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Six Mile Avenue

We took an apartment on Communipaw Avenue in Jersey City in November of 1990. It was all we could afford at first. The two-fare zone made things inconvenient for zipping in and out of the city on Path Trains. The fare was only a dollar each way and the train stopped in the heart of the West Village and places further uptown. The bus was a dollar too, but always slow and jammed packed with hood rats. Anthony and I met James Miller on the bus that runs down Communipaw to the Gove Street Path Station– you know the place; right up the street from Exchange Place. It had the picture perfect view of the Twin Towers. James, a Black queen, was a cross between Sade, Prince and Rick James. He stole the last seat on the bus. We had to stand. James irked me because he tied his straight long hair with a pink silk ribbon. Was that so necessary? It seemed as if he were trying to make people hate him for being a shameless snow queen. He was as sissy as a sissy can be and unlike anthony was not 'light-skinned'. My lover and I were butch but not closeted. Anthony poked me in the ribs with his elbow. I could hardly keep from laughing when James gave us that look– ‘I know you’re gay too.’ I hung onto the metal strap for my dear life as the bus turned a corner down Fairview. Nothing had to be said. My lover wasn’t threatened. The middle-aged queen was lusting for me. He assumed I was into Black men because Anthony is Black. So I smiled back and gave him a pleasant nod, but we didn’t strike up conversation. Weeks later, Anthony and I went to see a late showing of ‘Cats’ and arrived back home in Jersey at the Gove Street stop when the place was like a ghost town. Buses were rare in the early hours of the morning so we decided to shell out the $10 for a ride the rest of the way home. James was standing at the bus stop. He had taken out his pink ribbon. It may have been because it was late and scary in Jersey City at 3 a.m. and even real girls don’t wear ribbons down their backs at that hour of the day. “You want a ride with us?” I asked. “Sure I’ll split it with you.” “No need for that, there’s already two of us,” I offered as we headed back down Communipaw and giggled like sissies as we let down our guards and all became flamboyantly gay for six miles.

Letter Boxes

Smokey comes outside on Saturday mornings.

He belongs to someone in the apartment building next door. He likes to cool- out on weekends with my cat, Bert.

The two stripped felines spend their day in an apple tree waiting for clumsy birds to fly into their trap. The fur balls haven’t a clue as to how lucky they are.

Not many cats in New York have a back yard, not to mention lots of perennials to hide and play in. It is so sweet that Bert and Smokey are friends and don’t fight over girl cats, spray for territory or claw one another to death over some pussy.

They are both ‘fixed’ and have flea collars on and simply like the company of one another.

I lifted the window after Bert demanded I do so. There was Smokey sitting next to my tomato plant waiting for his friend to come outside. “Morning Smokey,” I say. He runs to the back of the yard. Bert runs after him and the two disappear into an urban jungle of apple trees, grape vines, poison ivy.

They’ll sit there until someone gets hungry and crawls back inside the window they came out of.

There where two large blue birds outside today. The birds were nearly as big as Bert and Smokey. They jumped back and forth, taunting the cats as if they were protecting a nest, but it’s fall, baby birds are born in the Spring. “Caw, caw, caw!” The birds crowed very loudly as I started to write this.

The cats were ready to make the attack. Who were these birds to be so bold as to want to pick a gang fight first thing in the morning? Bert and Smokey have waited all summer for this opportunity.

I could not figure out why the birds were calling so loudly at the cats.

Eventually they went away and Bert came back in and walked across the keyboard of my;;;;;;;;ldslafhas;dlkjf;k ;

Shrimp Bisque

It’s nice to take a breather from writing my novel to cook. I just love spending the day fluttering around my kitchen like a 1950's housewife.

The remnants of Ernesto got things marinating in my Brooklyn backyard yesterday. My six foot high tomato plants were not designed to withstand a category -1 hurricane. One of the fruit vines was toppled by the 60 m.p.h. winds despite staking and caging.

My ketchup-like seedlings recently got their first signs of fruit. I know, it’s quite late in the growing season for tomatoes not have already ripened. It has been a most peculiar growing season here in Brooklyn.

We had very little rain all summer. Suddenly the ground is saturated with life- sustaining water and my saucy stalks are pumping all that tropical moisture into the still green fruits as if levies in the sky have broken and moisture is flooding into my creole crops.

In two days those paste creating vegetables grew from the size of a dime to a soccer ball and they have not finished growing, they are still green. It is no wonder the plant and its enlarging fruits toppled over in those Ernesto gusts!

I went outside while the eye of the tropical depression was passing by and quickly straightened up the fallen tomato vine. I stood in the moist soil while barefoot and quickly restored my little plot of farming land and its tattered crops.

“What’s for dinner?” Shawn asked.

I pulled out my favorite cookbook and wrote down the ingredients I would need for seafood bisque.

All that rain and moisture from the Carribean ocean put me in a seafood mood. I decided to double the recipe and wrote down: ½ lb. baby scallops and ½ lb. jumbo shrimp, not in my novel, but on a shopping list. I also jotted in 1 C. heavy cream, 2 onions, 4 potatoes, 2 sticks of celery, half of a red bell pepper wrapped in plastic wrap in the ice box, paprika, teaspoon thyme, 1 tsb. salt, 1 Tbs. pepper, unbroken bay leaf and 4 egg yolks. (Charles’ secret bisque ingredient: cardamom.)

A Chinese lady sold me the sea food. Her little seafood shop located inside Associated Supermarket is a separate business from the rest of the food center here in Bedford-Stuyvesant so I had to pay her almost $20 in addition to what I forked over to the cashier at the front, next to those doors that open automatically with the blink of an eye.

I took the last of the baby scallops (just over a half pound) and a pound and a half of those succulent shrimp sitting atop crystal clear ice and made a projected path towards the final checkout register and home.

My hands were quite full and I couldn’t protect myself from Ernesto with an umbrella. It was one of those days when umbrellas turn inside- out anyway. I got drenched on the way home from shopping, but my ingredients remained dry inside plastic shopping bags.

I brought 2 cups of water to a rapid boil and tossed in all those vegetables and seasonings. It simmered while I took an Epsom salt bath.

After I dried off I used an electric mixer to whip the tender vegetables like mashed potatoes. The concoction resembled pond- scummed mashed potatoes. I trickled in two more pints of water and returned it to a boil. Afterwards, I adjusted the seasonings. I looked out the bedroom window and saw that Ernesto had blown over ‘Gloria’ my tomato plant again. I went back outside in the pouring rain, lifted the toppled giant and used a spade shovel to secure it one last time in an upright position. Ernesto was not going to ruin my Labor Day weekend!

My pre-bisque had cooked down for well over three hours before I added one cup of heavy cream and four egg yolks to the soup which then officially made it a bisque. It is only after the creamy substance is added that one can name their bisque. I called mine ‘Florence’.

I turned off the flame and added the chopped seafood. Dinner was fabulous. Shawn and I rolled under the sheets like a wave of thunderstorms steaming off the coast of Africa. Afterwards we fell asleep and I neglected the novel.

This morning, both Gloria and Andrew had fallen over due to the loosening of the dirt from all that Ernesto rain and wind. I staked them both up again as if they were being crucified.

I was saddened by the fruits that had fallen from the vines but patted down the soil around the exposed roots and pray that they have eternal life.

We’re having fried green tomatoes dipped in Ernesto bisque with a touch of tropical moisture for dinner this evening. Perhaps we’ll invite a friend and have a threesome. It’s a long three day weekend and it’s not even half way over yet. The sun may even come out today.

Hurricane Florence

Hurricane season is a lot like Christmas. I’ve waited all my life to experience the power of Mother Nature’s period and by the looks of Florence’s projected path, there’s a very good chance she’ll blow the Hamptons into the sea and form a new Atlantis.

There has been a lot of public awareness this summer relating to Hurricane preparedness. My important documents are packed neatly away in zip-lock bags in hopes that St. Nick soon will be here.

If a category 3 storm were to perfectly squeeze into that little inlet where the Statue of Liberty stands with her torch, Lower Manhattan will be flooded like the 9th Ward.

Bedford Stuyvesant is on high ground but the new World Trade Center memorial is not.

If that storm surge comes our way I will tune into my Direct TV and watch the greedy swim after their money and Gucci bags.

I know I haven’t been a good little boy in years and perhaps that’s why hurricanes haven’t come down my chimney. I’m making a list and checking it twice as the projected path of Florence is pointing at Donald Trump’s steel structures with glass windows.

Years ago while there was still a World Trade Center, tour guides informed site seers that if a penny were dropped from the 110th floor the copper coin would crack the sidewalk.

What would happen in New York City with all that glass falling alongside the hail of Hurricane Florence?

I will not be around to watch it. I’ll be in Bed-Stuy while they are looting this little town.

Chaz Josephine

Earl Fox was introduced to me at a dinner at Chez Josephine, the four star restaurant in mid-town run by the gay, adopted son of Josephine Baker.

Earl was not a fox but for some strange reason felt I should be all over him because of who he was.

It wasn’t Earl’s birthday and he was far from being worthy of bedding with me, considering he had a lover and was a skinny-ass white dude.

