Will the Real Stephanie Ragusa Please Stand Up? (Part 2)

5:15pm

And I am thoroughly exhausted, but since I don't plan on studying for my Anatomy exam I know I have to pay a visit to my teacher, Mrs. Grey, because it is the only type of studying I will attempt to do.

I rush to Mrs. Grey's apartment, which is located on the corner of Greenwich and Horatio, because I need to get in a quick session before her husband gets home. My penis is throbbing and possibly chaffing from all the walking and fucking I have been doing today. I no longer find sex pleasurable; this is possibly the first time that I am fornicating solely to please my female counterparts.

She buzzes me in and I take the elevator to the third floor. The whole time I am praying to an iniquitous God to stop this unnecessary practical joke; I just want to have normal sex for a change.

The door is open so I enter her apartment, which is wrought with model body parts, stethoscopes, Fitness Made Simple DVDs and an obnoxious Bowflex machine that enjoys an orgy in the corner of the room—her husband is a pediatrician and a poster boy for sappy, life changing weight loss stories. See: Jared Fogel. See also: Oprah Winfrey 88', 95', 02', 05'.
Steadman, I'd sympathize with you if you weren't such a bitch.

And I walk into her apartment bedroom and see her with both her legs tied to the bedposts and her right arm handcuffed to the respective post. She nonchalantly asks me to help her with the last handcuff.
And I'm thinking to myself—this can't be that bad.

But of course my curious mind is wandering like the children on the back of milk cartons as I ask, "What's this?"

"Oh, don't laugh," she says as looks down and realizes she forgot to take her thong off, "I saw the movie The Sea Inside the other day and I was so moved that I wanted to see what it would be like for a quadriplegic to have sex."
And I'm thinking, God, are you fucking serious?

So I follow her instructions; I handcuff her left hand to the post, place the neck brace around her upper cervix and tie her to the bed using four ropes: one around her shoulders, abdomen, hips and knees. And bruises—I am sure her hothead husband gave her—mar her entire body.
When the elevator works there are only so many times a functional woman can fall down the stairs.

I shake my head in disappointment as she asks me to grab the scissors out of the kitchen drawer so I can cut off her panties.
And as I grab the scissors I'm thinking, this is stupid; quadriplegics don't have sex because they can't feel anything.

But since she is an anatomy teacher, she has already taken this into consideration. "Now grab the bottle of lidocaine and epinephrine that are sitting on the counter and the needle on the dresser so you can inject me with it."

"I don't think I can do this," I say, knowing damn-well that I am potentially hurting my chances at passing this class, "I don't want to fuck up."

"Don't worry I'll tell you exactly what to do," she says reassuringly, "Now this is called an epidural." She smiles because that is basically all she can do and continues, "Place the needle in the bottle of lidocaine and fill it up to the 15 mg mark. Then add a little bit of epinephrine to the mix...Fuck."
"What?" I say, thinking I botched the procedure.
"I forgot that you're going to have to put this into my lower back. Fuck," she repeats, "It's okay. Just untie my legs and uncuff my hands and I'll turn onto my stomach. You'll just have to turn me back over and tie me up again."
"I dunno..."
"Come on, Hayden. We've gotten this far. Don't worry. It'll be fine." She smiles again and then changes her facial expression as she says, "Just hurry, because my husband comes home from work in an hour."

And I'm sick of Apprehension fucking me over, so I shake him off and proceed to do everything she asks.

Now on her stomach she says, "Okay so you are going to place the needle about 2 cm into the space on the small of my back near the spine. I have placed a piece of tape at the 2 cm mark; so don't go in any farther than that. Don't worry, Hayden, I trust you. But remember don't inject it too close to my spine. Now you're going to inject about 3 mg every thirty seconds. Once you are done, flip me over—carefully—and tie me back up. I'll perform fellatio on you until the anesthesia kicks in."
I laugh inside because, despite the circumstances, she still feels the need to use words like fellatio.

And things go exactly as planned except for the fact that I put too much lidocaine in the needle, but I will just pump enough into her to knock her Bermuda Triangle out. And there I am, face-fucking her because she can't move her head. She starts to gurgle in order to inform me that the anesthesia is working properly.

My sex visits hers, constantly checking to see if she is breathing and swallowing properly, making sure she is okay and that her every need is met. And my hips and back are inflamed because I am doing all the work. I guess this is what the necrophilic undertaker feels like as he fucks his patients back to life. See: David Johnson. See also: Benigno Martin.

"Are you okay?" I say as adolescence drips off the tip of my nose.
"I...I dunno. I can't feel anything," she laughs in an attempt to mask her palpable fear, "I can see you there having sex with me; but I can't feel a thing."

My penis grows numb and I can no longer feel anything as well. But I am not worried because this is basically a précis for my novel apropos of all my sexual experiences—two dejected, forsaken beings desperately trying to establish some sort of connection while struggling to fill the void of the world the only way they know how to fill holes. But at least we are feeling nothing together.
And we all prefer when the word "together" means not "a million," but just two.

Consciousness materializes, but this anthropomorphized awareness is merely transitory because her bower of bliss regains sentience. I know this because she begins to grouse about how she is in pain. It is at this moment, I hear the tintinnabulation of her husband's keys from outside of the apartment door.

"Quick. Go," she shouts, "My husband's here. You have to go. Now."
"Where are my clothes?" I say as I look around with utter consternation.
"Don't worry about it, just go out the window," she says, fear slowly perspiring from her forehead. "Help! Help! Rape! Rape!"

And I don't understand what the hell she is doing, but I don't want to stay around to see.
Dying was not a part of my schedule today.

"Help! Help! Rape!" she shouts at the top of her constrained lungs. "Rape!"
But I can't seem to get the window open. Her husband opens the door; his heavy footsteps create tremors that ripple across the hardwood floor. I realize I won't have enough time to get out of the apartment so I act on the only feasible plan I can devise. I hide underneath the bed.

"Rape! Rape!"
"Oh my God, honey," Jared says, "Who did this to you?"

"I dunno. He just left out the window," she says. She's a good actress. "Get this shit off me."
And from underneath the bed I can hear him struggling to untie her legs. "Where are the keys?" he says, anger and shock raping his vocal chords. "On the table. Quick," she barks. And I am praying to Buddha he cannot hear my heart beating or smell the Brobdingnagian fear that emits from my every pore. "No, just cut off the rope." And as she says this, I see my underwear soundly sleeping right next to his feet. As I attempt to grab them, I see a hand; I begin to panic as the hand reaches down to grab my boxers. "Are these his boxers?" And there I am lying naked underneath the bed of a tetraplegic as her husband, wrought with a choleric disposition, paces around the room with an aluminum bat in his hand. Why couldn't he just be a tennis player? Then I see my boxers migrate to the other side of the room and colonize the space between the bed and the window. "So you're telling me this guy is running around naked in New York City? Well that shouldn't be too hard to find. Son of a bitch," he shouts as he taps the bat against the hardwood floor. Then I see her soft, rope-bruised legs dangling off the right side of the bed. "Hunny, relax," she says in an all-too-unperturbed voice, "he didn't really do that much." And I have to sneeze. "Didn't do that much?" he shouts as the bat disappears from my peripherals, then reappears but only to caress the floor with its unyielding design, "your bleeding all over the new fuckin' sheets." And I have to sneeze. "Honey, relax," she says again, "why don't you just call the cops while I go take a shower." And I'm thinking about every type of method I know that will prevent me from sneezing—I'm holding my nose and I'm applying pressure with my index finger to the area between my upper lip and the underbelly of my snoot. When this does not work I try pressing my tongue behind my two front teeth, where the roof of my mouth meets my alveolar ridge. But I have to sneeze. "Okay, I'm going to call the police. Are you sure you're okay?" he asks. Despite his machismo he seems genuinely concerned. This is not just a dick-measuring contest. But as I see his feet heading for the door, the tingling sensation that plagues my sinuses quickly matures until I discharge a nuclear, brain-tickling sneeze that rips through the very fabric of time. And while I am lying naked underneath this married woman's bed I'm thinking—this is a suitable way for me to die. But my thoughts are interrupted by the caustic intensity that quickly envelops the room. "That mother fucker," he shouts. He soon bends over and I am looking at him straight in the eyes. Yet as he attempts to reach out to me I bite his middle finger with every nanometer of strength I can muster. "Fuckin' little bitch." And he bleeds.

