God Blessed Me With Two Virginities

Everybody has their story--the night they lost their sexual innocence. Maybe it was to a high school sweetheart on the Mexican Riviera, maybe it was to a $35 (full service) crackwhore in a Vancouver alley. My story is the latter...at least I think. You see, I'm not quite sure when or where my first time happened. Maybe, just maybe, God himself made a mistake, like a bank error in my favour, and he ended up giving me TWO virginities. Thanks big timer. And so it follows there are two competing narratives that run through this story...

The year was 1997. The month was July. I was sixteen years years old, on a summer road trip with my high school buddy Sean and his folks. For the drive we brought two albums: Paranoid by Black Sabbath and L.A. Woman by The Doors. Jim Morrison's drunken voice blared through the speakers as Sean's dad navigated the steep mountainous roads. I particularly liked L.A. Woman. I pictured a bearded and bloated Jim sauntering into the studio and laying down his vocals in one take as he sat on the toilet with a bottle of Jack--
Cops and cars
The topless bars
Never saw a woman
So alone
SO ALONE!

We stopped over in the Rockies on the way to Vancouver for a white water rafting adventure. Apparently it was one of the most difficult rivers to navigate for non-experts; I read that on a brochure. I could not suppress the knots in my belly, they were pulsating and ebbing, tightening up as Sean and myself donned our life jackets and the instructor began his spiel. He had to yell over the endless whooshing of the river, and ultimately it boiled down to, "Paddle like hell when we reach the rapids." Words to live by.

When we arrived in Vancouver, Sean and myself were like feral zombie beasts let loose on the population--specifically the prostitute population. We immediately resolved to get away from his parents, hunt down some pot and mushrooms and get some whores. You have to prioritize!

We asked a cab driver where all the hookers were. "Downtown Eastside," came the answer. So to the Downtown Eastside we went. I don't remember much about the neighborhood but it sure was seedy, with women in short skirts dotting each intersection. Somehow, I wandered away from Sean like a kid in a candy store and ran into a rail thin 30ish brunette walking in the middle of the street, seemingly lost in her own world. I approached her and she gave me a smile, a conmans smile--it's like a stuffed animal, warm and fuzzy on the outside but dead on the inside.

"You wanna come with me, honey?" She said in her best come hither put on, but it could scarcely cover the years of hard living. Nonetheless, I followed. "Yeah, let's do this," I said trying to sound casual. She started having a coughing fit, hacking up a fucking lung and said, "Don't worry, it will feel better than it sounds."
That was reassuring.
We went to a nearby alley and I handed over $35. It wasn't beneath her to ask me for some change too; I handed over some nickels and dimes. The money disappeared up her black leather skirt. She would not be meeting the queen anytime soon.

After a sub par two minute blowjob she got up and so did her black leather skirt. I had my appetizer and now it was time for dinner! With this being my first time and with the alley being so dark, I couldn't really get it in. Couldn't hit the mark. I don't think the problem was me, (I had a raging purple turnip) but she was dryer than a pile of dead leaves. I made a feeble attempt to grab her hips and connect my USB cable to her port; I don't really know if I made a connection. It might have slipped in for a second, maybe just the tip. Is that all there is to sex I wondered after a minute or two of dry humping. She stood up straight, pulled down her skirt and said she had to go. Boy, she was busier than the Pope--AND she just made $35 and change in five minutes or so (including travel time). She must be rich!

Is that my virginity gone with the wind? That was not the earth shattering experience I was hoping for. Maybe if you do it with a lover and not a body seller it feels better? Hey lady, can I have a refund? No fucking condom either. I mean, I know I was a sixteen year old stoner grunge rocker Kurt Cobain all the way but I did have common sense regarding STD's. In school I learned that women working the streets lead a riskier life than Janice down the street and therefore one has a greater chance of contracting a disease if you have sex. When you don't put your knowledge to good use what good is that knowledge in the first place? Well enough of that...

My primary dilemma after I had zipped up and bid adieu is I couldn't find Sean. It was like he disappeared. He simply got lost in the mix while I was busy on my first lap around the inter-course.

What a night, I definitely maybe just lost my viriginity (does the tip count?) and I was high on life (adrenalin and pot) and I wanted to yenta it up with my buddy. I couldn't find him anywhere so I did the logical thing: I began running like a madman down unrecognizable streets. The more I did that the more tangled I became in the web I had spun.
"SEAN! SEAN!" I was screaming and running frantically. Prositutes and clients playing the oldest game in the book were looking at me like I was crazy. My other dilemma was that I might have stuck my penis in a crackwhore with no protection. AIDS kept screaming at me over and over in my mind like the news ticker at the bottom of CNN. It keeps scrolling by on an endless loop ---YOU HAVE AIDS---YOU HAVE AIDS---YOU HAVE AIDS---YOU HAVE AIDS---YOU HAVE HIV WHICH WILL SOON BECOME AIDS---AND YOU CAN'T FIND SEAN---PADDLE LIKE HELL---Running, running, down this road and that road. Lost downtown in a city far from home. To further complicate the situation I had no clue where the ground level loft apartment was that we were staying at. No phone number or anything. No cell phone to call Sean. In short I was fucked. I wanted to crumble to my knees and scream to the heavens.
I turned a corner and this greasy looking guy in a muddy pickup truck rolled down his window and pulled up along side me. He must have seen me running wildly through the streets. A teenager in distress. What a good samaritan to stop and offer help.

"Hey, what chu doin' kid? You'se lost or sumpin?" Now that he was stopped beside me I got a good look. He was short, dirty, bald but still grew his hair out long in defiance of his baldness. Not a good look.

"Yeah, I'm just trying to find my buddy mister. What's it to you?"

"Well, get in, let's go find him!" I ran around the side of his pickup and swooped myself in and he he sped off down the street.

"Hey, my name's Bobby P. What's the matter anyway kid?"

"Well, I can't find my friend, I'm running all over the place trying to find him. Plus I think I may have just lost my virginity, but I don't know for sure."

"Yeah, the first time's tough, huh?"

"You're telling me. I couldn't even find the hole!"

The two of us drove aimlessly down side streets yelling, "SEAN! SEAN!" out of our respective windows. "I know these streets pretty well, don't worry we'll find him--he couldn't of gone too far. Hey, I got me a pig farm a few km's down the road. You should visit some time, we'll get some girls and slaughter a live pig and roast it." Wow! The people in Vancouver are much friendlier than Toronto. I had been here but one night and already made a friend. "That sounds nice Bobby, real nice."
After a few more minutes of driving and chatting we miraculously spotted Sean jogging slowly, weighed down by exhaustion. Bobby saw him first and proclaimed, "There he is!" He was right. There he was.
Sean was stunned and relieved to see me. Perhaps a little confused seeing me roll by in a pickup truck caked in mud with a bald guy with long hair at the wheel. Very confusing indeed. Surely Sean didn't think this was my date? I hope not.
"Case closed!" Bobby yelled. "Well thanks a lot, man you're a life saver."
The rest of the trip turned out to be great. We had dinner with the some of the guys from Doug and the Slugs (I had never heard of them either). Then we went to a hippie drum fest. The only thing I remember was a slogan on someone's bag that read: My body is just a cage for my soul.