My friend and landlord Patrick McGovern invited me to the dinner party at Chez Josephine, it was his birthday bash. I’m not one to pass up a free steak dinner.

They seated me next to Earl. It was a set up, an attempt to get the powerful physician laid while he was in town.

The Democrats had just lost the White House and Earl was practically starving at dinner, wondering if he would still have all that power after Bill Clinton, the man who appointed, him left office.

I pretended to be interested that Earl was doing so much to save the world.

“He’s an M.D., Charles,” my friend Patrick whispered in my ear as I reached out to shake his hand.

Earl ran SAMSA under Clinton, according to my sources and had control over a lot of the Federal Government’s grant funding and where it was spent.

I wanted a new job, a government job, with good benefits and lots of perks. Ideally I wanted to move to D.C. and find a position as close to the Oral Office as possible so I let Earl fondle me under the table at the chic midtown restaurant.

Oh to be that young and beautiful again with all those powerful men fussing over who was going to pass me the bread at Chez Josephine. Quite frankly, I wasn’t impressed and could tell that Earl was full of bologna, just like his boss Bill Clinton, and wanted nothing but to suck me off and head back to Washington to find a new position to hold him steady until the Democrats won back their rightful place at the top.

I couldn’t stand all the useless chatter in that special little party room on the first floor at the Chez so I tried sneaking away to see what was happening at the bar while we were waiting for our filet mignons to finish burning.

Little Miss Josephine Baker’s reincarnated gay soul was sitting at the bar. He owned the place and asked the cute bar tender to pour me a free one.

Oh to be young and beautiful again with all those powerful men fussing over who was going to pour me my first gin and tonic at Chez Jospehine.

Out came Earl and looked at me as if I were Miss Monica the intern standing in a forbidden zone at Hillary’s end of the White House. He rushed me back to the party room because the steaks were being served.

I never had the chance to thank Jean-Claude, or whatever his name was for that free cocktail. I thought for a moment I would get to hear a story about the Toast of Paris that nobody else knew– a bite into the life of a true star.

I thought it was sad when the director of SAMSA handed me his personal business card-- the little paper rectagle contact form did not have a telephone telephone number– only a post office box where we could communicate.

He promised me a good job if I slept with him. So I did, wouldn’t you?

I wrote the little dick several months later ready to cash in my favor.

He had the nerve to send me a form letter that he used for reaching out to the masses to whom he still owed favors.

I didn’t care.

I could have called Patrick and started making threats if he didn’t at least call me.

I remembered how Josephine Baker lived her life and decided that it wasn’t worth trying to call in all those favors.

I put down my bananas, picked up my ballot and watched from my living room as the Fox jumped over the moon.

Earl is still waiting for the Democrats to take back the White House, but as long as I’m around shaking my ass, he’ll never sing on stage again.

Mrs. Bubbles

There is something about a hot August night that gets my juices flowing. I love soaking in a hot bath. I just spent more than forty-five minutes with candles burning in the bathroom and my legs spread apart with one leg hanging over the edge of the tub. It was so quiet in the bathroom. I could hear the water drip from my toe onto the tile floor– that’s how quiet it was. I love how smooth my legs are today– just waxed. They feel so tight under the warm water and bubbles. Jack’s away this weekend, so I’m here alone, just out of a hot bath and it’s pulsating down there– like a drain on a tub pulling all that water inside me, I’m hot. My head is spinning from all that rubbing with the washcloth. I need something real to go in there and move from side to side inside my walls of cotton candy like warmth, ready to melt at the slightest touch of dripping saliva.

Rent Control

It’s so exciting to see the housing market in a slump when one is not an owner of a house. My landlord has been bending over backwards lately trying to keep me comfy and cozy in the Bedford-Stuyvesant roach motel he calls an apartment. Yesterday a new refrigerator arrived, a few days prior he installed a new stove in the place. It heats me up when landlords think they are doing a big favor by providing what the law demands they offer tenants. “Now keep this stove clean,” he insisted as he attached the gas line to the shiny white Kenmore awaiting my grease stains. He slid the old stove and all that baked in flavoring out the door. Years of burned on stains that even Easy Off couldn’t budge were cleaned out in one easy push. The refrigerator does not fit under the space carved in the cabinets but I told him to have the damn thing delivered anyway. “Lenox—have them bring the ice box. This one has been dripping non stop for the five years I have lived here. Look, the water has rotted the kitchen floor. I’ll sit it in the living room if I have to, but you better give me a new refrigerator too or I’m reporting you to the IRS. Wait a minute, it’s not my stove, it’s yours. It stays here when I leave. What the hell is wrong with you cheap bastard? I have paid you $1,400 a month in cash for five years now. Stop snorting my rent money up your fucking nose!” “How about a dish washer, Charles?” “Stop trying to bribe me! I want two free months rent or I am writing HUD, the agency who gave your Black ass the loan for this place and ask them why you cannot accept a personal check for my monthly rent.” A dish washer arrived this morning. Life is good in the hood.

It's Raining When

It is time for a hurricane to form in the Atlantic. I feel it in my bones. Weather Girl Georgina Taylor predicts it’s just about time for all that energy in the troposphere to pour back down to the surface of the earth via that drain in the atmospheric tub, called the eye wall. It’s nature’s way of flushing out the abundance of energy stored high above our heads from the extreme heat of the sun burning away water molecules. A few little showers pop up over the warm Atlantic waters and the next thing we know, a small circular motion begins and a hell breaks loose. NASA is getting a little nervous right now. The test project on a few offshore storms last year worked very well, perhaps too well. Researchers at NASA came up with a solution for weakening those devastating storms—set off a few bombs inside the north east quadrant of the eye wall and break the monster apart. What is happening now? Where have they all gone? This was suppose to be a highly active year. It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.

The Twin In The Towers

I met up with Shawn on September 11th at 11:30 a.m. at his job in the city. I hiked across the Queens bridge and walked down to 43rd and Third. We decided to head up to my place in Harlem.

I put on a pair of his running shoes he had under his desk for the journey. He suspected it was Bin Laden, even before we made it to the house and turned on CNN. I didn’t even know who the man was. Shawn’s on- line research had already offered him enough clues to start putting the pieces together.

“Mother fucker! He done played Bush. It’s all over a pipeline, sexy– one that a lot of folks want to install on Arabian soil.”

I was happy to be out of work early and headed home. There was so much gossip flying around town that day. Conversations of strangers were loudly overbearing and on every street corner–

“Oh my God, my sister worked there until just last week.”

“Yo! I was just in that fuckin’ building yesterday,” a handsomely hung bike messenger said on his two-way radio.

“Someone said they found bombs on the subways.”

“You think that’s bad, I heard there are still at least a dozen planes unaccounted for.”

I attempted to tune them all out and not listen to all the hype. I was feeling quite anxious. I disagreed with Shawn’s hypothesis that Muslims had highjacked the planes and couldn’t wait to get to the house. Quite simply, I was sick of hearing it all.

We took note of how happy New Yorkers seemed that day, despite the closeness of all that likely death. Smiles were abundant on September 11th, perhaps it was only because we were out of work early and far from the spill.

"New Yorkers really know how to act in times of crisis," the papers later informed. There were smiles everywhere. I remember that vividly, at least among the crowds north of 43rd Street.

He kept talking about that pipeline– as if he had invested money into it or something. People kept smiling at me. I didn’t understand all the joy. “I can’t believe he did this. They don’t know the scope of what just happened here,”

Shawn tried to explain to me as I wove in and around the slow walkers. “They had something with them on those planes– some kind of psychotropic chemical. Just look at them sexy, can’t you tell they are on something?” We stepped from the lines of people plowing north and watched in disbelief.

The Psychotic Sea

When one leaves the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford Stuyvesant on his or her way to the supermarket in the district of Clinton Hill, he or she must walk past the campus of Pratt University.

The Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Blacks, Hasidic Jews and Middle Easterners suddenly changes when rounding DeKalb Avenue and entering the land of artistically gifted folks-- Clinton Hill.

Bed-Stuy people wear hip-hop clothing adorned by beautiful braided hair. Some have curls around their ears while others have Mecca on their mind.

In Clinton Hill, the culture changes and residents are dressed rather oddly. The art school lends itself to a community filled with artistically gifted college kids from every corner of the world and they wear just about everything imaginable. The West Village of Manhattan is nowhere near as chic or happening as Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.

I no longer imagine that the fence that surrounds Pratt is electric. I once had a psychosis and held a delusional belief that the Pratt fence sent out microwaves that interfered with metal plates that aliens planted in my head.

I never thought I would feel normal again, nor did I believe that the extreme pain that raced through every inch of my body and soul would vanish. But it has. I dreaded walking past the fence of Pratt and other CIA infested grounds when I was sick. Life was pure hell, and something as simple as buying food was enough inspiration alone for suicide.



There is a beautiful Episcopal parish along the way to the grocery store, right past the fence that surrounds Pratt. When I was ill, I told myself that if I made it to the block of St. Mary’s, I would be alright. The place was a lighthouse in my stormy psychotic sea.

In my imagination, the radio transmissions subsided when I made it to the front of the beautiful historic worship hall. Thankfully, I was never crazy enough to walk in there and ask for an exorcism, but the thought had crossed my mind.


