Entry
number one: August 11, 1983. I am what one might call a musical
genius. Jesus gave me perfect pitch. Thank you, Jesus.
In addition to my angelic singing voice, I am a virtuoso triangleist
or, if you prefer, triangle player. My wit ain't bad either,
let me tell ya. After a hearty meal I can arouse hysterical,
pee-in-the-pants laughter by farting with uncanny precision any
of several requested ditties. I'm grounded and earthy, a real
people person, small in stature, delicately fingered, lithe, and
attracted to hairy obese men that will treat me like the imp that
I am-really put me in my place. Smack me around. Humiliate
me. What really gets my juices flowing is the right kind of
fat-assed bastard who can eat a greasy hamburger with one hand and
spank me and auto manipulate me with the other.
But I digress.
Let's see. What else? I knew I'd ramble. My hair
is wispy and unruly, yet transcendent, kind of like kelp at the
ocean's bottom, flowing this way and that, gorgeous, an ingredient
in ice cream. I paint my nails-nothing ostentatious, mind
you. My name is Sikes. Sikes Hebert. Not HEE-BERT.
It's French. A-BARE. I've just turned thirty, but I
could easily pass for fifteen or, maybe, at least twenty-three.
I am speaking into a tape recorder because my shrink Mr. Lipchitz
(whom I call "licks dicks") says that I am not in touch
with the feelings of my inner child, and that I should record my
thoughts. This led to a debate on the differences between
thoughts and feelings. After two hours, he finally told me
to shut the fuck up and keep a fucking diary because he was the
fucking doctor and he fucking says so. Can one's very own
doctor tell one to the shut the fuck up? I'm like, Who's paying
the bill here, buster? A little respect would be nice.
But, admittedly, people are often intimidated by my intellectual
capabilities-particularly doctors. So I try to ignore their
trite put-downs and occasional outbursts. I told him
I'd keep a tape-recorded diary until my hands healed from their
carpal tunnel surgeries (too much triangle practice and auto manipulation
during my mid to late adolescence). He shook his head and
stared at me saying nothing, obviously amazed by the genius incarnate
sitting in front of him.
So after a week of procrastination, I sit here atop my Betty Boop
comforter in my bedroom of my parent's trailer where I still live,
rent free, recording my very first diary entry. I feel warm
in my trailer bedroom, kind of cuddly, like a puppy that's just
eaten his warm milk and Puppy Chow and is looking for a nice spot
on the carpet to take a shit. My parents, though definitely
unlearned and simpletons, recognize talent when they see it, so
they take care of me, fostering my abilities all they can with what
little they have. We all get along pretty well, me, Mommy,
Daddy, and Jism, our albino cat, named, of course, by yours truly.
I told Mommy and Daddy that Jism was one of the stars in Orion's
belt. They just nodded their heads and said, "Oh, really."
They haven't a clue where Orion's belt is! But all is not
a Leave it to Beaver congeniality at the Hebert household.
Just this morning, Daddy told me to quote, "Keep my perverted
shit out of the bathroom!"
He can be so funny. "Daddy," I said, wrapping my
arms and legs around home. The more u r her her is right shin
and thigh, "it's just a butt plug." He shook me with hostile
belligerence and kicked me off, flinging me into the refrigerator;
I could hear him mumbling none too quietly as he stormed out our
trailer's front door, "Goddamned weirdo little freak bastard
sum'bitch queer-ass pansy fucker." Daddy can say what
he wants, but he keeps me in triangles.
*
* *
Entry
number two: August 15, 1983. Fuck. First of all, I am
disgruntled to the nth fucking degree. Daddy has ordered me
to quote, "Put my lazy weirdo ass in gear," and help my
Uncle Gene on his bull-insemination farm, which conceptually, granted,
does sound inviting and exciting and provocatively stimulating,
but in reality is grueling work. And totally thankless.