The year was also 1997. The month was September. I was in grade 11. Brampton Centennial Secondary School. It was lunch time and I was walking to my locker to grab my jacket and then walk the 5 minutes to my house, eat Chef Boyardee (Ravioli if I remember correct) and watch the Crocodile Hunter. Upon closing my locker, my friend Max appeared with Sabina, this intriguing blonde girl from our art class. She was the girl in the class who seemed to be such an adult. Whatever that was. She was so mature, had so much life experience. Drinking, older boyfriends, fake i.d's, bars. Drugs? Hell, she probably tried 'em all, O.D'd on smack, went to rehab, and lived to tell the story. All by the ripe old age of sixteen. I could tell immediately that she was totally hammered. Drunk by lunch--wow, I couldn't even fathom such a thing--what a creature!
"Sabina's going to come to your house for lunch," Max said conspiratorially. Something was up.
"Uhh sure," I uttered semi-awkwardly. What girl wouldn't want to lose her virignity to me? I was a scrawny, pimply-faced grunge rocker. I'm sure that day I had my brownish plaid shirt on (unbuttoned) with a Mudhoney shirt underneath. Winning!
Little did I know--and probably Sabina too--that in half an hour she was going to bust me loose from the prison of my virginity. But, as you have come to know, this was a liminal phase in my sexual adventures; had I achieved insertion in Vancouver with that hooker in the alley? The answer lies somewhere, whirlpooling around in the synapses of my fickle memory. God only knows.
I don't remember who got Sabina first but she was ready to go. She led me upstairs and it felt like I was walking up to the gallows. A lamb being led to the knife. My God! Are we gonna like...DO it? Mommy! Mommy! I just want to eat my Chef Boyardee. SHIT CHRIST FUCK, will IT work? Will IT work? I mean I've test driven my car many times but never taken it off the track. We went up the stairs...almost at the top. Is this the right time? WHAT? Of course it is, I'm a man goddamnit! You just stick it right in and shuck and jive your way through it.

We quickly disrobed; she was a true blonde, and to my relief IT did work! What was the ryhthm of sex and love and life but the simple back and forth thrusting into one another? There was no thought to use condoms, I just got on top of her, hesitated for a second because I didn't really know what to do and she guided me in. There was no romance or dinner by candlelight, I sliced into her like a rugged caveman. But like a cavemans life the experience was short. It felt absolutely magical. Her guts! I'm in HER GUTS! I'd say I lasted a solid minute and when I reached that point of no return I just unloaded my universe right inside her. Incredibly stupid in hindsight wasn't it? Almost as stupid as having sex with a crack whore without a condom. I look at it like I'm a soldier in the war of life and I managed to do a couple tours and then come to my family without any serious injuries.

I rolled off Sabina and we laid there; I breathed a sigh of relief--the sound of a boy becoming a man. Is that ALL there is to sex? I'm a believer. I opened the drawer by my bed and we shared a cigarette, just like in the movies. She didn't seem too impressed but she didn't seem disappointed either, she just seemed drunk. I snubbed the smoke out and we got dressed. For whatever reason she laid down on my bench prench set in my room, lifted the bar (with about 85lbs on it) and after pulling it down to her chest she couldn't get it back up. That seems to be the hard part in love and bench pressing--getting it back up.

I helped lift the weight off of her and we went downstairs and the three of us made our way back to class. When we got back to school my new nickname was'minute man' because I blabbed that I only lasted that long. Not bad, really, when you think about it considering the circumstances. All the guys and even a few girls were laughing--a minute! What a loser! But really, on the inside most of the guys were thinking, "Shit, I've unloaded after one or two pumps." In the days of high school there is a constant pressure beating down on you to go along. Go where? Who the fuck knows, but you don't want to go out on a limb and stand up for someone who's getting their balls busted, you simply have to bust along with the rest of 'em or shut the fuck up. I prefered to shut the fuck up.

I imagine losing your virginity is similar to turning 50. You await the moment and when it passes nothing really changes. There is no great revelation and you feel pretty much the same as you did yesterday. Although when you turn 50 you damn well know it's the same old story without a new ending. You don't grow another limb or acquire super powers like you may have thought once you lost your virginity. You gain experience--some intangible unit of memory and eventually it turns into words.

Turbo Homo Bang Gang

There was this guy I once knew, Marty, used to have a band back in Brampton called Turbo Homo Bang Gang. On stage he wasn't Marty though, he was Tony Spigoni, his rock n' roll alter ego. He'd play these mad live shows at all the tired old bars and some of the lively ones, the few that there were.

He showed up at the clubs as Tony, decked out in snake skin boots, leather jacket and a tight fitting collared shirt only halfway buttoned up thus exposes a lean muscular torso and taught pecs to go nicely with a thick thatch of hair sprouting from his head. It was the kind of hair God himself would bequeath upon his own head. Tony snorted a gorilla finger of cocaine just before each show to get him pumped up, a line the size God himself would put up his nose. A bottle of Jack later and he really became Tony Spigoni.

On stage the crowd provoked him because they knew Tony had a short fuse and also because humans enjoy swilling booze and provoking violence. But he provoked the crowd too; not afraid to say anything to anyone. The way a real man doesn't take shit, never backs down from a confrontation. Maybe his confidence was propped up by indulging but so what? The crowd seemed to love Sammy Sosa and Mark Mcguire hit it out of the park.

After the first couple songs Tony began hurling obscenities at the crowd in between--and sometimes during--songs. He didn't give a shit if he forgot the lyrics, just soldiered on. Coldplay he was not. His lips were red and licking wet with booze and vitriol:

"Look at you two fat fuckers," (He targeted a couple of regulars near the front who obviously had never seen a THBG show). "You both got belly buttons like BOMB craters! I'm gonna come down there and slap all four of your BITCH tits!"

"Yeahhh?" One of them countered, "Why don't you meet us outside in the parking lot after the show and I'll show you something alright!"

"Yeah, like what? Your stamp collection, or butterflies under glass?"

And with that these two fat drunks rushed the stage and tackled Tony. Fists were flying like napalm. Tony landed a couple good ones but ended up on the wrong side of the beating. Security pulled the two heavyweights off and kicked them out of the club and the show continued, as it must.

Blood was dripping off Tony's face and pooling onto the stage below. A huge welt was already bubbling up on his forehead, his left eye bruised, soon to become technicoloured. The crowd was ROARING asking for More! More! More! Go! Go! Go! You could really feel it reverberating through the audience. A feeling of pure excitement. We go through our days filling up calendar squares with appointments/dates/meetings/birthdays and then it's over. Life just burns away and there's not much to remember most by.

"Next month I'll be on the cover of Town & Country," Tony remarked to the crowd before cueing the band into the next riff rock sludge tune. Something about zombie chicks on the moon in bikinis struggling to build a spaceship to travel back to earth to exterminate the male species:

Just another show, par for the course. The lights went up and the stereo started playing music softly, almost imperceptibly; you thought you knew the tune but couldn't be sure. As Tony settled down for a drink Jerry Stone, a crazed out hanger on to the scene came up to him and said, "Hey man, great show...as usual." "Yeah yeah, alright man."

Jerry Stone was one of those guys who was always around at every show. No one really knew where he came from. But like when neighbours describe someone after they commit a mass murder, he seemed 'odd'.

"Aren't you curious about the dreams of Amazonian tribesmen who have never ventured outside the jungle or whatever? You know, the ones you see in National Geographic documentaries?" "Sure, sure man," Tony said, looking around somewhat disinterested.

"Sometimes," Jerry continued, I dream that I'm a Brazilian tribesman who lives in the rainforest, one of these Arapaso people with poison tipped arrows and all that jazz. Then I fall asleep in the dream as one of these guys, ya know, just a regular hunter or whatever. But I can never remember those dreams. If I could, man I'd have it ALL figured out."

Jerry shuffled out of view and then some sunglass lowering caliber girls made their way over to Tony and now his attention was focused on them. Just because the band had the word 'homo' in their name the only thing homo about Tony was the milk in his cereal. He liked pussy--all kinds of it. Damaged goods were all good. Groupies mainly. Shit, why do you think he started a band in the first place?

