Tigers and Pearls

If he could have avoided me for the rest of his life I believe he would have. He's that type of man, and I am too, but to know how much effort he put into creating a gap between us superceded any understanding I may have had of a thin-skinned man. The mystery behind him, his profession, his love life, his happiness seemed intriguing and respectable and even desirable under the assumption he was an oilman sucking the life out of foreign sand and enriching many men like him and a few that weren't. Except when I saw him that day, liver spotted and pigeon toed walking hand in hand with the woman he chose over my mom and the sons he chose over my brothers, the mystery, the slight inkling that someday I may want to be like him repulsed itself from my very being and left only the carnal desire to do everything in my power to end up nothing like him. I still see his face in the mirror, the same receding hairline, the same sharp nose, the same jagged bottom row of teeth, but our eyes are completely different. When I approached him and put out my arms to embrace him and then put them down, and up again before figuring out how he wanted to go at it, I saw his eyes. They were flat. There was no life on the surface. Everything he had lived through up until this point, which was extravagant and amazing and big screen worthy, was cemented in behind these grey tomb-like eyes. I had seen this look on my own face before. I have lived and continue to live with things I regret, but none so powerful as to completely trap me within myself. I am lucky, I am also honest. It is only a liar who becomes so inverted within himself that attempts at setting things straight only bring on truth-vertigo and nausea. Perhaps it was why he walked pigeon toed and never let go of the lies he held onto. They stabilized him, they gave an otherwise lost man direction and purpose. Make money for them. Give them nicknames. Reward their failures. Knowing myself was knowing him, but this wasn't good enough for me. There were places he had been, people he had learned from that still remain foreign to me, and rationally, these experiences unique to him may have provided the insight that compelled him to adopt two new sons when he already had two perfectly good ones. Rough around the edges but could have been refined much easier than the crude oil he spent his life hunting down. Maybe these experiences unique to him provided a higher level of love that his wife and childhood best friend just could not reach. Maybe these experiences he chose to keep to himself enticed him to also keep other things for himself. Like the money, and the encouragement, and the connections and the familial obligations and the bond that exists between a father and his son. He kept it all, and while it could have been these experiences, of which I still know nothing about, that told him to be this way, to remove himself from us, I find it odd that these same experiences brought him back to the Valley. They brought him back to the neighborhood that he drove away from us in. They brought him back to us and gave him a chance to make amends. To right his wrongs. These experiences gave him one last chance to take control of himself before forever being lost in the shallows of life. Yet, with all the prodding and all the praying that radiated from his past, the man, my Dad, still chose to avoid it. To avoid us and live parallel, always behind buildings and trees.

Lost Pups and The Voices In My Head

"Do you hear that?" It had been three weeks since they had gone missing. We were eating in the back yard and as the city inhaled and held its breath while the sun set, a solitary noise rolled over the foothills and echoed through the valley. "Do you hear that?" She didn't. We ate and the city respected my wishes for it to stay silent and beyond the chewing, lower pitches than the squeal of the steak knives, the tail end of a bark, and then another, pinged of the Santa Susanna ridge and rolled down into Chatsworth. "Are you sure you don't hear that?" She radiated with cynicism. "I swear I hear them. Stop eating for just a minute. They're coming from over there."  I took her hand and lead her to the edge of the property where the concrete met the canyon. The last bit of light had dipped beneath the Santa Monica Mountains and the moon was beginning to glow. Not a sound. "I'm not crazy, I know I heard them." 10 minutes more and the beers were sweating onto our legs. She got up and returned to the table, the steaks cold and rubbery now, and sat down to finish her meal. I walked with my back to the steak and kept an eye on the horizon fully expecting to see them come galloping over the hills and into the yard. No movement. No sound. Doubt filled the air and humbled my intuition. I sat down, pulled the chair out from the table and sank down into the woven plastic straps. She told me to relax and passed the end of a joint we had shared before dinner. Dessert she called it. I took a hit and my fingerprints sizzled and as I accepted the pain and rotated the smoke through my throat the barking started again. Thick white smoke poured out my mouth and nose and behind the veil my eyes widened like open windows on summer night. My stare asked her again. She still didn't hear.