These bulls don't give a flying fuck about anyone else. As
long as they get theirs, they could give a fuck less about anybody
else's needs--bastards. My forearms are getting so hard and
gross; these purplish big veins keep popping up like I'm a heroin
addict or something. I'm even growing black hair on my knuckles
and big toes, due to my constant physical exertions with the bull
peckers. I've Naired them, of course, but Jesus, talk about
depressing. Do you have any idea how hard it is to jack off
a bull? It ain't easy. They grunt and snort and whine
and moan and crap and are just awful. Uncle Gene doesn't give
a big shit. He's just like Daddy. They think it's funny
when I am forced to perform manual labor, even though my heart beats
like a humming bird's, and I'm on beta blockers. Uncle Gene
just says, "You're slacking, Sikes. Keep jacking, boy."
He sits on a wooden bench out in the barn while I'm on my hands
and knees, struggling to hold this big hollowed out vagina thingy
that I pull back and forth over the bulls' monstrous dongs, and
good Lord, do they groan and carry on. Jesus, one of the bastards
took FORever to get off. I mean, good grief, my back is aching,
my feet hurt, my neck feels like it's going to fall the fuck off,
and all Uncle Gene can say while he's trimming his damned dirty
nails is "Keep stroking, Sikes. I believe he's getting
close, boy. I can see him tensing up his ass muscles."
Christ! Daddy's got me by the balls. If I don't help
Uncle Gene, whose wife broke a hip trying to jack off Buddy, a real
mean-assed prick who considers his cock his and his alone (I know
the type), Daddy won't pay for me to attend triangle camp at Julliard
next fall. Daddy's mean and spiteful. Just because I haven't
landed an orchestral position doesn't mean I don't have talent,
but you can't tell him anything. I've attended triangle camp
every year for twenty-three years, and I'm not going to miss out
on the instruction I need just because Daddy's a motherfucker.
Mommy cries when I talk to her and tell her about my unsightly forearms
and how I've got a scrotal rash because of all the sweating I've
been doing. Mommy told me yesterday that Daddy "got hot
as a firecracker," because he opened what he thought was his
New American Farmer's Magazine and instead discovered my new issue
of Men on Wheels: Truck Driving Beefcake. "He's never
going to pay for your triangle schooling now," said Mommy,
whimpering, sniffling, close to a genuine sob.
I told her, "Mommy," I said. "He'll pay."
And you can bet your sweet ass he MOST CERTAINLY WILL PAY.
I'm busting my hump here at No Bull (the name of Uncle Gene's farm;
I could definitely have come up with something better. What
about Sweet Bullabies? Or, perhaps, Shooting Bull-its?).
My fingers are so sore and calloused and cracked open. Neosporin
doesn't touch the pain. Mommy and I cried together tonight
over the phone. We cried and I
said, "I'm holding you in my heart, Mommy," and Mommy
said, "I'm holding you in my heart, too, Sikes."
*
* *
Entry
number three: August 17, 1983. Not good. Not good.
Not good. Did you get that? Not motherfucking good.
"What's not good?" you ask. Well, let me tell
you. I've got hemorrhoids that actually jingle jangle between
my legs. When you've got a hemorrhoid that hangs lower than
your nuts, you know you've got problems. They are bigger than big.
They have a fucking life of their own. One of them actually
has its own heartbeat. I've seen it pulsating. I told
Uncle Gene, and he rolled his eyes. "Sikes," he
said. "You've got bigger problems. We've got to
get a load out of Buddy today. It's imperative."
Imperative is a big word Uncle Gene is proud that he knows, so he
uses it a lot. Last week it was indubitably. Everything
was indubitably. With sweat running down my back and into
my ass-crack, I say to Uncle Gene while I'm jacking off Duke, who
keeps smacking his lips together in a very disgusting manner: "It's
hotter than hell out here!"
"Indubitably," he says. Indubitably this, fucker.
I can barely walk. My cracked and calloused fingers are throbbing.
My tummy is upset. I've already commented on my anal problems.
