A Common Pornography: A Memoir

by Kevin Sampsell

  This part of the store was dark, with only some small red lights over each station that was being used. One man lingered in the corner, like he was waiting for someone. I walked over to one of the empty booths and paused for a second and looked at him before going in. I left the door unlocked and took out some dollar bills. I heard the man try the doorknob and then the door opened and he snuck inside with me. The rules posted in the store started with “1. Only one person per booth.”

  “Can I watch?” he asked. He didn’t say what he wanted to watch, but I knew.

  I was nervous and I couldn’t get the machine to take the first dollar. It kept sliding back and forth like a tongue sticking out at me. I could hear the man breathing behind me. Finally, the dollars slid into the machine and the TV screen came to life. I pushed the button to change the channel until I found one I liked. I had my pants undone and so did the man.

  “Can I touch you?” the man asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  He was standing beside me now and I looked back and forth between the man’s hand on my dick and the screen. I reached over and held his cock in my hand and starting moving it. I felt something strange so I looked closer at him. He was skinny and slightly hunched. His face was thin, with high, almost feminine cheekbones. There was no hair anywhere on his cock and he wore a leather thing around it. A cock ring, I guessed.

  We didn’t say another word until we were done. He left me there and slipped back into the dark hallway. My time was not up yet. I stood there, surrounded by cum on the floor, watching the TV, flickering with moans and skin, until it shut off.

  Acid

  I stayed in Spokane after the breakup and met a new friend named Vincent Price, with whom I had my first acid experience. That night was so much more memorable—and positive!—than the first time I had sex. Part of the downtown area was sectioned off, and makeshift basketball courts were everywhere. We found a ball and played in the dark for a few hours, laughing hysterically. Then, out of nowhere, some kids—they seemed to be about thirteen years old—drove up to us in two golf carts. They offered us rides, and we got in and let them speed us through Riverfront Park on the walking trails. The headlights weren’t too strong, and we almost crashed a few times before they dropped us off by our bikes.

  We rode to a Safeway around five in the morning and bought orange juice, because Vince said it was “good for visuals.” We sat on the curb outside and watched the painted handicap symbol on the pavement bubble and expand. It was glorious.

  Around eight in the morning we were finally ready to sleep a little. We rode our bikes over the little bridges of downtown Spokane. Our bodies seemed to be humming a song no one else could hear.

  The Outlaw

  I worked at the radio station on weekends and, after quitting the job at the record store, at a Tex-Mex restaurant called The Outlaw during the week. There were only five others who worked there and four of them were family. A husband, wife, brother, and son. The son was only about thirteen but he hung out there a lot, sometimes doing homework and helping out with the dishes when it got busy. The brother, who was the main cook, would sometimes have diabetic seizures and the rest of us would have to make him drink orange juice. The drinks were served in glasses shaped like old cowboy boots.

  I remember being really impressed about how the husband ran the family business with such an easygoing nature. He was always telling his wife that he loved her and called his son honey or sweetie. It was the first time I heard a dad call his son names like that and it caught me off guard, especially because I thought the son would protest or be embarrassed. But he wasn’t. They were a close family. Whenever I saw a family like that anywhere, I would watch them carefully, as if they were a rare species of animal. I would want to go and join them. Feel that unbreakable bond.

  I remember thinking that if I had a son, I would call him honey.

  Dog Grave

  When I first moved away from the Tri-Cities, Mom and Dad kept my dog, Scooter, for a while and then decided to give him away. He was about eight years old. Dad placed an ad in the paper and one couple responded to take him. Scooter went to live with this couple somewhere out in the country.

  A couple years later, Dad decided to covertly check on him. He found out where the family lived and drove out there. He saw Scooter, chained up in a big empty backyard, and felt bad for him. Scooter saw him and ran toward him but couldn’t reach Dad’s hand. He wagged his tail and whimpered and barked. Dad told him that he’d be back to see him again soon.

