Season 2 Chapter 12

I hate to admit it, but I had to jerk off about 10 minutes after I got home.

Not because it’s embarrassing to say you rubbed one out, even as a middle aged – albeit single – man. I’ve done that ever since I realized that it does more than make pee come out. And I’ll be doing it as long as I have hands. Or feet. Or anything I can graze around waist-height. It’s something I do when I’m in a relationship close to as much as I when I’m not.

Lots of time a guy will see or meet a girl and he’ll think of sex or something sexual about her. Those mysterious studies and buzzworthy soundbites say we do that once every 7 seconds, which is in and of itself just can’t be accurate, since there are activities you’ve done where you’ve been focused on that with no hint of sexual thought…driving, enjoying music, writing – there’s plenty. So maybe that’s the average, because I know I could spend a whole chain of seconds and minutes thinking only of satisfyingly filthy sex acts. My trouble with having to deal with the compulsion is the implication, at least, for me.

I have long had a test, for myself, of how much I was interested in somebody, which grew out of the male preoccupation with masturbation. The critical difference between pure carnal, hormone-driven lust and genuine emotional contact was what happened in the moments after that mess was made. If a woman was still on your mind even after doing things, however unlikely to actually happen in reality, then there could be something more in your mind than just a premeditated sexual assault.

My dental hygienist would disagree with me, because she has a completely different perspective on the mental state of sexual desire, which we discussed – no, debated at length when we went out for cocktails one night. Aside from her husband, she claimed she had no sexual thoughts about other guys, and that if she did, it was tantamount to emotional cheating. This had stemmed from my comments that I would see a female, and very frankly be able to admit that I wanted to fuck her. Now, that didn’t mean I was, or given the chance I would, but I was comfortable with my own male desires to admit it without shame or guilt. She didn’t see my point, since I was involved with a gal at the time, but that expanse between thought and action was so great didn’t help to foster an understanding of my point. And I still think that she’s full of shit when it comes to that point. It’s great she thinks or feels she is 100% committed to her husband in a psycho-sexual way, but I don’t buy it…that no other single person arouses desire in you to that level? No way. And it’s not because I don’t believe in an emotional component to sex – that’s the whole idea of my theory; sex can operate outside of love and knowing where that falls between the two vertices is what is really worth determining.

So I spent the first few minutes at home taking off my shoes and socks, and getting a drink. That’s not some pre-masturbation ritual, I was just getting comfortable. I sat on the couch and thought about what a good day it had turned out to be, and that it was fun to have gone with Carla. I hoped she’d at least felt similarly, because I never want to be a pain in the ass, unless I’m actually trying to be one. I’d never been particularly into Latin women, but Carla happened to hit one of my long time triggers – powerful women.

Policewomen are right there at the top of the list, as well as the handful of female MMA fighters and competitive physical fitness instructors. It’s not entirely that they are fit, strong women, but that they have the ability to possibly kick your ass. That hint of masculinity in a female is somehow sexy to me. Taken to the blown out extreme when female bodybuilders just look like trannies or when women get a lesbian butchness, that’s where it loses me. And the same for somebody like Nell Tanner, who is unquestionable a powerful woman, but that is more of a respect for the power and control she wields. She could make you miserable and dominate you, but certainly not physically, and that icy, chilling effect makes a woman less attractive. That hard-as-nails bitch thing is great for dominatrix sessions but not attractive to me.

As my mind drifted back to Officer Diaz, my hand drifted to other places, and soon, I found myself adding a scientific twist to what would otherwise be considered habit.

---

It was nearly a week later, and it was time to check in at Fort Tanner, as I’d come to think of it. The boss lady had ask me to stop by her office before joining the others in The Pit, as in “of vipers”, which was the presentation room. I turned the corner and saw the desk outside Nell office vacant, and thought about taking a seat in one of the cushy chairs and leafing through one of those magazines that only seem to be subscribed to for display, like Wine Bureaucrat or High Performance Private Jet Quarterly, but inching forward I could see Sunday though the glass door to Nell’s office, and she was leaning over Nell’s desk, showing her some papers, which Nell seemed determined to sign but not without a pained look on her face.

I gave a light rap on the glass and opened the door enough to lean in. “Am I interrupting, ladies?”

