"Staggeringly lonely..." BIBLICAL was the word that came to mind, as I entered the Touche clubroom in the weekend's wee hours, I think about five or six months ago. A drunk had passed out cold on the floor. His shirtless body was SPLAYED across the concrete, and everyone - myself included - just stepped over him. It wasn't unexpected. The Touche clubroom at two in the morning can be ...unsettling. I frequently describe the back bar within these posts, and for the most part, despite being a debaucherous free-for-all where cum flies through the air like silly string, the bar's Club Room is a rollick'ing good time, especially when I'm hunting. Of course, as I drive in from Aurora every weekend, it's hard to manipulate - err, I mean convince - some Lovely Little Leatherman that it's worth the 60-minute journey back to my house. That's especially true when the dude's clearly *shitfaced,* and I kinda' feel guilty asking him to follow me 40 miles home, particularly as I have two DUI's myself. But, alas, one must follow one's erection - err, I mean one's heart - and Siri's navigation can easily guide the intoxicated, so long as the radio - playing Top Gun Maverick's "Danger Zone" - is kept at a reasonable volume. That being said, I'd still feel guilty if, while he attempted to steer like Paul Pelosi, I noticed the guy's car in my rear-view mirror, exploding like the Hindenburg. I mean *sheesh,* you know? I probably should have offered him a ride myself. Again, I have a big truck, and when I reeeeally think about it, there was more than enough room for this guy within my pickup's bed.
Back in November 2022, I befriended a gentleman I'd first met on Recon in 2015, a Lovely Little Leatherman who's known on the East Coast. He was a few years younger than me, but as I'm almost 55 myself, that's really not saying much. The dude had hit me up off & on over the years, but I'd dismissed him. He caught my attention on Thanksgiving day with my Mother, with a message w/photographs that made me take notice: All right, you have my attention. You've obviously read my Recon profile - what do you want from me? We totally hit it off at first, so much that my younger persona visited him in New York for a week, in time for his holiday open house. (Check out my Facebook feed.) The guy's adept at social media, so I observed him intently; he taught me much of how I currently manage my own online presence, and I learned lots of neat skills, like how to properly use iPhoto's time-delay, and taking screenshots and inserting them into posts & chats, as I've been doing recently. I actually started writing When People Go Away at this dude's kitchen table, including Chapter Three's opening scene - which began as a text I had sent during his AA home meeting:
"I must really like this guy because I just sat through his fuckin’ AA Home Group meeting – which reminds me of why I HATE AA. Everybody mumbles, everybody “regrets” their drinking, and everybody says the same goddamn thing – over & over – never even realizing that by talking about their past, they’re still trapped inside it. Most importantly, NOBODY knows how to tell a fuckin’ story …"
Back in November 2022, I befriended a gentleman I'd first met on Recon in 2015, a Lovely Little Leatherman who's known on the East Coast. He was a few years younger than me, but as I'm almost 55 myself, that's really not saying much. The dude had hit me up off & on over the years, but I'd dismissed him. He caught my attention on Thanksgiving day with my Mother, with a message w/photographs that made me take notice: All right, you have my attention. You've obviously read my Recon profile - what do you want from me? We totally hit it off at first, so much that my younger persona visited him in New York for a week, in time for his holiday open house. (Check out my Facebook feed.) The guy's adept at social media, so I observed him intently; he taught me much of how I currently manage my own online presence, and I learned lots of neat skills, like how to properly use iPhoto's time-delay, and taking screenshots and inserting them into posts & chats, as I've been doing recently. I actually started writing When People Go Away at this dude's kitchen table, including Chapter Three's opening scene - which began as a text I had sent during his AA home meeting:
"I must really like this guy because I just sat through his fuckin’ AA Home Group meeting – which reminds me of why I HATE AA. Everybody mumbles, everybody “regrets” their drinking, and everybody says the same goddamn thing – over & over – never even realizing that by talking about their past, they’re still trapped inside it. Most importantly, NOBODY knows how to tell a fuckin’ story …"
Like 1970s home decor, my abdomen fluid was a striking greenish-yellow. Before my trip, the two of us had bonded over crazy stories about our drinking & ex's. I had described my ascites, the chilling cirrhosis side effect where your liver stops telling your kidneys to remove water, and the only way to fix it - before your lungs stop working - is for the ER physician to pierce your stomach's side with needles, and hope that the numbing agent kicks in fast - before you start screaming. A catheter is then inserted, and the flat-tipped needle snakes its way through your abdomen, as the shift's on-duty doctor carefully watches a sonogram screen. As soon as contact is made with "the fluid pocket," the 20/30 minute drainage process begins, and my record for having seaweed-colored discharge sucked out of my belly is almost eleven liters. The peritoneocentesis procedure can be done as many times as needed, and for a period of three months, I had one every week - as I watched myself morph into a skeleton ...
