Inspiration is a bitch. See? That sentence is uninspired. We both know what it means but it’s nonsense, imprecise. So, sometimes what I do is just write and if I write long enough or short enough it turns into something. I kept writing the below. It never happened. Uninspired and flogging didn’t help.
Am I posting it to torture you? Heh. Seriously I don’t expect you’ll get through it even if you managed to stumble here. It’s an object lesson to myself and it’s a much better way of marking my state of mind then being direct would. I’m kind of a wreck for no particular reason I can point at.
It’s not the content of this that will serve as an object lesson; the content just came with the typing, but it did fail to bring itself anywhere. I’m also posting because I neglect this place so often I need to leave something to leaf through later.
“ So, how’d it go?”
“Hi honey. Oh, you know, fucking weird.”
“At least your hyperbole is intact.”
“Everything is intact, and fucking weird is minimizing. I thought we could skip the small talk. I’ve seen you pee.”
“Heh. I missed you too honey. So, like strippers and cocaine weird? I know how you drug counselors like to party.”
“Cocaine is so last month, us ‘Drug Counselors’ boot smack with our strippers. No, Stan was there. You know I’m not a drug counselor, right?”
“I started having my suspicions at our tenth anniversary when you called from the Pokey.”
“Heh, you are too cute or cute enough for a thirties gun moll.”
“Hey, the machine asked if I’d accept a phone call from the Clark County Pokey, hate the game not the playah. So, Stan huh? Stan Phillips? Wait, sorry, um, Stan ‘the man’ Phillip(s) Tool — he’s still insisting everyone calls him that right?”
“oh, I don’t know, it’s like an alarm clock, once you get used the noise you can barely hear it.”
“Well, if it’s Stan there weren’t hookers or cocaine …”
“Strippers and heroin, and no.”
“Unless you were buying I’m guessing he used vouchers for everything.”
“Corrections only gives twenty a night for hooker and cocaine, it’s fifty for strippers and heroin. Union thing.”
“So …?”
“So?”
“Either tell me the story or fuck me.”
“We can’t do both.”
“That bad, um, weird?”
“The story’ll dry you up.”
“Sounds like a challenge.”
“Ok, so the convention hadn’t even started and we’re out in the parking lot passing a joint …”
“I knew there were drugs. You, Stan and a hooker passing the marijuana.”
“Stripper and no, that would have been less awkward.”
“So this cop comes walking from across the street and he’s all shaky and fumbling the snap on his holster and shit. I make eye contact and he shouts ‘Stop!’ “
“Mortifying but not arid.”
“Stan is all like ‘Stop? We’re not moving, I don’t get much more stopped than this’ The cop is up on us by now, so close that he has to take a step back. Remember Betty Feldman?”
“Betty the Grinder? Heh, yes.”
“The cop had those kind of … personal space issues. So he backs up, and, swear to baby jesus, he’s got his sweaty little hand on the butt of his gun, Stan hits the joint and the cop shouts ‘That! Stop that!’ ‘This?’ Stan hits the joint again and says ‘I should stop this?’ but he’s like holding his breath in that kind of nasal way you say shit when your mom catches you holding in a bong hit …”
“’I got it from you mom, I got it from you’”
“Heh, yeah. And he blows the smoke in the cops face, which is kind of gauche in any event. The cop relaxs, like full body, like you imagine your cat is going to do when you blow smoke in her ear.”
“Buster. English Bulldog. He always looked stoned, but he did like his kibble better on the weed.”
“Yeah, so, the cop snaps his holster and apologizes. He thought we were smoking a cigarette. Stan reachs into his pocket, I’m thinking ‘shit, he’s going to show him corrections ID like we are all in some brotherhood’. But no, he’s got this fundamentalist pamphlet on Jesus’ alleged take on the gays, hands it to the cop and grills the poor bastard for a good five minutes … something about what two men in a parking lot sharing a cigarette implies and did he, the cop, like girls like Jesus. The weird part is after the cop left, bowing, walking backwards, apologizing, Stan didn’t so much as snort. Not a smile, not a snort, not a snarky little Stan-ism. I mean he had the fucking pamphlet on him.”
