And then there will be categories that acknowledge producing a climax in a woman: OBI (Orgasm By Intercourse), OBM (Orgasm By Mouth), OBH (Orgasm By Hand), and OBOT (Orgasm By Other Thing, such as a slipper or a belt buckle). And one last category—there should be one for decency of mind—the ACONPS, Acceptance Of Non-Playboy Standards, which can be very difficult for men brainwashed at an early age by airbrushed pornography. Other categories to consider could be the CL, Clitoris Located, and the NCM, No Condom Mishaps, but I am worried that the card not be too cluttered looking.
Now, not having any precedent for a statistical year of lovemaking, I’m not sure what will constitute a good season—thirty GHI’s or fifty? Twenty-four OBM’s, eight PYAA’s, and thirty-six OBH’s? Regardless, keeping track of my sexual performance will be a worthwhile endeavor, and I am curious to see how I will do this season.
Well, I think that just about covers the Sex Card, and so I must end this discussion—also, life is intruding. I am currently stationed in New Jersey at my parents’ house, where I am with my son for the next three weeks, during his long Christmas vacation, and he just came in and asked for breakfast and I quickly tried to close this document on the computer. I didn’t want him to see what his father was writing, but he managed to see “Non-Playboy Standards” and laughed. Then we ended up just now having a sexual-education conversation. He took from my windowsill, where there are various odd knickknacks, a little square cardboard condom holder. It was one of those novelty condoms that you get in toilets in bars across America. Someone gave this condom to me years ago and stupidly I never threw it out. This particular novelty condom claimed to be fudge-covered. My son sat down on my bed and studied the condom package and said to me, “Me and my friend found a whole roll of condoms in this abandoned truck. It was sick! We set one of them on fire. The thing really burned.”
“Playing with matches. That’s not good,” I said, though it intrigued me to imagine a burning condom. I then decided I should tell him how to properly use a condom, rather than setting one on fire. “Let’s open this condom up,” I said, “and see if it’s really fudge-covered.”
We opened the thing up and there was no fudge on the red condom that emerged from the little box. “What a rip-off,” I said. “I guess it melted.”
“ ‘Keep at room temperature,’ ” my son read from the box.
“Well, let me explain to you how to use a condom,” I said. “You unroll it onto your penis—”
“I learned this in the fifth grade and this year in the seventh grade,” said my son.
“Well, some things are good to learn over and over,” I said, and my son is certainly nearing the age when he might actually put a condom on. He’s nearly thirteen, has grown two inches since the summer, reaching the height of five feet nine, and is sporting blond peach fuzz on his chin and upper lip. Also he asked me if we can rent a movie he spotted at Blockbuster, Breast Men.
So I unrolled the condom and put it on my index finger. “Now, after the condom is on, you then put your penis inside the woman and move around and it feels good for you and for the woman.” I made an upward motion with my condom-covered finger to demonstrate penetration.
“I don’t need visuals,” said my son, properly chaste.
I continued with my lecture, without further hand gestures: “And the condom, when you have an orgasm, prevents you from getting the woman pregnant and also protects you against any sexual diseases that could be exchanged.”
“Sick!” he said to cover up his genuine, burgeoning interest. I took the condom off and threw it away. My son then stood up and launched an attack on me. My life with my son is like a Pink Panther movie. I’m Inspector Clouseau and my son is the Chinese manservant. He is always leaping out of doorways and giving me karate chops to the neck, and stuffed animals are always falling on me from door frames. And when secret attacks aren’t launched, he’s like this enormous young bear cub always wanting to engage me in wrestling and finger fights and tickle fights (he looks like a teenager but is still very much a little boy).
So after I threw the condom away, he lunged at me and went to grab my fingers to bend them back, but I bent his fingers back, and even though I was causing him mild pain, he was giggling madly and then he tried to bite my wrist. He’s always trying to bite me when we have these finger fights, and it has me mildly concerned.