"Humor me," I said. "Once around the block and we'll call it a night." She told me I was high. "Maybe so, but I swear I hear them. So humor me, please." She took her sweat time coming out of the house. Changed jackets three times and went back to refill her wine glass. The bug was a cold starter. I revved it a few times and watched the dim headlights fade in and out with each surge of power sent through the alternator. I rolled down all the windows and pulled the ragtop back and coasted backwards down the drive way onto Box Canyon. I drove towards in the direction of the sound. Up and out of the neighborhood we climbed, beyond the water towers and the graded land, deep into the rugged land that was bisect and civilized only by a desolate one lane highway that lead from hear into rural Simi Valley. She grew impatient and asked if I was done with the joke yet. I acknowledged her but didn't answer as to not make any more noise than necessary. The road was flat out here and every time I accelerated, I feared the engine noise would muffle out the call of my dogs. 3 of them were out here somewhere and something told me that tonight they were finding their way home.

I put the bug in first and let it roll itself down the road towards the yellow-orange glow coming off the small town of Simi Valley. There wasn't much out here save for a cheap motel, a few trailers parked on large, baron plots of land and a pool hall with a poker room in the back. On the edge of town once more I heard the barks. They didn't echo as they had from the other side of the pass. Here they were dense, faded and lethargic. I felt the dogs had been here but knew they were no more. "I'm just gunna pop in and ask." I said. She didn't even look at me. Just finished off the last sip of her wine and lit a cigarette. "Be right back." What I imagined as a Texas style building, something like a mini Alamo stood alone in the middle of this city. Motorcycles were lined up in front of the door and on the outskirts of the property I could see the red ashes illuminate and then dull. Boisterous noise overcame the silent night as I walked through thick layers of smoke and swears and made quick darting motions through backstrokes and elbows on my way to the bar. "A beer please!" I shouted down the well. A Pabst came sliding back popped open with a brown lime lying in decay on the edge. I put it in my pocket and left a couple bucks on the damp and scribed bar for his trouble.

I stuck out like a flamer here. My quasi-hippie mountain man look just wasn't cutting it. I hadn't bought a pair of new pants in five years and the bottom of these were flared out and frayed. Between sips I dug my fists deep into my pockets and stretched the denim at my thighs to make the bell shaped bottoms less noticeable. Amongst hard toed leather boots and chain wallets, my own clothes seemed queer. Blue running shoes with white stripes. A blue and black poncho I bought during a trip to TJ with Jeff, worn on top of only wildly growing black chest hair, all topped off with a maroon mesh hat. I went through my beer fast, taking sips to quell the nervous storm inside of me. I walked around the perimeter of the pool tables, sipping on an empty can now, continuing to raise it to my lips as if everyone was concerned with what I was doing. I leaned against a wall and listened to the crack of billiard balls, the snapping of shuffled cards behind me, the muffled blurbs of sound dampening music barely crawling out of a juke box in the back and beyond this, faintly, possibly the faintest sound I had ever heard in my life, crept into my ear and no louder than a leaf sliding across sand in the wind, barked. A bark! They were here! They were looking for me and so I swallowed my pride and continued to look for them. "Have you seen three dogs roaming around these parts? Great Danes. Yeah the big ones. One's brown, the other one is gray and the smallest of the three had black and white splotches like a cow." Over and over again I said these words to hustlers and rounders and drunks and over and over again I was brushed away with a simple no. I believed these liars. They didn't have time to play a part in my story, they were too busy acting out their own. I walked out discouraged and shut the door behind me, trapping the noise within its confines and got back in the car.

An empty bottle of wine laid wounded on the passenger seat, it's neck pointing out an open door to the edge of the lot where I noticed a couple of glowing red dots. They'd grow with intensity and at their peak I could see slight hints of white smoke rise an inch above them before disappearing into the black. She finished up and flicked the still burning butt of her cigarette into the darkness as she entered the light. "No one had seen them." I said, as she got in the car and put her feet up above the glove compartment. The dome light had gone off but I head her slimy eyes roll deep into the back of her head. Maybe I was going crazy. I missed them and in the past when I had missed girls I had done some pretty ridiculous and embarrassing things, but this felt real. It wasn't chasing a dream, I knew my pups were out here somewhere and they needed me as much as I needed them. "I'll drop you off. Sorry for dragging you into this."

