I was incredibly tame in high school. I never smoked, I never drank, I never went out. The first time I smoked a cigarette was after the last baseball game of my high school career, late in the spring of my senior year. I never drank until college. I never took a date to prom; in fact, I never went to a single dance or went on a single date. Or kissed a girl.
Well, I drink and smoke more now than I did then, and even though I've still never been to a dance or been on a date, I have kissed a girl. High five.
I made it through an entire semester without getting remotely close. Or remotely trying. To be honest, I wasn't that interested. I was more focused on drinking vast quantities of beer and then making it to class the next morning.
Along with my cousin Jake and his roommate Zach, I went out every night for the first two weeks of school. Every night, we'd go to the beer store for a thirty pack of Keystone Light, split it between the three of us, and then head out to whichever upperclassmen's house was having a party to see who could get the most phone numbers.
It was a pretty sweet setup. We got along with all the seniors, who had all the apartments and all the houses and threw all the parties. That meant, for the rest of the freshmen, being friends with us meant you could get in to the cool parties. So the numbers weren't hard to come by.
Seven nights a week for the first two weeks (and five or six nights a week after we slowed down a little), we'd each have our ten beers and then make a call or two, encouraging the company we'd selected for the night to make sure to "bring a friend! Bring three!"
The first few months were too busy a torrent of collecting phone numbers to leave any time to call them, to follow up, to close the sale. Forget the "wait three days" rule – girls were getting pushed six, seven days back just because the schedule was packed until then. We had to split up some nights to make sure we were going out with all of the right people often enough, make sure that the queue wasn't getting too long.
But of course, the number of numbers we had to go through was limited. On November 1st, for the first time, we did not go out on a weekend night. As December rolled around, our really intense partying nights were cut down to four or five nights a week. The numbers, although they were still coming, were dwindling. There were only so many girls at the school.
By the end of the semester, Zach had met his future wife, and they were getting serious. Jake had begun another dysfunctional relationship (he had a history). We were still the biggest carousers on the campus, but we weren't as rabidly devoted to the cause of partying as we had been at the start.
Early in the second semester was the annual out-door backwoods barbecue party that the school put on – probably the biggest party of the year. Everyone was there – pretty much everyone in the whole school. That meant that the three of us were going to be stretched to our limits. Add to this the fact that my foot had been run over by a drunk senior girl in a minivan two nights before and I was on crutches, and it was promising to be even busier.
In preparation for a long night when we might be too busy taking care of every Jilly and Jane in the wide forest to have a beer or two, we made sure to drink extra beforehand. Actually, the beer distributors were closely watched at the school parties too, and since we weren't twenty-one, that ought to have been a problem – and more reason to drink beforehand since you can't get your share at the party. Problem was, all the senior friends we had would insist on getting us beers and making us slam them behind the port-a-potties pretty much all night. But we didn't know this at that point. So we drank with gusto.
After fifteen to twenty beers, we drove over to catch the bus that would take us to the hayride that would take us to the party. Zach pulled up near the cul-de-sac where the buses were waiting, finished the last of a beer and threw up all over his own running board. We declared ourselves ready.
The next four hours were a blur. I actually ended up in a different hay-truck than Jake and Zach because I couldn't keep up on crutches, and I didn't see them again for the rest of the party.
After talking to them afterwards, I know it was just as chaotic for them as it was for me. One conversation, one group, one excuse, one promise to hang out after another – dashing back and forth between desperate friend-sets for five minute intervals by claiming to each that I was going to the bathroom.
For the duration of the party I felt like one of those airline pilots you read about who have two or three different families across the country or across the world that they only see for four months out of the year and still manage to convince them that "you are the ones I really care about, I really love, I really want to be with."
If you're good, you can make them believe it.
As the party wound down, and the hay-trucks took more and more revelers back to campus, I found myself talking to a girl who had been pushed to the “hang out with her once every two weeks” folder in the queue. Her name was Aida, she was from Mexico, and she was actually pretty cute and pretty cool, but her English wasn't great, so hanging out with her took a high level of concentration. Hence the two weeks folder status.
Ha! I just searched for her on Facebook and she's actually really cute! I didn't remember exactly what she looked like, to be honest. Just like I don't really remember what we were talking about, just that after about twenty minutes, she said, "can I kiss you?"
I said ok, so she did. And there we were, standing pretty much in the middle of an emptying party. I'm on crutches, I'm supposed to be playing it cool, keeping everyone happy, and instead I'm straight up mugging down, and I mean wet from my nose to the tip of my chin, teeth-clacking against each other mugging down.
And who better to tap my shoulder no more than twenty seconds into the affair than my older sister. Yes, honestly. She was a senior, I was a freshman, and this display was most extremely inappropriate.
So I said, "oh, hi. Nice to see you to. You're leaving? Oh, I think I'm going to stay. Oh, I'm coming with you? I'm too much of an embarrassment to stay and you can't even believe you're talking to me? Oh, ok. See you later, Aida."
My sister walked me to the hayrides most solemnly, while I attempted to agree with her decision and simultaneously make light of the dire awkwardness by reinventing the lyrics of Aretha Franklin's famous "Respect" to spell out "R-E-T-A-R-D-E-D!" which I sang the whole way. I meant it to apply to myself, but I don't know if she got that.
And that's the story of my first kiss. Romantic, or what?
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
She loves me; I love me not
I spent most of the day yesterday lamenting my sad, sad history with women.
I’ve described before, you might remember, my basic MO when it comes to interaction with the opposite sex. Basically, the approach consists of two distinct steps:
Step 1: Get her to like you. And I mean really, really like you. There are a variety of tricks to this, including, but not limited to:
Step 2: Nothing. This is basically as simple as it sounds. Once she really, really likes you, you just do nothing. You don’t ignore her – that’s not what I mean. You keep talking to her, but just refuse to move the relationship forward. When she questions you on this, you ask “what relationship?” She stammers for a minute and then says… “you know, us.”
After a moment of furrowed-brow stare, you make as if it just dawned on you and go “ohhhh, ok. I didn’t know what… haha, yeah.” Then you shake your head. “So, can I get you another drink?”
This really drives the girls crazy. First it drives them crazy like “oh, she’s going crazy for you!” crazy. They think you’re mysterious, they want to know more about you, they want to crack your hard exterior, they’re convinced they understand you better than anyone else, etc.
Then, after a while, it drives them crazy like angry, pissed off “you’re driving me crazy!” crazy. They want commitment, or at least to know what the hell is going on and is this a relationship, or what the hell is it? And you’re just dodging the questions, dancing along the verbal tightrope like an old pro, and she gets tired of it. At this stage she usually threatens to go after other guys. You have this conversation:
Her: “If you’re not even going to tell me what you’re thinking, then maybe we shouldn’t be exclusive, then!”
You: “I didn’t know we were exclusive.”
Her: “Very funny. You’re impossible.”
More often than not, she’ll get drunk one night and convince herself that she deserves better. She’ll find some male shoulder to cry on and probably end up hooking up with him. Then she’s better for a week or so. She’s independent, she’s happier, she looks great. Then she gets drunk again and this time, feels incredibly guilty. She comes back to you doe-eyed, apologizing with tears glistening on her mascara and swearing “I know we can make this work,” only to deflate like a blow up doll when you tell her you don’t really care that she scored with that dude. Except more emotionally than a blow up doll.
