Stories

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

From an Undergraduate's Essay



On American Cable news networks in the Early 21st century: “… I watched them, baffled at their narrative’s unbelievability. The world they presented seemed simplified unto stupefaction, completely irreconcilable with the world of lived experience: with the complex, often ambiguous, motivations and intentions of those around us, our loved ones. 
“Bushwhacked thusly by psychologically depthless, ahistorical, wholly unrecognizable representations, is it any wonder why only 30% of these American—citizens of one of the most affluent countries in the world—had valid passports? Is it any wonder their police, often from white-middle class backgrounds, felt justified in using surplus military equipment to patrol their own streets, “keeping the peace?” Can we be shocked that—despite the slightly-more-than-questionable history of their Government’s intervention in the political and economic self-determination of countries across the globe—many Americans were still surprised to find that so many people disliked them, or didn’t trust them? Or, indeed that, after their economy failed in ‘08, so many were left standing around, Hoover flags flying again, wondering what hit them and muttering ‘CDO, Glass-Stiegel, Greenspan’ like the chorus of a pop song they heard, somewhere—if they could just remember where…
“Could it be that their demand for accessible and entertaining narratives—a news to drink a beer to, an easy good-guy-versus-bad-guy bedtime fable—had been truly harmful? Could it be that their so-called ‘truth with teeth’ turned around and bit them in the ass?”   