One night while I was on assignment doing a write up of one of THBGs' show for a local paper Tony confided in me. We were always fairly close, got along pretty well, known each other a long time. We knew each other before he became Tony Spigoni. I came to the realization he enjoyed my company; we were drinking buddies even though I was a journalist. I saw him do some pretty wild things but he trusted in me, or perhaps, he wanted me to see him as some crazy rock n roller and write about it. Do some myth building for him. Sometimes we went to an after party together and it was at one of these after parties he solemnly related to me--perhaps as Marty--that he had an acute problem of a sexual nature--all that coke and all that booze, he could rarely keep it up when he was with a woman. He feared that there was talk going around amongst his groupies that he was a bad lover. Definitely wasn't Tony Spigoni in bed. Couldn't go all night. Shit, couldn't even go once.

"Man, it's no good. I'm all jazzed up and wasted, I just don't even care about fucking these beautiful women. Even if I DID, the bathroom is out of service Jake. I can't get the motor revving. And hey this off the record, huh?"

"Yes, yes for sure man, don't worry. Well," I said, a little stunned by his ED confession, "maybe you should try just staying sober, at least until after you know, get your rocks off."

"Yeah, I know but it's always after a show and poppa needs his meds before he can go on stage. The meds make me impotent. I mean, the irony just kills me: The very thing I need to perform is the very thing that won't let me perform."

"It's a wicked world isn't it?"

"It's getting to the point where I don't want to even go home with anyone. I'm actually in the middle of writing a song right now called, " Lately, I'm Only Writing Rain Checks". It's a real departure from my usual stuff. A real tear jerker. I'm sick of this shit, night in and night out. these bars Jake! I'm telling you, it'll be the death of me! All these distorted guitars ringing in my ears all fucking night. And for what? A couple hundred bucks? A night of cheap pussy? Do you even know what I do 9 to 5? Fucking manual labor. I got a head full of bumble bees. Assembly line bullshit. Well pretty much-- unloading containers full of all sorts of shit--mushrooms, spaceship parts, keyboards, humans. Why do you think I'm in such good shape? In ten years I won't be able to stand up straight."

"I always wondered what you did," I said.

"It's our dirty little secret," He said.

Just at that very moment his pocket vibrated. He pulled his phone out and unclamped it: 'INCOMING CALL FROM ALLISON CHAINS' the screen read.

"Oh hey, I gotta take this. I'll come back in ten minutes. Remember," Tony said, walking away, "Off the fucking record!"

"Do you even have to ask?" I said.

Tony came back to me and clam shelled his phone shut, put it in his tight leather pockets. They were so tight I didn't know how he tucked the phone in there but somehow everything fit just right. "This chick, Allison I think I really like her, and not in that pump and dump kind of way. The true test of love is if you don't hate her guts after you bust a nut. I can lay there peacefully with her without a care in the world and watch the smoke from my cigarette curl up into the bedroom. I tell ya that's when I'm at peace Jake. No boss man telling me to speed it up, no band bitching at me to get to practice. Life consists of humans grabbing at your hours to give themselves more.

"Ain't that the truth."

"Allison picked me up a few weeks back in Guelph to take me home after a show. I hadn't seen her in a week. I missed her and was surprised by how emotional I was when I met her outside the club. I didn't want to let her know I was overcome so I kept a front of cool indifference. During the drive back to Brampton I stole glances of the way her hair just rested softly on the back of her neck. It just gets to me sometimes--but, you never let a girl know you love her too much Jake or then she'll kill you. You don't want to get caught in her trap."

At another show, Tony got a midget, put him in a cage and fed him booze, ecstacy, and cocaine throughout the set. But not necessarily in that order. He was trapped right in the middle of the stage. He was male, thirty-ish, with one of those goofy oversized heads and stubby limbs. Gods little joke. He went by the name Stephen Dwarf.

Tony bent down beside Stephen's cage and offered him a bump of the devils dandruff, "It's feeding time!" he exclaimed.

Stephen sniffed it up. Just another cranked out midget in his underwear, confined to a cage, forced to take drugs and vomit all over himself for the crowds amusement. You don't notice it sometimes, and it can happen when you're not looking, but Christ, life can get away from you. What was I doing here watching this atrocity? I suppose it beat watching American Idol.

God is a madman with an AK47 firing indiscriminately into the crowd. Stephen wound up getting hit--most don't. Be thankful for that.

At one point he was lying on his back convulsing in his little bird cage. There he was, barely enough room for him to writhe around in for chrissakes; rolling back and forth his flesh screaming against the cage wires. Eventually he found his wits and the show continued...

The guitarist began swaying to the groove in time to his chunky power chords and Tony turned to him and yelled into the mic, "Don't you show an emotion! You show an emotion and I fire you!"

Jerry Stone came up to me and started spitting in my ear about some bullshit dream he had: "There I was having sex with this girl. I was sitting down and she was riding me, her back to me. My cock was so overstuffed and HUGE in her tight pussy I was afraid every time she came down on me that it was going to bend in half and snap like a twig! And you know who was right beside me? That fucking douche nozzle from The Jersey Shore, The Situation. He was crouched down beside me with his immaculate hair and bronzed awesomeness just watching me fuck this girl. I had to be careful because his hair--it was so gelled up it--it was like there were thousands of pen knives jutting out of his skull. Weapons of mass seduction I'm telling ya! Ha! Ha!"

"Right, Jerry sounds great," I said sucking on a bottle of Moosehead.

"Then The Situation told me I had a nice spoke. That's the word he used for my cock: Spoke. I've never heard anyone call it that before. I thought it was a little odd."

"Well dreams usually are."

Back on the stage Tony pulled the key to Stephen's cage from an ass pocket and held it up for the crowd. The band laid down a slow groove behind him. Stephen looked at Tony menacingly and shook his hands to say, No! No! No! but Tony swallowed the key and chased it with a swig of Jack anyways. They had been through this routine before. Tony gave him a cut of the door. It was all for show but the next day Tony really did have to shit the key out, fake or not. The bartender had the real key and took Stephen out back after the show and released him into the night like a dove on a wedding day. The barkeep was a guy everyone called Base Pipe Billy. Pulled a quick beer so he was good in my books. Apparently he tried to cop a feel on a few of my friends late at night when not many people were around. Lured them in with the promise of free booze. Some part of me was a little disappointed that he never tried to fondle me, it would have been good for my self esteem. Maybe I wasn't there too often or he didn't know me well enough, the hermit that I am. Yes, once he got to know me he would most definitely fondle me.

Right after the show ended, with the distortion still gnawing at my brain, I went out a back entrance to grab my pack of cigarettes. I stood outside the back door and lit one up. At that very moment Base Pipe Billy came out holding the cage with Stephen in it.

"Christ, get me outta here!" Stephen demanded.

"Yeah, yeah yeah." Base Pipe knelt down , placed the cage on the ground and unlocked it. His joints cracked, he was getting old.

"Hey Jake you gotta smoke buddy?" Stephen asked me, stretching his miniature limbs, free from his cage and into the prison of the world. "Sure, here ya go," I said fetching one out of my pack. "You want one to Billy?"

"Sure, thanks Jake."

The three of us stood there--Base Pipe Billy, Stephen Dwarf, and me smoking in total silence as the night surrounded us.

Teens Do The Darndest Things

Since Terrorism is in vogue I thought why not detail my one and only experience with the genre.

My name is Taylor and I firebombed a major street from my backyard with a Molotov Cocktail when I was fourteen years old.

My punishment: I had to write two short essays about how I could of really really hurt someone. It was like my parents scolding me for being a foolish child. I'm certain things have changed now, fifteen years down the line with the rampant government induced terrorist paranoia and all. In these post 9/11 days I would be water boarded somewhere in the bowels of the Don Jail for tossing a Molotov Cocktail. Your last name is Nesbit you say? You don’t look English. More like a rogue Syrian chemist who has been hiding out in basements wearing custom made baby blue contact lenses plotting out the death’s of every North American one by one by poisoning the Great Lakes. The suburbs of Toronto seem like as good a place as any to get this Jihad thing rolling.

