Friends In High Places

Susan died in her sleep a year ago. The family insists that a chicken bone was the cause, but my lover thinks she may have taken one too many Soma pills. 

I really miss Susan and the Soma pills. She had the best weed on the Upper East Side. Hanging out at her large apartment with her younger sister was the best of times. 

I haven’t thought too much about Susan since they burned her to ash, but my lover is still grieving. What he saw in that old Jewish broad is anyone’s guess, but yesterday, it seems Susan sent a gift to my lover and I from the light. 

Susan’s younger sister, upon hearing that I am unemployed and out of unemployment insurance benefits, demanded that her new boyfriend, an Italian with “connections”, help to get me a job at New York City’s most famous bakery. 

I’ve always wanted to be a pastry chef– perhaps that’s my true calling. Say a prayer for me and perhaps Saint Soma Susan will do something nice for you as well.

Slutty Army Chicks

I was assigned guard duty with Specialist Faith Ann Sipes one Christmas Eve. The blonde female soldier wouldn’t hurt a fly. If ever she had gone to war, her only real weapon would be her southern charm with accent to match. Her hazel eyes could have lured enemy men from Russia into her foxhole. When she blinked, she appeared to be flirting. Her long blonde hair was almost always pinned under her Army hat, but when it was let down, curls cascaded down a freckled back and the smell of strawberry conditioner was enough to overwhelm even the gayest of closeted service men.

We were responsible for answering the phone and keeping an eye on things in the barracks, that Christmas Eve. The cold German barracks were empty; the cement corridors were silent; hallways were not buffed with wax as was the order. We didn’t even bother picking up a broom.
The Berlin Wall had just come down and it was a time of peace.. We took turns taking naps in the recreation room atop a dusty pool table. Most soldiers were away on leave– ski trips to the Alps or bar hopping in the red light district of Frankfurt.

It was a long day– a twenty-four hour shift of absolute boredom, but there was not a more charming person on Fliegerherst Kassern that I would have rather spent that cold Christmas Eve with.

“I read the letter you wrote to your friend, Anthony– you are gay, aren’t you?” Sipes asked as I returned to the desk from napping. I was horrified. I realized then she had read from a legal pad that I left next to the phone on the CQ desk.

“No. I’m bisexual,” I replied casually, as if everyone in the Army knew I was gay. “Anthony’s in jail. I’m writing him a letter in jail. You just misunderstood my words, that’s all.”

“What’s he in jail for?”

“Shoplifting at the PX.”

“So that’s where you got all the nice civilian clothes,” she said, reading me, as they say.

Faithann offered me a blow job, as if to ease the tension that had grown between us that cold Christmas Eve. Perhaps she wanted to see if I was telling her the truth about being bi. I took her up on the challenge. It was almost Christmas I was lonely, and the dark room with the pool table and vending machines was just steps away from the CQ desk and the phones that had not rung all night.

It went beyond a subtle suck on my thick cut cane, hanging almost to my knees from the button-fly opening on my battle dress uniform. I was so sad my lover was locked away and it had been weeks since I had even masturbated. Faith Ann, with her pretty green eyes, managed to call my dick to attention while her cherry red lips bobbed like a sleigh.

The tips of my jump boots were still spit shined, despite the long 24 shift. I watched her reflection from a view from under her chin, from the tip of my toe. I was mesmerized as she slobbered in hunger.

She took down her camouflaged pants and showed her vagina to me while in a perfect pre push-up position atop the pool table. I made my list, checked it twice and was prepared to venture into the Christmas pudding. She tempted me like a reindeer with an ass poked high. It was then that I remember that she was engaged to Specialist O’Connor, a fellow soldier who I both respected and admired.

I held my man pen with both hands and told her to lean upon the vending machine for something sweet. She crawled from the table and wiggled across the room almost tripping in her pants and boots.

“Does he fuck you as good as this?” I asked.

“Who?” the plump blonde with red marks all over her rear asked.

“Never mind.”

Jersey Phoenix

Every firetruck in North Bergan rushed to a fire on Bergenline Avenue early today. At least seven structures were burning as men with hoses attempted to douse the ranging flames at twilight. Ice quicky formed from water pumped from hydrants all over the neighborhood. Across the Hudson River, the Empire State Building lit with a multitude of colors appeared as a ship in the fog, yet no one in Union City cared about skycrapers this morning.  

 

A westerly breeze carried the fumes away from New Jersey and into the heart of midtown. News choppers from every station except PBS hovered high overhead, streaming live video of the tragedy into the flat screen televsion at my feet.

