COLD

There, but for the grace of g--, go I. She wasn't causing any trouble. She wasn't bothering anybody. But the people were bothered.

"You have to go."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. But you have to go."

"It's cold."

"It is."

They kept calling her the crazy lady, but I found her to be charming. Told me I was sophisticated and asked me about my girlfriend. All the inane stuff everyone else talks about. Just her being there made my tips plummet. My well-being depended on her absence.

"You have to go."

"Can you give me a hug?"

"Bye."

Slangin' Cake Farts

I got way too high. That's what I like about vape pens: discretion. You just go around the corner and all of a sudden you're high. But they usually hit you light and you usually have to take a few puffs before you can be sure you got something. But this one hit me like a bong rip. Expanded my lungs so I breathed out more than I took in. 

This was after the guitarist played enough to make all the bar guests buy more drinks. After the three Mexicans came in and showed me that video of a naked chick baking a cake. So I one-upped them by showing them cake farts. Two things everyone loves, chocolate cake and naked chicks, ruined. They hung on right up until they saw that ass hole open up and then they screamed as in submission. 

This was after the snafu with the drink tickets: "Tickets are only for draft beer." "What's on draft?" "The tap is broken." Then what do these get me?" "Box Chardonnay." After the Japanese exchange students had a birthday party in the corner and gave us all their extra cake. After whole day goes by and all the weird shit and running around, the guitarist hands me a pen and says, "Want some?"

"Yes I do."

And then I shut the fuck up for the next halfhour to an hour. Time loses all meaning and I know I can't talk to anyone or I'll forget what the fuck I'm doing. I'll stand in the middle of the room and stare off, knowing I'm forgetting something but not being able to figure out what it was. Just gotta get the fuck outta there. 

I clock out and just hang for a minute because I feel bad for getting quiet that last hour. I shoot the shit but I'm no good at conversation when I'm high, and I let him know.

"I lost that entire last bit of what you said," I tell him. "I was hanging on until you mentioned the shit about your phone and then I just checked out." That pen really snuck up on me. 

I worry about the front desk guy catching on to me and he's just worried about the pissed off guest who lost his house in a fire. Now he needs a room with two rooms. But all of our rooms only have one room.

A PETTY MAN: You win this time, EuroCaffé

         I went into the café down the street where the coffee is good and the service is rocky at best. It’s the kind of place where you could find yourself waiting upwards five minutes at the front of a line with nobody in it. But the product they make absolutely blows the competition out of the water. It’s abusive, really, the way they hold their superior product up for ransom so you have to feel like a second-class citizen before you can enjoy the best tiramisu in town.

         So today I had enough time, I felt, to prove a point. I was going to march right in there, stand at the front of the line for a good two minutes and leave abruptly so that those autocrats behind the counter could know, once and for all, that their product will not be sold at the cost of my sanity and sense of self-worth. I could picture it: three people in the whole shop, the tables virtually empty, and me waiting, patiently at first. Then beginning to tap my foot anxiously as each employee snubs me, one at a time telling me how “It’ll just be another minute,” while they take the next five minutes to figure out their business model. Then I storm out righteously and patron any of the other myriad coffee shop/cafes in town.

Who in the hell do you even think you are, EuroCaffe.

So I march in. Three employees and two lonely tables inhabiting the whole place. I walk up, money in hand, just to let them know I came in knowing what I want and I do not “need a minute” to read over the menu.

Then the girl at the counter promptly takes my order and makes my drink. I walk out, much to my chagrin, a satisfied customer. You win this time, EuroCaffe.

Tuna Butt

Having recently struggled with an ant problem, I think I may be drawn metaphysically to them. What's more, I think they have it out for me.

I had just bought a tuna sandwich and was looking for a quiet and shaded place to eat. I looked out over the entire common area just outside the building where my classroom is. There was one spot that called out to me and I sunk into it so comfortably that I kicked my feet up, got situated and started digging in to the delicious pepperoncini, spinach, and olive filled snack.

