Joey Cloudy online

TRAMP: The New Romans

Desiree bumped into Tavah when she went upstairs to use the bathroom. Tavah was hanging with her coworker Erica, in the room she rented to Aaron, smoking pot. Erica was the closest thing to a celebrity in the room being the niece of an internationally renowned reggae super star, an aspiring pop singer and a cheerleader for the local NFL franchise. She took a little hit off of the doobie, then noticing Desiree had entered the room offered the joint to her, still holding the smoke in her lungs “…‘ear.” Desiree passed on the spliff.

In a minute, I gotta pee.

Normally, she didn’t smoke in the house. She knew that Aaron was in the habit of climbing through the skylight in order to get onto the roof to smoke, but she had never joined him there. She sensed that he was a bit territorial about his space here and seemed to view the roof as his fortress of solitude. Desiree looked at her face in the bathroom mirror as she washed up after using the toilette. She wasn’t drunk yet but she was far from sober, the heat she was feeling was more from drinking than the temperature. Her pale skin was beginning to look a little flushed already. She splashed a few handfuls of cold water onto her face then looked at her reflection again. Her long blonde hair hung down nearly a foot past her shoulders as she ran her fingers through her hair she decided to pull it back into a pony tail it was getting too hot to keep it down even though she knew she looked better with it down. Desiree quickly braided her hair so that it fell down her back in a single golden cord, checked herself out in the mirror again. By the time she walked out of the john he was gone.

Desiree looked at the two women sitting cross legged on the carpet opposite each other as they smoked weed, and cigarettes and drank their longneck bottles of beer. The music up here was turned up just loud enough to drown out the Sublime CD she had playing on the stereo downstairs but not too loud to talk, it was only drums and vocals, in French she guessed, she wasn’t sure since she didn’t speak French. She had heard this music playing up here before, Aaron seemed to like to listen to this weird tribal shit a lot.

Tavah and Erica had become instant friends as they sat together getting stoned. They talked excitedly to each other both of them very animated their conversation punctuated by burst of laughter. The two women were talking about one of the guys here at the party but she wasn’t sure which one. After a few seconds she realized it was Aaron.

Personally, I don’t see what the attraction is, I think he’s a bad writer whose poetry is nothing but shock value juvenilia. He’s not all that cute either. He looks like one of those guys that runs up to your windshield and starts smearing it with some greasy rag then has the audacity to ask you to pay him for cleaning your windshield when you can’t see a damned thing out of it.  

Desiree puffed on her cigarette and sipped her beer as she observed her coworker Erica. She didn’t know her very well but she did know that she was on her way to LA for a recording session and even though she was nice enough, Desiree was glad she wouldn’t have to have her around to compete with because physically she was porn star perfect. If Erica was in the room then she was always the most beautiful thing in the room. Tavah was pretty enough but there was something intimidating about her beauty. As a woman, Desiree thought she was a little aggressive and not very feminine because she was a type A personality. Maybe it was because she was a lawyer that she acted so butch not like the ones on TV. She always thought Tavah came across as a little mannish. Desiree was smart enough to know that that almost guaranteed that she would die unmarried, alone in a house full of cats.  

Tavah picked up the Bic lighter from the floor next to the vintage 1970s orange sun sign embossed zodiac ashtray and lit a Marlboro Red 100. She exhaled a long blue grey plume of smoke as she spoke to the two other women sitting cross legged on the floor shooting the shit.

You don’t fuck a guy like Aaron without falling in love.

I could.

No you wouldn’t and I’ll tell you why. He’s not the kind of guy that would pick you up in a club. He’s horribly shy and a bit of a bookworm who stutters a bit when he’s nervous especially around attractive women. He despises small talk. He doesn’t hang out in clubs or bars much. So, the customary drunk fuck is out. He’s just too introverted and too much of a scout for that whole debauched scene. He’s eye-candy but not in a dreamy way, he’s buff but you’d have to get him out of those baggy clothes to notice. Besides most of what makes him so hot is between his ears, so that by the time you got to know him well enough to seduce him you couldn’t, unless you wanted more than a hot guy with a hard cock.

What else is there? Am I supposed to want something else?

It’s a sordid little catch twenty two. I won’t lie. I’ve occasionally wondered what he’s like in bed but that’s as far as it’ll ever go, idle curiosity and the occasional wet dream. He’s the sweetest straight guy I know and I can’t believe that none of us has ever slept with him.