I slide myself from under the left side of the bed, grab my underwear and reattempt to open that recalcitrant window.

"I'm going to kill the fuck out of you," he shouts as he points the bat at my frame and power walks to my side of the room.

"I'm going to take that bat and stick it where the sun don't shine, gramps" I shout in an attempt to sound threatening. But he's the one with the weapon so my truculence only angers him more. And I'm thinking about waterfalls, oceans and rivers.
And when someone has a weapon, we all resort to desperate measures.

As he lifts up the bat, I attempt to pee on him so that I may buy myself some time, but I am broke; consequently, I try to run to the other side of the room, but the skull of the bat swipes my left arm. I fall on top of the bed and try to hide underneath the covers. He pulls off the covers and points the bat at me again.

"Your dead fucker."
Funny choice of words.
I quickly grab Mrs. Grey and use her as a shield.
She whispers to me, "Hayden, do you know what you're doing?"
"Yeah," I reply, "how's your coral reef?"
"Not now, Hayden."
"What...what'd you just whisper to him?" her husband vociferates.
"She told me I fuck so much better than you, old man," I deride as I try to devise a new plan. "Sorry, teach," I whisper to her as I pet her hair back behind her shoulders. I grab the needle that's lying on the counter and clamor insistently, "There's enough drugs in this needle to kill her. All I have to do is stick it in her spine."

"Okay," he says, his countenance morphing from pure pique to genuine apprehensiveness. "Let's not be rash her. Look. I'll drop the bat." He drops the bat on the floor and backs away. "See. Now, what do you want me to do?"

And I'm sifting through the part of my mind where my sadistic tendencies reside. I want him to feel ineffable pain because no man should beat his wife unless she is into that sort of thing.

"Take off your pants and boxers."
"What?"
"I swear I will jab this fuckin' needle right in her spine. I'll fuckin' do it, man."
"Okay. Fine. Okay."
And he does exactly everything I said to do.
"Now. On all fours facing the window."
"Is this really necessary, man?" he cries.
"Yes it's fuckin' necessary. Now do what I say you little fuckin' prick or I swear to fuckin' God I will kill her where she stands."
And he does exactly everything I said to do.

"You think you're a big fuckin' man," I yell as I release Mrs. Grey, grab his bat and stick it where the sun don't shine."
I warned him.

And the sheets are now wracked with tears as the tempo of his breathing waxes, until he is panting feverishly in a melodramatic manner.
It is easy for a grown man to act gallant, but it's even easier to make that son of a whore cry.

I leave the butt of the bat lodged inside for him to take out himself. He'll be shitting cookies for the next couple of weeks.
As he tries to push out the bat, I grab my underwear, mouth to Mrs. Grey 'I'm sorry' and finally open that headstrong window.
As I exit the apartment I yell, "And if you ever, ever fuckin' lay so much as a hand on her again, you'll be shitting out shoelaces for weeks."
I hope Chris Brown has fun removing the bat from his brown eye.


And it is Cinco de Mayo so all of the cities Mexicans are out on the streets playing Frisbee with tortillas and piñata with real woman. I am in my boxers running past licentious chicas who whistle, shout '¡Arriba!' and flash me their breasts. I steal this one illegal immigrants' sombrero, which serves as a proper way to put me in a festive mood. A true Youtube Moment. The man does not say a word because either he is too afraid to start a quarrel with a guy in his underwear or he has a spare sombrero underneath his poncho. As I run through the crowd of people I accidentally spill a woman's forty all over this man's back. Wetback. I was expecting him to pull out a machete but when he looks behind him and sees it is a woman, he grabs her and they begin to hat dance. At the moment I start to laugh, I hear the sky crack and before I know it, the clouds are puling. The liquid moonlight assaults my design with such deep-rooted intentions.
God, you are a son of a bitch.
8:09pm

Bewildered, drenched and exhausted, I desperately want to get back to my apartment; it is a thirty-block walk. I soon realize that I am only two blocks from my Theology teacher's apartment. I take a sharp left and run until I reach the mouth of her pad. She buzzes me in and I enter. And I take the elevator to the fifth floor. Her door is open.
"Ms. McMartin," I shout at the apartment, "It's Hayden."

She enters the hallway and says, "Hayden, it's so good to see you." She looks up and down my body, reaches into the closet, grabs a towel and says, "You look cold. Here. Dry yourself off. Would you like some tea?"

I nod as I survey her physique. She is a gaunt, middle-aged brunette whose scalp is scourged with streaks of thin grey hairs that huddle between brown ones. Wrinkles greet her sheet-white skin sparingly. She is wearing a strapless, patterned gypsy dress that drags along the floor in an intimate fashion.

"Where are you coming from?" she asks as she hands me a large mug of tea.
"It's a long story," I say ambiguously, "Let's just say I've had a very stressful day."
"Well, I'm glad you're here. Drink up," she says as she lifts up her cup and cheers me.

And we talk about religion; she tells me about the beauties of ritualistic sex.
"It is an act blessed by and in celebration of Gods and Goddesses..."

Then our conversations get a little more intimate.
"What is it that you want out of life?" she solemnly says, still sipping her sweetened tea.
"I want life to give me what I deserve."
"And what is that, Hayden?"
"A blowjob," I shout. She laughs. "No. Honestly? I just want people...I just want people to love me."
"Anyone in particular?" she says as she fans her moistened and somewhat glistening skin.
"No."
"No one?"
"No. I want everyone to love me. Not like in a narcissistic way. I just want everyone to love me because I—because I love them. I love everyone and I try to show them that whenever I meet them. But I can't help but put this guard up whenever I get too close. I don't—I don't want to get hurt," I say, ineffectually fighting back tears.

"So your objectivity is just a defense mechanism?"
"Yeah. I guess it's cause I love everyone so goddamn much. Everyone I meet. I just want to hug them and let them know they are loved. They don't need God or their abusive father or Oprah. But I dunno what I'd do if they loved me the same way I love them. We always hurt the ones we love and I can't deal with dejection; I've had enough of that in my life. "
And she gives me a sympathetic look then smiles as she says, "Well, I love you Hayden."

And she finishes her tea as I wipe bitter tears from the side of my face.
"I feel funny," I say as I massage my forehead, "what type of tea is this?"
"Earl Grey. But I put some Damiana and Yohimbe in it."
"I feel...I feel slightly titillated."
"Yeah, that's the Damiana. And I look down and behold the bulge in my boxers. I quickly cover up, but she notices and laughs, "Don't worry, honey, that's just the Yohimbe."

And she guides me to her bedroom. My world is shrouded in a thick vapor that swallows my environment as I tug restlessly at my masculinity. And I see a chalk-inscribed pentagram resting, unscathed in the right corner of the room. The flames from her candles dance in the midst of their dissolution, emitting aphrodisiacal aromas as they drool. As she grabs a book, my world begins to have a seizure, its convulsions creating constant chaos that corrupts the constancy that had carved a characteristic complacency in the crevices of my cranium.

"Please, sit down."
"On the floor?" I say as I look down, "I don't know if I can."
"I know your world must be spinning right now, but it's just a side effect of the Yohimbe."