 

Six AM, meditation and prayer time—following instructions from great Christian mystics, I slipped away and stopped every thought in my head, even of the raging fire just outside my door.

 

Perfect silence.

 

The choppers fade as if the emptiness inside my head was what put out the big fire up on the hill.

Circle of Marines

Shirtless men gather upon the sand dunes of Fire Island. A full moon is high overhead, the smell of the Atlantic is a mix of salt and sweat and there seems to be a purpose to this mating ritual where seed is cast upon sand still warm from a summer sun.

Eyes shift in the darkness from one torso to another. In a moment, in unison, the mermen moan with delight, but no sooner than the last drop of nectar reaches the earth, they run away in shame as if they simply took a piss together.

Mermaids will never know the secret delight that men of war share with their tentacles in hand. There is a rush greater than the waves in the Atlantic when men play at war.

Best Choice Staffing

Competition is fierce in New York’s not-for-profit job market. It has been months since I was last offered an interview, despite hundreds of email blasts sent to ads that often were simply a scam, and I was asked to complete a credit score prior to my application being processed.

The last face-to-face interview was with a temp agency called BC Staffing. (The BC stands for Best Choice), but obviously, I am more of the AD type of worker personality. I was so sick of the game, ready to say fuck it, like so many others have done.

Soon I may fall into the category of those who have simply ‘stopped looking for work’. The interview process has become so insulting and degrading, but at least yesterday, I made my interviewers laugh— and laugh they did—so hard that I think I may just get the job.

I’m always prepared for the question “Why did you leave your last job and why did you leave the job before that one?”

Yesterday, I was asked why I left the Army if I had considered it such a “good experience.”

I looked the executive director of the non-profit in the eye and replied in a cold jaded tone, “Because I could not be openly gay in the Army, and besides, the fellow soldier who I was dating got out of the Army, came to New York and insisted that I leave the service too, otherwise, he threatened to tell them I was gay.”

My interviewers were shocked. The look in their eyes was worth a million dollars, or at least the $6 in subway fare it cost me to go all the way uptown to the Columbia University Campus.

The men laughed. They laughed hard in a way that only gay men laugh when they are alone together, making fun of the rest of the world.

I had to say something to stick out of a crowd of thousands. I’ve always said the right thing in interviews, never making potential employers smile. Yesterday, I believe the truth may have set me free and perhaps all those years I spent in the Army may not have been a waste of this gay man’s time.

Fill It Up and Do the Windshield

The Exxon gas station outside the Lincoln Tunnel has American Spirit menthols for $8.05 On the other side of the tunnel, cigarettes are approaching $14. It’s hard to stop smoking when one finds such a bargain.

A young Spanish man who works behind the counter gave me a stroke when I purchased a pack yesterday. The lad is a new employee at the busy Exxon station and has never heard of American Spirits. I pointed the rack above his head and said, “The dark green pack”.

“Daa Green,” he replied with a slight twist of Spanish added to his English as he reached high above for my addiction. His beautiful, hairless, tight stomach blinded me for a second.

His ‘innie’ was enough to cause me to lose my composure and simply stare until he returned from his tip toes, when finally, his shirt went back down. When he asked if I needed matches, I simply held out my hand as if for charity—a slight touch would be all I needed – fuck the cigarettes!

A woman with broad shoulders who was in front of me in line had confused the poor boy terribly. She bought a ninety-nine cent pack of mints, handed the ‘papi chulo’ a ten and demanded, in a deep manish tone, nine singles in return. It took him forever to count those singles—I just watched and waited my turn. He shook his head covered with a carpet of black curls and gave her what she wanted.

I knew I had eight singles in my wallet, so I give the young man the wad that I purposely keep in my wallet to make it feel fat, and thus, myself, richer.

He counted the singles. There were eight. I was sure of it. That was all that was in there anyway. I watched him count them, but he insisted that I had given one too many.

“No!” I said when he tried handing me the dollar.
He graciously placed the dollar in a plastic tip jar and smiled at me like an angel. Now I’ll never stop smoking.

My 8-Day Tiffany Brass Alarm Clock

My grandmother’s 8-Day, wind-up, brass alarm clock has been keeping me up at night. It’s not from the ticking. It no longer works, but I’ve had the century-old, Tiffany & Co. timepiece since 1990 when my father gave it to me in an attempt to make amends for the time he and his third wife Jan kicked me out of the house for being gay. Just having that evil piece in my bedroom has caused a certain restlessness to settle over my new place in Jersey.