From the corner, where I hadn’t seen him, Peter replied, “No, we girls are just doing some work.”

I hesitated, stuck between elaborating my way along the path of an apology and barreling past as if I’d said nothing out of the ordinary, but Nell spoke, without even glancing up from the task at hand. “Come in, Sheldon. Multi-tasking is a necessity to getting anything done, or done well. It’s a good stimulant; it keeps the mind loose.”

Peter rolled his shoulders and shook out his wrists, which then dangled in front of him, and echoed Nell by mouthing the word ‘loose’ as he stretched his neck on both sides. He looked like a gay bunny rabbit in chinos and a silk shirt.

“Things going well,” Nell inquired of me.

“Ah, sure. Last week was good for me. Carla, er…Officer Diaz gave me a perspective on speaking that I think will help when I tackle those high school kids.”

“Yes,” Nell said with a slight trace of pride, “I though Ms. Diaz would be useful in building the right approach for your upcoming engagement.” Peter was moving at the very edge of my field of vision. He was nodding in agreement with her statement, and then opened up an appointment book, scanning the pages before settling on a particular entry and circling it. Closed-captioned for the hearing impaired and the fabulous.

She continued, “I’m going to be going over some basic speaking points and keys, not only for your benefit, but to refresh for the others. I have you down for a week from next Thursday, but before that I want you to give me a synopsis of what you intend to do. In writing. You’re going to need to fill 40 minutes, which is the lower end of our bookings. I don’t want every word, but I do want to know what you’re planning to say.”

“I can do that, sure.”

“Good,” she said, and made her last marks on what Sunday was presenting to her. She finally looked up, though not at me, and took off a frameless pair of reading glasses that she meticulously polished the lenses with a poly-fiber cloth, before putting them in a leather case that went into a drawer in her desk. Sunday, papers in a folder she carried made her way towards the door, but stopped in front of me and pulled the top paper out of the folder.

“That’s for your time and involvement, Sheldon,” Nell said. “We pay monthly our associates monthly, and even if they have speaking engagements that are spaced far apart, we try to make sure there is a steady flow coming in to them so that they do not have any trouble staying retained by our agency. Appreciation comes in many forms, but gratitude never paid the rent.”

Sunday also produced an envelope for me, and I looked at the paper, which was an unfolded check. It was for $5000. Not bad for a couple of hours of my time, and certainly plenty for the little I’d done since leaving CNC.

“Thank you very much Ms. Tanner,” I said, realizing that my blood and sperm were safely restricted from sale to the public for at least another month.

“You’ve got a few minutes before we’re meeting, so please feel free to socialize with the others.” Peter waved goodbye, completing his pantomime act, and taking my cue, left towards the presentation room.

---

The room was about half full, and the only person I recognized was Vivian, who must have been feeling the real estate crunch and took to this speaking gig as a life preserver during the economic downturn. There wasn’t anybody else from the previous session, but there also wasn’t Carla. The group wasn’t really talking too much or interacting, so I played that game and kept to myself. I took a seat and waited for the thing to begin.

Nell came through the door and what little conversation there was, ceased. Like a puppy, Sunday bounded after her into the room. The door was about to close when a young black kid squeezed through and shuffled over to the open seat to my right. He looked like the last 30 years of Black History Fashion Month all rolled into one. He had some baggy Cross Colors pants that nearly covered his vintage Nike Air Jordans, a Wu-Tang logo tee under a track jacket that was Sean John or Fubu – I didn’t know the brand for sure, a leather necklace with Africa in the center in yellow, red, and green, and a crochet koufi to top the whole thing off. It made my jeans and black v-neck tee utterly dull by comparison.

“Whad’up,” he said, feeling me scan his amazing technicolor ensemble as he sat, and putting his left fist out, inviting me to bump it.

I gave it a tap and said, “Hey.”

Nell surveyed the room, or more correctly, the occupants, and began her refresher course on effective public speaking and interaction with the audience. Diligently, there were lots of notepads getting scrawled in. Nell Tanner could lower the temperature in a room by five degrees and she could also speak in such a manner that even the most useless sounding information was given greater importance. The room was dim enough for the projector in the back to still display images, but small canned lighting above seemed to give my fellow note-takers and I sufficient vision. Sunday operated a PowerPoint slideshow on a laptop alongside Nell’s oration.