"However will I occupy my time, little snowflake...?" Speaking of skeletons, Dane, my boy-who-doesn't-yet-realize-he's-a-boy, reminded me of "Jack Skellington" last Friday morning as I watched him shovel the heavy falling snow, while I fought to start my snowblower. It was early afternoon by that point. I had let him sleep in when I got up at 6:30am, to put a roast in the crockpot and work on my social media. I was pleased I'd procrastinated taking down the Christmas tree & porch lights, as the holiday decorations still glowed warmly in the windows; the lights on my covered wraparound porch - blurred by the winter weather - shimmered red, purple, orange, blue & yellow...and vivid Electroluminescent green. Dane was a trooper. I watched him merrily hack away at a snowdrift near the porch steps, while I went at the sidewalk with my loud, 2-cycle, 20-year-old snowblower - which is basically Stephen King's The Mangler, killing snow instead of people. We worked for 45 minutes. It was a futile task, really. The Perfect Storm was set to continue well into the evening, and all we had actually accomplished was to "get a head start" on the shoveling for later that day. However will I occupy my time until then?, I thought, as Dane trudged into the mudroom, and peeled off his wet clothing. Chuckling. I try *not* to be a lecherous dirtbag of course, but the dude often doesn't give me a chance. The previous evening, as this Lovely Little Leatherman had again fallen asleep on my chest while I watched The Whale, I couldn't help but think about how much fun my life has been lately. It's amazing the joy that realizing one's potential can bring, as my Father did when he was in his fifties, opening a sole-proprietorship soft drink distribution company, which had always been his dream. Well, that...and he wanted to get the fuck away from my Mother, during the day.
Going back to The Whale - damn, that film was good! The movie is RAW, on the scale of When People Go Away, and its opening scenes - which include a morbidly-obese Brendan Fraser struggling to masturbate to gay porn, triggering a cardiac event - are no less than horrifying. The film's portrayal of broken family dynamics mirrors my own family's refusal to discuss anything deemed unpleasant. Watching Charlie deliberately eat himself to death mirrored my own attempt to drink myself to death. A few years back, one of my aunts passed away, after a battle with cancer. This woman was the family Matriarch. She was the epitome of Catholicism's most Catholic of housewives, marrying her high school sweetheart, carrying the cross of a stay-at-home holy-mother, and wearing the same damn Simplicity pleated skirt for twenty-seven Thanksgivings in a row. Her turkey was dry. Her family was cheap. Her husband, my uncle - a bald, pointy-nosed, church go'n curmudgeon - had somehow raised a family of five on a coach's meager salary. I hate these people. They claim I'm going to hell because I'm gay. Ironically though, I've already been to hell, and I don't mean the whole depression/cirrhosis thing. I experienced true hell on the day of my late aunt's funeral, when, after a loooooong funeral service & a loooooong funeral procession to the family mausoleum (where, speaking of skeletons again, we actually had to wait for the fucking Crest Hill coroner to place my aunt's just-exhumed-first-stillborn into her cold, dead arms so she could cradle the corpse for eternity), we ended up at some god-awful Italian restaurant, where the family of the deceased had found the best price for lunch.
