I Am Eating My Husband's Soul

Tyrone

     Eric and his father ordered steak, which we saw being wheeled by on a gurney to the people at the next table where it took two waiters to hoist it onto the table in front of the slavering gluttons.  The slabs glistened with blood and made me cough gently into Eric’s mother’s napkin.
     Dottie ordered Shrimp Scampi and a new napkin.  I couldn’t decide what to order.

     “What do you have that is vegetarian?” I asked the waiter, Ian.

     “We have a variety of tasty fish and chicken dishes, as well as pasta.”

     “When you say ‘fish’ and ‘chicken,’ are you somehow implying these are not the standard animal variety, but a genetically modified plant product?”

     “Nooo…” he said, dully referencing his high school biology. “We have pasta and an assortment of salads,” he turned my menu right side up and pointed to these sections. I closed my menu and sat on it. It was cool beneath my pantiless bottom.

     “Hmmmmm. I don’t like reading menus, it’s so impersonal.” I told him, thinking it would bring us closer together. “Tell me, Ian, what sort of salads do you have?”

     “House. Garden. Chef’s. Waldorf, Chick…uh…pasta.” He recited, staring unhappily at the menu beneath my ass.

     “Are there any other vegetarian entrees?” I tried, shifting as my flesh stuck to the cold leather cover.

     “No, but you could pick the meat out of something.”

     “Like the chicken?” I asked.

     “I’ll check back,” he said leaving.

I smiled at Eric and his parents.  “Let’s get a bottle of something nice,”

Eric and his parents exchanged looks like they were the wrong Christmas gifts.

    “She means gin,” Eric clarified as his father reluctantly picked up and put down the wine list.

The minutes rolled into an hour and everyone was getting very irritated. Gary the beverage boy kept refilling our water glasses and Dottie and Leo’s diet cokes.

     “I’d like another Gin, please,” I handed the boy my tumbler, which he reluctantly took, looking across the room at the glowering waiter Ian.

     “I think I’ll have the….”I said with my finger scanning my freshly retrieved menu, flipping pages, turning it over, thinking perhaps I should have worn underwear after all. Deftly, I used Eric’s mother’s napkin to dry the cover.

     “OH!” I exclaimed my finger stopping at something interesting. 

Eric and his parents were literally on the edge of their seats.

     “I’ve started my period.”

I let the menu fall under the table, with the others, and asked Eric to run to the bathroom for me. I handed him a quarter. He choked back as sob, as did Leo.  
Eric’s mother sighed dramatically.

     I was asking the waiter Ian about his childhood, and enjoying our time together, plus the last of another gin, when Eric’s mother began to cry.

     “Please,” she wimpered. “order.”

     “What sort of salads did your mother give you?” I asked Ian.

     “I don’t know….” He shrugged, “Lettuce and some, like, tomatoes.”

     “Did she use a variety of lettuces? How about other fresh vegetables?”

     “No. Just that iceberg crap and tomatoes… HOTHOUSE tomatoes.”

     “You poor kid.” I patted his thigh. 

     “She worked a lot. My dad left us when I was 9. That’s when we started having salads.”

We were really getting somewhere.  I handed him Dotties napkin.

     “Oh, for goodness sake! Eric! Order for her!” Dottie cried. 

I excused myself and wandered up to the bar, to get another tasty beverage. I spotted an aquarium in the corner of the restaurant foyer.

It was actually a lobster tank filled with live but lethargic creatures. They sat at the bottom, stacked two and three deep in some places, one on top of another, claws rubber-banded tightly shut. They looked resigned to their hellish fate. As if being boiled alive were the best they could hope for. Except one.

     He was a splendid creature, regal; bigger than the rest by far. He, alone, fully occupied his own corner. He had somehow freed one angry pincer and was snapping it at the terrified others.  He was brave; he was like a little pirate, all lobster testosterone and swashbucklery.

     Our eyes met across the crowded lounge.  It was magic. His little claw snipped a little slower for a moment and we locked gazes.  I felt myself blush. I had to look away first, flustered and warm inside. The moment passed and he was once again snipping furiously at his rusty colored inferiors.
I returned to my table and did the same.

     “I want a lobster.” I declared, returning to the table.

Everyone seemed pleased. Eric’s mother wept with joy and clapped her hands. Eric’s father signaled the waiter Ian immediately. He approached the table slowly and suspiciously.  He didn’t even bother taking out his pad and pen.  We had bonded over the salad discussion and his ice berg lettuce childhood, but our business relationship was still frosty.

     “She’d like a lobster!” Eric gushed.

     “Excellent choice,” Ian enthused, looking surprised and relieved. He produced his little pencil and tablet with a flourish, poised to capture every word.

     “Would you like that with rice pilaf or …”

     “I’d like him in a little tub with water temp at about 65 degrees and a salinity level of…oh, 1.02.  Do you have a pair of little red shorts that might fit him? He’s the big one with the pretty eyes and handsome shell…”

     “Excuse me?” Ian paused; his had clutching the pencil was trembling.  

Everyone else stared, mouths agape.

     “And instead of rice pilaf, can I substitute bread and salad?”

Silence. Blinking. The pencil led snapped.

    “I’ll have blue cheese dressing.” I proceeded, “Be sure you get the right lobster. He’s the one who looks a like Tyrone Power.”

Mass blinking. Leo’s father coughed. More blinking. Leo took a sip of water.

     “Did you see ‘Seven Waves Away’?  Tyrone Power played Officer Alec Holmes…”

     “WE KNOW WHO FUCKING TYRONE POWER IS!” Eric’s mother screeched, picking a bad time to start talking like a sailor. Everyone in the restaurant was staring. Sobbing, Dottie went to the women’s room.  She made Eric accompany her, which I thought was very tacky.