I called Mommy, and she told me she's running a warm salt-water
bath for me in her heart. I said, "Shit, Mother, I need
a bath in your heart like I need a hole in the head. I need
you to get me the holy hell out of No Bull. Triangle camp
starts next week, and I need to start practicing. Hang is
already going to completely embarrass me--little bitch."
Hang is this eleven-year-old Korean bitch who was born with a silver
spoon shoved in her mouth--or perhaps I should say silver chopsticks.
She mocks me with her triangle virtuosity--little bitch. Of
course, some people can practice twenty-four seven instead of stroking
bull cock all day long.
"Daddy ain't gone pay," Mommy says, crying. "Not
with you getting those perverted magazines in the mail."
"Tell Daddy it was sent to me by mistake!" I respond desperately.
"But it weren't no mistake, baby, and you know it. I
know it. Daddy knows it. Even Jism knows it. And
honey?" Mommy says.
"What?" I say.
"Daddy found one of those dirty men flicks underneath your
mattress. Baby, it's filthy. It's filthy as filthy can
be. Why, my heart felt like it'd been wading through a soggy
cow pasture after I'd watched two minutes of that--that--that shit,
Sikes. I felt like I was caked with cow-shit, baby."
"Which one?" I ask her. "Which one did Daddy
find? Was it Forest Hump? The Ass Menagerie? Huh?
They're all pretty vanilla, Mommy. No fisting or golden showers.
Jesus, Mommy, I didn't mean for Pops to--"
Mommy cuts me off saying, "You never mean to do anything, Sikes,"
and she starts sobbing on me and hangs up. She doesn't answer
when I try to call her back. Great. Terrific.
Then Uncle Gene screams at me: "Get off the phone, Sikes.
We gotta drain Buddy's main vein. It's imperative. Hurry
it up. God, boy, if somebody don't get you off your mama's
tits..."
So I limp out to the barn, feeling like I've got burning charcoal
stuffed up my ass, and all I can think is: Fuck, I should be practicing
my triangle. I AM AN artist! Uncle Gene reclines on
his stool and starts trimming his nails. "Don't spill
any, Sikes."
Before he can finish I say, "It's imperative, right?"
He shoots me a dirty look. "Yeah, that's right,"
he says. "It IS imperative. We're talking white
gold coming out that pecker, Sikes. White gold."
He starts coughing and spits a glob of phlegm to the ground that
would disgust a maggot. Uncle Gene breaks the string of phlegm
with a finger and says, "What you waiting on, an invitation?
Get to it."
Every muscle in Buddy's gigantic body is quivering like he's in
the middle of the DT's or something as I lower myself to my knees
and momentarily stare at the fake vagina thingy in my hands.
"You might need to play with him for a minute or two, Sikes,"
says Uncle Gene between hacks. "He's kind of slow to
pop a boner."
My life is a living hell. I repeat: my life is a living hell.
Uncle Gene yells at me, "Tug on his nut sack, Sikes.
Not too hard. That'll get a rise out of him--pun intended.
Ha ha ha."
I'm sitting underneath Buddy, pondering why Jesus has deemed it
necessary that I endure this humiliation. I know He's my friend
and He knows better than I what I need. I smile. I really
do. I smile, because I'm a suffering artist--a triangle player
who will certainly be better than Hang. I will overcome.
I will! I will! "OK, Uncle Gene," I say.
"You're probably right. I WILL tug on Buddy's nut sack."
I'm happy and friendly and see the world in acid-trip colors.
I love everyone and everything, even my motherfucker of an uncle
who winks at me. "Now that's a boy," he says.
Life is great.
I even love Buddy. I'm going to get that white gold right
now. "Buddy," I say, grabbing a huge tube of K-Y.
"Get ready for a trip to Ecstacyville!"
Uncle Gene cackles at my antics and enthusiasm. "That's
a boy," he says. My world is sunny as I wrap my
wounded hands around the most enormous set of bull nuts you can
imagine. Buddy whines angrily and snorts and shuffles his
feet like he's a drunken eighty-year-old man at a Ralph Stanley
concert. "Easy!" screams Uncle Gene. "Massage,
damn it! Don't jerk."
