by Karyn Bosnak
I transferred to a different school my junior year and lost touch with the Thompson Twins. A year after leaving I went back to Oxford to visit a friend and go to a Barenaked Ladies concert that was being held on campus and ran into Tim at an after-hours party. Within minutes of saying hello to each other the sparks between us flew, and before I knew what was happening, we were both barenaked in the bathroom having sex, which is when I figured out it was Tom and not Tim—his penis was enormous. In fact, I didn’t think penises could get as big as his was. The rumor the girl told me was true; it was just being spread about the wrong brother. Anyway, back to the bathroom—by the time I realized my mistake, it was too late. Tom and I were already having sex. (And quite frankly, good sex.)
The fact that the Thompson Twins are almost thirty years old and still live together should’ve tipped me off that something wasn’t right with them, but it didn’t. I didn’t realize just how wrong things were until I pulled up to where they lived. It wasn’t the double-wide trailer that turned me off—I don’t like to criticize people who live in trailers because I’m still a renter and don’t have a dollar in the bank, so I’m not one to judge; at least they own—it was more the overturned coolers and lawn chairs that littered the yard, the raw sewage smell that permeated the air, and the roasting spit with a charred old carcass on it that sat by the front door.
Deciding I’d seen enough to officially take the Thompson Twins out of the running, I put my car in drive and pulled away. However, any hopes I had for an easy getaway were quickly halted when I ran over one of their kids. (Actually, I should say ran into one their kids, because I didn’t actually flatten the child.) Obviously it was an accident.
I’m still not sure whose kid it was because Tim and Tom have five between them—Nifty, Dandy, Thumper, Scooter and Bob. Thumper was the lucky one who met my bumper. He—I mean she—and her little butch haircut rode her bike into the middle of the street, right in front of my car. Although the collision could’ve been disastrous, thanks to my quick reflexes (and the four cans of Red Bull I drank to stay awake during the drive) my bumper ended up only lightly tapping Thumper’s bike, a bike that stayed upright because of a set of training wheels she had affixed to the back wheel. She didn’t fly over the handlebars, skid across the pavement, or anything like that. All she did was slowly tip over the side.
When Tim and Tom heard the screech of my brakes, they both ran out of the trailer in all their glory. To say the least, the years have not treated these boys well. Since the last time I saw them, their hair—which was the one good thing they had going for themselves—took a tragic turn. I don’t know who told them it’s cool to shave lightning bolts into the sides of your head, because it’s not. Ditto goes for the mullet cuts they were sporting. I don’t care if you’re Tim and Tom living in Kansas or a hipster living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn—the mullet is not, nor will it ever be, a cool haircut.
After examining Thumper, Tim, Tom, and I found her to be fine. She didn’t have an ounce of blood on her, just one little scrape. (So why all the tears? I don’t know.) Because I’m an adult, I apologized to her (even though it was she who rode her bike into the middle of the street), but Tim and Tom told me not to worry, saying accidents happen. It’s funny, but with all the commotion, they never even asked why I was driving down their street in the first place. Once they realized it was me, they said it was “damn good” to see my “sweet ass,” and then invited me inside their trailer for a “brewski.” I passed on the beer (something about the way little Bob kept smacking gnats [fleas?] off his body freaked me out) and instead offered to take the whole family out to Thumper’s favorite restaurant for dinner. (After you run someone over, it’s best to keep them and their family on your good side.) Had I known then that we’d end up at Long John Silver’s, I might not have given Thumper so much freedom in the choosing, but I’m sure the greasy fish smell will come out of my clothes eventually.
Since Tim’s and Tom’s wives were working (yes, both are married, but they told me “it’s a common law thing,” so Colin’s off the hook for not finding this out), dinner ended up being just the eight of us. While we were eating, I found myself once again wishing, like I did with Wade, that there was a camera on my lapel. Tim and Tom kept comparing scars and tattoos, little Bob kept farting and asking me if I liked his tail, Nifty kept picking her nose and trying to pop the pimple on her cheek (I didn’t even know little kids could get pimples), and Dandy and Scooter kept throwing ketchup-covered hush puppies, tartar-sauce-slathered fish sticks, and buttery corn cobbettes at each other. As for Thumper, she was the only one who was pleasant. Maybe she was in shock, but she just sat quietly in her chair the whole night, staring (glaring?) at me, drinking her clam chowder.
