In a hurry to go nowhere (Fucking happy)
Foreign Relations
In a hurry to go nowhere (fucking happy)
I waited in line on 635 with the rest of the Monday morning commuters. Driving in Dallas traffic is about as tense of a feeling as sobering meth-head in the county drunk tank. The freeway is full of time-strained business man trying to make meetings, drunk cowboys hiding their small pricks in their jacked up F-850's, uninsured drivers driving 15-miles below the speed limit, and X’d-up, tragically hip, douches in their speedy imports pushing the sound barrier.
My swollen, purple face wore a look like a dog after their owner tells him not to eat out of the cat’s litter box. I’m wearing my fresh out the package, “Living Fish” shirt that still has the folded, creased lines fresh from the sweatshop it was sewn. The collared shirt is halfway tucked into my stretch-waist pants—a pair of sexless khakis that hang off my hips and drape my legs leaving everything to the imagination.
“Damn it—everyday!”
I spilled my daily vanilla latte-transfusion down my shirt—all of my work shirts have the same exact stain in the same exact spot on my left pectoral. The deceiving little bastard sip hole spills a generous amount of liquid during hole-to-mouth exchange when hitting a pothole. I placed the 10% post-consumer paper cup with the brown box chastity belt grip, preventing you from touching anything hot or wet, in my front coffee-ringed cup holder.
I turned on the radio to be greeted by the loud shrieking voice of the annoying thick, country twang of the co-host of the mega-douche all-hit station in Dallas. Sheila was joined by her assembly line co-host with “DJ” in his title—an appellation which long lost any edginess when he played the teen television star, Syvette’s image changing comeback hit “Training Bra in the Backseat of his Car” off of her multi-platinum “Almost Old-Enough” album 10 times in one hour. I picture Publicon’s portly office manager sitting in her office chair slugging down her third doughnut while sipping from her 64-ounce diet soda and bobbing her head to the beat like Syvette’s to the pleasure of her male back-up dancers, “I just love that, Sheila—she’s a firecracker!” while the hit-the-wall co-host rambles on about her rude server at Chilis. Everyone knows, Barbara the office manager, and her morning ritual of listening to the hit channel at “appropriate levels” in her little cube. She wears Sheila’s attitude like a badge but the only sassy or interesting remark she has made to me besides payroll information is my noncompliance with the two éclair per person maximum on Pastry Monday.
I turn the channel to the pop-country station—if the traffic weren’t so loud I could hear Willie Nelson loading his shotgun and Waylon fumbling for his whisky from six-feet under. Nashville light rock country has generasized and dulled the once spit, shit-kickin’, heavy drinken’, pill poppin’, music to a droning sound which apparently hypnotizes the heavily douched population into a trance to buy the swill—then they add a fiddle and slap a country tag to it. This type of ‘boot wearin’ brandin’ that put the ‘cunt’ into country was the genius of someone who made a lot of money. I would pay to see the group with the cowboy boots, holey jeans, tight shirts, and alt-rock haircuts blowing in their guitarist’s crack after Kris Kristofferson shoves his mouth flute up his ass.
Or the rock station targeting the middle aged, recently post-mulleted suburbanite blasting his loosely wound cassette tape of “Appetite for Destruction” in his garage’s boom box while lifting his sand dumb bells or the overly aggressive North Dallas-douche wearing his printed graphic “Affliction” shirt with some “Chopper” logo adorned to the back windshield. The only new music they play is the no melody, whining voiced, nu metal songs that must be the soundtrack for coming down from a heroin binge.
The morning humidity fogs my rearview mirror and Ray Bans as we all sit here like blood-clogged veins constricted by the ever tightening tourniquet of construction and accidents—the built up pressure causes us to engorge through the skin of the thick, smoggy air causing tension to our hearts. The target market sits next to me in his BMW convertible grinding the leather on his steering wheel with an unforgiving grip, “Somebody better be fucking dead!” he yells as I cringe in my seat.
