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June 30, 2005
My 2nd Response to Cliff
Cliff -
I hope you don't mind me calling you Cliff. I have a guy on my bowling team named Clifford, but you'd be hard-pressed to hear any of the guys at the lanes call him anything other than Cliff. I'm sure you don't want to hear me ramble on about my bowling buddies, though. You seem to be a real down-to-business kind of guy. I like that, and can tell we'll be getting along just fine. When I was in Africa I didn't see a lot of that. Of course I wasn't in Nigeria, I was in Mozambique.
That was back in the seventies. I was there as part of a US Special Forces team training with the Portuguese military. It was all hush hush at the time, but they had experience fighting in the jungles and we trained there before going to Viet-nam. It was a pretty area, but hot. Boy, was it hot.
Is it hot in Lagos? I picture it being really hot.
But that's just the market we're looking for!
We sell reconditioned and refurbished window air conditioning units. Or if you don't have a window you can cut a whole in the wall -- I'm sure you know the routine.
We deal in other reconditioned electric and electronic things from toasters to graphing calculators, but we definitely do a bulk of our business in air conditioners.
Unfortunately the nature of our business doesn't allow us to put together a catalog. We deal almost exclusively with individual units which means that our inventory is never too steady. That's not to say that if you wanted 100 A/C units we couldn't have them shipped within 2 weeks. It just means that we can't rely on having a certain model long enough to make printing a catalog worthwhile.
I've been bugging my boss for a while to get us some sort of website, but he's been pretty hesitant -- he's not real tech-savvy like you and I. Maybe once I tell him about your interest in our products over there in West Africa he'll change his mind.
Anyway, Cliff, I'll be out of the office for a few days -- over hear in the Good Old U. S. of A we celebrate our independence this weekend, so I'm taking a couple days off to drink a few beers and take my boy and his son out fishing -- but please let me know if our business format - individual refurbished items - fits in with your business model. I'm not positive if you knew we didn't deal in bulk. If you do think that we will meet your needs let me know and I'll trudge through our current inventory to let you know what we've got.
Thanks and have a great 4th!
Harry
Posted by calculatoronfire at 04:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 29, 2005
Response from Cliffton
From: "knule ayoade"
To: calculatoronfire @ hotmail.com
Subject: RE: INTERNATIONAL ORDER
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 16:35:05 +0000
Hello sales,
Thanks for the response and i will like you to know that, i have already knewn that the shipping cost is not like domestic trademeans it is too costly and am assuring you that am capable to pay for the shipment of my order,after i have place order on those item needed from your store,and i promise you that if you corperate with me for the first business transaction that it going to take place within you and i,am assuring you that you will enjoy to do business with me after this order .So i would like you to forwards the catalogue to this address:
38,ofada street
mushin,lagos
nigeria 23401
I will be very grateful if you can send me your website in other for me to place my order faster and concerning about the shipment of my order.I look forwards to hear from you asap.
regards
cliffon
Posted by calculatoronfire at 05:37 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 28, 2005
I Know, Too Much Fake Stuff
The job was shitty, anyway. It was always hot. No one can imagine how hot and greasy it is standing over that stove cooking other people's food until they've done it. Something I don't recommend because it didn't pay well. I only hadn't quit earlier because together with an occasional infusion of cash from my wayward father I had enough to get by and that always seemed like enough. I mean, I didn't have any kids or anything. All I really had was knack for coming into work a little late and a lot hung-over and I kind of liked having a job that I could fit into that sort of lifestyle. Plus I sort of liked taking money from my dad.
My dad walked out on my mom, brother, sister and me when I was about 6. I don't remember exactly when it was, I just remember my mom crying a lot and hearing her say "fuck" for the first time ever. Actually, "That fucking bastard wants to go camping instead of living with you" was more like it. I never really wanted to ask my mom about the details, because it seemed to upset her a pretty good deal, but over the years I put together this rough picture: My dad, as part of a mini mid-life crisis, decided to take night school art class. That led the more routine mid-life crisis thing; he had an affair with one of his classmates. She had pretty much already dropped out of school, just holding on through night classes, but dropped out completely when my dad left my mom for his young mistress. Then the two of them decided to "get back to nature" and rough it in the mountains of Wyoming. That was in the late seventies, and from what I understand, in the spirit of the times.
