1
Voodoo Chile
“There’s something wrong with your niece, Laura. Melissa is just so morbid. She walks around the house all day chanting death mantras."
“Didn't you go through that phase as a child?” Laura asks. “Well, yeah... But at least my death mantras rhymed so that others could enjoy them as well."
“Melissa’s death mantras are understandable given all the stress she’s been under since her mother went into a coma.”
“I would normally agree except her death mantras didn’t start until after her mom recovered from the coma. Besides, isn’t it about time Melissa’s mom took herhome? Your sister has been out of the coma for a like a month now. O.J. Simpson got his kids back faster than that. Quite frankly, I think your sister is just milking this whole coma thing. Who recovers from a coma in Hawaii?”
“She gained 25 pounds while in a coma and wanted to go to a health spa to help her lose it. And before you say anything, it’s common for people to gain weight while in a coma. They’re getting no exercise so aren’t burning many calories.”
“I don’t know... I would think that IV feeding tubes are Atkin’s-friendly. Besides, a whole month at a health spa?”
“She’s allowed some time to recover. It’s fatiguing trying to get back into life after being in a coma for two months.”
“How fatiguing can a coma be? She spent the whole time lying in bed. She didn’t even have to breathe on her own - the machine did it for her. Personally, I don’t think it’s physically conceivable to spend less energy than when you are in a coma.”
“Evidently you don’t remember the last time we had sex.”
“By the way, I’m still pissed that you hit me during sex. I still have a bruise.”
“Count your blessings. If a guy falls asleep when he’s actually in me, he’s lucky to walk away with only a hard smack. Just be thankful that I even let you have your thing back.”
“I hate to be the one to break the news to you, but I don’t think the Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers rule applies to a penis. Unless you find it in a field or something... then I think it should be fair game. Besides, don’t blame me. Taking care of a fourteen year old girl is tiring. Your niece is like email spam. No matter how hard you try, you can’t get rid of her. Though in all fairness, Melissa did help me refinance my car loan and obtain prescription drugs(without a prescription!). But still, no matter where I turn, she’s there. I walk into the kitchen and she’s opening the refrigerator door to see how far she can open the door before the refrigerator light goes on. I walk into the living room and she's trying to use the remote control to turn herself off. I walk into the bedroom only to hear your neighbors scream because I've accidentally walked into the wrong house again. Just little things. Besides, I don’t think it’s fair that you’re giving your sister such leeway. The last time I tried to go a few days without getting out of bed, you complained constantly.”
“I didn’t have a problem with it,” says Laura. “It was the manager of the Mattress Warehouse that got all pissed off and threatened to call the police if you didn’t leave. If it helps, it means a lot to me that you’re here. It feels nice that you’re here to help me. It reminds me of my first serious boyfriend. He always knew when I needed him without my having to ask. Of course, I later found out that was because he was stalking me. But before I found out, it felt awfully comforting.
I hate that Laura’s being nice. Being nice and kind when I’m being selfish and petty is playing unfair. But it does feel nice to be there for Laura when she needs me - though for some reason I can’t bring myself to tell Laura that. I guess I’m ready to be there for Laura when she needs me, as long as I don’t have to actually say it aloud. I’m not ready to be that vulnerable yet. But it’s at least a small step forward. I’m big on baby steps in a relationship. That and getting oral sex without having to reciprocate. Very big on that. Unfortunately, I rarely get a blow job without reciprocation these days. Laura has caught on that I’m lazy and always makes me go down on her first.
“Thank you for being here for me,” says Laura as she walks behind me and wraps her arms around me.
Laura holds me tightly in her arms as the minutes pass away. But then she gets tired and finally puts me back down. I turn my head slightly and whisper into Laura’s ear.
“You look beautiful right now. I want to throw you down onto the couch and make mad, passionate love to you. And I promise I won’t fall asleep this time."
I hate using the phrase making mad passionate love. It’s too Merchant-Ivory for my tastes, but Laura likes it. Laura’s very romantic when it comes to sex. Laura loves fucking, as long as we don’t actually call it fucking. I think it’s a Catholic thing. Either that or a personal aversion to words that rhyme with ucking. Personally, I’m looking forward to the day when Wanna Fuck? sounds classy. But if it didn’t happen during the Bill Clinton administration, I suppose it’ll never happen.
“Come on,” I say as I move behind Laura and slide my hand under her blouse. “I want to make love to you.”
Laura looks around apprehensively and says, “What about Melissa?"
“That’s disgusting Laura. She’s only fourteen.”
“You know you’re still in easy smacking distance. We can’t have sex now. Melissa could walk in any moment,” says Laura while removing my hands which are now sliding down her body while I nuzzle her cheek. “Now be good - I hear her coming down the stairs."
