Skibbereen

Amon had a bad habit of crawling out of the woodwork, much like a slithering centipede except with more deliberation and a bit more creepily. The truth was Amon was no more creepy than you or I, minus his impressive knowledge of all things violent (classic horror films, war, local car wrecks) and his freakishly long fingernails that had begun to yellow and curl under over time.

In reality, he had lots of good things to say. We met in a pub (his word, not mine) while looking over a map determining what our next day’s adventure should be. Neither one of us had any idea of what we were looking for. Our relief map showed us every crack and crevice we couldn’t care less about but told us nothing of what we might.

“May I make a suggestion?” Amon’s rickety voice blurted out over the Celtic fiddles of the pub. I recognized him immediately as the man who, as the innkeeper told us, more or less lived in the hostel where we were staying.  He was the man that caused the girls to grasp their robes tightly to their throats. The man whose roommates must have said “uh-huh” and “that’s nice” and “oh, really?” about a thousand times while being regaled with one of his epic tales. He was the career backpacker and he was frightening for that reason. He was doing what we were all doing and hoped not to be when we were his age. He was our idea of failure in human form.

We looked up to see him standing there in his immutable suit. Gray tweed over a white button-down shirt so old there was no need to press it.  The creases and pleats had memorized their positions. Gray the color of an Irish sky 86% of the time. That meant 86% of the time Amon was practically invisible against his backdrop. A pale green tie grazed his gold belt buckle and his left hand held a weathered briefcase which was bursting with his life’s work: travel guides, bus tickets, maps scribbled on with directions and addresses.

“Sure, why not?” I replied but Amon had already slid in next to us on the booth seat and was tapping his thick, grimey nail on the map.

“You must go to Skibbereen,” he said. The town was several hours southwest of where we were and even further away from where we probably were going. Nonetheless, we sat and listened to Amon tell us about his time spent in the exact middle of West Cork.

“The town’s name means little boat harbor, did you know? “

We did not.

Amon told us how Algerian pirates had caused the town to prosper, bringing in their looted goods from around the world created quite the economy. And how the pirates ran things for some time and on the nights the pirates returned the town celebrated with a pig roasted with rosemary in a drum. He told us about the Great Famine and deaths and where to see the mass graves at the local cemetery. He told us a 12-year-old boy had overthrown his father’s murderous greed to become the town’s founding member and how he met the relatives of this boy and they tried to give him a goat but he refused it on account of not having the proper shelter for such an animal.

Amon’s Skibbereen was larger than life. He showed us maps and newspaper clippings from his briefcase which confirmed his stories but somehow they weren’t as interesting in print. Maybe it was his accent or maybe it was the Guinness, but hearing Amon speak of this place, his country, made me wish I was part of it.

“If you go, say,” Amon said,” buy a lotto ticket. It’s the luckiest town in Ireland you know.”

Early the next morning, our backpacks strapped to our backs, we squeezed down the narrow corridor of the hostel on our way to the bus stop. Amon was already awake, already dressed for his day in his gray suit. We side-stepped past each other in the tight hallway.

Amon tipped his hat and we were on our way.

Beauty and the Beast

Rachel (names have been kept the same to expose the scandalous) was a beauty queen in every since of the tainted word. She was the kind of girl who had words like “Dream” and “Believe” painted on her walls. The kind of girl that cried when she got haircuts. The kind of girl that smiled to your face but scowled when you turned away. The kind of girl I happened to live with.

The funny thing is, she really was a beauty queen. Literally. She had those strange dresses that looked as if there were perpetually a person in them, even when there wasn’t. Her room was lined with pictures of her winning various titles: Miss Northeast Wisconsin, Miss Fox Valley, Miss Somewhere Else Nondescript. Each title became reduced down to merely a frame on her dresser, a pathetically isolated reminder of her worth.

I found out later that beauty queens don’t get to keep their crowns. They pass them on to the reigning champion, a symbolic removal from the spotlight which can induce symptoms of postpartum depression minus the subsequent child. This knowledge made what Rachel did (a little) more understandable.

Just so happened, I also lived with a current title-holding Miss Something. Don’t ask me how I ended up with two pageant girls for college roommates. Shit happens.

This Miss Something kept her crown in an oak box lined with blue velvet secured by a gold lock under her bed. One particular day she went to retrieve said crown from its velvet napping place but (gasp!) it wasn’t there. Naturally all fingers pointed to Rachel. Poor Rachel, hungry for the sweet, sweet glory she had developed a taste for, had robbed Miss Something of not only her crown but her faith in womankind.