Worse, Ian still wasn’t writing anything down.

     “Don’t take that rubber band off his left claw. I think that’s risky until he’s settled down, had some bread… a little salad. Do you have a little piece of rotted meat I could give him?”

Absolutely no movement on the pad.

     “I’ll show you which one.” I sighed, grabbing his arm.

      Every time we go out with Dottie and Leo, I find myself asking the same question:

Does eating out have to be such a huge production?

     Eric’s mother returned from the ‘bathroom’ with a pot of hot water, ‘for her after dinner tea.’

She continued to give the Evil Eye to my Tyrone, who sat on a chair next to me in a little dish with slightly salted water atop a couple of booster chairs. A little bib on his fine lobster chest, he nipped at a few bites of Eric’s steak.
Casually, during dinner, Dottie inched that pot of hot ‘tea’ water toward us,
Using any excuse to slide it in our direction.
Periodically, she would feel that it had grown cool, and she would order another.

     “She’s steaming my LOBSTER!” I yelled, finally putting it all together as the right half of his little shell glistened pink.

I grabbed Tyrone, whose one angry free pink claw was lashing wildly with pain and indignation, and faced Dottie.
Naturally she denied everything.

     While she ranted and accused me of being the villain, of ruining dinner, Tyrone’s claw made contact with her dried up symbol of pendulous motherhood, causing her to howl with painful enlightenment, proving everything.

The salad was delicious.

Muskrat Land

     Normally we spend the evening getting our stomach’s pumped after Eric’s parents buy us dinner.  My treat. All You Can Eat Buffet’s are the Devils Cesspool, after all.  AND:
Dr. Yahtzee will perform a complete purging for a 6 pack of beer and a package of squeaky cheese. He’s good; it takes him 5 minutes to get everything up, using carefully selected 1970’s tunes and a few feet of garden hose. Anytime you start wondering why someone needs so much education to be a doctor, you need just to witness a professional in action.  The little esoteric pieces of knowledge astound me.  The Captain and Tennille songs, for instance, seem to have been written with emptying the contents of one’s stomach in mind. Who knew? I rarely think of them any more. But I’m no medical professional, that’s for sure… 
     I can’t abide a hose down my throat, so with me Yahtzee uses a large glass of sodium bicarbonate and a handful of pictures of him and Kym having sex. This works about half the time, but it’s not me I’m worried about.  As usual, I’m thinking of others.
     Happily, stick a rubber hose in either end of Eric and he can be counted on to start barfing the moment Muskrat Suzie, Muskrat Sam Do the Jitterbug Out in Muskrat Land.
If I let Yahtzee dress him up like a cheap whore, and take pictures of the procedure, he’ll throw in a colostomy, of sorts. Though the pictures are mostly exterior shots of Eric looking frightened and uncomfortable and contorted, there are enough close-ups of Andre in a nurse’s outfit licking his lips next to a smiling and nodding Yahtzee to know that there’s nothing to be concerned about, long term health-wise. And, frankly, there are just some things you can’t put a price on. 
Yahtzee charges $19.95 for an unlimited month’s pass to his online Ass Cam.
I don’t think he accepts Medicare, which is, of course, a huge disappointment.

With Cheese

     If there is one thing I can’t stand, it’s getting a pro-life lecture from a minimum wage waiter in a rat suit, with a vest; Especially when I’ve already had to remind said Rat several times to bring us extra ice for our drinks. I had to request twice to have the puddle of urine in front of our table mopped up. He took his side job as roadie for the Mechanical Fake Band a little too seriously.  As if he were meant for Better More Important Things and Chato Y’ Cheeses was just a stepping stone.

     Chato Y’ Cheese’s is not, as it turned out, the place to bring your confused pregnant friend for lunch; especially if you also invite the bitter jealous rival friend.  BUT the advertisement said ‘A Place for KIDS TO BE KIDS.’ They have a maze for retarded children and a soothing padded Ritalin room with a huge screen television and chairs with straps in which to lash down the little medicated tykes.

     PLUS: Pregnant Women EAT FREE!

     It sounded like the perfect place for Kym to get a good solid look at her options.   

      Kym and I met Sylvia in front of the Wedge of Cheese and Winking Mouse Turd at noon.  We greeted each other with warm hugs, although Kym mimed ‘Her Ass is HUGE!’ behind Sylvia’s back and Sylvia made a catty comment about Kym’s sinister hair, which she fingered as if on a dare.

     Soon a surly lass with greasy hair and buck teeth took us to our seat, a plastic booth in front of the stage.  The hostess’s unfortunate yellow overbite, bad hygiene and posture were not part of a clever subtle costume, sadly, and this mistake cost us free game tokens. 

     On stage, three Mice were helping a Cockroach set up fake instruments.  It is ingenious that Chato Y’ Cheese has turned a health department nightmare into a marketing advantage.  Still, I can’t bring myself to eat the food.  I brought a thermos of strong drink, and an industrial-sized canister of disinfectant which I hauled behind me like some people do oxygen.  Occasionally I spritzered the children as they ran by. 

    Also, sensitive to Kym’s delicate condition, I brought along a big bottle of milk; she carries her own Kahlua and Vodka. I ordered a medium pizza because Sylvia would eat her own hand if it had cheese on it.

     Our waiter was, of course, a Rat; wearing a huge WWJD ring on his long skinny pink fingers.  It had turned the flesh underneath a disturbing shade of green. The Rat’s name badge pinned to his soiled red vest said ‘Chewy.’

