Courage

I’m home for the holidays. This is where I grew-up, where I went to high school. When I think of those times now, one of the things that stands out most is how hard it all was. Day after day between those walls, through the busy hallways, and in the crowded classrooms. Day after day surrounded by hundreds of image-conscious teenagers, judging and being judged. High school was all about image - the cliques, the gossip, the ruthlessness. And when I come back here, all those memories, all those emotions, all the fear and uncertainty, and all the self-doubt comes flooding back. It seems to fade more and more as the distance between the person I was then and the person I am now grows. But just the other day, something happened that brought it all roaring back.

I was at the local library using the computer. As I got up and grabbed my backpack, I spun around to head out the door. There sitting in the corner was a woman with her face buried in a book. I stopped for a moment. She looked familiar. Add some weight, add some years to her once youthful face, and yep, that’s got to be her. Kelly Singleton.

Kelly Singleton was one of those people that had absolutely no friends. You never saw her talking to anybody in the hallways. At lunch she had at least half of the table to herself. In the classroom, she sat in the back corner, head hung low, never saying a word. She was a social leper. She talked to no one, and no one talked to her. To do so was suicide and everybody knew it. High school wasn’t about who you were, as much as it was about who you hung out with. So, we avoided her like the plague.

I’m not sure how it all came about. It didn’t have anything to do with her looks (which it sometimes does). She was actually pretty –like Brooke Shields, minus the confidence. The only thing wrong with her was the internal damage from all those years of being told something was wrong, and believing it. You take it in, it beats around your insides for a while, and then it becomes you.

One day, she tried to do something about it. It was lunch, the cafeteria was humming with teenage conversation, and I was sitting with some friends. Suddenly, out of nowhere she sits at our table. The cafeteria went silent. All heads turned in our direction. After a brief period of shock, heads returned to their previous positions one by one and the noise slowly built-up again, but it was no longer a hum. It was more of a nervous din. My friends and I tried to go on, kind of ignoring her, continuing with our talk, but she was the elephant in the room and we couldn’t get her off of our minds. One by one my friends lifted their trays and moved on. The way they did it wasn’t totally obvious. Their exits were calculated ones – leaving as soon as it couldn’t be judged as rudeness. It wasn't rudeness; it was survival of the fittest.

Before long, the table was empty except for her and I. Part of me wanted to leave. My face flushed with heat and dampness formed in my pits. I could feel all eyes on me – judging. What’s he doing talking to her? But part of me wanted to stay. I wanted to help her. She didn’t deserve this. Nobody did. My mind raced with panic. What do I do?!?!? We exchanged a few uncomfortable sentences, and then she asked, “what can I do?” She was referring to her social status at the bottom of the food chain. I wanted to have an answer for her. I wanted to solve all her problems right then and there, but I couldn’t. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do,” I told her straight-up, “You’d have to move.” She wanted to talk more, but I was too focused on everybody else. What they were thinking of me. I wanted to be calm, cool, and strong. I wanted to talk to her as a normal human being, one on one. But I couldn’t. Warm drops of sweat rolled down my side. My stomach turned in knots. I couldn’t eat. I just picked at my food looking around.

My misery must have been obvious because the assistant gym coach came over. “Is she bothering you?” he asked. Great. Even the teachers were in on it. “No,” I mumbled. And I wanted that to be the truth, but it wasn’t. The coach kind of shooed her away. “Say something,” I told myself, “Do something.” But I couldn’t. I was just a weak, self-conscious teenager. I was having enough troubles dealing with my own image, let alone being able to help someone else with theirs.

Over the years, I always hoped she got beyond all that. I thought maybe somebody would have noticed her, somebody not blinded by rumors and innuendos. It wasn’t unreasonable, she was pretty after all. Maybe that person would believe in her, and allow her to believe in herself. Maybe she would end-up living happily ever after. But now I see her and I know that’s not true.
She doesn’t look anything like Brooke Shields anymore. Now she looks more like a bag lady – greasy hair, a dirt-stained dress, overweight. Years ago she drummed up the courage to cross that social boundary and sit at a table where she knew she wasn’t wanted. She reached out, looking for help, and somehow, I can’t help but feel I failed her. We all did.

