stripper files

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2029-12-31T23:40:00.000-05:00

(C)2004-2129 akm/hncg/amanda m. ALL rights reserved.

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

Mahatma Gandhi
Indian ascetic & nationalist leader (1869 - 1948)

This is a work of fiction. Unless, of course, it's more interesting to you if it is a true tale of self-destruction and debauchy, then it is a true story, except that every other word has been changed to protect me from stray paternity suits and miscellous slander and libel charges, in which case it was all made up during a bad week drowning my sorrows in a bottle of cheap whisky and expensive sex... So, really, ANY resembelance to any persons, living or dead, is purely and absolutely coincidental.
The author reserves all rights. The author reserves every single last stinking one of them. I have to eat too, ya know!
Please email for permissons.
(C)2004-2029 akm/hncg/amanda m.

58 - love is a rose

2013-07-27T00:21:00.002-04:00

Someone hands me water and I take a moment to gulp it down, it's in between songs and the piano guy is playing something without thinking while they figure out what they want to do next. I hear the trumpet guy ask Cait if she knows anything else and she tells them that she knows everything I know and most of it is 60s or top 40 so what do they want her to play... I'm shaking my head at her, thinking that any moment they'll figure it out, that I'm no singer and they'll want that guy back from before, only they don't and they ask my what I want and I say "Love is a Rose" only I want it slow and so sad, I say "I want all of them to cry" and the piano player nods and says, "You'll make him sob, doll, I'm sure of it" and he starts picking it out, Cait follows with low notes that impale me, and I am stuck in place only the spot light, I can't see past it and I pour every single disappointment and sorrow into it, tears start to run down my face but my voice doesn't crack, I'm singing what all of us feel, heart break and sadness, loneliness and despair, that heartbreak of knowing that who you love, will hurt you, will break your heart.
I sang to Nigel.
I sang to Sydney.
I sang to Cait.
I loved them all.
I knew they'd all break my heart.

57 - Into the Lion's Den

2012-08-19T13:18:00.000-04:00

"Nigel! Where is Cait?! You fucking asshole!!" Sydney is screaming at him and pounding her fists into his chest, his back is too the wall and the girl he was chatting up side-steps and heads back indie the bar. "You asshole, getting your dick tugged on the fucking street, cheating on Jo, losing Cait, you fucking goddamn waste of fucking life!"
I'm just standing there staring at him with my mouth open, I can't believe that he was talking to some other girl while I was sick in a back room. I put it out of my mind for the moment because I'm worried about Cait and we are in New York at 2 in the morning and lost. The streets aren't as full as they were before we went in and there is a darker, dirtier element watching the drama that is Sydney unfold. I shiver and tell them I'm going back inside to look for Cait. They are too busy being mad at each other to hear me.

There is a jazz trio on stage when I walk in, piano, drums, bass. They are playing something lonely and melancholy that fits my mood. I head towards the table we were seated at and there is Cait sitting with a guy holding a trumpet. I flash back for a second to Cisco and his sax. He hands her the horn and she brings it to her lips. She blows a long lonely note that fits into what the jazz trio is playing and the trumpet player pushes her toward the stage. As she walks up, she is blowing notes that weave in and out and fill my head like the cigarette smoke and sadness. I am standing still, in the middle of the room watching her and for that moment I feel that only her and I are in the room. I start to walk towards her and someone tugs my arm.
"Where you going little lady?" It's the man in the white suit.
"I was going to follow Cait."
"Why, what do you play?"
"I don't, I don't know why I was going there."
"It's the music, doll, the music is calling you. You feel it don't you?"
"Yeah." I sigh.
He leads me over to the side of the stage. "You know any words?"
"Words?" I look at him like he's speaking Greek.
"Yeah, words, you're gonna go sing."
"I don't know how to sing, I don't sing, every one tells me I can't sing."
"I think you can doll, what do you know?"
I stammer and every song I ever knew is gone from my head. "Itsy bitsy spider?" I blurt.
White suit laughs and he whispers into the piano player's ear. The piano winds down the jazz free flow that sucked in Cait and begins to weave in the melody of itsy bitsy spider. Cait keeps up with them and makes it sound rich and like the song is something more than a children's sing along. Cait winks at me as white suit pushes me up on stage and I am blinded by the lights in my eyes. I am grateful I can't see anyone. My voice wavers and cracks as I begin the first verse. I cant catch my breath and I try to sing it in a rush, but the piano man starts singing in his baritone and slows me down. I hold onto the microphone stand as though I'll fall without it and I listen to Cait's horn and I sing along with her. I forget what I sound like and I forget that I can't sing and I just lose myself to the music. We do a lounge version of Me n Bobby Magee and fly me to the moon and some others that they have lyrics to. I'm sure they can't hear me, that the trumpet and the piano are drowning me out, and I'm sure that the only reason they haven't dragged me off the stage with a hook and a Gong Show host is because I'm in a very small black spandex dress and high heels and my big hair and little waist. I'm sure that Cait and I are bookends and novelty and I keep waiting for it to wear off.
And around all the feeling of inadequacy and insecurity the music weaves in and out and I forget all my worries and I just live in the moment and sing my off-key heart out.

56- Blood on the water

2009-06-10T12:13:00.002-04:00

Syd yanks open the office door and bellows "Where the fuck is the bouncer and the first aid I asked for??!!!" just as the bouncer came around the corner. He got a face full of Syd in all her furious glory and he didn't drop the basin full of water. He did take a step back, which meant that once again, Syd won.

"Bout time you got back! I'm gonna get a lawyer and sue your ass for withholding medical care and kidnapping and leaving the scene of an accident! I can't believe the nerve you have leaving her like that when she was passed out! She could choked on vomit and DIED!!!!!" Syd grabbed the basin and sloshed water all down the front of the bouncer. It looked like he had been peed on by a very large dog.
"And you! What good are you??? Standing around stealing girls for the back room and leaving them to bleed to death on the couch! Did you rape her too??? She'll be getting a though exam at the ER!!! And you'll be sorry!!!" She came over to me with the bit of water left in the basin and set it on my lap. There was a clean cloth floating in it and I wrung it out and gingerly began wiping at my face. Of course I didn't have a mirror, so I couldn't be certain I was getting it all, but I worked at getting as much off as I could. Syd continued to harangue the two men who just stood there speechless. I had seen her do this before.

"Okay, I think I got it all." Syd stopped and looked at me. "Yeah, you got most of it. Give me the rag." She dabbed at my temple and deemed me fit for company if I had a cover stick. I didn't.

"Well, I guess we'll be going," I said as I stood up slowly. I looked around for my shoes and the White Suit handed them to me. I didn't see him pick them up before, but I figured I was distracted.
"Yeah, we're going and you'll hear from our lawyer and probably the cops about the kidnapping charges!" Syd spat out as she went first through the door. I carried my shoes thinking that flat feet were better for now. I turned to say thanks to White Suit as Syd grabbed my arm and bum-rushed me back into the club.
We dodged chairs and tables and drunks and made it out to the street in seconds. Nigel was leaning against the wall talking to some girl in a red spandex halter dress. Cait was no where to be seen.
"Syd, where's Cait?"

Syd looked around.

"Nigel!!!!! You had ONE JOB!!!! Where the fuck is Cait???"

55-Mama Cass

2009-05-15T20:38:00.002-04:00

My relaxation is short lived. A discreet knock at the door and White Suit says come in. It's one of the bouncers and I can hear someone shouting in the hall.
"You motherfuckers better let me in there! My friend is incapacitated! I'll call the cops! Don't you dare touch her!"
Sydney. She can belt out a curse like Mama Cass at a free concert.

White suit raises an eyebrow. "Friend of yours?"
"Better my friend than my enemy."
"It would appear to be the case. Are you well enough for company?"
"I don't believe I have a choice."
"You always have a choice."

I didn't have an answer for that.

Sydney sees the change in the bouncer's stance and before he can tell her, she bounds in and shoves him against the door frame. I hear him grunt. I think he was surprised at the sheer force of Sydney. Most people are.

"Oh. MY. GOD. We were so worried! They wouldn't let us back hear and then Cait got a little sick so I was in the bathroom with her and then I tried to come back for you but they blocked me, and oh SHIT you broke your nose or something!!!!" Sydney turns to the bouncer, "Get her a clean cloth and some water! If her nose is broken we're going to sue the shit out of you and this club and New York FUCKING City!!!!!!!"
The bouncer backs out with a look on his face that was sorta incredulous and sorta pained. White Suit waves him on and I try to stand, but I'm still shaky so I sit back down again. God only knows what kinda mess I am right now.
"How bad is it, Syd?" I mumble.
"It looks like you got hit by a truck."
"MAC truck or small pick-up?"
"MAC."
"Oh." I lean back further and wish I could disappear.

Sydney turns on White Suit.

"What the fuck did you do to her?"

White Suit blanches. He actually looks nervous.
"I didn't do anything to her. She hit her nose on the bucket and floor the first time she woke up, lucky that because she bled right into it. I've never had a more fastidious passed out drunk. I didn't hear her wake until the thud and by then she'd done the damage."
Sydney ponders this. I can tell she tasting it for truth.

"Sounds plausible. I withhold judgement until I get her cleaned up. Speaking of clean, where's that bouncer?"

