Haiku #11

some translucent flesh,
shock red and sculpted flat
splayed into a maple leaf

Senryu #26

I knew a girl with
sixteen fingers and only
nine of them were hers

She Masturbates Standing Up:

she will turn to the bathroom mirror when she comes
although she will not open her eyes.

I know this without needing to
because I've seen her talking with strangers.

Each room in this house has a vase
and each vase holds an inch of molding water
because we threw their flowers all away.
We could not bear them.

A fist inside my chest continues to close.
She believes this to be my heart
and it might as well be.

The monstrous leaves of an alien autumn clatter;
theirs is a purposeless noise
and even the smokes of their burnings
will not influence me.

At night, though, I cannot help but hear
the scraping from below, the porcelain pulse
she insinuates and the moan within my own tangled ribs;
strange music, this, but not difficult to memorize.

Imagine the circle of moisture collecting on
her reflected face.


Tyounyi, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1989

Making Love in the Meat Locker

It was blood ice and a kind of fog
that rolls down from a panting mouth,
The quick chill of saliva and human oil
against the atmosphere
Her hands against the metal shelves
and frost
Her hands sliding down the ribs, the flanks
of hollow pigs
our full weight in her arms
The scratching ache as she dragged her nails
through a hoarfrost of slaughter
The resonance of frozen concrete and how sound carries
when I turn my face to it
when I close my eyes against it
when I come

To eat the bodies of others is to eat death.

Please, we say,
more of everything, please.

She would wake from her nightmares and

angry, she would carry her emotion
against him, against whom she had dreamed,
against whom she'd dreamed badly.

Sleep soft palms slapping him,
his shape there next to hers in a black iron bed,
with barely formed
groans of strange words,
words like "blue"
and "steam ship"
and "corridor"
and, until she woke,
their meaning was clear and
when she wakes all that is left her is the sadness of the dream
and there is no comfort in embrace.

The dry sound of them panting confusion
is a metronome for the movement again
and back toward another kind of sleep.

Narcophobia

(diminishing form #23)

And it’s those kind of nights again
locked up inside a tired skull
that begs to betray with foul dreams and dark sweating sheet tangling thrashing
so cigarettes and coffee and cocaine aren’t helping
can only help so much

the reversed landscape on the ceiling
those cracks and shadows in the plaster
are difficult for these failing eyes
to travel again

I am wishing for a new vista
but that is not a possibility
not tonight

a field of light begins to grow
in what I suppose must be the eastern sky

too little too late too often

Diminishing Form #34

Cesarean and Scoliosus
work the phones and bones
and go out late at night
to fuck the men
who call them on the phone to come over

And it’s hotels and motels and holiday inns
and they are always blond
because that’s what they want
the men who want the blond girls

And it’s babies at home
and grandmas and girlfriends
and boyfriends going to jail

There are all of us
under the downtown lights

exchanging currency we made up in our heads

Trans Am

(diminishing form #9)

It’s like you’re standing on a downtown street
watching all the secretaries ands lawyers on their way back from lunch
and the thin whine of many sirens comes drifting through the buildings
but you can’t tell where they are or if they’re coming your way
so you keep eating your sandwich

but the noise gets louder and suddenly
there they all are
the police cars chasing a dark-haired girl
at the wheel

and when they flash past you
and you can see her there in the driver’s side window
you know all you need to know

the love of your life was driving that Trans Am
and downshifting past you, fish-tailing away from you forever,

and she’s going to end up in jail

Diminishing Form #6

It’s quickly becoming a kung fu world
and cable tv is starting to prove it
All those girl detectives taking showers,
girl mercenaries taking showers,
and beating each other up.

The glissade down this rubble
is a sweet fall, a tender drop
to the place even reflections dim
in their own harsh echoes

Each flying side kick
mirrors each other,
improvement forms around glass criteria

And to marvel again
at each image

means always reminding

Life in the Cinnabar Mines

(diminishing form #27)

There is a kind of moisture that films the soapy red vein
and we follow it and the way it smells
deeper and deeper and deeper
into the sides of these mountains
on our hands and on our knees.