Chewy's other job was to make sure the cockroach made it on stage for each music set: which consisted of the same 2 songs played over and over in hour intervals. Apparently the cockroach had become a problem. The Rat followed him into the bathroom every time. The other rodents seemed wary. They all looked somewhere in the age range of a hard lived 40 or a relatively youthful 65.

     Our plan was to just observe the children in their natural environment and ponder Kym’s situation. She was on the brink of making a decision that would profoundly change her life. I was hoping that she would do this by 2:00 as Jesus was scheduled to come by to shine my ‘Ginys and fertilize the lawn.

     I probably shouldn’t have invited Sylvia, but she had just been dumped by her 3rd boyfriend ‘Bob’ in as many months and seemed like she could use cheering up.
She was not cheered to hear of Kym’s pregnancy.  She was jealous of Kym's marriage; that it was to Andre was irrelevant.

     “At least you have a husband,” she whined into her large cup, filled with fruit punch and gin. This beverage gave her a bright red mustache, which in turn made her look tragically amused.    

     “Oh shut the fuck up. He’s a MONKEY.  It’s not like we are registered at Nordstroms.”    

     “Yes you are!” I chimed. I had done this last week. 

     All around us, children screamed and ran about, throwing food, soiling their pants… while mothers sat at tables in groups of 3 and 4, oblivious to everything.  They drank from their children’s plastic cups of soda, crusty with backwash.  Many of them were pregnant. 

     “Why do YOU think YOU want to be a mother?” Sylvia cried, slapping her hand down on the table.

     “I’m rich! I’m attractive. I’m not getting any younger…sooner or later I might need an organ. A couple kidneys in the bank, is how I'm looking at it.” Kym replied, calmly pouring more vodka into her milk. Organic whole milk, I should add.

     “Yes! Excellent reasons to bear a child! All those duplicate organs! In the end, the little bastard stands to inherit a fortune, whatever is left of him!” I agreed, raising my glass in toast, while also looking at my watch, one o'clock.

    “Who is the father?” Sylvia asked.

     Kym and I exchanged, as they say, looks. I was sworn to secrecy.  Yahtzee knew about his impending possible fatherhood, but we 3 were keeping it quiet.  He could lose his license.  Not that he had one, but if/when it was reinstated. Plus, it embarrassed Kym to have coupled with a man who listened to 70’s music and whose last few addresses featured the word ‘inmate’.  She could be cast out of the Ladie's Auxillary, whatever that was. 

     “Well?” Sylvia asked, looking from me to Kym.

     I sighed, watching the rat lead the jittery 'roach back to the stage, looking at my watch,

     “Eric is the father.”

     “WHAT?!”

     “Yeah,” Kym agreed, sighing. “Eric.”

     “You let Eric get her pregnant and you won’t even let him talk to me on the phone?”

     “Yes…well…it was very clinical. No one enjoyed it. She was thinking of me the entire time. And, of course, so was he.”

     “Not the entire time,” Kym said, the crusty whore.

     Sylvia was getting very agitated,    

     “You wouldn’t even let me borrow your new vacuum last year. Instead you bought me that weird hand thing from some medical auction.”    

     “Ahh yes! ‘The Lady Rug Doctor! Screamin’ Mad At Sperm!’ I thought YOU were pregnant!” I laughed, remembering. “You’d put on so much weight!”

     “So, I should have an abortion, but Kym should have a baby, is that it?” Sylvia sobbed, between bites of pizza, “Why?”

     “Oh, now, Sylvia –it’s not so much that you should have an abortion as you should be certain to vacuum your uterus regularly!” I said, putting a positive spin on things.

     “Besides, we haven’t decided what Kym will do. That’s why we are here.” I looked at my watch again. “What do you think, Kym? Baby or ‘Borty?”

     The Rat was staring openly at us now.

     It was between sets and none of the vermin had enough to do. The backdoor was cracked open and I could see the mice outside smoking.

     The Cockroach was getting away with grabbing children as they ran past.  They’d scream and laugh and run past again. The Cockroach had some candy in his pocket. I hoped that is what it was, anyway…

    “Do you want to get us more ice?” Kym asked the rat, rattling her cup.

     He inched closer but didn’t make a move to get ice.

     “The Chato Y’ Cheeses is a Pro-Family environment,” he said, instead. “I couldn’t help but overhear you discussing murder of an unborn child.”

     “Uh…right. Why don’t you mind your own business?” I suggested, pointing to the Cockroach who was now leading a small boy into the bathroom by waggling a tootsie roll at him. I hoped it was a tootsie roll.

     “Which one of you is With Child?” asked the Pro-Life Rat.

     We all just stared at one another.

     “You are,” he said to Sylvia. “I can always tell. You are glowing!”

     “That is grease from your shitty pizza.” Kym replied, wiping at Sylvia’s shiny chin.

     “You two evil women are harrassing her into killing her child!" the minimum wage health hazard scolded Kym and I,  

     "You have a choice,” the Rat told Sylvia. “Choose LIFE!”

     He grabbed both her hands in his dirty pink ones. His nails were long and filthy.

     Sylvia loved the attention.  He petted her hair. You could almost hear her eggs getting hopeful.

    The mice had gotten back from their cigarette break and were starting to fake the warm up.

      “You know, there’s a kid in the bathroom with that Cockroach,” I told the Rat, who ignored everything but Sylvia, who was, indeed, glowing now.

     Time was up. I had to go. Kym and I stood. The pizza was giving someone gas.

     “Sylvia, I don’t think anyone wants what’s inside of you right now,” I warned.

     “Don’t listen to her. Listen to your heart.” The rat murmured.