54-The White Suit

2006-02-26T10:26:00.000-05:00

I wake up on one of those couches seen in every movie with a back room and a bar manager. This one is cracked leather, older than I am and infinitly more comfortable. I am on my side, shoes off, the white suit coat covering most of me. I see a plastic trash can strategically placed next to my head. there is noting in it, thank god, at least I can avoid that embarassment. I hear a rustle and look up. It's the man in the white suit.
He looks up and winks at me. "So, Sleeping Beauty, you awaken without my kiss."
"Perhaps you are not my Prince Charming." I can be so bitchy when I just wake up.
"Perhaps not, but you never know. Perhaps I am a sheep in wolf's clothing..." He trails off and gives me a smile so warm I begin to relax. Damnit.

.
.
.

53--Take Ten

2005-09-25T23:08:00.000-04:00

We stumble over each other in our haste to get me to the bathroom. The girls have noticed my slightly green tinge and realize we are well into a DefCon 10 rating. Cait's already pulled a scrunchy out of her pocket and shoves it into my hand. I look down at it. One of those promotional ones. Big and puffy advertising BudLight. Might as well add more cheapness to my black spandex. I reach up with both hands to grab my hair and then fall forward into a man in a white silk and wool blend suit. Cait and Sydney scream and I see double just before I black out. Two of him and he winks, then I'm gone...

52-Take Five

2005-09-16T22:59:00.000-04:00

Cocktail waitress comes over.
"Lemme see some IDs." She flips out her hand and snaps her fingers. Exactly three times. Frat boys are fast, flipping wallets like badges, Susan and I are slower...we're underage and not sure if our fakes will pass.

"Yeah, okay. Whaddya want?" she waves away our IDs without looking.

"A round of tequila shots." Nigel says, big man that he is with my money in his pocket after he patted me down against a wall while shoving his tongue into my dental work.

"No lemon, no salt, no limes. You still want it?"

"Uh, no. How about J.D.?"

"Yeah. You want anything else while I'm up there? I hate makin' two trips."

We all call out our preferred poisons and she heads back to the bar. She's wearing a tight black skirt cut at the calf with a slit up the right tight in front. A white linen blouse, cut so low I can see her black bra, collar of Battenburg lace. Suddenly I feel cheap and common in my black spandex dress.
Sydney lights another cigarette and blows smoke at Nigel. The frat boys watch, waiting, Sydney winks at one of them. He grins. Cait surveys the room, predatorily. Nigel watches the waitress's ass as it sways in her black skirt.

Nigel's hand is on my leg. He rubs my thigh while he stares at the waitress ordering drinks at the bar. I grab his pinky and bend it back as far as I can. He gives a little yelp. "What the fuck, Jo?!"

"Stop staring at other women while you're feeling me up, asshole."

"I wans't."

"Yeah, you were," chimes in Sydney, "You were being a TOTAL creep, Nigel." The frat boys all nod their heads. I get the feeling that they have joined a new frat, well a cult. The Cult of Sydney.

"Aww, com'on. she's got a great ass. I was touching you, I'm with you. Doesn't that count?" Nigel whines.

"No. It doesn't count, it grosses me out." I get up and look for the bathroom. I'm not too steady as the shots from all the other bars have caught up with me now. I'm drunk, my boyfriend wants to boff some other chick and I'm cheap in black spandex. I wanna barf.

"Where ya goin', Jo?" Sydney asks in a fake concerned voice. The more drama the better as far as she's concerned.

"Bathroom." I bark just before the first wave of green hits. I clench my jaw and head over to the bar. Bathroom has to be back there... if not, at least a garbage can will be...

"I'll go with you." "Me too." Cait and Sydney follow me. Let's hear it for the girls. Let's hear it for any one girl's inability to go to the bathroom ALONE. At least you always have someone to hold your hair out of the way.

51-Kocktale Kitchen

2005-09-03T10:32:00.000-04:00

After much stubling and singing and pulling Sydney off of Nigel, we arrive. It looks like the set of the Cotton Club, only grimy and gritty. The decor could be the same chairs and tables they had when they opened in the 20's. I picture the ghosts of taxi girls twirling in my mind's eye as we weae our way through tables of one and groups of four. The bar is a mixed crowd, slightly subdued, but there to have a good time. We get to the bar in the back, we couldn't see it from the door because of the smoke and the people and the strageic lighting. There is a stage to the left, really a raised dais, with a half baby grand, some old boxy looking microphones, a few chairs and music stands and a big bass leaning against the back wall. The bar is another monster of wood and brass. This wood polished and gleaming from the millions of hands that have rested on it over the decades it stood there. The brass was shiny in all the places where shoes rub and arms rest, tarnished to almost black in the palces no one touches. Glass shelves against a mirrored wall through light and prisms back on those sitting at the bar, I have a sense of deja vu disorientation for a moment and I realize that it looks very similar to the bar that Renoir painted, only no oranges in a bowl and no rosy-cheeked girl waiting to make your whisky neat.
Nigel steps up to the bar and asks about the tables. The bartender tells him to sit anywhere and someone will be around.
We end up shoving two round tables together to fit all of us. The frat boys are nodding and smiling.

50-Kocktail Kitchen

2005-05-28T17:20:00.000-04:00

The problem with Nigel's idea, and there is always a problem. There is always that one fatal flaw not seen until the moment that things have gone too far.
The problem was that Nigel's sense of direction was back in California along with his surfboard.
He says, "This way! Onward troops!" and we follow him.
Block three, we stumble into another hole-in-the-wall Irish pub type place. Heavy, thick smoke an scary lloking hard core drunks. Me and Cait pass as Nigel and Sydney get shots of jeagermeister.

Block seven, basic sports bar type place, lots of football jerseys and steroid jocks with fake boob Barbies stroking their muscles. I pass and Nigel, Cait and Sydney do shots or Kamikazis from test tubes.

Block ten, generic bar copying TGIFriday's decor, wait staff in green and white stripes instead of red and white. trays of buffalo wings and mini eggrolls abound. I decide I'm not going to be the only sober person on New Year's so I down three shots of tequila, no salt, hot wing chaser. This earns me applause from the frat-boy-cum-bachelor-party to my right. It also earns me three more free shots of tequila, this time with an eggroll chaser. I palm two shots off on Cait and Sydney, Fuck Nigel, he's a big boy, he can get his own. We stay longer than the agreed upon plan, stuffing our faces full of free appetizers and sometimes free shots. After about forty-five minutes we leave taking the frat boys with us as they saw the beauty in our plan and they too needed to get back to Jersey at some point.

So now we are a ragtag bunch of the drunken dozen singing "Tainted Love" and "Obsession" at the top of our lungs, shouting "Happy New Year" and throwing ourselves at other schloshed passerby. It's New York as Philly, somehow for one night the Big Apple is the City of Brotherly Love. We wander about six or seven blocks to a bar with a blue neon sign in the window that says "Bar". We decide that the sign is a "sign" and go in. Drunks love puns. And rhyming. And shots.

It's one of those dive-y bars that no one's sure is legal and that you expect to catch on fire with the next cigarette. The walls, ceiling, tables, chairs, doors, fixtures, and bar are black. The floor is red. I feel like I've just stepped into a Tales from the Crypt set.
We llok around and the bar is empty except for the bartender and one beaten and hungry looking black guy. The bartender looks like The Cryptkeeper right down to his bow tie and black pants with the black satin stripe on the leg. He's washing and polishing a glass, staring at us like we're aliens from the planet Drunko and he's already served too many of our kind tonight.
"Whaddya want?" he askes us in a voice that speaks of decades worth of whisky and cigarettes.
We all look at each other and then back at the empty bar. One of the frat boys clears his throat as if to ask for a shot or the bathroom, when the bartender interrupts him.

"No public restroom in here, toilet's broke. No wine, no cocktails, no fizzy drinks. No fancy shots, no lemons, no limes, no cherry. We got Bud on tap and Pabst in cans. we got whisky, but it ain't no fancy whisky it's just whisky. If youse're here to drink beer and whisky, fine, otherwise go out the door to the right about eight blocks and youse'll be at the Kocktail Kitchen."
"Th-th-thank you, sir, we'll be on our way." The frat boy stammers as we all bolt for the door at the same moment.
Nigel and Sydney try to leave the atmosphere at the same moment and get stuck exiting. Cait throws her shoulder into Nigel's back and he and Sydney go sprawling on the concrete sidewalk, Sydney's skirt hiked up so high that we can see the tops of her support hose. The frat boys gape and one offers his hand to her. She slaps him away and looks pointedly at Nigel.
"Help me up, you asshole. It's your fault I fell."
"Hoe is it my fault? Cait pushed us."
"You are supposed to let a lady go through the door first, you jerk."
"Uh, Syd, loaded statement as I don't see any ladies here." Nigel gives her a huge, monsterous shit eating grin. He loves to push her buttons and push them hard.
Sydney grabs the nearest frat boy and claws her way up him growling low and deep in her throat, eyes on Nigel.
"Don't. Call. Me. Syd." and she lunges at him with her hands grasping for his face. Nigel just bats her away as if she were an annoying fly.
"Come on gang, we've got eight blocks to the next bar."
And just like that, we're off again.
Off to the Kocktail Kitchen.