Fifteen dollars for a taxi?

Fuck the taxis and fuck the airport shuttle service. Fifteen dollars for a ride to the airport? 20 dollars? No way. I’ll walk.

I took the bus out as far as it would take me. “How close do you get to the airport?” I asked the driver as I climbed up the steps. Sandwiched between the big pack on my back and the smaller one in front, I thought my intentions were obvious. The driver just looked at me with a confused look on his face. “In miles,” I added snapping him out of his stupor. “Quite a ways,” he responded, “Two to three miles. Maybe four.” Pshaw, that’s what he calls quite a ways? “I can handle that,” I replied as I dropped a quarter in the slot and watched my dollar bill get sucked in by the anonymous machine. Fifteen bucks. Ha!

“That’s Airport Road way up there at the light,” the driver said as he wheeled the beast to the side of the road. That’s obvious, I thought. It’s the one with the green sign that says Airport Road in big, white letters and, if you’re stupid enough to miss that, there’s the sign with the image of an airplane and arrow. I didn’t know why I had the attitude. He’s only trying to help, I told myself. “Thanks,” I said as I climbed down and my feet hit the wet pavement.

When I dreamed-up the idea of taking the bus and hitching to the airport, I thought getting a ride would be pretty easy. I’m wearing a pack and walking toward the airport. So, it should be obvious that I’m not some psycho killer – right? Wrong. After twenty minutes of being passed by car after car, I had a feeling I’d be walking the whole way. Fear and self-righteousness rule our modern world. Anyone without a real job and a car is suspect. Anybody walking on the side of the road must be a serial killer or a homeless, degenerate, loser. “Get a haircut, get a job, buy a car,” as my dad used to say.

Then there were the taxis and shuttle vans. They were probably thinking I was crazy. “What’s wrong with this guy? What’s fifteen bucks?” I could hear them asking themselves as they drove by. Fifteen bucks is about two hours of work for me these days. It’s fifteen units of support to an economic system that I despise. It’s fifteen units of ecological destruction, fifteen units of war, fifteen units of greed. No thanks. I’ll walk.

Besides, I was enjoying myself. Once I got far enough away from the highway, the concrete and industry gave way to open pastures and peace. There were sheep and silhouettes of leafless oak with their cragged branches against the cloud covered sky - not a tight sheet of inactive moisture, but a ruffled quilt with hills and valleys and shadows, moving, morphing, changing, again and again – nature in motion. Spencer’s Butte lay in the distance partially exposed from the low drifting clouds – like a woman’s soft, sexy shoulder. The air was pure – rain filtered. The earth breathed a sigh of relief through her water soaked pours and the sheep grazed on.

I approached the airport walking in step to the beat playing over my headphones. Not even on the plane yet and I was already flying high.

After I checked in, I went to the bar for a celebratory beer – three dollars. I could have five of these for the price of a taxi, I thought.

Fifteen dollars. What a scam.

Big Time

by Peter Gabriel

suc cess

I'm on my way, I'm making it
I've got to make it show, yeah
so much larger than life
I'M going to watch it growing

the place where I come from is a small town
they think so small
they use small words-but not me
I'm smarter than that
I worked it out
I've been stretching my mouth
to let those big words come right out

I've had enough, I'm getting out
to the city, the big big city
I'll be a big noise with all the big boys
there's so much stuff I will own
and I will pray to a big god
as I kneel in the big church

big time
I'm on my way-I'm making it
big time big time
I've got to make it show yeah
big time big time
so much larger than life
big time
I'm going to watch it growing
big time

my parties all have big names
and I greet them with the widest smile
tell them how my life is one big adventure
and always they're amazed
when I show them round my house, to my bed
I had it made like a mountain range
with a snow-white pillow for my big fat head
and my heaven will be a big heaven
and I will walk through the front door

big time
I'm on my way-I'm making it
big time big time
I've got to make it show-yeah
big time big time
so much larger than life

I'm going to watch it growing
big time big time
my car is getting bigger
big time
my house is getting bigger
big time
my eyes are getting bigger
big time
and my mouth
big time
my belly is getting bigger
big time
and my bank account
big time
look at my circumstance
big time
and the bulge in my big big big big big big big

Xmas Lights

Boundaries (Part IV)

This is the last part of a series. Click here for Part I.