Day Dreaming of Stand-up



A bad taste in my mouth. Comfy chair. Warm. Someone just left. Colder than expected outside. There’s a table I can put my legs on though…Tired…Nobody’ll mind if I uh… Nice comfy head rest uhh...
A large theater. All the seats are filled. People talk over beers, across tables. The lights dim and they applaud the opening curtains. Fuckin’ spotlight.
 [Walk on stage] Thank you, thank you. [Bow] Thank you.
 Yeah, so it’s strange living in Humboldt County (Man in crowd: Yeeeeahh wooo) [point] That dude knows what I’m talking about. On the one hand Arcata, Where HSU is, and to some extent Eureka, are like any other city in California. There’s just a lot more pot  (Audience chuckle of appreciation, anticipation building) On the other hand, when you get out of Arcata or Eureka you start getting weird combinations cause there’s kind of a bunch of… nothing (anticipation building)…with some people growing pot (small laugh)... you wander too far and you’re in like.. Deliverance territory… if those guys from Deliverance were growing pot (hahaha!) Its funny cause in the media it's always [news anchor voice] “oh, you smoke pot, you must be… like liberal… or… counter culture… a hippie or… or like …one of them uppity minorities” or somethin (Audience chuckles with righteous indignation).
And in Arcata this kinda has a backwards effect. You get to Arcata… and you begin to think Bob Marley’s real name was Bradley Spalding Wilkinson and was a middle class white kid with a future in hedge funds, and instead of talking about “jam rock”  everyone was trying to “get back to Plymouth Rock!”[in Jamaican accent](hahaha!)
[Pause as laughs trickle out]…But outside Arcata its nuts… There’s a chapter of the Klan in this town McKinleyville (booo…)…the Ku Klux Klan… they call it McKlanleyville (audience small, in-the-know, laugh) And there are enough people to make up a chapter! Which seems counterintuitive in Humboldt County cause Pot and White supremacy seem mutually exclusive… like White supremacists are supposed to be…angry retired Teamsters or uhh… Small town Sheriffs (laugh of recognition)… or BART Police or something…you know someone with a lot of excess energy and an inferiority complex (decent size laugh)… but they’re not! At least not all of them…Their names are Bradley Spalding Wilkinson and they smoke pot and listen to Kenney Chesney and get super fucking racist! (Large laugh) And it doesn’t make any sense! You’d think they would get stoned and lose interest… imagine, you know, get exhausted… like
“ahh man, where’d you get these Gummy Bears? [pleasure sigh] I’ve never tasted anything like them
“Ahh yeah Bro and their totally white… they’re from Germany!”
“Oh thank god, I was afraid…I was like Bro, with a name like Haribo… they better not be Japanese… (slurred) comin’ over the border n bein like “wassup Dawg I’m the president” (small laugh)
[looks at Steve] “Ah Steve, Dammit, you got it all wrong it’s the Mexicans that’re comin over the border, Barak Obama is an African, and the Japanese make them Computers for to spy on us with.” (growing laughter)
“What? You goin all Lesbian on me? Like you some big hot shot workin at the HSU, tellin me I needa stop driving my truck n’ worry about the environment?” [Steve takes hit of joint] (large laughter)
[after extended pause the laughter, character looks at Steve, shakes head]“Steve, now, it’s the Lesbians that want the Birth control, and it’s the communists that work at the HSU, tellin you to stop drivin’ your truck”
“Shut up, I knowd what a Communist is n yous a communist.. Hows your wife goin a feel knowin yous a communist? Can’t raise a family on being a Communist! (exhails) Too much Dick! That’s too many Dicks for growin up.[Steve looks at friend] Whut? Thas Wrong?... Fuck it..this shit is hard, I can’t keep it straight… Im goina play some video games…” (large laugh, applause)
[Continue after pause] Anyway, So I was an English Major at Humboldt which implies two things… One, I’m a dumb ass for choosing the school farthest away from any possible career in writing (small laugh), and Two: That I really, really like being an awful goddamn hipster (large laughs, applause)…which I do[say over laughs]… I went to school to do that; its what my degree is in: taking things that people like and talking about them ad nauseum with some strange jargon until you wanna punch me in the face, and you’d hate whatever it was we were talking about if you could even remember it (laugh of appreciation).
Being an English Major was interesting because every class is like a narcissist support group (laugh of anticipation). Every day we’d come in having read something that nobody in their right mind has any business reading—like some absurdly pedantic treatise on how we can tell that Ernest Hemmingway had a secret vagina because of the way he used a comma (laugh of recognition, applause). Then we talk about it as if anyone who didn’t know about Ernest Hemmingway’s secret vagina is an illiterate sexist facist and secretly everyone in the room is talking to themselves, going “you’re all illiterate sexist facists!” (large laugh). Then you go home and plot your next essay: an even more absurdly pedantic essay on how, secretly, hidden within Ernest Hemmingway’s secret vagina, is another! Even more secret vagina! (large laugh and applause).