We revisited the lonely road and the dim lights of the bug spotlighted tar patches and pebbles and left the foreground a mystery. The cold dry wind whipped her hair against my cheek and left slashes on my face. Between her legs she lit another joint. We crawled up the pass and peaked the ridge. The dark Box Canyon neighborhood was in the distance only distinguishable by yellow porch lights that burned like toxic fire flies and white oak smoke that rose through bricks and mortar and tinted the low lying haze with it's chalky white warmth. In first gear we jittered down through the S's and U's. "I was so sure I'd find them tonight. It was a feeling so strong inside of me I didn't think it could be powered by want. It was more like need; I needed to find those dogs tonight. I shouldn't have left them alone for so long." She didn't say anything. I didn't need her too I just wanted to say that out loud. I needed to hear it myself. The downhill began to flatten out at the base and as I pushed in the clutch and the bug stopped buzzing and spitting I heard them again. A bark in the distance, a distinguishable bark and then another, and then 3 at a time. Through the black their barks bit at my ears and pulled me towards them. "Come here boys!" I yelled down into the canyon. "Up here boys!" Clapclapclap. I whistled and clapped and yelled. I could hear rustling in the bushes a sloppy long strides stumbling down the hillsides. I jumped in the bug and turned it towards the hills and threw my brights out into the distance. There was movement. She said it was just a cloud. I saw a movement. There was warmth in the cold night and it was moving towards me and I could feel it. The barks cracked against my ears now. They were level with me and with each second that past I could hear them coming nearer. But with the abruptness of a blown fuse they were gone. The barks, the movement, the warmth all disappeared without a trace. I called for them and only heard the echo of my own voice. "You heard them right? They were right there. Tell me you heard them!" With frightened and deceitful eyes she shook her head no.

Destroyed, I retreated to the bug and rolled up the windows. Slammed the ragtop closed and floored it in reverse, whipping the front end around and leaving a cloud of dust and adrenaline all around us. She dug her nails deep into my arm and I ripped it away, leaving little bits of flesh and hair for her to keep. We exited the settling dust and broke into the night, my high beams slashing the black curtain with murderous rage. "Slow down!" she said. "I think I hear something." I sped up. We jerked from side to side violently as I whipped the bug around the narrow curves and silently wished for her head to smack the window. I turned the wheel sharp and heard and thud and saw her rub her face and this made me feel sickeningly good. "SLOW DOWN!" she cried. I slammed on my brakes and we skidded to a stop. I got out of the bug and slammed its thin and hollow door behind me as I headed around the front bumper like a missile aimed at destroying this liar that infected the passenger seat of my car. I yanked on the locked door. I pounded on the rolled up window. I rubbed my face against it and told her to look me in the eyes and tell me she didn't hear anything. In my rage I let go of her gaze and when I found it again she was looking beyond me. Her face had fallen white and the make-up she wore was now exaggerated and doll like. The buzz of frustration clogged my ears but through the density I heard the base of heavy footsteps. 4 foot steps. 8 footsteps. 12 footsteps galloping and growing louder and chiseling out the insulated madness within me. "Come here boys!" I yelled. "Come here boys!" Rising from the bottom of the canyon I heard their whimpers. Hungry and scared and excited and confused. The bug's lights began to pick up rising dust in the foreground. The barks were solid now, distinguishable even. I heard Billy's and Joely's and Judd's and I ran into the dark beyond the car lights and with magnetic precision opened my arms and embracing the tackles of three extremely dirty, malnourished and large pups. I laughed hysterically in disbelief and held them close to my chest, their heads under my chin, their thick tails whipping and stinging the small of my back where the poncho didn't cover.

