My Boyfriend, My Mommy

Nick's Pub is a lame-ass pit of pukes on Milwaukee Avenue here in Chicago where, for an awful period last year, I regularly bobbed for random cock. For the first time in quite a while, I'm hearing the call of Nick's again. Loudly and disgustingly.

You see, I acquired this crappy boyfriend named Schlobo just so I could stop slutting around with every plug-ugly shithead with whom I came into contact. This strategy actually worked for a while but my "boyfriend" is a nudge and nitpicky and irritating and loud. So loud. He's forever pointing out that I'm dirty as he spontaneously starts cleaning my room and making my bed and generally being a pain in the cunt.

You might think that there's nothing wrong with that, but Schlobo's approach is so obnoxious. He reminds me so much of my mother. Too much. He grabs crap on the floor and says, "Ok, we're sayin' goodbye to this one!" and then, "Yep, this is OUTTA HERE," and "EEW how long has this been here?" and "GOODBYE FELLA!"

You get the idea.

And when he's finished, I don't know where anything is, and he's thrown out half of the things that I need. Talking to garbage is so sick. I had no idea I hated it so much until he started doing it and I got an instant flashback to my horrible mother throwing my good toys out. It made me want to kill myself, then and now.

Schlobo also owns the shittiest record label in history. He doesn't even have the money to make actual records so he can only afford to make CDRs. What's worse is that he doesn't understand how lame this is.

I tried to explain to Schlobo that even the poorest, most degenerate piece of shit now has a computer with a CD burner. Why the fuck, then, would they pay him their money to make CDs for them when it’s about the easiest thing in the world to do it for themselves?

"Well what if the band is on tour?" Schlobo countered.

This logic is in keeping with Schlobo's sensibility in general, and speaks volumes about his way with a buck in particular. This is especially galling because he's Jewish and he can't even live up to the cash-savvy stereotype. Being whiny and incessantly running his yap and living with his parents past age thirty--those slurs he's chosen to adopt as his own. Not the money thing, though.

I only mention Schlobo's ethnicity because it's such a pathetic issue for him. He hates being Jewish to the point of constantly trying to cover it up. For Moses' sake, Schlobo works in a kosher restaurant in the heavily Jewish suburb of Skokie and he's forever trying to pass himself off as being raised by Christ-lovers.

Apparently soon Schlobo's going to fly the coop and leave mom and dad's house. We'll see. He likes to give me a lot of advice on where I should live. And he constantly smokes pot. I hate pot. I'd like to blame his idiocy on his being ganja-zonked so often but, no, he's just an idiot.

Look, I have my flaws. I'm a lazy bitch. But I'm not stupid. Schlobo is.

Giving the dummy his due, I must note that what he's amazing at is sex. I swear. That's about the only reason that I don't end this never-ending mess. I like the sex too much. It's enough to keep me faithful even.

But the talking! Schlobo never shuts up. It has driven my roommates--who are all fucking certifiably retarded and insane to begin with--past the point of complete meltdowns.

I will admit that I do not live with the highest caliber of people. Most people would actually refer to them as scum.

One of my roommates is a compulsive gamer. He is also a drunk who yells on the corner about how the neighborhood is filled with . . . well, I'll let you use your imagination but it's not good. Another roomie is a terminal fuckup that has been the bane of my existence for the past five years. And then there's one who chooses to walk around the house exclusively in raggy, blotchy briefs. The site of him sometimes makes me crazy to the point that I think I would rather have my own father's penis dangling right in front of my face than see this.

These are my roommates, but this "man" whom I am dating seems to piss them all off and top this by his talking. He never shuts up. Ever. EVER!

Schlobo has been regularly attending high-decibel rock shows for a good seventeen years. I will ask him politely sometimes if he might think that he has possibly suffered hearing loss as a result of his ear-rattling hobby.

He answers in his usual loud voice, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN? WHY WOULD I BE DEAF," and I will reply how all of the roommates complain about the volume at which he speaks and how it is too loud and how they wish that it could be a bit lower.

He can't comprehend this.

When Schlobo and I sit together in bed and talk, it’s like conversing with a victim of Down's Syndrome. Perhaps he does have Down's, but I have never asked. He does not have the look. But he is such a loud talker I find myself becoming deafer by the moment when he is around

However, like I've said so many times before, what is the alternative? Sliming around Nick's Pub again at 4 a.m. trying to find some kind of mate? And why do I feel I need a mate anyway? I do not know.