     “That’s not what’s making all the noise,” Kym muttered.

     We left Sylvia weeping into the Rat’s matted furr.

Immaculate....or a Dice Game

     I am a firm believer in bumper sticker wisdom. The truest, most life-defining things can be said in under 10 words and should be affixed to cars.

     ‘Live Simply so that Others May Live’.
     ‘This Car Will Become Unmanned During the Rapture’…
     ‘My Other Car is a Golf Cart’…

     Yesterday I sold Eric’s new Toyota Prius, purchased just 2 weeks ago for $32,000, fully loaded, custom paint.  It is a trendy car with exceptional gas mileage, but not as economical as his newer golf cart, which is also, truly, more ‘sporty’.     

     Yesterday afternoon, right after he left to play golf,  I taped FOR SALE signs in the windows and parked the Prius down at the QUIK-E-LUBE-N-CURL (they recently added a salon). 

     The car sold to the first caller, within an hour; someone who was getting a perm and a weave!  Since it was used, I bartered the buyer down to $15,000, and some personal services. I’m going to buy something spectacular for the yard. Maybe I’ll also get Eric a new golf outfit…

     Kym and I were drinking large glasses of GIN GIN GIN (ala minty-licious chewing gum inspired cocktails) in the kitchen when Eric came home from the Club.
     “Where’s my car?” he asked.
     “You were just riding in it…” I responded, glibly.
     “Uh….that was my CART. Where is my CAR?”
     “I sold it. You don’t need 2 cars.”
     “!!!KATY!!!” He cried, “THAT WAS MY CAR!”
     “Simplify! simplify! How many vehicles can one man UNMAN during Rapture??? All those “cars” and “carts” clogging up our driveway were beginning to stink of bourgeoisie. PLUS it clashed with my landscape plans.”

     Eric glared out the window where his car used to be. I had the row of soiled Vaginas, waiting to be cleaned, in its place.     Suddenly, he became more animated. He was doing something like the potty dance and pointing outside. 

     Yahtzee was pulling into the driveway in his new car. A brand new desert mural decorated the back and sides: Howling coyote, sunset, cow skull. Enormous twin fuzzy Prozac™ capsules hung from the rear view mirror. The bumper was already plastered with clashing sentiments.

 “THIS CAR STOPS AT ALL GARAGE SALES!”

“WALDEN IS A STATE OF MIND”

“ANOTHER CANNIBAL FOR PRO-LIFE”“I’M A PRO-CHOICE VEGAN”

“BABY ON BOARD”

It soared hideous to new heights.  The happy coincidence that HE was my FIRST CALLER failed to impress Eric.   

     “You know, I really do like his hair like that!” I admitted. Jet black and curly like the 70’s. He looked good behind the wheel of the car formerly known as Eric’s.It was just the beginning of coincidences.

     Kym suggested that we spend an hour or so skulking around child care centers. It was getting close to feeding time, she said, and, just like at the zoo, the little creatures would be especially active.  We brought little bags of crunchy corn and peanuts. For practical reasons, we left Andre with Yahtzee. Andre loves new cars. Happily, the leather seats are easy to clean.    

     While we sat on the little plastic mushrooms on springs at the YMCA childcare playground, I noticed that Kym wasn’t her usual self. She did not join in ridiculing the toddlers.

     “Look at that little girl with the braids!” I said, “Poor thing, she looks 30!”     “She is 30, Katy; she’s a teacher.”

     “Oh sweet jesus, you are right; she’s a wee person. She should try harder to dress in grownup clothes.  That romper does nothing for her figure.”     “I am pregnant.” Kym said.

     “What?”     “PREGNANT. I’M PREGNANT.” She raved. 

Romper girl scowled in our direction.  We had been warned about “language” and “hogging the mushrooms.”

     The children were starting to get restless. Throwing corn and peanuts only seemed to work on some, mostly the chubbier, or anyone with marker stains around their lips.  The majority, however, were milling around us, arms crossed. Standing. Staring. Rude.
I rocked harder with authority.

    “Well…it’s a good thing you got married, then!” I said brightly.    

     “GODDAMN IT, KATY, could you try to not be disgusting? That baby was not fathered by MY MONKEY”

     The Wee Warden was now storming our way.     Kym slowly dismounted her toadstool as the grubby little crowd thickened, led by their Queen.

    “Yahtzee is the Dad.” She sighed.    

    “OHMYGOD!” I fell off my mushroom, or was pushed.  A mean little fat boy took my place immediately.

Can You Hear Me Now?

     I think it really comes down to this: One way or another, those big plaster Vaginas' will not be ignored. God and I and that hippie sculptor worked too hard to get them here for Us to let Them languish ignored, covered in flies and dog urine. Eric will just have to accept this. If he can’t, he will endure many painful lessons. Just like in the bible or the Koran or Donald Trump’s Biography.

     Last evening Eric was refusing to polish my Vaginas, saying that he didn’t have time.

     “As soon as Phil calls, I’m going to go to the Club and play golf."

He was engrossed in the job of washing his new golf cart.  

     I was sitting on the front porch in a wicker chair, drinking my generous Dentini and enumerating the reasons he should be laboring over the Immaculate Vents first and attending to the sad little testament to his Complete Collapse into a Stereotype second, or third, as my drinking was running dangerously close to the rocks. 

     “Katy, I’ve told you that I do NOT have time to groom your…yard…genitals.”

     “They are Vaginas, Eric.”

     “Whatever.”

     “No, say it. Say ‘Vagina’ so that I can be sure you understand.”

     He ignored me and continued to stroke his CART.