I wrangled them up by the loose skin on their necks and walked them to the car. As we crested from the hillside onto the pavement the brights of the bug made us glow like angles and ghosts. Her face was still white and expressionless. She sat there in shock as I grabbed the keys and unlocked her door and had Billy and Joely and Judd crawl over her and into the back seat. They settled in and I settled in, looking back one last time before driving off just to make sure they were really there. I buzzed off in the bug and headed straight to the kitchen with the boys. There was steak and potatoes still left over so I had them eat that while I filled the tub with warm water. She didn't come in, she didn't even say good-bye, she simply got in her car and drove off and that was fine. I had my pups back, I wasn't crazy and I had an early call time.

Remove the seeds before eating

At the end of January the Orange trees begin to bloom

No visible white flowers or small green balls

But a scent that spills out from the elephant skin trunks

and proclaims a new season is within its limbs.

Inching its way out.

Waiting for the warmth and the sun and the opportunity to introduce itself, grow, mature, claim an identity and be picked.

It's done its job.

And is peeled as a reward.

And squeezed and eaten and enjoyed and concentrated for use when the trees become naked and religious war ensues amongst the consumers.

And their self-hatred blooms, then grows, then matures.

And now it's in pills.

And now it's in packets.

And now it's marketed as a cure for our nine-to-five mind.

It's all fraud though. It's all lies and schemes and desk jobs.

Too late now. Too late now for a cure.

Too late now for a powdered pill. To late now with added calcium.

If you didn't smell it then, before it grew dimpled acne skin and life-line stems

and before it was ravaged by flies and then squeezed dry by robotic cashiers, then it's too late.

And I'm sorry. But you should have known. You shouldn't have forgotten that smell.

You shouldn't have thought about anything else besides remembering to hunt for that smell at the end of January.

And now it's cold and you're hungry before bed.

Move to San Francisco. Huff paint. Cut yourself.

Do everything you can to keep yourself down.

Fall inside yourself. Don't look outside. Live the manufactured life and call yourself a martyr for bearing the grief and strife of this modernist facade draped over a Neanderthalic world.

Embrace your deficiencies and blame it on the stark white sunlight that's always in your eyes.

The orange trees are constantly in bloom now and everything's going to be

fine.

My Father, The Hawk

"Line em up Susie. Right where I put that little blue mark, hit it right there. That’s it, nice and easy. Hey... Hey pal! How's it feel to get whooped by a little girl? She's 12! HA! She's 12 friggin years old and she's whoopin your old drunk ass."

"Yeah? Well what the hell kind of father brings his 12 year old to Webbers? Webb... Webby. Hey you got a kid in here man! Better do something bout it."

"A Kid?.. Ha, Benny that aint no kid. That's a shark my boy! She bite you yet?

"She's about too!" Dad interjected.

"No shame in gettin bit by a shark. Makes ya more of a man! Just ask the chum... Right fellas?"

Begrudgingly the chum, washed up, soggy, lumpy, reluctantly swiveled in their stools and through the bottom of their glasses acknowledged their wounds.

"Woooo wee. Susie Q, You're on fire tonight. Whatever you want darling, whatever you want; Ice-cream, vinyl, shoes, schnapps, whatever you want it's yours if you sink this."

I smiled knowing it was a lie, a flattering one, but still only a lie. I'd been here before, been here many times and won many games of pool and collected many bets from men exactly like my father. I was fond of them. They were familiar and rambunctious and embarrassing and in a way they were my family. Webber's was my home away from home. Child Services would have surely snatched me up if such a service had existed back then, but since it didn't my mom, dad, brother and myself would spend many a night here. They'd drink and get drunk. We'd sit and watch. Spin coasters and eat cherries to pass the time. Dad started teaching me billiards around 5. In a drunken stooper he snapped a full size cue over his knee and gifted me the felted half. Webb or Webby as the family members called him, brought in a little stool for me. I didn't start breaking until 7 or 8, but I got plenty of play time in on the green. I learned the angles, and the inconsistent parts of the table. I learned that if you jiggled the coin slot side to side three times and then pushed it in and pulled it out and pushed it in once more, you could get a free game. I learned how to hustle with dad by my side and as a team we started making a bit of money. Nothing huge. We never had much to bet and in turn didn't have a chance to win much either. But what we did win kept a roof over our heads in the bad months, food in our bellies, even if it was only canned tuna and egg noodles, and fifths in the liquor cabinet that seemed to get bigger and bigger with every year of marriage.