At this point, it drives her crazy like literally “holy balls, you’re batshit insane!” crazy. Her reactions can range from trying to hook up with your friends to accusing you of rape to quitting her job and moving to Poughkeepsie.
The problem is, the point is, that approach doesn’t really work. I know what you’re thinking – come on, that’s GOT to work! It’s pure gold! But you’re wrong, it doesn’t.
It makes you laugh, and it makes you feel like a powerful person when you tell your friends the story and laugh, but after a few years of breaking down girls emotionally so that they’ll need you - only to see them break down so far and so hard that they’re not even fun to hang out with any more, you start to feel like a lonely husk of a man.
But just before you get to that absolute low, that terrible feeling of self-loathing, while you’re still, just barely, in normal mode, you hit a marvelously strange intermediate point, a point at which you will, to your later disbelief, mail a $200 bouquet of roses to a girl with a note that says, simply, “whatever.”
And then, before you can really begin to appreciate what is clearly a new brand of insanity, you find a website on which you can watch every single episode of Arrested Development for free, and you never find out what that next stage would have been. Not yet, anyway.
I’ve described before, you might remember, my basic MO when it comes to interaction with the opposite sex. Basically, the approach consists of two distinct steps:
Step 1: Get her to like you. And I mean really, really like you. There are a variety of tricks to this, including, but not limited to:
- Hinting vaguely at serious commitment.
- Using her name whenever possible.
- Telling her friends that you like her but never telling her.
- Winking knowingly across the table/room during parties.
- Picking her for your beer pong team even though she probably sucks.
- Calling her right after she leaves a party to tell her you miss her already and then running out the door and across the lawn to kiss her romantically in front of everyone.
Step 2: Nothing. This is basically as simple as it sounds. Once she really, really likes you, you just do nothing. You don’t ignore her – that’s not what I mean. You keep talking to her, but just refuse to move the relationship forward. When she questions you on this, you ask “what relationship?” She stammers for a minute and then says… “you know, us.”
After a moment of furrowed-brow stare, you make as if it just dawned on you and go “ohhhh, ok. I didn’t know what… haha, yeah.” Then you shake your head. “So, can I get you another drink?”
This really drives the girls crazy. First it drives them crazy like “oh, she’s going crazy for you!” crazy. They think you’re mysterious, they want to know more about you, they want to crack your hard exterior, they’re convinced they understand you better than anyone else, etc.
Then, after a while, it drives them crazy like angry, pissed off “you’re driving me crazy!” crazy. They want commitment, or at least to know what the hell is going on and is this a relationship, or what the hell is it? And you’re just dodging the questions, dancing along the verbal tightrope like an old pro, and she gets tired of it. At this stage she usually threatens to go after other guys. You have this conversation:
Her: “If you’re not even going to tell me what you’re thinking, then maybe we shouldn’t be exclusive, then!”
You: “I didn’t know we were exclusive.”
Her: “Very funny. You’re impossible.”
More often than not, she’ll get drunk one night and convince herself that she deserves better. She’ll find some male shoulder to cry on and probably end up hooking up with him. Then she’s better for a week or so. She’s independent, she’s happier, she looks great. Then she gets drunk again and this time, feels incredibly guilty. She comes back to you doe-eyed, apologizing with tears glistening on her mascara and swearing “I know we can make this work,” only to deflate like a blow up doll when you tell her you don’t really care that she scored with that dude. Except more emotionally than a blow up doll.
At this point, it drives her crazy like literally “holy balls, you’re batshit insane!” crazy. Her reactions can range from trying to hook up with your friends to accusing you of rape to quitting her job and moving to Poughkeepsie.
The problem is, the point is, that approach doesn’t really work. I know what you’re thinking – come on, that’s GOT to work! It’s pure gold! But you’re wrong, it doesn’t.
It makes you laugh, and it makes you feel like a powerful person when you tell your friends the story and laugh, but after a few years of breaking down girls emotionally so that they’ll need you - only to see them break down so far and so hard that they’re not even fun to hang out with any more, you start to feel like a lonely husk of a man.
But just before you get to that absolute low, that terrible feeling of self-loathing, while you’re still, just barely, in normal mode, you hit a marvelously strange intermediate point, a point at which you will, to your later disbelief, mail a $200 bouquet of roses to a girl with a note that says, simply, “whatever.”
And then, before you can really begin to appreciate what is clearly a new brand of insanity, you find a website on which you can watch every single episode of Arrested Development for free, and you never find out what that next stage would have been. Not yet, anyway.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Twenty-somethings suck
I think I’m going to write a book with this title; there’s certainly enough to say. But before I even begin to enumerate the ways in which twenty-somethings suck, perhaps it’s best for us to discuss just what is a twenty-something.
A twenty-something is someone who refers to himself or herself as “twenty-something” or “a twenty-something.” Remember these terms, as they will be important in our conversation. Also remember that they suck. If you are a twenty-something, remember that you suck.
First of all, “twenty-something?” I get pissed when people in their thirties and forties refer to themselves as thirty-something or forty-something. I just think “why?” I’m twenty-two. Next year I will be twenty-three. In fifteen years I will be thirty-seven. Why are you afraid of your age?
Most people who call themselves “forty-something” are at least forty-eight anyway. The guys are balding and struggling with impotence, and the women’s biological clock clicked to a desperate zero nigh on a decade ago. That’s your company when you refer to yourself as twenty-something. Is that the image you’re looking for?
And that’s people in their thirties and forties! You’re in your twenties, for fuck’s sake. You’re not old. You might be a fucking loser, sure. But it’s not because you’re old, it’s because you’re just a loser.
Here’s the bottom line: anyone who’s going to make automatic negative judgments about you based on your exact age is a douchebag. So why do you care what they think? The rest of us are just going to say, “oh, 25. ok. Oh, 29. ok.”
When you refer to yourself as “twenty-something,” what you are saying is that you don’t think your age is cool. You think people who are your age suck.
The problem is, if you think that anyone any age automatically sucks, then you automatically suck. See how that works? Whereas if you just bit the fucking bullet and said, “yeah, I’m 28; yeah, I’m 43,” then who gives a shit? So you’re 28.
It’s just a number, people. And when you try to control it by referring to yourself as a “twenty-something,” all you’re doing is showing everyone around you that your age controls you – that you fear the power of the number. You, who fancy yourself clever and educated, are controlled by a fucking numeral. How sad is that? You suck, that’s how sad it is.
The real question is this: do you consider yourself a disappointment for the age you’re at?
And whichever way you answer, you’re probably right.
So suck it up, stop being a little bitch and grow a pair. You’re 28 after all, right dipshit?
A twenty-something is someone who refers to himself or herself as “twenty-something” or “a twenty-something.” Remember these terms, as they will be important in our conversation. Also remember that they suck. If you are a twenty-something, remember that you suck.
First of all, “twenty-something?” I get pissed when people in their thirties and forties refer to themselves as thirty-something or forty-something. I just think “why?” I’m twenty-two. Next year I will be twenty-three. In fifteen years I will be thirty-seven. Why are you afraid of your age?
Most people who call themselves “forty-something” are at least forty-eight anyway. The guys are balding and struggling with impotence, and the women’s biological clock clicked to a desperate zero nigh on a decade ago. That’s your company when you refer to yourself as twenty-something. Is that the image you’re looking for?