She must have turned that room upside down, savagely searching for the crown. Oh, the satisfaction she must have felt when she finally found it and ever so carefully placed it on her unfamiliar head. Like a vampire feeding on warm blood, I imagine. After originally denying the allegations, Rachel eventually admitted that the crown was in the trunk of her car. It was swiftly collected and replaced to its box.

I had a dream that I was watching like a movie with Rachel as the leading role. She dressed conservatively, like a mother would dress, and snuck into the maternity ward of the hospital where Miss Something had just given birth. She grabbed a bundle from an incubator and bolted for the door. Just then, a nurse grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around revealing the swaddled ball in her arms was a diamond studded crown, not a baby. That was the first time I can remember laughing in my sleep.

Thanks, Rachel.

Shock and Awe

How a women’s black lacy, presumably used, thong ends up in the front yard of a 75-year-old man is beyond me. Underwear isn’t typically considered a layering item to be taken off if you get too warm during the evening cookout or put on in defense of mosquitoes. Underwear is meant to remain where you last placed it. Proper locations might include the laundry, a dresser drawer designated for like items, or on your person. If you are traveling with it, it should be shamefully tucked into the darkest corner of your suitcase ensuring a safe and concealed transport to its new location. Any incident that occurs resulting in your undergarments flying out the car window, accosting an innocent neighborhood could only be described as “freak.”

I’m sure my grandfather felt the same way. This man took immense care of his yard. His grass was always a uniform 1 ¼ inches long. Any one blade never had the chance to outshine the others. Even around trees and mailbox poles where most people give up trying to mow, my grandfather got on his hands and knees with a scissors and snipped that grass into shape. He ran sprinklers while it was raining. Perhaps that’s why my grandfather’s lawn was always a brilliant emerald green next to my own family’s pukey olive. Everything was manicured, everything had its place. You can imagine his dismay on the morning he woke up to find his pristine lawn tainted by a pair of slutty underpants.

I ran next door to inform him of the invasion, as if he hadn’t been up since dawn devising a suitable plan of attack.

“Grandpa,” I said when he opened the door, “there is underwear in your yard.”

He looked past me to the scene of the crime, squinted his eyes and whispered, “I know.”

I spent the rest of the morning playing in my driveway, fabricating new games in order to stay outside longer. We were all very curious as to what my grandfather would do.

Finally, he emerged. He stalked out of his garage wearing rubber waders that hit mid-thigh, the sleeves of his flannel shit rolled up to the elbow, suspenders across each shoulder. He wore a floppy straw hat and carried a large, lethal looking pitchfork. But most importantly, he wore a look of resolved determination in defeating the underwear.

He approached it confidently, yet cautiously, like you would a wild animal you can never fully predict. After a brief inspection, my grandfather speared the negligee on the end of one of the pitchfork prongs. He returned to the garage holding the pitchforked underpants as far from his body as possible. I felt a strange sense of admiration for my grandfather at that moment, as I watched him take that underwear to its fate.

Her

The way I see it, it’s not a lie until someone finds out. Until then it’s the truth. That’s what I keep telling myself as I sit on my discolored, sticky couch. This is the truth. I need to believe that. Otherwise, this is never going to work.I suddenly grow very aware of exactly how dirty my couch is. How many rum and cokes have been spilt on it. How many camel lights have missed the ashtray on it. How many of my friends have slept with each other on it. I desperately want a new couch.

“When was the last time you saw her?” her mother asks, tears sparkling over her cheekbones, getting caught in the deep lines. Valleys carved by worry. 

 ”Umm…this morning. When I left for school,” I lie.

 ”And she seemed okay? Not like…,” her mother trails off. I finish for her.

 ”Not like the other times, no.”

“We looked everywhere,” her mother says. “She won’t call us back. I don’t know where she could be.”

I know where she is. I know she is hunched down in the back of my closet, my closet several feet away, behind a hamper filled with my soiled clothes, taking short, shallow breaths for fear of being discovered. While her mother and I sit in the living room discussing her whereabouts, me on the couch, her mother not.

 ”I’m sorry I don’t know,” I lie again.

 ”You’ll call me, if you hear from her?” Those wet eyes plead something desperate but nothing new. This isn’t the first time.

“Of course,” I say with real concern. “Of course, I will.” I know what low feels like.

Her mother leaves, looking so tiny, and I have to hold back from setting that couch ablaze. I could probably get a new one for a decent price. By new I mean used.