Their spirit must have changed significantly over the years. In the late eighties they got into real estate, developing luxury condos and huge tracts of pavement on their once reveared camp ground in Jackson Hole. Still a bit niave about the big time real estate business my dad talked his new wife into buying up acreage in some flatter land to the east. "The view of the mountains was magnificent" he told me when I finally tracked him down toward the end of college. But nobody wanted to live in the Wyoming prairie and he almost went broke. Luckily for us all he found out he was sitting atop a huge natural gas reserve.
I say lucky for me because it meant he had money to give me every time I called. $1000 each time. Still I tried to do it as little as possible. Not because I felt bad about taking his money -- I was glad to take everything I could from him -- but because I hated making smalltalk with him and feigning interst in his life.So I always put off calling until absolutely necessary. He would bitch and complain every time, telling me all about the wife and kids he had to support, but every time I'd get a check in the mail within a week.
Losing my job sort of threw me off schedule. I wasn't counting on not getting a paycheck and I waited a little too long to call my dad for an infusion. My phone was turned off for non-payment and I didn't know how to get a hold of him besides the redial button. I had the number in redial, so never thought I'd need to remember it, and I never bothered writing down his address. I always threw away the envelopes he sent the checks in, so I was totally broke.
I sold my car in order to pay my rent. It was my mom's old car, one she gave to me when thought it outlived its life and it didn't get me much more than one month's rent. Without a car I had to sell my matress to get money to buy a bike to get to and from work. Well, interviews anyway. If I had a job I would have been able to sleep on a matress instead of a sleeping bag and a couple old blankets.
I thought a bike was a pretty safe investment. It would get me where I needed to go without insurance and gas hassles. Plus it would score me points with the non-profits where I was applying. I never counted on it being stolen.
While I was interviewing for a job I never got at the Center for Reduction of American Poverty someone walked off with my most valuable possession. Leaving me with little more than the clothes on my back and a 5 mile walk to the apartment I could only call mine for a little over a week.
Posted by calculatoronfire at 05:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 27, 2005
If Only I Had Something to Sell
Cliffton,
We have a wide variety of product at reasonable prices, but do not ship normally to overseas locations (outside of the United States and Canada) due to the customs forms we are required to fill out. We are a rather small company and the forms take quite a bit of man-hours to fill out.
That does not mean, however, that we will not ship overseas. It simply means that overseas shipments incur a rather large shipping cost.
If you are comfortable paying that somewhat sizeable cost please do let me know and I will forward you an electronic catalog as soon as possible.
Looking forward to an exciting business relationship
Harold Van den Elzen
Customer Relations Department Head
>From: "knule ayoade"
>To: calculatoronfire@hotmail.com
>Subject: INTERNATIONAL ORDER
>Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 20:41:29 +0000
>
>Dear Sales,
> These is Cliffon smith the sales manger of Havard international,we
>would like to order for some items from you and we would like to
>know the shipping charges to Nigeria via UPS or Fedex express.We
>would also like to intimate you that payments would be made by any
>of the major credit cards as soon the the quotation is received and
>certified by me,so i would like to you to get back to me with your
>full products list or website for proper selection of items needed.i
>await an urgent response.
>Looking forward to good business relationship with you
> Warm Regards
>Cliffon smith
Posted by calculatoronfire at 11:55 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 25, 2005
Crazy Drivers Out Tonight
Last coming home from the Tavern with Emma we rounded the corner. Well, she rounded the corner. I wasn't driving. I was in no shape to drive. I had a few shots and a couple beers before going over to Emma and Rachel's house where I scavenged through their kitchen and found nothing but tequila. I drank it, of course, and before the nasty taste left my mouth we were already on the road to the Tavern. There I had a couple pitchers of PBR -- cuz at 4.50 a pitcher it's a bad economic decision not to -- before coming home.
It's a good thing too. It seems the crazies were out last night.
When we rounded the corner by my house the corner lesbian bar had a huge hole in it.
