The Bull Years

by Phil Stern

  “You know, we didn’t even make any money,” she later complained. “Actually, I think we lost money with Arnade.”

  “It’s a scam,” I said.

  “Yeah, it is,” Susan admitted. “They make you buy their products just to be a part of it. So you’re spending $20 for toothpaste and $50 for a salt shaker all while trying to establish your own team, which of course never happens.”

  Jason, I understand, is still among the faithful. Remarrying from the organization, he and his new bride are still trying to reach Beta status.

  Last week he actually called Susan, out of the blue, asking for a loan. Apparently he’s now in bankruptcy, his house falling into foreclosure.

  But he hasn’t given up on Arnade. Complete Financial Independence, he assured Susan, isn’t far away.

  STEVE LEVINE

  There was one evening…I mean, I can remember it like it was yesterday…that Sophia, Brooke, Dave and I wandered upon a herd of wild seals out in Montauk.

  We’d all gone to the Hamptons to see the rich houses, but soon decided it was all just pretentious bullshit. Bored, we’d wandered around a local bookstore, Brooke soon finding a nature guide on wild seals. Then nothing would do until we found some wild seals for ourselves.

  I thought we were all just being tools, but it was a beautiful evening and there wasn’t much else to do. So out we went, pulling up in that big parking lot by the light house at the very tip of Long Island.

  For some reason the area was entirely deserted, like a Twilight Zone episode. Hiking down the beach, we soon came upon a bunch of rocks just out into the water, upon which lounged a dozen dark seals. Another dozen played around in the water. A few, keeping a wary eye on us, were even up on the sand.

  Stunned, we all just sat and watched them for awhile. Dave tried getting closer, but the beach seals slunk off into the water with angry barks. So we just watched them for an hour, our sense of wonder growing stronger with each passing moment.

  I mean, look, I don’t know why I’m even writing about this. It’s not like there’s some great story here or anything. But it was such a peaceful feeling just sitting there, with my closest friends in the world, watching these beautiful animals. Just like the manatees, we all realized this was a Life Moment to be treasured forever.

  We didn’t head back until late dusk, but when we finally ambled off three of the seals accompanied us, swimming just off the beach. They stared and splashed, great brown eyes warm and playful. When we reached the trail back up to the parking lot they finally pealed off and swam back, barking their goodbyes. We watched them shrink into dots and then disappear entirely.

  When you’re young, you assume life is full of moments like that. But don’t take anything for granted. I found out later wild seal encounters are very rare, and having them tolerate human presence almost unheard of. I’ve even told this story to people who think it’s all bullshit, but it’s true.

  You know, if Sophia, Dave, Brooke, and I ever did get together again, it should be on that beach. And I bet the seals would welcome us back.

  Or maybe, of our old resistance cell, I’d be the only one left. The others might even tip off the secret police to our meet, leading to my own arrest.

  But it might be worth it, just to find out if my old friends still exist. I don’t see any more seal moments in my future, and if I happen to stumble across one, I don’t know who’d I share it with.

  DAVE MILLER

  Life after the mental ward wasn’t easy. I was flat-ass broke, with no job in sight, deeply in debt from my divorce, all without any family or friends to speak of.

  Frankly, I began fearing everyone in the ward had been right, and I was fated to join the permanent underclass of nut cases drifting in and out of institutions their entire lives. Homelessness was certainly a real possibility unless I soon developed an income.

  But then something truly astounding occurred. Two days after leaving the ward, using my last few hundred bucks on a cheap motel, I stopped by the post office to pick up my accrued mail. Indifferently poking through some overdue bills and other junk, I stopped cold at a personal letter from Portland, with my father’s name on the return address.

  It had been a decade since I’d heard anything from Dad, following his sudden flight to the west coast while I was still in high school. With trembling hands I pulled open the envelope, displaying a very short letter and a check for $3,500.