"What?" I ask, violently yanking you were then Buddy's
bulging balls toward the floor. Simultaneously, I hear Uncle
Gene scream, "Oh shit!" and see a hoof flying at light
speed toward the middle of my eyes. Blackness. Jungle
heat. I'm sliding down my drain into a pit of angry monkeys,
baboons with shiny red asses, their teeth gnashing, and the air
humid and heavy.
*
* *
Entry
number four: The day after my last entry. All is not
well. Buddy nearly decapitated me. I'm not exaggerating.
Were in not for what the neurologist called my "freakishly
thick skull," Buddy's blow to my head would certainly have
killed me. Thank God for thick heads. Anyway, Mommy
ordered Daddy to let me come home to recuperate. So here I
am in bed, my Betty Boop comforter wrapped tightly around my waiflike
body, my hair wispy as usual, my lips cherubic and awe-inspiring,
and I'm sporting a rather chic patch over my left eye (Buddy's terrific
kick to my head caused my left eyeball to dislodge and dangle from
my head. What a funny sight I must have been. I suppose
I caused the EMT guys a good belly-laugh. Too bad I was unconscious
to experience the joy emanating from my soul. I give and give,
and I'll never stop giving. People need people like me).
No Bull and my hideous Uncle Gene and all those huge bull peckers
seem like a distant nightmare now that I am back in the safety of
Betty Boop and my doting Mommy's loving care.
Mommy: what would I do without her? She's been a real trooper:
applying ice to my dangling hemorrhoids, a thankless task, certainly,
but one which any mother would gladly do for her adult/artist son.
Mommy is very good with doctoring hemorrhoids; she's helped me out
quite a bit in the past. After a really raucous weekend my
lily white, cute bubble bum usually needs some soothing, and Mommy
is right there to do it. Daddy just grimaces at me and Mommy.
What an A number one asshole he can be! He wouldn't apply
ice to my hemorrhoids if I were suffering worse than Job--you can
bet your sweet ass on that one. At least the sonofabitch is
going to pay for me to go to triangle camp. I'm so excited.
Earlier today, while Mommy was diligently applying ice to my ass,
Daddy pokes his as-usual-angry looking face through my door.
"Sikes," he said. "You still want to go to
faggot camp?"
Ignoring his playful repartee, I gleefully answer, "Why, of
course, Papa Bear. Baby Bear is so happy! Mommy
Bear, did you hear what Papa Bear said?"
Mommy, crying with delight, replies, "Yes! Yes!
Yes, Baby Bear, I heard."
Mommy and I are crying with joy, literally sobbing with ecstasy,
when Daddy guffaws and shakes his head and mumbles barely coherently
as he goes into the kitchen to grab a snoot of liquor, "Anything
to get your freak ass out of my damned house, pansy-assed sad excuse
for a son dear God what did I do to deserve this I should've pulled
out why the hell didn't I pull out talk about a wasted load God
Almighty."
"Mommy Bear?" I say, lying on my side while my mother
plays armature proctologist. "Baby Bear love you with
all his heart." I growl like a bear.
Mommy, kisses the top of my left buttock and says with a jovial
laugh, "Mommy Bear loves Baby Bear beary, beary much."
Then Mommy growls at me. I love Mommy. Even Jism joins
in the fun. He jumps up on my bed and licks my nipples; dainty
nipples they are, a light pink, the color of fog filtered suns.
I scratch Jism's head and wish for only a split second that Daddy
had the ability to love like me, Mommy, and my little pussy.
* * *
Entry
number five: September 1st, 2002. Yippee! I'm the happiest
thirty-year-old triangle player in the world. I'm at camp.
I'm in a dorm room and, thank God, my floor has a community bathroom
and there are absolutely no partitions in the shower room.
None. Zero. That deserves another yippee. Yippee!
I mean, er, how humiliating and embarrassing this situation is going
to be...
Whatever.