We parked and walked down to the bar where 3 or 4 guys were picking up piles of bricks and broken glass. "That door over there is open" they said to us. So we walked in.
I asked the bar owner/bartender, "What happened? Did you decide to get a drive-thru?"
"Ha ha. Sort of."
"What happened?"
"Some guy said he was trying to avoid an accident. But he stepped on the accelerator and drove through the wall."
"It was a Durango. Everyone was saying it was a Durango." Someone felt it important to add.
"Yeah. Could have been. It was a real big SUV."
"Wow. Can we get two Bohs?" I asked.
Emma had a more girlish question. "Was anyone hurt?"
"Three people. Not bad though."
"When the car came through the wall it hit the video poker machines and knocked down one of the older ladies. She's hurt the worst. A broken ankle maybe."
As we left we both wondered aloud. "Do you think it was the Drunk Bankrupt Millionaire Hitman Prostitute's friend?"
"Probably. She always playing that thing."
Whether or not she was hurt you can see the damage at the corner of Lombard and Kresson.
Posted by calculatoronfire at 05:29 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 24, 2005
Donwload a Song by Traitors
Download file
It's small enough to fit here.
But it's not the one I wrote about.
Posted by calculatoronfire at 07:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 23, 2005
Oh, That's What "Tag" Means
When I first got email access I thought it was awesome. I mean, I got to send messages to my friends in real-time. Hell, I think it might have even been before "real-time" and instead I only got to send them really fast.
I think they were as enamored by email as I was because we sent these long-ass emails to each other all the time.
But the excitement waned.
Yet, the amount of email I got didn't. A "friend" or two put me on their list and started sending me every fucking joke they came across. Then someone's mom put me on her poems about angels list. It was funny at first -- the jokes, not the angel crap --- and I even read the stuff.
But my interest in the chain emails dried up as well when downloading porn started taking up larger and larger chunks of my time.
Soon enough my friends' interest in joke emails died, or they just stopped sending them to me because they knew I just deleted the stuff. It was then that I, and my inbox, enjoyed a month or two of relative quiet.
It didn't last too long, however. My roommate and I got his girlfriend naked and covered her with transparent scotch tape. For some reason she interpreted that to be a sign that I wanted her email about why I should boycott Coke, Pepsi, Dr Pepper and Sprite and how if I forward the message to 72 of my closest friends I'd get a free glass of water next time I looked my secret crush straight in the eye.
I don't know, the emails could have said that I never read them.
Then my aunt got in on the act. About 8 years after I got my first email I got an email from her. It was one of the same jokes I saw my freshman year of college.
Before I even read through the whole thing (down to the part that said if I don't forward it to everyone I know I'd have seven years of bad luck) to see if it was any different from the almost-ancient original another one appeared in my inbox. This one about angels.
Yep, all the originals sent out by one person instead of ten.
Then came Myspace which seems to be a great vehicle for things I used to get through forwarded emails. Things like the "How bad are you?" test (I'm bad).
So, I've had a few years of pass-this-on and forward-this emails and such, but never once had I heard anything about being tagged.
For me that was always something kids played at recess or did to the sides of buildings while their friends looked out for cops.
What I'm saying is, Patrick, Sweetney, I apologize for a slow response. I was confused. (Oh, yeah, and I apologize now for making it sound like your responses to the questions to which I'm about to respond are anything like this.)
Total size of music files on my computer.
3.64 Gigs. I mostly listen to cds, but I've got music on my hard drive and even splurged one day and bought an iPod.
That was mostly because someone gave me a gift certificate for taking their fridge from them - they gave me their fridge and then gave me a gift certificate for amazon.com for taking it from them.
(If anyone else wants to give me something for free let me know: calculatoronfire @ hotmail.com.)
Speaking of free, I have dozens of records I don't use much anymore. I've got a lot of old Chicago punk rock (Naked Raygun, Pegboy, etc), Some stuff from the late 80's & early nineties (Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Minutemen), some noise rock, jazz and a bunch of classical. I'm willing to give them away or trade them for railroad ties or whatever.