  As a matter of routine Dad, as next of kin, had been informed of my admittance to the mental ward three weeks before. After expressing some hollow regret at having been out of touch so long, Dad said he hoped the money might come in handy during my “tough” time. At some point, maybe when I was “feeling better,” I should come out and see him, along with my “mother-in-law and baby sister.” The whole thing was signed “Regards, Dad.”

  I don’t remember stumbling back to my motel room, but I do remember laying on the bed, with the curtain drawn, crying in rage. At several points I held the check over my head, on the verge of ripping it apart. It would have been so easy, a mere flex of my muscles consigning his gift forever to the deep, dark hole which it deserved. Dad was due no less, his treachery to my mother and me having forever banished him from the realm in which forgiveness was even remotely possible.

  But in the end I put the check down on the night stand, to be deposited the next day in my otherwise empty bank account. Why? I desperately needed the money. For now, at least, I had to live with the idea Dad would see I’d cashed the check, thus accepting his gift. Grimly I promised myself to someday disabuse him of any notion of overall pardon, returning the money, with interest, as if it had been nothing more than a minor business transaction.

  So after taking an apartment I procured two part-time jobs, one as a waiter, the other as a tutor.

  Here’s the thing. All these parents hire tutors because their kids have some kind of “learning disability,” but honestly, I think a lot of them are just plain stupid. Or utterly lazy, which for a high schooler amounts to the same thing. But I’d work with them on their homework and get them a little more jazzed about school, which was really all they needed. And it was ten bucks an hour, which back then was good money.

  Waiting tables was a trip. I worked at one of those chain restaurants with the computer system set up so the wait staff could enter the order on the floor and it would go directly to the cooks. Everything on the menu had a certain button, and all you had to do was hit the appropriate button for each person’s order.

  To this day I still have fantasies of throttling the maniac who designed the software. Nothing was in logical order. All the steaks were on different pages, the beverages in different colors in different sections…you get the idea. I honestly think it would have been easier learning how to fly the space shuttle than entering a fucking order on that monstrosity of a computer system.

  Let’s say someone wanted a Happy Burger, but no onions. Was there a specific button for a Happy Burger with no onions? Of course not. One had to enter Happy Burger, then hit the Minus Button, then find the Onion button on another page, hit the Happy Burger button again, then specifically enter what was to be substituted for the onions, which required another three page flips and five buttons. I swear, there were times I just wanted to cry.

  However, I soon responded to an ad for an advertising agency looking for a “writer.” Wow. Here was my ticket into the professional ranks, right? Or so I thought.

  First of all, I don’t know who’s crazier, the patients in a mental ward or the staff of an advertising agency. This became wildly evident in my job interview, during which Lester, the son of the woman who owned the place, asked me if I’d watched Little House On the Prairie as a child.

  “Uh, sure,” I replied.

  “Oh yeah?” Sitting back in his absurdly expensive suit, Lester smiled. “So which one did you did you want to fuck?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Listen, Dave, you can’t fool me.” Lester then bestowed on me his tr
ademark point and nod. “I took you for a Nellie man the second you walked in here!”

  “Well, uh…”

  “Come on! You wanted to bend that silly bitch over the nearest wagon wheel every week, didn’t you?” Another point and nod. “You can’t fool me!”

  “Yeah…I mean, Nellie was cool.” For some reason I thought of Steve Levine, wondering if he’d wound up in advertising. It seemed right up his alley.

  “What am I thinking?” Lester now made a great show of slapping his forehead, as if struck by a momentous thought. “You wanted to fuck them all! Even the mothers in those big hoop skirts, didn’t you?”

  “Well, I don’t know if…”

  “Just don’t tell me you wanted to screw the blind girl there, Dave.” Now Lester sadly shook his head. “That would be a little sick, don’t you think?”

  And Lester was one of the more normal people there. I then sat down for a one-on-one with Bill Hassert, the managing partner of the agency. For nearly two minutes we sat in uncomfortable silence, Hassert first lighting and then puffing on a huge cigar.

  “You don’t mind, do you?” he finally asked, as if he hadn’t already lit it.

  “Not at all, Mr. Hassert.”