She comes out from my closet. Her torn jeans expose one knee. She has nice knees the right shape, straight. She is wearing an accidentally bleached shirt because she likes the pattern of stains. She lights another cigarette. Her wrists are hacked open with a drug-store razor blade, nothing but red inside.

“You should go to the hospital,” I tell the truth.

She smiles. “That was close,” she pretends she doesn’t hear.

She melts into my disgusting, rotting couch and ashes her cigarette. She misses the ashtray.

Velour is the New Cashmere

They sounded like my 6th grade teacher’s footsteps. The click-clack of Payless knock-off heels. But not real heels. We’re talking a nice, low kitten heel. Conservative, yet almost bad ass.

I was in the baking aisle deciding which brand of tapioca to purchase so I didn’t bother turning around. Then suddenly the click-clacking stopped short, by my estimation somewhere in the flour/sugar region of the same aisle. There was silence except for the muzak version of a Lisa Loeb song blaring over the intercom. The click-clacker reversed directions without even turning around. You could tell because it became a clack-click. It was the kind of reverse you might do if you thought you saw a Friends cast member browsing cake mix at your local store; quick, excited, hopeful.

Now, that was worth turning around for. To see what this Click-Clacker was making such a fuss about. And there he was. One of the stranger shaped people I had ever seen. He was staring up at the aluminum baking dishes in awe. The kind you would bake a casserole in and give it to your friend. But not a friend you would expect your Tupperware back from.

He was short. Probably 5′3. He had the posture of a five-year-old girl. Back arched so his pudgy belly and bulbous ass stuck out. He was shaped like a ‘J.’ Or some kind of nut. He would be the style love child produced if Prince, Missy Elliot, and Tim Mcgraw had a threesome. He was wearing a purple velour running suit which included pants and a matching hoodie. His pant legs were shoved haphazardly into studded cowboy boots. He wore a similar cowboy hat that had seen its day in a previous decade. Around his neck were big, gangsta chains. There was a lot of gold.

He stared at the pans and tins mesmerized. He reached out and deliberately picked a flat baking sheet off the shelves. His eyes seemed to light up probably much like Herman Melville’s did after he got the idea for Moby-Dick. He shoved the sheet in his basket and hightailed it to dairy.

Twenty minutes later I was unloading my box potatoes and peas (skipped the tapioca) onto the check out conveyor belt when the Click-Clacker approached. I heard him coming. He began unloading his groceries behind mine which by now included: butter, eggs, vegetable oil, flour, sugar, vanilla extract, chocolate chips, baking powder/soda. The cookie sheet. Basically every last thing you need to make cookies. Including the cooking utensils.

Then he talked.

“Can you put nuths in cookieth?” he asked me. Of course this hopelessly strange man would have an overpowering lisp. I wondered if he was so strange because of the lisp or the lisp made him so strange? Kinda like what came first, the chicken or the lisp?

“Umm…yeah,” I responded, a little off guard. “My mom puts walnuts in everything.”

The Click-Clacker thought for a moment. “I wath thinking more like pecanth!” His dark skin grew rosy with excitement. “I’ll be back in a thecond,” he told the bewildered cashier. We both watched his fat, little ass click-clack away to the nut aisle.

“He’s funny,” I said to break the silence.

“You know him?” the cashier asked, a little disgusted.

“I wish.” And I really do.

F is for Female

Its name was Jean and it came during geography class.

“Class,” our teacher said, “this is Jean. Our new…student.” Not boy or girl. Just student. Jean was taller than everyone. Even the teacher. Jean was probably a boy. Jean had long hair. Kinda. Okay, Jean was probably a girl. Jean was dirty. Like a boy. Jean giggled. Like a girl. And it went on like this. For every seemingly masculine trait Jean had, there was a feminine one to contradict it.

Jean didn’t use the boys room. But she didn’t use the girl’s room either. She simply didn’t go to the bathroom at all. We knew because we watched. Very closely, we watched. Nothing about Jean really gave it away. We were all 14 and deeply confused.

But then we remembered: gym class. Of course, gym class. When Jean was placed in the girl’s or boy’s gym class the mystery of Jean’s genitalia would be solved and we could start stereotyping her properly. Everyone would be very relieved.

Jean was put in the girl’s gym class but she didn’t do what the other girls did. She didn’t play the games. Her thick arms would look funny swinging a jump rope. She didn’t change clothes. And she certainly didn’t shower. We said we were afraid she would look at us but really, we knew we’d be looking at her.