The last CD I bought was:
I don't know. I don't keep track of this stuff too well. It could have been Picaresque by the Decemberists but I don't think so. It's more likely that I bought a bunch all at once. I think I got a copy of Ryan Adams & the Cardinals double disk, Cold Roses, a copy of The World Clique by Dee-Lite and a CD copy of Social Distortion, which I already have on record and am willing to give away, by Social Distortion.
Yeah. That was probably it.
Nope. It was Gimme Fiction by Spoon.
Or maybe that was the same time.
I went to the store with Emma (Yeah, you're tagged now.) and she got a copy of the Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou which I illegally aquired.
Song playing right now in iTunes:
iTunes is a broke bitch. Last time I tried to use it it wouldn't copy Emperor Tomato Ketchup by Stereolab and the time before that it told me my copy of Thickfreakness by the Black Keys didn't exist.
But just so I have something to put down here I pulled up the program put it on shuffle and out popped Lemon Yellow Black by Jets to Brazil.
Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:
Planetary by Rainer Maria. It's on their album Look Now Look Again on Polyvinyl Records.
Am I Pretty Yet? by Traitors. I've got this song is on a record I'm not giving away. A split 7" with Scared of Chaka on Johanns Face Records.
Enter the Night by Nerves is on comp called Magnetic Curses.
The Mariner's Revenge Song - the Decemberists. I've been listening to this one a lot lately. Just this week I forced Carl of Baltimore to listen to it. (And Carl, by virtue of your mention you are "tagged.")
Cherry Cherry by Unrest on Teenbeat Records.
Want them online? Tell me where I can host them.
Posted by calculatoronfire at 09:10 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
June 21, 2005
This is Fake Too
Sarah and I went out several times. Enough for me to call her my girlfriend not feel too uncomfortable when she told me she loved me. After a while I started to think things were going really well and that we were going to get serious. But she dumped me. She dumped me because I wasn't taking her "any place but mexican dives." She didn't mention that we went dutch half the time, but I could tell by her voice that she meant it.
That hit me pretty hard. Not because I was madly in love with her or anything like that. She did have an amazing body and let me use it however I wanted, whenever I wanted, but she was 18. In some ways she was extremely mature, a very complex girl that could speak in depth on intellectual subjects without sounding like a half-whit. For that I could overlook the awkward stilted sex and the way she all-to-often gagged herself while giving head. But nothing could make me overlook the clinginess. The way I was everything for her. The misplaced idealism that I was hers and we would have seven swans at our beautiful wedding.
I don't know what the swans were supposed to be doing there, but I never asked. I didn't really care. I didn't want it. I wanted the here and now. A beautiful girl with boundless energy at my side. A girl that didn't look down on me because I drove my mom's old car. Because I didn't have a retirement fund. Because I when I splurged I went for a burrito at Alfonzo's. So when she made it all too apparent to me that I had been decieving myself I gladly let things pass.
But that's exactly why it me so hard. Sort of. I mean I was 25 and she was 18. How could she have broken up with me? I'd become the older man they say women are always clamoring for and she'd refused me. Nto just refused me but basically told her I wasn't adult enough for her. For her. A kid. I wasn't at her level, I was below it.
It's not like it was all my fault though. Things were tight because of the student loans. I started getting bills and I had to pay back; I didn't know how to delay them, or defer them or whatever. I guess I could have found out, but I just threw tall that mail to the side and kept putting all of it off. Everything about the whole process intimidated me. It was worse than taxes. They were asking for a big chunk of my money for what seemed like the rest of my life. How is a guy supposed to think clearly under that kind of pressure? I guess I should have. Things started to get pretty bad when the man forced my hand into paying back the school loans back.
For some reason I had decided it was a good idea to go 30-some thousand dollars into debt to get a degreee in philosopy. I guess I got a little bit smarter through college because I realized how stupid it was to spend so much money on a degree that would never earn me a cent. I used to overhear my relatives at family gatherings making cracks about "philosopher for hire" signs and scoff at their ignorance. But forced to pay out monthly for something that was most probably a hinderence to any further money-making I started to think that maybe my Budweiser swilling uncles knew something I didn't.