I sit on the floor and watch as she recites lines from inside the pentagram. The lightning from outside frightens the room, turning it a ghostly white. Then, the thunder cuts the air in an anarchic manner; it causes me to jump back in fear.

"Oh, Great Goddess, Aphrodite, Goddess of Love and Beauty, hear me. Descend now into Michelle, your loyal attendant and follower. Bless our Rite with your power," she says as she pets the knife she had grabbed from her bookshelf." She pinches her wrist with the knife and allows for the blood to drip onto the center of the pentagram. Then she motions for me to come to her and for some reason I do. "Oh, Great God, Ares, God of All Things Wild and Free, hear me. Descend now into Hayden, your loyal attendant and follower. Bless our Rite with your power," she says as she grabs my naked wrist and strokes it with the knife. And the sound of me bleeding is a beautifully chaotic tune that assails my eardrums with its lawless resonance. I begin to hear whispers that compliment the sound of her reading some spell from her book. But I can't understand anything because everyone seems to be speaking in gibberish. The lightning attacks the room again illuminating every single object, and her design metamorphoses into something that resembles a Tawaret. The crocodile resting on her spine looks at me with censure as I slowly inch my way back. She beckons me using the same finger motion I use to make women feel immortal. "Come, Hayden."

And whatever drugs she had given me have nullified my inhibitions. I find myself on top of her in the center of the pentagram, the blood rushing down my intravenous pipeline; my wrist salivates, which instigates this intense rush of whatever that runs rampant throughout. I plant soft kisses on her exposed neck as her mien reveals the ensuing events. She wraps her legs and arms around my back, lifts herself into the air and places my sex inside hers. Suspended she whispers for me to thrust. Her moans echo across the room and compete with the thunder for my attention. She climaxes and slowly drops to the ground. Sprawled across the flooring, she allows me to continue. And I persist. Through my peripherals I can see her grab the voyeuristic knife and lift it into the air. I quickly switch positions and notice as she swipes the air. "What are you doing?"
"It's time for the sacrifice."

And shock attacks the very hub of my existence, but for some reason I keep plowing through her rose field until she lifts the knife up again. "Am I the sacrifice?" But before she can answer I hear a knock on the bedroom door. Three couples enter the room.
"Michelle, we're here," a voice shouts from behind me.
"You haven't done it yet?" a woman's voice asks.
"Done what?" Then I feel the sharp object suddenly permeate my pelt. I scream and attack the woman by pinning her arms against the floor. I begin to feel lightheaded as I rip the knife out of my back. The coven closes in on me, so I raise the knife with any sort of strength I can muster and yell, "Don't come—" I wipe the sweat from my brow, fight back this precipitous feeling of nausea and continue, "Don't come any closer." I wave the knife in the air chaotically and shout again, "Don't come any closer or I'll—or I'll do it."

"Okay calm down, guy," one of the men says, bouncing his hands in the air.
"Relax, Hayden," Ms. McMartin says calmly, "there's no need for this."
"Geez, Michelle, how much did you give him?" the lady says, using her mate as a shield.
"I dunno," she says as she revolves her head so that she is looking at the ceiling, "a thousand, maybe two thousand milligrams—I'm not sure."
"Relax, kid, we're not here to hurt you," another man says.
"Bullshit," I reply, "she just stabbed me in the back."

And everyone pauses for a moment; they are all looking at her with the same sense of shock. The men are all wearing red cassocks and black rimmed glasses and the women are adorned in matching red gypsy dresses; I can't find one distinguishing characteristic among them.
"Because you asked me to, Hayden," Ms. McMartin says, "I only broke the skin."

And my world of illusions crumbles around me until I can see everything as it is. There is Arabian music playing in the background and the six people amalgamate to form twain. "But what about the pentagram?" I ask now utterly confused.
"It's a pentacle, Hayden, with a pentagram in the middle. It symbolizes the goddess Venus."
"I think I should go," I say, hanging my head in complete chagrin. "Do you have anything I can wear?"

She helps me clean the Lilliputian cut and places a bandage over it. She hands me one of her dresses and apologizes for the whole situation. I leave her apartment dressed like a gypsy, still feeling nauseous.
Talk about a walk of shame.

10:00 pm

Walking down the wet, crowded yet desolate streets of New York, I critically assess my life. Is this what I have been reduced to? My life consists of sex and nothing else. It's all I write about because it is all I know. There has to be more to life than just the friction between two sentient souls. And I'm tired of writing about getting off. I desire something more. I want to find out who I will be rather than who I am.

I decide to make a quick stop at my Drama teacher's apartment to get the notes from the class I missed this evening. His name is Mr. Newmar and I am certain he is as straight as an arrow. When I get to his place, someone holds the door open for me as they leave. I take the elevator to the top floor and knock on the door of his apartment. As I wait I ruminate on finding a logical excuse for the dress. Before I can produce a condonable explanation, my teacher opens the door decorated with a classic 60s A-line shift dress.

He looks me up and down and says, "So I guess you want to be the woman, tonight," he looks at my body again and says, "Well, ugh, I already did my makeup."
It puts the lotion on its skin.

I have a sense of humor but this joke just isn't funny anymore. I take off the dress, throw it at him, and solemnly walk down the narrow corridor. At the end of the beaten hall, I pass the elevator and decide to take the stairs; I'm tired of taking the easy way.

Will the Real Stephanie Ragusa Please Stand Up? (Part 1)

*Absolutely ridiculous story not included in the book. Just for shits and giggles. Completely absurd, unnecessary and not geared for logical human beings.

"In this big, epic movie - everyone is an extra."

Tuesday

3:10pm

And I'm sitting in the back of the auditorium watching Bertolucci's The Dreamers with wide eyes and warm sensations. I allow my eyelids to kiss as I dream about Isabelle's sultry curves and her coquettish mien. And I know why my teacher is showing this film. This is foreplay. This is composition. She is taking preparatory measures. And I am captivated.

The ingredients are all there—a vampish, percipient governess, an eager, lascivious scholar, and a secluded, Stygian projection room. Oh, and an irksome, corpulent translator.

My 2:15 film class is taught by my deaf mistress, Ms. DuBois, with the help of Arnold, a portly, ribald, middle aged man who is blessed with the unfortunate fortune of possessing the rare ability to read sign language.

And every Monday at 3:30pm, Ms. DuBois and I reenact a copulatory scene from whatever film she had shown in class the previous week. And every week I am just itching with excitement. My only bone of contention is that ever since the day good ol' Arnie caught us fornicating in the projection room he has insisted on being a part of the action. Blackmale. His terms are: he will keep our little secret in exchange for permission to act as a translator for Ms. Dubois during sex. Since then, our sessions involve less dialogue—even though there wasn't much talking to begin with for obvious reasons. Just the bitter fact that he is present, watching with smutty eyes and breathing laboriously, is enough to drop my spar to half-mast. In order to keep my soldier at attention, I have to take a Viagra, which I surreptitiously conceal in a tic-tac case just so she doesn't notice as I pop a mint into my mouth.
Components: One tic-tac, one Viagra.

"I uh...I have to go to the bathroom," I say with such juvenile hesitance.
And there I am, living out the scene, step-by-step, frame-by-frame. I'm hiding behind the closet door in the projection room pretending as if it were the scene in the kitchen where the two siblings try to convince Matthew to have sex with them, just for the fuck of it. Playing the brother, Theo, Fat Arnold calls for me to come out of the closet.
But I'm not who he thinks I am. I will not go there. I will not touch that.

And as the beaten portal creeks, my body rapes the crack in the door as I say, "I'm coming." But at this moment, with Fat Arnold hovering over me like an apparition, his rank breath invading my pelt, the stench of cellulite infiltrating my nasal passage, and his paunch gracing my left arm, I don't want to anymore.

