I am a slackass. Here's another rerun for your reading pleasure.
STRANGE ATTRACTORS
I have known some odd fuckers in my day.
Strange attractors; outside the usual definitions for the phrase, I also use it to describe people like myself, people who have tiny little signs that can only be seen by crazy loon people stapled to their foreheads, signs that say, I'm Too Nice and Well-Bred To Tell You To Fuck Off! Mama always said I had the damndest talent for bringing home strays. Das de troof, too.
Take old Herb, God rest his drunk cracker ass. I met Herb back in the days when I was snooting at least a gram of the good stuff on a slow day - in the bar circuit, dontchaknow, what we old townies called the barmuda triangle. At the time, I regretted the acquaintance; Herb could be a total fucking pain in the ass to get rid of. He was nutty. He'd get real drunk, and start talking like Boomhauer, grinning a slick red leer, eyes closed. "Dangoledidyerrahtternitedinit? Yewsnortnuffthatstuyewgawngithi, mayan. Shit," he'd declaim, draping a too-friendly arm across your shoulders. "Ahluhmesumcoke, mayan. ishoredewman. utinlahkit. cuttinitoursnorthatstu'up, man." You'd be totally trying to skeeze on some delectable piece of flesh at this small party, and suddenly Herb would be there, drunk as a lord, hanging all on you and not allowing a moment's private conversation. He was also a coke-hoover, which made him persona non grata in my selfish-cunt private world.
Herb was an occasionally genial manic-depressive country-and-western genius; short and dumplingesque, hair totally white at fifty, Herb worked at the Sunshine Liquors by day and occupied the end stool at the State Bar at night. He liked his seven and seven, Herb did, and his weed and his coke and his pre-skreeption meds, whatever the Dope Gods chose to sling out on any given night of the week. Failing all that he'd pay calls on his neighbors, axing did you have a cup of booze he could borrow.
Herb may have been a liquor store clerk by profession and a pestical neighbor by necessity, but he was a musician by vocation and inclination and talent. I remember him writing gentle she-done-broke-mah-heart three-chorders, the catchiest fucking tunes. Real earworms, I shit you not. Beautiful, literate lyrics with melodies so simple you could play 'em even when you were cracked out. That takes talent, my friends, especially when one is the possessor in sole of only eight of your original fingers (chicken plant work had taken both of 'em). When he was not passed out, partying, or working one of his jobs, he played with several short-lived country bands. Really, though, he was most constantly to be found in the process of scrapin' a couple hunnerd bucks together to record a track, man in his friend Doug's basement studio. Doug was chargin', damn right, because he'd worked with Herb before and knew his feckless shit. Doug may have been a hippie, but he was a shrewd hippie.
Herb was a real man-about-town, too. Literally, for the seven years I lived in that burg, not a day went by in which I did not see old Herb. Understand that Herb had been in that town forever, that, crazy and fucked-up as he was, he knew everyone. While a small town, simply by virtue of its size, has a way of eventually revealing all your feckless shit (see the Doug example, above) everyone still liked Herb. They'd throw him a bone, now and then, in the form of an odd-job of some sort. Herb was quite the handyman; acting as janitor at a bar, general factotom at the town's biggest rock club, occasionally got to take tickets at the downtown movie theater, once in a while helping to move stuff into or out of a business.
Some days our encounters would be mundane enough - I'd see his four-foot ass wobbling on either side of his six-inch bike seat on the way down the avenue, and I'd buzz him in my red Honda, honking and waving, or maybe I'd see him in a bar, falling out of a chair, or having one of his famous arguments with himself. Other days my chance meetings with Herb had the quality of a dream; I'd see Herb walking downtown toting a giant faux-fur anaconda to decorate for Disco. Or I'd see him hanging off the side of a building downtown and think, my god! the old sot has finally taken the leap and then I'd realize he was just stringing Christmas lights on the side of a bar, but he was doing it by hanging off the storm eave with one arm. And then he'd see my car and incredulous mug and he'd wave and wave, jingling the lights against the brick facade of the building and shaking the aluminum he hung from, grinning, and holler, "HOW-DO?"
Herb had a wife and kids, too - relations, yes, but more like revelations if you could analyze them strictly in relation to the Herb lifestyle and personality. The Herbs lived in a run-down rental mill-house, just up the hill from the tracks and two blocks from the Sunshine Liquors - staggering distance, I figured. Herb's wife Annette was a Xanax addicted horrorshow with delusions of talent: every time Herb managed to scrape up that elusive couple hunnerd bucks and get in the studio, Annette dragged her poxy ass down there, too, and insisted on backing Herb up on every vocal track. Annette sounded like a farmload of copulating cats when she sang, too. Don't get me wrong - she was a Real Sweet person and everything, but damn. Couldn't carry a tune with a croker sack, and the Xanax and pot warm-ups didn't help matters.