I'm sure a couple of them knew about dating much younger girlsm but I didn't ask their advice about Sara. Their experience dating the younger girls was usually knocking them up behind their wives' backs. Still the break-up was hard. Actually the break up its self wasn't that bad; I realized I was probably too old for her anyway. But that got me thinking that I was probably too old to be a line cook at a chain bistro and I got a little uppity with the managers. That got me into a bit a trouble.
The first week they only cut my hours. The second week, when I realized that with the hours I was working I wouldn't be able to cover my rent and told them just how bad and menial I thought the job was, they fired me. On the spot. Something I wasn;'t exactly prepaired for. I had a degree in philosophy for god's sake. I don't know if a single other person, besides the part-time bartender had a high school degree. A couple of the other guys in the kitchen might have, but I don't know exactly how the conversion from Mexican works.
I learned that day, though, that they don't have sensitivity training in Mexican high schools. When the other guys in back saw how shocked and hurt I was by getting fired they jeered me and teased me - "Cool-lege Boy. You too good, eh, pendaho?" - so badly that I almost broke into tears. Instead I took a swing at the little Peruvian dishwasher that always grabbed my ass and flapped his tongue at me and ran to my car.
Posted by calculatoronfire at 07:44 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
June 20, 2005
-----Original Message-----
From: brian [mailto:calculatoronfire @hotmail.com]
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 11:41 AM
To: His Brother
Subject: FW: Re: can you read this
Hey Rich Little!
I put the boat out in the abandoned lot behind my house -- the closer one right at the mouth of my alley. Within a day someone tried to steal it. I put it out Thursday night after hitting the bar or something. I don't remember. I just remember it was late Thursday night and I was a little tipsy. Friday when I got back to work I found it moved, some of the (apparently fancier rope) rope cut missing and the winch wire pulled out.
Looks like someone unhooked the boat from the winch that held it on the trailer and took some of the less fancy rope from somewhere else on the boat and tied the boat to the trailer with that then tried to use the winch wire to hook it to their ghetto-ass car or truck. They didn't get too far, though. When I found the boat after work it was still in the lot covered with grubby ass neighborhood kids.
Not that I really wanted to know, but I found it can carry about a dozen of those fuckers, without any parental supervision, of course. They smashed one of the windows, ripped off the top slidy door-thing (I don't know what it's called to me it's the thing. The whole boat is covered with things), threw the part of the door somewhere and were using it as a teeter totter.
When they saw me about half of them ran off. The other even more stupid half stayed on playing with a scrub brush like it was some kind of exotic toy -- I wouldn't be too surprised if they had never seen a mop before, so I guess I understand. I yelled at them. "Get the fuck of of there!" and they just stood there looking all stupid, "Why? Is this your boat?"
When they finally figured out it was mine they ran like hell. One of them left his bike and was too afraid to come back and get it. If it had windows I would have smashed them. Little fuckers.
Anyway, I moved it to the street and covered it with a tarp. Partly to show that someone owned it, partly to keep the rain out of it now that it didn't have a door.
The next morning I went out and noticed someone ripped the tarp off the thing. I guess to see what was inside. There wasn't anything worth stealing in there - the people that tried to steal the boat already got the good stuff. Or stuff they thought was good, anyway. I have no idea why, but I had a jug of cleaning solution, some kind of blue soap, that I was using to clean the boat and they stole that. Not the soap, just the jug. They were nice and poured the soap into a bucket inside the boat.
So assuming it lasts long enough for it to be an issue: Do you know how to hook up the wiring to a battery and a motor to the battery? That's how they do that, right?
I'm thinking of taking it out on the water on the fourth of July without the sails -- 100% illegally, of course.
Brain
Posted by calculatoronfire at 02:33 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 14, 2005
This is Fake Pt 1
I used to smoke crack for the government - the Federal government. I did it as sort of a private contractor. That's what I liked to call it anyway; it made me sound higher on the food chain. Actually, I was more of a sub contractor, or a free agent, but the bottom line is the government paid me to smoke crack.
It was sort of a strange and shitty time in my life. I was nowhere near where I pictured myself only a year or two before. I don't know how or where I took the wrong turn, but just like missing your exit on the freeway I noticed when I'd gone too far: My girlfriend dumped me. I was twenty five and my eighteen year-old girlfriend dumped me.
