Memoirs of a Gaysha

Michael Jackson is dead and the world is better for it. I met MJ once at Patches, a notorious gay bar in Toledo’s east end. He held up his gloved and said, “I jack off with this.” We talked for a while about the Mud Hens – MJ was a die hard minor league baseball fan – but it was awkward. He offered to pay for my Long Island Iced Tea, but I declined. I knew where that could lead and it was no place I wanted to go.

 A month later I saw him again, this time in the press box at Ned Skeldon Stadium. He was chatting with Neil Kwiatkowski about Propofol. I said hello and we shook hands.

“You look well, Fletcher.”

We exchanged pleasentries before Michael excused himself.

 ”Sorry guys but I must run, I have a date.”

After he left Kwiatkowski turned to me.

“You know who he’s dating, right? BB Nichols. The gay icon and cultural avatar? Shit. Some guys have all the luck.”

More Terribleness

The majority of residents in Toledo, Ohio have turned to hunting squirrels, raccoons, and feral cats to survive.  The local government has collapsed, and, along with it, all essential services.  Last week during a late night, unpublicized session of congress, the federal government quietly washed its hands of the mess, effectively declaring the city a separate, unsanctioned demilitarized state.  Officials, in off the record comments, called the region “totally ungovernable.”  

The area has been home, for the better part of the last two centuries, to the dregs of human civilization.  For reasons that are not entirely clear, pedophiles, drug abusers, murders, sex addicts and mongloids of every stripe have flooded the region since its founding on the early 1800’s. 

The Maumee, once a source of potable water for area residents, has become glutted with human remains, raw sewage, and toxic chemical waste.  That, however, has not stopped locals from using its water’s for personal bathing and an idiotic recreation known as “jet skiing.”

Lie Down in Dickness

It was raining most of the day but it stopped towards night. Every day had been rainy before it too. The subway was hot and damp. When I got out, the clouds were low and the ground was still wet. Patches and Allie were waiting for me at Deluxe. They were already drinking Mjito’s. Patches pronounced it in this Spanish sort of way that I found annoying. I had a beer. We talked for a while about what we were doing. Patches said he had been promoted at NAMBLA. He was now new media coordinator for all west coast operations. “It’s cool. The money’s good anyway. They’ve got major content management and flow issues, though. Their webmaster is such a douche.” “A douche-master!” I added, but no one laughed. Allie was less specific, just saying that she was, “drinking alot,” and that she was about to head to LA to, “get her head together.” I ordered the spring rolls, naturally, and Patches and Allie both had blueberry milkshakes. We got drunk. Allie suggested we break into Furnald and we all agreed that is was a good idea. “I need pizza first, though.” My head was spinning. I put it down on the table. Patches dug out my wallet and ordered a round of margarita’s for the house. Later, apparently, they put me in a taxi uptown. The next morning at work I puked in the office bathroom.

Making Cocaine

For a while I worked in Tobago making cocaine with a couple of black guys, I forget their names.  One was tall and one wasn’t so tall, but still taller than me.  What a boring job that is, making cocaine.  It’s mostly gasoline and fertilizer.  It takes a couple of days just to make a few pounds. 

It was hot too.  Bugs were everywhere.  Doing coke alone in the jungle is boring too.  It just makes you paranoid and itchy.  One morning I woke up and the guys had run off with the coke, the whole batch of it.  It had to be like fifty pounds worth.  I knew those rotten bastards were planning something but I just didn’t think it was going to happen so soon.  The jungle is always loud but still, it’s easy to be lonely there.  You can walk for hours and feel like you haven’t moved an inch.

CPC Memories III

An author came in one day. Her editor too. Bonnie and Allie kept giggling. I couldn’t concentrate on what was going on. Allie passed me a note that said, “Look at me and my big dyke hair.” It was pretty funny, I had to admit.  The author had this big blown out hair and seemed kind of self absorbed. 

I wrote back, “I’m a faggot.” Allie glanced at it but didn’t seem to react at all. That ended that. Baker was sleeping and Patches was playing with his computer. Before the lecture Lindy announced that NAMBLA was looking for an editorial assistant. After the lecture was over Patches said, “I already got an interview with them.” We were all jealous. None of us had a job.

“They’re based in San Fran, which is cool, and they have really good benefits.”

A Short Walk in Washington Heights

Bonnie, Allie and I went to a roof top bar near Columbia.  It was hot a humid, like every day that summer.  I’d been drinking for a few weeks straight, mostly beer, but still, it was really starting to catch up with me.  A thick layer of rubbery fat had accumulated around my torso.

 

The bar tender ignored me but got Bonnie and Allie their drinks immediately.  They both had margaritas.  After a few rounds we ran into another group of CPC kids.  One of them was this big tall republican from Texas named Ben, heir to the Gibson dildo fortune.  He was surrounded by a couple of mustachioed girls, also from the course. 

 

“You guys got any X?”  He asked the group.