Then I felt a tickle on my back. An ant. I quickly killed it and continued on. Another ant. Kill it. Move on. And another... and another.

I got up and looked behind me to find the biggest line of marching ant I've ever seen. I brought my legs in and nearly fell with panic, and in the confusion of it all, sat in a small puddle of tuna salad mush that I dropped.

Now and for the rest of the day, my ass smells like tuna. I only hope I don't have the telltale shit-colored tuna stain back there to stand as evidence. I'll only find out after I get home. There are no mirrors that I can maneuver to ass level so that I can be sure.

The Scarcely Told Legend of Giant Gerald (A Tall Tale) I. Enter Giant Gerald

               Giant Gerald was born Gerald Robert Letrowski to the Flying Letrowskis out of Hoboken, New Jersey. While they did work for a circus at one point, cultivating a husband and wife trapeze duo was the mere aspiration of a couple who made their living on the side show of a Atlantic Coast traveling carnival. They were Jenna, the bearded lady, and Jerome, the half-man, half-horse. While Jerome’s penis did not take up half of his body, it was rumored to have been transplanted from a Kentucky derby stud. Jenna, on the other hand, was highly attractive, and did little more for her part of the show than sit idly next to her husband while donning a cosmetic beard fashioned from dyed sheep’s wool. Where they wound up is where our story takes place.

            Being born at the healthy weight of nine pounds and three ounces was not the reason behind Gerald’s nickname. Nor did he grow to be very large in stature. Giant Gerald did not, in fact, know about his ridiculously large penis until he had reached his mid-twenties, when the rumor caught up with him. However let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

            The name actually spawned from an incident during a home-coming party at the start of Gerald’s junior year in high school. Late that night, when many of the guess had departed, young Gerry found himself stumbling drunk into a vacant bedroom and ready to be deflowered by a lovely, young, popular cheerleader by the name of Melinka. Within a few clumsy minutes they were disrobed and ready to party. Melinka let out a mighty shriek and began to bleed, allowing her to confirm the lie she had told earlier – saying that she was a virgin.

            She spoon-fed this story to every new romantic encounter, and nothing could have been further from the truth. As a matter of fact, Gerald was the second gentleman to penetrate her that evening. He went on, oblivious and somewhat traumatized, thinking that sex was not really something for women to enjoy.

            The story spread throughout poor Gerry’s high school with a sonic boom, without every reaching his ears, in the way etiquette dictates that nobody is to tell a morbidly obese woman that she has a weight problem, even if that woman keeps a spandex-based wardrobe. Young Gerald thought thought it normal to struggle daily whit the cumbersome chore of hiding his bulge. After all, does not every man keep his penis folded beneath his ass if not propped to one side over his pelvis?

            His friends called him G.G. for short without ever explaining why. Nor did he inquire. He took the nickname as a satire regarding his relatively small stature, though he was not particularly tiny in comparison with the rest of the students in his graduating class. At 5’ 9” and 144 lbs., he was neither here nor there. All the while, his friends refused to let him in on the joke, mainly for the sake of their own insecurities.

            What a splendid homage, he thought, to be tagged with such a wonderfully satirical nickname. This attitude he kept of noticing only the shiny side of life did him well all through high school and up to adulthood. Bright-eyed, young Gerry had no formal skills, experience, or higher education to speak of. Only a hearty smile, and a willingness to take on the world with it.

            This, coupled with other preceding events, landed him a comfortable job as a bartender when he turned twenty-five. Gerald made more money behind that bar than many of his former fellow students who went on to college and subsequent professional careers. His nights were high-paced and his regulars were absolutely head-over heels in love with his dopey, happy-go-lucky attitude. They called him Woody sometimes in reference to the barkeep on an old 1980’s hit sitcom series. Having never achieved success in concealing his bulge, the surrounding staff had a good chuckle at this.  It embarrassed him, actually, his bulge, and he cared not to speak about it.

            At night’s end, he was permitted by management to pour a few cocktails for the closing staff. He did this liberally but with a sense of caution. Sometimes he would simply bring in a bottle of his own to avoid confusion altogether with revenue coming in from clientele. Nobody would have ever accused Gerald of stealing and that was one reason why.