I met her through my sophmore year roomate. He was back in town for his parents' wedding anniversary -- it must have been their 30th, or one of those round numbers, because he flew back from China where he oversaw some computer chip making factory. On his last night in town he called me up to "do lunch" or some such affected saying for hanging out.
I worked as a line cook at a chain bistro, the same job I'd had when we were roommates, so I couldn't take off on such short notice. I had to move things to after the dinner rush. He said that worked for him, his sister waited tables not too far away and he could pay her one last visit before leaving.
We made awkward small talk mostly around how much fun we'd had when we lived together. We carefully avoided our present situations. For different reasons, of course. I felt a sudden shame, unlike any I'd felt in the years since graduating in the solid middle of my class. He, on the other hand, being the nice guy he always was didn't want to make me feel too badly. He was pulling down a solid six digit salary. Mine was barely that, even if you counted the decimal places. I think he notice. No. I know he noticed. I showed up in my kitchen uniform stained with a brownish mixture of no specific origin. The only blemish I could recall having added to the collection was a splash of grease from an accident with the deep frier.
The bright spot in the conversation for me was his sister. I remember her as a shy little girl. She was maybe twelve then, but the years changed that. They definitely changed that. That and her shyness. Maybe it was because I bore the stigmata of the restaurant industry in my formerly white shirt and she opened up to me as one of her of own, but she opened up. It was something more than just working for tips, that I could tell. So when Geoff, my old roommate, her brother, made his hasty rush out to the airport -- to catch his plane to Xuzhou, or Luzhuo, or where ever -- I stayed behind.
I talked to his sister, Sarah, for a while correcting her that Geoff and I weren't "best" friends, but not letting her know why he didn't call me up until the last day he was in town -- it was a bigger sore spot for him than for me. Toward the end of our junior year he slept with my girlfriend. Technically she wasn't my girlfriend, I'd broken up with her earlier that day, but it still hurt, and I told him so. I got over it pretty quickly - she was a sort of a bitch. That's why I broke up with her. But no matter what I said Geoff always thought I still hated him for it. I didn't want to spoil anything by talking about her brother having sex when all I could think of was having sex with her.
Well, I could also think of how ridiculous I may have looked in my shirt that looked as if I used the kitchen floor as a slip and slide. How my hair felt and stunk like something fried. How my car occassionally didn't start, and how if we passed that hurdle I'd still be a little self concious about the soda I spilled on my bed when I got too high and fell asleep the night before. And how I didn't clean it up.
So I got her number and tried my best to leave a tip impressive enough for her to be home when I called.
Posted by calculatoronfire at 10:21 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
June 09, 2005
Fake Stuff
I think I'm going to add something fake soon.
Please don't call me a liar.
Posted by calculatoronfire at 07:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Keep Your Clothes On!
My parents bought a house not long after I was born. It was going to be their place to raise a family. Complete with a fenced off back yard where they could let the brood run naked.
Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to grow up frolicking naked; one of the neighbors had a daughter that was "going through puberty" at the time and they claimed she would be severely traumatized at the sight of a naked male, albeit a naked toddler. So, aside from a non-parentally sanctioned naked dash into the street on occassion, I was forced to remain clothed when outside.
The old woman that lived up stairs had something to do with my growing up under the impression fully clothed was my natural state.
When my parents bought their house they did so under the impression the old woman that lived on the second floor would move out. But she refused. She was probably in her nineties, and, from pictures I've seen the woman sitting to a couple bratty little boys with bowl cuts (me and my brother. Or so my parents claim), very frail.
Given her age, her precarious hold on life and the fact that she simply refused to leave my parents let her stay. So the bleeding hearts let the old woman take up half their house, crammed their two children and all their belongings into the bottom half and waited for the woman to die.
They waited three or four years until the woman upstairs finally decided to give them back the second half of their house. I'm not sure who cleaned out all her belongings, maybe my parents had to do that. What I do know is that my brother and I used the vacated upstairs as our place house.
All the rooms were empty except for the smell of old people -- Bengay, diapers, or something -- and we entertained all the neighborhood kids there while our parents debated what do with their house that suddenly doubled in size.