I have never considered myself straight, or gay, or bisexual. I guess "queer" would be the right word for it, but queer is too often associated with the gay community so I really do not know how to label myself, and I do not like labels anyway.

A good girl might be nice. I haven't had that in a while. I talk to straight men a lot and they cannot understand why anyone would want to be with a male because they're gross. And I agree, they are. They're all hairy and brutish. Females are so much softer, plus they don't have dicks, and I hate looking at penises, I think they're fucking ugly as hell, but I like sex with men. So I don't know what to do.

Schlobo has got to go, though. He has made references to our having kids already. It scares the shit out of me. Then I realize he's thirty. I actually think he'd marry my scummy ass just because he felt he had to, and then we'd have this miserable life. It's sick. I am in no hurry. That's for sure.

I might be wasting my time, but I don't know what I want right now. I just do not want bar sex. I'm done with that for a while. I think I will be done with crybaby loser sex soon, although I bet if I tried to break up with Schlobo, he would not even hear me.

Mental Death

Right now. I lie here. I think I have experienced it. Death. Mental Death. Physical deterioration. Lying here for days staring at the ceiling waiting to be carried up, or go plummeting down. My stomach tight with hunger. My legs cramped from malnutrition. My back aching from not moving. Hair turning straw-like and beginning to thin and fall out.

I remember I'm 25. Born in 1980. How did it happen this fast? I remember the first time I read Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and read the part about the lobotomy, and the way the protagonist was after it had happened to him, dead in the mind, unthinking, but still there physically. He sounded like the luckiest man in the entire world.

I envied his no longer having the torment of having to think, or worse, having to remember. Waiting for a nurse to come and do everything for you four times a day. Feed you, bathe you, empty your piss and shit, shave you. Watch NASCAR on the television for hours. Watch the cars go around and around and around and around the track, never stopping. There is no world around you. You are no longer aware of it. It is gone. You are inside of the safe brick walls. Not inside your head anymore. This is mental death and it sounds wonderful.

Cut to him. He's fucking your ass from behind while you're barely trying to cling to the wet, slippery walls of the bathtub while he slams your head into the faucet. Snot mixed with blood and shampoo drip down the side of the tub. There is no escape from this. There is no stopping this. It is raining hot water all over your back, which only makes the walls more slippery, harder to balance your two small hands on so that you don't go crashing face first into the bottom of the bathtub and break your face open.

There is already blood in the bottom of the tub, although you have no idea from where, it just exists and more is coming. Is it yours . . . his? Too hard to tell. Everything hurts and is wet and slippery. The stench of blood and semen is ripe and in the air. I was born for this.

His engorged cum filled dick slamming into me. I think about my organs moving in all different directions. Through this I am able to stop and wonder if he can actually alter the way that my organs are arranged in my body if this sick troll pounds me enough times.

This is not intercourse. This is not sex. This is not fucking. There is only one word for this and it is sloppy and disgusting and rife with hatred. I look at my legs and see streams of blood pouring down each of the already bruised wretched sticks. How did I get here? I wonder what organs are dying inside of me now.

I know what this is, what is happening, and I say it quietly. And when I say it I scream, and when I scream I scream over and over again until it becomes a horrible beautiful resonating song in my head. He shoves my bloody face into the shampoo again. The bitter taste is inhaled into my mouth while the fake strawberry stench mixed with that of the blood and the sweat and the semen and the genitalia and decay makes my body wretch.

I vomit a light pink color into the tub, followed by seemingly buckets of blood. I repeat the word quietly, over and over. For me, once a word is repeated I soon become numb to it for a time, but not this one. I rip it apart; scrunch it up; step on it; throw it; inflict endless violence to the memories and to this word, but everything is still there. The word, the memories, death is still in front of me staring me right in my bloody bruised face, giving me a sly wink because they all know that they will always be there and that I will never get rid of them.

I want to go home.

I want to go home.

I will not tell anybody what you have done to me. Just let me go home. I wont tell anyone honest.

