The Ishmael Gradsdovic Papers, part thirty-five


Part thirty-five of the Ishmael Gradsdovic papers, more fun than a barrel of monkeys...


20 October 1994

A----- (I think it was A-----; might have been B----- just then) asked me where I was going and when and how I was getting there. I told her I was going where the wind blows when I get around to it and by rail mostly. I was going to soliloquize on the theme suggested by H.D. Thoreau ("We should come home from far, from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day, with new experience and character") Then I asked her, hey, you wanna come along? After all, a woman with 33 distinct personalities has got to be more fun than a barrel of monkeys and trying to learn harmonica put together. She said sure, I'd love to. She hasn't got anything else planned. The person who is trying to integrate the personalities has given express orders that she not get employed, putting her on disability and giving her a reasonable sum to live by (at least that's how I heard it). Hasn't kept her from looking for a job as a go-go dancer, but there's not a lot of demand for that hereabouts. Exotic dancers, maybe, but on a more ad-hoc, bachelor party sort of scheme.

Then I threw a slice of raw salmon across the table. It stuck to the wall above the mirror behind C-----'s head. Tossed a grape across to the next table and it landed right in the fold of D-----'s collar. "You're God," A----- & co. said. Funny, I never could shoot free-throws in junior high; must be one of those Jedi mind tricks. "I'm going to tell the others that you're God." She straightened her back and closed her eyes, and a few moments passed and the others were informed of my divinity.

The wasabi is weak, it is generally concluded, so the bold ones go from putting dabs in the soy sauce trays to using it directly as a dip. D----- makes the mistake of breathing through his nose while he eats, and suddenly takes on that "a hive of bees is angry in my sinus cavity" look. Brief verbal flashback to the Spike & Mike's Festival of Sick & Twisted Animation short "Lloyd Loses His Lunch" where Lloyd holds his nose while sneezing and the back of his head blows off.

A----- asks when massage night is. It's Thursday. "Is it a sexual thing?" No, it isn't. In fact, D----- encourages people to keep things non- sexual so that people who already are only marginally comfortable stripping down in front of others will feel safe.

Return to Utopia, home of Super Bomber Man, we gather under E-----'s sturdy bed, in that small crawl-space of 2x4s and blinking christmas lights. D----- plays butt bongos on C-----, to her vocal accompaniment. Dinner is served in the dining room, and the Utopia residents who didn't join us for all-you-can-eat Chinese have a delicious-looking pasta dish with an ocean of shrimp.

F----- is doing much better. He's got a brace now, but I don't see him in it much. We spent a couple of hours over at G-----'s place a few days back, waiting for his connection so we could buy an ounce for H----- and watching a made-for-TV movie about some mad scientist who has genetically engineered a virus, apparently spread through chicken eggs bought in the local supermarket as well as the more traditional means, that alters the human female genetic sequence so that they start to give birth to ferocious man-eating dinosaurs. Extraordinarily cheesy. G----- offers us ganja muffins. Delicious. I keep hoping that mine won't come on until after I've driven home, but the connection never shows. Lots of flakes in the dope biz.

From Utopia to Sycamore Hot Springs, where all 38 of us fit into one of the tubs. A beautiful night, and strangely not too cold, although it seems very chilly back in town. "Good thing it's not massage night tonight," someone says. "Why's that?" Things degenerate rapidly into one of those Obsession ads, flesh all over the place, guessing whose limbs you're fondling by the absence of or texture of the hair thereon. A----- (probably B----- again by this time) is exploring the joys of the water jets and everyone in every tub on the hillside is aware that oh my god she's coming again. C-----'s even louder, if you can believe it. Martinelli's sparkling apple cider all around.

B----- (or A--... oh, hell... one of `em, anyway) whispers in my ear, "I want you." Wasn't there a "news of the weird" entry a while back about some guy being prosecuted for rape because he started having sex with a women whose current personality consented, but ended up having sex with a women whose current personality didn't consent? Or maybe it was that he lured out the personality most conducive to promiscuity, and that the remaining personalities were incapable of consent. Or maybe the personality that he had sex with was under the age of consent and it was a statutory rape charge.