Important Fact:

The fragrant oil that seeps through the lips of the heavenly Porceline Poontang lends itself to the collection of bugs and dirt. Maytag and Jasper were regularly peeing on each, despite my frantic attempts to lure them to the golf cart by tying meat beneath the wheels. 

The Lips that were designed to glisten beatifically pink thru proper care and maintenance, were decidedly skanky with neglect.

     “Do you think GOD is smiling upon you when you are letting His Holy Vessel get all thick with gnats? Where’s the Man in the Boat? I see a chevy crawling with Cubans!” I yelled, waving my near empty glass.  

      “If you hear my phone, will you please let me know?” He replied, indifferently.

His golf cart is candy apple red, and electric. It has a big orange triangle on the back.

     Except for the faint odor of rotting beef, it is flawless.

I didn’t know he had a phone.

     “What do you mean ‘your’ phone?” I asked.

     “I got a cell phone,” he answered avoiding eye contact.

I blame television, of course, and Christx, for this new golfing cell phone Eric. As well as his new poor taste in music and his REI membership. What does a man whose outdoor life is limited to riding a golf cart through a COUNTRY CLUB and shining plaster Privates in our suburban YARD need with Special Outdoor Clothing? Expedition pants that would make a sherpa weep to see clothing a man grunting over a Ball Washer on the 9^th hole, or picking gnats off the ceramic Clitoris of The Mother of God at 2400 feet above sea level.

     “They zip into shorts,” Eric offered.

He was out of breath from the effort of applying ArmorAll.

     “Too bad they can’t zip into an extra lung.”

     Somewhere close by, the cell phone rang.

     “Is that my phone?” Eric cried, as if it might portend a miracle.

  I put my drink down and followed the odd musical noise to where his coat hung by the open front door.  The ring tone was ‘Ride of the Valkyries.’ 

     If there is one thing I hate more than cell phones, it’s the ridiculous attempt to give them dignity through sophisticated ring tones.  It’s like implanting a Chihuahua with a tenor’s voice box. And naming the alarming little thing ‘Josh Groban’ and helping him produce CDs and appear on Oprah. Even with nice hair, it’s still mostly shit being produced, whichever end its coming from.

       The Vagina near the front of the yard, Our Lady of Immaculate Deception, has a wasp trap deep within, baited with poisoned pepsi and ham. The Wasps die as they lived, not unlike trailer folk.  It was nearly full.

     I followed the cell phone tune to Eric’s polar fleece golfing jacket, draped across a fencepost near the water spigot.

    With Eric hot in pursuit, I ran across the yard to Our Lady OID and tossed the phone into the dirty pink cavern.  There was a slight splash. All was quiet for a minute. Eric stood panting beside me, still holding his Armorall rag.

     “Jesus, Katy, did you have to do that?”

     “Hello? Hello? Eric!?” came a voice from deep within the Holy Hootchy.

He looked at me and then back at the insistently querying orifice. The stench was almost unbearable.

     "Eric? Are you there?" 

     “Speak into the Vagina, Eric. Don’t be afraid.” I instructed.

Hoe-ly Trinity

     In the end, it all comes down to religious tolerance. It’s what I always say, and it just gets truer every day, even with those fucking Mormons.

     Kym was skeptical, when I showed her my fliers, and my new plaster yard décor.

     “It amazes me anew every time I round the corner to your house and find that it hasn’t yet been reduced to a smoldering pile of heretical ash.”

     She really can’t pull off a pious look wearing short pants and satanic hair.  As if in penance for the extra thick application of Bunny Killing Cosmetics, she has shaved her eyebrows and redrawn them on, archly.  The look is Chronically Aghast.

     “Where is your husband?” I asked, surprised that she was alone.

     “MY GOD, can you not LET THAT GO? He is MY MONKEY! It was A POINT not a UNION BLESSED BY GOD that I was interested in MAKING.”

     “Where is your husband?” I tried again.

“Yahtzee and Andre are hanging out, eating fruit and watching Dr. Phil. Yahtzee said that after 3 weeks in a border jail with his cell phone up his ass he can’t take seeing a truckload of Mexican men right now.  He still has flashbacks of heavily accented voices jeering ‘Can you hear me now?’ The laughter haunts him.”

It was just as well.

     As I mentioned, I had slipped fliers on every door up and down the block, on car windshields, and stapled some to telephone poles. I anticipated quite a turnout.

“COME SEE HOT JESUS AND HIS HOLY MOWER!” said one I hung on a bulletin board at the Youth Center. I put it next to a pathetic advertisement for ‘Jimmy’s Lawn Mowing Service – I’ll Also Pick Up Your Dog Poop’

Jimmy wrote his by hand and included no graphics. Perhaps mine would be a lesson to him on successful advertising:

    It showed a slightly edited picture of the bible white guy (BWG) Jesus pushing a lawn mower (NOT SEARS) wearing a flowing robe, open to the chest, tight abdomen, long lean muscle….a little too thin, but HOT if you like that sort of thing, great hair... In the background, the clouds were parted, the sun shining through. The hand of God was pointing to a spot on the lawn that He’d missed. His clear saintly eyes rolled heavenward.

“BREAD AND WINE WILL BE SERVED. $5 cover”

     Another flier I hung in the local garden shop depicted BWG Jesus seated with perfect posture on the freshly mown grass in front of a group of slouching garden tools, a rake and several hoes, the latter handles of which he was anointing with linseed oil, hotly.

“COME HAIL THE NEW GARDEN MESSIAH! HOT GOD ON SOD ACTION”

“WATCH HIM SPILL HIS SEED UPON MY EARTH” had another flier showing Jesus reseeding a lawn, in a loin cloth; He is pictured skipping along, flinging seed from a little purse, and winking. I’d given him tattoos and a headband.