My raging 'roids are pretty much better. For precautionary
purposes,I apply large gobs (via my fingers) of Vaseline up my poop-chute
prior to my thrice daily BM's so everything'll be nice and lubed.
I wouldn't want to exacerbate an already tenuous situation, if you
catch my drift.
What else? Hang has apparently got the big head now that she's
turned twelve and already has an orchestral position. It's
all about who you know and who you blow--little bitch! Oh
well, at least at the end of the day, I'll have my self-respect
and her best buddy'll be a jug of Listerine. That was catty,
wasn't it? Mee-aww! Scratch! Scratch!
Segue time: Daddy, the evil motherfucker, didn't even bother
telling me goodbye this morning. However, Mommy and I had
a good cry together. I know Mommy'll miss me. And my
cat, too. My little pussy loves me. Jism looked so pitiful,
I let him lick the peanut butter residue from my PB&J sandwich
from the backs of my molars--he loves that, and I thought he deserved
a special treat since I'm abandoning him for a month. Daddy
saw Jism tonguing me, and he let loose with a diatribe of hateful
expletives directed right at yours truly (he also through a couple
of hateful remarks at Jism to boot). Mommy started sobbing,
but I stood my ground. "Mommy," I said. "He's
not worth it!"
Then I said: "Jism needs love too, Daddy! Go ahead, Jism,
lick all you want!" Daddy then tells me to get my shit
out and that he never wants to see me again, and that I'm an embarrassment
to him and always have been--same old shit, S.O.S., you know.
I go up to him, my mean old sonofabitch Daddy, and hug and nibble
on his right earlobe--trying to be irreverent and whimsical, you
know. I want to give Daddy love, my love, but he won't take
it. I whisper playfully, "Papa Bear's a meanie weanie!"
Daddy takes a punch at me but I duck deftly. Daddy is too
drunk to make contact. He storms out of the trailer, and Mommy
drives me to the airport, during which we both cry our gigantic
hearts out. Did I mention my Mommy is clinically obese?
No? Well, she is. Mommy told me that she'd like to get
as fat as the universe, because that's how much she loves me.
But I digress.
Segue number two: Get this: The director of the camp tells me this
morning that "your name isn't on the registration form anywhere,"
so I tell her, "Honey," I say, "I've been coming
to this camp for over twenty years. Somebody needs to get
their shit straight and it's not me."
Mommy starts crying and I have to tell her to shut the fuck up right
there in front of God and everybody. "HEE-BERT, HEE-BERT,
HEE-BERT," the twit keeps saying trying unsuccessfully to find
my name on her stupid registration forms.
"My name is A-BARE," I say. "A-BARE--it's French."
The twit keeps shaking her head. "Nope, not on here.
Nowhere."
People are starting to snicker. Why, I've been attending this
camp longer than most of these little fuckers have been alive!
"What instrument do you play?" the twits asks me.
Can you believe that! What instrument? I'M A MOTHERFUCKING
TRIANGLE PLAYER! EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT!
My lard assed mother says, "Triangle. Sikes, plays the
triangle."
Then the twit's eyes light up. "Oh," she says.
"I've found you. Somebody thought your first name was your
last name. That's what threw me for a loop." I'd
like to have thrown that stupid bitch for a loop. She had
a lisp, too. Did I mention that? Instead of Sikes she'd
say Siketh. Talk about annoying. I'm definitely complaining
to camp management about the treatment I've received.
You should have seen Hang pinching off a giggle. Hang, with
her stupid triangle earrings, loves it when I look stupid.
Fuck her! She needs to go eat some roasted dog or something
and leave the triangle playing to me.
Whew! I had to blow off some steam. I just need to remember
that I'm where I'm supposed to be and, Lord willing, an orchestral
position will come a'knocking at my trailer's front door, and you
can bet your sweet ass I'll be ready to open it and say, "Howdy,
Mr. Director, c'mon in!"
But I digress. I've got to go practice.
First I've got to go take a shower. I hear the water running.