Dad wanted to try to be a father again after I left the Army and moved to New York City. He called me and begged to come up for a visit. I had no idea how much Dad was drinking, but I could not say no. When he arrived at my apartment, he gave me the clock, told me it was “probably worth a few hundred bucks” and that it belonged to my grandmother—the beautiful redhead, who, when she died, did not have her favorite grandson at her gravesite because his father had just put him out of the house for being gay.

Clocks are no longer made like the Tiffany 8 Day. Tiny gears and springs are what keep time inside the charming heirloom.

I asked my mother, no longer a Taylor, to hold onto the clock for me, back in 2002, soon after my lover died. Knowing that Shawn’s family and friends were going through things at our apartment when I was not there, I wanted to be sure no one assumed the clock belonged to the Smith family, so I asked Mom to keep it for me, just for a while.

Ten years went by. I visited my mother several times over the decade, but never had the heart to ask for the clock in return, until this year, when it seemed, with Christmas so dark and so little to give as gifts, that I would take the Tiffany 8-Day back in my possession and perhaps “re-gift” it to my new lover, who loves little contraptions.

Before giving the antique clock to my new lover, ‘B’, I asked my father where my grandmother got it from, assuming perhaps that it came from my great grandfather, Miles Taylor, who, I understand, was called Sir Miles Taylor simply because he was the type to own tiny things, such as a Tiffany 8-Day Travel Alarm.

“Your Meme got that clock off a business man she knew,” My father explained on Christmas Eve. “She was laying up with him in a hotel down in Harrisburg. Mom had such bad luck with men after Dad died. Mom said the man left that pretty clock in the room so she took it with her, intending to return it, but she never saw him again. It’s yours now, son. I hope ya still like it.”

“I’m glad I finally had the courage to ask for it back from mom.”

“You should have left your Mom hold onto that old thing—at least she would think about me once and a while,” Dad said sadly on Christmas Eve as I carefully removed the curse from the little box in which it was wrapped, and decided not to give it to my lover “B”, because, in a sense, the old thing is not a family heirloom.

Anyone who wants to buy it should offer a “few hundred bucks.”

 

 

2012 Prophecy

Ron Paul’s promise to make marijuana legal replaces the need for a black president

Iran starts to use the good China

 A new drug for depression causes others to go mad

 Stories told by fondled little boys is just the start of a new social disease – one where Big Brother no longer watches

 Pay as you go social media is just the start

Google this

Search that

Log off for a while

And see God on December 21

 The path to the underworld appears in the nigh sky

The white man returns to the Mayans

But they are no longer on the Yucatan

They have all run north just in time for the Ice Age of democracy

The Teachings of don Juan and his wife, Lucy

A police officer was inside Lucy and Juan’s apartment yesterday. It seems Juan’s casual threats to call the cops on his wife came to fruition. Juan whispered to me in the hallway last week that his wife with her new head of colored red hair had stolen all the money from his bank account and that he was through with the “puta”. He asked to use my cell phone to call the police to report the incident.

 

“I’m sorry, Juan. I’m not getting involved in a domestic dispute between two senior citizen Puerto Ricans. Lucy will cut up chickens and put a curse on me. I know better than that. I’m sure Lucy will be back home in a minute with an explanation of why she needed to drain your account. Ask to use her free government phone when she returns,” I insisted to the little Rican with silver hair.

 

Lucy cut Juan’s hair again. The tinsel curls are gone. What remains are only a few millimeters on the top of his head. The sides have been shaved like mine. It seems Lucy’s infatuation with me has reached a level that is unacceptable. Poor Juan looks like a drowned rat. No longer do I let her rub my hair and ‘pet me’ as she has done ever since I’ve moved to this neighborhood filled with psychotic Latinos.

 

The pill-popping Lucy Ricardo look-alike asked to borrow my hair clippers last summer. I told her no, imagining that she may use my sacred hair sheerer to crop her grey public hair. Nothing surprises me when it comes to those two. It’s such a shame they never had children. They seem so desperate in their old age for someone white to adopt.

 

“Do you know the Mexican woman that is over here all the time?” Juan asked soon after he begged for my cell phone to call the police, last week.

 

“Yes. I’ve seen her around. How could I possibly miss her? You leave your door open all the time, and when I open mine, I’m confronted with the smell of beans and pork brewing and I get red lip stick all over my face from your wife. “Yes, what about the fat puta?” I asked, showing Juan that I am a quick study when it comes to learning Spanish.