     Last night I received a few angry calls. One was from our Neighborhood Association representative, Shirley Dibbs.  She said I went too far. She was crying.  I consoled her by calling her a bigot and inferring that the Neighborhood Association charter contained references to Ethnic Cleansing. 

     “Is it that you don’t like Mexicans, or do you despise all minorities?”

     “Of course not! This is about SACRILEGE!”

     “Why do you hate People Of Color, Shirley?” I asked.

     “Don’t SAY THAT!” she cried.

Silence.

     “He’ll be wearing next to nothing. He’s the hottest thing this side of hell.” I assured her.

Silence.

     “He edges.” I continued. “He prunes. He’s as brown as toast.”

     “Does He adjust sprinklers?” she whimpered.

     “If you believe in Him…” I began, “But it’s still gonna cost you $5 to get through the door, toots.”

     Things went well. Jesus and crew arrived a little late, which was saucy.  I saw Yahtzee and Andre drive by, several times, pretending not to look.

     Jesus, while refusing to don a linen loin cloth, did agree to work shirtless and occasionally drag the cross that I’d fashioned out of double-headed garden weasels around with him.

     “Just a few times, when the crowd peaks,” I had his English speaking associate, Arturo, translate. They all looked skeptical, but in the end, when I stuffed $20 into his pants, he agreed. 

     Jesus’ long glossy black hair was pulled back into a pony tail, his lean and very well-toned body covered in interesting and enlightening tattoos. Especially poignant is the one of the Virgin Mother with cleavage and short pink pants.

     His co-workers, or ‘landscape disciples’, as I call them, Hugo and Arturo, are smaller, older, and rounder.  They are excellent choices for mulching the very back and planting my new plaster Virgin Mary Vaginas. I had 3 especially made by a hippie sculptor who used to be a naturopathic gynecologist. That didn’t work out. Now, he specializes in women’s genitals and large butterflies in plaster. Both have garden healing properties. The Vaginas emit a high frequency tone that frightens mosquitoes. At night they glow pink and zap bugs. Birds seem to love them.

     When I explained all this, Arturo declined to translate. He just instructed Arturo where to put them and to wear his gloves.  I had them put 2 in my front yard, one in back.

     “What else you want us do?” asked Arturo, almost suspiciously.

     “Oh, you know…yard stuff!” I made a sweeping gesture. My yard was seriously overgrown. The Vaginas looked overwhelmed.

He seemed relieved to focus on plants.

     They pruned, they mulched, they mowed and edged. 

Women began to trickle in almost immediately. The Mormon Missionaries showed up, probably drawn to the high pitched vaginal frequencies. I told them I would go to church for a year if they’d each do a body shot off of Jesus.

One of them, Skip, was up to it.

     “Can it be grape juice instead of wine?”

     “No, our Savior allows only authentic vintage stuff to touch his vato-endorsed temple.”

     “Welllllll… can I spit it out after?”

     “No! It is representative of The Suffering!”

     “Just one shot?”

Richard, his stern accomplice, bid us a hasty goodbye and dragged an increasingly enthusiastic Skip back to his bike.

     Midway through the box of Chianti, Arturo and Hugo removed their shirts and the crowd went wild.  The older men seemed flattered and grateful.  Arturo flexed and laughed.  They worked for 7 hours on my yard.  The Vaginas were just blinking on when they loaded up the last hoe into their truck.  

     In the end, I made $50. Jesus, Hugo and Arturo made at least double that each in tips.  

Jesus so far does not seem interested in living in my back shed for an additional $200 a month, but I know He’ll come around.  I don't believe in much, but I believe in Him and those Vaginas.

Magically Delicious

The owner of Chavez Landscape and Maintenance is Angus Chavez.  He is Scottish/Mexican-American.  He is a very thin man with a pot belly, on which is a tattoo of a taco. Soft shell, I believe.  He has sparse red hair and a full red beard. He wears a little green hat that has a ridge along the top.

     "You are Chavez?" I asked, meeting him yesterday afternoon. His Scottish brogue was at times too thick to understand, at others almost nonexistent.

     “Aye, my mother married me into the business when I was but a wee lad,” he told me.

     We discussed price. I told him I wanted Jesus and 2 other men to takeover my gardening.

     “I’d like to have Jesus live in the little shed in my back yard. So he would be available to me in emergencies.”

     Chavez looked at me and blinked.

     “And why would he want to do that, miss, when he be havin’ a perfectly good room at my place, with his friends?”

     “Because I’ll pay him more.”

     "(INDECIPHERABLE SCOTTISH REPLY)"

     "Because I'll pay him more."

     “No,” he answered gruffly, “Pardon my saying so, but that’s insane.”

     It’s not really a shed. It’s a playhouse: A little A-frame with an upstairs and a downstairs, both floors big enough to comfortably sleep several illegal aliens and still have room for a small television or chickens, once I move our bikes and ski equipment. He could toilet in the bear habitat. It seemed perfect to me, but Angus remained unconvinced.  I finally said,

     “Please just have the men here first thing tomorrow morning for an extensive yard makeover.”

     I called all my friends and told them to invite their friends. I made fliers and put them on everyone’s door. I am charging $5 a head to watch the shirtless Jesus trim my hedges and whack weeds.  I will serve wine in a box, because that is the audience I’m catering to. I will make a small fortune and so will Jesus. He will be installed in my back shed sooner or later because it makes perfect sense. In fact, it’s magically delicious.