49-New Year's Rush

2005-05-05T17:23:00.000-04:00

Standing there in my warm moment made me forget that we were NYC. As soon as the ball hit bottom, the cops rushed the crowd. The crowd turned and rushed us. So much for the cocoon. So much for feeling safe surrounded by all those big guys. Now the big guys were trampling our fake Gucci shoes and shloshing stale beer on our carefully coiffed hair.
So we did what any sane people would do, we bolted.
We turned on our heels and ran with the crowd to keep from being run down. Nigel had my hand, Cait had my other and Sydney was being pulled by the hem of her coat by Cait. Nigel managed to get us all flat against an office building three blocks from where we'd been standing. We huddled together in the doorway watching people running. They were shouting and throwing bottles and streamers and noisemakers everywhere. There was confetti streaming and paper and rain. It was a freakin' mess. When it settled out and only the strollers were left, we started our walk back to the train station.
Nigel wanted to hit up the bars on our way back down. A shot per bar until we ran out of money or hit Penn Station. We all agree.

48-New Year's in NYC

2005-04-05T01:00:00.000-04:00

As usual, Cait's scheme didn't go off quite as well as she planned.
We all ended up standing the entire way to NYC along with all the other idiots who wanted to see the ball drop. We couldn't sneak into any of the hotel to even use the bathroom, they all had extra security staff on for people like us.
We ended up in an Irish pub six blocks from Times Square down a little back alley that snelled of urine and vomit. It was in one of those really old buildings that never got "upgraded" and the tin ceiling was many shades of brown to black from all the cigarettes and cigars that died there. Opposite the entrance was a massive oak bar that looked as though they'd felled a tree from the park and dragged it in and polyuerothaned it. There were several TV's full of rugby and countdowns of New Year's parties from around the world. I sat and drank Bailey's on ice provided by the kindness of an old gent whose gold crown on his left lower canine kept blinding me as it winked in the glare of the Tv when he smiled, which was most of the time as he stared at my chest.
Sydney and Nigel were busy playing darts and betting some guy in faded jeans and a fisherman's sweater for who's buy the next round of drinks. Cait was sitting on some construction worker looking guy's lap, stroking his bicep and listening to him trill his rrrrrr's with a look of lust on her face. She wasn't drinking though, which I thought was strange for her, but I filed it away for later to ask when we get home.
I sat listening to the old man tell me about the proper way to harvest and store potatos and how things were better in the old country and how he would go back when he retired. I gave him about 10% of my attention while the other 90% scanned the room and the TVs.
At 1130pm, we said our goodbyes and left to make our way toward the holy ball.
"Yule never get close, missy." said my gold-toothed old man, slurring slightly from the whisky and Baileys'.
"Yeah, you'd do well ta stay here, warm and drinkin' yer beer, if ye stay, I'll buy you another!" said the dart player.
Cait told them thank you, no, and promised that we'd return after the drop.
None of us had ever been to Times Square for New Year's before, and watching it on TV doesn't prepare you for the massive crowds and the lines of cops. At five blocks from Ball, the crowds were thick, but still moving, we tried to skirt around a few times, but so did everyone else. At three blocks the crowd was at a stand still. People kept pushing from behind but since there was no where to go, the people from the front just pushed back. The people in front also had the police barricades and the cops themselves to deal with, so they tended to push back a little harder. We hunkered down at our spot halfway in the middle of the third block with ten minutes to go. We were surrounded by a group of sports club guys who eyed up Cait and I while Sydney and Nigel bickered at each other. Cait played up to them a little and soon we were guzzling champange from the bottle and smoking pot from a pipe being passed around. It started to drizzle and one of the sports dudes held his giant golf umbrella over our heads to keep us dry. Cait giggled and held her finger to her lips as she rolled her eyes toward Sydney and Nigel. Sydney was trying to convice Nigel that he should give her his coat so she could keep her hair from getting wet and he was telling her to use her own coat and it went back and forth without end. They always fought for the last word until either Cait or I got sick of them and yelled.
The press of people would have been panic inducing if we hadn't been cocooned in the group of sports dudes. They held their own as the crowd surged and retreated like an ocean, me and Cait like a message in a bottle under the golf umbrella fuzzy high and drunk...

47-Cait's Scheme

2005-04-01T23:00:00.000-05:00

Cait and I retire to the living room. She flicks on the TV to look at the weather and sniggers at the sounds from the kitchen. We can hear Nigel and Sydney going at it again, Sydney's voice rising to a screeching banshee wail as Nigel pins her to some flat surface or another.
"You know she has a thing for Nigel, right?"
"I kinda figured."
"I just thought I'd point it out."
"Yeah? Shouldn't you have mentioned it before you introduced us?"
"No."
"What do you mean, no?"
"I mean no. Sydney's not right for Nigel. She's too young...and...well..." Cait pauses, I know what she wants to say, but she won't say it in Sydney's range. She wants to say that Sydney's too fat. And she's right. Nigel is waaay too shallow to ever date anyone who's overweight.
"Yeah, Cait, I know."
"And I knew you'd back off. You've got too much honor or some dumb thing. You need to get over that or how are you ever going to get ahead?"
There was a certain sick logic to Cait's words. Something to file away for later. Something to mull into nightmares next week.
"Yeah, well, I don't like to get in the middle of anyone's shit. It seems like I always get blamed when it's not my fault."
"Well, see JoJo, that's why people like you. You mind your own business."
Nigel stalks into the room before Cait can say anything more. Sydney is banging pots in the kitchen, muttering curses a voce sotto.
"Hey, have you guys thought about what we're going to do for New Year's Eve?" Nigel askes as he flops onto the couch next to me, his legs landing hard into my lap almost spilling my half full cup of tea.
"Yeah, actually I have." Cait says with a smile. "Hey, Syd! Get in here, we have plans to make!" She bellows over the crashing of silverware in a drawer.
Sydney stomps into the room puffing on her cigarette and kicks Nigel in the ribs as she drops heavily into the armchair next to the couch. "What plans?"
"Well, I thought we could all go to Times Square and see the ball drop for New Year's. We'll take the train in and bring champange. It'll be a blast!" Cait's eyes are lit up as she lays out some of the details. She says we'll all get dressed up and see if we can sneak into on of those hotel package deals, as thought we were already guests who stepped out to see the ball drop. I had to admit that when Cait schemed, it always sounded plausible.

46-Next Stop, New Jersey

2005-01-05T01:04:00.000-05:00

Nigel and I sleep in until noon on the 26th. There was no one home in his apartment complex, all the solitary souls having found company for the second loneliest day of the year. We took separate showers and dressed, fed the fish and took off for breakfast at Cait’s in Delaware. She’d left a message on Nigel’s machine the night before while we were at Sydney’s. We drove to the sound of the classic rock station again, this time in Nigel’s truck, neither of us in a chatty mood. Isn’t it funny how people get all talked out? Some people fill the silence with music or chitchat repeated. I tend to like the silence letting it settle around me giving my ears a rest. Not that you can get any actual silence, America is so full of noise from cars and planes, trains and trucks. In the woods you have birds and leaves. On the ocean you have lapping waves and seagulls. I imagine that only space would bring me the kind of silence I crave sometimes, but even then it would be interrupted by the sound of my own heartbeat and breathing.
I watch the road pass by in a gray and white striped blur. Nigel sings along with Queen and Billy Joel, his falsetto grating slightly, but I’m not willing to break my silence until we get to Cait’s. Nigel doesn’t seem to notice.

At Cait’s house, the street is mostly deserted and we park in front. She opens the door before we even get out. She has a huge smile on her face, as thought she hadn’t seen us in 5 years rather than 36 hours.
“Jo-jo! Nigel! Are you hungry? I made tons of food!” She hugs us and grins. We follow her into the living room. Sydney is on the couch with a cigarette in one hand blowing smoke up toward the ceiling, the other arm thrown on the back of the couch and her legs crossed in lotus position, shoes on the floor next to her, lined up as though they’ll walk off on their own. She nods at me.
“Nigel, I have a huge cut on the back of my head from you! My mother had to bandage it. I can’t believe you threw a rock at me!”
“You threw a lit cigarette at my face. Don’t play the innocent bitch with me, Syd. You threw rocks too.” He smiled a cold, tight-lipped smile. It was one I’d seen before. It was the one that meant he was still mad and harboring a grudge. I was glad it was directed at Sydney. I hoped I never saw it directed at me.
“Nigel, I told you I hate being called Syd! Just stop it!”
“Both of you stop it. Breakfast is ready.” Cait interrupted the bickering. I walked toward the kitchen and sat in the chair furthest from the door with my back to the wall. A food fight between Sydney and Nigel was a distinct possibility.
Cait made huge stacks of pancakes, French toast, and waffles. There was sausage and bacon. She had soft-boiled eggs and pork roll too. I loaded a plate full of French toast and pork roll and sat back while Sydney and Nigel fought over who was going to get the waffles. Cait looked over at me a shrugged, filled her plate with sausage and soft-boiled eggs and sat next to me to watch the show.
Nigel stabbed Sydney in her hand when she reached for a second waffle. She yelped and jumped and her plate clattered to the floor. Luckily it was Corning Ware so it didn’t break, but the one waffle on her plate did land face down with the plate one top. Sydney picked up the fallen waffle and flung it at Nigel, hitting him flat in the face. It was comical as it hung off his forehead for a few moments before falling onto his stack of waffles and bacon. He looked down at it and looked at Sydney and started laughing then she started laughing and looking at us. That’s when Nigel grabbed the offending waffle and slammed it in her face, holding her head with his other hand and grinding it in until it fell apart and Sydney had waffle in her nose, hair, eyebrows and all over her shirt. She punched him and kicked his shins and knees, and I don’t know why she didn’t go for his balls because that’s what I would have kicked first, but he didn’t let up until that waffle was crumbs. When he let her go, she stumbled a bit and then Sydney grabbed the pancakes off the platters and rushed at Nigel. He caught her by the wrists, but she was heavier than he, so her momentum carried them and she body slammed him into the refrigerator. He must have hit his shoulder with the freezer handle, because he loosened his grip on her wrist for a second, but it was enough for her to smash the pancakes into his face and mouth. Nigel twisted her other arm behind her back, until she was kneeling on the floor with him over her and he spit pancake out of his mouth, shouting, “Do you give?”
“Never, you bastard!” She screamed back. He shoved her face down closer to the linoleum.
“Do you give?”
“Fuck you, Nigel.” Now he had her cheek pressed to the floor and he was straddling her, his eyes looked dead, like someone else had taken over.
“Do. You. Give? Just say it, Sssydddd, and I’ll let you up.” He stressed each syllable.
“Fuck you, I give, let me up you jerk-off.” He jumped off her and stepped back into the doorway incase she was bluffing again. She stood up and brushed waffle out of her hair. Her clothes were disheveled and she was missing two buttons on her blouse. She looked over at us as though she’d forgotten we were there. At the beginning of the fight, Cait and I had picked up our plates and dragged our chairs back from the table. We were almost done eating, having automatically shoved food in our mouths while watching that the fight didn’t catch us in the middle. I reached over and snagged the last piece of bacon from the platter.
“Did you want some bacon with your waffle, Sydney?” I asked in my most innocent voice.
“Shove it up your ass, Jones.” She spit the words at me through gritted teeth. I looked over at Nigel leaning casually on the door frame, looking like he’s just popped over for a quick bite. How do some people do that? No matter what happened a moment ago, they look like they just arrived. Not a hair out of place, clothes looking like he’d just pulled them from the closet. The only thing out of place was one lone crumb in his left eyebrow. He grinned at me and winked.
Cait walked over to the sink, taking my plate from me and picking up the one Sydney dropped on the floor. “Come on, Jo, we’ll leave the children to their breakfast.”