I would never have sex with a guy without a degree. I only bed men worth over six figures annually.

You know what that makes us?

Radical Lesbian Feminist?

Most likely to get voted off the island?

Future trophy wives?

The newest contestants on who wants to marry a millionaire?

I’m afraid to fuck him,

Really, why do you say that?

He has too many kids’ his seed is so potent. I think he must have super sperm.  

Erika was asking Tavah about Aarons paintings. I don’t really know his work as a painter very well. He works in an art gallery but as far as his creative efforts go I’m only familiar with his poems. Erika laughed a little surprised.

He writes poetry?

Yes, he even hosts a weekly reading in a coffee shop in Deep Ellum.

Have you heard him read his poetry?

Yeah, I’ve even seen him write a few things. It’s remarkable the way his mind works artistically.

What does he write raps, hip hop, traditional verse, what’s it like?

Tavah peeked back over her shoulder to be sure Aaron wasn’t on his way up the stairs. Then she leaned forward until her face was only a few inches from Erika. He can’t ever know about this but he has this one poem whenever he reads it, it makes me so wet.

You are a freak girl. No, that’s just it, nothing like this has ever happened to me before. It’s not a fetish. I’m not one of his groupies.

Could you get him to read the poem tonight?

If you want him to read it I think you should ask him yourself.

I don’t even know him. We just met.

I’ve never seen him so enthralled by a woman as I have tonight. Have you? Tavah shifted her gaze to Desiree.

No, never, he normally ignores everybody but you don’t seem to have had any problem getting his attention. She replied caustically. He definitely has a thing for you. He’s trying so hard to be cool and he is so not cool right now.

I think it’s the slight stutter that makes him sound so cute when he’s nervous.

He doesn’t stutter all the time? Now it was Desiree and Tavah’s turn to share a laugh.

No, quite the opposite in fact he’s positively eloquent at times. I’d even say that he’s one of the best conversationalists I’ve ever met.

The guy can talk. I don’t mean the way most men talk. Everything from pop culture to philosophy he’s a very interesting person once you get to know him. He’s actually rather quiet usually and even a little shy around strangers but when he gets excited about a subject.

You should see him when he gets on stage he’s a completely different animal then.

He’s a blasphemous smartass.

Ah! So, that’s what’s got your panties in a knot.

I take it that you don’t share Tavah’s admiration for his poetry? Erika asked turning to Desiree.

I think he butchers even his most promising efforts by peppering them with obscenities.

Oh, has he’s offended your delicate christian sensibilities.

He’s much too vulgar to be taken seriously as a poet.

It’s his lack of reverence for religion that has you so pissed.

I think that the Beats are nothing but a bunch of degenerate dope fiends. Burroughs is nothing but a perverted murderer and a pedophile.

Yeah, well if you saw some of Aarons little girl friends you’d know he likes them young.

He’s a pedophile?

No, not legally, but he’s been screwing a couple of eighteen year old college girls.

Oh, come on, don’t tell me you never dated one of your professors or T. A. s when you were in college. Never dated a guy that was a little too old for you when you were younger? Used a fake ID to get into a club and hook up with a guy old enough to be your dad?

You don’t know him, he has this thing about him it’s hard to explain. Desiree you noticed it too? I can’t really explain it without sounding like a flake but he has a way of drawing people to him.

You mean he has charisma. Last time I checked that wasn’t considered immoral or unethical.

No Desiree cut in she’s not explaining it right he has this way of making things go his way. But it’s not luck. Yeah people do things for him all the time out of the blue. He inspires people?

They feel sorry for him?

No, no one feels sorry for him it’s like they do these things that he needs them to do but it’s their idea. People seem to want to do things that make his life better for no reason.

You guys aren’t making any sense.

I told you that it would make me sound like some sort of hippie dippy flake. I don’t talk about people’s energy.

I think you’re right he seems to have this sort of a way of swaying circumstance maybe it’s just pheromones or biochemistry or some other thing that I don’t think of as having much of an effect on rational human beings.

So it sounds like neither of you have ever bedded the beast, this bad boy poet. Is there something about you ladies I don’t know? Erika cast a doubting glance at the other two women then grinned a little as she took a hit off of the joint that they had smoked down to the roach. There was a photograph of Aaron and Mona tacked to the wall above his computer.

You see that jacket he’s wearing in that picture.

