One Summer Day In Germany
Posted: April 5, 2012 Filed under: Army Life, life, Love, Storytelling | Tags: Germany, life, Love 1 Comment »She smoked her cigarette like a girl from an old James Bond film, rigid and unimpressed. Her free hand twirled around her long brown hair until she looked like a Marie Laforêt album cover. She spelled disaster. Girl’s like her walked into rooms to Henry Mancini tunes and ordered drinks without ever opening their mouths. She was ravishing and exotic, young and bright-eyed and sorrowfully out of my league.
I was enamored when we first met, smitten by her endless blue gaze, but barely sober enough to speak with any sense. I introduced myself, but I could tell that my name and smile alone wouldn’t be enough to impress her…
Her name was Ellie, and my colleague Jay and I had left a company barbecue to meet up with her and her friend Angie. We sat in some lofty cafe in downtown Darmstadt, Germany where all the seats were plum leather and the waitresses wore vests and bow ties. I ordered an Amaretto Sour because I didn’t know any better, and she got a vodka whatever, the drink of choice for most of the girls I knew at the time. We talked about music and movies, life and family and found common ground in our views of society. I was cynical and a bit lost with my standing on the social climate of our generation, but she had the voice of a young Gudrun Esslin (before the violence and anarchy of course) and was confident that things needed to change.
I could sense a little bit of Erykah Badu, Lauren Hill and Tupac brewing within her sultry accent. She didn’t say anything she wasn’t sure about, but I’m pretty sure she thought otherwise. I followed closely, realizing that it was the first time I had met a German girl during the day. Most of the women I had first encounters with were faceless and voiceless, muddled behind rapid neon lights and extra loud Akon songs. Her words felt seamless in comparison, separated from the charades that the all alluring nightlife set up and sustained.
Ellie was free and untamed. She ate matches and breathed fire, stayed up late, slept little and used any cash she got to go out or buy her next scarf. She told me stories of exuberant, wild behavior, wine picnics and drinks before breakfast. Her soul was unlatched. But I was just a soldier bee, following orders on a day-to-day. It was hard to see things from her perspective, but I wanted to.
Jay and I were both leaving town for business, but we wanted something to hold on to there, in Darmstadt. I thought like Hemingway, already looking forward to letter writing under candlelight, scribbling things like, “Writing and travel broaden your ass, if not your mind, and I like to write standing up.” And “You’re beautiful, like a May fly.” But Ellie, it seemed, just wanted some one to volley with that wasn’t a half-wit. Most of our conversation felt open, but a sense of apprehension lingered, which was normal for me. My job sent we away often.
I pleaded to her sense of humor, moving her unsure grimaces to full-blown giggling. Jay attempted to keep the conversations in group form, but I continually pulled Ellie away, hoping to get her to understand that I was playing for keeps. I bobbed and weaved passed her generalizations and kept out the corner as much as I could. In respect, I didn’t get the knockout, but being able to go toe-to-toe with this intelligent girl gave me points in areas I wasn’t aware of till years later.
We finished our drinks and made or way back outside, vowing to meet up again. Her soft, full lips landed on both of my cheeks, saying good-bye. The exchange felt like an eternity and I was hooked, latched and in love.
I wasn’t aware of the crush, the rise, downfall and recouping of our friendship. We had yet to misinterpret each other or yearn for each other’s presence. We weren’t a whole ocean away yet and everything at that summer’s end still looked venerable. Walls were smaller in 05′, much smaller and serendipity was a common thing.
To Be Continued…
Up In The Air: A Very Smelly Girl
Posted: February 28, 2012 Filed under: Love, Out & About, Storytelling, Up In The Air | Tags: Armpits, California, Flights, Funky, Funny, Love, Love at First Sight, Models, Smelly Leave a comment »She had armpit funk.
It was heavy and overbearing, tugging at my curly nose hairs. I tried to knock it away like a dog attempting to lick me, but it didn’t work. It bobbed and weaved past my fast hands to hit its target each time. I would’ve of made eye contact, but she was already sleeping. The plane wasn’t even off the ground yet and she was sleeping, blanket and all.
I thought maybe she had a long layover and forgot her antiperspirants in her other bag. Or that she ran to the airport, literally, and was in too big of a rush to apply the necessary wipes to the ol’ pits. I didn’t want to judge, but when ever I tried to read a paragraph in my GQ, I would smell a whiff and then immediately feel like that worm that hangs out with Oscar the Grouch all the time. Slimey is his name, I think.