  The next week, he went back out and saw Scooter again. This time, the man who had taken him was there, working in the front yard. Dad talked to him and realized that the man and his wife had not given Scooter the attention and freedom that they promised. He talked the man into giving Scooter back.

  Mom called me the next day and told me Scooter was back at home with them. She told me the story about Dad getting him back and I tried to imagine the whole thing. I went to Kennewick for a visit soon after that and played with Scooter a lot. I was sad and confused as to why they got rid of him in the first place, so this reunion felt like a second chance that I never thought I’d get. I realized that this was something rare and that I was lucky. I thought about all the people who loved their dogs until they died and how they probably all had dreams about playing with their dogs one last time. Sometimes you don’t know when that last time will be.

  Scooter seemed the same to me, maybe just a little slower and older. Some gray hairs around his nose and mouth. I talked to him in a funny dog voice—part Scooby-Doo, part baby talk. I told him that I loved him and that he was always my best friend.

  About a year later, Mom told me that Scooter was sick and they took him to the vet, who found cancer in his stomach and said he would have to be put to sleep. I was too far away and too broke to come back to Kennewick. Two days later, they went to the vet for the final time.

  Dad took Scooter’s body, wrapped in his favorite dog blanket—one that I had given him when he was a puppy—and drove to some hills somewhere between Kennewick and Walla Walla. It was close to a highway that he had worked on and a place he once took Scooter to run free. He dug a grave, buried him, and said a prayer.

  Big Dipper

  It almost seemed easy for a while. Vince and I would walk around as the third band played and nonchalantly steal as much beer off tables as we could. By that time of night most people at the Big Dipper were juiced up beyond awareness anyhow. It was economical and mischievous. Sometimes the people would be standing just inches away as we emptied their bottles or pitchers into our glasses. During the encore we’d find some girls to scam on and were pretty lucky most of the time, even if it just meant making out for five minutes in a Denny’s parking lot. There was one girl named Alison who always went out with band guys. One night she was standing at the bar looking bored while some punk band played for ten people out on the floor. Vince was daring me to go kiss her and she looked over at us and kind of smiled. “She knows what we’re talking about,” Vince said. Alison looked over at us and kind of laughed, even though she couldn’t hear us. Vince had slept with probably more girls in Spokane than I had. Finally I slid out from behind our table, banging my knees and sloshing our pints, and stumbled over to Alison. I didn’t really know her at all; she was just a girl I’d see at the clubs all the time, and to her I was just some guy who drove his motorcycle in the snow. “I’m bored,” she said. I leaned down toward her and reflexively she turned her mouth up to me and we shared an unbridled fifteen-second kiss.

  Empty Nest

  At some point in the late eighties, after I left home, Mom and Dad went to visit Elinda, who was living in a community housing project in Seattle. Elinda had arranged for Mom to go with her the next day to the Museum of Flight. Dad was irate at not being invited, and after everyone went to bed, Elinda heard the loud bang of a fist hitting something in the next room.

  Gentle Dental

  I wasn’t blaming anyone but myself. I had bad te
eth.

  I could blame the numerous candy bars stolen from the grocery store across the street from my parents’ house. I could blame my parents for being burned out, raising five children before me, and not paying attention to a damned thing I ever did, much less make me brush my teeth. I could blame the mean orthodontist who scolded me too lightly for not brushing, not wearing my rubber bands, not changing my rubber bands often enough, letting them snap in my mouth from time to time. No, it was simply my fault, and I regretted my actions.

  Having a root canal could be enough to convert you to a new religion. I’d always thought that death by dentistry would be the most awful way to go—worse than being burned alive or drowning—some guy grinding a syringe into your jaw while you slobber all over yourself with that burned clay taste on your tongue.

  When I saw the Yellow Pages ad for Gentle Dental, I was immediately swayed. My job gave me insurance and as much as I wanted to avoid it I knew it had to be done. I was popping about eight aspirin a day to combat my toothache, and had all but stripped any chewing duties from the left side of my mouth.