Before getting back on the road that evening, I jotted down a short note on a napkin and had Tim and Tom sign it. Not that they read it, but they agreed to not sue me in exchange for a case of astronaut food. I picked up a box of freeze-dried ice cream bars while I was in Houston and wow . . . those grubby little bastards went crazy for them. So did their kids.
After saying good-bye to everyone, I got in my car and was ready to pull away when little Thumper ran up to my door. I thought maybe she was going to thank me for dinner or perhaps say she wasn’t angry at me for almost running her over, so I quickly rolled down my window. “What is it, Thumper?” I asked with a smile.
Without hesitating, Thumper inhaled deeply through her nose and spit a big green loogey in my face. “Watch where you’re going next time, bitch,” she then said, smiling right back at me. After politely nodding, I told her I would and then wiped my face clean.
Anyway, that happened last evening. As I drive down the highway today, heading back toward New Orleans, I do so in silence—No Ace of Base, no Ally McBeal, no Barenaked Ladies—and think about this idea of mine. Am I heartbroken that things haven’t worked out with these last six guys? No. But am I a little freaked-out about it? Yes, and for a couple of reasons.
For one, I can’t believe I’ve slept with such losers. I’m positive these guys weren’t losers when we had sex, which leads me to wonder . . . did they turn into losers, or was my loser-radar just way off back then? Or are they not losers now, and have I just turned into a big bitch? Honestly, I can’t figure it out. Where did things go wrong?
The second reason I’m worried is because I don’t understand how my grandpa can run into just one woman from his past and have things click. Including the four guys I eliminated before I left New York, I’m batting zero for ten right now, which isn’t so good. Picking up my phone, I call my grandpa to find out how things are going with Gloria. I’m not saying that I hope things aren’t working out between them, but I might feel slightly better about myself if they aren’t. When my grandpa answers the phone, I cut to the chase. “So, how’s the love affair with Gloria?”
“Oh, Darlin’ . . . it couldn’t be better!” he exclaims.
Shit! Oops! I mean, great!
“Really?” I ask. “Are you sure?”
“Positive,” my grandpa says confidently. I can practically hear the smile on his face. “I haven’t felt the boom yet, but I still think it’s gonna happen.” After sighing heavily, I tell him that I’m happy for him. “Hey, not to change the subject,” he then says. “But did I tell you I got a car?”
“A car?” I’m confused. “I thought you were gonna get a golf cart.”
“Well, I was, but then I remembered that I’m living in Vegas not Florida, so I got myself a Camaro instead!”
“A Camaro?” Oh, Jesus.
“Yep. It’s orange. You should see it.”
As images of my grandpa driving through Las Vegas in an orange Camaro while listening to Jefferson Starship fill my head, I shudder. “Well, have fun with it.”
“I will, Del. Hey, I gotta run now, but I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“Peace out home fry.”
After hanging up the phone, I try to look on the bright side of thing
s. Sure, ten are down, but I still have ten more to go. Ten good ones, too. In addition to Abogado, both #7 and #13, Henry the Do-Gooder and Alex the Good One Who Got Away, are huge catches. Huge. All is not lost—I can still make this thing work.
After changing my tune, I turn my iPod on and play an Arlo Guthrie song that my grandpa used to sing to me when I was a little girl called “The City of New Orleans.” Looking forward, I sing along and continue on my way. “Good Mooooooorning America, how are ya? . . .”
$2,804, 31 days, 10 guys left.
* * *
1 They took telecourses through the local community college and watched their classes on public-access television (or recorded them, if they happened to be on schedule at the local Piggly Wiggly grocery store where they worked).
Chapter seven
#16 Abogado
Real name: Diego Soto:
Barcelona fling; serious
language barrier.
#7 Henry Parker
One-night stand, used to prove
to Kate I was straight. A.k.a.