(Heckler: “I bet you do have a VAGINA BRO!”) Alright sir, calm down, don’t strain yourself thinking about a better insult, being stupid puts a lot of stress on the body and you need to use everything you’ve got to figure out how to get your lady friend there drunk enough to not notice how small your penis is. (Laughs, applause, whistles and hoots. “You told him,” someone yells.)
Anyway, continuing with what I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, I don’t wanna knock feminism [laugh, look like I’m thinking about it, get serious] I DO NOT WANT TO KNOCK FEMINISM… (chuckle) I did that once… I had a girlfriend at the time… she crawled up my ass so far… by the end of it my balls were all deconstructed, my dick was signifying all over the place and I couldn’t discourse straight for weeks, you know… she did, she ripped me a secret vagina (small laugh some applause)… We broke up a while ago…she said she “couldn’t be with somebody who has so much hostility toward women”... whatever that means…ha…Technology has really murdered the modern relationship.
The entire time I was with her I kept thinking “man, it would be awesome to never have to comment on another fucking picture or send another fucking text message again” (laughing, nodding, elbow prodding). I had a recurring awesome dream from which I would wake up happier than you would believe: I was an English Nobleman in the Nineteenth century and I was writing a letter to my girlfriend that went something like this, “Dearest Virginia, (laughter) [pause for laughter] I regret to inform you that I have fallen ill and must resist the urge, though it be great, to see you for at least a fort night as I will undoubtedly be contagious…” and I never made it to the end because I started giggling uncontrollably and shouting “I’m free! I’m free! Muahaha! There’s so much time now!” (small laugh) Time for what, I am not exactly sure because it is the nineteenth century, (small laugh) but it could never end the way that would today. Back then, the angry girlfriend with a car was nonexistent and (expectant chuckle) Traveling was much more of an ordeal and there were no assholes named Tim to tag you as “@Golfland kicking ass at Time Crisis.” (chuckle of recognition) Therefore there could be no such response as “what kind of cryptic bull shit is this! I will come see you,” (large laugh of recognition) [say over laughter] and the 4 hour long conversation would thus be circumvented and I could avoid being called a chauvinist.
I’m not saying sexism isn’t bad though, you know… like fashion… “the shaving of the vagina” I think is the great untapped resource of comedy… it can’t always be a fun sexy process… although I’m sure it often is because the internets have assured me of this… sometimes it’s just gotta be a hassel… like standing over a mirror trying to position yourself just right, gotta get in there with the [make awkward motion]… its gotta be a chore… I dunno.. (ha) On the list of things to do today: “laundry, go to the bank, do the dishes, shave my vagina…” well, I don’t know… maybe it makes people happy… Maybe there’s something else to the shaved vagina fetish… ha, like being civilized… one of the corner stones of our American Civilization: “Freedom, Liberty, Shaved VA-GI-NA [sweeping hand gesture, straighten posture].” I guess men shave their balls too… I had a friend who said he shaved everything for swimming…Is that the idea? I think I like that idea for America… “most aerodynamic country in the world!” (laughs) That’s why we’re the best… That’s what the rest of the world wants… fuck self-determination, they want our Zippy sex [hand gesture to show how zippy].
I’ve never been out of the country though, and I feel like I’m missing out. Not on seeing shit. Fuck that. I can see plenty of shit here. But everyone who goes abroad always says what an eye opening experience it is. They always say how it “totally changed the way they look at Americans…” I want that! I’m way too used to us. I never really feel surprised at our stupid shit—like that school in Montana firing a whole bunch of Counselors and buying a whole bunch of guns, or Taylor Swift, or the Blue Collar Comedy Tour (laughter of appreciation). I feel like going out of the country would let me see it on a whole new level of stupid—I’m being held back(expectant laughter)[pause for effect]: my snobby cynicism could be so much more developed than it is: I coulda been a contender: I needa go to France. I mean I’ve got all the makings of greatness: I worked at Starbucks, I was born in the Bay Area, I was an English Major…Shit I went to Humboldt State University! (laughter of recognition) How much more fart sniffing Al Gore ass-licking can I get! I need this! The French are to snobs what Kenyans are to Marathons! They’re the greatest! (big laughs all around) Thank you! Goodnight! [bow, put the microphone back on the stand. Walk off stage].  