I was kind of like a terrorist before it was cool, before everyone jumped on the IED bandwagon. But you gotta be careful when you jump on the bandwagon that the road the bandwagon is going down isn’t full of IED’s. The first--and only time--I tossed a bomb it didn’t even clear my fence and it lay there in my backyard with the cloth burning, mocking me, daring me to pick it up again and send the infidels on a highway to hell. I thought about it for a split second and convinced myself that hell yeah I’ll pick it up I can’t leave a perfectly good Molotov Cocktail burning in my backyard. What would my parents think? I’m a no good quitter who can‘t see anything through? I remember sharply when I had quit piano lessons some years back when I was twelve. The Royal Conservatory of Music--isn’t that superfluously opulent? The day I expressed my disinterest in the formality of learning piano it was a feeling of supreme disappointment; you know when your parents are mad but they're so mad that there's an eerie calm about them? I tried to explain it wasn’t the instrument itself it was just the conditions: This stupid fucking class where I learned with these kids that I didn’t know and didn’t want to know. I don’t like being put in those situations. But the disappointment was etched across my parents faces, it screamed out to me like a 40 foot billboard on the Gardner Expressway of a father suffocating his child with a pillow. The kid frantically flailing his arms and legs violently in every direction, yearning for a pocket of air, gasping for life, and then slowly succumbing to the inevitable darkness.

I swear to god the first time I tossed it, the Flaming Homer, you know, the Molotov Cocktail or whatever it was, the thing ended up in my next door neighbours yard, not my backyard like I previously stated. I'm sorry but it's a crucial element to the story and I don't want to go back and edit the first part out. Anyways, the cloth I put in the bomb went up in flames so fast I just panicked and lobbed it instantly without thinking. Come on, I’m not fucking Muhammed Atta here, I didn’t know if it was gonna blow up in my hands or if a genie was gonna pop out, I’m a dumb-ass fourteen year old stoner. In a split second decision not unlike the aforementioned one I hopped my fence and ran into my neighbours yard to retrieve the as of yet undetonated bomb. It was sitting right by their picnic bench. It was lunch time, nobody seemed to be home so I wasn't freaking out. I pick up the bomb ever so delicately and toss it like a grenade circa 1941. In the air the flaming concoction looks like it will finally clear the fence and I can round the bases for a two run dinger. I had to throw it about twenty yards. My bomb floated through the air as if in slow motion. But what happens? I hit the fence about a foot from the top. A foot away from hall of fame glory. It just ain’t like the movies kids.

So then I frantically hop the fence back into my yard, run up to the still flaming IED and lob it overhead into the German bunker OR somewhere around the middle of Charlais Blvd. But talk about an anti-climax. It could have been two week old piss in that bottle the way it just shattered. No heaven full of vigrins for me. I did not slay any infidels. The impact of the bottle on the street extinguished the flame BUT the damage had been done. Some fucking douche bag, the stock boy from the grocery store across the street happened to witness the attack (yeah, I lived directly across the street from a plaza complete with a bar, grocery store, etc, etc, so it made the stunt that much more stupid unless I hatched a plan to kill any and all potential witnesses).

Like drunken monkeys trying to solve a Soduku puzzle we scrambled back into my house and made our way back to school. You see, all this took place during lunch hour. Nowadays, if I tried the same stunt the U.S. would want to extradite me to Gitmo and accuse me of being a teen genius who made top-notch IED’s and in my spare time was working on an environmentally friendly Kidney Dialysis machine for Bin Laden that was user friendly in remote Afghani caves.

My buddies and I got the hell out of my house anticipating the fuzz any minute. Sure enough, as we were walking through a field just off my street we saw two cop cars whizzing towards my house. One of them had 'Sargeant' scrawled across the doors. Didn't even have sirens. Shit this must be serious. Just like dealers are always late when you need them cops are always early when you don't.

And I swear this is true...in addition to my little bomb dillema I had about two ounces of HEMP, yes HEMP that we picked from some field and thought we could sell to some suckers. Well my friends thought that we could sell it to suckers but I secretly thought about smoking it. This HEMP was in my locker and as we walked back to school I told my friend Justin to take it out and hang on to it because I feared the cops would want to search my locker for more bomb making materials. Okay so now that I have that out of the way....

I'm sitting in class and the speaker crackles to life: "Hello Mr. Soandso, can Taylor please come to the office immediately?"
"Ah shit," I thought, "Busted!" But acted like, "Who, me?". The jig was up.

In the principal's office there were two well dressed men in trench coats. One white, slightly overweight and bald the other a younger Asian guy with all his hair. I think he was Chinese but they all look the same I'll admit. I figured they were detectives but you couldn't really be sure, could have been hitmen for all I knew. They started in with the questions. I was nervous, I'll also admit that. I pulled the old con card, DENY! DENY! DENY!
"What?" I said incredulously, "Someone threw a Molotov Cocktail onto Charlais Blvd? I hope no one got hurt," I somehow managed to say with a straight face.
"Were you at home during your lunch hour?" The Asian detective asked me. "Oh yeah, I was at home all by myself at lunch."
"Uh-hum. Well we have a witness, a neighbour, who says she saw you and three friends leaving your house moments after the incident."

I was caught in my lie, we both knew it. Cops like it when you admit the truth after you lie to them. "Yeah, sorry I was lying, my friends were with me. I just didn't want to get them in any trouble."
"I understand, I understand. What's going to happen know is we're going to go back to the station and ask you some more questions, okay?"
"Well I guess I don't really have a choice do I?"

With that the three of us got up and they asked me to put my hands behing my back. Getting cuffed makes you feel ten feet tall. I'm the MAN, I'm IMPORTANT, I'm DANGEROUS, I command RESPECT OR I WILL FUCK YOU UP. But really it was quite embarassing. They dragged me through the halls just after class ended and though one of the detectives neatly folded his jacket over my hands to conceal the handcuffs it was a dead give away to my classmates because I had these two well dressed adults walking right behind me and my hands are behind my back. Yeah...looked real natural. Nothing to worrry about guys, they're just my two interacial dads--now hurry up and get to class.

As I said before my punishment was to write two essays. Why two essays and not one longer one I'll never know. The actual charges were POSSESSION OF AN EXPLOSIVE SUBSTANCE.

That concludes my career as a terrorist.

I Can't Wait To Never See You Again

I have a lot of problems, I'm not going to lie. Not too proud but that's just the way it is. Anxiety, depression, over thinking, under thinking etc., etc. In other words a twenty first century modern male PUSSY. These problems may be real or they may not but as old Neil once sang, "Just because my problems are meaningless, that don't make them go away." Sometimes a man just crumbles under the weight of it. All I can do when that happens is violently type these words before you. I would commit other violent acts but I don't know of any except typing.

I had a nervous breakdown once--and only once--if you want the Gods honest truth. It wasn't even that bad, but it was sad and painful nonetheless; A wake up call, perhaps. Yes, a wake up call to take prescription drugs to avoid working through any mental and emotional problems.

It happened after a party in January of this year and I simply couldn't function the next day as a human being. Incapable of the perfunctory routines of an urban man I found myself lying in bed not unlike Brian Wilson did. "Taylor, man! pull yourself together," A voice screamed in my head. "Boil an egg, you moron!"

