Fireworks

Today, as I write, it is the fifth of July. It was pointed out to me today that I desperately sleep with the biggest weirdos on holidays. I started thinking back to recent holidays in the past couple of years, and I realized he was completely right.

My festive-time peculiarity started two years ago on Halloween when I went home with a drunken Polish man who discovered that his cat was dead upon our arrival and we had this impromptu funeral for the animal. He shoved it in the freezer, and we had sex.

Then there was the Thanksgiving after that, where I got really drunk in this Puerto Rican bar and wandered the neighborhood and cars kept stopping and trying to pick me up and drive me home safely (or rape me, who knows). I kept telling them to get the fuck away from me, but finally one stopped in front of my house and I decided to get in. I got a ride to a 53-year-old man's house--who still calls me who is quite scary--and I had sex with him in his twin-sized bed in between bouts of vomiting from being so drunk.

More recently, on Memorial Day I brought home a guy who was too drunk to have sex (which was fortunate, because I was dating a total wiener of a whiny Jewish boy at the time). He did not give me sex, but he did leave me a present when he urinated in my bed. I thought it was quite funny and endearing and even cute, like a baby. I washed his clothes and was very nice. And then there was yesterday . . . the Fourth of July.

I live in quite an interesting neighborhood, and on an even more interesting block. Mostly everyone here is Puerto Rican, there are some blacks. I am one of two white girls in the neighborhood. I have a lot of friends here, and I really like it.

On the third of July, I was torn from bed at 3am by a loud bang. It was not a firework, nor a gunshot, two typical sounds where I live. It was a fucking bomb. And then there was another one. And then another and another.

I went outside and felt like I was transported to the Vietnam War, with dynamite blowing off in all places. It was fucking scary. I heard a woman yell out her window, pleading "Please! It's 4am . . . I have children . . . STOP THE NOISE!" Then some guy promptly told his friend to throw five quarter-sticks right outside her window, and it sounded like an atom bomb blew off (I'm sure you can't hear an atom bomb, but I'm trying to say it was really fucking loud).

Amongst the noise and the smoke I managed to find my mechanic friend and walked around with him through the terror and the bombs. It was weird too, because NO police came by. I asked my friend why they weren't over here regulating, and he informed me that they were afraid of being blown up. It was sheer madness.

So I retired to my stoop, sat down, and watched the neighborhood crumble while drinking vodka and cranberry juice. A dark, very skinny African American stopped by. His name was Junebug. We talked for about three hours. He informed me that he had just gotten out of prison on Friday for selling crack, and then showed me a stash of crack that he was holding under his tongue.

Junebug said he was only selling crack so that he could get money to go to Iowa so that he could get out of the city and urban life and settle down. My roommate came down and contributed to his traveling funds.

I continued talking to him and I was very happy that he was not hitting on me or all over me, because that makes me sick. I mostly asked him a lot about prison, and it was weird but we started kissing. Then I remembered he had a bunch of crack under his tongue. I inquired about it, and he had already thought to take it out of course, and it sort of reminded me of a warped version of when I was 16 and had to take my retainer out before tongue kissing a boy, only this guy had to remove his stash before kissing me.

I hadn't had sex with anyone except the Hebraic pottyface I had been dating for the last half year, and this guy was the bizarro-world opposite. I just spent six months fucking the biggest whiner pussy I had ever encountered, and now I was about to knock boots with a crack dealer who just got out of prison, had a bunch of gang tattoos, was a member of the Maniacs (the main gang on my street), had two kids, and had never slept with anyone but a black woman in his life.

We hung out in my room for a while. My roommate had just given me this book about prisoners' inventions that was really interesting. In the book it explains how to make a simulated ass and vagina using folded garbage bags filled with warm water and rolled up sheets to simulate a body, some real MacGyver shit.

I asked Junebug if he knew how to do that. He thought it was really funny and said he did not, but hopefully he will not end up back in prison, but if he does he'll know how to make a woman. I thought the sex would be a lot rougher than it was. It was weird because the sex with my wussy boyfriend was a lot rougher than the sex with this guy who most people would probably refer to as a thug.

When I woke up, Junebug was gone. That's the way I like it the best. I really hate morning awkwardness. I don't know if it was another holiday thing, or if it was that I just got out of this relationship with someone that I loathe and regret dating so much that I had to fornicate with his polar opposite, but I tend to think it is both.

My roommate wrote me a note asking me to pencil him in for Labor Day, half being an asshole, half being serious I think. Maybe I should lock myself inside for holidays, because my track record for the men I sleep with on holidays ends up being the most diverse, bizarre, perverse group of people ever.

Come Labor Day, I'll make sure I chain myself to my toilet until it is over.