The normalness of feeling alright again has made walking to the supermarket nothing like a chore. I sometimes glide my hand along the square metal rods, and woven strands of steel that make up the fence along Pratt. My fingers bounce in rhythm from pole to pole and I don’t feel a thing, other than the tender touch of cold metal to a warm fingertips.

There was a time when I couldn’t stand within 20 feet of that fence.

When I walk past St. Mary’s I still feel a little crazy though.

Tears stream down my face on the sidewalk in front of St. Mary’s.

The place made me feel safe before, but the aura I feel there now is nothing less than miraculous.

I don’t know the people who founded that place, but I’m sure one or two of them were saints, for their spirits still inspire me when I walk blindly and write about my psychotic sea.

Body Surfing

When Robert Moses designed the public recreational areas along the shores of Long Island, he was sure to give just enough space for cars to pass under overpasses. He didn’t want buses from the city, filled ghetto rats, washing up on the shores of the white, pristine Atlantic beaches.

Despite this, Jones Beach remains accessible by train and bus for anyone and the public park has become one of the hottest spots north of the Outer Banks.

A little east of the dunes of Jones Beach, a little further out the long extended island, before Fire Island lights up the night sky, there is an enchanted plot of sand where urbanites without cars can swim out to with a $30 cab ride.

It’s the real Robert Moses State Park and people are permitted to bathe nude in the sun there.

I laid out my towel and spread on my level 30 lotion refusing to take of my trunks because I adore tan lines.

The fat Long Island Broads with their big tits and hair to match were at first appalling, not to mention their beer bellied husbands with no snorkels.

“Where’s the nude gay section?” I asked.

“This is it. We’re all one big family out here,” my lover explained.

“These straight people are just like homos,” I said and suddenly got the urge to pull off my red Spedos and go with the flow.


“Oh, what the hell, I kinda like this, I’m the hottest thing out here!” I said while watching a nudist with a trunk that almost touched the sand walk by and kick sand in our faces.

The waves were huge that day. Very few were brave enough to venture into the rip currents, but Shawn and I followed the man who we later nick-named Robert Moses into the fierce waters.

“Dig tag, you’re it!” Shawn shouted above the white choppy waves.

I smiled as he secretly grabbed me under the green ocean waters.

“Go touch it. Just pretend like a wave accidentally pushed you into him,” my partner tempted.

So I did. I swam right up to Robert Moses and grabbed it with both hands.

It wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. It was soft in mushy in the cold Atlantic waters and did absolutely nothing for me.

“Let’s body surf,” I suggested trying to pull my lover away from the closet-case freak in the waters of the state park.

The stranger followed us closer to shore as we waited for the next big wave to come up on us.

The ocean reached out and grabbed our bare asses and pulled us high towards the sky.

The water below us disappeared and we rode the crest of the huge wave.

As the wave crashed us down, I turned sideways to brace myself for the crash directly atop the grainy sand.

The power of the sea brush- burned my ass cheeks badly.

The three of us walked naked, back to our towels with our long tails between our legs. Blood dripped from my ass cheek at the spot where Mother Nature kissed me.

“Why are they all looking at my ass? I thought they were straight,” I asked.

“Oh my God, look at your ass,” the straight nudist guy said with disgust.

Mowing

A patch of thick, green grass next to the septic tank stalled my lawn mower. I tilted the mower up so that the blades were exposed and began to peel the globs of compressed cud from the insides of the machine.

Of course I worried what would happen if the machine were to somehow start itself again. There would be no time for me to pull my hand away before the blades sliced off my fingers.

It didn’t stop me from reaching along side the metal blades and doing what had to be done to complete the task at hand.

The sewer worries me more-- that septic tank with its black, oil like shit, baking in the hot July sun, surrounded by flying insects, salvaging what nourishment there is left in my family’s liquefied poop.

How can this be legal? I mean really, that is shit sitting right out in the open.

Sure there are no turds or toilet paper after it gets processed, but it’s still black.

I pulled the rip cord and that faithful old mower’s engine started with hardly an effort.

It’s the grass down here that is so hard to mow, the think green stuff.

The rest of the yard is easy. It’s like I’m on autopilot, one leg after another, up and down in perfect parallel lines. I get inspiration for my stories while mowing the lawn, except when I get down here at the edge of the yard.

Watch out, I’m going to go over the thick green patch fast so that I don’t stall the mower again.

Can you hear me? Stand back!

Opps!

Sorry about that.

The Army Drafted Me

Pvt. Tamburro had numerous Article 15 punishment clauses in his personnel file.

“He’s a bad soldier, don’t follow in his footsteps,” Sgt. Greer instructed as he handed me my green wool blanket and bed sheets the night I was checked into 141 Signal Battalion in Ansbach.

It seemed unfair to be put in a room with a troublemaker, but he was cute and seemed harmless to me.

“I’m from Pittsburg,” the scruffy looking enlistee said while shaking my hand.

“I’m from Pennsylvania too,” I said while trying not to develop a friendship with someone with a bad Army reputation.

“Do you wanna grab a few brewskies?”

“No thanks. I’m tired from the flight and need some rest,” I declined.

The big barracks room was silent and spooky. During my intake briefing, I was informed that Barton Barracks were constructed during World War II and housed Nazi troops during the dismal days of the pre-cold war. I didn’t like being there alone and tossed and turned restlessly wishing my roommate would return.

I awoke to a squeaking sound from across the room. My roommate had returned with a German girl he picked up from a local pub and they were going at it in our room right in front of me.

She wanted some water, she explained in broken English.

“I can’t get caught with you in here,” Tamburro explained, “but I’ll sneak you down the hallway to the water fountain.”

I wondered how he got her inside the barracks past the guard at the front desk. I learned the next day that they climbed up the fire escape.

What an eyeful that was in the dark room—they looked like a swastika, legs were flying everywhere—I couldn’t see everything, there wasn’t enough light.

She asked him to stop.

The room was silent for at least two minutes.

Perhaps she needed more water.

She laughed and said, “Oh, it’s little now.”

“Yes, it’s little now, it’s not hard anymore,” my Amy buddy whispered to the German girl.

He seemed pissed and helped her to find her clothing and get dressed in the dark and escorted her back to the fire escape and set her free again.

When he returned to the room, I laughed out loud.

“What’s so funny?”

“It’s what she said.”

“Oh, what whore. Can you believe that broad?”

“I didn’t mean to laugh,” I said while licking my lips, thirsty for water too.

Something for Stephen to Read in Three Springs

Mark Short took me hunting in his pick up truck during an ice storm. It was already the second week of buck season and I hadn’t bagged one yet. There was only one day remaining to hunt legally and after three years of roaming through the woods in fluorescent orange, I had yet to kill my first deer.

Locals were beginning to question my manhood and comments like, "He should have been a girl," were circulating in small town sportsmen circles.

Mark, a friend of my father, was determined to help me make that step to manhood.

Mark was known for his ability to track down white tails. At sixteen I was eager to pull the trigger on my 30-30 and shoot one between the eyes just to keep the gossip at bay.

"Ain’t nothing gonna break my stride, ain’t nothing going to slow me down," played on the radio at least three times that day as we drove along dirt roads on Jack’s Mountain.

Mark seemed nervous as I hit the high notes of that song. He asked me if it was a man or a woman singing. I explained that I wasn’t sure.

I was bored out of my mind and my eyes were weary from scanning the passing thickets of brush for four legged creatures so I reached over and turned up the radio.

"I don’t know Chuck, the deer are not going to be moving around when it’s storming like this. If we want to find one we are going to have to get out of this warm truck and scare them up a little."

I poured the last bit of hot cocoa from a metal thermos, rolled my eyes and agreed to face the frigid air again for the sake of sportsmanship.

I thought I would never bag a buck and agreed to leave the warmth of Mark’s truck wishing I had never pissed him off by turning up the radio when that song played for the third time that day on WHUN.

"I always see deer down in Sink and Run. What do you think? Do you want to take a walk down there?"

"Sure," I said, realizing that he, like the deer, was playing hard to get.

He was ready for it, I could tell. All I had to do was reach over and make the first move but I didn’t want to make it so easy for him. Despite those heavy insulated hunting pants, I could tell he was ready for it.

At fifty yard intervals we walked side by side through the forest trying to scare out the deer.

"Oh the games people play," I sang to myself while stepping quietly on slippery, ice covered stones in the woods.

"Here it comes, Chuck!" He yelled from behind a thick pine grove.

The buck was headed straight for me.

I lifted the gun and pulled the trigger without aiming through the scope.

The buck did not fall but stopped dead in its tracks. It blinked at me a few times. Both the deer and I could not believe I missed that shot.

The animal turned around, flashed me his white tail and ran in the opposite direction.

Kaboom!

Down it went.

"Way to go Chuck! You got it!" shouted Mark.

He showed me how to cut off the scent glands on the deer’s legs and the proper place to put the blade of the knife, just under the white fur on the belly of the deer in order to gut it properly.

I helped him lift the white tail so that the blood would drain from the cavity we had cut.

It took both of us to drag that ten point out of the woods and put it on the back of his pick-up.

When we made it back to hunting camp, Mark told everyone that I shot that buck right between the eyes on the first shot.