The table light burned my scalp through the parting line down the center of my head. I blew stray hairs away from my lips and focused on the little blue chalk mark my dad had put on the outside edge of the 8 ball. Delicately, I pulled the cue back through my index and middle fingers. I felt the soft-worn wood wiggle and fall into the familiar crevices between my knuckle and thumb. I took a breath and exhaled, cranked my neck and refocused on the chalk mark. Three. Two. One... CRACK! I heard my opponent scoff, confident I had hit it with far too much force. I had ruined the delicate shot. But the ball stayed on track. It sailed down the table at a sideways standstill and with the force of a rubber bullet slammed into the beer soaked padding. It came out with a hop and a spin and spun towards its second checkpoint. Past the 2 ball, barely skimming by the 10 ball and making its way to the second point of contact, another beer soaked, aged and soft bumper. Again the ball pushed deep into the foam, coming out this time in a delicate roll. Slowly it crept down the table, parallel with the 8 ball. It spun so slowly I could follow individual blue chalk marks as they peaked and then plummeted. It hit a rip in the felt and came out of kilter by just hair and I saw my opponent's hand reaching for the money. I need this. The family needs this. The cue ball finally skinned the 8 ball and came to a rest only one balls width past. Dad gasped and rocked back onto the heels of his boots. "GAWD Da-." The 8 ball dropped. " Gawd Damnit Susie, I love you! Haha... I LOVE you!" He frolicked around the table like a child pleased with his first trip to the potty and embraced me with an enthusiasm that could have only been inspired by fleeting dreams and an impending hangover.

"Well Benny boy, that'll be twenty for the game, aaand ahlittle scahtch fah me, heh, and a Shirley Temple..." "With extra cherries!" "With extra cherries, for my little Susie Q."

Benny floated into the pool of chum and ordered our drinks. Dad wrapped me up between his bowed legs and boney arms and told me he was proud of me. I looked up and noticed the age in his face and knew we wouldn't share moments like this forever. It was a distinguishing characteristic of my father, he wasn't invincible. And as a 12 year old you're not supposed to feel that way. I looked at other fathers and saw them as superheroes. They could lift anything and run faster than a car could drive. They could make money and smile and wear khakis and dress shoes. They had full heads of hair and mouths full of teeth and glowing arms. And dad, he could drink more than all of them and swear more than all of them and make me laugh more than all of them, but it stopped being funny after I realized he wasn't being modest, it was all he could do.

Only Passing Through

The color was changing,

Green and then yellow and a man with a backpack and beard stopped mid-stride.

He was halfway across the cross walk when the light turned red, 

only 4 more cross-hatches to go. 

But he turned around and walked back to the curb.

His light was red and another light was green and motorists accelerated by

and looked at him.

The quick look.

The look that asks questions and answers them

at the same time.

He’s homeless. He's a homeless man without a home and he's crazy.

Fucking crazy homeless man

Playing in the streets. On drugs. Drunk. Soiled.

Smelly ass homeless man.

The last judgment flew by and the slots filled again with impatient and wealth.

His light turned green. 

It was his turn now and confident he could make it without disturbing anyone else

he stepped off the curb and crossed the street.

People still stared.

Drunkard. Lazy ass. Psycho. Addict. Felon. Rapist. Incompetent. Fatherless. Motherless. Drop out. Deserving. Deserted. Devil worshipping perpetual bad-choice-maker.

One of these things doesn’t belong.

Gone unnoticed in his slumber, unnoticed in his shame, unnoticed in his disabilities

Noticed in the cross over from his world to ours.

It’s a fast pace of this world, and he knows this. He slows it down, and he knows this. 

He is keenly aware of the importance of unimportance and for this,

he turns around.

He retreats to the curb and waits

unnoticed.

*

Incredible man. Incredible individual. Modest. Humble. Selfless man.

Take everything. Take my money and my car and my clothes and my job and my Internet connections.

You deserve them.

