by Joey Goebel
“I’m just gonna come out and say it. You are looking phalange-licking-good tonight,” he says.
“Thanks.”
He already said that once to me tonight.
David normally wouldn’t be so insincere and careless like that. This reinforces a theory I have about people. My theory goes like this—if you want to be with a real person and experience that person’s essence, you must be alone with them. The eyes and ears of any additional persons subtract from his or her essence. If you go out to eat with two of your best friends, you will not be with two complete persons, and they won’t behave as genuinely as they would if they were alone with you. If you are at a crowded party with a friend, you only get a fraction of his or her real self. Apply the same idea on a national, global, or even evolutionary scale, and everything that has ever happened might make better sense.
Boyfriend
To be honest, everybody is looking good tonight. I look around and see ass. Sweet ass. Sweet ass that I know for a fact to be sweet, if you catch my meaning.
“Hey, David, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something,” says Aurora. Oh, great. This better not be one of those talks like, Oh, I want to know where we are right now, and that sort of shit.
“Talk to me.” Her boobs rule. Too bad she’s in a wheelchair. Otherwise I’d be hitting it. I’d tear that up.
“Well, my band’s trying to get on a more consistent practice schedule.”
“Cool.” Cool. No relationship bullshit.
“I know. So, we definitely want to practice Thursday nights, and I was wondering—”
“Sure. You can have Thursdays off.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’ll give that shift to Candy.”
“Oh—are you sure she won’t mind?”
“Yeah. She owes me anyhow. It’s cool.”
“Thanks, David. You’re the best boss I’ve ever had.”
“Baby, don’t think of me as your boss. I’m also your boyfriend.”
“I know. Thanks for being so good to me. Most guys wouldn’t even take a chance hiring a girl in a wheelchair.”
Most girls in a wheelchair don’t look that fucking hot. Besides, she’s just the biscuit maker.
“Hey—you’re still beautiful.”
“Thanks.”
I’m the man. Now is the perfect time to pop her the question. I’ve been waiting for this moment since I hired her sweet ass.
“Hey, while we’re talking, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you about.”
“Is it about the popcorn chicken special? I swear—I thought biscuits were included and—”
“No. Forget about that. It’s about this idea I have. How would you feel about posing for a calendar?”
“I don’t think I’d like that, if it’s the kind of calendar I think it is.”
“Oh—no nudity, baby. I’m talking about bikinis, maybe lingerie, and maybe sort of holding your own titties kind of stuff. Tastefully done, of course.”
“That’s what they all say. That’s something I may have done back when I was a stripper. But not anymore.”
This is what I was afraid of. Time to turn on the ol’ David charm. I act all bashful and shit.
“Um, well, um, what if you knew that I was the one making the calendar?”
“That wouldn’t make any difference…Why would you be making a calendar?”
“It’s for business. Here’s the deal: the Girls of Ken’s Fried Chicken Calendar. It’s the ultimate chicken promo!”
“Have any of the other girls agreed to this?”
“Yeah. All of ’em. But I’ve been saving December just for you.”
“But I’m in a wheelchair. That’s not sexy.”
“We can work around that, babe.” I lean down close to her, look at her right in the eye, and whisper, “You still have a great chest. So will you do it?”
“Just forget it. I’m not interested.”
Ungrateful bitch. This is, like, not cool. I can see that she’s gonna need some convincing, so I call over a couple of her co-workers to lay on the peer pressure.
“What’s up?” asks Christy.
“Girls, try talking some sense into Aurora. She doesn’t want to be in the calendar.”
“Why not?” ask both of my girls.
“I just think it’s kind of degrading,” yaps Aurora.
“Remember when we worked at the Busy Booty?” asks Kristie. “Now that was degrading.”
“Yeah. It was degrading, and that’s why I stopped working there,” says Aurora. “But I guess I might as well still be there if I’m still just a piece of ass even at a freaking Ken’s Fried Chicken.”
“Honey, the Busy Booty wouldn’t take you back now in that wheelchair.”
“Thank you for reminding me, Christy.”
“Look, I’m just giving you girls a chance to show off your bodies,” I tell them. “I figured you would like that, judging by the way you dress, Aurora.” She’s wearing a sweet-ass dress that really shows off those useless legs of hers.
“You shouldn’t judge people by the way they dress, duh.”
“That’s true…So will you pose for my calendar?”
“No! God, David, I thought you were different! I thought you respected me!”
“Aurora, I do respect you. I mean—I haven’t even asked you for a blow job yet.”
“I don’t do that.”
“Oh, come on, Aurora. You’re a preacher’s daughter.”
“And an ex-stripper,” adds Christy.
“And a Satanist,” adds Kristie.
“Ex-Satanist. My dad blessed me last night. Anyhow, so sorry to disappoint you all. Am I the only woman on earth who finds the thought of having a dick in her mouth revolting?”
Kristie nods. Christy licks her lips and closes her eyes.
“Look, Aurora, I’m sorry, but like you said, most guys wouldn’t have even hired you. You’re doing well to make biscuits at my Ken’s Fried Chicken. Now don’t you want to continue working there?”