I close my eyes and then open them again, but there is no change in scenery; everything is still tenebrous—Charlie Murphy black, Ward 9 black.
And I'm wondering if Ms. Dubois feels like Helen Keller yet.

I feel my way around the room in order to find my film teacher because I cannot call out to her for reasons that are evident, unless you have Alzheimer's or you are smoking weed while reading this (Note: Although, if you have Alzheimer's and you are smoking pot while reading this, the two do in fact cancel each other out). And every time my shaking hands graze Fat Arnold's lust handles, I make a quick grab for his nipple and proceed to give him a titty twister. Every time this happens, he giggles and then slaps my hand away.

When I finally find her, I delicately touch her with my cold, wet hands, rubbing her goose bumped flesh as if I were attempting to read Braille. Piloerection.

Our bodies grace the leather couch in a rebellious fashion; they writhe feverishly causing the couch to cry for mercy. And I do the same every time Fat Arnold's body heat tugs unremittingly at the back of my neck. The vexatious din from the flatulent couch is too loud (for me of course) so we gracelessly drop to the floor. She laughs loudly, then sips back eager saliva.

And there we are, lying naked on the carpeted projection room floor. My hands are cupping her nape. My staff parts her lips—it's all so biblical. And we communicate with our bodies. She touches my left shoulder every time she wants me to slow down and touches my right one every time she fancies a switching of positions. She taps my right.

We roll over, laughing like little children. We are appreciating this semi-innocent connection; we are helplessly trying to regain purity through promiscuity. But every time we feel Arnold's warm, lascivious gaze seep its way into our anatomy, there is a birth of something deplorable deep within our spirits. Everything we feel thereafter seems forced.
And daddy is watching us perform such perversities in the background.

But every time Ms. Dubois comes, she screams with unabated frenetic exertion because she cannot control the level of her voice; this serves as a proper and erotic distraction that forbids me from hearing the vile sound of Fat Arnold choking his dead chicken.

She taps me on the right shoulder again and I pick her body up with my taut, flexed arms and sandwich her suspended design between the cold, rigid wall with such animalistic tendencies. As her body jumps, her hair sweeps across my face and generates an incessant itch upon my snout. And I desperately want to scratch it, but I cannot because my arms are currently serving as seat for her helpless frame. At this exact moment, Fat Arnold decides he wants to play a leading role in the film and grabs her buoyant breasts. She is all but pleased. As he does this, I go to scratch my nose and the punch that was intended for Arnold embraces my countenance with a caustic fury and all I can hear is gravity in effect as her body graces the floor and blood pours from my bruised nose. She is crying and I am bleeding and Arnold is jerking off to the symphony of it all. And I just want to punch that portly pussy in the prostate. And I cock my hand back and Ms. Dubois rises to her feet and Arnold is about to nut, but in the dark nothing is as easy as you want it to be. Except women. And instead of striking him in the jaw I punch her in the back of the head. She drops to the floor and his load waterfalls on top of her. God is much funnier than I think any of us realize.
And God takes a Vicodin and a fifth of tequila whenever life gets bland.

As she moans on the floor, I feel around for my clothes and exit the projection room with the hopes that she believes Arnold is culpable and that my performance during this test was sufficient enough to secure me at least a B in the class.
I think two involuntary contractions deserve at least a B.

And I leave her there with a bruised ass and head, viscous splooge dripping down the vale of her crack and a naked fat ass trying to help her up with the same hand he uses to pick out the dingleberries that plague his anal shrubbery.

I feel as though this would be the perfect story for FMyLife.com.

4:20pm

I head towards the dining hall to see if the lunch lady, Chandelier, has any frozen meats so I can prevent bruises from materializing because I don't want such a trite injury to my biological tissue marring my immaculate complexion.
Black and blue just don't complement bronze that well.

"So how's your daughter? Genitalia, is it?"
"You know, she's good," she says, my Coco Queen, "But my babies daddy's a mutha fucka." She goes through the industrial freezer, her sizable boobs hanging over the edge. "So how you been? Been workin' out I see."
"Just been carrying my pride is all."

With her frosted breasts perched upon her paunch, Chandelier hands me a big piece of meat and expects me to do the same, but I tell her that I am in a hurry; there's always tomorrow.

My legs burn with a corrosive intensity as I rush into the final minutes of my psychology class.
"Nice of you to join us, Hayden," my teacher says, "What's with the piece of meat?"
"Washington Square Park is very dangerous this time of day, you know."
Bullshit is good for fertilizing, but not so much for making a good impression.

I spend the next five minutes of class sketching the rest of this doodling mural I have been working on for most of the semester. Dali would be proud.

Class ends but before I can escape, my psychology teacher gestures for me come to the front of the class.
It is highly probable that she will punish me by putting me in the corner, but I'm hoping she wants to spank me. Punish me.

"Hayden, Hayden, Hayden," she says as she shakes her somewhat twitchy head, "you're not going to pass this class even if you get an A on the final."
"Ms. Amadeus, please. I need to pass this course," I beg, clasping my hands together and shaking them in her face. "Is there any extra credit I can do? Anything—I'll do anything."

I have this habitual tendency of choosing my words poorly because her idea of extra credit did not involve psychology at all.

And there she is, lying on her standard leather couch in her private office. I begin to think that she wants me to psychoanalyze her, but that is not the case at all. She slides off her shoes, unzips the hip zipper of her skirt and shimmies it off with the grace of a swan. She beckons me using the finger motion on uses to tickle the necks of babies. I decide—fuck it—I'd rather screw her than my British psychiatrist whose teeth fuck and fight more than a Southern hick family.

I stand at the foot of the couch as she takes off her stockings and reveals the Hanes Her Way underwear, which probably came in a pack of thirty that she bought at Target—or as titled yet impecunious people call it, Tarzhe—during some blue light special, and only after the rest of her tighty-whities were stricken with skid marks or clear, stretchy vaginal discharge, which is more likely a result from her doing Pilates while ovulating than a symptom of some obscure venereal disease. And despite such vile visualizations, I really want to pass this class; so I'll do what I must.

And I inch my way upward, slowly kissing every centimeter of her body; I want to maintain a high level of suspense. My lips touch hers and there is a moment where she twitches and I can't help but remove my face from the situation, but only as a natural reflex. I slide my pants off and notice that my soldier is still going strong—possibly a result of the Viagra I took a little over an hour ago. The granny panties that smother her navel dislodge with great difficulty. And now my sex is staring at hers relentlessly; he's marking his territory with his one eyed gaze.

As soon as he enters, Ms. Amadeus lets out what sounds like a hiss. I quickly pull out and we both exchange a look that reeks of confusion. I shrug it off and insert myself inside her again. This time she makes a face of pure disgust.

I pull out and say, "Did I do something wrong?"
Bemused, she just looks at me with a blank stare and says, "Orange, Orangutan, Octopus." She shakes her head and scrunches her nose, then says, "Yeah, you pulled out."

And I'm not sure what type of game she is playing here, but I just want to get this over with so I slide back in, this time giving her just a few quick pelvic thrusts. After the third one she barks three times.
My penis exits her sex once more and I say, now utterly confused, "Did you just bark?"
"Oliver, Oracle, Officer." She blinks three times and then says, "Just ignore it. Keep going."

I shake off my confusion and enter inside her yet again. After about a minute of sex wrought with bewilderment, she begins to hit herself, first slapping her breasts then her face, then just her head.
"Wow," I say, still thrusting, "you really like it rough."
"Obstacle, Oppressor, Oratory." She tugs each lobe of her ears three times and says, "Yeah, just keep going goddammit. Fuck."

