She opened like a desert flower.
Now, I realize you may be calling me a hypocrite, little brother, for going with this girl who’s got a guy after my lecture to Good Charlotte on respecting marital commitments. But there’s a distinction between the two: no ring on Philomela’s finger. So please don’t judge me falsely. My conscience is clear.
I’d like to think I treated her right just like she wanted. But it’s hard to know for sure. As I reflect on our time together, what stands out most for me are her breasts. I couldn’t get both of my hands around one of them. They were massive, stretch-marked, pendulous. Contrary to expectations, I didn’t know what to do with them. My touch was clumsy. I couldn’t penetrate to a feeling place beyond the hulk of her flesh. No matter how I fondled or squeezed, her nipples remained flat. So I buried my face and sloshed around, not sure she derived any pleasure from this, despite what she said at the time and my selfless aim to please.
I also very much remember her twat. Which, by the way, did not stink. Her pussy was fragrant, frothy, strawberry milkshake. But there was a problem. Her bush had been trimmed into a landing strip design, a cute thin line that led directly to the hangar. But the hair had grown out since her last wax. So kissing her there, and dipping inside, was like sucking on a cactus, fucking a briar patch. Afterwards, there were sores all around my mouth, upper thighs and abs. Love bumps, she called them.
There’s no such thing as giving without getting something back. Remember that, brother. Don’t forget to tell my son.
THIRTEEN
After leaving Philomela, I fell asleep with the rising sun. When the alarm sounded a few hours later, feeling the sores on my face and crotch, I willed myself unconscious.
The Reverend woke me with a phone call after worships. I apologized for my absence, and coughing into his ear, explained how I was ill. I told him if he could email me today’s sermon and jpegs, I’d do my best to update the web site as soon as I was able. He said he’d do so at once and wished me a Godspeedy recovery.
His sermon this week, “PACC: Politically Aware Christian Crusaders,” introduced a new proposal for motivating the flock “to the front lines of the culture war,” as he put it in his lengthy email. “While it’s true, JAG, that living in Christ means embracing the message of the Scriptures from within, as a personal moral code, we would be remiss if we didn’t urge our congregants to make the personal political in the upcoming election. The issues at stake are too vital to be ignored.
“At this critical crossroads when weaker parishes are waffling on their stances or burying their heads in the sand, as if it’s not our nation’s responsibility to make the world a better place, strong communities of faith such as ours must stand tall. That’s what sets First Church of the Church Before Church apart. We will not shrink from our call to service—the cornerstone of Christianity and democracy.
“On the national front, our Commander-in-Chief needs our support. The Initiative for Peace is a noble aim. There must be no backpedaling now that the going’s got tough. The world is watching our every move. We must act in the Savior’s name. Our representatives in Washington need to be assured that we will stand behind them when they vote on our behalf. But if they betray our interests, they must know they’ll dearly pay the price at the polls.
“Locally, these twisted ballot measures on affirmative action for sodomists must be defeated. The Right to Life under God’s law must be defended on every level. The mayor, city council and district judges must speak with the singular voice of the Holy Spirit. This is the power of democracy. The county school board should be led by people of faith and vision who will not kowtow to the whims of a vocal minority. We need to take action now to ensure the welfare of our children.”
His idea was to set up a portal to news and views and means for direct involvement with the issues of the day. He envisioned a host of actionable items, from petitions to demonstrations to donations. The Reverend believed our parishioners merely needed inspiration, rather than guidance, per se, to make God’s Word live at the ballot box. I didn’t tell him I had never voted. Whether this made me a cynic or a realist mattered little to me. I didn’t feel the need to blow smoke up anyone’s ass over their political opinions, which seemed to change like the weather anyhow, or were so entrenched debate was pointless. For me, the Reverend’s plan meant more hours at the computer, aka more cash flow for my attorney to turn the screws on the ex to get me what was rightfully mine.