I didn’t know what to do. I almost panicked, until she turned and a long lock of her hair came out from under the cover.
“No,” I thought. “She can’t be!”
I refused to believe that one long, wondrous, lock of beautiful light brown hair was enough to decide someone’s look.
The hair hung there, staring at me, asking me to investigate, but I didn’t. I had to wait for the flower to bloom by itself. A simple tap on the shoulder and some senseless questions would have uncovered this smelly woman, but I waited.
20 minutes passed and more cover was shed, this time exposing all of her long hair, her back and slim waist. The white shirt that she wore was at least belly button height and revealed a road map of freckles along her lower spine.
Now, I can see how this may seem “creepy” to some. Especially, to girls who always sleep on planes and assume the old guy next to them is paying more attention to his Reader’s Digest than their buttocks and bosoms. Just to realize he’d been reading the magazine with one hand the whole time.
I am not that guy. I just enjoy a puzzle. And if anything, this was one of the biggest puzzles I’ve ever encountered. I didn’t know what could’ve created that smell. It was like old broccoli and overchewed Juicy Fruit gum. Captain Nemo would’ve travelled 20,000 leagues just to uncover this. She could’ve been some swamp creature with a Hollywood wig, who soaked herself in rotton pomegranates far as I knew. I couldn’t settle with that.
But I was at the point to where I didn’t even smell anything anymore. My curiosity blinded my other senses. Only my eyes remained. But she was knocked out, heavily sleeping and lightly snoring.
My eyes got tired and I closed them for a little nap myself. I awoke and hour later to find my funky seatmate jarring awake.
She turned and removed her cover in almost disgust of herself. But her face didn’t change the way the light from the window shined on her tanned, lightly brown skin. She pushed her hair behind her right ear and showed that she was one of the sexiest, most naturally enchanting women to ever sit next to me…who also had armpits that could probably get troops sent to her house.
I was speechless, and pretending to sleep during all this. But in a crazy turn of things, this girl, this beautifully smelly girl, sniffed her own pits, went into her bag, grabbed a new shirt and a stick of Secret deodorant, walked past me and headed to the bathroom. She was at least 5’10 and all legs…by the way
I couldn’t believe it, I was stunned. But it wasn’t over yet. She returns with a brown shirt on, which cleverly matched her peach colored skorts.
She sits down, now totally fresh, pulls out her Macbook and starts watching episodes of House.
I was in love. It was like being one of those mice watching Cinderella turn from a house slave to a princess. I stole looks from time to time, trying not to be awkward. But time she took her earbuds out, I spoke.
“I love this show,” I said.
“Oh me too! House is so funny. And I can’t believe he’s actually English! You can’t even tell,” She said.
She had an accent and some of the brightest green eyes I had ever seen.
“Where are you from?”
“Holland!”
“What were you doing in California?”
“Oh, I’m a model…”
I didn’t even hear the intricacies of her trek from Holland. I just heard model. I was elated and perplexed at how such a beautiful girl could make such a loud smell. Later on, I recalled her story I was ignoring and put together that she was laid over in Santa Barbara (where I got picked up), but had to stay on the plane. She had flown from L.A. earlier that day, hence the smell.
“…I won a contest and got to spend 3 months with a modeling company.”
We spent the rest of the flight (which was about 15 minutes) sharing stories about Europe and the differences between the nightlife in L.A. and the nightlife everywhere else in the world.
It was refreshing, literally and figuratively.
We exchanged emails and went our separate ways. Now, whenever I smell Juicy Fruit or Secret deodorant, I think of Alyssia, the sexiest, rankest model from a small town in Holland.
There Will Be BLOOD!
Posted: February 2, 2012 Filed under: Childhood, life, Storytelling | Tags: Apple, Blood, Childhood, Fear, hot summer day, kool aid Leave a comment »Blood. Not a fan of it. I can usually take the sight of it in movies and television shows, but the real-life stuff freaks me out. I’m mentioning this because I have a Combat Lifesavers class I have to attend in D.C. next week.
During this class I’ll be subjected to blood, at some point. I don’t know exactly when, but it’ll probably jump out at me like a stripper in a birthday cake.