“That’s a little weird I guess, but, you know, I can still taste the vermouth.”
“What?”
“It’s not that dry.”
“Oh. Sorry, long trip. So we’re at this meet and greet on the second night, Eric Freeman, you know that guy with all the privately contracted halfway houses? So I get like diluted fruit punch a stale coconut cookie, no, not a macaroon, it was like a sugar cookie with coconut and I get five minutes with Freeman alone, which seemed like a privilege, one minute into it I realized people were staying away in droves — the man is like warm milk and a razor blade, unwholesome in wolfs clothing, wait, no, like honey and a derringer, dangerously boring but in a non threatening way, wait, no, like night-time Nyquil and … aren’t you going to stop me?”
“Oh. Stop.”
“Thank you. So I excuse myself with a ‘need to change the old colostomy bag’ and I duck two rooms as he scans for his next victim and I catch Stan with his wallet open and in mid sentence … oh, showing photos, no money, a lot of vouchers. And he’s all ‘… And that’s Jeff. When he was born the doc slapped his ass and … nothing. The doc smacked him again, still nothing. Doc checks his lungs and throat. Jeff says ‘I ain’t talking. Snitchs get Stiches’ the guy stage laughed awkwardly and says ‘Excuse, Dr. Freeman seems to be free, the guys would be pissed if I didn’t get an autograph’ and the guy actually does go talk to Freeman, his knuckles start going white but as long as Stan is watching he stands there listening to Freeman who’s like melatonin and cyanide …”
“Stop.”
“Thank you. ‘The Fuck?’ I say to Stan. ‘What?’ I say ‘The Fuck?’ again but with more emphasis on The and Fuck and the question mark. He shrugs and says ‘The guy was black’ I look over at him still talking to freeman, or listening to him, and yeah, he was black, but going gray. ‘So, black guys think new borns can talk?’ Stan snorts ‘You’re pretty funny, you know that?’ I point at my half full watery fruit punch and ask if he wants some as I’m three steps away and heading further.
So they end the fucking convention at four on the third day, though you kind of had to stick around and shake hands and shit and get the certificate …”
“Certificate?”
“Yeah, like a boyscout badge for strippers and smack. But If it doesn’t go to five they don’t give a third night room voucher, or, at least not to stan. I got one cause I …”
“Slow to hyperbole?”
“Yeah, shit. I got one cause I actually had to travel to Vegas. Stan asks if he can stay with me on the third night and … slow to hyperbole so I just said yes. We have a couple of drinks, gossip a bit, go up to the room …”
“And he raped you?”
“No. It was consensual. Did you hear the part about the homophobe for Christ pamphlet?”
“Yeah, I thought you were just making shit up.”
“I wish. Yeah, no. So I asked him point blank ‘What’s up with the bigotry and racism?’ He says ‘I got religion’ and he nails this home made cross …”
“Wait, home made? How did you know it was home made?”
“It still had bark and a leaf on it. He nails it right into the loose skin on his scrotum.”
“Was his scrotum already just hanging out? Just saying that was a rough transition there.”
“Yeah? That’s why I took this shot with my phone. Look, two small nuts, one wrinkly scrotum, a couple of sticks and a penny nail.”
“That could be anyone.”
“That’s why this photo, one serious Stan face, a sunken chest with flabby man tit, a middle age spread that loves the buffet, two small nuts, one wrinkly scrotum and two sticks nailed in.”
“What’s that?”
“What?”
“On his chest.”
“Oh, my hand. He was a little rapey, I had to hold him back to get the shot.”
“Good thing you weren’t black.”
“Wait, I’m not?”
“Fucking liberals.”
“What’re ya gonna do, right?”
Loading comments...