I didn’t understand why he gave me the credit, especially when I didn’t share my last cup of warm cocoa with him.

Lizard

Dad sometimes digs around and tries to find out the dirt on mom’s side of the family.

He’s still very bitter that my mom left him.

I mentioned my mother’s mother in a conversation.

“Oh, you mean Lizard?” he asked.

I laughed hysterically.

Her name is Elizabeth.

“Did you always call her Lizard?”

“Hell yes! When I first started dating your mother, I came up with that nickname for her. When I came to pick your mom up to take her to the drive-in, your grandmother would wait for me on the front porch. She’d order me take her and all the kids to Dairy Queen before we started our date.”

I laughed loudly and said “I bet she licked that cone just like Lizard.”

He laughed too and claims he never thought about that, but yes, she did look like a lizard.

Doing Them All

Mormons are so old fashioned.

So many wives and so little time to do them all...

That’s how the world once was, you know.

Tons of wives everywhere. Some men had twelve.

But here we all are, with the exception of the Mormons, waiting for death to part us so we can go get some strange.

I’m “married” again and going on five years. Before I said “I do”, I presented my partner with a list of rules:

“I can never me monogamous,” I promised.

Here I am again being monogamous and I don’t know why.

“We’re going out tonight and see what pops off,” he said.

I pretended like I could care less, but was actually salivating inside.

We rode into Chelsea to see what was up. We were bored in no time and decided to head home instead.

There he was– that dude I have seen for years in various places throughout town. I had him once, back in the ‘90s. Yummy! Damn! There he was cruising my lover and I.

I knew he wanted my partner and not I. After all, we already had each other and it’s never as good as the first time.

He must have been coming home from the gym. He had his bag and was still dressed in sweat pants and a wife beater.

He followed us off the train and down DeKalb Avenue.

I just knew something was going to pop off.

We made it to our door and my lover said to me “Yuck! Don’t you ever bring a tired queen like that home with us.”

The stranger heard it too.

I felt sorry for him, but could care less, I’ve thrown myself at him lots of times over the years and he passed it by.

It could have been fun– the three of us.

But we’re monogamous.

A New Pair of Lady Slippers

The Pink Lady Slipper is a rare orchid that grows only under ideal environmental conditions like found in the rolling hills of the Appalachian mountains.



The delicate flower prefers a cool, damp environment and soil with lots of decomposing organic matter.



It takes root among wild ferns and it's best to search for them near mountain streams.



When stumbling upon a patch of Pink Lady Slippers, it’s like walking into a mystical wonderland.



Ladyslippers grow like weeds on Jack’s Mountain, my childhood home.



My grandmother and I searched for them in May and carried them around in bouquets like tulips.



They stand on a stem almost 8" long. Two large light-green leaves support the base of the stem, and at the top is a tissue like floral bulb shaped like an Indian Moccasin.



Grandma attempted to dig up the roots and plant some in her garden, but they seemed only to want to grow in a certain patch of woodland along the south side of Jack’s Mountain.



One day, while walking hand in hand with my grandmother, I spotted two yellow Lady Slippers growing alongside all the pink ones.



We sensed magic after spotting those two slippers.



We refused to pick them, but held them in the palms of our hands.



It was like touching the wings of an angel.



“I have eight children, Charlie, but none of them are like you,” she said to me as we walked out of the woodland back to civilization.



Mothers always know when their sons are destined to wear lady slippers.

Death

"I can’t see the light! Oh no, I can’t see the light! Mamma, help me," cried Shawn as his liver failed and the toxins entered his blood stream.

What does one do when a loved one hallucinates, loses their mind and begins to die in sheer panic?

His cries of paranoia were so real. I wanted to see what he was so afraid of and chase it away.

He was in another world, perhaps hell itself.

"I have to get you to a hospital," I assured my fading friend while noticing he had pissed all lover the bed.

The urine was dark brown.

The angel of death was in the room, but she didn’t scare me.

“Back off, bitch, he’s mine,” I mumbled as chills rushed up my spine and I tried to calm him down.

He screamed and fought the paramedics and police. They called for back-up.

It took seven uniformed me to drag him from the house in his derranged state and strap him down on a stretcher.

I knew it was best for him. But the way they took him out of our home was brutal.

If I hadn’t been there to calm him down, he may have busted out of the restraints they had him in.

Hospital staff face death so calmly. The injected him with something and his screams of pure hell diminished and he grew silent.

“What was he talking about? Why was he screaming so loudly?” I asked the professionals at Brooklyn Hospital Center.

“He needs a liver transplant. He was acting that way because his liver is failing.”

Crazy people carry a certain conviction in their delusions that seem to seep into the reality of the sane. I could do nothing but tell him to hold on and that I was going to help him.
His body was bleeding in numerous places. Red rivers of life sustaining liquid, the color of love, flowed from his mouth.

"He wasn’t bleeding at home. Where did all this blood come from? What are you doing to him?" I cried loudly like my insane lover.

He opened his eyes and for the first time since the onset of the hallucination he said something coherent--"Hold your head up."

A stranger in the emergency room who was standing close by walked over to me and said, "Pray over him. He wants you to stop being sad and hold up your head. Now pray over him," she ordered like a Rabbi.

Words flowed from my mouth like the blood from my lovers lips. The commotion of the emergency room subsided as his body started to tremble and the bed on which he was strapped shook.

My hands trembled as they remained glued to his body during the laying of hands.

I couldn’t stop the flow of the words. They continued to spew from my mouth, and for a moment, the prayer itself seemed to be the purpose of my entire life.

I spoke things that were not coming from my conscious mind and known vocabulary, but rather, an ancient language consumed me, one that I only knew while laying hands on the body of my departing friend.

An old Black woman grabbed my arm and said, "I hope your friend makes it. I will pray for him too."

“Get away from me, bitch!” I shouted as I felt a draining of energy while she touched my arm during the prayer.
The pain and agony left his face. He seemed to be at peace and finally, I let go.

Burger Queens

I stopped by the Burger King on 54th Street and picked up a Whopper just because it seemed hilarious to me that New Yorkers eat food from that particular fast food joint.

The smell of hot grease brought back memories.

I remember when the Burger King was a theater-- a movie theater that showed nothing but gay porn movies on the big screen, twenty-four hours a day.

Mostly old men frequented the place, although on Friday nights, it was the place to be.

I picked off the pickles from my huge burger and remembered what the old stomping ground was once like.

Sesame seeds fell onto the table and I brushed them onto the floor as I reminisced about those guys who paid $10 at the front door for a glimpse of real motion pictures and got a little more than what they bargained for.

All the bath houses, with the exception of Mt. Morris in Harlem were closed down, and “The New David” theatre was one of only a handful of places where popper sniffing queers could go to line up at glory holes in the early Nineties.

My lover and I decided to see a movie one evening at the New David, just for kicks.

We were shit faced and ventured into all the dark, lonely corridors of the place, getting a glimpse of what gay life was like before HIV started showing up in all those Happy Meals.

They were still fisting as if they were in a boxing match.

I bit into my Whopper and spit out the stale bun and rubber like beef patty as I suddenly remembered how the place once smelled.

I had no business eating in there even though they did clean the place up.

An old man with white hair approached my lover and I and offered us the strangest gift the night we went to the New David.

He gave us little cardboard boxes with Chicklets gum inside.

“I own the company,” he said to us.

“I love this gum,” I said to him while brushing his cold lonely hand from my crotch.

“Do you really think he owns the chewing gum factory?” my lover inquired as we left the place blowing bubbles.

“I bet he does. Why else would an old man give away candy to young men like us inside a gay porn theatre?”

“At least they don’t sell popcorn there,” he said as we jumped in a taxi and rushed home.

Birthday Cake

"You’re invited,” an E-vite proclaimed from my inbox.

“Will you make Steve a birthday cake again this year?” a separate e-mail from my closest friend, Sue demanded.

I checked off the little box that indicated I would be there and filled out the comments section with: “I’ll be there with my cake filled with secret herbs and spices.”

I knew that would get the co-workers and friends from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office shooting back and forth high speed instant messages.

“Sue is inviting that fag from her job again?” they likely said to one another. “What does he mean by secret herbs?” they probably asked via modem.

I go to Sue’s husband’s birthday party year after year and I don’t know why. There is no weed and they drink like fish.

Striking up conversations with people from her husband’s job is not easy. What could I possible have to say of interest to those model citizens as we share pieces of celery dipped in Sue’s special dipping sauce: Miracle Whip and relish?

So what, Sue and I don’t work at a job where we get to throw the guilty behind bars. We are Starbucks employees. She’s married to a District Attorney and my husband knows the system very well.

We take our breaks together and sit at the little table next to the window facing Eighth Avenue and brag about our men.

“Steve’s got a big dick. He’s been working out. He always wants to fuck me when he gets home from the gym. Do you think he’s gay?” she once asked me.

“I don’t think so, girl. How big is it?” I asked while pouring a blue pack of equal in my latte.

She isn’t even one bit jealous when I say those things.

“So are you finally going to leave Bradley or what? Seriously Charles, get your self a man with more money and we can go shopping on our breaks together,” she tempts.