            So beloved was our young bartending protagonist, and he would have been popular regardless of the following incident. Nonetheless, it did not hurt him any.

            One night, while chatting away with the closing staff, Gerald was asked out rightly.

            “Why do you think you need to stuff your pants?”

            The closing staff on this night consisted of three young and slender cocktail waitresses. Most of the staff were female on the front side of the establishment. The cooks in the back of the house, as is the norm, were mostly male and of Hispanic origin. The doors were closed, and they, along with any remaining clientele, had long since gone home. The waitresses, nowadays called servers, were Daisy, Fay, and Sue. They all sat, anxiously, and awaited a response.

            He took this at first as though someone had pointed out an obvious handicap: with abashment, and to a lesser extent, offense. Utterly speechless, his face began to warm up, particularly at the ears and forehead, causing them to turn a cherry shade of red. He wished he could have died right then and there.

            “I just…” Gerald started, after an intensely long pause. Sue was the girl bold and tipsy enough to ask. She was relatively new on the staff. Daisy and Fay dared not to break the silence and risk taking momentum out of the situation. It had been a question on all their minds ever since the day they met him and the only discernible fault Gerry had.

            “Wasn’t that something guys did in the seventies?” Sue continued, as though they were discussing hair styles. Her valley girl, bubble gum way of talking was beginning to sound like fingernails scratching on chalkboard to him.

            “You’d probably get more girls if you didn’t try to go all porn star all the time, you know?”

          Sue was a nice enough girl. Only honest to a flaw. She didn't know any better. Nobody did. Gerald was chaste and had been ever since his episode in high school. As a result, he had become a compulsive masturbator and housed a veritable library of pornography in his apartment. Some of the men in the films had equipment comparable to his. Lesser sizes he attributed to the porn industry’s commitment to boosting the male ego. Another reinforcement on the idea that sex was not for women to enjoy.

            “It’s tough,” he went on. “I don’t know what else to do with it.”

            The women glanced at one another in perplexity.

            “Do me a favor,” said Daisy. “Open your pants.”

            Gerald, modest as he was, refused at first. Two shots of Irish whiskey and one Irish car bomb later, he unleashed what later became known as ‘the fury’. With this unveiling and the consequent reaction came a sudden pondering in retrospect to his old nickname. The order of events replayed over and over in his head, and caused him to feel extremely foolish.

            This feeling of being left out of his own cosmic joke was short-lived, however. Throughout the ensuing weeks, one by one, the female servers would report for a shift with a bit of a limp in their step. Another sonic boom radiated from the now legendary grin of Mr. Giant Gerald Letrowski. Incidentally, he began purchasing his trousers two sizes larger, and it made a world of difference for his general appearance.

A Harmless Visit to the Restroom

When you step into a public restroom for anything more than to wash your hands you've already made a concession. You have agreed to step through a mysterious door that may on one hand lead you into an accommodating and well kept environment in which you may safely and comfortably "handle business" as they say. Your palms sweat and your gait slows as you approach however, because you know the odds are against you.

You know that what lies on the other side of that door may be the single most horrific experience you could imagine. You know that people do terrible, unspeakable things in public restrooms. You think of the things you yourself have been guilty of: drunken episodes that ended there, lurid sex acts that started there, episode after episode of gastrointestinal emergency. "That's the only reason people visit an unfamiliar toilet," you say to yourself. "Because it's an emergency." You think of the vast population out there in the world and try to estimate within your mind's eye exactly how many bathroom emergencies could potentially occur within the course of a day.

A fucking lot. That's how many.

So you brace yourself. You take a deep, calming breath, realizing for the last time before you open the door that you may very well be spending the next ten to twenty minutes of your life smelling other peoples' shit.

You step through and the smell is mild. So far, so good. Maybe this is one of those well-kept restrooms that keeps an hourly checklist on the maintenance of it. If you're like me, you look around for that checklist. No checklist. That means you just got lucky. That's all. It's early in the day and nobody's really had a chance to christen this place with a full scale desecration just yet.