The previous night I had drank RIVERS of beer and snorted an AVALANCHE of cocaine. There was a burlesque dancer at the party. Before her show we were on the front porch and she just finished a cigarette and pulled another one right out and gave it a lit. I've always told myself to be careful of those types; can't control their addictions. I love smoking, the act of it, the feel of the smoke in my lungs, exhaling it through my nostrils but I've never been able to smoke two cigarettes in a row. I have to wait. When you wait it tastes that much better. One needs to play certain games in this world to stay afloat, to stay sane. I will get addicted to substances and then torture myself by witholding the drug (in a teasing way, of course) until I finally acquiesce to my desires. So anyways this dance turned out to be what I was expecting, bending and slithering over a chair, the men whooping it up. She had tassles on her nipples and when she swirled her breasts they are supposed to go round and round and hypnotize you, I suppose. Mesmerizing.

I thought I'd give the tassle trick a go myself. I've got some man boobage. Actually, I have the breasts of a twelve year old girl. Girls! What do they think? I, a man, can't do what they can do? Shit, I can do it and then some. So upon exiting the washroom after just snorting Blue Mountain in January, I peeled off my shirt and exclaimed, "Hey, lemme give those tassles a twirl, honey." (Case in point of under thinking).

She got out the necessary glue and held them in place for a minute on my nips. The rest was up to me. I tried in vain to get the rhythm and momentum to keep the tassles spinning but I couldn't do it. I kept at it but the damn things just went from side to side, not round and round. I failed yet again, but at the very least I can scratch that off my bucket list.

Around 3am I lied down for a few hours of agonizing sleeping non-sleep. Thoughts racing mad all over the place. Nonsense, just never ending nonsensical thoughts piling on top of each other crumbling and building up again only to pile up to the same height as before and then crumble to rubble ad infinitum. Sisyphus, you got a smoke, buddy? Well that seemed to sober me up enough to drive home. Hadn't had a drop for a few hours. My mind cleared up and I didn't have any coke donuts caked around my nostrils. All that's left is to sneak out of the house while everyone else is passed out or shacked up...

I figure that I've been in about fifteen accidents in my life (most minor with no damage, but a couple major ones with lots of damage) but never, and I retype, NEVER did I get in a wreck while drinking. What kind of fool doesn't keep riding a hot streak? I ride my hot streak in a silver Chevy Cavalier circa 2001, thank you very much.

If they made drinking and driving an Olympic event there would be no doubt, I'd bring home some hardware. I'm the best drunk driver in this shit-stinking world! I'd make you proud Canada! I can just picture myself on the gold podium weeping, waving holding a bouquet of flowers. I would struggle through the jungle course but make up for it on the city course complete with pedestrians and cops roaming the streets.

Speaking of being proud I AM proud to say that I have not once gotten into my car while drunk since that night almost a year ago. Oprah, cue the gentle applause. I imagine my therapist would tell me it's good to be proud of myself if I had one (self or therapy?). Drunk driving seems to be the one bad habit I've successfully defeated.

The act of getting into a motor vehicle while intoxicated hasn't changed much since the 20's or 30's. Punishment used to be a slap on the wrist. The sheriff in town pulls you over and you both have a good chuckle about it, and you're sent on your way with a wink and a nod, "Drive home safe now, Mr. Nezbit." But now it's like you raped a toddler. After seven beers and half a bottle of wine, I get behind that wheel and the MAN would have you believe I'm some nutty Jihad fella, but really I'm just a silly old corksucker. Plus, I have really good eye hand coordination; I would win a medal, remember? If a sweet old lady or a woman with a stroller pops out of nowhere you can count on me to swerve out of the way at the very last second as she gasps in horror, "No, not without my baby!" And while smoking with NO hands NO less.

I'm almost home, I can practically taste the sweet relief of solitude, then, seemingly out of nowhere, a priest and a rabbi start crossing the street. 5:30 in the morning, too. Very strange. The good lord upstairs must have sent out the Bat signal. If they don't move I'll splatter their god fearing guts all over my windshield. Catholic and Jew parts all mixed up like some divine Frankenstein. I'm going at least 90k; my car slices through the night, through the fog. I slam my palm onto the horn, one long blast to distill the silence. Could have woke God himself up. They both look at me, horrified with the realization that this is it--their final moment. Though they are spiritual men, or maybe because they are, their bodies cannot move out of the way as fast as their minds can.

My lungs involuntarily lob out a sream and I slam on the brakes, but I know it's too late, the laws of gravity, cause and effect, are a real bitch at times like these. The priest and rabbi hit my front end and roll up the hood to make two distinct imprints into the broken glass of my windshield. The priest was slightly larger though, more cracked glass and a heavier thud on the pavement. The car finally comes to a screeching halt. I frantically clammer to get through the bubble of my airbag and out the door. There on the street, plain as day among the shattered glass are two bodies lying still in severe injury or death. Rivulets of rouge coat the streets. I wipe my nose with the cuff of my jacket, spit a thick one on to the ground, and try to make sense of it all. My car is a write off, smoke billowing out of from the hood adding another thick coating of fog into the night. I had to split on my own two feet and fast. They'll never catch ME though. I won't rot away in some prison. I'm going out on my terms. No warden's going to get an ounce of my soul or body. I'll never mop their dirty death row floors.

In the wreckage I noticed A small hardcover book, ancient looking like it could be appraised on Antiques Roadshow, was lying between the two bodies. For whatever reason I grabbed it, and fled the scene. Who knows, maybe worth something some day even though I'm suddenly running out of days.

I ran all the way to my apartment, got my guitar, got some clothes, got my passport, and got the hell out of there. Now where to? I know the man I AM is busted, my car left right at the scene and all. Not even F. Lee Bailey can get me out of this one. The law won't even send Colombo. This ain't no whodunnit, after all.

I have to get out of the country and start again. Create a new identity in a foreign land somewhere far far away...

I always wanted to see Los Angeles. Cops in cars, the topless bars. Never saw a twenty first century man-PUSSY so alone, SO ALONE! I have read many books set in L.A., I should at least see what all the words are about. IF I'm going to create a new identity what better place to do it than the land of make believe? Palm trees, BMW's in the sun. Looking out from the hills; a city of lights humming in the smog. That's the movie star view, right? But what I was always more interested in was the seedier side of Hollywood--the low lifes and bums--the degenerates hustling for a buck--because that's what I FEEL like, doc! That's who I identify with. The Hollywood of Bukowski, Tony O'Neill, John and Dan Fante. What do ya make A that, doc? Just another middle class white kid who has it all, has the world by the balls, but discards it in favor of the gutter view. Regality does not suit me very well.

I can't wait to take ironic pictures with my two thumbs up, crouching down in front of obscure stars on the walk of fame, like Za Su Pitts. I also can't wait to take a hot one Phil Spitalny's star.


L.A. it is then! A basin in the sun. I heard some news story recently that there are a shit load more stars in the universe than previously thought. L.A. is the only place in the universe you can see a star, a real bright one, covered in cocaine and puke in a bathroom stall.

I got a cab to take me to the airport...

On the plane I started slamming beers and by the time we landed I was quite drunk. I think my new identity was kicking in for I almost forgot my own name. the paranoia was dulled by the alcohol and I didn't give three fucks, two shits, or one good goddamn if these were my last moments of freedom or what. That, my fellow humans is the beauty of alcohol; puts it all in perspective.

While outside I gulped in my first breaths of La La Land and hailed cab. I threw my back pack and guitar in the trunk and settled into the back seat. Even though I'd never been to Hollywood I knew exactly where I was going. "Take me to Beachwood Canyon, my friend," I slurred.

I cruised by neighborhoods, palm tree fronds whizzing past shimmering in the sun. Endless sprawl, endless nameless faces. Every big city's the same. Humans shuffling around going some place with so much purpose, they all look like they're clammering to get away from each other only to run into more and more.

I always loved palm trees and L.A. is full of them. Short, stocky thick ones, or those really tall pencil neck ones that careen into the sky. I don't even know why I love them so much but if I could be a tree it would definitely be one of the palm variety.