“I don’t know girl, I can’t leave Bradley. He loved me when nobody else would. When I gained 40 pounds, he still made love to me like I was Paris Hilton!”

“So what, he’s broke and you said he got a little dick.”

“I only said that when I was mad at him. I lied Sue, really I did. He’s hung to the knees.”

“You are so full of shit,” she said as we rushed back to our position at the frothers.

“If I see that bitch looking at my husband’s ass again this year, I’ll scratch his eyes out,” Sue’s husband’s co-workers said to each other on cell phones while I spent my Saturday baking a birthday cake for the husband of a co-worker.

I pulled my aluminum cake pan from the cupboard, the one shaped like a football, and worked my magic.

Of course there were no secret herbs mixed into the Duncan Hines mix, 1/4 cup of oil, three eggs and a half-cup of water.

I only added a little party inspiration. Straight men love football, and my football cake turns more eyes than a big set of firm tits on a kept woman.

I makes the boys wonder and wander.

I simply grabbed a glob of Crisco and greased the inside of the pan and shook it around with a little flour to coat the mold.

It only takes two minutes to mix the cake ingredients at high speed.

I popped the dream cake into the oven.

“Bradley, you should really come to this party with me. My co-workers have never met you and I have met all of their husbands and wives.”

“Fuck that! I’m not going to a party with a bunch of lawyers from the D.A.’s office.”

“You should, the next time your ass gets locked up, you’ll have someone to call.”

“You don’t ever make me cakes. You always bake and decorate them for your friends,” he said while sitting on the sofa and stealing glances of my big round bootie as I bent over to insert the cake in the pre-heated oven, set at 375.

I really didn’t want him coming along anyway. I always manage to find a closet case or two running around the rooms of Sue and Steve’s large apartment and the party is not as boring as it may sound.

I made my icing from scratch. One box of confectioner’s sugar combined with a half cup each of butter and shortening makes the best frosting this side of Antarctica.

Some of the icing remained white, a glob was colored dark brown and a little was shaded light brown with my special food coloring, made specifically for cake icing.

I sat there all afternoon with a pastry bag, and slowly dotted the surface of the cake football with the different shades of icing.

Eventually, I was left with a cake that made MacArthur’s Park look like junk food and as if someone had left it out in the rain.

Those married men at the party love my cooking.

The girls stand there with their mouths hanging wide open as I remind them of how women once were.

Sue thinks it’s hysterical when all those girls from the D.A.’s office who try to get a little piece of her husband’s big cake are upstaged by an old jaded queen who has a husband too damn fine to waste time on a Saturday night mingling with fat attorneys who don’t have a bitch who can burn like me!

I left the party early this year as soon as the Grey Goose was gone.

My ride was bored and wanted to go so I sneaked away before saying good-bye to my co-worker and thanking her for the hospitality.

Bradley was out fucking around again. It was 2:30 a.m. and he wasn’t home.

He eventually stumbled in around 3:00, smelling like a sweaty jockstrap in Steve’s clothes hamper.

I didn’t say a thing and pretended to be sleeping when he crawled into the bed like a cake in a molded pan, being slid into a pre-heated oven.

As he slid his pastry bag into me, I imagined myself back at the party with the D.A.’s with long dockets.

“Who bitch are you?” Bradley asked.

“Yours and only yours,” I said over and over again as I let them eat cake.

Lesbian Lust

I have new neighbors. They moved into the top floor apartment. Nobody ever stays for long in that space.

I told the landlord that $1,600 a month is way too much to charge for the place, although there are three bedrooms up there.

The landlord is Black but still insists that from now on only white folks will be renting from him.

“Lenox, that is very immature,” I said. “You cannot judge all Black people based on the track record of others who have lived here.”

“You must understand my situation. I have lost far too much money from those ghetto bastards who move in and don’t pay me their rent,” he said with his hands on his hips and his ugly red afro blowing in the wind.

“That’s because you always sleep with your tenants. Business is business, and pleasure is pleasure,” I explained.

“Tyler did have some good ass,” he said, while reconsidering his decision to allow a lesbian couple, Tonya and Sonja to take the place.

“I knew you were fucking him. Oh well, who am I to judge? I was too!”

We both laughed.

“Lesbians? You are letting dykes move in above me? There goes the neighborhood!” I shouted while slamming the door in his face.

A few moments later, he rang my bell again.

“What? What do you want from us?” I cried from behind the door.

There they were, Tonya and Sonja, my new neighbors.

“Tonya, Sonja, this is Charles and Bradley," Lenox said while introducing us.

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you , too!” “You guys don’t mind if we use the back yard do you?”

“That’s our back yard, you have the roof,” my partner explained.

I noticed Tonya forming a fist, and knew that there will soon be trouble in paradise.

They stomped off like Mike Tysons with long hair and we slapped each other a high five and offered one another double Z snaps.

“Bradley, if I see those dykes in the back yard I’m going to throw something at them.” “You can see inside our apartment from the backyard, I don’t want them back there either,” he said.

This morning, they slipped an invitation under the door inviting us to a bar-b-q in the back yard tomorrow evening.

I slipped an invitation under their door too, inviting them to the sex party at our place tomorrow night.

I’m not even going to pull the curtains closed.

German Broads

I met Fran while stationed in Hanau.

Her parents ran a guest house right outside the military base.

Fran ran a home based business of sorts in one of the rooms of the guest house.

All the guys in the barracks had her at one time or another.

Even I paid her twenty bucks for some head one drunken evening.

She had the nastiest, roughest, under lubricated bird I ever flew into.

I never liked that part of her, but the mouth was nice.

Eventually, the blow jobs bored me and I went on down there again.

"Wow, that was good. What did you do? Are you using KY?"

“No, that stuff is expensive. I just picked the scabs and let the puss run,” she explained with her German accent.

Father Mercy

“Give me that, child of the dark!”

“Tis mine. I found it first, go away vampire.”

“I will punch you in the face and knock out your fangs if you do not hand it over.”

“Be gone with you. You have no power here. I will tie you to a stake and allow the sun to rise upon your skin.”

“You weak fool. Don’t threaten me. You run at the sight of a crucifix! Why should I fear you?”

“Lighten up, Lestat. It’s only a bloody tampon.”

Brotherly Love-- By Father Mercy

He’s always in my way.

He always leaves his toys all over the house.

Daddy’s little chip off the old block—what am I?

I’m sick of my parents and that little brother of mine.

Just last night he ruined my life again, the little bastard.

I was hanging out in the park smoking some good stuff with Troy and Jeff and came home because I had the munchies something bad.

There was lots of celery in the ice box, that’s about it.

Not the stuff that hits the spot.

There it was—a container of Pringles sitting next to his stuffed animals on the sofa.

Wasn’t much left, so I popped off the plastic lid and tapped the bottom of the red cylinder and captured every last morsel.

I slept good last night, and he woke me up screaming—asking mom who took his scab collection.

Little brothers are a pain.

Father Mercy

When they took away my mother and father, a great fear consumed me. I

knew what was going to happen to them. We all knew it was a gas chamber and they were killing us like cattle.

The life in the eyes of the soldiers was dark and animalistic.

Darkness like nothing I have ever known was inside those eyes.

There was nothing human about them. They did as they were commanded and did not think for themselves.

The souls of my mother and father escaped through the smoke stacks of the shower house.

I watched them go from the court yard and could hear my father’s voice in the smoke.

We all wanted to bathe and felt filthy from the stench of illness and cough.

My mother, the beautiful gypsy woman, knew it wasn’t a shower being offered to those being led astry.

She held me close the night before they took her.

I will never forget her warmth and love.

The Land of Cotton

They resented me for my youthful beauty, but it was I who showed my people the way out of bondage.

I never had to pick the cotton.

My life was destined to be easy because of my charm and beauty.

My room was in the big house. Massa Levine made sure of that. I slept close to him, but far enough away where we could not be heard when he came to see me at night.

He told me he loved me sometimes, especially when he stood at the foot of the bed and I brought him his supper, served up right, as I backed my way to the metal rails at the end of the bed.

I loved him too.

I pretended like it hurt, only because that’s what he desired. Anything was better than picking cotton in the hot sun and living down back with them.

I loved taking baths. That’s all I really had to do.

Sometimes I helped the others downstairs, but I didn’t have to. I soaked my life away and knew my place.

I knew how to make him cry, though, just like a baby he would whimper when he called my name.

I would wait until I saw that look in his eyes—the meanness and sweat and I took a deep breath and imagined myself as cotton, and allowed my blossom to pop open as he picked me night after night.

"Look away," he would shout, "Look away!"

I didn't blink until he was done.

Father Mercy

I’ve sat in the booth for decades and nothing has turned my little white collar.

One day, a non-parishioner came stepping into the confessional.

“Father, forgive me, for I have sinned. I am not Catholic and have never been to confession.”

“Why are you here,” I asked the woman with the piercing brown eyes.

“I sold my soul.”

“How much did you get for it?” I inquired.

“Two hundred.”

The spirit entered me. I looked at her and replied, “Child, you are forgiven. Anyone who paid you two hundred is the one who committed the sin.”

“Thank you Father. God is truly merciful isn’t he?”