Probably from someone’s arms…or buttocks
At this point, I will begin to feel light-headed. My face will lose its color, and my hands will begin to weaken. And before I know it, my legs will soften like spaghetti noodles and my body will start it’s slow decent toward the floor. My fellow soldiers will fan me awake and give me a Dixie cup filled with water. All cool points will be gone and they’ll start to treat me like a fat kid who fainted during dodge ball. Everything they say will be like, “Are you alright Sergeant Smith? Too bloody for you Sergeant Smith? Why are you being such a big vag Sergeant Smith?” After I take a couple of breaths from my brown paper bag, I’ll respond with some clever quip that will have the entire class saying “Ohhhhhhhhh.” Or I’ll just use my eyes to intimidate my way out of humiliation. But to be honest, both choices feel unlikely.
I wasn’t always like this. It started when I was 4….
It was a hot summer day in 1988, and like most kids, I was thirsty. Everyone knows you don’t learn how to breath in and out of your nose till you’re at least nine. So my senseless sprinting and gasping caused my reserved unit of tasty grape Kool-Aid to be burned through my body faster than I had expected. I needed a refill, so I returned to the kitchen.
There my brother Victor stood, in front of the open fridge, slightly confused and indecisive about what snack he wanted for the mid afternoon. I was behind him, impatient, hopping from one foot to the next, trying to get a peek at my wondrous chalice. I could see the half filled cup, idly waiting for my return. I poked and I prodded, trying to rush my brother to make his decision. He looked back at me wide-eyed, and said without words, “BACK OFF!”. I was 4 and was afraid of this deafening look, so I cooled my jets and calmed my clamoring. Seconds later, he made his decision. He chose an apple.
I was overwhelmed with joy! He stepped away from the fridge and I grabbed my cool grape drink and closed the door. We both were at the happiest points of our day. I was preparing to soothe my insides with a cool beverage, and my brother was ready to consume one of nature’s most alluring fruits.
But biting into this bright red Granny Smith apple wasn’t enough for my 6-year-old brother. He needed to peel it. The tough consistency of the apple’s outside layer was too much for his newly formed “adult teeth”. So he grabbed what looked like the biggest knife in the draw and assured me, with a slight wink, that everything would be fine. He began peeling, and for a moment, everything was going according to plan. I was drawn in, carefully watching how the knife slid fluidly around the apple, exposing its juicy insides. I think my close observation and unshaken stare is what allowed the images that followed to stick in my brain so well.
As the knife came around the other end, edging toward completing its first revolution, my brother had a twitch. He was a like a surgeon up to this point, meticulous in his technique and confidence. But the twitch, the lapse in his accuracy, caused the knife to cut through his thumb, sending blood spritzing over the pure white refrigerator and all over the floor. I don’t remember anything after that. But I can tell you in my mind, things went from an episode of Sesame Street where Grover is counting apples as they appear over his head, to the prom scene in Carrie.
That’s me on the ground…
Before that point, I had never seen blood. Or at least blood that I can remember. When it was supposed to surprise and intrigue me, it just blacked me out. It was like my brain was said, “F@#k this, we’re getting out of here!” No explanations.
So I’ve been plagued with this hemophobia since then. My brother, who I’m guessing all of you are worried about, was fine. He got stitches and grew to be unafraid of blood and many other nasty things most kids get freaked out about. While this experience set him free, I’m left to experience fainting spells and hyperventilation whenever someone bleeds. I also have a fear of knives too. Especially ones with brown handles. I wish my brother could have just picked a pomegranate or stalk of celery. Damn you apple and the serpent you rode on!!
Once Upon a Time in Germany: Girl From Ipanema
Posted: December 1, 2011 Filed under: Frankfurt, Nightlife, Storytelling | Tags: Brazil, Disney, Frankfurt, Funny, Girl From Ipanema, Red Light District, Samba, Threesome 2 Comments »2006
I had just gotten back from my tour in Iraq and planned for a sleazy night on the trashed and ransacked streets of Frankfurt, Germany’s Red light District.
The town was my Mecca.
My friends and I didn’t feel comfortable anywhere else. Which is funny because almost everyone else we knew felt the complete opposite about Frankfurt. They were afraid.
Yes, it has drug dealers, crackheads, pimps, prostitutes and tyrannies, but what major city doesn’t? To be afraid of a city that’s searing with questionable sorts, back alley mischief, and a soul sucking sex business, is to be afraid of what truly makes you human!
So it’s not crazy at all that me, Raul and CG were in Frankfurt this night to look for a stripper named Kelly…right?
Kelly (Which can’t possibly her real name) has a lot of history with the crew. And for that, she deserves her own origin story. But for now, just know that she was a beautiful, dark-haired, brazilian exotic dancer, who hung up the thong and lacy bra for a short time to live life as a bartender. And where does she set up shop?