“That's another thing that's not normal,” I say taking my hands away from Laura. “Most fourteen-yearold girls don't voluntarily offer to wear a cow bell around their neck so people will know when she's around."
“Don’t think of it as a cow bell,” says Laura. “Think of it as a really chunky necklace that smells kind of weird.”
We both stop talking as the grating clangs approach. There’s a reason why you never hear cowbells on romantic classical music CDs. The sound really kills the mood. I don’t know how cows ever mate. Every time Laura and I try to get romantic, we can hear the cowbells in the distance. It's a constant reminder of Melissa’s presence. Like when you were a teenagertrying to have sex at the drive-in movies and every fifteen minutes having your parents turn around and ask you to keep the noise down. Finally Melissa enters the room and the clanging stops.
“Have you been having fun today?”asks Laura.
Laura asks this in an overly sweet voice she only uses when talking to children or when she’s trying to convince my dog Rerun that he shouldn’t poop on her living room carpet. Or when she’s trying to convince my mom not to poop on her living room carpet… though in all fairness to my mom, one shouldn’t be held accountable for one’s actions after eight egg nogs. I make a mental note to talk to Laura about the cloying voice she uses when talking to Melissa. It’s a tone of voice that would be condescending to even a five-year old, let alone a fourteen-year old like Melissa. Granted, I use the same tone of voice when talking to Melissa, but I’m being purposely condescending whereas Laura is merely stumbling upon condescension and that just seems wrong.
“I was just playing some of my mom’s old records backwards trying to find hidden satanic messages,” says Melissa. “You should hear some of the things on the Boz Scaggs Christmas Album."
“Why waste time playing albums backwards?”I say. “Can’t you find satanic messages these days just as easily by playing albums forward?"
“I also played Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit backwards,”says Melissa who is purposely ignoring me and directing her conversation towards Laura. “It was weird. I actually understood the lyrics better backwards than listening to them forward.”
“You know, Melissa,”says Laura, “it’s not healthy for you to be indoors so much. It's a beautiful day outside. Don't you want to go to the park and play? Christian can take you."
“I prefer not to go outside and expose myself to harmful ultraviolet rays. It's just as easy to stay inside and use the ultraviolet tanning lamp my mom bought me for Christmas."
“Aren't you a little too young to be bitter?”I interrupt.
“Aren't you a little too old not to be?”Melissa answers back.
“You know,”I say, determined not to be out-snapped by a teen-aged suburban white girl lest my Showtime At The Apollo membership be revoked, “I've had terminally ill friends who are cheerier than you."
“I don't blame them,”says Melissa. “If I were your friend, I would be looking forward to death too."
“Keep it up, I might be able to accommodate that wish."
Laura glares at me. Evidently, threatening to kill a child is an “issue”with Laura. I hate this whole taking care of an almost-orphaned child familial chore Laura is doing. My life was so much easier when Laura’s main act of charity was saving the rain forest. Except for that weekend when we let Sting stay with us. I don’t care if he is a rock star; someone’s gotta teach that guy how to pee into the toilet bowl properly. He’s a major sprayer and I have the urine soaked socks to prove it. Well, I did have them, but someone on Ebay made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.
I want to escape from this situation. I can’t take care of a kid right now. Being in a house with a kid makes me feel very claustrophobic. My chest is tightening up and it feels hard to breath. The walls are beginning to close in on me - which I suppose really isn't all that scary since I left a window open.
“Christian, don’t you have something you want to say to Melissa?”asks Laura who obviously is expecting an apology.
“I'm sorry I was rude to you earlier, Melissa. It wasn't very nice of me,”I say in my purposely condescending voice - determined that if I’m going to be forced to apologize I sure as hell am not going to sound sincere about it.
“No, I think honesty is very important in a human being,”says Melissa. “Especially for someone like you who doesn't have many other appealing traits."
“Melissa, could you excuse us. I need to speak to Christian alone,”says Laura.
“Are you going to yell at him?”asks Melissa. “I think you should. He was mean to me."
“No, Melissa. I'm not going to yell at him. We're just going to discuss some things."
“Can I get that in writing?”I ask Laura.
Melissa says, “O.K., but if you yell at him I get to watch."
Laura waits until Melissa disappears around the corner and says, “She's only fourteen."
“I'm sorry, Laura. I'm really trying to be more patient."
“I know you're trying. But, this isn't like sex. Coming close just isn't good enough. Melissa's mom entrusted her to me for and I intend to do a good job."
“Don't they have kennels or something where parents can drop their kids off when they need a break,”I ask.
“No they don’t,”answers Laura.