A Hole in One

Eric can be replaced by a ripped illegal alien Jesus and will be if he doesn’t start whacking his own weeds at home.   Yesterday morning he got up early and informed me he was leaving to play golf “with friends”.

     I quickly donned my golfing outfit (I don’t play, I just drink and drive the cart toward people who do. It speeds up the game and adds an element of danger).

He informed me that I could not go.

     “What?” I asked, certain I had not heard correctly.

     “You can’t go this time. We’re playing at a country club. It’s Members Only.”

     “Why can you go, then?”

     “I am an invited guest of my friend Phil,” he answered.

     I do not know this ‘Phil’. I don’t know where he lives, where he works, what his relationship is with my husband.  Phil, for all I know, could be a crack addict or work for Hewlett Packard. He could be Methodist.  He probably owns a big screen television and uses one’s name in every sentence.

     “You can’t go.” I told Eric. “You are supposed to file down Trixie’s corns today! You are supposed to tweeze the lawn!”

He kissed me, ON THE CHEEK, and left.  He was not wearing the golfing clothes I bought for him, the yellow and red tartan kilt and a hair shirt so that he’d remember to wash his balls at every hole, like we do at home. Instead he had on (men’s) chino shorts and a dark blue shirt with some sort of reptile on the pocket.

     He looked like someone who would start a sentence with “Say,…”

     I cried all afternoon.

     Well, I didn’t actually cry, I screamed and smashed things and it wasn’t really all afternoon, because I have a short attention span.  I was halfway through making my point in the kitchen and I had slowed and was eating between smashings, when I noticed something reflect light across the driveway. It was two men unloading a riding lawn mower from a truck filled with similar equipment.  The truck said Chavez Landscaping and Maintenance.  The glinting light was not from the metal of the mower or the shiny chrome on the pickup. It was one of the men’s perfect white teeth.  He didn’t have a shirt on.  His body was perfect in a way that made me think of Hot Jesus.  Only soften the ‘J’. In every window of every house as far as the eye could see, up and down the block, stood a gaping woman.

     I dropped the stack of Eric’s sister’s china, which thankfully shattered, and went outside immediately.

     “I don’t care what that hysterical squirrel is paying you, I’ll double it if you do my yard first. Immediately. Everything. Front and back and points between. Do you have tweezers?”

     Sadly, the men did not speak English very well and my Spanish is mostly limited to what I’ve seen Donkeys do to women.

     After gestures and sweating on both our parts, the men agreed to come back today.

     When Eric returned from playing Methodist HP Golf and parroting names back and forth until he was drunk with the ghost of Dale Carnegie, he went outside to mow the lawn. 

     “I have a groundskeeper now, Eric. Your work in our yard is no longer needed.” 

     He shrugged and went back inside to his television. From the back his head, a bald spot the size of a quarter, weakly reflected light from the window.

It Won't Last

Kym and Andre are Monkey and Wife.

Sadly, it was suppose to be our dear friends Perry and David to be married.

     We arrived at City Hall promptly at 10:00.  Kym was dressed in her standard issue pants suit, sensible shoes, purse as big as an ocean going vessel; her new hair perched over the ensemble in protest, sitting like an angry flock of sparrows on her oddly shaped head.  She had aggressively applied a coating of makeup: lipstick, eyeshadow, and most improbable of all: blush.

It is as if she is in the middle of some weird transformation.

      Andre wore a tux, a nice powder blue tux with velvet trim, white ruffle shirt with just a shadow of grey paisley, silk pink handkerchief in his pocket. He had a big diamond horseshoe ring on his little monkey ring finger. Nice touch. His hair was slicked back with an aromatic oil. That monkey is too sexy for his shirt every time. 

     Eric came from work wearing the new clothes I had purchased for him from the Big Woman’s store at the mall.  Elastic waist chino pants and a stripped shirt with a front pocket.

     “These are WOMEN’S clothes,” He hissed at me, instead of ‘Hello’ or ‘You look nice’. He hadn’t known when he left the house that morning that his new clothes were Delta Burke designer originals. He did know something wasn’t quite right, but at least he could get into them without holding his breath.

Someone must have tipped him off to the breast darts in the bosom or the little daisy shaped buttons on the collar. The pocket had hearts embroidered in blue thread.

     “They fit, don’t they?” I shrugged.  “When you lose weight you can have your man clothes back. Cheer up! Only you and Kirsty Ally can pull that look off!”

     Perry and David always take my breath away.  Perry was wearing his mother’s wedding dress, an elegant little gown of white lace with just a hint of taffeta rustle, pink rosebuds on the princess waist. He hadn’t shaved; the contrast was stunning. David wore a black suit from Banana Republic. (tags discreetly tucked away. Only people who are trying too hard BUY from B.R.) He had a red rose tucked in the lapel. They were a giddy, happy couple. The plan was to grab the license and then we’d all head over to the park and I’d marry them in front of the public restroom where they’d first consummated their love. I got my Official Universal Life Church credentials of Ministry just this morning!

     The old woman behind the counter had to be 106. Sadly, she was dressed identically to Eric, right down to the blouse.  Her shirt was in maroon tones, however, which they didn’t have in Eric’s size. 

At first she wouldn’t stop staring at Eric.

     “What the hell do you have on your teeth?” she asked him.

I answered,

     “My husband is a dental miracle: the first successful recipient of an animal tooth transplant in a human.”

I rather like the way his large canine canine juts jauntily from his lip. Like a permanent Elvis sneer. It was a look that Pugsy (RIP) made famous with mailmen. 

     “Excuse me,” Perry stepped up.  “We’d just like to get our marriage license. We have people showing up for a ceremony in one hour!”