Bar Ipanema
The Brazilian themed bar was squished between a Doner Kabap stand and a hotel. The place immediately reminded me of the song “Girl From Ipanema” by Asturd Gilberto and Stan Getz
When we walked in I was half expecting to see a group of Cigar Aficionados discussing tobacco trades and making cat calls toward uninterested girls wearing colorful short skirts. I know those generalizations are trifle, but everything I knew about Brazilian people before that point came from the couple Brazilian strippers I knew, and the segment in the Disney movie “The Three Caballeros” where Donald Duck visits Copacabana and gets taught how to samba…by this lady.
I didn’t see anything I expected see. I guess the bar itself looked more like the cartoon than anything. Lots of colorful banners and vintage drink ads with pin-up girls posing with lit cigarettes between their fingers. But the patrons were the same heartbroken Germans, looking to feed off the twinkle slowly fading in the eyes of the women of the night. Home, sweet home.
When we met eyes with Kelly, she was both pleasantly surprised and kind of nervous, but so were we. We had no idea how to talk to a stripper with clothes on. It was like trying to talk to Santa Claus in the summertime. Do you ask for gifts? Or do you just make small talk and hope he’ll just give you one? What can you possibly bring up?
“You look good girl!”
Yup…her looks. We complemented her like her clothing was her “new outfit” and her exposed chocolate skin was the comfy “hoodie and jeans” we were used to seeing her in.
It was awkward, but it made sense. Up to that point we had never seen her that way. It was almost sexier. Raul, who was closet to her out of all of us, continued to play catch-up as I sat at the bar and CG, um, wandered.
I was blown away when I turned to my left to see a sexy blond American woman, sipping a mixed drink and staring my clothes off. I calmly said hello and began to introduce myself, politely ignoring the fact that she just had sex with me in her mind.
She returned the hellos and started a textbook round of flirtation.
Flicking the hair? Check.
Touching his forearm? Check.
Laughing at all his stupid jokes and sounding abnormally interested in his job? Check and Check!
She told me how she was travelling throughout Europe to finally escape her crazy mother and to see what lies beyond South Bend, Indiana. She wasn’t the smartest, but the way she put her words together was refreshing. Her clear and precise wit enthused me, reminding my starving ears that there’s more out there than foul-mouthed female soldiers and Thai girls who only speak in yells.
The woman seemed to have scooted closer with every syllable. So now a hand that started on my forearm,
“I’m so glad that you serve our country,” she said, winking.
suddenly ended up on my leg.
But before I could even say anything about her newly place hand, a man sits to the right of me. And guess who he was?
Her husband.
I yelled in the inside, but played it cool. I didn’t want to get into a fight. But as I introduced myself and the woman happily explained that the man next to me was her man. Then things got weird. First off, this guy sat close. Not “let me make you uncomfortable so you walk away” close. No. It was more like, “this other side of you seems uncomforted, how about I give you a thrilling convo on this side while my wife gives you one on that side!”
The writing was on the wall, but I didn’t see it. The man who looked like a younger version of Bill Nye the Science Guy sat almost snuggle-close to me as his “Wife” still continued to flirt with me. Then it hit me.
“They’re BOTH flirting with me!”
I wasn’t positive, but my confusion was enough to make me more nervous than I planned on being that night. So I rose off my seat and went straight to the digital jukebox. I stood there, pretending to scroll through songs, attempting to formulate an idea that could get this woman alone. But my fate seemed dismel when I over heard the woman say,
“He has a cute ass huh?” And the man say, “Oh yeah, definitely!”
My friends and I got out of that bar as soon as possible.
And till this day, I never knew what the “couple’s” plan was. But all I know is that I put myself in the line of fire of sexual predators, just to see a stripper with her clothes ON! Such is life.
Well worth it?
Slightly Misdirected, But Never Off Point
Posted: October 12, 2011 Filed under: Childhood, life, Storytelling, Warren | Tags: Childhood, Frank Sinatra, Helen Mirren, Love, nice guy, Old Movies, Shakespeare Leave a comment »Me: Hey
Girl: Hey
Me: I think your beautiful
Girl: Aww, thanks
Me: No really, like Taj Mahal breathtaking, first time seeing the Mona Lisa, wiping the cold out of your eyes at the top of Mount Everest, warm feeling in your chest at the end of Pretty Woman type of beautiful. I love you.
Girl: Um, you’re weird.
