did i ever tell you about the time i went to virginia beach? i did not. no, i don't think i have. i will tell you, blog, this is a crazy story that dates back to nearly nine years ago. take me back to senior year of high school, recently graduated, and heading to spain for a vacation with schoolmates. long story short, i kiss a guy for the first time there, and it is magical. shoot to eight years later, 2008 during a steamy and humid summer in the midwest. i'm in chicago heading to virginia beach to see this guy- now, blog, keep in mind, i've set directive clearly that this is no way a hook up nor is it a relationship building experience. it is simply to say hi and see each other after eight years to see if our friendship is really what we claim it is outside of email or chat or phone conversations that are limited to maybe three times annually. i arrive, touch down, walk toward the main area of the airport, and there, standing tall and dark is this man, blog. this man whom i don't quite recognize. shaved head, check. dark framed glasses, check. beautifully chiseled facial definition, jesus christ, check. stiletto's, black sleeveless ruffled blouse, threaded eyebrows arched and pointed to the point that would be the envy of any tranny, check. it was all there, but seemingly, the latter was an addition since the last time i'd seen him in 2001. why, back then, blog, i last saw him with his shirt half ripped off in a bathroom stall on a ferry returning from Morocco as his Puerto Rican scruff was scouring my porcelain chin while we were making out. Then out of nowhere, his chaperone, also known as his mother storms into the Men's bathroom, mind you, opens the stall door in a fury, and scolds her son in harsh foreign belittlement. I can recollect the scenario quite clearly, blog. There is this hot Puerto Rican, totally caught in the act, bulge quite prevalently activated, face smudged with some scared shitless twink's spit, being berated in of all places, a bathroom; on a boat; in the Mediterranean Sea. The point of this rewinded memory is that he was not dressed in women's clothes. He was man, and manly, and hot. I'm open and objective to any lifestyle, however I personally prefer an attraction to men who identify as male and conceive themselves as male, thus not caking their face with a poor color choice of rouge that clearly did NOT highlight his cheekbones, and eyeshadow that summoned an attempt to be a poser for Marilyn Manson, but still fell short. If you're going to go goth, work it; if not, don't try. The bow and ruffles and even stilettos on his dancer body were flattering. He would make a fantastically creepy American Gladiator hybrid of a dragqueen. However, his hip slung wide leg black trousers reminded me of Clydesdale horses, and his cat eye glasses, while still black framed, simply made me say to myself after the fact, "He was trying too hard." And even now, still, i tell myself, he needed to edit more. Blog, I couldn't even tell you what my initial reaction was. I probably tried to mask my horror. In hind site, it isn't a big deal at all. However, as said before, that's not my personal preference, so the physical attraction was tossed out. Unfortunately, his damn rouge was not.
Now I know what you're thinking blog, this makes me come off as judgemental and a dick. No, no, I declare. It's a fucking blog and I will retell my story as I see fit. I, along with everybody in this universe is judgemental to a point, and I find this whole recollection amusing, so my personal input is invaluable.
The trip went to shit from the start. As a dancer, he insisted "We all smoke this much. Trust me. I'm a dancer." He just lit up cigarette after cigarette. Once again, if you choose to smoke, fine, but it's my tongue in your mouth, and i prefer it taste not like ash. So, even though I had already declared no sexy time on this trip, he was making it super easy, but in a super gross and unappealing fashion. The memories are trickling in, and to sum it up before I become afflicted again, I'll just free flow type: lifetime channel, laundryroom, empty apartment. death. federico garcia lorca, horses, huge HUGE bugs, twin size bed, must vacuum, hair trimmings in bathtub.