But you smell. Your hair has leafs in it. Your white socks are black. Your clothes are sun bleached. Your elastic is stretched. Your backpack is stained.

You probably like your life.

It's why you're homeless.

It's your choice.

Enjoy it old man. Your deserve it.  

*

I was in a hurry. 

Lunch break.

I tripped on a shoe that lay limp in the street. 

“I’m sorry brother.”

No problem. I’m not hurt. Just a minor set back. Only fifteen seconds wasted. 

Goodbye. 

“Brother?”

I’m not your brother. 

“Brother, can you help me out?”

I don’t have any cash. Only have a card on me. No spare change. 

See? Pockets are empty. I’m in a hurry. 

My light turned red

And the cars honked, but I didn’t care.

Albino Hunting part one

"They only come out at night." John said to me. "They live their entire life under the moonlight. They go to special schools and eat at special restaurants and only hang out with one another. It's rare to see one sis. It's really rare and if you ever come across one make sure you're armed with a flashlight. They like blood, they crave it. They're like vampires except they can't fly, but if you see one make sure to shine it with your light. Directly in the eyes, Sis. Shine it right in their red eyes and then run away before they regain their sight!" I laughed because I knew he was joking about the blood, but I was scared just the same. I had known John and his friends had gone searching for them many nights before this one, but it was the first time he let me tag along. We were going albino hunting and I was armed with my flashlight and glow-sticks shoulder to shoulder with Mitch Masoner and Tom Lyons in the back of my brother's van.

"Last week we found their new meeting place. We scared them out from behind the Laundry Mat and it took us a few nights to figure it out, but with a little luck we saw them meeting behind the library. They had candles set up and they were sitting in a circle. Really creepy, sis, just like witches. We watched them from behind some shrubs. They laughed, strange laughs, like not even human laughs and they sipped wine and read funny sounding stories to one another. Gave me the willies." Mitch and Tom agreed, but I heard laughter heaving up from their bellies. I knew it was probably a joke but I liked it anyway. It felt good being near my brother and whether I was the butt of their joke or the tag-along-little-sister, it was better than being home.

Mom and Dad were rarely there but their smell constantly lingered. It clung to the walls and dug itself deep into the carpets and coated the kitchen counters in sticky black streaks. It was a sharp smell, with hints of peppermint and apricot, hops and barley, spilled wine, cough syrup and body odor. It was a smell that was intoxicating and humid and a smell I hoped others couldn't smell on me. I'd take three showers a day because of it, but even the water that spewed out of our rusty pipes had hints of them in it. I smelt it on John sometimes when he'd come home late, but it hadn't aged as it had on Mom and Dad, it was still crisp and innocent, not yet spoiled and unacceptable. The smell would make my stomach churn and built up to a point that made it difficult to breathe. I'd fall asleep on those nights gasping for air, swearing I couldn't take it anymore, but in the morning it'd subside, and the smell would escape through the windows and Mom would be in kitchen making toast, while Dad was sliding on his boots and heading to work. We're normal. We're a functioning family. Everything is ok.

John's van squeaked as it slowed. The engine vibrated the floorboards as we sat idling in the darkness within eyesight of the library. "They're back there" John pointed. "You see the candle light flickering off the walls? They're back there alright." He breathed and Mitch and Tom breathed and I breathed too. "This is it guys. LET’S GET UM!" The back doors flung open and the boys jumped out, kneeing me, rolling over me to charge the Albinos. Confused, I scrambled to gather my lights and sprinted towards them in my flat soled shoes, slapping sounds echoing off the blacktop, dropping glow-sticks with every other step. "Come on Sue, hurry up!" They whispered. We stood stoic against the stucco wall of the library. Right around the corner the Albinos were congregated. I could hear their voices. They sounded like mine. I could hear the words they used. Again like mine. There was no time for doubt. “Ok Sue, on the count of three we bombard them with light. Got it?" I nodded. I clicked on my flashlight and snapped a glow-stick. I was illuminated. John looked at me, nudged my shoulder and winked. I felt safe. "One. Two. THREE!" I took off, I ran around the corner and screamed and showered the albinos with rounds of light from my flashlight-gun. Bomboomboomboomboomboomboom. They're melting I thought, the crazy Albinos are melting and I laughed. I was drunk with rage and power and acceptance. I was surely impressing John with my hunting skills. Something was off though. My carnal instincts hadn’t felt as savaged as I had imagined. It was silent. Calm and eerie and no one was screaming or running away, no melted puddles of white skin were gather at my feet. I looked around. John wasn't there, neither was Mitch or Tom.  Beyond the glare of my light I saw the white faces staring at me, smiling and talking to me with looks that said, "What an idiot." And I was, I was an idiot and a fool and I had fallen for a prank. I was alone. Back in the van, violently shaking and ravaging the steering wheel and armrests were the boys, on the verge of death from laughing so hard.