“Yes he is. But next time offer him some for free and watch how bread is supposed to be broken.”

“I feel so much better now. Where is the wine?” she asked.

“Are you married?”

“Yes, with two children.”

“You cannot pour old wine into new wine skins, but you can drinketh from my rod and staff if it will take the edge off.”

“One hundred,” she said.

“Fifty,” I replied.

“Cheap Jew bastard!” she shouted while running from the church.

Many are called, but few are chosen, I reminded myself.

Tacos and Chopsticks

The Mexican ladies of Brooklyn are not illegal, nor are the short men they call their husbands.

I see them in the laundry, rushing around pushing those metal carts almost as big as they are.

They are so cute.

I could put an entire family in one and push them down Bedford Avenue like a bag lady hauling her cans off to be recycled for five cents a pop.

Don’t send them home. I enjoy the doing my laundry with them. Although, I’m too tight to pay them extra to wash and fold for me.

I do my own wash in their machines that are much bigger than they are, especially the triple loader– I could wash an entire family in one for $4.75 plus the cost of detergent and fabric softener.

They all stick together, those Mexicans. I notice that especially while in the laundry. They save money by banning together as a community and doing their laundry. They rent out all the triple loaders and fill one with whites, one with darks and one with delicates.

I just don’t know how they manage to separate everything when the loads are done. They seem to know who owns the white sock with the orange stripes and who has the bra with the worn out elastic.

They look at me like I’m crazy when I rent out those triple loaders and wash only a few pieces at a time in the large machines.

“What are you looking at Mexican? This is America. We don’t have droughts here. Get a grip. Wake up! Stop living like it’s the end of times,” I say as I do my wash like a white woman and take over all the machines, like a Mexican heading over the boarder.

They hate me because I can reach that little compartment at the top of the triple loader and pour in my soap without using a ladder.

“It’s in the genes folks. Don’t be haters,” I sing while shaking the wrinkles from my jeans that I dry in machines at the Mexican laundry.

The Chinese ladies of Brooklyn and their husbands who ride bicycles are envious of the Mexican migrant workers.

It’s easier to work at a laundry and sort out socks in American than it is to fry rice all day and deliver it on bicycles along with fortune cookies.

And they are outnumbered, two to one, here in the Western Hemisphere.

Purple Barrons

It is silly to try and capture the nature of a dream while writing.

You had to be there to understand this dream, but no doubt, some of you were there because I saw you.

It happened last night in my sleep; one of those lucid dreams where I knew I was dreaming.

There we were, a bunch of us, riding down the highway in a Pontiac. The car was the size of a boat. There had to be at least fifty in that car.

It reminded me of childhood when the entire family packed into my grandfather’s boat and we headed down Route 22 to Boyer Town, an amusement park.

We came upon an open field, a place similar to Woodstock in the dream.

I’m not sure what we were doing there, perhaps it was a Dolly Pardon concert.

I was the one who first noticed the two lights in the sky and pointed to what appeared to be a constellation.

I shouldn’t have opened my mouth, but as soon as I did, down came the unidentified flying objects.

Everyone ran away with the exception of my brother Sean and I. We stood there and watched, fearlessly.

I haven’t seen Sean in at least four years. He’s busy with his life now and so am I.

The phone rang and awoke me from my dream.

It was Sean.

"You are an uncle again. Cathy had a little boy last night."

"What did you name him?"

"Barron"

That’s nice. Oh, that’s weird," I said.

"What?"

"I had a dream about you last night."

"You did?"

"Yes," I explained, but didn’t bother telling him about the silly UFOs.

"Do you know it has been four years since grand pap died?"

"Has it been that long? My God!"

Perhaps I should have told him my dream, because now I understand its meaning.

My grandfather is born again.

Bigger Love

It’s time to paint my apartment.

I’m feeling refreshed, in love and ready to move on with life again.

It’s time for new curtains, a new area rug and hell, not only am I getting a new computer but also one of those flat screen televisions.

I deserve it!

Yes, it is now officially my place. I have concluded that Shawn will not return from the dead and I can finally throw all of his things out in the trash and move on with my life.

I’m keeping that big black thing inside the cardboard box in the hallway closet though. When I redecorate the place after the painting, that magical luminous lighting fixture is going to replace the ugly lamp in my living room.

I believe the contraption inside that cardboard box is used to grow bud.

I’m not sure though.

My dead husband was so fucking smart. He must have known that the family would sweep in after his suicide and take everything but that “illegal” machine.

It was too heavy to carry so the family left it with me to dispose of along with hundreds if not thousands of porn tapes.

I didn’t go in that closet for years. Piles and piles of VHS pornography were stacked to the ceiling covering the magical cardboard box.

I finally got tired of crying and decided that after four years I needed more closet space, so I looked inside that box.

When I noticed the cigar box inside the black machine, I figured it was his stash of pot, which by now would have dried out totally.

But what do you know--- cash!
Lots of it.

Is it any wonder I cannot stop loving him.
So what does a bi-polar, jaded queen do when she finds another gift from her dead lover?

She takes her new man on vacation.

We’re off to Puerto Rico again!

Wee! It’s so fun being gay, I swear to God!

Several of Shawn’s friends knew of his magical weed machine. Since I don’t smoke they all called asking for it.

I was too lazy to pull it out of the closet from behind all that porn.

“No. You cannot have that. It’s the only thing his family did not steal from me when he died,” I explained.

It’s quite amazing, that mirrored fixture that stands about five feet tall. Behind the one way mirrors are rows and rows of fluorescent lights that make it possible for tropical foliage to flourish even in the most bitter of climates.

Wow, if I had only found that cash when he first died, I would no longer be in this town.

But hell, I have a new man now, just as hot as Shawn, so why would I want to leave New York City?

“No Ray-Ray, we are not going to use that thing. The electric bill is high enough. Besides, what happens if we get caught growing weed?”

“It’s for medicinal purposes. Tell them you are bi-polar and self-medicating,” my partner suggested.

“Look outside the window, dumb ass. Those are not marigolds! I have a plan for your birthday next month.”

“No, you cannot afford to take me to Puerto Rico again this year.”

“Yes I can. I have been saving up for years for this trip and by the way, we’re redecorating the entire place and this black box is going to be the focal point of my new interior design.”

“Finally! You are going to let me grow some pot?”

“Hell no, that’s for my vegetables but I could use some help smoking all of this!”

“Do you still love him more than me?”

“Yes, but he loves us both! Don’t you see?”

Wet Dreams

“Oh Charlie, you could fuck-up a wet dream,” were the words used to describe the process of manhood to me.

I always associated a wet dream with doing something wrong. I did not understand what my father was saying when he used that cliche.

I discovered masturbation before I discovered the wet dream. There was not a lot of lava left in my balls to cause a volcano in my dreams very often.

I wacked off at least seven times a day– but who was counting?

When those dreams did come along there was something strange about what was ejaculated.

Messy and pungent those globs were. No mater how much Clorox mom used, those white skivvies had received the mark of the beast.

The goddess herself reaches down and touches our private spots, molesting us in our childhood dreams and wakes us to a reality that sets us free.

“Father forgive me, for I am about to sin,” I said in my first wet dream as my pecker grew to a size somewhat larger than a succulent cob if corn dipped in butter.

We are lit on fire in our sleep. From head to toe we burn like a wildfire in a California canyon. Eventually the great pain within is dipped in cool refreshing mountain waters and for one brief moment our lust is gone.

Pop, pop, pop, like pop corn in hot oil we explode.

Relaxation takes over and that edge that makes young men so jumpy vanishes.

We are born yet again.

A few moments later the longing for that release comes back.

Our dicks get hard again.

We have become men and wack off at least seven times a day, but who actually counts those waking dreams?

I always felt sorry for the girls.

Purple Acres

Grandma Taylor was sexy in her seventies.

She was Irish, single, free- spirited and considered hard to catch buy county studs.

Her bright orange hair made her famous in town.

It was her real color and only a handful of men who saved their pennies made her rainy day and were permitted to wander down into that other bright red patch.

I loved her self-assuredness. Never did she doubt her good- looks and knack for survival in a male dominated society.

I lived my childhood walking alongside a woman who had coats thrown down in front of her and doors opened by men who took off their hats in awe.

I absolutely loved it!

I was royalty and learned at four how queens run empires.

She had already married another man following the death of Grandpa George before I was born.

She dumped her second husband when I came along, but kept his last name.

The years before kinder-garden, I waited along a dusty road for her to come home from work each evening.

I stood at the end of our chestnut orchard near the mailbox and waited to hear the sound of her Chrysler. She didn’t like me taking out the mail before she got there. It was almost a sin to open that little tin door and take out the mail and hold it for her.

“Keep your hands out of that box or I’ll kick your ass,” she threatened.

I often did it anyway just to see the day my grandmother would give me a spanking.

That day never came.

Two miles in the distance one could see dusty flying from the dirt road. It was Grandma Staub hauling ass home.

I quickly reached inside and pulled out the mail for her.

It was wonderful seeing her come home to me.

The long tin box with a red flag often was filled with garden catalogues, sweepstakes prizes, speeding tickets and bills. There was tons of mail in that box each day. I learned to read the word ‘Staub’ before the name ‘Taylor’ waiting for the woman who knew many men.