Quicksilver, they call it,
but only after we have
pulled it bleeding rust-colored poison
out of the hole that we have made.

And fire, then,
and the crushing
weight of burning memories.

Glass flasks fill quickly
with the heavy sweat of stones.

And, still, it flows around our stupid fingers.

Diminishing Form #19

fires in the laundry room, still burning
smoke rises through the stairwell--reminds me of lucky air
breath rests heavy in our chests, in our throats
definitely time to open some windows and
mix-up the atmosphere

the entire second floor catwalk vibrates with
pounding rolling masses of children
muted liquid shrieking, a chlorine perfume
maple leaves and curling at their edges

four times up and down these stairs each day
cigarettes and mail and beer and 10 slow laps in the pool
and each is underwater

closet floor piling under drifts of
clothes we will not wear anymore

sunset watching smoke leak thin from laundry room windows

Diminishing Form #17

Arranged there along the wall
tight carapace and brittle
too loose for such high cheek bones
yet ready to be knotted
again and again and again

Those leaves falling
without potential for tea
and dry crackle underfoot
suddenly deadly

Strange violence in bright sun
brings us all outside
to count things

When she says “ouch”
I fall down

I found my lucky rock right next to my nose

Center Stage

[I've already told this story about a dozen times and I think I've gotten a grip on what it should be--that is, how it should be written down. Sometimes I have to wait a while, sift through things, see what stands out in memory, before I can really understand the point of some of these stories, before I can reconcile the differences between what really actually happened and what would best convey what really actually happened. Events may contract or expand to encompass their overall importance in the big picture; minor characters are compressed into composites; subplots are developed or abandoned. It's just a process. Everybody does it all the time and calls it "memory." I try to call it "research."]

Sitting facing south means sitting facing center stage but sitting back against the wall means sitting in shadow, protected from the center stage lights and reflections of lights. It's a popular part of the room, especially for the fellows into table-dancing. Center stage attracts a different kind of guy, a guy who doesn't mind everybody else watching as he slips bills into the dancers' g-strings. That kind of guy likes it when the dancer slips her arms across his shoulders or flips her hair against his face and everybody who wants to watch can see. The guys who like the table-dancing, though, they like a little privacy, the chance to spend a little one-on-one with a good looking girl with hardly any clothes on and it's really not a good idea to look at a table-dancer when she's dancing on someone else's dollars. She's not supposed to pay attention to anyone except the guy who paid her to table-dance but, if she gets the chance, she might throw a wicked, eye-rolling smile at some other table-dancer in another part of the room. It happens a lot.

Sitting next to center stage means sitting in bright lights and having a good time and not being like the sullen, quiet guys back in the dark part of the bar buying table-dances. Not that sitting close to center means table-dancing is out, but the whole focus shifts that much more to a public mode of behavior, the performance aspects of drinking a lot and having a really good time. There is laughter out loud, there are larger groups of guys sitting together and having fun together, there are bachelor parties and stag parties the closer to center it gets. The DJ's booth rises up stage left and the DJ looks down on center and down on the floor full of tables around center and he supplies the music that supplies the dancing for the entire club. The wall behind the center stage is mirrored two stories tall and it reflects the entire club back in upon itself with the hot locus of center stage like the stage in an amphitheater, the reflected rising catwalks surround the white platform of center stage on all sides, two DJ booths and the same tables back and forth in the mirrors and twice as many lights and twice as many girls dancing with hardly any clothes on (or at least twice as many views of the exact same number of girls dancing with hardly any clothes on). Center stage is cool.