Despite a lifetime of zero political involvement I now found myself on both sides of the partisan wall. Throughout the week, I worked closely with the Reverend to fine-tune the PACC portal per his specifications. When the weekend hit, I wound up participating in the public demonstrations of the summer, starring the region’s white supremacist and gay, lesbian, bi and transgendered communities.
I’d like to blame Cyrus, who along with Bebe, bullied me into attending both events. But I have to accept responsibility for my own actions, inasmuch as I can remember them.
Bebe documented the entire weekend on her camera and posted the jpegs shortly afterwards. I’ve just now downloaded them into thematic folders on my AweMediaPlayer. What follows is my attempt to describe the various scenes as they loop in slideshow mode. The order is random.
COSTUMES
At the KKK meetup, the hooded outfits came in a variety of colors and designs, from traditional white to satin green. One guy strutted in a Confederate flag that made him look like a Southern-fried Statue of Liberty. His headband bore the slogan RAHOWA. Cyrus said the acronym stood for “Racial Holy War.” Only about half the marchers covered their faces. The ones who didn’t had fugly moustaches, shrunken heads. Some wore the standard wizard hats while others sported hunting caps, which tended to clash with their linens.
Like Boy Scouts, all of their uniforms were modified with badges, the most popular being a W beneath a haloed crown in a circle of WBWs (“Whiter Brighter World”). Another common motto was the Latin phrase “Sic Semper Tyrannis” (Thus Always to Tyrants), a nod to John Wilkes Booth’s shout-out before capping the Great Emancipator in the back of the head. There were also the requisite Nazi symbols, iron crosses, R-2 patches.
Gay Pride was a more colorful affair. The standout fashions: rainbow-scaled leotards, radioactive farmgirl frocks, fluorescent goddess gowns, elaborate headdresses of yellow, red and orange feathers. The players: sequined belly dancers, buff leather daddies, barkers in jackets with shining epaulets, bare-chested body builders in red-white-and-blue Speedos. The genders were sometimes mix-matched beyond recognition.
At first, this made me uncomfortable, but by nightfall, I believe I had warmed up to the notion. Perhaps gender’s as much a farce as ideals of perfection or the games we play with God. Opting in or out is a contract with oneself, subject to fad, whim, intestinal fortitude.
Masks and face paint further veiled identities, evoking the fancy of fairy tales or animation come to life. Per Bebe’s suggestion, I wore a purple bouffant wig, mime makeup and giant swirly sunglasses to foil any First Churchers who happened into the crossfire.
Bebe dressed up in pink fur: earmuffs, choker, bikini top, mini skirt, bracelets and anklets. Her bare arms, legs and midriff showed off her gym-toned body and the sharp curling abstractions inked on her skin. She designed them herself, called them The Path. To me, they appeared to be barbed wire and jungle vines. To complete her kitty metamorphosis she’d given herself a black button nose with dainty whiskers that looked like sideways teardrops.
Beyond a plastic crown of thorns Cyrus dressed down, going shirtless, flexing the wings on his back, wearing only tight jeans and his trademark gator boots. His torso was taut and tan, the arrowhead above his J.C. belt buckle an invitation.
When he first told me I not only had to go with him and Bebe to this gig but get out in the street with them, I asked if he was gay.
“Homophobic much?” he said.
“No!” I remember saying too loudly, too quickly. Maybe I was trying to co
nvince myself. It wasn’t that I ever had a problem with homosexuality as a biological condition or lifestyle choice. I just never knew anyone personally who shaded that way until I met Bebe, so I hadn’t given it much thought. Then when Cyrus put it in my face, I felt uneasy. I wanted to know where he stood. Just to know.
SIGNS
There was such preaching from all sides, we might as well have been at church. Chief among the Klan banners: White Is Right, This Land Is Our Land, Now’s the Hour for White Power! There were cartoon pics on posterboards of Mexicans, Arabs and blacks with captions like “Ax the Wetbacks,” “Go Home Mañuel,” the familiar “A Friend Indeed Is a Towel Head That Bleeds” and “Bury the Mud Races!” Among the group’s supporters lined up along the sidewalk: Buy American, ICE ICE Baby, There’s a Border for a Reason Harboring Aliens Smells like Treason. From our counterperch on the opposite side of the street: Hate Is Not Great, We Are All God’s Creation, ‘Aliens’ Do Not Exist.