Everyone is in a hurry to get to work and start on the endless pile of crap that awaits them. Mark Stoller, CEO, would probably tell me to pop in mind enriching audio to refocus myself: an enema of self-confidence, a lobotomy of indifference, a spinal tap of will…
…I wanna bend Rich Dad over his desk then Awaken My Giant Within…I need my Relationship Rescue with a quart of vodka and a jar of olives—shaken…How to Win Friends and Medicate People…gotta Stop Worrying and Start Living…gotta find the Power of Positive Thinking…gotta Win in the Game of Life—Dare to Dream and shit…Chicken Noodle Soup for Those Who Choose the Salad…7 Habits of Highly Effective Maniacs…
*****
I work in the erection off of 635 outside of downtown. My commute time is around one hour but oddly enough when I get here I feel disappointment; it’s sad but I find solace in the stressful morning-drive. I have complete radio station supremacy during my commute and I can just sit and enjoy the trip.
John sits there every morning answering phone calls with the same ambivalent grin and careless snide as I walk into the building. His right eye darts in the air as if to acknowledge my presence. His skinny headphone wraps around his head as his elbow rests on the desk forming his arm into a V while flipping his pen with two fingers. “Good morning, Publicon. How may I direct your call?” he says in his happiest, effeminate voice. JOHN DURROW, LEAD RECEPTIONIST was hired at Publicon one month before me and is rumored to make more then, BOBBY HAWKINS, COPYWRITER.
Everyone appears to be spunkier then normal and “Living Fish” on this early Monday morning. As I march to my desk, everyone is wearing their electrode smiles and forced grins—a stale kind of forced happiness that is sure to rot any creativity from the office.
“Hey, Bobby, good morning! Cheer up, man!” said a man who I’ve never spoken to despite having seen him everyday for the past two years.
“Mmm.” I mumble throwing him a piss-off-grin as I march past him.
This brief interaction was the first time I have spoken today. ‘Mmm’ seems fitting. I didn’t feel like hopping out of bed and chanting some daily affirmation to clear my mind and kick-start my day with positive thoughts…
I am a lovable person who is loved by others.
I am appreciated by others.
I love others no matter how they act,
or what their faults are.
…like some zombie utterance is going to fix my problems. I don’t subscribe to the notion that forced actions will improve my life and make me a happier person. Everything in my life is systematic enough without regulations on my attitude.
Another co-worker tries to get my attention, “Damn, Bobby. What happened to your face? Did ya burn your lip on a Hotpoc…”
“No, no. It had nothing to do with a Hotpocket,” I replied walking off.
Last night I slept-type-thing on the hard springs of my old college bed in our guest room, tossing and turning all-night until all four corners of the bed sheet ripped loose from under the mattress leaving me scrapping against the rigid mattress fabric on a wadded pile of sheet in the middle of the twin-full bed. The same bed that sparked memories of the first of many times we had sex in college—the mattress with a lingering, faint smell of her body lotion and shampoo. The steady grinding of my teeth, deep breathing, and squeaking of the springs formed a constant noise which reminded me how much sleep I was losing as the red numbers on the alarm clock marched on towards 6:00 a.m.
I looked at my chair in which for the next eleven hours I would drift back and forth between consciousness and a trance-like-state that has followed me for the last six months. My quarterly review still lay ominously on my desk from last week. The one that was filled with general phrases: lacks direction, find a sense of urgency, very creative but often inconsistent, motivation is sometimes in question…
I have one thing that separates me from the rest—a distinct quality that is invaluable to Publicon, my very own unique selling proposition. I may lack leadership ability or fit into the idea of synergy but my pen spreads like revelation. If you fire me I’ll spread my gospel else ware—sharp, highly targeted words that spread like an affliction.
“Ooh, Pastry Monday, hope there’s Danish left,” I muttered to myself.
Let me tell’em without your life insurance your family could go penniless—turn-in to homeless wretches forcing your daughter on the pole. I’ll tell’em they can’t sleep without your pills—bloodshot eye junkies need their nightly fix. Tell’em your gas company’s working with the environment—get those bleeding-hearts of your back so you can do that thing that you do—you know, gauge prices and dump your waste in the Gulf.
As I sat down, I booted up my MAC and threw my quarterly performance review in the trashcan. Another perfect day.
Foreign Relations
It’s 8:13 p.m. and I’m sitting in the parking garage jangling my keys in the ignition of my car; funny how during the first 11 hours of work I sit like an empty vessel wishing to close my eyes but when the last hour winds around I suddenly feel rejuvenated and ready for life. There’s a numbness inside of me that I can’t comprehend. Why can’t I feel any emotion? I want to feel the sharp knife dig into my skin then twist around ripping through vital organs and yanked out instantly releasing the agonizing pain allowing only for death or healing. Instead a dull blade is being dragged across the outside of my skin, once I feel some comfort its jagged teeth tear my skin—quick, relentless reminders of my separation. Amy agreed to stay at her friend’s apartment in Uptown last night, leaving me alone in the empty vessel that is our house.