But there's no time to become a palm tree...


Here I am in my last moments. Why bother trying to run, create a new life, I'm defeated, I can barely do my laundry for chrissakes. How am I going to put together this Bourne Identity type of guy? Though I'm in Hollywood this ain't like the movies, kid. Plain and simple, I'm a killer--in a vehicular sort of way. Only a matter of hours before the law gets to me; to stay one step ahead for the rest of my days, it seems too taxing. I don't have many options left, prison not being one of them. I remember a guy I once knew, a drinking buddy, Mel, who told me what jail was like when he did a Loonie in Maplehurst. He was in for punching a cop after they provoked him into violence by repeatedly slamming his head against the brick wall of his house. It all started with a noise complaint or something trivial like that. He warned the officer holding his head that if he did it again he was going to pop him. The cop snickered to his buddies and gave him another SLAM. Mel turned around and socked him good right in the cheek. He was seeing STARS. He staggered to his feet only with the help of two more cop buddies. All five or six of them then joined in and kicked and clubbed Mel until he couldn't walk right for a month. All in the name of justice.

The cab dropped me off at the top of a hill. I tipped large. When you have no time left, it is easy to wriggle out of the trappings of man--money, women, big houses, competition. It's OH so liberating to finally be free from it all. Though I didn't want to die, my mind was calm and lucid.

There was a convenient hole in the fence surrounding the "HoLLyWooD" sign and I crept through. I had my guitar on my back, my backpack in my left hand and climbed the wrungs on the back of the 'H' with my right. Once on top I pulled out my guitar and marvelled at the view. Is this what Peg Entwistle saw before she leaped to her death? Another broken star.

I tuned up and began playing, "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" as my last song. It was simply the first song to pop into my head. Fitting perhaps.

"Dragon clouds so high above
I've only known careless love
It's always hit me from below..."

And with that I took a step forward into the great starry night, into the abyss. I began falling, hurdling down to the ravine at the bottom of the hill, all the while still playing guitar no less.

The next day some hikers stumbled upon my body, the debris of my guitar and the belongings in my backpack which were strewn about the scene.

"Hey, Laurie, check this old book out..."

And upon opening it,

This is what

Was

Inside.

To The Blonde Woman in the BMW

To the blonde woman in the BMW: At the red light I stole glances of your red lipstick and when the light went green:

ROAD/FACE/ROAD/BREASTS/ROAD/LIPS.

I swear, one of these days you Toronto women are really going to fuck up my insurance rates.

To the girls of Bloor St: I don't know what Dolce & Gabbana are telling you but it's working. The glossy magazines are whispering in your ear and you are listening. Well most of you anyway.

To the girls of Bloor St not listening: It's definitely more than okay, don't get me wrong. I like you just the way you are. I think I'm in love with the girlfriend of the man who works at the full serve Esso station by my apartment. She just sits there with aviator glasses on; her boyfriend pumps gas into all the expensive cars and it's reflected in her eyes. Every so often a jalopi will roll in and I think to myself, What is WRONG with the universe? But this girl, she just sits there reading and watching the world go by. And I don't want to change the world, I just want to watch it go by too. Why can't we watch it turn together? The world is turning, yes, but I hope it doesn't turn away.

To the homeless girl at the Hwy 427 and Dundas exit: I drive by you often, I presume you're homeless, or maybe you just hang out at the Hwy 427 Dundas St. exit. What a healthy looking German Shepherd to keep you company too. You're dressed in dirty jeans and an old t-shirt but I know there's a woman under there! I was looking for a sign, a placard reading "WILL FUCK TAYLOR FOR FOOD". I roll down my window and ask you and your dog to hop in. "Put the bitch in the back, honey," I say opening the door AND smoking a cigarette with no hands. All a man like me needs is to be left alone and a decent piece of ass once in a while.

"Sure, you can use my shower while I'm at work; and here's some money for dog food. Buy the good stuff," I say, on my way out leaving a twenty on the table. I bet she'd give me a good blowjob when I came home after a hard day's work at the office. Better chance her than YOU the blonde woman in the BMW. So in love with yourself, when having sex you're really just using a human dildo.

Around this time my fantasy turns on me and I'll be at work--I CAN'T STOP thinking that this goddamn homeless girl is hoofing my computer and guitar to buy CRACK.

And really, what is it with crack lately? In the 90's it was an epidemic in the projects, poor black men on Cops proclaiming, "Those are my keys, but THAT'S not my CRACK." Obviously that's still happening but now it's au couture. Now celebrities are sucking on the end of that glass pipe like they're trying to get a golf ball through a garden hose.

I am the BOBBLEHEAD of Bloor St. Craning my neck, mining for that one look, a fraction of a second alone with the outline of that ass to put it in the bank. We could be so good together--I'd wash your BMW on the weekends, scrub off all the grime. Shining hot to the touch glimmering in the noon day sun. It has all the bells and whistles, sometimes I wonder if the car isn't driving you.

We'd go out for dinner with Tom and Cindy and then home and I'd give it to you just the way you like it. Instead I'm eye-humping you in a black BMW; in the mind it plays like a cheap porno movie, my cock slicing into you. You just want more more MORE!

How sharper than a serpent's tooth the pain is to have the blonde woman in the BMW disappear down the road and out of my life and into this blog.

Come to think of it, a woman's career in Hollywood has the same arc as one in the WTA (Women's Tennis Association). It's ovah by thirty five. Unless you're Maryl Streep. Can you BELIEVE I actually enjoyed Julie & Julia? The whole time I was watching it I kept telling myself, "Taylor this is horseshit, don't fall for this smarmy tale of life and love and cooking and hope and relationships and love, oh I already mentioned love, and parenthood, and blogs, and terrorism, no not terrorism you fool, though one of the characters dealt with insurance claims from 9/11 victims but that's as far as it went into terrorism, and food, how could I forget the food? Remember when Amy Adams cooked that duck? Oh brother, what a love story.

I watched the movie with my parents; Mom thought it was just okay and Dad was dismissive as he should have been as a real man but I was all choked up. WTF (What The Fuck)? I think it had to do with the song at the end, Time After Time. That damn song by Sammy Cahn. I swallowed those tears like a man though. Fought 'em back like Ali in the 12th or Tyson in the 1st.

And time after time, you'll hear me say that I'm
So lucky to be loving you, the blonde woman in the BMW.

Plight Of The Left-Handed Man

When I was a young boy I noticed that something was different about me. No, it wasn't my unusually large penis, it was my left-handedness. As a kid I thought, 'why is it so damn hard to write in notebooks at school?'. Pencils always rubbed off and left a dark ugly streak down my pinky finger and the side of my wrist. The binder rings were always in my way too! Oh how I hated the first few lines on the page--I couldn't get my hand positioned correctly so my wrist was cocked way up high. The pen was almost at a 90 degree angle with the tip pointing at my chest. As a result my penmanship suffered terribly. Fuck the TROOPS! I'm in agony here; just an impressionable boy trying to learn his ABC's.

But there were benefits to being different from 85-90% of the gen pop. I struck out SO many batters in little league. For a skinny little runt I could whip a fastball harder than almost anyone in the league and right on the outside corner. Sometimes I would toy with the other team; during the warm up between innings I would lob bananas and lull the other team into a false sense of security. Then when it came time to face a batter I laced a fast one and you could tell by the kickback of the catcher's arm it was a stinger, like the kickback from a shotgun--he pulled his hand out of the mitt and shaked it up and down. I had the power. This is what it must be like to be a CEO. I could feel their attention and respect radiating through me. This pitch was dialed in straight from the hand of Jesus, if Jesus was a pitcher instead of a carpenter.