The center stage lights go down a little bit and the CO2 fog starts up and the music finds a dirty groove and there in that whirlpool there is suddenly a girl and she has some clothes on but they will be coming off. She's a professional dancer and she's been working since the first lunch show at noon and this is her last show at midnight and that's a twelve-hour day in anybody's book, with or without much clothing. It's her job and she's doing it extremely well, the shine on her dark skin is real sweat and the dollars on the stage floor, the dollars in her underwear are real ones. She's been learning names and, as she struts and kicks around the edge of the stage, she's leaning out into the audience around center stage and she is calling them up by name. She opens her arms, she smiles, she's glad to see everybody, she's been missing everybody and is happy when they come up to visit for a while. It's a delicate line she dances: a minute here with Jeff before she moves over to Tom but Jeff knows she likes him, too, and will be back if he can just wait, just be patient for a little while until she finishes with the others. She holds her breast in her hand and leans her entire self, nipple firstmost, into Dennis' face, really close to Dennis' mouth. Her hair falls around George's face and, for a tiny instant, it's like they're under a tent together, just the two of them, and there is nobody else around and nobody else is watching and her lips move as she says something to him and he just nods, up and down like an amusing novelty toy for the rear deck of an automobile, he just nods like that and doesn't say anything back but when she dances off he stays at the rail, another dollar creased to a point in his fingers and he waits there because he knows she will be dancing back to him soon. And she does.

At the edge of the stage, she is crouching on the balls of her feet, on the toes of her high-heeled shoes, and her knees travel apart, her hands on her thighs are pushing her knees apart and she is smiling and somebody out there at the center stage tables (Richard? Mark? Larry?) seems to have forgotten something important, something crucial, and he rises out of his chair a little wobbly and walks the two steps to the center stage rail and he reaches out for her breasts, he reaches out to put his hands on her, which is just not done and she's there at the edge of the stage with her legs open and her g-string covered vagina a few inches from his face and her shining breasts a few inches from his face and his hands are extended and the fingers are flexed open and he's trying to grab her. She makes her face just beam and, hitting the groove with which the music has draped the entire club, she clasps his hands together and using all the tai-chi wisdom she's learned, she throws that negative energy to the ceiling and he tries to grab her again and she clasps his hands together and she's smiling and moving to the beat and she just throws that aggression to the sides of the room and he tries to grab her again and she's getting a little pissed that the bouncer's don't even notice she's struggling there on the edge of the rail at center stage and she brings his hands together in front of her face and she's smiling and she throws all that frustrated longing away and out of sight and finally a bouncer sees what's happening in the middle of the room where everybody can see and he comes lurching over to put a five-pound paw on Richard?Mark?Larry's? shoulder and pull him back from the rail and throw his dumb, don't-you-get-it-asshole? self out into the parking lot. But everything is clear at center stage, all dark energies have been harmlessly deflected and there are no hard feelings and there she is at the rail again only this time she's on his side and she's pleading his case to the bouncers; she's saying don't make him leave and let him sit back down and he'll be good and he knows how to behave and she's smiling really big and on her knees with her hands clasped between them and she pleading for the bouncers to just leave them both alone, that they don't understand, that things will be different now and Richard?Mark?Larry's? wallet just tumbles open and all the cash comes tumbling out in a pile around his feet near the rail at center stage.


(La Ventana, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1993)

Why I like Haiku

Frijoles Canyon, Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico, 1967

Two boys, 10 and 8 years old, on the washed-out path
along the canyon bottom following the stream up toward its mountain source
though they will come nowhere near that place that day.
Each wears sneakers and jeans and each wears a t-shirt, one striped green and blue,
the other plain solid blue. They are just plain clothes.

It is summer and,
while the creek still has water,
the air is nonetheless dry
and a little dusty. The boys walk.
And to their left they see three mule deer,
an antlered buck and his first harem, two does.
The boys stand. The deer stand.

Unsure who moved first,
both boys and deer turn to run up the canyon’s sloping north face.
The deer wish to escape the boys and
the boys are desperate to spend just a few more moments in the deer’s’ presence.
The younger boy stretches out his arms toward them as he runs.

The Oracle Rising From Porcelain

with sheets of water outlining the form that she has taken.

This, then, is what I circle
snuffling and snorting and breathing much too loudly,
and that circle returns upon itself
until I am able to hear the sounds she makes and then
the opening,
abrupt and pungent,
when this brain and that gesture collide.

Too often now, when I try to talk or write what’s happening,
there is a loss of language and
there is a fumbling for vocabulary and
it all falls to foam ungently as failure.

Again a circling, like a dog in mid-droze meanderings,
as I fight against consciousness and its tired messages.
A struggle down, a struggle toward
that hole of revelation where things are as the should be,
are as they are to be supposed.