And that’s people in their thirties and forties! You’re in your twenties, for fuck’s sake. You’re not old. You might be a fucking loser, sure. But it’s not because you’re old, it’s because you’re just a loser.
Here’s the bottom line: anyone who’s going to make automatic negative judgments about you based on your exact age is a douchebag. So why do you care what they think? The rest of us are just going to say, “oh, 25. ok. Oh, 29. ok.”
When you refer to yourself as “twenty-something,” what you are saying is that you don’t think your age is cool. You think people who are your age suck.
The problem is, if you think that anyone any age automatically sucks, then you automatically suck. See how that works? Whereas if you just bit the fucking bullet and said, “yeah, I’m 28; yeah, I’m 43,” then who gives a shit? So you’re 28.
It’s just a number, people. And when you try to control it by referring to yourself as a “twenty-something,” all you’re doing is showing everyone around you that your age controls you – that you fear the power of the number. You, who fancy yourself clever and educated, are controlled by a fucking numeral. How sad is that? You suck, that’s how sad it is.
The real question is this: do you consider yourself a disappointment for the age you’re at?
And whichever way you answer, you’re probably right.
So suck it up, stop being a little bitch and grow a pair. You’re 28 after all, right dipshit?
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
It runs in the family, apparently
So yeah, my family's really close - both my immediate family and my extended family.
But are we too close? Too loyal to each other? Too caught up in a feeling that blood runs thicker than water?
You tell me. After my post earlier today, I got an email from my cousin Jake. He told me that he'd had similar dreams in the past: a family member committing unspeakably horrible evil, and then, when push comes to shove, we just go along with it. And not only that, we worry about their leaving evidence behind. We do everything we can to help them get away.
We do our best to get around the situation by pretending like it never happened, like we can just sweep it under the rug.
None of our family members is a murderer, that I know of. But I still found it pretty odd that we'd had such similar dreams, and so did Jake. Here's his.
I had a test to think about. First one of the new year, I hate it when christmas break ends and you have to go back to school. Never a worse time in a midwest child's life that between about January 3rd and February 28th. Long, dark, cold winter mornings when you have to wake up at what seems like 4am to go to school. That was today. My dad was taking us to school that day on his way to work. It's overcast outside plus it's early and still pretty dark. And cold, really cold.
I'm sitting with Maggie in the back seat while my Dad checks a message on his phone. We know to be quiet, not as if we would have anything to say this early on, but still we knew. It hadn't been thirty seconds since we had left our driveway, hadn't seen any other cars yet cause it's early and our road isn't very busy anyway. I was zoning out watching the trees go by, drifting in and out of a dreamy haze huddled inside my big winter coat. I'm not sure if it was the jarring shock of a frigid metal zipper touching my cheek or the sound of the engine coming to life as my dad finished his call that brought me back, but either way I was aware again. Then something bright caught my attention up ahead- it was almost blocked by the bend in the road at first but it quickly came into view. As we neared the curve in the road I heard the hum of the engine grow rapidly louder. Then the car straighted out instead of taking on the gradual turn in the road. I see him. Does my dad? He's right fucking there. Wham! nailed him.
He barely even turned around before we smacked into him. I couldn't even see his face yet, just his ear and nose as he was beginning to turn and face us. He didn't stand a chance cause he never got to react. No jumping up to roll over the hood, just a slight turn in time to probably know he was fucked. We hit him and he went down. I followed the path his body took with my eyes as we passed over what I now presumed was a mangled corpse. I swear I heard crunching under my feet as the front passenger tire came back to the ground and the rear passenger tire lifted up over his body. What an odd feeling it is to be sitting one moment in your seat and then the next to be sitting in that same seat only a foot or so higher up and knowing full well that that increase in altitude is due solely to a human being's body being crunched under the tire of the three thousand pound car you're in.
Somehow I knew it wasn't a mistake. The car didn't slow before impact, it revved and sped up. The front bumper never dipped, maybe if it had he would have stood a chance over flipping up toward the windshield, but not this poor bastard. He went down under. Wait. That fucking song. It was on the radio right then. What a coincidence I thought. That's funny, this song is so catchy. The car was stopped. It had been for a while. Maybe an hour or two, or three seconds, I don't know, but it was long enough for my dad to be out of his seat. His door was shut. His coffee hadn't spilt. Good thing he brought that one cup with the safety top. The steam escaping the small opening in the lid was fogging up the windshield. I leaned forward to hit the defrost button and turn on the heat. Man was it cold. Wait a second. "Maggie, are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just cold."
I wonder if that guy was okay. When I got out of the car my dad was stuffing his body in the trunk. He looked at me and casually mentioned that he was dead. "Oh, okay. What are you doing?"
"I'm gonna put him in the dumpster, it's garbage day today."
I nodded and followed the trail of blood back to where we hit him. I started scooping fresh white snow on top of the blood stains. My dad told me to hurry up or we'd be late for school. So I did. I covered up all the blood spots and erased my dad's tracks by kicking snow over them. I jumped back into my seat and shut the door.
"Sure is cold out there huh Jake?"
"Yup."
Yeah, I don't know. Analyze that.
But are we too close? Too loyal to each other? Too caught up in a feeling that blood runs thicker than water?
You tell me. After my post earlier today, I got an email from my cousin Jake. He told me that he'd had similar dreams in the past: a family member committing unspeakably horrible evil, and then, when push comes to shove, we just go along with it. And not only that, we worry about their leaving evidence behind. We do everything we can to help them get away.
We do our best to get around the situation by pretending like it never happened, like we can just sweep it under the rug.
None of our family members is a murderer, that I know of. But I still found it pretty odd that we'd had such similar dreams, and so did Jake. Here's his.
I had a test to think about. First one of the new year, I hate it when christmas break ends and you have to go back to school. Never a worse time in a midwest child's life that between about January 3rd and February 28th. Long, dark, cold winter mornings when you have to wake up at what seems like 4am to go to school. That was today. My dad was taking us to school that day on his way to work. It's overcast outside plus it's early and still pretty dark. And cold, really cold.
I'm sitting with Maggie in the back seat while my Dad checks a message on his phone. We know to be quiet, not as if we would have anything to say this early on, but still we knew. It hadn't been thirty seconds since we had left our driveway, hadn't seen any other cars yet cause it's early and our road isn't very busy anyway. I was zoning out watching the trees go by, drifting in and out of a dreamy haze huddled inside my big winter coat. I'm not sure if it was the jarring shock of a frigid metal zipper touching my cheek or the sound of the engine coming to life as my dad finished his call that brought me back, but either way I was aware again. Then something bright caught my attention up ahead- it was almost blocked by the bend in the road at first but it quickly came into view. As we neared the curve in the road I heard the hum of the engine grow rapidly louder. Then the car straighted out instead of taking on the gradual turn in the road. I see him. Does my dad? He's right fucking there. Wham! nailed him.
He barely even turned around before we smacked into him. I couldn't even see his face yet, just his ear and nose as he was beginning to turn and face us. He didn't stand a chance cause he never got to react. No jumping up to roll over the hood, just a slight turn in time to probably know he was fucked. We hit him and he went down. I followed the path his body took with my eyes as we passed over what I now presumed was a mangled corpse. I swear I heard crunching under my feet as the front passenger tire came back to the ground and the rear passenger tire lifted up over his body. What an odd feeling it is to be sitting one moment in your seat and then the next to be sitting in that same seat only a foot or so higher up and knowing full well that that increase in altitude is due solely to a human being's body being crunched under the tire of the three thousand pound car you're in.