There are three stalls and naturally, you want the handicap stall for its luxurious roominess. You could really spread out in a stall like that. But that's how everybody feels and somebody's already been in there and piled up two pounds of shit and three pounds of toilet paper without flushing. The stench hits you in the face as if looking at it dead on like that made you almost taste it.

You have two more stalls available to you and your legs are starting to twitch because you're really only there because you have to be. The next stall is busy and you find out because you accidentally peeked through the crack in the door and noticed two folds of flab resting over a turtle covered in a small shrub of pubic hair.

There are no choices left. You're at the last stall and at your wits' end. Your entire body shakes to hold everything in while you diligently wipe the exorbitant remains of dried urine syrup from the toilet seat, and while you're engaged in this task you wonder how people cared so much about their graffiti as to kneel down over a shitter and scribe their etchings into a toilet seat.

You lay down a layer of toilet paper over the seat because there's no way in hell you were able to get the seat actually clean and the liners in the dispenser, or "toilet condom" catches your shit before it hits the water.

Torpedoing your first sense of relief into the sewer, you reach for the hygienic paper and realize you've been duped. It's the wheel of toilet paper that has no perforations in it so the strips you tear off are irregular and never the length you want them to be. And it wouldn't be so bad if it was one-ply, but this is a single ply of the skinniest and longest strip of fine grain sandpaper you've ever laid your hands on. You fumble with the flimsy material and hope desperately that you don't punch through.

And now, things just got real. You have a new neighbor and their diet, as you can readily tell, consists solely of hamburger meat and salsa.

Now you're done. But it's not over yet. You're all perspired from the stress and because the place is poorly ventilated and greenhoused with methane gas. You approach the washing area, already soaked with soap and water, you hope, and littered with drenched paper towels that you swear weren't there when you got in.

You leave and meet your company now waiting for you because you're holding them up and you feel like you carried some of the stench with you but nobody complains. You're fine now. It's all behind you. You can rest easy knowing that you're safe... for now.

My first blackout (part II)

Following my narrow escape, which had more to do with a lack of willingness on their part than any light-footedness on mine, I'm walking down the street. The middle of the street. There is no island, no center divider. Only a median lane, cars on either side of me. I'm carrying my shoes. This is partially for comfort and partly to attract attention. Because I've got such a long walk ahead of me that I'd almost rather get arrested than finish this leisurely stroll of mine. Besides; if my friends are anywhere between where I came from and where I'm going, there's no way in hell they can miss me. 

Trekking a busy stretch of road on Saturday night, I have time to think. I give the façade of a rich homeless person. My button-front Hugo Boss untucked from my $200 silk pants and I'm stepping all over the backs of the inseam. Now I take off my socks. I have nothing but time.

What could I have done to piss those guys off so bad? It couldn't have been all my fault. I mean... okay, what did I do? I was looking for my friends. But I was talking to somebody before I left. Said his drink was too strong and asked if I could take it off his hands. "I'm here to help." That's what I said. That's what I always say. Then looking around for my friends some more. Started talking to a girl. It always starts with a girl.

I'm so tired. I just want to lay down right here in the middle of the street and take a nap. The memory comes in little flashes. Most people sleep through this part. It's never been so hard to attract attention; I must look like a psycho here in the median of traffic.

Another memory flash. Oh yeah; some times I forget that people don't know my sarcasm. What did those tall guys get all pissed about?

I went up to the girl all nonchalant. "Where you headed?" "We're going to a party." I introduced my self. Made her laugh. Asked if I could hitch a ride. That's all I needed was a ride down the street. There wasn't enough room in the car so she sat in my lap. The driver took a head count and noticed me. Politely, she ejected me from the car. I was getting out and... then the guys.