A blind animal, unearthed,
and wishing for it to rain and then to not rain and then to rain again.

Tied Up In Knots, I Am; She's Got Me Tied Up

I can see the runway from the balcony, I can watch the airplanes when they go up and down, and that’s pretty much all I do these days. I have declared an independent territory and it is inside my head where it belongs. People are allowed to fly in to visit me on the balcony; I will stand and greet them, will wave to them serenely. I often do.

And I think about the tangle of myself, the way my guts and organs and veins and nerves are all balled up and twisted upon themselves and each other. I read that if all the threads from which we are knit were unraveled and stretched out as one cord, that it would be really long. It certainly feels like that.

I don’t have to turn around to know that she is moving around inside the apartment. Her actions insinuate the air and I can hear the rustle of tendon and bone when she stoops or and when she stretches. The sensation of her is strange comfort.

At one point several years ago, I was moved to gift her with a bracelet, thin strands of gold looping around each other and around her wrist. It looks so good there; it reminds me of itself.

And driving with her is like dreaming, the ways she slides us through the lanes and the intersections and the other automobiles. I can recline in the passenger seat and feel the ebb and the flow as she accelerates, as she slows down, the gentle pressure in my abdomen when she glides us down the off-ramps and toward our home.

Smoke rises from our cigarettes, our fragile pipes, and shreds to nothing in the winds that blow around us. Smoke rises from our cigarettes, incense from a bowl of black sand, and twists into a uniform haze under the ceiling. Mist rises from the ground and is woven into foliage and into blossom by the early morning sun. Steam rolls from underneath the bathroom door and these showers are the longest showers and the hottest showers I have ever taken.

I imagine the kind of rope that could be braided from her hair and from which what would hang slowly turning in a breeze from the water, a breeze heavy with the odor of salt and iodine and barbed wire and the other islands in this archipelago. I imagine the kind of rope that could be braided from her hair and, coiled with potential and with desire, how it would hang from a hook inside my closet door. I wish I had one hundred feet of that kind of rope.

I remember the cat that twined within our legs tangled in the sheets and pressed itself against us and she, still warmed and liquid from sex and from having sex, could only arch her back in mimicry of its caress.

I watch the way the airliners seem to surge against the sun that is going down in the water and their windows are lit like a string of stones flung rising and higher into a sky not yet dark enough for stars.

Catfish Apologies

I'm a guppy.
Scoop me up in your little nylon net.
See that red?
That red's for you,
my oxygen baby,
that pulse is yours.

I'm a dog.
Put some crunchies in my bowl
and I'll eat them, every bite.
See my tail wag?
That back and forth,
my Purina princess,
that motion is for you.

I'm a parakeet,
give me a mirror and a bell,
watch me amuse myself.
Hear me singing,
"Hello, Baby!"
That's your song.

I'm a catfish,
you can catch me.
I weigh 300 pounds.
Watch me swim?
I don't think so.
I'm on the bottom of a very deep, dark river.

I'm still a catfish in a river and
I see the other pets.
I wish you'd drop your line into this deep, dark water
and let me eat it up.
I would crawl into your rotten rowboat.
We could get our picture taken together.

A Long, Slow Ride Through Town on the Way to the River to Get Her Brains Blown Out

For a moment much longer than a mere instant, I was captured within eye contact with one of the convicted. She was young looking, certainly no older than mid-twenties, a dish-faced, moon-faced girl with unraveling pigtails and bad acne as a red mask across her brow and beneath her eyes.

The truck that carried the convicted had slowed to lurch through the deep potholes at the intersection. The placard around her neck announced her crimes: excessive fascination with foreign videos, prostitution. One had apparently led to the other, but I couldn't decipher which. Her dunce cap was somewhat tilted upon her head and the way her head limply bobbed with the movement of the truck made me wonder if it might not fall off altogether.

