that he would fire me.  This was shortly after telling Andria that if she didn’t wear long sleeves he would also fire her.   Andria and I would smoke pot in the tanning beds when no one was in the store and drink wine coolers in the bathroom to avoid the watchful eye of Akesh. 
         Andria was 25, 5 foot 2, and was probably the biggest slut I’ve ever known.  It seemed that every day she had a new story of some slob she went home with.  I loved it, I was in a relationship at the time and needed to live promiscuously through her, though my boyfriend at the time had the largest penis I’ve ever seen and knew how to use it so I wasn’t jealous, just curious.  “I went home with this guy Chad but he was a lousy lay, so when he fell asleep I went in to his roommates room and fucked his brains out.  They were both pretty bad, but now I can say I got fucked twice in one night by different men,” she raved once.   We became bonded at the hip, a bond that was secured mostly in our love for sex, weed, and our hatred for Akesh. 
          After about ten wine coolers at a joint the size of a rolled up sock, we decided to not show up to work the next day.  She lived with her parents and I was mooching off my boyfriend, so our financial obligations were slim to none.  It was a Friday when we quit, and our last pay day.  We deposited our checks and went on with our lives.  Turns out, Akesh did not find the hilarity in our resignation as we did, because he canceled our pay checks which caused both Andria and I to overdraft in our accounts.  That’s when we formulated the plan. 
      “Look, we both have keys to the place, and we both know the security code.  Lets just break in after they close and take the money out of the safe.” Andria suggested.  Seeing no problem with it, I obliged.  It was 12:45 am when we broke in.  We wore all black and covered our faces with tube socks, holes where our eyes were cut out.  Her job was to cover the camera’s up front and my job was to deactivate the alarm and retrieve the money.  Twenty minutes later we both left with enough money to cover three months worth of rent, or in her case, two weeks of drinking money.  We left a note that read, “what you did was illegal, if you want to press charges please do, but be prepared to loose your business.”  He never took suit and we walked away slightly less poor.  I never talked to Andria after that night, I often find myself wondering how she is. 
     I had an equally crazy boss at the gay porn store I worked at.  His name was Garry Lail.  Like Akesh Garry found it necessary to place camera’s within inches of each other around the store and watch from his home, every customer and every mood I made.  I swear to god he called once and said, “Ryan, you knocked over the black dildo by the poppers case when you were running movies, please pick it up before we loose a sail.”  It’s surprising that he never caught me stealing poppers, which I was rapidly becoming addicted to.   Poppers, as they are called, is nothing more than video cleaner that when inhaled, gives a rush of euphoric relaxation.  They are usually used by men during sex to relax the anal muscles during fornication.  But for me, they were a tool to forget where I worked.  Every time I inhaled a whiff of a popper, somehow the fact that I sold but blugs and bareback cum pig porn for a living didn’t seem so bad.  And that’s one thing all my past jobs have in common; the use of chemical substance to temporarily rid myself of the actualization that I work where I work.  That I am doing what I do not want to be doing. 
    Currently it’s wine.  I’ve been drinking wine every day after I get off work to forget that I worked that day, to forget that instead of painting or writing, I am for 8 hours a day, faking.  I don’t like faking, it’s not who I am.  It’s hard for me to smile at customers who share the intellect of dirty dishes.  I need to get somewhere fast. I’ve been biding time with shitty jobs for far to long, and I desperately need to find something that makes me happy.  But what will I say during the interview when they ask, “why did you leave your last employer?”  Do I tell the truth?  “I left because I was unhappy, and I need to be fulfilled artistically and spiritually, that’s why I’m here.”