CLEAN BOOBIES, CLEAR MIND

Go fish, Mr. President.

Episode X: Clean boobies, clear mind.


(If you have no fucking clue what's going on, go down about...oh nevermind. Just fucking shoot me.)


The beer-battered banter and slurred speech of the Dream Team remained all but a malt-liquor memory, a flickering failure of mammals to communicate. And still, I felt the hypocrite. There was something rotten in Denmark, and I could smell it from New Orleans. Bored, I wandered into the wretched club the others left. At least there were real girls there.

The club was a full blown assault on the senses: every sense of pride, of style, of taste, and of common sense were completely ravaged by the tassle-titted, pole-grinding dancers with their cash-snatching winks and colorful drawn expressions, and the cash, winks, and expressions drawn by their colorful snatches. Every blue-haired honey had a blue honeycomb to match. I eyed one dancer who was adorned by long, thick dreadlocks. I was dying to know if the carpet matched the drapes on her, as well.

The tawdriest things about the club were the ridiculously cheap lap-dances, the center floor shower stall, and the passionless performances of heterosexual girls pretending that they weren’t. And then, after a certain hour passed, the “main feature” was unveiled: for $50, you could “wash the girl of your choice!” The girls sprawled out nude in a tub, and you were given a scrub-brush, a bar of soap, and five minutes to engage in the dirtiest act of cleanliness in town.

Something about all of this troubled me deeply; but I couldn’t place the source of my enmity anywhere. It was a Zen-like angst that simply was. Maybe it was the way the dancers smiled and made you feel like you were everything they had been waiting for. Maybe it was when I heard one discuss the fate of some poor, dumb schmuck who was collecting change for cab-fare home, after being a bit too generous with his tipping—and all to girls who mocked him later. Another bragged about her skillful moans of “I’m horny!”, and the windfalls of dollars it produced during a lap-dance. Every conversation left me jaded and cynical, and not about to part with one damned cent.

And then I saw her. When the portly, mustachioed host introduced the cattle-call of ladies available for bath-time, I finally saw my red-haired Ice Queen in all her gleaming goddess glory. The carpet matched the drapes, and my heartbeat matched the pounding disco beats providing the soundtrack to it all. Then something snapped inside—a fuzzy moment of clarity making it all so hideous again. I felt my first and only flicker of shame in ages. Something cried in disgust, yet I craved its every inch and contour.

I moped about the club for a moment, torn between a clean heart and a clean girl. Then something altogether different caught my eye. My only thought remained, “You must be joking..?!”

Far into the corner, amidst white-fedora-wearing pimps and chain-bearing leather-boys, was a grizzled old black man clad in a dirty T-shirt and blue overalls. He was dispensing Tarot readings for $5 a pop. OK…I give. He looked oddly familiar, as if maybe I’d seen him earlier at one of the voodoo shops I visited on Bourbon, or maybe a security guard somewhere. Oh what the hell. How could I resist?

Creation might be mocking me here; but I was owed a punchline, if nothing else. I sat down, and dropped my money on the table. Taking me by surprise, he clutched my hand, wadding the money back into it. He closed his eyes for a moment, nodding…shaking…holding my hand and dollars all the while. He then opened his eyes, and looked clear into mine, if not clearly through.

“What do you come for? You already know this stuff.”

“Huh?”

“You know this! You come to me to make it different? I’m sorry my friend. Your demons got to stay. You won’t get healthy asking the name of the train before it hits you.”

“Excuse me?”

He proceeded to lay out his Tarot cards like a game of Three-Card Monty. “Pick a card. Any.” I did this three times. The first card was to represent myself. This was, of course, “The Fool.” He then put all three cards facedown, and switched them quickly around like a corner New York hustler. “Find yourself,” he solemnly commanded.

I watched him closely enough—I went for the card on the left. It was, in fact, “Death.”

“You see yourself in that? I hope not, brother. Try again.” I grabbed the center card. This was “The Devil.”

“You see yourself like that quite a bit, eh? It’s not so true—not all of the time. You had to look.”

“I suppose. That wasn’t what I was shooting for…”

“No, but you chose it. Given a second chance, you chose it. And I reckon you didn’t shoot for Death, either—but he certainly popped up at you, the first chance he got, didn’t he?”

“Fair enough.”

“Fair? Boy, there’s nothing fair about it! Take another card.”

I picked up the last card, and scratched my head. It was “the Devil” again. I asked, “How did you do that?”

“Me? I didn’t do nothin’. You went lookin’ for him again!” “No, I didn’t! This is ridiculous. I was looking for…”

“Don’t argue with me, boy! You been looking for the Devil at every turn. And you been finding him, too. That’s ‘cause you might be a smart one—your eyes don’t miss too much, except…”

He paused for a moment to pull out a slim, leather make-up case of sorts. He opened it and waved the mirror part around, then smacked it against the counter until the glass popped out in one piece. Behind the glass was the “Fool” card. This was unique. I felt like he earned the right to dispense the clichés, having worked for this one so hard.

“Except—” he continued, waving the card around in my face, “You still can’t manage to find that damned fool behind the mirror!”

“Nice trick.”