I will never go home. I will live a desperate rotting life. A life of constant insufficiency. It will be ugly and demeaning to all those involved in it. Especially me. The small humiliating embarrassing and humiliated product of a wretched degraded and degrading process. My mind, my body, my fucking being. All the time. Everyday. Every fucking Minute.

(ADDENDUM TO ORIGINAL SW MATERIAL TAKEN FROM MYSPACE 1/31/08)

I wake up in another bed.... my stomach feels like something inside has exploded. I feel something dripping down my leg. I stick my hand into my vagina and it is covered in blood. This is not a period. This is not.... I know it. This is my baby. This has been my baby that has exploded inside me. He has come inside me too many times. I never bled this much. I am on enough drugs to kill a large horse each day. What I sneeze would kill a baby. And I did it. I wanted this one. I wanted to keep it. I knew it would be retarded. I knew it would be merely retarded from me and I don't know who the father would be. I wanted this one though. It exploded though. There was nothing to remain.

I barely stumble across the floor into the bathroom clutching my stomach and my baby bleeding out my vagina all over the floor. It hurts a lot. He has no idea. I wait for him to leave. I can't let anyone know this. I know this is the baby though. This is my fate. I want it. I wanted this one and I knew it was inside of me. I could feel it. I didn't think about how I was going to have to quit everything and drugs and substances and how hard it would be... well the thought crossed my mind... but I just figured I'd have to do it and that was that. I would have done it for this kid. I've never wanted a baby until I lost this one. It exploded. I felt it in my hand. It was liquid. I killed it. I killed it by drinking and falling and taking pills and fucking myself up.

After all the hurt and forced sex and mental death and suicide and cutting and bleeding and abuse why the fuck would I want this????? Why would I want this thing that was created out of pure hatred and loneliness??? It hurt. I wanted it.... As it spread across the floor and it's little guts went all over the paper towels I sobbed and convulsed.... at least no one was not here to see it. I knew it happened... and I never wanted them to know.

What the fuck can one do now though??? It's over. I have to continue to live this life... Nothing's inside me now... I'm barren. Will this happen again??? For the first time in my life I want to do that.... God I can't imagine. People can't fathom me being a mother but fuck them. I am the important one and no I can't imagine it, but it needs to happen. For only selfish reasons, then let it be for selfish fucking reasons. I am goddamned lonely.

I never understood why any woman would want to have some parasite growing inside of her and fucking watch it get bigger and uglier and turn into another faceless brainless ape among us. But mine would be different because it would be MY brainless ape. I WANT it to have down's syndrome. I WANT it to be retarded. I WANT to be able to relate to it. I'll take whatever I'm given. Unfortunately I can't raise a handful of blood. I mean I guess the most I could have done would have been to collect the blood in a jar and named it. It is too hard. There's too much to think about.

Turn over.
You fat pig.
You disgusting fucking whore.
What did your Daddy do to you?
What fucked you up so bad?
You are way to pretty to be so fucked up.
You could do so much more with your life.
Are you ok?
ARE YOU OK???????


DO YOU FUCKING CARE?????
no you don't.
if one more stinking piece of human garbage utters those three condescending ass STUPID three words to me as long as I live, I will shoot them. Well I would shoot them, but their life is obviously not worth mine getting in trouble. ARE YOU OK?????

NO ONE CARES.

I HAD A BABY IN MY FUCKING HAND AND IT TURNED TO LIQUID ON THE FLOOR.... I'M JUST FINE POPS... THANKS FOR ASKING!!!!!! LOL!!!!!

R.I.P., Smiley

This is a eulogy to a friend of mine who died recently. I know what you expect is some crazy sex shit all the time, but this one's all about death.

You see, I'm not that close with death. You'd think I was, living the life I do, but I'm not. The death of this man took out a major piece of me, like other things do, but in a different way. It was so unexpected, like many deaths are.

James Chambers--better known as “Smiley”--was a panhandler. I knew him pretty well, about as close as someone can get to a panhandler without being a panhandler herself. I do not live in the best neighborhood, and Smiley was on a block very close to my house. One night, he heard gunshots and tried to run from them. He collided into a van, which dragged him thirty feet down the street. Most of his face was scraped off.

When the ambulance came, there was a hospital very nearby that they could have taken him to, but they decided that "since there was no trauma unit there," or that is what they said, that they needed to take him to a hospital that was much further away. Upon arriving at the hospital, he was dead. It is now a few weeks later.

