Summer Stalking: 1994

 LiveJournal Repost, nostalgia, really bad ideas, stalking
Jul 212008
 

My parents were in the process of having a back porch built onto our house. This was a big deal for my brother Ryan and me, because stalking one of the workers became the sole reason we got out of bed each day. I mean really, who wants to swim and lay out in the sun when you can be violating someone’s privacy?

There was no real reason why we felt so intrinsically drawn to the sweaty laborer. He wasn’t good-looking, he didn’t sport a peg-leg, he wasn’t albino. He was just your average forty-something year old porch-builder with tinted eyeglasses, a farmer’s tan and a bushy moustache. I don’t even think he ever spoke to us. I mean, would you?

We would run from window to window, snapping pictures of him. Pictures from the kitchen, pictures from our parent’s bedroom, pictures bent around tree trunks. One day, Ryan even chased his truck up the street as he departed for home after a long grueling day of hammering nails and chugging Schlitz under the shade of a maple. I often wondered if our porch-builder had a good broad with a nice plump behind to nail, maybe cook him up a nice thick stew.

I’ll never forget the day we discovered his name was Gary. We ran into the house, erupting into shrieks and giggles. Our mom’s reaction was something akin to “Yeah, so?” accompanied by an eye brow raise. She always raised the eyebrow that bore a scar from when she was a baby and rolled off her bed, banging her face off the corner of the nightstand. I still can’t believe she never made up a better story, like how she was nicked by a gypsy’s butterfly knife the time she tried to steal cantaloupes off their wagon. When I was fourteen and viciously mauled by our psycho rabbit, you better believe I went back to school with a yarn about getting stabbed during gang initiation.

After a week of wasting film on this fine craftsman, we decided these clandestine snaps weren’t providing enough of a sociopathic rush. We needed more thrill, something that provided more of an instant gratification. When you’re young, you want souvenirs for everything you do: pocketed sugar packets from a truck stop diner, pebbles from the parking lot of the first sex shack your dad made you wait outside of, bloodied gauze from your first tooth extraction.

So the next obvious step clearly was to collect Gary’s cigarette butts and beer cans.

We waited until he’d go to his truck, then sprint out in the backyard like scavengers, picking through the grass in search of a butt or two. Once we accumulated enough to satiate our pursuant appetite, we brought our treasures in the house and stowed it underneath the couch in the family room. Like chipmunks storing acorns, crack heads hording rocks.

Stalking Gary consumed so much of our summer. So much that it infiltrated the summer of my friends, as well. My best friend Christy was out of town for some sort of academic camp. I wrote her a letter and enclosed one of Gary’s cigarettes butts for her to cherish as well. I just wanted her summer to be as rich as ours had become, thanks to Gary. I wrote letters to every one of my pen pals, detailing Gary’s every action and movement. Everyone clung to the Summer of Gary with bated breath.

Unfortunately, the fun and games ended when my dad unearthed our stash of purloined memorabilia under the couch. Now, any other dad would have rightfully accused us of smoking and drinking. Luckily for us, my dad recognized the extent of our weirdness long before this incident, so he believed our tale and we escaped punishment. The downside was that he forbade us to continue our game and pitched our pirated keepsake, muttering something about how we were embarrassing him or something.

I often wonder what Gary is doing these days, and if he knew he was being stalked. Was he flattered? I asked my mom: she said probably not.

Kennywood Anticipation

 Amusement Parks, Fairs, & Carnivals, LiveJournal Repost
Mar 172008
 

We drove past our local amusement park — Kennywood — yesterday while out and about. Usually, seeing the hill of the Phantom’s Revenge jutting out from the park, appearing to touch the clouds, barely fazes me, but yesterday it kind of shocked me with a thrill. Maybe because it’s about to open in two months and I’m about over this whole snowy weather prison sentence. Soon, they’ll de-winterize the park: tarps will come off and gates will open, affording a new wave of teenage girls the opportunity to give blow jobs under the pavilions. (Hopefully, some bolt-tightening action will take place somewhere along the line too.)

In anticipation for a new season of giving Henry gray hairs at amusement parks, here’s my all-time favorite Kennywood entry.

June 17, 2007

 

What better way to honor my favorite motion-sensitive father than by orchestrating an afternoon at Pittsburgh’s little amusement park, Kennywood? I even paid for him. I know, try and wrap your head around that one. I know!

I allowed Janna to join us, so that I could have a riding partner while Henry played stroller chauffeur. Clearly I was having a lapse in judgment at the time I extended my invitation to her, because she’s a big crybaby when it comes to 75% of the park’s rides and she’s near-deaf so I have to activate my echo. I think that sometimes she just pretends to hear me, because she’ll smile and laugh, but her eyes are screaming, “Help us, help! We’re so confused! Did she make a joke or is she postulating seriously about Darfur? I don’t know! Just laugh anyway! OK!” My favorite is when she laughs and then moments later asks, “Wait—what?”

This strange phenomenon plagues my conversations with Henry, too, although I have strong evidence backing the fact that he’s just ignoring me.

When we came last year, Riley was too young to ride anything other than the boring, waste-of-fifteen minutes train ride, but this time he boasted the ability to advance on foot at a moderate pace, albeit changing direction more times than a pinball. I had the pleasure of escorting him on his inaugural ride, a watered down roller coaster that took all of five seconds to whir around a wavy track before the miserable employee pulled back the brake and asked us in his best Ben Stein impression if we wanted to ride again. I really didn’t because it was a lot jerkier than I imagined it would be and I bruise easy, but I didn’t want to infer any wrath of the inner city children behind me.

I kept a protective arm around Riley and watched his face the entire time: his expression never faltered. He was stoic, with his lips set in a straight, firm line; it was as if he only came on the ride based on a threat and he’d be damned if he was going to let any tears run loose.