“Sir,” a voice in the dark, “Sir.”
“Yessss...."
"Sir"
"Huh, huh, What?” It’s brighter than it should be backstage.
“Your Balls are hanging out of your shorts.”
A cool breeze, “Uh, huh, hmm.” 
The exit is sixteen long steps across spongy gray carpet. (Applause).

One Bright American Morning



One Bright American Morning
One bright American morning. Birds are conferring in trees outside small suburban homes; minivans are humming, children grab-assing, parents developing new stress lines. A man in a Friday-Hawaiian shirt and mother-made Docker’s cut-offs is proving he’s not too old to boogie down the street; he ignores depressing pit stains already present at the premature hour of 8:30 AM, temporarily forgets the shockingly pale circular tan line on his right ring finger, steps in something, woa, hold on, pretty stinky. Lifting his right foot to examine the something now, and yes, the man’s suspicions are confirmed: this is dog shit on his casual Friday sneakers.
             He looks what-th’-fuckly around him, finds no dogs to bring the hurt to, and begins shuffle-marching around on the month old black top. Cars pass, passengers look curious. The man trails the shit onto the weedless sidewalk and over the impeccably manicured lawn of a man he knows from the Home Owners’ Association and who is, uh oh, nodding and frowning: guess who’s not getting invited to Linda Gland’s Fondue Get-Togethers any more, Pal. Outcast, he stops marching and sad-bastards himself down on the curb.
            He watches the morning traffic: carpooling parents white-knuckling their way to elementary schools, distracted High-Schoolers driving cars too expensive for their own good, University students that may or may not be clients of his, laughing pretentiously into their black coffees at their fat, lazy, mustached, nervous, porn-addled-since-Marideth-left—probably  depressed, possibly alcoholic, definitely cries when watches 16 and pregnant, continually eats cheese-wiz from the can, still owns two years supply of Muscle Milk powder (because it was on sale one day at GMC next to the gym he went to for two weeks untold years ago and never went back)—drug flashback having, lonely, etcetera, etcetera, Property Manager. His heart races, he feels a little dizzy. He tries to hide his face in his knees but catches a whiff of shit so strong he almost loses his Honey Bunches of Oats. He loses but then regains some Honey Bunches of Oats. He watches the street.
            At 8:40 or so, some girl, carelessly, arrogantly, drops a blue plastic unicorn from the window in back of a Minivan. The Unicorn had an improbable smile, blonde hairdo and legs frozen mid-prance. All of that lasted until about the fourth or fifth car, at which point the poor little guy just couldn’t keep it together any longer. Ten cars pummel over the Unicorn before the Property Manager can finally to part the traffic, like Moses,  and retrieve the tiny blue pieces. I will love you, my friend, since no one else does. He puts the Unicorn in his shirt pocket.
              By 9 o’clock the street is nearly deserted. The Property Manager is, uh-oh, rocking back and forth with Docker’s cut offs exposing a little too much pastey white thigh. He has begun incanting something in an unknown language. He is stinking like shit. Stinking especially like shit because, now that there are no cars, there is nothing to disturb the fetid stench surrounding him. The essence of dog rises up, unimpeded, through curling nose hairs, into his brain. It brings switchblades, leatherjackets and names like Chip to shittify the inner alleyways of his olfactory bulb, to drag race along his Corpus Callosum.
So the Property Manager got to thinking, What do I have to do to catch a goddamn break? Ey, Chip? Why me? Either, he decides, the shit is as it seems—malevolent turd of a sociopathic dog—or, and this idea walloped him like the 10 ton number 1 bus from Eureka, Jackass: this feces is political. Of course, it’s all coming together now. That song in the Eighties about lynching landlords, the effeminate singer who ran for mayor of San Fransisco, all those things Papa used to say about communists and their hatred of free enterprise and boogying and casual Friday sneakers. That really was the ghost of Ronald Reagan that came to him last night, and he really is in trouble!
He leaps between two cars parallel parked along the street and spies the whole street thoroughly, eyes truly open now! He cups his ears, straining to hear any clandestine snickering. “Here to destroy my way of life!” he hollers at the empty street. Al Qaeda? Marxists?! Are the dogs in on it? Oh ho ho this goes right to the top! CIA, the President of the United States, Illuminati! He sees a small gray finger-puppet of a dog frisk down the street, and he dives under the car behind him, sucking in his gut, to shimmy under the rear axle.
Immediately he regrets the way of life comment. It’s the dogs, of course, why didn’t he see it? Dogs, dog shit. After the eons of canine oppression there’s no telling what kind of doom they have planned for the human race. Are they dog Marxists? It was stupid to antagonize them like that. With difficulty he is able to maneuver one arm around and into his Docker’s pocket, groping for something, anything, to show the dogs he was just kidding about “the way of life thing” and that, really, he’s on their side. He hears the jangling of a collar and some investigatory sniffing from behind him, but he can’t turn his head to see if it is a dog—regular enlisted-man, dog storm trooper. The breathing gets heavier, is it his own?
“Those donations to the SPCA were ameliorative at best!” he takes a chance and yells, “I was fooling myself. I know that now and I acknowledge my debt to the International Woofers of the world!” He makes several failed attempts to woof the Internationale.
He seems to have passed the test; the dog leaves him alone. He attempts to shimmy out from under the car, but his shirt seems to be caught. He will die under this car. He flails his arms and kicks his feet like a drowning man. His phone rings. He is in no condition to answer it. He knows who it is anyway. He is late for work.
What if the dogs are not in on it? What if there is no it? No conspiracy against him? Maybe even no sadistic dog? Just dog? There are still no cars on the street, no breeze, no sound of leave rustling. He begins to feel alone again. His blue Unicorn friend is stabbing him in the chest. He tries to move off of him but fails, resigns himself to the stabbing discomfort. Alone. He maneuvers his hand back into his shorts for his phone and calls in sick to work. 

