AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL CONVERSATION WITH AN EX-OTHER MAN'S EX: Of Breakfast Meetings at Dawn, Pointless Bickering, and Growing Apart with Age...

RICHMOND, Ind. (ZP) -- For a guy who's spent a good portion of his life as a professional night owl, I'm perpetually surprised at how much I actually enjoy breakfast dates.

Sitting in an ancient diner full of ancient Hoosiers, sipping weak Midwestern-strength coffee, watching the sun rise to the east. It's a thing of beauty, sure, watching shades of gray and indigo give way to reds and yellows and pinks across the lines in working people's faces...

Seriously, a few years ago, eating "breakfast" meant sucking down a greasy plate of eggs and bacon before hitting the sack, a quick, sloppy meal in preparation for a few hours of sleep - I used to be one of those guys who believed that starting the day early meant getting up before the ass-crack of noon. Now, well, sleeping in, for me, is being in bed at 9 a.m.

I've become, and without much regret, something of a morning person.

My dining companion is not. And this isn't exactly a breakfast meeting either of us what to have. But, through an odd quirk of life, we're obligated to hold nonetheless.

"Man, how the hell are you up this early? When I called you were going out drinking. That was, what? Midnight? I hit the road at two or so..."

"Got to bed by two-thirty, and, well, the alarm went off at seven."

"Um, most normal people turn their alarm clocks off on the weekends."

"Well, I'm not exactly the most normal guy."

Buttercup* swirled her coffee-flavored creamy sugar, nodded.

"You know, you're such a fucking Townie. You don't really change, your style doesn't change, and... well, in all honesty, dude, I'm not shocked you're in that fucking town. You're boring as hell..."

"Chica, I am a creature of habit. And what's wrong with Townies--"

Just then the waitress arrived with our food - huge plates of bacon and sausage and eggs, hash browns and biscuits. Buttercup immediately tore into her plate - she'd been on the road for a while after playing Designated Driver all night.

Apparently, she's doing better with the whole anorexia thing, I thought as I watched her eat.

* * * *

We were supposed to have breakfast in Oxford. Plans changed when I informed her that this was Parents Weekend at the ol' Local U, that we'd be waiting for hours just to cram into the few breakfast places Oxford has.

And, well, she'd have to make a detour on her trip from Cleveland to Indianapolis, a 60-mile detour back to a town she, in all honesty, has no desire whatsoever to ever step foot in again.

Hell, she'd never wanted to step foot in Cleveland again. But, well, a person she didn't even like had died, and, well, in true Roman Catholic fashion she'd driven back to her hometown to spend time mourning over that loss with people she can't fucking stand.

"... Oh, hey! Before I forget... Mom told me to tell you hi. Says I'm supposed to ask you about some black chick you're seeing."

"Oh, huh... well, I was seeing this multi-ethnic chick a while back, but we--"

"Heard she was a child, dude. A kid or something? Like, really, really too young for you. And what the fuck is 'multi-ethnic,' dude?"

Caught off guard. It's a trait of those with a vagina in her family.

"______ was 22, just so you know. Good kid. Just didn't work out. And we weren't dating or anything--"

Buttercup snickered.

"Oh, it was 'just a fling,' right? Like I said, you don't change."

This time, I'm the one snickering. More of a smirk, really. I've been told by Buttercup and God knows how many women I've slept with that this is one of my most condescending qualities.

* * * *

"Well, how old were you, Missy, when we were hooking up? About the same age, if I recall... but, well, refresh my old-ass memory here..."

The conversation ends for a second. We both killed off our breakfasts at the same time. And then, out of nowhere, in true Buttercup fashion, a melodramatic sigh and tossing of hair, a lesson in eye-rolling perfection.

As funny as it may seem, I once found these displays of hers to be quite the turn-on. But, well, as we sat there, I found it hard to believe that we'd ever slept together, that she'd been my first real local relationship attempt...

"Oh, well... since you didn't go all emo and blog about it - not that I read that fucking thing anymore - I guess the age thing didn't matter, huh?"

In hindsight, well, I'm thinking that was meant to cut deep.

As we talked, I just laughed.

Oh sure... it'd be kinda boring if I did put up every damned relationship, hook-up, and breakup online...

* * * *

As we were leaving, she bummed a smoke. Supposedly still a militant anti-smoker, well, she's always had this nasty habit of lecturing people about their vices while simultaneously asking to share in them - at no cost to her, of course.

I dropped the tailgate of my pick-up, and we sat there, in silence, for a long time listening to the buzzing, increasingly congested Interstate traffic in the distance.

"Ya know, don't take this the wrong way, but I can't believe we ever hooked up. I mean, EVER, dude. You're really not my type."

Buttercup crushed out her bummed smoke on the pickup bed, tossed the butt to the side, then, without asking, took another of my smokes from the pack.

"Meh... if I had a type, you'd probably not be mine, either," I said, lighting her cigarette. "I mean, maybe it's because we were just... lonely? Oxford's made people do strange things, chica."

Buttercup laughed and put her hand on my calf. As I turned my head, I noticed she had this impish look, those big brownish-green orbs on each side of her cute nose dancing with her eyelashes...

Okay, so maybe I do know why we hooked up in the first place, years ago... The eyes, well, and her Eggplant Parmesan...

I realized she was mockingly fluttering her eyelashes. Apparently, I'd stared a bit too long...

"Okay... dude... I think we hooked up because you're really smart and used to date a famous chick, and, well, let's be honest here, I'm smoking hot and kinda shallow, and we both fuck and fight like animals. But, yeah, it probably was the loneliness..."

"...And the boredom, hon," I added, lighting another cigarette. "God, I mean, we were only hanging out for, what, a few months, weeks? And how much of that was just arguing..."