I’m a sucker for love stories. You don’t believe me? I used to read Shakespeare! Yeah, as like a manual. I wanted to know how to pick up girls. What I didn’t know then was that 13-year-old girls don’t respond that well to iambic pentameter. So lots of things were lost in translation.
I would do weird things like write lines on my binder and try to spurt them out in the middle of lunch lines.
“A rose by any other…wait um, can I have the tatertots and the chocolate milk please? Thanks. Where was I? Oh, a rose by any…hey where you going?”
It was rough. I didn’t get much guidance in the lady department as an adolescent teen. A couple of key talks were skipped and I was forced to fill the empty spaces with John Hughes, Shakespeare and the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Put all three of those guys in a room and see what kind of magic can happen.
So I had an unconventional start to say the least.
I still find myself leaning toward the poetics, hoping that I find a girl who’s finally caught up to my maturity. But I haven’t of course. I’d be more likely to charm a girl with a T-Pain song.
“Can I buy you a drank?”
When I was around 15 I discovered Frank Sinatra and some more old-school, forgotten ways of treating ladies. It’s like I shopped at the second-hand store, while everyone else hit the malls. The kids in the pumped-up kicks were all trying to pick up the new pick-up lines like, “Baby whatcho name is?”, “You look fly tonight hunny.”, “Eh shorty, you need to be wit me!” I was the garage sale of smoothness, the records in your mom’s basement type of guy. “Your eyes are like diamonds my dear.”, “I never knew true beauty till I saw your face.”, “Holding you in my arms is the only thing I’ve dreamed of.”
I said those things!! Not even kidding. I was on some Fred Astaire, Rock Hudson, Carey Grant shit. And if you don’t know who any of those people are, then you obviously understand how far off from modern reality I was.
It’s crazy because I was also listening to Wu-Tang, Biggie and Pac around that age. I was watching action movies with Bruce Willis spitting vulgarities, and mistreating women in blatant sexual situations. But all of that was somehow overpowered by romantic comedies, warm hugs and soft porn. And I seriously thought the secondary point of having sex was to play this game called, “Who Can Cover Up their Partner’s Pubic Hair the Best?”. Like, by all means necessary, have your hand on that pelvis. If you win you get to finish and you also get to take home a commemorative CD filled with all the cheesy music that was playing in the background…so don’t you move that shit!
Cinemax had me twisted.
But I realize now that I should have just chased Academy Award winning Actress Helen Mirren. She’s older so she most likely listens to Sinatra. She’s English so she has to appreciate Shakespeare. And she’s blond! And we all know if you type in blacks and blonds on Google you get a lot of sites excited to show the nice relationship between the two. So let the stalking begin. 66 is not too old for me!
Blog brought to you by famous Helen Mirren flicks like, Herostratus, Age of Consent, The Queen, Red, The Debt and Calendar Girls.
Thou Shall Not Get Sick
Posted: October 4, 2011 Filed under: Childhood, Storytelling | Tags: Cedar Point, Childhood, Funny, Sick Leave a comment »I think I’m catching a cold…
I was just bragging to a lovely young lady a couple weeks ago about how I was unable to get sick. I don’t even know why I said that. I’ll say some of the dumbest things to impress girls, but I never thought describing my immune system as a greek god would be one of them.
She still talks to me…so consider her impressed, even though my immunity to sickness is the farthest from the truth.
I’ve been sick many times.
I think the one of the worst times was when I was a kid and heading to Sandusky, Ohio, to visit my sister, who was dating some guy down there. The whole family came along and we stayed at her boyfriend’s parents house…which now that I think about it, sounds pretty weird. But there we were, all scattered around their basement, giggly about going to Cedar Point for the first time. My brother Victor and I got to sleep in the water-bed they had down there. It was my first time in a water-bed and the first time I realized I could get motion sick. Victor, who is my OLDER brother, thought it would be fun to make the bed move as much as possible.
I’m not sure how much of my brother’s antics played into how I felt in the morning, but I will continue to blame him for the horrible feelings I had. I mean throwing up, diarrhea, fever. The worst combination anyone could ask for. It was disgusting. I painted that bathroom. It was so bad that my mom was ready to cancel the outing to Cedar Point. But by 10 a.m., after 3 hours of hell, my fever cleared and I kept some food down. So off we went into 90 degree weather, immediately after I recovered from a morning of releasing all sorts of colorful things, via my ass and mouth.