Somehow I knew it wasn't a mistake. The car didn't slow before impact, it revved and sped up. The front bumper never dipped, maybe if it had he would have stood a chance over flipping up toward the windshield, but not this poor bastard. He went down under. Wait. That fucking song. It was on the radio right then. What a coincidence I thought. That's funny, this song is so catchy. The car was stopped. It had been for a while. Maybe an hour or two, or three seconds, I don't know, but it was long enough for my dad to be out of his seat. His door was shut. His coffee hadn't spilt. Good thing he brought that one cup with the safety top. The steam escaping the small opening in the lid was fogging up the windshield. I leaned forward to hit the defrost button and turn on the heat. Man was it cold. Wait a second. "Maggie, are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just cold."
I wonder if that guy was okay. When I got out of the car my dad was stuffing his body in the trunk. He looked at me and casually mentioned that he was dead. "Oh, okay. What are you doing?"
"I'm gonna put him in the dumpster, it's garbage day today."
I nodded and followed the trail of blood back to where we hit him. I started scooping fresh white snow on top of the blood stains. My dad told me to hurry up or we'd be late for school. So I did. I covered up all the blood spots and erased my dad's tracks by kicking snow over them. I jumped back into my seat and shut the door.
"Sure is cold out there huh Jake?"
"Yup."
Yeah, I don't know. Analyze that.
I don't know why I act differently in dreams
I had the scariest fucking dream last night. It was the first time in about ten years that I actually lay awake for a while, afraid to get out of bed and get myself a glass of water.
I was out at an Italian restaurant with my younger brother Ed. It had a really Mediterranean feel to it, with arched doorways, tan stucco walls and an open, airy dining room.
As my brother was walking to the bathroom, he got the evil eye and a shoulder from some heavyset guy that we’d met the day before, a friend of two friends of ours – they were at the restaurant too. At least, I assume that’s what happened, I didn’t really see. But Ed wasn’t coming right back from the bathroom, so after about ten minutes, I went in to see what was up.
He was standing there by the sinks, not doing anything, just standing. And then I realized the heavyset guy had followed me into the bathroom. I could see that he and Ed had business.
"I’ll wait out in the back," I said, and started for the door. I didn’t offer to help; I knew he didn’t need help. Before I even reached for the handle, Ed had grabbed the big guy, lifted him bodily off his feet and slammed his face down into the sink with tremendous force. The body fell to the ground limp. He was dead for sure.
Oh shit, I thought. Oh shit. We’ve got to get out of here.
Next thing I knew, we were running along a path behind the restaurant towards a deck high on a bluff that overlooked the lake and the wide beach, and Ed was dragging the guy’s body behind him. Fifty feet behind were our two friends, a guy and a girl, calling to us and wondering what the hell was going on.
I was past the deck and down ten stairs or so when they caught up to Ed right at the top of the stairs. "We’ve got to go, we’ve got to go! People will be coming!" I called to Ed.
But he wasn’t listening. He was crouched with the body, quiet, rocking back and forth. And then he started talking to our friends. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but they looked like they were trying to comfort him. Soon all three were sitting down together, embracing and crying. And then Ed had them hug the dead man, bracing the body up so the two could hold hands behind his back while they held each other close in front.
I was getting more and more nervous, jumpy. We really needed to go. Right down the stairs, some hundred and fifty feet, I could see the beach where we were supposed to meet the rest of the family for the afternoon.
But I couldn’t call out, I was mesmerized by the three people and the corpse at the top of the stairs. Ed seemed to be directing them through a series of strange arm movements and gestures. They would clasp each other’s hands, then release, twist arms around and clasp again.
And then Ed pushed them back, with their arms caught behind the dead man’s back, stepped onto his chest and started the chainsaw. The calm trance-like expression fell from their faces and they squirmed to try to free themselves from the weight of the dead body, but they were hopelessly stuck.
Then Ed lowered the saw and started cutting off the dead man’s head. Immediately, in a second, they were covered in the warm spray of blood and they screamed and tried to wipe the blood away from their faces, out of their mouths.
The cutting was done quickly, and Ed bent to pick up the severed head. I looked away, to the side down the bluff, only to see it bounce and roll past me, down toward the beach.
Back up to the deck – Ed held a dull black machine pistol. He shot the nearer of the red squirming figures, the guy, in the head, paused and then shot him again in the head. Then he turned to swing the gun to the girl.
There was a click. He was out of ammo. The girl, who didn’t look like a person any more, struggled anew with desperate hope of escape, but Ed just stepped back so that the thrashing arm and legs didn’t get blood on his pants. He pulled a fresh clip from his pocket and threw the empty case off the bluff. I thought for a moment how careless he was being with the evidence.
Then he slid the new magazine into the pistol grip and jacked a round into the chamber. "Don’t try this at home," he said with a smile, and then shot her in the face. Her head snapped back against the wood with a force that would have left a bruise, but instead there was just a wet thunk, and then her head rolled to the side. There was blood everywhere.
As we ran down the stairs toward the beach, Ed seemed to be throwing one thing after another over the railings out onto the bluff. I couldn’t see what, I just encouraged him, "get rid of it, get rid of it."
We hit the sand and I just ran. I ran toward the water as fast as I could, but it just kept getting farther away. My lungs were burning and my legs were heavy and still I ran and still I got no closer. Finally, I threw myself down under a log of driftwood and lay there clenching my eyes closed to keep out the sand that blasted up under my breath.
When I opened my eyes, I saw that the family was already there, the kids playing in the sand up nearer to the bluff. And thirty feet from them I saw the dead man’s head lying in the sand, eyes open. Right away I ran to get it, to hide it, to take it away.
"He got rid of it, he got rid of it," I was repeating to myself, only it came out as a whining moan, "he got rid of it, he got rid of it."
Bridget, my niece, heard me coming when I was fifty feet away, squinching across the sand, and looked to see where I was running. She saw it, and stood up right away. Then she started walking towards it. The face was towards her, the mouth slightly open, the eyes rolled back.
"What is that?" she said, and the alarm was clear in her voice. And then she started sobbing, "is that a hea- a head?"
"Bridget!" I yelled, and reached out across the blankets. I opened my eyes in the dark and I was in bed.
I was out at an Italian restaurant with my younger brother Ed. It had a really Mediterranean feel to it, with arched doorways, tan stucco walls and an open, airy dining room.
As my brother was walking to the bathroom, he got the evil eye and a shoulder from some heavyset guy that we’d met the day before, a friend of two friends of ours – they were at the restaurant too. At least, I assume that’s what happened, I didn’t really see. But Ed wasn’t coming right back from the bathroom, so after about ten minutes, I went in to see what was up.
He was standing there by the sinks, not doing anything, just standing. And then I realized the heavyset guy had followed me into the bathroom. I could see that he and Ed had business.
"I’ll wait out in the back," I said, and started for the door. I didn’t offer to help; I knew he didn’t need help. Before I even reached for the handle, Ed had grabbed the big guy, lifted him bodily off his feet and slammed his face down into the sink with tremendous force. The body fell to the ground limp. He was dead for sure.
