By Skelton A. Church
Please understand that I have some sexual hang-ups, but try to understand even further that this comes as a surprise to me. Or rather that, ironically, I’ve known this for some time now. You see I don’t make any sounds when I climax. This is because I first discovered masturbation when I was very young. I discovered guilt second. Downstairs in the basement of the house in which I fapped away most of my teenage life there was a small bathroom to accompany what passed as the family room, and like many suburban houses, the doors are not much more than drum-like hollow flats of particle board. This diminishes, with great effect, the intimate nature of any moaning, or, ahem, page-turning. If your family is just on the other side of the door, say, reading The Book of Revelations (Oh God, fire! Oh yes, brimstone! Oh! Oh! Yes God!), you have to really be discreet-or else (Or else what? Or else my parents learn I like sex just as much as they do? I like knowing I’m a sexual deviant. I sleep better).
What does this have to do with George? Oh probably more than I’m willing to realize but what the shit do I care? I’ve got more important things to worry about such as what do I need to do to keep her around? Entertain her? All girls like to be entertained. Maybe George really is that simple and I’m just not letting myself believe it. Sure, how would I rather have it-She realizes I’m just a boring self-pitying faggot who thrives on might-have-beens and should-have-dones so I can occupy my time with distractions? Yeah, probably. The most sensible thing to keep in mind at times like these is this is neither important nor useful. Well whatever is? Just move along and go eat something! Eat something so you can have energy to go to work so you can continue to come home and relax and eat again and go to bed early so you’re not so drowsy in the morning when you have to wake up and go to work to support the life you think you should continue to live. Go on using resources and creating landfills. After all, who can blame you when everyone else is playing the same game by the same rules?
Today is Wednesday and I think Arleen has fallen asleep so I take the Diet Dr. Pepper can out of her hand and stuff it in her shoe so that, 1) she doesn’t spill it, and 2) she thinks she did this unknowingly and all is well and she’s not at least ten sodding years senile like I’m certain everyone else knows she is. She
also left the water running in the bathtub. How in the hell does she keep her
house clean? Who comes over? I swear someone half-willingly comes over to clean it. Old bitch.
Judas. The problem is I can’t stop thinking about George and her lovely red hair and how she’s as tall as I am and, oh God, those breasts of hers (oh come on, they’re not that big). This has become a problem since a police officer informed me that I seem to be running a lot of red lights (three in a row) and slowing down or stopping at green ones (I forget what green means anymore). The fact of the matter is if I deliberately broke traffic laws instead of accidentally, what difference would it make? I’m thinking of the worst kind of sex with George. She’s so tall; she must be at least as—
I’m standing outside Arleen’s house (I got tired of rearranging all the porcelain figurines and resetting all the clocks, see how she likes that). I’ve been
standing on her porch for about five solid minutes now and I think I’ll drive
to George’s house to see if she’s there though I doubt if I’ll get out of my car
to do it. Also I only know where she parks her car and not which one her
apartment is. She lives six miles away.
George lives in an apartment complex that is made to look like young, up-and-coming,business types live there, but in fact this apartment complex rests in a low rent part of the city. Last week there was a house fire across the street from this complex and I watched with great enthusiasm as police officers scrambled to keep onlookers at bay while the fire swallowed the house whole. Bite-size tragedies. A God who does not prevent tragedies but is able is malevolent. A God who mourns tragedies but cannot prevent them is impotent. But who’s counting?
Just as I pull into the complex I see George driving my direction and it scares the bejesus out of me so I turn up the music way loud and swerve into the complex’s recreation center for a reason I don’t understand. I’m fairly certain that if she sees me she will wonder who I know in this apartment complex aside from her and since she knows just about everyone here she’ll arrive at the conclusion
that I’ve come to see her but I’m being more than shy about it. I should have swerved into a better parking space. Dummy. In a matter of seconds I realize it’s her parking space I’ve just careened into when she stops a car length away from
mine, in the middle of the road, to come cuss up a storm at me for stealing her
spot I guess. But she doesn’t, instead she just sits there not actually looking
at me but at something in her lap, a cell phone maybe. She’s staring, she’s
staring, she’s sta-it is a cell phone, and, no, now she-God, this is excruciating-is…driving away.
Jaw clenched tight I can now relax because she’s out of the gate, and since she’s not at home like I wanted her to be, this little excursion has been useless. Since the viral popularity of the cell phone, social visits have virtually gone
the way of the Dodo (who the fuck cares about the Dodo anyway? It’s not like
the world stopped spinning, is it?). Communicating has become more and more
minimalistic. First people engaged each other in person. Then when that became
too cumbersome, friends and lovers figured it was too much to look at one
another. A little finger wiggling will do now without so much as a pen stroke. We’ve finally come back to telegrams. We’ve actually devolved.
Instead of wallowing in self-pity I call her to ask (tell her, rather) to come to dinner.
I dial. She picks up.
George: Hello?
SC: Hi, George. It’s Skelton. How you doin’? (I don’t know
why I ask this question. What a meaningless social obligation)
George: I’m good. Don’t call me George.
SC: (uh…pardon?) Uh…pardon?
George: I don’t want you to call me George. I don’t want…you
should call me Trixy.
SC: (Now I could placate her and play this little game of
hers like usual…but I think I’ll do her one better) (beat) No.
George: No, I mean it. I want you to call me Trixy—
SC: No, I don’t think I will, instead I want to eat sushi
tonight, so, uh, you oughtta come with me. There. I know you like sushi, and I know you’d like to go out to dinner tonight. Why not?
George: …I can’t. I have class tonight.
SC: Poor sport—Wait, no you don’t, George.
George: Yes I do! I have yoga class.
SC: Oh! Oh, well you oughtta go to that. People have been kicked out of school for not going to yoga class. You know, I didn’t know you could fail yoga. How are you doing in that class, by the way? B? C? D?
George: Oh, well fuck you, mister!
SC: (I chuckle) Kidding! I’m kidding. I’m not that mean. Look if you want to be alone tonight, that’s fine, but if you change your mind, give me a call. I won’t be leaving for a while anyway. (Beat) So, uh, Trixy, (I chuckle) see you around.
George: Okay. See you.
SC: Bye.
George: Bye.
SC: (Botched it? Yes? No? Maybe. We’ll see. Fuck it.)
This is what I tell myself knowing full well that I have no intention of going out tonight. Throw those chips in the air. I’ve taken advice from my friends. I’ve done things my own way. Nothing seems to work. Where do I go from here? Where do we go from here? Daddy doesn’t live here anymore. He left for work. Like his daddy did, cause his daddy did too. No one told him why. No one ever told him the punch line. They all thought he was smart enough to learn it on his own, but he wasn’t. And he didn’t.
Who did?
Whose joke is it?
Who’s telling it now?
Who’s laughing now?
Who’s laughing now.
Ha.
Ha.
Ha.
Ha.
That night around 9:00 George texted me and invited me to have something to eat at a diner with her friends. Fuck you, George. I should be the one inviting you and you should be the one accepting my invitation, and we should be together. Alone. Even in my ego-driven sense of righteous indignation, what do I do? I go stuff my face, stupid. What use is the ego anyway? I wanted an excuse to spend some time with her and now I’ve got it. Problem solved. Actually this turned out better than I anticipated. Here’s to not playing by my own rules.