Yeah, he looks like a black James Dean with dreadlocks.

No James Dean was too angsty and confused. Aaron’s more Brando in the Wild Ones.

So, what’s the story of this leather jacket?

Desiree gave it to him one day out of the blue. He didn’t ask for it. She just decided that it would look good on him so she hopped up off of the couch walked over to the closet grabbed it and handed it over to him.

That’s a really nice jacket how long have you known Aaron?

A few months but he had just moved in with me a week before.

You sure he’s not giving you some of that hard candy.

That’s exactly what I thought when I saw him in that jacket. I didn’t believe him at when he first told me that he wasn’t messing around with you. No woman gives a guy she barely knew a jacket that expensive unless they are a couple.

Well this woman did and we’ve never had sex. Look we were sitting on the sofa drinking beers talking, nothing serious, just getting to know your roommate bullshit conversation. We’re looking at these photographs he has this shoebox full of pictures two shoe boxes anyways I find this picture of him in a leather jacket sitting on Vanessa’s vintage Vespa. Erika looks confused.

What’s a Vespa?

A scooter. He looks adorable sitting on this little red scooter like something out of a movie in what looks like a the same jacket I have hanging in the closet that I haven’t worn in years because I lost so much weight since high school that the thing just swallows me now so it’s not like I’m ever going to wear the thing again. Besides the only jacket I ever see him in is that old denim thing that’s looks OK but it’s not leather. So I ask him where’s the jacket he’s wearing in the picture and he tells me that the girl who took the picture of him just some random employee at the factory where he worked gave him that jacket because she thought it looked cool on him while he was riding the scooter. She wasn’t his girlfriend or anything like that she was married he wasn’t interested in her at all. But for some reason she decides to give him her biker jacket.

So what happened to this jacket?

That’s exactly what I asked him and he tells me that on new year’s eve he goes to a party at a Nat and Monas’ has one drink on an empty stomach and spends half the night with his head over the toilet throwing up. Of course he pukes all over the jacket then he has to throw the thing away because if reeks of vomit.

Why didn’t he just have it cleaned?

He can’t have it cleaned or wash the smell out because the jacket isn’t real leather.

What a drag.

I know but it gets worse. Then he started crying. I was a little freaked out, I mean you don’t see a guy like Aaron bawling every day. He just doesn’t seem like the type to get all weepy on you. I ask him is he OK give him a hug thinking he must have really been attached to that jacket. So, I say don’t worry you’ll get another jacket. He’s like I’m not crying about the jacket I’m pissed because when I was throwing up that night nobody came in to hold my hair. A house full of my so called friends and not a one of them came in there to hold my fucking hair so I wouldn’t throw up on it. Then I started to cry too. I hugged him and told him that if he ever got throw up drunk here that I would hold his hair.

Then you gave him the jacket?

Yeah, it felt like we sort of bonded there that night. You know what I mean. We had a moment, he shared something painful about his past with me. It felt like the right thing to do at the moment. Erika looked at them both.

I just have a hard time believing that we’re talking about the same guy that was just up here getting stoned with us.

That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you he’s a very complex individual.  

Tavah looked at Erika then at Desiree I think she’s making fun of us.

Someone like you wouldn’t understand how potentially dangerous any relationship with Aaron could be.

Someone like me?

Oh come on you know what you look like. You’re not a child you know that you have an effect on men. Erika didn’t want to have this conversation so she let the subject of her appearance die.

Is he one of those assholes who beats up his girlfriends?

No, he’s a boy scout in that sense.

Yes, he’s very protective of his female friends. His son asked if he could move in with him last week. Aaron really wants this but he told Ahmad. Ahmad asked what was the point of power of strength of being a man. You know what Aaron told him? That it was the duty of the strong to protect the weak. I cried when he told his kid that, he’s such a fucked up individual but he’s says the most amazing things sometimes.

O.K. let me get this straight neither one of you has ever had any kind of sexual contact with this man?

Correct. But you both disapprove of his choice in women.

They’re not women their little girls playing at being women without a clue what they’re doing or who their really dealing with. He’s not just too old. He’s too smart to be playing with these… children. It doesn’t make any sense.

They’re too young and too stupid for your friend.

Yes!

Exactly!

He’s too honest for either of you to date and he’s too smart for the girls that he’s with now?

He’s brilliant but a completely hedonistic pervert.