It was a long walk back to the van and I felt my backside burn as the stares of ten offended albinos seared into my shame riddled body. My joints ached as they do when infected by the flu and I crawled into the back of the van silent and awestruck that my brother could be so cruel. "Aw don't be mad, sis. I was just joshing you. I'm sorry. Come on guys, say you're sorry." They did, then nudged me and put their arms around me and I wished they found me attractive in my sorrow. I smiled and it felt good to be here again. By the time we got home I was laughing about it, swearing it wouldn't be my last hunt.

Orientation Chapter 7

It didn't take long for me to fall in line for manhood’s basic training. She had awakened something inside of me I thought only existed in the loins of the vile. I had urges and temptations that grew in their intensity as the prospect for seeing them come to fruition became more noticeable. She was convincing. She knew exactly what she wanted and even though she was young, she knew how to get it. I hated her for this and secretly wished it was I who had the power, yet, in a masochistic way, her confidence intrigued me. Her willingness to take charge made this part of life so much easier. The way she'd glare at me, tell me what to do, command things of me as if she were my boss and I her employee, just worked. This was my orientation to adolescent relationships and things were moving along swiftly.

She set the pace and I was always playing catch up or feeling inadequate compared to her abilities, experience and desires. One doubt lead to all other doubts and I found myself stuck in an agnostic front, fighting the belief that love was rose pedals and butterfly kisses. Love was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. I called her girlfriend, but I never trusted her. We weren't friends. There was nothing friendly about us. We simply played the part of hormonal lovers and improvised the rest. I love you. Me too. And things when on this way for the allotted time period. I perpetually loved hating myself. I enjoyed being envied by the basketball players and talked about by the popular girls. "Oh you're dating Nana?” they'd say. I could never figure out why this question made me feel dirty. It was innocent enough. She was popular, these were the popular kids asking about their popular friend's not so popular boyfriend and it could have been as simple as that. But every time they’d ask, every time they'd smile while saying it and cackle as they walked away, I’d feel my insides collapse and become erratically misaligned, unable to answer the simplest of questions that plagued me in these burning moments. The entire situation was shadowed in a haze of oh-reallys and thats-crazys. I even felt the disapproving glare from my family. This situation stained me in a way that only desperation can and now 10 years later I still feel embarrassed. But back then when Dad would poke and prod into our whereabouts, when he’d suggest I not get in too deep and to take it slow, I'd rip into him. I'd shun him as a liar and a religious fanatic and a fascist! I love her Dad! I love her and you don't understand it because it took you 40 years to find someone you love. He wanted to slap me. Tell me she was a slut and that she'd end up showing me the darker side of women, but he let me learn on my own. He was a patient father.