At 9:30, Marge Trujillo, 3 year secretary at Sterner and Fister Property Management, 6 year reigning Hot Dog eating champion of Northern Humboldt County, and this year recipient of “World’s Best Mom” mug—which she accepted graciously but which she felt, frankly, was a long time coming—was too busy fist-pumping to the most recent single by the Biebs to notice the phone ringing. When the single ended and the existentially mortified Emmy “This-Is-Just-a-Summer-Job” Fister was able to alert her to the red flashing “message” light, Marge received this message:
“Goddammit, [Grunt, sigh, confined breathing]. No, I’m not… [sexual grunt?] Listen. I’m, huh, not coming into work today. Oh god what the hell. Listen, you can pray for a dog revolution here but you’re really just alone in the world right now, oh god this is not working. Marjorie, nooo. Make sure you, somebody at the office, maybe have This-Is-Just-a-Summer-Job do it, or whatever. One of you women there call Terry about the leak at John Mougham’s place on 12th street. The kids there say there’s a leak.. a big FUCKING [another sexual grunt?] leak. I don’t know. Sorry about the Fucking. There’s a cat. Box. Shit floating around since four P.M. yesterday. Sorry about the shit. Um. I think we bit the big one here…Sorry. Uh. Then go home. Everyone go home. Tell Fister to take Summer Job home. Everyone home. Don’t eat my Snicker’s bar in the freezer I’m saving that for a special occasion. Oh… oh god! [sound of passing car] Help! Help me! [click].”

     Marge, confused, but excited she gets to take the day off, shoves an ooo still cold and sticky, chocolaty, Snicker’s wrapper in her bottom drawer and calls Terry, the repair man.
Terry, woken by Marge’s call, searches for his one clean pair of jeans in the dark and finds a pair that, well, will just have to do. He takes two resiny bong rips, a good-morning sized swig of tequila, and prepares to be hassled for yet another day.
He arrives at John Maugham’s place at 10, has the leak fixed by 10:45, makes the required “I’m sorry, man, I’m just doing what I can” face at the unhappy tenants who, hey that’s new, hold up a wet shivering cat. He’s out of there by 11. Minimal hassle, all in all, alright. Passing the pet store he remembers he has to get food for his pit bull.
When  he gets home Sarah leaps from the couch into his arms and commences face-licking. Terry unloads Sarah, big girl, slits open the food bag with his handy dandy box cutter and pours the food in her surplus army helmet/dog bowl. Then he goes to take a shit.
When he gets out of the bathroom, Sarah starts scratching at the front door.
“Ah, you too buddy?”
Terry snatches the leash from behind the couch, wrestles Sarah into the collar and takes just a teenyweeny snap outa his roommate’s Yoshi bubbler before leaving the house. Two houses down Sarah takes a shit the size of Newt Gingrich, right on the sidewalk, in record time, and doesn’t even bat an eye. Terry, shocked and awed, scopes the scene for potential hasslers, finds none, and keeps on walking.
When he gets back home, he turns off his phone and jerks it to some girl he saw proselytizing for the SPCA at a bus stop—why yes, I would like a flyer lady. No I haven’t thought much about my dog’s vagina lately but maybe we can get together sometime and talk about it? Yeah?
When he gets done with that he turns on Maury and, during a commercial for Wyotech, thinks, maybe I’ll go back to school, or get my Class A license or something.