I like Aaron I just I don’t care for Ginsberg. Personally I think he’s just a creepy old Jewish poof. Roderick the bartender played a CD of him reading his poetry and I didn’t like it at all. But when Aaron reads Ginsberg I get it. It’s not very often that you hear any of these poets read any ones work other than their own at an open mic.

If you all weren’t such depraved hedonist you’d see what an extremely dark writer he is and realize he’s unworthy of any serious attention.

I haven’t read any contemporary poet whose stuff even comes close to Aaron’s best work.

OK, he has a gift but he squanders it writing all this pornographic hip hop beatnik crap. Tavah suspected that there was more to this tirade than Desiree was letting on. Soon after moving to Dallas she realized that the locals were a humorless lot when it came to the subject of religion. Aaron’s irreverence was a part of the charm of his poetry as far as she was concerned she loved the way he pointed out the absurdity of superstition in modern america.

Trevor and Houston are real poets. Aaron is not a real poet. Granted he’s a sexy beast but I could never have sex with him. You can’t sleep with a guy like him casually.

Why not?

Because you’ll be ruined for any other man after. You know what they say once you go black poet… Erica sprayed beer all over the carpet as she started laughing she laughed so hard she cried.

Oh shit I didn’t see that one coming you’ve got to warn me the next time you’re going to say something that retarded.  

If you haven’t slept with him, how do you know how big his pecker is?

I’ve slept in the same bed with him but no, we’ve never had sex.

Oh, bullshit girl you mean to tell me you got that Sexy Mutha Fucka laying right next to you in the bed and you didn’t have the good since take him for a test drive. What’s the matter you? Don’t know how to drive a stick?!

They both fell laughing into each other’s arms.

I don’t even have a driver’s license. This started a whole new round of giggles. Then Erica stopped and sat up straight and asked Tavah straight faced with a deadpan delivery.

So, you have seen his dick. Is it as yummy as the rest of him?

No! Tavah snorted still giggling. I mean I don’t know. I’ve never seen him naked. But I did see the size of his package once while he was asleep on my sofa and oh my god, said Tavah rather melodramatically as she put one hand over her heart while placing her other hand on Erica’s shoulder as if to steady herself. I don’t know what Baby Boy was dreaming about, but I assure you he is more than adequately equipped to satisfy my uhmm…needs.

I wonder what he dreams about that causes him to wake up with such a massive erection every morning. The two women grew silent as they looked at Desiree then at each other then turned their collective gaze back to her. As if they were silently exchanging some secret information between them.

So, it sounds like you’re speaking from personal experience.

Well yeah, we do live in the same house Desiree stammered. I’m not a pervert or peeping tom.

And we are? Cooed Tavah mockingly.

No, that’s not what I meant at all. It was an accident, there’s only a bathtub downstairs so I use the shower in this room. Sometimes I come into the room and jeez you couldn’t miss it even if ya’ wanted to. Tavah gave Erica a baby doll look before they both collapsed in a fit of giggles.

Did you trip over it on your way to the shower?

Eeew! I hate when that happens. Twisted an ankle like that once. Tavah fell over onto her side rolling on the floor laughing as tears came to her eyes. Desiree’s laughter nervously joined theirs, she wished she was as comfortable in her own skin as they appeared to be. Tavah decided not to tell them about the effect his poetry had on her. Things had almost gone too far that night. She hadn’t busted her ass to graduate at the top of her class, become a vegetarian and dropped forty-five pounds to land a penniless Schwartz, with a sleazy past, no matter how charming. Tavah knew that she could find a nice white doctor, lawyer, accountant or any other degreed professional to marry, as easily as she could love an impoverished poet. She did mention the pool party and how hot his hands were on her body. Desiree also confirmed that he had good hands when she told them about his rubbing her neck while she sat on the deck smoking out. Tavah talked about how she liked to date musicians, especially guitar players, because they had good hand strength and long dexterous fingers. Desiree didn’t talk about the night she had tried to seduce him while they were sitting on the sofa watching a movie and Tavah never mentioned that Aaron had studied classical guitar in college.

-about the author JD Cloudy’s poetry has disappeared in the literary journals; Fatfizz, Mad Swirl, Texas Beat Anthology, Danse Macabre, Du Jour, and Death List Five. He has won no literary awards, entered no slam competitions, and never completed college. He lives to write in Dallas, Tx.