Oh shit, I thought. Oh shit. We’ve got to get out of here.
Next thing I knew, we were running along a path behind the restaurant towards a deck high on a bluff that overlooked the lake and the wide beach, and Ed was dragging the guy’s body behind him. Fifty feet behind were our two friends, a guy and a girl, calling to us and wondering what the hell was going on.
I was past the deck and down ten stairs or so when they caught up to Ed right at the top of the stairs. "We’ve got to go, we’ve got to go! People will be coming!" I called to Ed.
But he wasn’t listening. He was crouched with the body, quiet, rocking back and forth. And then he started talking to our friends. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but they looked like they were trying to comfort him. Soon all three were sitting down together, embracing and crying. And then Ed had them hug the dead man, bracing the body up so the two could hold hands behind his back while they held each other close in front.
I was getting more and more nervous, jumpy. We really needed to go. Right down the stairs, some hundred and fifty feet, I could see the beach where we were supposed to meet the rest of the family for the afternoon.
But I couldn’t call out, I was mesmerized by the three people and the corpse at the top of the stairs. Ed seemed to be directing them through a series of strange arm movements and gestures. They would clasp each other’s hands, then release, twist arms around and clasp again.
And then Ed pushed them back, with their arms caught behind the dead man’s back, stepped onto his chest and started the chainsaw. The calm trance-like expression fell from their faces and they squirmed to try to free themselves from the weight of the dead body, but they were hopelessly stuck.
Then Ed lowered the saw and started cutting off the dead man’s head. Immediately, in a second, they were covered in the warm spray of blood and they screamed and tried to wipe the blood away from their faces, out of their mouths.
The cutting was done quickly, and Ed bent to pick up the severed head. I looked away, to the side down the bluff, only to see it bounce and roll past me, down toward the beach.
Back up to the deck – Ed held a dull black machine pistol. He shot the nearer of the red squirming figures, the guy, in the head, paused and then shot him again in the head. Then he turned to swing the gun to the girl.
There was a click. He was out of ammo. The girl, who didn’t look like a person any more, struggled anew with desperate hope of escape, but Ed just stepped back so that the thrashing arm and legs didn’t get blood on his pants. He pulled a fresh clip from his pocket and threw the empty case off the bluff. I thought for a moment how careless he was being with the evidence.
Then he slid the new magazine into the pistol grip and jacked a round into the chamber. "Don’t try this at home," he said with a smile, and then shot her in the face. Her head snapped back against the wood with a force that would have left a bruise, but instead there was just a wet thunk, and then her head rolled to the side. There was blood everywhere.
As we ran down the stairs toward the beach, Ed seemed to be throwing one thing after another over the railings out onto the bluff. I couldn’t see what, I just encouraged him, "get rid of it, get rid of it."
We hit the sand and I just ran. I ran toward the water as fast as I could, but it just kept getting farther away. My lungs were burning and my legs were heavy and still I ran and still I got no closer. Finally, I threw myself down under a log of driftwood and lay there clenching my eyes closed to keep out the sand that blasted up under my breath.
When I opened my eyes, I saw that the family was already there, the kids playing in the sand up nearer to the bluff. And thirty feet from them I saw the dead man’s head lying in the sand, eyes open. Right away I ran to get it, to hide it, to take it away.
"He got rid of it, he got rid of it," I was repeating to myself, only it came out as a whining moan, "he got rid of it, he got rid of it."
Bridget, my niece, heard me coming when I was fifty feet away, squinching across the sand, and looked to see where I was running. She saw it, and stood up right away. Then she started walking towards it. The face was towards her, the mouth slightly open, the eyes rolled back.
"What is that?" she said, and the alarm was clear in her voice. And then she started sobbing, "is that a hea- a head?"
"Bridget!" I yelled, and reached out across the blankets. I opened my eyes in the dark and I was in bed.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Advance screening
I wrote a longer piece today (that's what she said! -no, "wrote," not "rode"). It's a guest post scheduled to run on Citizen of the Month on Friday. But seriously, it's kinda long. So I figured I'd put up some of it now. And here's how the rules go: as soon as five people say "where's the next part?" or "put the next part up!" I'll put the next part up. There are four parts total, I guess, and I definitely will save at least the fourth and final part for Friday on Citizen of the Month... But for anyone who wants to, here's a special preview. Five people say they want more, we do more. Clear on the rules? OK. Here we go.
My First Day as the Chicago Cubs New Mascot to Attract More Gay Men to the Park – the Chicago Red Hot
It was one of those times in a young, impetuous man’s life when he mortgages the love of his family for the pursuit of an ignoble passion.
Philosophically, technically, I believe in the dominion of the intellect over the will and the will over the passions. If you ask me the order, that’s how I’ll answer: intellect over will, will over passions – that is, your passions impel you, but your will controls your submission to those passions; and your intellect determines the resolution of the will.
I’ve learned that from an early age, from 18 years of Catholic School. Yes, that’s right, eighteen years. But also, I believe in that pecking order of the personality (intellect, will, passions – repeat it like a mantra). It makes sense to me – that it should be true.
As a matter of course, as a matter of empirical reality, I know that sometimes things don’t work that way. I know this because I have an intensely addictive personality. I am addicted to drinking, smoking, sex and gambling. The only reason I’m not hooked on more serious drugs is because, thank God, I’ve never tried them. But don’t worry – addiction to drinking, smoking, sex and gambling is quite enough.
People have told me that a lesser man would have broken by now. I know that being a lesser man is the only thing that’s kept me sane. The reason I haven’t broken is because I bend. And it feels so good when I bend, stretch like a sapling under strong weight, and it hurts so bad when I snap back upright. The weight of addiction has bent me like an old man’s years bend him.
When I was younger, I wondered why old men didn’t just stand up! I wanted to straighten them out myself, flatten them on a table – lay them on their backs and push against pelvis and clavicle until they unfolded under my hands like a road map. I imagined that then they would breathe, freely, deeply, for the first time since their first Social Security check slipped through the mail slot in 1981.
Now I know it doesn’t work that way. Which is why I don’t try to unkink my own hunched back, just manage it; just make sure my shoulders aren’t banging on my knees, my forehead between my calves. Manage the bend, that’s my motto. Control my handicap.
It was gambling that got me into this mess, smoking and drinking that had made it worse. God knows where the sex would take me.
My First Day as the Chicago Cubs New Mascot to Attract More Gay Men to the Park – the Chicago Red Hot
It was one of those times in a young, impetuous man’s life when he mortgages the love of his family for the pursuit of an ignoble passion.
Philosophically, technically, I believe in the dominion of the intellect over the will and the will over the passions. If you ask me the order, that’s how I’ll answer: intellect over will, will over passions – that is, your passions impel you, but your will controls your submission to those passions; and your intellect determines the resolution of the will.
I’ve learned that from an early age, from 18 years of Catholic School. Yes, that’s right, eighteen years. But also, I believe in that pecking order of the personality (intellect, will, passions – repeat it like a mantra). It makes sense to me – that it should be true.