After the second lap — which was shaky at best — Riley and I were the first to exit, putting me in charge of the daunting task of unlatching the exit gate. When it became clear that my attempts were going to continue to be feeble, the mom behind me reached over my shoulder and flipped the latch, saving us all. Thank god for moms like that; you know, the ones who can open things.

We let Riley conquer a ride that featured helicopters and flying saucers which circled around while rising and lowering for about thirteen thousand boring rotations. Every time his saucer would pass our stakeout at the fence, he’d purposely ignore us. He’d wave and acknowledge all the other parents, though. I’m so glad my fourteen-month-old son is already mastering the art of snubbing.

 


Some more here

He didn’t crack a smile on that one, either. Obviously, Kennywood is serious business for my son. He might as well have been riding the bus to work, that’s how much disdain was clouding his face.

We took him on some other rides too, but he was mainly just interested in trying to get himself kidnapped. Stranger danger, what now?

The air that day was heavy with humidity, the kind of weather that leaves a sebaceous film over your face. The kind of salty film that’s best served with some Italian bread. The kind of film that springs forth when you’re knocking back a few in the corner pub and a traveling banjo player comes in and sits at the bar next to you and he isn’t really that good-looking and kind of has a noxious, perma-stench of cabbage emanating from his pits and his tongue is coated with slime, but after your third whiskey he looks mildly inoffensive so you lure him out the back with a theoretical bone of “Hey, play that banjo for me out in the alley, you hot piece of asshole-love” and then you lock the back door after him and bludgeon him with your prosthetic leg and then fuck his dead body in a dumpster. You know, that kind of film?

What better way to hose down the oil slick and neutralize Janna’s body odor than by hopping in line for a water ride? The Log Jammer’s line looked nonthreatening in length, but we were deceived. We had the awesome luck of standing behind a guy who had his name tattooed on the back of his neck in a very effeminate script. Janna thought it said “Jocko,” I thought it said, “Fucko,” but it really said…Oh my God, I completely don’t give a fuck.

At one point, I had that sensation that I was about to be assassinated. You know? My eyes darted all though the surrounding trees and I hoarsely alerted Janna to the situation. Of course she didn’t hear me, making me repeat the sensitive information even louder. I don’t think she heard me correctly, because she cheerfully shouted, “Oh my god, you should totally be an assassin!”

Sure, that would be the perfect profession for me! I mean, if there was suddenly a high demand for obvious assassins. Can you imagine, me and all that grace I lack? “Heeheehee, there’s my target!” while my flip-flops would be slapping all over the place, alerting my target to my presence, even if they were semi-deaf like Janna. “Heeheehee, oh my God lining up my target inside these crosshairs makes me have to pee so bad! Ha ha ha!”

Yeah, Janna. Good one.

Oh boy, did Janna and I have quite the romantic journey in our log jammer. We hadn’t even gone down any hills yet and she was already asking me if I was wet. I have to admit, I was a little uncomfortable at the sexual connotations she was slinging.

“Are you wet yet? Did you get wet? Have you been caressed with the wetness?”

Jesus Christ, Janna! Yes, my skin is slightly lubricated after that last bend. Would you like to borrow some?

What the fuck?!

I had low expectations from the moment Kennywood’s turnstiles molested our pelvises, because Janna and Henry are both adamantly anti-spin. No thrill rides for them, it might aggravate their arthritis and make them paint backs of heads with their lunch.

But after the Log Jammer we came upon my favorite ride in Kennywood, the Aero360. All the other death traps can suck a fucking dick as far as I’m concerned. Especially the ones that think they’re hot shit, like that asshole that calls itself SwingShot. I took a few moments to pause and salivate, nearly genuflecting to really bring it home. Then I gave Janna some killer puppy dog eyes.

“No, Erin. Oh no, I already told you I won’t ride that!”

There were only six people in line. I could have spit on her. Then I looked up at the occupants currently enjoying being flung in the air like bean bags and took note that most of them were children. Children.

I used this as leverage.

“Janna, you douche, how the fuck are you going to be a teacher when you won’t even ride the same rides as your could-be students?” I dug my nails into the back part of her arm so she would see just how serious I really was.

This is not true. I’m not really that mean to Janna. Not right off the bat, anyhow. I lured her into line by ensuring her that mothers had been known to take their infants for a trip on the good ol’ Aero360 so really, what did she have to be afraid of?

She took careful notes as we stood in line, even counting how many rotations the ride engaged in. I answered all her whiny, fear-scented questions with emphatic nos, even when I knew in my heart that I should be hyena-ing maniacal yess all up in her grill while spraying her with laughter-launched torrents of spit.

I saved all of my sinister and cruel needling for when we were already strapped securely into our seats and there was nowhere for her to take refuge. I really lucked out when a group of four older people sat in our section and showed interest in sharing my feast of Janna’s fear.

We screamed your standard caveats of Your harness is coming undone! and Did you hear those bolts shooting out?! along with things tailored more specifically to Janna, like Die, die, die you fucking ho-bag penguin dick-sucker, you fucking dumb ass ugly hooker fucker! and You smell like the used up, soggy, saliva-drenched reed from a clarinet played by a homeless Albanian with AIDs, you fucking whore-tits!

I’m not sure if she could hear any of that over top of her own funeral dirge, though.

My favorite part was when the ride was over and I bolted, while Janna took her good old time reacquainting her feet with terra firma and searching for her sunglasses in the loose items box. I found Henry and together we watched as Janna emerged from the gate. Her face started out lax, then tensed up a little in an expression of fear, then hardened as she figured out she had been purposely ditched and thought, “Hey, fuck this, where are they?”

Cue Henry with the lecturing. “Go and get her, don’t be so mean,” he said as he nudged my shoulder. Can I ever have fun? I mean, really.

After I fetched Janna, I insisted on reliving the experience as we were suspended limply and helplessly, upside down and like, a lot of feet from the ground.

“Wasn’t it invigorating? Like showering in a natural spring?” Janna vehemently disagreed, but maybe I should have mentioned the coconut-bikini. Sometimes, fruity-tits make all the difference in the world.

