Storylog

When I was very young I was terrified of dogs.  It was their quickness, their ability to outrun me. And their teeth. How did I know what they were thinking?  Would they hurt me if they had the chance? Maybe I thought that way because some part of me expected that kind of unpredictable cruelty, because part of me was unpredictably cruel. But this story isn’t about that.

I was walking home with two of my friends, and we came across a fence with a “beware of dog” sign. To get to the friends house we were going to we had to jump the fence, go about fifty feet, then jump another fence. I remember saying something about the sign — how we should go around and how it wouldn’t take long.  But my friends didn’t seem worried. They said it was ok, and there was no dog in sight. I didn’t want to say I was scared; that’s social suicide for a seven year old.  I said I had to go home, that I remembered I had to do something.  And I left, no arguments, no taunting.

So I started walking back to my house, or more accurately I just started walking. I had no idea how to get back to my house. The only thing I remember about this part is asking a man which direction the city where I lived was. In reality I was never more than fifteen minutes from my house. I finally got my bearings and found the street my house was on. But just as I got to my front steps, key in hand, a car pulled up honking. It was my friend (he had apparently survived the dog) and his mother. She was screaming at me to get in the car. I was home. I was safe. But this woman wanted to take me away from that, into the humiliation of the car and the friend who probably had no idea why his mom was so mad. To this day I wish I had gone inside. I wanted to explain to someone who I trusted why I was afraid. But I didn’t go inside, and my parents never found out about this.

I got into the car and accepted the verbal punishment. And I didn’t look at my friend because he had probably got the lecture about not letting a seven year old wander around by himself, and  was in more trouble than me.

That’s it. No cliffhanger or shocker. Just a story about a scared little boy who did eventually get over his fear of dogs.

Credit: submitted to StoryLog

So you might have heard about this. An all-nude club in Dallas employed a twelve-year-old runaway as a dancer for about two weeks last November. The story was in the Dallas Morning News, and all over the internet, for those of us who follow adult biz news.

The girl told police she was given shelter by a 27-year-old dancer and her boyfriend. Dancer and boyfriend took the 12-year-old to Diamonds Cabaret, where she told managers she was 19. She got the job despite having no I.D. and despite claiming to have forgotten the year she was born. On her first day she made $100.

That’s not a lot of money for a stripper, but it is a lot for a 12-year-old. Her mother told reporters that the girl had “the body of a 20-year-old.”

I don’t know what was going on at that little girl’s house, or why she ran away. Everything in the world seems wrong with a sixth-grader naked in a Dallas strip club, but I can’t tell you for sure that she was worse off there than at home. I mean, I sure hope so. Read the rest of this entry »

Strangely enough, Daniel’s wedding day didn’t upset me at all. It was his 30th birthday six months later which really got to me, as he stood there with his wife Alison while they greeted the guests. I can honestly say that that was the only time when I felt real envy and wished desperately that it was me standing beside him, arms round each other as we showed the world how much we loved each other.

It’s not as if I’m not allowed to love Daniel, but the way we feel about each other isn’t something that we can share easily with anyone else. Daniel is my brother, but since I was 14 we’ve had a sexual relationship – and that’s not something that many people would feel comfortable with.

I’ve only ever spoken about this once before, and even then it was very much in the abstract. While I was still at university a friend had a major misunderstanding with a relatively new boyfriend when one of his friends had reported back to him that he’d seen her hugging and kissing another man in the union bar. She was firstly annoyed at being questioned and became even more exasperated when she explained that the man in question was her brother, as her boyfriend refused to believe her. Their loud discussion took place in the union with an interested audience, until he finally stamped out in fury, still refusing to believe her. As she flounced back to join us she made a remark about preferring her brother to any other man, whereupon one of the crowd said “Yuck, how pervy!” As she sat down beside me she muttered something like “It’s not that strange,” and three or four drinks later I quietly asked her what she’d meant. (read more @ TimesOnline)

At 9.45am on Saturday, June 23 2007, I killed a man. A perfectly ordinary man, on a perfectly ordinary summer’s day. CCTV pictures show him entering the station, unremarkable among all the passengers going to the West End. He waited at the front of the platform until he could hear my train approaching, then he calmly stepped down on to the tracks and looked directly at me as he waited for the impact.

The impact was only a matter of seconds in coming, but those seconds felt like minutes. This wasn’t how it was meant to be. It wasn’t how I had imagined it during my years as a Central line train driver. We talk of “jumpers”; workmates tell of blurry images flashing in front of them, of the shock of the impact. I wasn’t expecting to see a young man in jeans and a summer shirt waiting for death, looking me in the eye. (read more @ The Guardian)

Although most folks never consider it, we all walk with death. Death is constantly lying dormant within us, waiting for the one misstep, or the one stroke of foul luck so that it can blossom and snatch us irrevokably from this world into the next, or whatever it is that death has in store for us.

All of our stories end the same way. In our death. We are all captives here on earth, and nobody gets out of here alive.