My mom wanted me to stay in shady areas and not over exert myself. Everyone else ran around and rode rides and tried to get the best out of our late start. I was alright with it. I didn’t see a need for me to get sicker just for rides. Plus, I had figured that if I rode on anything, I’d just throw up…even if I wasn’t sick. I spent a lot of time in the arcade and on that air trolley that takes you over the park. I even got to watch an IMAX movie. It was when the technology first came out, so the movie they showed was just about animals and what not. Still cool though.
I was having a great time right up until the time the fever came back…with a vengeance.
It was like a revenge movie starring Jason Statham or Liam Neelson…in my body. Like somewhere between the Tekken matches in the arcade and the cotton candy I had after the IMAX safari, a child was kidnapped or a wife was killed and my poor adolescent body was to blame.
The destruction landed me in the infirmary. Things didn’t look good for me. My temp had reached about 103 and it wasn’t going down. I was going in and out of consciousness, crying, thinking I was the closest to death than I had ever been. My mom was reciting prayers and I was thinking of some really thoughtful last words. Maybe mention my dog or how fun it was finally getting to play Super Nintendo. But just when I thought things couldn’t get worse with my health…delirium set in.
I was hearing Disney songs that weren’t playing, seeing flowers that weren’t there. I was rambling about all sorts of crazy things. My sister felt she needed to do something to help cheer me up, bring me back to reality…if you will. Since she had worked at Cedar Point once before, she still knew some people. So out of the complete kindness of her heart she thought it would be a good idea to grab one of the Berenstain Bears that worked in the children’s park area. Remember them?
You see the one in the pink? That’s Sister Bear. She looks particularly grumpy in this depiction of her, but I’d imagine that she’s had better days. She’s the one that came in with my sister. Any other time…and I mean ANY OTHER TIME I would’ve been able to clearly tell the difference between cartoon characters, reality, and girl in a suit. But on that hot day, that hot, hot day in the Cedar Point infirmary, where I laid sweaty and pitiful, I thought the bear, who was wearing pink overalls and smiling at me, wasn’t a character at all…but an actual…real life…bear.
Delirium has a way of making things complicated…to say the least.
I was terrified beyond belief. Part of me was trying to connect the ends so I could understand what was going on.
“Fake, fake, fake, rake, rake, rake, reke, reke, reke, real, real, REAL!!!!”
But all I saw was a giant bear wearing pink, standing next to my sister…TALKING! I was frozen, clutching my mother’s arm, whispering to her slowly,
“Mom…don’t move…there’s a bear in here.”
I tried to keep it cool, but the more my sister talked the more I feared the bear would eat her. So I cried…hard. Really hard. I went hysterical pleading to my mom not to let the bear eat me or her. My sister was confused and scared for me too. No one knew how I couldn’t see the differences. There were no smartphones you could type delirium or bears into, no google in the 90s. After all that, I blacked out. Can’t remember much after that. I got better though and have never been back to Cedar point since. I think that was 94′.
So I can get sick. I’m not Wolverine. Next time I want to impress m’lady friend maybe I’ll just make up how many push-ups I can do and just hope she never asks for me to show her. Peace Fam!
“Hey Carl, Did You Know the word Karaoke is Japanese for Empty Orchestra?”
Posted: September 13, 2011 Filed under: Frankfurt, Storytelling | Tags: Candles, Frankfurt, Funny, Germany, Mariah Carey, Red Light District, strip club Leave a comment »Heidelberg baby!
So here we are in Frankfurt again…
Strip Clubs. They can teach a man a lot about himself, or nothing at all. It’s a serious vortex of visual stimulation and continuous regurgitating consumption of that fuzzy warm feeling you get when you fall in love. You may see that as a contradiction, but it’s not. It’s just Frankfurt.
I have a lot of stories I can tell, (and I plan on having all of them told through this blog…eventually) but I’ll just start somewhere in the middle…
She punched me in the kidney’s. Don’t worry about reading that sentence twice, It’s true. I somehow made a woman…sorry, a teenager, so angry at me that she not only badgered and harassed me every chance she got, she also gave me a right hook. I didn’t know how to respond at first. I was more surprised than I was angry. Like hearing a younger relative swear for the first time.
“Did he just say mutha fucka?”
It was a dirty hit-and-run. She didn’t make any eye contact, but I knew it was her.
I looked at my two best-friends who stood at the bar just as baffled as me. But they knew the pot was going to boil over eventually.
“That bitch is crazy Usher!”
I hear these things like that from friends all the time. But in the search for meaningless sex and midnight comfort, the marauder is unleashed and nothing else matters but the kill. But what happens when the prey becomes the predator? And I don’t mean like the ones Chris Hanson helped catch. I mean the fast, lean killing machines that sliced, diced and disappeared. Like the one Arnold had to fight after all his token black friends died.