As for the kids, I can only say this: The oldest boy joined the military as soon as he could git his daddy drunk enough to lie about his age for him, the middle boy was serving juvenile time for grand theft at 15, and the youngest, a big old girl whose name was Karen but forced kids her own age to call her Rhonda by beating the shit out of them, well, last I heard, she was living with a forty year old man out in a single-wide, as his common-law wife. She was fourteen. What can I say? The kids grew up with their momma and daddy and really, the apple don't fall far from the tree.
The party never stopped with Herb. He woke up, took a piss, ran a toothbrush over his tongue, and started drinking, every day - provided, that is, that he woke up at home, and not in a gutter, or someone's dumpster. He was one of the only true falling-down drunks that I have ever known; add that debilitation to a jigger of mental illness with a pony of his environmental inculcation with both white-trash sensibilities and liberal artistic pretentions, and you have a fucking redneck house afire.
Actually, that's a lie. The party did stop with Herb, in the summer of 1999. I actually saw him shortly before he died; I was making a trip through my old town on business, and went downtown for a coffee. There he was, taking out the trash at the record store, but it was a yellow wraith of Herb, a Herb who staggered and limped, but not from drink alone. Herb's liver was going out on him - how he was not in the hospital was beyond me.
Of course, he saw me, and bummed a ride home. Really, I was both glad to do it and a bit creeped out. I dropped him off at his old house, and "loaned" him a twenty. Herb entered the hospital a week later, and was dead in a month.
His funeral was packed. Slimy old drunk cracker bastard, and his funeral was packed.
Apparently, I'm not the only one who picks up strays.
Got a job. Hardly any time left to have a slash, much less blog. I'm going to try to give it all I've got on the weekends from now on, but my posting during the week will remain light at least until this case litigates. In the meantime, I'm reposting a few oldies. This one is my Daddy's favorite.
VICTOR'S SECRET
My husband and I were watching Ed Wood on HBO the other night. In case you haven't seen the film, it's the story of a spectacularly unsuccessful cross-dressing 50's B-movie director, and his touching relationship with the smack-addicted and washed up Bela Lugosi. It's an okay film - Tim Burton, you know - but really nothing to write home about. We'd seen it before, so I wasn't so much watching as using the background noise as a distraction from the mundane task of folding laundry.
"God, what a bitch," intoned my sensitive new-age spouse. We'd just hit the scene where Ed reveals his angora fetish to his long-time girlfriend and she rejects him. "You'd think if she loved him, she could put up with a little weirdness," he said.
I glanced at the TV - Sarah Jessica Parker having a horsefaced meltdown over her boyfriend's secret tranny leanings - then turned to face my husband. "Putting up with 'weirdness' is one thing," I said. "Expecting a lady to be able to work up a good wet for a hairy-chested bugger who's wearing her panties is another thing entirely."
My husband gave me that disapproving look, that "my, aren't we intolerant today," glare.
I take crap from his loving, giving, kum-ba-yah ass over shit like this all the time and I was having none of it at the moment. I replied, in a cutting tone, "Well, have you ever tried to bone a dude who was wearing your unmentionables? No - never mind, I don't want to know. It would be a total dealbreaker if you had, and I have no desire to be a single mother. Suffice it to say that I have tried it, and it ain't just a matter of acceptance. It's a visceral thing, man."
Of course, this led to the story, which my husband swore he'd never heard before. I know that I told him about this incident, during the sixteen-hour debriefing I insisted he attend prior to my becoming his wife. (I didn't want any messy comebacks on the merger, so he had a forced "full discovery" session before we even started planning the wedding. Hey, you've read my history - some of the milder events, anyway - can you blame me?)
See, back in the early nineties, your Queenie had a brief brush with this very issue. A bona-fide Rock Star and I ended up posing for a photo-shoot together, landing my "elegant" mug in a fanzine; surprisingly tasteful and non-pornographic black-and-white work. Quite nice, actually. The Rock Star was himself gay as Christmas, but the photographer - a big, strapping Irishman with a twinkle in his eye - caught my fancy, so I took him home with me after the shoot.
We had a lovely evening. Dinner, coffee, chocolate, wine, reefer, and the midnight hour found us locked in a sweaty clench on my down comforter, making out.
"Queenie," he said.
"Mmm," I replied.
"Queenie, I've...got a favor to ask." His tone was deadly serious.