The only thing that is certain, is that, inevitably, we all will die, and the most probable fact surrounding that occurrence is that we do not have any idea how much time left. I can postulate, however that, most likely, we all have a little less time than we would like to think.

I have never seen a dried fish that didn’t have a look of absolute surprise on its dessicated face. Death loves to host surprise parties for each of us. Read the rest of this entry »

Part of him wanted to lay her down on the bed and hold her and make passionate love to her the way they do in romantic movies. Part of him wanted to get his clothes on and get out of there as fast as possible. And never look back. And never discuss this moment. Ever.

They were covered in soapy bubbles, standing close to each other in the shower of her Fort Lauderdale townhouse. Steam crept down the bathroom mirror.

“Does that feel OK?” she asked, running her fingertips through the lather on his shoulder. He was a burly man, a merchant marine in his 40s who’d spent most of his life at sea. The only woman with whom he’d had any relationship was his mother, who was both religious and abusive. She’d often reminded him that sex was a dirty, sinful, unspeakable act.

Catherine, the woman touching him in the shower, was the first woman who’d ever caressed him.

“That feels good,” he said in a shaky voice.

“Now I’m going to rub the other shoulder,” Catherine said. A slim, modest-looking woman with straight, soft hair and a smooth, warm face, she was calm and reassuring. “That isn’t too bad, is it?”

Before they got in the shower, they’d talked a bit, getting to know each other. They started with soft touching on the hands and arms. Eventually, they were standing naked next to each other.

All the while, Catherine encouraged him to talk about how he was feeling.

He said he was frightened, tense. He couldn’t stop thinking about what his mother had told him so many times. He couldn’t help but feel that what he was doing was wrong. But it also felt good to be touched. It felt good to connect with someone, even if it was just temporary.

Catherine continued rubbing him and speaking in a soothing, caring tone.

He extended his hands to her body. First to her hands and arms, then her shoulders and stomach, and soon her breasts. As his hands moved over Catherine’s soapy body, he gulped. His eyes turned glassy. His hands shook. He felt a twisting deep in his chest.

Soon it was too much for him. The merchant marine was overwhelmed by the experience. He began sobbing.

“That’s all right,” she said, still covered in bubbles. Catherine’s voice was like warm syrup on a cold morning. “Stay with your feelings. Talk to me. It’s OK.”  (more @ NewTimes)

My neighbor, Mr. Brown, has quite a way with words and hurling insults – especially when they are directed at children and pets. This is why he is one of my favorite people in the world. Recently, Mr. Brown has been on fire with his heckling of small children as they ride their bikes up and down the block. The little kids love it though. They go out of their way to get Mr. Brown’s attention because if Mr. Brown insults you it means he likes you.

======

A little nine year-old girl was riding her pink BMX bike down the street and, before she even got to Mr. Brown’s house, he was up and out of his plastic chair yelling at her.

“Get on outta here!! This ain’t your block!! You don’t live here!!”

“Shut up, Mr. Brown!! You a bald-headed old man.”

“WHAT?? You need to take yo’self back up to that Korean store where you got that wig at and get your money back.”

“You a crazy old man!! At least I got hair.”

“You’re a bum. Get offa my block an’ go back down to Carroll Street where all the rest of them bums live at!” Read the rest of this entry »

Riding my bicycle along
Hollywood Boulevard today
I saw him in the crowd – noticed
him instantly. When we reached
each other, I said hi and asked
if he would mind if I took his
photo.
“You want my photo?”
Yeah, I said. There’s nobody
like you.
“I know.” And he smiled for me
-although his face was
evidently destroyed by something-
and his mouth reconstructed.

I asked him what happened.
“Shot,” he said. “Shot in the
face.” He motioned a gun
at close range being shot
directly into his face.

And you survived that? I asked.
“No,” he said with a smile.
“I’m dead.”
I apologized for what was
a stupid question, but it
was hard to fathom – gun shot-
close range – into his face. And
he lived.

So what happened? I asked.
Was it an accident, or did
someone mean to shoot you?

“I did it myself. Tried to kill
myself.” Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine you are able to fulfill one lasting wish–the wish of all wishes, the one wish that those you love get to live with you, through you. Who would you be? Where would you go? What would you do?

It’s an almost paralyzing dilemma, isn’t it?

Now, imagine you are 8 years old. How could you possibly know how to wish a wish so all-important?

My guest wished to be the President of the United States today. And so he was, from first thing in the morning to late in the afternoon–and no part of the reality of this wish was omitted–not the 30-person security detail, nor a complete motorcade, nor a police escort and a pool press photographer.

Part of his day brought him to my restaurant for lunch, a private lunch that I had helped to plan. And I am quite sure that I will never have such an extraordinary hour at work again.

In the midst of so many busy shifts this week, and taking on new part-time assistant duties to the event manager, I had almost forgotten today was the day the “President” would visit. When this dawned on me mid-walk to work, I was already a half hour later than usual. I made up time by skipping breakfast. Read the rest of this entry »