I remember on one specific day all the boys in the neighborhood came over. Every single one of them. Boys neither of us knew. The upstairs was overrun with boys -- and only boys -- six and under.
After a lot of running around we finally gathered in the largest room on the floor. We made a circle on the floor previously holding the bed the old woman had died in and we all sat down. It wasn't anything organized, we just sort of ended up in a circle talking, and enjoying our space.
Then one of the neighbor boys pulled out his penis. "Look."
Of course we all looked, but I immediately looked away. I didn't want to look at his "privates." The other boys didn't seem to have a problem with it, though. Maybe they were allowed to run around their back yards naked. I don't know.
I just know someone else pulled their thing out. Then another.
Then started the cajoling. "Come on. I showed you mine. You have to show me yours."
That convinced a couple more to do the same. Then it was just down to the more prudish of us. My brother and I were among them.
"Let's see yours."
I looked to my older brother for guidance. If he would I would.
"OK." The peer pressure got to him. He gave in. He started to unzip. I followed suit. I didn't want to be the only one in the circle without his penis dangling out in front of pants.
I unzipped myself, but before I could pull the thing out my dad appeared in the doorway.
"What the hell are you boys doing?"
We all looked up surprised and sheepish at the sound of an adult's voice.
"Put those things back in your pants."
He stopped for a second as we all stuffed everything back in.
"And don't pull your dick out again until you get a girlfriend."
Posted by calculatoronfire at 06:33 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 07, 2005
Fishing
This weekend Emma and I gathered up a few things and headed to her dad's house in southern Maryland. The plan a few days before was for a mix of water skiing and fishing in the Potomac, but after staggering out of bed hung over from celebrating Emma's birthday the night before, the plan was changed to include only fishing.
We should have seen it coming. When I told her I wanted to take her out to dinner and asked what she wanted her reply was simply, "wine." So we went out for wine and some incredibly small plates of food. After that we went out for some beer and whiskey. After that more beer and more whiskey.
We got into the boat and Emma's dad announced, "I talked to an expert and he
told me where to go to really get the fish. we're going to get some big ones today."
The "expert," however, turned out to be something short of and expert. At least in my book. Cast after cast came back without so much as a nibble. Things went on that way until we were heading back. I got a bite on my line and reeled in a fish. I got it to the boat and lifted it halfway out of the water.
The fish turned out to be too small to keep. So small, in fact the hook didn't even fit entirely in its mouth and it was easily able to jump right off when he saw my big land-lover hand reaching for it.
Later after catching nothing but seaweed and logs at the bottom of the river I reeled in a real fighter. I've never had a six inch long fish put up such a fight. Out of respect for its fighting ability and its diminutive size it was immediately thrown back.
But the image of that fish still haunts me. Its wide gaping mouth confused and gasing for air. -- I dated a girl like that.
She was a bit older than me, somewhere in her mid thirties at the time, so it surprised me entirely when she kissed like it was her first time. She just opened her mouth as wide as it would go and left it agape. I didn't know what to do with the thing, but I tried to adapt. I think I did pretty well until the end, when I got tired of dealing with the wide-open mouth. I quit and drew back. Then she would snap her mouth shut.
I thought it was both frustrating and hilarious the first time, but I tried to overlook it. As it became more and more apparent to me that I didn't want to date her any longer I had more and more fun with it, trying to see how long she would stand there straining to keep her mouth wide open.
Still, it wasn't until after she made fun of a prudish friend of her's that I openly laughed. "We had to teach her how to french kiss. She didn't even know."
"Really? You taught her how to kiss? She must have been bad."
"She didn't even know to open her mouth at first. Then after we told her she had to she would just open it."
"You mean just leave it hanging open?"
"What do you mean?"
It was then that things changed. I first felt a tinge of guilt, even though I hadn't meant to say that she just left her mouth hanging open. Then I thought about her making fun of the way her friend kissed and I realized it was ok. I started telling friends. Co-workers.
Then I broke up with her.
My intent was to break up on good terms. I must have over done it on the good terms part because she still asked me to go to her friend's wedding with her.
"No."
"Please."