Buttercup, again, does the fluttery eyelash thing. This time, her creepy, perfectly plucked eyebrows rise like the tide. She looked away, stood up suddenly. The eleven-year-old shocks barely moved with the loss of such light weight.

She had to hit the road to make it back to Indy in time to meet up with another, more recent, ex, to get the keys back to her apartment and to finalize what sounded to be a nasty break-up.

The guy in question, she said, reminded her of me. I took her statement as a compliment.

Without so much as a hug or goodbye, I watched as she sped off for the westward on-ramp...

- # # # -

* NOTE - Name changed to protect the guilty.

ON THE ROAD 2008: On Getting Caught Checking Out a Woman's Ass, Rich Old Wives and Old Worried Hubbies, & Being Anything But a Gentleman

Behind all their personal vanity, women themselves always have an impersonal contempt for Woman.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

NAPLES, Fla. (ZP) -- The old man stood there, staring into the storefront, mouth gaping.

"Good lord, she does this every goddamn year!"

Inside the store a woman looking roughly half his age stood at the register. It took not one or two clerks to bag her purchases but four. In one bag went the pairs of hundred dollar jeans. In another went the boxes of shoes. And in another two or three went the blouses and sundresses and skirts.

He bummed a cigarette as he explained the ritual. His wife was in her early forties, attractive and smart enough to qualify as Wife No. 3. But while his first wife died, and his second was addicted to booze and painkillers, Mrs. Tres was sucking his seventy-year-old moneyed ass dry.

In the bedroom, sure. That's acceptable in the Viagra Age. Suck away. But in the Economic Clusterfuck Age, well, mass consumerism amounts to nothing more than bullshit comfort and protection, an equity line condom full of holes.

"I love her to death," the old man said, not to me but to the storefront. "But that woman's dumb as shit when it comes to understanding that buying for the grandkids comes first."

He adds that, yes, he has a half-dozen grandchildren to shop for and his wife, well, Mrs. Tres just blew an easy three grand without spending a dime on the kids.

Four fucking hours he'd been waiting for her to finish buying for herself. The sales, she said! Never mind the kids! The sales!

He started pacing, told me that the Marlboro he'd just bummed tasted marvelous. First cigarette in 15 fucking years, dammit. Fuck the cardiologists. His wife's greed - yes, he called it greed - would kill him first.

"Son, take my advice and be poor and single."

"Hey, that shit's the reason I don't believe in marriage."

* * * *

TAMPA, Fla. (ZP) -- I wasn't looking to get caught.

But, well, it was a very nice ass, and the way her white linen skirt clung to her as she bent over reminded me of fresh cream atop a cup of hot chocolate.

"You know, that's really rude."

How that woman knew I was checking out her ass, behind her back and bent over packing away her laptop, I'll never know. But, yes, I was caught red handed.

And I don't know what I was thinking when I responded. I probably should've just shuffled on around behind the newspapers.

Instead, something just came out of my mouth, an audible demon between my teeth, escaping.

"Your dress holds you well."

Huh? What the flying monkey fuck does that mean?

It was a nice ass, sure, and the dress definitely complimented her rather curvy frame. But women wear dresses. Dresses have no arms or hands, so simple white fabric cannot hold anything (bras notwithstanding).

"Um, thanks. Bought it in Puerto Rico last week."

And with that she rolled her eyes and wandered out towards the departure gates. At least, well, I'd been caught in the airport and not, say, in a church or at work or at a wedding by the bride.

I don't blush often. But as she walked away her hips did, indeed, seem to sway a bit more than they had before. I saw her reach for her phone, dial, and turn to glance at the ass-staring freak once more.

And she winked.

Good God. One day I'm going to get slapped in an airport.

* * * *

BONITA SPRINGS, Fla. (ZP) -- She'd left me scores of messages, all over the place, asking - begging - me to get a hold of her as soon as possible. It was an emergency, after all, a crisis, the biggest thing in the world.

In her messages, she made it sound like she'd just walked in on Death herself going all reverse-cowgirl on Satan in the living room. A life-or-death situation, go-time on the reality gridiron, a world-shattering event of such importance...

"J, you're, like, cheaper than my therapist. And you make me laugh."

She's just a tad drunk. It's 2:30 in the morning. I'm in Florida on vacation, sober yet full of Scotch, perfectly prepared red snapper and a dozen raw oysters.

And she's just kicked her cheating douche of a boyfriend out of her life, for good this time, out in Southern California. Sent some of his shit to the ex-wife, some to charity, and some, well, she just set on fire in the back yard. It's 11:30 p.m., her time.

"Death and Satan screwing. That's just sick, dude."

I'm sitting out beneath a full moon on the phone, smoking a cigarette on a park bench on no-smoking resort property. I'm supposed to be one of the nice guys, a good catch - I'm supposed to help her sort through went wrong, to offer insight into how to date decent guys...

Ha. Now that's fucking funny. Oh well. Life's just one quirky-ass motherfucker sometimes.

"Chica, look, men are like fucking potato chips. Don't like the BBQ ones, pitch the bag and get another flavor," I tell her. "Hey, look at me. I love being fucking single-"

"You're such a liar. And you don't really treat women like potato chips, do you?"

"Worse. I treat women like heroin addicts treat empty needles. Not gonna lie."

Silence.

Yeah, trust me. I know my weaknesses pretty well, thank you very much.

- # # # -

SHORT TAKES AND SUCH: Mau-Mauing the Bodywash BourgeoisieAnd Other Sorted Tales

AND BEING WELL-READ
SOMETIMES MEANS A GUY'S
BETTER ENDOWED ELSEWHERE,TOO...

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- She wasn't going to respond because the guy was, well, a Grade-A douchebag of a chachball, primped and waxed and reeking of overpriced cologne.