She looks up and sees me and the girls looking down at her. Then she gets up from her wheelchair and walks out the door.
“Stupid bitch. Not cool. So not cool!”
Aurora
I’m glad to leave my wheelchair behind forever with that sleaze and those girls, the sluts whose most ambitious hope and only chance for greatness is to someday sleep with the President. The wheelchair bit was good while it lasted but ultimately ineffective. It was like a morality joke that no one got, much like my stripping career.
I’ll be the first to admit that I was a fool for dating David. Anyone can look at him and tell what he’s all about, but I was trying to practice what I preach and be open-minded. I suppose Luster is right. You give people the benefit of the doubt, and they disappoint you every time.
“That’s my house,” I say to the cabbie.
“You live there?” he asks as he pulls up to the mansion, its gates emblazoned with wrought iron “B’s” for “Buchanan.”
“Yeah. Thanks for the ride.” I pay the man and get out and notice that he’s looking me up and down, at my slutty black dress, my leather jacket, and my prostitute-red lipstick.
“What?” I snap at the foreigner through his open window.
“Nothing.”
Dropping me off here was probably the highlight of his week.
The first thing I hear upon entering the front door is the excited voice of Luster.
Why he would be in my home, I have no idea.
“I agree, Reverend! God is inside all of us!” Luster affirms. Holy crud. He’s talking to my dad. “He or She or It reverberates in the power chords that hit the hammer, anvil, and stirrups. When I am rocking it like a man-child in love is when I am godlike. Rock music is my religion. I believe in rock music. Furthermore, I rock it impossibly. And Reverend, I believe in rock music to help me through the nightmare day, and someday rock music will lead me to my own private paradise.”
I can’t int
errupt just yet. I have to listen to my father’s response to this.
“Interesting,” says Father, or “Reverend Buchanan” as he’s known to the rest of the community. “That’s certainly one way to look at things.”
“It is,” agrees Luster.
“But now, Luster, I hope in your quest for your own private paradise, you’re not going to wind up choking on your own vomit like those rock stars tend to do.”
“No, Reverend. I am not a rock and roll cliché. I thought you would have noticed that by now. What I mean is that I want my heaven to be here on land. After all, as Vladimir Nabokov wrote, ‘The hereafter for all we know may be an eternal state of excruciating insanity.’ So why not have heaven on dirt?”
“You talk too much! Can we go now?” begs another voice. Ember’s here, too.
“Isn’t she precious?” observes my father. “I think it’s great that you all have found an outlet in music.”
“Outlet, inlet, call it what you will, will you?” says Luster. “They say that no man is an island, but I am a peninsula.”
It’s so funny to hear Luster and my dad conversing, listening to the mingling of two parts of my life that had until now been kept separate. It’s kind of like your favorite teacher having a drink with your uncle, or your therapist watching TV with your co-workers. I wish I could get everyone together, just to see what would happen.
It’s also funny just to think of Luster talking to anyone’s parent. Strangely, I’ve never heard him speak of his own parents. I’m pretty sure his older brothers practically raised him (or something to that effect), and that as the middle child of thirteen, he in turn helped take care of the younger six. But Luster is just one of those guys who you don’t even think of as having parents. He couldn’t have come from a typical carnal union of two other people. A guy like that must have spontaneously generated.
“And what’s the name of your band?” asks Father.
“I do not know yet, but right now we are leaning toward Well Educated White Males.”
“Good deal,” says Father.
“Or the Fuxtables!” says Ember.
“The what?” asks my father, and there is my cue to enter the living room.
“Where are your wheels?!” Luster asks urgently.
“Screw ’em. I left them at David’s. What are you two doing here?”
“We wanted to see if we could help smooth things over with you and your dad.”
“Oh. That’s not necessary. Dad and I had a nice long talk last night.” This is how badly Luster wants this band to work out. He must have taken a bus from his end of town to this one in hopes of securing us a practice space. He even brought Ember and her irresistibly cute face.
“Yes. We talked everything out,” says Father. “We blessed her and have welcomed her back. We’ve put those dark days behind us. No more Satan, right?”
“No more Satan,” I agree. My Satanism was just a phase. All teenagers go through phases, but I like for mine to be momentous. Admittedly, I was pretty stupid.
“Dad, I’m sorry. I hope Luster didn’t frighten you.” I see Ember crawling out of the room, getting her knees all ashy like little kids do.
“Oh, we ended up having a great talk. Luster has to be the most well-read young man I’ve ever spoken to. Luster, you are welcome in my home any time.”
Father doesn’t know how Luster weighs all words. He loves making people mean what they say.
“In that case, good Reverend, I will be staying the night tonight.”
Father
I must change the subject immediately. If only a new topic will come. Ahh, yes.
“So! Rory! You’re walking again! Wasn’t that crazy, Luster? A perfectly healthy young girl choosing to bear the burden of riding around in a wheelchair? Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
“Actually, it was Luster’s idea.”
“Oh?”
The young man nods. I should be resentful of him, I suppose, for leading the flesh of my flesh down such a crooked path. But I can’t conceive what wild place this man’s titillating thoughts come from, and I am interested in hearing his justifications. So I listen.