He tapped his diamond rainbow watch. 

     The woman, Joyce her nametag read, stared at Perry.  Then she looked at Kym.

     “You two are getting married?”

     “NO!” Perry giggled. “EEEEw!”

Kym rolled her eyes.  The Aged  Joyce in Charge looked now from Perry to each of the rest of us in turn. 

    “Who then?” she asked suspiciously.

David stepped forward and took Perry’s arm. They smiled at each other, and then at the License Maid.

     “No way,” She growled. “Not a chance. We don’t do that here.UH-UH.”

     “Oh, come on!” Eric said, glaring at the aged crone, pulling the elastic waist of his pants up a little too high, having to pull his new thong underwear out of his butt crack. Two inches of his white socks appeared. He completely lacked authority.

     “No! Even if I could, I wouldn’t. It’s an abomination to our Lord!” she screeched.

     “Which Lord?” I asked, uncertain.  She had evenly matched pictures of Jesus and a dusty Charleton Heston sitting on her credenza.  It was eerie how Charleton’s eyes followed you. The frame of his pictures was covered in American flags and guns. Jesus had puppies.

     She ignored me.

     Perry looked crestfallen. He is always such an optimist. He’d brought a disposable camera. I borrowed it now and took a picture of Charleton and Jesus, cutting most of Charleton off. Jesus is so hot.

     It wasn’t really a surprise that we couldn’t get a license for Perry and David.  What was, however, is when Kym stepped up and said,

     “I’d like to marry my guy, then.” She was holding Andre’s hairy little hand in hers.  He showed his teeth to the woman. 

     The disapproving hag looked from Kym and her wild hair to Andre and his perfect coif. Andre’s fake diamonds glinted as he tried to wrestle his hand from Kym.  He hooted softly.

     “Isn’t he a little OLD for you?” she asked, the crusty hatchet.

     “We are in love!” Kym said. Andre’s hand now free was frolicking beneath the folds of his finely tailored slacks. He wore a look of intense concentration.

     “I can see he is, anyway,” The old woman muttered, getting the license forms together.

     We all know, of course, that monkey is as queer as a green ink.  I give it 6 months. Still, I bought them a crock pot.

What would Jesus do?

Stunned

     Lust has once again transformed an animal into a beast. This time, the beast is Kym.  Kym decided that we needed to visit a salon.

     This was the first warning sign for me.  Kym’s hair tends to take care of itself. Kym is a relentless stream of pants suits and bad hair.  She prefers it that way. I have personally witnessed Kym washing her hair in dish washing liquid, anti-bacterial handsoap and once, mistakenly, drunkenly, Yahtzee’s hemorrhoid cream. She’s lucky to have hair. She celebrates this fact by not combing it. “It’s the wild woman look.” She says.

     “Yes,” I agree.  “So is shitting yourself.”

I visit Salons, but only to mock people and buy shampoo. Eric does all my hair care.  Lately, with our new therapy induced lifestyle, I admitted that perhaps I could use a Salon’s touch.

     Needless to say, we were not in Salon territory.  We were in Cut N’ Curl country.  Jenny’s Cut N’Curl.

     Jenny’s hair matched shag carpet from the 70’s. On the end of her dimpled arms she clumsily wielded impossibly long Lee Press- On Nails, painted to match the ‘Merican Flag.  She was barely able to handle a cigarette with one hand and a spray can of something flammable in the other, ironically called Aqua Net.  The very same thing they used to hunt whales in Japan!

     There were 3 chairs. The first was occupied by a very old woman who was having her 36 remaining long white hairs permed. The second chair had a poodle getting it's wiry white coat blow dried.

     The third chair soon held Kym.

     “Come, Katy! Get a new look with me! It will be fun!”

New look…I shuddered, looking around. I could smell poodle hair burning.

Anything Kym has ever said with an exclamation point attached has only come back to jab me in ass.

     ‘Roxanne’ said the manicurist’s smock. She, too, sported extremely unlikely talons painted in an unnatural hue.  Happily, they weren’t theme nails. Or maybe they were; her enormous wad of chewing gum was the exact color.  She looked at me out of narrowed blue hinged eyes as I sat in a waiting chair near her station.

      “You gonna let me do you?” she asked, exhaling her cigarette smoke thoughtfully over my head. “I only got Mitzy ahead of you, but that shouldn’t take too long,” she gestured to the poodle, who was just jumping down from stylist’s chair.

     I’m going to assume that her offer to ‘do’ me, and after a dog, was in reference to a manicure, although, lately, I couldn’t be sure. 

     “My nails?” I asked.

     “Uhhhh.Yeah!” she answered rolling her eyes at me. Taking a white curly paw in hand and she scolded,

     “You’ve been digging, Mitzy!”

I decided to catch up on my reading magazines from the 1980s instead.

     Kym's New Look smacked me back to present.  Softly now, because you can only whisper this sort of horror:

     She was being attacked.  Normally something would have to be drawn to look so farcical, by a team of skilled, self-medicated cartoonists. Puffed up like a hair infection, oozing with bad color, it was like each and every strand was waging a personal war on her head. 

     And the worst part of all was that she had done this in a bid to get GOOD ATTENTION.

     "We must go home at once," I declared upon seeing her wearing a goofy grin and holding a bag of insidious products designed to nurture this sort of hair hostility. Gels, foams, oils...each more flammable and hideous than the last.

     "What? Do you like my hair?" She gingerly touched the orange and yellow-hued ordeal.  She smiled unaware of what was really going on at scalp level.

     "Oh yes. I do like that hair," I appeased her. "You are stunning!" I added.

Which is true. Stunning was certainly one good word for it.