“She’s taking a shower,” Andrea said with a wicked smile, “That’s a good sign.” Andrea’s been trying to get a woman into her bed for years. She’s been close a couple times, but something always gets in the way. Maybe this night would be different.

As Iva showered, Andrea and I pulled the mattress off of her bed and put it beside the couch - slumber party style. Where would I be sleeping tonight? How was this all going to work out? I didn’t know. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure how I wanted it all to work out. Andrea and I have been good friends for a long time. She’s cute, witty, intelligent, wild, and fun, but we’ve been friends for so long, I have a hard time thinking of her in any other way. She once joked around about having a menage a trios between me, her, and her boyfriend. “That would be weird,” I replied. “Yeah, it would be weird,” she agreed. And it would. But now we were talking about two girls – the chance of a lifetime, every man’s fantasy. Could I pass that up? I opened a beer and took a big swig, building up my courage. There’s a very clear boundary between Andrea and I, and I’m not sure I want to cross it, but I’m willing to walk up to it, look around, and see what happens from there. Sometimes boundaries need readjusting.

When Iva came out, Andrea mixed us a batch of her famous chocolate martinis and we huddled around on the mattress Indian style. I couldn’t shake the image of Iva as a lost, innocent lamb caught unsuspectingly between Andrea and I – two wolves.

Anticipation was in the air. What did the future hold? Andrea had a fortune telling deck, so we decided to take a peak. There was one problem - no instructions. I guess Fate doesn’t come with a manual. “That’s OK,” I said, “We can make something up,” We tried for a while, randomly picking cards and focusing on subjects like love, sex, and death, but the cards were just too complicated and obscure - “The third card to the left, multiplied by five, combined with the birth card, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” So, we went onto some game called Four Corners.

We played a few rounds, and after while I was wondering how this was going to lead to sex – or at least the possibility of sex. I didn’t see it. I could feel the sexual energy draining away. Iva got up and went into the bathroom. “Should we play another game?” Andrea asked. That was my cue - time to make a move. “We could play strip poker,” I said half in jest, half in earnest. Andrea laughed. As Iva returned, Andrea passed on my suggestion, “John said we should play strip poker.” Iva’s reaction was pretty non-committal. She didn’t seem for it or against it. We continued on with Four Corners. Damn.

Then I drew the hand of all hands - 6969. “This is The Sex Hand,” I said and I began to move the cards around in my hand - 6996, 6969, and then back to 6996. A slew of different positions, races, and genders flew through my head. “I’ve got an orgy in my hand,” I announced. Andrea and Iva shook their heads and laughed.

On my next turn, I drew an 8 - “Come on in. Join the orgy,” I said pushing it between the nines. “He keeps talking about orgies,” Andrea said reprovingly. Sounded like she was having second thoughts.
“Hey, I’m just reading the cards,” I said, “Look at this hand,” and flashed her the tarots of sex.
“Just looks like cards to me.”
“Use your imagination,” I snapped back. I was shocked. This isn’t the Andrea I know. The Andrea I know is up for anything. But then I realized that’s not the Andrea I know. It’s the Andrea I knew. Now she has a boyfriend and she was as close to the boundary as she could go.

“So you think that means you’re going to have an orgy tonight,” Iva asked. Apparently she was still willing to play along, but Andrea’s reaction pretty much told me there’d be no orgy tonight. Bummer. I decided to tone it down, “I’m not necessarily saying that, but it means something. You don’t get a hand like this everyday.”

The game finished. “You lose,” Iva said as we counted up our points and I had the least.
“Does that mean I have to take off my pants?”
“Yes. It does,” she replied with a grin. The lamb wasn’t so innocent after all. Still, my pants remained in tact.