45-Gas Station

2005-01-03T16:28:00.000-05:00

I wake from my doze when the car stops. I keep my eyes closed because the light is so bright that I feel like I’m staring into the sun but it’s cold… that’s when I realize it can be only one thing… sodium vapor lights. Nigel bumps my leg. “Hey, got any cash? Your car needs gas.”
I crack my left eye open and squint at him.
“Don’t you have any money? I just filled it up two days ago.”
“No. It’s not my car. And I have to get out and pump anyway.”
“Fine.” I sit up and rummage around in my purse. Two bucks. I hand it to him and look in the ashtray. I sift through the pennies and fine 6 quarters. I check my coat pockets and find lint. I look up at Nigel and shrug.
“Is that it?”
“Yeah, that’s it. What the fuck? I bought drinks for you and Sydney and me for the last three days, I paid for breakfast because you forgot your wallet, and I paid for McDonalds twice. I’m tapped out until Monday when the bank opens.”
“No, I paid for drinks too. You’re wrong.”
“Nigel! You took forty bucks out of MY purse to pay for those drinks! You said you’d pay me back but that was like, five days ago.”
“Well, if you’re going to be all stingy and cheap about it…”
“I am not being stingy! I ran out of money!”
“Whatever, Jocelyn.” And he got out of the car and slammed to door. I wrote the mileage down in my little book. I put it back in the glovebox and looked out the window at the snow falling. The gas station had a neon open sign that made the flakes look colored when I squinted my eyes.
Nigel banged on the window. “Hey, count out the pennies. I went over. I need sixty-two more cents.”
I sigh and dump the ashtray into my lap. Luck is with me. I hand Nigel two quarters and twelve pennies. As I return the rest of the pennies to the ashtray, I notice two wheat pennies, I palm them and put the ashtray back, then put the two wheats in the little zipper pocket of my purse. Nigel gets in and restarts the car.
“What did you put in your purse? Are you holding out on me?”
“I found two wheat pennies in with the others. I save them.”
“Why?”
“I dunno. Because my grandpa collects them. I always hope I’ll find one he doesn’t have.”
“Are they worth anything?”
“Not really.”
“Then why save them?”
“Some people just collect stuff, Nigel.” I sigh and look out my window.
“I never understood that. The whole collecting thing. It’s just more shit you have to move and it’s not worth much if you need to sell it for money. You can’t take it with you.”
“I don’t know. I just save them for my grandpa. I’ve been saving them since I was little and it’s a thing between us now. Why do you care anyway?”
“Sheesh, I was just making conversation. Maybe you need to go back to sleep, you’re being a bitch.”
“Fuck you.”
“No, I fuck you. Go to sleep, I’ll listen to the radio.”
“Whatever.” I lean my seat back again, not all the way, just enough to still watch the snow and the street lights so that my view is of the horizon and the sky.
Nigel puts on the radio, some stupid classic rock station that pulses in and out as we go over and down the hills and valleys of Pennsylvania. The flash of the lights is in almost perfect beat with the block of quieter Led Zepplin songs and I find myself drifting like the snow, slowly, quietly lulled back to sleep…

44-Cigarette

2005-01-01T23:53:00.000-05:00

The kitchen is deserted and I snag a cookie from the half empty tray on the counter as I pass it on my way to the door. I pick up my purse and coat off the back of a kitchen chair and slip into my heels. I shrug on my coat and check for the car keys… got ‘em. I open the door and slip down the icy stairs grabbing onto the rail to stop my rapid descent onto the cement at the bottom. I drag myself back upright and straighten my dress. Then I hear clapping. Sydney and Nigel are leaning on the hood of the car, cigarettes dangling from the corners of their mouths, clapping.
“Bravo! I give that slip and save a 7.8” Sydney laughs through a cloud of smoke.
“I give it a solid 9. I didn’t think you’d make it kid, but you gained back your footing in heels.” Nigel crows at me. It’s almost as though they had taken bets on if I would fall or not and Nigel won. He likes long odds.
“Yeah, well it was touch and go for awhile. I’m surprised that I didn’t fall on my ass. I didn’t think the stairs had iced up that fast.” I skid a little on the gravel and step over onto the grass where my heels promptly sink in to the sole.
“So, what are you guys going to do now that you’ve gotten sex out of your systems? Sydney blows smoke rings up at the sky, lassoing a few of the big, fluffy flakes that are lazily drifting down.
“We were gonna go back to Bensalem. Why? You got something in mind?” Nigel answers her and drops his cigarette into the snow. I watch it sink and sputter in the little bit of snow on the grass, putting it out.
“Now, I don’t have any ideas, I thought maybe we could go down and bother Cait or maybe go out for a few drinks around here. Is Cisco home?”
“I don’t know, but Cait said she wanted ‘mommy time’ so I don’t think she’ll want us tonight, ‘specially if Cisco is home. He pretty much hates us at this point.” I really don’t want to hang with Sydney, I’ve had enough Sydney to last me a week or even a month. I’d rather fuck Cisco again than spend the rest of the night entertaining Sydney.
“Nah, Syd, I think we’re just gonna go home and have sex again, but this time without an audience.” Nigel grins at her, watching her reaction. He loves to goad her. Matter of fact, Nigel loves to goad everyone.
“Damn it, Nigel! I told you to stop calling me Syd!” She flicks her lit butt at his face, but he ducks sideways and it hits him on the shoulder and falls to the ground near his dead butt.
“Okay, Syd, I’ll try to remember that, Syd!” Nigel laughs at her. Sydney picks up a handful of gravel and throws it at him, but he’s already turned and run to the back of the car so it hits the roof and clatters off. Nigel mocks her throw and laughs at her some more. Sydney picks up a larger size rock and cocks her arm to throw it as Nigel pops up and down behind the car like a bop-em arcade game.
“Stop it. I don’t want any dents in my car!” I shout at them. They don’t listen. They never do.
“Nigel, you fuck, this one’s gonna get you between the eyes! I’ll laugh when you lie bleeding!” Sydney throws the rock and it connects with Nigel’s left ear and bounces off his arm and into his hand. He throws the rock back at Sydney’s fast retreating back, but she’s in heels too so she has no traction and he pegs her in the back of the head. She falls down onto her hands and knees and calls, “Truce! Truce!” and I go over to tend the wounded.
“Jocelyn, get away from her, she’s faking!” Nigel yells to me from his safe spot behind the car.
“Nigel, you hit her on the back of the head!” I kneel down next to Sydney and she grabs me. “What the fuck, Sydney?” I ask her as she stands us both up, her bulk only partially protected by me.
“Shut up, I have to win this thing or he’ll never let it alone and I’ll have to hear about it at work for the next fifty-seven years!” I do believe I’ve been taken hostage.
“Sydney, let Jocelyn go.” Nigel speaks in his calm voice. The voice that means he’s getting pissed.
Sydney doesn’t say anything; she picks up the rock that hit her and a few others from the wet ground. She pushed me forward and we stumble back toward the car.
“I’m warning you, Syd, Let her go.” Now I’m a little nervous. Nigel doesn’t play fair. He’s a win at all costs kinda guy.
“Yeah, what are you gonna do about it now? You can’t hit me through Jocelyn. Come out from behind the car with your hands empty and up in the air and maybe I’ll let her go.” Sydney has a hold of the belt of my coat and her fist is in my back. I decide it’s time to take action… not soon enough because Nigel doesn’t answer her; he throws another rock that hits me on the side of the head. I fall down holding my temple.
“Get up! Get up! Jocelyn, you coward, get up!” Sydney’s next to me still trying to use me as a shield, but Nigel is lobbing his handful of large gravel at her and pinging her on the top of her head and her shoulders and every time she touches me, he hits her on the hand. Nigel walks toward us, bending down for more ammo twice until he’s standing over me and just dropping the rocks on Sydney. He reaches down and grabs me upright by my right arm, wrenching it in the socket and growling “I told you to get out of the way” at me as he pushes me to the car. He walks sideways, watching Sydney the whole time.
“Get in and turn the defroster on” he holds open the door and shuts it behind me. I fumble my keys out of my pocket and reach over and start the car. I turn on the defrosters and look out the window at Nigel and Sydney shouting. I can’t hear them over the blower fan. I crank it up one more notch. My temple is throbbing. I pull down the visor and assess the damage. I have a nice egg growing out of the side of my head and a small trickle of blood from a shallow scratch left by Nigel’s rock. Fuck. I really need some ice. Or is that a steak? I’m gonna need some aspirin. I flip the visor back up and look up again. Nigel’s giving Sydney a hug and she’s pounding him on the back as though he’s suffocating her. I roll down the window and shout, “Hey, I’m bleeding and I need some ice.” They look over at the car, startled, as though they’ve forgotten my existence. Then they both start walking to the car. Sydney veers off and trots up the steps into the house. Nigel gets in the driver’s side, throws the car in gear and slams us into a K-turn and down the driveway and out onto the road.
He’s quiet and I don’t say anything. I lean the seat back and doze off to the sway of the car and the white noise of the defroster.