Our eyes clicked together, she with her wrists bound and riding in the back of the People's Liberation Army truck under machine-gun armed escort to her execution and I enjoying a lukewarm-warm Xian Beer with my 1/8 kilo bowl of dumplings at the roadside shack the foreigner's called Jiaozi Hut. She looked drugged or stupefied, seemed only vaguely holding herself erect, but I saw her still register some surprise when she saw me. It was if somewhere still inside her some part of herself was still able to exclaim, "Oh, look! A foreigner! A yanggweizi!"

I felt an urge to wave, to move my arm and my hand together in a synchronized and friendly gesture but, by then, the truck had waddled through the rough spots and was pretty much gone.









(Click on the cover or the title for more information about Artifical Rats & Electric Cats from Camber Press)

Driving Miss Lazy

Six and a half hours as an assistant pimp


It's a gray area of the sex industry. Listed in the Yellow Pages under "Escort Service -- Personal" (as opposed to "Escort Service -- Protective: see 'Guard & Patrol Service''"), emphasizing discretion in billing, fantasy fulfillment, weekend and afternoon specials, businesses with names like ~~Live Playmates, College Girls, Action Escorts, Gentlemen's Delights, AAAAAAAAAH ~~Entertainment, and She-Male Escorts offer "personalized service," "cuddles," "private sessions" and "no more disappointments." Presented in those direct-to-video movies shown on late-night Cinemax as little more than workfare for the conically augmented, the escort business purports to provide the client with companionship suitable for all business and personal affairs. The theory is that, for a fee, a discriminating gentleman may enjoy the temporary cachet of the service's arm-candy, a trophy-wife-for-a-day.
The reality of the escort business is all over the map. While some agencies surely must provide just such a service for the unattached business traveler (every myth has its roots in fact), others certainly offer much more to the client willing to negotiate behind closed doors for more intimate attentions. And, no matter where an individual business may be poised in legality and/or morality, the simple fact is that a large number of owners and support staff make their living off the charms of young women for rent. There's a word for that. To understand this aspect of the escort business, I sought the lowest of the low, the absolute last man on the daisy chain, the open-mouthed recipient of the last drops of trickle-down cash flow. I spoke to myself about my recent experience working for an escort agency as a driver and bodyguard for women on out-call service.


Question: First, if you could, please explain how you came to take ~~this job. 


Answer: Call me Ishmael. Some years ago -- never mind how long ~~precisely -- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would ...take a job driving prostitutes to their "dates." BR>
I'm joking. That's the first two sentences of Moby Dick. And I shouldn't call those girls prostitutes. They were discreet escorts and models providing personal service to discriminating clientele. Whatever all that means, I don't know. But that's what they were. 

Really, I was working an office job, I can always use a little more money, and I thought this job sounded both easy and interesting. I answered an ad in the paper, went in for a brief interview, and was hired. 



Question: What was the job description? What was the pay? 


Answer: The job description was "driver." My duties were to convey the escort to the appointment, check out the premises, collect the up-front money due, wait outside for the escort to finish, keep an eye on the time, and watch out for trouble. I got paid a flat rate for expenses, $25 a night I think, and a percent of all fees and tips the girl collected and/or told me about.
I was given a company pager. I'll describe it to you like they described it to me -- by the numbers. When the pager flashed one, it meant the girl needed help. When two came up, it meant the girl was ready to leave. Three meant the call was canceled; four meant collect more money from the client. Five meant call into the office. Six meant the girl was with the police. Seven meant go in and check the client's room. There were a few guys in the abandoned storefront they were using as an office and waiting area. They had sort of scooped out an area in the general debris scattered around and put in a couple ~~of thrift store sofas and a television. That was where the girls, the other driver, and I hung out waiting for calls. My shift was from 9 p.m. until 5 a.m. 



Question: So, a call came into the office and.... 


Answer: Right. OK. So a call comes into the office and a guy working the phones would answer. What was interesting about this was that there were about 25 lines coming into the office, each one for a different agency that was advertising in the Yellow Pages or the newspaper. So, really, even though there were all these different companies and agencies being advertised -- College Girls, Hot Bodies, Xtasy, Ashley 2nite, crap like that -- all the calls were being taken by the same guy for the same three girls.
Anyway, a call comes in and almost always it's a hang-up. If the client was talking at all, he was usually pretty shocked about the rates and hung up. A half hour with a girl cost $150 and an hour was $250. If they got someone to actually make an appointment, they got the address, phone number and method of payment. They'd call back to make sure it was a real phone number or that the client was really registered at that hotel or motel and in the room he said he was in. 