As a matter of course, as a matter of empirical reality, I know that sometimes things don’t work that way. I know this because I have an intensely addictive personality. I am addicted to drinking, smoking, sex and gambling. The only reason I’m not hooked on more serious drugs is because, thank God, I’ve never tried them. But don’t worry – addiction to drinking, smoking, sex and gambling is quite enough.
People have told me that a lesser man would have broken by now. I know that being a lesser man is the only thing that’s kept me sane. The reason I haven’t broken is because I bend. And it feels so good when I bend, stretch like a sapling under strong weight, and it hurts so bad when I snap back upright. The weight of addiction has bent me like an old man’s years bend him.
When I was younger, I wondered why old men didn’t just stand up! I wanted to straighten them out myself, flatten them on a table – lay them on their backs and push against pelvis and clavicle until they unfolded under my hands like a road map. I imagined that then they would breathe, freely, deeply, for the first time since their first Social Security check slipped through the mail slot in 1981.
Now I know it doesn’t work that way. Which is why I don’t try to unkink my own hunched back, just manage it; just make sure my shoulders aren’t banging on my knees, my forehead between my calves. Manage the bend, that’s my motto. Control my handicap.
It was gambling that got me into this mess, smoking and drinking that had made it worse. God knows where the sex would take me.
My First Day as the Chicago Cubs New Mascot to Attract More Gay Men to the Park – the Chicago Red Hot
Well, it's already been posted at Citizen of the Month, but here's the rest anyway.
It was one of those times in a young, impetuous man’s life when he mortgages the love of his family for the pursuit of an ignoble passion.
Philosophically, technically, I believe in the dominion of the intellect over the will and the will over the passions. If you ask me the order, that’s how I’ll answer: intellect over will, will over passions – that is, your passions impel you, but your will controls your submission to those passions; and your intellect determines the resolution of the will.
I’ve learned that from an early age, from 18 years of Catholic School. Yes, that’s right, eighteen years. But also, I believe in that pecking order of the personality (intellect, will, passions – repeat it like a mantra). It makes sense to me – that it should be true.
As a matter of course, as a matter of empirical reality, I know that sometimes things don’t work that way. I know this because I have an intensely addictive personality. I am addicted to drinking, smoking, sex and gambling. The only reason I’m not hooked on more serious drugs is because, thank God, I’ve never tried them. But don’t worry – addiction to drinking, smoking, sex and gambling is quite enough.
People have told me that a lesser man would have broken by now. I know that being a lesser man is the only thing that’s kept me sane. The reason I haven’t broken is because I bend. And it feels so good when I bend, stretch like a sapling under strong weight, and it hurts so bad when I snap back upright. The weight of addiction has bent me like an old man’s years bend him.
When I was younger, I wondered why old men didn’t just stand up! I wanted to straighten them out myself, flatten them on a table – lay them on their backs and push against pelvis and clavicle until they unfolded under my hands like a road map. I imagined that then they would breathe, freely, deeply, for the first time since their first Social Security check slipped through the mail slot in 1981.
Now I know it doesn’t work that way. Which is why I don’t try to unkink my own hunched back, just manage it; just make sure my shoulders aren’t banging on my knees, my forehead between my calves. Manage the bend, that’s my motto. Control my handicap.
It was gambling that got me into this mess, smoking and drinking that had made it worse. God knows where the sex would take me.
------
“Do you think you could make it onto the field during a Cubs game – for more than a full minute?” my friend Eddie had asked me five weeks before, while we were – wait for it – drinking. Of course I could. I knew I could. In the warm friendly haze of a dozen beers, I was certain.
I loved that haze; it made anything possible. It meant she loved you, your life was on track, your friends were the best in the world and you were strong, smart, good-looking. I’d written a poem a few years before
When the sun has gone down and the moon takes its place
And the revelers rise to give darkness new grace,
When the harshness of daylight has dwindled to night
And all beauty increases, by softness of sight,
Then the friends are more friendly, and enemies too,
Which is more than the unreserved drinking can do,
For there’s magic about, and it’s all through the air,
And as long as you’re with me, I long to be there.
That feeling. That fucking feeling was what made me take the bet – a thousand dollar bet, which was about nine hundred and fifty dollars more than I could afford to lose. That made me take the bet. That, and my certified addiction to gambling.
Every day I would think about calling Eddie, calling it off – knowing he wouldn’t mind that much. I’d pay him twenty bucks, he’d make fun of me, we’d be done with it.
And then every night, I’d drink until that feeling got me again, until I was past the point of talking myself into it. “I played baseball in college for four years,” I’d say. “Of course I can do it. I’m an athlete. Hell, I could do five minutes, let alone one.”
That was how my first attempt happened: July 8th, 2008 – the first month of the second half of the year: new beginnings. And I was celebrating by hefting my ass over the low fence to the left of the Cubs home dugout in the middle of the fourth inning. New beginnings. If you were watching the game, that’s why the commercial break took an extra thirty seconds or so.
It all started off well enough: a quick sprint and I was across the foul line, moving into shallow left field. Edwin Encarnacion, the Cincinnati Reds third baseman, made a half-hearted grab for me, but I was past him.
And then I ran out of gas. The two years of steady smoking since I’d last run regularly had an unbelievable effect. I swear I hadn’t gone more than fifty yards when I was sucking wind, slowing down, looking over my shoulder for the inevitable security. I dodged once, turned to my right and was immediately tackled and smothered. And I was so gassed I was almost relieved. Total time on the field: forty seconds.
Needless to say, the blue-coated security and ubiquitous ushers were on the lookout for my face the next few home series. Three times in the next two weeks, I was nabbed before even setting foot on the playing surface and then, once last week, I was denied entrance to the stadium. Denied entrance to the Friendly Confines that I know and love so well. I needed a new plan.
------
When I saw the flyer advertising for “specialty mascots,” I had a glimmer of hope. When I called in and heard that there was still one position unfilled, that hope swelled inside me. And when I arrived to interview to find that somehow, no one there recognized me as the would-be trespasser, that hope filled my heart and overflowed. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to get the spot. I barely listened as they described the job, the position, my duties. I signed the waivers, the contract with a smile on my face. And last Sunday, July 27th, I reported for duty.
The game was at 6:00; I was there by three, knocking on the “Personnel Admitted” door right next to Gate 14. A girl about my age with a clipboard and headphones swung the door open. “Are you the red hot?” she said.
I was confused. The red hot? Was she coming on to me? What?
“No, you’re the red hot,” I said, and then added, reading from her nametag, “Amy.”
She shook her head but I could see the smile at the corners of her mouth. She grabbed my wrist and pulled me inside, spinning me in front of her down the hallway. I was smiling to myself in congratulations of my smoothness halfway down the walk when I remembered, “Red Hot! Fuck! That’s my job! Ohhh yeahhh.” I turned to say something, but she was talking on the headset, “I left it right there… Ok, I’ll be up in a second. Yeah, he’s here.” She turned to me, swinging me by my wrist to a door in the right wall, and with a hand over her mouthpiece, whispered, “I’ll help you with your costume. Strip.”
And then she walked away down the hall. I watched her go, her white sneakers susurrating on the cement. Not a bad-looking girl. Strip, huh? Ok, Amy, you got it.
I pushed my way into the cement room, decorated with green lockers on walls to the left and right. An old, and by the looks of it, unused vending machine stood at the far end of the room, some thirty feet from me, and on the floor in the middle of the room lay what looked like a red kayak with rounded bottom and edges, so rounded that it was basically cylindrical.