Then we rode some other things, stood around looking lost, I removed a tampon. You know, really Fun Stuff.

Finally, Janna had tired of having her intestines jostled and suggested that Henry and I take a gander together. I immediately tugged on his arm and ooh’d like an ape, while he simultaneously asked, “Is there a ride where I get to stab her with a knife?”

We opted on a roller coaster, the Thunder Bolt. It’s a good thing that the line was only about two minutes long, because I was floundering on the conversation tip. Henry was in one of those moods where he’d rather be refueling an air plane and killing pet ducks in Panama, and those are things that I sadly just can’t give him. So instead he had to listen to me prattle on about the employees’ water bottles that were propped up across the tracks and did he think they washed them out every night?

I guess the fact that I perpetually whined about how I wished I was there with Christina and not him didn’t really inspire him to contribute to the conversation.

Then it was our turn to ride and I was super concerned about the safety of his glasses, which he stuffed down his shirt like a bra-padder, and I don’t think he appreciated it at all. He was in such a big hurry to get off the ride that he ran right in to some innocent little girl and never even paused to ensure she didn’t skin a knee.

He got his pay back toward the end of the night when we were standing in line for this really stupid and boring car ride that I thought my son would enjoy but silly me, I keep forgetting that my kid only takes pleasure in things like socking me in the mouth and the opening theme of “Days of Our Lives.”

So there was this dumb bitch in front of us; she was, oh I don’t know, seven maybe? This ride demands that you must have a partner in order to make people like Janna remember how loserish they really are, and this particular girl was in a tizzy because her mom hadn’t joined her in line yet. Finally, she approached us (and after finally seeing her, I realized the delay was surely because she was underneath a pavilion, smoking the crack pipe) and the little girl asked Henry if it was OK for her mom to cut ahead of us. She even batted her eyes, which annoyed me. I hate girls that remind me of myself!

Initially, Henry said it was OK, but then he jokingly sneered, “What if I said no?” because he really knows how to charm the pants off the pre-teen set. The girl discarded her apple pie demeanor in favor of a haughty stance and wicked glare.

“I don’t think that would be a problem,” she hissed. I waited for her to launch Henry back against a tree with the sheer power of the hate radiating from her Village of the Damned eyes.

And then I wanted ice cream and Henry foiled my plan, which made the walk back to the car a very long, embittered one. Now I know how Jesus felt. I’ll never forget how my beloved Aero360 looked on the cusp on our departure, all lit up against the mauve sky, like Kennywood’s own little whore house on the Sunset Strip.

Later that night, Henry recounted all the gay ass homemade t-shirts he saw various men wearing. You know, the sort that boasts — in an array of cracked puffy paint — how many apples they have on the tree, or flowers in the garden, and hooray for fathers, let the world never run dry of them. Sorry Henry, I didn’t have enough time, what with working full time, nurturing our son, and you know, updating all five billion of my blogs. Maybe next year I’ll darn you some socks.

If You Ever Wanted to Induce a Heart Attack

 Amusement Parks, Fairs, & Carnivals, LiveJournal Repost
Mar 072008
 

I want to talk about something that changed my life, something that made me appreciate terra firma. I want to talk about a mean little thrill ride called the Swingshot.

 


Clickie for video of its gnashing jaws of death in action

When the Swingshot was the new ride for summer ’06 at Kennywood, no one would ride it with me. I stood near a bench one evening, watching with sad clown eyes (and flicking my switchblade) as groups of riders screamed their lucky little heads off. How blessed they were to have friends who were daring enough to ride with them. I hoped they’d end the evening by walking into the web of a serial killer.

Later that fall, I made plans to go back to Kennywood for their annual Halloween makeover. In making these plans with my friend Kara through email, she expressed great interest in wanting to ride the Swingshot. She would sling enthusiastic confirmations at me, like “I would cut off my left leg with an apple peeler for the chance to ride the Swingshot with you, Erin!” and “Sitting upon the Swingshot is what God molded me to do. The Bible told me so. I am so glad that you have extended to me such an amazing opportunity!” I ran around the house in delight; my dream was going to come true.

First, we rode other ridiculously gut-churning rides, risking whiplash and lost keys but loving every second of it. I think I even scared a little boy sitting across from me on the Aero 360, which made for a knee-slapping good time.

I noticed during the course of the night that Kara seemed to be stalling.

“Let’s go through one of the haunted houses,” she would suspiciously suggest every time we neared the quadrant of the Swingshot.

“Oh, look, it doesn’t appear to be running!” she deduced at one point when we weren’t even close enough for her to make such an assumption. Not one to be deterred, I suggested that we walk closer to its proximity so I could see for myself.

IT WAS RUNNING. I pulled Kara into line with me and she tried to act hard core, like riding the Swingshot was nothing more than a trip down a playground slide for her. But as time went on, I noticed that Kara’s exterior was starting to come undone; she was wringing her hands and fidgeting with the drawstrings of her hoodie. I caught her watching the ride with saucer-wide eyes, but she quickly explained that she was just trying to figure out how it worked.

Well, I didn’t buy it.

The line was long, but we were distracted for a few minutes by a group of boys on the other side of the railing who decided it would be fun to tap me on the shoulder and tell me that their friend in the striped shirt liked me. I’m sure he really did, too, because I hear that girls with chin curtains and a veritable intertube of post-pregnancy fat around their waists is the new Hot of October ’06. I’m a real dish these days. Kara took it upon herself to inquire their ages, and they very proudly announced that they were NINETEEN. There was a man behind us with his Banana Republic billboard of a girlfriend, who jumped into the action by asking us how old we were. Then he noticed Kara was wearing a Pitt sweatshirt and started firing off a barrage of questions about her major and where she works and if she knows all these random people and then he asked, “Where do you guys live?” all the while his stiff-lipped girlfriend stood rigidly by his side, with her hands folded primly. I took this as my cue to turn around and not answer because he was quickly turning into a creepshow. Kara kept answering his questions and I silently wished she would stop before she found him crawling into her bedroom window later that night.