She went into the bathroom to brush her teeth. “You and Iva can go into my bed if you want and I’ll sleep out here,” Andrea suggested. I thought about it for a minute. Would she want to? Did I want to? Kind of. Maybe. I stood there at one of my boundaries deciding whether to cross.

“Would you go out with Iva?” Andrea asked the next day. Andrea the matchmaker. “I don’t know,” I answered, “I like Iva – a lot - and I’d like to hang out with her, but I don’t know if I’d want more than that.” I hesitated for a moment, deciding how open I wanted to be, how much I was willing to risk, “If you want the honest truth, I just don’t think there’s enough physical attraction. I mean, there is some, but I just don’t think it’s enough. For me to go out with a girl, I have to feel like I want to rip her clothes off, and I just don’t feel like that with Iva.” I said.

That was the boundary I faced the night before, the border I struggled with, and after weighing all the pros and cons, I chose not to cross it.

Now that I think about it, maybe Andrea aren’t wolves after all. Maybe we’re just a couple of lost lambs too.

Boundaries (Part III)

This is part III of an ongoing series. Click here for Part I.

Two woman were at the table - Melinda, Jim’s partner, and Nannette. Nannette looked kind of shocked, almost panic stricken, to see us all come in at once and invade the previously quiet space. She hardly said a word the whole time we were there causing Andrea to ask, “Is everything OK?” “Sure,” Nannette replied. Melinda lifted her hand, curved it around her mouth, and whispered, “she’s stoned,” like it was some big secret with a bong sitting right there in the middle of the table. Funny. Before long, Nannette was putting on her coat and saying good-bye. I guess we scared her off.

Right away Andrea asked for the infamous crucifix and Jim retrieved it from his room. It wasn’t nearly as disturbing as I expected. Maybe after walking through Jim’s yard, my shock threshold was higher than usual. Andrea grabbed it and started pointing the flopping thing around shouting, “repent sinners, repent,” and other such good-hearted blasphemy. She was having a good ole time with it. Then she passed it around the table like it was show-and-tell. “No thanks,” I said as it made its way to me, “The only penis I handle is my own.” I didn’t mind looking at it, but there was no way I was going to hold that thing. It was just too lifelike. Later, Andrea would inform me that Jim used himself as the mold. A fact that made me even more thankful not to have had my hands wrapped around it.

Jim clanked his empty can of PBR on the table and got up to get another. “You want one?” he asked. “Sure,” I replied. “Anybody else?” Andrea and Melinda sipped Sangria from their coffee cups. Iva simply said, “No thanks.” When Jim returned to his seat, he noticed Iva’s shot glass was empty. “Well, I got just the thing for you,” he said and pulled out a bottle from underneath the table and opened it. “Suck that down,” he said as he poured her a shot, “Oh, sorry, you’re probably not used to being talked to like that.” “Apparently he doesn’t know me too well,” Iva said across her shoulder to me. As soon as her emptied glass returned to the table Jim was refilling it again. It overflowed with the strong, smoky drink. “Maybe he wants to,” I replied. He added a couple shots for him and I, and we shot ‘em down. Good stuff.

A turntable spun in the background. Jim got up to change the record, “You need to listen to these guys. They played down the street a couple weeks ago and we got them to come back here after the show. It was amazing.” I get the impression there’s a constant flow of artists, musicians, and strangers streaming through Jim’s House of Oddities. The sad sound of a bending saw began to fill the room and was soon joined by the deep, powerful voice of a woman. It was Gypsy, Greek, or Eastern European.

Jim was telling us about some of his projects. “I’ve got lots of time on my hands,” he confessed. Some of them are practical – like converting a VW bus to run off of burning wood – others are comical. “Let me tell you about my next idea. It’s basically a diaper for death,” he went on to explain, “Because when you die, your body let’s go of everything. You know…you shit your pants. So, wouldn’t it be nice to wear a diaper just in case. I’m going to call it the Rapture Crapture. All I need is a slogan.” That was all the bait we needed. Slogans started flying from all sides of the table - “Because you never know when you gotta go,” “Don’t leave a mess behind,” “Because you don’t want to leave your uncles and aunts with shit in your pants.”