I took my shoes off, and my shirt, and then I stopped. Couldn’t mascots wear clothes under the costumes? Didn’t they all? Was it just too hot this time of year? I was paused with my belt halfway undone when I heard the door rasp open behind me. Amy walked into the room, closed the door carefully behind her and took off the headset, setting it on top of the first locker.
She shook out her hair with her fingers as she walked past me, blowing out a sigh. I turned, my fingers still on my belt, to see her hefting the kayak-thing and turning back to me. “Pants off,” she said, and then smiled, a full, not-just-corners-of-her-mouth smile. “Part of the job.”
I had no idea where this was going, not a clue in hell, but I was liking it so far. I kicked out of my socks and then slid out of my jeans.
“Whoah, does the smell in the locker room turn you on or what?” she said. I glanced down. “Must be something,” I said. She dragged the red thing over to where I stood, flipped it over to I could see another hole like the one on the top, except instead of being in the middle, like a kayak, this one was at one end.
“Hold this,” she said, handing me the end. It was round, and wide, about two and a half feet wide, no narrower at the end than the middle, with a little clip on the very tip, a small steel loop. I took this in quickly in the half-second before she reached over and pulled my boxers down to my ankles.
I passed off the “mmm” sound that escaped me as an “mmm-hmmm!” clearing my throat. This was weird. Amy looked up at me, a confused expression on her face. There was much to be confused about. “Aren’t you gay?” she said.
I looked down, narrowed my eyes, and tried to shrug, which was difficult with the giant red thing in my hands. “No,” I finally said, “I’m not.”
Amy stood up and looked at me. Then at her watch. Then she reached over my shoulder and flicked the power switch on her headset to ‘off.’
She was very energetic.
------
I was sure we were going to be late. I really didn’t want to be late. It must have been getting close to time when she told me to climb inside the red thing. “Are you nuts?” I said, but she was busy tucking in her shirt. “Hurry up!” she said. Ok, the dominatrix thing. Fine. I wasn’t into it, but I owed her, I figured. I started to climb headfirst into the top hole hear the end. It was slow going, my legs waggling in empty air. And then she smacked me, hard, right on my bare ass. I jerked and banged my head on the inside of the red plastic, then crawled out.
She was giggling, but obviously still in a hurry. “Oh, shit,” she was saying, “I left a huge welt on your ass.” Why would she worry about that? Ten minutes ago, she was scratching up my back like a damn leopard. I turned once and a half around, craning to try to see the welt, like a dog chasing its tail. She giggled again and pushed me back to the red thing. “Go!” she said, “feet first.”
“What?”
“Feet first!” she said.
“…” I said.
Amy shook her head. “Did you even read the job description?” she said. She lifted my feet in the end hole and scooched me down farther. Soon my ass was in the tube. She kept pushing, telling me to “scoot!” until I was completely inside the red thing, staring out the opening at the cement ceiling where a bare light-bulb hung. I could feel the cool of the cement floor against my ass through the other hole, and slowly, gradually, the words from my job meeting started coming back to me.
Amy was at the door, opening it, and I could hear more people coming in. Three or four, maybe. There was a shuffle of feet and a clink of steel at the clip on each end of my red sarcophagus, and then I was hefted into the air. I could feel the rush of air across my backside.
As I was hefted out of the tunnel, squinting in the bright sunlight and hearing someone reminding me to “smile!” I remembered everything, and I realized why Amy had been so nervous about the bright hand-print she left on my ass.
I was the Chicago Red Hot. My job? To attract gay men to the park. My MO? To be trussed up like a giant sausage on a rotisserie next to the visitors bullpen, and rotate for nine long innings, cooking evenly in the sun and offering the crowd alternating views of my smiling face and my bare white ass. With Amy’s handprint gleaming on it.
I won the bet. Damn right I did. And I also boosted gay attendance in a big way. Already the section just up the line from the bullpen is known as “Queer Corner.”
But when my family found out, my conservative, traditional Catholic family, it wasn’t an easy thing for them to swallow. It was one of those times in a young, impetuous man’s life when he mortgages the love of his family for the pursuit of an ignoble passion.
Intellect, will, passions – I can say it like a mantra. But sometimes, when you live in a world as addictive as this one, an experience can turn everything on its head… or in my case, on its ass.
It was one of those times in a young, impetuous man’s life when he mortgages the love of his family for the pursuit of an ignoble passion.
Philosophically, technically, I believe in the dominion of the intellect over the will and the will over the passions. If you ask me the order, that’s how I’ll answer: intellect over will, will over passions – that is, your passions impel you, but your will controls your submission to those passions; and your intellect determines the resolution of the will.
I’ve learned that from an early age, from 18 years of Catholic School. Yes, that’s right, eighteen years. But also, I believe in that pecking order of the personality (intellect, will, passions – repeat it like a mantra). It makes sense to me – that it should be true.
As a matter of course, as a matter of empirical reality, I know that sometimes things don’t work that way. I know this because I have an intensely addictive personality. I am addicted to drinking, smoking, sex and gambling. The only reason I’m not hooked on more serious drugs is because, thank God, I’ve never tried them. But don’t worry – addiction to drinking, smoking, sex and gambling is quite enough.
People have told me that a lesser man would have broken by now. I know that being a lesser man is the only thing that’s kept me sane. The reason I haven’t broken is because I bend. And it feels so good when I bend, stretch like a sapling under strong weight, and it hurts so bad when I snap back upright. The weight of addiction has bent me like an old man’s years bend him.
When I was younger, I wondered why old men didn’t just stand up! I wanted to straighten them out myself, flatten them on a table – lay them on their backs and push against pelvis and clavicle until they unfolded under my hands like a road map. I imagined that then they would breathe, freely, deeply, for the first time since their first Social Security check slipped through the mail slot in 1981.
Now I know it doesn’t work that way. Which is why I don’t try to unkink my own hunched back, just manage it; just make sure my shoulders aren’t banging on my knees, my forehead between my calves. Manage the bend, that’s my motto. Control my handicap.
It was gambling that got me into this mess, smoking and drinking that had made it worse. God knows where the sex would take me.
------
“Do you think you could make it onto the field during a Cubs game – for more than a full minute?” my friend Eddie had asked me five weeks before, while we were – wait for it – drinking. Of course I could. I knew I could. In the warm friendly haze of a dozen beers, I was certain.
I loved that haze; it made anything possible. It meant she loved you, your life was on track, your friends were the best in the world and you were strong, smart, good-looking. I’d written a poem a few years before
When the sun has gone down and the moon takes its place
And the revelers rise to give darkness new grace,
When the harshness of daylight has dwindled to night
And all beauty increases, by softness of sight,
Then the friends are more friendly, and enemies too,
Which is more than the unreserved drinking can do,
For there’s magic about, and it’s all through the air,
And as long as you’re with me, I long to be there.
That feeling. That fucking feeling was what made me take the bet – a thousand dollar bet, which was about nine hundred and fifty dollars more than I could afford to lose. That made me take the bet. That, and my certified addiction to gambling.
Every day I would think about calling Eddie, calling it off – knowing he wouldn’t mind that much. I’d pay him twenty bucks, he’d make fun of me, we’d be done with it.