“There are many different acronyms we use in this field to give instruction and shape our programs. I happen to think this is one of the better ones…be a NINJA. Sunday brought up an animated graphic of a ninja, who did a flip onto a stage and kicked a podium with a microphone, which made it shatter into an 8-bit array of splinters. It got a low rumble of laughter from the room, and even seemed to amuse Nell, if she was capable of finding humor. The little ninja bowed at the broken fragments and then turned to us, and bowed again.

“NINJA,” Nell repeated again. “Natural. Informative. Noteworthy. Jovial. Articulate.” The words appeared one by one on the screen. “Be a NINJA speaker.”

“Fuck that noise, man,” my neighbor whispered to me.

I turned and looked, and he was tapping his notepad with a pen, where he had written BE A NIGGER.

My eyes nearly popped out of my skull. He started writing down his page:

Nonchalant
Intelligent
Gracious
Genuine
Enthusiastic
Radical

I smiled and he smiled when he saw that I got it. I held up my finger and wrote on my pad BE A HONKY.

Humorous
Original
Nurturing
Knowledgeable
Youthful

“You alright, man,” he said. Yep, I alright.

Nell’s presentation went for a good hour, but it passed quickly, as she said a good speaker should be able to make a person forget exactly how much time they’ve been there.

“Before you all go, I just wanted to introduce somebody we hope we’ll have with us for a long time. You may have seen him around here lately, and some of you may even be familiar with his work. Please give a very warm welcome to…”

I started to stand, but quickly shrank back into my chair as Nell finished. “Vesodious Prime.” Next to me, Vesodious stood, unphased (or perhaps unaware) at my mistaken attempt to get into his spotlight. A gentle smattering of applause was given, and Nell waved him down towards the front where she was.

“Vesodious just finished a term with Coogan Harrington Woods & Grossman, but now he’s exclusively ours.” She looked at him and gestured with the microphone, offering him the opportunity to speak, which he reluctantly took from her, but that was part of his act. Nell sat in one of the seats in front of him, but didn’t see as we did Vesodious check Nell out as she took those few steps away.

“Yo, I wanna say thanks,” he put a slight emphasis on that thanks, as his words took on a more musical cadence, “to Ms. Tanner and all y’all here. I’m real happy to be wit’chu, cuz y’alls now my crew, and we’s tight like that.” Vesodious stalked around like a jungle cat, which I’m sure he’d have used to describe his prowling, sizing up the small audience he had.

“I’ma do somethin’ that I want y’all to help me wit, a’ight? So I can get to know y’all, I wanna find out yo name and have you give me a word or two that describes you or what you do. But first, I gotta have a beat to drop this flow. Y’all in this side of the room,” he gestured to the right, “hit that arm rest and snap your fingers like this…”

Vesodious slapped his thigh and snapped, getting the right side to follow his lead, slap-click, slap-click, slap-click.

“Oh yeah, thas nice. Keep that up. Keep it going. Now y’all on my left, you gotta gimme some claps. Follow me, like this…”

He clapped out a simple rhythm on top of the slap-click pattern that got everybody making crude music. Clap-clap…clap, went the beat.

“Aw, c’mon Ms. Tanner, don’t you hold back. Gimme some claps or this don’t work,” he needled her. And she obliged, creating a little ripple of surprise that he’d cracked her armor enough to see the person inside was somehow the slightest bit similar to us.

“Nice, y’all is real good.”

Vesodious started beatboxing over our skeletal groove, adding noises beyond typical percussive sounds. It was quite a feat as he started to rap in-between his own orchestration, “Vesodious Prime…it’s Nell Tanner time…feel my rhyme…this rising sign…the heat the beat the feat of Prime!”

Heads were bouncing and people were swaying in their seats along to the impromptu performance they were all part of.

“Now I’ma point and axe you name and your word, so don’t be shy!”

He pointed at a rotund woman in plain garm. “Waz yo name,” he asked.

“Connie,” she said excitedly.

“And waz yo word?”

“Faith!”

It made sense with her dull dress style, which was a scaled down version Sunday morning wear; Connie, the Jesus warrior.