43-Little Red Riding Hood

2004-12-26T04:29:00.000-05:00

I don’t know how long I slept up there in Sydney's hideaway, but I was there long enough to be missed.
Someone licking my ear startles me awake.
"Wake up little red riding hood! Or I'll huff and I'll puff and I blow your house down."
"Nigel, the little pigs have the house. Red riding hood has the wolf that ate grandma!"
"I think I'll pass on eating your grandma, but I'll be happy to eat you!" Nigel grabs and flips me over, covering my body full-length with his, pinning me to the pillows. He starts kissing my neck and pulling at my dress with his teeth.
"Hey, people know we're up here! What if Sydney comes up?"
"Fuck Sydney! She can go find her own grandmother!"

We kiss and nip at each other's ears and soon our clothes are in little piles around us, like small tufts on the hardwood forest floor. Nigel flips me over so I'm kneeling on the cushion with my hands and elbows on the floor, positioning me with my ass high in the air as he fingers me making sure the entry is slick and dripping, He has a hand on my breasts, teasing my nipples, pinching and tugging until they feel swollen and the mere feel of the cushion arouse me even more. His cock is sliding between my legs on the outside toying with my pubic hair as he fondles my clit with his fingers, first one then two then one in and out in a slow, languid rhythm until I am almost ready to come. He feels me stiffen, fighting off the orgasm, waiting for him and he doesn't disappoint me, he slides his rock-solid cock into me, all the way, while stroking my clit lightly, teasing it but not enough friction to make me blow. He torments me, sliding in and out, the teasing of his hand on my nipples in sync with the teasing of his hand on my clit and his cock in my vagina. The sensations are almost too much, I feel my body, my entire body, heightened and tensed as if waiting to ignite because I feel so hott. At the moment I start to hold my breath, Nigel grabs my hair with the hand that had been on my nipples, pulling my head back and ramming his cock in and as he's cumming, he rubs my clit with the edges of his fingernails causing me to cum, hard and violently and my breath rushes out of me in a low moan and Nigel grunts out "Joccccccelyyyynnnnnnnnnnn" and rolls off me onto the floor. I collapse onto the cushion, panting.

"Uhhh, what the fuck do you think you're doing?" Sydney is silhouetted in the doorway.
"I was just eating Little Red Riding Hood." Nigel can be so crude.
"It looked like you were impaling her grandmother." Sydney can be so mean. I didn't say anything. I figured this was between them.
"What's for dessert, Syd? Any of that pie left?
"Fuck you, Nigel. You're such an ass. You had your pie. You want cake? Then you can have your pie and eat your cake too. I'm getting out of here, it smells like sex, assholes." Sydney clomped down the stairs making each tread count, letting us know she was really pissed this time.
"Maybe I should have asked her to join us, huh Jo-Jo?" Nigel growled with one of those killer grins.
"I heard that! You jerk! Nigel, just get the fuck out of my house now that you've left your seed. How many states have you cum in? Is it 50 yet?" Sydney yelled up the stairs. The sound carries in the spiral staircase like a mini echo chamber.
"Nope, only 32 so far. I've already cum in Pennsylvania so this one doesn't count. Unless you're talking about counties, then..."
"Just shut up and get dressed. My mom made some fancy desserts and coffee. Don't disappoint her." This time Sydney really does leave. She has a bad habit of eavesdropping on people and then getting really pissed when she hears them talking about her.
"Come on Nigel, find me some tissues and let's get the hell out of here." I crawl around looking for my underwear and pantyhose. I find my bra hanging off one of the butterflies and my slip is over on the tuffet chair. Nigel gets so feisty.
"What's the big deal? Can't you wait?"
"Uh, no. If you would be kind enough to cum in your jockeys, I wouldn't have the clean-up issues. Or if you'd use a freakin' condom, neither one of us would have a problem, it'd all be in a neat little package for the trash."
"Condoms don't fit. You know that, babygirl. I'll find something... here, just use my jockeys, I'll stuff them in my pocket."
I use his underwear to clean off his cum and then I put myself back together, tossing my head and fluffing my hair upside down.
"There, how do I look?"
"Like you just had sex and came really hard."
"NIGEL!!!!"
"That's just the way I like you!"
"Yeah, whatever."
"All men love the look of a woman that's just been fucked. It's the way you look all soft around the edges."
"Nigel, let's just get something to eat, okay?"

"We creep downstairs, trying to look nonchalant. When we get downstairs, it sounds like everyone is toward the family room so we head toward the kitchen. I stop by the bathroom to pee and clean up any residual and Nigel keeps going to the kitchen. I look in the mirror and see that my cheeks are flushed, my hair's a mess, and my mascara has given me raccoon eyes. Using a Q-Tip from the little jar on the sink, I try to fix the mascara issue, vowing to make sure I buy the waterproof kind next time. Life with Nigel is hard on the make-up. I notice a smear of dust on my collarbone, most likely from the floor. I get myself in working order and open the door and run smack into Grace.
"Did Nigel find you?" She says with a little smile. The kind that knows he found me and then some.
"Uh, yeah. Is Sydney around?" I look both ways down the hall. I know I look guilty as hell, but I can't help it.
"No, dear, she stormed outside with her cigarettes and Brett. I think it may be doobie time."
"Oh. Um, cool. Have you seen Nigel?"
"I thought he was with you...?" She looks past me into the bathroom and sees it's empty. She looks disappointed.
"No, he was headed to the kitchen, I think... but you never know with Nigel." I hold the bathroom door open for her and then close it behind me shutting her inside. I stand in the hallway and listen. Most of the noise is coming from the family room so I head toward the kitchen. At this point, I don't want to talk to anyone else. I just want to go home.

42-The attic

2004-12-25T18:41:00.000-05:00

I scoot out of the parlor, mouthing 'restroom' to Sarah when she looks up questioningly. She nods and re-enters her conversation.
Nigel is too busy to notice that I'm leaving.
I head out and go right instead of left and wind up at the foot of a narrow staircase. It's wooden and it's spiral and narrow. No handrail. Perfect for exploring. I head up, my stocking feet making no sound. It brings me up to the attic. I wonder what happened to the second floor. I figure it must be the back staircase for servants. The part of the attic it brings me too is the finished part. Sydney told me and Nigel about how her dad finished off part of the attic so she'd have her own hideaway for her fourth birthday. He left before she turned four. Before he left, he built an homage to his only daughter. He left the beams of the roof exposed between the sheets of plaster so that it looked like an English cottage, Ropes of fairy lights woven with long tendrils of silk ivy and honeysuckle around the edges of the room cast a warm, dim light when I flicked the switch. Papermache birds and dragonflies darted on fishing line from the ceiling, dancing and twirling, casting shadows. In the corner, tucked under the eve is a table and two chairs in the shape of mushrooms. A green, stuffed catapiller sits on the table amidst the toy china tea set. There are bookshelves built in under the eves as well, some with doors, others open and full of children's books and stuffed animals. Two small windows of four-pane leaded glass look out onto the backyard and the roof of the addition. There are swiss dot curtains in pale pink. Big pink, lavender and alvocado colored velvet pillows are on the floor around a fake fireplace made of carved pine. There is an ashtray sitting on the little hearth, full of cigarette butts and roaches.
I look out the window to the backyard. A light snow has started falling, sticking to the grass and the hood of Sydney's car.
I sit staring out the window, mesmerized by the falling snow illuminated by the porch light for who knows how long.