I’m not ready to go home and face the condescending silence of the abandoned house: no T.V. or treadmill racket, dishwasher or washing machine noise, microwave and refrigerator hum, just a steady buzz from the lights creating an ambiance equivalent to an empty waiting room at the dentist’s office. I thumb through my cell phone looking for someone to comfort me—some reassurance that I’m not a complete asshole. I watched my parents go through a divorce after I graduated high school so I don’t think they’re an authority on the matter and every time we visit as a couple we greet them with plastic smiles and generic small talk designed to shield our personal life from my mother’s spear tipped questions. They have no idea about our marriage problems. Most of my phone numbers are mere acquaintances, work related, or some randomly acquired numbers I have collected over the years.
“Hello.”
“Hey, what’s up man?” I questioned over the phone.
“Uh, kinda busy. What’s up? Keep clappin’!” Denny yelled away from the phone.
“Oh, umm…just wondered if you wanna’ grab a beer or something?”
‘clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap’
“Yeah, ya’ know that place the Happy Hand I told you about while golfin’? Well turns out the little Oriental that was, uh givin’ me relief…”
A woman’s voice interrupted “Thing Oriental, rug Oriental, plate Oriental! People Asian—dumbass!”
“Damn it, Bo-bae, I’m tryin’ to have a conversation with my friend!” Denny said.
“Okay, that’s cool I’ll call ya later,” I said.
“No, no I’m fine,” Denny continued, “anyway, she runs a little side business of her own, if you know whata’ mean.”
“What’s with all the clapping?” I said.
“Gotta make sure she’s clappin’ while I’m not lookin’ so she don’t steal nothin’.”
‘clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap’
Would I be lowered to this—paying for a cheap whore to get some attention? I’ve never cheated on Amy while we’ve been married—never even kissed another woman. Yet some of my married friends cheat and womanize and they have perfectly happy relationships. Is it that easy to disassociate these instances when your sharing dinner with your wife at the Olive Garden?
“Where my money?” she asked in a way which was hard to discern rather she was demanding or asking.
“Damn it, hold-on! Have some of ‘at sake I bought. You people love that shit.”
“Sake Japanese—I Korean. Plus, this no Sake this Boone Farm!”
“Keep clappin’, Bo-bae!”
“Dumbass.”
“Why do you want me to clap?” I asked.
‘clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap’
After my college graduation, I moved back to Dallas for work leaving Amy in Lubbock to complete her final semester. It seemed inevitable that she would eventually move back to Dallas and we would start our new life together. The long distance thing was rough so we split for a two-month period. I told my friends that I was visiting Tech for a football game but it was merely an excuse to get back with Amy.
During the brief separation I only had one sexual encounter. Denny and I were out at a bar in downtown Dallas. My little studio apartment was on the outskirts of downtown making it easy to pre-drink at my place so we were already buzzed upon arrival. The windowless bar was filled with smoke and the preditorial North Dallas douches packed with muscles and rohitinol.
We leaned against the bar and ordered drinks. This particular bar served drinks in a way that disregarded any thought to other motorist or pedestrians on the street; four fingers of bourbon and a splash of water made the drive home difficult having to cover one of your eyes to see straight.
“’At little girl ain’t got no interest in you, Larry,” a woman sitting next to me said to her partner, “keep ‘em dirty eyes to yourself.”
“Ahh, Shirley, no need to go to a buffet when you got a perfectly good sandwich,” Larry responded pinching her ass as it folded out over the barstool as the hair responsible for covering his bald scalp blew in the air conditioner ruining his comb over. “’Sides, I seen you glarin’ at this’en over here a minute ago,” he said nodding at me.
Shirley was a hard-living looking woman whose skin was red and blotted from the sun. Her stringy blonde hair was slightly unkempt and ran down to her waist. She talked with a trailer accent and apparently had a pension for whiskey sours, NASCAR, and double negatives.
“Well I got too. ‘Cause you ain’t given me no dick since the first time we seen Junior race at the Speedway!”
“Ahh, honey, don’t be rude now! Introduce yourself to the fella’. This here’s my ol’ lady, Shirley. My name’s Larry,” he said extending his hand towards me.