They pulled up and got all pissy with the girls. "Who the hell's that? Where'd you find him?" "I'm Gino!" That's what I always say. Right away, they wanted to fight me. What a cluster-fuck.
      "Were you gonna rape our girls?"
      "Your girls? Are you leasing to own?" Typical Gino shit.
      "You were gonna rape 'em; weren't you?"
      "Yes. I was going to rape them. All six of them. I was going to have all of them. With my six dicks and ten arms, I was going to rape all of them at the same time."
      "We knew it!"
      "Well you got me, bro." The girls started yelling at each other. Then at the girl who let me in the car. "These are the kind of guys you bring around, Kimberly!" Then Kimberly. "He's not serious! Can't you tell?" Then she turns to me. "You're not serious, are you?"
      "No. I needed a ride down the street. It's ten minutes in the car and an hour walk. And you're going the way I'm going." Then I turn to the douchebags all ready to fight me.
      "How helpless do you think they are?! There are six of them. I have four limbs. Even if I was a big dude!.."

They went on with the tough talk. Called me a pussy for not wanting to fight. A coward, a piece o' shit. For some reason, it really hurt when the dude called me a pervert. Then they got the worst of me. Maybe that's why they were scared. Guess it's the adrenaline that brought me back. So I really wasn't gone for that long. Maybe twenty minutes.

I'm so thirsty. My cell phone rings. It's my dumbass friends. And my dumbass ride. "Where the fuck are you?" "Where the fuck were you?" "Where did you go?" I'm so thirsty. I must look like hell on wheels. The cops pass me by and don't give a second look. "Do you need us to come get you?" I tell them too little too late. I'm around the corner. I ask them how didn't they see me. I'm in the middle of the fucking road.

Getting up to the meeting place and they're too drunk to figure out what happened. They're just lucky they didn't kill anybody on the drive here.

My first blackout.

When I come to, I've got five guys in front of me, all taller than me, talking about how their going to work on me with a set of golf clubs. I'm trying to figure out how I got here, but my mouth doesn't skip a beat.

      "Golf clubs are pretty expensive, bro. You sure you wanna ruin a nice set o' golf clubs on little ole me?"

The last thing I remember, someone gave me their drink to finish. I was looking for my friends and... Oh yeah. I guess it was just a glass of whisky I drank. Whisky and a little ice.

Now they're talking about baseball bats. Guess they really considered my advice about the golf clubs.

      "You know," I tell them. "It's not as easy as it sounds, beating on a person with a foreign object. I know; I tried. If you've done it before, than cool. But I'm just sayin' it's not as easy as it sounds."

They're conferring. What should they do? How should they go about this? One guy nuts up and says he's just going to beat my ass and get it over with. I assume the stance. I think about what I should do. How I should go about this.

      "Don't do it," another one of them says. "He looks crazy." I feel flattered and my expression goes soft like someone just told me I'm pretty. "Nevermind," he reassesses. "Go for it." I assume the stance again. I get that calculating look on my face. "No wait." I wish these guys would make up their collective mind. Finally, they pile into a truck and threaten to run me over. I'm playing matador with a two ton piece of machinery. Where in the fuck are my friends?

Shame is for Assholes

The bass is thumping, the music's pumping and I just got through my third double vodka-tonic, each of which was used to chase a shot. I'm shitfaced and I'm bored out of my skull. This is when I get into trouble. Dr. Jekyll and Mr Jackass. I become the prankster version of myself. The guy you see in movies when the main character makes a double and he comes out with a skinny face, stronger jaw muscles and a goatee. 

The music is so loud out there, you couldn't hold a conversation if you tried, and if the walls weren't reinforced, the books would come right off the shelves. That's where I am. Somewhere with books and shelves. I got tired of waiting in line for the bathroom and I found a secret corridor with a private restroom. The manager's restroom. 

I'm searching around diligently, curiously. Rummaging. It's the old high school mentality. I want to leave some sign that I was here, but I sure as hell don't want to get caught. There's a wall of monitors getting feed from the security cameras and they show me all the sexy girls drone dancing in front of the DJ booth on a two second delay from real time. I hear the beat drop and I get the booty-shake reaction on the monitors just late enough for it to be awkward. I see the girls in skimpy outfits dancing in a tight circle with each other while they get all the unwanted attention they didn't bargain for. I see the guy dancing off beat and trying to sneak his way into a dry-hump dance. One girl accepts. Then she goes to the bar for a drink. He's alone again. There's the girl in the upper right monitor falling all over the DJ booth and she's going to screw up everybody's night if she scratches that needle against the vinyl. 