"I dunno. I guess I'm just into, ya know, more real guys now... like waking up from a bad dream or something..."

She'd met the caller through a friend of a friend. They hooked up once, junior year. And recently he'd tried to kiss her at an Oxford bar, grabbed her ass and asked her to go home with him one last time...

And she went home alone. Yes, she is so hot - guys tell her that all the time. But it takes a whole hell of a lot more than bourbon on a guy's breath to get into her pants these days.

"I guess that's why I'm ready to get the fuck outta here, ya know?"

Unfortunately, he still had her number. When she was much younger, back when she was much less sure of herself, she would've hooked up with the guy in a heartbeat. Back then, super-preppy guys were her type. When they flattered her and bought her drinks, she'd spread her legs at the end of the night, pass out, and hope to God the condom didn't break...

She looked at the text message for a few seconds, deleted it, and turned off her cellphone.

"Anyway... what was I saying... Oh! This guy I've been seeing up in Columbus... we were talking last weekend, about punk music..."

Her new guy is about my age, 30ish. And he, too, grew up listening to a lot of hardcore punk music, enjoys reading the most obscure things, and, much to the embarrassment of her well-to-do family, is unrepentant when it comes to his militant, individualistic political views.

"It's weird, ya know? You remember talking online, what you said about guys who declare their independence just by being themselves? He's like..."

The new beau even comes complete with piercings and real (not bullshit emo, she adds) tats, as well a fondness for David Lynch films and Walt Whitman. And over the last few months, he's introduced her to all sorts of interesting people -- aspiring artists and poets, musicians and writers and even a chess-playing truck driver.

He even took her on a midnight picnic -- complete with wine and cheese!

There's just something breathtaking about her story, beautiful and simple -- the stereotypical former high school cheerleader finding her Prince Charming in the form of a tattooed punk who works in a warehouse...

"As the saying goes, well... just because I dress like this doesn't mean I'm a communist."

"Um... okay. Kinda weird, there. What the fuck?"

"It's a quote. Sorry, random."

"Oh. A poem or something?"

"Sorta. Billy Bragg. Or Lars Frederiksen, depending on who ya ask. Ask your boy. He might know it..."

And for some reason, I'm sure that, well, even if he didn't know the source of the quotation, he knows it now.

There's nothing in the world like a good love story, nothing like a tale of chess-playing truckers and moonlit picnics to leave me, well, without anything original to say.

A CHAW OF LEVI GARRETT, A LOAD OF POSTS
(AND EQUAL PARTS BULLSHIT):

HAMILTON, Ohio (ZP) -- A sentence or two, a laugh, and a quick, black spit onto the parking lot.

I'd seen the old man pushing his loaded lumberyard cart across the lot as I pulled into the hardware store. I offered, with a holler, to give him a hand before he killed himself.

Well into his eighties, and, well, he'd promised the Missus a new fence. And, goddammit, that's just what he was going to give her.

The steel plant retiree, round as a pumpkin and just as sunburnt orange, tossed the five 80-pound bags of quick-setting concrete into the back of the old station wagon while I loaded his pressure-treated fence posts onto the roof. I'd offered to do it all, but he insisted that he was still just as strong as he was when he'd retired back in the 1980s.

He offered me twenty bucks for my trouble. I declined. He offered me a six-pack of beer, the one sitting on the passenger seat. I explained that I was on a work errand and couldn't, well, drink on the job.

But the old man was a pillar of conviction - he would not take charity. Finally, we struck a deal. I'd run out of cigarettes, and he had a brand new pouch of chewing tobacco poking out of the pocket of his overalls...

Talk a bit, laugh, spit. A dirty joke here, a woman story there, and black juice shot forth into the air like cannon fire. Our conversation must've been a thing of beauty, a marvel to watch and to overhear. Carl Sandburg and Woodie Guthrie couldn't have done the workingman's lament any better.

And our lack of, well, urban sophistication must've driven the weekend warriors back into the safety of their gleaming SUVs, probably sent the soccer moms shopping for lawn chairs and garden fountains running for the nearest bottle of gin at the goddamn garden club.

"All these goddamn rich bastards," the retiree said, "Wouldn't know shit 'bout how to build their own goddamn fence..."

"Ain't that the truth, man? Up in Oxford, we've got em everywhere."

If there were such a thing as a repellent for the American Bourgeoisie, it'd come bottled as a few minutes' worth of hard, manual labor for no pay other than a chew of Levi Garrett.


SOMETIMES, MATTRESSES COME
WITH CUNTS AND POINT SPREADS...

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- I took a large gulp of my drink, almost choked on it, as one of the women seated on the other side of the booth attempted to shove her high-heeled foot into my crotch.

I looked down between my legs -- gold hot pants! My God! Will somebody shoot whoever decided to resurrect that 1980s fashion nightmare?

I'd returned to the table too early. The two drinking companions I actually liked were still outside, still smoking their cigarettes. Sucks serious ass, sometimes, being the nicotine speed freak...

"So... hehe... you still wanna know? Okay... you get so many points for 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds... all the way up to, like, seniors and, like, grad students..."

I couldn't help but stare. Bright pink -- PINK! -- lipstick, lime green polo, spray-on tanned with the collar popped, trendy bobbed haircut styled in such a way as to cover one eye. And there she sat, this petite little woman, perched on the lap of an Amazonian blonde.

They were giggling, drunkenly fondling each other. It would've made for one hell of a sapphic tale had the conversation been different and the bar less crowded...

The Amazonian, for the record, was the owner of the crotch-violating golden leg. And, for some odd reason, I felt like I was trapped in a goddamn John Hughes flick.

