Erica,
I practiced kissing you every school night, mouth suctioning a basketball or my forearm as I tossed and turned in my waterbed replaying the same two songs from The Bodyguard soundtrack. How many times we kissed: Regular, 27. French, 13. The tongue more important, but more dangerous. Your braces difficult to navigate often causing pokes and canker sores. I think you wanted to go further. On my birthday card you asked if I was afraid of you.
I didn't know what you meant until years later.
Day after Don
We promptly go into K-town and invite all the skanks over to our place. They dump citronella into the pool and throw all of our clothes into the woods. Oily bodies smoking pot and fucking on pool tables. We drink every last drop of Don's Jack. Eby's gives head to Loaf in the hallway while Murph kicks a hole in the wall. After chasing Murph away we lie down to rest.
Bodies carpet the mess. When Susie comes home from nights she's relieved to find that her children finally have made some friends.
The next night everyone pitches in to Frisbee Don's record collection disc by disc into the bonfire that we started in the turnaround. We heave wheelchair parts, his confederate flag, four-wheeler tires, and anything else that even remotely reminds us of him.
Ryan,
Today I'm Ted. Pauline brought over a box of mechanic shirts the other day. They know me all around town, but go along with calling me Chuck, Phil, or Jimmy. I wear Ted the most. I've always felt like a Ted.
Your spider friend in my windowsill says hello. He's built himself quite a home. I thought I might have lost him. I guess he likes to wander.
I took a notion to take the old Dodge into town on Saturday. My seeing's not what it used to be. Couldn't make out the stoplights so I moved when the cars next to me did. A boy helped me out at the store, cause I can't read labels.
When I got home I opened up a can and it was dog food! You know it's not that bad heated. That's enough about me, why don't you come down soon?
Love,
Uncle Paul
Nasty
Mike Nasty perched atop a messy heap of forest floor lumber bellowing the Gospel of Nasty. Stocky, cysts and skin tags, white bubbly elbows creeping onto forearms. He has resided in a cave for almost a decade. Bathes in Blue River yet cannot shake the stagnant smoked bleu cheese stench.
Mike shares his one room abode with long suffering wife Tammy and an unnamed Billy goat. Heating and cooking aided by firewood. They live off the land due in large part to the United States Government. According to Nasty, page one paragraph one, the United States has been a police state since the early twentieth century. Proof of this can be found in the systematic disarming of its citizens. When the United States Government declares war on us, Mike will be ready. Not that he will fight. They just won't be able to find him.
My loyal friend and antagonist KC is amused by Nasty's Genesis. I am indifferent as long as he provides the smoke. Mike has been working on us for years and still does not have a single recruit except for poor Tammy whom he brainwashed. When they are together it is nothing more than call and response.
M: Did you know what they have been doing to kids in American high schools?
T (rhythmic horizontal swishes): Don't send your kids to school. No way.
M: They install certain fluorescent lighting in classrooms that triggers hypnosis.
T (eager nods tongue tip protruding): Hypnotizes them. Mmm. Hmm.
M: I don't want you to take Mr. Willard's class, Ryan.
T (bug eyes half smile tilt): Tell him what he teaches, Dad.
M: American's American History
KC is a clean slate for Mike, because he dropped out before entering high school. He and I neatly stack the Nasty adorned pile of wood scraps. Cannot help but wonder why we are really out here and how we will be compensated. The little money Mike has comes from selling organic vegetables and rhetoric to unsuspecting locals at Gorman's Market. Consumers of Nasty's produce are not aware of the following:
- They are directly contributing funds to printing of the Nasty Testament. A highly subversive read which surely is considered anti-American.
- No chemicals are employed in the growing process depending how you classify the use of human excrement as fertilizer.
KC contributed to this year's crop with a clean bucket, drop and toss. We are halfway through the mound of tree limbs when hallucinations begin. Hunger pains coupled with oratory overload. Smoke was not cutting it anymore. We rounded the side of his cavern discovering caged rabbits as contestants on Hollywood Squares. We selected one and handed it to Mike. He swiftly cut off its head, strung it up by its feet, outlined it with a hunter's knife, and slid off its skin similar to how you undress. All the while being wary of disturbing its urine sacs. By the time dinner was prepared I was mortified of NASA, wearing shoes, commercials, Americans, flying, brushing with toothpaste, Rush, driving, drinking town water, as well as walking to my mailbox, pet goats, Blue Öyster Cult and other popular music, and more than ever, of consuming rabbit meat.
Peterson's Restaurant
Assisted in fully renovating the interior and exterior of the restaurant during overdose summer. Chose the appropriate color schemes throughout the facility. Spray painted ceilings black to create the illusion of space. Planned the interior layout design. Pounded down unnecessary walls with a sledgehammer. Ripped the Les Desserts neon sign off the wall sending electrical reverberations through my spine and out extremities.
Mike Nasty's Old Place
A decomposing van found in the back alley of Peterson's containing subversive reading material. Mike Nasty stayed there while away at school.