How I Met Maria



How did I meet Maria?
Well, I was wandering the train tracks one day, stoned like a whore in Biblical times, when I happened upon two men, standing in the middle of the tracks. They had their hands on their hips and were staring, furrow-browed, into the distance. In the distance there was a tree. In the tree there were two bald eagles, mid coitus. In honor of my being chosen to share with these wonders of the natural world the culminating moment of what I hope to be their mutual attraction, I stopped with the two men and looked on; participating with what I thought was appropriately appreciative awe.
“Jaayeesus,” the one nearest me says. He turns and motions to the birds, “you believe this?” Uncertain about the nature of his concern, I try to manage a look that is both grateful and indignant. Upon the success of my countenance change, the man turns back to his friend who, shocked, murmurs something that I think is, but of course couldn't be: “them gay birds up ‘n did it to Jesus this time.”
“Those are two dude birds up there, pal,” the man nearest me says, “and they have skipped the entire wondrous bald eagle mating ritual and have started to bang each other. In that tree.” The man turns back to his friend. “God help them Jerry.”
“Bald Eagles can’t be gay Tom,” Jerry howls, “listen to yourself. They’re America’s most beloved solitary regal creature. They are America. And America is not gay. Therefore the Eagles can’t be gay.”
“Its right there,” Tom reasons, “clear as day. It’s a fact of birds, Jerry, and we have to deal with it.”
"What are you two doing out here?" I ask, concerned at this point that this debacle will cause me to miss my favorite show: the one where the Famous people dance poorly but sometimes goodly on Wednesdays, 10 pm Eastern, 6 pm pacific, on Fox.
"Bird watching,” he says. “Been doing it for a few months. It was therapeutic, until..."
Jerry, apparently overcome by his inability to reconcile the ostensible bird facts with what he knows in his heart to be true, throws down his camouflage hat: “you don’t know what they’re doing, don’t anthropomorphize willy nilly. That,” he points to the two birds fucking in the tree, “could be pruning. Can’t one heterosexual man prune another heterosexual man’s feathers and not have it be gay?”
 “With his bird penis Jerry?” Tom says, shaking his head “He’s pruning him with this little bird penis?” I alert Tom to the clocal. “Weird,” he agrees.
Jerry’s shoulders cave. His fists clench at his sides. He depresses into the fetal position.  “Oooo,” he explains. He has lost the ability to affect control in his voice; rather, it leaks out of him, not unsexually, like a super-personal fart from the deepest corner of his darkened soul.
“What is it? Jerry?”
“The depression is starting.”
“Stop it Jerry!” Tom kneels and administers comfort-stroking to Jerry’s back, “We can get through this.” He clenches the fist of his other hand and shakes it, ruefully, at the tree.
“Ooo,” Jerry begins the rocking, back and forth.
“Stop it Jerry, you must fight it. Don’t let it run you! Who’s my big guy?”
“I’m despondent.”
“What’s happening to him?” I ask.
“It’s his depression.” Tom says, standing up, “It’s being activated by that shitty thing those birds are doing in that tree,” He shoots a furiously narrow-eyed glare at the birds; one disapproving eyebrow goes way up. He kneels back down. “It’ll be all right,” he strokes Jerry’s camouflage vest, “we just needa get you away from those gay birds. Who’s my big guy Jerry?
“I’m your big guy,” Jerry said into his hat.
We were starting in the direction of his car when Jerry completely catatonic, then rigid, standing straight as a board. He shakes his head like Linda Blare returning from the beach, then vanishes.
“Jerry!” Tom attempts to reason before vanishing into the woods after him.
I debate following them. Very rarely do I go into the forest, and when I do, I usually get covered with ticks and smacked with branches. Both of which I hate, utterly. I think about the dancing I will almost surely miss.