“No biting!” I shouted. I fought him off for a good two or three minutes and then pleaded, “Let me just finish writing and then we’ll have the whole day together. I’ll make you some eggs, then we’ll go for a hike, it’s not too cold. Then we’ll go to the Y and play basketball, and then tonight we’ll rent Breast Men.” This final supplication seemed to get through to him and the attack came to an end.
Well, as I finish up here at my desk and happen to glance at the discarded condom in the garbage can to my right, I think of the sex lesson I just taught my son and I worry about his future. I hope he won’t turn out too troubled because of me. I hope he manages to have a good sex life, a good life. I hope he’s a Ken Griffey, Jr., to my Ken Griffey, Sr. I hope he’s a better player than his dad.
The Mangina Is Optional
I HAVE ONE CHAIR and I was sitting in it. I looked out the window. The sky was gray and lifeless, edging toward end-of-the-day darkness. And all the chimneys were smoking, exhaling white clouds, heating up apartments for people coming home from work. It was like a bunch of old men puffing on pipes. It was lovely. And I was lonely. I was afraid. But afraid of nothing. No one was coming to get me, but I often feel like they are.
I got out of the chair and into the bath. Soothed my asshole with the warm water. I need baths. My asshole needs baths. I felt better lying there. Wished I wasn’t so scared of life half the time. Scared to live. Scared to die. But it’s a good thing we die. Otherwise there’d be no urgency. No reason to do anything. There’s hardly any reason now, but we’ve got to fill up the time. Like reading before going to sleep. You need to do something before it’s over. And then there’s the heart. We love. We love other people. That keeps you busy. But it’s also what makes the dying terrible. I don’t want anybody to die. I’m afraid of them dying. So baths are good. You’re suspended. Warm. Your asshole stops burning with fear.
I got out of the bath and got dressed. Jacket and tie. The works. Then winter coat and hat. Then I grabbed my suitcase filled with my props and headed out. The sky was black now and I walked down First Avenue to Performance Space 122, to my off-off-Broadway, one-man show of storytelling—Oedipussy.
On the way, I passed the old, wildly stooped man who prays to Virgin Marys wherever he can find them. This time he was praying in front of the Mary painted on the wall by Ricky’s, the odd little gift store on the corner of First and Third. I like Ricky’s. I go in there sometimes to look at the Richard Kern book of naked girls or the little Taschen erotic-photo books.
And the old man, the Mary worshiper, I’ve also seen him many times up on Second Avenue, stooped in front of the Spanish church, looking in the window at the Virgin there. He holds on to these metal bars and you can just see the icon through a sliver of glass, surrounded by her red candles. He stares at her so intently, his lips moving with words, his posture that of someone pleading.
I also saw him in front of another church, again because of a Mary, but I can’t remember where. And he’s always immaculately dressed—jacket and tie and hat—though his shoes are worn down since he has to drag them. He’s horribly bent, like a crooked finger, his chest parallel to the ground, a caricature of curvature, of old age. So he leans on his aluminum cane, shuffling from Virgin to Virgin. But I don’t know if she’s doing him any good. He looks more frightened than me, unless it’s the pain from his back that contorts his face with worry. And it’s kind of a paradox, but he’s so pious-seeming, one wonders why he needs to pray so much, but then it’s all the prayer that makes him holy. Though maybe he’s praying because he’s burning with guilt from some terrible misdeed, a guilt so burdensome he’s be
nt in two, or perhaps he is holy after all and is simply praying for others. I’ll try to think of him that way from now on.
So I passed him in front of Ricky’s, and when I got to Fourth Street, I thought, Five blocks to go, and at Fifth Street, I thought, Four blocks to go. Then midway between Fifth and Sixth there was a crowd of people hovering in front of the two Indian restaurants, which compete with each other by seeing who can have more Christmas bulbs in their windows and on their walls and ceilings. And usually I don’t mind people, but this crowd annoyed me profoundly. When I’m on my way to my show, I can’t stand it when human beings clog the sidewalks or stop suddenly in front of me. I want them to behave like cars. I wish people had directional signals on their hips. If they’re going to stop, they should signal and then pull over to the side. Too often they stop in the middle of the sidewalk, oblivious to me, and give no directional or flash any brake lights. Out of my way, you idiot, I think privately. But I only have such thoughts when I’m expected somewhere nerve-racking, like a performance. And here in front of the Indian restaurant was this ridiculous gaggle of twenty-something fools, happy and talking, excited to eat Indian food. All the boys still had hair on their heads, and all the girls still had nice asses in their jeans. I had to go into the avenue to pass them. Rude young idiots, I thought. I couldn’t even take pleasure in the girls’ asses.