"Are you hiding?" Grace startles me out of my trance.
"No. I was exploring. I wasn't much in the mood for guessing games."
"Me either. They're fun sometimes, but I'm in a quiet mood tonight." Grace pulls a pillow next to mine and looks out the window. "When did it start snowing?"
"I don't know. There was a dusting on the hood of that car when I first came up here."
"Looks like there might be almost an inch now!" Grace looks a little alarmed. "Well, there's enough room in this house to have two opposing armies under the same roof and never know the other was here. I guess we can hunker down if it gets bad."
"Yeah, I guess so. But I don't have my toothbrush. I hate waking up with fuzzy teeth."
Grace giggles like a five year old. Funny how you can catch a person off guard with a small joke and they lose all pretense. You get the real being, not the one with all its defenses and self-consciousness.
She pats me on the arm. "I just came to check on you. You seem a little lost among all these people."
"I have a hard time in crowds. I get claustrophbic. And I just never know what to say."
She just nodded. I fell silent. What else was there to say? I just told a perfect stranger stuff I hadn't even told my parents.
"Just follow your heart Jocelyn. Your heart will steer you down the right path. Don't let fear keep you from living your life. That's what happens to most people. They become so afraid of making a choice, any choice that the choosing gets done by other people."
It was surreal. An aging hippie in her Birkies giving me advice on living my life. Is it better to be the walking dead or to live in the past...I wanted to ask her that, but I wasn't sure how my question would be received.
All I really wanted was to be left alone. I just wanted a nap. The lack of sleep from the last few days coupled with the morning mimosas and the wine with dinner finally conspired to make me incredibly weary.
"Just file it away, you can think about it later. You look really tired. Why don't you doze here and I'll send Nigel up to get you when he's ready to leave?" She pulled an old quilt off the shelf and I curled up under it on top of the two pillows. I felt warm and safe. It was quiet and I was asleep before she hit the first stair tread.

41-Christmas Parlor

2004-12-25T16:37:00.000-05:00

I realize that I've stepped over the line of polite conversation and stop. I watch as one more drop falls in slow motion to the floor and spreads into a little circle with a bit of pepper at its center, the brown gravy a halo highlighting the solo nature of its being. Some metaphor for life, my inner sarcasm chimes.
"I, um, I'm sorry. I'm a little tense these days. I had to take an incomplete in my painting class. I couldn't paint Whistler's Mother in Matisse's style before the semester ended."
"That's okay." Grace turns back to the gravy, never noticing the splatters. "Look at that! It's perfect. I'll just fill these boats and we'll be all done in here." She fills them and sets them on a serving tray.
I turn back to the wine and tuck one bottle in my arm and pick up two more with my hands. I hear Sydney asking her mother where the wine is and I head to the doorway. Grace has the gravy tray and we meet at the door.
She leans in and says, "We'll talk more later." And brushes past me. I hand off the bottles and go back in to get the others, slipping slightly on the spilled gravy. I kick off my heels next to the back door and return to the dining room with three more bottles of wine. I end up sitting between Emily and Grace, near the kitchen door. It seems so very far from Nigel. The others have started loading up their plates and eating. The conversation flows around those whose mouths are full and those who've just swallowed allowing just about everyone a chance to add something to the meal. The conversation winds itself around taxes and politics and the latest malapropism uttered by Dan Quayle. It is comforting and non-threatening and I find myself comfortable enough to actually add things, my little tidbits of obscure facts to keep the ball rolling. It's the kind of atmosphere that everyone should grow up in, but few do.
After the meal, Sarah announces that dessert will be served in the parlor. We are to leave the dishes on the tables for the elves to do. Sydney rolls her eyes, making me wonder what the unspoken dialogue is, but no one clues me in, so I follow the group through the door that was closed into a blue room.
The parlor was through the door, sharp right turn and quick left toward the front of the house. It was a cozy room, not spacious like the family room. It was set up for intimate conversations, with groupings of smaller size chairs and love seats with a few straight-backed faux Chippendale upholstered in pale blue watermark satin. The entire room was done in shades of powder blue with some navy accents. There was even a small white Christmas tree with blue lights and small blue glass balls on the table behind the loveseat in front of the bay window that looked out onto the street. A small white marble fireplace on the right wall completed my impression of walking into the Victorian past.
Sarah handed us each a small card with our seat written on it. I looked at mine and went over toward the fireplace when I felt someone come up behind me. It was Nigel. He grabbed me by the waist and whispered, "I want to bend you over the sofa and fuck you while people drive by."
"Um, like, be quiet!" I whisper back.
"No one can hear me. I'm so fucking horny right now. I've been watching your ass in that velvet dress all day. We haven't fucked in two days. I wanna pin you up against that fireplace and make you scream!" His whisper was loud enough for the others to realize that he and I were in a private conversation.
"Hey, Nigel, you know the rules, no whispering in class, tell one and you have to tell all." Brett grinned a devilish, toothy grin.
"Well, Brett, I was just telling Jocelyn how stunning her ass looks in that dress. Don't you agree?"
I feel my face get hot and the flush starts spreading down my neck. Brett smiles wider and starts laughing, he knew it was something sexual, but I don't think he thought that Nigel would actually say it out loud. Nigel just stares back at Brett in that predatory way that men do when they feel challenged. Brett looks away first and Sarah does the settle down children routine.
"I'll get you later" I whisper in Nigel's ear.
"Not if I get you first, red-riding hood." He growls back at me.

We all take our seats as assigned by the papers. I am between Grace and Emily again. When I look up, I realize that the entire group has been separated into male and female and Sarah announces that we'll be having a friendly game of charades. Sydney groans and Sarah shushes her. I sigh inwardly.
"Now, there are topics on these little papers, we'll be pulling them randomly from this hat." She holds up an old, silk top hat, it looks as though one too many rabbits had been pulled from it. "Now quickly elect a team captain." The female side picks Sarah. The male side picks Nigel.
"Okay, now we'll let the boys go first. Nigel, you pick one out of the hat. Good, now show it to your team and then you act it out."
Nigel looks at her like she's insane and then he does what was instructed. He hands the paper off to Brett and tells Brett to act it out.
Brett stands up and mimics the opening of a book.
Sarah guesses book.
Brett nods.
I yawn.
Brett tries to look happy.
He mimics birds flying and grimaces a lot, until Sarah shouts, "Joy!"
Brett nods vigorously.
He then makes the universal hand gesture and I shout, "The Joy of Sex!"
Brett grins and winks and bows as everyone turns to stare at me and I feel my face flush fuchsia again. I hear someone snigger "I know what Nigel's gettin' for Christmas!"
I try to blend in with the furniture, but my red clashes with the blue. Flushed like a rabbit from its burrow. Sarah clears her throat and says that the boys get to go again as they won the round. This time Brett picks the paper and they all confer, making faces and whispering while one whistles to mask what's being discussed. Brett's wife Anna is telling a story to Emily, Grace and Sarah while Sydney and another woman named Nancy talk about dating services vs. matchmakers.
This is my cue to get out and head for the rest room.

40-Christmas Guests

2004-12-25T13:24:00.000-05:00

I follow the chair rail back to the family room. The stained glass is glowing in the afternoon sunlight that illuminates it from behind bathing the room in fractured colors. It looks like an acid trip.
Sydney is still hovering over Nigel, but she is talking to the other people who have drifted in from the cold of orphan Christmases to the warmth of Sydney's mom's house. The majority are men, I infer that the women must be helping with the onions in the kitchen. The smell has changed though and I can smell ham and turkey and nutmeg mingled with the ever-present onion smell now. There are no empty seats so I go stand over behind the chair Nigel occupies. The conversation drifts over me after I nod my greeting to people whose names I'd never remember. Sydney had put a record of Christmas instrumentals on. There was a Christmas tree in the left corner near the hall I went down. I'd never even noticed it before. Though how can a person not notice a 12-foot tree full of lights, garlands, tinsel, and giant glass balls in red and gold and purple and green? There are still presents unopened piled around the tree as well as several sweaters in ten-year-old boy size set display style in their boxes.

"What do you think, Jocelyn?" I am not paying attention. I am startled.
"Um, about what?" They all laugh.
"We noticed that you were a million miles away. We thought maybe you were working on a formula for time-travel." They all chuckle and chortle.
"Oh, uh, I was just looking at the tree. It's really big."
"Yeah, my brother picked it out. We had to get Brett and Bradley over to get it in the house." Sydney steered the conversation back to her topics. She was brilliant at taking over conversations.
"Yeah, Sarah called and said that Jordan and Sydney couldn't get the tree off the roof rack of the car. They were worried about dropping the thing and breaking the branches off. When Bradley and I got here, it was still bound up in the string, so we just hauled it in, base first and cut the string after we mounted it in the stand. Sarah had a shit-fit when the needles rained down all over coating the room in a fine layer of Christmas cheer. It was amazing how far a tree can fling those needles after being bound up like that!"

I pretended to listen as they talked about Sydney's mom screaming and getting out two vacuums making Bradley and Brett sweep while she dusted and Sydney and Jordan sucked the needles up with the vacuums. Then Bradley's wife Emily came in and told us dinner was served.

The dining room was off the kitchen, close to the powder room I had used before. It had four doorways leading out of it one to each of the hallways I had already been through, one to the kitchen and one that was closed. I figured I might investigate that one after dinner so that I wouldn't have to participate in any more conversations about time-travel.
The table was a huge old farm table, the kind that probably had knife marks deep in the grain, but the beige linen tablecloth hid all its history. It was set with a mismatch of crystal goblets and water glasses, old, crazed china with bold cabbage roses on the rim. There were ancient looking silver and gold plated utensils, no thought given to what was at which place except that everyone had forks, spoons and knives. There were no place cards either, so we all sorta shuffled around the table in silent musical chairs until Sydney was at one end with Nigel to her left and then the rest seemed to find an unspoken order, leaving me on the other end staring at the four places left.