  Once in the chair, I was given the option of wearing headphones. It was when dentists were doing these “extra” things for patients, and because I didn’t want to have to make small talk with the dentist and his assorted assistants while they stuck their fingers and metal tools in my mouth, I said yes. One of the assistants, who looked like Joyce DeWitt from Three’s Company and seemed to purposely rest her chest on my right arm as she scraped my teeth, eagerly told me about a new “virtual reality” system they had just installed. Being pro-anything that would distract me from whatever pain I was about to endure, I said sure. I didn’t know what I was getting into, but I pictured skiing down steep slopes covered in soft snow or maybe parachuting out of an airplane. Instead, what I had to choose from were A Motown Tribute to Smokey Robinson, a Final Four basketball game from three years before, and a walking tour of Italy. The assistant fished out some embarrassing goggles and plugged them into a machine that looked like a VCR. I put on the headphones and goggles and wondered how the hell they were going to maneuver around them. I saw the stage at the Apollo in the goggles but it wasn’t even 3-D and the picture seemed annoyingly fuzzy. I could hear the opening beats of “Going to a Go-Go” but it wasn’t in my headphones. It was coming from elsewhere in the room and I wasn’t sure what was going on. The dentist and his assistant started working on my mouth and, under the impression that I was being thoroughly entertained, pretty much ignored me. I wondered if they had numbed me yet and started to grow panicked. They stretched a piece of rubber around my ailing tooth and framed it with a couple of cold metal bars that rested uncomfortably on my face. I couldn’t tell if it was Smokey Robinson on the stage or not, the reception of the goggles was crap. The dentist sang slowly and menacingly along, thinking that I could not hear him. I grunted a few times and the assistant asked me if the goggles were working, if everything was okay. I couldn’t say anything so I made a nuh-uh sound with my throat. She pressed her breasts into me and lifted the headphones from my ears. “Maybe these aren’t plugged in,” she said. I heard the dentist get up and leave and then her tinkering around with certain wires on the virtual reality machine. Finally, there was music coming from the headphones and she put them back on my ears. I squinted to see what was going on in the goggles and saw a close-up of Elton John, complete with feathery sunglasses. The music in the headphones was nice and clear but I instantly realized it was not going with the visuals. I heard mandolins, fiddles, some piano. Elton John was really getting into it, whatever it was, but I heard someone speaking Italian instead. It must’ve been the walking tour of Italy.

  The dentist returned and patted me on the shoulder. I could see him under the bottom of the goggles. I grunted a little. “You want me to turn up your headphones?” the assistant asked. I lifted my hand slightly and pointed down. “Turn it down?” I nodded as much as I could and the volume went low enough that I could hear the Motown show playing on a small speaker somewhere else. The dentist was singing along again. This time with the Four Tops. I tried to drift off. I closed my eyes and concentrated on Joyce DeWitt. I had always liked Joyce DeWitt more than the others. The rubber thing stretching across my mouth and cheeks was wet with my numb gum slobber. I was almost queasy. George Michael was singing a blue-eyed soul version of “Tears of a Clown.” I opened my eyes a little and noticed that he was wearing sunglasses too. “That George Michael can sure sing, can’t he?” the dentist commented to himself. “Hhmmph,” said the assistant.

  Spokane Girls

  At my worst, I was seeing three different girls, with my eyes on a fourth.

  First there was a sad and mysterious redhead named Ingrid, who gave me a ride home once and later began sneaking me into her basement bedroom, with her parents sleeping above us. The only social thing we did was go to her friend Molly’s apartment to drink beer. There would be the three of us plus Molly’s boyfriend and some army guy who was always trying to scam on Ingrid. They’d sit around and talk about their favorite local bands and listen to Operation Ivy.