Kara finally turned her back on him and he went back to not talking to his cardboard girlfriend. We watched the ride swing back and forth some more, and my hands started to feel a little clammy. Kara pointed to one girl who had her arms splayed out to the sides and was screaming in a volume of anguish generally reserved for child birth. And then Kara laughed at her. And then I laughed at her, too. No ride is that scary.

But soon it was our turn. We chose two seats together and after I lowered the bar across my lap, I instinctively reached up for the safety thing that goes over your shoulders, but there wasn’t one. I thought maybe my seat was defective until I looked around and saw that no one had one. Then I put my hands out to grip something around me for comfort, but there was nothing to hold onto. Nothing but the small plastic mound that rose up between our legs like a tiny phallic mountain.

And then the ride started. It made a whooshing sound as it propelled us into the air. Imagine if you will the sound of the apocalypse being announced. Lots of bolts clanking, gears grinding, the shrill siren of a billion pounds of air blowing the flesh from your bones? That’s the Swingshot’s soundtrack, my friends.

Kara said she expected a dragon to come out of the darkness and engulf us.

Once we started descending, I knew this ride wasn’t made of little girl giggles and cotton tail surprises; more like crack pipes, shivs, and jizz of a trillion serial rapists. The arm of the Swingshot brought us crashing back to the ground only to whisk us back up in the opposite direction, this time leaving us suspended in the air, facing straight down into the cemented land below. Immediately, my arms flew up to grasp the imaginary shoulder harness and my legs scrambled for a way to brace the rest of me. There was nothing for them do but stick out in paralyzed shock.

I think this is totally how I would feel if ever in that pivotal position where I fall face-first while being chased through the woods of Camp Crystal Lake by Jason Voorhees, flipping myself over just in time for him to gouge my chest with his whirring chainsaw.

Before I knew it, I was crying. Real, live, wimp-flavored tears. I had no fire left inside of me to stop it from happening; my entire being had reduced to a large package of sniveling lily-livered pansiness. I have never, ever cried on a ride at an amusement park. OK, fine, I’m a liar. There was a fun house that my aunt and I were trapped inside of in Paris one year, but that was only because the ride operator knew we were tourists and I can still hear her cackling as she made the hamster wheel speed up every time we tried to cross through it. We ended up jumping a gate to escape, and I brought home bruise- and scrape-covered flesh as a souvenir. That was not a good time.

While hostage on the Swingshot, I shrieked every combination of obscenities that my scrambling mind could think of. All inhibitions were gone and I could have shit my pants and not gave a damn what the guy next to me thought. I just wanted off that motherfucker of a ride.

I could detect a slight acrid odor wafting around my face and I realized that it was the scent of fear oozing from my pores. Or maybe my deodorant just isn’t tuff enuff to do its job when facing death.

They say that when you’re near-death, your life flashes before your eyes. I saw Christmases back when they were good and I got lots of presents because my family’s hatred for me was still recessive. I saw myself on a stage in Switzerland, blowing into a Ricola horn. I saw my five-year-old brother slamming a car door upon my ten-year-old head. I saw myself meeting the Cure and stuttering in front of Robert Smith. I saw myself in the hospital after having a baby and being entertained by a singing telegram sent by Janna. Oh wait, that didn’t happen because Janna is a shitty friend who doesn’t care enough to send a fucking singing telegram. Janna, you asshole. I saw myself punching Jimmy McConaghy in the stomach on the playground in fifth grade, and if I knew then what I know now I would have iced the cake by calling him a douchebag. I saw myself five minutes ago, standing in line and lamenting the fact that “this ride doesn’t look like it lasts very long” and if I had control over my motor skills while being suspended face down, 65 feet in the air, I would have punched myself in the stomach.

I think I now know what it might feel like to be in a plane crash. That was seriously the most unnecessary level of fear I’ve ever willingly subjected myself to. I hope that by the time my kid is old enough to realize that Oh my god Mom, you have to ride this with me!, it will have already been packed up and shipped off to Holland.

Creepy Inquisitor and his Cardboard Girlfriend ended up sitting next to us on the ride and Kara said they didn’t scream or anything which leads me to believe that they’re robots.

Fifteen minutes later, our legs still possessed a slight quake as we passed by the Swingshot on our way to safer steel contraptions meant to make riders wet their pants. I slowed my pace, called it an asshole and flipped it off. Then we realized that it had been temporarily shut down. That did wonders for my newfound appreciation of life.

Christlike Crushes

 LiveJournal Repost, super dumb stories
Feb 122008
 

It was a mild Sunday evening when Henry and I decided to take the kid for a leisurely after dinner stroll around the neighborhood. We managed to make it three blocks before colliding with a pair of Mormon elders, looking especially clean cut and dashing in their dress shirts and meticulously parted hair.

My eyes connect with one of them for a brief moment, and in an instant the solicitation floodgates have been opened.

"Would you like to take one of these cards for a free DVD?" he inquires, arm extended with a card in between his fingers.

Oh, you bet I would.

As I quicken my pace to catch up with Henry, who does not brake for religious solicitors, I examine the card in my hand, which is not unlike that of a prayer card. The back informs one how to send away for a free Jesus Saves DVD. The front though, that’s another story.

There have been many faces of Jesus shoved at me in my twenty-seven years. Some depict him as your average working class, Henry-type of guy; someone you can depend on when your shower needs re-caulked or a floor board needs replaced. He can probably direct you to the nearest baptismal pool with a few flicks of his arm. Other Jesuses are horrifying, with sorrowful eyes and rivulets of blood curling down from a crown of thorns.

Those Jesuses just don’t do it for me.

But the one on this card? This was one Hot Christ.