"Okay, I got that. So... how many points do you get for librarians? Or faculty? What about, like, a lawyer or doctor?"

The Amazonian answered. Faculty, she said, were extra points in the game, rated based on hotness and age. Librarians? Well, librarians were of a point value that had yet to be determined.

Both women claimed to have already earned their faculty bonuses. Little Ms. Pepto was up a few points on Ms. Hot Pants.

Or...wait... No. I may have that backwards. Dammit. They just kept giggling, fondling each other, speaking in strange, tipsy Ohio Girl squeaks...

As I inquired about their points-for-sex game, I prayed that neither woman took my curiosity as an attempt to flirt, hoped that it didn't indicate any desire to become the sexual equivalent of a basketball free throw.

"So you're, like, really a librarian, right? Like, that's like really big here, huh?"

"Yep."

"Like, do you, like, enjoy reading?"

"Yep."

"Oh. My. God. Really? You don't look like you read a lot."

"Hooked on Phonics worked for me."

"What? Oh. Never mind. Did I tell you I, like, LOVE your hair... OhmyGod... it's, like, PERFECT!"

"Yep."

And with that, my friends returned from their slow-ass smoke. I jumped out of the booth, let the golden Amazonian leg fall to the floor as my compatriots slid back into their seats.

Thank you, Jesus. Saved by the buzzer.

- # # # -

OXFORD CONFIDENTIAL: Snake Brothers are Mysterious, Infuriating Animals(When You Don't Have a Penis...)

SNAKE BROTHER -- Slang. A term used to refer to the unique bond between two or more men who have had sexual intercourse with the same person at sometime in their lives, thus creating an overlap in sexual histories. Provenance of term unknown but may be indigenous to North America. However, the concept was understood by Ancient Mesopotamian, Asian, and European civilizations. For gay men the term also applies, but with more complications to the dynamic.

For female equivalent, see TRENCH SISTER.

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- I waited. The question was coming. I could feel it.

As pathetic as it is, I'm actually quite skilled at these sorts of things. I had a sneaking suspicion, too, that my sparring partner also had some experience in such verbal sport...

"So Jason, you and _____ went to school together in Greeley?"

Before I could answer her husband's question, the Diva intervened.

"Honey. I knew lots of guys in Colorado. We hung out. Jason was a reporter..."

I laughed, oh so slightly, nodded, took a sip of my iced tea.

"Oh. So you just hung out then?"

I took a bite of my salad and tried to not simply burst into all-out laughter, nodded with a full mouth in the direction of his loving wife. Lunch was her idea. She could answer the question.

Oh yeah. He knew. Or, at least, he suspected.

The game afoot! Time to cry Havoc!, let slip the dogs of war...

* * * *

Despite all the discomfort and uneasiness, I couldn't help but wonder, after all these years, if the Diva still got off on being handcuffed to bathroom sinks and spanked, or if she and the ol' hubby had ever, well...

Back in the day, she was such a fun little thing, all explosive darkness and piss and rage, domineering, driven by lust and hidden insecurity. I was, well, a lot more fun and free myself back in those days, too, cloaked in my own naivety and ignorance, pushing my boundaries with drugs and booze and sex...

Oh, trust me. I'm sure the Diva's husband was pondering similar things. I've been in his shoes before. And he'd, heh, probably been in mine. Dogs of war, since the time of Julius Caesar, typically hunt the same prey because such beasts are usually bred in the same pounds and kennels.

What husband wouldn't wonder, seriously, what his wife was like before he knew her, back when she was a Colorado Chicana! wild child, smack dab in the midst of her Oooh! This will piss off Mom and Dad! I'll fuck an Anglo! phase? He's undoubtedly heard stories, probably bits and fragments, here and there from friends of hers, relatives...

What husband wouldn't be at least curious about that past? And, frankly, what lover from the past wouldn't be intrigued by thoughts of how women of memory evolve and grow and mature into the present and future wives and lovers of such noble, intelligent men?

Snake brothers, of course, aren't supposed to ask such questions out loud. That'd be rude. And, well, quite possibly dangerous. The unwritten rule of the Cult of the Snake Brother is, well, that such things are best not discussed, left silent.

Hell, the snake brothers of Helen fought the Trojan War because they couldn't handle such knowledge. Mark Antony, Caesar, and Ptolemy destroyed much of the Ancient Western World because, well, they couldn't deal with the fact that Cleopatra initiated the dynasties of Rome and Egypt into the phallic serpentine brotherhood.

Why, now, would modern men ruin such a wonderful lunch with such stupidity? Life's too short these days, the social norms that once drove Primitive Man mad with jealousy now a curious antiquity for the educated and experienced.

* * * *

The Diva was not amused with the pissing contest, our testing of certain waters to see which Snake Brother would wince first.

"We were, you know, just ... friends..."

The Diva then went into a long, drawn-out explanation as to how she and I knew each other back in 1997, explained in twisting, prefabricated answers that almost made me wish that I was, indeed, the guy she was describing...

All she had to say, really, was that we were... just... friends. Pauses, like photographs, really are worth a thousand words.

The Husband smirked. I smirked. Nothing makes for a good meal like good dinner theater. He kept looking at me. I kept looking back at him, nodding and eating my salad.

Men really do bond over making women uncomfortable. Payback, yes, for infecting our gender with the cooties and wet dreams of youth...

At least she acknowledged that, well, both of her male dining companions had just...friended the shit out of her at some point in the last decade.

* * * *

A decade.

A whole fucking decade.

That's enough time to turn any snake brother into as docile a reptile as your average timber rattler in winter. A man's blood, at least the blood of seasoned, educated men, rarely boils at the mere hint of a partner's previous sexual history. Who a woman fucked in some long-forgotten house in Ratfuck Colorado is, to such men, as historically meaningless as Abe Lincoln's last shit in the White House.