Jean didn’t go swimming with the class. And one day, neither did I. I made up some excuse. I had cramps or I didn’t have a tampon or I didn’t know what a tampon was or something like that, using my femininity as a weapon. We sat, Jean and I, on the wooden benches in our quiet captivity and watched the other girls swim. Jean didn’t talk much. But I wanted to make her.

I slid over next to her. She stiffened. She rubbed her gnawed down fingernails into the pad of her thumbs one at a time. If we were in a cartoon world, she would have had stink lines. Her hair was the same color as her skin. Everything about her was a little gray. But up close, and by close I mean a normal distance, you could see she had green eyes. Bright green eyes.

“Why aren’t you swimming?” I asked. I was young and blunt.

Jean paused for a moment. Then she explained. “Well, one time,” Jean responded confidently, like she had planned on and been waiting for this day to come, “I was at a zoo with my family and there was a bear that was, like, rabid or something. And everyone was freaking out ’cause the zookeepers were too afraid to stick it with this needle with medicine on it. So I took the needle and jammed it into the bear, okay. And the bear scratched me really bad and the scars are just too freaky it would freak you all out to see.”

She could have just said she had a penis, I thought. Instead she expected me to believe, at probably 12 years old, she had wrestled a bear. And won.

Soon after that, Jean left as quickly as she came. No one knew where or why and no one really asked. Jean was a freak. An ‘it.” Her quick stint in girl’s gym was unconvincing. But Jean was just benign enough to be forgettable.

Three years later, some friends and I drove through a little town on the way to somewhere else and stopped at a gas station. I purchased my carbonated sugar and went to leave but something caught my eye. A pie-shaped, androgynous face. Gray. Brilliant green eyes. It stared at me wanly with just the hint of a smile. Jean. On paper.

The top of the flyer said “MISSING PERSON” and gave a date two weeks prior. Jean’s picture was underneath. But then I saw it. Right there in black and white.

Sex: F

Turns out, that “F” was just the beginning of Jean’s mystery.

Careless Charity

He always smells like food. Like a nice thick pea or lentil soup. The kind with chunks of fatty ham floating around in it. It makes me want to rub bread all over him and then taste it. This could use a little pepper, I would probably say. I’m always so hard on the first course.

But naturally, you don’t just rub bread on people. Especially people you tutor, the people you are supposed to be helping. I tutor him, this soupy boy, in reading and writing, things like that. Things I’m supposed to know about but have learned I really don’t. He’s 23 and reads at a third-grade level.  Something is wrong with him and he knows it. He told me. And after a 12 hour training program, I’m supposed to fix him.  But a couple of weeks ago, he tried to quit on me.

The phone rings.

“Hi this is (insert boy’s name) and I’m really sorry, I mean, you are a very good tutor but I just don’t want to be tutored anymore and it’s not you it’s me, for real, because I just have a lot going on right now, and I’m sorry, I just don’t feel like I’m doing anything but I really like you, I promise.”

Then I said “Hello.” And then, I panicked. For two different reasons. First, there was the original reason then I panicked because that reason meant I was a horrible person. I panicked, originally, because I needed him. I mean, I needed him. I don’t tutor because I enjoy it. Because deep down, it does something to my soul like fill a void left behind by apathetic parenting or teenage promiscuity. God, no. This tutoring gig was simply an item on a list. But a very important list. A list important people will look at and decide if my good acts outweigh my mediocre; if I’m worthy of their school, their company, their money. It’s a resume builder.

God help me, at that moment I wanted to agree with Soupy. You’re right, I should say. You don’t wanna get caught up with the likes of me, kid. I’m a mover and a shaker. You’re a dime a dozen. You wanna get stepped on like this? Used like a rummage sale book, spine all broken? That’s all you’ll ever be to me. Run! Run away!

But instead all I could do was panic. Wait, I pleaded. No, don’t leave me! My intrinsically good acts will be meaningless without you there to receive them! Don’t deny my kindness you son of a bitch!

Then of course I realized that only a horrible, greedy, selfish person would think of good deeds as treasures to be accumulated and collected, stored and saved until one day you need to pull them out and show them off. See, I’m a good person. See? See?!? 

Should I start carrying around pre-made forms for my kindness victims to fill out after experiencing my philanthropy. Here, granny. Grab ahold, sure any part, of this able body and let me escort your fleshy little vessel across this busy street. And if you could just initial here, here, and here. Documentation, you see. Harvard may want to know about this.

In the end, Soupy agreed to give tutoring another go. All I had to do was promise cupcakes on his birthday.

There. Now we are both getting what we want.