BULLETHOLES IN THE MAILBOX

BUT WAIT-HE HAS ANOTHER SIDE...

GOOD GRAVY

A friend suggested I write about a five minute Kite flying session. This makes me happy, makes me laugh. How can you fly a kite for only five minutes?

Reminds me of the downstairs neighbor lady a few years ago. She asked me to come down and fry a chicken for her, and make some gravy to go with it.
While I'm makin' the gravy she comes in and looks over my shoulder and says:
"Man, you really know what you are doing, don't you?"
I say 'Yes Ma'am, I sure do" and she runs back into the living room.
I continue stirring my roux, adding the milk and some black pepper as it comes to a simmer. She appears back in the doorway, and says:
"I bet you can make love like you can make that gravy, can't you?"
To which I say:
"Are you askin' for a demonstration?" and she giggles and goes running back to the living room.
A minute goes by, and she appears back in the doorway, throws her hair back and leans suggestively against the wall and whispers:
"Well, maybe just a little one..."

I know this might sound good to ya'll right now, but the thing is she is the only woman I've ever known completely missing her two front teeth. She was nice enough, and built like a burlap bag full of bobcats too, wearin' that halter and those skin-tight Capris, but I don't think could make love to a woman with no front teeth.

All I could think to say was "Ain't no such thing as a 'little one'...gravy's ready, lets eat!".
I didn't stay to help with the dishes.
God, if she only had teeth!

“Man, you got to breathe!”

In the summer of 1980, the summer that we had 70 days in a row of 100+ degree heat, the summer that saw bugs fry in midair, the summer people ran out to their cars in the morning to start the A/C then ran back in the house waiting for the car to cool down, my girlfriend left me. Rita took the Washer and Drier with her to live in Atlanta
She left me with a car payment, a book of T.S. Elliot poems and the set of weights I got her for Christmas..
I was heartbroke, and it was hot as hell, and the only thing I had to get me through was a copy of the Air Supply album “Lost in Love”. This album contained 3 of the Top five hits going at one point that summer, and you could not turn your radio on for five minutes without hearing the title cut “Lost in Love”, or ‘Every Woman in the World” or ‘All Out of Love”.
And I couldn’t hear any one of those songs without bursting into tears.
So my boss takes me to try to cheer me up and to help with that he invites 4 gorgeous women.
But every where we go, one of those damn Air Supply songs is playing and I had to bite my lip to keep from losin’ it in front of all these gorgeous women.
I took to taking deep breaths and holding it till I turned purple to help keep my emotions in check.
And that’s what finally gave me away, when ‘All Out of love” started playing and I took a big breath and started biting my lip and began to "gulp" as my body began to starve for Oxygen. One of the girls looked at me and said “Man, you got to breathe!” I exhaled and fell into a lump in the middle of the table, bawling uncontrollably.
The next day, I took that album to the dumpster.
I stopped holding my breath for Rita to come home long ago, but I still hold my breath for Air Supply and that’s why I hate them.

MY LAST DAY AT SCHOOL, 1975

First, in my Journalism class, Mr. Washmon informed me that I had a 69 average, and that I would not pass, and therefore, would not Graduate. He said the reason (besides the fact I did not deserve to graduate) was because I never attended class, seldom turned in my work, and what I did turn in was failing as well.
So I said "Well then, doesn't 69 seem a little high to you?"
I thought I had him there.
But he just looked at me, quite pleased and said:
"I grade on a curve."
That would explain it.
So then I had to go to clean out my locker and turn in my books....except it had been so long since I had been to my locker (where my books were, I hoped) that I had to go to the office and find out my locker number and the combination. When I explained my predicament to the attendance clerk, Mrs. Ray, she just grinned and shook her head.
I bet they get one like me every year.

THE ALMIGHTY'S HAND

"As far as writing, yeah, its a blast. I will always tell people I'd write even if I didn't get paid for it. It's healthy and cathartic to express oneself, ecpecially in the arts because God created us to be creative, since his very essence is that of...Creator"

This is what a dude I went to high School with wrote me 3 years ago, back before I started this blog. Greg was always at the top of the food chain in School; Star Fullback, voted "Mr. Handsome" 3 years straight, Homecoming King and always being chased by the Cheerleading Squad. He went on to college and is now some kind of writer out in California, childrens books and such I think. I find this amazing because back in High School I wasn't sure he could spell "cat".

But he is right about one thing- this writing stuff is a blast, even if he may overestimate the Almighty's hand in it.

LIQUID DOPE

THE NEXT LEVEL

My friend Susan came to town a few years back. We went drivin' around the old stomping grounds at Grapevine Lake. She spotted one of those wineries they have up there and wanted to check it out. I'd never been in one before.
We went in and there was a dude behind a bar, handsome in a George Peppard kind of way, silver chest hairs emanating from a shirt unbuttoned at least 4 buttons down, gold chains, pinkie ring, the works. Looked like a real swinger.
Total Californication.
He's handing out wine samples, which I can have none of. I have 693 days clean and sober.

Whats going through my mind is the fact that I haven’t had so much as a sip of ANYTHING for two years, and that whatever he is serving probably is really marvelous and tasty and good and if I even take a sip for a second I’m going to remember how much I LOVE a dry red wine, how it makes me feel all ooshy-gooshy and want to start kissing everything in sight, there won’t be much stopping me from having a glass, a bottle and then just like they talk about down at NA, it will release my addiction all over again and the next thing I know I’ll be checkin’ into some No-Tell Motel with some young freak and a big fat sack of diddly-squiggly.
I’m really not supposed to be here, right?

Anyway, be that as it may, Susan looks at me, sees the look on my face and then she gets this horrified look on her face, remembers that I am an addict and a “12 Stepper” and that I should not be in a winery with a swingin’ Bartender (who is starting to look more like Dennis Hopper) presenting magnificent wines for me to have a sample of.. Its just not a good place for me to be.
She whispers “Oh my God Steve….I forgot…. I’m so sorry…we better leave!”

But I’m feeling a little stronger now, especially since Mr. Californication says it will cost 40 bucks to participate in his little Wine Tasting Chemistry Experiment.
“Its OK, I’m good” I whisper back to Susan.

He takes up the glasses from the 4 people in front of us. He asks a lady if she liked that last wine, a medium-dry Red with hints of raisins and peat moss.
“Yes” she says “It was delicious!”
“So” he says “would you like to take it up to the next level?”
The next level?
I lean to Susan and whisper ‘I’m OK, but if he pulls out a mirror and a straw I’m afraid I may have to leave.”
I know all about the next level.

We decided not to wait around and see.