It's not like her husband was getting ready to build a goddamn wooden horse to storm the table or anything. And it's not like I was gonna chew my breadsticks down into a dagger to stab him on the way to the Forum.

Jesus H. Christ. The rules of the Snake Brother Cult have, well, evolved since the days of spears, Greek fire, and spoken Latin...

* * * *

I kept grinning like a retarded clown, sipping on my iced tea and gnawing on my salad. The Diva's husband was half-grinning like a razor-scalped madman, drinking his wine and chewing up his vegan pasta.

And the Diva changed the subject. Quickly.

"So Jason... are you seeing anybody? Married?"

Well-played.

Check. But not checkmate. There was still game left...

* * * *

Some women just don't have the same sense of adventure they had when they were young, back when they wore no underwear, wore plaid miniskirts and purple lipstick and tight black Sonic Youth teeshirts, back when such women seduced and screwed like demons whilst certain former 19-year-old aspiring reporter's housemates watched through the living room window...

Rather than bring up the past decade, I simply explained that, well, I'd found religion and the Republican Party, had become a Born-Again Virgin, held hands with peroxide blondes at church potlucks...

The Diva nodded and went back to her lunch.

Wait. Does she really buy that horseshit? Is that believable after ten years?

Holy fuck, we were just talking about strip clubs and blowjobs ten minutes ago...

* * * *

The hubby leaned in, smiled.

"Heh. Sounds like Cincinnati. So you really are married then?"

We both snickered like 14-year-olds staring at our first glossy boobies in a copy of Hustler.

And as I explained, in between snickers, that, well, I've been engaged two-and-a-half times in the past 10 years, as I explained that, yeah, why the hell would I want to get married and ruin my peace and tranquility...

"Dude, you're a really cool guy."

"Yeah, man. I see how you got the hot goth girl here."

"Hey, do you like Tom Waits? You look like a Waits kinda guy..."

"Well, fuck yeah, dude."

"Baby, he likes Tom Waits! Did you know that? Hey, we caught that gig down in Louisville..."

The Diva was not amused.

What'd she expect? C'mon now.

Snake brothers usually have more in common than simple momentary spins on the ol' vagina rollercoaster. Hell, if there weren't similarities, we probably wouldn't have ever been attracted to the same woman, or once had the same woman attracted to us, in the first place...

I've been snake brothers with worse.

Being a Snake Brother is just one of those mysterious bonds between men that even some of the most modern, liberated women just aren't comfortable facing.

And, sometimes, that's just fucking hilarious.

- # # # -

EXCHANGING THE ONE HOLIDAY GIFT THAT JUST KEEPS ON COMING:A Strange Tale of Sex, Violence, and Al Green on a Jukebox

Fruitcake Sex (n.) - Any exchange of certain carnal acts, modeled after the Christmastime gifting of a certain, often reviled, fruit and nut filled pastry. As fruitcakes are often passed back and forth between persons, without emotional attachment, fruitcake sex is often exchanged between exes, former flings, and friends with benefits at certain unceremonious times, almost out of obligation...

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- Some women knock. Some women just push the door open as soon as they see the handle turn and hear the deadbolt click.

I was only slightly buzzed, nowhere near the level of shitfaced insanity her intelligence had led her to believe. And, as she stormed from room to room in my apartment, she mumbled, swore she knew I was about ready to do something stupid, something about a hook up with a student staffer of one of my bosses...

"You fucker, I know you were with her at M__ & J__'s. She saw you! That girl's what? 20? Are you fucking re-TARDED! They'll fucking FIRE you!"

No clue what the fuck she was talking about. Or why she'd just barged into my apartment.

Ex-flings, especially the fun ones, tend to do, say, and even hear strange things while intoxicated. And yes, she was intoxicated and, as usual, overdressed for whatever occasion she was celebrating.

* * * *

Sure, I'd been talking to said FORMER student employee at a bar (21, actually), bought the girl a Red Snapper as we swapped war stories from my library. I've bought quite a few former employees drinks. And sure, maybe it looked like something else was going on at that jukebox - maybe flirting a little bit. And we did play a lot of Al Green and Rod Stewart...

This is not the first time I've been accused of such things. Working in an industry dominated by women, I've grown accustomed to being accused of blending work and play a little too openly. Goddammit, I'm still a professional - there are things I just don't do.

But is that anything to get all worked up about, more than a year and a half after you've quit sleeping together, more than a few months after telling a guy that her boyfriend had asked her to break all contact?

And what the flying monkeyfuck was she doing in Oxford Fucking Ohio anyway? Who drives down from the City of the Big Shoulders, drives five hours, just to visit the ol' alma mater during Fall Semester final exams?

And who the hell was the "she" who'd fed her obviously faulty information? Who the fuck was spying on me on a rather normal Thursday night? I knew she'd gotten her intel delivered via, as usual, a barrage of short, terse text messages.

I hadn't seen a single one of her friends in that damned bar - I had, however, received a rather strange IM from a local blog lurker ten minutes before the ol' ex knocked a hole through the door. Something about my inappropriateness in that same bar, a few lines concerning what apparently looked like a hook-up in the making...

Coincidence? Probably not.

Not that I would have done anything different. Hell, 18 months is a long fucking time...

* * * *

She calmed down, just enough, to start screaming. It's amazing how some women react to being wrong when there's just the slightest bit of alcohol pumping through 'em.

She got downright belligerent, brought up the fact that she was still pissed that I'd gone home with that fucking slut months ago, her former best friend, an act at the time she'd thought was fucking hilarious. So I got all up in her grill right back, with allegations of my own concerning her stereotypical local female alumna behavior, her flakiness and shallowness and tendency to spend too much time in tanning beds, about how, well, fucking insane and domineering and controlling...