I don’t remember raising any signs myself, but I do recall responding to the chants for “White power!” with choruses of “Mice glower?” and “More golden showers, less baby powder!” or some other silliness that made no sense to me then and makes less sense now. But our words did serve to rile the hoodies. And that was good times. Some of the Klansmen were so moved, they tore off their face masks to better scream at us, their pale cheeks going red like boils on the bum of Frosty the Snowman.
At the Gay Pride rally, the rainbows were splashed with messages lifted from song lyrics: Peace, Love & Understanding, Equal Rights & Justice, Give Peace a Chance. There were also the biblical appropriations Love Your Neighbor as Yourself and Who Among You Can Cast the First Stone? The haters fired back with slogans that were petty (Unnatural Unclean, Bad Bad Bad), brutal (AIDS Is Natural Selection), apocalyptic (Repent Today or Pay the Price Tomorrow) and absurd (Sodomy Is a Threat to National Security).
I didn’t brandish a militant badge at this gathering either. I thought of myself as an active spectator, a passive participant. For me, these events were merely high times with friends, a chance to goof anonymously in public and maybe meet some girls. Like I said, I’m not political—and I’m not gay—so I didn’t feel right waving somebody else’s flag.
RIGHT, LEFT . . . LEFT RIGHT LEFT
Both demonstrations took place in the same part of town, starting on Jordan Drive, about a mile out from city hall, winding onto the streets that circled the seat of local government, convening in Peter & Paul Park, a small square of green outside the mayor’s office. The Klan processional was led by a pointy-headed knight on a white horse, trailed by a contingent of foot soldiers. Spearheading Gay Pride was a team of pony boys, saddled and harnessed, silver bits in their mouths. At the reins a king and queen in swapped gender roles steered an outsized red wagon straight down the thoroughfare.
The white supremacists raised Confederate and W flags, while stars-and-stripes and rainbows flew the following day. The Klansmen marched with the discipline of a militia, doing laps around the government building before settling in for hate speech at the plaza. Some of the dykes and fairies and their straight allies, advocates for broadmindedness and equality like myself, rolled down the street on sparkly floats, bikes and unicycles. The rest of us ambled along or flitted like fireflies around the costumed vehicles.
As you would expect, brother, I walked normally.
BODY COUNT
As the jpegs make clear, there were more folks on the sidelines than in the streets at each demonstration. The KKK marchers totaled no more than three dozen, while the partakers in Gay Pride perhaps maxed out at a couple hundred. The Nazi sympathizers, the ones I talked to anyhow, argued that they were “God-fearing Christians, tolerant of individual differences and in no way racist, but the scourge of illegal immigration” had brought them out “to defend the American way of life.” Their numbers matched ours on the opposite side of the avenue at about a thousand or so, all told. A sizable crowd, though not overwhelming.
The Pride parade was far more out of hand with maybe ten times as many counterdemonstrators. Bible thumpers one and all, most of them hysterical, as if the Wrath of God would smite the whole town for the shameless exhibitionism of a few immoralists. Some must have showed for kicks, to gawk at the outfits, jeer at the queers. But the majority likely turned out under orders from their Lord and Savior as conveyed from the pulpits of the region’s megachurches.
To my surprise, Reverend Puck rejected the bandwagon. He believed ignoring the rally would send a more appropriate message, not giving credence to what he called “perversion akin to pornography.”