  Only a day or two after I started seeing Ingrid, I got together with Lisa, whom I was infatuated with because she looked like Sherilyn Fenn. I walked her home one night and nervously held her hand. I knew she was going out with a really dumb bass player and I tried to convince her that writers made better boyfriends. She said she had a secret dream of being a children’s book author. It was a romantic notion, but ultimately sad. She didn’t even know who Maurice Sendak was.

  The third victim of this triangle was Laura, who was the only real poet I met in Spokane. She worked as a nurse, and I met her one night at a club where I was preparing to do a poetry reading. She wore stretch pants with skeletons on them and said her favorite bands were T. Rex and the Stone Roses. I wasn’t physically attracted to her, but her personality intrigued me more than the others and she had a round face that made me want to cup it and kiss it softly. During my reading that night I played a cassette deck on the stage with the mixed sounds of industrial scrapings and an audience laugh track. I turned this up loud and stripped down to my boxers. I went out the side door of the Big Dipper and walked around the block like that. When I reentered two minutes later, I had a bag of candy and passed it out to the audience. Then, back onstage, I put my clothes back on. During that time, before I even began to read from my erratic pile of rants and poems, Laura said she fell in love with me.

  Of course, there’s always an outside disruption, something, someone, that will not let you rest easy, will not let your loins settle down and concentrate on just one (or two or three) person(s). But Sarah, a punk girl who walked tall along the downtown sidewalks, with the high black leather boots and short spiky blond hair and perfect European model lips, would not take me seriously.

  Sarah was young, independent, smart, and somewhat aloof with the popular boys in the band scene. Everyone knew she was unique and maybe the sexiest girl in town, but she seemed to be holding out for someone special. Not your usual Spokane dude—a Rainier-swigging, pot-smoking tattooed boy—but someone different. And sure, Spokane had its group of weirdo “other” artist types—guys who turned their warehouse apartments into Goth-rock haunted mazes for Halloween, that tall Asian-looking guy who made short films of people squirming around in bathtubs full of pudding, and even that band who used lawn-mower engines to simulate a symphony.

  But I was the only young guy in town who was publishing his poems and doing readings at rock clubs. I was unique and maybe a little bit insane. Someone once called me the Poet Laureate of Spokane.

  Still, Sarah was cool as crushed ice, and even though we became friends and confessed guilty pleasures to each other (she liked Seal, I liked Suzanne Vega), her demeanor was never flirty and she became the subject of much unrequited lust poetry.

  I thought I could be happy with Lisa. I thought I could be with her and let the others slide to the sides. But being perpetually lonely, bored, and horny was a burden. />
  When Lisa wanted a night out with her gossipy friends, I would find myself running into Laura at one of the two good clubs and going home with her. She lived only a block from me, so it was also convenient. We could practically yell each other’s names out our windows.

  Or Ingrid would call me, wanting a ride to Molly’s apartment. One night, while sitting around at Molly’s, I caught Ingrid and the army guy kissing in one of the rooms. I know I had no right to be mad but it caught me off guard and I left. A few nights later, at a party somewhere on the outskirts of Spokane, in some barn somewhere, one of Ingrid’s friends started yelling at me about how I was such a jerk and how I made her get together with the army guy. It was so dramatic. I thought I was going to get my ass kicked.

  The nights I spent in Lisa’s little apartment were great and made me feel like I was in a real relationship. We would sleep in together and she would make espresso in this tiny machine in her kitchen. In fact, she was always making espresso, even at night. We’d lie in bed, listening to Galaxie 500, and sip our homemade lattes. When we’d have sex, I could taste espresso all over her body. It seemed to ooze from her skin. Before I moved out of Spokane though, in the summer of 1991, Lisa went incommunicado on me. She thought she was pregnant and wasn’t sure how to talk to me about it. But she wasn’t pregnant, and a few years later I would see her again and she was still the same giggly girl from before, which, for some reason, didn’t seem quite right.