She slapped me. So I slapped her. She threatened to call the cops. I shoved my mobile in her face and suggested we put it on speaker phone. She pushed me into a bookshelf. I pushed her, too, hard enough to send her into a my DVD collection - copies of zombie flicks and war movies everywhere. She jumped right back up, charged me, and sent my spine bouncing off the living room wall.

I'd finally had enough of the bullshit drama. Being Finals Week and living in a thin-walled apartment next to grad student neighbors, a loud quarrel would probably result in a visit from local law enforcement.

So I grabbed her, put her spine against that same wall and put my elbow to her throat. I told her, in that calm, quiet voice that scares the shit out of women at times, that she'd either calm down or she'd be unconscious and removed from my apartment by whatever police arrived.

My apartment, plus Uninvited Guest, could equal several criminal charges being filed. Sure, I may spend the night in jail, too...

* * * *

But I knew. Call it the sixth sense of a man's other brain.

I was terrified, however, that maybe I, too, was operating with wrong information, operating on faulty memory. Maybe that smell in my nose was wrong? Maybe that memory, that remembrance of a fight in an Oxford bar long ago, hadn't ended with the defiling of a women's restroom?

If she said stop, I figured, I'd guessed wrong. And, if my educated guess had been that wrong, well, I'd knew I'd be contacting a good defense attorney the next morning.

When I felt her legs wrap around me, when I felt less angry fingers on my neck and realized that both of our free hands had already confirmed that the excitement was, well, mutual, I realized that neither of us was about to go to jail.

There is a very, very fine line between foreplay and violence for some people - especially when neither party is sure that it's still okay to exchange a little Yuletide fruitcake. Her visit had less to do with any sincere worry over my career, or jealousy, or anything beyond a holiday exchange.

Seriously. This was mild. The last time this happened, I was the one with an arm to my throat and she ended up with bruised ribs. I started that one - I was upset that, well, she'd told friends that I wasn't the dating kind of guy, had gotten drunk at her graduation party and openly bragged to a restaurant full of girls that she'd borrowed a librarian from her local library and that they couldn't top that, no matter how many TAs or tenure-track profs they'd slept with.

Baking up that ol' fruitcake is harder than it looks. And, for some reason, the cops never showed up. Strange, too, considering things just got louder and more profane...

* * * *

Fruitcake sex is, in and of itself, quite enjoyable. The act usually resembles, for most people, a combination of the age-old fight/fuck and dirty revenge fuck traditions, with quite a bit of misdirected passion and lust mixed in for good measure. The sex itself is the fruit - the nuts are, usually, the individuals involved. Rum? Sure. Alcohol tends to add just the right amount of essence, lubricant to ease egos and fuel tempers.

There's nothing even remotely romantic about fruitcake sex. Quick and dirty. It's actually more hollow than mere casual sex - a friendly hook-up, for most folks, rarely involves matters of personal pride or vanity. Exchanging this sort of annual treat tends to be about conveying the image of sincerity in a sexual volley, without actually giving up anything important.

Fruitcake is, after all, the one food people make fun of the most, yet there are a lot of people who secretly wait for a chance to dig into that stale vile loaf when there's nothing else in the house to eat.

* * * *

My alarm went off at 5:15 AM Friday morning. I stared at the damned clock, praying for a sudden reversal of time. I hadn't even caught a quick power nap. And she was just happy as a clam, bundled up and lightly wheezing into a stack of pillows.

Looking around my bedroom, I did a brief damage assessment. Nightstand was overturned. We'd knocked over the banjo I never learned to play. And all of the books on that nightstand, the ones I'd simply left open to keep from losing my page, were scattered around the place like cheap confetti.

I reached over my sleeping guest and hit the off button. As I pulled my hand back under the sheets, I felt warm, curvy skin, felt my hands wandering. Some women, as much as they may hate the analogy, really are built like classic 1950s hot rods. Their hoods are decked out not with hood ornaments but with breasts, their tail fins aerodynamic and painfully smooth.

She pushed back into me and yawned. She told me that, well, the most annoying thing about me is that I have a hard time falling asleep with a naked woman in my bed. I reminded her that, well, I'm a guy.

She slid out from under the sheets and went out into the apartment. She needed ibuprofen. For some reason, every time we've slept together, she wakes up with a craving for Advil. Never understood the tie between anti-inflammatory medications and sex.

I closed my eyes and started to hit that power-nap nirvana. I heard the toilet flush, the quick pattering of bare feet back towards the bedroom, the Fuck fuck fuck! Cold! grumblings I usually hear when certain people forget that, yeah, I keep my thermostat set at a brisk 50*F during the winter months.

She hopped back into bed, sat on top of my hips, and grinned. There would be no nap before work. I asked her what she would've done had there really been another woman in my apartment, if she really thought that I end up sleeping with somebody every time I buy a woman a shot or have them help me pick songs on a juke.

She changed the subject. Instead, she wanted to tell me that she'd met another one of my library's former student employees a few months ago at a party, that my name had somehow come up in casual conversation. The other woman thought I was kinda weird and a little out there. She'd started to, after a few gin and tonics, tell her fellow alum about -

She stopped talking and looked down between her legs.

"Ugh! You are SUCH a boy!"

Yes I am. I'm a total fucking bastard, too.

And I didn't want to talk about how many different ways she could play six degrees of separation between my job, our sex life, and the cool people she's met in the City of the Big Shoulders, either.

Hell, my library almost burned down 72 hours before she'd stormed the castle and I'd been working 12 hour days since Monday - she was almost flippant when she told me that, well, she just didn't give a rat's ass if the place burned to the ground.

Why talk? Defeats the purpose of fruitcake sex.