 

Allie and Bonnie refused to look at him.  I gave him Patches’ phone number and told him to ask for Fatsy Pope.  He thanked me and disappeared into the crowd, a girl on either arm.  I grinned.  I couldn’t help it.  I thought I’d done something clever and funny.  When I turned back, Bonnie and Allie were staring at me.

 

“What the fuck was that?”

 

“Are you retarded?”

 

I felt like a fool and excused myself to get another drink.  I didn’t know what I was doing in this place.  I felt like a fraud and in most respects I was one.  Some people just don’t belong anywhere.  

 

Somehow I got drunk that night.  I left the bar alone and walked up Amsterdam and into Washington Heights.  I just walked and walked.  It was the only thing I liked doing, walking.  At 170th st. I turned right and headed into an old park.  It was dark now and late.  The insects were loud, louder than anything I’d ever heard and they were all screaming in one rythm.  I sat down.  My head was spinning.  From the darkness I heard someone shout “faggot” over and over again.

 

CPC Memories

In the morning we’d come down to a full spread of breakfast food – yogurt, bagels, fruits, cereal, none of which was touched by any of the students save myself.  I was told it was too “common” for them to bother with consuming.  One afternoon I skipped lecture and watched as a team of illegal immigrants trashed it all, an event, I could only assume, that took place every day.  One of them, a toothless women, slipped a bagel into her apron and was fired on the spot for “stealing.”

My dorm was perched on a hill overlooking the colored section of town.  To amuse themselves on weekday nights most of the students would drink champagne on the dorm’s roof, then dispose of the bottles by hurtling them down the hill at unsuspecting pedestrians.  There is no telling how many people were killed playing this “game” but it was not an insignificant number.  Their behavior was unjustifiable, but they dismissed my concerns with a roll of their eyes.  “They lead miserable lives.  Really, we’re doing them a favor.”

After one of the lectures, O.J. Simpson’s editor invited me out for a drink.  She’d clearly had plastic surgery.  She looked like a ghoul.  Nothing could satisfy her.  She ordered several bottles of wine and got severely drunk.  “Alcohol doesn’t mix well with these anti-depressents,” she said.  In the cab ride back to my dorm all she did was whine about her idiot husband and kids.  “They’re so fat.  I can’t look at them anymore.”  Then she cried.

 

 

One time a bunch of us were in one of the common rooms watching TV.  I was trying to catch the end of the Tiger’s game but one of the girls kept turning the channel to gossip girl. 

 

“Hey!  I’m trying to watch the game!”

 

“You haven’t seen this already?”

 

“How could I?  It’s live?”

 

She rolled her eyes, took a drag of her hand rolled cigarette and blew the smoke in my face.

 

 

 

 

Maracas pt. 3

After I got back from Maracas I was plagued with horrible nightmares.  I had seen too much ugliness and something in me had broken.  Since entering the publishing world I had done my best to ignore the fact that I was surrounded on all sides by the sick and the degenerate.  My boss, Ms. Hess, was a monstrous alcoholic and closeted lesbian.  She was so desperate for approval she used to call me into her office and demand I read aloud to her the few positive reviews her ridiculous “books” received.  She gyrated like a diseased slug during these performances and I can only assume she was masturbating.  All the other assistants were criminally self-absorbed homosexuals, the worthless sons and daughters of bankers and hedge fund managers. 

I was, however, surviving – or at least I thought so.  In truth I was breaking apart.  But the process was so slow as to be invisible, leaving me totally unaware until the damages it had wreaked were irreverseable.  

 

After maracas, my nights were spent in paranoid horror.  I’d wake up at least a dozen times every night, drenched in sweat, images of horrible violence branded onto my brain.  After one particularly vivid dream I called my friend Bonnie.

 

“Bonnie, we need to talk.  Did something happen at Maracas?  I can’t remember.  The whole thing is a blur.  I woke up on the bus back to NYC.  I must have blacked out.  But since I’ve been back I have dreamed of nothing but death and violence.”

 

There was a long pause.  “Fletcher…” Bonnie sighed.  “You don’t remember, do you?”

 

I told her I didn’t.

 

“How many times do we have to go over this!  There was no Maracas conference!”

 

“Yes, there was!  I have the amex bill to prove it.  You and Allie charged over 5000 dollars worth of room and board over that weekend! And tipped twice as much.”

 

“No, Fletcher.  You did.  You’ve invented this whole thing!  You keep claiming you work in publishing, talking all this bullshit about the Maracas conference.  You’re a fucking security guard at Boarders.  You’re a twice convicted pedophile.  Allie has a restraining order against you.  Sarah and I suspect you murdered Patches AND BB Nichols.  You’re a fucking asshole.  This is the last time we talk.  Understand?”

 

“Hold on.”

 

I dialed in Baker and Allie, hoping to get a clearer view of just what had taken place.  Baker and Allie were furious with me for wasting their time. 

Later that week I ran into Bonnie after waiting outside her apartment for an hour.  She pretended she didn’t see me, but she totally did. Why is she always playing these silly games?