And despite my visible confusion the situation is actually starting to turn me on, so I continue to push my way through her vaginal cavity. And I'm thrusting and sweating—a side effect of my skin dry humping the leather couch—and she's barking and hissing and hitting herself and yelling obscenities as if she were possessed. I feel as though I am performing an exorcism with my penis.

And sweating I say, "Are you...are you okay?"
"Omnipotence, Opprobrium, Onomatopoeic. Yeah, it's just my Tourette's. Fuck me. Fuck me harder. Sorry. Obfuscation. Oscillation. Obligatory. It only happens when I get overly excited or anxious. Yeah. Fuck that pussy right."

I do as she says because, well—this is fucking awesome. I start to push harder and harder, fucking her cervix with every millimeter of strength I can muster. And my Johnson is starting to swell like a wet sponge as beads of sweat begin to drown her reddened chest. And when she comes, she starts to make a scream that sounds as if Chewbacca were taking it up the Hershey Highway from Jabba the Hutt; she then makes a facial expression that mimics that of Bill Cosby or Gary Coleman. I finally pull out and even my penis looks confused.
"Olfer. Oshapane. Oxydollop."
Whatchu talkin' bout, Willis?

And I leave her there with her barking and hissing and foul facial expressions. I leave her there with her self-mutilating tendencies and her foreign obscenities. I leave her there with the mark of shame etched onto her tired bosoms. I leave her there as she says, "I hope this can just be our little secret."
Yeah, until I write a story about it.

Chapter 10

02/28/07

When Harry Fucked Sally

And there I am, hunching over a typewriter, snorting handfuls of Ambien, drowning in a bottle of Southern Comfort. I haven’t slept in weeks, and I’m exhausted—you know—the feeling you get when you’re too tired to masturbate kind of exhausted.
I enjoy alcohol that you can drink straight because anything else seems counterproductive.

They say that if you don’t sleep for more than twelve days (288 hours, 1036800 seconds)—then you commit a crime—you can plead insanity. It’s been thirteen days, seven hours, and forty-one seconds, but I feel as if I’m getting saner.
Michael Jackson and Brittany Spears, Whitney Houston and Gary Busy seem as if they are logical human beings

And I haven’t felt comfortable in a long time. I don’t even feel complacent in my own skin, only in someone else’s. This lie that is my life is my reason for living, for going on, for not jumping off a fucking cliff and allowing the sharp rocks to pillow my face.

And I’m sitting there staring at a blank page that is peeking over at an empty liquor bottle that’s gazing at an ashtray full of cigarette butts.
And I tipple as if it were my job, but if you are a writer it basically is.

I’m drowning in my sorrows, just flooding my organs with alcohol. Give me a lighter; I’ll set myself on fire, spark some sort of drive in me, kindle some sort of desire to be, to exist.

I wash my hands after every cigarette—twenty times in three hours.
I hit the bottle of SoCo against the desk after every swig—thirty-four times.
I snort each line of Ambien with a new straw—the box of fifteen is almost empty.
And there I am, drunk as fuck, feeling nothing.

And now it’s time to understand—
You feel so much throughout your life. You feel pain and happiness, love and heartache, bliss and despair. You feel so much that sometimes you just don’t want to feel anymore. You don’t want to feel anything. Anesthetized.

And Pink Floyd comes on.
Comfortably Numb
And you’re thinking—
Yes! That is what I want to feel!

And you drink, and you smoke, and you snort, and you inject, and then…well then it happens; for a brief moment, a snapshot of your life, you realize that you aren’t even a part of the world. The moment you feel nothing is the moment you disconnect yourself from reality, from emotions, from life itself. You transcend that which has bound you to this earth. That connection to life, to anything else, is gone. And you are content.

If you pour a drop of alcohol on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
Glad I’m not a scorpion.

My keyboard smells of Smirnoff so that every time I go to type something I need to drink. And I’m looking at my collection of scribbles, my clusterfuck of words, and I realize I’m out of things to write. I’ve written about sex so much that it all seems like one big orgy of words, chaotic and frenzied. And the only things that stand out are the ones that truly had an effect on my life, the things that gave me perspective.
Margaret the adulteress.
Diana the virgin.
Rosa the housekeeper.
Just footnotes in my book of loneliness.

And I’m thinking about love and deceit and death and murder. How can I top that? I need to exceed it, if not for the sake of my book, then for the sake of living.

The bankruptcy of my very creativity is what fuels me to instigate. I know I don't have much time left to roam this earth. And I am constantly bedeviled with this despondent disposition because I know that I am destined to write a definitive chapter in your history; I am holding the quill pen tightly between my anxious fingers, but I have yet to make a single mark on the page. If I can't make a mark with the pen, I will just have to settle for the sword.

And I realize what I have to do in order to make me feel content.
First,
Get another fifth of Soco,
Then,
Go out and find perspective.

And there I am, in my dorm room drunk as fuck, in the shade of the night, the darkness embracing my body, wrapping around my thoughts…faking it.
And there she is, riding me like a rollercoaster—up and down and up and down— allowing the night to mask her insecurities, shade her uncertainty…faking it.
And we both realize we’re just fucking to pass the time, but never losing sight of the fact that it is so much better than the truth, pain.

My roommate never says a word about the girls that I bring into the apartment, but at times I can see his shadow lurking in the hallway like an apparition, waiting, hovering, as if he is attempting to live vicariously through me. And despite his apparent innocence, I feel as though he is not as naive as he lets on to be.
Dalí was a voyeur, but fetishism is so 2004.

Now understand—
Then one day you’re walking through some shitty frat party. And when you're at a party such as this, you know that every single guy there is thinking the exact same thing: "Who is going to be sucking on my dick tonight?" But they all play the same game, they play it so fucking hard, trying oh-so-desperately to convince the girls they actually give a sinking fuck about how amazing the new Twilight movie is or when blank and blank are getting married, or which new combined-named celebrity couple has adopted another African baby in an attempt to save it from a curable disease called Malaria or AIDS—which only continues to thrive because we have failed to convince such indigenous tribes to stop fucking orangutans and shit. No, these guys won't waste the tissue paper. All they want to know is whether the girls are drunk enough to let their DSLs caress their whiskey-dicked shafts long enough for the dudes to bust whatever load didn't make it into their Ralph Lauren boxers during the lovers' scandalous yet obviously uncoordinated dance twenty minutes prior. And when these guys do not succeed they either get so fucking drunk that they don't recall their unavailing attempts or try to play it off as if they really just wanted to meet a "cool" girl they could chill with. And the two will be friends for months—even years—but then one fateful night, the girl"friend" will get so fucking hammered that she will invite the dude to the nearest twin size mattress—whosever it may be (God forbid it is an Aerobed)—and they will have the most unsatisfying sex of that girls' life; but the guy will consider it the best thirty seconds of his. And he will brag to all his frat brothers about how he "tore her shit up," because his frathole friends have told the same exact stories before. But while they are giving him hi-fives and cheersing to his "success" the girl will be crying to her friends about how much of a mistake it was and how she is swearing off alcohol forever, even though that night, horny as fuck, she will find some prince charming at the same type of party who will wash out any of the guilt that may have rested between her bed-tanned legs. And this is friendship. I am calling my gender out because they are in desperate need of a new game; shit gets old. And you're walking through such a party looking for someone to pass the time with, and you see her; those beautiful blue eyes haunt you from across the room.

Then, Apprehension swoops in like a vulture to pick at your insides. And you’re tripping over furniture, and you’re fumbling over your words. And she’s not even drunk.
And you’re thinking to yourself—
Am I ready for this?

And there you are, laughing and talking bullshit about nothing, not a goddamn thing. And you’re content. You realize that she is just like you in every way, afraid to feel vulnerable, afraid to be afraid. She’s full of apprehension. She wants perspective. She fucks her way through life because that’s all she knows. It’s the only thing that numbs the pain, along with Alcohol and Drugs and Lies and Deception. Beautiful, stunning Deception. And you love the fact that she’s guarded—a tormented soul, yearning to find truth in anything other than pain.