One night I was pitching an All-Star game. It was the final game of the tournament--our All-Star team against theirs for the championship. It was the bottom of the 7th--the final inning. There were two outs and the bases loaded. We were up 3-2. The game was in my hands. I was pitching the last 2 innings. I peed my pants. I wasn't nervous it was more of a physiological need to go. I HAD to pee! I didn't want to hold the game up so I soldiered on. After all it was the bottom of the 7th. I kept crossing my knees to find relief and some of the parents noticed. I couldn't hide it, I had to FLOOD a toilet. My Dad yelled from the stands, "TAYLOR, do you have to go to the bathroom?"

"No, I'm alright." I yelled back. With all the parents standing and everyone anticipating potentially the last pitch of the game I couldn't just say, "Okay guys, bottom of the 7th with 2 out, I'm just going to take a leak in the bushes." That's just not how I operate. I'm a professional. I'm an ALL-STAR goddamnit. So...I just let go. When waging a war against your bodily functions you can win a few battles but ultimately your body wins the war.

It wasn't a mere trickle but a fire hose stream down the leg of my all white pants. From the waist down I was drowning in adolescent pee. And NOW I have to somehow get this batter out and win the tournament? It was time for some real Angel in the Outfield type shit. I glared down this kid and chucked a fastball high and inside but still in the stike zone. He hits a weak grounder right at me. With my pants stuck to my legs I bent down and waited for an agonizing second as the ball rolled into my glove. While that was happening I was deciding if I should throw the guy out at first or go for the guy running from third to home. I caught a strong whiff of piss while my head was between my knees but calmly, and with great poise I might add, threw the runner out at home. The catcher made the play in the nick of time and the team went NUTS running towards me with their arms in the air screaming mad like they were martyred terrorists and I was the first heavenly virgin to grace their eyes.

No no no it's hazardous, there's pee everywhere! Why are you all HUGGING me? There was no time to react, my team was all over me and we all embraced as one and began jumping up and down in unison. Sadly, that was the first and only time a gaggle of young boys hugged me while I was covered in pee. Finally when the celebration ended I went to the rec centre across the street and had the best pee of my young life. That first piss after you win it all is always the best.

The Roid Less Travelled: How I Spent New Year's 2010

Just before Christmas I made my way up north to visit my parents in Wasaga Beach. I daydreamed all the way up Hwy. 10 over the rolling hills and through the fog on a still, listless Winter’s day. I hit the gas, popped a Peter Jackson in my mouth and cranked the volume on Some Girls. It was going to be a nice peaceful Christmas with my Mom & Dad. Just swell thank you very much.

Christmas was nothing short of serene, my parents couldn’t have been more wonderful. Gifts and love and booze rained down up me. But upon arriving back at my apartment in Toronto (okay Etobicoke) I felt a tender swelling or generalized pain in my tuchus. At first I attributed this to my aggressive wiping tendencies; I tend to use a lot of toilet paper and occasionally I cut my rectum because of this. Doesn’t happen often but it can happen to the best of us. My general rule of thumb is to stop wiping when there’s more RED than BROWN. Everyone’s got a game plan, huh?

So there I am standing in my bathroom dumbfounded by this prickly little pain on my bottom that would not go away. I finally resolved to grab a chair, lug it from my living room and drop it in front of the bathroom mirror. Nude from the waist down I hopped up and bent over to give myself the old prison spread. I slowly turned around to face the mirror, my heart racing mad, savoring the last second before I consumed my fate.

What was this ANOMALY before my eyes?

I could hardly believe it; what was this thing, this growth protruding from the right side of the mouth of my donut door? It was a goddamn jelly bean on steroids. I nearly fell off the chair in shock like I was awakened from a deep sleep with a taser. I was convinced that I had anal cancer. What does anal cancer really consist of I began to think. Do I lose all the hair on my ass? I hope they give me some good pain pills. I always go right to the worst case scenario and then slowly try and rationalize backwards. Yes I’ll go to bed tonight and just deal with the anal cancer tomorrow. I mean just LOOK at this thing. It looks like my asshole is farming testicles fa krists sake! I have a third testicle!...Directly on my asshole! What in the fuck is this? I just kept saying Ohmygod-Ohmygod-Ohmygod over and over in my mind. AHHH! Yes just go to sleep and deal with the anal cancer tomorrow. How am I possibly going to sleep tonight? I always knew one day I would get cancer and lucky me I get ANAL cancer. This big, blue bulbous flesh balloon. 'Can I pop it with a nail and hammer?' I wondered as I prodded it with my finger. I thought at any second a tiny alien was going to pop out of it covered in gooey slim with gnashing teeth.

The next morning I confided to a friend that I have a massive growth on the wall of the right side of my anus:

"It's too bad because I read somewhere the ass is the face of the soul of sex. Now I'm definitely not getting any. I can't even thrust. This lump seems pregnant and ready to give birth to who knows what at any moment. It even has this blue to it, matches my eyes." Of course the whole situation is so goddamn funny at the same time we’re both laughing hysterically. I struggled to get out of bed and put on my pants. Another day beckoned along with unforeseen hurdles. Is this how handicap people feel? Adjusting to my new life was going to be difficult. Walking? Walking was fucking excruciating! I made it--although in a belaboured state--to the local Shoppers Drug Mart. I marched in slow rigid steps. My back was hunched and I couldn’t bend my knees. Actually I looked like I made a wrong turn and four black guys showed me the cruel inner city laws of the street. Like I was being raped with a tree trunk.

I waddled up to the pharmacist and just my luck there’s this beautiful young mother with her infant child in line with me; great now I have an audience to my embarrassing little saga. I tell the pharmacist that I think I have a massive external hemorrhoid on my rectum. Or at least that’s what I thought it was studying up online (and the INTRAWEB never lies!).

“I couldn’t even sleep last night, the pain was that bad. I just couldn’t get comfortable.”

“Ohhh you poor thing.” She sounded like my mother and I felt like she really cared about my dilemma. Good pharmacist. She directs me to some kind of ass pads that have witch hazel in them which soothes the itch and disinfects. I don’t have any itch whatsoever--just intense pain. The other product she recommends is the aptly titled Anusol. Anusol? That’s just great. It has a better ring than Preparation H.

Walking home was even more difficult than walking to the pharmacy. I almost expected someone to help me cross the street like I was a sweet old lady. I finally got home and with the excitement of a junkie about to fix I frantically unbuckled my pants and took out one of the round anal pads and rubbed it lovingly around the circumference of my new friend. Shit, this thing had it's own horizon. I squirted out some of the Anusol cream and rubbed it on; that was the gross part where I had to directly massage the hemorrhoid with my finger. It was my new bulbous ballgame peanut appendage.

For those of you who haven’t had a hemorrhoid you get terrible constipation. I couldn’t drop a hot one for the first couple days and it was driving me mental. I had to do something about this. I went to an herbal shop to get some Psyllium fiber. That's what the guy (pharmacist? guru? nut?) recommended. He looked like he knew what he was talking about; I put my faith in him. I bought this huge ziploc bag full of these little fibers that looked a little like wheat. The only goddamn things I buy in ziploc bags are coke and pot. That's what the little pharmacist in my head recommends. Psyllium fiber? Man I'm getting old.

It took until the next day and I finally had one in the chamber. But that walk to the bathroom was like taking my final steps down death row to the electric chair. This goddamn hemorrhoid hurt enough...now I’m going to have to stretch my tender little HOLE and force out the concentrated evil? And disrupt the BEAST?! Oh this cruel world! I’ve never been so scared to go to the bathroom in my whole life. I sat on the bowl and waited for the moment--the moment where the excrement frees itself from bowel tube. How am I going to wipe? Is the hemorrhoid going to burst all over the place? Is it going to get infected with my shit? Oh God why? WHY? Like an airplane nose-diving into the Atlantic I braced myself for impact. Amazingly there was no pain! There IS a God after all! Somehow my rectum expanded and accommodated the hemmorrhoid and the waste. I immediately pushed my head between my legs to check the bowl for blood, puss, unborn alien fetuses. Nothing! And still no pain. Ahh, the silver lining.

