physical torture, and physical torture sometimes clears the mind. It sure helps you forget your other troubles. But the walk from Clark to my front door was a hike through the La Brea tar pits. Deathbed flu. The boy was beat.
How many people had I brought to tears today? How many threatened me with violence, compared to how many turned violent? And don’t forget Gilia Saunders. I didn’t even know the questions to ask on that one.
I dealt with the doorknob and thought, guess we’ll have to start locking soon, then I stumbled into the shelter of the family foyer and fell over a pumpkin. Landed on my hip on another pumpkin, which started a pumpkin avalanche. When the slide finally stopped, I lay on my back surrounded by mountains of pumpkins, oceans of pumpkins. The entry hallway was belly deep in orange.
I did not care. I did not give a hoot. I was not affected. Nothing and no one mattered except crawling up the staircase and into bed.
11
I dreamt of clitorides. Squadrons of clitorides marching in formation like mushrooms in Fantasia. High clitorides, flat clitorides, hard clitorides, squishy clitorides. Amber waves of clitorides.
My dreams used to center on the entire vertical ravine, from furry outgrowth to the hillock atop the twin cliffs—major and minor—leading into the black swamp from which all life arises but no man returns. Of late, my dreams had forsaken the chasm in general to focus on the pleasure button perched on high. Women try to keep pleasure caused by the pleasure button secret from men, because men are limited to the pressure cooker squirt, and the male gender would probably quit having sex if they found out women are having more fun than men are. Yet—the big yet—modern women demand that we know exactly where the button is and how it is operated.
The days when Henry Miller could write in Tropic of Cancer “A cunt came into the room,” “She was a cute cunt,” “Only a rich cunt can save me now” are long dead. And good riddance. Today, clitorides walk into rooms.
***
When I awoke, the weight of gravity had tripled overnight. A psychic anvil balanced on my forehead and my internal organs felt calcified. We’re talking symptoms of oncoming depression. Depression is paralyzed spirit. If they ever invent a pill that cures depression, I’ll take it. Even if the price is impotency, I’ll pop that pill in a heartbeat.
The only hope is to go through the motions. Shower, shave, brush the teeth—wonder how many years till they fall out. Maurey Pierce told me if you act normal long enough someday you’ll become normal. This was when I was fifteen and dressing like Scott Fitzgerald and wondering why girls wouldn’t go out with me. Maurey said if I brushed my teeth twice a day and read TV Guide cover to cover every issue pretty soon I would stop being strange and girls would begin to make eye contact.
Downstairs, I found Gus, Shannon, and the male Eugene sprawled around the kitchen table, drinking coffee over the local morning paper. To my complete disgust, Shannon and Eugene both wore bathrobes.
“Have you no shame!”
“C’mon, Dad. You and Mom were living together at thirteen.”
“That’s because your mother was pregnant.”
Eugene grinned. The chump sat there in my bathrobe—a blue terry-cloth number that safety-pinned together because a woman named Linda used the belt to tie me up and somehow it’d gotten lost.
The import of my last words made me nauseous. “You’re not?”
Shannon broke into laughter, joined by Eugene and Gus. They laughed at me for trying to be a traditional father.
“Of course not,” Shannon said.
Since no one jumped to pour my coffee, I poured it myself. One thing Gus can do is make good coffee. “That’s not something to say ‘of course’ about,” I said. “Pregnancy is an accident.”
Shannon held her cup out to me. I refilled her but ignored Eugene’s similar silent plea.
“After the olden days when you and Mom were active, the
How many people had I brought to tears today? How many threatened me with violence, compared to how many turned violent? And don’t forget Gilia Saunders. I didn’t even know the questions to ask on that one.
I dealt with the doorknob and thought, guess we’ll have to start locking soon, then I stumbled into the shelter of the family foyer and fell over a pumpkin. Landed on my hip on another pumpkin, which started a pumpkin avalanche. When the slide finally stopped, I lay on my back surrounded by mountains of pumpkins, oceans of pumpkins. The entry hallway was belly deep in orange.
I did not care. I did not give a hoot. I was not affected. Nothing and no one mattered except crawling up the staircase and into bed.
11
I dreamt of clitorides. Squadrons of clitorides marching in formation like mushrooms in Fantasia. High clitorides, flat clitorides, hard clitorides, squishy clitorides. Amber waves of clitorides.
My dreams used to center on the entire vertical ravine, from furry outgrowth to the hillock atop the twin cliffs—major and minor—leading into the black swamp from which all life arises but no man returns. Of late, my dreams had forsaken the chasm in general to focus on the pleasure button perched on high. Women try to keep pleasure caused by the pleasure button secret from men, because men are limited to the pressure cooker squirt, and the male gender would probably quit having sex if they found out women are having more fun than men are. Yet—the big yet—modern women demand that we know exactly where the button is and how it is operated.
The days when Henry Miller could write in Tropic of Cancer “A cunt came into the room,” “She was a cute cunt,” “Only a rich cunt can save me now” are long dead. And good riddance. Today, clitorides walk into rooms.
***
When I awoke, the weight of gravity had tripled overnight. A psychic anvil balanced on my forehead and my internal organs felt calcified. We’re talking symptoms of oncoming depression. Depression is paralyzed spirit. If they ever invent a pill that cures depression, I’ll take it. Even if the price is impotency, I’ll pop that pill in a heartbeat.
The only hope is to go through the motions. Shower, shave, brush the teeth—wonder how many years till they fall out. Maurey Pierce told me if you act normal long enough someday you’ll become normal. This was when I was fifteen and dressing like Scott Fitzgerald and wondering why girls wouldn’t go out with me. Maurey said if I brushed my teeth twice a day and read TV Guide cover to cover every issue pretty soon I would stop being strange and girls would begin to make eye contact.
Downstairs, I found Gus, Shannon, and the male Eugene sprawled around the kitchen table, drinking coffee over the local morning paper. To my complete disgust, Shannon and Eugene both wore bathrobes.
“Have you no shame!”
“C’mon, Dad. You and Mom were living together at thirteen.”
“That’s because your mother was pregnant.”
Eugene grinned. The chump sat there in my bathrobe—a blue terry-cloth number that safety-pinned together because a woman named Linda used the belt to tie me up and somehow it’d gotten lost.
The import of my last words made me nauseous. “You’re not?”
Shannon broke into laughter, joined by Eugene and Gus. They laughed at me for trying to be a traditional father.
“Of course not,” Shannon said.
Since no one jumped to pour my coffee, I poured it myself. One thing Gus can do is make good coffee. “That’s not something to say ‘of course’ about,” I said. “Pregnancy is an accident.”
Shannon held her cup out to me. I refilled her but ignored Eugene’s similar silent plea.
“After the olden days when you and Mom were active, the
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