And there you are, lying in her bed embracing the darkness, inhaling the night, climaxing for the first time in years, feeling genuine.
And there she is, lying on top of you, squeezing tight her insecurities, her uncertainty, climaxing for the first time in years, feeling genuine.

And your lips collide for the first time, your tongues intertwine, and your mouths explode. And she’s biting your lip because she knows you like it. And you’re kissing her neck because you know she likes it. And you feel as if you haven’t met anyone real until now. As if everyone you have ever encountered was nothing more than figment of your mind's eye. But now you can see, truly see, in the dark, dark night. And nothing seems fake, contrived.
Sex can have integrity, just like a human, and just as seldom.

When she drinks she laughs just like Meryl Streep, as if it is a rarity. She laughs as if her eyes are clutching between their lids years of pain. Then everything shifts back and creates a fervent tension at the top of her forehead. And I'm just waiting for her to cry. But, in a way, it's comforting.

And you love her imperfections. You love her languid eyes, her cleft chin, her boyish smile. She has a deep, unsightly scar on her left leg, but that doesn’t stop you from kissing her with a fervency that dissonantly weeps of beauty and despair.

Yet, you both pull back, because you know exactly what is happening here—you’re letting go. You’re putting your guard down. You’re feeling vulnerable.

The thing is, when you kiss someone it's almost as if you can see into their soul. The way they kiss, their choice of movements, their mannerisms; you can read them. You know exactly what she is feeling at that exact moment. You can taste the pain; you can smell the insecurity. And you love it. And for that moment, you are God. You are looking straight into their soul and judging them for the things that are beyond their control. Their sins, their lies, their deceptions, you know it all. And that scares you, because you’re thinking—what if she is looking into your soul right now, as your lips embrace, and she can see all the hideous things you have done?
The Murder, the Lies, the Deception.

She knows you’re a fraud. And yet, she still continues. And this continues, for days and weeks and months, until you’re both staring at an empty bottle of SoCo and an ashtray full of cigarette butts and a blank piece of paper, and you’re feeling nothing, together. And Pink Floyd comes on again.

Comfortably Numb
“Oh my God. I love this song.”
“Me too.”
And you’re both appreciating that feeling of nothing, sharing it together.
And you’re thinking—
Am I in love?
And you’re kissing her and you know she’s thinking—
Am I in love?
And for the first time in your life, you are sure of something.

But the friction between us causes friction between us.
And there you are, remaining faithful, turning down any other girl that comes your way.
And there she is, fucking anyone she can get her pussy into, feeling something with someone. Finally you feel that Deception, that Despair, that Truth.
Pain.
And you realize—
This is what I’ve been protecting myself from all these years. I can’t wear my heart on my sleeve; I can’t give it away, because if I lose it, I’ll be that pathetic bitch of a sewer, searching this haystack of a world in order to find the only thing that can truly stitch me back together.

But she’s scared, and you’re naïve; and she’s insecure, and you’re afraid—to love, to live. And she’s covering up her insecurities with security.
My, how the roles have reversed.

And at this point in my book of life, I don’t feel as if I am the protagonist, the independent, the one thing that controls and drives everything else. I feel as if I am Lincoln, as if the events in my life are now controlling me. I feel the same way I did when I found Rosa stealing my mom’s jewelry.
Revenge is a bitch.

And I’m trying to figure out how to regain control over my life. Regain perspective.

Now understand—
Then one day you get a call; it’s you’re lover and she’s crying. And you feel as sympathetic as you did for those people who cried when John Lennon or Bonham or Marilyn Monroe died. But you’re trying to calm her down because she’s incoherent and annoying and you don’t have time for this emotional bullshit. She tells you she’s pregnant and that she wants to keep the baby; she doesn’t care if you decide to be in the child’s life or not. And you get offended, because you feel as though she’s calling you out, questioning your manhood, your commitment to responsibility.

I’m responsible; I pull out.

And that comment just doesn’t make sense anymore. And your life comes crashing down like a comet from space, burning a hole in your sky, ripping through the very fabric of your life, and exploding into a million little pieces that scatter across the surface of your existence.
Extinction.

And you’re feeding her lies, telling her that everything will be all right, that you’ll be there to support the child...that you’ll give up your life so that he or she can have one. Everything your parents did for you. And she says goodbye, and hangs up.
‘Goodnight’ is so much better than ‘goodbye.’

But she doesn’t feel better because she knows you, you are the same person, and she knows you. She knows she’ll be lucky if the child even gets a gift from you on Christmas.
Blue eyes.

Switch perspectives.
And nine months pass. Nine months of me fucking random girls, constantly trying to fill voids, seal gaps, in my life and theirs. Nine months of me crying late at night, pouring my eyes out in shower stalls, in elevators, in cars and empty classrooms. Nine months of me drunk as hell at a typewriter with one sentence on a page—

I just want to feel again.

Because when it rains, it pours.
Now, I find solace in Southern Comfort, Nietzsche, and this theory of perspectivism. I find myself reading the same line from The Will to Power over and over again.

“It is our needs that interpret the world; our drives and their For and Against. Every drive is a kind of lust to rule; each one has its perspective that it would like to compel all the other drives to accept as a norm.”

And I find truth in the perspectives. And I’m dying for a new one. I’m dying to live, not in the sense of self-preservation, existing to exist, but rather I want control as an artist and as a human being. I don’t want to be hindered by this fear that I will get a hold of the truth too soon. I want to be strong enough, hard enough, artist enough. I want to invent rather than find.

I have frequently thought about whether I will get married. Technically, marriage was just a contractual obligation mandated by the state back in the times when women were property. And marriage still exists because the terms haven't changed.

So the bottles pile up next to my desk and I develop a cough. And I haven’t slept or eaten in nine months; I’m down to an unhealthy 140. Skeletal and emaciated, I begin to lose my appeal, my charm—everything that had originally made me irresistible. And I feel, depressed. Sleepless nights are the worst when you’re sleeping alone.

Meanwhile, there is a distant memory that continues to prod at my brain. When I was eleven, my friends and I went to visit a palm reader; her apartment was located above the candy shop in downtown Englewood. I recall having sucked on a lollipop previously so my hands were a little sticky, but the irrefutably ugly woman read my palm anyway. And she told me I have kind eyes and a charming smile. She told me I would be loved. She told me that people would remember my name forever. But then she paused for a moment, constantly rubbing one of the creases on my palm. She told me in a somber, melodramatic tone that I would bear a child who would do great things, but that I will die before my twentieth birthday. And now, while on the brink of insanity and the precipice of depression, I tell my roommate everything about me, every single detail. I tell him about Rosa and her daughter, my family, my friends, my deepest darkest secrets. I tell him everything so that in case I die soon my experiences will survive. And people will remember my name forever.
And I'm starting to miss everybody.

Then I get a call. It’s four thirty in the morning and my lover is crying. And she tells me it’s a boy; he’s six pounds, seven ounces. And his name is Dante.
Dante Ian Santiago.
The son of a sinner.
And he has brown eyes.
And that’s when I start to cry. My dirt brown, peasant brown eyes start to pour. And she hears me and hangs up because she thinks that it’s the best thing to do.

And I begin to write, lines and lines, sentences and paragraphs, just throwing phrases together and letting the words pile up until it becomes one gloating, pretentious mountain of literary bullshit. And I end it with—

I feel it now, that Truth, Pain.

Is that Christopher Meloni from L@w & Order?