“Bobby,” I said shaking his callused hand.
“Old lady? You forget your eight years my senior with your wrinkly old noodle dick.”
“Haaaaaaaaa,” Larry let out a continuous laugh that sounded as if he was exhaling after drinking turpentine. “Hey sweetie! Why don’t you pour us three Royal Fucks,” he said to the bartender while dangling a cigarette in his hand.
“You want Royal Fucks or Cheap Fucks?” the bartender asked.
I thought to myself he might want to opt for the latter and use the money to fix his teeth being the lonely incisor in his mouth may need help chewing food.
“Hell, in honor of our new friend, here, we need Royal Fucks,” he said to me as I wondered what merited such a term being I’ve only spoken one word.
“See, Bobby, Shirley and I are into the lifestyle.”
“Oh yeah? What lifestyle?” I asked as I took the shot and struggled to hear my new ‘friends’ over the noisy bar.
“We’re swingers,” he said as they looked at each other and smiled.
“Cool, what do y’all sing?”
“You know, with other people,” Shirley responded.
“Oh, must be a big band. Well hey, good luck with your music careers. I’ve gotta catch up with my friend. Thanks for the shot.”
I found Denny watching the end of the Rangers game at the other side of the bar, “Where’ve you been?” Denny asked.
“I was talking with these nice musicians at the end of the bar. Bought me a shot and everything.”
Halfway through my third bourbon and water two women approached the bar and leaned in to order a drink.
“Two vodka, nneat,” she said in an accent that was straight out of a James Bond movie.
“Where are y’all from?” I asked.
“We from Romania?” she said.
“Wow, Romania!” I said trying to talk over the packed crowd. “What’s your names?”
“I Flavia, this my friend Bogdana. We here training at the SMU.”
Flavia was a tall, full-sized woman standing a few inches taller then me, not fat but big and muscular. She wore tight black pants that curved around her peach shaped calves leading to her tree trunk thighs. Her tight V-neck long sleeve, beige shirt concealed her substantially large breasts of which formed a cleavage crack through the opening of the shirt. Her brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail leaving her bangs to frame her large green eyes and soft feminine face—a face that was juxtaposition to her square hard body. When she spoke her lips puckered to a kissing position as she blew her words out like she was whispering in your ear.
“We power lifters,” Flavia added as the duo slammed their drinks in unison. “You students at SMU?”
Our eyes widened in amazement as if they were putting on a show of strength, “No, no. I’m a phone salesman,” Denny said looking at Bogdana.
“She no talk much—very little English,” Flavia responded.
Bogdana was looking straight into Denny’s eyes with a strange look of disapproval. She was much shorter and less voluptuous then Flavia. Squinty eyelids surrounded her dark brown eyes like a lemon; her eyebrows were manicured, thick, and rounded her eyes reaching to her mid-forehead. She wore a short denim skirt that barely passed her mid thigh. Her arms and legs looked as if they were once short, large, and muscular then stretched taught to form long appendages that were virtually curveless but packed with mass and veins. She never lost the vicious scowl on her face.
“What kind of phone you sell?” Flavia asked.
“No, I sell advertising space in the phonebook to businesses,” he replied. “Bobby here’s some kinda technical writer.”
“Copywriter,” I injected. “I’m a copywriter.”
“Why do you do this copy? I thought there was machine for thees?”
Denny babbled on talking like Bogdana spoke fluent English as she stood there looking straight into his eyes with the same disinterested scowl. Denny could rarely look her in the eye and appeared to be a little nervous fumbling out his boastful comments.
“Always closing! That’s kind of my motto,” he said trailing off in the last sentence, as Bogdana stood motionless staring at Denny with the same face.
“We order more drinks. No?” Flavia said. “Four vodka, nneat.”
Four vodka, nneat. I heard that statement several times in the next hour. I was now touching shoulders with Flavia as we both leaned on the bar. I reached to feel her leg to make sure it wasn’t hollow being that she must have been through about a bottle of vodka by herself. She pulled my arm like a doll and I flung up close to her front torso. I barely had to look down to see her breasts press against my body and expand out the V-neck of her shirt.
“You are pretty man,” she said with a slur as her lips were failing to make a descent pucker as she spoke.
“You are, too…I mean woman. You’re a pretty woman.”