  “Good.” Sitting back, Hassert then let his eyes rest directly on mine. “I like a man who doesn’t mind other men sucking on these things. Don’t you?”

  Oh boy. Now coughing out of nervousness, I made to stand up. “Mr. Hassert, perhaps there’s been some mistake…”

  “Relax, relax.” Waving me back down, Hassert laughed. “I’m just kidding around. Men of my station have to smoke cigars to do business. What, you think I’m some kind of fairy?” Hassert took another long puff amid my silence. “You don’t think I’m a fairy, do you Dave?”

  “No, no. Not at all.”

  “Good.” Pausing, Hassert once more considered me. “I don’t think you’re a fairy either.”

  “Great.” Desperately, I tried turning away from a dense cloud of smoke drifting my way. “That’s just super.”

  “Although if you were, that’s fine too.” Hassert shrugged.

  I have no idea what I would have said to that one. Luckily I fell into a coughing fit from the next cloud of smoke. Hassert watched me choke and gag on his fumes in bemused silence.

  I found out later Hassert was screwing a guy from the mail room. Luckily he never asked me again about smoking his cigar.

  But here’s the best thing. One of our clients was a rock band whose guitarist got trashed and thrown into rehab. They’d heard of my past and asked me to audition with them. Within a few months I was able to quit the agency and go on tour.

  I mean, we didn’t hit the big time, but we did open up for a few national acts. And the other guys were great. Soon we were putting out our own album, making our way toward the top.

  Somehow, life had gotten back on track. I was able to see Mandy on a regular basis. I was doing what I loved, living on my own. For the moment, at least, it was all right.

  HAYLEY SYKES

  I had sex with my gay friend Nick last night. I feel really weird about it.

  Let me explain. Yesterday Nick, Beth, Garth and I were at Wild Ocean Park in Sarasota, watching the killer whale show and finalizing plans for our porn movie. We had all just decided (though Beth was being a bitch about it) to change the name from SuperKock Meets The Space Lesbos to PussyTime.

  But let me stop right there. Why do all the fucking whales at Wild Ocean Park have the same name? Every single one is named Wally. Why? It’s like, here comes Wally! Watch as Wally farts great gobs of water into the sky and pisses on a kid in the front row! Oh, look, there’s Wally sulking at the bottom of the pool! And it’s Wally again, meandering back into his holding tank before the show’s even over!

  I mean, what they fuck? Were all ten killer whales raised in some hillbilly Arkansas trailer by illiterate tard whale parents who only knew one name? Imagine that, these two stupid orcas sitting in front of a run down single-wide, wearing coveralls and straw hats, staring at a dirt yard full of old tires and busted appliances, calling all ten kids Wally! Is that what happened? I don’t think so.

  You know, and I know, they aren’t all really named Wally. The trainers have real names for each whale, I’m sure. They should really tell us what they are so we don’t have to wonder.

  So anyway, I guess Nick got all caught up in our talk of how pussy is really the one constant in the universe. (Hence the name change.) I mean, SuperKock Meets The Space Lesbos is a cool name and all, but think about it! All of life, all of everything we are, flows from the vagina. We…you, me, everybody…wouldn’t be here without them.

  “It’s like pussy is the portal to the galaxy,” Garth opined, watching a whale fling a trainer over a wall. “We couldn’t be here without them.”

  You know what? That’s kind of cool. Maybe Garth’s a little deeper than I thought.

  “What about a C-section?” Gay Nick sniffed. “Technically, you don’t need an actual vagina to give life…”

  “Dude, I only do D-sections, if you know’s what I mean,” Garth laughed, pushing at Beth so her huge boobs bounded up and down. By the way, that’s not very classy of Beth, to let him do that in public, especially with all those kids around. And if I was ten pounds overweight I’d be a D-cup too.

  So, like, we all started drinking last night, Beth and Garth go off into the other room, and then Nick and I have sex. Not anal, but real sex, I mean.

  So why’d I do it? Look, I just thought it might be cool to turn a gay guy hetro, even for one night. And he was obviously curious and all, so I said to myself, why not? And I thought it might be an interesting experience. I mean, who knows? It was worth a shot.

  And you know what? It was pretty good. And Nick really got into it. He actually cried afterwards, his head in my lap. I guess gay guys do that.

  The only problem is Nick’s upset because it’s changed his whole image of himself.

  “Now I’m bi-sexual!” he declared at breakfast the next morning. Seated around a plastic table in a fast food joint, I was worried families eating nearby might hear. “I’m 23 years old, and I’ve been a straight gay man for ten years! And now I’m bi? It just doesn’t seem possible!”

  “How can you be a ‘straight gay’ man?” Garth asked.

  “You know what I mean!” Dabbing at his eyes, Nick heaved a great sigh. “But it was wonderful,” he continued, putting his arm around me. “And Hayley here is a great teacher.”

  “Yeah, she’s super.” Rolling her eyes, Beth grabbed a french fry. “That’s why all her kids fail the FCAT every year.”

  Beth can really be a bitch sometimes.

  But then I started to wonder. Could it actually hurt gay guys to have vaginal intercourse? I’m not sure. But we had sex again this evening and it was kind of cool. He wasn’t even complaining about being bi anymore and wailing about what all his straight gay friends would think.

  Actually, I’m really beginning to like Nick. He’s smart and actually kind of sensitive. It’s kind of hard to find that in a guy, you know?

  SOPHIA DANTON

  People often ask me about the most memorable moments of my journalistic career. Actually, there are two stories I just can’t get out of my mind.

  When I was still in Hartford, right after first becoming an on-air reporter, a young teacher from the local Catholic high school was arrested for statutory rape. She was a breathtakingly beautiful girl, only 24 years old, having graduated from the same school where she now taught with straight A’s. Still living at home, she could be seen with her prominent local parents at the largest Catholic church in the area every Sunday morning.

  It turns out this young woman, the pride of the community, had begun a torrid affair with a male teacher the previous fall. They’d sneak into classrooms at night or out into his car in the mid-afternoon. On one occasion an assistant principal actually caught them coming out of a janitor’s closet, somehow believing their story of looking for a mop.
>
  Becoming bored, the two teachers had brought several students into their sex life, hosting wild parties at the male teacher’s home. Alcohol and drugs were involved. Soon somebody told their parents, who merely contacted the school principal rather than the police.

  It was agreed both young teachers would quietly resign, without fuss or scandal. The male teacher soon obtained a position across the state. A few months later his cohort in crime, the young Catholic princess, was arrested at a highway rest stop having sex with two underage boys. They were students from their previous school, on a field trip to renew acquaintances with her boyfriend.

  I’ll never forget watching this girl, so similar in age and bearing to myself, hearing the charges against her in open court. Attired in a white blouse and plaid skirt, complete with white stockings and a neat bow in her hair, she projected an image of utter purity. There wasn’t a hint of guilt or shame, not even a vague murmur of emotional mayhem.

  Soon the wooden-faced prosecutor began reading out the indictment against her, specifically detailing where and when each alleged sexual act took place. The list included every rest stop between Hartford and her boyfriend’s new home, the boyfriend’s old home, their former school, a collection of seedy motels, a few public parks, and even the home of the Catholic princess herself. Other than the prosecutor’s voice, you could have heard a pin drop. Everyone was mesmerized.

  Sitting in the courtroom’s front row, just as they occupied the foremost pew every Sunday, her mother couldn’t help flinching at the mention of each address where her daughter had fornicated with her former students, her father’s cheek developing a noticeable tick. The defendant herself seemed utterly unaffected.

  Near the end of the charge, however, the Catholic princess calmly looked around the courtroom, her eyes immediately alighting on me. For an instant her expression became hard, instantly recognizing another lioness in sheep’s clothing, wicked desires and sexual might carefully concealed from the world-at-large. Then, with a barely perceptible nod, as might a young witch acknowledging a heretofore unknown sorceress, she turned back to the proceedings.