Smiley, as of this writing, still waits in the morgue. He has a lot of friends in this neighborhood, but, like many people on the streets, he was not close to members of his family. The way that the "system" works is that if there is not a blood relative to come and identify him, he will stay in the morgue from thirty to ninety days, after which I believe he will be buried in a pine box in a grave marked only with a number. James Chambers ceases to be a person, or to have ever been a person. He becomes a number.

I know I rarely write anything political or anything close to this in this column, but I'd like to use this as a forum to remember this man, because he was a good man, and after I found out he was dead, way before I knew anything about this morgue shit or anything else, I wrote him this eulogy.

I originally thought that he'd have a funeral like everyone else and that I'd have a chance to read this there, but that’s not happening. This is a man that lived a full life, but things got tough at one point, and then he died, and now he is nothing. Smiley lies cold in a morgue, just like he was cold outside every night, only now he can't say anything to anyone anymore.

Various people in the neighborhood (mostly other homeless people) have tried to find Smiley’s family with no success. I put a rose on the spot where he died. It was gone two hours later. I figure someone probably picked it up to give to a girlfriend. But that's just me.

For the last year and a half of his life, I knew James Chambers because he would hang out outside of the Dunkin Donuts that I went to every night.

The way he died is tragic.

The fact that he's still sitting cold and dead in a morgue is tragic.

Everything is tragic. But here is the eulogy.


You were so fucking beautiful.

I know that we will be together someday.

You seemed to understand me, and you always said that we would be together and that you would take me out.

Now you won't be cold.

Hopefully you'll be happy and warm somewhere.

Far away from these mean Chicago streets that smell like shit and where no one cares.

You will be singing somewhere like you always did with your beautiful angel voice.

One time you told me something that was so beautiful. You said, "This color we are, someday it will all melt away; when we are dead there will be no color anymore."

And now there isn't.

You were so wise and always ready to comfort me with my problems.

You helped me through tons of bad times, and sometimes I'd just drive the streets to find you and talk to you because you always knew what to say.

I wish I could have helped you more.

I wish I lived alone so I could have invited you into my house.

But "could haves" never matter.

I talked about you at my job yesterday and tried to figure out the best place for you to go to get you out of the cold.

Today, I went to Dunkin Donuts ready to tell you information I had found out for you.

But you were never there.

Instead your best friend flagged me down at the gas station and told me what had happened.

I wish I could have helped you as much as you helped me.

You were a friend and a role model.

Like I said, I looked up to how wise you were.

Your name "Smiley" was so fitting because no matter how bad everything got, you would smile.

When everything got worse, you would smile and sing.

You were truly a ray of light inside this dark pit of hell that so many of us live in.

You told me once you were a preacher.

I don't think you ever stopped being one.

I saw you help other people, and everyone that saw you loved you and admired the way that you could deal with the worst by smiling and singing.

You always wanted to help yourself and get off the streets and tell me that you were going to get into programs and help yourself.

I always said that you should do what you can to make yourself happy and tried to help as much as I could.

You were so close, and then this happens.

But isn't that the way that everything goes?

No more cold nights hopefully.

No more world full of shit and roaches.

Continue singing and smiling beautiful man.

I know if you were here now you would hug me and sing to me and tell me to stop crying.

You would say something wise and comfort me.

I will miss you forever.

*

Something happened the day after Smiley died. I went into the Dunkin Donuts where he stood outside of everyday and the woman who worked in there said to me in broken English, “No more one black guy.”

She was referring to Smiley's death. I said, "You mean Smiley? Yeah, it's a shame."

Then she said, "He drunk."

I tried to control myself and explain to her calmly that he was not drunk, he was trying to dodge bullets, and then she explained what I said in her native language to the other man that works in there.

He looked surprised.

It made me very angry that she would just assume he was drunk. I swear I never smelled alcohol on him when I saw him. But even if I did, so what? But he would be regarded as a drunk, and that hurt me even more. And now all of this recent stuff with the morgue is horrible.

I wrote that eulogy when I was in a more optimistic mood; when I thought that he would be buried like everyone else. I better than most people should know that usually good things turn to shit, but for some reason in this case, I did not believe it. R.I.P. James Chambers, a.k.a. Smiley. There are still a lot of people that remember you and care about you.