“Ha ha ha,” she laughed slowly and deliberately like it wasn’t funny. “You very funny man. Bet you make all theez hittle girls laugh. Do you?” she said waving and pointing her finger around the bar with the vodka glass clasped in the other fingers. “Why don’t we all go to your place and party?” she said grabbing a piece of ice from her drink and pressing it against my mouth.
“Sounds good,” I said as she reached into my mouth placing the ice on my tongue trailing her middle finger behind for me to suck.
“We wait for you two outside,” Flavia said. “Come, Bogdana.”
The bartender walked over with a subtle grin as she handed us the $367 bar tab. She winked as we signed our credit card slips.
“Hey, Bobby!” Larry said holding Shirley up from falling over, “Better wrap it in foil before you check her oil! Haaaaaaaaa!”
“Lovely,” I said under my breath walking outside.
****
“In training, I no have relation—it’s been over year since last relation,” Flavia said as we stood over my bed kissing as I inched her shirt up.
“Wow—long time,” I replied fondling her breast as she took over the reigns on her shirt.
Denny was on my couch with Bogdana. He climbed on top of her like a dingo on a lion’s discarded and used prey. I heard a slight moan from Bogdana then a large climax from Denny as I removed the vice grip pants on Flavia’s legs. I pictured him laying on her with his pants down and shirt on already asleep.
I knew it was going to be an all night rampage throughout every corner of my room—no place would be left undesecrated. My democratic arms tore down her panties like a crumbling wall. I grabbed a slightly old condom from my dresser drawer. My arm was a meat hook lifting her muscular leg over my shoulder like a side of beef. Forty long years under oppressive communist reign waiting for the ecstasy of democratic liberation—frustration building to the point of exhaustion before the sweet release of freedom.
“Oh yes, pretty man!” she screamed for revolution craving the release from her oppression.
“FUCKKK!” she said throwing me off her like a small dog humping a leg.
Two minutes after liberation Democracy was abandoned as I looked at my erect democratic flag, “No touch now.”
I looked at her quivering body and attempted to touch her hoping for some stimulation but every time I rubbed her skin her whimpering moans were interrupted by, “We sleep now. No?” I watched her fluttering eyes as she drifted off to sleep. I slipped on my jeans and walked towards the bathroom. Denny was passed out on top of Bogdana with his shirt on and pants off. The sight of his fat white, hairy ass greeted me as it spread Bogdana’s legs uncomfortably. He let out a terrible growling snore that I heard from the next room. As I walked to the bathroom, I saw Bogdana staring straight at the ceiling with the same mean scowl on her face as Denny’s head rested on her shoulder.
I washed my face with cold water but it appeared to do little too lessen the stiff pole bulging out of my jeans. When I opened the bathroom door I almost collided with Bogdana in the dark passage of the small hallway. She looked at me with the same discerning eyes but she wore a slight smirk as she stood there in her black panties and no bra.
“Uh…hey,” I whispered.
She pressed my lips together with two fingers and dropped to her knees in front of me. As my pants came down, I propped my hand against the wall as my head fell back while opening my mouth.
As the women left unannounced the next morning, Bogdana left Denny with a special gift. Apparently Bogdana’s vagina had been passed around most of Eastern Europe collecting bacteria—a festering, hot petri dish of a vagina that carried more cultures then cottage cheese. From a guy like Denny who always claimed, “condoms were for fags” and whose preferred birth control method was “pulling the brush out and painting her chest”, it seemed only fitting. He still has bouts of excruciating urinary tract infections and has visited prominent urologists from around Texas. Till this day when he hears anything about Romania, the Communist Block, or Eastern Europe he has to immediately relieve himself. Yesterday when we were driving home from golf “Wind of Change” by the Scorpions came on the radio, “I gotta pullover and take a leak,” Denny said.
*****
‘clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap’
“Yeah, I’ve just had some problems on the home front so…” I said.
“You better put my pants down and keep clappin’…” Denny said.
“You only give me $20. It $100 an hour!” the prostitute yelled.
“But it only lasted two minutes!” Denny yelled at her. “Anyway, I’ll call you tomorrow if I can get a yard-pass from the wife.”
“Alright. Well I’ll talk to ya later. I probably should get home.”
“Damn it, Bo-bae, you’re not going anywhere!”
“Well I didn’t plan to stay at work all night.” I responded.
“What? What did you say? Shit she’s headed towards the window with my pants, gotta go!”
“Guess, I’ll call it a night,” I said to the silent cell phone.