I opened my eyes, I couldn't imagine what would break a man's concentration at a moment like this, so I sat up, brushing my hair out of my eyelashes and wiping my chin with the back of my hand. "This sounds like a big deal, sweetie...what's the matter?" I asked.
He took a deep gulp of air, and came out with it. "I...I like to wear women's underwear when I'm...with a girl. Could I...can I...wear something of yours?"
I must admit, this took me rather aback. Not something you hear every day, that - especially from a muscled-up man's man known to smoke cigars, drink Scotch, and get in fistfights. I just sat there for a minute, a little shocked. What was the etiquette for such a situation? Would a polite hostess offer him her bra, or was his request straining the bounds of traditional hospitality? I didn't know, and I didn't have time to consult Emily Post. But - what the hell. I'd never tried it before, it sounded kinky and so was I, so...what did I have to lose?
In a bound, I was out of bed and over at my chest of drawers. From its recesses I drew out Something Special, a hot pink longline bra that had been encrusted with rhinestones and decked out with a large, gold, faux-gemstone cross hung right between the knocker cups - part of an old Halloween costume. I tossed it at him, watching his eyes light up and his member strain at his boxers as he caught it. "Whoa!" he said. "This is a lot better than anything I expected!"
He took the lingerie to the bathroom, and I got under the covers to consider the situation. I came to no conclusions, and pretty soon, he re-emerged, wearing nothing but my longline bra. He grinned a devilish grin, and pounced me. "Naaa, lassie," he said. "Now you've made old Seamus a happy man."
He kissed me, a deep, lingering, virile kiss...and I burst out laughing. I couldn't help it. The sight of his skinny, hairy chest with my 36DD's gaping open over it...what can I say? I am a cunt.
Seamus froze, and drew back. "What's the matter, love?" he asked.
"Nothing. Sorry." I said, stifling another chortle. He smiled, and leaned back in.
A few minutes later, and I had reached my limit. I just couldn't do it. Any vestige of arousal was gone, and I was forcing myself to continue. Not any fun at all. I pulled my mouth away from his, and sat up in bed again.
"Seamus, honey. I...can't get into this. I'm sorry. I really like you, and I think you're handsome and manly and a helluva guy (cough)...I just can't get past (giggle) the underwear thing. It's not that...I'm being judgemental (snicker) or anything...I think whatever, um, turns your crank for you is just fine. I just can't do it. I'm sorry. It's me...not, um...you."
After talking it out like gentlemen, Seamus and I parted on amicable terms - especially amicable since, instead of making the beast with two backs, we went through my closet together. I gave him piles of my old stuff - sweaters, skirts, panties, bras, garter belts, stockings. He left with two full garbage bags of "playclothes", Seamus did, and I gained valuable closet-space. We became good friends in the end, and he did more photographs of me over the years than Carter's has Pills.
I closed the door behind him as he left, and I felt melancholy, but wiser - I really had liked the guy, and it was a shame - but I understood more about myself, gained a deeper insight into my inner motivations. I'd come to an important realization that was to serve me well in later years - hairy Irishmen with boners in women's underwear are a turnoff for Queenie.
Hey, it's a personal tic. Is that so wrong?
This is a really fucking good piece of writing. I'm really, really impressed, both with the subject of the piece and its documenter.
Welcome to the blogroll, woman.
Isn't it, like, a commie pinko holiday, or something? Well, fuck that. As for me and my house, all May Firsts here and ever after shall be cleped Ronald Reagan Day, after the man who ripped Eastern Bloc Communism's dick off and shoved it so far up its own ass that it's been shitting its own spooge for twenty-seven years now. One for the Gipper, goddammit!
Never let it be said that Queenie was on the wrong side of history.
Yabu held it up, and because he is a complete and total badass, I am jumping through it like a fucking trick poodle. Arf!
If I could be a midget stripper...I'd strip the fuck out of those midgets.
If I could be a proctologist...I'd be surrounded by assholes, which isn't that big a stretch, really. Trust me.
If I could be a missionary...I'd go to a remote and tropical island populated by a primitive, unspoiled, and hopelessly naive indigenous people, go native as quickly as humanly possible, quietly bump off any colleagues I might have with me, and immediately begin the process of convincing the rest of the islanders to worship me as their Living Goddess, through the use of simple modern-day devices like lighters and mood rings and watches that beep. Are you kidding me? I fucking dream about shit like that.
If I could be an athlete...I'd want to be a really tough lipstick-dyke-type tennis player. A white, rugmunching Serena. What?? Sounds fucking killer to me.
If I could be a TV-Chat Show host...I would definitely be on cable.