"No. I don't feel comfortable doing that. We just broke up."
"I know, but you're the only person I can ask and I need to bring someone."
After some more begging I acquiesced. "Fine. I'll go. As your friend."
I don't know what I was thinking. The whole time she asked me to hold her hand, "just for appearances" and to kiss her.
"No. No way. Not part of the deal."
"Come on. Give me a kiss."
"No."
When we were alone for a second she ran at me and gave sort of a flying tackle. She pinned me up against the wall and opened her mouth wide. Wide like she was yawning or like she was going to scream. Instead of doing either she pressed the thing against my face, surrounding my mouth.
The laughing was muffled at first, but when she pulled back sheepishly and looking somewhat stunned it was definitely audible.
She didn't ask me for a kiss again after that.
Posted by calculatoronfire at 07:42 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
June 03, 2005
He's Going to Kill Me
My mom called the other day in what sounded like horrible condition. She was sniffling and could barely talk. It sounded as if she'd been crying for hours at least.
"Brian. This is mom. Call me back. I need a recipe for banana bread."
I wasn't sure what to think. She has never thrown away anything in her life. I'm sure she can find a banana bread recipe in atat least one of the dusty, yellowing cookbooks that fill a shelving unit, the kitchen table and a few choice spots around kitchen floor. Why would she call me asking for a recipe for banana bread?
But that was all a secondary thought. A thought pushed to the back by the one that commanded my attention - Why the hell is she crying?
Perhaps vainly, I scared myself into thinking that as her most understanding and sensitive I was the one child she'd call first if there was trouble.
I wanted nothing to do with it.
So, to avoid walking into a trap I called up my brother. He still lives fairly close and I figured she would call him as Emotional Support Plan B.
"Nick. Did mom call you?"
"No. Why?"
"She left this messed up message crying and sniffling asking for banana bread."
"What? Why?"
"I don't know. I didn't call her back. I don't want to call if she's going to freak out. I mean, she could barely talk. And I know she has a recipe for banana bread with all those..."
"There's probably a recipe in every one of those fucking books."
"No shit. I can't think of what it'd be about."
"Don't call her then."
"No. I'll call. If it was a big deal she'd have called you already."
"Whatever, dude. I wouldn't call."
I ended up calling my mom and found that she sounded so bad because she had a serious bout with her seasonal allergies. And it was a banana bread recipe she wanted. A specific one in a specific book. The 1962 Betty Croker cookbook she'd given me several years ago.
"Hey, Emma. Remember how I told you I didn't want to call my mom 'cuz I thought she'd freak out on me?"
"Yeah. You should call."
"I did. She just wanted a banana bread recipe -- just a second. She's calling again."
"Brian. I think your father is going to kill me." This time she really was crying.
"What?"
"I think he's going to kill me."
"What are you talking about." My dad once tear gassed a grilfriend of mine and once pulled a shotgun on my sister's boyfriend, but all things considered I don't think he'd actually kill anyone.
"Well I opened his email and I saw this message that they added someone else to the library board and I know he's going to be SO pissed." My mom likes to put a heavy accent on the word immediately before any "bad" word, and to her "pissed" is a bad word. "And I just think he's going to kill me."
"What? Because you looked at his email?"
"Yes. No. No. Because he thinks he's going to loose his job. That EVIL bitch is trying to take his job. How do I deal with it?"
"I don't know. If he gets pissed just avoid him."
"He's probably JUST pissed already."
"I thought he didn't know. You read the email. He hasn't seen it?"
"I wouldn't read any email he hadn't looked at already."
"So he's already gotten the email, and probably has a couple days ago and he's still going to be so pissed he's going to kill you?"
"You know your father. He just goes crazy sometimes."
"Uhh. Yeah. I don't think he's going to kill you mom. Listen. I'd just avoid him if he's pissed. But I have to go. Emma's here and I..."
"Ok. But call tomorrow."
"Like to see if you're alive? Are you serious?"
"Well, you could just say that you called to see how his trip was. He likes hearing from you."
"Ok. I'll call."
"Get your brother and sister to call too, if you can."
"Ok."
Posted by calculatoronfire at 05:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack