The Roxy Letters

by Mary Pauline Lowry

  “Exactly!” Artemis yelled, tipsy herself. “The only trick is to out buster them. Expect less than the smidge they are willing to give and move on to the next one. It leaves them gagging for more.”

  Annie and I looked at each other—perplexed—but then simultaneously began drumming the table and yelling in approval.

  When it quieted I said, “Hey, random question: Why is talk of ubiquitously popular artichoke beer hilarious?”

  “Artichoke?” Artemis said.

  “You know, on the label. All the beers these days have artichokes on the label.”

  “Those are hops!” Annie howled. “Did you tell the guy who works in Beer Alley you like ‘artichoke beer’?” She and Artemis laughed so hard that when Annie fell off her chair, Artemis tried to help her up and ended up falling down on top of her. Harumph! If the sight of them, and the unexpected sense that I am now in a cool grrrl gang, had not been so pleasing, I would have been quite offended by their ridicule. How am I supposed to keep up with every food and alcohol trend in the world or know what a hop looks like, for Venus’s sake?

  Artichokedly,

  Roxy

  P.S. Late-night update: Success!!! Pure unadulterated success! I have managed to get myself off in a completely merman-free manner, using only my pointer finger, a tiny bit of coconut oil, and one very sexy story on literotica.com. I am ready for my date! Redbox! Bring it!

  August 14, 2012

  Dear Everett,

  In the end, I convinced Patrick to come to my house. That way I didn’t have to give Roscoe his insulin shot early. (If you were here, Everett, and had not bailed on me in lieu of constant fingerbanging of sexually “open” women, I would not have this dilemma and could go on a romantic date to the H-E-B parking lot like other decidedly classy, almost-thirty-year-old women.) Patrick arrived with a movie from the Redbox. The American version of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” I couldn’t argue with his feminist choice. But I admitted that picturing him at the Redbox gave me a bout of melancholy about Waterloo Video being shut down. “What about your protest?” he asked.

  “I have three signs,” I said. “I need to make twenty and I’ve got like six weeks to do it.”

  “Maybe after the movie we could make a couple more together,” he said. Then he told me all about how he’s getting into organizing shows. Rhymefest—some bff of Kanye West’s—is coming to town in a few weeks and Patrick is putting on the whole event. Apparently event organizing is one of his true passions.

  As soon as we started the movie I remembered it has an icky abusive sexual scenario as the horrid obstacle that the girl with the dragon tattoo must overcome in order to achieve her full power. This put a bit of a damper on the mood for everyone until I suggested we swap out the movie for my pre-release copy of Pitch Perfect that one of the IT twins burned for Annie. Patrick was initially reluctant—as any heterosexual man would be—to watch a movie about an all-female collegiate a capella group, but soon realized that sexy college youth shimmying and cavorting and cracking jokes serves as much better foreplay fodder than a young woman’s rape by her legal guardian. We started “Pitch Perfect” and next thing I knew we were grinding our hips together to an a capella cover of Rihanna’s “Please Don’t Stop the Music.”

  I dragged him to my bedroom. After we’d stripped off our clothes, I angled myself crossways to him so I was on my back with my legs over his hips. That way he’d have easy access to my clit as we consummated the act. But he made no moves to finger my pearl. So I finally grabbed his hand and put his finger right on the sweet spot. He rubbed for a minute but then seemed to lose interest. At that point I closed my eyes and started rubbing my clit myself. But his thrusting messed up my timing and I was getting kind of annoyed at that point anyway. I finally gave up and decided to just enjoy the warmth of a cute boy pumping into me in my cozy bed. As soon as he came he rolled over and started snoring like crazy—we are talking full-blown bump and roll here!

  I didn’t even have it in me to give myself a “seizure.” But I’ll be proud to tell Annie that I did get up, put on some pajamas, and go to the living room, where I painted two more signs—KEEP YOUR PSEUDO-FEMINISM OUT OF MY YOGA TIGHTS and CORPORATIZATION IS A LOSS FOR THE NATION—before I finally climbed into bed for good and went to sleep.

  This morning Patrick did stay for one of my famous vegan bulletproof coffees and joked it would make him unstoppable all day. If only he could have an unstoppable tongue or pointer finger! He did give me a very sweet kiss and also patted Roscoe before heading off to Beer Alley. I went straight back to bed for a self-tickling session that put my mood right. Am I destined to spend life satisfying myself sexually while reading the complete works of Silky Raven on literotica.com? To distract myself from this morbid thought, perhaps I’ll try to paint one more sign before I head in to the deli.

  Industriously,

  Roxy

  August 15, 2012

  Dear Everett,

  In theory, I am grateful that six months of the year this town is as hot as the face of the sun because I sometimes think that is the ONLY thing that keeps everyone in the United States of America from moving here. But I must say, in reality, the heat is starting to wear me down. Yesterday I arrived at work dripping sweat, but my damp clothes instantly turned to near ice in the cold blast of the store’s air-conditioning. I spent my entire shift scanning the store to see if Patrick would make his way over from Beer Alley to say hi to me. I admit it cut into my natural productivity. Finally Dirty Steve snuck up behind me and said, “What are you doing, Poxy? If you have time to lean, you’ve got time to clean.” Grrr! Dirty Steve is the worst. I suspect he knows he will one day look back on his time as the coke-snorting manager of the Whole Foods deli as his glory days and the knowledge angers and frightens him. He bested me with that rotten sushi, but don’t think I’ve let it go!

  I finally gave up on my resolve to be aloof and went over to Beer Alley on my break. I wove my way through clouds of breeders with whining little children trailing after their shopping carts (Goddess, I’m glad I don’t have kids!), but Patrick wasn’t in Beer Alley. He must have been on his break. In a fit of conviction that he had made his way to the deli to see me at the same time I’d gone to Beer Alley to see him, I raced back over to the deli counter but he was nowhere in sight. “You look like my mom’s dim-witted golden retriever when it’s chasing a ball back and forth across the living room,” Dirty Steve shouted at me over the counter. “What are you doing, anyway?” I was so embarrassed I just went back to work right away, missing most of my break. But Patrick never came by at all.

  Sheepishly,

  Roxy

  CHAPTER FIVE

  August 16, 2012

  Dear Everett,

  I was so ashamed by Dirty Steve’s comparison between myself and his mother’s dog that yesterday I pretended to myself that the near-freezing air of Beer Alley—in the manner of a poorly thought-out “high concept” sci-fi film—actually incubates a rare disease that causes those infected to instantly develop a full acne beard. I have always had strong visualization abilities and this technique actually kept me from going near Beer Alley for my entire shift.

  Last night Annie and Artemis and I decided to meet at The Highball for a beer. Let it be known that when I was a kid, the shopping center where The Highball and the hipster burger-and-a-beer-with-your-movie Alamo Drafthouse Cinema are located was nothing but a near-empty strip mall housing a cruddy grocery store and a low-budget weight-lifting gym. While I am often resistant to change and growth in this city I love, even I had to admit that The Highball and the Alamo Drafthouse were improvements. While once I would not have deigned to frequent said shopping center, I now adore going to The Highball for ironic karaoke or bowling, or just a cocktail in a Rat Pack–like setting. And the Alamo Drafthouse is the best movie theater in the world. (I mean, who DOESN’T like to get drunk at a “Grease” sing-along?) But growth and change should have limits and decency.

  When I drove up t
o where The Highball and the Alamo Drafthouse were just last week, I found a giant hole in the ground with a crane towering over it! I pulled over and texted Annie and Artemis, who agreed to meet me down the block at Maudie’s Tex-Mex for margaritas. I grilled the bartender there who said that the new construction will involve high-rise condos, chain restaurants and shops, and a parking garage. “But don’t worry,” she said. “They’ll put The Highball and the Alamo Drafthouse back in there too.”

  “They will be buried under a looming tower of new-build tackiness, and inaccessible due to gridlocked traffic!” I shouted.

  Annie and Artemis had arrived by then and maneuvered the subject away from the horrors of corporatization, allowing the bartender to gratefully slink away. The new topic was what the hell we were going to do about said corporatization. Annie whipped out a notebook and helped me outline a plan of action for the Lululemon protest that involves social media marketing, a sign-painting schedule, and drafting of chants. It was quite invigorating.

  Artemis confessed that while she’s excited about the protest, she’s growing to love her role at Lululemon as a guerrilla body-image counselor. “Today this twenty-two-year-old hard body in a size four was in the dressing room sobbing. When I asked what was wrong she said, ‘I feel fat.’ I said, ‘Good thing feelings aren’t facts. You need to wake up to what is a fact: you are young, hot as hell, and wasting it crying in a dressing room.’ ”

  “So what happened?” Annie asked.

  “She bought the tights and a top to match and strutted out of the store happy as a clam. If it weren’t for the other fact that I’m helping plot the overthrow of the store via peaceful protest, I’d say I deserve a raise.”

  Then, with absolutely no transition, Artemis said her toilet had gotten stopped up with a tampon she’d accidentally flushed the day before. After extracting it, the plumber told her to stop flushing “bloody white mice.”

  “EW!” I laughed in horror. “What a creep.”

  It’s not that I don’t love hearing about Artemis’s plumbing, but as soon as there was a natural lull in conversation, I brought up Patrick. After hearing another tale of his laziness in bed, even Artemis wanted me to chill out on pursuing him further. (“He probably doesn’t even know that only eighteen percent of women can orgasm through vaginal penetration only,” she yelled. “Jesus, this is why ‘Cosmo’ should be required reading for guys.”) She and Annie seemed to have eerily mind-melded and they gave me the exact same advice: “Do not reach out to Patrick.”

  Annie said: “I am about to drop some heteronormative, sexist-as-shit nonsense on you. And you need to listen to it. WOMEN WERE MADE TO RECEIVE. YOU ARE A VESSEL. PATRICK SHOULD BE GIVING TO YOU IN THE FORM OF TEXTS, PHONE CALLS, DATE REQUESTS, ETCETERA.”

  “At this point he should be giving to you in the form of buying your motherfucking dinner!” Artemis shouted. She was getting drunk and seemed slightly wound up. “Or at least a rip-roaring orgasm!”

  We could all cheer to that. Buoyed up by their cohesive philosophy and support, I vowed to stay away from Beer Alley for another day.

  Decisively,

  Roxy

  August 18, 2012

  Dear Everett,

  I thought about calling you tonight as I no longer feel safe in my own home. (Though given you don’t own a cell phone, I would have had to call the landline of the OM house, and the thought of some clit-crazed creepo answering caused me to lose my nerve.)

  When I rode into the driveway on my bike today after work, Captain Tweaker’s side patio was full of—you guessed it—tweakers. There were several crushed beer cans on my side of the fence, and when I entered the house and Roscoe ran up to me, I saw that he was LIMPING! As you know, he comes in and out of the backyard all day via the doggy door in the kitchen. Infuriated that these meth heads had thrown a bottle or some such detritus at my furbaby, I stormed over to the fence separating our patios, forgetting my natural caution. “Don’t you dare throw beer cans at my dog!” I yelled.

  “What are you talking about, you crazy lady?” Captain Tweaker asked. He was chomping on a mouthful of white gum and smoking a cigarette.

  “We didn’t hurt your dog,” one tweaker said. He was a grown man, but hardly taller than a girl gymnast. He, too, had a giant wad of gum in his mouth. “I love dogs.”

  In my outrage, I’d left the door cracked behind me and Roscoe trotted outside. I was sure he’d growl at the tweakers, but instead he limped toward them. The tiny tweaker reached his hand over the fence and Roscoe—as if to prove the tiny tweaker’s point about being a dog lover—jumped up to sniff his scabby hand. The tiny tweaker grabbed his paw. “Don’t you hurt him!” I yelled. The tweaker gingerly pulled a little white paint cap from between two pads in Roscoe’s front paw. “I think he was limping because of this,” he said, holding up the paint cap helpfully. I’ve been leaving sign-painting supplies all over the living room and Roscoe must have stepped on a stray paint cap. Poor thing! I felt terrible, which served to make me somehow even madder at the tweakers.

  Captain Tweaker grabbed a box of Nicorette off the table and extracted another piece of gum, which he shoved in his mouth to join the giant wad already there. He took a furious pull off his cigarette. I was dealing with seriously crazy people.

  “Well,” I said, “you can keep your litter on your side of the fence.”

  “You can keep your stinky cunt on your side of the fence and stop accusing us of crimes we didn’t commit,” Captain Tweaker said in a fake Irish accent that—though nonsensical—had the other tweakers busting up.

  A large cardboard box sitting at the edge of the patio spilled out dozens of boxes of Nicorette, which the tweakers must have lifted off a truck or something.

  “Nicorette is for after you’ve QUIT smoking,” I yelled. The tweakers laughed heartily and gave off a chorus of “Ooooh” and “Burn” as I turned around and stormed back inside, only to realize Roscoe was still out there pressing himself against the chain-link fence in order to be as close as possible to the tiny tweaker. I opened the door and yelled, “Roscoe! Get in here.” He came, but reluctantly, with a glance over his shoulder at the tweakers that seemed to say, “Isn’t my mom a drag?”

  All in all, it was an utterly humiliating experience. I’ve been watching out my window periodically as a total of seven cars have “stopped by” the tweakers’ house for a quick visit. I want those drug dealers out of here!

  With all the righteous indignation of the unjustly neighbored,

  Roxy

  P.S. I have decided I will be a doormat no longer. My home is my sanctuary and I will defend it!!!! It may take time for me to figure out how to oust the tweakers, but oust them I will. In the meantime, I will turn my vengeful energy toward a shorter-term goal—finally brainstorming revenge on Dirty Steve for intentionally food poisoning me. Perhaps I will pull a tarot card for guidance.

  Ahaha! I have drawn the Four of Wands, and with that glorious card comes a brilliant idea for revenge. The Four of Wands is a card of home and hearth. A card that says it’s a good day to stay home, drink a glass or two of cold merlot, and bake a motherfucking pan of laxative brownies for my boss! Take that, Dirty Steve.

  August 19, 2012

  Dear Everett,

  Today I casually presented a ziplock bag with a couple of brownies to Dirty Steve. “They’re not full of weed, are they?” he asked. “You freaking hippy.”

  “Weed-free,” I said. “I swear on the Goddess Venus.”

  “I shouldn’t eat this,” Dirty Steve said, as he tucked in to the first brownie. “I have serious FP.” FP is Dirty Steve’s own acronym. It stands for “Fat Potential.” And it’s true. Dirty Steve has the sort of build that could quickly slide from burly to obese.

  I was experiencing a heady mix of anticipation and anxiety thinking about Steve eating the brownies, so I considered going to see Patrick as a distraction, but I reminded myself I am a vessel, meant to receive. So instead of going to Beer Alley on my thirty-minute br
eak, I walked across the street to Waterloo Records. (Waterloo Video may be closed, but I thank Venus that Waterloo Records is still going strong, due to a combination of in-store performances by popular bands and the fact that, in addition to selling CDs, they now also sell a wide variety of novelty knickknack crap such as “Handerpants—Underpants for Your Hands!”)

  I was surprised to spot a giant new poster in the window of Waterloo Records: FAIL BETTER! splashed across the top in big black letters, over a photo of Texas and his bandmates standing in the middle of Main Street in Marfa, Texas. “Hipster bullshit,” I grumbled to myself. “Marfa hasn’t been actually cool since 2007. Marfa is dead.” I couldn’t help but notice that Texas looked pretty freaking hot in the poster, showing off his nice physique in a tight black T-shirt and jeans. In the corner of the poster was a smaller sign, announcing FAIL BETTER! would be doing an in-store performance on Friday, September 21.

  I went inside the store and found FAIL BETTER!’s new record and then sat in the listening booth for ten minutes so I could hear the first couple songs before I had to go back to work. The music was upbeat and danceable, but an edge of melancholy crept in sometimes, the sadness tingeing the joyful sounds, as if the band was saying: “Yes, today we are enjoying life. But we know that someday all we know and love will wither and die.” And then of course with the music came the happy memory of shaking my ass with Artemis at Emo’s (before the vomit drama), and it moved me more than I wanted it to, such that I was loathe to pull the noise-canceling headphones from my ears and head back to work. I have to confess that on my way out I bought the CD.

  As I walked back across the street, I felt a little sick with worry, anticipation, and even dread. When I was at home last night—enraged by the tweakers—the ex-lax brownies had seemed like a delightful and just idea, but now I was concerned I might have been momentarily possessed by the spirit of a mildly psychopathic frat boy who thinks of himself as merely mischievous. Also, after listening to the sweet sounds of FAIL BETTER! the prank seemed lacking in vision and originality. If I was to defeat my true foe, Captain Tweaker, I’d have to rise to higher heights.