He got a bit stern with me. “It sure as Hell will be a nice trick if you find him! He’s out looking for the Devil, and beggin’ for Death from the very start.”

“I though that was me out there looking.”

“That’s more like it—there you go, son! You’re on your way.”

I swallowed my nerve, and another shot of Jagermeister. I'd go out for some absinthe later on. “This was all very nice, sir, and you really have a lot of ‘charming local color,’ and all…But you haven’t answered a single question. In fact, you haven’t even asked me any questions.”

“Well, what do you want, brother—my questions, or your answers?”

As a sweaty Creole cutie poured a glass of King Kobra for him, I cleared my throat, and spit out my concerns. “Well, I’ve been seeing, and hearing, and feeling these things…”

“And you’ve seen ‘em, and heard ‘em, and felt ‘em all before. This is nothing new. Admit it. You just got used to callin’ on Sweet Jesus to chase ‘em off for you, like sewer rats or closet monsters. I’m guessin’ that you don’t do that no more. I guess you got your reasons. I always like to see folks get along with the Good Lord. But shit happens. I don’t question it. And there is no question that Certain Things have continued to see, and hear, and feel you long after you gave up on Them. And maybe your demons are just a wee bit pissed that you keep blaming them for the stupid folk around you.”

“That bothers me. I’m no better than anybody else, but some people just make me cringe—people I would define as shallow. But I fail to see how I’m any wealth of depth, myself.” He nodded and rolled a cigarette.

“Don’t cut yourself short. If you know to look for something more, you’ve already got one leg up on those folk who don’t, and those folk who ‘got it,’ but never searched for it. The Devil don’t make people sin or be shallow, or be whores or nothin’. People are just stupid whores all by their lonesome, sometimes.”

“I’m not sure I believe in the Devil anymore,” I yawned.

“Then why the Hell you go looking for him to begin?!”

Oh dear God, we’re back to this. I sighed, “I didn’t go looking for him…”

He took a long, lung-buttering, windpipe-cooking drag. “Sure you did. I know it. You saw him in the mirror, right? And ever since you saw him in that mirror, you been going around, peeping your head in everyone else’s mirror—just to see if there’d be two of you. And guess what? He don’t exist—but there he is, everywhere you look. He and God are tricky like that.”

“Well, I only believe in God because He messes with me so much.”

“I can see that. You know why? I’ll tell you what else I see—get me another beer first, I’m getting dry here.”

I ordered another King Kobra. He continued, “I see a young man who wants to change the world, but can’t keep himself from changing long enough to start.”

“This is eerily true. I’ll give you that one.”

“Of course it’s true. This too: You want to change the world, but you don’t want to set foot in the world to do it. You need to come to grips with this world, and the sleazy hellhole that it is, and then find your place in that sleazy hellhole—‘cause maybe, when you figured out who the Fool’s been all along, you can change it all…and make it into a hellhole you can live with.”

I got up, thanked him, and bought another King Kobra to shut him up. As I walked toward the door, I heard him shout, “Find your place in this hellhole before you go changin’ it around!” I smiled and nodded, then moved along at a faster pace. He caught up with me. As I turned to face him, searching in my mind for nice ways to say “Bugger off,” he drunkenly said, “Thanks for the beer, brother—that’ll be fine. But damn it, boy—don’t you leave! I saw you earlier, looking around. Don’t leave now. Damn it, boy, take your money and wash your girl!”

I stared blankly for a moment. “Do what?”

“You heard me! What, you can hear the Great Beyond, but not an old drunk black man right in front of you?! I said, Wash your girl, young man! Do it! Don’t just walk away and jerk off over it later. Wash your girl, man—wash your girl!”

Oh very well…anything for closure.

I felt like the emerging champion in a Japanese cartoon. Dropping half of my last hundred dollars for God-knew-how-long into the bucket, I arose to meet the cold eyes and faked smile of my redheaded Final Round Grand Prize. I stood tall and erect in so many senses, clutching soap and sponge like The Matrix in the Transformers Movie. I felt like Hot Rod becoming Rodimus Prime, but without one Decepticon afoot to snicker at my name. I could almost hear the Stan Bush soundtrack in the background, proclaiming that I “had the touch,” as I wrung the sponge out over the Ice Queen’s glistening, thawing parts.

What transpired beyond this was irrelevant, if not unremarkable. Reality and swollen fiction cock-fought intermittantly on this trip; but in the end, I didn't care. The reality was that I was broke and no more deeply fulfilled within than I was ten minutes past. But reality is largely what one can get away with...and this was a reality I could accept, a punchline of my own doing and design. No gods can forgive a life not lived, and it was time that I ceased living just to die--living with guilt at having lived, and the wreckless bids for death I daily made. It was time I ceased dodging bullets, and isolate where the war might be within. This world was a rancid hellhole, a semen-splattered crusty asshole, of hopes raped in the jails of our design. And it is ruled only by those who are driven and determined enough to make it into a hellhole they feel proud of. And today I felt that swelling pride.

Actually, that was the absinthe; nevermind.

A greasy, Godless world before me—a peaceful, sleazy feeling within—I stepped out of the den of iniquity, realizing it was no different than anywhere else I’d leave my footprints in.

TO BE CONTINUED...


)+(