 

“She’s such a cunt,” Juan said, dropping any hint of a Spanish accent as the English word rolled from his lips in perfect precision and enunciation. “They are planning to put me in a home and they are going to run away with all my money.”

 

“Are they Lesbos?” I asked, assuming perhaps the reason why Juan and Lucy have no children after all these years is because Lucy does not crave cock like she does Juan’s social security money. Juan looked at me with a confused expression. It seems he does not know what the English word Lesbo means. Juan gave me an evil eye and told me that I was wrong for not letting him use my phone.

 

When I saw the police through my peep hole yesterday, I thought for sure Juan was finally being taken to a home where professionals could tend to his Alzheimer’s concerns.

 

I was wrong. Lucy was at my door at 9 a.m. this morning, soon after my lover headed off to work.

 

“Hi Baby,” she said, reaching out to grab my neck to pull my head closer to her so that she could kiss me. I let the puta kiss me as usual, but when she attempted to step inside my apartment, I told her to get out, that I needed my ‘space’ early in the morning and that she needed to stop knocking on my door so often.

 

“Sorry,” she said, looking at me like I was some sort of paranoid schizophrenic. “All I wanted was a few shopping bags. You got any? Are you coming with me to the food bank? There’s a short line today and they are giving away bags of onions. Come with me, Papi,” she begged.

 

“No Lucy. I cannot. Tell me. What were the police doing in your apartment yesterday?”

 

“That’s a personal matter,” The puta said, quickly running from me as if I were the one who did not respect boundaries and the privacy of one’s neighbors.  

The Fruitcake Chef

The Post Office is still the most efficient and least expensive way to mail small packages. In the age of instant e-mail and overnight express mail, it’s nice to receive Christmas gifts that are delivered by the original Santa—Mr. Postman.

 

Yesterday was the deadline for mailing parcels that need to reach their destination by Saturday. There are two boxes on a sorting assembly line somewhere in Philadelphia today that is causing the entire postal facility to smell like a bakery.

 

With just minutes of shopping time remaining on my tight schedule, I ran to the ATM at 6:30 am yesterday and withdrew my entire unemployment check. I did all my shopping at the supermarket for under $20 and had hundreds left in my wallet for the beer I will need to endure the depression that always comes this time of year. The two packages were less than $15 to mail all the way to Pennsylvania.

 

A pound of Georgia pecans runs $12 in New Jersey. As I purchased the ingredients for the two holiday gifts I mailed off yesterday, I wondered how it was that Butter Pecan ice cream is no more expensive than regular vanilla ice cream. For an instant, I considered buying a half- gallon of ice cream, melting it down, extracting the nuts from the cream, just to save nearly ten bucks, but I splurged on the nuts because Shop Rite had Heckler’s flour on sale for under a dollar.

 

It took nearly a half hour to find fresh yeast in the store. I asked customer service where the yeast was. Fortunately, a lesbian supervisor was near the counter, overheard my question that could not easily be answered, and she escorted me all the way to the back of the store, near the eggs, to where the yeast was hidden high above on a shelf where old ladies never could reach.

 

Under the gun, with less than three hours before the Noon deadline for mailing, I quickly mixed a batch of Sticky Pecan Rolls, following a secret recipe that is in my copy of the California Culinary Institute’s “Cooking A-Z” that was published in 1990. Despite the fact that I threw away all my Anne Rice novels when moving to my new apartment, I kept that old cookbook—and for a very good reason; the homemade, hand-kneaded bread is infused with the zest of an orange, giving the buttery, brown-sugar and cinnamon rolls a twist of the old country.

 

Having read and followed those instructions many times, I felt like a fool when I neglected to remember the hours it takes for the yeast to rise. My buns went in the oven at exactly 11:30 and were inside their respective boxes by 12:05.

 

I ran to the post office with little time to spare. The boxes were warm on the bottom, and outside, in the rain of Jersey, I swear I saw steam escaping from the carefully addressed packages.

 

The rolls were baked inside a 9×12 aluminum pan with its own lid. I left a post it note instead of a Christmas card stuck to the silver lid which read as follows:

 

Warm in oven for 10 min,

Allow pan to rest on a rack for 1 min.,

Invert pan,

Wait 30 seconds

Remove pan and serve on lid

 

The biggest surprise about my secret dish is the fact that the Georgia pecans are on the bottom of the pan. Before placing the rolls in the pan, I melted a half-stick of butter and sprinkled a cup of brown sugar. The orange infused rolls are what Christmas is really all about. I hope the postal workers in Philadelphia remember that this is the holidays and it is a federal offense to tamper with the U.S. Mail.