Speaking of sex, I----- isn't finding J----- sexually attractive like he used to. Sounds like a soap opera digest summary, or an Ann Landers headline. This is a problem. C-----'s s.o. K----- thinks it's a natural selection thing. They've been boning for nine months now and no baby, so somewhere deep in the reptilian brain, there's a sterility flag being raised. C----- thinks this is a veiled reference to their own relationship. She's of the opinion that K----- needs to sleep with another woman. For herself, she wants to sleep with me. I'm not opposed, but want to make sure it's clear with K----- ahead of time. These things can get sticky. Meanwhile, J----- is in heat and I----- is on the computer. Reminds C----- of what her friends told her about K-----: "He's taking Compilers? You won't see him again 'till after finals." It's true. Compilers is a bitch. A possessive bitch at that. Compilers widows are mean.

So when J----- walks in at L4, was it when C----- was taking it doggy-style from K----- while going down on B----- et al., or was it when B----- et al. and I were going at it, I don't remember, we tell her don't even look, just walk on by and pretend you didn't see anything. We're rooting for I----- to still be awake, pounding away in LISP or something back there, but I think he was asleep (how could he sleep? I couldn't even sleep through C-----, and I was living next door at the time).

The next morning it's a switch, with me and C----- putting up our best efforts to dislodge dumpster basketball as the official annoying apartment complex wake-up call, while K----- & Legion (whoever she was this time, she spoke high school French exclusively, but called me "Gaude" as opposed to "Dieu") fooled around off to the side, mostly spectating.

One woman of my acquaintance has a cold. I stop by and offer to get her stoned to take her mind off things. Sure, she says. Later on, we're teasing her. She's got "the munchies" and is working through that with a can of Spaghetti-Os, and then there's "tracers" and such, and she's wondering at all the terminology of stonage. So now with every remark she makes, we're inventing a syndrome. "Wow, the sky is SO BLUE!" she says. "Oh, that's the Blue Meanies. Very common."

She's finished telling us about the time she and her ex-boyfriend almost got caught doing the nasty in the drama classroom at her high school and she spent the whole period cowering naked behind a couch hoping nobody would notice her. This gets us talking about our favorite subject again, and somebody starts teasing Our Stoned Friend, wondering what stories OSF hasn't yet told us about boyfriends, girlfriends, washing machines, family, pets, maybe her pet dog.

"What?" OSF says, hearing those keywords in a stony fog, "you weren't supposed to tell anyone about that, Ishmael!"

I chose to stay silent at this stage. In retrospect, I probably should have asked what people thought of the impending Hockey strike, or "Ed Wood," but I was a little stoned at the time, too, and I in fact HADN'T told anyone present about anything regarding OSF and her pet dog.

Of course, the non-stoned among us realize quickly what has gone on, but it is a long minute before OSF realizes that she has pulled a good one over on herself.

At this point, it's unstoppable. "It was a greyhound, wasn't it? No, wait, a Great Dane? No, I know, it was a poodle? A German Shepherd?"

"Aaaah! You were there!"

"Aha, now we're getting somewhere. No, I wasn't there, but pictures don't lie."

"Pictures? You weren't there. Okay, if you were there, who else was there with me?"

"Someone else was there, you say?"

"Oh, no. I did it again. You tricked me!"

"Your sister, maybe?"

"AHHH!"

But it's okay. One of the Non-Stoned Friends has some canine experiences of her own to share. Quote from OSF: "You had sex with TWO dogs? You slut."

Meanwhile I've finally got everything, or just about everything, stuffed in my backpack. I've been crashing over at L4 and Utopia mostly lately, and spending late afternoons and early evenings smoking a pipe under a railroad overpass and reading "Walden." I'm giving up an exciting life by taking my show on the road, but I think in some ways I'm being overwhelmed by stimulus. I've gained a lot in friends and lovers and wild times, but need to put up the periscope for a bit.

"I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life..."



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