* * * *

I left her alone in my apartment with a note on top of her dress, telling her that she was more than willing to help herself to any food or to the shower. The spare towels were in the closet; no need to text me to ask if the guest password on my laptop had changed. And, well, she knew she was free to steal a tee-shirt, too.

I arrived at work surprisingly chipper. Annoyingly chipper. Five different people I work with figured out that I'd broken my rather silly Celibate 'til 2008 goal for the remainder of the year. One person even sent me a text, wanting to know whose tits had been pressed against the glass of my living room window.

And, well, for going on less than 15 minutes of sleep in 48 hours, I was rather full of energy. I caught up on just about every project, cleaned out my email, and even managed to run through my backlog of work-related errands outside of the office.

Like the real baked good, fruitcake sex does, really, do a body good sometimes.

Maybe not the mind or soul, but I was glad to learn later in the day that she and the no-contact beau had broken up a few weeks prior, that we're back to never doing that ever again, and that, well, the guy she'd just started seeing was one of those "Born Again, No Sex Before Marriage" types who she was looking for an excuse to no longer see anyway.

Oh yeah. A Christian Fundamentalist and a woman who likes brutal sex and belongs to the ACLU. That would've been a match made in hell.

And hell, not like I really had anything else to do on a boring ol' Thursday night.

Fruitcake sex, like shit, just happens. No sense in worrying about it, sweating bullets, or pretending like there's any real sentimental meaning behind its exchange.

And in towns like Oxford Fucking Ohio, it's quite common, actually, to just go Well, fuck it, might as well get laid tonight. You'd be surprised, dear reader, how many folks probably ended up waking up Friday in a similar situation, especially in this town.

After all, shit happens.

- # # # -

THE OXFORD (FUCKING OHIO) DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS: Summer, Sleep, and Other Sordid Things...

I have a sixth sense for drama. One would think that means I'm good at avoiding it.

Trouble is? I'm a fucking idiot.

- The Wombat, Ramblings of an Idle Insomniac,
" Drama, of Varying Scales," BOSTON, Mass., Aug. 17

Preach on, Brother Wombat.

Sums up the final days of Summer 2007 for a whole hell of a lot of folks, I think.

* * * *

I trust you. Besides, _____ says you're, like, completely dense and that I'd have to, like, be really obvious or something if I wanted to hook up. Like say 'Jason, I'm in your bed and naked and I want to fuck.'

- Woman No. 1, who crashed at my apartment,
In bed with me last week.

Kinda true, actually. Extremely hot 21-year-old, friend of an ex, who needed a place to stay until she moved back home. I don't use air conditioning, so we both slept pretty much completely naked.

And, nope, nothing happened. The only thing she asked for was for an extra pillow. She did, however, ask me to post something about it the next morning.

Just to piss off her ex-boyfriend. He apparently fuckin' hates me.

Heh.

* * * *

Three words.

Midget. Monkey. Wrestling.

- Local bar manager and friend,
discussing not-so-serious
ideas for school year promotions.

Trust me. You don't want to know.

But I will recommend the Orange Jell-O shots to local readers who know where I drink. Stiffer than a four-day-old corpse in a meat locker.

* * * *

No sweats? You don't own ANY sweats? Fuck it. I'll sleep in my underwear.

- Woman No. 2, who crashed at my apartment,
In bed with me last week.

Extremely hot 22-year-old, two nights later. And, nope, nothing happened. Just nice to sleep beside someone sometimes. I probably need to apologize for getting a little too touchy-feely, but, well, it's been ages since I last did the whole just curl up beside me so I can sleep thing. Not sure how those sorts of deals work these days...

* * * *

_______is like such a whore... does she, like, know about B___ and me last year?...They were, like, fighting, and he was, like, cute and I was, like, really trashed that night and...

- Local U. female undergraduate,
cell phone conversation,
outside of the ZenFo Pro Library, 7:42 AM ET

* * * *

When people suggest that men are more promiscuous than women, I always wonder how this is possible unless the men are having sex with each other.

- Liz, The LibraryTavern Wench,
"I'm Not a Mathematician, But...," Ohio, Aug. 14

There's a reason I'm throwing in this stellar quote from Liz, one of my favorite feminist colleagues and fellow bloggers, after the overheard mobile conversation quotation. I'll let readers draw their own conclusions about the nature of womanhood and internal gender conflict, human sexuality, and the complex, almost incomprehensible eccentricities of life in a sex-negative, secretive society...

Okay. That's way too deep for a Monday. Moving on...

* * * *

The only thing I learned as a sports reporter was how to hate the fanboy shit that goes along with men's college and professional sports. I love the competition, but hate the celebrity worship.

- The ZenFo Pro, to a guy who thought it
was so cool that I used to be a sportswriter.

First time in months I've had a conversation with anybody about my sportswriter days. Most folks are shocked to learn that, no, it wasn't a dream job or a chance to just talk about sports all day. It was hard, grueling work, keeping up with beats, tracking down leads, and meeting tight deadlines.

Don't miss it one bit.

* * * *

So. I guess we're not talking anymore, 'cause ____ says she saw you talking to a bunch of girls outside of M____& J_____'s Saturday night. And some tall girl kissed you. You are such a fucking bastard!

- Voicemail, one of five, from a very creepy woman.

I met the caller only last week, gave her my number, and told her to give me a call if she wanted to hang out sometime. Number now blocked.

Look, I'm almost 30. I'd like to say that the last time I played the talking to game was in high school, but I didn't do it then, either. I tend to hang out and socialize with more women than men, especially when I'm out on the town. I'm not too awfully interested in talking to a woman who obviously read way too much into me giving her my number.

And the girl who kissed me? Just a friend. She pecked my cheek as she and her boyfriend headed home for the night.