“The mailman gave me a lollipop today.”

“That will rot your teeth.”

“He asked how you are,”

“Tell him none of his damn business if he asks you again.”

“Why?”

“If I ever marry another man he is going to be rich and good looking. Martin is far from that.” She stopped for the mail everyday, picked me up and we drove up a long and winding driveway to her pink trailer.

“I wish your mother and daddy would stop fighting. I don’t want to lose you.”

“You’ll never lose me, Me Me!”

But she did.

“I told your daddy he could have the farm if he would stop drinking. But he couldn’t,” she explained to me years later when I went to visit her in St. Petersburg.

“That’s okay. I’m happy now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, go ahead live your life.”

“Well, I did meet this nice guy Sam. He’s a millionaire you know.”

I winked at her and told her Sam’s place was a lot more comfortable than her little pink trailer.

“How did you meet him?”

“I was working in my garden and he drove up to buy some apples. I was bent over picking weeds and he saw my big fat ass and fell in love.”

I laughed and urged her to sell that old lonely farm that belonged to George.

“You know, Charlie. Every year when we drive down here we stay at these fancy hotels.”

“Do you take the towels?” I asked.

“No I don’t have to any longer. Sam never wants sex until we stay in those hotels. It’s so funny, his old pecker gets stiff only in a hotel bed.”

“Grandma, I’m only sixteen.”

“It makes me wonder what he did in hotels, years ago.”

“He’s probably into hookers,” I said.

“Watch your mouth young man or I’ll kick your ass! I’m not a hooker.”

“I didn’t mean that, Meme.”

“I know. I know.”

Slaves and Sluts

He always gets up before the alarm.

Sharply at 5:55 a.m. he arises and pierces into my dormant cocoon, melting my dreams into reality as daylight sets in again.

I can do nothing but keep my head resting on mounds of pillows as he himself lifts the sun into the heavens above.

“I have to pee stop!” I cried.

“Shut-up and take it like a man, Bitch!”

“Yes master, yes!”

Eternity

It once saddened me that you go on like you do.

Going where exactly?

So that’s it? We get only a hundred years or so years and it ends like a motion picture?

Oh honey, when you are gone, they are going to sale your shit and go on a nice vacation, and you know it.

Now really. Think about it. Wouldn’t you?

Stop reading your own reviews and come down to earth for a moment.

What did your great-grandmother do for a living?

Isn’t she worth remembering?

Keep going on like you do.

It no longer saddens me.

I am your great-grandmother.

Burger Queen

I stopped by the Burger King on 54th Street and picked up a Whopper just because it seemed hilarious to me that New Yorkers eat food from that particular fast food joint.

The smell of hot grease brought back memories.

I remember when the Burger King was a theater-- a movie theater that showed nothing but gay porn movies on the big screen, twenty-four hours a day.

Mostly old men frequented the place, although on Friday nights, it was the place to be.

I picked off the pickles from my huge burger and remembered what the old stomping ground was once like.

Sesame seeds fell onto the table and I brushed them onto the floor as I reminisced about those guys who paid $10 at the front door for a glimpse of real motion pictures and got a little more than what they bargained for.

All the bath houses, with the exception of Mt. Morris in Harlem were closed down, and “The New David” theatre was one of only a handful of places where popper sniffing queers could go to line up at glory holes in the early Nineties.

My lover and I decided to see a movie one evening at the New David, just for kicks.

We were shit faced and ventured into all the dark, lonely corridors of the place, getting a glimpse of what gay life was like before HIV started showing up in all those Happy Meals.

They were still fisting as if they were in a boxing match.

I bit into my Whopper and spit out the stale bun and rubber like beef patty as I suddenly remembered how the place once smelled.

I had no business eating in there even though they did clean the place up.

An old man with white hair approached my lover and I and offered us the strangest gift the night we went to the New David.

He gave us little cardboard boxes with Chicklets gum inside.

“I own the company,” he said to us.

“I love this gum,” I said to him while brushing his cold lonely hand from my crotch.

“Do you really think he owns the chewing gum factory?” my lover inquired as we left the place blowing bubbles.

“I bet he does. Why else would an old man give away candy to young men like us inside a gay porn theatre?”

“At least they don’t sell popcorn there,” he said as we jumped in a taxi and rushed home.

Tinkering

Bill built a tool shed in the back yard behind his wood pile. It was a place to go to escape the never ending mouth of his beloved wife, Liz.

A man needs a place to go to tinker. Some guys like to work on motors in their cars, others will write until the sun comes up, yet some simply like to piss away time in tool sheds.

Women believe they have committed husbands when their men disappear for hours ‘at work’ on busy little projects in the garage or outback.

Girls do the dishes, mop the floor and throw in a couple loads of laundry while the boys do the hard stuff like wood chopping, mowing laws and fixing machines that break down.

Bill could never have enough wood to chop. Those high- tech hydraulic devices that split logs with a simple pull of a lever made his outdoor time go by way too fast. He got rid of his gasoline powered wood splitter and went back to the basics—an axe.

He’d balance pieces of oak and maple atop a thick tree stump and slam her down.

All day long in the summer sun he chopped his wood into smaller and smaller pieces, getting ready for the long cold winter ahead.

Liz would yell out the kitchen window at him, “Hurry up and get your ass in here Bill, I want to wash those dirty jeans you got on.”

“Don’t wait for me. I have a lawn mower to fix when I’m done here,” he yelled back with a Pal Mal dangling from the corner of his mouth and a six pack of cold brew waiting for him inside the small tool shed.

He decorated his shed the way he liked it. There were no knick-knacks taking up space in there. Only the antlers of deer, a few turkey feathers and a squirrel tail or two brightened the dull, unfinished walls of the shed.

It pissed Liz off as the summer went by and the wood pile grew taller and taller.

By the end of June, Bill would manage to hide his shed behind a wall of fire wood.

Only then was it safe to pull out that six pack and the greatest invention since the wood splitter and cigarettes—“Penthouse Magazine”.

After Bill died Liz decided to tear down the tool shed to make room for a flower bed.

“You wouldn’t believe all the nails that were in the dirt when I tried making a flower bed there,” my grandmother told me.

She didn’t mention those magazines that I grew up on as a child. Perhaps he was smart enough to burn them before he died.

Unlimited Terror

A cynaide attack in the New York City subway system was aborted because terrorist did not have unlimited ride MetroCards.

The Transit Authority’s decision to raise the subway fares to $2 each way in 2002 may have saved thousands of lives and is proof that Homeland Security efforts are working.

Al Qaida decided not to follow through with their plans to unleash a second wave of attacks on New York City simply because like so many others in this town, they could not even afford to get on the subway.

Straphangers learn years later that they were only moments away from falling onto subway platforms and kicking like roaches sprayed with Raid.

The news comes as a planned, coordinated effort by homegrown terrorist-- those who are at risk of losing billions of dollars in Homeland Security funds which helps to pay for summer homes in the Hamptons.

Bin Laden is proving what he wanted to prove about America and its media.

The news was not worth reporting when New Yorkers could have taken steps to protect themselves.

Only when the budget was cut, did our leaders decide to tell us the truth about who the real terrorists are.

Slaves and Sluts

“You’re invited,” an E-vite proclaimed from my inbox.

“Will you make Steve a birthday cake again this year?” a separate e-mail from my closest friend, Sue demanded.

I checked off the little box that indicated I would be there and filled out the comments section with: “I’ll be there with my cake filled with secret herbs and spices.”

I knew that would get the co-workers and friends from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office shooting back and forth high speed instant messages.

“Sue is inviting that fag from her job again?” they likely said to one another. “What does he mean by secret herbs?” they probably asked via modem.

I go to Sue’s husband’s birthday party year after year and I don’t know why. There is no weed and they drink like fish.

Striking up conversations with people from her husband’s job is not easy. What could I possible have to say of interest to those model citizens as we share pieces of celery dipped in Sue’s special dipping sauce: Miracle Whip and relish?

So what, Sue and I don’t work at a job where we get to throw the guilty behind bars. We are Starbucks employees. She’s married to a District Attorney and my husband knows the system very well.

We take our breaks together and sit at the little table next to the window facing Eighth Avenue and brag about our men.

“Steve’s got a big dick. He’s been working out. He always wants to fuck me when he gets home from the gym. Do you think he’s gay?” she once asked me.

“I don’t think so, girl. How big is it?” I asked while pouring a blue pack of equal in my latte.
She isn’t even one bit jealous when I say those things.

“So are you finally going to leave Bradley or what? Seriously Charles, get your self a man with more money and we can go shopping on our breaks together,” she tempts.

“I don’t know girl, I can’t leave Bradley. He loved me when nobody else would. When I gained 40 pounds, he still made love to me like I was Paris Hilton!”

“So what, he’s broke and you said he got a little dick.”

“I only said that when I was mad at him. I lied Sue, really I did. He’s hung to the knees.”

“You are so full of shit,” she said as we rushed back to our position at the frothers.

“If I see that bitch looking at my husband’s ass again this year, I’ll scratch his eyes out,” Sue’s husband’s co-workers said to each other on cell phones while I spent my Saturday baking a birthday cake for the husband of a co-worker.