The company man that I am I actually made it into work the next day. It was the shortened week after Christmas but before New Year’s so business was slow. There was no hiding my uncomfortable dilemma, I still walked like a robot.

After talking with an older and presumably wiser gentleman at work he told me the sensible thing would be to go to the doctor immeidiately. Since the cream and pad routine was still having no effect I thought what the hell I’ll call the doctor. I made an emergency appointment with the receptionist. I had to explain the reason. I’m not one to pussyfoot around with receptionists so I just blurted out “I have a MASSIVE haemorrhoid!”

“Okay sir come right over you can meet with Dr. Graham,” she said. “Alright see you soon.” It was that easy.

I’m in the waiting room.

The nurse calls me in and I sit in one of the small doctors offices that are lined in a row. More waiting. Finally the doctor comes in and greets me. He sits down at his desk and pulls up my file.
“Last time you were in here it was for fleas?” He took his gaze off the screen and looked at me quizzically.

“Yeah, I stayed over at a friends place and had all these incredibly itchy infected bites when I woke up. They didn’t go away for months. You were on vacation and your replacement, a student, gave me some steroid cream.”

“Huh. Well why’d you come back today?” “I…uhhh…I have this massive growth right on my anus. It‘s big and bulbous and it hurts like hell.”

“Oh boy. You have a Thrombosed Hemorrhoid!” WTF? He can diagnose it just like that? Without even looking at it? Shit. This guys good.

“Alright here’s what we’re going to do: Drop your drawers and hop up here,” he patted the examining table.

“Oh my god, you’re not going to POP it are you?”

“You bet we are. I have to get the nurse to assist me. I’ll be back in a few.” What the fuck just happened? He’s going to pop it AND he has to get someone to help? This thing is so freakishly large it’s a two man job? At first the thought of my doctor and some nurse probing my anal region was unsettling; but then my exhibitionistic impulses took stock of the situation and my terror turned into delight. See, I like to get naked in front of people. Friends, strangers, I don’t discriminate. Somewhere deep inside it warms my heart to have people seeing all my naughty bits dangling about. I want YOU to watch ME tug on my slab of manhood. I want to punish you. I'm the judge and jury and your sentence is to watch me masturbate. But also the reverse is true: I spy on the pretty girls who walk by my apartment; as I watch them go by I’ll tilt my head and squish my face onto the window to get a better view as they disappear beyond the horizon. It’s quite embarrassing when someone is trailing the girl some ten feet and looks up to see my smeared face gawking shamelessly and touching my privates. It’s at times like this I think, ‘yes I am scum’.

Unfortunately there was one little snag in my exhibition plan at the doctor's office--There was going to be a lot of pain. Physical pain doesn’t factor into my exhibitionistic fantasies. Can’t the nurse and doc just sit there and watch me play with myself? I’m sorry I showed you my growth but can we BOTH just leave now unharmed?

There I was splayed out on the examination table with my pants off and undies pulled down to my ankles. I was laying on my side facing the wall while my ass was yawning at the audience.

“So how does this whole procedure work?” I somehow had the foolish notion that he would give me some kind of pill/cream and it would magically disappear like my infected flea bites. There’s nothing to prepare you for the moment right before an anticipated act of medical violence. You have to prepare yourself fast. They don’t sit there and sweet talk you. This isn’t your mother here, this is our strained and overburdened health system so it’s in then out as fast as possible. SWIFT medical justice. They just make you pull your pants down and they get in there quick. You only have a few seconds to ready yourself for this is going to be a new kind of pain and I can only imagine what it will feel like. I looked over my shoulder and saw the doctor putting on gloves and getting a needle ready. “We’re going to inject a freezing agent, the needle will sting a bit after that it's smooth sailing.”

It doesn’t happen in slow motion like the movies where there’s a close up shot of the eye of the needle and the doc squirts a little of the solution to make sure the droppers working. No he just does it. Nike and the Canadian health care both have the same catchphrase. Continuing a trend of helping others in times of need my hands were occupied spreading my own ass cheeks so the nurse didn’t have to. What I thoughtful young man I am.

“Taylor,” she was annoyed, “Move your hands so the doctor can work. Just relax, think of how good it will feel when it’s over.” I politely removed my hands and the nurse took over spreading my cheeks. There was the doctor about to inject his frosty serum and the nurse splaying my cheeks. Now that’s TEAMWORK.

Just as I was thinking about how nice it is to have these two folks staring right into the eye of my storm I felt a horrific sharp stinging pain…

“Ahhh-haaa-ahhhh-haaaa…” I started whimpering. This is what being anally probed by space creatures must be like.

“Don’t worry, it will be over soon.” The nurse reassured me. Surprisingly the pain subsided fast as the freezing agent nullified my nerve endings. He then used a scalpel to make an incision on the hemorrhoid to drain the blood and gore. As if this whole situation wasn’t awkward enough there was an awkward silence for about ten seconds as the doctor quietly pilfered all the evil spirits from my hemorrhoid. “And...we’re done! There was a TON of blood! Biggest one I‘ve ever seen! Biggest Thrombosed Hemorrhoid EVER!” The doctor exclaimed. He was elated. What was I? Some kind of sideshow freak?

“Now isn’t that relieving?” He asked.

“Yeah,” I said getting off the examining table, “Something like relief.” I looked behind at my ass and noticed the nurse lovingly folded some of these little square ass napkins into my butt cheeks and there was quite a lot of blood forming on them. Because I have such a skinny little pre-pubescent boys bottom my cheeks naturally squeezed the ass napkins together in a death grip and they would never fall out. I was worried about bleeding through onto my favourite pair of jeans though. Shit it looked like Iwo Jima in my underwear.

“So what do I have to do now? Keep rubbing on the cream?” I asked, prying the doctors brain for clues. He seems so busy that he can't even offer me some post-burst advice.

“Well after the incision and the amount of blood that came out you should be fine but keep using the cream for the itch. It will take 2-4 weeks to heal.”

“2-4 weeks? That long?”

And with that he was off barrelling down the hallway to assuage the next disaster. I left the office and made my way back to the office. I immediately went into the bathroom to see how much blood had accumulated on my ass napkins. Jesus it looked like I was having my PERIOD. I tossed the bloodied pads into the toilet and it looked like JAWS at a seafood buffet. I folded up some more ass gauze and wedged it between my cheeks. It was OH so difficult to walk. Getting up and sitting down was the worst part.

A co-worker, noticing my distress came up to me and chuckled, “So your new name is now Tayroids okay?”

“Right.”

It was the day of New Years Eve, the last day of the millenium and I was driving home after a half day at work. Today brother they only got HALF my soul. On top of barely being able to walk I am a part time recluse who spends as much time away from humans as possible (some friends excluded). Needless to say I didn’t have any plans this New Years. Me and my mortally wounded hemorrhoid were going to lay around, bleed from the anus, maybe play guitar, load up a bowl in my bong and watch Dick Clark MUMBLE his way through another countdown.
I lay down on my couch and thought what a way to end the decade. Alone and crippled both emotionally and physically; I’m depressed, consumed with anxiety and obsessive compulsive thoughts. What can the next ten years possibly hold? Got to be better than the last ten right? I’m going to battle through with some semblance of dignity. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. What else can a man do except put his head down, hold tight to a few hard truths and journey onwards with the promise that it gets easier, it gets better. There’s reason and purpose out there somewhere. The message will get through somehow no matter how muffled it sounds…

Dick Clark counted down the remaining seconds of the decade, “10.…9.…8.…7.…”