I see me in the lower left monitor. My profile. I look as drunk as I feel. My mouth hanging wide open and my eyes all but closed. What I wouldn't give to hear my friends tell me they want to leave already. But I'm having fun now. I'm invisible. I'm a wild card. I was never here. I wonder if these cameras are recording. Oh well; I don't plan to come back soon.

I'm sorting through all the random stuff in this dimly lit room. Save for the monitors, it's pitch black in here. I fumble through some accounting ledgers, the management schedule, a photo album of some kind... it's all pretty boring stuff. 

What's this? There's a mini-fridge in the back corner. What's inside. Oooh yeah... a Greek pasta salad. I'll just help myself to a little. No doubt, this is some bouncer's late night snack. All the good restaurants will be closed and it'll be three in the morning when he gets off shift and he'll be starving. But I'm sooo hungry right now. 

And what's this? On the top shelf, a big pink box. Looks like a cake box. Could it be? Have I hit the jackpot? I mean... somebody probably put this away for a birthday party going on in the VIP lounge, or an anniversary.

But they wouldn't notice if I took one little taste.

I reach all the way up top. Isn't there a chair I can stand on or something? I hate being so short. I'll just... ugh... reach-

This is the punchline.

Champagne flutes. 30 of them. They tip over, one-by-one, cascading over my head now pointed toward the floor, and the shattering is like the pitter-patter of crystalline raindrops. They fall slowly and gracefully as dignified champagne glasses should. And me, so drunk, so negligent, that I didn't even bother to put down the salad before I reached for the box of flutes. The salad is now completely covered in shards. I feel like a real jerk. Somebody somewhere is laughing. And why not? I would too.

I step outside of the secret corridor from my adventure in drunken wonderland and my friends are right there.

"There you are. We've been looking for you. Where the hell were you."

"I went to the bathroom," I'm quick to explain.

"For how long?"

"I had to take a shit."

"Oh. Well I don't know if you wanna stay, but we're hungry."

"Yeah. I'm down. Let's get the fuck out of here."

"Were you dancing with a chick?"

"No."

"You have glitter on you."

I love you. Don't call me.

I came in. She told me she would leave the door unlocked. She was in a nighty or a teddy. Whatever it was, it was made of satin and lace. I didn't notice right away. I don't find those get-up as flattering to the female figure as nudity or g-string underwear.

I was in deep shit. She went straight for the dick. "I don't think that's a good idea." She started crying. I had a slice of pizza. She threw a tantrum. I let her.

I decided I would fuck her. Didn't want to. Figured it could wait until after the pizza. "You don't want to," she said. I didn't

"Of course i do." She bitched and said her piece while I eased it in. She shut up. A cock's the only thing that'll do that. Shut 'er up. Then, the smell of ass. She must've been drinking all day. She'd always get all stank-ass whenever she'd do that.

"Didn't you want to bend me over something?" Not anymore.

What a piece of work.

I got the message the next day. "It's not worth it if you don't want to fuck me anymore."
"I'd like to be your friend. Can we do that?"
"My husband would kill me just for talking to you. It has to be worth it. It's not worth it if I don't get anything."
"Dick?"
"That's right."
"I love you."
"I love you too. Don't call me."

The Elastic Heart Theory

             I asked her, "Do you love me any less after you sleep with other men?"

She gave me a reassuring, "No."

            "Do you love me the same way you love your husband?"

            "You're completely different people."

            "However you do love him very much."

            "Of course.  He's my husband."

            "Then why would you assume that I love you any less only because I sleep with other women? There is nobody in the world like you.  That's why I love you." 

            She understood. For one instant, it all made sense to her. I don't doubt she forgot in the moments after I left that day.