I pulled my aluminum cake pan from the cupboard, the one shaped like a football, and worked my magic.

Of course there were no secret herbs mixed into the Duncan Hines mix, 1/4 cup of oil, three eggs and a half-cup of water.

I only added a little party inspiration. Straight men love football, and my football cake turns more eyes than a big set of firm tits on a kept woman.

I makes the boys wonder and wander.

I simply grabbed a glob of Crisco and greased the inside of the pan and shook it around with a little flour to coat the mold.

It only takes two minutes to mix the cake ingredients at high speed.

I popped the dream cake into the oven.

“Bradley, you should really come to this party with me. My co-workers have never met you and I have met all of their husbands and wives.”

“Fuck that! I’m not going to a party with a bunch of lawyers from the D.A.’s office.”

“You should, the next time your ass gets locked up, you’ll have someone to call.”

“You don’t ever make me cakes. You always bake and decorate them for your friends,” he said while sitting on the sofa and stealing glances of my big round bootie as I bent over to insert the cake in the pre-heated oven, set at 375.

I really didn’t want him coming along anyway. I always manage to find a closet case or two running around the rooms of Sue and Steve’s large apartment and the party is not as boring as it may sound.

I made my icing from scratch. One box of confectioner’s sugar combined with a half cup each of butter and shortening makes the best frosting this side of Antarctica.

Some of the icing remained white, a glob was colored dark brown and a little was shaded light brown with my special food coloring, made specifically for cake icing.

I sat there all afternoon with a pastry bag, and slowly dotted the surface of the cake football with the different shades of icing.

Eventually, I was left with a cake that made MacArthur’s Park look like junk food and as if someone had left it out in the rain.

Those married men at the party love my cooking.

The girls stand there with their mouths hanging wide open as I remind them of how women once were.

Sue thinks it’s hysterical when all those girls from the D.A.’s office who try to get a little piece of her husband’s big cake are upstaged by an old jaded queen who has a husband too damn fine to waste time on a Saturday night mingling with fat attorneys who don’t have a bitch who can burn like me!

I left the party early this year as soon as the Grey Goose was gone.

My ride was bored and wanted to go so I sneaked away before saying good-bye to my co-worker and thanking her for the hospitality.

Bradley was out fucking around again. It was 2:30 a.m. and he wasn’t home.

He eventually stumbled in around 3:00, smelling like a sweaty jockstrap in Steve’s clothes hamper.

I didn’t say a thing and pretended to be sleeping when he crawled into the bed like a cake in a molded pan, being slid into a pre-heated oven.

As he slid his pastry bag into me, I imagined myself back at the party with the D.A.’s with long dockets.

“Who bitch are you?” Bradley asked.

“Yours and only yours,” I said over and over again as I let them eat cake.

Lesbian Lust

I have new neighbors. They moved into the top floor apartment.

Nobody ever stays for long in that space.

I told the landlord that $1,600 a month is way too much to charge for the place, although there are three bedrooms up there.

The landlord is Black but still insists that from now on only white folks will be renting from him.

“Lenox, that is very immature,” I said. “You cannot judge all Black people based on the track record of others who have lived here.”

“You must understand my situation. I have lost far too much money from those ghetto bastards who move in and don’t pay me their rent,” he said with his hands on his hips and his ugly red afro blowing in the wind.

“That’s because you always sleep with your tenants. Business is business, and pleasure is pleasure,” I explained.

“Tyler did have some good ass,” he said, while reconsidering his decision to allow a lesbian couple, Tonya and Sonja to take the place.

“I knew you were fucking him. Oh well, who am I to judge? I was too!”

We both laughed.

“Lesbians? You are letting dykes move in above me? There goes the neighborhood!” I shouted while slamming the door in his face. A few moments later, he rang my bell again.

“What? What do you want from us?” I cried from behind the door.

There they were, Tonya and Sonja, my new neighbors.

“Tonya, Sonja, this is Charles and Bradley," Lenox said while introducing us.

“It’s nice to meet you.” “Nice to meet you , too!”

“You guys don’t mind if we use the back yard do you?”

“That’s our back yard, you have the roof,” my partner explained.

I noticed Tonya forming a fist, and knew that there will soon be trouble in paradise.

They stomped off like Mike Tysons with long hair and we slapped each other a high five and offered one another double Z snaps.

“Bradley, if I see those dykes in the back yard I’m going to throw something at them.”

“You can see inside our apartment from the backyard, I don’t want them back there either,” he said.

This morning, they slipped an invitation under the door inviting us to a bar-b-q in the back yard tomorrow evening.

I slipped an invitation under their door too, inviting them to the sex party at our place tomorrow night.

I’m not even going to pull the curtains closed.

Poor Lenox can never find people to stay in that place upstairs.

Saving Souls for a Rainy Day

It takes a long time to say good-bye to the spirit of one who dies with a strong addiction or from suicide.

Ghosts from those who cannot let go of their attachments to worldly things will hang around for centuries if no one takes the time or cares enough to tell them they have actually died and its time to move on.

Watch out when those spirits learn that you can sense them. An entire posse of addicts suffering from unimaginable withdrawal symptoms will call upon you to fulfill their every need like they did to me when my third eye popped opened and I was left hanging in the third dimension without any formal training.

The light—what is it about the light that frightens so many, yet others seem to walk right into it?

What is the light exactly?

The light is the miracle of life and is the gateway to the eternity we are already a part of. It is a process, the light-- as natural as childbirth and death. It is where we squeeze ourselves back inside something as small as a sperm yet as large as the universe itself.

Sure there is no guarantee we will be the winner of the great race again this time, but what other options are there?

I have led many spirits with strong attachments to that light. Call me Rita Miller if it seems appropriate and far fetched, but who you gonna call when you find yourself walking around like Sam, from the movie ‘Ghost’?

There are psychic readers everywhere in town these days. “Special Reading $5” their sings tempt passers by and tourists. I laugh, especially at those crystal balls.

It’s all a big scam in my opinion. Don’t waste your cash. Anyone with the real gift will explain that there is no guaranteed way to predict the future and those voices that some hear from the other side know nothing more than you or I.

“Well what are those voices telling you?” Dr. Redd asked sarcastically before admitting me.

“They are not actually voices. They are intuitions,” I responded.

“Well, do you want to harm yourself?”

“No! Why would I want to do that?”

“What is it that you want exactly?”

“I want them to leave me alone for a while.”

“Alright,” she said, “We can manage that.”

The antidepressants made it worse. I was like a sponge for those in suffering while flying high on those drugs. Never in my life have I experienced the pleasure I experienced when those drugs first started working.

I knew something was very wrong with the dosage when I picked up a sketch pad in the ward and starting sketching.

I could not believe those images were coming from my hands. How beautiful they were, especially the drawings of the things around me.

It all looked so perfect, so real. It seemed that those from the other side were giving me a little something for what I had shown them about the light or perhaps I had accidentally robbed them of a few things.

They came to me like infants crying for their mother searching for a way out and found themselves trapped inside my imagination.

“Stay for a while,” I insisted as my artistic skills improved day by day, I can get accustomed to this."

Then I heard the first real imaginary voice in my head, “Fuck-off. Leave us alone. We don’t want to live inside the mind of a fag!” they shouted in terror.

“Too bad,” I responded. “You should have headed into the light when I first told you to. Now you will forever be married to me.”

Just Say 'No'

There is a reason why I didn’t go to the morgue to see my lover’s body one last time. It was not because I cannot tolerate the sight of a corpse. I was in denial about his death and how it all ended so abruptly.

Four years have already passed and I am the only one who knows the truth.

He killed himself.

An overdose on Tylenol did the trick. How was I supposed to know that headache medicine, when used in bulk, will send us to an early grave?

Because we were not married, I did not have the legal right to order a blood transfusion. I told the doctor’s in the emergency room to proceed with whatever procedures were necessary to keep him alive.

The family held a different set of beliefs and threatened to sue me because I told them to go ahead with pouring someone else’s blood into his veins.

“Look lady, you may be his mother but I am his lover and this is New York City. I have rights.”

“I pray for your soul,” his momma told me over the phone, refusing to fly from Los Angeles to be at her son’s side during those last few moments.

The physician hinted at a suicide attempt but I cut him off at the pass.

“Tylenol? Tylenol caused this? How many did he take?”

“Lots of them. He had hepatitis and HIV. The chemicals from the drug are attacking his liver, which was already in a fragile state,” the doctor informed.

“He had what? Oh dear God. You must be joking!”

“Are you his partner?”

“Well, I suppose so. I mean it was all very weird, our relationship. But yes, yes, I am his lover.”

“He probably is not going to make it, perhaps you should start making arrangements.”

“Arrangements? Arrangements for what? He’s not going to die. Look he just moved when I touched him.”

“That’s nerves Mr. Taylor. Even if he does return he will not be the same. The toxins have already destroyed most of his brain.”

I went back to the house where we both lived together for only two short months.

I found a Valentine’s Day card I had given him two months ago lying on the window ledge. Inside was a thin rectangular Certs container filled with at least thirty Ecstasy pills.

I knew the suicide was real and from his death bed, and with my own words, he was asking me to follow him.