I really don't know why they asked about method of payment. Cash is always cash and they didn't have any way to take a credit card over the phone. That was part of my job. They showed me how to fill out a credit card slip and copy the card number by rubbing the carbon paper with a disposable lighter. They said they were waiting for delivery of a machine, but they were also waiting for delivery of a bathroom door.
Anyway, after everything got confirmed, I was supposed to wake up the girl. She'd be snoozing in front of the TV. She'd go get dressed and put her make-up on and off we'd go ~~into the night to spread joy. 



Question: Tell us about the girls. 


Answer: Well, it's not too complicated. They were young. I mean pretty damn young. The girls I worked with were 17 or 18. None of them had finished school, I mean high school. They were good looking girls but, you know, there was something...OK, well, like one of the girls, she had pretty bad acne. She just smeared on a bunch of foundation and she was ready to roll. Another girl, I don't know, she was just sort of...I don't know, sort of lost. It was like she didn't know where she was, didn't know how she got there, and didn't know how to leave. She'd stare at the TV, she'd get dressed, she'd sit in the car, and that was about it. I don't know how she acted with the client, but she wasn't doing much around the office or in the car. Maybe she was using drugs or something; maybe she was just ~~gritting her teeth to get through the night. 

They weren't ugly but they ~~weren't drop-dead gorgeous. They weren't stupid, they didn't seem stupid, but they didn't have any education and didn't seem to be in a rush to get some. It was kind of weird; for girls so young, they acted a lot older. I mean, they acted tired-and-sad older. I started talking to the girl with the acne when we were out driving. I asked her why she wasn't doing something else, something less intimate. I mean there are other jobs, even in the sex business, which would seem to be less stressful, less invasive, less emotional. She just got kind of vague on me, started talking about how easy this job was, how fucked ~~up her boyfriends were, how much money she could make doing this. I didn't quiz ~~her or anything, but she sure wasn't talking about future plans or doing anything else; she wasn't saying anything like, "Once I get enough money for junior college..." or "When I save enough for a ticket to Hollywood..." or even "Of course, I'm not doing this forever." It was all just in the moment for her. 

I asked her if she'd ever danced, you know, in a club, topless, or anything. I mean a good dancer could make just about the same money, maybe more, than she was making doing out-calls. She just sort of rambled about how she could if she wanted, how fucked-up her boyfriends were, how easy this job was. The same shit she'd said before. 

But, you know, she seemed different from the girls I've known who've been dancers. Strippers seem more, I don't know, focused than this girl. I mean they have to keep in really good shape just to dance. The dancing itself is a serious workout; it's hours of aerobic exercise. And the dancers I've known have always had some kind of goal. They may not achieve it, they may get lost in drugs or drinking or just being in "the life," but they all had some kind of goal. They were going to school, they were saving to start a business of their own, they were looking out and forward and beyond the clubs. This girl was just, I don't know, flat or something. Just stuck. Or too tired or too lazy or too paralyzed to do anything else. 

It didn't make too much sense to me; the things she said didn't seem to connect up too well, but...I mean, I was just her driver. But all three girls seemed to be nice girls. Seriously. They weren't mean or anything; they weren't bitches. They ~~were just sharp, you know, like looking for an edge. Like it was nothing personal, but they'd cheat you if they could. Even that girl who was sort of zoned out. She wasn't interacting much, wasn't talking or anything, but she wasn't mean about it. If I said something to her, she'd answer. But even she was always paying attention on the call. I mean, she didn't act like she was having fun, but she was keeping her eyes wide open all the time. 



Question: Tell us about going out. 