The rest of the walk was spent in near-orgasm, exalting over Christ’s sex appeal and delighting in Henry’s discomfort. But when we returned home, I discarded the card atop the dining room table, where it would be forgotten for the next thirty-six hours.

The next thing I knew, my dreams of punishing Henry by glazing him with buckets of molten plastic like he’s been a bad donut were replaced with curious scenes of Hot Christ escorting me on a series of dates.

 
The Courtship of Hot Christ and Erin

Christ and I take in a viewing of The Exorcist, where he snorts and makes snide remarks about how they got it "all wrong" and "demon possessions are so 15th century." He smacks his lips while voraciously masticating every last butter-drenched kernel of popcorn, which would be a deal-breaker if this was a date with a mortal, but since it’s Hot Christ, I’m only mildly turned off.

A spectacle brews as Jesus guffaws like he’s taking in a Dave Chapelle performance. Theater patrons swivel in their seats and ogle as his laughter causes him to choke on Milk Duds; I sink down to avoid eye contact.

"What?" Jesus incredulously asks. "It’s funny! I guess you have to know Pazuzu. He’s a fucking card, yo! That green vomit stunt is his oldest trick. I’ve seen him perform it thousands of times over the centuries. It never gets old!"

As we leave the theater, he remarks that he’s going to keep the 3D shades for our Relationship Scrapbook, as he tenderly tucks it into his hemp satchel. My Gaydar crackles and pops briefly, but then he boisterously yells, "Who wants to play mini golf?!" and I answer with an enthusiastic "I do, I do!" and forget all about his alarming display of fruitiness.
 

Hot Christ gallantly springs for my entrance at Family Fun Land, which is reassuring considering he ran off to the arcade after telling the person in the box office that he only needed one movie ticket.

Here I discover that Hot Christ’s line-waiting patience matches mine, which surprises me considering this is the person who slows down his pace to amble with the crippled. He sways back and forth, taking turns putting his weight on each foot, and sighs in frustration. "Good God, we’re going to be here all night," he hisses, saliva droplets collecting in his unruly beard, while the young boy in front of us takes his time lining up his shot. "Noah could have built the ark and set sail by now," he spits, knocking back an angry chug of his Big Gulp. I’m silently grateful that his cup holds only Dr. Pepper and not vodka.

"Mmmm-miss it!" Hot Christ heckles, masking it as a cough. The boy stops mid-swing and nervously tugs at his collar.

Finally unable to withstand the wait any longer, Hot Christ makes idle threats involving a Sunday school teacher, a confessional, and rubber-banded ballsacks, causing the boy’s father to hurriedly lead him away from us.

Hot Christ rejoices and places his feet on the mat, wiggling his ass as he prepares to take his shot. We will be the stars of Putt-Putt, I think smugly, tossing taunting glances over my shoulder at the growing line behind us.

Twenty-eight miss-putts later, and the man who has walked on water and cured lepers still can’t manage to land his ball in the hole. I worry about what our sex will be like. We flee the scene.

Hot Christ, living on a meager carpenter’s salary, has enough cash left over to buy himself a meal at Taco Bell. He offers me a bite of his taco, but I remind him that I don’t eat meat. I’m annoyed that he’ll remember all of my sins and driver’s seat fellatio parties, which he has chosen to chastise me for and name drop various prayers for penance throughout the night, but he can’t remember my eating preferences? He thoughtfully chucks a packet of Fire Sauce at me, and I hungrily scrape out the contents with my teeth. We share his Mountain Dew, but I opt to use my own straw since he’s made a habit of kissing diseased people.

The night ends and while I still find Hot Christ extremely hot and Christ-y, we decide we’re better off as friends. I think his flatulence is so powerful that it, combined with his acerbic temper, could be bottled and used as a genocide aid to obliterate a medium-sized village, and he thinks I’m a big fat whore who needs to make friends with the Rosary. At least we’ll always have the scrapbook.

Blood Tangy — revised

 LiveJournal Repost, super dumb stories
Feb 042008
 

You’re hurting me. Haven’t you had enough yet?

Just a little more, you say breathlessly. Your thick fingers lace firmly around my neck, leaving my skin marred by elongated indentations, a souvenir of your carelessness. But no one will notice. No one ever takes the time to examine my veneer, to scrutinize what was once a sleek and shiny face, now a peeling and dented facade functioning only to barricade my insides, my insides which still occasionally find an exit through the cracks you’ve made along my exterior. My insides seep through.

If I was made of glass, I’d have shattered long ago, shards of my dignity and worth and esteem would spray through the air like candy from a piñata. But I am still fragile – not made of glass, but still fragile.

There was tenderness in the beginning, when our relationship was fresh, straight from the shelf. You applied gentle means to pour me out, and I was enough for you; you had no need for foul play or any extra garnishes on the side. But what was once a partnership has begun to shape-shift into something horrifically unilateral. You dominate me now, crushing me of my contents. I used to willingly bleed for you, I loved to bleed for you, to watch deliriously as my russet essence flowed into purled pools on your ivory plate. When I become less cooperative, your once-gentle hands turn into meat-fists, squeezing me dry, exsanguinating me against my will; your pursed lips spit fifty-seven insults in my face. Sometimes, you strike me hard along my ribs with the heel of your calloused hand, all for one drop of my blood.

 

One drop.  Does that satisfy you, that one drop, seeing my gore trickle slowly past my lips, like slow-flowing lava finally losing momentum? I hope it tastes good to you.

Even for your friends, I stand tall and willing. Take of me what you will, I sigh to myself, I sigh for abatement, I sigh for the privilege of being tossed and discarded. I sigh.  Spend most of my days sitting in my dark room, where I sigh the most, only bathing in light when you come in looking for something.

But did you know that I sat out in the open for an entire week, stewing and coagulating in your neglect? A dash of hate, a smidgen of pain, stir in the self-pity. The perfect self-loathing stew.  