Going back to The Whale - damn, that film was good! The movie is RAW, on the scale of When People Go Away, and its opening scenes - which include a morbidly-obese Brendan Fraser struggling to masturbate to gay porn, triggering a cardiac event - are no less than horrifying. The film's portrayal of broken family dynamics mirrors my own family's refusal to discuss anything deemed unpleasant. Watching Charlie deliberately eat himself to death mirrored my own attempt to drink myself to death. A few years back, one of my aunts passed away, after a battle with cancer. This woman was the family Matriarch. She was the epitome of Catholicism's most Catholic of housewives, marrying her high school sweetheart, carrying the cross of a stay-at-home holy-mother, and wearing the same damn Simplicity pleated skirt for twenty-seven Thanksgivings in a row. Her turkey was dry. Her family was cheap. Her husband, my uncle - a bald, pointy-nosed, church go'n curmudgeon - had somehow raised a family of five on a coach's meager salary. I hate these people. They claim I'm going to hell because I'm gay. Ironically though, I've already been to hell, and I don't mean the whole depression/cirrhosis thing. I experienced true hell on the day of my late aunt's funeral, when, after a loooooong funeral service & a loooooong funeral procession to the family mausoleum (where, speaking of skeletons again, we actually had to wait for the fucking Crest Hill coroner to place my aunt's just-exhumed-first-stillborn into her cold, dead arms so she could cradle the corpse for eternity), we ended up at some god-awful Italian restaurant, where the family of the deceased had found the best price for lunch.
Before I continue, please think of the crowd-participation show, Tony & Tina's Wedding:
"So, after her body went septic..." *The banquet room had once been elegant in the 80s, but time had not been kind to its walls' yellowing gold-veined tiles, purchased dime-on-the-dollar on the last day of Handy Andy's 96' Going Out of Business Sale. Polished-brass chandeliers hung from the ceiling like lynching victims, and the mauve & grey linoleum twinkled with the shine of a nice, fresh coat of Fabuloso. The sound of work-release cooks could be heard from the kitchen, as the servers used their Zippos to light sternos beneath the chafing dishes. A few moments passed before the squeaky kitchen door swung open, and the disheveled assistant manager helped the staff wheel out the frugal buffet's menu on carts: Baked chicken, mostaccioli, sausage & peppers, institutional canned corn, a cracked plastic bowl with Zesta saltines, & salad with our choice of Ranch or Thousand Island dressing. As our day had started at 5am, everyone was starving; the room was packed with almost sixty people, and two banquet waitresses who smelled like cigarettes. As the family brought their grub back to stackable tables, I ended up sitting next to William - our namesake's second black sheep. William is a dude who kinda' peaked in high school, not exactly a Lovely Little Leatherman of course, but I'd still show him Touche if he asked, cuz' he's really cool. As my now-widowed uncle wanted to say a few words before supper, we all set our plates aside and listened to him attentively.
*And then, it began ...
"I want to thank you all for coming today. It's good to be surrounded by the family that I love. I'm sure you've all been following MaryBeth's cancer plight in our weekly newsletters - that woman sure loved to write, God rest her soul - and as you all know, her body just couldn't handle all the chemotherapy treatments, which caused it to turn septic. The oncologist told me - not Aeliyah anymore of course, but that nice black woman - that's probably why she was throwing up so much, as she prepared our Thanksgiving meal."
*Silence.
"I don't know how much you may know about the human digestive system, but MaryBeth's gastroenterologist - you know the one, that friendly Pakistani fella' - explained that with her 'particular' type of cancer, it started in her bowels above the anus, near that fiber mass that you all know about of course, to the left of where her uterus used to be. Apparently, her large intestine had actually started to ROT, and the infection it caused didn't react well with the impacted feces that was already causing her pelvic area to leak."
*Stunned silence ...
Uncle Tim then went on to describe, with details so disgusting even Quincy would puke, how cancer had worked in yin & yang-tandem with her poop-chute's decomposition process - as we were all trying to eat. In addition to disturbingly-specific medical terminology, our Patriarch peppered his address with inspiring Catholic anecdotes: Every time a funeral bell rings, an angel gets his wings. By some *literal* Act of God, one of his sons intervened, and took him aside to the cash bar for a nice glass of wine. My foodservice-grade pasta sauce, like the contents of Aunt MaryBeth's lower chest cavity, had coagulated in the meantime ... *
*And then, it began ...
"I want to thank you all for coming today. It's good to be surrounded by the family that I love. I'm sure you've all been following MaryBeth's cancer plight in our weekly newsletters - that woman sure loved to write, God rest her soul - and as you all know, her body just couldn't handle all the chemotherapy treatments, which caused it to turn septic. The oncologist told me - not Aeliyah anymore of course, but that nice black woman - that's probably why she was throwing up so much, as she prepared our Thanksgiving meal."
*Silence.