Answer: Yeah, OK. I guess I got the full range of calls. We got a prank call. Someone from a hotel called in for a girl and we go there. It's late, like 1 a.m. and we come walking in a side entrance to the ~~hotel and I'm definitely not dressed for success that night, kind of scruffy, you know? And this girl dressed like...well, she's dressed like a hooker. Vinyl thigh boots, sort of cheap, mismatched clothes but tight and gaudy-sexy. We walk past the desk and the clerk, a young guy, sort of gives us the eye, you know, but I'm thinking of course he's going to give us the eye. I mean, here's some ratty looking old fart with a teenaged girl dressed up like Irme La Duce walking through their hotel lobby at one o'clock in the morning. If I was working the graveyard desk shift, I'd have looked at us kind of funny, too. 

Anyway, the call was for a suite on a restricted floor and, of course, we couldn't go up without a room key. So, we call the room from her cell phone and there's no answer. I'm starting to understand a little better. We go back downstairs and ask the desk to call up. Big surprise. Nobody's in that room and he won't tell us if anyone is really registered there. 



Question: So, what happened? 


Answer: What do you mean what happened? We leave. We can't say anything to the shit ball at the desk, even though it was probably him who called in because, remember, the office always calls back to confirm. We can't flip him off or call his boss or anything because we'll probably be coming back there someday for a real call. It was just, like, "oh, well" and back to the office. He was just a sadistic, bored jerk. 

The next call was at another hotel. Everything was set up nicely and we got there and I knocked on the door. The guy opens up and he's talking on a cell phone and we go in. He gets off the phone and says, "Sorry. Something has come up but here's a 20 for your time and trouble." I don't really know what to say; I don't know if it's even true. Maybe he just didn't like the way the girl looked or whatever. The girl snatches the bill and it disappears forever. She didn't tell the office she got it and she sure didn't give me my 10 percent, ~~but I wasn't going to bust her for $2. I just let it slide. 



Question: So you're not making any money. 


Answer: I am not making any money. We finally get a call and it is way out there, I mean it's about a 15-mile drive for a one-hour call. The girl gets ready, I get ready, and we go. It's a house in a nice, middle-class neighborhood; new houses, you know? All the trees are little. Go up, ring the bell, and this kid answers. Kid. I don't know. He looked about 25 years old. Not bad looking, but drunk off his ass. The girl's eyes light up, you know, like ka-ching! I cruise around the house checking to make sure nobody's hiding in the bathroom or something and run the guy's credit card ~~on his coffee table with my lighter. He's got ESPN on some big screen TV with the sound turned down. He's all bleary eyed and embarrassed and quiet, just sort of nodding when I explain the rules and get him to sign the contract. No touching the girl, no intimate contact, no lewd or sexual behavior. It's all bullshit, really, something for the cops. The girl is practically shoving me out the door. 

I go back out to the car and settle in. It's warm so I leave the window open, listening, you know, for what? I don't know; screaming, breaking glass, sirens...

I get everything arranged real nice: the pager and my smokes on the dashboard, a cup of coffee from my thermos, and I'm reading a book with one of those battery-powered lights. And, bam, in like 20 minutes ~~the girl is back. The guy paid $250 on his credit card for an hour and she's out the door in 18.25 minutes. I asked her, "Is everything OK?" She says, "Everything is very OK" and we drive back to the office. I'm wondering if she maybe took some tips to, you know, go off the contract. I'm wondering if this drunk kid gave her some cash to...um...augment the agreement. I sort of try to ask her what happened but she doesn't really seem to be in a mood for sharing right then. If she got cash, if she got extra, the only way I'm going to find out is to pull over and strip-search her. And, you know, I just don't feel like doing that. I mean, I may be acting like a pimp, driving her around to have sex with some guy, but I don't have to, you know, act like a pimp. I can't visualize slapping her around, working on her with a coat hanger or something, saying things like "Where's my money?" My money. It's not my money. I suddenly discovered my heart just wasn't in it. 



Question: So, you're going to get $25 from the call; 10 percent of $250 is $25. 


Answer: Oh, yeah, that. I'll get $25 if the credit card clears and when the transfer from Visa or Mastercard or whatever comes in to the company account and whenever they decide to cut a check for me. That's like at least two months down the road. You have to keep your own records and, you know, trust the company. I just have to think, well, maybe that money's gone, too. 