And now, now that I have barely anything else to give short of scraping my insides with a knife, you must know that your use for me is near-expiration. That’s why you go out at night, saying you’re just running out to Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Burger King. A late night snack, you assure, but you give it away with the lascivious leer your lips have hardened into, like two coils of Play-Doh left to bake in the summer’s sun.

I’m left to sit in the dark, helpless and paralyzed, half-drained of life; life that I used to willingly pour out for you. You abused that, as I know you’ve abused others before me. Did you hit them, throttle them, shake them too? In my dim sanctuary, I cower when I hear you return. I know you bring them home with you — smaller versions of me in trimmer, shinier packaging. I’ve caught you before.

It’s easier to maneuver them over my meat, you explain, never wiping away that smirk of a carnal conquistador. It’s just that you can be a bit bulky.

I scream at you, demanding to know where you find them. You say you skulk around for them in convenience stores and drive-thrus. I’m not enough for you? What you have here at home isn’t good enough? How much do you pay for them? I need to know that I am worth more, even with a scarred countenance. You say they came to you for free, that if you were going to pay for them, they would be classier, tangier.

 

Pick me.

Choose me.

Use me.

Abuse me.

In spite of my jealousy, when you don’t come to roughly retrieve me, grappling me with your strong hands, I drown in a cloud of hopeless relief, knowing that it’s one less time for you to vampirize me, to see you with that vermilion badge of conquest smeared across your lips.

 

Songs in the supermarket. It’s like all those songs I’d hear in the supermarket, the ones that’d make me rolls my eyes. The ones about love gone wrong and the ones about desperation and philandering and I hear these songs now in my head and I think My God, I’m living these songs. These songs apply to me now. All the “Baby come back”s and the “You don’t bring me flowers anymore”s and now I’m nodding along and crying, like the product of abuse I swore I’d never be.

I knew this from the beginning, when I slowly began noticing that I was surrounded by remnants and relics of your past – a lingering scent of honey, a smudge of crimson staining your shirt. You are a fickle man, I know this now, with an insatiable palate for the new and exotic. I knew that I would be too pedestrian for you, and you would soon find yourself dreaming of foreign flavors, only granting entrance to the ones dressed in designer labels. But I thought I’d have more time.

You fling me back into the pits where my heart will glaciate with frost. You move on then to mustards, maybe tartars, salsas, and now I miss you.

Wish You Were Here

 LiveJournal Repost, super dumb stories
Jan 232008
 

Blisters dot my feet like translucent buttons. The flesh on my shin has been ribboned. A laundry list of aches and pains add the sky and the grass to my injury painting. I hate hiking.

I hate camp.

Should have stayed in for ceramics, the nurse chides as she bandages my leg.

I skip volleyball and laze around by the lake, wondering what I’m missing back home. And do I even really miss home? And does anyone even really miss me? I worry that my best friends will now be each others best friend and my bedroom will be rearranged by my mom and she’ll smoke out my diary and read about my illicit fantasies involving my math teacher and molten candle wax and in my absence my tennis coach will discover a spark in someone else and they will end up turning pro while I amount to nothing more than someone who wipes the sweat from her brow in between sets.

But I know that I will be doing this same thing, only in reverse, when I get home: Crying over camp counselors I thought I would hate, the phone numbers of new friends I didn’t take, crafts I deigned too gay to make.

But I hate camp.

In the mess hall, I sit with the same group of kids every day and complain even when nothing is really wrong, because I’ve made myself addicted to the snarl of my voice.

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Over soggy tuna sandwiches, we (I) plan pranks that never pan out and groan just thinking about the camp perv groping us at the upcoming dance, but we all secretly hope we’re one of the groped because it will serve as an affirmation to our desirability. We engage in requisite gripes about our bodies — I’m fat I’m ugly I have a harelip I have braces— and take solace in the fact that there is always someone in the room with bigger thighs, a wider nose, a face more repugnant and teeth like a hillbilly. I love camp.

I wince at the sporadic crunch of celery between my teeth, the small slivers had hid inside the congealed wad of mayo and tuna between the dry bread, ruining my lunch. There are no food fights, but in a move drenched with cliche, a younger camper disposes of his retainer in the garbage.

I leave a pile of celery on my plate.

I hate communal showers.

I have several bunkmates at camp, at least nine, but I like Abby best. She doesn’t snore or misplace the cap to my toothpaste and she’s generous with the candy sent by her grandma in boxes scented by potpourri. She is short with frizzy black hair that is infrequently visited by a brush and she teaches me Yiddish words like kibitz and shmeckle and mensch. Abby’s dad left her mom for his nurse but Abby (and her mom) are positive that he’ll come back someday but I know he won’t. She keeps his picture next to her bed and tells me a different story about him each night. I don’t talk much about my own family, but I like hearing about hers.

The boys don’t like Abby because her eyebrows are overgrown like a neglected garden and her lips thirst for a balmy massage and, worst of all, she’s flat-chested.

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The girls don’t like her because she is smarter than them, she listens to Barry Manilow mixed tapes made with love by her mom, and she wears second-hand jeans even though her family has the money to dress her in designer.

I wouldn’t be friends with her if this was junior high. But it’s camp, and here I’m a different person.

She makes me look pretty.

Crickets chirp. Leaves rustle. Frogs ribbit. A nearby owl makes his presence known. Everything is louder at night.

Abby and I stay up late, mostly at her command. I don’t mind; I don’t want to be alone. Possessed with an undeniable gift of gab, she sits Indian-style in her bunk, folding paper cranes and talking about topics currently arresting her heart, like space travel, hockey, Joey McIntyre. I feign interest, fingers lightly tracing serpentine patterns around the faint bruises on my knees — medals merited from boat house blow jobs. I let an occasional Mmm-hmm escape from parted lips, to assure her I’m listening. When it’s my turn to birth a crane from jagged notebook paper, I turn out a sloppy mutant ventilated by rips my clumsy fingers made — proof to Abby that I hadn’t been paying attention at all. I love camp.