Our relationship revolved around the backseat of my car. If it didn't exist I was convinced we didn't exist, but for some reason I didn't fear that. I spent more time in my car while dating her than I have on any road trip or traffic jam since. I'd wait for her after school in my car, I'd drop her off at volleyball practice in my car, I'd drive us to parties I didn't want to go to in my car and then sure enough, true to the routine, we’d end the night in my car as well. We'd lurk in the dark outside of her neighbor’s house, parked between two streetlights whose glow was deflected by the protrusion of willow branches pruned into the shape of an awning under which we’d whisper and lie to each other, in the back seat of my car. The windows were tinted and we convinced ourselves that no one could see in. This was her time to do what she thought girlfriends were supposed to do and to do what she thought I wanted. Even though I obliged, it was never satisfying. I only felt a tremendous burden with her. I felt her ignorance lay so heavily upon me that to propagate the concerted trend of the situation felt like rape. I’d often ask her to stop and let her know that I was finished and thank her for her efforts. I thought I was doing the right thing until I was confronted at school by the basketball team, fending off accusations of being gay. She had told them about this. She had told them about my concern for her state of mind and instead of being greeted as a wise and noble man, I was spit on and called a faggot and assured that when I wasn’t looking they’d be hittin’ that. I believed them. My orientation was over and I was left in crowd of wild beasts competing against one another over things they will forget about before the days end. In my disarray, a sickness overtook me and forced me to hunch over. The small blond hairs on my neck and back stood at attention and I felt my front teeth ripping through my gums, yellow and sharp. From my backside sprouted a corpse colored tail with spiral patterns and a nauseating rigidity. I scampered through the hallways and crawled into my car, dwarfed by the foreign world I had found myself apart of. I was nothing more than a lab rat, pathetic and damp and drowsy from the doses of drugs I had been fed and the amount of tests I had endured. Escape was impossible, I was only a rat.  

Time passed and with it the routine adapted and became more standardized. My disdain for my captor grew and I craved freedom. Freedom was merely a dream. I was far too self absorbed and inconsistent to ever find the path. As a man I would have grown strong, but as a rat I only learned to be passive. I'd talk to other girls about these issues and grow close to them. Hug them and feel their soft hair tickle my face. Smell them and wished my Girlfriend smelled this way. Their eyes glimmered when they spoke to me, like they felt me without touch. Their voices were soft and sincere and nothing about them bothered me. Often times I'd quiz myself on why I wasn't with one of them, but I'd always get interrupted by her needing a ride. I never declined because I was too afraid of being judged. I hadn’t lived enough to be hard, but with each passing day I could feel myself solidifying. 

Each time we'd lay down to speak with muffled breaths and growls the ominous feeing of doubt became larger and more watchful. It was always this way, even from the first time she invited me over after work and viciously humped my jeans. The belt buckle dug deep into my abdomen and when ever I'd try to move it she'd say, "I'm not ready for that yet." I figured she liked the feel of that metal buckle against her parts so I clinched my teeth and slowly deflated. She took offense to it and as punishment had me sit on the toilet and watch her shower. She acted shy, reserved and ashamed of her body and it caused me to feel the same. From the moment her shirt came off the only thing I saw were imperfections. Parts of her body that I had lusted over in school and in the dark back-seat of my car, had now become things I wished I could change. Her posture was poor in the nude and seeing her hunched over stepping delicately into the shower reminded me of something more animal than human. She looked at me through the steamed glass door and scrubbed herself with an exfoliating sponge. I tried to act interested but it was hard to ignore the way the sponge would scrape off the puss from her back acne and cause little streams of blood to trickle towards her ass. I wanted to leave, but leaving meant defending my sexuality the next day. She was cruel like that.

I sat there and my clothes grew heavy and damp as the steam and sweat and anxiety engulfed me.  As she turned off the water I handed her a towel. Her mascara was running and I was glad she dried her face first. I saw stringy white boogers lining the inside of her nose like spider webs. I saw her falsely straight hair curl in the humidity. I saw her toes poached like little lobsters. She kissed me and I felt the hairs on her upper lip fight with mine. Up close I noticed unkempt eyebrows and hollow pores and calcium deposits on her teeth. I was shocked that lust could hide so many truths from the desperate eye. My girlfriend was mean and fake and ugly and I told myself that this would be the end of us. She opened her towel and sat on my lap. Her steamed skin was sticky. She kissed my neck and bit my ears and stirred me up like a glass of chocolate milk. Something so bland and obligatory had become delicious again.

It was momentary ecstasy interrupted by a quick knock and the entrance of her brother. I clinched my fists and was ready for a fight, but he just asked me to get off the toilet so he could piss. He relieved himself right in front of us and it pretty much summed up my entire involvement with this girl. She and her ass rubbed my stuff as she squeezed by and left me stuck between a cock and a hard place.