Susie Jones's First Time
Pews packed full of Richeys. Susie has no one in attendance except Donny Ford who'd been shunned from her religion for his homosexual vacations. The Joneses stayed home because they don't believe in marrying worldly men.
The Trial
The courtroom. Empty as the day they married. Two lawyers, two ex-lovers, a local gas station owner presiding, and an uptight stenographer present. Susie with home field advantage. Her guy Ed asks Dad if he is still gay. The discount machine representing Dad objects on cue. He halfheartedly declares, "What does that have to do with this case?' Ed informs us it has everything to do with this case. Before Judge can gavel and spew, Dad pipes up, "I'm gay, and I'm proud of it!"
I Miss You Bruce
Bruce Cain's always absent. He's probably sitting cross-legged by his computer wearing my Dad's robe with holey loafers. Ellen is on in the background being sassy and wholesome. Long Dorals, kissing repeatedly, leisurely. Drinking, somehow never seen. Embarrassed of me seeing his chiseled tan turkey thong riding ass wallpaper.
I hate shopping
"You got five minutes, bitch," Don growls under his breath. The screeching Taurus drops us off out front of Sears. He whips around into a handicap spot, stews, and chain smokes to Q95.
Hee and me each have a hundred dollars to spend on back to school clothes. I never really know what to buy. Pick out tee shirts with faces I like on them. Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan are drawn with big heads, tiny bodies, and ear to ear grins. Susie's off helping Hee. I'm done. Time to report back to Don. He sends me back in on a mission to find Hee and Mom. Why is he in a hurry? It's not like he has anything to do. Besides I know where Abby is. She enjoys hiding in the center of clothing racks. Get down on my hands and knees and crawl around Sears squealing, "Hee, Hee!" After awhile there's no one around anymore. Don't want to be stuck in here with the mannequins behind. I hate those pull down gates.
Run back to headquarters to find Abby and Don together and no Susie. Don's face has turned beet red. When he glares at you, you can feel every nerve-ending. Meanwhile Susie's somewhere in the center of the mall distracted by kids that look like us. For me the feeling of frustration becomes so great that I either cry my eyes out or quit caring. I cannot cry because there's still people around and too much to look at. As they pass me by I stare into their eyes until they look at me and I look away.
Spencer's Gifts is coming up on the right and I've lost all sense of direction. I love their fake turds, tricks, and gift cards. It doesn't hurt to peek at the overflowing flesh. Inside is a promise of getting her on your birthday with a rose clinched between her teeth. I don't understand what everything does, but it is funny. Yep, that's my name. That's Hee's name too on the overhead. Mom's at the security desk. We walk hand in hand through Sears out the wrong exit. Have to loop the mall parking lot. Should've gone the other way, but life never works like that. Not a word said all the way home. Nothing but silent stew.
Dear Bruce,
I never minded. Besides your bathroom blows that wallpaper away.
Love,
Ryan
Dad,
Me and Hee loved going to Meemie's every other weekend to see you, even though we were supposed to hate it. When you and Bruce held hands and kissed at the zoo we were told to be disgusted. Weren't allowed to say you were gay at school, because of the eighties AIDS scare. My behavior was always in question. Quit limping your wrist and playing with your sister's hair. You better catch the damn ball. Don't be like your Dad picking dandelions out in right field. You fainted out there once.
We loved you even more when we went to your house. Intercourse, PA postcard on your refrigerator with Gay Pig and Chef Pig magnet collages. Polaroid of me and Hee pushing up our noses and sticking out our tongues. Dwight D. Eisenhower in drag supported by more pig magnets. Always food and drink inside. Nuts and crispy Hot Pockets. Bags of Pork Rinds and Cheese Doodles. Using your front teeth to shave off cheese layered fingers. Licking off the orange stain. Have a cold Ding Dong. But please don't give any to Peetey, because he is already a giant loaf of bread resting on tiny knobs.
Polish it off with a tall two-liter of noncaffeinated Diet Rite. Drink right out of the bottle if you want. Maybe sneak one of Bruce's Milwaukee Best Lights and pound it before anyone else notices. Hydrocodone prescription from an old dentist visit is in the cabinet, middle shelf. Slide a long Doral out of the soft pack found in the kitchen junk drawer. Dad, I got to take a dump.
Sweetbriar's bathroom
Pee-wee Herman sits behind me in his fake potted plants above the toilet. His gray suit is browning, yellowing from dust, manhandling, and smoking in the bathroom closet. We go in there to smoke when there is company. No one does it in front of each other. George Michael is in there too. He is the shower curtain and the light switch cover. The light switch cover is from the I Want Your Sex era. Light reflects off of his aviators, perfectly lined five o'clock shadow, leather, stonewashed jeans, and white tee shirt. He could be posing on a motorcycle. On the shower curtain, Wham. George Michael is facing Pee-wee and me. Pee-wee's cheeks blush red against his pasty white face. Wham George in pink and white. Tight short shorts riding up his embarrassingly sweaty tanned greasy hairy legs. So nasty in there, the sink covered by what looks like to be dried shaving cream. Bruce's leather S&M suit hanging over the back of the door amongst the musty damp towels.