“Yeah, a’ight girl…here we go,” Vesodious chirped, brining back his musical accompaniment to the room beat. “Connie, Connie, this lass be bonny…full of grace…you in this place…spiritual power…believe this hour…don’t take the fifth…six seventh or eighth…Connie gotta, gotta have –“ He pointed at her again and she elatedly shrieked with him “faith!”

“You good! Y’all get me? You see what we doin’ here?”

The room responded yes.

“Oh, no…you gotta bring it bigger than that! You see what we doin’ here?”

This time was a lot hardier yes response.

Vesodious worked the crowd, moving from person to person, freestyling a few lines about each. There was Randy, who “liked the Muppets and a master of puppets” with Henshaw, his googly-eyed sock friend. And Vivian was “doing great with her real estate”. “Bobby Joe did the rodeo”, and Roy could “be a recruiter and friend of computers”. He went through everybody, and came to me at the end.

“Okay, we just about done, but we got one more ta go…my man in the back, give it up.”

“Sheldon,” yelled about the fevered clapping and noise.

“Here we go, Sheldon…here we go,” Vesodious chanted. I said “television”, but I was overpowered by Vesodious and his mic, as he laid into a melody.

“Shel-don…perhaps you can call him Shelly…I got the food in my belly like jelly…or the hot carne…asada, I’m gonna…head to Tiajuana…but my ride is kinda wonky…I don’t hang with a burro but I’m down with a – “

Vesodious pointed and I yelled “honky!”

The room exploded with an abrupt, smothering blanket of silence. Slowly, heads turned back until the whole room was looking at me. Even Randy turned his covered hand at me, and Henshaw, his sock puppet said, “donkey. It’s donkey.”

Vesodious laughed, and said, “you still alright, Shelly-boy.”

---

With my tail between my legs and feeling about two feet tall, I resigned my self to figuring out what I was going to give to Nell as my point of view for my style of presentation and the type of content. I really wanted to impress her, if only to show that I was able to do as she asked even if I was a poor predictor of rhyme schemes and poetry. Nell had emailed to see how it was coming along, but I didn’t reply, since I was stuck coming up with what I felt was the quintessential direction of who I was and what I was bringing. And with mother now back from her trip, I doubted it would get any easier.

“I was going to fry up a fish for ya, but you must have had a fair amount going port to port,” I yelled back to my mom, who was doing some unpacking. I was grilling a pair of fat steaks and had a pot of green beans going while some potatoes were crisping in the oven. My culinary skills were not anything to brag about, but meat and potatoes I could handle, and my mother wouldn’t complain.

“After all the fresh fish we had, I think I can take a break for a little while. And the same goes for Germans…those Krauts can party.”

“You want a nip,” I asked as I set out the plates and put a fair portion out on each.

“Nah, hon…I had my fill of that too.”

That’s been one of my saving graces, being on the cusp of having a drinking problem. Never feeling so compelled to have a drink that I would when my company declined. Though a good cut of meat makes scotch come alive.

“You remember your Aunt Tilly?”

“Kinda. How is that?”

“It’s good. Cooked just the way I like it,” she said, taking a bite to emphasize the comment. “Tilly is Grandma Esther’s younger sister.”

“She lives in Baltimore?”

“No,” she corrected, “that’s your Aunt Rhoda, and she’s dead. Tilly is in Delaware.”

“Okay, and she’s alive, right?”

“Yeah. She just had her hip replaced and is having some trouble. I’m going to stay with her and make sure she doesn’t have any trouble.”

“Like entering a dance competition?”

“Something like that…”

“So, when are you going? And when are you coming back?”

“Couple of days…and I’d say that’s up to her.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes. You going to be okay to pick out your clothes in the morning and make your bed?”

“I was able to while you were gone. I think I can handle it. She gonna be able to look after you as much as you are with her?”

“She won’t have too much trouble…should be an easier time than you’ve had.”

I finished the mouthful of potato, and put my fork down. “Are you…drying out?”

“Don’t sound so accusatory, Sheldon.”

“No offense, Ma, but you getting on the wagon is kinda like finding out there’s no Santa Claus…it takes a little getting used to.”