"I don't know how much you may know about the human digestive system, but MaryBeth's gastroenterologist - you know the one, that friendly Pakistani fella' - explained that with her 'particular' type of cancer, it started in her bowels above the anus, near that fiber mass that you all know about of course, to the left of where her uterus used to be. Apparently, her large intestine had actually started to ROT, and the infection it caused didn't react well with the impacted feces that was already causing her pelvic area to leak."
*Stunned silence ...
Uncle Tim then went on to describe, with details so disgusting even Quincy would puke, how cancer had worked in yin & yang-tandem with her poop-chute's decomposition process - as we were all trying to eat. In addition to disturbingly-specific medical terminology, our Patriarch peppered his address with inspiring Catholic anecdotes: Every time a funeral bell rings, an angel gets his wings. By some *literal* Act of God, one of his sons intervened, and took him aside to the cash bar for a nice glass of wine. My foodservice-grade pasta sauce, like the contents of Aunt MaryBeth's lower chest cavity, had coagulated in the meantime ... *
For a quick, hearty chuckle while taking your morning dump, might I suggest my Twitter feed? BIBLICAL was the word that came to mind two nights ago, as I entered the Touche clubroom in the cold wee hours, stepping over the drunk who was still there many months later. I've come to realize that I don't experience time the same way as most, and certain memories get "trapped" within my brain, as real as if they'd happened yesterday. I don't yet know if it's a *quirk* of multiple personalities, or if it's something more significant - an awareness of our current paradigm shift, perhaps. As I've written for eleven years on this site, humanity is on the cusp of exploring the heavens - which means that we have to get our heads out of our asses, and finally look UP at all those stars in the sky. We're not alone, people. We've never been alone, to be frank. And if we keep living our lives like we're the only fuckin' people in the universe, our preoccupation with political correctness will hinder our species from the Transcendence occuring right here, right now...right at this very second. Pay attention to people like Dr. Steven Greer of The Disclosure Project, and theoretical physicist Michio Kaku. They estimate that we're 80 years behind technologically, and a good solid century in regards to spirituality.
I was actually going to kill myself two weeks ago, after Touche's New Years Eve party. The plan was simple: I'd get to the bar around 10pm, make my rounds, have a few laughs, ring in the new year...then quietly slip away after that, like Diana at the end of the musical. But I made a decision not to succumb to depression, and I sent my Lovely Little Leatherman on a mission - which ultimately gave me hope. It's easy to make excuses to justify life's difficulties, but even a "difficult" life is still...a life. That being said, as I charge forward with my books, I'll continue to share the journey with - strictly for your amusement of course - the most inappropriate humor as possible. I'm tempted to tease upcoming topics, but I always seem to do the best work "on the fly," so to speak:
"Reading the reviews of Diana: The Musical is like watching YouTube reaction videos to Two Girls, One Cup. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ! WHO thought this was a good idea? Watching Princess Diana merrily sing to AIDS patients was exactly like watching The Book of Mormon's 'Hasa Diga Eebowai.' And by that I mean, the number was so offensive, I actually had to *gather* myself when it was over!"
Not only am I realizing I'm apparently an intellect, I'm starting to suspect that I *might* be a diabolical one.
- Sir Dave
I was actually going to kill myself two weeks ago, after Touche's New Years Eve party. The plan was simple: I'd get to the bar around 10pm, make my rounds, have a few laughs, ring in the new year...then quietly slip away after that, like Diana at the end of the musical. But I made a decision not to succumb to depression, and I sent my Lovely Little Leatherman on a mission - which ultimately gave me hope. It's easy to make excuses to justify life's difficulties, but even a "difficult" life is still...a life. That being said, as I charge forward with my books, I'll continue to share the journey with - strictly for your amusement of course - the most inappropriate humor as possible. I'm tempted to tease upcoming topics, but I always seem to do the best work "on the fly," so to speak:
"Reading the reviews of Diana: The Musical is like watching YouTube reaction videos to Two Girls, One Cup. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ! WHO thought this was a good idea? Watching Princess Diana merrily sing to AIDS patients was exactly like watching The Book of Mormon's 'Hasa Diga Eebowai.' And by that I mean, the number was so offensive, I actually had to *gather* myself when it was over!"
Not only am I realizing I'm apparently an intellect, I'm starting to suspect that I *might* be a diabolical one.
- Sir Dave