We head to a neighborhood that is equipped with doors and windows adorned with security steel bars, and "The Club" latched onto steering wheels. His friends live in this eclectic apartment complex that is a freestanding three story building that has a sunken in, crooked cement staircase leading up to the torn screen screen door. His friend is a high muthafucker who would put Chris Tucker to shame in a shouting contest. And in terms of being high? gosh, i think he made it a point to smoke one joint per hour. My former hot and handsome cum hot tranny mess (oh that phrase totally fits in this description now! yay) imbibed in this activity as well. "I'm a dancer, we do it all the time." Yeah, i know lots of dancers who smoke four joints in a night, on top of two packs of Camels, ontop if a 12 pack of beer. I wouldn't have been as judgemental had the beer been something other than Budweiser. But really? Even shit beer like Miller Light would have more tact. So, if we learn anything in this, don't let puerto rican wanna be dragqueen ballerina trained dancers buy the booze; they'll fall short. Because it's still 80 degrees out and the humidity is, afterall southern humidity, this northwesterner is melting and sweating and slowly dying. we sit near the sunken in cement staircase inside the foyer of the building on the stairwell. slowly, neighbors trickle on down to join. So we've got the black sidekick friend who smokes pot and drinks malt liquor (i swear i'm not Trying to be cliche) the subpar puerto rican chimney smoking ballerina drag queen, and please let me introduce to you the old black man neighbor who has been living off of welfare checks and unemployment for twelve years, also loves malt liquor, pot, and some blue over the counter prescription pill. he doesn't have many teeth, and he gets a kick out of calling me "little cracka". "So, you a gay too, lil' cracka?" And once again, please let me reiterate, I am seriously not intentionally being stereotypical, but he could NOT stop talking about this rib joint just down the street. He wanted me to go buy him ribs. "Buy us all ribs, lil' cracka! we'll come back here, kick back with some of dose ribs and pot, and hell, i'll even eat dem ribs out of the same bucket as you gays."
Next, we have a french woman who looks like a worn down version of catherine keener. she is sweet, she is thickly accented, and she is crazy. In her 50's, she has sardined her small dwelling space so tightly with objects. Her bathroom door was unable to close because there was only a small path to and from the toilet and shower. Her sink was full of bottles and packages of beauty products. Her vanity was overflowing, tub half filled, back of door hanging caddy, cabinets, floor littered with all of these products ranging from mostly beauty products to kitchen machines like juicers and a panini maker. Her couch had a small space for two people to sit on. The rest was full of old newspapers and magazines. At inconspicuous count, I tallied 9 cats in her living space. As I said, she was very sweet and kind. She told me that the story of how he and I met was something like out of the movies. Love like that, she implored, was something worth keeping and cherishing. She had been married once. She didn't get a divorce before she left France. She just left him one evening and never came back home. She hasn't spoken to him since.
We have the new neighbor who we discovered this balmly evening is a racist. He is also a meth addict. And also has a warrant for his arrest in North Carolina. He doesn't like black ppl. he doesn't like gay ppl. he doesn't know why he's living here, except for that it's not in NC and he can never go back there, cuz the cops are waiting for him. Being the only white guy aside from him in this circle of characters, and after the gang has smoked probably three hours worth of pot, and probably gone through two cases of beer has made me feel concerned for my well being. Voices are raised, threats are made, and thank jesus for beautiful marijuana to save the day and bring racist, homophobic, wanted meth-heads and minorities who range all over the board together.
my favorite, however is definitely the old lady on the 2nd floor. she's white. she's from the deep south of atlanta, georgia, and she is a drunken racist who carries a gun with her. picture betty white with a brown bagged forty, a registered shotgun (oh yeah, it ain't a tiny weapon either), a mouth like a sailor (I lost track of how many times she said the N word after she got to 20) telling us how beautiful the flowers at her friend Nomi's house are. With her thick southern drawl, she expresses the deep hues, and lush greens of foliage, pausing every now and then to swig from her paper bag. She'll make a quip about her next door neighbor, her friend, and how that n-word is always wanting ribs. "Get a job at that rib joint, and not only can you eat all them ribs you want, but you'll get paid, and then you won't be like the rest of all them other n-words."
It was the best juxtaposition I've ever been a part of. To wrap up my story, blog, tranny wanted to try to force himself on me that night, to which I grabbed my belongings, stayed at a nearby motel, cabbed it to the airport the next day, bought a five hundred dollar ticket to get me back home, and have yet to speak to him since. Because sometimes, love like this is worth keeping, and cherishing, yes, but on occasion it's worth aborting and running as fast as hell in the other direction. But never, ever, is it worth forgetting.