"I, uh, I'll just go help carry the food in..." I stammered my way out of the room into the kitchen with Sarah and Emily and another woman named Grace.
"I, uh, came in to help."
"You go on and sit down, we have it covered, Jo." Sarah handed a platter of sliced breads to Emily.
"Oh, um, okay. Is there anything else I can help with? What about the drinks?"
"Oh! I forgot! Can you use a corkscrew?" I nodded. "Good, over there on the Hoosier, Open three of the chiantis and two of the chardonnays and one bottle of the pink stuff. Let the reds breathe while you pour the others. That'll be a big help! Oh, and get a pitcher or two of ice water, the pitchers are in the cupboard above the wine. Thanks, you're such a help!"

I set to work opening the bottles, reds first so they could breathe.
Emily and Sarah got to work carrying the platters and bowls of food out to the table, telling everyone to dig in, that they'd all say grace over dessert so the food wouldn't get cold. I could hear Sydney holding court and Nigel laughing.

I wondered why I came at all. Somehow I always seemed to get short changed in social situations. I just felt that to be like Sydney was to be rude to other people. She was the kind of person who didn't listen, she only waited for an opening for her chance to talk or change the subject to something she was interested in. Nigel was the same way. He interrupted and spoke over you and would pretend to be bored with a topic rather than admit he had no knowledge on the subject.

Grace was stirring the gravy, waiting for it to thicken, three gravy boats lined up on the counter waiting to be filled. She was of the aging hippie variety, Long, kinky salt and pepper hair with a jeweled hair clip holding the wisps on the left side of her head. She wore Birkenstocks with fuchsia colored wool socks. Her skirt was black velvet with a German-style decorative ribbon trim in green, red and white with gold threads shot through. Her blouse was fuchsia silk with one of those vests from the Andes or Peru in shades of fuchsia and green in a floral design. She looked like most of my mother's friends.

"So, Jocelyn, Sarah tells me that you're in college? what are you studying?"
"Um, fine art." I grunt as I pull the cork out of a bottle of the "pink stuff".
"Oh? I studied weaving before I dropped out to follow the Dead. I meant to go back, but it never seemed like the right time."
"Uh, huh." I make polite noises as I fight with a bottle of chardonnay.
"Yes, I was weaving tapestries out of reclaimed fibers at Berkeley when I heard the Dead play at the Carousel Ballroom in San Fran 1968. What kind of art do you do?"
"I, well, I went in as a Graphics major, but I didn't like the teacher who was my advisor, so I changed to Literature and then Fine Art. I'm taking Painting right now."
"How do you like it?"
"I love the smell of the oils. I forget who I am or what I am. I just paint. I wish I could paint all the time."
"Well, why don't you? It seems like you've found your passion. I found mine following the Dead. It was the best thing I ever did."
"It's not as simple as that, Grace. How can I follow my passion when I don't even know if it is my passion? Yeah, I like it now, but I liked Graphics and I liked Literature too. And in high school, I liked writing and reading, I thought I wanted to be an advertising executive or and editor. that didn't go anywhere."
I stand there looking at her holding an opened bottle in one hand and the corkscrew with cork in the other feeling like I've let down yet another adult in my life, feeling like I've done something wrong, but no one is telling me what, exactly, I did that was so bad.
"Jocelyn, you just follow your heart. It's not easy, the universe throws up roadblocks and distractions. You have to keep your eye on the thing you want and not be lead astray. It won't be easy. Nothing worth anything is ever easy." She punctuates each sentence with a wave of her hand, the hand that's holding the wooden spoon she was stirring the gravy with, and each sentence is punctuated with a splash of gravy on the cabinets and the walls and the floor.
Each drop of gravy represents another promise I broke to myself.

Full of potential, then splattered on the floor, wasted.

39-Christmas Day

2004-12-24T23:09:00.000-05:00

Christmas Day is on your own day in my family. Our big holiday is Thanksgiving, the day after my grandparents head down to Florida and don't return until well after Easter. When Jason was younger, we used to have a small day at home with various strays and orphans. Now that he's older, my parents go to the odd cousin's house with all the other strays and orphans. My mom likes it better this way, as she doesn't have to cook and rarely has to help clean.
Cait's parents have and open house brunch to catch all the friends that had family things on Christmas Eve, so Nigel and I head over there after our showers.

After an uneventful breakfast and a few mimosas each, the phone rings and it's Sydney. Cait talks to her for 10 minutes and hangs up.

"Grab your stuff, you're going to Sydney's for dinner."
"Where are you going?" I ask. Somehow Sydney's house for dinner doesn't sound very promising.
"I've gotta go visit my son. I have to put in some mommy time and I miss him."
"Oh."

Nigel and I get our coats and grab some cookies to go. It takes us three hours to get there.

Sydney throws open the door and her mother screams for us to come in. Her brother is already gone. Off to his father's house for another Christmas and dinner and skiing with his half siblings.
Sydney is her mom's first child. Her dad disappeared when she was three. Her mom remarried a few years later and had a son, Sydney's half brother Ryan. Ryan's dad left after 2 years and remarried within six months.

"Did you make it before he woke up?" I ask her as we take off our coats and she throws them on the floor of the coat closet.
"Yeah, I got in the door and he woke up while I was peeing. I didn't even have time to change into my PJ's to fool him."
"Did he say anything?"
"Yeah. He told me I didn't have to get dressed up for Santa. He told me Santa already has a wife."
"Smart kid." said Nigel.

We follow Sydney into the kitchen where her mom is peeling onions and sobbing into a kitchen towel. There are thirteen in the sink already and she has four more left. I don't ask.

"Hi, Mrs. B." say Nigel and I in unison.
"Hi kids. I hope you're hungry. I made plenty."
"Who else is coming?" I'm starting to blink rapidly as my eyes start to tear from the onions.
"Oh, well, um, you and Nigel and Sydney, and me...that's four. And maybe Brett and Anna from next door. I invited a bunch of folks. We'll see who the wind sweeps in."
"Okay."
"Mom, I'm gonna take them in the family room, the onions are making Jo-jo's eyes swell shut!"
"Okay. I'll call you kids when it's ready."

We follow Sydney through the maze that her mother's old saltbox farmhouse has become from two centuries of mismatched additions. The floors don't match and the walls lean in and out, the ceiling take sudden drops and the doors don't stay closed in the parts that have settled over the longest periods. It's just beautiful. You can feel the history and the love and the railings and doors are smooth from all the hands that ran across them. The floors are wide oak planks and fir and maple. All dark and aged and in the older parts they are pegged together, not nailed.

The family room is a more recent add-on from the 30's. Sydney's grandfather used bits and pieces of scrap and windows he scavenged and it was a big space with a stained glass church window as the focal point. I could see why the church got rid of that particular window. It was gothic in its depiction of Christ dying on the cross, a chilling reminder done in blood red translucent glass. The glass was flawed with trapped air bubbles, made it all the more compelling as it looked like the bloodied wounds were boiling. The Christ figure was done in yellow and blue glass, sun and shadows, life and death, eerie now in future time when Jesus is risen and kids are taught about a sterile Christ and 'yes Jesus loves me' in Sunday School.
I shivered and looked away.

Nigel sat on an overstuffed brown leather club chair and Sydney sat on the arm of it, one leg dangling and swaying back and forth to their private conversation. She was leaning toward him and he was leaning slightly away. I sat with my back to the stained glass on a chintz sofa and reached for the TV remote.

"Jo-jo, no TV today. I'm gonna get Nigel to light the fire and I'll put on some Christmas music. The other people will be here soon."
"Okay, um, where's the bathroom?" (Even though I was here once before, the place is a fucking maze. I didn't think I could find my way back to the kitchen if it weren't for the onion smell.)
"It's down the hall with the chair rail wainscoting. Third door on the left."
"Okay." I go through a different door than we came in through and walk down a dark hall following the chair rail. There are grapevine wreaths and bunches of dried flowers, stems wrapped in faded ribbons hanging from the beamed ceiling, copper pots and cast iron trivets and darkened tiny oil paintings line the walls. The overwhelming feeling is of age and history and the same blood living within its walls for two hundred years.

It is the kind of house that makes you believe in ghosts no matter how skeptical you may be.

I count the doors, each one latched with an old iron and rope pull, you tug downward and the little arm swings up and you push the door open. The doors are heavy, solid oak, ten-inch wide planks, three planks across. I wonder what's behind.
The third door on the left is hung with a little plaque that says, "Water Closet" in Old English font. This door has a crystal knob with a keyhole underneath.

I open the door to an oak and white Victorian Water Closet. The tank is ceramic and brass, mounted high on the wall with its pull chain dangling down to the toilet seat. The toilet is white with an oak seat and brass fixtures. The pull chain has a brass monkey gripping the chain on the end.
The sink is an old porcelain bowl set on top of and oak dresser. No shower or tub, just a linen closet full of mismatched towels in a rainbow of colors on the middle two shelves, Enough rolls of toilet paper to fill a case or two on the lower shelf and more boxes of Kleenex that in a grocery store on the top shelf. It looked like they were planning to hunker down and wait for a radiation from a nuclear war to pass. The leaded glass beveled mirror over the sink was a carved mahogany full of gargoyles and vines and thorns. I thought it an odd addition to the mostly oak accents, but it wasn't something I'd want in my bedroom, so I probably would have put it in the powder room too. The floor was the wide oak planks like the rest of the house, but these were running long ways to the window. I pulled up my skirt and sat on the seat and wondered what else might be for dinner besides onions.

37-Shower vignette

2004-12-21T03:03:00.000-05:00

After I finish cleaning the sink, I get two towels from the linen closet and take a shower. I let the hot water beat down on me, washing away the smells of tequila, cigarettes and vomit mingling in my nose. I let the water run down my body, my own personal baptism washing away all the sins of the past brand new day to make amends.
While I'm becoming one with the water, Nigel walks in and through to the toilet.