The Maracas Conference: Pt. 2

That night I couldn’t sleep.  Towards the morning I got up and went for a walk.  The casino was empty except for the cleaning crew who were hard at work on the blood and vomit stains accumulated the night before.  

It was still dark outside, damp and cold.  I stopped in the driveway to chat with the valets but nobody seemed to want to talk, except to try and sell me drugs.  I was a valet once and, after my absurd and ridiculous job gets eliminated, probably will be again.  On the way back I thought I might pick up a job application.    

I continued walking, away from the hotel and towards the pounding surf.  There was a blackness before me.  A dark cold void, wet and salty and loud.  To the north the lights of New York City turned the sky a sickly orange/pink.  I heard laughter off in the distance.  I turned to see Bonnie and Allie walking towards me holding champagne bottles.  With them were Melissa, a friend of Allie’s, and BB Nichols.  I immediately tensed.  By nature I am a shy and anxious individual, particularly so when in the presence of the beautiful and the talented, of which BB Nichols is both in spades.  

Bonnie spotted me first.  “Isn’t that Fletcher?”  I raised my hand awkwardly and waived.

“Hey gang.  What’s up?”

“Gang?  Who the fuck are you?  A volleyball coach?  What the hell are you doing out here, anyway?”

“I just was… you know.  Going for a walk.  I thought you guys said you weren’t going out tonight.”

“We changed our minds.”

“Oh…”

Allie stepped forward, “And stop writing on Melissa’s facebook wall.  It weirds her out. Oh, and DO NOT write about this in your retarded rape blog.  That’s even weirder.”  Everyone laughed.

I turned to Melissa.  “Sorry.”

Without looking at me she said it was fine, just not to do it again.  There was an awkward beat at which point BB Nichols, who was wearing sunglasses, it should be noted, stepped forward.  “Why don’t you join us for breakfast Fletcher.  My cards maxed out.”

I agreed to, then trailed behind them a foot or two saying anything as we made our way to the Maracas breakfast buffet.  Along the way BB Nichols spoke openly of the orgy the group had attended the night before calling it “a bore.”

The Maracas Conference: Pt. 1

This past weekend I attended the Maracas Conference, a gathering of influential writers, artists, and editors who meet annually at the legendary Maracas Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey to discuss the state of the industry and to network.  Naturally, I felt nothing but dread as the date of the conference drew near.  I was feeling desperate and hollow for months prior, anxious all the time for no clear reason.  I had taken to casually shooting at teenagers from my third floor apartment with an airsoft gun and smoking Dunhill’s to excess.  One night I went out with my friend Oscar to the dog tracks north of the city and blew 700 dollars, money I plainly could not afford to lose, on some mongrel dog named Tinko and came home dead drunk at 6 in the morning.   Needless to say, Anna was growing weary of me, and demanded I leave her alone for the weekend so I reluctantly obliged. 

I took the bus from port authority.  It was nearly empty and it was a grey day, kind of misty and sad.  I tried to sleep but couldn’t.  I felt sick.  I’d put on at least fifteen pounds since the last conference and looked a good five years older.  A number of my friends were going to be in attendance, including Bonnie – a west coast book publisher, Allie – an east coast blogger and malcontent,  and, of course, the Sarah’s.  I didn’t want them to see me in the state I was in. 

Across from me was middle aged Mexican woman who talked on the phone the whole time down.  I don’t speak Spanish.  I don’t know what she said. 

Getting off the bus was a terrible moment.  Atlantic City is maybe the saddest place on earth.  The end of the line.  A grotesquely tanned man handed me a hooker catalog.  I grabbed my luggage and trudged toward the hotel.  Everyone I passed was grotesque in some obvious way.

After checking in and showering, I headed straight for the bar where I ran into Bonnie and Allie who were drinking mimosa’s.  Both had on nice dresses and their hair was up in some way I’d never seen before.

“Fletcher, we charged these to your room, ok?” 

“Um, ok… I can’t really afford -”

Allie interrupted, “Those too.” She motioned to a table where a couple of fey looking publishing guys were sitting, surrounded by maybe a dozen bottles of Reingold.

“Oh,” was all I could muster.  “Ok.” 

“You’re too old to be here.  You know that don’t you?”

I groaned.  “Anna made me.  I’m depressed and she’s sick of looking at me.  I don’t have anywhere else -”

“Who can blame her, ” Bonnie observed, toying with the tiny straw that accompanied her drink and neglecting to make eye contact with me.  “You look like total shit.  You’re obese.  You’re eyes are sunken in.  In fact you’re kind of depressing me.”

“Yeah, me too.  Why don’t you go play with one of your pre-school buddies?” 

Bonnie and Allie turned to one another and continued talking, a conversation that clearly didn’t include me.

“Are you guys going to the mixer tonight?” Neither responded to me and after a beat I turned, with my drink in hand and wandered awkwardly around the bar area until a seat opened up.  I sat there waiting for something to happen but nothing did.