Then between Sixth Street and Seventh Street, my mood was vastly improved when I passed a good-looking dog, a dark brown Lab. We locked eyes for a moment—two lovers from a former life reunited—and I felt quite happy. A good omen for the show. I love dogs. Just their gleeful eyes can turn my whole spirit around.
At the theater, I set up my stage and then annoyed this fine fellow, Ben, who runs the lights, by telling him, like I do every show, that I was scared and didn’t want to perform, and then I went out to get my coffee. I almost always go to the Bendix, but before two shows I went to the Korean deli on the corner of Ninth and both those shows ended up being bad. So, like a baseball player, I must observe my superstitious rituals. Thus, Bendix coffee in hand, I returned to the dressing room, thirty minutes before curtain. I then endured the terrible preshow process of peeing and shitting several times. I have found out that I am not alone in this need for constant evacuation right up until the moment one goes onstage—a fellow P.S. 122 performer says he goes through the same thing.
But I can’t stand all this peeing and shitting, especially the shitting. I worry that I won’t get everything out of me, and if I’m onstage and still have something in my intestines, maybe I won’t perform well. But also by evacuating so much, I worry that I am losing all my chi, all my energy, out of my ass.
I go onstage at seven thirty-five, and it was about seven-fifteen on this particular night and I was taking a break from the toilet and just sitting there in my dressing room staring at the mirror. I was filled with self-doubt. Why do I do what I do? Why do I tell everyone these stories from my life? Why do I make a clown of myself? Then I heard footsteps on the back stairs that lead to the dressing room.
“Mangie?” I called out. Mangie is my tender nickname for my one cast member, my good friend Harry Chandler, known to many now simply as the Mangina, in honor of his wearing his prosthetic vagina, which complements his prosthetic leg, which he must wear, though, unlike the Mangina, which is optional.
“Yes, Jonathan, it’s me,” he said, and then he was in the room and sat down next to me in front of the long horizontal mirror. We looked at each other in the glass. It was a solemn, quiet look. We both made morbid, sad clown faces. The minutes before a performance are like the minutes before an execution.
“What are we doing, Harry?” I said, breaking the silence. “We are making fools of ourselves.”
“I know,” said Harry. “It’s penance for all our sins. It’s 1999, we’ve got to do something. All those years I was trying to get women to look at my scrotum in sneaky ways, and now I’m out there humiliating myself . . . a man trapped behind a Mangina. The Mangina is my penance.”
“Yes, you’re like the man behind the iron mask, but instead you’re behind a plastic vagina.”
“But on the positive side, I think it’s a joyful penance,” said Harry, “because I’m atoning and people are laughing.”
“That’s good. But what’s my penance? I’m confessing all the time. But how can I atone?”
“Why don’t you wear the Mangina?”
“No, that’s not for me. . . . The Mangina is your cross to bear. Maybe you could make me a plastic dunce cap, except it would have a penis coming out of it. I would have to wear that for three months and be laughed at until I was humiliated to the point of being a spiritually pure human being.”
“Do you want me to make it out of a mold of your penis or mine?”
“Mine, I guess. It’s the one that gets me into trouble.”
“That’s why I think you should wear the Mangina. You can’t get into trouble when you wear a Mangina.”
Then this soul-searching conversation was interrupted by Ben. He poked his head into the dressing room and said, “About five minutes, Jonathan.”