After the laughter settled down, Jim disappeared into his room. When he came back he had an old Carlo Rossi bottle – the short fat kind that looks like a jug – in hand. It was filled with a clear liquid. “What’s that?” we all asked with curiosity. “It’s Slivovitz, homemade plum brandy,” he replied. “Oh yeah, they drink that all the time in Romania,” I added with memories of that far off land flying through my head. Jim poured shots for himself, Iva, and I. Andrea and Melinda seemed content with their Sangria.
“Cheers.”
“Salud.”
“Na strovia.”
“Proost.”
“Na rok.”
“Na rok? Where’s that from?”
“That’s how they say cheers in Romania.”
“I’ve never heard that one. I’ll have to remember that.”
And we emptied the glasses.

Jim was starting to gain steam. He had a new crew of naive guests willing to sample his assortment of exotic liquors, and it was making him giddy - like a boy sharing a room full of toys. In fact, for an old guy he was surprisingly young - in appearance and heart. He had clear, ice-blue eyes that spoke of youth, hardly a wrinkle on his face, and a well-trimmed white beard. He got-up from his chair to retrieve bottles of booze and spin an eclectic mix of records with the speed and grace of a twenty year old.

Seeing we were the adventurous type, he said, “You have to try this one,” and reached up to one of the shelves next to the table. He picked-up a fuzzy blob with waving arms and feet, and in its place sat a soda-sized glass bottle with a plastic cobra inside. “Are those beans,” Iva asked referring to the two little, red oval things floating around with it. “No, those are organs,” Jim answered as he took the bottle, removed the cap, and began to pour her a shot. Organs? That should’ve been a warning sign, but Jim has a way of getting you to let down your defenses without you even realizing you’ve done it.

Iva looked at the shot glass sitting on the table. Friend or foe? Much to my surprise, she chose the former and took a swig. “Eeeeech,” she screeched her face all contorted and her hands flaying about in the air, “it tastes like evil.” Melinda jumped out of her seat and rushed to the kitchen in search of something to erase the vile flavor. The cobra wasn’t plastic. It was real. The drink was something Jim smuggled in from Thailand. Now my curiosity was piqued. I looked over at Iva. She was frantically licking a corn chip. It couldn’t be that bad, I thought. “Pour me a shot of that stuff.” Jim complied and before I had a chance to second guess myself, I downed it. Eeeech was right. It was nasty. As I winced and Iva continued licking her corn chip, Jim jumped in with a story, “My neighbor came over several months ago to hang out. After he tried a shot, he ran out the back door and threw-up in my back yard. I don’t think he’s been back since.” Of course, he waits till after we drink this stuff to tell us the story. No longer able to sit as a bystander, Andrea downed a shot too. She actually liked it.

Jim reached down underneath the table and pulled out yet another bottle. Absinthe. “Jim, are you going to be OK to drive,” Melinda asked. Melinda installs pink flamingos on people’s lawns. I thought it was kind of strange to be doing that at 11 o’clock at night. And what’s so hard about installing a couple of pink flamingos? People actually have to hire somebody to do that? But then she explained it’s kind of a joke thing. People call her to install hundreds of pink flamingos in somebody else’s yard as a practical joke. Then the victims wakes-up the next day to a lawn full of plastic pink. Funny. “Yeah, I’m OK,” Jim said.

After the Bite of the Cobra, even Absinthe tasted good. Then Jim went into his room again. Uh oh. “We call this Monkey Butt,” he said returning to his seat with a green bottle that had a glass monkey crawling around it. This was the stuff. Nice and sweet. “It’s a mixture of Malibu Rum and …..” With one round down, he went to pour another. “Jim, you have to drive,” Melinda said softly. “Yes, I’m fine. We’ll just have one more.” We did and then the flamingoes were calling. Time to go.
Next to the cars, we hugged each other good-bye and Jim told us one last story. There was this Austrian guy walking through the neighborhood a few weeks ago. He left his two female travel companions behind in the nearby hostel and was just going out for a stroll when he came upon Jim. Jim invited him inside for a few drinks. Hours later, he sent him home, stumbling down the sidewalk, with a good buzz, a half-functioning accordion and some old, liederhozen (just a few things Jim happened to have lying around). I could just picture the guy staggering down the sidewalk, a broken down accordion between his hands, some old panty house draped over his shoulder, wondering what hit him. That’s what it’s like after a night of hanging out with Jim - you don't know what hit you.