I try to tell myself that each activity I perform, every goal I accomplish is another stitch in the tapestry of my budding character. But I’m too busy chasing the shmeckle.

I’ve never been to camp.

Normal Afternoon

 LiveJournal Repost, super dumb stories
Jan 152008
 

OK, Pappap, you sit there real nice and quiet, alright? Do not peek out from the blind fold! And then you’re going to hold this stupid Cabbage Patch doll real tight like you like her, ‘k? Pretend like you like the dolly. Don’t let her watch me, Pappap! Seriously, she’ll get upset if she sees what I’m doing.

Pappap? Are you listening to me? OK, good. Hey, remember that one time when we were in Florida and that mean girl tried to drown me in the hotel kiddie pool and Pappap you were like ‘Hey, get your hands off my granddaughter or I’ll sue your whole entire bastard family!’? Remember that, Pappap? That was awesome, Pappap. Pappap, remember when I wanted that swing set and I showed you it in the catalogue and then I drewed a big red circle around it so you would not ever forget it, Pappap?

And I tolded you to take it to work so you could call the number and have it bought for me? Pappap, did you do that? OK. ‘Cuz that’s what you said last week and Aunt Sharon said you were lying to me just like Mommy lies when she says she loves me and I was not really a mistake like Grandma says after she drinks that stuff that looks like water but stinks real strong like stuff you clean with?

Don’t peek! Pappap, I seen you! I seen your eye ball and you was peeking! I’m not done yet, Pappap! You’re dropping the dolly.

Are you sleeping? Pappap, is you awake still? Pay attention to me! Are you listening? Remember how you said I’m a princess? Then can I has my own country? With lots of unicorns and lollipops. And all kind of mustards? And no boys! Boys make me mad and then I kick them and push them down hills and then I get yelled at.

Ooh, Smurfs are on!

OK Pappap, I’m almost done. These scissors are not sharp like the ones my daddy uses to cut down the weeds. How come, Pappap? Pappap, wake up! OK, I’m done. I’m going to hand you all these parts I cut off the Cabbage Patch and you have to tell me what they are without seeing.

Grandma, I is not weird. Pappap, tell her.

dirty pillows

 LiveJournal Repost, super dumb stories
Jan 072008
 

Mama always said God planted my seed in her for a reason, that I was born to do something great with my life, maybe even the whole entire world. First I tried to end world hunger by not eating so many handfuls of chocolate chips from the pantry; but people still kept on dying over there in that Somalia place. Papa said maybe I was gettin’ too ahead of myself, reaching for too many stars right off the bat, he said. Aim a little lower, Mama said as she brushed burrs out of my hair before bed.

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My dreams  fizzled for a few years after I discovered Internet slash communities and I lost several jobs because I’d rather stay in bed with some Hot Pockets reading about Snarry shipping. Just last night, Jesus Christ himself came to me, he done near slapped me in the face with a dildo and he said, “Bertie, get yourself together, girlie. Get up, take a shower, put on a pair of underwear that still has the crotch intact and go out and get youself a job. You need to change the kitty litter. There are maggots festering among mountains of fossilized feces.”

I listened to the Lord because the Bible I use to swat away flies tells me so. I got up this morning to find myself a job. I went to that there mall, thinkin’ I’d like to find me a way to be closer to hot fryer oil. While I was walking through the food court, a gang of hooligans slang pebbles at my ample behind and were fascinated by my unflinching reaction to the torture of my posterior cushion. “It’s like rubber, ya’ll,” I explained, demonstrating it’s durability by stabbing my right cheek with a Bic pen.

And that’s when Jesus appeared to me once more, smiling from a box of Trojans I passed in the drug store, and I realized my calling. I’ll be honest: it didn’t really dawn on me until an hour later when I was eatin’ me some Chik Fil-A. So please, doctor, what I’m gettin’ at is that ya’ll need to surgically remove the layers of my buttocks and have them sent off to be manufactured into prophylactics for white whales. There’re too many of them living underneath that sea and I would be lying if I said it wasn’t unnerving; it was all over the lastest issue of ZooBooks that my baby brother uses to cover up his titty magazine, and I’m frightened.

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I was born to stop whales from overpopulating and potentially taking over our great American cities like Trenton and Terra Haute.

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Im’ma change the world.

Can’t fit through your doorway,

Bertie

yearbook fun

 LiveJournal Repost, Reporting from Work
Dec 242007
 

I was looking for something in the murky archives of my LiveJournal, when I came across a post about finding my high school year book and I laughed because 10+ years later, this is still relevant.

 This has been said to me a lot lately, for some odd reason.

Pretend like this is my year book — leave a comment. It’ll be fun. Maybe.

Hemorrhoid Hijinx

 LiveJournal Repost, super dumb stories
Dec 202007
 

Pele hadn’t been walking right for a good portion of the week. Chester wasn’t into men or anything, but he couldn’t help his eyes from floating down to Pele’s ass every time he passed by Chester’s cubicle in the office.

Writing it off as overzealous anal sex practicing, Chester went back to licking envelopes. The taste of the glue reminded him of his mom’s breath, which he smelt every morning when she would send him off to school. It was from all of the cleaning solution she would drink in her tea, hoping to end her life. Cleaning up his father’s pubic hairs from the bathroom had really taken a toll on her over the years.

One Wednesday afternoon, Chester was walking past the restroom after fetching his lunch from the office kitchen, when he overheard a loud cry of anguish ricocheting on the other side of the bathroom door. He paused, glancing at his lunchsack containing a relish sandwich, and deliberated ignoring the deathly wail of his fellow co-worker in favor of tearing into his delicious lunch.

But Chester was too nice for that. He had been a hall monitor in grade school, after all. For two straight weeks!

Inside the restroom, he found Pele cowering in one of the stalls, the toilet bowl cloudy with dilluted blood.