“Can’t we at least look into it? They might have a special rate for parents who just got out of a coma."
“It's just for one more week,”continues Laura.
I can tell Laura is really frustrated and is at the end of her rope with me. She has that Mr. T “I Pity the Fool”look on her face. Though without the gold chains and mohawk, it just doesn’t seem that all that menacing a look, so I continue on.
“I don’t think Melissa’s mom is ever coming back. It happens all the time on T.V. The annoyingly sassy little kid comes to visit for a few weeks and never goes away. Like on the Brady Bunch. Melissa is our Cousin Oliver and we must be proactive about getting rid of her.”
“I need you to help me here,”continues Laura, “Taking care of Melissa is a lot of work and I need you to be here for me.”
“I’m sorry. What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to take Melissa out. I have a few errands I need to run and I think it would be good for the two of you to bond with each other.”
“OK,”I say, knowing this is an argument I’ll never win.
“And promise me you won’t get arrested again. I don’t want Melissa seeing the inside of a jail any more than she has to. It’s bad enough that we have to take her to visit her older sister in jail every Friday.”
“What’s wrong with that family?”I ask. “How poor does one have to be to write bad checks at The Dollar Store? And it wasn’t my fault I got arrested last time I took Melissa out. She was the one who told the mall security guard that I was trying to kidnap her. The only reason they let me go was after I convinced them that if I were going to kidnap a child, it surely wouldn’t be one as annoying as Melissa.”
Laura calls Melissa back in the room and lets her know that I will be taking her to the park because Laura has to run an errand.
“Do I have to go?”whines Melissa.
“You need to get out of the house,”says Laura. “Get some fresh air.”
“There’s no such thing as fresh air when he takes me to the park. We always have to go with that fat cab driver friend of his who always smells like curry.”
“Abu does not always smell like curry,”I say. “He only smells like curry when he farts. Which means he only smells like curry about half the time.”
“I don’t want to go, Aunt Laura. That cab driver guy is weird. There’s just something creepy about a 40 year old guy who still has a favorite Spice Girl.”
“He’s a nice guy,”says Laura. “And you’re going... though perhaps, Christian, you could talk to Abu about the Spice Girl thing. It is kinda creepy... at the very least, maybe you could convince him to pick someone other than Baby Spice.”
“OK, I’ll go,”says Melissa reluctantly after she glances over at Laura and realizes that this is an argument she also will not win. “But this time we go to the park, you better let me out of the cab at least once. Driving around the perimeter of the park in a cab covered in hooker DNA does not count as going to the park.”
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I sit in the front of Abu's cab while Melissa stands at the ice cream stand. I don’t know how Laura talked me into taking Melissa out again. Oh wait. I remember... I want to have sex with Laura some time before I die. Because waiting til after I die is pretty gross. And for all this hassle, it better be pretty good sex or I’m gonna be awfully pissed. Lots of oral. None of that two licks to act like she tried and then no more.
“So how did your date with Thelma go?”I ask Abu, as we keep an eye on Melissa.
“All we did was argue the entire evening,”answers Abu. "We didn't agree on even one thing. I open a door for her and she says I'm chauvinistic. So I immediately shove her back in the cab and let her open the door herself and she still gets upset."
“Sorry things didn't go well between the two of you. I hope you gave her a piece of your mind."
“No, I'm going to do that on our second date."
“You're going out again? I thought you said you didn't like each other."
“No, I said we had nothing in common and argued the entire evening. I never said I didn't like her. Look over there. It looks like Melissa is approaching that table with the two guys dealing drugs. Should we go get her?"
“No, I don't think she's bugging them too much.”
“So what should Thelma and I do on our second date. It’s been so long since I’ve made it to a second date. I don’t even know where to take her. What do you do for fun on a date?”
“I have sex with Laura.”
“Oh...” says Abu, “... then what does Laura do for fun on a date?”
“I’m gonna let that one slide since you’re in such a good mood. But, for the record, I reserve the right to say something incredibly mean and insensitive to you at a later date. Even if it’s at a funeral or something.”
“So, what is the appropriate date to have sex these days? I mean, I don’t want to bring it up too soon with Thelma and have her be offended, but I don’t want to wait so long that I get put into the friend zone - which for me is currently the entire United States and strangely enough Ecuador. That perfect window of opportunity to break out of the friend zone seems so slim these days and I’m like Winnie the Pooh trying to squeeze through it. I really can’t have this Thelma thing go into the friend zone. I need to have intercourse with another person. Do you know how much work it is for a 420 pound guy to masturbate? I have to use one hand to stroke and one hand to push all the fat out of the way. Otherwise it starts sounding like one of those morning DJ’s imitating a helicopter flying.”