POLITICS
The white supremacist agenda seemed so out of touch with the times it was laughable. Outside the shooting range, the racism I’d observed since moving to the Dirty South was largely contained, integrated into daily routines, as if segregation by skin color was a choice agreed upon by all parties. Cyrus explained how most folks leaned toward their own kind to dial down the potential for trouble with the law. All anybody wanted, he said, was to do their own thing without interference from the busybodies who would never understand “the culture of selective kinship.” Even among the counterdemonstrators, there were divisions between blacks, whites and Latinos. Bebe’s wide-angle shot of the crowd looks like a neatly divided, triple-layer cake of chocolate, vanilla and mocha.
The political issues at the Klan march were immigration policy, border security and the rights of U.S.-born citizens versus the rights of immigrants (legal and illegal). There was a lot of poofed-up talk about jobs, schools and healthcare and how the taxpayer was footing the bill for an “alien invasion.”
Even though I don’t identify as Latino, I get it that Mexican blood flows through my veins. But I’m not sure what this means, bro. I know nothing about mom’s side of the family. She always said she was an only child and both her parents were dead, but I still find this hard to believe. I’ve never been south of the border. I don’t speak Spanish. Burritos funk up my insides. Mariachi is whack. But I have to admit, hearing all that trash laid on the Latinos made me ball up my fists.
At the Pride rally there were calls for same-sex marriage, though these seemed like token gestures with no hope of changing the system. The opposition had public support by a wide margin. Feeling their power, the holy rollers were on a mission, collecting signatures to place an anti-sodomy measure on the local ballot. This would buck the recent Supreme Court ruling that such laws were unconstitutional. “God’s law,” they said, “is the only one that matters.” Their hue and cry against choice in the bedroom made me want to fuck them all up the ass.
VIOLENCE
It seemed like every cop in the county and gangs of state troopers had been summoned to keep the peace. Armed with clubs, tear gas, stun guns and high-powered rifles that shot rubber bullets, they formed human barricades to separate the factions and enable the demonstrators to pass by. I overheard “fuckin freaks” at each event, the consensus among the law enforcers, though they did their jobs without incident.
A couple of Nazi youths were arrested for assaulting a counterdemonstrator during one of the golden shower chants. A Klansman was pelted with beans while burning a Mexican flag. When he argued with police—he could have had an eye poked out!—he was cited for lighting a fire on public property without a permit. A half-dozen or so Christian Crusaders were detained but later released without charges, a local blog reported the next day, after hurling what they said was holy water at boys in chaps on one of the floats. And a church whose members littered the street with pamphlets on cleaning up the city was fined.
Otherwise, the confrontations were limited to big noise, posturing and threats of God’s Almighty Wrath. Wary of further compromising my situation with the ex, I distanced myself from the extremists.
FOURTEEN
After each demonstration, the Playpen hosted a nightlong jam at which I kind of let myself go, even though it was out of character. The best I can explain my behavior is I must have been acti
ng out, affected more than I realized by the emotions of the day.
This is why I stay away from politics. There’s no winning unless you’ve already won. You have little power if you’re not in a position of strength to begin with. Don’t talk to me about the First Amendment. What you get from all sides is piss and vinegar. No one listens. Everyone’s right. No one cares about anyone but themselves. Maybe not no one. But it sure felt like that when I was in the thick of it. So afterwards I self-medicated, in therapist-speak. I pushed myself over the edge to bungee back to a safer, more familiar place.
If it weren’t for all these jpegs, thanks to Bebe’s picture-taking fetish, I would have blacked out most everything. But given the always-open aperture of our digital age, forgetting is rarely an option.
I’ll try to recount the truth as I now remember it.
playpen.jpg
Exterior shot of the Playpen. A tall woman in a top hat and bondage gear (Shea), herding the crowd outside into the warehouse. She’s got a bullwhip in her hand. She’d crack it against the pavement to move everyone along. “Come inside and play,” she’d say, “or come again another day.” The police would only bust up the party if it wasn’t contained within the building. Nobody wanted to deal with the law. There were a lot of noobs that first night, I recall Cyrus complaining, so a handful of regulars rotated as security, breaking up would-be fights, chasing off the rowdies blasting fireworks in the street.
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