And then every night, I’d drink until that feeling got me again, until I was past the point of talking myself into it. “I played baseball in college for four years,” I’d say. “Of course I can do it. I’m an athlete. Hell, I could do five minutes, let alone one.”
That was how my first attempt happened: July 8th, 2008 – the first month of the second half of the year: new beginnings. And I was celebrating by hefting my ass over the low fence to the left of the Cubs home dugout in the middle of the fourth inning. New beginnings. If you were watching the game, that’s why the commercial break took an extra thirty seconds or so.
It all started off well enough: a quick sprint and I was across the foul line, moving into shallow left field. Edwin Encarnacion, the Cincinnati Reds third baseman, made a half-hearted grab for me, but I was past him.
And then I ran out of gas. The two years of steady smoking since I’d last run regularly had an unbelievable effect. I swear I hadn’t gone more than fifty yards when I was sucking wind, slowing down, looking over my shoulder for the inevitable security. I dodged once, turned to my right and was immediately tackled and smothered. And I was so gassed I was almost relieved. Total time on the field: forty seconds.
Needless to say, the blue-coated security and ubiquitous ushers were on the lookout for my face the next few home series. Three times in the next two weeks, I was nabbed before even setting foot on the playing surface and then, once last week, I was denied entrance to the stadium. Denied entrance to the Friendly Confines that I know and love so well. I needed a new plan.
------
When I saw the flyer advertising for “specialty mascots,” I had a glimmer of hope. When I called in and heard that there was still one position unfilled, that hope swelled inside me. And when I arrived to interview to find that somehow, no one there recognized me as the would-be trespasser, that hope filled my heart and overflowed. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to get the spot. I barely listened as they described the job, the position, my duties. I signed the waivers, the contract with a smile on my face. And last Sunday, July 27th, I reported for duty.
The game was at 6:00; I was there by three, knocking on the “Personnel Admitted” door right next to Gate 14. A girl about my age with a clipboard and headphones swung the door open. “Are you the red hot?” she said.
I was confused. The red hot? Was she coming on to me? What?
“No, you’re the red hot,” I said, and then added, reading from her nametag, “Amy.”
She shook her head but I could see the smile at the corners of her mouth. She grabbed my wrist and pulled me inside, spinning me in front of her down the hallway. I was smiling to myself in congratulations of my smoothness halfway down the walk when I remembered, “Red Hot! Fuck! That’s my job! Ohhh yeahhh.” I turned to say something, but she was talking on the headset, “I left it right there… Ok, I’ll be up in a second. Yeah, he’s here.” She turned to me, swinging me by my wrist to a door in the right wall, and with a hand over her mouthpiece, whispered, “I’ll help you with your costume. Strip.”
And then she walked away down the hall. I watched her go, her white sneakers susurrating on the cement. Not a bad-looking girl. Strip, huh? Ok, Amy, you got it.
I pushed my way into the cement room, decorated with green lockers on walls to the left and right. An old, and by the looks of it, unused vending machine stood at the far end of the room, some thirty feet from me, and on the floor in the middle of the room lay what looked like a red kayak with rounded bottom and edges, so rounded that it was basically cylindrical.
I took my shoes off, and my shirt, and then I stopped. Couldn’t mascots wear clothes under the costumes? Didn’t they all? Was it just too hot this time of year? I was paused with my belt halfway undone when I heard the door rasp open behind me. Amy walked into the room, closed the door carefully behind her and took off the headset, setting it on top of the first locker.
She shook out her hair with her fingers as she walked past me, blowing out a sigh. I turned, my fingers still on my belt, to see her hefting the kayak-thing and turning back to me. “Pants off,” she said, and then smiled, a full, not-just-corners-of-her-mouth smile. “Part of the job.”
I had no idea where this was going, not a clue in hell, but I was liking it so far. I kicked out of my socks and then slid out of my jeans.
“Whoah, does the smell in the locker room turn you on or what?” she said. I glanced down. “Must be something,” I said. She dragged the red thing over to where I stood, flipped it over to I could see another hole like the one on the top, except instead of being in the middle, like a kayak, this one was at one end.
“Hold this,” she said, handing me the end. It was round, and wide, about two and a half feet wide, no narrower at the end than the middle, with a little clip on the very tip, a small steel loop. I took this in quickly in the half-second before she reached over and pulled my boxers down to my ankles.
I passed off the “mmm” sound that escaped me as an “mmm-hmmm!” clearing my throat. This was weird. Amy looked up at me, a confused expression on her face. There was much to be confused about. “Aren’t you gay?” she said.
I looked down, narrowed my eyes, and tried to shrug, which was difficult with the giant red thing in my hands. “No,” I finally said, “I’m not.”
Amy stood up and looked at me. Then at her watch. Then she reached over my shoulder and flicked the power switch on her headset to ‘off.’
She was very energetic.
------
I was sure we were going to be late. I really didn’t want to be late. It must have been getting close to time when she told me to climb inside the red thing. “Are you nuts?” I said, but she was busy tucking in her shirt. “Hurry up!” she said. Ok, the dominatrix thing. Fine. I wasn’t into it, but I owed her, I figured. I started to climb headfirst into the top hole hear the end. It was slow going, my legs waggling in empty air. And then she smacked me, hard, right on my bare ass. I jerked and banged my head on the inside of the red plastic, then crawled out.
She was giggling, but obviously still in a hurry. “Oh, shit,” she was saying, “I left a huge welt on your ass.” Why would she worry about that? Ten minutes ago, she was scratching up my back like a damn leopard. I turned once and a half around, craning to try to see the welt, like a dog chasing its tail. She giggled again and pushed me back to the red thing. “Go!” she said, “feet first.”
“What?”
“Feet first!” she said.
“…” I said.
Amy shook her head. “Did you even read the job description?” she said. She lifted my feet in the end hole and scooched me down farther. Soon my ass was in the tube. She kept pushing, telling me to “scoot!” until I was completely inside the red thing, staring out the opening at the cement ceiling where a bare light-bulb hung. I could feel the cool of the cement floor against my ass through the other hole, and slowly, gradually, the words from my job meeting started coming back to me.
Amy was at the door, opening it, and I could hear more people coming in. Three or four, maybe. There was a shuffle of feet and a clink of steel at the clip on each end of my red sarcophagus, and then I was hefted into the air. I could feel the rush of air across my backside.
As I was hefted out of the tunnel, squinting in the bright sunlight and hearing someone reminding me to “smile!” I remembered everything, and I realized why Amy had been so nervous about the bright hand-print she left on my ass.
I was the Chicago Red Hot. My job? To attract gay men to the park. My MO? To be trussed up like a giant sausage on a rotisserie next to the visitors bullpen, and rotate for nine long innings, cooking evenly in the sun and offering the crowd alternating views of my smiling face and my bare white ass. With Amy’s handprint gleaming on it.
I won the bet. Damn right I did. And I also boosted gay attendance in a big way. Already the section just up the line from the bullpen is known as “Queer Corner.”
But when my family found out, my conservative, traditional Catholic family, it wasn’t an easy thing for them to swallow. It was one of those times in a young, impetuous man’s life when he mortgages the love of his family for the pursuit of an ignoble passion.
Intellect, will, passions – I can say it like a mantra. But sometimes, when you live in a world as addictive as this one, an experience can turn everything on its head… or in my case, on its ass.
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