"Do you mind?!" I shreik.
"I don't mind at all, in fact I may join you after I take a shit."
"You are so gross. Like the most disgusting human I've ever met."
"You're too sensitive."
"Fuck you." I quick finish and shut off the water before he can flush and scald me. "It's all you." I tell him as I wrap one towel around my body and run out of the bathroom and down the hall to my room.
I shut the door and lean against it listening. He didn't follow me this time. I wrap my dripping hair in my other towel, snickering over the fact that there are no towels in the bathroom now and that my mom will get to see Nigel in all his glory.

I get my small revenges where I can.

36-The Kitchen

2004-12-18T03:16:00.000-05:00

We left at 4 am. Duke was long gone and Noteethdude was passed out in a chair in what used to be the dining room. We piled into my tiny Honda Civic and Nigel, being the most sober of us, drove back to my mother's house. Sydney kept asking how to get back to her car because she swore that she had to be home when her little brother woke up. Cait was mostly unconscious.
We half carry Cait into my mom's house and dump her, shoes, coat and all, on the bottom bunk in my brother's room. He was at a friend's ski lodge for Christmas break.
We put Sydney on the couch. I was sure our heated whispers were going to wake my mom. Sydney kept begging us to take her to her car, but we ignored her.
Nigel and I ended up in my twin bed. We stripped to underwear and wrapped our arms and legs around each other in the sort of love-knot that only very tall people can manage and not look strained. Nigel was out instantly. I fell asleep to the rhythmic rise and fall of his snoring.

******************************

We are woken the next morning by my mother fliging open the door so hard that it bounces off the wall, and she is screaming, "WHO YAKKED in MY SSSSSIIINNNKKKK?????!!!!!"
Nigel looks at her, "What did you say? I couldn't hear you over the screaming?"
"I said, you fucking smartass, who YAKKED in my kitchen sink?"
"Oh." and he turns his back to her, which shoves me out of the tiny twin bed and deposits me on the floor. Nigel promptly goes back to sleep.

"Um..." And I trail off, getting up and pulling a T-shirt over my head following her into the kitchen, where, there is indeed, vomit in her shiny aluminum kitchen sink.

"I dunno whose it is, Mom. It's not mine."
"I don't care who made it." She hands me the Comet and a sponge. "I suggest you clean it and assign blame later."
I get rubber gloves from underneath the sink and put them on, snapping the bottom of each as though I'm a surgeon going in to take care of a messy burst appendex. She watches me as though I'm an alien clone and she wants to know if I'm goig to eat her before she can scream.

"Um, have you seen Sydney? I left her on the couch when I came in last night."
"And what time was that?"
I run a little water in the sink making the Comet go from pale mint color to bright green. "I dunno. Late, I guess, or maybe early, depending on how you interpret it."
"Smartass! I haven't seen Sydney. Didn't Cait go with you guys last night?"
"Yeah, we tossed her in Jason's room. She's on the bottom bunk."
My mom goes off to look for Cait. Yakk in the kitchen sink has all the markers of a Cait stunt. Normal people yakk in the toilet. Cait's not normal.

I look out the window and see that Cait's car is gone. Only my family's cars and the bare trees are out front. My mom comes back, tugging on the bottom of my t-shirt as I lean into the scrubbing of the dried, desiccated vomit.

"Your tee is too short to wear in front of your brother and stepfather. And Cait's not in Jason's room. Her purse is there."
"Well, it was long enough when I walked out here."

I pull one of the gloves off and grab the receiver of the wall phone and dial Cait's parents' number. I put the phone between chin and shoulder and go back to scrubbing. My mom ducks back and forth, under the cord, over the cord, in a weird annoying jumprope game, tugging on it, nearly strangling me on several occasions. I press the phone harder into my shoulder with my chin. This is my mom in aggressive mode, letting me know she's pissed and wants the culprit brought to justice or I'll hang in effigy.

"Uh, hi Mrs. X. It's Jo. Oh, yeah, Merry Christmas to you too. Is Cait there?
"Yes. She just walked in the door as a matter of fact. You girls need to give it a rest, you'll get the flu running around in the cold."
"Yes, Mrs. X. Can I talk to Cait?"
"Hold on."
I can hear her in the background, tinny and far away as she walks from kitchen to the hall calling to Cait to pick up the phone.
"Hey, Jojo! How ya feelin'?"
"I'm okay. DId you, um, throw-up in my mom's sink? And what happened to Sydney?"
Cait giggles. "Yeah, I did. Sydney made me drive her back to her car."
"Oh. Well, couldn't you have..." My mom grabs the phone and chokes me with the cord in her haste to yell at Cait. I duck my head and get untangled.
"Get your ass back over here and clean my sink!" she shouts into the phone.

I think she woke up the neighbors. I hear Cait laughing out loud as she tells my mom she owes me for cleaning it up. My mom blusters and threatens, but Cait just laughs and cajoles and knows that my mom never means what she says.
And soon my mom is laughing along with her as I clean the sink, Cinderella in her too short t-shirt and yellow rubber gloves.

35-Pot of gold

2004-12-15T23:59:00.000-05:00

We walked up onto the front porch and Duke opened the door for us. I was expecting to be let into someone's grandmother's chintz and china living room.

Instead it was hardwood floors aged and darkened with beer and whisky, scratched up from bar stools and construction books. The patrons were blue collar types. Alone or very far from home on Christmas Eve. No one to take them in and give them a reason to shave. And here were Cait, Sydney and I, dressed to kill and the only fresh female blood these guys had smelled close-up in years.

Nigel was ignored and three stools were vacated for us girls. The attention was intense and overwhelming, but the guys were so polite and so sweet that we felt welcome.
Duke bought a round for the bar. Beers were 5 cents and well liquor shots were 50 cents. I ordered a tequila shot and three were put in front of me along with a container of Morton's Salt.
Sydney was staring at 5 vodka tonics and Cait was racing some guy with no teeth to see who could get through the record 10 shots of JD lined up in front of her.
Cait and Noteethdude rapid-fire-downed each shot, slamming the glass on the bar. Cait was declared the victor at 7 shots to his three. I do believe he let her win.

Nigel shot the shit with a few of the less homeless looking guys, talking about cars and construction, in that universal guy language.
I pretended to watch TV as the tequila haze settled over me.

They had a pool table where the kitchen used to be and the guys would open the fridge door to get an extra foot of room to make difficult shots.
It was a neighborhood bar, illegal, but no one cared. Even the cops came after their shifts and drank with neighbors and the semi-homeless.
An entire underground society, secret, but not, something you would ever find on your own.

It seems to me that these little secret bars are a bit of magic, and Christmas Eve we followed a leprechan to his pot of gold...

34-Three Weeks Later

2004-12-09T01:42:00.000-05:00

Fastforward through all the dating and mating dance. Three days before Christmas, Nigel and I were an item. I had spoken to his parents on the phone and Sydney had resigned herself to third wheel status.

Christmas Eve we all meet at Cait's parent's house for their annual Christmas Open House. Cisco took their son to his parents and Cait was free for the week. Nigel couldn't afford to fly back to California and Sydney wasn't speaking to her father, so the four of us decided to have our own party after dinner at Cait's house. Since I was the only one with any up-to-date knowledge of the nightlife in the area, I suggested we go down to the waterfront to a little dive bar where the waiters went after work.

The Flatiron was a triangle where five streets converged. It had been a sweatshop and was now a bar with apartments on the five floors above. We got there a little after 9pm and it was empty but for a few wharf rats and a bouncer and two bartenders. We ordered drinks and sat at a table at the point of the iron, behind the pool table.
"Pool! Who's playing?" Sydney was always up for bar games. She played mean darts and wicked pool throwing her chest in the face of her male opponents to distract them. Cait grabbed a cue and so did Nigel. I sat with the purses and coats and did what I always do best, pretended to watch TV.

Around 11pm we were on our fourth round, the wharf rats had joined us and even bought a round, and the wait staff of five different formal restaurants turned banquet hall for Christmas staggered in.
"Hey, is that you Jo?!" "Jo! Holy shit!" "Jo, we haven't seen you in months!" Ted, Ron, Kathy, and Jason all dragged chairs over to my little hideaway. They ordered a round and asked about college and I introduced them to my Christmas Posse.
Pool and darts were played, many more rounds were downed and many tall tales were told. At 1am, the bartender told us he was shutting down.

"Where you guys going now?" asked Duke, one of the wharf rats. He was a stooped, unshaven, chainsmoking alcoholic who looked about 80 but he was only 42. He loaded and unloaded the ships.
"We don't know. Look for another bar or go to the city or something, maybe..." Nigel said.
"You should come with me. I know an after hours place around the corner."
"Sure! Lead on, McDuff." Cait grabbed Duke's arm and lead him to the door. The bouncer held the door open for us as we spilled out into the fog and night.

We pile into our cars, none of us very steady and we follow Duke through winding roads and narrow alleys on the side of a steep hill with a sliver of a view of the water. Duke parks and waves us to a space in front of a beat up ford pickup. We follow him four houses down and he opens the door to a white clapboard. On the porch in an old couch, the back seat of a car and a recliner with springs out the back. The steps are curved from so many years of heavy footsteps and long wet winters. There is nothing to distingish this house from any other in a lower class blue collar neighborhood. Nothing to set it apart from any other two-story 1920s woodframe that your grandparents may have rented during the depression or the war.