“Reverend, let us be frank. Your daughter is beautiful, and naturally there are many men out there who would like to make her their own personal whoopee cushion. When I met Aurora, she was tired and sick of being seen as a sexual object.”
“Okay, Luster, that’s enough,” says Rory.
“No,” I say. “I need to hear this. Go on, Luster.” I notice the adorable little girl is no longer in our presence. She must have grown tired of this grown-up intercourse. My new African-American friend continues.
“Aurora tried dealing with her sexuality in her own hysterical way, but then I suggested the wheelchair idea. I thought if Aurora made herself dead from the waist down, that would take sex out of the equation in regards to her dealings with people, because, after all, in traditional copulation—”
“Luster! He gets the idea!” interrupts Rory at the climax of the young man’s explanation. It actually wasn’t that ridiculous an idea.
“Why didn’t you tell me that’s the reason why you were riding around in a wheelchair, Rory?”
“I didn’t think you’d understand. Besides, every time we talked, you just started yelling at me for being a Satanist.”
“Right. My daughter the Satanist.” I look downward and shake my head in disgust.
“I had nothing to do with that, Reverend,” asserts the boy.
“Look—it was a creative way to rebel, okay?” says my daughter.
I must admit, perhaps this “creative rebellion” of Rory’s makes a favorable alternative to the rebellion of her older sister. Stacy saw to it that she became impregnated. Then she dropped out of high school and moved in with an older man (who was probably not the father). Chad soon left her, and I then bought her a home in California where she failed as an actress, got her G.E.D., went to college, and became an atheist. However, she assures me that, though she’s not religious, she’s very spiritual.
“So I take it the wheelchair idea didn’t work as well as expected.”
“Not really,” replies the boy. “We failed to consider blow jobs. That is why she also should have pretended to have lockjaw.”
“Luster! Shut up!” demands Rory.
“Now be nice, Rory. Luster is our guest…So why aren’t you in your wheelchair now?”
“I realized tonight that people are gonna judge me no matter what. My boyfriend showed me that I’m just, like, breasts and thighs to him, just like I am to everyone.”
“Rory, don’t say that!” I bawl. “You are so much more than breasts and thighs. You have a gorgeous soul, especially now since you retrieved it from the Prince of Darkness. However, do you think that maybe if you would wear some baggier clothes, perhaps some culottes, these guys wouldn’t treat you like they do?”
“I like my clothes! Why should I have to rearrange my wardrobe for others?”
“You rode in a wheelchair because of others, didn’t you? Rory, you’re not being consistent.”
“You are right, Reverend,” says the articulate young man. “She is not being consistent, but her inconsistency is something you should love about her.”
“What do you mean, good buddy?”
“Would you prefer she be consistent to the behavior expected of a girl who wears a dress like that?”
My daughter self-consciously tugs at her miniskirt, trying to cover up more of her thighs.
“Why, no,” I answer.
“And would you prefer she be consistent to the stereotype of a stripper being a dumbslut?”
“No.”
“And would you prefer your daughter to be consistent to the pattern that so many preachers’ daughters before her have set, of rebelling against their dads by tossing their snatches around like pocket lint?”
“Of course I wouldn’t.”
I could do without such language, but he is my guest.
“Then l
et us praise the Lord that this girl has had the good sense to worship Satan and ride around in a wheelchair she did not need. Can I get an amen?”
I don’t know if it’s his voice or the words he’s saying, but this irreverent young man could make anyone a believer. His positions and thoughts are unorthodox but sound. His word is strong. His convictions seem impenetrable. Despite his forceful manner, he has lubricated the difficulty between my daughter and me, and I find myself agreeing with him.
“Amen.”
But right after I testify, I am jerked back into the necessary reality of my earthly mansion, as from the other room emanates the arousing sound of something valuable being broken.
“Ember?” yells the fruit of my loins.
Aurora
We all run to where the noise came from, to my father’s den where he keeps all of his expensive religious art. We rush in and find Ember looking up at us bearing the mean but cute scowl that she usually displays. The floor around her is littered with white, brown, and flesh-colored pieces of clay.
“My Jesus statue!” screams my father. I want to laugh, but I realize that, sadly, this moment must be tragic for him. He loves his statues. Luster is already on the floor, trying to piece together the fallen icon.
“Ember, what happened?” I ask.
“I pushed it over as hard as I could, and it broke.” No excuses. She just likes to destroy.
“But why would you do that?” I ask.
“I thought you’d like it,” says Ember as she holds up her hand with her pinky and index finger, making a horn symbol.
“No, Ember. No more of that stuff. No more Satan. Forget all that. You should have never paid any attention to any of that. I was just talking.”
God, we have to keep a closer eye on her.
Luster is having no luck putting the pieces of Jesus back together. Meanwhile, Father looks like he’s gonna blow, and he finally does.
“Goddammit! That’s the most expensive fucking Jesus statue I have!”
Ember laughs, but I don’t want to anymore. Father goes down on his knees and holds big chunks of the statue to his chest as if he was embracing a dying soldier. Luster crouches on the floor with him.