“Henry the Do-Gooder.”
#13 Alex Wolfe
Triple Threat: funny, smart,
good-looking. A.k.a. “The
Good One Who Got Away.”
*Beep*
Del, it’s Mom. I don’t know what’s going on, but I called your work number this morning hoping to catch you between assignments and was told by some guy named Roger that you got “laid off.” When I informed him he was mistaken, he laughed and said he was positive you were gone because he “sent you out with a bang” himself. Can you call me please to explain what’s going on? Thanks.
*Beep*
Del, it’s Daisy. Did you lose your job?
Mom’s totally freaking out. Will you please call her back?
i’m flabbergasted
In my list of twenty, Abogado came after Rod, but almost two years after Rod. Although it was unintentional, I had a bit of a dry spell when I stopped going out every weekend. I didn’t realize it at the time though. In fact, I didn’t realize it until I made my list. It was during that time that I started working at ESD, and I guess I started to focus more on my career and less on my personal life.
In November of 2002, eight months after I started, Elisabeth gave the entire staff the week of Thanksgiving off as a paid vacation. She was always doing nice things like this for us. Michelle and I had become pretty good friends at this point, so we planned a trip to Barcelona together. Neither of us had been there before, and both of us wanted to go. Although I don’t speak a lick of Spanish, Michelle studied it for eight years and was positive she’d be able to get us around.
We got along great on the trip. We agreed on everything—where to go, what to see, what not to eat. Yes, although we loved Barcelona, we weren’t crazy about the two foods that were served pretty much everywhere: fish and ham. Our problem with the fish was more of a preparation thing than anything else. The few times we ordered it, it was served to us whole, complete with its head and, yes, eyeballs. (In case you’re wondering, the eyeballs were slightly shrunken but still intact from being cooked in hot oil.) It was like someone caught the fish, threw it into a fryer, and then slapped it on our plates. Maybe Michelle and I are high-maintenance, but neither of us could eat it, not with it was staring at us. As for the ham, it had small white chunky things in it, were the consistency of cartilage. Whatever they were, they were gristly and unchewable, so we had to keep spitting them out into a napkin.
On our fourth day there Michelle and I started to get antsy, mostly because we were hungry. Seeing as though we needed to work off some energy, we called a guy we didn’t know, a friend of a friend who lived in Barcelona, to see what he was up to that evening. After telling us that he was going to dinner with a group of his friends to a Chinese restaurant—yes, no ham, no fish—he invited us to come along. Needless to say, we eagerly accepted.
Spanish men go out in large groups, so dinner consisted of Michelle, me, and seven cute guys who were all around our age, if not a little bit older. They showered us with attention, and we loved every minute of it. Abogado was the friend of a friend. His real name was Diego Soto, but Michelle and I called him Abogado, which is the Spanish word for lawyer, because that’s what he did for a living and because we couldn’t keep everyone’s name straight. He was so handsome. He had beautiful flawless skin and shaggy almost-black hair. And his eyes . . . wow. They were dark, mysterious, and framed by a pair of black plastic-rimmed glasses that looked like they belonged to Clark Kent.1
Despite the enormous language barrier that hampered us (in addition to Michelle’s weak Spanish, the guys spoke very broken English), Abogado and I hit it off right away, as did Michelle and a guy we called Dustin Hoffman. (He looked just like him; you should’ve seen him.) Abogado and Dustin Hoffman were so funny. They loved American movies and loved American culture. It was the year of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, so they kept reciting lines from all the movies, like, “May the force be with you!” For some reason they also loved the word flabbergasted and were under the impression that it was really popular in America. Rather than correct them and tell them it wasn’t, Michelle and I decided that we’d start using it more, hoping it would catch on. It didn’t.
By the end of dinner, Abogado and I were pretty much boyfriend/girlfriend, so he asked me to ride with him on his motorcycle to a discotheque that everyone was going to. There were so many reasons why I should’ve said no. For one, I had just met him; two, we had both been drinking heavily; three, I was in a foreign country where I didn’t speak a lick of the language; and four, I was separating myself from my friend in said foreign country. However, for some reason I felt like living life on the edge, so I grabbed a helmet and hopped on. “Hit the gas and drive me wild!” I told Abogado. “Of course I do,” he responded (which really didn’t make any sense).