I follow Tom’s red hunting jacket because, well, Jerry’s camouflage is actually doing a pretty good job. I find them, eventually, under a large redwood. Tom looks worried. Jerry is looking up into the tree like the Front Door Man and just found out about the Back Door Man. The Eagles look sated.
Suddenly, with the intensity of a man at least twice as drunk, Jerry lets out a mighty halooo. With the swiftness of a man half his size, he strips off the outer layers of camouflage, all the way down to his leopard patterned undies and leapt at the tree, and wraps two stubby, milk white arms around the trunk. He says something about going up there, motherfucker cannonball slick birdshit, fella… Jerry’s voice gets louder as he struggles up the tree and somewhere near the first branch we can apparently catch the tail end of that train of thought: “to stop the superfluous flow of semen in godless, sodomite, ungay married, symbols of national pride, like Jesus and sunsets,” he raises the finger of reckoning to the birds, “and by god, you keep fucking that bird like that, for chrissakes, I get so fed up, I’m not gonna take it anymore.” He digs his toes into the bark, “I’m just not gonna take it anymore, that’s what I’ll do, I get so fed up.”
Though he sounded like someone kept changing his channel, his tenacity impresses me. And what’s more! After this speech, in a hallucinatory moment unity, in a dignified sweep signifying Homo sapiens' ascent from base anarchistic animal to Measure of All Things, Jerry pulls an iPhone from his asscrack and makes a call. Now I, too, come to feel invested in his success: his triumph over his morbid affliction. “Go you!” I felt like shouting after him, “you crazy man!”

Jerry comes within pouncing distance of the birds but, alas, the birds (as birds will on occasion do), fly to a different tree. Undeterred, Jerry scuttles around for a bridging branch, feeling, despite his beer gut, like a natural canopy dweller, reverting back to his proto-human state, tearing around that tree like a great bleached and shaved ape. And, my god, he truly has ascended—neither wholly man nor ape but choosing beneficial aspects from both, as needed; “Go you!” I do shout, “Ubermensch!”
He swears the Eagles piously. He grasps branches from all around him, even tearing at the ones beneath his feet, to throw at the Eagles, to maim them, brain them, punish them as only a man in a leopard print banana hammock can! “I’m not sublimating sexual tension!” He screams into his cell phone, “I’m not sublimating sexual tension!”
Jerry’s metamorphosis into the Ubermensch is so complete now that it looks for a moment, gazing intently upon bough so thin no high wire act among men would dare attempt to cross, that he, Jerry of someplace near Mckinnleyville, might make it to the other side. The birds stare at him doubtfully as he straddles the branch, hip-thrusting himself away from the safety and into possible greatness—he went way, way out. Tom and I are stunned. The limb shook with each hip thrust, tiny nettles fell on Tom and me as we watched, gaping mouthed, Jerry’s death defying, anguished, design.
Alas, just as he was reaching for the nearest branch from the other tree, he slipped. Greatness was not for Jerry of probably near McKinnleyville that day. He was only able to keep himself from falling off completely by clenching his buttocks around the limb that he was currently straddling, but, because he was forced to use both hands to keep his balance, he lost hold of his iPhone.
The phone plummeted and as Tom and I moved to avoid it I was hit by a branch, goddammit. The phone shattered on an exposed root and Jerry began to cry. After some spit-filled sobs, Jerry was able to accurately convey the therapist’s home phone number to Tom through halfhearted, despondent semaphore. Tom called the therapist from my cell phone, relayed Jerry’s status, and delivered the therapists message back to Tom, via much more cheerful semaphore, who came down several minutes later.
 After I saw Jerry safe to his car, I parted ways with them. And then I ran into Toni who said she was having dinner with Daniel, and would I like to go. Anyway I said yeah and that’s how I met Frank. Maria’s Frank’s little sister.