"Pele, do you have hemorrhoids?" Pele turned his back toward him and spread his cheeks far and wide. Several swollen lumps sprung out around his rectum.

"I think we need to get you to the hospital! I don’t know how you’ve been walking with all of those swollen flesh buttons." An acrimonious exchange was had, with Pele resisting Chester’s suggestion.

After booting Pele good and swiftly in the ass, aggravating the pain, Pele was putty in Chester’s hands.

Chester sat in the waiting room for a few hours, reading Time and slurping back some decaf from a Dixie cup, when the surgeon approached him. "You can come back now, Mr. Dog."

When Chester entered the recovery room, he was appalled to see Pele’s lifeless body sprawled out on the bed, his decapitated head discarded next to him.

"Oh. I thought his head was the hemorrhoid," the surgeon offered as his excuse.

To this day, Chester refuses to seek professional care for hemorrhoids. If they get too bad, he whips out the Exacto knife. A strategically placed maxi pad takes care of the bleeding and within a few weeks, he’s able to go back to his spinning class.

Aaron <3s Erin

 LiveJournal Repost, really bad ideas
Dec 192007
 

I sent everyone at work my death row pen pal’s (severely outdated) website last night: It made Bob sad, Lindsay said "LOL," and Eleanore started lecturing and patronizing me. Oh OK, Pot-Kettle. I should have reminded her that she once married her inmate pen pal, but I digress.

It made me think about this other inmate pen pal I had a few years ago — Aaron. He was around my age and in prison for seven years for shooting a Mexican in the ass. I didn’t like him too much because all he wrote about was the rap music he liked, the skanks with kids who would come to visit him, and lifting weights.

He sure was cute though.

A few months into our postal courtship, and a year before his release date, I got this bombshell in the mail:

Erin,

I don’t know how to say this. I guess I’m just a chicken shit, and don’t like to say the wrong thing. I guess I like you more than I should. I think you are beautiful and I love your personality. You don’t have kids, and your [sic] normal*. I guess I’d rather be with you than be just friends.

I tried just being your friend, but I want more. I guess I’m greedy, but that’s me and who I am.

So I guess if you and Henry don’t work out, which I’m sure you will, but if not I’d like to give it a shot.

— Aaron

I wonder what he’s up to these days. Well, I guess it doesn’t matter, since I have a KID now. God, I’m such a whore.

*HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

 

How I Convinced Myself I have a Vampiric Ancestor

 LiveJournal Repost, super dumb stories
Dec 062007
 


Uncle Otis was a spry nine year old lad when Annie and her family moved to the neighborhood, on account of her daddy losing his job at the paper mill and was forced into the trade of candlestick making, naturally. Uncle Otis’ town was known all around, far and wide, as a thriving candle hub. So this made sense, you see?

Annie was in the grade below Uncle Otis and he would flick daisies at her during recess. She never noticed him, mainly because he was poor, but also because she liked black boys and Otis was, well, very pale. And had a small peepee.

Uncle Otis continued to pine for Annie, all the way through high school.

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Even after Johnny Maplebitch gave her genital warts, his heart still pitter-pattered down Lovelorn Lane. Even after, at age sixteen, Annie was impregnated by a salesman shilling Swiss Army knives and gained fifty pounds that she couldn’t shake, Uncle Otis would still feel a horde of butterflies molesting his insides at the mere mention of her name. Even after Annie joined a religious mountain top cult and was brainwashed into sewing up her vagina, Otis yearned to be the one to rip out the stitches.

At age eighteen, Uncle Otis was offered the job of a lifetime, joining a carnival caravan as a gum-wrapper sweeper. In his mind, he would let himself be engulfed in this job, saving each and every penny and dime, until he had a nest egg large enough to return to town, scoop up Annie, and deposit her into their new house, which even would have its very own colored television, and a pinwheel near the front stoop.

But you know how these love sagas pan out: Some shit always has to go down. Someone dies, someone cheats, someone gets caught masturbating with a candlestick, because Lord knows there’s more than the candle pourers can keep up with so what else are you going to do with it? Give it a wig and call it daughter?

I’m not too clear on the details, as I’m sure pertinent facts have gotten lost in translation through generations, but from what I’m told, the salesman caught wind of Uncle Otis’ great American dream and sent an anonymous telegraph stating that Annie had been murdered by the town meat cutter, after being confused for a bovine.

Uncle Otis snapped, just completely went ape shit all around the camp site. He ripped suckers straight from the mouths of conjoined twins, urinated in the cotton candy maker, fucked a chicken or two; he was destroyed, sanity annihilated. The carnival director was forced to serve him his walking papers, because the dwarves were starting to cry.

Otis binged on moonshine while trying in vain to fight off chimeras of Annie, frolicking through the junkyard next to the campsite. He’d squint and rub his eyes, probably give his face a few sharp slaps, as you would too if you thought you were seeing the ghost of your one true love. She would eventually fade away just as fast as she had appeared.

It didn’t stop, though, no matter how much booze Otis would gulp. He couldn’t take it anymore; it was too torturous.

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So late one night, after all the lanterns had been snuffed around the camp, Otis sneaked back in and rummaged through the prop chest, tossing bowling pins and barbed hula hoops over his shoulder, until he finally unearthed what he was seeking.

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Making a hasty sign of the cross, Otis closed his eyes tight and swallowed the sword. This was tragic because Annie had not actually been murdered, contrary to Otis’ belief. Salesman lied to keep Otis at bay!

So my friend God was like Aw, hell nah and made Otis into a vampire, because if he hadn’t, then all the other suicide-by-sword-swallowing vampires would cry foul and God would have another revolt on his hands, like the time when that big-chested broad had half of her back flesh torn off by a zombie and God was all, “Aw, she’s too pretty to be a zombie” and instead turned her into a fairy princess. Shit like this doesn’t sit well with some residents of the afterlife. But you probably know that.

[Reposted from LiveJournal, because I can.]

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