(image courtesy of NY Daily News)

01.08.07

“Which one do you want?” she asks as she pulls out a bag of assorted goodies—acid, ecstasy, Xanax, Vicodin, crystal meth, OxyContin, and Valium. My anxious hands quickly grab the acid.

And I’m with two sluts I picked up at some shithole dive bar on East 1st Street, which was inundated with broken stools and Natty Ice on tap, and overwrought with fratholes and sororitards, an inescapable stench of urine, and more thirteen-year-olds than a Bergen County bar mitzvah; it shall remain nameless, although the jukebox did boast music that I found to be phonetically pleasing. One of the girls is a bohemian princess from Greenwich, donning a rainbow bowler hat, Scottish tartan, and tattered flares; her name is Sophie. The other girl is an inbred bumpkin whose attractiveness is somehow indubitable—I forget what her name is but for continuity purposes I’ll call her Sue Ann.

Sophie delightfully snatches the E, while Sue Ann predictably grabs the yaba. I am already anticipating an extravagant night full of fornication, iniquity and decadence. Hopefully, it will end with a much-needed threesome.

I lay the smiley-faced tab on top of my restless tongue. As it dissolves I can’t help but think about the absurdity of this situation; I graduated from Flinstones vitamins to acid. At that moment I realize I took the E instead of the blotter. As I spit it onto the sidewalk Sophie punches my right arm.

“Don’t worry, I’ll pay for it. Shit,” I say as I grab the acid. But druggies do not usually care about the money, what upsets them more is any imprudent use of a drug.

And there we are, stumbling down 2nd Street like drunken vagabonds, singing 90s buzz hits like Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping” and Eve 6’s “Here’s to the Night” as we constantly hug each other. And Sophie’s grinding her teeth and touching my hair. And Sue Anne is slightly paranoid and utterly confused; she keeps asking if we’re at the bar yet.

And there I am, watching the lucid fireworks rip through the transparent New York sky. “Is it Independence Day already? Why is there snow in July?” I feel like a tourist in my own city.

We decide to hail a cab on 1st Ave and head uptown to Sue Ann’s apartment because she apparently has an obnoxiously extensive vinyl collection. The third cab we see—a sketchy yellow van—pulls up to the sidewalk and we quickly get inside.

Sue Ann enters the taxi first and sits in the backseat. I allow Sophie to get in before me because I’m such a fucking gentleman; she sits behind the driver. I hop in the seat next to her because I know she wants to continue rubbing my hair. I quickly feel as if I’m being watched as I notice a small lipstick camera poking through an advertisement for Heinz ketchup on the glass divider that separates us from the cab driver. I convince myself I’m just high and proceed to dig into my True Religion jeans for a stick of gum—there is no gum but I do find a nickel, which I appreciate with the utmost sincerity.

The driver asks us where we are going in an overblown Irish accent. “123rd and 3rd,” Sue Ann shouts from the backseat. She then continues to whisper it in an attempt to make sure she has the right address.
I’m pretty sure she does not live there, but maybe I’m just paranoid.

The driver keeps repeating the address, which starts to bug me out considering I’m completely zonked out of my gourd. Then, like a flash of pure rapture, a kaleidoscope of scintillating lights gleaming from the car ceiling attacks my pupils and I finally know that the acid is kicking in—that intense rush of whatever. In two snaps, the driver’s head revolves and he shouts something that seems as if it could be straight out of a Twilight Zone episode, “You are in the Ca$h C@b©; it’s a TV game show that takes place right here in this taxi—”

And before I could let him finish, I shout, “No fucking way. Sophie, it’s Christopher Meloni from L@w & Order. Chris, my mom loves the show; she’s a huge fan. What are you doing driving a taxi?”
“Well, actually—” he starts, but Sophie interrupts him. “Oh my God, I love Law and—” she starts, but quickly loses focus. “Oh my God, I love bald men. Can I touch your head?”
“I can see you guys had a great night,” the driver says as he turns to look at the road. She quickly loses interest and begins rubbing her freshly shaven legs in an attempt to quell her incessant desire to rub anything smooth.

Sue Ann is in the backseat, breathing heavily; her hands are shaking with a fervency that reminds me of the fake palpitations coordinated by the blind members of a Southern Baptist church. “Can we not play?” she shouts and then whispers.

“Don’t be silly, Sue Ann, this is life. Life is wonderful. Life is filled with beautiful things like cabs that light up on the inside and are driven by Christopher Meloni. I love life,” I ramble as I continually click and unclick my seatbelt.
“Alright guys, focus; so what do you say? You want to play?” he asks slightly irritated.
“Yes. We want to play,” I say as I slouch down in my seat. “Could you turn the lights on again, please?”
“Sure, but just once more,” he says, now laughing. He whispers to no one in the front seat, “This is going to be a long ride.” And I find comfort in the flashing lights.

“So what’s everyone’s name?”
Sophie anxiously replies, “I’m Sophie and this guy with the great hair is Hayden and that’s Sue Ann in the back.”
“It’s Sue Ann with two Ns and no E, people always think there’s an E but there’s no E, well except what Sophie has,” Sue Ann repeats and then whispers again to herself.
Apparently my attempt at guessing her name was successful. No matter what people say, stereotypes are completely true.

“Okay, Sue Ann without the E, the first questions are worth twenty-five dollars a piece.”
I can barely make out what he is saying because Sophie is grinding her teeth and rubbing my jeans while simultaneously massaging her smooth, silvery legs. If that is not enough of a distraction, there is a leprechaun outside my window riding on a Segway; I just want to chase him and steal his pot of gold.

“On average, one hundred people choke to death on this type of writing utensil every year.”
I’m trying to think of the answer but the only word my mind can focus on is death. And then I think about Rosa and the Meadowlands. Sue Ann keeps shouting fork from the backseat, which then makes me think about food. My mind quickly puts the two words together and all I can ponder is what it would be like to be a cannibal. Sophie keeps muttering something about dicks and then I start to wonder—
If a male cannibal digests the dick of another male, does that make him gay?

Then, before I can think about anything else, Christopher Meloni says, “five seconds guys.”
“Five seconds till what, Mr. Meloni?” Sophie asks.
“Oh, strike one. The answer was a ballpoint pen. Ballpoint pen. Two more strikes and you’re hiking it.”

“I didn’t know this game involved baseball,” I say, still thinking about cannibalism and irrumatio. Then my mind wanders as I ask, “Did you know that semen contains several agents that have important roles in the prevention of preeclampsia?” Sophie starts rubbing my bulge as I continue, “That’s why it is essential that pregnant women practice fellatio on their partners regularly, so as to decrease their chances of having an unsuccessful pregnancy.”

“That’s hot,” says Sue Ann, now sweating. "Can we turn down the heat?"
“It’s so warm,” Sophie says as she gently rubs over my masculinity. “Do you think you can put the radio on? I really really want to dance.”

The driver just shakes his head and says, “We’ll just edit that out. Okay, here’s your next question: Which Nevadan city, known as ‘the Biggest Little City in the World,’ is actually located west of Los Angeles?”
Sue Ann, who has stopped shaking, ignorantly asks, “I thought we were in New York?”

And I cannot stop thinking about the blowjob I got from this girl in Los Angeles last summer. Then I ask, “What time is it?” I look at my watch in utter disbelief; it has only been three hours since I took the blotter. “Do you think we can make a quick stop? I want to see the fireworks.”

Everyone ignores me. And, to my surprise, Sophie shouts, “Reno, Nevada.”
The cab silences and I can only hear my thoughts reverberating from ear to ear—Blowjobs, Hannibal Lecter, fireworks, Reno 911, leprechaun Segway races. My paranoia matures and I start to believe that everyone in the cab can read my mind. I take out a piece of gum that I somehow found in my pocket (a fucking 4th of July miracle), chew it, and then stick it on the not-so-hidden camera in front of me.