Click here for Part IV.

Boundaries (Part II)

This is Part II in the series. Click here for Part I.

Combine Sigmund Freud, Disney Land, and LSD. Jim’s yard is what you’ll end-up with. There was half of an oil tank lifted far enough off the ground to fit a pile of wood underneath - a makeshift hot tub. It sat there waiting for water, warmth, and guests. Next to that sat an old, defunct, porcelain sink piled high with empty beer cans. The smile of a bigger than life Krusty the Clown face surrounded by the words “Krusty Bread Co” beamed from the garage door. I could almost hear his laugh – “heh, heh, heh, heh, heh. Hey kids.” From an old, dead tree out front hung masks of Nixon, Reagan, Rumsfield, Bush Sr., Bush Jr., and all the other tyrants of America’s recent history. A bank of skulls two feet tall ran along the sidewalk with a sign declaring “Bush and Cheney’s Wall of Shame”. And that was just the beginning. A 6 foot cock sat perched further back like an overbearing, phallic pillar - I have no idea why. Gnomes with huge shlongs were scattered about. And there it was, the vagina molded wood stove with a penis rising from it meandering and reaching toward the sky. All hail the mighty Climinea.

We wandered through the maze of appliances, mutant sex organs, and political statements up to Jim’s house. He wasn’t anything like I thought he would be. I anticipated some crusty, old, man that made everyone around him uncomfortable. I expected him to lack, as my ex-girlfriend the social worker would say, “proper boundaries.” But he wasn’t like that at all. He was warm and friendly. He got-up with a big smile and gave us hearty hand shakes – Andrea a big hug. “Do you want a shot of cinnamon schnapps?” he offered. “Sure, it’ll warm us up,” I replied, and we all had a seat at the kitchen table.

To my left were two shelves loaded with action figures - Betty Boop, Shiva the destroyer, cats with big glasses, mice on skateboards, Ken with a walnut in place of his missing head, and more. The craziness from the yard seeped it’s way into the house. Or maybe the house was the source and it found it’s way out to the yard. Whichever was first, the whole place was a museum of oddities and Jim was both creator and curator.

Click here for Part III.

Boundaries (Part I)

Shit, Andrea wasn’t home. The sun had long since disappeared; little, dry flakes of snow were making their way down from the cold, dark sky; and I still had no place to stay. Not that I had made much of an effort in finding one. I know Andrea’s couch is always open to me – assuming I can get a hold of her. That was the problem - she didn’t even know I was in town and I didn’t even know if she was coming home after work. Maybe she had other plans. “I’ll wait till 6:30,” I told myself and left her a note.

Andrea is one of my best friends. We do things like read poetry to each other at the Laundromat, get drunk and dance wildly at weddings, drink chocolate martinis on rooftops, and make fun of old men dancing with their teenage granddaughters – “Watch the hands grandpa.” Andrea and I are partners in crime.

It wasn’t too long, before she came into the coffee shop. “I’m so happy to see you,” she said with a big smile and an even bigger hug. “Now, you can hang around with me and my friend Iva.” A small dose of disappointment ran through me. The only time I ever met Iva before was at one of Andrea’s social gatherings, only I hadn’t been feeling too social. Iva probably thought I was a conversationally challenged geek. Besides, I wanted to have Andrea to myself. She’s one of the few people I can let my guard down with. How was that going to happen with Iva around? Ah well, there wasn’t much I could do about it, besides, maybe it would be fun.

Iva came over to Andrea’s house and it was fun. “Let’s go outside and check out my truck,” Andrea said, “we can all hop inside and get under the covers.” She was referring to the bed she had made up in the canopy covered back. Outside, puddles were covered with ice, and here she was wanting to go out into the back of her uninsulated, metal lined truck and trade ghost stories. She’s always thinking of funny things to do like that. What the hell. I’m game.