Did you see how big Bill Duke’s gun was?!
I snapped out of my confused dazed and pursued the young lady with no plans. I didn’t know what I was gonna say or do. I caught up with her before she fled down the stairs to the bathroom.
“What’s wrong with you? I did nothing wrong to you at all! Things just didn’t work out and I’m sor…”
Yeah. You will never know what I was about to say, because I was slapped…in the face, hard. Not girl hard. But like, real person, all the weight from the hips hard. If she waited she would have probably heard some form of a sorry. But just like a teenager, she was very impatient.
But again I was left in an awkward situation where I was not really angry, but shocked. Like when your 80-year-old high school librarian farts while you’re walking behind her.
“So that’s what the 1800s smelt like…”
In a mad dash to make sense of what had just happened, my brain handed all the motor movements to my inner darker half. It was weird. It was like I was sitting in the passenger side of my car while I watched an angrier version of myself drive.
He (the darker half) decided that it would be a good idea to pick up a glass candle holder.
“I don’t think this is a good idea” I said, “Maybe we should just calm it down and think about how this could get us in trouble.”
My angrier self didn’t say much back. He snarled a bit, mumbling profanities under his breath, but he never acknowledged my softly stated opinions of his forthcoming actions. He just raised that candle holder like a grenade and bite that invisible pin from the side of it. I was only able to grab the wheel for a second, allowing me to blow out the candle within, right before it left our hands.
Luckliy it didn’t hit the girl…Vicky. I was aiming for her I know that much, but I was never good at baseball, badminton, rock skipping or grenade throwing. And I’m glad. When the candle reached the floor it shattered in hundreds of pieces. The proximity of the candle to Vicky’s head was close enough to make her forget that she had to pee. Immediately after the candle exploded, Vicky did an about-face and came back upstairs, passing by me and giving me the strangest and most fearful look I had ever seen. I had scared the piss out of her, probably literally. I was terrified that a bouncer or bartender had seen it, but none of them did. The only person who saw was the bathroom attendant, who quickly came upstairs and told me,
“It’s not nice to throw things at girls.”
I blame his lack of urgency on our language differences.
But I nodded gently, apologized 15 times, scooped up my buddies and exited the premises.
I was a wreck so we headed to our sanctuary, Lido’s Gentleman’s Club.
I was drunk and remorseful and needed something to get my mind off of my hurt face. Jenny, a blond Brazilian dancer, was finishing up her second dance. This girl was always a joy to see on stage. Just imagine if when a basketball game got boring, the 92′ Bulls Michael Jordan would come in and just clean house. 4th Quarter last 10 minutes style. That was Jenny.
The woman who came after her was Dominican. A spicy, hourglass shaped dancer who didn’t take crap from anyone. She was usually mean and hard to read, but when she saw me she immediately asked me how I was. I blubbered out some of the highlights of my evening and I could see that she wasn’t just a robot dancer there to gobble up everyone’s cash. She was a robot dancer who had some feelings programmed in her so sad guys could believe that for one song, she was a real human being. And that song was “One Sweet Day” by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men. I sang it from the top of my lungs, serenading Dominican through her whole dance. It was hauntingly beautiful. I had so many mixed feelings when I walked in there. I wanted to fight, cry, hide and just explode. But instead, I took part of in a R-rated version of a Glee episode and lost my voice in the process.
I think there should be more musicals done about strip clubs. And there definitely needs to be some Karaoke/nude girls combo. Japan, get on this!
Wear Some Sunglasses
Posted: May 17, 2011 Filed under: Storytelling | Tags: Algeria, Allah, Birkenstocks, Clementine, detroit, Fiction, Fiji Water, Funny, Islam, Misserghin, People Mover Leave a comment »I meet this interesting chick on the people mover the other day. She seemed pretty content sitting down and enjoying some delicate fruits that she caressed carefully in her palms. She looked at the fruit with an almost foreign delight. It was like the woman and this strange fruit had been separated for ages and I was there to witness their first meeting since their last..
The woman’s green eyes surveyed the round fruit, checking for any nasty indentations or bruises. She was a nurse to this spring treat, making sure that it was in tip-top before it made its wondrous trip down the woman’s slippery dark hatch. I watched in amazement as her little toes curled within her Birkenstocks every time her fingers made a full revolution. I was too intrigued to stay quiet. So I spoke. I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do. They were so intimate and close. I almost felt like I interrupted a first kiss or a heated love fest between a sweltering series of satin sheets. But the sheer sight of this girl’s delight compelled me to sputter out a couple of important words,
“Wow, you must really like fruit! Your acting like you haven’t eaten for days!”