“Reno, Nevada is correct,” Christopher Meloni shouts. "Okay these next questions are worth 50 bucks, but they're a little harder."

"So am I," I shout as Sophie continues to rub me down. And I laugh very heartily until I see my reflection in the mirror; it doesn't seem to be mimicking any of my movements. So there I am, battling my reflection, trying to see which one of us can make a sillier face.

"The phrase, 'Mind your P's and Q's' originated in England and was used by bartenders to settle down their unruly customers. What do the P and Q stand for?"
And before anyone can say a word I yell, "I want to phone a friend."
"You mean a Mobile Shout Out?"
"Well I'll still have two more lifelines, right?"
"You've really never seen this show, huh," he says as he makes a right turn. "You get two shout outs, a mobile shout out where you can call one of your buddies to help you out, and a street shout out where you ask someone on the street for help."
But I don't want to ask the leprechaun outside because leprechauns are tricky characters, so I yell, "Yeah."
"Yeah, what?"
"The Mobile thing, the shout out...I want to phone a friend."
"Okay Mobile Shout Out it is. You know you only get one," he says annoyingly while simultaneously slipping in which service provider they use.
Glad I could be a part of such shameless promotion.

"So," he begins. "Who are you going to call?
"My boy Mafo. He's a veritable appendix of information, for real," I say as he hands me the ugly, black hunk of antediluvian technology. "He always watches F@mily Feud." The phone rings.
"Whoa, I think the phone is ringing," says the voice on the other line; I can hear a bong bubbling in the background and a cacophony of coughs in the distance. A cacoughony—as you can see I am only entertaining myself at this point.

"Mafo. Hey Mafo, it's Hayden man, I'm in the cab where you get cash with Christopher Meloni."
"No way brah, I'm watching that shit on TV right now; the answer is Platypus, for sure."
"Platypus? I didn't even tell you the question yet."
"Yo man, we just hit Jimi bro—glass on glass, double-perc, ash catcher, slide and party bowl-"
"Sick bro, who you with?"
"Dress, Vincheesy, Chanman, and Big Z. Time to smoke Big Red, here's Dress."
"No way, Spicoli? What's good, daig?"
"Ten seconds," says the driver.
"Wugglin.'"
"Sick, I'm trippin' real hard right now."
"Five seconds," says Meloni.
"Shaka man," Dress says—he's a man of few words. "Cannonball," he shouts as I hear him take a bong rip, a puff of hookah, and a chase of liquor. Based on his sharp inhalation I know it's a shot of Jack. "Brutha, hold on, Z-Money wants to say something..."

"Ohh, times up," says Meloni. And as he takes the phone away, all I can hear from the speaker is a deep voice yelling, "Fuckin' Myrrh." And then laughing, then Chanman shouting, "Hey man, I ain't gunna do your laundry," then silence. And I realize happiness is just a Mayfly. Happiness is a thirty-second phone call. And we drop and we smoke and we snort and we inject, in vain, with the slight hope that we can protract this feeling of elation. It replaces any unrefined emotions. That first kiss. That first road trip. That first time you heard "What I Got". It all gets replaced by this relentless flow of dependency. We never find happiness in ourselves and any good fortune we may have is merely that of pure luck. And any misfortune we encounter is simply contrived. And I quickly realize I don't want this. I don't need this. But the car is still moving, and I don't want to be alone.

After about five successfully answered questions and possibly two hours—I’m not sure—the driver stops in the middle of the road and I swear to fucking Buddha I see that leprechaun again.

“Why are we stopped?” Sue Ann asks, now shaking again. “Did we get a flat?”

Then a symphony of bells rips through the air as the driver yells, “That sound means it’s time for the Red Light Ch@llenge©.” I try and collect my thoughts and Sophie has now moved onto rubbing the leather seat beneath her as the driver continues, “Since you have accumulated two hundred dollars or more, you qualify. It’s a two hundred and fifty dollar question; it’s a multiple answer question which means that you have to get all parts of it right in order to win. You have thirty seconds to answer it from the time I ask you.” But I am too preoccupied with the leprechaun to hear what Christopher Meloni is saying, but he continues, “You ready?”

Sue Ann says, “I don’t know how to change a tire.”

Sophie misinterprets his last question and unbuttons her frayed flares. I watch as her fingers inch their way past the waistband of her satin, polychromatic underwear. And she starts rubbing her rosebud at a glacial pace, tilting her head back and arching her blossoming bosoms. And I’m not watching her please herself because I’m too captivated by the transposition of shapes and colors on the surface of her variegated undergarment.

And everything illuminates around me. The cosmic tempest above my head conquers my vision. Its beauty overwhelms my dilated orbs as I slouch down till I am lying horizontally on my seat. My pupils begin to swallow my eyes as the light elegantly swims down like a piece of paper in the wind. It begins to envelop my casing, tugging and pulling the thin hairs that excitedly protrude from my goosebumped flesh. Now afraid, I shout, “Could you turn off the crazy lights, please?”
And Christopher Meloni’s response is one that frightens me even more. “The lights aren’t even on, man.”

And now I know I’m too high. I start to laugh until my two fountainheads fashion rivers of tears that relentlessly stream down my visage, until my neck is covered in salty seas. And I can’t stop laughing. I’m lost in my own humor.

“According to Judeo-Christian tradition, the Decalogue, otherwise known as the Ten Commandments, was a list of religious and moral imperatives given to Moses by God at Mount Sinai in the form of two tablets. Name six of the Ten Commandments. You have thirty seconds. Go.”
But I haven’t learned about the Ten Commandments since my unfortunate, bullshit Sunday School days.

And as I watch Sophie play DJ, all I can think about is sex.

As I’m sifting through my mental drug cabinet, Sue Ann is huddled in the backseat, sweating profusely, and talking to no one about her past—a paroxysm of emotions. “You know, every Christmas, when I was little, my dad and I would leave a slack of ribs, a fresh tin of wintergreen snuff, and a bottle of Jack underneath our stockings for Santa. And when I would wake up in the morning, there would only be a pile of bones, a cup full of dip spit, and a half-drunk handle of Whiskey. One Christmas morning I caught my dad passed out next to the fireplace with barbeque sauce smothered all over is face and hands, dip spit dripping from his lower lip onto his wife beater, and the bottle of Jack securely fastened to his chest. I don't believe in Santa anymore. I hate Christmas.”

Ignoring the solitary therapy session behind me, I start to shout out random answers with the hope that I would get at least a few right.

“Thou shalt not rape. Thou shalt not use the backdoor without permission. Thou shalt not give facials. Thou shalt not kiss after fellatio. Thou shalt not ever go ass to mouth. Thou shalt not—.” But I can’t stop laughing.
And I’m laughing and Sophie is moaning and Sue Ann is whispering about rape and patricide and crying and Christopher Meloni is yelling.
“That’s it. Get out now. All of you.”

He pulls the taxi over and I see that damn leprechaun again. I slide open the door and fall out of the cab right onto my face. As I am picking gravel off my cheeks, I can hear Sophie screaming for a few seconds. The screaming subsides until there is nothing but an ebb of panting. She crawls out of the cab and begins to rub my nape; her hands are moist. Sue Ann is still huddled in a fetal position in the backseat of the cab. Mr. Meloni irately opens the driver side door, walks around the car, and pulls Sue Ann out of the cab. And there we are, cradling each other on the sidewalk.
Christopher Meloni fervently slides the taxi door closed and yells, “And the name's Ben Bailey, bitch.”

And every fucking single girl is thinking about how this is the perfect story: Fuck My Life.

And Meloni is driving and Sophie is spent and Sue Ann is yelling, "Is this how you do a street shout out?" But all I can think about is how my good luck is riding off into the distance on a Segway. Fucking leprechauns.