Rushed on by the cold night, Andrea and Iva quickly took off their shoes and jumped in leaving me behind to struggle with my shoe laces. That’s me – two beautiful women waiting for me in bed, and I’m busy fumbling with my shoes. “I can’t get my shoes off,” I cried with mocked frustration and impotence. The I’ve fallen and I can’t get up commercial came to mind and I laughed. They were laughing too. Apparently, we were all in on the same joke.

As I finally pulled my last shoe off, Andrea asked, “Which side you getting in on?”
“Side? I’m not getting in on any side,” I said, “I’m getting in the middle,” and I jumped on in.

We rubbed our feet together, bristled around to keep warm, and Andrea told us about her tied-up-in-a-van fantasy. “I didn’t know that about you,” Iva said in a tone reflecting that Andrea had just told us something revealing a lot more than the thing itself. Secrets are like that. On the surface we’re all perfectly polite, well-adjusted human beings. We wake-up, go to work, drive the kids to school, shop, sleep, and do it all over again. We’re loving mothers, adoring fathers, brothers, and sisters. We’re shop keepers, custodians, cooks, car salesmen, software engineers, mayors, mechanics, plumbers, teachers, and priests. We all have our roles to play, our acts to perform, our lines to read:
“How are you?”
“Oh I’m good, how are you?”
“Good.”
“How is the wife?”
“Good”
“Kids?”
“Oh, they’re great.”
On the surface, everything’s fine and the sun is always shinning, but underneath it all lies the nature of the beast and it’s hungry with desire. We hurt, we love, we hate. We want pleasure, we want pain; we want to live, we want to die; we want to save our fellow man, we want to kill him. There’s something deep and dark in each and everyone of us, and that’s where our secrets lie. I didn’t say anything. I already knew about Andrea’s fantasy and everything that went along with it.

We talked on, I don’t know about what, but right out of the blue Andrea says, “Let’s go over to Jim Skinner’s house,” with a look of excitement on her face and her hands pressed together pleadingly. Andrea’s been trying to get me to go to “Jim Skinner’s House” for years. All I knew about him was that he was some crazy political artist guy that 1) made a crucifix out of 2 double-sided dildos 2) had a ceramic wood burning stove molded in the form of a giant clitoris, and 3) these were just a small sampling of the genitalia based, religion bashing projects scattered throughout his yard and home. I figured he was just some guy using “art” as thinly desguised veil against the real truth - that he was just a dirty, old man with a crude imagination and a vendetta against religion. At first, Iva and I didn’t respond to Andrea’s plea, but she pressed on with the enthusiasm and excitement of a five year old child asking to go the nearest Dairy Queen. How could we say no? What the hell. Maybe it will be a good time. If anything, it would be interesting. So, we went.

That’s what I love about Andrea, she’s always getting me to stretch my boundaries.
That’s what I hate about Andrea, she’s always getting me to stretch my boundaries.

Iva and I stayed in the back of the truck while Andrea drove. I was a little worried about this arrangement at first. I, the conversationally challenged one. But Iva was pretty easy to talk to and my fears quickly dissolved. We talked about traveling and the fearlessness that comes with being young and then she said, “It’s like being single. It’s not a big deal when you’re twenty-one, but it gets a lot harder when you’re older.” An interesting tangent, I thought, but one I was whole-heartedly up for pursuing. “Well, I hated being single back when I was twenty-one too,” I replied, “but now it’s different.” The word ‘desperation’ came to mind. The kind of desperation that comes along when you realize that your best years are behind you and you’re no longer as marketable as you once were, when you start to consider that the odds of you finding someone are getting less and less with each passing day, and the truth of the matter is that you just may spend the rest of your life alone. But I didn’t say any of that. I wasn’t going there. We changed the subject to more cheerful things and when we got to Jim Skinner’s House, I was actually disappointed. I wanted to keep talking to Iva.

(Click here for Part II.)