The woman’s pale and lightly freckled face cringed with disgust. Her body language pulled a 180 and sent the picturesque dance of fruitopia I had gleefully observed far away from my sight. All that was left when she finally lowered the fruit was disdain. A word hadn’t come out of her mouth yet, but I knew I had ruined something quaint, something special, maybe even something uniquely spectacular. When her lips finally opened, I prepared myself for a wave of disappointment and mistrust.
“How dare you interrupt me! You weird little man. Time I saw the look in your stare, I knew that all the careful time I put into surveying and selecting my supple hesperidium would be ruined! Your like every other insolent man, who’s willing to spread his malfeasance throughout the core of our cities public system, without ever knowing the true damage of his actions!”
I won’t lie to you all, I was sweating from embarrassment and guilt. I shivered as this 28-year-old woman who sat across me, gingerly stroked her ocher colored fruit, while slyly waiting for an apology.
“What the hell is a hesperidium? That looks like a damn tangerine!”
I didn’t have any control it seemed. The words I’m sorry” sat close by, waiting to be spoken, but the dark hand of shit talking and sarcasm pushed little ol apology out-of-the-way.
“Were you raised by wolves? Where are you from little man…really? Did you find your begotten homes under rocks and trash stacks? This is Citrus Recticulata, The Passion of Algeria, discovered by Father Clement Rodier in the fields of my town of Misserghin. We call them the Eye’s of Allah, Heaven’s tokens, The ark of Citronicus. But I guess you people here just call them Clementines”
All of a sudden it was clear! The woman’s gentle touches, her longing gazes, her almost unbearable sweet and tender whispers! They all made sense. She was clinically insane!
She was dressed like Miss Daisy, but without the gloves and Morgan Freeman. Sun dresses they call them. But any man could obviously see that she stole the outfit along with the crate of Clementines.
“All of this, for an orange really? Your holding those things like rubies woman! You can get your Citus Andronicus or what ever you call it anywhere. You proabably can even find a juice made by Snapple or Jones Soda. It’s really not that serious. Your acting like I interrupted your golf swing!”
I felt dumb for playing the game, drowning in the her fluid strokes, and ultimately misinterpreting a beautiful moment for a twisted and misguided dream of a mentally ill young lady. My resignation from the parlor game didn’t sit will with the woman. Her piercing green eyes stirred fear within my soul. I looked around, almost instinctively for help, hoping that someone was noticing the beast inside her powering up. Her quivering lips filled with salinity and foul words. Her limbs now shook then tightened. I wanted to avoid the climax and eruptive culmination of her displeasure she had toward me. But before I could react, she stood up with two orange-tanger-clem-things clutched between her fingers and said:
“Your arms will lay in the ashes and your eyes will burn with fire!”
I had no idea what that meant or where it was from or if I was in danger. But a bunch of thoughts and counter-measures rushed in my head for a mili-second, right before she crushed the fruits like She-Ra and proceeded to douse my eyes and exposed forearms with the remaining juices.
She was right on both accounts. The fire that burned from my eyes was unbearable and my skin, my poor skin crusted up like saltines. She stood over me for a second as the other bystanders ignored my womanly shrieking. I half expected her to spit or even piss on me or whatever they did to loud mouths like myself in her country, but instead she poured something else over my eyes and laid the bottle next to my head. Then she said something I thought I’d never forget.
“Maybe you should find something to love too. Life’s to short to be a sarcastic asshole.”
When my eyes cleared and I was able to see again, the woman and her box of fruit, was already off the train. I wondered what she poured over me if not piss or spit. So I turned over to get up and saw that the liquid she dispensed over my aching irises was Fiji water! You know the expensive shit people’s moms buy and their kids just keep filling it up with regular water so they can continue to show off how much money their family has. While I was on the ground, burning from the outside in I was preparing some really great things to say when I stood up. Some honorable things about minding your own business and tact. About love and interests and pride for your home country. I was even planning on putting her final words on a bumper sticker or FB status. But after I saw the bottle there was only one thing I could say…
“I can’t believe that crazy ass rich girl, posing as a crazy Islamic bag lady actually took me down with two oranges and the wrath of Allah. I need to do more push-ups and start wearing sunglasses.”