Anyway, we sit around the office watching Nick at Nite. The girls conk out pretty much right away and the other driver wants to chat. It's about 2:30 in the morning and I just want to stare off into space for a while and this guy is wanting to talk about the job. I'm like, "Shut up." Luckily, another call comes in pretty soon and I grab it. 

It's another motel and we get there pretty quick. We find the room and knock on the door. The door sort of slams open, if you can do that...can you do that? Can a door slam open? Anyway, there's this little guy, about 5-foot-5 maybe, all buffed up like he works out, and we're inside. He's got his cash all ready and fanned out and he wants to get to it. I give him the contract, you know, no touching, no sex, no lewdness, and he sort of flips out. I mean, he's going, "What is this? What is this? What is this?" and I'm going "It's a standard business contract, sir." He's asking, "Well, just what do I get for my $150 and what if I want some more?" and then it sort of hits me. I catch a quick look around the room and the closet alcove is empty, the bag rack is empty. I look at the girl and we both know. [long pause] 



Question: What? 


Answer: C'mon. Little short guy, lots of muscles, no luggage, cash out in the open, wants sex? 



Question: Enlighten us. 


Answer: He's a cop. So, we're both like, "Sorry, sir. Good evening, sir. Complain to management, sir. You're on your own, sir." This transaction is terminated with extreme prejudice and, even if this guy isn't a cop, he's a weird little fucker and way too aggressive. We leave and go back to the office. I wait around until about 3:30 and the dispatcher says "go home" and I do and that's it. I don't go back. They called me up the next night wanting to know when I was coming in and I said, "I don't think so." I spent six and a half hours earning $25 base and maybe, in a couple of months, another $25 if I feel like even calling them back and I got ripped off by a teenager for $2. I figure that's enough. 


Question: That's it? 


Answer: Oh, yeah. That's it. Pretty glamorous, huh? Huggy Bear, Jr. That's me. And I drive a beat-up old Volvo, too.




Westchester County Weekly Copyright ©1999 New Mass. Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

Our Barbies, Ourselves

We were sitting on the porch, Stephanie and I, drinking glasses of ice-cold water and eating saltine crackers. They both hit our spots. Crickets were chirping in the gloaming nightfall and we could hear the kids, one block over, trying desperately to milk one last inning of softball from the gathering darkness.

"I can see," yelled Cinnamon. "I can still see perfectly. Just pitch the motherfucking ball, alright?"

"Such a mouth," giggled Stephanie.

I took a long drink and put another cracker in my mouth. Across the street, the Anderson's living room window changed from blue to grey to blue again as they switched channels from Entertainment Tonight all the way over to A Current Affair. Those Anderson. I could set my watch by them and their ever so regular viewing habits. And I did. Eight-oh-three.

"You're out!" shrieked Jasmine in the middle of the play. "Stop running, you running cunt! I tagged you three fucking years ago. You're out!"

"Fuck you!" came Lilac's retort.

Can that Lilac retort? I think so, and Stephanie does, too.

"If I'm still moving, you're still losing. Tag this, you stupid little whore!"

Stephanie and I both smiled, separately though simultaneously, to imagine little Lilac's gesture. There, in the kind of darkness that encloses us when that kind of darkness falls, we could see the dim forms of catfish on the lawn. They walked, in the kind of way they walk when they walk across our lawn, slowly and without rhythm. Like catfish.

Lilac's voice rose an octave. The fish paused then redoubled their motile thrashings. Stephanie and I both smiled, separately though simultaneously, to imagine little Lilac's distress. We could hear the dull sound wood makes, Louisville Slugger wood specifically, when it hits girl flesh. I put a saltine cracker on my tongue and closed my mouth. It, the cracker, began to dissolve.

"More ice cold water?" Stephanie asked.

"Mmm-mmm," I answered around the cracker. She filled my glass until the water bulged, trembling, against the rim of the glass. We could hear the shrieks of the girls floating toward us and the gentle shiver of breaking glass.

In that moment, hung against the twilit paint of another evening's end, the girls came pounding across the Mitchell lawn with sports equipment akimbo.

"You girls," Stephanie smiled at them.

"How was the game? You girls?" I asked them all through the paste in my mouth, the remains of my saltine cracker.