“Okay,” I said. So I went into the bathroom and was quite at ease, and this is because I’ve grown ever closer to Harry during the course of Oedipussy, such that I am now able to sit on the toilet, which is only separated from the dressing room by a door, and relieve myself even while he’s there. The first week of performances, I had to ask him to leave the dressing room, but now, like a lover, I don’t mind if he hears me defecate. He’s very tolerant. When you wear a Mangina, it makes you accepting of others.
I had what I hoped was my last bowel movement a little past seven-thirty and then came back into the dressing room and began to hop up and down to get warmed up. Harry was setting up his computer. He’s backstage almost the whole show—until he comes out and shows the Mangina for two minutes—so he does computer drawings to pass the time. He’s been doing a series of perverted portraits of me, all featuring my large beakish nose and thin hair, and now he was working on a design of my dunce cap.
“I’m going to give the audience their money’s worth tonight,” I said, trying to pump myself up.
“Yes, you will,” said Harry, playing the loyal cheerleader.
I stopped hopping up and down. “I feel weak,” I said. “I think I’ve left my show in the toilet.” I then cupped my hand and held it under my ass so that no more chi could fall out.
“What are you doing?” asked Harry.
“Making sure no more energy falls out of my ass.”
“You eat too much gluten,” said Harry, who’s very anti-gluten. “And you eat in restaurants too much. That’s your problem. You’re loaded with bad restaurant bacteria, that’s why you’re shitting so much.”
“I cooked at home today.”
“Well, then I don’t know what your problem is. I guess you’re insane.”
“Don’t say that before I’m going to perform. And look who’s talking. I’m not the one who wears a Mangina.”
“That’s so easy—make fun of the Mangina. Everybody turns on the Mangina. At first they like it and then they turn. I have no women. No family. Everyone rejects the Mangina.”
“I’m sorry, Harry.”
“That’s all right. You’re actually the only person who has stuck by the Mangina. Did I tell you my father sent me my birth certificate? He’s disowned me. Thinks I’ve destroyed the family name by connecting it with the Mangina.”
I put my hand on my friend’s shoulder. Then Ben came into the dressing room and said, “Places.”
It was a good show that night. My best one yet. It was a large, raucous crowd, and there were three pretty girls up front. They inspired me. I kept talking about my penis. I told the girls if they were interested they could contact me care of New York Press. They smiled. They smiled like they liked me. I can see them in my mind, sitting there, beaming. It’s a sweet thought. I wish I could go back in time and get on my knees and crawl to them and put m
y head in their laps and look up at those smiles and ask them individually, “Are you my mommy?” Which is my way of saying, “Do you love me?”
So the show went well, I gave everybody their money’s worth, and then Harry and I went out for dinner—my treat. Afterward we both felt sick.
“See, it’s restaurants,” he said.
“You’re right,” I said.
Then at the corner of my street we shook hands and said good night. But then I asked him, “Which leg is the fake one?” He walks so well with his prosthesis, just a slight limp, that you can’t really tell which one he’s dragging, and I always forget.
“The left one,” he said.
I was feeling a little nutty, what with having performed and the nausea after dinner, so I asked, “Can I kick it?”
“Okay,” he said. But before I could kick him, he swung his fake leg into my shin.
“That hurts!” I cried, and I limped around in a circle, trying to shake it off.
“That’s the one advantage to having a fake leg.”
“Well, I’m sorry I wanted to kick you. I deserve the pain,” I said.
“You do deserve it.”
“God, that thing is like armor. You really should make your whole body prosthetic, to go along with the Mangina and the leg. You’d be invincible.”
Harry smiled. He liked the idea of invincibility. Then we shook hands again and limped off in opposite directions.
Epilogue
Of Loneliness and Dipsomania: My Trip to Europe
FOR YEARS I’VE BEEN COMPLAINING that I’m obsessed with sex because I haven’t had enough money to travel. I kept imagining that if I did something decent, like see the world, I wouldn’t be thinking all the time about women’s asses and breasts and legs. Not to mention my occasional homoerotic fantasies where some man pistol-whips me with his cock—reveries brought on by an emotional longing for my father that I haven’t resolved and perhaps never will.
What's Not to Love?: The Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Young Writer Page 22