Drama.

Ugh.

- # # # -

OXFORD CONFIDENTIAL: On Being One of Those Guys

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- I'm one of those guys. I readily admit it.

Not that I really give a shit. Hell, it's my life and, well, I'll do with it what I please. I'm not much for doing things the proper way, anyway.

It's much more entertaining, actually, to be a complete and utter fuck-up.

* * * *

I fall in and out of love six or seven times a day, 365 days a year, seven days a week.

I can pass a woman on the sidewalk and fall madly for her in under 10 seconds, breaking myself free in under five. I can make eye contact, debate asking someone out, plan a seduction in my head, and then call the whole thing off without ever saying a single friggin' word.

There's that cashier at the Wally World, the one with the nice smile. She's probably no older than 22, probably a completely shallow girl with a mean-ass boyfriend, a closet full of skeletons and assault weapons under the bed.

But, well, she has this enchanting smile, this slightly asymmetrical way of acknowledging a man - her subtlety could melt the Devil's pitchfork.

I'll think about her as I drive home, wonder what's behind that smile, what's really underneath that blue department store apron, and... completely forget about her by the time I'm putting the frozen veggie burritos and the sugar-free cranberry juice cocktail into the fridge.

And then there's that skinny little thing I seem to always pass on the sidewalk as I stroll home after work.

It's the green eyes and the way her eyeshadow glistens in the sunlight, the way her bangs just cover that left eye slightly. She looks down every time I make eye contact, and, instantly, I begin wondering what her bedroom smells like, what kinds of things we may have in common, whether or not she could tolerate my obscure musical tastes.

And then I pass her, get to the door of my apartment, and forget the whole thing, only to be reminded of it the following workday.

And those are just the ones I remember.

Yup.

I'm one of those guys.

And it's not pretty.

* * * *

A server down at one of the ol' local watering holes grinned this impish grin as I closed out my tab.

She'd been observing my behavior as I sat at this table, surrounded by a group of unemployed aspiring high school teachers, all heavily intoxicated women, in Oxford Fucking Ohio for a statewide job fair at the Local U.

Every time she'd pass by, the server would shoot me the most curious looks as I tried to be polite to this one woman, a short brunette from Akron, who'd asked me to join the post-interview party.

At one point, the server even came over, bumped my shoulder with her hip, and made some reference to the fact that I'm often seen around Oxford in a cowboy hat. The intoxicated brunette then proceeded to ask me if this was true, if I was an actual cowboy, if I owned a horse, or if I'd ever been to a rodeo.

Annoying to no fucking end.

After the group left, I sat back down at the bar, went back to watching Jeopardy! and chatting away with some of the other regulars. When I got up to pay, my Cuervo - to - blood ratio thoroughly satisfied for the evening, I asked the server why she'd been shooting me the bizarre looks all night.

"I just dig your style. Very smooth."

"I have a style?"

"C'mon. Every guy has a style. Yours is just more entertaining. And that chick was totally into you."

I remember wandering down the alley, towards High Street, smiling probably the dumbest smile imaginable, my mind full of such strange, stupid thoughts.

"I have a style! And it's smooth! Holy fucking shit, dude!"

It's amazing how one remembers such things, even after several shots and about a half-dozen mixed drinks. And it hadn't even occurred to me to get that aspiring teacher's phone number, much less ask her name.

Yup. One of those guys.

Dense as a brick on the surface of Jupiter, as clueless and mysterious as the Bermuda Fucking Triangle.

* * * *

The Italian backpacker and I were sitting upright, naked and cross-legged, in the middle of the bed.

As she flipped through old copies of Esquire, asking me questions about George Clooney's personal life, about my opinion of America's Oxycontin epidemic and the Iraq War, I studied the mechanical and architectural renderings of my library renovation project, scribbling notes about camera placement, smoke detectors, and anticipated shelving problems.

Despite the lust and raw passion, I still had meetings to attend and deadlines to meet that week. My ultimate employer, the Ohio Taxpayer, wouldn't accept well, gee, I was in the middle of a damned tryst as an excuse for further delays, and my immediate supervisors probably wouldn't, either.

I was trying to balance way too many things at one time, on very little sleep. I had no desire to quit my job or give up on playing that Ugly American fling. Every afternoon I brought my work home with me, had sex with a wonderful woman, studied blueprints, and then fell asleep in between Southern European flesh and rolls of cold, heartless paper. My work - play - work routine apparently annoyed my free-spirited house guest.

Rather than just say something, she stretched out across the blueprints, back arched and yawning, and sprawled her nude body across my paperwork like some spoiled house cat.

In six hours, I was to attend an important meeting, to use those same blueprints, to pitch a security plan, one to help insure that my institution's patrons and collections would have some level of systematic protection.

And there was a naked body crinkling the broadsheets, covering the new private research rooms with breasts, scrunching up the main corridors with elbows and ribs.

She was, in the end, just being a 19-year-old on holiday, in some strange guy's house in some strange country, looking for attention. And I was just being, well, a guy.

At first, I protested. And then she did that swirling finger thing on my cheek. I tried to resist, to be serious, to be professional and responsible...

Quite embarrassing. And even then, well, I was too old for that shit.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Who am I kidding?

You know, I still don't care that there's some guy in Europe, some race car jockey, who may read this one day, put a "nice librarian I met in Ohio" story together with a relationship's ending a few months later, and want to blow my damned head off.

Hell, if he'd known how to read blueprints, had suffered through grad school, and had really neat old black-and-white movies in his villa, they may very well have stayed together...

* * * *

Yep.

I'm one of those guys.

And from what I've been told, only an idiot would ever expect me to grow out of it.

Any idiot, of course, includes myself.

- # # # -