As Abogado gunned it and peeled away, I held on for dear life as he sped down sidewalks, wove in and out of traffic, and ran red lights. The entire time his black hair flowed back at me in the breeze, and although it smelled a little bit like Chinese food, it was so sexy! The ride ended up to be both frightening and exhilarating.
After dancing the night (morning?) away, Michelle ended up going home with Dustin Hoffman, as did I with Abby, as I now affectionately called him. When we got back to his house, after some heavy petting, the two of us got naked. After copping a nice feel of his firme culo, I reached around front and was flabbergasted to discover an uncircumcised penis. Yepper. It was uncut, unaltered, and unfuckingbelieveable! It was the first uncircumcised penis I had ever come into contact with in my life, and wowie—it was amazing! Although Abby wanted to get down to business, I wanted to check it out so he had to be patient and wait. And turn on the lights. After exploring Abby’s nether regions for a while, I looked up at him in awe and said, “May the foreskin be with you.” Although he had no idea what I meant, Abby kissed me passionately and then the two of us made sweet, sweet Spanish love.
The following evening Abby and Dustin Hoffman invited Michelle and me out to dinner again and we graciously accepted. Although they took us to a place that served only ham, Michelle and I sucked up our dinner while Abby sucked his down . . . apparently a little too quickly. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but one minute he was fine and the next minute he was turning purple and grabbing at his throat. Dustin Hoffman was the first out of his chair.
For the next few minutes, Michelle and I watched in horror as Dustin Hoffman gave Abby the Heimlich maneuver, trying with all his might to dislodge the food from his friend’s throat. After four or five futile attempts the outlook didn’t look good, and tears began streaming down Abby’s face. Seeing his friend beginning to cry got Dustin Hoffman’s adrenaline pumping; he wasn’t going to give up. After screaming “Yo te voy a salvar amigo!” at the top of his lungs, he pulled his fists into Abby’s ribcage so forcefully that he lifted him off the ground. Almost immediately, the offending piece of ham shot o
ut of Abby’s throat and landed—of all the places—directly on my cheek. Where it stayed. For a while. Seeing the result of his hard work so vulgarly displayed, Dustin Hoffman covered his mouth in horror while Michelle gasped and poor Abby fell back down into his chair, humiliated. Me? I calmly reached for a napkin and wiped my face clean. Trying to lighten the mood, Dustin Hoffman hit Abby on the back. “You really should take smaller bites next time!” Abby glared at him—it was no time for jokes—and then got up and left the table without saying a word. Dustin Hoffman followed.
Twenty minutes later, when the guys returned, Abby was quiet but better. Since Michelle was turned on by Dustin Hoffman’s act of heroism, she ended up going home with him again. Abby invited me over as well, but after what had just happened, I wasn’t exactly “in the mood.” However, I knew that declining his invitation would make him feel worse, so I ended up going, and I ended up sleeping with him again. However this time, instead of thinking about his uncircumcised penis, I kept thinking of the choking incident—his purple face, Dustin Hoffman’s blood-curdling scream, and of course the piece of partially chewed piece of ham flying at my face. The night’s main event was on instant replay, looped in my brain, and it was funny, so funny in fact that I accidentally let out a little laugh. When I did, Abby stopped what he was doing and looked at me, bewildered. “Why come you laugh at me?” he asked.
“Um . . . I didn’t,” I said quietly.
“Yes, you does,” Abby said, rolling off me. “You laugh.”
Since I didn’t want him to think that I was laughing at his ability to have sex, I told Abby the truth—that I was thinking about what happened and thought it was funny. I even did my best imitation of him and Dustin Hoffman, complete with sound effects, hoping to make him feel less self-conscious about what happened. I thought it would put him at ease, which it did in a way—his penis went limp, retreated into its foreskin, hid its head in shame. “I think you should leave,” Abogado said. I tried to apologize, but he didn’t want to hear it so I got dressed and left.