“Fair enough,” she said, and took another bite. It was uncomfortable to hear the lucidity in her voice. She was not terribly difficult to deal with as a drinker, but that’s pretty much been my interaction for her nearly as long as I can remember. She used to tell me a story from when I was an infant about the time my father shaved off his beard and came home from work. I must have cried for an hour, she said, because I didn’t recognize the man claiming to be my dad since he didn’t look like how I remembered him.

“Are you disappointed,” she asked.

“Yes, you’re getting sober. How fucking dare you. C’mon Ma, what do you think we are, the Bukowski family?”

“You just seemed, I don’t know…upset.”

“I just am a little stunned. Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” she said, “it’s not a health thing. I’m way past that anyway. I just had a hell of a bender, and it was a nice way to really go out on top and take a break.”

“So this thing with Aunt Tilly, that’s just good timing?”

“She’s very old and she’s the last of the sisters left, and there’s nobody else who can take care of her. Now that she’s out of rehab, I don’t want to have to send her back to assisted living. That would be a whole mess…packing her stuff, selling her place. Just a pain in the ass.”

“Growing old sucks,” I said.

“Amen to that,” and she clinked her glass of diet soda against mine.

“Besides, being here got to be kinda lonely at times, with you taking off and traveling all the time. I got used to it but being around people so much recently just added to it. It’s not like Tilly and I are going to go out every weekend. It’s just nice having another body around most of the time.”

“Funny you mention that,” I trailed off and made the last of the green beans disappear.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m…taking some time away from the show. About a year.” I waited for a reaction, but it didn’t dislodge her the way I thought it would.

“Is that wise,” was the best I could get out of her.

“Well, I won’t say I burned bridges, but my sabbatical was not entirely planned…I created a situation and then got myself out of it.”

“You get somebody pregnant?”

“I wish it was that easy.”

“More complicated that a new life? I don’t think I want to know…”

“It’s a new direction,” I proclaimed boldly, clearing the dishes from the table. I cleaned them off and turned back to her, “If it goes well, they’ll be paying me to run my mouth instead of paying me to keep it shut.”

“Sounds promising.”

“Public speaking,” I said. “Fran hooked it up and it so far it’s looking good.”

“Just be yourself…without trying to be yourself.”

I smiled a big, fake smile, but she was right on the mark. And that was what I was struggling with, as I then explained to her.

“Look, you’re who they want, so that’s who you should give them. It doesn’t have to be pretty and it doesn’t have to be perfect, but it has to be you. Know your limits. But know everybody else’s limits.”

“Thanks, Ma.” I gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I’m gonna sit down and try to figure this out again.

“You’re welcome, dear. Until I leave, I’ll take a look at what you have if you want, and that’ll still give you a day or two before you have to do your first talk.

---

I walked my mother to security checkpoint at the terminal and gave her a hug. “You sure you’ll be okay with Aunt Tilly?”

“You sure you’ll be okay on your own?”

“Different situation. Still the same person,” I said.

“Exactly. I’ll be fine. So will you.”

I handed her an envelope. “It’s what I wrote for Ms. Tanner. I already sent her a copy, and so far, she hasn’t told me I’m fired, so that’s a good thing.”

“Good. And just remember that if you fuck up, be sincere when you say you’re sorry.”

I waved to her after she’d made her way through and watched as she disappeared into the expanse of the walkway to the different gates. What I’d written was a very brief, and I could have given her the night she came back and we spoke, but I didn’t want to have the opportunity to change it – I was committed to it because it was the one thing that I did not want to hide about myself, and my biggest, best flaw: I said exactly what I thought and felt. And being true to yourself, even if sometimes you’re the only person who accepts that truth, is better than being a liar if only to have a single person agree with you.

Forty minutes of stand-up philosophy.

No bullshit. No holds barred. No nonsense.

Sometimes the language can be coarse, the stories a bit extreme, but the resulting ideas and wisdom are time tested and road worn. Years of tapping into the American psyche and interacting with people across the country has created a perspective hardly seen, let alone heard. And is exactly what is necessary in this day and age.

Life is not scripted, and fails when it tries to be. Conversations go off the rails the same. Life happens and you act. And react. You start at one place and you end up in another, but the point of a journey is not to arrive.

Ma would appreciate that last part, I’m sure.